To Touch The Knight (24 page)

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Authors: Lindsay Townsend

BOOK: To Touch The Knight
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“Nigel has seen better days, but that looks like the eating of a bad fish pie to me,” remarked Ranulf beside her.
Reaching the same conclusion, Edith nodded. “I think you are right, Rannie.”
He smiled briefly at her nickname, then straightened, becoming lord again.
“Then
I
shall carry him to our rude litter and we shall bring him home.” He glanced at her. “You are smeared with ash, my lady.”
Better ash than blood, she almost said, but there was a gleam in his eye that told her she would be the next one to be carried, and doubtless all the way into camp. So she said nothing.
I am learning, and he is learning me, and I think we do well together,
she thought as he took her in his arms and fell into step behind the litter. She closed her eyes, light-headed with relief.
Chapter 32
Mark the spy was astonished when he returned to the tourney camp sometime after moonrise. Giles, in one of his swift mood changes, had swerved back from his intended tour of his lands. He was standing in the midst of the tourney camp, bawling out order after order to scampering maids and pages. In the growing dark there was much tripping and cursing, but Giles was determined that his people should continue to pack and load.
Mark swung down from his horse and led the beast to the river to cool off and to drink. He did not want to encounter Giles in this busy, angry mood.
Beside the sluggish stream he found a woman, still washing clothes. A man was with her, as company and guard, for at this late hour foot-pads and worse could be abroad. Mark greeted them both: he wanted no slingshot flung at him or his flagging nag.
The pair kneeling by the summer-parched, drying river shrank back, giving ground in such dusty, cringing haste he was astonished. He meant to call out afresh, wish them good evening, say he was no threat, when the half-moon broke free of some wisps of cloud and shone bright on them.
Only long habits of silence kept him from gasping aloud. Both the man and, worse, the woman were branded—burned—on their arms, and most sickeningly on their foreheads, with a badge and banner he knew well. The wounds, even in this half-dark, looked angry and fresh, with black trails running down their cheeks and hands that Mark guessed would be dried blood.
Giles must have discovered these creatures on other lands than his, working maybe for a kinder lord or for themselves.
They had survived the scourge of the pestilence, taken their chance to move to better land, and would have thought God smiled on them.
But the devil was with Giles. By some fantastic chance he had actually recognized these peasants as his. And to make certain of his claim, he had branded them.
They are runaway serfs. They ran and paid the price.
Mark knew he would dream of those terrified, wounded,
branded
faces for nights to come. And if these, who would be next?
He turned his horse, praying that Sir Ranulf would be a more lavish lord and paymaster than Giles had been.
 
