Winterwode, p.15
Winterwode, page 15
Gamelyn belatedly defined the clench of his stomach as unease. Behind him, having crept close despite any imperative, Marion sucked in a tiny breath. Then the darker of the two figures halted, pulled the cowl back from his head—his. It was no enemy Abbess come back from the grave, but a black-clad priest. He moved to the altar, crossed himself, and knelt.
The other, grey-clad and stout, held the torch. As the priest made his prayers, the nun moved to light a sconce on the far side, then came and placed her torch into a second sconce, altogether close to the alcove hiding Gamelyn and Marion. Marion’s breath escaped, silent and halting-heated, against Gamelyn’s sleeve.
She knew this nun.
Gamelyn peered over his shoulder, made careful surety of the trouvère’s whereabouts. Alundel had melted into the shadows of an alcove beside the one sheltering the black Madonna; he caught Gamelyn’s eye and nodded, stayed put. Gamelyn turned back to Marion. She was still watching the nun with narrowed eyes and gave a start, albeit slight, as he reached down and took her hand.
It was not affectionate; a firm reminder, nothing more. His brows lifted a query; she gave a tiny nod and squeezed his hand in return.
“Will he come?” The nun’s words were soft, yet travelled easily though the chapel as she turned back to the abbot: another reason to keep silence.
The priest didn’t answer right away. Several more silent moments stretched out before he crossed himself and rose with a grunt. “He will.”
The nun almost seemed to shrug, then made her own obeisance and approached the altar.
Gamelyn peered at Marion, then darted his eyes to all points of the castle; another query. She shook her head, thankfully kenning it. No other way out, then—at least, not until these two had gone. Any movement in this silence would be… problematic. Being caught was no good option despite Alundel’s reasoning that praying pilgrims would not be disturbed—the priest and nun were obviously upon some clandestine business, would likely not welcome any witnesses. Better to stay, chance their luck in the shadows.
Fingers touching the cross upon her breast, the nun rose, agile despite bulk. “You do trust him, then.”
“Trust?” The priest gave a low laugh, mirthless. “His kind are never to be trusted, Sister.”
“Then why—?”
Another loud thunk into the stillness, and its now-familiar accompaniment of creaks and groans: the main door opening and closing.
Marion’s hand seized in Gamelyn’s—for moments he wasn’t sure why—as a shadow moved into the nave, glided down the aisle. Marion’s apprehension transferred, as if by touch, crawling up Gamelyn’s spine and to his nape, a skin of ice.
But neither reaction made sense. No ghost approached the altar, no like monster moved into the torchlight; merely a cloaked, cowled figure of medium height. Unremarkable, surely. Yet every instinct Gamelyn had was vibrating, furious and fearful. Marion’s eyes had hardened into crystal beneath the faulty light of the torches; her hand sweated, quivering in his.
She felt it too. Whatever it was.
Halfway down the aisle, the figure hesitated. The cowled head cocked, first one way, then the other, the shoulders barely shifting. As if it, too, sensed… something. Gamelyn had seen its like before: in the rise, sway, and rock of a desert cobra, waiting for its prey to panic so it could strike.
Against Gamelyn’s arm, Marion sucked in a breath, and Gamelyn felt it nigh fill his own lungs.
A pale, gloved hand emerged from dark wrappings, extending to touch the sword at the figure’s left hip. All the while the figure turned, slow, as if drawn to the wide stone against which Gamelyn and Marion clung.
“My lord.” The priest, coming forwards. “I bid you welcome to Worksop Abbey.”
The figure turned, so quick the priest recoiled. The ready hand alighted—habit, not reaction—on the sword hilt. It was plain, leather-wrapped, odd mismatch to the pristine, expensive gloves, one of which extended, expectant. A signet sparked upon one knuckle as a torch spat and flared on a pocket of pitch.
The nun folded her hands into her sleeves, waited.
The priest reached the figure, bowed over the gloved hand, and kissed the signet ring. Some church dignitary, no doubt… but no, Gamelyn reminded himself, not bearing a sword. And why meet now, in covert circumstance? With a priest who had no trust for… “his kind”?
Gamelyn angled forwards, ever so slight.
