Power of Darkness

by Doris Sutcliffe Adams

  'Gently, gently, my lord.’ He helped him to sit back, propped against the tree-trunk. However little he liked the weasel, he was thirty years his elder and hurt in Durande's defence.

  The bony hands clawed at his sleeves. 'You are too late!' he croaked. 'She said you would follow, but you are too late.’

  His heart bounded at her faith in him. 'Fulbert has her?’ he demanded.

  'Over-ran us. No chance. Threw me out of the saddle when I got between them and broke my head. Drove off the horses— my knaves are chasing them now.’

  The man who had remained with his master, a grizzled groom, had already taken charge of the runaway, and came forward diffidently to offer a suggestion Hélie knew before he uttered it. ‘Yes, go! Ill work chasing horses afoot!'

  Eustace sat forward with a grunt and held his battered head on with both hands. He muttered something of which the only distinguishable words were, 'Disparagement. . . outrage.’ Hélie moved to get up, but he seized him again by the arm. 'No—one moment!'

  'God's mercy, will you delay me while he bears her off?' he burst out. 'Are you of one mind with your son?'

  He wished the hasty accusation unuttered when he saw the flush dye the older man's face, and then ebb leaving him pale as parchment.

  ‘It is only—if you do free her from that misbegotten routier, do not bring her back to Collingford! Take her to safety—to the convent—but not back to Collingford!'

  Hélie looked into his shamed face and was profoundly sorry for him. ‘I ask your pardon, my lord,' he said simply.

  ‘You know—' He choked on the ugly truth, and dropped his face into his hands. ‘He was afraid for his life,' he muttered, too shaken to attempt excuse for his son's betrayal. ‘The knave mocked me—he did it for fear—'

  And to be rid of a cousin he hated, and to curry favour with Hermeline, and to foment discord between her and her favoured suitor, Hélie mentally added. ‘My lord, I must go.'

  His sleeve was clutched again. ‘If it can be managed without scandal—there has been too much!' he begged. ‘She is an honest maid, for all her unseemly stubbornness!'

  ‘You will have to trust me,' Hélie answered briskly, decisively freeing himself. From the saddle he asked the one vital question. ‘How many are they?'

  ‘Seven or eight—I could not be sure—'

  ‘Get you home as fast as you can, and pray God's aid for us,' he recommended, and started the stallion into his raking stride. He heard him call some final advice or other, but the words were lost in the clatter of their going.

  The dust of Fulbert's passing was a golden mist in the sun's bright blaze. It powdered the wayside leaves grey, whitened Hélie's black tunic, even dimmed the glitter of his silver cloak-brooch and the scarlet lion striking at his foes. Through the fury in his brain pricked some prudence and common-sense, pointed by Gino's grave inquiry.

  ‘Do we undertake this routier company alone, my lord?'

  ‘From where shall we conjure help?'

  ‘I wondered whether you expected angels to descend from Heaven and fight for us, my lord, since we oppose the Devil's minions.'

  Hélie chuckled rather ruefully, and the laughter released his wits from anger's grasp. He could overtake Fulbert long before he reached his own fief of Whittleham, for he doubted that the mercenary had a half-hour's start of him, but the two of them would make no more than a gristly mouthful for four times as many veteran routiers. But he had the advantage over Fulbert of having been born and bred in this country, and geography fought for him.

  Half a league further on he turned into a narrow track that entered the main road, appearing no more than a path worn by peasants from some nearby forest hamlet. Hooves and wheels had scarcely worn it, the trees arched over and shadowed it, the undergrowth pressed close on either hand. The stallion, still glad of leave to run, stretched to the kindlier surface and spurned the miles behind him.

  ‘The River Burley joins the Frindell on the right yonder,' he explained to Gino, ‘and the main road swings east and north to cross them at the two sure upper fords. But there is a ford below their joining which is passable in a dry season. The peasants use it in summer. We will save near a league, and be at the Burley ford before Fulbert.'

