Death and the Maiden

by Samantha Norman

  In times of uncertainty—and Adelia’s absence—Allie invariably turned to horses. They were an infallible salve for her soul, and because she was longing to see Matilda again anyway, she felt that even a glimpse of her would be compensation enough for what had otherwise been an unutterably miserable evening.

  With that in mind, she followed the sound, stumbling blindly in the dark through an intricate series of archways, courtyards and pathways until she arrived eventually at the stable block.

  In contrast with the garden, the stable was almost biblical in its serenity and as impressive, to Allie’s mind, anyway, as the great hall. It had obviously been built by someone with a love of horses: A wide, meticulously swept flagstone path ran between two rows of neatly constructed blocks, each with sufficient stalls for twenty horses or more. At one end was a large forge from whose shingle roof the smell of hot iron still bled into the air, and at the other was a timber-framed two-story hayloft.

  She walked slowly between the rows of stalls, soothed by the sound of hooves shifting sleepily on straw, relishing the familiar smell of horseflesh and hay and stopping every so often to pat the nose of one or another of the animals curious enough to have left their trough for a glimpse of their nocturnal visitor.

  She found Matilda in the very last block, standing at the back of her stall, her head drooped in sleep until Allie called and it lifted, ears pricked, as if she had been waiting for her.

  “There you are, beautiful girl.” Allie patted the white blaze of the pretty dished face, grazing her lips against the soft velvety indent of her nose.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, amused, when Matilda started nuzzling her arm in search of treats. “But I haven’t brought anything for you and I didn’t think you’d like roasted swan . . . You see, I wasn’t expecting to see you this evening. But what I can do, if you don’t mind, is take a look at that hoof.”

  She lifted the latch and went into the stall, then ran her hand down Matilda’s foreleg, gently angling the hoof when it lifted into a pool of moonlight.

  “Well!” she said, putting it down again.

  It was astonishing, but however hard she looked, there was nothing—neither mark nor blemish—to suggest it had ever been injured, and although she usually hated to be proved wrong, in this instance, she was delighted that the young groom about whom she had had so many misgivings had done such a remarkably good job.

  “You are a lucky girl,” she said, patting Matilda’s neck and fussing over her until, bored with her attention, Matilda turned her back on her and returned to her hay.

  Allie watched her munching contentedly for a while, then decided it was time to head back.

  Quite what prompted the prickling feeling of unease she had as she turned to leave, she wasn’t sure—perhaps a combination of the last effects of the mead wearing off and, just then, a cloud drifting across the face of the moon—but all of a sudden it felt as if the night were closing in around her, isolating her for some wicked purpose, making her feel vulnerable and conspicuously alone.

  And then she heard footsteps . . . Instinct dropped her to the floor, and she crouched like a leveret in its form, hoping that whoever they belonged to would pass without noticing her.

  In her rational mind—when she could hear it above the deafening rush of blood pounding in her ears—she knew that they probably belonged to the marshal, no doubt making his final rounds for the evening, and that although it would be embarrassing to be found crawling around in a stable at night, no further harm would come to her. But that voice was drowned out by another, a much louder one, as convinced as it was convincing that, in fact, they belonged to the marsh murderer and that, on the contrary, she was in very grave danger indeed.

  She held her breath until it felt as if her lungs were going to burst, screwing her eyes shut tight. Whoever he was, whether benign or not, she didn’t want to see him.

  “Mistress Allie!”

  She opened her eyes to a familiar voice and saw Lord Peverell peering curiously at her from the other side of the stable door.

  She stood up, brushing the straw off her clothes, wondering what on earth he was thinking as he looked at her and what Gyltha would say if she could see her now.

  “Mistress Allie!” he repeated with an expression of amused astonishment. “I probably should have mentioned this before, but for my esteemed guests, there is a place of easement in the castle; I had it built quite recently, you know. You needed only to ask!”

  For a moment Allie thought she might die of embarrassment until she realized he was joking.

  “It’s not funny.” She scowled, picking another piece of hay out of her hair.

  “No,” he said, struggling to suppress a grin, “I suppose it isn’t. But, God strike me, madam! I’m clumsy when I’m worried, and I’ve been terribly worried, you know. I’ve been looking everywhere for you . . . although, of course, I should have known to come here first.”

  He opened the door and she stepped into the yard, feeling as if she were in the middle of a very strange dream.

  “She’s in fine fettle, wouldn’t you say?” he said as though it were the most natural thing in the world to be conversing with a muddy, disheveled woman in his stable yard in the middle of the night.

  “Yes,” said Allie, relieved by the one small blessing that in all the topsy-turvying of this increasingly peculiar evening she had at least retained the power of speech. “I think she looks magnificent.”

  They stood side by side gazing at the horse, even though, for an exquisite moment, even she didn’t exist for either of them; they were both too intoxicated by their proximity to one another to notice anything or anyone else at all.

  The next thing she knew they were standing face-to-face but moving toward one another, slowly, inexorably, as though they were being drawn together by invisible threads, and when they were almost touching, she felt that strange sensation in her stomach again, her heart pounding once more—except not from fear this time—and then . . .

  She gasped.

