The Stone Rose Read online

‘What’s wrong with this place?’ Gwenn asked. Despite the hard pace, she had enjoyed their ride. Against all expectation, it seemed she had shed some of her burden of grief at the Benedictine monastery. A casual glance did not reveal anything alarming about the roadside tavern. True, the sign could have done with repainting, but the doorstep had been swept clean, and someone had planted a profusion of marigolds in pots along the wall. ‘It doesn’t look any worse than the others we have passed, in fact it’s pretty.’

  ‘It’s no worse than the others, but I fear we shall have to sleep in the common room, for I doubt there’s a private chamber.’

  Gwenn thought she understood Alan’s hesitation. Members of the knightly classes usually stayed in the monasteries, as they had done the previous night, while the lower orders confined themselves to the inns and taverns dotted across the countryside. It was the same in Brittany. ‘I’m not proud, Alan,’ she said. ‘I’ll take my chance with the fleas in the common chamber. To tell you the truth, last night was the first night I have ever slept on my own; before I always slept with Katarin, and Philippe, and–’

  ‘And Ned,’ Alan said, rather sharply, Gwenn thought.

  ‘And Ned, aye. And I must confess I didn’t like it much last night. I felt lonely.’ Heaving herself out of the saddle, she grabbed Alan’s arm for support. ‘Holy Mother, I’m stiff.’ She became aware that Alan stood like a menhir. She frowned, and released him. He was staring at her.

  ‘It’s good to see you looking better, Gwenn,’ he said, at last. ‘I’ll see if they have a private chamber.’

  ‘But Alan, I just told you...’ But Alan was already striding through the inn door and she was objecting to thin air. Throwing the animals’ reins loosely round a bramble, Gwenn followed him into the inn.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the landlord was saying, in English that was as clear as Ned’s had been. ‘We’ve only the one chamber up top. Your lady will have to sleep along with the rest of us.’

  ‘Damn!’ As Gwenn moved into Alan’s line of vision, his cheeks darkened.

  ‘I don’t mind where I sleep, landlord,’ Gwenn smiled. ‘Your common chamber will suit me very well.’

  ‘Very good, mistress. Would you care for some supper? We have the usual joints of ham, but as it’s getting late in the year it’s on the dry side. You might find the fish more to your taste. My wife has baked a fine perch tonight and we’ve a thick vegetable broth; or if you’d rather, we’ve salted eels and shellfish...’

  ***

  Gwenn and another woman, a merchant’s wife, were the first to join the landlord’s three children in the upper chamber. A large room, it was reached by a stepladder from the tavern below. The common bedchamber was more of a loft than a room, and the only place where an adult could stand upright was at the centre, on account of the angle of the rafters. A lantern dangled from a hook in the central beam.

  Notwithstanding the lack of headspace, Gwenn claimed a spot at the edge of the chamber where rafters met floor. She dug Ned’s cloak, the one that had been her father’s, out of her saddlebag, and spread it out on the rough-hewn boards. There were no palliasses here. Carefully placing her bag where she could use it as a pillow, she doused her candle, cocooned herself in her mantle, and set about courting sleep. Would Alan lie beside her, when he came up? She hoped so. The thought had her stomach fluttering. Gwenn did not relish the thought of wakening with a complete stranger beside her, but she would be happy with Alan at her side. More than happy. She wanted Alan beside her, to have him close. She could never love Alan as she had loved Ned, but she desired him, there was no point in pretending otherwise. She wanted him to come and lie beside her. She would like it if he kissed her, she knew she would. Lying on the boards, she tried to imagine him kissing her, and then, abruptly, she stopped herself. What was she doing? He had been very aloof of late. What did he think of her?

  The merchant’s wife began to snore. Mice scratched in the rafters. The landlord’s children shuffled and groaned in their sleep. Gwenn lay awake listening to the noises, comfortable noises such as she had heard all her life, and wondered why she was not falling asleep. After she and Alan had finished their meal, she had been yawning over her wine, which was why she had come up. But now...

  She wished Alan would hurry. She would feel better when he was here.

