The Promise Page 7

  “Do you feel sick, my lady?” Elena asked abruptly.

  “Yes. I must force myself to eat.”

  “You don’t force quite enough down your gullet for my liking. You’re much too skinny.”

  Lady Marguerite advanced toward Elena, eyes narrowed, scrutinizing her with a cold, hard gaze. “My lady, you mean to say. Brother Arros sings your praises. I wonder if you treat him with such rudeness. Somehow I doubt it very much. I shall not tolerate such behavior, even from a low-born mountain woman like yourself.”

  “Yes, my lady.” So there’s a bit of spark in her after all, Elena thought.

  “You’ll stay in a cottage outside the keep,” Lady Marguerite said. “When I have need of you, I’ll send for you as it suits me.”

  “And what am I to do otherwise, my lady?”

  Lady Marguerite looked surprised. “I know not.”

  “I tend to the sick at the monastery and in the mountain villages. I could do that here. Heal wounds, nurse the ill.”

  “Ah? Perhaps we could use your skills.”

  “I’ll have to come and go, glean what I need from the woods and the fields. For ointments and the like.”

  Anything to escape these walls.

  “I do not see the harm in it,” Lady Marguerite said after a moment. “Perhaps you can help the baroness. She suffers so.”

  “What ails her?”

  Lady Marguerite’s expression tightened again. Her eyes slid away from Elena’s.

  “I’ll do what I can to help her, my lady,” Elena said when it became obvious that Lady Marguerite was not going to answer. “There’s an herb that grows in the woods around here that cures all manner of ills. But I shall have need of my bow and arrows if I’m to go out harvesting,” she added. “The gate guard took them from me.”

  “I shall see they are returned to you.”

  Reaching into her satchel, Elena pulled out the parchment letter. “Brother Arros asked me to get your promise that both the baron and his son read this letter.”

  “The baron is away.”

  “Who watches over this place when he is gone?”

  Lady Marguerite gave her a sharp look. “The steward, of course.”

  “But the steward also goes abroad, my lady.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I saw your steward on the King’s Road near the pass to Béarn in the spring.” The sight of him in his red leather armor astride the great black horse still haunted her dreams. “Brother Arros told me he lodged at San Juan de la Peña with his men.”

  Lady Marguerite frowned. “The men of this house travel widely, and I am privy to their plans only as it pleases them. But I do know this: when the baron is away, the steward cannot stray far. He goes out for the day, hunting with the guards, or punishing those who would cheat my father-in-law of the goods they owe him.”

  Elena’s mind flashed to the serfs, to the griffon vultures feasting on the body in the field. Had the steward’s horse been one of those three tied to the tree outside the huts? She recreated the scene in her head. Yes. Two of the horses were dun-colored, and one—the largest horse—was black.

  Her gaze dropped to the roll of parchment in Lady Marguerite’s hand. She did not like the idea of that letter falling into the steward’s grasp.

  Lady Marguerite saw the worry in her eyes.

  “Fear not.” She crossed to the oak chest and opened it with a key that hung from a golden chain around her waist, then laid the scroll inside and locked the chest again. “When the baron returns, this letter will be delivered into his hands. And when my husband returns from war I’ll see that it awaits him in the Tower of Blood. That I promise you.”

  Elena’s throat went dry again. “The Tower of Blood?”

  “Where my husband’s chambers are, on the south side of the castle. Violence always visits this place from the south. Violence and sorrow.”

  There was something new in Lady Marguerite’s voice. Was it anger? Elena couldn’t tell. The woman was a stranger, after all. It would take time to discern her character, sort out her moods.

  “The girl will take you to the kitchens for supper, then to your cottage.”

  Lady Marguerite stared at Elena expectantly.

  A moment passed. Then another.

  “Oh,” Elena said, realizing what Lady Marguerite was waiting for. She executed an awkward bow. “As you wish, my lady.”

