The Hunter’s Tale (34 page)

‘All’s well?“ Frevisse asked softly.

‘Five so far and we don’t think she’s done.“

Craning her neck to see without coming too close, Frevisse saw the little bodies lined along Baude’s belly, suckling mightily. Baude looked the least pleased of anyone about the whole business, lying still but with her eye rolled sideways and fixed rather desperately on Hugh, who was crooning to her, telling what a brave, good girl she was.

‘You won’t be hunting today,“ Frevisse half-whispered to Miles.

‘We won’t, no. The hares will live to another day,“ he agreed.

The long, hard surge of a contraction rolled down Baude’s length. She tried to flounder to her feet in protest against it, setting Hugh to talking more earnestly to her and Miles to handing the whelps to Degory to put tenderly into a wide, waiting basket nested with rags. Frevisse quickly departed, most definitely not needed there.

At the hall’s far end she found Bevis stretched out across the doorway to the rear passage, his great head resting on his outstretched forepaws and such a desolate look on his face that she stopped to tell him comfortingly, “It will be done soon and you can have Miles back.” He regarded her solemnly but not as if he believed her, then pushed himself up on his pony-long forelegs, clearing the doorway for her. She thanked him because his dignity seemed to require it and, when she was past him, heard him lie down again behind her with a heavy, patient sigh and slight thud.

She likewise heard people early-morning mumbling among themselves in the kitchen as she passed and the rustle of straw-stuffed mattresses being put away for the day. Ahead of her the door to the garden stood open, the morning’s coolness flowing in, and she stopped on the threshold to breathe it in with relief. The morning birds were chirruping welcome to the new day, though the sunrise sky was a sullen red along the horizon that warned the threat of storm to come was real.

But overhead the sky was still clear and brightening to rich blue, the last stars washed away by the swelling daylight that showed Lady Anneys standing at the gate, facing outward toward the red sunrise, her arms wrapped around herself as if her bedgown was not warm enough in the morning’s cool. From where Frevisse stood, able to see only her back and the long fall of her hair, she looked more a young girl than a husband-wearied wife and mourning mother. There was such peace in her standing there that Frevisse held where she was in the doorway’s shadow with a sudden ache for the moment’s perfection: Lady Anneys quiet here in her garden; Hugh and Miles intent and content in their work together over Baude and her newborn whelps; Lucy and Ursula safely sleeping; the household servants setting about their everyday early work. This was how lives were supposed to be lived—with pleasure and work and rest in fair amounts all around. Not in the tangled ugliness of angers and fears Sir Ralph had made of it for everyone here, nor the torn, painful mess of secrets, broken hopes, distrusts, and doubts there had been through these past weeks.

Slowly, sadly, Frevisse crossed herself, praying better would soon come.

At the gate Lady Anneys startled and her head flinched sideways, to look leftward along the cart-track toward the stable and other manor buildings. Frevisse’s view that way was blocked by the garden’s fence and the arbor but the next moment she heard the soft hoof-fall of a slowly ridden horse and had just time to wonder who it could be at that hour and place before Lady Anneys opened the gate and stepped out onto the small bridge across the stream there, saying, wary and worried together, “Master Selenger. Is there something wrong? Has something happened to Elyn?”

He rode into Frevisse’s view. Beyond him the sun had just begun to rise, throwing the shadow of him and his horse sharp-edged and black across Lady Anneys still at the gate as he said, “Everything’s well. There’s nothing’s wrong.”

‘Then why are you here?“ She put a hand behind her, to the gate, ready to retreat. ”Sir William said he wasn’t going to hunt today.“

Master Selenger swung down from his horse, stood holding his reins but very near her now. “Lady Elyn has said you always rise to see her brothers and Miles off on a hunt. I thought this would be a better time than most to see you alone. To hunt Beech Heath they’d have to leave before full light and they have. I came around by the kennels to be sure and all’s quiet there. But you see.” He gestured at his high riding boots and old, forest-green hunting doublet. “I came ready with my excuse. If they’d been still here, I would have simply joined them on the hunt. But I’ve won my chance and here you are alone.”

