Linda Barlow

by Fires of Destiny

  Chapter 31

  It was mid-September when Alexandra arrived home at Westmor Abbey. Her mother was there to greet her, and Alexandra couldn’t believe how good it felt to be enfolded in Lucy Douglas’ arms, smelling the clean herbal scents she had always associated with her mother. It had been a full year since they had seen one another. It seemed even longer.

  Alexandra had half-expected Lucy to scold or reject her, but it didn’t happen. In fact, her mother was gentler with her than she’d been for years. Asking no questions, she fed Alexandra and Alan a hearty meal, then sent Alan home to Whitcombe Castle while she put her daughter to bed. Bone-weary, Alexandra slept almost immediately.

  The next day, when she had occasion to think about it, Alexandra couldn’t decide exactly how much her mother knew. That she had been snatched by Roger, yes; everybody knew that. Alan had told her mother that Roger had released her into his care rather than risk her life in the stews of the Mediterranean. Roger had even gone so far as to offer marriage to the woman he had ruined, he’d explained. But Alexandra had declined.

  “In any other circumstances, I would have called you a fool for that,” her mother told her frankly. “But marriage to a heretic and traitor would have been worse than the scandal you face now. What about Alan? He seems fond of you. Why don’t you marry Alan?”

  It hadn’t occurred to Lucy, apparently, that Alexandra had been Roger’s willing bedmate, that she loved him, that she longed for him and missed him so much that the days were long and heavy and the nights intolerable. And Lucy appeared to have no knowledge of the threat her husband had held over the Trevors.

  The reunion between Sir Charles Douglas and his daughter had been painful for both of them. It had taken place in Douglas’ town house, where she had been secretly brought by Alan. Great care was taken to keep the news of her reentry into England from the queen; nobody knew exactly what Mary would have to say about her former lady-in-waiting’s adventures, and nobody particularly wanted to find out. Courtiers had been thrown into the Tower for less.

  “Oh, Father, how could you have done this thing?” Alexandra had demanded when they met. “I love Roger. I love him!”

  Her father obviously had no compassion for such feelings, at least not when they were directed toward Roger Trevor. “I should have married you off to the first eligible man as soon as I got you to court. Who will have you now, I’d like to know?”

  “I will have no one but Roger.”

  “As long as there’s breath in my body, you’ll not wed that hell-bound young devil.”

  “Would you really have arrested his father?”

  Douglas merely scowled.

  “Destroy the warrant, please, now that your diabolical scheming has had the hoped-for results. I want your assurance that the Baron of Whitcombe is safe.”

  “He’s safe,” Douglas said. He burned the warrant before her eyes. “But if I ever get my hands upon his son, I swear I’ll take him apart piece by piece.”

  “I know about your long years of adultery, your rank betrayal of my mother ever since you’ve been at court. You have no right to condemn Roger for the same sins you have indulged in all your life.”

  “Be silent, girl! I am your father, and I’ll not listen to such disrespect.”

  “You are not my father, sir. From this day forward you are nothing to me!”

  But later that same day, she had sobbed on his shoulder and asked his forgiveness. And Charles had held her close and told her of his fears for her, his helplessness on the riverbank when Roger had used her as his shield, his belly-turning dread that the blackguard would slash her throat with his knife. “He’s a rough man, without gentleness or softness. How could you, who have always been a sensible, practical young lassie, develop a passion for such a knave as he? Have you no pride, woman? Art the sort who finds danger in a man exciting? Wouldst end up battered and dying, like that poor French girl, Geoffrey de Montreau’s sister?”

  “That wasn’t what happened. Geoffrey’s sister’s death was one of the accidents of childbearing. I’ve talked to the physician who attended her, and he confirmed that Roger had nothing to do with it.”

  “De Montreau apparently loved his sister with a love that borders on the perverse,” Douglas sneered. “No physician’s report will satisfy him now. Anyway, your precious Roger was responsible for the pregnancy that killed her, was he not?”

