The Wretched of Muirwood (14 page)

Sowe waited for her in the mist, shivering. Sometimes it took hours before the sun chased the morning fog away. As they began their long walk back to the kitchen, in the distance, they heard the thudding of hooves.

“Was Jon away?” Sowe asked nervously.

“He is always gone before the sun rises. I swear the man never sleeps in that filthy hovel. He is more likely than not bedding down in a bush each night. At least he cared for the horse. It looked rested and brushed and there were oats for it still.”

“So are we going to tell the Aldermaston now?”

“Before we put the orb back in his chamber? You are daft, Sowe, truly. I am glad we did not need it.”

“So when will we tell him? Tonight?”

“Quit worrying, Sowe. Now that he is gone, you should feel more easy. Why worry the Aldermaston about it at all?”

“I should not, but I do worry. I am nervous about what will happen. We should tell him, Lia.”

“And make him angry? He does not know – he did not find out. We did it, Sowe. Why not be happy about that?”

“Happy? I have been sick to my stomach for days. If I had a bucket, I could retch in it right now.”

“Retch in the flowerbeds instead, thank you kindly. Just do not retch on me. I cannot help it if you are always nervous about everything.”

Sowe was silent after that and they both walked, their shoes sodden from the dewy grass and they approached the kitchen from the rear. They could hear the pots clanging like bells, and Lia could tell Pasqua was furious. She had a way of making the whole kitchen mime her moods.

Lia pulled open the door and gusts of warm, yeasty air engulfed them. Pasqua was laboring over a huge bowl, and she turned with iron in her eyes.

“Here they arrive at last, all damp and tired. I ought to take a switch to both of your skinny legs as I promised last night. Leaving the kitchen together! Letting some pack of hungry-eyed learners sneak in here and steal from the Aldermaston’s stores. I have a mind to make you churn butter all day long so that your arms are sore for a week. Cheeky little waifs. Off you were, flitting about in the morning when you were supposed to be at your chores, and now someone has come in and made off with things they would be ashamed to confess.”

Lia rolled her eyes and shut the door. Sowe took their cloaks and hung them from two pegs to dry out. Lia hid the Cruciger orb behind a barrel beneath the loft.

“Were we gone that long?” Lia said with a yawn. “It did not feel like it. Did it feel like it to you, Sowe? On a misty morning like this, it is hard to tell how late it is.”

Pasqua jammed a wooden spoon into the huge bowl and gave it furiously circular strokes. “Have you been gone long? Gone long? Why if that is not a sooty lie…look over there at the Aldermaston’s breakfast, which I made myself, and now it is nearly cold to the touch. Look at your hems, deep in mud. You will be at the laundry scrubbing them clean, for I will not have you tracking in filth. I am sorely vexed with both of you, especially about the gingerbread we made yesterday that is gone. Whitsunday will soon be here, and I have a mind to insist that the Aldermaston forbid to let you dance around the maypole.”

Lia stopped. “What about the gingerbread?” she asked, confused, for they had not snitched even a crumb of it.

Pasqua’s eyes were nearly bulging and she thumped the spoon as she thundered, “Have you not been listening to what I told you? Someone has been in the kitchen while you were gone, stealing up scraps and taking this and that. It is shameful, it really is. Here, at Muirwood, that someone can feel justified in stealing what others labored to make. I am only glad there is none of any Gooseberry Fool done, or it would be missing too.”

Lia tied on her apron, her mind dancing with thoughts, her stomach starting to wrestle with queasiness. She looked around the kitchen, and it did have a different feel. There were the stools, the brooms, the pans, the sieves, the sacks, the smells – but an underlying sense of wrongness as well. Fluttering memories darted here and there, and she snatched at them. Stolen things. Missing victuals. When the knight-maston brought Colvin that first evening, he had freely taken victuals for the road. Without asking, he had sliced off a piece of meat. He had swiped a tub of treacle. In fact, as she thought back on it, his actions had been deliberately subtle. He made excuses when she noticed, but it was as if he was
trying
to steal them without her knowing it. Why would a knight-maston steal?

