The Champion (10 page)
Monday swallowed and felt a little daunted. Her own dreams, despite their vividness, could not live up to the bitter determination she heard in his voice.
A shadow fell across the grass. Monday and Alexander turned simultaneously and saw Eudo le Boucher astride his destrier, with another horse on a leading rein. His chest was bare, the sweat trapped and gleaming in the mat of hair across his heavy pectorals. Rust streaked his brow and nose where he had been wearing his helm.
Alexander rapidly ducked the cross back down inside his shirt. Le Boucher’s eyes followed the motion, making it quite obvious that he had seen the treasure.
‘A little exposed for a tryst,’ he mocked as he dismounted in a pungent aroma of horse and perspiration. There were wet patches on his inner thighs, and a narrow band of hairy skin between hose and loin cloth.
Monday’s cheeks burned. She withdrew her feet from the water and grabbed at her wimple.
‘Oh, Christ,’ le Boucher snorted, ‘grant me a little self-restraint. I have seen women with more than just their braids exposed. Mind you, I suppose they might have an effect on a callow boy.’ He gave Alexander a disparaging look and led his horses down to the water’s edge to dip their muzzles.
‘So you were unhorsed by a callow boy?’ Alexander said softly.
Monday darted him a frightened look. His tawny eyes were narrow and his breathing swift. She could see the rapid bump of his heartbeat against the throat of his shirt. Her own started to pound.
‘That’s right,’ le Boucher said, without looking round. ‘If you had been a man you would have been dead by now for what you did. Thank your God, renegade monk, that you are still in tail clouts with Hervi to clean up your mess.’
Alexander quivered. Monday put a restraining grip on his sleeve. Beneath her hand, the flesh was as rigid as a lance shaft, muscle clenched against bone. She shook her head at him, her eyes pleading.
Alexander swallowed and struggled, his eyes wolf-bright with fury. He knew what he wanted to do to le Boucher. He also knew that the consequences would far outweigh the satisfaction of retaliation. In grim silence he acknowledged Monday’s concern and began gathering up his scribe’s effects.
On the river bank, le Boucher pushed down his loincloth, and with scant regard for decency, took his penis in his hand and urinated into the water.
‘Don’t let me drive you away,’ he grinned over his shoulder.
In the cool of the evening, Alexander couched the jousting lance beneath his right arm and angled it across Samson’s withers. His left arm was occupied by one of Hervi’s shields and he wore a quilted gambeson over his tunic and hose. Samson snorted and danced on the spot, as eager to begin as his rider.
Hervi was busy setting up a quintain so that Alexander could practise striking his target. The quintain consisted of a post and rotating crossbar. On the left hand of the crossbar was a sack of sand, on the right a shield. The object of the exercise was for the novice to attack the quintain, strike the shield dead centre, and make his escape before the sandbag swung around and struck him in the spine. It was intended to develop speed, accuracy and coordination. Tonight Hervi had decided upon a variation aimed at improving Alexander’s precision. He had locked the crossbar so that it would not rotate, and had suspended a lady’s garter from the empty shield hook – a dainty frippery of pale-blue silk embroidered with pink flowers.
‘Right,’ said Hervi, stepping away from the quintain, ‘I want to see you lift that garter on to the point of your lance without checking your speed. Smooth and straight, one thrust.’ He raised and lowered his brows, adding a note of innuendo to the command.
‘Whose garter is it?’
Hervi shrugged. ‘I found it,’ he said innocently. ‘Don’t look at me like that, it is the honest truth.’
Alexander grinned. ‘On some woman’s leg no doubt,’ he retorted, and controlling the reins and shield in his left hand, turned Samson, eased him into a short, bouncing canter, and approached the quintain.
‘Steady,’ Hervi shouted, ‘steady.’
Alexander bit his lip and put all his concentration into the manoeuvre. There were so many things to remember, and he knew that he should not have to consciously think about them at all. The speed of the horse, the angle of the lance, his position in the saddle. The garter fluttered in the evening breeze, insubstantial as a butterfly, and the point of his lance missed the target completely.
‘Don’t think about yourself, focus on the lance!’ Hervi bellowed as Alexander thundered past.
Alexander turned Samson and tried again, with the same result. Hervi pointed to the centre of his own forehead. ‘You’ve got the brains, you’ve got the ability. Now use your instinct!’
