Wild Wood (15 page)

Jesse swallows. “This really is so kind of you, Alicia. Just, right-out-of-the-park hospitable. I feel so embarrassed and—”

Alicia interrupts, “Oh, it’s a pleasure to have company. Rory’s right. He often is, though I don’t tell him that.”

There’s something, some subtext to the words, that Jesse doesn’t quite catch. She stares through one of the casement windows, says politely, “Such a lovely view.” The river lies like a silver snake between the trees.

“Yes. It is.” Alicia almost visibly shakes herself. “And even better in here.” She turns a doorknob.

“Oh!” Jesse hurries to a window seat. “This is just—” There’s a rent in the clouds, and last light, the color of honey, pours down over the crowns of the distant hills. Jesse’s eyes fill with tears she doesn’t understand.

“When I was small, I amused my mother by saying I thought this view was splendid. I was three at the time.” Alicia joins Jesse. From on high, darkening countryside stretches away like the coverlet on a vast bed embroidered with trees.

“You see such a long way.” Jesse puts her face against the glass. She doesn’t want the picture to fade.

“Almost as far as Cumbria to the west and up north into Scotland too. Well, that’s what I like to think.”

Jesse says thoughtfully, “It’s wild here. I’ve never thought of England as wild.”

“Haven’t you?” Alicia half closes her eyes. “The borders have always been fierce. As wild as you’d ever want them to be.” She gets up. “So, there are four more bedrooms on this floor, and you’re welcome to any one of them if you change your mind. There’s just one bathroom, though, and you’ll have to share that with me; it’s next door. Sheets in the linen cupboard in the hall. I’ll come up later and we’ll make the bed together.”

Jesse falls over herself. “I’m sure the others are just as lovely, but I’d be so happy to stay here. Thank you. And I’ll do the sheets. Truly. It will be a pleasure.” Jesse wanders to a worn Persian carpet. It lies at the foot of a high bed that is too wide for one person, but not—to her eyes—quite big enough for two.

“I’m glad you like it. Rory can bring your case up. Least he can do.” That glimmer of a smile. “Towels are in the linen cupboard as well, if you feel like a bath before dinner.” She stares around the room. “I think you’ll sleep well here. I always have.”

Jesse watches the door close. Why live in London and work as a waitress if you could live here? What’s all that about? And Rory. Just how close is he to Alicia?

She shakes her head impatiently; none of this is her business. At the moment, the view is all she cares about. On the other side of the casements, gauzy apricot light has fused to the hills as the first stars make ice-white lace across the sky. Jesse lifts a latch on one of the windows. It’s heavy, hasn’t been opened in a while, but she pushes it wide and drinks a draft of the evening. She can smell—what?

“Honeysuckle!”

And it occurs to Jesse Marley that this scent has traveled to
her from long, long ago. The scent of childhood? That makes her happy, and it makes her sad. Her childhood is a mystery now. So is Hundredfield.

This place. How can she have
drawn
it?

The fear she denied when she first saw the tower, standing alone at the top of the hill, seeps back.

What does it mean? What does any of this mean?

13

A
COLD RIDE
we had from Alnwick, Maugris and I, and the silence of the wasteland matched our mood.

“I could sleep on twelve-month rushes so long as my feet were turned to the fire.” Maugris looked happy enough, though the skin of his face was red from the cold, as mine must have been also; twenty-eight at his next name day to my twenty-six, yet sinew contained in bags of skin was all he and I had become.

I thought of Rosa and how all life withers. “Perhaps there will be a feast for the prodigals when we return?”

“Only if Godefroi forgets your bad behavior.”

“For a place by the fire I might forget his.”

It was good to laugh. We were riding on frozen tracks as the country began its climb. It would have been safer to stay at Alnwick for the twelve days and all the festivities of Christmas and ride out after the New Year feast, but we had seen few abroad in these dark days.

“Will the child have been born?”

Maugris shaded his eyes against the iron sky as if he could see the keep already. “Perhaps.”

The image of beauty fades. I could not recall the lines of Flore’s face, though I remembered her eyes. The blue of pale, clear water.

“One more night, please, God. Just one.” Maugris crossed himself, as I did. “And pray the freeze holds.”

“Amen to that.”

There was a moon to guide us as the day waned. Rising, she cast light across the hills and glens as we made camp below the fells in a valley we knew. A day’s ride from Hundredfield, we had used this place before on our way home because there was a cave large enough to bring horses in for the night, and we could light a fire with no fear it would be seen. The cave was defensible too, since it looked over the valley below and was guarded by the sheer cliff above.

The garrison quartermaster at Alnwick had given us food for the journey, twice-baked bread and salt fish—one hard, the other dry—and skins of strong ale. After a time, the beer made the food taste better, and it brought sleep as we lay beside the fire.

I had taught myself long since not to dream, yet now, as I wrapped the riding cloak around my body and surrendered to the dark, such things came as, even now, it is difficult to speak of.

There was blood and I waded through it as if it were the water in a pool. But as I washed my body in some man’s death, hands grasped my ankles and dragged me down.

I was plunged into a void that flickered with flame, and through it all a child cried out, high and desperate.

I could not breathe, I could not wake. If I tried to scream I knew none would hear me, and the taste of iron filled my mouth until, at last, I voided a tide of rust that would not stop and grew greater with each spasm. Trees grew up where the vomit fell, with branches that reached and clasped and folded me tight, as if bark were my winding cloth.

