The Landlord's Black-Eyed Daughter

by Mary Ellen Dennis

  Elizabeth stroked his fingers. “I feel the same. But I can’t think why since I’ve never been here before.”

  “We are near the Vale of Evesham,” he murmured, as if that explained everything.

  “You once said you misliked the south because it reminded you of the war.”

  “Yes… the war.”

  “Perhaps we should have traveled a different route.”

  “There are answers in Evesham, Bess, if we’re up to facing them.” Rand’s hands tightened on her shoulders.

  Tell me what you know right now! Elizabeth didn’t voice her command. The closer they came to Evesham, the less certain she felt. Did she really want to explore anything? Did she really want answers?

  “Get back into bed, my love,” she said. “You’re shivering.”

  “So are you. Come with me.”

  “Soon.”

  Soon blended into minutes, then an hour, and she remained by the window. The quarter moon now rested directly above Alcester. Wisps of clouds crept across clusters of stars. From the street below, the sound of a flute or shepherd’s pipe wafted upward.

  Elizabeth’s breath caught in her throat. The tune was the same one she had heard at Walter’s fête, the same tune Rand had hummed.

  Fumbling with the latch, she swung open the window. Music drifted in upon the sudden breeze, slow and mournful, piercing to the soul. She squeezed her eyes shut and allowed the strain to curl around her, tugging at her. It teased her with its memory of something more, something she could not identify.

  She opened her eyes and glanced toward Rand. He tossed and turned, his teeth clenched. Elizabeth wanted to crawl inside his dream and help him fight his demons. Since that was impossible, she hastily donned her breeches and shirt.

  Exiting the inn, she followed the thread of the music. The streets were deserted. She halted, one bare foot suspended. Now the music seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere.

  A jumble of images sprang into her mind. She was waiting in a dark exactly like this one. It was so dark in the stone passageway, and cold, for it had always been cold, even on the hottest summer days. She was waiting for someone—someone unpleasant. They shared a secret that would destroy her life. And save it. While she waited, she heard the music, emanating from the banquet hall below.

  Without warning, the music ceased. Elizabeth lowered her foot and looked around. Why was she standing alone on a deserted street? Why did she feel so cold? And why did the word betrayal pound inside her head like a kettledrum?

  “I’m in Alcester,” she said, clenching her fists. “’Tis Tuesday, the fifteenth of October, and I’m cold because my feet are bare.” She didn’t try to explain away the word betrayal, since she feared the little voice, possibly Janey’s voice, would whisper: Don’t you know, Bess? Don’t you remember?

  Stepping on pebbles and floorboards as if they were rosebuds and fur pelts, Elizabeth returned to her room. She slipped into bed beside Rand, then tried to ignore the fear writhing inside her like a snake, twisting and turning on itself.

  ***

  The next morning she and Rand ate breakfast in the common room. They had purchased wigs and clothing at a second-hand shop, and were dressed as a merchant and his wife. Elizabeth thought they blended well with the handful of other couples who shared the low-ceilinged room.

  As she poked at the pancakes on her chipped plate, she said, “This food’s worse than the blasted bedrooms.”

  Rand merely watched two men enter the inn. One was indistinguishable from a thousand other working-class men, while the other was tall and emaciated.

  “He looks like a fugitive from a bone pile,” she blurted.

  “He’s poor, Bess. Poverty and hunger go hand in hand.”

  “That’s why you try to help the poor.”

  “Please, sweetheart. Don’t imbue me with altruistic motives.”

  “But they are altruistic, Rand. Old Fife’s baby would have died had you not bought a cow with your ill-gotten gains. My ostler told me,” she added.

  “The tales of my kindheartedness are vastly embroidered.”

  “Nonsense. You could have stolen the cow. And you purchased my mare, rather than stealing her.” When he didn’t respond, she sipped her coffee, which tasted like mud. Then she speared a piece of bacon. Fat bubbled on both sides, and she decided to forgo meat with her meal.

  Rand abruptly stood. “We must hurry if we’re to make the port of Dover as we planned,” he said loudly.

