I returned, disconsolate, to the tower, but my mood would not last. Either on her own initiative or on instructions from Sir John, the stolid Marion had packed a change of clothes for me in the sumpter’s panniers, and my spirits rose as I discarded the mud-and-muck-stained garb I had been obliged to wear since leaving Raby. I presumed the fresh white linen kirtle and fur-trimmed green worsted gown I put on had been purloined from the Countess of Westmorland’s wardrobe, but I did not quibble about their ownership. Marion further surprised me by showing a certain skill with comb and brush and managing to braid and style my hair into something more graceful than the wild curls I had hitherto been obliged to control under my battered riding hat. I had no mirror in which to check my appearance but the expressions on the faces of my male companions when I joined them for the evening meal were sufficient to tell me that there had been a substantial improvement.
Despite the restrictions of Lent, a simple but tasty meal had been prepared for us consisting of grilled perch and trout, accompanied by boiled crayfish and a mess of creamed leeks and onions. I ate hungrily for the first time since my abduction and noticed that the men did too and soon the level of tension had dropped as the food restored the equilibrium in each of us. Afterwards there was soft cheese and freshly griddled oatcakes which, preferring wafers, I had always considered peasant fodder, but which smelled so delicious that I could not resist trying one.
‘I will never spurn an oatcake again,’ I confessed as I reached for a second. ‘Who has prepared this meal for us?’
Sir John cleared his throat and looked a little embarrassed. ‘The fish and vegetables were cooked by the priest’s, er, shall we say housekeeper? And the cakes come courtesy of our own expert campfire cook, Tam Clifford, Esquire.’
I looked across the table at Tam, gratified to see that the warm smile I gave him brought a blush to his cheeks. ‘A man of many talents then,’ I remarked. ‘Groom, hat-finder and now oatcake-baker. Thank you, Tam.’
‘He is also no mean swordsman,’ put in Thomas, clapping his friend on the shoulder. ‘Though no match for me, of course!’
‘Ha! We will see about that at the next arms practice,’ declared Tam. ‘Meanwhile, I will challenge you at chess after dinner.’
‘Done,’ agreed Thomas. ‘I will have you checked in three moves.’
‘Braggart!’ The young Clifford was indignant. ‘You have never beaten me yet.’
Sir John broke into their banter. ‘You can take the chessboard upstairs. Lady Cicely and I have business to discuss. And pour us more wine before you go.’
I frowned as Thomas refilled my cup but did not refuse. We were drinking a sweetish white wine which was stronger than I was used to and it had already made my head spin a little. I wondered what ‘business’ Sir John thought he had with me.
Soon we were alone and Sir John suggested we move across to a wooden settle that had been furnished with several threadbare but still serviceable cushions and set at an angle to the hearth where a fire was now glowing.
‘I fear it may be too hot, Sir John,’ I said, but I rose nevertheless.
‘If so we can move the seat, but I have not noticed you shying from the heat, Lady Cicely.’ I presumed his lop-sided smile indicated an intended double meaning, but I made no response.
Nevertheless I could feel my heart begin to beat faster as I took the proffered place on the settle and he sat down at the other end. Only a short distance lay between us. My hands were shaking as I took a sip from my cup, and I did not doubt that he could see this also. ‘Have you news from Raby, Sir John?’ I asked, unable to prevent myself spilling some wine as I placed my cup on a small table beside the settle. ‘I presume that is the business you wish to discuss with me.’
He gulped down the entire contents of his own cup and leaned down to dump it on the floor where it rolled drunkenly away. His face was suddenly anguished and the distance between us vanished as he took both my hands in his. ‘I have no news from Raby, Cicely, and of course that is not what I wish to discuss with you!’
