GYLES STARTOUT BROUGHT HIS SMALL convoy to a halt as they breasted the hill above Blandeforde. To his right rode his brother Alleyn, to his left James Buckler. All wore threadbare tabards with the crest of Sir Richard of Develish, these being the only garments left in Develish that might lift them above the level of serfs. The livery looked well enough from a distance but Gyles didn’t doubt the moth-eaten fabric would invite derision at close quarters. He had no greater hopes that their mounts, stolen from Holcombe by Lord Bourne, would strike a more commanding appearance. Two seasons on the pastureland by the moat had left them unbrushed and unkempt, giving them more the air of carthorses than chargers.
They certainly hadn’t made for a comfortable journey. So long unridden, they had responded poorly to their bits and, with no time to soften the saddle leather with oil and tallow, all three men had suffered. It led Gyles to wonder if Lady Anne could possibly have reached Blandeforde. Was she capable of riding so far when even he, the most experienced horseman, winced with every unexpected lurch in his brute’s uneven gait? The only sounds that had come from James and Alleyn’s mouths had been full-throated oaths, and both gave sighs of relief as the town came into sight below them.
By the sun, Gyles estimated it was an hour past noon, and he questioned again whether Lady Anne could be ahead of them. She may have had an eight-hour start on him and his companions, having left Develish at midnight, but they had ridden at a fast gallop and her lack of horsemanship would have kept her to a slow walk until dawn. He cursed himself for not insisting that John ask sensible questions of his son instead of spending his time berating the youth about misplaced loyalty. If Gyles knew where Edmund had left his companions, he would have a better idea of Lady Anne’s progress.
James Buckler stood in his stirrups to relieve the pressure on his aching groin. ‘What’s worrying you?’ he asked.
‘That we’ve arrived before Lady Anne. I’ve known her fifteen years but I’ve never seen her on horseback. She told me she’d manage with Edmund’s help but …’ He shook his head.
‘You think she’s given up?’
‘There’s a good chance.’
Alleyn was studying the verge to the left of the highway. ‘Horses have stopped here recently,’ he said. ‘Do you see how the grass has been trampled? I’m guessing they were allowed to graze while their riders looked down on Blandeforde. Who else could it be but Lady Anne and your sons?’
‘The steward’s fighting men?’ suggested Gyles. ‘For all we know they’ve been scouring the countryside since Thaddeus was arrested.’
There was a thoughtful silence, broken by James Buckler. ‘Then what are we doing here?’ he asked. ‘You could have foreseen all this before we left Develish.’
‘I felt I had to try.’
‘For Lady Eleanor’s sake?’
‘Isabella’s, too. Her pleas were as heartfelt.’ Gyles glanced at Alleyn. ‘I even had your Robert joining in.’
‘The lad’s in search of adventure. He’d have taken my place if you’d permitted it.’
Gyles shook his head. ‘It’s more than that. He fears Eleanor will harm herself if anything happens to Lady Anne. Both he and Isabella say she’ll blame herself if Milady is taken in charge for heresy.’
‘With good cause,’ said James. ‘She should have had more sense than to denounce Lady Anne in front of de Courtesmain.’ ‘Would you have her kill herself over it now? Robert assures me that’s what she’ll do if harm comes to Lady Anne through her fault.’
James nodded to the leather knapsack behind Gyles’s saddle. ‘Will the documents you’re carrying prevent that?’
‘Isabella believes so—as long as it’s Master de Courtesmain who betrays us and I can place them in Lady Anne’s hands before she’s obliged to answer to him.’
‘Hence your fussing over whether she’s behind or ahead of us.’
Gyles nodded. ‘She must read them first. They’ll serve no purpose at all if her dreams were misguided and it’s Bourne who informs against Thaddeus.’
James grinned. ‘You never think anything she does misguided.’
‘There’s always a first time.’
‘But not today,’ Alleyn murmured, jerking his chin towards the right-hand edge of the highway. ‘That pile of turd looks like dog excrement to me.’ He turned his gaze on Blandeforde. ‘You must have more faith, brother—if not in Lady Anne, then in God and your sons. The boys will have found a way to make the journey easier for her, and God loves her too much to lead her wrong now.’
The town appeared empty of life. There were no guards on the bridge and no people in the streets. Gyles was reminded of riding through Dorchester in the early days of the pestilence, when a pall of death had hung over the streets, but he didn’t have that same sense here. There were too many signs of recent industry—broached barrels of ale outside tavern doors, the scent of newly baked bread, sheep carcasses hanging from a beam outside a shop.
