The Coven's Daughter

by Lucy Jago

  Copyright © 2010 by Lucy Jago

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion Books, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 100115690.

  ISBN 978-1-4231-4747-3

  Visit www.disneyhyperionbooks.com

  E2-20200225-PDJ-PC-VAL

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  To Paul, for everything, and Susie passed into spirit but always with me

  May Day

  Saturday 1st May

  1596

  News of the dead boy spread through the church as fast as a pig runs from the butcher’s sack. His body was black and blistered, they whispered, like the Devil himself had danced upon it. His tongue stuck from his mouth as if someone had tried to pull it out.

  Overhead the bell tolled. The villagers of Montacute had gladly heeded its merry call that morning to celebrate the start of May. Now they heard it as a death knell. Huddled in small, frightened groups they shivered as if the dark and cold of past months had returned.

  C H A P T E R 1

  Ugh, droppings between my toes.” Cess kicked off her clogs anyway, because they were rubbing. She had walked to work through a misty dawn, but now the early morning sun was breaking through the clouds, and it had stopped raining. She swept the poultry yard in time to the matins bells, unaware they were ringing out a warning that death and pestilence had come to the village.

  “They wriggle, but they’re not worms.” She laughed as the hens pecked her toes. Some of the birds had been in her care since she was taken on at Montacute House three years before, and her heart lifted when they rushed to greet her. She was lucky to have this job, and she knew it.

  “It is my birthday today,” she announced, used to one-sided conversations. It was also a feast day, and Cess could leave the yards once they were swept. The whole village would meet to celebrate the start of the summer, to drink, flirt, and forget their worries, but she knew that she would be left to one side like a branch without blossoms.

  Cess bent to her work again, enjoying the patches of warmth on her back. She noticed how strong her forearms had become after so much sweeping. The skin on them was still pale, for the winter had been hard and the spring wet, but by the end of summer she would be burned brown and freckled, for she liked to work with sleeves rolled up and her head bare. The straw hats other girls wore to keep their skins fair itched her. She stopped to scratch her scalp just thinking about it. She knew she ought to wash her hair now that the weather was warmer. She had the ashes and a little beer to make it shine, but no pig-fat soap. Cess considered her hair to be her best feature, hazelnut brown and thick, though it was usually braided and pinned under a linen coif, as her work was dirty.

  “This is my frayed cap,” she said ruefully to the hens. “Have you eaten my good one?” She had searched everywhere for it. “Now I am thirteen I am supposed to look like a lady,” she continued. Her mother’s mirror had been exchanged for food so long ago that she had forgotten her reflection. She knew her eyes were large, because she was sometimes called “owl eyes,” though more often “cesspit.” Or “bastard.” Her real name was Cecily, but only her friend Edith called her that, or her mother when cross. She did not mind “Cess”—it was familiar.

  Boys should come courting now, or even crown me Queen of the May, she thought, laughing, although it sounded hollow even to her. She knew that for other girls the day was marked with a new skirt, a cap, or even a kirtle. Her cousin Amelia had turned thirteen two springs earlier, and paraded about in an outfit smelling of fine, crisp wool and soft shoe leather. She could still remember the sweet scent of Amelia’s new clothes even against the acid reek of the poultry yard.

  As Cecily had lain awake that morning, in that silent time before dawn, she had made a wish with a longing that took her by surprise.

  Let this day be different.

  If only her wishes were as powerful as her dreams. For as long as she could remember she had dreamed of where to find a lost hen or whether a woman with child carried a girl or boy. Her premonitions were always right, but she had quickly learned to keep quiet about them, for when she told people, they looked at her suspiciously.

