by Susan King
The escort entered the forest, passing along a wide, tree-arched path shaded with cool green light. Nicholas could feel his body relaxing gradually as the forest began to work its usual magic on him. As always, the soothing sounds of birdsong and rustling leaves, the fragrant air and bright, warm sun shafts deftly kneaded the tense knots from his muscles and his mood. This was where he truly felt most at ease, though he had performed some dangerous deeds within forests.
He would come back to the greenwood as soon as he could, once the children were settled at Hawksmoor, and once he had gained some rest and determined how long before he would have to ride to London.
Smiling to himself, Nicholas allowed that, just perhaps, his father was wise to beware the forest. At least for a little while longer.
Chapter Six
In the end, the windows remained at Ashbourne. Impatient to join their fellows at Graymere Keep, Whitehawke’s guards did not wait for a carpenter to be summoned from the village, and quickly bungled the task of removing the pins that secured the wooden frames. After one of the arched glass panels cracked, Emlyn hotly declared to Hugh de Chavant that leaving the windows at Ashbourne was preferable to losing them altogether.
Chavant, whose wall-eyed, lopsided glare made her distinctly uncomfortable, had been charged with ensuring the safe arrival at Graymere of Whitehawke’s new bride. But when the weather produced solid sheets of rain that turned the roads to muddy strips, the trip north became a treacherous and soggy prospect. They were forced to postpone travel for almost a week.
Emlyn was satisfied with the extra time, for Ashbourne’s planting season had begun. She spent many hours in consultation with Wat, discussing crops, tallying the counts of newborn lambs on the surrounding farms, and assisting in decisions for each tenant farm regarding how many sheep were to be sold at market or kept for another season of growing. With so much debt at Ashbourne, the income from raw wool was especially important now.
Even as she resisted the idea of becoming Whitehawke’s wife, Emlyn nevertheless dutifully prepared for her unwelcome wedding. Gowns of bright silks and embroidered samite, old-fashioned in cut and once made for her taller mother, were brought out of storage. Skilled needlewomen fitted Emlyn and remade the gowns in a newer style, close to the torso and snug at the wrists.
Emlyn and the maidservant Jehanne sorted and packed, filling a few wooden chests with garments rolled in dried rose petals. Her embroidery frame was dismantled and packed in a wooden casket with cloth and yarns. New sheets were hastily sewn from bolts of white linen found in one of the storerooms as a concession to Jehanne, who grumbled that if the earl had been years without a wife, there was no telling the state of his bedchamber.
The thought of sharing a bed with the earl had sent cold dread through Emlyn.
Carefully rolling the leaves of Guy’s manuscript in silk, she stacked them in a chest to be kept at Ashbourne and sent for later, once she was settled. Wrapping some brushes and pigment pots in chamois leather and old parchments, she put them into a leather satchel to bring with her. As an afterthought she added spare garments in the roomy bag: a thick blue cloak and a gray wool gown, a chemise, woolen hose, and a linen headdress.
In bright, cold sunshine, twelve days after her siblings had left, Emlyn bid Wat farewell and rode beneath the portcullis, her green cloak fanned over her horse’s withers. Dry-eyed, her expression stony, she left Ashbourne, followed by three loaded carts and over a dozen guards.
Riding through a dismal gray mist on the third day, Emlyn pulled her cloak tighter and snuggled deep into the thick warmth of her hood. Her gauzy headdress brushed against her jaw and throat, and she tucked her chin down, welcoming the cocoon of veil and cloak and hood, feeling as much lonely as chilled. Each footfall on this journey had increased the dread that sat like a great, cold stone in her heart. She rode to Graymere more prisoner than bride.
Jehanne sat in the wagon that rumbled alongside Emlyn’s horse, with the cart-driver, a young servantman from Ashbourne. While Hugh de Chavant cantered in the lead, the guards rode in solemn pairs, wearing the russet cloaks of Whitehawke’s garrison.
The caravan moved steadily through the fine, blurring drizzle. To one side, Emlyn saw a steep grassy slope, cluttered with stones. The incline fell away toward a valley floor, which was covered by wet clinging mists.
The quiet, but for the rhythmic footfalls of horses and the creaking and jingling of wooden wheels and metal armor, suited her present mood well: Emlyn was thinking. Riding her horse over the surging heathery ground, she had turned her thoughts inward, examining her situation as if it were a cut gem, each aspect a facet with a possible flaw.
