Knight's Move

‘And now you can all come back for a good meal,’ Hester added.

They tramped towards the house, weary but pleased, with the night closing in quickly around them. They had worked a long day, urged on by the prediction of rain, so that by the time they reached the gates it was almost dark.

As soon as she entered the courtyard, Hester realised something was wrong. Something in the air sent warning signals shooting through her brain. Her eyes sped rapidly from wall to wall, her senses sharpened by some instinct deep inside her which whispered danger.

Two of the stable-lads emerged from the darkness, carrying torches, which they stuck into brackets on the wall to light their way. Their flames sent flickering orange light dancing through the shadows all around the courtyard. It was then that Hester saw the horses standing at the trough. Strange horses. Six of them. And then she saw him, his broad, strong back, dark like a shadow, turned towards her, his black, matted hair trailing onto his shoulders.

Just the sight of his back sent her heart leaping into her mouth and all the rage and fury of the afternoon filled every vein in her body, blotting out all around her as she stared at him through the half-light. His leather-clad shoulders looked even broader and more threatening than they had in the field. And he had an infuriatingly arrogant air as he stood there, oblivious to her, without so much as a by-your-leave, his long, leather-clad legs astride, his boots firmly planted in her courtyard, with such nonchalance they seemed to suggest that the very ground belonged to him.

Somewhere, as if from a long way off, she could hear her old maid, Maud, calling to her, ‘My lady! My lady!’ Hester dragged her eyes away from the intruder and saw that Maud was trotting towards her across the courtyard, as fast as her fat, old body would move. ‘My lady Hester!’

At the sound of her name, the dark rider wheeled round with a speed and agility which signalled the power of his body. Once again she was looking into his loathsome, churlish face. In the shadowy gloom, he appeared darker and craggier than before, the stubble of his beard seeming to veil his face in darkness.

His eyes flashed out of the shadows, and Hester felt herself flinch as they stirred in her some deep, best-forgotten memory. In an instant it was gone, as those eyes skimmed over her without pausing for recognition, as he scanned the group of workers returning from the field, passing from face to face, as if he were searching for someone in particular, for a set of familiar features.

‘Oh, my lady, you’ll never guess!’ Maud was panting as she reached Hester and began tugging at her sleeve. But at that moment Hester’s eyes locked with the eyes of the dark rider as he fixed her with a stare of disbelief, his lips parted and his face ablaze.

‘You!’ he breathed. The word was meant for himself. But time suddenly seemed to have stopped in the courtyard, as if everyone there sensed the tension between the two of them, and his deep whisper echoed in the silence.

Hester stared back, hostility furrowing her brow. She had nothing to fear now, surrounded by her own people in the courtyard of her own manor house. Now he would be taught to regret having treated the Lady of Abbascombe with such disrespect. All around her she could feel the stillness, as if every person there were waiting for her to give the order to attack.

She held the caitiff in her sight, meaning to give him a sense of her power this time.

‘You are the lady Hester?’ he demanded, splitting the silence with his commanding voice, his eyes searching her up and down in a most insulting manner.

‘How dare you come here?’ Hester retorted. ‘Isn’t it enough that you have insulted me on my own land, without coming into my house to insult me here too? Your very presence is intolerable to me, sir.’

‘But, my lady—’ Maud tried to interrupt.

‘No, Maud. I will not have this miscreant or his accomplices in my house. There is no hospitality here for such as he.’

‘But he is—’ Maud tried to continue.

‘I wouldn’t care if he were the king himself,’ Hester interrupted. ‘After the way he treated me this afternoon, only an imbecile or an oaf would expect me to offer him hospitality. Which, sir, are you?’

His eyes locked with hers and seemed to pierce into her, but she was determined to see him off.

‘Well, sir?’

The whole courtyard seemed to hold its breath as the stranger opened his lips to reply.

‘I am Guy, Lord of Abbascombe,’ he said. ‘And you are my wife.’

Chapter Two

F or a moment the world was frozen as they stared at each other. Behind her, Hester could feel the stunned silence of William and the men.

‘My husband’s dead,’ she managed to say at last, her words falling like stones into the stillness of the courtyard.

‘Who told you that?’ he challenged, fixing her with his dark stare.

