He shivered at the memory.
“But, Ulf,” Allie said, leaning toward him on her stool, “what makes you think she didn’t drown?”
For a while he sat awkwardly, reluctant to continue, running his hands through his hair, dragging them wearily down his face and tugging the skin around his eyes so that the lower lids showed red.
“Because she’d been missing such a long time, but when I pulled that body out of the water, it didn’t look like she’d been there more’n a day or two . . . It weren’t drowning, Allie. I know it weren’t.”
Allie broke the silence that followed.
“And you suspect there were others, don’t you?” Even in a whisper her voice sounded shocking in the heavy stillness of the room.
He nodded.
“Like Jodi said . . . Ever since Longchamp came, there’s been trouble the like of which we’ve never known before . . . And girls—two we know of, though God knows how many more—have gone missing and turned up dead. Martha was the third that I know of and ’less something’s done, she won’t be the last.”
Chapter 21
At noon the next day Martha’s funeral bells tolled over the marsh.
Allie stood at the solar window watching the procession wind its way through the village, the mourners’ heads bowed in deference to both their grief and the inclement weather.
Despite the rain, it looked as though the entire village had turned out, and she tried to make out Rosa or Hawise—both of whom had been summoned early from their beds to help prepare the body that morning—in the crowd, but the distance, the rain and the universal drabness of mourning made the people indistinguishable from one another.
At the head of the procession she could just make out the funeral bier and, in her imagination, saw the dead girl borne aloft, her hands clasped at her chest in eternal prayer, the agony of death—if, indeed, agony there had been—erased from her sweet face by her mother’s loving hands . . . And then, because she couldn’t help it, she envisioned the flies and maggots that were even now assailing the corpse and beginning the process of decomposition, burrowing into her body to eat her flesh and expose the white flash of her bones to the deep, dark earth of her grave . . .
Allie shivered; sometimes she appalled even herself with her imaginings, but that was the problem with being her . . . She knew too much, had seen too much, to be mystified by the process of death or ignorant of the truth that, beneath the mortal façade of skin and sinew, she and Martha were the same, and one day the process would begin in her.
She shivered again and turned her back on the window to embrace the comfort of the room, only to find further discomfort in the glare Gyltha was directing at her.
“See! Tha’s why I don’t want you here,” she said, thumping the bed with the side of her fist. “Now do you understand? I told ’em, begged ’em not to bring you here, but they wouldn’t listen . . . It ain’t safe here no more.”
“But it’s home, Gylth . . . ,” Allie said weakly.
“Not anymore it ain’t. It’s where women get murdered and bugger-all gets done about it.”
Just then the church bells stopped ringing and a silence fell on the room as though it, too, were holding its breath . . .
“Please,” Gyltha said, so beseechingly that, for a moment, Allie’s heart melted, if not her resolve. “You must leave, darlin’.”
The conversation was never revisited; both recognized an impasse when they saw one. Nevertheless, behind each other’s back, each set about fortifying her position.
For Gyltha this meant hectoring Penda to take Allie home at her first opportunity. When Penda’s tentative reluctance turned into downright refusal, Gyltha’s entreaties turned into threats, and the atmosphere in the solar soured, to the bemusement of the others.
For Allie it meant spending as much time in the kitchen as she could, where, she reasoned, there was the highest concentration of human traffic in the house and, therefore, the choicest gossip. Whenever she could, she took herself off to a quiet corner of it—ostensibly to seethe her herbs and prepare nourishing soups for Gyltha, but actually to listen to the chatter of the cooks and scullions as they went about their business, hoping to garner more information about the dead girls.
As it turned out, though, there was little to be had. Although the disappearances dominated most of the conversation—fear, it seemed, made people garrulous, especially the women—most of what they spouted was superstitious twaddle. Their suspicion fell in equal parts on the local fairies—covetous creatures in these parts, apparently, who wanted all the pretty girls for themselves—and the wicked Bishop Longchamp, under whose reign the disappearances had begun in the first place.
