A King's Betrayal (7 page)

             
‘They might have taken you instead of Nessa.’

             
‘Better I was dead than left to grieve for my child.’

‘I swear that I shall never cease to search for her,’ Tomas vowed.  He reached for her again and this time she allowed him to hold her.  He held her pressed close to his heart, his lips brushing against her hair.  ‘While I live I shall never give up.  I promise you, Beatrice.  One day you will see Elspeth again.’

             
‘Tomas…’  the tears slid down her cheeks as she lay her head against his chest and felt his strength.   ‘She is so small and vulnerable and she will weep for us.  Unless someone has found her she may already be dead.’

             
‘No, she lives.  I feel it,’ Tomas said and his arms tightened about her.  ‘The search will not stop until she is found – or proof of her death is brought to us.’

             
‘Proof?’  Beatrice looked up at him.

             
‘Her gown and the chain and cross of gold I gave her and placed about her neck on the day of Christ’s Mass last.’

             
‘Yes, I remember,’ Beatrice said.  ‘She loved that necklet, Tomas.  If someone brings that to us it will be proof.’  She gazed up into his face.  ‘Am I wicked, Tomas?    Do you know what I have done that I should  be so cursed?’

             
He shook his head. ‘ You must not blame yourself, my love.  The men who stole our child were but rough marauders who earned their bread from raiding villages, stealing food and money, and the women.  Elspeth lives.  Had she died her body must have been found.  We were but hours behind them.  No, I believe the child has been taken to a place of safety.  When it is known she is yours, she will be returned.’

             
Beatrice nodded, but his words of comfort could not convince her.
             
‘You speak kindly to comfort me, but I think Elspeth was taken from us because of who she is – and I fear she is dead.  I do not think I shall see her again.’

             
‘We shall find her if she lives,’ Tomas vowed.  ‘Do not give up all hope, Beatrice.  She will return to us one day,’ Tomas said and his arms curled about her as if he would absorb her pain into himself.  ‘I swear to you that I shall find her – if it takes me all my life.’

Eight

God had answered her prayers.  Marthe looked down at the sleeping child as she lay on a pile of dirty blankets and dried bracken.  She had given up her bed, choosing to sit by the fire and keep watch over the girl during the dark hours.  It was almost three years, at the close of the year of Our Lord 1398, since her daughter Elizabeth had died of a strange sleeping sickness.  She had carried the sick child in her arms, walking many miles from her home near Shrewsbury to the nuns at the convent of the Sisters of Mercy, to ask for help, because her own cures had been useless.  It was said that if you prayed to the shrine of the Virgin a miracle would be granted.  Elizabeth had grown weaker and weaker and she knew that unless the Sisters of Mercy could help her child she would die. Marthe had begged for their help on her knees, keeping a vigil at the shrine throughout the night, but she had not been granted a miracle.

             
‘Your child has a mild fever no more,’ one of the nuns told her.  ‘She will recover if you nurse her, as you have been taught.  You were one of us once and used your gift for evil and your own gain.  You do not need our help nor shall you be given food or fire within fifty miles of the convent.  Take the child away and use your arts to save her.’

             
Marthe begged and pleaded but she was turned away and five days later her child died.  She had vowed then that she would seek revenge on the nuns.  The Sisters of Mercy had let her child die to punish her for her sins.  Marthe had been punished when she was cast out of the convent for using a love potion she had made by using the old magic and praying to the gods of the woods.  She had broken her vows of chastity and forsaken her faith and for that she had paid a heavy price.

             
Her love potion had brought her the man she loved and a daughter of her own, but her husband had left her when the child took sick and Marthe’s last hope had gone when the nuns refused her.  Instead of returning to Shrewsbury after her child died, she had made herself a shelter in some woods not far from Oswestry on the Welsh Marches.
             
She had been returning from one of her foraging trips when she heard the woman screaming.  Her first thought was to flee, but curiosity had drawn her to the sound of the screams and the coarse laughter.  The scene she’d witnessed from the safety of the great oak that hid her from their sight had made her tremble.  Marthe was six and twenty and had been thought beautiful until the pox marked her skin and left her pitted with ugly scars.  Yet even she would not be safe from brutes like these for they would use her for their sport and never look at her face.

