Winterbourne (50 page)

How many times had he explained the same thing to Jenny? The hand he had placed upon the boy's head began to tremble, then he noticed Father Andrew's stare. "Off with you," he said sharply to the child. "Go out and find your mother." Frightened by the earl's abrupt change of tone, the boy scurried through the door.

Jaufre hunkered down by the fire, cursing when he burned his thumb removing the bird from the spit. "Will you assay some of this partridge, Father? It looks as if it were a tough old bird, but I'll wager 'tis tender enough upon the inside."

To his astonishment, the priest's lips parted in the vague semblance of a smile. "You are probably right. I begin to fear I am a very poor judge of—of birds."

When Jaufre scowled at him suspiciously, the priest said, "In any case, you will gag it down my throat if I refuse."

Taking that for consent, Jaufre tore off a portion of the fowl and plunked it into one of the wooden bowls. As the priest accepted it, he regarded Jaufre with another of those piercing stares the earl was coming to dislike heartily.

"I have never thanked you thus far for saving my life."

Jaufre shrugged, resuming his place by the fire, picking at his own portion of the bird.

"You saved me from a grave sin. I tried to impose my own will upon God, seeking death when 'twas clearly His design that I should survive."

"Spare me this confession, Father. You know why I helped you. I would have never given two shillings for your life. But Melyssan… She—" He broke off, unable to continue, reaching for his cup of bitter ale that the peasant woman brewed.

"I understand this." The priest's voice continued, soft but inexorable. "It only increases my gratitude to you threefold. I have been guilty of another sin. I presumed to look into your heart and judge you. But! was wrong. I see now that you loved her—"

"Be silent! Will you leave off speaking of this?" Jaufre flung down his bowl and stormed out of the cottage, fearing what the priest might say next, what other chords of emotion he might stir to life. Night would fall shortly. He needed no more dreams.

For the rest of the evening he avoided the old man, preferring to curl up on the grass outside than listen to that quiet voice again, raising gentle spirits to torment his empty heart. Shortly after the moon rose in the sky, he heard a rustling near him. He was about to leap up, to spring for his sword, when he felt someone fling a blanket over him.

He gazed up into the face of the peasant woman as if seeing her for the first time. Till then she had been naught but a silent shadow, doing his bidding, not questioning his presence there. Now he noticed how her face was lined with age. She must have been comely once, her bright yellow braids failing past ruddy cheeks. The hands that tucked the wool covering over him were callused with hard labor. It had been so long since a woman had touched him. He wondered how she had lost her husband. Then their eyes locked, and he saw in their depths a reflection of his own emptiness, his hunger. Without thinking, he began to draw her down beside him, the wind-chapped lips bare inches from his own.

Aye. she shared his hunger, but his longing was for that which he could never know again. Melyssan. He groaned and pushed the woman away from him. Binding the blanket around his body, he rolled on his side, scarce moving until he heard the woman retreat, weeping, back into the cottage. He would leave this place in the morning.

He was up at dawn, readying his horse, when Father Andrew-limped out of the cottage, his wobbling steps braced with a large staff of wood.

Jaufre refused to look at him, feigning to check the tightness of his saddle. "Have you come to bid me farewell? You need not have put yourself to such difficulty. I would have forgiven you the courtesy in this instance."

"No, I am going with you."

"What!" Jaufre whirled around. Damn, why did the man always look so serene, even with his head bound up in a dirty linen bandage?

"I. too, owe my lady Melyssan a debt. I shall keep it by remaining with you."

"The devil you will. Unless you mean to limp after me clear across England."

The priest bowed his head. "If God wills it so."

With another impatient oath, Jaufre vaulted into the saddle. He noticed the woman and her child lingering in the shadows of the doorway. "Here," he said gruffly, tossing her a handful of coins. "Set this aside for a dowry—to get yourself another husband."

He dug in his heels and cantered away without another word, but he could not resist looking back. To his annoyance, he could make out a small figure tottering slowly but steadily down the road.

"Christ's blood. Am I to be haunted by one act of kindness for the rest of my life?"

Slapping down on the reins, he thundered back to where Father Andrew stopped, awaiting him. Cursing fluently for several minutes, he consigned the priest to hell, assuring him that was where he would end if he kept following. Father Andrew stood quietly, his hands folded, until Jaufre's tongue wore itself out.