She cinched the knot of the apron behind her, her thoughts spinning so fast that they blurred Pasqua’s words into gibberish.

Why would a knight-maston steal? Would not a knight-maston, a true one, ask for victuals? Be grateful for what he was given instead of sneaking it? But the knight had not entered the kitchen – Lia had not let him in. Was someone else to blame? A learner, perhaps? Getman stealing the gingerbread to get her into trouble?

Other thoughts. Other possibilities. Maybe the knight had entered
after
she and Sowe had left. Without someone to stay behind, there was no way to secure the crossbar over the door.

“Why are you standing there paler than milk? Get to work, girls! There are messes plenty to tidy. Sowe – take the Aldermaston his meal. Lia – fetch the broom and sweep up that spill over there. Now, girls, before I fetch a hazel switch in earnest!”

Lia walked, dreamlike, to the broom, trying to put the pieces together in her head. She clutched it and walked over to the corner and began sweeping. Had the knight-maston entered the kitchen after they left to get Colvin and stolen the food? Was that all he had stolen? A sick feeling washed over her. She swept and stepped over to the corner beneath the loft where the loose stone was where she hid her treasures. When Pasqua’s back was turned, she pried at the edge with her fingers until it budged. Lifting it, she stared into the hole.

Gone. Every coin she had ever saved. The bag of treasure the knight had brought her. And even worse, the sheriff’s medallion. They were gone. She reached into the hole, confirming the emptiness with her own fingers.

The thought sent a spear of disbelief through her. Pain and shock linked arms. It was the worst feeling of her life. Worse than fear or sorrow or the dread of impending punishment. It hurt with a frenzy when she realized what she had done. She had sent Colvin to the Pilgrim into a trap.

* * *

The man that brought Colvin to the Abbey kitchen was not a knight or a maston. He was, in fact, a wretched himself – a wretched who had also been raised at Muirwood but fled before his obligation to serve was fulfilled. He knew the abbey grounds as well as Lia and could walk in the mist without getting turned around or lost. That was a key reason why his services were so valuable to the sheriff of Mendenhall. Lia would not have remembered him, for she was very young when he abandoned his debt and the abbey. But others would have recognized his expression, the tilt of his head, the way he smoothed people’s feelings with clever words. Or his inability to resist thieving. With a little bit of skill and flexibility, he could climb part of the rounded stone bulwarks near the doorway on either side of the kitchen doors, and from that vantage point, see inside the kitchen from the glass panels embedded into the door. From that vantage, he had watched where Lia kept her treasures. Not only did it cost him nothing to win back the sheriff’s amulet, but he had also laid claim to the rest of her coins. It panged what little shreds of conscience he had left, but in the larger context, he was doing her a favor. A harsh lesson would teach her the rest of her life not to trust the strangers of the world. Lessons he had learned in a thousand cruel ways.

He glanced down at the twisting vines and leaves that made up the shape of the amulet. There was something about it that attracted him. It was unique. It was a secret worth a great deal to the right people, he was sure. Did he really want to tell Almaguer he had found it after he lost it to the girl? After all, the girl could have given it to the Aldermaston – or even better – was wearing it herself. Had he not noticed a bit of twine around her neck? Was there another path he could take, a way to turn the situation around yet again and earn even more profit? The nameless squire had carried embarrassingly few coins, though his knight-maston sword would fetch a good price in the local market, especially if it was sold while he was put to death in the village square for treason. Some fool would play handsomely for it in the frenzy of passion that accompanied executions. Was there a way to get more coin from the lad prior to his punishment? Perhaps an offer to deliver words to a loved one after the sheriff seized him? The sound of clinking coins stoked his imagination. There had to be a way. And since the lad had never seen his face, he would not know who he was dealing so treacherously with him.