  They galloped through the golden morning, over the soft leaf-mould and dusty grass. Pheasants towered noisily with whirring wings; once a bristled boar clashed his tusks at them, and as they crossed an open space a fallow doe and her fawn fled from them. At length they were trotting down a long slope to the ford, shining bright at its foot. There was a broad clearing and half a dozen cottages set in garden-patches; stubble-fields and a ploughman at work; women beating laundry at the water-side, children and chickens and dogs, and the whack of flails from a barn's open doorway. On the other bank was royal forest, and most of the hamlet's men were forest officers, keepers or agistors. The threshers left their work to greet them, the children gathered to gape and run alongside the noble lord riding so ill-attended among them, and the women waved their washing-paddles, saluted Hélie and hurled unseemly jests at Gino, on whom they were wasted for lack of English.

  The water was low after weeks of dry weather, and they crossed without mishap, not more than belly-deep to Gino's pony. They halted briefly to breathe the horses, and then took the track that ran straight as a bow-string to the upper ford nearly a mile away. The river twisted away from them like a silver serpent, until its murmur was lost.

  There was no settlement at the upper ford. The tall trees rose darkly from the river’s edge, their roots, exposed by winter spates, gripping the soil like clawed fingers. Thickets jewelled with berries, orange and scarlet and dusky-purple, crouched close to the grey track. A jay screeched raucously nearby, startling all the woods. Hélie swung down, tossed his reins to Gino, and walked to the trampled edge. A kingfisher flung its dart of living blue light across the stream.

  The mud was dry. The puddled drippings of those who had crossed last were baked hard and already powdering back to dust; yesterday’s for certain. They were here first. He stood for a moment with the water lapping at his toes, looking at the white dusty streak cutting the sunlit woods until, about a hundred yards away, it turned from sight round a bend. He narrowed his eyes against the glitter of sunlight on the water, no more than knee-deep, as one glance told him.

  Gino, having tethered the horses out of sight, padded down to join him. He squatted to examine the pebbles at the water’s edge with exaggerated care, weighing them in his hand and tossing aside those that did not fit his requirements. Hélie smiled. When he had selected three or four they returned to the horses, and sat at ease on the grass to watch the track.

  The kingfisher flashed back. Somewhere a robin tried over a few notes of his autumn song. Gino produced from his belt-pouch a bundle of leather straps and shook it out into two looped thongs stitched to a pocket, in which he set a pebble. Another jay screeched, fainter and farther away, and they lifted their heads. Then a thin jingle of harness, the trample of hooves, and a murmur of voices successively reached them, and they stepped into their saddles, as the first riders came round the bend.

  First came a couple of arbalesters in iron caps and ring-sewn leather tunics, crossbows on their shoulders. Behind them Fulbert of Falaise led Durande’s palfrey, its reins hitched to his saddle-horn. Apart from that she rode free, erect and still-faced. Four more arbalesters made the cavalcade’s tail, riding at ease a couple of lengths behind their captain. Gino gently swung his sling and turned an inquiring eyebrow on his master.

  ‘When they are half-way across,’ Hélie murmured. ‘First the one on the right, then Fulbert. No killing. I want no dead men to explain afterwards.’

  Gino grinned like a wolf bereft of its lamb, but he would obey. England was not Provence, where a dead man or so littering the roads scarcely provoked comment, let alone inquiry. The troop jingled and clattered nearer, at a leisurely pace. Fulbert was speaking to the lady, who ignored him as contemptuously as if he had been an insect in the d
ust. She looked straight ahead of her, her broad face impassive within the frame of the wimple, her capable hands folded upon her skirt. The palfrey moved demurely among the trampling war-horses.

  The first two splashed into the stream at a sober walk. One rider leaned from the saddle to scoop up a handful of water and gulp noisily at it, spilling it over chin and chest and wiping his dripping hand over his dusty face. He was still half-blind and snorting when the stone clanged against his iron cap and beat him backwards and sideways against his crupper. He lost a stirrup, pivoted upon the saddle with waving legs and vanished in a sousing splash. He was still in mid-somersault when the second stone thudded into Fulbert’s midriff and doubled him gasping over his saddle-horn.

  Hélie erupted from the thickets, his sword ringing from the scabbard and his spurs pricking sharply. The stallion, trumpeting fury, bounded headlong, striking the water in a towering storm of sunlit spray. Hélie slashed with the flat at the other astounded mercenary’s head. He flung his arm up, dodging instinctively; metal clashed, Tancred shouldered his mount aside, and man and horse were overset in a flurry of threshing limbs and flying water.

