The Girl in the Ice (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 4)

by Jason Vail

  Pentre smiled. “So you disapprove of me too?” He reached in his pouch and came out with a ring. He held it out so she could see it in the candlelight. It had a polished green stone, the gold band consisting of a pair of dandelions. Rosamond had worn it until recently.

  “What is this, lord?”

  He hesitated. “She didn’t want it. I thought you might like to have it.”

  “You are most kind.” Marjory held the ring in her hand as if to admire it. She wanted to wear it no more than Rosamond, now that they knew how it had been acquired, but it would have been dangerous to refuse the gift. Besides, it was worth something. She put it on the table beside the bed. She drew aside the covers and he settled alongside her.

  Marjory’s hands went to his waistband as he lowered his head to kiss her.

  Marjory did not wear the ring openly. She knew where it had come from and what Rosamond would say if she saw it. Yet because it was so valuable, she kept it on a chain around her neck beneath her shift.

  A few days later, a rider came from Clun with the warning that they could expect a Welsh invasion despite the lateness of the season, and that they must send half the garrison to Clun immediately and should make ready with those who remained. As excited as the men were to mount what they called their expeditions, they greeted this news with apprehension and dismay. Pentre tried to make light of the men’s fears. “The Welsh will have to take Clun before they bother us,” he said. “And they’ll never take Clun.”

  Nonetheless, after supper that day, Rosamond Pentre told Marjory, “We cannot stay here. It isn’t safe. This place will easily be overrun.”

  “What should we do?”

  “We must seek a place of safety.”

  “Shrewsbury,” Marjory said, thinking of her home. It was a large town and would be hard for the Welsh to capture, should they be so rash as to try.

  “No,” Rosamond said, dabbing the lip Pentre had split. “It’s too far and the road is not safe. How could you not know that from what you’ve seen here? I doubt he’s the only one preying on the unwary. We shall go to Ludlow.”

  Marjory did not apprehend that when Rosamond declared her intentions, she meant to go without escorts or informing her husband. And in fact, Majory had no idea when this journey might take place. She assumed that all would be done as a reasonable person would expect, with preliminary discussions, permissions asked for and received, appropriate packing, and the selection of suitable men as escorts, because not all of them could be trusted out of the sight of their officers. So she was taken aback when, the next Wednesday, a ride to the village church for the daily communion turned into flight. For Rosamond did not turn as usual into the churchyard just beyond the bridge, but kept going south at a pace that quickened as soon as they left the last village hovel behind.

  “My lady!” Marjory called with some alarm, as she began to have an inkling of what might be going on and not liking it at all. “Where are we going?”

  “To safety, Marjory, what did you think?”

  Marjory thought she heard Rosamond add, “And freedom,” but wasn’t sure, since Rosamond didn’t turn around and Marjory was several horse-lengths back. She cried, “But it’s so late! It will be dark by the time we reach Ludlow.”

  “Then we shall have to ride fast,” Rosamond said. “It’s only fifteen miles. We can make it.”

  “But, my lady! My child! The exertion could cause me to miscarry!”

  “We shall just have to hope not, mustn’t we?”

  Marjory had first realized she was pregnant two weeks ago, when her time did not come. Some women were often late, but Marjory was as regular as the rising sun, so the fact she didn’t bleed caused her serious alarm. She kept the matter to herself for several days before she shared it with Rosamond. Marjory thought that Rosamond would be upset, but she did not show any interest other than to say, “It’s Warin’s, I presume?”

  Marjory nodded.

  “Well, then, I’m sure he will be thrilled. He so wants a son. He will have to make do with yours. Have you told him yet?”

  “No, my lady. I’m afraid to.”

  “Afraid of the repercussions?”

  Marjory nodded again.

  “You won’t be the first girl a lord has got with child. It’s not the end of the world. You can have it here. No one will be the wiser in your family or elsewhere. Keep your mouth shut about it, and you’ll still be able to make a good marriage.” Rosamond smiled slightly. “You’ll need my help with that, you know. Warin could care less what happens to you in the end. You know that, don’t you?”