Hester hesitated, her eyes mesmerised by his face, scanning its contours for clues, searching for some resemblance between this dirty, scarred stranger and the handsome youth who had stood beside her ten years earlier, making his vows to the priest. ‘I—no one. I thought…’ she trailed off.

‘You hoped,’ he said, finishing her sentence for her. He tossed back his hair with a sardonic, humourless smile that shaped his lips but did not touch the rest of his face. ‘I’ve been away protecting the Holy Land from the Saracen and you’ve been wishing me dead.’

Hester tried to measure him with her eyes. Was he her husband? All those years ago she had spent only minutes in his presence, and even then, timid and bewildered, she had hardly dared to look her bridegroom in the face. He had seemed so tall, so fine, so grownup, but she had been only a small, frightened girl, newly orphaned, who had been passed from pillar to post for the sake of the fortune she had inherited.

The memories of those terrible days came storming back. The fever which had killed her parents within two days of each other. The arrival of the king’s men to wrench her away from everything she knew. The news that the king had accepted the Lord of Abbascombe’s offer to stake finances for the crusades in return for Lady Hester Rainald, whose fortune made her a fitting bride for his son, even though Hester was only twelve and his son, Guy, was twenty. The memories charged through her head until she thought it would explode.

‘How do I know you’re who you say you are?’ Hester said out loud, her voice bold and challenging, hoping to break the spell of the past. Maybe he was just a chancer trying his luck, a vagabond who had happened to hear the story of the missing lord of Abbascombe. Perhaps he would have no proof at all.

‘Don’t you know your own husband, lady?’ leered one of the five cronies, who had gathered in the gloom behind the dark rider. ‘My God, you have been away a long time, Guy.’

The name shot through her. Guy. But, of course, his accomplice would call him that. It was just part of the plot. It proved nothing.

‘Prove that you’re Guy Beauvoisin,’ she demanded.

‘Prove it!’ he repeated, fixing her with a menacing glint. ‘I come back to my own home, my land, and you ask me to prove that I am Guy Beauvoisin. You take an awful lot upon yourself, my lady.’

‘I’ve had to,’ Hester snapped. ‘There’s been no one else to do it.’

He glared back at her. His eyes, full of anger, flashed at her like daggers and stirred another memory in Hester’s breast. Suddenly she was back ten years ago, standing in the hall, watching as her new husband confronted his father. Both men with their broad shoulders flung back and their eyes ablaze, the father heavier and a little shorter, the son fired by rage, rebellious indignation spilling from his lips as he cursed the marriage which had just been solemnised. ‘I’ve carried out your will to the letter, sire,’ he was saying. ‘I have married this pathetic, orphaned child. I have done what you required to save your precious Abbascombe from ruin. And now I consider myself free to do as I choose. I intend to leave with the crusade immediately. I will not remain here to continue this mockery of a marriage.’

The painful scene played itself in her memory. Hester tried to blot it out, attempting to concentrate all her attention on the here and now. She must keep her wits about her, watch this man’s every move in case he gave himself away as an impostor. He was hesitating now.

‘Go on,’ she prompted, pushing her advantage.

‘You’re serious?’ he questioned. ‘You really don’t recognise me?’ Hester shook her head. He sighed and Hester tried to read his thoughts, but his face was inscrutable. ‘I am Guy Beauvoisin,’ he began, ‘direct descendent of Guy the Harrier, who fought with William the Conqueror and was given Abbascombe for his services to the king.’

‘Anyone could have found that out,’ she scoffed, then fixed him with a challenging stare. ‘Continue, if you still wish to try.’

He took up the gauntlet. ‘You are the Lady Hester, only child of Sir Richard Rainald. You were a twelve-year-old orphan, a ward of the king, when my father chose you to be my wife.’

‘That is widely known. You’ve still proved nothing.’

‘You want something that only you and your husband could know?’ he asked, his voice carrying a hint of danger which made Hester clench her fists involuntarily, until she felt her fingernails grazing into the flesh of her hands.

‘Of course,’ she breathed, feigning insouciance, but feeling herself cornered. Her heart pounded with the rhythm of the doubts in her mind. Was he her husband? Don’t let it be him, she wished. Please let him be dead.

