My Lady Imposter

Copyright
© 1983 by Kaye Dobbie

She had never meant to go so far. But the blackberries were thick on the brambles and she had been drawn on by sheer greed for the ripe, juicy fruit. Her skirts, kilted up to make a basket, were already filled to overflowing. But most of those would go to Grisel and her grubby-faced children. Kathryn was determined to get
her
share now.

It was a warm day. Summer just wandering into autumn of the year 1158. The sky was pale blue above her and the forest seemed to glow with sunlight. She loved the sunshine, it seemed to rekindle the life within her. A life threatened with extinction throughout long winter days to come in the house of her sister, Grisel. In winter, the cold rain kept her indoors, in the close, stifling stench of the cottage, crowded among her sister and brother-in-law and their several children, as well as the animals they called their own.

They were serfs, of course, all of them. They belonged, as any other object within the Manor of Pristine, to Lord Ralf. They worked on his land and served him and if they transgressed, they were punished. It was known for a serf to buy his freedom. But Grisel and her family were as poor as church mice, and Kathryn was the poorest.

She had had no choice, when her parents died, but to go to Grisel. She had been only a child then, and Grisel a young wife with a babe. Grisel had been kinder then, gentler. But her hard life had hardened her, and she no longer had the time to consider Kathryn as anything more than an extra mouth.

“You should have been married long since,” she told Kathryn, over and over. And then, looking up from her work, face pink from the exertion, as she brushed aside lank, greasy dark hair, “But who’d take you? Will, from the stables? You hold yourself too high, Kathryn. You’d best watch your tongue or my Snuff’ll pay him to take you!”

Kathryn sniffed. “What does Snuff know?” She disliked her sister’s husband. Her residence in his house was on sufferance alone, providing she cared for the children and worked twice as hard as anyone else.

Grisel wiped her nose on her sleeve. “He’s got eyes. He can see you’re not such a bad looker. He sees Will gaping after you.”

She didn’t reply. When she had been old enough to see life without the scales, she had promised herself she would never end like Grisel. A serf, married to a serf, raising serfs. She wanted freedom, and fine things. A pretty apron, some shoes, a house with two rooms and a
pen outside for the animals. Not much, surely,
but for those as poor as she, as distant as the moon.

They were dreams, nothing more. Reality was more grim. Her life would continue as it did now, with Grisel’s family, or else marriage to someone like Will. There seemed no escape, and her angry, caged spirit rebelled at what fate had dealt her. She thought, often enough, of running away from Pristine altogether. Anything, she thought, would be preferable to this. But to run away was to be chased and mayhap captured, and then one must take one’s punishment. She did not fancy a flogging, just yet.

The blackberries were good. The best she’d ever tasted. She stuffed some more into her mouth and swallowed them luxuriously. A warning flickered at the edge of her mind—she should have returned to Grisel hours since. The children would be mischief-making, in need of a thrashing. They’d get one too, if Snuff caught them. But she pushed all such thoughts from her mind again, and took another mouthful of the berries. It was sunny, and for the moment she was free.

The juice ran down her chin into her dirty bodice, sticking in the lank strands of her hair. She had not washed since her birth, some seventeen years since, and meant not to wash again until death. Dirt kept one warm and safe from disease. Everyone knew that! There was nothing wrong with good, wholesome dirt.

She was so caught up in the sensation of those ripe, sweet berries filling her mouth that she failed to hear the thud of hoofs on the road further off. The road ran close to where she stood, half concealed in the wild brambles. The road carried riders and carts and merchants into Pristine from further afield. Places she had never seen and despaired she ever would see.

“What do you want to leave Pristine for,” Snuff had growled at her once, when she was still a child. “Best you never think about other places, then you won’t miss them.”

Big eyes gazing up, a child’s vivid imagination. “Are they different? What are the people like, beyond Pristine?”

Snuff smiled, malicious amusement in his voice as he replied, “They’ve two heads, Kathy-girl. And two mouths.”

After that, she had given up thoughts of leaving Pristine for the excitement of other places. And when she grew a little more, she had realized the impossibility of such dreams anyway. She was a serf. She had no rights, no freedom to do anything her lord did not expressly decree, and without the money to buy her life back again, that was how she would die.

The drum of hoofs came suddenly to her attention. They were now quite close. Whoever was coming was riding at great pace. And she realized suddenly that while she had been dreaming, she had wandered from her partial shelter into the clear view of the roadway.

She started back, seeking a hiding place. But it was already too late. Her eyes swung round. She could still run, losing the riders in the close undergrowth of the woods, but, as she turned, her grip on the bundled skirts loosened. The blackberries spilled out onto the soft grass, like a purple rain. She was too greedy to leave them behind to be trampled into the ground. No doubt, she thought in despair as she bent hastily to re-gather them, the good priest would have a lesson in that for his congregation.

It was then she saw them. A dozen men. Brilliant tunics, feathered caps, horses fine and proud and shining, their hoofs flashing as they danced in the sun. At least, that was how it seemed to her as they approached, silhouetted against the sun. Dust lifted in clouds, fine as mist, to engulf them and her as they drew up. Gold glinted off sword hilts and bridles. They were like some brilliant dream, descended upon her, and for the second time the blackberries spilled out, as she rose to her feet to gape at them.

