The Lady in the Tower (12 page)

Mother,

I am so afraid something has happened to you. Just let me have one word to reassure me that you are well! And please—agree to flee this place with me. For your safety and mine. Mother, I tell you, I am betrothed to a monster.

Your

Eleanor

The next morning, I begged a few pieces of fruit, some pie, and some more sweetmeats from Betsey to send to Mother. I did not give up hope that she would be at her window again soon. I wrapped the food in a napkin, in which I also laid the note I had written to her.

I headed for the gatehouse. I avoided the stairway where I had run into Lord Stanton once before, using a servants’ stairway instead. But as I stepped out into the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, Stanton came in through the doorway from the inner court. I could not believe my ill luck. I acknowledged his presence with a brief nod and tried to walk past him, my bundle concealed behind my back. He stopped me by stepping into my path.

‘In such a hurry, my gentle bride?’ he asked. ‘After deserting me so abruptly on our ride yesterday, I thought you might be eager to bandy words with me again.’

I frowned. The memory of our conversation yesterday was still painful. Looking up at him, I saw a mocking smile curling his lips. I felt anger rise in me.

‘Why would I wish to bandy words with you, ox-brain?’ I asked.

Stanton laughed, the mocking smile gone from his face. He looked genuinely amused. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I had been trying to offend him.

‘No, indeed. I cannot allow ox-brain to be appropriate,’ he replied. ‘Do I not give as good as I get? An ox would merely stand and low.’

‘Let me pass, please.’

‘You are always in such a hurry to escape my company,’ Stanton complained, pretending to look hurt. ‘Tarry a moment, for I have a matter of great importance to discuss with you. I wish to hurry forward our wedding. I cannot possibly wait a month to be wed to such a charming bride. Shall I speak to your father?’

‘No indeed,’ I cried in horror. Then, when I saw Stanton laughing softly, I understood he had merely been taunting me again. I struggled to regain my composure.

‘Your lordship chooses to amuse himself at my expense. Allow me to assure you that nothing could be further from my wishes than a hasty marriage. I fear I should make you a sad wife.’

‘You will certainly be an unusual one,’ he commented, and tweaked one of my curls. I pulled away crossly. ‘I feel sure you would keep me entertained,’ he added.

‘I thank you, but I have no desire to be your jester,’ I responded swiftly, dropping him a small curtsey. My breath was short and I could feel my heart beating uncomfortably inside the tight lacing of my stomacher. I made an attempt to push past Stanton, to get out through the door behind him, but he leaned back against it, his hand on the latch.

‘That door opens outwards,’ I told him. ‘I really hope someone opens it. I should dearly love to see you fall in the dirt.’

Stanton bowed slightly.

‘Charmed, Eleanor,’ he remarked.

Exasperated, I spun round and made off for a different door. But before I was more than two steps away, Stanton caught hold of my arm. I clutched my bundle in alarm.

‘Another parcel! What are you so busy carrying out of the castle every day?’ he demanded.

‘I am not yet answerable to you for my actions!’ I cried. ‘But if you must know, it is food for the poor of the village.’

Stanton held out his hand. ‘Show me!’ he asked. It was more of an order than a request.

‘It is none of your business what alms Sir Walter chooses to give his tenants!’

‘That is true,’ he agreed solemnly. ‘But I have an insatiable curiosity about you, you see. So when I see you leaving the castle every day with a bundle—there’s no point denying it—I have to know what you are doing. You are always so busy, Eleanor, so rarely to be found with the other ladies. One cannot pay court to you in the usual manner.’

‘I do not want you to pay court to me,’ I replied angrily. ‘I just want you to let me alone.’

‘So you keep telling me.’

In one swift movement, he caught me round the waist, deftly twitched the bundle out of my hand and shook it open.

‘You must not! Truly!’ I cried in alarm, as my mother’s precious provisions rolled onto the dirty stone floor.