If there had been enough gold to buy Guy’s freedom, none of this might have happened. She desperately wanted to be with the children, and every intuition she had warned against this marriage. Whitehawke, she sensed, would never allow the children to live with her, nor would he produce the coin to free Guy.
She gave her head a tiny hopeless shake. Women rarely, she knew, resisted marriage plans made by male relatives and overlords. Occasionally a woman who was very unhappy with a betrothal entered a convent for life, or even wed another man before the day. Both solutions were liable to bring down the wrath of the rejected party on the woman’s family.
Emlyn almost laughed out loud. Certes, no man existed who could marry her in Whitehawke’s stead. Her only choice was to claim a call to God and retire to a convent, though she already knew how unsuited she was to monastic life. For years, she had expected marriage, and had wanted a bond of friendship and respect such as her parents had known, a haven of peace suited to creating and loving.
Clearly, Whitehawke offered no haven. Though babes might come, there would be no peace, no love, no warmth of spirit with him. She would far rather find happiness in a farmer’s croft.
Stiff and uncomfortable after hours in the leather-covered wooden saddle, she shifted and sighed. Whitehawke’s disagreeable reputation was not the worst, she thought; at least he seemed penitent about his sins. He was wealthy and handsome, though much older. Emlyn could see where the son had inherited his height and build, and his tendency to blushing skin. She pushed the thought away.
But Whitehawke’s brutish and unyielding nature alarmed her most. Wat and Tibbie had both named him a cruel man. Even his son Nicholas had been cryptic but definite about his father’s sinfulness. How had the first wife died, she wondered, that the blame was fixed on Whitehawke? And why his peculiar penance?
Emlyn knew there was bitterness, laced with hate, between the father and son. Better she never married than wed into such a mean-spirited clan. But any defiance of the king’s orders was as risky as sailing full against an icy northern gale.
’Tis too late, she thought morosely; naught can interrupt the course of these wedding plans. Surrounded by the earl’s own guards, she rode straight to his keep.
Brooding unhappily, she listened trancelike to the rattle and chirp of the cart wheels. Suddenly a new thought burst in her mind like a hot spark. She straightened her spine with the shock of its clarity, and Nicholas de Hawkwood’s words in the mural stair came back to her.
She smiled a little. Perhaps there was a way to be with the children and be free of the betrothal. The idea was more foolish than dangerous, she realized, but no better solution had occurred to her. How ironic that Nicholas de Hawkwood had provided her the chance to thwart the king’s plans.
“My lady.” Jehanne’s voice interrupted her concentration.
“Aye?” Emlyn turned and smiled at Jehanne, who had offered to accompany her on the journey, sensibly pointing out the impropriety of one woman traveling with several soldiers for several days. Emlyn had been grateful for her company.
“My lady, the mist grows thick as soup, and we approach a forest,” Jehanne said. “Think you we will stop, rather than go on in such weather?” Her eyes were wide, and Emlyn was puzzled by the girl’s quavering tone.
Absorbed in her thoughts, Emlyn had not noti
ced that wet whorls of fog had begun to obscure the surrounding countryside. A forest loomed out of the mist, deep green, dark with rain.
“I know not, Jehanne,” she answered, and saw Jehanne frown. “What is wrong? Are you ill?”
“Oh, my lady, I do fear a journey in these white mists. Here in the northern places, the woods and moors be haunted.”
Emlyn sighed impatiently. “Jehanne, those are stories.”
“Aye, such as you have told yourself, ’round the great hearth come a snowy or rainy even. But where might such stories come from, my lady? Thomas has heard that the haunts are real.” Jehanne tapped the cart-driver on one shoulder. “Thom, tell Lady Emlyn what we spoke of,” she urged.
The young man, a servant from Ashbourne close in age to Emlyn and Jehanne, looked somberly at Emlyn and tipped his forelock. “My lady, me ma and uncles are from these moors, and I have heard the local tales of forest spirits and demons of the old evil. Sightings, there have been, even recently, of demons.”
Emlyn frowned. “The old evil, Thomas?”
“Aye, the old pagan evil, still practiced by some.”