All at once his lips were on my hands, he was kissing my fingers, turning them over to drop feathery kisses into my palms and onto my wrists. I felt the hairs lift on my arms and my belly clenching inside as his mouth began exploring the hollows of my throat and caressing the smoothness beneath my chin, then in between kisses he began murmuring softly, whispering words I had yearned for in my girlish dreams but never expected to hear in reality. ‘Ah, Cicely, you are even more beautiful than I first thought. Your throat is like silk, your cheeks are like velvet, your eyes are the colour of the Virgin’s robe and your lips are glowing coals that burn and burn and burn …’
As he mentioned each of these features he planted kisses on them, ending with another lingering, probing, searching of my lips, which mine instinctively opened to receive. The clenching sensation in my belly grew wilder and more demanding and without heed for my position on the settle, I arched my body into his in order to feel the beat of his heart and the response of his need to mine and then, as we clung feverishly to each other, the inevitable happened. The cushions slipped and pitched us both onto the floor. I found myself lying beneath him, slightly winded and breathless and he was staring down at me with a bemused expression, as if he could not quite understand what had happened. Then we both began to laugh.
However, with his body pressing down on me I could not breathe and had to push him off in order to give way to my mirth. When I could speak I spluttered, ‘Do you woo all your ladies by throwing them on the floor?’ By now I was sitting up and hugging my knees, feeling tears beginning to run down my cheeks. It had been funny but at this point I was not sure if they were tears of mirth or nervousness. I brushed them away. I had decided on my course of action and I was not going to change my mind now.
‘I would ask the same of you,’ he said with a grin, ‘except that it would not be chivalrous to assume that you had experience in these matters.’
‘Well now I have – and in future I’ll avoid polished settles with cushions on.’
Rising to his feet, he then bent to help me up.
‘Have you tried your myrtle-leaf bed yet?’ he asked.
I gave him a surprised look. ‘No I have not. Have you?’
‘Of course not!’
‘I am told they are fragrant.’
‘Who told you that?’
I picked up my cup and took a long draught of wine, gazing at him over the rim. ‘You did,’ I said. ‘Would you like to find out for yourself?’
John took the cup from my hand and put it back on the table. ‘Oh yes I would, very much.’ This time I took courage from the fact that his kiss was one of eager reassurance and encouragement.
‘What if Marion comes back?’ I murmured, my lips against his.
He opened the purse he wore on his belt and took out a key. I recognized it as the one he had removed from the door of my chamber earlier.
When the key turned, unlike the previous night, loneliness was not in my mind – and neither was regret. I was not afraid. I had chosen this course of action, fate had shown me what overwhelming feelings passion could release and it was somehow not in my nature to deny them. I had no thought for yesterday or tomorrow, only for the moment and what that moment might achieve. I was young and my senses were whirling almost out of control, except that, behind the powerful mutual attraction that had drawn me to the beautiful John and the joy I ardently desired to find in his arms, there was also a deep determination not to be used, either by him or by my own family. There was no doubt that my actions that night served my own needs as much as his but I was not to know that he would read them very differently. He was older and more idealistic and his feelings ran truer and deeper. I could not have asked for a more gentle and ardent lover to show me the delights of mutual passion. How could he have known that when he offered his love so sweetly, he chose the wrong woman?
Myrtle did indeed did make a wild and fragrant bed. After we had spent our passion John slept de
eply and soundlessly but I lay awake, my mind in turmoil. I had barely noticed the pain of defloration and had subsequently wondered, after the thrilling throes of climax, what there was about it that the Church revered so highly and the virgin martyrs died for. My body ached from the unaccustomed activity of love-making but I nevertheless yearned to stay beside my lover, to feel again the pleasure of his caresses and the joy and fulfilment of union.
Nevertheless I forced myself to rise, softly and soundlessly, from the bed and reach for the dirty shift and kirtle that I had discarded before supper. The borrowed gown from which John had hurriedly unlaced me lay on the floor among the jumble of his doublet and hose and I almost stumbled over them as I searched for my riding boots. Carrying them I turned the key cautiously in the lock, holding my breath as it scrunched over the cogs and wheels, but I heard no stirring from the bed. As I had hoped, the outer chamber was empty and the door to the stairway open. I paused at the foot of the stair to slide my feet into my boots and thread the laces. I could hear rats scuttling about in the straw and I could not face crossing the byre barefoot. The horses snuffled and shifted on their feet, dozing like the guard propped up on a sheaf of straw against the wall. Everything now depended on what I found when I opened the heavy oaken gates; if the yett had been lowered, escape from the tower would be impossible.
