Chosen for the Marriage Bed (21 page)

‘Visitors. And not with good intentions towards us.’ His laugh was sharp, humourless. ‘Who in God’s name would set up a siege in February, and when the situation between York and Lancaster is at so crucial a juncture?’

‘I don’t know.’ Richard scanned the scene again, taking in the other obvious omission. ‘What do you notice, Rob?’

‘Apart from a large, well-organised force intent on taking your castle?’

‘Look at them!’

‘Ah!’ Robert nodded. ‘Faceless and nameless.’

But it was Simon Beggard who spoke the thought. ‘There’s no livery, my lord. No standards, no pennons, no herald—or not that I can see. We don’t know who comes against us.’

‘And, I wager, we’re to be deliberately kept in ignorance,’ Richard replied. ‘So who would come against us in this manner? It’ll take them months to reduce us to surrender. We’re well stocked with provisions and our water supply is secure. What in God’s name are they thinking of? They must know I won’t negotiate.’

‘Well, there’s your answer.’ Robert pointed to the road where horses approached, slowly, ponderously, dragging heavy wheels behind them. ‘Whoever it is has no intention of negotiating terms with you either.’ The horses dragged behind them four large cannon. ‘You’ve a powerful enemy, Richard,’ he stated. ‘Someone who intends to blast a hole in your castle wall and simply walk through.’

Richard watched as the cannon were dragged into position, their purpose horrifyingly apparent. Someone, hiding behind deliberate anonymity, intended to destroy the castle wall. And since no herald summoned them with traditional courtesy to a parley before the attack began, the besiegers were not interested in offering terms of surrender.

The in habitants of Ledenshall were soon rattled by the first crash of a cannon ball. Followed by another and then another. An hour later the stone work was beginning to suffer damage. The final outcome could not have been more obvious.

‘So what do we do?’ Robert demanded, unaware of the grey coating to his red brows. ‘We can’t just sit here and wait to be battered into sub mission.’

Richard saw the outcome etched clearly in his mind. The wall would gradually sink and collapse under the barrage, vertical crevasses opening wide. The Malinder men-at-arms would fight to the bitter end to defend Ledenshall, of that he had no doubt, but ultimately? Surrender. Capture. Death.

‘We are pinned here like rats in a trap with terriers waiting for the chance to snap our necks in two,’ he observed dispassionately.

There was no way out of Ledenshall without meeting deadly resistance.

Apart, that is, from the easily over looked, completely overgrown postern gate.

On Richard’s orders, the men met around the table in the Great Hall. He could have drawn his detailed plan of action into the dust on the surface before him.

‘We’re in danger.’ He let his gaze rest on each face. No point in pre tending otherwise, but his voice was calm, his manner exuding confidence. When a missile thwacked against the first-floor level of the keep above their heads, he did not even flinch. ‘If we sit here, we shall be at worst dead, at best prisoners. This is my plan. We’ll make use of the postern—at the first hint of dawn when men are at their most susceptible. Rob, you and Simon will remain here and keep up the re sistance, for what good it is, as if we were all still trapped. Begin a fire attack to draw all attention and open the main gates as if a sortie is planned. It’ll distract attention from the ditch by the copse where the postern opens out.’

Richard waited until he had received a reluctant nod of acceptance from Robert. ‘It’s my intention to get the women out of here. There’s no indication that we shall be granted free passage if the wall falls, so I think we must presume that we shall not. I’ll deliver the women to safety—and then I shall ride to my estates to collect an armed force. Then I’ll return to raise the siege. Four, five days at the most, by my reckoning.’

‘Where will you get horses?’ Robert asked.

‘At the inn in the village—again our only hope. I’ll try to get a man out during the hours of darkness to give notice of our needs.’

‘What about me?’ David asked. His fingers tightened into fists on the table, his dark eyes fixed on Richard, part challenge, part plea.

