Brides of the North

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  The little girl was sitting up as her mother gently tried to pull her soiled sleeping shift off, and he could see a big dark stain on the bed where she had soiled herself. He sighed sadly, putting a gentle hand on the child’s head.

  “I will have them bring hot water at once,” he said. “Do you need anything else?”

  Diamantha was trying not to get the mess on herself as she stripped off Sophie’s clothes. “Mayhap something to help settle her belly,” she said, tossing the soiled shift to the floor. “Bread would be good. And watered wine if they have it. My mother used to give us watered wine when we had stomach troubles and it seemed to help.”

  Cortez yanked his boots on and quit the room. The common room of the tavern was filled with his soldiers who had slept all over the room, on tables and in chairs, and they were starting to stir at this early hour. Men were snoring, farting, coughing, and mumbling as they began to wake. Cortez found MacInnis already back in the kitchen, lighting the fires to start the day, and he told the man what had happened. The tavern keeper quickly left the kitchen, crossing the muddy yard outside to a small house where he lived with his wife and their servants. He roused the entire house and soon, people were quickly moving in order to help the sick little girl.

  As MacInnis and his servants put water on to boil and began to prepare bread dough, Cortez crossed back through the common room and noticed that Oliver was already up and dressed for the day. The tall, young knight was walking among the soldiers, making sure they were waking up and when he noticed Cortez, he headed in the man’s direction.

  “Good news,” Oliver said. “The rain seems to have vanished. It is a clear and cold morning.”

  Cortez grunted, running his hand through his dark hair. “Cold enough to freeze the ground?”

  Oliver shook his head. “Nay,” he replied. “None of the mud puddles outside the door are frozen. I doubt the field south of Callendar Wood will be frozen, either.”

  Cortez wriggled his eyebrows in a hopeful gesture. “We shall see,” he said. “Make sure the men eat as soon as they awaken. Where are the rest of the knights?”

  Oliver pointed in the direction of the livery. “James and Drake have gone to check on the horses,” he said. “I’ve not yet seen Keir or Michael.”

  Cortez digested the information. “We may have a small issue this morning,” he said. “It would seem that little Sophie had taken ill. Let the others know. I know my wife will not leave her and I am not entirely sure about leaving my wife if that is the case. Tell the knights I will wish to speak with them in a few minutes. Meet me back here in the common room.”

  Oliver appeared concerned. “I hope her illness is not too serious.”

  Cortez shrugged. “As do I,” he said as he turned for the traveler rooms. “I will return in a few moments.”

  Oliver went to hunt down the rest of the knights while Cortez returned to the room he shared with Diamantha and Sophie. He was deeply concerned about the child and struggling not to let it show. He didn’t want to upset Diamantha more than she already was, but a sick child scared him. Knocking on the door lightly, he let himself in.

  Sophie was standing next to her bed, naked, as Diamantha mopped up more excrement on the floor around her from Sophie’s most recent accident. Sophie was shivering and crying, as pale as the linens on the bed. It was evident that she was a very sick little girl. When Diamantha heard Cortez enter, her head popped up.

  “Where is the hot water?” she asked.

  Cortez could see that the situation was worse than when he had left it. He threw the door open and headed out.

  “I will find out,” he said. “I will hurry back.”

  He slammed the door behind him and moved quickly out to the kitchens, where he began demanding things like chamber pots and any rags they could spare. The tavern keeper thrust a wooden bucket at him to use as a chamber pot and sent a servant girl scurrying for cloth of any kind. She returned with linens for the bed, which Cortez took gratefully. He also took a second bucket filled with very warm water while the tavern keeper followed him with some food.

