The Marsh King's Daughter (57 page)

Through the sheep pasture they ran. Drifts of mist, as thick as the smoke, engulfed them, then suddenly parted, giving them brief glimpses of the reedy landscape punctuated by meres and pools. Once they stumbled over a dead sheep. ' Miriel screamed and stifled the sound against the back of her hand as Nicholas pulled her upright and lifted her over its decomposing corpse.

'Not far now,' he spared breath to encourage her. 'Safe soon.'

Almost as he uttered the words, he realised his error. In the mist he had mistaken one path for another, and although it had brought them to the shore, there was a treacherous expanse of mud and sand to cross to reach the beached nef. Quicksand or not, only a local would know.

'We have to turn back,' he panted to Miriel, who had collapsed retching at his feet. 'I missed the true path in the mist and we dare not risk crossing here. There should be another track further down.'

She nodded wordlessly. He stooped for a moment, hands braced upon his knees while he recovered his wind. He looked at her. 'It will be all right, I promise you,' he said.

Miriel nodded again and lunged to her feet. Clutching her side, she gazed out over the flat seascape. Fog was rolling in like a white tide, misty spray at its edges. It came as a friend in which to hide, and an enemy to hinder their progress. Beside her, Nicholas had turned round, intent on finding the right path. She started to turn with him when she saw a dim shape riding out of the fog and across the sands towards them.

A small, involuntary cry broke from her lips.

'What is it?' he said and then he too saw the rider. The grey of cloud yielded to the solid bay of a large cob, and astride it, bearing down on them at a mud-flinging canter, was Robert.

Running was futile. Neither Nicholas nor Miriel had the stamina remaining to outrun a horse, and Robert was too close to lose in the mist. Nicholas tugged Madame le Pecheur's gutting knife from his belt and the light shivered icily along the steel.

Robert drew rein. The cob halted in a flurry of mud, but sidled and champed in response to its rider's agitation. The softness of muddy sand mired it beyond the hocks. Robert had a knife at his belt too, but instead of drawing it, he unlooped a wood chopping axe from behind his saddle.

'So you've come to take what you would not give to me,' Robert sneered. 'It's here, isn't it, you faithless slut.' He swung the axe by its haft.

His words immediately explained to Nicholas and Miriel how Robert had known to pursue them to the beach. He thought they were recovering royal loot, not merely putting distance between themselves and him.

'Yes, it's here,' Miriel retorted with a sweeping gesture that encompassed the entire foreshore. 'Take it if you can find it. Hunt like all the others with a spade and a pole. I don't know, I've never known!' She threw him a blazing glare, the fuel of fear rapidly burning into rage.

He licked his lips, his complexion dark with fury also. His gaze swept to Nicholas. 'Tell me and you can have her in exchange for the gold - pay for her like the whore she is.' He spat over the side of the saddle.

'The only whore I see is you.' Nicholas almost gagged on his words. 'You have paid your soul to gain your own ends through the foulest of back passages.'

The axe wove in Robert's hand and the gelding sidled, its eyes rolling to show their whites. It was working hard to pluck its hooves from the clinging mud. 'Enough clever words,' Robert snapped. 'Either show me where you have hidden the remainder, or I will kill you both.'

'All you will find is your own death.' Nicholas flourished the dagger. He tried to push Miriel behind him to protect her, but she flung him off, her eyes sparking with fury. Stooping, she seized fistfuls of foul-smelling mud and hurled them at Robert.

'There is no remainder except in your mind!' she shrieked. 'You see nothing but gold . . . you want nothing but power . . . you feel nothing but greed.' She punctuated each damning statement with another flung clod. 'In the end you are nothing!' The gelding, already unnerved by the sucking coldness around its hooves, took fright at the high-pitched screams and the slapping clods of mud. When the last one scored a direct hit on its eye, it whirled in panic and bolted across the foreshore.

