Juliet Landon

by The Maiden's Abduction

  ‘We must go early,’ she said with some urgency.

  ‘Go?’

  ‘Yes. Go back, Bard. Just go. Early.’

  He blinked, but kept his voice low to her ear. ‘He’ll probably be going off tomorrow, sweetheart. Let’s wait and see, shall we?’

  She sighed, too weary to argue.

  The warmth of the summer evening and the clinging heat of Cecily’s ample body next to hers overrode Isolde’s tiredness and forced her out of bed towards the window that chopped the pale moonlit sky into lozenges. Only the wealthiest people could afford to glaze their windows, and even the strips of lead were expensive. The catch was already undone; as she knelt upon the wooden clothes-chest to push it open wider, men’s voices rose and fell on the still night air, below her on the quay. She leaned forward, easing the window out with one finger, recognising Bard’s voice and its deep musical relative.

  ‘Has it not occurred to you, lad?’ Silas was saying, impatiently.

  ‘She was with that—’

  ‘I know who she was with. I have a house and servants in York who keep me informed of what’s happening while I’m away. But have ye no care for Elizabeth and her lads? Have you any right to put her entire household at risk by chasing down here with her? God’s truth, lad, you’re as thoughtless as ever where a bit of skirt’s involved.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Silas. He’s not all that dangerous, surely?’

  ‘Have you ever met him?’

  ‘No. I saw him in the minster, though.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to take my word for it that Elizabeth had better not be on the receiving end of his attention. Nor must she know exactly who the lass was staying with, or she’ll be worried sick.’

  ‘Who will?’

  ‘Elizabeth, you fool. Who d’ye think I mean? It’s her safety I’m concerned about. Your lass has little to lose now, has she?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  There was a silence in which Isolde knew they were laughing.

  ‘You must leave tomorrow, Bard, at first light.’

  ‘But I’ve told her—’

  ‘I don’t care what you’ve told her. You leave at dawn and get back to York. I won’t have that maniac chasing down here to reclaim either the girl or his bloody horses, just because your braies are afire.’

  ‘Silas, it’s not just—’ Bard protested.

  ‘Ssh…all right, all right. I suppose you can’t help it if you take after Father. If I’d stayed longer I might have been the same, God knows.’

  ‘But what the hell are we going to do in York, Silas? Can we stay at your house?’

  ‘I’ll help you out, lad. I’ve thought of a plan. Foolproof. But you’ll have to trust me, both of you.’

  ‘I do, Silas, but I can’t vouch for Isolde.’

  A breeze lifted off the water and sent a dark line of ripples lapping at the harbour wall and Isolde’s skin prickled beneath her hair.

  ‘Come inside. I’ll tell you about it.’

  She waited, then tiptoed back to the bed and sat on its soft feathery edge until her mind began to quieten.

  Chapter Two

  Isolde’s resentment, dormant only during the short bouts of sleep, surfaced again at the first screeching calls of the seagulls that swooped across the harbour, rising faster than the sun itself. From a belief that she was taking control of her life, she now saw that, after only a matter of hours, it was once more in someone else’s hands. The two La Vallons, to be exact. Not a record to be proud of. In her heart, she had already made up her mind that a protracted stay at the Brakespeares’ house was impossible, a decision that Bard’s brother had endorsed in no uncertain terms, but to be packed off so unceremoniously back to York like a common servant—a bit of skirt, he had said—was humiliating to say the least. First a thorn in her father’s side, next a potential trophy for a halfwit, and now an embarrassment.

  Well, she would return to York with the remnants of her dignity, but not to stay. There was Allard at Cambridge, for instance, the older brother who had never once failed to mention on his visits home how he wished she’d go and keep house for him. A student of medicine in his final year at the university, he lived in his lodgings where time to care for himself properly had dwindled to nothing. Allard would welcome her and Mistress Cecily, for hers was as kind an older brother as anyone could wish for. Sean, their fifteen-year-old half-brother, was like him in many ways, studious and mentally absent from much of what went on around him, too preoccupied with copying books borrowed from the nearby abbeys to remember what day it was. Isolde did not know whether Sean had been distressed by his mother’s recent death or whether he had merely put a brave face on it for his father’s sake. He was not one to disclose his state of mind, as she did, and she had often wondered whether his books took him away from a world in which he felt at odds. If she regretted leaving anyone, it was Sean. Who would wash his hair for him now? Or his ears and neck, for that matter? Should she return home, after all?

