The Stone Rose

by Carol Townend

  ‘Hell! It has to be Malait.’

  He released her, and she rubbed her arm. ‘I don’t know him by name,’ she said, throwing a worried glance at the yawning entrance.

  ‘What was he riding?’

  ‘What? Oh, a grey.’

  ‘Thin and bony? Long in the leg? Looks barely able to hold him up.’

  ‘That’s the one.’ The entrance was still clear.

  ‘Hell. De Roncier has such a horse, and for some reason Malait favours him.’ His voice was low and fuelled Gwenn’s fear. ‘Otto Malait is as hard as nails, mistress. A dangerous enemy.’

  ‘He’s not my enemy!’

  ‘You’d best pray you’re right.’ Striding over, he thrust a soggy bundle of rags at her. ‘Here, I tripped over this. Is this what you’re after?’

  Gwenn accepted the bundle with a cautious lifting of her heart. Perhaps le Bret was not after the jewel...

  ‘Hurry.’ The wind and thunder were reaching a peak. ‘If it is Malait out there, we may not have much time.’

  Unwrapping the sodden bundle, Gwenn felt the familiar shape of her grandmother’s statue rest chill in her hand. ‘This is it,’ she said, smiling. ‘We can go.’

  Alan le Bret shook his head. He loomed over her, standing so close that his breath fanned her cheek. ‘Open it,’ he demanded, in clipped tones.

  Her heart sank. Holding the statue tight to her breast, she retreated.

  Le Bret took another step towards her. ‘Open it, girl, or, by God, you’ll regret it.’

  ‘You...devil! You...mercenary–’

  ‘Do it.’

  She thought quickly. There was little to be gained from antagonising him over the sunstone. She gave what she hoped was a casual shrug and held it out to him. ‘You do it. It’s too stiff for me.’

  He was startled that she should give it up so easily; the brief hesitation before he lifted the statue from her hands betrayed that. ‘How?’

  Her mother had told her what to do. ‘Twist the statue in this direction,’ she mimed the movement, ‘and the wooden plinth in the other.’

  He drew in a breath and pulled. There was a slight resistance and then the two sections came apart with a creak. A small object plummeted into the earth. Dropping both statue and cedar wood base, Alan fell to his knees, and groped – a beast in the mire.

  ‘Got it!’ he said, plucking impatiently at the strings of the leather pouch. The crystal rolled into his palm, hard and cold as steel. It captured the pale light and drew it into its heart, where it was muted before being thrown out again. It glowed dully, like flawed lake-ice on a sunny January day. ‘Got it!’

  Gwenn gazed at the diamond-shaped stone on Alan le Bret’s palm. Yolande had warned her that the sunstone did not shine brightly like spring water, and that was indeed so. Le Bret, who would not meet her eyes, apparently had not noticed. But then the light was weak, and he had not known what to expect. He saw what he wanted to see.

  ‘Do you want to keep that, Alan le Bret?’

  Strong, bitten, soldier’s fingers snapped over the stone, and the feeble glow was snuffed out. He climbed to his full height and turned his head towards her, but would only look at her shoulder.

  ‘If you want it,’ she continued softly, ‘I’ll give it to you.’

  ‘Give?’ The darkness shielded his expression.

  ‘I’m not prepared to die for a rock.’

  The sudden stillness of his body told her she had shocked him. A hand came up and a finger feathered across her cheek. Gwenn drew back, and his hand fell. ‘I wouldn’t have killed you for the gem, little Blanche,’ he said reproachfully.

  She caught his gaze. ‘I would like to believe that, Alan le Bret, but then I would have liked to believe that you were an honest man.’

  He swung on his heel. ‘Don’t fix those big, brown eyes on me like that, curse you.’

  ‘Like what?’ she asked, sweetly.

  He flung her a withering look. ‘You know, mistress. You may be a child, but you know very well. I’ve told you before, you’re wasting your time preaching to me. I’m a lost soul.’

  Outside, the wind howled and whistled. There was thunder too, much muffled by the roof of heaped earth and stones. ‘I wonder if you are as much of a devil as you would like to think. Like it or not, you have a conscience.’

  He waved a closed fist under her nose. ‘You forget, I have the stone.’

  ‘Aye, you have it. But what do you have? What is that stone’s true worth?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The stone is pretty, Alan le Bret, but it belongs to the past. Your friend out there,’ she jerked her head towards the mouth of the cave, ‘his ancestors would have valued it. Today, it’s worthless – a lump of crystal, no diamond.’

