The Fifth Knight(55)

“Let’s find her first, eh?” said de Tracy.

“Oh, we will,” said Fitzurse. He licked a snowflake from his top lip and savored its cold purity. “We will.”





CHAPTER 13

“This looks as good a place as any.” Benedict brought Quercus to a halt in a clearing surrounded by dense stands of leafless trees and the occasional thick evergreen. To Theodosia, his voice sounded oddly deadened by the trees and the thickly falling snow. Huge, dry flakes replaced the earlier powdery fall, descending in a multitude of tiny rustles that whitened the whole world.

The horse blew out a heavy snort from his efforts and put a hopeful nose to the ground to search for food.

“Stay where you are and I’ll get you down.” Benedict dismounted from behind her and came into view at the horse’s head. Snow plastered his black hat and the shoulders of his woolen cloak.

Ignoring his offer, she slid down herself from the animal. She could not bear his touch on her. On the long ride, as she’d turned things over and over in her mind, the suspicions that had been whispering at its corners had become a deafening chorus of certainty. Now it was time to bring her challenge to him. As she stamped her feet hard to return sensation to them, clumps of dry snow fell from her shawl and skirt.

Benedict led the horse to a nearby fallen tree and tethered him there, then removed their bundle of clothing from behind the saddle.

Theodosia huddled into her shawl, tensed for her task.

“You’ll get covered if you don’t move.” Benedict came over to her, his dark lashes pale with stuck snowflakes as he looked down to rummage beneath his cloak.

“That is of no consequence.”

Her sharp tone made him raise his gaze to her as he drew out a flint and fire steel. “It is if you’re buried in a snowdrift.” His words jested, but his look was careful, alert.

“How did you persuade that Jew to lend you the money for Quercus?”

He stiffened. “It’s part of being in the world, Sister. People deal in money all the time.” He walked away to the base of a sheltering evergreen.

She followed him. “Do not dismiss me. You have not answered my question.”

He squatted down to gather small twigs and dried leaves together. “I have.”

“You have not. I remember from my manuscripts that Jews will only lend if you have means to pay them back.”

“Then you’ve a good memory, Sister.” Benedict hunched over the pile he’d created, busying himself with hard strikes of the flint against the steel.

“But you had nothing with you to pay him back. Neither had you anything to give him in exchange.”

A tiny orange flame flared from the leaves, and he sheltered it with one hand as he placed a couple of twigs on it. “If you say so.” He didn’t look round at her.

“You gave him something, Benedict.”

He said nothing, just piled the fire higher as the flames took hold.

“Something that was worth a great deal. At least have the honesty to tell me, and not have me drag it from you.”

“All right, then.” He got to his feet, watching her face.

She clutched her fists tight as she waited for his answer.

“I took your cross. At Gilbert’s. And then I sold it. Are you satisfied?”

I was right. “You stole my crucifix? Sold it to a…to a Jew?” Her outraged cry, pent up for many miles, tore through the trees.

“Yes. And it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter who I sold it to. We got the money, we got the horse.” His voice climbed too.

“No, you got the money. You got the horse. To do that, you stole my most treasured possession from me. My symbol of Christ’s suffering, and you traded it with one of the people who had put him there. Does your heartlessness know no bounds?”

He snorted in disgust. “I could say the same for your stupidity. No one but the Jews can lend, thanks to your precious church’s rules. That man in Knaresborough is no better or worse than you or me. And I would say better. He traded with me, without fuss or bother, when he could have called on the constable. A rood of that value was suspicious, but he let it pass.”

“How very convenient for you: the moneylender and the thief, gentlemen both.”

“I’m not proud of what I did. But I had to do it. We had to get out of Knaresborough, and we have to find your mother. And that will take money.” The suspicion of shame flickered in his eyes. “I had nothing. Nothing. But you had.”

Cold no longer with the anger that pulsed through her, she nodded slowly. “Well, now I know you for what you really are.”

“Like I know you for what you really are.” Anger quickened his words. “Listen to yourself! You care more for a piece of metal than you do for your life, for my life.”