Grave Goods (25 page)

S
HE COULDN’T SEE
their faces, just their shapes—one large, one shorter and slim, one very little.

Shapes.

“You all right, missus?” Toki asked anxiously, offering the disgusting bottle. “Have another swig, you’re a-breathin’ horrible strong.”

“No.”

Dimensions. Shapes. One large, one shorter, one tiny. A foreigner, a woman, and her baby. Messages,
messages.
Shapes.

“Oh my God,” she said aloud.

“What’s up now?”

“I’ve got to get back to the Pilgrim.” She was on her feet.

“Better wait. Toki, you get down there. Make sure all’s quiet.”

She couldn’t wait; she began to run down the hill, the tithing following her. All she could see was the door of the inn and three shapes standing in front of it, one big, one middle-sized, one very small, urging it to open for them.

Now she knew why the landlord of the Pilgrim had fainted.

A
S SHE REACHED
the shadow of the abbey wall, Adelia slowed down. The agitation that gripped her had to be controlled; she must plan.

When the tithing caught up with her, she was rubbing her forehead with one finger, thinking hard.

She looked from one face to another. “I’m in sore need of one more favor from you,” she said.

“What now?” Will snapped. He was tired; they were all tired.

She spoke slowly and clearly. “I want you to get my people out of the Pilgrim and take them to Wells. All of them, the lord Mansur, my daughter, my companion, and the Welshman. I want you to take them to the Bishop’s Palace and put them in the care of the bishop of Saint Albans, who is staying there.”

“What for?”

Ollie, youngest and most taciturn of the tithing, was surprised into asking, “Gor-dang, old Godwyn’s cookin’ ain’t that bad, be it?”

Adelia smiled at him. “No, but it’s time we moved on.” She turned to Will. “Is it safe to take them along the road?”

Will looked at Toki. “What do your ears tell ee, Toki?”

“Nothin’. ’S all quiet.”

Will considered. “Reckon as now they’re all upsy-downy over Wolf bein’ dead, getting theyselves a new leader. Might be all right then.” He looked at Adelia with suspicion. “You and the darky doin’ a moonlight flit? Leavin’ poor old Godwyn without his dues?”

“Something like that,” Adelia told him, “but I’ll pay you when I can get to my purse.”

“Come on, Will,” Toki said. “ ’Tain’t as if that old Hilda ever did you a good turn.”

“That’s for sure,” Will said. “All right, then, the palace it is, but the mokes’ll need a bit of a rest and waterin’ afore we set off.”

“One more thing,” Adelia said. “I shan’t be coming with you. I want you to tell my people that I’m already at the Bishop’s Palace, waiting for them.”

Running away without paying they understood; this they did not.

“You staying, then?”

“Yes. If they know that, they won’t come with you.” Gyltha wouldn’t allow herself, and certainly would not allow Allie, to accompany a collection of men as disreputable-looking as these on just their say-so—at least not without a fight.

A singed apple tree leaning over the wall still had a living branch on it. She went to it and came back with a twig. She handed it to Will. “Give this to my companion; her name’s Gyltha. It’s a token that she and the lord Mansur are to do what you tell them. And when you get to the palace, you must inform the bishop of Saint Albans that he’s to make sure he keeps my people there and that I want him to come to the Pilgrim. I’ll be waiting for him.”

“Oh, yes.” Will raised his eyes to the heavens. “Bishops allus do what we tell ’another token would beem. Hobnob with bishops every bloody day, don’t we, lads?”

It was a good point; another token would be necessary. “Tell him …” She tried to think of what would convince Rowley that she was well but in need. “Tell him … tell him Ariadne waits for him.” It had been his name for her when they’d been lovers.

She made Will repeat it several times until he’d got his tongue round the unfamiliar syllables.

The tithing didn’t want to leave her alone, Alf especially. “He’s scared as Scarry’ll come after you,” Toki explained.

Adelia was impatient with them. She had things to do. Out here, in the early sunlight, with the abbey and its monks just over the road, was another world from the forest of last night that was already assuming the unreality of nightmare. It was the Pilgrim that was now the focus of a more pressing danger. “Will, you said yourself the man has no idea where I am.”