Finally the earl thrust down one hand. "Damn you, grab hold and mount up behind me."

"Will your horse bear the load?" Father Andrew asked even as he vaulted up behind Jaufre.

"No worse than carrying along a bag of bones." Jaufre set the horse into a gallop before calling back, "I warn you, I won't tolerate you rattling all the way to our destination."

But Father Andrew said little in the days that followed as Jaufre tracked King John's progress through England. It was not difficult. The king's mercenary army left a trail of destruction behind it, charred villages, scorched fields painfully reminiscent of the scene at Winterbourne.

Jaufre slipped to the manor house of Sir Eldred to procure a horse for the priest, but most of the time he and Father Andrew shunned the company of other men, even to the point of risking ambush by sleeping in the open at night, within the shelter of forestlands.

Although the priest never asked questions, Jaufre could feel him watching as he made his final preparations, securing a coarse leather tunic such as any field laborer might wear and practicing, practicing with the crossbow at every opportunity.

"Tomorrow," Jaufre announced, "I will escort you to an abbey. There's a Cistercian order not far from here at Swineshead." Jaufre remembered hearing the place mentioned, although he could not recall where. He believed the old priest would be safe there.

Before Father Andrew could protest, he added, "And do not even think to try coming after me. I will not tolerate it."

"So at last you are ready to kill the king."

Jaufre stalled, the crossbow nearly dropping from his hand.

What sort of uncanny eyes did this old man possess that he could read intentions Jaufre had never spoken aloud?

"Do not look so astonished. Your hatred lies naked upon your face for all the world to see every time you lift that thing to your shoulder." Father Andrew grimaced as he gestured toward the crossbow.

Jaufre shrugged. " 'Tis of no consequence. I intend to make no secret of the deed."

"You do not care if you are captured and executed?"

The earl smiled grimly. "I invite John's minions to try."

"'And you truly believe you are capable of doing this deed?"

For reply, Jaufre raised the crossbow and drove one of the bolts deep into the trunk of a distant tree.

" Tis not the same as killing a man in battle, my lord. Twill be outright murder."

"Aye, even as my wife and babe were slain."

"By men of no honor! But you—you are of a different breed." The priest placed one hand gently upon Jaufre's shoulder. "Do not turn away. This time you must hear me, my lord. Even when I thought the worst of you, I recognized that you had your own code. Oft I overheard you lecture your young son upon what a man's honor should be. A knight does not slay his enemy from behind, skulking in the trees, afraid to show his face."

"By God, if John would fight me as a man, do you not think that I would?" Jaufre burst out. "But he is a cowardly knave, and I will slay him the only way I can."

The priest's grip tightened, his pale blue eyes fixing Jaufre until he felt drawn into their peaceful depths. "You were never meant to be an assassin, my lord," the earnest voice pleaded. "Even if you escape, you taint yourself with the crime of murder. Can you live without your honor, Jaufre de Macy, or will it destroy your very soul?"

Jaufre wrenched free of the old man. "You want my soul? Go look for it amongst the rubble at Winterbourne. Any soul I had, Lyssa took with her when she died."

He strode away, pausing to fling over his shoulder, "Trouble yourself no more with my salvation, Father. Tis a bootless quest. We go our separate ways tomorrow."

Despite Jaufre's command, when the time came to leave Father Andrew outside the gates of the abbey, the priest seized the earl's bridle, venting one last plea.

"My lord, you saved my life, reminding me Lady Melyssan would have wished it so. Now I put the same question to you. How think you she would have felt knowing you are about to destroy yourself?"

Jaufre closed his eyes, wanting only to be gone; but he could see Melyssan's face swim before him, gazing at him with that wistful expression of hope, of admiration. Her noble Sir Launcelot. What would she think seeing him garbed in his role of lowly assassin? He began to waver, but Father Andrew's next ill-chosen words broke the spell.

"Come inside the abbey and pray with me, my son. Leave this vengeance against the king in God's hands, where it belongs."

Jaufre gave a bitter laugh and pulled his reins clear. "Do you think either of us would live that long? Your God is almighty slow when it comes to meting out punishment to a knave such as the king, far quicker to visit his wrath upon an innocent babe.

