To Touch The Knight (21 page)

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Authors: Lindsay Townsend

BOOK: To Touch The Knight
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He smiled and hope blossomed again in her, warming her.
“I understand that your lord deserted you, expelled you and your fellow villagers off lands that you had held by custom for all your lives. I understand that you, my clever, bold little maid, used your wits and what you had to hand to make new lives for yourself and others.”
“You approve?”
But that was too large a wish. She sensed rather than felt his slight withdrawal, even as he answered at once. “You did what you felt was needful.
“It must have taken careful preparation,” he went on, giving her no time to respond. “How many souls joined you? The whole village? Did you cut across fields to escape notice?”
“Yes and yes.” She wanted to ask again if he understood, but dared not in case he thought her tedious. Instead she told him of those villagers who had chosen to travel to other parts and stay there, for better terms. Those who, when they passed through other hamlets, had found new lands to farm, lands deserted by all previous owners and tenants. She told of how they had found the warhorse Hector in the barn, starving and thirsty, and how she had hoped to give Hector's former master a drink, before she had to accept that he was dead—dead of the pestilence, like so many others.
“How did you come to jousts and the tourney?”
She wondered how she could explain. “For the show and the spectacle, where everything is bright,” she said slowly. “Out in the world of farms and fields where we had lived, all seemed to be dying. What then, the purpose in planting, or in waiting for the harvest, or in gathering or making anything? The tourney, in contrast, seemed a world of fairy, untouched by death. Did you think only knights crave honor and glory?”
“Not anymore.” Ranulf kissed her scared hands. “Have your people changed much? Do they like it?”
Edith nodded, thinking of Teodwin.
“Will they miss it?”
“I do not know,” Edith answered, thinking of herself. “They will not be forced into their old pasts, their old crafts?”
“Not by me.” Ranulf made his words a vow. “Let their new talents show, for me.”
He chuckled. “Did you expect me to protest? A true knight, one who fights, sees such changes on the battlefield every day: squires becoming knights, men-at-arms becoming captains. Why waste skill?”
He saw relief shine out in her face. She cared so much for her people, it touched him. As for the rest—he thought of the stricken village they had both seen, and of the half-starved Many with her deformed, dead infant. Edith had indeed done what was needed to survive.
“I love you,” he said. “Nothing you have said, or will say, could change that.”
It is not Edith's words but her actions that disconcert me.
He had no time to consider that thought—Edith had cast herself into his arms, saying a mass of exclamations in her own dialect, forgetting he understood not a word. He caught her against him, feeling her shivering, realizing then how much she had feared his reaction, his possible rejection.
“Hush, hush.” Her terror appalled him—was he so much a judge? Did she not know by now that he meant what he said? He loved her.
I do, too, but not those lies. She has played us all and lied for weeks. To tell a lie is against all knightly conduct, but she has done so again and again. How now will I know, for sure, really for sure, that she is ever telling the truth?
Chapter 28
Still she clung to him. He could feel her tears soaking into his tunic.
“Listen!”
He heard it, too: the silence. It hung over the churchyard, desolate as a soaring raven.
“Not good,” he muttered. “We cannot wait for sunset, it seems. We should move on from here now.”
Edith chewed anxiously on her lower lip, the first time he had seen that sign. “Maria will be able to walk, but she will be slow. She will not be able to dive and hide.”
“I or Teodwin could go ahead.” He disliked that plan, for it would mean them separating, in his experience always a fatal course in enemy country.
Enemy country. God's breath! This is what we have come to, in England!
“Can we not go together?” She knelt up, glancing about. “Is there a donkey or mule hereabouts we can have Maria ride?”
A freckled, bearded face peeped out of the door of the priest's house. “Edith? Should we not be going?” hissed Teodwin. “I worry for our youngsters and Many. She will be wondering where I am.”
“Is the baby quiet?” Edith whispered back.
Teodwin nodded and pushed open the door, to show Maria standing beside him with her baby in her arms. She was wincing as she shifted from side to side, clearly uncomfortable with standing, but she was dressed and ready to go.
Ranulf took charge. This was rather like being in Normandy or France: he had moved camps there, including womenfolk. Of course, he had soldiers in France, but he would have soldiers again, once he had slipped Edith and the others out of this settlement.
“Cover yourself,” he told her, his woman, his prize. He gave her his cloak to do so, making a jest of it. “Another cloak you have cost me, eh?”
She blushed but took the garment meekly enough, wrapping it snugly around her distinctive, eye-catching costume, tucking her long hair out of sight and leaving the hood low over her head so it hid her face.
He pointed at the steward. “Is that tunic as bright turned inside out? 'Tis that, or smearing it with dung: the color blazes too much.”
Grumbling, Teodwin ducked back inside the hut.
“We make for the woods,” Ranulf said. He nodded to Maria. “Can you carry your child?”
Maria glanced at her sleeping baby and brushed a fallen wisp of thatch from the infant's head—a yes, so far as Ranulf was concerned.
He beckoned to the two women, relieved when they began to walk to him. The steward could catch up to them but he wanted no freezing fits or hysterics. That ominous silence in the churchyard might not last too much longer.
A narrow strip of a path wove away from the village to the nearby woods. Looking over Edith's head, he measured the distance to the cover of the limes and hazels to be the length of a bow-shot. It was too far, really, for comfort, but they had no choice.
“Edith.” He jerked his head to the trees, relieved when she did not ask again about a donkey—which would take too long to find—and set off at once. Maria waddled after her and he brought up the rear, his wits and nerves on edge with every step.
What was happening in that churchyard? What was going on in the castle, or the camp? Where the devil were his men? They should be searching for him. Or had they, like Sir Henry and his friends, been overwhelmed?
They passed a well, Edith giving a discernable shudder as she glanced down into the dark water. Did she remember the well at the pestilence-stricken village? A shadow flitted across the path ahead of her and she started forward, running toward the possible danger, the mad girl. Sprinting, he overtook Maria and her, almost colliding with a wandering pig that squealed a loud, ear-splitting indignation at being disturbed. He shooed the pig off, into a hut with an open door, and braced himself for running men and a hue and cry.
