E. M. Powell

by The Fifth Knight

  “What the devil’s in there?” said Fitzurse.

  The wolves howled afresh. Most fell on the bloody chunks that scattered on the snow. But a couple, crazed by the scent of fresh meat, leapt for de Tracy’s leg.

  An agonized scream came from de Tracy.

  Theodosia cringed in horror. One of the wolves had bitten on his ankle, swung off its paws as the beleaguered knight tried to pull away.

  The rest of the pack regrouped, surrounded le Bret, closed him in.

  “My leg! It’s got my bastard leg!” De Tracy hung on to his horse by the mane, stirrups lost, as the wolf held tight, pulling, snarling.

  “Help us, my lord.” Le Bret wheeled left, then right, as the pack circled closer.

  With an exclamation of disgust, Fitzurse jumped from his horse and tethered it in one movement. He made for the group with a yell, brandishing his sword.

  Theodosia wriggled frantically atop Fitzurse’s panicked stallion. The wolf pack was consumed with bloodlust, could easily turn on this horse, her ankles. Her face.

  A fresh shriek came from de Tracy. The wolf pulled him to the ground, his riderless horse kicking out in terror as it fled after le Bret’s.

  The wolf released the knight’s leg, then fell on his throat, tearing out a mouthful of red beard and wet flesh.

  Theodosia looked away as bile rose in her throat. Noises from a nightmare filled her ears: the wolves’ snarls, the rip of live flesh, the pitiful screams of the dying de Tracy and le Bret, and Fitzurse’s shouts and oaths.

  An animal snorted near to her left. With a start, she moved her gaze to its source, braced for what she knew not.

  Screened by a couple of huge fallen tree trunks, Sir Benedict Palmer sat astride an anxious-looking Quercus.

  She blinked in case she dreamed. No. He was still there.

  He put his fingers to his lips and brought Quercus to her horse’s side. With a neat slash of his dagger, he loosed the stallion’s reins.

  A roar of recognition came from Fitzurse, but Benedict didn’t pause. He grasped the stallion’s reins in one hand and jerked Quercus’s reins with the other. Neither horse needed encouragement. With a rapid canter, they set off through the woods, snow erupting from their hooves as they took flight from the murdering pack.

  CHAPTER 15

  Fitzurse’s stallion surged beneath Theodosia, its long strides tossing her body in the vicious straps that held her. Snow flew up from its rushing hooves and struck her face, her chest. The noose tightened, then loosened, with every step. “Stop! I’m choking.”

  “Soon.”

  The stallion stumbled on a stride and went to its knees. Theodosia’s weight flung full against her bonds. They held tight, tighter around her neck. She couldn’t breathe. Blood roared in her ears.

  “Hold.” Benedict was off his animal, floundering through the deep snow to the stallion’s neck. He held the horse steady with one hand, then pulled his dagger from beneath his cape.

  With a nip of cold metal against her throat, the noose fell away. She dragged in a breath, then another.

  Benedict urged the stallion back to its feet and palmed the side of its quivering neck. He looked up at her, his dark complexion shades lighter than normal. “I thought they’d done for you.”

  “Get me off this animal.” She strained to free herself from the saddle. “Now.” She struggled harder, and the stallion jerked in fright.

  “Steady there, boy, steady.” Benedict kept hold of the reins. “Keep still, or you’ll fright him. I’ll get you off, but we need to get out of sight.”

  “Then do it and get me down.”

  Calling to Quercus to follow, Benedict guided the stallion toward a thick grove of pine trees. Steam rose from the stallion’s coat, matching her own skin, sweat-coated from pain and terror.

  Her arms, her legs, screamed for release as Benedict threaded their way through the dense trees, snow sliding off the green needled branches.

  She couldn’t stand it any longer. “Enough! Do you hear me?”

  “Quiet.” Benedict secured the stallion to a tree. Knife in hand once more, he sliced through the thick hemp that secured her to the horse. He slid her from the saddle, one arm behind her shoulders and one underneath her knees, as he gathered her to him.

