The Winter Mantle (62 page)

She watched the familiar gesture he made of pushing his hair back off his face, his other hand clasped around his belt. Her stomach twisted. She was going to miss him terribly… but it was for the best.

That morning in Durazzo was branded in her memory. Their lust had been incandescent, so fierce that the first time it had lasted no more than a dozen racing heartbeats. The second time the blaze had been slower to kindle, a lazy burn of pleasure that had grown hotter by steady, calculated degrees until the time had arrived to free the fire and let it immolate them.

It had to happen, she thought. In a way, it had been the closing of a circle that had begun in her father's mews when they were little more than children. There was no regret on either side, but they had not lain together again and they had avoided situations during the journey up through Italy and France where they might have succumbed.

She heard him climb the wooden staircase to the dormitory and listened to his steps, alternately firm and hesitant. By the time he opened the door, she was on her feet and facing it. A nunnery guesthouse was not a setting to put temptation in their way, but it was the first time they had been alone in each other's company since Durazzo.

'You are sure you want to stay here?' he said, casting a glance around the chamber.

She folded her hands together and faced him squarely. 'Quite sure.'

He cleared his throat. 'You know there is a place for you in my household, should you wish it.'

She shook her head. 'You mean well, but you are wrong. Where would I go - home in your entourage to your wife? What would I do? I have no skill with an embroidery needle, nor any desire to become a lady of the bower.'

He winced at her assessment. 'Mayhap you are right,' he sighed, 'but I would not have you think that I intend abandoning you. The least I can do is offer you a roof and protection.'

'It is noble of you, but I need neither. You took me in when
Saer died and I was grief-wild. I like to think that I repaid your support in full measure when you were sick. There are no debts. We settled the last of them that day in Durazzo.'

Their eyes met. She saw understanding in his, and a renewed blaze of gold like fire. 'You truly desire to become a nun?' he asked. 'After everything that you… that we…' He made a gesture that served for the rest, a gesture that encompassed the bed.

'After everything,' she said firmly, although her cheeks reddened. 'And not because I have suddenly grown penitent or ashamed. I have thought about taking the veil ever since the road to Dorylaeum.' She looked down at her clasped hands. 'Between then and Durazzo, between Durazzo and now I have done much praying and thinking and my mind is set. If the nuns of Evreux will have me then I will join them - for the peace of my soul, and for the love of God who has taken so much and given it back. For Saer and my children who did not live.' Her voice almost wobbled but with a supreme effort she steadied it and found a smile.

He turned to the window, and biting his thumbnail gazed out. The sound of the rain rustled around them and the voices of the grooms floated through the open shutters. 'I have no doubt that the Abbess will welcome you with open arms,' he said. A purse of Byzantine gold and the company in which you have arrived are sure to guarantee you a position.'

'Who knows. One day I may become an abbess myself.'

He made a shrugging gesture. 'If you set your mind to the matter, I do not doubt you will succeed. But to renounce the world…' He looked at her sombrely over his shoulder. 'It is a great stride to take.'

She came to the window and, wrapping her arms around him, laid her head on his breast. If the grooms looked up, they would see the embrace, but she did not care. 'No,' she said, with a tremulous smile. 'Like that day in Durazzo — it is but a single step.'

Waltheof genuflected, rose to his feet, and carefully laid the garland of evergreen and red-berried holly at the foot of his grandfather's tomb. He loved coming to Crowland, and it was always with great solemnity and sense of occasion that he would enter the chapel and make his offering. His mother visited the abbey several times a year. The last occasion had been late summer and the place had been crammed with pilgrims and dusty travellers, all present to venerate the bones of his grandfather, who, by the ordinary people at least, was viewed as a saint. The blind had been made to see, so it was said, and the lame to walk. Propped against the wall near the tomb were several crutches left by grateful folk who claimed to have been cured by their visit to the tomb. To have such power, even in death, fascinated the boy.

Today, he and his family had his grandsire to themselves. A light snow was sifting down outside, the wind was bitter and most folk were hugging their hearths and waiting out the winter like hibernating animals. Waltheof, however, was warm within several layers of wool and a hooded mantle lined with marten fur. His little sister was grizzling, but then she was a baby and always did. His mother crossed herself and rose from her own knees. Briefly she laid her hand on the silk pall covering the tomb housing, her gesture tender and sad.

