E. M. Powell

by The Fifth Knight

  Theodosia remained still, her breathing shallow. He held her tighter, and her chill seemed to soak into his own bones.

  He raised her eyelids with gentle fingers, and her set pupils stared back. His innards lurched. She was in mortal danger. He needed to get her soaked woolen clothing off, get her covered with straw. He laid her back down on the floor. Even as he started to loosen her skirt, he knew it was useless. But he had to try.

  The bolt rattled in its barrel, then the door creaked open. Lamplight flooded in.

  Palmer’s hand went to his dagger as he peered through the cow’s brown legs.

  “Good morning, Mistress Marigold,” said a sharp, matronly voice. A red skirt rustled against the straw as the woman stepped inside. “Mind, no fussing when I take your milk this morn.”

  Not Fitzurse. But still the threat of discovery. He crouched low, his arms circled around Theodosia.

  The light danced across the low-beamed ceiling, with a couple of metallic tings as the woman secured the lamp. “There. You won’t be able to kick it over, no matter how hard you try.” The sound of her palms rubbing together told him her task. With a wooden-pattened shoe, she pushed a three-legged milking stool to the cow’s side and sat down. As she tucked her wiry, graying hair under her linen cap, her eyes met Palmer’s. She jumped up with a shriek. “Gilbert! A robber!”

  She clattered out the door.

  They had to get out before the woman returned with help. Palmer went to gather Theodosia into his arms.

  The door creaked once again. Whoever Gilbert was, he’d responded quickly. “Show yourself.”

  A male voice, with the quaver of advanced years. Easy to get past, but not carrying the unconscious Theodosia. Palmer stepped around the cow’s hairy haunches. He unsheathed his dagger as a threat.

  A thin, white-haired man faced him, tall once, but now stooped with his years. Dressed in neat black jerkin and breeches, he held a rusted curved tanner’s knife aloft. The blade was pitted and uneven with age, but his grip rested sure. His wife, square-faced and plain but younger than he, shielded herself a step behind him.

  “Lower your weapon, you wastrel,” said Gilbert. “Then get out. That is my animal.” His watery blue-gray eyes had the mettle of a man quarter his age.

  “I don’t want your animal, sir,” said Palmer. “I only came in here to seek warmth.” He gave the cow a firm push, and she stepped away with a low of protest.

  Gilbert’s look turned to surprise as Theodosia’s form was revealed on the floor.

  “I was trying to revive my wife,” continued Palmer. “We were traveling by the river, and the bank gave way. She fell in, and it was many minutes before I could get her out. I fear the cold has its hold on her and her life’s at risk.”

  The man’s look softened, so Palmer pressed on.

  “Please, let me keep her in here. Otherwise, she’ll die.” He dropped his dagger at Gilbert’s feet. “Have my weapon. I mean you no harm.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Gilbert,” said the woman, her face set in well-worn lines of hostility. “They will both be vagabonds.”

  To Palmer’s huge relief, Gilbert lowered his hefty blade. “Hush, Gwendolyn,” he said. “The knight has disarmed. His poor wife is in great peril.” He retrieved Palmer’s dagger from the floor and handed it back. “Your property, sir knight. Bring your lady inside. ’Tis far warmer there than in here.”

  Palmer bent to Theodosia and lifted her soaked body into his arms. Her eyes opened and his heart surged in relief.

  “Isssit time for dancing?”

  “No, my love,” he said. “But maybe later.”

  Gilbert nodded. “She still has hope. Let us make haste.”

  Palmer followed the couple out of the cowshed and across the yard to the main building. Theodosia’s head tipped back over his left arm. She was lost to the world once more. They entered a side door, and Gilbert gestured for him to come through.

  Palmer stepped into what appeared to be a shuttered shop. The light of a single candle placed on the narrow counter showed different pelts and skins fastened to wooden shelves and frames, ready to be put on show. The scent of new, good leather hung sweet in the air.

  “Gwendolyn, go and put some water on to heat,” said Gilbert.

  His wife did as he asked, but with a displeased set of her jaw. As she went to mount the narrow staircase, she addressed her husband. “I’m not having these people in my home. We don’t know a thing about them.” She stamped up the wooden stairs without waiting for an answer.

