“Ah, you are so fortunate in having time to think at the moment. Make the best of such leisure, sirrah. Perhaps you would like to question your wife about who may have caused your injuries. She is very thick with Gloucester’s henchmen. You know, I suppose, that it was Lady Huddleston who talked your wife into going to Brecknock and persuaded the fair-haired sister to insinuate herself ’twixt Harry’s sheets.”
It took all his considerable willpower to ask calmly: “How would you know that?”
“Because I interest myself in the activities of Margery Huddleston and her green-eyed husband. Ask your wife, eh? Adieu.” A cold hand touched his. He did not waste any gallantry upon it. “I trust you will not suffer any other misfortune, Sir Miles.” At the door she paused. “Either you are not clever enough or you chose the wrong horse to saddle. I suspect both. Good day to you.”
Miles buried his face in his pillow and swore sufficiently to make a stable hand embarrassed.
“How dare she treat me like a menial!” Heloise swept in, the epitome of outraged virtue. “What did that woman want with you? Jesu, you look like a wrung-out cloth.”
“We need to talk, madam.” His heavy tone needled her further.
“Dear God, is there much worth saying?” He watched her angrily pour out some mead and drink some down.
“Jesu!” He flung himself from the bed and, seizing her chin, stuck his fingers down her throat and forced her forwards. “Bring it up! In God’s name, bring it up!”
A few minutes later, he drew her to his breast, wiping away the moisture from her eyes and lips. “It was meant for me, changeling.”
Eyes wild with fear stared up at him from her ashen face. Wordlessly, she sniffed the pewter goblet before she slewed its contents onto the tray. No powdery slurry coated the goblet’s pit or showed within the golden spill.
She dabbed her third finger in it and licked the moisture cautiously. “There was nothing wrong with it, sir.” She poured more from the jug and carried the goblet to the daylight. “It smells well enow.”
Avoiding further misuse of his damaged leg, Miles hobbled back to his hateful bed, cursing if he had spoilt the mending. “Fetch me the map of the southeast shires, pray.”
Clearly, nothing pleased her, but his lady obediently brought him the folded parchment from the coffer in the antechamber and he lay back upon the bed and unfolded the map across the sheet. It showed the locations of Harry’s holdings.
“What is that?”
Heloise was running some kind of fur memento through her fingers. “Dionysia’s rabbit’s foot. Pershall found it on the stairs. She kept it for luck, Miles. It was always on her belt.” Accusation whetted her voice.
He returned his attention to the map. “Tonbridge, Bletchingley.”
“Bletch— Show me, Miles.” The duke’s holding lay east of Reigate, beyond Redhill, upon the pilgrims’ route that wended from the east to Maidstone.
Closing her eyes and surrendering her mind, Heloise ran her finger back from Reigate towards the Thames. “Here.” She opened her eyes. “Str—” The rabbit’s foot in her other hand was making her fingertips pulsate.
“Streatham.” Miles stared at her in amazement.
“Common meadowland,” she whispered, closing her eyes, “a broad field stretching away from the king’s highway and then beyond it a hill rising steeply into woods.”
“Imagination. The same might be said of many hamlets.”
Her eyes snapped open and she rubbed her hand across her throat as though her windpipe ached. “No. I must go there. I must.”
“You will go nowhere. Not without me, lady mine. Are you lunatick?”
“Then send someone, I beg you.” Her other hand joined its fellow at her throat. She swallowed painfully and sank upon the bed, her face grieving.
“All the way out there?” His peace of mind was shaken beyond his liking.
“Miles.” Her voice was raw. “Please, please.”
Her desperation chilled him to the very marrow. “Very well, send your man Martin.”
“It would ease my mind. Thank you.”
Miles folded the map, his own throat dry now. He knew the highway. There was indeed a common in the vale, south of the straight, descending hamlet with its numerous inns and a Norman church dedicated to the patron saint of prisoners. Aye, he and Harry had once stopped for mass there; he recalled it had a crusader’s tomb and a fine rood screen. And yes, he vaguely remembered thick woods rimming a great hill that rose east of the common and the shouts as an oxcart lost its flour sacks on the thin, ascending track that edged the field.
