скачать книгу бесплатно
‘Oh, but I need to...’ Matilda stepped forwards.
John pushed his face up close to his sister-in-law. He was about the same height as her; she could smell his fetid breath, see rotten teeth crowd the interior of his mouth. ‘No, Matilda, not this time. You cannot run away to your precious estate, to your mother. You brought these men here, you entertain them. And if they find out who we support, then God help you both.’
* * *
The great hall at Neen was situated unusually on the second floor, with the kitchens and servants’ quarters on the floors beneath. The dressed-stone walls, pale limestone, glowed in the evening light that spilled down from the huge windows, striking the swirling dust motes rising from the wooden floorboards.
‘Not bad,’ said Henry, reaching for another chicken leg, chewing hungrily. ‘Not bad at all.’ He looked around him appreciatively, at the fine tapestries hanging down from the walls, the expensive carved furniture, the plentiful food. His eye caught on two banners, hanging down from the wooden gallery at the opposite end of the hall, sweeps of blue-and-red cloth impaled with the golden arms of royalty. ‘Although a bit too much evidence of King Richard, I think.’ He smirked at Gilan, sitting next to him. ‘Do you think they’ll murder us in our beds tonight? Or clap us in arms?’
Gilan crossed his huge arms across his chest, leaning back into the oak chair. Then leaned forwards again as the ornately carved wood poked uncomfortably into his spine. ‘No, they wouldn’t dare. I’m sure John of Neen realises how weak King Richard’s rule has become. It wouldn’t be in his best interest to thwart us.’
‘No, I suspect he’s the type to change sides at the drop of a cloth,’ Henry mused. He leaned past Gilan, lifted a floury bread roll from an oval pewter platter. ‘I don’t think we have anything to fear from this household. And good food, too. Not quite like the fare we’re used to, eh?’
No, indeed, Gilan thought, staring out across the busy hall. Henry’s soldiers clustered along the ranks of trestle tables, talking, laughing, joking with each other, piling the food into their mouths. They deserved it, these loyal men. They deserved a taste of this good life. Having ridden on many of Henry’s crusades, they had endured all manner of harsh conditions, days on meagre food rations, days when the air was so raw it froze the tears in their eyes and turned their fingers black. He looked along the happy laughing faces, dishevelled hair released from helmets now resting by their feet, their faces ruddy and flushed from the strong sun. A sense of utter loss pierced his heart. There should have been another face amongst them. A face that looked like his, hair the same startling blond, the frame a little leaner and shorter. His older brother. Pierre.
Grief, bitter, unrelenting, scythed through him, and he wrenched his gaze from the men, glowering down at the table, his plate, the piles of food spread out along the pristine white cloth, anywhere that wouldn’t remind him of that horrible time. His heart tore at the rift so deep, he wondered whether it would ever heal. Guilt cascaded through him, a numbing black bile, clagging his chest. He gripped the stem of his pewter goblet. If only he hadn’t insisted, if only he hadn’t goaded his brother, pushed him on, teased him. Then the accident would never have happened.
‘Come on, Gilan, eat up!’ Henry jostled his elbow. ‘Once the lady of the manor arrives, we’ll be forced to talk, not eat. Get something down your throat at once! That’s an order!’ Henry began to pile food in front of his friend: a couple of slices of ham, some cooked vegetables, a hunk of bread. He raised his eyebrows towards the door, a flicker of movement catching his eye. ‘Too late.’
Gilan looked up.
Framed by the stone archway with Katherine at her side, Matilda hesitated, as if stunned by the crowds of men in the great hall. Her appearance arrested conversation, reduced the bursts of laughter to soft murmurs of appreciation. She ducked her head, a stain of colour creeping across her pale cheeks, not wanting the male eyes upon her, embarrassed. Her hair was dry now, coiled in intricate plaits on either side of her neat head, the wisps contained by a silver net, delicately wrought. Her circlet, etched silver, gleamed as she moved forwards tentatively, her sister hanging on her arm.
