Wicked

by Jill Barnett

  “Hie, there, Ned!” Alan shouted her lad’s name, cheering her on as he passed his broad-brimmed hat, gathering coins from the small crowd gathered around her. She had told Alan and the others that her name was Edward, a lie that gave her no little amusement, since she was certain that the King, and her namesake, had most certainly ordered her found.

  She was cavorting rather well. The bells on her shoes were tingling and her confidence was high enough that she was just about ready to add the fourth ball.

  Then something hit her. Hard. Slammed right into her legs. She flew sideways, and sprawled facedown on the cobbled street. She caught her lost breath and inhaled mud and stink and whatever else was beneath her face and nose.

  Through a daze of stunned pain, she heard laughter from the small crowd and a curious snorting sound.

  Someone was nudging her ear.

  She shook her head and pebbles flew every which way. She spit once, then looked up.

  She was staring at a pig, nose to snout; it snorted in her face, then pressed its cold, damp snout to her muddy cheek as if it were giving her a kiss. The crowd laughed even harder.

  “Get away from me, you fat swine!” She batted at the air in front of the pig and pushed herself upright, while the crowd kept on laughing loud and heartily. They began to toss more pennies into Alan’s hat than they had with her fine juggling act, a fact that aggravated her to no end.

  She was bruised and aching, but her pride was hurt more than her body. She really had wanted to add that fourth ball. She turned, scowling, and watched as the pig trotted innocently down the street where a whole heard of swine milled and poked and grunted along, getting under carts and knocking people sideways.

  Alan walked over and held out a hand. “I should have warned you about the wild pigs. A country lad, like yourself, would not know how they plague the streets of London. Damn things are ’round every corner.”

  She stood, scowling at the pigs and then at her filthy clothes. “I truly wanted to try that fourth ball.”

  Alan laughed and clamped an arm around her shoulder, then gave it a squeeze. “Stop sulking. We leave tonight for Hereford. You can try your fourth ball there, me muddy lad.” Then Alan moved toward the others and began to tell his latest tale.

  Sofia swiped at the back of her tunic with a bare hand. She was covered in mud. She gave up and shuffled along, picking up her wooden balls and tucking them into a sack slung on her back, then she made her way along the street to where the wagons were waiting and a crowd of children were gathered around the bear cage, poking and prodding and trying to make him growl.

  Satan, a silly name for the dancing bear, who happened to be the most placid animal Sofia had ever seen, made the King’s sleeping dogs look ferocious. He would not growl, and most times, would not dance either. Bernard had stolen him when he was only a cub and his mother was killed in a bear baiting ring. But Satan was as much a part of the troupe as were the others.

  They left London later that very same night, traveling in a long wagon shaped like a sausage, with wide doors and small curtained windows. Bernard drove a wagon with a tent made of canvas and pulled Satan’s wheeled cage along behind him while the bear slept. The long wagon rocked and rolled along the hills and roads outside of London, and Sofia slept easily inside as they headed northeast and far, far away from all that she had left behind.

  At Leeds, all hell had broken loose. King Edward was so angry he wanted to put a price on Sofia’s head. He claimed that would have most of the country looking for her before she got herself killed. He liked that idea because then she would be back in days, he said, and he could kill her himself.

  But the Queen would not allow him to put a price on her and made him see that to do so would truly jeopardize Sofia’s safety.

  Tobin convinced him that since the betrothal was final, she was now his responsibility. His alone. He swore on his sword that he would find her and bring her home.

  But Edward and Eleanor were leaving soon for Camrose Castle, in the Welsh Marches, where they were to attend to the christening of Earl Merrick’s newest son and Edward’s godchild. This was a welcome relief to Tobin, for he preferred to look for Sofia himself, with only his men and not the added complication of having the King’s men along, too. Tobin was certain that only because of the King’s trip had Edward agreed to let him do all the searching for Sofia.

  And search he did.

  Tobin and his men had been looking for her for nigh on half a week. They had scoured the countryside around Leeds. His men had questioned all who passed by and one small clue had sent them off toward Canterbury on a wild goose chase.

  Day moved into night, and night into day, and still there was nothing. No sign. No word. No clue. It was as if she had disappeared in a puff of smoke. They were off toward London, where he knew anyone could hide and not be found for years.

  It was late afternoon when the skies had darkened, almost nightfall when it began to pour. Pounding and unrelenting rain turned the road sloggy and slowed their progress. He and his men were soaked to the bone when they came over a rise outside Rochester. Tobin knew he had to finally let his men rest. They stopped at an inn, but he did not sleep, could not sleep. He lay there thinking of all the things that could happen to Sofia. She was such a fool, so young and naïve. For all her pluck and sauciness, she was still young and ripe for someone, almost anyone, to harm.

  He turned onto his side and punched the lumpy mattress a few times to try to get more comfortable.

  But he could not.

  The truth was, he did not want to be here in this bed. He wanted to find her. He wanted to be on his mount and combing the countryside. He wanted a sign from God or from somewhere so he knew she was alive and safe and just causing trouble, not in trouble.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath through his nose, then he exhaled slowly. It was a technique he used before battle, something to calm him down. His emotions ran deep and had always caused him the most problems. But he did not know how to change that. He felt what he felt.

