The Heart of Darkness

by Odelia Floris

  ‘Yes, you do have to go and eat with your cousin and Lord Shrewsbury. You have not spoken with our guest at all today. Come to think of it, you have barely been in his company at all in the two days that he has graced us with his presence,’ her aunt replied shrilly. ‘Am I to go to so much trouble convincing his lordship to come and honour us with his noble presence only to have you, ungrateful child, insult him by neglect?

  ‘No, my lady,’ Rowena murmured.

  ‘You, who would benefit the most from social intercourse with one of such noble breeding, such refinement and style!’

  ‘Sorry, my lady.’

  ‘And it really is most improper for a young lady—although I do hesitate to call you that—to be wandering all over the countryside like some wild gypsy brat. I really must have a word with Lord Cunningham about that. I am sure that the sheriff can find a replacement for you somewhere. There are plenty of good-for-nothing’s about he could employ.’

  ‘I am perfectly happy being his clerk.’

  ‘I do not doubt it! Anything to avoid having to behave like a proper lady,’ she spat. ‘Now get out of my sight!’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’

  Rowena picked up the jug and reluctantly walked out of the kitchen and over to the table set up outside in the garden.

  The table was spread with silver dishes containing every kind of rare and costly delicacy. Lady Cunningham had spared no expense in her efforts to impress Lord Shrewsbury. Rowena put the jug down on the table next to the empty one already there.

  ‘Ah, a serving wench has brought us more wine at last!’ cried Lord Shrewsbury, and giggled loudly at his own joke.

  Standing near him, Lady Sabina and her friend Anne enthusiastically joined in.

  ‘Well, she is dressed like one!’ sniggered Lady Sabina.

  This caused another burst of laughter from Anne and Lord Shrewsbury, who acted as though it was the funniest thing they had ever heard. But Rowena just bit her lip and stared into the distance. They were already as silly as a flock of squawking chickens without drinking any more wine…

  Once Lord Shrewsbury, Lady Sabina and Anne had had their wine goblets refilled, they sat down and started to eat. Rowena chose the chair furthest away from the others and sat down too. Avoiding the roast swan, songbird pie and whole roast pig’s head with an apple in its mouth, she chose instead a simple meal of bread, cheese, and a little ham.

  In between picking at bits of food and praising it in the most flowery and excessive words possible, Lord Shrewsbury regaled Anne and Lady Sabina with stories of his time at court, spouting all sorts of pieces of scandalous gossip. The other two young ladies sat spellbound, hanging on his every word. But Rowena took very little notice. She was convinced that he had made most of the stories up. As for the gossip, she thought it sounded like a mix of malicious rumours, pointless nastiness, and plain misinformation.

  When the meal was almost finished, Rowena’s interest was sparked by the mention of Sir Richard’s name.

  ‘Yes, shocking is it not,’ Lord Shrewsbury was saying. ‘Sir Richard visits twice a week without fail. And what is more, he does it in broad daylight, bold as brass.’

  ‘Shocking!’ echoed Anne, her eyes round with horror.

  ‘What is shocking?’ asked Rowena.

  Lord Shrewsbury rolled his eyes in exasperation. ‘Keep up, nitwit, for pity’s sake.’

  She ignored Anne and Lady Sabina’s snickering. ‘I’m sorry, my mind was wandering a little just then. What was it you were saying about Sir Richard?’

  ‘That he visits a whore in Hartfield twice a week. He comes to her in broad daylight, making no attempt to conceal it.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I have it on the best authority. A lady who lives right next door to the house of ill-repute told me—’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Imagine having to put up with that...’

  Rowena was not sure how much longer she could listen to him and keep a civil tongue. ‘Please, just tell me what she said.’

  Lord Shrewsbury gave a disdainful sniff. ‘Don’t get your stays in a twist. One has to practice the art of conversation, you know—although I suppose one has to be patient where the lower orders are concerned, and not expect them to understand the finer things in life.’

  ‘I’m not wearing stays.’

  Lord Shrewsbury pulled a wry face. ‘So that is why you look so fat.’

  ‘I’m not fat! Now just tell me what this lady said.’

