by Jane Feather
Miranda returned to the table, but her appetite had gone. "I'll just go and see if he's still in the kitchen yard."
Gareth nodded amiably and took up his tankard again.
A piercing scream brought him to his feet, knocking his tankard over, dropping his knife to the table. He was halfway to the door to the kitchen before he realized that the scream was not human, and he was through the door before the animal shrieks were joined by Miranda's no longer melodious tones. She was yelling, wordlessly, but at such an extreme pitch of rage and pain that the sound went through his head like a knife.
He raced through the kitchen, pushing through the circle of gawping kitchen folk crowding the door. In the yard, he stopped. Chip was screaming in high-pitched terror, a burning brand tied to his tail. He was running round and round in panicked circles as Miranda tried to capture him amid a group of laughing louts pelting both the petrified animal and the girl with stones and lumps of horse dung.
"Miranda, you won't catch him if you don't stop screaming!" Gareth ran forward, catching her shoulders. "Speak to him calmly."
"But he's on fire," she cried, tears pouring down her cheeks, her face white, her lips even whiter.
Gareth swung sideways, picked up the bucket by the pump, and hurled the contents over the screaming monkey. Then in almost the same movement he turned on the convulsed louts. He had his sword in one hand and with his other he was unbuckling his belt before anyone understood what was happening. Then he was in the middle of the group of ruffians, the flat of his sword swinging in one arc, his thick studded belt in another, and now the lads were screaming to rival the monkey, racing to escape this devil of vengeance and the agonizing cuts of steel and leather.
They were gone in a squealing, earsplitting scramble like so many stuck pigs and Gareth's arms slowly ceased their windmill action. He rebuckled his sword belt, sheathed his weapon, and came over to Miranda, who, calmer now, had managed to catch the sodden Chip and removed the brand from his tail. She was cradling him in her arms as she examined his singed fur.
She raised her tear-stained face to Gareth and her eyes were brightly vengeful as she said with ringing triumph, "Oh, you really thrashed them! But I wish they hadn't escaped so soon."
Gareth, who could guess how much damage he'd inflicted in a rage more violent than any he'd experienced in many a long year, thought they had probably escaped in the nick of time. But he said only, "How is he?"
"Just a little charred fur. He's more terrified than anything. How could they do such a thing?" Her eyes filled with tears again. "I'm sorry I was stupid. I should have thought to throw the water… but I couldn't think clearly."
"No, that's hardly surprising," he said, reaching to brush a lock of hair, sticky with tears, from her cheek. "Bring him inside now."
The monkey pushed his head out of the sheltering curve of Miranda's arm and surveyed his rescuer with glittering eyes that Gareth would have sworn had tears in them. The monkey chattered softly, lifting one small scrawny hand toward the earl.
"He's saying thank you," Miranda interpreted and Gareth, for all his skepticism, was inclined to believe her. "He'll always trust you. He'll be your friend forever now," she said.
"How lucky can I get?" Gareth murmured and was rewarded with a watery smile before she returned to soothing the still-quivering Chip. Her head was bent, her glowing hair parting on her nape to swing behind her ears. Gareth, in a manner rapidly becoming familiar, put a hand on her shoulder to urge her inside. Then he stood immobile, staring down at the pale slender column of her exposed neck. His hand moved from her upper arm to her neck, his fingers tracing the tiny silvery crescent mark tucked up against her hairline.
"How did you get this?"
"Get what?" She raised her head against the warm clasp of his fingers, twisting to look at him over her shoulder.
"This little crescent mark. It's a scar of some kind." He moved her head around again, bending her neck so he could look more closely. The blood was suddenly racing in his veins.
Miranda reached behind her neck, trying to feel what he was talking about. "I don't know what it is. I've never seen it… not having eyes in the back of my head," she added with a tiny laugh that did nothing to disguise her sudden unease. She could feel his tension in the fingers on her neck and she began to have the unpleasant sensation that, all unknowing, she had been carrying some deforming stigma around with her all her life.
"You don't recall ever cutting your neck, falling perhaps?"
"No." She shook her head. "Whatever it is must be a part of my skin. Is it very nasty-looking?" She tried to sound indifferent, casual, but there was a residual quiver to her voice.
"Not in the least," he said swiftly. "It's very tiny and hidden by your hair most of the time." He took his hand away and she raised her head, her hair swinging back over her neck. "Come, let's be on our way."
But he paused in the yard as she went ahead of him back to the inn. It was extraordinary. He knew now with absolute certainty that the itinerant acrobat was very much more than Maude's look-alike.
