by Karen Harper
“I should like to get some of that garlic too,” I told her. “Do you know the man’s name? Does he have a cot there?”
Geraldini was translating again, and looking alarmed as he did so. I could tell he was hearing this for the first time. “I know not. But he was a poor man with a wooden box of herbs carried before him, and a leather thong around his neck to hold it up.”
“An itinerant?” I asked, but Geraldini didn’t know that word. “A traveling peddler?” I reworded it.
“Oh, sí—yes,” she blurted, speaking for herself again. “The man, tall and speak well. Clear from somewhere with name Colchester.”
“The man’s name was Colchester?”
“No—the place where he come. A kind man and did tell to us wild Welsh garlic make men sire many children, so Arthur eat a lot and I a little and we all laugh. But it rain then—we come back. The last time I see him, my husband, he give me a sweet kiss. Coming back through the bog, Arthur have mud spots on clothes, but I remember him always in shining armor in my heart. And then we sick—stomach pain,” she said, pressing her hands to her flat belly through the robe.
“Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea,” Geraldini put in.
“And hard to get breaths, so bad for the prince!” Catherine added. “Ah, it still so hard to get breaths when I think all I lost.”
The men still had not returned from the cromlech when I finished my interview with the princess. I went back to pacing, to thinking. Morgan had left me a tray of food. I considered sending for her and insisting she eat it with me, but was I becoming too suspicious?
What to do? What to do with what I had just learned? The royal couple could indeed have been poisoned—but with wild garlic, which Arthur evidently loved and had oft eaten before? With wild garlic, old Fey said, that would not be ready to find about the area yet? And Prince Arthur had kissed his wife good-bye with a sweet kiss. That must be because she’d eaten the garlic too, so she could not smell or taste it on him. Was it true that wild garlic made one fertile, or was it just an old wives’ tale—or a strange peddler’s? Perhaps Nick and I could ride into the village to question Rhys’s apothecary father. But something else was troubling me. The peddler from across the western bog had spoken well and told them he was from Colchester. That didn’t make sense, yet there was something just out of my reach about it that I could not recall.
I decided not to eat this food but to get something from the great hall, where the visiting mourners were being fed. A herd of beeves had been brought into a field near the castle to provide for everyone. Surely their meat could not all be tainted if someone was out to harm those of us who were mourning the prince’s death.
Then I would go outside garbed as a lad again with one of the guards who had ridden in from London with us. Nick would no doubt have much to tell when he returned, but I would have much—even more than what Catherine had told me—once I took a look around the western bog. Lovell’s motto might be “Death Rather Than Dishonor,” but I was going to take for mine the new chandlers’ guild claim, “Truth Is Light.” And come hell or high bog water, I was determined to learn the truth.
I changed my garb yet again, back to a lad’s garments. Sim, perhaps twenty years old, a brawny but kindly royal guard who had come with us from Richmond Palace, was willing to go out with me. “So long’s we don’t lose sight of the castle,” he said.
“Just across or, hopefully, around the bog to the west,” I assured him, but I was having trouble assuring myself. At least, I prayed, Nick would be pleased when he heard I had taken an armed guard. Time was of the essence in all we did here. On the morrow, we had promised to help the Earl of Surrey plan the order of the funeral cortege. Lest I let that honored task go to my head, I told myself that we were simply included because the queen had singled us out. And, I told myself, we needed to both interview Rhys’s father about wild garlic and revisit old Fey to see whether she would change her story about when it grew. Either she was wrong that it was not available yet or she had told some fellow conspirator that the prince wanted such and he had managed to slip the royal couple tainted—poison—garlic.
We urged our horses onto the well-worn marsh path of beaten-down reeds that served for a passage here. This moss and peat bog seemed to merge with a distant meadow and then rolling moors. The area we traversed bore patches of knee-high, new spring grass but also pockets of last year’s dead, hollow reeds standing as tall as bushes, with their new growth pushing up between. Our horses’ feet made a sucking sound.
“Did you ever harvest wild garlic as a child?” I asked Sim.