She wore a simple overdress cut from a rose-coloured fabric, shot through with threads of silver; the material shimmered against her slender frame as she walked. The wide, angular-cut neck exposed her collarbone, the shadowed hollow of her throat. As was the fashion, her sleeves were fitted on her upper arms, before hanging down loose from her elbows, revealing the tightly buttoned sleeves of her underdress, a rich scarlet.
‘My God!’ murmured Henry as the two women approached, John bustling up behind them, chivvying them up to the dais as if they were cattle. ‘What a beauty.’
‘My lords, both of you, so sorry to have kept you waiting...’ John practically shoved his lumbering wife up the wooden steps. Katherine clutched at the wooden bannister for support, dragging herself up. Matilda led her sister to the empty chair between Henry and Gilan, intending to help her into the seat.
‘No, no, what are you thinking?’ John protested, grabbing Katherine’s arm and forcing her down between Henry and his own place. A pained expression crossed his wife’s face; she paled suddenly, biting down hard on her bottom lip.
‘My lady?’ Gilan quirked one blond eyebrow up at Matilda, who hovered behind the backs of the chairs. ‘I believe this is your seat?’ He indicated the empty chair between himself and Henry.
Her toes curled reluctantly in her pink satin slippers, stalling any forward movement. Every muscle in her body, every nerve tightened reflexively at the sight of him, bracing, readying themselves for some further onslaught. She needed to arm herself against him, to shield herself from the devastating silver of his eyes, the implacable force of his body.
He read the reluctance in her face, and smiled. ‘Have no fear my lady, I’m not about to shove you into the nearest pond.’
‘No...I...’ Her voice trailed off, mind incapable of finding any explanation for her hesitation. He thought she was frightened of him, but that wasn’t it. She couldn’t identify the strange feelings that pulsed through her body. Odd feelings that flooded through her veins, making her heart race. Not fear. Excitement.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Matilda, sit down!’ John bawled at her from the other side of Henry, lines of strain stretching the fleshy skin on his face.
She slipped between the two chairs, carefully, avoiding any contact with the man on her right, sliding down on to the hard, polished seat, thinking she would rather be anywhere but here. Gilan lifted the heavy jug, pouring wine into her goblet.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, staring straight ahead.
‘Tell me, my lady, have you recovered from your ordeal this afternoon?’ Henry said conversationally on her left. ‘It sounds like you were extremely brave.’
‘Or extremely stupid,’ Gilan muttered under his breath, so that only Matilda could hear.
Eyes blazing with blue fire, she shot him an angry look, grazing the sculptured lines of his face, the corded muscles of his neck. He had dispensed with his breastplate and all other visible signs of armour, but the pleated tunic that he wore served only to emphasise the huge power of his shoulders, his chest.
She swallowed hastily, her mouth dry, arid, then turned back to Henry.
‘I didn’t have time to think about it,’ she replied, honestly, smoothing her hand across the white tablecloth. To her surprise her hand shook, fingers quivering against the soft fabric. The skin on the right side of her neck burned—was he staring at her? She clamped her lips together, annoyed with herself, with her unwanted reaction to him. Men meant little to her; scornful of their appreciative glances, mocking even, she was not in the habit of paying them any attention and had no wish to marry, especially after witnessing John’s treatment of her sister.
‘Where did you learn to shoot like that?’ Henry took up his eating knife and began cutting thin slices of roast pork that he popped into his mouth at intervals. Grease slicked the sides of his mouth and he rubbed at his mouth with a linen napkin, throwing the crumpled fabric back into his lap.
‘My brother taught me.’ Matilda rubbed at an errant spot of spilled wine on the cloth, frowning.
‘Your brother?’ Henry raised his eyebrows. ‘And where is he?’
Where was he, indeed? Matilda fixed her eyes on the colourful banners at the end of the hall. As far as she knew, Thomas was with King Richard, fighting his cause in Ireland. Her brother had no idea that their mother had given up all intention of running the estate at Lilleshall, that the responsibility had fallen to his younger sister. He had been away for over a year now; she had heard nothing from him.
