Death and the Maiden

by Samantha Norman

  Hawise stopped speaking. She could feel him moving beside her, fidgeting again; another interruption was in the offing.

  “But what difference would it make if he saw her naked?” he asked irritably. “He’s going to kill her anyway, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Hawise replied patiently. “He is. But perhaps she’s hoping to persuade him not to. Perhaps,” she added, “she’s hoping he might fall in love with her instead.”

  He was quiet for a moment.

  “Oh, I doubt that very much,” he said at last. “I think he would much prefer to kill her.”

  Chapter 54

  Although Adelia usually dreaded banquets, the dressing up, the scrutiny, the small talk—at which she was exceptionally bad—she was actually looking forward to this one, partly because she was intrigued to find out more about Lord Peverell, but also because the prospect provided a much-needed diversion from the pervading gloom at Elsford.

  “You look very beautiful,” Rowley said, admiring her from the doorway.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” she said. She had just put on her favorite dress, a brocade in the colors of autumn, but, self-conscious under his gaze, had clumsily dabbed a little too much rosewater behind her ears, making the gauze around her wimple unpleasantly damp.

  “Anyway, you always say that,” she said, closing her eyes, nestling into him as he put his arms around her.

  “Because it’s true,” he said. “Now. Are you ready?”

  Dunstan was as impressive as Allie had described, and although Adelia was used to the grandeur of the great palaces of Europe, she had never expected to find it in the Fens and was trying very hard to keep her mouth from falling open as she looked around.

  The light in the hall was like a celestial aura from the innumerable candles that burned in the silver sconces along its walls; dove-white plumes of smoke had, apparently, been choreographed to drift like angels’ wings ever upward to a fan-vaulted ceiling that was so intricately and beautifully carved that it seemed to Adelia to prove the existence of God. Underfoot, and equally heavenly, a sea of lavender rushes was bruised with every footstep, releasing an incense that clung and wafted around rows of tables dressed in embroidered napery.

  At the reception of hoods, swords and gloves, she was pleased to see the look of delight on Lord Peverell’s face when he saw Allie and how he immediately abandoned all his other guests to go and greet her.

  She was less pleased about the fuss he made of Rowley, although it was more Rowley’s response to the introduction, the placatory enthusiasm that reminded her of an old dog rolling onto its back, which made her want to kick him.

  “Don’t get carried away,” she hissed. “We don’t know if he’s good enough yet.”

  Sensing her reserve, perhaps, Lord Peverell turned to her. “Mistress Adelia,” he said with a deep bow. “Welcome to Dunstan.”

  “Thank you.” Adelia gave a curt smile. She refused to be quite so easily seduced as Rowley; it was going to take more than an elegant castle and untold riches to convince her that any man, even this one, was good enough for Allie.

  When the trumpet sounded for supper, Lord Peverell took Allie’s hand and, holding it high, led her up onto the dais.

  “Where’s Sir William?” Adelia whispered behind her hand when she was seated beside her.

  Allie leaned forward and looked along the table. “Can’t see him,” she whispered back. “It looks as if he’s not here.” She turned to Lord Peverell. “Is Sir William attending this evening?” she asked, and Adelia, who was watching them both like a hawk, noticed that her hand brushed delicately against his as she did so. “Only, my mother would like to speak to him.”

  Lord Peverell shook his head. “He was supposed to be here. But he’s been so elusive lately, I’m afraid. I’ve no idea where he gets to these days.” He looked around in case Sir William had slipped in unnoticed but, seeing that he hadn’t, leaned toward Adelia. “Alas, madam! It is Sir William’s loss I fear. Another time, perhaps . . .”

  “Alas,” said Adelia. “Another time indeed.”

  She spent most of the rest of the evening lamenting her thickening waistline as wave upon wave of servants brought endless plates of food that she couldn’t resist, and she was relieved, though feeling a little sick, when the tables were cleared at last and the music began.

  As if by magic, the stiff formality of the evening evaporated as a group of musicians struck up from the gallery, four burly, energetic men: a tabor player, two fiddlers and a large, ruddy-faced man who called the steps with a roar loud enough to override the squealing, stamping delight of the dancers. Even Rowley was persuaded to dispense with his usual reserve and danced, throwing himself into the spirit of the evening, whirling Adelia around the hall until she thought she was going to die of laughing.

  In the middle of one particular spin she caught sight of Allie and Lord Peverell, who were gazing at one another with such tenderness that somebody of a more sentimental disposition might have been moved by it.

  “You’re not enjoying yourself by any chance?” Rowley asked, spinning her around once more, sending her into another fit of giggles.

  She sang most of the way home and, as she trotted happily down the track beside Allie, even forgot how much she hated riding.

  “Perhaps I’ll allow you to marry him after all,” she told her.

  Allie frowned. “But he hasn’t asked me.”

  “No. But he will,” Adelia said, tapping the side of her nose. “Call it a mother’s instinct.”

  As they rode into the courtyard, Allie’s palfrey narrowly avoided a tiny hedgehog that had come too early out of hibernation and was making heavy weather of the cobbles. She kept an eye on it as they dismounted and handed their horses to the grooms, then hung back in the shadows, waiting until Adelia and Rowley—holding on to one another for safe passage and giggling like children—had staggered up the steps into the house.

