The Knight And The Rose Read online

  If the soldiers were searching the village or drinking at an alewife’s, he would be better to seek his help from some more isolated villeins, so he struck south through the wood, his arms hugging his body against the wind-hurled raindrops. Were they bounty hunters? Would they search this far for fugitives? All about him the lichen-encrusted trunks grew hostile as if they shared some sinister secret. Unease crawled down his spine. The telltale slap of startled pigeon wings confirmed it; he was being hunted.

  IN THE SOLAR at Endbery, Johanna took the letter her husband held out to her, cursing that she had never been given the opportunity to learn what the confusion of black marks meant.

  “What does it say? Oh, for our Lord’s sake, tell me!”

  Eager as a young dog to please, her mother’s comely, fair-haired groom, who had just arrived from Conisthorpe bearing the letter, butted in: “My lady, your father is dying, and your lady mother beseeches you to come home straightway.”

  Sir Fulk de Enderby twitched the parchment from Johanna’s fingers and turned a face towards the groom that usually bespoke punishment for his own servants. Realising his offence, scarlet faced, the young man fearfully pulled his forelock and inspected his toecaps as if he had suddenly grown alien appendages.

  “Does he speak truly?” Johanna asked swiftly, diverting Fulk’s wrath and anxious to know what else her mother had written. There were more lines marching across the letter than that brief summary had warranted.

  Her husband gave a curt nod, folding the missive and tucking it beneath the safe custody of his belt. No sympathy lay behind his cold smile. Had Fulk been in Jerusalem at the time of the blessed Christ’s crucifixion, he would have been one of Pilate’s household knights ramming the crown of thorns harder on Jesus’s brow, and wearing that same coercive expression.

  Discipline and conformity were everything to Fulk. Which was why she, his young third wife, had failed every test. Above all, she was barren, her womb unresponsive to his seed and her husband could not forgive her for it. He had tried to beat obedience and pump fruitfulness into her until she was bruised both outwardly and inwardly, but still her mind and body had refused to conform.

  And her father and mother, rid of her, had remained indifferent even though she had dispatched them word of her unhappiness. A sympathetic visiting friar had clandestinely carried them tidings of her misery, but no answer had come. Though a baron with Norman ancestry and of higher rank than her husband, her father, Lord Alan FitzHenry, had not bothered to admonish his old friend Fulk. The ties between them as companions-in-arms were clearly more important than helping his once beloved younger daughter.

  “Well, wife, what is to be done? You are of a sudden unusually tongue-tied.”

  Johanna swallowed nervously, glad that the veil hiding her injuries also screened her from Fulk’s interrogative stare. Please God, she could play this aright. She tightened her lips stubbornly as she chose her words.

  “My father can die without me,” she declared. “I have no wish to set eyes upon his face again.” Turning towards the cushioned windowseat, she crossed her fingers within the shadows of her sleeve and waited for his temper to take flame.

  Her husband grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her round to face him. “Why, what ignoble attitude is this? You shame my name, wife.”

  Beneath her veil, she winced at his touch. “I will not go.”

  He turned abruptly on her mother’s messenger. “Wait outside!”

  Fingers, fierce as talons, fastened into the soft flesh of her upper arms. Fulk loomed over her. If ever Death the Great Leveller set aside his hooded travelling cloak and scythe to dress for dinner at a bishop’s table, she would wager he would have the appearance of her husband—tall, gaunt, hoary-headed and bereft of pleasure in humanity.

  “You shameful bitch!”

  Vixen, she hoped, might be nearer the truth.

  “Go? With this?” she hissed, setting back the gauzy tisshewe to show where he had hit her. “I curse my father that he married me to you! He may die alone and unshriven for aught I care.”

  Fulk, as always, was unmoved by guilt or shame. “Curse all you please, woman, but your father still has not paid the balance of your dowry and I will have it.” He thrust her away, and paced towards the brazier. Turning, he jabbed his forefinger towards her. “I say you shall go. You will reconcile yourself with your father and plead on your knees for what he owes me. Tell him you are with child.”

