The Silver Collar

by Kate Policani

CHAPTER 3

  My salvation already awaited me. I heard the hushed awe of the Master and the Mistresses as I walked down the staircase. I could almost touch the feeling of reverence with my hand. I stopped where I couldn’t be seen. Mistress had always punished me for being seen when guests checked in.

  “Are you certain that we can only offer you our parlor for luncheon, my lord, your majesty? We have a very fine room above if you wish to have more privacy or a longer rest. We just need to send the girl to clear it out….”

  “That will not be necessary,” a warm, rich, baritone voice declared. The surprise of the new arrival erased all thoughts of trouble and my pain eased. I imagined the owner of that voice was a wonderful person indeed, rank or not. It was a musical voice. “Please, just bring me to the dining room and provide a meal. That is all I require, thank you.”

  “Certainly, my lord, your majesty! I will call our serving girl to attend you,” declared Master Dempsey. I heard both the Mistress and Mistress Nicole hiss an objection. Mistress’ objected in general, but Mistress Nicole felt she should escort the important guest. I remained frozen. The women’s voices cut off in strangled dismay. Master had made his orders clear and would take no argument.

  “Lyneth,” he called, his voice higher than I had heard it before. His call freed me and I continued down the stairs. The world slowed to a dreamlike crawl. There stood the glorious visitor who had caused so much ado at the market. He looked at me with the same surprise as before, and I knew in that instant that he had seen me at the market. He seemed so much more glorious up close. He looked exquisite and clean. Vitality and health flowed from him and his handsome face brimmed with wonder.

  “Who is this?” he asked Master Dempsey.

  I felt ashamed of the indecent gown I now wore and endured a stab of pain. Ah well, at least my cotton cap showed modesty, my pale hair tucked with care underneath.

  “Why, this is Lyneth, our serving girl,” he explained. “She will take you in to your meal.”

  “How long have you worked here in this inn, my dear?” he asked me and his eyes searched my face as if seeing a long lost loved one. It quite overwhelmed me and my voice shrank in my throat.

  “Since I was very small.”

  “I must take you away from here right away,” he murmured very close to me. My heart might have stopped with surprise and joy. I could have died right there, happy to spend my last few moments as the object of the look of adoration on that glorious man’s face.

  “Taken a liking to her, have you?” crowed Master Dempsey. “You can come see her here any time you like.”

  The visitor’s face clouded and his eyes grew hard as flint. “I must take her with me today–now. I will pay you any price.” Just as his adoration filled me with joy, his anger terrified me. I winced at more pain from the collar and looked nervously to Mistress.

  “Certainly, my lord, your majesty!” Master Dempsey’s voice warbled with obvious fear. “She’ll not leave your side.”

  “No, Dempsey!” screeched Mistress. “You can’t sell a cursed slave girl to a prince! She’s an abomination!”

  I could swear the visitor’s teeth grew longer. He shot his piercing glaze at Mistress who squeaked like a mouse in a trap.

  “Don’t listen to my old mother, my lord, your majesty. She is senile and thinks half the people she knows are cursed. Please, come and have some dinner and Lyneth shall sit beside you.”

  “No, we are leaving,” he declared and turned to the doorway. “Please, Lyneth, take my arm.”

  Worried that he had an injury or felt unwell, I grasped under his outstretched arm to support him. I only touched his coat, so I wasn’t afraid I would taint him. I felt more afraid of his displeasure. He looked back at me with tender amusement and pulled my hand through the crook of his arm. He led me out to his glorious coach as if I were a grand lady.

  “Stephan, please pay these people anything they ask. We will not stop here today,” he instructed a very tall, broad man in livery as he strode to the coach door. Stephan rushed to the door ahead of us and opened it for the man whose name I still did not know.

  The sight of the inside of the coach thrilled me, but worried me as well. “After you,” said the splendid man.

  “Shouldn’t I ride on the back, sir? I mean, my shoes…” We both looked at my shoes.

  “Oh dear,” he agreed. He looked at me, puzzled what to do about my scuffed, dirty, ugly old shoes.

  “Certainly, Master, I have never ridden on the back of such a beautiful vehicle,” I excused.

  “Do not call me master. Call me Rafe,” he insisted. “You won’t ride on the back. You will ride inside with me.”

  I saw the importance of obedience over decorum. My escape from Dempsey, his grasping hands, and evil intentions hung in the balance. I needed to go away with Rafe now. With a deep breath, I kicked off my shoes and leapt into the coach. Rafe looked at me inside the coach, and then down at the shoes, astonished. Then he let out a magnificent laugh that echoed through the inn yard. His laugh filled my heart with exultation.

  Before I knew it, I rode in the fabulous coach. I watched the inn, Mistress, Dempsey, and Nicole grow smaller and smaller in the coach’s rear window behind Rafe. I stared, speechless, at the two most wonderful things I had ever seen. The pain of my fear inflicted by the silver collar diminished as the distance from the inn grew.

  Rafe gazed at me as if at a treasure. He looked as if I was his treasure. His face said even more. It said that he had searched a long and tortuous path to find me and had at last discovered exactly what he had dreamed to find. It humbled me. I blushed and plucked at Nicole’s gown. How would I tell him that mistress spoke the truth? How could I say that I became a monster without the collar? How could I say it to him? Would my heart break into a million pieces to see the disgust on his face that I had seen on Mistress’ so long ago?

