Elizabeth Chadwick (20 page)

Fulke laughed mirthlessly. “I can scarcely walk, can I?” He looked over his shoulder. Desultory arrows still hissed at them, falling far short. All the doors in the village remained firmly closed, the ruffled hens and geese the only signs of occupation. No one was going to challenge them. “One more moment and we would have had FitzRoger.” Fulke ground his fist against his saddle.

“We could always surround the keep,” William speculated. “He lost several men back there, and he’s obviously on the defensive now.”

Fulke shook his head. “If we sat down to a siege, it would be our last deed on this earth. Someone in the village will go running for aid and I have no desire to be trapped if reinforcements arrive from Shrewsbury.” He looked at William to see if his point was hitting home. “To succeed we have to be swift. We have to practice chevauchée and make ourselves such a nuisance to John that he will be desperate for peace on our terms.”

William scowled, obviously seeing the sense in Fulke’s words but reluctant to give in.

There will be other opportunities,” Fulke said through a fire of pain. “We have given notice of our intention. Let FitzRoger stew in fear for now.”

Maude enjoyed riding, especially when she could be astride a horse of her own rather than having to sit pillion behind a groom. She liked controlling the reins and feeling the palfrey respond to her command. To protect her skin from the midday sun, she wore a broad-brimmed pilgrim hat over her light wimple. This was the third day of her journey from Theobald’s abbey at Cockersand near Lancaster to Higford. The weather had grown progressively stickier as they moved inland, away from the cooling sea breeze of the coast and down through Cheshire.

She had stayed with her father at Edlington for the briefest time that duty permitted. As usual he had been patronizing and brusque, his main concern being for her position on fortune’s wheel. “I made you a good marriage,” he had said, fists gripped around his belt. “You are kin to Hubert Walter, perhaps the most powerful man in the land. Why is it that your husband has no more now than he had on your wedding day—less in fact, since King John has removed many of his privileges?” He spoke as if it was her fault. Perhaps in a way it was. Doubtless if she had lain with John like so many baronial wives and daughters, the King’s favor would have been easy to obtain.

Maude shuddered at the notion and the palfrey responded with a flicker of her ears and a sideways prance. She had told her father that Theobald would not curry favor at the price of his honor. Robert le Vavasour had snorted and said that his son-in-law’s honor was an expensive luxury that would eventually ruin him. At the end of a week, she had left Edlington without looking back.

It was common knowledge that a man’s seed was stronger than a woman’s, that what he planted in the womb was mainly of his essence. God help her, it couldn’t be true. She didn’t want to be made in the image of Robert le Vavasour: greedy, so obsessed with status and power that he was like a man with his face pressed up to an impenetrable wall.

Another week had been spent with her grandmother at Bolton, but that too had been raw with friction. Mathilda de Chauz said with pursed lips that Maude should settle to her needle and distaff and produce some children instead of spending hours at the archery butts. How did she expect to attract her husband to her bed when she behaved like a wild woman?

Maude had borne the clucking; with gritted teeth and obligation discharged, she had ridden on to Theobald’s manor and abbey at Cockersand. The salt tang of the wind, the wide view of sandy mud flats reddening in the sunset, the hiss of the ocean curling on the shore had given her the space she needed to recover from the ordeal of duty.

Theobald’s messenger had found her there. The court would soon be returning from Normandy and she was to meet Theobald in London. He did not say whether he had been successful in gaining permission to visit his Irish lands. The main item of news was that King John, having divorced his first wife, had taken another bride, a girl of twelve years old. Her name was Isobel of Angoulême and Theobald had written laconically that not only was she a great heiress, but that John was fond of her.

Maude grimaced, not venturing to wonder what that fondness might entail. Twelve was, after all, the age at which a girl could legally be married—even if she had not yet attained physical womanhood. Maude remembered the fears and anxieties of her own wedding day. And she had had nothing to fear from Theo. What would it be like to be married to John? It was said that he was good to his mistresses, providing for them generously and acknowledging his bastard children, but that did not change the fact that he was a lecher, cruel and selfish in his lusts. Maude suspected that for every woman to benefit from his generosity, there were half a dozen others who paid the price.

Maude and her escort rounded a curve and the road widened, yielding a view of the daub and wattle houses of Higford. She had promised Emmeline FitzWarin she would return this way and although it was a slightly longer route, the journey was pleasant and it was no chore. She liked Emmeline, she wanted to pray at Hawise FitzWarin’s tomb, and the horses could be rested for a couple of nights before she continued down to London.

