Mistress of Mourning (26 page)

The thunder seemed to roll off the distant mountains and echo in the Terne Valley. Disappointed and frustrated, I realized we should start back. And then, beyond a scrim of hawthorn bushes, I saw the ruins of a small building, perhaps once a cot.

We rode closer. Sim’s saddle creaked as he stood in his stirrups to scan the area, but I approached the cot. Barely half of the walls stood now, and those were of tumbled stone. But within was a place in the grass where someone had lain;
a small iron cooking pot and a spit stood over the silver ashes of a fire. A large hunk of pink meat was yet speared by the spit, partly cooked.

I dismounted to take a closer look while Sim stayed in the saddle, still gazing around. The ashes and meat were cold. “The meat is starting to smell,” I told him. “It’s beef, I think. I hear wolves are in these parts, so why didn’t this meat draw an animal to eat it? Someone’s eating well out here, sleeping out at night, perhaps, too. Look, Sim! Against that stone—an empty wine bottle.”

“Stars and moon been bright lately,” Sim said, but I was hardly listening. “It hasn’t rained for a while,” he went on, “but it’s coming up one now. We’d best get back, mistress. It could be anyone passing through—’cept for the fancy eating.”

“I think these words on the wine bottle are French,” I said. “Imagine that, brought clear to Wales. Yes, yes, you’re right. We need to head back. I’ll return with Nick so we can—”

I gasped and screamed as an arrow whizzed over my head and struck Sim in the neck. He toppled backward off his horse and hit the ground with a thud. I heard the sickening snap of a bone—his neck? Both of our horses started, then shied away. If I tried to get my mount now, I’d have to run out into the open. I ducked behind the toppled-down wall, holding the empty wine bottle as if it could be a weapon. Then, when I heard and saw nothing more, I crawled to Sim.

My fault, my fault
, my brain kept repeating. I should not have come out here, not brought one of the royal guards. His
neck was bent at an odd angle. He was gushing blood from the throat, and thrashed for only a moment before he lay completely still, his wide eyes staring up at the darkening sky. I touched the side of his bloody throat to see whether life yet beat there. No. Not even enough to move more blood. By the saints, this was my fault, and now I could be killed too.

Queen Elizabeth of York

“Elizabeth, something has come in a metal box for us from Wales,” the king told me as I joined him in his withdrawing chamber. “Perhaps some memento of Arthur’s that Catherine has sent. No, it’s marked as coming from Nicholas Sutton and Varina Westcott. It came in by another fast courier.”

My hands were trembling. Could Nick and Varina have discovered something of foul play already and sent some evidence? Or was it indeed a remembrance of our beloved son?

“I knew we could trust them to be clever and discreet,” I said.

The king cut the cords, and I helped to pull the parchment away from the box. I expected papers, a report of how things were going there, other than the official reports we received daily. Inside, I recognized the wrap—waxed cloth like I had insisted Varina take in plenteous amounts to wrap Arthur’s body and shield his coffin should it rain during the slow, doleful journey to Worcester for his burial.

Henry pulled the paper open. It was stained pink in
places. Something painted. Surely not a newly carved or colored candle?

But it smelled. The stench was nearly overpowering as we both gaped down at…a heart! Years ago I’d seen deer’s hearts while out hunting with my father.

A human heart? Our Arthur’s? But it was to have been buried in the churchyard at the castle. Had someone not understood? Were these dread contents some sort of demented insult? Had they gone mad in Wales?

The king cursed and collapsed into his chair, while I gripped my stomach and turned away to retch on the floor.

Mistress Varina Westcott

A
nother arrow pinged off the wall and fell at my feet. I grabbed it—I know not why—and, terrified to remount where I would remain a target, I bent over and fled headlong into the reedy bog. I had not gone more than a few yards, splashing, panting, when I stumbled on a large carcass.

