by E. M. Powell
‘My lord.’ Aylward kept his eyes on his men.
John’s jaw tightened. That man had ignored his excellent suggestion. Then to hell with mercy. More straightforward without it. The first one found could be made an example of, exactly as he had decided.
Blood flowing eagerly in his veins again, he scanned the loud, heaving mass of men, seeking out the long hair and beards and woollen robes he had so come to despise. He frowned. Nothing.
‘Nothing?’ Aylward’s reply echoed John’s reaction to those who’d smashed their way into the nearest dwellings and were coming out again empty-handed.
‘Empty.’
The same findings were reported, over and over.
‘Empty.’
‘Nothing, sir!’
‘Not here.’
‘Nobody in this one, sir.’
‘Nobody?’ John could only utter the word in bewilderment. ‘Not only is this woman I need to get my hands on not here, there is no one else either.’ He pointed at Aylward with his whip. ‘Have you brought me on a fool’s errand, fool?’
‘No, my lord. This is the first village. It’s unusual to find a place completely deserted. Usually that only happens when there’s been a plague.’
‘You mean to tell me there is plague here?’ Heart thudding in abrupt panic, John readied himself to ride out of here as fast as his beast could take him, even if he had to trample the soldiers that milled around the street.
‘No, my lord. There would be other signs. Everything here is tidy, in order. It’s just . . . empty.’
Another man spoke up. ‘My lord, it could be that there is a wedding taking place in a nearby settlement, or people are making a pilgrimage.’
‘You mean the lazy hounds have simply gone gadding off somewhere?’ John’s heart still raced at the fright he’d had at the suggestion of plague.
‘It may be, my lord,’ said Aylward.
‘Then we have wasted time because of their idleness. God save me from this country.’ He pointed his whip at Aylward again. ‘We go now. Now. And heaven help this group of shirkers when I catch up with them.’
‘Yes, my lord. To your saddles!’
The men responded at once to the order and moved off again in smooth efficiency.
John’s heart refused to calm. His task today was starting to frustrate him. Deeply.
‘A bigger village this time, my lord,’ Aylward shouted back to him. ‘It may be that is where the others have travelled.’
A muted cheer met the man’s words.
John’s mood improved too at the good news. He was eager to proceed; that was all. Always his curse, his whole life: he wanted to move on, to get things done. And always held back by laggards and those too slow to keep up with him.
He smiled his approval at those men who met his glance, even briefly. All of them together in this noble endeavour. He increased his animal’s pace so he would arrive at a brisk trot, as if that was how he rode all day. And arrive he did.
It was like a bad dream.
Aylward calling for the men to dismount, and then their swift responses.
Dismounting onto a deserted street. Smashing the doors and twisted twig walls of the mean little dwellings. Mailed men in. Mailed men out. No one else.
The sun reddening his skin as he sat on his mount.
The only difference was the stink from a nearby manure pile, clouded with hundreds of buzzing flies that set on him too, their fat, swollen bodies eager for his sweat as well as his horse’s.
‘The same, my lord.’ Aylward looked concerned now.
‘The same?’ John’s furious yell brought an instant silence. ‘The same wedding? The same pilgrimage?’ His gaze met uncertain looks. ‘The same plague?’
‘I don’t think it’s any of those things, my lord,’ said Aylward.
‘Then what do you think?’
‘I don’t know yet, my lord.’
‘Limited!’ John’s scream tore through the empty hovels. ‘You’re so bloody limited!’ He flung an accusatory finger at the oaf. ‘They should be here. Should be present to answer my questions about where this woman Theodosia has gone. So burn the place. All of it. Now. Make sure there isn’t so much as a twig for them to return to.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘And then we make for the next. At the fastest speed.’
A horsefly bit him hard on the hand, and he swiped it away with an oath.
‘Take some of this water. You look as if you need it.’ Palmer offered his water bottle to Theodosia.
Their horse had slowed to a plod as the ground rose steeply, the trees giving way to bare grey rock and patches of thin soil with huge stands of spiny, yellow-flowered gorse that threw its sweet scent into the shimmering air of the hot afternoon.
