The Gallows Curse (65 page)

    'Best
show her visitor up here,' Ma said. 'We can't have Holly seen below.'

    Talbot
grunted and moved off down the stairs.

    'Is
it Master Raffaele?' Elena asked. Ma must have got word to him that she was no
longer safe here. This time he surely would take her away. He must, no matter
what he'd said before. Her heart gave a little judder of excitement and fear.

    'Not
Master Raffaele, but someone from your village.' Ma glanced up at her
curiously. 'Someone you haven't seen for a long time.'

    Despite
the dark hollows that fear and sleeplessness had carved around Elena's eyes,
they suddenly shone so radiantly that you would have sworn someone had lit a
candle behind them.

    'Athan!
It's Athan, my husband. I knew he'd come in the end. I knew Raffaele would tell
him where I was.'

    But
her delight was suddenly tinged with fear. In her joy at the prospect of seeing
him, she had almost forgotten her dread of him finding her in this place. But
if he'd come here asking for her that surely must mean he wanted her back. She
heard footsteps on the staircase and it took every grain of willpower she
possessed to stop her feet from running down the steps to meet him.

    Talbot
entered the room first and stepped aside. The smile of joy on Elena's face
dissolved instantly as a tall, slim figure stepped out from behind him. The
woman threw back her hood. Ma was right. It was someone she had not seen for a
very long time and someone she had never thought to see again.

    Gytha,
the cunning woman, stood in Ma's chambers, gazing round the small shuttered
room with a look of admiration and amusement, her eyes darting from the petrified
forest of wax to the serpent throne. She ran her fingers lightly across the
carved snakes, which almost seemed to ripple and purr under her touch.

    'So
the spirits speak to the dwarf too.'

    Talbot
was staring at the dark-haired woman, his jaw hanging as slack as a
pimple-faced youth's. As if Gytha could read his thoughts, she turned swiftly
round to face him, her cold, slate-blue eyes regarding him with an unblinking
stare. He hastily averted his gaze and backed out of the chamber, surreptitiously
spitting on his two forefingers like some old crone warding off a hex.

    Elena,
numb with shock, looked round for Ma, but she had vanished.

    Gytha
glanced at Elena's hair. 'A good disguise, though I'd still have known you,
lass.'

    Shock
gave way to fury and Elena suddenly sprang to life. Not caring who might hear
her, she screamed, 'Where's my baby? What you have done with my son?'

    Gytha
regarded her with amused tolerance. 'Don't fret yourself. He's well enough and
safe . . . for now at any rate. I promised you he would be.'

    'Where
is he?' Elena demanded again. 'Where did you take him? Why did you disappear
like that? They accused me of murdering my baby. I told them I'd given my bairn
to you to keep him safe, but they couldn't find you anywhere and they wouldn't
believe me. They tried to hang me.'

    'You
look very much alive to me,' Gytha answered calmly.

    'Only
because . . .' Elena stopped herself just in time.

    She
didn't know how much Gytha knew of Raffaele's part in her escape, and yet
surely only Raffaele could have told Gytha where she was hiding? Who else knew?

    'How
did you find me? Who told you where I was?'

    Gytha
let her fingers trail across the box with the carved eye on Ma's desk. She
paused, her hand hovering above it like a falcon hunting.

    'The
spirits told us. Madron and I, we've been watching you, lass. Her with her
bones, me I see things clearer in my bowl, but no matter, the spirits tell us
the same things. We've performed some powerful charms for you, and see,' she
touched Elena's cheek, 'you're thriving like a cow on fresh pasture.'

    Elena
flinched away. 'But then you knew! You knew what I was accused of and still you
didn't come back and speak for me.'

    'There
was no need, lass. The danger passed.'

    Up to
that moment, Elena had been too bemused and angered by Gytha's unexpected visit
to think through what this now meant. She had been expecting Raffaele to take
her away from this place, but it suddenly occurred to her there was no need. If
Gytha simply gave her back her son, she could go home and prove that she had
been innocent all along. True, she was still a runaway villein, but surely if
they could see she had been falsely accused then all would be well. Only Ma and
Talbot knew she'd killed Raoul and Hugh and they wouldn't tell anyone. As Ma
said, they'd be putting themselves in danger if they did.

    Athan
would be overjoyed to see them both and filled with remorse at not having
believed her. She could already feel his arms about her; smell the familiar,
comforting warm- hay scent of his neck; hear him say he would do anything to
make it up to her. And that bright, multi-coloured dream drove all other
thoughts from Elena's head. She was a drunkard who laughs at the pretty dancing
flames without realizing that it is her own house that is burning.

    She
beamed at Gytha. 'Now that you've come, I can take my son back home to Athan. I
don't have to hide here any more.'

    Gytha
frowned. 'Athan, but. . .' A curious look came over her face. 'So,' she
breathed softly, 'so Madron was right, this will make it easier.'

    'What?'
Elena demanded. Then, receiving no answer, she said eagerly, 'When can I see my
little son? Is he here in Norwich? Is he grown? I've longed so much to hold him
again.'

    Gytha's
eyes flicked round each of the chairs in the room, then, drawing up a
footstool, she squatted on that instead, as if she was back in her own cottage.
She motioned Elena to sit, and without thinking, Elena hunkered down on the
wooden floor. It seemed natural now that Gytha was here.

    'Don't
fret over your bairn, lass, you'll see him soon enough. But you made a promise,
remember? A debt. You must needs pay it afore you can see your son.'

    You
mean money for the child's keep?' Elena said. 'I can get that. How much does
the wet nurse want?' She was sure Raffaele would give it to her.

