[Ela of Salisbury 03] - The Lost Child

by J G Lewis

  Ela glanced at Bill with her fake smile, and he returned a sympathetic glance and made some enthusiastic noises, before they shuffled off—in the king’s company—to the dining hall, where the smell of roasted peacock was already filling the air.

  It was full dark by the time she finally managed to make her excuses and leave. Bursting with impatience and fury, she knew it was too late to do anything to help Edyth tonight. She’d brought up the issue of the sheriff with de Burgh somewhere in between the candied quails eggs and the truffled plums and had dismissively been told that he was being informed and that she should focus on enjoying the king’s hospitality.

  The carriage had been sent home due to its inconvenient size in the busy confines of the palace stable yards, and two attendants had returned with horses for them to ride home. Once fresh, those horses were now sleepy and irritable after waiting several hours in the royal stables for them to be released from ceremonial bondage.

  A thick bank of black clouds covered the moon. Their two attendants now walked on foot, carrying lanterns to light the way as they rode out the gates of Westminster Palace.

  “That was a disaster. An utterly wasted day.” Ela barely managed to save her growl of frustration until they were out of earshot.

  “At least the king now knows about the missing children,” said Bill. He was a little tipsy from all the good wine they’d been plied with for hours.

  “If he cared enough to do anything to protect them he’d have sent soldiers out to the house immediately.”

  “Perhaps he did.”

  “I doubt it.” Ela found her head foggy from all the excess. She didn’t enjoy being forced to taste course after course of indigestible delicacies and would have much preferred a nice bowl of pottage at home. “De Burgh is determined to frustrate me in any way possible.”

  They rode along the cobbled streets. The night was quiet, with the thick, moonless darkness keeping most people inside. That and the ever-present robbers ready to waylay foolish strangers. Ela didn’t feel all that safe even with a trained knight and two armed attendants. The hour was late and they were all tired and unfocused. Even her horse—one of her mother’s that she didn’t know well—tripped over every third cobble, it seemed, and made her feel unsteady in her awkward sidesaddle.

  The road from Westminster seemed twice as long and ten times as sinister on this black evening. She heaved a small sigh of relief when they passed the familiar stone facade of St. Michael and All Angels and drew closer to her mother’s street. “Tomorrow we shall visit the White Tower bright and early, before the sheriff has a chance to ride out,” she said. “We can—”

  A sudden hard shove knocked her from her horse and blew the words from her mouth and her mind.

  Chapter 6

  Ela fell from her horse onto the hard cobbles. Dazed, she tried to right herself and caught the flash of a long knife from the corner of her eye. She watched with horror as Bill doubled over the blade and slumped from his horse to the ground.

  She tried to cry out his name, but one hand clamped over her mouth and another tugged a dark cloth over her eyes. She struggled and tried to bite the hand, but her captor shoved a balled-up rag into her mouth that left her gagging and unable to scream. She was lifted off her feet and bundled over a hard shoulder like a sack of kindling.

  Bill! Bill! She cried out in her mind, pummeling her captor’s back with her fists. From the glimpse she’d seen in the last burst of lantern light, she could swear he’d been run through with the knife. Where were the attendants? Were they all killed?

  Who are you? She wanted to demand of her captor, but her mouth was forced wide open, and no sound would come from her cloth-filled throat. She gagged and wriggled and struggled the whole way, trying to break his grip on her—the man was running—until she felt his arm move and heard a door swing open, then shut behind her.

  The smell that assaulted her nostrils surprised her. A scent of cooked meat and under it a whiff of something like incense. Her captor strode forward, feet silent on the floor. He climbed a flight of stairs, then she heard another door open—his back didn’t move to open it so someone must have done it for him.

  Still struggling, unable to do more than make small choking noises, she suddenly found herself ejected from his shoulder and laid roughly down on…a soft bed.

  Or that’s what it felt like. Her hands—unbound—clutched at the surface and found it to be a rich, soft wool like her own winter cloak.

  Where am I? She raised her hands to her face and tugged the covering from her eyes, but the room was so dark she could see nothing. Her captor had already left and closed the door. She pulled the wadded ball of cloth from her mouth and coughed until her chest ached.

  She could scream now.

  If she wanted to. But was that wise? Who would hear her? And would a listener be more likely to save her or kill her? She needed to figure out where she was and how to get out of here.

  And then she needed to find Bill.

  Her heart clenched at the thought. If Bill wasn’t dead he’d have come after her with the last ounce of strength left in him. He’d always been her champion—after her husband—and vowed a thousand times to give his life for hers.

  And now he had. Grief welled inside her.

  She prayed that her eyes would adjust to the dark so she could see something. Now sitting, she felt for the floor with her feet. This wasn’t the house of a common robber—which would smell of musty walls and tallow candles and stale bread. The scent in the air reminded her of her mother’s house, with its tall beeswax candles, polished wood and dishes of spiced delicacies.

  She sat in the house of someone wealthy.

  She strained to see in the darkness, but no light entered from any source. She rose gingerly to her feet. Her hands weren’t tied so if she could find a window maybe she could force it open and escape.