Robert was flung back against the saddle's high cantle. His legs flailed at a comical angle as he struggled to right himself, tighten the reins and bring the horse under control. For an instant the gelding raced flat out, ears back, tail streaming, then its reaching hooves struck yielding, glutinous mud and it pitched, mane over tail. Robert cried out as he was flung from the animal's back. He did not land cleanly. One foot caught in the stirrup iron, and as the horse plunged and threshed, Robert too writhed, striving to free his foot while the mud took an inexorable grip. When he realised the full extent of his peril, he began to bellow for help like a stricken bull.

Heaving with emotion and effort, Miriel stared in horror. 'Dear Christ,' she whispered. Although she wanted to look away, to bury her face against Nicholas's chest, she forced herself to watch. There was nothing they could do. Nicholas had a rope, but it was too short, and besides, Robert was tangled up in the stirrup iron. Even if they could reach him, they would not be able to pull him free.

'Ripples in a pool,' Nicholas murmured, making the sign of the Cross. His expression was grim, but there was the faintest glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes. Justice, if brutal, was being done. His only regret was for the horse.

The quicksand was in a hungry mood and the swallowing did not take long. Robert was dead before he went under, suffocated by the crushing weight of mud and sand upon his corpulent torso.

As the cob had fallen, a small travelling chest had been thrown from the saddle pack. It had bounced along the ground two or three times and the hasp had broken, spilling Mathilda's crown and its wrappings like an exotic flower on to the mud. Now both casket and crown were sinking, but unobtrusively, their lighter weight making of their progress a stately, inevitable wake. Miriel had been going to ask

Nicholas what he meant about ripples in a pool, but suddenly, watching the crown, she knew.

In the silence a curlew called mournfully. The fog rolled in and covered the shore in a deep, white shroud. In silence, Nicholas and Miriel linked -arms and turned inland to find the path that would bring them to safety.

That night they sailed into Boston and at the house of Martin Wudecoc were greeted with hot food, warm beds and no questions. If not dreamlessly, then Miriel slept deeply. When she woke a little after dawn, she did not, at first, know where she was. The room was warm and dry, the bed soft, with a feather mattress, and the surroundings were colourful with embroidered hangings on the walls and painted clothing coffers. There were other beds in the room, all empty, although several bore evidence of having been recently occupied.

While she was still gathering her wits, Elfwen entered bearing a hot honey and blackberry tisane.

'Feeling better this morn, mistress?' she asked.

Miriel nodded, although in truth she did not know what she felt at the moment. She took the tisane from Elfwen and gratefully sipped. Memory and obligation slipped into place, piece by little piece. 'I owe you a debt of gratitude, for reaching the Wudecocs',' she said to the girl. 'Name what you want, and it is yours.' She looked at the maid over the rim of the cup and found a smile. 'And do not say nothing, for I will not accept such an answer.'

Elfwen smiled too. 'Oh no, mistress, that would be foolish,' she said candidly and tilted her head in thought. 'I would like a bolt of scarlet diamond twill to make myself a fine dress for Holy days.'

'It is yours, and you need not make it yourself. I will have a sempstress sew it for you.'

Elfwen flushed with pleasure and Miriel was warmed by the sight of it. There had been no joy or warmth in her life of late, and now it was time to make amends. 'Where is - ?' she started to ask, but was prevented by a scrabbling on the steps, the rapid patter of paws, and then the sudden assault of a small, hairy body and frantic pink tongue. Elfwen made a grab for the tisane, rescuing it from Miriel's hand with no more than a few drips staining the bleached linen chemise.

'Will!' Miriel gasped with a mingling of delight and tears and clasped the little dog in her arms. He wagged and licked and fussed.

'Pined for you, he did,' Elfwen said. 'Kept looking for you whenever we went out.' The first frenzy of greeting over, she returned Miriel's tisane. Will settled among the covers, rolling on his back to have his tummy tickled.

'Is it true that Master Robert is dead?' Elfwen asked hesitantly.

'Yes, it's true.' Miriel folded her hands around the cup, seeking its warmth. An involuntary shudder rippled down her spine as her mind's eye relived those dreadful moments again. 'Drowned on the quicksand beyond the convent.'

