The Marsh King's Daughter (54 page)

'She would have borne a son about a month before Magdalene was brought to bed,' Martin said, his voice and manner more wooden than ever. 'Robert's seed was barren, not her womb.'

'Christ on the Cross.' The hairs rose on Nicholas's nape. 'What do you mean "would have"?' he said hoarsely.

'Her hips were too narrow for the child to be born. The midwives christened it in the womb before they killed it so that Miriel might live.' A muscle bunched in Martin's jaw. 'Her husband told them to name the babe Nicholas.'

Prickles of heat flashed along Nicholas's spine and suddenly the air seemed too thick to breathe. Turning while he was still able to move, he slammed out of the room and stood in the yard, gulping at the soft spring air with its fragrance of greenery and new life. His belly heaved and he doubled over, retching.

Martin emerged and sat on the wooden bench set against the lime-washed wall. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I did think about not telling you, but the burden would have weighed on me too heavily.' The lines across his forehead deepened. 'I had to give it to you to shoulder too because it is yours by right.'

Slowly Nicholas straightened. His gut ached and the sickness was still with him, soul-deep. 'And you were right,' he said, 'but I cannot thank you for it.' With the slow care of a man three times his age, he sat down at Martin's side. 'I asked her to leave him before, but she would not - said that there was too much at stake. It was the hardest thing I have ever done, to let her go. If I had known what awaited, I'd have sailed away with her over the edge of the world.' He put his head in his hands.

'You would still have had to make the decision,' Martin murmured. 'Her or the child. Would you have chosen differently?'

His mind filled with the feel of his son in his arms, the weight of the tiny head in the crook of his elbow. And then he, thought of Magdalene as he had last seen her, luminous and blooming with health. 'I do not know,' he said in a cracked voice. 'In God's name, I truly do not know.'

Martin said nothing, offering no comfort except his taciturn presence. Slowly Nicholas raised his head and leaned against the bench's solid oak back. 'So he has put her in St Catherine's?'

Martin nodded. 'She is not deranged,' he said. 'Her mind is as clear as my own. He has imprisoned her there as a punishment. I suppose it is a small mercy that he has chosen to put her out of sight and mind rather than adding her to his tally of victims - of which you are still likely to be one,' he added darkly.

Nicholas rubbed the healing slash in his side. 'I am not a vindictive man, Martin,' he said grimly. 'Always until this moment I have chosen to live and let live.' He rose to his feet. 'If Miriel once owed her husband allegiance, she has long since paid it back with interest. What he owes me, I will claim not in a dark, sea-port alley, but in the full glare of a town gibbet when the time comes.' His eyes narrowed with decision. 'First I must free her, and see her safe.'

'What are you going to do?'

Nicholas looked at Martin but without really seeing him. 'Go to St Catherine's, of course,' he said.

Spring rain was unpredictable. Sometimes it came as the transparent trail of a ghost's sleeve, leaving a whisper of moisture wherever it touched and the lingering scent of wet grass and woodsmoke. Outlines blurred, leaving the world washed in soft tints of green through which sunlight was swift to flash warm dapples of gold. On other occasions, the rain clouds came like galloping horses, whipped on by riders of storm-wild wind. The droplets slammed against shutters like clods flung from racing hooves; streets became glistening brown rivers and every object tore at its roots, foundations and moorings, striving to join the frantic race.

It was one of the latter days that called Robert to sit at the fire rather than go out amongst his clients. He huddled over the hearth in the Lincoln house that belonged to his wife, and through her to him. The fire lashed and guttered in the hearth like a speared dragon, now and then sending small clouds of smoke into the room. Robert shivered in his cloak, which was lined with the warm luxury of marten fur, but there was a chill in his bones that mere warmth alone could not displace.

He thought of Miriel in St Catherine's. This storm would be howling straight from the North Sea against the convent's walls. Was she suffering in her cold, damp cell, with naught but the contemplation of her sins to pass the time? He hoped so with a vehemence that almost made him weep. Part of that vehemence was because he missed her presence so much. He missed the sight of her poring over her tally sticks, her smooth, Madonna's face serious in concentration. He missed her mannerisms, her incisive wit, the honey-coloured eyes and the way they would suddenly light with a smile. Only the smile had been for another man, and at the end it had not been there at all because he had banished it from her face. He couldn't live with her, but he was beginning to wonder if he could live without her either.

'Bitch,' he said softly, his word overridden by another wild surge of wind and rain against the house. He rose and paced the room, unable to settle to his accounts, or to reading a copy of the tales of King Arthur, given to him in part payment by a Flemish merchant. The room was too dark, his eyesight no longer sharp enough to read the lettering, and his concentration nil. Soon even his pacing was not enough to contain his restlessness and, muttering grumpily, he went to the door and stepped out into the elements.

The fingers of wind became strong, malicious hands that snatched at his cloak and tried to push him back inside. He leaned forward into the vigour of the elements, determined as in all things not to be beaten. Rain slapped against his face almost hard enough to hurt. The courtyard was a soup of mud across which the weavers had thrown down sheaves of straw in a semi-successful attempt at making a causeway. Robert realised too late that he was not wearing his pattens, which would have lifted him above the mire, but must needs soil his good leather boots. He would not go back. Head down like a bull, he plodded on to the weaving shed and raised the latch.

The weavers had been laughing and chattering amongst themselves as they worked, but as Robert entered, they fell silent and looked covertly at each other before bowing to him.

'Carry on,' Robert said with a regal wave of his hand.

