The Angel Knight, page 5
“She surely looks, er—” he began.
“She’s dead, my lord,” Dominy said. “Certain dead.” She quickly wrapped a blanket around the girl, swaddling her like a babe. “Mayhap your man there, my lord, should come in and carry her away. This may be plague.”
“Let me see her.” Gavin swung a leg up to climb inside.
“Plague, say you?” John asked, peering over Gavin’s shoulder. “Then the body must be burnt quick! We’ll get her out, eh, my lord?”
“I thought you spoke only French,” Gavin hissed.
“I’m a muckle versatile man,” John muttered.
“Then lose that lilt,” Gavin said.
“If it is the plague, no one should touch her,” Thomas said.
“You’d best stay well away,” John said, turning to the guard. “My lord and I, we survived the plague in the Holy Land. Devil of a thing, and people rottin’ in the streets like—”
“John,” Gavin said between his teeth.
“I thought you were in France,” the guard said.
“Aye, that too. But we do not fear the plague,” John answered smoothly, ignoring Gavin’s glare. “Just get out o’ the way and let my lord tend to the body! Stand back, now!” John placed a hand on Thomas’s shoulder to lead him firmly away. “We’ll take care o’ this.”
Gavin entered the cage. As Dominy wrung her hands expressively, he knelt beside the Scotswoman, who lay on the floor like a discarded cloth doll. He peeled back the blanket that covered the girl’s face, unsure what he would find.
She lay still in the moonlight, her face as pale and perfect as a marble tomb effigy. He noticed the delicate oval shape of her face, the slender dark brows, the lashes like black crescents over hollowed cheeks. He touched the side of her face, and felt her sigh beneath his hand. Her skin, feathery soft, was warm, even feverish. She seemed to grow warmer beneath his touch.
Yet he admired her quick wit. Ill though she was, she had caught hold of Dominy’s scheme with ease. She lay still, but she was breathing shallowly and seemed awake. His hand lingered as he stroked her cheek to reassure her that he meant her no harm.
As he touched her, a sudden shiver went through him, a surprising rush like lust, plunging to his loins and swelling there. He pulled his hand away as if he had been burned.
Not lust, but a spontaneous, elemental urge to act. For one wild instant, he wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her away. His hand clenched as if he were ready to slice his sword at anyone who dared to bar his way.
He wanted her to live. The conviction was strong and sudden. Gavin knew that he would do whatever he could to make certain that the girl at least had the chance to survive.
King Edward’s orders echoed once again in his brain, and he sighed, rubbing his hand over his eyes. The king had placed him in a difficult position. Gavin had no interest in a hoard of Scottish gold, and less interest in pursuing Robert Bruce.
Berwick, ten years ago, had turned him finally and utterly against the English cause in Scotland. His mother had been Scottish, and he had spent part of his childhood in the Lowlands. As a young English knight, he had felt uneasy and disloyal acting against the Scots. He still did.
But he had wanted land and a castle. He had waited years for a grant from King Edward, who was notoriously ungenerous to his lords. Gavin had no doubt that a marriage to this Scottish girl would strengthen his claim to the property.
If Robert Bruce prevailed over the English, Gavin’s claim to Kilglassie would be based on his marriage to Lady Christian. As her widowed husband, he would possess Kilglassie under Scottish or English law. He was not by nature a manipulative man, but his years as ambassador had taught him to be cautious and never to overlook small details.
Glancing down at the girl, he sighed deeply and rubbed his jaw. King’s demands aside, he knew, quite simply, that she would die if he did not get her out of this cage.
And his conscience would not let him sleep well in that distant Gallovidian castle if he left her here like this.
“Is she dead, my lord?” the guard asked.
He glanced up. John, crammed between two sentries now, peered at him through the doorway. Dominy watched him warily.
He had naught but the king’s inconstant, cupshot word that he could remove the girl on the morrow. And Gavin knew better than to trust Edward’s promise where it concerned a Scot. A keen sense in his gut told him to act on Edward’s orders immediately.
“She is alive,” he said at last. “But she is close to death. I am taking her out of this cage.”
