Falconer's Prey

by April Hill

Fletcher laughed bitterly. “Be that as it may, Mistress, I now have no choice in this matter. Your uncle must be told. If this man is of good character and is acceptable as a husband, I’m certain Henry Burden would wish you and your French ‘Lord’ nothing but happiness.”

  “No!” she cried, “I’ll not have it! This entire matter is none of your concern! If you do not wish to accompany me to London, I will find someone else, but pray do not worry my good uncle with such a trifle.”

  “Tell me more about how you met this man.”

  “It is my private affair, and….”

  “I count a good four or five offenses, the first of which is your nose is still not against that wall as ordered,” he said, tapping the spoon on the edge of the table.

  “Then beat me as you will, but I will not have my dear uncle vexed by something that will only cause him worry, for no reason.”

  Fletcher shook his head. “I have said before, and repeat… I will not be a part of lying to Henry Burden. He has been an excellent friend to Robin and me.”

  “Master Fletcher,” Alice pleaded, “please listen to me for just one moment, I beg you! If my uncle learns of this, you know that he will insist upon accompanying me to London, and there is great peril in that for him, as you have already stated. There is no actual lie to be told. Simply take me to London as we planned and meet Geoffrey for yourself. If he meets not with your approval, I will do whatever you ask.”

  Fletcher hesitated. “Have I your sworn promise on this?”

  “You do. I have nothing to hide. The man is unquestionably honorable.”

  After a long moment, he finally agreed. “I can only hope that you have spoken the truth, Mistress. There is more at risk here than you know.” Fletcher sighed, obviously still troubled. “Go to bed now. We leave before dawn.”

  Alice sighed with relief and bid him good night.

  Chapter the Eighth

  On The Great North Road to London, The Sixth Day of April in The Year of Our Lord, 1193. May God Keep King Richard!

  As Will Fletcher had hoped, the rain continued, making their progress southward slow, muddy and unpleasant. They passed through Nottinghamshire without incident, and keeping off the high road, spent the night in the decrepit, tumbledown barn of a poor farmer willing to accept a shilling for a night’s lodging.

  “The night after tomorrow, we will find more comfortable accommodation,” Will promised as they patted down piles of straw upon which to sleep. “We will most likely be beyond the Sheriff’s reach by then.”

  “I would appreciate that,” Alice sighed. “A bath would be pleasant, as well.”

  He grinned. “We will ride most of tomorrow by the river. That would suffice for a simple country lass, such as you are now.”

  “As children, my brother and I often swam in that same river,” she replied, grimacing. “It was as cold as ice, even in July.”

  Fletcher settled comfortably onto a thick bed of straw. Even at ease, he kept a cautious eye on the door he had left ajar. “Henry tells me you were a mischievous child and a bright one, whose greatest wish was to be a boy.”

  Alice smiled as she remembered. “Yes, it was. My brother Andrew had thrilling adventures, and I was forever being brought in and made to work on needlepoint and French grammar. ’Til this day, I despise needlepoint – and French.”

  “And how will you converse with your fine French Lord Reynaud and his family?”

  “In English, I presume,” she sniffed. “Geoffrey speaks English with no French accent whatever.”

  “Indeed?” Fletcher noted. “And is that not curious? No accent at all?”

  “Perhaps, but I have heard it said somewhere or other that our own good King Richard also speaks French with no English accent,” she said sweetly.

  Fletcher chuckled. “So I am to be trapped by my own words. All right, then, sleep now, Mistress. I’ll keep watch.”

  “But, surely you are weary after today,” Alice suggested. “When will you sleep?”

  “When I am back in Sherwood,” he said softly. “Good night, now.”

  “Master Fletcher?” Alice asked, her voice low.

  “Yes?”

  “Will you not use my Christian name, now? And I, yours?”

  “If you wish,” he replied softly.

  “I do.”

  “Good night then – Alice.”

  “Good night, Will.”

  * * * * *

  The morning dawned without rain for the first time since they left Sherwood and by mid–afternoon, the day had turned warm, almost balmy.

  “I believe that I have acquired fleas!” Alice yelped, stopping her horse once again to scratch her leg. “I am being continually and viciously bitten!”