  Alan stared into the girl’s large eyes, but they were as soft and open and honest as always. A hard hand clenched in his stomach, and he was horribly certain that Gwenn Herevi was telling the truth. Slowly he uncurled his fingers. ‘Worthless?’

  She lifted it from his palm, and nodded. ‘It’s a sunstone.’

  ‘A sunstone?’ He let out an oath that burned Gwenn’s ears. ‘What the hell is a sunstone?’

  ‘A sunstone tells you where the sun is on a cloudy day. You hold it up to the clouds and when you have it pointed it at the spot where the sun is hiding, you can see a rainbow in it.’

  ‘Rainbow? Jesu! What children’s tale is this? What of the diamond?’ he demanded, roughly. ‘Is there a diamond?’

  He had backed her into a place where the only road open was a liar’s one. Boldly, Gwenn stepped onto it, fighting to keep her features from betraying her. ‘There was, once. But you’ve seen my father’s manor. You have remarked on the poor quality of his horses. My father is not a rich man. The jewel was–’

  ‘Sold?’

  She nodded, obscurely relieved that she had not had to speak the false words aloud.

  ‘Well, isn’t that lovely?’ he drawled with ponderous sarcasm. ‘We could have done with a sunstone to light our way this morning. Come, Mistress Blanche, let’s get out of this stinking tomb. I’ll take you home.’

  ‘You will? I...I thought you’d abandon me, lest I should betray your intentions.’

  ‘It had occurred to me. But I won’t escort you the whole way. As you may have guessed, I’m bound...elsewhere, but it’s no burden to take you to the crossroads just east of Kermaria. My road goes that way.’

  ‘My thanks,’ Gwenn murmured. Her assessment of him was not so wide of the mark. A man who had completely lost his soul would have tossed her in a ditch and run off with her father’s horses, worn-out nags though they were. ‘You don’t want to come back with me? My father did offer you work.’

  ‘No.’ He gave her one of his oblique smiles. ‘I’ve burnt my bridges as far as your family is concerned, mistress.’

  ‘If,’ she hesitated, ‘if you wanted to stay, I’d not say a word against you.’

  For a heartbeat he stood stock-still, and then he bowed over her hand with perfect, heartrending gallantry. ‘My thanks, sweet Blanche, but I have other plans.’

  ‘You don’t trust me. You think I will betray you.’

  ‘No.’ His tone was curt. ‘I do trust you, mistress, and there are not many I could say that to. But I’ll not stay. Here,’ he stooped for the statue, ‘take your blasted rock and we can be on our way.’ Impatiently he rubbed his bad leg while Gwenn replaced the sunstone in its compartment. He led her to the entrance. ‘Up you go.’

  A stream of water was pouring down the steps, making them slippery. Gwenn went a couple of paces and drew up, like a balky horse.

  ‘What now?’ Alan groaned. She was flattened against the entrance wall, shaking her head. Screwing his eyes against the cutting rain, Alan saw a domed metal helmet and broad shoulders shift against the tempestuous sky. ‘Malait!’ he exclaimed. ‘So it was you she saw!’

  Otto gave his former colleague a shadow of a smile. ‘Grazing on your green pastures, le Bret?’ Wa
ter trickled down the point of a dagger in the Viking’s left hand. An axe as heavy as Thor’s hammer swung on a thong from his waist, his right hand rested casually on its ivory haft.

  Alan’s sword hissed free of its sheath.

  Gwenn screamed. ‘No!’ A jagged javelin of lightning flew across the sky. Above them, a cloud burst, sending false tears streaming down the Norseman’s face. ‘No!’ Gwenn’s second cry was lost as the wind worried the branches of a nearby oak.

  Roughly, Alan pushed Gwenn behind him and heard her stumble back into the dolmen. ‘What do you want, Malait?’

  Blocking the entrance with his brawn, Otto didn’t mince his words, ‘Where’s the statue?’

  Alan laughed. ‘Show him, mistress.’

  She moved slowly. ‘Here.’

  The Norseman grabbed the carving. ‘De Roncier kept me in the dark. I was commanded to look for a holy statue. Enlighten me.’

  ‘Twist the base from the stone,’ Alan said. There was a splintering noise. ‘No need to break it.’