  Theodosia stiffened in his hold. He carried her a few steps from the horse’s side to the shelter of a large pine tree, the ground dry with heaps of dried pine needles. He set her down into a seated position, staying hunkered down before her as he severed the ropes across her chest.

  “Faith, that devil Fitzurse has you tied like a carcass for market.” He leaned behind her to free her wrists.

  She brought them before her painfully, wincing as the blood returned.

  He bent to her bound ankles. “There.” He sat back. “You’re free.”

  “No thanks to you.” Theodosia ripped the cut ropes from round her body and whipped them across his face.

  He jerked back. “What are — ”

  “It’s a pity Gilbert didn’t have a yellow suit for you. It would match your cowardice well.” She lashed out at him again, but he ducked to one side with an oath.

  “Me, a caitiff?”

  “Yes. A yellow-breeched page, Fitzurse called you. He was right.” She scrambled to her feet on the soft ground.

  Benedict rose to his feet too, a deep frown carved into his brow. “You’re a convert to Fitzurse now?”

  “How dare you!” She launched herself at him in fury, ropes whipping as she tried to land a blow. “You betrayed me, you traitor, you coward. You’re as bad as he!”

  He grabbed at her weapons and yanked them from her grasp, flinging them to the ground in a scatter of dried needles. “Then why am I back?”

  “Because you saw an opportunity. Sneaking, following, not willing to lift a finger. Waiting until you could grab Fitzurse’s animal, worth ten times the beast you sold my precious cross for.” Shame lit his eyes, and she knew she’d hit true.

  She pressed on, anger a wrongful, sinful, delicious hot urge as it tore through her, burning away her self-control. “You left me, to die without hope and, worse, to bring death to my mother too. But what do you care? You saved your shameful skin, turned a profit from stealing my cross. You’ll boil in oil in hell for your avarice, Benedict Palmer. I shall take the greatest pleasure in watching for all eternity.”

  “Boil in oil? Are you sure you’re not Fitzurse’s disciple?”

  She pointed to her neck, the noose’s welt a painful lump on her skin. “Does this look like I am?” she hissed.

  “And neither am I a coward, or a thief.” He reached beneath his cloak and thrust a leather pouch into her hand. “That’s the rest of the money. It’s yours. So will the horses be, once we get to Polesworth.” His dark brows drew together in disdain. “I’d never have traded your cross, but I had to. I told you that.”

  “Oh, easy, easy words.” She shook the pouch at him. “Along with your most generous gift — a gift that is mine by rights anyway.” She shoved the pouch into her skirt pocket with a shake of her head. “You abandoned me when the danger got too great, simple as that.”

  “Of course I did.” He nodded hard. “You’re right, Sister, as always.” He folded his arms and put his head to one side, as if pondering a weighty question. “Then answer me this. Why did the wolves attack de Tracy?”

  “His own foulness. Whatever spoil he had in his saddlebag.”

  “And what if the spoil was the meat you bought at the market?” His gaze bored into hers.

  Theodosia brought a hand to her mouth. “You mean — ”

  “Yes. When those devils found us in the forest, I was outnumbered and outarmed. I had to act — I’d no time to think more.”

  Her anger dissolved into a flush of shame. “Oh, may God forgive me for such harsh, wicked words.”

  He snorted and opened his arms wide. “And me? The yellow-shirt?”

  “Of course you also. I cannot believe I let my sinful anger take me over.�
� Mortified at his accusing stare, she felt her flush grow worse. “It all happened so quickly, and all I saw was the knights, then you were gone…” She trailed off helplessly. “I am so sorry. I have accused you of a great wrong.”

  He shrugged. “Then apology accepted.” He strode over to Quercus, the gelding nosing the weedless ground a safe distance from the tethered stallion.

  “Yet you still look angry,” she said, following him.

  Benedict straightened the horse’s reins, gathering them into his hands. “Not at you. At myself.” His jaw tightened. “I don’t know how they found us. I thought I’d left no clue. But they did, God rot them.”

  If she could cut her tongue out, she would happily do it there and then. But she had to confess her dreadful error. “It was my fault.”

  “What?” Quercus shied at his sharp question.

  “Fitzurse told me. He found the pilgrims I spoke to in Knaresborough.”

