Witchstruck (25 page)

‘Thank you,’ I managed, and could not believe how steady my voice sounded. As a child in Spain, Alejandro had informed on a witch and been the unwitting instrument of
her
death. I tried to hide my shudder. Would he do the same to me one day?

‘Don’t fret about this night’s delay. We will get the princess’s letter back even if we have to sail to the Low Countries to find it.’ Alejandro gave me a sombre smile which I guessed was intended to reassure me, then turned away. ‘Sleep well, Meg Lytton.’

SEVENTEEN

The Gift

I WAS WOKEN
by the sound of Juan’s voice at the stable door, and sat up at once, still tired after a troubled night. Alejandro and his servant were conversing in low voices, though even if they had spoken more clearly I could not have understood, for they were speaking in Spanish. I climbed out of the blankets, shook out my crumpled skirts and did my best to make myself presentable.

The sky was still dark, though flushed with a glowing light along the far horizon. I stood at the door, hoping I did not still have straw in my hair.

Alejandro turned and saw me. He came towards me at once, his gaze searching my face. ‘Did you sleep well?’

I nodded, and glanced at Juan over his shoulder. ‘Are we ready to go? It’s a long journey to the coast.’

‘We’re not going to the coast.’

‘What?’

‘Juan says your father was mistaken. Your cousin Malcolm has not gone directly to the coast.’ Alejandro indicated his servant, who was busy saddling the stallion, and Juan gave me his odd, lopsided grin. ‘Apparently he spent last night not far from here, at the home of one
Tom
Dorville.’ He saw my instinctive reaction. ‘What is it? You know this man?’

I remembered the quiet young man I had met here at the Bull in my brother’s company, and whose watchful gaze I had mistrusted. His name had been Tom.

‘I think so, yes,’ I agreed. ‘One of my brother’s friends from Oxford. Where did Juan hear this?’

Juan grinned again, said something incomprehensible and pointed to the upstairs windows of the Bull Inn.

Alejandro hesitated. ‘From Anne, the serving woman he was with last night. She heard your cousin talking to this Tom Dorville in the taproom. He was trying to persuade the young man to lend him a faster horse than his own.’

‘That sounds like Malcolm,’ I said drily.

‘Anne has given us directions to Dorville’s house,’ Alejandro told her.

‘Then let us waste no more time, but go there at once. All I need is a moment to freshen myself, then I will be ready.’

Abruptly, Alejandro nodded to his servant to fetch the cart. He had a stubborn look about his eyes. ‘You should stay here while we follow him. I fear there may be trouble, and it will be safer for you to wait here. Anne has offered you her chamber if you wish to rest and take your breakfast away from prying eyes. It is only a small room, Juan says, but private.’

I realized with a shock that he meant to leave me behind,
to
take no further part in this chase. ‘But he’s my cousin. It’s my fault the letter was written in the first place, and that it was stolen.’

‘No, I was mad to let you come this far. It is too dangerous for a woman. You must go back to Woodstock Palace and wait with the Lady Elizabeth. That is where your place is now, not riding about the countryside in search of spies and renegades.’

‘And what if I refuse to go back to Woodstock without the letter?’

‘You have no choice. I will not take you with me, and that is final.’

‘Then I will go alone,’ I said obstinately. ‘On foot, if needs be.’

‘Don’t be a fool!’ His face tightened in anger. ‘Do you not see how impossible it is for me to take you along? You could have been killed yesterday. I will not have your death on my conscience too.’

‘
Too?
’ I echoed, not understanding, then saw his expression, the despair behind his anger.

‘Like the woman I betrayed when I was young,’ he muttered.

‘You were only a boy, Alejandro. You made a terrible mistake and a woman died for it. That does not make her death your fault.’ I drew a sharp breath, determined not to give way. ‘Whatever happens today, you will not be to blame. I go with you of my own free will.’

‘I can’t allow—’ he began raggedly, but I interrupted.

‘It’s done, I’m coming,’ I insisted, my chin held high, and hurried back inside to fetch my cloak before Alejandro could leave without me.

I ignored the little voice at the back of my mind that told me I was growing too close to Alejandro, and he was right to be so cautious.

