The Marsh King's Daughter (6 page)

A young nun was swearing to herself as she crawled around on her hands and knees, picking up the pieces of a broken clay pitcher. A white wimple framed her face, sapping her

complexion, but not the strength of her features. Her language would have done justice to a fishwife. Had he possessed the strength, Nicholas would have laughed, but he was too weak and stupefied with exhaustion to do anything but stare.

She must have sensed his attention for she swung round, the shattered pieces in her hands. Their eyes met and for a moment he saw blind panic in her expression before she schooled it to a nun-like impassivity. Dropping the shards in a wicker basket, she dusted her palms. 'It shouldn't have been left so close to the trestle edge - what else do they expect?' She shrugged defensively. 'They'll blame me just the same when they return from prayers.' She came and stood over him, one hand on her hip, the other cupping her chin in a curiously masculine gesture. He could not know that she was aping the stance of a sixty-year-old weaver.

Her eyes were gold-brown, her nose thin and aquiline. She reminded Nicholas of a falcon he had once owned.

'Don't you have a name?' she demanded.

'Nicholas,' he said weakly, and a shiver ran through him. He wondered if he was wise to tell her, but in the same thought decided that it did not matter. Other survivors, if they existed, would have more on their minds than pursuing him.

She continued to rub her chin and a slight frown appeared between her sharp brows. 'You had been in the sea.'

'Crossing the causeway - caught by the tide.' He closed his eyes, feeling nauseous and drained. The shivering began again and he could not stop.

'Then you are more than lucky to be alive,' she murmured and once more a cup was pressed to his lips. Nicholas turned his head from the bitter taste.

'Drink,' she commanded. 'It will give you ease.'

He did not have the strength to thrust her away. The touch of her hands and her closeness as she leaned over him were as recently familiar as her voice.

'You found me, didn't you?' he asked hoarsely.

She removed the cup. 'Yes, fortunately for you. Sister Margaret says another hour and you would have died.'

'I thought I had.' He gave her a bleak smile. 'When I woke up, I believed I was in hell.'

Her eyes widened, and for an instant he thought that he had shocked her, but that notion vanished as she burst out laughing.

'I have the same experience every day when the matins bell rings,' she said, and the laughter left her face. 'But I don't think I'm in hell - I know.'

The door opened, its squeaky hinge giving a spare second of warning. She jumped and whirled guiltily to face it, her fists clenched.

'Do my ears deceive me, or did I hear laughter just now?' demanded a slack-jowled nun who was hobbling very slowly with the aid of a stick. Nicholas recognised her as the one with the whiskery chin whom he had thought a demon. Another nun, thin as a rake and anxious of brow, hastened before the older one to smooth the covering of an upright box chair and stand ready with a footstool.

Nicholas watched the young nun's fists tighten behind her back. 'Yes, Sister Margaret, you did.' Now definite uncertainty marred the clear, low-pitched voice.

'May I ask why?' The sound of the walking stick punctuated each step with a heavy thump. Once again Nicholas found himself the object of narrow scrutiny.

'He said he thought he was in hell.'

'And you think that cause for mirth?'

'No, sister. I was just pleased that he seemed a little better. His name is Nicholas and he was caught out on the estuary when the tide came in.'

'Hmph,' said Sister Margaret, glancing from one to the other with suspicious eyes. 'Pleased enough to laugh seems to me an excess of concern, Sister Miriel. I doubt I would have discovered you thus had our patient been one of us.'

'I found him, I saved his life. It is no more than that.'

The nun drew herself up. 'God led you to him, and his life is in God's hands. To say anything else is to show lack of respect.'

'Yes, Sister. I didn't mean to be disrespectful.' Her stance was so rigid that she was trembling almost as much as Nicholas. He wanted to snap at old whisker-chin to leave her alone, but he was too weak, his eyelids too heavy. Whatever she had given him in the drink, it was flooding through his body, bringing warmth and deep lassitude.

'Aye, well, keep a close rein on that tongue of yours. You know I'll be reporting on your progress to Mother Abbess and Sister Euphemia.'

