Читать книгу Captured by the Warrior - Meriel Fuller - Страница 8

Alice swept her eyes around the great hall at Abberley. Aye, it was all still there: the sumptuous intricacy of the huge tapestries hanging from floor to ceiling, concealing the uneven stone walls; the high dais at the far end where the King and Queen and their attending nobility sat above the murmured hubbub of people gathered together to eat. Pausing in the doorway, Alice attempted to draw some comfort from the familiar surroundings, but her perception seemed tarnished, different, somehow. She knew why—a pair of emerald-green eyes and a shock of tousled blond hair loomed with unnerving regularity across her vision, unsettling her normal confidence. Aye, and that kiss. That treacherous kiss.

Light filled the space, spilling out from a combination of rush torches slung into iron brackets along the walls, and a roaring fire. Soldiers and servants alike crammed along the wooden trestles in the main body of the hall, knives jamming into the large serving platters of steaming roast meat. There was Queen Margaret, her small neat head held erect and proud as she listened to a nobleman at her side, her eyes wide and intelligent as she nodded in agreement once or twice. The height of the table obscured the round smooth bump of her pregnancy. Alice liked the young Queen, drawn by Margaret’s ambition and vitality; it was said that she had enough energy for both herself and her husband. Of King Henry, there was no sign. He had recently become unwell, and was confined to his chambers to recover.

‘Alice!’ A fresh-faced young man moved across her line of vision. Edmund! A sense of relief flooded through her, his jovial expression for a moment shutting out her unpleasant memories of the journey. ‘Alice, did you not see me waving? I saved you a place beside me over there!’ His open, candid features searched her face.

She laid a careful hand on his arm, allowing him to lead her around the edges of the hall to an empty table, mindful that her mother was up on the top table, and would be watching. Maybe if Beatrice saw her with Edmund, it would shake off her mother’s current mood. When Alice had finally returned to the cart in the forest, Beatrice had been furious, berating her for keeping the entourage waiting. Alice, humbled by her encounter, had crept to a corner of the cart without a word. Now, as she met Edmund’s warm brown eyes, she hoped his easy companionship would drive away the bad memories.

‘Tell me, what was he like?’ Edmund asked softly at her side. At one-and-twenty winters he was the same age as her, his rounded features holding the pink bloom of youth.

Alice jumped, needles of fear firing through her, fingers curling around a floury bread roll on her platter. How did he know? she thought frantically, her scrambled brain trying to make sense of the question. An image of a strong, sinewy hand manacled around her own wrist intruded into her consciousness. A hard mouth upon her own.

Edmund nudged her with his elbow. ‘Sir Humphrey…Surely you haven’t forgotten about him already?’

‘Oh…yes!’ she gasped with relief, shaky laughter covering her confusion. ‘Oh, Edmund, he was well enough, but unfortunately for my dear mother, I wasn’t up to the mark, as usual.’

‘Well, thank the Lord for that,’ her companion breathed out. His plump fingers, whiter than her own, searched for Alice’s hand under the table, squeezing it gently. His shoulder nudged hers, close, insistent. ‘You know I’ve spoken to your parents…’

Alice’s heart flipped. Could she do this? Could she marry Edmund? Her eye searched along the row of nobles at the top table, found her mother’s anguished features, watching them. ‘I know, Edmund.’ She patted his arm, biting her lip.

‘You know I come into my inheritance soon; your parents would be well looked after.’ His brown eyes, riveted on hers, wavered momentarily, shifting to a point beyond her right shoulder.

‘Thomas…’ she breathed desperately, her toes curling in her shoes, as if providing a physical resistance. If Thomas came back, then he would provide for them, he would care for them in their old age. The responsibility on her to marry would lift, and she would have the freedom to do as she wished. But even as she had the thought, the small flame of hope in her belly flickered and died.

‘Marry me, Alice,’ Edmund urged, his voice low, persuasive. ‘I will look after you…and your parents.’ His white fingers curled possessively around her sleeve, his smooth chestnut hair flopping over his forehead.

Alice took a mouthful of bread, chewing slowly. She had known Edmund since late childhood, when his father had become a knight for the King and moved his family to live at Abberley under royal protection. She and Edmund had immediately liked each other: they shared the same interests, of music, art and culture. True, she also enjoyed being outside, riding or walking, as opposed to Edmund, who preferred to stay inside, but that seemed to be the only difference in them. He was kind, considerate and gentle, and, unlike many of the potential husbands her mother had introduced her to, the same age as she.

Beside her, Edmund watched her closely. If only the girl would agree! He had to physically prevent himself from drumming his fingers on the tablecloth, frustration mounting in his gullet. His uncle’s generous offer would not be around for ever; somehow, he had to persuade her. He knew her mother was willing—he had seen the flare of greed in her eyes on her return this evening when he mentioned the amount of money he would receive—now all that remained was to gain the agreement of this stubborn maid!

