The Lady of the Cliffs, page 14
Ffion took my sack, set it on the floor, and handed me a piece of hard bread. I dipped it in the pottage. While I waited for it to soften, my stomach began to churn and growl. Forgetting all about Amice’s tunic, I ate until I burped and then looked at the kettle to see if there was more.
“Megge.” Martyn reached over, lifted my sleeve, and encircled my wrist with his thumb and forefinger. “Look at you. I hadn’t noticed until now.” He pushed my sleeve up to the elbow. “Why, you’re naught but bone.” He studied my face. “Even your face has gotten thin. Aren’t you eating?”
“Your hand’s gotten bigger, is all.” I pulled mine away.
Ffion poured ale into a cup and handed it to me.
“Brighida and I feed ourselves,” I said as I drank the ale and set down the empty cup. “And your mother comes with bread and ale. We’re not helpless, you know. I just haven’t eaten since early this morning.”
Kaatje tilted her head. “What brought you to the village today?”
I leaned over and took the tunic out of my bag. When I held it up, Ffion gasped. “You found her!”
“You know the girl who wore this tunic?”
“Nay, I don’t know her, but I’ve seen her. A little girl. The dress was far too big for her.” She thumbed the neckline. “And unfinished.”
“I found her in Bury Down grove days ago,” I said. “Alone. Barefoot. No cloak.”
“I caught sight of her some time ago, dressed just that way,” Ffion said. “She was walking the cliff road alone. I called out, but she fled. Like a rabbit she ran, like something hunted. And she was gone.”
“May I see that dress?” Kaatje asked and nodded her thanks to Ffion when she handed it to her. She inspected it much as Gus Tucker had done. “This is our fabric,” she concluded. She lowered it and looked at me. “All the women weave nettle cloth where we come from. I brought some with us to barter. But I didn’t see the child wearing this tunic.” She looked at her daughter. “Nor, of course, did Britlen.”
“Kaatje,” I said, keeping my voice soft and tilting my head toward Britlen. “May I ask what happened?”
“She saw something,” Kaatje said, having understood my unspoken question. “Something Tinker was doing. She’s never told me what he was doing. Only that when he saw her and realized that she had seen him, he threw her to the ground, prised open each eye, and touched a hot poker to it. He warned her that if she ever told me what she had seen, he would come for me. Then he fled, leaving her in a sea cave to drown when the tide came in.”
I touched Britlen’s arm. “Tinker Penneck blinded you?”
She nodded.
Incredulous, I looked to Kaatje.
“It was a miracle I heard her screams and found her. Ffion saved her. For weeks, those poultices, those salves.”
“Ffion, you are a healer?”
“Nay, lady,” Ffion said. “We’ve none in our settlement, nor anywhere near. We do what we can.”
Kaatje laid her hand on Britlen’s. “Hugh came to our settlement two summers ago, just after Britlen was hurt. When he told us that Tinker Penneck and Michael Gough had burned your mother alive and nearly killed young Brighida, and that he was going to find and arrest him, Britlen finally told me that it was Tinker who had hurt her.” Kaatje got up and went to the hearth, picked up the poker, and absently stirred the embers. “That very day, I left Britlen in Ffion’s care and joined Hugh in his search along the coastline. I’ve been helping him ever since.”
I looked upon her now as something more than a beauty. Though she had known what kind of man Tinker was and what he might do to her, Kaatje had persevered in a long, dangerous search and had traveled all the way to our village to bring him to justice.
I recalled the hatred on Tinker’s face as he had pounded on the cottage door. And his rage at seeing Hugh put his arm around Kaatje and call her his wife, and asked again, “Kaatje, why was Tinker looking for you?”
She looked at Martyn. He nodded.
“He’s my husband.”
“Your husband?” I leaned forward. “You are married to Tinker Penneck?”
Kaatje nodded. “We were young. I hardly knew him. We weren’t but sixteen when we wed, and we never shared a hearth. He preferred the company of Michael Gough. But I bore his child. And you’ve seen for yourself he still believes us wed.”
I tried to imagine this regal woman with Tinker Penneck. But, as she had said, they had been young. Clearly, she had grown into a woman while he had remained a pretty-faced boy.
