Adela shook her head. Not that she feared Alys’s wrathful spirit, but the horror she had witnessed needed to be dealt with. Except for the pearl ring, she rolled the gem casket back in the kirtle. ‘We need to be on our way. The brigands may be looking for survivors.’
The older woman gathered up her loot. ‘North to England, then?’
‘No, east. That’s where Mirascon lies.’
‘Mirror-scone!’ Maud grabbed her arm. ‘Why there?’
‘Because …’ It was a dream drawing her, the dream of a paradise where the common people were treated well. ‘Because Lord Richart might reward us for bringing him Lady Alys’s jewels.’
‘Ha! More likely hang us.’
‘Oh, Maud, Mirascon is closer than England. Let’s wait until we come to a crossroads and then decide. I am certain there must be pilgrim roads that cross these woods from north to south. We shall be sure to come across travellers who can tell us how far it is to the nearest town.’
‘Aye, if we live that long. You any use at dealing with wolves, then, Adela?’
‘No, what about you?’
‘Only human ones. I ain’t shot a crossbow in my life, but seems like I’m about to learn.’
Despite her weariness of spirit, Adela smiled. ‘Maud, you are a blessing. With these things you’ve brought, we shall survive.’ In her heart, however, she knew that their chances were small indeed.
It was not the time of year for hazelnuts or sweet chestnuts, haws or briar berries, nor were there chanterelles or wood blewits. If Maud had salvaged a pannikin, they could have boiled the young nettle shoots. Instead, they chewed young leaves from beech trees and piss-in-a-beds, plundered a scrape of twigs that held pigeon eggs, and nipped off buds of broom hoping they’d not be bewitched, yet hunger still plagued their bellies. At dusk, they managed to shoot one miserable rabbit, but it took over an hour to spark the kindling into fire and they were afeared all the while that the smell of smoke might draw the robbers.
Within three days all the bolts had been lost. Optimistic she might spear an eel or fish, Adela made a staff from a straight sapling. When Maud refused to let her cut strips from Lady Alys’s gown to bind one of the knives onto the staff, Adela hacked her own waistcloth into ribbons, wove them into a cord and bound that tightly round the haft of the blade.
At the next rivulet they came to, she waded in with her skirt hoicked up around her thighs. If she caught an eel, they had no salt for skinning it, so they would have to risk making a fire.
‘Come on, even a frog or tadpole would be welcome,’ growled Maud, settling down with her back against a tree. ‘I was never so hungry.’
‘I think I just saw a trout.’
‘Then spear the perishin’ thing, sweetheart.’
‘No, there’s a better way perhaps.’ The shady water below a jut of grassy bank, not far from Maud’s feet, looked the most likely place to tickle a trout, so scrambling along, Adela eased down onto her front and slithered forward to dangle her arms in the water. The sun was warm upon her shoulders as she waited for the brush of fin against her fingertips. In truth, her belly was gurgling with hunger louder than the trickling stream. No plump trout came to lurk and after a little space she heard something more sinister. It came again. She paused, listening harder, then with soft footsteps, she sped back to Maud.
Setting a warning hand upon her friend’s lips, she shook her awake and pointed. Maud twisted slowly, cautiously, into a crouch and passed her the staff. Silent, tense, they waited, and then they saw—not an outlaw stalking them but a she-boar foraging in the leaves with a retinue of young. Its ear was ripped from past warfare and one cheek bore the scar of a hunter’s spear. It made pretence of sniffing the air, but it was eyeing them now with the same malevolence that King John might have reserved for his Breton prisoners.
O, St Jude help us, prayed Adela, struggling to clear her fearful mind. She had seen a villager die from being gored in the belly. Desperate, she dropped on one knee, grasping the staff with its pointed head at an angle.
‘Run, Maud!’ she growled through her teeth. One of them might be killed if they did not separate, but Maud seemed frozen. ‘RUN!’
‘I plaguey can’t.’
‘Then climb a ruddy tree, Maud! Now! NOW!’ Adela rose swiftly as if to flee and beside her the laundress scrambled up and ran.
With a snort, the beast charged. Mouth open to bite.
Time slowed. If the Almighty wanted her to die unshriven now, so be it! Somewhere Maud was shrieking and then the boar hit her and the sun went out.
