[Ela of Salisbury 03] - The Lost Child

by J G Lewis

  “He’s…” she hesitated, and Ela knew instinctively that she didn’t want to tell her his whereabouts. She glanced at Alys’s tear-streaked face. “He’s at the tavern.”

  Ela tried not to look shocked. The bell had barely rung for Nones. Surely he wasn’t diving into his cups this early. “The Bull and Bear?”

  “Aye, my lady. His wife is away visiting her mother so he went there to dine. He says it’s no reflection on my cooking but he enjoys the company of—”

  “Of course, mistress. Many men prefer to dine in company. We’ll find him there. I thank you.”

  The Bull and Bear was barely two streets away. Ela and Alys left the horses outside with her attendant and opened the scarred wood door under the tavern’s brightly painted sign.

  The interior was dark as a cave, and the smell assaulted her as soon as she stepped over the threshold—a thick haze of burned meat and unwashed bodies and spilled ale. There was so little light from the small, smoke-blackened window that she couldn’t make out any individual faces.

  “I seek Giles Haughton,” she managed, trying not to cough from the cooking smoke. She could just make out a pig roasting on a spit over a fire in the center of the room, the smoke rising to blacken the ceiling.

  “At your service, my lady.” A figure rose from the gloom. “I’ll attend you outside.”

  Ela exited the gloomy, malodorous tavern with relief, Giles Haughton right behind her. “This woman’s child is missing since this morning. I’ve tried to raise the hue and cry, but the sheriff won’t do more than search the carts on the London road.” If he’d even really do that.

  Giles Haughton squinted in the bright outdoor light, his salt-and-pepper eyebrows drawn low. “Is someone dead?”

  “Dead? No, we certainly hope not.” She placed a quick hand on Alys’s arm.

  “I don’t mean to offend, my lady, but I am the coroner. My office is to investigate murders and to secure any funds due to the crown.”

  Ela’s heart sank. “Can you not engage the jurors in helping us search?”

  “It’s outside my purview, my lady.” His manner was formal to the point of rudeness considering the confidences she’d shared with him in the past. Was he afraid of offending the new sheriff by helping her?

  Why had God—in his wisdom—chosen to deprive her of the office of sheriff when she was sure she could execute the sheriff’s duties better than any of these men? No doubt she had lessons to learn about humility. But her heart ached for Alys and her poor daughter, who must be frightened out of her wits, wherever she was.

  “The girl is only eight.” She spoke urgently. “What if she’s been stolen? Who might take her?”

  Haughton rubbed his stubbled jaw. “You’re sure she’s not with a friend?”

  “We have no friends, sir!” cried Alys, her exasperation bubbling over. “We live as outcasts among the villagers. My daughter is my greatest treasure and I feel sure she’s been stolen.”

  Haughton frowned. “You have good reason to be afraid for her. I’ve heard of other cases of children disappearing.”

  “Here?” Ela asked, startled. “In Wiltshire?”

  “Aye.”

  “How did I not know this?”

  Because you’re not the sheriff. His unspoken answer rang in her ears. “The ones I’ve heard of weren’t formally reported, and no one raised the hue and cry that I know of. They were orphans, or the children of vagrants or prostitutes, or others whose disappearance might go unmarked. I’ve only heard of them anecdotally.”

  Alys pressed a hand to her mouth and looked like she was about to faint. Ela put an arm on her back to support her. “Who do you suspect of taking them? Why would someone steal a child too young to have knowledge of a trade or to be of use in a household?” Villagers paid good money to have their children apprenticed in a trade. An unskilled child was considered a burden, not an asset.

  Haughton rubbed a hand over his face. “A child that young might be taken to serve a rich man’s…proclivities.” He looked at her meaningfully.

  “Proclivities?” Ela peered at him. “I don’t understand. What would a rich man do with an untrained child?”

  “Your innocence is a credit to you, my lady.”