 
Edith removed her veil, wrapped Ranulf's cloak more tightly about her, and walked to the edge of the wood. She recalled berries growing here and wanted to gather some for Ranulf.
She was alone. Ranulf's guards ringed this part of the camp where her tent and his were pitched, so she was safe. Ranulf thought one of her maids was with her, and she had promised him it would be so. At the last moment, seizing the chance for solitude, she had changed her mind. Her lord was off in another part of the camp, speaking to his captain, so he did not know. He would not know, either; she would return to their tents before he did.
Her head was throbbing: she wanted quiet and stillness. She longed to stretch out under the trees and listen only to the rustle of branches and bats and small beasts. Walking under these limes and elms, feeling the night air on her face, inhaling the nightly perfume of watch fires, roasting meat, lime blossom, and Ranulf's scent that lingered, sensuous and dark, upon his cloak gave her respite. She wished her mother was still alive, and she could talk to her. She missed Sir Tancred and his kind concern.
Why does being in love frighten me so much?
It was the fear of loss, she knew. Ranulf loved her, but part of him was ashamed of her, she knew that most keenly. She longed to be perfect for him, as she was for other knights.
She feared God would notice her happiness and crush it.
“Stop moaning and gather those berries,” she chided herself, now picturing Ranulf's grin as she gave them to him. She could make a new game with him: kisses and strawberries; kisses and cherries; kisses and—
What was that?
She did not freeze but continued walking softly and steadily to the nearest elm and pressed her back against its warm, rough bark. She ducked her head so the moon would not reflect in her eyes and listened intently, wishing her heart would not hammer on so.
No adder, she decided, nor a scuttling shrew; this blundering oncoming beast made too much noise. But not a boar, either. At each mad snapping of branches there was a sudden stop, a moment of pause.
A man, then, trying to be quiet.
Her insides she felt turn into ice as her armpits tingled with dread and her mouth went dry. Was he stalking her? He was closing now much too near for her to stir again without her movement being seen.
You should have obeyed Ranulf and brought a maid,
scolded Gregory.
“A maid would be no use,” Edith hissed, under tight breath.
How is it that I, who have made so many blades, have none to hand?
Her eating dagger was altogether too blunt. “A stone, now, a rough pebble, large as my fist—that would be very good.”
But the undergrowth of dry bracken, brambles, dying-back wild garlic, and shiny bluebell leaves yielded no such wonder. Peering down into the darkness by her feet, Edith longed again for a decent knife and more for a good, brightly burning torch. She liked fire and knew it well: it would work for her against any scurvy knave. . . .
He had ridden a while before creeping here, she decided, catching his limping, faintly bowlegged gait. He kept stopping to listen and look about, sometimes turning his whole body. Was he afraid of being followed? As he took another halting step, the moon shone on his upturned face and Edith clapped her fingers to her lips, not wanting even a breath to escape.
I know this man!
The bolt of shock made her briefly numb all over as her mind raced like a charging warhorse. How could she forget those hooded eyes and that large, loose-lipped mouth that was ever ready with a smile but never with words? His sparse hair and beard were the color of cooling resin, she knew, and the tip of his smallest finger was missing. He had touched her shoulder with that hand when he herded her into the church.
She flinched, the stink of old panic rearing in her mind, and stepped on a puff ball that exploded in a gray dust of spores. The motes sparkled in the moonlight and he saw them.
His hooded eyes opened wide as he saw her. He stopped, stretching out a hand, then withdrawing it.
“Is the priest still with you?”
It was the first time she had heard him speak, and he did so in the dialect of Warren Hemlet—not the old speech she and her people used to fool the knights, but the dialect her mother had used.
She shook her head.
“He is branding folk now, you know. You did right to break out.” He shuffled a step closer. “I am seeking Sir Ranulf. Do you know where he is? He is a man much wronged by Sir Giles, though he does not know it. At home he should look at his woodland paths, see what is left there, tied there.”
He paused, allowing those teasing statements to hover like flies in the air between them, irritating and intriguing together. When she still refused to speak, he sighed. “Are you of his party now? Sir Ranulf, I mean.”
If she answered, or even pointed, he would know she understood him. He could be a witness for anyone as to who she was. He did not know her name, but that did not matter. He recognized her from the church. He had known her once.
What do I do? Shake my head again, shrug, look puzzled? Will he go from here straight to Giles? And what does he mean about Ranulf being wronged? What else has Giles done?
Almost as if he understood her dread, the man said softly, “I have quit Sir Giles's service. I owe him no more loyalty. Loyalty! As if Giles, who ordered the branding of his own nurse, his
nurse,
mark you, deserves it!”
He took another, smaller step. “I will not harm you. 'Fore God, I swear it.”
So men have always claimed
, she might have answered, but he halted when she raised a hand. The half-moon, bright as a cleaned, cored apple, picked out the scars on her fingers.
“You were a smith there?” When she remained silent, he added, “It is my trade to see things.”
His words were an elegant admission of spying, Edith thought, wishing more and more for an escort. Even one of the camp dogs would do in this pinch.
“Did you get them out of the church?” From saying nothing when they had last met he seemed almost garrulous, and now he whistled. “A woman! I had thought it was the priest, but—”
He grunted, spinning right off his feet and collapsing face-down into a patch of nettles. Something long and black quivered between his shoulders.
Edith shuddered and sank down, trying to hide. Now she could hear more men and see flares of movement as they searched the undergrowth with torches.
“Princess!”
Ranulf's roar was too urgent to ignore. “I am here!” she called, shifting from the safety of the elm tree, her limbs feeling as stiff and heavy as iron. “Here, my lord!”
He will be furious and he will be right. I have cost a man his life by my folly!
But it was even worse than that. As Ranulf sprinted through bushes and hacked through low branches, straining to reach her, she saw who had cast the spear that had killed the nameless spy. Straight in line with the spear-cast, Giles stepped past a hawthorn bush and grinned at her. “Princess. Not so well met, but even so, always a pleasure.”
He bowed.
She backed hastily into the shadows, hiding her mouth with her fingers. To Giles no doubt she seemed shy, for he wagged a playful finger at her, remarking to the onrushing Ranulf, “You should give your lady more praise, Ran. Her beauty outshines the moon, yet she seems not to know it.”
Ranulf did not look at Giles. “You are unharmed?” he panted, his face dark with strain and running.
“Yes, my lord.” Her apology to him must wait, but she scanned his grimly handsome face for any kind of understanding.
He frowned, the briefest downward quirk of his lips, and she felt the rest of the air drain from her lungs. What did he think of her now? What did he think had been happening here?
He stamped through the grass to her, pausing to roll the dead man over with his foot. “Who is this?” he demanded.
In her dread of his displeasure, the horror at her feet had been put at a distance. Now it returned in force and she could only stare at the dead, unnamed spy, knowing that this man had once served Giles and that Giles knew it. Knew it, and acted. He had stopped the man's mouth by murder.
“Him? A peasant, a runaway, a nobody who would have ravished your lady, had I not stopped him,” Giles said now, before she could speak. “You should take more care of her.”
“I intend to,” vowed Ranulf as he reached out and took one of her hands in his. He did not squeeze her fingers or smile down at her: he was all hard possession.
“Edmund,” he called to his squire, “please escort my lady to her tent. I will join her as soon as I may.”
In the teeth of such a polite, chilly request, where he would not speak to her, Edith felt unmade. Her force of argument deserted her.
Silently, numb with the shock of his rejection and denial of her, she allowed his squire to take her arm and to lead her away.
 
 
As she waited for Ranulf in her own tent, surrounded by her people and her things, her mood reforged, becoming hotter and brighter.
He must know that she had not met the dead man for any kind of tryst.
How will you prove that?
whispered Gregory in her mind.
You have no witnesses.
“I need none, dear brother, for he had better know that already,” said Edith under her breath.
She smiled at Lucy and Teodwin, playing dice sitting together on the great bed with her baby sleeping between them. Also lolling on the bed on his belly, Ranulf's page Gawain was helping Lucy with her numbers, whispering the number on the dice each time it fell.
Ranulf must know he can trust me
, she thought, wishing he could see this cozy, domestic scene.
She swept to the entrance and peeped out, hoping to catch a glimpse of him coming. It would not be for some time yet, she guessed.
She closed her eyes and immediately saw the stranger again, flying in the air, knocked off his feet by the force of the spear. Giles would leave him to rot, but not Ranulf. Yet what could he do with the body? Were the mob still in the churchyard?
She listened, hearing the crackle of fires, the yapping of dogs, the snorting of horses, and the low mumble of men. The usual sounds of any camp. The crowds of people from the church had not ventured here, she decided.
“Is the moon still up?” Maria, jiggling her faintly mewling baby on her shoulder and walking up and down in the tent, now broke into her reverie with a very weary-sounding question.

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