  At the far end of the stable block, she saw the figure of a man seep furtively out of the shadows like a stain. Although it was too dark and he was too far away for her to see his face clearly, she knew that he was staring at her.

  But by the time Lord Peverell had turned around, it was too late; whoever it was had vanished.

  “I . . . I saw someone,” Allie stammered, pointing over his shoulder into the darkness. “Standing, watching us, over there.”

  “A man?”

  She nodded. “At least I think so.”

  It had been a brief glimpse, but she was sure it was a man; after all, what woman in her right mind—other than she herself, of course—would be foolish enough to venture out alone at night?

  They stood staring blankly into the night, feeling the space between them expanding.

  “I think it was Will,” Lord Peverell said at last.

  “Sir William?” Allie asked. “Why would he have come here?”

  He shook his head, the levity of a moment ago eliding into weary resignation. “I don’t know,” he said. “But, if it was, then it’s nothing to worry about . . . It’s just that . . . well, he has a habit of following me . . . And yet I ought to be grateful, I suppose. He saved my life once . . . Likes to keep me out of harm’s way.”

  Allie was quiet, although her mind was anything but as the realization of Sir William’s hostility dawned on her.

  He was jealous, like a dog protecting his territory, baring his teeth when his master was approached. Stay away! he had been warning her all this time. He’s mine!

  She had heard about men like him and had pitied them for the persecution they suffered, but not Sir William. She sensed a malignancy, an arrogance about him that made him too dangerous for pity; besides, she had better things to do with her time than try to fathom the depths of human obsession.

  And yet . . . and yet . . . She couldn’t help but wonder, especially in the light of recent events, whether his antipath
y extended to all women or only those, like her, who became too close to his master, and, more important perhaps, whether it was powerful enough to drive him to kill.

  “Allie! Allie!”

  A disembodied voice rang out of the darkness and she turned around to see Penda, wearing an expression of uncompromising belligerence, stomping up the yard like a juggernaut toward them.

  “God be praised! God be bloody praised!” Penda cried when she saw Allie, shaking her fist at the heavens. “I been goin’ mad wonderin’ what, in God’s name, I was goin’ to tell your father when they found your poor strangled little body in the marsh!”

  “I’m sorry.” Allie blushed like a guilty child. In all the ups and downs of this increasingly peculiar evening she hadn’t given a thought to Penda, who must have been worried out of her mind. “Oh, Penda . . . I . . .” She was about to stammer an explanation and further apology when Lord Peverell intervened.

  “It’s all my fault, Lady Penda,” he said. “I knew how worried Mistress Allie has been about my horse, so I brought her here to put her mind at rest . . . And yet, of course, I realize I should have returned her to you much, much earlier and spared you all this worry. My sincere apologies.”

  He bowed, and to her relief, Allie saw Penda’s expression soften enough to allow her to release the breath she had been holding as a hostage against the storm that, until a moment ago, had seemed so inevitable.

  “Hmm,” Penda grumbled. “Well, no harm done, I s’pose . . . But all the same, it’s time we was gettin’ back.”

  Lord Peverell escorted them back to the bailey and the cart waiting for them. When it listed to their weight as they climbed in, Sir Stephen, dozing in a corner, opened a bleary eye.

  “Jolly good . . . Found her then, did you?” he murmured.

  “Hmm,” Penda muttered, tucking the folds of her mantle around Allie’s knees to keep her warm. “And no bloody thanks to you neither.”

  They said their farewells and were about to set off when Lord Peverell popped his head over the side of the cart.

  “May I call on you at Elsford, Lady Penda?” he asked. “I . . . I was due to spend Christmas elsewhere, but something tells me my time might be better spent here.”

  “Don’t see why not,” Penda replied with a wink that sent Allie into another paroxysm of mortification with an urgent desire to throw herself onto the floor.

  She spent the journey home mulling over Lord Peverell’s parting request, wondering whether it had come from a genuine desire to call on Penda, for some unfathomable reason, as he had asked, or, as she desperately hoped, a desire to see her again. And yet, she dared not hope too much for fear of the crushing disappointment that might bring. And as the cart bumped along the rutted tracks, she stared gloomily into the darkness, wishing that matters of the heart didn’t have to be quite so opaque and that, before they left, she had mustered the courage to demand that he explain himself fully and immediately. At least if she had, all the fruitless hours and days—maybe even weeks—she would now spend worrying about it would have been nipped neatly in the bud.

  Lord Peverell was equally despondent as he stood in the now-deserted courtyard watching the cart rumble off into the snow-flecked night, wondering why Allie had refused to look at him before she left and whether, perhaps, he had revealed a little too much, too soon.

  Chapter 36

  With only two days to Christmas, all Elsford was in a state of feverish anticipation for this, the brightest spark in the long dark days of this already hard winter—all except Father Edward, who was dreading it, just as he did every year.

  He didn’t approve of bright sparks. It had been the dreary desolation of these marshes that had drawn him there in the first place, just as the deserts of the East had lured the pioneer monks, and he didn’t relish having to stand by while all the hard work of these last twelve months unraveled and the boundary between religion and superstition became blurred again.