The maid shuddered too, and crossed herself. 'God rest his soul, and I pity him,' she said, 'but I am not sorry that he is gone.'

'It is finished,' Miriel said, a finality in her tone that closed the subject with her maid. Setting her cup aside, she looked round for her clothes. 'I assume I am a slug-abed to judge from all these abandoned pallets.'

'Yes,' Elfwen said with a sidelong smile. 'They thought it was best to leave you. Mistress Alyson has gone to the market, and Master Martin and Master Nicholas went to the wharves.'

Miriel nodded. 'Am I to greet them in my shift when they return?' she asked.

'Mistress Alyson put your clothes to dry before the hearth, and then they'll need all the mud brushing out. She said to use these for now.' Elfwen took a bundle of clothing off a coffer and presented it to Miriel. There was a clean undergown of plain linen and a fine over gown of mulberry-coloured wool. A pair of woollen hose and a linen wimple completed the outfit together with a braid belt. Miriel donned the garments. The gown had to be gathered in several pleats before she tied the belt. Three weeks in St Catherine's had left her with precious little flesh on her bones, and Alyson was an ample woman. Still, Nicholas was accustomed to seeing her in less than flattering borrowed robes. A poignant smile touched her lips as she remembered the foulsome grey dress he had bought from the rag-and-bone stall in Stamford.

She finished the tisane, clicked her fingers to Will, and descended the loft stairs into the main room. The day was bright but cool. A sharp wind off the river was kept at bay by a good fire in the central hearth. The wet-nurse sat on a bench against the wall, spooning savoury frumenty into her mouth. She nodded to Miriel and indicated the cooking pot keeping warm on the side of the hearth. 'Fresh made,' she said. 'Warm your cockles nicely, it will.'

Miriel thanked her, and took an empty wooden bowl off the shelf. But before she filled it with frumenty, she went to the cradle against the bench and looked at Nicholas's namesake. He was awake and the blue eyes less kittenish and myopic than the last time she had seen him. They were going to be dark green-blue and their focus was intelligent. Leaning over him, she smiled. He seemed to puzzle briefly, and then, imitating her, he smiled back. Enchanted, Miriel found herself cooing at him.

'Aye, he's a good baby,' the woman said. Her eyes were shrewd. 'Pick him up. He's awake.'

Miriel set aside the bowl and stooped to the baby. He was heavier than last time too, but still small and vulnerable enough to fit into the crook of her arm as if he had been meant to do so. She walked him round the room, gently showing him the coloured hangings, the glint of light on the candelabra, and took comfort from his warm, tender weight. Just the act of holding him was cathartic.

The nurse smiled and nodded. 'Aye,' she said, 'you'll be a good mother for him.'

Miriel looked at her sharply, but the woman merely smiled, tapped the side of her nose, and continued with her frumenty.

The sound of masculine voices filled the street outside; the door opened, and Martin and Nicholas entered the room, bringing with them the tang of the sea.

Miriel met Nicholas's gaze and flushed. It was not as if she was doing anything wrong by holding the child, and yet she felt awkward. It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt that she was not trying to take Magdalene's place, but to say so would only make the awkwardness worse.

'You'll have to watch the lad when he's older if he continues to attract women the way he does now,' Martin said with a grin at Nicholas and a nod at the baby.

Miriel gave Martin a look of gratitude for smoothing over the first difficult moment of contact. 'He takes after his father,' she said.

Nicholas gave a snort of amusement and, coming to her side, lifted his son gently in his arms. 'I hope he grows out of it, or at least learns to look before he leaps,' he said.

Miriel was intensely aware of his presence beside her: the brisk scent of outdoors on his garments; the warmth of his body; the paradox of closeness and distance that separated them.

She retrieved her bowl and sat down to break her fast on a portion of the hot frumenty. There had been no opportunity for her and Nicholas to be private, to talk and see if they could bridge that distance. She had tried to ransom him, he had come to St Catherine's for her, but that did not mean they would go on together from here.

Nicholas shook his head at the offer of hot frumenty. 'I broke my fast earlier,' he said, cradling the baby and rocking him lightly on his arm.