Epic Historial Collection (63 page)

“Yes,” she said venomously. “There's no point in our complaining to the sheriff.” She was thinking of the one time men had been afraid of her: in the forest, when she had stabbed the fat outlaw, and the other one had run away in fear. This priest was no better than the outlaw. But he was old and quite feeble, and he had probably counted on never having to face his victims. Perhaps he could be frightened.

Richard said: “What shall we do, then?”

Aliena gave in to a sudden furious impulse. “Burn down his house,” she said. She stepped to the middle of the room and kicked the fire with her wooden clogs, scattering burning logs. The rushes around the fireplace caught immediately.

“Hey!” Ralph yelled. He half rose from his seat, dropping his bread and spilling the stew in his lap; but before he could get to his feet Aliena was on him. She felt completely out of control; she acted without thinking. She pushed him, and he slipped off the chair and tumbled to the floor. She was astonished at how easy it was to knock him down. She fell on him, landing with her knees on his chest and winding him. Mad with rage, she thrust her face close to his and screamed: “You lying thieving godless heathen, I'm going to burn you to death!”

His eyes flicked to one side and he looked even more terrified. Following his glance, Aliena saw that Richard had drawn his sword and was holding it ready to strike. The priest's dirty face went pale, and he whispered: “You're a devil….”

“You're the one who steals money from poor children!” Our of the corner of her eye she saw a stick with one end burning brightly. She picked it up and held the hot end close to his face. “Now I'm going to burn out your eyes, one by one. First the left eye—”

“No, please,” he whispered. “Please don't hurt me.”

Aliena was thrown by the rapidity with which he crumbled. She realized that the rushes were burning all around her. “Where's the money, then?” she said in a voice which suddenly sounded normal.

The priest was still terrified. “In the church.”

“Where exactly?”

“Under the stone behind the altar.”

Aliena looked up at Richard. “Guard him while I go and look,” she said. “If he moves, kill him.”

Richard said: “Allie, the house will burn down.”

Aliena went to the corner and lifted the lid of the barrel. It was half full of beer. She grasped the rim and pulled it over. Beer flowed all over the floor, soaking the rushes and putting out the flames.

Aliena walked out of the house. She knew she really had been ready to put out the priest's eyes, but instead of feeling ashamed she was overwhelmed by a sense of her own power. She had resolved not to let people make her a victim, and she had proved she could keep her resolution. She strode up to the front of the church and tried the door. It was fastened with a small lock. She could have gone back to the priest for the key, but instead she drew the dagger from her sleeve, inserted the blade in the crack of the door, and broke the lock. The door swung open and she marched inside.

It was the poorest kind of church. There was no furniture other than the altar and no decoration except for some crude paintings on the limewashed wood of the walls. In one corner, a single candle flickered beneath a small wooden effigy which presumably represented Saint Michael. Aliena's triumph was disturbed for a moment by the realization that five pounds presented a terrible temptation to a man as poor as Father Ralph. Then she put sympathy out of her mind.

The floor was earth but there was a single large stone slab behind the altar. It made a rather obvious hiding place, but of course no one would bother to rob a church as visibly poor as this. Aliena went down on one knee and pushed the stone. It was very heavy and did not move. She began to feel anxious. Richard could not be relied upon to keep Ralph quiet indefinitely. The priest might get away and call for help, and then Aliena would have to prove that the money was hers. Indeed, that might be the least of her worries now that she had attacked a priest and broken into a church. She felt a chill of anxiety as she realized that she was on the wrong side of the law now.

That frisson of fear gave her extra strength. With a mighty heave she moved the stone an inch or two. It covered a hole about a foot deep. She managed to move the stone a little farther. Inside the hole was a wide leather belt. She put her hand in and drew the belt out.

“There!” she said aloud. “I've got it.” It gave her great satisfaction to think that she had defeated the dishonest priest and retrieved her father's money. Then, as she stood up, she realized that her victory was qualified: the belt felt suspiciously light. She unfastened the end and tipped out the coins. There were only ten of them. Ten bezants were worth a pound of silver.

What had happened to the rest? Father Ralph had spent it! She became enraged again. Her father's money was all she had in the world and a thieving priest had taken four fifths of it. She marched out of the church, swinging the belt. On the street, a passerby looked startled when he caught her eye, as if there was something odd about her expression. She took no notice and went into the priest's house.

Richard was standing over Father Ralph, with his sword at the priest's throat. As Aliena came through the door she screamed: “Where's the rest of my father's money?”

“Gone,” the priest whispered.

She knelt by his head and put her knife to his face. “Gone where?”

“I spent it,” he confessed in a voice hoarse with fear.

Aliena wanted to stab him, or beat him, or throw him into a river; but none of it would do any good. He was telling the truth. She looked at the overturned barrel: a drinking man could get through a great deal of beer. She felt as if she might explode with frustration. “I'd cut off your ear if I could sell it for a penny,” she hissed at him. He looked as if he thought she might cut it off anyway.

Richard said anxiously: “He's spent the money. Let's take what we've got and go.”

He was right, Aliena realized reluctantly. Her anger began to evaporate, leaving behind a residue of bitterness. There was nothing to be gained by frightening the priest anymore, and the longer they stayed, the more chance there was that someone would come in and cause trouble. She stood up. “All right,” she said. She put the gold coins back in the belt and buckled it around her waist beneath her cloak. She pointed a finger at the priest. “I may come back one day and kill you,” she spat.

She went out.

She strode away along the narrow street. Richard caught up with her, hurrying. “You were wonderful, Allie!” he said excitedly. “You scared him half to death—and you got the money!”