He slipped the amulet into a secret pocket and patted it lightly.

He wondered how much the Aldermaston’s good name would be tarnished. Would Muirwood Abbey be shamed with the unraveling of the Winterrowd plot? If that happened, it was worth all the treasure in his bag. Unable to help it, he started to chuckle. It had the makings of a merry day.

* * *

It was hard for Lia to breathe. The feelings that smote inside her were too much to bear. Guilt – a horrible guilt for her unwitting betrayal. Fury – searing, scalding, ravaging fury at the thief who deceived her. How glibly he had done it. His words had achieved their every intention. By making her think that he was trusting her, she had unknowingly trusted him all the more. It was all so very clear. She hated herself for being fooled so easily. She was a fool. No matter that the thief was older than her and cunning as a serpent. Her own cunning had probably surprised him. He was the one who sent the sheriff to the Muirwood kitchens and only blind luck had prevented Almaguer from reaching the Aldermaston’s kitchen first instead of the learner kitchen. If that had happened, Colvin would have been caught in their midst – and she an accomplice.

She had been so sure of herself, so sure that she would be able to outwit them all. With trembling hands and tears dangling from her lashes, she whisked the dirt and spilled seeds into a pile. Truth was painful. Her own greed had hastened the deception. The desire to read had driven her for as long as she could remember. She stopped, seeing the look in Colvin’s eyes as he promised to help her achieve that dream. The memory caused so much pain, she had to stop and cough loudly to keep Pasqua ignorant of the sobs that threatened to completely break open. How could she have been so blind? What was there to do? Colvin was on horseback. The village lay beyond the abbey walls. He was probably at the inn already.

The kitchen door burst open and Astrid Page ran in. His tousled black hair settled as he came in breathlessly. He went to Pasqua. “The Aldermaston…desires to see Lia. He says she must come straightaway.”

Pasqua scowled at the boy. “What is this nonsense? We have much work to do. There are other helpers he can call on.”

“No, Pasqua, he requested her. She must come right now.”

Lia’s heart shuddered in her chest and she clenched the broom handle until her arms trembled. Looking about, she noticed that Sowe had not returned yet from bringing the Aldermaston’s meal.
Oh, no.
For the second time that morning, she understood the complicated and vicious feelings of betrayal. As clear as the noonday sun, she knew Sowe had told all. Gripping the broom handle angrily, she nearly snapped it over her knee.

Everything in her life was unraveling around her, but she was determined to stop it and mend it. There was little time to think – she needed to act rather than be acted upon.

“Let me fetch my cloak first,” she said impatiently, walking to the pegs, drying her eyes.

“You hardly need a cloak,” Pasqua scolded. “If the Aldermaston begs for your audience, then you move. No trifling here. You obey. That is always what is best where he is concerned. Did Sowe spill something? What is this about?”

“I do not know, mum. She was there in his chamber, crying. There were no spills that I could tell.”

Lia fastened the cloak and walked to the loft ladder, ducking quickly behind a barrel and grasped the Cruciger orb. She licked her lips, giving less than a second thought to what she was about to do. If she thought about it much, she would lose her courage. Her choices were dwindling like water through her fingers.

“What are you fiddling with, child?” Pasqua demanded, hand on her hip, bowl in the other. “What have you there? In your hand?”

“I know what the Aldermaston wants. It will not take long. Go on, Astrid. I will be right there,” she lied.

“What is that in your hand, child?”

Lia rushed past her, where the page boy was already pulling open the door. As soon as she felt the cold misty air on her face, she took a deep final breath. The smell of the kitchen, the luxurious scent of breads, cheeses, roasting meat – she breathed it in one last time.

“Lia!” Pasqua called after her. “You come back here! When I call you, you come! Lia!”

Lia started to run, away from the manor house. In her mind she said the words,
find the Pilgrim Inn
. The spindles within the orb began to whirl.