The Champion (32 page)

Gervais blinked rapidly, a nervous mannerism that intensely annoyed his father. It never occurred to Stafford that he might be the cause of it. ‘I … I was thinking about what de Montroi said.’ Between blinks the young man gazed into the room, taking in the wine drips on the wall and the pieces of smashed pottery.

‘I am surprised that you think at all,’ Stafford said snidely out of his anger. ‘You’ve shown little enough aptitude for it before.’

Gervais compressed his lips. ‘How would you know?’ he said bitterly. ‘Since you take no notice of anyone but yourself. I sometimes think that we should all be dead like Clemence, and then you would have no cause for complaint.’

Thomas glared at his son, but deep down he was not displeased. Gervais was almost eight and twenty, no longer a youngster and yet it was seldom he exhibited the backbone to stand up for himself. ‘That would only demonstrate your inability to survive,’ he retorted. ‘And you full know the reason why I ignore that mewling wife of yours. Tell her to grow a belly to honour her marriage vows, and then I’ll speak to her.’

‘She was your choice,’ Gervais said with a glitter of malice, but it was a puny attempt, blasted aside by Stafford’s scornful retort.

‘Yes, I selected the soil, but you are the one who ploughs the furrow night after night and sows the seed. Can you not even plant a child inside a woman?’

Gervais whitened and turned to leave. Thomas had been quite enjoying himself in a dark-tempered, perverse kind of way, but now he realised he had gone too far. ‘So,’ he conceded with an indifferent shrug, ‘what was it that you were thinking?’

‘It matters not,’ Gervais said, his back turned but his motion arrested. ‘As you say, you’ve had enough of meddling fools for one night.’

‘You are here. You might as well speak as go away with it on your mind.’

Gervais sighed and turned around, his eyelids fluttering. ‘Clemence is dead to you, I know, but however much you hated him, she had a husband, and de Montroi said that a daughter was born of the marriage. Surely, if her parents are dead, then you must be her guardian, and as such, you have the right to marry her to whomsoever you choose.’

Thomas narrowed his lids. ‘I would have to pluck her from the gutter to do so,’ he said. His voice, although gruff, had lost some of its harshness.

‘Alexander de Montroi hardly looks as if he has been dwelling in the gutter. Did you see the quality of his clothes and weapons?’

‘But he does not know my granddaughter’s whereabouts, he said so. Where would I begin to look? I have no inclination to go searching among the mercenary camps and tourney circuits only to discover that she is either dead or a whore.’

‘I could try to find her.’

‘No, let the matter lie. Your duty is here, at Stafford. Go back to that wife of yours and get me a proper grandchild tonight.’ Without further ado, Thomas saw his son out of the solar and once more closed and barred the door. But this time when he faced the room, his eyes were thoughtful, and when a frown did cross his features, it was in response to the sight of the smashed cup lying amidst the dregs of his wine.

Alexander approached the keep of Wooton Montroi across a wild, snow-covered land. Although it was almost noon as the keep on its hill came in sight, the day had scarcely risen out of twilight, and both he and his horses were made nervous by the howling of the wolves in the violet shadows of the woods. He knew that such cries could carry a fair distance, but that sound in midwinter was one of the most desolate and disturbing that a human could hear. Shivering, he drew his cloak tighter around his body and sunk his chin down into the rich fur lining.

This part of England was more scarcely populated than the softer lands in the south. A hundred and twenty years ago, William the Conqueror had wasted the villages in response to a rebellion against his iron rule, and even now the scars remained. Some communities had died forever; others were gradually reviving and increasing their population but it was a slow climb back from desolation. The lords of Wooton Montroi derived most of their income from sheep, the annual wool clip being a vital source of silver. A murrain among the flocks, or a bad year for lambs, meant hardship and belt-tightening.

The howling of wolves was closer now, perhaps just a trick of the dank air, but Alexander shifted his grip on the spear in his hand and reassured himself with a glance at the honed iron point. His packhorse tugged on the leading rein, and Samson’s hide rippled in nervous agitation.

Moments later, through the trees, Alexander’s sharp eyes spotted grey movement between the trunks, and the sound of snarling and yammering filled the air, echoing eerily like hellish plainchant. Samson plunged and sidled, and Alexander drew the reins between his fingers, assuring himself of control. ‘Steady lad, steady,’ he murmured.