Waltheof thought that she looked very pretty. She was wearing her best winter gown of reddish-gold wool with little lozenges of gold thread embroidered at the hanging cuff and deep neck opening. Her veil was fluted and bound at her brow with a braid band stitched with small garnets, and her thick, bronze-coloured braids were twined with red ribbons. In a way that he couldn't understand she reminded him of the statue of the blue-cloaked Madonna in the church at Northampton. The clothes and colours were different, but in his young mind some element still drew the two together.

They left the church house and trooped out into the frozen air. Waltheof gazed up through fluttering lashes at the light fall of snowflakes and stuck out his tongue in the hopes of catching one and feeling it melt.

There were riders waiting in the courtyard. Smoky steam rose from the nostrils of their horses and harnesses jingled as the beasts stamped their hooves on the frozen ground. One of the men had dismounted and was gazing intently towards him and his mother and sister. He looked familiar to Waltheof, but the boy could not quite place him. His mother had stopped, although her gown and mantle still swished gently with the impetus of her last step. She was as rigid as the Virgin statue, and twice as pale.

'Dear, sweet Jesu,' she whispered. Her hands opened and closed at her sides. He watched the movement of her fingers, fascinated by the gleam of light on her gold rings. And then she cried, 'Simon!' in a breaking voice, and ran to fling her arms around the man whom now Waltheof suddenly recognised.

At his back, Helisende lightly placed her hand on his shoulder. 'Your papa is home from the crusades,' she told him, a shiver of emotion in her own voice. 'Praise God. Now perhaps ail will be well.'

The snowfall grew heavier and more persistent. Although they could have stayed at the guesthouse in Crowland, and Ingulf would have been more than pleased to house a newly returned crusader and exchange stories, Simon was uneasy with the surroundings, and preferred to ride on to the hunting lodge at Fotheringhay.

During the journey he spoke little. He took Waltheof up before him, wrapping the child tenderly in his cloak. Little Matilda clamoured to ride on his saddle too and he obliged, but the novelty quickly wore off and she soon demanded to be returned to the familiar arms of her mother.

By the time they reached the hunting lodge the snow was fetlock deep on the horses and the snowflakes were almost as large as communion wafers.

'Won't last,' said the cheerful gatekeeper who came out to welcome them, a lantern wavering on the ash pole in his hand.

'Be gone in a couple of days. Will you be wanting the huntsmen to mark some game for you, my lord?'

Simon nodded. 'Some of the men might wish to hunt, and it would be good to have fresh meat for the table.' He gently lowered his son to the ground and then swung carefully from the saddle. His leg was aching with the cold and he was tired, hungry and, if the truth were known, unsettled. Matilda had changed during his absence. Some of the yielding softness had gone from her character, leaving it closer to the bone. Her edge was a little steelier now, more of her mother's weight in the scales when it had been her father's nature that tipped the balance before. Her manner was brisk and accustomed as she spoke to the gatekeeper and then to the attendants who had made haste to prepare the hunting lodge with only a short advance warning by the herald she had sent ahead. But then, Simon thought, he had left her to her own devices, and she had been forced to stand alone.

A blazing fire had been kindled in the lodge's central hearth and a cook was hastily assembling a cauldron of leek pottage while an assistant mixed dough for savoury griddlecakes. Simon rubbed his hands and held them out to the fire. Aping him, Waltheof did the same before dancing off to investigate the other rooms in the lodge.

Matilda brought Simon a brimming cup of wine. They had said little to each other since the first, breathless greeting. It was all held behind a dam, waiting for the first breach to be made, and the words to come pouring through in an unstoppable tumult.

He took the cup and their fingers touched in the exchange. A pink flush rose from her throat to her face and Simon felt a responding warmth in the area of his crotch. He also felt a flicker of guilt, but even for the sake of unburdening his conscience he was not going to tell her about Sabina. Some things were better left unsaid.