  She must have drowsed, because when she next opened her eyes, he was squatted on his haunches beside her, the dangling lantern making a silhouette of him. He was looking at her, and she had the impression he had been there for some time. ‘Alan?’ His saddlebag lay some feet away. Gwenn held out a hand and, after a momentary hesitation, he took it. His thumb moved slowly across her knuckles, and she felt the beginnings of a response deep inside her, in the tightening of her stomach muscles. He was close enough for her to smell sweet wine on his breath. ‘Stay close by me, will you, Alan? I’m happier with you near.’

  ‘How close?’

  She could tell from his tone that he was smiling, and her heart rose to hear the old, teasing note was back in his voice. Since Ned’s death, it had been missing. It’s the wine, she thought, the wine has relaxed him. ‘So no one can get between us. Please, Alan, I want you next to me.’

  Abruptly, he shook his head and dropped her hand. And then the scales dropped from her eyes and Gwenn understood. Her unhappiness had blinded her to why Alan had been so remote. He had not taken a dislike to her. It was not that. It was not that at all, in fact it was quite the reverse. Alan desired her, and he was trying not to take advantage of her. Something clicked into place inside her, and she became aware of an overwhelming sense of justice, an overwhelming sense of rightness. It felt extraordinarily joyous. Yes. This was meant to be. This would right the wrong in her life. Still uncertain as to whether what she felt for Alan was love or lust, her revelation had her sitting bolt upright, and she cracked her head on the rafters.

  ‘Jesu, Gwenn, be careful,’ Alan muttered, and he put a hand on her hair and rubbed her smarting skull. His hand lingered, and she wanted it to, for she had been missing human contact, lately.

  ‘It’s alright, Alan,’ she caught his hand. ‘It’s alright. I understand–’

  ‘Shut up, will you,’ an irascible voice cut in. ‘Some of us are trying to sleep.’

  ‘Alan–’

  He placed a gentle finger on her lips. ‘Hush, Blanche. I’ll fetch my things.’ He dragged his pack over and prepared for sleep.

  She waited till he was stretched out at her side, and timidly touched his shoulder. His fingers covered hers.

  ‘Go to sleep, Gwenn.’

  ‘But, Alan... It’s alright. I understand, and I....I don’t mind.’

  He rolled over, and their faces were less than a foot apart. ‘Hush. You don’t know what you’re saying. It’s your grief that speaks for you.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ she mouthed back at him, happier than she had been in months. She loved Ned, and his death was a tragedy, but Waldin had seen they were unsuited. Would Waldin have considered Alan her match? ‘I know you want me. We...we could comfort each other, and I’m perfectly safe, in case you’ve forgotten.’

  He was slow to catch her meaning. ‘Safe?’

  ‘No harm could come of any...union. I can’t have your baby because...because I’m already carrying Ned’s. So you needn’t worry about having to commit yourself to me. I know you would hate that. We could comfort each other. Just a little comfort, Alan. I...I would like that.’

  ‘Comfort,’ Alan muttered, and then his voice went hard, and she knew that he would refuse her. ‘No, Gwenn. I can’t.’

  The need to be held made her bold. ‘Why?’ she demanded, as the tight knot twisted in her belly. ‘Why?’

  He smoothed back her hair. ‘Because, sweet Blanche,’ he was gentle again, as though he understood she hurt inside, ‘if we ever make love, it will not be in the common bedchamber of a common inn with a dozen strangers as our witnesses. If we ever make love...’

  ‘Aye?’ The knot in her bell
y dissolved. This was not outright rejection. Alan’s head was a dark shape against the lamplit rafters. He shook it, and she imagined him smiling.

  ‘It will not be like that.’ He sighed deeply, and she felt his breath as a warm caress on her cheek. ‘We must sleep now, Gwenn. We’ve a long ride in the morning. Good night.’

  Someone turned down the lamp. Alan settled into his cloak and, rolling onto her back, Gwenn gazed up at the ceiling. Half of her was astounded and shocked that she, a widow of barely a week, had offered herself to Alan le Bret, but the other half knew it felt right. They were lying so close she could feel the heat of his body. It was reassuring. She heard him shift, and angled her head towards him. The lamp flickered, and it was hard to see, but she thought that he was watching her. She closed her eyes, and surreptitiously, shamelessly, edged closer, till her forehead was lightly pressed against his arm. She heard a break in the regular rhythm of his breathing and froze, vowing not to move again in case he pushed her away. After she had been lying still for what seemed like an eternity, she felt a light pressure on her head. She dare not move, and kept her own breathing light and even, in the hope he would think she had fallen asleep.