  “I doubt that.” She worked to keep her voice calm. “Apparently it puts me at a disadvantage. Could you please explain your meaning in plain speech?”

  “For sex, my lady.”

  Ela stared at him. She crossed herself. “Jesus preserve us. We must find her at once.”

  “She might be halfway to London by now. Or Portsmouth, on her way to the Continent.”

  Alys let out a wail and fell to her knees before Ela could catch her. Haughton leapt forward and helped Ela raise her up. “We must get you home, mistress,” said Ela. “God willing, little Edyth will come home safe and sound.”

  Ela gestured to her attendant, who mounted Alys on his horse and heaved himself up behind her.

  “I wish I could help more, my lady,” said Haughton apologetically.

  “I’m sure that you can,” said Ela curtly, before mounting Freya. “I thank you for your time and candor. May God be with you.”

  She’d probably regret snapping at the man who’d been her closest ally thus far, but his refusal to help had both hurt and unnerved her. Was there truly no justice for the poor and voiceless? Were they not subjects of the king as much as she or Giles Haughton or Sheriff de Hal?

  Chapter 2

  Ela rode steadily through a light drizzle until they reached Alys Wheaton’s small cottage. It sat hard by the road just outside the new town. The much-repaired thatched roof looked like a stiff wind could blow it apart. Crudely woven willow fencing held their few ducks and hens in a small enclosure.

  “Anyone riding past could see your daughter here in the yard,” observed Ela. She couldn’t imagine being so hated by the townspeople but living right here on the road where they could look down on the family with disgust each time they passed.

  “Aye, ’tis true.” Alys had barely spoken the whole way back. On arrival she’d called Edyth’s name and heard no answer. Her eyes were still red with weeping. “Do you think I’ll ever see her again?”

  “God willing, you shall, mistress. You must pray for her safe return. In the meantime I promise you that I’ll do what I can to find her.”

  Ela tore herself away from Alys’s desperate, tear-filled gaze. She couldn’t imagine the pain of one of her own dear children missing, likely in the hands of cruel strangers planning a fate worse than death for her.

  “To the bishop’s palace!” she called to her attendant, before breaking into a brisk trot.

  Ela approached the cathedral close with some trepidation, sweaty under her cloak after so much riding and fretting. She prayed that she could keep a calm head and a cool voice and enlist the bishop’s aid to her cause.

  As a man who heard the confessions of the townspeople, Bishop Poore might be privy to knowledge of crimes that she could only guess at. Of course, he’d never breach the trust of the confessional, but perhaps he could point her in the right direction.

  She rode up to the bishop’s grand new palace in the shadow of the new cathedral. Workmen bustled about, carrying cartloads of stone and wood scaffolding, and carrying out baskets piled high with fresh stone chips hewn from the new stonework. On this dry, windless day there was enough fresh stone dust on the ground for her horse to leave prints in it as she rode past.

  Ela sat on her horse while her attendant dismounted and rapped on the door. A cassocked monk answered. “Ela of Salisbury requests attendance with his grace, the bishop.”

  The monk nodded assent and turned to the dark interior, closing the door. Ela took this as an encouraging sign that the bishop was home, or surely they’d have turned her away. She dismounted her horse with some relief, her legs chafed and sore from so much riding in clothing not fully intended for the purpose. She wished she still had Sibel to prepare and apply a poultice tonight.

  But her pai
ns were nothing compared to the terror inflicted on little Edyth and her helpless parents. Her father likely didn’t even know his daughter was missing unless the hue and cry had somehow reached him where he worked.

  A male servant opened the door and invited Ela in. “Thank you and God be with you,” she replied. “Might my attendant and our horses take some water? We’ve done much riding and the noonday sun is hot.” She didn’t want them all standing out there in the sun, then having to ride home again without refreshment.

  “Certainly, my lady. I’ll see to it right away.” He ushered her in and seated her in a chair with embroidered cushions in Bishop Poore’s luxurious sitting room. She tried to convince herself that the carved oak furnishings and sparkling silver candlesticks were a testament to God’s glory rather than the bishop’s avarice.

