Wild Wood (49 page)

“How many?” Rauf asked.

Maugris and I were crouched behind the battlements above the gate. Fulk had built well. It was possible to look out over the river below and not be seen. I did not answer. I was dismayed at the sight.

Maugris said carelessly, “Two hundred. No more. They shall be scythed like barley.”

But of course there were more. Shaggy-haired, with wild, brown faces, the ground heaved as they gathered. They would be rabid dogs in this fight.

Maugris peered through an arrow slit. “I do not see Alois.”

“Bayard!”

It was him. Little remained of the monk he had been, but choir training had taught him how to use his voice.

I went to stand.

Maugris pulled me down. “Not yet.”

“Bayard de Dieudonné. Show yourself. Why hide? We are all friends here.” Laughter swept the final words across the river.

I shook away my brother’s grasp.

“See? I knew you could do it. Very brave.”

From the height of the walls I saw him. The horse he rode was sturdy and small, and so hairy it looked like a goat.

I cupped my hands. “Nice mount you have there, Alois. By the way, what do you want? I am busy.”

“Not so busy as you will be. Perhaps we should try a joust when our business is done. Oh, I forgot. You’ll be dead.”

“I do not ride against men on goats. It confuses my destrier.” I was lucky. I stepped back as an arrow sliced the air beside my cheek and shattered against the battlement wall behind.

“My thumb slipped!” Laughter again.

“Stop sucking it.” Another arrow, two more. I waited.

“We can go on like this all day. We have many, many arrows.”

I sprang to the gap with Godefroi’s best bow and fired. Two shots away and I heard a man scream.
One down.

“What are they doing?” Maugris had bellied closer.

I dared to look. “Boiling like ants around the man I shot.”

Alois called out again. “This glorious day is wasting, Bayard. Speak to me, for we are men of peace.”

I caught Maugris’s eye. He nodded. “But we are not.” I fired again. Once more. A third time.

A growl like that of a great mastiff was lost in shouts and further screams. Maugris smiled as more arrows arrived to crash against the wall behind us. He picked up another of Godefroi’s bows and stood beside me on the far side of the gap.

“I am losing patience, Bayard. You have a choice. Give us Hundredfield and perhaps we will allow you to depart in peace.” Alois was not so cordial now.

Maugris shouted, “Terms already? A sign of weakness, Alois.”

“You are both there? That is good. Brothers should die together.”

I shouted, “What happened to ‘depart in peace’?”

A roar, and arrows fell out of the shining sky.

We ducked and hugged the parapet close. Below we heard splash after splash in the river.

Rauf called out, “Skin boats.”

Maugris yelled, “Ladders?”

“Yes. Held between two.”

Maugris signaled to Rauf.

Rauf bellowed, “First rank!”

Our men stepped to their places.

A good archer, well supplied, fires best in a steady rhythm, and veterans of so many battles, our fighters went about their business as if shooting at the butts. The sun at their backs dazzled the men on the ground. It is always hard, firing into the sky.

“Arrows!” I yelled to Dikon and another lad, a turnspit from the kitchen. At a crouching run, they gathered what had been fired by those below as refills for us.

“Rauf!” Maugris signaled again.

He had seen what we had seen. Below, men were landing on our side of the river. Rauf bellowed, “Next rank!”

Two archers now stood at each gap in the battlements.

“Second fires down!” Rauf’s order cut through.

The archers held. And fired. And fired. And men on both sides of the river fell.

I pointed. “There. Look!”

Maugris joined me. “Christ’s eyes!” Ladders were going up against the battlements.

One of Rauf’s men sprinted up from below. “The postern! They’ve breached the postern gate!”

Maugris held up two hands. “Hold the wall.” And Rauf counted ten men down from the battlements.

On our bellies, we wriggled toward the entrance to the stairs that led down to the inner ward. Then the moment came to run the arrow storm.

I went first, and across that narrow space shafts broke and bounced off Godefroi’s armor, and the doorway did the rest; I found myself inside the walls, a whole man, as others followed.

