The Reckoning - 3 (8 page)

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stant, unseen companion, for who was more faithful than a ghost? Who understood better than the dead that there was no forgiveness, in this life or the next? What did Guy know of remorse, relentless and everpresent, goading a man toward madness? What did Guy know of that? And he must not ever learn!
"Guy, listen to me!" Why did his voice sound so slurred, echo so strangely in his own ears? Why could he not find the right words? "But *& is Hal, not Ned.
Hal. And he ... he was not even at Evesham!"
He saw at once that he'd not gotten through to Guy; the look on his brother's face was one of disbelief, not comprehension. "Why are you so set upon destroying yourself? What will it change? You cannot even say that Papa would want this, Guy, for you know he would not!"
It was a cry of desperation, honest as only a plea utterly without hope can be. But Guy reacted as if he'd been struck a physical blow. His head came up, breath hissing through clenched teeth, eyes narrowing into slits of incredulous rage.
"You dare to talk of what Papa would have wanted, you who killed him! He and
Harry died because of you, because of your criminal carelessness, your
God-cursed folly! Where were you when we most needed you? Camped by the lake at Kenilworth Castle, out in the open so your men could bathe, by God, so Ned could come down upon you like a hawk on a pigeon! And Papa never knowing, keeping faith in you till the last! Even when we realized that Ned had used your banners as bait, we assumed you'd fought and lost, not that you'd let yourself be ambushed like some green, witless stripling, never that! Does it comfort you any, that our father went to his death still believing in you, never knowing how you'd betrayed him? I watched him die, damn you, and Harry and all the others. Not you, Branme! And mayhap this is why I did not die that day myself, so I could avenge our father, avenge Evesham!"
Sweat stood out on Guy's forehead; his chest heaved as if he'd been running.
He drew a deep, constricted breath, then said, more calmly but no less contemptuously, "You can come with me or not as you choose. But is it not enough that you failed Papa at Evesham? Are you truly going to fail him at
Viterbo, too?"
Bran's throat had closed up, cutting off speech. But he had nothing to say. No denials to make. No excuses to offer. Every embittered accusation that Guy had flung at him was one already embedded in his soul, five years festering. He could not defend himself. Nor could he save himself. All he could do was what he did nowreach for the sword that Guy was holding out to him.
S*3

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'°- Sunday or a holy day. As the bell rang for the Consecration, bem^.
ejt Upon their prayer cushions, began to chant in unison with hurch of San Silvestro was only half-filled with parishioners, it not
1112 Sunday or a holy day. As the bell rang for the Consecration, bem^. ejt Upon their prayer cushions, began to chant in unison with
! -est "jesu, Lord, welcome Thou be, in form of bread as I Thee
"They got no further; the door, barred to keep latecomers from se^'jjupting the Mass, was struck a shuddering blow, splintered under [he steel of thrusting blades.
Bran was still blinded by the sun from the piazza; at first all he saw as blackness. Voices were rising from all corners of the church, bewildered, angry, alarmed. He could barely make out a shadowy figure standing by the altar. "Who are you that dare to intrude upon God's service?" A priest's voice, fearful but indignant, too.
"You need not fear, Padre. We are not here for you." This voice Guy's, a voice like a knife. It cut through the murmuring protests just as surely as his sword had pierced the door, frightening to them all, familiar to one. He was on his feet now, his face a white blur, dark hollow eyes in a death mask, doomed and knowing it, for he'd recognized Guy. Their prey, their enemy, their cousin Hal.
"What . . . what do you want?" he cried, beginning to back away, and again it was Guy who answered for them.
"Retribution," he said, bringing up his sword. People would later ask why Hal had made no attempt to defend himself, why his attendants did not come to his aid. They were questions without answers. All that the eyewitnesses could report was what they saw, that Hal never drew his own sword. He fled, instead, to the altar, as if seeking sanctuary, and when Guy loomed over him, he was heard to gasp his cousin's name, to beg for God's mercy. Guy's reply burned itself into so many memories that parishioners would later be able to recall it word for word. He had said, they all agreed, "You shall have the mercy you showed my father and brother," and splattered San Silvestro's altar with the blood of his kinsman.
Guy's second thrust split open Hal's skull, but still he dung to the altar, clung to life. The priest sought to intercede, and paid dearly for his courage. When they saw their priest struck down, the people panrcked, tried to flee. A melee broke out; other swords flashed.
Bran saw it all, every gory detail imprinting itself upon his brain, to be relived again and again: the blood pooling in the chancel, caking on his boots, darkening the priest's cassock, even saturating the Host
'self, for the holy wafers had spilled out when the pyx overturned. Guy
^y broke Hal's death-grip on the altar, severing three fingers in the
Process, and grabbed the dying man by the hair, began to drag him up e aisle, into the clear. Bran saw it all, the fingers still clutching the
M doth, the candlesticks scattered underfoot, and always the blood,