  ‘Gwenn?’

  She did not respond.

  ‘Gwenn, I know you’re awake.’

  She hardly breathed at all.

  ‘Gwenn?’

  His hand slid down, and he caressed the skin under the neck of her gown. She kept her eyes clamped shut. Alan gave another sigh, and then he rolled slowly towards her and eased her into his arms.

  Gwenn decided she could allow herself the smallest sigh of pleasure.

  ‘Sorceress,’ his voice, amused, murmured in her ear. ‘I knew you were awake.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d mind. I...I only wanted to be held. I thought I’d feel better if you held me.’

  ‘And do you?’

  She felt her colour rise and was thankful the lamplight was weak. ‘Aye. You don’t find sin in that?’

  ‘No. There’s no sin in that.’ He added something under his breath which sounded like, ‘More’s the pity.’

  Gwenn wound an arm about Alan’s waist. ‘Good night, Alan, and God bless.’

  ‘Good night.’

  Comforted, Gwenn dropped easily into sleep, but Alan lay awake turning their conversation over in his mind. He had been startled by her reaction when she had realised that he desired her, but not displeased. He kept remembering what she had said, about it being safe. And being pregnant with Ned’s child, she was right. She had said that she did not mind their coupling. Alan’s pride wanted more than that. Alan’s pride demanded that Gwenn should desire him too. It was not clear in his mind whether good women felt desire in quite the same way that bad women did. He saw Gwenn as a good woman, but... His thoughts trailed off, he was not in the mood for philosophising. At least it appeared that Gwenn thought she might be comforted by the act of love...

  He rested his cheek against the softness of her hair, and breathed in the sweet, fresh smell of it. His loins ached. It was almost too much temptation. Briefly, he wondered whether any harm could come to her baby, and instantly there flashed into his mind the memory of his mother and stepfather making love in the room the family shared above the forge. His mother had been pregnant then, with Will, and she would not have consented if lovemaking threatened her unborn child; Alan’s mother had always been the best of mothers. No harm then would come to Gwenn’s babe if they did make love. He suppressed a groan. It was like a gift from God, every man’s dream. The woman who was the sum of his desires was safe and willing.

  If Gwenn had not consented, he would have kept his distance till she was safely at Sword Point, but her consent made that impossible. He would go mad if he didn’t have her. He was barely managing to keep his hands off her tonight, and that was only because they were not alone. Odd that, he had never felt the need for privacy before. Privacy was such a luxury that most men must take their pleasures where and when they could.

  Gwenn gave a moan of distress in her sleep, and involuntarily his arms tightened round her. She was so slight, just a skinny wand of a girl, with too-small breasts rather like the beggar-woman, not at all the sort of woman he usually took to his bed.

  Alan calculated that if they rode between thirty or forty miles a day, it would take them a week to reach Richmond. He had kept the patched tent that the Duke, God rest him, had issued him with. He had avoided pitching it for fear of what he might do, but now... They could make love in glorious privacy in the tent.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It was harvest time, and the peasants of England laboured in the fields on their lords’ behalf.

  Often they would turn anxious eyes to the heavens, hoping and praying that the weather would hold fair until the harvest was gathered and they would be released from their duty. All over the realm, peasants were united in a single desire – that they should be free to give their womenfolk a hand with the crops they had planted on their own narrow strips. Their strips were what counted. The crops that grew on them would ensure their families were well fed in the coming winter. Every day the farmers worked for their lords was a day lost, for they would not gain so much as a mouthful of the bread milled from the lords’ grain. That disappeared into the storehouses of the manors and castles of England. An early storm, coming while the peasants were bound to the lords’ fields, could wreck the fruits of a year’s labour. If their lord was generous, their families might not starve in the winter months, but an early storm would certainly cause belts to be tightened and faces to grow pinched. It demeaned a man to go begging to his lord, especially when he had slaved all year, and it was not his fault if God sent foul weather. It made him beholden. But then, despite what it said in the Gospels, everyone knew that God usually came down on the side of the rich and the powerful.