  But he spoke too late. Tossing both statue and wooden shards aside, Otto weighed the sunstone in his hand. ‘Is this it? I’m keeping it.’ He tucked the stone into his pouch, concluding that it had to be what Marie de Roncier was panting for, not the holy icon. It must be worth a king’s ransom. Otto made slits of his eyes. ‘No objections, le Bret? It’s not like you to surrender easily. Is there more you’re hiding?’

  Alan resisted the temptation to exchange glances with the girl. ‘More? I only wish there were,’ he said, hoping he sounded convincing. He lifted his shoulders and, keeping his eyes on his former comrade, sheathed his sword. Limping to where the statue lay embedded in the mud, he gouged it out and handed it to Gwenn. Her fingers were like icicles. ‘My leg’s too painful for a fight, Malait,’ he continued, candidly. ‘I’m not a fool to let you make dog meat of me. I’ll be content with escorting Mistress Gwenn home. Do we have your permission to leave?’

  The Norseman glowered past thick brows at his former associate. He flattered himself that he knew Alan le Bret as well as any man, for they had diced away many a long evening together. Le Bret always wore that look when he was certain he was winning. But le Bret had relinquished the stone without so much as a murmur. Otto patted his pouch; he had the jewel the Countess craved. He had won this round. So why did he have a nagging suspicion that he was being played for an ass? ‘Come here, wench,’ he said.

  Gwenn planted her feet firmly in the mud and stared a refusal.

  ‘Come here, I say.’ Otto took a threatening step towards her, but Alan barred his way.

  ‘Leave the maid alone, Malait.’

  ‘What ails you, le Bret? Turning into the white crusader?’

  ‘She’s only a child. Leave her alone.’

  Malait rolled a contemptuous eye. ‘Becoming quite the nursemaid in your dotage aren’t you, le Bret? Where’s the pretty boy, Fletcher? Where’s your other charge?’

  Alan’s jaw tightened. ‘Shut your filthy mouth.’

  A blinding explosion of lightning bleached their faces. There came an almighty crack, an awesome tearing sound, and the ground quaked like Judgement Day. A scatter of pebbles tumbled down the entrance passage and came to rest in a puddle at the bottom. Rainwater trickled steadily in, filling the puddle.

  Paddling to the entrance, Alan peered up the stairs. ‘An oak has fallen across the steps,’ he said. Gwenn Herevi waded after him and he felt an icy hand slip into his.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  He barely caught her low whisper, and threw her a sideways glance. ‘Afraid of the storm, Mistress Blanche?’

  Her head was downbent. ‘My name is Gwenn. And no, storms don’t frighten me. But devils do.’

  Alan let his fingers curl round hers; such tiny, delicate icicles. ‘Didn’t you say I was a devil?’ he murmured. Her head came up, and a shy smile caught him off-guard, warming his belly.

  ‘You know what they say, Alan le Bret. Better the devil you know...’ She flung an expressive look in the Viking’s direction.

  ‘You flatter me,’ Alan said with a snort of appreciative laughter. Keeping a wary eye on Otto, he loosed Gwenn’s hand while he twisted his injured leg safely out of the draught. It was bone-chilling. Gwenn wrapped her arms round her middle and kept close. ‘Decided you like me?’ he couldn’t resist enquiring.

  ‘Aye...I mean... No. Th...that is...’

  Laughing, he reclaimed her hand. ‘You’re only a baby, aren’t you?’

  Gwenn considered snatching her hand away, but her fear of Malait prevented her.

  The cold and damp were playing havoc with Alan’s leg. Ignoring the Norseman who seemed to be lost in thought at the bottom of the steps, Alan dropped his cloak onto a relatively dry spot. ‘We’ll sit here and wait out the tempest.’ Pulling Gwenn down with him, he eased his leg.

  Otto glowered half-heartedly at them, a seed of an idea germinating in his mind. He resented the fact that his lord had misled him by not mentioning the jewel. He fell to speculating how much it was worth. He knew a goldsmith in Vannes with a loose enough tongue if it was oiled with liberal quantities of wine...

  ‘I’m going,’ he said, though a weak thread of suspicion held him back. ‘Why is it that I feel as though you’ve stolen a march on me, le Bret?’

  The grey eyes opened wide.

  Malait placed a capacious boot on the bottom step. ‘I never forget a slight, le Bret. I’ll come looking for you if I find you’ve bested me.’ He threw Alan a look that would have frozen the blood of Lancelot himself and tramped up the steps into the teeth of the worsening storm. He grunted as he forced his bear-like bulk past the fallen tree, and then he was gone.