Nicholas heard the walking stick stump away across the floor and then the creak of overburdened chair timbers as the nun sat down from a height. 'And come away from that bed. He's asleep now. There's nothing more you can do for him, and plenty you can do for me, Sister Miriel.'

'Yes, Sister Margaret.' Nicholas felt the vibration of the young woman's unuttered sigh as she left him. Miriel. The name twined like a ribbon through his fading consciousness and he clung to it as the dreams of drowning encroached.

There was a stone sink in the infirmary with a drain. Having been thoroughly castigated by Sister Margaret for smashing the clay pot yesterday, Miriel was now washing and drying dozens of the things ready for reuse. Sister Margaret herself was snoring in her chair, her swollen legs resting on the footstool, and Sister Godefe was away on an errand to the cellaress.

Their patient had spent a restless night, tossing and muttering, now and then crying aloud in his sleep. His rapid French bore the accent of Normandy and the curses he rained upon King John made him guilty of treason. Sister Margaret had taken the duty of watching him during the night when Miriel and Godefe were at prayers and had continued to make of herself a bulwark between the young man and Miriel as if suspecting the worst of them both.

Miriel rinsed the last jar and let the water drain into the gutter below. His name was Nicholas and he had been caught by the tide. That was all they knew for sure of his circumstances, but there was much more she could guess. His manner of speech, coupled with the evidence that he had worn rings, marked him out as nobly born, as did his railing against King John. Ordinary folk had little enough to fear from their sovereign; it was the barons and magnates who had suffered - and rebelled. Their patient also had a soldier's physique: lean, muscular and honed. Miriel had an inkling that whatever he had been doing on the estuary, he was probably part of the rebel force that had recently been ravaging Lincolnshire. As such, he ought to be chained up in prison and was doubly fortunate to have literally washed up on St Catherine's threshold.

Taking a linen square from a pile on a nearby shelf, she began drying a container and tiptoed past the slumbering dragon to look at the young man.

He was asleep, but when his eyes were open they were a dark blue-green. His hair had dried to the hue of dark oak polished with a hint of bronze, and was in dire need of barbering. Since last night his jaw had grown a crop of strong, golden stubble. His mouth was tender; his nose had a slight kink in profile as if it had once been broken. Miriel slowly rotated the jar in her hand and gazed upon him while a warm glow spread through her body.

'What are you doing?'

Miriel jumped and spun so swiftly that she almost smashed a second clay jar. Sister Margaret was sitting up in her chair, her eyes narrow and suspicious.

'I was just making sure he was all right, Sister.' Miriel hastened from the bedside and setting the dried pot on a trestle, collected the next one. 'His breathing is swift and 'He's a little flushed.' The same could be said of herself, she thought wryly. Jesu, the woman had eyes in the back of her wimple.

Well, in future leave that duty to myself or Sister Godefe.' The infirmaress gave a convulsive heave. 'Hand me my stick and I will look now.'

Dutifully, Miriel did as she was bid. Arguing would only cause aggravation and at the moment she was full of fresh resolve to keep her tongue behind her teeth. Sister Margaret might be grumpy with gout and out of sorts because the young man had interrupted their routine, but she was still a thousand times better than that harridan Euphemia.

Sister Margaret struggled out of her chair and hobbled over to the bed to study the patient. 'Aye,' she said grudgingly, 'he's a mite feverish. Most likely he's taken a chill on the lungs.' She sucked her teeth and gave an infinitesimal shake of her head.

'What's to be done?'

The nun shrugged. 'Dose him with feverfew and put a mustard plaster on his chest to draw out the evil humours.

Wrap him well and keep him warm.' She looked sidelong at Miriel. 'And pray.'

Miriel swallowed, misliking the tone of Sister Margaret's answer. 'Will he recover?'

'That is in the hands of God.'

