The Marsh King's Daughter (24 page)

On the eve of the fair, Miriel was in the candle-lit workshop, conducting a final inspection before Gerbert arrived to take her home. She paused beside each loom to examine the work in progress, and moved on to the bales of finished fabric awaiting transportation to the morrow's fair. She touched the soft cloth, fingering the luxury of the nap that she herself had cropped with the shears. From being a contender in the market place, she was fast becoming a power, and that feeling went some way to comforting the small, lost child cowering behind the facade of industry and confidence.

Humouring that child, Miriel left the looms and the bales of fabric. She took a candle lantern off the shelf and descended the rock-cut steps into the store rooms at the back of the shed. By the leaping gold of the flame, she gazed round at bales of wool and dyed yarn, at the spare Flemish loom and the shuttles piled beside it. The smells of stone and wool hung in the air, blending with the aroma of candle wax.

Miriel crossed to a large oak chest at the back of the store room. The piece was crudely carved and of small value, the sort most women kept in their houses to hold spare pots or clothing. This particular one contained a motley collection of drop spindles and different-sized weights of stone, clay and bone. No one would have given it a second glance, or paused for one moment to notice that it had a greater exterior depth than its internal dimensions suggested.

Miriel knelt beside the chest and put her lantern on the floor. She ran her hand beneath the furniture until she touched a small wooden peg. Swivelling it, she released a hinged flap, giving access to a small, hidden compartment. Tenderly, Miriel lifted Empress Mathilda's crown from its hiding place and unfolded the silk wrappings. It had been a long time since she had possessed an opportunity to look on the object and her sense of awe was heightened by the surrounding darkness of the cave, lit only by her lantern flame. It was almost like worshipping at a shrine.

She found herself talking to the crown as if the object had a life of its own. She whispered her regrets, her fears, her needs and ambitions, how far she had progressed, how far she still had to go in her search for security. She told it about her mother, her sorrow, her grieving for what might have been and never was. The jewels gleamed at her like ' dragon's eyes, the pearls shone like the finest white silk, and the gold flickered with the red of fire.

Bedazzled, it took her a moment to realise that the flicker was a reflection, and not of her lantern. Miriel whirled and saw tongues of flame leaping from a yarn basket in the main room. She heard the crackle of fire and inhaled the stench of burning wool. With a cry, she thrust the crown into its wrappings, stuffed it back into its hiding place and ran upstairs to the weaving shed. Choking on smoke, her eyes stinging and streaming, she grabbed the wooden water pail from beside the door and deluged the flames. Retching and coughing, she seized a besom and beat at the stray tendrils of fire.

A man's shape loomed in the doorway, blocking what little light remained in the dusk. 'Don't just stand there,' Miriel snapped, thinking it a neighbour, 'come and help, or go and summon others.'

He entered the room, positioning himself to confront her with clenched fists. Miriel stared into the handsome, petulant features of her former stepfather and shock struck her like a physical blow. 'Nigel!' she coughed. 'This is your doing, you whoreson!'

He stared back at her and, through the look of loathing and rage on his face, she saw astonishment too. 'You hellspawned bitch!' he snarled. 'I might have known that you'd set out to ruin me, you vindictive slut. It's not enough that you have disgraced your family, but now you must destroy the trade that supported it too.'

'You're not my family!' Miriel spat. 'And it is through your own incompetence that your trade has failed. Yours.' She jabbed the broom handle at him, tears of rage and grief blurring her eyes. 'You couldn't even keep my mother!'

He leaped nimbly aside. 'Her death was God's will,' he said hoarsely. 'Christ Jesu, you're not part of my Annet, you're a changeling. They should have let you die at the hour of your birth!' He hefted a bale of fabric from the table and advanced on her.

She braced the besom like a quarterstaff and circled the smouldering basket, attempting to keep it between them. And she tried to scream for help, but her throat was too roughened by smoke and she could only cough. Surely someone would have seen the fire. Surely someone would come.

