Wild Wood (16 page)

I sketched a cross in the air as the archers dismounted. “Now!”

Screaming, the four ran forward as I both spurred Helios and held him hard, building power in his haunches, trusting the others to follow.

On the far side of the gate, arrows sliced past my head as I let Helios run. The stallion’s strength and heart propelled me to the foot of the tower in two breaths—the longest breaths I had ever taken—and I flung from the saddle and up the stairs, the others at my heels. Hard against the walls, we were under the flight of the defenders’ arrows, but the murder hole was above our heads and . . .

“Stop!” I shouted through the tumult of yelling men and milling, riderless horses.

The only arrows were ours. Nothing had come from the keep.

The silence, as it fell, was eerie.

I beckoned Rauf and the archers closer. They came forward with arrows nocked, but when I tried the door latch, I could not move it; inside, the bar was in the keeper.

“My ax.” Three crosswise layers of oak were bound with iron and studded with great nails. To destroy the structure well enough
to fire the wood would take time, and though the keep seemed deserted, I had no faith that was true.

Rauf found my ax and ran to place it in my hand, but before I could take a swing, someone called out, “Wait!”

Inside, the bar scraped back.

I ran back down the steps with the men and stood with the archers as they brought their bows to bear on the door as it opened. A man stood in the doorway, blinking. He was as pale as the walls behind and I did not know who he was.

“Hold!” A bellow to our men. “Your name!”

“Robert, sir. I am your brother’s reeve.”

“Are you ill, Robert?” I craned to peer for assailants behind him in the tower.

“No.”

“Lord Godefroi and his wife?”

The man crossed himself. “The keep has no sickness.” He hesitated. “But come out of the cold, sir. Lord Godefroi is in his chamber.” Something crossed his face, too fast to understand what the expression meant.

“Rauf, take the men to the stables.” But I waved an arm behind my back, and the men at my shoulder rushed the door, swords raised.

“Mercy!” Robert gulped.

I ran up the steps and gestured for the man to precede me. “Then lead us to my brother.”

In its own narrow tower, the staircase scaled the height of the main keep. Supported by a stone pillar into which the treads locked, it was wide enough to swing a sword, but the advantage would always be with those coming down. Since Godefroi’s chamber was three ranges of rooms above, we stepped cautiously behind the reeve. The only sound was our boots, and the wind—it haunted the stair tower always, a lonely voice from the hills.

“There.” Robert pointed at Godefroi’s door. I came up close behind, my sword nudging his back. “Brother?”

Breath silvering the air, we waited.

“Godefroi?” The door, a dumb slab of oak, had no story to tell. I stood close against the reeve, my eyes fixed on his. “Is there more to say?”

“Lord Godefroi has not come out of his chamber since . . .” The man swallowed and shook his head.

I took him by the shoulder and twisted my sword against the knuckles in his spine. He yelped. Perhaps I was cruel, though I would not have called it that then. “What has happened here?”

“Sir!” Rauf beckoned me to the door.

I shoved Robert toward Tamas and laid my head against the wood. Nothing. And then, something. A sound I did not recognize. I thought it an animal, whimpering.

Was the door barred? I did not know. Stepping back, I pivoted, dropped one shoulder, and charged. After two bruising attempts, the latch burst from the jamb, the impact so great I fell into the room.

On the great bed my brother sat. Like the Madonna cradling her dead son, Godefroi held his wife across his lap, her head resting against his shoulder.

Tears streaked his face as he sobbed. The woman’s clothes were stiff with blood, and she was dead.

14

B
UT YOUR
wife must be washed, brother.” Maugris spoke gently to Godefroi. “She cannot be taken to the chapel until”—Maugris coughed—“until all is made decent.” When there was no response, he looked at me.

I said, “It is true. It will be best if you allow your lady this service. She shall be afforded every honor.”

Godefroi did not answer. He held Flore closer.

Maugris and I exchanged a glance. I had sent Rauf to find him, and in the minutes since he had arrived, I had tried to persuade Godefroi to surrender Flore’s body; but he would not permit me to touch her and still would not speak.

Both of us stared at the corpse. Maugris’s face worked with pity, and perhaps I was shocked also. Death among men is a normal thing; if there is blood and suffering, it is something that happens quickly under an open sky, and we were trained to it. But the secret death of women as a child is born strikes to the heart.

“Reeve.” Maugris controlled his voice, but I knew why he struggled to speak.

We both remembered our mother. She had died birthing a
dead child. Our sister. We arrived too late to see her face or the baby before they were enclosed together in her coffin.

I said quietly, “Go, Robert. Bring help.”

Godefroi would not look at us, nor did he speak. If we approached, he flinched.

Even when the servants crept out of hiding, it was no different. Three girls, hastily chosen by the reeve, had gathered outside Godefroi’s chamber. They would not come inside, though we heard Robert arguing with them.

I beckoned him. “Why was Lady Flore left without help?” It was impossible to believe Godefroi would have been in the birthing chamber. He must have found her afterward.

The man’s expression changed. “Margaretta was with her mistress. She was the only one. That was the choice of the Lady Flore.”

Maugris glowered. “The girl is still at Hundredfield?”

The reeve looked helpless. “She is—was—the only servant the lady would allow. And Lord Godefroi—”

A disgusted mutter from my brother. “Lust. What a fool it makes of us all.” He caught my eye.

Oh, I knew what Maugris would have done. After Swinson was beaten, he would have slit the girl’s throat as an example and dumped her body outside the walls for Alois to find.