“My lord,” Thomas said. “The captain of the guard will have to decide—”
“I have the king’s permission to remove her to a convent. Your companion has seen the king’s signature on it.” The other guard nodded. “She is too ill to delay. We go tonight,” Gavin said.
He lifted the girl in his arms and stood. She was a limp, slight weight, an easy burden. John reached into the cage, and Gavin handed her out to him. Assisting Dominy, who needed a moment to squeeze her ample bottom through the opening, he then climbed out.
“The captain will have my head unless we have direct orders from the king on this,” Thomas said.
“He has a signed order,” the other guard said.
Gavin nodded. “I saw the king at Lanercost this evening. He gave me the order and bid me tend to it.” He glanced toward John, who stood holding the girl in his arms, looking anxious.
“Is it the plague?” Thomas asked. “I carried her in my arms today. She coughed when I held her. The priests say such diseases can be spread by touch, by unclean sputum and blood and evil humors.” He shivered.
“It is not the plague, man,” Gavin said. “She has caught a lung disease from being exposed to the cold and wet here.” He turned to John. “Go on. Tell the stableman that we need our horses readied, and that we will need a cart for the girl.”
John nodded and strode away, carrying Christian, while Dominy hurried along behind them.
“What should we tell the captain of the guard, my lord?” Thomas asked as Gavin turned to leave.
Gavin looked over his shoulder. “Tell him,” he said, “that the lady is done with English hospitality.”
“Removed the lady in the dead o’ the night, like thieves, we did,” John said, grinning widely as he sat on the crossbench of the two-wheeled cart in which Christian lay. He chuckled with pride and looked over at Gavin. “D’you think the king’s host will hunt us down for what we hastened past them?”
Riding alongside the cart, Gavin glanced at the silent girl huddled beneath blankets in the back of the cart. The ride out of Carlisle had been rough and fast and cold, over deeply rutted roads slick with icy patches, but Gavin had heard barely a sound from her beyond an occasional cough. “They will surely pursue us if they discover that we had no signed order to take her as we did,” he told John. Turning, he scanned the dark, rolling terrain, which was lit only by a thin slip of a moon. “All seems quiet. We have not been followed.”
John grunted, and gave the cart reins an unenthusiastic snap. “I cannot believe I agreed to drive this thing. A knight of my experience. It is a disgrace.”
“We surely had no time to find ourselves a driver. And it is only until we reach a religious house. Your own horse is tied to the back.”
“Aye, a fine destrier, and now he’s a packhorse,” John muttered. He glanced at his bay charger, which carried, across its empty saddle, a few hastily rolled packs of gear that contained items of clothing, weaponry and armor, and several bags of silver coins, mostly English pennies and French deniers.
Gavin stilled his own black destrier, and glanced at the sky. A deep gray-blue tint spread over the horizon, and the air felt cold, heavy, waiting. “It is getting toward dawn.”
“We should continue north as quick as we can,” John said.
“First we’d best see to the girl. Stop just under those trees, John.” Walking his horse off the roughly cut road, Gavin waited beneath the bare, spreading branches of a pair of oak trees. As his uncle drew the cart to a stop, Gavin dismounted to look at the girl.
In the faint light, Christian lay curled in the flat cartbed, swathed in blankets and still as death, her delicate face almost ethereal. Gavin reached out to touch her apprehensively, his heart thudding, knowing she could have died in the last hour. But her small, bony shoulder shifted beneath his touch, and she began to cough, a deep congested barking.
She was having difficulty breathing. Gavin slid an arm beneath her shoulders to lift her a little. Her head fell against his chest, and she looked up at him, her eyes like great dark smudges in the starlight.
Balancing the girl against him, he shoved another blanket beneath her head to incline her torso. “Can you go on, Lady Christian?” he asked her. “The way will be just as hard as it has been. Harder, in fact.”
She nodded. Gavin adjusted the folded blankets beneath her. “There—you’ll breathe better now, my lady.”