             
Turning away, her skin prickling with fear, Marthe had seen the child wandering into the wood. The girl had seemed dazed, lost, as if her wits had gone begging.  She’d picked her up without considering what she was doing and run away.  Afraid of discovery, she had not stopped to eat or rest until she reached her own dwelling, which was a rough shelter made of branches and hidden deep within a circle of gorse and brambles that most could not penetrate.  Here she had been safe since burying her child Elizabeth, but she knew that things were different now.  If she stayed here someone might come looking for the child, who must surely have been stolen.  She decided that in the morning she would take the girl and leave.  She would go to England, where she would be safe.

             
Marthe had known immediately that the child was special as soon as she took her.  A child of such beauty, her hair like spun silk, and dressed as fine as a princess with a golden chain about her throat must belong to a lord. No peasant or yeoman could afford such clothes for a child, even the rich merchants were too practical to buy such a gown for a girl who would grow out of it in months.

Excitement curled through Marthe as she considered the lucky chance that had taken her to the clearing that day.  Those pigs raping that wretched woman were soldiers of fortune, renegades owing no allegiance to anyone but themselves.  In these lawless times they preyed on anyone vulnerable enough to offer them sport or money, but they had squandered a fortune by their swinish behaviour.  The child’s father would surely pay for her return.

             
Marthe added another stick to the fire and considered.  What would give her the most satisfaction – to give the child back for the ransom her father would gladly pay or keep the child for herself?  She had no husband and was landless, without a proper home.  Since leaving the convent she had lived by her wits and a child might be a burden, and yet as she grew older a young helper might ease her life.

             
A smile of malicious pleasure touched her mouth.  What use was gold to a woman like her?  She had neither family, nor lover or even a friend to share her good fortune or envy her new wealth. If she flaunted it others would grow jealous and take it from her for she was alone and vulnerable.

             
She had no thought of harming the child.  She would keep her and it would be as if her Elizabeth had come back to her.  The girl was whimpering in her sleep, tears on her cheek.  In the days and weeks to come she might cry and grieve for her mother but she was too young to understand.  In time she would come to accept that her life was with her “mother” in the woods – but not these woods.

             
Marthe knew that she could not hope to remain undiscovered once the people were alerted to the lord’s loss.  People might come to search for the girl.  If she were caught with the child she would be punished.  Her life would be forfeit.  She would leave in the morning and take the child with her.  In England people would not know that the girl was not hers.  She would live quietly, using her arts as a healer to put food in their mouths.

             
As the girl murmured and cried out in her sleep, she stroked her head.  She was such a beautiful child.  Marthe’s prayers were answered for now she had someone to fill the empty space in her heart.

             
‘Mama,’ the child cried out, tears on her cheeks.  ‘Mama…’

             
‘I am your mother now, child.  You may feel strange for a little when you wake and if you remember what happened I shall give you something to take away the fear.  You may cry for your mama but as you learn that I am your mother you will forget that other life.’

             
‘Mama...’ the child opened her eyes, whimpering but not seeing her.  ‘Mama…’

             
‘I am here, little one.’

             
The child sighed, closed her eyes and seemed to settle.

             
‘It will not be so bad, my sweet babe.’  Marthe smiled and reached out to touch the girl’s soft cheek.  ‘My Beth has come back to me,’ she murmured.  ‘We shall do well enough, daughter.  You are the answer to my prayers.  Justice is done.’

The child woke with a cry of fear.  She looked about her, afraid of the darkness and the grunting noises she could hear in the woods.  In her dream she had been somewhere else, somewhere familiar and warm, somewhere safe where she was loved, but now she could not remember that place.  There was a blackness in her mind more terrifying than the darkness around her.

             
‘Mama,’ she screamed.  ‘Mama, where are you?   I do not like the dark.  Mama, I am afraid.’

             
A woman peered down at her.  Her face was ugly, marked with scars and pale.  As she knelt to touch her, the child could smell a sour unclean odour that made her want to wretch.  She shrank away as the woman stroked her with her skinny hands, the dirty nails long and curved like an animal’s claws.

             
‘No…’ she screamed.  ‘Don’t hurt me.  I want Mama.’

             
‘Do not fear me child.  I am your mother,’ the woman said.  ‘Whatever you remember of the past is false.  It is all gone.  I am your mother and you will live with me and be my daughter.  Your name is Beth.’

