Death and the Maiden

by Samantha Norman

  Oh well, he thought, shifting in his saddle again. It would all be resolved eventually, things usually were—at least he had lived long enough to know that much—but in the meantime he had other worries, chief among them his daughter. His beautiful, clever, capricious, unmarried daughter.

  That he loved her, always had and always would, was indubitable, but her refusal to marry was a torment that, he was beginning to suspect, he would have to carry to his grave.

  It was his fault; he accepted that: first for having fallen in love with a woman as unconventional as Adelia, second for failing to persuade her to marry him, and last for having had a child with her at all!

  The only thing he couldn’t be blamed for was Allie’s sex. A boy would have been so much easier, as everybody was always at such pains to point out, but—and this he had known from the moment he clapped eyes on her—a boy would have been so much less fun, less beautiful, less bright, less lovable and less like Adelia.

  Oh, she had his eyes, everybody agreed on that, and his humor, but the rest, thank God, was Adelia, and yet now that she had reached the age of twenty-two, or twenty-three?—God’s teeth! He was getting so old he was losing track of the passing years—one thing was certain: she was too old not to be married.

  And it worried him, terribly. Not for the opprobrium that would inevitably be heaped on her—on them all, in fact—God’s eyes! They could and had survived worse, but because for a woman to be unconnected meant that she was also unprotected and therefore vulnerable to all manner of atrocities when her father and protector eventually died.

  In the old days, under Henry, he had been secure in the knowledge that, in the event of his own death, a decent match would be procured for her, but Richard was a very different creature from his father, his wards merely pawns in a ruthless pursuit to fund his Crusades, and yet, when Rowley had tried explaining this to Allie, she had rounded on him.

  “What about Ma?” she had asked, hands on her hips, eyes flashing defiantly. “She survived without being married, didn’t she!” A riposte that rather took the wind out of his sails, largely because it was true. Adelia had survived—if only by the skin of her teeth at times—but then she was a foreigner in a country arrogant enough to assume that all foreigners were peculiar simply by dint of the misfortune of their place of birth and, therefore, exempt from the mores and expectations of ordinary society. Not only that, but she had enjoyed the protection of the king and the complex subterfuge they had all employed to keep her safe. She also had Mansur, her devoted Arab stepbrother, who had followed her to England from Salerno with the express intention of keeping her safe. How she would have fared without having him to deflect the inevitable accusations of witchcraft, by pretending that he was a real doctor and not her, Rowley dreaded to think. But Mansur was dead, God rest his soul, and Henry, too, God rest his, leaving Rowley as her sole protector. The fact that he was failing in this duty was a burgeoning agony.

  Yet what more could he do? He had the will and the means to secure the best of matches, to bestow the dowry to end all dowries on any suitor she would accept, but she thwarted him at every turn by refusing every last damned one of them.

  “If I ever marry,” she had told him, in no uncertain terms, “it will be for love. Not because you want me to.”

  In despair he had turned to Adelia.

  “Where does she get these ideas?” he pleaded.

  Adelia responded with an insouciant shrug. “Us, I suppose,” she said.

  “But we’re not married!”

  “No,” she said. “We’re not. But we’ve always had love.”

  It felt like a conspiracy, and there were times when he thought it might drive him mad.

  As the late afternoon sun slid into the hills at his back, a breeze and a wave of self-pity brushed over him simultaneously. He dropped the reins to wipe his eyes, surprised at himself.

  It was exhaustion, that was what it was, sheer bloody exhaustion, but for the time being, for tonight at least, he was going to put his worries behind him, because tonight—just as long as he could get this bloody horse to walk on a bit—he would be at Wolvercote, fed and fêted by the incomparable Osbert, arguably the finest chef in the kingdom. And after such gastronomic indulgence he would lie in the arms of the woman he loved, all his anxiety about the only other woman he loved banished for the time being.

  With those happier thoughts, he plucked another twig from the hedgerow, thwacked the implacable horse on its rump and smiled for the first time that day as it broke into a trot.