Sensing the young man’s distinct uneasiness, Emlyn felt a frisson of apprehension, though she was convinced that such evil did not truly exist. Emlyn and her siblings had been taught acceptance, rather than fear, for the older ways. Their maternal grandmother had been of Celtic descent and had practiced old rituals and healing arts, combining them with a fervent Christian piety. The old pagan “evil” was simply a religion based on appreciating the goodness and giving nature of the earth, and could be easily and joyfully combined with Christian beliefs.
Thomas spoke again. “Do you know of the demon of the forest, Jack o’ the Green?”
Emlyn turned in surprise. “The Green Man? Every little child knows of him, Thomas, he is a legend, a silly figure in the mummer’s plays. A man in the village near Ashbourne, each May, hangs a wreath on his head and dances about, covered in flowers and leaves. ’Tis a common thing.”
Thomas nodded grimly. “My lady, here the Green Man is real. Many have seen him. He steals children, and sheep and pigs for his demonic purposes.”
Jehanne looked up, her brown eyes wide. “My lady, will aught happen to us out here?”
Emlyn shook her head and laughed softly. “We will surely be safe enough, for we are not children, nor do we have sheep or pigs. Besides, what sensible creature of any sort would venture out on such a wet day as this! You two are as full of fears as a dying man who imagines the devil sits on his bedstead!”
“Think you then, the Green Man is not real?” Jehanne asked.
Emlyn smiled, her eyes dancing. “The only Green Man I know is old Tye from the village. Remember the sweetmeats he would give us, and the juggling tricks he knew?”
“Chavant comes this way,” Jehanne said suddenly.
Emlyn looked up as Hugh de Chavant rode back along the escort line toward them. Although he was said to be among Whitehawke’s most trusted and able men, Emlyn had found him to be dull, with little humor and sly mannerisms.
Chavant drew up beside her and nodded briefly. “Lady Emlyn.” His independent eye wandered, sluggish and yellowed, away from the dark brown eye that gleamed at her now. “If you are fatigued, we will rest now. The forest should offer us some protection from the rain.”
Emlyn felt a vague unease whenever Chavant looked at her, even if both eyes were on her at once. “I can continue, my lord.” Secretly spinning the web of her new plan, she made a suggestion. “But we may stop at an abbey for shelter and hot food. I have an uncle at Wistonbury Abbey, not far from here.”
Chavant frowned, drawing his thick black brows together. “Wistonbury is to the south. Such a detour is not convenient, since we move northeast. Lord Whitehawke’s garrison would not find much welcome at that abbey. The weather worsens, and I fear ’twill turn to heavy rain later. I will offer you rest now, just under those trees, else we push ahead as quick as we can.”
Emlyn sighed. She had had enough of rain, mud, and the endless chilly miles the escort had covered. And if she could not stop at the abbey, her plan would not progress so easily as she had hoped. “I wish to stop at the abbey,” she insisted.
“We cannot do that. We can reach Graymere by nightfall if we travel quickly.” Chavant scowled. Emlyn found the effect on his eye interesting. “Were it not for the carts, my lady, we would have been there sooner. There will be no other stops.”
“As you wish, my lord.” She sighed, deciding to forgo the matter for now. Some instinct whispered that she should not force a request with Chavant.
He leaned forward confidentially. “We enter a forest, my lady, and I must tell you that it may abound with thieves.”
Emlyn looked up quickly. In truth, she thought, a band of forest thieves would be not unwelcome, were it not so far-fetched a possibility. Such a dilemma might afford her a chance to flee altogether. She bit anxiously at her lip.
Chavant smiled. “We will protect you, my lady. Lord Whitehawke has always demanded extra precautions in the forest. The men are well experienced in encounters with dangerous fiends.” He pulled himself up to his full height, which was not considerable. In his russet cloak, with his untidy dark hair sticking out around the edge of his mail hood, and his yellow-toned skin, he looked like a short, square rooster.
“Outlaws, my lord?” Forest outlaws had always piqued her interest. While she found such tales fascinating in general, she yearned to hear mention of one particular man. “A frightening prospect. Are there brigands in this area?”
His eye slid briefly away. “You need have no fears on this journey, Lady Emlyn. We can protect you.” With a gleam in his wobbly glance, he leaned toward her. “Only one outlaw dared to challenge Lord Whitehawke, but he was vanquished years ago.”