  Marjory nodded a third time. She knew that indeed. Pentre was a handsome, dashing man and she had been instantly attracted to him, and he to her. But she had learned that he cared only about himself, and everything he did was to secure his position and advantage even when it meant that other people got hurt. Even his marriage had been calculated to increase his own wealth, for Rosamond was the orphaned heiress to a sizeable estate, and it had cost a great deal to acquire her wardship. Then, once he had got her in his grip, he had forced her to marry him. This had been done without the king’s permission, for which there would be another fine, but Pentre was prepared to pay that one too, even though the income from the manor was not up to the expense. He knew how to get the money, though. The only catch in the plan was that he had grown wildly infatuated with Rosamond, as he had with no other woman. The heart is such an odd thing; it goes where it wills and can cause all manner of trouble when not properly disciplined. As for Marjory herself, when Pentre had got all he wanted out of her, he would discard her like a worn-out shoe. She had never expected to be used this way, and should have seen it coming, but she had been too dazzled by the newness of her position and his looks. She regretted that she had been weak, yet even now when he came to her in the night, she could not send him away, for their moments together were the sweetest things she had ever known and she could not give them up.

  “I know you care for him,” Rosamond said, “but remember who will care for you. I shall need your help before long, and whatever I say must not be shared with him. Do you understand?”

  “I understand, lady,” Marjory said.

  The ford of the River Teme lay just over half a mile south of Bucknell. They rode the whole distance at a canter, and by the time they reached it, Marjory was battered and gasping for breath. She was a poor rider unused to such exertion — who knew that riding was so much work? Good riders made it look so fluid and effortless. As a town girl, Marjory had hardly ever been on the back of a horse, while Rosamond could ride and hunt as well as any man.

  The ford had been improved, which is to say that parallel lines of stones had been laid across the river like the edges of a road and the space between them cleared so that only sandy bottom and pebbles lay beneath the clear water. This made the crossing by wagons and horses easier because there were no stones for them to catch their wheels upon or cause them to stumble.

  Marjory expected Rosamond to drive through the ford without slackening their speed, but she allowed her horse to drop to a walk as the animal entered the river.

  On the other side, Rosamond turned at last to Marjory. Her face was flushed and happy for the first time Marjory could remember.

  “We are away,” Rosamond said, for the Teme marked the southern boundary of Clun honor.

  “Indeed, we are,” Marjory gasped, glad for the respite, however brief it might be.

  Then Rosamond picked up a trot, and Marjory’s rouncy broke into the same gait to keep up without having to be asked to do so.

  Marjory clung to her saddle with dismay, for the trot was an even more punishing gait than the canter. Fifteen miles did not sound far, but it was going to be a long ride.

  The remaining details of that ride were a blur in Marjory’s memory. She recalled passing through Leintwardine only because of the surprise on people’s faces when they saw two women traveling alone, but the rest she blotted out.

  They arrived at Ludlo
w shortly after sundown, the light of a rising full moon obscured by gathering cloud so that it was only a pale glow, like a candle behind a curtain. The town gates were closed and there would be no admittance until the morning, but this did not seem to trouble Rosamond. They found an inn with a stable just down hill from the gate on Corve Street. There was no room at the inn: it was full up with refugees from lands to the west, and rumors of invasion were in the air. Marjory heard one man say that Earl Roger Mortimer and his army had been defeated and were surrounded somewhere in the west, and others said that Clun itself had been attacked along with Knighton and Presteigne, although no news of this had reached Bucknell before they had fled. Marjory expected Rosamond to make a scene when she brought her word in the yard that there were no beds in the inn, though they might sleep in the stables on beds of hay. But Rosamond merely nodded and said, “That’s it, then,” and turned on her heel for the stables.