“But you said Tinker blinded Britlen.” I looked from Kaatje to Martyn, and then back to Kaatje. “He blinded his own daughter?”
“Yes.” Britlen answered, turning her face toward me. “When I was eight.”
“Tinker had gone—mad.” Kaatje lifted her hands. “That’s all I can say. He went mad. He had deserted us long before that to be with Michael Gough. A detestable man. And Tinker too became detestable.”
“Tinker was detestable long before that,” I said. “My aunt Claris told us that when he was a boy, he would burn and drown animals for pleasure.”
But that face, I mused, recalling it clearly. Nearly as fine and pretty as Brighida’s or Britlen’s. What must he have looked like as a boy? An angel, I thought. And as a girl, Kaatje likely believed him one. But now, though a man, he was still behaving like a spoiled child, not wanting Kaatje but not allowing another man to wed her.
I recalled how Tinker had spat the word cuckold when accusing Claris and his stepmother, Jenifer Penneck, of making a cuckold of his father, and I understood why Kaatje and Hugh had chosen this ruse to draw him out of hiding. How well it had worked! But at such risk.
“You were willing to serve as bait to lure Tinker.”
“For blinding my daughter and murdering your mother? For so dreadfully injuring your cousin? Oh, yes,” she said, nodding. “I wanted to kill him myself. I only wish Michael had been with him today. They both belong in the gaol.” Her expression turned from anger to disdain. “But Tinker’s a coward. When they threaten him with the gallows, he’ll tell them where they can find Michael. And they’ll both pay.”
“You’re so courageous, Kaatje,” I said. “Coming here and facing Tinker, knowing what he might do.”
“Nonsense. I was never in a moment’s danger standing at Hugh’s side.” A softer expression crossed her face followed by one of resolve.
Martyn looked out the door. “My father’s finished his work and is waiting for us out on the cart.” He turned to Ffion and smiled. “Are you ready?”
“Oh, aye. Let me just take care of these.” She picked up the bowls. I picked up the cups and went outside with her. We rinsed the dishes at the well behind the row of huts, then went back inside and put them away while Kaatje unwrapped three bowls she must have just purchased from Nellie and set them on the table as a gift for the Chandlers.
Ffion took down an old brown cloak from the peg next to the door and wrapped it around herself, then picked up a basket covered with a clean cloth and opened the door. “I want to see that bairn while we are here, lady. I have to learn how she found her way to you.”
“She won’t be able to tell you, for she doesn’t speak,” I said, and heard Britlen suck in her breath.
“Doesn’t speak?” Narrowing her eyes, Ffion cocked her head.
“Is it because she’s frightened?” Kaatje asked.
“Perhaps, though even when she seems happy, she remains silent.”
Kaatje and Ffion exchanged a glance as Martyn took my elbow to lead me outside. As Kaatje came out, Martyn’s father stepped down from the driver’s seat.
“Father,” Martyn said, releasing my arm and taking Kaatje’s. “Meet Kaatje.”
“Mister Caerlin.” Kaatje dropped into a curtsy.
“Haven’t I been hearing your name from Hugh for a good long time now!” He smiled at her. “Let’s get you home. Lowenna’s prepared us a bit of supper.”
It was nearly dark. “Mister Caerlin, can I ask you to take me home instead? Brighida will be worried.”
He took my arm and helped me into the cart. “I spoke with Gynneys before I set out. He’s with your sheep, and Alf’s bringing Brighida and the girl. So I’ll not hear a word about taking you home.” He squeezed my arm. “You could use a good meal.”
The “bit of supper” Lowenna had prepared was, in truth, a feast. Stew, bread, cheese, ale, wine, and something I had never before seen—golden colored balls of what looked like glistening bread.
“Sweets, Megge.” Lowenna picked one up and held it out to me. “Taste it.”
The outside was sticky with honey, but inside was something hard. I bit down.
“A nut!” I chewed it. “Sweet.” I looked at Lowenna. “What kind of nut is this?”
“Hazel.” She smiled. “Hazelnuts steeped in mead. Hugh brought them to me last month when he returned to report to the earl.” She looked fondly at Kaatje. “A gift from Kaatje.”