  Gilbert gave a soft sigh. “Good sir, bring your lady through here.” He picked up the candle and indicated to a room at the back.

  As Palmer carried Theodosia in, he noted whitewashed walls and clean, swept floorboards. Windowless, it contained no furniture but instead stored bales of more pelts and skins.

  Gilbert entered behind him and placed the candle on a wooden wall shelf. He bent to one bale. “I’ll be as quick as I can.” His breath rattled loud in his chest with effort as he untied the twine. “Here.” He unrolled a half dozen spotless, combed sheepskins. “Put her in those. I’ve not tanned for years, only sell ’em. As my wife says, less smell, better money. But I can still tell a good one.”

  Palmer nodded as he placed the anchoress on the soft cream wool. “Thank you, it’ll surely help. But I need to get this wet clothing off her.”

  Theodosia’s eyes opened once more to scan the room, empty of sense. “This place pleases me. No windows to the world.”

  Gilbert went to the door. “I’ll give you your privacy. Call me when you’re ready for the water.”

  “Thank you again, sir,” said Palmer. “With all my heart.”

  “Thank me when she’s ready for that dance, eh?” With a brief smile, the older man shut the door.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Gilbert Prudhomme made his breathless way up the stairs to his home above the shop, his heart sobered by the strangers’ plight. The young woman looked at death’s door, so she did. A plague on that river. But he could never move from this house, not with its memories of Catherine, of Isobel.

  His long-drowned little Izzie, her soaked curls stuck to her lifeless forehead. Her tiny hands, still like a babe’s, with plump wrists and dimples across the knuckles, but cold as stones as he kissed them and cried and cried. His only consolation had been that Catherine hadn’t lived to see that terrible day. He blinked the memory away, as painful now as it had been all those years before. He entered the orderly long room, where his second wife bent to an iron pot over the fire lit in the central hearth.

  Gwendolyn straightened up and gave him her sourest look. “Before you ask, it’ll be a while. There’s nothing to break your fast, neither, not with all this bother.”

  Gilbert had already noticed the table. Well scrubbed as ever, but empty. “It’s no matter this once.”

  She nodded at the floor. “I suppose you think it’s all right to leave that pair down there? With all them furs and skins, ready for market day and worth a pretty penny?”

  “I’ll go down as soon as the lady’s out of her wet clothes,” he said. “You can’t expect me to stay in there for that.” He gave her a little smile, but to no avail.

  “I don’t know what to think. Two complete strangers turn up in our cowshed at the crack of dawn, and what do you do? Bring them straight in here.” His wife’s mouth contorted as if she tasted sour milk. “If those two are married, Marigold’s a prize bull.”

  Gilbert laid a placating hand on her arm. “It doesn’t matter about that. The young lady’s near drowned. We have to try and save her.”

  Gwendolyn shrugged off his touch. “So that’s what this is about. Well, she isn’t your Isobel. Your Isobel’s dead. Dead and buried for forty year, Gilbert.” She rolled her sleeves up with angry movements. “We have this house, this shop. A profitable trade. A comfortable life.” She marched to the door. “I’m going to milk the cow. You can be a hero if you want.” As she stepped out the doorway, she paused. “Bu
t remember: you’re forty years too late.” She stamped off down the stairs.

  Gilbert unhooked an iron ladle from the row hung above the fire. Gwen’s words had cut to the quick, as ever. He wasn’t trying to be a hero. That was never going to happen, not when his sixtieth Christmas had just passed.

  He gave the pot of water a stir. But maybe he could be of some help. And maybe someone else’s daughter could be saved.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Here he was again, disrobing Sister Theodosia. Steeling himself for an almighty clamor, Palmer pulled off her sodden long woolen skirt. But this wasn’t like the night at the back of the stables, where she’d wept and wailed as if he were half-killing her. Then she’d been in her senses. Now, she only murmured nonsense words to herself, her gray eyes vacant and staring.

  Underneath the skirt, she wore another layer, this one of thin white linen, also soaked and clung to her skin.

  As he peeled it from her, his hands met the smoothness of her skin, followed the curve of her hips. His loins surged at the neat triangle of dark blonde hair between her legs. He quickly pulled a sheepskin over her naked lower body. He shouldn’t gawp at her like that, not when she didn’t even know it.

