Truth be told, she already did. God had been good to bring her into his life.
Forcing his thoughts away from Ghislaine, Gaetan turned back to his men who were still wandering in and out of the trees on the north side of the road. The land was relatively flat all around them but there was excellent ground cover, easily enough to hide them until they decided to come forth and ambush Alary’s army.
“Gate!”
De Winter was several yards away from him to the east, now calling his name. As Gaetan headed in his direction, Denis was pointing down the road.
“Riders,” Denis said. “I cannot tell who it is yet, but there are two of them. Mayhap it is Marc and Lance.”
Gaetan, too, could see riders coming around the curve in the road about a half-mile down. “And it just as easily could not be them,” he said, waving to the men standing on the road and trying to get a look. “Into the trees.”
They scattered, disappearing into the foliate to hide themselves. Gaetan was well off the road, back behind a broad tree trunk, peering around it to see if the riders were his own men coming down the road. Soon enough, the pair came within range and he could see that it was, indeed, de Moray and de Reyne. Gaetan and the other knights wandered back out to the road.
“Well?” Gaetan demanded. “What about Tenebris? What did you see?”
As de Reyne dismounted his sweating horse, de Moray spoke. “You are not going to like this,” he said. “We saw a rather small fortress with a tall wooden wall around it, a moat that we could smell from a mile away, and when we used the trees as cover to get a closer look at it, the forest around it was filled with corpses.”
Gaetan’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?” he asked, confused. “As if an army had not taken away their dead?”
De Moray wearily dismounted his horse. “This, I cannot tell you,” he said. “It did not look like an army to me. It was a pile of bodies, some of them so old and moldering that grass had grown up all around them and they had become part of the earth. Although the clothing remained on them, anything of value was stripped.”
It sounded ghastly and Gaetan did, indeed, make a face of distaste. “God’s Bones,” he muttered. “Dead everywhere?”
“All around the front of the fortress from what we could see. Once we made it to the rear of the fortress, there were no more bodies.”
That made absolutely no sense at all but it reminded Gaetan what Ghislaine had said of the place. “She said it was a dark and terrible place,” he muttered. “Ghislaine, I mean. She said that Tenebris was very dark.”
De Moray nodded, still trying to shake off what he’d seen. “More than you know,” he said. “I have never seen anything like it.”
The state of the fortress hinted at the darkness of the mind behind it, the man who had Kristoph’s life in his hands. Gaetan couldn’t shake off that sense of horror. “But what about the fortress itself?” he asked. “Is it well guarded?”
De Reyne entered the conversation. “We saw just a few men,” he said. “No more than a handful, really. There is a small motte and a keep atop it, but the fortress itself is very small.”
“Is it something we can breach if needed?”
De Reyne nodded. “I have no doubt,” he said. “It seemed to me that the moat flowed beneath the walls and into the compound, so that could be a relatively simple way to enter it.”
De Moray grunted. “Simple, aye, but that moat was filled with unspeakable filth. I should not like to crawl through that.”
Gaetan echoed that thought, but he was more pragmatic. “If we must, then we must,” he said. “But you saw no evidence of an army inside of it?”
De Reyne shook his head. “Nothing at all. It seemed deserted.”
There was relief in that knowledge. “Then Alary has not returned yet,” he sighed, pleased. “It means he must pass along this road to get there and when he does, we shall be ready.”
“Is it possible he has another property somewhere that he has gone to?” de Reyne asked. “I never heard the lady mention any other property, but it concerns me that Alary may not be returning to Tenebris at all.”
Gaetan could only shrug. “That has occurred to me also, but Ghislaine seemed positive that Alary would return here and she made a point of stating that he has no other properties. Even Tenebris belongs to Edwin, but I suppose there is always a chance Alary could have stopped somewhere else or gone on to an ally’s property.” He paused, thinking that possibility was most disheartening. “All we can do now is wait and see. If Alary does not appear within the next week, then we may have to consider other options.”
No one wanted to do that, not when they had come so far. Just as de Reyne and de Moray moved to take their horses off the road, the sounds of thundering hooves caught their attention. All eyes turned to the east to see St. Hèver riding towards them at breakneck speed.
Suddenly, everyone was on edge as St. Hèver came to a halt, kicking up rocks and dirt. His manner bordered on frantic. “Alary is coming through Kidderminster now,” he said, out of breath. “He will be on us in half an hour at the very most.”
The news electrified the knights. Any fatigue, or disappointment, or doubt abruptly fled as they realized the target of their search, the very bastard who had evaded them for weeks, was only minutes away.
Alary is coming!
“Did you see Kristoph?” Gaetan demanded.
St. Hèver smiled, a smile of utter relief and joy. “I did,” he said “He is in the provisions wagon, surrounded by armed men. I have a feeling he may have tried to escape once or twice because he was chained to the wagon. Bless the man; he has surely given them a difficult time.”
Everyone smiled at that, proud that their brother, their fellow warrior, had resisted his captors. It was such joy in a journey that had seen such fear and doubt. But it wasn’t over yet. The worst of it was yet to come and they all knew it.
No one knew it more than Gaetan.
“Where is Wellesbourne?” he asked. “Did he not come back with you?”
St. Hèver shook his head. “We were separated but I know he saw the incoming army as I did,” he said. “He should be coming along very shortly.”
Gaetan was satisfied by that but his attention naturally swung back to the approaching army. He needed all of the information he could get in order to plan the ambush.
“Tell me everything you saw,” he said. “The strength of the army, infantry and mounted warriors – everything you can think of.”
St. Hèver nodded as he dismounted his steed. “It is as we were told,” he said. “At least two hundred men, but what we were not told was that some of those men were mounted. I saw at least thirty mounted men, many of them carrying Norman weapons and armor. The men on foot seem to be well armed, also. There are two wagons and, as I said, the one carrying Kristoph is guarded. Moreover, they have him chained. Even when we get to him, we will have the encumbrance of those chains before we can free him completely.”