  “By you!” she scoffed, hating him with the loathing that Our Blessed Lady must have felt towards Judas on the morning of Christ’s passion.

  Hurling insults at Fulk’s age and childlessness were the only weapons in her arsenal save cunning. She voiced them seldom, fearing too much use would blunt them. But today the victory must be hers.

  With one stride, he grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. She trembled at the fury in those joyless eyes, afraid lest she had gone too far. If he beat her senseless, she would be too ill to travel.

  “I had a foul bargain in you, girl. How many beatings will it take to make you hold your peevish tongue?” He stroked his fingers down her throat and she froze, her gaze averted from the pale, lined flesh, the steel blue eyes. Take away my looks, she prayed. Make me loathsome so he will set me away out of his sight.

  “I thought your youth and vigour would swiftly nourish my seed, but you are disobedient, Johanna. You do not give yourself to me like a good wife should.” Not now, she prayed desperately. Not here, with my mother’s servant beyond the door.

  “I will not go!” she hissed. “So what will you do? Tie me to the litter?”

  “Escort you there myself and stand behind you to see you grovel on your hands and knees for your inheritance.”

  “You go and do the grovelling. I care not.”

  His thumb and finger collared her throat. “I think I will devise some new punishment for your waywardness. A public humiliation. A scold’s bridle perhaps.” He was bluffing. No knight would shame his lady in the common gaze although privily he might well humiliate her in front of the servants. “Or would you prefer the hair shirt and scourging once again?”

  For an instant longer, she showed him no fear.

  “I mean it, wife. Or perhaps you would like me to dismiss your beloved Agnes?”

  “You Hellspawn!” She hung her head, seemingly defeated.

  “Excellent, I see we understand each other at last.” He let her go and flung open the door.

  “Return to Lady Constance, fellow, and tell her my lady her daughter will set out at first light. Will you not, my heart?”

  Johanna sent him a sullen look and turned her back. As the door closed behind him leaving her alone, she at last dared to smile in triumph.

  Two

  GERAINT LEANED AGAINST an oak to catch his breath and listened, wondering how many bounty hunters there were. He tensed, ready to catch his stalker by the throat, but only the tap of an industrious woodpecker and the constant swearing of distant nesting rooks reached him. Perhaps his mind was playing him tricks. He could not leave Edmund for much longer. God forbid their enemies had already found him.

  He staggered on and at last stumbled onto a well-used bridle-path that climbed and twisted awhile before bringing him down to rough-hewn planks across a beck. Beyond, the track disappeared round the hillside. An ideal place to jump a man. Edgy, certain that he was pursued, Geraint half knelt, feigning to drink, and unsheathed his knife. Dead bracken rustled. He rolled aside as a cudgel came hurtling towards his skull and sprang up to face a thickset, black-maned lout grinning at him from behind a tangled beard. Relief flooded through Geraint. This was no bounty hunter from Boroughbridge for the scoundrel wore neither haubergeon nor a scrap of stolen armour. This was nothing more than a scurvy outlaw.

  “My purse is already cut,” he growled in English, covetously eyeing the black sheep pelt the brigand sported.

  “But your knife and boots would do me right well, stranger,” the rogue chortled, not in the
least deterred by his opponent’s larger frame.

  Geraint braced himself but the attack never came. Instead, the man cocked his head, listening, and sucked in his cheeks. The clomp of hooves came from along the path.

  “Better pickings coming!” the outlaw chuckled softly. “I will split the winnings with you. Pax?”

  The sudden reprieve astonished Geraint but before he could protest or run, the rogue concealed himself behind a tree.

  It was a crinkle-haired cleric leading an ass who rounded the corner. The aged churchman took a horrified look at Geraint and his knife. There was no time to warn him before the outlaw came at him across the planks. The little priest gave a roar of defiant outrage and jabbed the end of his quarterstaff into his attacker’s right eye. Then, twirling it with the skill of a Scots war veteran, he sent his assailant tumbling backwards into the water. Before Geraint could protest his innocence, the priest hurtled across the planks, thwacking the staff into his side and then wounded shoulder with the precision of a rotting cabbage hurled at a pillory. And the world went black.