“Wild garlic? No, mistress. Or should I call you ‘boy’?” he said with a chuckle. “I like garlic and onions too, though, and my grandmother made fine rabbit stew with ’em, God rest her soul.”
“Did the wild garlic ever make you sick, especially if you overate it in the spring?”
“No, but burped it bad for hours; that’s sure.”
“Do you know what it looks like?”
“Oh, aye, gathered it many a time. In the spring, green leaves but no blossoms. Flowers come in the autumn and bulbs dug in the spring, but reckon it’s a bit too early now. Still, I’ve not been to Wales afore, so not sure.”
You might know, I thought, a storm would come up. Gray clouds clustered on the westward horizon, creeping over the mountains in the direction we were riding, and I heard the faint rumble of thunder. By the saints, I tried to buck myself up: Rain would just make this jaunt more like the day Arthur and Catherine came this way. They must have come out of the forest from Fey’s cot nearly at the edge of this bog, so how could the old woman possibly have had time to tell someone to find early wild garlic and approach them with such? Pieces of the puzzle were not fitting yet, and I must be careful not to force them into the wrong places.
Now and then a frog croaked or jumped out of our way. Despite our reedy path, our horses often sank into fetlock-deep water. The swishing sound was constant. Finally, we emerged on the far side of the bog, onto a grassy path with solid soil beneath and occasional new-leafed trees offering shade and shelter if the storm came. But not one with lightning in it. At the first sign of that, I would have to make this quick and head back. Besides, I had no doubt that, despite the fact that Nick had shuffled me aside today, he would be panicked or irate if I were missing when he returned to the castle. He and I must find time to return here early on the morrow if I had to leave in haste because of the storm.
“Don’t see hide nor hair of anybody. Where to now, mistress?” Sim asked, keeping one hand on his sword.
“I’m not sure. I want to look around for signs of some sort of cot, maybe an herb patch or two, even a small planted field.”
The thunder seemed to roll off the distant mountains and echo in the Terne Valley. Disappointed and frustrated, I realized we should start back. And then, beyond a scrim of hawthorn bushes, I saw the ruins of a small building, perhaps once a cot.
We rode closer. Sim’s saddle creaked as he stood in his stirrups to scan the area, but I approached the cot. Barely half of the walls stood now, and those were of tumbled stone. But within was a place in the grass where someone had lain; a small iron cooking pot and a spit stood over the silver ashes of a fire. A large hunk of pink meat was yet speared by the spit, partly cooked.
I dismounted to take a closer look while Sim stayed in the saddle, still gazing around. The ashes and meat were cold. “The meat is starting to smell,” I told him. “It’s beef, I think. I hear wolves are in these parts, so why didn’t this meat draw an animal to eat it? Someone’s eating well out here, sleeping out at night, perhaps, too. Look, Sim! Against that stone—an empty wine bottle.”
“Stars and moon been bright lately,” Sim said, but I was hardly listening. “It hasn’t rained for a while,” he went on, “but it’s coming up one now. We’d best get back, mistress. It could be anyone passing through—’cept for the fancy eating.”
“I think these words on the wine bottle are French,” I said. �
�Imagine that, brought clear to Wales. Yes, yes, you’re right. We need to head back. I’ll return with Nick so we can—”
I gasped and screamed as an arrow whizzed over my head and struck Sim in the neck. He toppled backward off his horse and hit the ground with a thud. I heard the sickening snap of a bone—his neck? Both of our horses started, then shied away. If I tried to get my mount now, I’d have to run out into the open. I ducked behind the toppled-down wall, holding the empty wine bottle as if it could be a weapon. Then, when I heard and saw nothing more, I crawled to Sim.
My fault, my fault, my brain kept repeating. I should not have come out here, not brought one of the royal guards. His neck was bent at an odd angle. He was gushing blood from the throat, and thrashed for only a moment before he lay completely still, his wide eyes staring up at the darkening sky. I touched the side of his bloody throat to see whether life yet beat there. No. Not even enough to move more blood. By the saints, this was my fault, and now I could be killed too.
