The Assassin's Wife Page 4

  “Steady there—” The carter must have snatched the reins as he climbed into his place. Stamping and snorting, the horse clinked his bit, and I sniffed the moist warmth off him, sensing the quiver of his flanks. Even he seemed anxious.

  Save for a peck of stars straddling the black arc of the sky, no lights pierced the dark. Looking back, I distinguished the bulk of the church hunched like a crone over the sleeping village. I held my breath to listen to the night noises—the wind’s eerie flap among the trees and the hunting owl’s shriek. The smell of damp earth and smoke hung in the air and something sinister, thick with danger gathered in our silence. I realised I no longer belonged in this place.

  Smuggled away without a chance to say farewell, cast out and despised, I felt like Joseph in the Bible being sold into slavery in Egypt. But black rebellion burned in my heart. Had Joseph felt like this? Picking a splinter from my thumb, I plotted a childish vengeance. One day they’d all be sorry. But when Robin’s contrite face and Alys’ reproachful eyes rose up to confront me, I swallowed painful tears.

  The cart’s sudden pitch plunged us on to the road. Tucking my feet under me, I huddled deep into my cloak, shrinking from the mean tang of autumn on the wind. Eventually, the steady, swaying rhythm lulled me, but every now and then I started up and shivered.

  “We’ll be at Saint Bede’s before dawn.” The carter grunted his relief.

  “You’ve done well, Martin. I’m grateful” The priest’s words puzzled me. I wondered at his gratitude for such a journey. Although I’d heard talk of Saint Bede’s, I’d no notion of where it lay.

  Not long after, a worried-looking monk emerged from the black night to beckon us. In the feeble light of his lantern I caught the furtive glint in the carter’s eye, the gnawing of a lip, and sensed his eagerness to be gone.

  Snatching up his bundle, Brother Brian leapt down while the wheels were still in motion, and before I could think the carter lifted me to join him. Without pause, he hurtled away again into the dark and the monk hurried us inside.

  A noxious smell of mould oozed from the flagstones under my feet and a spindly lad in a stained surplice thrust a bowl of porridge into my hands. I tried to swallow the tasteless mess but excitement closed my throat. Instead I stood holding the warmth against my belly trying to decipher the urgent, mumbled conversation between the monk and Brother Brian.

  “Quickly, Nan.” The priest thrust my bowl at the lad and drove me out after the monk like a recalcitrant goat. Stumbling over the hem of my cloak, I followed the bobbing lantern and came to where two asses waited by a gate, their rumps facing the wind. Another monk helped me swarm up into the saddle, instructing me to cling to the pommel. Once mounted on his own steed, Brother Brian took my ass’s reins and turned us back to the road, forcing the animals swiftly into a trot.

  “Godspeed!”

  The priest acknowledged the blessing with a lift of his hand.

  But when the first pale ribbons of dawn began to unfurl across the sky, he pointed out a distant building.

  “We can find food and lodging there.”

  “Will we be in London soon?” My belly rumbled and I’d a pressing need to void my bladder.

  Brother Brian laughed. “We must travel several days to reach the city,” he answered gently. “But there are many monasteries which will shelter us. And there are good people who’ll help us along the way.”

  So, sick and bruised, I found myself jolted along the London road, only half listening to the priest’s voice, and cursing the ill fortune that drove me further and further from home.

  My head grew dizzy with the blur of people and places we encountered. Each monastery guest-house brought the same meagre comforts of hard bed, and tasteless food eaten in draughty, prayer-haunted refectories. The faces of the monks all wore the same sorrowful expression as they listened to my piteous tale.

  “Nan’s been offered a home in her uncle’s house in London,” Brother Brian told them. “Her father, God rest him, died of the plague just a week or so ago, and her mother’s too sick to care for all the children.”

  This plausible story earned much sympathy. He made no mention of spirits or witchcraft and for that I nursed a grudging respect.

  “Do you think I imagined the dreams?”

  We stopped to share some bread and cheese by a little, ragged copse.

  Brother Brian paused, bread in hand, to stare at me, his blue eyes troubled.

