Moonlight And Shadow

by Isolde Martyn

  Heloise set the concoction down with deliberate clumsiness. “Oh, I have spilt it.” The tantrum instantly ceased but he was still short of breath.

  “It happens every time he is thwarted, my lady,” Bess explained later after she had led him away to his tutor, “and every time he exerts himself. He can behave correctly when it suits him but he is a sniveling little monster most of the time.”

  “To gain attention?”

  “To get his own way, my lady. Takes after his father, I reckon, for there are plenty of folks would say so when their tongues are loosened from a bit of drinking.”

  “What happened to the last governess of the nursery?”

  “Oh, got herself into the family way within a month, or leastways that was her excuse for leaving. I hope you will stay longer, my lady.”

  Not if her so-called husband got wind of her presence, sighed Heloise, but if she could make herself indispensable at Brecknock before Buckingham and his retinue returned, then she might be forgiven her duplicity. Yes, Lord Stafford was a little devil. The deceptive angelic hair might darken to honest brown as he grew to manhood but that sulky chin strongly hinted that he would become an unpleasant master if no one took him in hand now. At least she had the authority to order a change in Lord Stafford’s meals and medicines. The rest of the day, she distracted him whenever he threw a breathing fit. By nightfall she was exhausted but so, too, was the little boy. He went to bed right willingly, to Bess’s amazement. Now if she could only manage Rushden the same, thought Heloise—and blushed. No, bed was not quite what she had in mind.

  Her initial private success with the child was not repeated in the hall next day. The crux of the matter slyly put his tongue out at her then whinged and balked at his food through dinner on the dais. By the end of the meal, Heloise could see why the welcome she had been extended was becoming tepid. Sir William and the others had been hoping she would make permanent changes to the child’s nature. “If you behave, then I will arrange an adventure,” she whispered behind her hand.

  The small tyrant licked his spoon consideringly. “What sort of adventure?”

  “A surprise.” The small elbows edged slowly off the table, the question mark of a back straightened, and his toes ceased causing earth tremors below the great salt.

  But, what surprise? She had but a few days until Wednesday when the duke and his retainers were expected and she needed to rebuild Sir William’s confidence in her. She began by taking the boy to the ducal kitchen after his tutor had given him leave. The child’s eyes goggled as she bid him examine rabbit nets, mortars, and jelly molds, turn the spit, ladle off the fat from the large cauldron, smell the different spice jars, and sniff the basket of dried toadstools for the morning fire lighting. It taught the child to count his blessings, for some of the tasks were loathsome; one scullion, stripped to his waist, was cleansing greasy vessels with steamy hot water and salt; another was struggling to scale a large perch; and the master cook, annoyed to have his realm invaded, made a great play of hacking a carcass going down for salting, to affright the little noble.

  Ned giggled as Heloise tied his long sleeves in a loose knot behind his back, but when she tucked cloths in the top of his stomacher and her platelet belt and pushed up her sleeves, he goggled at her. He, Lord Stafford, was to make pancakes? Soon she had the small kingdom of the kitchen under her domain, fetching bowls and whisks and joining in with instructions for their little overlord. In the afternoon, Heloise bade Ned show her the castle garden and there they moistened a barrow of mud and designed a castle fit to rival Beaumaris. It subsided rapidly. After dinner they made bows and shot at the butts. The following morning they attempted to make a crossbolt with glue, parchment, and steel, equipped with little fur tails to tell which way the wind was blowing. A pity there were insufficient flax strips to make a decent string; her father would have been ashamed of the miserable result, but it entertained the child. They crept to the stables in the early hours of Sunday morning and saw a foal born. On Monday afternoon they made a candle shaped like Salisbury steeple and pressed woodcuts onto it.

  “A chandler’s trade!” tut-tutted Sir Thomas Limerick, called in to admire the child’s handiwork, but he smiled and patted her hand.

  “What harm in understanding how others must live, how the world runs?”

  “It runs on greed, Lady Haute. Those with riches do as they please, the rest labor.”

  “But you will admit the child is more manageable.”

  “For the nonce, yes, my dear, but things will be different when his grace returns.”

  Desperation hardened her resolve.