Chapter Five
Dover's town gaol was a gloomy place even on a bright August morning. Only a thin shaft of daylight penetrated the dark cell from a barred slit high up on the wall. Mama Gertrude eased her substantial frame away from the slimy damp stone wall at her back as the first spike of light told her that the long cold night was finally over. She shivered, drawing her shawl closer around her shoulders, silently counting the huddled bodies on the filthy straw covering the mud floor. The checking comforted her, although she knew perfectly well that none of her companions would have melted through the thick stone walls overnight.
A stinking open drain ran down the middle of the cell, a wooden pail in the corner served as commode. There were no other amenities, not a stick of furniture.
They were all there, except for Miranda. It wasn't the first time the troupe had spent a night in gaol, picked up for vagrancy, or on suspicion of thieving. But on this occasion, it was Miranda's fault. Miranda and her monkey. As far as Gertrude could gather, the missing pair had caused a hue and cry in the town but had managed somehow to evade the pursuit. As a result, their confederates had been rounded up just as they were to take ship back to Calais and shoved into this reeking hole as consolation prize for the irate citizens of Dover.
Bert coughed, hawked into the open drain, and sat up. "God's death, how did we get into this?"
"We'll be out soon enough," Gertrude said. "They can't 'old us without charges, and there's no charges they can lay agin any of us. Whatever Miranda was up to, we weren't there."
"She wouldn't 'ave been thieving," Bert declared, struggling to his feet, his whole body protesting after its hours on the hard damp floor.
" 'Course not, but that's no
t goin' to stop 'em charging 'er." This was from Raoul, the strongman, who flexed his mighty biceps and stood up, towering over the small group. " They'll charge 'er an' find 'er guilty without the girl ever openin' her mouth. In cahoots wi' the monkey is what they'll say."
Robbie whimpered. "Will they hang M'randa?"
" They'd 'ave to catch 'er first, laddie," Raoul said.
"And Miranda's quicker than an eel," Luke put in with a touch of vicarious pride. He drew himself upright, his long skinny body straightening like a piece of string. "If they haven't caught her by now, they won't. And if they had, we'd know about it."
"Aye," Raoul agreed, relieving himself at the bucket. "But we're still in a pretty pickle. They want to bring us afore the magistrate wi' a charge of vagrancy, an' we'll all be whipped through the town square, an' count ourselves lucky to escape slit noses."
Robbie snuffled and massaged his foot, which was aching unbearably.
"It's the bleedin' monkey I blame," a voice muttered from a far corner. "Should 'ave wrung its neck when the girl first picked it up."
Gertrude laughed, a massive booming sound in the small space, and her huge flopping bosom quivered like an unset jelly. "I'd like to 'ave seen you take it away from Miranda, Jebediah! You didn't see what she did to the organ grinder what was mistreatin' it. Railed at him like a regular fishwife, she did, then tipped up his barrel organ and threw a bucket of slops all over 'im when he come after 'er."
"Oh, aye, quite a sight that was," Bert reminisced. "You don't want to get on the wrong side of our Miranda when 'er pity's raised."
"Well, I'll be glad to see the fight o' day, and no mistake," Jebediah muttered. "An' if it means givin' up the monkey to the law, then you'll not 'ear a peep outta me."
The turnkey's heavy footfall brought an end to the conversation as their heads turned as one toward the massive wooden door with its small barred insert.
The nag looked even sorrier in the bright morning light than he had the previous evening and Gareth had serious doubts how far he'd get with his double load as well as the luggage before he was winded. Certainly not the seventy-odd miles to London.
The pillion cloth was moth-eaten but Miranda had refused the horsehair pad, complaining that the bristles sticking through the canvas were like porcupine's spikes. She now balanced easily behind Gareth on the animal's withers as they rode out of the stable yard, but there was something ominous about her present preoccupation.
"I do hate being cheated," she said eventually, as he turned the horse away from the town up the steep path leading to the castle and the clifftop.
Gareth sighed. He'd been wondering if that was behind her silence. The owner of the livery stable, a one-eyed ex-mariner with a head as bald as an egg, had blatantly overcharged his noble customer for the nag and the pillion cloth. Gareth had heard Miranda's sharply indrawn breath but he had had no interest in arguing pennies with an unsavory cheat. The man would expect the wealthy gentleman to bear the cost without demur. It was one of the unspoken social rules of their world.
"It was a relatively small sum," Gareth pointed out.
"Not to everyone," Miranda said, so softly that it could almost have been to herself.
