“Some of them have to come by foot, so it might be some time.”
Duncan recognized Coachman John as the second voice. He assumed the first to be Lord Briarly’s valet. The man was certainly dressed well enough for the position.
“Should we have a look around while we wait?” the valet asked, much to Duncan’s horror.
The coachman shook his head, though. “Nothing here but crumbling walls. The abbey is totally deserted and has been for nearly three hundred years. That’s why it makes the perfect meeting place.”
The valet tipped his head into the chapter house, though. Duncan and Alberta both sat frozen, hidden behind their respective corners. Duncan prayed that the man would not venture any further inward.
After several moments of bated breath, it became apparent that he would not inspect the place further. Every noise within the chapter house echoed off its arched stone ceilings, so his footsteps would have resounded perfectly unless he knew to deaden them. Duncan hazarded a glance and discovered that the pair had moved beyond view, further down the cloister or else back into the nave.
He dared not whisper any further explanation to Princess Alberta, fearful that his voice would carry too far. She understood as much, for she kept quiet as well. They waited in silence, eyes sometimes fixed on the group of windows on the wall in front of them and sometimes peering over their shoulders, back toward the chapter house’s entrance.
Figures trickled past one by one, and Duncan surmised that they were congregating at the far end of the cloister. After ten or more men had arrived, he heard a voice ask an indiscernible question. The group was beyond his hearing.
Frustration coursed through him. After all this, not to hear anything at all was intolerable. With growing boldness, he caught Princess Alberta’s attention and motioned her to stay where she was. Then, he stood and crept forward on the outsides of his feet, back toward the front of the chapter house and the window there. The voices came into range as he went.
“The only other person missing is Scurvyhead,” said Coachman John.
“He won’t come,” said another voice that Duncan did not recognize. “The royal witch sent him on another silly errand this afternoon.”
“He’s a simpleton anyway,” said a third voice. “He wouldn’t be much help with whatever venture you’re plotting here.”
“Yes, why are we all here, anyway?” asked a fourth, and a chorus of others echoed the question.
“I suppose we should get started,” said Coachman John. “May I introduce you to my cousin, George Thornton, valet to the honorable Lord Briarly.”
A sullen silence followed. Duncan hazarded a peek over the edge of the window. The castle servants, ten or twelve in total, stood with their backs to him, circled around this George Thornton and his cousin, Coachman John. Thornton stepped forward with an open smile and open hands.
“My dear fellow-servants,” he said broadly, “we come together because of a common nuisance. I’m sure you all know what it is, but before I proceed, I must ask that anyone of a cowardly disposition depart back from whence you came.” He paused and watched as several of his listeners shifted nervously, glanced at one another, and then ultimately decided to stay. Under such verbiage, it was no wonder.
“I knew my cousin would only gather the most stout-hearted of men,” Thornton continued then with a cunning smile. “Now, secondly, before I disclose anything specific, we must all swear an oath never to discuss this meeting or its contents with anyone who is not here. As emissary for my master, I make exception of myself; I speak for him and will report to him all the proceedings of this little conference. You may speak among yourselves beyond these walls too, if occasion merits it.”
“What if we don’t want to swear an oath?” an older man asked suspiciously.
“Then you may depart now with no further question, and no harm will come to you. If anyone does swear the oath and decides to leave before our conversation is finished, though, I should here mention that a handful of Lord Briarly’s personal guards are stationed beyond these walls with orders to eliminate that threat to our plans. So you’d better be able to run quickly,” he added with a wry smile. A few of the younger servants took this as a joke and laughed. The older ones did not like it at all. When it came right down to it, though, they still elected to stay.
“Will you swear?” Thornton demanded. A chorus of grumbling voices answered in the affirmative.
Duncan was momentarily distracted from listening when the intended object of their discussion, Princess Alberta, suddenly settled down right next to him under the window. He stared at her in dismay and motioned her back to her hiding place. She responded with an expression of such contempt that no voiced refusal was necessary. “I will not wait back there, you crazy little underling,” her face plainly said. Duncan knew that arguing with her was a lost cause. He shook his head and shifted his attention back to the meeting in the cloister.
Thornton had already begun his explanation. “This issue that troubles us all, as you have no doubt surmised, is the rise of a fledgling witch in our very midst, in a position of power too easily abused. My master believes that for the good of Meridiana itself, something must be done.”
Duncan knew this conference had to do with Alberta, but he had not guessed that they would use this sort of incendiary rhetoric.
One man in the audience apparently agreed. “Now just a minute,” he spoke up. “We all know very well that Princess Alberta is a royal pain in the backside and one of the most cold-hearted creatures ever to walk the earth, but you can’t go so far as to claim she’s an actual witch, or that she means to do harm to the crown.”
Duncan glanced fearfully toward the subject of this speech. She stared ahead with a wooden expression on her face as she listened.
“Does she not?” the valet retorted. “You’ve all watched as she’s systematically driven off every claimant for Princess Margaret’s hand. If Princess Margaret never marries, what becomes of the monarchy?”
“She’ll marry one day,” said one of the servants.
