Lost Innocents (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 3) (6 page)

"Go, with your tail between your legs, knowing the price you paid for ignoring me," Meg threw after him, as if needing the last word, only to hiss in annoyance as she saw the odd young man making his strange way toward them.

"What are you doing here, you dulcop?" she shouted at the youth. "I told you to stay in the kitchen. Go home!"

The youth didn't spare her a glance as he continued toward the well at his unusual gait, heels raised, hands flapping, tongue clicking.

"You imbecile!" Meg shrieked. "Dimwit you are, but I know you can hear me. Go back to the kitchen!" When he still didn't heed her words, she added, "Mary save me, but I should just slit your throat and be done with you."

That stopped the simpleton. His heels and chin lowered, his arms fell to his sides. Then, blinking as if only now coming into awareness of where he was, he scanned the few folk still gathered around the well.

Amelyn sighed, yet holding her daughter close. "I'm so sorry, Johnnie," she said sadly.

Hearing his name spoken, this Johnnie swiveled until his gaze fell upon the leper. A crease formed between his brows as he noticed Jessimond's body in her mother's lap. This time when his hands began to flap, the motion was clearly agitated. With a high-pitched squeal, he came straight toward Amelyn, moving as fast as he could given his odd bearing.

"By all the Holy Helpers, I told you to go home and you'll do as I say!" Meg screeched, flying at him, slapping and punching.

The youth squealed again at this attack. Amelyn echoed his cry and started to rise, only to have the weight of her daughter's body drive her back to sitting. She turned her hooded head toward Faucon. "Stop her! Don't let her hurt one so helpless," she begged.

Faucon had already started forward, intending to part the two. Instead, he paused. Imbecile or not, there was nothing helpless about this Johnnie's defense. The youth had lowered his head so his ears and skull were out of Meg's reach as he used his arms and shoulders to deflect the woman's blows. Then, at precisely the right instant, Johnnie gave a swift jerk. Meg tumbled off his back with a frustrated shriek. As she sprawled onto the turf behind him, the youth began again to lumber toward Amelyn.

"What's happening?" Edmund shouted out, having returned as far as the edge of the manor's demesne.

Not wanting his clerk's presence to alter what might next happen, Faucon held up a hand. It was a clear command that Edmund should stay where he was, and a wasted gesture. As always, his clerk ignored him and lifted his heels into a trot, his quiver-like basket of tools bouncing against his back from the strap slung over his shoulder.

At the well, Meg was back on her feet. She launched herself at the idiot with a raging cry and grabbed the neck of his tunic. Given her modest stature, the woman's hands were larger and stronger-looking than Faucon expected.

Twisting and writhing, the youth sought again to throw off the cook. This time, Meg held tight, beating at his head with her free hand. Unable to shuck her, Johnnie continued forward, carrying her with him until he fell to his knees next to Amelyn. Meg caught a hank of his knotted hair and pulled. Johnnie bleated. However much pain she caused him, it wasn't enough to stop him from wrapping his arms around Jessimond. Using his elbow like a lever, he tried to pry the dead girl from her mother's grasp.

"Nay, Johnnie! Leave be," Amelyn shouted.

As she fought for control of her daughter, her gloved hand brushed the sleeve of Meg's gown. The old woman yelped in panic, her fear of contagion greater than her need to punish the simpleton. Releasing Johnnie, she stumbled back and collided with the oldster. As the ragged ancient started to fall, he cried out and caught Meg at the waist in instinctive reaction. The old woman pivoted, her arms raised and fists closed. Instantly, the rustic released her and tumbled to the ground. There, he stayed head turned to the side and arms raised to protect himself from an attack. Meg ignored him, shifting to once again watch the idiot and the leper. As she did, she scrubbed her hand against her skirt.

"Johnnie, it's me," Amelyn cried as she battled the youth, now clutching Jessimond's body close to her. "I am Amelyn, and Jessimond is my daughter."

That stopped the simpleton. Without releasing the dead girl, Johnnie shifted until he could stare under the leper's hood. The crease between his brows returned.

"That's right," Amelyn said to him, her soothing tone owning a mother's lilt. "It's me, Amelyn."

