Fire Dance (4 page)
"Who designed this?" he asked Thomas while his gaze skimmed over the wall and back to the kitchen outbuilding.
"It was Lord Fyren's doing, lord. This was a monastery, but most of its buildings were derelict."
"And he added the chambered wing to the hall?"
"Nay. But it was one long chamber until Lord Fyren divided it. The outer balcony and doors to it came later."
"You disapprove."
"It is not for me to say."
"Say, anyway."
"A lord should not seclude himself from his people."
"I see." Alain rather liked the concept, but decided not to mention that. "And the new tower?"
"Lord Fyren's doing also. He made it round, for corners are hard to defend."
Looking down, Alain surveyed the beginnings of the grey limestone tower that would soon dwarf the older hall. Like the Conqueror's London Tower, it seemed intended for living quarters as well as a refuge during siege.
The design made sense. When finished, its only opening would be far above ground on the first story, with wooden stairs that could be removed. For the present, a rough, doorless entry remained at ground level for masons and hod carriers to pass. But the site puzzled him, for it was not the best. Why compromise on such a thing?
His eyes traced the line of the almost completed curtain wall that surrounded the hall and its outbuildings, dipping downhill to enclose both upper and lower bailey.
"'Tis odd," said Chrétien. "I would have completed the wall before beginning the tower."
Alain thought the same.
"The wooden palisade was only recently replaced with the wall," Thomas replied. "Lord Fyren sought to build both at once. I think he had not expected a siege."
Chrétien tested the newness of the mortar with a fingernail. Alain nodded his tacit understanding. He saw no moss, no discoloration of the stone. Why build if one did not expect a siege? Rufus was probably right. An insurgence had been brewing.
An anxious page hurried up to Thomas's side and waited with great patience to be noticed until he was permitted to announce the nearness of the supper hour. Alain took the opportunity to dismiss Thomas to his other tasks, noting Thomas's unexpressed relief. They watched the man scurry after the page, down the steps into the bailey.
"They appear amiable," Chrétien mused. "But they are closed to us."
"They do not know what to expect of us. Thomas stands as a ready sacrifice to my anger. I wonder why."
"It speaks of courage."
"And loyalty. To someone, at least, though not the dead lord. Mayhap to the missing lady."
"Do you believe it? The suicide?"
"Naught in the man's character allows it."
Chrétien folded his arms and leaned against the crenellated outer wall. "His castle wall is unfinished and vulnerable. Mayhap he was caught too far off his guard, and faced certain failure. Or his knights would not back him against Rufus. None seem to have any love for him."
"Few have any love for Rufus. But they follow him."
"Mayhap he really did go mad after killing the priest. Those things also happen."
"Only a man with a conscience goes mad from guilt."
"Murder, then?"
"More likely. As you said, something is afoot, and it behooves us to learn what, if we are to keep our skins."
"Do you think, then, this missing bride poses a threat to you? She might already be on her way to Scotland. Malcolm would not hesitate to add both Northumbria and Cumbria to Scotland, so he would easily welcome her aid against Rufus."
"Aye, and more so if she has the skill and loyal knights behind her to assemble a rebellion. Yet she puts herself to disadvantage by ceding the castle and giving me time to secure my position."
"Thomas said she wants peace. Might she be as he claims?"
"Then would it not benefit her more to ally herself with the English king through her husband? But without the bride, Chrétien, this castle and its demesne cannot be secure."
"Those loyal to Fyren might well use her as their rallying point."
Alain shook his head. "Men do not rally to a dead man. Fyren is quite dead. And I am impatient to get on with things."
Alain wasted no more time surveying his domain. As the supper chime clanged, he hurried down the steps, deciding to set himself immediately to the business of the hall. He would bring in both Thomas and Gerard to assist in establishing his authority, for both of them knew the knights who would now fall vassal to him. It would be a tricky task to unite them all, and he had his suspicions of all the Saxon contingent. But they had little to gain by opposing him now that the old lord was dead.
* * *
Alain already loved this spot atop the curtain wall with its expansive view of his new demesne, best viewed as now, in the setting sun.
"What news?" he asked of Chrétien as his friend took the stone steps two at a time and joined him on the allure.
"Naught, Alain. She cannot have gone far, yet none admit seeing her."
"And you searched all roads?"
"Aye, such as they are."
"Villages? Cottages?"
"All that are about. But I do not think the knights of this holding will betray her, and we know not how to spot her even if we see her."
Alain accepted the news with silence. His knights had been about the task since dawn, and like the others, Chrétien also brought back only weariness.
They leaned against grey blocks of limestone and surveyed what was before them, all blushed red by the brilliant sunset. Beyond the curtain wall and dry moat spread the village that had grown up around Fyren's castle, hugging the slope of the craggy hill, and stretching out to touch the green dale below.