  “Sir William,” she asked after prayers on Tuesday morning, drawing the knight to the fire that now warmed the hall from a central hearth. “I know this might strike you as an outlandish notion but I think part of Lord Ned’s problem is boredom. He needs an adventure beyond these walls. I should like your permission to take him into Brecknock this morning.” Her host’s face was indecipherable and she added earnestly, “I think it is important that he understand how everyday transactions are made. He will be lord of this demesne one day, God willing, and must understand how to negotiate a fair price. Oh, I know he will have officers to do these things but—”

  “I think it an excellent suggestion,” he cut in.

  “You do, sir?” She clapped in delight.

  “Whoa, my lady,” he exclaimed laughing, catching her hands in one large fist. “Let us think this out. My lord of Buckingham has enemies aplenty in Wales. Two hundred years since we conquered these valleys, but the accursed Welsh still resent it.”

  Surely the Brecknock people would not harm a child? The town seemed no more dangerous than any English market town and she had heard no Welsh voices as she passed through.

  “Then perhaps we shall go in disguise.”

  “Homespun, you mean?” When he saw she was serious, his frown deepened. “Ah well, it may serve.” He paced to the casement and stretched, his hands on his waist, while she waited. “Do it,” he said at last. “My lord duke will not like it but hopefully no harm will come to the pair of you. I shall send a couple of doughty archers with you.”

  “Only if they follow at a discreet distance.”

  “Hmm, a winsome stranger like yourself will raise a few brows. The boy has been little seen. As long as he keeps a still tongue in his head, but . . .” He tugged at his ear, a plethora of doubts clouding his face.

  “Oh, please, Sir William, I shall take good care of him. Please let me do this before his grace returns.”

  Although he gave consent with misgiving, Sir William thrust a fistful of coins into her hands with unlookedfor generosity.

  The frightened child threw a tantrum at the suggestion that he must walk to the town and mix with commoners. While the two men sent to escort her muttered and stamped their feet like impatient tethered horses, it took Heloise the best part of an hour not only to coax her little lord into wearing meaner apparel but also to convince him to leave the castle. Ned sniveled and grumbled down the stairs, pulling back at her hand, and she nearly gave in. Then, as they crossed the bailey, he wickedly sprang and skipped, jerking her hand and jumping his whole weight on her arm.

  “I am not a bell rope! The whole idea of this is to enjoy our disguise.” His governess drew him out of sight into the porter’s cell. “They will know you are a nobleman for sure if you behave so.” Sullen eyes regarded her from beneath a scowling brow. He had acquired the knack of making his eyes half disappear beneath his upper lids and it gave him the look of a baby demon gargoyle.

  “And if the wind changes, I shall look like this for all my life,” he chanted nastily.

  “Which is, of course, not true.” Heloise believed in honesty but then spoilt her principles by saying, “I shall very likely sell you to a blacksmith if you misbehave and you will spend the rest of your days in a sweltering smithy hammering horseshoes, or maybe I might apprentice you to a beggar. Your angel curls might earn some extra groats.”
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  “My father will have you hanged if you sell me,” he muttered.

  “Pah, no one will buy you anyway. Besides, I should miss you.”

  He glanced up at her. “Truly?”

  “Yes.” Like a chill wind. “Now you are to be plain Ned and I shall be your mam. So what say you?” He pouted like a waterspout. “My lord, if you draw attention to us, the Welsh might thieve us, hold you in chains for ransom, and feed us naught but leeks.”

  She briskly marched him across the Honddu Bridge like any housewife on her way to market and they overtook a pardoner and a woodman, spiky with kindling across his shoulders. It was reassuring to know that the two archers were following behind at a sensible distance but Heloise’s instincts told her the child was in no danger, and it was so wonderful to be free of fortress walls.

  Her clothes had been chosen with care—a plain russet gown, borrowed from one of the women servants, and a calf-length cloak against the cold. Her hair was piled under a simple cap and she wound a veil over it and round about to scarf her throat. The purse, heavy with Sir William’s bounty, hung strapped to her belt at the front, not at her hip where it might be easily cut. Lord Stafford’s clothing was a simple tawny tunic but beneath it he wore a quilted doublet to keep him warm.

