THE EARL (A HAMMER FOR PRINCES) (8 page)

He could not move. He felt pinned to the floor, and slowly, slowly the man with the club was getting to his feet and raising the shattered stump of wood in his hands. Fulk caught his breath. He still held his dagger in his hand, and he flexed his fingers around it, while the man with the club straightened up and lunged, his club raised like an extension of his long body.

From behind him Roger swung his sword, two-handed, and cut him almost in half at the waist. The big man’s body bounced off the wall and Roger hit him again, so that blood sprayed across the floor and across Fulk—he tasted it wet on his lips. He struggled to sit up and could not; it hurt unbearably just to breathe. The taste and smell of blood made him sick. Roger was bracing him up. The corridor whirled around him, shot through with vivid streaks of color.

“I can’t—my arm.” His tongue felt like leather.

Roger lifted him up and carried him through the corridor and the whirling lights. Fulk thought of the ride home and swallowed a thickness in his throat. His right arm was numb as if with cold. Roger laid him down on the floor of a cell, with his feet in a patch of sunlight coming through the window, and went away.

Fulk shut his eyes and the floor seemed to lurch and spin around him. He opened them again. He was still clutching his dagger, and he put it down and felt along his right forearm. It was already swollen, stretching his wide sleeve taut.

Roger came back with an armload of brush and a blanket, dropped the brush on the floor, and spread the blanket over it.

“There’s no one else,” he said. “I was afraid maybe there were others. Let me do it.” He lifted Fulk onto the blanket.

“Aren’t you glad I’m so small?” Fulk said. Roger mumbled something he didn’t hear. “What?”

“I’ll get some water.”

Fulk nodded. He could still smell blood. His left hand lay half under him, and he drew it free and felt along his right arm; the least pressure hurt all the way to his shoulder.

“Is it broken?”

“I think so.”

Roger had brought in the bucket from the well, full of cool water. Suddenly Fulk’s mouth was parched; he squirmed around until he could dip up water with his cupped hand and drank. Roger watched him, his face lined with strain, and Fulk smiled.

“Don’t look so harsh. Here, get rid of this sleeve.”

Drawing his dagger, Roger slid the tip under the cuff of Fulk’ s coat. “Can you ride?”

“Oh, probably. Certainly.” But he was not sure. He remembered when King Stephen had taken him prisoner, at Hornby, he had been covered with wounds, and once in his war with William Peverel he had broken his leg and ridden half the night with it. He had been a younger man then. He heard the cloth tearing; the blade of the dagger touched his forearm, and he gasped at the pain.

“It’s broken,” Roger said. “We’ll have to bind it up, somehow.”

Fulk pushed himself up so that he could take off the rest of the coat and shirt. His right arm was swollen, immense, and black, the skin stretched taut and shiny over it. Dear Lord Jesus, he thought, if it heals straight and strong I shall go on a pilgrimage.

“I’ll be right back,” Roger said. “Will you be all right?”

“Yes,” Fulk said. Roger’s fussy concern embarrassed him. He watched the tall knight stride out the door and sank back against the wall, listening to his own breath hiss between his teeth.

With the clarity of something seen by lightning, he remembered the raid on which he had broken his leg—the pain had burned it into his mind. For weeks he had been trying to drive Peverel’s men from a village they both claimed, and on that night he had done too well—he and Roger and a dozen other knights had crowded a band of Peverel’s up against the bank of a river, and in desperation Peverel’s men had turned and charged back through Fulk’s knights. We did that here, too—he knew that the big man had attacked him because Fulk had come between him and his line of escape.

The pain spurted like blood through his arm. Sweet Lord Jesus, he thought. Lady Mother, Hold Mary. His mouth tasted bitter. They would have to go home by the road, if they could cross over the bridge. He felt suddenly weak; with his eyes fixed on the wall, he saw the edges of his vision turn dirty brown and darken, until he could see only a tiny patch of wall—like looking through a hollow reed. He strained against the darkness, and it gave way, the light came back, and he shook his head. If I had stayed with Margaret as a Christian man ought, this would not have happened.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor, quick and coming nearer, and Roger came through the door and knelt beside him. He had cut a bundle of sticks. Putting them down, he pulled off his coat.

