Текст книги "The Stone Rose"

Автор книги: Carol Townend

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 1 (всего у книги 35 страниц)

The Stone Rose

The Herevi Sagas

Book One

Carol Townend

http://caroltownend.co.uk

Copyright ©2013 by Carol Townend

(First Edition published in 1992 by Headline Book Publishing)

All rights reserved

Published by Carol Townend 2013

ISBN: 978-1-78301-292-3

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover Design by JD Smith Design http://www.jdsmith-design.com

eBook Conversion by http://www.ebookpartnership.com

Table of Contents

Description

Family Tree

Part One – The Concubine’s Daughter

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Part Two – Champions and Heroes

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Part Three – Demons and Devils

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Books by Carol Townend

Description

THE FIRST BOOK IN A PASSIONATE AND POIGNANT ACCOUNT OF A FAMILY FEUD IN TWELFTH CENTURY BRITTANY. LOVE AND INNOCENCE TRIUMPH OVER HATRED AND CYNICISM.

Young Gwenn Herevi, the illegitimate daughter of a knight and his concubine, is innocence itself. Then she finds herself caught up in a bitter and bloody feud. Her father, Sir Jean St Clair, and her uncle, Count François de Roncier, have been fighting over the family lands for years.

When de Roncier attacks Gwenn’s house in Vannes, hoping to drive the Herevis out, Gwenn is forced to grow up quickly. She finds herself beholden to two most unlikely heroes – mercenaries sworn to her uncle. Captain Alan le Bret and his cousin Ned Fletcher have come to Brittany from England to make their fortunes, but they cannot stomach de Roncier’s methods and from that moment Gwenn’s life is bound to both men.

A lovingly detailed picture of life in the twelfth century.

Family Tree

Part One

The Concubine’s Daughter

A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse;

A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

Song of Solomon 4:12

Chapter One

Lady Day, Spring 1183. The Port of Vannes, South Brittany.

The nightmare began on the day thirteen-year old Gwenn Herevi disobeyed her grandmother. It was the first day of the New Year and she was going out unaccompanied to listen to the preaching of the Black Monk at the Cathedral.

The moment Gwenn stepped over the threshold, a dirty bundle of rags hunched against the weathered boarding of another wooden dwelling opposite, shifted and took on the solid shape of a man. The man’s name was Conan, and he was a pedlar when nothing more lucrative offered itself. Today, although he carried his huckster’s tray, he was not peddling. He was spying on the Herevi household on behalf of no less a person than Count François de Roncier. He had been paid to inform the Count’s mercenary captain when one of the Herevi women next went out on their own, and his wares were his cover.

Conan adjusted the leather strap which held his tray of goods in place, small eyes peering past bushy brows. Conan was not usually a man to be troubled by conscience, but the girl’s appearance had caught him off-guard. Seen across the narrow street, at such close quarters, she looked fresh and innocent – too fresh and innocent to be a concubine’s daughter. She was tiny, a dainty creature with delicate bones. Her long gown matched Conan’s expectations; it was of a rich blue fabric and girdled with a plaited silk belt, both in mint condition. But her face was all wrong. It did not match the sumptuous, decadent clothes.

The girl was not wearing a veil and a glossy, nut-brown rope of hair hung over one shoulder as far as her waist. She had a veil with her, but she had scrunched the blue cloth up with scant regard for its delicate quality and had stuffed it into her belt. Conan watched as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. He crept furtively out of the shadows cast by the noonday sun, and into the narrow street. So St Clair’s bastard was abroad without that watchdog of a grandmother, was she? That was most unusual.

The spring sunlight made the girl blink. Conan saw her glance back at the closed shutters and, for a moment or two, the clear light played over dusky, childish features which were as easy to read as the finest illuminated manuscript. The girl’s brown eyes were warm and alive, shining with a mixture of excitement and anticipation. The pedlar watched her closely. Captain le Bret must be told the girl was out and about, though Conan would rather it had been her grandmother...

‘Hell,’ Conan muttered. His tray was heavy, the straps were cutting through to his bones. With a grimace he flexed his shoulder muscles. She had no right to look so young. How odd that the daughter of Yolande Herevi, the town’s most notorious concubine, and Sir Jean St Clair should have the face of a babe. Surprised to recognise the stirring inside him as pity, Conan squashed it ruthlessly. Pity would not give him his fee. He should leave thinking to the clerics. Pain stabbed in his guts. All he ever gained from thinking was indigestion.