  Will laughed. “I believe you may be correct. I have had an intense itch under my shirt since we rose. It may well be merely the scratch of the straw on which we slept, but the farmer whose hospitality we enjoyed last night kept a pack of filthy hounds. I saw the animals basking in the sun this morning. The bath you wished is closer than you imagine, however.” He pointed to the river. “You can freeze the small bloodsuckers to death, if nothing else.”

  “And myself, as well,” she groaned. She looked around quickly. “Still, a bath would be… someone may pass by,” she said unsurely.

  “By the bushes, there,” he suggested, pointing. “I’ll watch the road while you swim, and then you will do the same for me. Inspect your garments carefully before you dress again, and shake them out well. It will help, somewhat, though fleas and bedbugs are the constant curse of the traveler, I’m afraid.”

  When they had swum, Alice sat on the sunlit river–bank and dried her hair while Will watered the horses.

  “My hair is nothing but tangles,” she complained. “And I am still eaten alive. I fear the fleas have neither frozen nor drowned, but only gotten cleaner.”

  “They do appear to swim better than expected,” he agreed, scratching his arm.

  Alice sighed and tried to rip out the worst tangles in her hair with a wooden comb. “The Lady Marian has beautiful hair,” she said glumly.

  “She does, indeed,” he agreed.

  “And hands. She has exquisite hands.” Alice looked at her own hands, chilblained by her kitchen duties. “I bite at my nails.”

  He looked over her shoulder at Alice’s hands. “Yes, so I see.”

  “An unattractive habit,” she said, “is it not?”

  He smiled. “There are worse.”

  “She’s very lovely – Marian, I mean.” Alice strained to scratch again at a maddening itch on her back. “And elegant. I do not believe that elegant ladies are much troubled by fleas, do you? There is probably a law. And, of course, the Lady Marian is every inch an elegant lady. And courageous, as well, or so I’m told. “

  Fletcher sat down next to her and took her chin in his hand, turning her head to face him. “Aye, Marian’s a fine girl and Robin a fortunate fellow to have her, as he well knows, but what is it that bothers you so about that particular lady?”

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. “It’s just that a woman like the Lady Marian is rare. She’s been to Court, and… I’m told she has visited the French court, as well?”

  Fletcher nodded. “She has – as a girl, at the Lionheart’s side. Danced with the Dauphin, as well. And every inch an elegant lady, as you’ve said.”

  “I do not dance,” Alice said softly. “I was never taught. I suppose I do very few womanly things well– unlike the Lady Marian.”

  Will Fletcher smiled and shook his head. “I will divulge a secret, if you’ll swear to hold it close.”

  “A secret about what? What is it?” she asked eagerly. “About the Lady Marian?”

  “Your vow of silence first,” he insisted.

  “You have it!” Alice cried, forgetting her fleas for the moment. “On my mother’s grave, I swear it!”

  He chuckled. “When Marian last returned from the French court, Robin confided to me, somewhat drunkenly, that she had ar
rived home having adopted a strange new fashion from the ladies of Philip’s court.”

  “How strange?”

  “Very strange. Robin explained to me that she has taken to wearing beneath her clothing what my dear friend persists in describing as ‘silken breeches.’ The French, of course, have another name for the item, which is – from Robin’s description – not unlike that floppy garment I once saw, of your own manufacture. Only, it seems that the French make them to fit snugly, and of fine linen, and even silk.”

  “Snugly,” she repeated, awed by the concept.

  “Very snugly, I am told.”

  “And Robin would know this, for a fact?”

  “Robin has reason to know… for a fact.”

  “But, if Marian is a maid, how would Robin know of….” Alice faltered, her dim knowledge of such things failing her.

  Fletcher shook his head. “I believe you have been in the convent far too long, dear Alice.”

  Alice blushed. “But, then Fanny is right. Maid Marian is not… not… well, a maid, I mean?”

  Fletcher grinned. “I would think it highly unlikely – miraculous, even. But, lest we besmirch an innocent maiden’s reputation, I will point out that there are other ways in which such things as a lady’s underpinnings may be investigated. Like yourself, Marian has more than once found herself across a man’s knee –– Robin’s knee.”

