The Marsh King's Daughter (56 page)

'I told you, I don't know!' Miriel stamped her foot.

'Then you can rot here for the rest of your life. The decision is yours, sweetheart.'

Perhaps on the morrow the storm would have abated. Perhaps on the morrow, outside the abbey walls, she could find a means to escape. She said nothing more.

'That's made you think, hasn't it?' Robert smiled and approached her. He stroked her face as he had stroked the gold and she had to swallow the urge to retch. 'Of course, I could always take you back to Lincoln,' he murmured. 'No one would know what has passed between us. Our neighbours believe that you're with the nuns for the good of your health. It could be like the first days. Spiced wine at the fireside and talking long into the night.'

Miriel jerked her chin off his forefinger. 'It is too late for that.' She gave a shudder of revulsion. 'I would rather sup with the devil himself. If you touch me again, I will scream.'

He looked hurt, and then the hurt became anger. 'You are my wife. Do you think the nuns will interfere?' he said scornfully. 'I could drag your skirts up and have you here on the guest-chamber floor and no one would come to your aid.'

'I don't need anyone's aid to defend myself.' Miriel backed to the fire and seized the iron poker. 'You come near me and I will ram this straight in that gross belly of yours.'

Robert stared at her, his complexion suffusing. His eyes flickered and she saw him weighing up the likelihood of disarming her against the chance of his being hurt.

'I mean it,' she said, raising the poker, and even if her insides had turned to jelly, her hand was perfectly steady. Robert might be ruthless but it was always someone else who fought his battles for him.

A pulse jumped in his cheek. 'You mad bitch,' he said with a revulsion as strong as her own. Turning on his heel, he strode to the door and flung it open. Ignatia and Adela were waiting outside.

'You may return my wife to her room,' he said coldly. 'Make sure you secure her tight. I fear that her behaviour has taken a turn for the worse.'

Miriel cast down the poker that the shocked nuns could see her holding and sailed out of the door, her head on high. 'Only in response to my husband's,' she said to the women.

Ignatia took Miriel's arm in a firm grip. Clearly, having dealt with one mad woman this evening, she was not going to take chances with a second. It was with relief that Miriel let herself be led away. Indeed, it was a boon to have the support of another to lean on, for her legs were weak in the aftermath of confrontation. Robert stared after her; she could feel his eyes boring into her spine.

She knew that on the morrow, on the sands, he was going to kill her.

Nicholas beached the nef on the mud flats at high water. She was a shallow-draughted vessel well suited to inshore duties. A hundred and sixty years ago, Norman warriors had disembarked over her shallow freeboard on to the Pevensey shingle, the dawn rising in their faces. Now Nicholas leaped from her prow and waded ashore in the early grey light. Last night's wind had blown itself out. There was no sun, just a low, grey mist that swirled and eddied in patches like a dance of ghosts over the bleak fen landscape.

The crew settled down to wait, the cheer of fire rising from the portable firebox on deck, and the smell of frying fat-ham wafting on the air. Nicholas struck out across the sheep pasture towards St Catherine's. He wore a quilted gambeson against the chill of the day and as protection against any unforeseen assault. A long dagger lay snugly in the scabbard at his hip and his circular cloak was short so as not to impede his movements. Over his shoulder he carried a length of rope with an iron grapnel attached to one end.

The reeds were high; the grass was boggy - there had been no seasonal warmth as yet to dry it out. A heron took flight in front of him with a metallic cry, and he was close enough to see the fierce yellow beak with its white curlicue like an embroidered scroll.

It seemed a lifetime since he had staggered ashore not far from here, an enamelled wooden box in his possession. If he had known where it would lead, he wondered if he would have fought so hard to keep it, then decided that he would. Why else was he here now?

He paused to gain his breath but not because he had been walking hard. The thought of seeing Miriel and what he might have to do to free her from the nuns made his breath come short and his belly churn. The bleating of sheep drifted over the pasture, blending with the mist. He must be near the place where she had first found him, dying of cold and exposure. It came to him that life moved in circles like the ripples radiating from a stone cast into a pool. The stone had been his father's death, and now he was on the outer ring of the last ripple, journeying to fulfil the cycle. Or perhaps the cycle was already complete and he was about to cast another stone.

He shook his head to clear it of fanciful notions and continued on his way. By walking along the top of a dyke, he was able to see the abbey buildings rising clearly out of the fen. There were more of them than there had been six years ago, and the existing ones had been dressed with patterned stone and reroofed in tile. The prosperity of wool, he supposed, and a shrewd abbess. Sheep and cows grazed together in the home pasture. A walled enclosure held several large hay ricks, and beyond that, next to the kitchen buildings, was another enclosure for pigs. Near the abbey gatehouse, there was a row of buildings resembling the almshouses he had seen in the towns. These must be the dwellings of the women who had bought corrodies, he thought - or whose families had paid to put them here. Like Miriel. He wondered which dwelling was hers. The only way to find out, he supposed, was to knock on the doors and find out which one held a prisoner.

Descending the dyke, he started towards the boundary wall near the guest houses. As he threw the grapnel and started to climb, the alarm tocsin clanged out in frantic discord from the bell tower.

Hillary was looking for her cat again. Despite the assurances of the other nuns that he would return when he was ready, she knew that he was waiting for her to rescue him. She had seen their sidelong, pitying looks. They thought that she had lost her mind, but Hillary knew that she was as sane as daylight. Had she not been Abbess here for more than thirty years?

'Puss, puss, puss,' she called.