Gareth felt an absurd flash of discomfiture. Wryly he acknowledged that Miranda's point of view would be vastly different from his own.
The nag stumbled over a loose stone on the steep path leading up to the sprawl of Dover castle on the clifftop. Instinctively, Gareth put one hand behind him to steady Miranda.
"I'm in no danger of falling, milord," she said. "Perhaps I should dismount and walk up." The nag's breathing was growing more labored and without waiting for his response Miranda suited action to words. She jumped down and sprang ahead of them up the path, kilting her skirt to free her leather-clad legs. She neither walked nor ran, Gareth thought. It was more of a dancing progress. Chip had jumped from her arms and was pursuing his own erratic path upward, leaping from stone to stone, pausing frequently to examine some object that had caught his eye.
Watching Miranda's quicksilver movements, the glow of her hair as the wind swept it back from her face, the grace and agility of her slender frame, Gareth began to question whether this deception would work.
Anyone who had seen and known Maude would never be taken in.
If Miranda was to take Maude's place with Henry, then Henry must never lay eyes upon Maude during his courtship visit. It was fortunate that Maude had never been to court. Miranda must make Maude's debut before Henry arrived. Those close to the family who knew Maude to be a wan, reclusive invalid would somehow have to be persuaded of the transformation. That would be Imogen's task. One she would undoubtedly be up to.
Henry had said to expect him before Michaelmas, a mere five weeks away. Could Miranda be prepared in such a short time? But of course she could. She was born a d'Albard and such birth and lineage would come easily to the fore. She seemed adaptable and had a sharp wit; she would take to the new life like a duck to water, he was certain of it.
He watched her stride ahead up the path. They were in the shadow of the castle walls now and he knew they would be under observation from the square towers of the inner bailey. Not that a man on a winded nag would pose much of a threat. The lord of Dover castle was an old acquaintance, and if he hadn't had Miranda in tow Gareth would have claimed hospitality in the form of dinner and the loan of a decent horse. But Miranda couldn't be easily explained, not without risking his secret.
She stopped at the head of the path and stood shading her eyes, gazing out at the view stretched below them. The town clustering against the cliffs, the peaceful waters of Paradise Harbor, the white-flecked waves of the sea beyond.
"I've never been to London," she said as he came up beside her.
It seemed to come out of the blue but he understood that she was looking toward France, twenty miles across the water to where all the family she had ever known would soon be landing. He detected a sheen of tears in her eyes as she looked up at him. But Miranda was a d'Albard, not a strolling player anymore, and she must leave the past behind.
"Then it's time you tasted the pleasures of the metropolis," he said bracingly. "Come. The path is straight now and this beast can carry us both." He leaned down, offering her a hand.
Miranda took it and settled behind him, whistling again for Chip, who appeared out of a tangle of gorse bushes, clutching a handful of leaves and gibbering with pleasure.
"You've found your own dinner, then," Miranda observed, receiving him into her arms as he leaped upward. "Where will we dine, milord?" Her interrupted breakfast seemed a long time ago.
"At the Arms of England in Rochester," Gareth said. " There's a livery stable close
by where I should be able to trade in this pathetic excuse for horseflesh for something a little more robust. It should make tomorrow's ride rather more comfortable, not to mention quicker."
"Tell me about your sister. Why won't I like her?"
"You'll have to see for yourself," he said. "But I warn you that her disposition will not be improved by sight of that monkey."
"Chip will behave," she assured him. "Does she have a husband, your sister?"
"Lord Miles Dufort."
"Will I like him?"
He's inoffensive enough. Somewhat henpecked." "Oh." Miranda chewed her lip for a few minutes. "Is your house very grand? Is it a palace?"
He smiled slightly. "On a small scale. But you will soon learn your way around it." "Does the queen ever visit you?"
"On occasion." "Will I meet the queen?"
"If you take my cousin's place, most certainly you will."
"And your cousin… will she like me?" There was anxiety in her voice and she put her hand on his shoulder. Her body was very close to his back, not exactly pressed against him, but very close nevertheless.
“That’s hard for me to say," he replied neutrally, trying not to respond to the distracting, sinuous little body at his back. "I know very little about the workings of my cousin's mind. I'm not really very well acquainted with her."
"And you don't know very much about me, either," Miranda said thoughtfully, with another little wriggle against him. "But I could tell you anything you wanted to know."
"Perhaps later," Gareth said. "Is it necessary for you to sit so close to me? I find it rather hot."
"His back slopes so I keep rolling down the hill," she explained, but obligingly hitched herself backward. "I'll try and hold myself here."
