The dull grey of morning had dimmed beyond an early dusk into the pitch darkness of night. The wind whined through the unshuttered slit of light, bringing with it the tantalising discomfort of the smell of rain and raw cold without. The guards had come to empty the bucket and bring the by now familiar bread and ale. This time too, as a grudging afterthought, some dirty horse blankets had been tossed in upon them.
Henry alternately burned and shivered beneath Renard’s blanket and his own. The lash stripes smothering his back had been bathed in ale for want of anything better, but it had been of no use. His wounds had suppurated beyond all healing and the fever had continued to mount relentlessly. Another knight had already died of the wound fever. His body, along with that of the dead squire, had been dragged out that evening.
‘Gloucester tomorrow,’ said Ingelram, whose leg wound, despite all the odds, was not festering. He would carry a limp to his grave, but, precluding execution, he was not yet worm fodder. ‘He won’t survive the journey, Renard. Looking at him, I doubt he’ll last the night.’
Renard swallowed. ‘He’s had the wound fever severely in the past and survived.’
‘With this kind of nursing?’ Ingelram said disparagingly. ‘The signs are on him. He hasn’t pissed since well before noon and I can feel the heat of him from here.’
Renard gave him a furious glare.
‘It’s the truth,’ Ingelram said stubbornly, ‘even if you don’t want to see it.’
At which juncture Richard FitzUrse, out of pity, pulled his insensitive companion away.
It was still dark, the blackest part of the night immediately before dawn and Henry still clinging by the fingertips to life when the draw-bar was shot back and a voice, impatient, autocratic and very angry, snapped at the guards.
‘Authority?’ it demanded incredulously and there came the sound of parchment being struck vigorously with the back of a hand. ‘Is this not authority? The Earl of Chester’s own seal! Look at it, clod! He wants the most important moved out by dawn, and it will go more than hard with you if I’m not on that road within the half-hour!’
There was a pause and then a weak stammer. ‘We’ve had no orders, my lord.’
‘What do you think these are — morning rations?’ And then with a further virulent spurt of sarcasm, ‘or perhaps you would rather interrupt Earl Ranulf ’s slumbers and ask him yourself?’
‘N … no, my lord.’ The door slowly creaked inwards. The prisoners put up their hands, squinting against the sudden intrusion of torchlight, or else groaned and turned over, huddling away like hedgepigs curling up against danger.
A knight attired in a full coat of the best rivet mail, burnished mirror-bright, stepped among them. His head was protected by a helmet hammered from a single piece of iron, and his boots as he trod the soiled straw were gilded up the sides with figures of bowmen and deer, and adorned with bright prick spurs.
‘Where is he?’ he demanded, his gaze roving the cell, one hand resting on his polished sword hilt, the other on his exquisite belt.
The guard nervously indicated Renard. ‘They say he fought like a leopard on the battlefield, my lord, but he’s too sorely wounded and fretting over t’other one to have given us any trouble.’
Renard turned to face the light and the moment was suddenly fraught with more than just danger as from the boots upwards he traced a path to the knight’s face, and recognised William. The Norman war gear sat on his brother most gracefully, considering he so seldom donned it. All kinds of thoughts flashed through Renard’s mind and were gone without cohesion. ‘William?’ The utterance was more breath than sound.
‘Holy Christ!’ William muttered. He had expected to find Renard battered about and bruised — a man seldom came unscathed from the heart of a battle — but he had not been prepared to see his brother still blood-caked and mired, bones gaunt beneath the swollen flesh of injury, and haunted eyes dull with exhaustion. Added to the nausea of excitement, William now felt the nausea of horror.
The senior guard at his shoulder hovered, looking between the two of them, and William emerged rapidly from his shock to realise that Renard had spoken his name and that if he were not to end up in this cell beside him or kicking on the gallows, he had to carry through a convincing pretence.
‘When last we met I warned you what would happen if you stayed with Stephen!’ he said harshly for the guard’s benefit, spat in the straw to clear the fluid from his mouth, the gesture looking contemptuous, and then nodded brusquely to the two serjeants standing in the doorway. They marched into the cell and hauled Renard to his feet. He staggered and then locked his knees, bracing himself against their rough grip.
‘I’ll not leave without Henry.’ He looked William in the eye and then deliberately away to the blanketed mound near his feet.
‘You have no choice!’ growled the senior guard. ‘This parchment is for you alone.’
William stared in dawning, appalled comprehension at the sick man in the straw. Crouching, he set one hand on the huddled shoulder and peered round into Henry’s face. Not just sick but dying. He had seen the wound fever often enough to realise that Henry was over the edge. ‘Mary, Mother of God,’ he muttered under his breath, and waited until he had control of his expression before he stood up and faced the guards.
‘This man needs a priest, not a cell,’ he said roughly.
‘There is one to attend the prisoners, my lord—’ began the senior serjeant, and was laughed down bitterly by Ingelram of Say.
‘Oh yes!’ he spat. ‘One exists no doubt, but if so, he’s not seen fit to soil his sandals on our souls for shriving or anything else. Two have died already without comfort of the church. He’s probably abed with his whore and a flagon of Anjou’s best!’
A guard moved to club him silent, but William stopped him with a sharp command. ‘If this is true, it is damning upon your own soul that you have not vouchsafed a priest for these men.’
‘Oh, it’s all true,’ Renard said hoarsely with a glare at the senior serjeant. ‘But then corpses have no need of adornment, do they? Stephen’s squire, for example. A pity to bury such a fine gilded belt with a corpse. What will you do with my brother’s ring? Cut it off him before he’s cold? Do I disappoint you because I’m bound out of here?’
‘It’s a lie!’ The serjeant thrust out his jaw. ‘I never took the belt and it ain’t my fault if the priest don’t come when he’s summoned.’
William realised that Renard, by accusing the serjeant of stealing from the dead, had thrown him an excellent reason to have Henry out of here too, orders from above or not.
‘Time is wasting!’ he snapped. ‘Time I don’t have. Since you cannot vouchsafe a priest for this man, and since he is Robert of Gloucester’s own nephew, I’m removing him from your custody. If you have any complaint, you can take it to the Earl of Chester come full light.’ And then to the two gawping soldiers, ‘See to it.’
‘My lord, I’m not sure that …’ The serjeant started to protest.
‘See to it!’ William interrupted, his gaze incandescent. ‘And while you’re about it, I’ll advise you that there’s no ransom for crows’ meat. This place stinks. Get it cleaned up and see that these men are treated decently. God’s teeth, why must it always be me who is sent to deal with the idiots!’ He glanced heavenwards, more than half of his expression relief at the serjeant’s capitulation.
Renard did not speak as he was led from the cell into the stark air of Lincoln castle’s bailey. The wind had changed direction and the moon its phase, bringing with it clearer, colder weather. Frost crackled around the edges of the bailey puddles and the air was almost painful to breathe and bore upon it the acrid smell of burned dwellings. The wind cut through Renard’s flimsy garments and probed the wound on his cheekbone. Dangling between the guards, Henry moaned and shuddered as he was drag-carried to the waiting wain and lifted into it. Then it was Renard’s turn. He was escorted by two of William’s soldiers — Ashdyke men whom he well recognised.