The Falcons of Montabard (4 page)

Once the pallets were arranged, the women began preparing for sleep. Annais removed her gown and draped it over a coffer, spreading the muddy skirts the better to dry out the damp. The garment was really in need of a stiff brushing, but there was small point when she and her father were to continue their journey on the morrow to her uncle's keep at Branton.

Unpinning her veil, she took her comb from her travelling satchel and unbraided and groomed her hair until it shone like dark polished oak. Prayers were next and there were many to say. Annais ran her prayer beads through her fingers, counting off a smooth agate oval with each supplication completed. Her final one was for the missing young men.

Her pallet was close to the door and her sleep was light. When the hinges squeaked, she jerked her head from her pillow and by the fluttering light of the night candle, saw several people enter the room. A striking woman with heavy bronze-red braids swinging beneath her veil was comforting a slender adolescent girl. Behind them paced a man of average height and build, dark of visage and watchful of eye. His cloak was lined with ermine tails and gold embroidery flashed in the candle glow. Annais realised that she must be looking at the Countess Matilda, her daughter Maude, and Prince David MacMalcolm who was King in all but name along the Scottish borders.

Moving quietly, they crossed the antechamber and slipped through the curtain into the Countess's private domain. Moments later Annais heard murmurs and the sound of suppressed weeping. A whiff of church incense from their garments lingered in the air.

Annais sighed and closed her eyes. She tried not to think

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about the young men who had drowned - not so much for their sake, although she did say another heartfelt prayer for their souls, but for her own. The way to Jerusalem involved many sea crossings including the narrow channel between England and Normandy that had claimed the
Blanche Nef.
Her father had often spoken of the voyages of his youth. Sometimes, the more garrulous for drink, he had told expansive tales about waves as high as cathedrals and strange fish with huge jaws and teeth like rows of daggers. The stories had frightened her to the point of nightmares when she was a little girl and her mother had rebuked Strongfist severely for telling them. Annais's fears had diminished as she matured, but the notion of the journey itself was like a huge fish swimming through her mind, disturbing her tranquillity.

The main door widened again, softly, and the flicker from the night candle illuminated two male figures. Annais wondered if she should scream, for their tread was careful, almost furtive, and one of them was wearing a sword. However, she decided that to get this far they would have already had to pass several sets of guards, and there was more cause for curiosity than concern.

The one with the sword was fair-haired with features lengthening out of boyhood and a rash of adolescent blemishes at his temple and jaw. His companion was dark and had a face like a gargoyle, swollen of eye, puffy of lip and markedly devilish. He even moved like a creature from the other world, his shoulders hunched and his gait awkward, as if his long cloak concealed horned hooves and a tail. Annais almost started to make the sign of the cross then castigated herself for being foolish.

They had nearly reached the curtain to the inner chamber when the fair one tripped over the pallet of a sleeping maid. The woman jerked awake with a cry, stared up at the intruders and raised the sound to a piercing shriek. The young men's attempt at stealth proved futile, as everyone else was startled from sleep. A child began to cry and a bleary nursemaid stumbled to attend it. The main chamber curtain rattled aside and

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Annais saw that candles were being hastily lit.

'What is it, what's wrong?' Countess Matilda emerged, a cloak thrown over her linen shift, her abundant ruddy bronze hair streaming down her back. Then her eyes lit on the two young men and blazed with joy. 'Simon!' Regardless of propriety, she ran to the fair one, flung her arms around his neck and burst into tears. After a moment's uncertainty, the youth returned her embrace with fervour. The dark one stepped back, and although it was difficult to judge his expression because of the state of his face, Annais thought that it tightened, and she could almost sense his mental retreat.

'We thought you drowned,' the Countess wept, relinquishing her hold to pass the youth on to his sister. Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she turned to the dark one, and drew back with a gasp.

'I fell, my lady,' he said without expression. 'It is indeed true that the
Blanche Nef
sank with William the Atheling on board, but we missed the sailing.'

