The Love Knot (65 page)

That was enough warning. If she waited, she would be dead. Whirling, she began to run, at the same time drawing her satchel forward and groping inside it for the knife Oliver had given her. If he caught up with her, she would use it. Memories of Randal de Mohun swept through her mind. She saw herself cornered again, and felt the wind of the blade and then the fiery pain in her side. Louis would not kill her in full view of witnesses. He would catch her, drag her into some Shambles alley and silence her there. It was easily done. She had almost been a victim once before. She was not going to be a victim now.

Running in skirts was difficult. Heavy and wet, the hem slapped against her legs. People looked at her curiously. Even in these parts of the city, a running woman was a sight to be remarked upon. Behind her she could hear Louis panting in her wake and knew without looking round that he was gaining on her. He had always been fleet of foot and her own neighbourhood and the castle seemed impossibly far away. Before her, the church of Saint Nicholas rose against the fortified city wall and she redoubled her effort. If she could reach the sanctuary of its interior, she would be safe.

'Stop her, stop the whore!' Louis's shout pursued her, nipping at her heels. 'Thieving bitch has stolen my pouch, stop her!'

A man stepped out in front of Catrin, his arms outspread to do just that. Catrin sobbed and ducked. His fingers closed on her wimple and for a choking moment he yanked her back. Then the fabric gave, her black braids tumbled down, and she was free and running. But the check had given Louis precious yards and she knew that she was not going to reach the precincts of the church.

'She's gone to a birth in Wharf Alley,' Agatha replied to Oliver's enquiry. 'Don't know how long she'll be. Eldred fetched her 'bout an hour ago.' She tilted her head to one side and eyed him anxiously. 'Is there something amiss, my lord?'

Oliver looked at the plump old woman, at his sons sharing her lap. Henry with Catrin's hazel eyes, Simon with grey like him. Rosamund sat at their feet, absorbed in braiding five loops of wool. She was dark and bright like Louis and Oliver had no intention of giving her up to him. Catrin neither. And he did not care what it cost. 'Yes, there is,' he said. 'I need to see Catrin now. Will you stay and tend the children a while longer?'

'Of course, my lord.' There was naked curiosity in her gaze, and then fear as he took his sword from the coffer and laced it on to his belt.

'Wharf Alley you said?'

Agatha swallowed. 'Yes, my lord. Halfway down next to the bathhouse.'

With a last glance at the laundress and his children, Oliver went out. The rain whispered in the wind, soft as cobwebs, and the sky was a clinging grey. He turned down Corn Street and headed towards the river. As he strode, he rehearsed what he was going to say to Catrin. His initial impulse was born of instinct not reason. He only knew that Louis's presence was dangerous and that he needed to have Catrin at his side, as close as Adam's rib. He had to see her, hold and touch her and know that Louis was powerless.

Although he was sure of Catrin, he had a supernatural dread that Louis would still find some way of winning her back. The thought made him quicken his pace and swear softly under his breath. As he reached St Nicholas Street and turned right, his hand was on his sword hilt, and those who encountered him stepped rapidly out of his way.

'Stop her, stop the whore!'

The cry pierced his concentration. His eyes flickered to the left and he saw a woman running, her stride desperate with no space for decorum. In the same instant, he realised it was Catrin and that she was being run down by Louis like a wolf after a doe. A man stepped out to bar her way, and her wimple tore off in his hand. Catrin's black braids streamed down her back. She ran, and then she whirled to face her pursuers, her knife at the ready.

Oliver drew his sword from his scabbard as he sprinted. 'Halt in the name of Prince Henry!' he bellowed.

The citizen who had grabbed Catrin's wimple splashed to a halt just out of her knife range. His face was congested with excitement and exertion. 'It's this whore, sir, she's stole the man's pouch!'

