For once Belle offered no plan of action. She chewed her lip while she digested the horror of Mortimer’s cunning lie.
Mark drew a small bundle from inside his sleeve. “Listen to me, chou-chou. I have brought paper, pen and ink. Write a few lines to your father to tell him you are well. I will take it posthaste to Montjoy to send north by a fast messenger. I know that you think me a rogue, but I would never wish for my Lord and Lady Cavendish to suffer one moment’s pain on your account. In faith, your family has been more loving to me than my own—and that is the gospel truth.”
She stared deeply into his eyes as if searching for a sign of deceit, then she nodded. “Give me the pen.”
While she scrawled her letter, Mark fed a few more logs into her fire. Since her flue joined the larger one from the kitchen directly below them, her smoke would go undetected by Mortimer’s henchmen.
Belle signed her name with her usual flourish. “There. Tis done.” She folded the paper and handed it to him. “I trust you will not read it?” she asked with a challenge in her voice. “As if I could trust you at all, Mark Hayward. You kiss like a fox tasting the residents of a hen house.”
He rolled his eyes. Belle would never change. Aloud, he replied, “You cut me to the quick, sweetheart. I have been a trusted member of the Cavendish household since before you were born. Indeed, your own father taught me the virtue of trust when he allowed me the pleasure of diapering you.”
Her mouth dropped open.
Mark took advantage of her speechless shock. “Of course, I was only ten at the time and did not think that occupation much of a pleasure. By my troth, you were a foul little creature, chou-chou. But now…” He gave her a sly wink.
Belle swelled up like a wet cat. “I would break that thick pate of yours if the time were more convenient. Begone and count yourself fortunate. I swear, Master Coxcomb, you are the largest blot in my book of memory!”
Mark chuckled. “Sweet words from sweet lips.” He unlocked the door. “Try not to miss me too much,” he added and blew her a kiss.
“Go hug a swine!” she retorted just before the door shut behind him.
Chapter Ten
The purple-gray shadows of the season’s early twilight crept across the moat when Mark returned from his visit to Montjoy. As he had suspected, the shocking news of Belle’s self-inflicted death had already reached Hawkhurst by the time Mark arrived at the old steward’s cottage. Once he had soothed Montjoy’s fears, Mark had to endure a half-hour’s sermon on the folly of Belle’s plans. The young man did not admit to Montjoy that he agreed with him completely. With a final admonition to protect both the Cavendish children ringing in his ears, Mark rode back to Bodiam. Plans for tonight’s haunting hummed in his brain.
As he unsaddled Artemis, he overheard the carpenter’s apprentice recounting the castle’s latest unrest to two appalled grooms. Mark moved nearer to listen.
“Barney’s in the most parlous state, I assure ye,” the apprentice gibbered. “Says he aged ten year this afternoon. Me own heart is still a-knocking in me chest. Pass me another jackmug, Dick. Look ye how me hands a-shake.”
“Tell all,” begged Dick while the other groom pulled a full measure of ale from a nearby cask.
Mark crept to the end of the stall.
The apprentice took a long drink. Then he continued his hair-raising tale. “Ye know Master Fletcher was much undone by whatever was in that tower yonder?”
The other two nodded.
“So this forenoon he sends for Barney and tells him to seal up the door of the garret room.”
Mark swore under his breath. Inadvertently, he had put Jobe in a dire situation.
The apprentice warmed to his story. “So me and Barney spent all the livelong morning a-carrying stone up those damnable stairs with nary a sound from the garret. The door was locked tighter than a virgin. After dinner, we mixed mortar and commenced to building a wall.” He lowered his voice.
Mark pressed his ear against the wooden panel of the stall.
“Each time we went down for more buckets of mortar, the wall unbuilt itself!”
Mark grinned. Well done, cunning friend!
The grooms gasped. “God’s teeth!” muttered one.
“Aye, truly spoken, Frank! When we got back to the top of them stairs, half the stones were—gone! Like that!” He snapped his fingers. “No sign of ’em save bits of wet mortar on the floor. And that door locked and as still as death.”