  Cecily threw down her brush and took up a wooden pail. She always found pleasure in the delicate task of collecting eggs. She opened the door of the largest coop and ducked to enter. Inside, the musty darkness was pierced by shafts of light that came through gaps in the plank walls. Cecily sneezed a few times as the dust filled her nose, then bent so that her deft fingers could root out the warm, chalky eggs from the straw of the lower nesting boxes. She had barely filled a quarter of her pail when she yelped and jumped back as if she had been stung. The hen on the nest stared at her glassily and shuffled her feathers at the intrusion.

  “What is this strange thing you have laid today?” Cecily whispered as she gingerly pushed her hand again under the bird’s warm weight. She retrieved a box the size of her palm, covered in pale blue velvet and held shut with a tiny hook.

  “God’s wounds,” she swore under her breath, fingering the box nervously. She could feel something shifting within as she turned it. She longed to know what it was, but opening strange boxes was dangerous. She might unleash an evil spirit or bind herself to the faerie world and be forced to do their bidding. Perhaps it was put here to take so that she could be accused of stealing. There were many who felt no goodwill toward her.

  “This cannot be meant for me,” she mumbled as she bent to put it back. But then why had it been left there?

  “I should forget about it,” she said sensibly as she moved the box into one of the beams of sunlight that penetrated the gloom, and picked at the golden catch with a grubby finger. Slowly the lid opened, and she could see black silk within. As if a hatchling nestled beneath, Cecily gently lifted away the silk and revealed a jewel of such costliness and sparkle that she had to squint as the light reflected off it. Stones of red, fiery blue, ice, and deep green edged a heavy oval pendant of rich gold. In the center was a portrait of a woman dressed in furs, silks, and jewels. There was a crest to the right of her head, and although it was very tiny, Cecily thought she could make out a black bird, like a crow or raven, standing on a white stag. The woman had a pale, almost blue-white oval face, out of which stared hazel eyes. Although the portrait was small, Cecily felt those eyes boring into her as if the woman was offended that a peasant girl should be holding her. She knew she would do well to snap the box shut and shove it back under the hen, but she was mesmerized.

  “I’m just looking; there’s no harm in that.”

  The woman’s hair was swept under a curved French hood, but Cecily imagined it to be honey-brown, like her eyebrows. Her hands could just be seen, one gloved in calfskin, the other bare with long, ringed
fingers, white as ice.

  “Who are you? Why are you here?” Cecily whispered to the portrait.

  She knew a girl like her could never own something so precious, but there was no law against trying it on. No one could see her and she would put it back afterward. Carefully, she passed the heavy gold chain over her head. She had never worn anything this valuable, and the weight of it upon her neck was delicious. She shivered as she imagined the pendant transforming her inch by inch from grimy, illegitimate poultry girl into a noblewoman.

  Very slowly she began to sway then twirl inside the cramped coop as if it were a great hall filled with sweet music. Silks and Dutch lace caressed her body, and pearls and precious stones sparkled against her skin and in her hair. The stench of chicken droppings was replaced with the scents of fine food, spiced wine, and the perfumed clothes and hair of the highborn men and women dancing with her. All around were faces smiling and nodding. She was beautiful and admired and knew how it felt to be wanted.

  A harsh whistle and the clucking of alarmed hens in the yard outside pulled her up short.

  “Oi! Cesspit! I’ve come for ten birds!” shouted the kitchen boy as he neared the yards. Cecily shoved the pendant down into her bodice and dashed outside to shoo her favorite birds into the farthest coop to keep them from the pot.

  “Oi, where are you, girl?”

  “Coming!”

  “I want ten…What’s with you?” he said as he let himself in. Cess did not reply, but her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glittered. The boy stared at her a moment, then shrugged and began a strange, jagged dance around the coop as he tried to catch the wary creatures.

  “Reckon you’ll actually have to do some work, eh, when the Queen arrives,” he sneered unpleasantly.

  “The Queen?” repeated Cess in amazement. She usually ignored the kitchen boy, for he strutted around her like a pompous ass. His trips to the coops were the only time in his day when he was superior to somebody, and he reveled in it.

