Edward Marston - Ravens Of Blackwater

“Raising a son who does not take your advice.”

“You lose me here,” said Gervase. “Miles is not to blame-they are.”

“They?”

“Hamo and his monstrous brood.” Gilbert sighed again. “Jocelyn has two reasons for hating my son. Miles fought with his brother, Guy.”

“Fought? With weapons?”

“Hot words and fists, that is all. But I am told that my son got the better of it before the two of them were dragged apart.” He became remorseful. “Miles was a fool! I warned him not to go there. I told him to stay away from Blackwater Hall. It was bound to lead to trouble.”

“What was?”

“The situation, the situation. It’s hopeless!”

Gilbert broke away and paced up and down in the narrow corridor. The bibulous host was now an anxious parent. His hands flapped about in gestures of despair. Gervase stepped in to confront him.

“Jocelyn had two reasons, you said …”

“It was the other one that took him there.” “To Blackwater Hall?”

“Jocelyn has a sister. Matilda.” “I begin to understand.”

“That is more than I do, Gervase,” said the other. “It is a cruelty practised on a loving father. Why Matilda? Of all people-why her? My son could have any woman in the county, if he wanted, but he chooses a FitzCorbucion.”

“Does the lady feel the same about him?”

“She does, alas!”

“You are obviously against the match.”

“Everyone is,” wailed Gilbert. “I am against it, Hamo is against it, Guy was against it-that is why he came to blows with my son-and Jocelyn is against it. Common sense is against it. Sanity is against it. Nature is against it.”

“But Miles is still determined?”

“They have exchanged vows.”

“How do they contrive to see each other?”

“They do not,” said Gilbert. “Hamo has left orders that my son is not to be allowed near Blackwater Hall. But that does not deter him. He swears that he will wed Matilda.”

Sorrow had finally taken its toll of Matilda FitzCorbucion. After another day of anger at her brother’s death, its full impact hit her at last and she spent a sleepless night crying into her pillow or walking across the wooden floor of her bedchamber in her bare feet. The tears came less from love than from pity, because even a brother as disagreeable as Guy deserved that. As her grief deepened into a physical pain such as she had never known, Matilda came to see that she was mourning two brothers and not just one. Jocelyn was lost to her almost as much as Guy. When he was alive, Guy had either ignored or baited her and she had learned to avoid him whenever possible. Jocelyn had been her protector even when it landed him in trouble and she could always turn to him for help. That was all in the past. The moment the dead body of his brother had been found, Jocelyn changed irrevocably. He was no longer Matilda’s friend but simply a more refined and calculating version of Guy.

In the long reaches of the night, other thoughts came to stick hot needles of doubt into her brain. They were vulnerable. The most powerful family in Maldon was not the impregnable force she had supposed. Blackwater Hall might have the sombre solidity of a castle but its defences had been breached. Guy FitzCorbucion, a virile soldier with great skill in arms, had been cruelly murdered and the alleged killer was a boy of fifteen. What surging hatred must have built up inside the lad for him to commit such a heinous crime? Would such blood-lust be satiated with one death or would he turn to strike at other members of the family? The name that she had carried with such pride now seemed like a badge of doom and fear for her own life sent her racing to the heavy door to make sure that it was bolted. Fresh tears moistened her haggard face. She was grieving over the loss of her safety. Matilda was terrified.

Searching for comfort, she found none within Blackwater Hall. Jocelyn was dead to her and Hamo would be so furious when he discovered what had happened that she would not even be able to speak to him. After her mother’s death, the person who had consoled her least was her father. Hamo was a hard and ambitious man who took what he wanted by force of character and expressed affection only by means of gifts. Matilda’s plight was helpless. A home that was already fraught with tensions would now become unbearable and there would be nobody to whom she could turn. Except perhaps one man. But even as she envisioned the kind face of Miles Champeney, she knew that he could not save her either. The murder of Guy FitzCorbucion had somehow put him forever beyond her reach. Miles was one more casualty of the killer’s knife.

Prayer and rest. Oslac the Priest had advised her to pray for her dead brother’s soul and to get as much sleep as she could in order to restore herself, but neither would come. Prayers died on her lips and sleep eluded her. She was instead held captive by grief and fear and gnawing doubt about the whole meaning of her life. What was the point of it all? Everything now seemed to have died with Guy. Even her hopes of escape.

When she eventually closed her eyes, it was in a slumber of sheer exhaustion and she did not have the strength to choose the comfort of her bed. She drifted off while sitting in the window of her chamber and her troubled head rested on hard stone without even feeling it.

Matilda was in a sleep of cold despair. How long she dozed she did not know, nor what it was that jerked her awake to face the pain once more. It may have been the insistent thud of the wind against the wall of the chamber, or the light slowly forcing its way in through the window with the stealth of a thief, or the dull ache in her bones from the awkwardness of her posture, or the cries of the gulls as they skimmed over water and marsh in search of their first meal of the morning.

As she opened her eyes, it was there. Matilda came out of her sleep and into a waking nightmare because the sight brought nothing but further apprehension. She rubbed at her eyes, then peered through the window once more to make sure that it was not an illusion. But it was still there. She had recognised it at once. The ship was long and narrow with a single, large sail that was filled by the gusting wind. Its prow was high, its draught shallow, and it was cutting through the dark water with eager purpose. The captain was navigating his way around Northey Island and setting a course for the harbour. They were still a long way from Blackwater Hall but Matilda knew whom the ship carried.

Hamo FitzCorbucion had come home.

The day began early at Champeney Hall. Guests of such standing and in such number imposed considerable extra burdens and the servants were up before dawn to clean the house, prepare the table, and serve the breakfast. The visitors, too, were soon out of their beds to wash themselves before sitting down to a meal of frumenty, enriched with egg yolks and a flavouring of dried saffron, and watered ale. Canon Hubert had recovered completely from his overindulgence the previous evening and attacked his food with his customary relish, but Brother Simon, stricken with guilt at his enjoyment of the banquet, and fearing that it was the first sign of moral decay, sat in his place like a repen-tant sinner and refused even to slake his thirst with water. The two of them went off for an hour of prayer and contemplation before they addressed their minds to the temporal commitments that lay ahead of them.

Gervase Bret returned to the chamber, which he shared with Ralph, so that he could once again study the documents around which all their deliberations in the shire hall would revolve. It was laborious but highly rewarding work. Under his expert scrutiny, simple facts about property ownership yielded a complex story of fraud, misappropriation, and violent seizure. A bewildering set of figures gave him a clear picture in his mind of the geography of the whole area. Bare names like Tovild the Haunted and Reginald the Gross helped to people the landscape and define the character of Maldon. The first commissioners had been regarded with the obedient derision that greeted all royal tax collectors but the returns that they had brought to the Treasury in Winchester, and that were set down in abbreviated Latin, were an ornate tapestry of English life to the discerning eye of a man like Gervase.