She climbed the narrow stairs that led to the small gallery overlooking the nave. From there, she had to duck her head to go up the even narrower set of stairs above. She pushed a wooden door and found it opened onto a perch at the peak of the church roof. When she stepped out onto it, her stomach filled with butterflies and her palms grew sweaty. She looked at the slats for climbing the spire above her and nearly swooned.
The perch was high enough.
From here, she had a bird’s-eye view of the fields and woods on all sides of the abbey. Her eyes followed the winding river and the path that led up to the orchard. She sighed, remembering the sound of birds and Stephen’s arm about her. Squinting, she picked out the abandoned croft. If only she could go back with Stephen one more time. Just once more.
That was pure foolishness! No matter how many times, she would always want more.
A fine lookout she was. Annoyed with herself, she turned her back on the croft and scanned the horizon to the west.
What was that? In a copse of wood she thought she saw the gleam of metal. She watched until she made out the shapes of horses and men, tiny as ants, through the trees.
Their attackers had not fled far. Would they go on their way, or return for a second attack? It was impossible to tell. She decided not to panic the others until she knew.
She grew cold and stiff as she watched and waited. Surely it was a good sign they took so long. She imagined the black-haired leader ranting at his men down there under the trees.Please, God, let the men resist him until Stephen returns.
She risked taking her eyes off the wood to glance to the northwest, in the direction of Caen. Two hours after dawn he would come. How long had she been watching? An hour? Surely Stephen would come soon.
She saw first one rider, then another leave the cover of the wood. “God, no, please, no.”
They rode straight toward the abbey. She waited, muscles taut, to count them. Four, five, six. Their line strung out, the space between increasing with each horse that left the wood. She read reluctance in their slow trot. Still, they came. Ten, eleven, twelve.
She must warn the men below.
She cast one last look in the direction from which Stephen would come, willing him to be there.
God be praised! Stephen was coming!
The riders cresting the faraway hill were no more than dots on the horizon. They were twice the distance from the abbey as the others, but they swept down the hill, moving fast.
Isobel flew down the narrow stairs.
“He comes! He comes!” she shouted as she ran across the sanctuary to Jamie and FitzAlan.
“The men who attacked us are returning,” she said when she reached them. “But Stephen rides hard behind them.”
FitzAlan pulled himself up on one elbow with a grimace, then commenced to fire questions at her. “What is the distance between them? How many men in each?”
Feeling like one of his soldiers, she gave him her report. She was rewarded with a nod of approval.
“Stephen will chase them off,” FitzAlan said, “but we’d better get to the gate on the chance he needs help.”
Despite Jamie’s efforts to hold him down, the fool man tried to heave himself up.
“Lord FitzAlan, lie down at once!” she said, standing over him, hands on her hips. “I shall not forgive you if you reopen that wound and bleed to death after all we’ve been through.”
“Geoffrey and I can hold the gate until Stephen comes,” Jamie said, his voice quiet and sure.
FitzAlan and Jamie locked eyes. Then FitzAlan gave his son a tight nod.
As Jamie ran past her, he squeezed her arm in thanks.
“Take me outside where I can see,” FitzAlan shouted at some monks hovering nearby.
Four of them rushed to do his bidding. At his insistence, they carried his pallet out the door and propped him up against the wall. The monks almost knocked Isobel over in their haste to get back inside the church.
She sat down beside FitzAlan. From their high spot, she could see over the abbey’s wall to the first rise beyond.
Looking out, she said, “There is fresh blood on your bandage.”