  21

  Autumn, 1484

  As Elena and her guide descended the stairs to the great hall, she saw to her relief that the dogs were gone. Her eyes roamed around, taking in the sight of heavy wooden chests and tables laden with gleaming silver-plate. The walls were hung with tapestries. She counted six bear skins on the stone floor. An earthy, musty stench filled the air, a scent of rotting hides and mold mixed with the acrid smell of smoke from the torches that blazed on the walls. In the very center of the hall hung a circular chandelier made of deer horns. It looked like a thorny crown ablaze with fire. Elena stopped underneath it, mesmerized.

  “How do the flames stay alight?”

  “It’s got an iron frame inside,” the servant girl said. “That’s where the candles are stuck.”

  Glancing at the girl’s face for the first time, Elena saw a purple bruise on her cheek. The skin on her neck was riddled with long, scabbed-over scratches.

  “What happened to you?” Elena asked.

  The girl’s expression hardened. “I’m the steward’s favorite.”

  “That’s what he does to his favorite?” Elena reached out a hand to touch the girl’s cheek, but she flinched and stepped back.

  “Soon enough he’ll tire of me, or put a baby in my belly.”

  The girl could not have been more than fifteen. Yet her eyes were sapped of life, her shoulders hunched like an old woman’s. The energy and hope of youth had been chased out of her long ago, by the looks of it.

  “Listen,” Elena said, leaning close. “I’ve got remedies for what ails you. Seek me out and I’ll help you. Even if he does put a baby in your belly—I can stop it from coming.”

  “Why would I want to stop it? He’ll leave me alone if my belly swells, turn his sights on someone else.” The girl smirked. “Maybe you.”

  At that moment, a group of women swept through the doorway of an adjacent room, wearing dresses with long, trailing sleeves, their hair covered with shimmering fabric. In their midst was a lady dressed even more richly than Lady Marguerite, with a pearl-studded cap on her head and a cloak of russet-colored fur over her shoulders.

  The servant girl dropped into a deep curtsy.

  Elena stood staring as the group approached. She had never seen such finery. One of the women caught her eye. With a swift movement, she reached out and slapped Elena across the face.

  “You offend the baroness!” she hissed. “Bow down, you insolent creature.”

  Elena’s cheek stung. She crouched, fighting the urge to slap the woman back. Under her lashes she watched the baroness totter past. The noblewoman did look ill. There was an odd glaze to her eyes, and she stared aimlessly at the skirts of the woman in front of her, completely disinterested in her surroundings. A gold belt around her waist was strung with a medallion. It bore the same design as the wax seal on Lady Marguerite’s letter to Brother Arros.

  The baroness was talking to herself, Elena realized. Murmuring something under her breath. Her whispery voice was high, like a child’s. The sound of it unsettled Elena nearly as much as the sight of the griffon vultures feasting on the carcass in the field. She watched the wobbly progress of the baroness over the bearskins, transfixed.

  A drop of hot wax oozed off a burning candle in the chandelier overhead then, splashing on Elena’s hand. She quickly flicked the wax away, blowing on her skin to cool it. When she looked up again, the entourage of women had gone.

  “Let’s be off,” the servant girl said. “You won’t last long here, will you?” There was a note of sympathy in her voice now that had been absent before. “From n
ow on, you see a fine-dressed person, you bend the knee.”

  Elena did not respond.

  “What, you’ve never bowed to your betters? You high-born yourself, then?” The girl folded her arms, her eyes glittering with malice. “Where’s your fancy dress, your jewels? Why is your hair a tangled rat’s nest, and not piled high on your head?”

  “Just show me the kitchens,” Elena said wearily. “Please.”

  Elena followed the girl down another staircase into the bowels of the castle. A roar grew in her ears as they approached the cavernous kitchens—the rattle of copper against iron, the chatter of coarse voices, the clank of ceramic cups and bowls. The servant girl walked into the melee without a backward glance and Elena hesitated in the doorway a moment, paralyzed by an unaccustomed shyness. But no one even looked her way when she finally slunk into view, so immersed were they in the business of filling all the bellies in a noble house.

