Gisborne: Book of Pawns (23 page)

‘What is it?’ Guy asked.

‘A gift from Sister Thea.’

I explained about the devotions and about Thea’s own cord.

‘She grew fond of you in a short time.’

‘Less time to know of my shortcomings. Any longer and I would have received nothing, I can assure you.’

‘Ah,’ he said as he clicked his horse on. ‘You are overly hard.’

You say? Have I changed then? Have I improved?

‘What intelligence did you garner whilst I was in the Priory?’

His back straightened, shoulders lifting with tension and I watched as he sank his weight down through his calves into the stirrups.

‘Gisborne?’ I prompted.

A sigh.

‘Nothing of import. Merely that there has been no sign of De Courcey’s men on the road we travel.’

‘And that is a good thing? Could they not be taking another road entirely and shortcut us on the way?’

‘You forget they don’t know we sailed to Great Yarmouth, Ysabel. If they sailed to Dover, we are like to arrive in Moncrieff well before them, even if they ride at a gallop upon landing. In principle, you should be able to see Cecilia and your father, make up your mind what you will do and be gone before De Courcey enters the demesnes.’

‘And what of Halsham?’

‘God, Ysabel!’ Guy dragged on his reins and spun his horse to face me, frowning with temper. ‘Your questions always raise the issue of trust. You either trust me or you don’t. If you don’t, then say so. I would rather know on what ground we tread before we proceed further.’

His eyes glared and I shivered in the shade of the trees. Intimidation and an incipient threat hung about but I would not be cowed.

‘Trust,’ I said, fiddling with Thea’s prayer cord. ‘I owe you honesty to be sure because we have been as close as a married couple this last few weeks.’

His eyes opened wider and then slitted again.

Ah, yes, that got a reaction
.

‘There are times when your inability to be open frightens me,’ I continued. ‘There are times when you slide off on your own that inspire lack of confidence. Your relationship with Halsham sickens me, cousin or no. And yet despite it all, I would have none other but you at my back, Gisborne. All I ask is that you treat me less as a trouble and more as a trusted friend.’

‘I could ask the same of you.’

‘Trust is earned and I would be less than grateful if I didn’t say you had already earned it, but I know you spy…’

His gaze sharpened.

‘You spy for money and I fear for myself at such times because spies have enemies.’

Oh how selfish I sounded but I needed to air my concern.

He looked at me long.

‘You need have no fear for yourself. I do spy for money as it happens, and have done for a number of years. I am skilled at my job, Ysabel, and would never put your life at risk.’

‘Then answer me. Where is Halsham?’

‘I imagine with De Courcey.’

‘And that doesn’t worry you?’

‘No, it doesn’t. There are some things Halsham doesn’t know, and Davey is one. We have an edge and I hope that Fate will let us play it out.’

You hope?

‘Is there a chance it may not?’

‘Nothing in life is ever certain,’ he replied.

I must have looked stricken because he said:

‘Please, Ysabel.’ He rode his horse next to me and laid his hand on mine. ‘Trust me.’ He picked my hand up and kissed the inside of my wrist, right over the top of Thea’s bracelet and my strength, my determination, folded.

Damn you, Gisborne.

I want
ed
to be free of this feeling. I want
ed
to do what must be done and move on. I want
ed
to leave thi
s life and all that had
happened behind.

All of it, Ysabel? You lie to yourself.

I found my fingers curling around his and there beat a moment like that in the room at the inn when he had held me naked against his own body.

‘I want to trust you, Guy. Just as I trusted my own mother.’ I laughed a mirthless laugh. ‘Leastways, as a woman I feel I have little option.’

Our hands were joined across the pommel of my saddle and we sat as still as statues and then, damn him again, he leaned over and kissed me long.

Chapter Nine

The journey continued like a roll of thread unwinding and sometimes I despaired of ever seeing the end. There were other times when I never wanted the end to appear as it meant so many things that I couldn’t bear to countenance. The first time a familiar landmark appeared, my stomach jolted. The instinct to turn and flee was a powerful one and had me almost undone. Would I have continued on without Gisborne’s protection? Somehow I doubted it.

I wondered if his so-called dependability would make me feel safer in this hornet’s nest we approached. Such a good question; such an unanswerable question.

At some point the landscape had begun to change into flat, moist fens where our paths meandered between ditches, bogs, rivulets and patches of feathery reeds that towered above us. The grasses rustled and fluttered to some vague music of nature, the sound slithery and serpent-like altogether. But that was just my anxious mind. In truth the grasses were beautiful and the sound soft, insistent and quite pleasant.

The forests I remembered from my childhood, thick and almost impenetrable swathes, had diminished considerably but many small copses of trees draped over the watery landscape, covering fen violets in bands of shadow. The oatmeal-coloured grasses that now shielded us had been playgrounds for children. Not for me the fear of legendary waterwights, that they would leap from the depths and devour any child that set a toe on the banks. The water had been a source of enjoyment and I had grown with the sound of snipe, bittern and lapwing piping and flapping. I was as comfortable in river-craft as I was mounted in a creaking saddle on a good horse.

The modest sight of Walsocam appeared through the waving banners of the tallest grasses. A small place, it was marked by an inn, a severe church in the Norman style and a smithy’s from where a hammer knocked rhythmically against an anvil. Smoke curled into the pale sky from a dozen or more dwellings and a few bleached grey punts attached to the riverbank by worn mooring lines.

‘I know this place.’ I spoke it quietly, in fear of being overheard.

‘Of course,’ Guy responded. ‘It’s Walsocam. We are a day or less from Moncrieff.’

Again my stomach tilted. Perhaps my nerves were becoming overly delicate but I pulled my horse sharply to a halt occasioning a twist of a disapproving mouth from my companion.

