The Love Knot (7 page)

Ethel waved him on his way with a smile, and called out her thanks for the eels. Then she sat down again beside her fire and, delving in her satchel, took out three spindles holding yards of thread - white, red and black. With patience and dexterity, despite her weaker left hand, she began to braid and tie, all the time murmuring to herself.

Mabile FitzHamon, Countess of Gloucester, was tall and gaunt-boned, with an unfortunate resemblance to a plough-horse, made all the more cruel by her large, yellow teeth. Her eyes were her saving grace, being large and soft brown with thick, dark lashes. Just now they were fixed upon the washed body of Amice de Cormel, lying in state before the altar in the castle's small private chapel.

'What a waste,' she murmured over her clasped hands. 'She could have led such a different life.'

Kneeling beside her, Catrin inhaled the smell of incense on the cold chapel air and watched the candles fluttering in the darkness. The ache in her head was now no more than a dull pulse, but it had spread throughout her body. She was numb with exhaustion, her eyelids so hot that she felt as if someone had scattered their undersides with particles of burning grit.

Lady Mabile was kind in a brusque, impatient sort of way. She had welcomed Richard and Catrin into her household, found them sleeping space for the night amongst her women, and promised to give them fabric from her coffers to make new clothes. They had been given food and drink, their immediate needs tended, all with great practicality and small warmth. Now Richard was asleep on a narrow straw pallet squeezed into a corner of the maids' chamber, and Catrin was paying her respects to the dead.

'How well did you know her, child?' asked the Countess.

'I served her for three years, my lady, and in all that time she was kind and generous to me.'

'I am sure she was, but that was not my question.'

Catrin turned to face the brown, equine gaze, and found its shrewdness disconcerting. 'I knew her very well, my lady.'

Meaning passed between them without words. The Countess sighed. 'Then you will realise why my husband never sought to pin her to a husband for all that she was his ward. His own father, the king, took her virginity. When Henry's interest waned, she turned to other men for affection and it became a deep-rooted canker. She would have made a cuckold of any man she married, and in short order.' The Countess dabbed a spot of moisture from her eye and looked at her wet fingertip. 'And yet, I was fond of her; she meant no harm. A waste. May the blessed Virgin look kindly on her soul.'

So the waste was what Amice had made of her life, not what those vile soldiers had done to her, Catrin thought with a flash of anger.

'And you yourself are a widow?' the Countess continued.

'Yes, my lady.' Catrin kept her eyes on her clenched knuckles lest she reveal her irritation. Richard needed her and she could not afford to be dismissed. 'My husband was killed in a fight with a Welsh lord. I still mourn him deeply.' She bit her lip.

There was silence for a moment, then the Countess gently touched Catrin's shoulder. 'That is a grievous pity,' she said compassionately. 'Life is always difficult for a woman alone. You are welcome to remain in my household. Another pair of hands is always useful.' Mabile crossed herself and rose to her feet. 'Come, child, it is late. She will sleep peacefully here with the priest until dawn.'

Murmuring her thanks, Catrin rose and followed the Countess. She could raise no enthusiasm for the prospect of remaining in Mabile's household, but at least it was a roof over her head, and a relatively secure one at that. There was nowhere else to go.

If Amice's slumber in the chapel was deep and peaceful, the same could not be said of the Countess's ladies. In the blackest part of the night, when the single candle left burning had begun to gutter in a puddle of wax, Catrin and the other women were wakened by Richard's terrified shrieks. The sound tore across the room and was made all the more terrifying by sleep-fuddled wits and the depth of the hour.

With pounding heart, Catrin staggered up from the bed she had been sharing with three others and hastened to soothe him.

'Hush, Dickon, hush. It's all right, nothing but a bad dream.' She stroked his damp brow. His eyes were wide open but unseeing, and his chest rose and fell in rapid gasps for air. Beneath her touch, his breathing calmed, and after a moment his lids drooped and he turned from her on to his side, sucking his knuckles in his sleep.

One of the women had kindled a fresh night light from the old one. She held it aloft, the cupped flame reflecting light on to her thick plait of dark red hair. Her name was Rohese. She was a skilled embroideress with a voice and skin like silk, and a nature as sharp as a tapestry needle.

'What's wrong with him?' she demanded, her tone making it clear what she thought of the matter.

'What's wrong is that he saw people butchered and his mother raped by a dozen soldiers,' Catrin retorted angrily. 'Wouldn't you have nightmares too?'

Rohese sniffed and declined to answer. 'I hope he does not make it a habit,' was all she said and, ramming the new candle down on the iron spike, stalked away to her pallet. The other women followed her example, some with sour looks, others more sympathetic, but all less than sanguine at having been roused from sleep in so frightening a fashion.

Twice more that night the Countess's women were disturbed by Richard's screams. Forewarned, Catrin was able to calm him more swiftly than the first time, but not before everyone had been thoroughly woken. If Rohese had been hostile at the outset, she was positively venomous by dawn.

Richard had no recollection of his nightmares and was bewildered by all the furious glares cast in his direction. Catrin protected him fiercely from the others. Yesterday's headache still throbbed behind her eyes and she felt almost as exhausted as when she had retired.

'It is not his fault,' she said, as the women dressed and prepared to go down to the great hall to break their fast. 'He needs time to settle, that's all.'

'Well, I refuse to have him sleep in our chamber another night!' Rohese snapped.

'Surely that is for the Countess to say.'

Rohese gave her a glittering look through narrowed lids. 'I doubt she will oppose my request when I tell her about the kind of night we have all passed.'

