Gisborne: Book of Pawns (29 page)

‘And you, Gisborne? Why should he not think it is you on the second horse?’

He looked back at me; a steady gaze.

‘Oh of course,’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘You told Halsham a falsehood. Wither do
you
journey, Sir Gisborne?’

He swallowed the bread. ‘To London.’

‘Really?’ I felt sick, my stomach curling. ‘And the second horse?’

‘You have a guide … a fellow you hired at Great Yarmouth. The Sisters at Saint Eadgyth’s will confirm it.’

My mouth had filled with a sour taste.

‘You think of everything.’

And as he went to reply, I bolted to the door to throw up what little I had eaten at Moncrieff, puking until all I expelled was foul yellow froth. I groaned and wiping my mouth with some grass, walked to the other side of the clearing, my arms wrapped around my middle.

‘Father’s dead.’

I stared at the unfurling leaves on an oak tree. Ironic that it symbolized a rebirth whilst my father died.

‘Yes.’ Gisborne spoke gently.

‘Do you think he knew I was there?’

In
my
own heart, I thought he did. The way his breathing changed, and the way he became so still, but I was afraid to enunciate the idea to Gisborne in case it was repudiated. It seemed important to hold onto such a feeling.

‘I think so … he grew very quiet,’ he replied.

‘You sensed that?’

‘His breathing was laboured before you spoke.’

‘Perhaps he just moved closer to death.’

‘Perhaps … but I think not.’

His words were balm even though he might be saying what he thought I needed to hear. Whatever the case, it was kind.

‘I’ve lost everything. My mother, my father and my heritage and as quickly as a lightning strike.’

‘It gets a little better over time, Ysabel.’

‘You think?’ I spun round. ‘Enlighten me. How?’

The anger rang out, the bile in my belly as vicious as the acid that tainted my words. And then I understood.

‘I’m sorry. Of course you know. That was stupid of me.’

He passed me a sprig of greenery.

‘Wild mint. Chew a leaf and then spit it out. It will make your mouth feel fresher.’

The mint revived me. If there had been honey as well, a paste of the two would have been even better.

‘Where did you find it?’

He indicated either side of the door.

‘Our hermits obviously knew the value of herbs. There are others … rosemary, rue, borage, thyme. Maybe more.’

‘Guy, I’m sorry I was so tactless.’

The light grew brighter with each passing moment and I marked the exhaustion in his face, guessing my own was little better. His hair was tangled and stubble threatened to become a black beard. His eyes crinkled at the edges.

‘It is of no account. But…’ he added wickedly. ‘We are now equals, my lady.’

He bowed over my hand.

A smile stretched on my own face, coming from God knows where on this day of death and realization.

‘Indeed, Sir Gisborne. Equals.’

‘Come, Ysabel.’ He took my hand in his own and it felt as normal as if I were his wife. ‘We need to hide. Are you a little eased?’

My stomach had ceased its up and down motion and I thought I could manage to sit in the dark shelter without racing outside again and so I nodded and let him draw me within.

He passed me watered wine in the stoppered flask Cecilia had given us.

‘Was it worth it, do you think? Seeing your father?’

I needed no time to ponder.

‘God, yes. I was so rancorous. I hated him and yet when I saw him I could forgive him everything. He suffered his own indignity and pain – it was obvious. I can’t blame him for what happened any more than one can blame a maladjusted fool for opening a hen house and letting the fowl fly. Father was maladjusted, Guy. My mother’s death had tipped him over the edge of reason and he was a lost cause. What he did, if you can believe it, came from loving someone
too
much. So I can forgive him that. I can imagine one could love someone too much. Do you agree?’

Gisborne raised an eyebrow.

‘I am not sure I would know.’

No, of course. Why would you?

‘Why would I hate him? It is not going to give me back Moncrieff, is it?’

‘No…’

I thought on his own situation.

‘Do you think you might have forgiven your own father in time if you had seen him?’

He sucked down a huge mouthful of the watered wine and I suspect he wished it were something far stronger.

‘On the contrary. If I had seen him, it would have been all I could do not to…’

‘Guy!’

‘No. Think on it, Ysabel.
My
father did nothing out of love. Least of all provide his wife and child with surety. He was a man I did not admire. He was cruel to my mother, even though she brought a huge dowry to their marriage. Sometimes both she and I wondered if that was the sole reason he married her, because Gisborne was hardly a monied estate when the marriage contract was drawn up. My lady mother had no say in the matter as her father, a lesser noble, saw the marriage as an expediency. My father was highly regarded by Henry when he was younger and my Angevin grandfather liked the idea that such nobility should sit around his own family. But in truth, my father got me upon my mother and then lost interest. He was pleased he had an heir but she never conceived again and I could ask any number of questions about
that.’

Gisborne had never been so open, not without me soliciting, and I watched him closely as he spoke. His face sharpened, the planes slicing to a knife-edge in the emerging dawn light; a face writ large with dislike. His voice dipped and rose with a hard then soft timbre depending on whether he spoke of his father or mother. I began to see the many layers beneath that hard outer skin and relished that he shed them with me. Did that not bespeak some sort of trust between us?

‘He removed himself from me, his son. I was left to my mother to educate. She organized for the priest to teach me letters. It is where I learned to love words, a rare enough thing to be sure. She organized for the steward to teach me to ride, for our master-at-arms to teach me the bow and arrow, to wrestle, to throw a knife. It was as well he had travelled and fought across the Middle Sea. He knew much and but for the fact that he had lost half an arm, would never have come our way. I thank the Lord he did. Edwin was more of a father than mine ever was.’

