The Falcons of Montabard (3 page)

She lay on her back, her auburn hair spilling over her body like strands of seaweed and her complexion a deathly blue-white. The red lips were pale, the once laughing eyes as opaque as stones. Without his urging and blandishments, she would have been safe with the King. He had as good as caused her death.

Someone brought a litter and Lora was lifted onto it. Grains of sand and crushed shell clung to her hair and sodden gown. The smell of brine and fishing boat rose from her body, replacing the warm scent of cinnamon and roses that had coiled around Sabin's senses last night. He shouldered to the side of the litter and gently stroked a tendril of hair away from her marble-cold cheek.

'I should have died too,' he said and did not know if it was a blessing or a curse that King Henry's soldiers had taken his sword to a watery grave. Had it hung at his belt, he would have been tempted to draw the steel and fall upon its edge. Dazed, hurting, he stumbled back to the tavern. The main room was already filling with locals eager to discuss the news, their faces reflecting a mixture of horror and relish. There was very little

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wine to go around, but there was plenty of rough cider and people had set to with a will. In the background, Sabin was aware of his half-brother shoving out a drinking horn to be filled.

He hobbled away from the noise and sought the room where he and Lora had sported in light-hearted abandon the previous dusk. Here the scent was still of cinnamon, of burned wax from the guttered candles, of spilled wine. He lifted the flagon that had been knocked over in the initial scuffle and saw, shining among the rushes, a hair ribbon of woven green silk. Picking it up, he twined it around his fingers. The shimmer was like the glint of a drake's head in spring. Fierce heat prickled his lids, adding to the pain of his bruised eyes, but he did not weep. Tears were too easy a release. As a child, punished for mischief and misdemeanour, pride had been the stones and defiance the mortar in the wall that had prevented him from crying. Since then, that wall had been many years in the building and fortifying, so it now stood so vast, so high, so strong, that even if it was damaged, it would not crumble. It kept enemies out, and imprisoned him within.

He lay down on the bed and bent his forearm across his burning lids, the ribbon still woven around his fingers. There would be no wine galleys sailing for England today. Tomorrow perhaps, bearing the unbearable news. Grimly pushing all thought and emotion from his mind, Sabin took refuge in slumber, lightless and fathoms deep; the closest he could come to death without dying.

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Chapter 2

Castle of Roxburgh, Scottish Borders, December 1120

A bitter winter dusk was darkening towards nightfall as Edmund Strongfist and his daughter Annais approached Prince David's new keep at Roxburgh. Heads down, their mounts plodded along the muddy track that had been churned by other horses and ox carts into a thick brown sludge. The pack pony bearing their baggage was a hard-mouthed, contrary beast and occasionally, her father's serjeant-at-arms, had to yank on the lead rein to remind it who was master. 'Solid defences,' Strongfist commented with gruff approval, his breath whitening the air. Hoar droplets dewed his eyebrows and thick, fair beard. 'There has been a fortress here time out of mind, but Prince David has set his own mark on the place . . . and his Countess too,' he added as an afterthought.

Annais lifted her gaze to the castle rising out of the misty rain, its steep defences sheering down to the spated brown purl of the River Tweed. Torches cast their fiery glow across the entrance arch beckoning travellers over the wooden bridge and into the courtyard. 'It seems huge in comparison with the Priory,' she said.

'It is bound to.' Strongfist took his gaze from the walls and fixed it on her. Are you having second thoughts?' Annais shook her head. 'No, Father, I am certain.'

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He gave a non-committal grunt and resumed his examination of Roxburgh's fabric. 'As long as you know your own mind,' he said. 'Inasmuch as any woman ever does.'

The wry look she cast at his back was not unaffectionate. She had spent the past five years in a nunnery, receiving tuition and upbringing while her father was occupied in the service of Prince David. With her mother untimely dead of a fever, the Priory at Coldingham, where her aunt was sacristan, had seemed the best of the few choices open to them. Her father said that an education would stand her in good stead when she came of marriageable age. She had now reached her seventeenth year and thus far, no suitable man had sued for her hand and her modest dowry. Those who were young and handsome had no prospects; those who had prospects were much older men and Strongfist refused to wed her to someone with more years than himself. Since she had no desire to join her aunt and take the veil, and since her father's circumstances had recently changed, she was currently as free as any young woman of her status could expect to be.