             
‘Beth?’ the child echoed in wonder for it sounded like a name she’d once known but it was not right.  ‘No, I am called…’ She could not remember.  Her name was lost with all the rest and terror swept through her.  ‘I do not know you – I do not know anything.’

             
‘Here, drink this,’ the woman said, thrusting a cup into her hands.  ‘Drink it and you will feel better.  As time passes you will forget all the things that have hurt you and you will know that you are my daughter.  You are Beth and I am Marthe and we live in the woods, but not here.  We must keep walking and hiding for if the men find us they may kill us.’

             
The child’s hand trembled as she sipped at the cup.  Marthe’s warning frightened her, because there was something at the back of her mind about men – men on horses that had ridden towards her when she was in the meadow.  It was there, hidden behind a curtain of mist and if she tried she might remember – but it was too terrible.  She wanted to shut it out, to reach that place beyond the darkness, but to remember one she must let the other in and she was too afraid.

             
‘Trust me, child.  Soon you will have forgotten all that troubles you.  My cures will help you forget.  Nothing that is gone matters.  I shall keep you safe but you must do as I say.’

             
The child drank deeply from the cup, handing it back when it was empty.  Gradually, her eyes grew heavy and her body relaxed as she slept.  Now there were no dreams at all.

The woman Marthe had told her to hunt for firewood.  It was cold at night now and she was hungry.  Each day was the same and they were all cold and dark, her mind numbed to forgetfulness. Marthe said that they would light a fire and cook a rabbit on a trivet she had made from pointed sticks.  She did not want to hunt for firewood.  Her legs ached for they had been walking and walking for so long, but she knew that if she did not obey the woman who said she was her mother, Marthe would slap her and shake her.  Tears trickled down her cheeks but she wiped them away with the back of her hand.  Crying made Marthe angry.  She would hurt her and tell her she was an ungrateful girl.

             
Once, there had been someone who held her and kissed her.  The memory was faint and the child did not dare to tell Marthe for if she did she would grow angry – and she would make her drink that foul potion, which kept her in daze for days and weeks at a time.

             
She had gathered an armful of sticks when she heard a growling sound.  Turning, she saw a large black dog with yellow eyes, its fangs bared and saliva dripping from its mouth as it stared at her.  She backed away in terror but the dog came after her slowly, stalking her.  She opened her mouth to scream, but a hand came over it and another hand dragged her away.

             
‘Leave the firewood,’ Marthe whispered in her ear.  ‘We must run.  If the men see us they will kill us.  If we can reach the stream the dog will lose our scent.’

             
She dropped the bundle of sticks.  Her heart pounded as Marthe dragged her, making her run faster than she had ever run before.  She was certain that the dog would hunt them down and that the wicked men would come and kill them, as Marthe threatened.  They reached the river and plunged in.  Marthe pulled her down, under the water, hissing at her to hold her breath.  She obeyed, gulping air and then holding her breath as Marthe took her down.  Her lungs felt as if they would burst and she kicked, trying to reach the surface, but Marthe held her.  When at last they surfaced and she could breathe, the child lay on the far side of the stream with her eyes closed.  She had thought she would die beneath the water, but she could no longer see the huge hunting dog and the sound of a horn in the distance told her that the huntsmen had moved on.

             
‘They are still searching for us,’ Marthe said.  ‘We must move on.  I dare not stop to cook the rabbit because they might see the smoke from our fire.  We must move across the border into England and even then we shall not be safe.  We must go far away from here.’

             
‘Where are we?’ the child asked.

             
‘What does it matter?’  Marthe said.  ‘You must never return here.  It is not safe for us even in the Marches.  We shall go to a place I have heard of where there is a vast forest, where the King hunts for his pleasure.  Perhaps there we shall be safe.’

             
‘Why do the men want to kill us?’

             
‘You ask too many questions.’

             
‘I am hungry.  My belly hurts.’

             
‘You cry too much and I lose patience with you.  Do as I tell you, Beth, or it will be the worse for you.’

             
The child cringed away from her but she did not cry.  She was becoming accustomed to the slaps and the sharp words.  She had tried to resist, to recall that other place, the place in her dreams, but as the days and weeks passed she dreamed less.  All she could think of now was the pain in her belly and her sore feet.  If she made no trouble for Marthe, perhaps she would bathe them when they stopped for the night and rub them with herbs that took away the sting of the terrible blisters.