by Anne O'Brien
She put them together into as tidy a bundle as she could manage, then moved to the bed to hunt amongst the covers and pillows. Yes—as she had hoped. A black hair, easily recognisable as too long to be her own. She added it to the twiggy bundle and tied it all securely, one knot, with threads of red silk discovered in an old work box. And then three more knots, murmuring with each knot, ‘I bind thee to protect him.’
‘It’s all I can do,’ she murmured. ‘He cannot wear it, but I can lay the protective charm in his name. If my uncle would ride against him… It must not be. Who killed Lewis? Tell me it was not Richard Malinder.’ But the cat made no sound, merely stared with un blinking eyes that caught the light as they followed the movements of Elizabeth’s hands. So Elizabeth on a little sigh completed the charm, stroking the cat from ears to tail in long soft movements before lifting the charm to hang it high on the bed canopy where none would see it, or would simply dismiss it as a notion against the ravages of the moth.
When the cat began to purr deep in her throat, Elizabeth came to sit again beside her. ‘I have done all I can. Pray God that he returns safe. All this, and I have barely been married for a single day. I know not my feelings for him, but I am not ill disposed towards him.’
The animal leapt from the bed and stretched.
Chapter Eight
Elizabeth stood with Jane Bringsty in the sheltered corner between the new living accommodations and the original outer wall of the castle. Even in the drear cold of this March day, it was clear that it had once been a garden with symmetrical beds, narrow pathways, cobbled edges still intact.
‘Someone here had more than a passing interest—this was once well laid out and tended. Look at this.’ The new Lady of Ledenshall inspected an espaliered fruit tree growing against the most sheltered wall. ‘I think it is a peach. Now all is wilderness.’ Everything was choked with weeds and couch grass.
‘Lady Gwladys had no interest here,’ Jane announced. Gwladys! Elizabeth felt the familiar little tug of jealousy at her heart—Gwladys, the in comparable—but shrugged. ‘So Gwladys had no interest in plants.’
‘Gossip says that Lady Gwladys had few interests. They say that…’ Jane folded her lips tight.
‘What else does gossip say?’ Elizabeth asked curiously.
‘Not much. She was comely enough.’ Jane sniffed her displeasure. ‘They’re a close-lipped lot here at Ledenshall. If you wish to know more about Lady Gwladys, you must ask Lord Malinder.’
‘Then perhaps I will.’ Elizabeth set off to pace the in distinct paths, skirting the puddles, conscious of a familiar tremor of disquiet in her belly.
Mistress Anne tripped elegantly into the enclosed space to join them, halting at the edge of the beds, her skirts lifted in delicate hands, lovely mouth pursed in distaste. The dark fur collar that snuggled around her neck softened her features, illuminated her hair. She was without doubt, Elizabeth acknowledged to herself, a remarkably beautiful girl.
‘Here you are. I had no idea until I heard voices. What could you find to do out here?’ She looked down her nose at the puddles, the mud, widened her eyes. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Thinking of planting a garden.’ Elizabeth turned to retrace her steps. There would be no pleasure here with Anne.
Anne fell into step with her. ‘You must hope for Richard’s return.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘My dear Elizabeth…’ Anne tilted her head with a winsome expression ‘…you must not allow your hands to become rough and in grained with soil.’ Anne stretched out her own elegant fingers. ‘Richard likes a woman to have smooth hands. So feminine. So he has told me.’
‘Then I must take care, must I not? Perhaps I should sit within doors all day?’
‘It could not but help,’ Anne agreed in all seriousness. ‘But your hands were ruined at Llanwardine, as I recall.’
‘Yes.’ Elizabeth refused to make any attempt to hide them in her skirts despite her first instinct.
‘Perhaps Richard will return this week. He’ll enjoy some female company after days spent in travel down the March—all dirt and lice and male company.’ Anne wrinkled her nose at the prospect, then slid a wide-eyed glance to Elizabeth. ‘Do you sing, Elizabeth?’
‘No.’
‘Perhaps you play the lute?’
‘No. I do not.’ Elizabeth seethed silently. She could play the lute, and more than passably adequate, but she would not set herself up in competition.
