Gwendolyn's Sword Page 20

  “Don’t worry on my account,” William said. “Today wasn’t my day.”

  The archbishop looked at him sideways with a furrowed brow. “Our times are in God’s hands, William. Only He knows the day and hour of our death.”

  William stared straight ahead, his face inscrutable.

  “You are a more learned man than I, Your Excellency.”

  William suspected that Walter de Coutances was aware that he was being humored, and that William held onto the old ways of Cornwall and the legends of Arthur and the prophecies.

  “William,” he said sharply, “I am here on the dowager queen’s order, but I am a man of God first. If you believe the prophecies about Arthur and Caliburn that the Welsh and their Druid friends have been carrying all these many years—”

  At the mention of the Druids William suddenly pulled his warhorse to a halt and faced the archbishop.

  “Yes, I grew up in Cornwall, remember?” De Coutances continued, his features suddenly sharp like a hawk’s. “There was a spring on our estate, an ancient place of witchcraft still visited by the Druids. I have met them. And whatever good intentions they may carry in their hearts, the things that they believe are heresies, and their sin makes them easy tools for the Devil’s use. I have sworn to keep Gwendolyn safe while the queen has need of her, but that’s as far as my duties reach. I cannot protect you or her from charges of sorcery or witchcraft, if it comes to that.”

  William looked closely at the archbishop, his expression sober.

  “I understand,” he said, and urged his warhorse forward again. Neither man shared another word with the other for the rest of the return to Arundel.

  Gwendolyn was not at the castle when the hunting party returned. After she left Matilda, she had walked the walls of Arundel, marveling at the towers that guarded the grounds and provided a commanding view over the Arun River valley to the east and south. The king’s apartments at the eastern end of the lower bailey would enjoy a beautiful view out over the valley at sunrise, while also allowing the king to keep his own watch down the river toward the sea—the route of entry for any invading army.

  From the battlements over the king’s apartments she scanned the town below. No protective wall encircled the buildings or fields, which explained the large numbers of families that had moved themselves, their belongings, and their livestock up into the castle’s lower bailey during the threat of siege. Across the river from the town, a wide, elevated causeway had been built to carry travelers safely eastward across the marshes. Flat boats full of supplies and various goods—textiles, ore, lumber, grain, and animals, moved up and down the river, and a small ferry carried passengers back and forth between the banks. Merchant stalls, some no more than makeshift tents open to the weather, stood along the main road through town. Beyond those, a few buildings—the houses of lords, taverns, and the parish church—occupied the slightly higher ground at the foot of the rise upon which the castle grounds stood. Only the church and a few other buildings were built of stone; the rest were built of timber and plaster, their walls gleaming and pale. The lanes between the buildings lay crooked and winding, mimicking the bend of the river that justified the town’s existence.

  She found Nigel with the garrison’s captain in the room above the gatehouse, acquainting himself with the castle’s extensive armory. All around her laid the evidence of the preparations for siege and the threat of war from Prince John, and yet her step was light. Her time with Matilda had lifter her cares from her shoulders, reminding her that even while kings rose and fell, life would go on. A few men from the Tower guard passed through and acknowledged her as one of their own with a joke and a slap on the shoulder, causing the captain of Arundel’s guard to raise an eyebrow. None of the other men batted an eye as Gwendolyn lifted and held a sword, admiring its craftsmanship and moving it slowly through the air to test its balance in her grip. The man finally smiled faintly, shrugged his shoulders, and returned his full attention to the conversation he was having with Nigel.

  After a while, Gwendolyn tapped Nigel on the shoulder and told him she was heading into town. None of the exhausted Tower guard would be training that day, and she was feeling restless. He hardly looked up as he grunted at her, “Take your sword.”

  “Always,” she answered, and she swept back up the battlements to her room in the keep to don her cloak and sword belt. As an afterthought she tied her purse of coins to her waist and then headed back down the battlements to the lower bailey and out the gatehouse toward town.