  Holding the horse steady, he muttered a long string of oaths. “That’s how they knew about Polesworth. I heard them talk of it.”

  “I know now how foolish my actions were. You told me so at the time. Well, I paid for that foolishness, did I not?”

  His look hardened. “As you could have. With your life? Can’t you see that?”

  “I do now. But at the time, I thought it was a clever move. I wanted to show you I have quick wits too.”

  “You’re a nun, an anchoress. You have wits that can pray, can read. Fine for a life locked away in the church. Not the kind of wits that you need out in the world.”

  “I know of the world.” She kept her tone measured though he mocked her vocation. “People came to pray at my window all the time, would tell me of every sin and trouble imaginable.”

  “Sister, I’ve had to live off my wits since I was sent away to become a fighter.”

  “You chose your own sinful path as a man. But it does not make you sharper than me.”

  “A man?” He looked as if he pitied her. “I was seven years old. And poor folk have no choice. With my father dead and my mother not able to feed herself or my four sisters, she begged the lord of our estate to take me as a page. I was that small — I could hardly reach the stomachs of the squires, let alone land a blow, as they beat me, time and again. I had to rely on what’s between my ears to get by. For years and years, until I became big enough and strong enough to do the beating. There were some hard lessons, but I’ve learned them and you haven’t. And certainly not from listening to the prating of knaves and fools in church.” He drew a deep breath. “From now on, you don’t act unless I say. Will you at least promise me that much?”

  His eyes shone oddly bright, like his flood of words had made him ill. She’d no desire to add to it. “I will.”

  “Good.” He handed her Quercus’s reins. “You take him. You’ll manage on your own?”

  She was not at all sure, but she nodded, not wanting to inflame Benedict’s anger any further. She put a hand to Quercus’s neck. “He’s steady.”

  Benedict boosted her up into the saddle. She found the stirrups, apprehensive to be in control of the animal alone.

  “I’ll stay at a safe distance,” he said.

  She looked over. Benedict was already astride the heavily muscled black stallion, Harcos.

  With a click from Benedict, both animals set off, Theodosia mindful to keep a couple of lengths behind. “How long before we get to Polesworth?”

  “We can make twice the progress now,” said Benedict over his shoulder. “So I reckon maybe three days.” Guided by the knight’s skilled hands, Harcos trotted smoothly ahead of her.

  Impossible to believe she’d been buffeted so when she’d been tied to the animal. Tied, helpless, listening to Fitzurse’s sadistic, depraved account of how he’d used the dreadful device called the Pear of Anguish. How he would take a bulb fashioned from closed metal plates, force it between a woman’s legs. Then turn the screw of the device, until it opened out, farther, then farther, then… Her question pressed on her, and she had to ask it.

  “Benedict.”

  He looked around again.

  “Are they all dead? Did Fitzurse and le Bret go the way of de Tracy?”

  He faced forward again. “My wits tell me yes. But we still have to ride as fast as we can.”

  Her wits remembered that Benedict had made her hide, be quiet in the woods. Theodosia tightened her hold on the reins. You did not hide from ghosts, keep quiet from corpses, hasten from spirits. The knight feared just as she did. But she kept her silence. Her loose tongue would do no more harm.

  EPISODE 4

  CHAPTER 16

  “We seek an audience with the Abbess.” Benedict spoke through a small metal grille set in the closed wooden doors of the gatehouse to Polesworth Abbey.

  Theodosia scanned the tall, square tower, fashioned of huge blocks of moss-coated gray stone soaring into the blue winter sky. They were finally here. Clustered around the tower, the pitched roofs and high walls promised their journey’s end. Mama would be safe in there, safe with the answers she and Benedict sought. The exhaustion of the last days and nights threatened to overwhelm her. They’d stopped only for the horses’ sake, but even then she could tell Benedict stayed fully alert, watching out, listening out for any pursuers. That Fitzurse might find her while she slept had meant she’d not dared to. But no one had disturbed their travels.

  With a long, shuddering sigh of relief, she turned her attention back to Benedict. He was locked in argument with whomever was within.

  “No, she isn’t expecting me,” he said, his exasperation clear.

