The Gallows Curse (66 page)

    Yadua
cannot lie. You saw yourself doing it and you have certain proof that you did
it, for both men are dead. You killed them, and you know full well you would
have murdered your son also, had you not begged me to take him to safety. If
Osborn discovers his runaway serf has murdered his own brother, a man of noble
blood, he will not just hang you; he will have you executed for treason. You
will burn to death and you will taste such agony as you have not even imagined.
You will scream to die, but they will not let you. It is you or Osborn. It's
only a matter of time before he discovers the truth.'

    Elena
was pacing the room frantically, almost dashing herself against the walls in a
frantic attempt to escape Gytha's words.

    'No,
no! It isn't true. I didn't kill Hugh or Raoul. They will find the real killer.
God won't let me die for something I didn't do. He protects the innocent.
That's why I was able to escape from the manor, because God knew I was
innocent.'

    'My
grandam was innocent and God did not protect her,' Gytha said savagely. 'Once
Osborn discovers you here, that will be all the
truth
he needs.' She
rose, towering over Elena. 'Listen to me. You can deny it to others, but you
know in your heart you have already killed twice. Osborn is an old man compared
to Hugh. You can do it again easily enough. You are strong. Think about how he
tried to hang you, without a second thought.'

    'But
I wasn't hanged. He was angry. Maybe . . . maybe in the morning he would have
shown me mercy. Perhaps he just meant to frighten me to test whether I was
telling the truth. And if I can show him my son, prove to him that I didn't
kill him, then he will believe I am telling the truth about Raoul and Hugh
too.'

    Gytha
clamped her hands on either side of Elena's face, forcing her to look up at
her. You think Osborn would have shown you mercy, do you, lass? Like the mercy
he showed Athan, when he discovered you'd escaped?'

    A
cold bubble of fear shot upwards through Elena's spine. 'What. . . what did he
do to Athan?'

    Gytha's
face was impassive.

    'What?'
said Elena, frantically. This time it was she who was trying to force Gytha to
look at her. 'Tell me, what did he do? Did he beat him? Fine him? What?'

    'Osborn
hanged him,' Gytha said quietly.

    'No.'
Elena's legs gave way beneath her and she crumpled to the floor. 'No, no, he
can't have. Athan is at home waiting for me. I know he is. Raffaele would have
told me ... he would have told me. Athan can't be . . . dead. He can't. . .'

    Gytha
crouched down. 'Osborn hanged him in place of you, because he thought Athan had
helped you to escape. He was your lover, after all. Athan denied it, but Osborn
wouldn't listen. Do you still think he will listen to you, lass? Osborn
murdered Athan, an innocent man. Can you really tell me you don't want to kill
that devil for what he did?'

    Elena's
teeth were chattering uncontrollably, but she was too shocked to cry. She still
couldn't take it in. It had been so long since she'd seen Athan. All this time
she'd been imagining what he was doing each day, who he was with. Every morning
she'd looked up at the little square of sunshine or rain or cloud above the
courtyard, thinking that soon that cloud would drift across

    Athan,
or that rain would fall on him. It had almost been a way of touching him. She'd
pictured him scrubbing the sweat from his face with a twist of hay, or sitting
at the fireside plugging his leaking boots with wisps of sheep's wool, or
shovelling down his pottage as if he'd been starved for a week. She could see
him turning towards her with a bashful grin as she called out his name. In her
head he was still doing all these things, and being told he was dead couldn't
stop her seeing him alive.

    Elena
didn't even notice that Gytha had crossed the room and was standing by the
door.

    'Kill
him, lass, and the debt will be paid. You'll have your son safe. But if you
fail, remember what Madron told you that day you came to me. Yadua has other
powers, powers she can turn against those who do not pay the price for her.
Fulfil my grandmother's curse and destroy Warren's son, else by the power of
Yadua, her curse will fall upon your own son. And that I swear. Ka!'

    Elena
didn't know how long she crouched there on the floor of Ma's chamber. At times
her thoughts flashed so quickly through her head, she couldn't make sense of
them, then they were drifting down around her like the seeds from a dandelion,
blowing away when she tried to grasp them. Athan was dead . . . no, he was
still waiting for her. All these months she had been praying for him, thinking
about him, so he couldn't be dead ... he was lying in the cold earth, decaying,
his flesh was rotting, his cornflower-blue eyes eaten away . . . No, no they
couldn't be because she'd seen them laughing at her as she ran towards him.

    It was
easier to imagine her own baby dead, because she'd seen that in her head, but
not Athan. She'd seen the other men dead too, and now Gytha wanted her to kill
Osborn. She could picture him too in her head, bored, impatient, ordering her
hanging as if he was ordering a cook to wring a chicken's neck. A huge man, a
powerful man, who could knock a soldier down with a sideways glance.

    'You
made your mind up, my darling?'

    Ma
was sitting on the serpent's throne, peering down at her. A dozen ruby eyes stared
out unblinking from her crow- black hair.

    'She
speaks sense,' that friend of yours. There'll be no convincing Osborn his
brother was killed by the dog-fighters. It's him or you, my darling.'

    Elena
stumbled to her feet. They were so numb from where she'd been kneeling that she
almost tumbled into Ma's arms.