  Next, her long-sleeved top, torn from her time in the water. But it had saved her. He’d scarce believed his eyes when she’d resurfaced the first time. Palmer eased off the cold, wet wool, careful not to tear it more. De Morville, curse his soul, had had the luck of the devil. A long branch had fallen in with him, and he’d clung to it till he’d reached the weir.

  Palmer allowed himself a satisfied nod at his dispatching of de Morville. Sometimes even the devil can’t protect you.

  Theodosia looked at him with sudden intensity. “Tell me when to pray.” She frowned hard.

  “I will.” Another linen layer clung to her. He removed it and exposed her high, taut breasts, nipples hardened from the cold.

  His body called harder, and he pulled another fleece over her to cover her completely. She wasn’t his. Wasn’t any man’s. She belonged to the church, with all the sacred vows she’d have made.

  Palmer rubbed at her damp hair with his hands, ruffling it hard to get the worst wet from it.

  The glint of gold around her neck caught his eye. He bent down to look closer. A fine gold chain lay at the front of her throat. He gave it a gentle pull, and a crucifix slid round from under her hair. It must have been forced up there by the wild water. He squinted at it in the dim light of the single candle and caught his breath. This was no ordinary rood.

  Fashioned of deep yellow gold, it was inset with rubies in a pattern that he supposed represented Christ’s wounds. A vow of poverty, eh? You could buy a shire with this.

  He couldn’t help the knot of regret in his guts as he stared at it. All he had to do was slip it from her neck and put it in his own pocket. Then there would be no more begging, no more shame. No more rattling about this earth, trying to make his living. He’d be able to build high, safe walls to keep poverty, disease, hunger at bay. He sighed. To rob an unconscious woman who was near death — that would make him worse than a pander, fair and square.

  A knock came at the door. “I have the water, sir knight,” said Gilbert. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, please come in.” With a last longing look, Palmer tucked the cross out of sight under the concealing sheepskin.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Sir Reginald Fitzurse made his way up the steep roadway to the high gates of Knaresborough Castle, perspiration and river water an unpleasant steady trickle down his back. His legs and shoulders protested under the weight of his unsavory sodden burden: the dead body of Sir Hugh de Morville, lord of Knaresborough. De Morville hadn’t been a big man, but the weight of a corpse always came as a surprise.

  In the weak winter dawn, he could see the silhouette of a sentry patrolling the high walls.

  “You there.”

  The sentry stopped at Fitzurse’s shout.

  “Get those gates open,” continued Fitzurse, “and find me le Bret and de Tracy. At once!”

  The sentry gaped but disappeared to do Fitzurse’s bidding.

  The door was hauled open as Fitzurse approached. He entered the courtyard as half a dozen castle guards arrived, summoned by the sentry’s calls.

  A sleepy-looking le Bret and de Tracy emerged from a turret door. “So you’ve been roused, dogs?” he said.

  Le Bret’s big stupid face remained mute in reply, while de Tracy’s gaze sought out de Morville’s slack, soaked body.

  “What ails de Morville?” said de Tracy, as he and le Bret hurried over.

  “Guess.” Fitzurse flung the corpse onto its back on the ground to shocked murmurs from those watching.

  De Morville’s eyes fixed sightless and glazed. With a blue hue, his thin face was splotched with livid pooled blood where Fitzurse had carried him over his shoulder. Cream foam mixed with pink blood leaked from his mouth and nose.

  “Dead,” said le Bret, mystified but unquestioning.

  “How?” De Tracy’s amber eyes bulged like a squeezed frog’s.

  Fitzurse wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm. “Palmer.”

  “But Palmer was with us…” De Tracy stopped, realizing his mistake.

  “Was. Until?” The question hung in the air.

  “Not there now.” Le Bret kept his gaze on the body.

  “No.” Fitzurse pulled off his leather gauntlets and struck him hard across the face.

  Le Bret didn’t even blink.

  De Tracy remained transfixed at the dead de Morville. “But my lord Fitzurse, why did Palmer kill him?”

  “The answer lies in the dungeon,” said Fitzurse.

