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  Gavin banged a tankard hard on the table. The murmuring subsided. “King Richard dead? How do you know this?”

  De Scabious bent his head to one side, tipping his mouth into an oily, lopsided grin. “The news from abroad is that he died before the New Year in custody of Duke Leopold of Austria. We have it on good authority. Nobody doubts that it is true. Now the important thing is that we have a new king, King John, the last surviving true son of the late King Henry II of blessed memory. And everybody who is not with him, Master Gavin, is against him.”

  “How can John be the new king?” Gavin demanded. “We all know that Richard named his nephew Arthur as his heir.”

  “John has a better claim.” The constable was supremely smug as he repeated what he had been told by John himself. “Arthur is a child and, besides, has never even been to England. Are you going to disagree?”

  Gavin was silent, but Will spoke up. “Yes,” he said loudly. “I disagree. We have known since we got back from Palestine that Richard is in prison, but if we are to believe he is dead, we need proof.”

  “You can believe it or not,” replied the constable, trying to keep his voice from squeaking against Will’s bass. “It’s all the same. But I tell you this—that we are living in John’s world now, not Richard’s.” He turned back to Gavin and puffed out his chest. “And on a different but related subject, I must thank you, Master Gavin, for getting such a perfect bride ready for me.”

  Gavin’s face was ashen. De Scabious pointed his sword toward the dais. “Miss Eleanor,” he declared, trying to turn his smile from oily to charming. “I have come for you. King John has given me permission to make you Lady de Scabious as soon as matters can be arranged. You are to be my wife, it seems.”

  “Get out,” Gavin hissed.

  De Scabious wagged his finger and smirked. “You really can be very rude, Master Gavin. Certainly I will get out when I have got what I came for. Come along, Eleanor. It’s very exciting that King John himself wants to come to our wedding.”

  Ellie looked straight back at him, not concealing her revulsion and contempt. “I will not consent,” she said in a clear voice. “And we are not living in the Dark Ages anymore, Constable de Scabious. King or no king, women must consent to marriage these days.”

  The constable laughed and clambered clumsily onto the dais. “Oh,” he said, and his face was so close that Ellie could feel the rankness of his breath, “I think when you see what John has in store for your precious de Granvilles if you don’t consent, you will not keep me waiting long.”

  At that Gavin rushed toward him, but de Scabious was ready. Picking his moment with supreme care, he raised his sword and brought it crashing down on the stump of Gavin’s missing arm. The pain was so blinding that Gavin dropped to his knees, unable even to cry out, and before he could recover himself, de Scabious kicked him viciously in the ribs.

  Ellie screamed and was immediately caught by the constable’s sergeant, who pinned her so tightly against him that she could hardly breathe.

  Everybody began to shout and bawl, Will’s voice booming through, but de Scabious was confident enough to take his time. What could a bunch of unarmed wedding guests do against a group of well-armed knights? Making a great show of mock surprise at Gavin’s empty sleeve, he rolled him over with his boot, then raised his sword again.

  “NO!” Will was frantic, kicking and shoving. “NO!”

  De Scabious shrugged, lowered the sword, and ran the sharp edge of the blade up and down, from Gavin’s right shoulder to his wound, purposefully ruining months of healing. Blood dripped like red tears, and Gavin’s eyes darkened with agony and humiliation.

  Ellie struggled violently. “Leave him alone!” she cried.

  The constable bowed. “Miss Ellie wants me to spare you because she feels sorry for you,” he gloated. “Now, I’m not an unreasonable man. I can find it in my heart to be merciful to a one-armed knight, especially when asked by a lady.”

  He put his sword away and dropped a rope around Gavin’s left wrist, forcing him to kneel so that he could tie the other end around the table leg. His soldiers applauded. “There now. That’s you dealt with.” De Scabious pushed out his stomach as he enjoyed his petty victory. He ostentatiously shook drops of Gavin’s blood from his sword. “Let the girl go and bring the old nurse here,” he told his sergeant. Old Nurse, spluttering and objecting, was brought forward.

