The Stolen One (2 page)

I picked up my needle again. Anna, suddenly clumsy, dropped her spool and it rolled across Christian’s foot. He leaned down and handed it back to her, chivalrously, like a knight giving a wildflower to a maiden. Anna, her face aflame, fled from the cottage.

“Why, what’s wrong with her?” I asked, taking the spool from Christian’s outstretched hand as I watched Anna run across the meadow. I laughed. “Something indeed is in the air.”

Grace frowned at me. “And how find you your father today, Christian?”

“His back is laying him low, Aunt, from the picking,” he said, winking at me, his head turned from Grace. Four o’clock, he was telling me. “He wants to know if you can come later,” he continued.

“Of course,” Grace said. “I’ll come soon. He’ll be right and ready for some ale at the revel tonight.”

Everyone looked forward to the revel, where there was much merriment and jollity, a little taste of heaven, you see.

N
obody comes out to Belas Knap, which means “beautiful hill,” anymore since old mumblecrust Bella Wilde told everyone she had seen a row of hooded, wailing monks walking across its summit at midnight. “Crying for ole King Henry they were,” she said, referring to the villain who’d pulled down nearby Hailles Abbey. It’s actually the ancients, the old ones, who are buried in the barrow of Belas Knap, and why would they have any reason to bother anyone now?

The talk of fairy folk and little beasties that nip at your feet and pull you underneath with the bones of old is not enough to deter me. This is my favorite place in the whole world. I come here as often as I can, and
sketch things from nature—the centers of wildflowers, the veins on leaves, the markings of a leopard moth, or the feathers of a golden-crested wren. Later my sketches would find their way into my designs, which Anna would carefully prick onto the fabric with a needle and transferring powder.

After Grace left for Uncle Godfrey’s, leaving strict instructions for completing the velvet cloak, I raced through Humblebee Wood, throwing off my cap and letting my hair flow free in the wind. Anna had come back from the meadow after Christian left, pouting, but would not tell me what troubled her when I prodded. She had simply plopped down on our bed to take her daily nap. Unlike Grace, who is afraid to sleep, Anna embraces it like a newborn babe, succumbing to a blissful world where she has no pain. For sometimes her ears plague her mercilessly, a low, dull pain that brings with it strange noises that echo in her head.

Finally I reached the grasslands that converge with the huge, low hill—the barrow. Christian was not yet there, so I climbed the mound and sat in my favorite spot to wait. I had an unobstructed view of Sudeley Castle, the sun making it glow like the golden palace in a tale of King Arthur, the spires and trestles
pointing toward the sky. It’s here that Grace would find me as a child sitting, watching, still as a ghost. But I have no memories of those night wanderings. Very few memories, really, of my very early years.

A real queen lived at Sudeley before I was born and before Grace tried her luck at a better life in London—Queen Katherine Parr, the last wife of Henry VIII, who was smart enough to outlive him. After he died, she married her true love, a handsome lord. But she died in childbirth, and her baby not long after. “Poorly served, she was,” they say in the village. If her ladies had taken better care of Queen Katherine, perhaps she wouldn’t have died. “If you had been there,” I said to Grace one time, as I watched her prepare a healing potion, “perhaps she would have lived.” And Grace had slapped me, and for the entire night I smelled jasmine on my cheek, and wondered why I provoked her so. “Bumble bug,” Grace sometimes called me, referring to the bedbugs that bite in the night just because they can.

“Why do you always watch it?”

I startled. It was Christian. He plopped down next to me and rested his head in my lap. I continued to stare.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It calls to me, I suppose.”

He laughed. “You’re a dreamer.” He tried to tickle my
neck with a blade of grass and I ignored him.

“And why can’t I dream of better things? Why must we be poor fools with miserable lives?”

“You best be content with what you have,” he said, frowning. It did not sound like him.

“God’s me, what have they said now?” I asked, looking down into his honey brown eyes.

He closed them a moment, sighing. “Why do you have to curse? And always talk so? Father Bigg says you will have to do penance for twenty-score years if you don’t learn to control your tongue.”

“I don’t care a farthing for what Father Bigg says.” Christian winced. “And since when do you listen to that beetle brain? I do my own penance.” I had plenty of time to say my Hail Marys while I stitched the hours away. Stitching and stitching, that’s all I seemed to do, yet I loved it with all my soul. Grace said that sometimes the things we love the most were our greatest crosses to bear.

“How could you now,” Christian continued, “when Grace has not taken you and Anna to mass in over a year? Why, I think it’s been since my mother died.”