Queen Elizabeth of York
“Elizabeth, something has come in a metal box for us from Wales,” the king told me as I joined him in his withdrawing chamber. “Perhaps some memento of Arthur’s that Catherine has sent. No, it’s marked as coming from Nicholas Sutton and Varina Westcott. It came in by another fast courier.”
My hands were trembling. Could Nick and Varina have discovered something of foul play already and sent some evidence? Or was it indeed a remembrance of our beloved son?
“I knew we could trust them to be clever and discreet,” I said.
The king cut the cords, and I helped to pull the parchment away from the box. I expected papers, a report of how things were going there, other than the official reports we received daily. Inside, I recognized the wrap—waxed cloth like I had insisted Varina take in plenteous amounts to wrap Arthur’s body and shield his coffin should it rain during the slow, doleful journey to Worcester for his burial.
Henry pulled the paper open. It was stained pink in places. Something painted. Surely not a newly carved or colored candle?
But it smelled. The stench was nearly overpowering as we both gaped down at…a heart! Years ago I’d seen deer’s hearts while out hunting with my father.
A human heart? Our Arthur’s? But it was to have been buried in the churchyard at the castle. Had someone not understood? Were these dread contents some sort of demented insult? Had they gone mad in Wales?
The king cursed and collapsed into his chair, while I gripped my stomach and turned away to retch on the floor.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH
Mistress Varina Westcott
Another arrow pinged off the wall and fell at my feet. I grabbed it—I know not why—and, terrified to remount where I would remain a target, I bent over and fled headlong into the reedy bog. I had not gone more than a few yards, splashing, panting, when I stumbled on a large carcass.
Horrified, I fell to my knees and felt my boots fill with water. It was a dead beef cow, maybe one poached from the herd to feed the castle mourners. Had Sim and I stumbled on a poacher’s camp? The bottom part of the big body lay in the bog, but most was exposed to the air. Not a fresh kill, for the blood from it was dried, and flies buzzed upon its rotting flesh. But I saw that someone had hacked the heart right out of it.
Keeping low, I slogged my way around it. If the archer—the murderer—pursued me, I was making too much noise. I blessed the next rumble of thunder until I heard the crackle of lightning nearby. Another arrow zinged close past me and spiked into the water. My stomach clenched and my throat tightened. Again I pictured Sim, shot through the neck.
Lightning or arrows, I had to go on. I could hear someone sloshing through the shallow water behind me. If he trapped me here, I’d end up like that carcass—like Sim. Why had I thought I could come out here without Nick, without more guards?
In what must be the center of the bog, the water went thigh-deep. Taller reeds and grasses grew here too. Dared I try to hide, hoping my pursuer would pass me? If I could only catch a glimpse of him!
I tried to kneel and peek out, then realized I would have to sprawl to be hidden. I heard him coming slower but nearer. Should I scramble away again, run a zigzag path, and pray his arrows would not hit me? No. From the way big, strong Sim had fallen dead, this man must be an expert shot. It could be any poacher or Welshman who still resented English rule, for more than once I’d heard of the prowess of the local bowmen.
If only I could hold my breath and hide in the water! But with the storm…the lightning…
And then it came to me, how the boy Rhys had said he’d hidden underwater and crawled close to hunt ducks, breathing through a hollow reed. Those grew in abundance here. Then too, that would get me lower so that if lightning did strike, it might go to something higher in this flat bog.
I seized a reed that looked about the right length—not quite as long as my arm from elbow to wrist. My heartbeat kicked up even more. I did not know how to swim, and to breathe underwater seemed a frightening fantasy. I told myself I did not have to swim but only put my body and head under the surface, then breathe, just breathe.…
The reed had a crack in it, so I seized another. Thunder shook the very earth, and the wind kicked up, bending and bowing the grass and reeds. He could see me if I didn’t get down, get under. What seemed like years must be only a few moments as I put one end of the hollow reed in my mouth and sucked air through it. No choice—no choice. I thought I could hear a man swishing grass aside, slogging closer. But what if he stepped right on me, drowned me or shot me at close range?