TWO DAYS LATER, MARTIN RODE BACK WITH DIRE TIDINGS: charcoal burners had found a woman of great beauty hanging from a tree in the woods between the hamlets of Streatham and Norwood. The priest of St. Leonard’s had buried her outside the churchyard in unhallowed clay. There had been no jewelry but beneath her silken shift, they had found a paper with the words Harrye, I love you and I alweys shalle.
“Is it her writing, my lady?”
Heloise nodded, the tears splashing down her cheeks and trickling down her bodice as she felt the terrified pain in the parchment.
“I sent her to Bletchingley.” His grace of Buckingham, High Constable of England, Grand Chamberlain, Justiciar of North and South Wales, and recipient at last of the vast Bohun inheritance, strode into the room. The charming artifice of the last weeks had been cast off, or was this, too, a disguising? “I loved her, madam.”
Heloise could only stare at him blankly. The wreath of words dropped truth like wasted flower petals.
“Did you hear what I said, madam?” Buckingham’s livid face seemed to float headless before her eyes. “I said that though your sister lay nightly in my arms, in the mornings she regurgitated what I had said like vomit.” The duke paced to the window and turned, nostrils flared, the Plantagenet lip curled back in a lion’s snarl. “How could she! I would have given her the world if she had asked it of me. I needed her. I thought that at Bletchingley. . .” The ducal chin rose with a mummer’s timing. “Her escort said she stole away from them when they stopped for dinner. She should have trusted me.”
The void was empty of comfort. Heloise’s stare did not absolve him and the duke needed retaliation. “How did the groom know where to find her?” he hurled the question at Miles. “I know you disliked the wench’s influence, thought her an indulgence on my part, but . . . but the fellow says you told him where to search.” The accusation hung across the air like a pointing finger.
“By Christ!” The oath spewed forth, drawn like entrails from a prisoner. Heloise watched Miles’s hackles rise and lower. How could her husband buckler himself without confirming her arcane gift?
“Unhallowed ground!” protested Heloise, casting herself between them. “Unshriven! I—I pray you, let there be masses for her soul, my lord.”
The distraction worked. Buckingham inclined his head, his understanding clear. “Certainly, my lady. Miles.” Then he was gone.
Heloise let out a breath and turned.
The man upon the bed lay very still. “Were you afraid I would choose?”
“Yes.” Her breath would have scarcely stirred a feather. “Yes.”
Twenty-four
As Lammastide drew close, bringing with it the possibility of plague, the nobility left the city. King Richard, Queen Anne, and their embarrassing excess of northerners rode off in splendor on a royal progress homewards to see their son made Prince of Wales before the delighted dalesmen. Buckingham lingered in London before trundling reluctantly back to Wales. A prisoner, too dangerous to be left in London, had been added to his entourage for safekeeping: Bishop Morton. Where else would Richard III bestow one of his greatest enemies but on his greatest friend?
Heloise’s in-laws had been among the first to evacuate the fermenting puddles of London and cart their eldest offspring south to Dorset. They had lost one daughter-in-law and grandson to the pestilence, they did not intend to lose Miles’s new wife and her po
tential contents, even if she were a Ballaster.
She behaved dutifully. Miles did not. With his seigniory reduced to a chair and footstool in his father’s house, he became as unmanageable as Lucifer before the Fall. It was not just his injuries, but as if he feared the Buckingham cart might topple from the road unless he sat upon the driving board to guide the duke. Whenever Heloise tried to peel open what bothered him or probe the open sore of her sister’s death, Miles closed up. When he was mended sufficiently to ride Traveller, he decreed a leisurely journey back through Heloise’s dower lands to Brecknock, and everyone gave thanks except Heloise, who did not want to be anywhere near his grace of Buckingham.
At Hay-on-Wye—a day’s journey from Brecknock (if the weather held), Miles briefly sloughed off his brooding countenance. His mood grew playful, drawing a sparkle from his pensive wife.