  De Tracy didn’t look any more comprehending. “The anchoress?”

  “No,” said Fitzurse. “The oaf of a guard de Morville found in there.”

  De Tracy paled. “You mean — ”

  “Yes.” Fitzurse cut across him. “Palmer’s freed the girl and murdered our companion in the process.”

  “Why?” said de Tracy. “He hasn’t a bean to his name. He was following you for the money like you had twine tied round his balls.”

  “He hadn’t the stomach for real men’s work,” said Fitzurse. “Instead, he plans to ransom her back to the church. Get his sordid little pile by those means.”

  “But he has ruined us!” De Tracy struck an angry fist into his other, open palm. “May the devil piss on his soul for all eternity.”

  “Quite.” Fitzurse raised his voice to address the guards, who stood in silence, staring at their dead lord. “Put the word out through the town that this heinous crime has taken place. There is a reward of fifty gold crowns for the man that secures the woman prisoner, Theodosia Bertrand.” A murmur of delighted appreciation at such riches met his words. “She’s pale, slim, short dark-blonde hair. Dressed in rags. But she is not to be killed, do you hear me? I want her alive.”

  “What about Palmer, my lord?” asked one of the guards.

  “Palmer’s tall, dark; his surcoat’s got a garish cross.” Fitzurse slid his gauntlets back on and noted the stains from de Morville’s bloody effusions with deep irritation. Palmer wanted to be worth his weight in gold, did he? That was a wish he, Fitzurse, could still grant. “The reward for him is a gold crown for each piece of him. No limit.”

  With a roar of anticipation, the guards set off for the gates.

  De Tracy looked at Fitzurse. “Us too?”

  “Of course not. You’re the pox-brains that let them run off in the first place. But I’m not unduly worried. Palmer can’t have got far.” He went to walk back inside.

  “Uh, my lord?”

  Fitzurse turned at le Bret’s voice. “What now, idiot?”

  Le Bret pointed at de Morville’s body. “What about Sir Hugh?”

  “What about him?” said Fitzurse.

  Le Bret exchanged an unsure glance with de Tracy. “We need a priest. Bury him proper.”

  Fitzurse gave an impatient wave of his han
d and continued on his way indoors. “Feed him to the pigs, for all I care. The saphead deserves no better.”

  Le Bret’s shocked grunt stopped him once more. “But, but, he should be in the ground…” He trailed off.

  Fitzurse sighed. Too bone-headed to continue a coherent argument. “Then pay someone to make the necessary arrangements. I’m far too busy. I have important business to attend to before we set off.”

  “What business would that be, my lord?” De Tracy kept his enquiry properly polite.

  Fitzurse rolled his eyes and held up his blood- and mucus-stained gauntlets to his companions. “These, of course. If I don’t get some clean water and salt soon, my favorite gauntlets will be ruined. That would upset me greatly.”

  De Tracy kept his expression neutral, but le Bret stared at him like the simpleton he was, scarred mouth slack and open.

  “Now, do not delay me any longer.” Fitzurse went inside with all haste, his irritation ready for the first servant he found.

  CHAPTER 9

  Palmer knelt by Theodosia on the floor of the storeroom. She lay cocooned in the sheep pelts but had not yet recovered.

  The furrier, Gilbert, knelt opposite him, bowl of hot water in hand. “I’m sorry this took a while, sir knight.”

  “We wouldn’t have it at all if it weren’t for you, sir.” Palmer put a hand to the back of Theodosia’s head. He tilted her chin forward and supported her as Gilbert brought a metal ladle full of warm water to her mouth.

  “Drink this, my lady. It will put you right,” said Gilbert.

  “It’s not poison?” She gave Palmer an anxious look, her imagined fear real to her.

  “No.” He nodded to her to go along with the old man’s request, and she took a first cautious sip, then several more.

  “That’s it.” Gilbert refilled the ladle for her.

  The first minor flickers of her skin stirred against Palmer’s hand. Come on. Then her teeth rattled against the ladle as she began to shiver in earnest. Relief allowed him several deep breaths.

  “Methinks she will come round.” Firm satisfaction showed in Gilbert’s wrinkled face, and his rheumy eyes lit with hope.