    Gytha
gave a grunt of laughter. 'Not for the bairn, for Yadua. You bought her from
me, remember, so you could learn what the night-hag would show you in your
dreams. I told you Yadua can't be got with coins or jewels, only for the same
payment for which she was bought. I warned you that some day I would ask you
for a small service. And you swore you would do it.' Gytha had leaned forward,
and now her cold, hard eyes were boring into Elena's so intensely that Elena
felt her skin prickle. 'That day has come, lass. Time to pay what you owe.'

    Without
knowing what she was afraid of, Elena's stomach shrank into a knot. What is
it... what do you want me to do?'

    Gytha
cupped her hands together like a bowl, and stared down into them. Whether it
was the angle at which she held them to the candles, or something more, Elena
couldn't be certain, but it seemed to her that an ice-blue light was flickering
in the hollow of Gytha's palms as if she held a tiny imp imprisoned there.

    'Let
me tell how Yadua was bought, lass, the price that was paid for her. Then
you'll understand what you must do.'

    Gytha's
gaze flickered briefly up to Elena's face before returning to the dancing flame
in her hands.

    'Many
years before I was born, a poor man called Warren came to visit a healer in the
city of Lincoln in the dead of night. This woman's name was Gunilda. Warren
told her his little daughter had been cruelly raped by a Norman knight, but
being a poor man, he could get no justice for his child who lived in constant terror
that the man might return and attack her again. He begged Gunilda for a poison
to kill this knight, so his daughter might recover her wits. Gunilda felt pity
for him, for she had a daughter of much the same age, and seeing how distraught
he was, she agreed to give him the poison, and in exchange he gave her the
priceless treasure of a mandrake.

    'But
the man had lied. He had no daughter, nor any bairn to his name then. He was
himself a wealthy knight and wanted the poison to murder his innocent wife, so
that he could marry his pregnant mistress. But when his wife lay in her coffin,
the foul deed was discovered. Warren swore that Gunilda had visited his wife
and poisoned her while he was away from home. Gunilda was tried by ordeal and
found guilty. She was strangled and her body burned in front of her little
daughter. Before she died, Gunilda cursed Warren and all his descendants.'

    Elena
was staring in bewilderment at Gytha. The story shocked and saddened her. After
her own trial, she could feel only too well the despair of the woman at not
being believed, the cruel and bitter injustice of it. But she couldn't
understand why Gytha was telling her this.

    Gytha
opened her palms. The bright blue-white flame darted upwards and vanished,
leaving only a curling tongue of silver smoke in the form of a running fox.
Gytha cocked her head on one side, watching Elena.

    'You
want to know what this has to do with you, don't you, lass? Before you bought
Yadua, this story was nothing to you. But now it is your story. You belong to
it, as it belongs to you. Before she was executed Gunilda gave the mandrake
Warren had given her to her own little daughter. And now you own that very
mandrake, because, you see, Gunilda's little daughter is my mother, my own
Madron. And she was forced to stand alone in the square in front of the great
cathedral and watch her Madron burned to ash. The priests wanted to make sure
that Gunilda was utterly destroyed both in this world and the next. For without
a body, the priests say she cannot be resurrected at the world's end. They
wanted to obliterate any trace of her, any memory. She was nothing to them and
they would make sure that nothing of her would remain.

    'And
in due course, Warren's mistress, now his new bride, was brought to bed of a
boy, a precious son. Now that bairn is grown to a man. And you know that man,
lass, you know him only too well. It was he who ordered you to be hanged.
Warren's son is Osborn of Roxham.'

    'Osborn!'
Elena's eyes opened wide. For a moment all words fled from her. Then she
whispered, 'It makes sense that a man as cold as Osborn should have such an
evil father. Your poor grandam, and your mam too, she must hate that family.'

    Gytha's
mouth twitched in a flicker of a smile. 'More than you could ever know. But
many have cause to hate him, especially you.'

    Elena
felt suddenly chilled. She had touched the mandrake that this dead woman had
held in her own hands, perhaps even lying in a dungeon the night before her
execution, as Elena had lain in hers. She felt as if the dead woman's hands
were grasping hers and would not let go, but were dragging her back down into
the earth.

    Elena
drew in a deep, shuddering breath. You said you wanted me to do something for
you, but you still haven't told me what it is. When I get back to the village I
could—'

    'This
will not wait till you return to the village, lass,' Gytha said. Yadua was
bought with my grandam's life, a life taken by murder. I warned you that as the
mandrake was bought, so she must be paid for. Warren's first-born son is coming
here to Norwich to hunt for his brother's killer. And you must kill him. That
is how you will pay for Yadua. She was bought with blood, and only in blood can
you pay the price for her.'

    Elena
sprang to her feet, her eyes wide in horror. 'No, I can't! I can't kill Osborn.
I'll give you back the mandrake. I'll fetch it at once and you can take it. I
don't want it.'

    She
tried to push past Gytha to reach the curtain which concealed the trapdoor. But
Gytha reached out a long bony arm and barred her way.

    'I
can't take her back, lass. She belongs to you. She has proved that, for she has
been your fetch. If she had not truly been yours, she could never have shown
you the dreams. You swore on spirit bones that you would pay the price for her.
You gave your oath.'

    'But
I didn't know you meant this,' Elena pleaded. 'I can't kill anyone. I wouldn't
know how. Osborn is a man, a knight, how could I possibly kill someone like
him?'

    Gytha
smiled. 'But the dwarf tells me you have already killed Raoul and Hugh. Have
you forgotten so soon why Osborn is coming here, to find his brother's
murderer? To find you!'

    'But
I can't have. I only dreamed —'