Shadows and Strongholds (63 page)

'You have no notion—' Mellette began, but Hawise raised her hand.

'I have heeded Master Steward's advice and heard yours. It is for me to decide,' she said with certainty.

'You are too headstrong for your own good.'

The steward shifted uncomfortably and Hawise felt sorry for him, caught as he was between two women like a grain between grindstones. 'Did no one ever say the same of you, my lady?' she asked and then she smiled and shook her head. 'I do not suppose that they ever dared.'

Something that was almost, but not quite, wintry humour sparked in the old woman's eyes. 'Only my husband,' she said, 'and my father when I told him what I thought of the marriage he had made for me. I…' She fell silent and looked towards the gates as a shout came from one of the guards on lookout duty. The girls stopped playing with their tops and for a moment time seemed to cease its advance and petrify all of them in the moment.

The spell was broken by the sound of the draw bar shooting back and the gates opening. Uncaring that it was another exhibition of hoydenish behaviour, Hawise gathered her skirts and ran towards the gatehouse. Mellette followed, leaning heavily on the stick. When the steward offered her his arm, she gestured him away.

Two horsemen rode through the entrance; others followed behind. Ralf's helm was hanging on its strap from his saddle pommel. His grey stallion's hide was marked by many superficial wounds. Ralf was riding him very close to Jester. The gelding was sweat-caked and he too bore injuries. Brunin rode with hanging head and hands gripping the saddle tree with white-knuckled concentration.

'Brunin?' Hawise ran to his saddle, fear tearing her heart.

He raised his lids, the motion slow as if they bore the heavy weight of death pennies. His eyes were fogged with pain, the pupils wide and dark. Hawise knew the look; she had seen it often enough in the injured men she and her mother had tended down the years.

'He's sore wounded,' Ralf said in a stricken voice. 'He's taken a lance in the belly'

The words hit Hawise like a mighty slap and for a moment she stopped breathing and her mother's advice echoed inside her skull.
The best you can do for a man pierced in the gut is to give him a triple dose of poppy in wine and pray that he goes to sleep and does not wake up. If he does, dose him again and pray harder. '
No,' Hawise said unsteadily. 'No…' And then she clenched her teeth and closed her mouth so that nothing else could emerge.

'Ralf, I will thrash you for terrifying my wife,' Brunin croaked. 'Only let me dismount and I'll do well enough.' He smiled at Hawise but it was a travesty.

He sounded like FitzWarin, Hawise thought, insisting even as death approached that everyone was making too much fuss.

Richard had dismounted to take Jester's bridle. Brunin leaned hard on the pommel and with a tremendous effort lifted himself out of the saddle and to the ground. Ralf caught him and Brunin leaned against the horse, sweat beading his brow. He was hunched over and Hawise could not see the wound; she didn't know if he was concealing it from her, or whether it just hurt less to stand thus.

'Can you walk?' she asked. 'Or should I have your brothers carry you?'

'I think that,' he said, enunciating each word clearly, 'for the nonce, walking is beyond me.' His knees buckled and he sagged against Ralf, who caught and bore him up, his expression terrified.

Hawise's hands were shaking. She washed them in the bowl of hot water that Sian had brought to the bedchamber, and splashed her face. She could not afford weakness now. Everyone was looking to her. The nearest chirugeon was in Shrewsbury, and by the time he was fetched, it would be too late. Perhaps it was already.

Closing her eyes she summoned her courage. She was the daughter of warriors and her mother was renowned for her fortitude and wisdom. 'I am capable,' she said fiercely to herself. 'There is no one else.' She came to the bed. Brunin had revived and was looking at her with pain-dark eyes.

'It was Ernalt de Lysle,' he said as she knelt at the bedside and gestured Sian and Ralf to stand around him. In a moment they would need to remove the hauberk and gambeson. 'I had my eyes on your father… I didn't see de Lysle until it was too late.'

Hawise had not asked about her father. She knew that the news was bad. but didn't want to hear it, not now. One thing at a time. 'Don't speak,' she said. 'Not for your sake, but for mine. Later will do.'

'You think there is going to be a "later"?'

'You are not going to die on me,' Hawise said, and somehow her voice was hard and steady. 'What would that say to your grandmother about my abilities as a healer and nurse, and yours as your family's heir? I am going to fight for you, and if you do not fight with me… then I call you coward, and this time I will not take it back.'

Behind her, Mellette hissed through her teeth as she heard the words. Brunin reached out and grasped Hawise's hand in his. 'I'll fight,' he said. 'Plant my banner at the foot of the bed and cry no quarter. There is too much unfinished business to let it fall.'

It was a slow and awkward task, removing his outer garments. Hawise did not want to dose him with poppy in wine until she had seen the extent of his injury. There was a potion called dwale, compounded of different, deadly herbs, mixed in quantities that would stun rather than kill, but they had to be administered with a severe purge so that the body voided them before they could paralyse completely. Given the area and nature of Brunin's wound, she dared not administer that either. All she could do for him was numb his senses with strong mead, but she didn't want him drunk out of his mind.