  Returning to the room, Diamantha had the floor cleaned up but she was very anxious to clean Sophie up, who was crying steadily. Seeing the state of the room, and that of the child, the tavern keeper went back and summoned his wife, who came to help. As Cortez stood by nervously, MacInnis’ wife stripped and cleaned Sophie’s bed, cleaned up the floor with a combination of water, ashes and mashed pine needles, which cleaned thoroughly and left behind the fragrance of the pine to help combat the odor of the vomit and feces. She was very helpful to Diamantha, helping her bathe the girl and get her into swaddling, wrapped around her waist and between her legs, to prevent her from soiling herself again. Diamantha finally put Sophie into a clean shift and wrapped her up in a soft wool blanket she had brought with them from Corfe.

  It had been quite a production and Sophie had wept steadily through it. She was miserable and unhappy, unusual for the little girl who had traveled so well for hundreds of miles. Cortez felt as badly as he possibly could as Diamantha sat on the bed and tried to coax her daughter into eating a bit of soft, warm bread.

  “Is there anything more I can do?” he asked comfortingly, sitting on the bed beside Diamantha and putting his big hand on Sophie’s head. “Anything at all?”

  Diamantha put a tiny piece of bread in her daughter’s mouth, watching the child chew miserably. “Aye, there is,” she said, looking up at him. “It is evident that I cannot go with you today to the battlefield. I must remain with Sophie. When you go, will you at least send me word about what you find and of your progress?”

  He kissed her on the temple. “Of course I will,” he said. “Is that all? Should I send for a physic?”

  Diamantha turned to look at her pale daughter. “No physic,” she said. “At least, not right now. Let us see how she does through the day and then we will decide. But if she is not better tonight, Cortez, I do not want you to stay in the room with us.”

  His brow furrowed. “Why not?”

  She looked at him with some fear in her expression. “I do not want her to make you sick as well,” she said. “She may have something catching.”

  He shrugged. “If that is the case, then I have already been exposed,” he said. “Staying away tonight will not prevent me from becoming ill if it is already destined that I should be.”

  Diamantha was struggling not to let her fear and disappointment swamp her. “God’s Bones,” she hissed angrily. “We have come all this way and now this.”

  Cortez kissed her again and stood up. “Not to worry,” he said. “I am sure she will be fine by tonight. It was probably something she ate, a bit of stew that did not agree with her. She is a healthy child and she will quickly overcome this.”

  Diamantha sighed, looking down at her sick baby. “I hope so,” she said. “We will remain here today. Mayhap she simply needs to rest.”

  She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself that the illness would quickly pass. To think of anything else would cause her to panic. Cortez glanced over at the cage stuffed with the puppy, the kittens, the fox, and the rabbit. At this hour of the morning, they were all sleeping in a big, happy, and warm pile.

  “I will make sure MacInnis brings the menagerie some food,” he said. “I believe I will also leave some men behind as protection.”

  “You will not be too far away, will you?” Diamantha put a soft hand on his arm, fearfully.

  He shook his head, patting her hand. “Nay,” he said. “If you scream, I could probably hear you, but I believe you will be safe here.”

  Diamantha felt marginally better as she returned her focus to her daughter, who was now starting to doze off. Cortez watched the pair a moment, feeling saddened that they would not be able to join them now that they had reached their destination, but as he thought on it, maybe it was for the best. They were going digging for a corpse and he was fairly certain that Diamantha didn’t want to see what was left of her husband.
True, she had come along to identify him, but there were other ways of doing that; a ring, a sword, perhaps familiar clothing. He was fairly certain she didn’t want to look at the face of a man who had been in the ground for four months.

  “I will send you word later today of our progress,” he said, kissing her on the head. “Meanwhile, you and Lady Sophie will have a restful day. That is what I prefer, anyway. You will stay here while the men do the work.”

  Diamantha didn’t have much to say to that. She seemed more focused on her child, as she should be. Cortez would finish dressing out in the common room, as he had given young Peter his mail coat to clean, so he kissed Diamantha farewell and quit the room, moving into the greater room where his men were dressed and eating their breakfast. A big day lay ahead for all of them and he was anxious to get started.

  Anxious to disturb the dead.

