Longbow Girl Page 17

‘Why would you play with a longbow?’ asked Mair, frowning.

  ‘I don’t play with one. I’ve trained since I was five years old to shoot the longbow. Every generation of Owens has a longbowman.’

  ‘Glyndŵr Owen.’

  ‘Yes. And now me. I am the longbow girl.’ Merry leant towards the old woman. Her words came out slow and heavy and deliberate. She had to make Mair understand. And believe.

  ‘There will be a tourney. The king will call the Owens on their pledge. I will answer it.’

  ‘If you are a longbow girl as you claim, then where’s your bow?’

  Merry felt waves of exhaustion hit her, the sheer, grinding weariness of accumulated lies.

  ‘And how can there be two bowmen?’ continued Mair. ‘Or one bowman and one longbow girl at the same time?’

  Merry gave a hollow laugh. It was time for the truth. ‘That’s just it. We’re not at the same time. You want a long story? I’ll give you one.’

  In the flickering light of the fire, Merry told her tale.

  Mair sat and listened, fists clenching and relaxing, clenching and relaxing, like a heart beating. Outside the wind roared down off the Beacons, just as it always had, just as it always would.

  The tallow candle burnt down as Merry talked. When she finished, she simply sat, palms turned upwards on her thighs. She’d risked it all. She could be turned out as a raving lunatic. She could be betrayed. There was the bounty on her head.

  Mair said nothing. She just looked from Merry to the fire and back, eyes restless as the flames. Finally she spoke. Her voice was faint, as if she were talking to herself.

  ‘How can I trust you?’

  ‘What? You want proof?’

  ‘Not for my heart, not for my soul, but for my mind …’

  Merry got up, paced round the kitchen. ‘First, the de Courcys will declare a tourney. Wait and see.’ She was angry. She hadn’t come here, left her home, risked everything to be doubted. ‘Second, there’s a brick here, in your hearth, three up, four across.’ Merry hoped this wasn’t a recent addition. Seren had shown it to her when she was a child, told her it was where the Morgan family had always kept the few valuables they’d possessed.

  ‘Take it out and there’s a hiding place,’ she continued, and knew from the flare of Mair’s eyes she was right, that the hiding place was there now. ‘You have a leather book, a healer’s book of remedies and herbs and recipes dating back hundreds of years, even from this time.’

  Merry fell silent. She sat down, rocked her body back and forth. It was too much, too much. What doesn’t kill us doesn’t always make us stronger … but she felt she had no strength left. ‘A longbow girl,’ murmured the old lady. ‘From another time.’ She reached out, touched Merry’s shoulder as if to prove to herself she was flesh and blood. Merry looked up, met her gaze. The woman seemed to see the truth in it, for she nodded and went to stoke the fire. ‘Forgive me and my doubts,’ she said to the flames.

  Then she turned back to Merry.

  ‘I’ve saved someone in every family in the Beacons and beyond. They all owe me. You’ll have your bow by the end of the morrow. Now you must rest. You may sleep on the pallet I keep in my herb room.’

  Mair gave Merry a rough woollen blanket; then she disappeared into a small room next to the kitchen.

  Merry felt spent, purged, beyond exhaustion. She pulled the pallet bed from the herb room, pushed it close to the fire. She took out her glass eye, put it in its box, lay down on the straw mattress, pulled the blanket over her and fell fast asleep.

  The healer did not try to sleep.

  The girl of her visions had returned. The girl with the hands of an archer. The longbow girl from another time.

  Exhausted, feverish, head spinning, James awoke. He had the sense that something was very wrong. Lying flat, cocooned in sheets and blankets, still half asleep, he blinked a few times. Then a few more. Above him was a rich red canopy. Around him were four elaborately carved posts draped with green velvet. He sat up, looked around, heart racing. He was lying in what was his own bedroom, or should have been, in a four-poster bed. It all came careering back: following Merry, the river, the swim, that awful drowning swim, the castle, his home. Only not. Not for nearly five hundred years.

  He swung his legs around, pushed aside the velvet drapes, put his feet on the floor. On to rushes.

