The Stone Rose (41 page)

‘Can you see anyone, Ned?’

‘Not a soul.’

‘What can be happening? It’s some time since the alarm was raised. Perhaps it’s another visitor to the monastery. Perhaps it’s not – what was the name?’

‘Malait.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t Malait. It could be anyone. A pilgrim?’

Withdrawing from the squint, Ned groped for the stone bench and wedged himself next to Gwenn. Katarin had her head buried in her sister’s lap, and Gwenn was caressing her. ‘I wouldn’t pin my hopes on it being anyone else,’ he said, candidly. ‘This monastery is too small and too out of the way to attract pilgrims. Besides, it has no relics.’

‘Aye, but until last Christmas they had a hermit,’ Gwenn pointed out, clutching at the faintest hope. ‘You know how people will bring their troubles to holy men.’ She shivered, hugging Katarin. ‘Ned, I’m cold.’

‘So am I.’ Ned draped an arm round Gwenn’s shoulders and reached for a blanket. She did not draw back. ‘Better?’

‘A little.’ She leant against him, and when she spoke again, her tone had changed, become hesitant. ‘Ned? Do...do you think my father was killed outright?’

‘Aye. That thrust would have killed anyone,’ Ned said, firmly.

‘I...I would not want him to die a lingering death.’

Ned’s hold on Gwenn tightened. ‘It would have been a swift end.’ He slanted his body towards hers. ‘Mistress Gwenn–’

‘I don’t want your pity, Ned,’ she said, stiffening her spine. ‘It would weaken me, and I have to be strong, for my sister and my brother’s sake.’

‘Your father’s last thoughts were of you, mistress,’ he said quietly. ‘He bade me look after you. He said to take you and the children north. He said that you would know where to go. Do you know what he meant, mistress?’ He heard her swallow.

‘Aye.’ Ned could hear from her voice that she was struggling to hold back the tears. ‘How like P...Papa, to think of us, when he was f..fighting for his life.’

‘He was a good man,’ Ned said, and then regretted it for he heard a stifled sob.

‘A g...good man. Aye. A dead man.’

Ned had no words with which to comfort her, though he hurt with wanting to help her.

‘Ned?’

‘Mistress Gwenn?’

‘Did you see Raymond? I saw him lying in the rushes. He was only knocked out, wasn’t he? Do you think he will have managed to escape?’

Ned chewed his bottom lip. He had indeed seen Master Raymond, lying on the floor, disarmed, and with the blood drained from his head. He’d been as pale as the limestone effigy of St Agatha in the church back home.

‘Ned?’

‘Mistress...’ Ned gulped.

‘You think Raymond’s dead.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Aye.’

She sagged against him. ‘The children are all I have left,’ she said, her voice catching in her throat. Katarin lifted her head. ‘What is it, my love?’

The little girl reached for the bundle which Gwenn had insisted on bringing and without a word, dropped it onto her sister’s lap.

Gwenn gazed at the child, uncomprehending. ‘There’s no one in the chapel. You can whisper, Katarin. What are you trying to tell me?’

‘Perhaps she’s reminding you that you have your grandmother’s statue as well as her and Philippe,’ Ned suggested.

‘Next to the children, Grandmama’s icon is as nothing,’ Gwenn said. Her voice warmed. ‘But you are right to remind me of it, Katarin. I am glad to have the Stone Rose. It will remind us of home when we are on our travels.’

Katarin made no response.

‘Why is she so quiet, Ned?’

Ned shrugged before he remembered the poor light shrouded him. ‘No doubt she loathes it in here. Count it a blessing she’s silent. Rather that than she fill the cell with crying.’

‘Aye. And thank God Philippe has gone to sleep. He screeched his head off while we ran through the woods, poor lamb. He’s worn himself out.’ Close to tears, Gwenn set the Stone Rose to one side. It was too soon to be reminded of the past, better by far to concentrate on the future. She was pleased she had her grandmother’s statue but, practically, she was more glad of its hidden treasure. She would tell Ned about that later. In all likelihood they would be forced to sell the gem if they were going to survive on the long and hazardous road north. If it bought them their lives and liberty, it would have been sold in a good cause. Izabel would approve of her selling it under these desperate circumstances. ‘Ned, if we ever get out of here, will you... will you stay with us?’

‘I am at your command, mistress,’ Ned said simply.

‘Because my father ordered it, and like him, you are a man of honour? I told you, Ned, I don’t want your pity.’

‘I would never desert you, mistress. It’s very simple, I love you.’