‘Of course.’ Richard had already taken the pride of the de Lacy heir into consideration. How to get him out of danger without denying his abilities? ‘You will disguise yourself as a peasant and will come with me. I’ll need some support if we’re to get the women away.’

David nodded, a quick smile, the disguise appealing to his sense of adventure. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘Good lad! I thought you might argue the point. Now I’ll go and break the news!’

‘I won’t go! I won’t leave you here!’ In the solar Elizabeth faced him, full of ripe fury that he should send her away.

‘I am not
asking
you, Elizabeth.’ He set his jaw, tried for calm. He had expected this, had he not? ‘This is an order. And you are not leaving me here. I am coming with you.’

It had no noticeable effect. ‘I’ll not be shuffled off to safety. I’ll stay with you and fight against whoever dares to attack our home. Against whoever dares to put your life in danger.’ Despite everything, he had to admire her battle spirit, but now was not the time.

‘Listen, my foolish one.’ He dragged her away from the vulnerable window opening to the centre of the room and forced her to sit and listen, keeping hold of her hands. ‘Look at me and listen.’ He waited until she did so, only then aware of the glitter of unshed tears in her eyes. ‘We don’t know the purpose of this attack. We don’t know that the usual rules apply because there appear to be no rules, that if I am prepared to negotiate or even surrender, you’ll be allowed to go free. We can’t hold out in de finitely against their fire power. Someone is very determined on our defeat, so I expect no quarter. This plan—it will be a near-run thing, but I think the balance is on our side. I have to know that you are safe. Once you are removed from here and in a place of safety, then that is one less problem on my mind. I have my men to consider and my people at Ledenshall. If nothing else, think of that.’

His words were clear and simply stated. They cut cleanly to Elizabeth’s brain, to her conscience, through the underlying uncertainty and the fear. And of course he had not said anything that she had not worked out for herself. But she could not give in. Could not leave him to whatever fate held for him.

Richard saw her refusal written in her face.

‘I love you, Elizabeth—you are my life. Your safety is always, will always be, my greatest concern.’ He grasped her shoulders and shook her gently. ‘And if some thing should happen to me, and God grant that it does not, the child you carry will ensure the continuation of the Malinder in heritance.’ How could she stand against so stark a truth? ‘I’ll leave you some where in safety and then collect a force from my own tenants so that I can return and raise the siege. It’s the only way—the obvious way. You have to see the sense of it.’

And she did. ‘I am afraid,’ she admitted as she leaned against him for a moment, her forehead against his shoulder.

‘I know. But you are also very brave. You will do exactly what needs to be done. As a Malinder and a de Lacy.’

He could not have said better. Now she looked up, face pale but determined. ‘Tell me what I need to do.’

‘I need to take you some where safe. I haven’t decided where…’

‘Talgarth? I won’t go!’

‘No! Not Talgarth.’ If his rejection was sharper than he had intended, she did not notice.

A glint dispelled the fear in her eyes. ‘I know where you can take me. I know where we shall be safe. But you must promise to rescue me.’

‘Of course I will rescue you.’ Richard kissed her with quick fire, with utmost tenderness, then stood to lift and push into her hands a pile of instantly recognisable clothing.

‘Put these on.’ He grunted a laugh. ‘If we’re to travel the wilds of the country against an unknown enemy, we’ll take every precaution. You can dress as a lad with my blessing.’

Chapter Seventeen

T
he night was dark with low cloud sweeping in on a chill wind and intermittent rain, perfect for those planning escape. During the darkest hours just after midnight, two men, separately, slipped through the postern to make their way through the lines, avoiding watch fires and sentries. There was no outbreak of sound to indicate a capture.

Richard took a breath in relief.

Just before dawn, with the faintest glimmer of lighter sky in the east, a little group gathered in the court yard in a motley se lection of borrowed clothes, but all enveloped in dark cloaks, hoods drawn up. Richard in plain gear would travel as a town worthy. Beneath his cloak was strapped sword and poignard. Elizabeth, in male attire, and David with a dagger in his belt and boot, would pass well enough as grooms. Mistress Bringsty robed herself as a merchant’s widow. As long as no one looked too closely, all they would see was a small party intent on travel, well garbed against the weather.

