Roseblood (29 page)

Eleanor had not moved. When Katherine told her what had happened, she just sat staring into the fire. ‘I wondered,’ she whispered, ‘I truly did. I mean, how it would end. Oh God rest his miserable soul.’ She helped Katherine to calm Dorcas, then all three women crawled into the bothy to sleep.

They were aroused at first light, given some bread and ale and mounted on horses. They left the camp and entered the dense woodland, threading their way along dark paths, the trees pressing in from either side. The company were well armed, each carrying an arbalest looped over their saddle horn. They moved purposefully, aware of the sounds of the forest: the flutter of birds, the various calls and all the other eerie noises. Simply by sharp observation, Katherine realised that their passage was being noticed by the forest people: charcoal burners, poachers, outlaws; all those who lived their hidden lives in the green darkness. No one dared approach them. LeCorbeil were professional soldiers journeying to join other men at war, and so were left well alone.

Katherine grew increasingly concerned about her two companions. Eleanor was in constant pain, clutching her stomach; Dorcas slumped in the saddle bemoaning her filthy clothes and the numerous pains and aches that vexed her. The maid’s mind began to wander. She would call Katherine’s name and ask how long it would be before they reached the Roseblood. This provoked jeers from those close to them. Katherine could only gaze pityingly back and pray quietly for help. Yet how could they escape from this green fastness, the sun and the wispy white sky blocked by the tangled canopy of branches? The bracken and closely packed trees thronging on every side were like the bars of a prison cage, and only God knew what other dangers lurked deeper in the forest.

They reached a clearing and paused to break their fast. Katherine helped Eleanor down from the saddle and offered her a wineskin. She heard cries and turned quickly. Dorcas had slipped from her mount and was running as fast as she could across the clearing, desperate to reach the far line of trees. Katherine screamed at her to stop, but Dorcas, head back, hair tossing in the breeze, ran on. Some of their escort mounted in pursuit but then paused. Dorcas had reached a stretch of greenness lighter than the rest and was floundering helplessly. Katherine stared in shock as her maid, stricken with terror, sank deeper into the treacherous forest marsh.

‘Help her!’ she shouted at the mounted men.

They reined in, quietening their horses, as Bertrand, one hand raised, rode slowly across the clearing, checking the ground around him. Dorcas, realising that she was trapped, tried to turn back, only to sink more deeply into the green morass. Katherine, lifting the hem of her dress, sped towards her. One of her escort shouted and Bertrand skilfully turned his horse, blocking her path.

‘Don’t follow.’ He leaned down. ‘There is nothing…’

Katherine was powerless to move; she could only watch in horror as Dorcas, head back, mouth open in a silent scream, disappeared beneath the shifting, moss-strewn marsh. She crumpled to the ground, sobbing bitterly. She could hear Eleanor crying as if from a long distance away, and was aware of Bertrand moving his horse, his strong hand grasping her by the hair. She was dragged to her feet and roughly pushed back to join the rest.

For a while, she could only crouch with Eleanor’s arms around her. Eventually they were separated, pulled apart. A small manchet loaf was thrust into her hand. She was ordered to drink from the wineskin and then lifted back on to a horse.

‘She was warned!’

Katherine gazed at Bertrand’s cold, handsome face. ‘One day,’ she breathed, ‘I hope to kill you.’

‘One day,’ Bertrand retorted, ‘is here and now.’ He walked away.

They continued on their journey. Darkness had fallen before they entered the derelict and deserted village of Cottesloe. Katherine felt she was entering the realm of ghosts. Houses stood either side of the weed-choked main trackway, gaping windows and open doors staring blindly out. The tavern’s battered sign swung on a rusty chain, creaking as if it called the dead; the horse trough in front of it brimmed with water. The village well still had its red-brick wall beneath a well-maintained coping. Katherine glimpsed ovens beside what must have been the bakery. Stalls and benches stood in front of derelict shops and houses. Doors creaked open in the wind as if in ghastly welcome. Before them rose the ancient parish church with its great front door, narrow windows and soaring bell tower. A dismal silence brooded, as if just beyond the veil, the restless spirits of the dead, those cut down by the Great Plague, watched and seethed at this intrusion by the living.

