Gisborne: Book of Pawns (5 page)

The sun shone benignly, unlike Aquitaine where everything seemed bleached wh
ite.
The more northerly we journeyed, the more subtle and beautiful the light bec
ame.
Forests of flickering shadow and dancing leaf marked the edges of our path and the horses’ hooves crunched over a stony way worn into ruts and hole
s by those who went before us. But we met few travellers.
At times it felt as if we were the only living things and then a bird would fly across our pat
h, or a rabbit would hop past. Once a deer
stood bathed in sunlight, watching us p
ass with a twitch of his ears.

But
he leaped away as if the Furies were behind.

‘To me!’ Guy yelled.

Within a staggered heartbeat, the three rounceys surrounded me, Khazia
dancing as the rumps o
f the horses pushed at her. I heard a whistle
and an arrow flew past, lodging in a
tree.
I held tight to the reins with one hand, thanking God for
the
misericorde
at my girdle.
The metallic sigh t
hat was the unsheathing of
swords had already sharpened my anxiety like a whetstone.

H
alf
a dozen felons
ran toward us, swords raised, their mouths dark screaming circles as
a terrified Khazia
tried to spin.

‘Stay behind
us, Ysabel!’

Guy’s voice yelled
as he and the men pushed their
battle-trained mounts forward.
The horses reared, danced sideways, kicked out, even gnashed with their teeth and not once did a sword find a mark, my men’s powerful
parries deflecting harsh blows. I held Khazia
hard between my knees and longed for my own sword as I watched a brigand fall with half a shoulder gone and could not take my eyes away from
the spouting
blood.

‘Ysabel, Ysabel!’ Guy screamed.
‘Behind!’

I turned in the saddle and saw nothing but a sword l
ifting, sour breath gushing toward me in a noxious puff.
Panic
filled
my veins with ice, fingers I didn’t kn
ow were mine pulled the blade from my girdle
and threw it end over end into the man’s neck, his sword hand dropping its weapon as he
tried to
pu
ll my knife from his throat. Blood spurted
wildly
, the attacker groaning with wet gurgles, Khazia shrieking as the man folded under her feet.
My head felt as if it were wrapped in a cloud and I thought I would fall on top of the bloody carcass but Harry was by
my side grinning.

‘Great stroke, milady
!
You’re a born soldier!
’

‘Harry,’ I croaked.
‘God, Harry!’

He laughed
and turned to fig
ht off the remaining brigands.
My three guards pushed forward, slashing until ano
ther of the ambushers had fallen. One more collapsed but I kept my eyes on Gisborne’
s back, unwilling to see th
e damage my protectors wreaked.
Two left, only two, four attac
kers dead or mortally wounded.
The remainder threw down their swords and began to run and Wilfred was behind them, his horse cantering as he drew his sword back in a wide swe
ep, catching one in the thigh.
It was
callous
butchery and I longed for it to st
op.

‘Let him go!’ I screamed.

But a
s I shouted, I saw Wilfred arch back, his arms swinging wide, his sword dropping.

‘Je
sus God,’ Guy called to Harry. ‘The archer! Pull back, back!’

But Harry’s horse reared and a
n arrow caught it in the neck.
It spun around and before Harold could turn it again, another arrow shrieked in from the left and caught my old friend deep in the chest, another in his shoulder and a third in his arm.

‘
No!’

I spurred Khazia
forward
across the glade and into the brush, filled with fury and grief. The hidden archer
looked up at me as the mare
burst through the leaves to trea
d about
, hooves slicing into bone, muscle and sinew. Khazia’s shoes bruised and cut as the felon cried out in agony but hatred filled my soul as I screeched at him.

‘The
y were my friends, my friends!’

I thr
ew myself off the horse as the man’s eyes stared into a forever horror, frozen in time, his last breath bubbling out in a red froth.
I picked up his bow, a short Saracen one of a type I had handled in the past
and turned back to Gisborne,
but a move
ment
b
ehind him caused me to rip
an arrow from the dead archer’s quiver
with speed, nocking it to let
it fly.

Oh God, Gisborne!

‘
Fall
, fall!’
I shouted.

He dropped
forward without hesitation and my
arrow caught the final rogue. The man screamed, a hideous high-pitched wail,
reeling from the trees, pulling at
the arrow embedded in his eye.
It would h
ave been a kindness to kill him
but Guy galloped to my side as I lea
ped onto Khazia’s back.
He grabbed
her
reins and pulled me after him and we fled
the ambuscade
.

‘
We can’t leave them like that. We can’t!’ I sobbed. ‘They were my friends. They have children. Guy, please!’
We had stopped some leagues away and our horses’ sides p
uffed in and out like bellows. I sat as if I were
a half-empty sack, drooping wit
h shock as the image of Wilfred
arching back on h
is horse, went through my mind over and over again.