“You should talk. You are always with your sweet little lambs now, aren’t you?”

“When I meet my maker, I’ll wear a tuft of wool on my
shirt, the shepherd’s mark, and I’ll be forgiven. What shall you wear?” And then he blushed deep, and I knew it was because Grace used to say I had so little sense of decorum, I’d probably forget my own clothes when I met my maker.

“Grace says we have our own church in our cottage.” I laughed. Our stone cottage was built by a monk who had been thrown out of his order for a sin no one now remembers. We spent Sundays learning to read from the Bible, Grace having been taught when she was young by her gentle-born mother, Jane. Jane had defied her parents and married for love.

Christian rolled his eyes and sat up, turning away from me. “Some say Grace is a witch and that she played with the devil when she was gone.” Before Anna and I were born, Grace had disappeared from Winchcombe. Several years later she returned, widowed apparently, with a young one set on each hip and an old, toothless milch cow following her. Hedge-born, they whisper behind our backs, meaning we are lowborn, the lowest of the low. There was never a Mr. Bab, they think, even though Grace, in addition to the feeble cow, had enough coins when she came home to purchase our small two-room cottage after her father passed away. The villagers, being
weavers, know when a story has been spun.

I sighed. “People here think London is the devil’s playground, but few have actually been there.” Grace had, and she indeed had little good to say of it now.

I stood up and moved away from Christian. I stopped atop a limestone ledge. A cool breeze from the direction of Cleeve Hill played with my hair a moment, then moved on down the ridge. Some said there was an eerie feeling at Belas Knap, and I could rightly say I had never felt it until today. Something cold crawled up my spine.

Christian walked up behind me. I could feel him breathing, waiting.

“What’s wrong, Christian?” I asked keeping my voice low. “Why all this talk? Why are you being so mean?” For some reason my heart tickled. Christian had always been my greatest admirer, and something had changed.

“I don’t like that they talk of you…and Anna,” he whispered. “Look at me, Kat.”

The air was suddenly very still, and my heart began to pound. Grace Bab had warned me, but it was too silly to even fathom. Christian might propose, and you are to say yes, she said to me at the stream a week ago. I had laughed. “Laugh all you may, Spirit, you could do much worse,” she’d said. “Much worse.”

Please don’t. Whatever you think you should say. Please don’t say it
.

I closed my eyes. He had been my best friend forever. We had run across these hills….

He touched me on the shoulder. I turned and started to speak, but he put his thumb on my lip and shook his head. The sun shone behind him, lighting his dark curls like embers. Only I didn’t think of unlucky horses with curly manes this time. Something turned in my stomach. Piper had once said Christian was handsome and I told her that was the best jest I’d heard since the tale of the clod-pate frog who hopped in the alehouse and asked for elderberry ale.

A giggle threatened to emerge. Why was I so nervous? It was just Christian, the boy who once rolled all the way down Postlip Hill just because I dared him.

He stared at me hard, unblinking. “I want you as my wife, Kat,” he said flatly. “My wife. I have thought of it for a long time. And I’ll take care of Anna, too, after Grace is gone.”

I sniggered. I knew it was mean, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Grace is not going anywhere,” I said, but the words sounded false even to me.

“You have to have seen, Kat, that she is not well,” he said, snatching my hands.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said, pulling my hands away and trying to walk past him. But he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me to him. Our eyes met, and before I knew it, he was kissing me. A jolt passed through me, a pang as our lips touched.

I pulled back. “Christian,” I said, looking up at him, way up. When had he gotten so tall? “We cannot marry,” I started. “We are cousins.”

“You know very well that is not true,” he whispered. “And cousins can marry, if they are of a wish.”

I pushed away from him.

“Father told me,” he continued. “Grace paid a visit a fortnight ago, and they spent a long time walking amongst the pear trees. But I think I have always known that you are not one of us, just as everyone else in the village knows or suspects. No one will have you, Kat,” he said. “No one.”

No one wanted you. But I did
.

“What did she tell him? Who are my parents?” I asked. “Are they alive?”

“I don’t know. Father is of little words,” he answered. “And I don’t care to know anyway.”

My heart burned. I walked past him and stood on the ridge looking out past the castle. “I don’t have to marry,” I said quietly. “I can make a living with my hands,” I said, holding them out to him.

“It’s not enough,” he murmured. “You know it’s not enough.” Aye, it was true. We barely had enough, and whatever little extra money we made had to be used to purchase the luxurious fabrics we needed. It was an endless cycle, and we barely managed.

I raised my chin. “Perhaps I’ll go to London myself and sell my work. It’s highly prized.”