At the end Richard clasped Robert’s hand. ‘Make a good show of force, Rob. We depend on it if we’re to bring this off.’

And then they were gone, one after the other, Richard leading, David bringing up the rear, into the rain swept grey light.

Luck was with them as they slipped through the outposts. Dark cloaks, heavy cloud, a sudden fast shower of rain. At the crucial moment a hail of fire arrows winged their way from Ledenshall’s battlements towards the cannon to draw all eyes, enough to distract the sentries. The fleeing group heard the groan and grind of the massive gates of the castle being opened, as if a sortie were planned, with harsh shouts, the clatter of hooves and a blast or two of a herald’s trumpet. Richard lifted his head in appreciation. Robert had planned well. Richard forced his mind away from the safety of his home, his family, to the urgency of the mission before him.

Then they were at the inn where three horses were already saddled.

Jane Bringsty was urged on to one, David on another. Elizabeth placed her foot on Richard’s to be pulled to ride astride behind him. They were gone, fleeing before the noise and the glow of flames over the castle, where Robert’s archers were doing good work.

Llanwardine at last. Pitch-black, the nuns retired to their hard pallets. The walls of the Priory loomed dark above them. No lights were evident, but they drew their horses to a halt at the main door and slid to the ground.

Elizabeth groaned as her shrieking muscles took the strain when she landed on her feet. What an impossibly long journey it had seemed. More than once she had found herself drifting in and out of sleep, her arms clasped round Richard’s waist, her cheek pillowed against the rough cloth of his shoulders. Holding to his warmth and his nearness, his strength of body and will, her mind wove through images, unsettling and unnerving, finding it impossible to escape until she could not distinguish reality from dreams.

‘Who would have thought that I would rejoice to return here?’ Elizabeth murmured.

Richard reached up to ring the bell for admittance. They heard it echo within, but there was no sign of habitation, still no lights. Impatiently, he rang again and now there were approaching foot steps.

A small barred window within the massive door opened. Richard stepped forwards. ‘We are travellers be nighted, who would claim hospitality from the Priory. We mean you no harm. I am Malinder of Ledenshall. I have two women here with me. They are in need of a place of safety to rest.’

They heard the turn of a key and the rattle of a chain as the door was opened to release the glow of a lantern. There stood the Lady Prioress herself, holding the lamp high to cast light on to the travellers. Her eyes travelled over the little group, then returned to Elizabeth as she pushed back the hood of her cloak.

‘You said I should come, if I were in trouble,’ Elizabeth explained.

‘And you are welcome.’

The Lady Prioress opened the door wide and invited them into sanctuary.

They snatched a heart-wrenching moment of privacy. Despite their rough clothing, they dominated the small room, a magnificent pair, as they stood together in the bare parlour, illuminating it with the heat and vibrancy that ran between them. They were made for each other without doubt.

‘Farewell, Elizabeth. God keep you.’

‘Keep safe, Richard.’

Both robbed of suitable words, both engulfed in nameless fears for the future. There was every chance that they might not meet again. Their hands clasped tight, their eyes taking in every beloved detail of the other’s face, until Richard bent his head and, soft as a promise, claimed his wife’s lips. At first they were cold and rigid beneath his, unresponsive through fear, then warming, softening, opening to his in sis tent pressure.

What to say?

‘I’ll come back for you.’

‘Yes.’ Her fingers clutched tighter. ‘I have nothing to give you to aid your safe keeping.’

‘I need nothing. All I need is to know that you’ll be safe from harm here.’

‘And the child.’

‘Yes. But, most importantly, yourself. If I should die…’ He laid his fingers on her lips when she would have rejected such a thought. ‘If I should die, raise the child as I would wish it, as my heir. You can hold the power until the child is of age.’