  In the morning, Rosamond sent Marjory into town to buy clothes while she remained at the inn, huddled in a corner so as not to be noticed. Rosamond was explicit about what Marjory should buy: simple garments of the kind ordinary people wore. Why Rosamond would want to appear like a serving girl, Marjory could not imagine, since the gentry were obsessed with status and loathed appearing low in the eyes of their fellows, each vying to seem better than anyone else. But she did as she was told.

  After Rosamond and Marjory had changed to their more modest garb, they entered Ludlow. Rosamond kept her face cloaked and Marjory did all the talking and paid the toll to the gate wards.

  They spent an exhausting morning going to every inn in town looking for a room. The town was choked to the brim with people who had fled the fighting and everywhere they went the word was the same as last night: full up. But finally they found space at a small inn called the Trumpet at the foot of Dinham Lane. It had a bright, appealing look with its blue-painted timber, and the innkeeper, Jacky Triplett, gave them space on the floor in a room occupied by a family and their servants from a manor outside Knighton. It was crowded and Marjory felt soiled at the prospect of having to sleep on the floor, but it was better than piles of hay in a stable surrounded by horses and mules. Unfortunately, the cost all but depleted the little money Rosamond had been able to steal away with her, and they had nothing left for food and any additional days’ lodging.

  The next day, Rosamond ordered her to sell the horses. Marjory was aghast at being given this task. She had never sold anything before, let alone a horse, and had no idea how to go about it nor how to avoid being cheated. She almost asked Rosamond how she should carry off this venture, but Rosamond came from a class which would never think to soil itself with commerce. Such people always gave the orders to others to see such things done and thought no more about the matter. “If they paid attention more,” Marjory’s father would grumble, “and spent a little less recklessly, they’d all be fabulously rich. But look at them. So many poor ones drowning in debt with patches on their elbows, yet going around pretending to better than the rest of us.”

  As much as Marjory wanted to marry into the gentry, an ambition that her father oddly shared given his opinions, she was her father’s daughter and went about the task of selling the horses with measured deliberation. First, she had to find out what a horse was worth. She had a general idea, but general ideas were not good enough. So she spent a day chatting up men in taverns, inns, and stables to get a firmer idea of the going market rate in this town.

  Fortified with this intelligence, she went round to all the inns and stables in town until she finally found a buyer at one of the fancier inns, the Broken Shield, who took the horses for one pound twelve for Rosamond’s palfrey and nineteen shillings for her own.

  “What shall we do with all this money?” Marjory asked Rosamond when she returned to the sale.

  “Live on it for a while.”

  “A while? Aren’t we going back soon?”

  “I have no intention of going back.”

  Marjory was deeply shocked. She had heard of women leaving their husbands; such a thing happened now and then in the lower orders. But for a gentry woman to do so seemed unthinkable. She’d had no idea that this was Rosamond’s intention all along, although she should have seen it.

  “Now,” Rosamond said, patting the box which held their money, “find a place to hide this so it won’t get stolen, keeping out a goodly amount for our expenses for the next few days.”

  “Where will we go?” Marjory asked as she clutched the box under an arm.

  “That is our next business. I need to send a letter.”

  “A letter,” Marjory murmured.

  “Yes. As soon as possible now that we have funds.”

  “To whom, lady?”

  “A friend,” Rosamond said, with a smile that softened her face, which of late had been set in severe lines of anxiety. “A dear friend. I cannot wait to see him again.”

  Marjory bought a sheet of parchment and rented a quill and ink, which she brought back to the Trumpet. Rosamond wrote the letter herself, seated at a corner table in the Trumpet’s hall. She folded the parchment up and sealed the edges together with wax from a candle, pressing her signet ring into the daub. She wrote the recipient’s name and location on it, which was how Marjory found out the man’s name: Gregory de Mandeville, Webbly Manor, near Cambridge.

  “Where’s Cambridge?” Marjory asked.

  “In Norfolk.”

  “That’s such a long way away.”

