Instead of tackling William head on as the others were doing, Guy de Lusignan set his destrier at the hedge and jumped his stallion into the field of new spring wheat. He cantered along the hedgerow to the point where William stood with his back to it, and once more used his lance from behind.
The pain was as sharp as the steel tip and William was unable to suppress the cry that fled over his larynx before his breath caught on the agony of the wound. Brought down at last like a stag at bay, his shield was dragged off his arm and cast aside and his sword torn from his hand. Geoffrey de Lusignan stood over him and laid his blade to William’s throat. “You should have yielded when given the chance,” he said.
William glared up through an explosion of red stars. His wound and the sight of his uncle being cloven from behind like a carcass in a town shambles had splintered the courtly shield he usually presented to the world and left him naked. “You’re baseborn murderers!” he gasped, tears of grief and rage running down his face. “You butchered my uncle without honour or chivalry. Now do the same to me too and finish it.”
Geoffrey’s blade nudged William’s windpipe but did not bite. “You are a green fool if you expect to find much courtesy in true battle,” he growled. “Patrick FitzWalter received his just deserts.” Withdrawing his sword, Geoffrey snapped his fingers to his men. “Find him a mount and bring him with us. He’s FitzWalter’s nephew and worth a few pounds of silver if he lives. Make haste. The sons of whores will have a full troop out after us soon enough.”
William’s awareness dissolved in pain. The lance was still embedded in his flesh and his captors were not gentle when they pulled it out. The ground reddened under him, for although a flesh wound, it was deep and his blood soaked his braies and hose. A knight thrust some coarse linen at him to plug the wound and he had to bind the material in place with the garters from his hose. They seized his hauberk and thrust him on to the pack animal that had been carrying his uncle’s accoutrements. William clung to the wooden hoop at the front of the pack saddle, knowing that he was probably on the swift road to death. Even if he survived his wound, his captors were unlikely to treat him well, especially when they discovered that despite being Patrick of Salisbury’s nephew he had no wealth at his disposal and neither did his family. There was no one to pay his ransom and, sooner or later, they would tire of him, cut his throat, and dump him in a ditch.
That night they camped in a wood and William was thrown down at the fire’s perimeter. The crude bandages he had been given were sodden with blood, but his requests for fresh bindings and water to wash the wound went ignored, apart from the occasional kick or sneer. Once the horses had been tended, a squire did bring him a cup of wine, a hunk of dry bread, and a blanket stinking of horse sweat, but the youth refused to meet William’s eyes and returned swiftly to the company of the other men.
Excluded from the enemy’s camp fire, William lay shivering in the darkness. The pain in his thigh was like a continuous scream from which there was no respite and his mind was screaming too as time upon time he relived the moment when Guy de Lusignan had struck down his uncle. He clenched himself around the image, using the rage and grief it generated to fuel his determination to survive and wreak his revenge. Later in the night, unsleeping, racked by pain, he heard the brothers arguing around the embers.
“We should have taken FitzWalter for ransom,” Geoffrey growled. “He’s more of a threat to us dead than he ever was alive. He’d have made a rich prize with which to barter. As it is, without Eleanor, we’ve got less than nothing; it’s all been a waste of time.” Sparks flared skywards as he angrily cast a dry branch into the grey-red glow.
“I wouldn’t call it a waste that Patrick FitzWalter is dead,” answered Guy. “We were hunted before, so nothing changes in that respect. They’ll have to choose FitzWalter’s successor before they turn their attention to us, and that’ll take them a while. Besides,” he added, his tone aggressive as he attempted to justify his action, “I wasn’t to know it was FitzWalter. He had neither shield nor armour to mark him out.”
“But it never occurred to you that a man dressed in a tunic of embroidered silk might be worth a decent ransom?” Geoffrey snapped. “You still never thought twice about spearing an unarmed man through the spine.”
“He would have been armed in another moment. What else was I to do?”
Geoffrey made an impatient sound and sat down on the fallen log that the brothers were using as a bench.
“No corpse was ever resurrected by wishing a thing undone,” Guy said with brutal practicality. “I still say we’re well rid of him. He’s been a scourge to us for far too long.”
William eased awkwardly round, turning away from the sparking camp fire and the men discussing the murder they had done. His wound throbbing, he faced the darkness of the woods and remembered Eleanor’s husky amusement of that morning, now a lifetime ago, as they rode along a sunlit path and she asked him if he ever bore grudges. He had answered lightly, but then, a lifetime ago, he had not understood what a grudge was.
