Kingmaker: Broken Faith (16 page)

Thomas nods, though he does not, not really.

‘Where are we going?’ he asks.

‘Cornford,’ she tells him.

Cornford, he thinks. The castle. After that she is silent, lost in thought. The sisters are still there on the bank, just as the giant was. They have stopped their threats and now are merely calling on Christ and the martyrs to assist them as they clamber over the willow fences and wade through the ditches that drain the fields. Katherine’s head is turned and she looks the other away, across the fens towards her castle, and there is a moment of sunlight and in it Thomas sees how pale she is, as a daisy petal, and how sharp and fierce she looks, with that frown and the pointed nose. It makes him smile for some reason, and he feels for a moment fiercely protective.

They come to the place where the riverbanks veer apart and before them is the larger body of water, smooth, brown and even faster flowing, and the punt is dragged away by the stronger current.

‘I shall not miss them,’ Katherine says, without a backward glance. She pulls her knees closer to her chest, and stares south. Thomas watches her sitting there, the beetle across her shins, and he can see her clipped ear and how fretful she is, but she does not look sorry for herself, which, he thinks, if he were her, he might. After a while they pass a village and Katherine points to a spot on the bank a little further down.

‘This is the end of the Cold Half-Hundred drain,’ she says. ‘We can walk from here.’

Thomas digs the pole into the waters and the punt yaws towards the bank and after a moment they come nudging into a stand of reeds and Katherine crouches in the punt’s bow and leaps ashore, conscious now of the value of keeping her hose dry, and then she turns to haul the boat out of the water. Thomas joins her and they haul it through the reeds and leave it with its pole for the ferryman to find. He scrambles up the man-made barrow and at the top finds himself the object of scrutiny of some sheep that stir in among the reeds. They are ugly, muddied things with sad faces and matted fleeces the colour of snow clouds.

She stands looking about them, regaining her breath.

‘What are you looking for?’ he asks.

‘Rabbits,’ she says. Then she asks if he has anything to eat. He shakes his head. She hisses a laugh.

‘It is always the same, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘Nothing changes.’

They set off, Thomas slinging the ledger over his shoulder as feels comfortable, and they follow the rough track raised on the bank. On one side: the ooze of the marshes, shimmering in the sun, and on the other: the quicker, weed-speckled waters of the drain. Gulls wheel above, and the air smells of mud and rotting things. She walks ahead, huddled into her metal-lined coat, wrapping the still-damp folds about her narrow frame.

‘How far is the castle?’ he asks.

‘Beyond those trees there,’ she says, pointing ahead over a stretch of boggy ground that looks impassable, to a broad copse of sappy willows above which he can now see the dark details of a stone tower. Katherine is looking around, frowning at the stretches of reeds and rushes, at the pools of black mud through which long-legged wading birds strut, dipping after worms and things. There is a broken sluice gate letting the water from the drain gurgle into a field of liquid mud.

And she sets off, picking up her pace, slapping the beetle into the mud with every stride, doing it to reassure herself as she guides them through the marsh, her hose becoming heavy and sodden so that he thinks she ought to go bare-legged, but they walk on, keeping the drain on their right, following it to a long stretch of reed-stippled water where there is another silver-timbered punt pulled up on a bank on which sits a duck. He wishes he had a bow with an arrow. They skirt the pool where there is a broken jetty for a fisherman, and they follow a path up through some more greenery to a broad causeway where some houses line a road. As they approach they see none of the comforting sights you might expect, such as hearth smoke, children, dogs, women at work.

‘Where are they all?’ she wonders aloud.

‘Looking for you?’ Thomas suggests.

‘No,’ she says. ‘They are my people. Something is wrong.’

Thomas follows Katherine up on to the road, where they have a view of the castle. Thomas waits while Katherine stoops to look inside a cottage by the roadside. There is nothing much to see, no sign that anyone lives there. The next is the same. She looks at him, seeking reassurance. He can only shrug. She hurries on. Her eye is fixed now on the castle roofline, above which there is the suggestion of smoke, as if it, at least, is occupied. Thomas follows. They emerge into a clearing and he sees that the castle is on an island, reached by a bridge first to one island on which there are what look to be stables, then another bridge, turned at a right angle, to the castle’s gatehouse. They cross the first bridge together over the still, black waters of the moat and find the stable empty, and there is only old cow dung underfoot, none fresh. They cross the second bridge, a drawbridge, and enter the cold damp shadow of the small gatehouse where the gates hang open, one of them broken, and they come into the courtyard where there is an eruption of barking, and two dogs fly at them, scrabbling and baring their teeth. Their chains bang taut bringing them up short but Thomas and Katherine leap back.

