The Stone Rose (16 page)

‘The brethren in the forest, of course!’

‘What did you think the bell signified?’

Yolande avoided his eyes. ‘Nothing. You will think me most odd, Jean, but now I’ve stopped running about, I feel like death. It’s as though...’ She struggled to find words for her sense of disquiet, but her fears drifted just beyond expression, formless and elusive – as impossible to grasp as the mist. ‘It’s as though an evil spirit is hovering around the corner. Where are they, Jean?’

‘You distress yourself unnecessarily.’ Soothingly, Jean rubbed the small of her back in a way that normally calmed her. ‘You put me in mind of a mother hen who has lost her chicks.’

A smile trembled on the corners of her mouth. ‘I do feel rather like that. But I wish they’d come. Where are they? It’s only a couple of hours’ journey, they should have arrived long since. Do you think something’s happened?’ Restlessly, she turned back to the window. ‘Where can they have got to?’

Three strides took Jean to the door, and he beckoned for her to follow. ‘Come, let’s go up to the roof. You can see the whole road from there. We’ll watch them ride up.’

***

‘There!’ Yolande pointed into the half light, where, seeming to float on a cushion of snowy mist, a small cavalcade was drawing nearer. ‘I can see them!’

‘I told you they’d be alright.’ Jean screwed up his eyes. ‘That’s odd...’

‘What? What have you seen?’

‘I could swear I sent two men with the pack horses. But there are three now. See, there’s another on one of the mules.’ Jean gasped. ‘Holy Christ! I can see what looks like a litter.’

Yolande clutched her throat. ‘Someone’s been hurt! Not Raymond, I can see him on that pack horse. And there’s Gwenn, riding with Katarin before her.’ She shaded her eyes. ‘Jean, I can’t see Izabel anywhere. Or any baggage.’

Jean swallowed. He had seen the coffin; a simple, ungilded box such as the common folk used in Vannes. But of Izabel Herevi there was no sign. Even when he squinted, the cavalcade was too distant for him to make out who was reclining in the litter, but he did not think it was a female form. He cleared his throat. Yolande was white as milk, and she had not yet marked that plain, unpainted box. ‘I think we had better go down, my dear.’

When they reached the top of the uneven flight of steps leading into the yard, Jean threaded a steadying arm through Yolande’s. Shreds of unearthly mist clung to the ground. A bedraggled cockerel moved through the pale, vaporous pools with his hens, scratching for seed in the rain-soft earth while there was yet daylight. The air was dank and smelt of river. A pig squealed. In the walled lane, the doors gaped like greedy mouths; and as the procession drew nearer, figures gathered in the open portals, eyes blinking. Rooks circled overhead. The bell ceased tolling. The silence was doleful, more tangible than the mist.

‘They take forever,’ Yolande forced the words through her teeth. ‘Why don’t they hurry?’

‘The litter slows them down.’ Jean could see that his eldest daughter was in a desperate state. She wore a travelling cloak that must be borrowed, for it swamped her. The hem of her dress was ripped, her hair was unkempt and plastered to her cheeks by wind and rain. She wore no veil, and her face was scratched and black with dirt. Black?

‘Jesu, Jean, look at Gwenn!’ Yolande pulled free and stumbled down the broken steps. ‘Gwenn!’

‘Mama!’ Katarin wriggled in her sister’s arms, and reached out for her. ‘Mama!’

Yolande lifted her youngest from Gwenn’s lap and all but squeezed the breath out of her. ‘Come here, darling. Give Mama a kiss. That’s better.’ Scrutinising Katarin, Yolande discovered the child did not seem unduly distressed. Relaxing, she transferred Katarin to her hip. A glance at the litter relieved her mind further, for it did not contain Izabel, only a stranger. The man’s coal-black hair was streaked with sweat, and like her eldest daughter his features were obscured by a mask of what looked like soot. Under the filth, severe pain cut lines in his face. One of his legs was in a crude splint. ‘Where’s Izabel? Where’s my mother?’

A huge tear rolled down Gwenn’s grubby cheek and, lips trembling, she looked appealingly at her brother. Raymond dismounted. A look of bewilderment blurred the handsome lines of his face. His bright green eyes were glassy with shock.

Yolande felt as if she had been plunged into a trough of icy water.

‘Mama...’ Her son ran a hand – a shaking hand – round the back of his neck. ‘Mama...’

‘Raymond, why won’t you look at me?’ Following the direction of her son’s gaze, Yolande saw the coffin.

‘Mama, I’m sorry.’ Raymond’s voice shook. ‘There was a fire. The house is gone. And
Grandmère
...’

