Lady of Fire (44 page)

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The weather warmed as spring turned into summer, and tempers began to flare from the enforced idleness in the camp. The archers' towers had long since been built and rolled into place, and it seemed that Roger's men traded arrows with Robert's bowmen for exercise more than anything else. Nighttime mining attempts had made no dent in the walls above them and everything was at a sultry standstill. Quarrels developed among the besiegers almost daily and four bodies swung in the hot summer wind as testimony that the lord of the Condes tolerated no rapine.

The only encouragement they had was the public excommunication of Robert of Belesme and much of that was the result of conjecture. No troops came to reinforce Belesme, and apparently some inside, fearful for their immortal souls, had tried to leave. For several weeks after the ban was proclaimed, the screams of the tortured could be heard within and new heads appeared almost daily on the pikes. Then apparently the disaffection had died down quite literally when the number of gruesome skulls ceased to grow. The crows that had picked them clean moved to the corpses in Roger's camp.

Occasionally the castle gates would open under cover of darkness and a few would venture out to harry the besiegers, driving off livestock and killing sleeping soldiers. They came with such ferocity that many took to sleeping armed in the summer heat.

On June 14, such an attack occurred, but this time the camp was ready. The riders were pulled from their horses and most were hacked to death gleefully by the soldiers from the Condes set to guard the food supplies. This time, Belesme's harriers did not return unmolested.

The clash came as Roger prepared for his pallet and the sound of it sent him running loose-gartered in the direction of the melee. He nearly collided with Aubery, who came to tell him of the attack.

"My lord, this time they are taken and all are dead!"

It was over by the time Roger pushed his way through the crowd that had gathered. As he neared the animal pens, he could see broken green-shirted bodies lying about grotesquely in the dirt. A few were already headless where the men of the Condes had axed them cleanly, and the rest gave testimony to the viciousness of the defense by the great gaping wounds in their bodies.

"Nay—here's one that thought to get away!" A half-dressed knight pushed a tall, slender boy toward Roger. "Caught him trying to take his shirt off behind my tent."

Roger stared in the torchlight at the white-faced boy who wore a fine coat of burnished mail beneath his tunic. "Does Robert send boys to lead his raids?" he asked incredulously. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Nearly seventeen," was the sullen reply, "and he did not send me—I begged to come, for there's naught to do up there but sit and wait."

"And so you thought to taste war." Roger nodded soberly. "Well, you have tasted and seen it, and 'tis not a pretty sight, is it? Or are you used to it, I wonder? Are you one who helps him torture?"

"Nay—I am his squire."

"How many rode with you tonight?"

"Sixteen." The boy looked at the hostile faces around him and was certain that he would die. He swallowed hard to fight the terror he felt in his heart.

"Release him to me," Roger ordered the knight who still held Robert's squire, "and I will see you have the ransom."

"Nay, my lord," the knight protested, "I say we kill him."

"And I say nay," Roger snapped. "He is but a sixteen-year-old boy on his first raid."

"I crave your protection, my lord!" The youth pulled away from his captor and knelt in front of Roger.

"You should not wear armor, boy, for you are ill-prepared for war." Roger jerked the boy up to face him. "But you have the protection you seek. How are you called, anyway?"

"Piers de Sols."

"Well, Piers, look around you and learn." Roger moved a headless corpse with his foot contemptuously. "Behold the most common fruit of battle. 'Tis not the glory or riches that many get—'tis this."

"A coward's speech, I think," Piers scoffed. "You'd not hear my lord of Belesme speak thus."

"Fool! 'Tis Lord Roger!" Aubery hissed behind Piers.

Piers' eyes widened and he stared at the man he'd heard called the Bastard and the FitzGilbert as long as he could remember. "Your pardon, my lord," he managed, red-faced, "for I've heard none call you craven."

"Nay, none of us would die," Roger told him more gently, "and all of us will. I would just remind you that it happens too soon to too many in battle. Be wary when you fight, Piers." Turning to Aubery, he ordered the boy taken to his tent.

