The Love Knot (43 page)

'A good reason never to listen to rumour or indulge in gossip,' Oliver said curtly and stood up. 'I am whole and alive as you can see.'

Edith clutched the broom and put her other hand on her hip. 'If the two of you ride into Ashbury, you won't remain whole and alive for long,' she warned. 'Odinel the Fleming will nail your hides to the keep wall.'

'Only one of us will be risking his hide,' Oliver said. 'I am going alone.'

'But my lord, I . . .' Godard began, but was silenced by Oliver's raised hand. 'I need no company for what I have to do. Besides, your very size will mark you out for comment. I am taller than most men but you stand a full handspan above me. Word will fly quickly enough to the keep as it is. You will stay here and wait for me. I'll be back by dusk.' 'And if you are not?'

Oliver shrugged. 'Ride on. Take the spare horse with my blessing and find another master.'

Godard clamped his jaw and looked affronted but he said nothing, or at least not until Oliver had gone to saddle Hero.

'If there is one thing I regret in my life,' he said to Edith, 'it is not wringing Louis de Grosmont's good-for-nothing neck when I had the opportunity at Rochester. He has nigh on ruined a man of ten times his own piddling value, and the lives of countless others into the bargain.'

Leaving her justifiably bewildered, he stumped off to the privy beside the midden pit.

The sun melted the frost from the open places, but in the hollows it lingered like white, leprous fingers. Oliver rode along the track that had once been familiar territory. Now, although it looked the same, it had changed, for its welfare lay in a stranger's hand; every twig and thorn on every wayside bush, every clod of soil in the ploughed fields. As he rode, Oliver began to wonder if it had been a mistake to make this pilgrimage. The feeling of love and possession for the land was so strong that it filled his eyes. The Welsh had a word for it; hiraeth. There was no parallel term in English or Norman ... or Flemish.

Twice he almost turned the grey and headed back to the alehouse, but sheer doggedness kept his hand steady on the bridle. He had come this far; he would honour the graves of his family. At the back of his mind, pretending not to exist, was the treacherous thought that if he made a good enough reconnaissance of the site, Earl Robert might yet be persuaded to give him the troops to regain Ashbury.

The sun climbed a shallow arc in the sky, shedding light but little warmth. It was mid-December, the time when folk remained at their hearths, making, mending, telling stories. Hero's shadow lengthened on the track as man and horse approached Ashbury village. There were other settlements attached to the keep but mainly in the form of hamlets and outlying farms, spread over a distance of fifteen miles. Ashbury itself boasted a population of four hundred inhabitants. A market was held outside the church every other Wednesday, and there were two water mills on the river, one for fulling cloth and the other for grinding corn. There were fisheries too, and the river was wide enough to permit trade by barge. The honour of Ashbury might be small, but it was prosperous - a treasure worth stealing.

The village road was deserted, but dogs soon ran out from the tofts to yap at Hero's heels. A woman came to her door, a cooking ladle in her hand, and watched Oliver ride past. A little girl of about three years peeped out at him from the safety of her mother's skirts. At the village well, more women stood gossiping over their water jars. He recognised a couple of them and pulled the hood of his cloak further forward. While he would have liked nothing better than to draw rein and speak with them, it was too dangerous. He felt their eyes upon his progress and knew that what had been idle chatter as they drew their water would now become serious speculation.

Another hundred yards and a frozen duck pond brought him to the boundary of the old Saxon church, with its solid timber walls and low, square tower. Smoke twirled from the hole in the thatched roof of the priest's house, but no one emerged as Oliver tethered Hero to one of the stockade posts and entered the churchyard.

The grass was grazed short and scattered with sheep droppings. At the far boundary, the green turf was wounded by the scars of three recent graves. Winter was the dying time. The old, the weak, the sick succumbed.

Stamping his cold feet, Oliver entered the church. The nave was flagged with heavy squares of stone, some marking burial places. It was deemed a privilege to be laid to rest in the presence of God. To the people who came to pray, walking upon the tombs of the dead was a reminder to prepare their own souls for the afterlife.

