Dacre's War (16 page)
Authors: Rosemary Goring
‘Market day,’ said Crozier. ‘We are in luck.’ He turned to Benoit. ‘After you, brother. If anyone troubles us, we are on a reconnaissance for Baron Dacre himself. We are your apprentices.’ He pushed Tom’s hat back from his face, and removed his own. He gave a grim laugh. ‘No need to look bashful. We’ve got nothing to hide.’ With a flick of the reins he set off, his horse tossing its head and picking its way off the hill as daintily as if stepping between tacks.
Penrith closed in around them, its blackened walls matching their fears. Benoit led the way, past butchers humping carcasses onto their stands, and weavers stacking cloths on their trestles like a hand of cards, each bale peeking out from behind its neighbour. After the greens and browns and sere yellows of the hills, the blaze of colour was almost as much a shock to the senses as the merchants’ cries and the bellowing of cattle and bleating of sheep as herdsmen whipped them into their pens
Nobody paid them any attention. Benoit’s stomach rumbled as the scent of roasting pork filled the morning, and he was wondering if they dare risk buying some food when a child appeared at his elbow and thrust a pair of skinned rabbits under his nose. ‘Fresh killed the morn,’ he piped, holding out his hand for a coin. Benoit recoiled at the bulging eyes staring out of red-ribboned flesh. ‘Ah’ve whelks and cockles if ye prefer,’ said the boy, jogging beside the carpenter, the smell of seaweed rising off the chittering creel on his back.
Benoit shook his head and kicked his horse into a trot, but the press of stallholders and townsfolk brought him up almost at once, his horse rearing in fright at the clash of pans from a pie-maker’s booth. Benoit flailed as the reins fell from his hands and he would have toppled had Crozier not pushed alongside and pulled him back into his saddle. The borderer’s rough grasp stung more than any rebuke. Mortified that he had drawn attention to them, and sure that at any minute they would be accosted, Benoit felt dizzy. By the time the din had faded, the streets widened, and they had reached a bridge that marked the edge of town, his shirt was soaked.
When Crozier rode abreast and slapped his arm with his hat, he was startled. ‘Well done,’ the borderer said. ‘You behaved the part.’ At Benoit’s surprise, Crozier’s expression softened. ‘Come on, now. No border hoodlum would almost fall off their horse like that. Thank the lord you weren’t born in the saddle.’ He gave a curt laugh, and pressed his hat back on his head. ‘You didn’t see it, but when the urchin was tugging your sleeve, the guards by the market cross had noticed us. Soon as you slipped sideways, they relaxed. One of them laughed, the fool.’
As they rode across the river plain and up into the woods, Benoit breathed deep for the first time in days. It was as if the vice that had been squeezing his chest had at last been loosened. He pushed his hat off his forehead, and looked around, at the track that wandered through the flame-red forest, and the glimpse of rain-sodden hills ahead.
Within an hour the countryside had changed. Where Penrith was glowering, the hillsides rough and the houses dark, the land around Greystoke was trim as a private park. The fields were tidy, the trees lined up as if planted by hand, and when they reached the village it was like a tapestry, so neatly laid out were the slate-roofed cottages around the green, so pretty the pale-towered church.
The riders dismounted by the river that bordered the village. There were two roads into Greystoke, and there was no knowing which Ilderton’s messenger would use. Under guise of watering their horses, they conferred. An old woman peered at them from under her cap as she hustled a flock of geese past with a switch. Tom touched his hat, but she looked away without a word.
‘We can’t stand here long,’ said Tom. ‘A place this small, we are far too conspicuous.’
Crozier nodded. ‘John the Bastard will live apart from the common priests,’ he said. ‘As Dacre’s son and graced with the pope’s blessing, he will have a status more like a lord. The Greystoke manor is where we’ll most likely find him, wherever that is. There, or in the church. Once we know which, we can hide up, and set watch.’
As one, the brothers turned to Benoit. At that moment, the bells in the church tower began a querulous toll, calling the village to mass. A straggle of figures crossed the green, hooded and humble as they fingered their beads. ‘Me?’ asked Benoit, but he need not have asked.