He knew Blandeforde well from visits he’d made in the past as part of Sir Richard’s retinue, and needed no directions on how to find the manor house. Nevertheless, as they neared the turning which led to it he had a growing fear that they were riding towards a flogging. Or worse.
The whip had been banned in Develish for a decade and a half, but he could still remember when Sir Richard had insisted on every serf being summoned to watch a fellow’s skin being flayed. Lady Anne’s arrival had brought an end to such punishment but the sport had remained common in neighbouring demesnes. Countless times Gyles had been forced to witness a public scourging while lords laid wagers on how many lashes a serf could endure. His darkest memory was of watching a youth hanged for absconding. Thin and undersized, he had dangled at the end of a rope, his legs twitching through more than three hundred beats of a drum before he breathed his last. The spoils had gone to Sir Richard for guessing that the boy’s puny weight would keep him from strangling sooner.
‘You should prepare yourselves,’ he told James and Alleyn. ‘I can think of only one reason why bread has been baked but the streets are empty. The people have been ordered to the house. I pray the steward wants their attendance at a trial, though I fear it’s more likely they’ve been summoned to witness a punishment.’
He led them on to the approach road and urged his mount to a trot. Even from two hundred yards, he could see guards along the walls, but his attention was drawn to the throng of women and children blocking the entrance. He guessed the gates must have been closed against them and wondered why. Had the steward ordered a penance so terrible that only men were able to stomach it? The thought alarmed him, and he nudged his horse to a canter, calling on James and Alleyn to do the same. The clatter of hooves on the road caused the crowd to turn and then scurry to the verges, and Gyles saw with relief that he’d guessed wrongly. The gates stood wide with nothing to impede their progress except a straggle of townsmen on the driveway beyond.
If he’d learnt anything from riding with Sir Richard, it was that Norman soldiers had more proficiency with dice than weapons. Few took the trouble to train once they realised how easily Dorseteshire folk were intimidated. There was no call to draw bows or swords when a charging horse or a flailing whip served the purpose better. At fifty yards, he saw that the guards on the walls to either side of the entrance were of an age with his twins, and he gambled they’d had little practice at firing on a moving target. With a shout to the crowd to stand clear, he took his mount to a gallop, and stretched himself along the animal’s neck.
The townsmen on the driveway scattered as he thundered through the pillars with James and Alleyn close on his heels, and only when the bend in the driveway was too close for comfort did he straighten and pull hard on his reins. He took a few deep breaths. ‘Compose yourselves as best you can,’ he told his companions, straightening his tabard and settling his bow across his shoulder. ‘Once around that corner, you will be judged by the way you display yourselves. Recall how well Thaddeus has taught our sons and you’ll not go wrong.’
James held his finger to his lips. ‘Someone comes,’ he murmured, giving a small jerk of his head to the rear.
Gyles glanced behind him and then wheeled his horse to face the approaching townsmen. There were ten or twelve, the same who had been making their way towards the gates before the horses set them running.
‘I know your crest,’ said one. ‘I wove it into a tapestry for Sir Richard of Develish three years back. If it’s Milady you seek, you’ll find her on the forecourt.’
‘Thank you, sir. Has she been there long?’
‘As long as the Mass lasted. An hour and a half perhaps.’
Gyles took what he could from these answers. ‘Does your priest always hold Mass in the open?’
Another man answered. ‘He’s the steward’s priest and had but one reason to sermonise outside: he fears being close to us. Mind, he absolved us of our sins, and that’s a gift we haven’t had in nigh on half a year.’ He eyed Gyles curiously. ‘The soldiers who accompany Milady wear a different crest. How so?’
‘Their lord is Athelstan, cousin to Lady Anne. His men rode to Develish to inform her of his arrest.’
‘She spoke of him in the town. It seems the steward has made an error by taking him in charge.’
‘He has,’ said Gyles, tapping the pack behind his saddle. ‘And I bring the documents to prove it.’ He studied the upturned faces. ‘Were you summoned here for a trial or just a Mass?’
‘Neither,’ said the first man. ‘We joined our fellow townsmen when Matthew Miller called on us to escort Lady Anne.’
‘There are more of you?’
‘Many more … and all still on the forecourt with your mistress. We have tasks to perform or would have remained with them.’
‘Why do the women and children wait at the gate?’
The man shrugged. ‘Entry has been forbidden for many months now. We’re only here ourselves because of Milady’s determination to gain access.’
