Shield of Three Lions (64 page)

Screaming, keening, blabbering, laughing. On and on in woodly parade we created our trail of blood. In the lead hopped a frenzied Dame Margery. Dazed, I wondered if
she
had commanded the villagers and used me as an excuse for awesome revenge. Finally we reached Dunsmere and I saw a huge pile of faggots in the church square. Aye, this orgy was a celebration long awaited. Someone lighted the pyre and I was placed on the ground to be passed from hand to hand as I was hugged, kissed, pounded. Finally I thumped against the priest who quickly pulled me clear of the mob.

“With a
heave
, and a
ho
, off you
go
to Hell!” the villagers yelled as they flung the battered corpses into the fire. Then with Dame
Margery at the head they formed a snake-chain around the blaze, chanting their chant, screaming in manic glee as the bodies puffed and burst, the smoke took on a sweetish stench of burning flesh.

I glanced up at the priest: his eyes were filled with reflected fire.

“I never dreamed …” I said. “Oh, Father …”

“What you’d unleash?” He grimaced. “Some spark was bound to catch, Lady, for the faggots were laid, the anger smoldering. ’Twas only a matter of time.”

The blood made the flames hiss, then subside, and the dancers used liquid fire to tipple. I saw Dame Margery share a flask with Tom, her face twisted beyond recognition.

Then I looked back into the flames, and thought of Enoch. Fear rolled like a boulder in my stomach. What was I doing here wasting my time? Enoch could easily bypass Dunsmere, aye, and would too.

“I’m going up to Wanthwaite,” I told Father Gerald.

He was shocked. “Not without some of the men, you can’t. How do we know we slew all of Roland’s knights? They come and go …”

“I’ll take care, but I must leave. Now!” Urgency and panic made it hard to speak. “Come with me, Father. You’re my guardian.”

I turned and ran toward Dame Margery’s to get Thistle and my things. The sun was directly overhead as I trotted past the frenzied, distracted dancers. Father Gerald swung up on Thistle’s rump, his robes flying.

Out in the open fields, I spurred Thistle to a gallop straight toward the distant tower of Wanthwaite. I reined to a sudden stop at the river, wanting to savor my entry into the park. The water was crusted with ice along the edges, the spinney slick under the trees where snow had stayed frozen, yet a few red leaves clung to the beeches and the sky was a blinding blue. Each trunk, each limb, each rock held a memory for me and my chest was suffused with warmth. I was coming home.

Yet I heeded the priest’s warning that there might be people about and listened as we went. No need: ’twas as silent as a graveyard. Indeed, when we reached the bailey we found it exactly as I had left it on the dreadful day of the sacking. Stubs of burnt huts had begun
to rot, but nothing had been rebuilt, nor were there any animals. Strange. What had Roland done for milk? For eggs? For pigeons? Or grain? Where were the villeins?

Thistles hooves rang hollowly on the moat bridge and I forced myself not to look downward into the water. Dame Margery would tell me in good time what had happened to my father’s corpse. Then we were inside the court and stared with wonder. Drifted leaves banked the old catapult which seemed like a scrawny bird with its long skinny neck thrust forward, its cradle gaping like a hungry beak. Piles of gear were scattered at random. I turned Thistle to the stables.

Here the situation at least showed life, for a pretty mare and her foal gazed at me with mild curiosity when we entered. I fed the pair as well as Thistle, stripped my steed of his bridle, then went to explore inside the castle. Father Gerald tactfully let me go alone.

Appalled, I stood at the entrance to the great hall. The wooden wall where my parents had sat in the window seat had been replaced by a massy stone structure with Norman fireplace and arrow-slits. Naturally the firepit was gone, likewise the smoke hole above it. But that wasn’t the worst. The whole place appeared to be a campground used by waves of fleeing hordes after disaster had struck. Layers of discarded armor, bits of clothing, furs, scraps of furniture lay mixed with animal and human leavings. The odor was execrable. Horses had lived here, aye, but horses were clean compared to their masters. Nor was the filth without its own inhabitants. Rats climbed boldly over the heaps and glared with eager black eyes, noses twitching for new spoils. Above, bats stirred like the flying rats that they were and dropped their own crunchy ordure over the whole.