Alexander gritted his teeth. A third attempt ended in failure, and as he turned Samson, tears of frustration glittered in his eyes. He knew himself capable of the feat, could not understand his inability to succeed. Through a sparkling blur, he saw Eudo le Boucher ride past, fully dressed this time and in the company of two other knights. Le Boucher smiled in his direction.
‘You’re wasting your time, de Montroi!’ he shouted across to Hervi. ‘Alys can sink a lance better than he does!’
Hervi made a rude finger gesture in reply. Alexander spun Samson and dug in his heels. Fury burned within him, banishing all other emotion. There was no space for doubt, only the motion of the stallion beneath him and the steel tip of the blunted spear. This time he lifted the garter from the hook as cleanly as a hawk striking its prey. The garment slipped down the socket on to the shaft as he brought Samson to a circling halt. Then he threw le Boucher a triumphant glare.
‘We shall see,’ said le Boucher, and with a mocking salute, rode on.
‘One day I am going to throw le Boucher in the dust again, but from the back of a war horse this time,’ Alexander vowed, his eyes narrow with passion.
Hervi grunted. ‘Let be, Alex. He’s a bad enemy to make. You talk of dust – best to let it settle, not dream of stirring it up.’ Removing the garter from the lance, he rehung it on the quintain. ‘Now, do that again, show me it was not just fortune.’
And Alexander did so, his mouth compressed to contain the heat of imprudent words. Instead, his anger went into his performance, and he lifted the garter from the ring time after time.
The day had started gloriously, but now the hot August afternoon was changing. Monday glanced skywards. The sun had vanished behind a ragged patchwork of cloud, suffused with sulky pinks and darkening purples. She quickened her pace towards the cookshop on her errand to buy a roast fowl and a loaf for their evening meal. The family’s iron cauldron and all the cooking utensils had been scoured and wrapped in sacking ready for the morrow’s journey to Lavoux.
Edmund One-eye, the cookshop’s proprietor, was a corpulent individual whose unprepossessing features were made even uglier by the puckered scar which twisted from upper lip to orbit on the left side of his face and disappeared beneath the leather eye patch. He had been a serjeant-at-arms until the injury had robbed him of employment. These days he prepared and sold food to the comrades beside whom he had once fought.
When Monday arrived at his stall, he was battening down in preparation for the imminent storm. The wind was beginning to snap at the banners on top of the tents and lightning flickered on the horizon.
‘Mistress Monday!’ His single eye lit up, the corresponding mouth corner curving towards it. ‘What can I do for you?’
She told him, handing over the coins that her mother had given her, and an oval earthenware dish. ‘We’ve packed the cauldron,’ she added.
‘You’re for an early start then.’
‘Tomorrow dawn.’
Edmund slid one of three cooked birds off an iron skewer. Its skin was charred by the fire, but Monday knew from experience that its flesh would be white and succulent. ‘Then I wish you well. Your father deserves the chance to make a settled life.’ He transferred the bird to her dish and gave her a bright glance from his single eye. ‘Will you miss us, lass, when you’re living like a great lady in your castle?’
‘Of course I will!’ Her tone was indignant.
‘Ah, you’re young. You’ll forget us soon enough.’ Edmund handed her a loaf and she put it in the woven bag hanging from her shoulder.
‘I won’t,’ she said stoutly, and thrust her chin at him. ‘Not ever.’
‘I’ll hold you to that.’ He stooped to the shelf beneath his counter and produced a round, sticky cinnamon loaf, its surface smothered in nuts, dried fruit and honey. ‘Here, give your mother this as a parting gift and tell her to look after herself.’
Monday’s eyes widened in delight. She adored cinnamon bread, but it seldom came her way, being too expensive to buy except on feast days.
‘For your mother, I said!’ Edmund warned, but he was laughing. ‘Best get it home to her before temptation or the rain do their worst!’ He pointed at the purple-black sky.
Monday thanked him with a kiss on his scarred cheek, and hurried away. Mingled with her pleasure was a sting of tears. Whatever her new life held, she would indeed miss the kindness and humour of people like Edmund One-eye.
The wind gathered strength, bowling swirls of dust along the paths between the tents. It tugged at her gown and threatened to snatch the hated wimple from her head, and because she needed two hands for the dish, she could not hold the headscarf firm. Lightning blinked across the sky and the thunder cracked close. The first drops of rain thumped down as if scattered from an enormous hand. As Monday ran for cover, her wimple blew off and danced in the dust with a wanton life of its own. She swore roundly, then with a spurt of angry triumph, left it to blow where it would.