Katherine glimpsed torch- and candlelight in some of the houses they passed. A small group of LeCorbeil were waiting for them just on the edge of the church enclosure, six in all, grouped around a grey-haired man who welcomed Bertrand and his companions warmly. He glanced at Katherine and Eleanor, then shrugged and turned away.

They were ordered to dismount and taken to a cottage close to the cemetery. Its windows were boarded up, but the walls of dried mud and wood were in good repair, as was the thatched roof, whilst the heavy door could be padlocked and secured both from within and without. Inside they had a small brazier to warm themselves, sacking for beds and a few sticks of furniture. Katherine, still shocked after Dorcas’s death, simply threw herself down on the makeshift palliasse and promptly fell asleep.

She awoke cold and aching the following morning. Eleanor lay moaning in her sleep, but when Katherine turned her over, she simply shrugged her off. Katherine lay down again until the door was unlocked and guards brought in some charcoal and bracken, followed by bowls of oatmeal. Eleanor, looking pale and wan, rose and ate some of the porridge. She offered the rest to Katherine, assuring her she had taken enough. Katherine ate greedily with her fingers whilst her aunt hobbled outside. A short while later Eleanor returned, closed the door and squatted down on her bed.

‘Don’t worry,’ she murmured. ‘God will provide.’ Katherine could only wonder how.

She felt exhausted, but as the morning wore on, she became more determined. She accepted that she had been given a rough awakening to the harsh realities of life. She had enjoyed the good things of her father’s wealth, lost in girlish dreams about Camelot, but, she conceded ruefully, Camelot had been invaded and the golden glow had died. She recalled one of her father’s favourite quotations from the Bible: ‘There is a time and season for everything under Heaven. A time for reaping and a time for planting… a time for peace and a time for war.’ This was war. The day of reckoning had arrived, but how was she to confront it? She recalled Dorcas sinking into that marsh. Father Roger swinging by his neck from a branch. She huddled deeper into her cloak, listening to the sounds from outside.

Abruptly the door was flung open, and one of LeCorbeil entered and threw a small oilskin at Eleanor’s feet.

‘You asked for it,’ he declared. ‘Said you needed it for cleaning.’

Once the man had left, Eleanor roused herself. She went to the door, opened it, stared out, then closed it and came to crouch close to Katherine.

‘There is a faint mist,’ she declared. ‘Listen.’ Katherine heard shouts and calls. ‘They are practising at the butts with their arbalests; they are preparing for the coming war.’

‘On whose side?’

‘Oh, undoubtedly York’s, but I suspect their real purpose is simply to deepen the darkness and spread the chaos. Now I understand that we will be allowed to wander, but we will be watched. Once twilight falls, we will be locked in here again and that’s when you will escape. I have planned it. You will go but I will stay.’

‘Eleanor!’

‘Katherine, listen well,’ Eleanor pleaded. ‘I am dying. For months I have had bleeding, a constantly cutting pain here.’ She clutched her stomach. ‘I also have a bubo, a swelling on my right breast.’ She touched her throat. ‘Sometimes I cannot swallow. Our abduction, I am sure, has hastened matters.’

Katherine gazed stricken at Eleanor’s pale face, her sharp cheekbones, her eyes dark pools ringed by shadows. She clutched Eleanor’s hands, holding them between hers. ‘Surely it is just exhaustion,’ she pleaded.

‘No.’ Eleanor shook her head. ‘It’s more than that. Please don’t say I must come with you. I cannot. This is my last act of atonement for Edmund, God bless him, for Simon, but most importantly, for you. LeCorbeil have no souls, no compassion, no mercy. They fully intend to murder us. No,’ she held up a hand, ‘I will not come with you, but I can save you.’ She pointed to the far side of the cottage, which faced the cemetery wall. ‘Today we will dig through that, clear away the plaster and wood, create a gap big enough for you to crawl through. Once you have done that, you must hide in the cemetery and await the sign.’

‘What sign?’

Eleanor smiled. ‘You will recognise it when you see it. Now come, you must eat what they bring, then go out and wander around. Memorise the distance between this wretched cottage and the cemetery wall. Learn what you can. How to scale it in the dark and where to hide in God’s Acre. When you see the sign, follow the path leading through the village; it will take you back to the trackway we turned off. Turn to the right, hide in the fringe of trees. That trackway must lead on to the ancient road, where you will find merchants and pilgrims making their way into London.’ Eleanor spread her hands. ‘It is the best I can do. I am too weak to go with you. If we stay as we are, we are no better than hogs in the slaughter pen.’