Gyles’s weathered face creased in a smile. ‘She has a powerful way with her. I don’t doubt the steward is already regretting the permission.’ He pulled on his left rein and nudged his horse into motion again. ‘I bid you farewell, sirs. May God go with you.’
He expected to hear the response ‘And with you’, but it seemed the men were regretting their early departure. As he led James and Alleyn at a walk towards the bend, the group chose to follow, their curiosity stronger than their need to work.
Thaddeus was grateful the servants had the same curiosity. Those who were closest to the windows called out descriptions of what they were seeing, and together they painted a clear picture of the battle for authority between Lady Anne and d’Amiens. Thaddeus had little difficulty interpreting Milady’s actions, or indeed the steward’s, but he found it harder to understand Aristide’s. A maid, peering to her right, spoke of him hastening across the bridge to the church, and Thaddeus wondered what was taking him there. He had no need to retrieve de Courtesmain’s scrolls, which lay on the table where the steward had tossed them before venturing out to confront Lady Anne.
The news that three mounted men in livery with a dozen townsmen behind them had rounded the bend in the driveway prompted the captain to move to the window. He clearly knew the Develish crest, because he asked Thaddeus if they could expect more of Lady Anne’s men to join her. And why had these not accompanied her this morning rather than place her in the care of Athelstan’s troop?
‘I’m as ignorant as you of what’s been happening in Develish this day,’ said Thaddeus lightly, turning his hand in the bowl of warm briny water that Mistress Wilde had brought him. ‘You’ll get better answers by going outside and addressing these incomers directly.’
‘To do that, I must trust you to hold to your parole, sire. Your master of hounds knows his way to the kitchen and the woodland beyond, and for all I know there are more of Lady Anne’s people at the bottom of the driveway.’
‘Then take him and the dogs with you. I cannot escape the guards and servants alone.’ Thaddeus glanced at the matronly woman who hovered at his side with a salver of boiled rags. ‘And nor would I wish to while Mistress Wilde shows me such kindness.’ Joshua ducked his head in a small bow. ‘I would prefer to remain at your side, My Lord.’
Thaddeus looked deep into his eyes. ‘You will serve a better purpose if you help the captain make sense of Develish speech, Buckler. I wager these incomers will try to befuddle him with brogue. They did the same often enough with Master de Courtesmain, which is why he’s so confused about my status.’
He couldn’t tell if Joshua grasped his full meaning, but de Courtesmain certainly did, and Thaddeus counted the Frenchman’s angry reaction a victory. For a quarter-hour, the hall had been subjected to his mummery of martyrdom: a sinking to his knees as he was chained to a pillar, the mouthing of prayers and his calling on God to chastise heretics. But it seemed he had too much conceit to allow Thaddeus’s slur against his intellect to go unchallenged.
‘Are there any lies you won’t tell?’ he hissed in French. ‘Your precious whore has taught her people too well to have them grunt like pigs. Even the harlot you call mother knows how to fashion speech that can be understood.’
Thaddeus studied him with amusement. ‘Take care whom you offend, Master de Courtesmain. You’ll not be shown kindness by Dorseteshire folk if you call them pigs.’
‘Tha’ be the truth,’ said Mistress Wilde with disgust. ‘I zee but woone grunting hog here an’ ’e be a Franky. The stoöard shoulda roped him in a sty avore he let him into My Lord’s home to snabble his food an’ spread his pwoison.’ She stared de Courtesmain down as the servants in the hall greeted her brogue with laughter. ‘Your soul is full of malice,’ she finished in French. ‘Good people will always hide their thoughts from you.’
Gyles halted his convoy thirty paces short of where d’Amiens and his guards had formed a line across the driveway. He was content to wait until he was noticed, but realised quickly that the wait might be a long one. The attention of all was directed at Lady Anne, who walked amongst a large crowd of men on the forecourt, taking each by the hand and listening gravely as they told her their names and numbered their dead. At her sides were his twin sons, Ian and Olyver.
Away to Gyles’s left, on the grassland close to the river’s edge, Edmund Trueblood and Peter Catchpole were bent to the task of hobbling eight horses. Ahead, a dozen guards stumbled from the guard house, shrugging on tabards and pulling fingers through sleep-tousled hair. There was no sign of Thaddeus or Joshua.
Gyles thought it a strangely peaceful scene. For more than a decade, he had watched Milady use kindness and reason to quell the anger in men’s hearts, but he marvelled that she had the courage to walk alone amongst so many strangers. Few lords would dare. He was reminded of some lines from Isaiah which Milady was fond of quoting. And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid. And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. She said it was a foretelling of the coming of Christ, but was it blasphemous to think it spoke of her as well? She displayed more honest love for people than was ever shown by men of the Church.