There was nothing—it was a false scare. Edith picked up the pace anew, striding by the entrance to another hut. At a third, she shook her head and put a finger to her lips. Ranulf spotted an elderly man sitting in the doorway of the hut, his toothless mouth wide in surprise. He copied Edith and put a finger to his mouth and the old man beamed happily.
Maria stumbled, catching her skirts against a discarded rake left in the middle of the track. Ranulf seized and steadied her, picked up the rake to fling it aside, then kept it; it might make a handy weapon.
Behind him he heard a slight wheeze. Teodwin, his purple tunic turned inside out, had caught up with them.
One more to worry over. . . .
Five paces ahead, Edith stopped and made a downward motion with her hands. As she crouched amidst old winter bracken and brambles, Teodwin strode neatly off the track behind a holly bush, but Maria remained standing in the middle of the path, sturdy as a stone pillar and as conspicuous. Ranulf shepherded the maid to a nearby wooden rack, possibly used for drying clothes or for drying fish, and urged her to remain still. If she did not move and her babe did not cry, her outline might not be spotted by whoever was coming.
A troop of darting, running men broke cover onto the track.
“Stay!” Ranulf warned the maid as he hurtled into the trees. The troop had not seen Edith, crouched small by a bramble, or Maria, blended with the drying rack, or even the elderly steward, squirming tight against the holly, his dulled purple tunic looking like patches of early berries. Sprinting away from all three, he began to make a massive tumult amidst the hazels and elders, desperate to draw the men into pursuing him.
“Get him!” two yelled and crashed into the undergrowth, slashing wildly with ladles and spits—they were cook boys, he realized.
“The North!” He bawled his battle cry, snatching up a fallen crab apple from the dry, dusty grass and hurling it at the crashing youngsters.
The crab hit the lead youth in the face who had not had the wit to avoid it: these were no warriors, they were beardless lads, probably servants from Castle Fitneyclare.
A mob all the same
, his instinct warned. He fixed on the small, quick-footed redhead in the midst of the pack who was roaring orders and slung a windfall at him. Sharper than the rest, the redhead ducked and it smacked against his shielding arm.
The troop did not charge all at once, as they should have done if they were to have any chance against him. Instead, in a collision of arms and legs, they stopped, yowling insults.
Ranulf tossed the rake from hand to hand. His back prickled at the thought of more of these truant lads doubling back onto the track and finding Edith or her maid, but that was his only concern.
“Go back.” He spoke between the insults, without adding any of his own. “I have no quarrel with you.”
The two spit boys gripped their spits harder and brandished them, glancing at the others for support. The wiry redhead, who had more sense, scowled but looked thoughtful.
Ranulf took a step back. The troop did not follow. He began to turn altogether, intending to walk west, away from the village and the track. A white dog bounded through grass and saplings, showing its teeth but whisking its tail. When he stood his ground the dog flopped panting into the leaf litter. Ignoring the beast, he listened hard, catching the distinctive drumbeat of cantering horses.
Warhorses, he guessed, as the ground began to shake. Already the lads were tossing aside their branches and fleeing. Jinking from tree to tree to make a chase harder and an arrow in the back less likely, Ranulf pounded toward the track and Edith.
“The North!”
“Rothencey!”
Giles, resplendent in shining mail and plate armor, with his helmet graced by new favors and trailing ribbons, rode down the wooded hillside in a burst of glowing color. Behind him were his men, almost as shining and well-horsed.
Full arms against boys?
The thought, which before Edith would not have been his, swept over him in a wave of cold, hard anger. As he sped to Edith, raised her, and shielded her with his body, he knew what Giles would claim.
Sure enough, he did.
“Well met, Ran!” he hollered in a cheery fashion, standing on his stirrups as he churned down the slope of hazel saplings. “I have saved your skin today from these misbegotten miscreants!”
Tormenting scullery lads, he finds us by accident and claims a victory!
“I thank you,” Ranulf said coolly, sensing Edith's twist of her head, turning her face away from Giles. Part of his anger was for her, too. Still, it seemed, she did not trust him enough to say how and why and when she knew Giles—as it was obvious she did. “I am in your debt, man,” he ground out.
“I know.” Giles was as sweet as honey. He settled back into his saddle and extended his foot. “My Lady of Lilies? Pray come up upon my horse. Allow me to escort you to your tent.”
Ranulf cupped Giles's foot: the mail scraped his hand but he was too furious to care. “She is with me.”
“We should leave, my lord,” Edith said quickly, her head down, still averting her face from Giles. “We are both most anxious, I know, to return to our people. If those gathered in the churchyard choose to move against the camp—”
“They are not with you now? You have been unchaperoned with him, my lady?”
“My steward is with us, and my maid—”
Ranulf felt as if his brains were beginning to boil. “Peace, Giles,” he growled, relieving a little of his feelings by tossing the rake out into the woodland beyond the closing ranks of horses and men. “I wager you are worse than a terrier on a rat with these pinpoints of courtesy.”
Giles smirked, his eyes wide with malicious pleasure. “You wanted to be sure of your prize, Ran?”
“Damn you!” He grabbed for the stallion's reins, determined to pitch Giles off his horse. The bay snorted and tossed its head and Edith, hiding her face with the flaps of her hood, cried urgently, “We should all go, at once! What is the news from the castle, Sir Giles? And what is happening in the village now? 'Tis most vital we know.”
“I know nothing of Fitneyclare, my lady. I was concerned for you.”
Ranulf, with lights of rage flashing before his eyes, tried to curb his temper. “As I said before, she is with me. You will be satisfied with that, Giles, or 'fore God, I will know the reason why.”
Without waiting for a reply, he held out his hand. Edith took it, giving his fingers a reassuring squeeze, although she also gave him a curious look, part puzzlement, part defiance, he thought.
He did not consider long. Giles's men encircled about them were closing in. He did not want to stay in this shrinking trap.
“Come, girl,” he called to Maria. “Come, sir steward, before that holly tree claims more threads from you.”
Taking great care not to crush Edith's hand, he pushed past Giles's great brown nag and set off for the path.
He dare not strike me down, not with his men and Teodwin and Maria and who knows else in this wood as witnesses.
Part of him was amazed that matters stood in this poor way between him and Giles. Mostly he was glad to be off.
 