  Charles insisted that they must hurry Alexandra out of London. The queen’s mood was dangerous now that her husband had left her once again. Besides, Geoffrey de Montreau was still in England. As Alan had reported, he had betrayed his own side and successfully curried favor by providing the queen with military information useful for fighting the war against France. The war had become a popular success on St. Lawrence’s Day when the Queen’s Spanish allies had killed twelve thousand troops, including several notable French noblemen, in a battle at Saint-Quentin.

  And so Alexandra and her father had parted. Having discharged one painful duty, Alexandra was free to look to another; for in sooth, she had had a second reason for returning to England. It occurred to her that final night on Roger’s ship that in one way at least, she could make a virtue out of necessity. She could go to Oxford and speak with Pris Martin, if the elegant young woman who had been Will’s mistress had not already been found and silenced. She could return to Whitcombe and reopen the investigation into Will’s death. She could spend the time until she saw Roger again amassing evidence against Francis, if indeed he was the guilty party. In that way, she could fulfill the vow she had made to her dead friends on the day she had left Westmor last September.

  Traveling north with Alan, she insisted that they break journey on the first day at Oxford. She told him that she wanted to see the college where he had studied, and that she also wished to find her old friend Pris Martin to ascertain if there was anything she needed.

  Alan was skeptical. “Since when are you and Pris Martin old friends?”

  “I’m curious about her. I think we have a sort of responsibility to her, don’t you? After all, she was the mother of Will’s child.”

  But they could not locate Mistress Martin. When they visited the relative with whom she had been living the previous winter, they were greeted by a suspicious gentleman who either knew nothing or pretended not to. Even the hefty bribe that Alexandra offered produced no results.

  “People here are wary of strangers,” Alan explained. “There’ve been too many burnings. They probably think you’re a spy for the ecclesiastical courts.”

  Undaunted, Alexandra pressed Alan for information about the dissident congregation Pris had belonged to. They managed to find her pastor, who was slightly more forthcoming. Pris was alive and well, or had been the last time he had seen her. But she had left Oxford for parts unknown a fortnight before.

  Discouraged, Alexandra allowed Alan to make arrangements for the remainder of her journey north to Whitcombe. They made the trip in easy stages because she was uncharacteristically weary. The weather was sultry, the going slow, and her separation from Roger weighed more heavily on her every day. For some reason her thoughts kept returning to Geoffrey de Montreau and his sister, Celestine. Sometimes in dreams she fancied that she knew Celestine, that the dead girl hovered over her bed by night, that she and this woman she had never met were strangely linked. But when she woke, she would deny it vehemently: “I’m not like her,” she insisted to herself. “I’m not going to end up like her.”

  In one way, though, she feared she was like Celestine. It was a fear that grew with each week that passed. By the time she arrived at Westmor, she knew it must be true; she had missed her monthly flux for the second time. Like Celestine, Alexandra was pregnant with Roger’s child.

  *

  Merwynna’s cottage looked just the same. And Merwynna. The old wisewoman was waiting in front of the door as Alexandra tramped around the lake on the day after her arrival back at Westmor. “I expected ye, my child,” she said with a broad smile as Alexand
ra rushed into her arms.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” Alexandra whispered as she clung to her old friend. “And I’ve got myself into a fine predicament, I fear.”

  “Come inside, and tell me. Then we’ll see what we can do.”

  The witch gave her a cup of hot herbal brew and then, gently and carefully, examined her. “April, I expect,” she told her. “Ye’re two months gone.”

  “Is everything all right? There’s no indication of…of malplaced pregnancy or anything like that?”

  Merwynna gave her a sharp look. “Women who know about midwifery are the worst patients. They worry too much. All is well. Yer womb is expanding nicely; as far as the babe is concerned, ye have nothing to fret about. But where is yer husband?”

  “He’s not my husband. I don’t know when I’m going to see him again.”

  Merwynna asked no questions; she simply stared at her protégé out of her ageless black-pool eyes. “There is a drug I can give ye. ‘Tis risky, but ye’re strong. If it is done soon, the womb will contract and the pregnancy should abort without complications.”

  “No.” Her voice was agonized.