‘I do both, of course. My mother considered them essential skills for a lady who wished to make her home comfort able and welcoming for her lord. It will please me to sing and play for Richard.’
‘Will you not wish to go home when Robert has returned?’ Elizabeth asked as Anne quickened her pace at a sudden and heavy shower of rain.
‘Eventually.’ Anne cast a bright glance over her shoulder as she headed for shelter. ‘I thought you might enjoy my company for a little time yet. Family connections are so important, are they not?’
‘Although they can some times be stretched beyond bearing.’ The quiet words at Elizabeth’s shoulder burst from Jane’s lips as if her frustrations could not be contained. ‘I am more tempted than ever to dose that woman’s cup—before this day is out. Vomiting and the stomach cramps would give her some thing other to think about than her likes and dislikes. A little humiliation would be good for her soul.’
Elizabeth felt a reprehensible urge to agree, but Jane needed no encouragement when in this mood. ‘You must not do it, Jane. Do you hear me?’
‘Of course I hear you,’ Jane hissed. ‘You’re too principled for your own good, my lady. It’s my duty—as it has been since the day of your birth—to see to your happiness.’
‘But not to poison my lord’s cousin.’
‘It’s not the woman who is your lord’s cousin who concerns me. It’s the woman who would be his lover.’
‘Jane…she would not—he would not!’
‘That is exactly what Mistress Anne would want. Is that what you will allow? Under your own roof? She would be in his bed if he but lifted an eyebrow.’
‘And you think my lord would treat me with such disrespect?’
‘No! I did not say that. But look, my lady, I think Mistress Anne would wilfully misread any gesture on your lord’s part. Men are ever fools when in the coils of a manipulative woman.’
‘She flirts only.’
Jane snorted. ‘Flirts! She’s more malicious than that.’
Which Elizabeth on a sigh knew to be true. ‘Don’t. I forbid it.’
Jane opened her mouth, clearly to blister her ears with another warning, but decided against it. ‘Have a care,’ was all she said before marching off to her own quarters, leaving Elizabeth surrounded by decaying foliage, hoping that she had made her wishes clearly under stood in the matter, but without any real conviction.
That night, in her own chamber, Jane Bringsty ignored her mistress’s wishes with an entire absence of guilt. No one must be allowed to under mine the happiness of Elizabeth de Lacy. No one! She and the cat watched the antics of the rat in the cage. It sniffed the contents of the little dish, the bread soaked in some dark blue sub stance, then nibbled until the dish was empty. Still the audience watched without compassion, until the rat began to twist and leap in its death throes. Until it fell on its side and failed to stir again.
‘Dead!’ Mistress Bringsty muttered in disgust, picking up the cage to carry it to the midden to dispose of the body. ‘I must be more careful, more precise in the amount. Belladonna can be a chancy poison. Can’t afford to kill the girl, whatever the temptation. Even though she’s like a bitch in heat.’ She eyed the cat with a smirk. ‘That would put the cat amongst the pigeons.’
The cat brushed against her skirts as if in agreement.
‘We’ll watch Mistress Anne Malinder,’ Mistress Bringsty murmured. ‘And if she sinks her claws into the Lord of Ledenshall, we shall know what to do about it, won’t we?’
When Richard
returned, tired but briefly satisfied with his efforts in the March, Elizabeth was not automatically there to greet him, being engaged in struggling with a mass of impacted roots and rampant weeds in her garden. She heard the warning shout of the sentry, the metallic rattle and grinding screech of the portcullis. By the time she had beaten her garments into some sort of order, the small armed force was already dismounting with much noise, confusion and loud conversation.
There he was at the centre of activity as he swung down from his weary stallion. Richard was—as were they all—coated with the dirt and sweat of the campaign, armour, boots and cloaks impartially smeared with dust and mud. He looked totally disreputable, not much better than a border raider—but if that were so, why did her pulse pick up its beat, her heart give a single thud of awareness? Elizabeth was immediately conscious of her own appearance, unfortunately little better than his, an old gown with mud around the hem, and inexplicably on much of the skirt. Even the fine edge of her veil seemed to have collected old dried seed heads and fingerprints of dust. As for her hands—as Anne had warned, they were beyond redemption without a good scrub to remove in grained soil. What a hopeless impression she would make on this man whose opinion seemed to matter to her. She hissed in exasperation, wiped her palms in effectually down her skirts, and prepared to approach.