Letting out a belch, Conan slid a grimy hand behind his tray and massaged his belly. The ache persisted. Perhaps he had drunk a drop too much last eve – that new wine must have unsettled him. He lifted his thick brows and his sharp huckster’s eyes gleamed. At least he could do something about that, Mikael’s imported burgundy cured most ailments. He would reward himself with a liberal dose.

Firmly resolved to wash all thoughts from his head, and bad wine from his system, Conan straightened his shoulders and trailed after her. Best to obey orders, however indigestible. It was not for him to judge. He was being paid to keep the mercenary captain informed when the next woman left that house on her own, nothing more. How Captain le Bret and his lord chose to use that information was no business of his.

***

Inside the Herevi house, in the simply furnished bedchamber that Gwenn shared with her grandmother, that elderly lady had woken from her mid-morning nap. Izabel Herevi was wide awake and spoiling for an argument with her daughter, Yolande. Neither women realised that Gwenn had slipped out and was currently scurrying to St Peter’s with a dark shadow at her heels.

‘Have you no shame, Yolande?’ the older woman demanded, in the fluent French which betrayed her noble Breton blood. She flung her hairbrush onto her polished oak coffer with a clatter, and sank onto the stool in front of the mirror. Yolande was standing directly behind her. Izabel sent a look of calculated entreaty at her daughter’s reflection which hung beside hers in the silvered glass. A treasured wedding gift from her long-dead husband, the costly leaded mirror with its scrolled and gilded frame was worthy of a princess; and it sat oddly in this plain cell of a bedchamber. ‘Keep it from your girl. Gwenn has no need to know – knowing what respectable people think of you can only hurt her. Keep it from her as long as you can. Have you no sense?’

Her daughter’s green eyes were very cool. Like Gwenn, Yolande Herevi was small in stature. Everything about her was composed and in its place. Since she was at home, Yolande wore no veil, but she was no slattern, Izabel would grant her that. Her brown hair had been loosely wound into soft, elegant coils which on any other woman would have unravelled into a disorderly mess, but not on Yolande. After the birth of each of her three children, Yolande had wrestled to keep plumpness at bay, and she had won. She had kept her high cheekbones and her waist was trim. Though she was over thirty, the skin on Yolande’s cheeks was as fresh and clear as a fifteen-year old’s, which was remarkable in an age where hunger or disease or overwork carried most people off before they saw forty. She used a charcoal pencil to darken her eyelashes and eyelids, and was not above using lip-balm to moisten her lips; but she looked well enough to scorn the pastes and other cosmetics which some women used. As far as looks went, Izabel was proud of her daughter. She had a direct gaze, an honest gaze which gave the lie to her notoriety.

‘I did what I had to,’ Yolande spoke coldly. ‘It ensured our survival.’

The two women glared at each other in the cloudy glass.

In the street below, a hawker with a trumpet of a voice was selling fish. The densely packed houses channelled the man’s patter through the window and projected it into the centre of the bedchamber. Izabel listened, hauled in a deep breath and tried another line. ‘Raymond had to know. I see that. He hears the townsfolk tattling. You can’t conceal anything from a lad his age. But not Gwenn. I pray you, Yolande, don’t tell Gwenn. Please, listen to me. She’s only thirteen.’

‘Only thirteen,’ Yolande murmured.

There was profound bitterness in her daughter’s voice, and Izabel knew what Yolande was alluding to. Yolande had been thirteen when she first met Jean, but then, many were married at twelve. Out of the corner of her eye, Izabel glimpsed her own reflection and with something akin to surprise, saw that her features seemed to have collapsed. She was showing every one of her fifty years. Her eyes had been as bright a brown as Gwenn’s when she had first stared into this mirror. Now they were faded and circled with a white rim of age. The black widow’s homespun that she had worn for years was a washed-out grey. Drab it looked against the fresh green of Yolande’s silken gown with its fashionable pendant sleeves. Izabel clutched at the silver cross which hung at her breast with fingers bent like crabs’ claws. She looked more like an ancient nun than a widow. On one thin claw a wedding ring gleamed, but the golden band was scratched and worn, and it shone feebly. ‘I wonder which of us will wear out first?’ Izabel muttered, staring at her ring. She had not meant to speak aloud.

‘Maman!’ Her daughter’s green eyes flew wide. ‘What a dreadful thing to say!’

‘I was referring to my ring, not to you!’ Izabel laughed. ‘Look, there’s naught but a thread of it left. I was wondering if it would wear out before me.’