'Oliver!' Catrin sobbed in relief, but kept her knife tilted. Louis jammed to a halt and looked at Oliver with feverish, glittering eyes. Oliver returned the stare implacably. His rage and fear had burned beyond heat and become a flame, ice-cold and steady.

'The lady is no whore but a gentlewoman held in great esteem by the Prince himself,' he said, without taking his gaze from Louis. 'The man who makes the claim is faithless, mercenary scum.'

'So says the adulterer, the stealer of another man's wife and child!' Louis sneered.

'Do not prate to me of stealing,' Oliver said tight-lipped. 'You have compromised your own honour so many times that not even a miracle would unstain its tarnish ... or perhaps you were honourless to begin.' The sword flickered suggestively.

Louis looked at the gesture and a sour smile crossed his face. He raised his own weapon.

'No!' Catrin clutched Oliver's sleeve. 'He's not worth it. Let him go!'

'To haunt us again and again?' Oliver said grimly. 'In my esteem, he is definitely worth a shroud and six feet of earth.'

'It doesn't matter, he's dying anyway, that's why he . . .'

Before she could finish, Louis spun on his heel, pushed through the crowd which had gathered and ran back down the narrow street.

'It matters to me,' Oliver said with soft intensity. 'When I have touched his corpse with my own hand then I will be content.' Unlocking her grip from his arm, he sprinted after Louis.

'Oh, Jesus Christ in Heaven!' Catrin snatched her wimple from the townsman and chased after the men. Whatever Louis had done; whatever he was, she did not want his blood on Oliver's hands.

Louis was fast. He had always been fleet of foot and possessed excellent stamina, but Oliver was fit and fast too. He was taller with a longer stride and he had not already run halfway through town. As they reached the bridge leading across to the open suburbs on the other side of the Avon, Oliver finally caught up with Louis and brought him crashing down.

The men rolled in the mud and dung. Louis was as fast and slippery as a Severn eel and, although Oliver had landed on top, succeeded in wriggling free.

'She'll always be mine,' he panted, as he lunged to his feet. 'You can't change it whatever you do.' He lashed out viciously with his boot.

Oliver ducked the blow and brought him down again by snatching his ankle. This time his knife was out of his belt.

Louis's eyes widened, not with fear but with feral excitement. 'Go on, kill me,' he panted, daring Oliver with a broad, white grin. 'Have your will and then watch her cry for me.'

Oliver gazed down into the hot brown eyes and revulsion burned his gullet. For a moment, he imagined the satisfaction of slitting Louis's throat. The triumph would be intense but last only as long as it took spilled blood to cool. In death, Louis would have won far more convincingly than in life.

Withdrawing the knife, he sat back on his heels. 'No,' he said softly. 'You're not worth it. A clean, quick death is too easy for you.'

The exultation died in Louis's eyes and, incongruously, Oliver saw a flicker of the fear that had been absent before.

'Perhaps I will just follow you, as you have followed me,' Oliver murmured, turning the knife over in his hand. 'Dark corners, black winter nights will never be safe again.'

Louis laughed with bitter humour. 'Such a threat might frighten a child, but not the damned,' he mocked, still taunting, his eyes on the knife like a drunkard's on a fresh flagon of wine.

A crowd had started to gather. Catrin elbowed her way through and reached the scene. There was shouting now. A trader with a cart wanted to pass over the bridge before the gates closed for nightfall, and soldiers were strolling up from the other end, spears at the ready.

'Ask her,' Louis said. 'Ask her what she wants.' Backing away from the knife, he pulled himself up and smiled at Catrin. 'What should he do, Catty? Rip out my heart or set me free?' He spread his hands. 'The choice is yours.'

Catrin clenched her fists. She looked at her husband and then at Oliver, who was breathing swiftly. While her eyes were on him, Oliver sheathed the knife.

