He was stopped by the next arrival, dressed in a black horsehide coat that had clearly seen better days. Only his limp gave him away.
“Ross?” said Gisburne.
De Rosseley threw back the hood. “You told me to look after the coat,” he said. “But I thought I might as well make use of it. I knew O’Doyle would kill me on sight—but not you. So I became you. And as I led him a merry dance, these two”—he gestured to Galfrid and the Norseman—“circled around and finally got the bastard.” He sighed. “Took them a bloody age, mind you.”
O’Doyle had struggled onto his knees—something told Gisburne that his treatment at the hands of the Norseman had warned him against going further. Gisburne indicated he could rise to his feet, and he did. But still he looked at his captor with defiance.
“You know you’re the last of them,” said Gisburne. He cast an eye across the field of bodies. “The last one still alive, at any rate.”
“Not quite the last,” said O’Doyle. His glanced around furtively, as if he were uncertain whether to say more. But he was past caution now. “Hood’s alive.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Walking out of the forest. Heading north.”
“Injured?”
O’Doyle nodded.
“Badly?”
“Bad enough. But he won’t stop; not until he’s dead. And that’s why I’m telling you this, Gisburne. So you know you have not yet won.”
“He isn’t dead yet,” said Gisburne. “Which means you don’t get to shoot at the King.”
“It’s not him I most want to kill,” said O’Doyle.
Gisburne narrowed his eyes. “My quarrel is not with you, Alan O’Doyle.”
“But mine is with you.”
“What if I were to let you go?”
The Norseman growled darkly at the suggestion.
“Your father destroyed our family,” said O’Doyle. “And you killed my brother. Don’t pretend compassion now just to salve your conscience.”
“It’s not pretence,” protested Mélisande. Gisburne looked at her in surprise. “At the end, on the Tower battlement, after the most bitter fight, Gisburne tried to save him.” Her gaze went to Gisburne then darted away. “He did not know I saw it. Doubtless his mercy embarrasses him.”
Gisburne stared at the ground. “He was my brother,” he said. “Just as he was yours.”
At this, O’Doyle’s hard expression altered. He stood in silence for a moment, then took a step towards Gisburne.
The Norseman’s axe felled him before he could take another. He collapsed, his head split in two.
The Norseman, his work done, vengeance taken, swayed and blinked as if only now affected by the bolt in his collarbone, then turned and walked away.
They watched as he picked his way across the courtyard to Tancred’s lifeless body, lifted it, then turned again and walked in silence straight into the blazing inferno of Hood’s great hall in a great whirl of sparks.
ACROSS THE BLACKENED, apocalyptic ruin of the grove, another figure staggered through the smoke.
Much. They watched as he walked by, seemingly oblivious to their presence, as if he would just keep going until he dropped.
“Much?” called Gisburne. The boy did not respond. “Much?”
The second time, he stopped.
“Micel,” he said. “My name is Micel.”
Gisburne nodded, then asked the question he feared the most. “What of Marian?”
“Dead,” he said grim-faced. “And that was a mercy.”
All Gisburne could feel now was relief. One less thing to carry.
“How?”
“She ran screaming from the escarpment. I heard the noise as she fell. Then I saw her carried away by the river, her head surrounded by weed, her dead eyes wide open.” He bowed his head, his shoulders shaking.
“Leave this place, Micel,” said Gisburne. “Run from it. As far as you can. But remember all that it has taught you.”
And with no further word, Micel turned and ran.
“WHAT NOW FOR us?” said Mélisande.
“We bury Asif,” said Galfrid.
Gisburne nodded.
“And after that?”
“For you, Aldric Fitz Rolf, nothing.”
“That’s it? You’re abandoning me in the woods with a crossbow wound yet again?”