She rode into the courtyard behind her father. The pack pony baulked on the timbers of the bridge and it took several curses and a hefty thwack on the rump from the serjeant before it clattered forward in a sudden burst that nudged his mount and almost unseated him.

Annais stared round at the slabs of firelit stone, their sturdy brutality contrasting with the limewashed timber service buildings in their shadow. An appetising aroma of mutton stew wafted on the drizzly air, making her stomach growl. The discipline and sparseness of convent food was something to which she had never grown accustomed and she had spent her time at Coldingham in a state of permanent hunger. Dismounting unaided from her mare, she shook out her skirts. Although she was wearing her winter cloak of double-lined wool, the moisture had still penetrated the layers and her gown was clammy with damp.

The serjeant led the horses away to the stables with the instruction to bring the baggage pack along to the hall later.

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Holding her gown above the mire, Annais followed her father through the alleyways between the byres, stables and workshops until they came to a fine timber hall with wooden shingles and a solid oak door banded with wrought-iron decoration.

'Soon be dry now,' he said by way of encouragement and stood aside for a soldier who was on his way out. Belatedly recognising him, Strongfist uttered a greeting and clapped him on the shoulder. 'Duncan, it's good to see you, man.'

The knight half smiled and muttered a response, but his eyes were sombre.

'What's wrong? Have you lost your wages at dice again, or has your mother-in-law been harrying you?'

Duncan waved aside Strongfist's jocularity as if it smelled bad. Then he narrowed his eyes. 'You haven't heard, have you?'

'Heard what?'

'About the
Blanche Nef.'

Strongfist shook his head and gestured to Annais. I've been away at Coldingham fetching my daughter and the Priory's hardly on the beaten track for gossip. Why, what has happened?'

Duncan clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. 'The court was returning from Normandy. The
Blanche Nef
foundered out of Barfleur harbour with the loss of all on board, including William the Atheling. We had the news from a royal courier two days ago.'

'God rest their souls, that is terrible!' Strongfist crossed himself, as did Annais.

'Indeed it is,' the knight agreed, 'and I fear that the tragedy strikes closer to home than that. It is likely that our Countess Matilda's son Simon and his half-brother Sabin were aboard too, and that they have perished.'

'Sweet Jesu, no!'

'The household is in deep mourning. If you want to report to Prince David, he is in the chapel with the Countess and her daughter, although if I were you, I would find sleeping space in the hall and leave it until morning.'

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Strongfist nodded stiffly. 'Thank you for the warning.' He sought for something positive to say. 'At least the lady yet has her younger children for comfort, and her other two from the first marriage.'

'Aye, but you know how much store she set by the lad, and him just on the verge of manhood.'

'Is there a chance that they survived?'

Duncan screwed up his face. 'If they were on the
Blanche Nef,
no. It foundered two miles out in pitch darkness. The only one to live to tell the tale was a common butcher who was on board collecting dues owed. I will talk to you later, I'm supposed to be on duty for my sins.' Slapping Strongfist's arm, inclining his head to Annais, the knight squelched on his way.

Father and daughter entered the smoky fug of the hall. A thick layer of rushes carpeted the beaten earth floor and heavy hangings covered the shuttered windows, keeping at bay the worst of the dank and cold.

'Christ have mercy on their souls,' Strongfist muttered as he walked to the fire, extending his hands to the warmth as if by heating them he could banish the knight's words.

Annais frowned. Although her father served Prince David, she had never had much to do with him or his family. She knew that the Prince had married an English widow, Matilda, Countess of Huntingdon and Northampton, and that the lady already had three children from her first marriage. The eldest was in holy orders, the middle one a daughter, and the youngest was the one for whom everyone was mourning and praying. But her quick mind had not missed the mention of a half-brother. 'Who is Sabin?' she asked.

