Caitlyn Box Set

by Elizabeth Davies

  I shivered, her enmity walking over my grave. I did not want her as an enemy, but I feared I had no choice in the matter.

  Herleva returned and I breathed out a small sigh. She carried one of the silk-wrapped tomes.

  ‘Take this with you. I will give you another when you bear your first child. The third and final one will be yours when I die.’

  ‘Oh, Herleva!’ The icy mask cracked and Arlette’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I do not want to leave you.’

  ‘Of course, you do. It is what we have worked for. You wanted this from the moment I told you what you were. You had the sight, I had the vision, and this,’ she gestured to the dress, ‘is the result.’

  ‘Put it in something less conspicuous,’ Arlette instructed me, and I searched for a sack. It would not do for a servant to see it. Even if they did not understand what the book contained, for a woman of Arlette’s background to own such a treasure was unheard of, and would surely draw comment.

  ‘Keep it safe, and guard it well. You will have need of it,’ Herleva told Arlette.

  Arlette bent to clasp the other woman in her arms. With the two of them so close together it was clear Herleva had shrunk. She was now the shorter by a few inches, and she looked so old compared to Arlette’s youthful freshness. She was ageing by the day, and it took all my control not to do a jig of delight.

  ‘My lady?’ A maid, one of several sent from the castle to accompany Arlette on her journey to the duke, stood by the open door.

  Arlette looked askance at Herleva.

  ‘She means you,’ Herleva said gently. Her eyes glittered. ‘Get used to it. You will be Lady Arlette from now on.’

  Arlette gave me a triumphant smile. She had always resented my title. Now she had one of her own.

  ‘Put this on the horse,’ she instructed the servant, handing her the bag with its precious cargo of book. ‘Be careful with it, it is a gift from my step-mother.’

  Clever girl. In one sentence she both laid claim to the bag containing the spell-book, and distanced herself from its contents at the same time, just in case some nosey servant or gentlewoman peeped inside. Arlette could deny all knowledge and lay the blame firmly at Herleva’s door.

  The older witch nodded with a rueful smile. She knew what Arlette had done. No love lost between witches, eh Herleva? You might have given her everything, but she would betray you in a heartbeat to save her own milky-white skin. One last kiss on the cheek and Arlette was out of the door, skirts trailing after her, leaving behind a whiff of lavender and roses.

  Fulbert gave a start when he saw his daughter. His face lit with pride and he looked around him, making sure all who had gathered to watch Arlette leave knew whose loins she came from. Her brothers were equally as prideful, and I suspected they were anticipating the patronage she would bestow on them. No more tannery for the Fulbert family. No more tannery for me. Life was looking better at each turn.

  The townsfolk gave way as Arlette passed. One or two of the women curtsied and the cooper touched his forelock in deference. The rest were undecided how to react. Some of them wore expressions of envy, especially the younger women, wishing they were in Arlette’s dainty slippers and wondering what would have been the result if the duke had spotted them before he had set eyes on the tanner’s daughter.

  Many of the older women and men were resentful that one of their own should rise so high and so fast, and a few wore calculating faces, as if wondering how Fulbert’s good fortune could rub off on them. I expected Fulbert and his sons to experience an upturn in visitors and business for the foreseeable future, as the ambitious forged new or stronger links with the father of the Duke of Normandy’s gilded mistress.

  The horse Lord Robert had provided for his new lady was unlike any I had seen before. Chestnut body, cream mane and tail, the mare shone. High arched neck, proud and graceful held aloft a dainty head with a dished face, sporting delicate nostrils and small, pointed ears. Long slender legs ending in neat hooves supported a petite frame. This was no work horse, and no broodmare. This was one of the most beautiful creatures I had ever seen. A pang for my lost Silver stabbed my heart. I had thought my mare to be fine, but this animal was magnificent, and she knew it. She arched her neck further and pranced a little dance, whickering.

  ‘From Arabia, they say.’