  If she had thought to impress them by her dawn appearance, fully dressed and ready to begin her exodus unbidden, the wind was removed from her sails by the sight of a household already astir, well into its daily preparations and not a hint of surprise at her eagerness to be away. The plan outlined to Bard last night by his overbearing brother no doubt concerned what he was to do at York, once they arrived, and was of no real interest to her at that moment. So when he drew her forward into a small and comfortable parlour hung with softly patterned rugs and deep with fresh rushes, she was not best pleased to be joined by Silas La Vallon, especially in the middle of a kiss that was neither expected nor welcome.

  A servant followed him with a tray of bread rolls, cheese, ale, a dish of shrimps and a bowl of apples, one of which Silas threw up into the air, caught it without taking his eyes off the hastily separating pair, and noisily bit, enjoying Isolde’s confusion as much as Bard’s almost swaggering satisfaction.

  Isolde scowled and took the mug of ale which the servant offered, observing Silas’s ridiculous sleeves that dripped off the points of his elbows as far as his knees. His thigh-length gown was a miracle of pleats and padding that accentuated the width of his great shoulders, and in place of last night’s pointed shoes he wore thigh-length travelling boots of softly wrinkled plum-coloured leather edged with olive-green, like his under-sleeves.

  With a mouth full of apple, he invited her to sit and, with another ripping crunch at the unfortunate fruit, sat opposite her and leaned against the patterned rug.

  Feeling the discomfort of his unrelenting perusal, she turned her attention to Bard and, with a businesslike coolness, said, ‘What is all this about, Bard? We’ve a fair way to go, remember, and Mistress Cecily has barely recovered from yesterday.’

  Bard swung a stool up with one hand and placed it near hers, sitting astride it. ‘Yes, that’s one of the reasons why Silas has agreed to help us out, sweetheart,’ he said, taking one of her hands. ‘We think it would be for the best if Mistress Cecily was given time to recover while I take the horses back to York alone.’

  Without taking a moment to consider, Isolde countered, ‘Oh, no. We shall not stay here. I’m resolved to leave immediately.’

  Silas intervened, having no qualms about getting straight to the point and being less daunted by Isolde’s fierceness. ‘No, not to stay here, mistress. We all know you can’t do that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, throwing him a murderous glance.

  ‘I shall take you and your maid to York by ship, I’ve—’

  ‘That you will not!’

  ‘I’ve got to go there to unload some cargo, and I’ve—’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I’ve told Bard that it’ll take a few days, four at most, depending on the wind, to get up-river past Hull to York. Then I’ll drop you off with your maid and baggage, and you can—’

  ‘No! I said no.’

  Silas slapped the half-eaten apple hard on to the bench at his side and leapt to his feet, hi
s voice biting with exasperation. ‘In God’s name, woman, will you listen to what I have to say before you—?’

  Before three words were out, Isolde was up and facing him, eye to eye, Bard’s comforting hand thrown aside. ‘No, in God’s name, I shall do no such thing, sir! I do not need you to make any plans for me, nor do I need your assistance to reach York. I am quite aware that your first concern is for Dame Elizabeth and that you are using Mistress Cecily’s fatigue to pull the wool over my eyes. You care no more about her than you do about me, so don’t take me for a fool, either of you. And if Alderman Fryde should come to Scarborough to search for me it’ll be a miracle worth two of St. William’s, because he doesn’t have the wit to look beyond his own pockets. The first thing he’ll do is send home to see if I’m there.’ Her eyes were wide open and, this time, furiously unflinching.

  Fascinated, Silas stuck his thumbs into the girdle that belted his hips. ‘There now, wench, you’ve been wanting to let fly at me ever since you got here, haven’t you? Feeling better now?’

