Gilbert was speechless. He watched warily as Marshal moved toward a window, having made up his mind to bolt for the door at the first opportunity. But then Marshal gave a triumphant cry. “What did I tell you? They are riding off!”
“Truly? God be praised!” Gilbert darted over, joining Marshal at the window. The older man was leaning out recklessly, laughing. But then he screamed and stumbled backward. Gilbert was stunned, not sure what had happened. Had he been hit by an arrow? There was a sudden stench; although he’d encountered it only once, the night the man in the pillory had died, he’d never forget it-the smell of burning flesh. Marshal had dropped to his knees, making no sound now, rocking back and forth in agony. When Gilbert bent over him, he got his first look at Marshal’s face, and his stomach heaved. “Christ,” he choked. “Your eye…it is gone!”
Nuns had rushed from hiding in a futile attempt to save their church. Ypres’s soldiers held them back, and they watched in despair as flames swept through the nave. When the roof collapsed, they wept and then prayed. But their prayers went unheeded, for the wind was swirling fiery embers up into the sky. A shower of cinders drifted down into the cloister garth, and some of them landed upon the dorter roof, setting the shingles afire.
By then the enemy was gone. William de Ypres saw no reason to tarry any longer in the ravaged abbey. He was disappointed that John Marshal was not among the men who’d fled the flames, but the whoreson was probably halfway to Hell by now, he said, for no one was getting out of that inferno alive. Halting the looting, he dispatched some of his men back to camp with their wounded and dead, their prisoners, their captured horses and booty. The others he took with him, for the town of Andover lay just a few miles up the road, too tempting a target to resist. They’d reached the river ford when they heard the bells pealing in the distance. His men were puzzled as to the source of the sound, but Ypres merely laughed. “Do you not know what that is?” he said. “Those are funeral bells, tolling for Winchester!”
Ranulf’s balance was still unsteady and he stumbled frequently. But his emotional equilibrium was even more precarious. He no longer cared about his own peril. He realized that Winchester was now doomed, but it did not seem to matter anymore. There was but one image filling his brain: a burning church. He’d watched Gilbert die, as hideous a death as he could imagine, and a needless one. If he’d not been so stubbornly set upon taking part in this lunacy, Gilbert would still be alive.
Surrounded by other prisoners and guards, Ranulf was alone with his grief and his remorse. He trudged along in a daze, not noticing when he was prodded to keep pace. When a knight reined in beside him, he paid the man no heed. Not even the sound of his own name could cut through his fog.
“Ranulf! Christ Jesus, have you gone deaf? Ranulf!”
Ranulf stopped, but the sun was in his eyes. The man’s face was dark and sharply sculptured and familiar. “Ancel?”
Ancel slid hastily from the saddle. “I want a word with this man,” he said curtly, waving away the closest of the guards. “I could not trust my eyes at first,” he confessed, pitching his voice now for Ranulf’s ears alone. “Why would you risk your neck like this? Did you truly expect to take us by surprise? A starving city is a natural breeding ground for spies! You ought to-Ranulf? What ails you? Do you even hear me?”
“I hear you.”
Ancel’s narrow black eyes probed Ranulf’s face, then roamed over his hauberk in search of blood, finally finding it encrusted along Ranulf’s temple, half hidden by the tousled blond hair. “More fool I,” he said. “How badly are you hurt?”
“I am not the one…” Ranulf swallowed with difficulty. “Gilbert is dead. He was in the church.”
Ancel paled, then spun around to stare at the distant smoke billowing up behind them. When he turned back, his eyes glistened with unshed tears and his hands had balled into hard fists. “God rot them all!” he spat. “Stephen and Ypres and yes, that precious sister of yours!”
Ranulf blinked. “Annora?”
“Not my sister,” Ancel hissed, “Yours! Just how clouded are your wits? Can you fend for yourself?”
Ranulf started to nod and winced. “I think so…why?”
Instead of answering, Ancel turned his attention to his horse. He seemed to be adjusting the girth strap, but Ranulf soon saw what he was really about: he’d moved so that his stallion now blocked the closest guard’s view. “Hold still,” he said, and Ranulf felt his bonds giving way. Ancel swiftly stooped, slid his dagger into the top of Ranulf’s boot. He gave Ranulf no chance to respond, swung up into the saddle, and urged his stallion on, not looking back.