‘Am I such a bad prospect?’ he asked, holding one hand to his chest—a theatrical gesture of false sorrow. A huge sapphire ring glittered on his little finger.

Alice laughed. ‘Nay, you’re not.’ She took a deep gulp of wine, setting the goblet back on the table with studied determination, pulling her spine straight at the same time, making a decision. ‘I will marry you, Edmund.’

A heaviness weighed down Alice’s eyelids as she attempted to open them the following morning. Her sleep had been restless, worn through with the uneasy threads of half-snatched dreams, dreams fringed with the anxious memories of the day before. She had tossed and turned in the stuffy curtained interior of the four-poster bed, thumping the goose-down-filled pillow with an impatient regularity. Everything had become irritating: the crackle of straw in the mattress beneath her, the bunched lumpy feathers beneath her loosened hair, the shouts of the soldiers piercing her consciousness at some ungodly hour…

Soldiers…? Alice bounced upright, the rippling cascade of her hair spilling on to the bedcovers, sparkling in tangled glory. Flinging back the furs, the linen sheet, she sprang from the bed, fighting her way through the heavy curtains. Her full-length nightgown billowed out over her bare toes as she flew over the wide elm boards to the window casement, pressing her nose up against the thick, uneven panes of hand-blown glass. Nothing. Her sleep-numbed fingers fiddled with the iron latch, pushing the window open so she could lean out. The chill morning air stung her heated face and neck. Eyes watering, she dashed the wetness away and looked down. Soldiers filled the inner bailey, their red surcoats vivid in the luminous pre-dawn light, their armour glinting dully. Grooms ran hither and thither, fetching fearsome-looking weapons, adjusting buckles on saddles and stirrups and attaching saddle bags with practised efficiency. Cold fear slid through her veins: these men were preparing for battle.

Throwing a simple gown over her voluminous nightgown, Alice yanked her unruly hair into a braid, binding the curling end quickly with a leather lace. Pulling open the door, she raced down the corridor to her parents’ chamber. With her mother’s elevated status as one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting came all the associated privileges of such a position: warm, well-appointed rooms, as well as clothing and food.

‘Father!’ Alice burst into her parents’ room without knocking. Fabien Matravers, busy at a table by the window, lifted his weary eyes to acknowledge his daughter with a smile. He raised a finger to his lips, nodding in the direction of the bed, where her mother slumbered. Clamping her lips together to prevent her next question, Alice closed the door quickly and tiptoed over. The table held a collection of medical equipment: bandages and salves, sewing needles fashioned from animal bone, and fine thread made from sinew. These items were disappearing one by one as her father packed up a sturdy leather satchel.

‘What’s happening?’ Alice whispered, her periwinkle blue eyes wide, curious.

‘’Tis what Queen Margaret feared, ‘tis what we all feared.’ Fabien’s face clouded. ‘The Duke of York has challenged the King’s leadership, now that we have lost France. He has mounted an army, and awaits the King’s men on a high plateau not far from here.’

Alice nibbled at a fingernail. ‘Will King Henry fight?’

Fabien’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Nay, not he, lass. You know he’s…he’s not well at the moment. But the Queen is fully aware of the situation; she intends to send two or three of the King’s more loyal dukes.’ He tucked the last roll of bandage into a corner of the satchel and sighed. ‘I only hope that this will be enough. The Duke of York’s men are notorious for being savage fighters.’

Alice’s heart lit with excitement. ‘Let me come too, Father. Please.’

But Fabien was already shaking his head, his hands stilling momentarily as he looked at his daughter. In the light beginning to filter in at the window, the grey streaks in his hair seemed more prominent, the lines on his face more pronounced. ‘Nay, Alice,’ he said finally. ‘The battlefield is no place for a young lass. Especially one that is betrothed.’

Alice gasped, colour flushing into her cheeks. ‘You know!’

Fabien nodded. ‘Edmund came to me last night, to tell me.’ He smiled, his mouth creasing up at the corners. ‘And I gave him my blessing. As I give you mine now.’ He leaned down, planted a soft kiss on his daughter’s forehead, smoothed her wayward blonde hair with one hand. ‘Your mother is relieved,’ he added.

Alice frowned, fiddling with the curling end of her loose braid. A curious reluctance sheared through her, a reluctance to share in her father’s obvious joy at the news of her marriage. ‘I suppose it was inevitable.’ Uncertainty weighed her voice.

Fabien caught her glum look. ‘Is it not what you wish?’

Alice’s head snapped upwards. The last thing she wanted was to load any further worry on to her parents. ‘Nay, of course not, Father. It’s happening so fast, that’s all.’