Suddenly he was advancing towards her, his long, muscular legs covering the ground in an instant. Hester shied back instinctively. The air between them seemed to crackle with his presence.

‘You want me to tell you?’ he demanded and the question sounded like a threat.

At that moment there was nothing she wanted more than to keep him at a distance, as far from her as possible. The memory of his closeness that afternoon sent those same shivers coursing up and down her spine. She searched her mind desperately for a way to avoid his proximity, but before she could find one, he was there at her side, his hand gripping her elbow so tightly it made her flinch, as he bent his lips to her ear. He was so close she felt again the tips of his bristles grazing her cheek as he rasped, ‘After our vows, when we were truly man and wife, I looked deep into your eyes and said, “Don’t look so scared, little girl, I shall never force you to fill the office of a wife. You may go back to your dolls.”’

A dart of pain shot through Hester at the memory of those words of rejection. Suddenly she was back ten years ago, that frightened girl, fighting back the tears when she realised that this new husband felt only contempt for her. It had been exactly as he said, the same words, the same voice. She pulled away from him and again found herself looking into those eyes. They were the same too, in spite of the way the scar pulled at his brow, in spite of the changes the years had wrought on the rest of his face. She had to admit to herself now that she recognised his eyes.

But she was no longer the terrified little girl whom he could buffet with his scorn. She was strong now, strong enough for the whole of Abbascombe, and she would not be bullied. Hester summoned up her strength and fixed him hard with her eyes. As she glared at him, she thought she detected some effort in his face as he returned her stare.

‘My lord,’ she said, curtsying low, her muddy skirts sweeping the cobbled floor of the courtyard. ‘You are welcome to Abbascombe. We have long awaited your return. Speak your will and it shall be done. Your humble wife asks your bidding.’ The words came out somehow, however unwilling she was to speak them.

There was a clamour all around her as the spectators, who had held their peace for so long, suddenly spoke all at once. Hester felt rather than heard their voices. All her attention was fixed on him, the so-called husband she had never expected to see again as long as she lived. He was back and she knew he was trouble.

As the villagers swarmed around him, eager for a good look at their fabled missing lord, greeting him with cheers and questions, Hester stepped back and took a long, hard look at him. Yes, she could see the resemblance now, even though he was smiling as he shook hands and returned good wishes. It was a broad, warm smile, taking the place of the scowls, fury and mockery which were the only expressions she had ever seen on his face until now.

Hester could not share in this joyful scene. She felt numb and terribly alone. Mechanically, she turned away and allowed her feet to lead her towards the house. Suddenly she felt like a stranger in her own home, superfluous, unwanted. The unfairness of it all stabbed at her chest. After all, he was the one who had deserted them. She was the one who had kept Abbascombe alive during the long years of the crusade. How could they welcome him back after the way he had betrayed them all?

In a daze she wandered into the kitchen. She often came here first after a cold day out of doors. The warmth and delicious smells suffusing the little stone outbuilding, separated from the main house for fear of fire, always seemed so cheering and welcoming. Today, though, the normal busyness had become a frenzy of activity. Fritha, the cook, had been expecting to be feeding a hall full of hungry labourers after their day’s work in the fields—and suddenly she was faced with the return of her long-lost lord. Normally level-headed, it was no wonder she was a little flustered by the news.

‘Oh, isn’t it wonderful, my lady? Maud says he’s just like his father was at that age.’

‘Does she? Of course, I can’t judge.’

‘Oh, my lady. And to think we all believed he might be dead, begging your ladyship’s pardon. But after all those years and not a word.’

‘That’s quite all right, Fritha, many crusaders will never return from the Holy Land. It was always possible that my lord might have been one of them.’

Oh, why, why did he have to come back and spoil everything she’d worked for? Just when the worst was over and she could start to enjoy life at Abbascombe, her Abbascombe. No, not hers anymore. His Abbascombe. She’d have to get used to that. By law, everything belonged to him. Even she herself belonged to him, Hester thought with a shudder.

How could anyone call that justice? He didn’t care for her or for the manor. He’d made that clear when he deserted them both. He had left her behind to struggle and strive, to dirty her hands with the Abbascombe soil, to cover them with blisters and chilblains from hard work out of doors in all weathers. She had earned Abbascombe. By rights it was hers. And if he thought she would give it up easily, he had a lesson to learn.

