Changeling (20 page)

The women rode side by side, with their horses shoulder to shoulder. Now and then Isolde would give a shuddering sob, and Ishraq would put out a hand to touch her fists, clenched tightly on the reins.

‘What do you think will become of the abbey?’ Isolde asked. ‘I have abandoned them. I have betrayed them.’

The other girl shrugged her shoulders. ‘We had no choice. Your brother was determined to get it back into his keeping, the Lady Almoner was determined to take your place. Either she would have poisoned us, or he would have had us burned as witches.’

‘How could she do such a thing – the poisoning, and driving us all mad?’

Ishraq shrugged. ‘She wanted the abbey for herself. She had worked her way up, she was determined to be Lady Abbess. She was always against you, for all that she seemed so pleasant and so kind when we first got there. And only she knows how long she was plotting with your brother. Perhaps he promised her the abbey long ago.’

‘And the inquirer – she misled him completely. The man is a fool.’

‘She talked to him, she confided in him when you would not. Of course he learned her side of the story. But where shall we go now?’

Isolde turned a pale face to her friend. ‘I don’t know. Now we are truly lost. I have lost my inheritance and my place in the world, and we have both been named as witches. I am so sorry, Ishraq. I should never have brought you into the abbey, I should have let you return to your homeland. You should go now.’

‘I go with you,’ the girl said simply. ‘We go together, wherever that is.’

‘I should order you to leave me,’ Isolde said with a wry smile. ‘But I can’t.’

‘Your father, my beloved lord, raised us together and said that we should be together always. Let us obey him in that, since we have failed him in so much else.’

Isolde nodded. ‘And anyway, I can’t imagine living without you.’

The girl smiled at her friend. ‘So where to? We can’t stay on Lucretili lands.’

Isolde thought for a moment. ‘We should go to my father’s friends. Anyone who served with him on crusade would be a friend to us. We should go to them, and tell them of this attack on me, we should tell them about my brother, and what he has done to the abbey. We should clear my name. Perhaps one of them will restore me to my home. Perhaps one will help me accuse my brother and win the castle back from him.’

Ishraq nodded. ‘Count Wladislaw was your father’s dearest friend. His son would owe you friendship. But I don’t see how we’d get to him, he lives miles away, in Wallachia, at the very frontier of Christendom.’

‘But he’d help me,’ Isolde said. ‘His father and mine swore eternal brotherhood. He’d help me.’

‘We’ll have to get money from somewhere,’ Ishraq warned. ‘If we’re going to attempt such a journey we’ll have to hire guards, we can’t travel alone. The roads are too dangerous.’

‘You still have my mother’s jewels safe?’

‘I never take off the purse. They’re in my hidden belt. I’ll sell one at the next town.’ Ishraq glanced at Lady Isolde’s downturned face, her plain brown gown, the poor horse she was riding and her shabby boots. ‘This is not what your father wanted for you.’

The young woman bowed her head and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I know it,’ she said. ‘But who knows what he wanted for me? Why would he send me into the abbey if he wanted me to be the woman that he raised me to be? But somewhere, perhaps in heaven, he will be watching over me and praying that I find my way in this hard world without him.’

Ishraq was about to reply when she suddenly pulled up her horse. ‘Isolde!’ she cried warningly, but she was too late. A rope that had been tied across the road to a strong tree was suddenly snatched tight by someone hidden in the bushes, catching the front legs of Isolde’s horse. At once the animal reared up and, tangled in the rope, staggered and went down on its front knees, so that Isolde was flung heavily to the ground.

Ishraq did not hesitate for a moment. Holding her own reins tightly she jumped from the horse and hauled her friend to her feet. ‘Ambush!’ she cried. ‘Get on my horse!’

Four men came tumbling out of the woods on either side of the road, two holding daggers, two holding cudgels. One grabbed Isolde’s horse, and threw the reins over a bush, while the other three came on.

‘Now, little ladies, put your hands in the air and then throw down your purses and nobody will get hurt,’ the first man said. ‘Travelling on your own? That was foolish, my little ladies.’

Ishraq was holding a long thin dagger out before her, her other hand clenched in a fist, standing like a fighter, well-balanced on both feet, swaying slightly as she eyed the three men, wondering which would come first. ‘Come any closer and you are a dead man,’ she said briefly.

He lunged towards them and Ishraq feinted with the knife and spun round, slashed at the arm of another man, and turned back her fist flying out to crunch against the first man’s face. But she was outnumbered. The third man raised the cudgel and smashed it against the side of her head, she went down with a groan, and Isolde at once stepped over her to protect her, and faced the three men. ‘You can have my purse,’ she said. ‘But leave us alone.’

The wounded man clapped his hand over his arm and cursed as the blood flowed between his fingers. ‘She-dog,’ he said shortly.

The other man gingerly touched his bruised face. ‘Give us the purse,’ he said angrily.

Isolde untied the purse that hung at her belt and tossed it to him. There was nothing in it but a few pennies. She knew that Ishraq had her mother’s sapphires safe in a belt tied inside the bodice of her tunic. ‘That’s all we have,’ she said. ‘We’re poor girls. That’s all we have in the world.’

‘Show me your hands,’ said the man with the cudgel.

Isolde held out her hands.

‘Palms up,’ he said.

She turned her hands upwards and at once he stepped forwards, twisted her arms behind her back, and she felt the other man rope her tightly.

‘Lady’s hands,’ he jeered. ‘Soft white hands. You’ve never done a stroke of work in your life. You’ll have a wealthy family or friends somewhere who will pay a ransom for you, won’t you?’