She laid her hand on his mailed sleeve; he could hardly feel the weight of her light touch. “You took me from the cage,” she said, her voice a dry rasp of sound. “You rescued me. Thank you.” He detected a gentle accent to her English, a musical and enchanting lilt that told him her native tongue was Gaelic.
“You are safe now, my lady,” he said.
“Who are you?”
“You may call me Gavin.”
“Sir Gavin,” she repeated in her gentle accent. “Has my cousin paid a ransom? Did the English king—”
He placed a fingertip to his lips. “Hush now, and rest.”
“I thought your name was Saint Michael, when I first saw you,” she said.
He leaned closer. “Did you?” he asked gently, well aware that lung fevers could cause a person’s mind to wander.
“I did.” Christian closed her eyes and turned her head away. Still frowning, Gavin mounted his horse, then glanced at the sky. A thin rinse of rose and gold had begun just above the dark hills.
“How is the lass?” John asked.
“Alive.”
“I see you still have a gentle hand with the sick.”
Gavin shrugged. “Pray that we can escort her to a religious house before the saints come to escort her to heaven.” A cluster of moving shadows along the road caught his attention. “Hold,” he warned John. “Look there.” They watched as a single destrier drew closer.
“What—” John said. “A woman!”
Gavin guided his horse out of the trees, riding to intercept the woman. “Dominy!” he called, pulling up on the reins. “What are you doing here? Go back!”
She halted her horse. “My lord! I am so glad to have found ye! Is the lady well?”
“Well enough,” he answered curtly. Behind him, John rumbled the cart toward them. “Has aught happened? Have you come to warn us?” Gavin asked Dominy.
“Nay,” she answered, adjusting the rather bulky front of her cloak and patting its folds. “I’ve come to join ye.”
“What!” John said. “Whose charger is that? It is a fine knight’s animal.”
“He’s mine,” Dominy answered, smoothing her hand over the dappled charger’s broad neck. “He belonged to my husband, and has been stabled at Carlisle. But now we will come with ye.”
“We?” Gavin asked, eyeing the front of her cloak. It was shifting. He frowned.
“And why should we have a woman along, then?” John grumbled. “Ye’ve a woman there in yer cart,” Dominy pointed out. “And how will ye take proper care of the lady, without me?”
“Sir Gavin will watch after her,” John said. “He does not fear a wee sick lass.”
Gavin stepped his horse closer to Dominy. He reached out to flick open her cloak.
A slight, dark-haired boy blinked up at him, his head nestled against Dominy’s comfortable bosom.
“And who’s this bairnie?” John growled.
“This is William. My son. He is six years old.”
“William.” Gavin nodded gravely to the boy, who blinked uncertainly at him. “Dominy, we cannot allow you to—”
“Please, my lord,” she said. “We’ve been living at the castle, Will and I, since my husband died at Turnberry—in Ayrshire, it is, in Carrick lands. He was fightin’ the Scots. I do not want to stay at Carlisle any longer. I beg you, sir, let us come.”
“We’ve not use for women and bairns—” John began.
“Ye’ll want to take the lady to an infirmary,” Dominy said quickly. “I know the best place to take her. And I can show ye how to cross into Scotland. Due north of here, the land is too boggy this time of year for travel. We should head northwest, and ford the firth at low tide, where it runs shallowest, and cross to the Galloway coast. I’ll show ye just where.”
“She could be useful,” Gavin said to John, who sputtered in frustration.
“And I can stay with the lady wherever you leave her. Please, my lord,” Dominy said. “My son will be better off away from knights.”
“Ach, and wha’ are we?” John said. “Wet-nurses?”
Dominy scowled at him. “Two knights are better than two thousand.” She looked at Gavin. “My lord, ye cannot take Lady Christian to a Scottish convent. The English burned most of them years ago, and the rest are too far away for her to travel.”
“What d’you suggest, lassie?” John drawled sarcastically.
“Well, we must avoid the first monastery we come to, just north of here, for that hospital tends lepers. And we must ride past Caerlaverock Castle. It is garrisoned to the brim with English, who ye might wish to avoid just now, with the Lady Christian in yer care.”