He just stood there looking at me as though I had lost my mind.

I turned to head back to Humblebee Wood.

Christian caught my hand. “The truth is, I love you, Kat,” he whispered, “I always have.” I turned to him and stared at his face, as though seeing it for the first time. Yes, he was handsome. Unbearably handsome. His eyes shone—a shiver went down to my toes. But he was Christian. And I didn’t want to be the wife of a pear farmer, no matter how delicious those pears are, and no matter how lowly I was born. I shook my head no, broke free, and started to run.

But then I stopped in my tracks when I saw a cloaked
figure amidst the oak trees. One of the wailing ghost monks? Goose bumps went up and down my arms. No. The cloak was my work, an ash-color woolen with star thistles couch stitched on the edge. I knew it well; I had had blisters for a week from working the needle in the thick wool. Someone else knew where Grace kept the key.
There are no secrets in a house of girls
. Then the figure turned, and I saw it was Anna, tears running down her cheeks.

M
y mother’s favorite color was crimson red, the devil’s color. Grace never allowed the color in the house, and once when I asked her why, she told me it was a hue that never did anyone any good, especially my mother. Which only deepened the great mystery of my mother, for Grace said she was as far from the devil as could be—pious, so pious that when she made a mistake, it was calamitous. When you live high above everyone else, you fall far.

Some say Queen Elizabeth is pious too, but known to turn on the ones she loves. I didn’t believe it, though. I thought she was the greatest sovereign to have ever lived. A peddler came through our village one time, and among his wares he had a fine woodcut of her. While
Grace had her head turned, I gave him a small coin for it (for I knew where she hid our coins, too) and for a small bundle of red taffeta. I kept my treasure from prying eyes, but when I was alone, I’d pull it out and admire her. Oh, her dignity! Her beauty! And her dress! How I wished I could be her! I’d run my fingers over the pleats, the flounces, the rows and rows of pearls and sumptuous jewels, and imagined myself dressed so nobly.

But no, I was vexed to wear my drab woolen kirtle to the revel that night. It had been washed and mended so many times that I feared it would rend in two if I as much as sneezed. None of my infamous stitching here; my stitching would ruin in the hard river water we used to wash our clothes. Coveting beautiful things is a sin, a sin that attracts greater sins, Grace always warned. “Be humble of what you have. It is enough.” Grace needed not know what I wore underneath my dress that night—a lovely red taffeta petticoat, stitched secretly and hidden from Grace. It felt wonderful against my skin, devil’s color or no. I sighed, and Grace pinched me. “You should be glad you are going, Spirit,” she said. “Sneaking off as you did.” I glanced over at her and was surprised to see a gentle smile tucked at the corners of her mouth.

Anna, walking on the other side of her, was not so happy. A black raven perched on a faraway cypress cawed, and Anna held her hands over her ears until the noise subsided. She had been pretending to be asleep, no sign of the cloak, when I came home. Grace, home early from her errand to Uncle Godfrey’s, had watched me carefully when I walked in, but she hadn’t said a word.

I glanced over at Grace again as we made our way down a steep slope guarded by a row of darksome trees. She knew Christian had proposed. She was biding her time. Aye, I knew her well. She would pounce on me when I least expected it. I was a mighty foe in words, she had said many times, using my words to win whether wrong or right.

Ha, then I wouldn’t mention Christian at all. Not at all. And the whole cursed episode would be forgotten. I’d probably see him at the revel, and I had a mind to kick his shins. Us marrying—it was silly indeed. Ha. My crimson petticoat brushed against me again, and my legs tingled.

As we reached the town green, Grace turned to Anna so she could see her lips and whispered, “Hold your heads high, maids.” Mine was already held high, but poor Anna seemed to bow lower. What distressed her
so? Had she seen us kiss? Nay. I touched my finger to my lip and couldn’t help but smile.

The village was aglow with candles. It was lovely, like the sky had been turned upside down. In the middle of the village green, a bonfire was lit—a gesture to the old ones who used to light bones to honor their gods. And all along the main road, bushes were pinned to the doors of houses that were serving their best ale, made from recipes handed down through generations and much fought over.

Father Bigg stood on the green, a tankard in each hand. He had learned to let some of the old pagan beliefs slide by and turn a blind eye, although he was convinced there was much mischief that went on behind his back. A group of children danced around him with a garland of daisies.

Grace left us to go add her pear tartlets to the gathering of food set up on trestle tables dragged from the Pea & Cock. Anna peered at me, her eyes reflecting the crimson of the bonfire, and for a moment I thought I saw a sliver of hatred before she ran after Grace.