  “Poor little thing,” she said, picking up the prickly ball it had become, speaking softly to it as she followed the grooms to the stables, where she planned to leave it for the night.

  She knew that they would groan and raise their eyebrows when they saw her, but they were getting used to her by now. In fact, they had only just released an orphaned leveret she had found during one of her archery lessons and insisted they keep in an empty stable until it was big enough to fend for itself. At first they had joked about jugging it or putting it in a nice pie, until her formidable expression had convinced them that levity and leverets were an unhappy combination.

  “What do they eat, then, mistress, these hedgepigs?” one of the grooms called after her as she set off back to the house.

  “Worms,” Allie called back over her shoulder. “I’ll bring you some tomorrow.”

  It was another bitterly cold night. A full moon hung over the house, creating eerie shapes and shadows along the walls, adding to her sense of urgency as she hurried toward the door.

  And she had almost made it, with one foot on the bottom step, when someone grabbed her. A hand came out of nowhere, pinning her arm behind her back, another clamping itself over her mouth, as a voice by her ear hissed:

  “If you want to see Hawise again you listen up and listen hard and don’t make a bloody sound.”

  For a moment she stood unresisting in his arms, paralyzed by fear and shock, until a powerful confluence of emotion churned into rage, giving her the impetus to launch a backward kick of which a horse might have been proud.

  “Bitch!”

  The shock of her assault loosened her assailant’s grip just long enough for her to spin around and face him.

  Chapter 55

  Danny Wadlow leapt backward, looking almost as shocked as Allie. “Don’t scream,” he hissed, raising his hands. “Just don’t scream.”

  “Why not?” Allie asked, her heart pounding fit to burst through her rib cage.

  “Because I know where Hawise is and I can take you to ’er,” he replied, lowering his hand
s slowly.

  “Why would you do that? And why should I trust you?” she asked, emboldened to see him flinch, jutting her chin and taking another step toward him.

  “Because I owe you,” he said truculently. “For saving my mother’s life.”

  “Oh,” said Allie, nonplussed. With all that had happened lately, she had forgotten about the Wadlow woman and was surprised to be reminded of her, and even more surprised that someone like Danny Wadlow could feel anything like indebtedness. She felt an involuntary shift in her attitude toward him but hoped it didn’t show.

  “Then what are you waiting for?” she demanded. “Take me to her now.”

  Danny hesitated for a moment.

  “I will. But there’s conditions,” he said, raising a warning finger. “First, you can’t never know where I’m taking you . . . and second: no questions. I’ll take you to ’er but that’s the end of it, d’you hear? You don’t go lookin’ for no one else afterward. Understand?”

  Allie nodded, prepared to agree to anything, to risk anything for Hawise, even, it seemed, disappearing into a cold, dark night with the likes of Danny Wadlow.

  “All right,” she said. “I agree. But how do you propose we get out of here?”

  After all, it wouldn’t be easy. They couldn’t simply walk out. Elsford was too heavily fortified, Penda had seen to that, so unless they applied for permission to the gatekeeper—who would, most likely, take one look at Danny and have him incarcerated—they were stuck.

  Once again she saw the blank look of stupidity cross his face.

  Christ’s eyes! He hasn’t even thought about it.

  She took a deep breath.

  “Well,” she said with labored patience, “how did you get in here in the first place?”

  Danny shrugged. “I followed you,” he said. “Saw you leavin’ Dunstan an’ just followed you, slipped in behind the horses afore they pulled the drawbridge.”

  She stared at him, hostility rising with frustration at his idiocy and the fact that, having raised her hopes, he was dashing them again because his thick, coffin-shaped head was too stupid to formulate a plan . . . And then she remembered Jodi and the postern.

  “Come,” she said, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him up the steps behind her into the house.

  Because it was late, they got to the door leading to the undercroft without being seen.

  Allie took a brand off the wall, lit it with some of the tinder fungus the servants had left on the floor and opened the door.

  “Follow me,” she said, grabbing Danny’s wrist again and dragging him down the stairs into the tunnel.

  When they reached the cavern, she stopped and looked around in confusion. She had forgotten how vast it was and, more important, quite how many tunnels there were leading off it.

  “Now we go down . . . er . . .” She looked around again hopelessly. It was impossible to remember which of them led to the postern. They all looked the same, so dark, so forbidding, so infinite. She began to stalk the walls like a lost soul, holding up the brand to each entrance in turn, hoping something would spark her memory. Jodi had said something about something that distinguished the postern tunnel from the others, but what? . . . And then, at last, she remembered: it was the one that looked like a set of nostrils, with a thick stalactite hanging down like a septum in an otherwise gaping black hole.

  She spun around triumphantly.

  “This one,” she said, plunging headlong into it.

  Chapter 56

  His mood was different again this evening, Hawise realized. The atmosphere in the cavern, too, as though he had brought in an extra layer of darkness with him; even behind her tightly closed eyes she could see it, feel the boredom lurking within like a sleeping assassin.