  He looked down at his body. He was wearing a nightgown! Who had put this on him? He had no memory of that, or of being put to bed …

  Weak light filtered through a gap in the curtained windows. It was morning. He was desperate to pee. But where? He knew there’d be no converted en suite bathroom. There wouldn’t even be a loo down the hall. They didn’t exist. What there would be, somewhere, was a chamber pot.

  James got down on his hands and knees on the sharp rushes and peered under the bed. Spotted the pot, hauled it out.

  Seconds after he had finished, there was a knock at the door and before he could speak, a man came in carrying a huge bundle of what looked like cloth and a dead animal. The man with the black beard and the horrible scar. Brioc. He must have been waiting outside, listening …

  The man nodded to James, gave a curt bow, but his eyes were hard and watchful.

  ‘You have awoken, Lord James.’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘I took the liberty of collecting some clothes for you.’ Brioc raised the bundle in his arms. ‘The countess asked me to take some of the earl’s vestments,’ he added with a frown of distaste, as if this were really quite inappropriate.

  ‘Good,’ said James. ‘Er, thank you.’

  He eyed the weird collection of items the man was now laying out at the foot of the four-poster bed: linen, velvet and lace; frills, pleats, embroidery … and tights! God, if his mates at school could see him … if Merry could see him … He felt a sharp pang of fury with Merry for not telling him the truth, mixed in with fear for her. Where was she now? With her ancestors?

  The man was nodding at the clothes. James hesitated; he really didn’t know where to start.

  ‘Used to a body servant, are we?’ asked Brioc.

  James swallowed, forced himself to nod. Anything to convince the man he was a typical sixteenth-century lord who did nothing, not even dress himself, was good.

  It must have taken ten minutes for the man to dress him, an almost unbearably intimate process. James shut his eyes and pretended it wasn’t happening. Finally, after securing scores of tiny buttons and multiple laces, Brioc spoke.

  ‘Would you like to check yourself in the glass?’ he asked, nodding to a corner of the room.

  Next to the wall was a small free-standing mirror. James tilted it up and down, blinking at his reflection. Doublet, jerkin, leggings, delicate black leather shoes … codpiece. He looked ridiculous. He looked like one of the portraits. Like a sixteenth-century de Courcy. And that, he suspected, might be just enough to save his life.

  James walked down the stairs. Brioc prowled by his side, the courtier warrior, velveted, scarred, armed. His silver rapier dangled from an ornate black belt, stabbing the air behind him as he walked. On the other side of his belt lurked a dagger in a leather sheath. Death at either hand.

  At the far end of the Great Hall stood a group of similarly dressed men. They fell silent as he and Brioc approached, watchful eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  Brioc paused by the drawing room door, knocked, coughed, and was summoned by the countess with her imperious: Come!

  He opened the door, gestured James inside.

  The countess lounged in her chair by the fire, flanked by two wolfhounds. They pushed to their feet and eyed James speculatively. Teeth, swords, daggers …

  ‘Thank you, Brioc,’ said the countess, with a careless smile.

  Brioc seemed to devour the smile. James noted that, noted everything. Fear heightened his perception. He supposed if you were sufficiently afraid you would be almost numb and notice nothing. He was quite a few notches down from that, a sort of amber terr
or, not full-on red. He feared what might happen, not what was happening now.

  Brioc glanced at James, as if to say behave or you’ll have me to answer to, then spun around and strode from the room.

  His footsteps echoed away, then stopped. Eavesdropping on the other side of the door, thought James.

  The countess tilted up her head. ‘Come, let me see you,’ she commanded.

  James approached across the long drawing room. The wolfhounds set up a low growl.

  ‘Zeus! Apollo! Desist!’ ordered the countess.

  James hid a smile. So like his father’s wolfhounds, even down to the names.

  ‘Something is amusing?’

  ‘No, reassuring,’ replied James, reaching out his hands to let the wolfhounds get his scent. ‘My father has wolfhounds. Four of them.’

  ‘Ah, a real de Courcy,’ declared the countess. ‘You miss him.’

  ‘More than you could imagine …’

  The countess gave him a smile of sympathy, then her expression changed and she ran a practised eye up and down him.

  ‘That’s a bit more fitting. You’re almost my husband’s size. He’s just a bit taller and broader than you.’

