The Champion (68 page)
‘Stafford.’ Alexander ground the word out through clenched teeth. ‘And I am not surprised. More fool me for not seeing beyond the threat to my own life. You say that Jankin has gone in pursuit?’
‘Only armed with as much information as the boy could tell us. He may be following the wrong litter for all we know.’ Edmund’s expression filled with pity and rage. ‘We could not stand by and do nothing.’
‘No, and for that I thank you. Will you take Florian to the Countess Isabelle, and ask her to care for him until I return?’ Alexander tugged his seal ring off his finger and placed it in Edmund’s meaty fist. ‘She will know your good faith not only by Florian, but by this ring.’ Alexander was desperate to be on the road in pursuit of his wife’s abductors, but he made himself be patient. ‘Florian, look at me, come on, it’s all right. That’s it, good boy. Your mama’s going to be all right. The old man who took her won’t do her any harm. He wants her to go and live with him, that’s all.’
‘But she doesn’t want to. She lives with us!’
‘Yes, I know. And that’s why I have to go and get her back. You go with Edmund to the lady Isabelle, and I promise that I’ll return with your mother as soon as I can.’
Florian looked doubtful, but made no protest as he was handed from Alexander’s arms to Edmund’s. His thumb went in his mouth and he hid his face once more, this time in the abundance of Edmund’s salt-grey beard.
Alexander gestured Huw to mount up, and bidding Osgar remain where he was, tied a square of white linen bandaging to a spear and rode on to the tourney field in search of the Marshal.
Once beyond Canterbury, Stafford directed the litter to leave the road and draw aside into a copse of hazel and birch trees, their branches clothed in the new and tender green of spring. Here, the two cobs were removed from the shafts and saddled up. Stafford took one, forcing Monday to ride pillion behind him, her wrists lashed to the cantle. The knight and the driver took the other, and leaving the road, set off across country.
Monday sat in silence behind her grandfather. The cords chafed her wrists. A tight knot of misery and rage rotated at her core. Time and again she almost opened her mouth to tell Stafford what she thought of him, but checked the words unspoken. The more she rebelled, the closer he would bind her. If she appeared submissive, her spirit broken, then he might not be so vigilant. It was all she had, and she clung to it grimly whilst trying to avoid the slightest contact with him. Each stride of the horse almost brushed his cloak against her. She was close enough to see a louse wandering through his hair.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘There’s a village on the other side of those woods. I told my men to meet me there.’
Her heart sank. ‘Your men?’
‘Just a small escort for the journey home.’ His shoulders twitched as if with impatience.
‘To Stafford?’
‘Don’t ask so many questions,’ he said irritably. ‘A woman should speak only when spoken to.’
Monday bit her tongue and stared at the woods through which they were riding. There was spring birdsong, sun-dapple and shade.
Christ had risen, the world had turned its face to the sun. It was a day for trysting and joy, but her grandfather had sown it with death. Her eyes filled with scalding moisture, and tears spilled unchecked down her face. Her hands were tied; she could not wipe them away.
‘You’ll learn not to weep in my household,’ Stafford said without looking round. ‘Backbone, that’s what you’ll be given.’
Monday almost choked on her stifled outrage. Backbone meant standing up for yourself, not taking in silence whatever some man chose to mete out from the depths of his own inadequacy.
‘Women,’ Stafford snorted as they emerged from the woods and followed a track down the side of freshly ploughed village strips. ‘Some young man casts a look and they lose all sense and reason. Like bitches on heat. They run away into the forest to copulate with the first wolf that howls.’ His tone was sour and contemptuous.
Monday was sickened, but through her revulsion there ran a treacherous thread of pity for his utter blindness. Perhaps he had never once been happy in his life, and because joy was alien to him, it was an enemy to be slaughtered.
The village consisted of no more than a handful of houses and a small straw-thatched church. There was not a single cottar to be seen, not even so much as a hen or a goose. Clustered around the pond in the centre of the village, however, were a dozen mounted men, and some spare horses.
Thomas of Stafford swung down from the dun’s saddle, untied Monday from the cob, and sat her down on the ground. A knight on a bay stallion rode over, leading a large, strong chestnut horse. ‘Your remount, my lord,’ said Eudo le Boucher, presenting the reins to Stafford.