8
To Aycliffe Tower
Cuthbert
In the trees behind Brancepeth church the ground dropped away into the same deep, narrow dene on which the castle stood. Feeling my way in the dappled moonlight, I led my horse to the edge where I found a useful thicket of bushes to tie him to while I ventured hand over foot down the steep side, clinging to roots and saplings. Within minutes I reached secure footing on a sloping gravel path dug into the dene wall. I climbed, guessing it would lead to the sally gate of the castle mentioned by my drinking companion. Where the ground levelled out, sure enough, I caught sight of the moon’s glare reflected off a high expanse of the castle curtain, and at its base, flush with the stone wall, a small archway, defended by an overhead turret and sealed by a studded wooden door, just large enough to allow a mounted man to pass through.
Keeping within the shadow of the bushes, I turned and retraced my steps, for the path ended at the castle. The archway had been newly built, the door thick. Following the beck downstream towards the River Wear, I deduced that it would provide a discreet and direct route to the Bishop of Durham’s hunting lodge at Auckland, on the edge of Spennymoor: this had lately been developed into a military fortification, with a large bailey to accommodate troops mustering for the defence of the Scottish marches. The bishop had appointed Sir John Neville as its constable, but I asked myself if Sir John would have taken Cicely to such a busy place.
As a young squire in my father’s retinue, on the last of his annual tours of his northern manors, I remember hearing of a particularly poor and remote peel tower a few miles south of Auckland which struggled to wrest five pounds in annual revenue from woefully undernourished villeins. I wracked my brains for the name of the manor. The only thing I could remember of any relevance was that when the old earl’s will was revealed, Hal Neville had remarked that ‘the peel in the bog’ was one manor he was more than happy for the new earl to keep. Instinct told me that this might be where Cicely had been taken and, after all, it was my instincts that Lady Joan had encouraged me to employ in her daughter’s aid.
I collected my horse and followed the beck as far as the River Wear while the moon rose high in the sky, its bright light flooding over uneven moorland covered with large areas of gorse and dead bracken. Fast-moving shadows cast by scudding clouds did not hamper my progress south. I carefully avoided the small hamlets and fortified farms on the route, because on such moonlit nights lookouts would be posted for reivers, and I did not want to be sighted and apprehended as one of their ilk. But most of the country between Brancepeth and Richmond, thirty miles to the south, was Neville territory, and familiar to me; its manors were now distributed piecemeal between the two branches of the family. Lady Joan had, on occasion, detailed me to represent her in settling the feuds and disputes between tenants arising from this complicated division of property. So although I could not remember the name of the peel in the bog, I did have a rough idea of where it was located.
When I eventually spotted the tower, poking up like a lone tooth from a fetid maw of flat, moss-covered marsh, I faced the problem of approaching it without either being seen or swallowed in its mire. There was something truly ghastly about the way the moonlight glinted off the surrounding expanse of innocent-looking moss and reeds, concealing the lurking presence of a bottomless bog beneath; when I tried to urge him on, my horse snorted and danced on the spot, flatly refusing to take one step onto such unstable ground.
Common sense told me there had to be a safe path or else how did its inhabitants reach the tower? For nearly an hour I rode around the edge of the morass, trusting my horse’s instinct not to venture onto dangerous terrain, but I could find no evidence of a marked route. I contemplated leaving my horse and trying to navigate the bog on foot but as the moon dropped in the heavens I realized I would be taking a foolish and possibly fatal risk, particularly in the dark. There was no option but to wait until sunrise.