Because Allie felt ill qualified to dispute the fairy theory, she didn’t; with Longchamp she was on safer ground, but when she pointed out—helpfully, as she thought—that the bishop had left the diocese some time ago and was unlikely to return, she was met with cold, suspicious stares.
The trouble was that she had never been welcome in the kitchen. The other women had taken against her almost from the start, jealous of the protection Penda gave her and increasingly suspicious of the spells she was casting over Gyltha, whose health, since she had been ministering to her, had visibly improved. Besides, they were uneasy about the peculiar plants she worked with and therefore assumed that the bowls of steaming liquid she traipsed to the solar with every day weren’t actually soups at all but liquids for the purpose of scrying. Although they were never rude to her—they were too afraid of Penda for that—whenever she appeared, a meticulous but chilly courtesy made their feelings abundantly clear.
In fact, the only person who benefited from the sojourns at all was Gyltha, who was soon well enough to make the short walk from her bed to the window, an exercise Allie insisted on to help her blood flow and ease the congestion in her lungs.
When she wasn’t ministering to Gyltha or failing to eavesdrop on the kitchen staff, she spent most of her time with Hawise.
A routine had been established: Hawise would arrive at first light to allow Allie to rise in peace and have her breakfast in the hall, after which she would return to the solar, see to Gyltha and then play games with Hawise. In the afternoon, either Rosa, Jodi or Ediva, sometimes all three together, would relieve the girls at Gyltha’s bedside, Hawise so she could attend to her various chores—spinning, mole trapping or collecting rushes—and Allie so she could go hunting with Penda.
But on Fridays, a fast day, when they were allowed only fish for supper, Penda, who didn’t have the patience for fishing, took Allie off to a deserted corner of the demesne for her weekly archery lessons.
The lessons were an idea she had come back with from Martha’s funeral, prompted, Allie suspected, by a conversation with Ulf. But whatever its origin, she was resolute in its pursuit, and because, as far as Allie was concerned, archery sounded much more fun than, for instance, needlepoint, she happily complied.
She never admitted it to Penda, of course, but it struck her as an unusual skill for a woman and wondered how Penda had come by it. Just before their first session, she asked Gyltha.
“Oh, you’ll enjoy it. She’s a bloody good archer, is Pen,” Gyltha told her with obvious pride.
“I’m sure she is,” said Allie. “But how and why did she learn?”
Gyltha looked at her askance. “Well, we all had to get through the Anarchy somehow, defend ourselves and the like, and that’s ’ow Pen did it.” More than that she wouldn’t say.
One afternoon the session began as usual. Penda took Allie to the barbican to select a crossbow and an amply stocked quiver before marching her over the mud and stubble of the demesne to the old oak tree they used for target practice.
“Watch carefully, now,” Penda said, bending down to pick up a muddy nub of chalk with which to draw a target on its trunk. “Trouble with you, I’ve noticed, is you don’t always pay attention, which is why you’re a bit slow to learn.”
Allie had never been accused o
f being a slow learner before and was tempted to reply that, on the contrary, she did pay attention but that it was more Penda’s instruction—which was often snappy and confused—she found wanting. In the end she kept her mouth shut. Besides, she was getting to know Penda now and coming to realize that her irritation stemmed from something other than a desire to impart her skill—that, for some reason, these lessons were vital to Allie’s well-being and more than pedagogic pride was at stake.
“Right then,” Penda said, preparing to demonstrate the arbalist’s stance for the umpteenth time. “Remember, now: stand with your body sideways to the target . . . Sideways, got it?”
Allie nodded enthusiastically.
“Good, now watch closely! . . . Place your feet the same distance apart as your shoulders.” She looked back at her over her shoulder, wriggling her hips to demonstrate the perfect balance afforded by feet planted at the optimum distance from one another. “Yes?”
“Yes.” Allie nodded again, pleased that, so far anyway, she had remembered everything.