Stafford took them with a grunt. Monday glared at the knight with revulsion. Clenching her teeth, pressing her tongue against the roof of her mouth, she made herself silent, knowing that she would ruin her own chances by unleashing her fury and grief.
He smiled at her in reply, the scar on his face twisting away into the shadows of his helm.
‘You owe me the rest of the payment, my lord,’ he said to Stafford.
‘Not until my granddaughter is safely away,’ Thomas said through his stained teeth.
‘And is she not now?’
‘Not far enough. You’ll have your silver when we cross the Thames.’
‘That wasn’t the bargain.’
Stafford met le Boucher’s anger squarely. ‘As I recall, the bargain was that you received the rest of the payment when the task was finished – which it isn’t until I’m satisfied.’ Setting his foot in the chestnut’s stirrup, he mounted up and snapped his fingers at Monday. ‘Up, granddaughter,’ he said.
Monday knew that to refuse would just be cutting off her nose to spite her face. If she did not come willingly, they would force her, and probably hurt her into the bargain. There was already a minor knife wound in the small of her back. With eyes downcast, she went to the horse, set her foot on Stafford’s and allowed him to pull her up behind him.
‘There is no need to tie my wrists to the saddle,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I will not try and escape again.’
Stafford hesitated, then dropped the end he had been about to wrap around the cantle. ‘I don’t suppose you could get further than five yards if you did,’ he admitted grudgingly, then looked at le Boucher. ‘He is dead, I trust?’
The knight shrugged. ‘I did not wait to listen for the beat of life in his breast, but yes, he is dead.’
‘You are sure?’
‘God’s arse, he went down beneath my flail with another man and ended up at the bottom of the pile. Of course he’s dead! If you had desired his head on a pole or his heart as proof, you should have said.’
The two men glared at each other. ‘Ready the escort,’ Thomas dismissed brusquely. ‘We are wasting time.’
Le Boucher turned away with a curl of his lip. Monday looked down at her lap, fixing her gaze on the fine woollen weave of her dress so that neither man should see the blaze in her eyes. Le Boucher had trusted to fate to finish Alexander. And that left a shining chink of hope.
*
Jankin the hafter was waiting for Alexander on the Faversham road. His mule was creamed with sweat, its flanks heaving, and Jankin himself was red in the face and looked more alive than he had probably done in his entire life.
‘They’re not using the litter any more,’ he announced, his own breath whistling in his throat. ‘Found it in the trees about a mile further on. They’ve taken to horseback and cut across the fields.’
Alexander swore.
‘I couldn’t keep pace with them. Harold’s done for as it is.’ Jankin patted the mule’s steaming hide.
‘A trail’s not too difficult to follow this time of year,’ said John Marshal. ‘We’ll find them.’
Alexander glowered at the Marshal’s nephew and swallowed a sarcasm about him being ever the optimist. His rage had to be controlled and directed at Thomas of Stafford, not the men that William Marshal had given him. He leaned over the saddle to slap Jankin on the shoulder. ‘I’ll pay for your retirement too if you come to Abermon.’
Jankin rolled his eyes. ‘Promises,’ he said. ‘Just go and get your lass, and leave me and the mule in peace.’
Alexander turned Samson and pricked him with the spur, but after a hundred yards of bouncing canter, he drew on the rein and slowed to a trot. If there was distance to be covered, then endurance was required, not a headlong dash.
They came to the place where the litter had been concealed in the copse, and as John Marshal had predicted, there was indeed an easy trail leading off across the fields towards some woods. As they circled to follow it, Alexander gazed skywards. It was well after noon, with about four hours of daylight left. Four hours to find her before night cast its cloak, and covered up the tracks.
Dusk had swallowed the sun and cast blue shadows over the land when Stafford’s band came to another village. Being on the pilgrim road to the shrine of the blessed St Thomas at Canterbury, the settlement was accustomed to hosting benighted pilgrims, and the priest said that providing the men left their weapons at the church door, they were welcome to spend the night in the nave. He even provided a charcoal brazier for warmth, and pointed out a house where one of the families was willing to provide the soldiers with food, for a consideration.