As if Gyles’s thoughts had summoned him, the black-robed figure of the priest emerged from the woodland near the guard house. He seemed weighed down with care, or perhaps by the bag he cradled in his arms, but his rage at the sluggishness of the half-awake soldiers was clear. He struck the nearest across his face when the man was slow to buckle on his sword belt.
‘The priest prepares an army,’ whispered Alleyn behind him.
Gyles nodded. ‘I see him. He looks to make himself their captain and they’re not comfortable with it.’
‘They’re obeying him nonetheless.’
But not willingly, Gyles thought, casting about for the man who should be in charge.
‘To your right,’ murmured James. ‘My son brings company.’
Joshua gave no indication that he recognised any in the convoy as he walked with the captain from the kitchen quarters. He called his pack to heel and addressed Gyles in French. ‘I am Buckler, master of hounds to My Lord of Athelstan. This officer is captain of arms to My Lord of Blandeforde’s steward. From the crest you wear, he believes you to be from Develish and has asked me to help him understand your speech.’ He made a small bow to the captain. ‘Will you allow me to explain that in words which are easier for them to understand?’
‘As long as you don’t play me false.’
Joshua nodded to the small group of townsmen. ‘These men will tell you if I do. It’s only Normans like Master de Courtesmain who find the brogue hard to understand.’ He turned his attention back to Gyles. ‘Our big woone a-got the likin’ o’ this man an’ all the maëdes, an’ our laëdy a-got the trust o’ the v’ok vrom the town. Our Franky stoöard a-got the likin’ o’ none. The big woone a-told all that the Franky be zo baffled by our zpeech that ’e knows nowt o’ truth in Develish. This be why ’e is so mistaëken abou’ the big woone’s naëme ’n status. Do ’e unnerstan’?’
‘Ees,’ answered Gyles with a nod. ‘But I mun speak wi’ the cap’n mysel’. Tell ’im I know Frankish.’
Joshua turned to his escort. ‘This man speaks French and is ready to answer any question you have for him, sir.’
Gyles spoke before the captain could. ‘I’m the same rank as you, sir, and am willing to give you any information you require, but I believe your own men’s need of you is more urgent.’ He gestured over the heads of the crowd. ‘A dozen approach with swords at the ready and all look nervous. They appear to be under instruction from a priest who walks in their midst. Unless you share his blood lust, I suggest you free them from his command.’ He stretched down a hand as a stream of curses issued from the other’s mouth. ‘Assist him up behind me, Buckler. Together, we’ll reach them quicker than if he goes by foot.’
Peter straightened from hobbling Killer and looked up to see a horse emerge from between the trees that lined the driveway and race at speed across the grass between the forecourt and the river. He barely had time to register that two men were astride it before it came to a quivering halt some twenty paces from a troop of armed soldiers. With no idea who the riders were, or where they had come from, he took them to be as much of a threat as the soldiers and cupped his hands about his mouth to give the warning cry of a fox—a sharp screech that burst upon the air. When he saw he had Ian’s attention, he extended his arms, palms together, pointing in the direction Ian should look.
Ian turned in time to watch the captain leap to the ground and confront soldiers with drawn swords, but he was more interested in the crest of Sir Richard, which was emblazoned on the back of the rider’s tabard. He knew from the way the man sat his horse that this was his father and, startled, he glanced towards d’Amiens, wondering what he made of Gyles’s sudden appearance. But there was nothing to read in the steward’s face.
‘He’s undecided what to do,’ murmured Olyver in Ian’s ear. ‘He’s asking himself how many more Develish men have come and whether he still has his captain’s loyalty.’
Ian watched the captain pull his men forcibly from around the priest, ordering them angrily to sheathe their swords and form a line at his side. It was strange, made stranger by Lady Anne’s soft, untroubled voice continuing to greet the townsmen as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Yet there was such a froth of anticipation in the air that Ian was sure every person on the forecourt knew something was amiss.
He chose to be unresponsive himself, watching impassively as the captain sent his men back to the guard house and took on the duty of escorting the priest himself. He pretended indifference when his father fell in behind them, and gave only a small nod of greeting to Edmund and Peter who returned, unbidden across the grass, to range themselves alongside him and Olyver. All the while, he studied d’Amiens out of the corner of his eye, certain he would not abide by his promise to keep from waging war on Lady Anne of Develish.
