All Guiscard's other cuts and sprains sank to insignificance as he rolled in the treacle of blood, mud and brains. He barely responded as his assailants swarmed back over him, fleshless fingers pinching his tongue, trying to rend it from his mouth, a stinking maw clamping on the side of his face and, with a vicious jerk, gouging out his left eye.
D'Avranches himself didn't get far. The wagon rolled perhaps ten yards before running into deep ruts. For all his whipping and cursing the animals, and for all their strenuous efforts, they made no further progress. Drawing his sword, the aged knight jumped down, but immediately turned an ankle and fell on his blade, snapping it in two. He clambered back to his feet, managing to draw his mattock and bury it in the skull of a figure lurching towards him. It tottered away, taking the mattock with it. D'Avranches's ankle-joint was on fire, but the urge to survive numbed it just enough for him to stumble off along the road. The pole-lantern was still planted a few yards ahead. The point-soldier who'd been felled lay next to it, his crimson innards scattered around him. Those responsible had moved on to attack the wagon train, but of course there were others — many others. D'Avranches hadn't reached the light before he sensed their contorted shadows skulking from the undergrowth to either side, tottering onto the road ahead.
Sweat-soaked and gasping for breath, he halted beside the light. He stared around, but from every direction they were pressing towards him.
He puffed out his chest and thrust back his shoulders. He might have run a few paces when panic overtook him, he might have left his comrades to die, but now he was about to die himself, and he would meet the challenge resolutely — as he'd always been determined to. He drew his final weapon, a small crossbow. Cranking the string back and fitting a dart onto the stock, he took aim. Though aged and corpulent, with legs bandied beneath his immense gut, Hugo d'Avranches was still a knight in the service of Earl Corotocus of Clun and King Edward of England, and he would make sure these rapscallions knew that.
But when they came into the light, it was a different story.
When he saw their cloven skulls, their smashed jaws and eyeless sockets, the clotted brains that caked their blue-green faces, the ribs showing through their worm-eaten rags — his courage failed him.
They were inches away from falling upon him when d'Avranches placed the crossbow at his left temple, and shot its lethal dart deep into his own head.
CHAPTER NINE
Ranulf was in the castle kitchen, with a hunk of bread under one arm and a bowl in his hands, when Hugh du Guesculin caught up with him. After the events of the last few days, Ranulf wasn't particularly hungry, but he now had a full night's watch duty ahead and knew that he had to get something into his belly. In addition, the game broth, which Otto, the earl's corpulent Brabancon cook, now ladled into his bowl from a huge, steaming pot, smelled delicious.
"I've been looking for you," du Guesculin said.
Ranulf didn't at first respond, even though, with nobody else in the kitchen, du Guesculin could hardly have been addressing anyone else.
"FitzOsbern, I said…"
"I hear you," Ranulf said, picking up a spoon.
Du Guesculin smiled in that usual self-satisfied way of his. Stripped of his mail, he now wore comfortable clothes: green hose and a hooded green tunic, with long, unbuttoned sleeves. He had donned a dagger at his belt in place of his sword. He'd even brushed his bobbed black hair and clipped his short moustache; all the more remarkable given that he was sharing the earl's spartan accommodation in the Constable's Tower.
"I hear you've formed quite an attachment to our prisoner?" he said.
Ranulf shrugged. "Then you hear wrongly."
"Ahhh… so you object to being replaced as her personal jailer because you deemed that an easier tour of duty than standing sentry on these walls?"
"At least I'd be out of the weather." Ranulf made to move through the archway into the refectory, but du Guesculin stepped into his path.
"Except that I don't believe a word of it, FitzOsbern."
Ranulf feigned shock. "You don't?"
"I believe that you feel sorry for the girl, or guilty about the way she's been treated, and are now concerned for her welfare."
"What you believe or don't believe is of no importance to me."
Ranulf pushed his way past and sauntered down a flight of four steps into the refectory, a low, vaulted chamber, lined with benches and long tables, but currently empty due to the lateness of the hour. He sat, tore his bread into pieces and, one by one, began to dunk them in the broth. He tried not to show irritation when du Guesculin sat down across the table from him.
"You really dislike me, don't you, FitzOsbern?"
"I don't have any feelings about you at all."
"Do I disgust you?"
Ranulf smiled. "You don't really want me to answer that question, do you?"
Du Guesculin pursed his lips. "You consider that you're not part of this tragic affair, is that right?"
"I wish I wasn't."
"How noble of you. But let's not conveniently forget the past, FitzOsbern. You are only in the earl's service because you yourself are a murderer."
Ranulf eyed him coldly, but continued to eat.
"Don't be embarrassed about it," du Guesculin added. "There are few men who reach your age in the order of merit without making… shall we say 'errors of judgement'. Even fewer reach Earl Corotocus's age. Tell me, what did you think of his wife, Countess Isabel?"
"I never met her," Ranulf said, wondering where this was leading.
"She died a considerable time ago, of course. Now that I think about it, well before you joined the earl's mesnie." The banneret hooked his thumbs under his straining belt in an effort to get more comfortable. "Contrary to popular legend, it was not the earl's dark moods that drove Countess Isabel to her early grave. In fact, he was very devoted to her. When they married, she had few prospects. She was the daughter of a landless troubadour, who came to England during the reign of Henry III. She brought no title, no dowry. It was a love-match, you see. Earl Corotocus hoped to raise a family with her — to have many children. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. Four times she failed to deliver a living child. The final occasion was the death of her. Earl Corotocus was devastated. He never tried to marry again, and his entire personality changed. He became a colder, harder man…"
"What are you trying to say, du Guesculin? That having failed to build an empire of the heart, Earl Corotocus sought to build an empire of land?"
"Something like that."
"And why are you telling me all this?"
"I thought I should give you some insight into his character."
Ranulf laughed as he dunked more bread and crammed it into his mouth.
Du Guesculin watched him carefully. "And into mine."
"I don't need insights into your character, du Guesculin. I know it perfectly well already. You're the earl's device, a mechanism, a thing of cogs and wheels rather than flesh and blood."
"How eloquently you speak… for a rogue knight without a penny to his name."
"You can thank my mother for that. At her insistence, I was taught much more than the skills to bear arms. Many lessons I learned at her knee, du Guesculin. I loved her deeply. When she died, I too was devastated. But I didn't become a tyrannical savage."
"Again, how noble of you. You're too perfect, FitzOsbern. It's almost a pity to sully your angelic thoughts with harsh practicalities, but I shall do it anyway, as we all will benefit. You're aware that the Welsh girl we hold is lawful heiress to most of Powys, the largest province in Wales?"
"Of course. And?"
Du Guesculin chuckled. "You may be a fierce warrior and a learned speaker, but you clearly lack a political grasp. Think about this. Earl Corotocus already holds the March, and a number of disparate lordships on both sides of the Welsh border, but they are dotted here, there and everywhere. Were he to be made undisputed lord and master over all of Powys, he would control the entire middle section of Wales, its absolute heartland. Think of the potential of this. There would be no more scope for rebellion running the length and breadth of the country. In fact, there would be no scope for rebellion at all. The border wars would end."