Bringing her hands into her lap, she twisted her fingers together. What could she say to Henry? She couldn’t tell him the truth, because that would underline John’s allegiance, theirallegiance, to Richard. ‘My brother...er...he’s...at home.’ Her answer stumbled out. ‘Dealing with things,’ she added vaguely.
Beside her, Gilan shifted in his seat. His forearm lay along the wooden arm of the chair, his hand rounding the carved end, strong fingers splayed. She could see the raised sinew on the top of his hand, the lines of blue veins tracing beneath the skin, knuckles roughened, scratched. The hands of a working soldier, a knight.
‘My lady?’ Henry was speaking to her.
‘I’m sorry? What did you say?’ She blushed furiously, a wild scarlet chasing across her cheeks.
‘I asked you where your home is, my lady?’
‘Not far from here,’ she answered lamely.
The little chit’s lying through her teeth, thought Gilan, lifting his pewter goblet to his lips and taking a large gulp of wine. The heady liquid slid down his throat. Not that it was any of his business, but it was intriguing, all the same. Her shoulder was turned rigidly away from him, her manner overly attentive to Henry; it made him want to laugh. He wanted to tell her it didn’t matter, whatever she did would have no effect on him. She could be as rude or as coquettish towards him as she liked. She could fall all over him or slap him in the face. He was immune to the many wiles of women, to their tempers and their masquerades, his body remaining in a constant state of numbness, of bound-up guilt and grief, unable to love, unable to give. His brother’s death had removed the very spirit of him, driven out his soul so that only the shell of him remained. A husk of a man.
Chapter Five (#ulink_724b8e81-c83e-53f5-a43a-aac218617867)
As the sun dipped low in the sky, inching away from the long, rectangular windows, servants moved around silently with flaming tapers, lighting the thick wax candles in their iron holders, thrusting lit torches into the iron brackets secured around the walls. The cavernous chamber filled with a flickering luminescence, dreamlike, which cast odd shadows, illuminated chattering faces with rosy glows.
‘And our last crusade was up around the Baltic...’ Henry droned on, his nose reddened, cheeks flushed from too much wine. ‘And, oh Lord, I can’t even begin to tell you how cold it was...’
Crumbling a soft bread roll between her fingers, paddling the cooked dough into a smaller and smaller piece, Matilda forced herself to concentrate on the story Henry was telling her. She had smiled and nodded all through this interminable evening, aware that for the whole time Gilan sat to her right, silent, and that she was ignoring him. The muscles in her cheeks ached with the constant effort of maintaining an impressed, amenable expression towards Henry.
‘But how did you keep yourselves warm, if there was so much snow?’ To be fair, Katherine was doing a very decent job of listening to Henry, prodding him with a question now and again to show interest and keep his stories flowing.
Henry grimaced, lowering his eyebrows in an exaggerated frown. Coarse russet hairs straggled out from his brows, haphazard, messy, giving him the look of a farmhand, as opposed to a cousin of the king. A roar of ribald laughter broke out from the soldiers below and he paused, allowing the noise to die away before he answered, ‘Well, my lady Katherine, I have to tell you, it wasn’t easy, was it, Gilan?’
Matilda sensed, rather than saw, Gilan’s slight shake of his head. Then saw her sister’s face, her profile clenched, delicate jaw rigid with pain.
‘Katherine...?’
Henry’s story faltered to silence as he turned to observe his hostess. Katherine’s face was set in an expression of sheer horror, her mouth screwed up, as if braced against an unknown onslaught, her eyes squeezed tight. The blood had drained from her lips.
‘Katherine...!’ Matilda shot up from her seat, turning abruptly to push past Gilan in a desperate attempt to reach her sister. Her hip brushed against him, the soft curve of flesh beneath her gown yielding against his upper arm. He drew a sharp unsteady breath.
‘For God’s sake, woman! What’s the matter with you?’ John shouted at his wife, at her rounded eyes that stared unseeing straight ahead, at her skin: red and sweating. He threw down his napkin into the middle of the table, a flare of annoyance crossing his portly face. ‘I’m so sorry about this, my lord...’ he inclined his head towards Henry ‘...she’s not normally like this. It must be the shock of today.’