"I shall make a bargain with you, Father. I shall give God time until I have the king within my sights. If He chooses to strike down John before then, not only will I stay my hand, but I will ride back to you, make my confession, and accept whatever penance you give."

Jaufre whirled his mount around. "But don't stand there until the snow flies in hell, waiting for me."

The curving stone stair stretched forward into darkness. Melyssan summoned all her will to follow Gunnor, who carried Jenny's inert form up the steps. 'Twas so far to the top, she thought. She would be content to sink down here, content to know that at least her child would live. But somehow she found the will to keep going.

"Stay close," Gunnor hissed when they arrived at the top. "I dare not light a candle for fear—Oh!" She screamed as a lighted torch was thrust into her face. Highlighted by the eerie glow, the sallow face of a Flemish soldier leered at them.

"Aye, the king be right to leave me behind," he said to Gunnor. "He feared you getting soft afore the deed was done."

The brief flicker of hope died in Melyssan's breast. With a low moan, she sank to the floor, softly crying her daughter's name.

The child did not stir. Gunnor backed away, turning tearful eyes upon the guard. "Oh, please. Please." Then she gasped, "Hugh!"

The scraggly bearded knight slunk out from the shadows.

"Yer wife has been about some mischief this night." The guard sneered. "See that you beat her well. For thirty pieces of gold, I will tell the king nothing of this. Now give me the brattling, woman. I will secure the prisoners below."

"No!" Gunnor squirmed away, preventing the man from taking Jenny. She fled to her husband's side. "Please, Hugh."

As if in a fog, Melyssan watched the woman clutch at his tunic, pleading, saw him turn away. "Then kill them!" Gunnor shrieked. "Just take your sword and kill them. 'Twill be the same as if you had."

Sir Hugh's face crumpled, the torchlight revealing the myriad emotions chasing through his haunted eyes. He nodded, slowly drawing forth his sword. Melyssan tried to draw herself up, crawl forward in one last desperate effort to save Jenny. But her weakened limbs refused to move.

"Here, now!" protested the guard. "I'd just as soon dispatch them myself and be done with it. But it's against the king's orders. You—"

The man's eyes bulged in their sockets as Sir Hugh raised his weapon and plunged the steel into his stomach. Gunnor cowered back against the wall, sobbing, hiding her eyes against Jenny.

Melyssan watched it ail as in a dream. The soldier wobbled, dropping the torch. He tumbled past her, falling headlong down the steps, the torch rolling after him. The light became naught but a spark that flickered, plunging them into darkness once more.

Voices whispered from a great distance. "But where shall we take them? To Lady Enid?"

"Nay, that is the first place the king would look. They must go to my brother."

Melyssan felt lanky arms banding around her, experienced a sensation of weightlessness as she was lifted. Her head lolled against a bony shoulder.

Taking a deep breath, she gave herself over to the feeling of exhaustion. Vaguely, she sensed a change in the air. It was fresh, sweet, like… like newly mown hay.

Then she was being lowered, her body nestled against prickly wisps of straw. The world lurched abruptly beneath her. She banged into a wooden board, heard a rumble of wheels. Panic assailed her, a sudden terror of having lost something very precious. Her hands groped through the hay, encountering a small warm body, silken curls of hair. She sighed, drifting into unconsciousness.

Time blurred into a haze of impressions: the rough jolting of the tumbril… steaming brews of chicken being forced past her lips, gagging her, burning her stomach… Jenny choking as Lady Gunnor fed her with a spoon…

But the morning finally came when Melyssan opened her eyes, focused on the blue sky above, Jenny's wan smile. They were free! Alive! Melyssan's lips moved in a prayer of thanks.

She gripped the side of the cart, dragging herself to a sitting position. For the first time, she realized the perpetual jolting had stopped.

Below her, Sir Hugh gave a relieved smile as he reached up to lift Jenny from the cart. Other arms stretched out to her, arms garbed in a flowing white robe. She looked down into the face of a man with Gunnor's broad, honest features. But the monk's eyes held more of a serenity in them. Beyond him, she could see the massive bell tower of a church and cloisters.