The Love Knot (45 page)

'I am going in search of my lord,' he said to Edith, who was busy ladling broth and dumplings into a bowl for a customer.

She nodded briskly, adding, 'Have a care,' and gave him a quick look in which there was unspoken concern.

Godard smiled and plucked his quarterstaff from the corner. 'You need not worry about that,' he said in a gruff voice, but he was pleased that she was anxious for his welfare.

Once on the road, he made such haste as the moonlight would allow. He did not want to risk foundering his horse, but neither did he want to waste time. Godard was not afraid of the dark, but he was not particularly fond of being out in it either. Beyond the village, the road dwindled to a rutted cart track with smaller tracks branching off into the fields. Silence descended, the only sounds to break it being the clop of his mount's hooves and the champ of its breath. Godard began to sing to himself, then changed his mind. The darkness was too vast, too wide and full of hidden, listening ears.

He came to a wooded stretch where the road dipped down into a black hollow. Godard drew rein and seriously contemplated turning back for the warmth and welcome of the alehouse. He imagined a steaming bowl of broth, feather-light dumplings and Edith's welcoming smile. The pity was that without discovering what had happened to Oliver, he would be unable to enjoy any of it. 'Hah,' he said with irritation, and kicked the gelding's flanks.

Man and horse descended into darkness. There was a boggy stream at the foot of the hollow which Godard heard, rather than saw, as the horse splashed through it. Emerging on the other side into a lacing of darkness and moonlight, he did not see the dappled horse on the track in front until it nickered and came trotting to greet him. Breath steamed from its nostrils. The reins were knotted around the saddle pommel and there were dark stains on its pale coat.

'Steady lad, steady,' Godard crooned and caught Hero's bridle. He secured the destrier to his gelding and wondered what in Christ's name had happened to Oliver. The stains on Hero's coat looked like blood, and probably Oliver's to judge from their position.

He clicked his tongue and urged the gelding forward, and almost immediately saw the flash of chain-mail near the place where the grey had been standing. Godard flung down from the saddle, tossed a loop of bridle over a tree branch to secure the horses and ran to the fallen man.

'Lord Oliver?'

There was a groan and Oliver tried to raise his head. 'Godard, you purblind fool, I told you to go.'

'My hearing's not what it used to be. Where are you hurt?' With gentle hands for one so huge, Godard tried to make an examination.

'Everywhere. There's not a whole bone in my body. Let me die.' Oliver closed his eyes.

Godard tapped the side of his master's face with rigid fingers. 'I've not made this journey just to bring back your corpse. Where there's life there's hope,' he said sternly.

'Where there's life there's pain,' Oliver responded, but opened his eyes.

Godard tightened his lips. He knew that unless he got Oliver back to the alehouse in short order, he would die. If his wounds did not kill him, the cold would.

'You have to mount up, sir,' he said. 'I will ride behind you and hold you in the saddle.'

Oliver laughed, the sound choking off on a wheeze of agony. 'You're gullible enough to believe in miracles, then,' he gasped.

'Yes, sir,' Godard said stoutly. 'It's no more than two miles to the village. Seems a pity to lie here in the frost, even if you are dying,' he added in a practical tone. Rising to his feet, he fetched the horses. There was a flask of usquebaugh in his saddle bag and he took a swallow for himself and gave the rest to Oliver. 'Drink this down. It'll put fire in your blood.'

'It will take more than fire,' Oliver said, but set the flask to his lips and drank grimly.

'Just get yourself on to the horse, sir, I will do the rest,' Godard said.

The usquebaugh tore through Oliver's veins, infusing a false sense of heat and well-being, taking the edge off his suffering. But it was still agony to stand up. The pain in his ribs was so violent that he could scarcely breathe and his left arm was totally useless. The blood had ceased to flow from the wound when he had fallen from the horse, but now, as he strove to rise, he felt the hot trickle begin again. Gritting his teeth, fighting a nauseous wave of blackness, he set his foot in the stirrup and Godard boosted him across the big gelding's back. He almost fell off the other side and only saved himself by clutching convulsively at the reins with his half-good right hand.

Godard swiftly mounted up behind him and took his weight.

'Jesu, it would be easier to die,' Oliver groaned as the gelding paced forward.

'But better to live,' Godard said. Darkness engulfed them has the horses clopped through the hollow, and then emerged into the moon-dappled woods. 'How came you by your wounds?'

Oliver spoke slowly with effort. 'Randal de Mohun was captain of Ashbury's garrison . . . When he heard there was a stranger in the village he came to investigate.'

'Randal de Mohun, God's teeth!' Godard had asked the question in order to keep Oliver talking and prevent him from slipping into unconsciousness. Now his eyes widened and he paid full attention. 'How did he come to be at Ashbury?'

'Simple . . . He had heard me talk of the place.' Oliver paused to fight the pain and gather strength. 'He knew that it was held by one of Stephen's Flemings . . . small chance of being called to account for his crimes. It killed two birds with one stone . . . gave him employment and a place to keep his head low.'

'The whoreson,' Godard said in hoarse revulsion.

'One girl-child is dead, molested in the forest, but there will be no more,' Oliver said, after another pause. 'We fought, and he is dead.' He closed his eyes and felt the darkness drifting in. Godard's voice prodded at him, asking more questions, making demands. He felt anger and tried to snarl at Godard to leave him be. The sounds he made bore no resemblance to those he had intended. He wanted peace and he could not have it. If he could only achieve the darkness, there would be freedom from pain.