“How do you feel?”

“I’ll be all right,” Fulk said.

Roger folded his coat and Fulk’s together, with sticks wrapped inside them to stiffen them, and laid them down neatly on the ground. “That man—the one who attacked you— he has only one hand.”

“He needed only one.”

Roger hacked a piece of rope into thirds. “Who do you think he was?”

“Just someone we frightened.”

“Hunh.” Roger took hold of Fulk’s arm at the wrist and the elbow, pulled them strongly apart, and twisted. Fulk whined. He could feel the edges of the bone rubbing together; he could not catch his breath. Roger laid his arm down on the folded coat and tied the cloth and sticks into a bundle around it. The pain faded to a dull throb. Clammy with sweat, Fulk watched him bind the cloth tighter with their belts. The splints held his arm stiff from elbow to wrist.

“Good.”

“He must have been an outlaw,” Roger said, “who lost his hand for thievery.”

Fulk shook his head. “If strangers had cornered me here I would have attacked them.”

Roger was making a sling from Fulk’s ruined shirt. “What about your ribs?”

“Never mind.” He put his good hand flat on the floor and pushed himself up, and with Roger beside him went out the door and into the corridor.

The dead man lay in a heap against the wall, his cudgel broken under him; his left arm ended just before the wrist. Fulk crossed himself uneasily. He had always thought it was bad luck to kill a crippled man.

“We can send someone here to bury him,” he said. “Lay him out straight, Roger.”

“I’ll take his coat, too,” Roger said. “You can’t go back half-naked.”

“No,” Fulk said. He was shivering; he cradled his arm in its sling against his chest and watched Roger pull the dead man’s legs and arms straight and push the body up against the wall.

“That should warn any other outlaws not to stay here, too,” Roger said.

Fulk leaned against the cold stone wall, nauseated. He wondered who the dead man was—he suspected he came from
Cheshire
, where rebellious villagers sometimes got their left hands cut off. Roger stripped off the man’s coat and brought it to him. Made of undyed, coarsely woven wool, it was less a coat than a shawl, and it hung on Fulk like a tent.

They went out into the courtyard. The sun was going down. A cold wind rustled the leaves up against the monastery wall. Roger led over Fulk’s horse and held it, and Fulk mounted, stepping up into the cool air. He felt strange, as if he were dreaming, detached.

“We’ll have to take the road back,” he said, and nudged his horse forward.

Roger rode up alongside him. Fulk thought, He is waiting for me to fall off, so he can catch me. Abruptly he remembered why they had come here, to see if the place was safe again for monks, and laughed.

They had broken up the bridge once themselves, when
Chester
was attacking
Stafford
, so that he could have to come back the main road. Fulk’s men had mended it again hastily, to chase
Chester
north again, and it was that mended part that was broken now. The three stone piers still stood, but the slab of stone between this bank and the first pier had fallen into the river, and lay now in the rapids just beyond. Someone had laid a plank across the gap, so that people could cross on foot. Roger scratched his nose, staring at it.

“They’ll take it,” Fulk said, and patted his horse.

“Mine. Not yours. You must ride my horse over.”

Fulk shook his head. “If I’m on him, he’ll go anywhere—he just won’t be led.” He tapped his heels against his horse’s sides, and the bay arched its neck and poked its head down, ears pricked, toward the bridge.

“He won’t go,” Roger said.

“He will, he has to.” Fulk rapped the horse's ribs again.

The bay took three tiny steps forward and stopped, its forehoofs on the plank, and backed up in a rush.

“Hah! Make a liar of me?” Fulk kicked the bay hard, turning his foot so that his spur hit. The bay stepped out onto the plank. The ringing of its own hoofs on the wood frightened it; it quickened stride, panicked, and bolted across. Fulk reined it down with difficulty—the pain in his joggled arm made him sweat.

