‘No!’ cried mother. ‘No, husband…’ Gathering her skirts, Jocosa ran from the room, following her husband, to cry, plead or threaten.
For a long moment, Rhian found herself unable to move, and when she did, it was as if her body had undertaken the decision of its own accord. She walked down the cold, stone hall, past the stairs and into her own chamber. There, Aeldra stood among so many familiar things; her spindles and threads, her sewing and embroidery, her paints, the small inlaid table that held her jewellery box, the carved bed she had slept in since she was a child. It all seemed hollow, drained of substance, as her life had suddenly become.
‘Mistress?’ said Aeldra, tentatively. ‘Are you well? Shall I fetch you wine? Or a cloth for your head?’
‘No,’ Rhian managed to say. ‘I want nothing.’
‘At least sit then.’ She felt Aeldra tugging at her arm and permitted herself to be guided to a chair and made to sit.
Her mind was too full to perform these simple actions without assistance. The same thoughts rang over and over, like church bells on the Sabbath. She was promised, to a sorcerer, who had asked for her before she had even been born, and her father, her father whom she had loved and trusted all her life, even when she did not understand him, had given her over, and had done it for love.
She tried to understand a love that would make such a bargain, that would demand so much. It was passion such as the bards sang of. It knew no limits. It would sacrifice all for the beloved.
And in the ballads, it sounded very fine and noble, but what of the one who must be the sacrifice? What of the child she had been and the maiden she was now? Was it her duty to go meekly with this stranger who had demanded so evil a price from a desperate man and a dying woman?
That thought broke the paralysis that held her.
‘No,’ she said, looking up at Aeldra. ‘It is wrong and it is wicked.’
‘What do you mean, my lady?’ asked Aeldra, confused.
Rhian’s mind felt as clear as it had been cloudy before. She would not be handed over like a bribe to a corrupt seneschal. She would not stay and watch her father do this, nor would she watch her mother break her heart over what her husband had done.
‘Aeldra.’ Rhian gripped her maid’s hand. ‘Aeldra, are you my friend?’
Aeldra stiffened, shocked at such a question. As she looked into Rhian’s eyes, however, a measure of understanding came to her. ‘I hope my lady knows how well I regard her.’
‘Then as a friend, much more than as my maid, I am asking for your help. You must bring old Whitcomb here to my room. Neither of you must be seen, by anyone, but most of all not by my father, do you understand?’
She did not. The expression on her lean face said that plainly enough. She folded her hands primly before her. ‘I am sure my lady knows what is best…’
‘No, she doesn’t.’ Rhian shook her head. ‘Your lady is terrified, for her life and her soul, and she is trying to save both. Will you help her?’
Again Aeldra searched Rhian’s eyes, looking deeply. ‘Very good, my lady.’ She curtsied. ‘I’ll see to the matter.’
Aeldra shut the door behind her. In the silence left in her wake, Rhian fancied she could hear her own heart beating like the hooves of a galloping horse, spurred on by the temerity of what she meant to do.
Whitcomb was her dearest friend among her father’s servitors. Where her father would not, or could not, love her, Whitcomb had. He was the one who had taught her to shoot and to ride. He had helped her train her hounds and taught her to hunt. He told her all manner of stories he’d learned from the freemen and serfs, most of which Rhian was quite certain her mother would have been appalled that she knew. But despite years of such daring secrets, Whitcomb was always the first to insist she learn to be a proper, God-fearing lady and be a source of pride to her parents.
But at the same time he was staunchly loyal to his lord. Rhian bit her lip. There lay the danger, but she needed him. He could go without question where she could not, no matter how dark the night or how thoroughly she disguised herself.
Rather than simply pace about, Rhian sought action. She pulled a square of fine linen out of her sewing basket. She had meant to broider it into a veil. Now she upended her jewellery box into it. She did not have much, but she had some gold, a string of amber beads, a brooch of pearl and rubies, and several rings, one set with a square emerald the size of her thumbnail her mother said had come all the way from Rome. The whole of her wealth. She tied the cloth tightly and stowed it in the leather satchel she took with her when she went out shooting.
She’d have to leave her hounds behind. Rhian’s heart twinged at the thought. Odd – it was a small thing compared to leaving her parents. She rubbed her forehead. She must not distract herself with such thoughts. She must keep her wits about her, or she was lost.
A soft knock sounded on the door.
‘Come,’ she called.
The door opened. In the threshold stood old Whitcomb. He had been her father’s right hand for longer than Rhian had been alive. His hair and long beard were iron grey turning to white, but he was still a bluff man with hard hands and eyes that could see a lazing stablehand through a stone fence.
Those eyes took in the bulging leather satchel as she beckoned him inside, and they surely saw how white her face had gone.
‘So,’ he said with a sigh as he closed the door. ‘It’s come home at last, has it?’
Rhian started. ‘What do you know of this?’
The lines on Whitcomb’s kind face deepened until he looked as old as Methuselah. ‘I was there, my lady. I heard your father speak his bargain with that black sorcerer. I knew one day there would be a reckoning.’ His gaze hardened. ‘I have searched the land whenever I had leave, hoping I might find him and put an end to this thing one way or another before…’ It seemed he could not make himself finish.
Rhian felt her hands begin to shake once more. ‘I thank you for all you have done for me, though I knew of none of it. Now I must ask for your help again.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I mean to leave tonight to seek sanctuary with the holy sisters at the monastery of St Anne. I will take holy orders if I must.’ She laid her satchel down beside the empty jewellery box. Surely there was enough inside to dower herself to Christ, if that was the only way the Mother Superior would shelter her. ‘I need you to go down and saddle a horse for me. Not Agamemnon,’ she said, with another pang of regret at leaving behind her favourite steed. ‘That would cause too many questions.’ Whitcomb could make a hundred excuses to ride out at any hour. She could not. It would be hard enough for her to sneak out into the yard without being seen. To ready a horse in the stables with the hands sleeping in the loft, or playing bones in the stalls would be impossible.
If she was seen, she would be stopped, she was certain of that. Whitcomb was her one chance.
‘I will see to it, my lady,’ said Whitcomb gravely.
‘Thank you.’ She grasped both his hands and kissed him swiftly on his rough cheek. ‘I will be behind the brewing shed as soon as I may after the household goes to sleep.’
‘I will not fail,’ he said, squeezing her hands.
With that, he turned and opened the door. He looked sharply left, then right before he stepped into the corridor, leaving Rhian alone once more.
Rhian swallowed. All her limbs felt suddenly heavy as lead. Are these my choices? To be taken away by a black sorcerer to live or die at his whim, and who knows which would be worse? Or to live in silence behind stone walls swaddled in black and grey and to know only work and prayer?
She squeezed her eyes shut, to stop the tears that threatened to flow freely. Mother Mary, there must be another way. I beg you, send me a sign,