I drifted toward a group of people laughing and clapping, gathered around some minstrels. Strangers are not usually welcome in Winchcombe, but when the ale has
been passed around enough, everyone’s a friend, especially if they can play a fine tune and tell a pretty tale. I stood at the back of the crowd and watched, mesmerized by the singers. They had the look of merry travelers, and I wondered where they’d been and what they’d seen. One minstrel in particular caught my eye. He was tall and regal, with long black locks, the contours of his face pitched odd and angular. A Spaniard, perhaps, although I’d never seen one to know the difference. “Spanish romancers,” Grace called them, those dark men who talk women off their feet. Had this handsome man ever been to London and had he been to Queen Elizabeth’s court? They were singing a bawdy song about the queen and I blushed deeply, as dark as my petticoat, I’m sure.

Piper appeared next to me. Even she smelled of ale. “Have you heard?” she asked. She was always ready with some bit of gossip, a flibbertigibbet, Grace called her.

“No,” I responded, looking around for Christian. I swallowed. Suddenly my stomach hurt. Grace claimed I had no conscience, like my father. She was wrong on that count, for sure. I truly cared for Christian. I truly did, even if my eyes kept catching those of the Spaniard.

“The minstrels saw a girl fairy on Cahill Road on their travels here today. Imagine that, in the middle of the day! And when they tried to chase it, it screamed like it was mad, and ran over Postlip Hill. Why, it could be headed straight for Blackchurch Cottage!” Piper exclaimed.

I continued to watch the minstrels, frowning at their silly words. “My, but you are quiet tonight, Kat Bab,” Piper went on. “You and Christian, Sulky Sues the both of you,” she said, and turned.

“Christian?” I grabbed her arm. “You’ve seen him?” I asked.

She pulled her arm away from me, rubbing it. “Why, he has been sampling the ale at every house along the lane, he has. ’Twill be wearing a violet around his neck tomorrow with all the other fools.” She hiccupped.

I looked desperately around, finally spotting a bunch of lads, their gangly arms and legs hanging from an oak tree like snakes. They were watching something. A spectacle. I wondered if perhaps a soothsayer had come, like the one we had several years ago full of wordy wit and saucy jest. He was the only man ever thrown in the duck pond. He had predicted a bad hay harvest. He left before dawn, and sure as salt, the next season a drought hit the farmers hard.

Piper rattled on as I narrowed my eyes on the tree. “I tried to get him to tarry, but no, so ill-mannered he was. He said he was done with women, so fickle and bothersome they are.” I pulled my eyes away from the tree. Piper was looking at me carefully, very carefully. “So I told him,” she continued, “he should put lad’s love in his shoe, like all the other boys, and before sunrise the woman who was meant for him will seek him out.”

Over her shoulder I spotted Uncle Godfrey, also eyeing me strangely from where he sat playing dice with old Tommy Mundey. Uncle Godfrey, who has only ever had a kind word and soft hug for me. He crooked his finger for me to come, and I peeked at the tree of gangly snakes again before walking over to him.

Uncle Godfrey stood and nodded to old Tommy. He
threw him a coin and took my arm. “I’ll have a word with you,” he said, gently walking us away from listening ears.

I couldn’t meet Uncle Godfrey’s eyes, no matter how kind they were. “I’ve watched you grow into a young lady and have hoped you’d gain more sense along the way, that I have.” He spit. “But my sweet Agnes will come home to me before that will happen, that’s for sure.” He nodded to the churchyard. “You will marry him, Katherine. You will. How can you be so cruel? To Christian. And Anna? And Grace? You won’t give her soul some rest before she goes?”

“She will not die,” I said, not meeting his eyes. “She will save herself. And she does not know yet.”

“Aye, and she will not know,” he said. “By God’s grace, if you upset her anymore—” His voice choked.

I looked up and was surprised to see my uncle had tears in his eyes. My sweet, good uncle. Piper had asked me once what secrets he had, for he always went to confession after mass, when everyone else disappeared like summer rain. And after knocking her down, I had told her it was simply because he was good. Isn’t anyone wholly good, or are we all full of wormholes where we stuff our secrets and ungodly desires? But it had made
me wonder about my uncle—what he knew and what he kept from us. He looked away from me, back to the churchyard where Agnes lay.

“What is my secret, Uncle?” I asked. “If you could tell me, perhaps…”

“Perhaps you could accept my good son?”

I couldn’t answer him.