Seconds later, he rode abreast of the scene of a kill. Half a dozen wolves were surrounding and tearing at something down in the snow. A deer, he thought, as he saw a brown hind leg sticking up in the air. The animals raised bloody muzzles from their prey to watch him ride by, but with raw red meat to hand, and a fear of man, were content to let him go on his way.

All the same, he increased his pace, and it was only by pure chance that he heard the terrified cry for help coming from the trees on the opposite side of the track. Drawing rein, he turned to look, and as the cry came again, saw a monk crouched miserably in the lower branches of a large beech tree. Alexander glanced back at the wolves, and realised that it hadn’t been a deer after all, but a horse. He rode up to the tree.

‘God bless you forever, my son,’ declared the monk in a relieved voice. His cowl was drawn up against the bitter cold, and a heavy cloak partially covered his Benedictine habit. ‘If you had not happened along, I would have frozen on my perch, or become another meal for those creatures back there when I was forced to descend.’

‘Is that your horse they are devouring?’

‘I am afraid it is. I was leading him because he had become lame. When he scented the wolves, he broke from me in madness, and the only thing I could do to save my own life was shin the nearest tree with low branches.’ He turned round precariously and began to descend from his sanctuary, revealing black hair curling on white calves as he felt for footholds.

‘It’s not safe to linger,’ Alexander said. ‘You are welcome to use my packhorse, he’s saddle-broken.’

‘God will reward you in heaven for this,’ the monk panted as he reached the ground, and took the bridle that Alexander held out to him.

‘Where are you bound?’

‘I was on my way to the priory at Cranwell.’

There was something in his voice that caused Alexander a greater unease than the presence of the wolves. As the monk swung astride the pack beast and extended his hand to Alexander in gesture of friendship and gratitude, his cowl slipped down to expose a tonsure of thick, greying hair, patrician features and close-set eyes the colour of blue smoke.

Alexander stared in frozen revulsion, unable to speak, unable to move.

The smile died on the monk’s lips and the blue eyes narrowed in mutual recognition. ‘Brother Alexander.’ Sub-prior Alkmund’s breath emerged in a cloud of heavy vapour.

Alexander swallowed, and the lump in his throat descended to join the icy boulder in the pit of his stomach. ‘Had I known it was you, I would have ridden on,’ he said with loathing.

‘I am aware of it,’ Alkmund responded balefully. ‘You have never had any respect for your betters.’

‘Betters!’ Alexander gagged on the word and brandished his spear. He saw Alkmund tense. Jesu, how easy it would be just to strike. The wolves would eat the evidence, and no one would be any the wiser – except himself and God.

‘Kill me, and you will be damned forever!’ Alkmund hissed, his eyes darting.

Alexander’s lips parted in an expression that was midway between a snarl and a grin. ‘I am a mercenary, a tourney knight, and as such already damned.’ He raised the spear point and felt a dark surge of pleasure at the fear in Alkmund’s eyes. He had long dreamed of what he would do to the priest should their circumstances ever be reversed. In his imagination he saw the barbed head piercing the cloak and habit and sinking into soft flesh. And there the desire remained, burning in his mind’s eye, but granting no motion to his tense arm.

With a gasp, he lowered the lance on to his thigh. ‘Go!’ he said through his teeth. ‘Send the horse back to Wooton Montroi, or its value, I care not. Just go, and be thankful for your paltry life.’

Alkmund gave him a long, glittering look, and without a word turned the packhorse and dug in his heels. The animal broke into a rapid trot and within moments had disappeared down the track. The only sounds were of fading hoofbeats and the yammering of wolves.

Icy sweat clammed Alexander’s armpits, and his hand was moist on the grip of his lance. He gave a shuddering swallow and willed himself not to be sick.

Silver needles of sleet stung in the bitter wind. He tugged on the reins and urged Samson back on to the track, knowing that it would take more than the heat of the hall fire at Wooton Montroi to warm the chill at his marrow. As he rode, he skirted dark memories by wondering what Brother Alkmund was doing out alone in these wild conditions instead of kneeling at his prayers in Cranwell, more than two miles away.

Reginald de Montroi was almost forty years old, a raw-boned, unsmiling man, the suspicion of a paunch bulging at his belt. He was fighting a losing battle against baldness, and the parting of his fine, brown-blond hair was now level with the top of his left ear so that he could comb the long strands over the affected area.