  Her ears pricked, listening for any sound. She thought she heard music, but maybe it was the sound of her blood pulsing in her panicked brain.

  Bill is dead. The memory assaulted her again like a blow. He’d been her constant companion since she was a girl. The prospect of life without her husband was grim enough, but without Bill Talbot the world would be a very lonely place.

  You need to get out of here for the sake of your children. The urgent thought burned in her mind. They’ve lost their father, and they can’t lose you. Not to mention that Hubert de Burgh would no doubt try to make them his wards so he could pillage her estate for his own gain.

  She held her hands out in front of her face as she shuffled forward across the floor, wary that she could trip or bang into a jutting piece of furniture. The darkness obscured her vision as if she still had a hood over her eyes.

  The floor under her thin-soled leather shoes felt like smooth stone tiles. Her hand touched a wall and found it to be smooth plaster, cool to the touch.

  She could swear she heard music. Very low—almost too low to distinguish from the sound of her own breathing—but a rhythmic rise and fall like a chant. Moving her hands along the wall, she edged sideways. She reached a corner and felt her way around it to the next wall. A few feet along that she reached what felt like a wooden shutter, closed from the inside.

  A window. If she could get it open she might at least get a small glow of cloud-covered moonlight to light the room or illuminate the way to the ground. She ran her fingers along the edge of the shutters, trying to wiggle them or find out how they latched. An iron bar crossed the shutters horizontally. She ran her fingertips along it until she found a lock in the middle with a large keyhole, securing the shutters from the inside. The barred shutters were intended to keep robbers out, but without the key they were just as effective at keeping her in.

  The shutters hung on big hinges screwed deep into the wall, because they didn’t budge when she tried to pry at them. Frustration clawed at her. If she couldn’t get out through the window the only way out was through the door—into the house.

  She felt he
r way further along the wall and soon she’d worked her way all around the small room, over the bed she’d been laid on and back to the door her assailant brought her in through. She was exploring the door with her fingertips when she heard footsteps in the passage outside.

  Heart pumping, Ela groped her way back to the bed and sat down on it just as a key scratched in the lock. The door opened with a creak, and a shaft of light from a lantern almost blinded her.

  Blinking, she tried to get a good look at the person in the doorway. The person was short but with the broad shoulders of man. A deep hood hid his face. A small boy came from behind him and carried a covered dish into the bedroom. He placed it on the bed next to her—all without looking at her. The short man stood in the doorway for a moment, then hung the lantern on a hook and closed and locked the door, leaving her and the boy alone in the room.

  Ela realized when he’d gone that she hadn’t uttered a word, despite all the questions hovering in her mouth. Where am I? Who are you? Why am I here? Why did you kill Bill Talbot? She had a feeling that if she’d let even one word escape she’d soon have been screaming.

  The boy uncovered the dish to reveal three small roasted birds and an apple baked with cinnamon and honey. The boy was only about eight years old, with smooth, dark skin like polished oak.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  He sat cross-legged on the floor and kept his eyes down. It occurred to her that he might be one of the captured children she was trying to help. He wore a dark green tunic trimmed with silver and blue embroidery. An expensive costume for a child servant, if that’s what he was.

  “Do you speak French or English?” She spoke softly, aware that her urgency had given her last question a sharp tone. He still didn’t respond, and his eyes remained cast toward the floor. “Are there other children here?”

  The fragrant aroma of the roasted birds turned her stomach after the endless feasting at the palace. She’d never felt less like eating. She wondered if the boy would like to eat them, then asked herself if they were poisoned.

  Was he afraid of her? She climbed off the bed and crouched on the floor in front of the child. When he still didn’t raise his gaze, she lifted her thumb and finger to his chin and tilted his face toward hers.

  As she touched him his whole body stiffened and his eyes flew to hers with a look of terror.

  She let go immediately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” What did he think she was going to do to him? What had already been done to him? “Do you understand me?”

  He blinked. She had a feeling that he did but that he’d rather eat his tongue than admit it. “I’m here to help you,” she whispered. Was she? She didn’t know why she was here, but it was a fair assumption that her abduction had something to do with her quest to find Edyth. It was another fair assumption that someone was listening at the door or through a wall.

  “What are they planning to do with me?” she wondered aloud. She picked up one of the little birds as if she were about to eat it but put it back on the plate. “Are you hungry?”

  He shook his head.

  “You do understand me.”

  His gaze dropped to the floor again. The lantern light revealed it to be an elaborate pattern of black and white tiles. She glanced up at the rest of the room. Colorful painted patterns and naturalistic vines covered the plaster walls. This house must be a palace of some kind to be so richly decorated.

  But who did it belong to?

  “Is that music?” The odd swells of sound seemed sometimes to be there and sometimes not.

  The boy bit his lip. He sat on the floor, clutching his knees as if trying to curl himself into a ball.

  “Are you afraid?”

  He didn’t look at her. He’d obviously been told not to talk to her on pain of punishment. Perhaps he’d been told to watch her and report back to his masters or to call out if she tried to escape.