Ranulf lagged farther and farther behind, biding his time. His chance came as the road dipped, for the ground fell away to the right, and he crouched, then slid down into the hollow. Some of the other prisoners saw him go. He did not think, though, that they’d give him away. Had any of the guards noticed? But his fear of capture was soon forgotten, for his head was spinning again. Long after his enemies had moved on, he lay there in the hollow, his cheek pressed into the grass, his fingers digging into the dirt as he prayed for the pain to pass.
It was almost dark by the time Ranulf was within sight of the walls of Winchester. Maude’s men still controlled the fields within arrow-shot of the city, and he approached the North Gate without fear. He was admitted at once, and it was like plunging down into a well, for the citizens had heard of their calamitous defeat at Wherwell, and they were understandably terrified. They trailed Ranulf to the castle, but when they sought his promise that his sister would not abandon them, he had no assurances for them, only a heart-wrenching and exhausted surge of pity.
Maude came running down the steps of the great hall, flung her arms around Ranulf. Even through his numbed fatigue, he was surprised, for he’d never known her to be so unrestrained in public. “Thank God,” she cried, “oh, thank God…” Stepping back, she sought to compose herself, gave up the struggle, and embraced him again. “We were so afraid you were dead!”
By then, Robert had reached them. “I do not know,” he said, “when I have ever been so glad to see anyone as I am to see you, lad.” Turning, he called to a man just coming through the doorway of the hall, “Fetch Lord Rainald! Tell him his brother is alive!” After a second, closer look at Ranulf, he added, “And find the doctor!”
“I have no need of a doctor,” Ranulf insisted, even as he wondered where he’d find the strength to climb those few steps into the hall. “You know, then, what happened?”
“We know,” Maude said, and while her words might have referred only to the ambush, Ranulf could see in her eyes what they truly encompassed-her anguished acknowledgment that Wherwell was a devastating setback for her queenship claims and for Winchester, possibly a death blow.
“A few men were able to get back to Winchester,” Robert said, “like you. But there are not many survivors. Most are either prisoners or slain. What of John Marshal, Ranulf? Do you know what befell him?”
“He is dead.” Ranulf’s voice thickened. “So is Gilbert,” he said, “and it should have been me.”
The dream was fragmented, foreboding, and filled with dark undercurrents more frightening than overt menace. Ranulf awoke with relief, which lasted only until memory came flooding back. Waking or sleeping-he was no longer sure where lurked the worst nightmares. The room was shadowed; it seemed to be night, and for a troubling moment, he could not remember which night it was. Wednesday…it had to be Wednesday, for Tuesday night he did remember. The doctor had given him a potion to ease his pain, but he’d drunk little of it and tossed and turned restively till dawn. Maude had sat up with him; that he remembered, too. Stretching out, he tried to will sleep to return, and when it did not, he sought to coax it along with a flagon of wine. Eventually he did sleep again, a shallow, uneasy doze instead of the dreamless stupor he craved. And then it was morning, and his guilt-ridden grieving began anew.
He’d gotten up and dressed, but although his earlier bouts of nausea had abated, he still had no appetite, and when his squire brought him bread and cheese for breakfast, he left it untouched. Luke hovered nearby, eager to serve, but Ranulf wanted no comfort, no solace, wanted only to be alone.
When the door opened suddenly, he did not even glance up. It was Maude. “I am glad you are awake,” she said, “for you have a visitor.”
“I do not need the doctor again. I still have some of that concoction he brewed up for me, betony and feverfew and God knows what else. Anyway, my head feels better, probably because I did not drink it all down.”
“Your head may be better, but your good humor is breathing its last.”
Ranulf turned to stare at her, unable to believe she could be joking. She was smiling, the sort of smile he’d not seen on her face since the siege began. “We may have been defeated at Wherwell,” she said, “but we did not lose as much as you think. See for yourself.” Opening the door wider, she stepped aside and Gilbert walked into the
