“What a noble warrior you are.” She scanned the room as she backed away. “A half-sighted simple girl and an old nun.” She spat the words in contempt. The fireplace. She made the few steps, flung herself to her knees, and grabbed for the iron poker.
Her hand closed around it. She went to swing it at him. A blow thudded into her shoulder. Like being kicked by a cow. She tried to shout, but no sound would come out.
She felt warm. The fire. No. This was from within. The warmth seeped across her chest. She clutched at it. Her hand came away smeared with bright red, with an unmistakable metallic scent.
Forgive me, Lord. I know I could have done better.
She half-turned onto one hip.
Fitzurse stood over her and watched her bleed out onto the floor with a calm that conveyed his pleasure.
With her last strength, she took a breath and liquid bubbled in her lungs.
“You, sir, will burn in a hell of your own making.”
His lips formed words.
But Ursula couldn’t hear them. Couldn’t hear them, because the light that poured through the window started singing.
CHAPTER 19
Theodosia’s wayworn concentration had reached its limit. The latest leg of their journey had taken them through an exposed, featureless landscape that climbed in a long incline of many miles. With rocks and stones half-hidden under thin soil and patchy snow, the horses stumbled frequently and had to be ridden with extreme caution. Heavy clouds brought ice on the wind and scudded over the moonless sky to shift the night into deeper darkness, making the going even more treacherous.
She carried with her too the added burden of her worry for Mother Ursula and the nuns of Polesworth Abbey. The Abbess had been ready to face Fitzurse with huge courage. But with such a man, courage might not be enough.
“Looks as good a place as any to stop.” Benedict’s voice made her start; he’d been quiet for many miles.
He pointed ahead with his whip.
She peered into the gloom and took her shawl from her face. “Where do you mean?”
“That small outbuilding, looks like a lambing shelter.”
She picked it out with difficulty. A short way up the slope ahead, a single-story stone building huddled against the desolate land. With a roughly thatched roof, it had no windows and a small door. A few gray-wooled sheep wandered nearby, oblivious to the cold in their thick coats as they fed on clumps of coarse grass.
“Should we not keep going?” she said as they neared it.
“We have to rest the horses.” Benedict dismounted and tethered Harcos in the shelter of the building. “Bring Quercus around the corner so they can’t see each other.”
She did as he instructed. With a quick pat to Quercus’s neck, she made her way back to Benedict.
As he pushed at the damp-warped crude door, the clouds broke and the stars cast a poor light on the stark hillside. At its summit, a huge regular mound soared heavenward, topped with a high stone wall.
“Look,” she said. “A fortification. We could ask for shelter there, send help back to the abbey.”
Benedict glanced up, shaking the door by one twisted panel. “We could. If anyone lived there. I’ve seen a fair few of those forts in my time, always abandoned.” The door squeaked in protest but gave a little. He shoved at it again. “Folk like to say they were built by King Arthur. But I think that’s so they can sleep nights. I’ve heard such places were built by the ancients, a race of giants who roamed the land before Christ, some with a huge eye in their heads, others with the legs of animals.”
The starlight disappeared once more behind the clouds, and the wind brought a fresh icy blast from the hilltop.
Theodosia shivered as if the wind came straight from that pagan world, a world without her Savior. “Then we still have no way of knowing what has happened to the Polesworth nuns.”
The door finally gave beneath Benedict’s powerful shoves. He reached in and removed an armful of straw. “The Abbess’s fake story would keep the monastery from harm. Us too, sending Fitzurse off to London.” He placed the pile on the ground, and Harcos dipped his head to eat.
“It should never have happened. I led him there, with my fool’s pride.”
Benedict picked up another pile of straw. “What’s done is done. And the Abbess was ready for him, remember?” Calling to Quercus, he went round the corner of the shelter.
Theodosia took a dubious look inside. A few heaps of straw backed up against the far wall. No floor had been laid, with the hillside’s whitish rock exposed. “I will not have peace of mind until I know they are all safe,” she said as Benedict returned.
“Then when we find your Brother Edward, you can ask him to help you with one of his letters.”