  Seated near the hearth at a rough table with a bowl of steaming soup before her, she shrank into her cloak, wishing she could follow smoke up the vast chimney and vanish into the black sky. She wished she could shut her eyes and open them again to find that all of this had been a nightmare. She wished for the wings of a bird so she could leap out the windows of Lady Marguerite’s chamber and fly away.

  But none of those things would happen.

  Elena was part of this now, part of castle life.

  And it was every bit as mad a place as she imagined.

  THE END

  * * *

  Elena’s story continues in The Girl from Oto. Turn the page to dive into a free sample…

  Prologue

  Summer, 2015

  Pyrenees Mountains, France

  Zari

  Silver threads of rain twisted down from the dark sky. A chaotic wind swirled around Zari, shifting and billowing from all directions, tugging at her backpack with invisible fingers. She stabbed at the slick trail with her trekking poles. It took all her concentration to stay upright.

  At the edge of a broad meadow, she watched massive gray storm clouds curl in on themselves, gather speed, silently collide. A blaze of light ignited the sky above the mountains. Counting the seconds until the rumble of thunder began, she eyed a nearby pine forest. The lightning was still miles away. If it got close, she would take cover in the sheltering edge where the trees met the meadow.

  A spike of adrenaline took hold of her. She was no mere observer. She was part of this great spectacle, a bit player in a dazzling show of power. Wading through the tall grasses, she let their waterlogged heads tickle her palms. A dark trail in her wake charted her progress. She would mark off the entire meadow this way, stride by stride, searching for a story written in stone.

  On her third traverse of the meadow, she stumbled and fell. Heaving herself up, she untangled a kink in the chain around her neck and tucked the shell back in place at the base of her throat. Another flash of lightning. For an instant, the sky turned a bleached bone-white. The boom of thunder that followed reverberated in Zari’s chest long enough to scare her.

  She had not taken five more steps when she saw them.

  Rows of half-sunken stone slabs jutted out before her like shards from a giant’s pottery collection. Sinking slowly into the earth, corroded by wind and rain and ice, they offered themselves up to her. Foundation stones. Evidence.

  “I knew it was here!” she shouted, waving the poles in the air.

  She turned in a slow circle, imagining the buildings that once spread across this land, protected by a high stone wall, by the sharp spires of iron gates. She saw a church with a soaring bell tower, a bustling kitchen, a garden filled with vegetables and herbs. In the murmuring wind, she heart the voices of long-dead women and children.

  Then a dark shape materialized across the meadow. A tall figure moved toward her through the grass. A man. She stood mesmerized, vaguely aware of the crackling sky, the growl of thunder. She could almost see waves of sound rippling through the heavy wet air.

  He walked quickly, cutting through the raindrops with long decisive strides, narrowing the gap between them.

  Zari swallowed.

  She took one step backward and tightened her grip on the poles.

  Book I

  Ab initio. From the beginning.

  1

  Autumn, 1484

  Castle Oto, Aragón

  Elena

  Like the breath of an angry god, the wind streamed over the mountains from the north and slammed into the castle. The balcony shutters bucked and heaved, straining against the iron latches that held them in place. To Elena’s ears, the sound was the hollow clacking of bones.Wind goes where it wants, she thought, finding the source of a draft with her fingertips. She closed her eyes and imagined herself in the forest, where brittle leaves swirled in unruly flocks and golden-eyed owls blinked in the high branches of oaks.

  A faint moan rose from across the room. Elena straightened up, squared her shoulders. The sooner they got on with it, the sooner she could escape these walls. She rolled up a small woolen rug and wedged it against the base of the shutters, muffling the rattle. Then she padded across the thick Moorish rugs to the great bed and pulled aside the drapes.

