By Sylvian Hamilton (31 page)

Julitta
looked at him and saw the glimmer of a chance. 'I can show you the
place,' she said slowly. 'You'll not find it else.' They had brought
her palfrey, ready saddled, to the mounting-block, and led her into
the bailey. A rumble of anger and a few shouts of 'Witch!' came from
the men-at-arms and servants watching. She did not seem to hear.

'That
horse is lame,' she said.

Bane
trotted it forward and round, and back to the block. It limped on the
right fore.

"There
was no sign of that before, Sir, I swear,' said the puzzled
stableman. It must be a sprain.'

Straccan
was impatient. 'Get another horse.'

'There's
only that black stallion,' said the stableman, 'or one of the
ponies.'

'I
can ride the black,' she said.

They
rode east, Julitta between Straccan and Miles, the stallion on a rope
tethered to Straccan's saddle bow. It was a dull cold morning with a
venomous north-east wind, and the masses of dark cloud piling up in
the north promised heavy rain before long. She rode well, handling
the stallion with no effort, her head bowed, the bright
blood-spattered hair hidden under an old hunting cap. Miles, glancing
sideways at her, saw her lips moving constantly as if in prayer.

Halfway
down a rock-littered slope the path narrowed and they rode single
file, Straccan leading, Julitta in the middle. Suddenly she cried
out, pointing. Straccan caught only the word boar. He looked, and saw
the side of the hill above them begin to move.

A
great tusky boar was barrelling down upon them, as unstoppable as an
avalanche. How in God's name came such a beast here, so far from its
natural forest lair? Stones rattled around them, raising a fog of red
dust. The feet of Miles's horse were swept from under him, horse and
rider tumbling down the hill.

Julitta
leaned low in the saddle and heeled the stallion hard. The great
animal leapt forward, jerking the tether violently and dragging
Straccan's horse, which lost its footing on the shifting ground and
fell, rolling sideways. The strain on the rope was too much; it
snapped, and she was away.

In
the tumbling debris Straccan rolled aside to avoid being crushed by
his horse. His girth broke and the saddle pitched downhill. The
animal tried to get up, shaking and snorting, but fell back. A
fore-leg was snapped. Bitter at heart, Straccan drew his knife and
gave the mercy stroke.

Through
the cloud of dust he saw the lady, her great horse moving so fast and
smoothly it seemed to fly over the ground. In a few more moments she
was out of sight among the little hills. There was no boar, only a
great rolling rock: loosened by the recent rain, it had slid from its
place and brought down the rockslide. Bruised, bleeding and swearing
furiously, Miles ran to Straccan, who was kneeling in his horse's
blood.

'Are
you all right?'

'Help
me up.' He held out a hand and was tugged to his feet.

'She's
got away,' he said. 'What a God! No pity.'

'I'm
sorry,' Miles said. He'd been saying it for ages. Sir Blaise sat in
Lord Robert's great chair in the hall and Straccan, bruised and
scraped and limping, paced back and forth by the window. They had
been over and over the sequence of events, and Miles was sick at
heart and sick of apologising. 'She had too good a start; and anyway,
I couldn't follow her and leave Richard,' he said helplessly.

'You
should have, boy!'

'I'm
sorry!'

'Leave
him be,' Straccan said. 'It wasn't his fault.'

The
old man glared at him, then covered his eyes with his hand. After a
moment he looked up at Miles and said, 'No. Forgive me. You did what
seemed right. But that woman is deadly as a viper in a glove! She
knows us and has cause to hate us. We shall rue her loss.'

'I'm
sor--' Miles began.

Blaise
interrupted. 'No. I'm sorry, boy, for rating you. It's not your
fault.'

'Now
we shall never know what happened to the little girl,' said Miles
unhappily. Sweat streaked his face and he was only just becoming
aware that his body seemed to be all one great bruise.

'Tend
to yourself,' said Blaise. 'Get that man of yours to bring you water
and towels. There'll be salve somewhere in this place; if anyone can
find it, he can.'

Miles
went in search of Larktwist, and Blaise turned to Straccan.

'You
should see to your hurts as well,' he said.

Straccan
stared out of the window, gripping the bar. 'Do you think she truly
knew where Gilla lies?'

'No,
I don't. She led you out only so that she might escape.'

‘
Then
what has become of her? If that devil Al-Hazred took her, she must be
dead like that poor innocent in the chapel.' His knuckles whitened.

Blaise
was thinking hard. 'The Arab went off with his countrymen,' he said.
'Their horses were gone. He had no reason to take Gilla. It was
Soulis who needed her dead. Al-Hazred was making his getaway; your
lass would only hinder him.' He tapped his fingers on the arm of the
chair, frowning. 'All we know is that she was in the Nine Stane Rig
and we have not found her body. Perhaps because there is no body to
find.'

'De
Brasy said she was dead.'

'She
was alive when he ran.'

'Julitta
said it too.'

Blaise
stared at him. 'No. No, she didn't. Think back. She said nothing
about Gilla being dead. You asked where her body was. She simply said
she'd show us.'

'But
her dress, her shoes ..."

'Don't
dwell on that. Richard, I do not believe God is so pitiless. I
believe there is hope of her. Take a party and search. If she got
away, she can't have gone far.'

'Look,'
said Gilla. 'There's my lady.'

Hob
crouched on a rocky ledge beside the burn, his skinny bare arm in the
water stroking the smooth side of a fat trout. Ssh, he said mentally,
and with a jerk of his arm flung the fish into the reeds where it
flapped and twisted. He sprang up, beaming, but the girl wasn't
looking at him or the fish. Her gaze was fixed further along the
stream and her smile was beautiful. Suddenly it felt warmer—as
if the sun had come out—but the sky was dark with cloud and the
cold wind rose to howling pitch over their heads outside the gully.