‘Oy! Adela, lovekin, can you hear me?’ Anxious hands were dragging her onto her side. ‘Oh, lordy, lordy.’ Frantic fingers slapped her left cheek. ‘Don’t say you are dying, sweetheart. Talk to me! Where are you hurting?’
Adela’s mind surfaced hazily. ‘I’m …’ Yes, she was still alive and … Opening her eyes, she glimpsed Maud’s face wet with tears before she saw the bloodied dagger in the woman’s hand. Dear God! She blinked down at the bright scarlet spattering her breast. ‘Ohhh! Changed your mind about the jewels?’ she quipped, trying to rise.
Relief rushed though the older woman’s face and a firm hand held her down. ‘No, but I might if you don’t lie still, yer dafty.’
Adela squinted down at her bloody clothing. ‘I-I don’t feel any pain. Is that good or bad?’
‘Let’s have a look, shall we? I tell you that was the bravest thing I ever saw. You killed the beast.’
‘I did?’ Turning her head, Adela saw the boar lying on its side. Flies were already crawling over wounds on its breast and flank. Poor creature, it was only protecting its young. ‘I … I somehow managed to fling myself sideways,’ she muttered, winging a silent prayer of gratitude heavenwards. ‘And you, you finished it off.’
‘Ha! Keep still!’ Maud was gingerly peeling back her chemise. ‘There’s bruising, but … the blood, it’s the beast’s.’ She crossed herself in relief. ‘Saints be praised! Next brook we come to, you can have a good dunking. Meanwhile, here’s dinner. You rest now.’
Adela was content to leave Maud to skin the beast. At least they might assuage their hunger and light a fire, but it was not only flies that were lured by the stink of blood. As Maud sat back satisfied with her task, the sound in the undergrowth had Adela instantly alert.
‘Oh sweet Jesu!’ she cried, grabbing Maud’s shoulder. ‘We’ve company yonder. Leave it to them for the love of Heaven!’
Gathering up their bundles, they fled.
‘Them wolves may come after us still, what with you all bloodied,’ panted Maud as they stopped for breath. Adela squinted down at the encrusted dark stains. She did not want to reach Mirascon looking like a butcher’s apprentice. ‘The next brook,’ she promised, glad that the day was so warm.
It was a relief to peel off the fouled clothing. After washing herself, she then swirled the convent kirtle in the flowing water. Even with vigorous rubbing, the stain was obvious.
‘You’re never going to struggle back into that ugly thing, are you?’ Maud exclaimed as Adela sat back with an exasperated groan. ‘It was gruesome enough before you left Bordeaux. Put this on instead.’ She dangled Lady Alys’s robe enticingly. ‘No? And why not, pray?’
Adela was horrified. ‘It seems like sacrilege.’
‘You think the haughty cow would have hesitated if she were in your shoes?’
‘I suppose not, but …’
‘But nothing. Take off that old chemise, too, or you’ll die of heat.’ Making a nest shape, she pushed the soft silk over Adela’s head and helped her into the sleeves. ‘How does it feel?’
‘Hmm, warm but so soft, like it’s caressing me.’
‘Aye, like a second skin, I daresay. The colour becomes you, but it’s a tad long.’
Adela cut an unsullied part of her old discarded skirt into a bag to wrap about Alys’s jewels coffer before they set off again. Walking proved more awkward now; carrying the staff in her right hand, she needed to hug the coffer
with her left arm as well as grip a fistful of skirt to keep from tripping. All too soon the pretty hem became scuffed with pulled threads, embroidered with grass seeds and purfiled with grime.
However, it was not just the silk that was fraying now. The wild wood was giving way and soon they beheld hay meadows stretching up the slopes towards them and a broad valley opening up to the east. A double line of hedges hinted at a cart track. Out of the tree cover at last, Adela felt like a woodland bird, exposed beneath the open sky, but there was no evil in the harebells and golden daisies in the lush grass. Only a horsefly, eager for blood, darted jerkily round them as they traipsed down through the long grass to the valley floor.
‘I’m surprised there’s no sign of a cottage or byre,’ muttered Maud as they neared the track. ‘Not that I’m anxious to meet the inhabitants, but the insides of my belly are definitely on kissin’ acquaintance.’