“Last time I told you to find a new master. A better master,” said Gisburne. “This time, I mean to provide something more tangible. When we reach our horses, go straight back to Nottingham Castle and find Llewellyn of Newport. They will say he is not there—may even deny he exists—but persist. Tell him I sent you. There is no better physician. But the man is also old and in need of an apprentice. This is the future I promised you.”
“And you?” said Aldric.
“Hood is still out there.”
“You must rest,” protested Mélisande. “You’re injured. Half-dead.”
“I won’t rest until I’ve seen him in his grave,” said Gisburne. “Keep your bows ready and on your backs. Gather what arrows you can.”
“Where will he go?” asked de Rosseley. “Where can he go?”
But Gisburne already knew the answer.
LXXIII
Kyrklees Priory
30 March, 1194
BRIGA WAS IN the herb garden when the bell rang. It was not the steady, ordered bell of Prime or Sext. They were hours from either—this was the urgent clamour of alarm.
She squinted up at the Priory building. There were no cries, no suspicious plumes of smoke. Nothing to indicate trouble, but for the wild tolling of the bell. She cursed her poor old knees and hoped it would be worth the effort of getting to her feet.
Then a shrouded figure flew from the doorway, and was sure that it was.
The past few weeks had been troubled. Her relationship with Prioress Magdalena had become strained, and in the past day that tension had only been increased by the new arrivals.
The injured men had claimed to be survivors of some battle, and certainly they showed signs of having been in combat. They were roughly clad and underfed, but well muscled—from using the bow, Briga thought.
Yet Briga had heard of no such battle, thought they looked more like labourers and poachers than soldiers, and suspected they had made the journey on stolen horses. It worried her who they might be harbouring, but Magdalena had welcomed them with open arms.
It was the journey that most troubled her. Most were tight-lipped about the battle itself, but one or two had mentioned Nottingham.
And that, in itself, was a puzzle. It was a good sixty miles to Nottingham. Two days’ ride, at a fair pace; one, at a considerable push—a push some of them had clearly made. But there were any number of abbeys, priories and houses of healing within a few miles of Nottingham. So why had these men come here?
Briga suspected it had some connection with their mysterious benefactor—the one who, in recent months, had taken to leaving treasure at their gate, and which Magdalena accepted without question. “Gifts from God,” she called them. The wages of righteousness. Though none dared speak the name, most knew from whom they came; and while many idolised him, Briga begged to differ. She had heard other tales—of threats, of torture, and worse. If these men had him as master, then having them here was only inviting trouble—and aiding villainy.
The men were tight-lipped about this, too, and when asked directly—Briga had a tendency towards directness—had looked about as if they were being watched or heard, and said nothing. Briga had only ever seen its like in those who feared offending God.
Briga’s directness had added fuel to her problems with the Prioress, though they were not the cause. The mysterious gifts at the gate seemed to have brought about a schism within the Priory; certain nuns fell out of favour with the Prioress. There were whispers of victimisation—by the Prioress herself and the other nuns. And the cruelty had not limited itself to verbal abuse or unfair treatment.
It had come to light when
a young nun of high promise—Sister Matilda—had come to her for advice on a scriptural matter. The girl had always been bright, passionate and pious—a rare combinations in Briga’s experience—but of late had been strangely subdued. Briga had questioned her, hoping to help if there were problems the girl was having. She had laughed it all off, but when Briga had taken her hand and seen the angry burns upon her forearm, she had recoiled as if in pain. Briga asked if she had suffered them in the kitchens, and when the girl had failed to answer, pressed harder. Finally—quite unexpectedly—she had broken down, and the wild stories came out. In public, Prioress Magdalena was all kindness and civility; but in private, she hated the girl. She called her sinful, and worse things that Matilda would not repeat. She had had other nuns hold her down and had applied hot irons—to drive out the badness in her, she’d said. And she made her swear before God not to tell.
That she had now broken that vow told Briga that this was no wild fantasy. And wild fantasies do not burn flesh.
