Authors: Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Through the rocky foothills, then, Maggie and Colin and the tired old horse trudged, the road getting ever more steep and ever more winding as they traveled.
“I hope he doesn’t live in the middle of those mountains,” said Colin.
“The top of a hill, I think the people at the wedding mentioned.”
“Which one? We’ve topped several. The minstrel needed to wipe the sweat from his forehead to keep it from trickling into his eyes. He had already removed his vest and rolled up his shirtsleeves. His fair skin was burning a hot pink, in spite of the sun to which he’d already been exsposed. It had been several years since he’d worked in the fields of East Headpenney. He was no longer accustomed to hard work under a hot sun and was extremely uncomfortable, more so since he did not feel at liberty to give in and be miserable beside Maggie, who plodded along as steadily as the horse, her coarse wool clothing heavy but not confining, hair braided, kerchief tied around her forehead as a sweatband.
“We may as well stop here for rest and a drink,” she said finally, when the path began to widen, and trees grew along the steep cliffs going abruptly up on one side and abruptly down on the other.
They sat for several minutes catching their breath, drinking from their waterskins and refilling them at the little stream of water that cascaded down the side of the cliff that formed a wall on one side of the road. Ching returned from a trot around the next bend, his fur lightly ruffled and his tail switching.
“The castle is on the next hill over,” he told her. “But there are people on horses coming this way. A
lot
of people.”
Maggie passed the information on to Colin, who sighed gratefully at the first part, although he hardly saw, really, how he could brave another hill, even one more. He agreed with her about the second item that the best course would be to climb to the top of the hill and wait until the party passed them. “Who knows?” Colin remarked. “Maybe they’ll be going back right away and won’t mind giving us a lift.”
Maggie said nothing, but was clearly dubious.
Ching scampered ahead and back several times. At the next bend the path reached its zenith. The descent was not by means of a rocky path such as the one up which they had come. The path sloped gently down, dividing a broad field from a wood that covered the land as far as they could see, including the rounded dome rising from the floor of the valley beyond them. The wood only covered the dome to a certain point, however, for the rest was taken up in the structure of a castle, smallish as castles went, Colin thought, a circular wall enclosing a circular moat dug into the top of the mound. The circular moat surrounded a circular structure flanked by six semi-circular towers. That was it, a simple but effective, and incidentally rather beautiful, design.
“Achoo!” Maggie sneezed and scratched her nose, rubbed her eyes, then pointed. “Here comes that party Ching referred to. Best get over to the side.” It took them a few moments to convince the horse, by which time the procession was upon them.
Although Maggie’s actual rank as her father’s acknowledged heiress and acting steward was rather ambiguous, Colin’s presence and their by-now shabby mode of dress dictated that they follow the custom of standing as the obviously noble caravan paraded before them.
Accordingly, Colin took his cap in his hand and wore his best humble look as the first horse, which contained a man in a military uniform, passed.
Maggie sneezed again and watched the upcoming equestrians with bold and open curiosity. Colin’s elbow jabbed her ribs. “Come on, Maggie, you’ll get us whipped. Do TRY to look the modest maiden, won’t you?”
“Sorry,” she said, and trained her eyes on her great toe which was now protruding from her boot. Only occasionally did she sneak a peep at the procession. She could hardly help the sneezes, however, which occurred with increasing frequency.
“Imagine, receiving us with no chamber prepared, nor lamp lit, nor tea laid!” a well-fed figure who looked as though missing her tea would do her no harm at all complained to a thin and delicately handsome man. Both were well mounted and well dressed, the woman perspiring through the limp lace collar of her lavender brocade riding costume, which threatened to collapse at the seams at any moment, with the stress placed upon it by her numerous bulges and protuberances. She was red-faced, either with indignation or the effort of riding, it was difficult to tell which.
“I was talking with the serving maid…” the man began.
“You would talk to the serving maid,” snapped the lady.
“And she said that the lord had not informed the servants of our impending arrival, nor had he given orders of any sort regarding his household since he ordered his horse and rode off after Lady Rowan.”
The lady sniffed. “What would you expect of a northern woman but that? They’re all half-wild up there, so I understand.”
“Nevertheless, it’s a great pity. Poor wretch. I understand Lady Rowan is very beautiful.” Maggie sneezed again. “Bless you,” the man said absently, taking no note of the origin of the sneeze. The fat woman leaned across him from her saddle to glare at Maggie, who, fortunately, was too occupied readying herself for another sneeze to glare back.
“I don’t care what
she
says,” snipped a plain-faced girl three horses back from the apparently noble couple. She was addressing a somewhat prettier maid who rode beside her. Both were clothed too grandly for the road, in silks and satins and laces repaired with other materials and much taken in, evidently cast-off gifts from their lady. “What’s that old bag know of true love, anyhow?”
“Not a thing from him, I’ll wager,” the other girl agreed, chuckling behind her hand. “He’s too busy trying to catch us at the bedmaking.”
“No wonder, either, poor man,” said the first girl, “But Ludy, one of Lady Rowan’s personal maids, come from our village, you know, and
she
was actually
there
when the gypsy actually came into the actual castle!”
“No!”
“Yes! Handsome as anything, she says, though swarthy, of course, but I find dark foreign types attractive, don’t you?”
“Oh, my, yes. That brooding, unknown quality!”
“Prouder than any noble, he was, she says, though not too proud to give a girl a pinch.” She giggled. “Ludy showed me her bruise to prove it.”
“Well, they are all alike.”
“Indeed.”
“What happened then?”
“Oh, it was SO romantic! Ludy says first he come and asked for a meal, you know, and the lady, she was just passin’ by. He offered to sing to pay for his lunch.”
“Ooooh, he
sang
too?”