  ‘You mistake the matter, sir. I haven’t given you a moment’s thought.’ She swung away from him and stalked towards the door, but in two strides he was there before her, his head up, presenting her with the clearest challenge she had ever faced. The look that passed between them, so unlike the enigmatic exchange at suppertime, was of unbridled hostility on her part and total resolution on his, but, having no notion of the form this might take, and not willing to try it out there and then, she appealed to Bard for help.

  ‘Well? Don’t sit there grinning! Tell him to move.’

  Bard went to her, having difficulty with his grin. ‘Nay, he’s bigger than me, sweetheart. Come, you haven’t heard the whole argument yet, and what you say is not correct, you know. We both care greatly for your safety, and that’s why Silas’s plan is a sound one. I can reach York much faster than the three of us, without a chance of you being seen by anyone. Silas can smuggle you ashore at York and I’ll meet you there and then you can make up your mind what to do, whether to stay or go on. And Mistress Cecily won’t have to suffer another day in the saddle.’

  ‘No, she’d be seasick instead. She’d prefer that, I’m sure.’

  ‘No, she won’t,’ Silas said. ‘We’re only going down the coast and the sea’s as calm as a millpond. The river doesn’t make anyone seasick.’

  ‘And what about the horses? You can’t make good speed leading three.’

  ‘Silas is lending me a lad.’

  ‘Then what, when you’ve got them to York? You take them back to Fryde’s, do you, and apologise?’

  ‘Isolde!’ Bard’s tone was gently scolding. ‘Course not. I leave them where his men will find them, tied up outside the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, most likely. He’ll not know where they’ve been or how they were returned, will he?’

  On the face of it, the plan seemed to be reasonable enough, but nagging doubts showed in her eyes and in the uneasy twitch of her brows. These two were La Vallons. Silas must know of Felicia’s abduction by now, for surely Bard had told him, unless he had been informed of it beforehand, as he had been about her own arrival in York. What he had not known, apparently, was that Bard would bring her to Scarborough, and that had unnerved him more than anything else, otherwise he would by this time have made some remark about her father’s wickedness and his own sister’s welfare. Since they had not thought fit to brandish this latest Medwin villainy before her, nor even to hint at her own vulnerability, she could only assume that her association with Bard was protecting her from reprisals. The elder brother was clearly the dominant of the two but, judging from the conversation they’d had last night on the quay, there was no enmity between them. Silas was willing to help his brother since this also relieved his own concerns for his cousin, whatever they were. She could hardly blame him, though the thought kept alive a flame of pique which she could put no name to.

  Her silence was watched carefully and, when Bard opened his mouth ready to hurry her decision, a frown from Silas quelled the opening word.

  ‘You are La Vallons,’ she said at last. ‘And I am a Medwin. I would be a fool to trust you, would I not?’

  It was Silas who answered her. ‘My brother is prejudiced and would deny any foolishness as a matter of course. For myself, I think you may not have been offered too many options these last few weeks, but that doesn’t make you a fool. A few days at sea, a change of air, would give you some time to make a better decision. I can recommend it, mistress.’

  ‘The company is not what I would have chosen.’

  ‘There are books to read on board. Your maid will be with you. Plenty to see. We shall be there before you notice the company.’

  ‘You’ll be there at York, Bard?’

  ‘I’ll be there, sweetheart. Trust me. I promise I’ll be there waiting.’

  She sighed heavily, turning her head. ‘My panniers are packed. You intend sailing today, sir?’ she said to the bowl of apples, taking one to caress its waxy skin.

  ‘We sail immediately. The tide will be at its height in half an hour and the captain is waiting. Bard is packed and ready to be away.’

  ‘I see. So it was already decided.’

  Neither of the brothers denied it. She was right, of course.

  Having seen nothing of Scarborough in the daylight, Isolde was almost on the point of changing her mind about leaving so soon, and the surprise at what lay beyond the windows and doors of the merchant’s large house turned to a sadness that Bard took, typically, to be for his farewell. It had not been so difficult to see him go, only to believe, with regard to his reputation, that he was trustworthy. Now that she was alone with Cecily, she could think of few reasons why she had agreed to place a similar kind of trust in his disagreeable brother, who saw no need to keep up any pretence of liking her.

