Fire Dance

by Delle Jacobs

  Two men had vicious slashes that were already festering. She cleaned them with wine and dressed them. The others did not worry her.

  While she worked, the other knights, freed from their hauberks and helms, eagerly sat to eat. Despite their weariness, the knights bantered loudly, boisterously, over their successes. But the Norman lord sat quietly, frowning, rubbing his temples. She caught herself glancing again and again at him.

  "Edyt," he said in his deep, gravelly voice, "bring me more wine. My head pounds like a drum."

  Headaches. Her mother had had them, too, before she died. Did that mean the poison was already working on him? Fyren had boasted to her that it should have taken longer for her mother to die. She must have chewed on the cloth, he'd said.

  But she didn't know. Didn't know how much it took nor how long. And a big man like him, would it not take more poison? How could she tell how much of the poison was getting to him?

  Her mother had mentioned the headaches first. Surely she had more time, then. She had hoped to get the cloak from him without risking herself. But she must move soon. Even if she died in the process.

  Melisande gave the lord a somber nod and summoned the wine.

  There was yet another way. Theft.

  CHAPTER 7

  The raucous laughter of the knights floated through the hall and up the narrow wooden stairs. They were far too busy to notice her as she eased onto the balcony and slipped into the familiar darkness of her bed chamber. By going up early, she avoided any creaks in the stairs that might have drawn attention to her after the others took to their beds.

  For hours, she sat on the wooden floor, concealed by the bed, and ready to roll beneath it if she must. Her eyelids drooped. Her mind wandered into a reverie of a handsome, black-eyed Norman, how it might be to have those sensuous lips touched to hers, returning to reality only when the hardness of the floor reminded her of her mission.

  She must have dozed, and woke, hearing the Norman lord, gruff from his pounding headache and now, she suspected, also too much wine, as he sought his bed. The man made the noise of ten small boys and a very large dog at play. A good time to move. She crept across the floor and hid behind her clothing chest.

  The ropes of his bed creaked. He groaned loudly and plopped around with great noise. She waited. Just as soon as she thought him quiet, he moved again. She was a patient person. She would not let the urgency of her mission betray her.

  The thin crescent of the moon rose and passed the double-arched window until it was beyond her view. She waited until all sounds in the hall below ceased, waited even longer, complimenting herself on her supreme patience.

  At last, she moved. As she pulled on the door, she caught in her hand the scrap of leather she had wedged in the latch, and released the latch slowly. The door moved smoothly and silently because of the lard she had dribbled onto its hinges. With its shutter closed, the lord's chamber was as dark as her own.

  The floor planks were too thick to groan under her rather insignificant weight, but she was not as familiar with this chamber as she was her own, and crept more carefully, across the chamber toward the wall where she expected the cloak to be hung.

  Calculating the distance to the bed, she reached out, and touched the bedpost. Ah. He had drawn the heavy draperies against the cold. Mayhap they would muffle sound, as well. Her fingers trailed lightly across the thick fabric, leading her safely to the next post, then along the side of the bed, to the wall. She touched the rough plaster, up, down, searching for the pegs and the garments hanging there. Perhaps she was too high. Again, she ran her hand across the surface. Well, then, too low.

  Frustrated, she swung her hands around in circles, feeling nothing. All right, she was too close to the bed. She reached to the left, found the heavy draperies, and carefully remeasured what she was sure was the proper distance from the bed. She stood still, reached out ahead, groped again, and found the pegs.

  Empty. All of them. Panic surged through her. Where now?

  Out, of course, as quickly as she might manage it.

  Melisande fumbled for the draperies as her guide, and turned to the–

  Thud. Her toe jammed against something hard, immovable. She froze.

  "Who's there?"

  Melisande had never been one to curse, and fortunately, had too little experience with it to do it right. She bit her lip.

  The bed-covers swished about. "Who's there?"

  With a yank and the sliding of rings against the wooden post, one side of the draperies flew open. Melisande hoped it was the other side. She dropped to her knees and slid herself beneath the bed. The bed had been built high off the floor, easy to get under, but just as easy to be found there.

  Two feet thunked hard against the floor. The Norman paced around the room, cursed in slurs as his feet found unexpected objects in their way, and quickly returned to his bed, grumbling.

  Something to remember. The man was a light sleeper, even when drunk. That presented her with another problem. How was she going to get out? She certainly could not wait for morning and crawl out after he was gone.

  Panic rose in her throat and willed her to run screaming from the room. The demons screamed fear and destruction. But even the demons couldn't compete with the cold, and the rough, hard floor. Above her, the Norman rolled and tumbled, his heavy body pounding the mattress and ropes so hard, she thought he would break through. Well, mayhap she could stay beneath the bed for the night. If she did not allow herself to sleep. Or move.