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so much of it, more than he'd ever seen on the battlefield, or even when pigs were butchered for Martinmas. How could one man's body hold so much? But he was forgetting the priest. And a parish clerk had been injured, too, was crumpled, moaning, by the sacristy door.
Bran saw it all. But he felt none of it. For the rest of his life, he would be able to recall the murder scene in San Silvestro's church merely by dosing his eyes. But he could never remember how he'd felt or what Held thought as it was happening.
* The sunlight in the piazza was dazzling, hurt his eyes. He shielded them with his hand, looked down upon the body sprawled at Guy's feet. Fair hair trailed in the mud; it, too, was turning red. Bran's swordarm hung at his side; when he started to sheathe the weapon, he saw blood on the blade.
Passing strange, but he could not remember how it got there. Why could he not remember?
Guy, too, was staring at their cousin's body. He was panting, drenched in blood, and soaked in sweat. "I have had my vengeance," he said, and spat with difficulty into the dirt.
"Have you forgotten what they did to your father's body? How they hacked him to pieces, then threw him to the dogs?"
The speaker was an English knight, one of the few survivors of Evesham. Bran knew him well, but now he found himself unable to recall the man's name. Guy whirled, and for a moment it looked as if he might turn upon his tormentor.
But then he jerked his sword free of its scabbard again, slashed open his cousin's belly. Intestines spilled out in a gush of clotted black blood; a dreadful stench pervaded the piazza. As Guy swung a second time and then a third, a man fell to his knees, began to vomit. Bells suddenly echoed across the square; one of the parishioners was ringing the sanctus bell, sounding the alarm. Count Ildebrandino stepped toward his son-in-law, grabbed Guy's arm.
"We are done here," he said. "You have avenged your father. Now it is time to goand to go quickly, whilst we still can."
The Count's warning broke the spell. The men scattered, running for their mounts. Sheathing his sword again, Guy swung up into the saddle, raked his spurs into his stallion's flanks. The horse leapt forward, began to lengthen stride. But then Guy jerked on the reins, for as he looked back, he saw his brother still standing by the body. "Bran, you fool, what are you waiting for, the hangman? Get to your horse!"
Bran turned at sound of his name. As their eyes met, Guy felt a queer chill, for Bran looked at him without apparent recognition. "Come on," he shouted.
"Hurry!"
Bran didn't move, continued to gaze down at Hal's body. Footsteps sounded suddenly on the muddy cobblestones; he looked up to see Hugh standing beside him. The boy's face was streaked with tears, and

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not once did his eyes meet Bran's. But he was holding out the reins of Bran's stallion, and after a moment, Bran took them, mounted, and rode after his brother.
People now emerged from hiding places, approached the body. Someone produced a blanket, draped it mercifully over the mangled remains. A woman in widow's black dropped a rosary into a maimed hand. It was all done in an eerie silence, as if the murder had shocked them beyond speech. But then a wailing began in the church, and an elderly merchant sent a servant to the
Franciscans, where the Kings of Sicily and France were attending Mass.
Hugh and Noel stood frozen, heedless of the activity beginning to swirl about them. Noel had started to shiver; even after a sympathetic spectator wrapped a mantle about his shoulders, he could not stop trembling. As if rousing himself from a trance, Hugh knelt on the cobblestones, made the sign of the cross over
Hal's body. Straightening up, he moved toward the hitching post, untied their mounts. But Noel recoiled, looking at him in fresh horror.
"Have you gone mad? We cannot go with them! They've doomed themselves this day, will be hunted down like outlaws, with every man's hand against them!"
Hugh did not dispute him. "I know," he whispered, and shuddered. And then he mounted his gelding, sent it galloping across the piazza at a pace to outrun pursuit, but not memories of the murder.
MONTARGIS, FRANCE
April 1271
T1
IHE placid predictability of daily life in Montargis was shattered by the unexpected arrival of the French Queen. The vilagers abandoned their chores, deserting ploughs, churns, and looms m their eagerness to glimpse their sovereign's mother. Even the nuns c°uld not resist the turmoil, peeping surreptitiously from the windows

