The Champion (14 page)
Alexander’s own eyes glowed. A sword was an expensive accoutrement, not easily come by, and this had once been a magnificent weapon. ‘It can be mended,’ he said to Hervi, his voice quivering with enthusiasm.
Hervi bit back a smile. ‘I should imagine so,’ he said. ‘Swords often need their grips refurbishing, and that piece on the cross-guard could easily be repaired by a smith who knows his trade.’ He took the sword from Alexander and gave it a thorough scrutiny. ‘It’s too light for me, but it should suit your strength admirably.’ His eyelids crinkled and the smile broke across his face. ‘If you rummage further, who knows, you might come across a mail hauberk and helm in there too!’
For the rest of the day, Alexander wandered around in a daze of pleasure. He spoke to one of the other soldiers who fashioned scabbards in his spare time and commissioned his services. Then he visited Lavoux’s smith and arranged to have the damaged hilt repaired. While waiting for the dinner horn to sound, he sat down in the bailey with Hervi’s grindstone, and lovingly set about smoothing out the pits and nicks in the otherwise fine blade.
He was so preoccupied with his new possession that he did not notice Monday’s approach, and it was only when she moved and her shadow entered his light that he raised his head. Immediately his eyes kindled and he made room for her on the small rectangular bench.
‘What do you think?’ He held up the sword for her inspection, his words drenched in love.
Monday sat down, tucking her skirts beneath her. She appraised both him and the weapon with solemn eyes. ‘It is very fine,’ she said. ‘Or it will be when you have finished.’
‘It was in the armoury under a pile of spear shafts. Hervi says it is old, but that doesn’t matter. It was wrought by a craftsman. I can feel it in the steel.’
She watched him work, his jaw moving in unconscious rhythm with his smoothing strokes. He had clever, graceful hands, quite unlike Hervi’s huge spades. ‘Will you remember me when you are a great knight?’ she teased.
He grinned, but without looking up from his task, his teeth fine and white, as yet without the chips and gaps of the soldier’s trade. ‘Of course I will, but by then you will be a great lady in your own right with a horde of admirers queuing up to kiss the train of your silk gown.’
She laughed, but more as a defence than out of genuine amusement. ‘So I will be like Lady Aline?’ she said waspishly.
He paused for a moment and blotted his brow on his forearm. The late-afternoon sunshine glinted on the blade and the bare skeleton of the unbound grip. ‘It is a game to her,’ he said, ‘one she plays very well but a game nevertheless.’
‘I thought you were in thrall to her?’
He shook his head. ‘I enjoy being summoned to her presence; I like her manner, the scent she uses, the wiles of her body.’ He shrugged. ‘Why should I not? Such things please the senses, but I know the difference between the game and the reality. I look at her, and I look at you, and I know which one is the truth and which the distorted mirror.’
Monday blushed, albeit that the compliment implied she did not have the alluring gifts of the lady Aline.
He resumed work upon the sword. ‘You and I, we have much in common – we are friends.’
Monday nodded. ‘Friends,’ she repeated. The word was safe and comfortable, speaking of a bond beyond mere physical attraction. But it might be pleasant to have him look upon her as he had looked upon Aline de Lavoux. Dangerous too, even if it was nothing more than a game. The thought made her stomach leap, and her breath shorten.
The dinner horn sounded and Alexander carefully set his work aside. Then, on a sudden impulse, he held out his arm to Monday with an elaborate flourish. ‘Demoiselle,’ he said, with a mocking smile.
Monday laughed a trifle shakily at this parody of her wish. Performing an exaggerated curtsey in response, she tucked her hand in the bend of his elbow and let him lead her into the hall, her head carried high as if her old linen gown was made of the finest samite.
They had scarcely sat down to bowls of rich pork stew with onion dumplings and buttered field beans when the alarm was raised by Hervi, currently on duty and in charge of the watch guards. Spear in hand, he strode into the hall and straight up to the dais.
‘My lord, there are troops approaching Lavoux,’ he said curtly, with only the smallest bow of deference. ‘They bear the banner of Rougon, and they have siege machinery.’
Bertran ceased chewing. ‘Rougon would not dare!’ he said hoarsely.
‘Even so, it is true, my lord. They’re approaching the south wall. What orders shall I give?’
