Shadows and Strongholds (51 page)

'I will be glad when this child is born,' her mother-in-law sighed as she placed a cushion in the small of her back.

Hawise was holding the ends of several coloured woollen strands while Emmeline pulled them taut and wove them into a length of braid. She looked away from the child and anxiously at Eve. 'We should not have left Alberbury.

Eve closed her eyes and leaned her head back. 'No. Mellette is right. If I had stayed any longer, I would not have had the strength for this journey. I am so tired all the time, and it gets no better.' She laid her hand across her belly. At least for the moment the child is quiet. Last night I thought it was going to kick its way out of my body'

Hawise could think of no answer to the remark. What did she know of carrying and bearing a child? Anything she said would be a mere platitude, spoken from ignorance. Nor, with the arrival of her flux four days ago, did she have a door to that particular world. That was another reason she didn't want to ride with Mellette. The older woman had been making her disappointment known in no uncertain terms. She had got with child in the first month after her marriage. So had Eve. She hoped that Hawise was going to prove more fecund than Sybilla.

Eve slept as the cart wound its way along the Shrewsbury road towards Whittington. Emmeline finished her braiding and Hawise had then to dress the little girl's hair with the handiwork. The length of 'ribbon' was uneven and lumpy, but the bright red and yellow colours of the wool glowed out against Emmeline's raven-black hair.

'Now I'll make one for you,' Emmeline announced.

They chose the colours green and white—and Hawise told her a story, about knights and giants and a woman under enchantment.

'And then the giant said…' Hawise paused and tilted her head, listening.

'What did the giant say?' Emmeline prompted, nudging her. When Hawise did not respond, the little girl raised her voice. 'What did the giant's—'

'Hush.' Hawise listened harder. The cart shuddered to a halt and Eve awoke with the soft cry of a dreamer disturbed.

Going to the baggage cart entrance Hawise peered out. A troop of riders had surrounded the cart and in the boil of dust, she saw several shields that she recognised, including the one belonging to Guy L'Estrange, constable of Whittington. 'Stay,' she commanded Emmeline, and climbed out of the cart.

As she approached the men, she saw the wounds, the bandages, the damaged shields and injured horses. Her immediate thought was for Brunin even though she knew he was with the King. Mellette made a strange sound; not a wail—it was too deep and harsh for that—but it came from the soul and it raised the hair on Hawise's forearms. She watched in horror as the elderly woman began a slow but inevitable slide from her saddle. One of the cart attendants, who had been holding the lead horse, darted to catch her and he eased her to the ground where she lay unmoving, white as death.

Hawise hurried to bend over Mellette's still form. 'What has happened?' she demanded of Guy L'Estrange.

'Madam, you should go no further on this road but turn back to Alberbury with all haste.' L'Estrange's face was composed of grim angles. There was a scabbed-over cut at the side of his mouth and, as he spoke, it broke and trickled fresh blood. 'Iorwerth Goch has raided over the border with the men of Powys and seized Whittington.

Against her fingers, Hawise felt the pulse beating in Mellette's throat. Still alive then. 'Seized Whittington?' She looked up at the knight. The words were in her mouth, but they tasted of nothing.

'And garrisoned it with their own. There were too many of them… We were outnumbered… overrun… They came so swiftly that we did not know what had hit us.' He clamped his jaw and she saw a shudder ripple through him.

Hawise stood up and gestured the attendant to bear Mellette back to the baggage wain. She was aware that they were all looking at her, aware too that she still held a child's tangle of woollen strands between her fingers.

'Have you sent a messenger to Lord FitzWarin?' she asked.

'Yes, my lady, as soon as it happened.'

She nodded. 'Then, as you say, we must turn back and consider what is to be done. I will tell Lady Eve and see that Lady Mellette is made comfortable.' She beckoned to one of her own escort and bade him ride ahead to Alberbury so that the keep would be ready to receive the group, including wounded. A worrying thought occurred to her. 'Is there a danger to Alberbury?'

'There may be, my lady, although perhaps not yet, since it is that much closer to Shrewsbury'

She nodded again and returned to the wain, feeling suddenly that speed was of the essence. The news had snatched all sense of security and she had to prevent herself from looking skittishly at the woods beyond the road, almost expecting to see the gleam of a Welsh spear.

By the time she climbed into the wain, Mellette had revived from her faint and was sitting bolt upright against the cushions, her lined face as grey as old bread dough and her eyes glassy. Emmeline was gazing at her grandmother with frightened fascination.

'What's happened?' Eve asked. Her glance flickered to Mellette. 'She hasn't spoken a word.' Anxiety filled her voice. 'What are the Whittington men doing here?'

Outside someone yelled an order and the cart began to back and turn on the road with much rumbling and jolting.

'We're returning to Alberbury,' Hawise said. 'The Welsh have overrun Whittington.'

Eve's stare widened. 'Oh, dear Jesu!' She took Emmeline in her arms. 'Another day and we would have been there!'

The thought gave Hawise a momentary qualm, but she thrust it away. 'I suspect they deliberately struck with only the constable in residence. It makes for easier pickings and fewer complications… not that I think our presence would have deterred them,' she added.

