A Lady Under Siege

10

It was late afternoon when the castle gate opened, and Sylvanne emerged, holding herself erectly and proudly in her finest raiment. Kent, the leader of the besiegers, was napping in the shade of a small tree when a comrade shook him awake. What he saw was a vision walking toward him. Sylvanne’s light brown hair fell in waves across her shoulders—there had been no time to find or fashion a widow’s cap. Her dress, a type of velvet gown called a bliaut, in a shade of deep forest green that shimmered in the sunshine, she had worn only once before, at the previous year’s feast of Christmas. Its bodice was laced at the sides to fit snugly. Hidden under the hem she wore her best sabetynes, for she knew she was likely to be put upon a horse, and her feet would show.

Kent watched as she reached the first knot of soldiers. One of them let out a shout, and now all the others were running toward her. They quickly surrounded her, engulfed her, and lifted her like a trophy upon their shoulders. The mass of men that skittered toward him looked like a giant centipede, and she its unwilling fairy rider. The men delivered her straight to him, dropped her delicately at his feet, then retreated a pace or two, catching their breaths, waiting eagerly to see and hear what would come next. Whatever words were about to be spoken would be repeated around hearths and hunting fires for many years to come, and take on the quality of legend.

Sylvanne had dropped to one knee on being lowered by the men, but quickly regained her feet and her composure, straightening her clothing and hair. To Kent she looked flushed, severe, and altogether lovely.

“You’ve made this the happiest day of my life, Madame. Are you hungry? Fetch bread and cheese for the Lady!”

“I’ve come to negotiate terms,” she said.

“Eat first.”

In short order a soldier handed her bread and cheese on a wooden board. The smell of it almost made her faint, and despite herself, she succumbed to hunger and ripped at the food like an animal.

“Slowly, slowly,” Kent warned. “Your stomach will be slow to stretch, I reckon.”

“And some for my maid. Mabel! Mabel!”

Mabel pushed her way through the circle of men.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Give her food also. And water for us both.”

“Of course. Of course. Whatever the Lady requires.”

She looked challengingly at the gawking men who surrounded her.

“Privacy while I feed,” she said.

A small tent was brought and erected for her. She and Mabel sat on the ground. A cooked chicken in an earthenware bowl was offered through the tent flap, reminding her of the way prisoners are fed in a jail. Sylvanne ate slowly and deliberately, but Mabel attacked it with gusto, wiping fat from her lips with her sleeve, and dropping the bones into the bowl. “My jaw aches from chewing,” she grinned. “But my stomach aches most happily.”

The tent flap was pulled aside and Kent entered.

“Are we ladies sated?” he asked.

“Oh yes Sir, I never tasted a bird so fine,” Mabel chirped eagerly. She dropped her smile when she noticed Sylvanne glaring at her.

“Good then,” said Kent. “We’ll set out immediately. It’s two days steady walk to the castle of my Lord and Master Thomas. Given your condition, and the suffering you’ve endured, we’ll mount you aboard careful, steady horses. M’Lady, you’ll have mine, and I’ll walk beside.”

“But I’m not leaving,” Sylvanne said defiantly. “I came out to negotiate, not be carried away like plunder. Why should I go to your Master? He should come to me.”

“I’m afraid grave domestic concerns keep him home, m’Lady. And if I may say, negotiation takes place between equals. I have an army of two hundred behind me, and you have a maid with chicken grease on her chin. I have orders to deliver you alive and healthy, and you have no say in the matter.”

Sylvanne rose to her feet and attempted to brush past him out of the tent. Kent stepped aside and allowed her to go. Once outside, the sunshine hit her eyes like a blast of fire. She staggered dizzily, disoriented. A sea of peasant faces closed in around her, mostly ugly unshaven men, with a few curious boys among them. An older man called her deary, another asked gruffly, “Where do yer think yer goin?” She heard Kent’s voice behind her.