No doubt he intended to lock her up indoors with tapestry work and harp-playing, while he strutted about the fields—her fields. Of course, he’d be sure to make a mess of everything again. He would leave misery and destruction in his wake as he had ten years before.

‘My lady? Which would you like, my lady?’ Fritha was asking, looking into Hester’s face with a frown.

‘Which?’ Hester repeated absent-mindedly.

‘The venison or the beef?’ Fritha suggested, her tone making it clear this wasn’t the first time of asking. Hester looked blank.

‘For my lord’s dinner tonight. Of course, it will mean dinner will have to be served later than usual. If only he had arrived earlier in the day, I could have prepared something really special.’ Fritha had obviously been running through all the options, while Hester’s mind had been churning.

‘But we’re saving those meats for Easter, aren’t we?’ Hester returned.

‘But, my lady—’

‘No, no, don’t break into the stores, Fritha. That bruet we had last night was perfectly good. Haven’t we got any of that left?’

‘There’s plenty left, my lady, that’s what I’m giving all the villagers. But you can’t give that to his lordship on his homecoming. It’s not good enough for him.’

‘We looked on rabbit bruet as a great treat three years ago, have you forgotten?’

‘I know, my lady, but—’

‘If it’s good enough for all of us, it’s good enough for him. The bruet will be fine, Fritha.’

‘But—’

‘I will not break into our stores for him and his uncouth friends,’ Hester snapped, her sharp, angry words making Fritha jump. ‘Rabbit bruet is more than they deserve.’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew she shouldn’t have said them, but she couldn’t help herself.

Feeling Fritha’s surprise heavy in the air, Hester turned her back and strode out of the kitchen, giving the cook no more chances to cajole or argue. She paused for a moment in the covered walkway which linked the kitchen to the hall. There was the hiss-hiss of whispering, which had begun as soon as they believed her to be out of earshot.

She couldn’t make out the words, but she guessed the purport. What’s wrong with her? Not pleased? Didn’t she want her husband back? A man other women would do anything to please—and no doubt many had. But she wouldn’t step an inch out of her way to please him. He could go back to his paramours in the Holy Land for all she cared. In fact, she wished he would.

Hester continued on, along the passageway, through the buttery and into the great hall. She paused at the entrance, glancing up at the timber beams arching high above. The hall was deserted, but soon the dark rider would be here, presiding over his homecoming feast. Hester marched purposefully across the rush-strewn floor. As her feet fell on the soft rushes the scent of herbs wafted up. As she had ordered the day before, new rushes had been laid with sweet-smelling herbs from the garden. He would find nothing slovenly in her housekeeping. A thought flitted across her mind: she hoped he would not think the new rushes had been laid in his honour.

Of course, the perfect lady would have ordered the best of everything and hidden her feelings, Hester thought as she strode up the stone staircase, which rose at one end of the hall, leading up to her solar and the other chambers on the first floor. She knew full well that she wasn’t anyone’s idea of the perfect courtly lady—these years of coping alone had seen to that. Why should she pretend to be one of those soft, pliant creatures, when the world had forced her to become as hard as the Abbascombe rocks in order to survive the buffets of the stormy years?

What did she care if everyone knew the truth? Why should she pretend to be something she wasn’t? And why should she pretend to care for him after the way he had treated her?

Hester needed to be alone and the only place was her solar. With its sparse furnishings and magnificent view down over the fields to the sea, it was the only refuge now from all the flurry and excitement of this hollow homecoming.

As she reached the solar, though, she stopped short on the landing outside. The door was open and inside two of the girls were hurriedly changing the bedlinen, while two more were attempting to attach to the wall a moth-eaten old tapestry which she’d banished years before. It was a picture called The Betrothal and showed a knight kneeling to a lady in a garden of roses. Its sentimentality annoyed Hester intensely. In the middle of all this activity, Maud was behaving like a whirlwind, pulling old gowns from the chest, holding them up for examination, then discarding them on the floor.

‘What on earth is going on?’ Hester demanded, flinging back her plaits with a toss of the head, which reminded her that her hair was still caked with dried mud.

