Fire and Steel

by Anita Mills

  “I am all right…I am all right. ’Tis my sister…’tis Catherine of the Condes!” she cried frantically, trying to break away and get to the cart. “She’s in there!”

  Before William could dismount, the taller one was off his horse and pulling at the wrecked cart. Incredulous, he heard him order, “Get the other side, Piers,” and realized it was Robert of Belesme. Heedless of his own safety, William swung down and joined them in trying to right the wreckage. As they heaved, silk pillows fell out, floated in the water until they were soaked, and then sank. A box broke open, spilling Cat’s purple gown onto the wet rocks.

  Several times they slipped on the lichen before they gained sufficient footing for leverage. Belesme pulled off his heavy gloves for better grasp, gripped the side of the cart from beneath, and heaved, righting it. The unreal thought that Belesme’s strength came from the hard training of his trade went through William’s mind as the cart, or rather what was left of it, sat at a steep tilt over one wheel. The one called Piers leaned over Catherine’s limp body to feel along her jawline.

  “She lives, my lord,” he told Belesme.

  “Hold the wagon that it does not fall again,” Count Robert ordered William brusquely, and then, when William braced his back against the lower side, he lifted her free of the wreckage. She was unconscious but breathing, and her gown was soaked. Even as he carried her from the broken cart, Aislinn saw the spreading stain on the back of her dress.

  “She has burst her waters,” she blurted out. The three men looked at her blankly for a moment, until she explained the significance to them. “The babe will come.”

  “My lord…” One of Belesme’s men rode back. “Mayenne escapes. Would you have him pursued?”

  “Nay. Take what prisoners you can and hold them.” To Piers he instructed, “Get Mabille’s box from my saddle.”

  Catherine awoke on the hard ground, conscious of waves of searing pain that clutched at her insides, wrenched them, and subsided, only to come again. Opening her eyes, she saw Robert of Belesme standing over her, and for a moment she thought she’d gone to hell. Another pain tore at her, sending an involuntary cry from her.

  “’Tis your babe, Cat—’twill pass.”

  Cat stared wildly until she focused on Aislinn. “Sweet Mary, Linn,” she whispered, “Where am I?”

  “There was a wreck, but you are safe,” Aislinn sought to reassure her. “But the babe comes.”

  The terrible pain eased, and Catherine tried to turn her head. She was surrounded by a dozen or so mail-clad men. William leaned over her anxiously. “Lady Catherine, you are all right, but you will have to be moved to a warmer place. Can you aid yourself?”

  “Aye…nay!” She bit her lip, tasting the blood, as another gut-wrenching contraction seized her. She was going to bear her child on wet ground in full view of a band of men.

  “Lift your arms, Catherine,” Belesme commanded harshly. He knelt awkwardly beside her and scooped her from the muddy stream bank, rising precariously and carrying her to where Piers lay folded blankets. “Cover her with your cloak.”

  It took a moment for William to realize he was being addressed. Nodding, he unclasped his cloak and laid it over her. When he straightened up, Robert of Belesme was emptying the contents of a leather pouch into a cup of wine. Stirring it with his finger, Belesme knelt again by Catherine.

  “’Tis bitter, but will ease you,” he told her, lifting her head.

  “Nay, you would poison her!” Aislinn protested. “Sir William—”

  “If I wanted her dead, I’d have left her in the water.” To Catherine, who was in the throes of another pain, he urged, “Drink it.”

  She tried to drink, choked, and fell back, breathless. But he was not to be denied. He forced her head up again and ordered her to try again. It was bitter, and for a brief space she thought it would come up. “’Tis gall,” she managed, swallowing to keep it down.

  “’Tis an herb my mother uses for pain, Catherine.”

  To make matters worse, Aislinn pushed on Cat’s stomach as Hawise had done on hers weeks before, forcing downward with both palms until Cat thought she could not stand it. “Have you a knife?” she heard Linn ask those around her. “I have heard it cuts the pain.”

  “The only thing a knife cuts in a birthing is the cord,” Belesme answered her.

