Juliana Garnett (40 page)

A single candle pierced the darkness smothering them in soft folds. The bed was shadowed, the light beyond a small pinpoint. Rolf removed the last of his garments and hung them on the bed pole, then slipped beneath the sheets and turned to Annice. She did not resist him but enveloped him in her embrace as if she wished to hold him forever.

For several minutes he lay there without moving. There had been so much death, so much anguish—how could he bear to lose her? Yet how could he keep her safe when he must join his king?

Rolf slid one hand from her shoulder down the slope of her breast, cupping it in his palm. She shuddered beneath his caress and moved closer. He felt her soft skin against him, breast to breast, her hips a gentle urgency against his loins. Yet he felt nothing else. No passion, no life. Only a great, overpowering sadness that threatened to consume him.

After a moment she drew back slightly. “My lord? Have I displeased you? Or are you too weary for other than rest?”

“Why must women always think themselves at fault?” he muttered, and felt her stiffen against him. He sighed. “Nay,
sweeting, I did not mean it thus. ’Tis not you. ’Tis me, and what I have seen of late. I feel as if I reek of death.”

She was still again, then said softly, “Let me warm you. You are chilled. Turn over onto your stomach and try to sleep.”

Lifting to her knees beneath the bed linens, she began to massage him, a gentle kneading up and down his aching muscles, from shoulders to ankle and back. Slowly, his tension eased with her ministrations. He began to relax. Annice’s fingers moved up to his neck, rubbing in small circles, then up into his hair.

Finally Rolf turned onto his back and reached for her, this time eagerly. He pulled her astride him, thrusting up into her with a hunger he had almost forgotten. There was a ferocity to it, a mixture of rage and need and passion that shook him deeply. With his hands at her waist, he held her, thrusting strongly until he heard her cry out, felt the deep, racking shudders that marked her release.

When he would have slowed, she gripped him fiercely, urging him on. ’Twas as if they battled rather than loved, their bodies straining against each other like two combatants. Limbs entwined, they turned and twisted on the bed until the sheets were in a hopeless, damp tangle. Finally, when the candle across the chamber had guttered and pale shadows gleamed at the window cracks, they collapsed in sated exhaustion. Holding tight to each other, bodies damp with effort and release, they fell asleep at last.

“I have been here near four mouths. ’Tis time for me to join John, and for you to go to safety.” Rolf looked away from Annice’s distress. He could not bear leaving her behind, but he could not keep her safe if she was with him. If he could not see to Justin’s safety, he could at least do whatever was possible to keep his wife safe.

“But why must I leave here?” Annice asked softly. Her voice shook slightly, and she glanced around the chamber as if to imprint it upon her mind. “Dragonwyck is the strongest castle I know of.”

“Yea, but too great a temptation to Louis’s French
knights. It was almost taken by Thurston and a single traitor just last year. I will not risk you in my absence.”

“And so you send me away to a nunnery?” Annice cried. “Do you think I shall be so much safer there?”

He looked down into her eyes, unwilling to describe to her the atrocities he had seen committed upon the women in the keeps that had fallen to John. The French would hardly be more merciful were they to take Dragonwyck, a rich prize coveted by Louis even more for the fact that it belonged to John’s baron.

“If I did not think you would be safer, I would not send you there,” he said slowly. “ ’Tis a small nunnery, and worth nothing to greedy predators. I doubt the French would bother with it.”

So as not to frighten her even more, he did not tell her of his precautions; the force of men who were to guard the nunnery would take her to safety should it appear to be endangered. There was little enough safety anywhere in England. Prince Louis of France had invaded England in May. His troops had met little resistance, save for those keeps strong enough to thwart him. But those were few. Keep after keep fell to the invaders, until by August nearly two thirds of the barons had yielded. Now it was early September. Dragonwyck’s walls were strained with refugees from the surrounding countryside, and all of Lincolnshire was in turmoil.

Turning away from Annice, Rolf went to the window and stared out into the bailey below. “Many of the rebel barons are changing sides again. They see what Louis is doing, and they are returning to John’s cause, bitter but wiser. Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t. I am to meet John to aid in the relief of Lincoln keep. ’Tis being held by Nicolaa de Hay, but ’tis not known how much longer she can resist the besiegers.”

