Hearts of Fire

by Anita Mills

  “If he comes. He might send for the boy, and be done with Beaumaule.”

  “If he comes not, I will send it to him.”

  “Where?”

  That gave her pause, for he’d merely said he was going to Winchester. If he did not return to Beaumaule, he had so many possessions that ’twould be difficult to know where to send it. And she had not a man to spare to carry it, anyway. “Nay, he will come,” she declared with a conviction she did not truly feel. “Get you to bed.”

  She waited until the old woman left before turning her attention back to the cloak. They thought her a fool—Alwina, Annys, Simon—all of them. They could not see it was a matter of pride to give back what she’d destroyed, no matter what Richard of Rivaux’s wealth—she’d not have him forgive the debt out of pity. And besides, she’d look on him again.

  The task of fitting the lining was a slow one, requiring small neat stitches despite the heaviness of both cloth and fur. From time to time she stopped and sucked on her tender fingertip, reddened and swollen from forcing the needle through the layers, and then she resolutely began again. Thrice the smelly tallow candles were gutted and had to be replaced on their iron spikes. The area between her shoulders ached all the way up into her neck, and her eyes watered from the smoke and the strain of the faint light, but she was too nearly done to quit.

  A distant cock crow sounded even as she finished the last stitch and tied it off. She stood, letting the sumptuous velvet flow off her lap to fall into rich, dark red folds at her feet. It was the finest thing she’d ever done, she admitted to herself as she held the shoulders out in front of her and admired her handiwork. The hood, with its checkered gray-and-white vair border to frame and shield his face, fell back to reveal the warm rabbit inside. She could not resist burying her face in the richness of it, feeling its softness. Still rubbing her cheek against the thick velvet, she carried it to the window, and with her free hand she unhooked the shutter, letting in a blast of cold air. The pale, still hazy light of dawn illuminated the mantle, proving it as fine as she thought it.

  Impulsively she slipped it around her own shoulders to savor the feel of it, letting it gather at her ankles. Pulling it closer against the cold, she snuggled into the thick fur lining and stared out into the peaceful countryside below Beaumaule. Naked, spreading branches were heavy with icicles where the ice and snow had tried to melt, only to refreeze into crystal daggers pointed toward the frosted earth. It was both barren and beautiful. Her eyes scanned the silent, hoary land as though seeing it for the first time, marveling at the wild, empty look of it in the early dawn. And then she noted the movement on the far horizon.

  Across the glistening chalk hills, the morning light reflected off a row of polished helmets like mirrors. Her heart leapt as she strained to identify the riders, and then sank when she caught the blue-and-yellow pennon that floated above them. Sweet Jesu!

  The cloak forgotten, she let it slide to the floor while she looked again, and then she spun to run as fast as her weary, cramped legs would take her down the narrow stairs. Shut away from the outside, they were dark and dangerous, and she fell the last several steps. Righting herself by clawing at the uneven stones, she groped her way into the curtained end of the hall, where Beaumaule’s men-at-arms slept.

  “Simon! Simon! Sweet Jesu, but we are attacked!” Grasping the blanket that wrapped him, she unceremoniously uncovered him. “Mother of God! Do you hear me? ’Tis Brevise, Simon!”

  He sat up, heedless of his nakedness, and shook his head to clear it. “Wha . . . God’s blood, Demoiselle, but you would wake a dead man,” he complained. Then her words sank in. “Brevise? Art certain?”

  “Aye, I have seen them. They ride from the north, Simon, and there is no mistaking his colors.”

  He let out a string of oaths that would have made her blush at another time and lunged up from his straw-stuffed pallet. His scarred body was covered with gooseflesh from the cold. “Hand me my garters,” he ordered tersely as he reached for his chausses. “Aymer! Baudwin! Hugo! We are attacked! Build the fire for the pitch! Aye—and man the arrow slits! Holy Jesu, but there is no time to dally!”

  Even as he drew on his chausses over his nakedness, he was barking out commands to the meager garrison. She stared in fascination at his man’s body, realizing it was the first one she had ever seen in the whole. His was marked in numerous places, bearing mute testimony to a hard life of continual fighting. It wasn’t until he’d pulled on his rough woolen tunic that he noted her again.

