Wild Wood (50 page)

F
IRE THE
keep.” Maugris took the stairs to the inner ward without haste. In crisis, my brother was calm. That is why men followed him. “Come to the postern when it is done.”

Margaretta!

I ran for the tower.

If a man could fly upward, I took the stairs as if I had wings, and locked or not, I kicked the door of Godefroi’s chamber open.

I had not warned them.

As I rushed through, there came a crack, a sound I heard but from somewhere far away, and then—I fell into night.

“Wake!”
Pain. It came as I lay in a black and queasy bog. My eyes jangled open just as Margaretta poured water over my face again. Pushing her away, I tried to stand. And could not.

Aviss began to whimper.

I held out my hand as comfort, but the child screamed, and I saw that blood covered my whole arm.

Had I been injured and not known it? I touched my head. One side of my scalp ran red. The wound from Alois’s camp had opened. “I was wrong to bring you here.”

Margaretta said nothing. A heave, and she pulled me to my feet.
Aviss in my arms, the baby in hers, we stumbled down the stairs to the chapel.

I pulled the covering of the alcove aside. Margaretta gasped. The Madonna’s plinth was empty.

I fumbled the panel open. “Go, but block the way.”

She nodded. “Do not fear for us.” She knew it was likely I would die. I saw it in her eyes.

Consecrated or not, I ripped coverings from the altar and pulled the Madonna’s hangings down. “Block the tunnel against smoke. Do not come out.” I pushed the material into her arms.

She knelt inside the opening with the children. “Bayard.”

And I knelt also, my arms around all three.

She whispered, “Come back to us.”

Between love and desire, I kissed her.

And pushed her inside. “Go.” The door was pulled closed.

I forced myself to run from the chapel.

Upstairs, in the hall, I laid fire through the rushes and, as they burned, snatched some up and held them against my mother’s tapestries until they bloomed a terrible rose.

Fire is an animal. It has a voice. As smoke began to drift, I heard it. A monster that grew in size and power as it leapt to eat the ancient rafters of the hall.

Blood in my eyes, I ran outside and counted the gates. One, beside the keep. Two, as the path turned to the pleasance. Three, at the garden itself, and—

“À moi, à moi!”

Maugris!

Deep in the melee at the postern gate, Hundredfield tunics were few, but my brother fought on with three men at his side.

I became the fourth.

Now three faced those who came from the river side, and we two, at their backs, took those who fought in the garden. Forward,
slice, back, feint; practiced rhythm, well mastered, as the blades clashed and sang. We were armored and well trained. They were not.

A man went down before Maugris, screaming. His head was gone in a swoop. “Is it done?”

Another fighter tried for my eyes. I blocked his knife and took him through the guts. Blood sprayed from his mouth. Red rain. “It is done.”

A crack and I looked up. The cap-house was burning as, around us, the pile of bodies grew.

“Close it.” Maugris meant the postern gate.

I jumped forward with Tamas. Three to fight, two to build the rampart from still warm bones.

Under the swords as they wheeled and bit, we dragged dead men as if they were logs. Some we swung at those coming up. Some we built in a wall.

Maugris called out, “Back, fall back.”

One of our fighters pitched on his face. An ax in his back.

Four of us now. Tamas and me to push, Maugris and one more to fight.

As I had pulled it open for Godefroi, now I began to close the postern gate—my shoulder like a bullock to the door as men howled and died in the narrowing gap.

The postern was heavy and thick, three layers of oak, studded and bound with iron. I felt the weight on the other side more and more, as the gate began to push against us.

Smoke was our savior. On that windless day it rolled from the top of the keep down to the river, an evil coverlet choking those on the path, while we in our mother’s garden breathed clean air.

So we pushed back. And closed the gate. And dropped the lock bar down.

Maugris wheeled. “Now.” He sprinted away. And we followed. Down to the inner ward.

48

A
S ALICIA
and Jesse walk into the hall, the phone’s ringing.

Jesse’s closer. “Hundredfield, Jesse Marley speaking.”

A gasp. “Is that you? Is it really you?”

Jesse doesn’t know how to answer. She buckles slowly to a chair.

“Oh, talk to me. Please, say something.”

Jesse’s face works. “Hello, Mum.”

There’s silence. Then words spill out of the receiver. “We didn’t know where you were, and I—I just so wanted to talk and, oh, I know you were angry, but—” The voice fractures.

Jesse hunches forward. It feels as if she’s chewing concrete when she tries to speak. “Mum, look, I . . .”
I what?
“I wish none of this had happened, but it has.” She draws a breath. “Where are you?”

“In Newcastle.”

Jesse takes that in. “Australia?”

“No. England. Jesse. Are you still there?”

“Yes. How did you know how to find me?”

“I didn’t, but . . .” There’s a pause. “What’s happened to you? Are you okay?”

How does she answer that?
“Yes, Mum.” Jesse closes her eyes.

“Oh, thank you, God. Your father and I were so worried. And when we heard nothing for weeks, we thought . . .” Another swallow. “We thought—oh, such dreadful, terrible things. In the end, I got on the plane in Sydney and flew to London. I didn’t know where to start to look—it’s been days of searching.” The sob is stifled. “But last night, your father sent a telegram to the hotel. Your postcard arrived at home. So this morning I took the bus north.”

This is too painful. Jesse interrupts, “Did you know she died? Her name was Eva Green, Mum. She was sixteen, and no one’s named as my father.” Jesse’s throat closes over.