Rushing to Katherine’s side, Matilda saw the growing puddle of water beneath her sister’s seat, the sopping hem of her gown, watched her hands grip the armrests of the chair. ‘She’s in labour, John,’ Matilda bent down to murmur in John’s ear, laying one hand on her brother-in-law’s forearm.
‘What? What are you talking about? It’s too soon, isn’t it?’ John babbled, his fetid breath wafting over her, his face contorting into a look of sheer horror. His lips curled at the water spreading across floorboards, staining the wood. ‘What on earth is that horrible mess?’
‘Her waters have broken, John. We need to carry her upstairs!’ Matilda’s voice was more urgent now. She bit down hard on her bottom lip, forcing herself to think logically, clearly, against the brimming tide of fear pushed around the edges of her consciousness, a push of bulging breath expanding her lungs. She couldn’t, wouldn’t panic!
‘Take her away, then!’ John hissed at her. ‘This is so mortifying! Get her out of here!’ He fluttered his hand at Matilda, in the manner of dismissing a servant. A dull red flooded his pouched cheeks.
Aghast at his lack of assistance, Matilda gawped at him, her arm slung across Katherine’s back. Her sister was panting now, fingers fixed around the edge of the table, trying to subdue the cramping waves of pain.
‘John, you need to carry her!’ Matilda squeaked at the bullish back of his neck, hating him, horrified by his ignorance, his sheer stupidity. Did he truly mean for Katherine to deliver her baby here, in the great hall, in front of all these men? ‘There’s no way she can walk!’
‘With the state my leg’s in at the moment? You know I’m injured! Ask one of the servants to do it!’ John raised his eyebrows at Henry in mute apology, who was observing the whole proceedings with a bemused, drunken demeanour. ‘Women, eh?’ John burped loudly, shaking his head with a nonchalant, unconcerned air. ‘What can you do with them? Always some little problem to deal with!’
‘Let me help you.’ A low, velvety voice cut across Katherine’s stifled gasp. Gilan appeared at Matilda’s side, bending down over her sister, bright hair falling across his forehead, wayward. Katherine made no demur as he shifted her rounded body up into his arms, levering her easily out of her chair.
‘I...er...no, we have no need of your help,’ Matilda protested, agitated, her hands flapping towards him as if to ward him off. How had he managed to lift her pregnant sister so swiftly? Gilan shifted Katherine’s body so she rested easily against his chest, her head rolling back against his shoulder.
‘Why, were you intending to carry her yourself?’ His sparkling eyes swept over Matilda’s diminutive stature, the close-fitting sweep of her dress, immediately mocking. ‘Which way?’
‘Follow me, then,’ she replied, stalking off in front of him, her head held high. Her long hem trailed treacherously across his leather boots as she swept past him and she flicked the material away, huffily, annoyed that she had no choice in this matter. Despite her reluctance, she would have to accept his help, as Katherine’s husband was demonstrating, once again, the whole wretched expanse of his uselessness. John’s behaviour had forced her to accept a stranger’s help. At the door, she turned, fixing her sister’s husband with a cold, hard look. ‘Send someone to fetch a midwife, John, and do it now!’
‘Good luck, my lady Katherine!’ Henry called out, lifting his pewter goblet in a toast, his speech slurred and warbling.
* * *
Gilan followed Matilda’s neat figure through an arched doorway in the corner of the dais which lead directly on to the circular stair. Her hips swayed seductively beneath the twinkling gown, the whispering train of the overdress slipping across the floorboards. At once they were plunged into a dank shadowy space, lit only by one flaming torch slung into its iron holster on the cramped landing. Steps curved away from them, down as well as up.
