by K. M. Grant
From the back of the procession, Elric’s voice sang through. He had proven something of a handful, telling Hal firmly before they left Hangem—it would be a long time before it was easy to call it Granville—that although he had scarcely been on so much as a pony before, he wanted “a destrier, a proper warhorse, one like Hosanna.” Hal had laughed and pitched Elric into the saddle of a large skewbald. It amused him to see the boy’s smile soon become a little strained, as for large parts of the journey, instead of Elric being in control of his mount, it was in control of him. From the happy familiarity of Dargent’s back, Hal nudged Gethin, who was thrilled at being taken into his confidence. “Just watch the child,” Hal said, “but let him learn a lesson or two. He’ll be a sorer but wiser boy by journey’s end.”
Spring was breaking out everywhere, and they made good time. After two days Will ordered Hal, Gethin, and Elric on ahead to alert the Hartslove household that they were on their way. Food and drink for horses and people were to be plentifully supplied. The abbey was to send honey, and the abbot and a few monks were to come to conduct the offices of the dead.
“Tell them to dig Gavin’s grave under the old chestnut tree,” said Ellie to Hal. “Tell them to dig it very deep so that it will never be disturbed, not for a thousand years or more.” Will nodded his agreement.
By the time they got home, Alan Shortspur had spurred the castle laborers to greater and greater efforts. Not only was the Hartslove standard flying high, but the castle keep and stables were almost fully restored. Marie was busy organizing the kitchens while Marissa fussed about, demanding a thicker bed and fresher hay for Hosanna. She had the ruby brooch tucked back in her belt.
Everybody turned out to see the procession arrive. Many knelt and crossed themselves. When they drew near, Ellie got out of the hearse and walked slowly behind it until the horses crossed the moat and drew to a halt. Hal and Gethin were waiting, and together with Will and Kamil, they carried the coffin carefully up the steps and into the great hall, where Alan had laid trestles to receive it. Marie was white and silent, and Marissa, who had rushed forward to welcome Will, found herself courteously but firmly pushed to one side as Will, his lips tightly pressed together, headed back into the courtyard.
It was the strangest day of Ellie’s life. Half of her could hardly believe she was back, while the other half felt as if it were still her wedding day. There was the fireplace in front of which Gavin had given her the green jasper necklace. There were the empty chairs of Sir Thomas and Lady de Granville. There was Will’s wolfhound still sniffing about, hoping for a bone. She found Old Nurse beside her. “Come, dearie.” The old lady took Ellie’s hand and sat her down. The day outside was warm, but because the hangings had not yet been replaced, the great hall was damp enough for Alan to have ordered a big blaze. Ellie was glad of it. She could see how badly the roof had been damaged from the new, pale-colored beams that now straddled the ceiling and cast bright shadows. Drawing closer to the fire, she huddled into Old Nurse’s arms. The future was all around her, but she was not ready for it yet.
Long, thick candles had been lit and placed at the four corners of Gavin’s coffin. Drifting in from outside, the voices of the chanting monks grew louder. Ellie stood up as they filed slowly past her, their faces shadowed by their cowls.
Marie, holding early primroses, followed behind, blinded by her tears. Ellie felt a stab of irritation, followed immediately by a stab of pity. Of course Marie was sad. Hal had told her how carefully and selflessly she had nursed Gavin. Now she had lost both her patient and her guardian.
“Go to her,” murmured Old Nurse, and was proud when Ellie obeyed without question.
“Come, Marie,” the girl said. “Lay your flowers on the coffin.”
The petals shivered in the candlelight, and in their beauty Marie found courage. “I’m very glad to see you back,” she whispered to Ellie. “You have been much missed.” Then she went to sit quietly near the door. Here Hal found her, and, after introducing Elric, went back to the stables, full of the sad sweetness of her smile.
