Lost Innocents (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 3) (8 page)

Then Amelyn shrugged. The gesture suggested that if she'd ever placed blame on her stepmother over this she did so no longer. "Martha told me later that she'd been as befuddled as I. She thought I'd already returned home, but by the time she was barring our door, she'd forgotten me and didn't check to see if I was inside," she explained, then continued.

"Already trembling at the thought of having to make my way home alone in the Devil's darkness, I started to roll onto my side. Then he was there, forcing me face-down onto the hard dirt floor. He was on me faster than I could blink and I was helpless to stop him. He was heavy, and much stronger than I. Indeed, I could barely breathe, so forcefully did he hold me in place. He said not a word and made no sound except to breathe as he had his way with me. When he was done, I lay where I was, stunned beyond all movement as I listened to him running from the lady's barn."

Amelyn fell silent at that, her gaze aimed at her daughter's corpse in her lap.

"Was it Odger?" Faucon prodded.

That brought her head up with a snap. "Of course it was! Who else among the men in Wike would have done such a cowardly and cruel thing to me, save the one who'd already tried once and been rebuffed?" she cried in painful retort.

Faucon cocked his head, the bits and pieces of information he'd collected thus far shifting with her tale. "Yet, you saw no face and heard no voice. I think you cannot say for certain it was he," he replied quietly.

Amelyn caught her breath at that. For a long instant, she sat as if frozen. From the cast of her shoulders to the tightness of her arms, it was clear she resisted his suggestion with all her might. Faucon recognized the moment she gave way as her shoulders reluctantly sagged.

"By your reckoning, sir, I will admit that I cannot say for certain it was Odger," she conceded. "But if not him, then who?" she demanded, her voice raised to a higher, wounded pitch.

Then she shook her head and cried, "But it's not who did the deed that cuts me the deepest each time I think on what happened that night. Why did I let myself drink until my head spun? Then, when he attacked, why did I do nothing to protect myself? I should have screamed as I'd done that first time! Why, when he was finished, did I not leap up to chase after him, raising the hue and cry? That night left my life in ruins and I still don't know why I didn't move to save myself. Why, why, why?" she finished, her words dissolving into an aching silence that lasted until she gave an outraged huff.

"Do you know what I did instead? Coward that I am, when I could at last find the will to move, I crawled into the darkest corner of the barn. There I crouched, emptying my gullet as I gasped and cried like some dying fish, even though I bled not nor had any bruise. Try as I might and despite how dearly I longed to be home and safe within familiar walls, I couldn't stand, so terribly did my arms and legs tremble. I was certain he yet lurked in the dark along the way, waiting to use me again. Even when first light came, my heart pounded in terror as I raced along familiar paths in the newborn light. And, still I quaked and wept, certain that I would be taken again at every corner."

She shuddered at the memory, then turned her hooded gaze to her daughter's corpse. With a finger, she outlined the girl's brow and followed the line of Jessimond's nose to its tip. "For years there'd been no life in my womb, but on that night and in that one instance, a seed took root. If you wish me to say right now that not even his daughter's face proves that Odger did the deed, I would agree. In all ways, Jessimond was mine and mine alone, and I cherished her for that, despite the manner of her coming and what it cost me."

Once again, Edmund shifted, this time sighing as he did. The sound was unexpectedly sad. Amelyn must have heard the monk for she looked up at him as she continued.

"Odger never repeated his attack," she said, her voice firmer than necessary, as if she yet struggled with her Crowner's suggestion that it might not have been the bailiff who misused her. "If there's a cause for that, I think it most likely because he had expected me to be barren. Instead, I'd come easily with child.

"Still, taking me that night didn't sate Odger's need to destroy me for my earlier defiance. Once Jessimond passed her first saint's day, proving that she was hale and in all ways unlike Johnnie, our bailiff called everyone to that door." Amelyn indicated the front of the crumbling manor house. Entrance was by way of a small oaken door that looked heavier than the wall in which it was set. The door stood a little bit above the ground with a narrow porch in front of it, accessed by a single wooden step.

