to think that. He wouldn't allow himself to think that.
Osborn would tear the city apart when he discovered Raoul was dead. Raffe's head was pounding. He couldn't think about this now, he would drive himself mad and he couldn't afford to lose concentration, not tonight, too much was at stake. He must focus on the priest. If the priest was caught and started talking, both Raffe's and Lady Anne's lives would be forfeit. And there was Gerard's body. This might be his only chance to obtain holy unction for Gerard. Raffe would not fail his friend.
No, before he could even think about Elena, he must deal with the priest first. As long as Osborn was at court, Elena was still safe where she was. Blessed Virgin, let John send Osborn to France, Flanders, anywhere, but just keep him far away from us.
A chill wind blew off the marshes and Raffe drew his cloak tighter about him. God's bones, why was it always so damn cold at night in England? Even in midsummer, as soon as night closed in, you felt yourself encased in cold as if you were entombed in a cave.
When he'd been a boy in the mountains of Italy he could lie outside on a summer's night staring up at the great bright stars and the air was as silky and warm as a perfumed bath. It had been just such a night when he'd first laid eyes on Gerard.
Gerard had ridden into the farmstead near sunset, with all the bravado of a youth of nineteen years, scattering chickens to the four winds. Four other knights clattered into the yard behind him, their horses foaming at the bit. Sweat had caked the white dust from the road to the men's faces so thickly that one of Raffe's little sisters had come screaming into the cottage that dead men were attacking the house.
All of the men and boys in the household had grabbed up pitchforks and stout sticks and run outside to defend their farm to the death if need be, but Gerard had wearily eased himself from the saddle and walked towards them, his hands upraised in a gesture of peace. One of the horses had a loose shoe, he told them, which the beast was likely to lose altogether if they continued to the next town. So he announced that this household would have the pleasure of their company for the night.
Raffe's mother and aunts had whispered to Raffe's father that the knights must be sent away. They had not enough food to spare and where would these gentlemen sleep for they could hardly be asked to bed down in the byres?
Raffe's father sadly hushed the scolding women. 'What we don't give them, they'll take anyway and more besides. Have you not seen their sign?'
He gestured to one of the knights who carried a lance from which hung a small pendant in the shape of a scarlet cross on a white ground. Crusaders! The women crossed themselves, muttering and spitting on the first two fingers of their right hands to ward off the evil eye, for if rumours were to be believed, and they always were believed in those parts, Crusaders were the very demons of hell made flesh. If they rode into a village they were likely to ride out again with the cottages in flames behind them, and their scrips bulging with the looted treasure from the village and its church.
Raffe's mother seized Raffe's younger brother. 'You take your sisters and female cousins through the cellar to the caves. Get word out to warn our neighbours.'
The cellars of every home and church on that mountainside led into a series of labyrinthine caves, once home to their ancestors, but which now served as storage chambers as well as an escape route for any who might need to disappear from view. A man might enter one cottage and while his pursuers were keeping watch on that door, he was slipping out of another house a mile or more away.
Raffe's brother knew well what to do. He herded the five unmarried girls down to the cellars along with his pregnant sister, for her swelling belly would be no deterrent to a soldier whose blood was hot. The old women would have to pray to the Blessed Virgin that the Crusaders were not desperate enough to want them, for they would be needed to cook.
The men dragged trestles and benches out into the yard and called to Raffe to