  I acknowledged the snippet offered by the man standing next to me, with a smile and a nod, unable to drag my attention away from the mare. I wanted her so badly. She signified all I had lost and all which had once been mine.

  With a heavy heart, I watched a servant cup his hand under Arlette’s little foot and hoist her effortlessly into the saddle. A maid ran forward to spread out her skirts, arranging them so they draped across the horse’s rump. I watched with longing as soldiers, on destriers twice the size of the mare, rode to the front and the back of her, an honour guard.

  I watched as she left without a backward glance and envied every hair on her glossy head. Arlette, the daughter of a common tanner, looked like a queen, and acted like one. It made my stomach churn with anger, when I was the one who boasted a royal lineage – I was a daughter and a wife of kings. She was about to have everything which should have been mine, by status and birth-right.

  It should have been me on that horse.

  Chapter 31

  I did not think I would ever smell thyme again without associating it with Herleva. It saturated her private room, her own self, and now me. I was sick to my stomach from crushing the leaves, my hands and shoulders aching from the incessant grinding. The strong scent coated the inside of my nose, and I swear I could taste it too.

  The woman in question sat huddled by the fire. At intervals, a servant came to throw more logs onto the flames. It was unseasonably cold for late March and a foot of snow lay on the ground with more falling. Shuttered against the heavy skies and the chill outside, no light penetrated the room, and I had no idea if it was still morning or close to supper-time.

  Fulbert and his family had done well out of the elevation of his commoner daughter to the beloved mistress of the Duke of Normandy. At Arlette’s behest, Lord Robert had set Fulbert up in a grand house, provided him with servants and silver, and allowed him to live a life of ease and luxury. Wealthy enough for a tanner prior to this, he now paraded about town displaying his good fortune and making sure everyone knew who his daughter was. Not all were kind about his antics (though not to his face), maintaining they would not have lowered themselves to live off the back of a woman who was nothing more than a common whore. Arlette and her family were tolerated, but not well-liked.

  Herleva did not care. She had achieved what she wanted, with the added boost of greater comfort in the last part of her life. Other people’s opinion did not matter to her. When she no longer had need of a room to embalm the dead, she asked for, and got, a chamber which was hers and hers alone. She did not explain it nor justify it, merely asked and received. Fulbert did not dare question her, I decided.

  A log shifted on the fire and she shivered, but whether from the cold or a pain, I could not tell. I stopped thyme-crushing and grabbed another fur from the back of the chair, draping it over her knees and tucking it around her ankles. She patted my hand absently. Her colour concerned me, a yellow tinge beneath the grey.

  In the several months since Arlette went to Lord Robert’s bed, Herleva had mellowed somewhat in her attitude toward me. She only occasionally required me to become a cat and spy for her, usually on some nobleman or other who she deemed a danger to Arlette. But for all her softening I did not feel I knew her any better nor was any closer to her. To be fair to the woman, she probably realised I was waiting with bated breath for her to die. Her demise could not come quick enough for me.

  A knock at the door had our attention.

  ‘A summons from Lady Arlette, madam,’ the servant said to Herleva.

  She nodded and struggled to stand. Her legs betrayed her before she was upright, and she fell back into her chair.

  ‘I wi
ll go,’ I said. ‘You are in no fit state to brave the weather. What can Arlette be thinking?’ I wiped my herby hands. If I was right, I suspected Arlette had not been thinking about Herleva at all. Her attention was totally consumed with the child growing in her belly.

  ‘I shall let the messenger know, madam,’ the maid said. ‘He is waiting with the horses.’

  The girl retreated and I let out an annoyed hiss. I had no wish to traipse up to the castle in this weather on the whim of a pregnant woman, horse or no horse.

  ‘I have to find my winter boots and my cloak,’ I said, trying to resign myself to the trek.

  ‘Give her a message.’ Herleva had an old woman’s quaver to her voice. When had she developed that?

  ‘Of course,’ I said, as if I had any choice to do anything other than I was bid.