  “And did you?”

  “No.” I returned the stare with a bold tilt of my chin. “And I know they’re true. As well as I know Alys Weaver will marry an old man and Robin Arrowsmith will die with a dagger in his throat.”

  A painful frown cleft the priest’s brows.

  “I had a brother gifted as you are—”

  “A brother? I didn’t know priests had families.” This information caught my interest.

  A smile replaced the frown. “I was born far from here in a country called Ireland beyond the sea. And I lived in a village with my parents and my brothers and sisters—”

  “Like me!”

  “Well, in a manner of speaking—but in my country people are after believing in seers and wise-women. So when my brother, Niall, said he could see spirits and the dead returned to speak to him, no one was much alarmed. They thought him chosen for some special purpose.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He went away to study and learn how to use his gift—” He raised a finger to check any interruption. “But here things are very different. People are frightened by what they think is witchcraft. Your tales are dangerous—”

  “But Mistress Evans—”

  “The Widow Evans is a good woman who uses her skills with herbs to help others. In Ireland she’d be called a wise-woman.”

  “She said I had the Sight.”

  “And so you have. But you mustn’t speak of it—except to me.” He chewed his bread thoughtfully. “You know, I’m after thinking this might be all for the best, Nan. No one in London knows anything about you. You can begin again.”

  I looked at him scornfully. How easy he made it sound.

  But when dark thoughts kept me awake at night, I repeated this idea like a prayer against evil: I will begin again.

  Talk of civil war dogged our journey, and the nearer we got to the city, the more the monks warned Brother Brian of the dangers of taking me there.

  “There are terrible quarrels among the barons,” said one. He shook his world-weary head. “They’ve turned against King Henry and his queen and stir up anger among the people.” He crossed himself. “Many blame the king for the wars with France which made them so poor, and for these plagues and pestilences bringing hunger and suffering—depriving children of their parents.” He looked at me with pity in his eyes. “I fear these barons will shortly be murdering each other for the crown. Avoid the city if you can.”

  Brother Brian grew grave but the monk’s gloomy ramblings merely irritated me. What did I care about greedy noblemen? Ever since I could remember, men had boasted of battles with puzzling names like Agincourt and Crecy, and boys had played them. I was sick of war. Hadn’t I grown up to the strident blare of its music? But in spite of the monks’ warnings I knew there could be no turning back.

  The farms and cottages grew fewer. Instead, the roads thronged with carts, horsemen and pilgrims. Brother Brian pointed out riders in liveries of murrey and blue wearing the falcon and fetterlock badge of York. “Those are the Duke’s retainers. Many think the Duke of York has more right to rule than King Henry.” This sounded different from tales I’d heard in the village.

  “But why don’t people want King Henry anymore?” I sympathised with the rejected monarch. Hadn’t I been turned out too? “Hasn’t he anyone to help him? Won’t his servants protect him from the Duke of York?”

  “The people think the duke will be a better ruler,” answered the priest, smiling at my impassioned questions. “King Henry’s been foolish—”

  With sudden insi
ght I realised I’d been just as foolish. If only I’d kept my mouth shut. The priest was my only protector. The advice he’d given hadn’t been forced by cowardice. He meant to keep me safe.

  A bitter November wind buffeted us next day. Angrily, I pulled my hood over my face so the priest shouldn’t see my tears. November was my birth month. At home my father would have cosseted me, hugged me in the warmth of his arms. But now no father would kiss his special girl nor whisper comfort any more. I pretended I didn’t care but I wondered if my mother thought of me. I pictured her stooping over the hearth, her face dew-spotted with sweat as she lifted the blackened pot on to the hook, and the memory of Tom’s baby-plump hands plucking at her kirtle raised a cruel lump in my throat. I longed then for the smoky fug of the cottage and Tom’s soft breath against my cheek.

  Perhaps cold or exhaustion sparked the dream that woke me early that last morning before we reached the city. It sent me scurrying through the dark to find the priest. Uncomplaining, he listened to my breathless account.