Nigel leaped, knocking the broom from her hand and bearing her to the ground. His weight flattened her and he pressed the end of the bolt of cloth over her nose and mouth, stretching it tight, sealing off air. Miriel clenched her fist and punched it as hard as she could into the centre of his throat.

He recoiled, crowing for breath, and Miriel grabbed the loosened cloth in her own hands and surged to her feet.

'Bitch, I'll kill you!' he choked, and lunged again.

They grappled in the dark. Miriel bit and scratched, fighting like a wild cat to be free, but Nigel held on grimly. One hand found her throat and squeezed.

'Mother of Christ!' exclaimed Gerbert from the doorway, the horn lantern in his hand illuminating the scene. He bellowed the alarm and waded into the room, snatching a pair of nap shears from a hook on the wall.

Nigel flung Miriel aside and turned to face the new threat. She crashed against one of the looms, hit her head on a wooden yarn rack, and dropped like a poled ox.

'Robbers, murderers!' Gerbert yelled and stabbed the shears at the dark shape in front of him. The blades passed through tunic and shirt, grazing Nigel's flank, but inflicting no mortal wound. Nigel jerked his knee into Gerbert's paunch and, as the wool merchant doubled over, wheezing, made his escape through the doorway into the heavy dusk. Inside the shed, Miriel crawled to her hands and knees.

There was a swelling bruise the size of a goose egg on the back of her head and she felt sick. She could hear Gerbert groaning. Then he made a strange, gargling sound. Light tore at her eyes and a strong arm curved around her shoulders. She screamed and tried to fight it off, but her limbs were as useless as tangled yarn.

'It's all right, it's all right, help is at hand. No one is going to hurt you,' soothed Robert Willoughby's strong voice. 'What happened?'

Miriel shook her head and felt it buzz as though it contained a swarm of bees. 'He tried to set fire to the shed, and to kill me,' she answered, her voice distant and slow. It was an effort to speak. Robert's face swam in and out of focus and her belly churned.

'Who did, who tried to kill you?'

A cold rim was set against her lips and a fiery, sharp-scented liquid trickled down her raw throat. She choked and coughed. 'My stepfather. He has a grudge against me.'

'Your stepfather?'

Miriel compressed her lips. 'Personal,' she said, and closed her lids, feeling a great weariness overlaying the nausea. 'Too long a tale.'

Robert Willoughby gave her a thoughtful look out of slightly narrowed eyes. 'But perhaps it will bear telling,' he murmured.

His words came as if from a great distance, blurred and faint. She did not want to hear them and sought the darkness, covering herself in its deepening layers. When he tapped her face to waken her, she moaned at him and flopped in his arms.

'Bear them both home,' Robert said to the master weaver who stood to one side, rubbing his beard in agitation. 'Mistress Woolman may be able to tell us what happened when she recovers, but for now, there is nothing we can do but make sure this place is secure and alert the Watch.'

'Yes, sir,' the craftsman said with obvious relief at having someone there to take control. 'I'll move a mattress in here and bed down with the looms myself lest the rogue returns.'

'Is the mistress going to be all right?' asked the weaver's wife, her face pale within its frame of hastily donned wimple.

Robert looked down at Miriel cradled in his arms -the fine-grained skin blotched with developing bruises, the lantern light making silky shadows of her lashes. 'Yes, I think so,' he said softly, and in his voice there was tenderness and possession.

Miriel opened her eyes to the sound of the wind roaring down the chimney and rattling at the shutters. A cold draught fluttered the wall hangings and threatened to extinguish the flame of the night candle.

She sat up and a nauseous pain shot through the back of her head. Swallowing, she pressed her hand gingerly against the bruise and explored the size of the lump. Her throat felt as if she had been drinking fire, and her limbs as if someone had torn them off and then cobbled them back together in the same brutal fashion. She was wearing her undertunic, but no wimple. Her overgown had been hung neatly on her clothing pole, and her shoes placed side by side beneath it.

Hazy memories darted through her mind like fish in a murky stream - swift silver flashes interspersed with nothing. She had been at the weaving shed. She had seen fire reflected in gold, then Nigel had appeared out of nowhere and . . .