  HIS HEAD STILL reeling, Geraint opened his eyes painfully at the huff of hot breath on his mouth to discover that a hound’s black nose was investigating him. He could still hear the ripple of the beck but there was now a soft murmur of voices and the fidgeting of horses’ hooves. Someone had propped him against a tree trunk, but his wrists were tightly tied and he became aware of three pairs of feet.

  “No sign of the other one,” someone said, and a fourth pair joined the others.

  Several people seemed to be assessing him like sworn jurors, but none of them he recognised save for the priest, and there was no sign of the outlaw. Had the priest been travelling ahead of the rest?

  Fortune had certainly played the whore with him; he was not used to gazing on the world from the dirt like some penitent villein. Even if these people knew naught of what had transpired at Boroughbridge and that he was an escaped rebel, they would assume he was an outlaw. He might as well have turned himself and Edmund in to the nearest sheriff.

  “He is wounded. I never did that.” The old churchman’s blue gaze studied him with interest.

  Geraint stared down at the darkening patch on his breast while a second man, a knight grey haired and grizzle bearded, knelt down before him, unbuckled his belt and lifted the thin tunic to inspect the damage. The man grimaced, his breath hissing.

  Their prisoner blinked at the scarlet, bloody mass that was part of him from collarbone to belly and moistened his parched lips. For a moment Geraint was shocked but reason assured him that the fresh blood spilling out more than covered the true extent of his wound.

  “It should make an interesting scar, do you not think?” he commented huskily in Norman French, trying out his most appealing grin, desperate to convince these people that he was no uncouth, rank-smelling ruffian but a wandering scholar. It would buy him time and mayhap he would escape the noose.

  The knight glanced up at the churchman in confusion, clearly not sure what kind of beast they had snared. “Aye, if it is attended to straightway,” he answered Geraint. “Have you more of these?”

  Their prisoner lifted his bound hands. An ugly gash descended for a span width below his elbow, half-hidden by the ill-fitting sleeve.

  “You reckon these might impress my grandsons if I live that long?” His bravado was returning.

  A bright blue skirt with a gris hem swished forwards. Geraint became aware that the knight’s lady was staring down at him—an older woman with the girth that came from childbearing and a laden table. He gave her but a cursory glance and looked past her to watch the knight’s face. Therein lay his fate.

  Judging from his appearance, Geraint’s captor was not overly wealthy. The man wore no gold and his woollen tunic had seen much wear albeit his sword scabbard and belt were of excellent craftsmanship. He would certainly seek payment if he guessed King Edward might reward him for a fugitive rebel. But thankfully his expression was concerned rather than suspicious.

  “Yolonya, have we anything that will staunch the bleeding?” the lady asked over her shoulder. There was a rending noise as someone’s underkirtle was generously ripped.

  An even larger woman, clad like a servant and with arms the size of mutton joints, crouched and thrust a wad of linen against his wound and ungently threaded another strip under his arm and bound it tightly.

  “Now, what are you doing on my land?” It was the lady who spoke.

  Geraint swore inwardly at his stupidity and reappraised her. Her eyes were too shrewd, damn it! He could tell she was weighing how she might profit from his capture. Her gaze took in the neat cut of his hair and evaluated the reasonably costly boots that he had refused to abandon, which were so at odds with the fraying tunic that strained across his broad chest. She pointedly studied the finely wrought horn handle of his knife that the priest was holding before looking back down at him for an answer. Oh yes, too shrewd by half.

  “It saddens me to say it, young man, but I really do think you should abandon your aspiration to play Robin Hood. Save it for May Day, hmm? The recklessness is there but . . .” She gestured apologetically, as if she was sparing him a more cutting comment.

  “—But I am inept,” he finished for her. “Yes, it would appear so.” He was conscious of his stubble, that his fair hair was tousled and in need of a sousing. Clean and well clad with sweet breath and good teeth, he could usually net a woman’s heart with his smile. He tried now. “I am a poor scholar of Oxford, my lady, and I pray you for charity to give me a few pennies and some food and I will be away from here as fast as I may.”

