'I doubt we are in such dire need of any supplies that she must take herself off across country when the Welsh—' He broke off, knowing that he should not pile his own anxieties on to the maid. Sighing, he dismounted. 'Doubtless she will return soon enough. Is there any pottage in that cauldron? I'm as hungry as a bear.'
He was too late and Gracia was shrewd. 'And if she doesn't?'
'When I've eaten, I'll take some troops and ride out to find her.'
Despite the bone-chilling cold, Clarice had enjoyed the ride to Knockin. A groom and a serjeant accompanied her for protection. She did not really believe that she would be robbed on the road, or that the Welsh would attack, but her rank made it impossible for her to travel anywhere without an escort. The serjeant rode ahead, the groom behind. Between them, Clarice rode aloof, her dappled grey pony clopping along the frozen earth track.
She knew she was being contrary in visiting old Ranild on the day before they left for Lambourn, but since Maude's death, she had felt restless. There was a need in her to kick against the walls of her ordered existence. Mostly the impulse was contained, but today it had burst forth, fuelled by a huge red sunrise over a glittering world of hoar and rime. It was too strange and wonderful a day to spend at the hearth. Owing to her diligence, the travelling chests were already packed. Besides, they did need the herbs. Syrup of white poppy for one. There was scarcely any left in the flask after what had happened in November and it was an essential part of the medicinal supplies. She could have begged some from the infirmarian at the priory, but she wanted more than just simples and potions. The maids said that Mother Ranild had cures for every malady, including afflictions of the heart and sickness of the soul.
Arriving in Knockin, Clarice was directed to Mother Ranild's house by the village alewife. From the woman's avid expression, Clarice knew that the gossip was about to spread like wildfire.
Mother Ranild lived in a substantial cot on the edge of the settlement, a little apart but not entirely separate. Leaving the track, Clarice rode past a penned gaggle of hissing geese, the male white as a snowdrift, his wives the drab brown of trampled straw, and dismounted with her escort outside the hut's door. A bunch of rowan was tied over the entrance, and several horseshoes had been nailed to the oak of the door itself. Smoke eddied from gaps in the thatch and Clarice's sharp nose detected the fragrant scent of burning pear wood.
She knocked and was bade enter by a firm voice. Signalling her escort to wait, she lifted the hammered iron latch and, suppressing the urge to cross herself, entered the domain of Mother Ranild.
A fire crackled in the central hearth, sending smoke to join soot-blackened rafters. Bundles of herbs were tied to the beams with hemp twine, as were several lengths of dried sausages. The walls were lined with clay jars and even a couple of phials of expensive glass. The beaten earth floor contained baskets of wool and more sheaves of dried herbs. At the far end of the room was a small trestle on which several wooden bowls were stacked. A tall, slender woman was grinding a mixture, using a pestle and mortar of shiny green stone. Looking up, she ceased her work and, wiping her hands on an apron of natural brown linen, came round the trestle to Clarice.
'What can I be doing for you, mistress?' she enquired pleasantly, and gestured the young woman to a bench near the hearth. There was no curtsey, no acknowledgement of Clarice's rank. Indeed, Clarice felt as if she should pay deference to the woman, who had the air of being queen of her domain. The nose was thin and beaked, the mouth wide with teeth that were still white and strongrare for a peasant woman whose face told a story of at least three score years.
'I came to buy nostrums from you.' Clarice perched on the edge of the bench. 'You are well spoken of by the women at Alberbury.'
The light blue eyes sparkled shrewdly. 'Am I indeed?' Going to the shelves, she took down a jug and poured a bright golden liquid into two cups. 'And you are, mistress?'
'Lady Clarice d'Auberville.'
'Ah, Lord FitzWarin's ward.' The woman nodded as if some puzzle had fallen into place, and handed Clarice the cup. 'Mead,' she said, 'brewed from my own hives.'
Clarice thanked her and took a tentative sip. The taste of summer flowed over her tongue and spread through her in a warm glow. 'Wonderful,' she murmured, wondering how and what the wise woman knew of her. Doubtless the maids' gossip travelled both ways.
'I have a flask to spare if you want to add it to your list.'
'Thank you. It would be most welcome.'