‘They’re still here. They didn’t go on the hunt,“ Lady Anneys said. She was fumbling to clear the folds of her bedrobe from around her feet, trying to back away but hampered by them and kept by the bridge’s narrowness from turning around. ”Baude’s whelping. They…“

Selenger dropped his reins and moved toward her with abrupt purpose, caught her by the arm, and drew her to him, off the bridge and away from the gate.

Lady Anneys tried to pull free, protesting, “Let me go!,” and Frevisse stepped out of the doorway’s shadow, demanding in a clear, carrying voice, “Master Selenger! Have done!”

He sent her a single, swift, dismissing look, pulled Lady Anneys—now outright struggling to be loosed—against him, put an arm around her waist, and took hold of her other arm, pinioning her to him. She was struggling desperately now, beginning fully to believe what was happening, and Frevisse—her skirts caught up, away from her feet—-began to run toward them, but thinking even as she did that oddly Selenger was neither forcing Lady Anneys back into the garden or toward his horse but only out into the middle of the cart-track. He had even let his horse go and it was drifting away to crop grass along the track’s far side. What…

Sir William’s voice cracked whip-sharp into the morning air. “Lady Anneys!”

Both Selenger and Lady Anneys froze and Frevisse came to a stop in the gateway. Scarcely fifteen yards away, from the same way Selenger had come, Sir William sat on his black palfray, frowning at Selenger and Lady Anneys. He cast Frevisse only a short look that dismissed her as completely as Selenger had done before he said with dark displeasure, “What have I caught you at, Lady Anneys?”

‘Nothing!“ Lady Anneys said shrilly. ”Tell him to let me go!“

‘Master Selenger?“ he demanded. ”What was happening here?“

‘As you see,“ Selenger said. He pulled Lady Anneys more tightly to him.

It was wrong. Where he should been defiant, even angry, or coarse with laughter and satisfaction, he sounded sullen, the words and gesture made almost more by rote than will; and then he let Lady Anneys go except for a hold on her near wrist.

An ugly suspicion awoke in Frevisse, made more ugly by Sir William saying with a flicker of what could only be pleasure across his face, “What I see is that you’ve been at the man-woman sport together.”

Lady Anneys started a strangled refusal of that. Over it Frevisse said strongly, “I’ve been with Lady Anneys since before Master Selenger came. Nothing has passed between them except her refusal of him and his seizing of her against her will.”

‘It’s good of you to say so, Dame,“ Sir William said coldly at her. ”But this has openly gone past your lies being any use. I saw them embracing and how willing she was to it. And in her bedgown for worse measure.“

Lady Anneys cried out in wordless protest and wrenched her wrist free of Master Selenger’s hold, but Sir William pointed an accusing finger at her. “You’ve violated your husband’s will, my lady. You are unchaste and thereby have lost the right to control your children’s marriages. I fear that—”

“I
fear,” Miles said, his voice barely recognizable with fury, “that you’re wrong, Sir William.” He pushed past Frevisse and crossed the small bridge to the cart-track and Lady Anneys’ side, Bevis stalking beside him, both of them undoubtedly brought by the angry voices. Raw with anger, he said, “No woman affairs with a man in the presence of her grandson and a nun, and that grandson and nun will testify we saw nothing between her and Selenger save his ill manners.”

‘Don’t waste your time with perjury, Miles,“ Sir William said scornfully back. ”It’ll do no good against my word and Selenger’s.“

‘My word won’t be perjury,“ Frevisse said and found she was as angry as Miles.

Sir William’s look at her was cold. “One woman defending another. Worthless.” He urged his horse forward at Lady Anneys. Caught now between outrage and tears, she pulled loose from Selenger’s slight hold and tried to retreat, but Sir William rode nearer, looming over her, saying with thick satisfaction, “No, my lady. Even Selenger will say you’ve been willingly his. His word and mine against yours. You—”

“You,”
Miles said.
“You
set him on to this. He’s to perjure himself to ruin her for your gain, you miserable…” He sprang forward and seized Sir William by belt and sleeve. “…
cur!”
And hauled him from his saddle.

