Shield of Three Lions (6 page)

Now he seemed to have difficulty with his thoughts as well as his words. His brow twisted with effort and he tried to lick his dry lips. I cupped my hand and dipped for moat water; he drank and the liquid spilled red down his chin.

“Even as a boy … not safe alone. Always … on road … travel with a companion. Seek a strong man, armed … feed you, help you …” he repeated himself.

“Aye, Father, I can do it. Only, please, rest now, you’re wasting your strength.”

He was still struggling to remember everything. “Take my commendation … King Henry …”

“Don’t, I understand. Take the commendation for capturing the Scottish king to prove who I am.”

His eyes approved. “And your grandfather …”

“Who fought with King Henry against the Scots. I’ll remember, I promise.”

“Sharp wench.” He tried to smile. “Fortunately they don’t know
you escaped, won’t be looking for you. Otherwise you’d have no chance … would be dead by sundown.”

I couldn’t tell him that I’d been seen. Let him die in peace.

Red spittle bubbled in the corner of his mouth. Quickly I wiped it away, but it came back, more and darker in hue. I stroked his sticky hair. He looked at me with glazed eyes.

“Kate?”

Did he think I was my mother? No, and I must answer, the biggest lie I’d ever told.

“An arrow struck her while she was at prayer. She felt no pain.”

I was vindicated for my falsehood by his relief.

“Go to the king, Tickle-Bones. Kate and I cannot enter Heaven till you return … wait in Purgatory.”

“I’ll be back,” I vowed, letting my tears come now, for I knew he could no longer see.

“Only then can we go to Heaven. Kiss me …”

I did, in our secret way, forehead … by the time I reached his lips he was dead.

NO TIME
.

I took my vial, combined a drop of his blood with my mother’s, a lock of his hair, took his engraved sword to bury.

But I kept his dagger for myself.

“Dame Margery! Help me!”

She half-slid, half-tumbled down the bank.

“They’re coming back. Hurry, slide him into the water.”

He didn’t slide easily. I sloshed into the stagnant moat, ooze to my hips, and tugged his legs till he was submerged. We made the sign of the Cross and pulled each other back to the bridge above.

I looked into the park—no one yet.

“I have to find food! Hurry!” We ran across the bridge to the kitchen.

We were both weeping but it didn’t matter. “I mun lead ye to Dere Street close on Hadrian’s Wall,” Margery said shrilly. “He told me as I must. Will ye eat turnips, My Lady?”

“Anything! Hurry!”

We both made bundles of our skirts, threw in bread, meat, onions, beans, everything mixed.

“Let’s go, dearie,” the dame said.

“No, not yet.” I thought I heard a voice from above, mayhap in my own head, but ’twas my mother nonetheless. “I’ll be right back, Margery.”

And I ran away before she could protest, past the smoldering bodies, over the privet hedge, past the leek garden, the pot-herbs, the medicinal plants—where I neatly swooped up a handful of hemlock—past the hawthorn into the orchard. ’Twas like a dream, the blossoms still falling, my mother’s voice still echoing from only yesterday.

“Mother?” I said in a wavery thick voice. “Mother?”

The blossoms swirled in an updraft and I saw her form bending and swaying.

“Mother!” I ran to her but she was far ahead and I kept running in and out of the trees, sobbing. Then I saw her direction: ’twas toward our fruit cellar, and it came to me what she wanted. The deep fuchsia cherry tree shivered by the path as memory flooded back.

“Yes!” I panted, “I understand.”

Soon the treasure was up and I reached inside the box, grateful that I’d had to weigh and feel the coins for their value. I took silver livres, then fished for the gold coins from Byzantium and found twenty, tossed in a few deniers and marcs for immediate expenses. I carefully replaced the box.

“Don’t leave yet,” my mother ordered. “Put your father’s sword with the silver and bury it with my vial and blood when you return.”

“Yes, yes I will.”

I pressed the wall to the right as I’d been instructed and a door swung open. Quickly I thrust my father’s sword into the small room with our other silver objects and pushed the stone façade back in place.

