LordoftheHunt (12 page)

But Oswald parted with de Coucy without a word. Each took a
different direction, neither heading for the castle.

“Devil take it,” Adam swore. “I cannot follow two of them.
Where is a wandering minstrel when I need him?”

He headed after Oswald, but could not say why he chose him
over Francis. The man headed along toward the defile the stag had followed on
the hunt; then to Adam’s consternation, he disappeared.

Adam used what he knew of tracking game to search for a sign
of the man, but he seemed to have vanished—or become aware someone was on his
trail.

The day was waning. Adam realized he was miles from the keep
and needed to make an appearance or he would be missed. It would not do to have
his absence noted again—especially by Mathilda, who might decide he’d spent the
day gaming or whoring rather than in a privy.

He found the narrow stream that coursed the defile and
followed it. Robert and he had once become lost in these woods. Adam whistled
just as he had in those days to cheer his brother.

“Adrian!”

Adam started and wheeled around. Nat Swan stood at a ford, a
lymer at his side.

“Nat?”

“Adrian? Is it not you?” Nat pursed his lips and finished
the ditty Adam had whistled.

Adam stepped into deeper shadow. “I am Adam Quintin. You
mistake me.”

A confused look crossed Nat’s face, and he tugged on the
dog’s leash. The lymer whined. “A boy once whistled just so. Adrian. Adrian de
Marle.”

“You’ve made a mistake.” Adam turned, and with rapid
strides, headed up the narrow gully.

The sun was low in the sky when Adam stabled his mount. He
cursed his ill luck and Nat’s memory. Resigned to meeting any suggestion he was
any man but Adam Quintin square in the face, he walked boldly from the bailey
and down the hill toward the colorful stalls and throngs of people.

A man walked from torch to torch, lighting them for those
who would remain at the fair after night fell.

Adam practiced possible responses if Nat called him Adrian
again. He recognized a figure hurrying up the hill at a run. Her hair was down,
her skirts about her knees.
Joan
.

She ran straight into his arms. Her gown was damp with
sweat, her hair in wild disarray. He held her for a moment. Her fingers
clutched his tunic, and her body quivered against his. He ran a hand over her
cheek.

“Please. Can you come with me? Ivo is missing.”

“Ivo? The old man who used to be a cleric in the castle?”

“Aye. Dismissed by the bishop. A cleric. I’ve come from the
baker’s where he was lodged, and they said he ran out very suddenly and has not
come back.”

“Perhaps he had business to attend to.”

She shook her head. “He said to Estrild, the baker’s wife,
that he must see me. That was hours ago. He has missed his supper.”

“Perhaps he’s at the fair and you’ve missed him.”

“Nay. He told Estrild he hated all the bustle. The noise.
Nay. He said he must see me. He said he regretted not telling me something. He
said perhaps it would help him get his position back.”

“Could he have gone to your cottage? Does Nat know where you
are? Surely, he’ll direct this Ivo that you have gone to the village after
him?”

“I’ve been home, and back to the baker’s, and home again and
even—” She broke off.

“Even?”

“To the hall. To inquire after him. No one has seen him.
He’s a very frail old man—ten years Nat’s senior.”

“Then, by all means, let us find him.” There was no denying
her. No denying the urgency or concern in her voice.

She took his hand and tugged him along the path, back to the
village, and the baker’s. He remembered the place, though he doubted the same
man ran the ovens. The baker of his time had been a bluff, leathery man, baked
as dry as an old crust.

They questioned Estrild a moment, a woman who immediately
fell to bowing and scraping when he arrived. She repeated what Joan had said
and added that Ivo had been muttering and rocking over his pot of ale before
rising and running out.

“Which way did he go?”

“I canna say. Just out.”

Adam took Joan’s elbow and led her toward the village well.
There, a group of seven small boys were crouched, tossing pebbles and shoving
each other back and forth.

“How would you boys like to earn a few pennies?”

Their eyes went round, and they nodded in mute agreement.
“We’re looking for an old man. He is…” He glanced at Joan, who took over.

“He’s this tall.” She held her hand at her shoulder height.
“He has white hair and is very old. He is—was the bishop’s clerk, so he will be
wearing a priest’s robe.”

“He may be somewhere in the village still, or even at the
fair. The first one to find him will earn an extra penny.” Adam placed a hand
to the purse suspended at his waist.

