Shield of Three Lions (10 page)

Meantime Roland still pursued Sister Petronilla.

“You intrigue me, Sister. Surely you’re fulfilled by being the Bride of Christ. Or aren’t you?”

She understood his insinuation.

“Better Him than you,” spoke the wimple. “At least He’s dead and will leave me alone.”

Roland leered at the challenge and deliberately touched her full lips with his finger. “Of course we’ve never met, but I’m willing to covet you, if that’s what you expect.”

She slapped his hand away.

“You or someone like you, what does it matter? In any case, a landless knight picked by King Henry.”

Sir Roland rubbed his offended hand. “I’m far from landless, and let’s not hear treason against King Henry.”

“Is the bare truth treason? He wed me to a brute!”

“With your disposition, Sister, I think you should give thanks that he married you to anyone.”

“I give thanks,” she blazed, “right up King Henry’s haunch-bones.”

Magnus yexxed loudly and tugged at Betty’s skirts.

“I give thanks up Betty’s haunchbones!”

I could hardly wait for him to finish his obscene verse, for I must hear more about King Henry. I prayed that Sister Petronilla continue.

Sister Ursula again interceded.

“Please pardon her, Lord Roland, and be not offended. She’s still in mourning for her departed husband and in no mood to marry so soon, that’s all.”

“My first husband was almost dead when I married him,” Sister
Petronilla said with heat. “At least he was kindly and left me a rich woman. That’s when my difficulties with your Norman king began. First Henry wanted me to turn over my hard-won estate to the Saladin Tithe so he could reap glory in Jerusalem. When I demurred, he took his share anyway and awarded me and mine to a charming brute called Sir Denys. Sir Denys promptly beat me about the face and cast me into the dungeon because I refused to give up my treasure.”

Her mellow voice had risen to a shout by the finish, and I was horrified by her words. King Henry had stolen her estate? Had assigned a husband who beat her?
Could my father have been wrong?

Sir Roland answered me to some degree. He pulled away from the Sister angrily.

“By law King Henry could have confiscated your lands outright and thrust you directly into a nunnery. By law a husband has a perfect right to beat his wife unto unconsciousness. Only then must he stop lest her body give out a great fart and she die.”

Sister Petronilla laughed nastily. “Would that I’d farted straight in his face.”

The nun rose and walked to Enoch, a wise move. His thwitel was again in sight as he picked once more at his teeth.

Betty too was struggling and I hoped Enoch would rescue her as well by his presence.

“No, Sire, no more ale. We must to bed …”

“To bed,” Magnus agreed as he pushed her roughly onto the floor.

Bibs cast an imploring glance at Enoch who shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Betty rose to her elbow, her sleeve pulled from her shoulder. She tried to crawl away and her skin shone like ruddy cream; the fire picked up small creatures moving in her mat of hair.

“No, I can’t. You see …” She said something into Magnus’s ear.

“That be wunnerful,” he replied thickly. “I have a taste for doxies in their bleeding time. Aye, that slickery four days every month be best: sticky and soft as eels.

The drama below blurred before my eyes as the meaning of his awful words penetrated my mind.
Women bled four days every month!
Then the Scot hadn’t attacked me after all!
Didn’t know I was female
. My relief was quickly followed by dismay Every month? How could I conceal my sex then? And wait, Maisry had said I would grow breasts
when I became a woman in a different way. Benedicite!
Without thinking, I reached toward my chest and thereby released a rain of dust. It sounded like hail to my sensitive ears and I realized that conversation had ceased.

Magnus lay in a drunken stupor; Roland was curled on his side in the choice position close to the fire; the two nuns now huddled as one; the host and his family must be directly under me as I couldn’t see them; Enoch still sat with his back to the door, quiet but with open eyes. The fire slowly turned to gray ash; the rush lamps went out altogether. Now the wind filled the void, a mean icy breath blowing viciously. I knew not what to do. Did Enoch mean to lead Sir Roland away in the morn so that I might escape alone?

Then the Scot slowly rose. He crossed the room like a black cat, reached toward me. First, though, he must take away the sister’s cape. He lifted. It was caught under my body. He gave a few short sharp tugs and dirt rattled ominously. He made a gesture that I should try to rise slightly. Cautiously, I put my elbows into position and tried. A board groaned, creaked, splintered! The whole shelf crashed in a deafening explosion!

Everyone woke!

“The child! Stop!” Roland cried.

Enoch leaped like a bull with me on his shoulder. I saw Petronilla throw her cape over Roland’s head as we ran headlong out into the wind. Enoch opened the stable doors and slapped Roland and Magnus’s horses on the rumps to make them move.

“Hayt there! Go! Go!”

The startled beasts neighed and galloped across the wastes. We mounted the mule and rode toward the street, but Roland was waiting. Enoch raised his pike and thrust into the knights chest-spoon. Roland gasped and fell, though I didn’t think he was dead.

We rode as fast as we could by the side of the street to avoid its holes as the shouts grew fainter behind us. Into a black howl we rode, saying nothing, feeling nothing except exultation to be alive. At dawn, Enoch veered off Dere Street into the welcome forests on the far side of the Pennines. We followed the path of a raging stream for many miles before we halted by a quiet back eddy, under a grove of ash. Enoch lifted me to the ground.

“Oh, Enoch, you saved my life!” I cried. “How can I ever thank you?”

“I’m aboot to tell ye how ye can thank me.” He leered, his teeth red in the rising sun. “Alix Wanthwaite.”

I GAZED UP AT HIS SAVAGE FACE COVERED WITH wild bronze elflocks, into those shrewd hard-sky eyes, those square grinning teeth that sensed a victory.

“Aye, Alexander Wanthwaite, new baron of Wanthwaite. Ye’re a crafty lad, I’ll give ye that.”