  She rose to her feet and walked to the shuttered window. In the light, the shutter and its iron bar looked more impenetrable than ever. Would anyone hear her from the street if she shouted for help? She couldn’t tell if there was glass hidden behind the shutter, but given the ornate decor of the room there probably was. That would further deaden any sounds she might make.

  Was anyone even looking for her? It was past midnight, and her mother would be asleep. With Bill dead and her attendants dead or injured as well, no one would remark upon their absence until they failed to appear for breakfast the next morning.

  She turned and marched back across the small space until she reached the door. “If there’s anyone out there I’m ready to meet you. Why do you have me shut up here?”

  She could almost swear she heard movement in the passage outside, but no one spoke.

  “I’m not going to eat in case the food is poisoned,” she said coolly. She did feel oddly calm. She grew impatient for action or confrontation of some kind. Is this how men felt before battle? Of course, she was unarmed and had no way to defend herself but her wit. The people who’d taken her were clearly remorseless killers. Her predicament looked bleak.

  But if they simply wanted her dead, surely they’d have killed her already?

  Ela heard the fumble of a key being inserted into the lock and turned. Her stomach clenched as the door opened again to reveal a tall man. She couldn’t tell if it was the same one who’d brought her here. If it was, he’d changed. He now wore the black robes of a friar. The hood was pushed back enough to reveal a face—except there was no face, just an odd leather mask with a protrusion like a crow’s beak. The unsettling sight unnerved her, and she gasped before she managed to steady herself.

  The little boy was so disturbed by the sight that he scrambled to his feet, a sob bursting from his mouth.

  “Shut up, you brat,” snarled the man. “Get back to the kitchen.”

  The boy tore past his legs and out the door.

  The man spoke in English, not the courtly French she’d expect of a friar. But he didn’t have the thick accent of the people who ran the market stalls or begged for alms in the streets of London.

  “Where am I?” She was glad her voice came out calm and even.

  “Follow me,” he snapped. He turned and walked back into the hallway, holding a lantern to light the way.

  Ela followed behind the man. The black robes dragged on the floor as if they were a size too large. The hallway bore a pattern of smooth black and white stone—marble from Italy, she suspected. She’d seen similar in some grand houses she’d visited. Carved wood panels decorated the hallway walls.

  Her curiosity about this strange, lavish place conquered her fear, and she tried to take in every detail as they descended a narrow flight of wood stairs and the man unlocked another door and led them into a large room.

  More lanterns glowed in brackets on the wall, illuminating the grand space. At the center of the opposite wall stood a large stone fireplace carved with what looked like angels. No fire burned in the grate, but a stack of wood and polished iron fire tools stood next to it.

  The walls were stained dark red, and a painted pattern of yellow and blue diamonds ran along the top and bottom of the walls. Several fine wood chairs lined the walls, and a table on one wall held an open book on a stand. The book was large enough to be a great Bible, but Ela couldn’t make out the text in the gloomy candlelight.

  The masked and hooded man led her into the middle of the room. A large silver box on a table caught her eye. The intricate patterns in the silver had the geometric quality of work by the Spanish infidels whose God forbade them to draw men or objects from nature.

  “Whose house is this?” she asked, curiosity burning her.

  “You’re prying into matters that don’t concern you,” he replied roughly. “And doing so will endanger your life and the people you care about.”

  “You already did that. I saw Sir William Talbot fall from his horse, stabbed by a knife.”

  “Then you know I mean it.” He spoke low, with th
at same not-quite-accent. She could almost swear she’d heard his voice before, but she couldn’t say where. “Go back home and mind your own business.”

  My business is to do what God commands me. She wanted to argue with him, but right now her priority was to escape with her life and return to her children. “I’d like to do that.” She made her voice meek and quiet. Playacting was not her strong suit. Her husband, William, used to tease her about that. She’d never been skilled at pretending to like dullards or flattering pompous guests in their home. “Please let me go home to my children.”

  The man shifted his weight. He gave off an unpleasant smell of unwashed skin. Or maybe it was the cloak. “Your children. You want to keep them safe?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then focus on them and don’t waste your time and energy wondering about other people’s brats.”

  I was brought here because of my search for Edyth.

  “What do you mean?” Much as she wanted to escape, she suddenly felt like she was on the right path to find the girl.

  “You know what I mean,” he growled. “Don’t play stupid.”

  She drew herself up. She wasn’t used to being spoken to like this. But then she’d never been knocked from her horse and imprisoned before, either. Even in a palace.

  In the silence, again she heard the swell of music. “Who’s singing?”

  “None of your business.”

  The sound had the cadence of a Gregorian chant. She could hear it better here than in the small bedchamber. Another object in the room caught her eye—draped over the back of a chair on the far side of the room—the pelt of an exotic animal with spots. She’d only seen such animals in drawings and couldn’t guess which one it might be. A leopard perhaps?

  The person who owned this place must be a collector of exotic things. Perhaps someone who traveled. “The boy who brought my dinner. Where is he from?”