“If her younger sister doesn’t get to her first,” said Thornton darkly. “Has not Princess Alberta gotten so bold as to decoct poisons in her own bedchamber? Who’s to say what plots she has against Princess Margaret?”
Alberta suddenly started, as though she would burst from her hiding place and tear apart the man with her bare hands. She might have done just that, too, except that Duncan caught hold of her and dragged her back down. She tried to get away, but he tightened his grip around her waist.
“Think before you act,” he hissed in her ear, and the words brought her back to her senses. “We’re a mile from civilization, and every one of those men has reason to wish you harm,” he continued. “Don’t assume your title will keep them from doing so!”
“As if I would ever lay a finger on Mae’s head,” she hissed back. She was absolutely furious that someone could make such an insinuation.
His grip around her waist loosened. Even so, “Go back,” he counseled her with a nod toward the second room. Her fierce expression was answer enough: she would not.
Outside, the group had begun to argue traits of a witch and whether Alberta truly possessed them.
“She mixes potions—the chambermaids all swear to that!”
“She’s cursed a few of the servants. She ran off Gilly and Lizzie just within the last couple months because they crossed her purposes!”
“I saw her skulking around the castle grounds late one night a few months back, carrying something bulky under her arms.”
“She always stops to pet the cats in the stable, especially the black ones!”
“And don’t forget how everyone who comes to court Princess Margaret goes away again very ill!”
“Remember Tommy Taper’s goose? A seasoned soldier couldn’t have made that shot—she must’ve used magic!”
Next to Duncan, Alberta grew increasingly still. The muscle along her jaw hardened, a sure sign that her teet
h were clenched. A faint blush rose upon her cheeks, too. Duncan had no doubt that it was fueled by anger rather than embarrassment.
“She’s a witch,” Thornton said above them all. “Even this very afternoon, so the stable boys informed my cousin John, she rode out of the castle grounds to meet with her coven.”
Alberta scoffed, and Duncan frantically motioned her to silence. Luckily the small group of men was distant enough and noisy enough not to notice the sound.
“And what is it your master wishes to be done?” one of them asked amid the murmuring of his fellows.
“Witches have no place among civilized society,” the valet replied delicately. “My master has found an old woman who can bind witches and is willing to do so in this case. She lives beyond Meridiana, but has assured my master that she would be willing to take this witch off our hands, if we can catch her and bring her north across the border.”
“This old woman sounds like a witch herself,” someone replied.
“The pay is very handsome,” said Thornton.
One servant scoffed quite loudly. “It should be! You’re talking about abducting a princess of Meridiana!”
“Not the crown princess, and not the favorite. We’re talking about eliminating a threat to the monarchy, and to our very way of life. And we would be doing so in a manner that allows dignity both to the memory of Princess Alberta and to her family. If she simply disappears one day, the country would be able to mourn in a very proper way, and the safety of the monarchy would be assured. You would all be heroes.”
Duncan’s skin crawled at the calculated mischief behind this plan. He would have expected the other servants to see it for its inherent evil and was greatly heartened when one of them suddenly declared, “This is a load of codswallop!” In the stricken silence that followed, the man continued, “You may well try to pass this off as some noble deed, but the long and short of it is your master wants Alberta out of the way so that he has a clear path to Bellinda. We know perfectly well that he’s bringing along a Prince from Austrina to woo Princess Margaret. He’s desperate to be rid of Alberta, and this is the scheme he’s concocted to accomplish it.
“And I’m not saying I won’t play a part,” the man added, much to Duncan’s horror, “but at least I can be honest and say outright that I’m helping you because I don’t like her, and not out of any supposition that I’m a hero.”
Duncan turned wide eyes upon the girl next to him. She wore a steely expression, one that sent chills up his spine. He almost felt sorry for the men outside: provided that Alberta’s presence went undetected before they left, they would have to face her formidable vengeance.
“Are we in concordance with one another, then?” Thornton asked above the murmur of voices. “We will band together to rid this pestilence from our presence?”
They spoke their oaths of agreement.
“But… how?” one man asked.
“Drug her,” said another.
“It’s a pity Scurvyhead isn’t here,” said a third. “He’s summoned into her presence so often that he could easily slip something into her food or drink.”
Alberta’s accusing gaze snapped to Duncan. He shook his head innocently and averted his eyes. She would just have to believe that he would never try to drug her, he thought, for he was in no position to explain it to her here. He focused his attention on the voices beyond the window in an attempt to ignore the piercing stare that bored into his profile.
“We could enlist his help,” someone was saying.
“He’s a simpleton,” someone else answered. “Why would we need to enlist his help?”
“He could carry the drug to her!”
“He could do that without knowing it. Alfie here is a cook—he could hand something off to Scurvyhead easily, and the fool would carry it right to Princess Alberta and never be the wiser.”
“That doesn’t mean she would drink it,” someone else interjected. “Wouldn’t it be better just to corner her when she leaves on one of her lone rides? Shove her into a carriage and send her screaming off to the border. Who is the old woman up there? Will she meet us?”
“She is a woman of some property and reputation,” said Thornton stiffly. “She’s promised to pay us all a king’s ransom in solid gold if we bring her the witch-princess of Meridiana, and I can tell you with some assurance that she has the ability to do it.”