  The girl had already snatched her reins from Fulbert’s saddle and swung her palfrey about on his haunches. As Hélie crashed to her side she was lunging at the bemused rearguard. He crowded half a length ahead of her, glimpsing the flash of her grin and hearing the ring of her laugh, struck back a grabbing arm, clubbed his sword-pommel back-handed into a face snarling by his elbow, and drove the screaming, maddened stallion at a rider whose mount reared up beyond control and crashed over. Then they were through, the water shattering silver about them, and hurtling for the track. Gino was screeching in the welter of spray, the girl laughing beside him.

  8

  THEY burst out of the water, half-drenched and triumphant, the white track curving empty before them. Hélie gave the stallion his head and chanced a quick glance over his shoulder to grin jubilantly at Durande. She was still laughing, her face alight. All at once laughter changed to wild alarm, and she cried out in warning. Something like a bar of iron caught him across the breast, plucked him from the saddle and flung him down with a jarring crash flat on his back. Track, woods and sky whirled about him into blackness. The wind beaten out of him, he sprawled half-stunned. Briefly he glimpsed the legs and underbelly of a horse, rearing above him, and then sight went out.

  A heavy weight dropped on his chest, forcing the last air from his labouring lungs in a strangled wheeze. Hands tugged at him. He blinked up at brilliant white clouds upon an enamelled blue sky, fretted with golden-green leaves. Then a face came between him and the sky, a hairy face with a villainously bent nose and a ferocious grin. He choked and squawked like an agonized fowl, and a sharp voice said through the roaring in his ears, ‘Take your great rump off his chest, fool, and let him breathe!’

  The weight shifted and settled solidly on his belly, which was small improvement. He fetched a couple of crowing breaths, found his aching lungs functioning again, blinked once more and stared up. His distempered vision took in a thicket of legs, a broad body in iron-sewn leather astride him, pinning down his arms with bony knees, Durande gazing anxiously down at him, held by both wrists from behind, and beyond her a man untying one end of a rope from a breast-high hold on a tree-trunk by the track. He knew then what had befallen, and fury and shame scalded him. He had blundered unpardonably in underestimating his adversary.

  The circle of legs broke to admit another pair in good brown hose and short, gilt-spurred riding-boots. Hélie lifted his spinning head a couple of inches to scowl defiance at Fulbert of Falaise, who stood tenderly massaging his midriff and regarding him with an expression oddly compounded of amusement, dismay and respect. He was pale under his tan, and he stooped a little to ease his afflicted belly, but he grinned wryly at Hélie and drew back his foot. Hélie braced himself for a kick, but it was directed at the ample backside straddling him.

  'Up, Baldwin! Is a tenant-in-chief among us to serve you as a cushion?'

  The fellow removed himself with alacrity beyond the length of his captain's leg. Hélie heaved himself up on one elbow and looked fiercely about him for Gino. He was lying nearby with his nose in the dust, squirming ineffectually while a routier kneeling on his spine finished cording his wrists at his back. Some measure of relief reached through Hélie's shame; at least none had come by bodily hurt, however abased in pride. He looked up into Durande's gravely impassive face and said stiffly, 'I am sorry for bungling, my lady.'

  'I have only thanks for you, my lord.'

  Fulbert grinned at both of them. 'I am an old enough bird to have learned wariness,' he said cheerfully, 'and I had a couple of men riding half a mile behind as precaution. I was half-expecting you, Lord Hélie, but by all Hell's devils, not as and when you came!' He gently caressed his belt-line, and his malicious monkey-grin broadened. 'I have been ambushed more than once by experts, but I never knew it more featly accomplished.'

  Hélie sat up. 'I must value your commendation,' he acknowledged with sour courtesy. He started to climb a little unsteadily to his feet. He had thumped the back of his head rather solidly in his fall, and since the spring his skull had ill supported thumping. Fulbert helpfully extended a hand, which he angrily ignored.

  'I presume you knew a nearer ford, Lord Hélie,' Fulbert pursued, unabashed. 'And what Hell-devised engine did your man use on us?'