  She wandered down the main street, which ran straight through town to the ferry landing. As she had hoped, the stalls she had seen from the castle walls sold not only the expected trinkets and shiny baubles, but also freshly baked treats of a tantalizing variety. She followed her nose to one of the awnings, taking the jostling crowd of men and women below it as a good sign.

  Two women stood behind a table under the awning, one with muscular arms and shoulders pounding and kneading a large mound of dough while the other tended the fire of the makeshift oven they had built with a stack of stones and mud. Gwendolyn noticed a long strip of cloth tied around one of the table legs; the other end of the strip securely held onto a baby that crawled beneath the table, playing with a small bundle of wool and sticks. The baby turned and played with one of the women’s toes while Gwendolyn watched, and giggled with delight when she wiggled them back at him. Gwendolyn could see from the stacked sacks next to the oven that they used ground almonds and dried apricots in the dough. When her turn came, Gwendolyn stepped forward and bought a roll for herself, flaky and rich with butter, and a few more to carry back for the women with babes in the hall. She realized she had nothing to carry the rolls in, and she folded her cloak up into her arms to wrap the bundle snugly. She handed the woman a little more than she had asked for, but not so much as to insult, and turned to head back to the castle.

  With her arms full of her awkward load, she scanned the town and decided she would come back the next day for more exploring. But as she skimmed her gaze over the tops of the heads around her, she caught sight of Edmund d’Aubigni moving quickly away from her through the lanes. He was alone and walking with a little difficulty, as if he were carrying a load on one side. She craned her head around and struggled not to lose sight of him. No one greeted Edmund as he moved; in fact, they seemed to grimly clear to the side before him, their eyes cast down. Edmund had reached one of the stone buildings, and he stepped swiftly up an alley and then turned left into a narrow passage that ran between two houses. She kept her eyes focused on the place where he had disappeared and reached it as quickly as she could, but he was already gone again. She dashed down the narrow passage, dropping the rolls as she ran. When she emerged again she swept her gaze left and right and caught a glimpse of Edmund slipping into the low doorway of a tavern. She turned and made her way around the people and carts that blocked her and darted down the alley, breathless when she finally ducked into the doorway after him.

  Men and women in various states of undress and drunkenness sat about the tavern’s tables and in the straw on the floor. Off to one side along the wall, linen screens were hung to create some semblance of privacy for those seeking the women’s services, but one of the couples apparently preferred the convenience of the wall. Edmund stood across the tavern with his back turned to her, enjoying the laughter of the onlookers as he held a boy aloft, pinned with one hand against the wall in front of him, dangling by his shirt. The boy was maybe half Edmund’s age. The earl’s son held his dagger at the boy’s crotch, and the boy gasped pitifully for air in choked sobs, paralyzed with fear. A dark stain suddenly emerged down his pant leg, and Gwendolyn breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that the pants were only wet with urine and not blood.

  “What do you think you’re doing with my page?” Gwendolyn demanded in a loud, level voice.

  The laughter subsided and Edmund twisted his head around from his sport to see who dared to challenge him. When he saw Gwendolyn his grin s
tretched broader and he flashed his teeth at her, his lips curled like a wolf sizing up its next meal. Edmund carelessly dropped the boy to the ground like a plaything that he had grown bored with, and the boy quickly dashed out the door.

  “There goes your page,” Edmund jeered with laughter. “That dog’s good for nothing but a good beating now and then.”

  “You’re disgusting,” she said, barely audible over the laughter that resumed around her. She swept her gaze around the room again and recognized some of the men from Arundel’s garrison. As her eyes registered their faces they cast sideways glances at each other.