“What, then, have you for me, Anselm?” A nobleman’s speech, well-modulated and betraying little regional accent. “I was preparing my way north when your missive was delivered, telling me you’ve found something of interest.” The voice dipped, gave a hint of the dangerous edge that had announced the lord’s presence. “I do hope it is more than merely ‘of interest,’ considering I’m neglecting welcome rest before the morrow’s journey.”
“You did ask, my lord, that I should send immediate word if I obtained any news towards those unholy events in Nottingham.”
Gamelyn stiffened. Nestled against his spine, close as fur to skin, Marion gave a tiny shiver.
“I also advised you of my need for… circumspection.” It was low, the cowled head turning to peer at the nun by the altar.
Aye, a cobra, this one. With a voice to snare the wits from unwary men. Yet again and unawares, Gamelyn’s fingertips sought the sword strapped to one hip. Slow-sure, they caressed, then curled about the leather-wrapped hilt.
“Sister Deirdre is that, and more.” The priest—Anselm—motioned the nun forwards.
Deirdre.
“She was seneschal and companion to the former Abbess, has kept the abbey in clear order whilst the bishop makes his decision. As you may be aware, my lord, there is talk of moving the sisters to another abbey, and re-establishing a priory of our brethren here.”
Deirdre seemed more perturbed by having to make her obeisance to the lord than by the possibility of removal; her advance held as much distaste as trepidation. But she knew her duty, performed it with a silent dip of head and knee. The lord, just as unwilling, retrieved his hand to fist it atop the other, still resting upon his sword pommel.
Anselm continued. “I often come to Worksop to hear some of the sisters’ confessions. In this time of upheaval, it is all the more necessary.” He motioned to Deirdre. “Our Sister came to me only this evening—for confession, of course, and furthermore, advice upon a matter she feels has come to head.”
“So, woman,” the lord purred. “Amidst your bean counting and linen folding, you think you’ve something important enough to stay my journey to my own preceptory?” Preceptory. Gamelyn’s breath hissed out from between his teeth, nigh silent.
The lord was a Templar.
As if he’d heard the breath—impossible, that—the lord half turned. Marion went rigid. Gamelyn’s fingers tightened on his sword hilt, inclination pitting instinct against custom, obedience against perception. Warrior’s loyalty nigh tipped the balance: this man was a Brother, one of Gamelyn’s own…
Marion’s fingers nipped Gamelyn’s arm, sent shards of discomfort to stab at half-healed back muscles. It returned to Gamelyn not only the welcome and wary cool of consideration, but the realisation of what else was, perhaps even more powerfully, his own.
Aye, listen, my Knight, the Lady breathed, and heed your Maiden. These stones embrace a madness ’twould not only take your wild leman…
“Only, milord, if you’re interested in the ones as caused the evil in Nottingham.”
The lord had turned far enough so Gamelyn could catch a glimpse of well-trimmed beard and hawkish profile. At Deirdre’s words, however, the lord angled back, took a step closer to her. “Caused.” It was almost musing. “And how would you know such a thing?”
“I have ears, and a brain. Your like might have no use for women, my lord,” Deirdre retorted—and was that a sneer in her voice? “I’ve no use for men, comes to it. But mayhap we have use, after all, for each other in this much.”
Oblivious, Gamelyn considered, or just daft, this woman’s attempt to charm the cobra.
The lord—the Templar, Gamelyn reminded himself—remained silent, unmoving.
Anselm looked anxious; Deirdre stolid, unrepentant.
Then the Templar lord gave a low chuckle into the silence. “My, my, Anselm. It seems you’ve brought me a she-wolf in sackcloth. What did these people do to you, dear Sister, to make you vengeful enough to try to use your betters?”
“They killed my mistress.” Sorrow laced Deirdre’s voice, but underlying that was hate, thick and strong and clotted dark as old blood. “When I saw what killed her, I knew. It was spelled.”
“Spelled!” the Templar lord dismissed with a snort.
“Aye!” Deirdre retorted. “I know what rune-spells look like. I know what they feel like.”
“Sister Deirdre was of the pagans, once.” Anselm was respectful but insistent. “Which is why I took her word and passed it to you.”
Again, silence. Marion’s grip was abominably tight, sending spasms up and down Gamelyn’s back. It was a relief, the discomfort. Something to hold his mind aloof.
