Witchstruck (20 page)

Though I could not remind Elizabeth of the services my aunt had done her, since Blanche was still in the room, yet I tried to speak with my face. As far as Blanche knew, her mistress had never met my aunt. But the truth rang clear in my voice. ‘It cannot hurt, at least, and my father believes it may help. He and my brother sent me back here in the
hope
of a letter that might yet save her from the noose. Please, my lady, I beg of you.’

Elizabeth hesitated, then nodded briskly. ‘Very well. Blanche, bring me pen and paper. I shall write a few lines to the magistrate in support of clemency towards this prisoner. But given that I myself am in prison, I fear it will do little good.’

‘Thank you, my lady.’ I kneeled and kissed her long white hand. ‘Thank you so much.’

She wrote in a strong, black flourish on the paper, then signed her name, Elizabeth. Pausing there, she read the letter back over twice, then dipped her pen again, ready to score the empty spaces through at the end of her letter according to her usual custom.

But an urgent knock came at the door. ‘My lady! There is a messenger below with a letter for you. He says it comes from the Queen!’

‘A message from the Queen?’ Abruptly losing all her colour, Elizabeth’s hand faltered. ‘Tell him I will be down in a moment. Give him wine!’

The princess laid aside the pen and gripped the cross at her neck. She seemed unsteady, her eyes suddenly unfocused. Blanche fussed about her with some powerful smelling salts in a small shaker, and pinched her cheeks until the blood ran there again.

‘Enough!’ Elizabeth waved Blanche irritably away, raising her chin. The excitement in her voice was as audible as
her
fear. ‘I must go down and speak with this man. And read my sister’s letter.’

She hurried from the room with Blanche following after, clutching at Elizabeth’s train so the long skirted gown would not be dirtied on the rushes.

Looking down at the abandoned letter, I wondered whether I should score the end spaces through for her, to prevent anyone from adding further words. Intending to do so, I picked up the pen and dipped it in the ink, but did not quite dare to mark the paper. If the princess were to return and find me bent over her letter . . .

Yet I could not delay by waiting until the Lady Elizabeth had finished with the Queen’s messenger. That could take hours, and my aunt might even now be in her cell, waiting to be taken out to the gallows.

Elizabeth would be furious, but I would have to face her fury if I wished to save my aunt. I checked the ink was dry, then rolled up the paper and sealed it with Elizabeth’s own seal. Then I hurried down to the kitchen and called the servant who had carried messages between me and my brother over the summer. He agreed, though only for the costly fee of a shilling, to take the letter straight over to the magistrate.

‘I have a horse stabled in the village,’ the servant told me. ‘Best not to take the main road though, for the guards on the gate may search me and find the letter. I’ll head across the fields and ford the stream down below.’

I accompanied the servant as far as the old palace buildings. There I watched as the man hurried across the misty grounds, the sealed letter requesting clemency in his bag, until he was lost to sight among the trees.

I slid down the crumbling wall of the old palace and bent my knees up to meet my face. I was shaking as though I had an ague, my face hot, my body desperately cold.

I must have passed out.

The next thing I knew, Alejandro de Castillo was kneeling beside me with a leather-bound flask in his hand.

‘Here,’ he said, tilting my head back a little. ‘Drink this and don’t try to speak. You fainted. This is a strong Spanish wine, it will restore your strength.’

When I had recovered my senses enough to speak, I frowned up at him. ‘Why,’ I whispered hoarsely, ‘does it always have to be you? Do you follow me about, waiting for me to collapse?’

Alejandro rocked back on his heels, watching me through narrowed eyes. ‘Good, you’re better,’ was his only response. I tried to stand but he stopped me. ‘Stay where you are for a few more minutes. Let the wine take effect. Here, have another drop. Trust me, it will help.’

‘Is it holy wine?’

He grinned then. ‘Not this stuff, no. But I can bless it if you wish.’

‘I thought only a priest could bless wine.’

Alejandro paused in the act of restoppering the wine
flask
. His smile had faded. I knew that he was remembering the insults I had thrown at him earlier. But I could see no way of making things better between us without inviting him deeper into my world of deceit and witchery. And once there, Alejandro would never be allowed to become a priest. Not when his masters realized how far he had fallen from grace.

‘Who was that man I saw you with?’ he asked.