'The choice was mine.' Going to Catrin's side, he slipped his arm around her waist. Then, turning to Louis, he said, 'I intended to kill you. Perhaps if you hadn't demanded it quite so hard I would have done it. Now it doesn't matter. There are always dark nights and quiet corners, Louis - for the damned as well as the innocent.' He glanced towards the advancing guards. Louis did too, and then at the crowd blocking the town end of the bridge.

'Go on, Lewis of Chepstow, take your freedom. I won't stop you.'

Louis swallowed. He opened and closed his fists. Catrin began to speak, but Oliver silenced her with a nudge.

'What's the trouble?' one of the guards demanded, then touched his helmet to Oliver as he recognised him through the mud and the gathering gloom of dusk. 'Sir,' he acknowledged.

'Nothing,' Oliver replied, his gaze upon Catrin's husband. 'A confusion over name and identity.'

The rain whispered down and the cart driver yelled at Louis to get out of his way.

Louis turned in a slow circle meeting the gaze of everyone, lingering upon Oliver with derision and finally closing on Catrin as if they were alone in a bedchamber. 'Do you remember Chepstow, Catty?' he asked huskily, 'That first year?'

She said nothing, but bit her lip and leaned into Oliver's body for protection, her knuckle-bones showing white where she clutched his mantle.

'Or Christmas at Rochester - that game of hunt-the-slipper? It wasn't all bad, was it?'

Catrin's throat worked. 'It was false,' she whispered.

His lips stretched in a mirthless smile. 'Was it? Then we were both duped. True or false, for what it is worth, I did love you, Catty. Remember that if you forget all else.' Turning, he walked with light step to the side of the bridge, and just as lightly leaped off into the murky water of the Frome before anyone could move to stop him.

Catrin's cry of denial was swallowed up in the rush of the crowd to the side. There was nothing to see but churning brown water, flowing fast in spring spate. No head broke the surface, no string of bubbles showed where he had gone down.

Catrin covered her face with her hands and pressed herself into Oliver's cold, muddied breast. Expression grim, Oliver set his arm around her shoulders.

'Be washed up on the strand next tide,' observed the cart driver with grim cheer. 'Last one did after the winter storms.'

'Unless he survives,' Oliver said. It was not logical that Louis could live - he had jumped in the water wearing his sword and a heavy quilted gambeson - but Oliver still had a nightmare vision of Louis crawling out of the water on to the riverbank and grinning at him like a demon while he wrung out his clothes.

'No.' Catrin sniffed and raised her face, dabbing at her eyes with the edge of her wimple. 'Living would mean a slow death as an outcast, and I know that his vanity could not bear it.'

Oliver touched her wet cheek, his eyes questioning.

'He had leprosy.' She swallowed, struggling again with nausea. 'He ... he asked me for an ingredient for the cure, and when I refused because it involved a stillborn child, he lost his temper. The rest you know.'

Oliver wrapped his arms around her, encompassing her in love and comfort, sharing her anger, absorbing her grief. Around them the crowd dispersed and the cart rumbled through on its way into the town. One guard returned to his post. The other went to report the incident and instigate a search.

'Home,' Catrin said, clinging to Oliver. 'Take me home.' 'You are home,' he said, burying his face in her half-exposed hair. 'For ever.'

On the eve before Henry's army marched out of Gloucester, the body of Lewis of Chepstow washed up on the estuary shore. Three days it had been in the water and now it was bloated, the skin heavy grey-white. There were tears and contusions where it had struck stones and driftwood. The brave blue colour had washed out of the tunic and one shoe was missing in parody of the time before when he had pretended death by drowning.

Oliver crouched by the corpse, his nostrils filled with the scent of the sea and the taint of decaying flesh. As the sheriff's men looked on, he made identification and then gently turned the right wrist. The lesion was where Catrin had said it would be; pale as the body was pale, but still evident.

'Poor bastard,' one of the men muttered.

Oliver stood up and looked down at the remains. Gulls wheeled and cried. The sun slanted, filling his eyes with light. 'Bury him deep,' he said. 'And let God be his judge.'