Marissa stood at the side of the hall, fingering the brooch. Ever since she had learned that Will was safe and reunited with his horse, she wanted, above everything, to confirm that his feelings for her were as strong as hers for him. However, now that he was here, she was nervous. Perhaps Kamil had not bothered to tell him about the dramatic rescue from the moat. Perhaps Gavin never had the chance. But her part in that must surely make Will love her. Yet now, here was Ellie back again. Marissa knew she should be glad that Ellie had been rescued, but she was not. Nor was she glad to see Kamil, and wondered if Will knew how much the foreigner coveted his horse. She would warn him. Watching Ellie help Marie put the primroses on Gavin’s coffin, she pursed her lips. Then, like a miracle, she heard a shout. At last! Will was calling for her! Forgetting her limp, she flew out and, not even needing to think, headed straight for Hosanna’s stable. The horse was standing with his trappings still on, and Marissa flung her arms around his neck.
Will laughed. “To think how fearful you were when you first came here,” he said.
Marissa raised her head and at once saw Kamil in the corner. Why did he have to be here? She glared at him. “I am not so fearful now, but I expect Kamil has told you that I’m not much good as a rider and how we only met because he had to help me.”
Will half smiled, half frowned at her tone. “He has told me only that you saved Hosanna from drowning. I shall always be in your debt, Marissa.”
She took a deep breath.
Hal came to take off Hosanna’s bridle. “I’ll make him comfortable now,” he said, and Elric popped up from under his arm.
“I’ll help,” he said, excited by everything he saw.
Hal laughed. “Come on, then, I’ll show you how.”
Will left the stable, tucking Marissa’s arm into his own. She was floating. “I meant what I said about always being in your debt,” he said. “If Hosanna had drowned, well …” They walked in silence until he felt able to continue. “This afternoon,” he said, “we are going to bury my brother. You and I are the same now, both without parents—except you are luckier in one respect because you have a sister. Gavin and I parted on bad terms, Marissa. That is a terrible thing. The worst. Make sure you never part from Marie like that, for you may never get a chance to make it up. But what I really wanted to say is that I’m going to make Hartslove my base now and that you and Marie will be my family just as you were Gavin’s. You are both brave, like Elric, the boy you have just seen with Hal, and brave people are in short supply. King Richard has not yet returned, and who knows what may happen before he does. I will need you.”
Marissa beamed. Keeping hold of his arm, she asked about the escape from the tower, and filled her face with sympathy, not all of it manufactured, when Will told her how he, Ellie, and Old Nurse had believed Hosanna to be dead and how Gavin had been killed by de Scabious. He sat down on the edge of the horse trough and turned his face to the sun as words flooded out about his father, about the crusade, about his boyhood, and especially about his brother. Over and over again he told Marissa how Gavin had saved Ellie, as if by telling and retelling the story, he could assuage the pain in his soul. That he had been right about Richard, and Gavin wrong, was no comfort. Gavin had done as he saw fit. A man could do no more.
“I wish you had known Hartslove as it was when my father was alive,” he said eventually, getting up. “But I hope you and Marie will come to like it here. I will do anything I can to make you feel you belong.”
Marissa hesitated only for a moment, then brought out the ruby brooch. The look on Will’s face made her hurry to speak before he did. “If you hadn’t given me this brooch,” she said, “Hosanna would have drowned. I have hardly taken it off since you told me to keep it, and, you know, it was the brooch’s stem that helped me to cut Hosanna free.” Will took the brooch and held it, not knowing what to say. But Marissa did. “Will you pin it on properly, now that you are home? After
Hosanna and you, it is the thing I love best in the world. It really makes me believe that I belong.” She said nothing more, but took his hand.
She chose her moment well, for as Will, not knowing what else to do, pushed the pin where she showed him, Ellie emerged from the small door at the bottom of the keep, intent on collecting her thoughts as the final preparations were made for Gavin’s burial. Will had his back to her, and it was not so much the sight of the brooch as the triumphant smile on Marissa’s face that brought Ellie up short. Something pricked behind her eyes. She frowned a little, then went to Hosanna’s stable, praying that the horse would be alone.
But he was not. Elric was brushing away, untangling his mane, while Kamil leaned against the partition. Ellie would have retreated, but Hosanna had already seen her and stretched out his head to greet her. He nibbled at her hand until she opened it and showed him the green jasper necklace she was holding tight.
