by E. M. Powell
‘I have to quieten Gerald.’ Theodosia loosed her hold on Palmer.
‘No!’ He whispered a desperate order.
‘Yes. Otherwise, he will bring the whole camp here. You must carry on. Eimear is on the top floor.’ She thrust Palmer from her. ‘I know you will find me.’ She raised her voice. ‘I am here, brother. I have your wine.’
The guard lost interest and sat back down.
Palmer could only watch as Theodosia scooped a jug from the ground beside the entrance to the tent. She raised her hand in the briefest gesture of goodbye.
Then she was gone.
Chapter Nineteen
Palmer headed for the keep, skirting the very edge of the bailey. For now, the sooner he got Eimear to safety, the sooner he could come back for Theodosia. If any kind of harm had come to her in his absence, he would make sure that he brought a very special kind of hell for the royal clerk. And for John. The Lord of Ireland brought out a deep rage in him now.
Moving quickly, Palmer stayed in the shadows. He doubted if anyone would care if they saw him. He was a known and trusted figure who had spent two months defending this place. But he didn’t want to attract the attention of one person: de Lacy, still sitting with John. De Lacy missed nothing, even one-eyed as he was. Palmer’s hands had not been re-bandaged, despite him giving that as a reason not to go to the feast.
Palmer climbed the steps of the motte, and one of the guards at the top gave him a wave, which he returned. Again, his familiar face worked in his favour. About the only advantage he had left. How to release Eimear O’Connor now? Palmer’s reputation was for his fighting for John and Tibberaghny. Not for frequenting the keep. Theodosia would have provided a much more credible reason. Between the two of them, they might have been able to screen Eimear from view. Doing it on his own would be near impossible. He, Palmer, had had no dealings with the woman other than the day he summoned her from her tent to go before John. She’d made it quite clear that he should not approach her again. She’d probably have to be carried out. Wait. He tried that thought again. Maybe . . . Just maybe.
‘Good evening to you.’ Palmer greeted the solitary guard as he got to the open gate at the top. De Lacy’s extra troops had brought an ease to Tibberaghny.
‘Good evening to you, Sir Benedict,’ said the guard. ‘What brings you up here? The whole place is feasting. Save me and one other.’
‘Is that my call to join the celebrations?’ Another guard came to the door of the keep. ‘No. Thought not.’ He spat in disappointment as he walked over to join them.
‘You might be better off,’ said Palmer. ‘Some people will wish they’d never started. Especially the fellow who’s spewed his vomit all over the inside of the clerk Gerald’s tent.’
Both men laughed long and hard, Palmer shaking his head. He wanted to be out of here. Now. But he couldn’t rush it.
‘That’ll have gone down well,’ said the first man.
‘He’s about as happy as a pig at a slaughterhouse,’ said Palmer. ‘There’s folk scrubbing it out as we speak. But his rugs have had to be taken out for a proper clean, and now he claims he can’t sleep with a damp, bare floor, that it’ll put a chill in his bones.’
The second man rolled his eyes. ‘Sounds like the clerk.’
Palmer went on. ‘The Lord John told me to come up and get one from his hall.’
The first guard sucked his teeth. ‘Lot of stairs.’
‘It’ll be heavy to cart out too,’ came the grumble from the second.
‘Don’t trouble yourselves. You’ve enough to do on your watch.’ Palmer offered up a prayer to the saint of laziness, if there was one. ‘It’ll be far easier for me to do it.’
‘Thanks, Sir Benedict,’ said the first man as the second nodded and yawned.
Careful to appear in no rush, Palmer walked to the doorway.
Then sprinted up the stairs.
The weight of a large tapestry, collected from the hall and rolled to carry it on one shoulder, slowed Palmer down.
He climbed the next flight as fast as his burden would allow, headed for Eimear’s room. Laying it down in relief, he gave a soft knock on the door, whispering close to it. ‘My lady?’
‘Who dares to disturb me at this time?’
Right room. He tried the handle. Good. Not locked. Yet. John would be sending new orders any minute. ‘Quiet, my lady. Please.’ Palmer turned the handle and swung the door open to be met with her enraged gaze.