“Oh? I wonder if we at Ashbourne have heard of him.”
“He was called the Black Thorne, a surly young Saxon wolf-pup. He attacked every escort and supply wagon that came to and from Graymere Keep. We pursued him relentlessly, when I was first with the garrison. But Black Thorne disappeared about eight years ago, after he escaped Whitehawke’s guards. He has not been seen since that night.”
Emlyn’s heart thudded rapidly. At Ashbourne, years ago, they had heard a rumor of Thorne’s death. “Disappeared, my lord?”
“Long dead and gone, my lady, though we never found a body. The local villeins reported his death. He was like a wild dog on the earl, was the Thorne, and would not have suddenly let go without reason. Dead, aye, long ago.”
The girl who had adored the memory of a kind, handsome Saxon still existed deep within Emlyn. But now she was grown, and pledged to marry the bitter, angry old man who had caused Thorne’s death. Emlyn felt a tight knot form in her stomach.
“Why would he have attacked Lord Whitehawke so, my lord?”
Chavant shot her a wobbly look. His lazy eye had been, when she had first met him, disconcerting to watch. Now, from the peculiar slide of his glance, she knew he was displeased with her question. “As to why he stole numerous shipments, gold and fine things among them, we never knew, though Whitehawke supposed it had to do with the land dispute.” Chavant scratched at his scruffy chin stubble with blunt, grimy fingers.
“Land dispute?” She looked up curiously.
“Aye, between Whitehawke and the monks of two abbeys hereabouts, over sheep ranges and building rights in that dale below us. Arnedale, ’tis called, and lies just south of Hawksmoor and west of Graymere. These are matters that barons and clergy do often argue about, my lady. The Black Thorne was likely the son of a shepherd, or even a relative of an abbot or monk, who thought, like some, that Whitehawke was diminishing churchland.”
“Whose land is it? Has the dispute been settled?”
“ ’Tis Whitehawke’s legally, through his wife’s dowry. He awaits final word from the royal courts regarding his claim. ’Tis a formality only, after all these years.”
“With the Thorne gone, my lord, surely
this area is safe.”
“Most of Thorne’s attacks took place in the forest, which is why Lord Whitehawke remains cautious and will only travel the main roads. He thus has protected himself from outlaws.” He paused and gave her an exceedingly odd glance. “Still, my lady, there are certain—fiends—about in the area.”
“I will surely look to you for my protection, as I have since we left Ashbourne,” Emlyn said demurely. Chavant bowed with a stiff smile and rode to join the guards at the lead.
Jehanne turned to Emlyn. “You do treat my Lord Chavant with more politeness than I could, I vow, my lady.” She shivered.
Emlyn leaned toward Jehanne and whispered, “He does treat us with better consideration if I am sweet to him, have you not noticed? He is an odd man, I vow, and disagreeable in his way, but he does not rankle my anger the way Lord Whitehawke does, or his son.” Her cheeks suddenly flushed at the thought of the son, and she lifted her chin defiantly.
At the mention of Nicholas de Hawkwood, Jehanne dimpled prettily. “Ah, the young baron is a fine man,” she breathed, “a beautiful man, like a dark angel.”
Emlyn blushed brighter as she remembered, suddenly, the baron seated in the steaming tub, his muscled torso glowing wet and sleek in the firelight, his hair in dripping dark tendrils around his deceptively angelic face.
Then she imagined his hair peaked with horns: there, that was better. “The de Hawkwoods, father and son, do not deserve our admiration, Jehanne,” Emlyn said primly. Though Jehanne nodded, her eyes still sparkled.
After uttering her righteous words, Emlyn retreated into the folds of her thick cloak, feeling somewhat humbled by the undeniably lustful images of Nicholas de Hawkwood that played across her mind.
“I like it not, my lady,” said Chavant in a low voice.
Riding slowly beside him, Emlyn murmured in agreement. The thick layers of moisture had quickly increased in the hour or so since they had entered the forest. Now they traveled through a fog so dense and white that they could scarcely see one another. Mist filled the arms of the trees and sat upon the ground like the ghosts of giants, curling and rolling and rising up in monstrous shapes, swallowing each horse and man ahead of Emlyn, as if they disappeared into an enchantment.
