Loyalty (10 page)

   Ramage countered with a swing of his mace at Martin’s sword, trying to beat down or break it.

   Martin withdrew his sword and leaped back a step. The mace swept through thin air. Ramage advanced, obviously hoping to close with his younger and lighter opponent. Martin was careful to keep his distance.

   The swords clashed again, more tentatively this time. Both men held their maces in reserve. It was a clumsy weapon, but ideal for smashing through armour and crushing bones.

   Ramage was a skilled fencer, and content to trade cuts for a while. The clash of steel echoed in the still autumn air. They circled each other, both wary, waiting to exploit a gap in the other’s defences.

   “Let me kill him, lord!” shouted Hywel. Martin silently cursed him. The Welshman should have known better. Single combat between two gentlemen was a sacred affair. Martin would not dream of permitting Ramage to be stabbed in the back.

   Ramage could move quickly when he wanted to. He gave back a step, deliberately exposing his guard. Martin took the bait and lunged. He realised his mistake, a second too late, and Ramage’s broadsword slashed open his cheek.

   He spun away in time to avoid his head being sliced open. The blood gushed hot and fast down the side of his neck. Martin did his best to ignore it. Ramage was bolder now, his ugly face twisted in a furious snarl. He pressed hard, swinging and hacking with sword and mace, a relentless flurry of blows.

   Ramage’s bald head glistened with sweat. A thick vein thumped dangerously in his forehead. His strength couldn’t last. It didn’t have to. One slip, one ill-timed parry, and Martin was finished.  

   Instinct and training took over. Martin dodged and sidestepped, conserving his strength. Ramage was starting to labour. The weight of steel and years was pressing down on him. His breath started to come in gasps. His blows lost some of their venom.

   Martin continued to hang back. He had acquired a new respect for Ramage, who was not only a good swordsman, but up to every sly trick. It might be impossible to feign such exhaustion, but it could be exaggerated.

   Ramage stopped. He lowered his weapons and stood panting, his face beetroot-red, sweat rolling off his skin.   

   “What ails you, boy?” he wheezed between gulps of air, “if you were any kind of swordsman, you would have settled an old wreck like me long ago.”

   Martin said nothing. To engage in taunts was folly, and a waste of precious breath. His men had fallen silent. The world seemed to be waiting on him.

   Some impulse made him glance up. He saw a pale face at an upper-storey window of the house.

   His heart lurched. It was Kate. Her green eyes flashed like sapphires and lit a new fire inside him.

   He charged at Ramage and unleashed a furious cut at his neck. Surprised, Ramage caught it on his cross-guard, but was unable to avoid Martin’s mace as it crashed down on his shoulder-plate.

   The heavy club-like weapon dented the steel and forced Ramage down on one knee. A shout of triumph from the watching soldiers split the sky. Ramage had to drop his mace and grip his sword with both hands to parry Martin’s blade as it chopped down at his head.

   Martin’s battle-fury consumed him, as it had aboard the Flemish ship in the Channel. He drove his knee into Ramage’s exposed face. The crack of bone and cartilage was sweet music to him, the gush of blood a physical pleasure.

   Ramage cried out. His nose was a gory ruin, and for a crucial second he was blinded by pain. Defenceless, he could do nothing as Martin’s mace smashed into his face.

  The older man toppled onto his side. One of his eyes was pulped. Blood flowed ceaselessly from his mangled nose and mouth. 

   Martin had won. The knowledge filled him with savage joy, and the shouts and cheers of his soldiers spurred him on to finish the job.

   He lifted his dripping mace and brought it down onto the back of Ramage’s skull. Bone split and crumpled like paper. Gobs of greyish brain matter scattered onto the grass.

   “Pig,” Martin spat. He stamped on Ramage’s neck and felt something break. The fallen knight gave one last violent shudder, and then lay still.

   Martin’s rage started to ebb, sated for now, to be replaced by a warm feeling of satisfaction. The last of his father’s killers was dead.

   Kate was his again. He raised his blooded weapons to the skies, threw back his head and roared, glorying in the acclaim of his men.

   Hywel approached him, grinning, slapped him on the back and handed him a cloth and a skin bulging with wine. He wiped the sweat and blood from his face and took a long, grateful swig from the skin.

   Only then did he look up at the window again. He half-expected to see Kate smiling and waving down at him, her face glowing with relief and pride.

   Martin’s sense of triumph faded. She had vanished, and the window was dark and empty.

   “Hold these,” he muttered, thrusting his reeking sword and mace at Hywel.

   “Here,” shouted the baffled Welshman as Martin hurried towards the gate, “don’t go in there alone. Wait!”

   Ramage’s archers hurriedly stood aside to let Martin pass. Now their lord was dead, they had no reason to risk their lives against this bloodstained killer.

   He ignored them and stepped through the door inside the gate. Beyond was a small, enclosed yard, with the stables to his left and a smithy and guardroom to his right. The house itself was directly in front of him.

   He strode towards the door. There were more archers on the parapet above the gate, and the walkway above the stables. They could have easily shot him down, but not one reached for an arrow. Either the death of their lord had stilled their hands, or the presence of so many armed men outside.

   The door stood ajar. Martin shoved it open and found himself inside a dining hall.

   A woman moaned as he clattered into the room. He glanced to his left, and saw a cluster of serving-maids, grooms, kitchen boys and pages cowering beside the hearth.

   “Mercy, dread lord,” one of them begged, a scrawny greybeard who looked to be the steward of the household.

   “Where is your mistress?” Martin demanded fiercely. He knew how terrifying he must appear to them, a giant slathered in their master’s blood.

   “Upstairs, lord,” the old man quavered, “in her chamber.”

   Martin placed one foot on the stair. “And where is that?”