The Templar lord’s index finger tapped against his sword pommel. Then he shrugged. “Continue.”
“They’re here. Robyn Hood and his covenant. Here, in Worksop. And when I tried to have them arrested, the Hood set his spell about the whole tavern. There’s still talk about it.”
“And what interest should I have in some scruffy wolfshead?” The Templar lord’s voice tilted pettish. Some underlying tone gave his disinterest the lie—and made Gamelyn’s nape crawl gooseflesh.
“’Twas Robyn Hood’s witch-sister killed my Abbess!” Deirdre told him. “Only this afternoon I saw her, sitting with her brother and their whoreson minions, watching the minstrel, laughing and carrying on as if they’d the right!”
“Minstrel.”
“There’s a troubadour here, my lord, holding court at the inn,” Anselm supplied.
Trouvère, Gamelyn supplied with a roll of his eyes, and his thoughts fled, brief longing, to Robyn.
What had he Seen, here?
“That singer, he went over and sat with them too!”
Bugger. Gamelyn’s next thought, just as furious, quickly fell upon how he could employ either of the shivs tucked in his bracers.
“Talked to ’em like he knew ’em!” Deirdre’s righteous wrath, once unstoppered, quickly overflowed. “And then one of your men came over, and they were passing some—”
“One of my men?” The Templar lord stiffened—the cobra flaring his hood, deadly alert—and Gamelyn thought, again, Bugger.
“Aye. He wore the blooded cross on black. But he sat next to the Hood like a long-lost brother. And her… they were both too familiar with her. Not that it would surprise me—that one’s traitor and spawn to witch-blood, nowt but a murdering temple whore!”
Gamelyn’s fingers itched for a shiv. Just one. It would be so easy.
“Sister.” Anselm was trying to soothe, in between vigilant glances to his master, who stood, unmoving as one of the chapel columns and about as malleable. Gamelyn could all but feel the gears turning beneath that cowl, the flare of… something unseen, heavy and bilious, slithering into the chapel and fanning outward, as if seeking.
Marion sucked in a noiseless breath, and Gamelyn shivered as she exhaled the heat of it across his back. Filled with intent, teasing the magic into being, and he could See it: familiar strands of glimmer-light and darkling, the warp and weft of tynged’s time-pulse curling about them, about the dark Lady’s alcove, up and over the curve of wall where they hid and back to encircle Alundel in his corner. A buffer, a shield… A protection.
Something within Gamelyn, sluggish and new, made to rise, respond, join. But just as firm, the dark Lady spoke to him, said: Nay. Not now. Not here.
As the flare of seeking power passed over them, it did not so much as pause. But that tiny, sluggish tendril deep within Gamelyn snaked upwards and reared, flared its own cobra-hood to sway in the dance, defiant.
The seeking sucked into nothingness, banished as surely as if Gamelyn had snuffed a candle. The Templar lord gave a jerk, a tiny sway and stagger.
In the space between breaths, Marion had laced tight fingers not only upon Gamelyn’s arm, but into his mind. Unforgiving and stark, her grip, and the resultant, stinging throb of shock wisped Gamelyn’s own response into guttered candle smoke, to waft where his Maiden’s power gentled it still, invisible.
Again, silence; interior as well as outward. Then Anselm asking, hesitant, “My lord?”
The Templar lord did not answer, at first; merely brought a hand—shaking, ever so slight—to his cowl as if to throw it back.
Gamelyn watched, unable to prevent the snarl trembling his upper lip. Do it, he prayed. Do it. Who are you, “my lord?” And what do you want with us?
The gesture was abandoned, the change of subject perfunctory. “You brought the object, then?”
“I have kept it here, bound in God’s sight.” Deirdre peered at Anselm, who nodded. Clearly controlling her own ire—through fear, mayhap, or circumspection—the nun moved past the altar and turned.
Padded towards their hiding place.
Gamelyn tensed, felt Marion’s breath stutter against his spine.
At the last moment, Deirdre turned and disappeared into the alcove of the black Madonna and Child. Gamelyn wondered what she was after, and breathed silent relief that Alundel had chosen another alcove.
Meanwhile, the Templar lord paced, muttering to himself. It could have been prayer.