It seemed she could not tear her eyes from her visitor. Nor could she do enough for her. “Have another cup of ale, Kaatje. You look peaked, child. That long journey. Here’s a damp cloth to wipe your face.”
She hopes Hugh will marry Kaatje, I thought with deep fondness for this woman who had cared so tenderly for Brighida and me.
The door opened, and Brighida came in with Alf and Amice. The child’s hair, washed and plaited, was crowned by a wreath of aster loosely woven with hawkbit so the purple and yellow flowers mingled. Her gaze roved over Kaatje’s face, but when she noticed Britlen, she backed away and hid herself in the folds of Brighida’s skirt. I went to her took her hand.
Ffion appeared at my side with two cups of ale.
“Ffion, this is Amice.”
She gave one of the cups to me, and before I could say another word, squinted at Amice’s face, then reached down to as if touch the girl’s left cheek. Amice drew back, and Ffion lowered her hand and knelt beside her.
“Amice.” Ffion’s voice was tender. “Do you remember me? I saw you some time ago on the road near my cottage. You were all alone. You heard me call out, but you ran away.”
Amice fixed wide eyes on Ffion but leaned into me.
“Have you no kin, child?” Ffion’s kindly voice pressed. “No mother?”
Amice’s countenance remained serious as she shook her head.
“No home?”
Amice shook her head.
I looked afresh at this little waif.
Ffion whispered over Amice’s head, “It seems this motherless child was meant to find you.”
Martyn and his father stood by the doorway smiling as they looked from Kaatje to Brighida. The women’s laughter had filled the cottage until finally they had sat, still laughing and staring at each other, and began to speak in low tones.
Martyn and Alf remained in the cookroom eating the hazelnut sweets and watching the women, seeming to take pleasure in their talk of new homes, long journeys, and long-forgotten kin.
Small and round, with hair far too black for a woman with such wrinkled skin, Ffion too looked upon them, but with the tenderness of a mother or an elderly aunt. Tears pricked as I recalled Morwen’s gaze, so like Ffion’s, as her dimple gave away her delight when I had learned how to shear sheep “like a man” and recite the tales of my family “as well as any bard.”
Ffion turned and looked around—searching, I suspected, for a latrine—so I touched her elbow and led her outside. I pointed to the privy Martyn had built the previous summer, a tall wooden box sitting atop a deep pit, with holes shaped like leaves cut into its sides and door.
“Thank you, lady.”
“Please, Ffion, call me Megge.”
Her glance, a quick one that met my gaze and then pulled away, made me flush as I recalled the way I had first looked at Lady Margaret, hardly daring to meet her eyes.
I was waiting by the cart when she returned.
“It seems Kaatje and your Brighida have a great deal to talk about,” she said with a laugh. “And don’t they look nearly like kin!”
“Are you Kaatje’s kin, Ffion?”
She shook her head. “I was Kaatje’s nursemaid. Of a sort. Her mother was seldom about when Kaatje was a bairn. Oh, and wasn’t she a darling thing, a sweet child. But that mother of hers. She hadn’t wanted another child so late in life, especially another daughter, so she left Kaatje to herself. Taught her naught. Gave her naught.”
“And so you did.”
“Aye, I cared for the bairn.” Ffion shrugged. “My good man and I had no children of our own. I was barren, you see, and he died young. Little Kaatje was born in the hut next to mine. Her mother, a cold, hard woman, left her so much on her own, I began to see to her, and she became like my own daughter. When she was a girl, we worked the nettle in the summer and the spinning wheel and loom in the winter. Such a good helper she became.” Ffion let her voice go low and her eyes wide. “But I lied to her, you see. I always told her that her mother had asked me to see to her care, and I always called myself her nursemaid. She’s grown now. A woman. And she came to me when she needed help raising her own little girl.
“Oh, she’s come to know the truth about her mother, of course, but not from my lips. And she’s never admitted that her mother didn’t love her.”
A dagger pierced my heart as I recalled my own unloving mother, and I felt I would weep. I covered my face and tried to fight off the sadness that rose within me as I saw Mother’s downturned mouth and heard her call out to the winds, If only I had an apprentice.
