The Silver Falcon (36 page)

“What’s the matter, Robert?”

“I’m damned,” murmured Robert as he got into his bed and rolled up in his blanket.

Butterflies in his stomach and a feeling of weakness were now his constant companions, becoming almost unbearable whenever he caught William’s eye, touched his hand by chance, or stood too close to him while they were working. He got a lump in his throat, and he struggled to breathe.

And yet he managed to hide his feelings for William, even though at night, in his dreams, he would throw himself at his friend’s feet and declare his love.

F
or the last few weeks, Odon had been going to the whorehouse on Rose Lane almost every day. Since his father’s death, he had enough money for such amusements.

He had been with Carla for the first time in August. Unlike the other whores, she never said a word about the pitiful dimensions of his manhood. She hadn’t even smiled at it. Instead of mocking him, she proved her desire for him every time he visited her, and her passion helped him rise above his own inadequacies. She writhed beneath his hands, moaning with pleasure when he entered her as no other woman ever had. Since that first day, he had found himself unable to do without her lustful embrace and gentle touch. He was attracted to her as if she were a real lover, rather than one that could be bought.

If he could not go to her immediately, that familiar helpless rage would rise up in him, but it would last only as long as it took for Carla’s door to close behind him. As soon as they were alone together, she would throw her arms around his neck and seduce him with her desire, leaving no room for doubt about his skill as a lover. She filled him with such pride that he felt he would never again be able to do without her love.

It was Odon’s third visit that week, but he could hardly wait to have Carla in his arms. She made him happy. For some time he had been bringing her little gifts: a flower, a pomegranate, a colorful ribbon for her fine hair, a small piece of soap. She received these things with childlike joy, placing an affectionate, almost chaste, kiss on his cheek. Lying with Carla was different. It was playful,
tender, and unusually affectionate compared to Odon’s previous conquests. With her he didn’t need to prove himself. And yet he tried. He wanted her to enjoy the act of love with him. He knew how much she liked it when he stroked the small of her back or gently caressed her breasts and teased her nipples with his lips before he entered her. Since his second visit, he had paid for a whole night whenever he came to see her. Sometimes he brought meat and wine, and they would sit at the tiny table in her room, eating, drinking, and laughing like old friends. Tenderly, he would caress the back of her knee or the hollow of her throat and gently bite her neck until she shivered. He loved feeling Carla’s aroused response to the things he did. He needed her, and he wanted her to feel the same for him.

Only once had he been with one of the other whores. He had been angry because Carla had not immediately taken him to her room. But rather than paying back Carla, he had only punished himself. He had gone to the other whore without tenderness of any kind and forced his own rhythm on her while she lay indifferently under him, staring up at the ceiling in boredom. It had felt bad and false, as it had before he knew Carla. It had pained him to get up from an indifferent whore when he could have found relief with Carla and let her go, rosy cheeked and fired with lust, after a final intimate embrace. After his night with the other whore, he rode home bad tempered and resentful and vowed never to go to Rose Lane again. But the very next evening he sunk into Carla’s arms and enjoyed her tenderness all the more. Hearing her pleasurable whimpering, he knew he was not just any old customer, but her true lover.

Now, nearing the whorehouse, Odon walked faster. He was greeted like a friend when he entered. The servant gave a two-fingered whistle, summoning the whores who were not at that moment servicing customers. Odon frowned. It was no secret that he had not gone with anyone but Carla for a long time. Normally,
therefore, he was simply invited in and shown through. As the girls came out of their rooms, the owner took Odon’s arm and led him aside.

“You’re a bit early today. Carla’s still with a customer,” she explained, smiling ingratiatingly. “If you don’t want to wait, choose another girl. I’m sure a bit of a change will do you good.”

A mighty roaring sound filled Odon’s head, so loud that he pressed both hands to his temples. Now, at this very moment, another man was with Carla, sweating, snorting, lusting. With a bigger member, perhaps. In fact, certainly. The idea was unbearable. Odon had to go to Carla and throw out her customer. He stormed past the bewildered-looking servant like an enraged boar. But the door opened just before he reached Carla’s room, and a man came out, adjusting his clothing and wiping his ragged beard. Carla appeared behind him, her hair disheveled and her cheeks lightly flushed.

Had the stranger made her whimper, or had she just tolerated him? Furious with jealousy, Odon thrust the man aside and pushed Carla back into the room. He closed the door behind him with a mighty kick. He took Carla in his arms, pulled her close to him, and buried his face in her neck in search of her scent. He breathed in deeply. The smell of strange sweat caught in his throat. She smelled of the other man. Odon could hardly breathe. Carla belonged to him and him alone. No one else should possess her, only him!

“You’re trembling,” she said anxiously, feeling his forehead to see if he was feverish. “You’re not getting ill, are you?”

“I can’t bear it. I won’t let these fellows touch you anymore. You belong to me,” he spluttered.

“The old woman doesn’t see it that way. More and more customers are asking for me. I’m making her rich, thanks to you, too, my sweetheart,” said Carla teasingly, turning away abruptly.

The agony of jealousy was almost enough to drive Odon mad.