‘You. What are you doing here?’ Eimear strode right up to him. ‘Have you come to string me up from a tree?’ She smacked him hard across one cheek, her heavy gold rings catching his skin. ‘For my head to put on one of your spikes?’ She went to backhand the other.
He grabbed her wrist. ‘Sister Theodosia has sent me.’
‘Liar.’ She landed another strike with her free hand. ‘She would have come herself.’
Face smarting, he stopped another deft blow. ‘Listen to what I have to say. And then you can decide if I lie.’
‘Told you those rugs were heavy, Palmer.’ The second guard stood at the bottom of the narrow stairwell as Palmer made his careful way down, his shoulder and back straining under the weight of Eimear hidden in the rolled wool.
‘You did. And you were right.’
‘Let me give you a lift with that.’ The guard put a foot on the bottom step and held his arms up. ‘Pass me that front bit.’
‘No.’ Palmer shot his free hand up. ‘I’m fine. Got it balanced.’
‘Please yourself.’ The guard stepped back as Palmer reached the small vestibule, and they walked outside.
The other man cast him an uninterested glance. ‘Hope the clerk appreciates it.’
‘I doubt it.’ Palmer went to step towards the top step of the motte. And froze. Something had bumped against the back of his leg and bounced to the ground. He glanced down. A narrow calfskin shoe. One of Eimear’s shoes. He stomped his own boot on top of it. ‘Good view of the heads on the wall from up here, eh?’
The guards nodded.
‘Been trying to count ’em,’ said one.
‘A hundred altogether.’ Palmer held his breathing in check as though he carried his burden with ease. ‘Took me and the others hours to get them all up there. The torches too.’ He pointed with his free hand, frowning. ‘Has that one fallen onto the wall? Those flames look high.’
‘Hell’s teeth.’ Both men looked to where he indicated.
Palmer ground the shoe into the mud. Impossible to duck down and pick it up. ‘No, my mistake.’
One of the guards sighed in relief. ‘Praise the saints. Bad enough the Irish tried to burn it down. We don’t need to do it ourselves.’
‘Very true. Goodnight to you both.’ Palmer set off towards the steps. ‘And thank you again.’
Palmer made the deep shadow of an empty tent as his shoulder threatened to give out. His back wasn’t far behind. He dropped his burden to the ground less gently than he would have liked.
To Eimear’s credit, she didn’t make a sound.
In a few quick movements, he loosened it enough to give her some air, but kept her concealed in it for now.
‘Are you all right, my lady?’
She nodded, her breathing fast, her long hair tangled around her face from her slipped head cover. ‘This thing is full of dust. I thought I was going to sneeze. So many times. Did anyone see you come down?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘That’s not as good as “no”.’
‘It’s all we have.’
‘My shoe?’
‘They didn’t see it.’
‘How do you propose to get me out of the gate? No one will believe you want to carpet the woods.’
Still recovering his own breath, Palmer nodded to where a small barrow rested nearby, loaded with upright barrels.
‘A night soil cart?’
‘Do you have a better idea, my lady?’
‘No.’ She went to clamber out of the woollen cover. ‘
And if you’re lying to me, I’ll have you drowned in one of those barrels. That is my solemn oath.’
Palmer didn’t doubt her for a second.
‘We’re almost there.’ With his cloak pulled over his face and neck in a rough, concealing hood, Palmer kept his voice low as he shoved the rumbling cart along the rutted track that led to the gate. ‘Keep very still.’
Of the three barrels, two had been empty and he’d wrested those off. One was full almost to the brim and far too heavy to shift. He’d got the lid as tight as he could, but the sharp, sour reek clogged his nose and throat.
The cart held none too clean straw also, put there to catch the many spills and leaks. Eimear lay beneath the straw, which he’d piled over her to hide her.
He whistled up to the guard at the gatehouse.
‘Bit soon for taking that out?’ came the shout down.
‘The privies are overflowing already,’ called Palmer. ‘All that feasting has to go somewhere.’
‘Fine for some.’ The guard shrugged. But he dropped the gate.
