The Marsh King's Daughter (53 page)
Second only to the peace of the grave, she thought. St Catherine's was a two-day walk from the nearest town, as she had cause to know. Supplies came by barge, but only the cellaress and her most trusted subordinates dealt with the barge-men. Miriel knew that her own fate would likely be a bare cell and a locked door, her only outing to kneel in penitence in the chapel. Her one hope was that she could speak to Mother Hillary and persuade the old Abbess to set her free. Surely the nun's compassion would overcome the need for material gain in the circumstances?
In defiance of her journey to the convent, she had worn one of her most ornate gowns, a panelled affair of green tabby with gold braid encircling the wide hem and rich embroidery at the throat. Robert had eyed her choice with an expression of scornful amusement. 'I doubt the nuns will be impressed,' he said, 'and no one else is going to see your finery.'
'Except myself,' she had answered, lifting her chin at him. She did so now, giving him a cold look across the length of the barge. He had not allowed her to bring a travelling chest. He himself had put together what she needed and tied it in a linen bundle. As far as she knew, her worldly possessions consisted of a spare linen shift and hose, linen strips for her monthly bleed, a comb and another wimple. Empress Mathilda's crown remained in its hiding place, shut away and out of reach.
At least Nicholas would be safe, she thought. Martin Wudecoc could still raise the ransom despite her lack of contribution, and when Elfwen arrived in Boston, they would know where she was and why. She looked again at the approaching church. At least she could pray for Nicholas's deliverance - and her own.
The barge-master moored his craft at the small jetty where supplies were delivered to St Catherine's and leaped out to help his passengers ashore. His apprentice set about unloading several casks of wine from the supply barge they towed behind.
Miriel stepped on to the muddy path. The convent faced her and she saw how much it had grown in the years since her first imprisonment. Decorative stonework had been added to the porch and some of the buildings were faced with a chequerboard design of napped black flint.
More building work was being carried out, and a new church spire pushed forth from a skeleton turret of wooden scaffolding. Mother Hillary had been making the most of her profits. At the gatehouse, they were greeted by a nun whom Miriel did not know. Her manner was brisk and her habit immaculately brushed.
'Mother Abbess is expecting your arrival,' she said and, having ushered Miriel and Robert into the precincts, shot the bolt on the outside world with a resounding clang. 'I'll take you to her.'
'Thank you.' Robert inclined his head gravely.
A cold shiver had run through Miriel at the sound of the bolt ramming across. Prison. She had arrived in prison. 'Does Sister Winifred no longer hold this post?' she asked, remembering the shabby little nun with her wide, sunlit grin.
'No, my lady. She passed away last winter of a wasting sickness,' the woman answered politely.
'I am sorry, I was fond of her.'
'She rests in God's bosom now, my lady.'
Miriel murmured an appropriate reply. 'You were not here last time I visited,' she said.
'I came to my vows three years since.' The woman flickered her a look from her eye-corners, but there was no particular expression on her face. Miriel wondered how much the nuns had been told about their new lodger. How far had Robert twisted the details?
Miriel bit her lip and suppressed the urge to run screaming for that bolted gate. They would think her mad before she had even arrived. She must have full control of herself when she met Mother Hillary. Seeming to sense her hidden impulse, Robert took her arm in a bruising grip. The action looked solicitous, as if he were bearing her up, but Miriel knew that he was serving to remind her how tight his hold on her was.
The nun led them past the church and the small building that had been the Abbess's lodging in Miriel's time at the convent. Now Miriel saw that it had been converted into an extra guest house for passing travellers. She and Robert were brought to a new building further eastwards with a chequered stone panel above a handsome entrance way. Smoke twirled from a built-in chimney, and the dwelling was roofed with tile.
Miriel wondered if the comfort of the dorter had improved apace, or whether it was still a draughty room, smelling of the grave in the deepness of the winter night. And just where did Robert envisage her dwelling in this establishment? In well-appointed guest house, or freezing, dark cell?
The nun bade them wait inside the covered archway and went to knock on the door set into the right-hand side. Then she entered and there came the low murmur of voices.
'You will not shut me away in this place, you know that,' Miriel said with a glare at Robert's arm still possessively pincered around her own.
'No,' he agreed with a smile, 'I will not. It is the nuns who will see to your every comfort.'
Miriel felt uneasy. He was so sure of himself. It was as if he knew something that she did not.
'Mother Abbess will see you now,' said the porteress, emerging from the room and leaving the door ajar for Miriel and Robert. With a brief nod and even briefer smile, she clasped her hands before her and walked away in the direction of the gatehouse.
Robert ran his free hand over his beard in a smoothing gesture and drew Miriel forward into the Abbess's private chamber.
Although the lodging house was new, the old trestle desk and silver candle tree were exactly the same. So was the handsome olive-wood crucifix on the wall, and the carved vestment coffer. But no smoke-grey cat was curled purring upon the desk, and the woman who looked up at their entry was not thin and fine-boned with clear blue eyes, but as broad as a barrel with a face the hue of an enormous wheel of cheese. In place of the cat, a stick of polished willow lay across the dark wood of the trestle.
'Sister Euphemia!' Miriel's voice emerged on a rising note of horror.
'Mother Euphemia,' the nun corrected with a thin-lipped smile in which there was more than a hint of malice. 'Welcome back to St Catherine's . . . my daughter.'