 
Edith hurried to keep up with Ranulf. She wanted to stop, to ask Maria if she was all right, if she wanted her to carry the baby. She glanced at Teodwin, relieved the high color was creeping back into his face. She sensed Ranulf clutching her fingers as tenderly as if she was an infant while his face was as dark as storm clouds.
Why, then, did he not tell Giles that we are betrothed? Will he always be ashamed of me? Have I shared so much for nothing?
 
 
“You there!” Giles de Rothencey thundered from his horse.
“I have a name,” said the spy, looking up from his game of chess with himself. His neck was sunburned after a long day in the fields and woodlands. He had only just returned to the jousting camp, weary and thirsty and with only a grudging page to bring him an indifferent wine. He had been paid by Sir Giles earlier that month, but not much. He certainly did not owe the knight manners.
“Mark of Sealand,” said Sir Giles, with leaden irony. “A pestilence-ridden place we burned to the rafters.”
Mark shrugged. “Should that not be burned to the ground? No matter,
Sir Giles
. The tourney camp has been quiet. Half of Ranulf of Fredenwyke's men are off hunting, including his squire. The rest have been playing dice, polishing arms, gawking at the Lady of Lilies's tent, and flirting with the women there: the usual things. Some of your men visited the village to hear the preacher. They came away before Sir Henry and his men were set upon by the peasants.”
“Fools,” said Sir Giles, without heat. Mark knew he cared nothing for Henry, or even his own men.
“If you want me to go on watching, I need more coin,” he said before the knight could make more demands. He had his own ruffians to pay, and many were growing impatient. In these days of pestilence, where death stalked without rhyme or reason, men were more testy.

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