  “It is, which is why we needed that money. It will take a month or more for him to get here.”

  “A month living in this place?”

  “Yes, I know. The prospect does not appeal. But it’s cheaper than many of the other inns in Ludlow, even as the innkeeper takes advantage of the crisis. Never fear, the ordeal will soon be over. Now off you go. I’ve heard they’ve a wagon train leaving for London tomorrow. We shall pay to have them deliver it part way, anyway.”

  After the letter had been sent on its way, Rosamond had one more chore for Marjory. “There are women who can make potions,” Rosamond said cryptically that afternoon. “You know the kind I mean.”

  “I’m not sure I take your meaning.”

  “The kind that relieves a woman of the dangers of childbirth.”

  “My lady! You can’t possibly mean that!”

  “I do. There has to be someone here who can supply that want. Please find her right away.”

  “But, it’s a sin to kill your child!”

  “I don’t care. I feel as though I have the devil’s spawn in me. I want to be clean. For Gregory.”

  “My lady, do not make me complicit in this!”

  “You are not complicit. It is my choice. I alone bear the responsibility. Now, go. Let it be done.”

  Marjory should have argued further, but the habit of obedience was strong. It took longer to find the potions woman than to sell the horses, but at last Marjory was directed to a hut outside Ludlow off the east road toward Titterdun Clee. She found the hut in the woods after a trek though ankle-deep snow, locating it only by the smoke plume of its fire. An old woman was seated outside the hut before the fire.

  “What do you be needing, dearie?” the old woman asked. “You didn’t come for my conversation, that much is plain. Hardly anyone does, except for a silly boy who pesters me with questions. But no matter.”

  “I need something for . . .” Marjory stammered, embarrassed.

  “Something to get rid of an unwanted child, I reckon.”

  Marjory nodded.

  “How far along are you?” the old woman asked.

  “It isn’t for me.”

  “Of course it isn’t. But I’d still say that you’re newly taken with child in any case. Well, just a moment.” The old woman went into the hut and emerged with a clay vial. “A good swallow should do the trick. You might want to take it with ale or wine. The taste is not much to brag about, I’m afraid.”

  “Thank you,” Marjory said as she passed over the price,
a full penny.

  “No, girl, thank you,” the old woman said as she rubbed the penny in her palm.

  Rosamond took the potion that afternoon, but even with a cup of wine, she gagged and was unable to keep it down. She threw up out the window, admitting a blast of cold air and a volley of snow driven by such a hard wind that the flakes stung Marjory’s face when she pulled Rosamond back and slammed the shutters closed. When Rosamond had recovered from spasms of nausea, she tried again, with the same result. Too exhausted, she gave up for the time being.

  When neither Rosamond nor Marjory appeared at supper, Pentre knew something was amiss. One of the servants said they had gone to the church, but a man dispatched there to ask after them returned with word that they had been seen riding on the south road out of the village at a good clip. Pentre could not believe they had gone for a ride in the country, but what he expected and hoped not to be true left a chilly, panicked feeling in his gut.

  “Edgar,” Pentre said, “take two of the dogs and four men. See what you can find.”

  “Right away, lord,” Edgar said as he rushed out to the stable, calling the names of four archers.

  Edgar returned close to midnight without the women, soaking and shivering from a cold rain that had began to fall after sundown. “The dogs lost the scent north of Leintwardine,” he said. “The sleet and rain washed it out.”

  Pentre rested his head on a hand. “She’s run away. I can’t believe it.”

  Walcot patted his arm. “You’ll get her back. She can’t have gone far. Where can she go? She has no family.”

  “Leintwardine,” Pentre said, thinking. “That would mean Ludlow. But she’s a clever girl. What if she wants me to think that? I’ll wager she’s going to Marjory’s family, in Shrewsbury — and the abbey’s there, and a small convent of nuns. She could take refuge there and then there’s no way I can get her back. She just wants me to think she’s going to Ludlow so I’ll waste time looking for her there.”