‘Oh!’ Maud jumped, turning to see her mistress. ‘We’re just doing a little housework, my lady—’

‘Was this your idea?’ Hester interrupted, nodding at the tapestry, which was now hanging limply by one corner since the girls had let it go in their shock at seeing their mistress. It was obvious that Maud had intended to do all this without her knowledge and to present her with a fait accompli.

There was a nervous silence. ‘Well?’ Hester prompted.

‘I thought it would make the room a bit prettier,’ Maud suggested, her head on one side. ‘A bit of colour. And I’m just trying to find a pretty gown for you to wear tonight. And the girls…’ she petered out, seeing the rage on her mistress’s face.

‘The girls are changing the bedclothes,’ Hester finished for her.

‘Well, yes, my lady.’ Maud smirked. ‘They’re putting on the bridal linen. See how beautiful it is. See the embroidery and the fine stitching. It was worked by his lordship’s mother years ago, but it’s still beautiful. I’ve kept it wrapped with lavender and…’

Hester felt herself blush red hot. One of the girls giggled, but Hester didn’t trust herself to look her in the face and scold her. All she could do was stare at the bed. Her bed. And now everyone was expecting her to share it with him. That rude, dirty stranger who’d come to steal everything she loved in the world, the very things closest to her heart. And, as if that weren’t enough, he would take her body too. Body and soul. Body and soul. The words pulsed through her mind. He owns me body and soul.

‘Get out…and take that stupid thing with you,’ she commanded, flinging her arm towards the tapestry.

‘But, my lady—’ Maud began.

‘But, my lady, but, my lady! That’s all I hear from everyone. Don’t torture me by talking your rubbish.’

‘But it’s such a great day, God be praised. Our lord is back. Your husband…’

‘Leave me,’ Hester insisted and held the door wide for the girls and Maud to exit, then slammed it behind the old woman and surveyed the room. The tapestry still hung there limply.

The whole place had gone mad—and for what? For the return of a man who had deserted them all when they had needed him most. They were simpletons to welcome him back. Didn’t they realise he would be off again in a trice whenever it suited him?

She spun around to the tiny window slit in the wall. A little moonshine glowed through it, an invitation to her eyes. There were her fields, lying beneath the vast night sky, stars twinkling above them, and the sea beyond, huge and dark. She could hear it crashing relentlessly against the cliffs. Hester stared out into the inky gloom and felt emotion pricking at the backs of her eyes.

‘I won’t cry,’ she whispered to herself. ‘No matter what he does to me, what he takes from me, I won’t cry.’

It was the vow she had repeated to herself for the past ten years, ever since the fever had taken her parents. Ever since then, however dire life had been, sheer willpower had prevented her from shedding a single tear.

She felt as alone now as she had done then, coming to this strange place, full of strange faces. She knew them all now, but none of them understood her feelings, none could understand her horror of this thief-husband come to wrench away from her all she valued.

But moping wasn’t the answer—that would solve nothing. What she needed was action, a plan. Hester scratched at her head, trying to stimulate her thoughts. No plans jumped to mind, but she did realise that she was still covered with mud, now dried and flaking. In fact, it was making her scalp itch and her clothes stiff. She definitely needed to change her clothes and have a really good wash, and, yes, Maud had thought of everything. As well as a fire blazing in the hearth, there was a large bowl of hot water in the corner behind the screen.

Glad to be doing something, Hester pulled off her clothes quickly, dropping them in a muddy heap on the floor. The water was warm and smelled of lavender. There was something calming about standing in her warm bedroom washing herself after the shocks and humiliations of the day.

She picked up the cake of soap. It was one of the few luxuries she allowed herself, quite different from the caustic soap they boiled up in the kitchen using lard, which stank to high heaven as it bubbled away. This soap was fine and hard, pale brown in colour, made in Spain using oil of olives and smelling pleasantly of that distant land. Hester had bought a stock of it at last year’s fair in Wareham on Maud’s strict orders, else the price would definitely have deterred her. ‘It’s what my lady Adela always used and you could do worse than emulate the old mistress’s ways,’ Maud had scolded time and again when she saw the dirt which always seemed to be ingrained in Hester’s hands.