The response has a forlorn dignity. “I should have told you the truth years and years ago, but I thought I’d lose you, and . . .” The words crumble into gasps.

Jesse’s shaking, vibrating, her jaw won’t let her speak, and she’s breathing so deeply, the world is a light-headed blur.

“Jesse?” Her mother’s panicking. “Speak to me. Oh, please. Anything. Just talk to me.”

Alicia puts a quiet hand on Jesse’s shoulder.

Jesse grips the phone; she’s curled herself around it. “A pen. Have you got a pen?”

There’s a scrabble on the end of the line. “Yes.”

“There’s a pub called the Hunt in Newton Prior. English side of the border. Write that down. I’ll meet you there. There’ll be a room in your name.”

“Yes. Oh, Jesse, I . . .” The line goes silent.

“Mum?” Jesse stares at the receiver. “Mum, are you there?”

She hears the disconnected-call sound.

Gently, Alicia takes the phone and puts it back in its cradle.

Jesse’s face is dazed. “Her money ran out.”

“Right.” It seems the only thing to say. “Why did she ring you here?”

“I don’t know. She sounded shocked when I answered.” Jesse shakes her head. “The thing is”—she swallows—“Mum’s here. In Newcastle.”

“Oh. Okay.” Alicia looks confused. “She’s welcome to stay and—”

“No!” The response is instinctive. Jesse jerks back a little. “It’s too close, having her here. It would be . . .” She can’t frame the thought.

“It’s not an imposition, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Jesse shakes her head. “There’s so much to just . . . process. Too much
stuff.
” She pauses. “She’s taking the bus to Newtown Prior. I’ll try to book her into the Hunt. Would you mind if I rang Mack?”
Just to talk to him. Just to hear his voice.

“Of course not.”

Jesse starts to dial with fingers the size and weight of hammers.
Let him be there, please, please, just let it be him. . . .

“Yes, got that. Mrs. Janet Marley. Breakfast included, special deal for our friends.” Mack’s scribbling the name in the booking register that’s kept on the front desk of the Hunt. “The Newcastle bus gets here midafternoon. We’ll look after her like she’s our own.” He pauses. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. Yes. No.”

He speaks softly, “Wish I was there.”

“Wish you were too.” Jesse closes her eyes. “Oh, Mack, it’s so good to talk. It feels like I’ve got nothing to hold on to anymore.”

“Yes, you have. You’ve got me.”

“Is that really true?”

“Try me. Anytime.” He looks up. Helen’s standing a pace or two away. Mack pivots, speaks more quietly. “So, we’ll look forward to seeing her, and you, when she arrives. I’ll let you know.” He puts the receiver down. “Is there something you want, Mum?”

Helen strides over and turns the register around to read it. Her
face changes but she says, “We’re full, Mack. You shouldn’t have taken the booking.”

He stares at her. “No, we’re not. We’ve got five rooms vacant.”

Helen meets him head-on. “You’ll have to ring the caller back and say you made a mistake.”

For a moment Mack measures Helen’s expression, then says gently, “What’s the problem, Mum? You’re upset.”

“No. Listen to me. Ring whoever it was and do as I say.”

Mack turns the phone around. “You ring. She’s at Hundredfield. You know the number. Ask for Jesse Marley.”

Helen hesitates. “Perhaps I put that badly.”

He nods.

“But don’t, just don’t, talk to those people—any of them. Please. Just cancel the booking.”

“Do you want to tell me why?”

She flares. “I don’t want to
do
anything where they’re concerned.”

He says quietly, “Sorry, Mum. I took that booking in good faith. We have the room and I’m not going to cancel on a lie. Or a whim.”

Helen’s face works but Mack says nothing as he turns and walks steadily to the door.

Life, for his mother, has always been about control. But things are slipping. Mack can feel it.

49

A
RE YOU
really sure you want to go inside?”

“Yes.” But Jesse’s face is pale as she stares up at the keep.

Alicia hesitates. “Did I tell you it was repaired after the fire? The keep.” Worried about Jesse, she’s buying time.

“Fire?”

“Hundredfield was sacked in the early fourteenth century. The keep was torched but the structure pretty much survived. Thick walls. Very.” Another pause. “Come on, then.”

A flight of steps leads to the door in the wall. At the top, Alicia sorts out keys.

Jesse shades her eyes to peer at the summit of the keep. Like a soldier’s dead body, these battered stones bear witness to casual, timeless violence.

Alicia calls over her shoulder, “It’s quite safe. Been used as storage for years and years, and Rory’s right. I don’t really know what’s in here.”

In the ten minutes it’s taken to walk to the keep, Alicia’s become more and more tense. After the conversation in the kitchen garden, the last hour has tested them both.

“That one?” Jesse points to the largest of the keys—a monster with a shank half as long as a human forearm.

Alicia speaks loudly, as if silence might be a burden. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But it unlocks a room under the cap-house at the top of the stair tower.” She rattles the keys along the iron loop, selecting one. “This is it.” Alicia inserts it in the lock. “I haven’t been inside for such a long time. Only got as far as the outside with the trust before we ran out of time.” A vigorous jiggle, and something gives within the ancient mechanism. She turns the key with both hands. “Watch where you put your feet, it’ll be shitty inside. Bats.”

“Bats?” Jesse steps back.

“Yes. They’re mostly in the roof but we have to be careful.” A push and the door groans open.

Jesse says, with feeling, “Yes.”

“No, I mean we have to be careful of them—their welfare. All sorts of regulations about bats these days . . .” Alicia disappears inside trailing words like soap bubbles.