  “I found you!” he said in an awed voice as if he listened to my mind. My heart started to break a little in anticipation of his hope’s destruction, and the silver collar responded. I would tell him. I had to. But I would wait until I escaped far enough from Mistress and Dempsey that I would never have to see either of them ever again. I wouldn’t keep the terrible truth from him, but I wouldn’t let myself fall into Dempsey’s clutches. That would also be wrong.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, his eyes tender and smiling.

  “Oh, no, thank you! I had…” I stopped myself. That wasn’t an appropriate subject for a servant to utter to a prince.

  “What did you have?” he coaxed with a grin.

  “…meat buns,” I confessed, reddening even more. I covered my mouth with my hand. I hadn’t intended to say such a ridiculous thing to him.

  He just laughed again and the sound of his voice rolled through my heart like a gentle, cleansing stream.

  “Did the meat buns please you?” he chuckled. I just nodded, my hand still covering my silly mouth.

  “Were you at the meat bun stall in the marketplace when I saw you?”

  “You saw me!” My hand fell into my lap.

  “Of course! I looked right at you. I tried to reach you, but you weren’t there when I managed to make my way through the crowd.”

  “Oh, forgive me! I thought you just looked my way by chance. If I had known….”

  “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve found you. Of course, how could I have lost your trail?”

  “Did I leave a trail?”

  “I could not have lost you. That smelly old inn confused me for a moment, but, of course, I found you there.” I couldn’t help but giggle a little at “smelly old inn”.

  “You said you lived there since childhood. You worked there all this time?”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied.

  “Please, call me Rafe. My heart will break if you call me ‘sir’ or ‘master’. I don’t want to be your master. I want to become your friend!”

  “My friend?” This was unthinkable and magnificent.

  “I
want to become your best friend,” he declared. His eyes shone earnest and full of love.

  “I…I don’t think you have the right girl.” My heart shattered to dust. Time had run out and I had to say the thing I hated to say. I would walk the road alone rather than keep him unaware or return to Dempsey. The collar stabbed me with agony.

  “You are. You are just the girl I have searched for all my life.”

  I couldn’t let him see my face anymore. My hands that flew to cover it felt like scant protection from the strength of his gaze.

  “Mistress spoke the truth,” I said through my hands. “I am cursed.”

  “What?” he said, almost in a growl.

  My hands now served to protect me from exposure to his anger and to hide my shame from his gaze.

  “It’s true. I turn into…a beast. Without this, given me by Father Miller, I would turn into…” I touched the cloth over the cold collar. Its power fluctuated with my wretchedness and I put my hand back over my face.

  “What kind of beast?” he demanded.

  I swallowed the lump of terror in my throat and peeked through my fingers. His gaze remained intense, but not angry. So I dropped my hands.

  “Father Miller called it a Werewolf.”

  “And what is that collar made of?”

  “Silver.” My heart pounded inside of me as if the beast inside me fought for freedom, pulsing pain from the collar with each throb. Rafe looked at me as if he felt the pain the collar gave me.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked, but I knew that he could tell it did.

  “I’ve become accustomed to it. It doesn’t bother me now, for the most part. If I wear it, I can work to earn my keep. Without it, it is probable I’d be locked away or…killed.”

  Rafe’s breaths grew louder and more agitated until he roared. I know without a doubt that his teeth grew sharp as he bellowed.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I whimpered. “I will leave you! Please don’t hurt me! I’ll just step out of the carriage and you’ll be rid of me.”

  “Rid of you! Hurt you!” His rage had turned to panic. “Why would I do something so terrible and foolish? I said I have searched for you. You can’t leave me when I’ve just found you!” He lunged across the seat to me and clasped my shoulders in his great, strong hands. “Please don’t run away when I’ve found you at long last. You don’t have any shoes!”

  I looked down at my stocking feet. “No. No shoes.”

  Then he shuddered and lunged back to his seat. “Oh how can you stand it!” he cried.

  “It has always been this way,” I confessed. I fell into utter confusion by Rafe who one moment told me he had searched for me and the next became so angry.

  “No, the collar!”

  “Oh. I guess I became used to it.”

  Again he lunged across the carriage. This time he clasped me to his breast. “If you can endure it, then I can!” he groaned in a husky tone, almost as if he fought tears. “Never leave me! Please, Lyneth, stay with me forever.”

  Maybe Rafe was a madman who had searched with tireless diligence for a cursed Werewolf girl, but his compassion and pure affection touched me. “Always. I will never leave you,” I promised. He held me for a long time and I didn’t resist him. It felt splendid to be held that way, not with evil intent, but in compassion.

  When he let me go, he apologized. “Please forgive me, Lyneth. I am not strong enough to endure it for too long.” I valued any contact he would give me, though it reviled him.

  Rafe struggled with his thoughts again, I could tell. I waited for him to decide what to do. At last he asked, “That man, at the inn, did he…harm you?”

  I felt so relieved to give him some glad news that I blurted, “No! He did not harm me. He wanted to. He would have done so. It would have happened in just moments…but you came. If you had not come, he would have.” Rafe had to turn his face from me. But it was all right because he was overcome with relief.

  “That is fortunate, for me and for him,” he thought aloud.

  “And for me,” I included.

  He laughed again, and the world became good once more.

  We rode into the night with just one stop for a meal. “Please forgive me, Lyneth. I wish to make all haste home, and I have deprived you of food to do so.”

  “I am not used to a midday meal, and remember; I had two meat buns late this morning.”

  He laughed again. I loved to hear him laugh. Everything bad fled when he laughed.