She rode past the shingle-roofed mill at the riverside and was curtseyed to and gazed at by the women waiting to have their grain ground into flour. The mill wheel turned ponderously, the water of the race rippling like translucent green silk. A fisherman was emptying his wicker eel trap of its writhing, glittering catch. Maude smiled. Likely she had just seen her dinner.

Rounding another turn, she came upon the manor. Lulled by the scenes of pleasant industry in the village, she was startled to find the place frenetic with activity. The courtyard was filled with horses and armed men, recently arrived to judge by the chaos. Emmeline’s grooms were busy among them and the knights themselves were unsaddling their mounts. Maude felt a selfish rush of dismay and irritation, swiftly followed by a burst of curiosity.

“I’ll find out what is happening, my lady,” said Wimarc of Amounderness, who was in charge of her escort. He dismounted and went over to a group of men. Maude watched him listen and nod. Glancing beyond, her gaze lit on two young men in conversation, one as tall and thin as a jousting lance, the other smaller and stockier with a head of cropped red curls. Alain and Philip FitzWarin. And where Philip and Alain went, Fulke was likely to be ahead of them. She scanned the crowd, her stomach turning like the mill wheel.

Wimarc returned and told her what she already knew. “Lady Emmeline’s nephews are here to rest up for a short while,” he said. He gave her a shrewd look. “Do you want to ride on, my lady?”

Maude looked at the activity in the courtyard and gnawed her lip. It would be for the best. Accommodation would be horrendously crowded and the thought of seeing Fulke made her feel queasy.

Wimarc rubbed his palm over his chin. “They tried to lay an ambush for Morys FitzRoger and FitzWarin came away from it with a quarrel in his leg. Lady Emmeline’s tending him now.”

“A quarrel?” Maude stared at Wimarc in horror. King Richard had died of a crossbow bolt in the shoulder—a minor battle wound that had festered and poisoned his blood so that a week later he died in agony. Her decision was made. “Lady Emmeline will need aid if she is to tend Lord Fulke and see to all these men.” Gathering the reins, she nudged Doucette through the gateway into the frantic business of the yard.

***

Maude quietly parted the thick woolen curtain and entered Emmeline’s bedchamber. It was a large, well-appointed room at the top of the manor with lime-washed walls and colorful woolen hangings.

Fulke was in Emmeline’s bed, propped up against a collection of bolsters and pillows. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, his mouth was thin with pain and weariness, and his nose had caught the sun so that he looked more hawkish than ever. Although battle-worn, he scarcely appeared to be at death’s door and the fist of fear beneath Maude’s ribs ceased to clench quite so hard.

The covers were flapped back and Emmeline was leaning over his lower body, her own complexion the color of whey. As Maude advanced to the bed, Fulke looked up. Alarm flickered in his eyes and he threw the covers back over himself so swiftly that he almost took out his aunt’s eye on the corner of a sheet.

“What are you doing here?” he snarled in a voice that was as far from the grave as Maude had ever heard. “Get out!”

Hand over her eye, Emmeline turned. “Maude?”

“I said I would return this way.” Maude looked angrily at Fulke “With an invalid to nurse”—here a disparaging curl of her lip at Fulke—“and a passel of hungry men to feed, you are in need of help.”

Emmeline wiped her streaming eye on her cuff. “Bless you, child,” she said in a heartfelt voice.

“What do you want me to do?”

“You’re not going to do anything,” Fulke snapped, glowering furiously. “I’m a rebel, and if you so much as associate with me, you’ll be tainted too.”

Maude shrugged. “Who’s to know?” she said. “Theo would be more angry with me for riding away than for staying to help.”

Emmeline looked uncertainly between them. “It is true that I will be very glad for you to stay, but not if it is going to put you in danger.”

“No more danger than you are in yourself, my lady,” Maude said. “My brother-in-law is the Archbishop of Canterbury and the King’s Chancellor. That surely must bestow some protection.”

“His support never did us any good,” Fulke growled.

Emmeline rounded on Fulke, her sallow cheeks flushing. “Has your wound bled the courtesy from your body?” she demanded. “What is wrong with you that you should behave like a thwarted small child?”

“Aren’t all men like that when they are injured?” Maude gave Emmeline a wry woman-to-woman smile.

“Some of them are like it all the time,” Emmeline said darkly.

Fulke clamped his jaw and thrust his spine against the bolsters. “If you can remove this arrow from my leg, I won’t trouble your hospitality above a couple of days,” he said.

“I’ve sent for the priest. He’ll be here as soon as he can.”

“The priest?” Maude thought of the agitated note in Emmeline’s voice and linked it with her pallor as she leaned over Fulke’s wound.