The boys exchanged looks, then dashed off, each in a
different direction. Adam took Joan’s arm. “They’ll not be long at the game. While
they are gone, we will think of other places he could be.”

“I’ve looked everywhere.”

“Could he have walked to a monastery?”

“He has not the stamina.”

“But would he attempt the journey?”

He slid his hand down her arm to take her hand as he had in
the forest. She did not stand at ease.

A shriek drew them at a run toward the baker’s cottage. One
of the boys stood there, his hand outstretched toward the ovens, his face so
white he looked ghostly.

Adam set the boy aside and strode into the baker’s yard, to
the three ovens that, even now, were steaming a bit as the air cooled around
them.

Behind him, Joan’s gasp told him she had seen what the boy
had. A foot protruded from between two ovens.

She rushed forward, then whirled around, and crashed into
Adam’s chest. She buried her face in the wool of his tunic.

Adam took her by the upper arms and held her away. “I’ll see
to this. Take the boy off and give him and his friends their reward.” He folded
her hands around his purse.

Her eyes were huge, dark, glistening with tears for the old
man who lay so crumpled and shrunken in death.

“Are you able?” he asked.

She nodded and hiccuped. He skimmed her cheek with the back
of his fingers, wiped the tears away. Then he touched her lips briefly, gently
with his fingertips, and turned her. He pointed her toward the gaping boys.

When he saw she was handling the children, he returned to
the ovens. Ivo lay behind one oven. Except for the incongruous place of his
demise, the man looked peacefully asleep. Upon closer examination, Adam saw a
dark patch of blood in the old man’s white hair. The skull beneath the spot
felt spongy. He’d not died naturally.

With a prayer for Ivo’s soul, Adam rose and found Joan alone
at the well, the boys run off he was sure, to spread the grisly news.

She came into his embrace as if she belonged there.

“He was so kind. A gentle soul.”

“Shhh,” he said. “He’s with God.”

“Do you think he became confused?” she asked. “I don’t
understand how he could come to be—”

“We’ll take him back to the keep. There are two physicians
there—for those who might be injured in the tournament. They’ll look after him.
I want you to remain here until I see the sheriff.”

She nodded against his chest, then took a deep, shuddering
breath. Inside the baker’s cottage, her hands shook when she tried to light a
wick in a dish of oil.

“What was he to you?” he asked.

“He was Nat’s friend. He clerked here for at least thirty
years. The bishop dismissed him.”

She swayed. He came around the table and held her shoulders.
He combed his fingers slowly through the silky mass of her hair. He smoothed it
from her brow, her neck, and down her back.

She shivered. Her damp gown clung to her body, molded her
breasts. He chafed her arms by running his palms up and down her sleeves.
Without thought he drew her in again. She pressed against him. He felt her
breasts on his chest, her thighs against his. It seemed natural and right to
comfort her. The sound of voices in the lane forced their situation upon him.

“You’re to wait here until I return for you.”

He left the baker’s cottage and walked quickly through the
village to the stone manor house of the sheriff and his wife. The sheriff was
at the fair. It took another quarter hour to locate the man. In a few terse
words, he informed the sheriff of Ivo’s death and that he was taking the body
back to the castle.

The sheriff provided a cart and a donkey to pull it. With as
much respect as possible, Adam lifted the old man into the back of the cart,
then he returned for Joan.

She walked at his side toward the castle. The fair, still
raging though the hour of darkness was nigh, mocked their task.

Halfway up the castle road, their fingers brushed, and she
took his hand as if he’d offered it. There, between two torches, in the
shadows, no man or beast save the donkey to see them, they stood, fingers
entwined.

He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. He kept his mouth
there, breathing in the scent of her skin. Heat and desire for her warred with
a need to comfort her and yet, he must keep his distance.

Shouting turned his attention. He urged her behind the cart.
“Remain here.”

The shouting men came to them. He saw who it was, three of
his company, in their cups, shoving each other. Lambert, Claude, Eilart. A
woman, a whore by the look of her, screamed when Lambert drew his dagger.

More daggers appeared as the other two prepared to challenge
Lambert for the woman. Adam swept his sword from its scabbard and in three long
strides reached them.

Two of the men backed off, sheathing their daggers, but
Lambert clutched the woman and shook his head. “She’s mine. Bought and paid
for.”