After most of the crowd had dispersed back to their pallets, Roger walked among the dead. He bent over one corpse, a young man whose belly had been ripped open with an ax. "Jesu," he muttered to himself, "but 'tis hell to die like this." The fellow's mouth was still twisted in the agony of his dying. Roger knelt and signed the Cross over the young man's waxy face and murmured his prayer for the dying. "May Almighty God receive your soul into his keeping and grant you peace in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen." He felt helpless in the face of death.

He moved to each body and repeated the ritual until he was finished and then he wandered aimlessly in the warm, starlit night along the outer edges of the encampment. It all seemed so pointless, these raids and counterraids that cost lives and solved nothing. His cause—nay, Eleanor's cause—was at a standstill. She lay so close by and yet so far away that she might as well be in Byzantium. He had to bring Robert out of his castle—he had to—not just because he longed for Eleanor, but because he could not bear to even think of what she must be suffering at Belesme's hands. Restlessly he picked up a rock and skipped it along the ground.

"Halt!"

"Nay," he called back, " 'tis Condes."

"God aid you, my lord!" the sentry answered.

Oddly the man's words echoed in Roger's brain and it suddenly came like a revelation. He had the means to bring Robert out if he had the strength of will to use it. He was Eleanor's sworn champion, and, afore God, he would give her justice or die trying. He made his way back to his tent with a new sense of purpose.

He found Piers and Aubery struggling over his chessboard much as he and Henry had done when in the Conqueror's service. Moving behind the green-shirted boy, he leaned over to move Piers' king.

"My thanks, my lord. I am not very good at the game, though I have played it with Count Robert before. Now that she is here, however, he prefers to play it with the Lady Eleanor." Suddenly realizing that he spoke to the lady's husband, he reddened and mumbled, "Your pardon, my lord."

"Nay—I would hear of her," Roger answered softly. "Do you see her often?"

"I serve her, my lord. There are no maids in Belesme and it falls to me to attend her. I have learnt to do her hair now that she is heavy with child, but mostly I sing to her, play the lute for her, and bear her company when she wills it."

"But she is well?"

"Aye. She had the fever and we thought to lose her, but she has recovered. The babe wears heavily on her, I think, but she does not complain. Before the siege, my lord had all manner of delicacies brought in to tempt her appetite." Piers could tell that Roger could not bear to ask the obvious and he admitted, "But she is not happy. Nothing he does can make her happy."

"Would you take a message back to him?" Roger noted the boy's hesitation and hastened to explain, " 'Tis no trick, I swear. I offer you your freedom to go back if you will carry word that I wish to parley with him."

"Aye, but he will not trust you."

"He knows me. I think he will if you tell him what I want. I would speak with him on the open field below the wall where we have burned the grass halfway between here and Belesme's walls. That way we shall both be out of bowman's range."

"And if he will parley?"

"I'll ride out with you in the morning and wait across from where the curtain wall meets the outer gates. Tell him that if he agrees to meet me when the sun is highest, he is to hang a goodly sized piece of green material over the wall where I can see it. I will wait an hour after you ride inside for my answer."

"How is he to come, my lord?"

"Alone and unarmed, as I will be. I intend to ask Curthose for witness, but he will not approach Robert directly."

"All right."

As soon as the sun rose, Roger rode to the edge of the camp with Piers and then watched as the boy returned inside the great fortress. He dismounted and led his horse near a large rock that offered a clear view of the front of Belesme's outer wall. The air was still cool, but the sun that beat down on his neck was hot. Settling against the rock, Roger waited alone. He'd taken no one into his confidence because he could not risk letting anyone talk him out of the course he'd set for himself. It was the only answer and, if he succeeded, it would bring Lea back safely to him.

He spent the time he waited thinking of her, remembering things they'd shared in a lifetime of loving each other, and he ached with longing for her. Without her, his wealth and his newfound power meant nothing. It was for her he'd striven and it was for her that he would win again. He shifted his weight against the hardness of the rock and looked up again at the high walls. Suddenly he caught movement on the top and realized that Robert did not mean to make him wait his hour for an answer. A cloud of material billowed out over the ramparts and then fell to hang against the stone side. Roger watched the green cloth fall into place and he felt suddenly lighthearted in spite of the task that faced him. He rose, dusted off his clothes, and mounted his horse for the ride back to camp to see Curthose.