‘Then what happened to Edwin when the Templars took Gisborne?’

‘They employed Edwin, realising full well that he
was
the estate, far more so than my father. He wept the day my mother and I were turned off.’

He shook his head and looked down at his hands.

‘Ah Ysabel, so much to regret. So much to ha…’

‘Hate? Is that what you would say?’

I lay my own hand on his.

He didn’t reply.

‘My word, Sir Gisborne,’ I chastised. ‘I should not like to be someone you hate. You hate for life I should think.’

‘My father is owed such, Ysabel, I thought you would understand.’

I grabbed at the fraying closeness about us.

‘I do, Guy. I swear.’

Just don’t hate me the same way.

He flipped his palm up and closed his fingers around my wrist, pulling me toward him and I hoped I smelled of mint and nothing else.

‘Ysabel, you are the kind of young woman my mother would have l … liked.’

Is that your way of saying something else, Gisborne? Do
you
grow fond of me or am I still someone who is like a horsefly, driving you to distraction?

‘
When I was at Saint Eadgyth’s, they told me of her. I would have liked her, I am sure,’ I said.

He leaned forward then and pressed his chin against my forehead. We sat very still, his hands over mine. He brushed his lips over my eyebrows and sat back.

‘Ysabel, I must try and find horses. I beg of you, do not move. Do not leave the hut. No matter what.’

He stooped under the sagging doorframe and I followed, leaning there as he walked across the clearing, his shoulders carrying my whole life upon them. He turned at the edge of the coppice and lifted his arm, the smallest smile playing around his lips.

Ah yes, Gisborne. For better or worse.

Chapter Eleven

Loneliness is an uncomfortable thing. It burrows into one’s awareness like a tick, creating discomfort to begin with and then a larger and larger pain. I sat as the daylight strengthened, initially glad of the solitude. With Guy gone, I could drop my defenses. Cry if I wanted, reminisce, or better, think of nothing. The trouble is I could not think of nothing.

I wept for my mother and father and then for myself, but outside birds were chirping and forest creatures moved about. In the gloom of this crumpled hideaway, it was easy to allow the sorrows of the past to tunnel in further and so I moved to sit against the doorframe in a beam of weak sun, allowing its mediocre warmth to carry me to better places.

I set thoughts on my family and my loss aside, watching a small brown wren hopping across the glade and flirting with shadow. She chirruped and I dug into the small belt purse for the remains of the crust. I tossed the crumbs and she moved closer, bright-eyed and confident and I wanted to assume at least part of her joy of life.

‘Where is your partner, little wren?’ I asked. She gave no sign of having heard me, just bobbed here and there, scooping up the crumbs with dainty dexterity.

My partner has gone and left me, little bird. But he says he will return and it won’t be too soon, I confess.

Till now, Gisborne had eased my fears. I might have laid claim to a certain amount of bravado but in essence I was a coward; such a spoiled young woman who had suddenly been confronted with a destiny that terrified her and would not admit to her weakness, instead lashing out at others. I think he
understood my fears because at some point he had experienced that same trepidation.

But there is a difference, Ysabel. He uses hate to propel him on. Shall you do the same?

Who could I hate, I wondered? I had forgiven my father, so that left De Courcey and Halsham but I could do nothing about either except flee. Perhaps it was hate that propelled me so earnestly but in a moment of bleak honesty I thought it was fear. I wondered what happened to Guy’s venomous hatred for his father now the man was dead. Who would he focus on?

That traitorous voice in my head whispered:
For sure, it won’t be De Courcey
and Halsham
…

The sun had moved swiftly and hung overhead, still pale and winsome … the kind from which a fine drizzle is sure to emerge, especially here in the fens. The wren took precipitous flight at my feet as if something had disturbed her … gone in a moment. I sat very still. All around had grown quiet, it seemed as though every living thing held its breath.

And then I heard the sound in the distance, not a league away; the baying of lymers and I could feel the blood racing from my face to pump through my heart. Lymers could sniff out anything. My father had used them to drive quarry toward the hunters. He loved the grand dogs, proud of their ability to seek and drive a hind to the kill. He had a pair of alaunts as well, ferocious beasts that he used for boar hunting. But I was sure the sounds I could hear, the baying that ripped through the forest were lymers and if I had a choice I would rather the lymers hunted me than to have my throat shredded by the alaunts.

I jumped up, the small book slipping to one side under my tunic.

‘I beg of you, do not move. Do not leave the hut. No matter what.’
Guy’s words tugged at me, holding me back. The dogs’ baying echoed across the forest. If I stayed, I would be caught. If I ran I would have a fighting chance … if I could make it to a stream where my trail could be hidden.

I am sorry, Gisborne.

I began to run.

The daylight had shifted the forgotten puzzle that was Moncrieff’s green ways back into clear focus. If I ran
that
way, past the oak, and kept straight on, I knew I would meet a stream and I set off, fleet of foot, hoping I would meet Gisborne, that I could leap on a horse and we could gallop far beyond the hunting pack.

I ducked under branches, tripped over roots, moving quickly, trying to be mindful of my surroundings and then I glimpsed the rivulet, saw the dull sheen of its surface in the watery light. I pushed along its banks, running ever upstream, looking behind with every second stride but heading west and realizing with a sinking heart that Gisborne might not find me, that I was alone and must save myself this time.

I climbed over tree roots that sank themselves deep into the river edge and noticed a large fallen willow whose branches lay well out into the water and thought if I could move along the trunk to drop into the river and swim upstream for a distance, the lymers might lose my scent.