  “Think, Alexandra. Ye’re alone, unwed. Shame and disgrace shall be yer constant companions.”

  “They are already. There’s not a soul in London who doesn’t know that Alexandra Douglas, lady-in-waiting to the queen, was most vilely abducted and raped by an infamous heretic and traitor. ‘Tis the summer’s most entertaining gossip. They will not be surprised to find me breeding as a consequence.”

  “‘Tis no easy task to care for a child alone, lass, without the protection of a man. I advise ye to drink the brew I’ll make for ye, and end this folly now.”

  Alexandra’s hands moved to cover her belly protectively. “I love Roger. I love our child. I’ll take no drug. I will give birth to this babe, with your help or without it.”

  Merwynna sighed. “Ye’ll have my help, of course, stubborn and headstrong though ye are. But how did this happen, child? I taught ye the means to prevent it.”

  “Herbs don’t grow on ships.”

  “Why not insist that he withdraw himself from ye before his crisis? I explained, did I not, that—”

  “I wanted him within me, his body, his seed! I love him, Merwynna.” She grabbed the witch’s hands and stared into her disturbing eyes. “Will we be together someday?”

  Merwynna’s eyes dilated and went blank. Alexandra stiffened, her heart leap-frogging. Would the witch’s Voice have an answer for her?

  But, within seconds, Merwynna’s eyes refocused. The Voice had not spoken. “I do not know.”

  Alexandra bit her lip. The Voice, she knew, came only when it was so inclined.

  They spoke of other things. Alexandra told Merwynna all that had happened to her at court, and the wisewoman in turn filled her in on all the local births, deaths, marriages, and village scandals. And finally Alexandra said, “There’s something else I would ask. Do you remember the widow Priscilla Martin?”

  Merwynna’s eyes became inscrutable. “What would ye know of her?”

  “First of all, whether or not she’s still alive.”

  “She is, of that ye can be sure.”

  “How do you know?”

  Merwynna smiled. “I have something to show ye.”

  She went to a cupboard and withdrew something that looked like a small piece of cloth. Unfolding it carefully, she handed it to Alexandra.

  Puzzled, Alexandra stared at a lovely square of embroidery done in vividly colored thread. It was beautiful, but there was something strange about it. With deft and careful stitches, the embroiderer had recreated three scenes. In the first, a man was riding a wild stallion around the curve of a woodland road. In the second, the horse, obviously out of control, was rearing, throwing the rider to the ground. And in the third, the most gruesome of all, a second man had emerged from the trees and was beating the head of the fallen rider against a rock.

  “Jesu,” Alexandra breathed. The embroidery was so skillful that the men were almost recognizable. The horseman looked like Will Trevor. And the other—tall, dark hair, dressed not as a peasant, but as a gentleman. His face was not clear, but he looked familiar, all the same. “Where did you get this?”

  “Do ye not recognize the work? Who is the only person you know who possesses such skill with a needle?”

  “Pris?”

  The wisewoman nodded. “Wait here.”

  Merwynna went out the cottage door and disappeared around the back. A few moments later she returned, followed by another woman, whose head and face were hidden beneath the folds of a thick hood. As they entered the cottage together, the woman threw back her hood. It was Priscilla Martin herself.

  “Merciful heavens! I certainly didn’t expect… What are you doing here?”

  Pris sent her one of her cool, gracious smiles. She was as beautiful and well-groomed as ever, Alexandra noted with a twinge of the old envy. Not even a year at court and the love of Roger Trevor had convinced Alexandra that she possessed any great amount of beauty herself.

  “Alexandra?” Pris was staring in some confusion at Alexandra’s rich gown and neatly plaited hair.

  “Hello, Pris.”

  “Merwynna just told me you were here. I didn’t know. When she said someone was coming to consult her, it didn’t occur to me that I might be you. I thought, that is, I’d heard…”

  “…that I’d been abducted at knife-point and raped? Don’t be embarrassed. Everybody’s heard that.”

