LXIV

 

 

Wissant, France – Christmas Day, 1191

 

GISBURNE AWOKE IN darkness at the click of the latch.

“Don’t move,” she said, closing the door behind her. “Go back to sleep.”

Gisburne had no inclination to move, but he had never intended to sleep. He had flung himself down on the bed fully clothed, and had lain there listening to the sigh of the sea and the shrill cries of gulls, intending for that delicious repose to last only a few minutes. That had been the previous afternoon.

“Where have you been?” he croaked, still barely awake.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, and began organising her gear. “It’ll keep till morning.” Gisburne let his head fall back, but lay resolutely awake.

They had got some strange looks when they had first arrived here. It was hardly surprising. Gisburne – desperately tired and now unsteady on his feet – had almost fallen through the door. It had crashed open, the wind blowing rain and dead leaves about the interior. A startling enough figure in his rough horsehide coat and rusted mail, he was now also bruised and bloody, his clothes stinking, muddy and scorched. As they had walked in, the landlord almost choked on his beer. Three other people, supping quietly by the fire, had left immediately. Gisburne would have had a wry smile at that had he not been so exhausted. Why they were afraid of a man who had so clearly been beaten, slashed and burned to within an inch of his life and now stood ready to crumple with near terminal fatigue, he could not guess. Perhaps they simply thought certain kinds of people brought trouble in their wake. They might be right about that. But if there was one thing he didn’t want just now, it was a fight.

“We want lodgings,” said Gisburne. “For tonight, at least. Maybe longer. A room of our own.” He leaned in towards the landlord. “No animals.”

The landlord – a thin man with thin hair plastered over his pink shiny scalp – nodded slowly. He had managed to calm himself after the initial shock of their dramatic entrance. Gisburne guessed that he’d seen a lot in his life. The man looked from Gisburne to Mélisande and back again. She was dressed in the same clothes she had worn since her capture at Castel Mercheval, but now with a hooded tunic of Gisburne’s – far too big for her – thrown over the top and belted at the waist. Whereas before, in her own clothes, she had easily passed as male, the addition of the oversized tunic somehow had the effect of accentuating her femininity, and the landlord kept peering at her, dipping a little at the knees to better see under her hood.

“My squire,” said Gisburne. “All right?” He slapped two coins on the table top.

The landlord simply shrugged and nodded. He wasn’t about to argue. Not with a man who looked like this, and not with business the way it was. He looked like he didn’t care whether Gisburne had a goat dressed in a cassock and called it his wife, just as long as he could pay.

Wissant had been Mélisande’s suggestion. The town was only a few miles from Calais, but the contrast could not have been greater. Once a great port, it was now in steady decline; Calais’s gain had been Wissant’s loss. But it had its advantages. Neither the Templars nor anyone else would expect them to be heading here. And the accommodation was cheap, with few questions asked.

He heaved himself up on the bed and watched Mélisande’s shadowy figure moving about in the darkness. It was warm – the room had no fire, but was against the chimney breast, which filled the small, low-ceilinged chamber with radiant heat – and he was feeling drowsy. He knew his body was close to collapse from the extremes it had endured; it would take days of sleep to recover. But not now, not here. Not with her. He wondered what she was doing. It looked like she was packing again. Why was it she always seemed to be packing?

She glanced at him. “I told you to sleep,” she said. “It’s the middle of the night.”

He shook his head. He wanted to tell her it was a waste, but he wasn’t sure how. He wasn’t even sure himself what he meant by it.

She raised one eyebrow at him. “You don’t need to keep watch on me. If I meant to rob you, I’d have done it by now.”

A smile stirred in him, but never quite formed on his lips. “It’s not that,” he said.

She smiled sweetly, then sat on the bed by him, dumping her leather bag next to her. “There is a ship bound for England in the harbour,” she said, “ready to sail on the morning tide. It’s all arranged. You need only be on it, and you will be home again.”

“And you?”

She smiled a sad smile, her head to one side, but said nothing.

So, it really was over. He sighed and let his head fall – a great sigh of gratitude and relief. And yet it was tinged with sadness. Sadness at having lost Galfrid. Sadness, too, at the realisation that he would soon be losing Mélisande. This part, he did not wish to end. Not yet. Mélisande was still an enigma. Still intriguing. Still exasperating. Still fascinating. She had helped him, at the risk of her own life. Was still helping him. Why would she do such a thing, if she was indeed in the service of King Philip? Unless, of course... But no, he did not dare think that.

She knelt on the bed and pulled a package of cloth from her bag, and unfolded it on the covers. Gisburne stared at the contents in amazement. “Roast goose,” she said, then produced a flask and two wooden cups. “And wine. The good stuff.” It had not quite the opulence of their first meeting, but he felt a pleasing warmth at the memory it evoked. It touched him that she had gone to the trouble.

“How did you..?” he began. But she just gave him that look – Don’t ask, and I won’t have to lie... “You seem to have made a habit of bringing me food.” It was a habit, he knew, that would end today.

She filled the two cups. “You know what today is?” she said with a smile.

He frowned. What did she mean? What could today “be”? Cold? Long? A Wednesday?

“It’s Christmas,” she said with a laugh, and knocked her cup against his. “Merry Christmas, Guy of Gisburne.”

He smiled, drank the good wine, and hungrily began to eat.

“So,” she said suddenly. “You never did tell me...” He sensed what was coming. “The skull...” She didn’t need to say any more. But he felt it was time. And she had earned this.

Gisburne shoved a piece of goose breast in his mouth, then, without taking his eyes off hers, reached down and hauled his great helm onto the bed. She looked at him in bemusement. He upended it, and out tumbled something bundled in black leather. Its wrappings fell open as it rolled. Mélisande’s eyes widened in amazement, her face lighting up with the glint of gold.

“It was never in the reliquary,” said Gisburne, still chewing. “It was always here.” He shrugged. “What better place to put a skull for protection?”

Mélisande put her hand to her mouth, began to laugh, then raised the skull before her, gazing into its bejewelled eyes with her own. “But the box...”

“Misdirection,” he said. “I learned it from someone I knew in Jerusalem. Someone who was good at conjuring tricks.”

Mélisande laughed, pulled a face at the fixed expression of the Baptist and laughed harder still. Gisburne – grim-faced, serious Gisburne, his resistance quite gone – found himself sniggering, then laughing, and finally giving in to a wholehearted guffaw, until both laughed so hard it seemed they might never stop.

With tears rolling down their cheeks, almost incapacitated with mirth, she slapped him on the chest as if somehow this might stop it before she expired. He gave her a good natured shove. She slapped his chest again – harder this time – then roughly grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his lips to hers.

The laughter stopped. They kissed long and deep before she finally pulled away.

“Well, Sir Guy,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Is there still enough about you to properly celebrate Christmas? Or are you all spent...?”

In response, he pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth, his hands sliding around her warm, lithe body. She moaned, returning his kisses, pressing herself against him, wrapping him with her limbs. He felt all restraint slip away. He was done with denial – with duty. The mission was finished. By some miracle he was alive. And tomorrow, she would be gone. Only now did he realise how little he relished that parting. Only now did he realise he wanted nothing more than to forget the past and the future, and lose himself in this moment – in her.

She drew away suddenly and sat astride his lap, her hands upon his chest. Gazing down into his eyes she gave a husky laugh, and rotated her hips slowly. “I see,” she said, with a raised eyebrow. “There is life yet...”

And with that she peeled her tunic over her head, and threw it over the Baptist’s watching eyes.