Catrin returned Rohese's glare and was sorely tempted to slap the sneer from her haughty face. 'Then ask her and see what she says. I think that you forget this child is her husband's half-brother, and the old King's son.'

'And his mother got herself banished for whoredom. Her nickname was Amice le Gorge-Colps - the sword swallower; we all know the story.' She looked around at her companions tor support. A blonde-haired girl tittered, and an older woman sucked her teeth and nodded.

'As you choose to see it, without knowing Amice,' Catrin said heatedly, and was appalled to feel tears gathering at the backs of her eyes. The urge to lash out was almost unbearable.

From the corner where she had been braiding her hair, a freckle-faced young woman spoke out. 'This all seems to me a storm in a pitkin,' she said. 'Are we so feeble-minded that one disturbed night sours us beyond all charity?'

'It is not my mind that is feeble,' Rohese said with a pointed glare at Richard, as he emerged from the curtained-off latrine built into the angle of the wall. She terminated the conversation by stalking from the room, her nose in the air.

The young woman left her corner and approached Catrin. 'Pay no heed to Rohese,' she murmured, laying a sympathetic hand on Catrin's sleeve. 'She likes to play queen, and your arrival has tilted her crown.'

'Mine?'

'Well, yours and the boy's. A son of the old King outranks an embroideress any day, no matter that she's a knight's daughter. I'm Edon FitzMar and my husband is one of the Earl's hearth knights.' She clasped Catrin's hand. 'Never fret, you'll soon be at home here.'

Catrin doubted that very much. The bower walls hemmed her in. She knew that this was the way many women of noble birth lived their lives - shut away in the castle's upper chambers, their days occupied by weaving, spinning and needlecraft. It was an enclosed world, seething with undercurrents and tensions that had few outlets. The occupants fed upon each other. Amice had spoken often of that kind of life, and never with longing or affection. But since Edon FitzMar had offered the hand of friendship, Catrin kept her misgivings to herself and returned the clasp with a smile and a palliative murmur.

'I suppose,' Edon said to Richard, showing her kindness further by including him in the conversation, 'that you will become a page in my Lord's household. That's what happens to most of the boys fostered here.'

Richard nodded and looked at his feet. 'I would like that,' he mumbled.

'He's a good teacher, Lord Robert. Geoffrey - that's my husband - says that no squire could have a better start.'

Richard mumbled again. His eyes flickered from the ground to the prominent swell of her belly. Seeing his glance, she laughed self-consciously and laid her hand across her midriff. 'My first,' she said to Catrin. 'Due in the autumn. Geoffrey's that proud, he's been puffing out his chest and crowing to all the others like a cockerel. They're all sick to death of hearing about it.'

'My mother was with child too,' Richard said. 'Aimery crowed to all the other men, but he's dead now . . . and so is she.' Whirling from a startled Edon, he ran to the door and banged out of the room.

'I'm sorry, I never thought. . .' Edon looked aghast. 'And after last night too, I should have known.'

'It isn't your fault,' Catrin said quickly, not wanting to lose the tentative friendship that had sprung up. 'He's liable to take off at the slightest thing just now. I have to go after him. Explain to the Countess if she asks for me.' Gathering her skirts, Catrin ran from the bower in pursuit of Richard. Behind her, the women looked at each other, their expressions ranging from disapproval to sympathy for the afflicted.

It was difficult to run down a turret stair in a gown and by the time Catrin reached the foot, Richard had disappeared. Cursing to herself she asked around, but no one had seen him. A running child was of small consequence in a household as large as the Earl of Gloucester's. A running woman, however, was cause for raised eyebrows and more than one murmur about lack of propriety.

Catrin searched the hall then hastened outside. In the bailey she found the young squire, Thomas FitzRainald, breaking his fast on a large oatcake smeared with honey, whilst polishing a piece of harness with a soft cloth. He was only too happy to abandon his task and help her find Richard. While she headed for the outer bailey, Thomas went off to search the kennels and the mews.

A party of horsemen was preparing to ride out, among them a priest. Strapped behind his mule's saddle were a travelling chest and a small case made from boiled leather, shaped to hold and protect his mitre. At the head of the group, Oliver was swinging lightly astride the grey. His face wore the fresh gleam of a sound night's sleep, and he was smiling at something that Gawin had said to him.

Through her anxiety, Catrin was suddenly aware of her own slatternly appearance. The clothes of the last few days still itched on her back because they were the only ones she possessed - travel-smirched, smoky and dirty. She could not have smiled had she tried.

Oliver twisted in the saddle to adjust his shield strap, but when he saw her he stopped, and the residue of the grin faded from his lips. 'Mistress Catrin, what's wrong?'

'Richard's run off.' She told him what had happened in the bower.

His lips compressed. 'Poor little sod.' Raising a forefinger to Gawin, bidding him wait, he dismounted. 'Come, I'll help you look. He won't have gone far.'

'What about your journey?'

'Another half candle-notch won't make any difference. The living matter more than the dead.' He spoke the last sentence with a wry shrug, as if he did not quite believe in the words. Then he shook his head and grimaced. 'Rohese de Bayvel should be tied to that post yonder and whipped. It's not the first time that she's caused trouble in the bower.'

'Then why doesn't the Countess stop her?'

'Because Rohese is probably the best needlewoman in
England
, and when she tries she can be sweetness itself -and no, that is not a remark made from personal knowledge. I would rather kiss the hand of Medusa than become embroiled with that shrew. I'll go and investigate the guardrooms, shall I? You ask over there at the bread oven.'