  A cold draft wended its way beneath the bed and wrapped its chill around her. Melisande pulled herself into a tight ball and tugged the hem of her kirtle over her cold toes, and shifted minutely to straighten out the wrinkle in her kirtle that pressed into her hipbone. This would never do. She could never manage to stay here all night without giving herself away. Surely he would eventually drop into a deep sleep that would allow her to escape.

  Above her, the Norman roared out a pathetic moan and rolled over. A great bulge in the straining ropes seemed only inches from her face. She stiffened, dared not move for fear of touching the mattress. Who knew how easily he might awaken?

  He snored. A great, voluminously rattling snore. For the first time in her life, she could see the value of a snore. To keep her awake.

  Somewhere in the night, the noise ceased. She had not meant to sleep, only to wait until he was at last quiet, then slip away. But the sound of his movements on the bed, the thud of feet against the wooden floor startled her to alertness.

  The dread she felt every morning hit her suddenly. What if she had walked? What if the demons had come?

  Well, she was quite alive and unharmed, so there was not much chance of that. Perhaps God meant her to live, just long enough to save this hero of hers. Perhaps God–

  But God did not hear her prayers. She did not even know if God disdained to use her, even for His own purposes. She would have to do all this herself.

  The Norman lord splashed water onto his face and washed his hands in the basin left the night before. Two overly large feet padded across the room again and his garments fluttered in the motions of dressing. But she heard no jingle of mail, nor the scrape of a scabbard being buckled on. The hem of the purple cloak floated past the bedstead, mayhap had been laid on the bed itself. It hadn't occurred to her the night before that he might have been too drunk to find the pegs.

  Not until the Norman opened the door and walked out did she take a normal breath again. And not until she heard him on the steps did she scurry from beneath the bed to her own chamber.

  But then what? How could she get out without being seen? The servant she was supposed to be had no particular business in the lady's chamber if the chamber held no lady, but she did not want to go through the cavern. She didn't ever want to go there again. Then, there was nothing for it, but to leave through the door, blatantly, as if she had merely been about her duties. They would be going to matins, and mayhap would not see her.

  She hoped.


  * * *

  "I tell you, someone was in the chamber."

  Melisande, cringing within, ordered composure to her body and indifference to her countenance as she poured wine into the Norman lord's drinking horn.

  Chrétien laughed, and helped himself to another rasher.

  "He is not used to sleeping alone," said Hugh, with a loud guffaw.

  "Did you see him?" Chrétien asked.

  "It was too dark." the Norman lord replied. Impatience lingered in his frown.

  "Hear him, then?"

  "I am not sure what it was. But someone was there."

  "Ha. You imagined it, Alain. You were so deep into your cup, it was a wonder you did not drown."

  Hugh's raucous roar at Chrétien's jibe infected the others.

  The Norman lord feigned a glower that did not even fool her. It seemed to be the way of these Normans to behave so irreverently toward their lord, and it seemed to be his way to accept it of them. Fyren would have killed a man for such.

  Robert leaned into his cup of ale, with a wicked smile on his face. "Mayhap it was a maid that sought him out."

  "Aye, a maid." Chrétien rammed an elbow in Robert's ribs.

  The men again laughed. For the life of her, Melisande could not see what was so funny about that.

  "Nay," said Hugh. "It was his bride, come to see what she has missed."

  "Did she find it?" came a shout from the back.

  "Aye. That's why she left."

  The Normans and Saxons alike roared, slapped their great fists on the trestle tables, and pounded each other on the back. She did her best to hide her confusion and appear unconcerned about their odd banter. But whatever would it be that she was supposed to have found?

  Oh. But then, why would she have left? She had never been able to make much sense of what other people thought was funny.

  Rubbing at a smudge on the rim of his horn cup with the seam of his cloak, the Norman lord continued his ineffective scowling.

  The cloak! The poison, spread across the rim where he wiped! She froze with horror as he lifted the cup to his lips. Could it kill him? She didn't know.

  Melisande lunged with a scream, knocked the horn cup from his hand, across the table and to the floor. A dull crack. Red wine spread on the stone floor like dark blood.

  She raised her head slowly, slowly turned, gulped. All around her, men stared. Stared as if her wits had suddenly gone begging.

  "I am sorry, my lord. I slipped on something, I think. A bone, mayhap."

  The Norman's black eyebrows cocked at an absurdly curious and high angle.

  She rose and scurried around the trestle table, and bent to pick up the cup. "Please, I will find you another cup. This one is damaged."

  "It will do, Edyt."

  "Nay." She said it too quickly, too quickly snatched it from his reach. "I will wash it, and if it leaks, I will bring you another."

  Before he could stop her, she fled from the hall, to the wooden outbuilding that housed the kitchen and scullery. She scrubbed at the tainted rim with a rough cloth and sand, lathered the soft soap onto it, scrubbed again. Dare she trust it, even then? Surely, none of the poison could be left. Could it? Once again, she took the coarse cloth and scrubbed.

