A King's Betrayal

by Sole, Linda

  The mist was clearing now. Beth could focus on the people about her. There was a young woman wiping her mouth and another older woman standing looking at her from the foot of the bed. Pushing herself up against those soft pillows, she glanced about the room, understanding at once that she was inside Sir William’s castle. No one in the village had a cottage built of stone like this nor yet a quarter as richly furnished. The walls were hung with tapestry in beautiful glowing colours and the furniture was stout oak and carved with various shapes and patterns.

  ‘You are awake at last,’ the younger woman said and smiled. ‘Sir William thought you might die but we did not think you were dying, did we, Mother? My cousin will be pleased that you have not taken a fever, mistress.’

  ‘What happened?’ she asked and then gave a little cry. ‘They put me to the test – and Mistress Grey, they took her too.’

  ‘She is safe and was here asking for you not an hour ago.’

  ‘Did she bring my child?’

  ‘Your child? I have not heard of a child, mistress.’

  ‘They were dragging me to the river. Someone said they would take Katharine – a woman. I saw her run away with my babe.’ Beth gave a little sob. ‘Did Sir William save me?’

  ‘He saw what was happening and took some men to disperse the crowd.’ The older woman looked at her gravely. ‘I fear there were bad things done this day, mistress. The priest ran but he was caught and beaten, and a man was killed. The villagers were roused and it seems they thought you had been harshly treated.’

  ‘The man – Carl – he hated me, though I do not know why.’

  ‘He was in league with the priest to incite the villagers, but their plan turned back on them and it was they who suffered most.’ The young woman smiled at her. ‘I am Ruth and my mother is Anne Redfern. Sir William brought us here to serve him when he returned from France.’

  Beth looked from one to the other. The younger woman was smiling and friendly but her mother seemed more reserved, as though she was uncertain of what Beth was doing here.

  ‘I thank you for your care of me.’ Beth threw back the covers and put her feet to the floor. ‘I must look for Katharine. I do not know who took her.’

  ‘Be careful, mistress,’ Ruth warned as Beth stood, then gave a gasp and fell back to the bed. ‘You are not well enough to search for your child yet. Rest here. My mother will bring you a warming posset and I shall speak to Sir William, ask him what must be done to find your child.’

  ‘How old is your child?’ Anne Redfern asked her.

  ‘Very young, just a few months,’ Beth replied. She caught at Ruth’s hand imploringly. ‘Will you search for her? Please, I must find my child – my Katharine.’

  ‘I shall speak to Sir William. If he permits I will go to the village myself and ask who has the babe. If someone took her she may have hidden her lest she be harmed. She may not have seen you rescued and is perhaps in hiding, fearing that they will harm the babe.’

  ‘Yes, it must be so,’ Beth said, but a tear trickled down her cheek.

  Marthe had found her when she was a child. In her desperation Beth had given her daughter to the woman who asked, but now she was terrified. Supposing Katharine had been stolen? Supposing the woman kept her hidden all her life – as Marthe had Beth?

  ‘I must find her. Please, I must find her,’ Beth said and lay back against the pillows. Her head was spinning and she felt ill. She was too weak to go and search for her child herself, but surely Sir William would when he knew she had a child. She had deliberately been vague when she spoke of Katharine’s age. If the lord thought her child was his surely he would try to find her?

  When Beth opened her eyes again William was standing watching her. She slid her way up the bed, resting against the pillows, looking at him a little warily.

  ‘Are you better, Beth?’

  ‘Yes, better than when I first woke,’ she said. ‘I must thank you for my life. Had you not come I should have died in the miller’s pond.’

  ‘They told you what happened to the priest and the man Carl?’

  ‘The villagers turned on them. The priest was beaten and Carl was – killed.’

  ‘Yes, that is the case. I am sorry for it. I shall have to punish them because they broke the law. Had they left it to me I would have punished those that hurt you but within the law.’

  ‘What will you do to them?’