‘It won’t work, Maman,’ Yolande said flatly.

‘Work? What won’t work?’ Izabel raised a sparse brow.

‘You won’t deflect me from my decision by distracting me with black thoughts. I know your tactics after all these years.’

‘Black thoughts?’ Izabel snorted, and waved at her image in the mirror. ‘Look at me, Yolande. I’m being realistic. I can’t have much time left.’

‘Maman, don’t–’

‘How did the girl called Izabel Herevi turn into that faded fool we see in the glass?’ Izabel put her hands to her head and smoothed a wisp of grey hair into place, noting that Yolande had caught her lower lip between her teeth. Hiding a triumphant smile, Izabel fumbled down the side of the coffer. ‘Have you seen my wimple, Yolande? I seem to have mislaid it. I’m glad they’re in fashion. They hide grey hairs so well.’ And in another tone. ‘Jean loves you, and it’s my belief he always has. Why did he never marry you?’

Yolande set her jaw, took hold of her mother’s shoulders and shook them gently. ‘Maman, look at me. You know he cannot, because of your land.’

Izabel’s head sagged. ‘My land. Land I never had possession of, and never will, not while my nephew has breath in his body.’

‘De Roncier. Oh, how I hate that name. Jean hopes to secure it for you, Maman. But he cannot declare his interests openly, and if he marries me that would be tantamount to a declaration of war.’

Izabel gave a weary sigh. ‘You said that before.’

‘Aye, and obviously it bears repeating, for you will harp on about my being an outcast, and marriage–’

‘I hate to see you shamed. I want you to be able to walk about with your head held high. And now you’re thinking of telling Gwenn that you’re a...a...’

‘A concubine, Maman? A kept woman, her union unblessed by Holy Church?’

Izabel flinched. ‘You can’t Yolande. You mustn’t.’

‘Gwenn has to face it sometime, Maman,’ Yolande said, quietly ruthless. ‘Time is running out.’

‘No! And what of the babe? Have you thought of that? If you tell Gwenn–’

‘Maman,’ Yolande sighed, ‘Katarin has almost reached her third birthday. She’s a child, no babe, but still too young for it to make any difference to her. And as far as Gwenn is concerned, why, it’s my belief she knows already. My girl’s no fool. She knows what the townsfolk call her moth–’

‘Ah! Here it is!’ Izabel drew out the length of coarse bleached fabric that served as her wimple, and set about covering her head. Dragging on her veil, she meticulously tucked the grey strands out of sight.

‘Maman, you can’t hide everything behind a veil.’

‘What do you mean?’

Yolande ran a hand over her smooth, high brow. She had no proof, but instinct warned her that Father Jerome, the so-called ‘Black Monk’ and a consecrated priest, was connected with Count François de Roncier. ‘Mother, do think. You went to Mass this morning. You must have heard the people chattering about the monk.’

‘Monk?’

‘The Black Monk.’ Yolande set her teeth. ‘The new preacher who is urging everyone to repent.’ Izabel was pretending to adjust her headgear, but Yolande knew she was listening. ‘De Roncier is spinning a web to trap us in. Our past is catching up with us.’

‘Our past? Don’t you mean your past?’

‘No, ma mère, I mean our past.’

Izabel’s cheeks reddened. ‘I wish you hadn’t chosen that road.’

‘What other road was there?’ Yolande snapped. ‘You were glad enough to take the coin I brought you! If it wasn’t for me you’d have rotted in a gutter long since!’ No sooner had she spoken than Yolande regretted her momentary loss of control. Had guilt had made her mother flush? She doubted it. Guilt was not an affliction Izabel was ever stricken with. Her mother clung to her self-righteousness as though it were a shield; and if self-righteousness was her mother’s protection in this corrupt world, who was Yolande to snatch it from her? Izabel had known little enough joy in the span of years allotted her.

Izabel was gazing past her prie-dieu, at that wretched pink statue of Our Lady, her lips moving in prayer. Yolande repressed a sigh. Once her mother started on her intercessions, there was no stopping her.

Yolande looked at the statue standing primly in its niche. No one would ever guess it contained a secret...

The statue was not much bigger than Yolande’s hand. Crudely carved from a chunk of rose granite, it was mounted on a cedar wood plinth. Izabel had placed it in the larger of the alcoves set in the wattle wall of the bedchamber. She had turned the alcove into a shrine; and unfailingly referred to her icon as the Mystic Rose. Father Mark, she said, called Our Lady by that name. Yolande thought Izabel’s Virgin had an expressionless face. It did not speak to her at all, and blasphemy though it was, there were times when she wanted to smash it. It seemed to wield an unhealthy influence over her mother. It seemed...evil, but that must be nonsense, for how could a statue of Our Saviour’s Mother possibly be evil?