There seemed no harm in the truth. I told him briefly of the letter of clemency I had persuaded Elizabeth to write, and how the servant had agreed to carry it to the magistrate for me.

Alejandro listened, a frown on his face. ‘And you say he was going to the village first?’

‘To fetch his horse, which is stabled there.’

‘Hmm. I see.’

His eyes had taken on a faraway look, almost brooding in their darkness.

‘What?’ I demanded irritably. ‘Say whatever is on your mind. For I can see that you are dying to.’

Alejandro straightened up and helped me back to my feet. ‘We need to get back to the lodge. Can you walk?’

‘Of course I can walk,’ I replied impatiently, but kept my back firmly against the wall of the old palace. ‘I’m enjoying the sunshine though. You go ahead. I’ll follow in a short while.’

Snorting with disbelief under his breath, Alejandro picked me up and hoisted me over his shoulder as though I
weighed
no more than a cloth doll. Furious at this arrogant behaviour, I kicked and struggled against him, but Alejandro paid no attention, striding back towards the old lodge with me thrown across his shoulder like a cloak.

‘What in Hell’s name do you think you’re doing?’ I demanded, the blood burning in my cheeks. ‘How dare you? Put me down at once!’

‘In Hell’s name?’ he repeated, showing no signs of fatigue under my weight. ‘You’d know all about that, I imagine.’

‘What?’

‘If you want me to put you down, you’d better turn me into a toad or something. Curse me so that I fall to the ground and froth at the mouth.’ His voice grew almost teasing. ‘What, can’t you put even the smallest spell on me? What kind of witch are you?’

‘Take off that cross and I’ll show you!’ I spat angrily.

‘My cross?’ He sounded genuinely surprised now. ‘You believe the crucifix to be some kind of talisman against your power?’

Was there nothing this Spaniard did not know or could not guess about my powers? My frustration raged like a fire in my head while I slammed my fists against his back, hanging upside-down, my white cap fallen off, my fair hair tumbled about my face.

‘Softly now,’ he said, reaching the back door of the lodge. ‘I’m going to put you back on your feet. Only don’t attack
me
, you little termagant. There is something you ought to know first.’

Flushed and dishevelled, I staggered backwards as he planted my feet back on the ground. I was so angry that if I had been a man I would have killed him there and then. I looked at Alejandro and willed him to laugh at me. For if he dared to laugh at me, I would run upstairs, pull my dagger out from its hiding place in the straw mattress and stab him through the heart with it.

But he did not laugh. Indeed, his face was more sombre than I had ever seen it.

‘What, then?’ I demanded breathlessly, tidying my hair with my fingers. ‘What is this thing you must tell me?’

‘The man you sent with the letter,’ he said flatly, watching my face. ‘He did not go to the village. I was up on the hill behind the old palace and I saw him cross the stream, then turn right, back towards the bridge and the gates. There was another man waiting on the track there. The servant took a letter from his bag and handed it to this other man, took payment of some kind and then walked away into the woods.’

I stared, unable to believe what he was saying. ‘No, you are lying!’

‘I have no reason to lie to you, Meg.’

‘Then he must have been giving the letter to that man to carry for him. Perhaps his horse was faster.’

‘The man on the horse did not take the road to Green Hanborough. He turned left and carried on towards Woodstock village.’

‘No, there must be some mistake,’ I insisted, even while my blood started to run cold at the thought that I had entrusted Elizabeth’s letter to a traitor. ‘That letter was of great importance. It was written by the Lady Elizabeth herself. It must reach the magistrate today.’

‘Listen to me, Meg,’ he said urgently, and caught my flailing hands in his. ‘I caught a glimpse of the rider’s face as he passed below where I was standing. He did not see me, but I saw him as clearly as I see you now.’

My mouth was dry. I watched his lips move, but I did not want to hear the words. None of it was true. ‘Who . . . who was it?’

‘It was your father.’

FOURTEEN

Eternal Flame

I COULD NOT
quite believe what Alejandro had said to me. Perhaps I was still asleep in bed and had dreamed all this: my aunt’s arrest, Elizabeth’s letter, what Alejandro claimed he had seen from the hilltop. Or perhaps I was going mad?

‘My father? He must have been coming here for the letter, then.’ I nodded, almost convincing myself. ‘He will have met the man on his way here, heard what he was doing and offered to carry the letter to Marcus Dent himself.’