Clutching Katarin to her breast, Yolande’s knees buckled. One of Jean’s arms whipped round her waist, and Katarin was eased into the crook of his other.

‘No. No!’ Yolande backed away. ‘I don’t believe it, I won’t believe it!’

Someone stepped into the unhappy circle in the middle of the yard, a hardy young man with a shock of fair hair and pleasant, open features which were easy to read. Sympathy filled his blue eyes. ‘
Madame
,’ the young man said, and his accent was strange to Yolande, ‘I am very sorry. We did all we could, but we could not get her out. We got your daughters out, but the roof caved in.’

‘Roof? Caved in?’ Yolande did not like the compassion in those blue, blue eyes. It told her that Izabel was truly gone. ‘No,’ she muttered fiercely. ‘Not now, when we have finally come here.’ In Kermaria, Izabel could have lived free of the shame that had shadowed most of her unhappy life. Desperately, Yolande willed the young man to vanish back into the mist, but he remained large as life, feet planted firmly on the ground, and his beautiful eyes were round with fellow-feeling. She would never be able to look at anyone with blue eyes again without remembering this day. She lifted a hand to block out the sight of those eyes, and gripped her daughter’s bridle for support.

‘Face it,’ someone rasped from the ground by her feet.

It was the stranger in the litter. There was no compassion anywhere on that dark visage. Yolande looked at his eyes which were a drab grey and dark with pain, but pitiless. Strangely, she found it easier to regard this man who gave no quarter than the other, compassionate one. ‘I...I beg your pardon?’

‘Ned’s telling the truth.’ His voice lacked the foreign ring of the younger man’s. ‘Face it. The whole street was a mass of fire. The old woman’s gone. Be thankful we got your daughters out.’

Jean surveyed the man on the litter. ‘Your name?’

‘Alan le Bret.’

‘Master?’

The man paused before replying. ‘None, at present.’

‘Is it true, Alan le Bret, that Izabel Herevi is dead?’

Alan, whose skin was ashen under his black mask, grunted assent. ‘Aye. Izabel Herevi sleeps her last sleep in yonder box.’

Yolande gave a soft moan and stepped blindly towards the coffin.

Jean thrust Katarin at his son. ‘Raymond, take your sisters inside, and see the man’s hurts are seen to, will you? I shall look to your mother.’

***

Having settled Katarin with Klara in the relative comfort of one of the alcoves off the solar, Gwenn elected to tend to the routier herself. His litter had been dragged into the hall downstairs, and she was examining a willow basket the serving woman had told her was stocked with bandages and salves, while Raymond nosed around the solar.

‘God, what a midden of a place,’ Raymond said.

Gwenn looked up. Her brother was picking flakes of limewash from the damp-stained walls. Gwenn had been so full of grief for her grandmother that she hadn’t had eyes for Kermaria. ‘I expect the walls will dry out when the fire’s been going awhile,’ she said.

‘For two pins I’d return to Vannes,’ Raymond continued. ‘I have friends there. I can’t see that there’s going to be much going on here. The nearest tavern must be three miles away.’

‘You can’t return, Raymond. None of us can, not now.’

The shock was back on Raymond’s face, and for a moment Gwenn thought he was about to break down. ‘I know.’ His voice cracked. ‘It’s not something that’s easily forgotten, is it?’ His voice strengthened. ‘I know de Roncier’s to blame. One day, I’ll make him pay, Gwenn, I swear it.’

Gwenn’s eyes filled. ‘Revenge won’t bring Grandmama back.’

Her brother strode over the rushes and gave her a rough hug. ‘Don’t cry. That snake’ll pay, I’ll make certain of that, if it’s the last thing I do.’

Her brother was offering her the only comfort he could, and Gwenn nodded. Folding a linen cloth, she added it to the basket of medicaments.

‘Why are you soiling your hands tending to that villain?’ Raymond demanded abruptly. ‘Let someone else do it. Let that wench, Klara, see to him.’

‘No. I want to help him. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be dead.’

‘I don’t trust him. He could be working for de Roncier.’

‘I don’t trust him either, but he did save me, and I confess I’m curious. That day we were chased, I saw him.’

‘What? In the mob?’

Gwenn nodded. ‘He was the first to throw a stone.’

‘Mother of God!’ A dark flush mottled Raymond’s cheeks. ‘And you want to bind his wounds as though he were some unsung hero! I’d steer well clear of him if I were you. That man’s a bucket of trouble. I shall mention that you saw him in the mob to Mama.’