Bertran wiped his eating knife on a clean trencher and thrust it back into its sheath. He spat the meat he had been chewing on to the floor and jerked to his feet. ‘If Hamon de Rougon has come to lay siege to my walls, then he has come to die!’ he snarled, and abandoning his meal, stalked from the hall to see for himself.
Alexander picked up his gravy-soaked trencher, and together with everyone else, crowded in Bertran’s wake.
Hamon de Rougon’s force was not particularly large, but it was armed to the teeth and well disciplined. Rougon himself rode at the head of his troop – a slender chestnut-haired man in his mid-twenties. A squire sat at his left shoulder, a spear in his grip from which flew the black and yellow de Rougon colours. At the rear of his troop, various baggage wains of supplies were rolling into view. An open-sided cart contained the components of a battering ram and a stone-thrower.
Bertran’s eyes bulged at the sight.
Hervi leaned against a merlon and peered down at their visitors. ‘Shall we send out a herald to discover what he wants, my lord?’
‘I can see what he wants without recourse to a herald!’ Bertran retorted acidly. ‘All he will receive from me is his death!’ He began biting out commands concerning the arming of the walls. Stony-faced, Hervi acknowledged them.
Alexander knew that grim look by now. Hervi thought Bertran a fool, but was not fool enough himself to say so. A man who did not observe the courtesies of warfare was not deserving of them himself if forced to yield. And frequently it was his troops who paid the price of that arrogance.
Monday grasped Alexander’s sleeve and stared down at the force preparing to assault their walls. ‘What will happen if Rougon succeeds?’
Alexander pulled a wry face. He could not tell her that at worst Hamon de Rougon would hang the garrison for cattle thieves as an example to anyone else thinking to trifle with him. ‘That depends on his honour and compassion,’ he said woodenly.
‘Lady Aline thinks highly of him. She says that …’ Glancing round, she lowered her voice. ‘She says that he is worth two of her husband.’
Alexander snorted. ‘That would not be difficult except in an eating contest.’ Hervi was beckoning to him. Making his excuses, he hastened along the wall walk to join his brother.
‘I want a tally of every stick and stitch of equipment we possess,’ Hervi said tersely. ‘Report back to me as soon as you have the information.’
Alexander nodded. His mouth was dry, his heart pounding. ‘Where will you be?’
‘Here, or on one of the other walls.’ Hervi’s brows knitted in a deep frown. ‘Either de Rougon is a fool,’ he muttered, ‘or he knows something we do not.’
Alexander eyed the force now deploying beneath their walls, then gave Hervi a questioning look.
‘With Coeur de Lion back in the saddle, Lord Bertran is now the one at a disadvantage. He has thrown in his lot with Philip of France, and that makes him a rebel. Those men below might only be the first kites to arrive at the corpse. Hamon de Rougon has claim to pick the largest bone. I think he desires to take ownership while there is still meat on the limb.’
‘So you believe that more will come?’
Hervi shrugged. ‘I hardly think that this is an empty gesture on Rougon’s part. He may be young but he’s a seasoned crusader.’ He gave Alexander the mirthless parody of a grin. ‘You were right to balk at raiding those cattle.’
‘I was right about leaving too,’ Alexander said, returning the grimace. ‘Small comfort now.’
‘Oh, no comfort at all, but at least you are going to learn to fight for your life. Stop standing there like a stuffed dummy. Go and do those tallies for me.’
A foot probed viciously at Alexander’s ribs.
‘I’m awake,’ he said indignantly, and pushed at his brother’s insistent boot.
‘Get up then, sluggard,’ Hervi rumbled. ‘It’s time.’ He was already dressed in his mail, a hunk of bread clutched in his fist. Moving on, he kicked the supine form next to Alexander and repeated the command, before taking a large bite of the food.
A cockerel crowed. Alexander threw off his cloak and sat up, his belly churning and his eyes hot from lack of sleep. Around him, other men were groaning and stirring. He wondered if they too had lain awake half the night, their minds dark with bloody imaginings.
Light blossomed as a flambeau was kindled and thrust into a wall socket. The air was the grainy charcoal colour of very early morning. Alexander lurched to his feet and made his way outside to splash his face in a water butt. He was reminded of the times he had been plucked from slumber to sing and pray in Cranwell’s chapel. The stumble down dark stairways only half awake, comprehension still in the world of dreams. Skeletons grinning from the walls. He had seen them all too clearly last night, and it had been like looking in a mirror.
