The Stone Rose (62 page)

The Duke’s chaplain had taken Gwenn’s place at Ned’s bedside. Scenting release, he made the sign of the cross and smiled.

Gwenn? Where was Gwenn? Lurching back into himself, Ned discovered there was nothing where Gwenn had been except unendurable agony. Floundering, he sought that blissful, pain-free space. It had grown larger. It was almost big enough for him to walk into, and it was expanding. Soon it would be large enough to swallow up the whole of the earth, the sky, and all of God’s creation. But there was one thing missing, one vital thing. It did not hold Gwenn. Ned jerked himself back, back towards pain... His hand lifted, stretching to the afternoon sunlight pouring through the door slit. The chaplain caught his hand. Ned focused on him. The chaplain had brown eyes like Gwenn’s, and in them Ned saw warm and abiding love, and great understanding. It occurred to him that if he died, he would be leaving Gwenn with his cousin. Simultaneous with that thought, came a crucifying convulsion. ‘Gwenn...’ he moaned.

‘Relax, my son,’ the priest murmured. ‘You cannot fight the inevitable. Relax, and trust to God that your souls will meet in the eternal. Let go.’

‘But, Gwenn...’

His groan was weak, but the priest heard. ‘Your friend will care for her.’

Ned tried to shake his head. Tried to say that that would not do, but he had no power to explain to a priest, even one with compassionate eyes.

‘Put yourself and Gwenn into God’s hands, my son. Trust in His infinite wisdom.’

Ned’s mouth wouldn’t move. He wanted to admit that he did not think he could do that. What if he let go, and Gwenn never came? An eternity without her was unthinkable, but he was bone-tired. ‘Tell Alan... Tell my cousin...’

‘Aye?’

‘Tell him to see her safe to Plou–’ he coughed, ‘Ploumanach.’

‘I will.’

Ned drew a rattling, agonised breath. ‘Father?’

‘My son?’

‘Ask him...ask Alan to tell my mother...to give her my love, and...’ Ned wasn’t able to finish. He was past talking. He was past worrying. His eyes closed. The great darkness was in front of him; the darkness where there was no pain. It seemed to beckon him. Slowly, Ned let go, and left his broken body behind him. He was not confident he would see Gwenn again, and could only hope that perhaps, out there, in those vast uncharted reaches, that would not matter. Bathed in peace, Ned breathed a blissful sigh. His last.

‘
Requiescat in pace
,’ the Duke’s chaplain muttered, and solemnly he reached out and folded Ned’s capable, farmer’s hands over the wound in the shattered, bloody chest.

***

Having escaped one death-bed, Lady Juliana had found herself standing at another, for minutes after the accident in which her fiancé’s squire had been hurt, the Duke of Brittany had fallen.

Head bowed, Lady Juliana left the ermine pavilion. Her proud features wore a stunned, incredulous look.

Sir Raoul was waiting for her. He pushed past the guards. ‘What news?’ he demanded, eyeing the closed tent flap.

Lady Juliana shook her head. It was a struggle to find any words. ‘He’s gone, Raoul,’ she said. ‘The Duke is gone.’

Sir Raoul crossed himself. ‘Mother of God, not Brittany too! He was twenty-eight – only a year older than I. How did he die? One reckless gesture too many, I suppose? He was ever a showman.’

‘He was crushed and... Please, Raoul, I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘My apologies, my dear. And Duchess Constance? How is she taking it?’

‘Composedly. She’s not shed a tear. But King Philip’s weeping would cause the Seine to burst its banks.’

Sir Raoul jerked his head at the white silk pavilion. ‘His Grace the King is inside?’

‘Aye. And crying like a babe. The Duchess is comforting him.’

‘It’s a bad business.’

‘Aye.’ Lady Juliana had only come out for a breath of clean, untainted air. The heat and the smell of death in the tent was suffocating. When the King left, she would have to see to her Duchess.

‘All in all three men have died this day,’ Sir Raoul informed her. ‘Our Duke, Fletcher, and a knight from Gascony whom I do not know. Two more men have been sorely wounded, and are fighting for their lives. Oh, aye, and apparently there’s a dead beggar.’

‘B...beggar? What beggar?’ Lady Juliana seized on the diversion, for beggars did not count.

‘Christ knows. He only had one hand, so he was probably a convicted thief. One of the King’s guards heard a stray dog barking in the forest. When the barking didn’t let up, he investigated and found the body. The guard knew him for a beggar because he had seen the same man hanging around for scraps by the cookhouse. His throat had been cut, and he’d been mutilated. Hacked about.’

A look of distaste flickered across Lady Juliana’s features. ‘No grisly details, Raoul. I’ve had my fill for today.’

