[Sir Richard Straccan 03] - The Gleemaiden Read online

  The Gleemaiden

  Sylvian Hamilton

  Copyright © 2004 Sylvian Hamilton

  The right of Sylvian Hamilton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2004 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING

  First published in paperback in 2005 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING

  10 98765432

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 0 7553 0714 3

  Typeset in Janson by Letterpart Limited, Reigate, Surrey

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic

  Headline’s policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING

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  This one’s for you, Margaret

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Cast of Characters

  Abdul al-Hazred

  Arab necromancer

  Adeliza

  Straccan’s housekeeper at Stirrup, wife of Cammo

  Aidan

  Novice of Coldinghame

  Ailith

  Young woman of Waltham

  Angels

  Michael, Samael, Uriel. Knights of the White Brotherhood

  Bartimeus

  Monk of Cerneshead Abbey

  Blaise d’Etranger

  Knight, friend of Straccan

  Brigid

  Nun, prioress of Bedesdale

  Cammo

  Straccan’s steward at Stirrup

  Christina Aurifer

  Young woman of Cromber

  Countess Judith

  Sister of Peter des Roches, widow of Earl Joceran

  David d’Ax

  Orphaned boy, kinsman to Blaise d’Etranger

  Durand

  Knight Templar, commander at Temple Bruer

  Earl Joceran

  Husband of Countess Judith

  Emma

  Sister to Ailith

  Eustace de Vesci

  Baron, traitor

  Finan

  Novice of Coldinghame

  Fulk de Marseilles

  Bishop of Toulouse, leader of the White Brotherhood

  Garlanda

  Countess Judith’s laundress

  Gaudy Company

  Piper, Will, Tim, Pernelle. Travelling players

  Giles

  Cowman in charge of ox team

  Gilla (Devorgilla)

  Straccan’s daughter

  Hawkan Bane

  Straccan’s servant/companion

  Hugh Tapton

  Bailiff of Cromber Abbey

  Isabel

  Queen of England

  Janiva

  Straccan’s betrothed

  Joanna

  Princess of Gwynedd, bastard daughter of King John

  John

  King of England

  Kepp o’ the Dykes

  Water guide at Ravenser

  Ketil and Edmund

  Sons of Kepp

  Lawrence Boteler

  A crippled boy, pilgrim

  Llywelyn

  Prince of Gwynedd, husband of Joanna

  Lucius

  Monk of Dieulacresse, physician

  Lucy Boteler

  Lawrence’s mother, pilgrim

  Maitre Deil

  Bishop Fulk’s secretary

  Master Hare

  Bell founder of London

  ‘Mercredi’

  Master of King John’s intelligence network

  Miles Hoby

  Knight, friend of Straccan

  Mungo

  Monk, sub-prior of Coldinghame

  Nicholas

  Novice of Dieulacresse

  Odo

  Captain of archers at Stirrup

  Osyth

  Anchoress of Pouncey

  Paul

  Countess Judith’s chaplain

  Peter des Roches

  Bishop of Winchester, friend of King John

  Peter Martel

  Straccan’s clerk at Stirrup

  Radulfus

  Prior of Coldinghame

  Ralf Tyrrel

  Queen Isabel’s champion

  Raimond de Sondes

  Gleeman

  Richard Straccan

  Knight, dealer in holy relics

  Robert fitzWalter

  Baron, traitor

  Roslyn de Sorules, ‘Sorrow’

  Gleemaiden

  Starling Larktwist

  Spy

  Thomas

  Nuns’ priest at Bedesdale

  Tobias

  Potter of Pouncey

  Widow Trygg

  Innkeeper of Locksey

  Wilfred

  Crippled pilgrim

  Chapter One

  Countess Judith kept her husband’s head in a box. At night it perched on the pillow by her side, at meals it sat on the board by her plate, and her household feared it almost as much as they feared her. She talked to it, they whispered among themselves, and who was to say it didn’t answer?

  In life Lord Joceran had escaped his wife as often and for as long as he could. Eight years on crusade, two more as a prisoner of the Turks and every chance he got thereafter, until in the end he died, as all must. After that she had her will of him.

  The head was all she had. True to form, the earl had been on pilgrimage when he died, in Spain. His body was buried there, and his squire had brought home the head, that being his lord’s dying wish, to be entombed in the Benedictine abbey at Coldinghame, in the Lady Chapel he’d paid for; but his widow bagged it instead.