Katherine reluctantly conceded to her aunt’s importunate pleas. Food and drink were brought. They broke their fast. Afterwards, using their fingers and shards of pottery, they began to clear the bottom of the cottage wall facing the cemetery. They worked furiously but quietly, digging and hacking. Eleanor warned Katherine to keep her bruised and bloodied fingers hidden beneath her cloak. Now and again they were visited. Bertrand wandered in, stared at them, smiled to himself and left. Scraps of food and watered ale were served as the morning wore on. Katherine, at Eleanor’s whispered urgings, left the cottage. The mist had lifted, though the strengthening sun did little to dissipate the gloom of that deserted village, a place caught between life and death. LeCorbeil were busy practising with their weapons or tending to their horses. The smoky tang of the smithy and the ringing of hammer on anvil wafted through the air. They were apparently preparing to leave. Would they travel south, Katherine wondered, to meet her father, set their lure and spring the trap?

Bertrand was talking to the grey-haired, narrow-faced man who’d greeted them when they first arrived. He caught Katherine’s eye and summoned her across. The stranger, dressed in a costly dark blue woollen robe spangled with streaks of gold, studied her with his soulless eyes, scratching at his close-clipped grey moustache and beard. A clever, cunning face, she thought, full of hateful menace. At last he nodded and flicked gloved fingers in dismissal.

Katherine walked back up towards the cemetery, a wilderness of overgrown yew trees and straggling bramble, briar and gorse that had wound around the crumbling headstones and decaying crosses. In the dark, she realised, this would be a tangle of traps. She studied and memorised the narrow winding paths that could lead her safely across, walking through the cemetery till she reached the enclosure that must have housed the poor man’s lot. Once through this, she concluded, she would climb the crumbling wall and thread her way through the outlying copse on to the trackway leading out of the village.

As she stared at the wall, she grew distinctly uncomfortable. She was certain someone was watching her, though she could glimpse nothing untoward. She walked back to that part of the wall facing the cottage; thankfully it had plenty of cracks and crevices that would provide sure footholds in the dark. She glanced down and noticed how the plaster of the cottage wall was beginning to crack. She hoped that it would evade notice. She drew a deep breath, closed her eyes and prayed for herself and Eleanor.

She was tempted to resist her aunt’s plan, but when she returned, Eleanor proved to be even more adamant. She had dug a great deal of the inner plaster away, creating a gap in the ancient latticed framework that would be broad enough for Katherine to squeeze through. They covered the loosened plaster with some of the bed sacking. Katherine could have wept at the bloody mess of her aunt’s once elegant fingers and nails. Eleanor ignored this, urging Katherine to memorise what she had learnt in the cemetery. She asked about Katherine’s leg and accepted her niece’s assurances that the aches and pains had mysteriously disappeared. Katherine had wondered about this. She recalled a venerable physician whom her father had hired. He’d gently hinted that the source of the pain might be in the humours of her mind rather than her flesh. Her parents had dismissed this, but perhaps he had spoken the truth. Eleanor still studied her closely, asking if all else was well. She also checked Katherine’s sandals, and showed her scraps of food she had hidden in a rag: pieces of dried meat and even harder bread.

‘You must take this,’ she urged.

‘And the sign?’ Katherine asked.

Eleanor just smiled and turned away.

For the rest of the day, Eleanor and Katherine prepared. Eleanor begged one of the guards to fetch a wineskin so that she could drink to dull the pain in her belly. The guard brought the coarsest wine Katherine had ever tasted. Eleanor went walking in the cemetery and brought back leaves from various plants that she insisted on grinding with a stone. Darkness fell. The guards ensured that the door was locked and bolted. Once they had left, Eleanor embraced Katherine, both women’s cheeks wet with their tears. For a while they just held each other. When Katherine made to move away, Eleanor hugged her even tighter.

‘Katherine, my beloved, even if I was safe and sound in my anchorite cell, I would be dead by autumn. God knows I might still escape, but it’s vital that you do. Give Simon, Raphael, Gabriel and all those I hold dear my unending love. Now,’ she pushed Katherine away, ‘we must act.’

Pulling aside the sacking, she hacked again at the great gap she had gouged out. The cold night breeze swept through. Katherine lay down and crawled forward, then pushed herself back.