As a squire I had spent months with the marcher scouts, a troop of hard-bitten, border-reared fighting men recruited for their intimate knowledge of the wild lands between Scotland and England and their ability to move secretly through them on their dale-trotter ponies. They could survive for weeks patrolling their section of the march, living off the land and avoiding human contact whilst observing all movement of men and animals without detection. I admired their skills and I would now apply all I had learned of them. I hobbled my horse in an overgrown spinney. My stomach made sharp protest at its lack of nourishment but I silenced it with a long swig from the wineskin slung from my saddle, rolled myself in my campaign blanket and lay down to gather what sleep I could in the undergrowth.
The unmistakable sound of a hue and cry roused me a couple of hours later. Shouting, the long wail of a hunting horn and the answering sounding of hounds ripped through the veil of sleep and jerked me to my feet, sleeve dagger at the ready. Dawn had mottled the eastern sky in shades of red, pink and grey and my horse’s head was up, ears pricked. I crept to the edge of the spinney for a cautious search but could see no movement from the section of bog within my view. Nevertheless the sinister sounding of horn and hounds and the shouts of men in pursuit were loud to my left. I decided that being mounted would give me an advantage in a tight situation, and better visibility. In a matter of moments I had tacked up my horse and was heading out of the spinney.
The reason for all the noise quickly became evident: a mud-streaked figure was struggling at the edge of the bog, only yards from firm ground but caught thigh deep in wet mud and unable to reach safety. It was Cicely, almost unrecognizable, covered in mud, exhausted and clearly terrified, her face twisted into a desperate snarl as she rocked herself to free one foot or the other from the clinging ooze. The hue and cry was close by, any moment it would be here and what I assumed was a break for freedom would be brought to an end, or, more terribly, she would fall flat into the watery mud and disappear beneath its surface.
‘Do not move!’ I shouted, spurring my horse forward and galloping as near to her as the horse would go. ‘It is me, Cuthbert. I will get you out. Wait.’
I jumped from the saddle, commanded my horse to stand and ripped my blanket from the restraint of its buckling.
‘Oh, Cuddy, thank God it is you!’ Cicely’s eyes were enormous with fright in her mud-daubed face. ‘Quick! The dogs are coming.’
‘Yes, Cis, I can hear them.’ Turning briefly, I caught sight of a man on the path pushing sticks into the ground as a companion behind him hauled on the taut leashes of two scent-hounds in full voice. I took aim and threw out the blanket. ‘Here, catch this.’
One corner landed near her hand and she grabbed it l
ike a drowning sailor might grab a life-line. ‘Do not let go, Cis! Lie down, I’m going to pull you out,’ I said urgently.
The Cicely I knew might have quibbled at falling face down in a bog but luckily she wasted no time in clutching two sides of the blanket in a white-knuckled grip and throwing herself horizontal, face down in the soggy blanket. Immediately there was less suction drag on the cloth and I managed to haul her swiftly towards me until I could hold her hands and heave her, drenched and panting, onto the firm ground.
I could see she was about to speak and I growled at her. ‘Save your breath, Cis. I have a horse and we will ride away from this first.’
Although her weight was nothing to arms honed by years of sword-play and archery, her soaked skirts hampered my stride so that I stumbled rather than ran towards my stoical horse who fortunately obeyed orders and stood firm, even as I threw Cicely face down over his withers and leaped up behind her. ‘Hang on for your life. I’ll stop as soon as I can,’ I yelled and dug in my spurs.
He exploded away just as the first pursuers stepped onto firm ground and began racing towards us, scent-hounds baying with excitement. Cicely’s right hand closed on my leg like a vice as our hectic pace threatened to hurl her from the horse’s neck. I am not certain we would have made it but instinctively the courser threw up his head, tossing her back towards me so that I could wrap one hand in the cloth of her skirt, while the other handled the reins. She must have been winded and in pain but she made no sound and we galloped away as if fleeing from a battlefield, the important difference being that we were victorious. The only glance I managed to make behind me showed a dozen mud-spattered men spilling from the bog-path yelling in frustration. One was noticeable for his red tunic emblazoned with a white saltire cross and his shock of fair hair. The tall figure of Sir John Neville was familiar to me from sharing duties with him on the Scottish march. White-faced and wide-eyed, he looked like a man in shock.
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