The stink of blood and sweat clung to the encampment like a funeral shroud. Moans of the wounded threaded between the tattered tents, piteous and unrelenting as Estienne picked his way through the churned mud, leading the palfrey behind him.
He passed a knot of men hunched over a spitting cookfire, and a sound rose above the camp’s dour rhythm – a snatch of laughter, jeering and bright. Estienne frowned. Surely the campaign couldn’t have turned so quickly in his absence. Last he’d seen, Earl William had been locked in a grim stalemate with the Welsh king, each side circling the other, hackles raised.
‘Oi. You there.’
Estienne turned to find a pair of men-at-arms striding toward him. He stood his ground as they closed in.
‘State your business,’ the taller of the two growled.
‘I’m Estienne Wace. Squire to William Marshal.’
The men exchanged a glance, doubt writ plain on their wind-chapped faces.
‘The Marshal’s squire, eh? Sent off on some errand, were you?’
Estienne straightened. ‘I was. And now I’ve returned. So, if you’d be so kind as to let me pass…’
He made to step around them, but the shorter one moved to block his path. ‘Not so fast. You could be anyone. How do we know—’
‘Estienne.’ William Marshal’s voice was gravel.
The men-at-arms turned to see the earl approaching through the gloom.
‘My lord, we were just—’
‘Yes, you were,’ the Marshal replied dismissively. ‘See to the lad’s horse.’ One of them took hold of the palfrey’s reins, and they led the steed away. Alone with his squire, William took in the bruises mottling Estienne’s face, the blood crusted to his jerkin. ‘You look like hell, lad.’
Estienne bowed, trying not to grimace as his wound pulled. ‘It’s been a long road, my lord.’
‘I’ll wager it has.’ Marshal jerked his chin at Estienne’s collarbone where the blood had seeped through. ‘Let’s see to that before it’s infected.’
He turned and Estienne stumbled after. The surgeon’s tent was close and fetid, thick with the cloying stench of blood and herbed unguents. Estienne perched on a stool, jaw clenched as the surgeon peeled away the torn material with care.
‘This is nasty.’ The man’s breath puffed sour against Estienne’s cheek as he bent close to examine the wound. ‘And deep. Right down to the bone.’
Estienne hissed through his teeth as the surgeon pressed around the edges of the gash. Marshal stood watching, arms folded over his broad chest.
‘How did this happen?’ There was no censure in Marshal’s voice, but the question hung heavy nonetheless.
‘There was some… trouble. When I reached Worcester.’
‘Trouble?’
Estienne gripped tight to his knees as the surgeon began to clean the wound with stinging spirits. ‘I was taken for an enemy.’
‘By whom?’
A lance of pain shot through him as the surgeon pressed a pad of linen against the gash, and Estienne sucked in a steadying breath. ‘Ilbert.’
Marshal was still for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was dangerously soft. ‘FitzDane did this?’
‘Yes, my lord. He took me for a spy. Thought he’d cut the truth out of me.’
A muscle ticked in Marshal’s jaw. The surgeon began to stitch and Estienne felt suddenly nauseous.
‘I curse the day I took that runt into my household,’ Marshal growled. ‘I knew he was poison from the start. Should have drowned him like a rat in a rain barrel.’
Estienne focused on the bite of the surgeon’s needle, the sharp tug of catgut through flesh. When the last stitch was tied off, Marshal stepped closer to Estienne. ‘The message. You delivered it? Guillaume is safe?’
‘He is, my lord. I reached him in time. He quit the castle before the siege closed in.’
‘That’s something, at least. You did well, lad. Acted with true courage and loyalty.’
The praise sat uneasily in Estienne’s gut. He thought of Guillaume’s stony face. The absence of any message for his father.
The surgeon tied off his bandage and stepped back. ‘He’ll need rest to heal. To keep the wound from festering. I suggest you send him back to Pembroke.’
‘No.’ Estienne’s voice rang loud in the close confines. He stood, ignoring the startled look of the surgeon. ‘I’ll not be left behind. Not now.’
Marshal frowned. ‘Estienne, you heard the man. That gash needs time to knit.’
Estienne met his lord’s gaze squarely. He’d crawled through blood and muck to reach Worcester, all to deliver Marshal’s message. It would take more than a stitched cut to stop him now.
‘I can ride, my lord. I can fight.’
Marshal studied him for a long moment, assessing him from head to heel. ‘You’ve a spine of steel in you, lad. Stubbornness, too, by the wagonload.’ A flicker at the corner of his mouth, there and gone. ‘You’ll need it for what’s to come.’
‘My lord,’ he began, half-dreading the answer. ‘What happens now?’
‘Now we finish this. Llywelyn thinks to catch us at a weak moment, wear us thin while the kingdom frays at the edges. I mean to disabuse him of that notion.’
Estienne straightened, suddenly eager as a hound on a scent. ‘I’m fit to ride, my lord. Give me a fresh horse and I’ll be at your side when—’
‘No.’ Marshal fixed him with a stare that brooked no argument. ‘I have another task for you. One of vital importance.’
He drew a folded letter from his surcoat, sealed with a blob of dark wax. Estienne took it, a prickle of unease chasing down his nape at the seriousness on Marshal’s face.
‘I need this carried to Hubert of Burgh. With all haste.’
‘Lord Hubert? At Dover?’
Marshal nodded. ‘My spies send word from France. Louis means to land on our shores, and soon. You must reach Hubert. Warn him of what’s coming. A lot depends on this, lad.’
‘I won’t fail you, my lord. I swear it, on my life and honour.’ The words sounded braver than he felt, and he hoped Marshal couldn’t hear the waver in them.
‘Then go. Ride hard and fast, and pray you reach Hubert before the French do.’
Estienne bowed his head, feeling the weight of the letter in his hand. He ducked out into the light, blinking at the sudden brightness. Exhaustion dragged at him like an anchor, but beneath it, a thrum of fierce elation. He would ride for the coast, carrying his lord’s word, and deliver his dire warning before calamity fell.