‘At least you haven’t got this lot,’ replied Palmer, increasing his pace to send the filthy, thick liquid slopping down the sides in the cart’s bounce over the ruts. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can, but it’ll take me a good while. Close the gate up behind me. Too risky to leave it open.’
He was on the smooth planks of the bridge, his shoulders hunched with effort as he pushed.
He didn’t care about the stink, about the weight. Right now, he and Eimear were at their most exposed.
Then with another hard bounce, he was on the roadway, moving as fast as he could, uncaring of spills and oozing, wet lumps, making for the darkness beyond the light of Tibberaghny. The trees, his enemy for so much of this campaign, were his friends tonight. ‘We’re out, my lady.’
The straw stirred.
‘Keep down. Another few minutes. Then we’re gone.’
He’d done it. With Eimear safely delivered to her people, he’d remove Theodosia from John’s entourage. It would take skill and timing, but he knew he’d be able to do it. Like the Irish, he knew how John worked.
Chapter Twenty
‘Brother, we need to go to the keep. Please.’ Theodosia urged the clerk as much as she dared without becoming openly rude.
‘My wine will have been poisoned, sister.’ Gerald sat on the edge of his bed, his head resting in his one good hand. ‘Poisoned.’
‘I am sure if it had been, we would have been told.’
Gerald gave a plaintive wail. ‘And what if there is no word because everyone lies dead?’
‘Brother.’ Theodosia put a firm hand to his shoulder. ‘We have had word. Not of wine that has been tampered with, but a summons from the Lord John. An immediate summons. He wants his clerk. We have to go now.’ She fought down the demons who whispered that the call related to Benedict. She’d sat up all night, wide awake, as she listened out for any sign that their flight had been discovered. Even when Gerald had eventually passed out, far too late for her to flee with Benedict, she had not closed an eye, praying without cease as she had in her cell at Canterbury.
As the first light of dawn had shown through the walls of the tent, calls and shouts had begun. Not the slow rhythm of a camp awakening after a night’s revelry, but urgent sounds that grew quickly louder. In the midst of those, the summons had come from John.
‘Oh, God help a poor, tired man.’ Gerald got to his feet, oblivious to anything except his own pounding head.
‘The fresh air will help to lift your tiredness.’
The gust of the dawn wind that met them as they stepped outside had Gerald complaining again, though Theodosia welcomed its coolness on her face after the staleness of the tent. Her stomach tightened further. It was as she had feared. Men rushed to and fro, involved in rapid exchanges, with purposeful haste.
She made her way towards the steps of the motte with Gerald, rehearsing how she would look, what she would say, when she was in John’s presence. Lying did not come to her with ease, did not even come to her with practice. She would have to, for Benedict. For Eimear.
‘Watch where you’re going, you simpleton.’ Gerald staggered as a man bumped into him.
‘Sorry, brother.’ The man carried a heavy saddle over his arm. ‘I’m in a hurry. Getting the search party ready.’
‘A search party?’ The urgency of his tone caught even the wine-suffering Gerald’s interest. ‘For whom?’
Theodosia tensed.
‘Eimear O’Connor, brother.’ The man kept walking, his steps speeding up.
‘The savage has gone missing?’ Gerald’s eyebrows shot up.
The man nodded. ‘With Sir Benedict Palmer.’ The man headed off towards the area where the horses were kept.
His answer quickened her breath. Benedict’s part in this discovered so soon.
‘No wonder the Lord John summons us,’ said Gerald. ‘Imagine: that Palmer fellow and de Lacy’s wife. I never thought he’d have such an unnatural lust.’
‘Hurry up, brother.’ Theodosia almost yanked him off his feet for his instant, lying gossip.
‘Careful, careful.’ He staggered hard.
Had he gone over into the mud, she would have preferred it. ‘My apologies, brother.’ Her pretence at sincerity surprised her. Perhaps she was better at lying than she’d thought.
She prayed that it were so: she still had to face John.
As Theodosia and Gerald entered John’s private solar in his keep, he stood alone, looking out of the window, observing the busy preparations below.
