Ariana Franklin - The Serpent’s Tale

Adelia was awake now. He was telling her something, a tit for tat, payment for her trouble. This was about Rosamund without mentioning her name.

“I set her up in a pie shop, Ykenai, and very successful it’s been, except it’s making her bigger than ever. We talk about pies, there’s a lot to making pies.”

Big women, comfortable, bouncy mattresses, as Rosamund had been. Women who talked about little things, who didn’t test him. Women as different from Eleanor as chalk to cheese-and maybe he’d loved both.

Wife and mistress both treacherous. Whether Rosamund had been ambitious herself or had been stirred into it by a devious abbot, the result was the same; she had nearly sparked a war. The only female refuge this man, this emperor , had left lived in a London pie shop where at least one loyal son had been born to him.

Henry’s voice came from the window, nastily. “While he was with you, did the Bishop of Saint Albans tell you of his oath?” He wanted to hurt someone else who’d been betrayed.

“Yes,” she said.

“He swore it in front of me, you know. Hand on the Bible, ‘I swear by the Lord God and all the saints of Heaven that if You will guard her and keep her safe, I shall withhold myself from her.’ ”

“I know,” she said.

“Hah.”

For the first time in days, she could hear the chatter of birds, as if small, frozen hearts were being thawed back to life.

Henry reached over and took the remnant of cheese out of her fingers, squashed it, and scattered the crumbs along the windowsill.

A robin flew down immediately to peck, its wings almost touching his hand before flying off again.

“I’ll bring spring back to England,” its king said. “They won’t beat me, by Christ, they won’t.”

They have beaten you, Adelia thought. Your men aren’t coming. Everybody betrays you.

Henry’s head had gone up. “Hear that?”

“No.”

“I did. They’re here.” His sword rasped from its scabbard. “Let’s go down and fight the bastards.”

They weren’t here. It was birds he’d heard. The two of them would stay here forever and decompose alongside Rosamund.

She dragged herself to the window.

Alarmed men were emerging from the kitchen, turning this way and that, confused by the fog, running back to fetch weapons. She heard Schwyz’s shout: “Round the other side. It came from the rear.”

The Abbot of Eynsham was taking undecided steps toward the entrance to the maze, then away from it.

“Yes,” Adelia said.

Henry’s dagger that had cut her hands free was on the table. She took it up with a ferocious joy. She wanted to fight somebody.

But she couldn’t. For one thing…“My lord, we’re locked in.”

He was standing on tiptoe, feeling around the top of the coronal that held the curtains of Rosamund’s bed. His hand came away with a key in it. He waved it at her. “Never get into a hole without a second exit.”

Then they were out of the door and pattering down the stairs, Henry leading.

Two landings down, they met one of Schwyz’s men running up, sword drawn. Whether he was trying to find somewhere to hide or had come for her, Adelia never knew. His eyes widened as he saw the king.

“Wrong way,” Henry told him, and stuck him through the mouth. The man fell. The king ran him through again, raising him on the swordpoint as if on a skewer, and flicked him off so that he was thrown round the next bend. Kept flicking him, a heavy man, round the next and the next, though he was long dead by the time they reached the hall.

The air outside was discordant with shouts and the clash of metal. The fog had thickened; it was difficult to make out who was fighting whom.

The king disappeared, and Adelia heard a gleeful howl of “Dieu et Plantagenet” as he found an enemy.

It was like being in the middle of battling unseen ghosts. With the dagger ready, she began walking cautiously forward to where she’d last seen Eynsham. One killer had escaped; she’d be damned if another thwarted justice. This one would if he could; not a courageous man, the abbot; he killed only through others.

Two heavy figures appeared on her left, their swords sparking as they fought. She jumped out of their way and they vanished again.

If I call him, he will come, she thought. She was still a bargaining counter; he’d want to use her as a shield. She had a knife, she could threaten him into standing still. “Abbot.” Her voice was high and thin. “Abbot.”

Something answered her in a voice even higher. In astonishment. In a crescendo of agony that rose into a falsetto beyond what was human. In shrieks that pulsed through the mist and overrode all noise of battle and silenced it. It overrode everything.

It was coming from the direction of the maze. Adelia began running toward it, sliding in the slush, falling, picking herself up, and blundering on. Whatever it was had to be helped; hearing it was unendurable.

Somebody splashed past her. She didn’t see who it was.

A wall of bushes loomed up. Frantically, she used her hands to follow it round toward the maze entrance, toward the screaming. It was diminishing now; there were words in it. Prayer? Pleading?

She found the entrance and plunged inside.

Curiously, it was easier to see in here, merely gloomy, as if the tunnels were bewilderment enough and had regimented the mist into their own coils. The hedged doors were open, still giving straight passage.

He’d gone a long way in, almost to the exit that led to the hill. The sound was softening into mumbles, like somebody discontented. As Adelia came up, it stopped altogether.

The last paroxysm had sent the abbot arching backward over the mantrap so that his stomach curved outward. His mouth was stretched open; he looked as if he’d died roaring with laughter.

She edged round to the front. Schwyz was scrabbling at the mess where the machine’s fangs had bitten into Eynsham’s groin. “It’s all right, Rob,” he was saying. “It’s all right.” He looked up at Adelia. “Help me.”

There was no point. He was dead. It would take two men to force the mantrap open. Only hate like the fires of hell had given Dakers the strength to lever the struts apart so that their jaws lay flat in the dirt, waiting to snap up the man who’d had Rosamund poisoned.

The housekeeper had sat herself a couple of feet away so that she could watch him die. And had died with him, smiling.

There was a lot of clearing up to do.

They brought the wounded down to Adelia on the landing stage, because she didn’t want to return to the tower. There weren’t many, and none were badly injured, most needing only a few stitches, which she managed with the contents of the king’s sewing case.

All were Plantagenet men; Henry hadn’t taken any prisoners.

She didn’t ask what had happened to Schwyz; she didn’t care much. Probably, he hadn’t, either.

One of the barges that came upriver from Godstow contained Rosamund’s much-traveled coffin. The Bishop of Saint Albans was aboard another. He’d been with Young Geoffrey at the storming of the abbey and looked tired enough to fall down. He kept his distance on seeing Adelia, though he thanked his God for her deliverance. Godstow had been liberated without loss on the Plantagenet side. Wolvercote, now in chains, was the only one who’d put up any resistance.

“Allie’s safe and well,” Rowley said. “So are Gyltha and Mansur. They were cheering us on from the guesthouse window.”

There was nothing else she needed to know. Yes, one thing. “Lawyer Warin,” she said. “Did you find him?”

“Little sniveling fellow? He was trying to escape via the back wall, so we put him in irons.”