Entering the great hall at Wooton Montroi, Alexander was filled with confusing emotions of pleasure and depression. It had been so long since he had last been here, longer still since he had called it home. He saw his brother sitting at a trestle before the fire, dictating a letter to his scribe. A pile of tally sticks was scattered abroad, and an abacus was placed to one side. Nothing had changed, Alexander thought. Reginald had been casting his accounts again in an effort to lessen his expenditure.

Beneath his feet, the rushes were rank with age and gave off an unpleasant smell, and the smoke-stained walls were badly in need of a new coat of limewash. Reginald largely lived a bachelor existence. His wife, Adela, preferred to live in a stone manor house on her dower lands. She had given Reginald three sons in swift succession during the early years of their arranged marriage. The duty to be fruitful fulfilled, they had to all intents and purposes parted company. Alexander wished that Adela had been paying one of her rare visits to Wooton Montroi. At least then he would have been assured of a decent bed and edible food. As it was … Squaring his shoulders, he approached the trestle where his brother was working. Alexander had dressed for the occasion. Beneath his soldier’s quilted gambeson, he wore his best blue tunic, the cuffs banded with scarlet braid. The gilded sword belt encircled his waist, and the garnet inlaid hilt of his sword rested on the lip of the polished brass scabbard mountings. The waif, the runaway monk, had returned, if not in glory, then in considerably raised circumstances.

Reginald raised his head, a look of irritation on his face. One hand smoothed the long strands of hair laid across his pate. ‘What do you …’ he started to say, and then his eyes widened. ‘Holy Christ, Alexander?’

Alexander smiled. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a spectre,’ he said, and watched Reginald’s hand smooth even faster. Hervi had a similar mannerism, although having more hair was wont to clutch at his. Indeed, looking at Reginald gasping and floundering, Alexander was so strongly reminded of Hervi that he was tempted to throw himself upon his eldest brother and embrace him heartily.

‘Well, we never heard from you after that stupid prank at Cranwell. You might as well have been dead,’ Reginald snapped, and waved the gawping scribe away. ‘We hunted for you far and wide, you know.’

The temptation to embrace Reginald receded. He wasn’t really like Hervi at all. They might have hunted Alexander far and wide, but not for his own good. ‘I went across the Narrow Sea to Hervi,’ he said, and sat down on the bench opposite Reginald.

‘To Hervi?’ Reginald’s eyebrows shot to the top of his forehead. ‘God in heaven, I did my best for you when our father died, but all you have done in return is disgrace the name of de Montroi.’

‘You did your best for yourself,’ Alexander said shortly. ‘And I am not the one who disgraced the name of de Montroi.’ His voice was hard with contempt. Hearing it in his own ears, he compressed his lips. This visit to Reginald was not one he had been relishing, but nevertheless they were still half-brothers. ‘I am sorry,’ he said in a less contestant tone. ‘We each see the situation differently, that much is obvious.’

Reginald gave him a look. ‘I am glad for your apology,’ he said. ‘You always were a spoiled and troublesome brat. I suppose you are staying to dine and sleep for the night, at least?’

‘If it be within my tolerance and yours.’

A rare, dry smile made creases in Reginald’s cheeks. ‘The only answer to that is wait and see,’ he said, and ordered his squire to bring wine.

‘So,’ the older man took the first sip from his cup, ‘what brings you home to Wooton Montroi from the glories of the tourney circuit?’

Alexander looked at his own cup. At least the squire had not filled it to the brim, which would make it less of a penance to drink. ‘Wooton Montroi is your home, not mine,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I am naught but a stranger visiting old haunts. I had business with Thomas FitzParnell at Stafford, and Wooton Montroi is not much further. I think that perhaps I came to show you that I can make my own way in the world.’

Reginald fingered his bald spot. ‘I thought you had come to claim a place at my hearth,’ he admitted, ‘as a household knight.’

‘I would not test your good nature or mine that far,’ Alexander said wryly. He took a sip of the wine and shuddered. God, it was evil. ‘No, I can find gainful employment elsewhere.’ Then he hesitated, his mouth twisting as if it still held wine. ‘Hervi broke his leg in the autumn. His horse fell on him and his shin bone shattered. I took him to the monastery at Pont l’Arche and gave the monks silver to care for him, but I do not know if he still lives.’