  Minstrel
s sang of her great love and her grief, but if the truth were known Judith did not grieve. At last she had her husband where she wanted him. Hers entirely, at bed and board: under her eye, under her hand, under her thumb for the rest of her life.

  As far as souls went, Judith had no fear. She had long since prayed Joceran out of purgatory and into paradise, and had no doubt that was her own eventual destination. The head would lie in the tomb with her, close-clasped to her breast, inescapably hers until all Christian bones and dust were summoned before God at the Day of Judgement. She was content.

  Until the letter came from Coldinghame, from Prior Radulfus. She had never liked the man, a true Cuthbertian, barely able to be civil to a woman. A wicked, monstrous letter that forbade the coffining of the head with her body when she died, for Joceran had died an excommunicate and was still under the Church’s ban.

  It couldn’t be true! But enquiry proved it, and it had come about thus: Joceran’s squire, wishing to forsake the world for the life of a monk at Coldinghame, confessed to Prior Radulfus that his lord had slain a man in Spain on holy ground; not in a church, exactly, but at its very door. The man was nothing, a peasant who truculently refused to get out of the great lord’s way; it was so minor an episode that Joceran would have forgotten it had not a priest in wrath taken up bell, book and candle and cast him out from the family of God. And before he had the chance to buy his way back in, Lord Joceran was killed that very night, in an earthquake that shook the town. God’s judgement, the townsfolk said, on the wicked foreign lord; though why God should take thirty innocents at the same time was a mystery.

  What could be done? Judith crushed the letter in her hand, dropped it, ground it under her heel and ordered her household to prepare for a journey. She would ride her palfrey, she said, at which her ladies’ voices rose in a chorus of dismay. At this time of year any journey, let alone such a one as she proposed, was most dangerous (no one dared say foolhardy). She had been ill, she had a cough and a pain in her chest; she was not as young as she once had been.

  She brushed aside their concerns. Old she might be, but not feeble. No, she would not ride in a litter, nor would she write letters. She must go herself. Go where? They asked. To whom? To her brother, of course! Radulfus would have to listen to the Bishop of Winchester! It was unfortunate that Peter should be so far away, two hundred miles and more in London, but this was too urgent to be entrusted to messenger or letter. She must speak to him herself. Peter would make that insolent prior eat his words; if Judith had her way they would be crammed down his throat with the ill-cured parchment they were written on, but that was too much to hope for.

  It was fine weather, dry and frosty; if it held, the journey south would not be too arduous. Good hunting weather. She would have ridden out herself, hawk on wrist, but for this unforeseen emergency; hunting was her favourite pastime. Peter’s too, although he had few occasions for it since becoming so great a man — Bishop of Winchester, king’s confidant, courtier, statesman, diplomat.

  The last of the servants came running to the carts that would carry them in shocking discomfort to London. Father Paul, her chaplain, edged nervously out of the countess’s line of sight and scanned their faces anxiously until he found the one he sought. There she was! Garlanda! He had feared she might not be coming. His leman, his love! A round, rosy countenance framed in stubborn curls that defied all attempts at straightening, merry eyes and a merry mouth. She saw him at the same time, and winked as she scrambled into a cart. A flush of pleasure rose warmly from his throat to his brow, all else forgotten.

  Judith’s voice cracked like a whip: ‘Father Paul, attend me!’ His flush paled instantly as if a hand had wiped it off. Hastily, clumsily, nervously he mounted his mule and took his station at the countess’s side. Her palfrey stamped, eager to be off. The bone of contention, the skull in its casket, was safe in her saddlebag — it went everywhere with her. She drew on her gloves, sniffing the crisp air like a hound, which she rather resembled; colour tinged her sallow cheeks as she shook the reins. Her cortege — ladies, men-at-arms, servants, cook, chaplain, physician and fool — moved off at a pace they could never keep up. Ride in a litter? Pah!

  Chapter Two

  Sir Richard Straccan reached the inn towards the end of a bitter March day, chilled to the bone and bone tired, only too thankful to reach shelter before dark. The stable was almost full, which meant a dozen other wayfarers — pilgrims, judging by the profusion of holy medals dangling from their bridles — were already inside. He hoped there’d be some supper left. Heaving Zingiber’s saddle off, he checked the stallion’s hooves, rubbed him down, and left him munching contentedly in his stall.