“Will you talk to me again?” I asked the empty air, but there was no answer.

I retraced my steps toward the hall where I took the scroll, then to the kitchen. As I passed the hellish pile, my father’s whisper now
entered my brain: “Go as a boy…. Tell
no one
your true identity until you reach the king.”

Holding my breath, I circled the human butchery to find someone near to my size. My fathers young messenger Arthur was closest and his clothes appeared unharmed. Gulping back nausea, I began slowly to disrobe his stiff cold body. With my arms near full, I still must find weapons: I settled on a hunting bow and arrows carried by our archer, Gerald, for those with my father’s dagger were all I could handle. I loaded Arthur’s hat with my coins, threw his fur over my shoulder and walked awkwardly back to the kitchen.

Dame Margery stood in the yard, quivering with fear for she thought I’d been caught at last.

“There’s some of them Scots hid in the cheese room to trap us,” she wept. “I heard them scuffling around.”

“Lance!” I cried, wondering how I could have forgotten.
“Deo juvante
, he’s alive!”

The wolf leaped again and again to mouth my face in his great jaws, saying in his way that he understood the horror as well as I did.

“Hush!” Dame Margery clutched my shoulder. “Listen!”

In the distance we heard men laughing and shouting.

“They’ll catch us sure!” Dame Margery’s gaunt face showed every bone, and tears ran.

“The labyrinth!” I cried. “Maisry and I used to hide there!”

We ran awkwardly to the horse stalls, counted three from the door, knocked aside a stack of bales and pushed together with all our might. Behind us the laughter grew louder. Hooves on the bridge!

And the ancient door swung open. For an instant we saw the outline of a stone-hewn tunnel big enough for a horse, then pushed the door back and stood in darkness.

“I dropped our food,” Dame Margery whispered.

“Then we must gather it. They can’t hear us now.”

We groped on the passage floor, now more aware of a close sound: rats. Lance growled and snapped at the vermin as we began to feel our way along the walls. ’Twas a long downward passage, a half mile or more of descent, hot and airless, straight into Hell. Then a cool breeze hit and we heard water running.

“We’re at a cave by the river,” I whispered, Maisry’s and my secret chapel.

More and more knights at the ford, splashing back and forth, shouting out in thick drunken voices. Lance growled—I clenched his muzzle.

Then Dame Margery and I settled ourselves close against a wall for a long grim night.

THE COMING OF DAWN UNNERVED ME. THE FIRST DAY that my mother and father were not alive and I could not bear it. I began to tremble violently and my breath failed so I choked, waking Dame Margery from her groggy sleep. With face still puffed from constant tears, she comforted me like a babe, crooning and stroking me.

We then began our careful preparation for my escape. Arthur’s clothes were too big for me but would do. First I slipped on his leggings made of coarse linen and none too clean and tied them at my waist with the braiel which was studded with metal disks. Dame Margery suggested we should slit the crotch so I could relieve myself with ease. Next I drew the socks of itchy dark green wool over my legs and tied them firmly by bands above my knees. His yellow linen shirt hung like a tent and the green tunic fell almost to my ankles. Dame Margery had her sewing bag at her waist and hemmed the tunic so it reached just below my knees, then punched the leather belt to fasten over it.

Finally she tore Peg’s bloodstained brown dress into neat strips and stuffed some of them in the toes of the huge yellow boots. Others she stitched inside the yellow felt hat so it sat firm. The hardest part was cutting my hair, for it seemed so final. The braids came off to just below my ears and Margery hacked a fringe across my forehead so I could see. Without the weight, my hair curled against my head and the dame said the effect was not too bad.

I then had her construct a harness of the strips to wear as a money belt between my legs. She made individual divisions so that the coins wouldn’t slide to one place to jingle and make an uncomfortable lump; I added my precious tiny vial, red ribbon and scroll to the treasure and we flattened the whole against my buttocks and inner thighs. She then devised a small bundle to carry at my leather belt with a few deniers and food; there were still strips left over to pack in my drafsack for emergencies.

