The Stone Rose (50 page)

‘I’m off to the stream to water Firebrand, lest Duke Geoffrey string me up for neglect,’ he said abruptly and left the glade.

***

The great green forest which clothed inland Brittany was eaten into by rivers, and by the townships and settlements dotted at sparse intervals along their banks. Alan’s route had taken them to the River Blavet, and now they followed its tortuous course. They deviated from the Blavet only when it was necessary to avoid habitation. The detours slowed them further.

That night, the second of their journey, they made camp near a small tributary in a section of the forest to the south of Pontivy. Pontivy was one of the larger settlements, and the last for many a long mile where they would be a hospital. Alan was by no means sure that he could persuade a healer leave the hospital and venture into the forest, but he resolved to try. The Knights of St John, he thought cynically, despite being primarily monks who followed the order of St Augustine, had a very worldly attitude to money. However, there was a chance they might help him if he let them think a large donation to the hospital would be forthcoming. No one, not even hospitallers, did something for nothing.

Having agreed upon a suitable camp site, Alan left his companions and went into the town. He headed for the bridge and the site of St Ivy’s oratory.

He rode past a tavern, ringing with noise. The door flew open and a bright javelin of light shot across the highway. For an instant it seemed that the road was the field of a knight’s black shield with a golden band running diagonally across it. A wild, unkempt figure stared out of the tavern’s signboard – leaves sprouted from its hair. This inn was known as the Green Man. The door slammed, and the golden band was gone.

Bats swooped low over Alan’s head. Moths beat desperate wings at the yellow crannies between the inn’s closed shutters.

It was not long before Alan picked out a long two-storey building which stood a little back from the other houses. As it was stone, it had to be the hospital. A black arch in the perimeter wall marked the entrance, but at this time in the evening the vast, reinforced oak door was as firmly closed as the shutters against which the moths had been beating. St John’s Hospital had shut for the night. A shifting light gleamed palely through a window slit to one side of the gate, so the porter was yet in his lodge. A distant bell tolled. The light in the chamber wavered and dimmed. Surmising correctly that the bell must have been the Compline bell, and that the porter was headed with his lantern for the chapel, Alan kneed Firebrand to the door, lifted a gloved fist, and struck at the wood.

‘Open up, good brothers!’ he called, loudly.

The door opened at once, but the response had been so swift it could not have been in answer to Alan’s summons. A cloaked figure – a woman’s – flew through the portal, almost under Firebrand’s nose. The courser snorted and stamped his hoofs. Afraid the woman would be trampled, Alan hauled on his reins, and the Duke’s horse backed. ‘Take care,’ Alan said. He found himself looking down into huge dark eyes set in a washed-out oval face. The woman was young, but there was no time to make out more of her features, for she dragged her hood over her head.

‘My thanks, Brother, for hearing my confession at this hour,’ she murmured, in a low voice to the monk standing in the doorway. She tried to press a coin into his palm.

The monk refused the woman’s money. ‘My best reward would be if you would follow Our Lord’s words,’ he said.

‘Brother?’

‘Go and sin no more.’

The woman hung her head. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘But how could you?’ She glanced up at Alan, murmured what could have been an apology, and slipped into the night.

Alan heard a sigh, and transferred his attention to the hospitaller.

‘Good evening, my son.’

The monk was draped in the full black habit of the Augustinian Order, and the white cross on his mantle seemed to glow in the jumping torchlight. Alan inclined his head, and dismounted. ‘I’ve come on a mission of mercy, Brother. I’d like to buy food and–’

‘This is a hospital, not a market,’ the monk answered, austerely. The door closed to a chink.

‘I know, and my apologies for disturbing you at this hour. I would not do so if it was not urgent, but it is a matter of life and death, and I must be on the road at dawn.’

The hospitaller’s thin, freckled nose appeared in the gap. ‘Who are you? Are you a Rohan man?’

Alan hesitated, but found no reason to lie. ‘I ride with the Duke.’ He was not on the Duke’s business this night, but he need not admit that.

The chink gaped wide. ‘Come in then. You’d best bring your horse too. It wouldn’t be safe out there.’ The monk shook his head. ‘These are terrible times, my son.’

‘Aren’t they always?’ Alan responded lightly as he led Firebrand under the arch and into the torchlit courtyard.