“It’s broken, Hosanna,” she said flatly, and slid down into the straw. Elric finished his chores and went away, but Kamil remained, watching. Eventually he bent down, took the necklace from Ellie’s hand, and drew a small knife from his pocket. Ellie closed her eyes. She had dreamed of coming home, but it was not as she had expected. She could not find her proper place anymore. She was neither bride nor widow nor mistress. Even the servants had grown used to asking Marie about domestic arrangements and did not come near her. And now the ruby brooch was gone for good. Ellie had been through too much to care about jewels, but somehow the loss of that brooch, her wedding brooch, hurt her. She felt that Gavin, as well as herself, had somehow been walked over. The straw shifted as Hosanna lay down, luxuriating in the strengthening sunshine that dappled his side through cracks in the wooden roof. Kamil spoke to him in Arabic.
“What did you say?” asked Ellie, grateful to have something to interrupt her own thoughts.
“I was reminding the red horse of other days, when the sun shone hot in the desert,” replied Kamil. His eyes saw far beyond the stable wall before he bent his head back to his work.
“Tell me,” prompted Ellie.
Kamil held back at first, for Hosanna was the only confidant he wanted, but Ellie’s troubled face touched him. As she settled herself against the red horse, allowing the warmth of his body to ease her, Kamil’s low, musical voice lulled her half to sleep. He told of Saladin, of how he had been taken under his wing and treated as a son. He described the glory of the desert flowers and the bitter beauty of the mountains, and finally he talked of his own family, torn from him when he was a child. There was no direct mention of the crusade—Kamil did not think war was a fit subject for a girl—and when he was finally quiet, he crouched down, and Hosanna’s skin quivered against his caressing hand.
Kamil wondered at himself, that he had exposed his secrets. He looked defensively at Ellie and found himself scrutinized by a pair of eyes so candid and thoughtful that it was a struggle to break away. He was both sorry and relieved when a shouted summons broke through the silence. The monks were ready. It was time.
Ellie stood, dredging up last reserves of courage, and Kamil, stepping back, closed his heart again. “Here, it is mended,” he said, holding out her necklace. But he was gone before she could ask him to help her put it on.
Will was standing beside his brother’s coffin. When everybody was assembled, he gave the signal, and he and four knights picked up their sorry burden to begin the long walk down to the burial place. The monks led the procession, their chant rising above the slow tread of the coffin bearers as they crossed the drawbridge. Ellie followed behind, her hands clasped in front of her. Behind her came Old Nurse, then Marie and Marissa, and after them all the Hartslove household, their heads bowed, with Elric in their midst. Kamil watched from the top of the keep.
The afternoon saw the first truly clear sky of the year, and the valley was a brilliant patchwork of vivid greens. The squat buds of the chestnut tree were bursting, and the young leaves vied with each other for their place in the sun. The gravediggers had dug very deep, and long ropes were needed to ease Gavin into his last resting place. Ellie knelt as the coffin was lowered. She gathered leaves from round about her and fluttered them like wedding confetti silently into the grave. She remained kneeling until the monks had finished their prayers, and gentle hands eased her away so that the gravediggers could finish their work. Only then did she notice Will standing quite alone. His hands were shaking and holding something as if he could never let it go. Ellie took a deep breath and went over to him.
“Will—,” she said, “will you help me?” He looked at her, uncomprehending, as she showed him the green jasper necklace. “It’s mended,” she said. “Kamil fixed it. I want to wear it. Will you fasten it?”
Will lifted his hands, and Ellie saw a small skin bag. Wordlessly, he showed her that it contained a ring made of Hosanna’s hair and a piece of parchment. “Can I read it?” she asked.
He nodded. “Marie wrote it for me. It says, ‘For God, the king, and Hosanna.’ It was our battle cry on crusade, Ellie, and I didn’t know what else to put.”
“It’s perfect,” she said. They walked toward the grave together, and Ellie watched as Will dropped his gift into the earth. “Gavin is everywhere around here,” she said. “In the jousting field, by the moat, near the horse trough. We’ll never forget him.” She waited for a moment, then handed Will the necklace.
“Green jasper for faith,” he said as he closed the clasp. “Who will you put your faith in now, Ellie?”