“Hold!”

The voice rose up above the noise of harness and hoofs. One of the horses reared and snorted, wicked hoofs waving close above her head before descending with a squish of berries. Then from somewhere a man came running, a quiver strapped to his green-clothed back. He grasped her arms in strong hands, holding her captive. For a moment she was too astonished to move, and then she tried to pull away. He smelt of sweat and dust; she struggled angrily but he dragged her forward, directly in front of the cavalcade.

Her bare foot found his clothed one, and she ground down with her heel into his instep, so that he cried out and, releasing one of his strong hands, struck her hard across the cheek. It hurt, hurt so much she wondered if her neck had not snapped, and she stood dazed a moment with her head bowed and her hair straggling over her shoulders.

The dazzling cavalcade had halted before her, the dust settling. She saw polished silver everywhere, and the flash of jewels sewn to clothing and worn on hands. Men in chain mail drew up behind the group, their weapons all too evident. A huge hound with a waving tail came panting up to her and sniffed her feet.

“What do you in my wood, girl?” A voice as deep and smooth as a mountain stream slipping between mossy rocks and dark, secret places where trees overhung and creepers trailed from dark branches.

The man holding her tightened his grip, bending her arm up behind her back. She drew a sharp breath in pain, and her head jerked back. Her black hair fell back, disclosing her face, dirty and streaked with perspiration from the sun. The blackberry stains were ludicrous upon lips and chin.

Someone sniggered, another hooted aloud with mirth. Her eyes opened wide to the man who sat his stallion before her, and narrowed
again swiftly before the onslaught of golden eyes
in a sun-tanned, clean-shaven face topped by a cropped, thick mass of golden hair, streaked with silver.

“A thief?” that same voice said, and the mouth quirked. “Thieves are punished.”

Anger rose up in her at his assumption, and the studied cruelty in his silken voice. But fear tempered any hasty words she might have uttered.

“Yes, she must be punished,” someone else said. A thin man, to the right of the golden knight, his beard dark and straggly like a goat’s. “May we whip her now, my lord?”

“We might.” The amazing eyes narrowed beneath straight brows. She saw his mouth, cruel and thin, lined at the corners. His hand, glittering with rings, tapped a riding whip on his calf. “Do you fancy some sport with her, Anthony? She is filthy, of course.”

“But a woman, all the same.” The man called Anthony licked his lips. His mouth was pink through the black beard. Kathryn swallowed. For a moment she felt her fate swing in the balance.

“Did you not have enough of the drab at the hostelry?”

Another voice, from the left this time. Laughter greeted this sarcasm and Anthony scowled. The horses edged a little closer to her, and Kathryn felt fear gnawing at her belly. Yet she stood straight and proud, for she was no coward. She had still been a child when her father died and, unlike Grisel, her spirit was as yet unbroken, though beatings had left her severely tested. Still, time had blurred their memory, and Snuff did not dare to hurt her, being a slight, short man and she rather tall.

“Have we time to waste here?” that same sarcastic voice went on. She let her eyes flicker there and encountered a hard, blue gaze in a sun-browned face, hard chiseled features frowning in impatience... and disgust. Disgust for her, she wondered, or his companions’ intentions?

She knew, of course, who was the golden man with the eagle’s eyes. He was her master, the Lord of Pristine. Lord Ralf, returned from his journey to London and the King, bringing with him his knights and attendants and men-at-arms, and perhaps a friend or two. He was home for the autumn. Home to ride the fields and beat the serfs, to see his wheat harvested and threshed to his satisfaction. To hunt his woods and carouse in his hall. Kathryn hated him, she always had. She had loathed him, as she watched him from the fields, riding his proud stallion. But now, standing so close to him, hearing his voice so beautiful, so... so frightening, her fear wavered beneath awe.

The unusual eyes, which had been observing her closely, suddenly narrowed. He bent forward, over the white stallion’s curving neck. He wore blue, spring-sky blue, and jewels flashed from the long fingers as he stretched out his riding crop and held aside her thick, dirty hair.

“I know you,” he said in a sharp, hard tone. The smile had died, now his mouth was straight and hard, the cruelty of it more pronounced. Lines slashed his forehead, making him look every bit his forty years. The golden eyes sparkled with danger.

“I doubt that,” she retorted, in a clear, calm voice. The riding crop poked her, as if she were a mule being tested before purchase. She longed to break it over her knee and throw the pieces at him.

“Ah, she has a tongue then?” Anthony edged closer, licking his pink mouth.

“I thought you preferred them mute?” The blue-eyed man raised an eyebrow at him, mocking. “After all, you cut out that drab’s tongue, back at the hostelry...”

Anthony scowled. “She slandered me! You heard what she said—”

“I heard.” The blue eyes slid down and up and away. As if he were a slug and unworthy of further consideration. Kathryn watched as he urged his horse forward until it was level with Lord Ralf. They were of a similar size, the two men. The former not so broad, perhaps, his features finer and sterner, his hair much lighter.