Touched by the simplicity of Ned’s declaration, Gwenn put her hand on his knee. ‘You are a good man, too. What would I do without you?’

‘Mistress–’

‘Hush!’ Gwenn caught his hand. ‘Someone’s entered the chapel!’

Scrambling to his feet, Ned put an eye to the squint. ‘It’s Malait,’ he hissed. ‘I’d know that tone anywhere.’

‘Not a word, Katarin,’ Gwenn mouthed in her sister’s ear. ‘Understand?’

Veiled by half-light, Katarin nodded.

The gentle Prior Hubert, having received a garbled and to his mind inadequate briefing from one of his novices, gripped his walking staff and roused himself to stand up to Captain Malait. On sight, he pigeon-holed the Viking as one of the damned – an excommunicate mercenary. He had been reluctant to allow such a heathen to defile the saint’s chapel, but Malait’s sword won the argument. The prior was not prepared to die to defend that particular tenet of the faith; Saint Félix would understand and forgive him. The wretch had entered, not even bothering to remove his helmet.

Otto Malait saw a plain, pathetic barn of a chapel. But it was the only solid building in the monastery; and save for a couple of wall paintings which put the rest in the shade, it was completely unadorned. These monks did not have so much as a brass crucifix, theirs was of varnished beech. One scornful glance told Otto that the chapel could not house his quarry.

‘What’s behind the altar stone?’ he demanded. He was beginning to regret having listened to that local trooper. He should have known better than to heed the advice of a man with an eye like that. Trooper Bernard probably couldn’t see past his own nose. Otto pictured Fletcher and the concubine’s daughter racing deep into the forest while he rattled about in this place. His feet itched to continue the chase.

‘Why nothing, Captain,’ Prior Hubert replied, blandly. The prior was of a retiring nature, but he could, if pressed, set his shyness aside. He misliked the burly, martial looks of the Norseman, who was of a breed the prior despised. He was a just man, and he did not want to betray the people who had claimed sanctuary in their hermit’s cell before he had had a chance to judge the merits of the case for himself. He looked into the mercenary’s light eyes; the pupils were mere pinpricks. This blond Goliath was full of hate. St Félix would approve of a mild deception in a good cause.

‘You have no hidden entrance? No vaults?’ Otto swung on his heels, impatient with the churchman’s unctuous manner.

The prior’s grey, tonsured head shook. ‘This is no cathedral, my son.’

‘No silver plate tidied away?’ In the matted, sweaty nest of a beard, greedy red lips curved.

‘As you have doubtless observed, my son, our community prides itself on the simplicity of its rule. But I suggest you look for yourself, and then you will have no doubts.’ Prior Hubert sucked in a breath, wondering whether it might be in the refugees’ best interests to make mention of the anchorite’s cell. If he omitted to do so, then the Norseman’s trooper, who clearly knew the area, would be bound to say something. The prior came to the conclusion that if he drew the Viking’s attention to the cell, he would dismiss the information on the grounds that anything freely given was worthless. ‘The only item worthy of interest in our chapel is the anchorite’s cell,’ he said.

‘Anchorite’s cell? Where?’

Prior Hubert pointed with the staff he used as a walking stick. It was curved at the top so it resembled a bishop’s crozier, and the prior fooled no one with his assertion that he needed the staff to hobble about, for he was a slender, sprightly man with a spring in his step.

Following the direction of the prior’s staff, Otto found himself scowling at the only plain, undecorated wall in the building. He could see why the other walls had been whitewashed, ready for painting, for the mortar was appallingly botched. ‘All I can see is an ordinary wall you’ve neglected to limewash. Where’s the door?’

‘My son,’ the prior was astonished that even a faithless mercenary should be so ignorant. ‘An anchorite abjures everything this world offers. He makes an oath never to leave the cell while he has breath in his body. There is no door.’

‘No door?’ Otto was fascinated, despite himself. ‘I had heard of anchorites, but I never thought a living man would prison himself freely.’

‘Not all anchorites attain the same levels of self-denial,’ Prior Hubert informed him. ‘Our Brother Biel, who went to God last Christmas, was renowned for his asceticism.’

‘Careful, Father,’ Otto grinned, ‘lest the Tempter sows pride in your heart.’

The prior flushed.

‘It’s a tomb for the living.’ Otto was revolted.

‘A pathway to Heaven, my son.’

‘Don’t pontificate. Is anyone in it now?’

‘Aye. A young man has taken Brother Biel’s place,’ Prior Hubert said, trusting that God would forgive him for misleading the mercenary. He was not lying, there
was
a young man in there...