Horrified, I fell to my knees and felt my boots fill with water. It was a dead beef cow, maybe one poached from the herd to feed the castle mourners. Had Sim and I stumbled on a poacher’s camp? The bottom part of the big body lay in the bog, but most was exposed to the air. Not a fresh kill, for the blood from it was dried, and flies buzzed upon its rotting flesh. But I saw that someone had hacked the heart right out of it.

Keeping low, I slogged my way around it. If the archer—the murderer—pursued me, I was making too much noise. I blessed the next rumble of thunder until I heard the crackle
of lightning nearby. Another arrow zinged close past me and spiked into the water. My stomach clenched and my throat tightened. Again I pictured Sim, shot through the neck.

Lightning or arrows, I had to go on. I could hear someone sloshing through the shallow water behind me. If he trapped me here, I’d end up like that carcass—like Sim. Why had I thought I could come out here without Nick, without more guards?

In what must be the center of the bog, the water went thigh-deep. Taller reeds and grasses grew here too. Dared I try to hide, hoping my pursuer would pass me? If I could only catch a glimpse of him!

I tried to kneel and peek out, then realized I would have to sprawl to be hidden. I heard him coming slower but nearer. Should I scramble away again, run a zigzag path, and pray his arrows would not hit me? No. From the way big, strong Sim had fallen dead, this man must be an expert shot. It could be any poacher or Welshman who still resented English rule, for more than once I’d heard of the prowess of the local bowmen.

If only I could hold my breath and hide
in
the water! But with the storm…the lightning…

And then it came to me, how the boy Rhys had said he’d hidden underwater and crawled close to hunt ducks, breathing through a hollow reed. Those grew in abundance here. Then too, that would get me lower so that if lightning did strike, it might go to something higher in this flat bog.

I seized a reed that looked about the right length—not quite as long as my arm from elbow to wrist. My heartbeat kicked up even more. I did not know how to swim, and to
breathe underwater seemed a frightening fantasy. I told myself I did not have to swim but only put my body and head under the surface, then breathe, just breathe.…

The reed had a crack in it, so I seized another. Thunder shook the very earth, and the wind kicked up, bending and bowing the grass and reeds. He could see me if I didn’t get down, get under. What seemed like years must be only a few moments as I put one end of the hollow reed in my mouth and sucked air through it. No choice—no choice. I thought I could hear a man swishing grass aside, slogging closer. But what if he stepped right on me, drowned me or shot me at close range?

Faceup but my body lying sideways, I pulled my legs tight to my chest and I forced myself under the water with the reed in my mouth. Dangerous. Desperate. I found I had to pinch my nose tight, but I did pull in air. How long? How long could I stay here before I would panic and burst to the surface? After peeking once at the wavy, greenish world overhead, I kept my eyes tight shut.

The water felt good, I tried to tell myself. Cool against my sweating skin. Sopped peat moss lay under me; sedges and grass shifted against me. My knees, my entire body felt as weak as water. My panic of being enclosed in a tight, small place assailed me.
Just breathe.
It wasn’t dark, at least, not like being in the crypt. Could this be the same man pursuing me? Did he want to harm me, kill me because I served the queen? Was it because Nick and I had been sent to probe into the prince’s death? But no one here knew of those tasks, did they?

Just breathe.
This was like washing my hair or dipping
my face in the washbowl, I tried to tell myself. Rhys had done this for years and boasted of it. I would tell Nick of it, boast of it. Then I must bring him and others back to retrieve Sim’s body, to show them the animal’s corpse with the heart cut out.

It seemed I lay there for an eternity, the water turning cold against my sodden garments and quaking flesh. My very soul screamed at me to get up, to suck in fresh air, to flee. But if the man were still near, all this could go for naught. If he hadn’t found me now, would he head back, away from the castle where he could be seen? Guards should be on the castle ramparts. They should see and send help.

I suddenly pictured the silhouette of the caped man standing on the castle walls while we buried the prince’s heart in the churchyard. Cape flapping, sword flashing…Surely not Glendower reborn, as the Welsh wanted to believe, but flesh and blood—and full of hate.