  Then she saw the crack in the yellow-grey horn. Relief flooded her. Now there could be no argument of replacing it.

  "Nelda," she called, "Hurry and find the lord another cup. This one will not do. It has a crack."

  Nelda's eyes too showed the effect of her mad move. Then, with the look of the all-suffering servant, Nelda nodded.

  "The maple maser, Nelda. Surely it would do."

  Nelda would fix it all for her. And she'd best escape to some dark corner for a while. He would be safe a little longer, for all that she had made herself look the perfect simpleton. And if she couldn't manage to steal the cloak, she could at least pray for warmer weather so he wouldn't wear it as much.

  Except that God did not hear her prayers.

  * * *

  The lord's chamber centered around a table of dark oak that was nearly as large as its curtained bed. On that table Alain stretched out an old parchment, scraped bare, on which he traced out a crude drawing of the Eden Valley that led up to Carlisle and the Solway Firth. He drew a square to indicate his castle and wiggling lines to represent the becks and rivers. More squares went down as symbols of other manor holdings, and tiny circles for the smaller holdings.

  "Think of it as the way God must view the world from the heavens," he said to his knights.

  "God would see the fells, too," Hugh objected.

  "And God would see the colors and shapes of things, too, but we cannot put all that down. It would only confuse us. But we all know the fells are in between the becks. I suppose we could mark where the peaks are, but that is not important. We want to know where we can go, and where our enemies might be."

  Robert scowled. "It is a good idea, Alain. But it isn't right. If it takes a day by horseback to go from here to here," he said as he traced out a route with his finger, "then it should take more time to go from here to here." And he drew another route with his fingers. "But it does not, it takes less time."

  Chrétien stopped to rub his fist over his chin. "But the first route is much harder, and the horses must go much slower. How can you tell, Alain, how far it is?"

  "If we had the time, I suppose we might measure it someday. But that is not my purpose. I propose only to guess. Merely by making marks on the parchment, we can plan our moves in advance, and mayhap see flaws in them before they happen."

  Alain removed small, flat stones of varying colors from a tiny leather pouch and tossed them onto the table.

  "The white ones will represent Rufus and the army he brings. Ours are the red stones, and the black ones are Malcolm's. Grey, for Anwealda and those allied with him."

  He placed red stones at each holding under his control. He placed Malcolm's black stones as a group to the northeast, representing Scotland, and Rufus' white ones near York.

  "Now, where is Anwealda?"

  "Up in the fells," said Gerard.

  "Aye, but where?"

  "It matters not if– aye, I see your meaning. From wherever he is, he can strike, pull back, and hide, and we cannot be there soon enough to stop him. Yet if you knew where he hides– "

  "Aye, it is true," said Chrétien. "And if he can keep himself supplied with what he captures from us, he can continue his harassment. But if we can draw him into engagement more than once, we may be able to guess his location."

  Alain nodded, pleased. "If you were Anwealda, where would you strike next?"

  "Where we have already been," said Chrétien. "Where we think we are secure, but are not."

  "Anwealda's own holding," Gerard added.

  "And therefore, we will surprise them by reinforcing the men and supplies we left there yesterday," said Thomas.

  Alain smiled, pleased they thought the same as he. "If we have outguessed him, we win again."

  Gerard leaned forward and placed a finger on the map between two becks, and Alain guessed he was imagining the fells between them. "Aye," said Gerard. "You are right. We must try to outguess him by noting where he appears, where he comes from. Where he goes."

  "But what next?" asked Wallis. "We cannot always outguess him."

  "It is true," said Alain. "But Rufus is close. We must keep harrying Anwealda until Rufus arrives."

  "You have heard news?"

  "Aye. Rufus comes. But he is weeks away. We must secure our conquests now." Alain moved back to the map. "This land, Anwealda's, you will take and hold, Hugh. Dougal's for you, Robert. Chrétien, Cyneric's lands, when Rufus is done with this campaign."

  "Alain, I have told you, I want no such fief."

  "Chrétien– "

  "You gave your word. I am content as I am."

  "You cannot spend your life as a mercenary."

  "It is of my choosing."

  It was true. He had promised.

  The Sax
ons, to a man, showed puzzled frowns. No doubt they wondered why the lord's second refused that which all men sought. But it was Chrétien's great pain, not his, and so it must be Chrétien who chose who should be told what, and when.

  When he had first seen the possibility of settling onto the land instead of wandering about according to the king's whim, he had also begun to hope for the same for his dear friend. But Chrétien still stung from his terrible loss. He would rather face a thousand armed knights alone than run such a risk again. Someday, it might be different. But not now.

  "Very well. There will be plenty of land for all."