“So how did Barney get a broken head?” asked Dick.
“Ah! I was a-coming to that part.” The apprentice paused to take another drink. “We was getting on a-feared, ye understand, and Barney is not a man to shrink at shadows as ye well know. So he tells me that we forget the mortar, just pile up the stones and be done with the job. Sooner the better, he says. So we did.”
Mark released a little sigh. Thank God for that small favor!
“We done a good job of it in no time,” continued the apprentice. “Afterward, we picked up our buckets and trowels, and we started down the stairs. We just reached the second landing when suddenly all them stones come a-tumbling down after us. Twas noise enough to wake all the dead in Saint Margaret’s churchyard. I tell ye, lads, me hair about jumped off me head.”
Mark covered his mouth to muffle his laughter.
The apprentice shifted closer to his grooms. “But that was not what did terrify us so.”
“Nay?” breathed Frank. “Me? I would still be a-running all the way to Hawkhurst.”
“What happened, Billy? Ye cannot leave us a-wondering,” Dick pleaded.
Aye, what other prank did Jobe play on you?
Billy sucked in his breath. “When the last stone came to its rest and me and Barney was a-puzzling how this happened, the whole tower was a-filled with the most awful sound ever heard on God’s green earth. Twas a howl from a demon, I swear to ye. About froze me blood on the spot.”
“Jesu!” Dick whispered.
“I nearly flew down the rest of them stairs. But Barney tripped over one of the very stones that we had piled up so high. Fell head over heels after me. Knocked out cold by the time we both reached bottom. And that…that hell-sent scream was still a-following us.”
Having heard enough, Mark quietly withdrew to the far end of the stables.
“May I be struck by lightning if I ever venture up them stairs again!” Billy swore to the others.
“Amen to that!” Dick and Frank replied.
Mark stole out the stable’s side door. He paused near the archway to the “haunted tower” and pretended to inspect the soles of his boots. When he was sure that no one paid him any attention, he slipped into the tower and bounded up the spiral stairs two at a time.
As Billy had described, a number of rough-hewn stones littered the way. More stones, an overturned mortar bucket and one of the workmen’s caps on the topmost landing gave further witness to the story. With a chuckle, Mark rapped three times on the door. “Tis Mark,” he said softly.
Jobe welcomed him with a broad smile. Neither man spoke until Mark was inside the chamber and the door once again bolted and barred against dim-witted intruders.
Mark clapped his friend on the shoulder. “How now, Jobe! What tales I have heard of you!”
The African laughed deeply. “I trust my fame will stretch across the whole castle.”
“You are too modest, my friend.” Mark grinned at him. “By daylight I warrant the whole shire will hear of the strange howling spirit of Bodiam. By the rood, Jobe, what sound did you make that so frightened the poor carpenter and his apprentice?”
Jobe shrugged. “Tis nothing much—only the mating cry of the monkeys who inhabit my homeland. The stone walls of the tower made a fearsome echo.”
Mark joined him in his laughter. “Tis a noise that I must hear one of these fine days, but not now. We have more serious work to do.”
The African nodded. “What new devices shall I work for this evening’s pleasure?”
Mar
k rubbed his chin. “The hoofbeats, of course,” he began.
Jobe grinned. “Young Kitt will like that. He played them well last night, methinks.”
“Aye,” Mark agreed, “but put him on the east battlements this time. Then tomorrow night on the north side and the night after on the south and so on. And, I pray you, do not allow him to become carried away by his music. Twould be doomsday if he were caught.”
The giant nodded again. “And for myself?”
Mark chuckled. “Mistress Sondra Owens, whom folk hereabouts thought was a good witch, used to tell us of the Bodiam Knight. She said that in olden times he walked the battlements, beating a drum to frighten away his widow’s suitors.”
Jobe picked up his water bucket and inspected it with care. “This will do if I can find a good piece of leather for the drumhead.”
Mark rubbed the bridge of his nose. “If my memory serves me well, there used to be several drums of different sizes left in the minstrel’s gallery above the hall.”