‘Sorry, my dear. But what in blazes could anyone gain by torturing a lousy beggar?’

‘Raoul, please.’

‘My apologies. Dear God, it’s been a bad day. The rest of the tournament will probably be cancelled.’

‘I should think so.’

‘A bad business,’ he muttered glumly, ‘a bad business.’

‘You will have to do something about that young man’s widow, Raoul. She’s pregnant.’

‘Oh, hell, is she?’ Raoul Martell sighed. ‘Then I suppose I will, especially as Fletcher was trying to warn me.’

‘Warn you?’ Lady Juliana looked a question.

Flushing, Sir Raoul fixed his eyes on a tent peg. ‘Aye, he was warning me. Some Frenchman took it into his head that I caused him to lose a favourite hawk.’

‘And did you?’

‘What, lose the wretched man his sparrowhawk? Jesu, no. It wasn’t my fault if his falconer had trained the bird ill. A tourney’s no place for a half-trained bird. It happened yesterday. All I did was ride past his hawk; it took a dislike to my horse, bated, snapped its leash, and was into the blue before you could bat an eye. The Frenchman took it into his head I was to blame. At any rate, he banded together with some other French knights and they chose me as their target. Fletcher ran onto the field to warn me.’

‘By now he will be dead,’ Lady Juliana whispered. The guy ropes of the ducal pavilion creaked. The tent flap was folded back, and Philip of France strode past them. His eyelids were swollen, his cheeks mottled and his lips compressed, but he was every inch a king. Lady Juliana curtsied deeply, and the knight bowed; but they were too slow, and their obeisances were directed at the King’s back.

‘I’d best go in, Raoul.’

‘Aye. You attend your Duchess, and I’ll attend Ned Fletcher’s widow.
Adieu
, till later, my dear.’ And bending over his fiancée’s hand, Sir Raoul pressed his lips to her fingers and turned on his heel.

***

It was past the ninth hour and the light was fading. Ned had been laid to rest under newly cut turves that afternoon, less than an hour after he had died. Alan and Gwenn had been his only mourners, Sir Raoul being too taken up with the Duke’s death. It had been a hasty, improvised burial on hallowed ground in a nearby village churchyard. For Alan it had been heart-breaking; it had been too quick and too impersonal. Alan had seen many such funerals, funerals of hired men whose masters hardly knew them. But it was no stranger Alan was bidding farewell today. This was his childhood playmate and cousin. For Gwenn it must have been hell. She seemed to have done into deep shock.

On their return from the burial, she had disappeared into the tent. She had been alone there for three hours, and Alan hadn’t heard so much as a whisper from her. It was unnatural. He had spent most of that three hours gazing sightlessly into his tent-side fire, straining his ears in case she broke down. It was the loneliest, most miserable guard duty that he had ever undertaken. He couldn’t believe Ned was dead. His cousin had been the happiest, most contented,
accepting
man Alan had ever known. And Ned was no more. Alan couldn’t believe Duke Geoffrey had gone either, but at least the Duke’s death could be thought of calmly, without too much emotion. Alan wondered whether the Duchess was reacting to her husband’s death.

Alan’s stomach felt empty. How could he feel hunger at a time like this? He drank a skinful of wine, but his hunger remained, a gnawing ache, deep in his guts. He had no food with him. He did not want to leave Gwenn to go to the cookhouse, not even for half an hour. And from his tent? Nothing. No sobbing, no weeping. Nothing.

Gwenn had taken the purse that a heavy-browed Sir Raoul had offered her by way of compensation for a lost husband. She had nodded when the knight said that he had arranged for Ned’s burial, and she seemed to accept, for the time being at least, Alan’s guardianship of her. But not a solitary tea had she shed. It was as if this latest tragedy had turned her to stone.

When Alan had told Sir Raoul that Ned’s last wishes had been that he should take care of Gwenn, the knight’s brow had cleared – what with the Duke of Brittany’s death, noblemen had politics on their minds, and no doubt the future of an untried squire’s widow did not loom large. No one had objected to her spending the night in Alan’s tent. Had she been a lady of high estate, matters would have been arranged very differently. Not that Alan was complaining. If anyone was indelicate enough to imply that he would lay a hand on her while she grieved for her husband, he’d split their slanderous tongues for them.

He had heard the rumours concerning Ned’s foray into the lists. He scowled an accusation at the fading glow in the western sky. ‘Ned, you were a fool, a chivalrous fool. See where your folly has left us.’ But it was no use blaming the dead. Ned could not help his nature any more than he could his. He would miss his vital young cousin.