He prowled the shed, walking behind the weavers to look at the work in progress on the looms. As well as the usual Lincoln scarlet, a length of grey diamond twill was in progress for the making of chausses, and Walter was warping a loom with green and yellow wool to make striped cloth. The young man's fingers, never dextrous at the task, grew clumsier beneath Robert's frowning scrutiny.

'God knows,' Robert snarled, 'I should have removed you at the same time as the old man.'

'Sir?' Walter looked round, eyes widening, and Robert realised his mistake.

'I mean I would have removed the old man if he hadn't saved me the trouble,' he snapped. 'What's that supposed to be? I've seen better fishing nets!' He stumped off into the counting house, angry at Walter, even angrier at himself. There was a costrel of mead on the shelf. Lifting it down he removed the stopper and drank straight from the jar. The honey-sweet liquid slipped smoothly down his throat and warmed comfortingly in his belly. He kindled the ceramic lamp suspended on chains from a ceiling beam and gazed round the room where Miriel had spent so much of her time. Her presence was stronger here than in the house. Her quills, her inkhorn, her supply of vellum neatly held in place by a lump of polished amber the exact colour of her eyes. A leaf was captured in the middle of the stone, perfect in every detail. He picked it up. Stone should be cold, but amber was almost as warm as flesh to the touch.

As he fondled the weight, his eyes lit on the money chest she had been taking to her lover. It was made to be sturdy and functional and lacked the elegance of which Miriel was usually so particular. Robert glowered at the object. He could not understand her reason for taking it when she fled. It would have been far more practical to put the silver in a sack or satchel. Unless . . .

Leaving the amber, he went to the chest and threw back the lid. The bare interior gave nothing away. He felt along the base, but there was no cunningly hidden secret compartment; all was solid. A thin splinter drove into his finger for his pains. He withdrew, cursing, and glared at the coffer while he removed the sliver of wood with his teeth. 'Bitch,' he said again, softly, 'whoring bitch,' and looked at the blood oozing from the wound.

One last glimmer of a notion made him kneel and reach his good hand beneath the chest. He was not expecting to find anything, and when he discovered a vertical wooden peg, his heart lurched with sudden excitement. As he turned the peg to lie flat, he was as clumsy as Walter. A section of wood came away in his hand, exposing a hidden shelf. There was an object on the shelf; silk wrappings against the hardness of shaped metal.

Licking dry lips, Robert withdrew his find and brought it into the lamplight. Purple fabric shimmered, its border patterned with strange signs that he vaguely knew to be the writing of the lands beyond Constantinople. His breath came short as he unfolded the wrappings and drew forth the object they had been protecting; and then for a time he did not breathe at all.

'Suffering Christ,' he muttered at last, and sucked air into his deprived lungs. 'Where has this pretty bauble come from?'

He turned it in his hands, admiring the craftsmanship, the way it struck the light; the deep pools of the gemstones, the demure lustre of the pearls. Small wonder that Miriel had wanted to take the chest with her. With this, she could have bought the world.

Conscious of the weavers a mere door away, Robert replaced the crown in its hiding place, and stood back to contemplate the meaning of his find. His hands were sweating and he wiped them down his tunic. He took another long swallow of mead and rested his shaking legs against Miriel's writing trestle. Crowns belonged to royalty, and everyone knew the tale about King John's regalia being lost in the Wellstream. Young Prince Henry had gone to his coronation with the barest bones of majesty because most of the wealth was missing.

Robert rubbed his jaw. If Miriel had the crown, then she might know the whereabouts of other items. She could show him where to look, or at the very least explain how she came by this particular jewel. Whatever the outcome, he had the means to raise himself from being a rich and powerful man in his own world, to a status of wealth and influence at the highest level.

It was time to pay his wife a solicitous visit and see how she was faring under Mother Euphemia's benevolent rule.

Miriel sat in her cell with a mutton-fat rush dip for light and a wall crucifix of Christ in suffering for company. She had a straw pallet upon a rope-framed bed with a coarse sheet and even coarser blanket for warmth, and a large pottery bowl in which to piss. A small square window hole let in little light, but was more than generous with cold draughts and spatters of rain when the wind was in the wrong direction - as it was tonight.

Miriel huddled in her cloak and her bed blanket, her teeth chattering. She suspected that not only had Robert put her here to keep her out of sight and mind, but in the hope that she would die. If she did, there would be no one to blame but her constitution, weakened by childbirth and the disordered state of her mind. Miriel glared at the crucifix. Well, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction; she had every intention of living to be a thorn in his flesh until the day that he died.

She was kept apart from the other women boarders. Even when allowed into church to pray, she was flanked by two of Euphemia's minions who had authority to deal with any outburst or unruly behaviour. Miriel, thus far, had clung to her control. If she could lull them into thinking her spirit was cowed, they would relax their vigilance and an opportunity to escape was bound to arise.

The wind lashed outside like a wild beast and the square of oiled linen beat back and forth within the aperture. Rain spat through a gap where the cloth did not fit properly and glistened on the lime-washed wall. Miriel consoled herself with the knowledge that Abbess Euphemia hated storms and this unsettled weather had been raging for three days now. They were the one thing on God's earth that kept her from stalking the convent in search of miscreants, the dreaded switch in her hand. Miriel looked at the crucifix on the wall and prayed that the storm would be a bad one.

It was unfortunate but not unbelievable that Euphemia had become Abbess of St Catherine's. The woman had the right family connections and an ambition almost as large as her corpulent frame, advantages that weighed heavily in the balance when measured against spiritual suitability.