"There, and in front of all my friends and neighbors, Odger did as he had done when he called Tom to claim our Tilly. He shouted for the one who had made Jessimond in me to step forward. And just as Odger had known would happen this time—" she once more shifted, turning her hooded gaze toward Faucon, then insisted "—because he was the one who had done the deed, no man took that step. Then, Odger demanded that I provide the name of Jessimond's father so that man could be forced to claim and support his child."

This time when her hooded head moved, it was clear that she addressed the oldster. "What could I say? There was no point in telling a tale of rape that had happened at an ale almost two years' prior. No woman can cry misuse so long after the deed. Odger would only have denied all, and every one of you would have believed him," she said to the rustic, now speaking only to him.

"Do you think I hadn't heard the whispers and asides you all traded about me? All of you thought I was trysting with a married man, even though none of the gossips could determine which of Wike's husbands had made me his lover. Some speculated that my paramour came from Coctune even though no stranger had tread Wike Lane in months. If I had spilled the truth, you would all have scoffed. You would have accused me of concocting a false tale to protect a man I loved but couldn't have."

The old man made no reply, but his wild brows drooped over his now-hooded eyes.

"So I said nothing," Amelyn continued, once again including her Crowner and his clerk in the audience for her tale. "I accepted my sentence for the sin of fornication. As I bared my back, I prayed that once our bailiff set aside the lash, my life would finally go on as it had—" Her words gave way to a startled sound.

Shifting sharply, she looked toward the farthest of the homes in the hamlet, the one closest to the greensward where her Crowner's horse grazed. Without looking back at her better, she said, "But what if, as you suggest sir, it wasn't Odger who set Jessimond in my womb? Of a sudden, all certainty about who fathered Jessimond is gone. Perhaps this is because of what you said. Or mayhap it's because my tale sounds so different, now that I finally speak the words aloud. How is it that everything can change in but an instant?" Although the leper aimed her words at Faucon, there was aught in her tone that suggested she spoke only to herself.

It was another moment before she brought her gaze back to the men around the well. She shook her head as if stunned. "Only now and because of you, sir, do I finally begin to make sense of what Odger did after he set aside the lash. No longer do I see a man bent on revenging himself on me for my first refusal, but one in a rage because he thought I'd given myself freely and illicitly to another when I had resisted his attack."

One more time she turned her head to look toward the far end of the tiny settlement. "But if not Odger, then who?" she mused.

"What is this thing that your bailiff did to you?" Faucon asked, urging her on as he kept one eye on the sky.

Still gazing at that distant cottage, Amelyn said, "Although our customs gave Odger no right to it, on that day he forbade me from ever again working in the fields of Wike. When Martha asked how I was to feed myself if I couldn't work, he told all my neighbors that I'd already proved myself a lightskirt by bearing an anonymous bastard. If I wanted to eat, he said, I could earn my bread by whoring."

With a quiet, pained laugh, Amelyn once more directed her words at the oldster. "That set off a storm among the others. Not because any of you wished to protect me," she said, her words bearing harsh emphasis as she addressed the old man. "Instead, all any of you wanted to know was if Odger was freeing me from my bond to our lady and her family. You included, Hew. That's all any of you asked of him, if he was setting me free!" A small choked sound escaped her as if she remained astounded by their betrayal despite the years.

At the leper's charge, the oldster took a step closer to where she sat. When he halted, he canted to the side in his stance as if one hip ached. The old man spread his arms in a gesture of innocence.

"We didn't know he was wrong about you or what you'd done." Hew's voice was as worn and cracked as his face. "How could we have? You didn't spill your tale, not then, nor earlier when we all realized you were with child, displaying fertility too long after Tom's death for the babe to be his. Instead, you stood in silence, looking shamed. Not even Martha offered a word of explanation."