Roger followed him across. “I wouldn’t trust a horse like that,” he called, and mounted, smiling. “As apt to leave you or throw you as obey, that one.”

“You, perhaps, not me.” Fulk pressed the bay over beside Roger’s horse. Black specks swam across his vision. He was cold, but he was sweating; the harsh cloth of the dead man’s coat rasped on his skin. He knew what this was, this sickness, and he strained against it, holding it away until they reached
Stafford
.

“When shall we go back to Tutbury?” Roger asked.

“Soon. I’m not sure. My lady is so sick, I can’t leave her until she is better or—” He thought, How strange, that Margaret should be dying, and I almost died today, both of us at once. The road darkened ahead of him. The sun was setting. But when he looked, the sun still hung in the sky, over the trees on the horizon.

Roger was talking, but Fulk could barely hear the words. A vast humming filled his ears. The light seemed to be fading away, as if it were deep twilight. He clung to his saddle with his good hand, staring straight ahead. At the end of the road was
Stafford
Castle
; all he had to do was keep going.

“My lord.”

“Yes,” Fulk said. “Yes.”

THREE

Fulk held out his good arm and a page slipped the sleeve of his coat over it and draped the coat over his other shoulder. His right arm in its sling was strapped to his side. They had bandaged him and braced him with splints so heavy he felt off balance; standing up still made him lightheaded. He reached for the ivywood cup on the table. With a crash, the door opened, and his younger son Hugh rushed in. He had come to
Stafford
while Fulk was sick, just before Margaret died.

“
Chester
’s here,” Hugh said. “God, he just got here, he’s got forty men with him.”

With the wine buzzing in his head Fulk turned so that a page could put on his belt. “Somebody tell the cook we need twenty more hams, then for
Chester
and ten for his men.”

He settled the belt and picked up the wine cup again. Rannulf came in behind Hugh. His face was thinner than before, and shadows like old bruises lay under his eyes. “My lord, our guests are in the churchyard.”

“I’m ready.”

“Did you see
Chester
?” Hugh cried. He was tall and big-boned, like Margaret, and with his bushy hair always reminded Fulk of a bear. Rannulf sneered at him.

“Can’t you ever keep your voice down?” I saw
Chester
long before you did.”

“I saw him when—”

“Oh, be quiet.” Rannulf shoved Hugh to one side. “Do you need help, my lord?”

“Stay away from me.” Fulk went to the door, trailed by pages, and his sons followed. Hugh's great voice went on and on about
Chester
. Fulk had been staying in the room above the one in which Margaret had died, and the stairs were narrow and dark. He set his feet down carefully on each step and held onto the iron grips set into the wall. They said that he had nearly died, too. At the foot of the stairs, he had to stop and let his head settle.

His household was waiting in the courtyard just outside the door, all in mourning, and when he came out their faces turned toward him in unison. It was a bright, windy day, a vivid English summer day; he looked up at the brilliant blue sky, and his uncertain spirits lifted.

“Lean on me, Father,” Hugh said, in a muffled voice. Fulk glared at him.

Rannulf, on his right, peered around Fulk at his brother and whispered, “Leave him alone. He’s well enough.”

Fulk made his strides longer. Hugh said, “He isn’t. You saw—”

“Be quiet,” Fulk said, between his teeth. With the household massed around them, they crossed this courtyard to the gate into the churchyard. Roger was standing beside the gate—like Fulk he wore all black.

“You look well, my lord,” he said quietly.

“Not as well as I will.”

“Look among
Chester
’s knights.” Roger stood to one side to let him pass.

With Hugh and Rannulf behind him, he walked into the churchyard where a mass of Margaret’s friends and relatives waited in their fine, somber clothes. Margaret had died while he was still unconscious, and the things left unfinished between them dragged at him like the weight of his bandages. Walking toward the chapel door, he wondered about what Roger had said and decided he knew what it meant.