'What made you turn back?' she asked. 'I thought to be a crusader's widow for a long time yet.'

The wine was a strong Gascon red and made Simon's throat sting. 'You were nearly a widow in truth,' he said. 'My leg became infected and I was only saved by the skills of a Byzantine physician and some dedicated nursing. By the time I was well enough to leave my bed, our army had moved on. I did not have the health to follow. Had I done so, my bones would be bleaching on a plain in Anatolia.'

A look of alarm widened her eyes but he saw her fight it down. Nor did she insist on finding him a chair or begin to fuss around him. Familiar ground had indeed shifted during his absence.

'Those of my men who wanted to stay have joined the troops of Stephen of Aumale.'

'Not Ralf de Gael?' Suddenly her voice was sharp with challenge.

He shook his head. 'No, I have no Bretons in my troop, and my English knights would leif as not follow De Gael.'

'Yet you made your peace with him?'

'Yes, I made my peace with him. What else was I to do? Challenge him to a trial by combat?' He breathed out hard. 'Every man makes mistakes in his life. God knows I have committed my own share of folly. De Gael took the cross to atone for the part he played in your father's death. I know that he has always been able to charm the birds out of the trees with that smooth tongue of his, but I can tell when a man is lying and when he is telling the truth, and I believe De Gael is genuinely remorseful.' He looked at her. 'Are you so unforgiving and vindictive that you will cling to your past grievances for the rest of your life?'

She gave him a narrow look. 'My English family are fond of their blood feuds,' she said. 'It is a tradition we have clung to time out of mind.'

'You would rather I had put my blade through De Gael's breast?'

'No.' She shook her head. 'He is not worth the sullying of good steel and the damning of your soul. Nor is he worth the bother of my hatred. He is
nithing
to me. Beneath my contempt.' She looked at him. 'Whatever you think, that is one demon that no longer rides me so hard.' She had spoken proudly, but her eyes had grown suspiciously liquid.

Simon's heart moved within him, stirred by compassion and love. Setting his cup down on the hearthstone, he pulled her round and drew her into his embrace. Her own arms swept around his neck and she clung tightly. He buried his face against the soft skin of her throat beneath the veil and felt the beating of her pulse. There was a faint perfume of lavender, and lemon balm, clean, enticing, unbearably erotic. She moved her head sideways and his lips slid across hers. He tasted the salt of her tears and through it felt the leaping response of her need. Her mouth was open, her thighs straining against his.

Their embrace was wild and primitive, no room for anyone or anything else, but eventually they had to surface to gasp for breath and with separation came a modicum of awareness. The servants, heads lowered and eyes discreetly averted, were going about the business of preparing the lodge for the guests. His men were arranging their baggage between the aisles of the hall and unrolling straw mattresses. Only the woman tending the cooking pot was close enough to hear what was being said and she was very busy with her griddle cake dough.

Waltheof came bounding back from his exploration and rushed up to his parents, a large deer antler clutched in his fist.

'See what I found!' he cried.

The need to focus on the child further restored sanity. Simon took the antler and admired it. Matilda smoothed her gown and wiped her eyes. While she composed herself, Simon explained to the boy in a less than steady voice that the number of tines on the antler meant that the stag had been six years old when he shed these particular horns.

'I daresay if we search the woods we might come across more sheddings if the huntsmen have not picked them up,' he said.

'Now?'

Simon grinned at his son's enthusiasm and shook his head. 'No, lad. My old bones need to rest first, and while the snowfall might not be as thick among the trees I have no desire to venture out again in this growing blizzard. Still,' he ran his fingers along the grooved yellowish-brown stem of the antler, 'this section here will make a fine hilt for a knife, and that can be made beside the hearth.'

The child nodded excitedly and dashed off to show his find to Helisende and his little sister.

Stooping to the hearth, Simon picked up his wine and found that it had grown warm from its proximity to the flames. 'When I was taken sick, I dreamed of your father,' he said, and gently shook the cup to swirl the dark contents. 'He came to me and showed me that the other side of the hill could hold terror as well as freedom. I do not know if it was a true vision or just a fevered dream, but it was one of the reasons I turned back.'