  Brecknock lacked the distinctive high street that ribboned many of its English counterparts; instead it had two main streets that ran from Castle Gate to Watton Gate. Heloise followed the traffic of carts down Shepe Street and found the market, bulging away from the main concourse, dominated by the Bothall and a chapel. Then her mind began to spin; she saw flames flickering from the thatches and the blackened stones.

  “Come.” The child tugged at her hand. “What is the matter? You have gone all sickly.”

  The gabled roofs and walls returned to normality; the squeal of a pig being branded a few paces away was uncomfortably real. “I—I felt . . . would you like to light a candle?”

  “Pooh, not mass again.”

  “No, but lighting a candle would be the proper thing to do, Ned. This will be your town one day. See, St. Mary’s—is it not?—lacks a tower. Perhaps you or your father might pay for one. Let us go in and see where you would build it. You may give me your opinion.”

  The duke’s son made an obligatory prayer and then inspected the ceiling while Heloise knelt. She said nothing to St. Catherine, feeling that the saint had vindictively answered her prayers already, but she sent a plea to the saint who watched over Brecknock to have a fire peleton ready on the day her vision came true, and she lit a candle to St. Miles of Padua that he would soften his namesake’s heart towards her. The disadvantage was that the saint was well known for helping people find what they had lost. “Please do not let Rushden return yet, please,” she prayed.

  Outside the church, she taught the little lord to discern the genuine needy from the cunning beggars and insisted he cast a penny in the begging bowl of a legless man. Ned wanted to make an examination of the poor wretch’s rag-covered stumps to make sure they were authentic and she had to swiftly yank him towards a market stall which sold sugared almonds, sweet licorice beetles, and tiny marzipan apples. Not only did she promise him a sugar pig on the way back if he behaved, but she bought it to show sincerity and tucked it in the drawstring bag upon her arm.

  In the next hour, his new governess taught the duke’s son how to bargain for some comfits for Sir William and a ribbon for Bess. The marketplace was her schoolroom and the stallkeepers her counters and building bricks. The child’s cheeks turned pink from the south wind but his eyes were bright with new experience. True, he grabbed her skirts in his fists and hung on fiercely as they watched the dancing bear—such a large creature that Heloise felt it would be good to cling to someone too—but she bravely held out an oatcake to the alien creature and won Ned’s admiration for her courage. Even her archers were beginning to enjoy the outing, especially when she allowed them to enjoy a pot of ale on the western side of the market, where the better taverns and the more prosperous merchants dwelt. There was entertainment here: a traveling juggler frightening the children with his flaming breath, and a dog dolled up with a lady’s cone and veil tied to its head that leapt through a hoop at his master’s order. The man had a puppy too but it was fearful of the crowd and would not perform. Shamed by its disobedience, the owner lashed its hindquarters, confusing the poor thing further.

  “Stop that!” exclaimed Heloise, grabbing the whip from the astonished man’s hand. “It is doing its best to please you, you cruel lout! Can you not see that?” Then she realized she was drawing attention. “Oh, here, I shall buy it from you.” She tipped the remainder of her money into the greedy, dirt-rimed palm. “Tie Bess’s ribbon round its neck, dearest!” she ordered Lord Stafford.

  The mouth of the heir to his grace of Buckingham was gaping but mercifully the little fellow did what he was bid before the dog made off. Heloise caught it up over her shoulder—all paws and tongue—and whisked Ned out of the crowd. She halted at the bench outside the tavern, greeting the archers as though they were acquaintances, and set the wriggling creature down.

  “Ain’t you something, my lady,” muttered the older man beneath his breath, squatting down to let the small dog lick his hand. He fed it a piece of his pie.

  “May I have him?” pleaded Ned, tugging Heloise’s arm hard.

  “But you already have a sugar pig.”

  “Oh, please, please.”

  “I do not think it a good notion, dearest,” she answered gravely, sitting down on the bench and drawing him onto her lap. The pup was attacking her toes. “I rather think its hair would make you cough.”

  The child wriggled round, making a saddle of her thighs, and fastened his sticky fists around her neck. “Please, my lady. You may have the sugar pig but please may I have her.” The cock-eared little creature was nipping at his heel but he laughed, showing no displeasure.