‘How interesting.’ I heard Stanton’s voice above me as I scrabbled on the floor attempting to salvage the food. ‘Such luxury items for the poor of the village! Pie, sweetmeats, and apples. It must be a most valued tenant.’

I blushed and didn’t look up.

‘How unlikely, Eleanor. And how very shocking that you are such an accomplished liar. Do you have any other surprising talents that I should know about before we are wed?’

I did not reply, but my face was burning with fury as much as with shame. As I stood up, I stamped hard, aiming for his foot, but he moved it just in time, and my foot thudded painfully on to the stone floor instead.

‘You cannot catch me out with that one twice, dearest,’ he said provocatively.

Stanton was still holding the napkin that my bundle had been wrapped in. With a sickening jolt of fear, I saw my note to Mother flutter out of it. I dropped the food I was holding and dived for it, but Stanton snatched it away and my fingers closed on air. He straightened and waved it tantalizingly out of reach.

‘A love letter, Eleanor?’ he asked, brows raised. ‘That would certainly explain why my suit is so repugnant to you. You have a rustic lover in the village. A rustic who can read, no less. Tell me it’s not the blacksmith’s son!’

‘No, the blacksmith has no son,’ I replied, confused and flustered. ‘I have no lover.’

Stanton thought he was merely teasing me, having fun, but if he read that note, all would be at an end. What had I written? Dear God, I had urged Mother to flee, and described Stanton as a monster. I quailed at the thought of him reading it. If he could read, that is. I had no way of knowing. He would take it to Sir Walter … I dared not think further.

‘You have no chivalry in you, my lord, to use me like this. Please, will you not give it back to me and let me go my way?’ My voice wanted to tremble, but I governed it. I would show him no weakness.

‘Indeed, I cannot, Eleanor,’ Stanton replied. His voice was serious now, the smile gone from his face. He took a step towards me, and I felt suddenly breathless and afraid. I backed away. The tension was unbearable.

‘Will you give me back my letter?’ I pleaded.

Stanton smiled again. ‘I will, but only upon certain terms.’

‘Terms? What do you mean?’

‘I wish to ride into the tournament with your favour upon my lance. And you will bestow it publicly. With the appearance, at least, of goodwill. That pretty scarf you are wearing would be most suitable.’

He reached out and touched the scarf. I flinched with annoyance. To bestow my favour before all our guests, to appear to acknowledge openly my feelings for Stanton, would be intolerable. But I had no choice.

‘Agreed,’ I said reluctantly, my eye on the note in Stanton’s hand.

‘I wasn’t finished.’ Stanton bowed slightly to acknowledge my agreement. ‘When I win the tournament, I also win a kiss from you, fair Eleanor. The kiss that you owe me.’

‘I owe you nothing. I’d as soon kiss a dung beetle. Sooner, in fact,’ I flung at him.

‘I’m sure I could find you one,’ Stanton responded without a flicker of a smile. ‘But do you not think you would prefer to kiss me when it came to it? I am not generally considered ill-looking.’

‘Your horse looks better from behind,’ I remarked.

‘I have a very fine horse,’ Stanton responded gravely.

‘You are certainly arrogant. What if you do not win the tournament?’

‘Oh, in that case, I shall relinquish the note to you without a kiss,’ he grinned.

‘And if I refuse your terms?’ I asked. I could feel the net closing in. I saw I would have to agree, but if there was an alternative, I would find it.

‘I would be most loath to read your private correspondence. I fear I should have to lay it before Sir Walter. He, as your father, would not scruple to read it.’

‘He cannot read,’ I retorted, trembling with fear at the thought.

‘A detail, Eleanor. There are people in the castle who would read it for him.’

I stood before him, fists clenched, breathing hard. I considered the options. I could try and snatch the note now, and perhaps bite him as I once bit Sir Walter. But as I glanced at the note again, Stanton tucked it inside his doublet, as though he had read my intention. He patted it, a satisfied smile playing about his lips.

I had no choice. I had only the hope that he would keep the note to himself and I would be gone before the tournament was over.

