Part 20 (1/2)

”What are you doing?” Aubery choked, thinking she was about to plunge the knife into the unconscious man.

”I want his s.h.i.+rt,” Fenice said. ”I must mop up the filth on the landing. If the new guard comes up to check on you, he must not find anything to rouse his suspicions. The slave might have spilled some soil, but he would have been made to clean it up.”

”You are mad!” Aubery snarled, but he pulled off the guard's tunic.

Still, he made no move to help her, standing up and beginning to remove his own clothing with his back to her. Aubery might have been somewhat less furious had the disguise Fenice a.s.sumed been less disgusting, but his rage would not have been much diminished. The fury that made him barely able to control his desire to beat her until he could no longer raise his arm was as much a result of his own helplessness over the past two days as of disgust or recognition of the increased danger to all that her action had created. It was the final indignity, capping his misuse and capture by a crowd of ign.o.ble commoners, that he should be freed from his cell by a woman in the revolting guise of a soil gatherer.

He heard Fenice retching and sobbing on the landing, and an ugly sense of satisfaction stirred in him. She had gotten herself into this, he thought as he manhandled the still-limp guard into his tunic and gown, let her enjoy it. Then he bound and gagged the man with his cross garters, laid him out in the darkest corner of the cell, and began to try to cram himself into the guard's clothing. Everything was too short-Aubery had to tie the guard's hose around his hips rather than his waist, which did not matter because the tunic and habergeon would hide it. Fortunately the man was fat, and the armor went over Aubery, even though it bound badly across the shoulders.

”Let us go,” Fenice begged from the doorway. ”Please, let us go.”

”Go out and pretend to empty your pail,” Aubery said, so angry that he did not even think that he might be exposing her to danger. ”Then come in again. If someone is watching or pa.s.ses by, that will serve as a reason why no guard is at the outer door. I must speak to the others. Perhaps it would be better for the Earl or Seagrave to go-”

”No!” Fenice cried.

Aubery lifted a hand as if to strike her but did not, snarling, ”You are too filthy to touch. Get down the stairs, or I will kick you down them.”

Fenice stifled another sob and lifted her bucket. She had known how Aubery would react to what she had done, but she had never thought he would find out. She was weak and shaking from nausea, from terror, from shame. Clinging to the wall, she crept down the stairs and out the door, lifted the cover from the barrel, pretended to dump the contents of the bucket, and set it down to cover the barrel again. Slowly she lifted it and went in again, too frightened even to pray that the n.o.blemen would refuse Aubery's offer, but the Mother of Mercy and the saints had not forgotten her.

”No, I think it would be too dangerous,” Fenice heard a voice say, and Aubery reply, ”I do not think you should consider my safety, my lord, but what would be best for all.” She crept up a few steps, holding her breath while she listened for the response, in her anxiety nearly cursing her husband's stubbornness and courage. The earl's laugh, which she recognized from the inn where they had met, gave her hope, and his answer fulfilled it.

”We are not considering your safety, Sir Aubery,” Warwick said, ”but our own. We all agree that only one can go. We could get out of this tower, but I do not think there is any way the rest of us could escape from the keep itself. With your face battered like that, you have the best chance. No one will recognize you, probably your own mother would have trouble doing so, and your accent will not give you away if you must answer questions, because you can slur the words, and no one will wonder at it.”

”Yes,” another voice put in, and Fenice guessed it was Seagrave, ”and last, but not least, if you go, the guard will exonerate us from any complicity, since no attempt was made to rescue us, but if you are found here instead of Warwick or any of the others, we will all be involved and probably end up in chains and kept closer and more cruelly.”

Now Fenice offered up prayers of thanksgiving, tears of joy running down her face. As she backed down the stairs, not wis.h.i.+ng to be accused of spying to add to everything else, she heard Warwick say, ”Gilbert is right. We will be best served by your going to the king as quickly as possible. I am sure he will believe you, but to make doubly certain take this s.h.i.+rt. I have managed to write a few words on the cloth. And take my seal ring. And you had better go before Lady Fortune spins her wheel again.”

A moment later Aubery was coming down the stairs with Mauduit and the man Fenice did not know behind him and the guard's billhook in his hand. She shrank against the wall and bent her head while Aubery barred the two men into their cell. Then, without turning his head toward her, he told her to go out and empty the bucket again and then leave as if her work were finished.

”But Aubery-” she began to protest.

”Get away from me,” he said in a stifled voice. ”Get away from me before I kill you. Go clean yourself. Maybe someday I will forget this, but I think I will smell the filth on you until the day you die.”

Chapter Twenty-Six.