  Ellie knelt beside Gavin, pulled the rope from under the table leg, and tried to wipe his face. But Gavin would not look at her, and before she could make him, the constable was pushing her down the dais steps. She could feel his sweaty hands through her dress, and her skin crawled. He stood her in front of Old Nurse, whom he knew well from his time at the castle. He had always hated her. She had a way of looking at him that indicated many things, none of them respectful.

  “I want you to pack all Miss Eleanor’s things up, ready to load into a wagon,” he said, digging into her fat ribs with his elbow. Old Nurse shook her head and put her hands on her rolling hips. De Scabious made a gesture, and a sword was leveled at her throat. “Now,” de Scabious prodded her again, “I could slice you up and feed you to a whole pack of hounds, and perhaps I will if you don’t do as you are told.”

  Ellie tried to stamp on the constable’s toes. “Don’t you touch Old Nurse,” she spat. “Leave her alone.”

  De Scabious gave an airy sigh. “Ah, Miss Eleanor,” he said. “How wonderful you look when you are angry.” He put out his hand to touch her hair, and Ellie bit his wrist. He yelped.

  “Drag the nurse upstairs if need be,” he ordered, his voice filled with spite, “and make her gather the girl’s belongings together. Any nonsense and push her down into the meat cellar—if, that is, she’ll fit.”

  The soldiers sniggered, and suddenly they were stripping the tables of food and carrying off swords and armor. Within minutes the wedding guests were left with nothing but the clothes they stood up in. More terrified of the soldiers than the dogs, Marie ran to Sir Percy, and he tucked her behind him.

  Will stood absolutely still. He wanted to grab Ellie, whatever the consequences to himself, but he could not do it alone. Gavin could not help, for he knelt at the center of a deepening stain, his head bent toward the floor. Brother Ranulf was praying beside him. Will glanced over at Sir Percy, who nodded. Taking the only chance left, the old man leaned down and kicked a burning log into the room, hoping to provide a distraction, but in a moment he fell, the sergeant’s sword through his heart. Marie, splattered with his blood, cried out, but her cries were drowned by the howls of the dogs.

  De Scabious set about collecting what he wanted. Some of the castle servants, used to obeying him when the de Granvilles were away, simply followed his orders and packed waiting carts with Ellie’s clothes, chests of treasure, and flagons of wine from the cellar.

  Like a sulky performing bear, Old Nurse snarled at the three men who had forced her first up, then down the keep steps, but she could do nothing as the treasure wagons rolled away through the thickening snow, leaving, she saw with a sinking heart, a covered wagon with its back open. Ellie kicked and bit as she was hustled into it, and one of the soldiers used this as an excuse to nick Old Nurse’s throat with a knife. A thin line of blood colored the creases in her neck. At once Ellie was still.

  “Please,” she begged, aghast. “I’ll go quietly.”

  At that Old Nurse pulled herself to her full height. Constable or not, she declared, Ellie could not travel on her own.

  De Scabious, to his soldiers’ surprise, agreed. “As the old woman is so keen,” he said with a grin, “let’s take her with my future wife. After all, Miss Eleanor needs a servant and”—he winked—“who better than a pork barrel? There will be no thought of escape. Old Nurse will act as a ball and chain for Miss Eleanor Theodora de Barre. So put the girl in first and wedge the fat lady in at the back. Now, my dear,” he addressed Ellie with mock deference, “if you leap out of the wagon at any point, my soldiers will
deal appropriately with your lumpy friend. Do you hear me?”

  When everybody the soldiers could find had been herded into the great hall, the doors were swung shut and locked. Will, fighting and roaring, could do nothing to stop it and could only listen in agony as orders were given to fire the place. Burning torches were immediately pitched through the windows. Then de Scabious’s soldiers ran to the stables and hustled the horses out before dropping flaming brands into the straw. The animals were too valuable to burn and would, with any luck, follow de Scabious’s fleeing entourage long enough to be captured.

  Within minutes, where there had been a joyful wedding, there was nothing but the crackle of flames and the thumping of trestles being used as battering rams by the Hartslove prisoners.

  But by the time the doors splintered, the castle was well alight and the wagon, with its precious stolen cargo, was already far away.