***

Gwenn had wrapped her brother and sister in her cloak, and was telling Katarin a story to help send her to sleep. The arching branches crowded out moon and starlight, but St Félix’s good monks had given them an aged horn lantern, and as its light was faint, Ned had thought it safe to use it.

Stretched out on his cloak a few feet away, Ned watched his wife in the dull glow. Half of his attention was on the tale she told, while the other half was greedily drinking in the regular features of the face he had loved for so long.

He had heard Gwenn’s yarn many times before, but he always found it a delight. It was the story of a prince brought up among strangers because his family had enemies, and if those enemies found him, he would be in great danger. It was the story of King Arthur and his upbringing with his stepbrother, Sir Kay. Ned was not certain of the effect that particular tale would have on the traumatised child. Gwenn reached the point when Arthur drew the sword from the stone. When he heard the child’s sigh of pleasure, he relaxed.

With Alan gone to Pontivy, at last he and Gwenn were alone. Now she was his wife he could look at her without shame. He could watch the imperceptible movements of the muscles round her eyes and mouth, and he could enjoy looking at the curve of her lips. They were drawn down now, belying the lightness in her voice as she spun out the tale. Her shoulders drooped, betraying tiredness. Sorrow lingered heavily in her heart.

After a few minutes, her melodious voice faltered and came to a halt. The story had played its part. Dark lashes fanned out across the child’s pallid cheeks.

‘She’s asleep,’ Ned said. Rising, he offered Gwenn his hand to draw her to her feet.

‘Praise the Lord. I have a feeling that sleep might do more than any potion to heal her.’

‘You’ll have to waken her if Alan brings a physician.’

Gwenn nodded and dropped his hand, moving away from him towards their pack. Ned knew she was fighting for control. ‘Gwenn?’

‘Yes?’

She turned stiffly, but as she was looking down and her face was in shadow, Ned couldn’t read her expression. Guided by instinct, he murmured, ‘Fears and sorrows grow large at night, my Gwenn. Sunrise will diminish them.’ Hearing a choking sound, he moved closer and reclaimed her hand. Tentatively, he caressed her palm with his thumb. She stood like a creature of stone, staring at the ground. It seemed to Ned that she was waiting for something. He slid his arm round her waist and drew her, unresisting, towards him. ‘Gwenn, I love you,’ he said, unsteadily. ‘I want to ease your hurts.’

She lifted her head and brushed fingers that were as cold as marble across his cheek. ‘I know you do, Ned.’ She smiled, and even in the twilight it looked forced. ‘But you cannot.’

Ned made an inarticulate noise in his throat.

Her breast heaved. ‘I’m sorry. I feel as if I received a mortal blow at Kermaria, and however much I tell myself otherwise, I think no man can help me. Only God can help me. Do you think that God has deserted me?’

Ned shook his head. He pulled her head onto his chest. Doll-like, she hung in the circle of his arms. He held his passion in check, determined that this night he would only offer her comfort. Tenderly he kissed the top of her head. But he had not armed himself against the effect her fragrance would have on him, and no sooner had he breathed in the scent of rosemary and Gwenn, than desire stirred. When her body had been forbidden to him, he had been able to control his longings; but she was no longer forbidden. Gwenn Herevi had miraculously become Gwenn Fletcher, and her body was temptation itself. Ned’s loins ached, he was immediately aroused. He groaned. His wife’s sweet body knocked all thoughts but one from his mind. How weak he was where she was concerned, how damnably weak. He wanted to make love to her, here and now, and if he did not release her immediately she would know it.

‘Gwenn...’ confused by the force of his feelings for her, Ned put her at arms’ length and regarded her with a kind of desperation. She had such power over him. It was wrong that a woman should have such a hold on a man, quite wrong. He wanted to fling her to the ground and take her regardless of her wishes, he who loved her above all things.

She stepped towards him. ‘Ned.’

‘Don’t, Gwenn,’ he blurted, tormented. ‘I...I think you’d best stand back.’

Her lips curved in a sad, knowing smile, and she came a step closer. ‘It’s alright, Ned. I understand.’

Ned had a lump in his throat. He swallowed it down. ‘You do?’

She nodded, and placed a hand over one of his grazed ones. ‘Dear Ned,’ she said, gently kissing his battle-scarred fingers. ‘Dear, kind, considerate Ned.’

His fingers tingled. The tightness in his loins was unbearable. Manfully, he closed his eyes and tried not to moan. He heard her move, felt her take his hand and place it over a firm, sweet breast. His eyes snapped open. ‘G...Gwenn?’