  ‘Some will be fined, others may serve a term in the stocks or spend a month in my dungeons. I shall not hang the culprits because I do not know who threw the first stone – or who killed Carl. The priest lives. When he leaves here he will spread the tale of witchcraft and there may be a price to pay. The Bishops will be angry that one of their own was attacked and I could be reprimanded.’

  ‘What will they do to you?’

  ‘I may be fined for failing to keep the peace in my demesne and allowing evil practice – or I might be excommunicated, cut off from the sacrament. If the priest tells his lies and is believed all the village could suffer. There would be no marriage, no blessings and no one to see a soul safely on its way to Heaven. I must show that I have dealt with the culprits.’

  ‘What of me?’

  ‘You were unjustly accused and I will protect you no matter what.’

  ‘Why – why would you do that for me?’

  ‘You did not tell me you were with child the day Marthe died.’ William frowned at her. ‘I saw no sign of it – but you were both close to starving and your tunic hung on you. You should have sent word and I would have brought you here to have the babe. I would not let you have stayed in the wood to fend for yourself, Beth. Mistress Grey told me you gave birth alone in the woods. ‘Tis a wonder that both you and the babe survived.’

  ‘I was not alone - there was someone with me, a woman who called herself Isolde. She helped me, gave me a shawl for the babe, and then she left.’ Beth caught her breath. ‘Have you found Katharine?’

  ‘Katharine is a good name. I like it well. She has not been found yet, but I have men scouring the woods.’

  ‘Did no one know who took her?’

  ‘Mistress Grey says she saw the woman for an instant but she was struggling against her captors and could do nothing. She says that she had never seen the woman here before. She was not of the village.’

  ‘She has stolen her. She has stolen my child.’ Beth’s cry of anguish brought him closer to the bed. ‘I must get up and look for her.’

  ‘I think you should rest for a little longer. My men will leave no stone unturned – and Mistress Grey will tend your livestock. I do not think you should leave here until I am certain it is safe.’

  Beth stared at him. ‘Am I your prisoner?’

  ‘No, do not think it. Once you are well I shall let you go if you still wish it – but I should like you to stay. I could protect you and care for you, and the child. Please, let me care for you, Beth. I am sorry for what happened that day in the cottage. I would do anything to go back and act differently.’

  ‘If you had not raped me I might have come to you,’ Beth said. ‘I did not dislike you then – and I do not hate you now. You helped me with Marthe and you saved my life. I am grateful for those things.’

  ‘I do not want gratitude.’

  ‘What do you want of me?’

  William hesitated, then, ‘I shall speak of my feelings another day. I came only to see that you were well. Ruth told me that you would recover but I was afraid to believe her.’

  ‘Is she your wife?’

  ‘You know I have no wife. Ruth and her mother are distant cousins. They were alone and left without a roof for Anne’s husband died and they were forced to leave their home. The new owner of the manor sought to make them servants and they begged me for help. I brought them here to give them a home – and for other reasons, but not to wed Ruth.’

  ‘She is a good and gentle woman.’

  ‘Yes, that much is true, and I am grateful for her care of you – but there is but one woman I w
ant for my wife…’ He paused and frowned. ‘I have said too much. You must rest. Tomorrow, if you are able, you will come down and we shall dine together. I shall tell you of my plans for the future and you will eat the finest foods my cook can prepare.’

  ‘Ruth gave me chicken soup and bread with butter. I do not know when I have tasted finer, lord.’

  He smiled. ‘You will learn to scorn such fare if you will accept my offer, Beth – and it would please me if you will call me William.’

  ‘I shall try to remember if it pleases you,’ Beth said. ‘It is difficult. Most speak of you as the lord, but I shall try, Sir William.’

  ‘You are not like the others,’ he said, his voice husky, thick with emotion. ‘You are my lady of the woods – and I am William, your humble lord.’