  “I saw three heads grinning down at me from a big arched gateway. There was blood running down the stones—just like the red ribbons Alys got from the fair in Brafield.” A bubble of laughter threatened to explode. “Their eyes had been picked out, and there were big black crows flying round and round squawking.” I snatched a breath, my heart still hammering with excitement. “And then I was in a frosty field and snow was falling like big goose-feathers—I heard horses galloping. Soldiers raced down a drawbridge carrying banners with that Yorkist badge on them—the one you showed me yesterday. But other men wearing a white swan badge roared out the woods and attacked the ones on horse-back. Soon there were dead bodies everywhere and bloody weapons and horses neighing and screaming—A man shouting orders was dragged off his horse and someone cut his throat.” I stopped a moment to catch my breath, the memory of that frothy gurgle still horribly vivid. “And then I saw a boy running away. He had bright golden hair.” I paused again to recapture the hideous scene, a knight on horse-back, his face black with fury, raised sword running blood, then the horse snorting and someone stumbling under the hooves and begging for mercy. “An old man tried to escape from a knight chasing him on a big black horse. The boy ran onto a bridge. He hammered on a door but no one would let him in. When the knight grabbed him, I realised he was that boy I always see in my dreams—the one with the murderers—” I stopped, panting with exhaustion, my hands wet with sweat.

  “Such a muddle of a dream.” The priest hugged me. “And I think you must blame me for it, for haven’t I been after talking to you of nothing but fighting? Put it aside now, for today we’ll be meeting your aunt and uncle and it wouldn’t do to be thinking on such butchery.”

  We ate in silence. Outside in the mean grey light of morning we shivered, wrapping our cloaks tight about us.

  “Will we see the king?”

  “I doubt it.” His kindly smile touched me. Sorry then for my former anger, I slipped a grateful hand in his to reassure him of my affection.

  He lifted me into the saddle and we rode ahead into the wind to join a jogging stream of other travellers. When, at last, the vast city walls rose up to meet us, I cringed from the armed men prowling like hungry dogs at the gates. Were they waiting for someone? A creeping sense of horror kept me from asking any questions.

  Chapter Eight

  London.

  A bewildering hubbub assailed my ears. Narrow streets exuded the rank stench of fish, ordure, and decay. A heaving mass of people lunged and lurched, rumbling carts battered my legs and mangy dogs snapped at my heels. I shrank against the priest clutching at his robe, shocked by the coarse faces, the angry shouts, the storm of rushing bodies.

  We reached the city in the late morning when the crowds were at their worst. The long journey had exhausted me. My bones ached from the ass’s jarring rhythm. I couldn’t shake off the memory of my hideous dream, nor the realisation that I’d soon be left with relations I’d never seen before. I clung to the priest’s hand fiercely as he led me through a muddle of stinking alley-ways.

  Choking in this fug of unaccustomed smells, my eyes stinging from acrid smoke, I staggered like a drunkard. A horseman trotted by, spattering me with mud, and as I turned in fury, an ill-mannered youth shoved me aside mouthing insults. Separated from Brother Brian, I froze, staring wildly about me. Everyone seemed in such a hurry. Voices yowled like cats fighting, the sounds nothing like speech I understood. I flinched from jabbing elbows and trampling feet until the priest’s hand caught me and steered me into a winding lane.

  Outside the tall house that teetered over the street and seemed to jostle with its neighbour, our travels ended. An over-powering reek made my stomach heave. I glimpsed some men in stained aprons stirring huge vats in a cobbled yard.

  “Your uncle’s a tanner,” said Brother Brian, pointing. “That’s part of his workshop you can see. It’s where the hides are cured.”

  “What’s that horrible smell?”

  The priest laughed. “The hides have to be kept in vats of special liquor to preserve them. Best not to linger here too long.” He led me up towards the living quarters but the stink followed.

  A burly, red-haired stranger straddled the threshold. From behind his leather-aproned bulk peered a pale cluster of female faces.

  “Welcome to London.” The stranger held out his arms.