Prince David joined the greeting, embracing Simon heartily, but clasping the other's hand with more reserve. The family retreated into their chamber and attendants were sent running for food and wine.

Following the initial excitement, a degree of calm was restored. The rumble of conversation came muted through the curtain but the women in the outer chamber could decipher no individual words. The senior maid ordered everyone to go back to sleep and, to emphasise the point, snuffed all the candles, even the thick night one on its pricket. A whispered conversation between two of the wenches was silenced by a terse command.

Annais's eyes were gritty with weariness, but she stayed awake for a long time, pondering the scene she had just witnessed. She was of a practical nature, but nevertheless sensitive to atmospheres, and there had been sufficient undertow in that encounter to drown any but the strongest swimmer.

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Prince David of Scotland, lord of Huntingdon and Northampton during his stepson's minority, rubbed a weary hand over his beard and considered the young man seated before him. On the trestle separating them were the remnants of a breakfast of oatcakes and curd cheese, and half a pitcher of brown heather ale.

'Now,' he said, 'I will have the truth about what really happened at Barfleur.' His tone was pleasant, his French bearing the merest hint of a Scots burr, for he had dwelt most of his life at the English court. 'Much as I am overjoyed to see you and Simon whole, I would know what the price is to me and mine.'

Sabin lowered his gaze from David's piercing dark one and suppressed the urge to squirm. The Scots Prince was scrupulously honest in his own dealings and expected others to extend him the same courtesy.

'The truth is as we told you, sir,' Sabin said. 'We got drunk and the
Blanche Nef
sailed without us.'

'And in your drunken stupor you managed to fall over not just once, but several times?' David arched a slender brow.

Sabin shrugged. 'Does it matter what happened? Without it we'd be feeding fish at the bottom of the sea with the rest of them.'

'Your tone borders on the insolent.' Grooves of muscle tightened in David's jaw and his tone was no longer pleasant, although it remained even.

'That was not my intent. I am saying that you have the fabric of the matter. There is no reason for you to examine every single thread in the weave.'

'Let me be the judge of that.' David folded his arms. 'If you won't tell me, then I will ask Simon, but I would rather hear the tale from your own lips. It is your responsibility, not your brother's.'

Sabin sighed. 'There is little enough to tell. Simon drank too much and fell asleep across a table.'

'And you?'

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It would have been easy to lie. Sabin considered saying that he had been roughed up during a dice game, but he knew that the truth would eventually emerge. If not here at Roxburgh through a slip of the tongue, then at court, where his face, whatever its hue, would be less than welcome. 'I was abed with King Henry's youngest mistress,' he said. 'She persuaded Henry to let her stay behind and sail on the
Blanche Nef.
I took her to a tavern. By that time, Simon was snoring in his wine.'

'I see.' The grooves of muscle deepened and a hint of distaste gave the firm lips a downward curl. 'And your face?'

Sabin shrugged. 'The King was more jealous of his rights than I thought. He set some men to watch over her . . . they interrupted us and this was the result. I am not proud. You are right to look at me in that way. Lora is dead. Without my persuasion she would still be alive.'

David sighed and steepled his hands beneath his chin. 'What am I to do with you? You lurch from one scrape to another. If it's not gambling, it's whores. If not whores, then drink and brawling. Surely you have been raised to do yourself more justice than that? What would your father say if he could see you now?'

Sabin had been waiting for that particular club to emerge from the armoury. Every time he was caught straying from the path, it was used to belabour him. 'Since he is dead, we will never know, and, even if you are married to his widow, you have no right to put words in his mouth.' He jerked to his feet and felt the bench wobble behind him with the force of his movement.

'Sit down,' David said icily. 'I have not finished speaking.'

'You have nothing to say that I want to hear,' Sabin answered. 'I wish that I had drowned on the
Blanche Nef too.
I am sorry for my sake and yours that I did not. Who knows, perhaps we'll both be more fortunate next time.' Turning on his heel, turning his back on the Prince, he strode from the room. The act of standing erect and lengthening his stride sent pain lancing through his ribs and abdomen, but his pride held him straight.

