King's Blood (45 page)

It was a night for distractions. The wine was strong, and there was singing. Some of the men had to reenact the hunt, turning it into a dance, with much vaunting and laughter. When William looked again for Robin, his place was empty. His plate was still there, untouched.

William started to go after him, but there was Walter Tirel, and more wine, and a song in William's honor, that needed a clever rebuttal. And after that was Walter Tirel again, and a long, drunken, joyous night.

 
William dreamed that he was floating in a sea of wine. He drifted to shore: crimson sand, crimson waves, black and starless sky. He lay on the sand, his body loosed as it was after love, and as he lay there, the veins of arms and groin and throat opened. Blood spurted from them, searing scarlet in that black-and-crimson world. It covered the earth and dyed the water, and leaped up into the sky. The whole world turned the color of blood.

King's blood,
he said, or thought, or sang.
Blood of kings
.

 
William woke with the mother of headaches, with Walter Tirel sprawled naked beside him. It was already morning: light shone through the shutters, stabbing straight through to the brain.

Robin was standing over him. William reached to pull him down, but he braced his feet; William found himself coming up instead, weak and staggering, clutching at Robin. “Christ,” he muttered. “That wine was strong.”

“And you drank most of a butt of it by yourself,” Robin said. He half led, half carried William to the washbasin and dipped the cloth into the chill water, washing William's face and breast and arms.

By then William could stand, if not exactly steadily. He let his head fall back and his eyes fall shut, giving himself up to Robin's ministrations. Those hands had always been lighter than anyone else's, even Walter Tirel's—deft in their touch, clever at finding the places where they could give the most pleasure.

“I've missed you,” William said.

“Have you?” Robin's tone held no expression. Something about it pointed directly to the man still snoring in William's bed.

“There's enough of me for both of you,” William said.

Robin said nothing to that. William opened his eyes. There was no expression on Robin's face, either.

“So,” said William, “what? You won't fight for your place beside me? When did you turn Christian martyr?”

“I had a dream in the night,” Robin said.

He had not heard William at all. He had a look William had never seen in him before: bleak and remote.

“I dreamed,” said Robin, “that you went hunting this morning while the sun was still low, and a black arrow came out of the light and pierced your heart.”

William peered at him. Poor thing, he was as white as his shirt. That was as unlike him as—what? Whatever had happened yesterday, which William could not offhand remember. Something odd. Maybe a number of somethings. “Are you feeling well?” he asked. “You look awful.”

“Promise me,” said Robin. “Don't go hunting today. Stay here and nurse your headache. Play with your lovely boy.”

“Play?” William asked. “With you? Both of you? Now that's tempting.”

Robin shook his head. “Don't talk like a fool. Just promise.”

“Why? Because you had a nightmare?”

“Because I had a dream, and you know what I am.”

“I know what you are,” William said, running his hand down the front of Robin's coat. “You're dressed to hunt. What's the matter? Afraid I'll outdo you in the woods?”

“I'm afraid you'll die in the woods,” Robin snapped. “Now will you promise?”

“I won't go out this morning,” William said. “I'll finish sleeping instead. Maybe get rid of this headache. Do you have a spell for that?”

“If I did,” said Robin with a touch of nastiness, “I'd still let you suffer—as long as it kept you safe.”

“I'm safe here,” said William. “Come here. Come to bed.”

Robin would not. William was too shaky to fight; he let the man go. Robin bent toward him, kissed him hard and long, and left him dizzy and reeling.

CHAPTER 50

FitzHaimo was gone from the Isle. So was Cecilia, and the Lady Etaine. Somehow Henry did not think the lord and the Ladies had traveled together.

“He's gone to warn the king,” Mathilda said.

“And the others?”

“You know what they went to do,” she said.

He had set up a wooden Saracen in the orchard and set to hacking at it with his sword, for practice and for something to do with his body while his mind spun through its endless circles. Time was strange on the Isle. He thought he had been there for three days or maybe four. He could not be more precise than that. If he tried, his head ached abominably.

Mathilda found him there, late that morning or maybe it was afternoon. She had watched him for a long while before she spoke; he was aware of her, but he kept on with his exercises until the sweat ran down his back and sides and his arms ached every time he lifted the heavy blade and brought it round and hacked another notch in the Saracen.

Then he lowered the sword until its point rested on the grass, and looked into her eyes. Her thoughts ran on the same track as his. She answered the question he had no need to ask: where FitzHaimo had gone.

Then there was the rest of it. “They're hunting a king,” he said.

She nodded. “I heard the Ladies before they went. ‘The weapons are bestowed,' they said. ‘The snare is laid. Now to catch the prey.'”

“But if FitzHaimo warns him,” Henry said, “it will all come to nothing.”

“You think so?” she said. “You know how stubborn he is. He'll laugh it off.”

“They left us behind,” said Henry. “Why? What are they afraid of?”

“Weakness,” she said. “Betrayal. I don't know.”

“I can guess,” he said. He sheathed his sword and slung it behind him as he strode down to the lake to wash the sweat off.

Her eyes were a little wide, watching him. He had not been thinking of what she would see—considering that she saw more of it every night. But then he never could look at her without noticing how high and yet full her breasts were, or how narrow a waist she had, or how wonderfully her hips flared from that smallness.

It was well that the lake's water was cold, or he would have been tempted to fall on her then and there. He scrubbed himself instead, a little more fiercely maybe than strictly necessary. When he went to retrieve his clothes, he found her there with an armful of metal and leather: his riding clothes, with the shirt of mail and the rest of his weapons. She was dressed to ride herself, and how she had done that in the little time he spent on his bath, he forbore to ask.