  It was already happening. Only the day before yesterday his seasonal misery had been compounded when the mummers returned, setting up in the churchyard to perform their beastly plays, “excerpts” from the Bible and “portraits of the lives of saints”! But it was nothing more than sacrilege really, the way they capered around with their blackened faces and animal masks. And what, in the name of Christ, had stags or hares or wolves to do with the Nativity? It was little wonder then that the village boys were inspired to such mischief, cavorting through the streets in their homespun masks, extorting money from their neighbors, their parents having long since absconded to the alehouse, of course, and with no one around to sanction them.

  “Why’s he look so miserable, d’you think?” Hawise asked. She and Allie were among the audience for that afternoon’s performance.

  “The priest, do you mean?” Allie asked, catching sight of the forlorn figure staring out of the porch.

  Hawise nodded.

  “Don’t ask me.” Allie shrugged. “For all I know he always looks like that. Perhaps he isn’t enjoying the play.” After all, who could blame him? She wasn’t, either, and was only there under sufferance to keep Hawise company.

  “Who’s that supposed to be?” she asked, pointing at one of the mummers dressed in a long robe and wearing such a cumbersome mask that he was rendered inaudible through it. His recent monologue had been met with heckles of: “Speak up, bor!” and “Get some other bugger to do it!” Which had done nothing to help her follow the narrative.

  “I think he’s supposed to be God,” Hawise whispered. She had seen the play before and, being more attuned to the local dialect than Allie, was enjoying it.

  “Oh,” Allie said, even though she was none the wiser and was amusing herself instead by watching Hawise watch the play, enjoying the expression of bewitched concentration on her lovely face.

  But when even that began to pall, and the play showed no sign of ending, she put her head on Hawise’s shoulder and went to sleep.

  She was awoken sometime later by the sensation that she was being watched, and she opened her eyes to see Danny Wadlow leaning against a tree trunk on the other side of the graveyard, staring at them.

  “Don’t look now,” she gasped, grabbing Hawise’s arm. “Danny Wadlow’s over there, staring at us.”

  Despite the entreaty not to, Hawise looked and, when she saw Danny, stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Stop it!” Allie rounded on her. “You mustn’t provoke him like that. There’s no telling what he might do.”

  “He won’t do anything,” Hawise said, grinning. “Look, it’s worked, see? He’s not staring anymore.”

  When she dared look up again, she saw that Hawise was right, and a little while later, she was relieved to see him leave the churchyard and saunter off toward the village.

  When they got home, it was to a hive of pre-Christmas activity and a drawbridge so crowded with servants carrying armfuls of holly, ivy and mistletoe for the Christmas decorations that they had to wait at the entrance to cross it.

  “Leave it all outside, please!”

  Penda stood on the front steps, cocooned in wolf skin, orchestrating the proceedings.

  “Not a sprig in ’ere ’til tomorrow, remember,” she told the servants. Despite her otherwise anarchic tendencies, she was a stickler for superstition, which decreed it was bad luck if a house was decorated before Christmas Eve.

  The girls took their horses to the stables and went looking for Gyltha, whom they found eventually, in the kitchen, presiding over the baking of the great Christmas pie.

  The place had been transformed since Allie’s last visit, every surface and every person in it looking almost spectral under a thick film of the flour that had been freshly ground in the mill that morning, for a pie large enough to feed five thousand and a good many of their friends besides.

  Their mouths watered watching the cooks and scullions ladling layers of the most delicious-looking meats, fruits and spices into an enormous pastry-lined vat. When it could hold no more, an eccle
siastical hush descended on the room while everyone stood back to make way for Gyltha’s somber passage carrying the pièce de résistance, a perfect pastry sculpture of the baby Jesus.

  “There!” she said to a murmur of approval, setting the marvel on top of the pie.

  “It’s beautiful!” Allie said, reaching out to wipe a smudge of flour off the end of Glytha’s nose.

  “Thankee kindly,” said Gyltha, pushing her hand away brusquely. “Now bugger off, I’m busy.”

  After that they went to the solar, where Jodi was waiting for them with a letter from Adelia.

  Allie opened it.

  My darling, it began.

  I am so, so cross, but it turns out that I won’t be able to come to Elsford for Christmas! I’d give anything to be with you all, especially since there’s really nothing to stop me—my ankle has mended beautifully, better than expected, actually—and I’m as fit as a flea but your father, blast his eyes, thinks he can smell snow and that there might even be a civil war to avert! Why he can’t just leave it to somebody else I simply don’t know. He’s getting too old for all this . . . but, there we are.

  You probably haven’t heard them yet, but there are all sorts of rumors about Count John and Philip of France conspiring against the king. Your father expects to be sent to France any day now to see Eleanor. She won’t like it, of course, but he’s going to have to insist that she come back to England, if only to beat some sense into John.

  Which reminds me, while we’re on the subject of things your father insists on, the reason for this letter is to tell you that under no circumstances are you to go looking into the murders you wrote to me about. I mean it, Allie!!! Until we come to Elsford—and we will, come hell or high water—you’re to stay close to Penda. If young women are being murdered all over the place, your father is strangely adamant that you shouldn’t become one of them!