  Another softly spoken question, inaudible to Theodosia’s ears.

  “I could give you my name,” he said. “But it would mean nothing to her.”

  A reply.

  “Look,” he said, his tone ever more forceful. “If you could let me speak with her, then I could explain everything. But I can’t explain unless I see her. Can’t you understand?”

  The response this time was the snap of the shutter behind the grille.

  Benedict turned to her, face ruddy at being so thwarted. “She shut it. Can you believe it?”

  She took in his broad frame, his mud-spattered clothes, his unshaven skin. “Unfortunately, I can. The sister who refused you entry judged you as parlous.”

  He spread his hands in disbelief. “How could I look risky? You told me I looked like a respectable townsman.”

  “That was a few days ago. It didn’t last long; you can’t help looking like a knight. Now are you going to allow me to try?”

  Before he could disagree, she stepped past him to tap on the door and bring back whomever guarded the entrance. As she waited for an answer, she met his annoyed glance. “I am not doing anything rash,” she said. “I am of the church, I have a far better chance of gaining our admittance. Whereas you are something that makes the sisters instantly suspicious.”

  “A knight?”

  “A man.”

  The shutter slid open, and a shadowy veiled figure appeared behind the close-knit metal mesh.

  “Yes?” came the nun’s cool tone, ready for Benedict again.

  “God and Mary be with you, Sister,” said Theodosia.

  “To you too, my lady.” Recognition of a holy greeting slightly warmed the voice from within. “What can I help you with this day?”

  “My husband and I need to speak with the Abbess. On an urgent and private matter.”

  “Your husband is the man I spoke to?”

  “Indeed, Sister. He’s overcome with fatigue, so my apologies if he came across as rude.” She shot him a glance.

  “Rude?” he mouthed, out of sight of the little window.

  “I can speak with her and convey your message,” said the nun. “She is, however, extremely busy, and it might well be tomorrow when she has time.”

  Aghast, Theodosia pressed on. “It really is very, very urgent.”

  “I will pass on your message.” A hand came up to close the shutter a
gain.

  “Please! It concerns Amélie,” said Theodosia, her palms pressed to the grille.

  The hand paused, then slid the shutter closed.

  Theodosia faced the blank barrier, sealed against the world. Against her too, though she was not of the world.

  “Good to see your plan worked so well,” said Benedict.

  The clack of a key turning in the lock was accompanied by a turn of the cast-iron handle. With a low creak, the door swung open and a stooped, elderly nun, clothed in the black robes of the Benedictines, stood there. “Amélie, you say?”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “Those are your animals?” The nun pointed to their mounts, tethered to nearby hitching posts.

  “They are, Sister.”

  The nun nodded. “I’ll send word for them to be brought round to the stables.” She stood to one side and beckoned. “You had both better come in.”

  “Thank you, Sister.” Theodosia shot Benedict a victorious glance and led the way inside.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Hat in hand, Palmer walked behind Theodosia as the Polesworth sister led them through the gatehouse and down a lengthy stone-flagged passageway that was open to the sky. The nun’s age and limp meant they had to walk slowly. No mind. He’d never been in these private places before, and it was like another world.

  He’d expected silence, and had a childish picture in his head of rows of praying nuns, eyes aloft. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

  A cheery nun hurried past, arms piled high with clean linen.

  “One of our infirmary sisters,” said the nun to Theodosia. “We are very proud of our healing here.”

  The anchoress nodded. “Healing for the body as well as the soul.”

  With her head bowed and hands linked, she matched the set of the old nun. Her voice too: low, barely above a murmur. Like the thin, dried snakeskins he used to find on compost heaps as a boy, she’d cast off her worldly self at the gate. The change didn’t suit her. He’d become used to her gray eyes raised and challenging, her tread as definite as his. No mind again. This was her world, where she belonged. He’d pulled her from it, and it was right he delivered her back. He should be glad to be rid of her, with her chiding of him, her arguing, her foolhardiness. But he wasn’t. For he also lost her bravery, her loyalty. She turned to the old nun again, and he caught the curve of her cheek, her pale, fine skin. Her beauty too.