  ‘If you say so…’ he muttered aside to Lady Sabina, who giggled wildly. ‘Yes, well,’ he continued, ‘this good lady—she was most respectable-looking you know, lovely brocade gown… anyway, she said the only occupants of the aforementioned house are a young lady and an older woman, who is no doubt her pimp. This neighbour—wearing a very nice fur she was too...must ask her where she got it…she has met the older woman but never the young one, who never goes out on foot. The only time she is seen is when she goes for a walk on her pony. But she is heavily veiled and never speaks to anyone. Obviously she is too ashamed to show her face in public.’

  ‘Just because a young woman shuns society and rarely goes out does not mean that she is a prostitute,’ said Rowena.

  ‘Ah, but I have proof!’ he cried triumphantly. ‘Through a window, this neighbour glimpsed the young lady embracing Sir Richard. The good woman said that the lady was all over him—kissing him,’ he added, with a shudder.

  ‘I still don’t believe it. The dame could have been mistaken. She could hardly have got a good view from a glimpse of them through a window, and she said herself that she had never seen this maiden’s face clearly.’

  Lord Shrewsbury raised his carefully groomed eyebrows. ‘Jealous, are we?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Rowena replied in her most indignant tone, although, to her annoyance, she felt her cheeks grow warm.

  ‘Yes, she is completely eaten up with jealousy. That is why she will not believe something which is clearly a fact beyond all doubt,’ Lady Sabina chipped in nastily.

  ‘No!’ protested Rowena. ‘I just think that one should not form such harsh judgments based on evidence which is no more than idle gossip. You have never even met the two ladies whom you are so quick to accuse. There might be a perfectly innocent explanation for their behaviour.’

  ‘I’ve always thought you arrogant,’ said Lady Sabina, ‘but setting your cap at Sir Richard? That really is a folly beyond belief in one so lacking in beauty, grace and style.’

  Lord Shrewsbury slowly licked his lips. ‘Yes, that Sir Richard really is a magnificent beast…’

  ‘I told you, I have not ‘set my cap at him’. Even if I did have personal feelings for Sir Richard—which I don’t—it would not change my views on this matter. Instead of talking all this nonsense, why do you not simply ask him why he goes to visit this young lady?’

  Lord Shrewsbury gave Rowena a look that could have frozen saltwater. ‘Kindly remember your station and refrain from speaking in that way.’

  ‘Besides, Sir Richard is not here to ask,’ added Lady Sabina, with a haughty toss of her head.

  Rowena pointed down the valley, where she had just spotted the sheriff coming riding towards them along the riverbank. ‘But he will be shortly.’

  ‘One does not say such things to a man’s f-face!’ spluttered a horrified-looking Lord Shrewsbury.

  ‘Only behind his back?’ snapped Rowena.

  As he rode up to his clerk, Sir Richard’s usual grim expression lifted to neutral, the closest she ever saw him get to a smile that was not a smirk. ‘Greetings, Rowena.’

  ‘Good day, Sir Richard. How goes it?’

  He answered Rowena’s polite query with a pained grimace, before dismounting and giving Anne and Lady Sabina a curt nod. ‘Ladies.’

  ‘Ah, Sir Richard!’ cried Lord Shrewsbury, jumping to his feet and bowing elaborately. ‘How wonderful to see you again!’

  Sir Richard responded with a sullen glare.

  ‘Remember,’ said Lord Shrew
sbury, ‘we met in that back lane behind the Cockerel and Cow alehouse in Hartfield yesterday?’

  ‘Indeed I do,’ Sir Richard replied sourly, looking as if he wished he had forgotten. ‘And did you manage to satisfy your appetite while you were there?’

  Lord Shrewsbury squirmed uncomfortably. ‘Yes, yes…I...ahem, had a very nice meal there…’

  The nobleman’s discomfort in the face of such a simple inquiry caused a few raised eyebrows among the ladies, although Rowena did think there was something wolfish and subtly mocking about Sir Richard’s manner towards him.

  ‘Lord Shrewsbury has a question to ask you, Sir Richard,’ she said to the knight, before turning to Lord Shrewsbury. ‘Isn’t that so, my lord?’

  ‘No, no, it is really not important!’ Lord Shrewsbury blustered, with a dismissive flick of the wrist.

  But Rowena, bold with anger, ignored him. ‘Yes, I think it is. Sir Richard, his lordship wants to know if it is true that you visit a certain young lady in Hartfield who he believes to be a prostitute.’