‘I will.’ Her eyes glinted, but he knew she would not weep. ‘Now you must go.’

Only time for one final salute between them. One final kiss, mouth against mouth in a des per ate statement of loss. Of love and impossible passion. Everything he could not say, Richard poured into it so that he would remember the taste of her as he rode away. And she would remember him.

‘You have all my love. I cannot bear it, Richard…’

‘As you have mine. Be brave, Elizabeth. My love, my heart. My life.’

And then he was gone. Leaving her alone, her heart full of love, her mind full of fear.

Richard swept through the March to summon Malinder tenants to his aid. Marching as fast as they could towards Ledenshall, scouts were sent out ahead, re turning with the news that the besiegers must have had their own sources of information. Word of the approaching Malinder force had reached them so that at some time in the night they had melted away, leaving nothing to mark their assault but a series of ugly fortifications and four brass-bound cannon. As the Malinder standard and pennons heralded their approach over the crest of the hill, Robert and Simon Beggard were already outside the wall, inspecting its imminent collapse in one section.

‘Good timing, Richard.’ Robert’s face lit with a broad smile. ‘Better late then never.’ The cousins clasped hands with no need to say more.

Richard eyed the widening fissures, kicked his boot against a pile of rubble at his feet, already assessing the need for repairs. ‘They did not want to be seen.’

‘No, they did not.’ Robert fixed him with his bright gaze. ‘Any guesses?’

‘I think so.’

With time for reflection on the long ride, there was only one name that returned again and again to Richard’s mind as the source of all evil. He might not know why, but he was certain he knew who. There was only one man in the March who could command such a force other than himself. So far, without real proof, Richard had stood by the letter of the law. But Elizabeth had been put in danger of her life. His home had come under attack. He could no longer sit by and do nothing.

The rest of the day was spent in shoring up the wall whilst Richard took stock of the damage. It could be worse. A section of the wall would have to be rebuilt, although the foundations them selves appeared sturdy enough. The kitchens, where David had immediately run bread and meat to ground, as well as the stables, would need total reconstruction, but the main structure of the keep and living accommodations was intact. At least Elizabeth would have a home to return to. Robert stood at Richard’s side, both contemplating the damage. Exhaustion stamped their faces.

‘Another day and that section would have collapsed inwards.’ Robert pointed, acknowledging what they both knew. It was a near-run thing. ‘We couldn’t have held the castle longer.’

‘You have my gratitude, Rob.’ Richard glanced away from the destruction, his decision made at last. It was a lot to ask of any man, but he would ask it. ‘I would ask a favour of you.’

‘Another?’ Robert groaned as he leaned against the parapet, rubbing his face on his sleeve. ‘I was planning on going home.’

‘De Lacy is involved in this,’ Richard stated. ‘It
has
to be de Lacy. If I asked it, would you and your retainers ride with me against him?’

Robert never did reply. The hooves of a small approaching force on the road drew—and kept—their attention.

‘We have a visitor,’ remarked Richard in level tones. ‘And, by the pennons, it’s a de Lacy.’

At Llanwardine, surrounded and cut off from the world by the long ridges of the Black Mountains, time hung heavy for Elizabeth. She made the best of the unappealing food and bleak accommodation. At least it offered sanctuary.

But it was the not knowing that scraped at nerves and stalked her through the long watches of the night. At Ledenshall it would have been possible to bury her worries, if only for a few short hours, in some necessary activity. At Llanwardine, in the cold fastness of February when even the vegetable plot was abandoned, she was thrown back on her own strength and her courage to hold fast to a distant hope.

No visitors. No news.

And Elizabeth, in her borrowed nun-like robes, went to kneel in the Priory church where she would never have dreamed she would find comfort. The vast, arched spaces and the silence helped her to empty her mind of the terror that gripped her, helped her to think ration ally. There she petitioned the Virgin in her cool serenity for Richard’s safety. All she could do was wait. And pray that her black habit was not some dreadful presentiment for the future.