Alejandro rubbed my cold hands. ‘No, your father turned his horse towards the village and the London road. He took the letter and rode in the opposite direction, not back towards Marcus Dent.’

‘I don’t believe it. Are you even sure it was my father?’

He nodded grimly. ‘It was the same man we passed on the stairs at the Bull Inn when Elizabeth went to visit John Dee. You remember that night?’

Only too well, I thought bitterly.

‘But this makes no sense,’ I continued aloud, bewildered by Alejandro’s tale. ‘Why would my father do such a thing? He told me he was on his way to the Low Countries with my brother and cousin, to escape the shame of my aunt’s
arrest
. Besides, he must know that by stealing the letter he condemns my aunt to death.’

I recalled conversations I had overheard between my father, Will and Malcolm, the whispered discussions after supper that had fallen into silence at my approach. Had they planned this all along, the three of them together, my father, my brother and my cousin? Had I been the unwitting fool who had been sent to get the princess’s signature on a document that could be used to rally men to their cause abroad?

‘All this time . . .’ I gasped, the truth crashing down on me. ‘My father’s insistence that I should serve the princess, my brother sending me back here for a letter with her signature on it . . . What a witless idiot I have been!’ I broke from his grip and stumbled away. I felt sick and dizzy. My head was throbbing again. I had to get inside, back to my bedchamber, to where the dagger was hidden. It was all I could focus on.

Alejandro followed me into the house and up the stairs. ‘Let me help you,’ he kept saying, but I just waved him away.

He watched anxiously from the doorway as I fumbled for the dagger hidden deep inside the straw mattress, and pressed its cold blade down my bodice, close against my chest.

‘Meg, you need to rest. Your head—’

‘No longer hurts,’ I lied, and dragged away the cloth binding that Blanche had wrapped about my temples. The cut stung and I saw fresh blood on the cloth. A wave of
nausea
followed, but I fought against it. ‘I’m going straight back home. I have to see Marcus . . . talk to him.’

‘At least wait a few hours until you have eaten and are feeling stronger.’

‘No,’ I insisted doggedly, searching for my outdoor shoes and coat. ‘I don’t have time to sit down and eat a meal. Don’t you understand? If I don’t speak with Marcus today and make him change his mind, then my aunt will be condemned to hang.’

‘I see.’ Alejandro handed me my missing shoes and watched me sit on the bed to slip them on. ‘And how precisely do you intend to make Master Dent change his mind?’

‘I’m going to agree to marry him.’

There was a tense silence in the room. It seemed to me that I could hear ringing in my ears, or maybe it was just the after-echo of my own voice.

Then he nodded. ‘I was afraid you would say that,’ he murmured. ‘Wait here for a few minutes. Don’t leave the room. Don’t go anywhere, do you hear me?’

I ignored him and continued looking for my heavy winter cloak. It was not particularly cold outside, being a sharp and sunny March day. Yet I was shivering nonetheless. When at last I found the cloak, I swung it about my shoulders, searched for my purse in the travelling bag, then stood there in silence, not sure what to do.

I was ready to go home, and knew there was no time to
lose
. Yet something in me balked at the appalling message I must bear to Marcus Dent, that I had changed my mind and would marry him after all.

What choice did I have though in this game of flinch? I had played my hand, then he had played his, and I could not trump his card in any other way but to capitulate and marry the man. With Elizabeth’s letter, I could have forced him to back down. I could have saved Aunt Jane. But without it . . .

Alejandro came back into my bedchamber before I could fall to brooding over my father’s betrayal. He too was dressed for travelling, with a sombre black jacket over his shirt and his sword by his side. The only concession to his calling was the silver cross that still hung about his neck.

‘No,’ I exclaimed, and shook my head, guessing his intention at once. Marcus would be furious if he discovered I had gone to him in the company of another man. ‘I must do this alone. One of the servants can drive me over and wait to bring me back tomorrow.’

‘You can travel on the cart with my man, Juan. I will ride alongside. Do not worry, I shall not try to stop you throwing your life away on Marcus Dent.’ Alejandro studied my face, his own expression unreadable. ‘Have you spoken with the Lady Elizabeth yet? She is still your mistress, you must ask her consent to leave Woodstock.’