‘I swear to you that no-one will pay for me.’ Isolde tried to turn but the ropes bit tight into her arms. ‘I swear it. I am alone in the world, my father just dead. My friend is alone too. Let me . . .’

‘Well, we’ll see,’ the man said.

On the ground Ishraq stirred and tried to get to her feet. ‘Let me help her,’ Isolde said. ‘She’s hurt.’

‘Tie them up together,’ the man said to his fellows. ‘In the morning we’ll see if anyone is missing two pretty girls. If they aren’t, then we’ll see if anyone wants two pretty girls. If they don’t, we’ll sell them to the Turks.’ The men laughed and the one with the bruised face patted Isolde’s cheek.

The chief hit his hand away. ‘No spoiling the goods,’ he said. ‘Not till we know who they are.’ He heaved Ishraq to her feet and held her as she too was roped. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled to Isolde.

‘Give me water for her,’ Isolde commanded the man. ‘And let me bathe her head.’

‘Come on,’ was all he said to the others and led the way off the track to their hidden camp.

Luca and his two companions were quiet the following morning when they started at dawn. Freize was nursing a headache from what he said was the worst ale in Christendom, Brother Peter seemed thoughtful, and Luca was reviewing all that had been said and done at the abbey, certain that he could have done better, sure that he had failed, and – more than anything else – puzzling over the disappearance of the Lady Abbess and her strange companion, out of chains, out of a stone cellar, into thin air.

They left the inn just as the sky was turning from darkness to grey, hours before sunrise, and they wrapped their cloaks tightly around them against the morning chill. Brother Peter said that they were to ride north, until he opened their next orders.

‘Because we like nothing more than when he breaks that seal, unfolds that paper, and tells us that some danger is opening up under our feet and we are to ride straight into it.’ Freize addressed the ground. ‘Mad nuns one day, what’s for today? We don’t even know.’

‘Hush,’ Luca said quietly. ‘We don’t know, nobody knows; that’s the very point of it.’

‘We know it won’t be kindly,’ Freize remarked to his horse, who rolled an ear back towards him and seemed to sympathise.

They went on in silence for a little while, following a dusty track that climbed higher and higher between bare rocks. The trees were fewer here, an odd twisted olive tree, a desiccated pine tree. Above they could see an eagle soaring and the sun was bright in their faces though the wind from the north was cold. As they reached the top of the plateau there was a little forested area, to the right of the road. The horses dropped their heads and plodded, the riders slumped in their saddles, when Luca’s eye was caught by something that looked like a long black snake lying in the dust of the road before them. He raised his hand for a halt and, when Freize started to speak, he turned in the saddle and scowled at him, so the man was silent.

‘What is it?’ Brother Peter mouthed at him.

Luca pointed in reply. In the road in front of them, scuffed over with dust and hidden with carefully placed leaves, was a rope, tied to a tree on one side, disappearing into the woods on the right.

‘Ambush,’ Freize said quietly. ‘You wait here; act like I’ve gone for a piss. . . . Saints save us! That damned ale!’ he said more clearly. He hitched his trousers, slid off his horse and went, cursing the ale, to the side of the road. A swift glance in each direction and he was stepping delicately and quietly into the trees, circling the likely destination of the rope into the bushes. There was a brief silence and then a low whistle like a bird call told the others that they could come. They pushed their way through the little trees and scrubby bushes to find Freize seated like a boulder on the chest of a man frozen with fear. Freize’s big hand was over his mouth, his large horn-handled dagger blade at the man’s throat. The captive’s eyes rolled towards Luca and Brother Peter as they came through the bushes, but he lay quite still.

‘Sentry,’ Freize said quietly. ‘Fast asleep. So a pretty poor sentry. But there’ll be some band of brigands within earshot.’ He leaned forwards to the man, who was gulping for air underneath his weight. ‘Where is everyone else?’

The man rolled his eyes to the woods on their right.

‘And how many?’ Freize asked. ‘Blink when I say. Ten? No? Eight? No? Five, then?’ He looked towards Luca. ‘Five men. Why don’t we just leave them to do their business? No point looking for trouble.’

‘What is their business?’ Luca asked.

‘Robbery,’ Brother Peter said quietly. ‘And sometimes they kidnap people and sell them to the Ottomans for the galleys.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Freize interrupted quickly. He scowled at Brother Peter to warn him to say no more. ‘Might just be poaching a bit of game. Poachers and thieves. Not doing a great deal of harm. No need for us to get involved.’

‘Kidnap?’ Luca repeated icily.

‘Not necessarily so . . .’ Freize repeated. ‘Probably nothing more than poachers.’

It was too late. Luca was determined to save anyone from the galleys of the Ottoman pirates. ‘Gag him, and tie him up,’ he ordered. ‘We’ll see if they are holding anyone.’ He looked around the clearing; a little path, scarcely more than a goat’s track, led deeper into the woods. He waited till the man was gagged and bound to a tree, and then led the way, sword in one hand, dagger in the other, Freize behind him and Brother Peter bringing up the rear.

‘Or we could just ride on,’ Freize suggested in an urgent whisper.

‘Why are we doing this?’ Brother Peter breathed.

‘His parents.’ Freize nodded towards Luca’s back. ‘Kidnapped and enslaved into the Ottoman galleys. Probably dead. It’s personal for him. I hoped for a moment, that you might have taken my hint, and kept your mouth shut – but no . . .’

The slight scent of a damped-down fire warned them that they were near a camp and Luca halted and peered through the trees. Five men lay sleeping around a doused fire, snoring heavily. A couple of empty wineskins and the charred bones of a stolen sheep showed that they had eaten and drunk well before falling asleep. To the side of them, tied back to back, were two figures, hooded and cloaked.