“You were under orders, were you not? Another drunken
incident and you would be dismissed?” Adam spoke mildly, aware of Joan only a
few feet away.

Lambert spat on the ground.

Adam slashed his blade across the man’s hand—he shrieked and
dropped his dagger. The man’s cry of pain pierced the drunkenness of the
others. They froze, eyes rolling from their friend’s bloody hand to him.

“You are gone, Lambert. You know I tolerate only one lapse
and you had it in Lincoln. Get your wound stitched, then take yourself from
Ravenswood. Do not wait for the light. If I find you anywhere on the manor,
you’ll find my blade less merciful.”

Joan sagged against the cart. She looked as hunted as any
doe held at bay.

He gave his men more orders. “Pay off this woman for her
trouble, take Lambert for stitching, then find your beds. At dawn, report to
the stables and exercise the horses, and there you will remain until you find
my favor again.”

Eilart placed his hand on his sword hilt. Adam lifted his
and approached within thrusting distance. He was aware that every word he said
reached Joan’s ears.

“If you wish to protest, do it now,” he told Eilart. “You
are one of my company or you are not.”

The man withdrew his hand. He tossed a purse to the woman
and put his arm about Lambert’s shoulder.

Adam sheathed his sword. The whore gripped his sleeve. “They
was set on cheatin’ me,” she said. “Yer a brave man to go one agin three.”

“They’re my men, and I owe you an apology for their behavior.
How they act reflects on me.”

The woman ran off, purse clutched to her chest, and his men
lurched up the castle road. He realized he was now one man short to take the
tournament field. He must find a replacement immediately or forfeit.

Joan looked as if a high wind had buffeted her. He read her
thoughts. He touched the small, pathetic shape of Ivo. “They did not do this.”

He tried to take her arm, but she shook him off.

“My men may drink too much and fight over women, but they do
not hit scholarly men over the head.”

It was an oblique reference to her own father’s death, and
he regretted reminding her. She smoothed the covering over Ivo’s body.

“My men did not do this,” he repeated.

She turned around and looked at him. The wind whipped her
skirt against her body, her hair across her cheeks.

“You are one of them—a mercenary—are you not?” Her voice was
barely audible. A whisper on the wind.

What would it serve to try to justify the manner he’d used
to rise or the men he chose as his companions on the way? There were good men
in all companies. And ill.

“I am,” he said.

This time, as Adam and Joan walked the final half league up
to the castle gates, they did not touch, not the hem of her skirt to his boot,
nor the brush of her shoulder to his.

The gatekeeper summoned the bishop’s dean, who made a face
of irritation, then left to fetch the priest. Joan stood watch over the cart
until finally, the priest came from the chapel. Within moments, Ivo was gone.

Adam stood awkwardly by the empty cart.

Joan spoke to him in the same level tone she had used with
the priest. “Thank you for your care of Ivo. He was a good man. Now, I must
tell Nat what happened.”

“Joan.”

“It is best we not—”

“Say any more?”

She nodded and in a moment was absorbed into the last rays
of the sunlight, a slender sylph of green against the harsh gray of stone
walls.

* * * * *

Joan broke her fast after chapel the next morning with an
apple and cup of warm wine. She forced herself to think of her duties. Nat had
already received his orders from the bishop. Despite a torrential rain, a score
of deer must to be taken to feed the men who accompanied the suitors as well as
the many merchants and craftsmen drawn to the castle for the fair.

The suitors would not dine on venison. They were to have
roasted swan with apples and pears stewed in spiced wine.

Joan combed her hair. The comb, made of horn and delicately
etched with flowers, had been her mother’s. It, and the other treasures, a
faded blue ribbon, a needle case made of ivory from the Holy Land, were all she
had as mementos.

Like the ribbon, the faces of her parents were faded in her
mind, overlaid with the image of them lying in blood, faces contorted in pain
and death. Time had not faded those images a whit.

“It was more than ten years ago,” she said to the lymer
curled under the table. “And yet, I blamed Adam for his men’s behavior and them
for that deed done to my family so long ago.”

She set out a trencher for Nat along with a cup for his warm
wine. He would need it. A drip drew her attention. Repairing the thatch would
be another chore for when the suitors left. How many pennies would that take?

Rain hissed in upon the hearth to sizzle on the roaring
fire.

Adam Quintin would leave with the others. Why did it matter?
Why was she so confused? One moment she hated all he stood for. The next… It
did not bear thinking of.