  “Dover? I thought we—”

  “Hurry! We have well over a hundred miles yet!”

  “Why are you shouting?”

  Rand leaned over and whispered, “Would you please quit asking questions and do as you’re told?”

  Once outside, he walked quickly toward the stables. “I’ll wager those two men are bounty hunters, Bess, which means Stafford has already plastered handbills and reward posters from here to Plymouth.”

  “Are you certain? They looked like ordinary men to me. Maybe a bit scruffier than usual, but—”

  “Who do you think goes after those rewards? I know I’m right. I’ve developed a sixth sense about this sort of thing.”

  “In your business, you have to,” she muttered, reaching the stable entrance.

  They retrieved their horses with a minimum of fuss.

  Beyond the inn, Rand dismounted in front of a sprawling four-storied building bearing the sign “Johnson’s Ancient and Modern Print Warehouse.” Their horses mingled with a half dozen others, plus several carriages.

  “Go inside and wait for me, Bess, while I rid us of those bounty hunters. I want Stafford after me, not anybody else.”

  She watched Rand race back toward the stables. Then she tethered Prancer and the mare she had christened Greylag, named for the common grey wild goose. Finally, she entered the warehouse.

  The main room contained a clerestory which bathed the hundreds of prints in natural light. Elizabeth pretended to study the prints. Rand must be wrong, she thought. It was too soon for bounty hunters. The ordinary reward of forty pounds for a highwayman would not entice them so quickly. Perhaps the Duke of Newcastle had offered an additional sum, but wasn’t that too soon as well?

  On the other hand, Walter had ties with the Bow Street Runners. Rand said the Runners kept in touch with magistrates all over England, and the magistrates often spread handbills at inns and stables. The Runners also published the Quarterly Pursuit and the Weekly or Extraordinary Pursuit, detailing criminals who had escaped from their original districts. According to Rand, the success rate of those two papers was fairly high. With Walter masterminding the chase, Rand could be right.

  By the time he returned, she had leafed through eight how-to books on plant drawing, and couldn’t remember the contents of any. As he escorted her out the door, she whispered, “What is going on?”

  “Nothing now.” Rand helped her mount Greylag. “But I wasn’t wrong. According to the stable hand, those damnfool thief catchers are bound for Dover in hot pursuit of their reward.”

  “How did they find out about us?”

  “A handbill, I would imagine.”

  Elizabeth’s fingers crept up to clutch at her golden necklace, hidden beneath her prim white collar. “Are we still bound for Evesham? Perhaps we should forget about the past or snaring Walter and get as far away from here as possible. I don’t care about revenge. I want to escape. Please, my love.”

  Rand compressed his lips and said nothing.

  He was playing the Quiet Companion again.

  ***

  The Vale of Evesham was a fertile spot, nestled in a long loop of the River Avon. Orchards were scattered among the recently harvested fields, and the surrounding area was dotted with abbey ruins. Green Hill dominated the sky’s vista. Elizabeth had never seen Green Hill before, nor did she know its history, and yet
the very sight of it filled her with foreboding. Rand apparently felt the same, for he remained uncommunicative.

  Despite their mutual unease, they headed toward Green Hill as relentlessly as spawning salmon struggling upstream. If they passed travelers or farmers in their carts, or mail coaches, or boats gliding upon the River Avon, Elizabeth couldn’t say. All she saw was Rand’s broad back and his stallion’s haunches.

  Above Green Hill, a flock of birds strained across the morning sky. Elizabeth recalled an old wives’ tale which told that such birds, from their vantage point above the earth, could easily observe strangers and changes of any sort. Thus, they were considered heralds of death.

  Rand finally reached the base of the hill. Elizabeth nudged Greylag alongside Prancer. The remains of an abbey, leveled save for a bell tower, sprawled in one corner. “It seems peculiar that the Battle of Guilford Court House took place on a hill of the very same name,” she murmured, “and with an abbey as well.”

  Rand gave her an enigmatic look, but did not reply.

