The mystic rose

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Dag lay face down on the ground before the collapsed tent, a small dark patch of blood pooling beneath his cheek. The tent pole with which he had tried to defend himself and Alethea lay broken beside him. Cait reached him first, and even as she took in the sight, her eyes quickly scoured the surrounding area for her sister. Seeing that the young woman's body was not lying battered and bloody nearby, Cait knelt beside the fallen knight. Fearing he was dead, she put a hand to his cheek. The flesh was cold and damp.

She heard Rognvald shout an order to the others to remain mounted and on guard for another attack, and then he hastened to her side. 'I am sorry,' began Cait as the knight handed her his sword and bent over the body of his liegeman. 'I think he is -'

With expert quickness, Rognvald searched the body for wounds. Finding none, he took Dag by the shoulders and rolled him on to his back. It was then Cait saw the ugly gash over his left eye. The blood had come from this cut, and from the man's broken nose. Bending close, Rognvald placed his ear next to the man's mouth, listened for a moment, and then sat back on his heels. 'He lives.'

'Alethea is not here,' she said. 'Perhaps she has run into the forest.' She made to rise, but Rognvald put his hand on her shoulder and held her down.

'Stay with Dag,' he said, taking back his sword. 'I will search for her.' Calling Svein and the two mounted Spanish knights to accompany him, he made a swift search of the perimeter. In a few moments, Cait could hear them shouting for Alethea as they made a circuit of the surrounding woodland. While they searched, Cait occupied herself with washing the unconscious knight's wound and preparing a bandage for him. She bade Yngvar bring water and then sent him to fetch some dry moss, which she formed into a thick pad, binding it to the wound with a strip of linen torn from the hem of one of her mantles,

As she worked, she kept looking to the forest half-expecting to see her sister straggling back to camp from her hiding-place. Where have you been? she would demand. We have been calling for you! Could you not hear? Alethea, shaken but unharmed, would complain about her sister's lack of pity for her particular hardship, and all would be well once more.

In the end, however, it was not Alethea she saw, but Rognvald and Svein, hurrying from the wood, their faces tight with dismay. 'Tell me you did not find her,' said Cait, bracing herself for the worst.

'Lady, we did not,' Rognvald replied. 'The Spanish knights-the four who were gathering firewood. They were set upon by the bandits and killed before they could raise the alarm and warn us.'

'All four – dead?' Despite what the knight was telling her, she only felt relieved that her sister was not among them.

'Their kinsmen are with them,' Rognvald said.

'We saw no sign of the young lady,' Svein added quickly. 'There is hope still.'

'Better than for the priest,' said Yngvar, joining them.

'Matthias – why? Where is he?' She stood up and looked around.

'He has been killed, my lady.' Yngvar pointed towards the plundered wagon. 'His body is there.'

To all appearances, the good brother had simply fallen asleep at his prayers. Hands still clasped, he lay on his side, his robe damp at the knees from kneeling on the wet ground. The killing blow had caught him on the back of the neck, almost severing his head. Yet his expression was not one of terror or anguish, but intense calm-as if, in the fervency of his prayer, he had been unaware of the tumult around him.

'I do not think he felt any pain, poor fellow,' observed Svein.

'Poor fellow,' Yngvar retorted. 'I hope I might go in such a way. He was close to God, this one.'

Svein nodded thoughtfully. 'He is closer now.'

Rognvald glanced at the lowering sky. 'It will be dark soon. We must hurry if we are to raise the trail.'

At first Cait did not understand the implication of his words. 'Raise the trail,' she objected. 'But Alethea would not just run away.'

'The bandits' trail,' Rognvald corrected.

Until the knight uttered those words, the possibility that her sister had been taken had simply not occurred to her; it did so now-and with all the terrible consequence of certainty.

Instantly, her mind filled with the vile and awful defilements customarily suffered by abducted women. She stood. 'We must find her. Where is my horse?'

'I will take Yngvar and the others. Svein will stay here with you.'

'I am going,' she insisted. 'Get me a horse.'

Rognvald placed his hand firmly on her shoulder. 'We are armed and you are not. It would be better for you to stay and look after Dag.'

'Let Svein look after him,' she said, shaking off his hand. 'I am going.' Retrieving her sword, she strode to Svein's horse, gathered the hem of her mantle, put her foot to the stirrup and swung into the saddle. 'Well? Are you coming or not?'