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth when Sir Richard lunged at Lord Shrewsbury and grabbed him by the fur-lined collar. ‘A prostitute? How dare you!’ His face, which almost touched Shrewsbury’s, was drawn into a furious, wolf-like snarl.

  Anne and Lady Sabina screamed in terror, while the quaking lord just whimpered pitifully, his chalk-white face screwed up in horror beneath the spittle showering down on it.

  Rowena clutched her hands to her head. Why could she not have just kept her mouth shut? ‘Sir Richard, put the lord down at once!’

  The sheriff took no notice of her. ‘You keep your dirty little mind out of my business, Shrewsbury!’ he snarled down at his captive.

  ‘Put him down,’ begged Rowena. ‘You’re frightening the ladies!’

  Continuing to ignore the pleas for peace, Sir Richard gave the nobleman a violent jerk that tore half his collar off. ‘You snivelling weed, the only filth around here is you!’ And with that he slammed Lord Shrewsbury’s head, face down, into the plate containing the remains of the roast swan.

  To the relief of those watching, Sir Richard decided to leave it at that. He let Lord Shrewsbury go and turned away in disgust.

  Lord Shrewsbury slowly lifted his head from the table. Beneath the coating of fat, gravy and meat scraps, his every feature was filled with revulsion and horror. ‘Look what the animal has done to me!’ he gasped.

  Anne and Lady Sabina immediately rushed to his assistance with cries of sympathy and consolation, handkerchiefs at the ready, and began wiping the grease from his face and hair.

  ‘And if you would like to know who the lady that I so boldly visit is, I invite you to come along when I visit her tomorrow,’ Sir Richard said calmly.

  ‘No thank you,’ murmured Anne and Lady Sabina.

  Sir Richard rested a dark, steely eye on Lord Shrewsbury. ‘How about you; would you like to come?’

  ‘No, no, you just go ahead without me,’ Lord Shrewsbury squeaked fearfully, retreating behind the ladies.

  Rowena stepped forward. ‘I would like to come.’

  She could feel the horrified stares of the others boring into her, and thought she caught a whisper of I cannot believe she is prepared to go anywhere with such a maniac...

  Sir Richard gathered up Lucifer’s reins and placed a foot in the stirrup. ‘Meet me at the castle tomorrow morning at about ten.’ He then swung himself effortlessly up onto the big stallion.

  Rowena nodded. ‘I will be there.’

  The knight was about to ride off, but suddenly stopped. ‘Oh, I almost forgot to give you these.’ He got some parchments out of Lucifer’s saddlebag and handed them down to her.

  ‘I thought that you might not be able to come to the castle today, so I brought these over. They need seeing to urgently. If you could see to them now, I will send my pageboy Pepin over later to collect them.’

  Rowena reached up and took them from him. ‘Yes, of course. I will do it right away.’

  ‘And heed this,’ he added in a low voice. ‘Do not leave Shrewsbury alone with the boy, not even for a moment.’

  The grave manner in which this warning was delivered left its impression on Rowena. She could think of no reason why Shrewsbury might endanger thirteen-year-old Pepin, but was firmly resolved to heed Sir Richard regardless.

  She nodded. ‘Tell him to come in the servant’s door and ask a servant to fetch me down to the kitchens. The Cunninghams’ guests never go into the servants’ part of the manor.’

  * * * *

  When Rowena left Stoatley the next morning, the sun was rising into a cloudless blue sky that promised another hot day.

  The sun-kissed damsel was unusually pensive as she walked along the rarely-used country path. The rabbits who stopped to watch her pass barely received a single glance in return. She was mystified about whom the lady Sir Richard visited was, and the only mysteries she liked were ones she knew all about. She was aware that the sheriff always rode into Hartfield every Saturday and Wednesday, but she had never given his destination much thought.

  The discomfort she felt at the thought of the handsome knight having a lover annoyed her as well. If a woman claimed, as she did, that she did not care a single straw about a man, then she ought not to feel anything at the idea that his heart might belong to another.

  When Rowena reached Eaglestone Castle, Sir Richard was not yet down from his chambers. After calling out a cheerful good morning to everyone, she plonked herself down on one of the wooden crates sitting in the courtyard outside the armoury door, where a group of soldiers had gathered. There was a constant stream of banter as the men worked on cleaning their weapons and equipment, and frequent outbreaks of rowdy laughter.