  “God’s bones, Demoiselle, but ’tis no place for you.”

  Blushing at what she’d seen of him, she turned to where he stacked his mail. “Tie your garters, and I will vest you, Simon.”

  “ ’Tis unseemly.”

  “There is no time—let your man arm himself.”

  Nodding at the sense of that, he bent to fasten the leather bands across his calves. When he straightened, she already had his much-mended gambeson ready. Slipping it around him, she fastened it quickly, lacing it beneath his arms. When she would reach for the boiled leather shirt, he shook his head. “Nay—if you have seen them, there’s no time for that. Get me the mail and be done.”

  Wordlessly she helped him don the mail shirt, pulling the kinks in the links out until it hung below his knees. All around them, there were the scuffling sounds of men arming themselves frantically. Even the scullery had come to life, and men and boys and kitchen wenches struggled to drag pitch vats out into the yard. Fastening every other hook of the mail shirt, Gilliane’s fingers worked quickly. Simon reached for the leather cap that protected his head, fastened it beneath his chin, and worked the mail coif up over it. She stood ready with his helmet.

  “You would make a good soldier’s wife, Demoiselle,” he murmured as he took the helm. Even before he had the heavy steel nasal positioned over his face, she was looping the frayed leather sword belt around his waist. “My thanks.”

  “Nay, ’tis nothing. Here . . .” She lifted the heavy broadsword from where it had stood against the wall, and struggled to sheathe it. “Sweet Mary, but I know not how you carry this.”

  “Leave it out.” For an instant his blue eyes met hers. Leaning over to pick up something from beneath his pallet, he drew out a sharp dagger. Weighing it in his palm, he proffered it. “Do not use this unless you need it, Demoiselle, for ’tis good only one time. Once a man knows you have it, ’tis of no use to you. Do not strike until he is as close as I am to you—closer even. Do you understand me?”

  She passed her tongue over suddenly parched lips and nodded. His meaning was clear: if they could not hold Beaumaule for her, she’d have to defend herself. Her hand closed over the dagger’s hilt.

  “Aye.”

  “And if I should fall, I am sorry for the quarrel between us. I did but think to make a bargain useful to both of us.”

  Armed now, he started toward the curtain that separated the men’s sleeping quarters from the hall. At the faded tapestry itself, he stopped and turned back briefly. “Put Aubery in the chapel—and you take refuge again in the scullery. Tell him that if he chooses the stables again, I will whip him, lord or no, if we both live.”

  “Aye. Simon . . .”

  “What?”

  “… I am heartily sorry I could not . . . that is, I’d not have you think me ungrateful for all I owe you.” She rose on tiptoe to straighten a kink in his hauberk. “May God aid you now, Simon of Woodstock.”

  “Aye,” he muttered gruffly, thrusting her aside. “Get you to the kitchen while you can.”

  Judging from the sounds above her, the men of Beaumaule were making a valiant stand. The smell of pitch intermingled with the smell of burning thatch, and the whinnies of terrified horses drowned out the sounds of men shouting and the thuds of rocks hurled against the timber outer walls. The courtyard was alive with running feet as everyone from the cook to the alewife to the lowliest spit boy darted with buckets of water from fire to fire. Finally
Gilliane could stand it no longer.

  She emerged into the courtyard just as a flaming section of wall gave way. The burning logs, their crossbars already gone, fell over the ice-filled ditch. And while the archers on the other wall were still able to harry Brevise’s men away from the smoking gap, it was obviously only a matter of hours until Beaumaule fell. Aye, and even if they could last until nightfall, they would not be able to defend themselves in the darkness against a direct assault.

  Smoke burned her eyes and choked her as she made her way to the wall where Simon of Woodstock shouted curses and orders at the same time. Two men, their hands black with soot, carried a caldron of hot pitch closer, ready to fling it on any brave enough to breach the gap, while boys scrambled about the yard, picking up Brevise’s arrows for use by Beaumaule’s archers.

  “The stable’s afire!” someone yelled behind her, and as she turned around, she could see the flames shooting up from the roof. Inside, the trapped animals banged against the walls and neighed hysterically.

