Gwendolyn's Sword Read online

  “You know well what my opinion of Walter is,” Gwendolyn said quietly.

  “Robert is dead and Penhallam is ours,” Roslyn said with such force that both of her knights stirred to attention. “If you will not go voluntarily, on his return from London, Walter will come with his men, and they will carry you out of here with only the clothes on your back.”

  Gwendolyn’s eyes bored into Roslyn, and for a moment the older woman looked to her knights uneasily, in case she might have need of their defense. “Roslyn, do you not realize that we are on the verge of war here in Cornwall? Only yesterday—” she began, then abruptly stopped when William subtly shook his head at her.

  “Only yesterday what?” Roslyn demanded.

  Gwendolyn shifted her gaze to the narrow window, thought of something plausible, then continued. “Only yesterday, I was wondering who would be foolish enough to go against Eleanor and the regents and side instead with a man who has failed in every single battle or siege that he has ever undertaken.”

  Roslyn shifted forward in her seat, looking confident again. The reference to Prince John’s treachery had been plain, and her sister-in-law excelled in veiled innuendo.

  “Yes, what fools indeed,” Roslyn answered calmly, recovered from her outburst. “Gwendolyn, I will not tolerate your selfishness any longer. I will apply to the Chancery to have Robert de Cardinham’s death formally recognized. You have been warned.”

  With these last words, Roslyn rose from the table and gestured to her men that they were leaving. Her sweeping stride across the hall would have been more impressive if not for the lumbering figures that trailed behind her. Gwendolyn watched through the window slit as Simon, Penhallam’s groom, led the party’s horses out to meet them at the bridge and then assisted Roslyn into the sideways-facing saddle atop her elegant palfrey.

  Walter de Cardinham was older than Gwendolyn by ten years, and his favorite sport during her childhood at Restormel had been to torment her. One particularly bad afternoon he had locked her in a chest and loaded the chest onto a cart, threatening to kill her if she cried out. She was only nine years old, and so skinny that the nineteen-year-old Walter could lift her over his head with one hand. Whistling cheerfully, he had driven the cart deep into the woods and unloaded the box far from the road, sitting beside it while she cried and pleaded with him to let her out. After she had finally fallen asleep from exhaustion Walter returned alone to the castle. She was found by poachers a day later, terrified, soiled, and dying of thirst. Fortunately they guessed by her fine dress that they might earn a reward for her safe return. Instead, when the poachers showed up with her at Restormel, Walter accused them of kidnapping his dear young sister in a plot for money. The baron tried and hung the men that day. Gwendolyn had pleaded with the baron for the men’s lives but he dismissed her; she had realized that day that he would never take her word over his own son’s.

  From that day forward, everyone in the baron’s household was charged with keeping a close watch over Gwendolyn. Walter’s attacks were reduced to verbal reminders that she was not in fact the baron’s daughter, that she had no noble blood. Her real father had been a landless knight, he had told her—a Welsh savage who had died before his time. Walter promised her that her own life would come to a similar end.

  There was a time when Restormel’s wealth had dwarfed the modest income of Penhallam, but that time had passed. Walter had taken over the largest of the baron’s estates at an early age when the baron’s health began to decline. Walter had seized as much in payment and fines from his villeins and tenants as he and his men-at-arms could extract. Despite his son’s reputation for brutality, the baron had arranged a favorable match for Walter, and things had settled down after the marriage, but only for as long as it had taken Walter to use up Roslyn’s dowry. Gwendolyn had been eleven years old when Walter married, and he and Roslyn spent most of their time away from Bodardel, travelling extravagantly and following King Henry’s court around England and across the sea to Rouen, Poitou, Le Mans, and Chinon. After eight years of Walter’s mismanagement and tyranny, those who were free to leave Restormel had done so and had taken their livelihoods—and payments to Walter—with them. Since Robert’s departure, Gwendolyn had begun to harbor a reasonable fear that her kinsman might one day decide to take Penhallam for himself. Now it appeared Roslyn would take care of the matter on her own.