  But Pris Martin was the first person Alexandra had met who didn’t either ask or pointedly avoid asking whether the rumors were true. Her eyes were on the piece of embroidery still clutched in Alexandra’s hand. “I’d also heard that Francis Lacklin was dead.” Her clear voice was trembling slightly; she looked frightened. “Were it not for that, I wouldn’t be here. But Merwynna tells me she’s seen him in a vision, alive and well.”

  Alexandra felt a curious sinking inside her. She realized that she didn’t want Francis to have been Will’s murderer. “Merwynna is correct. Francis was wounded during our escape from London. He nearly died, but we managed to pull him through.”

  “You? You saved his life?”

  “I didn’t have all that much to do with it. Roger has an excellent physician aboard his ship.”

  “You should have left him to die.”

  “Why?” She held up the embroidery. “Who is this man with the rock?”

  “It is Francis Lacklin,” said Pris. “He murdered Will.”

  Chapter 32

  Alexandra sank down once again on her stool. “Tell me how you know. And why, if what you say is true, have you come back, a year after all our questions about Will’s death were supposedly resolved, to accuse him now?”

  “I realized at the inquest that murder had been done, and that Lacklin must be guilty. I realized also that he was still nearby, since he had obviously strangled the halfwit, Ned. I was afraid he would kill me too. That’s why I fled. When he’d heard what happened at the inquest, he would know that I knew, that I had finally understood, and—”

  “Wait a minute. Back up a bit. What do you mean, you realized at the inquest that murder had been done? The rest of us were busy realizing that it hadn’t. It was your testimony that convinced us.”

  Pris Martin also took a seat. Merwynna moved to the back of the cottage, humming softly to herself. “This is complicated and I’m a bit unnerved,” Pris confessed. “I was so certain he was dead, and it was such a weight off my mind. There was a prophecy once, you see, when I was a little girl. I was told that a gray-eyed man would strike me to the heart.”

  “Maybe it was a metaphor. Maybe it meant you would fall in love with a gray-eyed man.”

  Pris ignored this reassurance. “I came back because I owe it to Will and to his father, who was kind to me. For a year my conscience has troubled me deeply.”

  “So, you lied at the inquest?”

  Pris Martin shook her head. “No. I went into
the great hall that day still believing that Will had died accidentally. I listened to your reconstruction of the events with incredulity. I thought you were highly imaginative. But my attitude changed when the baron showed me the note I’d supposedly written to Will. Do you remember?” Reaching into her girdle, Priscilla drew out a small scorched piece of paper. She unfolded it and handed it to Alexandra.

  In great travail am I delivered. You have a son. Do nothing rash, I prithee, before we talk. Do not betray me to your family. Come to me, I beg you, tonight. There is a matter I must discuss with you.

  “Yes, I remember. You felt guilty because it was your words that had lured him out that night, when he should have been sleeping off his drunkenness.”

  “No.” Priscilla leaned forward; her voice was intent. “There’s the rub. I did not write that note. I realized it as soon as I saw it. The hand is very like mine. It was a deliberate forgery. I did scribble a note to Will informing him of the babe’s birth, but I did not ask him to come to me. Indeed, I urged him to stay away. I was weak and in pain, and I did not wish him to see me in such a state. Somewhere between my farm and Whitcombe Castle, my note was destroyed and this one substituted.”

  So that was it. With perfect clarity Alexandra remembered how numbly Pris had stared at this note when the baron had put it in her hands, how upset she had seemed. And how rapidly she had turned and disappeared from Whitcombe.

  “Why Francis?”

  “He was the only person who knew about Will and me. After Will became a Protestant, we confessed our sin of fornication to Mr. Lacklin, hoping for guidance. He was kind, if disapproving. I thought of him as a friend. ‘Twas Francis Lacklin who was with me that night when I went into labor. I dared not summon the village midwife, remember? Only a servant girl and Francis. When the child was born, I wrote the note to Will and asked Francis to convey it to my servant. He must have switched the notes before he did so. He had no fear of being caught, I suppose, because he knew full well that Will always burned my messages. As, indeed, he tried to burn this one.”