“She’d never let me go,” continued Carla over her shoulder, even though Odon had not said a word about taking her away with him. “Not even you can do anything about it.”

“Oh yes, I can,” he retorted.

“What do you mean?” She turned to face him. A spark of hope seemed to glint in her eyes.

“I’m going to take you away from here.”

“Surely you don’t think the old woman will let me go, just like that?” Carla burst out laughing.

“What do you take me for?” Odon shouted. “Do you think I’m going to let some old innkeeper woman tell me what to do?”

Carla shrugged and shook her head in silence. Odon did not see the tiny smile that flickered across her face.

He pulled her to him. “You won’t have to sell yourself anymore. I’ll take care of you from now on.”

W
illiam awoke, terrified and confused. Trembling, he stayed in his bed and looked into the darkness. His heart raced, his ears roared like a mountain stream, and his hands were moist with perspiration.

Frozen with fear, he listened to the night’s blackness, probing with all of his senses the grave-like silence that surrounded him. He thought he could smell the damp earth into which he had laid to rest his beloved, and he feared he would be overwhelmed by this ever-tightening crushing sensation.

“Enid, my poor Enid,” he whispered. “It must be so cold in your grave.”

Sometimes he would go for weeks without dreaming about her, and then it would be every night. The dreadful images appeared so clearly before his eyes, it was as if they were branded on his soul. Would he ever be rid of them, or would he have to suffer them forever?

William threw back his blanket and got up. With trembling fingers, he combed back his hair, which was hanging down in damp strands before his face. A feeble ray of moonlight penetrated the wooden shutter, reminding him where he was.

Cautiously feeling his way, he worked his way over to the shutter and opened it far enough to let in some of the pale light from the narrow crescent illuminating the night. The clear, cold air smelled of imminent snow. His breath swirled in small clouds. Soon he was so cold he could not feel his feet, but the cold did not begin to bother him until goose bumps covered his whole body.

“I’ll avenge you,” he whispered. His voice was raw and shaky, but he was determined to find Enid’s murderer and punish him. The thought of revenge had always been with him, even though his days were quite full enough from his work in the mews.

He carried the little plaque with him at all times, and he showed it to every stranger he met. In this way, perhaps, he could find out whose it was, and then he would be able to pursue the monsters who had ravaged Enid. But so far he still had no answers.

He crept back to his bed and covered himself. He thought about Saint Edmundsbury. He had been wanting to visit for some time, and he decided to do so as soon as he could. It took a while for the woolen blanket to warm his frozen bones.

Robert woke him roughly the following morning. “Wake up, lazybones! Old de Ferrers has sent a messenger to tell us to get the falcons ready for a long journey.”

“Where to?” asked William as he dressed.

“No idea. All I know is that we’re leaving the day after tomorrow.”

William looked at him in surprise, muttered something under his breath, and pulled on his boots.

Starting a journey in an icy wind with driving flecks of snow was not ideal, and William had tried in vain to persuade his master to wait a day or two for better weather. When he had taken his leave of David, the boy had looked at him as if he was being abandoned. Despite William’s insistence that he would soon be back, David had howled. Now, William was riding silently beside Robert, wrapped up in a fur-lined wool cloak and feeling guilty.

They made slow progress, not least because of the falcons, which were stowed beneath their cloaks for protection. But the
worst affliction was the cold. It burned on their skin and crept mercilessly into their joints. Neither the thought of a warm fire and something hot to eat nor the steaming mulled wine they made and gulped down eagerly during their stops lessened the cold. The day seemed to stretch before them endlessly, and the bleak winter landscape offered little in the way of distraction. There were hardly any animals to watch, apart from a few birds and squirrels. Most creatures had burrowed underground, occasionally emerging from their hiding places in search of food.

On their first night on the road, which they had since learned was to take them southwest, to the county of Devon, the men had set up camp in a sparse alder forest and built a roaring fire at de Ferrers’s command.

William had put the falcons on a branch not far from the fire, and now he distanced himself from the others in order to relieve himself. He left the forest road and followed a narrow path that led up a low hill. William knew the tracks of all animals, and he did not need to look closely at the prints in the frozen earth to know which ones had walked this path before him. He had also noticed the scratches on the alder trunks right away, an unmistakable sign that badgers lived nearby. William knew that they liked to use the barks of trees to sharpen their claws and clean off crusted dirt. William stood still and passed his water. He had often observed badgers with Enid, so he knew that a black-and-white-striped head would peep out from one of these burrows before long, and that a broad gray back with short, powerful legs and feet with long, strong claws would follow. Immobile, William waited for the first badger to appear.

Judging by its size, it was a full-grown male. Snuffling busily, he hurried through the tufts of sparse yellow winter grass, sniffing here and there. He suddenly dove into one of the many holes spread out over the hillside, only to reappear from another. Soon another badger appeared from one of the holes, snuffling
curiously. It sped off but soon returned, dragging a woolly object for its sleeping place. William could tell from the swollen belly of the slightly smaller creature that it was a female heavy with two or three young.

A simple badger had such a good life, William thought fondly. He had a wife, his own home, and soon children, too.

“A man without sons is to be pitied with all one’s heart,” Jean used to say.