Fabien’s head whipped around at another shout from below. He touched his daughter’s cheek. ‘I have to go, Alice. We will talk again about this…I wouldn’t want you to enter into anything you’re unsure about. And marriage is a huge undertaking.’

She nodded, distracted by the sounds outside the window. ‘Please let me come, Father.’ Already she had a sense that times such as these, helping her father, supporting him, would dwindle and eventually die out, even with a liberal husband such as Edmund. ‘I’ve been with you before,’ she reminded him. ‘I—’

Fabien stopped her sentence with a hand on her arm. ‘Aye, you’ve come with me to the village or to some minor skirmish between two landowners.’ His blue eyes, set in his tanned, weathered face, regarded her gently. ‘Your skills are excellent, daughter, but I would not lose another child on the battlefield.’

Alice stepped quickly around the table, coming to her father’s side. ‘Don’t speak like that, Father! We don’t know that he’s dead!’

‘We’ve had no news for two years, Alice. What am I supposed to think?’ His quiet burr hitched with emotion as he recalled his son, Thomas. He smothered a deep sigh, unwilling to show the depth of his true feelings to his daughter.

‘I miss him too, Father, but until we hear definitely, I cannot believe that he’s dead.’ Alice’s voice held the edge of conviction. ‘Look, you need me with you; I’ll wear some of Thomas’s clothes. Nobody will have any idea.’

Fabien laughed, patting Alice’s hand. A sense of elation crowded into her chest; she knew she had won.

To the south of Ludlow, the lands belonging to the Duke of York stretched away in a series of low, folded hills, green and fertile. Balanced on the edge of slopes, or flat in the valley bottoms, the fields were small, bounded by hawthorn-sharp hedging and narrow, stony lanes. High on one of the ridges, where the west wind blew the horses’ tails into fans, dark strands against the clear blue sky, two riders sat, almost motionless, surveying the land spread out beneath them.

‘Ah, it’s great to have you back in England!’ One of the horsemen, Richard, the Duke of York and cousin to the King of England, slapped Bastien companionably on his back.

‘I thought I’d come home for a rest!’ Raising his visor, Bastien grinned at his friend, the metal of his helmet cold against his cheek. He hadn’t even returned to his own manor, having been waylaid by the Duke as they had passed through Ludlow.

Richard gave a swift snort, his square-shaped face set into a scowl. ‘’Tis unlikely we’ll have much rest with that feeble-minded cousin of mine in charge of the country. He’s let the land go to the dogs, the barons are feuding under his very nose, and what does he do? Nothing!’ His dark hair, untouched by grey despite being Bastien’s senior by ten years, stuck out in tufted spikes from under his helmet. ‘I need to see the King, Bastien, to talk to him, but his Queen protects him like a child. She won’t let me near. The only way is to openly challenge the House of Lancaster in battle.’

Bastien shrugged his shoulders. ‘So be it, my lord. My men are willing and ready, although they are tired from the long march home.’ As he was, he thought wearily. Yet he sensed the frustration, the annoyance emanating from the Duke, and understood his motives.

Richard ran a critical eye over Bastien. ‘Still not wearing full armour, I see.’

Bastien openly shunned the body-plate armour worn by most knights, preferring to wear just chainmail over a padded gambeson with a steel helmet. By contrast, Richard wore a full set of plate armour that had been made especially for him: breast and back plates, articulated steel gauntlets covering his whole arm, and leg pieces attached to the front of his shins by leather straps.

Bastien adjusted himself in the saddle, the leather creaking with the movement. ‘Plate armour is too heavy, it weighs me down too much.’ The tint of a far-off memory laced his voice, the familiar whisper of guilt licking along his veins. After all these years, he just couldn’t forget.

‘So you said in France, young man,’ Richard chided him. ‘I’ve told you before, you take too many risks.’

‘And you move too slowly, laden down with all that steel,’ Bastien teased. ‘Admit that I’m quicker and faster than you in a fight.’

Richard smiled. His friend’s prowess on the battlefield was legendary. ‘Just make sure you don’t get yourself killed by your own foolhardiness.’

‘I’ll try not to,’ Bastien replied, dropping his visor down. But in truth he didn’t really care.

Alice helped her father erect the tent beneath a line of beech trees; their distorted, knotty roots afforded some shelter from the north, and the ground, though rough and sloped, was reasonable once she had kicked the stones out of the way. The stained white canvas flapped and strained in the breeze, the guy ropes pulling insistently against the heavy stone that held them taut. Securing the door flap back with a leather tie, Alice stood for a moment, surveying the land below her. Over to her right, moving across the flat river valley that was the declared battle site, the Lancastrian army marched purposefully, their red tunics glowing in the rising sun, flanked on either side by knights on horseback. Outriders held banners aloft, triangular pennants flapping the colours of King Henry.