  ‘If you polish that dagger anymore, Will, you’ll rub it clean away,’ one old soldier was saying to a younger man.

  ‘I like to have my weapons in good order,’ replied the young man. ‘A soldier never knows when his life might depend on them.’

  ‘I know why you like to have them in good order—so that you can preen and admire your reflection in the shiny steel!’ said the other.

  ‘Oh Savaric, don’t be so hard on the poor young man!’ said Rowena. ‘You know how hard it is to impress that barmaid in the Cockerel and Cow that he’s got his eye on.’

  ‘Aye,’ the old soldier replied sourly. ‘She’s a real shrew, that’s for sure. Last time I were in that alehouse she emptied a tankard of ale over me head just because I gave her a little squeeze. I don’t drink there no more.’

  ‘If Will is not looking his best he might share a similar fate, might he not?’

  ‘Aye,’ Savaric grumbled. ‘But if I were you, Will, I’d steer clear of that one. She’s nothing but trouble.’

  ‘Ignore him, Will,’ said Rowena. ‘I think you’d make a lovely couple. And if a woman will not put up with nonsense from lecherous old men who can’t keep their hands to themselves, I say good for her!’

  Will ran his finger along the blade, testing its sharpness. ‘You heard what the lady said, Savaric. Keep your paws off my lass.’

  ‘Your lass?’ scoffed the other man. ‘Now you really are getting ahead of yourself! You’ve yet to get even a single kind word out of that one.’

  ‘Yes, well, a woman has her standards and does not like to decide over-quickly. But she will eventually, just you wait and see’.

  Sergeant Gallagher came out of the armoury and, seeing Rowena there, made his way over. After greeting her, he perched himself on the crate next to her. ‘How is everything at Stoatley, madam?

  Rowena had told the sergeant several times just to call her Rowena, but he stilled only ever addressed her as ‘madam’ or ‘Mistress Rowena’.

  ‘Well, we have this guest, Lord Shrewsbury, staying with us for the next four weeks. He is the most irritating, nasty little man I have met in my entire life. I’m telling you, you would hardly think it was possible to find so many different faults combined in one man! Anyway, the funniest thin
g happened when Sir Richard ran into him yesterday.’

  Gallagher winced. ‘This is not going to be good…’

  Rowena then proceeded to recount the story of the incident with the swan scraps, right down to the smallest detail.

  Her tale was received with uproarious laughter. Even Sergeant Gallagher could not resist a good chuckle.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ The sheriff’s voice came from behind her.

  The seated men leapt from their seats and stood to attention.

  ‘Oh, we were just hearing of a humorous little incident,’ said Gallagher. ‘You really wouldn’t be interested, sir.’

  Sir Richard gave the waiting men a curt nod. ‘Don’t let me keep you from your duties.’

  ‘Sir!’ chorused the soldiers, bowing sharply.

  Then the men quietly disbanded and got back about their business.

  ‘Shall we go, Rowena?’ said Sir Richard.

  She gave a nervous smile and nodded, still wavering between excitement at the promise of an interesting experience and dread at what she might find out.

  He headed off, his large strides covering the ground with ease. She wordlessly followed him out of the castle, having to hurry along at an uncomfortable pace that was between a run and walk in order to keep up with him. But she was much too relieved to have been spared the terrors of the massive Lucifer to even consider complaining.

  With all the rain that had fallen recently, the road’s dirt surface had changed from dry summer dust which blew over the surrounding fields in great clouds when the wind was up, into a treacherously slippery mud. They both carefully kept to the edges of the road to avoid the worst of it, Rowena hitching the hem of her dress well up to keep it out of the dirt.

  Sir Richard seemed rather preoccupied, making no attempt to break the silence as they walked.

  When they reached the outskirts of Hartfield, Sir Richard turned off the main route and into the part of town where many of the more well-to-do folk lived. The quiet lanes, with their pretty, well-spaced two storey houses, were unfamiliar to Rowena. Preferring to avoid the noise, smell and bustle of the busy town, she never ventured into its rabbit warren of twisting streets and dark, narrow alleyways. The only part of Hartfield where she ever went was the market square on market days, which happened twice a week.