Mother Ranild tilted her head and considered Clarice thoroughly. 'I wonder, though, why you have chosen to come to me rather than the apothecary in Shrewsbury, or the monks of your lord's new priory.'
'Because I have heard of your reputation,' Clarice answered, thankful that she was not prone to blushing. 'They say you are indeed a "wise" woman.'
'A poor show if you reach my age and you are not,' Ranild said with waspish amusement. 'Tell me the things that you want.'
Clarice reeled off her list. Gall-oak ointment and powder, honeysuckle syrup for coughs and agues, southernwood to remove internal parasites, figwort ointment for blemishes. Mother Ranild's eyebrows rose at the request for white poppy syrup, but she made no comment and added it to the collection on the trestle, together with the flask of mead.
Clarice folded her hands in her lap and looked down. 'I am told that you are also skilled in potions to cure ills not of the body,' she murmured.
'Ah, now we come to the crux of the matter, I think,' the woman said with satisfaction. 'Is it a love philtre you want? A spell to bind some man in thrall to you?'
Clarice's gaze flashed indignantly to Mother Ranild's. 'Indeed I do not!'
Mother Ranild chuckled. 'Calm yourself, mistress, I did but enquire since it is the most common reason for young women to visit my cottagethat and procuring a remedy for their growing bellies.'
Clarice tightened her lips. 'I do not need that kind of potion either,' she said curtly.
'Then what do you wish?'
She swallowed, feeling vulnerable beneath the wise woman's candid stare. 'My… my guardian Lord FitzWarin lost his wife two months ago,' she said. 'I want something to ease his grieving.'
Mother Ranild folded her arms and the twinkle in her eyes grew serious. 'I do not bottle time, child,' she said softly.
'Perhaps I said the wrong thing. I want something to help him grieve. It is as if he has become frozen within himself. Not a tear has he shed since she died, and yet I know they gather within him until it is a burden he can scarcely bear.'
Ranild looked at her long and hard. 'Something to make a grown man cry,' she murmured. 'I have no such remedy on my shelves. What you need cannot be crushed in a mortar and scattered in a drink.'
'Then what do I need?'
'You must discover that for yourself. Give me your hand.'
Clarice hesitated, then did as she was asked. The maids said that Mother Ranild could read a person's future by studying the lines on the palm of their hand. Clarice was not sure that she wanted to know, but her curiosity was as strong as her fear.
Ranild scrutinised Clarice's palm for some time, tracing the lines on it with a firm forefinger, narrowing her eyes now and then.
'What do you see?' Clarice was drawn to demand.
'You are like tranquil water,' Ranild muttered. 'Calm and clear but deeper than you seem. People who know you take you for granted when they should not, or perhaps it is that they don't know you at all. You are not afraid of change, but you have no desire to do so. Indeed your desires dwell in other directions.'
Clarice made to tug her hand away but Ranild tightened her grip and her eyes met her visitor's knowingly.
'Nevertheless, I see a husband and child for you in the time to come,' she said, and frowned. 'However, they lie on the other side of great danger. There is fire and envy and hatred… and it comes soon.'
Clarice did snatch her hand away then and jump to her feet.
'You are wishing that you had not
come
to see me,' Ranild said with a knowing nod. 'Perhaps you are right, child, because in so doing you may have sealed your fate. Go home, and pray that you are in time.'
'In time for what?' With shaking hands, Clarice spilled silver on to the trestle and put the nostrums in the willow basket she had brought with her.
'The rest of your life on this earth.' Ranild swept the money into the purse at her belt of plaited leather, then made a shooing motion. 'Go, child. Hurry'
Bemused and agitated, Clarice emerged from the hut into the frozen light of early afternoon. It was just under two hours' ride back to Alberbury. What could happen in that time to merit Ranild's warning?
The Serjeant boosted her into the saddle. Grasping the reins, she turned the mare on the homeward road and set a pace that caused the groom to raise his eyebrows.
'Ground's too 'ard to run 'er like that, my ladywith respect,' he said. 'You'll make 'er lame for the morrow.'
Clarice eased the mare down from trot to walk. 'I am eager to be home,' she said, 'but I would not lame her.' She patted the palfrey's neck, thick with the silver of her winter coat, and curbed her impatience. Overhead the earlier sunshine was being swallowed by hazy cloud carrying the yellow tinge of impending snow. Perhaps there would not be a journey on the morrow anyway.