Rognvald muttered an oath beneath his breath and moved quickly to his mount. He wheeled his horse and started off in the direction the marauding Moors had fled. 'Stay in sight of me,' he said to Cait as he passed her.

At first they had no difficulty seeing exactly where the raiders had gone. They followed clear hoofprints in the rain-softened earth, making good speed through the wood. Indeed, their progress was so swift and purposeful, Cait allowed herself to imagine they would quickly catch sight of the fleeing raiders.

Too soon, however, the little light which shone through the thick overcast sky dissolved into a dismal damp gloom. And then, as darkness settled about them, the ground began to rise to meet the rocky hills; they climbed to the top of a steep, thicket-covered slope, and there the trail of hoofmarks divided. The last dregs of daylight revealed a sudden turning away from the path and into the rough, trackless hills. Here, Rognvald called a halt.

'Mark the place,' he called to Yngvar. 'We will resume the search in the morning.'

'You would turn back now?' demanded Cait. 'They must be but a short way ahead of us. We can catch them yet.'

'We cannot catch them if we cannot see them,' Rognvald replied.

'As it stands, we will be fortunate to find our way back to camp in the dark.'

'Go back, then,' Cait growled angrily. 'You can all go back, /will go on alone. My sister is taken captive, and I will not abandon her.'

'We will find Alethea,' declared Rognvald, his words terse and his voice low. 'But we cannot search in the darkness, and / will not risk all our lives in foolish pursuit.'

With that, he turned and started back the way they had come. Cait shouted at him to come back, but he ignored her; Yngvar fell in behind his lord; the two Spanish knights hesitated, then followed, leaving Cait to herself.

In defiance, she urged her horse forward along the trail, but stopped again after only a few dozen paces. It was hopeless. She could no longer see the ground, much less the hoofprints; trees, shadows, hills and sky were merging into an impenetrable inky gloom-made all the darker for the lack of moon or stars to light the way.

She reined to a halt, and sat staring into the deepening murk and listening for any sound that would tell her Alethea was near. She heard only the wind fingering the tops of the tall pines as it rushed down from the cold mountain heights. When she realized she could no longer hear the knights behind her, she at last gave in. 'God be with you, Thea,' she murmured, and then turned around to make her way back.

Finding the trail was far more difficult than she had imagined. If not for the fact that she had just passed that way-and that Yngvar was waiting for her further on-she knew she would have spent a cold night alone in the wood. It galled her to admit that Rognvald was right, but she accepted Yngvar's silent lead and followed on.

By the time they reached the camp, a small fire was burning brightly in the centre of the clearing. The bodies of the dead bandits had been removed, and Dag was sitting beside the fire, holding his bandaged head in his hands. He stood shakily as the others came into the camp.

'Where is Svein?' asked Rognvald. Dag replied that he was in the wood, digging graves.

'Paulo… Rodrigo,' Rognvald said, turning to the Spanish knights s they dismounted, 'go help Svein. We will come shortly and bring the priest for burial.'

Cait heard the names and realized she did not know the Spanish knights who served her. Her cheeks burned with shame at the thought. Four of them had given their lives in her service and she did not even know their names.

In that moment, the enormity of her blind, grasping, arrogant, vengeful ambition came dreadfully, painfully clear to her. She moved to the fire, collapsed beside it, and sat staring in hollow despair. Tonight, her all-consuming hunger for revenge had cost the lives of five good men, and the abduction of her sister. And this was just the beginning, she thought. Before it was over, how many more would pay?

She heard Rognvald say, 'Come, we will join them.' He instructed Yngvar to wrap the body of Matthias in his robes, and then he was standing over her. 'I said we would join them at the grave site.'

Miserable with guilt and the heart-breaking weight of the disaster, she found she could neither lift her head nor answer. She merely nodded her acquiescence.

He stood for a moment looking down on her; she could feel his eyes, and she imagined his expression of scornful reproach. And then he was beside her, his mouth close to her ear. 'Hear me, my lady,' he said, speaking softly, but earnestly. 'Nobility's worth is not proved by the brilliance of its glory, but by the light it lends to others in the dark night of need.' Then he took her hand and stood, raising her to her feet. 'Come, it is time to say farewell to our friends.'

