“My God,” she whispered. She began to understand his reluctance to speak of these things.
His voice became a low monotone. “‘Twas hell on earth. Those who didn’t die were all driven mad eventually. They’d howl and weep... Some would even laugh hysterically, hour after hour. ‘Twas their minds seeking to escape what their bodies could not.”
“But you didn’t go mad. Did you?”
“Nay. Nor Thorne. We kept our sanity by occupying our minds. We taught each other our native languages. I learned that he was a Saxon freeman, the son of a woodsman. He’d followed Louis out of idealism but soon became just as disillusioned as I. Thorne asked me to teach him what I’d learned at Cluny and Paris. I introduced him to the fundamentals of logic, the ideas of the Greek philosophers, geometry, arithmetic, and, of course, theology. I taught him to read French and Latin by scratching letters into the sandy floor with my crucifix.”
“How did you get away from there? Did you escape?”
His eyes were grim. “Death was the only way to escape that place. Nay, ‘twas Eleanor. She managed to locate me and paid a ransom for my release. I demanded that the others be let go as well, and our captors must have been bored with us, because they obliged with very little fuss. I brought Thorne back with me to Paris and introduced him to Eleanor. He adapted remarkably well to court life, although he didn’t like it very much. He admired Eleanor, but he had complete contempt for the silly romantic intrigues of her lords and ladies. And as a Saxon, he was an oddity. He told me he felt like Charlemagne’s elephant—an exotic, primitive beast on display for the curious to gawk at.”
Martine studied the big Saxon’s distant form and imagined him towering over a gaggle of wide-eyed, overdressed courtiers.
“Also,” Rainulf continued, “he missed his family in Sussex and was anxious to return to them. I asked Eleanor to write him a letter of introduction to Baron Godfrey, whom I’d met in Paris years before, and it must have been a good one. Godfrey knighted him six months after his arrival at Harford Castle, and made him his master falconer soon after that. They say he’s the finest falconer in southern England—perhaps in all of England.”
Up ahead, Sir Thorne pointed out something in the countryside to the young man next to him. On either side of the road stretched rows of narrow cultivated fields planted with wheat and rye and separated by turf banks. The stooped peasants toiling in the fields stood up as the party rode past, shielding their eyes to get a better look at the travelers.
Martine recalled how the Saxon had looked standing on the pier in the gray mist, his face glowing with mysterious light, his sky-blue eyes smiling at her. She took a deep breath. “I was wondering something. Sir Thorne is such a good friend of yours, and he is a knight, after all, so he’s a nobleman, even if he isn’t of noble blood. I mean, I was just wondering—”
“Why I didn’t betroth you to Thorne?”
Martine blinked, suddenly self-conscious. “Not that I would have wanted you to, I just—”
“He’s landless. There are others like him in England, bachelor knights who live in their overlord’s household because they’ve yet to earn a manor of their own. They can’t marry, because they’ve no home to bring a wife to, and nothing to offer the family of a noble girl in the way of a bride price.”
“Do you mean that even if he wanted to marry, he couldn’t? How awful for him.”
“I suppose so,” Rainulf allowed. “But my primary concern has to be for you, not him. I had to betroth you to someone with property. ‘Twould be different if you had holdings of your own. Then I suppose you could marry whomever you wanted. But I gave all my lands to the Church when I took my vows, and I’ve none left to settle on you.”
One of the field laborers, a hunchbacked old man, cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Sir Falconer!”
The Saxon waved, calling out something in that guttural language that sounded so odd to her ears. She had heard men speak Danish, and also German. English sounded very much like these tongues, but it had a different cadence to it, and the words, when put together, had a different sound. Not as musical as Danish, nor as gruff as German.
“To be perfectly frank,” Rainulf said, “I doubt Thorne would have agreed to marry you even if I’d proposed it. You’re quite a marriage prize, but your value as a bride is largely a matter of status.”
“My supposedly legitimate relationship to the queen.”