  Gathering the loose-fitting boy’s tunic about her, Gilliane ran toward the burning stable, shouting for someone to aid her. She and an ostler reached it at the same time, and both heaved against the bar to open it, while another rushed in to drive the frightened horses out. She screamed a warning as a section of burning thatch fell like a great coal at her feet. The rush of hot air from within scalded her throat and lungs.

  “Demoiselle!”

  She did not know who called to her, nor did she see who pulled her away from the stable before it collapsed inward with a resounding crash. Sparks shot from the burning building and fell like rain onto the small sheds around it, sizzling against the ice crystals in the thatch and then catching in some of the drier places. In a matter of a few minutes the sky was orange and black, thick and choking, as Beaumaule’s granary and the armorer’s shed caught fire also. It seemed as though burning projectiles were everywhere.

  “Get you inside, Demoiselle!” Simon of Woodstock yelled at her from his place on the wall.

  “Nay, I’d not be burned like bread in an oven!” she shouted back.

  “Then go to the chapel!”

  “Nay!”

  There was no time for him to say anything more. A knight in Brevise’s colors jumped the burning timbers in the drainage ditch and cleared the break in the wall. Gilliane watched in horror as he struck down a kitchen boy struggling with a bucket of water. Blood spurted as the child collapsed into a pile of red-soaked rags. Running to what was left of the armory, she grasped a practice lance and pulled off the wooden end with an effort. When she turned around, the Brevise knight was riding through her courtyard, taking his sport unmolested, striking down any in his path. She stood rooted with the lance as he noticed her, and her heart seemed to stop as he spurred toward her, his bloody sword in his hand.

  Numbly she stood, time suspended, and then she remembered watching Geoffrey practice using the lance. As the horse bore down on her, she dropped to the ground, and at the last minute she raised the lance. The horse reared too late, and the lance shattered from the force as it impaled the animal. Gilliane rolled from beneath its flailing hooves and lay still from the impact. The Brevise knight flopped wildly in the saddle and then lost his balance entirely, falling beneath his mount as man and horse came down together.

  She knew she was alive, but she couldn’t breathe. Her legs and arms were like meat jelly when she tried to move them. She could see Simon come off the wall and run toward her. At the same time, Brevise’s men poured through the breach, cutting off help for her. Slowly her breath came back into her body, and as the melee raged around her, she crawled toward the hall, thinking to seek refuge in the tower. Her fingers closed on Simon’s dagger, seeking reassurance from it. If she were going to die, she hoped she would take William of Brevise with her.

  9

  It was the acrid smell of smoke and burning pitch that first alerted Richard of Rivaux to trouble. He’d been lost in his own thoughts, scarcely aware of the body that ached from the jarring, slow trot of the horse beneath him, cursing himself for a fool over seeking out Bishop Henry. He ought to have gone before the Curia itself, but he’d been too clever for his own cause, thinking that Henry would wait to see how the baronage went. And who could have known he would support Stephen? Jesu, but they’d quarreled often enough before, after all, for a man to think blood made no difference between them. Aye, he bitterly regretted his hasty journey through the cold and ice, a journey that had yielded him naught but two wards he did not need. He sighed, drawing in a deep breath, and realized he smelled something other than hearthfire.

  Pitch. It had a distinct odor, one he associated with war and siege. And even as he noted it, Everard drew closer and pointed toward the black column that climbed like a tall billowing cloud into the morning sky. It gave meaning to the smell.

  “By the looks of it, ’tis Beaumaule that burns, my lord.”

  “Aye.”

  Gilliane de Lacey. A chill went through him as he thought of her and her young brother. And Walter— Walter was in there also. He rose in his stirrups to better see the deserted road ahead, and then looked upward at the smoke in the sky. Wordlessly he sank back in his saddle and spurred the big black Spanish horse forward. Behind him, Everard shouted to his men to follow.

  At the crest of the hill across from Beaumaule, Richard reined in just long enough to assess their chances. From where he sat, it appeared that the whole motte and bailey were on fire, that the wooden walls had been breached, and that a small army overran the keep itself. Besieged on the walls were the few Beaumaule men, fighting valiantly, literally kicking at those who sought to pull them down. Somewhere inside the inferno was Gilliane de Lacey.