Two miles later, they encountered a group of people on the road, driving an assortment of livestock. Women and children, surrounded by wicker cages of assorted squawking fowl, were perched on a cart drawn by two lumbering oxen.
To the groom's enquiry, the peasant leading the group leaned on his quarterstaff and wafted his hand back the way they had come. 'The Welsh are over the border,' he declared. 'You're going to ride straight into them.'
The serjeant gave Clarice a worried look. 'We can either head round to Shrewsbury, or go north to Whittington and Oswestry.'
'Which is safest?'
The man grimaced and squinted at the heavy sky. 'Neither, my lady. If the Welsh are over the border, they'll be straddling the Shrewsbury road by the time we reach it, and likely the road to Oswestry. One way or another, we'll have to slip through.'
Clarice had a brief vision of Mother Ranild examining her palm and then bundling her out of the door. 'Oswestry's nearer,' she said. 'We'll find succour there.'
Snow began to fall, deceptively gentle in its slow, twirling progress. But the ground was so cold that where it landed it stayed, building in soft, powdery layers. Perhaps it was the hypnotic effect of the flakes, perhaps the reduced visibilitywhatever the reason, both the serjeant riding slightly ahead of Clarice and the groom failed to see the Welsh patrol on the road until it had seen them, and by then it was too late.
Riding into Whittington, Gwyn FitzMorys felt uneasy, for it seemed to him a haunted place in the bitter January afternoon. The silence was of a village deserted. Neither human nor animal moved amongst the thatched houses and vegetable plots. Not a single wreath of smoke eddied skywards, nor was there the customary aroma of cabbage pottage wafting from cooking pots. The occupants of Whittington had left their houses to fate.
Gwyn sat astride his warhorse in the main street, his sword bare in his hand lest there were any stragglers to catch and knowing in his heart there would not be. The icy light glittered on his mail coat. His breath emerged on white puffs of vapour and his horse steamed too as if he had ridden it straight from the cauldron of hell.
'No one,
fy arglwydd
,' said one of the bowmen whom he had sent to probe amongst the houses for occupants. 'They have all fled before the news of our coming.'
'Then let us announce our own arrival.' Gwyn bared his teeth. 'Burn them to the ground.'
He watched as a torch was passed from hand to hand and finally thrust into the thatch of the nearest cottage. No one came raging out of the keep to stop the destruction as fire spread from house to house like a contagion and the smoke that had been missing now curled in choking abundance to meet the snowclouds.
The castle was as quiet as the village. Gwyn rode through the gates into the courtyard, his sword still ice-bare in his hand and his shield held high in case the open gates should be the jaws of a trap. They were not. He stood in the courtyard where once he had stood as of right and knew that Whittington was his to claim, but not to hold. If Fulke FitzWarin had seen fit not to defend it when its possession had once been his
raison d'être
, then it was impossible for a minor Welsh knight to do so. Once it had been enough to build in wood. Now stone was the order of the day if a man wanted to keep what he had.
Snow fluttered; black and grey smuts of woodsmoke infiltrated the stars of glittering white. Gwyn tasted the grit of ash and the purity of meltwater on his tongue. Dismounting and tossing his reins to a companion, he went among the buildings of his childhood and gazed on the changes wrought by FitzWarin's hand. The murals on the plasterwork in the hall, the partitioning of the chambers. The new kitchen building and bread oven; the improved well housing. The Normans had stripped the place to the bone before they left and there was not a single item of wealth or furniture to be plundered. Only the keep's fabric remained, soaked in more than a hundred years of bloody conflict.
'Give me a torch,' he snapped at a footsoldier who had followed him into the keep.
He had just gripped the knotty shaft of the pine pitch brand when two men from the troop he had ordered to block the road arrived with a captive.
Gwyn found himself confronting a young woman in rich Norman garb, her blue cloak lined with coney fur. Her face was flushed with cold and fury and her grey eyes burned with the gold reflection of the torch in his hand.
'Making for Oswestry, my lord,' said one of the guards in Welsh.
'Alone?'
'No, she had a groom and a soldier escort.'
'Had?' Gwyn raised his brows.