  The pains never subsided, Mabille’s bitters not withstanding, and Cat was certain she was going to die unshriven somewhere on the road to the Condes. She labored as Hawise had shown Aislinn, pushing, straining to relieve herself of her aching burden until her back felt as though it would break, humiliated at first by her audience, and then not caring. Robert of Belesme mixed for her more of the bitter bark and forced her to drink it, and throughout her ordeal, it seemed that every time she opened her eyes, she saw the chill green of Belesme’s over her.

  After a time, the others drifted away to deal with their prisoners, and she was vaguely aware of those who begged for their lives. She knew not how long she labored, only that she tired, and still the pains came, closer, harder, until she screamed. Aislinn moved to her knees to catch the babe and William held her flailing arms, and still Robert of Belesme hovered over her, his green eyes watching as though he were Satan come to take her babe from her. Catherine felt the sharp tear as she pushed the child from her body, and she fell back, wet and exhausted.

  “You are nearly done,” Belesme told her as he stirred still more of the bark into wine and gave her a third drink of it.

  The others turned away when the final pain delivered the afterbirth, but Belesme knelt beside her head to tell her, “You have given Nantes a son, Catherine.”

  “He does not breathe,” she heard Aislinn whisper, and she tried to crane her neck to look downward. She saw Robert of Belesme take her babe in his hands and put his mouth to its face. She tried to scream out, but no words came, and then she heard the faint, plaintive cry. In the fancies of her mind, she’d thought he meant to suck the soul from her child, but in truth, he’d breathed life instead.

  “You’ll live to be a fighting man like your father and his father before him,” he murmured to the infant as he drew his sword and cut the cord himself. The babe’s wail intensified until its whole body shook before he thrust it at Aislinn and rose. Standing over Cat, he looked down. “Art as strong as your mother, Catherine.” She saw his bloody hands before he turned away, and irrationally wondered whether the blood belonged to her, the babe, or someone else.

  But she had a son—she’d borne Guy of Rivaux a son. Freed at last from the pain, her body was strangely light and her mind floated, echoing the glorious news that she had a son. Aislinn wrapped the babe in someone’s hastily given undertunic and laid it in Cat’s arms, where it cried for a time and then lay blinking, its slate-blue eyes unfocused beneath its thatch of black hair.

  “My lady.”

  William shook her awake, prying her from her deep, drug-induced sleep, and Catherine’s first thought was that she’d dreamed she had a son. She was warm now and snug within blankets on a narrow bed. Opening her eyes, she saw the whitewashed walls and the crucifix affixed over the narrow door.

  “Jesu, where am I?”

  “The Abbey of St. Martin.”

  Her hand crept to her abdomen and found it flaccid and empty. “My babe? I dreamed I had a son, William.”

  “Nay, ’twas no dream, my lady.” His weathered face broke into a broad smile and his eyes twinkled beneath his bushy silver brows. “’Tis a fine son you have for Rivaux.”

  “I told Guy ’twould be a son.” Twisting her head to look around her, she returned to William. “Why are we here?”

  “We were beset by Hugh of Mayenne not far from here, and lost full half of our escort. While you fled, your cart overturned, and—”

  “Aye, I remember that. And Belesme came.”

  “He routed Mayenne. ’Tis believed Count Hugh thought to overrun us and take the Lady Aislinn back to Mayenne, while blaming the raid on Count Robert. Bu
t Belesme had passed him undetected several miles before and sought to find out why ’twas he came under the colors of Belesme.”

  “Aye, he was there when the babe came,” she recalled. “I had thought him Satan come to take my son’s soul.” Her muscles ached as she stretched them. “But he mistook the matter—he said I had a son for Nantes. In his madness, do you think he thought me Maman?”

  “There’s none to know what he thinks.”

  “He breathed life into my babe, William—I saw him do it.”

  “Aye.”

  “The men from Mayenne,” she remembered suddenly. “What did he do with them?”

  “He killed them.”

  “All?”

  “Aye.”