Alejandro was cursed. He had freely admitted that he had no intention of ever falling in love with a woman – let alone a suspected witch like myself. And I was not foolish enough to look too deep into the eyes of a would-be priest. So what danger could there be?

It was less than an hour later when we reached Tom Dorville’s house, which lay not far from the Bull Inn in the next valley. The narrow road clung to the river for a while, crossing it occasionally, then moved back into heavy woodland. The house stood back from the road, only reached by a shady track which we almost passed without seeing.

Alejandro reined in his stallion and sat a moment with his hand raised, listening. Juan pulled the cart in behind him and waited patiently.

It was still early. The sun had slowly risen, bringing a gentle mist to the dew-damp grasslands and verges. The morning was quiet, only birdsong above us and the gurgling rush of water from the nearby river. Nonetheless, Alejandro seemed to have heard something out of the ordinary.

‘Horses,’ he said, with quiet authority, and pointed down the track. ‘We’re in time. They haven’t left yet.’

The hairs rose on the back of my neck and my stomach pitched, queasy with nerves. It had been one thing to talk of confronting my cousin and demanding the return of Elizabeth’s letter, but now that we were here, I was suddenly unsure. Alejandro had warned me there might be trouble, that this could be dangerous. Was I ready to see Alejandro fight my cousin over this?

But I was here for a purpose, I reminded myself sternly. I was not some helpless girl, an onlooker with no real power. I did not want to see either Malcolm or Alejandro hurt. But if using my gift meant risking my cousin’s life, then so be it. He had made his choice when he accepted the stolen letter from my father and agreed to carry it to the Queen’s enemies in the Low Countries.

Juan scrambled down from the cart and ran, half crouching, along the track towards Tom Dorville’s house.

He returned a few minutes later and went straight to his master, clutching Alejandro’s stirrup as he whispered hoarsely up at him, ‘Four men. The two younger getting ready to mount up, the others remaining behind.’

Alejandro nodded. ‘We can’t take them here then,’ he mused. ‘Not with those odds.’

‘An ambush, further along the road?’

‘Yes,’ Alejandro agreed. He glanced thoughtfully at the sheep in the field opposite. ‘Unless we have mistaken their
purpose
, they will be taking the road south. If you drive on ahead, as fast as you can, and set your cart across the road at some narrow point, I will endeavour to slow them up. Then I will follow cross-country and hope to rejoin the road behind you.’

‘What are you going to do?’ I asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice.

‘What all good country boys know should never on any account be done,’ he told me, and grinned, turning his reluctant horse towards the field. ‘I’m going to drive that herd of sheep across the road. That ought to give you five minutes at least.’

Before I could make any answer to this, Juan had leaped up on the cart beside me and lashed the whip several times over the horse’s flanks, shouting in Spanish.

It may not have understood his words, but the tone of urgency and the whip being laid repeatedly about its sides left the animal in no doubt. The horse reared up in the shafts, then pitched forward at speed. The cart jolted along behind it, the high ruts in the lane shaking us violently from side to side.

I could not glance back for fear of losing my seat, but clung on grimly.

We continued at that pace for nearly a mile. The road there snaked down a sharp incline towards the rocky river bed, almost a stream at that point, and crossed through the water in a ford. In flood time, I guessed the road must be all
but
impassable here. But the weather had been so dry in recent weeks, the river had shrunk to a quiet current, little more than ankle-high to enter and reaching to the knee in the centre.

Juan lashed the horse through the ford, water spraying out from the cart wheels. I clutched at the skirts of my gown, drawing them close as we reached the middle of the ford, but we were safe enough up on the seat. The ground rose up there, taking us onto the other side, and that was where Juan drew the cart round.

He threw the reins to me and jumped down to drag on the horse’s bridle. ‘Hai! Hai!’ he shouted, and clucked his tongue strongly, urging the beast across the road.

Soon the cart was across the lane, completely blocking the exit from the ford. The horse whinnied and plunged restlessly, unhappy with its position, but Juan stroked its muzzle and muttered in its ear until the animal stopped rolling its eyes and quietened down.

In the sudden stillness, I caught a distant thud of hooves behind us on the track.

Juan grinned up at me, apparently unconcerned by the realization that we were about to have company. ‘Down,
señorita
,’ he ordered in his thick Spanish accent, and gestured me to climb down from the cart. He glanced about, then pointed me towards a sunlit break in the trees along the high-banked verge. ‘You hide now, yes?’

