a pity he wouldn’t be around to find out what it was. Kicking his heels into the destrier’s flanks, he rode off without a backwards glance.
Layers of mist veiled the huge, creamy moon: a harvest moon, full and orange, inching upwards above the horizon. Brilliant stars pinpricked the dimming sky. The chapel bell attached to Odstock Priory tolled slowly for the last service of the day, sweet, melancholy notes ringing out across the flat, undulating land, the occasional screech of an owl disrupting the regular chimes. Crosses swinging from their girdles, the nuns walked in single file, heads bowed, towards the chapel from the Priory; their fawn-coloured veils shone white in the moonlight.
Hidden in the shadows of the gatehouse, Alinor watched them, pale wraiths silent as ghosts, some hunched over with old age, others graceful with spines ramrod straight, gliding across the cobbled courtyard and into the light-filled chapel. At this hour, every windowsill, every niche in the stone walls held a flaming candle, shining on the pewter plate, the jewelled cross on the altar, on the nuns’ faces bent in prayer. Alinor knotted her fingers across her stomach. As an honorary lay sister, she had the choice as to whether she would join them or not; tonight, she would not. As the last nun stepped over the chapel threshold and the great arched door closed against the night, Alinor darted out, skipping across to the main Priory: three double-height rectangular buildings constructed from limestone blocks, arranged around cloisters and an inner courtyard garden. Climbing the wooden steps, she pushed open the iron-riveted door which led directly on to the first-floor hall, open to the roof rafters.
Pausing, she tried to still her quickened breath, the sound from her lungs roaring in her ears. Her keen eye absorbed the sparse, familiar details: glossy elm floorboards, gilded by the light from a single candle burning on an oak coffer; a fire smoking fitfully in the wide, brick-lined fireplace. A long trestle table and benches dominated the hall; this was where the nuns ate and any guests that might join them. But now, the hall was completely empty. All was quiet.
Extracting two lumpy bags of gold coins from her satchel, Alinor dumped them on the carved-oak coffer beside the door, the money earned today from the sale of the nuns’ wheat. After her unwanted encounter with the Prince and his soldiers this morning, the remainder of the day had passed in a blur; she could scarcely remember the noise and bustle of the market, the bartering, of which Ralph had done the most. She had stood by and watched, her body shocked and reeling, her mind constantly playing the moment when a pair of powerful hands had grabbed at her waist and thrown her up against a hard, unyielding torso. The image taunted her, dragged on her senses. She had been useless at the market, no help at all.
Seizing a rush torch from an iron bracket, Alinor held the blazing twigs aloft as she crossed the hall diagonally, moving through a narrow arch in the far corner, twisting down a spiral staircase. She entered the storeroom below, full of earthenware pots, casks, sacks of flour, wriggling carefully through the clumsy towers of hessian bags, the stacked barrels, to reach another door that squeaked on its hinges as she dragged it open. Holding the spitting, crackling light aloft, she descended the steep, rickety steps. None of the nuns came down here; the cellars were a labyrinth of hidden chambers and torturous passageways, formed from the vaulted foundations of the original, much smaller, Priory. Only the hefty barrels of mead which the sisters needed occasionally were situated in the first shallow-arched alcove, close by the bottom of the steps.
Alinor was going further, down into the basement. She knew her way around these cellars. As a frequent visitor to the Priory, the nuns had offered her space in the vaults to hang and store her herbs. Long stalks, tied with bristly twine, hung from iron hooks in the ceiling, crispy flower heads rasping at her veil, scattering seeds as she moved along the corridor, careful to keep the flickering, spitting torch away from the precious harvest above. The nuns’ offer had been a godsend; after her stepmother had ordered a whole roomful of her herbs to be destroyed, claiming they were ‘the work of the Devil’, Alinor had been desperate to find another place to keep them. Any place away from her stepmother’s prying eyes. The nuns, friends of her mother, and now her, had come to her rescue and she repaid them in kind, using her tinctures and ointments to heal them, as well as the many villagers who came to her for help.
‘Bianca?’ Alinor called out quietly, pausing in front of one of the wide shallow arches. ‘It’s me.’ Her whisper echoed eerily around the limestone walls, stone the colour of pale honey. A cobweb tickled her cheek; she brushed it away. There was a rustle, the sound of breathing, and then a voice.
‘Alinor?’
She peeked inside the chamber, thrusting the light inside. The girl, Bianca, sat huddled in a blanket on the flagstone floor, blinking rapidly with the unexpected surge of light. The silver embroidery on the hemline of her gown winked and glistened, the rich silk fabric rippling out around her.
Thrusting the burning torch into an iron bracket on the wall, Alinor knelt down beside the maid. ‘I’m so sorry I left you alone for so long,’ she said. ‘I had to go to the market today, for the nuns...but here, I brought you some food.’ Delving into her baggy leather satchel, she extracted the packages she had bought, placing them on the uneven stone floor. ‘I hope it’s enough.’
Bianca placed her hand on Alinor’s shoulder. The hanging pearls decorating the silver circlet on her tawny hair bobbed with the slight movement. ‘It’s more than enough...you’ve...oh, what happened to your face?’ Her blue eyes flared open in horror at the mottled bruising on Alinor’s cheek, the dried blood. ‘Did she work out what happened, your stepmother? What you did?’
‘No, no, I haven’t seen her,’ Alinor reassured her.
‘Then what happened to you?’
‘It’s nothing,’ Alinor mumbled, drawing her stiff linen veil forward, a self-conscious gesture, embarrassed by the girl’s concern. She had managed to rewrap her wimple on the way to the market, so the bloodstained cloth was hidden. But nothing could conceal the damage on her cheek. A pair of sparkling midnight eyes, a teasing smile, flashed across her vision and she bit down on her bottom lip, hard. Do not think of it, do not think of him, she ordered herself sternly.
‘Looks like it was a bit more than nothing,’ Bianca said, frowning critically at Alinor’s face. ‘You’ve risked your neck for me already; please don’t take any more chances.’ She shifted her position on the blanket, her blue-silk overdress sliding over her knees. Hundreds of tiny seed pearls had been stitched into the curved neckline, matching the intricacy of the maid’s circlet and fine silk veil.
‘It wasn’t anything like that,’ Alinor said, untying the packages with brisk efficiency. ‘Ralph, you know, the lad from the village who went with me, and I, well, we ran into a bit of trouble on the way to market.’
‘Trouble?’
‘We crossed paths with Prince Edward and his entourage. And our cart had broken, so they couldn’t cross the bridge. Ralph went to fetch help and left me there.’ Her breathing quickened and she shook her head. ‘I was stupid, thinking I could brave it out against them. I should have run, hidden somewhere.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ Bianca asked softly.
‘I thought they would destroy all the grain, all the nuns’ profits. But, thankfully, I held them off until the Prince arrived.’ She closed her eyes briefly, remembering. The thick arms folded about her slim waist, thumbs splaying against her spine, pulling her close. The mail-coat links pressed through her clothes, digging into her soft flesh. The way his muscular legs bumped against her toes, flailing uselessly above the ground. Blue, blue eyes, sparking fire. A shivery breath gripped her lungs, surging, alive. ‘And then one of the knights grabbed me and carried me