  ‘Tell her that magic is always seeking the medium road. Rise too high and magic will seek to redress the balance. Tell her not to push too much, else the magic will push back. You can only do so much and no more. Tell Arlette she has done her portion; she is to be the mother of kings. She must be satisfied with that.’

  I turned to go.

  ‘There is something else,’ she added. ‘Tell her the child she is carrying is a boy.’

  I thought about her statement and the surety of her tone as I found my boots and pulled the hood of my faithful otter-skin cloak over my head. It would have to be replaced before next winter; it was looking rather moth-eaten. There was much to be done, and quickly. Herleva’s health deteriorated with every passing week, and if I were to glean enough from this house to carry me through until I landed on Welsh soil once more, I needed to start now. A new cloak would be my first acquisition.

  The list in my head grew longer with each hoof beat: new boots, another gown, copper and silver. ’Twould be safer if I sewed the coins into the hem of my skirts. Begging a lift on a cart may be an option, and if not, I would pay for one. I had no intention of walking to Caen this time. Or sleeping beneath the stars. No one would think to look for me once Herleva was dead. Fulbert hardly noticed my existence, and Arlette was so absorbed in her new life she had no interest in mine. Besides, I would be of no use to her if she could not force me to transform into a cat. I intended to sleep in an inn and eat a decent meal. I thought back to my last attempt at escape, and my mind went back further again, against my wishes. I tried not to think of the past, if I could help it.

  In less than two months a whole year would have passed since that dreadful day in Llandarog, when winter had not long loosened its hold and spring had started to raise her nodding daffodil head. For a more southerly country, Normandy’s winters were harsher, which surprised me. The last time I saw so much snow I had been safely ensconced in Rhain’s fortress. Today the wind bit through my cloak, and numbed my cheeks and gloved hands. The sky was thick with fat flakes and they fell with hardly a flurry in the still air.

  I left the pony behind with a pat and a soft whisper in his ear, and followed the messenger over the small bridge and into the inner bailey. The donjon enveloped me in welcome heat, and even the stone staircase felt warm. My nose and ears tingled as I pattered after him, up the stone steps to Lady Arlette’s private chambers.

  She sat in a padded winged-back chair, her feet propped on a small stool, embroidering a tiny scrap of cloth. For the babe, I presumed. I glanced around; nothing had altered since my last visit to her solar. I had not come across such a room as this before. She had assured me all the ladies had one, a private room to which they could retire in order to escape from the often raucous noise of the great hall. Not to be outdone by these high-born women she had never met, Arlette insisted on having one too.

  A solid oak chest as high as my waist dominated one corner. In it, she kept Herleva’s precious book, hers now, and the key to the coffer hung from a silver girdle which she wore above her swollen stomach. I had never seen her without it, and wondered if she wore it to bed.

  Her needle flashed in the candle light. It might be nearing midday according to the church bells, but someone forgot to tell the sky. I hoped she thought to offer me food; breakfast was a while ago and it would be a long time before Herleva’s cook served supper. My stomach growled.

  ‘I summoned Herleva, not you,’ she said without looking up from her work, finally acknowledging my presence.

  ‘She is too ill. You will have to make do with me.’ Summoned, indeed. Huh.

  Arlette huffed, put her sewing down, and shuffled in her chair. ‘I wanted Herleva. This child is restless and I am forever using the chamber pot.’ She was sullen and uncomfortable, her face puffed, her expression cross. The initial elation at bearing the duke a babe had long since been worn away by the realities of breeding.

  ‘Anyway,’ I added, ‘I am not sure a great deal can be done at this late stage.’

  If looks were poison I would drop where I stood.

  ‘Fool,’ she spat. ‘I meant I want her to give me something to stop me pissing like a horse thirty times a day, not abort it.’

  Nice to hear the original Arlette was still there, under all the finery.

  ‘I knew what you meant, and either way, Herleva can do nothing to relieve your discomfort,’ I said.

  With a sudden change of mood, she held up the material she had been working on. ‘Look, I have learned to embroider.’

