The Marsh King's Daughter (48 page)

'Do not sell the ships,' she said without looking round. 'I will go surety for four hundred marks of the ransom. Only give me a week to raise the coin.'

'You can raise four hundred marks?' There was incredulity in Martin's voice.

Miriel gave a wintry smile and turned round. 'Yes, I can,' she said, 'otherwise I would not have offered. I may have been a fool over some parts of my life, but never where my wealth is concerned. All I have to do is find the right buyer for what I have to sell.' When he opened his mouth, she lifted a forefinger to silence him. 'My mind is made up, and when Nicholas knows what I have done, he will approve, I promise.' She returned the vellum letter to Martin's bemused hands. 'It is between him and me; call it the settling of an old debt. Within a week; you have my word.'

'Leaving for Lincoln on the morrow?' Elfwen gazed at Miriel in surprise and doubt. 'What will Master Willoughby say when he returns here and finds you gone?'

Miriel fastened the straps on her travelling coffer and feigned nonchalance. 'Master Willoughby will say nothing. It is a matter of trade, and that he understands well enough.' Even if he understands little else. Although she was afraid, her need and her will were far greater than her fear of her husband. She would deal with the consequences later, if consequences there were. What Robert did not know would not trouble him.

Elfwen chewed her lip and looked worried. 'I did not mean to listen, but I overheard some of what you said to Master Wudecoc'

Miriel flashed round. 'You mean you were eavesdropping on the stairs. How dare you!'

'No!' Elfwen cried, stretching her hand in supplication. 'I came to ask if you wanted wine and I saw you in Master Wudecoc's arms. I thought for a moment . . .' Her face flushed. 'I thought you were lovers,' she whispered, 'and then I realised you were speaking together of Master de Caen.'

Miriel thought frantically back over the conversation, but could recall nothing incriminating. 'What of it?' she snapped. 'He is a good friend and his trade causes ours to prosper. Why should I not help him all I can?'

Elfwen shook her head. 'Mistress, be careful,' she said. 'I may be your maid, but I am not simple. Four hundred marks is more than help. I do not believe that Master Willoughby will agree to it.'

'Master Willoughby is not going to know,' Miriel said curtly. 'Unless you tell him.'

'I won't say anything. I may hear things, but I can keep a close mouth,' Elfwen answered with an air of injured dignity. 'I am just warning you to have a care. I know Master Willoughby's never raised his hand to you or any of the servants, but that doesn't mean he's soft.'

Miriel left the packed chest and removed her wimple ready for sleep. 'Neither am I,' she said grimly.

To which Elfwen did not reply, although the maid privately thought that her mistress was wrong. Her toughness was no more than a protection of bone encircling a tender marrow.

Miriel slept restlessly and woke before sunrise for the fifth time, just as the sky was starting to lighten. The shutters were closed and the room still rested in pitch darkness, but her sense of time was good. When she quietly freed the catch and pushed the wooden screens wide, it was upon a grey-tinted world where all the colour had been strained into the scents of the cool early air: baking bread and dung; silver fading starlight and dew; the creamy sweetness of honeysuckle and the blue aroma of woodsmoke. She inhaled appreciatively, and then withdrew her face and used the morning grey to dress. On the town dungheaps the cockerels had started to crow their challenges, the sound blending with the melodic song of smaller birds and the husky cooing of pigeons in the tavern's large white cot.

On her pallet Elfwen stirred and turned over with a mumble, but did not waken, nor did Miriel seek to rouse her. It was too early to make their way to the travelling barges on the Witham but she was too restless to remain abed and wait for the light to strengthen and others to rise. As silently as she could, she unbarred the door, clicked the latch, and crept from the room.