That crease deepened. Releasing the corpse, the idiot sat back on his heels. Once again, he began to make that clicking sound. Then with a swift sweep of his arm, he knocked the hood off Amelyn's head. With a frantic cry, the leper grabbed for it and missed as it came to rest between her shoulder blades, exposing her face and neck.

Pity raced through Faucon. Jessimond had been her mother's image. Although Amelyn was in her middle years she remained a beautiful woman, despite the reddened, misshapen lumps that told the tale of her progressing disease.

"Lord save him, he touched the leper!" Edmund cried as he halted a little distance behind Amelyn and the well. He let his basket of tools slide off his arm. As it tumbled to the ground he folded his hands and bowed his head.

"You touched her?!" Meg shouted, echoing the monk's shocked protest.

Then the old woman laughed, the sound deep and satisfied. "God be praised, you touched her! My prayers are answered. I won't have you back now and there's no one who can force you on me, not for any reason. Starve, you dulcop, and know that I'll happily watch you die." With that, Meg whirled and started back toward her lady's kitchen at the same raging pace by which she'd left it.

Johnnie paid no heed to either clerk or cook. Instead, making a cooing sound, he lifted a hand as if intending to touch one of the angry patches on Amelyn's face. Yet seeking to retrieve her hood with one hand, the leper caught the idiot's arm with the other, trying to forestall his touch at the same time. She looked up at Faucon. Her eyes were a crystalline blue beneath the arch of her dark brows.

"Meg's wrong. I swear he didn't touch me," she vowed, then turned her gaze on the youth. "Nay, Johnnie, I will not allow this. If you touch me, you may grow ill as I have."

Johnnie relaxed and gently freed his arm from Amelyn's grasp. The youth looked at the dead girl in the leper's lap, then drew his hand down Jessimond's cold cheek. As he did, he raised his gaze to Amelyn, his brows lifted as if in question.

"She lives no more," she told him, her voice quavering anew. A mother's grief again filled her eyes. "Like your mama, my Jessie has also gone to Heaven to dwell with the angels."

This provoked a moan from Johnnie, suggesting he wasn't as witless as Meg named him. Once more, the youth stroked Jessimond's face, tears now rolling unheeded down his cheeks. Faucon eyed the odd man's hands. They were of a size with his own.

"Who is he to you?" he asked Amelyn.

Before replying, the leper restored her oversized hood to its rightful place, concealing the disease eating her alive. When she looked up at him, all that was exposed of her face was the end of her nose, her chin and jaw, and they were cast in light shadow.

"Another unwanted child of Wike," she murmured bitterly, then continued in a stronger voice. "He is my half-brother, the son of Meg's sister Martha, who married my father when they were both widows facing their later years."

Amelyn shook her head. "She was a good woman, Martha. Too good for this hateful place, I say. Look how she welcomed our Lord's gift of a child, one who came long after she thought her womb capable of harboring life. Despite that her son was damaged by coming too early, Martha cherished him so dearly that she turned her back on our custom of leaving infants like Johnnie to die in some distant glade. Indeed, she stood fast, even when all of Wike demanded that she be shed of him.

Amelyn sighed at that. "Much to my shame, I added my voice to theirs. I warned her that keeping such a babe might lead to more sorrow than joy for both of them. Would that I hadn't been right," she added at a whisper before continuing. "Instead, Martha told us all that the Lord had given her Johnnie and she would raise him, vowing to do so at no cost to any of us."

Arms crossed, Faucon nodded to show he understood. Many a crippled or halfwit babe ended their short lives in some far-flung or hidden place, especially in communities as small as this one. Trapped in inherited bondage to this place, even the able-bodied among these villeins barely survived each year with lives and limbs intact. They could ill afford to carry the burden of an unproductive mouth. Not that it was much different in wealthier places. Even the grandest of God's holy houses were conservative about how many useless mouths they sheltered.

"It's one thing to promise that her child will cost them nothing, but another to manage it," Faucon said as Edmund made his way around the well to stand beside him. "I'm surprised more wasn't done to thwart her. What of your father? Did he have no influence over her? What did he think of bearing the cost of a damaged babe?"

"My sire died before his son was born," she told Faucon, "and Johnnie was his only surviving male heir. Because of that, no one could gainsay Martha. At least, not so early in Johnnie's life, in case we were wrong about him," she added. "But Martha kept her word. She sold every bit of my father's chattel to keep her precious son fed. When there was nothing more to sell, it fell to me to see to our daily meals.