'Holy Mother,' she gasped and dived for the piss bucket. She hung over it, dry-retching, her vision throbbing with little blobs of light. The fish had become an entire shoal and she could see everything.

There came the sound of rapid footsteps. 'I told you not to leave her alone!' Robert Willoughby said grimly.

'I'm sorry, sir,' came Elfwen's frightened voice. 'I did but go to fetch fresh candles.'

Once again, Robert's arm curved around Miriel's shoulders. 'Steady now, steady,' he soothed.

Miriel gulped. The spasms subsided, leaving her shivering and tired to death. He led her back to the bed and gave her sweet mead to sip.

Miriel looked at him, at the weary pouches beneath his eyes and the deep lines graven from nostril to mouth corner. The significance of his presence in her bedchamber hit her like a stone. 'Where's Gerbert?' she asked unsteadily.

Robert gazed down at the coverlet for a moment, then drew a deep breath and took her hands in his. 'I am sorry, Miriel, but he is dead. He suffered a seizure on the weaving-shed floor. We bore him home with you, but he died ere he was over the threshold. There was nothing we could do. He has been taken to St Mary's and lies before the altar.' He squeezed her fingers, his hazel eyes pensive and sorrowful.

'Gerbert, dead?' Miriel whispered. Her mind filled with a vision of him standing among his wool sacks, hands resting on his large belly, his air one of pleasure and complacence. Then she thought of the small, concerned frown knitting his brows as he told her that driving herself would do nothing to banish her troubles, for where she moved, they went too. 'It can't be true,' she whispered.

'I'm sorry,' Robert said again.

Miriel took her hands from beneath his and struggled from the bed. The world pitched and swayed, but she tottered gamely to her clothing pole and took down her overdress.

'What are you doing?' Robert demanded, his eyes full of astonishment.

'I am going to kneel at Gerbert's bier,' she said in a thin, determined voice.

'But you are in no fit state. You should still be abed!'

'Nevertheless, I must go. It is my duty.'

Robert opened his mouth to protest and she faced him, her eyes cloudy with concussion, but her jaw as tight as a vice. 'It is my grief and my right,' she added grimly. 'Will you deny me that?'

He sighed and, with a shake of his head, stood up. 'Nay, mistress, I will not deny you, even if I think it ill advised. But let me escort you there at least. From the looks of you, you need an arm to lean upon.'

She nodded brusquely, still very much on her dignity, but had to yield when she could not stoop to put on her shoes and had to ask Robert and Elfwen to help her. She did indeed welcome the support of Robert's strong arm as he led her the short distance to St Mary's Church.

'The sheriff has launched a search for the thief who set fire to your shed and attacked you both,' he murmured as he pushed into the vigorous autumn wind, his free hand clapping his hat to his head. 'It's a matter of murder now.'

The cold wind scoured through Miriel's skull, blowing away the fog to leave an echoing cavern.

'He'll want to talk to you, but I told him that you were in no condition.' Robert stooped round to look into her face. 'I did not tell him what you said about your stepfather. I thought I would ask you first.'

Mercifully they arrived at the church door and Miriel was spared the difficulty of making an immediate reply. Her thoughts flew in the hollow chamber of her mind. What had she said about her stepfather? How far had she exposed herself and how far could she trust Robert Willoughby?

Lamp-and candle-light filled the church, flickering in every corner and crevice, illuminating the blue cloak draping the alabaster statue of St Mary, dancing off the painted sandstone columns with their vigorous scrollwork coils. The church had been sacked during the uprising of old King Henry's sons thirty years ago, and this was a new building, standing on the ashes of the several that had gone before.

Gerbert's body lay on a bier before the altar, surrounded by yet more candles. His hands were folded on his breast and clasped a wooden cross. He was wearing the green gown in which he had died, and his scuffed old boots. A linen bandage bound up his jaw and his hair and beard had been combed.

For an instant, Miriel was back at her grandfather's wake, kneeling in the cathedral nave at Lincoln. Her belly heaved and she compressed her lips and swallowed.