  Earl Merrick always told him that his pride and his temper were the things that would get him into trouble. He had to learn to control what Merrick said were his youthful emotions.

  Tobin hated it when Merrick was right.

  So he lay there feeling helpless and angry and scared. He had not worried this much since the time Sir Roger de Clare had disappeared almost from under his very nose. And he did not particularly like Roger. As it turned out, Roger had been harmed. He was hanged in the forest and left to die, until he was found by a wild young woman named Teleri, who was now Sir Roger’s wife.

  What if Sofia were hanged?

  Tobin tossed and turned and muttered a curse. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face, saw it the way he had last seen it: the proud lift of her chin and her complete control when he had foolishly told her the trumped-up reasons why he was marrying her.

  He had lied. He had lied to her, and he was probably lying to himself. The truth was he did not know what he felt. Except confused. He was always confused when he was around her. And every time she left him he felt as if he had done something wrong . . . again. It was almost a pattern. She was there and he did or said something idiotic. His words to her had come straight from his ego and pride. He could not speak from his heart, because he was certain he did not have one.

  But he had pride. Pride was a difficult thing; it could color how you viewed a situation and make something completely stupid seem like the right thing to do. Pride had made him say what he had said to her.

  Both his pride and hers.

  And when he closed his eyes to finally sleep his last thought was this: he did not know who he was angrier at, her or himself.

  Chapter 14

  “Aye!” Alan shouted to the crowded tavern room, waving his arm and bowing before them. “We will perform for our supper!” He took out his lute and began to play and stroll around the warm room, with its huge fire and the oil torches on the plaster
walls. Alan sang a rowdy and amusing tale, one of a fishwife and her poor henpecked husband.

  The serving maids stopped serving and just watched, tapping their feet to the melody. Everyone in the room was listening and laughing to the amusing words.

  Sofia sat at a table with Miranda and the children. Bernard was outside, seeing to Satan in his cage near the stables behind the inn. Sofia had learned on her first day with the troupe that entertainers performed for everything. For meals, for lodging and for coins, for bear food, whatever the situation called for.

  Tonight was no different. The tavern was filled with travelers and local villeins. The place was warm and fairly clean. There was soot on the walls from the huge fireplace and the tables were not greasy, at least the buxom serving maids wiped them off once in a while.

  Alan finished his bawdy tale and the patrons laughed.

  The tavern mistress, who stood behind the bar next to the ale kegs, turned her pink face and looked at Sofia. “So lad. What sort of trick do you do?”

  Sofia stood and puffed out her chest the way men did when they boasted. She swung the sack of wooden balls from her shoulders and hopped up on the table top, then she swaggered back and forth, poking her chest with her thumb. “I juggle. Four balls!” She took out two balls, then held one up in the air and tossed it high. She tossed the second ball after it, then jauntily caught both.

  “Four balls?” the woman scratched her chins and said, “Ain’t never seen no one throw four balls. Tell you what. I’ll feed you all, everyone in the troupe, plus that huge bear if you can juggle four balls to the count of fifty!”

  Alan looked at her and winked.

  “Fifty? Hmmph!” Sofia said with a cocky wave of her hand. “’Tis nothing!”

  “Then let us see you perform, laddie!”

  “Aye!” Came the shouts. “Perform!”

  “Throw yer balls high, laddie!”

  Sofia swept a deep bow, then threw one ball up, then the next. She moved up and down the table top, her feet swift and easy. She had become fairly proficient at this. And she liked the challenge of it, the motion and quickness.

  She added a third ball and the room cheered. She moved her hands faster and faster. Her feet, too.

  “Go, lad! Go!” Came the calls.

  She grinned, then tossed the balls high, and leapt from the table onto the bar top. The tavern mistress laughed and clapped her hands as Sofia danced up and down the top and tossed her balls higher and higher.

  “I only see three balls, laddie!” Someone shouted.

  A second later Sofia was juggling all four balls and shouting, “Count! Count!”

  And count they did. The whole room was counting.

  “Ten . . . ”

  “Eleven . . . ”

  “Twelve!”

  The balls flew from her hands and in bigger and bigger circles in front of her eyes and over her head, her hands tossing them with a confidence she had never yet had.

  “Thirty!” came the call.

  She threw the balls higher.

  The crowd began to clap with each number. “Forty-two!”

  “Forty-three!”

  “Forty-four!”

  She was almost there. Almost.

  “Forty-seven!”

  She tossed the balls up and in a flash, grabbed the falling ball and threw it up behind her back . . . a new trick!

  “Forty-nine!”

  She shifted. One step back, then reached out . . .

  The ball should have come down.

  She frowned.

  Where is the ball?

  That was her last conscious thought.

  In the distance, Tobin spotted the warm and welcoming lights of an inn on the edge of a small, sleepy village. He had split up his men, each group taking a different road. They had been riding long and hard, searching with little success. He raised his hand high and signaled toward the lights ahead. Before long they rode up to a small, stone tavern with a wooden sign that hung by one hinge and flapped in the gusty wind.