“Myself,” she replied decidedly. “John has made me free to choose how I live and whom I marry, if I should ever choose to do so.”
“And will you choose?”
“I don’t know, Will. But I would like to choose to live here, for the moment, at least.”
“This is your home just as it is mine, although it is not the home it once was.”
They began to walk back to the castle. When they got closer, they lingered outside for a while, thinking of Gavin and watching the people going to and fro. Elric trotted behind Hal, who was talking quietly to Marie.
“I shall ask Richard to knight Hal,” said Will. “He deserves it. And when it happens, I shall give him a castle in my lands at Ravensgarth. I’ll keep Elric as my squire. After Hal has finished training him, he’ll do a fine job. What do you think?”
Ellie nodded. But her attention was taken by the figure on top of the keep looking east. “And Kamil?” she asked. “What will happen to him?”
But Will did not look at Kamil. He could not stop looking at Ellie. Her face betrayed a longing he had never seen before. “Ellie …,” he began, and his tone was full of warning.
She looked at him with surprise and then some fury as the reasons for his concern struck home. “Do you think girls think about nothing but men and marriage?” she demanded, her eyes accusing.
“Well, no—”
“Kamil was describing the desert to me,” she said. “I thought I might like to see it for myself one day.”
Will was completely silenced by this. Ellie turned to leave him and saw Marissa hanging back, well within earshot, the ruby brooch blazing on her shoulder. “If you want a wife, I see one ready and waiting.”
Now it was Will’s turn to be angry. “Don’t be so unkind,” he said, and he made Ellie face him. “Marissa’s just a child—a brave child, but just a child. There are lots of things she doesn’t understand, things I would never have to explain to you. She knows nothing, really. How could she? She’s only just arrived.”
“She looks settled enough to show off my wedding brooch. It should have gone into Gavin’s grave.”
Will flinched, but he kept himself steady. There must be no misunderstanding here. “She had it for safekeeping after it dropped when you were abducted,” he said. “She used it to save Hosanna from the moat. I didn’t mean to give it to her, but I felt I couldn’t take it back. I thought you would understand, since without her Hosanna would have died. I felt that in some way she deserv
ed it.”
His voice carried in the clear day, and before he had even finished, Marissa was running toward them. She was fumbling with the brooch, ripping it off and pushing it at him. “Marissa!” Will was exasperated. This was Gavin’s funeral, and no time for childish tantrums. “Don’t be silly. The brooch is yours. It comes with my gratitude.”
“Gratitude? I don’t want gratitude.” Marissa flung the brooch to the ground.
Will caught it. “How dare you,” he said. “This is Hosanna’s brooch.” Then, more gently, “Can’t you see how it should join us all together, not push us apart?” Marissa was crying now, and Will put his hands on her shoulders. “Marissa,” he said, “you are making a fool of yourself, and on this day of all days. Can’t you see that?”
“I only see that I will always be on the outside.”
A loud clattering made them all look up. The Hartslove warhorses were galloping over the drawbridge, this time not driven by fear of fire but by the overwhelming desire to run free and roll the winter off their backs. Will drew Ellie and Marissa to one side as Hal, Elric, and a dozen others rode with the horses to guard them. Grays, blacks, roans, skewbalds, and bays, they poured out, tossing their manes in the breeze. Even the old horses bucked and kicked in their delight. Hosanna and Sacramenta brought up the rear. They paused when Ellie called their names, circling the three figures several times, their tails like banners. Then they streamed off, their hooves skimming past the newly dug grave as they made for the river.
“Those two look like rubies themselves,” said Ellie, and the moment was suddenly very full. Before it could pass, she took the brooch from Will and deftly pinned it back to Marissa’s bodice herself. Will made an exclamation and walked away.
Ellie watched him drift after the horses, his head bowed, and sighed. Then she turned back to Marissa. “This is Hosanna’s gift,” she said, “and you should wear it with pride. You are not on the outside here. How could you be? We all know that we owe Hosanna’s life to you. You and Marie are the start of something new at Hartslove. Don’t let’s ruin it with silly jealousies and pointless hankerings after things that can never be.”