  ‘Where is he?’ asked James, glancing around as if an angry earl might burst into the room at any moment. He would be much harder to fool than his wife …

  ‘Hunting with His Majesty. Wild boar in the forest of Brecon. They rested overnight in our lodge there. They return today. I am sure my husband will be intrigued to meet you. To hear your story,’ she added, head to one side. Mistrust or plain curiosity, James couldn’t tell.

  The countess indicated the chair opposite her with a gracious sweep of her velvet-clad arm. ‘Now, sit, please. Was your room comfortable?’

  ‘Very, thank you,’ said James, sitting down on the ridiculous pleated skirt-like thing, rearranging it under him.

  ‘Good. The green room is the chamber given to the heir, to the next earl.’ Her mood seemed to change and she gave a slight, sad, smile. ‘I am hopeful God will bless us, but so far he has not. Just like King Henry himself. Though he does at least have a daughter.’

  James nodded: the future Queen Elizabeth. He opened his mouth to say that, rapidly changed his mind.

  ‘You will have a son,’ he said instead. ‘I am sure of it.’ James could have described him: dark haired, long nosed, a smile of mischief; the thirteenth earl … he’d lived with the portrait of the boy for sixteen years.

  ‘I live in hope,’ the countess replied wistfully. ‘Now, since you are rested,’ she declared, her voice light again, ‘I want to hear more of your incredible story.’

  She leant towards a small table, her heavy clothes making the movement stiff, picked up a large golden bell and rang it vigorously. Rubies dangled from her ears, glittering as they caught the light.

  A few moments later, a lady, well dressed but not so richly as the countess, hurried in.

  ‘Bring food for my kinsman.’

  The lady bobbed, then scurried out, closing the door softly behind her.

  The countess took a large pewter jug from the table beside her, filled a goblet, handed it to James. He took a sip. Watered-down red wine, spiced with cloves and cinnamon and gently heated. It was warm and soothing. James cautioned himself to just have a little. He needed his wits about him.

  He took up his story again, the boat journey, the shipwreck, his long, cold journey from the coast. The attackers who stole his clothes. His arrival at the castle.

  The maid came back in with a plate of chicken drumsticks and some kind of pie.

  The countess gestured. ‘Eat. You must be famished.’

  There were no knives or forks, so James picked up the food with his hands.

  ‘You’re lucky my watchmen didn’t run you through,’ mused the countess. ‘Creeping about the castle grounds at night.’

  ‘Why would they?’ asked James, swallowing a mouthful of chicken. ‘I must have looked like a drowned rat!’

  ‘Robbery, of course. They probably thought you swam the moat.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to swim in that moat, not with all the ca—’ James cut himself short. Did carp exist in this time? Were they in the moat?

  ‘The carp?’ said the countess. ‘Yes, well, we do have carp, huge ones. Not very appealing to swim with. We eat them, roasted with prunes.’ She paused and her face grew serious. ‘But you’d be surprised what people do when they’re desperate.’

  ‘It’d be a brave or stupid person who tried to rob this castle, what with the moat, portcullis, and all the armed men.’

  ‘Brave, stupid, both, but the castle has been robbed,’ fumed the countess.

  ‘What was taken?’ asked James.

  ‘Zephyr!’

  ‘Who’s Zephyr?’ asked James.

  ‘My beautiful Arab stallion!’ declared the countess, eyes flashing with temper. ‘Stolen!’

  James gulped his wine, felt the heat rush through him. ‘And any ideas who might have taken him?’ he asked, aiming for casual.

  ‘Oh yes! I know exactly who stole him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The English-speaking witch!’

  ‘Witch?’

  ‘With one eye. I caught her in the act of stealing him, challenged her. She fought me. Fought like the devil. She only just made her escape.’ The countess fidgeted in her chair, reliving the scene. ‘She must have put a spell on Zephyr; it is only I who can ride him! And he is so fleet they outran all my men on their chargers.’ She took a sip of wine, slammed down her goblet with a bang that slopped red wine on to the table. It dripped like blood on to the rush-covered wooden floor.

  ‘But don’t worry,’ she said, with a smile. ‘We’ll catch her, sooner or later. You can’t exactly hide an Arab stallion for ever. People will notice him. People will talk. He has our brand on him, besides. And she can hardly hide, the one-eyed witch.’