'Not far,' Godard kept saying, but still the lurching stride of the bay gelding continued. He was almost beyond notice when it stopped - too far gone to help himself, but not far enough to diminish the excruciating pain as Godard lifted him bodily from the saddle and carried him into the alehouse. The staring startled faces, the blazing fire, the tearing agony in his body all served to convince him that Godard had plucked him from purgatory and personally deposited him in hell.

Catrin stood with Louis in the keep's undercroft which should have been stuffed to the roof arches with supplies to withstand the siege, but which showed little more than a few barrels of salted fish and meat, some sacks of meal and half a dozen bacon flitches. There was a motley collection of root vegetables, not in the best condition. Hands on hips, Catrin studied the depressing total of their assets. 'There is perhaps enough for another week if we live exclusively on watery stew,' she said. 'Although I suppose we could make it more palatable if we use some of that.' She indicated the casks of red Gascon wine that numbered in total as many as the combined barrels of salt fish and beef.

Louis scowled. Above their heads came the muted clump of one of the siege engines launching a stone at the walls. They were entering the third week and although Wickham's solid stones had stood up well to the pounding, their supplies were in less robust condition.

Louis rubbed one hand over his face. Til have to break out between their lines and fetch help from Simon de Senlis at Northampton,' he said. 'Tonight. There's no moon and it will be easier to slip past their sentries.'

Catrin stared at him in tight-lipped silence. 'You think that is wise?'

He spread his hands. 'What choice do we have? Another week and there will be nothing to eat.'

'They do not know that. Another week and they might go away.'

'Yes, but if I can return with an army, I'll be able to trap them like a grain between two millstones.'

Catrin let out her breath on a sigh of exasperation and paced the length of the half-empty undercroft. Any trust she had put in Louis had long since flown out of one of his precious glass windows. Their supplies were low because he had not bothered to replenish them, preferring to put Gascon wine and colourful wall hangings before the basic daily staples. His excuse was that he had been using the old before buying the new but it was a threadbare lie.

'Like a grain between two millstones,' she repeated, nodding her head. 'And what if Simon de Senlis cannot spare you aid?'

'Don't worry, he will. Wickham's too important to lose.' The words rolled nonchalantly off his tongue but he didn't look at her as he spoke.

So important that they had given it to an untried mercenary? Catrin bit her tongue. Louis's temper was as much in evidence as his charm these days. She wondered what she had ever seen in him, and almost immediately acknowledged that it was his physical presence; the magnetism of a lithe, prowling animal. Now that she had a child to consider, that magnetism did not exert the same irresistible pull. If they argued, they were no longer reconciled in bed.

'Some of the castle folk might see your slipping away as desertion,' she said as neutrally as she could. In truth, she was one of them.

'I do not care what they see,' Louis snapped. 'I am doing this for their hides as much as my own.' His olive complexion darkened beneath her cool stare.

'Of course you are,' she said. 'We'll see the proof of it within the week.' Head carried high, she went to the stairs that led up to the hall.

'Where are you going?'

'To tend to Rosamund. After all, you have no more need of me here, have you?' She looked round and arched her brow. 'You can add me to the tally of salt beef, stockfish and serfs that you leave behind.'

Louis glared at her. 'All I have had from you since that brat was born is piss-vinegar looks and sour words. I am your husband; you will give me respect.'

Catrin reached the top of the stairs and swished round to face him. 'If you return from Northampton within the week and lift this siege, then I will accord you every honour and respect,' she said. 'But if you do not, then I will surrender this keep to de Vere's men, return to Robert of Gloucester at Bristol and seek an annulment of this hell-bound marriage!' Her voice began to rise and crack.

'To Robert of Gloucester, or to that knight of his, Pascal?' Louis snarled. 'I see how much score you set by your marriage oath!'

Catrin was furious. 'Do not talk to me of oaths and fidelity,' she spat. 'I am not the one who has broken faith.' She pushed beyond the thick oak door into the hall. He followed hard on her heels and for a moment she thought that he was going to spin her round and cast her head over heels down

the undercroft stairs. She braced herself and drew breath to scream, but instead he swept past her, his stride full

of anger.

'You leave and I swear I will brand you a whore before all and sundry and deny that brat up there any claim on me,' he said without stopping, and loud enough for the nearest servants and soldiers to hear. 'It's probably not mine anyway. My loins would have begotten a son.' Catrin gasped and recoiled as if he had physically slapped her. Tears of rage brimmed and spilled. The very force of her emotion left her incoherent and bereft of defence. She felt the curious eyes of witnesses, the pity, the gleams of salacious speculation. Within the hour it would be all over the keep and grossly distorted. The Lord and Lady had quarrelled. The Lady was accused of whoredom and foisting a cuckoo on her husband. They already blamed her for wasting money on tapestries and fine glass windows.

She swiped the back of her hand across her face and glared after her husband's retreating form. 'Oliver made just as many promises as you,' she said in a shaking, tear-blocked voice, 'and he kept them all.'

As once before, Catrin bid her husband farewell with a turned back and cold lips. She did not go down to the hall to watch him and half a dozen of his best men go out into the bailey on silent feet, their clothing dark and their faces smeared with earth. She did not lie awake in bed, listening for the cry to go up that they had been captured sneaking through the lines, for she knew that they would escape. Like a thief, Louis could move like a wraith. Like a thief, he took everything and gave nothing back.