She reached their tent just as the heavens opened in earnest. Darting within, she set the purchases to one side and laced up the flap with nimble fingers to protect the interior from the deluge.
‘Edmund One-eye sent you a cinnamon loaf and his best wishes, Mama,’ she announced over her shoulder.
Clemence was sitting on her pallet, taking a desultory inventory of her sewing equipment. She neither acknowledged Monday’s remark nor seemed to notice her lack of wimple. There was a tiny frown between her brows. ‘I hate thunderstorms,’ she said querulously.
Monday felt a twinge of apprehension. She knew of her mother’s aversion to thunder and lightning, but Clemence had been in such high spirits recently that Monday was surprised to see her so affected. ‘Papa says that the land needs the rain.’
‘I hate the noise. It rolls round in my head until I cannot think.’ Clemence wrapped up her leather sewing pouch and stowed it in a small coffer. Her fingers were trembling and there was a sticky sheen of sweat upon her delicate features, as if she had been painted with baker’s glaze.
‘Are you not well, shall I make you a tisane?’ Monday said anxiously.
Clemence swallowed and nodded. ‘The child has been restless today,’ she said, and set her hands upon either side of her swollen belly. ‘But now it is quiet. I have felt nothing for the last candle notch. Ah, Jesu, but my back aches.’ She lay down on the bed and stared at the canvas tent roof. It bowed and billowed in the storm wind, and the sound of rain hitting its surface filled the spaces between the rumble and growl of the thunder.
Monday took her cloak, threw it around her head and shoulders and unlaced the flaps again to duck outside and borrow a jug of hot water from a neighbour’s cauldron. When she returned, Clemence had fallen into a restless doze. Monday cast off the drenched cloak and set about making a tisane from dried elderberry and chamomile leaves. She wished her father were here, but he was saying his farewells around the camp. Men would ply him with drink as well as goodwill and she knew that he would be useful for nothing when he returned.
Gently she woke her mother and together they sipped the hot, fragrant brew. Monday begged a morsel of the cinnamon bread, her young stomach impatient with hunger and anticipation. Clemence gestured her assent, then lowered her hand to rub at her belly, the frown deepening between her eyes. When her daughter offered her a piece of the loaf, she declined.
Monday cut a generous wedge from the end with her eating knife, and with slow ritual took the first, heavenly bite. The sweet taste of honey and spice was utterly glorious, and she closed her eyes to savour the moment.
Beside her, Clemence uttered a small, clenched cry of pain, and the hand upon her belly gripped and tightened.
‘Mama?’ Monday’s eyes flew open. ‘Mama, what’s the matter? Is it the baby?’ The longed-for treat was hastily swallowed.
‘I … I don’t know,’ Clemence gasped. ‘It doesn’t feel like the last time, and it is too soon by more than a month.’
‘Perhaps it is something you ate.’
Clemence shook her head. ‘This morning … when I changed my linens, there were spots of blood. My loins feel heavy now, as if I am about to burst asunder.’
‘What shall I do?’
The terrified note in her daughter’s voice drew Clemence back from the brink of her own terror. She tried to think beyond the heaviness in her mind, the ache in her womb, dull and sharp by turns. ‘Fetch Dame Aude, the midwife,’ she said, ‘and then find your father before his cronies render him drunk on their goodwill.’
‘But I cannot leave you here alone!’
‘There is nothing you can do. I need a woman skilled in midwifery to tell me what is wrong. Go!’
Feeling sick when a moment ago she had been starving, Monday grabbed her cloak again, and with a last, anxious glance over her shoulder at her mother, hastened out into the downpour.
Alexander took the short-handled axe into his lap, dipped his rag in the bowl of oil at his side and proceeded to slick the iron blade all over. It was not a task that he particularly enjoyed, but it had to be done, especially in damp weather.
Outside, dusk had fallen and the thunderstorm had rumbled away in the direction of Evreux. The rain persisted, steady and solid, soaking into the thirsty ground. The morrow’s journey to Lavoux seemed set to be a wet one. If they started out at all, he thought as he smoothed the oil over the hardened blue cutting edge of the steel. Clemence de Cerizay had been taken sick a few hours ago and the midwife had been sent for. So much Hervi had told him before going to lend Arnaud his company and support.