  Chapter 6

  Wolvercote

  “Not that one!” Allie screeched when she saw Adelia stepping blithely into the dowdy moth-eaten bliaut Lena, her maid—one of the doziest girls in Christendom—had idly plucked from the bottom of the clothes chest. “That one’s older than God!” she said, snatching it out of Adelia’s hands and rummaging furiously for the less tatty blue-and-gold one she knew lurked in the bottom somewhere.

  “What about this?” she said when she found it.

  “Oh for goodness’ sake!” Adelia snapped. “We’re having supper with Emma! What on earth are you making such a fuss for?”

  Allie tried hard to suppress a smile. “I don’t know, Ma,” she replied. “I just thought you might feel better, that’s all, a little less tired perhaps, if you wore something pretty.”

  It was clutching at straws and she knew it. Adelia had never been interested in clothes or frippery—she was almost famous for it—but Allie was determined that this evening of all evenings, in honor of her “surprise,” she should look her very best.

  They finished dressing in silence, Allie somehow ignoring the groans and exaggerated yawns emanating from the other side of the room, knowing that one more false move, one more unwelcome suggestion, and Adelia would simply refuse to budge.

  By the time they were ready to leave, the sun was as low as it could be without actually setting and the lone horseman slumped wearily in his saddle on the horizon was little more than a silhouette; nevertheless, the moment she saw him, Adelia gave a gasp of recognition, picked up the hem of her skirts and started scampering over the stubble toward him like an excited child.

  Allie stood at a distance watching her father lean down and take Adelia in his arms, then turned away, overwhelmed by that peculiar feeling she so often had when she saw them together, a strange mix of admiration, love and loneliness.

  She had no doubt that they adored her—it was a comfort she felt deep in her bones—it was just that, sometimes, their union was so complete, so all-consuming, that there was no room for anyone else, not even her.

  Unfortunately the evening Emma had so meticulously organized didn’t turn out as planned.

  On their way to the house through the rose garden, Adelia, who was chatting away, oblivious to everyone and everything but Rowley, tripped on a wind-fallen branch and fell heavily.

  For a moment she sat where she was, giggling helplessly at her own clumsiness, but when she tried to stand up her ankle gave way and she collapsed onto the grass again.

  “Bugger!” she said, holding her arms out to Rowley, whimpering with pain when he tried pulling her to her feet.

  “What have you done, woman?” he asked, his amusement giving way suddenly to concern.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, hopping toward a stone bench in the middle of the lawn. “Sprained the bugger, I think . . . But ooh, it hurts!”

  Pushing her father out of the way, Allie knelt down in front of the bench.

  “Let’s get that boot off, shall we?” she said, thrusting the hem of Adelia’s chainse at him, revealing her ankle, which was already bruised and swollen.

  “What a beautiful shade of blue! Look at that! . . . But . . . ,” she said, gently palpating the flesh, “not broken, I don’t think . . . Nope . . . But it’s a nasty sprain nevertheless, which means you’ll have to rest up. No more running about after other people for a change.”

  Adelia grimaced. “Thank you, darling,” she sa
id. “But oh, what a nuisance! And just as I’ve got you back, too, Rowley! I’m so sorry.”

  She raised her arms to him again and he lifted her off the bench with a groan.

  “God’s teeth, but you’ve gained weight since I last held you!” he said, earning himself a slap.

  As he pretended to stagger over the lawn with Adelia giggling helplessly in his arms, they discussed whether or not to send their apologies to Emma and go back to the cottage, or to carry on as planned. Rowley was in favor of going back, but Adelia—who was all too familiar with the tyranny of his stomach—insisted they carry on; besides, as long as she didn’t have to put any weight on it, her ankle was comparatively painless and she was rather enjoying being carried.

  “’Delia!”

  Emma leapt to her feet, her hand to her mouth, when they appeared in the hall.

  “I knew there’d be a good reason you were late! What in God’s name have you done?” she asked, whipping around to the young page standing behind her and snapping her fingers impatiently. “Don’t just stand there, Matthew. What are you thinking of? Go and help my lord bishop!” At which point the tremulous young man launched himself off the dais and went rushing across the floor toward them.