Catching up with the last of the late-comers, he tethered his horse by the lychgate and hurried into the church, crossing himself before taking his place near the doors on a bench worn smooth by centuries of shuffling. The monks gathered in the chancel began to chant, a low, liquid murmur that echoed around the high-beamed church, eddying under the rafters and along the aisles as if making sure all were bathed in song. Heads were bowed as the elderly priest entered and knelt, raising his hands to the altar, his hunched back to the church. Benoit peered from beneath his hat. Two younger priests in white chasubles flanked their superior, narrow and straight as the candles that burned on the walls. They too had their backs to the church. Benoit could not tell their ages, nor their rank. The taller seemed more likely to be Dacre’s son, but it was impossible to be sure.
The ceremony began, and Benoit’s lips followed the litany. A feeling of peace descended on the church, the gloom of the morning lifted by the words of hope and faith. For a moment he forgot his purpose, his spirit lightened by the comfort of a ritual he had loved since he was a child. The priest’s assistant swung the thurible on a short chain, incense swirling like autumn mist, and the priest’s voice grew louder. The villagers looked ahead, eyes fixed as if mesmerised, fingers working their rosaries.
There was a shuddering crash, the cracking of oak against stone, as the doors were flung open and the church breached by workaday light as well as the violent presence of the man who had entered. Dropping their beads, the congregation turned to see a glistening figure framed in the doorway. His gaze swept over the three priests who stood unmoving, like pillars of salt. Raising his cudgel, the man advanced down the nave, water running from his cloak. ‘Is one of you the Bastard Dacre?’ he shouted. The salt heads shook. Brushing his way past the benches of believers, the visitor made for the side chapels, throwing open their doors one by one, each slamming against the old stone wall as if slapping its face. When he found no one on one side of the church, he made for the other. Benoit waited only to be sure all the chapels were empty before slipping out. A horse was tethered to the ring by the doors, lathered with sweat as it pawed the grass. Before the visitor had finished his search, Benoit was on his own horse, and out of sight.
Crozier and Tom were waiting for him by the river. They had neither seen nor heard the messenger, but at Benoit’s news they led their horses swiftly up to the village green in time to see Ilderton’s man whipping his weary hunter down the road to the south. What they did not see was the cassocked young priest drawing water at the church well. It was Dacre’s son, whose day it was for serving the almoners. A minute earlier, and the messenger would have found him. While the village thrummed to the beat of chasing hooves, John the Bastard went about his business, unaware.
The borderers did not have long to stop the messenger reaching the manor. Digging in their spurs, they gave the horses their heads. As they left the village plain and found themselves in thick wooded hillside, they began to close in on their prey.
Not until they were almost upon him did the messenger hear their approach. He looked over his shoulder, and his horse veered sharply as he wrenched the reins in surprise. By now the road was widening between the trees. In another minute they would be at the manor gatehouse, and Dacre’s men within shouting reach. With a frantic kick, the messenger tried to outride them on the final stretch, but his horse was exhausted, labouring on the muddied track as if wading through water. Tom drew alongside, Crozier rode ahead, and Ilderton’s man was brought to a halt. His mount reared in alarm, jibbing at its bit as the strangers pressed in. With one hand the messenger held it steady, drawing his sword with the other. The trees closed in above them, and there was a sudden hush, no sound but the heaving breath of their horses, and the cry of a solitary rook.
At the prodding of Benoit’s sword in the small of his back, the messenger dropped his weapon. His eyes were small, and they narrowed further as he took in his pursuers. Much was conveyed in that look. The man nodded, and spat. ‘I nearly made it,’ he said. He stared at Benoit, whose sword pointed now at his throat. He gave a snort of laughter. ‘Ilderton wouldn’t have credited a barrel like you with as much brain. His mistake, but I’m to pay for it.’
He spoke in the hope of being told he was wrong, but no one gave him comfort.
‘Tell me,’ said Benoit, ‘is John the Bastard his father’s enemy, as Ilderton said?’
The messenger shook his head. This close to meeting his maker, there was no need to lie. ‘Close as ticks the pair of them. Like looking in a glass lake, too; the boy’s the image of his father. His pride and joy, by-blow or not. He’s still but a lad, but one day he’ll do his father proud.’