“Exactly. For a man who already has property, you’re very much the catch. But Thorne has nothing. And even if he someday earns a manor and is free to marry, he’ll want to increase his holdings. He intends to find a woman with property of her own to marry. He’s told me as much in his letters.”
“I see,” she said, her voice gone hard. Far up the path, Thorne and Albin laughed at something. She did see. She saw it all too clearly now. “He’s an ambitious man, your friend,” she said quietly.
Rainulf glowered at her. “Martine, you know perfectly well that noblemen marry for property, not love.”
“I should,” she snapped. “‘Tis a lesson I learned in a cruel way at a tender age.”
“Thorne is not Jourdain,” he said. “Just a man trying to make the best of his life.”
“At my expense.”
“What?”
“Why do you suppose he was so eager to marry me to the son of his overlord? Merely to accommodate you?”
“Aye. Why else?”
She sighed irritably. “You said yourself I have great value as a bride. Sir Thorne’s arrangement of this marriage will undoubtedly put him in good stead with Edmond’s father. And that, in turn, will put him one step closer to earning a manor, which he then intends to supplement with some young girl’s inheritance. The idea of being used like that, just to further someone else’s ambition, makes me feel—”
“Thorne is a man of high ideals. He’d never use a sister of mine to such ends.”
“You’ve both used me to suit your own ends, and I daresay my betrothal has worked out rather nicely for both of you. We’ll know how it worked out for me when we get to Harford and I meet Edmond.”
Chapter 3
They rode in silence until the late afternoon sun formed a low orange ball in a sky of unearthly blue. Martine couldn’t remember ever having seen a sky quite that extraordinarily blue in France. If there were skies such as this in England, perhaps she could be happy here, after all. The setting sun gilded the ripening grain with its fire and sliced long shadows into it. A warm breeze scented with hay drifted over the fields, which the villeins were beginning to abandon for home and supper.
Presently the sun winked out on the horizon, staining the sky the color of peaches—a beautiful color, but Martine missed that special, English blue. The breeze that had been warm before sundown now chilled her, and she decided to put her mantle back on. She slowed Solomon to a walk and shook out the long cape. But as she did so, the breeze caught it and sent it sailing ahead of her. Martine cursed inwardly and braced herself for the possibility that the stallion would shy.
Indeed, as the mantle sailed past his eyes, Solomon’s head flew up, his eyes rolling white. Martine instinctively wanted to grab both reins and hold on tight, but instead she seized the inside rein and pulled the startled animal in the same direction he had shied, forcing him to dance in a frenzied circle. She caught a glimpse of Thorne’s restraining arm before his squire. Sensible of him; Albin would only have gotten in the way.
Solomon executed one last complete circle, snorting in frustration, before she could rein him in. Sighing in relief, she leaned over and patted his neck. Thorne nodded respectfully in her direction. Albin looked sheepish.
Her mantle had landed in a heap on the road. She began to dismount, but settled back into the saddle when she saw Albin jump down from his humble mount. He picked up the mantle, handling it as if it were the shroud of Christ. After gingerly dusting off a few spots, he carried it toward Martine, only to have it snatched from his hands by Sir Thorne as he rode
past.
“Thank you, Albin,” said Thorne.
The squire replied with a resigned “Sir” and remounted his packhorse. Thorne gave the garment a few good shakes, then brought his steed close to Martine’s. Ignoring her outstretched hand, he draped the mantle carefully over her head and shoulders, smoothing down and adjusting the cloth as he did so. His movements were economical, his touch firm but gentle. Martine, nonplussed, looked down at her hands on the reins. She rarely blushed, but this Saxon had made her blush twice in one day!
Men rarely touched her. The code of chivalry frowned upon physical contact with a lady. Although Sir Thorne disregarded the code, he did so without apparent disrespect to her. It surprised her that he would want to make this thoughtful gesture after their testy exchange in Weald Forest. He had a bit of trouble securing the mantle with the brooch, his long fingers fumbling a bit as he patiently worked the pin through the black wool. His hand as it brushed her throat was warm, his scent earthy but clean, like the forest after a rainfall.