  'A sling.'

  ‘Then I perceive that King David took unknightly advantage over the unfortunate and thick-witted Goliath,' he said feelingly.

  One of his men handed him Hélie's sword-belt and dagger. A clatter of hooves heralded the arrival of another routier, leading Hélie's wild-eyed and reluctant stallion. He pushed to his master and dropped his nose to Hélie's breast. A man pressed close with drawn dagger, lest he should try to mount and run.

  Fulbert rubbed his long chin and eyed him speculatively. ‘Lord Hélie,' he offered unexpectedly, ‘give me your knightly oath to ride straightway home to Trevaine, and you may go free.’

  ‘Not without Lady Durande. She has my word.’

  ‘One of these inconvenient knightly consciences. Then you must be a guest at my wedding, Lord Hélie.’

  ‘Since you press your invitation so irresistibly,’ Hélie agreed grimly. Fulbert chuckled.

  There followed a small bustle as the new order of march was arranged. Routiers who had been unlucky in the brief clash wrung out their sodden garments, regarding Hélie and Gino as though it would pleasure them to toss both into deeper water than the ford, with weights at neck and heels to keep them under. Hélie, alert for any opportunity of breaking free, realized at once that these men were too experienced to grant him any.

  ‘Since you refuse your word, Lord Hélie, you must ride bound.’

  He mounted Tancred without undignified and futile resistance, and submitted to having his wrists tethered to the saddlehorn and his ankles lashed under his horse's belly, while an arbalester stood by with loaded crossbow. Gino was likewise constrained. Fulbert approached his intended bride, who turned her back on him, set her foot in the stirrup and went up unaided as lithely as a lad. She settled her skirts decently and looked down at him with deadly eyes.

  ‘My fair basilisk, will you turn me to stone with a glance?' he asked lightly, possessing himself of her rein. He led. Two men-at-arms followed, behind them Hélie, and another pair between him and Gino. The loaded arbalest was still negligently aimed at his back, so negligently in fact that the knowledge gave him a peculiar itch between the shoulder-blades. He rode in bitter fury, castigating himself that he had bungled shamefully, cost Durande her last hope of escaping this rape disguised as marriage, and amply justified his kinsmen's opinion of him as a headstrong, foolhardy young half-wit. His whole vocabulary of derogatory adjectives could not suffice for his inexcusable folly.

  Fulbert could scarcely be enjoying the ride either. Even his matchless flow of humorous impudence could not maintain itself without some response. T
he lady rode still and impassive, and his mockery dashed against her contemptuous silence like water against rock, and was defeated. He gave up. The routiers growled and muttered among themselves in a constant undertone that mingled with the drone of insects.

  The main road crossed a lesser track. In the crossroads clearing stood a thatched cottage rather larger than most, with a long open-sided lean-to at its back and a bench on either side of the doorway. Over the door a green bush was tied to a protruding pole, and on one bench sat two dusty men, who lifted surprised red faces from cavernous leather mugs at sight of approaching company, glanced swiftly at each other, and as one man upended their mugs, gulped, rose briskly to their feet, made for the lean-to, flung packs across a couple of horses and themselves across two more, and departed at a smart canter.

  'Ale!' said two or three voices in yearning chorus.

  'Merchants!' said a dissenting voice, with much the same yearning. 'We could overtake them, captain?'

  'How often must I remind you that this is England, not Normandy?' Fulbert rebuked him severely. 'And they are halfway to the woods already,' he added with regret, grinning.

  'Ale!' prayerfully said a man who was gently steaming under the hot sun. 'Ale, to wash the memory of the water I have swallowed from my gullet!'

  'Ale within is best for wet without,' fervently declared another damp man-at-arms, squirming inside the grapple of his sodden shirt. All eyes were on the green bush, sign of a fresh brew offered for public consumption.

  A buxom, high-coloured woman appeared in the doorway. She said something over her shoulder, and a lanky lad of sixteen or seventeen slouched out, bobbed his shock-head in a jerky bow and approached to take their horses. Then he noticed the prisoners, and backed a little, his face vacuous with slack-jawed alarm. The routiers all gazed expectantly at their captain for leave to dismount and refresh themselves.