‘My lord.’ Gerald bowed, Theodosia too. ‘We have heard the news about O’Connor’s daughter and Sir Benedict Palmer.’
John turned to face them.
Theodosia quailed inside afresh.
As expected, John’s face was set in a grim mask. ‘It’s a pity that sight of their escape did not travel as quickly as the talk about it now.’
‘Deeply regrettable, my lord.’ Gerald sniffed. ‘Deeply. Such sinful adultery.’
Theodosia kept her eyes lowered in outward respect, hands clasped, to contain the response she wanted to give to the clerk.
‘You know something about these outrageous events, Gerald?’ said John.
‘No, my lord.’ He held up a warning finger. ‘But I believe it to be a reasonable assumption.’
Theodosia fought to keep her expression unchanged as Gerald carried on.
‘I say this because the Church has had to fight a long battle in this land over the most unusual practices in marriage.’
‘Perhaps.’ John’s face darkened. ‘But I have been considering a far more serious possibility: that Palmer has taken the woman to satisfy a different desire. She has great worth in this country. Alive or dead.’
Theodosia gasped at his words before she could prevent herself.
John’s frowning gaze came back to her. ‘Sister?’
‘My lord. Forgive me for my boldness. That my lady could be dead is a terrible shock.’ She stammered over her words, not under his appraisal, as he would certainly think, but with her deep anger that John would dare suggest that Benedict, saviour of his life, his camp, would betray him. ‘I – I only wondered how you came to such an opinion.’
‘When the call went out that she had disappeared, I ordered a search of the camp.’ John’s mouth curled in controlled rage. ‘De Lacy found her shoe, crushed in the mud by the keep. It didn’t take him long to extract from our so-called guards that Palmer has taken her out. And as I say, alive or dead.’
‘God’s eyes.’ Gerald shook his head.
Theodosia would not, could not let John see her relief, her triumph. They had done it. Eimear, alive. Benedict too. Both now far away from John and harm.
‘De Lacy will not be best pleased,’ said Gerald.
‘Indeed he is not.’ John returned to the window. ‘There he goes now.’
A loud clatter of hooves echoed up from the bailey.
‘Going?’ Gerald hurried over to t
he window, Theodosia following, her tension returned in cold, sudden shock.
‘Yes, going.’ John clenched the window frame. Hard.
‘Breaking his oath to you, my lord?’ Gerald’s mouth stayed open.
John nodded.
De Lacy’s shout to his small group of men led them across the bridge and out of Tibberaghny in an eager, fast trot.
Theodosia had trouble breathing. De Lacy did not care for his wife. Yet now he led a hunt for her. For Benedict too.
‘A matter of honour, apparently.’ John’s tone came tight, strained. ‘Or so de Lacy says.’
Theodosia stepped back. Gerald too.
John was about to let fly.
They were right.
The King’s son thrust himself away from the window. ‘The treacherous Lord of Meath has broken his oath to me!’ His shout echoed in the room.
But it was followed by another.
‘And I have never been so happy!’
‘You’re sure we’re going in the right direction?’ Palmer asked Eimear with laboured breaths as they ran along the muddy, deserted, narrow roadway. Her smooth face had the barest sheen of sweat, whereas he knew his hair and face were soaked.
‘Are you doubting me or looking for a rest?’ she said.
‘Neither. We can’t afford to make any mistakes. That’s all.’ He looked back with every few strides, checking for riders on the road, as he kept up the fast pace that had his leg muscles burning. Running through the dark had been much safer. Daylight had them exposed now.
‘I won’t put us wrong. The castle of the King of Thomond might be many miles away, but I know how to get there.’
‘I thought you said we’d likely find Irish help before then. Help that would get us moving faster.’
‘I did. And we should.’
‘“Should” isn’t good enough.’
‘I’ll pardon your rude tongue’ – she shot him an annoyed look – ‘this time.’
‘I’ve done what Theodosia asked and got you away from the Lord John and what he intended to do to you.’ Palmer picked up his pace. ‘And if my tongue’s too rude, then I’ll leave any time you like. I need to get back to her as soon as I can.’