Maugris blocked the light and fell into the stairwell, panting. “Can’t shoot to save themselves.” He grinned.

46

I
T’S SO
much easier having a conversation in your head. Saying the actual words, that’s the really hard bit.

Jesse doesn’t know where to begin. She doesn’t know why she feels like that. And there’s guilt. Of course.

Hang on. Mack kissed me!

However, from the time he’d walked into the bar and up to this moment, when they’re more than halfway back to Hundredfield, Rory has said just five words. She’s been counting.

“Hi” and “Seat belt” and “Nearly there.”

“Rory?”
Wrong!
Too tentative.

He doesn’t answer.

Jesse twists in her seat until she’s staring at that profile. It’s rigid. “I’d like to talk about Mack.”

But she doesn’t say that.

She says, “What’s the time, please?”

“Twelve forty-seven.” He taps the clock.

“Oh. Right.” The dashboard clock. “Right time to talk, then.” She plunges in. “About Mack. And me.”

A muscle’s twitching in Rory’s jaw. “You’re both grown-ups.”

“Yes. But he is your brother.”

“Half brother.” It’s said with no emphasis.

What does that mean?
“I—we—that is, we didn’t mean it to happen. Just that, sometimes . . .”

“Jesse, I did study psychology. You’re vulnerable, and you see him as some kind of knight in shining armor. Completely understandable.” The doctor voice. But the car’s slowing down.

Maybe he does want to talk.
“No, it’s not that.”
Is it?
“I’d just been talking to your mother, and, well, it was a pretty difficult conversation. I was upset. More than that, really.”

That gets Rory’s attention. “What do you mean?”

“She knew. Helen knew what happened when I was born. And she didn’t tell me. Deliberately. She met Eva too. My mother. Helen said she was a drifter.” Jesse’s voice catches.
No! No more crying.
She sniffs hard.

“Tissues in the glove box.” An automatic response.

“What, you
travel
with them?” Jesse sneaks a glance as she blows her nose. Maybe he’s defrosting, maybe he isn’t. Maybe she just doesn’t care. In a stronger voice she says, “I don’t know what it is with your mum, but—”

“Everyone has a shadow side.”

“And thank you, Mr. Jung. I’m sure we’re all grateful for that insight.” A pause. “I think it’s you two. She can’t let you go.”

“She’s protective. Mothers are.”

“Bit of layman’s advice, Rory. Cut the apron strings.”

This time, when he looks at her, she sees the truth. He’s furious. But she meets his glance. She’s pissed off too.

Abruptly, Rory pulls to the side of the road. Hauls on the hand brake. “None of this is easy, Jesse. It does not have to become personal, however.”

She yells at him, “Personal? What your mother did to me today is way past personal. It’s outrageous! So are you!” In that small space the noise is deafening.

Rory goes to start the car again. And doesn’t. “But you did come back to Hundredfield.”

“Yes!” Jesse’s still shouting. She turns away. “Oh, bugger it.” She thumps the dashboard. “Bugger, bugger, bugger!” Again. Harder.

Rory stares out through the windscreen. “Mum’s always been very close to Mack. You need to know that.” He starts the car, steers it back onto the road. They’re almost in sight of the gates of the estate.

And isn’t that good news.
Jesse takes a breath. Controls herself. “And you. What about you?”

“What do you mean?” His voice is flat.

“A girl. Alicia, for instance?” She cringes.
So subtle.

“Alicia?”

She sees him shift uncomfortably. “Well, what I mean is, she’s very fond of you. You could be good together.” Stop. Stop
now
.

“Friends is what we are.” Rory shifts down as the car takes the corner into Hundredfield’s drive. “Alicia’s always just been family.”

“But you want her to be happy.”

Rory takes time to answer. The bridge is in sight. “I want everyone to be happy. Even Mack.” He doesn’t look at Jesse. “Here we are. Back home.”

Another few minutes and the car stops at the front door.