Alter the armour came tunic and shirt. Hawise untied the string of his braies and pulled those down too. His skin was smooth and golden, the faintest down of black hair feathering from navel to the crisper curls surrounding his genitals. The left side, above one hip, was marred by an ugly wound and the flesh around it wore a spectacular flush of bruised discolouration, all shades of sloe and plum and raspberry. The core of the injury was black with congealed blood, surrounding the stump of the ash lance. The head of the lance was embedded deep in the flesh. With trepidation Hawise sniffed the wound and was relieved to find there was no taint.

'Perchance I can ease the lance head back with greased quills over the barbs,' she said, beckoning Mellette forward for her opinion. Whatever their differences, shutting her out when her experience might be of use would be foolish. 'I don't think it has pierced any vital point.'

Mellette came and she too sniffed. 'You are right,' she said. 'By God's mercy the head hasn't pierced the gut or kidney, but there is still great danger. You could push it all the way through, but there is no telling whether that would cause more or less damage than pulling it back.'

'Have you ever done this before?'

Mellette pursed her lips. 'Once,' she said. 'He died three days later. It is in your hands.' She turned away. 'Whatever you decide, you should poultice the wound with honey and lard.'

Hawise swallowed. The old woman was punishing her for that earlier dismissal… or perhaps detaching herself from impending tragedy. Absconding the battlefield at the first skirmish instead of facing the full, bloody fight.

Hawise looked round at Ralf and Sian. 'I will need more hot water,' she said, 'and honey and lard as Lady Mellette said. Also goose quills. One of the scribes is bound to have some.

It was over. Hawise towelled blood from her hands and stared down at her husband. He was quiet now. The only sound in the room was Ralf's muffled sobbing and the counterpoint of Sian's comforting murmurs. Hawise would weep later: for the moment she was numb, all feeling banished to a sealed chamber at the back of her mind. She could not have functioned otherwise. Wordlessly she pointed to the pitcher of mead and a maid hastened to pour. Taking the cup, Hawise went to the window arch and inhaled the brisk autumn air, filling her lungs with its freshness, ridding them of the taint of blood and pain.

She heard a heavy tread behind her and Ralf's hand came down on her shoulder; it was broad, thickset, quite unlike Brunin's. 'I do not know how you did it,' his voice was rough with emotion.

'Neither do I.' Hawise took another breath of clean air and faced him. 'But you played your part. Without your strength and your presence, he would have struggled more.'

A look of grim remorse crossed Ralf's blunt features. 'I used to envy him,' he said. 'I used to wish that I was the firstborn. When we were boys I even hated him and wished he was dead—especially after he took up a position with your father. It should have been me…' He looked over his shoulder at the still form on the bed. 'It should still have been me,' he said, his voice almost breaking. 'I should have taken that wound, not him.'

'No.' Hawise shook her head. 'You are speaking out of your guilt. He would not see it that way, and neither should you. You do not wish him dead now—'

'Christ's blood, of course I do not!' He cast another anguished look towards the bed where Brunin lay as still as an effigy.

'Well then.' He was afraid, she thought, afraid that the responsibility for the FitzWarin lands might end up being his. 'Do not dwell on such thoughts. Doubtless, in your childhood, he thought similar things about you.' Leaving Ralf, she returned to the bedside. Brunin's breathing was shallow but regular. His hand twitched on the coverlet.

She had succeeded in easing both stump and lance head from his flesh without causing too much additional damage. She had washed the injury in wine vinegar and poulticed it as Mellette recommended with honey and lard, and she had given him white poppy and valerian to make him sleep. There was nothing else to be done for him now, except keep vigil and pray that he did not succumb to the wound fever or the stiffening sickness, both grave threats given the size and depth of the injury.

While still capable of speech, Brunin had related the bare bones of the disaster that had befallen them at Ludlow. At best her father was de Lacy's prisoner; at worst he was dead. If the former and held in the castle where he had been master, he was probably wishing his life over indeed. She would not think about that. Push it away; deal with it later. The next thing to do was send a messenger to her mother and sisters, although they probably knew by now… and another to the King, demanding that he intervene. Busy, she must keep herself busy and not give her imagination a foothold. She sent an attendant to summon Alberbury's scribe.

Ralf muttered something about checking the guards on the wall walk and gate and left the room at a near-run, almost colliding with his grandmother. The elderly woman limped to the bed and, leaning on her stick, studied her grandson.

'I give you credit for your mettle,' she said. 'I doubt many young women of your age could have done what you have done.'

'When you are thrown into a river, you have no choice but to swim or drown.' Going to the other side of the bed, Hawise took Brunin's hand. His eyes remained closed, but his breathing caught and his fingers tightened around hers. 'I used to wonder why my mother was so fierce about making us learn how to stitch and dress wounds,' she murmured. 'I was always too impatient—my sister Sibbi is much neater than me—but at least I have some small knowledge.' She looked across up at Mellette. 'He has a fighting chance.'

The old lady studied the wolf banner which Hawise had tied to one of the hanging poles at the head of the bed. 'That is what the FitzWarin men have always had,' she said. 'A fighting chance.'