[Ela of Salisbury 03] - The Lost Child Page 12

  “From what I’m hearing I might as well deposit her in the king’s forest and leave her to be raised by wolves.”

  “I won’t argue one way or the other, but anyone can see that you’ve more than done your Christian duty by the girl.”

  “I’m not just a Christian, I’m a mother. If this were my child, stolen and separated from me, I’d hope that whoever found her would take on the responsibility of returning her to my arms.”

  “I heard a rumor that another child has disappeared.” Haughton spoke with visible reluctance.

  “What? When?”

  “More than two weeks ago, it seems. Her disappearance wasn’t reported at first.”

  “Before Edyth vanished?” Ela couldn’t believe her ears. “And I was in London within reach of these evil—” Ela suddenly found herself so angry she could barely speak. “They abducted me and threatened me and left Bill Talbot and two of my men for dead. And they continue their evil business unchecked. Sometimes I feel like the devil himself walks the earth among us.”

  Mistress Haughton, who’d rejoined them, crossed herself and Ela and Giles Haughton followed suit.

  “Who is this missing girl?”

  “One of the Brice children.” Haughton looked a little sheepish. “Do you remember them?”

  “I’ll never forget the case. And now the children have neither mother nor father. I heard they went to live with an aunt.”

  “They live with their mother’s sister. She and her husband have a farm quite far outside the town. The girl went into town with a basket of eggs to sell but didn’t return home by dusk and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “How long was she gone before they reported it?”

  “At least a week. One of her siblings came to the castle to report her missing.”

  “Jesus wept.” Ela sighed. “I was at the castle last night and the sheriff never breathed a word of this. She was probably snatched by the same child thieves.”

  Why wouldn’t the sheriff—or anyone else there—have mentioned another missing girl?

  Ela itched to leave. “I must ask Edyth about her. She wouldn’t talk about her ordeal or her captors because she said they’d kill the other children there if she said anything. Hopefully distance will give her the courage to reveal what she knows.”

  She turned for the door, then stopped. “Do you have any suspicion about who started the fire that destroyed the Wheatons’ cottage?”

  Haughton looked at her for a moment, then glanced at his wife, then back at Ela. “No one saw it start.”

  Ela stared at him. That was quite a nonanswer. She suspected he wanted her to mull it over. She said her goodbyes and hurried outside to mount her horse.

  Ela would have preferred to pursue the Wheatons herself—at a brisk trot—to put the weight of the earls of Salisbury behind any request for their safety, but she knew it would only make people talk. They had plenty to talk about already.

  She repaired to Gomeldon and from there sent two men to the monastery with instructions to find the Wheatons and report to them that their daughter was alive and well. She also gave them a small purse of coins—which she counted in front of them—to offer to the monastery as a donation for their generosity in caring for the distressed family.

  She wished Bill Talbot were here to entrust with this sensitive mission. Or even her son Will, who made up in honesty what he lacked in tact. But they were both elsewhere and she’d have to make do with hired men.

  Edyth remained quiet and listless, despite the best efforts of the children and Hilda to engage her in their games or even their lessons. Eventually Ela told them to leave her be and tried to reassure the girl that she’d sent out men to find her parents.

  She could hardly bring the parents back here and house them at her home, so she prayed that the monastery would shelter them until a new home could be found for them.

  No one saw the fire start. The Wheatons were at the castle when it broke out, begging for help from the sheriff. Could the sheriff’s men have started the fire to banish them from the town and be rid of the responsibility? Sheriff de Hal had little motivation to help them. The townspeople already shunned the family and there was no money in the search for a missing child.

  Then there was the mystery of who’d stolen the girl. From her own experience of being abducted and threatened, Ela could tell she’d jerked the robes of an important man. Someone who might even have Sheriff de Hal on his payroll.

  “What’s wrong, Mama?” Her daughter Petronella approached with a frown.

  “I’m becoming suspicious of everyone,” Ela admitted. Mostly because she couldn’t come up with another convincing answer fast enough. Why had Haughton not wanted to talk frankly in front of his wife? Was she likely to whisper gossip in the town square?

  “Are the men who stole Edyth going to come to our house?”

  “Good Lord, no.” At least I hope not. “But we’ll all be safest when they are locked up tight in the dungeon or hanged for their crimes. That’s why I won’t let the matter rest until we’ve found them.”

  “Is it dangerous for you, Mama?”

  Ela had made sure that her children knew nothing of her abduction, simply that Bill Talbot and the guards had been hurt. “Less dangerous than letting evil roam the land.”

  “Isn’t the sheriff supposed to catch criminals?”

  “Indeed he is, my love.”

  “But he’s not doing his job, is he?” Petronella was perceptive.

  Ela sighed. “He’s new to the position. We must give him time to rise to his responsibilities.” She certainly didn’t need her children knowing her complaints about de Hal.

  But she did need to find out the details of what had happened in Yorkshire. With that in mind she wrote at once to her lawyer, Spicewell. He could conjure documents from the four winds and she knew that he could lay his hands on an official complaint within days. She also told him there was another girl missing and that she was very far from letting the matter rest.