After yesterday's discussion, Miriel had arrived at the conclusion that God's hands must be enormous to encompass all that they did, and human endeavour so small that some things must surely slip through the gaps between his fingers. Gazing at Nicholas, she began to understand why prayers held so much value to some people - as reminders to the Almighty.

Sister Godefe returned from her errand to the cellaress, and within the quarter candle she and Miriel departed to tend the ailing shepherd whom they had missed in yesterday's excitement.

Today a stiff breeze had rolled away the fog and the land stretched uninterrupted to the coast in dull shades of green and brown and grey. Stabs of sunlight between the scuds of cloud edged the colours in bright gilding and filled Miriel with pleasure, even while she worried about Nicholas. She had paused in the chapel to say a quick prayer on her way out, which had earned her a suspicious glance from a passing Sister Euphemia. But Euphemia's distrust was nothing compared to the necessity of calling God's attention to the young man's plight and entering a plea for his safe deliverance. It was a test of faith. He had to survive.

There was no sign of old Wynstan the shepherd at his hut, nor of his wife or dogs. Miriel dismounted and pushed open the dwelling door. Inside it was warm, but the peat fire was covered by a metal curfew lid, denoting that the occupants expected to be gone some time. Smoked mutton sausages dangled from the beams side by side with skeins of homespun wool dyed in rich shades of honey and copper. The bed bench was neatly made up with a striped cover. Cooking pots and utensils were stacked in an orderly fashion on the trestle under the hut's single window space. Strangely out of place amongst them, Miriel recognised a piss-flask fashioned of clear glass with a design of fluted rays. She wondered how a common rural shepherd came to own such a thing. Her grandfather had possessed one but his had been of thicker glass without the fluting; even that had cost a small fortune.

Returning outside, she closed the door behind her. 'They can't be far away,' she said.

Godefe frowned and gave an irritated click of her tongue. 'I didn't see them out on the pasture with the sheep, nor their herd boy.'

Miriel shrugged and went round to the garden enclosure. Leeks, cabbages and swedes adorned the dark soil in well-tended rows. A sow and five fat weaners squealed at her over the mud wall of the pigsty. Draped over a hemp drying line were several exquisite linen shirts and embroidered towels. Miriel blinked at the sight and began to reassess her ideas on the way that humble shepherds lived.

Tethered by the house were two sturdy bay pack ponies. One was bright-eyed with a lively swish to its tail; the other, head down, slept on its feet.

Godefe joined her and she too stared at the line of clothes and the ponies in utter astonishment. 'They're not Wynstan's, that's for sure,' she said.

'Do you think they're connected with the man we found? 'Perhaps they're his linen and ponies.'

Mayhap.' Godefe nodded at the possibility. 'But Wynstan's an honest man. He must have come on them by chance.' the women remounted. Torn between returning to the convent to see how Nicholas was faring, and enjoying her freedom for a little longer, Miriel circled her mule while she deliberated. Wynstan might be down at the estuary,' she said. 'It's probably where he found the ponies.' 'I don't think we should ..." Godefe began, but Miriel already set her heels to the mule's flanks and was trotting down the narrow track that led to the shore. 'It won't take long,' she called over her shoulder. Filled with misgiving, Godefe followed her. As they neared the beach, it swiftly became clear that something was afoot. The foreshore was busy with people. Walkways across the treacherous mud had been improvised

out of wattle hurdles, and it appeared that the entire populations of Sutton and Cross Keys were out on the sands, poking and prodding with long poles, broom handles and spears. There were soldiers amongst them too, their presence marked by bright surcoats and the silver glint of link mail and weapons. Piled on the beach were the battered remnants of several covered wains.

Miriel and Godefe stared in amazement. 'Something terrible must have happened here yesterday,' Miriel said, her notion of Nicholas as a man alone now destroyed. 'Look at all the debris.' Even as she spoke, a cry went up and a knot of people clustered around something in the mud. Ropes were fetched and, as the women watched in horror, a bedraggled corpse was heaved out of the slime and laid along one of the hurdles. The hands reached, fingers curled in rigid claws and the throat was stretched in extremity.