Gods knew he had no objection. He dressed with her help, and stood while she belted his sword on him. She knelt to do that, because it was the practical thing. It did not mean anything.

Even so, when she was done he raised her to her feet and set a kiss in each palm and said, “When this is done, marry me. Be my queen.”

Her face closed. “You don't even know who I am,” she said.

“I know you're royal,” he said. “I'm slow on the uptake, lady, but that messenger from the dead—I remembered him finally. That was old Malcolm of Scots, and you're his daughter. Yes?”

Her head bowed. Her cheeks were slightly flushed. “Yes,” she said, almost too low to hear.

He set a finger under her chin and tilted her face up. “Why didn't you want me to know?”

“Because it doesn't matter,” she said. “I don't want what's between us to be a—a transaction, like buying a cow in the market.”

His lips twitched. “You are a very fine heifer, and I am a somewhat battle-scarred but still presentable bull.”

Her eyes sparked at that. “More than presentable! Even,” she said, “if you are a damned pirate of a Norman.”

He laughed, full and free. He had not laughed like that in as long as he could remember. And here they were on the edge of death or worse, preparing to either kill or save a king.

He sobered soon enough. “How?” he asked. “How did you manage to be what you are? You should have been my bitter enemy.”

“I can only be what I am,” she said. “I'm a Gael, too. Somehow I got all of that and none of the rest.”

“The gods had a hand in it, I'm sure,” Henry said. “So? Will you?”

She was not disingenuous enough to pretend she had forgotten what he asked. “If we survive this day and night,” she said, “and if you still want it then . . . we'll consider it.”

“No,” he said. “That's not an answer. Yes or no.”

He held his breath. She took her time with it; he was dizzy when she said, “Yes. If we live until tomorrow, yes.”

“Even if there's blood on my hands?”

She took them in hers and inspected them front and back, with all their calluses and roughness and old scars. “You've been killing men since you were old enough to hold a sword,” she said.

“Not like this.”

“Like a priest in the sacrifice.” She held his hands to her heart. “Whatever comes of this, I'll be beside you.”

He kissed her forehead and then her lips. “There's no better army in the world,” he said.

“Don't indulge me,” she said. “Come; time's passing.” He was ready, but he paused a moment longer. “Your name,” he said. “It's—”

“Mathilda.” Her eyes were level on him. “When you give me the crown, that's the name in which I will take it.”

He bowed to that. It was no wonder, he thought, that she did not want England to see another Queen Edith. But Mathilda—that was worthy of her and of the one from whom she took it.

 
By noon William was in a truly foul mood. He had had all the lying about he could stand. Morning was past; the sun was high. He had come here to hunt, and he would hunt. He did not need Robin FitzHaimo's permission. He was king, by God, and the king would do what the king pleased.

Some of the others were out already. Walter Tirel was ready and willing, but the rest were too lazy or hung over to move. William kicked over a bench full of them and left them in a sprawl. “I'll find the others out there, then. You all stay here and finish puking your guts out.”

They snarled, but none of them was fool enough to challenge the king. William raked them with a grin and went to find his horse.

Walter Tirel was close behind him. He reached to pull the boy in, and paused for a kiss. “Did you bring the arrows?”

For answer Walter Tirel held up the quiver he was carrying. Six black hunting arrows, black-fletched, stood up amid the more ordinary peeled wood and grey or brown feathers.

“Good,” said William. “Let's get moving. The day's wasting.”

 
They had hardly gone out of sight of the lodge before they picked up fresh tracks. The weather was as glorious as it had been the day before. The tracks were clear and the path easy to follow. It was a stag from size and depth, and a big one. He had been feeding in the remains of an old orchard, where a few trees still bore stunted fruit, and the grass was rich and green.

William closed his eyes and breathed deep while his horse carried him along the stag's trail. It was good to be alive; he was not going to die. Not today and not for a long while to come.

Robin liked to fret—that was all there had been to that. There had been eruptions in the magic of Britain; William had not been able to keep from sensing them. But the earth was better now than it had been before, the magic stronger. The air was brighter. Whatever had happened, it was for the good. William needed to know no more than that.

They followed the track away from the orchard and into the wood. William led, Walter Tirel followed. There was no sign of the other hunters. William was glad. He was in the mood to hunt alone—or better than alone.

He smiled over his shoulder. Walter Tirel smiled back.

The tracks were fresher; under the branches of a beech tree, William found droppings still faintly steaming. Behind him as he strung his bow, he heard Walter Tirel doing the same.

All the good arrows were in Walter Tirel's quiver, he thought rather wryly—but the ones he had were not bad. He slipped one from the quiver and kept it loose in his hand, guiding his horse with his knees along the freshening trail.

 
Henry rode with Mathilda along the straight track away from the Isle. Their departure had been almost leisurely, but urgency possessed them now. Their riding was silent, both of them focused on the place where they must go. They flickered in and out of the Otherworld, passing from supernal sunlight to mortal earth to enchanted darkness to earthly daylight.

It was a monstrously dangerous thing to do. They could be lost forever between worlds, or caught in one or the other, or hunted by powers that had no fear or care for either a Guardian or a would-be king of Britain.

There was no choice. They had to find the king before this day was ended. This was his death day; the sacrifice was prepared and the rite begun. They could hear it resonating underfoot, a chant as old as time, older even than the Giants' Dance or the Ladies of Avalon.

Henry rode up beside Mathilda and took her hand. Her eyes were fixed on the road ahead, but her fingers tightened around his. The horses' pace quickened.

The road seemed rougher. Henry dared not look down for fear of what he would see. The horses traveled these roads with uncanny ease, as if this was their native country; but even they had tensed, ears flicking nervously. Henry's stallion hunched his back; his head tossed from side to side.