  “The Lady Marian?” Alice shrieked.

  Will nodded. “Lady or no, a high spirited wench she is and about as obedient as yourself. Now and then, when she’s overcome by the itch for a good fight, her daring puts her in genuine peril. On those occasions, she sometimes ends up in need of rescue.”

  “She sounds wonderfully brave!” Alice breathed.

  “Brave, perhaps, but bravery without forethought often turns to disaster or tragedy. I’m afraid it’s a trait she shares with her famous cousin. In Richard’s case, there’s been no firm hand to prevent or punish his more dangerous misadventures.” He grinned. “Marian, fortunately – or unfortunately – has Robin.

  “It’s always done privately, of course, in deference to her position, but when the occasion arises, Robin has been known to take the dear lady into the forest, out of hearing of the camp, in order to apply the required... correction to her… to the customary place.”

  Alice’s eyes widened. “I cannot believe it!”

  “Ah, but you have not stood in the forest and held their horses while listening to the elegant lady’s shrieks and the sounds of Robin’s hand or belt on her bared bottom. Nor have you ridden behind the elegant lady as she walks back to camp, unable to sit her horse, or watched her rub her badly scorched backside when she believes no one is watching. Robin is a tender–hearted fellow and slow to anger, but like all of us, when something must be done, he’ll tend to it – with an uncommon vigor.

  “So, if it’s Marian’s ladyness that bothers you, you needn’t worry. She’s as ribald and as bold as Robin. And when she suffers a hard walloping to her ladylike backside that would make a strong man tremble, she sheds few tears over it. A few dreadful oaths, perhaps, and she does tend to screech like a banshee under the strap or paddle, but she’s a game lass, and well–loved, real lady or no.”

  Suddenly, Alice threw up her hands in exasperation. “Do all of you savages chastise your women in this way?” she cried.

  Fletcher laughed again. “Indeed not! You have seen some of our women. There are females in camp who can best a man with the quarterstaff or sword, and others of a size that no man would consider turning her across his knee, let alone have the muscle for it. I, of course, have no wife, nor do many of the others. Still, ’t is an English habit that dies hard – to smack a wench’s bottom when it needs it. Many ladies prefer it to quarrelling – or so we men have persuaded ourselves.”

  “And had you a wife, you would regularly chastise her, as the others do?” Alice asked, suddenly shy.

  He thought for a moment, then replied solemnly. “No, I would certainly paddle a deserving tail, or blister a wife’s bottom, but chastise’ never! I am a common, workaday sort of fellow, and chastise is far too genteel a word for a common, workaday husband.”

  “You find such a thing husbandly?” Alice exclaimed, her blush spreading across both cheeks.

  “Come now,” he teased, “is anything more husbandly than a sound, well–deserved spanking, administered over a loving husband’s manly knee, without ceremony or foolishness, using a good stout hairbrush? Or in a man’s own green garden, under his very own willow tree, striping his charming wife’s comely but disobedient bottom with a supple switch from that very tree? Or with the same well–cherished wife bent over her own, fine, soft bed, with her bare buttocks red as an apple after her devoted husband has done his husbandly duty?”

  “His duty, indeed!” Alice pouted. “I think you mock me, Master Fletcher!”

  He grinned. “Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not. Having never been a husband, I suppose I’ll simply have to wait and see.”

  * * * * *

  Will Fletcher found them lodging that night at yet another filthy and dilapidated inn just off the high road to the south. “I requested but one room,” he explained apologetically. “Perhaps indecent, but as we are traveling as man and wife, I thought it safer.”

  “I doubt that either of us shall be able sleep in this awful place,” she grumbled. “I fear to inspect the mattress or bedding. Although I risk being taken, like Mrs. Nubbs, for a shrew and a scold, might I ask that I be permitted to inspect any future inns at which we stay during our marriage? Or am I to be spanked for that rudeness?”

  He chuckled. “No. I see myself as a just fellow, who would never spank a wife for speaking the truth. The place is a pig sty.”