Briga’s world had turned upside down. She’d tentatively addressed the issue with Magdalena, who had, of course, dismissed it. But then Matilda became ever more withdrawn, even avoiding Briga. Then the old nun knew what perhaps she had long known, but refused to believe: that it was all true. That Matilda was now suffering even worse treatment, and felt she could not even trust Briga. And why should she, when it was Briga herself who had brought this upon her?
In her halting confession, Sister Matilda had spoken of cuts, scalds, scourging and much worse. Things she would not name. Briga now began to suspect that beneath the ordered surface of the priory a deeper darkness lurked, that there had been others who had suffered similar indignities, perhaps over years, but were too afraid to speak out, or else accepted them gladly. There were a few, she was now sure, who colluded in Magdalena’s secret punishments for their own warped pleasure.
Over the weeks, after the scales had fallen from Briga’s eyes, another matter came into focus, one that had always troubled her. The death of Magdalena’s predecessor, Elizabeth of Staynton.
Her sudden illness and death had taken all by surprise, and none had taken it harder than Magdalena. She spent hours in prayer, until she collapsed from exhaustion. She wailed in grief. She flagellated herself for her failings. All thought it the greatest demonstration of her devotion to Elizabeth. Only Briga was troubled by it.
In death, Elizabeth had suffered delirium and hallucinations. Magdalena called her “blessed,” and said she had been granted ecstatic visions on her path to holy bliss. But Briga, who had tended her to her last breath, knew they were far from ecstatic. Her visions were nightmares, and wracked the Prioress’s body with pain. Symptoms that in their suddenness could be ascribed to belladonna.
She had dismissed the suspicion as incredible, but now she began to feel differently about them. In recent days, she’d sensed that her own usefulness had come to an end, and that Magdalena resented the part the old nun had played in her rise to power. In the past two weeks, as the troubles with Sister Matilda had brewed, Briga had even become wary about her food and drink.
“What is it, Sister?” she said to the nun. It was Sister Agertha—one of the few of Magdalena’s faithful who was also still friendly to her.
“A man...” panted Sister Agertha, sounding more excited by the prospect than Briga felt a nun had the right to. “No, not just a man...” Her face beamed, as if she had just laid eyes on Christ himself.
“You’re not making sense, girl. Calm down and tell me plainly.”
“Come and see!” she said, and turned and dashed away.
Briga struggled to her feet and hobbled after, coaxing her old legs back to life to take her to this new wonder.
From the small herb garden that Briga herself had established over thirty years ago, there were two doorways back into the Priory: one led to the cloister, past the kitchens and refectory, and the other—considerably smaller—led directly into Magdalena’s cell.
Except at night, the door to the cloister was always open. Magdalena’s door was always closed.
What now served as Magdalena’s cell had once been a communal parlour, its small adjoining room serving as the Priory’s library. On becoming prioress five years before, Magdalena had declared the library would soon outgrow this cramped space, and relocated it above the western range, reorganising the space around it to serve as a new parlour. Most of the nuns were thrilled at the change—it was a sign that Kyrklees was advancing, expanding its fund of knowledge and securing its place in the world. Briga alone, it seemed, watched as Magdalena took both the old library and the parlour for her own, and wondered at it.
She had had too many occasions to wonder of late, but back then, she had put her doubts aside. She had helped Magdalena into this position, after all—had been per protector and mentor all these years, ever since she had come to the Priory, a lost wretch of a thing, barely seventeen. One might even say Magdalena had been her life’s work. Some people tried to change the whole world—an ambition that was both futile and vain in Briga’s view, even for kings. Far better, it seemed to her, to cultivate one’s own garden with proper care—to change just one life for the better.
She had never had children—her vocation had called long before that was ever a possibility. Perhaps, in this, she was fulfilling that instinct. If that was selfish, well, at least it also helped. And did the Church not idolise motherhood?
Magdalena had been a mother. None talked about that now—few even knew of it—but the instincts and drives she now indulged were of quite a different kind.