“Oh, so we know it all then, do we?” said Penda, putting the bow down and glaring at her. “So, what comes next then?”
Allie’s heart sank.
God’s teeth! She hadn’t expected a test and racked her brains furiously for the next part of the sequence.
“Erm . . .” She could feel herself blushing, her nerves fogging her memory. It was ridiculous, but it mattered so much to Penda that she was terrified of letting her down.
And then, as if by some miracle, it came flooding back to her.
“Yes!” she said triumphantly. “Then . . . then, you lower the bow and notch it?”
“Good.” Penda nodded encouragement. “Then what?”
“Ah . . . and then . . . er . . .” And then what? And then what? Her mind was blank again. She offered up a silent prayer, hoping it would be answered quickly.
It was.
Oh, God be praised! “Then you nock the arrow with your index finger and the two fingers below . . . holding it not too tight but not too loose, either.” The words came out in a garbled rush, but at least they were coming.
“Very good.” Penda gave a rare smile of approval. “So you ’ave been listenin’ after all. Well then, now, watch carefully again, mind: raise the bow—smoothly, now, don’t rush it, remember? . . . Draw the string to your ear—like this—ear, mind, not cheek . . . Aim . . . breathe . . . and . . . loose!”
Chwwt-pt. Penda’s arrow flew through the air and landed, as hers always did, right in the middle of the target . . .
Allie had barely finished applauding when Penda handed her the bow.
“Your turn.”
That afternoon she missed more often than not, her arrows flying off her bow at strange angles, landing in the wheat stubble several yards wide of the target, but she refused to give up . . .
“You’re thinking too much,” Penda barked. “And you’re not breathing! What ’ave I told you? . . . Don’t think, let it come natural. Breathe! Now try again!”
So she did, again and again and again, until, at last, one of them made it all the way to the target and stuck there, shuddering an inch or two wide of the center.
Penda sank to her knees.
“At last! God be praised!” she said, clasping her hands to the heavens. “Now go and fetch it. I think we’ll finish there for the day.”
But Allie was enjoying herself and, buoyed by her success, wanted another go.
“No,” Penda said hastily. “Come back fresh another day. We don’t want to push our luck now.”
They had collected up all the arrows and turned their backs on the oak for the day when Penda saw something and stopped suddenly, pointing in the direction of the causeway.
“Look!” she said.
Allie looked and saw the horse she had seen from the solar that day galloping across the horizon, a streak of burnished gold ripping through the cold gloom like a flame. Once again she thrilled at its grace and speed until, once again, it stopped, only this time so suddenly that it catapulted its rider out of the saddle.
When he didn’t get up immediately they exchanged glances, and when, a few moments later, he still hadn’t moved, Allie picked up the hem of her skirts and started running toward him. She was more than halfway there when, to her relief, he got to his feet at last.
He managed to hobble a few yards, and by the time Allie got to him he was standing in front of the snorting, skittish horse, trying to coax it back.
“Steady, now, steady,” he said, reaching out to grab the reins that were trailing around its hooves, but it shied away, its eyes rolling white in panic. When, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Allie approaching, he flung his arms wide to stop her.
“Stay back,” he warned. “I’ve never seen her like this before, there’s no telling what she might do. Stay where you are! Or you may get hurt!”
But Allie ignored him and continued walking slowly toward them. “Don’t worry about that,” she said, stepping calmly into the space between the man and the horse, confusing both by turning around and walking backward until she was standing by the animal’s shoulder.
“Good girl,” she said, bending down to pick up the reins. “Now let’s see what all this is about, shall we?”
The man watched in astonishment as the horse, calmed by the girl’s presence, put her head down to graze and, without any fuss, allowed the inspection of her hooves. He was an accomplished horseman himself but had never seen anything like it, and now that he had recovered from the shock of his fall, he had time to consider the young woman who had come to his aid.