“So he ain’t, but Alf’s maybe right. Scarry set a lot of store by Wolf; he’ll want his revenge on us all, ’specially you, missus. You was the one who done for Wolf.”

Had she? It still seemed something she’d watched rather than experienced. Well, she’d face that later, pay whatever she had to pay
later;
now was not the time. “He has to find me first.”

“Maybe.” Will thought it over. “He’s got Wolf to bury. An’ he’ll be busy for a bit, seein’ as if all those other bastards’ll follow him now as Wolf’s dead.” He glared at her. “You sure the bishop’ll come if so be we ask him?”

“I know he will.”

There was a huff from Alf.

Toki said, “Alf says as he’s going to stay.”

“No.”
She took in a breath and tried again. “I want my people safe in Wells. It’ll need all of you to get them there.” Allie, Gyltha, Rhys, and Mansur would need as large an escort as possible to travel the forest road; as it was, even four men were too few.

“Maybe she’s right.” Infuriatingly painstakingly, Will ticked over the reasoning on his fingers. “One, Scarry thinks as she lives over Wells way, ’cos that’s what I told Wolf. Two, he’ll be busy for a bit, a-buryin’ of Wolf and seein’ as if all the other bastards’ll follow him now as Wolf’s dead. Three, if we gets the bishop here today, he’ll keep her safer’n what we can.” Head on one side, he studied his splayed hand. “Yep, reckon as she’ll be safe enough for a bit.”

Quietly, they all crossed the road. The courtyard was deserted and silent, the overlooking shutters barred; it was still too early even for Millie to be up.

Adelia slipped into the stables as Will began hammering on the back door.

It took time for him to be answered, and it was Gyltha who appeared at a window.

The exchange between the two was lengthy and, on Gyltha’s part, bad-tempered with anxiety, but Will, waving the twig, played his part surprisingly well, eventually convincing her that Adelia was at Wells and wanted her family to join her.

The door was unbolted, again by Gyltha. “What’s she doin’ sending messages by the likes of you? Well, you bloody got to wait while I pack our traps. What for’s she gone to the palace? Suppose you’d better come in—you can help carry. And wipe your boots.”

Adelia couldn’t hear the rest because the tithing, meekly stamping their feet and brushing the dust off their clothes, went inside.

After a while, Toki came out. He’d been deputed to fetch the donkeys and was sipping a tankard of ale. “Your Gyltha drew it,” he told her, entering the stables. “Godwyn and Hilda, they ain’t there.”

“Not there? Where’ve they gone?” The whole point of staying here was to keep an eye on them while she hid in the stables.

Toki didn’t know. “An’ your Gyltha, she don’t know, either.
They was there last night, but they ain’t now. Looks like they flitted theyselves.”

“Mmm”

It took time and much arrangement, but eventually Adelia, peeping through a crack in the stable door, watched as Mansur and Gyltha, carrying Allie, were helped onto two of the donkeys, their packs loaded onto another. Rhys was having to share a mount with Toki, both being light in weight.

When Will, on pretense of fetching a hay bag, came into the stables, she said, “They’ll be safe on the road?”

“You better hope so,” he said. He cocked his head. “You reckon your folks is in danger here, do you?”

“Yes.”

“Want to tell me?”

“Later. Just get them away.”

A look of disgust came over his face, which signaled he was about to say something fond. “Don’t like leavin’ you alone.”

Dear, dear, how she did like this truculent man. To please him, she said, “I can look after myself, you saw that.”

He grunted.

“And Will …” Adelia put her hand on his. “In the glade … they were demons and you weren’t armed. You couldn’t have done anything but what you did.”

He scowled at her. “You keep that bloody sword close, that’s all.”

Watching the party set out, she prayed for its safety. It had been a matter of balancing one danger against another; it had seemed that getting Allie and the others out of Glastonbury was the lesser evil, but if she were wrong, if Wolf’s men should be on the rampage …

She tried reassuring herself; it was morning, and there would be other people on the road… .

Lord God, have them in your keeping.

She found it strange that the landlord and his wife had abandoned the inn. Perhaps Hilda had heard her conversation with Will when he came to collect her last night.
Damn.