  Despite the sadness and doubting, her spirits were buoyed up by the nearness of Dame Elizabeth’s house to the harbour, the vast expanse of sparkling sea beyond, the swaying masts of ships and the brown water that reflected every shape and threw it crazily askew. Houses lined the quay in an arc on one side, enclosing the harbour on the other side by a wall of stone and timber that extended from the base of a massive natural mound at one side of the town. It was on top of this mound that the Norman castle perched, which they’d seen against the evening sky. Now it was being mobbed by screaming seagulls, some of which came in to land at Isolde’s feet with beady, enquiring eyes and bold, flat-footed advances.

  ‘I’m going,’ she told them, on the brink of tears. ‘I’m going and I’ve only just arrived.’

  The breeze that had brought a welcome coolness into her bedchamber overnight had now lifted the sea into more than Silas La Vallon’s hypothetical millpond, causing Cecily to clutch at her skirts, her head-dress and shawl all at the same time. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, love,’ she said.

  No, dear Cecily. I have not the slightest idea what I’m doing.

  Silas La Vallon’s ship was also a surprise to her, for she had thought he meant one of the squat northern cogs that piled cargo up and down the rivers, one-masted, cramped, and serviceably plain. She had seen them at York, loaded with bales of cloth and smelly commodities, and it had been a measure of her temporary madness that she had agreed to sail with him even in one of those. But this was not a cog; it was a four-hundred-ton carrack, a three-masted beauty that sat proudly on the high tide outside Dame Elizabeth’s door almost, a towering thing with decorated castles fore and aft, swarming with men and more ropes than a ropemaker’s shop.

  The men grinned and nudged and pulled in their stomachs, then got on with their swarming as she and Cecily were led aboard and introduced to the master, whose aquamarine eyes sparkled with intrigue in a skin of creased and burnished leather. And she looked hard and with genuine regret at the three who stood waving and calling last-minute instructions on the quayside. The two boys watched in fascination the men who hauled in unison, the sails that squeaked upwards, cracking and billowing, t
he majestic swing of the bow, and it was only Dame Elizabeth who noticed the quick brush of fingers across one cheek as it received her wind-blown kiss.

  Or perhaps there was another who saw, who came to lean on the bulwark by her side to wave, then to point out the Brakespeares’ house and its adjacent warehouse, King Richard’s House over there, the old Roman lighthouse, and there, over to the left, the town gate through which Bard would already have passed.

  ‘Yes, I see,’ she said, straining her eyes to scan the road.

  The town nestled closer on to the hillside as they passed beyond the harbour entrance and out into the open sea, holding itself steady as the ship took its first pulling lunges into the swell like a swimmer lengthening his stroke. She felt the lurch as the sails cracked open and the corresponding rush of exhilaration in the pit of her stomach, as though she stood on a live beast, and found ever more to see as the distance between them and the land increased, the prominent headland at one side with never-ending cliffs on the other. Below the cliffs were beaches where white-edged surf broke and mended again, then raced in upon the rocks further along, determined to smash uninterrupted.

  ‘We didn’t see any of this on our way here,’ she said.

  ‘You’d not have seen the cliffs or the rocks because you were above them,’ Silas told her. He turned round and pointed across the deck. ‘That’s what you’d have seen.’

  The water was a pure shimmering blue, bouncing sunlight and seagulls into the clear morning air, and Isolde was spellbound.

  ‘You can eat your apple now,’ he said.

  It was still there, in her hand, and so she did, but was unable to hear her own crunching for the multitude of creaks and groans underfoot and the crashing roar of waves hurtling past. Nor did she taste a thing.

  He left her alone after that, as if, having made sure she would not jump overboard, he could relax his guard. That was the cynical view she took of things, which was, perhaps, an inefficient tool to guard against the wayward thoughts to do with his nearness as he had leaned across her to point; the tiny red mark on his chin where he had cut himself shaving, the way the cuffs of his white cotton shirt clung to his beautiful hands. Silly, inconsequential things. Irritably, she brushed back the memory of his intimidating manner, despite her own defence, but it returned with masochistic glee to taunt her with every detail of their argument.