It was not an easy task to persuade the duke to accompany him unarmed to meet with Belesme, but he managed with the explanation that Curthose could watch from a safe distance. Then he returned to his tent to face further opposition from his father and Prince Henry, who watched him prepare for his meeting.

"Surely you mean to wear mail," Henry protested as Roger drew on a light gray undertunic and then belted a blue-and-gray surcoat over it. "I mean—think! Even out of archers' range, Robert could carry a dagger."

"Aye," his father agreed, "and I cannot see what is to be gained in speech with the man. He is no more like to give her up today than he was yesterday or will be tomorrow. It is to his advantage to wait."

"He won't have to wait—I mean to put it to combat."

"
What
!" Henry gasped. "Nay! Sweet Jesu—nay!"

Richard sucked in his breath and let it out slowly to still the spinning sensation he felt. "Roger—
think
! Were it any other than Belesme, I'd say aye, but now I say nay!"

"Do you not think I have thought it out? I know what I am up against, probably better than either of you. He's heavier, has longer arms, and never loses, and the world is afraid of him." Roger's blue eyes were sober as he met his father's. "But I know he is mortal and bleeds like I do. God willing, I can take him."

"You
think
you can take him, Roger," Henry pointed out, "but what if you cannot? What happens to Eleanor then?"

"There are worse things than dying, Henry. She is in hell in his hands and I see no hope for getting her out unless I can kill him. I have to."

"Do you think he will meet you?" Richard asked finally. "He already has what he wants and may not want to risk losing."

"As long as I live, he has no real claim to her, and I've come to realize that Robert wants Lea as much as I do. He'll fight."

"You give him what he wants!" Henry muttered angrily.

"I intend to give him the fight of his life. I do not do this lightly, and I've no more wish to die than you do."

They followed him out and watched as he stepped into the stirrup and swung up on the back of his big bay. A wry smile crossed his face as he looked down on the two men he loved most. "You think me moon-mad, but I swear I am not." Turning to Aubery, he asked for his glove.

"Mother of God!" Henry still did not want to believe that he meant to do it. "You are moon-mad if you would fight him in single combat."

Roger nudged his horse with his knee and made his way through the camp to where Curthose waited anxiously. The duke's nervousness was evidenced by the fact that he had chosen to wear his mail even to sit his horse a safe distance from Robert of Belesme. There seemed to be nothing to say between the two men and they rode slowly together toward the open field. Finally the duke asked, "You are sure he will be unarmed?"

"I am sure of nothing, but I expect no treachery." Roger spurred his horse into a gallop, leaving the duke to pursue. When he reached what he judged to be the midpoint in the fire-blackened earth, Roger reined in and waited.

Belesme watched them from the open gate of his barbican until he saw Roger pull away from Curthose. Looking behind him regretfully at the empty bow slits, he shrugged. If he had thought he could maneuver Roger into range, he would have considered trying it. Slowly he walked his horse forward to meet the enemy who stood between him and Eleanor of Nantes. Roger moved forward to meet him just past mid-field.

"Bastard!" Belesme taunted as he drew near. "Well, I am come to hear you."

Without speaking, Roger lifted the mailed glove that lay across his pommel and flung it to the ground in front of Robert. Belesme's eyes narrowed and then his face broke into a triumphant smile. With athletic grace, he swung out of his saddle and bent to pick up the gauntlet. He walked the few steps to where Roger waited.

As he approached, Roger called out clearly for both Robert's and Curthose's hearing, "Robert of Belesme, as Eleanor of Nantes' sworn champion, I demand justice for her on the field of honor. I challenge you to submit your claim to her to trial by combat before witnesses. May God aid the right!"

"May God aid the right—if He cares, Bastard," Belesme responded. "Aye, so be it." And then he could not resist gibing, "I thought you had more brains, but I am not like to look a gift askance."