  They dismounted at the remains of Evesham Abbey. A cloud passed over the autumn sun, plunging the hill into shadow, hiding the brightness of the grass. Elizabeth shivered, then watched Rand gaze up at the cloud. His face expressed such intense concentration she knew he must be remembering something.

  Her heart began a dreadful pounding, not unlike a funeral knell. “This is a place of blood, isn’t it?”

  “May God have mercy on our souls,” he said. “For our bodies are theirs.”

  Fear prickled Elizabeth’s nape. “What is this place? You know, don’t you?”

  The cloud edged beyond the sun. Its rays again warmed her.

  “Wait for me here,” said Rand.

  “Where are you going?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded strident with fear.

  “I’ll be back by dark.”

  “I want to go with you.”

  “Whatever is revealed to me will be revealed to you. We’re linked, Bess. You know that. You’ve known it from the start.”

  “I don’t want to be alone.” She placed her hand on his arm, as if that could stay him. “There are memories here.”

  “There are memories everywhere.” He lifted her hand and kissed her palm, before turning away and striding up the hill.

  Elizabeth watched his mantle swirl around his boots—a black mantle which should have been red. She watched the sun glint across the blackness of his hair, which should have been even blacker. She saw his shaven chin, which should have possessed a beard, and she felt as if a hand squeezed her throat.

  “Don’t go!” she screamed. “I’m sorry! Don’t leave me!”

  She ran after him, but he was far ahead of her, and by the time she reached Green Hill’s summit, he had vanished.

  ***

  Leaning over her, he smiled.

  His beard was raven-colored, as was his hair, thick and curling below his ears, covering the coif which rested upon his nape. A black hawk was emblazoned across the front of his wine-colored surcoat. His long sword was belted low on his left hip. He grinned at her as he bent to kiss her good-bye. She hated him. Hated him and clung to him, sobbing into his hawk.

  “Don’t go! I’m sorry! Don’t leave me!” She loved him, even if she had betrayed him, betrayed them all.

  She didn’t stand on the parapet and watch him ride away, though she usually did. She would watch him die, instead.

  From the coolness of the abbey, where the monks chanted the Hours of the Dead, she viewed the battle. The royal forces outnumbered the rebels so completely, it would be murder rather than battle, but he would not have chosen any other way to die. She had given him that much, at least.

  The fighting was savage and disjointed. Above the chants of the monks, she heard the cries of men and horses, the ringing of swords. She spotted his lord’s banner near the crest of the hill—the red vertical lines angled across the gold. She knew he would be there, where the fighting was fiercest. Fighting not so much for his lord’s cause, but because he loved war more than life. He loved war more than food or drink or beautiful women or sunsets; more than swift horses, land, and friendship. Certainly more than her.

  The sky blackened and a wind sprang up, howling through the abbey. She began to cry. She wanted to call him back and tell him that she hadn’t meant to betray him, but she could not reclaim the days. Instead, she must reap what she had sown, in all its bitter harvest.

  Around him knights dropped as suddenly as if felled by the lightning that cracked across the sky. One hundred sixty knights on the rebels’ side, but only a handful remained. He was one, of course, fighting as if he were a new knight and it was his first battle. But he was a man of forty-five, and it was his last.

  Knights surrounded him. Knights that belonged to the king. Twenty knights for every rebel. The sky grew darker and darker until she could see only two things clearly—the flash of lightning and the flash of swords. His horse reared above the other mounted knights. She glimpsed a blur of red just before his surcoat disappeared and his horse toppled over and the knights closed in on him.

  “Ranulf!” she screamed.

  ***

  Elizabeth awakened.

  The night’s chill bumped her perspiration-streaked body and cooled her cheeks, awash with tears. The abbey ruins surrounded her. She saw Rand, leaning against the bell tower, his arms folded across his chest, his gaze directed toward the darkness that was Green Hill.

  “Ranulf,” she whispered. The name had always been there. Even before her visit to the central library, the name had been a shadowed outline in her mind.