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of frater, infirmary, and almonry as Marguerite and her entourage rode into the priory precincts. The Prioress hastened out to greet their royal guest, having already sent a servant to alert the de Montfort household, for all knew it was Nell whom Marguerite had come to see.
By the time Marguerite reached the de Montfort lodgings, Nell was awaiting her in the doorway. If her curtsy displayed the deference due a Queen, her smile welcomed a friend. "Madame, what a joyful surprise! | I'm sorry my daughter is not here to greet you, too, but Ellen has been iiway for the past fortnight, visiting her de Montfort cousins at La Ferte-Alais. I expect her back today or tomorrow, though, and ..." Nell paused for breath, and only then did she become aware of the other woman's silence. "Marguerite? Is something wrong?"
Marguerite nodded, her eyes filling with tears.
THE church was very still, sun filtering through diamond-shaped panes of emerald- and ruby-tinted glass; the faint fragrance of incense hung in the air. Breathing in the perfumed scent, enveloping herself in the silence, it seemed to Nell that this shadowy chapel was her last refuge in a world gone mad. She did not approach the altar, though. In her despair, she turned not to
God, but to Simon, and knelt by her husband's memorial stone. "Beloved," she whispered, "how unquiet is your grave ..."
Another woman might have fumbled for a rosary; Nell reached for a ring. A
sapphire set in the shape of a cross, it had once been Simon's, worn since
Evesham on a chain around her neck. Fishing it from her bodice, she balanced it in her palm, then watched as her fingers curled around it, clenched into a fist.
"Was ever a man so ill-served by the sons who loved him? If Harry had not allowed Edward to escape, if Bran had only understood the urgency of your need at Evesham, if only ..." Her voice wavered, then steadied. "How I hate those words! If only. What if. And the worst one of all, Simonwhy."
After a while, she tried to pray, first for the soul of her murdered nephew, and then for her doomed sons. The prayers didn't help, for she had lost more at Evesham than her husband, her eldest son, and her country. She had lost, too, her faith in God's justice. From King's daughter to rebel's widowit was a free-falling plunge into depths not yet plumbed. She had in time made her peace with the Almighty, but after Evesham, she no longer truly trusted Him, and she no longer believed that heavenly prayers could ease earthly pain.
"And now this," she said softly. "And now Viterbo. Simon . . Simon, I do not understand!"

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It was an involuntary cry, one that seemed to echo on the hushed chapel air, lingering until dispelled by a slamming door, by a familiar voice. "Mama?
Mama, we're back!"
Ellen and Juliana were hastening up the nave. "There you are, Mama!" Even in such dimmed light, Ellen looked radiant. "We had a wonderful time. We went to
Paris for a few days, heard Easter Mass at Notre Dame, and Cousin Alice took us to the apothecary who makes that jasmine perfume you fancy. Then, once we were back at La Fert£-Alais, they gave an elaborate feast, with dancing and jugglers and even a trained bear!" Ellen paused long enough to shoot a mischievous look in Juliana's direction. "Oh, yes, and Juliana made another conquest, One of the knights was so smitten with her that he followed her about like her own shadow, even"
Juliana jogged Ellen's elbow. "She makes much ado over nothing, Madame. Can you tell us if it is true about the French Queen? She is here in Montargis?"
"Yes." Nell had risen at sound of her daughter's voice. For a moment, her fingers tightened around her husband's ring, and then she said, "Come here, Ellen. You, too, Juliana, for this concerns Bran."
The two girls exchanged startled, guilty glances, and Juliana flushed darkly, wondering how she and Ellen could have deluded themselves so easily, how they could ever have believed that the Countess knew naught of her liaison with
Bran.
They moved forward, losing all joy and laughter in the few brief steps it took to enter the chapel, looking tense, anxious, and young enough to break Nell's heart. "Marguerite came to tell me, Ellen," she said abruptly, "that your cousin Hal is dead."
Ellen's lashes flickered, no more than that, and Nell felt a sense of weary wonderment that she and Simon could have bred this beautiful, impassive child, so unlike her volatile, impassioned parents. But Ellen had not always been so guarded. Growing up, she, too, had followed the de Montfort credo of no emotion denied, no thought left unspoken for Simon and Nell had both prided themselves upon their candor, then willingness to speak out before the most exalted of audiences. After one of Henry's many battlefield blunders, Simon had even dared to tell the English King that he belonged by rights in an asylum for the deranged of mind, an audacity Henry never forgave and other men never forgot Now, as Nell looked at Ellen's profile, so perfect and yet so inscrutable, she felt an old ache stirring, for Ellen's reticence was not hers by birthnght. It was a painful, learned response to a lesson no thirteen-yearold should ever have to master. Evesham had scarred her daughter no less than her sons.
"Mama ..." Ellen took her time, choosing her words with care. "I