Sickened, I walked up the stairs. Kites shrieked from my laurel gourds when I entered my own chamber and something that I didn’t wait to see twisted in the mangy furs on my bed. My parents’ room was even worse, for the floor was covered with gray hairy mold which made my feet stick to the ground.

I ran back to the fresh air and sun, disappointed unto death. I hadn’t come after all—there was no home! Except in my mind. Aye, memory and yearning were all that were left. I could have found
Wanthwaite better by remaining forever away from this foul, fetid spot; at least then ’twould have stayed untainted, protected.

My head pounded with grief.

Pounded—with the beat of a drum!

I raised my eyes, pricked my ears and heard it close upon the river. The Scottish pipes!
Deus juva me
, Enoch!

I ran back into the hall. Came back and clutched the priest fiercely by the arms. Not knowing what to do.

THE OMINOUS BEAT OF THE DRUM, THE THIN RAUCOUS screech of the fife, the repetitious drone and skirl of the pipes grew steadily in volume as the army crossed the river below and began its slow ascent through the park. I pulled the nervous priest to my side and placed myself firmly at the entry. The terror was still there making every innard tremble, but I would be damned in Hell if I let Enoch see so much as a hair quiver on my head.

When at last he came in sight on the far side of the bridge, however, I felt such a rush of panic that it took the memory of my father and my mother to hold me in place. Only my expectation and the general outline of his body told me it was Enoch at all, for he appeared more like a garish oversized insect atop a courser. His skin was painted a glistening blue-black and his head was covered by a flat helmet with a long metal nose-guard and high plumes, for all the world evoking the feelers and proboscis of a giant wasp. He wore silver-studded wooden shields like hard shells before and aft, blood-red kilts and vest, a miniver cape, sporrans and spears bristling like wire hairs from his body.

Behind him in close ranks came his wasp-army in similar fearsome garb, with each man wrapped in plaid. The sight and sound of these infamous intruders rumbling and skirling across my bridge stiffened my resistance. By the time Enoch had reached me, I saw him as the usurper that he was, the ruthless viper who’d sold my body to
the king. He’d been wise to arrive with an army behind him or I swear I would have killed him; let him ride the same pike as Sir Roland.

With an abrupt gesture, he stopped the din. The Scots came to a restless halt and waited as he dismounted. He walked toward me and stopped a few feet away. Dark eyes peered from the shelter of his visor.

“You arrive too late, Enoch. The castle is mine,” I said coldly.

Slowly, deliberately, he removed his helmet and his eyes instantly turned a bright blue. He quickly surveyed my female form before he responded caustically:

“Aye, I saw the gore below. Ye’ve learned how to kill from Richard, it seems.”

“I was defending myself,” I protested. “Besides, Sir Roland raped me. ’Twas the sentence of the court.”

“A convenient rape methinks, boot a waste of maidenhead.”

He removed a scroll from his waist, the infamous writ at last, and handed it to the priest.

“Read her the writ, Father,” Enoch ordered.

“No need; I know the contents,” I said quickly. “And it’s not valid.”

The Scot’s teeth bared. “Why nocht?”

“Many reasons—I possess Wanthwaite.”

“Nocht legally, methinks.”

“But you—student of Magister Malcolm—must agree that a judgment in a felony takes precedence o’er …”

“The king’s command?” he pointed to the writ.

“Except that this writ cannot apply,” I asserted in triumph, “because it was conceived under false premises! I am not Alex, not a boy, not a baron. ’Tis a worthless document.”

Enoch leaned closer. “A
new
writ, Alix. I advise that ye listen.”

Panic returned in an instant and I fought to control a telltale twitch in my eyelids. I nodded curtly to Father Gerald.

He cleared his throat and wet his lips. “It’s a royal writ from King Richard with the usual flourishes. Shall I begin with the pertinent part? Yes? Well then.”