“Lady!” Ffion bent down and touched my shoulder, tried to look at my face.
I shook my head and waved her away, but she wrapped her arms around me and held me.
In her comforting embrace, I could almost feel the nearness of Morwen, her little hands tucking me in at night when Mother had gone to Bury Down grove and left me behind.
“Don’t cry for Kaatje, lady. She’s grown now, and happy. And Tinker’s been seen to. She and Britlen are safe. I feel sure they’ve found a home here with Hugh.” She seemed to be thinking aloud now. “Soon they’ll have no need for me.”
Amice wandered outside and, noticing us, came to stand beside me, her expression serious as she looked at my face.
Another motherless child.
And it seemed she was now ours. I turned to Ffion. “Have you room in your heart for another bairn?”
Ffion was still waving goodbye to Kaatje and Britlen when Martyn urged the horse up the steep hill toward our cottage. Alf and Brighida sat opposite Ffion and me in the back of the cart while Amice sat on the driver’s bench next to Martyn. She stared at him until he must have felt her gaze, for he turned his head slowly and looked down at her. She studied his face until he smiled, nearly laughed. Tears welled in her eyes, but before she could cry, Martyn held out one of the reins. “Would you help me drive this cart, Amice?”
She opened her mouth as if to speak, but quickly closed it and only looked at him.
When he smiled and tipped his head toward the rein, she reached out a finger and touched it. He laid the rein in her hand and closed her fingers over it. Letting go, he looked away from her as if studying the road ahead and then asked, as if he were speaking to me or to his brother or father, “Do you think we’ll reach the cottage by morning?” He absently shook the rein he held in his left hand.
Amice looked straight ahead and, like Martyn, shook her rein. Though I saw only the side of his face, I caught the smile that touched his lips and the slight shake of his head and thought, And now, she’s won all our hearts.
The cart hit a deep rut, jostling me against Ffion. I quickly righted myself and helped her sit up. Only then did I realize what I had done that night. Without thinking, without consulting Brighida, Martyn, or Alf, I had invited this stranger to live with us and care for Amice. It had felt so natural, I hadn’t realized until that moment that I had assumed Amice would be living with us and that we would need help raising her.
I studied the back of Amice’s wreathed head and watched her nod as Martyn spoke and look where he pointed, and knew my impulse had been right. Neither Brighida nor I knew anything about rearing a child. And it was clear to me that Amice was now ours to raise.
When we arrived at the cottage, Martyn took the reins from Amice, who was swaying now, likely half asleep, and brought the cart to a halt. He lifted Amice into his arms so her head rested on his shoulder as he descended from the high bench. Safe in those muscular arms, lying against that sturdy chest, she had allowed herself to surrender to sleep.
Martyn looked at me and gestured, one palm up, Where shall I take her?
“There’s a pallet in the workroom. And blankets.”
Alf ran ahead of him and opened the door. He smiled as Martyn passed him carrying the sleeping child. Brighida shouldered past Alf and knelt by the pallet to pull the blanket aside. Martyn laid Amice gently on the fleece-filled pallet, then took the blanket from Brighida and covered her. He pulled the edge of the blanket under her chin, then sat back on his heels and watched her for a moment before getting to his feet and going to his loom. His fingers played over the smooth wood, the taut weft yarns, the harnesses, all the parts he himself had built for the loom he warmly referred to as the old monster.
“I’ve missed this thing.” His eye lingered on it, then he shrugged. “But no matter. I’ll be back at it before long.”
He’s coming back! I stifled a laugh of happiness and relief.
“Now that Tinker’s headed for gaol,” Martyn said, “we’ll soon have Gough. He’s bound to be nearby. If Tinker was here, it’s because they had something in mind. And before Neville’s through with him, Tinker’ll talk. The Tinker Penneck I know won’t sacrifice himself—not even for Gough.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Ffion said quietly.
What do you mean, Ffion?” Brighida asked, still full of good cheer from the pleasant evening. She filled cups with ale, then pulled out a chair for Ffion, took a long drink of her own ale, and sat at the table next to her. “Do you know about these two?”