He turned back to Annice, who was staring at him with fearful blue eyes. His throat tightened against a surge of emotion. How did he admit that he feared more for her than for his own life? How would he put into words such a weakness? He could not. He could only do what little was possible to safeguard her, and pray that it would suffice.

“Do you think me less brave than Nicolaa de Hay?”
Annice asked after a moment. “Do you not think I would hold out against besiegers as well as she?” She gestured to the bailey below the window. “You have an able castellan here, and I am not so foolish as to allow the gates to be opened to any man.”

Dragging a hand over his eyes, Rolf said heavily, “Why do you think the French besiege Lincoln? Because they know ’tis being held by a woman. They believe it to be weaker and so set to bring it down that much quicker.”

“Then they are learning the errors of their thoughts,” she said sharply.

He smiled grimly “Yea, but if Lincoln should fall, Lady Nicolaa will be most fearfully slain for her defiance. I will not risk you.”

Annice drew in a deep breath. “I yield to your persuasion, milord, but I cannot say I like it.”

Reaching out, he drew her close to him. “My fierce little wife. I know you are brave, and that you would fight to the very last to hold Dragonwyck. But ’tis only a pile of stones, and you are much more than that. I must join the king and could not feel easy thinking you in danger.”

She looked up. Her eyes searched his face as if waiting for something, and he stared down at her. It was not easy, leaving her behind. But he could do no more to keep her safe. Yea, ’twas difficult enough knowing that he could not safeguard his son. Must he risk all that he loved?

Jésu
, but he wished he had the words to ease her, to assure her that all would be well. But nothing he said would assuage her fears, and in truth, he could not say that all would be well. He could only hope and pray that fate would not wrest her from him.

“I will go as you ask,” Annice said softly, “but I shall pray for you daily.”

He closed his hand around the one she put upon his chest. “Yea, and pray also for Justin. These are dangerous times for us, and even more so for a small boy.”

Annice leaned her head on his chest, her lips moving against his velvet surcoat as she whispered, “Justin is a brave lad, like his father. He will survive this, as will all of us. God could not be so cruel as to separate us now.”

“I hope you are right,
chérie
. I hope you are right.” He tilted her face up to his and gave her a swift, fierce kiss. “You will be safe at the nunnery, with the good sisters to care for you and God to watch over all.”

But still, when they had traveled to the small nunnery near Gedney and he left her standing at the gates, he had to fight the urge to go back. After learning of John’s actions against the abbey church and village in Crowland, how the king had set to flame the harvest fields of St. Guthlac with his own hands, he did not know if Annice would be safe even in God’s house.

“I think she will be much safer here, milord,” Sir Guy said when they rode away from Gedney. “ ’Tis a poor nunnery, with nothing to recommend it as worthy of destruction.” There was a pause; then he added, “And the men-at-arms set to guard it know their duty well. At the first sign of approaching troops, Lady Annice will be escorted to safety.”

Rolf didn’t reply. Nothing in England was safe these days, and he could only put his faith in a swift end to the rebels’ revolt. Surely, when they saw that John was so determined, they would yield. Even now ’twas said that Louis’s partisans were slowly retreating. The long siege Louis had laid at Dover was not yet successful, with Hubert de Burgh holding out against it most stubbornly. Even a Flemish adventurer had spent the summer with a thousand bowmen hiding in the wilderness, coming out only to harass the French with deadly arrows that were rumored to have killed thousands of the invaders. Louis was growing disheartened and weary.

The relief of Lincoln was swift, for the French there must have learned of John’s savage advance and ruthless disposal of English rebels. They fled before the king’s advance, retreating to the Isle of Axholme. With his troops, Rolf accompanied the king’s grim pursuit of the invaders to Barton, Scotter, and then Stowe. Mercenaries were sent across the Trent to ravage the isle with fire and sword; then John marched back to Lincoln.

Rolf resisted the urge to visit Annice at the nunnery. He would draw no attention to the tiny sanctuary, for fear John might choose to make an example of it, as he had St.
Guthlac. Nor could he aid his neighbors but could only watch silently when Lincolnshire fields, heavy and ready for harvest, were put to the torch. Houses and farm buildings were sacked and destroyed, with John an eager witness. It sickened Rolf to see the destruction, but he knew that if the king was to be victorious, he must leave no forage for his enemies. Despite those who would lay the sins of sloth and cowardice upon John’s shoulders, the king was possessed of a crafty strategic nature. His blunders were not those most oft attributed to him, but were of innate moral evil. It had been said by a historian twenty years before, “Nature’s enemy, John,” and Rolf knew it to be true.