    'But
I can't. I can't kill a man. I couldn't kill anything'

    'But
you have. You can't cod me. When you're in your right mind you're as soft as
rabbit fur. But if you hate something enough, you can kill as ruthlessly as any
soldier. Think about how much you hated Hugh for what he did to you and Finch.
You loathed him. You thought he deserved to die, and you saw to it he did. You
made sure Hugh could do to no other lad what he'd done to Finch. And Finch
wasn't even your flesh and blood.'

    'But
I don't remember doing it.' Elena collapsed on to her knees again, her head
pressed against Ma's legs.

    Ma
gently stroked her hair. That's a good thing, my darling, the best way,' she
murmured. 'Means when your blood is up, you're not yourself and you've the
strength of ten. If you can kill one brother so easily, why not the other? You
going to let Osborn live after what he did to your Athan? Are you going to sit
back and wait for him to do the same to you? And what of your little one, if
Osborn has you executed, who's going to take care of him? Do you want him to
grow up like Finch to live in a place like this, where other Hughs will use
your son as he did that boy? Because there's one thing I'd wager this brothel
against, my darling, that friend of yours is never going to tell you where
she's hidden your baby till she knows for certain Osborn's dead.'

    The
wall inside Elena which had held firm for so many months finally burst apart
and she howled in grief and fear.

    Elena
woke to the sound of murmuring voices. At first she thought she was back in the
girls' sleeping chamber, but then she realized that she was lying on a fur. She
wasn't down in the chamber beneath the trapdoor though. A faint light was
filtering in from behind a heavy drape in front of her and she knew that she
must be behind the curtain in Ma's upper chamber. The last thing she remembered
was Ma giving her a beaker of heavy wine that for all its sweetness still had a
curious bitter aftertaste. She licked her parched lips; she could still taste
it now. Her head throbbed and she knew it had been laced with poppy syrup. She
must have fallen asleep at once.

    She
lay where Ma had placed her, unable to summon the will to move. She felt
dismembered, as if her limbs were no longer joined to her body but had been
dropped carelessly beside her. Thoughts swam in and out of her head, but they
didn't stay.
Gytha had been here. Athan was dead. Her baby was alive. Osborn
... what was it about Osborn?

    The
voices behind the curtain floated towards her, joining the darting shoal of
words in her head. A chair scraped against the floorboards.

    'She'll
never do it, not Osborn,' a man's voice said. 'She's too afraid of him.'

    'She
will, if she's frightened enough of the consequences if she doesn't.' That was
Ma's voice. 'There's her child to think of. That cunning woman threatened to
curse the boy. Make no mistake, that's no idle threat. I've seen the mandrake
that girl's got in her bundle. Felt it. It's real, trust me, that's no bryony
root. I've known some powerful charms in my time, but the mandrake's stronger
than all of them put together. Most spells only have power in this life, but a
mandrake's born at the same instant a man dies. That means its curse can follow
you through the gates of death itself and into the life beyond. I'd not go
against it, not for a whole kingdom and every lusty man in it.'

    'You
could throw the lass out,' Talbot growled. 'She'd take the curse with her and
then we'd be done with it. She rides an ill wind, that one.'

    'Maybe
it's you I ought to throw out,' Ma snapped. 'Those fights of yours have knocked
the wits clean out of you, if indeed you ever had any. Hugh's dead. You got the
revenge that you wanted for him trying to hang you, so now you think we've no
further use for the girl. Don't you understand, we need the girl to kill
Osborn? That cunning woman was right, any commoner arrested for Hugh's murder
will more than likely be charged with treason for killing nobility. You given
half a thought to what that will mean for us? If Osborn thinks that one of my
girls murdered his brother, you think he's not going to hold me responsible?
And if he comes for me, then you'll hang too, my darling. I'll make quite sure
of that.'

    There
was a violent scraping back of a chair as if someone had sprung to their feet.

    'You
try to take me down, you old witch, and I'll take your eyes out long afore the
hangman gets his hands on that scrawny chicken's neck of yours.'

    If Ma
was impressed by the threat, she did not betray it. Her voice was as unruffled
as ever. 'If Osborn dies it'll be up to Raffe, as Osborn's steward, and the
sheriff to make report of it to the king. Neither of them is exactly going to
shed any tears over Osborn, are they? And the Bullock's going to make damn sure
that no one suspects the girl. If they have to find a pigeon to truss up for
hangman they need look no further than that Frenchman Raffe brought to Norwich.
He can be blamed for anything, especially murder. John won't need any
persuading that the French have a hand in this. From what I've heard, if a bean
gives him the bellyache he swears it was a French one.'

    'But
if the lass fails?' Talbot protested.

    'She
can't. She's got the mandrake. By rights that girl should be dead a dozen times
over, but she has a charmed life. She just needs convincing that she's killed
before. But you'll have to help her,' Ma continued. 'You needn't scowl like
that, my darling; I'm not asking you to kill him. The racket you'd make doing
it, we may as well put up a tent and charge the crowd a penny to watch.
Subtlety was never your strong point and this one must be dispatched quietly.
But we need to make it easy for the girl. You'll have to keep a watch on Osborn
when he arrives here, you and that gang of street urchins of yours, for I'm
certain that cunning woman is right, he will come to Norwich. And when he does,
we need to find a way to get him alone for long enough for the girl to do her
work. You can surely manage that much at least.'

    Talbot
growled. 'If you ask me, it'd be easier to stuff the pair of them down that
hole in the cellar, Osborn and the girl, save ourselves a deal of bother. I
should never have hauled her out of there, but that's me, too tender-hearted
for me own good.'