When he looked askance at Monday’s bound wrists, Thomas gave him a glare that told him to mind his own business, but deigned to reply loftily, ‘She is out of her wits. We have been to Canterbury to pray for her.’ His voice echoed in the vastness of the nave, its harshness emphasised.
‘But it was not successful?’
‘She is much improved from her original condition.’
Monday chewed the inside of her mouth as the priest walked away. There had been no point in crying out to him that she was a prisoner against her will. What could he do against a dozen soldiers? What could she do?
‘These cords are rubbing my wrists raw,’ she complained, showing Thomas the red weals half hidden by the leather. ‘Could you not for simple charity take them off for a while?’
‘No,’ he said curtly, and taking her arm, steered her across to the wall. ‘Sit.’ He pushed her down. Even through her shift, undergown and tunic, she felt the coldness of the flagstones. Across the nave, the narrow stained windows leached very little light.
‘Stay there,’ her grandfather commanded, as if talking to a dog. He ordered one of the soldiers to stand guard over her, and disappeared out of the door.
Monday contemplated leaping to her feet and making a run for safety, but dismissed the notion as impractical. Her dress was one of her best ones, worn in honour of the tourney, and as such had panels of material in the side, to make it sweeping and full. If she tried to run without her hands free to lift its heavy folds away from her feet, she would fall flat on her face.
It was almost a full half-candle notch before her grandfather returned, bringing with him a wooden bowl of broth and a piece of dark bread. He had already eaten. So much was obvious from the soup stains on his tunic and the underside of his moustache. He set the bowl down beside her, and drawing his knife, cut the knot on her cords. ‘Eat your soup,’ he said gruffly.
She flexed her fingers and gently rubbed the tender chafed skin. Only now was she beginning to comprehend what
Alexander must have felt as a novice monk, trussed up for three days. She found it difficult to grip the bowl, but somehow she managed. Nor did she feel much like drinking the fatty, lukewarm contents, but knew that to remain strong she had to eat. The taste was not unpleasant, she had known worse on the tourney circuit, but the bread had to be softened in the soup to make it anywhere near edible.
As she struggled with her meal, Eudo le Boucher sauntered over. He was wearing his sword in defiance of the priest’s rule, and the hood of his cloak was pulled up over his head.
‘My payment,’ he said to her grandfather, and held out his large, scarred palm. ‘Do not tell me to wait until morning. No more excuses. I am leaving now.’
Stafford turned. The light from the window painted him in shades of blue and grey. ‘How will you see in the dark?’
‘The moon’s rising. There’ll be enough light. My payment.’ His fingers waggled impatiently.
‘All right, all right. It’s in my saddle roll.’ Stafford started to walk away, then turned, and commanded the same young soldier as before to keep an eye on Monday. Another knight was ordered to accompany Stafford and le Boucher outside.
Monday watched them leave, then looked at her guard. Pockmarks scarred his face, making him appear older than he was. She judged him to be younger than Alexander’s squire. Of course, his youth did not necessarily mean he was untried. To be a member of this troop, he must have ability. But then, she was not without experience herself.
‘I need to relieve myself,’ she said.
‘Lady?’ He looked at her askance, and she saw a flicker of panic in his eyes. The tone of his address told her that the men had been warned to treat her with courtesy. It was one matter for her grandfather to abuse her, quite another for the soldiers.
‘I need to piss,’ she said more forthrightly. ‘We’ve been riding all day, and never a thought to my needs. If you do not take me outside, I shall have to squat here in the church and be shamed.’
He cleared his throat and looked acutely embarrassed. Monday eyed him steadily, compounding his discomfort. Men were so strange, she thought. Jests about bodily functions were loud and uproarious between themselves, but introduce a woman into their midst and their tongues tied up in knots.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘but I will have to bind your wrists.’
Monday rose to her feet, and made a fair imitation of someone desperately controlling a full bladder. ‘Are you going to hold up my skirts for me then?’ she enquired.
The young soldier visibly swallowed. Obviously his experiences of life thus far had not prepared him for this one. ‘Go on, then,’ he said, tight-lipped. ‘But do not think to pull the wool over my eyes. I’ll be guarding you close.’