‘Step clear of the crowd and make ready to face towards the driveway,’ he whispered to his companions. ‘We must be first to our bows when the steward instructs his guards to prepare theirs. Loose one arrow into the ground at his feet and aim the second at his heart.’
The captain watched in disbelief as Athelstan’s men ringed the steward’s feet with shafts and nocked and aimed a second arrow even as his own men were struggling to find the string with their first. Two of the guards made a half-hearted attempt to block him as he strode around the forecourt, but he cursed them angrily and ordered them back into line. Their expressions of relief gave him momentary pause, but he was more intent on preventing further shafts from being released.
‘What madness is this?’ he demanded, planting himself squarely in front of Ian. ‘Do you forget that Milady has pledged herself to peace?’
‘I do not,’ said Ian, taking a step to the side in order to keep d’Amiens in his sights, ‘but your argument is with the steward. He questions your reasons for depriving the priest of his guard and seeks to prevent you doing the same with his. He ordered your men to take you in charge.’
‘He speaks false,’ said d’Amiens coldly. ‘Recall your oath to protect your lord and be sure you understand where the real threat lies. These men are Develish serfs who wear livery to mask their banditry and thieving. They are here with the single purpose of forcing the release of the one who calls himself Athelstan. If you aid their attempts at rescue, you will give succour to felons.’
The captain stared at the ground for a moment and then appealed to Lady Anne, who stood a few paces behind Ian. ‘Master d’Amiens is correct to remind me that I am bound by oath to protect my lord—or, in his absence, the steward who stands for him. If you value peace, milady, instruct these archers to lower their weapons.’
She shook her head regretfully. ‘I cannot, sir, for they answer to Athelstan. You should know their leader speaks the truth, however. Master d’Amiens was the first to offer threat.’ She held his gaze. ‘It needs only for you to give your surety that it won’t happen again. There can be no conflict if both sides are pledged to peace.’
The captain’s lips twisted in a wry smile. ‘And how do I give such surety, milady? I am a captain who is obliged to obey whatever instructions his lord’s representative gives him.’
‘Except when they’re foolish,’ she said with an answering smile. ‘If the purpose of these soldiers was to release my cousin by force, they would have made Master d’Amiens their prisoner and bargained his freedom against their master’s. The guards on either side of him would be dead and he would have a knife at his throat.’ She paused. ‘You have authority over your men, sir. I beg you to use it wisely. Athelstan’s people ask only that he be allowed to prove his title free of duress and in the hearing of honest men.’
Thaddeus had dressed his hand himself, placing small wads of boiled rag, steeped in brine, on either side of the wound and binding a long strip of the kirtle tightly about his palm to hold them in place. As the maids at the window reported the captain mounting behind a Develish man and riding at speed across the grass, he allowed Mistress Wilde to tie off the ends and help him ease his left arm from the sleeve of his shirt. He forbade her on the grounds of decency from removing the garment completely and refused her suggestion that they leave the great hall so that she might tend his wounds in private. Now was not the time to absent himself if what the maids at the window were describing was true.
Mistress Wilde sucked her teeth to see the blood begin to flow again as the scabs came away with his shirt sleeve, but in truth the blade hadn’t penetrated far. Thaddeus urged her to clean the cuts with salted water before she bound them, thanking her kindly when she’d finished. She seemed unused to gratitude and her cheeks flushed rosy red as she assisted him back into his clothing. She asked if it was the custom where he came from to cleanse and treat open wounds in such a way and he answered that it was.
‘And where would that be, sire?’
Thaddeus stared at de Courtesmain as he answered. ‘My mother’s family came from a town called Alexandria in Africa. It was she who taught me the value of salt in the cleansing of wounds.’ Angry spittle formed on the Frenchman’s lips at this barefaced lie, but any retort he made was lost beneath a cry from the window that the steward had seized the captain and was threatening him with his own sword. The guards who remained in the great hall looked at each other in alarm and then turned their anxious faces to Thaddeus, looking to him for instruction.
With a sigh, he rose to his feet, taking the dagger from the table and dropping it into the pocket of his coat. ‘She also taught me that men make poor decisions when they’re afraid,’ he murmured, ducking his head to Mistress Wilde before beckoning the guards to accompany him. ‘I believe we’ll serve peace better by going outside,’ he said. ‘The steward’s quarrel is with me, not with your captain.’
The younger guard gestured towards the archway. ‘Would the better route not be through the kitchen, sire? We’ll likely meet the priest if we go by the front door and he’ll not let you pass if he can prevent it.’
Thaddeus gave an approving nod. ‘Lead on and I’ll follow.’