  2

  Ellie was quite numb at first, crouching down and trying to balance herself as the wagon lurched wildly along. The wheels skidded over the impacted snow, and veering around corners, they often came close to tipping over completely. Soon they were in the woods, and she began to panic. Those flames above the stables. Hosanna. Dargent. Sacramenta. Surely even de Scabious would not have let them perish. She buried her face in her cloak and felt for her necklace, her wooden dog, and her ruby brooch. The necklace was still clasped round her neck, and the little wooden dog dug into her hip, but the ruby brooch had gone. Its loss seemed like a premonition of disasters yet to come, and Ellie began to pray as hard as she could.

  Soon, however, the pitching and rolling made even prayer impossible, and Ellie’s hands were rubbed raw from scrabbling against the rough wooden sides. Icy tree roots rattled the wheels as the wagon toppled from pothole to pothole, and when the horses struggled through the ford, Ellie and Old Nurse, who kept up a running commentary of insults directed at the soldiers behind, were badly splashed.

  “Heathens! Villains! Toads!” Old Nurse bawled as the water rose. “One-legged newts! Frankish FROGS!”

  Once safely on the opposite bank, the horses were whipped up again, but even under the lash could not keep up their crazy gallop, and eventually, panting and heaving, they slowed to a trot as Old Nurse’s voice finally gave out.

  Soon the wagon was shrouded in the foggy black of a miserable winter’s night, and Ellie’s chilled bones ached. The pace altered dramatically at irregular intervals. Sometimes the horses sweated and strained up hills with the carter bellowing encouragement. Other times he got off his box and shouted from below as the horses slithered and slid down tracks made treacherous by ruts and ditches. Twice more they forded rivers, one shallow and one deep enough for water again to soak Ellie’s dress; then finally even the carter was silent, and there was only the blowing of the horses, the groaning of the wagon, and the eerie hooting of hunting owls.

  At the break of dawn, the wagon entered a village, and the horses ground to a halt. Ellie and Old Nurse were allowed out, and several curious men from the village stopped to look as new horses were harnessed. “Is that a woman or a mountain?” they joked, staring at Old Nurse. “You should harness her up and let the horses ride in the back!”

  The sergeant kicked the onlookers away, anxious to be off. “Hurry up, Gethin, you mumbling slowpoke. There’ll be more snow before evening,” he growled at the shambling boy, whom he and the constable felt they owned because they had found him starving in the gutter after his family had died of fever.

  Gethin tightened a last buckle and helped Ellie back into the cart. She reminded him of his dead sister, but he was puzzled. He had been told that the raid on Hartslove was to rescue a beautiful lady from wicked people. Yet she seemed unhappy. He tried to pat her, to reassure her, but Ellie shrank from him, and Gethin, to whom speech did not come easily, let her be.

  The journey dragged on. Ellie was not frightened for herself. She knew de Scabious would not murder her: Her lands made her too valuable for that. If she died, everything she owned would revert to the king, and kings were unpredictable. No, she thought, Prince John is making a bid for the throne and has held me out as a reward for the constable’s support. Me, and my lands, of course. She scowled. She hated her lands. She had never even seen them herself, but they were what everybody wanted. Those stupid great fields, moors, woods, and rivers—somewhere miles to the south—were, after all, the reason why even good Sir Thomas had agreed to take her in after she had been orphaned, and if she had been poor, she would never have been betrothed to Gavin.

  At the thought of Gavin, Ellie found tears pouring down her face, for she knew that the wounds made by de Scabious’s sword would be much easier to bear than the memory of being made a public spectacle. De Scabious had done his work well. Ellie hugged her arms around her knees and wondered whether even she would be able to repair the damage.

  By noon on the fifth day, the snow eased to an occasional flurry and the sun turned the roads to slush. Exhausted beyond measure, Ellie slept fitfully, with her teeth chattering even as she dozed.

  In midafternoon the angle of the wagon woke her, and as she slid backward she realized with a terrible fright that Old Nurse had gone. Easing the cramps from her legs, she looked out. Old Nurse was walking—or, rather, shuffling—as best she could, dragging one unsteady foot in front of the other. The hill was too steep for the horses to manage with her great weight. As the snow crept above Old Nurse’s plump ankles Ellie thought she had never seen the old lady look so defeated. Even when the soldiers rudely pushed her from behind, she could not so much as grunt. Ellie clenched her fists. She would never forgive de Scabious for this.