The response was a heavy sigh from Sister Godefe. From her eye-corner, Hillary saw the nun approaching with a cup of the horrible brew they kept forcing down her throat to make her sleep.

'Puss, puss, puss,' she said in a cracked, despairing voice and began to weep. Suddenly, through a blur of tears, she saw him staring at her from within the heart of the cooking fire, his eyes like two red coals. With a joyful cry she ran to the hearth and plunged her arm straight into the flames to draw him out. The fire seared her flesh and flashed upon her linen shift and the strings of her cap. She staggered backwards, screaming in pain and triumph, cradling her arms as if holding a child or an animal. Her body blazed like a white candle.

Before Godefe could throw a blanket over her and beat out the flames, Hillary fell against a pile of soiled bed linen waiting to be taken to the laundry, and the fire took hold and began to leap up the timber wall. Hillary paid no heed. There was no pain; the flames were cool as balm, and she could feel Puss in her arms as warm and solid as life.

As he heard the tocsin, Nicholas prepared himself for a confrontation, but no one came running. Doors opened in the almshouses, but, since they faced away from the boundary, he was not seen. From the top of the wall, however, he could observe the occupants hurrying or hobbling, depending on their state of health, towards the main buildings. And then he both saw and scented the smoke.

He shinned down the other side of the wall into the compound and ran round to the front of the corrody buildings. Immediately he knew which one was Miriel's, for a heavy draw-bar of wood had been fixed across the outside of the door. The sight of it filled him with rage and he hoped that the convent burned down to the ground. Heaving the oak beam out of its slots, he threw it aside and shouldered open the door.

Only the swiftness of his reaction saved him from being brained. A dark shape swung viciously towards him and caught him a glancing blow to the side of the head as he ducked. It was still enough to bring him to his knees and make him see stars.

'Christ,' he swore through pain-clenched teeth, not knowing how apt the oath was until he realised that the damage had been done by the solid wooden crucifix that Miriel was clutching in her fist with all the vigour and determination of a knight wielding a war club.

'Nicholas?' she gasped, and knelt hastily beside him. 'Holy Mary, why didn't you say it was you? Are you all right?' She touched his temple and he flinched. 'It's not too bad, only a little blood.'

'Thank heaven for small mercies,' he groaned sarcastically.

'I thought you were Robert.' She flung her arms around his neck and almost overbalanced him. The crucifix dropped to the floor behind them.

He grabbed her to steady himself and felt her frame, light as a bird's within his hands, but living, beating flesh and blood. The force of tears stung the back of his eyes. He closed them and swallowed the tightness in his throat. 'You need never fear Robert again,' he said hoarsely.

Miriel shook her head and drew out of their embrace. 'You don't understand,' she said. 'He's here. He found out about the crown and he thinks I know where there's more.' She looked at him with frightened, haunted eyes. 'He's taking me down to the shore today, and I know that when I can show him nothing, he will kill me.' She shuddered. 'When I heard you at the door, I thought it was him.'

Nicholas lurched to his feet, swayed slightly and steadied himself. He put his hand to his head and felt a bruise the size of a goose egg. 'The convent's on fire,' he said. 'I don't know if your hellspawn husband is involved or whether it's the whim of God. Nor do I care, save that it gives us time to be gone.' He grasped her hand and together they ran out into the grey daylight. Clouds of yellow smoke were billowing from the heart of the buildings, obscuring vision, constricting breath. Thatch and wooden roof shingles were well alight. Nicholas hoped that Robert Willoughby was literally in the thick of it. He closed the door behind them, slotted the draw-bar back into place and pulled Miriel round the back of the pension houses to the wall and the dangling grapnel rope. 'Can you climb?'

'I can do anything,' she said. Against the pallor of her skin, her eyes were intense mead-gold and her mouth set in grim determination. A pang of love, sharp and strong, struck beneath his breastbone. On impulse, he cupped her face, kissed her once, fiercely, then took her hands in his and set them on the rope. 'Go,' he said.

It was not a high wall; Miriel had scaled it once herself with a ladder and, despite being hampered by her skirts, she reached the top easily enough. Nicholas followed, drew the rope up, and dropped it down the other side. As Miriel began her descent, he took a last look at the convent, and saw Robert Willoughby. Red-faced and coughing, he was running towards the pension houses. In a moment he was going to find out that his bird had flown the cage. Nicholas wished that he had a crossbow in his hands and, as he wished, Robert looked up as if drawn by the thread of thought. Their eyes met. The merchant's lips formed a curse that Nicholas was too far away to hear. He made an expressive gesture in response, shinned down the rope like a squirrel and shook the grapnel free.

'What is it?' Miriel searched his face.

'Robert knows,' Nicholas panted. 'He's seen me on the wall. Hitch up your skirts; I've a ship beached at the inlet if we can outrun him.'

In frantic haste Miriel dragged the folds of gown and undergown through her belt so that they bunched around her waist in bulky pleats and swags. Again Nicholas took her hand and they ran along the foreshore pony track until their lungs were bursting and their legs were like hot lead.

Nicholas stopped briefly to gain a moment's respite. The goose-egg lump on his head throbbed as if it were about to hatch and he could not breathe swiftly enough to supply his starving body. Beside him, Miriel clutched her side and collapsed to her knees, her breath sobbing. If Robert caught them now, he thought grimly, it would be the end of them. But they had covered the ground well and they were more than halfway to the ship. Another half-mile and they would be safe.

'Ready?' he gasped to Miriel.

She nodded, too breathless to answer, but staggered to her feet and gamely forced one leg in front of the other.