“Brother.”

The world was shaking, the leaves, the tree.

“Bayard!”

Sweat ran into my eyes. I could not open them.

But I did. To see that I lay beside the fire among our fighters, and Maugris had his hand on my shoulder.

And if my brother had been a different kind of man, I would have clung to him as I once had, long ago, when as boys we slept in Alnwick’s great hall for the first time. Alone.

Maugris pointed. “Tell me what you see.”

I shaded my eyes. “There are no men.”

We had ridden along the river track, and the bridge to the keep lay before us. Beyond, the great gate was shut, the drawbridge drawn up tight. I voiced what we both thought. “Why would there be no guards?”

Maugris shortened the reins on his horse as, nervous, it stepped this way and that. “What is Godefroi doing? It is broad day.”

“Perhaps he is dead. Be careful.” I pointed at his restless mount. “He thinks you want to jump the gap.”

Maugris glared at me. “To speak of death tempts fate.”

We were both tired so I did not reply. I pulled out the hunting horn in my saddlebag.

“Why did you bring that?” But my brother’s expression lifted.

I tipped my head to the forest. “Hunting. Venison for Christmas.” I held it up. “Shall I raise the guard?”

Maugris reined back, allowing Helios room as I kicked forward.

Putting the horn to my mouth, I blew. Out of practice; the first note was an embarrassing fart. Behind, trying not to laugh, the men snorted. I guffawed anyway and even Maugris smiled.

I tried again, and a keening whine blew clear.

Nothing stirred over the water.

“Again.”

Twice more I blew the horn.

We watched, all of us. There was nothing to see.

“If we can get across the river, there’s the postern.”

Maugris was right, but we had no boat, and though a postern gate
was
in the outer wall of the gardens below the keep, it would be barred on the inside.

“Perhaps there is sickness in the keep?”

Maugris nodded. “The sweat, maybe.”

Weakened by hunger, people died fast, and sickness spread from house to house faster than a man could walk; no one knew what caused it. Maugris turned his horse in a tight circle, staring back at the gate. “If they have the pestilence, Godefroi will certainly have ordered Hundredfield closed.”

I said nothing. Selflessness was not Godefroi’s strength. “So shall I ride to the village? They may know more.”

Maugris’s face must have mirrored my own disappointment. “Try once more.”

And so I blew the horn a final time.

I waited until the echo died, then turned Helios.

We heard a shout.

A man’s head topped the battlements; I saw his helmet gleam as he waved an arm. I did not know his face.

Maugris cupped his hands. “Drop the bridge.”

Another head appeared, then the two disappeared.

The crash of chain as the drawbridge came down was never more welcome than on that day. And as the mouth to the castle yard dropped open, the gates drawn back inside, we saw the inner ward. It was empty of the usual bustle of men and women, dogs and horses.

Behind us, the men muttered.

I murmured, “Ride on?”

“Yes.” But Maugris dropped the visor on his helmet and eased his sword from its scabbard.

I turned in my saddle. “Form up.” Behind, Rauf gave the signal to draw steel.

Without haste the column rode under the great gate and into
the inner ward, Maugris at the head, me at the rear. The men who dropped the gate had vanished.

As Maugris called out the halt, I gave the signal to mass the horses.

“What do you think?” He spoke in a murmur.

“Secure the gate. Then the keep.”

Maugris nodded. “Agreed. Gate or keep?”

A smile for the benefit of the men and I replied, “The keep. Perhaps I can make peace with Godefroi.”

“Take half the troop, then. Use the horn if you need to.”

Iron struck sparks as we rode across the cobbles in orderly array, but the stables and the kitchens, the barns and outbuildings, were as the village had been all those months before; eyes were behind those doors and shutters. I felt them, but we heard no calls of welcome, no voices happy at our return. Ahead, the tower of the keep seemed almost to lean down, like a tree beaten over in a storm. A trick of the light, but strange—as if the very building implored our help, and I will not deny I remembered the dream.

I held up an arm and the troop stopped. A wall and a narrow gate protected the way to the tower, and here was a difficult decision.

Beyond, the lowest part of the keep had arrow slits facing the way we were to ride, and above, the height of three men, were larger windows. Too high to reach without siege ladders.

Godefroi’s chamber was higher still, two stories below the cap-house at the top of the tower. We had to first pass under the gate to where a path climbed to a flight of steps. Only then could we approach the door that was set into the wall, far above the ground.

Since the gate was narrow, a horseman could only ride through it alone, and if men lay in wait on the other side, or behind the arrow loops inside the tower, he faced a quick death. The defenses of the keep had been well planned; Fulk knew the business of war.

I beckoned Rauf forward. “What do you think?”

“Tamas and three of us could keep the loops busy.” Wiry, and strong as bent yew, Tamas was the best archer we had.

I considered what Rauf had said. Only a steady archer could shoot directly into such a narrow target, but rapid fire might intimidate the men inside. Might.

“Where would you stand?” Beyond the gate there was no cover.

“Leave our horses, run through, and you follow. Strike first and keep shooting, cover your back and those who ride after you.”

At least the light was behind us. Shooting into the sun from the keep would not be easy. I nodded. “Pick your men.” I waited as two others were selected—Edwin, the youngest in our troop, and Walter, the survivor of more seasons of fighting than even Maugris had seen. Good choices.