  “You shouldn’t talk to me like that.” Edmund advanced toward her, the knife still in his hand. No one in the room moved to restrain him. Gwendolyn drew her sword smoothly and held it in front of her, waiting, her eyes intent on Edmund. She ignored the shuffles and scrapes around her as the men in the room suddenly took notice that a blade had been drawn among them. The men of the garrison drew their weapons and Edmund held them off with a gesture of his hand in a show of chivalry, but Gwendolyn was not fooled. She fully expected Edmund would not hesitate to order his men to cut her to ribbons if he felt he could do it without making himself look like a coward. She watched his hand flicker indecisively near the hilt of his weapon, which hung from his waist in an elaborately carved scabbard.

  “You’ve never actually used that thing, have you?” she asked, flicking the tip of her sword toward his, but immediately the bawdy room took her gesture to be indicating the young man’s manhood, which hung in the same approximate area as his weapon, and new laughter erupted. Edmund’s face flushed scarlet, and his brow dropped into a dark ledge under the shadow of his hair.

  “Shut up!” he yelled to the room, but the laughter only increased.

  “You bring this humiliation upon yourself,” she said just loudly enough for Edmund to hear. She turned on her heel and swept back out of the tavern, leaving the d’Aubigni’s youngest son seething behind her.

  Out in the lane, she looked around for the boy Edmund had terrorized. She knew the child would be hiding, and she began to look for the places she would have sought out herself when she was younger. A cart leaned against the wall a couple of buildings down and she slowly walked toward it, looking beneath its wheels, but there was nothing there. She straightened up, searched the lanes again with her gaze, and spotted a stand of tall oaken barrels at the end of an alley.

  As she approached the barrels, she heard a child sobbing. She leaned over the barrels, saw the tawny shock of hair in the shadows beneath her. The boy gasped for air as he sobbed, and his shoulders shook beneath a threadbare shirt. She hoisted herself up to sit on top of one of the barrels with her back toward him, staring across cultivated fields to the river.

  “You’re safe now,” she said.

  She could tell as the boy struggled to gulp down his sobs that he had heard her. She felt the urge to put her hand on top of his head or his shoulder, but she did not know what she would do after that. She had never been the one to comfort a child before. His breath shuddered inside him as he worked to cease his crying, and it sounded as if he might be able to speak.

  “Where are your parents?”

  The boy cleared his throat and answered her.

  “Dead.”

  Gwendolyn sighed. Of course, she thought; Edmund would have chosen a victim with no defenders who might come back later to settle the score. The boy looked up at her. His features were swollen and blurred with tears, but he recognized her as the woman who had challenged Edmund, and a glimmer of relief flashed in his eyes. She remembered herself from so many years ago in that glimmer. The parish church rang the hour of Sext, midday, and Gwendolyn’s stomach grumbled.

  “Can you walk?”

  “No, mum,” he hesitated, then mumbled with shame, “my pants.”

  She remembered that he had wet himself in the tavern.

  “You know,” she said matter of factly, “there’s something that the men in armor, with their swords of steel, never talk about. But they all know about it.”

  She paused while he looked up at her, his miserable expression registering a little curiosity.

  “Often times, when they’re facing down their enemy in battle, or even just before a charge, they do exactly what you just did. There’s no shame in it. There’s nothing they can do about it. It just happens. And sometimes,” she added, leaning in closer to whisper and raising an eyebrow for effect, “they even shit themselves.”

  The distraction worked, and for a moment the boy’s shock helped him to forget his own predicament. His jaw hung slightly open, and she nodded at him.

  “It’s true. I’ve seen it myself.”

  The boy stood up, but she shook her head.

  “Stay hidden; I need to go get something.” she said. “Promise to wait for me?”

  The boy looked at her and nodded.

  “I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  She hopped down and ran back to the stall where she had bought the rolls. She paid for a few more, and then held up five more coins in her hand to the woman behind the little table.

  “I’d like to buy your apron,” she said.

  The woman paused her work and looked at Gwendolyn with confusion. “But that’s more than ten times its worth. And I need my apron, mum.”

  “So do I. Please, take it.”

  The woman eyed her a little uncertainly, but she took the coins from Gwendolyn’s palm, put them into the pocket of her full skirt, and untied the apron from around her waist, shaking her head. Gwendolyn thanked the woman, took her purchases, and hurried back toward the barrels, saying a prayer that the boy would still be there when she returned.