“Thank you, Robert.” I nodded as if I understood what he was saying, though far too much was strange in this birth. “How long since . . .” I hesitated to say
she died.

The man did not look at me. “It was at dawn.”

“And the child?”

Robert’s face cleared a little. He said with some relief, “The child is alive.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Bayard!” Maugris called me to the bed, and I waved for Robert to wait outside.

Godefroi still stared at me as if I were a stranger, and as Maugris
drew me aside, he whispered, “The body will be stiff very soon. She must be laid out or it will be too late.”

I nodded and moved closer. “Godefroi, we have women outside to attend the Lady Flore.”

“No!” Heaving the girl’s corpse up from the bed, Godefroi stumbled as he tried to carry Flore away and—perhaps from weakness—the body began to slide from his grasp.

Maugris and I surged forward. Flore’s flesh was cold when we caught her and that was a shock enough, though God knew we both understood what death was.

Godefroi gave up. His arms dropped and he stood back, his face as remote as hers, as we lifted Flore’s body and placed it carefully on the bed.

Maugris cleared his throat. “The servants will do all that is suitable for the Lady Flore and dress her also.” He flicked his eyes to the coffers. They had been pulled back along one wall to make room for two cradles, one large and elaborate, one a simple box on rockers.

But I understood. I opened the lid on the first coffer, but there were only bedcoverings and linen bath sheets inside. In the second were gowns as well as veils and folded cloaks. One of the dresses was especially fine. I showed the garment to Godefroi. “This will honor her.”

Godefroi stared at what I held. The blue-black of deep night, the gown was brocaded damask, with sleeves and a bodice faced with cloth of silver. “She wore that for her marriage to me.” His face turned gray.

“Bayard!”

Godefroi slumped into our arms. We propped him between us like a half-stuffed doll and carried him from the chamber, leaving the frightened girls, herded by Robert, to do their work. Then the reeve, like an anxious hound, shadowed us down the stairs.

Maugris and I took Godefroi to a small chamber that opened from the hall. One of the few private rooms in the keep, it had
been used by our mother and her women when they sewed; now it would protect her eldest son from the gaze of all who lived in her home.

“Robert, Matthias must be told that the Lady Flore will lie in the chapel tonight. Then set trestles before the altar on which to place a bier. A coffin must be made also.”

“I shall ask Father Matthias, but . . .” Robert faltered.

I was puzzled. “Order and decency must be restored. The priest will know what to do.”

“Father Matthias is . . .” The man was sweating. “He does not like, that is, he . . .” Words ran out.

I grasped Robert’s sleeve. “What is this?”

“Father Matthias will not speak with the Lady Flore. Or remain in the same room where she is.” The words were gasps.

“The Lady Flore is dead. He must attend to his duty to our family or it shall not go well for him. Tell him that.” I spoke the bald truth.

Robert bowed, but as he left I heard him mutter, “I’ll have to find him first.”

I watched him go with narrowed eyes.

“Bayard. Help me!”

I hurried to Maugris and slid an arm behind Godefroi’s back, propping him up as my brother tried to help him swallow wine.

“God’s teeth and balls.” Maugris rarely swore, but a stream of red liquid trickled from Godefroi’s mouth and stained his jerkin; Maugris the Grim was deeply fearful.

“Godefroi is not dying, Maugris.”

“How would you know?”

“Because you and I have seen enough dead men. This is shock.”

Maugris put the goblet down, and I thought he was leaving our brother to my care, but he wheeled suddenly and cracked an open hand across Godefroi’s face. “Enough!”

Godefroi mumbled something, but his eyes opened. Perhaps
this was good; I could not tell, though. Shaking my head at Maugris, I pointed to the hall.

He spoke more quietly. “Bring a brazier. Go on!” As if all that had happened was my fault, he glared at me.

To argue with my brother, either of my brothers, was rarely successful. I hurried to the screens that hid the back stairs to the kitchens. That is where the servants would be gathered.

“Wait! The mass?” Maugris tipped his head at Godefroi; he did not want to use the word
funeral
.

“I have sent Robert to talk to the priest, but Godefroi must tell us what he wants.” At least it was freezing weather. If the body was not to be buried for a day or so, all would still be well.

“Good. Have more wine brought, the best we have in the butts. They are to heat it with honey and raw eggs. Our brother’s strength must be restored.”

And so, I thought, must ours. We had eaten nothing since the cave last night, and that had been little enough. “I shall see our men have food, also. And the horses.” Dikon, the stableboy, would most likely have hidden when the trouble began, but I trusted him to do what was needed when I found him.

Maugris was calmer. “You must find out where the child has been taken. The baby will comfort our brother. What sex is it?”

I glanced at Godefroi, who was staring at Maugris. “I have a daughter.” Godefroi’s voice, at least, sounded as it always had, though his face was pale as old dough.

“Do you hear that, Bayard? We have a fine niece.”

But I knew Maugris, and I felt as he did. A girl. What was the use of a girl to our house?

“Lords?” Robert had returned.

“Well, did you find the priest?”

“No, Lord Bayard, but trestles will be set in the chapel for . . .” Feeling Godefroi’s eyes on his face, Robert did not finish the sentence.

Maugris glowered. “This is unacceptable. Where has he gone?”

“My lord, I do not know.”

Godefroi sat up straighter. “My daughter. Bring her.” His voice was harsh.

Robert looked from face to face. And swallowed. “I shall find Margaretta.” He backed hastily away before he could be stopped.

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