Taking Dag by the arm, she followed Rognvald and Yngvar as they carried the body of the priest a short distance into the wood where, by the light of a fire of pine branches, Svein and the two Spanish knights, Paulo and Rodrigo, were completing a wide trench between two large trees. Using their swords they had cut into the soft turf, hacking through the roots, and scooping out the earth with their hands. The four dead knights lay in a neat row to one side, bundled in their cloaks, arms crossed upon their chests. Brother Matthias was carefully laid beside them, and as Cait and Dag took their places beside the single large grave, Rognvald and the others began moving the corpses to their final resting-place.

The monk was interred first, and then the knights, two at either hand. The symmetry seemed to satisfy some desire on the part of the Spanish knights to see their swordbrothers accompanied on their eternal journey side by side with a priest. Once they had been arranged, their faces were covered by the hoods of their cloaks and loose dirt was pushed over the bodies.

Cait stood and watched in the gently flickering light as the knights packed and smoothed the mounded earth with their hands. Then one of the Spaniards took up a wooden cross he had made from a forked branch and crosspiece lashed together with a leather strap. The crude cross was set in the top of the mound and anchored with a few small stones.

They stood for a long moment in silence, contemplating the grave, and then, taking a burning branch from the fire, Rognvald held it over the mound. 'In elder times,' he said, 'a fallen warrior would be sent on his journey to the otherworld with fire. Tonight we will honour this ancient custom, and leave our brothers and companions with a farewell flame to light their way through the dark valley of death to the City of Light.'

With that, he planted the burning branch in the grave mound to one side of the cross. He straightened and stepped back. 'May they enter the Great King's presence with thanksgiving. May they join the glad company of Heaven and find everlasting joy in the service of the Lord of Hosts.'

Svein took up a burning branch and likewise planted it in the mounded soil. 'Farewell, my friends. Though we must leave you in this strange place, we leave a flame to light your path. Go home to God.'

Next, Paulo took up a brand. He stuck it in the mound, saying, 'Thadeus, Ricardo, Hernando, Emari, Brother Matthias-you were my friends in life. Death has taken you away, but you will live in my memory, and in the deeds I shall do in your names. Farewell.'

At last, thought Cait sadly, I have learned all their names, and now it is too late.

The other Spaniard removed a branch from the fire and, holding it above the mound, said: 'Today I lost the friends of my youth. Tonight, I mourn the loss. Tomorrow, I will avenge them. From this moment, the blade at my side is dedicated to you, my friends, and I pray to Almighty God that it will deal justice to the cowards who cut short your lives.' He plunged the burning brand into the mound. 'I, Rodrigo Bilar, make this vow.'

Cait knew the sentiment only too well, and shrank from the recognition. Oh, Rodrigo, she thought, you do not know what you are saying.

Yngvar and Dag each bade their dead friends a heartfelt, if simple, farewell and planted their torches. Then it was Cait's turn. Plucking a branch from the fire, she stepped to the graveside and stared at the great oblong bulge of earth. What was there to say? She did not know these men; anything she said would be a triviality, an empty gesture that would mock their sacrifice.

So, without a word, she added her torch to the circle of flame around the wooden cross. The party stood for a moment in silence, listening to the wind sighing through the unseen treetops. Then Rognvald led them back to the ruined camp where, after they had finished putting up the tent for Cait, he addressed them, saying, 'Get what sleep you can. We resume the search tomorrow at dawn.'

Yngvar prepared a warm gruel of pease porridge with bacon, but Cait was too tired and numb with sorrow to eat. Instead, she went into the tent and sank down on to the thin pallet of pine boughs that served for a bed. She pulled Alethea's cloak around her and lay as still as she could-as if by remaining motionless, she might calm the ceaseless whirling of her thoughts. And though she closed her eyes, she kept seeing the Moorish bandits circling and circling like ravening wolves. She heard again the dull thunder of the horses' hooves, and the desperate shouting of the knights as they strove to • fend off the attack.

And, somewhere, above the clamour of battle, she heard Alethea's screams. Although she had not been aware of it at the time, she must have heard her sister's cries for help as she was carried off. She heard something else, too: a man's voice, frantically shouting for help. The hopelessness of the cry brought her bolt upright in her bed with a gasp.

'Abu!'