A King's Betrayal (11 page)

Fourteen

Beth knelt to pick some herbs that she had discovered on the other side of the incline.  Glancing round, she saw the dark knight and his party ride away.  They did not glance in her direction nor would they have seen her, for the land curved away from her, sheltering her from their gaze had they turned.  She experienced a strange suffocating feeling of anger and pain, not her own but another’s, so strong that it had communicated itself to her.  It was as she rose to her feet that she heard the rushing sound, like wind and in the wind was music, a strange haunting melody that she had not heard before.

             
Her head started to whirl filling with pictures of violence and bloody murder.  She saw a woman with black hair and eyes like midnight.  Her lips were a red slash against the whiteness of her skin and she was beautiful.  She was laughing at a man and then her laughter turned to a look of horror as he seized her by the throat, his powerful hands closing like a vice until the delicate bones of her neck snapped.

             
Beth cried out, falling to the ground and beginning to shake and jerk, a drizzle of spittle on her lips.  Now she saw pictures of war, men in battle, riding their horses against each other as their swords slashed to left and right and the blood flowed.  She heard the cries of the injured and dying as they were trampled into the mud and trembled in fear.

             
‘No…please help me,’ Beth whispered as the pictures changed once more and now she saw a man in the robes of a priest on his knees begging for his life.  ‘No more – please, no more.’

             
The pictures had faded, but she was left with a sensation of being drained, as if the vision had taken all her strength.  She had witnessed one terrible murder and seen another still to come – but why?  Nothing like that had ever happened to Beth before.  She knew that Marthe had the Sight.  Sometimes she would sit before the flames and stare into them and then she would get up and begin to prepare a cure – before the day was done someone would come and ask for the cure Marthe had made.

             
‘I have a gift,’ she’d once told Beth.  ‘It is not powerful nor do I see visions of great things like some of the seers – but I always know when someone is coming and sometimes I know that bad things will happen.’

             
Did she also have the Sight?  Beth wondered.  If it was always so fearful she did not wish to be given such a gift.  Shivering and cold despite the sunshine, she picked up the basket she had dropped and the herbs she had spilled.  If a murder was to happen she could do nothing to prevent it and ‘twas foolish to let it disturb her.  She had a cure to make and then she must get home.

Beth stopped to read the proclamation that was now nailed to the church door.  It said that King Henry 1V was very ill and perhaps close to death, asking that prayers be said for him.  As she lingered, reading the letters slowly, the priest came to the door and looked at her, his gaze narrowed and fixed, as if he disliked or disapproved of what he saw.  Perhaps he was angry because she did not attend church, as the other villagers did, but Marthe had forbidden it.  Beth would have liked to go on Sunday mornings, because she liked the sound of the people singing and sometimes lingered outside to listen.

She frowned as she turned away and walked back towards the village.  The news of the King’s illness was momentous but it would make little difference to the lives of the people here.  Wars, a drought that caused the crops to fail, disease and famine were the things that changed lives.  Beth could not truly remember her life before she came to this place with Marthe and did not imagine that she would ever go to London or see the King. 

As she made her way towards Mistress Soames’s cottage, Beth saw that the villagers had returned to their work.  The blacksmith was hammering an iron band for the wheel of a cart and another man was repairing a thatched roof.  The blacksmith paused for a moment to look at her.  Beth nodded but did not smile for there was a  look in his eyes that disturbed her.

Most of the cottages were built either of wood or stone, the walls plastered with wattle and daub made from straw and cow dung.  Some had a lean-to at the side or back, which housed a pig or a goat in winter, though at the moment the beasts were grazing the common land, watched over by children.  A flock of geese was wandering through the village, honking and terrorising a dog unwise enough to bare its teeth at them.  As she watched the goose reared up and flew at the dog, which turned tail and ran for the safety of its home.  Beth laughed, pausing for a moment longer in the sunshine before going inside the cottage.

The smell was still strong.  Mistress Soames had emptied her bowels again.  Beth would wash her and change her bedding once more before she left, but the sooner her cure was made the better.  If Mistress Soames continued this way she would surely die.  Beth could only hope that her mixture would help so that her friend could keep her food and the drink she needed inside her for a while.

Watching the girl pass, John Blacksmith felt himself harden with need.  He had been aware of Beth for some months now and each time he saw her, his hunger grew more fierce.  He turned aside to spit, for the work made his mouth dry.  The heat from his furnace was fearful and his skin suffered from the burns and scorching he received as he plied his trade.  Sometimes he went to the hut in the woods to buy a potion from Marthe, and sometimes he bought more than the jar of soothing balm.  For a time lying with the mother had eased his itch in more than one way, but now he lusted after the girl.  She was beautiful, but it was more than that – her pride set her apart.

             
The cunning bitch thought herself too good for the rest of them!  John scowled as he took an iron bar from the heat of the fire and began to hammer it into the shape of a plough shear.  His big arms bulged with muscles and his skin prickled with sweat, but it was the nagging in his groin that drove him near bad.

             
He wanted the girl and one of these days he would have her!

‘Where have you been?’ Marthe looked at her sourly as she entered.  ‘It should not have taken you so long to walk to the village and back.  Have you been with a man?  If you bring trouble on us I shall take my hand to you, girl.’

             
‘No, Mother.  I have been tending Mistress Soames.  She has watery bowels and I made her a tisane to help settle her for she could keep nothing inside.’