  Cortez recognized the area immediately. Not that he had expected it to change much in four months, but the battlefield literally looked exactly the same as it did the last time he saw it.

  The Battle of Falkirk had been fought in a relatively small area, all things considered. William Wallace had hid with his men in Callendar Wood and had engaged the English to the south side of forest. There were three brooks that converged there and upon a vast meadow of gently rolling hills, the Scots and the English had clashed together most violently. The Scots were heavily outmanned by the English and their defeat, under Edward’s heavy hand, had been inevitable. As Cortez stood on the outskirts of the battlefield, he could still hear the fighting going on.

  Scot archers were being crushed under the weaponry of the mounted English knights. He could see the knights swarming them, beating them down, as the ground began to run with blood. He could hear the sights and smells of the battle and, judging from the expressions on the knights around him, he was fairly certain they could see and smell the same thing. They were all remembering their fortune upon the field of battle. It had been a brutal day.

  But Cortez shook himself away from the memories and took his men, with a single provisions wagon carrying a collection of spades and other digging instruments, around to the southeast side of the battlefield to the last place he had seen Robert Edlington alive. The mud was fairly heavy on the small path that skirted the battlefield and the wagon became stuck, twice. The soldiers had been forced to use sheer manpower to rock the wagon until it was able to roll forward again. It made for slow going.

  As they moved around the perimeter of the battlefield, to the northeast along the path of a brook, Cortez came to a halt and gazed off towards the northwest. There was a hill in the near distance, without trees on it, and it had a rather flat top. Cortez recognized it. He moved off the path and into the field itself, with its thick mud and intermittent green patches.

  There were several heavy lines of foliage to plow through, but Cortez realized he was very close to the place he had last seen Rob Edlington. Here, on the outskirts of the battle, which at that point in time had been dwindling off to the west, he had dragged Edlington out of the fighting and had leaned the man against a tree. It had been a big oak with a split trunk, and part of it had been stripped for firewood. As his horse plodded through the mud, through the heavy greenery, Cortez happened to glance over to his right and was struck with the vision of the split-trunked oak.

  “There!”

  He shouted the word, almost triumphantly, as he spurred his charger over to the tree, kicking up mud and clods of earth as he went. The other knights were behind him, dismounting their horses quickly because Cortez had. In his excitement, he ran his hands all over the tree before scrutinizing the ground around it.

  “I left him here,” he said, pointing to the ground. “I pulled him over to this tree. I remember it clearly because of the distinct split trunk. See it? And see how part of it has been stripped for firewood? This is where I left the man. He is here, somewhere, and we will find him.”

  Immediately, the knights began looking around, as did the soldiers who had accompanied them. It was like a reflexive action, everyone eager to search, eager to find. Everyone was hunting for a sign that Rob Edlington was somewhere beneath them. Cortez finally ordered the men to break out the spades and he stood back with his knights to gain a better view of the area so they could choose where to place their test holes.

  Overhead, dark clouds began to blow in, great puffy mounds that occasionally blocked the sun out. Cortez turned his gaze upward more than once, wondering when the rain was going to return. For now, they had damp, soft soil, not mud, and he wanted to dig while the conditions were good. But the fact remained that he truly had no idea where to start. As his men stood around, shovels in hand, he began to pace around the tree.

  “When I last saw Edlington, he was here,” he said, indicating the south side of the tree. “I left him when Edward was making his final push against the Scots and I could not have been gone more than a half hour at the most before returning. When I did, all of this was like a swamp of mud. I sank up to my knees in it. Do you recall how terrible the mud was? It swallowed up more than one man.”

  The knights were nodding in remembrance of the mud of biblical proportions. Keir broke away from the pack and began pacing around just as Cortez was doing.

  “You said that Edlington had no use of his legs,” he said, reiterating what everyone already knew. “But he had strength in his arms. Is it possible he dragged himself away from the tree?”