  This inn was no different from the hundred others he’d stopped at during the past year: a long, low, thatched building, with the hall at one end, and sleeping quarters at the other where all the guests lay down together in their clothes to get what sleep they could. The cheerful noise of many voices and a warm, moist gust of sweat and onions greeted Straccan as he shoved the damp-swollen door open. At its tortured squeal a brief silence fell as the pilgrims looked up from their suppers, assessing the newcomer — tall and broad-shouldered, warmly cloaked, face scarred, the hilt of a sword jutting up over his shoulder: a knight. Still, it took all sorts, and with a matey chorus of ‘God save yous’ they shuffled their bottoms along the benches to make room for him, and resumed their interrupted meal and talk.

  When he’d finished eating, Straccan brought out a folded piece of calf skin and opened it to display a drawing, inviting his table companions to look.

  ‘Anyone here seen anything like this? Anyone know where it is?’

  They bent over it, frowning at the curious rune-like symbol — a vertical stroke with two branches on the right side, slanting upwards. They pursed their lips and shook their heads with the same blank lack of recognition he’d met everywhere, and his heart sank.

  ‘No… never seen that… no… Sorry, me lord.’

  Another dead end. Sighing, he put the sketch back in his scrip. It was all he had to go on, and after all these months it had got him nowhere.

  Janiva, he thought, with a fresh pang to the ache of longing that never left him. Janiva, where are you? He could picture her so clearly in his mind’s eye — her smile, the full-lipped oval face, red-brown braids lying over her shoulders, her green gown… When he closed his eyes it seemed he could even smell the scent of her sun-warmed skin, the sharp clean perfume of rosemary that she loved.

  Impossible, unthinkable that he should never find her! Yet after so long…

  More than a year had passed since Janiva’s escape from her home village of Shawl, where she had been imprisoned on a malicious charge of sorcery. Her friend, the forester Tostig, had promised to take her to a place of safety, but had dared tell no one where lest they be forced into betrayal. They had ridden into the greenwood, and vanished. Straccan had been back to Shawl half a dozen times since then, hoping for word of them, but no word came, and Tostig had never returned. Everyone at Shawl thought him dead, and if he had perished, surely Janiva had too: by now their bones lay somewhere in the deeps of the forest, and would never be found. Tostig was a man of resource who knew the forest as a villein knows his strips, but outlaws, like wolves, hunted prey in packs; what chance would one man and a young woman have if they met with a band of armed ribauds?

  The pot boy refilled Straccan’s cup, and he drank and set it down. Had he been wrong to put his faith in the drawing? Sitting alone by the embers after the others had trooped off noisily to their pallets, he remembered the night his daughter Gilla had come barefoot to his bed.

  ‘Father,’ she’d said. ‘I think I can find Janiva. I can scry for her.’

  She had that gift: the ability to see, in water or flame, places and people far away. Scrying, it was called. Awed and uneasy, he’d watched while she stared into the candle flame and described what she saw — a high cliff face split by an outcropping of quartz shaped something like a forked branch and
shining brilliantly white against the grey rock, a steep path leading to a terrace halfway up the cliff and a small stone house, clinging like a snail shell to the cliff face.

  She drew the outline of the quartz mark for him. He sent copies to his agents, and to Templar commanderies and preceptories throughout the kingdom, where he had friends, certain that someone would recognise it and tell him where to find it. Back then, at the beginning, he never doubted he would find her. Each morning he awoke with the expectation, today, today!

  But the days passed, and no one came forward to say, ‘I know the place, it lies thus-and-so,’ and weeks crawled by, and hope bled out.

  After two months, wild with impatience, Straccan left his steward in charge of his manor, his clerk in charge of his business (he bought, sold and occasionally ‘liberated’ holy relics), and with his servant, Hawkan Bane, he took to the roads, showing the drawing at every vill and manor, every town, and asking every traveller they met. More than once, riding through a town, a market, a fair, he’d seen a green gown, a thick braid of russet hair, and reached for her, crying her name, only to see a stranger’s startled face and know the bitterness of disappointment.

  After six months he and Bane split up, to cover twice the ground and double their chances. Weather and roads permitting, they met or left word for each other in York. He was on his way back there now, weighted down with defeat after weeks lost following false leads, while expectation leached away and hope turned sour.

  Given an enemy to fight, a tower to storm, some innocent to rescue or a relic to steal, Straccan was in his element. But this — this futile, unending riding from place to place, showing the damned drawing, asking the same damned question over and over…