Gavin glanced at John. “I think we’ll need her. Very well, then, Dominy. Come with us until we reach the monastery. Then we will decide where you would be safest.”
“My thanks, sir,” she said. “William, thank the baron.”
“I thank you, sirrah,” the boy said in a light, clear voice. “You are no whoreson.” He smiled innocently. Gavin blinked in mute surprise, and John gave a startled laugh.
Dominy shushed her son and looked at Gavin. “He means to compliment you, my lord. But he’s spent too much time in the garrison quarters, y’see. He hardly knows how to speak as a child should.”
“Aye, well,” Gavin said in dismay, looking at the boy. Will’s wide grin and sweet little face showed more than a hint of mischief. “See that he is careful of his speech in the monastery.” Dominy and Will nodded vigorously.
“Hmph,” John said. “If they must come, then, the lass should drive the cart.”
“We’ll do well to have her with us, John,” Gavin said, trying to placate his uncle.
“Bah,” John muttered. “We’d do better to hae her horse.”
Gavin held up his hand. “Listen.” A faint sound had caught his attention. “What is that?”
“Bells!” John said. “Is this a feast day?”
“No feast day,” Dominy answered. “As I was leaving the castle, some bishops rode through the town, with their cloth-of-gold and their mitres. The bells are ringing in the cathedral. I know not what they celebrate so early, at dawn. But surely it must be important.”
A realization hit Gavin like a punch. “It is no celebration. And it is very important to King Edward. Dominy, is there a priest near here?”
“There’s a village church a mile that way. A priest lives beside it. Oh, sir,” she breathed out. “Is the lady worsening, then? Must the last rites be spoken over her so quick?”
“The bishops have ridden into Carlisle to excommunicate Robert Bruce and his supporters,” he said curtly. “It will take them an hour or so, no more. We must hurry. A mile, you say?”
John frowned. “What d’you mean to do?”
Gavin tugged at the reins to turn his charger’s head. “I mean to marry the lady, as the king ordered. When the ritual is complete, Lady Christian will be cast out from the Holy Church. Her name is on the bishop’s list. A wedding must be performed now, before the bells cease to ring, or it cannot be done at all. Come ahead!”
CHAPTER FOUR
A hand, lean and strong, gripped hers. Christian held on with what little strength she had, afraid to let go. She was surrounded by dark and cold and filled with discomfort, but the hand held her safe.
Her chest hurt with each breath, and her head ached so badly that she kept her eyes closed much of the time. Gavin’s hand, warm and steady, remained over hers. She listened as he spoke quietly, his voice deep and calm. But her muddled, fevered mind could make little sense of his words.
He had carried her inside a building, a church, dimly lit by candles. She could smell stale incense, and sensed the deep peace there. Others were in the church—she heard Dominy and two men murmuring softly. One man spoke Scots English; the other spoke in a quick blur of Latin. A priest, she thought foggily.
The priest asked her a question, and another. She said aye, aye, holding fiercely to Gavin’s strong hand, thinking that the priest asked her if she repented her sins. She desperately wanted absolution. She was afraid that she might die of this heavy weakness that filled her body.
Mostly the voices spoke English, too low and fast for her to follow. She drifted in and out of a bleary fog, while Gavin’s hand held hers firmly, an anchor for her awareness.
The priest asked her another question, and she nodded, exhausted. She heard him speak to Gavin, who answered softly.
Then Gavin leaned over and touched his lips to her brow in a dry, quick kiss. Surprised, she drew in a breath to speak, but began to cough, deep and congested, fighting for breath until the fit passed. She clung to his hand. He did not let go.
Then he picked her up and carried her out of the church. “Easy, my lady,” he said. “You are safe now, with me.”
She dreamed of comfort and warmth, of soothing touches on her body and music like heaven. But she woke to a painful, wracking cough, and to cold air, and the bumping cart. And the dream vanished like a candle flame blown out in the dark.
But she heard Gavin’s deep voice somewhere over her head, and knew that he rode his horse beside the cart. Closing her eyes, feeling safe, she slept again, this time an exhausted, black sleep without dreams.