  “Do you hear nothing?” he said. “She’s expected here in a few weeks. They’ll be needing more food than was on the Ark. You’ll have yer work cut out then.” Cess watched him scrabbling after the terrified birds and forcing theminto the baskets he carried with him.

  “Don’t suppose you’ll be helping,” he grumbled.

  “Not in here!” she yelled at him furiously as he went to wring a bird’s neck.

  He looked at her with contempt, and smiled as the sound of cracking bones filled the air. Cess turned away. She could not bear to watch her beautiful hens die at the hands of this brute.

  She left the boy to his murderous task and took refuge behind the largest coop. She thought of the pendant deep inside her bodice and wondered what she should do with it.

  “If I put it back and someone finds it, I’ll be accused of stealing it,” she reasoned. “If I give it to the steward, he won’t believe I found it under a hen and will call me a thief just the same. I will be hanged from the gibbet either way.” She took out the pendant, questions turning endlessly in her head about how it came to be there and who the woman was. Only when the hunger in her belly outgrew the excitement she felt as she gazed at the portrait did Cess take a deep breath and drop it back down her bodice. It felt cold against her ribs, reminding her that she had just made a decision that could cost her life.

  Her cloak bundled under one arm, with the empty velvet box inside, Cess picked up the pail to take the eggs to the kitchens. Even though she was one of the lowliest servants on the estate, she felt proud to belong to Montacute House. Halfway across the vegetable gardens she stopped and gazed at the beautiful building as the morning light fell across it. She had watched it grow from its foundations since she was a little girl. It stood proudly amongst the gentle rolling hills and woods of the county, a great monarch of a house ruling over a kingdom of hamlets, small towns, and villages, including Montacute itself. Visitors came from afar to marvel at the sight of the soaring facade, its walls of golden Somersetshire stone, pierced with so many windows that they looked to be made of lace. Hundreds of saints, marvelous creatures, and armored knights kept guard in delicate niches in the walls, and a forest of chimneys told the world how comfortable, modern, and wealthy was the owner.

  She walked across the south drive, used by servants, tradesmen, and visitors of the poorer sort, past the stables and into the kitchen yard. As she handed over the eggs, an apprentice cook thrust a cup of small beer and a chunk of rye bread and beef dripping at her in return—breakfast. The kitchens were in uproar with servants flapping from dairy to storeroom, brewhouse to larder, fire to pastry table, in a fluster of preparation for the evening’s banquet to celebrate the fact that Montacute House was finally finished. It had been ten years in the building, and Sir Edward Mortain, Earl of Montacute, now had one of the most beautiful houses in the country.

  Smells of roasting and the thick, greasy smoke of spitting meat made Cess’s stomach roll in longing. People came and went, stepping round her as they might a puddle. Small groups of men-at-arms hung idly about waiting for the stable boys to prepare their horses. Some of the men were in Sir Edward’s livery, but others wore the silver and black of his son, Viscount Drax Mortain, who had been a guest at the house for the past few weeks. Cess had not seen him. Unlike his father, he had shown no interest in the poultry yards.

  Eyes down, Cess walked quickly across the kitchen yard. She tried to be invisible when the men-at-arms were about. Their manners with unmarried servants were lewd and rough. She hurried past the stables to the south drive and walked quickly toward the village. She was halfway down the drive when a strong prickling sensation ran up her spine and made the roots of her hair tingle unpleasantly. She stood still, unsure whether to look or to run. She knew the sensation. Someone was watching her.

  Her breath quick and shallow, she turned very slowly. The path was deserted. The servants in the gardens and orchards were busy with their chores. Her eyes were drawn to the southern facade of the house, where there was a great oriel window. As she squinted against the sun she felt her heart jump in her chest. Someone was looking out the window, straight at her. At such a distance Cess could not tell for sure who it was, but she could see the glint of gold chains. It was one of the noble guests, the steward or her master himself. Cess’s heart thumped uncomfortably with the guilty knowledge of what she carried in her bodice. Although she had not thought of it before, something of such great value must have come from the House. She raised her hand to shield her eyes, hoping for a clearer impression, but the figure backed away into the darkness of the room behind.