  Ela wanted the bishop on her side. His authority was not equal to the sheriff’s in civil matters, but the church had influence at even the highest levels of society. His support and involvement in the matter would make it harder for Sheriff de Hal to ignore her concerns.

  “Ela, my dear!” Bishop Poore emerged through a heavily carved doorway, his face alight with what appeared to be joy. “To what do I owe such a welcome visit?”

  Ela blinked. His effusive friendliness was unnerving. Did he want something from her? “God’s blessings, your grace.”

  He reached out both his hands and she put hers into them, grateful that he hadn’t simply offered her his enormous ruby ring to kiss. His hands were warm and soft—the softest hands she’d ever felt on a man—and she felt a burst of hope that he would help her.

  “Bishop Poore, a young girl has vanished from her home here in Salisbury. An eight-year-old child. It’s possible that she’s been deliberately abducted.” She blurted it out before he could interrupt her with his own business.

  “Do I know this child?” His pale blue eyes shone like sapphires in his plump pink face.

  Ela’s stomach tightened. Would the parents’ situation poison his mind against the innocent girl? “Her name is Edyth Wheaton.” She paused to see what effect the name had on him.

  A look of mild perplexity clouded his smooth, pale brow and disturbed his silver eyebrows. “Wheaton? The name strikes a bell, but I can’t place…” He looked at her curiously. She had an eerie feeling that he knew exactly who they were.

  “Her parents are unpopular with the villagers, I’m afraid.” Ela spoke with some trepidation. “Her father was once a man of the cloth and her mother of the cloister, but the Lord called them to create a family.” She hoped that by framing their life change as the Lord’s work it would seem less distasteful.

  “Ah.” He twisted his ring. “The Lord moves in mysterious ways.”

  “Indeed he does. And no matter what one might think of her parents, the child is innocent and in grave danger. She needs our help.”

  “And how do you anticipate that I might help in this situation? Surely it’s a matter for the sheriff?”

  “I’ve alerted the sheriff and raised the hue and cry, but I know your influence extends far beyond the civil borders of Salisbury or even of Wiltshire.” Flattery always helped, at least with Bishop Poore. “It’s possible that the girl has been spirited to London or even abroad.”

  She drew in a steadying breath. Her next request bordered on audacity. “Could you alert your fellow bishops and men of the church that this child is missing, and that others are too, and enlist them in our efforts to recover these poor lost souls and return them to their families?”

  He blinked and for a terrible moment she thought he was going to laugh. “What have men of the church to do with children? As a group we have less contact with children than anyone in England.” His eyes twinkled with something between amusement and indignation.

  Ela lifted her chin. “You’ve provided generously for the young boys of Salisbury, that they might learn their letters and read God’s word in your school. Most children here and throughout England attend services with their parents and guardians. The monks and nuns provide alms and succor for the poor of the parish, including their children. Men and women of the cloth are perhaps more likely than anyone to encounter a stray waif or orphan and offer them refuge.”

  His smooth forehead had crumpled considerably. “I do understand what you’re saying. But if this child has been…abducted, surely she will be held in secret?”

  “Who knows the secrets of the people better than a priest?”

  Bishop Poore looked more than a little alarmed. “The secrets of the confessional are a sacred trust.”

  “Even where the life of an innocent child is at stake?”

  “Even then.” He worked his ring fully around his finger two times. “However, I shall write to my fellow bishops and inform them of your search.” He pushed a smile to his lips. “And you shall be the first to hear of any news they send.”

  Ela’s heart crumpled. He was dismissing her concerns. She doubted he would write to anyone. “Innocent children’s lives are at stake. It seems they are disappearing all around us, drawn into a dark underworld like lost souls to hell.” She hoped to appeal to his spiritual side. “If we can save this one girl, perhaps we can save more.”

