He cast down his mug and took hold of me, his big hands hard on my arms. ‘You’re not only a healer, you’re a wizard’s pupil!’ he yelled back. He shook me, and my teeth rattled all over again. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, you and I just discovered the bodies of another wizard and his pupil, recently dead, bloody, and missing their throats!’
A horrible image floated before my eyes, and I had no choice but to see it. I wanted to weep with pity, with dread, with fear. ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ I said in a tiny voice, but I think he was so agitated that he didn’t hear.
‘You have to leave!’ he shouted, shaking me again. ‘You, more than anybody, are in danger!’
‘I-’
‘Don’t you understand?’ he yelled. ‘I will not have you risk your life! I can’t bear it!’
I stared up at him, at the naked fear in his bright eyes. The fear wasn’t for himself, and suddenly I understood quite a lot of things.
I didn’t know what to do. ‘I can’t-’ I began.
He gave a sound of violent impatience, then he wrapped one strong arm around me, pulling me tightly to him. He took my jaw in his hand, turning my face up to his, and then he kissed me, long and hard, full on the mouth.
If I say it was a shock or even a surprise, I’d be lying. My passion rising as fast as his, I kissed him back. He broke off to nuzzle into my neck, under my hair, touching the skin with tender lips, then he kissed me again, his body hard against mine leaving me in no doubt of how much he wanted me. Oh, I wanted him, too, and I melded myself to him, arms round him as powerfully as his around me.
As suddenly as he had begun, he stopped.
Stepped away from me, confusion and a sort of shame in his face, hands stretched palm forward towards me as if warding me off.
‘I’m sorry, sorry,’ he muttered, turning away. ‘I have brought you here for sanctuary, and I have violated your trust, contaminated my duty.’
I was amazed. ‘No you haven’t!’ I said, almost laughing. ‘I was kissing you back, wasn’t I? I-’
But he wasn’t listening. He had picked up the blanket that had fallen to the floor and was wrapping me up in it, covering my head and overshadowing my face, almost as if he was desperate to hide me from his passionate, desiring eyes. Before I could protest, he took hold of me by the shoulders, turned me round, away from him, and pushed me into the far room. ‘Go to bed, Lassair,’ he muttered. Then he hurried out again. I watched in amazement as he slid a bench across the opening; was he trying to keep me in, or himself out? I smiled, but only very briefly. It wasn’t really funny.
I sank down on to the bed. I realized all at once that I was totally exhausted. I took off my boots and my coif and loosened my hair, already tumbled and tangled by Jack’s fierce caresses. I lay down and drew up the covers.
I needed comfort. I needed him, but I knew I wasn’t going to have that need answered.
I noticed that he had put my satchel in the room. I opened it and took out the shining stone, taking it out of its bag and holding it tightly, close to my heart. ‘I’m sad,’ I whispered to it. ‘I need a friend.’
Strongly into my mind came the reply: You have a friend.
Was it referring to itself, I wondered, or to Jack?
And he’s just out there.
Now I really did smile. I’m sure it was only my overwrought imagination – I’d been through quite a lot, after all – but, even if it was, the remark was perfect. I turned on my side, the stone still clutched in my hands, and let myself relax into sleep.
ELEVEN
Rollo stood huddled in his cloak up in the bows of the small ship that was taking him across the Channel to England. Already he could see the distinctive line of high white cliffs ahead, over to the north-east. The captain said he expected to reach harbour in the late afternoon. Rollo hoped he was right. Being at sea again, even for the relatively short crossing from Dieppe to Hastings, had brought back vivid memories of Gullinbursti, and Rollo wasn’t ready to entertain them.
He had used the time in Rouen profitably. He was too travel-worn now to mix in the circles frequented by the elite of society, and didn’t have the funds to rectify that condition. So he had spent his last available coins in the taverns and the inns, loosening tongues with wine and ale and asking carefully artless questions about life under Duke Robert’s rule.
In the eyes of the common man and woman, Robert Curthose had traditionally been viewed as a bit of a joke: a silly, muddle-headed boy who needed the help of older and wiser men to keep him on the path of good sense and prudence. Now, though, the joke had worn thin. Robert was weak; his barons warred among themselves with no admonishment from him; indeed, frequently he contrived some financial gain from the incessant wrangling and had been known to confiscate disputed castles and lands and then charge his vassals for their redemption.
Many, if not most, of Duke Robert’s people lamented the good old days of his powerful father. Robert, soft and careless, preferred indolence to action, and all that the vigorous, able Conqueror had achieved was falling into decay and confusion. And it wasn’t only the barons for whom life was difficult and the future uncertain, for the general lawlessness meant that marauding bands of brigands roamed the villages and the countryside, plundering the peasantry who had no strong system of law to defend them.
The talk in the taverns suggested that the person who Robert seemed to be expecting to come to his aid was his brother William. Which, from the point of view of Rollo and his master the king, was all to the good. Even more encouraging, perhaps, was that a duke who was not very popular, and regarded as weak and ineffectual by his people, might be the very man to be tempted by a grand, romantic, heroic, chivalric gesture such as setting off on crusade, should the call come.
And Rollo was quite sure it would.
The captain was as good as his word, and the ship docked an hour or so before sunset. Rollo was one of the first down the gangplank, and he waited while the crew brought his horse ashore. Then, with a nod of farewell, he mounted up and set off up the road to London, twenty miles or so beyond which lay Windsor.
He wasn’t certain where the king was residing and he might equally well be in Gloucester, Winchester, or any of a dozen other places as at Windsor. But Windsor was nearest, and if Rollo’s luck was out and the king wasn’t there, then at least somebody would be able to tell him where to go.
For, although Rollo’s first duty was to seek out his king and paymaster and make his long, detailed report, there was something else he had to do. As the sometimes endless-seeming journey had finally stumbled towards its conclusion, this other task had steadily grown in importance in his mind, taking over his thoughts, so that it was with a strange and untypical reluctance that he contemplated his forthcoming meeting with King William. And it was this task – second in the order of its achievement but first in Rollo’s mind and heart – that made him pray as he rode that he would find the king at Windsor.
Because after he had seen the king, and the king had thought up and asked every last question concerning his spy’s mission, Rollo was going to ride as swiftly as he could to the fens.
I woke to an empty house. It was very early, and the light was faint, misty and soft. As soon as I was conscious, all the events of the previous night came rushing into my mind. Fear swept through me, and I had a sudden, bitter sense of disappointment. Surely Jack had promised to keep me safe? Where was he, then? Had he set out on some important errand, leaving me alone in this empty, unpopulated place?
I must have made a sound – of distress, no doubt – because the door flew open and I saw Jack outside. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak and he had a sword in his hand. A hefty, knobbly ended staff stood against the door frame. He looked pale with cold. Feeling very guilty, I realized that, far from deserting me and leaving me to face unknown dangers alone, he’d been on guard outside.