  “Then I would also point out,” she added sullenly, “that should it fail to rain, as you predict, the money for this hovel will have been squandered needlessly.” She looked sideways at him, looking for signs that he was becoming annoyed with her complaints.

  He looked about their squalid surroundings. “Well, I believe it would be healthier to decline whatever breakfast the innkeeper offers,” he conceded. “But do not press your luck, Alice. A man with no sleep and rising saddle sores is far more likely than a well–rested one to paddle a shrewish wife’s rude bottom. In any case, for tonight, I will sleep quite comfortably in the window seat there.”

  Alice shook her head. “Nonsense. You will awake bent in half. I will make a palette in the window and you shall have the bed. And accuse me not of a noble sacrifice, please! Of the two, the bed appears much the likelier spot to harbor the bedbugs you spoke of.”

  Fletcher padded the wide window seat with what extra bedding he could find and the two retired, blowing out the small lantern that served as the room’s only light.

  “There is a most disagreeable odor here. I think some creature may have died under the bed recently. We should have simply slept in the woods,” she complained, sniffing audibly, “and tomorrow be free of fleas – and wealthier, as well.”

  Will chuckled. “You are learning thrift, good wife.”

  “I tried to do so at the convent,” she sighed. “I did, truly. When first my step–mother took me to St. Mary’s, I sought to be like the most pious nun – Sister Perpetua. When she spilt a morsel of flour, she swept it up and used it, though it contained bugs or the droppings of mice.”

  Fletcher laughed. “And this pious Sister Perpetua was the abbey’s cook?”

  “Yes. I went without many meals when I worked in the kitchen and ate no bread at all,” Alice giggled. “The poor woman died soon thereafter and we were all very much relieved.”

  “Tell me, please, that you did not attempt her murder, as you as did the Abbess’s.”

  Alice’s voice became suddenly sad. “In truth, she was very kind. I never witnessed Sister Perpetua beating the girls, as the others did.”

  There was a long silence before Fletcher spoke again. “You were brought there at twelve?”

  “
A month prior. I begged Father – pleaded with him that I did not wish to go, but my stepmother told him that I was wild and required the discipline of a convent school. For two years only, she vowed to him. But when Father died, she did not come for me, as promised. She eventually sent word that I was to enter the novitiate. Still, I was among the more fortunate. My family had money and position and paid well for my keep. Others – the poor ones – were not as….

  “Mostly,” she continued softly. “It was those who rebelled openly, or made efforts to escape that were most severely beaten – with a great wooden paddle, or a long strap. After being caught and whipped, a runaway was forced to beg her meals for a month or more, crawling about on her bare knees on the rough stones of the floor at every meal, and eating with her hands what unwanted morsels of food the sisters chose to give her. There was little food at any time, and many of us ate nothing for days at a time.

  “Each week, on Friday morning before mass, the Prioress or the Abbess herself would come down the hallway and enter each cell to administer to each girl the punishment she had earned that week. The girl would simply kneel on the floor, with her head and shoulders on her cot, and try not to move as she was strapped or caned over her chemise – often until she bled.”

  “And at least once every month, that fat swine, the Bishop of Hereford himself, would accompany the Abbess and stand in the doorway, pretending to shield his eyes – and making suggestions.”

  “Suggestions?” Will asked, his voice quiet.

  “Yes,” Alice sneered. “The suggestions always meant terrible beatings for certain girls – those with no wealthy parents or patrons, and those whose bodies had matured early.”

  Alice mimicked the Bishop’s reedy voice. “Would it perhaps not be more efficacious, dear Sister, were the young culprit’s garment to be lifted? With all due respect for modesty, of course, so that the full effect of the rod might be felt upon her… upon the immediate area of correction?”

  “Then, of course, the poor girl would be compelled to raise her shift to her waist. Sometimes, he would order certain girls to be taken to Abbess’s quarters, where he had installed a peculiar bench where an unfortunate girl was bound with her buttocks elevated and her legs spread – to be birched or flogged in the most obscene and agonizing manner. The holy Bishop sat in a great oaken chair behind a curtain to watch and to listen to her screams. I was once brought in to clean the room, and when I saw the device and began to understand its purpose, I became ill.