‘There must be a village soon, I’m sure.’ Adela sighed. Finding a cow or ewe would have been welcome; they could have squirted milk into their mouths from the udders. She stooped and plucked a handful of clover flowers to suck, but the scant sweetness was like a single crumb to a beggar. ‘At least we have no mistress to please. Don’t you feel a sense of freedom? Anything is possible.’
‘Ha!’
Save for a billygoat complaining somewhere, the warm, hazy air was drowsy and quiet. Dust coated the flowers edging the track, but beyond the ditches on either side, lumbering humblebees with sacks hanging from their haunches were blissfully cropping the summer pollens. Plentiful butterflies—dusty blues and cloudy yellows—like winged sprites, danced indifferently between the candelabras of cow parsley and tufts of butterbur, heedless of Maud’s grumbling. For sure, the leafy ground of the woods had been kinder to their feet than this stony road. What Adela yearned for was a Good Samaritan (looking like Richart of Mirascon) with a leather flask of ale upon his belt, buttery loaves, creamy cheeses and cherries. Yes, cherries.
By the time it would have taken to sit through a Holy Mass, they came to a crossroads. A little shrine to Our Lady presided there, and beneath the plinth was a board painted with the scallop shell of St James. A scatter of small pebbles for kneeling pilgrims surrounded the base. Time for a prayer of gratitude for their deliverance and a tribute of wild flowers? No, the wrong time. A company of churchmen, flanked by armed retainers, burst out of the nearby woods flanking the northern track.
‘Out of the road!’ snarled the escort captain as the party slowed. Adela sprang back from his whip, the plea for help withering upon her tongue as the party swung eastwards without a backward glance. The face of the sour prelate in their midst—no humble ass for him—could have been hewn from Purbeck stone.
‘May you get boils on your nether parts,’ Maud yelled, wiping the dust from her face. ‘Foreign maggot! Look at me now! Worse than a floured griddlecake ready for baking.’
They trudged on, thirst afflicting them. Wearily, Adela cursed, too. Lady Alys’s plenteous sleeves and long skirt were meant for decorous riding, not for walking, and the day was becoming hotter than a castle kitchen.
‘This might be fairyland for some, but I ain’t goin’ a step further. Not for a while at any rate,’ decreed Maud as they passed beneath the shade of a grove of beeches, and, without a please-you, she collapsed into the long grass, spread-eagled like a St Andrew’s Cross, her reddened feet at odds with the white flesh of her calves.
Choosing a nearby tree for a backrest, Adela found a switch of leaves to fan herself. ‘If this is a valley, there have to be streams, even a river.’
‘Further over perhaps, chicken, but we didn’t see one and I ain’t goin’ off this road. I’ve ’ad enough of wanderin’ hungry. All it needs is Satan to come up and offer me a plate of food, and I’ll give ’im my soul. How the Blessed Christ managed it for forty days is beyond me.’
‘Well, he had God his Father to help him.’
‘You reckon? Wasn’t he supposed to manage on his own and see how he got on?’
‘Oh, Maud, the last thing I need is a discussion on God’s purpose.’
‘Helps pass the time though, don’t it? My tongue’s about the only thing that can move at the moment and my mouth’s as dry as—Well, same for you, I guess.’
‘It will be cooler later and we can travel until dusk.’
For a while they drowsed—Maud snoring like some old grandfather—but then the drumming of hooves roused them. It was only one rider, a courier, judging by the leather box strapped to his back and the stiff riding shields over his shins. With an amiable grin, the young man made no attempt to avoid the two women hallooing him. He obediently drew rein and greeted them cheerfully in Occitan.
‘Young sir,’ Adela replied in her best Norman French. ‘Are you bound for Mirascon?’
He replied to her in the same tongue. ‘You mean the city? Yes, mistress, indeed I am.’
‘Pray you, then, tell Lord Richart that we are all that are left of his bride’s retinue.’ At her words, the lad’s eyes widened in concern and he began to dismount. ‘No,’ Adela forbade him. ‘Just carry the message to my lord straightway and pray him of his mercy to send us succour.’
He gave her a nod and gathered up the reins. ‘You will come to a wooden bridge in half a mile. Please you, wait there.’ With a salute, he gave spur.
‘Oooh, just another half a mile,’ Maud mimicked, batting away the cloud of dust he left in his wake. ‘He has a ruddy horse!’
‘But at last Mirascon,’ declared Adela. ‘God willing!’