‘I will have a little.’ She took it from him, eyes shadowed with a worrying exhaustion, her usually pale face a painful-looking red from the long day under the sun’s rays.
‘Don’t expect refreshment,’ he said. ‘It’s very warm.’
She took a drink. ‘It is still better than nothing.’
Palmer glanced back. Eimear had her head down as she watched the track for loose stones under her horse’s hooves.
‘Palmer.’ He looked up at the call from above him. Framed against the sky, a silent Nagle and Simonson next to him, de Lacy pointed over at the distant lowlands. ‘Smoke.’
‘Let me through.’ John forced his own animal through the group of riders to take the lead as they entered yet another Irish village that showed no signs of life.
‘My lord, please, let us go first.’ Aylward’s plea came polite, yet forceful. ‘We don’t know what to expect.
He ignored Aylward’s request. ‘Oh, don’t you?’
‘There could be an ambush.’
John pulled up sharply and jumped off his horse. ‘An ambush from whom? That cat over there, lying in the sun? The Irish have gone, same as from the other two places. Gone because they know I am hunting my spy, my traitor from the Church.’
Aylward exchanged looks with Gerald. ‘My lord, we don’t know that. I have been fighting in this country for many years. All sorts of feuds and battles rage all the time between the different families and their followers. Even amongst the settlers.’
‘Then you are a fool.’ John flung out an arm. ‘Use your eyes, man! If it were a bloody feud, there’d be bodies. The injured. The ravished. There is nothing except a cat. A sleeping, bloody cat!’ He saw the careful looks in many faces now. For a second, he saw himself through their eyes. Face burned by the sun. Covered in fly bites. Standing alone on the hot street, claiming that one nun could somehow have done all this in only a day. Maybe he was losing his mind. He swallowed down some of his rage. ‘Perhaps I shall sit in the shade. While you carry out the usual search.’
‘My lord.’ Aylward brought his men forward with a whistle.
‘I shall sit with you, my lord.’ Gerald dismounted too.
John staggered to the shade of a tall ash tree as a man took his horse, and Gerald brought him a leather bottle containing wine. He took a long draught of the sweetness, warm as his own blood.
‘Good to rest, my lord.’
John ignored him. The wine made his head spin even more. He palmed at his face, hating the unrelenting heat. Hating today.
Mailed figures, smashing empty hovels. The same hovels that would yield to flames as they left. On and on. Futile.
‘I’ve found someone!’ A shout from one poor cottage.
John was on his feet, wine splashing onto the dust, arriving at the low door at the same time as Aylward and Gerald.
A faint, foul stench met him. More flies.
‘Who?’ John crouched low to push his way in first, eager for someone he could question. He tripped, with an oath, on the rough cobbles of the threshold, his eyes readjusting to the dimness inside as the clerk and the serjeant followed him in.
The man already present yanked down one of the animal skins that lined the wall. Slender shafts of
afternoon light found their way through the hazel weave, buzzing insects as well as dust dancing in the beams. ‘This old woman. But I think she’s dead.’
A small, emaciated figure lay on one of the two straw beds set against opposite walls.
Aylward put a hand on her, much to John’s disgust. ‘She is.’
‘God rest her soul.’ Gerald crossed himself.
‘What killed her?’ John fought the urge to flee, the spectre of plague haunting him once more.
‘I’d guess a wasting disease,’ said Aylward. ‘She has no flesh on her at all.’ He crossed himself quickly. ‘She’s not long dead. Her body is still stiff.’
John frowned. ‘Then she has been dead for about a day?’
‘Yes, my lord. I would think so.’ Aylward stood up. ‘Unfortunate. She might have been able to tell us what happened here.’
The man who’d found her nodded. ‘We’d have got it out of her.’
‘Maybe she still can.’ John pushed past him, landing on his knees on the wicker-covered floor beside the bed. His stomach turned over at the stronger stench of death and of flesh that had decayed even while this hag still lived. It had to be done. He ripped the veil that surrounded the woman’s thin, toothless face with her spike of a nose.
‘My lord.’ Aylward’s voice sounded disturbed and he saw Gerald’s shocked face out of the corner of his eye.