             
‘What did she give you for your trouble?’

             
‘Nothing this time – but I am to have all her goods when she dies.  She has silks and all manner of fine things in her coffers.  One day I am to take them for myself.’

             
‘Promises cost nothing,’ Marthe said and snorted her disapproval.  ‘They won’t put food in our bellies or clothes on our backs.  You should have taken something for your trouble.’

             
‘That would be stealing.  I am not a thief.’  Beth hesitated, then looked at her.  ‘Did you hear the bells tolling?  It was a proclamation to tell us the King is ill and ask for our prayers.  What will happen if he dies?’ 

             
‘How should I know?  What can it matter to us?  Get on with your work, girl.  If you have brought nothing for your labours you must find something for us to eat.  You can check the traps and see if we’ve caught a rabbit.  My stomach rumbles for lack of meat.’

             
Beth was tired from the walk and would have liked to rest, but her mother was adamant that she should go now without even a drink of water.  Sighing, she picked up her basket again and set out.  If the traps were empty she would need to look for  nests where a pigeon might have laid its eggs or some berries or roots that she could add to the thin soup, which was all they had eaten for days.  They had a little flour, which Marthe made into flat thin cakes that she baked in a crock in the ground under a fire.  Beth preferred the coarse, risen bread she was sometimes given at Mistress Soames’s house, but her friend had not baked for some days.

             
Leaving the hut, which was always hot in summer and cold in winter, she began a tour of the traps her mother had taught her how to set as soon as she was able to manage such work without cutting her own fingers.  It was an ingenious contraption of wood and thin string and the rabbit, once caught, strangled itself in its efforts to escape.  Now and then the creature would not die and Beth was forced to strike it on the head to kill it.  At first it had made her cry to see the poor things struggling but Marthe told her sharply that she must not be a fool.

             
‘If you wish to starve set it free,’ she said.  ‘Unless we trap rabbits or a pigeon we shall have no meat.  How long can we live on a handful of roots and bread?’

             
Beth had steeled herself to kill swiftly with one blow.  She had learned to skin the rabbit and dry the skins in the sun, scraping away the remnants of flesh and blood so that they did not stink or crawl with maggots.  Sewn together enough of them made a warm covering for her bed in the winter.  Sometimes, Beth caught fish in the stream at the far end of the village, but the stream belonged to the lord and if she were caught she might be punished.  The pond in the village had carp in it but Beth and Marthe did not belong there and they were never offered any of that delicious treat.

             
Why would her mother never let her go to church?  Why would she never walk into the village herself these days?  Men came to her here at the cottage in secret.  Beth had heard the grunting sounds that came from inside when the visitors were there.  Marthe always sent her away and sometimes hours passed before she could return and creep into her own bed.

             
When she thought about it, Beth realised that there had been fewer visitors of late.  Perhaps that was why her mother was so angry all the time, and why they could not afford to buy flour and other things they needed.

             
She had visited four traps before she saw the rabbit.  It had poked its head through the noose and was almost dead.  Beth acted swiftly, knowing that she was merciful.  The creature would not suffer again and at least they would have food that night.  She placed the dead rabbit in her basket and began to walk back to the hut.  Hearing the sound of a horse’s hooves, she stopped as a rider entered the clearing.  Her heart caught as she recognised the lord. He was a strong thickset man with short dark brown hair.  He wore no armour on his body that day and was dressed simply in a leather jerkin, shirt, wool chaperon and long leather boots over tight-fitting hose that showed the muscles in his solid thighs.  Across his chest was strapped a wide leather baldrick and a sword in its sheath. He had brought his mount to a halt and was gazing down at her severely.

             
‘What have you in that basket, girl?’

             
Beth swallowed hard.  She knew that the woods belonged to the lord.  Thus far he had not bothered with his game, but in truth she was stealing from him and could be punished for her crime.  There was no sense in lying; at least she would tell a small lie.  Lifting her head, she looked up at him. 

             
‘It was dead when I found it, lord.  The foxes would have taken it had I not chanced upon it.’

             
‘Don’t lie to me, girl.  I know you and your witch of a mother set traps.  Do you think me a fool?’

             
‘No, lord.  You are not a fool.  We take only what we need to live.’

             
‘I’ve seen you take a trout from the stream.  Do you not know that the stream and these woods belong to me?’

             
‘Yes, I know they are yours – but you have meat to roast and more fish than you can eat.’

             
He had dismounted.  Draping the reins of his horse over a branch, he walked towards her.  Beth stood her ground.  She was trembling inside, because she knew the penalty for stealing might be the loss of a hand or imprisonment.  She lifted her head because although she was frightened she was determined not to let him see.

             
‘Show me your basket, girl.’ 
             
Beth held it out.  He glanced at the contents briefly and frowned, then returned it to her.  ‘If I catch you taking deer, a pheasant or a swan I shall punish you severely.  You may take rabbits or pigeon and coarse fish but not trout – do you hear me?’

             
‘Yes, lord.’

             
‘You should address me as Sir William.’  He looked so stern that she felt as if she would faint.  ‘Tell me, by what name are you called?’

             
‘Beth.  My name is Beth, Sir William.’

             
‘If your mother sent you to the castle to work you would not need to steal from me.’

             
‘I did not know there was work to be had,’ Beth said, suddenly eager.  She had often wondered what it was like inside the castle.  ‘I am learning to sew and I can make a cure for most simple ailments.’