Could a man be faulted for making his way as best he could?

The door opened with a bang.

“Mars is missing,” Nat said. The rain ran off his mantle and
hair.

“Mars? Do you mean Matthew?” She pushed the door closed
against the wind.

“Nay, did I say Matthew? I mean Basil.”

“How? When?”

“Since we went out to set the hunt. I fear the worst.”

Joan handed Nat a drying cloth and took his mantle. “He
can’t have gotten out on his own.”

Nat rubbed the rain from his face and hands. “Aye, those
damned kennel men and the lads were gambling and drinking last night, by the
bishop’s leave, they say. Now, someone has stolen our best dog. I’d like to
toss the lot o’ them.” He gave a quick glance to the door. “And the bishop.
Thank God yon maid will pick a husband and Gravant will go back to his palace.”

Joan bit her lip. “Do you think Oswald might have taken
Basil? He might want to see the hunt go badly and then put himself forward.”

Nat paused in the act of drying his neck. “Oswald? The new
alaunt?”

“Nay,” she said, handing him a wooden cup of ale. “Oswald
Red-hair. Lord Roger’s hunt master. If Roger wins Mathilda, we’ll have Oswald
to deal with.”

“He’ll want my place.” Nat said it as if it had only just
occurred to him. His forehead puckered into a frown. “We canna let that happen,
child. Is Oswald the one whose dogs shrink when a man raises his voice?”

“Aye.”

“Then we’ve naught to worry about. I’ve just to tell
Mathilda the man’s got cruelty in ‘im and she’ll send him on his way.”

Joan knew it would not be so simple. “If it was Oswald that
took Basil, he’ll not succeed in making trouble. Matthew is ready to stand in
Basil’s place—”

“He’s too young, apt to run off on a diversion.”

She had more confidence in the lymer’s abilities. Nat had
not watched the dog’s rapid progress with her hand signals, and only the
youngest alaunt, Simon, was fiercer in guarding her.

“We’ll find Basil, then. I’ll look now.”

Nat sank to a stool and cut some of the cold meat pie. “This
on top of Ivo. It makes me feel old.”

“You’re not old, Papa.”

“At least we have rain today and Mathilda will not want to
ride out, though she wants games and singing in the hall. And Ivo scarce dead a
day.”

There was naught to be done about Nat’s grief over Ivo. The
masses they would say for his soul must ease some of the pain. Basil, however,
was another matter.

She touched Nat’s shoulder. “All will be well, Papa. I’ll
find Basil, I know it.”

His bowed shoulders rose and fell in a dispirited shrug. “If
ye say so, child.”

His crisp, curly hair was thinning across the crown, the
skin showing through spotted with age.

“Would ye go out and look for him…now? I’ll take Matthew and
see if we’ve a stag still in the valley.”

Joan glanced at Nat’s mantle. The cloth steamed gently
before the fire, draped on a bench. He should not get wet.

“If Basil’s been let loose or gotten out on his own, he
might be scavenging in the village.” Although she said it, she did not believe
it.

The dog was disciplined. He would not wander far or miss his
daily bread. She felt a shiver of unease. “If Oswald took him, or one of his
men, as he might not risk doing the deed himself, then I will complain to the
bishop. Put on dry clothes, Papa.”

Nat stood up, his eyes bright. “First I’ll see to those idle
huntsmen and fewterers who’ll do naught but game in the hall if not given some
task.”

She helped him on with his mantle, putting the pin straight,
then donned her own.

“I set great store by that dog.” Nat shook his head. “I
remember when I brought him from Winchester. He was all paws and tail.”

It was not so. Basil was born and raised on Ravenswood.

Joan accompanied Nat to the kennel, where he handed out work
to the idle men, the kind of work that was saved for just such a day as this:
repair of collars and leashes, training of the younger dogs, construction of
bed racks.

After casting about the perimeter of the kennel for some
sign of Basil, a paw print perhaps, as the dog had a slit across his right fore
paw, one that might leave a telltale impression, she walked slowly through the
inner and outer bailey.

The air held a tang of wood smoke from the many fires
burning about the tents. Their smoke twisted low to the ground. Men huddled
inside, or near fires, few doing more than stirring something over their
reluctant flames.

She gave a whistle now and again, but no hound crept from
behind a building or tent, sheepishly hanging his head for escaping his kennel.
As rain filled the impressions left by her pattens, she knew it was useless to
search for paw prints.