Her horror must have shown on her face because for the first time since she had entered the room, Fulke smiled, albeit savagely. “You need not concern yourself, Lady Walter, I am not about to be administered the last rites.”

“I…”

“Someone has to cut this arrow out of my leg. Having seen the mess William makes gutting a hare, I don’t trust him to do the deed, and I won’t ask any of the men. It’s too great a responsibility. If anything should go wrong, I do not want one of them to carry an unnecessary burden of guilt.”

The speech had begun with defensive, sardonic humor, and ended in sincerity. Maude’s throat tightened as she was given a glimpse behind his shield.

“I am afraid I cannot play the healer’s part,” Emmeline said, unconsciously wringing her hands. “Even the sight of blood makes me faint. My father always said that it was a good thing that I wasn’t born male.”

“And the priest?”

Emmeline nodded, although there was a spark of doubt in her eyes. “He set Alwin Shepherd’s broken arm last year and it has healed cleanly.”

“But he has never removed an arrow?”

Emmeline shook her head. “Not that I’m aware.”

Maude pushed up her sleeves, exposing slender forearms, and advanced to the bed. “How deep is it in?”

Fulke’s fist clenched on the bedclothes, holding them firmly down over his leg, and in his face there was fear, anger, and stubborn mutiny.

“Let me see,” she said, laying hold of the sheet.

“Why?” he challenged. “I warrant you have never removed an arrow from flesh either.”

“No, but I have seen it done. One of Theo’s knights received a quarrel in the leg during a hunt, and we were fortunate enough to have a Salerno-trained chirugeon claiming hospitality in Lancaster at the time.” She held Fulke’s gaze steadily. “Me, or the priest. The choice is yours.”

He returned her stare, then with a sigh capitulated, raising his hand and looking away “Do as you will.”

Maude folded the covers aside. He wore a loincloth for modesty, but still she had never been as close to any man’s intimate area save Theobald’s. Fulke’s thighs were long, powerful, and surprisingly hairless given his dark coloring. On the nearside one, the stump of a quarrel protruded from the skin like the stalk of a pear. The full length of the shaft had been snapped off to leave about two inches standing proud.

“I’ll need a thin wedge of wood,” Maude murmured as she gently prodded and felt Fulke tense like a wound bowstring.

“I don’t need anything to bite on,” he said indignantly.

“Oh, stop being so proud, you fool,” Maude snapped. “And it’s not for you to bite on anyway. The way you’re behaving it might be a good thing if you used your own tongue as a clamp.” She raised her head to Emmeline and gestured with forefinger and thumb. “A wedge of wood about this thickness, no more. I’ll also need two wide goose quills, a small sharp knife, and needle and thread.”

Emmeline nodded and turned away.

“Oh, and in my baggage there’s a small leather costrel. Ask my maid to find it.”

Fulke’s aunt vanished on her errand.

Maude sat down at the bedside. One half of her mind was studying the other half in astonishment. Had she really given orders so briskly and with such confidence? Any moment now the facade would desert her and leave a trembling wreck, no more capable than Emmeline of doing what had to be done.

“I am sorry that your mother has died,” she murmured. “I came to see her at Alberbury when she was ailing and I stayed with her.”

Fulke stared obdurately at the wall hangings directly opposite his line of vision. “That was kind of you,” he said stiffly. “My aunt did tell me.”

Maude pleated the coverlet in her fingers. “We became good friends,” she said. Some instinct held her back from telling him how close. She did not think he would want to hear that Hawise considered her the daughter she had never had. At least not now, when it might seem like a rejection of the sons she had borne.

“Did she suffer?”

Maude busied herself with the coverlet. “No. At the end she went peacefully in her sleep.”

“You’re not a very good liar, are you?” He turned his head so that their eyes met on the level instead of from a side glance.

“What do you want me to say?” Maude demanded. “Will it make any difference to know that she was in terrible pain? Will it ease you to know that she only died in her sleep because we dosed her with Alberbury’s entire supply of poppy syrup to calm her agony?” She blinked and scrubbed angrily at her tears. “I loved her, and I didn’t want her to go, but for her own sake I prayed harder than I have ever done in my life for God in his mercy to take her.”

There was a quivering silence. Then she saw his throat work and the betraying glitter in his own eyes. He turned his head again, this time looking away, and muttered indistinctly beneath his breath. Of its own volition, her hand crept from its pleating to cover his on the bedclothes. Even while she made the move in compassion and the need to offer comfort and be comforted, a part of her mind acknowledged that it was something she had wanted to do ever since her wedding breakfast.