  William approached Gwendolyn and laid his hand on her arm.

  “My lady, we captured the two mercenaries last night. But things were not as they appeared. Gerald is guarding one of them now, in the stables.”

  Gwendolyn rubbed her temples and took a deep breath, trying to shake off the unpleasantness that always hung in the air after Roslyn’s departure.

  “What of the other?”

  “The one who you said would not fight was no mercenary. That was a woman.”

  Gwendolyn stared at William while this news sunk in. “A woman? Why was she travelling with those men?”

  “The one you killed was her uncle. She had only met him a week before when her mother died. She had been working on the cathedral in Exeter as a mason, dressed as a man.”

  Gwendolyn smiled slightly. “It’s not just me.”

  “Her uncle was taking her to St. Michael’s Mount to work on the defensive fortifications there, or so that’s what he told her. Her father has never claimed her, and she would have been the only woman on an island of mercenaries.”

  “He was bringing her for their use,” Gwendolyn said, staring flatly at the stone wall in front of her. “Where is she now?”

  “Martha has offered her a place with her family, but she refused. She slept in the stables. This morning she walked into the forest to retrieve her tools. She has spent the day helping Simon.”

  Gwendolyn nodded. “And the man?”

  “He says he’s from London, that he was sold to the man you killed to settle a debt. From the looks of him, he’s been fighting most of his life.”

  “Does he know if more men are coming?”

  “Very likely, but that’s not all,” William replied, shifting beside her and taking a slow, thoughtful breath. “Walter is not in London, as Roslyn has said. He left his man there to conclude negotiations with the merchants while he traveled to France to join Prince John at the French court. John is hiding there to spin his plots with the help of King Phillip. When Walter returned, he gathered men from London, supporters of John, and marched on Glastonbury Abbey. This man and the two you killed were with him, but Walter has not been seen since Glastonbury.”

  Gwendolyn looked at William with wide eyes.

  “If Walter is discovered, if he openly professes his allegiance to John’s rebellion, the king’s regents could declare Walter a traitor to the crown.” She stared at William with disbelief. “They could strip him of his lands and his title. Roslyn would lose everything.”

  William nodded. “From what we just saw, I don’t think Roslyn has any idea of the peril she’s in. Walter and Roslyn are hardly seen in the same room anymore, and Roslyn’s family has ties to Eleanor reaching back to her time as the queen consort of France. Roslyn would not have gone along willingly with a plan to pit Eleanor’s sons against each other.”

  “Walter may be on his way back to Cornwall. We have no proof of his treachery other than the word of a captured mercenary, and I’m not convinced of it myself.” She paused to try to put herself into her sister-in-law’s frame of mind, to try to guess how someone whose first thought was always self-preservation would react to the news of her husband’s terrible gamble. “If any of this is true and Roslyn finds out, she may decide to make good on her threats and seat herself at Penhallam as a means to distance herself from Walter while she can. I’ll ride to Exeter and seek an audience with the bishop to stop this nonsense now. Roslyn cannot simply run me out of Penhallam just because Robert is delayed in Germany with the king.”

  William shook his head at her.

  “Gwendolyn, there is no bishop in Exeter. U
ntil the pope has recognized Hubert Walter as Archbishop of Canterbury, the see of Exeter will remain vacant. There is no other authority here for you to appeal to. Penhallam must stand by itself.”

  “As it always has,” she said quietly.

  Gwendolyn absently bit on a nail, a habit left over from childhood, as she ran through all of the information she had received. She paused with another question.

  “Why would Walter attack Glastonbury Abbey? It makes no sense.”

  William looked at her for a long while.

  “He was looking for something.”

  “That is what the man in the stables told you?”

  “Walter ordered the men to bar the passage while he went down into the abbey’s crypt alone. He returned empty-handed and in a rage.”

  Gwendolyn wondered how much persuasion William and Gerald had applied to extract the information. “Well, we can’t keep that man here. The nearest gaol is at Launceston. Gerald and Simon can leave with the prisoner tomorrow.”