Anne Malinder was there before her.
Of course she was, Elizabeth acknowledged in silent disgust. She would have been waiting for him. Wrapped around in her flattering cloak, which did not quite cover the lovely gown or disguise its deep neckline. A light veil drew attention to her oval face, the care fully plucked brows, those deeply sparkling eyes, fixed even now with warmth and invitation on Elizabeth’s husband. Elizabeth could do nothing but momentarily close her eyes to the obvious comparison with her own appearance. And recall Jane Bringsty’s blatant accusations.
When she opened them it was to watch the little scene—surely care fully planned by the lady at the centre of it—as if it were an episode in some dramatic tale of high chivalry of King Arthur’s Court. The knight returning from a difficult quest, weary and weather beaten, stern and solemn, to answer his lady’s bidding. The lady, polished and gracious, placing one white hand on her champion’s arm, looking up into his face with such practised ease. The knight inclining his head to hear the words drop from those enticing lips. How often had Elizabeth seen those exact gestures used by the Malinder girl? She stalked forwards to join the gilded tableau that had no place for her in it, feeling neither polished nor gracious. She was more like Morgan Le Fay, she acknowledged with a sharp edge of black humour, an ill-wishing spirit arriving on the scene. She arrived perfectly in time to hear Anne murmur in the softest of voices.
‘I have missed you, Richard. I could hope that you have missed me—a little.’
And to see Richard smile down into his cousin’s upturned face. ‘Anne…of course I have—’ What other he would have replied they were not to discover because Elizabeth’s sudden presence brought the welcome to a halt.
‘I was just telling Richard how much we have missed him, dear Elizabeth. That we are so grateful for his safe return.’ Anne’s smile was brilliant. The obvious change of pronoun rattled in Elizabeth’s head. The down-flutter of thick lashes on to smooth cheeks clawed at her gut. Deliberately she forced an equally complacent smile. The words, beyond a mere greeting, were far more difficult.
‘Welcome home, my lord. It is as your cousin says.’
‘Elizabeth.’
He smiled at her, the eye contact deliberately strong. With one hand as filthy as her own, he drew a gentle caress down the length of her arm from shoulder to wrist. As if he truly cared, she thought. As if to ask—are you well? Are you dealing with your grief? She felt the bright blood rise to her cheeks, when he leaned to press a fleeting kiss to the edge of the veil at her temple.
‘You appear to have been busy in my absence,’ he remarked, his smile becoming wry as he took in her appearance.
‘Yes, I have.’
Elizabeth took a breath in despair. Was he aware of Anne’s perfect little hand still possessively on his sleeve? He looked weary, she thought, bone-deep, noting the grim lines beside eyes and mouth, perhaps too weary to pick up any nuances in the girl’s greeting. Nor did he resist when Mistress Anne tugged again on his sleeve and encouraged him inside the keep. Elizabeth could hear her words fade into the distance. ‘Come, Richard. You must be tired and thirsty… I have instructed the cook to prepare some of your favourite mutton pasties.’
Has she really! Mutton pasties, indeed! And why did I not know that Richard enjoyed mutton pasties?
Spirits sinking to the depths of her mired shoes, as she turned to follow, Elizabeth came face to face with Jane Bringsty standing just a little above her on the top of the staircase. What was written on her face could not be mistaken. Her eyes were fierce and hot, not well disposed to any one of the party—not even her mistress, who refused, so the glare announced, to open her eyes to what was going on under her very nose!
Implacably Elizabeth held Jane’s glare and shook her head. Whether the silent instruction was clear or not, Jane immediately turned her back with surprising fluency for so solid a figure and vanished, leaving Elizabeth to follow at her leisure, in no way comforted, silently calling down curses on everyone concerned.
And nursing a sore heart.