The dead, granite features looked blank and empty, hideously vacant, not secretive as they should. The Virgin’s sculptor could not have been representing a real woman, for the figurine did not bear the expression of a woman who had lived; instead it had the countenance of a woman who had wandered through life and escaped being touched by it. Her mother’s Virgin was pure, but it was a cold purity that had no place on God’s living earth. Izabel’s Lady had never loved, she had never hated, or laughed, or cried. For the Blessed Virgin to have any value, Yolande thought scornfully, she had to have lived. She had to have suffered – as Our Lord’s real mother had suffered.

Like Izabel, the statue kept the world at a distance. Yolande’s lip curled. ‘Mystic Rose’ indeed. She’d always thought that ‘Stone Rose’ was more apt, particularly in view of the figurine’s hidden purpose. The secret was one which Yolande shared only with her mother. For years she had kept her lover from ferreting it out. It was ironic really, how Jean never failed to mock at her mother’s piety. If only he knew what Izabel’s piety hid from him, and right under his nose.

It was not that Izabel was irreligious. Her mother’s piety was genuine, but piety was not the only reason she guarded the Stone Rose so jealously. Within the statue’s granite heart was lodged a valuable, clear gemstone. It was not large, but its worth was such that it would see Yolande and her children to a safe harbour if needs be. Yolande did not want to sell the gem, for once it had gone she had nothing else to fall back on. Prudence had warned her to keep knowledge of it from her lover. It was not that she mistrusted Jean, but the fewer the people who knew about such a thing, the better. It was a secret for the women of the family, so they could protect themselves and their own. Didn’t the men always see to themselves? Women had a right to look to their safety too.

A draught from the window sent a superstitious shiver racing down Yolande’s neck. Instinctively, she made the sign of the cross.

In the next chamber, Katarin, her youngest, began to cry. Yolande’s face softened. Katarin must come first. She’d deal with her mother later. She moved towards the door.

‘If only I’d known,’ Izabel whispered. ‘If only I could have foreseen...’

Yolande froze mid-stride. ‘I’m surprised you stayed with me, Maman, if it stuck in your gullet so. I always wondered why you never went back to the convent. You would have liked it there. No one forced you to stay with me.’

The veiled head jerked. Izabel’s faded eyes flashed with hurt and indignation. ‘You’re my daughter!’

Yolande smiled her sweetest smile. ‘And Gwenn is mine, or had you forgotten?’

‘She’s my granddaughter. She’ll think badly of you, and of me. I pray you, don’t tell her.’

‘Whining doesn’t suit you, Maman. And I flatter myself that Gwenn would try to understand.’

Katarin had stopped wailing. The chamber door rattled, and the child began a new chant. ‘Mama. Mama. Mama.’

Yolande reached for the latch.

‘Please, Yolande. Promise me.’

Izabel’s fingers clutched at the silk of Yolande’s elongated sleeve. Yolande had spent years protecting her mother from hardship and hurt and the habit was hard to break. She compromised. ‘I’ll do my best to avoid telling her.’

‘Swear it.’

Katarin’s litany increased in volume. ‘Mama. Mama. Mama.’

‘I’ll try. Ma mère, allow me to see to Katarin.’ Suffocated, Yolande prised Izabel’s fingers from the material of her gown, and stalked to the door. She seemed to have spent a lifetime failing to satisfy her mother. She was glad that her children’s wants were more easily met.

***

In the dusty street, Gwenn noticed that the pedlar who had recently taken up a position outside her house was staring at her. She had no money, but nonetheless she glanced briefly at his merchandise. It was tawdry stuff, cheap ribbons and stale-looking honey cakes, and of no interest to her.

A half-starved mongrel cur, whose wiry white fur was worn away with the mange so you could see his ribs, sidled towards the pedlar, and sat down in the earth. His eyes were riveted on the pedlar’s tray. The dog’s black nose twitched and his stumpy tail wagged hopefully. The animal could smell the huckster’s sweetmeats.

‘Piss off!’ the pedlar hissed, aiming a worn boot at the dog, but whether by accident or design the animal sat just outside his reach.