Her father rubbed his hands and held them out again. 'A scapegrace bastard of the Countess's first husband,' he said. 'Wild, by all accounts, and a bad influence on young Simon. I know him vaguely by sight but our paths have seldom crossed, so I cannot say if the gossip is true.'

They were joined by several of her father's companions from the Prince's retinue. There were more greetings, more

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discussion of the tragedy and its implications for Prince David and his wife ... and for King Henry who had lost his only legitimate son. Finally, when those subjects had run their course, the talk turned to matters more personal.

'So tell us, are the rumours true?' demanded Alexander de Brus, a knight with whom Strongfist often rode escort duty.

'What rumours?' Strongfist widened innocent eyes.

'Oh come on, man, don't be cagey. We hear you're bound for Jerusalem to offer your sword in King Baldwin's service.'

Strongfist folded his arms and drew himself up. 'What of it?'

'What of it?' De Brus laughed. 'It's not the kind of decision you up and make on the spur of the moment — as if you were just riding off for a day's hunting.'

Strongfist planted his feet firmly apart, asserting his own piece of ground, if not his mastery over his friends. 'It is more than twenty years since I was at the taking of Jerusalem with my cousin Fergus. Beardless lads still lacking our spurs.' He snorted at the memory and tugged the thick, fair growth now foresting his chin. 'Fergus stayed to serve, and I would have done so too had I not promised my father that I would return whole and bring him a handful of dust from the roads that Christ himself had trodden. Then I wed the lass's mother and that put an end to my wanderlust.' He thrust one foot forward and looked over his folded arms at the prickspur adorning his heel, symbol of mature knighthood. 'Now my wife and my father are dead and my older brother has the rule of our family lands. Fergus is a lord of wide estates and writes to me that the same can be mine if I choose to return to Outremer. They are in desperate need of experienced warriors.'

Alexander laid his hand on Strongfist's shoulder. 'No one blames you,' he said. 'It is plain that the reasons for your going are greater than those for you to stay. It is not as if you and your brother have ever been close.'

Strongfist said nothing, but did not bother to conceal the downturn of his mouth. His brother's charity, like his nature, was about as palatable as last night's porridge left out on a cold

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lintel. While their father had lived, Strongfist had endured, but now it was time to leave.

'What of your girl?' De Brus glanced at Annais who had remained modestly silent in the opinionated masculine company. 'Will you take her with you?'

Strongfist looked at her too. 'Yes. I would not wall her up in a convent for the rest of her days when she has no calling. Nor in all good conscience could I leave her in my brother's care.' His expression was wooden. 'She would not flourish in his household, biddable though she is, and I am not convinced that he would select a husband suitable to her nature. I am hoping that with her education she will be given a place within the household of Baldwin's Queen. If God is good, perhaps she will make a match with an Outremer lord.' He gave her a pride-filled smile, and she managed to smile back, although the curve of her lips was dutiful rather than genuine.

She was glad when one of the Countess's maids took her away to the women's chambers on the floor above the hall. It had been disturbing to be talked about rather than included in the conversation — as if she were a prize mare or bitch. After five years dwelling in a tightly knit community of nuns, adapting to the company of a group of rough lighting men was difficult.

Annais was given sleeping space in the maidens' room outside the Countess Matilda's solar and furnished with a cup of hot wine, a bowl of mutton pottage and half a loaf. The Countess, she was told, was still at prayer in the chapel with her husband and eldest daughter and would remain there long into the night.

The younger children had been tended by their nurse and put to bed in a small side chamber. Annais glimpsed them briefly while devouring her bread and stew. There was a sturdy, sandy-haired boy and two fair-haired little girls, the youngest little more than a babe in arms.

Having finished her food, she rinsed her bowl in the bucket provided and helped the other women to lay out the pallets for the night. Under the strict rule at Coldingham, she had grown

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accustomed to all forms of labour. Despite its prestige, the Priory had not been a haven for gently bred young ladies intent on nothing more serious than embroidery. Annais knew how to stuff both a sleeping pallet and a chicken. She could sew a fine seam and neatly stitch a battle wound. She wrote a fluent hand in Latin and French, but was equally at home daubing a wall in limewash with a hog's bristle brush.