“My, yes, that’s part of it. you know. There’s a lovely song about it all.” The girl went on to tell with great relish and considerable colorful embroidery how the Lady Amberwine had been so thrilled with the singing she’d invited him into the hall, and then at his slightest suggestion had ordered her horse saddled, pausing only long enough to pull on her fine leather riding boots and warm woolen cloak over her green silk morning dress before following her new love off across the moors.
“I didn’t see any moors hereabouts, meself,” said the other girl suspiciously.
“They’re on the west side of the castle, silly, where you can’t see them for the trees around the hill.”
“Well, moors or no moors, she didn’t let any grass grow under
her
, did she?”
“Oh, no, she was gone by that evening.”
Maggie’s sneezes interrupted their conversation and the plainer girl looked back over her shoulder at them. “Ugh! Scraggy-looking pair.”
“He’s rather dear, though, don’t you think?”
* * *
By the time they had climbed down the hill, crossed the valley, climbed up the dome, crossed the drawbridge, and gained entrance to the inner courtyard, Maggie was not only crying openly, she was gasping.
The closer to the castle they came, the more blurred her vision became from the itching and tearing of her eyes. Her constant sneezing kept her from drawing a decent breath. She stayed bent over with convulsions of katchooing, and Ching no longer rode on her shoulder but regarded her with wide-eyed alarm.
Colin gently guided her across the courtyard to the hall and pounded on the door. A servant on his way in by a side door noticed them at first with disapproval, then saw the state Maggie was in and sympathetically motioned to Colin to come round to that entrance which led to the kitchen.
“Your woman looks sick,” observed the sturdy female who, by the ladle she brandished, Colin took to be the cook.
“Yes, ma’am, it came upon her suddenly. Though we may not appear so, my traveling companion is of noble blood, and I accompany her with a message for the Lord Rowan. Do you suppose she could be made comfortable till this illness passes?”
Ching lingered in the doorway for a moment, then, confident that the two-legged members of his party were looking out for one another, went to see if there was a barn available and the possibility of a good brawl with some of his own kind, and other feline diversion. Perhaps he would get friendly enough with the locals to acquire some gossip useful to their mission, hastening the acquisition of his mistress’s stepgranddaughter and his own return to his favorite rug under the loom.
“Poor dear can scarcely draw a breath!” the cook said, supporting Maggie in her meaty arms. “To bed with her, and hot herbal towels for her face and chest!” She gently lowered Maggie into a chair and left the kitchen, to return an instant later with a pretty if somewhat vapid-looking girl. “Ludy, put this lady in the North Chamber. She’s too sick to be drug all over the castle.”
Ludy looked askance at Maggie’s disheveled state, and the cook, clearly a person of some authority, said with exaggerated patience. “The lad here claims she’s noble enough for our guest chambers, and if she is or if she’s not, in the state His Lordship’s in he’ll never know the difference anyhow.”
The girl nodded and guided a streaming, sneezing, gasping Maggie from the kitchen.
Turning back to Colin, the cook said with mild severity, “Your message for His Lordship will have to wait, young man. His Lordship is—er—patrolling the borders at the present time.” The minstrel’s personal fragrance and grimy clothing, skin, and hair, drew a sniff from her. “Might be best you tidy up a little first anyway.”
She showed him the serving men’s common quarters and the well. He hauled four buckets of water to the trough for himself, and three more to wash his clothing. He wore the blue twill britches and ochre skirt, smocked for warmth, that he had worn the first day at the inn at Fort Iceworm. He hung the road-worn clothing to dry in the sun. His hands were quite shriveled and soft from all the washing, and it was some time before they dried sufficiently that he could pick up his guitar. Sitting on a servant’s straw mattress, the guitar on his lap, he strummed and thought.
What on earth would he say to His Lordship? How could he breach such a tricky subject as a wife’s abandonment without causing an offense which might not get him turned into cat food, but could certainly get him hung or something equally uncomfortable and debilitating? He wondered, too, what was wrong with Maggie, and wished she were there to consult. It was very inconsiderate of her to leave him in an awkward social situation that concerned, after all, her relatives, not his.
* * *
Maggie awoke from a nightmare in which she was being pressed to death. Although her breathing had been none too easy when she went to sleep, it was practically nonexistent now, and only panic forced her return to consciousness.
In her dream, a lion’s roar subsided into a menacing growl as the heavy paws pressed down on her shoulders and the mane bristled against her face.
Struggling to open her stone-weighted eyelids, she found they stubbornly remained closed. Body and will were made of syrup.
A growl so real that she knew she dreamt no longer rewarded her attempt at movement, and curdled in her ear as the lion’s acrid breath came to her nostrils.
Odd, she thought. One would suppose a lion’s breath smelled rather like old blood and such, but this one had obviously been drinking wine.
Curiosity accomplished what fear would not. Although her eyes would not open entirely, they did open enough to disclose that what pressed her to the bed was indeed a maned beast, but not one of the feline persuasion.
With hair and beard of bright red, her oppressor looked blearily into her face as she heaved herself upright enough to partially dislodge him. She noted that his eyes matched his hair. Sprawled across her in a drunken stupor, he had snored loudly enough to sound very much indeed like a snarling jungle cat.
Speaking of cats, where was that cat who was supposed to preserve her maidenly honor in such situations, she wondered. From what her granny had told her, drunken red-headed men who sprawled across a girl while she was sleeping constituted a definite threat thereto.
Ever one of the direct approach, she snarled a bit herself, her husky alto voice made even rougher by the trauma caused by her sneezing, which, happily, seemed to have momentarily abated.
“Augh, get up, you!” she said. “You’re drunk as a lord!”
He’d fallen back to sleep but now roused a bit, grumbling sleepily, and waved vaguely the bottle still clutched in one floppy fist. “S’alright, me darlin’. I
am
a lord!”