‘What will ha
ppen to them if we leave them? I can’t do that.
In the name of Go
d I owe them a burial.
For the
ir families and for my father.’
I wiped a sleeve under my nose an
d rubbed my hand over my face.
As I did, I noticed it was spattered with blood
and cried out, holding it
away from my body.

Gisborne jumped off his horse.

‘Here,’ he pulled me down by the waist and held me by the elbow as he passed
me a cloth from his saddlebag.
‘Hold it and I’ll wet it from my fla
sk and you can clean yourself.’

My hand shook as I held the fabric
that proved to be a chemise.
He placed his palm underneath to support it and I
looked up at him as he did so.

‘I owe you
thanks, Ysabel, for my life.’

His voice barely showed the emotion of
what we had just been through.
A slight hoarseness, but it’s depth smoothed like balm as he rubbed the damp cloth over my hand, removing the blood as tears rolled own my cheeks.

‘I’m sorry.
I should stop crying but I find I can’t.’

‘It’s shock. You were very brave.’
He gave my hand a final wipe, lifted
it to his mouth and kissed it. ‘Fearless. Wilf and Harry would have been
proud.’

‘Fearless?’
My
mouth stretched into a grimace. ‘We must go back.
I won’t go on until we have done our best for them.’

‘I don’t agree.
Wilf and H
arry would understand, Ysabel.
When you fall in the field of battle, you are lucky if you are buried.’

I took my hand back. ‘Then they shall be lucky.
If I only give you one order w
hilst you are my father’s steward, it’s that we must go back.’

His face hardened and I wished it had
not because i
t was as though every plank of the br
idge between us had been axed. I lay my hand over his arm and squeezed.

‘
Please, I beg you to understand. I am not being presum
ptuous by saying it is an order
but if I have to use my father’s name, I shall.

‘I d
o understand, Ysabel.
I understand that you have known Wilf and Harry for years and that y
ou shared a life at one point.
Tha
t you feel for their families.
T
hat it is your Christian duty.
D
on’t think I don’t understand.
But wha
t I
know
is that it will
be foolhardy and dangerous.’
He left my hand on his
arm, his own closing over it.
‘You need to remember that for you to die so soon after your mother would inevitabl
y be the death of your father.
Think on that.’

I hadn’t really thought my demise would affect
my father one way or the other
because he had been so vaguely affect
ionate in his treatment of me.
Loving when he was with me, but when he wa
s not, I barely heard from him.

‘But if my father had fallen, I woul
d hope someone would bury him.
If you fell, I would want the same for you.’

He slipped away from
my
grasp at that point and cupped his hands to giv
e me a leg up into the saddle. He mounted his horse
and made no comment
at all and I felt chastened.
Had I been too person
al?
I
only spoke my mind after all.
But I felt vindicated as we turned our horses and headed back the way we had fled.

I wished we had not.

Eight
bloody and disfigure
d men lay in frozen death throes.
Eight men who had wanted to kill
us and steal everything we had.
We had to move through them on foot
to find Wilfred and Harold, Gisborne
with his sword drawn, me with an arrow
nocked into the Saracen bow.

Gisborne
’s eyes were everywhere and I forbore to talk because we listened t
o every sound from the forest.
Every
rustle, every creak and crack.
Besides, my breathing was so fast I doub
t I could have uttered a word.
I had never ever seen human death and the brutality of what lay around u
s was almost beyond my coping.
I took a huge
breath and Guy must have heard
because he turned and in that one glance that passed
between us, I felt fortified.
I don’t know if he
saw the fear in my eyes … panic where my mouth filled with bile
and
legs
waved beneath my
gown like strips of ribbon.
All
I
saw in that quick glance was support, as if his arms were around me to
guide me away from this hell.

But then I tripped and looking down, realised it was the felon
Wilf had chased and
whose leg he had almost severed,
the limb at an obscene angle.
I began to vomit until my sides ached and I had nothing left.

‘Deep breaths, Ysabel. Take deep breaths. Go
to the copse and stay with your b
ack turned until I find them.’ G
is
borne’s
fingers closed on my arm and he pulled me away.

I was disgusted with
my weakness and shook my head.

‘No. This was my idea.
Besides, here is Harry.’

He lay in his o
wn blood.
He had been stripped to his
braies
and everything he owned had been pulled from him.  He had always worn a leather thong around his neck about which he twisted the golden hair of his wife and the white-blon
de hair of his daughters in a glorious loveknot.
It
was
an exceptional keepsake and I would have lov
ed to return it to his family.
Instead I reache
d for his hair which lay tangled
in the grass, his basinet stolen, and using the sharp edge of the arrow, cut three locks for his family and placed them in the t
iny leather purse at my waist. His eyes were wide but it was far
too late to close them and I knew I would ever see that look of sadness.