  “We must leave now,” William said, looking her in the eye. “You and I must travel to Launceston as well, to St. Stephen’s Priory.”

  Gwendolyn frowned at him. “Gerald and Simon can manage this errand without us. I am needed here, William. Harvest is coming, mercenaries are crossing through our woods, and now Roslyn’s threatening to have me removed. You may accompany Gerald and Simon, if you wish, provided you return immediately.”

  “No, my lady, you misunderstand me.” William squared his shoulders and faced her. “This is about you. The prior at St. Stephen’s knew your father. It’s time for you to learn who you are.”

  Gwendolyn eyed William closely, Walter’s childhood insults to her obscure ancestry still living in her memory. “I assure you, I know very well who I am.”

  “No, you don’t. Trust me that you need to hear this.”

  She tried to read his expression but found nothing there except his usual unflappable demeanor. “Can’t you tell me whatever this startling piece of news is yourself?”

  “You’ll have questions that I can’t answer.” His expression was fixed, his jaw set. She had not forgotten her contrition yesterday at her failure to heed his warnings. She sighed and agreed to go with him.

  “And wear your armor,” he called to her over his shoulder as he headed out of the hall. “You may have need of it.”

  When Gwendolyn met William in front of the manor house, she had donned her mail hauberk and a surcoat bearing the de Cardinham family colors. She stepped into the stables to retrieve her horse and found the woman they had brought back the night before, shoveling manure out of the empty stalls while the horses were turned out to pasture. The woman paused from her work long enough to answer Gwendolyn’s questions whether she had eaten and did she have any injuries with her eyes cast to the ground throughout. It was an uncomfortable conversation for both of them, and Gwendolyn ended it, telling the woman she would return the following morning and to remain as Penhallam’s guest until then. Her name, Gwendolyn discovered at last, was Isabel.

  Back outside, Gwendolyn reached a foot into the stirrup, gripped the saddle, and hoisted herself up onto Bedwyr, a dappled Barb with keen ears and stamina to outlast any English courser. Robert had presented the mare to her, along with her armor, as his parting gift. Gwendolyn wore her sword belt, the same as those presented to knights, wrapped around the surcoat, and her sword hung down along her left leg, plainly visible this time.

  Tom and Osbert had followed her out of the manor house, and William called out orders to Tom to keep men posted to watch the woods for any more of Henry de la Pomerai’s men. Gerald tested the ropes that bound the ankles and wrists of the prisoner sitting in the back of the cart, while Osbert handed up a bag of rolls and sausages to Gwendolyn. She passed their provisions to William and tied a small purse of coins to her belt. The priory was only a few hours’ ride away; they would be back in a day.

  She looked down at the bound man in the cart and winced at his purple, misshapen hand. He stared ahead, stone-faced. His dark hair was shaved close to the skull, and the pale lines of scars crisscrossing the stubble described a lifetime of battle and violence.

  “Why were you travelling so far north, away from the main roads?” she asked.

  “Well, now, that’s a question that answers itself, isn’t it,” the man said, still staring straight ahead. Gwendolyn reflected for a moment before she understood the man’s meaning.

  “To avoid discovery.”

  “That was the idea.”

  “This far north, pilgrims are rare. There’s little lodging, few manors to provide food and protection.”

  The man shrugged, looked at his hands in his lap. “I’ll keep that in mind next time.” The middle finger of the injured hand was bent to the side at an irregular angle. The man raised his bound wrists toward his face and clenched the wayward finger firmly in his teeth. He gave a sudden, hard yank with his arm and his eyes opened wide with pain as the finger’s broken bones audibly shifted back into place.

  Gwendolyn found she could not help but be impressed by the man. What turns of fortune’s wheel could leave such a man on the side of a fool like Prince John? she wondered to herself.

  She found herself hesitating, unsure how to explain the decision that had just unexpectedly formed in her mind. “I don’t know for certain that you would have killed us, as your companions would have. This will be my witness to the castellan at Launceston. I cannot support your execution.”