She nodded. “Yes, I did,” she said sourly. She was still tense, but now that her fury had abated she felt deflated and unhappy.

“What shall we buy?” he said eagerly.

“Just a little food for our journey.”

“Shan't we buy horses?”

“Not with a pound.”

“Still, we could get you some boots.”

She considered that. The clogs tortured her but the ground was too cold for bare feet. However, boots were expensive and she was reluctant to spend the money so quickly. “No,” she decided. “I'll live a few more days without boots. We'll keep the money for now.”

He was disappointed, but he did not dispute her authority. “What food shall we get?”

“Horsebread, hard cheese and wine.”

“Let's get some pies.”

“They cost too much.”

“Oh.” He was silent for a moment, then he said: “You're awfully grumpy, Allie.”

Aliena sighed. “I know.” She thought: Why do I feel this way? I should be proud. I brought us here from the castle, I defended my brother, I found my father, I got our money.

Yes, and I stuck a knife into a fat man's belly, and made my brother kill him, and I held a burning stick to a priest's face, and I was ready to put his eyes out.

“Is it because of Father?” said Richard sympathetically.

“No, it's not,” Aliena replied. “It's because of me.”

 

Aliena regretted not buying the boots.

On the road to Gloucester she wore the clogs until they made her feet bleed, then she walked barefoot until she could no longer stand the cold, whereupon she put the clogs on again. She found it helped not to look at her feet: they hurt more when she could see the sores and the blood.

In the hill country there were a lot of poor smallholdings where peasants grew an acre or so of oats or rye and kept a few scrawny animals. Aliena stopped on the outskirts of a village, when she thought they must be near Huntleigh, to speak to a peasant who was shearing a sheep in a fenced yard next to a low, wattle-and-daub farmhouse. He had the sheep's head trapped in a wooden fixture like a stocks, and was cutting its wool with a long-bladed knife. Two more sheep waited uneasily nearby, and one that was already shorn was grazing in the field, looking naked in the cold air.

“It's early for shearing,” Aliena said.

The peasant looked up at her and grinned good-humoredly. He was a young man with red hair and freckles, and his sleeves were rolled up, showing hairy arms. “Ah, but I need the money. Better the sheep go cold than I go hungry.”

“How much do you get?”

“Penny a fleece. But I have to go to Gloucester to get it, so I lose a day in the field, just when it's spring and there's a lot to do.” He was cheerful enough, despite his grumbling.

“What's this village?” Aliena asked him.

“Strangers call it Huntleigh,” he said. Peasants never used the name of their village—to them it was just the village. Names were for outsiders. “Who are you?” he asked with frank curiosity. “What brings you here?”

“I'm the niece of Simon of Huntleigh,” Aliena said.

“Indeed. Well, you'll find him in the big house. Go back along this road a few yards, then take the path through the fields.”

“Thank you.”

The village sat in the middle of its plowed fields like a pig in a wallow. There were twenty or so small dwellings clustered around the manor house, which was not much bigger than the home of a prosperous peasant. Aunt Edith and Uncle Simon were not very wealthy, it seemed. A group of men stood outside the manor house with a couple of horses. One of them appeared to be the lord: he wore a scarlet coat. Aliena looked at him more closely. It was twelve or thirteen years since she had seen her Uncle Simon, but she thought this was he. She remembered him as a big man, and now he looked smaller, but no doubt that was because Aliena had grown. His hair was thinning and he had a double chin which she did not recall. Then she heard him say: “He's very high in the wither, this beast,” and she recognized the rasping, slightly breathy voice.

She began to relax. From now on they would be fed and clothed and cared for and protected: no more horsebread and hard cheese, no more sleeping in barns, no more walking the roads with one hand on her knife. She would have a soft bed and a new dress and a dinner of roast beef.

Uncle Simon caught her eye. At first he did not know who she was. “Look at this,” he said to his men. “A handsome wench and a boy soldier to visit us.” Then something else came into his eyes, and Aliena knew he had realized they were not total strangers. “I know you, don't I?” he said.

Aliena said: “Yes, Uncle Simon, you do.”

He jumped, as if scared by something. “By the saints! The voice of a ghost!”

Aliena did not understand that, but a moment later he explained. He came over to her, peering hard at her, as if he were about to look at her teeth like a horse; and he said: “Your mother had the same voice, like honey pouring out of a jar. You're as beautiful as she was too, by Christ.” He put out his hand to touch her face, and she quickly stepped back out of reach. “But you're as stiff-necked as your damned father, I can see that. I suppose he sent you here, did he?”

Aliena bristled. She did not like to hear Father referred to as “your damned father.” But if she protested, he would take it as further proof that she was stiff-necked; so she bit her tongue and answered him submissively. “Yes. He said Aunt Edith would take care of us.”

“Well, he was wrong,” Uncle Simon said. “Aunt Edith is dead. What's more, since your father's disgrace, I've lost half of my lands to that fat rogue Percy Hamleigh. It's hard times here. So you can turn right around and go back to Winchester. I'm not taking you in.”

Aliena was shaken. He seemed so hard. “But we're your kin!” she said.

He had the grace to look slightly ashamed, but his reply was harsh. “You're not my kin. You used to be my first wife's niece. Even when Edith was alive she never saw her sister, because of that pompous ass your mother married.”

“We'll work,” Aliena pleaded. “We're both willing—”

“Don't waste your breath,” he said. “I'm not having you.”

Aliena was shocked. He was so definite. It was clear there was no point in arguing with him or begging. But she had suffered so many disappointments and reverses of this kind that she felt bitter rather than sad. A week ago something like this would have made her burst into tears. Now she felt like spitting at him. She said: “I'll remember this when Richard is the earl and we take the castle back.”