Revenge (20 page)

There was no arguing with the word of God, even when expressed via a paunchy, red-eyed priest of villainous repute. Hodson reluctantly agreed to lead the little band of outcasts and teach them how to hunt and survive in the wild, skills he had picked up during his days as a freebooter in Gascony.

They hid in the deep forest for several weeks, taking care to steer clear of the roads.  Even so they were spotted by the occasional forester and poacher, and word spread among the local villages that James Bolton was raising a company of outlaws to avenge his kin. Men started to come in to join them, loyal tenants of the Boltons who feared and hated the Huntleys and their allies.

By September the band had swelled to eighteen, and James was unrecognisable. Weeks of living in the forest on a diet of venison, roots and water had pared away all his excess fat, making him lean and clear-eyed again. Hodson had reminded him how to use a sword, but since a man of the church was not supposed to deliberately shed blood, he had made a club or shillelagh for himself out of a thick length of yew, stiffened with leather straps.

From the men who joined the band James learned that his family had been separated, his mother taken into the Sheriff’s custody at Stafford and his sister and brother to Greystones.

The fortunes of the family now depended on James, and he thought long and hard about how best to restore them. He asked Hodson to set a watch over the house, and the scouts reported that Mary Bolton could sometimes be seen walking in the grounds with an escort. Huntley the Younger accompanied her, talking animatedly and no doubt trying to persuade her of the benefits of marrying him. He had taken to wearing a linen veil to hide the knife-scars on his face.

Hodson advised James that a direct assault on Greystones was out of the question.

“The place is strongly guarded, and we have too few men,” he said. “Old Huntley is no fool, and will have heard of our presence by now.”

James tried to think. His craving was particularly bad today, and he could almost taste the wine he had sworn never to touch again.

“He can’t keep Mary locked away in there forever,” he said, clasping his hands to stop them trembling. “If his son truly means to marry her, they will have to leave the house for the wedding. Greystones is surrounded by forest on all sides. We can ambush them when they come out.”

Hodson agreed. They gained an advantage when one of their followers spoke to a stable-boy as he was exercising a horse in the grounds, and bribed him to spy on his masters. The boy returned with information that Mary had finally accepted young Huntley’s proposal of marriage, and that the wedding was due to take place in Stafford on a certain Saturday in October. The spy also informed them that there were no more than eight men-at-arms inside the house.

Now the Saturday had come, and James and Hodson lay on their bellies in the wet grass, waiting for the Huntleys to emerge. Their followers were spread out in the forest behind them, hidden in the undergrowth either side of the winding road that led from Greystones to the King’s highway.

The time trudged past. James was thoroughly sodden and miserable by the time the gates of the house finally swung open. The wedding party emerged with Huntley the Elder in front, encased in harness and mounted on his ugly Flemish mare. Behind him came his son, also in harness, and their esquires. James drew in a sharp breath as he saw his sister, seated on a white palfrey between four of Huntley’s men-at-arms.

Mary looked thinner than he remembered, pale and downcast under her sheer veil, though James had to admit the Huntleys had spared no expense on her bridal gown. It was green, a symbol of fertility – he almost retched at the thought of her being made pregnant by a Huntley – with white fur at the cuffs and a patterned collar, and she wore a truncated white hennin under her veil.

Martin was perched on a smaller palfrey behind her, looking indignant. He wore a red tunic embroidered with the white hawk of Bolton. James reasoned that Martin’s presence at the wedding was necessary to lend it an air of legitimacy. No doubt the Huntleys had coerced him into giving his sister away.

“They have twelve fighting men, counting the Huntleys and their esquires,” said Hodson under his breath.

They shuffled backwards through the undergrowth, then stood and ran swiftly to the roadside. James stopped by a great oak that sprouted high above the surrounding wood, and shaded his eyes to peer up at its leafless branches.

About thirty feet up, a man in a green jerkin stood in a fork between two massive boughs. He carried a longbow and a sheaf of green-fletched arrows stuck into his belt. A horn hung from a baldric over his shoulder. James waved to attract his attention, and the man raised his bow in salute. His instructions were to wind his horn when the wedding party came in sight. That was the signal for the archers scattered among the trees to spring the ambush.

James rejoined Hodson, who was crouched behind some foliage near a bend in the road, carefully choosing the straightest arrows in his quiver and thrusting them into the ground. He nodded at James as the priest knelt beside him.

“Put me an arrow through old Huntley’s horse,” James whispered, running his hand nervously across the rough, knotted surface of his shillelagh. His head was protected by a battered old pot helm, a gift from one of the villagers who had joined the band. Otherwise he wore no armour, merely the same filthy russet cassock he had worn for months.

The clop of hoofs and jingle of harness sounded on the road, followed by a deep horn-blast from above as the lookout gave the signal. Hodson rose, notched an arrow, drew back the bowstring to his ear and let fly.

The shaft impaled the neck of old Huntley’s mare and she toppled sideways, dumping her rider into a patch of nettles. More green-clad archers rose from the undergrowth and sent a hail of iron-tipped death into the thin line of horsemen.

James leaped out onto the road, brandishing his shillelagh and crying “A Bolton! A Bolton! The white hawk!”

A man rode at James with a spear, but another flurry of arrows brought down his horse and threw him to the ground. Ducking under a rider-less horse, James spotted Huntley himself struggling to rise. With an oath he charged and brought his shillelagh down on Huntley’s helm, smashing him back into the nettles.

“Yield,” he panted, standing on the gigantic figure’s chest and using the toe of his boot to flick back Huntley’s visor. The wine-ravaged face underneath had turned a nasty shade of puce. For a moment he thought that Huntley was having a seizure, but the little eyes glittered up at him with pure, deathless hatred.