Still, she might as well take advantage of the situation. The door to the courtyard had been left open, so she went inside, sword in hand.

Rats scampered away from a dirty pot as she entered the kitchen. Flies were everywhere. A well-built fire still threw out heat. The place smelled of stale food and a bowl of milk that had turned sour. Usually, Godwyn kept his domain neat and clean—this disorder suggested that he’d left the inn in a hurry.

She threw open the shutters to let in some air and light. There was a ham hanging from its hook in the ceiling. She cut off a slice, threw it away, and cut another that the flies hadn’t got at, broke a portion of stale crust from a loaf in the mesh-protected food safe, and drew herself a potful of ale—all the time listening for any sound of the innkeepers’ return.

She looked for string, found a piece, and tied it round her waist to make a sword belt. The image of Wolf coming at her across the glade flashed into her mind with the memento mori:
“You have killed a man.”

Lord, she was tired; she’d think about that another time.

Taking her booty back to the stable, she carried it up to the hayloft and made herself comfortable on some straw behind a bale that hid her from the entrance.

Rowley, she thought, when he came, would be pleased with her caution; though there was a job to be done, she was not exposing herself to risk by doing it on her own.

Yawning, she wondered if he would guess her purpose and bring men with him. Useful but probably unnecessary …

How very hot it was… .

It was a sleep of exhaustion, energy-reviving and dreamless for the most part. Only at the end of it did Guinevere walk out of a mist with writhing greenery around her. Again, the queen was in white, though this time she was veiled—in none of Adelia’s nightmares had she shown her face. She was alone; there was nobody to cut her in half. Birds accompanied her, fluttering like an extra cloak in a breeze. One of them landed on her shoulder, an owl, a barn owl, its big eyes and widow-peaked head directed toward Adelia. It turned and took a corner of Guinevere’s veil in its beak. Suddenly, Adelia knew that this wraith wasn’t Guinevere, it was Emma.

“No,” Adelia told it, “I don’t want to see.”

But the bird spread its wings and began to rise so that the veil in its beak rose with it. …

Adelia woke herself up with her own shouts, frantically brushing flies off her skin where they’d been attracted by sweat. The bolstering straw was making the loft into a hothouse. And it was dark.

Dark? Had she slept through seventeen hours of daylight?

There was a hoist at the back of the loft, and she crawled toward it to push open its door and look out.

To the west, a monstrous cloud like a horizon-wide black, sagging blanket had obliterated the sun, if sun there still was. What it was bringing would be terrible; darts of lightning were coming out of it, stabbing the distant marshland.

Without the sun, it was impossible to know how long she’d been asleep. It might be evening by now—and Rowley had not come. Or had she missed him and, not finding her, had he gone away again?

A torn spider’s web hanging from the hoist’s door carried the image of what had been under Guinevere/Emma’s veil. Thunder
midges dancing in the half-light outside formed the same shape, and she knew she was being haunted,
hunted.

She backed away, scrambling down the ladder and into the courtyard.

And that was stupid. Hilda and Godwyn might have come back; they’d see her.

The inn was quiet, however. Nothing moved in the oppressive air. Weeds drooped, dying among the cobbles. Birds had deserted the sky, as if afraid of what was on its way. From the west came a long grumble of thunder.

She would have liked to draw a bucket of water so that she could drink and swill herself down with it, but the noise the chain would make daunted her and, instead, she crossed to the inn’s door and cautiously pushed it open, grimacing at the protest its hinges made.

Nobody came.

It was dark inside. All the heat in the world seemed to have concentrated here, like a pustule.

Why hadn’t Rowley come? Allie and Gyltha and Mansur hadn’t reached him, that was why. They were lying dead in the forest, Allie’s little hands crossed on her breast; she could see them.

Pull yourself together.
Most likely the bishop was out when they got there, at some convocation or blessing other people’s babies, attending to God’s business, never hers, never hers. Or had just decided not to bother.

Be damned, then,
she thought.
I’ll begin the search without you.

It was unlikely that the kitchen would provide the evidence she looked for, so she left its rats undisturbed and went along the corridor that led to the parlor.

Some light from the kitchen hatch cast shadows on the room’s
table. There was someone sitting in the great chair at the far end, with a bow on his head.