  She crossed the ruins, trembling from the remnants of her dream. Disentangling Rand’s arms, she pressed her face against his shoulder. She didn’t look to see whether the man who stroked her back was Rand or Ranulf. In this blighted place, soaked with the tragedy of the past, it might be either.

  Finally, she raised her gaze to his face. “You mixed up the two battles, didn’t you? It wasn’t only the Battle of Guilford Court House you told me about at Fountains Abbey, but an ancient one.”

  “The Battle of Evesham. Simon de Montfort had overthrown Henry and ruled England for eight months. He died up there, at the crest of Green Hill. His body was hacked to pieces. His head was cut off, his legs and arms… everything mutilated. It was a reminder of what happens to traitors.”

  Elizabeth shuddered. She could imagine such a sight. Or had she personally witnessed it? “You also died, didn’t you?”

  “I think so. Sometimes I know I did. As a boy, I used to relive the battle in my dreams. I was riddled with wounds, but ’twas my horse that fell on me, breaking my leg. Then it was an easy matter to finish me off.” Releasing her, he moved away from the tower. “Here, I can believe the truth of those dreams.”

  “Dreams,” she echoed, swallowing a sob.

  He turned, facing her. “I would suffer what Zak called black moods, but I hadn’t dreamed of Evesham in years, not until the night preceding Lady Avery’s robbery, shortly before I met you. After Beresford’s drum, I researched the Alcester Chronicles.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “I resisted temptation, Bess, which required an almost inhuman effort.”

  “Temptation?”

  “You were in London, my love, so close I could almost reach out and touch you. Then, when I inadvertently robbed your coach, I knew for certain. You were the one. I didn’t want to reopen those memories, and yet I couldn’t let them be. I kept picking at them, like a child picking at a scab.”

  “But what have I got to do with your memories? I know we’re connected, Rand, but how?”

  He shrugged. “You tell me.”

  She gazed beyond him, toward the blackness of Green Hill and the dark sky, unmarred by stars. The Battle of Evesham had taken place earlier in the year, when summer had been at its fullest, when the earth had smelled of flowers and hay and s
leepy rivers and soft rains. “You called me Janey. Is that who we were? A knight named Ranulf and his lady Jane?”

  “Ranulf Navarre. That was his name. Perhaps you are right, Bess, I don’t know. Sometimes it seems that way.”

  “But the rebirth of a soul isn’t scriptural.”

  “Do you have a better explanation?”

  “England is an ancient country and so much has happened here. Perhaps we’re trapped in some sort of whirlpool, filled with memories.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “If we really are those people, Ranulf and Jane, I assume we’re supposed to learn from the past.” You betrayed him, her little voice whispered. Does he know that? “Are we supposed to atone for our past sins in this life?”

  “I have no idea, but I’m sure we’ll find out.” He extended his arms, and she nestled against his warmth. “If you want all the answers, I think I know where we can find them. Ranulf Navarre is buried at Southwark Cathedral, in London.”

  “London? But we can’t! ’Tis far too dangerous.”

  Terror stabbed through her. Should they uncover the truth, Rand would learn that she had betrayed him. She didn’t even know the manner of betrayal and she couldn’t face such painful revelations. She had lived through them once, centuries ago. Why suffer the past all over again?

  “Why have we been brought back?” Rand asked, his voice soft. “If we live several lives, why are we the only ones who remember our past? There must be a reason. We can’t walk away from it or we shall be doomed to repeat it.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I think we should go to London.”

  Elizabeth’s mind raced. For weeks she had sworn she’d confront Charles Beresford. Hadn’t her carriage ride to London been undertaken with that thought in mind? True, she had sacrificed her independence, her most precious commodity, in order to keep Dorothea from revealing Rand’s identity. But she had decided that, after drugging Walter and her blasted stepmother, she would find Beresford and demand her money.

  Having already conceded that her father’s addiction to gambling was no longer her problem, she would use her fortune for an escape, perhaps even passage to America. She and Rand would be free. Freedom required money. She had money. It was so simple when broached in those terms.