  “I shall think on it,” Heloise promised solemnly. “If you manage not to have any more coughs or sniffles for the next two days, I may agree.”

  One of the archers whistled and was caught gazing at the heaven with a disbelieving expression. “Do you take wagers, Brian?” he asked his companion softly as the boy slid off Heloise’s lap.

  AS SHE HAD VOWED TO HAVE NED BACK AT THE CASTLE LONG before four o’clock supper, they turned homeward, picking their way slowly up the high street that ran towards the castle on the easterly side of the market. Heloise carried Ned. Brian, the older archer, had gestured an offer to take the child from her but she was adamant that the two men should keep their distance. A mistake, for the child grew heavier by the moment and the little dog was whining to be carried too.

  It was then that townsfolk ahead of her swore and scattered to the doorways. A half dozen horsemen in sallets and brigandines whipped their horses urgently down the street, spattering mud as they galloped past. Heloise cursed roundly and one of the hindmost riders laughed.

  “Whoresons!” a lilting voice bawled after them and there was an answering growl of “Saeson, y diawled” from the crowd and a contemptuous spit of saliva on the cobbles. The sibilant whisper of Welsh and unease made her apprehensive. She shared the people’s anger. Perhaps these were local ruffians like the Vaughans, come to drink and make trouble. She began to hurry and the archers moved closer.

  The horsemen made a rapid circuit of the town and must have met up with riders who had gone counterwise, for suddenly a dozen of the knaves galloped forth from Shepe Street. Still clasping Ned, Heloise shrank back against the wall to let them pass but the foremost man yelled at her two archers and skidded to a halt, blocking her way. The others joined him, forming a semicircle of leather and sweating horseflesh about her. Ned awoke and started screaming in genuine terror at the huffing nostrils of the horses. No trouble now, she prayed, anxious for the boy’s safety, not like this, with half of Brecknock looking on and Ned’s dog whining ludicrously at her toecaps. But the men surrounding her looked as ill at ease as she.

 
She was cut off from the archers. Anyway, they would be no match for these armored brigands. Then she realized that each man-at-arms wore a span-wide badge, a loose yellow knot, across their hearts. The badge that the castle servants wore upon their sable and gules tabards.

  “Go away!” Ned shouted. “Take the horses away!”

  A horseman clothed in black leather hose and short doublet, with the hood of his riding cloak shielding his head against the increasing rain, imperiously edged his steed into the circle. Heloise was conscious of the chain of authority glimmering across his shoulders before his gloved hand thrust back the grey hood. Disdainful eyes beneath haughty dark brows stared down upon the child, then the man’s mouth tightened in annoyance and he glanced into the crowd as if seeking someone. It was no use waiting like a fearful, tiny bird for the shadow of this hawk to pass. Miles Rushden’s steed threw up its head and showed its teeth, and Ned began to scream and scream.

  ***

  “DRAW BACK!” THE GIRL WAS DEMANDING . “CAN YOU NOT SEE you are terrifying him?”

  They had found Harry’s boy, thank God, but where was the erring new governess of the nursery? Had she recklessly consigned the duke’s heir to a maidservant while she gossiped or bought some pretty trinkets? Miles had been unprepared to discover that the sticky-faced, exhausted burden bawling against the wench’s bodice was Lord Edward Stafford. He knew the other voice and yet . . .

  Miles’s gaze no longer lingered on the child, it rose exploratively over the girl’s uncovered throat and was held by the troubled beauty and unlooked-for, bewitching familiarity in the creature’s face. He put a thumb and forefinger to eyes that had seen too many miles and looked again. It was his de jure wife who stood there absurdly with mud spattering her skirts and a mongrel cur stringed to her wrist.

  HELOISE BARELY HEARD THE HISS OF RECOGNITION FROM THE people at her husband’s coming. The earth shook uncertainly beneath her feet and it was not just because the great hooves of his horse shifted restlessly. Pinioned beneath that gaze, she prayed, breathless, with all the strength she had, that he could not possibly recognize her—but the man’s expression had already darkened. The stallion protested as the grip on the reins abruptly tightened. Disbelief, disgust, and anger flashed across his ruined face and then, as he remembered the waiting, watching soldiers, a visor of control slid down and he was their leader again.