Seizing the torch from its holder, Matilda thrust the spitting flame aloft, bunching her skirts in the other hand. ‘This way,’ she murmured tersely, climbing up the narrow, curved steps. Behind her, Gilan carried her sister’s pregnant form effortlessly, and surprisingly gently, as if it were a manoeuvre he performed every day. They climbed steadily, with only Katherine’s moaning gasps breaking the silence; suddenly, she arched over, letting out a long, low howl of pain. Caught unawares, Gilan staggered forwards at the jerking violence of the movement. Instinctively, Matilda reached down and grabbed his upper arm, attempting to steady him.
But he had no need of her bracing hand; his feet were already planted firmly again, one step below her. Beneath the dancing flame of the torch, his carved features were inches from her own, his eyes mineral dark.
‘I have her.’ He glanced at Matilda’s hand clamped around his upper arm, not steadying now, but clinging to him, as if for support. Beneath his tunic sleeve, the roped muscle was hard, like an iron bar. She snatched her hand away, face flaming, speech stalled. Why couldn’t John have carried his own wife upstairs? She had no wish for this man, this stranger, to be involved with her family affairs. He seemed too close to her, too intimate in this confined, shadowed space, scattering her senses, befuddling her.
‘Hurry, this way!’ Matilda whisked away from him, climbing the circular steps two at a time, pushing through the planked door of Katherine’s chamber. In a moment, Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting were all around them, like colourful butterflies, clustering around Gilan as he carried Katherine to her bed.
He laid her down with infinite gentleness.
Stuck in the doorway, Matilda watched the scene with growing incredulity, still holding the sparking, spitting torch. The light arched over her, casting flickering shadows down across her cheeks. Who was this man, his body built for a life of fighting, of soldiering, to perform such an act of kindness? His tough, muscular frame looked out of place, all angles and hard lines in this lady’s bedchamber. He towered over Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting. He had helped, where John had not. She frowned, unable to untangle her reasoning.
‘Matilda!’ Katherine screeched, hunching over in a foetal position on the bed furs, clutching dramatically at her belly. ‘Matilda, come here! I need you!’
Starting at the sound of her sister’s voice, Matilda shook her head: a quick movement, wanting to rid herself of these troubling thoughts. She moved towards Gilan as he straightened up from the side of Katherine’s bed. Against the blood-red of the velvet bedcurtains, his hair shone out like spun gold, glimmering fire.
‘Fetch linens, towels, hot water...now!’ she ordered the women fussing about the bed. They sprang away from their mistress at the sound of Matilda’s voice, following her commands without question. ‘And you,’ she said, tipping her chin towards Gilan, ‘you can go now.’ She thrust the flaming brand towards him, as if to emphasise her point. Her tone was brusque, dismissive.
‘Careful with that,’ he murmured, jerking his head back. ‘You’ll set my hair on fire.’
‘Have it,’ she said briskly. ‘You’ll need it to find your way back downstairs.’
He took the torch from her hand, strong fingers grazing against her own, reading the fear behind the veneer of bravado in her manner. ‘I can stay, if you need me.’ His voice was a low rumble of reassurance; for one tiny, inconceivable moment, she considered the possibility of him staying, of helping, wanting that implacable strength beside her as she assisted her sister through this ordeal.
She glared at him, astounded by her own thoughts, annoyed with such weakness, the weakness that would drive her to ask this man for support. When had she ever asked a man to help her? Her fingers moved swiftly along the row of pearl buttons that secured the fitted sleeve of her underdress, undoing them. ‘Are you mad? This is women’s business!’ She dropped her voice to a hush, so that Katherine wouldn’t hear. ‘Do you really want to stay—to witness all that blood and gore and screaming?’
No, he didn’t. But he didn’t want to give the bossy little chit the satisfaction of knowing that.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s nothing that I haven’t seen before.’ Not childbirth, admittedly, but blood, and gore and screaming? He’d seen enough of that to last him a lifetime.
She arched one dark eyebrow at him in disbelief, a perfect curve above her shimmering eyes, the soft blue of forget-me-nots. ‘Really? You do surprise me.’
Her caustic tone made no apparent impact. ‘Call me, if you need any help.’ Gilan strode towards the door, leather boots covering the distance in three big strides.
‘We won’t,’ she replied rudely, pivoting away from him with what sounded like a snort.