When he had finished, she knew she should thank him, but feared that her voice would catch in her throat. At any rate, he didn’t seem to expect it of her. He merely nudged his horse and continued ahead of her down the road.
Not long afterward, as the sky deepened from peach to violet, she spotted Harford Castle in the distance, crowning the top of the only hill for miles around. Its size impressed her, dwarfing the humble structures on its south side. She could make out about a dozen cottages and the steeple of a church, which Thorne identified as the barony chapel.
As they neared it, however, she felt a pang of disappointment at the simplicity of its construction. Even in silhouette against the evening sky, she could see that the keep was but an enormous stone box with a rectangular turret at each corner, surrounded by massive curtain walls. There were no fancy towers, no ornamentation, no interesting bits of architectural detail at all.
The road led them past the cottages and church, curving west around the hill on which the castle stood, a river curving to the east. The party followed Thorne along a side path up the hill, past a palisade of sharpened poles, and over the drawbridge leading to the gateway. A small door in one of the metal-faced oaken gates, just big enough for one person on horseback, stood open, and they rode through it into the outer bailey.
It was too dark now to make out more than an expanse of flat lawn and the shadows of structures built up against the insides of the curtain walls, some of which were dimly lit from within. People milled about; she could hear their voices and sense their watchful eyes. The air smelled of cooking, but also of the farmyard; animals, manure, and hay.
Martine regretted not being able to see everything right away. She had an enormous curiosity about castles, having read about them in books and heard about them in the tales of jongleurs. If she were to tell Sir Thorne that she had never set foot in one before, he would find it hard to believe. He must assume that she had been brought up amid such luxury. Well, she would have almost two months within it, for she and Rainulf were to remain at Harford Castle as guests until the wedding on the first of October.
They crossed a second drawbridge to the inner bailey. Aside from the keep, the only building Martine could see appeared to be a thatched stone shed set against the south wall, from which she heard strangled screams.
“What on earth?”
The knight named Peter said, “Surely you know the scream of a falcon, my lady.” Peter had a Nordic look to him, even more so than Rainulf. He was clean-shaven, and his eyebrows and eyelashes were the same pale color as his long, kinky hair—the longest hair she had ever seen on a man, falling halfway to his waist.
Falcons. “Oh, of course.”
“‘Tis Sir Thorne’s hawk house.”
Thorne corrected him. “Lord Godfrey’s hawk house.”
“Aye,” Peter conceded. “and Sir Thorne’s birds—that is, my lord’s birds—have missed their master, and sense his return.”
The group dismounted on the flagstone court in front of the keep, handing their reins to the waiting stable hands. A young red-haired man emerged from the hawk house and ran to Thorne.
“Sir! Azura’s broken a tail feather, the new merlin is sneezing, and Madness won’t eat!”
Thorne said, “These problems can wait until morning, Kipp. There’s a young gyrfalcon in that basket over there. Take her into the hawk house and see that she’s made comfortable. She needs complete darkness. Light no candles or lanterns and speak gently to her. Wrap the perch with linen.”
“Shall I fit her with jesses and bells?”
“Nay. Handle her as little as possible. I’ll be waking her tonight, and I’ll take care of that myself.”
“Yes, sir.”
Thorne turned to his squire. “Albin, go up and tell Lord Godfrey and Edmond that our guests are here.”
“Yes, sir!” Albin ran up the front steps of the keep, disappearing in the dark, looming stone box.
Martine’s stomach felt tight, her mouth dry. What would Edmond be like? Was he anything like Sir Thorne? Where was Loki? Loki would be afraid in this new place. Loki would need her.
A hand closed over her shoulder. When she turned around, Rainulf gently placed the cat in her arms. “I thought he looked a bit nervous,” he said, and smiled.
“He is,” Martine agreed. “A bit.”
A wavering light appeared in the entrance to the keep. Albin stood there, holding a torch in one hand while his other arm supported a heavy, unsteady old man carrying a tankard. Martine heard Thorne hiss some angry English words under his breath. Albin caught his eye and shrugged helplessly.