  So she had, if uneven stitches and clumsy threads could be given the name “embroidery”. I praised her all the same, not wanting to antagonise her.

  She preened, then the babe must have made his presence felt, for her mood turned sour again. ‘What ails Herleva?’

  ‘I know not, she does not share details of her health with me, but I believe her to be not long for this world.’

  Arlette gave me a shrewd look. ‘Hope, you mean.’

  I said, ‘Herleva claims the child is a son.’

  The news pleased Arlette. A wide smile spread across her face, transforming her features back into the beauty Lord Robert had first fallen for.

  ‘I knew it! I saw him too, in the mirror.’ She saw my confused expression. ‘Blood in a skull, water in a bowl, or a mirror, it matters not – anything which reflects can be used to scry. My lord gave me a hand mirror, made from real glass. He says it comes from the land of the Moors far to the south.’

  She paused, and her smile faded. ‘It is Lord Robert who I wish to discuss.’ She hesitated, needing my help but wishing she did not have to reveal her troubles to one such as me. She would have told Herleva in a heartbeat.

  ‘I want you to attend his council. His men are all here, the important ones, and they meet to discuss Flanders.’ She paused again, then lifted her chin in the defiant gesture I knew so well, and said, ‘I believe they have gathered to discuss Robert’s marriage.’ She looked at her swollen feet.

  ‘Not to you, I take it.’

  ‘No.’ It was a whisper.

  ‘You remember what Herleva said about him never taking another for a wife?’

  ‘I remember, but you do not know what it is like. I see them, those corner-of-the-eye looks, those glances when they think my attention is elsewhere. I hear them too, whispering and snickering. They do not like me.’

  ‘Why should they? You are base born, have captured their duke with your beauty, and he has raised you above them all. They have no reason to like you.’

  Her face crumpled, and once more I felt sorry for her. She had what she wanted and it failed to make her happy. She might have been content with a blacksmith or a farmer, if Herleva had not put such vaulted thoughts in her head. Welcome to the life of the high-born woman, I thought.

  I said, ‘They do not have to like you, but they do have to respect you. Act like a duchess and they will treat you as such.’

  ‘But that is the problem,’ she said, a hitch in her voice. ‘I will not be Robert’s duchess, especially if they talk him into marrying a princess of Flanders, or of France.’

  I sighed. I really did not wish to do this, but it would not hurt. One l
ast time of being Cat, then I would be Caitlyn forever. Anyway, it would allay suspicion.

  I became Cat once more, and did my duty.

  Chapter 32

  A scream ripped through the chamber, dying off into an agonised, shuddering moan. The labouring woman panted, groaning between breaths.

  ‘How much longer?’ Arlette asked, her voice weak and raw. She had been screaming since midday yesterday when her waters broke. Herleva had warned her to wait until the pain worsened, to save her energy, but Arlette had wanted the whole castle to know the birthing had begun.

  The duke had stoically remained in the stronghold until darkness fell, then he had ridden out with the excuse of hunting a stag for the feast to welcome his son. Whoever heard of deer hunting in the dark?

  I wished I could disappear too. Her unceasing noise had given me a headache. Unfortunately, I had to stay to support Herleva, and Herleva had to stay to support Arlette. The old woman, for that was what she was now, could give little in the way of practical help; her care was more of a spiritual kind.

  Two of Arlette’s noble-born ladies held her on the birthing stool, whilst the midwife delved and poked between her wide-spread thighs. Her stomach bulged over them, the babe riding low in its fleshy cage, anxious to be free. Already her breasts seeped a clear liquid in preparation for the new little mouth, though the lady had no intention of feeding the infant herself; she had a wet-nurse on hand to do that for her. Arlette did not want her pert breasts pumped and suckled all out of shape. I stared at them, the nipples resting on the top of her stomach, two swollen bags of milk. They were far from pert now.

  ‘They will be again,’ Herleva had said when Arlette bemoaned the state of them. ‘And even if they are not, it does not matter – Lord Robert will love you anyway. He cannot do otherwise.’