  And that afternoon she mounted her horse again and set out to visit the Brice children and their aunt and uncle. She made sure her men were armed and ready, since she knew she might be anything but welcome.

  Chapter 12

  The farm Ela sought was remote. She had to ask directions three times before they found it at the end of a long, narrow, leaf-littered track that was muddy even in autumn and must be all but impassable in winter and spring.

  Elizabeth Brice’s sister Martha was married to a man called Thomas Brown. Their rustic cottage had a strange, uneven greenish roof that looked to be a mix of thatch and turf with a layer of moss growing on it.

  There were children all around—scores of them, it seemed—ranging in age from crawling babe to half-bearded young man and budding girl. They all gathered in a group, staring, as the party from Gomeldon approached.

  “Hello, my name is Ela. May I speak with your mother or father?” She didn’t want to frighten them with her full name. They might well know it as the name of the acting sheriff who’d presided over the arrest and trial of their mother for the murder of their father.

  “My mammy’s dead,” said one little girl. “And my daddy.”

  Ela’s heart ached at the sound of her brave voice. “Who’s looking after you?” She knew the answer but didn’t need them to know that.

  “Our auntie.”

  “Our parents are at the market to buy a cow,” said a boy of about fifteen. “When they come back we’ll have cheese and butter to eat.”

  Ela looked around. She didn’t see any other livestock, not even a mangy chicken to produce the eggs the missing girl had taken to market when she disappeared. The entire vista was one of extreme poverty. “What do you normally live on?”

  “We have a good crop of parsnips and carrots growing,” said one boy of about eleven, brightly. “And last week they bought a sack of flour to make bread.”

  “How many of you are there?” They kept moving so she couldn’t manage to count th
em.

  No one answered.

  “Too many mouths to feed,” piped up the first little girl. “That’s what our auntie said.”

  Ela’s chest hurt. Poor mite. She must have overheard them complaining about the added burden—an intolerable one from the look of it—of Martha’s sister’s children. No wonder they hadn’t run to the castle at the first sign of one less mouth to feed. At first they might be relieved that she’d be supping at someone else’s table for a night or two.

  Ela chastised herself for not looking in on the family sooner. She’d meant to see if they needed alms, but had been wary of a hostile reception after the trial and had somehow kept busy with other things.

  “I heard that one of your sisters is missing. I’d like to help find her. What’s her name?”

  “Elsie,” said a girl of about thirteen.

  “How old is she?”

  “Older than me and younger than Tom,” piped up a boy of about ten.

  “So she’s about eleven?” They all looked back in confusion. Did they not know their numbers? How would they count their eggs for market? Or their sheep to make sure none were missing? “What color are Elsie’s hair and eyes?”

  “She has brown hair and brown eyes,” burst out two or three of them at once. “Her hair’s really long,” said a smaller girl. “She always wears it in a plait down her back. Will she be coming back soon?”

  “God willing. What color was she wearing when she left?”

  “Brownish.” None could provide more useful detail. They were all dressed in various natural hues in garments made from homespun wool.

  A girl with brown hair and brown eyes, dressed in brown. She might as well be looking for a leaf in the forest. Half the girls in England wore their hair in a long braid.

  “Does she have any distinguishing features? A birthmark or a chipped tooth or anything that makes her stand out in a crowd?”

  They all just stared at her.

  Back at Gomeldon Ela busied herself with inspecting the gardens and sties and bee skeps. The gardens were coming along well considering how little time they’d had for preparation and planting in the spring. They still enjoyed fresh greens and baby carrots, and it looked certain they’d have a good crop of root vegetables to store for the winter.

  Gomeldon’s orchard had been neglected in recent years while the manor was rented to a tenant, but the trees had since been pruned and manured and the fruit selectively plucked so they’d coaxed a harvest of apples, pears, plums and quince to be had before hard frost. The apricots and walnuts also looked promising, the grapevines much less so. But England was a difficult place to grow a good crop of grapes.

  Her greyhound, Grayson, followed Ela as she made her rounds and spoke with the gardener and the boys who tended the pigs and chickens. It was a brisk autumn day, the sky a clear, bright blue with the occasional wisp of feathery cloud. She wanted to stay out here in the peace and abundance of the garden, surrounded by buzzing bees and the cheerful tapestry of changing leaves. She couldn’t bring herself to go back inside, where she’d glimpse Edyth’s mournful face with still no fresh news to report of her parents.

  At last the two men returned from their ride to the priory at Walton. Ela hurried around the house to meet them as they rode up the drive.

  “Did you find the Wheatons?” she asked, before they’d had time to dismount.

  “Yes, they’d stayed a night at the priory, then been told to leave at dawn the next day. Not wanting to stray far from Salisbury—in hopes of finding their daughter—they started walking back this way. The sheriff’s men stopped them on the road about two miles outside of Salisbury and turned them around again, and that’s where we found them.”

  “They’re on the road?”

  “Aye. I gave them the coin for their sustenance. I hope that wasn’t wrong.”