“I’ll see those boys thrashed,” she muttered, as she drew
her hood close about her cheeks. “Half the night in the village, still half
drunk this morn. And with the bishop’s say so. Who is he to interfere in our
work? Now, we’ve lost a valuable animal.” As she said it, she knew Basil was
just as much a friend to Nat as Ivo had been.

She thought of Oswald making his claims that Nat was
incompetent, citing the wagering as evidence along with the missing of the
lymer, and realized they’d lost more than just a dependable dog. Yet she could
not quite bring herself to think of the dog as stolen. It meant a deliberate
plot.

Should she speak to Mathilda? Had they enough of a
connection still for her to do so? And wouldn’t Mathilda expect such complaints
to come from Nat and go straight to the bishop?

Joan felt no more free to seek Mathilda’s help with Basil
than she did over the wager.

Joan asked after the lymer at the gate, but the keeper had
not seen a hound wandering. No one stirred in the driving rain, and she
surveyed the long, sloping road through the gate. The village lay about the
base of the castle like a fringe of stones cast by a giant hand. Save the
nearest, the cottages were barely visible in the mist.

Smoke smudged the air over chimney holes, tearing quickly
away or clinging close to the roofs as the wind and rain drove straight into
her face. She walked as far as the bridge, its green garlands now drooping in
sad disarray across the stones.

“Basil,” she called, turning about, crossing the bridge and
heading for the eastern fields of the castle.

Though the wind whipped harder now, and she must hold down
her skirts that snapped with a sharp sting against her legs, ‘twas at her back,
not in her face.

“Only the mad would be out in this,” she said, whistling for
the lymer, swallowing dread that the dog might be dead.

The turn east along the spongy, sopping terrain led her to a
stream that fed the fish pond. A small channel, man-made, diverted water from
the river to feed the ornamental oval fashioned to suit Lord Guy’s love of
fishing. Reeds and willows had grown up along the pond bank.

Even Mathilda had spent some time here as a child with
Richard, casting for pike, squealing and tossing worms at Joan, who did not
like the occupation much and had usually sat upon the bank, watching her
friends.

Her friends
. That friendship had been illusionary,
born of close proximity, unable to survive the rise of age and with it
importance. She discounted Richard’s ardent marriage offer. It had been a
youthful need to defy his father.

Water trickled along Joan’s cheek, into her mantle to dampen
the neck of her gown. She pulled her hood closer about her face.

Her pattens were thick with mud, her shoes also, the wooden
forms not protecting them as they’d been designed to do, but rather sucking her
deeper as she slogged along.

At the fish pond, she traversed the fringes, inspecting the
muddy verge for paw prints. She saw deer tracks, deep ones of an animal in at
least his fifth year. She also saw the spaced-out impressions of a man’s boots,
which indicated he was running.

Reeds on the pond perimeter protected the prints from
obliteration in the rain. The greenery was trampled in places. She followed the
markings along the edge of the pond. They ended abruptly—in a chaos of deeply
incised marks.

She neared the sluice gate, built to be opened and closed to
control the water flow. Against the gate rested debris, attesting to the
neglect of Guy de Poitiers’ men now he was gone. Decaying branches and leaves
clogged the gate in matted confusion.

Then she saw it. Bobbing against the gate.

A form. A swirling drape dark of sodden cloth.

Black hair floating like seaweed.

White hands reaching out, fingers lax.

“Adam!” she screamed. She cast off her pattens, her mantle,
and plunged into the water. Her feet sank into the muddy bottom, shoes lost,
water to her knees.

She reached out as far as she could, one hand on the gate.
Her foot slid into a void, jerking her off her feet. Her fingers caught in the
matted branches.

She went under. Pain stabbed like a dagger through her arm.
Muddy water filled her mouth. She kicked to the surface, gagging.

But he was closer. Within reach.

“Adam!” She regained her feet and edged along the slimy
fence, thick with rotted bracken.

Her hand skimmed his hair. It slipped through her fingers.

“Help me, God, help me.”

She extended her fingers as far as she could and snatched at
his hair. He shifted away, undulating on waves caused by her movements.

Nausea and sobs choked her throat like the weeds on the
gate. Fighting the sucking mud, she reached again for that man’s hand who had
just a day before held and kissed hers.