Lady of the English - By Elizabeth Chadwick Page 0,124

mind was connected to the parchment through the flow of the ink, he felt control and stability settle upon him and the sense of dread retreated a little.

When the words began to blur on the page and his eyes to burn with the strain of staring, he sought his bed and curled up, drawing the blankets and furs around his ears. Inside his mind he was still writing, could still see the tip of the quill scratching over the parchment in line upon line of oak-gall ink. Defending his position, defending Matilda. The quill bit deeper and the ink, turning red, ran like blood from the blade of a sword. He tossed and turned, trapped in sweaty visions. He heard chanting, and saw a lone ship hoisting a sail against a carmine sky that might have presaged either dawn or sunset. Behind was loneliness; ahead lay solitude.

The sound of a fist pounding on wood jolted through his dream. At first he thought it was the clunk of the oars in the rowlocks, but it grew louder and suddenly his chamber door banged open. He shot upright, gasping, and fought to free himself from the sour sheet that had tangled around him as he fretted in his nightmare. He stared in bewilderment at Miles FitzWalter, who stood at his bedside clad in dark clothing, filthy with mud from head to toe.

“I heard you were in need of reinforcements,” Miles said with a broad grin, his teeth very white in his dirty face. “I think it is time to do something about those towers, don’t you?” Brian staggered out of bed and clasped Miles in a hearty embrace, partly to make sure that he was not a figment of the dream. “I was praying you would come, but I did not know 307

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when or even how you’d achieve such a thing!” he said, his voice raw with relief.

“Hah! It takes more than a shallow king and a gaggle of piss-proud hangers-on to stop me!”

Brian scrabbled around, donning his crumpled tunic, raking his hands through his hair. He shouted for servants to bring food and wine, which Miles devoured with gusto.

“In plotting to bring me down, they have fomented their own ruin,” Miles said with a feral gleam in his eyes Brian’s spine tingled. Miles FitzWalter was like a deep, cold pool. The shallows at the edges were safe enough, but go any further and you risked drowning.

Miles dusted his hands. “My men are awaiting my signal outside. It was easier for just a few of us to sneak past their guards and reach you. I will need some pitch-soaked arrows and your best archers. You’ve got your Welshmen?” Brian nodded and strove to gather his wits.

“Good.” Miles grasped Brian’s arm. “Put on your hauberk and summon your men. I’ll meet you in the hall.” He strode from the room with a brisk air, leaving Brian opening and shutting his mouth.

ttt

In the bleak dark preceding the November dawn, Brian handed his stallion’s reins to a squire and studied the black outline of the right-hand watchtower he had been designated to take.

Miles was to deal with the left using the men he had brought with him. Brian’s stomach was queasy; the wine he had drunk earlier lay sour in his gut.

Miles gave him a fierce grin. “Good fortune,” he said.

“And you,” Brian replied hoarsely.

“It will be like a day out at a fair with the ladies after Worcester,” Miles said, and was gone like a wolf on the hunt: light, swift, and focused. A detail of Brian’s Welsh bowmen 308

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accompanied him, and several serjeants. Brian turned to those remaining with him: more serjeants, archers, and his own knights from the garrison. His breath was a pale vapour in the air and his chest shook on each exhalation. To the east the sky was a touch paler than it had been at the blackest part of the night.

“Now,” he said, swallowing. “Now or never.” They loped across the marshy ground, crouching low.

Grapnels attached to rope ladders soared over the stakes of the outer palisade and men began to climb at speed. An alarm note blared on a hunting horn, summoning the defenders to arms.

Brian’s archers shot blazing arrows into the compound. Brian muttered a prayer under his breath and took his turn on the swaying grapnel ladder. His hands burned on the rope as he pulled himself upward, all the time fearing that he would