In early October they arrived at Lynn, where the townsfolk greeted them joyously. John, pleased with the generous monies given to him, graciously set about fortifying the town. A feast was arranged, with the wealthy burghers of Lynn giving John his royal due. He feasted greedily, but the excesses for which he was so notorious undid him.

Ill, racked with a violent attack of dysentery brought on by his excesses, the king seemed to be dying. Uncharacteristically, he granted to Lady Margaret de Lacy some land so that she might build a religious house in memory of the souls of her father, brother, and mother—who had died of starvation in John’s dungeons. Her mother had been Lady Maud de Braose who had defied the king’s demand of her son as hostage, saying that she would not yield a child of hers to a king who had murdered his own nephew.

“ ’Tis fitting that the king feel some remorse at last,” Sir Guy remarked.

Rolf turned to stare at him. “Yea, but it bodes ill. For John to do such a gracious thing, he must feel the wind of death upon him.”

“But if the king dies …” Guy broke off, and both men looked at one another. The implications were overwhelming.

“We can only,” Rolf said slowly, “pray for the best.” He did not say aloud what was in his thoughts but saw from Guy’s face that his knight must know.

It was in every man’s face in the following days, that awareness of the approaching end. It would be the end to
many of their troubles should the king die, yet no man dared say aloud what all thought.

Ill as he was, the king insisted upon leaving Lynn and moving to Wisbeach. The king swept northward as if fleeing death’s demons, listening to no one in his haste. Impatience cost him dearly. With all his newly gathered loot, as well as England’s treasure and crown jewels in his caravan, they came to the banks of the Welland River. When they paused at the mouth of the river, John gave orders to cross the Wash without waiting for the ebb of the tide.

“Sire,” Rolf was moved to protest in alarm, “the soil is treacherous here. See the brackish water that covers it. We will not have secure footing and must wait until the tide is out to see where ’tis safe to progress.”

Snarling, John spat, “Craven coward, I will cross now, and you will do what you are told.”

Rolf stiffened. “Yea,
beau
sire,” he choked out past the rage clogging his throat. He withdrew and quietly ordered his men to cross at a certain point.

They started across, Rolf silently cursing both the waves lapping about the legs of the terrified horses and the king, with impartial and equal fervor. Then the ground opened up beneath them. Men and horses drowned, and the wooden carts overturned to spill out everything of value. The gold was heavy and sunk quickly.

Rolf managed to get the king and some of the troops to the opposite shore, but most of the baggage train slowly disappeared into the boggy ground. The water was icy, and the wind blew sharply across the marshlands. Men who managed to remain dry removed their clothing to give to the king, while others went back into the water to attempt to retrieve some of the king’s treasure. Even John threw himself into the effort but was barely saved from being drowned when his horse became mired.

It was useless. The mire had quickly claimed it all, save for some plates and a few small trinkets. The crown jewels, Eleanor of Aquitaine’s fabulous treasure, were lost forever.

Admitting defeat, the wet, shivering troops went on to Swineshead abbey, where the king—in fevered rage and grief—consoled himself with peaches and new cider. This
only aggravated his already deteriorating condition, so that when they moved on to Sleaford two days later and a messenger brought disastrous news from besieged Hubert de Burgh at Dover, John was forced to send for a leech to ease his suffering. The physician was unsuccessful.

Through gritted teeth the king announced his plans to set out for Newark the following day. “Hubert de Burgh has written for permission to surrender, or for aid,” he added furiously. “Dover is lost.”

Rain poured from the sky and the wind howled around the thick walls of the Sleaford keep, but John still persisted in his determination to leave. To Rolf’s dismay, the king was able to ride only a few miles before he collapsed, panting and groaning. A crude litter was fashioned for him, formed of willow boughs cut from the roadside with the knight’s swords and knives, then woven together. A horse cloth was thrown over the woven branches, but there was no cushion nor straw to relieve its hardness. At first the litter was slung between some of the knights’ destriers, but those high-mettled creatures made it too difficult to progress. The litter was then carried on the shoulders of the men, but the jolting of it proved to be intolerable for the king.