Maid of Deception

by Jennifer McGowan

  It didn’t take us long to hear the Travelers.

  And they were not just celebrating, we quickly realized; they were bringing the very forest to its knees.

  The music reached us first, simple drums and bells on chains that were struck in sharp, percussive rounds, the tune running fast and sure, keeping time to some unseen dance. Then the lights, strung up in the trees and over tents and wagons, drew us ever closer. At length we dismounted, and led our horses close enough for easy reach, and instructed the groom to stay with the small herd. He did so reluctantly, clearly thinking that Alasdair alone was not sufficient protection for four hapless young women setting off to find one of their own in the heart of a Traveler celebration.

  We finally reached the last stand of trees and brush that separated us from the revel. This was one of the Travelers’ traditional encampments, cleared out in a broad circle in the center of the forest, a burbling brook providing an ideal resting spot. And Anna had been correct about the reason for all the music and laughter.

  A ring of men and women, laughing and calling out encouragement, were clapping and stomping as a couple spun in the circle of the others’ protection, their movements lithe and beautiful as the music soared, their energy as sure and true as the roaring fire that provided the backdrop to their wild, frenzied dance.

  We had found Sophia.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  We could do nothing until the music stopped, but in truth we didn’t have to make the first move. I saw the wave of recognition move through the Travelers even as we hesitated at the edge of their circle. With a sharp nod to the musicians, a man who must have been the leader of this troupe held up a hand.

  The frenzied music stopped with a last, percussive burst.

  Sophia and her young man collapsed against each other, laughing so hard, they were crying, and the crowd around them gave a throaty cheer. Then the ring opened toward us, and Sophia chose that moment to look up.

  Seeing her, my heart caught in my throat. This was not the pallid girl of Windsor Castle, with pained eyes and thin, pinched lips. No, this Sophia was utterly changed—her hair wild and free, her face bright with heat and excitement, her torn lavender gown draping off her shoulder to bare an expanse of flushed porcelain skin.

  “Beatrice!” she cried, and peeled away from her young man to fling herself through the open space toward me. I caught her easily as she flew into my arms, and immediately smelled the sharp, sweet spice of mulled wine.

  I raised my eyes heavenward even as I grappled with Sophia, her body slewing around in my grasp.

  She was drunk.

  “Who thought it was a good idea to give this girl wine?” I demanded, not bothering to introduce myself. With Sophia calling me by name, this troupe would know I was the daughter of the lord who owned this land. I might not have remembered them, but chances were good that they’d remember me.

  “It’s really good!” Sophia gasped, then hiccuped. Two men stepped forward—well, a father and son, I could see at a glance. The older man looked to be in his fifties, and his hair was a perfect mane the color of steel. He wore peasant garb, a loose-fitting jacket and breeches. But a bright-colored silk scarf fluttered at his neck, and his manner proclaimed him Egyptian royalty. This would be the leader of their group, but I didn’t recognize him. Of course, I’d been perhaps nine years old the last time I’d seen a Traveler this close.

  “Lady Beatrice Knowles,” the leader spoke, and though I didn’t recognize his face, the voice caught me up short. That I remembered. This man had sung to me when I was a child, and his voice had been a thing of beauty. “I am—”

  “Stefan Behari,” I said, the name surfacing from the depths of memory I had thought long since covered over and forgotten. I looked then to his son. “And you must be Nicolai?”

  The young man scowled at me, his eyes fixed on Sophia, but the older man grinned broadly and clapped his hands together. “She remembers! The proper lady all grown up remembers a poor tinker, who knew naught but to sing for his supper all those years ago.”

  “Your supper and food for your entire troupe, if I remember now,” I said, jostling Sophia to one side. “What did you give her?” I asked again.

  “Not much at all, in truth.” It was Nicolai who spoke, and his voice carried the same resonant timbre as his father’s. The idea that these two might sing together thrilled me to the bone, despite the fact that I was still manhandling Sophia to keep her from falling flat on her face. “She took the merest sip of wine, and spilled some on her gown, but she came to us already in a state, like a wild fawn out of the woods.”