Fenice had no memory of leaving the keep. If the gate guard spoke to her, she must have answered, but she was unaware of doing so. She was even unaware of dragging the heavy soil cart along the street, plodding blindly away from the lash of her husband's disgust. No matter what was done for her or how she was trained, Fenice thought, her serf blood came out. No real gentlewoman would have conceived of lowering herself so far.

Suddenly a shadow leapt at her and seized her arm. Fenice uttered a stifled shriek, but before she could draw breath to scream in earnest, Rafe's voice asked, ”Well, what did you learn?”

”I have freed my husband,” she replied, making no attempt to disguise her voice now. Aubery knew, there was no sense in concealing what she had done from anyone else.

”Lady Fenice?” Rafe's response was no more than a whisper, and he peered unbelievingly at her face in the growing light. ”Oh, my G.o.d! Sir Aubery will kill me,” he muttered.

”If he can make good his escape,” Fenice sighed, and began to collapse.

Rafe caught her before she fell, but she was not aware of that nor of his propping her in a doorway while he ran for help. She regained consciousness slowly, becoming aware of an odd motion in her semip.r.o.ne body, of hushed voices, and then confusedly putting the sensations together until she realized she was being carried while two very worried men discussed what they should do.

For a while she listened indifferently to what they were saying without giving any sign she was aware. Then a vague anxiety began to nag at her, fear that Aubery would be detected escaping. That immediately recalled his rage and disgust at her disguise. The two notions in conjunction in her mind made her jerk in Rafe's arms.

”The dung collector of the prison,” she cried. ”If he comes, the guards may be alerted, and-”

”The other men are watching, m-my lady,” Rafe said, stumbling over her t.i.tle.

Fenice closed her eyes for a moment in a mixture of bitter hurt and relief. She felt a bit stronger, however, and was about to say that she could walk when Rafe stopped and rapped softly on the gate of the inn. The sound of the bar being drawn came immediately, and Fenice said, ”Put me down. I can go to my room myself. Have water for was.h.i.+ng brought at once. Do not wait to have it heated, but let there be plenty.”

At first she was unsteady on her feet, and Rafe followed her anxiously, fearing she would fall down the stairs, but about midway up she turned and insisted he go for the water and pushed past the stunned guard at the door without another word. Fenice tore off the filthy rags the moment the door was closed, dragged the old slave out from under the bed, and unrolled him from the blanket. Until she cleaned her hands and arms, she would not touch anything else. That blanket was already soiled from contact with the old man's body.

When she was covered, she called in the man who had been guarding the door and told him to untie the slave and let him dress again. She could have untied him herself, but knew that Rafe and her men might have beaten him senseless for agreeing to lend her his clothes. This way, they would know he had not been willing. The poor creature was miserable enough without being made to suffer for what was no fault of his. Did not the same coa.r.s.e blood run in both of them? Fenice shuddered.

By the time the man-at-arms and the bewildered and terrified old slave were gone, the water for was.h.i.+ng had been brought. Fenice threw wood on the fire until it roared and howled in the chimney. She stripped to the skin and began to scrub, was.h.i.+ng over and over, scrubbing frantically, drying herself, and demanding water. She was still was.h.i.+ng when the door opened and Aubery walked into the room.

”Oh, thank G.o.d you are safe,” Fenice cried, instinctively reaching toward him.

Aubery stopped in his tracks and hastily slammed the door shut. He had not expected to find Fenice stark naked, her skin all rosy with being scrubbed. Surprise momentarily blotted out everything besides his perception of her beauty and desirability. His body reacted quickly, but not quickly enough, for memory was swifter. Still, the ugly image his mind now evoked had no power to diminish Fenice's beauty or curb his need for her, and the knowledge renewed and multiplied his feeling of angry helplessness, which increased his rage.

”Get dressed, you fool,” he snarled, ”and see to the packing. How long do you think it will be before the guard is discovered in my cell? The gates will be shut, and everyone who tries to pa.s.s examined closely.”

Fenice cowered away, terrified by his anger and by the thought that in her hysterical need to clean herself of what could never be cleaned away, the stain in her blood, she had forgotten that they had only a narrow time of safety before they would be hunted. She was so frightened that for a minute she stood paralyzed, half turned toward the clothes baskets but quite unable to recall what she must do first.

”Get dressed!” Aubery roared, and went out and slammed the door.

The shout would have wakened the whole inn had the servants not already been about their duties. It did bring the landlord, who gasped when he saw Aubery and tried to retreat. Steel fingers gripped his shoulder, and he whimpered at the expression of the one open blue eye in the swollen and battered face.