“M’Lady! You’re weakened from the siege. You need more rest and nourishment. Please accept your circumstances.”

The circle of faces tightened around her, and she felt hands take hold of her arms. She pulled free, then collapsed unconscious onto the trampled grass.

WHEN SHE CAME TO her senses she was curled up, joggled and jolted, amid sacks full of oats in the back of a rough two-wheeled cart pulled by a dray horse. She was still dressed in her finery, although the green of her gown was now dulled by a coat of dust. Ahead she saw Kent and a dozen mounted horsemen, to her rear came the two hundred soldiers afoot, with Mabel perched unsteadily upon a single horse. The rein was held by a fat oafish fellow walking alongside gingerly, as if there were stones in his shoes. He was sweating severely. Seeing Sylvanne awake he yelled out, “Master Kent, Sir! She arises from her slumber. That calls for a wee stoppage for a morsel, don’t you think?”

Kent circled back on his mount, and tipped his cap to Sylvanne. “Are you feeling better, Ma’am?”

Sylvanne made no answer. She’d awoken thinking of her husband, and only after a moment had she remembered he was dead. She looked about her, thinking, I don’t even know these men, this country.

“If we keep a brisk pace we reach home before dark tomorrow,” Kent was saying to the fat man, who went by the name Gwynn. “Wouldn’t you rather we reunite with wife and children under the sun’s light, and not arrive to a cold hearth and a dark night?”

“You forget I have no wife, Sir,” answered Gwynn.

“No, it’s you forget I do.”

“The lady looks in need of a cup of comfort, Sir.”

“Let her express her own opinion,” said Kent. He turned his horse alongside Sylvanne’s cart. “Are you in need of anything, m’Lady? A sip of water, perhaps? A stop for relief?”

“How dare you dump me in a cart like a pig carried to market,” Sylvanne said indignantly. “I want a horse.”

“I told you earlier you could have mine, m’Lady,” said Kent.

“If I may say something,” interjected fat Gwynn, “I fear my feet are not meant for such gruelling hikes as these. At this pace they’ll be bloody stumps by nightfall. Could I take her place in the cart, Sir?”

“Here’s a man who feels no shame at being carried like a pig to market,” Kent laughed. “It’s true the feet of a horseman can grow tender when he’s forced afoot, and I worry about mine, in fact. Here’s a plan: you will have your cart ride, Gwynn, and maid Mabel will join you there. I’ll take the horse she rides, and the Lady can have mine.”

And so it was. Sylvanne mounted his fine stallion and slowed it to a walk, falling in behind the cart where Gwynn and Mabel sat, for it was understood that Mabel had a role to play as chaperone; to keep things seemly she was expected to keep her Mistress in her sight at all times. Kent also kept watch, riding discreetly at the Lady’s shoulder.

They passed through golden fields where peasants gathering the harvest stopped to gape openly at them. Gwynn kept up a running commentary, remarking how the fields were lush and productive, and the soil of these lands must be very fine. “They belong to the Earl of Apthwaite, and he’s been very gracious to let us pass through unhindered,” he informed Mabel. “Of course it’s not entirely from the kindness of his heart, for young Gerald was deeply indebted to him, and now that he’s deceased, the Earl will be quick to gobble up his lands and properties as payment.”

Kent told him to shut his mouth, and not speak of such things within earshot of a Lady in mourning. Sylvanne said nothing, but seethed within. After some time they left the fields behind them and skirted dark forests where the ages of trees were measured by centuries. For a stretch the woods enclosed them, and the men and horses were required to walk single file. The cart was wider, and square-shouldered; rogue branches slapped and rapped against it, causing Gwynn to wrap his arms around Mabel protectively. “Hang tight, I’ll not let any old tree snatch you from me,” he snorted.

“It’s what you might snatch that worries me,” Mabel retorted. “Your hands have already taken liberties for which, if I were upon terra firma, I’d slap your face crimson.”