Gwenn grinned. Having satisfied herself that her unauthorised departure had not been noticed, she remembered that her grandmother had drummed into her that a lady should never, never walk abroad unveiled. She twitched the blue silk veil from her belt and fastened it on. She’d be in hot water if they discovered she’d gone out alone, there was no point making matters worse.

The street was busy. A peel of bells rang out the hour and a fluster of pigeons hurtled skywards. Gwenn did not want to be late. She threaded her way through the growing crowd of people in the direction of St Peter’s. The pigeons fluttered down again.

Someone grasped her arm. The pedlar. He waved a fistful of garish ribbon under her nose. ‘You buy, pretty lady?’ he whined, in the local Breton dialect. His fingernails were filthy, and even over the stink of fish and rotting debris which carpeted the cramped thoroughfare, Gwenn could smell him, a sour, unwashed smell.

‘I’ve no money,’ she answered, peeping through her veil as her grandmother had taught her. She read disbelief in the pedlar’s eyes and knew her clothes proclaimed her a liar. The silk her gown was fashioned from had come from Constantinople. She had a real gold ring on her finger. Only last week her mother’s friend, Jean St Clair, had given it to her. Gwenn liked Sir Jean, and wondered if he was her father. But any questions she had posed on that score were invariably parried. Eventually Gwenn had learned not to ask. And because she suspected Sir Jean was her father, she had worn the ring ever since. But it was true that she had no money. Up till now she’d only managed to escape once or twice on her own. Her grandmother who usually accompanied her carried the money. The pedlar’s eyes were cold, they made Gwenn shiver. His clothes were threadbare and shiny with grease, and his hose had need of a darning needle. The sour stench of him was overpowering. Cursing the vanity and thoughtlessness that had made her pick out this particularly opulent dress, Gwenn shook free of the roughened hands and scurried on.

Conan stared after the concubine’s daughter, guilt gnawing at his innards. Why did the wench have to be so young? She could not possibly have hurt anyone. The mongrel was back, its optimistic whine a triumph of hope over experience. ‘Damn you, le Bret,’ Conan muttered. ‘And damn your paymaster.’ The freshness of the girl seemed to cling to Conan’s fingers, but he was too old to start nurturing a tender conscience. His face contorted. Wiping his fingers on breeches that had not seen water since the previous spring, Conan lashed out at the mongrel. This time his boot connected with the dog’s rump, and with a whimper it hopped out of range. Conan spat into the dirt, counted to ten, and then, keeping the girl’s back in sight, he followed at a discreet distance.

Walking quickly, and happily oblivious of her shadow, Gwenn noticed the house martins were back. Last years’ nests had waited out the winter, strung out under the eaves along the whole length of her route, like clumsy grey beads on a string. The birds even nested on St Peter’s Cathedral – known as St Per’s to the local Bretons. The nests faced west, so that the martins’ young, when they hatched, could bask in the glow of the evening sun. The birds’ high-pitched twitterings overrode the hum of human voices below them in the street, a sure sign that more clement weather was on the way.

Ahead of her, St Peter’s bell tower loomed over the untidy rows of houses. The martins were there too, high in the sky, tiny black and white arrows diving and darting over Vannes. They would be able to see the whole of the port from up there.

Once, before the stiffness had crept into her bones, Izabel had taken Gwenn to the top of the wooden bell tower. The view it gave out over the town was extraordinary, and Gwenn would never forget it. To the south, the shadow of the tower pointed towards the port. She had seen the harbour, a long, dark finger of water which shone in the sunlight and teemed with boats reduced by the distance to a child’s toy flotilla. And beyond the harbour was the more distant glimmer of the Small Sea. Nearer to hand – to north, and west, and east – Gwenn had looked down on line after wiggly line of ramshackle wooden houses hugging the Cathedral Close. Vannes was a beehive of a town. From the vantage point of the tower, it looked as though a giant hand had reached down from heaven and squashed everything together, but the hand had done its work badly, for there was not a straight line or angle in the whole town. Many dwellings were little more than decaying hovels. Many needed rethatching. Doors swung at improbable angles, and the sea breeze rattled shutters dangling precariously on rust-eaten hinges. All the buildings, shabby and otherwise, buzzed with activity. Most of the streets were narrow, cramped and crooked, an unplanned cluster of alleys reeking with the stench of fish, but a few were marginally broader and grander; and these radiated out from the cathedral. La Rue de la Monnaie, on which Gwenn lived, was one of these more prosperous streets. She did not have far to go to reach St Peter’s, there to await the preaching of Father Jerome, the Black Monk.