‘Aunt Ellen!’ David gasped, echoing Richard’s astonishment. ‘What are
you
doing here?’

Ellen de Lacy made no move to enter the small parlour where she was invited, but simply stood there on the threshold in an unnatural stillness, wrapped around in a cloak muddied around the hem. From what could be seen beneath the sweep of her hood, her usually impassive face was pale and her lips firmly set. Her unexpected presence here at Ledenshall stunned Richard, then some thing suddenly slithered queasily in his gut. It could mean nothing but ill.

‘David. And Richard.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘Thank God. They told me I would find you here.’

Richard reacted at last, but cautiously, hanging on to a hope that his fears were unfounded. ‘Ellen—you should not be here with so small an escort. It’s too dangerous, as things are.’ The prospect of an unaccompanied woman of gentle blood being alone in the March appalled him. Then, as practical considerations took over, he took hold of her arm and drew her gently into the room, aware of a fragile quality beneath her determination. When she unclasped her cloak he took it from her and pushed her to sit in a chair beside the fire. ‘You must excuse the lack of comfort. We’ve experienced some turmoil…’

‘No matter…’ Ellen swept it away with an impatient hand, her eyes all for Richard. ‘I need to talk to
you
, Richard.’ Her expression was suddenly imprinted with a wretchedness that tightened her lips and drew lines at the outer corner of her eyes, and her hand grasped his wrist like a claw. Surprised by such emotion, Richard now saw how drained and tired she looked. ‘I have thought about this long and hard. I almost lost my nerve coming here…’

Ellen fell silent as David returned with cups and wine, accepted one, but did not drink. Instead she began to speak, hesitantly at first, but then her voice growing stronger. ‘I know some of what’s happened at Talgarth. I watch. I listen. I listen at doors, God help me! Do you see what I have been driven to? Such behaviour in my own home! It is not beneath me to go through papers, searching for God knows what! Locked boxes. Drawers and chests. Even to question servants.’ Unknown fears gripped her. Putting aside the cup, her hands clasped and unclasped in her lap until Richard drew up a stool, sat and took possession of them, to still them. He held her fingers gently but firmly in his as she stated finally, ‘I should be ashamed, but I am not.’

‘Tell me what you know, Ellen. Tell me what brings you here.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ She closed her eyes for a moment as if to focus her strength. Then began, her voice firm. ‘You know about Lewis’s death.’ She made of it a statement of fact rather than a question, her eyes moving from Richard to David and back again.

He had not expected so open an approach. ‘We know about the jewellery that you sent to Elizabeth. And the pieces you gave to David. You said that they were in Sir John’s possession.’

‘Yes. In his room. I stole them.’ Her eyes were wide, as if shocked at her admission, but without regret. ‘I can think of only one reason for them to be there. Sir John must have known where they came from, the identity of their owner. And so he must know whose sword struck Lewis down. It would be Gilbert de Burcher. I
know
it was. And then David was kept from contact with Elizabeth and from you when you came to Talgarth with the hawk.’ David nodded in agreement when Ellen’s eyes slid to his. ‘That was Capel’s doing. He has a clever hand with herbs and simples.’

‘So we suspect that Sir John had a hand in Lewis’s death.’ Richard gentled his voice as he might to a restive mare. ‘But why would he carry out so monstrous an act? Lewis was his nephew and as suitable an heir as any man could ask for.’

‘You must think I have lost my wits.’ On what was alarmingly close to a sob, Ellen’s gaze burned into Richard’s as if it were in her power to force him to see and accept the truth. ‘It’s got to be power, land, ambition… My lord is driven by ambition. A desire to rule the whole of the central March, with no rivalry, with no interference. You can’t imagine of what he is capable. And Capel has a hand in it.’ For a long moment she lapsed into uncomfortable silence.

‘Go on…’

Ellen blinked. ‘He wants your death too, Richard.’