Oliver knelt and genuflected to the altar. Two mutton-fat bandies sputtered and gave off the aroma of roasting, rancid lamb, by which sign Oliver knew that Father Alberic still had the living here. He made his own altar candles, only allowing the grand beeswax ones for Holy days. It was more economical, he said, and it gave the people a greater sense of occasion when they were used.

Oliver remained on his knees. The stone beneath him was cold and the bones beneath it probably colder still. His wife, his tiny daughter, and beside them his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents; the passage of time marked by the increasing smoothness of the heavy tomb slabs. All of his line was buried here, saving himself and his brother. Simon had fallen in battle, the last ruling Osmundsson at Ashbury, and Oliver did not know what had become of his mortal remains.

'I swear you are not forgotten,' Oliver said, his breath clouding the chapel's wintry greyness. 'While I live, your memory lives too.' The forlorn statement echoed off the walls at him. When he was gone there would be no one to remember either him or them. Perhaps he ought to accept Prince Henry's offer of a wealthy heiress, settle down, raise sons and daughters to carry his line and burden another generation with expectations handed down from the past.

He grimaced at the thought and, rubbing his stone-bruised knees, eased to his feet. It was a pilgrimage that he had needed to make, but he felt weary and relieved at a duty performed rather than uplifted and refreshed.

'Lord William?' A voice spoke behind him, filled with fear and question.

Oliver spun round and found himself facing the diminutive form of Father Alberic. The elderly village priest boasted almost as many years as Ethel had done. Peering and squinting in his dark brown habit, he resembled a mole. He was quivering like a small animal too.

'No, it is Oliver. Don't you recognise me, Father? Have I changed so much?'

The old priest stared for a moment longer, then the tension sighed out of him and his wizened features wrinkled into a smile. 'Master Oliver, by all that is Holy! I thought you were your father returned to life!'

Oliver embraced Father Alberic, his nostrils filling with the familiar scent of musty wool and old incense. 'Would that it were so,' he said. 'Would that we were all still here.'

They parted, although the old man remained close to Oliver, his brow furrowed with the concentration of focusing. 'My eyes are not reliable these days,' he said. 'It won't be long before they send a replacement from the abbey and retire me to a corner of the infirmary to mumble my gums. Not that I'll be sorry. It has been difficult of late, very difficult indeed.' His folded his hands within his habit sleeves and gave Oliver a troubled look. 'What brings you here? You put yourself in great danger.'

Oliver lifted his shoulders. 'I had to come.' He lifted his eyes and stared around the bare little church, its one glory a small stained glass window above the altar. It had been presented by his father in celebration of Simon's birth. When the sun shone, it painted the floor with lozenges of jewel-coloured light. 'Do you remember the last time I stood in this place?'

Alberic scrubbed the side of his bulbous nose. 'It would be the day you left for the Holy Land, my lord. We had the wax candles then.'

Oliver smiled, but the expression was fleeting. Alberic's remark only added poignancy to the pain. 'Simon embraced me and wished me Godspeed. I can still feel his grip on my arm.' He looked at the stained window. 'When I returned to England, it was to learn that he was dead and Ashbury in the hands of Stephen's Flemings. I have come to visit his grave, if he has one, and to look again on what is mine by right. Great danger it might be, but like a swallow I return.'

The old man pursed his lips, his expression revealing that he understood the sentiment whilst being concerned at its outcome. 'Then you do well to come alone and quietly,' he said. 'Lord Odinel is reasonable enough for a Flemish mercenary, but the captain of his garrison is a devil.' He made the sign of the cross, his right hand trembling. 'There has been no peace since he came to the keep at Michaelmas.' His old voice was suddenly gritty with loathing. 'Come, I sully the church by even speaking of him within these holy walls. Lord Simon does indeed have a grave. I will show you where he is buried.'