‘Very well,’ I agreed ungraciously. ‘As long as I have your word that you will not pass the note to Sir Walter.’

‘Word of a gentleman,’ he nodded, and handed me back the napkin. I snorted derisively.

‘A gentleman? No, indeed. You are only a nobleman,’ I told him. He chuckled appreciatively.

I quickly picked up the food, even though most of it was spoiled now, and bundled it into the napkin. This time Stanton let me go. For the rest of the day I trembled with fear at the thought of the note in Stanton’s possession. What if he read it after all? What if he took it to Sir Walter? I could not be easy now until I either had the letter safe once more, or was gone from the castle.

I am alive still, but very sick. Poison.

Mother

I felt such relief when I reached the village and Alice handed me a note from Mother. I opened it at once, fumbling with eagerness. The shock of her few scrawled words in a hand that clearly shook as it wrote, almost undid me.

‘Sit down, Mistress Eleanor! You’ve gone white as a sheet!’ exclaimed Alice. She helped me into a chair and I sank into it gratefully.

‘Oh, Alice! They have poisoned her again! How is that possible?’ I cried, my breath coming short. ‘She would not touch the food the chaplain takes her, I’m sure of it.’

I don’t know, Mistress,’ said Alice shaking her head. One of her many children tugged at her skirts, whining, and Alice turned and picked him up. She hushed him, her tired face gentle with care. Then she turned to me again.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, a worried crease on her brow.

I nodded. ‘It says so here.
Poison.
In her very own hand.’

Alice did not even glance at the parchment. She could not read, of course. But her expression was concerned.

‘Who has poisoned her? The poor angel that was so good to us. Is there not something we can do?’

I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself after this shock. The fear for Mother’s life, never far from me, flooded through me. What if she died? I could not bear to imagine it.

‘I suppose it was the chaplain,’ I said. ‘I must free her somehow, Alice. But I am beset by enemies. Why, just now on my way here, my note to Mother was taken from me and the food I was bringing her dashed on the ground.’

Alice gasped. ‘We are discovered?’

‘No, not yet. You are not. It’s … complicated.’ I felt anger with Stanton surge through me again. How dared he take that note?

‘If only I had some poison, I’d put it in the chaplain’s cup,’ I said bitterly. ‘It is he that holds the keys to Mother’s room.’

‘You don’t mean that, Mistress!’ exclaimed Alice. ‘You’d never do something so wicked!’

‘How else am I to get the key?’ I asked, a note of desperation in my voice. ‘I need to have him out of the way somehow.’

Alice stared at the floor for a moment. Her son, perched upon her hip, and no doubt bored by our talk, grabbed her hair with one hand, and tried to push his other grubby hand into her mouth. She disengaged herself absent-mindedly.

‘I wonder … ’ she began. ‘Could you make use of a sleeping draught? That would not be so bad as poison.’

‘Yes, indeed, if I could procure such a thing.’

‘Joan might be able to help,’ said Alice tentatively.

‘Joan?’ I asked. The name was not familiar to me.

‘The wise woman. Would it help you free her ladyship?’ asked Alice.

‘Oh, it would!’ I breathed. All sorts of possibilities floated through my mind. If I could drug the chaplain, I was sure I might be able to free Mother.

‘Joan’s at the end of the street, Mistress. In the last house, with the chickens in the front garden. But she’ll want paying. Food or goods.’

I thought of the unwanted gifts from Maria, lying in my chest. ‘I have no money, but perhaps I can trade something. Thank you, Alice. I’ll go to her now.’

‘Yes, Mistress. Oh, and, Mistress? Be careful. They say she’s a witch.’

Her words sent a brief shiver down my spine. A witch! Here in the village. Mother had never mentioned a witch since the last one was burned.

I walked between the rows of cottages, past the church, until I reached the last dwelling of the village. The garden was a profusion of colourful plants. There was nothing eerie about it, but still my skin prickled as I pushed open the broken gate and went to the front door. It opened at my first knock, taking me by surprise. A young woman not much older than myself stood at the door.