Stepping into the cool, dawn air, she became a part of it, her charcoal-coloured cloak blending with the greyness, her hair tinted with the faintest hue of gold as the eastern sky continued to pale. She paced the perimeter of the courtyard, measuring her steps, controlling the urge to stride out. In the stable block, a horse turned its head from a manger of hay to snort at her. Further down the line a lantern had been kindled on a shelf and by its light she could see a saddled horse. The sound of voices came from within the stall, low and urgent.

Remembering her anger at Elfwen for listening on the stairs, she grimaced to herself and began to turn around, but the inflection in one of the voices caught her ear and held her fast, for it sounded like her husband's. Instead of walking quietly away, she tiptoed very softly forward and paused where she could see within the stall and not be seen herself.

Robert's mount was tethered to the bridle ring in the far wall and was champing hay out of the manger. Robert himself was standing to one side, arms folded, legs planted wide in a stance that Miriel had come to know and loathe. His expression was furious, face thrust slightly forward, complexion dusky and eyes staring. In the shadows, facing him, stood someone else whom Miriel could not see.

'Good Christ, what foolery led you to pursue me here?' Robert snarled. 'I pay you to keep your distance unless I call the tune.'

'You pay me for many things,' a gravelly voice replied, 'and I dance to no man's tune.'

'What do you want?' There was anger and perhaps just a hint of fear in Robert's tone.

'I followed you here with news, but plainly you don't want to hear it, so I'll take it elsewhere.' He began to thrust past Robert to the door, and as the wool merchant caught him and pushed him roughly back into the stable, Miriel received a clear view of the man's face. He had pox scars on cheek and brow, craggy bones and a bush of red hair, repeated in the thick curl of beard cupping the long jaw. Oh God, it was him; the one of whom Stephen Trabe had spoken. The go-between who had sought men willing to take Nicholas's life. Miriel stifled her shuddering breath against the back of her hand. It couldn't be coincidence. She sucked in her stomach muscles, binding her belly to her spine and forcing herself not to heave.

They would hear her and, whatever the depth of her horror and revulsion, there was still more to be learned.

'You'll go nowhere without my leave!' Robert hissed. 'I own you; don't you forget it. No one walks out on me!'

'And I own your soul as surely as you own mine,' Redbeard retorted, thrusting him off. 'I could sing ugly songs in certain quarters about a weaver who never came home from the tavern because you wanted him out of your way, or a wool merchant who died in an alley so that your territory would not be threatened.' There was a long pause and the ruffian's voice grew soft with menace. 'Or a sea-captain who overstepped the mark with your wife. Best pray that I don't choose to open my mouth. And it wouldn't do to pay someone to close it. Word gets around and there's more loyalty among thieves than there is among wool merchants like you with important fat bellies.'

There was a sudden scuffle. Miriel heard the sound of a blow, a solid punch like a fuller pounding a bale of felted cloth. Robert gave a strangled wheeze. Two more thuds followed in rapid succession, hard and deliberate, and the choking sounds increased. 'I don't like to see a job go unfinished, even for a bastard like you, so I'll tell you that you've been cheated,' Redbeard panted, and there was note of pleasurable triumph in his voice. 'Nicholas de Caen still lives. Some fishermen plucked him from the sea half drowned and now they're selling him back to his family. If you need my services you know where to find me. In the meantime, I'll pay myself for the information, shall I?' A grunt of effort accompanied the noise of leather purse strings being slashed from a belt.

Miriel ducked into an empty stall and just had time to crouch at the back before the red-bearded man came striding down the walkway. He was leading Robert's horse and tucking Robert's full purse into his own belt. As he reached the stable entrance he placed his foot in the stirrup and swung astride.

Miriel waited until she heard the disappearing clop of hooves in the yard, then stood up and went to the end stall. Robert's nose was bloody and one eye was rapidly swelling shut. A slick line of spittle tracked down his face and glistened in his beard. Miriel eyed the damage with pleasure. It was less than he deserved, much less, and it was fortunate that there was not a pitchfork to hand for she would have used it.

