The Wretched of Muirwood (3 page)

- Cuthbert Renowden of Billerbeck Abbey

* * *

Sowe could sleep through thunder, snoring, bumping, shaking, rattling pans, and on occasion, screaming. Even worse, she fell asleep moments after lying down. This made her a horrible companion, especially if Lia had something important to tell her, like the time that Getmin had shoved Lia’s pitcher into the well because it was in his way and how she had managed to dye a noticeable swath of his hair and cheek blue in revenge. Woad was a useful plant, after all, and not just for curing wounds.

“Sowe, wake up! Wake up!” Lia shook her – hard.

Sowe moaned, mumbled something that sounded like
alderwort
, and rolled over.

“Sowe! Wake up. Wake up. I need your help.” This was accompanied with a lot more shaking. Harder shaking. Then a pinch.

“Lia – I hate you.”

Even though the words hurt Lia’s feelings, it sounded more like she was saying, “
I was having a very good dream and you just woke me up from it.”
She forgave her instantly.

“Someone is hurt and we must hide him. Sowe – look. There is a knight on the floor. Well, not exactly a knight, but the other one was a knight-maston. He is hurt. Look.”

“I am so tired, Lia. Just tell me in the morning.”

“No! There is no waiting for the morning. We must hide him. The sheriff of Mendenhall is looking for him. The rain is mad right now, so there is no place outside to hide him. Help me lift him up here. Pasqua cannot make it up the ladder, so it would be perfect hiding him up here.”

Sowe strained her neck a little, shifting her dark hair. Sowe’s hair was straight and dark while Lia’s was curly and gold. They were opposites in many other ways as well. Her eyes were still closed and her expression was pouty. “There is not a knight sleeping on the floor.”

“There is. Look if you do not believe me.”

“This is just another one of your silly games. Lia – I am so tired. Why do you have to do this? Tomorrow is going to be awful enough already. There is so much work.”

“You do not believe me. Look, Sowe. Just look.”

Sowe sighed and shunted her way to the ladder edge on her elbows. “I like you sleeping on the floor these last few nights. Even though it is colder without…you…oh my goodness! Who is that?”

“I already told you. Help me get him up the ladder.”

“Up the ladder? Him? Up in the loft with us? No, I do not think that is a good idea at all. Where did he come from? Who is he?” Her eyes were wide open now.

“I do not think I even know. But he is a squire. The knight-maston that brought him here said he struck his head against a tree branch. He had a cut in his eyebrow, but I closed it up with some woad. See? My fingers are blue. I tried lifting him, but I cannot bear his weight alone.”

“Then we should tell Pasqua.”

Lia shook her head no. “She will only summon the Aldermaston straightaway. The knight said his life was in danger if he was caught. He promised to return for him in three days with a reward. By morning, he will probably waken. We can learn more of him then. Do you want his life on your conscience?” She was more worried about losing a possible reward than she was about the squire’s danger.

Sowe wrung her hands, looking down at the body and then at Lia. “But we sleep up here, Lia. We cannot…you know…we cannot let him
sleep
up here too.”

There was stirring below and a cough.

“He is awake!” Sowe said with a squeak.

Lia rushed to the ladder and hurried down as the squire struggled to his feet. He swayed, back-stepped, and collided with a trestle table. Gingerly, he touched his wound and the bandage covering it.

“You have been hurt,” Lia said, coming into the lamplight. “By a tree branch.”

His reaction to her voice made her stop. He stiffened with panic, then glared at her with undisguised loathing as if he could not believe his misfortune. He slammed his hand on the table to steady himself.

Lia bit her lip. “You are safe, sir.”

The squire trembled as if his knees would fail him. As he surveyed the kitchen, the lamplight played over the grooves and angle of his face. The dried blood had been bathed away, but his hair was matted and unkempt.

“Where am I? Is this the abbey?”

“Muirwood, sir.”