  “Indeed. Your concern is a credit to you, my lady. Now, if you’ll excuse me I must prepare for Mass.”

  Now he was patronizing her. No doubt he felt, like Sheriff de Hal, that she should confine her interests to her herb garden and her needlework. “Thank you for your time, Bishop Poore.” She reached into her purse and drew out a small gold coin. “Please accept this offering to buy prayers for the poor lost child and her fellow sufferers.”

  She intended to stay for the Sext services in the cathedral to hear the prayer. If she was present, her valuable coin would buy a mention of the missing girl that would alert anyone there who didn’t already know.

  “Your generosity will be noted in Heaven, my lady.” He took the coin and pressed it between his thumb and finger.

  She said her goodbyes and asked his servant to inform her attendant of her plan to stay for services. The Mass would give her time to catch her breath and offer up some prayers. There was no point in running about Salisbury like a chicken with her head cut off if no one was listening to her.

  The tap of hammers on chisels stilled as the bells rang for Mass. Sweet relief from the constant banging. Workers climbed carefully down from the scaffolding that rose into the vaults, and most went outside to eat their bread and cheese.

  Ela sat in her accustomed seat at the front of the nave near the altar. The other attendees were mostly monks and students from Bishop Poore’s new school. A handful of townswomen sat in the rear and muttered among themselves—possibly about her—until Bishop Poore ascended toward the altar.

  Ela willed away her worries and cares—all the little day-to-day concerns that cluttered her mind—and gave herself over to the service, listening carefully to the words of the psalms that formed the core of each daily Sext service.

  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

  …O remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us: for we are brought very low.

  …Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die—

  …Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name’s sake.

  The familiar words struck a fresh chord in her heart and reaffirmed her conviction that Alys had committed no crime in God’s eyes that had not already been absolved through her own prayers. She prayed that God would hear the sighing of this tender young prisoner.

  The world lately seemed so filled with iniquity: her own husband’s cruel and untimely death, the murders she’d investigated during her brief spell as acting sheriff, not to mention the scourge of illegal trade and criminal mischief in their midst.

  Ela had a violent urge to run fo
r the door, to mount Freya and gallop somewhere—anywhere—to raise the people to hunt for Edyth and her fellow sufferers.

  But she schooled herself to sit still. Bishop Poore glanced at her as he mentioned that there was a young girl missing from Salisbury and that all should be alert for word of her whereabouts.

  God willing, they must find Edyth Wheaton before she suffered too much.

  Back home that afternoon at her manor, Ela paced the floors worrying about Edyth. Bill Talbot, the brave and kind knight who’d been in her family’s service since she was a girl, listened sympathetically and attempted helpful suggestions.

  “Perhaps you might write to the king and alert him that children are disappearing in his kingdom.”

  Ela sighed. “The king is consumed with his ambitions overseas and the intrigues of his barons. He won’t trouble himself with the loss of one village girl.” She also didn’t want the king to see her as a nuisance like a buzzing fly. She’d already plied him with requests that she should be sheriff of Wiltshire, and he’d given her reason to hope it could happen—if enough coin was applied.

  “Perhaps the sheriff’s men will find her.”

  “Sheriff de Hal cares nothing for this girl. Her disappearance offers no way for him to line his purse. From what I’ve seen he cares little for anything but feasting with his cronies and exacting fines. But let him neglect his duties and harass the farmers and burghers with his fines. In doing so he paves the path for me to replace him.”

  Bill stood awkwardly in the corner. No doubt he would have liked to sit, but he was too much of a gentleman to sit when she stood. And she was too agitated to sit.

  “Who is this Edyth?” Petronella’s voice piped up from the hallway. “I’ve never heard you mention her before.”

  Ela glanced at Bill. She didn’t want to frighten her own children, but at almost seventeen Petronella was old enough to know the truth. “Don’t tell the younger ones—” She beckoned for Petronella to come closer. “But she’s a village girl who’s been snatched from her home.”