Again, a rumble seemed to shake the very earth, the water in which I lay. Closer thunder? Horses’ hooves? The man’s footsteps nearby? Perhaps he was beating the reeds for me with his bow.

Water began to seep into my mouth and throat. Mayhap all these last year’s reeds were delicate. I was shaking so hard that I was bending or breaking this one. I must risk sitting up before I gagged or coughed.

Though I wanted to leap up to suck in air and tear out of this bog toward the castle, I rose slowly, holding my breath until I thought my lungs might burst. The sky was gray and roiling overhead. Windy but no rain yet.

Hearing no one, I parted and peered through the grass.
A good distance away, headed back toward the end of the bog where Sim’s body lay, walked a man almost as quickly and steadily as if he trod dry land. He was either tall or seemed so from my vantage point. I believe he had light hair. He wore a dark cape but the hood had fallen back.

Quick! I needed to get help before he got too far away to pursue.

But as I ran for the castle, glancing at him once more over my shoulder, he seemed to disappear into the fog and mist. It might be a trick of my eyes from water running in them, of course. Or perhaps he had knelt down or hidden himself in the grass. And where was the arrow I’d taken as some sort of evidence? I had lost it back there. Could I not do anything right?

Deliverance, for I saw partly armored men on horseback, streaming into the castle over the drawbridge! It might be Nick returning from the cromlech. At least they were king’s men, ones I could send after Sim’s killer right now. I shrieked and hallooed and waved.

The men halted and the rider at the head of the band turned back and rode toward me. My heart fell. Not Nick but the Earl of Surrey. He reined in and stared down at me, glowering. Heedless that I must look like a drowned rat, I told him, pointing, “I rode out with a guard to the far end of the bog, but an archer killed him and chased me! A poacher, I think, for there’s a beef’s body too, quite cut up. The murderer is wearing a black cape.”

I believe it took the earl a moment to recognize me and to credit what I said. He lifted himself in his stirrups and raised a hand. Four men immediately thundered toward us,
their hoofbeats matching the next rumble of thunder, while the others rode on into the castle.

“Ride around or into that bog,” Surrey shouted to his men, and pointed outward. “Bring back under arrest any man you find there, caped or not.”

“Be careful, for he’s skilled with a bow and arrow,” I added. “He shot the royal guard Sim right through the throat, and his body’s on the ground!”

“Mark the spot where he fell and bring his body and any horses back,” Surrey ordered his men. They immediately rode away. I went limp with relief until I saw the way the earl was regarding me. No wonder, for my wet garb clung to my shaking body, and my hair had come loose and dripped everywhere like a sopping gold curtain. Then I realized the look he gave me was not one of disgust—but lust.

“The queen’s woman,” he said. “Ah—Mistress Westcott, Veronica.”

“Varina, my lord.”

“Just so,” he said, walking his horse closer. With one arm, he leaned down and snatched me off my feet, pulling me sideways before him onto his saddle and turning us for the drawbridge. His chest armor hurt my shoulder and hip.

“I am grateful for your help,” I told him, trying not to hold on to him but find a place to grasp his big saddle. “I ran from the man and hid in the bog.”

“I guessed such from your appearance. My men will find him, and we shall question him together. You do manage to attract trouble, mistress. For one moment I thought I had my own little selkie emerging from the water.”

“A selkie, my lord?”

“A changeling from the sea, a seal in water and an alluring woman on dry land. The Scots say they shed their skin and seduce human men. Selkies live with their lovers for years, especially if the man can find a way to hide their sealskins so they cannot escape back to the sea.” He said all that pleasantly enough, but put his hand right on my thigh and stroked me there with a heavy thumb through my wet breeches.

As cold as I was from the water and wind, I felt frozen by his touch. Sim’s murder—my fear and headlong flight—all seemed a nightmare—then this?