Marshalling his emotions, Alan eyed the closed flap with misgivings. She had gone into his tent meekly as a lamb, asking if she could be left alone. Assuming she wished to grieve in private, Alan had withdrawn. But she was not grieving. What was she doing? Could he disturb her? Should he disturb her? His stomach growled, and thus prompted, he rose to his feet. There was bread and water in the tent.

She was sitting cross-legged exactly as he had left her, on the thin mattress she had shared with Ned. Sir Raoul’s drawstring purse was in front of her. It was unopened. Great eyes lifted briefly to Alan as he came in.

‘I came for water,’ he said, unhooking the flask from a knob on a tent pole.

Silence.

‘Are you thirsty?’

Silence.

‘Gwenn...’ Helplessly, Alan watched her downcast head. With a jerky movement he slung the waterskin onto his pallet and tried again. ‘Gwenn? Oh, Jesu, Gwenn,
say
something.’

Silence.

He knelt in front of her and reached for her hands. She shuddered, which was not the reaction that he looked for but it was a reaction of sorts, which was a beginning. ‘Gwenn, please. You can’t cut yourself off like this.’

‘Why not?’ Her voice was harsh, not her voice at all.

‘It...it’s not healthy.’

‘My sister cut herself off when life became unbearable.’

‘Katarin is sick, shocked. She had suffered much.’

‘Am I not sick and shocked? Have I not suffered much? I vow I will suffer no more. If I have to cut myself off to ensure that, then so be it.’ And, as if to illuminate her words, she jerked free of his hold and hunched away from him.

At least she was talking. Alan’s aim was to goad her into relieving her feelings. ‘Katarin’s a child, Gwenn. You cannot retreat as she did.’

‘For God’s sake, Alan!’ Her mouth was angry. ‘My husband has died! You don’t get over something like that in a few minutes, you know.’

‘You loved him.’

She swallowed, and her answer was husky. ‘Aye. Ned is...was very lovable.’

Alan could only agree.

‘Why did Ned have to die, Alan?’

She sounded like a child crying at the night. Alan had no comfort to offer her.

‘I should have been there, Alan. I should have been with him.’

He made a swift, negative gesture. ‘No.’

‘I should. It’s your fault I wasn’t with him. If you hadn’t taken me outside...’

Her voice cracked, and brown, melancholy eyes met his. She
was
grieving, inwardly and in silence; and her grief hit him like a blow in his empty stomach. To think that he had once wished her and Ned unmarried. They were unmarried now, and just look at her. It wasn’t Ned who was the fool, Alan reflected sourly, but himself. He was a selfish, simple, bloody fool. If he were granted one wish now, it would be that he could master time and turn it back for her. He would do anything to lift that bleak misery from her eyes.

‘Oh, Alan, why did Ned have to die!’ Her control slipped for an instant, and Alan heard a small sob. ‘He swore he’d never leave me! He promised, Alan! And now he’s broken his word! It’s your fault.’

‘No!’

‘It is! I’ve no one now! No one!’

‘You have me,’ Alan said, taking her hands again. They were cold as blocks of ice.

‘You!’ she exclaimed, derisively to Alan’s ears.

He bit his lip and told himself that it was her grief that made her cruel. ‘And there’s Katarin, and Philippe,’ he continued. ‘You are not alone. You have your relatives in north Brittany. They’ll take responsibility for you. Ned wanted me to take you to them. I’ll happily oblige.’

‘I don’t want anyone to take responsibility for me,’ Gwenn muttered, with a flash of her old waywardness. ‘I want to take responsibility for myself. I want to be independent.’

Alan shook his head. Women never took responsibility for themselves, and with the world structured as it was, how could they? Her grief was unhinging her. ‘Take responsibility for yourself? You’re not serious, Gwenn. It is your loss talking. You cannot be independent, it’s impossible.’

Her eyes glittered. ‘Impossible? Why? You’re independent.’

‘It’s different for me.’ Alan smiled. ‘I’m a man. I can fight my own battles.’

‘You’re not taking me seriously.’

‘How can I? Such a notion is ridiculous.’

‘Why? Why is it ridiculous? All I want is to be an island, like you.’

‘An island?’ Was that how she saw him?

‘I like you, Alan. I admit that I don’t know you well, but I probably know you as well as anyone. I’ve watched you. You have no ties. You’re careful to keep your friends at a distance. And I’ve noticed that whatever happens, Alan le Bret never gets hurt. And that is because his feelings are never engaged. I have decided to become like you. I am going to be independent. I have been hurt enough, and Ned’s death is the last blow I shall take. From now on,’ she spoke as solemnly as a nun making her holy vows, ‘I shall be an island. I take responsibility for myself, and myself alone.’