  If she had been at her best she might have had a chance, but tonight she was exhausted and desperately hungry—as his interest had waned, so had his desire to feed her—and she was also in pain; yesterday the bleeding had started.

  “Well?” His voice sounded different, too. Sharper, increasingly impatient. “What are you waiting for?”

  Death, thought Hawise. To finish my story so that this will be over with.

  For the last time she took a long, deep breath as she steeled herself for the end.

  “‘Turn your back,’ the maiden told the knight with that sweet smile of hers. ‘You must not look at me when I am naked.’

  “She could feel the water lapping at her feet and was longing to dive in.

  “But the knight hesitated, refusing to turn his back on her quite yet.

  “‘How do I know that when I turn around you won’t just swim away?’ he asked suspiciously.

  “The maiden smiled that sweet, sweet smile again and shook her head.

  “‘Because, as everybody knows, I am as true as I am fair,’ she said. ‘Have I not obeyed your every command? Did I not bring you my father’s gold and two of his finest horses when you asked? I could easily have run away then, but I didn’t.’

  “The knight thought about what she said and realized that it was true, and that although he desperately wanted to see her naked, he would do as she asked . . . Besides, he could always take a peek when she wasn’t looking.

  “‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘I will turn my back as you ask and wait for you here on the shore, but on one condition . . . When you have finished swimming you must come back immediately.’

  “The maiden nodded and smiled again.

  “‘Where else would I go?’ she asked. ‘I cannot swim very far and the sea is deep; besides, we have ridden for so many miles that I am a stranger to these shores; I would be terribly lost without you.’

  “This time it was the knight’s turn to smile. She really was terribly charming and very beautiful, he thought.

  “Then the maiden made a delicate little twisting motion with her hand.

  “‘Turn around,’ she said with a tinkling laugh.”

  Hawise froze when she heard his sharp intake of breath.

  “Why does she keep smiling and laughing all the time like that?” he asked. “Is she going to trick him?”

  “No! Of course not,” Hawise replied. “She’s smiling because, as you know and as she says, she’s good and true and kind.” She had become increasingly protective of the maiden; they shared the same fate, after all.

  “Very well,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Continue.”

  “This time the knight did as the maiden asked and turned his back on the sea and the setting sun—and her naked form—and stood for some time listening to the waves breaking on the shore and the cry of the seagulls, but, curiously, nothing else, certainly not, as he had expected, the soft rustle of clothes being shed.

  “‘Are you actually taking your clothes off?’ the knight asked her impatiently.

  “‘No,’ said the maiden in a small voice. ‘I’m too frightened.’

  “‘Frightened of what?’ snapped the knight.

  “‘I am frightened,’ said the maiden, ‘because my feet are so tiny and soft and delicate that if I take off my beautiful calfskin boots the stones will cut them to shreds and make them bleed.’

  “The knight scratched his head and thought for a while.

  “‘Well,’ he said at last, having come up with a solution, ‘why don’t you go a little closer to the water’s edge so that you won’t have so far to walk on your poor delicate little feet?’ And then he thought he heard a tiny snort of laughter like the tinkling of a bell.

  “‘How clever of you,’ said the maiden. ‘But if I go any closer to the sea I’m afraid a wave will come and spoil my boots and my beautiful clothes, which is exactly what we were trying to avoid in the first place . . .’

  “‘Hmmm.’ The knight scratched his head again and thought some more. ‘That would be a shame,’ he said.

  “‘Perhaps,’ the maiden said cautiously, breaking a long silence, ‘you could clear a path for me.’

  “‘How long a path?’ the knight asked irritably. It had
been an awfully long day and he was weary.

  “‘Oh, not very long, just from here to that little pile of rocks over there,’ said the maiden, pointing at a mound of pebbles on the shore.

  “‘Hmm,’ muttered the knight, calculating the distance and the number of stones he would have to move. ‘I think I can probably do that. But afterward you will really have to get on with it.’

  “‘Oh, I will,’ said the maiden.

  He was walking toward the stones when she called him back.

  “‘Perhaps,’ she said tentatively as he turned around, ‘it would be better to start from here. That way you can keep your back to me while you work.’

  “‘What a good idea,’ said the knight, all the while thinking to himself: She’s not only beautiful and true, but she’s clever with it. Just the sort of girl who deserves to die.

  “And with renewed enthusiasm he took off his cloak, knelt down by the water’s edge and started clearing the sharp pebbles around her feet.

  “‘You’re so kind,’ the maiden said.

  “She stood watching him for a moment, smiling that sweet, sweet smile of hers, and then raised the hand holding the rock she had hidden behind her back and, still smiling, smashed it onto the back of his head.”

  Even as she felt the air in the room charging with fury, Hawise continued the story. She was even enjoying herself at last.

  “And as the knight pitched forward into the sea, the maiden put her elegant calfskin boot on the back of his head and held it under the waves until he stopped breathing.”

  It was the strangest feeling, but suddenly, she was imbued with a sense of elation unlike anything she had ever felt before; perhaps it was the thrill of the maiden’s triumph—or the proximity to her own death—but, whatever it was, just then she felt more alive than she had thought possible, and she rose to her feet, raucously singing the final verse at the top of her voice.