"I see why Rufus wanted this fortress," said Chrétien.
"Aye. It commands the passage to England, a fine buffer against the Scots and Strathclydes."
"And access to Northumbria. The folk say many of their fathers fled here from the Conqueror's raids."
"That land is still so bleak and scarred."
" Perhaps it will never recover, Chrétien."
"The Normans may never be forgiven for that."
"Perhaps not. But I will hold my demesne anyway."
Below, an eerily silent procession wound down the hill from the castle, following an ancient wooden cart drawn by oxen and bearing a coffin. No wails. No death knell. Even Alain’s own priest, Father Hardouin, had refused to give last rites. Alain could not recall any other burial not blessed by the Church.
Alain remembered how the coffin had rested all day in the center of the hall, nailed shut with more iron nails than he had ever seen put to a casket. Those few who entered the hall had eyed it warily, but none had approached it, nor shed a tear.
Yet, if none had a care for the lord, why did they now follow his coffin to the grave?
With a quick gesture for Chrétien to follow, he rushed down through the bailey and out beyond the gate.
"Why?" asked Chrétien, hurrying along at his side.
"Would not a daughter come to see her father buried?"
"But they say she hated him."
"Perhaps all the more reason to see it done."
Soon they caught up with the procession, remaining at the rear of the small group. A knight without his armor, the Norseman Thorkel, watched them with narrowed eyes.
The procession traveled along the narrow dirt lane beyond the church and its small yard, past the village green, the smithy, the tannery, and a collection of stone cottages, to the crossroads.
"They fear he will haunt them," Chrétien commented.
"Aye. They bury him at the crossroads to confuse his spirit, but it will take far more than that to confuse that old demon. More likely he has already been welcomed into Satan's Hell."
Beyond lay pasture land of the lord's demesne, where the grave was dug. No priest stood beside the grave, nor did any other intone either eulogy or dirge. Alain searched the faces.
In unison with the five other knights, Thomas lowered the casket into the earth. His mouth was drawn tight, jaw set hard and rigid. Several women stood near the grave, Edyt among them, all studying the coffin with grim concentration as it was lowered into the grave. When the ropes were pulled loose, the girl bent forward and scooped up a handful of the loose earth. She held her hand over the grave, then opened it quickly to drop the dirt. She turned and walked away.
Others did the same. Each tossed one handful of earth to the grave, then departed. Man or woman. Vassal or villein. Mayhap it was a custom with these people.
"Well?" asked Chrétien.
"Well, he is buried. I do not know what else can be said."
"But the lady?"
"She could have been here, I suppose, but I saw only common folk among the women."
"She could be dressed as one of them. Yet I think she would not risk coming at all if she fears being caught."
"Mayhap." Alain still stood beside the grave, watching as villeins spaded in the loose dirt. "Mayhap," he repeated. "Do not forget the faces you have seen here tonight. I counted twenty-seven women, most of them of the hall, and some about the right age. But I saw none who looked excessively fearful or secretive. Certainly none shed tears. And none gave the appearance of a lady."
"Then she must be already gone."
"Aye. But if she is still here, we will see her again. Watch the women of the hall and village who were among the crowd tonight."
Chrétien's face screwed into a puzzled frown. "Yet surely your lady would not be toiling with her hands. Surely that would distinguish her."
"Or mayhap she is slyer than we think."
CHAPTER 3
The Normans rode out from the castle, their helms shining like mirrors in the early morning sun. Twenty knights in their hauberks, erect and proud astride their big war horses, rode with Alain in pairs across the wooden bridge into the village. With Chrétien d'Evreaux at his side, Alain rode at their lead. The handsome purple cloak he had taken from Fyren's corpse caught the wind, billowing behind him like a Viking sail.
Thomas, his silver hair glinting like the discs on his Saxon hauberk, directed the Norman knights along the track of the stream that gurgled downhill. Dark peaks, first gently rounded, then suddenly steepening into stark crags, framed the grassy dale.
"Down to where the beck joins the river, then back up into the fells," said Thomas. His hand waved in a wide arc to indicate the vast green space before them, outlined by the curve of the river.
Without comment, Alain added the strange new terms to his knowledge of this strange land. Beck meant stream. Fells were mountains. It was almost like learning a new language.
He raised his hand and drew his mount to a halt, letting his gaze sweep across the majestic valley and up to the knobby tops of the fells. He could not get enough of their rugged beauty.
This land that rolled out before them was the richest land of his domain, now sown in oats, barley and rye, and bright with the new green of spring. Beyond on the fallow lands, black-faced sheep grazed. Farther up on the fells, the animals blended with the ragged grey rocks and cliffs, and sometimes were distinguishable only by their movement.