‘I thought you had the stomachs of men.’ John searched through her sparse, grey hair in a moment. Nothing there. He put his hand to the thin, rough wool of her tunic. And pulled. Hard.
‘My lord.’ This time Gerald’s hand was on his arm, daring to pull him off.
John shoved him away. ‘Look, damn you. Look.’
And there it was. His proof. A deep red stain bloomed on the darned greyish linen of the woman’s shift.
Gerald moaned in terror, brought his hands to his head. ‘They have slain this defenceless wretch.’
‘Lest you still doubt me.’ John put his hand to her shift.
‘My lord, I do not. Spare her her modesty. Please.’
John ignored Aylward, tore that garment open too, his rage now mounting anew within him. He stared at the neat wound, a handspan below where a crude, wooden cross hung around the woman’s neck.
‘Oh, may God help us now.’ Gerald wailed afresh. ‘If the Irish can slay an old dying woman, then we can all end up martyred in this terrible country. Martyred like Saint Thomas Becket himself!’
Now John knew. Knew what he had to do. ‘You thought I was sun-maddened,’ he hissed at Aylward, before clambering back outside through the low doorway.
‘A blade has pierced this woman’s heart!’
Frowns and a rumble of surprise met John’s words.
Aylward, Gerald and the soldier emerged, eyes downcast.
John went on. ‘Someone made sure she couldn’t talk. Which means someone knew that there would be people arriving who might want her to.’ He clenched his fist. ‘Us.’ He clenched it harder. ‘Me.’ Harder. ‘I have no doubt it is the spy. I have no doubt that this woman, Theodosia, has woven this web of deceit, which allows her to command these villages of traitors. Which has made for so many losses on this campaign.’
The surprise shifted to aggression.
‘But this place will be burned too. The houses, the fields. All of it. And the next. And the next. Anywhere that is loyal to an Irish king. I will carve a burning path all the way to Dublin if I have to. No mercy for anyone who gets in its way.’
A great roar went up.
‘Once at Dublin, the greatest of resources in the whole of this land will be devoted to making sure that this spy of the Church, this Sister Theodosia, is hunted down and killed. Along with every treacherous knave who has dared to act with her and defy me, the Lord of Ireland!’
The cheers rose up at the same moment as the flames.
He grabbed one of the torches and flung it in the door of the hovel where the corpse of the woman lay. Such a shame she wasn’t still alive. Death by fire was a wonderful spectacle.
Palmer arrived beside de Lacy, the horse beneath him and Theodosia breathing hard from the quickened climb and from bearing its double load.
‘Smoke.’ De Lacy’s mouth set in a hard line. ‘And lots of it.’
‘So much smoke,’ whispered Simonson as he clung to Nagle.
‘Oh, those poor people.’ Theodosia put a hand to her mouth.
‘What’s happening?’ Eimear kicked her horse up the last stretch.
‘See for yourself.’ Palmer shook his head. ‘John’s handiwork.’
Spread out below them, the land in its many shades of green and gold sat hazed in the heat of the afternoon sun. But smoke thickened the haze in many places. In so many, many places.
‘The whoreson.’ Eimear ground out the word.
‘I could think of a few more words for him,’ said Palmer.
‘But are you sure it is John, Benedict?’ Theodosia turned to challenge him with her gaze even as her voice came hoarse. ‘Could it not be something else?’
‘Oh, it’s him, Theodosia.’ Eimear’s disgusted reply came over his. ‘You can see it from up here. A line of death and destruction, leading from Tibberaghny.’
‘Because of me,’ came Theodosia’s low, angry whisper.
Palmer wouldn’t allow it. ‘No, Theodosia.’ The horse jigged beneath them at his sharp response. ‘Because of John. All of it, because of him. You can’t forget that.’
Even as he spoke, a fresh plume rose up in the distance, thin, strong. New.
She went to reply. But no words came out as she slumped forward.
Heart thudding, Palmer halted her fall with his arm. ‘De Lacy.’
The lord was off his animal, holding the unconscious Theodosia as Palmer’s boots met the ground, his own legs weak now. It would be a faint, a faint. That’s all.
