the tieryn’s captain, and I’m here to keep the child from getting hurt. Now fetch him out or we’ll knock this gate down to come get him.’
‘Here, lass,’ Jill said and much more gently, ‘The tieryn sent a woman along to carry the baby home. Would he have done that if he were going to have it killed or suchlike?’
The woman raised the lantern and stared into Jill’s face; then she nodded agreement.
‘He’s a sweet baby. I’ll miss him.’
Jill supposed that the sweetness of babies was an acquired taste. On the long ride home she found the squirming, wailing bundle a nuisance and little else, even though one of the men led her horse to give her both hands free for the job. She tried singing to him, bouncing him, even kissing him, but the baby, torn out of his warm cradle into a cold night and the arms of a stranger, wept the whole way home until the poor little thing was hoarse and whimpering. By the time she could finally hand him over to his jubilant mother, she was praying to die Goddess that she’d never conceive.
Before she went to bed, Jill joined the tieryn and Rhodry at the table of honour for a well-earned flagon of mulled ale.
‘No trouble on the road, I take it?’ Dwaen said.
‘None, Your Grace. It gladdens my heart that you’ll forgive poor Vyna.’
‘She seems as much a victim as any of us. While you were gone, she described this fellow that she’s been meeting. The cook always sent her on errands into town, you see, because she was the oldest of the three kitchen lasses, so she could get a word with him when she needed to.’
‘We’ve got to get our hands on him,’ Rhodry put in. ‘But if his grace sends the warband into town, the bastard will probably flee.’
‘And the whole town will know what’s been happening, too,’ Dwaen said with a pronounced gloom. ‘I hate to think of my subjects gossiping about me night and day.’
‘I’m sure they do that already. Your Grace.’ Jill helped herself to some of Rhodry’s ale while she thought. ‘Here, it’s still cold, this early in the spring. I can wear some of Vyna’s clothes and muffle myself up in her cloak. Then when he follows me, Rhodry can pounce on him.’
‘Excellent, but I’ll send Lallyc in, too. We can’t have you getting hurt, lass.’
At noon on the morrow Jill went to Vyna’s tiny room, which she shared with the other two kitchen maids, in the servants’ quarters over one of the stables. Next to Vyna’s straw mattress was the bottom of an ale barrel, sawed down and filled with straw for a rough cradle for the baby. While Jill changed into Vyna’s clothes, the kitchen lass sat the baby on her lap and cooed to him.
‘What’s his name?’ Jill said.
‘Bellgyn, Mam’s pretty little Bello. Oh you just can’t know how glad I am to have him here and safe.’
‘Um, well. My heart’s pleased for you, anyway. Can I ask who his father was? Some good-looking young rider?’
Her face dead-pale, Vyna busied herself with arranging Bellgyn’s little shirt.
‘My apologies. It’s no affair of mine, and I don’t need to press on an old bruise.’
‘Bruise? I suppose it is.’
‘Didn’t it ache your heart to love a man and then have him refuse to claim you?’
Vyna shook her head in a hard shudder.
‘There was never any way he would have married me. I always knew that. All this time, I’ve been carrying the secret in my heart, and it hurts like poison. It was Lord Madryc, Beryn’s son.’
‘So that’s why his noble mother was so kind.’
She nodded, her eyes brimming tears.
‘Did you love him?’
‘I hated him and every inch of his twisted guts, but how could I say him nay? He always stank of ale, and he’d grab me so hard that I truly thought he’d kill me some night in his pleasure. When I heard he’d been hanged, I laughed and laughed and laughed.’
‘Ah. He sounds a man much like his father. I can’t say I honour this stinking Beryn, if he’d be ready to kill his own grandson to drive home a threat.’
‘That’s not true. His lordship would never know who sired my baby. Madryc never would have admitted the thing, not to his father. I swear, the old man has twice the honour of his rotten ugly son, and he might have beaten him black-and-blue. Her ladyship made me promise never to tell the lord. That was the price of the coins she gave me. You should have seen her, Jill, mincing and practically holding her noble nose, and all because her precious little son had blasted well raped me. Ah ye gods, I hated him, always stinking of sweat and ale.’
Picking up her mood, the baby began to whine and fuss. Jill finished her dressing and left them alone.
Although Jill rode behind Rhodry for most of the way to town, when they came in sight of the walls she dismounted and walked on alone, getting a good headstart in case Vyna’s mysterious contact should be waiting at the town gates. Following the kitchen lass’s instructions, Jill went past the market square, turned down the street by the saddlemaker’s, and saw at last the tavern with the wooden sign of an ox hanging over the door. At the doorway she paused, peering into the dim smoky room, which smelled of sour ale and roast meat. Near the hearth the man Vyna had described was watching a couple of merchants play at dice. A blond man, with the high cheekbones and narrow eyes of a southerner, he glanced her way and smiled.
Jill looked over her shoulder as if she were afraid of something, then beckoned him to follow her. As he set his tankard down she left the doorway and walked round back, to find no sign of Rhodry and Lallyc. In her heart she cursed them both and wished she were wearing her sword. When the fellow came up, Jill let out a little squeak and pretended to have a stone in her shoe. She knelt down, letting the hood fall around her face, and mimed getting it out.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Is someone following you?’
Jill shook her head no.
‘You’re not Vyna! What is this?’
‘She sent me instead.’ Jill got up slowly. ‘Cook wouldn’t let her leave the dun.’
‘I don’t believe a word of that, lass.’
When he stepped forward to grab her, Jill charged, taking him so off-guard that she got a good punch in his stomach before he could defend himself. With a grunt he staggered back, then recovered and swung open-handed at her face. Hampered by the long dresses, Jill dodged barely in time.
‘You little bitch! What is this?’
When he lunged again, she dodged sideways, then tripped over the hem of her dress and nearly fell. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her up, yelped as she raised a knee and got him hard between the legs, but hung on grimly and tried to pin her back against a wall. A shout – Rhodry’s voice – the man let go and spun round to run for it. Jill slammed her fist into his kidneys, kicked him in the back of the knee, and shoved him to the ground just as Lallyc and Rhodry raced up.
‘You