  “My lord,” he said as he skidded to a halt just in time to avoid knocking Adelia out of Rowley’s arms. “May I be of assistance?”

  “That’s very kind.” Ever sensitive to the plight of the newly initiated Wolvercote squire, Rowley smiled at him. “But I think I can manage . . . unless, of course, you’d be so kind as to get that bloody dog out of my way.”

  Emma’s greyhound, the spoiled hare slayer, had become so excited by the latecomers that it was making a spectacle of itself, running figures of eight round Rowley’s legs, threatening to knock him over any moment.

  “Any closer and I’ll drop her on your head,” Rowley hissed as it sped past once more. “Then you’ll be sorry.” And he wasn’t entirely surprised when Adelia slapped him again.

  As soon as they were settled and seated at the table, laden, to Rowley’s delight, with all the dishes he had been fantasizing about on the journey—Osbert’s famous miniature pastries filled with marrow, a meat tile of chicken served in a delicately spiced sauce of pounded crayfish tails, almonds and toasted bread and a delightful little suckling pig with an apple in its mouth—a team of servants bearing ewers, basins and towels began orbiting the table. When all the hands had been washed and dried, Father Michael, Emma’s confessor, said grace.

  They were only seven for supper: Rowley, Adelia, Allie, Emma, Master Roetger—Emma’s husband—Father Michael and the abbot of Whitcroft, a charming old man who, though a little too fond of ale for his own good, was forgiven his various indiscretions by dint of the fact that he was such a kindly soul and, of course, his unabashed adoration of Adelia, of whom he was, as usual, making a great fuss.

  “Poor Adelia,” he said, his chubby fingers idly stroking the back of her hand. “Perhaps you should rest awhile in the solar. Injuries like that ought to be taken seriously, you know, lest the damage be compounded . . . Had a fall myself the other day . . . off a horse though, not a log . . . Nasty sprain, too, very . . . Devil of a time healing.”

  When they had finished eating, and Allie had bound Adelia’s ankle with the strips of muslin Emma had sent for, Allie sat quietly looking out on a room whose beauty, however familiar it became, could still take her breath away. In fact she was thinking that it was probably a little bit like looking out onto heaven, or certainly the way she imagined heaven to be, when an almost equally celestial voice interrupted her.

  “I’m sorry, my dear.” Master Roetger’s warm, deep baritone always came as a shock, belying, as it did, his physical frailty. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just saying how good it is to see your father again and how much I’ve missed him.”

  Allie turned to him and smiled. She was fond of Roetger; everybody was.

  “So am I,” she said, although it wasn’t entirely true. She had missed him and she was pleased to see him; it was just that this time, her pleasure was tempered by trepidation, knowing that he was here for a reason and that before he left again the dreaded negotiation about her future would have to take place and a decision would have to be made whether she liked it or not . . .

  She was looking at him now across the table, deep in conversation with Emma. From their grave expressions and low voices she realized that they were discussing Pip, Emma’s son and heir, who had recently brought his otherwise indomitable mother to her knees by announcing that he was going to take the cross and travel to the Holy Land with the king.

  When the dreaded day came, the send-off Emma had given him—her precious only child—had been a lesson in courage, and no one, least of all Allie, would ever forget the grace with which she watched him leave, and with such apparently genuine delight that she might have been waving him off on a stag hunt rather than halfway across the world to war. It was only when he was safely out of sight, his cavalcade a dusty memory in the road, that she crumpled, retreating to her solar, refusing to eat or to speak or to see anybody—other than Adelia, of course—for days.

  Allie was about to resume her conversation with Roetger when she noticed that Rowley was looking at her and realized, with an awful sinking feeling, that his conversation with Emma had taken a different turn and was now a mutual lament, no longer simply about the perils of poor Pip but about anxiety-inducing offspring in general, one of whom was risking life and limb among the infidels, the other the wrath of God by refusing to marry.