  Gwenn sighed, and kept her hand tucked in Alan’s. He found no reason to disengage himself. The concubine’s daughter was only a child. No threat. After some time, the child lifted her head and spoke.

  ‘Did you learn what you wanted to learn?’

  ‘Eh?’ Alan had been in another world, a world where he never had to worry where the next coin was coming from. He had been dreaming.

  ‘The people whose tracks you followed.’

  ‘Oh.’ She had caught him unawares, she seemed to make a habit of that. Alan thought swiftly; he had indeed learned something, but he did not want to inform this chit of a girl. He had seen riders with their cloaks fastened down, and had known instantly that they were more intent on concealing the colours emblazoned on their surcoats, than of escaping the icy wind. The angels had sided with him – as he had taken cover behind a lichen-encrusted boulder, a helpful gust had lifted one of the riders’ cloaks high over his head. The flapping material caused a squire to lose control of his mount, the animal had reared, and in the ensuing tangle Alan was granted a clear sight of their colours. The unfortunate squire had a chastening whip slashed across his face for his sins.

  ‘Ermine,’ he had mused, ‘that’s Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany. And the Count of Toulouse – Toulouse, here?’ What had he stumbled upon? The high rank of the participants in this clandestine rendezvous warned of deadly secrets. There was a third lord in the group, whose coat of arms had remained covered. Surprisingly, given their high rank, the other noblemen seemed to be deferring to him. This lord wore heavy rings over richly embroidered gauntlets. His cloak was lined with priceless sables, and fastened securely with golden clasps. His face was muffled. Not a glimpse of a colour peeped out, but in all probability the man was too important to wear colours himself. Then a stray finger of wind lifted the mantle of the squire at the nobleman’s elbow. There was a brief flash of gold and crimson. On seeing the colours, Alan’s innards dissolved, and he jerked himself out of sight behind his rock. What he had seen was the royal lion of England. The other participant in this furtive meeting was none other than His Grace, Henry, the Young King of England – Duke Geoffrey’s older brother.

  Gwenn shifted restlessly beside him, her face turned expectantly to his. ‘Who were those people?’

  Alan hunted for a p
lausible lie. ‘It was nothing out of the way,’ he said. ‘The local nobility out hawking.’

  She lost interest. Pushing back her hood, she tugged off her veil. ‘The wretched thing’s soaking.’ Against all the odds, her voice was sleepy. A diminutive hand came up to hide a yawn, and her dark head drooped against his shoulder. ‘Wake me when it’s time to go home.’ And, child that she was, a heartbeat later she was asleep.

  Alan resigned himself to a long wait. After a spell he was forced to flex his leg, for it burned like fire. No doubt he would have cause to regret offering to escort the girl back. He winced. As far as he was concerned this past month had been one tedious chronicle of disaster. First he had broken his leg; but he’d managed to discount that, thinking of the profit he’d make when he took the jewel. Only today he had discovered that he had broken his leg in vain. He’d gained nothing from the whole business, not even so much as a clipped penny.

  Gwenn stirred in her sleep. Her hair was glossy even in this feeble light. Her head hung at an awkward angle. Gently, Alan eased his hand free of hers, and draped his arm round her shoulders, turning her so that her face rested more comfortably against his chest. She gave a contented sigh. Such faith. Alan found himself wondering whether she would grow up to be pretty. He thought so.

  Alan turned his mind to the royal brothers who had met in this place: Duke Geoffrey of Brittany and the Young King Henry of England. What were they planning? The Plantaganets were not noted for their unity. He had heard – who in Christendom had not heard? – how the Young King and Duke Geoffrey were constantly in rebellion against their father. In order to safeguard the succession, Henry of England had had his eldest son, who confusingly was also christened Henry, crowned during his lifetime. But the Royal House of England was a house divided, and the Young King was not a loyal son. Aided by his mother, the redoubtable Eleanor of Aquitaine, the Young King had stirred up rebellion after rebellion against his father. What was he up to now? Another quarrel over land? Now if Alan could only ally himself with men like those, that would be a challenge. Those men held the future in the palm of their hands; men like Jean St Clair did not. St Clair was poor; the royal brothers must have money, fresh-minted silver to buy new recruits. Alan wondered how he might approach them.