Stiff with rheumatism, the priest led Oliver out of the church and into the large, oval enclosure. At the far end, near the fresh graves, were three yew trees, and in their shade stood an arched marker of carved yellow sandstone. 'The Fleming would not let him lie in the church with the others, but he did grant him the ground beneath this tree. Young Watkin, the shepherd's lad, was serving his stone-carver's apprenticeship at the abbey and he made the stone. We held a proper funeral for him, did what we could.'

'For which I thank you.' Again Oliver knelt, this time feeling cold turf under his knees. Father Alberic stood a little to one side, waiting in respectful silence. His face in repose bore a strong resemblance to Etheldreda's.

Bowing his head, Oliver paid homage to his dead brother. They had never been particularly close but neither had they been rivals, the boundaries of their relationship clearly defined and understood by them both. If not for his pilgrimage, Oliver would have fought for Ashbury at Simon's side and this would have been his grave too.

Crossing himself, he stood up and twitched his cloak into place. 'Say masses for my soul and those of my family,' he requested, and gave the old priest a small pouch of coins. 'Including Etheldreda of Ashbury.'

'She is dead then?' Alberic looked at the bag in the palm of his hand.

'It was her time and she was at peace,' Oliver said, and thought that he sounded more like a priest than Alberic. 'It was only at the end that I found out about the blood-bond we shared.'

Alberic smiled and shook his head. 'My sister was a law, or perhaps a lore, unto herself, God rest her soul. We all knew she was different, but we only loved her the more.' He hung the pouch on his belt, his hands trembling slightly. 'Nine children our mother bore, Ethel the eighth, me the ninth, and I'm the only one left to bear witness.'

Oliver made a wry face, for he knew exactly how the priest felt. Needing to move, he walked out of the shadows cast by the yews. The fresh graves confronted him, three of them neatly dug in a row.

'You said there had been no peace since Michaelmas. Are these a part of it?'

Father Alberic wrinkled his brow. 'Not as such,' he said. 'Lambert of the brook was five years older than me with not a tooth in his head.' He indicated the first grave as he spoke. 'Winter cold took him in his sleep. Second grave's for Martha, mother of Jeb the swineherd. She turned blue and took with a seizure end of last month.'

'She used to work in the hall, scrubbing the trestles. I remember her well.' Oliver's mind filled with the vision of a robust woman with a red, shiny face. 'She was young to have a seizure.'

'Aye, well, it was because of this.' Alberic pointed to the third mound of earth. 'Jeb's daughter, Gifu, her grandchild and only ten years old.'

'What happened?' Oliver crouched by the grave. It was late in the season, no flowers to be had, but someone had laid a cluster of sweet briar on the soil, the berries a bright blood-red. He knew from Ethel that they were purported to protect the dead and ensure them a peaceful rest.

'No one knows, but everyone suspects,' the old man said, kneading his hands together. 'The little lass went into the woods to gather kindling and met with her death. Her father found her drowned in the stream that runs down to the river, but it was no accident and her body had been violated. The entire village raised the hue and cry and soldiers went out from the castle too, but no one has yet been brought to account.' He shook his head. 'It was too much for Martha. We buried her three days after we buried Gifu.'

'You say everyone suspects?' Oliver gave him a sharp look.

The priest sighed. 'Lord Odinel has been absent of late in King Stephen's service, but he has left a strong garrison here. At Michaelmas they came, a dozen soldiers seeking winter quarters. They are war-hardened mercenaries with respect for neither God nor man. Lord Odinel uses them to show that he can rule with an iron fist if necessary.' A look of sadness and anger crossed the old man's face. 'He thinks that we will be grateful to him for curbing their worst excesses, but I have yet to see gratitude grow out of fear and loathing.'

Oliver rose from the grave side. 'And you think that one of these men killed the girl?'

Father Alberic shrugged. 'We have no proof, but most of us are sure of it. The week before Gifu died, one of the keep women who sells her favours to the men was raped by six of them and beaten senseless. I have heard similar tales in the confessional — from witnesses and victims, not the soldiers. I have yet to shrive any one of them.' He spread his arms in a helpless gesture. 'But what can we do?'