  The young woman lay curled on her side. In the candlelight, it was difficult to pick out details, but Elena had dressed and undressed this body so many times that she did not need the aid of the sun to understand the predicament. The woman—still a girl, really—was built like a snow finch. Her belly was far too large for her bony frame. For months, Elena had traced its bulbous arc with her fingertips, measuring the swell of it, prodding the taut skin. The likely explanation was not a giant, but twins, and for a first birth that often meant catastrophe.

  She dipped a cloth into a copper pot of water that sat on the floor by the bed. With practiced movements she bathed the woman’s pale limbs, smoothed back her tangled hair, massaged lavender oil into her skin.

  “My lady, the baby can’t wait any longer.”

  Silence.

  She raised her voice. “Lady Marguerite! There’s more yet to do. Rouse yourself!”

  “Why do you shout at me so? Will you not let me sleep?” Marguerite turned her head toward Elena, her eyelids half open.

  Elena felt uneasy, looking into those eyes. They were silvery green, like the hide of a tree frog, and the black lashes that framed them were spindly as spiders’ legs. Perhaps it was this contrast of light and dark that made them so unsettling. Or the long, slanting sweep of them. Or their size, for they seemed much too large for the woman’s angular face. Whatever it was, there was something more feline than human about them, and Elena had never been fond of cats. She looked away and put a hand on the distended belly.

  “If you wish your baby to die, by all means sleep.” Something hard—a knee? A foot?—pressed against her palm with urgent, fluttery movements. “If you wish your baby to live, then push. Now make your choice.”

  The glowing eyes found hers. A pale slender hand slipped into her strong brown one. The young woman on the bed took a deep breath, set her jaw and bore down.

  The night was half gone when the baby was born. She squirmed and flailed her limbs, gulping air into her lungs and pumping it out again with wild shrieks. Elena cleaned her, swaddled her and thrust her into her mother’s arms.

  Marguerite bent her head over the baby. “A girl. God help me.”

  The newborn quieted and stared unblinking at her mother. After a few moments of utter stillness, she opened her tiny red mouth and began rooting for a breast.

  “She will be called Miramonde,” Marguerite said softly. “One who sees the world.”

  “How much can a girl see from behind a wall?” Elena asked.

  Marguerite shook her head. “She will not be caged. When she is old enough, she will learn the ways of the mountain people.”

  Elena stared. “Who will teach her?”

  “You.”

  Words of protest rose up in Elena’s throat. But before she could speak
Marguerite convulsed in pain again.

  “Ah—I thought as much,” Elena said, careful to keep a neutral voice. “Twins.”

  “No,” Marguerite moaned. “That cannot be. What if it is another girl?”

  “Then we’ll be doubly grateful to have a plan in place.”

  When the second baby slid out of his mother’s womb, Elena held him aloft so Marguerite could see what she had birthed. He was a tiny, red, crumpled thing, smaller than his sister. Elena rubbed him briskly with a piece of clean linen and blew on his drowsing eyelids until he opened his mouth and emitted a faint wail.

  “An heir. My husband will be pleased.”

  Marguerite’s voice was low and rough, but whether that was due to emotion or exhaustion, Elena could not tell.

  “If he survives the war,” Elena said.

  “Talk like that can get you whipped. Have a care.”

  “Who is going to hear? Your father-in-law is bedded down with his favorite wench, and the steward’s lame back has made a thief of him.”

  “What do you mean?” Marguerite’s bloodshot eyes flickered to the door and back.

  “Poppy milk. He’s got your mother-in-law’s bedtime habit now. Head lolling on the cushions, drooling. ’Tis not a pretty sight.”

  Another gust of wind barreled down from the high peaks, and the shutters struggled against the rolled-up rug. Thump. Thump. Thump. Elena hurled an irritated look in the direction of the balcony and got back to the business of cleaning and swaddling the boy. She tucked him under his mother’s arm and led his pursed red lips to her other breast. For a time, they listened to the babies nursing and the soft thumping of the shutters.