  William looked up at her sharply, and she avoided his eyes while the man turned his head to regard her with a cynical sneer.

  “That’s all very well, madam, but last I checked, unless you’re a lord with pockets full of money, they hang rebels against the king. Your mercy on your own account, however, is touching, and for that I thank you.”

  “You never made it to Saint Michael’s Mount. Your rebellious intentions were never proven in action.”

  The man laughed loudly and shifted to face her. “Are you my lawyer now, my lady? Because I surely cannot afford you!”

  “If you survive, you will be in my debt, then. Tell me your name,” she said, pulling back on Bedwyr’s reins as the mare pranced restlessly beneath her.

  “Nigel Fitz Richard, my lady. And I never forget a debt,” he added, looking directly at William.

  “I look forward to it,” William answered with a smile, then turned to Gwendolyn. “My lady, we are prepared to leave.”

  They headed south on the road to the monastery at a gentle amble, riding one behind the other, William leading the group with Gwendolyn riding directly behind him. The dray cart moved slowly behind them, pulled by an old plough horse. Simon drove the cart while Gerald, wearing full mail and the colors of the de Cardinham family on his surcoat, sat in the back with the mercenary. Gerald kept his sword lying at the ready across his knees and stared at the mercenary with a baleful look, but every now and then Gwendolyn thought she saw a flicker of esteem in the young knight’s eyes.

  The summer evening seemed to come more quickly than the previous night, and the party crested a hill as the sun disappeared below the horizon. Spread out before them, a cluster of glowing dots marked the town of Launceston, with Launceston Castle, its tower keep outlined by blazing torches, rising on a high hill across the river beyond it. William pulled his warhorse to a stop, and Gwendolyn paused beside him on her mare while they waited for the cart to join them.

  “The priory lies in a clearing within those woods,” he said, pointing to the dim glow of candlelit walls in the middle of the patch of darkness between themselves and Launceston town. “It’s under the control of the Abbey of St. Augustine, in Bristol. We will be safe here. No man may break Pax Dei and bring violence to this place.”

  “Forgiveness from sin can be bought,” Gwendolyn replied dryly. Without waiting for William she leaned forward in her saddle and gave Bedwyr the rein, swinging the mare’s hindquarters around and galloping down the slope for the woods. William reacted immediate
ly, shouting to Simon behind him to continue to Launceston, and took off after her. But Gwendolyn had gained a large lead already and William’s horse was tired. He cursed and leaned forward, determined not to lose sight of her.

  The path through the woods grew narrow and twisted, and Gwendolyn drank in the cool night air that rushed over her cheeks and drew tears from her eyes. A day ago men had threatened her life and the lives of her maids, and she had killed them for it. Recklessness felt good. She strained to keep her blurred vision on the path, still visible in the twilight. Bedwyr was sure-footed enough to steer out of the way of anything or anyone that suddenly appeared in front of them as they swept around blind curves. A pale glow of moonlight through the branches ahead signaled that they approached a clearing, and Gwendolyn bent her head close to the mare’s straining neck. Responding to her rider, Bedwyr extended her stride and flattened herself closer to the ground. Horse and rider burst from the cover of the trees into a meadow, scattering a small herd of sheep and sending a flurry of birds out of the nearby branches where they had roosted for the night.

  Gwendolyn pulled back on the reins and brought Bedwyr to an agitated stop. The priory stood in the middle of the meadow, next to a stream that seemed to neatly divide the meadow into halves. She could just make out the circular edge of the top of a large wooden wheel that was visible over the top of the monastery wall and realized the monastery had its own mill. Self-sufficiency was critical for all priories, which were customarily dependent on the thin generosity of the families who sent their second- and third-born sons there. The walls that encircled the monastery were smooth along the top edge, showing no battlements. Pax Dei had been the rule for over a hundred years; the church lands that had grown under its protection were built without war defenses. Feeling her shoulders relax, Gwendolyn allowed Bedwyr to walk again, cooling the mare down. William caught up to her before she was halfway across the meadow to the priory.