‘I do not wish to stay at the inn, Guy. I’m not sure it is safe and would rather sleep rough if I have to.’

Since we had left Saint Eadgyth’s we had conversed little, both locked in our own thoughts. Once we spoke of my father’s self-styled library. It appeared to contain less than a dozen manuscripts – some Norman, an Irish Book of Hours. But the centerpiece and one that might be worth a king’s ransom was a Saracen’s book of poetry. Guy’s eyes lit up. ‘It is beautiful, Ysabel. Written in the Arab tongue by a skilled scribe. The poems are illustrated delicately and depict their way of life and it is bound in an ancient style. But its value is not in its content, but rather its covers. They are made of wood, the back rubbed smooth as silk and the front heavily inlaid. Not with other woods, but with gems. With large rubies, pearls and emeralds in a pleasing design laced with gold filigree.’

‘How did my father come across such a book? And how could
he
afford to pay a
king’s
ransom?’

Even
I
could detect the bitterness in my voice.

Guy refused to be drawn and I guessed straight away.

‘Oh my Lord, he won it in a game of chance, didn’t he?’ I slapped my palm on the pommel and swore. ‘Do you gamble like my father, Guy? Do you fritter away your hard-earned monies on paltry entertainments?’

His face barely moved, the master of inscrutability.

‘With what would I gamble? I am but a steward. Besides, the book may just save you, Ysabel, think on that.’

‘If my father hadn’t gambled at all, I wouldn’t be in the position of
having
to save myself.’

We lapsed into an uneasy silence and continued to the grassy outskirts of Walsocam where I had whispered ‘
I know this place.’

‘I think we should seek a barn on the outskirts. There must be one somewhere amongst the steadings. And…’

Guy listened, no comment, no expression.

‘… I don’t think we should continue on horseback, we should take to the water. I know the fens well and I am familiar with backwaters that are secret and we can follow them to Moncrieff.’

His profound silence had the capacity to make me doubt my thoughts but then he shrugged.

‘As you wish, Lady Ysabel…’

Lady? Have I touched a nerve somewhere … how so?

‘But,’ he continued, ‘we shall have to leave the horses.’

‘Then we shall,’ I replied. ‘The money we lose is immaterial. Better to be secure on the water.’

Unkind Ysabel.

I knew it. He had paid for the mounts himself and I dismissed the fiscal loss as if it were nothing.

Unthinking.

We spent time circling Walsocam surreptiously, leading the horses, and eventually a barn, a pile of logs and daub with a roof, was revealed alongside a poor sort of dwelling. No smoke, light nor movement indicated habitation. ‘We must stay here,’ I said. ‘It’s empty.’

‘Does it not concern you that it may be an empty dwelling because of illness?’ Guy seemed reluctant.

‘If it were a contagion they would have burned it. No, it is empty for other reasons.’

Witchery, revolt, the family dying out, forced off; I cared not. To hide was paramount.

When did I become the decision-maker? When
did it become
right to reduce Gisborne to the position of a mere employee?

I
knew
I was behaving like a shrew, acting with fear lapping at my legs, but I could barely control it.

So much yet to lose.

We crept into the barn, our horses’ hooves muffled by the eons of grasses and leaves that were piled into the structure. We placed the animals in tumbled stalls that were laced with spider-webs and a search for feed revealed a stook of oaten hay, somewhat denuded of its goodness but not mouldy. Water of course was close by – a rivulet sluggishly pulsing behind the barn; a ubiquitous punt, elderly and careworn, pulled onto a sandy defile.

The sun had begun to slide as we finished watering the horses to return them to their stalls. In the muffled distance we could still hear the smithy at work and the occasional sound of a small community, voices light on the spasmodic breeze that rippled the rivulet.

We had secured the animals and were venturing out of the barn when Guy grabbed me back, holding me against the walls. He put his fingers to his lips and lifted two fingers to his eyes and then pointed out and I swiveled to peer through the crumbling walls. A punt drifted past with two men, the smell of a pile of eels drifting toward us. They were laughing as they poled away, unaware of the fugitives behind them.

I exhaled.

‘You see,’ I said. ‘It’s that easy to be noticed. I thank you for your quick wits.’

He nodded. ‘We need food. Stay here and I’ll search the dwelling.’

I let him go. I was tired and he was a man after all. Let him provide for me.

He was back in a short time with an insubstantial pile of goods.

‘A bit of wheaten flour but we need to pick out the weevils. Some stale ale fermented enough to blow the doors off the barn and some almost dry honey.’

‘Can we risk a fire?’

‘If we don’t, we starve.’

‘Then if we do it in the barn, the smoke won’t be noticeable.’ I said.

‘True.’

He had tipped the flour onto his cloak and was sifting through, lifting the tiny cream grubs and squashing them between thumb and forefinger.

‘Well then?’

‘Better to wait till night and light it outside. The smoke won’t be seen and if these folk are as superstitious as I suspect, they won’t go near the water in the dark. We have a lot to thank legend for.’

I guessed he was right, the likes of the waterwights held great sway in peasant minds.

I made up a mixture in a cracked earthenware flask. Some flour and a little sour ale to wet it, some scrapings of the honey crystals. I stirred it with a stick and when night had settled a dark cloth across the sky and eery threads of mist crept toward us from the water, Guy stroked a spark onto the neat pile of tinder. We built the fire and then let it burn to hot coals, placing a stone over them to heat and then dripping the mixture upon it and making flattish cakes. We flipped them with a piece of flint from the yard. They tasted of nothing but old flour, stale ale and a wistful memory of honey but they bulked our bellies and it was better than nothing.