”Your grooms and outside servants are being bound and comfortably bestowed in the stable,” Aubery said quietly. ”In a few minutes my men will come in and do the same here. No one who submits quietly will be hurt. I am afraid I have not trust enough in any citizen of Pons to take your word that you would not betray me. We will leave the gate ajar, however. Your first visitor will no doubt free you. Nor will I even cheat you of your reckoning, though any man of this city deserves to be well fleeced.”

Aubery's explosive command had startled Fenice out of her paralysis and into action. Once she was moving, she moved fast, throwing on her underclothing and riding dress and bundling whatever had been taken out of the traveling baskets back in again with more attention to speed than neatness. By the time Aubery returned to the chamber, she was finished packing and had even strapped shut the baskets, except for the one holding Aubery's clothes. She waited, standing numbly in the center of the room, with her hands clasped before her as if in prayer.

Without a word, Aubery pushed off the guard's shoes, which had been too short and too broad for him. Fenice took a trembling step forward and whispered, ”May I help you to dress, my lord?”

”I am not going to change,” he snapped. ”All I want are my riding shoes.” When she brought them, he stepped back, afraid to let her near because he was already responding to her presence. ”You can roll my armor in that blanket while I cover my s.h.i.+eld,” he added coldly, pulling his shoes from her hand at arm's length and averting his eyes from her.

Twenty minutes later, the party rode out of the inn-a party consisting of Lady Fenice d'Aix and nine men-at-arms, bound on a visit to her great-aunt, Queen Margaret of France. However, the little fiction was not necessary. No questions were asked, and the group moved north on the main road at a decorous pace until they were out of sight of the watchtowers on the walls of Pons. After that, Aubery changed into his own armor, discarding the guard's habergeon and undergarments behind a patch of brush. Fenice, her services curtly refused in favor of Oswald's, sat staring into nothing, sick with pain.

The hurt was so deep that the physical effects of the relentless riding Aubery demanded of his party scarcely affected her. She clung numbly to the saddle as long as her mare moved under her. When the mare stopped, Fenice slid as numbly down-only aware that it was not Aubery's hands that helped her down or lifted her up to begin the torment of riding again.

Sometime during the day food was handed to her, and she choked down a little because she was afraid Aubery would notice and be angrier if she did not eat. There was wine with the food, but she hardly touched that and later was tormented with thirst until they stopped to water the horses and let the beasts rest. Then she was able to drink from the same stream as the animals, cupping the water in her hands because she never thought to ask for a drinking vessel.

Now and again they pa.s.sed through villages and towns and stopped while Aubery asked questions about the road ahead, but though they were in a town at dusk, they did not seek out an inn in which to stay. Fenice turned to look at the road behind several times after that, fearing they were pursued, but the road was empty as far as she could see. Later, it grew too dark to ride safely, and they stopped and dismounted again. Dully, Fenice wondered whether they were going to sleep in the open, but when the moon rose one of the men urged her to her feet and lifted her to the saddle, and they went on.

By then Fenice was in a trance of fatigue so deep that her conscious mind was withdrawn. Only instinct kept her from toppling from the saddle, her hands clung to the pommel, her knees to the mare's sides. Aware of weariness himself, Aubery looked at her from time to time. Had she wept or begged to rest, had she shown any sign of womanly weakness, the shame he felt at being taken captive by those he thought of as churls and then being rescued by a woman would have been abated. But Fenice, who had earlier watched him constantly, was too far gone to notice now. She stared straight ahead, and Aubery was stung to anger anew by the a.s.sumption that it was indignation that stiffened her spine.

That she had a reason to be indignant only added guilt to Aubery's frustrated rage. By now, however reluctantly, he had acknowledged that no matter how disgusting her disguise, it had taken great courage to have a.s.sumed it and walked into the stronghold of the enemy. But guilt is more painful than anger, and Aubery buried his under a rehearsal of every disadvantage that had arisen from Fenice's meddling, only neglecting the results, that he was free and King Henry would soon know of the plight of his subjects.

When the moon set, it became too dark to travel farther, even at the slow pace they had maintained, and they drew off the road into a small wood where drifts of fallen leaves and dry bracken could be found to soften and protect sleepers from the damp, cold ground. Fenice could barely walk when she was taken from her horse. She tottered to the heap of leaves to which she was led and was unconscious before she could compose her body in the most comfortable position. Seeing her huddled into a heap, Aubery thought her cold but too stubborn to complain.

First he turned his back on her, but after a few minutes he grew worried. Tired and chilled, she might take sick...and die. He found the blanket in which his armor had been wrapped and covered her, waiting with what he would not acknowledge as hope for a murmur of thanks. But no response came, not even a cold acknowledgment or an angry rejection. Then, immediately, he was too wrapped in his own angry hurt to realize she had not been fully conscious for hours and was not at all aware of his protective gesture.