  “And your injuries? Never tell me the masters of Oxford hurl words at you with such leaden ferocity.” Although he liked the amusement in her voice, he did not dare share a morsel of the bitter truth with anyone.

  Smiling painfully, he shook his head. “True, madam, but I was set upon as I was about to drink by the rogue who attacked yon priest. You were impressive, Father. Is the outlaw also trussed so deftly?” They did not answer him nor produce the wretch. Geraint moistened his lips nervously. That was unfortunate; the fellow could have been forced to corroborate his story.

  The lady exchanged glances with the others. It seemed as if the jury was still considering, but she did not have the patience to await a consensus.

  “Oh, free him, Sir Geoffrey.” She folded her arms and regarded Geraint sternly, as the knight—evidently not her husband since he had made no contribution to the decision—loosened his bonds and helped him to his feet. He must have tottered precariously. Not only did his head swim viciously and his wounds throb but now his other side also ached damnably where the priest had whacked him.

  “Please, I beg you, have you any food?”

  Mercifully, she nodded to the churchman. After much fumbling in the pannier strapped behind the ass’s saddle, the priest drew out a pot. Was that all the man could manage? No bread and cheese?

  The lady caught Geraint eyeing it ravenously and set a hand upon the priest’s arm, delaying him from unsealing it. “Who was it set upon you?” she demanded, taking the pot delicately between her gloved fingertips as if she was about to bestow a jousting trophy.

  “Good dame, for the love of God.” Geraint held out his hand for the nourishment but she withheld it. “Should I have asked his name, madam, before he hit at me?” Her mouth tightened angrily at his sarcasm and he cursed his temper. “I beg your pardon. I should not have spoken so.”

  Hugging the vessel possessively against her bosom, the lady tyrant circled him, inspecting him as if he was a villein up for hire. “What are you called?”

  “Ger . . .” By Jesu, he needed a name. It was necessary but difficult to think fast, given his addled state, but he was used to dissembling. He chose one he was at home with. “Gervase de. . . Laval.” God willing she had never crossed the sea.

  Satisfied, she handed him the stone jar. Lifting out the stopper, he jabbed his fingers in. Honey. Better than nothing. He hungrily scoope
d out some of the sticky mass, swiftly licking it off his fingers before it wasted on the ground. The dog plonked itself in front of him, wagging its tail hopefully. The lady, anticipating his other need, gestured to the leather bottle on the knight’s belt and Sir Geoffrey handed it reluctantly to him.

  “Thank you, sir. God and all his angels bless you, my lady.” He raised it to her before he drank. The ale ran down his dry throat, pleasing him better than the finest of wines. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stopped the pot. “I beg of you may I keep these?” he asked gravely, too proud to lace his voice with pleading.

  They were watching him with an excess of curiosity, and he cursed inwardly. It was tempting to ask their help for Edmund, but far too dangerous. He needed to be quit of them. Going down shakily on one knee, he carried the lady’s hem to his lips. “I am a poor scholar, my lady, and I thank you for your act of charity. God be with you.” He rose and turned to go before he remembered they had disarmed him. “Would it please you to give me my knife?” he asked humbly.

  That too was handed him and he touched his forehead to the lady, bestowed a wry mutter of thanks on the rest and hobbled off in what he hoped was the wrong direction.

  It took a cursed while to find Edmund for he picked a circuitous path lest the outlaw should follow him, but no panicked bird or snap of twig betrayed unwelcome company.

  “Edmund, Edmund! Can you hear me?”

  He felt for a pulse at the side of the youth’s neck. It was faint beneath his fingers but still there, thank Christ. His beloved cloak, soft leather, waxed against the weather, had kept the drizzle off the young knight from neck to calves, and he was right glad that he had made the sacrifice. Gently he loosened its folds, praying that the bleeding had stopped.

  “Is he still alive?”

  Geraint spun round, drawing his knife with an oath, but it was the priest who had come up behind him, his tread soft as cats’ paws.