Something about her was familiar, and yet he couldn’t remember having seen her before. Perhaps it had been in a dream, but then, perhaps not, because, although she was undoubtedly beautiful, she wasn’t particularly dreamlike.
When he had first noticed her, he was still dazed from the fall and so concerned for her safety that he hadn’t had the presence of mind to make a physical evaluation of her. Now that he did, he saw that she carried herself well and possessed a length of bone and glossiness of hair that spoke of quality and breeding, but that her natural elegance was belied by her attire. In fact, as he watched her tending his horse, he wondered whether she realized that the hem of her bliaut was ragged or that it had been snagged at the elbow, only to realize, when he saw her casually rip off her veil and wimple and toss them into the grass, that she probably didn’t care.
And that was another thing. Watching her work. She had the knowledge and expertise of a farrier and yet didn’t look like any farrier’s wife or daughter he had ever seen. Besides, when she spoke it was in impeccable Norman French.
“Poor thing’s got a thorn in her hoof,” she told him, looking up at him at long last. “No wonder she threw you.”
For the first time he saw that she had beautiful green eyes and an unflinching gaze; confidence and breeding again, he thought, and made a note of it.
“Can you do anything?” he asked.
She put the hoof down gently and stood up straight, wiping her muddy hands down the sides of her cloak. “Oh, I’ve already taken it out,” she said brightly, opening her fist to reveal the offending thorn. “But, as you can see, it went in very deep, so you’ll have to be careful it doesn’t get infected. I recommend packing the wound with some sphagnum moss, if you can find any . . .”
“I’d scour the earth if necessary,” he replied, disconcertingly misty eyed all of a sudden. “That horse carried me across the Holy Land and back. You could say I owe her my life.”
Allie thought he looked as though he was going to cry and started to panic; she wasn’t very good with tears, especially not a man’s. But at that very moment, and to her enormous relief, Penda appeared, red faced and puffing hard, trudging up the track toward them.
“Lady Penda! Greetings!” the man said, and, with everyone fussing like mother hens, brightened again.
“Lord Peverell.” Penda nodded at him. “Glad to see you upright, young man. Cou
ld’ve broke your neck with a fall like that; you had us worried.”
So it’s him, Allie thought, wondering why she hadn’t realized that before. On the other hand she had been so preoccupied with the horse that she hadn’t had time to think about anything else.
“I’m grateful for your concern, madam,” Lord Peverell said. “But by God’s grace, I seem to have escaped serious injury, and, thanks to this lady,” he added, smiling at Allie, “so has my horse.”
Penda looked from one to the other.
“So you’re acquainted now, then, are you?” she asked.
Lord Peverell shook his head. “Not formally,” he said.
“Oh, well, in that case, allow me. Lord Peverell, this ’ere’s Mistress Almeison Picot . . . And Mistress Almeison Picot, this ’ere’s Lord Peverell.”
He turned to Allie again. “Almeison.” He repeated her name slowly, softly, as though each syllable were a delicacy to be savored. “A beautiful name . . . Unusual, too.”
“It’s Arabic,” Allie replied, surprised to see his face light up as she did so.
“Well! Well!” He pressed his hands together in delight. “What a coincidence! Then it’s no wonder that you have such an affinity with my horse! Mistress Almeison, allow me to introduce Matilda.”
Allie smiled weakly, disappointed not to be able to match his enthusiasm, but the coincidence wasn’t obvious to her.
“Also Arabic,” he explained, sensing her confusion. “The horse . . . not the name—I called her after the empress, actually, but . . .” She found it rather endearing to see him blush. “Ah well, no matter . . .”
“It is a lovely name though,” she said, hoping to assuage him.
“Indeed.” He nodded. “A lovely name for a lovely horse . . .”
Penda cleared her throat. “Never mind about all that,” she said, looking up at the sky. “Time you was getting along, my lord, there’s still a couple of miles to go to Dunstan and it’ll take a while on foot. You don’t want to be walkin’ in the dark, now . . .”
Death and the Maiden Page 10