  “It was right…but none of this is right. We must take Edyth to them at once to ease their minds, but she can hardly tramp the roads with them.” Ela racked her mind. She couldn’t take in every waif and stray in Wiltshire. She’d already gone too far down that road. Still, there was no time to waste and she could come to a solution as they traveled. “Please have my carriage brought around. You can escort me to them.”

  Ela hurried inside to tell Edyth that her parents had been found and they must wash the tears from her cheeks so she’d be ready to see them. Edyth looked so happy and excited that there was no way she could tell the girl they had no place to stay.

  In the past she might have offered the shelter of her barn, but since it was the recent scene of a brutal murder she imagined they might prefer to sleep under the stars.

  Hilda came along as well because her presence so soothed and cheered Edyth. If the Wheatons were already most of the way back to Salisbury the journey should be short, so she’d better think fast about what to do with the little family.

  The idea that Simon de Hal’s men might have torched their house lit a flame of rage in her heart. She’d probably never know for sure, but she was fairly certain that’s what Giles Haughton had hinted at.

  The sunny afternoon clouded over as they topped a rise and headed down through a broad vista of sheep meadows. The leaves on a great oak had turned a rich burgundy color that shone like a jewel in the landscape.

  “They’re up ahead,” called one of the men.

  Ela poked her head out the window and saw a man and a woman sitting by the roadside in the shade of another massive oak tree. They pulled up next to them. The man and woman rose nervously to their feet as Ela alighted from the carriage, coaxing Edyth to come with her.

  The sight of her parents stunned Edyth to silence. Her mother rushed forward and hugged the girl to her breast. Her father praised God for her safe return and said he didn’t want to let her out of his sight again as long as he lived.

  Ela had to blink back a tear at the sight of the touching reunion.

  But now what?

  It shouldn’t be her responsibility to put a roof over their heads tonight. It wasn’t her responsibility. Just as it wasn’t her responsibility to bring Edyth back to them.

  She knew in her heart that it was her duty as a Christian, though.

  “Thank you so much for your kindness,” said Edyth’s father. “I don’t know how we can ever repay you.” He bowed. “I have the advantage in knowing that you are Ela, Countess of Salisbury. My name is John Wheaton, at your service.” He spoke in French, and Ela could tell he was an educated man.

  “God must receive all praise and gratitude due for Edyth’s return,” protested Ela. But an idea occurred to her that would offer them shelter without embarrassing them further after all the humiliation they’d suffered. “And I do have a favor I could ask of you.”

  John Wheaton looked excited by the prospect of serving her to repay his debt. “Tell me and it shall be done.”

  “I’ve had the misfortune of having a murder committed in my hay barn, and I’d appreciate the services of a man and woman of prayer to…” How to put it? “To cleanse the space of any evil that might linger there as a result of that terrible crime.”

  John Wheaton blinked. “I’m not a priest. I can’t cast out demons.”

  “The space is not haunted or possessed by spirits, as far as I know. In fact, I’m not sure anyone has entered it since the week that the deed occurred. But I feel sure that a night of prayer would lift the spirit of the place and make it safe to hold feed or animals again. And prayers would be most welcome for the soul of the murder victim, who was a brave knight who once saved my husband’s life.” She didn’t mention that he was also the father of Hilda’s baby.

  “Both my wife and I have a spiritual education and long years’ experience of prayer.” He looked anxiously at Alys. “I feel confident in speaking for both of us that we’d be glad to pray inside your barn and combat any dark forces that might have taken up residence there.”

  “Wonderful. Please climb in my carriage.” They didn’t have so much as a bundle of rags with t
hem. Just the clothes on their backs, which luckily for them were young and strong. They helped Edyth into the carriage and climbed in behind her. Soon they were turned around and rolling back along the road to Gomeldon.

  Ela didn’t believe in spirits or ghosts. She’d seen no evidence of them in her lifetime. But surely prayers could bring no harm and would keep this small family safe while she figured out what to do with them.

  She hated that they’d been deprived of all their possessions and banished from Salisbury. She swiftly resolved that—with her as their champion—they’d be reinstated in the village and secured from the hatred and fear of the villagers.

  But how?

  Back at Gomeldon Ela ushered Edyth’s family into the house and had the cook prepare them a simple meal. After it was done she took John Wheaton to the barn and explained what had happened there.

  The blood from the murder had been cleaned up, but no one had been in there since for any reason. The hay had not yet been harvested, and there were other barns and sheds in use on the manor for the animals.

  “If I had holy water I could cleanse it properly,” he said.

  “How is holy water made?” Ela thought it odd that she’d never wondered this before.

  “It’s blessed by a priest.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence before Ela spoke. “We have a pond filled with fresh, clear water. I presume that as a former novice, you know the words…”

  John looked doubtful. “Not only am I no longer a novice, there are many who think I’m less than a man since I left the order.”

  “Why did you leave the order?” It was an impertinent question, but curiosity seared her. Most men would conduct an affair in secret and hold fast to their title and position. Did they get caught?

  “I fell in love with Alys. I wanted to live with her as man and wife. I often think it would have been better for both of us if our paths had never crossed.” He sounded deadly serious.

  “The Lord has his own plan for us,” said Ela. “And we’re not often blessed with knowledge of it.”