  C H A P T E R 2

  Cess walked homeward blindly, absorbed by the figure in the pendant and the face she had seen at the window. It seemed too great a coincidence that she should be observed on the very day she had found something that did not belong to her.

  She sped up as she entered the village and passed the large group of well-made houses with barns, stables, and a brew house that were home to her Perryn cousins, aunts, and uncles. Cess had no desire to see them, but out of habit she glanced quickly at the comfortable house in which she had been born. She instantly regretted it. Her cousins Beth and Amelia were standing outside, watching her. Cess was astonished to see Beth blush, and even Amelia, usually so smug, was looking surprisingly furtive.

  They’re up to no good, Cess thought. Then she noticed two maypoles leaning beside their front door, one for each cousin. As tradition allowed, during the night, the village boys had adorned the maypoles of girls of marriageable age in the way they saw fit. Beth had awoken to find her pole draped with stinking potato peelings, moldy cabbage stalks, weeds, and all manner of rubbish. Amelia’s, identified by the long blond ringlet she had carefully tied to it, was crowded with bouquets of wildflowers and May blossoms.

  Cess thought it was hard on Beth to have a much prettier sister, but when she looked back she saw that Beth’s blushes had been replaced by a look of determination. She and Amelia turned away from Cess and
swapped Beth’s pole with a neighbor’s, which was festooned with gorse. To be thought of as prickly was hardly flattering, but better than being rubbish. Cess was shocked that Beth and Amelia could be so dishonest. The neighbor, who was also a cousin, would be mortified.

  “Gorse, cousin? Be glad it is not elder,” quipped Cess before she could stop herself. With its strong smell and easily drilled wood, that plant festooned the poles of girls who had been easy with the boys, as Cess knew Beth had, for all her superior airs. Beth’s lips pressed together spitefully, but it was her younger sister who replied.

  “Are you laughing, cousin?” Amelia said in acid tones. “You must have roses and ribbons on your pole.”

  Cess turned to walk on, sickened that her cousins would switch maypoles, but cross with herself for interfering.

  “Oh no, of course not, silly me,” Amelia called after her. “You don’t have a pole at all, do you? No one would ever dream of marrying a bastard like you!”

  Cess’s face burned.

  “I would happily roll you in the gorse prickles you have just pinched! One day, Amelia…” she muttered angrily as she walked on, dreaming up revenge that she knew she would never be able to inflict. Amelia and Beth were the daughters of her uncle, Richard. He had inherited the Perryn estate after her grandparents had died in the plague of ’94, three years earlier. He was ambitious and ruthless, and his farms were doing well enough for him to call himself a gentleman. His daughters could taunt Cess as much as they liked without fear of retribution. She was as insignificant as the donkey that walked endless circles to turn the mill wheel.

  Amelia’s taunts hurt more for the fact that she and Cess had been friends as children, until Amelia became aware of what the word “bastard” meant and of her own, more elevated, position. Her parents had encouraged the distance between them.

  Cess kicked hard at a stone in the lane, almost losing a clog. Amelia’s rejection of their friendship had made Cecily herself acutely aware of what it meant not to know her father. Although she had begged her mother to tell her who he was, Anne Perryn had refused to give her daughter the slightest clue. She seemed both convinced and relieved that he would never turn up at their door, and told Cess to forget about him and be grateful for the roof over her head and the little food she had in her belly. But Cess could not let go of the mystery of her father and prayed that one day he would come to claim her. She had dreams about him: He was a nobleman, unaware he had sired a child until some extraordinary event alerted him; he was a spice trader in the Orient who had finally made his fortune and come to collect her. He was never just a farmhand. Cess knew they were probably her imaginings for they felt different to the dreams that came true.