‘By Christ!’

The dogs stand on their chains, growling and snapping, saliva spraying, ugly, broad-jawed, wall-eyed, the sort to bait bears, their smell enough to make a dyer flinch. Behind them a man appears in a doorway in the yard. He is barrel-bellied and furtive, a piece of cooked meat in his hand, grease in the greying bristles on his fat, wind-mottled face. He is at first cautious, but when he recognises Katherine he is startled, then seems to recover himself. He takes a clumsy step down, and throws the meat between the dogs, who begin to fight.

Katherine turns on him.

‘Why are you back here, Eelby?’ she asks. ‘And where is everybody? Where’s my husband?’

Eelby stops and waves his hand airily and talks through pursed lips.

‘His lordship is gone to London,’ he says in a voice not his own, ‘accompanied by his personal surgeon in search of their old friend the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hastings, in the hope that he will look kindly on your ladyship’s plight and bring his influence to bear in the matter of my murdered wife.’

He snarls the last words, and Katherine sighs loudly, as if they have been through this before.

‘What about John?’ she asks, ignoring his attack. ‘What of your son? Where is he? What of the others?’

Eelby does not answer. His face creases, and he folds his hands under his stained armpits and begins to pretend to find something very funny.

‘You don’t know!’ he snickers. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’

‘I’ve no time for this,’ she mutters.

‘No,’ he says. ‘No. You’ve no time for anything now.’

Thomas can see that Eelby means something, but Katherine turns her back on him. The man continues his laughing, closing his eyes, his whole body shaking with this false laughter, and Thomas senses trouble, but he is too late. Katherine takes a few quick steps, and she has the beetle swinging through the air before Eelby opens his eyes again, but he is also too late. He manages to raise his arm and the blow lands with a crack that makes the dogs jump and begin their barking again. Eelby screams and clutches his arm and Katherine raises the beetle again, but Thomas steps in, and Eelby looks at her with piteous fear. Then he turns and runs.

For a fat man with an injured arm he is startlingly fast. He is across the yard, past the dogs and scuttling up the stone steps to a doorway in the tower before Katherine can set off after him. Thomas runs to catch up.

‘Wait,’ he shouts. But she is gone, slipping through the doorway and up some winding steps after Eelby. Thomas follows. He hears scuffling footsteps on the turning stone steps above, then a rough-edged bellow. A door crashes open and light spills down. He runs, turning up the steps until he reaches a door out on to the daylight of the tower’s enclosed rooftop.

It is a small square, ten paces across, stone-flagged, framed by regular merlons, with an iron brazier rusted vivid orange to one side. Katherine has the man pinned in a corner. His face is pink, sweating, and he is clutching his arm before him, which Thomas can see is bent, as if it were trying to turn a corner without him. Katherine has the beetle raised, but neither is looking at the other: both have their heads turned and are staring through the stonework to the countryside beyond.

Thomas peers over. Men on horseback. Soldiers. He recognises their type instantly, though from where he cannot say. They are in a column, two abreast, winding down the road that passes the priory. With bows across their saddles and many with those long lances stood in their stirrups. There must be fifty or more. A long line of laden carts follows, pulled by pairs of oxen.

‘Who are they?’ Katherine asks.

At first it seems Eelby is wheezing sibilantly through his teeth, suffering with the pain, but in fact he is trying to laugh again. Despite the pain he is enjoying this moment. Katherine raises the beetle ready to strike.

‘Who are they?’ she demands.

But now Eelby is braver.

‘You have such good eyes, my lady,’ he says. ‘You tell me.’

Katherine peers into the distance. Then she lowers the beetle and grips the stone merlon.

‘Merciful Christ,’ she breathes. ‘It cannot be.’

Eelby tries to laugh again but his face is wiped blank with fresh pain and his eyes roll in their sockets. He blubbers through thick lips, and the fingertips of his broken arm have turned blue.