  “No mere fawn.” The father took up the tale, and the two of them now regarded Sophia as if she were a woodland goddess. “She is a creature of Sight and magic, whose vision far exceeds her understanding.” His gaze shifted to me. “She is of your company?”

  “She is,” I said. “And she has been missing for nearly a full day. I have to get her back to the Hall—and you should have a care, Master Stefan. You know better than to call such attention to yourselves. You will be caught out, and there are many who would suffer for it.”

  “Not the least the grand Knowleses of Northampton?” Stefan said, his words the slightest sneer.

  “Well, yes. We might be beheaded. But what would happen after is of more account,” I said coolly. I didn’t much like Stefan Behari, for all his lovely voice and roguish manner. “Without my father, my mother would die; if she herself escaped the axe. Without my parents, our household would scatter. The children returned to their holdings, the servants forced to seek work elsewhere in some grand house already filled with a staff of its own. Without the oversight of the Hall, the village would suffer, the land would founder, the animals would wander. You and yours with any luck would be on your way, traveling to a new location to take up residence and trade or tinker. But you would leave behind a land much worse for the time you spent here.”

  “And so, what? You would ask us to flee?” Stefan bristled. “You would ask us to be deported and uproot our families and our way of life, maligned and mistreated wherever we roam?”

  I’d heard this argument a thousand times. I hoisted Sophia higher in my arms. “No, Stefan Behari. I would merely ask you to be sensible. To not light a hundred lanterns and dance a merry jig in the middle of a silent forest when a household full of the Queen’s men lies sleeping not two miles away.”

  He shrugged. “The movements of your royalty are of no concern to us. We live our lives but freely, harming none. And without our aid you would never have been able to board and bed your precious Queen.”

  “Well I know it,” I said grimly. My father had doubtless come tearing back to Marion Hall from Windsor Castle to find what had to have been an un-provisioned household and a poorly prepared staff. “Were you compensated for your time, your services, and your goods? Did my father deal with you fairly?”

  “He was as fair as ever,” Stefan said easily. “His need was great, but he knew it. That makes for easy bargaining, and his gold is ever fine.”

  I frowned at his mention of gold. “Well, then, you have no reason to risk that bounty, do you?” Looking around at the ruddy faces, the ready grins despite our intrusion on their celebration, I suspected several casks of village ale had traded hands as well as any coin or clothing needed by the clan; Father certainly had precious few trinkets to trade. “You could at least help the man keep his head.”

  “We cannot live but that we dance; we cannot move but to the music.” This wasn’t Stefan who spoke now but Nicolai, who strode forward to me boldly and reached for Sophia. I could feel Alasdair bristling behind me, but the Scot held his peace as the young Traveler gathered Sophia up in his arms. “Sophia came into our midst as a gift, and as a gift she must be returned. But her protection by the Rom only begins this day, Lady Beatrice, it does not end. She too easily slipped through your fingers; you must have a greater care for her.”

  I watched Sophia snuggle into Nicolai’s arms, and I wond
ered how much of this day the girl would remember—and how much of this boy. He was a tall and striking young man, perhaps the handsomest of their lot I had ever seen. His black hair was worn long and cascaded to his shoulders in a thick, silken mane, and his skin was lighter than his father’s, almost olive-toned. He wore a brilliant blue tunic over his black breeches, and a red scarf at his neck. Now his piercing blue eyes challenged me.

  “Did she speak to you of what she saw?” I asked.

  “She spoke of many things,” Stefan interrupted Nicolai’s half-formed response, his words repressive. Their eyes met, and the tension in the air was palpable. “But she was out of her head with the spirits that clamor to communicate through her, as she is coming into her own. We helped give her ways to read what was truth and what were her own fears and anxieties. Her relief was great, as you see.” The older man’s eyes softened as his gaze shifted back to Sophia. “She is almost too rare to let go.”