The
lady stepped delicately through the water, but the water was not
stirred nor did she get wet. She walked away along the bed of the
burn, stopped to look back at the children and beckoned, smiling.

'Come
on,' Gilla said, tugging at Hob's ragged tunic.

Hob
couldn't see anybody, but there was something--a shimmer, glints of
brightness—over the water where Gilla stood. She put her hand
up as if to take the hand of someone Hob couldn't see.

She
turned her radiant face to Hob. 'We can go back now. The lady says
it's all right. My father has come.'

No!
No! Not back there, she couldn't mean that! Not to the bad people!
The bad lord had fallen to an arrow but he'd still been moving,
calling; he was alive. As for the cruel lady, the witch, she might
be dead. He had given her a grand crack with his iron bar.

He
regretted its loss; a worthy weapon, as good as any magic sword in a
story. She'd gone down like a stone but he wouldn't believe her
safely dead unless he saw her corpse.

Hob
shook his head violently and seized Gilla's arm, grunting and crying
in distress.

'It's
all right, truly! I know! She told me.'

Who
did she mean? Hob clutched his string of charms and prayed urgently.
He had his own concept of God, nothing Father Kenneth would have
recognised. Skelrig's old priest would have been very disturbed if
he'd realised the unorthodoxy of Hob's beliefs.

There
were paintings on the chapel wall at Skelrig's—old, peeling,
damp-stained—but enough remained to show that God-and-Mary wore
golden hats like platters and walked about on clouds. The clouds
looked soft and woolly, and Hob thought they kept the holy people's
feet nice and warm. They were one being in Hob's mind, God male and
female, though sometimes God was a baby, and sometimes he was a man
nailed to a cross. That had troubled Hob when he was younger, but he
had decided that it couldn't have hurt because God's face was so
calm, not screwed up in pain. Hob no longer worried about it.

He
prayed now to God-and-Mary and saw them standing on their little
fleecy cloud between him and Gilla, nodding and smiling at him. Make
her stay, he pleaded, but they shook their heads and moved along the
burn on their cloud. After a few steps they turned and gestured to
him to follow. Gilla was slipping and splashing among the stones. Hob
gave a great humphing grunt, which meant wait for me, and floundered
after her.

Straccan
and his party had ridden for hours, first searching the village, then
fanning out around it. They examined bields, bushes and reed-beds,
dovecotes, shepherds' bothies and clumps of trees, finding nothing.
As time passed, Straccan felt hope leaching out of him and rode
hunched in his saddle, as if to ease a wound. Aching, wretched, he
stopped to let his horse drink where a small burn fell from a rocky
lip into a deep brown pool. The sound of the waterfall was clear and
musical. It almost sounded like laughter.

It
was laughter! He looked up. A boy was peering down from the rocks
above, a ginger-haired local lad, scrawny and in rags like dozens
Straccan had seen in the Border villages. Before he could call out,
the boy drew back to let another child take his place. Straccan held
his breath and, for a moment, was perfectly still. Then he gave a
great cracked shout.

'Gilla!
My Gilla!'

His
echoing cry brought the others spurring back. He hurled himself from
his saddle into the pool, reaching desperately for holds among the
slimy stones behind the falling water, unaware of his throbbing ankle
or the rocks tearing at his flesh. He called her name over and over
as he strained upwards to reach her, and she dropped safely into his
arms at last.

Chapter
36

While
Gilla and Hob slept safely on mattresses by the wall where Straccan
could see his daughter whenever he raised his eyes, Sir Blaise laid
out Soulis's letters on the table in some sort of order and rested a
finger on two which bore King Philip's seal.

'These
are all the proof we need of his treason,' he said. 'King Philip
promises men to back a rebellion, once King William and his son have
been killed. William himself believes the French will support him in
an armed sweep to retake the lands south of the Border that were once
part of Scotland. But Soulis has some claim to royal blood, descended
as he is from the quondam Kings of Scots, and he covets the crown.
His plan was to kill the king in the first skirmish and make it seem
that the English did it. Then he and de Brasy would murder young Lord
Alexander with poison.'

'Where
is the prince?' Miles asked. 'Is he in safe hands?'

'Safe
enough at Dryburgh, with the queen his mother. With King William out
of the way, Soulis planned to take Lord Alexander to Stirling Castle
and appoint de Brasy as his bodyguard. He would use a subtle poison
that would take weeks to kill him, and all the while the new young
king would be comforted and advised by his father's good friend and
counsellor, Rainard de Soulis. When the boy died he would step over
his corpse to the throne.'

He
picked up a roll with the seal of Eustace de Vesci. 'Here is treason
against the King of the English too. The Lord of Alnwick gives the
names of other barons who may be bribed or persuaded to turn traitor,
Mowbray and de Cressi among them.'

'De
Vesci,' Straccan thought aloud. 'Bane saw him with Soulis at
Alnwick.' He touched a letter with the seal of Arlen. He'd carried
one just like it from Julitta to the Prioress Rohese. It seemed years
ago, instead of just a few months. 'What is Arlen's part in it?'

'Murder,'
said Sir Blaise. 'Like Judas, he has sold his lord. King John's price
is higher than Our Saviour's: Arlen demands three thousand marks.'

'How
were they going to do it?'

'He
loves the chase above all things, your king. Arlen plans to invite
him to a great hunt, using false news of a magnificent stag. It
wouldn't be the first time one of your kings died in a forest, by
chance or misfortune.'