The man looked old, indeed, at least sixty. Martine knew immediately from the fur trim on his green overtunic that he must be a man of noble blood, obviously Lord Godfrey. He was a large man, thickly built, but with a belly that swelled beneath his tunic out of proportion to the rest of his frame. His chin-length hair and forked beard shone like polished silver in the light of Albin’s torch, and a network of broken veins reddened his nose and cheeks. He clutched at Albin and howled with glee when he saw Rainulf.
“My little friend is a priest!” he bellowed as he lumbered down the stairs, assisted by Albin. His voice was slurred from drink. “When I saw you in Paris, you were but... twenty?”
“Seventeen, my lord,” Rainulf corrected.
“Well, you looked older. Acted older. Come here!” Rainulf and Godfrey embraced, exchanging kisses on both cheeks.
Rainulf led the older man to Martine and made introductions. The baron swayed slightly despite Rainulf’s and Albin’s efforts to hold him upright, and his eyes seemed to have trouble focusing. He squinted at Loki, bringing his face precariously close to the tense animal in order to get a better look.
“A cat? Is it yours?” he asked Martine.
“Aye, my lord.”
“Hunh. Well... perhaps it’ll provide some sport for the dogs.” Now he peered as closely at Martine as he had at Loki. He had a stale, beery smell, as if he had been sweating some dank brew for years. “So this is the Lady Martine. You look just like the Mother of God herself.”
Sir Thorne met Martine’s eyes briefly. She sensed rueful amusement, and something else, harder to define. To the baron he said, “Where is Edmond this evening, sire?”
“Hunting with Bernard and his men.” Martine knew that Bernard was Edmond’s older brother.
“Still?”
Godfrey shrugged. “They often go for a week at a time. You know them.”
“The betrothal will be formalized the day after tomorrow,” Thorne said.
“I’m sure they’ll be back by then. In the meantime, I’m still master of Harford, and I know how to treat my guests. You must be hungry.”
With some help from Albin and Rainulf, he turned and led his guests and knights into the keep and up the circular stairs within a corner turret. The stairwell was a narrow, winding passage of carefully worked masonry, lit by torches that filled the spiraling passage with their re
sinous fumes. Godfrey exited on the second level, and Martine and the rest followed.
She heard it even before she stepped out of the stairwell: low, menacing growls that caused Loki to hiss and unsheathe his claws. Martine tightened her grip on the cat and backed up, taking in the great hall and its inhabitants, human and canine.
It was a cavernous room, larger even than Rainulf’s lecture hall at the university, but with less majesty, an enormous stone box, tall and long and wide. The few windows were small, barrel-vaulted openings in walls as thick as the height of three men, and the only furniture consisted of rows of long tables littered with the remains of a just-eaten supper, which a crew of servants busily cleared away.
At the opposite end of the room a low fire crackled in a pit against the wall. There was a hood over the pit, but most of the smoke escaped it, rising to linger below the soot-blackened ceiling as an acrid cloud of haze. On the wall over the fire pit hung an enormous battle-ax flanked by boar tusks, and at intervals along the walls were torches and the stuffed heads of stags with racks as big as trees.
A gallery—the castle’s third level—ran all around the room about halfway between ceiling and floor. In one of its arched openings stood a woman looking down at Martine as if she were examining a small and peculiar animal. She looked quite peculiar herself, Martine thought, a spectacular little bird of bright plumage trapped in a henhouse.
She appeared about thirty, very thin and quite pretty, but in a strained way. Her skin seemed too pale, her coloring a bit too vivid, probably from face paint. She was heavily bejeweled and wore a tunic of purple silk, very snug through the bodice and hips. Martine knew that it must be laced tightly up the back in the new style just catching on in Paris. She was probably married, since her hair was covered. In apparent imitation of Eleanor of Aquitaine, she wore with her fillet and veil one of those chin straps that they called a barbette. A plain-faced young woman stood behind her, similarly attired, but in pink, and without the veil.
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