Chapter Eight
However perfect someone may be, yet they may fall into temptations …
Peter Abelard to Héloïse
Glistening in gold upon the rippling banners of blue ciclatoun was the crossed-swords insignia of Richart, Vicomte of Mirascon. He had dispatched help, but it had taken hours and there was no need for the musicians.
‘Christ save us!’ whispered Maud, falling to her knees, her lips drawn tight in awe. ‘He’s sent a blessed army.’
‘They’ve probably been in readiness. We were supposed to arrive several days ago, remember.’
The foremost riders astride fine mounts were of noble birth, judging by their golden adornments and clothes of costly scarlet. Behind them, mounted on amblers, the lesser in rank were clad in dull reds of cheaper dye with silver badges stitched upon their tunics. In their midst Adela glimpsed the cream canopy of a women’s chariot with several other wagons in its wake. The procession slowed and the loping minstrels reassembled and began to play once more.
Where was Richart of Mirascon? The leading lord, whom she recognised from Corfe, was staring at her through narrowed eyes. Rebelliously, Adela stood her ground, hugging the coffer to her breast. Although she was no serf to grovel before this man, it needed every drop of courageous blood to keep her shoulders straight and look him in the face.
‘What if they don’t believe us?’ wailed Maud, tugging at her skirt.
‘We had better make sure they do.’
‘Well, from now on I’m speaking naught but English, that way they can’t question me.’
As the noblemen walked their horses closer, Adela’s confidence teetered. Oh, there was such hauteur in their faces. Her starved gaze beheld the costly saddlecloths, the jewelled collars across the men’s shoulders and the expensive scabbards that gleamed upon their thighs. Their riches made her feel even more like a tightened tabor skin—primed for a beating! Would they believe her? But what if she could show her learning, pass for a companion of the dead woman? She wanted respect, not further servitude.
The procession halted, close enough for her to see the arching of eyebrows. Lips, framed by clipped moustaches and neat beards, jutted warily. Irritability definitely creased the forehead of the noble who led the company. He kneed his white horse forward, clearly not prepared to dirty his boot soles unless it was worthwhile.
Adela curtsied with dignity, her curled hand at her heart, and it was the southerner who broke his gaz
e away first. At some imperceptible command, a groom ran up to hold his master’s horse and the elegant lord dismounted and came to stand before her. He coughed a fraction disdainfully as if to show his companions that his first disgust at these strangers might be justified.
‘We seek the Lady Alys.’ A curt bow.
‘Whom am I addressing, seigneur?’ Adela replied in perfect Norman French.
The noble’s haughtiness thawed somewhat. ‘Sir Tibaut de Saint-Pons, cousin to Richart, Lord of Mirascon.’
‘Seigneur Tibaut, I regret to tell you that we alone survived the journey.’
‘Dieu!’ He recoiled. ‘Pestilence?’ His gloved hand darted up to defend his nostrils.
‘No, seigneur, brigands. We were set upon several days ago and have been forced to make the rest of the journey on foot.’
As Sir Tibaut gravely repeated this to his companions, she almost felt sorry for them. All this splendour to no purpose. At least the dismal tidings had punctured their arrogance. Observation of the bruise on her forehead, the dust on her feet, and her far-from-pale complexion was now performed with sympathy.
‘My lord Vicomte will be most distressed to learn of this misfortune,’ Sir Tibaut assured her. ‘Have no doubt that he will hunt these felons to the death.’ He unfastened a leather flask from his belt, removed the stopper and offered it courteously. The greatest gift she could ask for.
Adela received it solemnly, restrained herself from taking more than a few swallows and then before his haughtiness could object, she passed it to Maud.
‘Have the dowry chests arrived?’ she asked to distract him.
‘Yes, indeed, ma domna,’ he began and then remembered to slide once more into the langue d’oeuil of northern France. ‘They arrived from Gascony two days ago.’
‘I am relieved to hear it,’ she answered.
Her innocent reply seemed to spark some decision in Sir Tibaut. He gave a swift, imperious signal to the company behind him. With a rattle of harness and babble of astonishment, the southern lords slid from the saddles and a clutch of demoiselles hatched from the curtained chariot. At first she thought they might turn the procession around until she realised her error. Everyone was paying courtesy to her. The demoiselles’ names were like the whisper of prayers: Fabrisse, València, Arsendis and an older woman, Marie.
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