To Touch The Knight (27 page)

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Authors: Lindsay Townsend

BOOK: To Touch The Knight
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Chapter 34
A sheep woke Edith before daybreak, bleating somewhere off in the darkness, a low alarm call unanswered: a lost sheep, then. She felt for her ring, still loose but tied and secure on her finger, and opened her eyes.
Ranulf was sitting on the edge of their hay-stuffed pallet, stamping his feet into his boots. He was already dressed and had draped a blanket over her. He touched her cheek with his fingers.
“No smile?” she teased.
He sighed and ran a hand through his shaggy, ragged hair. “Mornings do not find me at my best.”
“Ah.” Her grandfather had been the same, irritable and moody at the dawn. She kissed the back of his neck and let him go quietly on while she sought her own clothes.
Which she did not find. After she had turned back the sheets and poked amidst the floor strewings, Ranulf, who by now was drinking a long cup of ale, cleared his throat.
“I gave your things to my laundress. When the camp truly stirs, your maid will bring you new clothes.”
“Then I will lie comfortably until she does.” First, she strolled over to him and stood on his boots to kiss him.
“Take care, my lord, and good sport.”
He frowned and then, as if words were too much at this early hour, he shrugged and whirled her lightly back to their soft nest of bedding, tucking her in as if she was a child.
“I will be back as soon as I may.” He placed the half-drunk cup of ale by her side, so she might drink. “Edmund is with me, but my maids are here and they and all my men know to serve you. Fresh washing water. Your breakfast.”
Even by the dim sliver of sunlight she could see his face, grim and martyr-solemn. She touched his forehead, feeling it hot. He kissed her fingers urgently, and her mouth.
You are a poor dissembler, Rannie! I know full well what you have done and why, but you shall not clip my wings today. What I must know is too important.
“Take great care,” she said, from the depths of the bed, and meant it.
He nodded, backing away from her now, but not wanting to turn away. “Soon as I can,” he repeated.
As he left the tent she heard another great sigh spill from his lungs. She waited a moment longer, listening as his rushing feet stalked away to the horses, then found the ale and gulped it down.
That must be her breakfast, for she had much to do.
 
 
First she loosened her hair from its distinctive long plait and divided it into two—the small beginnings of a new disguise. She did not want Teodwin to stop her, or Ranulf's captain, both of whom she knew would have orders to prevent her leaving. She arranged the strewing in the bed to make a smooth “body,” then looked for cloth she could use to make a gown.
Ranulf, or someone by his orders, had removed all his cloaks. Her shoes were gone, too, if indeed she ever had them here, which she could not recall. No matter, she thought, smiling at Ranulf's determination. She knew he had acted from love and for her protection, but today she must again disobey him.
Part of her marveled at herself. In Warren Hemlet, as wife to the smith, she had been obedient. Not docile, but grudgingly accepting custom. Then Adam had died, Peter had died, Gregory had died. So many had died, and the survivors had looked to those who had ideas and hope, and these poor, bewildered souls had clung to her. As much as Ranulf, trained by war, she was now a leader, except her training had been the pestilence.
If he discovered her gone, would he understand?
I shall be very quick
, she reassured herself.
I know where to look and I will take care. No one will know, or be anxious.
That is, if she could find her knife to cut this bedsheet.
 
 
The cloth was rough, scraping across her breasts and belly as she hurried to the river. She glanced at the strip of sacking wound and tied about her hand, to hide her new ring, and had the story ready in her head.
I am a maid who burned my fingers on a cooking pot and, as punishment for my clumsy work, my master and mistress have sent me to scrub out bloody linen in the stream.
Yes, that would keep the guards from prying.
Slipping from Ranulf's tent in her slipshod “gown” of undyed linen had been easier than she had dared to hope. Racing from one of the wagons, a lad had bawled out an alarm of fire, and soldiers and tourney followers from outside Ranulf's tent and beyond had pelted to help the boy beat it out. In the rush and confusion, no one took any heed of a small, ill-clad figure walking out of the knight's tent, nodding to the guards and holding up a bandaged, work-roughened hand.
“My lady's laundress,” she said, to all and no one, keeping her head lowered, limping a little, and swinging a bundle of clothes in her other hand.
The best lies are often the simplest. Who would bother to stare at a lame maid? The guards, who perhaps had lately changed and so would not know the laundress had already been and gone, grunted and let her pass.
The tourney camp was awake but quiet. No carpenters were busy sawing as yet, nor wheelwrights repairing carts, nor squires practicing with arms. Men and women huddled in groups close to embering, ashen fires, not for warmth but for human contact, murmuring no doubt of the church preacher and taking a pot of ale before the day. They, too, ignored her as she flitted by, sometimes forgetting to limp in her haste to reach the river but so far secure in her disguise as a washergirl.
Laundresses in a great castle had power and status. A chit of a maid sent out before dawn to scrub the bloody linens in the river had none.
I wager—I am using Ranulf's words now!—I wager that those branded runaways will be scrubbers and washers and pot boys, put to the lowest kind of work. If they are at the river I will see them.
She wondered if she would recognize any, and hoped fervently that she would not.
A drunk, reeling and lurching to find a hedge or tree or underside of a cart to sleep below, lunged at her once, grumbling as she clobbered him with her “washing” and deftly avoided his grasp.
“Filthy, brazen bitch! You . . .”
She shut her ears to the rest, her heart thudding. Had he not been alone, things might have gone very differently. She had been too long a princess, protected by knights and beloved; now she was grubbing in the world outside the tourney and must sharpen her wits. Again, she checked that the dirty strip of cloth around her betrothal ring was secure.
“When I find them, please let them come to my camp,” she whispered, thinking afresh and with greater urgency of the branded villagers. “Please let them see there is a different life, a better one, with me and mine and Ranulf.”
How many would there be? Would they dare to run again from Giles? Would Ranulf protect them?
For certain he will, for he would not side with Giles in this. He must, surely, especially now he knows all about me?
Conscious of a nagging stitch in her side and of time passing, always passing, Edith stepped over a tangle of tent ropes. Going round the back of a wagon, keeping where she could to the less trodden parts of the camp, she hurried on.
 