  James bent over his goblet of mulled wine. He pretended to breathe in the wafting odours. He took a sip, swallowed the lump in his throat. Only when he felt his face was clear of all emotion did he look up.

  ‘What will you do with her,’ he asked, ‘if you catch her?’

  ‘She’ll hang, of course. Like all horse thieves.’ The countess leant forwards towards the fire, rubbed her hands, and spoke into the flames. ‘Or maybe she’ll burn, for witchcraft …’

  The fire spat and crackled in the Black Castle’s huge hearth. A sudden wind roared down the chimney, whipping up the flames.

  Oh, Merry, thought James, his stomach churning. What have you done?

  The countess peered at James, concern creasing her beautiful face.

  ‘You look ill, kinsman!’

  James improvised. ‘It’s my head. When I was attacked I fell and hit it.’

  ‘You are concussed!’ declared the countess, alarmed. ‘What year is it?’

  ‘Er.’ James tugged at his eyebrow. ‘Oh God, I don’t know.’

  ‘You are indeed concussed,’ pronounced the countess. ‘The year is 1537.’

  Ah, thought James, summoning up his history.

  ‘It’s coming back,’ he said. ‘His Majesty dissolved the monasteries last year, didn’t he?’

  The countess nodded, looked wary but pleased. ‘The Suppression Act, it is called.’

  James gave a wry smile. He’d bet that the de Courcys had benefitted from that as King Henry shared a little of his priceless plunder.

  ‘He had a busy year,’ continued James, trying to keep his voice neutral. ‘His Majesty also beheaded his wife, Anne Boleyn, last year, if I remember rightly.’

  The countess pursed her lips. ‘We don’t speak of that.’

  ‘And more happily,’ James continued quickly, ‘His Majesty recently married Jane Seymour.’

  He could have added that Jane Seymour, the new queen, would go on to die in childbirth in October of this year, but then he’d be hanged and eviscerated as a traitor for voicing terrible thoughts.

  ‘Your memory is good now, I
see. And you are well informed,’ noted the countess, with just the slightest tone of wariness.

  Best to appear friendly and very slightly stupid, the hapless victim of too much aristocratic interbreeding, thought James.

  ‘Oh, you can thank my mother for that,’ he declared, waving his hand. ‘She likes to keep up on all the gossip.’ That much was true. The delivery of her weekly copy of Hello! was a treasured moment.

  ‘Gossip can be dangerous,’ cautioned the countess, eyes hardening with a sharp intelligence.

  Enemy, James reminded himself.

  ‘Now,’ said the countess, breaking into a broad smile in a dizzying change of mood, ‘tell me about your home. I’ve never been to France, though I’d love to.’

  Was she testing him, wondered James, or just curious?

  ‘Well, it has a moat like this, with carp,’ he began with forced enthusiasm, ‘though my mother would never eat them, and it has twelve turrets,’ he continued confidently. The previous year he and his family had gone to a chateau in Normandy. His father had said that it had once belonged to the French branch of the de Courcys.

  ‘It is built of …’

  James spent ten minutes describing Chateau de Clermont in great detail before being interrupted by the sound of a horn: far off but insistent.

  ‘His Majesty!’ yelled the countess, springing to her feet. ‘I must ensure that all is ready.’

  James stood too. A wave of adrenalin rushed through him. The king would arrive. Declare the tournament. And Merry would come. The one-eyed witch, the horse thief, would be walking right into a trap.

  James followed the countess into the Great Hall. Men-at-arms, rapiers bouncing at their thighs, materialized out of doorways. Maids poured out of the servants’ areas, scurrying through the Great Hall with panicked gestures. The great tide bore James out of the castle, into the courtyard where maids and grooms and courtiers and countess were forming up, ready to greet their king.

  Trumpets sounded. Drums beat. Hooves stamped as a cavalcade of horsemen came clattering over the drawbridge.

  Finely dressed courtiers in scarlets and blues and greens rode high-stepping destriers with extravagant manes and lavish trappers. Servants in dull-coloured clothes were being dragged along by wolfhounds on heavy chains. Huge gold-and-red pennants bearing images of unicorns, leopards and falcons fluttered in the breeze.