As he fidgeted more, seeking the right light and distance for his eyes, getting the vellum to lie flat where he wanted it, I turned back to Enoch. Our eyes caught and held in a way which roused a vast surge of foreboding unlike any I’d experienced with the Scot before. I had no time to think on it, but I was aware that some great change had taken place between us and my mind was able to grasp only the central fact: Enoch now hated me, was sick with hatred in a consuming monumental spite such as I’d seen only once before, in the eyes of King Philip when he looked on King Richard. Aye, and I hated him as Richard did Philip.
Pimpreneau.
Then my attention was caught by Father Gerald’s words.

“‘I, Richard, King of England by the grace of God, do hereby assign the barony of Wanthwaite, its castle, buildings, all lands, rentals and fiefdoms as described in our charter, to Lord Enoch Angus of Dingle-Boggs, Scotland, in accordance with the agreement made between us in Acre, the twelfth day of August 1191, with the aforesigned as witness to the act, and in accordance with the spirit and letter of my contract with William, King of Scotland by the grace of God, upon his release in September 1189.’”

Appalled, I whirled to the Scot whose face was set in an implacable mask of victory.

“‘Said barony of Wanthwaite belongs to the crown by the laws of the realm in which such lands and titles revert to the king when the rightful owner dies without an adult heir. Therefore I assign the hand of Lady Alix, Baroness of Wanthwaite, ward to the crown, in marriage to Lord Enoch Boggs, such marriage to be consummated with all due haste.
Teste me ipso. Ex mandato reggio
, Richard,
Rex Anglicarum.
’”

“Never!” I screamed.

Heedless of witnesses, I lunged in fury at Enoch who clasped my wrists and held me away.

“You have no right!” I cried. “Wanthwaite is mine, awarded by the court; I was raped …”

“Did ye use the liver of a chicken or a pigeon?” Enoch queried sarcastically. “And do ye still think a village moot court takes precedence o’er the king’s order?”

Father Gerald joined the Scot. “He’s right, Lady Alix, we must obey the king. Besides, you can’t run the estate alone, just a wisp of a lass.”

“A pox on all cowardly priests!” I howled. “King Richard was right! You’re all deceitful traitors. How much did Enoch pay you to turn on me?”

“Alix! I never …” His hound’s eyes moistened and turned red.

But my mind was already beyond him. A pox on all vengeful kings! Aye, betimes Fortune’s Wheel runs backward, but betimes it also gets a hard push—and Richard had squashed me to a pulp with his thrust. Clever ruthless king, to concede my castle to Scotland, get rid of Enoch and punish me for not returning to his bed—all in a single move.

Enoch relished my writhings. “I canna say I’m flattered by yer reaction, Alix, but mayhap ye’re concealing yer enthusiasm fram modesty. Be as be may, prepare yerself fer the ceremony day after tomorrow.”

“I’ll never marry you.”

His sarcasm became deadly. “In case ye have any misconceptions,
Lady
Alix, I have e’en less stomach fer the deed than you have. But by God, I’ll do it and sae will ye.” He turned to his army. “Dismount!”

The Scots clattered to the ground, led their horses to the stable, gabbled in their strange tongue and looked curiously about them. To my astonishment, a full third of their number were women, their skins also an oily blue, their weapons bristling, skirts hoisted to their waists with a long expanse of knotty hairy leg showing. Some of them had babes on cradleboards and there were a few half-grown children. Never would such barbarians get Wanthwaite! Never would I wed their scorpion leader!

I ran into the great hall. Enoch stood in the center kicking at the filth to see the rats scuttle.

“Take your army elsewhere to camp, Enoch,” I demanded. “You’ll not bed in my home.”
Never in my bed.
I trembled in disgust at the thought.

“Nocht with the rats,” he agreed. “Clean this pissmar.”

“Let the Scots help me,” I countered, seeing some advantage in their presence.

He raised his brows. “That I will, and see ye do a good job.”

He left me and soon a hand touched my shoulder. ’Twas a hefty lass with a broad, flat face, pale shallow eyes and jutting teeth. “My name be Grouth,” she introduced herself shyly. “I be cousin to Enoch and he sayed as hoo ye needed us women to help clean.”