“Upon my soul, I do not know how you have borne with me, cariad.” He leaned across from Traveller’s saddle. The kiss lightened her heart. They had relinquished sumpters and servants to Martin’s care at their inn and were now alone on a mysterious excursion of Miles’s devising.
Heloise’s answer was sinful. “I have borne you a great deal, sir, I seem to recall.”
“A holy day, changeling.” He drew rein as an obliging sheep reluctantly rose from nesting on the bridle path. “A pilgrimage.”
With August mellowing into September so sublimely, it was bliss to imagine that there could be more days like this, but the willow herb was slyly loosening its silken messengers upon the drowsy air and within the safety of the crawling ivy tendrils scarlet lords-and-ladies ripened poisonous berries on sappy poles.
The track, littered with rabbity pellets and ovine offerings, broadened out to include fresh horse dung, and a trio of wild ponies lifted their small heads from amongst the gorse bushes. Westwards, grazing land fell away gracefully, unfolding on a realm rimmed by the Black Mountains. To their left, a daunting grassy sward meadowed with nimble sheep rose at a narrow angle and, relenting halfway up, offered a path for cloven feet.
Miles dismounted and whistled, announcing his plan to squire his lady up Hay Bluff. An answering call came from a curlyheaded shepherd boy, who scampered up from the lower tussocks to mind their horses. Well, if this was some personal challenge to test the skill of his bone-setter, Heloise hoped her lord won it, otherwise the villagers of Hay would be greatly inconvenienced. Lashing her wide-brimmed straw hat tightly beneath her chin, she doggedly followed him up the sheep track. The wind fought them at every step, but finally Heloise found herself triumphant on the decapitated hilltop with peaty earth echoing beneath her soles.
“Offa’s Dyke,” murmured her husband, as they stood side by side facing eastwards. He had to point it out to her. “Built from sea to sea, according to Asser’s Life of King Alfred. If we go down this side of the hill, I can stand you in England and kiss you from Wales.” His grin was as wicked as an outlaw’s attacking a successful tax collector’s cart. Had the moorland been drier or less wind-buffeted, she would have found her skirts swiftly invaded.
“I can tell you have tumbled on these slopes before.” She leaned up and kissed him.
“Tumbled, hmm.” Strong fingers drew her heart to heart. “Heloise, sweet lady mine, had I known you were such a stalwart, I would have assented at Bramley and earned ourselves a deal more pleasure.”
“Who can give water to the horse, if it will not drink of its own accord.”
“Impressive. Well, if you have folded your wings and such dry proverbs away, we might discuss, for hypothesis, what a mortal man might offer for thanks. It was too hazardous to bring a bowl of cream.”
She laughed, running the tip of her tongue along her lips to provoke him. “Can you find Cupid’s darts up here?” It was needful to pull away as she spoke, the words a dangerous underbreath. Veracity could have rough edges.
Firm hands turned her. “You need reassurance? I swear before God you are become the candle of my darkness and the pathway home.”
The cadences were beautiful, but home to where? To Brecknock? And poor Sioned lying in the uncompassionate earth? Had she been but a taper lit upon this hilltop too?
“What, such a harsh mistress?” The frame of his hands left her. As if he read her mind, the silvery eyes gleamed. “I shall turn paynim before I reach Purgatory, an arm for each wife like an earthly pasha. You are unsated, I notice.”
“I love you.”
As if he could not bear the truth, he raised a buckler of words. “Do you now? Although I come umbilicled to Harry, y Cysgod glued to the soles of Buckingham’s boots?”
“Miles!”
The guard lowered. “I thought you knew that, cariad.”
“Will the meaning wither if voiced? See—I love you, Miles. Hear me!” She flung her arms wide to the sky and shouted towards England, “I love him!” And she started running, running away from him, the tears gushing swifter. Running along the hill’s haphazard spine until the breath was gone from her. Then she halted, her side aching, hating him for a little space. Perhaps she needed solitude, a replenishing, but her soul was heavy as if some tempest had begun its evil course.