As it was, she drew back her foot and kicked him in the groin as hard as she could. As he doubled over with a choking sound of surprise, she tore her wedding ring from her finger and threw it at him. 'You murdering bastard!' she hissed. 'I curse the day I ever made my vows to you.'

'It's not what you think,' he groaned.

'No,' Miriel snapped. 'The truth is what you think, isn't it? All manipulated and twisted to seem so reasonable that only a madman would believe there was another way.'

'It's your fault. I did it for you.' Clutching his genitals, he looked at her like a small boy caught out for a misdemeanour and indignant at being taken to task.

'For me!' Miriel choked.

'You wouldn't get rid of that old weaver, your heart was too soft, so I had to do it for you,' he said in a tone that suggested he was being reasonable and she wasn't. 'And Maurice de la Pole would have stopped the supply of your wool or made the price unaffordable. I had to do something about him; anyone in my position would not have hesitated for a moment.' He held out a reasoning hand. 'Nicholas de Caen made fools of us both. I only ordered his killing for your own good.'

'You are mad!' Miriel said with revulsion. 'And if you are not mad, then you are truly evil.'

He eyed her in bewilderment. 'I am neither,' he said. 'I am just a man who has taken life by the horns and grappled it to the ground rather than let it trample me. Surely you understand that.'

Miriel did, and because she could see the glimmer of his warped reasoning, she felt sullied herself. Once, she too had taken life by the horns and grappled it to the ground, survival of her own needs all that mattered. It was easier to believe Robert mad or evil than to see the distorted reflection of her past in his reasoning. 'That does not make it right or mean that I can forgive you,' she said.

Robert straightened with an effort and wiped his knuckles beneath his bloody nose. 'I am not seeking your forgiveness'. I have told you, what I did was justified, and I would do it again a hundred times over to preserve what I hold dear.'

'Then what you hold dear is made naught but dross by your own hand,' Miriel said with contempt. 'I hope you fry in hell when the time comes.' Turning from him, she stalked away. He started after her and caught her by the arm, spinning her round, but as she turned, her free fist drove into his belly and he released her with a retching gasp. Miriel gathered her skirts and ran.

Clutching his stomach, Robert staggered to the stable door and watched helplessly as she vanished from the courtyard, her cloak billowing with her speed. He cursed and groaned, blood dribbling from his broken nose. Her fight and her spirit were what had made him want her in the first instance but, like training a wild mare, he had discovered that saddling was the easy part. Riding was a different matter entirely. Each time that he thought he had the mastery, she threw him and fled so that he had to begin all over again.

Perhaps in a way she was right. Perhaps he was paying a lifetime's ransom for something that was merely dross. He spat blood. Staggering back into the stall, he crouched on all fours and searched among the dung-soiled straw until he found the ring that Miriel had flung at him: a small circle of incised gold set with a single garnet and crafted by the same Lincoln goldsmith who made rings for the Archbishop of York. The circumference was too slender to fit on any of his fingers, but he could imagine it gleaming on Miriel's as she allowed another man to ride her loins and sow his seed in her womb. He could see her hands clenched upon de Caen's back, the gold of her wedding ring imprinting his naked flesh.

Robert closed his bloodied fist upon the token. 'If I cannot have you,' he said, 'then neither can he.'

Miriel banged her fist on Martin Wudecoc's door and looked impatiently up and down the street. Folk were about their early business now and the grey tints of night had been suffused with the clear colours of early morning. She banged on the door again. Surely someone must be stirring at this time; she knew enough about Martin himself to be sure that he was no slug-abed in the mornings. Biting her lip, hopping from one foot to another, Miriel rapped a third time and glanced up and down the street. The reasoning side of her mind told her that she would see nothing. Robert had been too winded to chase her and even if he did make a wild guess and realise that she was seeking succour here, he would be too late. But the superstitious dread remained. She could still see the violence in his eyes as he caught and spun her round, and he had been full of conviction, not remorse for his actions.