  The boy looked up from his hiding spot when he heard her footsteps, and the relief in his eyes this time was plain. She held up a roll and the apron.

  “I thought you could use these.”

  Scanning all around him again, the boy stood up. Fumbling with the strings, he tied the apron around his waist and then looked down to see that the cloth hid his front past his knees. Satisfied, he let her help him out from his hiding place, over the barrels and onto the ground in front of her. He was sturdily built, standing as high as her chest, but he could not have weighed more than her cloak. His eyes were brown with a golden hue even under the gray sky. She looked over the light threads he wore and wondered how he kept from shivering against the damp cold.

  She handed him one of the rolls, and he took it a little tentatively, but then a third of the roll disappeared in a single bite. His body relaxed as he chewed.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled sheepishly around the mouthful.

  “What is your name?”

  “Michael,” he answered, taking a smaller bite.

  She watched him eat, mulling over her options. Surely the boy could be put to better purpose than suffering for Edmund’s ill-begotten amusement.

  “Michael, I would guess you to be about ten years old,” she said, taking his measure with a quick glance. “I arrived yesterday at Arundel, and I am a long way from my home. I have no need of chambermaids; what I need is someone to tend my weapons and armor while I remain here for the next few weeks. I need a page. Do you think you would be interested in this work?” Michael’s eyes grew large and he noticed the sword that hung in its scabbard at her hip.

  He quickly recovered his voice. “Oh, yes, mum. I would be the best page ever!”

  “All right then, follow me. We’re going to the castle.”

  “Up there? That’s where he lives.”

  She saw the fear return to his eyes, his body tensing again. Looking up from this vantage point, she had to admit that the castle walls seemed more threatening than protective. “Yes, well, so do I. For now. He won’t be able to hurt you there. I’ll make sure of it.”

  Michael looked up into her eyes and held her gaze for a moment, then made his decision and began walking toward the main road, not looking back as she turned to join him.

  After they had climb
ed out of the town and taken the road that would lead them to the gatehouse, she was aware of Michael stealing a few sideways glances at her.

  “I’m taking you to a man, a mercenary raised by mercenaries, who will be in charge of your instruction. His name is Nigel Fitz Richard, and you must do whatever he asks of you.”

  “Yes, mum,” Michael replied solemnly. “What should I call you?”

  “Lady Gwendolyn will do for now,” she replied.

  13

  THE SECRET REVEALED

  Gwendolyn looked up in time to see the hunting party winding on the road from the west up toward the gatehouse, still far ahead of her. Except for the earl, de Coutances, and William, the men all walked on foot. Two riderless horses walked side by side, held on tight leads by the men who walked beside them. The hunt had been successful, she realized, but she was too far away yet to make out what sort of quarry had been killed. She quickened her step, and Michael jogged beside her to keep up.

  By the time they arrived, there was a commotion in the yard in front of them that had nothing to do with the slain boar. The massive beast already hung by its hind legs on a rack and had been set upon by men with knives to be gutted and prepared for roasting. A small crowd had gathered round the earl, and Edmund’s voice, dramatic with concern and protest, could be heard above the others. He must have come straight back to the castle, she realized. And the only reason he would have been in such a hurry to get back would have been to make sure his father heard his own version of the events from town first. Just like Walter de Cardinham, she thought, and spat onto the ground to clear the foul taste of her memories.

  “You! Take his spear! Bring my father some water!” She could see the earl waving his son away half-heartedly.

  “I’m fine, Edmund, I’m fine. William took the worst of it. He saved my life.”

  Edmund’s lips pursed together and he cast a suspicious glance at William.

  “Did he? Thank you, then,” he said tersely, and William nodded without looking at the petulant son, easing himself stiffly from his horse. While Edmund remained distracted with his fawning over his father, Gwendolyn paused and turned to Michael.