Miles strode purposefully after his fey lady. She was standing like a monument, hands crossed defensively across her breast, staring westwards, the wind herding her skirts behind her.
“Changeling!” He turned her, tilted her chin, and kissed her questioning lips. “I was devoted to Sioned, but you, my darling, have the advantage of a man’s love, not the pipings of a green boy.”
“Did she share you with Harry, too?”
“You are unreasonable, I think.” His hands kept her before him. A thumb scraped over her salt-dried cheek.
“Yes, and it shames me. I do not know what is wrong with me. Help me!”
“Changeling, changeling, matters have a way of working themselves out, given time.”
“Like a splinter.” Self-mockery fell like a droplet into the bitter sadness. His understanding smile warmed her heart, but not before she had glimpsed the self-doubt in his eyes. “Try,” she whispered and wrapped her arms tight about him lest he disappear into the very air. “I cannot hold a shadow but I can love a man.”
“Be patient.” Miles did not know yet how to answer her but he was beginning to understand the question. “I do not know what I shall find at Brecknock. Stay with me, my heart, keep my feet on the earth.” He lifted her in his arms, her thighs against his breast, and turned slowly, holding her like a beacon of defiance to east and west. “I love you, Heloise, and, God willing, I shall protect you with whatever strength I have. Give me the kiss of peace, lady mine.” And he lowered her into the fortress of his arms. He would not unburden his fear to her, but at the inn he would bestow on her all the worship his body might offer.
“NED!” HELOISE, CAUGHT UP IN THE SCRABBLE OF LORD Stafford’s limbs, even managed a pat for his full-grown dog.
“I knew you’d come back. I knew you would not forget your promise. Thank you for your letters.” Set back on the cobbles, he bowed to her properly then offered his hand to his father’s friend with a growing manliness. Heloise embraced Bess and then stared about her.
The garrison had increased and so had the number of servants and men-at-arms. If Miles had observed it already, he made no comment. His attention was harnessed by the black and white strip of fur that scurried across to arch its back against the dusty edge of his wife’s riding gown. She bent to stroke Dafydd’s crooning, then caught her husband’s perturbed gaze and faltered. It was he who lifted the cat, glad of his leather-clad hands, and offered it to her.
“He missed you,” babbled Ned, “but he kept the mice down in your bedchamber. You will come back and sleep in the nursery like you used to, please.”
“I—I . . .”
“I do not think the new governess would be pleased to share a bed,” Miles answered for her. “And married ladies are supposed to keep their husbands warm, and leaf fall is on us almost. Where is your father?”
“You realize we have the Bishop Morton with us,” Duchess Cat warned Miles. “In the keep.”
“A grave responsibility, your grace.”
“He is very charming, Sir Miles. Although he is a prisoner, he does not lack for books and music. It is the least I can do for his kindness to my wretched nephew, King Edward.” A wife’s treason to speak so even if it was spoken softly.
Miles cleared his throat. “I assure you, madam, your nephews were well when I was last in London. The royal lodgings at the Tower are far more luxurious than those at Westminster Palace.”
Especially since the duchess’s sister had removed anything from Westminster that might fetch more than a shilling, thought Heloise. Instead she remarked, “Prince Edward had some malady in his jaw.” And the conversation descended safely into anecdotal exchanges on toothache and diseases of the bones.
“A puzzlement,” Miles muttered later in their bedchamber, having taken Heloise’s brush from her maidservant and sent the girl away. “I have already inspected the garrison. The guard on the bishop is negligible.” He paused as he drew the brush gently through her hair. “A cunning fellow, Morton, with a reputation for escaping. Put him in Hell and he will burrow out again.”
Heloise, changing her rings, closed the tiny coffer lid. “Or?”
“Or he does not want to escape. And why does he not wish to?”
“Perhaps Brittany is not to his taste with the winter coming on. To flee is further treason and mayhap he enjoys the serenata by Cat’s musicians.”
“Or he is doing the serenading. Harry is due back.” He leaned over and dropped the brush onto her velvet lap. “I shall go and await him like Dafydd the mouser.”
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