  “So now you are awake. We had thought Robert of Belesme had cast a spell from which you would not wake, Cat.” Aislinn walked in, carrying a wriggling bundle in her arms. “As yet, we have not found a wet nurse, so you will have to try it. He is little, but he has an appetite.” Coming closer, she laid the babe on Cat’s chest. “And as we are in a convent, none of the sisters has milk, so we have fed him sugar in a wet cloth.”

  At the thought that Catherine would have to expose her breasts, bachelor William rose, inclining his grizzled head. “I’d thought to stay here until you are able to travel,” he told her, “and then we will press on to the Condes. I have sent to Celesin, which is closer to us, requesting more men for escort.”

  Aislinn watched him go before settling comfortably on the side of the cot. “’Tis fortunate we are, Cat, that we live,” she murmured as she lifted the blanket from the babe. “First I thought you dead in the cart, and then when I saw ’twas Belesme who came, I thought he would kill us all.” She picked up the infant and watched him screw up his face to cry. “Here—I am told you put him on a nipple and tickle his cheek until he sucks.” She waited while Catherine obediently bared a breast and then laid him against it, tickling him. His mouth opened like a rosebud to receive the nipple, and he took a tentative pull, drawing milk. Instinctively he began noisily sucking. Satisfied, Aislinn sat back. “You know, Cat, I think he did it because of Maman. I do not think he could bring himself to kill Eleanor of Nantes’s daughters.”

  “He gave my babe breath, Linn.”

  “Aye. Now that I do not understand. But when one is mad, as he must surely be, then ’tis impossible to know how it is that he kills one and spares another.”

  “William said he killed Mayenne’s men.”

  “He took them with him when he left us, and I could hear them begging him for the means of their dying, Cat, but he killed none while he was with us. Aye,” she sighed, “we all knew he would later. William said he wished he could save them, but he dared not try it.”

  Unable to dwell on such things, they fell silent, each watching the tiny infant at Catherine’s breast. Cat reached to ruffle the black hair and study the small face. Aye, she’d given Guy his heir, this son born of their love. “God grant that you are half the man your father is,” she whispered softly to him. Looking up for Aislinn’s approval, she was struck by the intense longing in her sister’s eyes, and she felt almost guilty for being so happy.

  “Nay, Linn, but your time will come also,” she told her gently.

  Aislinn shook her head. “Men would rather have me for sister than wife. Even Geoffrey did not feel passion for me.”

  “Geoffrey probably was too ill to feel much of anything, Linn, but I know your time will come—I know it.”

  39

  He had a son born of the blood of Belesme. The fear that he would pass on to another generation the viciousness and violence of Belesme had been realized. And Catherine, in the absence of her lord’s will in the matter, had chosen to name him Richard for her father’s father, Richard of Harlowe. And although the babe had come early, he thrived, she’d written. Aye, but he had the blood of fighters, and could not be expected to do otherwise.

  Guy replaced her letter in the case and returned it to his saddle pouch. It did no good to read it for the hundredth time—it was in truth fact and could not be changed. But she was safe at least. As the horse beneath him pounded his backside, he allowed himself to think of her, wondering if the babe had somehow changed her.

  “God’s bones, but what I would not give for a bed,” Brian grumbled good-naturedly beside him. “By day, my bones are jarred from dawn to dusk, and by night they are cramped from lying on the ground. You know, by the time I ever see the Condes again, I’ll not be able to walk like a man.”

  “At least ’tis not so hot this week as last,” Guy responded.

  “Aye—I stewed then.” Brian lifted his helm from his head and set it before him on his saddle. “Jesu, but does your neck not ache?”

  “Only when I am awake.”

  Wincing as he did so, Brian turned his head to look back down the column to where Roger rode with the archers. They’d gotten half a dozen more from the Bishop of Sees in hopes that they might lay a trap for Belesme, and Roger wished to discuss how they were to be deployed. “How long since we left Rouen?” he muttered as he turned back to Guy. “Seven weeks? Or is it eight?”

  “’Tis nine.”

  “Aye, and we have heard that he goes to de Mortain’s old keep in Avranches, but there’s naught to show of it except a few words from a dying man.”