   “The first door on your left, lord.”

   “Traitor,” one of the maids spat at the greybeard as Martin charged up the steps.

   As he expected, the door to Kate’s chamber was locked. He hammered on it with his fist.

   “Kate,” he roared. “Open the door. It’s me, Martin. For the love of Christ, open!”

   He stopped pounding on the door, and leaned against it, panting. Shouts drifted up the stairwell from outside. Some of his men must have followed him into the yard. God help Ramage’s servants if they were in a bloodthirsty mood after watching the duel.

   There was the found of a heavy bar being shifted. A key turned in the lock, and the door opened a fraction. Sighing with relief, Martin gently pushed it open and stepped inside.

   He had expected Kate to rush into his arms, careless of the blood and filth that spattered his breastplate. Instead she had retreated to the far end of the room, and stood with her back pressed against the wall, between the window and her bed.

   Her extraordinary green eyes, that had never regarded him with anything other than affection, now looked at him with fear.

   “Kate,” he said, taking an uncertain step towards her, “don’t you recognise me?”

   She swallowed before answering. “I do not,” she replied. “Come no closer. I don’t want you near me.”

   He halted, wondering at her attitude. “I came here to rescue you. Did you see me kill Ramage? I did that for you. Your husband is dead, and we are free to marry.”

   To his amazement, tears glimmered in her eyes. “I did not ask you to kill him,” she burst out, “I did not ask you to come here. I asked for none of it. None of it!”

   There was a dagger in the belt at her waist. Before he could react, she had plucked it from the sheath and was holding the blade level at him.

   “No closer,” she whispered, “I will not let you use me.”

   Martin held up his hands, to indicate he meant no harm, and tried to think. This was the last thing he had expected, and he had no idea how to cope.

   Kate was in the grip of some sort of nervous fit. That seemed clear enough. She had always been over-sensitive, which was one of the reasons Martin had fallen in love with her. He had wanted to shield her against the buffets of the world.

   Perhaps witnessing the fight had driven her over the edge. It had been a bloody affair, unfit for a woman’s eyes.

   “My love,” he said, choosing his words with care, “I had no choice but to kill him. He challenged me, and would not give you up.”

   His feeble patience snapped. “For God’s sake, he claimed to have broken you!” he cried. “Why should you care if he lived or died? The whoreson stole you away, forced you to wed against your will, and…”

   He stopped, unwilling to say it. The mere thought of Edmund Ramage taking Kate’s virginity made him sick to the stomach.

   “He did not touch me,” she said, pre-empting the dreaded question, “vile as he was, there was a trace of nobility in him. I begged him to spare me on our wedding night, and so he slept on the floor beside our bed and lied to the servants in the morning. Nor did he insist on his rights in the weeks after.”

   This revelation struck Martin like a blow. He had fought against Ramage with hatred in his heart, inspired by the knowledge (or so he thought) that the man had violated Kate.

   A terrible sense of worthlessness and self-loathing swept over him. Ramage had proved the better man after all. Martin had slaughtered him, without pity or remorse, for the sake of a lie. It was murder, not justice. He had intended to rid the world of a monster, but instead committed a terrible sin.   

   Martin’s mind struggled with the paradox. His was not a very able mind, and tended to run along straight lines. Loyalty and honour, sin and virtue, faith and piety, were all absolutes, not abstract concepts to be pondered and debated. He had never had much time for learning, and the consolations of philosophy were alien to him.        

   “Kate…” he said, reaching out to her.

   She pressed the blade of her dagger against her jugular. “No closer,” she whispered, “you are just another killer. I will not let you touch me.”

   Martin stared dumbly at her, and then at his gauntleted hands. They were still wet with blood.

   He shook his head slowly, willing the chaos in his head to resolve itself. Triumph and joy had turned to defeat, love had turned to ashes. His own actions, done in ignorance, had robbed him of everything.

   “Go,” said Kate, and the hardness in her voice caused his heart to break, “leave here. Don’t come back. I will not see you again.”

   A woman’s scream erupted from below, mingled with shouts and oaths and the sound of breaking furniture. His men had started to plunder the house.

   “Save the servants,” Kate added, “do that one good thing. If you can.”

   Without another glance at her, Martin turned and stumbled out of the room.

Chapter 11

Angers, France  

At just eight years old, Elizabeth Bolton was in many ways already the spit of her late grandmother. The ability to influence and intimidate others came naturally to her. She had appointed herself the leader of the children of the Lancastrian exiles, and her voice rose shrill and commanding above the others as they played in and around a fountain in one of the palace courtyards.

   Mary sat and watched the children play from a first-floor balcony. October in Angers was mild, certainly by comparison with the icy blasts of the English winter that she was used to. There was a chill in the air, but not enough to induce her to go inside. She loved to watch her daughter play. It reminded Mary of her own youth, playing with her brothers in the orchard and surrounding woods at Heydon Court. The memories were bittersweet, and as such suited her mood.

   “The girl needs a father,” said James.

   Mary looked up at him with some irritation. He had entered her chambers uninvited and unannounced, and slid into her presence without her noticing.

   Her middle brother moved like a shadow, and was just as enigmatic. She could scarcely believe that he had once been a selfish drunk, of no use to God or man. The terse, subtle creature that stood before her now bore no resemblance to his former self.

   “She has a father,” said Mary, turning back to her vigil, “in Heaven, where he waits for us both.”

   James took his time before responding. Scarcely a word escaped him without being carefully weighed first. At times she longed for the old James, though not without a sense of guilt. Mary had despised him then, but at least he had not frightened her.

   “Your husband is nine years dead,” James said eventually, perching his bony rump on the chair beside hers, “a woman can only grieve so long. You must forgive me for saying this, but I struggle to recall any great love between you.”