  But behind Old Nurse was a sight that made the girl gasp. Horses. Dozens of them. The Hartslove herd, just as de Scabious had hoped, was following the wagon. Having scattered in fear of the fire, the animals had eventually come together, and instinct kept them moving forward. Right at the front, head held high, was Ellie’s mare, Sacramenta. Ellie did not call out, she just stared and stared. Against the snow the horses’ coats shone, and the air was smoky with steam. The soldiers ran back with ropes, but the horses made fools of them, stretching out their necks inviting capture, then dashing away. Ellie watched, not knowing what to think. But she was glad that the horses were safe and near.

  When at last the slope lessened, Old Nurse was allowed to get back into the wagon. She needed a great deal of help, and when she was finally wedged between the chests again, she listed heavily to one side. Her boots were soaked and in tatters, her legs chapped and red. Ellie stroked the old lady’s head but kept her own eyes fixed on the chestnut mare daintily picking her way through the mud.

  The following day the whole entourage turned off the main track and began to wind its way slowly through a wood even thicker than usual. The road was barely visible, and the Hartslove horses disappeared. Ellie’s heart fell. Perhaps they had turned back, put off by the low-hanging branches that whipped the faces of the cart horses like icy wands. When the track began to rise and the forest gave way to tufting grass and open moorland, Ellie looked out for them again, but there was no sign of them.

  Now the road vanished completely, and Ellie and Old Nurse were both ordered to walk while Gethin sympathetically nursed the pack animals up the steep climb. They stopped only once, and Ellie glanced behind her. A river, thin as a line of mercury, wound through the valley far below, and on the rising land on the other side, the untouched snow was dazzling.

  Gethin took a deep breath. “God’s view,” he said, but Ellie did not answer.

  As they breasted the hill the track became more pronounced, almost a proper causeway again, and descended into a small, hidden valley. By an untidy clump of wind-stunted bushes, there was a fork in the road, the downward route full of sheep tracks and obviously leading to a village, while the rougher path, which the soldiers took, led upward onto a small, narrow plateau. Directly ahead, a large square tower appeared. It carried no standard, and its curtain wall was beaten into uneven ridges by
the weather. Nevertheless, behind the partially derelict keep a small courtyard was filled with low buildings, all of them newly roofed and showing signs of occupancy. On the far edge of the plateau, the land fell steeply away. Despite the view the place was very bleak, and when Ellie saw a gallows, from which a scraggy corpse was dangling like a forgotten piece of washing, her skin prickled.

  “We call this place Hangem,” said the sergeant with nasty satisfaction as he hustled his charges through double, ironclad gates reinforced with bolts and a heavy metal grille.

  The cart horses stumbled to the water trough that flanked the well. Journey’s end had not come a moment too soon. The garrison servants stared at Old Nurse and made obscene remarks as they took off the horses’ harnesses. The old lady was swaying on her feet, but Ellie straightened her shoulders and touched her necklace for courage.

  Gethin gestured toward the steps that led to the tower’s first floor. The courtyard had been swept clear of snow, and Ellie was suddenly conscious of her filthy clothes and stained shoes. Before anybody moved, however, a wild drumming shattered the calm, and in a moment, led by Sacramenta, about two dozen horses galloped through the still open gates and slithered to a halt, snorting and stamping their feet.

  “Watch out!” came a shout. “There’s more!”

  Ellie dragged Old Nurse to the wall, calling to the mare, who skittered toward her, blowing and trembling. But even as Ellie reached to clutch her mane she knew that any plans to leap on and gallop off were hopeless. De Scabious had been right. How could she leave Old Nurse behind? Instead, she urged Sacramenta to flee, but before she could push the mare away, the constable himself appeared. Without his armor he was a plump, ungainly figure. “Capture all the horses,” he shrilled. “And in particular, I want that stallion of William’s. Is it there?”

  He did not need an answer, for at that moment Hosanna swept in, his tail like a fiery river behind him and drops of ice sparkling in his mane. Dargent stuck to his side like a limpet. At Hosanna’s instigation the horses began to turn and head back for the gate, barging the soldiers out of the way, but even above the noise and chaos, de Scabious’s voice could be heard rising with excitement as he implored his men to secure the red stallion.