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He half expected the Prince to call him back or to send guards after him, but nothing happened, save that the space between his shoulder blades was suddenly very sensitive.

He knew that he had been rude and graceless, but that was in self-defence. If Prince David had been less judgmental, Sabin might have been more conciliatory himself. Besides, he was torn. A part of him cared deeply what his father might think about him, but another part remained angry that his father was dead, that whatever he might have felt and said was shut in the silence of the tomb.

The grim speed of his exit brought him from the hall and into the courtyard. A bitter wind was blowing and yesterday's drizzle had become a harder, unforgiving rain. A practice for winter, Sabin thought. It always came earlier to these hills than in the softer south.

One of Prince David's knights was preparing to leave. Sabin knew Edmund Strongfist by sight but had no deeper acquaintance with the man, except to know that he was of English ancestry displaced by the Normans after Hastings and resettled on the Scottish side of the border. Strongfist heeled his horse and turned towards the gate, and Sabin saw that he had a female companion. Heavily cloaked against the weather, there was little of her to see, although as she passed he received the impression of startled doe-brown eyes and a glint of dark braid. The impression was fleeting and gone and Sabin had no time to dwell on it as the couple rode on their way, a man-at-arms and a packhorse in tow.

He stood shivering in the courtyard, undecided whether to go back inside and find somewhere warm and inconspicuous to hide for the rest of the day, or to squelch into the town, commandeer a corner of the alehouse and live down to Prince David's worst expectations. The sight of three off-duty soldiers heading in that direction made up his mind and he followed them across the drawbridge. There was comfort and solidarity in companionship and they would not care what his father might or might not think of his behaviour.

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Chapter 3

Sabin was too drunk to be clear who or what started the fight, only that it erupted out of nowhere with the force of a storm wind. It might have had something to do with a jostled elbow and a spilled pitcher of ale, or perhaps an adverse roll of the dice or a look that was taken amiss. There was shouting, some of it his own, raw with drink-fuelled rage, and then the punch in his already tender gut that felled him to the rushes, his knees doubling towards his midriff and his mouth wide open, gasping for air that would not come.

Above him a knife flashed. There were more shouts and a struggle of shapes and shadows. He rolled away from the strike of the steel, became entangled in his own cloak and in a last effort to prevent himself being skewered, lashed out with his feet. His assailant staggered, struck his head on the solid oak corner of the trestle as he fell, and sprawled his length. The knife jerked once in his hand, then fell into the straw.

The shouting grew ragged and subsided. A soldier leaned over Sabin and his assailant. 'Robbie?' He shook the prone shoulder but to no response. When Robbie was rolled on his back, it became obvious why. There was a dimple in his skull the width of three fingers and he was dead. The sound of stertorous breathing came from the living who were staring at the scene in horror. Robbie stared back, unblinking, unmoving. Sabin tried to rise, wobbled, fell, and stayed down.

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'What is going to happen to Sabin now?'

Poising her needle, Countess Matilda looked up from her embroidery and fixed her attention on her son. Simon had been aimlessly wandering the chamber for several minutes.

'That is for your stepfather to decide,' she said. As soon as news of the tavern brawl and its fatal outcome had reached their chamber, David had ordered Sabin clapped in manacles and thrown in Roxburgh's dungeon. Matilda had never seen her phlegmatic husband so close to losing his control — fists clenched, mouth white around the edges, nostrils pinched with the effort of containing his rage. She suspected that Sabin had been chained out of sight to prevent a second killing.

The youth folded his arms and scowled. 'It wasn't Sabin's fault, everyone says so.' His voice, recently broken, was rough with challenge.

'It does not alter the fact that a man is dead and all the witnesses so drunk that they could scarcely remember their own names in the morning, let alone what happened the night before.' She pursed her lips. 'Thank Christ that you were not with him.'