Gamelyn thought not.
Again, the shush of coarse woolen against the stones, and Deirdre returned, a cloth-wrapped bundle in her arms. Its length and bulk was suggestive of a short sword. She brought it before the Templar lord, but as she reached him, hesitated. Clutching it close for a long moment, as if she’d changed her mind, Deirdre gave a tiny shake of her veiled head and held it out.
The Templar lord did not take it. He made a curt gesture for Deirdre to place it at his feet. With another slight frown at Anselm, Deirdre did so. One hand lingering, she started to rise.
“Unwrap it, woman.”
Deirdre peered up at him, truly wary now—though Gamelyn personally considered he’d be more wary of being on his knees before the Templar lord than unwrapping any artefact. But with a bow of her head, Deirdre set to her task, dutiful and once again oblivious. The wrappings were drawn aside. There were many of them, a thick shroud seeming unreasonable. It also seemed past reason how Deirdre was taking such care not to touch it.
Then it wafted over Gamelyn, a faint, sick-making wave that hollowed his stomach and set his nerves a-tingle. One altogether repulsive… but also seductive, and foreign… Nay, he had felt its like before, and more than once: when his master had made and bound the measure braided about his hips, in faltering attempts to call and cordon his own magic. Yet this familiarity—this recognition—etched a powerful, almost careless path through the protections Marion had woven about them. It smelt of blood and ash, wood sap and willow-green. It tasted of death, and vengeance, of…
Of Robyn.
Marion had once again gone taut as a drawn bow. Gamelyn’s knees tried to buckle beneath an overpowering knowledge—confirmed by Deirdre’s next words, a reverence that not only named it as weapon, but a tool of a magic old when the abbey was new-quarried stone.
“The Arrow, my lord. The evil and blighted thing that took my mistress’s life.”
“So much.” The Templar lord’s hissed inhalation could be heard throughout the chapel. “So much.”
Gamelyn hoped, sane and abrupt, that Robyn was well away from here. In the Wode’s shelter, with John’s arms and the woodland magic holding him close-safe, with the others all wrapped in green and mist and well away from… from this. He didn’t comprehend why he hoped—only that it was strong, and horrified, and innate.
With another action—and just as innate—Gamelyn slid his hand out from the press of his and Marion’s bodies. Down the pillar, out of sight, then a twist and jerk of wrist.
Felt the shiv slide into his palm, deadly and familiar.
Felt Marion’s grip tighten. Again, warning. Staying.
Felt doubt land upon him, a hesitant weight altering the light, perfect, ready balance of that shiv.
Brother. Templar. Of my own kind…
Then the cobra struck.
Deirdre was dragged sideways and away from the unwrapped Arrow, twisted around and yanked against the white-and-crimson tunic. She tried to struggle—brief and futile, for the grip was one Gamelyn well recognised. Pale-gloved hands braced against Deirdre’s skull, jerked her neck sideways. There was an audible snap.
Anselm lurched forwards with a small cry. The Templar lord said nothing, merely turned upon the priest. Anselm staggered to a halt.
The Templar lord stepped back, loosed his grip. Deirdre’s body dropped to the stone floor with a limp, heavy thud. Anselm’s hoarse, terrified breaths tore into resultant quiet as the Templar lord peered down at his handiwork, pulling at the edges of his gloves, then smoothing at his cloak.
“My lord—!” Anselm’s muffled squeak went mute as the Templar lord glanced at him, still fussing with his garb.
There was a growl building, low and muted-deep, in Marion’s throat; Gamelyn could feel it in his own chest, burning.
“Those wolfsheads have gone too far, this time,” the Templar lord remarked, toeing the nun’s body. “Haven’t they, Anselm?”
Anselm stammered something. More horror and dread than agreement, it was agreement nonetheless.
“You’re such an old woman, Anselm. We couldn’t let her spill any more tales to any more confessors. Besides, she died doing more important work than she would ever achieve alive. In grace, for you heard her confession only today. If you stop snivelling and give unction before she grows cold, surely God will understand.”
Anselm’s mouth worked for long moments. Then he knelt down beside Deirdre, made the sign of the cross on her forehead with shaking hands, and began murmuring in Latin.