Over and over our activities came to a breathless standstill when we heard lewd shouts and rioting from the castle. We clutched each other in terrified embrace and waited for the shouts to cease. Once a knight scared us most senseless when he appeared through the mist on the far side of the river, but he was stopped from crossing by the weir.

By late afternoon we were ready. I was dressed, had my dagger in my belt, my bundle on the other side, my bow and arrows slung on one shoulder, and a fur pelisse fastened on the other for warmth and sleeping. I’d been sorely tempted in my choice of fur to take my father’s fine vair, but ’twas wiser to stay with Arthur’s humble goatskin I now wore. Dame Margery said I looked like any common boy on the road, albeit a little small to be on my own.

“Best say ye’re eight, if anyone asks,” she advised. “Ye’re short even for a girl. Also, not so much is expected of an eight-year-old.”

“When should we start?” I asked.

“Not until dark.” I could hear the fear in her voice. “I promised Lord William to guide you and certes I remember the way to Hadrian’s Wall. But London—well, we can ask a traveler which way it lies.

“Surely to the south. North leads to Scotland.”

“Aye, of course,” she said, relieved. “What will ye do in such a wicked city?”

“I’ll go directly to King Henry for help. I promise we’ll be back in Wanthwaite within the week.”

“King Henry? There was a King Henry in these parts many years past who fought the Scots.”

“’Tis the very same and my grandfather fought with him,” I said
boldly as any boy. “He knows my family you see, and will be glad to aid me.”

“I wish I could go with you.”

“No,” I said bravely. “Your family needs you here.”

She broke into sobs anew to think of our fate.

THE MOON WAS FULL, THE GLOAMING white as daylight, but we dared not wait longer. Depending on drifting cloud shadows for cover, we crossed the Wanthwaite River on a fallen oak far from the natural fording. On the other side we found a cow path which led through the wood to a pasture enclosed by a drywall. We climbed over the wall and walked close to it, prepared to stoop low if we heard anyone. The turf was spongy and uneven, my burdens heavy, and I turned my ankles constantly in my oversized boots. Soon my heels were bloody and I winced at each step but dared not ease my pace.

When the wall ended, Dame Margery became confused and only my own intervention kept her from leading us right back to Wanthwaite. At last she decided that a distant clump of trees concealed our next path. We made a harrowing way across open ground, but she was right: the copse had been mere saplings when she’d gone this way before. Cart-ruts marked our road but we still walked behind the hedge: though footing was firmer, the grade was upward and my flopping boots were torture chambers. Therefore I agreed to pause at the top for Dame Margery to rest.

The westerly wind blew strong on the hilltop, carrying with it a putrid odor of rotten flesh burning. Turning my head, I saw a red glow in the center of Wanthwaite’s turrets, a flaming funeral pyre where the pile of carnage had lain. Now I could hear faint shouts as well, knights celebrating their foul deeds. No wonder they hadn’t seen us with such bloody distraction! I cast one last grim look at my desecrated home and ran into the next valley.

WE REACHED THE ANCIENT ROMAN Dere Street at dawn. Standing on the bank, I observed that the road was rough, with many missing
stones, and thought of my blistered feet. I prayed fervently to the Holy Virgin to send me a company of nuns with a little donkey to spare. We then settled to wait for a suitable companion.

The sun was risen to warm our backs when the first prospect appeared. Dame Margery squeezed my arm in possible farewell as we listened to harness bells and the unsteady clop of a horse on the treacherous stones. Shortly our candidate came in
view;
just as shortly we dismissed him. He was a fat churl with rolls upon rolls of lard giving his dappled steed a deep sway. His blouse was a filthy blue, his skin boiled, his eyes bright in their folds. Something bothered his breathing, for he snorted, sniffed, cleared his throat and spat, picked at his nose and ate the findings. We let out a sigh of relief when he disappeared on our right.

Our next man, a leather-garbed shepherd, was traveling toward Scotland. Lance growled at the unruly sheep, but a sharp rap on his nose quieted him.