  Cortez looked around, at the field, at the heavy foliage. “When I returned for him and found him missing, I looked around as much as I could,” he said. “The mud around the tree was particularly bad. It would not have been difficult for it to have swallowed a dead man.”

  Keir looked at the tree. “But so quickly?” he asked, looking at the ground again. “You said you were gone no more than half of an hour. Would Edlington’s body have been swallowed so quickly?”

  Cortez shrugged. “It must have been, for the man was nowhere to be found when I came looking for him,” he said. Then, he motioned to the ground on the south side of the tree. “Let us begin here with our holes. We will dig from the tree trunk southward, fifteen or twenty feet. Surely he must be somewhere around here.”

  Drake snapped his fingers at the men standing around holding the spades, who immediately moved forward to begin digging holes in the quest to find Rob Edlington’s body. Meanwhile, James, Oliver, and Michael began to walk about, looking under bushes and trying to see if they could find some trace of Edlington. If the man had crawled off, which was a possibility, then they would hunt for him.

  Bushes and any growth were devoid of the body of a knight, but they were finding broken arrows and shafts as they went. Drake even came across a dagger, a lovely bejeweled one, that was sticking up through the soil. There was a shield carved into the hilt inlayed with what looked like red rubies. Drake held the dirk up into the light to see it more clearly. Oliver, standing over Drake’s shoulder, pointed at the jeweled shield.

  “I recognize that shield,” he said. “That is the crest of William Martin. He fought for Henry.”

  Drake scrutinized the weapon. “Very nice,” he said. “And quite expensive. Mayhap I shall ransom it back to him.”

  “Martin was killed,” Michael said, standing off to their right. “I am sure his widow would like to have that returned without cost.”

  Drake made a face at the big man, conveying just what he thought of returning the valuable piece without expecting some compensation, but he tucked the dirk into his belt as he continued to search around for any sign of Edlington. Meanwhile, the soldiers continued to dig several holes near the great oak, most of which were at least three feet deep. The digging went on well into the morning.

  At some point during the day, the knights also took up spades and began to dig. Cortez had a shovel and he dug around the base of the tree, hunting for any sign of Edlington. Keir, thinking that Edlington must have dragged himself away from the tree and probably the opposite direction of the ba
ttle, began digging about twenty feet to the east of the tree. He managed to dig several smaller holes and one big one, turning up nothing. The other knights, thinking Keir might have a point about Edlington dragging himself away, dug in various spaces around him.

  By the time the sun was setting overhead and more clouds were blowing in from the east, they had dug sixty-three holes, had pulled up pieces of shields, more weapons including four big and extremely valuable broadswords, and pieces of leather that they thought were either parts of shoes or saddles. No one seemed certain. But in their search, they never came across any piece of a corpse or even a hint of one nearby.

  Cortez hated to return to Diamantha empty-handed, but the day had not been productive. Trudging back to the tavern as the sun set, he tried to remain optimistic about what the morrow would bring.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It was dark by the time Cortez and his men returned to the MacInnis’ tavern. He had the soldiers take care of the horses and wagon while he and the knights wearily approached the small, stout structure. Glowing light emitted from the small windows cut into the walls, making it a rather inviting prospect as they pushed open the entry door.

  Heated, smelly air hit them in the face. There were more people in the tavern this night than there had been the day before, weary travelers seeking rest and food. As the knights confiscated a table near the door and began calling over the serving wenches, Cortez headed to the rear of the structure where the two sleeping rooms were located. He was anxious to see Diamantha and tell her about the day, and he was also eager to see how Sophie was faring. But what he found upon entering their rented room was not what he had expected, not in the least.

  MacInnis’s wife was there along with a man he didn’t recognize. They were standing next to the smaller bed in the room, the one Sophie had slept on the night before, and Cortez’s gaze immediately found Diamantha seated next to the little bed. Sophie was laying on it, bundled up, until all he could see was her little face. She appeared to be sleeping and, as he entered the room, he realized that the hearth was blazing and it was very warm in the chamber. It was cloying.