While the man spoke, Crozier edged his horse closer. When he was within reach, he lunged, Tom grabbed the hunter’s bridle, and the messenger was dragged off his horse and onto the track. Before he could scramble to his feet, Crozier was beside him, boot pressed on his chest. The man’s eyes met his, cold with contempt, and fearless. ‘Just do it,’ he said.
Without a word, the borderer thrust the blade home. Ilderton’s servant let out a sharp sigh, and turned his cheek to the track, as if it were a pillow. As his heart emptied and his mind with it, his last sense was the smell of damp earth, which he was soon to join.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rauf Ilderton would not be as easy to deal with. The ride from Cumberland to the Northumberland moors was less fevered than the race to Greystoke, but the borderers still moved at a pace. Ilderton would be expecting his messenger with news any day. Too cautious to change horses and leave a trace of their journey, they were now obliged to rest fully each night. While sleep was welcome, the delay chafed at their nerves, and the group grew terse as the days passed. Crozier feared that Ilderton would suspect trouble if his man was not back by the end of the week, and Benoit began to fret, knowing the task that lay ahead of him, and how wily his foe. Tom alone was untroubled, only with difficulty curbing his habit of tuneless whistling in deference to their mood.
‘You sure we’ve got to kill him?’ Benoit asked one night as he prodded the fire, juice from the rabbits sizzling on the spit, the mouthwatering smell making his belly growl. A lazy curl of smoke rose above the clearing, trees pressing in on their circle of light, as if to snuff it out.
Crozier stared into the fire and did not answer, his attention held by the flames as if they were showing him a story only he could see.
Benoit rubbed his hands at the blaze. ‘I ken he knows we’re out to get Dacre,’ he said, ‘but if he disnae ken who we are, can we no just leave it be? He might have tried to get us murdered, but from everything he said to me the man’s no great admirer of the baron either. He’d put the warden’s head in a noose as quick as ours.’
At last Crozier looked up. ‘The risk’s too great,’ he said. ‘Soon as Ilderton realises his messenger’s dead, he’ll hound us down. Getting rid of his man meant we have to deal with him too. We have no choice, brother. We can’t leave loose ends.’
Tom emerged from the trees, a brace of pigeons dangling from his belt. ‘Breakfast,’ he said, laying down his bow and joining them by the fire. ‘Easy pickings when they’re at roost.’ A flurry of pale feathers soon lay at his feet, as if a fox had been at work.
Benoit crouched by the fire with a stick, turning the rabbits over the flames. ‘I ken how to dae it, then,’ he said, in a voice the brothers had not heard before. Cast in crimson from the fitful light, his plump face was harsh. Crozier gestured him to sit.
‘Let’s hear it.’
The three huddled as if eavesdroppers might lurk in the wilderness beyond. ‘Beauty of it is,’ said Benoit, ‘this way no one’ll ever ken he’s been kilt.’ His plan had been long hatched, and he spoke fast and low. As he outlined his dark idea, his words rose over their heads and disappeared into the night, as if they too were smoke.
It was evening when they reached Ilderton’s village. Rain and wind swept the street, and Benoit kept his head bowed as he led his horse to the first of the taverns. The brothers were hidden in a copse on the outskirts, waiting for Benoit’s whistle to signal he had found their man. But Ilderton was gone. No barkeeper had seen him that night, nor was his doxy at home. Her companions opened the shutters at Benoit’s knock, hanging over the windowsill and peering down at him, the bodices of their scarlet gowns invitingly unribboned. She had not been seen for days, they told him. Would he like to come up and wait?
‘Will she be wi’ her master?’ Benoit asked.
‘Where else?’ Smiles fading as they sensed a customer escaping their hold, they banged the shutters tight.
Benoit hesitated. Were he to ask the way to Ilderton’s castle, his lordship might be given warning of his arrival. Turning back to the main street, he had decided there was no option but to do so when a swineherd appeared, racing after a wandering pig that was rootling in the gutters, oblivious of his cries, but skittering away with a squeal whenever he got within reach.
The lad was hot-faced, his torch no more heated than his cheeks. ‘Blasted old sow, she dis this every evenin’,’ he panted, racing past Benoit and making another ineffectual grab for the grand dame’s hindlegs.