Jesse gets out.
Whose home? Not yours, certainly not mine.
But she still walks through that door.

Alicia calls out, “Good to see you looking better.”

Jesse closes the gate that leads to the kitchen garden. “Thanks.” The last thing she feels, in any way, is better.

At the center of the radiating beds of fruits and vegetables is a roundel of bricks and a weathered bench. Alicia’s sitting there. She gestures at the bucket of apricots overflowing at her feet. “The tomatoes are bad enough, but all this fruit!”

Jesse sits beside the other girl. “I could stew some for dinner if you like. Or make apricot crumble?”

They watch as dragonflies flit and hover above the surface of a small pond.

“It’s so peaceful here. A green bower.”

“ ‘Bower.’ ” Alicia shades her eyes against the light. She throws a stick into the pond, watches the ripples spread. “Sounds peaceful, but it’s not like that here, not really.”

“Define
peaceful
.”

“Well, the opposite of
unquiet. That’s
what Hundredfield is—unquiet. Like it’s got a mind of its own suddenly.” Another stick.

Jesse goes to say something. And doesn’t.

“I’ve always liked the view from here.” Alicia gestures to a gap in the wall around the garden. “That fell down when I was little, and Mummy stopped Daddy from having it repaired. She used to sit here on warm afternoons and I’d be at her feet; she’d tell me stories while we podded peas together.” Alicia turns to Jesse in surprise. “I’ve just remembered. Mummy called this her ‘bower’ as well.” She picks up an apricot. “Would you like one? Fruit grows well in a walled garden.”

Jesse says semiseriously, “So what about fruit and veggies as a business? You’d be a sensation.”

“Hey!” Alicia gets up. She shoos a blackbird away from some fallen apricots and bends to pick one up. “The trust people came today.”

Jesse says cautiously, “How was that?”

“They seem interested.” Alicia adds the apricot to the bucket. “But I change my mind every three minutes.” She drops back onto the seat. “Maybe if the trust falls through, I’ll take up your suggestion—get my hands dirty like a real farmer. What d’you reckon?” She laughs.

Jesse mutters, “I’ve seen stranger things.” She pauses. “You said Hundredfield has a mind of its own now. What did you mean?”

Alicia bites into an apricot. “The past bleeds into the present. It won’t let go. Damn!” Apricot juice has dribbled onto her T-shirt.

Jesse fishes Rory’s tissues out of a pocket. “Have these. I don’t need them.”

Alicia mops the juice and licks her fingers. “Your drawings, that’s what made me think of it. But there’s more, there’s always been more, and it’s why leaving here, if I have to go, is agony.” She’s massaging her temples. “Unfinished business that started a thousand years ago.”

Jesse takes a breath. “You’re right about unfinished business. Before we went to Newton Prior this morning, Rory and I . . .”

“Don’t upset yourself, Jesse. You must still be feeling so strange and—”

“This is not about what happened at the river. Did you know Rory’s using hypnosis? As a tool.”

“Go on.” Alicia’s staring at her curiously.

“He talks about my unconscious finding a voice. But it’s not my voice on those tapes, not all the time. Today, well, when Rory played the tape back, I heard
her
. She said I must ‘return the mother.’ ” Jesse swallows.

“What does that mean?” Alicia’s expression is skeptical.

Jesse pauses. “I don’t know. And this is going to sound very, very odd—I was wearing the mask on my face. I, or she, spoke through it. Rory heard her, I heard her. ‘Return the mother’ were the actual words she used.” She stands restlessly. “ ‘The past bleeds into the present.’ Your words, Alicia. And at the river”—a deep, trembling breath—“she was there. She was in the water with me. She’s not just a drawing, Alicia. She’s not just someone in a dream. She’s real. And she’s connected to this place.”

“I don’t understand.”

The background shrill of insects drills into Jesse’s head as she watches Alicia’s expression change. “What are you thinking?”

“Because she’s linked to you, is this your way of saying you have a claim on Hundredfield?” The cool tone, the cool eyes.

“No. But I think she does.”

47