  Beside me Jane’s hand stole to her belt, Meg tensed, and even Anna tilted her head, no doubt calculating our odds of taking on this group ourselves. We were outnumbered, though not necessarily outmatched, but Nicolai shifted. “I will carry Sophia to where you’ve kept your horses,” he said. “And give you safe harbor out of the forest.”

  I managed to keep myself from reminding him that it was my forest, not his. Instead, I merely nodded. “I thank you for it,” I said, and I turned, startled to find that Alasdair had moved from the back of our group to stand just behind me, his sturdy solidity a welcome change from the fluid grace of the Travelers.

  “A gift! She must have a gift!’

  A tiny, white-haired woman burst into the circle, wrapped up in a vivid yellow dress that fluttered out behind her in a swath of heavy silk. In her hands she held a small package wrapped up with paper and string, but as she approached us, she saw immediately that Sophia had fallen fast asleep. “Her light, it burns so brightly,” she chirped, and her lined face creased into a toothless smile that quite unnerved me. “Would that it never go out.”

  Then she turned to me, and that smile instantly hardened, as if she had judged me and I’d been found wanting. “You shall give this to her when she wakes,” she said, and it was not a question. “Do not unwrap it. It is for the girl alone, not for the likes of you.”

  Irritation flashed up and over me, but I just wanted to be gone from this place.

  “Of course,” I murmured. The woman bustled up and shoved the gift at me. I took it, marveling at its weight for such a small package, and felt the rough surface of the woman’s palms as she pressed her hands against mine.

  “Ah!” she cried out, cackling, her beady eyes seeming to stare straight through me. “You too shall know great loss and misery, such pain as you had never thought. On your knees in darkness, no one to save you then.” She stood back, gloating at me, and her words seem to brand themselves on my very bones. “You’ll get what you deserve.”

  I reared back from her, too startled to even gasp.

  “We must away.” Jane’s stern voice sounded in my ear, too loud, and I felt her hands upon me, turning me, urging me out of the circle of light and music and horror, as the sound of the old woman’s laughter followed us into the wood.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Getting Sophia onto a horse was more problematic than it should have been.

  The short walk back to the horses went smoothly enough. Nicolai stalked through the woods without missing a step, despite the fact that Sophia alternated between dozing against his chest and murmuring strange half sentences about dreams and death and danger.

  Anna and Meg walked closely behind them, and I knew that Meg was doing her level best to memorize everything the girl said, with Anna beside her to serve as a second, more discerning, pair of ears. This was Meg’s gift, after all—her perfect recall of any conversation, in any language, whether she understood it or not. Though some of what Sophia was muttering bordered on madness, between Anna and Meg, they’d puzzle out Sophia’s words once we’d gotten her safely home.

  Jane ranged ahead, and Alasdair brought up the back of our troupe. He and I didn’t speak, but I was glad for his presence. The words of the old woman rocked me in a way I knew they shouldn’t have. She was an ancient crone, a soothsayer, and I had irritated her by interrupting the music and dance she’d no doubt enjoyed very much. I was her enemy, English and titled, and she had every right to dislike me on sight. Her curse was nothing so much as a jumble of words sewn together to frighten me.

  And, well, it had worked.

  I worried Sophia’s gift nervously in my hands as I moved through the brush, close enough behind Meg and Anna that I did not have to watch so carefully where I stepped.

  What did the woman say, exactly? I would have to get Meg to repeat it for me. Something about knowing misery and fear, about being on my knees, alone and unwanted. It was nigh unto my worst nightmare, so I had to give the old witch that. She’d known exactly what to say to cause me the greatest amount of misery.

  A branch cracked behind me, and I jumped, recovering only slightly when I felt Alasdair’s firm hand upon my shoulder. “Keep the pace, my lady,” he said, removing his hand as soon as I had regained my footing. I found I missed the warm solidity of his grasp immediately. “We’re almost there.”