The squire nodded, then another look clouded his face, and he doubled over fiercely. Lia went to help him, but he was merely being sick. All over himself and all over her. His knees did collapse then and he fell to the floor, vomiting violently again. It was a noisy affair and the smell of it made Lia turn her face away, nearly gagging herself.

Sowe descended the ladder, her expression a mixture of fear and wincing.

“Get him something to drink,” Lia said, crouching down next to him. Sweat ran down his face and his body convulsed and trembled. She dabbed some spittle and flecks from his chin with a rag. “You have chills.”

“Muirwood,” he whispered, clenching his eyes shut and rocking back and forth. His face was white. He wiped his mouth on his arm sleeve and glared at her for the second time, a look that seared with distrust. “Who have you told?”

“What?”

“Who have you told I am here? You both are wretcheds, are you not? Who have you told?”

Lia felt a flush of anger rise to her cheeks.
Your friend was warmer,
she thought. “I am a wretched. It is not as if I can help that. I saved your life tonight, sir. Why would I risk it again by telling the Aldermaston you are here? Your friend said he would come for you in three days. So we will hide you until then.”

“What friend?”

“The man who brought you here. The knight-maston.”

The young squire blinked, regarding her coolly. “What was his name?”

“He did not give me one.”

“Of course,” he said. “And neither shall I. You may have surmised – guessed – but if not, let me tell you that I am a man of no small wealth. My presence at Muirwood…it must not be noticed. Can you…can you hide me then? Even from the Aldermaston? If I evade capture, I will amply reward you.”

Sowe approached, quavering and trembling, with a flagon. She handed it to him tentatively and he took it from her hand, gulping fast and hard. His breath was horrible.

After finishing the drink, he wiped his mouth, still bent double. His body shook with spasms of pain or cold. “I will say it again,” he whispered. “No one can know I am here.”

“It will be difficult keeping this secret,” Lia said, looking into his eyes. “Pasqua notices everything. So do the other helpers. If you want me to…”

“I understand your meaning perfectly,” he said, his mouth twisting with a cruel look. “And I promise you, again, that your reward will be sufficiently bold.”

“You misunderstood me, sir…I…”

“I understand you very well. You are a wretched and risk a good deal sheltering me. Eviction from the abbey, from your trade, from those who have raised you…despite how they have pitied you. You desire more than what you have been born to, and you can only get it with sufficient coin. I can appreciate that, and my promise is not hollow. You help me to seek a reward. I will gladly pay it. Do we understand one another? Do not pretend compassion for me. Do not claim you are doing this for anything other than very selfish reasons. As I said, I can understand that. Let us be honest in this at least.”

The look he gave her challenged her to defy his conclusion. But he was right. She did want – no, she
expected
a reward. They both knew it.

“We do, sir.” She rose and reached for his elbow to help him rise as well.

“Do not touch me,” he said, grunting, and stood by his own power. He trembled like a newborn colt and wiped his mouth again. “Where…where can I hide?” He looked around the kitchen.

“Can you climb to the loft on your own?” Lia asked, cocking her head, feeling a bit impertinent. “Or would you rather retch on me again?”

The abbey kitchen was near the manor house where the Aldermaston slept. Like all of the buildings on the grounds, it was worked of large blocks of heavy, sculpted stone. It was a spacious square building dimpled with half-columns protruding from the walls and a steepled roof. The interior was not square because of four ovens, one in each corner and the flues inset into the stone so the smoke could escape. Two of the ovens were tall enough that Lia or Sowe could stand within and sweep away the ashes. The other two were smaller for baking.

Two sets of wide double-doors serviced the kitchen, one set facing the abbey itself, the other directly opposite in the rear, but it was seldom used. The wood and iron doors had windows in their upper portions, but only someone very tall like the Aldermaston would have been able to look in, not someone short like Pasqua or many of the learners. Enormous windows were also inset high into the stone walls to allow sunlight to brighten the space. The roof was held up by eight giant stays that rose high above the loft, and sloped steeply to the cupola. There was no way down from that point except a direct drop to the stone-paved kitchen floor below.