  He had but thirty men, but there was something to be said for surprise—and he was of the blood of Rivaux, after all. He raised his hand, giving the battle signal for charge, and Everard followed his lead. Unhooking his heavy mace from behind his saddle, he shouted, “For God, Saint Agnes, and Rivaux!” and dug his spurs against the big black’s flank.

  They streamed down the small hill and up the road to the packed-earth mound that was Beaumaule, charging across the little valley to cries of “For Saint Agnes! For Rivaux!”

  The fire and the fighting both raged with an intensity that obscured their approach until Simon of Woodstock, having retreated to a section of burning wall, caught sight of the red-and-black banner of Rivaux. Kicking viciously at a blue-shirted man who sought to pull him down, he took up the battle cry.

  “For Rivaux! Sweet Jesu, ’tis Rivaux! God aids us—’tis Rivaux!”

  His shouts momentarily panicked Brevise’s knights, who were now riding pell-mell through the bailey and yard, cutting down anything that dared move. The archers atop the single square tower joined in, chanting, “Rivaux! Rivaux! Rivaux!” while fitting their arrow notches in their crossbows and renewing their efforts, firing into the melee in the courtyard.

  The Brevise men, under a new hail of arrows, sought cover beneath the tower itself, while a few attempted to take the structure. Inside, on the narrow stairs, could be heard the shouted insults of those holding positions above. Made bold by Rivaux’s sudden appearance, they now taunted their attackers.

  Richard did not have time to count the enemy before he stormed the place. Miraculously, someone inside cut the ropes to the bridge, and it came down with a resounding thud. Everard took half the column and thundered across it, sounding for all the world as if they were a hundred men. Richard sought to cut off any retreat by going through the broken and burning wall.

  Swinging the heavy mace at any who would stop him, he cut a swath through the melee before him. Across the small yard he could see Everard stun a knight, who was immediately pulled down by a stout peasant woman and spitted with a pitchfork by an enterprising ostler. His mace caught in some burning thatch, flinging it in the face of a man who sought to cleave him with a battleax. One of his men swung wide with a broadsword, and the
Brevise knight took a look of surprise into eternity.

  “For God and Rivaux! For Rivaux! For Rivaux!”

  It seemed that every living occupant of Beaumaule crawled or ran into the yard, carrying any weapon available, picking up the battle cry. Above Richard, a sooty, bloodstained Simon of Woodstock shouted, “Aid the Demoiselle!”

  Richard cupped his hand to shout back, “Where?”

  “The hall!”

  The battle still raging around him, Richard reined in and dismounted. A blow from behind glanced off his mail, and as he turned around to counter it, his foeman was felled by a blow of Everard’s broadsword. Unsheathing his own, Richard cut his way across the courtyard toward the hall, where the timbered roof was already ablaze. He kicked open the door and waited cautiously before stepping inside. His heavy boots crunched on the rushes, and the cross timbers above popped loudly. Instinctively he knew where she’d be if she were yet alive.

  The hall appeared deserted, as though it were aloof from the violence outside. He crossed the long room quickly, found the sleeping area empty, and passed on into the kitchen behind it. A low moan sent a shiver of apprehension through him, but then he realized that it came from a Brevise knight who lay doubled up from a wound in his stomach, the sort that one died from slowly.

  “Sweet Jesu, aid me,” the fellow groaned. “I am stabbed—the wench stabbed me.”

  Richard leaned over him. “What wench?”

  The knight groaned again and groped for his weapon at the fury in Richard’s voice, but he was too late—Richard kicked it out of reach. “What wench?” he repeated awfully.

  “Thought she was a boy . . . ” came the thick reply. “Oh, Jesu, aid me. Ought to have killed her first.” The bloody hand that held his abdomen reached out in supplication now. “Aid me—”

  “Aye.”

  It was nothing he took pleasure in, this sort of killing, but there was no help for the man. Richard’s blade flashed in the dim interior light, coming down with such force that the breastbone shattered beneath it. It was a sickening sound, that final expulsion of air. The knight’s head lolled and blood trickled from a corner of his mouth. Richard hesitated before giving him the final blessing and signing the Cross over his chest. If he found Gilliane de Lacey harmed, he’d regret the service.