‘I’ve got her.’ He pulled Theodosia to him and off their mount, laying her gently on the hot, hard ground, cradling her head and shoulders in one bent arm. God smiled on him – she still breathed. ‘Open your eyes, my love,’ he murmured. ‘Come on.’
Eimear joined him with a stifled oath.
‘We’ll stop for a rest here while Sister Theodosia recovers,’ said de Lacy to Nagle and Simonson. ‘Make sure you tether your horse.’
‘What ails her?’ Eimear’s dark gaze met Palmer’s, her face with its healthy glow a sharp contrast to Theodosia’s flushed one.
‘Too much.’ He tightened his grip on her. His Theodosia. His brave, brave Theodosia. All I want is her. His words to Henry, as true now as all those years ago. He swallowed down the sudden knot of tears that rose in his throat as he put a palm to her cheek, her forehead. Dry, despite the heat.
‘By which you mean?’ came Eimear’s question.
‘She’s exhausted. Her escape from yesterday. Little sleep. These long, hot hours in the saddle. Too much.’
Palmer saw the realisation in Eimear’s eyes even as he heard the crackle of movement in the gorse, saw de Lacy’s head turn too, Nagle and Simonson stop their tired stretching dead.
A band of Irish warriors rose from the thick bushes, axes in hand, surrounding them completely. He’d seen them before, he would swear to it. Then his eyes lit on the huge axe-wielding man he’d so narrowly fought off in the woods near Ardfinnan.
Palmer clutched Theodosia, his hand going for his sword. Now he prayed she didn’t open her eyes. Best she didn’t know the end.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Theodosia’s head hurt. Not so much hurt, as pounded. Lying on this bed gave her no relief, only discomfort, its hard lumps and bumps pushing into her back. She forced her eyes open, her lids sticky and heavy. All she could see were green spiked leaves, yellow flowers. Specks of blue through them. Her palms found hard ground. Not a bed. She forced herself upright, her recall of what had happened restored. She should be on a horse with Benedict. Not falling from it in weakness and delaying their progress.
‘Easy, easy.’ Benedi
ct sat next to her, sheltered in the shade of tall gorse bushes. ‘Thank the saints you’ve come round.’ He put a hand to her shoulder. ‘Don’t try to do anything. Just drink.’ He brought a leather water pouch to her lips.
‘We have little water.’ She remembered that. Remembered the tormenting thirst. Her exhaustion. The unaccustomed heat she had not been able to bear.
‘No, we have plenty. Thanks to them.’
Theodosia followed the direction of his nod. She pulled in a deep breath of fear.
A group of around a dozen Irish warriors stood with de Lacy. With Eimear. With the wary-looking Nagle and a petrified-looking Simonson.
She tried to scramble to her feet. ‘We have to run! We have to go—’
‘Easy, I said.’ Benedict kept his hold on her. ‘They haven’t come to do us harm. Now drink.’
Despite her whirling head, she took a grateful mouthful. ‘Then why are they here?’ And another and another.
‘They tracked us down using the news that is being spread. That Eimear started.’
‘News of murder, of death?’ Her head cleared. She braced for his reply.
‘No.’ His dark eyes shone with quiet pride. ‘Settlements are being burned, destroyed. But John’s men have not found an Irish life to take yet.’
‘Then the fires we saw, they were John’s doing.’ She looked at him with a fierce hope that she had not misunderstood. ‘Yet he has not managed to kill?’
‘No. Not that these men have heard.’ Benedict shook his head. ‘He’s very angry, it would seem, with the spy that he had in his midst. Getting angrier by the hour as he travels farther from here. From you.’
‘Oh, God be praised.’ Relief surged through her, bringing her to greater strength as she drank again.
He flashed her a grin. ‘God has my thanks that the little swine is angry too.’
She smacked him on the shoulder. ‘You know precisely what I meant.’
‘Of course I do. It’s the best news you could have had.’ He caressed her cheek. ‘I saw your despair, though you were shouldering blame for things that were not your fault.’
‘I acted rashly.’