He dashed the water from his eyes and raised his head. The storage sheds and buildings in the bailey were still dark, their details indeterminate. Behind the curtain wall, the eastern sky was slowly paling. The cockerel crowed again and was answered by a rival from a different part of the ward.
The siege was entering its fourth day, and thus far Lavoux had held the would-be intruders at bay. There had been two assaults on the keep, and the black streaks of pitch staining the outer walls were testimony to Rougon’s failure. But Lavoux had not emerged unscathed. The stone facings wore acne pits where the siege machines had hurled boulders against the walls. Several of the storage sheds in the part of the bailey closest to the assaulted wall had suffered hits. At the height of Rougon’s fortune yesterday, the besieging troops had run a battering ram up to the gates and raised ladders on the wall either side.
The sortie had been unsuccessful, but it had also probed hard at Lavoux’s defences, and Hamon de Rougon appeared in no way demoralised by his failure. The fact that he remained camped outside their walls led Hervi and the other experienced knights of the garrison to believe that de Rougon was expecting reinforcements, and that something had to be done about the existing troops before suspicion became reality.
Feeling more lively for the splash of cold water on his face, Alexander returned to the guard room to break his fast on a chunk of bread smeared with pork jelly, and a cup of wine. He chewed and swallowed without pleasure or appetite, but he knew that he had to eat something if he was to be capable of doing his duty. The next meal was at least six hours hence, on the other side of a battle.
Next he checked his weapons – a lance and shield, a long knife, and the old sword, now refurbished to a killing brightness. He had yet to use it in battle. The first assaults on the walls had been repulsed with sticks and stones, spears and molten pitch, without hand-to-hand contact. That would come within the next hour.
The light had paled to ash grey. Alexander made sure that his scabbard was firmly laced to his belt, and departed the guard room for the stables.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Aline said to Monday. ‘When Hamon takes Lavoux, he will spare the lives of the garrison. His anger is for Bertran, not his soldiers.’ She glanced towards the shuttered window. The sounds of men and horses came muffled through the thickness of the wood.
The two young women were cutting up a linen sheet to make strips of bandage. Needles lay to hand, strong thread and jars of powdered knitbone and lady’s bedstraw. Monday knew that before the day was out, she would be called upon to sew flesh as well as fabric. She glanced sidelong at Aline. There was a glow of suppressed excitement about her companion. The name of Hamon de Rougon had been frequently on her tongue, as if she relished the taste of the words. She kept saying ‘when‘, not ‘if ‘.
‘What makes you so sure that Hamon will take Lavoux?’ Monday asked curiously. ‘Hervi says that his force is too small to pose a real threat.’
Aline cut an arrow-straight line with the shears, then looked at Monday, a feline gleam in her eyes. ‘Hamon will have a trick or two up his sleeve,’ she murmured.
‘How do you know?’ Despite the other woman’s reassurances, Monday was anxious. Aline had been behaving very strangely ever since the Rougon force had appeared beneath Lavoux’s walls. Expectant, undaunted by danger. Last night she had danced around the room, humming to herself.
Aline was silent for such a long time that Monday thought she was not going to answer, but at last she sighed and laid her shears aside. ‘I knew Hamon when I was a child and he was a squire in my father’s household. I wanted to marry him, but my father had his own ideas of family advancement, and they had nothing to do with a squire of modest inheritance. The most we had were a few snatched trysts in secret corners during the summer before my wedding.’ She gestured as she spoke, and Monday saw that the gold and ruby ring no longer adorned her hand. ‘Even though no more than words and the gentlest of kisses were exchanged, my father would have killed us if he had found out, and neither Hamon nor I had the courage or foolhardiness of your parents to elope. Since that time I have been twice a wife and once a widow. He never married, but pursued his career on the battlefield with Coeur de Lion. Bertran grubs in the mud and steals cattle. Hamon is a companion of kings.’
Aline rose from the trestle, wandered to the hearth and poked the fire to life beneath the cauldron. ‘Hamon has not only come for Lavoux,’ she said softly, to the sudden burst of flame from beneath the logs, ‘he has come for me.’