‘Make love to me, Ned. Make me yours. Teach me to...’ Gwenn hesitated, she had been going to say ‘teach me to forget’, but instead she said, ‘teach me to love you, as you love me. I need your love, Ned.’

‘But...but...Alan? He might be back.’

‘He won’t return for an hour or so.’ And remembering how swift their union had been on their wedding night, she added innocently, ‘And it doesn’t take long, does it?’

Ned winced.

‘Ned? What’s the matter?’

‘N...nothing.’

She stood directly in front of him, rested her head against his chest and folded her slight arms about his waist. ‘It’s alright for you to love me, Ned. I’m your wife.’

‘Aye. But you...you didn’t... You...disliked it.’

She looked up, and he saw with surprise that her cheeks were darkly flushed. ‘Disliked it? No, Ned, I didn’t dislike it. I liked you liking it.’ And it took my mind off my hurts, she thought. ‘Is there more to it than that?’

Again Ned winced. She was offering herself to him, unaware that she stabbed at his pride with almost every word. She felt no passion for him. One day, he vowed, one day, he would make her feel...

‘Love me, Ned,’ she said, as delicate fingers slipped to his belt fastening.

Ned’s hand rose to her neck. His fingers burrowed deep into the scented softness of her hair. Lowering his head, he murmured, ‘God, Gwenn, I do love you. So very much.’

‘Then love me now, Ned. Love me now.’

Their lips met. Ned’s knees buckled, and they tumbled, a tangle of limbs, onto Jean St Clair’s cloak. Gwenn gave a shaky laugh and planting a kiss on her husband’s chin, pushed his tunic up so she could stroke his chest. Ned gave a shuddering gasp, and dragged Gwenn’s mantle over them.

His mouth searched for hers, while his trembling hand ran down her hips to find her skirt-hem. ‘Love you...’

Afterwards, Gwenn lay on her back listening to the sighing, whispering leaves that gave the forest its name,
Bois de Soupirs
. Ned’s head was lost in the crook of her arm, and she assumed he had fallen asleep. Fondly, she stroked his light hair. This lovemaking was a mystifying business. Like the first time, it had not taken long; and, as before, Ned’s cry of delight had been mixed with anguish. Gwenn’s conscience smote her. Ned longed for her feelings to match his. She would have to have been fashioned from ice to remain unmoved by his undisguised need for her love. She felt profound affection for him, and it gave her pleasure to give him ease, but she knew that a deeper emotion eluded her. If only her mind was not misted with sorrow.

Absently twirling a strand of Ned’s wavy hair round her forefinger, she sighed. She loved her husband and was pleased her body gave him joy. She felt loving affection for him, but not passion. Would passion grow? Alan managed to wring responses from her simply by talking to her. He had kissed her once... No. No. That was wrong. She must not permit herself to consider how she would feel if Alan were her lover. She was married. Besides, how he would mock her if he knew. Firmly suppressing the thought that it was a shame she did not react to her husband’s kisses as she did to Alan le Bret’s taunts, Gwenn’s mind came round to her husband again.

Dear Ned. Her dear, dear friend. In case he was awake, and because she did care for him, and did not like to think of him hurting, she whispered, ‘I love you, Ned.’ He murmured a response, and a warm kiss was pressed against her neck. He was awake. He lifted his head and his eyes glittered in the lamplight.

‘Gwenn,’ he said softly, and the despair in his voice caught at her heart, ‘one day, you will love me.’

‘But, Ned, I do.’

The flaxen head shifted in a negative gesture. ‘I don’t make your heart beat fast,’ he said, sadly. ‘The love you bear me is not enough. I fear...’

She smoothed a wrinkle from his brow. ‘What do you fear?’

‘One day you will meet someone who makes your heart knock against your breast. The blood will sing in your veins, and I will have lost you.’

She laughed. His cousin made her feel like that, but she was not fond of Alan in the way that she was of Ned.

‘I’m serious, Gwenn.’ His voice was sober, thoughtful. ‘You rouse me so that I can think of nothing but you. And when we make love, I want so much for you to be there with me.’

Another husky laugh. ‘But
I am
with you.’

‘No. No, my sweet Gwenn, you are not. My greatest fear is that one day you will meet someone who has the same effect on you as you do on me. And then you will forget Ned Fletcher, and you will leave.’