“Shall I let go then?” he asked playfully, leaning close against her. Just then a deep rut jolted the cart and nearly sprang Mabel airborne.

“No!” she cried. “Hang on to me.”

“With pleasure.”

Mabel pushed against him as if he were a lumpy armchair. “This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home, and the furthest from comfort, too,” she said. “And what’s that poking me?”

“In my breeches there’s a bone, Madame, though it’s made of flesh.”

“Keep your flesh well clothed, so that I might keep my chastity intact,” Mabel scolded him.

“Chastity? Have you no husband?”

“Never.”

“Then you’re overripe. The fates must have made this meeting, for I have lost a wife.”

Kent and Sylvanne, riding close behind, couldn’t help but listen to this banter. Kent turned to her and asked, “And you m’Lady? Ever further from your home?

Sylvanne stared straight ahead. “I have no home,” she said.

“I sympathize with your circumstances. I’m certain your mood will improve when you come to know my Lord and Master, Thomas of Gastoncoe. A more honourable man you are never likely to meet.”

“Honourable?” Mabel shouted indignantly from the cart. “What’s his purpose, stealing a wife away from her husband?”

“I know on the surface of things it’s easy to assume the worst in his actions,” answered Kent. “But there’s more to it than meets the eye. Lord Thomas has a daughter, barely twelve years in age, who now lies gravely ill with the same enigmatic and untreatable affliction that robbed him of his wife, whom he loved ever so dearly. It’s said that, of late, this Lady whom you chaperone, the lovely Lady Sylvanne, has come to dominate his thoughts so thoroughly that he believes she alone holds the key to the salvation of his daughter. It was for this reason he wished to consult the Lady.”

“Does he not have physicians?” asked Mabel.

“He has consulted as many as could be sent for. All have failed him. Wife dead, daughter waning and wasting away, one day he gave a most unexpected order: Bring Lady Sylvanne to me, says he, but to attain her, refrain from violence as much as you are able. Deliver her in good health and good spirits, using the powers of your persuasion.”

“Powers of persuasion?” Mabel repeated incredulously. “Since when is starvation persuasion?”

“It’s the fault of her own husband in his obstinacy,” Kent retorted. “From the beginning our two hundred could have easily stormed and overpowered that ramshackle excuse for a castle, with its no more than twenty able-bodied defenders—”

“Twenty-six, plus some boys who were willing, but deemed too young,” Mabel corrected him.

“Our master’s orders were to avoid bloodshed at all cost. He felt that his prize, if gained by bloodshed, would thereby be disposed to hate him, and would be no prize at all. You may or may not know it, but he sent emissaries several times to the Lady’s husband, begging simply for a meeting and a chance to speak privately with her. But all petitions were rejected, out of jealousy and mistrust.”

“That’s a husband’s right,” Mabel asserted. “It’s his duty, in fact, to shield his wife, to keep her close, housebound. He can’t be lending her out like an ox at ploughing time.”

“She’s not to be compared to an ox, that one,” Gwynn interjected. “More like a doe, with her big eyes and quiet demeanour. Our Lord will be well pleased to possess her, whether or not she knows anything of wondrous spells or miracle cures for the daughter.”

“Tomorrow will bring us answers,” said Kent. “What say you m’Lady? Any special aptitude for healing the sick or curing the lame?”

Sylvanne, silent all this time, turned and glared at him with such a fiery rage in her green eyes that he feared she might be a witch, or a demon. As if spooked by her seething emotions, her stallion reared up and shook his mane furiously. Kent leant over to take the reins, calling out calming words to soothe his favourite mount, but the horse was in a lather and wouldn’t be pacified. “This is quite out of character,” he said. “Perhaps he needs a feed. Next stream we cross we’ll stop for water and grazing.”

“Thank the Lord for that,” said Gwynn, shifting uncomfortably in the cart. “I fear the sores of my feet have been replanted on my poor arse.”