  Tobin’s man, Captain Parcin, pounded on the door and soon their horses were stabled and Tobin and his men were inside, where a smoky but blessedly warm fire blazed brightly in the huge fireplace. The place was small but clean and soon the alewife who ran the place had her wenches serve them a hearty mutton stew and crusty brown bread, along with foaming tankards of ale.

  Tobin sat at a table before the fire with his feet propped on the hearth, trying to think like Sofia. A futile effort.

  He was worried, for it made no sense that she could disappear the way she had. She was not that wise in the ways of the outside world. He hoped to God she had not met up with the wrong person. She could be raped and lying dead in some distant woods for all he knew.

  He took a long swig of ale, then stared at the golden flames of fire as if there were answers waiting for him there. His anger was almost gone now, he knew, because the truth was he was just plain worried, certain that something dire had befallen Sofia when it had been his duty to protect her.

  And he had failed.

  He took another drink, then wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand and started to reach for a piece of bread. A buxom wench with a head full of light blond hair had been twitching her bottom in front of him long enough for him to take notice. Now she leaned down near his shoulder and brushed her breasts across his cheek while she refilled his tankard.

  He glanced up at her, surprised to see she had a dairymaid’s skin and all of her teeth.

  “If there be anything else ye’d like, sir, all ye haf ta do is ask Gunnie, here.” She drew her hand slowly over his shoulder.

  Three of the other wenches began to giggle and whisper and wink at some of his men, men who had just a while ago been exhausted and cold, now looked willing and ready for a full night of pleasure. The women began to choose men and some sat in their laps and began to giggle and flirt.

  Gunnie started to move away but Tobin grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “Tell me who has been in the inn in the last week.”

  “Lemme see . . . ” She rubbed her pointed chin for a moment, then said, “I worked most every day this week. There were the usual lot. A few farmers taking their goods to market in the city. The regular one who always stops here. We had one Italian merchant and his wife, they barely spoke the King’s English. There was Tinker John.”

  “Who is Tinker John?”

  “He travels the countryside.”

  “Anyone with him?”

  She shook her head. “That one always travels alone, he does. Odd duck.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged, “Just is. Doesn’t say much. Strange eyes.”

  He could almost see Sofia spotting a tinker and climbing into his wagon. “Where was he headed this time?”

  “Surrey or Gloucester, can’t remember which.” She turned. “Hey, Bess? Where was Tinker John headed this trip?”

  “Surrey!” A plump girl with blond curls and big teeth called out.

  “Aye, I was half right.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Just those pilgrims came through last night, oh, I almost forgot. Friar Francis with his choir boys.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Hmmm, say ten or so. Every last one of ‘em had voices like angels, they did. Each sang a solo hymn for their meal. ’Twas like heaven right here in the Old Keg and Boar.”

  That pretty much ruled out Sofia. Tobin had heard her hum and that had been enough.

  Parcin leaned closer and asked quietly, “Are you thinking she was with them?”

  Tobin shook his head. “With the voice of an angel? I don’t think so. She could easily have been with the tinker or stowed on his wagon. That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “Hey, Gunnie!” Bess called out. “Remember the juggler?”

  Gunnie began to laugh in a huge, bellowing laugh, and the other women and even the alewife herself were laughing with her. Gunnie slapped herself in head and said, “How could I forge
t him?” She turned back to Tobin. “A small band of performers, a jongleur and rope walkers. They had this dancing bear with them. The bear didn’t dance for us. All he did was sleep. But what was the best was this tall laddie who kept trying to juggle for his meal. He stood right up there on the bar and tossed them wooden balls high in the air. He was doing real fine, he was, dancing and hopping and then he got cocky, added a fourth wooden ball, then threw ‘em too high. Well, he missed. Them’s hard balls. Knocked himself out cold.” She broke into laughter again. “Dropped like a rock, he did.”

  Tobin straightened and exchanged a knowing look with Parcin. “Was the lad about this high, slim, with black hair that stuck out from his head?”

  “Aye, that be him. And he had these strange colored eyes, he did. Purple they was. Never seen purple eyes before. Was a spunky lad, at least he was until he went down.”

  Tobin stood and grabbed his cloak. “Did they say where they were going?”

  “Northeast. The singer was talking to a messenger who told him about some birthing celebration in the Marches, Glamorgan, I think. A place where performers could pick up a pretty penny for a few days work. When they left, carrying out that poor laddie, I heard ‘em say they was headed that way.”

  Sofia would not go with them to Glamorgan, that he knew. Tobin tossed some coins on the table and turned to Parcin. “Get the men ready. We’re riding out now.”

  Tobin went to the door and opened it. The wind had died down and it was dark but he knew they had to ride quickly, even if they did so by torchlight.

  Parcin stood. “Get yourselves up and mounted. We’re to north this night.”

  “Got what I want to mount right here in my lap,” one of the men said.

  There were quiet moans and groans from the others and the serving wenches were whining among themselves.

  Tobin turned in the doorway and looked back at them. He eyed the serving wenches, then looked back at his men. “If you can fuck, you can ride.” Then he walked out.

  Chapter 15