The dawn crept up behind the battlements of the western wing, and Avice shouted, “Maman, are you there? Emma has gone. She was here when I went to sleep, but she’s disappeared. Have you sent her back to her horrid husband already?”
The baroness was already awake in the adjacent chamber and sitting patiently while her dresser unpinned her headdress, rearranged her careful curls, and covered them anew with a bright starched net. Now she stood in a hurry and pins scattered. She marched next door and stood looking down at her youngest daughter. “Avice, make sense for once in your life. When did she leave?”
“If I knew that,” Avice pointed out, “I wouldn’t have called you. I’d be keeping quiet to hide whatever she’s secretly up to.”
Her mother sighed. “If you ever grow up to become as difficult as your sister, Avice, I shall give up entirely and join a nunnery. If Emma had the slightest feeling of filial respect and social propriety, she would be thrilled with the marriage we’ve arranged for her. The girl is quite unnatural. When your turn comes, Avice –”
“I shall be only too delighted to get a rich husband,” Avice insisted. “And I don’t really see anything wrong with Nicholas. He might be nice enough once you get accustomed to him. He’d even be quite pretty if he didn’t have that mark on his face. But Emma wanted Peter. And Peter wasn’t very polite about his brother, you know. It was Papa’s fault for arranging that marriage first. And how did Nicholas get like that anyway? Is it a battle scar?”
The baroness sat. “I have no idea how Nicholas was wounded, since the family will not speak of it. But he’s far too young to have been at Tewkesbury or Barnet, and I believe he never joined the Scottish skirmishes. Now, it is Emma I’m more interested in. Has she gone to Nicholas, do you think?”
“In the middle of the night?” Avice shrugged. “I doubt it, though she said he kissed her before the fire. But she hates him and I don’t think a bit of kissing would make her change her mind.”
“Just kissing?” inquired her mother, raising a sceptical eyebrow.
“Kissing. Doing it,” said Avice, “and now I think she’s run away.”
“Oh dear.” The baroness went slightly pink and her shoulders slumped. “It is possible of course. Poor Emma. She was so upset at the thought of marrying Nicholas and then she was most put out yesterday when dear Papa ordered her to come back home with us. Though really, it is most contrary. If she doesn’t want the man, then she should be happy to stay with her own family.”
“Papa will be furious.”
“Stop smirking, Avice,” accused her mother. “I have absolutely no idea how I will tell him. He’s not had an easy time lately, what with all this winter travelling and your sister’s behaviour, and the earl’s stubborn demands over Emma’s dowry.” Her voice sank lower. “You know, my dear, his lordship the earl is not at all a man of high moral standards, and I believe he drinks heavily and is rarely sober. Your Papa despises him.”
“Perhaps the fat old pig fell on the candles and started the fire. Perhaps he’s debauched!”
“I have no idea, and you shouldn’t think such things.” The baroness stood, took a very deep breath, and prepared to leave. “You had better get up now, Avice, since goodness knows what will happen next. Your Papa will certainly want to question you. I do wish I could avoid telling him.”
“So you’re more frightened of telling Papa than you are about what could have happened to Emma,” noticed Avice. “But she might have jumped in the moat.”
“Highly unlikely. She would never be so obliging,” sniffed the baroness.
“Well, I hope not,” nodded Avice, “since she’s wearing my very best shift.”
The baroness quietly went to her husband’s bedchamber and admitted the truth. The baron, cold with anger, alerted the steward, who informed the earl, who told his son.
The day was rising in the cloud sullen sky, lighting the first reflected dazzle over the night’s snow cover. The earl hauled himself from his bed, thumped into his son’s sickroom and announced, “The chit’s run away from you, Nick m’boy. Disappeared in the small hours. Forfeited her dowry.”
Nicholas blinked one eye and smiled. “First good news I’ve had for some time,” he murmured. “Perhaps she’s hoping for an annulment. With luck she’s run off with that damned Leicester doctor who wants to starve me and suffocate me with lard.”
The west and east wings, being the only parts of the castle buildings unaffected by fire, were now overcrowded and offered little or no place to hide, but both were immediately searched from battlements to cellars and at considerable length. But there were no signs of unaccounted females in any place.
Orders were then issued to search the castle grounds from the guards’ entrance, the stables, the kitchen gardens and on through the outlying sheds rumbling with cattle and goats. The scullions were sent to tramp along the banks of the moat both within and without the great walls, and the dairy maids, laundry maids and brewsters were sent to check the far block of privies by the outer boundary. The steward questioned the night guard, who swore that no one had passed through the main gates since the previous afternoon, nor had a single soul crossed the drawbridge. Anyone wishing to leave the castle unseen would have had no choice but to swim the moat. The steward had turned quite white at this, and quickly returned to report to the earl. His lordship grunted and asked about footsteps in the snow, and the steward regretfully announced that since it had snowed heavily for some hours, all previous footsteps had been obliterated and buried, leaving nothing to show the passing of a young lady, and no other signs except the little black star prints marking morning’s first hungry ravens and the tiny paws of the castle’s population of busy mice. Now, of course, the snow was churned by the feet of every single Chatwyn servant, and no secrets remained in view.
Finally they went to the ruined Keep, which was the only place still unexamined, and they crept unwillingly through the blackened smoke filled chambers and the cold dark corridors, being the very last place they expected to find her.
Chapter Six
“Must care for you after all,” grumbled the earl. “The brainless wench slept the night in your old bed. Wrapped in dirt and ash when they found her, looking more like a spit boy who’d fallen in the grate. Liverich came to tell me – as if I’d be pleased to know.”
“You should be,” announced his son. “It’s surely preferable than discovering her corpse down the well. The water’s not particularly clean as it is. But it appears you’ve wed me to a madwoman, my lord.”
“Humph,” sniffed his lordship. “Peter liked her well enough.”
“That’s part of the trouble,” said Nicholas. “And precisely why I didn’t want her in the first place, as you damn well know. So if you’re thinking the girl crawled into my old bed for sentimental comfort or romantic memories, then you’re much mistaken.”
The earl shook his head and trundled over to the window seat. “You mentioned an annulment earlier. Don’t tell me you were too pissed that night?”
“I have no intention of telling you anything at all, sir,” his only remaining son informed him. “This is my business alone, and will remain so. And if the doctor permits it, I suppose I should now go and visit my errant but rediscovered wife.”
“Don’t recommend it, m’boy,” said the earl. “Probably has a damned parcel of weeping women with her, all praying and complaining no doubt. And you’ve no legs left worth speaking of. You’ll not be allowed out of bed for another month.”
Dragged from his pallet, the apothecary, aghast, quickly agreed. “My lord, I beg you, my lord, your life could still be in danger. It has been just over three days, and your health remains at risk. You should not leave your bed except for the commode, and even that as little as can be arranged. If you will allow, I shall call for another bowl of goose grease, and will attend to your wounds again shortly. In the meantime, good white bread has been soaking overnight in goat’s milk ready for the morning’s repast – and I believe small ale can be permitted a little later –”