“I will stroll in that quarter after supper. Anything else?”
“Another monkey howl or two if the mood suits and the company is right.” Mark grew more serious. “There is one great boon I ask of you, my friend.”
Jobe lifted a dark brow. “Ask. You know I am yours to command.”
Mark snorted. Jobe’s insistence that he owed him a blood oath made Mark feel more than uncomfortable. Though he had tried to dismiss Jobe’s bond, the proud man would not hear of it. A life for a life, Jobe had insisted. Mark knew the African would stay by his side until that debt was paid.
“I suspect that Mistress Belle will soon grow weary of her little hiding place. She hates to be restrained. I fear that she will take it into that willful head of hers to roam around the castle, stirring up mischief of her own.”
Jobe’s grin widened. “Then she shall have a second shadow.” He laughed in the back of his throat. “A very large, black shadow.”
Mark gave him a wry look. “Do not be lulled by her winsome looks. Belle is more slippery than an eel in jelly and twice as cunning as any creature you have ever met.”
“Sounds like good sport.”
Mark gripped the other man’s forearm. “Be gentle with her, though she spits and claws you like a cat. She has been ill-used.”
Jobe drew himself up to the top of his six-foot, seven inches. He struck his massive chest. “I vow to treat her as my own.” He chuckled. “Do you think I do not know how to win a woman’s heart?”
“You don’t have to win her heart,” Mark snapped. “Just keep her out of trouble. You will find that to be ample work, I assure you.”
Jobe merely laughed again. “I like a challenge.”
Mark saluted his friend, wished him well and left Jobe to manufacture his makeshift drum. Why should Mark care who won Belle’s heart? All he desired was to preserve her skin in one piece. If Jobe wanted to woo a wildcat, he was welcome to try it. He would soon find that Belle was considerably more than a handful. Thinking these and other gloomy thoughts, Mark stomped up the postern tower’s stairs to his guest chamber where he changed into his gaudy wooing suit. Another eternal evening in Griselda’s sniveling company.
No reward is worth this!
As the cloud-covered sun sank below the treeline across the river from the castle, Belle fumed in her cell. This room was only a shade better than the last closet she had been caged in. Kitt had come twice today and the second time he had paused only long enough to hand her a tray with her dinner under a napkin. Before she could ask him the latest gossip or even thank him, he disappeared on the other side of the tapestry.
“I am heartily tired of playing this waiting game,” she told Dexter, who snoozed on the end of the bed. The cat twitched one of his pointed black ears. “Tis time I did a little haunting myself. Mark and Kitt can’t have all the fun.”
Since she was supposed to be dead, Belle now had the perfect opportunity to play her own ghost. She glanced down at her borrowed gown. Though it was blue, it should be dark enough to meld into the evening shadows. But what about her hair? Her golden crown would shine like a candle should it catch a light.
“Perchance twill look like a halo,” she suggested to Dexter as she quickly braided it. “Although I suspect suicides don’t merit halos,” she added, wrapping the braid around her head. “But then again, no one will notice me as I intend to be invisible.” She skewered her bodkin into the tight coil. As weapons go, the long thick pin wasn’t much, but she knew it would inflict painful damage if she stuck it in the right spot of a man’s anatomy.
With excitement swelling in her breast, Belle unbolted her door. Then she stood completely motionless for a moment with her hand on the latch. “Wish me luck,” she whispered to Dexter. Taking a deep breath, she cracked open the door.
Nothing smelled so sweet as the fresh air of freedom. Belle listened for any sound that would betray a nearby presence, but heard nothing except her own heart hammering in her ears. Just before she closed her door, Dexter squeezed his ponderous body through the opening. Without waiting for her, he meandered out of her sight on his own quest.
Keeping herself as flat as possible against the wall, she inched along the back of the tapestry. She peeked out, looking first one way then the other along the empty gallery. Below her she heard the muffled sounds of the cook and the scullery boys in the servants’ kitchen. The flambeaux in the courtyard flickered through the mullioned lancet window. Grinning to herself, Belle slipped away from her nest. Nothing to it! Twas just like her childhood days when she had crept about the castle on one of her many secret jaunts.
