down!’ Tavia whispered, sitting down on the side of the pallet and trying to draw her mother’s body into the circle of her arms.
‘My whole body is itching, it’s on fire,’ Mary moaned. Tears gathered in the corners of her wide blue eyes, as she concentrated on her daughter. ‘Help me, Tavia, please.’
Tavia jumped up, shocked at the deterioration in her mother’s condition and whirled around. ‘She needs a physician, Father. She can’t go on like this.’
‘Costs money,’ Dunstan spat out through a mouthful of porridge. ‘And coin is one thing we do not possess.’ He glared at her, the flesh on his face pinched and blotchy. ‘If only you had made more effort with Lord Greaves, then all our troubles would be over. We’d be living the life of a noble family if only you’d wedded him.’
Lord Greaves! Tavia recalled the bent, arthritic creature at least twice her age, eyeing her covertly in the marketplace on several occasions. He had been the last in a long line of potential husbands lined up by her father, rich woollen merchants who visited the stall on a regular basis, men who showed an interest in the weaver’s daughter.
‘He didn’t like the colour of my hair,’ Tavia replied, sweeping her father’s dirty bowl and spoon from the table, and plunging them in a pail of cold water to wash them. She scrubbed viciously at the clots of sticky porridge, the icy water stinging her hands.
‘And not just that,’ Duncan added. ‘Just look at you, so thin, scrawny. Men want women with a bit of flesh on them; they want sons, all of them. You don’t look fit to breed, girl.’
Tavia’s eyes darted to the gloomy corner as her mother moaned, restless on her pallet. ‘Surely we must have a few coins saved?’ She turned to her father in despair, the cloth between her fingers dripping on to the packed earth floor.
‘Nay! I told you! Can’t you use some of your herbs on her?’
‘Nothing is working.’ Tavia shook her head, thinking of all the different tisanes and poultices she had made up for her mother over the past few days. ‘Nothing works.’
‘Slut can die for all I care,’ Dunstan muttered into his beard.
‘What did you say?’ Tavia gaped at him, incredulous, unbelieving at the savage words she had just heard. Tossing the cloth into the pail, she stepped over to the table, thumping it with her small wet fist to get her father’s attention. ‘How dare you speak about my mother…your wife…in such a way? We need money, Father, and we need to send for a physician… now…today.’
Her father smiled, a narrow, mean curling of his lips. His pale, watery eyes were blank. ‘You’ll get nothing from me. Either of you.’
Tavia leaned her head against the ridged, nubbled back of a tree, and sobbed, hopelessness ripping through her chest like a knife blade. Speechless with anger at her father’s words, she had fled the cottage, seizing up her crossbow from behind the door before heading for the small thicket of trees in the corner of the sheep pasture. How dare he! How dare he treat them both like this? Refusing to lend her the coin to fetch a skilled physician that her mother so desperately needed! She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to think practically, fingers curling around the smooth stock of her bow as it rested upon the ground. There must be another way.
Needing to steady her anger, she unwound the white veil from her hair, tying the cloth around the tree trunk. Firing her crossbow had always calmed her, channelling her vision on the target in front, slowing her breathing. Oft-times, when she found her father’s temper too much to bear, she had come out to these woods, sending arrow upon arrow into the trees; constantly honing her skill made her feel more secure. Indeed, it was because of her father’s behaviour that she had learned to shoot; the urge to protect her mother, and defend herself, had become paramount in her life. She had never needed to use the bow against him…not yet, anyway.
Placing the knot in the centre of the trunk to form a makeshift bull’s eye, she paced back over the open ground, away from the thicket, her wide skirts flaring over short, sheep-nibbled grass. Determination clouded her delicate features, small lines of strain etched around her mouth. Yesterday, she had felt so useless, so unable to defend herself in the face of those English barbarians; she couldn’t let something like that happen again. Her chest constricted with the memory. How stupid she had been to leave her bow in her father’ cart; if the weapon had been at her side, she could have picked them off, one by one, including him, that barbarian leader, the man with midnight eyes.
From the leather satchel slung diagonally across her back, she drew out one arrow, tipped with white goose feathers. She placed the crossbow on the ground, upending it so the curve of the weapon faced downwards. Putting her toes either side of the stock kept the weapon steady, so she could draw back the sinew cord and hook it over a notch at the top of the bow.
Slotting the arrow into the central groove, Tavia raised the bow to eye level, willing herself to concentrate, to focus on the target. Her sight narrowed on the knot, the tied ends of the veil fluttering either side of it. Her fingers sought the lever underneath the bow, the lever that would lower the notch and release the cord, which would in turn send the quarrel into the target. Taking one deep breath, she squeezed.
The arrow flew straight, its iron tip landing in the middle of the knot with a dull thud. In a moment, she had re-armed the weapon, sending another, then another arrow straight to the centre of the target.
‘When you’re done with wasting your time out here, mayhap you’d get your backside in the house, girl! There’s work to be done!’ Tavia jumped as her father’s strident tones cut through the stiffening breeze as he lumbered over the field. Her shoulder muscles tensed as she lowered the crossbow and turned.
Dunstan eyed the three arrows in the target, then spat derisively on the ground, his face ugly with lines of hostility. ‘Wasting your time out here with that damned thing!’ His mouth curled down with miserable resentment.
‘It’s no waste if it saves my life one day,’ she replied mutinously, resisting the inclination to take a step back from her father’s scowl, ‘or the life of another.’
‘It’s no use unless you’re a man,’ her father cackled. ‘With a skill like that you’d earn good money.’ He nodded towards the arrows pinning the linen knot to the bark.
Behind her, a slight breeze sighed through the treetops, like water running over stones. ‘What are you saying?’ Tavia asked, her tone careful.
Dunstan laughed nastily. ‘King Malcolm’s worried. He’ll pay anything for good marksmen. With these attacks from the English, he’s losing longbow men every day. Soldiers armed with a crossbow are far more effective.’
‘So how does one become a bowman for the King?’ She made a huge effort to keep her voice level, calm.
Her father peered at her suspiciously. ‘He holds a weekly contest. Any competent marksmen can turn up and have a go. If the King and his commanders think anyone is any good, they’ll sign you up immediately.’
‘And how much does he pay?’
‘Nine pence a day.’
Tavia’s eyes widened. ‘A small fortune!’ Her heart began to pound.
‘One that we’ll never have if we stand here prattling all day,’ Dunstan said roughly. ‘Come, girl, there’s work to be done.’
The imposing walls