And I took heart—I’d misheard that “Alix”; my secret was safe.

“How did you find out?”

“Magnus Barefoot couldna keep it to hisself, but would be ever blatherin’ in a loud whisper to that Sir Roland. Alex Wanthwaite,’ he sayed, and it didna take long to see that Alex Want and Alex Wanthwaite had a passin’ acquaintance.”

“Very shrewd,” I said.

“Aye, but I need to know more. What be their interest in ye? Why do they want ye dead?”

“Because they sacked my castle,” I answered in an even hollow voice. “Sir Roland personally slew my own mother.”

The words echoed in the sylvan glade, mocking its beauty. Even Enoch sensed their horror. He put his hand roughly on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, bairn. No wonder ye cry for her.”

I said nothing about the Scottish accomplices.

After a pause he continued. “And I take it they fear ye’ll find means of gettin’ Wanthwaite back, so they’re out to kill ye fast.”

I nodded. “I’m sole heir, but too young to claim it alone. My Uncle Frank who lives in London is my guardian. When I reach him, he’ll take the legal moves to reinstate me. If you help me, I can assure you he’ll give you proper reward.”

He whistled his bagpipe tune and watched me with unseeing eyes as he thought. “Look ye, Alex, what will ye give to be delivered safe in London-town to yer uncle? Think now, for as I see it ye canna git there without my help.”

“You’ll have to talk to him, but I’m sure he’ll be generous.”

“No,” he said sharply, “with ye, richt now. Ye be the Baron of Wanthwaite, the richest wight in Northumberland except for yer earl. Ye tell me, and think what it means.”

I considered. I probably couldn’t get to London without him, for I dare not return to Dere Street with an army at my heels.

“I personally will guarantee that when I take possession of Wanthwaite again, I’ll give you one hundred silver livres.”

’Twas a generous sum, I thought, even for a greedy Scot, so I was taken aback at his scornful bray.

“One hundred livres
fer yer life
? E’en a Scot values his breath more than that. Mayhap ye’re too young to deal, sae I’ll gae back to my original statement:
I’ll tell ye
what to do. Now, Alex, lad, as a youngest son, my drive is fer land and only land. I’ll get ye to yer Uncle Frank; aye, I’ll do more if need be and chancit what e’er comes our way, but in return ye’ll promise me half of yer lands here and now. Half of
yer lands, nae more, nae less. There’ll be no quibblin’ or dealin’ further. That’s my terms.”

He fair knocked my breath away.
Give up half of Wanthwaite?
After what my father had said about his and my mother’s souls resting there? Never, never would I part with a mudball of Wanthwaite, not a twig from the park, not a stone from a drywall. I gazed into that tough Scottish craw and smiled sweetly:

“Aye, Enoch, I see your point. Half my land is a small price for my very life and the other half be plenty for me. The risk is great for both of us. Why shouldn’t the stakes be equal?”

He grinned back in broad triumph. “Ye’re a smart lad and yer good blood shows. Let me have yer hand.”

I thrust my right hand forward into his grasp. No sooner had we completed our shake than we heard a chapel bell in the distance; instantly the Scot’s gloating changed to caution.

“A clinkumbell jowin’ Prime,” he said. “Best be fleeing, bairn, while we may. Here, take a few farls to stay yer hunger.”

He lifted me atop Twixt again and handed me hard pellets which had the feel and taste of dried mud balls. We shared nappy from a leather flask to wash them down, but I was too panicked to care whether I ate and wished only that Enoch would push his mule faster. He sought silent footings and took many pauses to test the wind so that we seemed to creep. Usually any rustlings turned out to be animals or birds, but once we heard human voices and Enoch cursed softly that we’d drifted too close to Dere Street.

After a few false stops, Enoch was satisfied by a domed willow whose tendrils created a room. Huddled behind its swaying circle of fronds, we felt safe from view, though the spongy ground was crisscrossed with streamlets and we had to cut faggots to make dry pallets for ourselves and our beasts. We all bedded close, warm in our mutual body heat and steamy breaths. Enoch and I spoke no more that day of Wanthwaite.

The next day was the same, and the next: silent and tense. By the third night out we were both hungry and cold for we dared not build a fire or take game. Enoch explained that the punishment for hunting in the king’s park was death. Only Lance could take his fill.

Indeed, the next day I became aware that prime game roamed as pets around us. Only the king and his men could hunt here, but they rarely did. Twice we came across ancient deserted villages where people had been deprived of their farms to make way for the king’s sport. There we found roofs for our heads, wells for water, good forage for Twixt and Tippet. And at the second village, Enoch again brought up Wanthwaite.

“Where exactly be this Wanthwaite castle? Close to where we met?”

His half-closed eyes glinted like sunstruck water and his voice was deceptively friendly, but I instantly sensed a sinister purpose.

“Nowhere near there. Dame Margery had led me for the better part of a week, I believe. I told you—Newcastle.”

“Should be easy to find.”

“Aye.” I tried not to show my fear. “Speaking of distance, how long do you think it will be before we get to London?”

“Twa weeks, more or less.”

Two weeks! And I’d promised Dame Margery I would be back in a week. Briefly I wondered if Enoch was deliberately stretching our journey but decided he had no cause. No, I’d just have to suffer through this period and get to the king as soon as possible once in London. The king would deal with the Scot.

From that night Enoch plied me with questions about my castle as I invented one “fact” after another. ’Twas deliberate on my part, but forsooth I couldn’t have answered him honestly if I’d wanted to, for I discovered that I knew little about the husbandry of my estate. Yet ’twas better to make up answers than to admit my ignorance, for that might also admit my true sex, and I recalled what my father had warned: that a man could get Wanthwaite by marrying me. To be wed to a Scot!