  Beth felt a strange prickling sensation at the nape of her neck. She could feel warmth spreading through her and, as she looked at him, she saw what she believed was tenderness in his eyes. In that moment she thought that perhaps he did truly care for her. He had promised her much but she had not believed him, thinking he would use her and then discard her – but now she found that she was beginning to trust him.

  Perhaps he would be kind to her – and Katharine. The thought of her child brought a choking cry to her lips. There would be no happiness for her at the castle unless Katharine was found.

  ‘You will keep looking for my child?’

  ‘You have my word. On my oath as a knight of this realm, I shall not cease to search until we have her – or proof of her death.’

  ‘Proof…’ Beth’s throat closed and she could not speak.

  Yet she knew that a tiny child taken from its mother’s milk would be vulnerable and unless the woman returned the child – or could feed her – it was unlikely that Katharine could survive for long.

  ‘Yes, she is so young and she will cry for her mother.’

  As Beth had cried so many times when she was young. She had cried for a mother who was but a distant memory, a picture in her mind of softness and warmth and gentle arms. Marthe had lied, making her believe that she was her mother, but always, somewhere deep inside her, Beth had known. Her mother must have wept when she was lost – bitter painful tears and still they continued, if she lived, for Beth had never been found. It might be that Katharine too would never be returned to her mother.

  The thought was like a dagger in her heart. Where was her darling child? Would she ever see her again?

  The child was crying again. Always it cried, incessantly, hour after hour and it was heavy to carry in her arms. Lilath had done a good deed for she’d seen that the mother was doomed to die in the murky waters of the river. It had been on impulse that she’d run up to the woman and taken her child, wanting to ease her distress and save the babe. No one could save the woman. Lilath had seen a ducking before and she knew such trials always ended in death for the unfortunate creature, either in the water or at the priest’s hands. She had wanted to do a good thing, but now she was hungry, tired, and she needed to rest. The child was a nuisance for she had no way of feeding it and no cloths to change its bindings.

  Should she leave the babe by the wayside? Perhaps some good soul might find it and take it in? Yet the child was more like to die, because it needed food and someone to care for it properly. She might take it to the nuns. Sometimes they would take a motherless babe in but the nearest Abbey was too far for her to walk with a heavy child. She must find food and somewhere to shelter for the night. Her feet were sore for she had no shoes and she had run as fast as she could, fearing that the angry mob would come after her. Had they done so she might have been attacked and the child would have been drowned for certain – but she could not care for the babe herself. Had it been old enough to walk and feed itself she might have kept it or sold it – but who would want the babe of a witch?

  Lilath looked down at the babe. Even with its face red and screwed up with crying, it was lovely. Surely someone would take her? She tried to think where she might find food both for herself and the child close by, and then the answer came to her. There was a fork in the road a little further ahead and if she turned right she would come to the school that the Sisters of Mercy ran for children they took into their care.

  It was the very place for them. Lilath’s toothless mouth opened in a grin as she poked at the child’s mouth with her finger. The babe latched on to it and sucked, hoping for food, but at least it was quiet for a moment. Soon it would cry again, because its belly was empty. Lilath understood, for her own stomach was growling. She had not eaten for two days, but the Sisters would give her food. She had heard that the Sisters of Mercy would pay for children. They would give her supper at least and perhaps more.

  Some people said the Sisters used witchcraft in their healing, and some feared them. Lilath herself would have feared to approach them to beg for food, though they nursed the sick and helped women in need. She did not fear to give them the child. She would tell them that the child’s mother had been taken and put to the test as a witch. The Sisters had many motherless daughters in their care, for they admitted only girl children.

  She quickened her pace, hobbling as fast as her wasted leg would allow. As she walked in the gathering dusk, she repeated her story to herself. The child’s mother was dead and she had stolen the babe away to save her from being thrown into the river. The Sisters would feed her well this night and mayhap they might give her a silver penny. Supposing they did not believe her – or would not believe her? Lilath thought hard, then smiled her toothless smile.