  Guy understood his frustration all too well. For over two months they’d sought to engage Belesme, only to find themselves outdistanced or outwitted, arriving always after he had struck. Aye, they never so much as saw him, but they’d buried burned and maimed corpses the breadth of Normandy. The last time had sickened him the most, for many of them were children found huddled in a charred heap where they’d sought refuge together. As his men had attempted to pry apart the seared flesh to give them separate burial, more than one had sickened at the stench and the sight. And with each new sighting of Belesme’s mad vengeance, Guy would look on the dead and know ’twas his own father that had done it.

  “Art silent,” Brian chided him.

  “Aye.”

  “You tire of the task also.”

  “I would that it were over, but who would not? I’d be at Rivaux with Catherine and William, enjoying the safety of my new wall and building Catherine’s house.”

  “You forget Richard—you’ve not seen your son.”

  “Nay, but ’tis Catherine I would see above all others.”

  “Aye, I suppose it is.” Brian was thoughtful for a moment, and then twisted in his saddle for a better look at Guy. “What do you think Aislinn will say to my suit?” he asked suddenly.

  “I think she’d be a fool not to take you.”

  “But will she?”

  “I know not what is in her heart, Brian, but Aislinn of the Condes is no fool,” Guy answered.

  “And Roger? Do you think he’d let her come to me? I am but Henry’s bastard, after all.”

  “He would have given Cat to Robert of Caen once.”

  “Aye, but my father favors Robert—he is made Earl of Gloucester now.”

  Guy appeared to consider the matter, for he knew how much Aislinn meant to Brian. “I think,” he decided slowly, “that if you are part of bringing Robert of Belesme to Henry’s justice, that he cannot deny you reward this time.”

  “I pray you are right.”

  But suddenly Guy was not attending him, as he leaned forward and raised himself against his pommel, his whole being intent on what he smelled. Brian stopped also and sniffed the air, and his face betrayed his dread. It was faint from distance, but the odor of smoke mingled with that peculiarly distinct smell of burning flesh.

  “I think we cannot be far behind him this time,” Guy muttered grimly.

  Guy removed his helmet and tied a cloth over his face before he walked among the dead. The lord of the small keep above them trailed him and Roger and Brian, explaining how it was that he could not open his gates to give his people refuge, until Guy could stand it no longer.

  “These were your people! As lord, you
were sworn to protect them!”

  “But ’twas Belesme, my lord—’twas Belesme,” the knight pleaded, as though that were excuse enough. “And there was not time. Had I lowered the bridge, ’twould have been myself he murdered!”

  “How many were there?” Roger asked.

  “Not many—some twenty villeins and serfs, I think. Those that serve the household were inside. And there—”

  “’Twas how many Belesme had with him that I meant to ask,” Roger cut in curtly.

  “When Satan comes, he needs not many. I—”

  “Just tell him how many men rode with Count Robert!” Guy snapped, already sickened by the sight of a woman lying faceup in the road, her eyes staring sightlessly, her bloody legs splayed, her babe ripped from her belly and lying beside her.

  “There was not the time to count them, but—”

  “You watched from the wall,” Roger reminded him coldly. “You must have noted enough.”

  “Bertrand said there were at least seventy—maybe more.”

  Despite the revulsion Guy felt, he walked to where the woman lay and stared down at her. She was younger than Catherine, and the babe had neared its term, for it looked almost perfectly formed, with small hands and feet and face. But Belesme’s men wanted to leave no living, for they’d even bludgeoned the back of its tiny skull. Guy remembered the feel of his own babe kicking against his back when Catherine had placed her swollen belly there at night. For a moment he doubted God’s justice in allowing Belesme’s blood to go on while letting the innocent be slaughtered.

  He felt a hand grasp his shoulder and squeeze it, and he turned to face Roger. “’Tis no fault of yours, Guy,” Roger told him as his blue eyes mirrored sympathy. “You must not think it.”

  “Sweet Jesu, but they ravished her also,” Brian muttered beside them as he also stared downward. As Guy watched him, Brian knelt close to her eyes and murmur, “Almighty Father, to thee we commend these souls, asking thy mercy on them.” After making the sign of the Cross above each of them, he rose and turned away to bring up the hard biscuits he’d eaten earlier.