As Belle glided down the gallery toward the southwest tower, something stole up behind her and enveloped her in a dark cape. For a fleeting instant of fear she thought she had been attacked by a real ghost. Then a large warm hand covered her mouth and muffled her gasp of surprise. As she fought to free herself from the cape’s black folds, she felt herself pulled backward. She tried to reach her bodkin, but her captor pinioned her arms to her sides. Baring her teeth, she bit the nearest finger over her mouth.
Her abductor swore in a strange tongue but did not relinquish his steely hold on her. Realizing that her attempts at escape were futile, Belle grew very still and waited for an opportunity to bolt. She heard a door open. Then the man stepped inside taking her with him. A strong aroma of lavender filtered through the folds of the cape. Belle realized that they were now wedged inside the linen cupboard that had been built into the castle’s outer wall.
“Be still, Mistress Belle,” a very deep voice murmured in her ear. “I am a friend of Sir Mark Hayward and your brother Kitt. Make no noise.”
Though the mysterious stranger lifted away his cape, Belle could see nothing in the inky confines of the tiny recess. By the feel of his arm around her waist, she realized she was in the company of an exceptionally large man.
“How dare you detain me in such a rough manner?” she whispered.
He rumbled a low laugh. “I am very bold,” he replied in a lilting accent that she could not identify.
“Aye, and a knavish cur as well!” Belle retorted, still keeping her voice low. “I should have expected something like this. Mark always did consort with rogues and thieves.”
Her taunt only made him laugh again. “I am the very best of both,” he agreed.
Belle tried to pull herself out of his hold but found it impossible. “Pray tell me, whom do I have the dubious pleasure of addressing?”
“I have a very long name, mistress. Most of it you could not pronounce. Some English address me as an Ethiope; others swear that I am the son of the devil. You may call me Jobe.”
“You!” she squeaked. “The very one who has corrupted my little brother, teaching him to swear and steal.”
“And lying too,” Jobe added with another chuckle, “but Kitt still needs more practice at that art.”
“I would scratch out your eyes if I could! Kitt is nothing but a baby.” She tossed her words over her shoulder
at him, wishing that each one were a stone.
“Nay, little mistress,” Jobe whispered in his honey-rich voice. “Kitt is almost a man. He needs to learn the ways of the world.”
Belle curled her lip. “From you?”
“None better,” he replied. “Shhh!” He put his hand back over her mouth. “Do not bite me again, lioness, or I will bite you back and my teeth are very large.”
Belle started to sputter a protest, but then she heard the scrape of spurs on the oak floor of the gallery. She stilled, barely daring to breath. Someone strolled along the corridor at a leisurely pace. Her heart almost stopped beating when the man paused outside the cupboard door. Jobe tightened his arm around her waist. He took his hand away from her mouth. Belle could sense rather than see that he slipped a dagger from a sheath. After another breathless moment or two, the unseen person continued down the gallery toward the middle tower.
“Greetings, Dexter,” the stranger said. “Have you been behaving yourself, hmm?”
Belle did not recognize the man’s pleasant voice. Perhaps Mortimer had called for a member of the local clergy to cleanse the castle from the taint of her presumed suicide.
“You are a good boy,” the man continued. “Keep a sharp watch now.”
Then he moved out of her hearing. Jobe maintained his vigilance for a few minutes longer before he relaxed his grip on Belle.
“Tell me, little one,” he asked. “Where would you be now if that man had met you on the stair?”
Belle swallowed several times in an effort to regain her control. “I would have ducked out of sight long before he could spy me. I know every bolt-hole in Bodiam.”
“Then let us visit a few of them,” Jobe suggested. “Perchance one or two may be put to good use by we spirits of the night.”
After ascertaining that the gallery was now empty, Jobe and Belle stole out of the cupboard. In the dim light of the courtyard torches, Belle finally got a good look at her companion. She nearly screamed, but Jobe silenced her cry with his hand.
“You’re black!” she breathed when he released her.
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