I did not bother to argue, though I was determined not
to
stand idly by when Malcolm and his friend came thundering down into the waters of the ford, as I knew they must do at any moment.

Clambering up the bank, I bent under the low gnarled branches of a hazel and waited there, almost in a crouch, the soft brownish catkins dangling against my cheek and throat. I felt some sympathy for the horse as it stamped and sweated, shivering its flanks to brush off the flies as they landed. I too was restless and full of nervous energy, unwilling to stand passive in the face of approaching danger.

Two riders appeared on the bend, cloaked as though for a long journey and bent low over their horses’ necks at the gallop.

As both riders came down the hill, they hauled on the reins to slow their pace, no doubt seeing the unexpected obstruction that blocked the road beyond the ford, and reached the water’s edge at a cautious walk.

I stared hard at Malcolm through the green shade of leaves and catkins.

Did he have the princess’s letter?

Malcolm stiffened at the sight of Juan and his cart drawn across the road. He reined in his horse and glanced sideways at Tom, who was also eyeing the swarthy old Spaniard with suspicion and distrust.

‘What do you think?’ he asked Tom, probably because his friend knew this area so well.

‘Never seen him before. He’s a stranger.’

My cousin nodded, his face tense. He flicked back his cloak to reach the hilt of his sword, though he did not draw it but merely loosened it in the scabbard.

‘You there!’ he shouted across the sunlit water. ‘Why don’t you move the cart? It’s blocking the lane. What’s wrong?’

Unable to make any kind of intelligent reply, and no doubt playing for time until the arrival of his master, Juan managed a series of odd grunts and grimaces of his weatherbeaten face that left the two young men in a fit of impatience.

Sitting on his horse at the water’s edge, Tom pointed at the offending cart. ‘Get that damn thing out of our way,’ he ordered Juan. ‘And at once, man. We’re in a hurry, can you not see that?’

‘Is he a simpleton?’ Malcolm demanded. He glared about the shady lane, eyes narrowed, clearly on the alert for signs of a trap.

Not ready yet for him to see me, I shrank further back into the shade of the hazel tree and caught my breath in pain. I’d scratched my face on a branch. It stung and my cheek felt wet. Yet I did not dare raise my hand to check any bleeding, in case one of them spotted the sudden movement and realized that Juan was not alone.

‘He’s a foreigner.’ Tom swore under his breath. ‘A Spaniard, I’d stake my life on it.’

‘
A Spaniard?
Here, in Oxfordshire?’

‘I don’t know why you should be so surprised, Malcolm. These filthy Spaniards spread themselves through our land like a disease.’ Tom spurred his horse forward through the water with tiny splashing noises. ‘If the fool cannot understand plain English, I’ll make him understand with the tip of my sword instead.’

The pain of cutting my cheek had left me angry and on edge. Where was Alejandro?

I stared at Tom riding through the ford, and then at Malcolm, still arrogantly astride his horse on the other side, and let the anger fill me. Oh, I knew I should leave it to Alejandro to get the letter back his own way. But I disliked how Tom had called them ‘filthy Spaniards’ and likened them to a ‘disease’. So what if Alejandro had not yet reached us? I did not need him – or any man – to fight Malcolm on my behalf. Not with this tingling from my scalp to the tips of my fingers.

The power stirred inside me, warm as the blood in my veins, and I stared, my lips dry, my ears ringing, my whole body tensed with the desire to work magick.

Juan had not flinched, though Tom was almost out of the water, his sword drawn now and flashing in the sun. The old Spaniard did not even glance over his shoulder, though he must have been wondering where his master was. His eyes very dark, he stood motionless beside the cart and waited.

I hissed, and Tom stiffened. His horse faltered, finding an awkward footing beneath the water.

With an ugly oath, Tom snatched at the reins and dragged the horse’s head up.

‘What is it?’ Malcolm called.

‘Nothing,’ Tom replied, but he was frowning now, less certain of himself. His gaze searched the leafy banks in vain; the sun was in his eyes. Besides, I was crouched in the shadows. My cloak hid me amongst the rough trunks, and the dangling catkins hung darkly yellow as my hair, clustered thickly on the branches around me.