  “I know we’re almost there,” I groused. “Stop crowding me.”

  Obligingly Alasdair slowed his steps, and I trudged along through the wood with my temper steadily worsening. All around me people did exactly what I asked of them, even if—especially if—it took them away from me. Now even Alasdair was doing it. He didn’t try to override me, ask what was wrong, or give me comfort. No. He dropped back as if he were glad to be rid of my company. As if staying for another second so close to me would have been too tiresome to endure. As if I were a chore.

  My own words came back to haunt me during those last few minutes before we gained the horses. I had expressed my derision about Alasdair to Walsingham, and Alasdair had heard me. But rather than confront me, allow me to explain, or even publicly denounce me, he contented himself with following me at a distance through the underbrush, staring holes into the back of my gown.

  Then we were in the clearing with the elder groom and one of the Traveler men, a dark-eyed worthy who looked half-inclined to steal the horses rather than ensure their safe passage. The groom seemed at his ease; my family and our servants had worked alongside the Travelers for far too long to rest on ceremony in the middle of the wood.

  Still, it quickly became clear that Sophia would not be able to ride in her condition. She lolled in Nicolai’s arms as he came to a halt before the horses and eyed the groom. “You will carry her back?” he asked.

  “No.” Alasdair stepped forward now. “I am stronger. Sophia may awaken and spook the horses. I will carry her.”

  Nicolai had swung around when Alasdair had begun speaking, and now the two glared at each other in the darkness. “Step lively, then,” Jane said, and I heard her take her mount. “We’ve all been missing too long. Well and good that we’ve found Sophia, but if we don’t get her back quickly, there will be too much to explain by half.”

  I strode forth and positioned myself between Alasdair and Nicolai, who still clutched Sophia as if he were afraid to let her go. As soon as I drew near, Alasdair stepped away, turning to tighten the cinches on the saddle of his warhorse, before stepping up into the stirrups and swinging himself over the beast’s back. He circled his horse around toward us, but still the young Traveler did not move.

  “Nicolai Behari,” I said gently, reaching out to place my left hand on his arm. My right hand still held the gypsy’s gift, and it was all I could do not to hurl it into the shadows. Instead I patted the young Egyptian awkwardly. “You have my word. Sophia will be as safe as I can make her.”

  Nicolai’s full upper lip curled. “What is the word of an Englisher to me, when you do not even understand the treasure you have in your own midst?” he said, his tone low and almost pet
ulant. “You would just as soon my people leave your land, never to return.”

  He had a point, but now was not the time to honor it. “You may remain in Salcey Forest as long as you are able, Nicolai, but tonight we must away. Let Alasdair carry Sophia back for us, that we might keep a fast pace,” I said. “I assure you we will get her safely home.”

  “She will never be safely home in the middle of your English court,” muttered Nicolai, but he turned to Alasdair, offering up Sophia like a benediction. Alasdair leaned over and took the girl with equal deference, his hold on her protective and solicitous, and I felt a curious tightness in my chest.

  I held my place, however, until Nicolai finally released Sophia’s trailing hand and turned back to me. “She is very special,” he said, his words so soft that only I could hear them. “Try to make sure no one realizes it, or she will never be free.”

  We shared a long moment of silence. Then I nodded.

  “I will,” I said.

  Nicolai helped me up onto my own horse, waiting for me to settle into the sidesaddle before he stepped away. By the time I glanced back as we rode out of the clearing, he had already melted into the forest.

  We arrived back at Marion Hall without anyone raising the alarm. Anna and Jane took a still-sleeping Sophia out of Alasdair’s arms, but when repeated attempts to rouse the girl were not met with success, it was quickly agreed that he should carry her into the house. If any of us were stopped, we’d have to make something up and quickly, but with any luck only the servants were still awake.

  Alasdair seemed strangely disquieted by this last leg of our journey, his words now clipped and short, his manner rushed. This was just as well, however. We needed speed now most of all, and I was glad for him to hasten our steps.