 
Woodcock Wood was an old forest, the kind of musty, mossy, dragonfly-filled, trackless place Ranulf would have loved to explore as a lad—on foot. As he was now, on horseback, he watched his mount's every step and his mouth was dry with concentration.
He was mired so deep in suspicion that he partly resented Edith for opening his eyes in this way. Without her warnings and shocking revelations he would have been savoring the dense undergrowth and the hot sun on his shoulders, both signs of a good day's chase. Instead, an hour into the morning, he was peering for caltrops and pits and urging his beast after Giles's so that his small, stocky courser trod the same path. As if Giles would have had time to lay such traps for him, or his men!
Why should he go to such pains, anyway? Giles is lazy and would not trouble so much. In this wood we could separate easily and be lost to each other for the rest of the day.
And then Giles could double back to camp. . . .
How much would I give to challenge Giles now! To ride with him, to see him again, knowing what he has done, is almost beyond endurance. If I could think of a pretext to fight him, anything that does not touch on Edith, I would do so in a heartbeat.
At least he had left her safe, Ranulf thought, glancing back to the distant tourney camp and scowling at the risen sun. The sooner he could get them both away and safe into his northern homelands, the better.
Is it not that you are finally growing up and seeing true? And look at Giles: the knight who drove his own people into a church to die—is it surprising you are wary of him?
Olwen's voice asked quietly. With a violent, neck-crunching shake of his head, he dismissed the idea. He wanted no more women talk, no more women in his head.
The hunt! It was a bonny day and the hounds were keen and Giles had brought nets and a crossbow.
Surely that shows his real intent? You have made a mistake in suspecting him. All Giles has planned for is today's hunt and fresh meat, so stop fretting like a girl.
Still, Giles had ordered that massacre at Warren Hemlet. He was, in very truth, a smiling monster. And Ranulf could think of no just means, no genuine reason or excuse to fight him, save Edith. Each time he tried, he saw Edith's fearful face, the pain in her eyes as she remembered the church in her former village.
Kill him and be done with it
, his heart urged, but he knew that would make him no better than Giles; another smiling monster.
So he is, and if you are to keep him away from Edith, do your part now here, in the hunt. You will get justice for her and others, but not today, so do what you must to keep Giles at bay.
“I wager we shall have excellent sport this day,” he called out.
Riding ahead, Giles glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “'Tis long since I heard an ‘I wager' from your lips. What say you to a race to that beech yonder?”
Speaking, he had spurred his horse and was already off, a green-gold blur racing in the browns and greens of the wood. Ranulf slapped his reins and took off in pursuit, his hunting horse whickering with excitement. He leaned into the rushing wind, feeling very strange not to be straight-backed and charging.
Down into a hollow they galloped, dust rising and the earth drumming and the men on foot slogging behind. Closing on the pumping haunches of Giles's bay courser, he laughed, then wondered at a patch of white, straight ahead, pale as wild garlic.
Instinct saved him. He felt his courser plunge off to the right and went with him, urging his mount away, away. Giles's horse was already snorting and Giles yelling as a massive animal charged, exploding out of the greenwood.
A wild cow and calf!
One of the most dangerous beasts of the woodland, if crossed, or if a mother felt her calf threatened. The great white wave of muscle and sinew, the flashing short horns, crashed into Giles and Ranulf heard him howl as he fell from his horse.
“Away!” Reacting without thought to help a fellow warrior, without even being fully aware that this was
Giles
he was helping, Ranulf drove his mount between the maddened cow and Giles. Giles, who had tumbled into a hazel thicket and was struggling to find his feet, tangled also in his hunting net. The cow lowered its head and charged again.
Ranulf slashed at the beast with his bow, but it was like trying to turn a mountain with a feather. He saw it bear down, the close, musty air of the forest seeming to weigh like lead in his chest as the moment slowed and he could do nothing, nothing except urge his horse, over to the beech tree to use it as a shield.
In that same deadly slowness he saw the glint of the cow's dark eye as she twisted her head, desperate to gore the louts who had dared to approach her calf. He felt the impact like a huge punch and heard his poor horse scream and saw the dark ragged wound appearing on the courser's dark chestnut side.
Then it was over. He was panting and his horse was shuddering and the cow and calf were gone, thundering into the forest with the force and racket of lightning. Ranulf swung down off his mount, checking its injury, speaking softly, soothing the beast.
“You saved my life.”
You did, too, and more's the pity! Less heart, more thought next time, if another chance comes.
Giles had freed himself and was offering him a flask. Ranulf took a drink and poured some of the mead over his courser's wound. The animal shied and he whispered and soothed it afresh, wishing he could explain to the poor creature.
“You saved me,” Giles said again.
“You would have done the same.”
Does Giles know I am lying now?

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