Fear bunched in her mouth. Through the shifting mist drifting from the river, she could see the Yorkists, mostly knights on horses, spread out in an imposing line along the opposite slope—hundreds of them. She closed her eyes, and ducked back into the tent to where Fabien laid out the tools of his trade.

‘God in Heaven, Father, there’s so many!’ Panic threaded through her voice.

Fabien surveyed his daughter critically; she had made an excellent job of disguising her sex, but his heart clenched with the risk he took by bringing her.

A large, leather hat completely covered her bright hair, the brim pulled low to shade her delicate features. Her brother’s cote-hardie was long on her, but did not look out of place, and the intricate pleating that fell from the shoulders, front and back, did much to hide her feminine curves. A thick leather belt secured this over-tunic loosely on her hips, and the hem fell so low, that only a glimpse of her fustian braies could be seen. Somehow, she’d managed to walk in Thomas’s big leather boots; they reached her knees, already dirty with mud.

‘Do you want to go home?’ he asked at last.

‘Nay!’ she shook her head vehemently. ‘I shall stay…and help you!’

‘That’s my girl!’ Fabien smiled back at her, hearing the courage in her voice.

For the next few hours, against the echoing backdrop of the battle raging in the valley below, against the shouts and the clashing of armour, they worked, patching up the soldiers and knights that were brought up the gentle slope. For that was all they intended: to stabilise any injury and to stop the bleeding, enough so that each man could be taken back to the safety of the castle. Alongside Fabien, Alice worked slowly and patiently, murmuring a question or a comment to her father now and again. Immersed in her work, she barely lifted her head when Fabien told her he was needed to attend to some soldiers on the battlefield.

‘Stay here until I come back,’ he entreated softly, slipping out through the canvas. Alice nodded vaguely in response, her tongue between her teeth as she concentrated on stitching up a long gash in a soldier’s arm.

The sun had risen to its highest point by the time Alice could take a rest. With nobody in the tent, she whisked off her hat, rubbing her face with one hand, trying to erase the stiff, exhausted feeling from her skin. A rawness pulled at her eyes; clapping the hat back on, she reached for the leather water bottle behind her and took a long, refreshing gulp. Replacing the cork stopper, she realised the sound from the battlefield had become noticeably subdued. No longer could she hear the roar of men as they rode into attack, or the clash of steel against steel. Yet it had been a fair while since her father had left the tent—did he still tend the injured?

Alice stuck her head out through the canvas flaps. She had to go to her father, to find him, but the thought of tip-toeing through a field loomed before her as a daunting prospect. She gritted her teeth—think of Thomas. He would go to their father, he would find him. But Thomas was not here; it was her responsibility.

The spongy earth pulled at her boots as she advanced stealthily. In front of her, a high earth bank topped with a hedge obscured her view of the battlefield. Hoping it would also hide her from the enemy, she pulled herself up the loose earth of the bank, digging her fingers into the gnarled beech roots as a makeshift lever and hoisted her slight figure up to peer through the bare branches.

Bodies lay everywhere. A slight sound of horror emerged from her lips as she squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to look at the carnage strewn before her. Her fingers curled around the branch, the twiggy whorls cutting into her flesh. How could she? How could she walk through these dead and dying men? And what if her father was one of them? The thought galvanised her—she had to find him! Through the net of branches, she could see a group of soldiers, King Henry’s soldiers, thank the Lord, making their way up the hill, battle-worn, bleeding, but thankfully alive. Springing down backwards, Alice entered the field through a gateway further down the bank, and began to pick her way warily across.

‘What’s happening?’ She ran up to the soldiers, the air of defeat surrounding them like a cloak.

The tallest one eyed her warily, obviously puzzled by the young boy’s presence in such a place. ‘They won, we lost. Simple as that.’ He spat on to the ground.

‘Then why—?’

‘Why aren’t we prisoners? They let the common soldiers go; it’s only the noblemen they want, and they’ve got them,’ the soldier growled out between his blackened teeth.

‘Let’s keep going,’ growled another, and made as if to push past her.

‘Wait a moment, please.’ Alice’s voice rose a little higher, and the tall man looked at her sharply. She lowered her head quickly, realising that her voice had been too high for a young lad. ‘Have you seen my father, the physician? Do you know him? He came this way to help tend some men.’

The soldiers looked at each other. ‘I’m sorry, lad, but he was taken, along with the rest of them. Look, over there.’

Alice screwed her eyes up against the freshening wind, following the soldier’s pointing finger to search the horizon. And then she saw it. A long snake of walking knights, trudging wearily away between the white tunics of the Yorkist horsemen. She hoped with all her heart that these soldiers were wrong, that her father wasn’t among them. But, for her own peace of mind, and for Thomas, she knew she had to find out for herself.