Otto stalked to the quatrefoil. ‘Can’t see a damn thing through this. You’ve been penny-pinching with your mason. The mortar’s done very ill, and he’s chiselled this askew.’

Prior Hubert ran a thin finger over the curve of his crook. ‘You’re not meant to see in,’ he explained pleasantly, ‘if you could, it follows the hermit would be able to see out. He might be distracted by the world he has forsworn. He might be tempted–’

‘To break out?’ Shifting to the squint, Otto tried to peer through it, but he could see only shadows. ‘I can hear breathing.’

‘It’s God’s will that the young man lives. I pray he lives longer than Brother Biel.’ Prior Hubert lifted his hand and drew a blessing in the air.

‘Christ on the Cross, you’re insane!’ Otto strained his eyes at the squint. ‘It’s black as sin in there. We laymen treat prisoners better than this!’ He wrenched his head back and strode for the door.

‘Won’t you stay and pray with me, my son?’

Otto paused, his ox-like frame filling the doorway. He turned his face to the sun and his shadow spread like a dark stain over the church floor. ‘Not I.’

‘My son, you have a soul. It needs care.’

‘You’re the man of prayer, Father. Say one for me. I prefer action.’ Otto saluted indifferently, and was gone.

In the cell, Ned unclenched his fingers from his sword hilt. He had been holding it so hard he had driven the blood from his fingers. ‘Not that there would have been room for me to wield it in this oubliette of a place,’ he muttered.

‘Ned, has he gone?’

‘He’s gone.’

Gwenn sighed. ‘We’ll have to wait before they release us. The brothers will want to make sure he’s not coming back.’

‘Aye.’

Time dragged in the dismal cell until it seemed they had been immured for hours. In reality, less than an hour later the shutter on the north wall rattled, and a pale smudge of light appeared. It dimmed almost at once as one of the brethren pressed a fleshy, rotund face to the opening. ‘Here. Dominig mentioned you needed water,’ the monk said, withdrawing to thrust a goatskin flask through the aperture. ‘And here’s linen for your hurts, and for the infant.’

Ned knelt on the stone ledge to take them. ‘My thanks.’ He stared at the soft contours of the countenance framed by the wall. There was something familiar about the monk’s eyes. They were light brown and brimming with dreams, and he was sure he had seen them before. ‘What’s your name, Brother?’

‘I’m known as Brother Marzin, but I’ve yet to take my vows.’

‘Marzin,’ Ned murmured. ‘Doesn’t fit.’

‘Eh?’

‘Nothing. I must be mistaken. When will you release us?’

The monk blinked uncertainly while his eyes accustomed themselves to the inky darkness of their prison. ‘The prior says–’ Brother Marzin broke off and turned aside to speak to someone who must have come up to stand beside him in the chapel yard. After a few moments’ murmured consultation, the monk’s round cheeks came back into view. ‘Prior Hubert is here.’

The prior’s clear-cut features replaced the blurred roundness of Brother Marzin’s. ‘Good day, young man.’

‘Good day, Brother.’

‘Father,’ the prior corrected him, thinning austere lips. ‘I am prior here.’ This bloody young man looked scarcely more personable than the knave who had just left. Prior Hubert did not like soldiers of any class. If monks were the body of Christ, mercenaries must be Satan’s. And because of these men of violence, the routine of St Félix’s was in disarray. Prime had been delayed.

‘My apologies, Father,’ Ned said, politely.

The prior’s taut lips eased. This one appeared to have some concept of courtesy. ‘I am sorry that you have been housed so ill, but Brother Dominig stressed the urgency of your plight, and his idea, though unorthodox, has proved sound. Your pursuers have gone, and as far as I can ascertain, they have no idea of your presence here.’

‘Thank God,’ Ned said, with feeling.

‘Do you think they’ll come back?’ Prior Hubert asked.

‘Christ’s wounds, I hope not.’

The prior rapped on the shutter with his staff. ‘I’ll not stand for blaspheming in God’s house.’

‘Sorry, Father.’

‘Would you mind telling me your circumstances? Brother Dominig’s account was inadequate.’

Gwenn moved into the weak slant of light. ‘We’re from Kermaria, Father Hubert,’ she said. There was no reason to be secretive with the man who had married her parents.

‘Kermaria?’ The lines on the lean face sharpened. ‘Who are you? What happened there?’

‘I am Gwenn Herevi, Sir Jean’s...natural daughter. Father, we were attacked. My father has been butchered by his enemies, and we are fleeing them. I can’t tell you how grateful we are that you took us in. They would have murdered my baby brother.’