"If only I hadn't become like this," Amelyn touched her hood to indicate her illness. "I know in my heart that Martha died of hunger, because she gave her beloved son the food from her own mouth.

"As for Johnnie, when Martha passed last year, dealing with him was no longer as simple as taking him into some far-flung thicket and leaving him to die. Not that Meg, who is his only kin, didn't strive mightily to refuse to care for him. But to their credit, no one here allowed her that. Instead, they forced him into that kitchen of hers." The leper pointed to the shed that was Meg's domain within the demesne, then offered a harsh laugh.

"Poor Meg," she said, her voice holding no pity at all for the lady's arrogant servant. "How she must hate having to be charitable for once in her sorry life. Although it pains me to admit it, the folk in Wike were as right to force Johnnie on Meg as they were wrong when they pressed Jessimond into yon kitchen after I was banished."

That made Faucon frown. "Idiot or not, Johnnie is your daughter's uncle. If your stepmother was yet alive when you left this place, why was your daughter given to Meg rather than being left with her own blood kin?" That was especially so when it seemed that all here knew Meg had a harsh hand while, if Amelyn's tale was true, Johnnie's mother had been a kinder soul.

"Johnnie is no idiot," Amelyn protested. "Aye, he's dumb, but he hears and understands, and he can do many tasks. Can't you, sweetling?" She patted the youth's sleeve as she spoke. "You like sweeping the floor and tending the fire. You can even chop wood."

The child-man smiled, this time nodding his answer, proving that he did indeed comprehend the spoken word, at least those spoken by his sister. After giving her half-brother another pat, Amelyn glanced up at Faucon. Beneath the concealment of her hood, she offered him a brief bend of her lips and a quiet laugh.

"Not that Meg would ever admit Johnnie is capable of anything. If she did, she'd lose her excuse to complain ceaselessly about him and the burden his existence is to her," she said.

"So much is obvious." Faucon grinned in return, liking the leper despite her contagion, when he had no right to form such opinions. His only duty was to determine if his monarch could wring any value from her daughter's death.

"As to why my Jes was forced onto Meg," Amelyn started, then paused to give a sharp shake of her head. "It's not Johnnie who deserves to be named dimwit in Wike. Putting Jessimond into Meg's custody was a futile attempt by the others to stop her thievery. I don't know how anyone thought a child in that kitchen would prevent Meg from doing as she always has, especially not when the lass they chose to use was as gentle as my Jes."

"What does Meg steal?" he asked, wondering what could be taken from those who had so little.

"In Wike we pay our lady for the privilege," Amelyn gave the word harsh emphasis, "of using her oven to bake our bread and Meg is our bakestress. She rules that oven the way our king rules his realm. We give her our dough and she returns the loaves to us once they're baked. Every loaf comes back lighter than it left us, every time. She steals a goodly pinch or two from each one before she bakes them, then uses these stolen bits to make her own loaves. These she sells in Alcester, filling her purse at the expense of our hungry children. And her with no family of her own to feed! At least, not until she was forced to support both Jes and Johnnie."

That sent Faucon's gaze to the beehive-shaped oven that stood near the kitchen. It was cold at the moment, no smoke issuing from its top opening. A theft such as Meg's wasn't uncommon among bakers, whether they lived within town walls or in a wee place like this.

His attention shifted to the spacious kitchen shed that was Meg's domain. The sow and her grunting brood were sauntering past it, no doubt on their way back to their sty for the night. Although the door remained open, there was no sign of the old woman. That Meg had such freedom was strange indeed, particularly when Wike was ruled by one with a hard and grasping hand. Odger hardly seemed the sort to tolerate such behavior—that was, unless he profited from it somehow.

That sent Faucon's gaze to the pale and the woods beyond the fence. Just then, a flock of birds rose from the balding treetops into a sky glowing with the faintest hint of rose. The birds began to swarm as they were wont to do prior to taking their nightly rest, their dance a writhing cloud that moved with astonishing precision.

It was time to be leaving for Alcester. But if they went now, Faucon was absolutely certain he wouldn't find Amelyn here upon the morrow. Once Odger returned, the bailiff would find a way to drive the leper from his vale despite his Crowner's command.