‘Who are they?’ Thomas asks.

She looks at him over her shoulder.

‘It is Riven,’ she tells him.

‘Riven?’ he repeats. ‘Giles Riven?’

She nods.

‘Barnaby said he was dead,’ Thomas says.

Eelby is laughing. Katherine turns on him.

‘Why is he here?’ she shouts. ‘Why is he here? He’s dead!’

‘It’s not him! It’s Edmund. The son. Look for yourself. Here he comes to claim what’s his.’

‘But it is not his,’ Katherine snaps.

‘Try telling him that,’ Eelby says, raising his head and nodding at the soldiers. ‘Your father tried that once, didn’t he? And look what happened to him.’

Instead of hitting him, Katherine meets his gaze and then looks back out at the men.

‘What shall we do?’ she asks Thomas, who is also peering over the walls at the advancing column.

‘Close the gate,’ he suggests. ‘This is a castle after all.’

‘Gate’s broken,’ Eelby says. ‘Wouldn’t stop a house cat. No, my lady and whoever you are, you’d best be gone ’fore they catch you.’

He is beginning to laugh again.

‘Where have the others gone?’ she asks. ‘Where’s the baby?’

Pain makes Eelby gulp. He is very pale and sweat sheens his fat, green-tinged face. When he has recovered he answers.

‘They went with that fool the eel catcher, back up north. He can spend his coin to fill their bellies.’

‘You let your son go to another man?’

‘Why not? He can have the boy till I need him.’

Katherine lifts the beetle again.

‘Katherine,’ Thomas says. ‘We must go.’

He places a hand on her arm.

‘Why do you call her that?’ Eelby asks.

‘Shut up,’ Katherine tells him. ‘Do not even talk.’

‘Come,’ Thomas says. ‘Before it is too late.’

Katherine threatens Eelby one last time, for the pleasure of watching him flinch, and then they leave him.

‘Farewell, my lady,’ he calls, reverting to the high-pitched, twisted voice of before. Katherine almost returns to hit him again, but Thomas takes her arm and drags her through the small doorway and down the winding steps. In the yard the dogs come crashing at them again, forcing them to one side, and Katherine threatens them, but then they are out through the gatehouse and across the first and second bridges. The soldiers are still a good bowshot away along the causeway, but near enough now for Thomas to see the black badge on the breasts of their white jackets. They are led by a man with what looks like a bandage across his face.

He stops to stare, Katherine at his shoulder.

Then they hear Eelby shouting from the battlements. The horsemen slow to hear him, but they cannot, nor can he point for clutching his broken arm, so by the time the men know where to look, it is too late. Thomas and Katherine are gone.

WHEN THEY REACH
the ferryman’s punt they find the red-bearded canon studying it as if it has somehow come up short.

‘Oh, Christ,’ Thomas says when he sees him. ‘Pass me that.’

Katherine hands him the beetle. The canon looks up at them, then at the beetle. He remains calm.

‘Thought it might be you,’ he says.

‘Leave us,’ Thomas says, ‘and there will be none of this.’

He lifts the beetle.

‘I do not want to stop you,’ the canon says.

Thomas lowers the beetle.

‘What then?’

‘Take me with you.’

‘You don’t know where we are going,’ Katherine says.

‘Nor do you,’ the canon says.

Thomas looks at her.

‘No,’ she has to admit. ‘That is true.’

‘And I have food,’ the canon says. He opens his bag to show a quarter loaf of brown bread, and he has a large costrel of ale. Katherine cannot stop herself: she steps forward to take the bread, breaks it into chunks and bites. The bread is gritty with salt. She chews until her jaws ache, and then guzzles the ale, swallow after swallow. Thomas holds his chunk and looks back over the rushes to the distant trees. They should be gone, she can see him thinking. He comes to a decision, and passes her his bread.

‘Help me, then,’ he tells the canon, and together they shove the punt through the reeds and back into the river’s tugging brown waters. Katherine takes the canon’s knife and cuts off the feet of her hose and as she is about to throw them away, he takes the woollen socks and puts them in his bag. Then he hitches his cassock, takes off his clogs and throws them into the punt, and steps into the mud to hold it while Katherine climbs aboard.