  The old Roman road Gwenn and Alan rode along was covered in a fine, dry dust; their horse’s hoofs kicked it into drifting swirls which hung in their wake, ready to choke anyone travelling behind them. The air was hot and windless. There was nothing to be gained by cantering, though they tried it from time to time – the air that rushed at their faces was no cooler, and cantering only made the poor, toiling beasts beneath them hotter than ever, and in the end the horses transferred their heat to their riders.

  No, Alan decided, it was better to proceed slowly. Better to walk north as it was so warm. He didn’t want a horse to founder. Even Firebrand was drooping. In any case, Alan found he was no longer inclined to gallop home.

  Scarlet poppies studded the hedgerows and strips. The wheat wilted in the heat, its ears fat and heavy, ripe for the reaper. God’s gold. The sky was a glorious, even blue.

  They stopped at a village for an evening meal, bought freshly picked apples, bread, and mead from the tavern while the sun was yet up. Everything was tinged with rich, vibrant, harvest colours.

  ‘You’ll want beds, I expect?’ the alewife asked, eyeing Alan’s purse and indicating the stairs at the back of the inn. ‘We’ve proper mattresses,’ she went on with a touch of pride, ‘stuffed with fresh grasses.’

  ‘My thanks, but no,’ Alan said, quickly. ‘We must press on.’ Gwenn blushed.

  Outside, he squired her onto Dancer, and she gave him a smile of thanks so warm he felt it in his toes. Marvelling at the power this slip of a girl had over him, he trotted onto the sun-warmed road.

  He chose a sheltered spot between some bramble bushes and a stream, and when they had seen their horses were content, Gwenn walked upstream to see to her toilet. Alan pitched the tent. He spread his cloak over the meadow grasses and reached into Gwenn’s saddlebag, which she had left open after removing her comb and her soap. He drew out her cloak and a bundle fell out with a thud. Alan picked it up. His hand was already moving to return the bundle unopened to Gwenn’s pack, when something about the size of it struck a faint chord. Heart pounding, he unwrapped it.

  The statue was cold to his touch and looked much the same as he remembered. He puzz
led over the walnut plinth but then, recalling how Otto Malait had smashed the original, his brow cleared. Did this base have a secret compartment too? Idly, he gave it a gentle twist...

  ***

  Gwenn took a long time. When Alan had bathed himself further downstream so as not to disturb her, she had not returned. He built a fire between the tent and the muttering stream, but still she did not come. Hoping she had not gone coy on him, he went to look for her.

  He found her sitting behind a ripening blackberry bush in one of the last patches of sunlight, a cloth round her shoulders while she combed out her hair. Rooted to the spot, he watched her. He’d never seen her with it loose before, and it hung about her like a dark cloak, shining in the waning sunlight. It was even longer and more luxuriant than he had imagined.

  He must have moved, for she glanced up and berry-bright colour stained her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, Alan, if I’ve kept you waiting. But I felt so dusty, I had to wash all of me, and my hair gets very tangled.’

  ‘Here, let me.’ Kneeling on the grass at her side, he relieved her of the comb.

  ‘You start at the ends and work up,’ Gwenn began to instruct him, but she broke off when she saw that he was as competent as any lady’s maid. Her flush deepened. ‘You’ve done this before, I see.’

  ‘No.’

  She shot him a look of disbelief.

  Alan grinned, and deftly finishing one section of her hair, began on another. ‘I had a mother, once, and when I was a boy, I used to watch her.’

  Gwenn tried to imagine Alan as a little boy. ‘Tell me about your mother.’

  He shrugged, and spoke in a distant voice. ‘There’s not much to tell. She was tall and when she was young she had dark hair like yours, but it faded to grey. She married the Breton sergeant at Richmond Castle, and for years she let me think that he was my father.’ Alan moved behind her, working on her hair. The sun sank below the top of the brambles, and as dusk gathered over the river, the fire that Alan had lit began to glow. The evening stars dotted the heavens.