Six
The de Lusignan brothers approached the castle through a quickening spring dusk and William gazed at the pale walls and red-tiled turrets with a mingling of relief and despair. Whilst he welcomed a respite from the jolting of the horse and the rubbing of the pack saddle against his wounded thigh, he knew that his likely destination was the damp bowels of the donjon. He had no delusions; he was going to die here among his enemies with no one the wiser to his fate.
Having satisfied the castle guards that they were allies, the brothers and their troop clattered beneath the gate arch and into a dusty bailey filled with an assortment of timber sheds and workshops. A ratcatcher watched them from a bench while he ate a bowl of stew, his latest victims dangling by their tails from the wheeled pole at his side. A grubby child was poking at the dead rodents with a stick and making them swing about while two women, fussy as hens themselves, cooped up the castle poultry for the night. As the soldiers were dismounting, William noticed a woman watching their arrival from a spinning gallery that spanned the upper storey of the stone hall. She was olive-skinned and slender, her gown a startling saffron-yellow that blazed in the encroaching dusk. Her gaze lit on William and lingered a moment in curiosity before she left the gallery rail and disappeared from sight into the room beyond.
Without consideration for his wound, William was hauled off the pack beast and manhandled into the hall. The lord of the castle, whose name was Amalric, greeted his visitors with a smiling mouth and wary eyes and William gleaned that he was either a vassal or a castellan of one of the brothers.
The latter were ushered to the dais table at the far end of the hall and promptly served with wine. William was thrown into the straw in the corner of the hall near the door. The stink of urine filled his nostrils, for this was where men came to piss at night rather than go outside to the midden pit or seek the garderobe. He eased himself away from the fouled straw, but each movement caused him excruciating pain and dewed him in cold sweat. His “bandages” were filthy with blood and grime and he knew that he was in mortal danger of contracting the wound sickness. It wasn’t as bad as the donjon, but by a degree that made little difference.
Several women entered the hall, among them the one in the yellow gown whom he had seen on the spinning gallery. Ingrained courtliness and his knowledge of the potential tenderness of women made William incline his head when they glanced his way. They twittered to each other like sparrows confronted by a cat and hastened into the body of the hall, except for the young woman in yellow, who paused to accost a servant. Even from a distance, William could tell that her tone was peremptory. The man bowed to her, went to the flagons on the sideboard, poured wine, and brought it to William, his manner nervous and reluctant.
William’s hands were shaking so badly that he could barely hold the cup. “Thank you,” he croaked, then somehow trembled the rim to his lips and drank. The wine was little better than the poison served up at Henry’s court, but it tasted ambrosial as it slipped down his parched throat and he had to stop himself from gulping. He made a point of toasting the woman in yellow as if they were dining partners at a formal feast. She returned his gesture with an infinitesimal dip of her head and turned away.
“My lady asks if there is anything that you need,” the servant muttered. His eyes darted about and he looked briefly over his shoulder, plainly worried at being seen talking to William.
“Thank your mistress,” William replied, his throat tight with emotion, “and tell her that apart from my freedom, my most pressing need is for clean bandages. If I can have them, I will be in her debt for ever.”
The servant hovered until William had finished the wine and, without another word, snatched the cup from him and hastened away.
William fell into a feverish doze. The servants erected trestle tables and the Lusignan party was served with a hastily assembled meal. William’s patroness sat with the other ladies at a side table, attending studiously to her food. Not once did she glance in his direction and no one brought him food.
Having eaten, the de Lusignan brothers and their host retired to the private solar on the floor above, the ladies accompanying them. The one in the yellow gown paid no attention to William, but followed the men, her gaze modestly downcast.
William’s part of the hall grew quiet. No one ever settled near the piss corner unless forced and with the weather being fine, folk were content to relieve themselves outdoors. The dining trestles had been stacked against the walls and men began laying out their pallets, ready to retire. William tugged his stinking, louse-infested horse blanket over his shoulders and sought sleep, but his pain and discomfort were too great to grant him that blessing.
“Messire…”
The voice was soft yet vibrant. William turned over and struggled to sit up, his wound pounding. The woman in the yellow gown stood before him. Bound with ribbons of gold silk, her jet braids fell to her waist and her eyes were as dark as polished obsidian. “My lady,” William acknowledged in a voice hoarse with pain. “I must thank you for your kindness earlier.”
“I would offer any wounded man the same,” she said. “To see you thus treated makes me ashamed but I cannot go against the will of our overlord.”