‘Haud these,’ said Benoit, throwing his reins at him. He tiptoed after the sow who, thinking the herdsman had been defeated, soon stopped to truffle in a dunghill. When Benoit lunged, her unholy screams brought villagers to their windows, shutters thrown back to see what was amiss, but in the dusk little could be seen but a ruckus of man and pig, each as wide as the other.
While Benoit held the beast down, the swineherd slipped a chain around her neck. ‘Ye’d be well advised tae keep that on her day and night,’ said the carpenter, getting to his feet and brushing the filth off his knees.
‘Aye, I will,’ said the boy, grinning. ‘She’ll have bitten through it by the mornin’, but I’ll get a better yin made. Thank you.’ He headed back down the street, the animal trotting at his side, the pair, caught in a bowl of orange torchlight, looking as if they were out for a stroll.
Benoit untethered his horse, and was looking around for someone of whom to ask directions when he saw a figure slipping up the street, keeping close under the eaves. Night was gathering fast, but as the shape passed the lit windows of a tavern he caught a flash of red hem peeping beneath the long black cloak. As he watched, she disappeared along the high road heading east.
Swinging himself into the saddle, he was with the Crozier brothers in half a minute. ‘Ilderton’s manor, that’s where he is,’ he said, breathless in his hurry. ‘Methinks his hoor’s companion has set off to warn him. We’ll have to deal wi her.’
They nodded, and wheeled out of the woods onto the road. Some way beyond the village outskirts they caught sight of a shadowy form, hurrying towards the hills. Hearing their approach, the woman began to run. She left the road and plunged into the woods, but Tom was after her, his horse picking its way through the tangled undergrowth with the ease of a good huntsman’s mount.
Crozier and Benoit were waiting on the road when he dragged her out of the trees by the arm, his horse following on its own.
‘Let go of me,’ she yelled, kicking at Tom as he twisted her arms behind her back. Crozier took a rope from his saddlebag, and had tied her hands before she could do more than ask them what they wanted. Her legs were shaking, and a sharp stench of fear filled the air as Tom pushed her against a tree and bound her chest and legs to the trunk.
Crozier stood over her. ‘Tell us what we want, and we’ll do you no harm.’
She looked at him as if she would spit in his face.
He took a step nearer. ‘Who is with Ilderton the night? Are his men at the castle, or just his servants?’
For a moment it seemed she would tell him nothing, but at the sound of Tom’s dagger leaving its sheath she spoke. ‘He’s alone with Beatrice, and a couple more girls from the house.’
Tom pressed the blade against her neck. ‘That the truth? Because if we find him surrounded by his men, we’ll be back before you’ve had time to count your blessings, and this time we won’t be as friendly.’
Her lips narrowed. ‘It’s the truth. Why would I risk my neck for any of them? Ilderton’s a brute. It was Beatrice I went to warn. You can do what you like with him. It’s only my sister I want home safe.’
‘How far?’ asked Benoit.
‘Couple of miles at most. Over the ford, and up the hill.’
The borderers got on their horses. ‘You’re not leaving me here?’ she cried, her voice turning into a wail. ‘There’s wolves in these woods. And wild boar.’
‘There’s richer pickings for them than a wee scrawny thing like you,’ said Tom.
Crozier looked down at the girl, hesitated, and then dismounted. He unstrapped the blanket roll on the back of his saddle, and draped it over her shoulders. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You’ve a cold few hours ahead of you, lass, but that’s the worst you’ll suffer. Come dawn, there’ll be someone passing who can set you free. Your sister, perhaps. We’ll not hurt her, I assure you.’
‘Bastards!’ she shrieked as they set off, and the sound of her gusty weeping followed them down the road.
Ilderton’s manor rose out of the dark like a man of war, a squat, square castle from the time of the first Norman king. The smell of smoke warmed the air, but nothing could mask the dankness and decay that oozed from these neglected walls.
No guards were posted at the gates, and no dogs prowled the grounds. Their approach was so easy it was as if a trap had been laid to lure them into the very mouth of Ilderton’s lair, and would only be sprung once he had them in his hands. Nerves alive, they were more cautious than if there were lookouts at every turn.