Duncan listened with bated breath to hear the old woman’s name spoken aloud. He thought he knew it already, though, for surely only Dame Groach could claim the means to pay someone in solid gold. She also would not cross the border into Meridiana to do her own dirty work. What purpose she had in abducting Princess Alberta, he could not fathom.
So intent was he upon the conversation outside that he failed to take notice of the young woman tucked away next to him. Alberta’s glare had shifted into a curious frown. She was slouched at an odd angle, brought there when Duncan had forcefully pulled her back down, but she leaned forward to study him with growing confusion. More specifically, her eyes honed in on his sheepskin wig and the glimmer she had caught just beneath its edge.
Not until she reached up a hand to pull back the edge of the wig did Duncan realize what was happening. He caught her wrist instinctively, stared at her in wide-eyed horror, and knew that he had been a half-second too late. Alberta’s mouth hung open in genuine surprise.
They sat frozen in that pose for several breaths as the men outside brought their plotting to an end. Duncan’s heart beat erratically in his chest, gripped by a pitiless fear. No one had ever pulled back his wig before, even for the slightest glimpse of his head. No one had ever discovered the connection between Scurvyhead and Sir Goldmayne. He would have to flee, would have to run away and establish a new life somewhere else. Surely Wildfire would know where they could hide.
“I don’t wish to keep you any longer, my friends,” Thornton said loudly. “Someone may notice you missing, so it’s best you return to your work. Now that we know our goals are confederate, we should be able to manage some plan quite nicely. My master thanks you, and sends you a token of his appreciation. This is only a mere fraction of the money we’ll receive for our work, but it makes a nice start for our troubles, don’t you think?”
Then, presumably, he handed coins around to all the men. They began to leave, back the way they came. The sound of their footsteps stirred Duncan from his dismay. He silently pushed Alberta into the shadowed corner and huddled there next to her, his cloak over both of them so that they would be hidden from any casual glance into the chapter house.
Her breathing was shallow. Her mind was probably still trying to grasp everything she had just discovered. He watched the window through a fold in his cloak. Only a couple of people crossed near enough to the chapter house for him to see them. He did catch a glimpse of Thornton as he sauntered by, horse in tow, but he dared not assume that the men had all gone.
He sat huddled together with Alberta in silence for what seemed an age but was only a minute or two. The echo of hooves upon the stone floor finally assured him that it was safe to move again. If Wildfire was certain everyone was gone, then it was surely so.
Duncan half rolled to the side and started to extend his legs when Alberta suddenly shoved him away.
“What—?” he said in surprise.
“You needn’t play the hero with me, Goldilocks,” she sneered, and she flung herself out of the corner angrily.
That was beyond unreasonable. “Why, you ungrateful—! Do you have any idea what sort of danger you’d have been in if I hadn’t been here? And what business is it of yours to go snooping beneath other people’s wigs, anyway?”
“Don’t keep a girl so close to you if you don’t expect her to see something she shouldn’t,” Alberta retorted as she brushed the dust from her dress. “Honestly, I should’ve known! Scurvyhead indeed! And is this supposed to be your talking horse? What a very noble steed.”
Duncan wholeheartedly wished that Wildfire would say somethin
g just to rattle her. The white horse held his peace, of course.
“He is noble,” said Duncan hotly. “He’s saved my life more times than I can count.”
“Which must be a feat, seeing how good you are with numbers. Where’s my horse?”
“Right where we left it, I’d imagine, and right where you should have stayed until everyone outside had gone! If you had done as I told you, it would’ve saved us both a lot of trouble!”
“Aren’t you a bit too cheeky for an upstart servant? And why should I do anything you tell me to?”
“Because I was trying to help you!”
Their shouts echoed through the chapter house. Duncan sincerely hoped that all of the other visitors had traveled beyond earshot.
“I don’t need your help!” Alberta cried hotly. “For all I know, you were out here to join the conversation!”
“I have a head that grows solid gold instead of hair,” Duncan retorted. “Do you really think I want to associate myself with lawbreakers? If they’re willing to abduct even you, they’d scalp a nobody like me in an instant and leave me for dead!”
This gave her pause. She stepped back and surveyed him as though with new eyes. “Take off your wig,” she suddenly commanded.
“What? No!”
“I already know what’s beneath it! Take the ridiculous thing off!”
He shifted a wary glance toward Wildfire, but the horse gave no indication for him to do other than he’d been told. Bitterly he pulled the sheepskin from his head. His cropped, shimmering hair reflected glints of light on the walls around them.
She observed it curiously. “It really is solid gold,” she said at last, a muted wonder in her voice. “Has it always been…?”
“No. It was an accident. I came across a substance called goldwater.”
Alberta nodded slowly. “And there’s no way to cure it?”
“No. The blacksmith’s fairy said gold is impervious to magic. It can’t be reversed back to what it was. But that’s hardly—”
“Blacksmith’s fairy?” she interrupted sharply.
“Yes, I came across a fairy at this smithy, and she said—”
Goldmayne: A Fairy Tale Page 21