Eve shook her head, looking stunned. 'I do not believe it,' she said. 'My husband… my husband will…' She swallowed and pressed her sleeve to her lips. 'Holy Mary, I am not well.'

The wain shuddered as the driver brought it round. One of the horses must have shied, for the cart gave a violent lurch and the women were flung against each other like apples in a half-full barrel. Emmeline began to wail. Hawise had almost fallen on Mellette and, as she struggled upright, she saw the older woman's eyes fixed on her with gimlet intensity. 'We will regain Whittington,' Mellette said through stiff lips. Her hand fastened around Hawise's wrist like a hawk's talons fastening on a perch. 'It is ours; we will regain it.'

Hawise swallowed and looked down at the mottled fingers hooped with gold rings. She could feel the nails imprinting her flesh, and the bite of a bevel where one of the rings had twisted around. She felt revulsion and anger, fear and pity. From under the sparse lashes, a single tear rolled and was lost in the deep creases of the old woman's face. Mellette glared, daring Hawise to remark on the detail.

Hawise broke the vicious grasp and would have made her escape to her mare's saddle and the company of the soldiers, but Eve uttered a gasp that made her spin round. Her mother-in-law was ashen, her pupils so dilated that they almost obliterated the soft hazel irises. Her hands clutched her belly.

'My lady?' Hawise looked at her in concern.

Eve's gaze was that of a terrified trapped animal. 'I am in travail,' she whispered. 'God help me.'

They reached Alberbury in time for the baby to be born there and for the priest to be fetched from the village. The child was another girl and died within minutes of being baptised. Eve lived long enough to hold her daughter and make confession. Hawise had never seen so much blood. The smell of it clogged the bedchamber. The bright colour, the sticky slipperiness filled her with pity and horror… and fear. She knew that women died in childbirth. Her awareness had been compounded by the years of growing up with Marion, but until now, the pictures that Marion had painted, vivid though they were, had been related at a distance once removed. Now she understood… and wished that she were still ignorant.

Dazed, she stumbled from the bedchamber and, leaning against the wall, took several deep breaths of air scented with no more than the mustiness of stone. All she wanted to do was go and hide in a corner with her eyes closed and her hands over her ears and pretend it had not happened, but that was impossible. The care of Alberbury and its occupants belonged to her now, and she had to decide whether to relinquish that power to Mellette as
Eve had done, or take control and responsibility into her own hands.

'Jesu,' she whispered, and swallowed the knot of panic in her throat. Now, suddenly, she better comprehended her husband and the effect of the burdens and expectations loaded upon him. Taking another slow breath, she pushed away from the support of the wall.

Emmeline was playing in the hall with two daughters of a garrison soldier. Three little girls pretending to be grown up: one nursing her rag doll while Emmeline made a bed for it and the third carrying a basket over her arm and haggling with an imaginary trader. Hawise was poignantly and painfully reminded of herself and Sibbi and Marion. It was as long ago as for ever and as immediate as now.

Emmeline looked up and her dark eyes widened. 'Has Mama had the baby?' she asked.

Hawise swallowed. 'Come with me.' She held out her hand and could have wept at the trusting way that Emmeline took it and skipped beside her to the door. In a moment she was going to shatter all that trust and joy.

Outside the sun was dipping towards the horizon, although it would not be dark for several hours. A couple of grooms leaned against an outhouse door in casual conversation. Hens scratched in the dust. Soldiers paced the battlements and looked towards the Welsh border. The sight of the men on full alert was both a comfort and a worry.

Hawise drew Emmeline to a bench placed against the sun-warmed wall and sat down with her. Was this how her mother had dealt with Marion when she first came to Ludlow? 'Sweetheart,' she said, and then stopped. The words had to be said and there was no way of making them less devastating.

Emmeline swung her feet and looked at the tips of her shoes poking out beneath the hem of her dress.

'You know your mama was not well.'

Emmeline sucked her underlip and nodded. 'Because of the baby'

'Yes…'

'But now she's had it, she'll be better.' She gave Hawise a look enormous with trust and the need for reassurance.

Mary Mother, Hawise thought, and set her arm around the child's narrow shoulders. 'Your mama was more poorly than we knew and the baby was born too soon to live.'

Emmeline gazed at her, the peat-pool eyes solemn and deep, the contours of her face soft with an infancy that Hawise was aware of stealing.

'I am sorry, sweeting, but your mama and your baby sister have died and their souls have gone to God in his heaven.'

The stare continued for what seemed like an eternity, wide and merciless, and then slowly, with equal lack of clemency, Emmeline's eyes filled with tears. Hawise gasped and clutched the child fiercely to her body. 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' Her own eyes burned and overflowed.

For a time Emmeline wept hard, but she was not inconsolable. Her mother had been a large part of her life, but there were many other women in her world too: maids, Heulwen the nurse, her grandmother, and lately Hawise and the women of the de Dinan household. Once she had weathered the initial storm, she sat up and, sniffing and hiccoughing, studied Hawise through tear-drenched lashes.