Gwenn grimaced in the direction of the spiral stairs. ‘He couldn’t hurt a fly at the moment.’

Making an impatient sound, Raymond swung away. ‘And what about when he’s healed? What then? Believe me, sister, there lies a wolf that’s not to be tamed.’

She dug in her heels. ‘I don’t want to tame him, I only want to heal him. It’s a debt I owe him, for my life.’

Her brother flapped her out with a weary hand. ‘Oh, go and tend your wounded wolf, Gwenn. But don’t come crying if he bites.’

She picked up the basket. ‘I won’t.’

‘The sooner he’s better, the sooner we’ll be rid of him,’ he observed sourly.

Gwenn smiled back from the doorway. ‘There is that. Raymond?’

‘What now?’

‘Father Mark said the man has not been born who cannot be redeemed.’ Basket tucked securely under her arm, she stepped quietly into the stairway.

‘Christ on the Cross!’ Raymond exploded. ‘Women! Will they never learn?’

***

Alan was stretched out on a pallet close to the fire in the hall, thinking that a drink would ease the throbbing in his leg. Someone was walking down the stairs, and he glanced up to assess his chances of persuading whoever it was to see to his needs. It was the girl, Gwenn Herevi.

‘I’ve come to look at your leg,’ she announced, clutching a basket close to her breast.

That sounded hopeful. She had obviously decided to play at being an angel of mercy. Her eyes were wary, but brimming with good intent. At the moment nothing could suit Alan better. ‘I could murder a drink,’ he told her.

‘M...murder?’

He had forgotten how young she was. ‘I’m thirsty.’

‘I’ll find something.’ The concubine’s daughter set her basket on the edge of his pallet.

Alan put out a hand. ‘Wine would be good. It kills pain.’

Having poured a generous measure from a pottery bottle into an earthenware cup, St Clair’s daughter handed it to him. Alan noticed she was careful to avoid contact with his fingers. Ignoring this, he drank deep. It was a coarse red wine, flavoured with herbs. It warmed his stomach. Alan had never appreciated how much it meant to have a healthy, pain-free body until this moment. His pain dulled. She watched him. The girl, Gwenn, made him feel self-conscious, though he was dammed if he knew why this should be. ‘My thanks, Mistress Gwenn.’ He looked pointedly at the bottle.

The girl took the hint and thrust the bottle into his hands. ‘Here, you’d better have charge of this.’ Kneeling at his side, she unwrapped his makeshift bandages.

Pain knifed through him. ‘I hope to God you know what you’re doing.’

‘I do. Grandmama taught me.’ Her face clouded, but though her grief was fresh she did not give in to it. Head high, she waved at two yokels who were lurking in the doorway. ‘If you must watch, you can make yourselves useful. This man must be held down.’

‘I can hardly run away,’ Alan said dryly.

She flashed him a look. ‘Nonetheless, you must be restrained, or you’ll wreck the bone-setting.’

The two boys took hold.

‘Are you ready?’

Alan assented and gritted his teeth. Black pain swallowed him up, wrenched him out of the hall, and he was master of himself no more. He gave himself up to the agony and rode it out. After an eternity in a dark vortex with nothing to cling on to, the girl’s soft voice hooked him back. ‘There. You can relax now, Alan le Bret. It’s over.’

He came back slowly. He’d spilt the wine. He was sweating like a pig and he could hardly see for the perspiration running into his eyes. He could taste blood in his mouth. Lifting his fingers to his lips, he discovered he’d all but bitten them through. ‘My thanks,’ he managed to croak.

The two serfs had gone. His leg was neatly bandaged. He had new splints. ‘It doesn’t feel as though its mine.’

‘It will.’

Her eyes were steady. Candid, truthful eyes.

‘Will it set straight?’ An important question, that. Lame mercenaries didn’t have a prayer.

‘Like a lance,’ she assured him, dipping a cloth into a bowl of water. She began wiping his face as tenderly as though he were a babe.

‘Don’t do that.’ He tried to bat her hands away.

‘You’re all sooty, and you’re in no fit state to do it yourself.’

It unmanned Alan to have a maid like Gwenn Herevi washing him. ‘No amount of polishing will make me shine, mistress. I’m tarnished to the heart.’ Her steady, brown eyes flickered, but that was the only sign that she gave of having heard him, for the gentle, inexorable washing continued. Alan wanted to jerk his head away, but to his shame found that she was in the right, he hadn’t strength even for that. Fighting the pain had used up all of his reserves. The hall was rocking from side to side as though an enormous crowbar had been placed underneath it and a giant was levering it up and down. He endured in stoic silence while the room tilted.