Within an hour, the weary soldiers had gathered in the Great Hall to relive in vivid detail the success of the expedition to ensure that all Malinder strong holds were secure. Vast platters of meat were brought in. Ale flowed liberally. The volume of sound rose with the amount of food and drink consumed, as the exploits of the soldiers waxed in bravery and daring. It was an atmosphere of minor celebration that Richard did nothing to curb, so the feast brought the campaign to an end on a high note until all that was left were the bones and scraps for the dogs to gnaw, the High Table set with cups of hippocras and platters of sweet meats.
Very soon, however, Mistress Anne began to shuffle on her stool in clear discomfort. The blood leached from her face, leaving a greenish tinge to her complexion, not complimentary to her russet hair. Her fingers clutched around the chased stem of her pewter cup. She pressed her hand to her stomach un certainly.
‘Perhaps I’ve eaten too much.’ She caught her bottom lip with her teeth with evident force. ‘Too many sweet meats, I expect.’ Her skin had become alarmingly pale with a sheen of sweat on her top lip.
‘The hippocras is too spiced, perhaps—it may have that effect. I’ll speak with the cook about a lighter hand with the nutmeg.’ Elizabeth looked sharply at her, a wave of suspicion racing along her spine as the girl’s symptoms took her attention, the slick of sweat, the darkened pupils.
A muffled groan was the only reply as Anne folded her lips close. She rose to her feet, awkwardly, hands pushing down hard on the table before her. ‘I must go… The wine! I think that…’ Anne’s hand was now pressed to her lips. ‘I feel most unwell…my head aches so…’ And Anne turned, staggered somewhat and fled the room, holding her hands to her mouth as she escaped.
Elizabeth sat as if turned to stone. This was no chance chill, no reaction to the spices in the wine. She knew exactly what this was and was consumed with fear, a fear that was enhanced when, by fate or ill luck—or perhaps by design— Jane Bringsty entered the room from the direction of the kitchens to approach the high table. The expression on her face as she passed the fleeing Anne was bland, beautifully controlled, but un mistakably, to Elizabeth’s experienced eyes, smug.
Had not Jane Bringsty poured the wine for them all?
Elizabeth could not take her eyes from Jane’s face, struck with a terrible conviction. Jane’s brows rose infinitesimally as she caught her mistress’s regard, and with supreme sat is faction she held the eye contact. There might even have been a little smile hovering in the tight corners of her lips. And Elizabeth knew! Her fingers clamped on the edge of the table. What could she possibly do or say? If Jane, her serv
ing woman, was guilty, then so was she. Her lips felt stiff, her mind unable to grasp the full horror of what Jane had done. The tension stretched, Elizabeth to Jane Bringsty, with a tangible metallic reality in the atmosphere comfort ably redolent of cooked meat and wood smoke. Elizabeth found herself barely able to breathe as her mind raced with sheer terror.
What if Anne Malinder were to die?
Abruptly Elizabeth rose to her feet.
‘If you will excuse me, my lord. There are things that need my attention here. I will leave you to your ale. Jane—I need your help.’
She did not even look at Richard—dared not, for fear of what she would see, or what he would surely interpret from her own rigid demeanour—as she stepped down from the dais. Her belly churned, her face almost as white as Anne’s. Without waiting to see if Jane followed, she strode towards an empty anteroom where they could achieve some degree of privacy. Once there, Elizabeth spun round and wasted no time on polite enquiry.
‘What was it?’
‘Nothing too potent. She’ll not die from it.’ Jane lifted her chin. There was no remorse. ‘I know what I am about.’
‘Jane…I forbade you…’
‘I know you did, my lady—but she deserves every second of her present discomfort. She’s little better than a common whore.’ Jane’s expression became contorted with bitter malice. ‘I warned you. Since you disregarded me, I decided to ruffle the fine feathers of Mistress Anne Malinder.’
‘Jane! Do you not realise what you have done?’
‘It was easy enough to achieve,’ Jane Bringsty replied, deliberately misunderstanding, hands folded comfort ably at her waist, only triumph in the flat gleam of her eyes. ‘You wouldn’t do it, so I did.’
Frustrated beyond bearing at her failure to under mine Jane’s belief in her own rightness, Elizabeth could only stare. Jane would never be contrite and Elizabeth knew she must damn her servant for her cruelty. Yet she knew why Jane had taken such a step, could not blame her entirely for her reading of Anne’s character.