And she would make sure of that, he thought. The maid had done an excellent job of making him feel like he would be the very last man on earth to whom she would turn for help. As if she knew who he was; as if she had peeled back the vast wall of chest muscle and seen the dull, numb beat of his cold, black heart. As Gilan moved through into the stairwell, he glanced back through the open door. For all the chit’s bravado, for all her spurning, he knew she was scared. Her small hands trembled as she smoothed them down the front of her gown, delicate blue veins in her dainty wrists revealed by her loose flapping sleeves.
* * *
Perched up beside her sister on the big bed, Matilda raised one arm, wiped the gathering perspiration from her forehead, holding on to Katherine as she let out a long, wavering moan, a cry of despair. At her sister’s feet, crouched on a wooden stool, an old lady sat, her face wizened, crumpled with age: the midwife.
‘Open that window, there!’ Matilda pointed over to a small single-paned window set into the west wall. ‘We need more air!’ Mary, one of Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting moved swiftly across the room, twisting the wrought-iron handle set into the glazing bars. Now all the windows were open, set out as far as they could go on their hinges, yet the chamber was still muggy, hot, full of the heavy scent of sweat, of blood. Exhausted by her fruitless labouring, Katherine lay on a linen sheet, the fabric creased and crumpled beneath her. Between her screams that accompanied each tightening contraction of her womb, her ladies had managed to remove her dress, easing her into a loose nightgown, which had provided her with some temporary relief. But the baby refused to come. Her belly was rigid, the skin pulled tight as a drum, distended.
With every one of Katherine’s screams, the old midwife had nodded importantly, running her leathery hands across Katherine’s stomach, before plonking herself back down again.
‘What is happening?’ Matilda said. ‘Why does the baby not come?’
From the shadows at the base of the bed, the midwife smiled her toothless smile. ‘It’s all happening the way it should, mistress, do not fret. Some babies like to take their time.’
‘But she’s been labouring for hours. She’s exhausted.’
‘Sometimes, babies take days to arrive,’ the midwife supplied unhelpfully.
One hip hitched up on the bedclothes, Matilda leaned over her sister. Something was not right. She spread her palm across Katherine’s belly, feeling the various lumps and bumps of the baby beneath the distended skin. At the top of the high curve, pushing up into Katherine’s ribs, Matilda could feel a rounded shape. Was it the curve of the baby’s bottom, or, far worse, was it the baby’s head? Fear flowed through her instantly, like water. Leaping from the bed, she strode over to the midwife, eyebrows drawn into a worried frown.
‘Tell me, do you think the baby might be the wrong way around?’ Not wishing to alarm her sister, Matilda forced herself to keep her voice low, equable. ‘You might need to turn the child.’
The midwife cackled up at her, waving her hands in the air. ‘Nay, mistress, I think he’s pointing the right way. Don’t fret, he’ll arrive when he’s good and ready, mark my words.’
‘Matilda, where are you?’ Katherine yelled out, her mouth gaping, contorted with fear as another contraction gripped her body, her head thrashing from side to side on the flock-filled pillow. Two thick candles set either side of the canopied bed sheened the sweat on her skin. Her hair straggled across the gauzy embroidered fabric of her nightdress, rippling strings of seaweed across a sea of white. ‘Why does he not arrive?’
‘I’m not certain, Katherine,’ Matilda said, moving back to her sister’s side. ‘The midwife says all is well, everything is happening as it should be.’
‘Something’s wrong, I can see it in your eyes!’ Katherine screeched at her. Her hand flung out in desperation, clutching at one of the bed curtains, half hauling her body into a sitting position. ‘Get rid of her!’ she pointed with one shaking finger at the midwife, ‘and fetch our mother. She’ll know what to do!’
‘But Katherine, our mother...’
‘I don’t care. She’ll come for me, she’ll come out for my baby. She knows how important this child is to me, for John.’ The words stuttered out of her, barely coherent. She gave Matilda a little shove. ‘Go, go now! Mary will stay with me.’
* * *