  I huddled against the priest. The booming voice and piercing eyes didn’t seem welcoming to me.

  “This is your Uncle Will and your Aunt Grace—” The priest nudged me forward.

  Aunt Grace murmured, stooping to take my hand. Her smile evoked my father’s memory but I clenched my fists and swerved back.

  “Don’t worry, Brother Brian.” From under straggling brows, the red-haired man regarded me with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. “We’ll look after her. You can leave her safe with us.”

  It sounded a friendly enough dismissal, and perhaps Brother Brian relished the opportunity to be gone, but how could he leave me in the hands of these strangers? Suddenly his kindness along the journey seemed doubly precious. How would I manage without him? I turned to throw myself into his arms and beg him to take me with him, but Uncle Will placed a proprietary arm about my shoulder and steered me into the house.

  The bird left off preening its ragged plumage and fixed him with the black glitter of a single eye. It opened its dagger-shaped beak and emitted an ugly squawk that made him flinch, but he didn’t give ground. To the right he glimpsed the wide rushing sweep of a wing as its fellow landed with a menacing thump upon the parapet. He heard the scrape of talons on stonework as it strutted toward him, insolent as a rebel courtier, but still he did not yield.

  “What are you doing up here?”

  A heavy hand gripped his shoulder.

  “I wanted to see—”

  The hand turned him with a savagery that made him wince, but he didn’t cry out.

  “You might have fallen.” The northern voice contained a mingling of fear and concern.

  “No, I can climb better than anyone,” the child boasted. “Where’s Will? Why can’t we go outside anymore?”

  “You’re nowt but questions, lad.”

  The statement was made with an attempt at lightness, humour straining against an underlying threat.

  Lad. No homage there. Even Will still called him Lord.

  “I just wanted to look at the city again.”

  “No need. Your uncle wants you kept safe. Come down with me now.”

  The voice was reasonable, kind even, but he followed reluctantly. It was harder to climb down, and he was glad to clamber on the broad shoulders. He put his arms about the man’s neck to steady himself, and sensed tension in the strong body. The unkempt hair, black as the ravens’ feathers, tickled his nose.

  “Why can’t we play outside?” he asked when he was set upon his feet again.

  The man squatted before him, his shockingly blue eyes level with his own.

  “Your uncle
won’t allow it.”

  “Haven’t you any boys?” the child asked, a mixture of defiance and wistfulness in his plea.

  “Aye.”

  The voice softened. The eyes took on a distant focus as if remembering.

  “And would you keep them like prisoners as they do Ned and me?”

  “No more questions.” The man rose, created a hostile distance between them.

  When the child protested, a hand clamped over his mouth and nose, blocking off air. He inhaled the salty, meaty scent of the man’s palm and struggled to dislodge the strong fingers, teeth nipping the flesh.

  “God’s bones! The cub bit me!”

  A fist struck the side of his head, sent him spinning into darkness—

  I woke sweating and gagging, kicking my feet against the heavy coverlet. The chamber brooded, tomb-dark and still. I hugged the unfamiliar bed-curtains, breathing in their faint scent of lavender, and allowed the dream to fade. As my pulse steadied, I recalled where I lay and what had brought me here.

  The high spindly house with its many chambers and fine furniture made me feel shabby. I decided my uncle must be rich, for I’d never seen such a place before. A great wooden table and benches crowded the hall that ran the length of the house, and more stools than I could count. Up in the bedchamber which jutted over the street below, my aunt showed me a carved oak press and linen chest of which she seemed enormously proud. A baize cloth hung from one wall and on another a shelf held a pair of carved candlesticks and a pretty, painted pot. My eyes had widened at the heap of cushions on the two beds the girls’ shared in the smaller side chamber and the little shelf where they kept their trinkets and hair ornaments. Even so, the stink of the tannery couldn’t be masked entirely by the sweet-smelling rushes and I felt stifled inside the airless building. How I longed to escape it—to fill my lungs with the wide, green scent of soughing trees and hear the secret rustle of bracken under my feet and the blackbird’s rattling alarm overhead.