Magdalena herself was just arriving when Briga got to the cloister. A body of nuns—almost the whole priory—were gathered about something upon the stone floor, just yards from the main door. They parted as Magdalena approached, casting their eyes low to avoid her gaze, and Briga saw the man.
He was clad in green, in the manner of a forester, yet more outlandish. He was large, too—muscled like the others, but much more so. If he was an archer, as Briga supposed, he had been one all his life. His face, though cut and bloody, was handsome—impossibly so—his hair and beard neatly trimmed. He was also bleeding. And he was smiling.
Taken individually, none of these things were of any great note. Yet there was about him—in his face, his bearing, his clothes—that which inspired a sense of awe, even in Briga. And she understood at once why Agertha had been so stirred.
Magdalena stopped, and stared in wonder.
Wounded though he was, none had dared even to touch him.
“Is it really he?” she said, haltingly. She had many voices: the stern matron, the no-nonsense organiser, the loving angel at the bedsides of the sick. But now, she sounded like a girl again.
One of the nuns nodded eagerly.
“You’re sure, girl?” said Briga, coming up alongside the Prioress.
“I saw him once before,” the young nun whispered. “When I was little more than a child. At the tournament at Clippestone. There is no doubt.”
Magdalena gave a great sigh and clutched at her breast, then crossed herself. And Briga heard her mutter, under her breath: “The Lord of the Forest...”
“What do we do?” said one of the older nuns. Briga could not see her, but recognised the voice: Sister Constance—ever one of the more practical ones. “Every baron in the north wants his head.”
“We give him our care,” said Briga. “Without judgement. Just like the others.” Then she looked to Magdalena, suddenly aware she had answered in her stead.
But by some miracle, Magdalena’s face showed no trace of anger. Instead, she seemed herself to be in a kind of ecstasy—transported by the sight of the figure at her feet.
“This one requires special care,” she said. “Take him in there.”
And she gestured across the cloister, towards the door of her own cell.
LXXIV
GISBURNE KNEW THE moment they arrived at Kyrklees that his instincts had been right.
Outside the priory’s g
ate a horse was abandoned and wandering loose. Not just a horse, but a destrier, a knight’s horse—worth more than a house, or five years of a labourer’s life. The livery was familiar; it had belonged to one of the Knights of St Lazarus, and must have strayed after the battle. Even in dying, Hood was lucky.
The horse was streaked with foamy sweat and its legs were shaking; it was so thirsty that it was trying to drink from puddles whipped almost dry by the wind. Gisburne knew of no one who would abandon such a horse, or leave it in such a condition. No one except Hood.
Galfrid went straight to it, tipping water from his leather flask into his cupped hand for it to drink and speaking gentle words whilst Gisburne hammered upon the heavy wooden door.
His head reeled. He had lost blood, had barely slept. He felt ragged—wrung out. But he would see this through.
The rain had kept off, and the ride had been swift. They had said their goodbyes to Aldric at Nottingham and retrieved their horses from Hugolin, already making preparations to leave. Gisburne was glad to see Nyght—glad too, he looked well and rested. On the whole, the horses looked far better than their masters did.
All had been shattered by the death of Asif. De Rosseley, in particular, took it hard; he had known the Arab only a matter of days, but despite his jibes and jokes, Gisburne could see he had developed a great respect for him. If anything, that had made de Rosseley more determined to pursue the task. When Gisburne had suggested he stay at Nottingham with Aldric to have his leg properly treated, he had looked as if this were the grossest of insults. Gisburne had not pursued it after that.
Galfrid had been quiet, but it was a different kind of quiet from before. When he spoke, the hostility was gone. Gisburne felt that, at last, they were on an even footing, and of that he could not be more glad. When this was over, he would mend things properly with the squire. With his friend.
The door of the priory swung open with a clatter, and the face of a young nun peered out.
Guy of Gisburne- The Omnibus Page 130