  If the Sisters would not take the babe, Lilath would leave her by the side of the road where someone might find her. It was all she could do.

  Forty Two

  ‘Banners advance! In the name of Jesus, Mary and St George!’

  At King Henry’s exhortation his whole army knelt as one; each man drew the sign of the cross on the ground, bent, kissed the sign they had made and took a tiny piece of soil into their mouths. Like rippling corn in the breeze, they stood and began their march to where the enemy were grouped. The French had taken a position of strength between Tramecourt and Agincourt, their tightly-packed formations blocking the route the English troops must take to reach Calais.

  They were a formidable force of perhaps upwards of thirty or forty thousand men, but their front was spread over no more than three-quarters of a mile, hemmed in by the woods that bordered the villages. Between the two armies lay a stretch of waterlogged ground that they must cross to engage. In the forefront of the French army were the flower of the nobility. The battle plan was to have placed the archers to the front to wreak havoc on the advancing English, but the nobles were proud and refused to wait in the disciplined ranks, as they were bid. The sight that met the English was of many brightly coloured banners, which were so tightly packed they blocked the knights’ passage. Such was the strength of the enemy that many an English heart sank in fear, but as the cry, ‘St George! St George! was taken up across the ranks they went bravely forward. Outnumbered by overwhelming odds, weakened by hunger and sickness, many still suffering from the bloody flux, they trudged relentlessly across the muddy field.

  ‘Today we win a glorious battle or die in the attempt,’ Raoul said to his friend, his eyes glittering with intense excitement. ‘For God, honour and friendship, Stefan. If one of us should die and the other live, the survivor will bury the dead.’

  ‘You have my word, Raoul.’

  The two comrades watched the march of the foot soldiers. Drums were beating, trumpets sounded and the noise of armour and jingling harness mingled with the battle cries of the men. It was a ragged band of men that marched steadily, slowly, surely towards the French lines, but there was something terrifying about them. The sight had begun to sow discord and confusion in the enemy’s ranks for they had somehow lost their command of the situation. Only a bold or a mad man would march against such overwhelming odds? They had expected Henry to accept defeat and sue for terms.

  Then the cry went up fo
r the French to confess their sins and engage with the English. The ragged but fearsome warriors of England had reached within two hundred yards of the opposing ranks when they halted and their archers hammered into the wet ground the heavy stakes they had carried for such a long weary way. Taking shelter behind their screen and shields, they began to fire a barrage of deadly arrows into the French ranks. Because of the narrow confines of the field they had chosen to halt the English advance, the French nobles were huddled together and the arrows rained death on an enemy that had not expected such defiance. In sudden haste they made a charge at the English left flank with such fierceness that the front line recoiled, but the archers stood their ground, protected by the woods at their backs. The stakes they had hammered into the earth made it impossible for the elite cavalry to ride down their line, as they had clearly planned and expected. Horses and men thrust forward by the pressure of overwhelming numbers from behind were thrust against the pointed stakes and became impaled, the sound of their screaming mingling with the clash of metal against metal.

  ‘They are breaking!’ Raoul cried. ‘The cavalry are repulsed. Now we shall have them.’

  ‘They are attacking the baggage carts,’ Stefan said. ‘I’ll take a few men to help protect them and then return.’

  ‘God be with you.’

  Ralph did not turn his head to watch his friend ride away. His eyes were firmly fixed on the chaos at the front line. The French cavalry was broken and scattered but now the main body of the French army was moving forward. Heads down, lances and swords at the ready, they came on despite the hail of arrows that decimated their ranks.

  ‘Where are their archers?’ Raoul wondered aloud. ‘Why do they not use them as we do?’

  He saw that the French were stumbling through the mud which clung to their feet and made it difficult to move, but despite their difficulty men were managing to reach the parts of the line where the English men-at arms waited. This was his moment! No battle could be won without a test of skill, knights against knights, fighting men against fighting men. The archers and cannon had their place, but honour came from man against man.