Sir William’s horse shied violently away, adding to the force of Sir William’s fall; he hit the ground hard enough to jar every bone in his body and Miles, his grip torn loose, staggered backward, momentarily off balance. Selenger, who might have come to Sir William’s aid, instead caught Lady Anneys by the shoulders from behind and drew her backward, away from the two men and toward Frevisse. Miles caught hold of Bevis’ rough-coated back and regained his balance while Sir William rolled over and crawled to his hands and knees, then lurched to his feet, gasping for breath and red-faced with fury.

‘You damned whelp,“ he panted. ”I’ll hang you with my own hands for that. You tried to kill me!“

‘If I’d tried,“ Miles snarled back, ”you wouldn’t be getting up.“

Bevis moved forward, putting himself in front of Miles, trying to push him away from Sir William with a wolfhound’s instinct to keep his master out of danger.

‘Miles,“ said Hugh, suddenly at Frevisse’s side. ”He’s armed.“

Sir William was, only with the kind of belt-hung dagger that men wore most of the time but he was drawing it and neither Miles nor Hugh had anything at all, dressed only in the loose shirts and hosen they had pulled on while seeing to Baude. Bevis was still pushing against Miles but his dark eyes were fixed on Sir William and he began to growl, the hackles rising the length of his back as Sir William, too blind with fury to heed him, moved toward Miles.

Miles, as able as Bevis to read Sir William’s fury, stepped back as Sir William thrust at him. Sir William was just far enough away that the thrust was probably meant more in threat than actually to stab—but Miles stumbled sideways as if his foot had caught in a trackway rut, throwing him off balance, unable to defend himself, and that made Sir William’s move too much a threat for Bevis, who—so swiftly there was no chance to stop it or guard against it—twisted sideways between the two men and reared on his hind legs to his full wolfhound height, forequarters and head towering over Sir William for the bare instant before his forepaws hit Sir William on chest and shoulder, driving him backward, snapping his head back to expose his throat that Bevis seized from the side in his jaws with all the intent to death that he had ever seized on a stag in the hunt. Sir William stabbed at him once but then was being shaken and flung from side to side like a barn-killed rat. There was a gurgling that must have been his last attempt to cry out and then blood was spurting from his flopping body and Hugh and Miles both yelled, “Drop it!” at Bevis, who—well-trained hound that he was—immediately did, letting blood from Sir William’s ripped-out throat fountain red into the red morning light, spraying wide and over everything.

Chapter 21

In the instant that Bevis seized Sir William, Selenger swung himself in front of Lady Anneys, between her and sight of what was happening but not enough blocking Frevisse’s own view, everything happening so fast that she had time to see but do no more than throw her hand up against the spraying blood, and then Lady Anneys was screaming and Selenger was pushing her at Frevisse, saying, “Get her away!”

‘Carry her!“ Frevisse ordered back at him, that being the surest way to have Lady Anneys away, turning from them back into the garden herself as she said it. And Selenger obeyed, caught Lady Anneys into his arms and followed Frevisse as Lady Anneys broke off her screaming and began to struggle against Selenger’s hold, crying, ”Hugh! Miles! I can’t leave…“

‘Ursula,“ Frevisse returned sharply. ”Lucy. You can’t let them come out to this. And the servants. They shouldn’t see it.“

They were to the door but, “Put me down,” Lady Anneys ordered at Selenger with such sudden angry certainty that he stopped and did but kept hold on her, which was as well because she swayed, looking either about to faint or be ill; but she steadied, straightened in Selenger’s hold, and shoved his hands away, saying, “The girls. Yes. And Father Leonel. We need him,” as if air were hard to find but rigidly in control of herself again. “And the servants.” Who were only now—it had all happened so fast—coming out of the kitchen in answer to Lady Anneys’ screaming, both women with a knife or heavy pan in their hand, looking uncertain whether they should be angry or afraid.

Lady Anneys, her bedgown caught up and gathered to her in both hands—a way to hide their shaking as well as clear her feet—went forward to turn them back from going out, assuring them that, yes, something terrible had happened but that Hugh and Miles were seeing to it, no, they were unhurt but it was better that everyone else stay inside.

‘Go with her,“ Frevisse said at Selenger. ”See to it she has something strong to drink. Wine, if there is any. And you, too.“ Because his face was the same ashen gray as Lady Anneys’.