Faceup but my body lying sideways, I pulled my legs tight to my chest and I forced myself under the water with the reed in my mouth. Dangerous. Desperate. I found I had to pinch my nose tight, but I did pull in air. How long? How long could I stay here before I would panic and burst to the surface? After peeking once at the wavy, greenish world overhead, I kept my eyes tight shut.
The water felt good, I tried to tell myself. Cool against my sweating skin. Sopped peat moss lay under me; sedges and grass shifted against me. My knees, my entire body felt as weak as water. My panic of being enclosed in a tight, small place assailed me. Just breathe. It wasn’t dark, at least, not like being in the crypt. Could this be the same man pursuing me? Did he want to harm me, kill me because I served the queen? Was it because Nick and I had been sent to probe into the prince’s death? But no one here knew of those tasks, did they?
Just breathe. This was like washing my hair or dipping my face in the washbowl, I tried to tell myself. Rhys had done this for years and boasted of it. I would tell Nick of it, boast of it. Then I must bring him and others back to retrieve Sim’s body, to show them the animal’s corpse with the heart cut out.
It seemed I lay there for an eternity, the water turning cold against my sodden garments and quaking flesh. My very soul screamed at me to get up, to suck in fresh air, to flee. But if the man were still near, all this could go for naught. If he hadn’t found me now, would he head back, away from the castle where he could be seen? Guards should be on the castle ramparts. They should see and send help.
I suddenly pictured the silhouette of the caped man standing on the castle walls while we buried the prince’s heart in the churchyard. Cape flapping, sword flashing…Surely not Glendower reborn, as the Welsh wanted to believe, but flesh and blood—and full of hate.
Again, a rumble seemed to shake the very earth, the water in which I lay. Closer thunder? Horses’ hooves? The man’s footsteps nearby? Perhaps he was beating the reeds for me with his bow.
Water began to seep into my mouth and throat. Mayhap all these last year’s reeds were delicate. I was shaking so hard that I was bending or breaking this one. I must risk sitting up before I gagged or coughed.
Though I wanted to leap up to suck in air and tear out of this bog toward the castle, I rose slowly, holding my breath until I thought my lungs might burst. The sky was gray and roiling overhead. Windy but no rain yet.
Hearing no
one, I parted and peered through the grass. A good distance away, headed back toward the end of the bog where Sim’s body lay, walked a man almost as quickly and steadily as if he trod dry land. He was either tall or seemed so from my vantage point. I believe he had light hair. He wore a dark cape but the hood had fallen back.
Quick! I needed to get help before he got too far away to pursue.
But as I ran for the castle, glancing at him once more over my shoulder, he seemed to disappear into the fog and mist. It might be a trick of my eyes from water running in them, of course. Or perhaps he had knelt down or hidden himself in the grass. And where was the arrow I’d taken as some sort of evidence? I had lost it back there. Could I not do anything right?
Deliverance, for I saw partly armored men on horseback, streaming into the castle over the drawbridge! It might be Nick returning from the cromlech. At least they were king’s men, ones I could send after Sim’s killer right now. I shrieked and hallooed and waved.
The men halted and the rider at the head of the band turned back and rode toward me. My heart fell. Not Nick but the Earl of Surrey. He reined in and stared down at me, glowering. Heedless that I must look like a drowned rat, I told him, pointing, “I rode out with a guard to the far end of the bog, but an archer killed him and chased me! A poacher, I think, for there’s a beef’s body too, quite cut up. The murderer is wearing a black cape.”
I believe it took the earl a moment to recognize me and to credit what I said. He lifted himself in his stirrups and raised a hand. Four men immediately thundered toward us, their hoofbeats matching the next rumble of thunder, while the others rode on into the castle.
“Ride around or into that bog,” Surrey shouted to his men, and pointed outward. “Bring back under arrest any man you find there, caped or not.”
“Be careful, for he’s skilled with a bow and arrow,” I added. “He shot the royal guard Sim right through the throat, and his body’s on the ground!”