  “Oh, Mary, Mother of God! He is! He’s going to marry me off, and soon!”

  She hadn’t meant to say it out loud but the shock of the revelation forced the thought from her lips before she’d had a chance to censor it.

  “Oh, my dear!” Roetger turned to her, his expression of concern only adding to her mortification. “Come now. It needn’t be as bad as all that, you know? I think we might trust your father to make a good match for you.” When he put his hand over hers she had to bite her lip to stop the tears of self-pity.

  “But I don’t want to be married off,” she said, wiping roughly at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t want to, Roetger. Not ever!”

  “Allie!”

  Rowley was kneeling beside her.

  “Allie,” he repeated when she refused to look at him, reaching for her hand, which she snatched away abruptly.

  “Darling,” he continued, dropping his voice to a taut whisper. “Have we not discussed this endlessly, you and I? . . . You know as well as I do that you have to marry. You can’t continue like this!”

  Allie glared at him, her fists so tightly clenched that she could feel the nails biting into her palms. Around them the conversation came to a stuttering halt as all the heads in the room swiveled in their direction. For a moment even the falcons on their perches stopped their baiting and gave the impression that they, too, were holding their breath.

  This time the mortification was Rowley’s, not hers, but just as she was about to release the maelstrom of fury churning in her belly, there was a loud knock on the door and all the heads that had so recently turned to them turned to that instead.

  “Come in!”

  Grateful for any reprieve from the horror on the other side of the table, Emma leapt to her feet, prepared, at that moment, to admit even the devil.

  The door opened and Sir Jocelyn, her steward, came in.

  “Lady Emma,” he said with a weary bow, “a visitor has come for Mistress Adelia. I tried to explain that it is very late and that you are dining and therefore not to be disturbed, but, I fear, she is a most insistent person and says that it is a matter of some urgency . . .”

  “Oh!” Emma frowned and turned to Adelia, who was looking equally confused. “Urgent, Sir Jocelyn?” she asked with another quizzical glance at Adelia.

  Sir Jocelyn nodded.

  “Oh . . . well, in that case . . . you had better show her in.”

  Sir Jocely
n bowed again and disappeared, only to return a moment later with one of the most peculiar-looking women Allie had ever seen.

  She was quite jaw-droppingly odd and, in fact, wasn’t immediately obviously female, swaddled, as she was, from head to toe in an outlandish ensemble of wolf pelts, exuding a mannish confidence as she strode purposefully over the rushes toward them. It was only as she got closer that Allie could see that she was considerably older than her youthful gait implied and that, beneath all the wrapping—once she had divested herself of it, flinging her mantle at a bemused Sir Jocelyn—she was a good deal slimmer, too.

  She came to a stop at the foot of the dais, planting her feet in the manner of a soldier, and lifted her chin, revealing a pair of sharp blue eyes that looked up at them from a fierce little face that was as brown and crinkled as a walnut.

  Allie couldn’t take her eyes off her and noted, with increasing admiration, that, instead of a wimple, she was wearing a cap, and judging by the spiky fronds escaping from underneath it, her hair was brutally cropped.

  Emma left the table and walked to the edge of the dais.

  “Welcome, madam,” she said warily. “I am Lady Emma of Wolvercote. And you are . . . ?”

  “Lady Penda of Elsford,” the woman replied, the sharp eyes flicking beyond Emma to scour the other faces on the dais. “My apologies for disturbin’ you an’ all but I’m here to see Mistress Adelia on an urgent matter.”

  All eyes turned to Adelia, whose own were fixed on the woman.

  There was something disconcertingly familiar about her, but, for the life of her, she couldn’t think what.

  “I’m Adelia,” she said, waving her hand above her head to draw her attention. “Forgive me if I don’t get up, but I’ve sprained my ankle, you see, and I can’t stand . . . But . . . well . . . what can I do for you?”

  When she saw her a wide, delighted grin spread across the woman’s face. “Should’ve guessed,” she cried as she leapt onto the dais with alarming agility. “She’s described you to me more times ’an you could imagine. Talks about you all the time!”