The brief fight was over almost as soon as it had begun. James glanced around and saw that most of Huntley’s men had surrendered and thrown down their weapons. A few had fled and galloped away through the forest.

The archers had suffered some casualties as well. Two lay dead and stark on the road, while another sat propped against a tree, moaning softly as his friends tended to his shattered arm.

James was almost overcome with relief when he saw that Mary and Martin were safe. His sister was even smiling at him, something she had not done since childhood.

He turned his attention back to Huntley. “There will be no wedding,” he said, “and you were a fool to think you could ever marry my sister to your beast of a son.”

Huntley smiled. “The Sheriff holds your mother hostage, Bolton,” he hissed through bloody teeth. “If we do not arrive at Stafford by noon, he will stretch her neck like a goose at Christmas. I know Stanley. He will do it.”

James hesitated, and looked at Huntley the Younger, who had been disarmed and his wrists bound behind him.

“We have you and your son,” replied James. “If Stanley executes my mother, your necks in turn are forfeit.”

“Hang them both!” piped Martin, startling everyone. His eyes shone with a bloodlust that would have been frightening in a grown man, let alone a child.

For the first time James noticed the faded bruises on Mary’s face, covering one cheek and half her forehead.

“What did you do to them, Huntley?” James snarled. “What did you do to my kin in the Red Barn?”

Huntley gave no reply. Black rage billowed through James. He raised his shillelagh. It would be easy, so easy, to kill the man lying helpless at his feet. To clean up the world a little.

Huntley’s son tried to break free to save his father, but two archers held him fast.

James stood poised on the edge of an abyss, his hands trembling and his head pounding like a drum. One thought rampaged through his mind:

God help me, but I need a drink.

18.

Mary endured many torments during her captivity at Greystones. The Huntleys, father and son, shamefully abused her with hard blows and disdainful language, all in an attempt to break her will.

Huntley the Younger informed Mary that he had no great interest in wedding her, since she had repudiated their former betrothal, but merely did as his father told him.

“I have agreed to chain myself to you,” he said, “for my father’s sake, and for the sake of my own advancement. Sir John Stanley has promised to use his influence to gain lands and titles for me, if I take you off his hands.”

He stuck his ruined face close to hers. “You are a problem, Mary Bolton, and it falls to me to make the problem go away. After we are married at Stafford, I shall get you with child and then ignore you. You will not breathe a word of complaint. Do you understand?”

Mary had difficulty in replying. He had begun the conversation by striking her with his fist, loosening a tooth and causing her lip to swell. Nevertheless, she mumbled defiance. He stepped back from her, grinning and rubbing his knuckles.

They were in the hall at Greystones, a long, low chamber with stale rushes strewn on the floor, filling the air with their pungent rotting stink. The walls were hung with tapestries decorated with hunting scenes and the yellow sun-burst sigil of Huntley. Old Huntley was secluded in his private chamber behind the hall and no doubt drinking himself into oblivion, as he did most evenings.

“The local peasants call this place the Red Barn,” said his son, seizing Mary’s arm and dragging her from the chair. “I think it is time you discovered why.”

Kicking aside a bloodhound foolish enough to wander in his path, Mary’s fiancée pulled her towards the winding stair that led down to the cellars.

“The cellars of Greystones are very old,” he said as they descended the narrow stone steps, “and are said to delve deep into the earth. Some say the lower levels are inhabited by all manner of devils and imps crawled up from the bowels of Hell.”

Mary’s flesh prickled as she imagined nameless blind horrors squirming their way through the earth, directly below her feet. Huntley laughed at her obvious terror.

“Are you given to superstition, then?” he sneered, pushing open the little black door at the foot of the stair. “And I thought you such a wise and educated woman!”

He laughed again and pulled her through the doorway, into the arched vault of the cellar. This was the upper level, where his father stored his precious liquor.

Huntley led her along a corridor between the stacked barrels of ale and wine and hippocras, down another flight of steps to another door. He took a bundle of keys from his belt, unlocked the door and ushered Mary into a small room. Huntley shoved her into a corner, bidding her stay still, while he fetched a candle and tinder from a sconce in the wall.

He lit the candle and held it high. His scarred face was rendered even more ghastly by the pale glow, and twisted in contempt as he looked at Mary.

“You first,” he ordered, jabbing his finger at the little portal, no higher than her waist, that led to the lower levels. Mary felt sick with fear at the prospect of going down there, but feared the consequences of Huntley’s anger more. She did as she was told and crawled on all fours through the gap.

She groped her way down a smooth stone ramp that grew narrower as it descended. Huntley’s heavy breathing was just behind her, and she was grateful when the ramp suddenly ended on a broad, flat surface.

“You can stand here,” said Huntley. Mary carefully got to her feet, brushing dust and cobwebs from her gown.

The tall young man stepped past her, holding up his candle, and by its flickering light she made out a large empty chamber with a high ceiling. There was a smell of must and damp, and shadows given life by the candle flame leaped and danced against the bare stone walls.

“What is this place?” she asked, her voice sounding hollow and lifeless in the gloom.

“Here lays the secret of the Red Barn,” he replied, the knife-scars on his cheeks twisting into gruesome shapes as he spoke, “a secret buried for hundreds of years. The door leading here from the cellar is kept locked, and only the men of my family are allowed to handle the keys. Every Huntley male, when he reaches his twelfth birthday, is brought down here and told the secret. It is an old ritual, dating back to God knows when.”

He advanced on her, his eyes narrowed. “Renounce your husband and accept my offer of marriage of your own free will,” he said, “or I will tell you the secret.”

Mary drew on her last reserve of courage. “Never.”

“Very well. I have told you of the myths surrounding this place, of tunnels and monsters deep below the ground, but they are just that. Myths. The cellars stop here, in this chamber. And the horror lies here.”