“I don’t know everything, Kat. Only a little,” he said softly. “Agnes knew. Knew everything, but took it with her. You may not be of our blood, but we’ve raised you as our own. And that should be enough.” He shook his head in disgust and started to walk off.

“Uncle Godfrey!” I called after him, but he never turned back, and disappeared into the dark. I took a deep breath, my eyes drawn up to the sky.

Suddenly Anna came running, her eyes wild. She croaked, “I can’t find Mama. Come! Come!” She pulled me, and I followed her across the green, around the churchyard. I could hear shouting and yelling, and I saw we were at the oak tree, only now the lads were on the ground surrounding something, taunting. When they saw me, they parted, and the source of their amusement was laid bare.

Christian, bloodied and covered with dirt, was rolling
around with Jossey Boots, the town liar. No one believed a word Jossey said, even when he claimed his father’s barn was on fire and the blaze could be seen from every hill from here to London.

I stood there for a full minute, dumbfounded, staring at the rolling fists and feet, while the lads in turn stared at me, grins wide. Suddenly there was a loud guttural roar. Anna.

Everything stopped. Even Christian and Jossey. Anna stood there horrified as all eyes turned on her. There was no laughter, nothing, just shocked silence as she stood there, her hands trembling at her sides. Finally she turned and ran.

Christian stood up. He plucked a handkerchief from his breeches and wiped at his bloody nose. It was the handkerchief I’d given him for his last birthday—his initials were embroidered on it. He seemed to have little care for it now.

Jossey, the worst for wear, rose to his hands and knees, panting. Some of the lads helped him up, and off they went down the lane.

The others wandered off until Christian and I were left, each of us breathing hard. I reached out to touch his bruised cheek, but he knocked my hand away. God’s me,
but he reeked of ale. “Why, Christian,” I said. “You’re drunk as Cuthbert Wiggam!”

“Leave it be,” he mumbled, sounding just like Grace. He turned to go, stumbling some, from the ale or the blows I was not sure.

“Well, at any rate, you bested him, that you did!” I laughed as I followed. I remembered how timid he was as a child, when Uncle told him to scare the sparrows from the pear trees, and Christian didn’t have the heart. He’d given them oats to eat instead, and one had even eaten from his hand.

“Christian!” I called again. He stopped, but would not turn. I walked up behind him. He was still breathing hard.

“What was it? Why were you fighting?” I tried to touch his arm, but he flinched as though I were made of fire.

“He was talking of you,” he started. “And Anna. Said you were witches.”

“Christian,” I interrupted, “this is nothing new. Why would you have a care?”

“Because
if
you are to be my
wife
”—he bit off the words one by one—“and Anna my sister, they cannot talk of you. They will not as long as I have breath.”

“Christian.”

“Shhhhhh,” and at first I thought perhaps it was the wind that spoke, so soft the sound was.

“I have just not ever thought of us in that way,” I said quietly. “But I will think upon what you have asked. Truly I will.”

He stood perfectly still. And then, “Have you thought at all that perhaps
I
have changed my mind?”

I was still deciphering his low words as he stalked off toward the lane that led to Nutmeg Farm. I reached down and picked up the bloodied handkerchief.

On the north side of the church, away from the churchyard where my aunt Agnes lay, is an old elm tree. Hannah’s Elm it’s called, and it’s said it grew from the stake in the heart of a suicide. A drowned maiden, she was. Underneath the tree’s wide, sturdy limbs, paupers and strangers were buried, along with the other suicides who were always buried in the dark, unshrouded and uncoffined.

I walked past this sad ground on my way back to the revel and paused a moment, remembering. Poor Emma Townsend was regularly beaten by her husband, and everyone in the village knew. A bundle of straw was
dumped on the Townsends’ doorstep as a warning for the man to stop. This, you see, was always done to sinful offenders of this sort, for the villagers always took care of their own. This time the warning didn’t stop her husband—if anything it brought on a worse beating—and not long after Emma was found hanging in her barn. Everyone said it was her husband that good as killed her, but still, poor Emma joined Hannah under the elm. The next day her husband was found dead, his head bashed in, on the doorstep of his cottage in a mound of fresh hay. Later, when I’d pulled a single stalk of hay off Grace’s back, she’d simply thrown it in the fire. And when I’d shut my eyes waiting for the inevitable slap, it hadn’t come.

There are good men and bad, Grace says, but most are of the latter, full of wormholes. As I headed back toward the merriment of the revel, I heard a noise. I turned and froze. I saw a glimpse of something red in the fog, but when I looked back, it disappeared like a will-o’-the-wisp. The hair on my arms stood on end as a cold breeze blew across my cheeks.