This Hew glanced at his Crowner before again addressing the leper. "You must have known we were all waiting for Martha to defend you. You two lived together, as close as mother and daughter. She saw you day and night. What could we think when she stood silently at your side, offering no word of support? She was the one who would have known if you were trysting. She should have told us how she'd witnessed Odger trying to take you against your will. Instead, in your shared silence you both left us to think what Odger said was true, that you'd taken a lover after Tom's death and that Martha had abetted you in your sin." This last was almost a plea.

Amelyn rocked back in astonishment at that. "You were waiting for Martha to challenge Odger?! You all knew how deeply he resented her for not discarding Johnnie as he had commanded! How could you believe for an instant she could confront him? It's easy to protest now that she or I could have swayed you by telling our tale, but that's a fool's defense, Hew. If she had dared to raise her voice to him in public, he'd have turned on her. He'd have taken Johnnie from her, then and there, punishing her just as he was punishing me for defying him.

"And every one of you would have let him do it," she cried out, her voice rising, "even though you knew Martha wanted her child just as much as I wanted mine!"

A frustrated sound escaped her. "Hew, you and the others said nothing as our bailiff instructed you to deny me, but not my child, shelter and support unless I paid for it in coins earned by whoring. Has that happened to any other woman before me?" she demanded.

The old man's arms dropped to his sides. His head bowed. "We didn't know, Amelyn," he pleaded again. "In that instant, you looked like what he told us you were, a whore."

"That's what you let him make me!" she cried again, then bowed her head as if battling her emotions.

When she looked up again, it was to address Faucon. "On that day, Odger told the folk of Wike that I would remain bound to the manor even though I now had permission to travel to Alcester as often as I needed to ply my new trade. I was not allowed to take my baby with me as I came and went. He assured the others, and me, that he would hunt me down if I did so, or if I tried to go any farther than Alcester."

"You should have tried to run," Hew muttered. "It would have served Odger's pride rightly if you, a mere woman, escaped him after so many men have tried and failed to stay free of his grasp for the full year and a day."

"Go without my precious child?" Amelyn retorted, her tone incredulous. Then she sighed. "Do you know what I wished at that moment, Hew? I wished that I hadn't fought Odger when he came to use me after Tom's death, that I had let him take me," she said, sounding beaten.

"Nay, you do not." The old man shook his head. "I think me the outcome would have been no different. Martha still had Johnnie to protect. Without hearing your tale, none of us would have been any the wiser, would we have been? You should have told us. You should have come to us in private. You should have trusted us."

"I couldn't," she protested. "Martha couldn't."

"I suppose not," the old man agreed in resignation. "And you're right. We should have protested his sentence. No woman before you has suffered so for producing a bastard, even one with an unnamed father. Given your tale, I doubt any woman who follows you will receive that burden either."

Then Hew looked at his Crowner. There was naught to see in his expression now save shame. "We didn't know," he protested to Faucon. "Would that she could have found a way to tell us."

Edmund cleared his throat, the sound suggesting he struggled to swallow words. Faucon made the old man no reply. There was nothing to be said. Even if Amelyn hadn't willingly committed the sin of fornication, being driven from home and family to earn a living by whoring was a fate often faced by fallen women, no matter how innocent they might have been in the event that precipitated their fall.

Amelyn freed her hand from Johnnie's, then wound her arms around Jessimond's cold body. She pulled her dead child closer to her. Once again, she aimed her head at her Crowner as she continued her tale.

"Martha may have said nothing at the manor door, but after we returned home she did everything she could to keep me from the fate Odger intended for me," she said, in defense of a woman she loved. "At first, she kept me with her and told everyone that I was paying my way as Odger required. And, indeed I was, doing so by selling the items in my dowry.

"Since Odger hadn't expected me to have the wherewithal to resist him, he sought to achieve his goal in other ways. Things happened, such as Martha's portion of flour spoiling at the mill, or so he informed us. Even then, we continued to thwart him and Odger became more bold in his attempts to drive me where he willed. He refused to let Martha join the other widows when it came time to glean the fields even though it was her right. As it was mine," she added softly, shaking her head. "It was a hungry winter, but we managed, foraging where and when we could."