Blacker than the deepening night the walls stared down at them, blank and forbidding. Leaving their horses in the shelter of the trees, they crept up the track. The portcullis was raised, but the great doors in the gateway were bolted and studded with iron. Picking their way past mounds of filth tipped from the ramparts, they made their way round the castle. At the rear, Crozier found a postern gnawed by rats. It was locked, but the first kick made the wood groan, the second produced a splintering, and with a third it fell off its hinges, and they were into a narrow passageway that led to the courtyard.
Lights seeped from a row of narrow shutters on the first floor. But for this, and a meagre brazier in the corner of the yard, the place was in darkness. As the borderers crossed the cobbles past the stables, hooves shuffled at the sound of strangers. Tom poked his head into the stalls and came out with the news that there were three horses, one of them a pony. It seemed the whore had been telling the truth: there was no one here but his lordship and his bedchamber guests.
Swords in hand, they entered the west wing of the castle, and found the stairs.
‘Who the hell might you be?’ came a throaty voice, and a woman dressed in coarse linen, tied at the waist as if she were a sack of meal, stood in their way. By her cap they guessed she was the cook. She was filling her lungs, her bosom swelling like a pullet’s, when Crozier knocked her unconscious with the side of his fist. Cushioned in fat, she collapsed as softly as a spent candle. Benoit and Tom dragged her by the ankles into the kitchens, where they locked her in the larder. A maidservant found sleeping by the fire was gagged and bound before she could scream, and likewise bundled into the press to spend the night with glass-eyed pheasants and caged blackbirds, who flapped frantically at their bars, fearing their time had come.
Upstairs, the passages were lit as if for the eyes of pipistrelles. Rushlight cast a glow so watery it was more like the memory of light than an actual flame, but at the end of the corridor a line of brightness blazed under a door, and as they drew closer they heard laughter, the high-pitched merriment of nervous young women, and the low, commanding tones of their master, breaking now and then into a rumble of sardonic amusement.
A stone flagon fell to the floor, its crash softened by a rug. ‘Bring me another,’ roared Ilderton, and bare feet scampered across the room. Benoit looked at his companions and nodded. His lordship was already well soused.
He lifted the latch and opened the door an inch, and then another. The scene before him was like a bard’s ballad in which evil temptresses bewitch a poor old widower, and rob him of his inheritance. Except these women were nothing but villagers, no better or worse than many. Their flesh was pink in the firelight, but pallid beyond its reach. Young though they were, these were no enchantresses. Their charms worked only for a few years, and already for one time was growing short, rolling in lard as she was.
She was crouched over Ilderton, who lay shirtless, his britches untied, on a bed of ancient furs. His hand caressed her bobbing head as she went at her task, while another girl rubbed warm oil over his chest and the third dangled her breasts over his face until he took a nipple into his mouth and was for the moment silenced.
To judge from the height of the fire, and the untouched flagons on the table, the evening was only just begun. Benoit edged into the room, but a man his size could not pass for a shadow or a draught. The girl with the bowl of oil saw him first, and froze. Before her alarm reached the others, Benoit was at the bedside, his sword glistening in the flames as if it too were oiled.
Ilderton’s eyes wavered as he took in his new visitor, unable at first to focus. When the haze of lust and wine had fled, he spat out the breast and sat up, dislodging the fat girl, who gave a petulant moan that swiftly turned into one of terror as she saw the blade pointed towards them.
‘Look what the north wind has blown our way,’ said Ilderton, his lips stained dark, as if the nipple, not the red wine, had brushed its colour onto him. ‘Girls,’ he said sharply, as the trio huddled at his side, shaking despite the heat of the fire, ‘don’t be afraid. I am sure that there is something the three of you can devise that could tempt this sullen Norseman to put down his sword and forget his troubles for a while.’ As he spoke, he laced his britches and swung his legs off the bed.
‘Naw, naw,’ said Benoit. ‘Stay right where you are. Yer lassies will be safe enough, but you and I need to have a talk.’
While he spoke, Tom entered the room behind him. He surveyed the scene, unblinking despite a display of wanton nakedness he had not seen since Ma Borthwick in the village had been sent a vision of the Virgin Mary and closed her premises. Wordlessly, he herded the girls through a low door into the chamber beyond, returning only to snatch their capes from a chair by the bed. The latch dropped behind him, and Benoit was alone with the man who had sent him to a sure death.