The shape of the kitchen made it possible for the ovens to heat the room, which made it a comfortable place for the two girls to live. Lia and Sowe slept in a loft constructed of wooden beams and rails, a sturdy floor, and a ladder connected it to the ground below. Stores of spices – nutmeg, cinnamon, mullyt, cardamom – along with sacks of milled grain, sheaves of oats, pumpkins, and small vats of treacle crowded most of the space. The heavier barrels and sacks were stored beneath them on the floor.

The beautiful abbey rose up beyond the Aldermaston’s residence and could be seen from the upper windows if Lia was sitting in the loft. The abbey was enormous. To the east of the kitchen, past a row of scraggy oak trees, was the famous Cider Orchard where the apples came from that were renowned for making a favorite drink in the kingdom. Past the orchard, the fish pond. Directly to the north of the abbey kitchen, across a small park, lay the learner kitchen and those who cooked and provided for the learners and the rest of the abbey help, but not for the Aldermaston and his guests.

Pasqua slept on a bed – a luxury – in a small room in the rear of the Aldermaston’s manor house, but it was scarcely two dozen steps away from the kitchen where she arrived, before dawn, ready to stoke the small fires, punch the dough, and proceed to command the girls around for the rest of the day until weak embers were all that was left in the eyes of the grand ovens.

As Pasqua butted the kitchen door open, gray hair-ends dripping from the rain, she scowled when she found Lia working alone at a grain mill, looking very sleepy.

“Sowe! Get down here, lazy child. There is work to be done and I don’t fancy having to…” She stopped, for she noticed at once that things were wrong. Lia could see the perplexed look on her face as she tried to interpret the changes as Jon Hunter would a new set of animal tracks in the woods.

The rush-matting on the floor by the door was fresh, not stamped and askew. She tapped the rushes with her shoe. A sour smell clung to the air – a smell of sickness. She smelled the air, used to its normal scents. Something in the air felt…wrong. Pasqua looked around quickly, gazing from the cauldrons, to the spitted meat, to Lia.

“Sowe is ill,” Lia said and then yawned. She turned back to the grain mill, filling her apron with seeds. “She climbed down last night to tell me her stomach was ailing, only she retched over us both. I changed the rushes already.”

“Has she a fever?”

“No,” Lia said, carrying the seeds to a small pot of boiling water and emptying them in, then brushing her hands. She pinched some salt and added it. “Can we get help today from the other kitchen? I did not sleep well. My dress smells terrible and I should like to clean it so it can dry today.”

Lia observed her discreetly. Pasqua still felt something lingering in the air. It was obvious in her confused stance, her wary attitude. She shut the kitchen door, listening to the sounds Lia made as she worked. The only light came from the fires, hissing and spitting across the small logs, and from the lamp next to Lia. Shadows wreathed the loft where Sowe slept.

Then she noticed the table. Lia knew that she would sooner or later.

“Did she eat the cherry tarts, is that why she is ill?” Anger boomed and shook through her voice. “Sick are we now, Sowe? So sick we cannot help with our chores? A tempting feast was laid before your eyes. And you thought yourself worthy to eat the Aldermaston’s food?”

Lia turned around, her eyes crinkling with worry. “I did not see her eat them,” she whispered.

“I have half a mind to take a switch to you both,” Pasqua said, hiking up her meaty sleeves. She grumbled to herself, although in reality she was complaining loudly. “Ungrateful wretcheds, both of you. As if you do not eat well enough. Pasqua sees the snitches. Pasqua sees the pinches of dough. Ought to pinch your skinny bottoms, I ought to.”

Lia tried to interrupt her tirade. “Ailsa Cook came begging for a shank off the hog to season a soup for the learners’ second meal.”