'Your son,' said Alyson Wudecoc and, with maternal ease, scooped little Nicholas out of the cradle and placed him in his father's arms.
Nicholas gazed down, surprised by the child's lightness which at the same time conveyed a solid warmth. Solemn, kitten-blue eyes gazed back. There was no indication of their final colour, but their shape and definition were his. The nose was going to be fine and thin like Magdalene's and the quiff of hair at his brow bore the merest suggestion of apricot-gold.
'He's thriving well,' Alyson added, driven to dilute the overpowering emotion of the moment by speech.
Nicholas engulfed one of the tiny hands in his closed palm and swallowed the lump constricting his throat. He had never felt such a depth of love and anguish, of joy and grief. 'She should be here,' he said, his voice cracking.
'I know.' Alyson laid her hand on his shoulder. 'It wasn't his birth that killed her; she weathered that well. It was the fever that came after, and there was nothing we could do.' She drew a shaky breath. 'It comforted her to know that you were still alive and that you would be here to see him grow up. I . . .' Her voice strangled on tears and she turned away to pace the room and recover her composure.
Nicholas sat down, the baby resting in the crook of his arm and across his knee. Stephen Trabe had given him the news of Magdalene's death while tending the long, shallow knife gash as the Sainte-Foy cast off for
Trabe had also told him that Robert Willoughby had commanded his killing. 'Do you want to negotiate a contract of your own? It can be arranged,' Trabe had said as he completed the dressing and stood back.
Nicholas had declined with revulsion. Two wrongs were never going to make a right. He might not be innocent of sin, but he would not have murder reddening the hands that cradled his son.
Trabe had shrugged and, although he had not said anything, the implication was that he considered Nicholas a fool. At least he was not in Trabe's debt, and Trabe was not in his. The business of the past had been quit-claimed by Trabe's rescue on St Peter Port's wharfside. If not in peace, then Nicholas knew his father's spirit would sleep at least more easily. As to his own . . . He sighed and shifted the weight of the baby on his arm. It was sobering to think that a few moments of pleasure could have such far-reaching consequences. Magdalene, Miriel. God forfend that his son should make the same mistakes.
Alyson turned round, her eyes red but her composure in some measure restored. 'Do you want to see her grave?' she asked.
Nicholas nodded. 'I do not know if she will hear, but I want to tell her again that I loved her for herself and not as a substitute for someone I could not have.'
When they returned from their visit to the church, the wet-nurse was sitting by the hearth suckling the baby and Martin was waiting for them. Nicholas greeted his captain first with a handclasp and then, as emotion swept over him, a full embrace.
'It is good to see you alive and whole,' Martin said gruffly, the suspicion of moisture in his eyes.
'Nay, it is a miracle,' Nicholas stepped back. 'I owe you more than my tongue can ever find the words to utter for helping to bring me home.'
'You owe me nothing; you would have done the same for me.' Martin cleared his throat and scooped his hands through his hair in a grooming motion to settle himself. 'I'm sorry about Magdalene. We did what we could, but the fever was too strong.'
Nicholas nodded brusquely. 'I know you did your best for her.' He glanced at the contentedly suckling child. 'And for my son too.'
A maid entered bearing a flagon of hot wine and a platter of buttered griddle cakes. Trotting at her side, leaping now and again in a vain attempt to reach the platter, was a small black and white dog with enormous pricked ears and a great feathered curl of tail.
Nicholas looked and then looked again. 'Elfwen and Will?' he said on a rising note of question.
Hearing his name, the dog abandoned his attempts to get at the griddle cakes and assaulted Nicholas in a fury of wagging and barking.
'I was going to speak to you about that next,' Martin said, smiling despite the situation at Will's unbounded enthusiasm and Nicholas's vain attempts to defend himself. 'Trabe knew about Robert Willoughby's contract on you when he set sail, but not all the fine detail. We heard that later from Elfwen.' He beckoned to the maid. 'Come and tell Master Nicholas what you told me.'
The young woman set the flagon and griddle cakes well out of Will's reach and, wiping her hands on her gown, came to the men. Her height was diminutive and her dark eyes large and wide set beneath a broad brow, giving her the appearance of a young adolescent rather than a woman grown.
'Mistress Miriel left Master Robert when she realised the things he had done,' she said. 'But she had to go back to Lincoln to gather the coin she had promised Master Martin for your ransom.'
Nicholas blinked. 'She was going to ransom me?'
'Said she'd provide four hundred marks,' Martin said in a level voice. 'I was astonished that she could raise such a sum.'
Nicholas gnawed his lip and nodded. 'Believe me, she could, and more - a King's ransom in fact.'
Martin raised a questioning eyebrow but Nicholas did not elaborate, his attention given once more to Elfwen. 'What happened?'
'Master Robert stopped her at the barge wharf as she was preparing to leave. He brought soldiers from the castle garrison. Master Martin's men were arrested and thrown in gaol for the rest of the night, and my mistress was bound like a slave and brought back to the house.' Elfwen paused in the telling to wring her hands.
'Then what?' There was a dangerous edge to Nicholas's voice.
Elfwen's lip curled in disgust. 'Then he coupled with her, even bound as she was; we could hear him below stairs, and my mistress screamed. After that . . . after that he told her that he was taking her to St Catherine's to be nursed by the nuns. His excuse was that her mind had been deranged ever since she lost the baby.'
It was too much to absorb. Nicholas frowned and rubbed his forehead. 'What baby? I thought that she was barren?'