Even if she were married to Westley, Lord Shiveley could have her marriage annulled, could steal her away and have the king “make amends” to Westley and his family. But now that she had her newly learned skills of defending herself, he would not find her an easy conquest. She would literally fight him at every turn if she had to.
“You look beautiful in this dress.” Nicola stepped back to look at her. “The green brings out your eyes, and when you are singing at the festival, Westley will forgive you for when you pretended to be mute. Perhaps he will even kiss you at the festival.”
“Let us not speak about me anymore.” Evangeline’s cheeks burned. “Westley can kiss whomever he wishes. What about you, Nicola? Do you have a sweetheart?”
“My sweetheart died last winter.”
Evangeline covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, Nicola. What happened?”
“He was a poor villein, only seventeen—we both were. He caught a cold that went into his chest. He lived for two weeks, barely able to breathe, and then he died.” Tears puddled under her eyes. “I almost never talk about it.”
“I am so sorry. I did not mean to cause you more pain.”
“No, no.” She shook her head as she wiped her face with her apron. “It is good for me to speak of it sometimes, I think. No one ever wants to speak of it. Probably they don’t want to see me cry again. But the pain . . . It doesn’t seem to get any better. My mother tells me I shall love again, but . . . I can’t imagine it.”
Evangeline suddenly felt selfish and thoughtless. She was so absorbed with her own problems, she had not thought to even ask Nicola about her life.
“But I don’t want you to think about me today.” Nicola sniffed and seemed to force a smile. “Today you can make me very happy if I can hear you sing, see you win the contest, and then hear tomorrow that Westley has kissed you and declared his love for you.”
Evangeline shook her head. “You are teasing me.”
“Not a bit. Now, let us go or you will be late, and then I shall have to tell Westley that it was my fault, and I don’t want his wrath falling on me.”
Evangeline hugged Nicola. “I am sorry for what you have suffered, Nicola.”
“It is the way of this world, as the priest told me. Life is fleeting.”
“But it was a cruel thing to have happen.” Evangeline looked down into her friend’s eyes. “I wish it had not happened to you.”
“Thank you, Eva.” She hugged her back. “Now, let us be going.”
They hurried out and found Reeve Folsham waiting for them. “Ready?”
They nodded and walked with him to the far meadow. People crowded the road as they were all walking that way. Colorful booths were set up all around the outside edge of the open space. People were pressing in on every side. Evangeline had never seen so many people in one place. Nicola greeted three young maidens who smiled and hugged her, while Reeve Folsham pushed his way through toward the stage that had been built at one end.
Evangeline stayed near him, losing Nicola in the crowd. The reeve inquired of some people who were standing nearby, then turned to her. “They will not begin the singing contest for several more hours.” His brow creased as he put his hand on her shoulder, as if to make sure she didn’t go anywhere while he looked all around the big meadow area, now teeming with people. “I think you’ll be safe if you stay in the crowd and don’t leave this area.”
Evangeline nodded. But she swallowed, even as she noticed all the strangers—men, women, and children—jostling each other and her. Her stomach clenched as she remembered being dragged outside among all the servants who thought she’d tried to poison them.
But nothing was going to happen. Reeve Folsham would be nearby. Westley should be somewhere not too far. Evangeline stood for a moment, looking for an opening so she could see what the people were selling. She’d never been to a festival, or even a market fair, except when she went with Muriel on the second day of their trip to Glynval.
Evangeline moved toward the closest booth where a woman was selling buns. “Get them while they’re still hot,” she called. Evangeline had some coins in her purse, which was attached to her belt. She drew one out and gave it to the woman, who smiled and handed her a bun. “Enjoy it.”
She checked over her shoulder to make sure the reeve was still where she had left him. He was, so she moved to the next booth. A man was selling leather purses with a burn etching of flowering vines, and some had decorative stitching in the shape of animals. Hanging from his booth were also large saddlebags, as well as some thick leather vests and mantles—protective gear for hunters.
“My wife makes the designs.” The man pointed to the swirling vines burned into some of the bags.
Evangeline smiled and nodded. They were beautiful, but she had no need of a bag or leather armor. She moved on to the next booth. She continued looking around, occasionally seeing some other servant she recognized, but no one talked to her. She moved about without attracting much attention, and she soon felt at ease.
The next booth she came to was at the edge of a stand of trees. It was full of candles, some of them with bits of aromatic herbs or flowers—little stalks of lilac, lavender, and rosemary—pressed into the wax. Evangeline picked up the lavender one and sniffed—it smelled just like Westley’s shirts. Her eyes fluttered closed.
Suddenly someone stepped around her, pushing her aside with his body. Immediately hands came in front of her face, covering her mouth and nose, and her feet left the ground.
She tried to fight back, but her wrists were pinned behind her back and a rough hemp sack was yanked over her head. She was carried like a flour sack, her head lower than her body.
She tried to draw in a breath, but the dusty bag clung to her mouth, and the stale air inside it choked her. She could not draw in enough air to scream. Instead, she concentrated on just breathing in enough air so she would not faint.
Several people had hold of her. Was no one looking when these people grabbed her? Were these Lord Shiveley’s men? Was she being taken back to Berkhamsted Castle?
She kicked and writhed and fought, but it availed her nothing. They only walked faster, holding her waist so tight it hurt. Someone else must have had hold of her feet inside a narrow bag, preventing her from kicking out very far.
“What you got there?” A muffled voice came to her from somewhere nearby.
“A sow and her piglets,” said the gruff voice without slowing down.
Evangeline’s arms were burning and she could barely breathe. She felt herself fading, losing consciousness. She was being carried down some stone steps, then lowered to the ground. Someone snatched the bag off her head, ran up the steps, and slammed a heavy door shut.
Evangeline gulped in air, pushing herself up off the cold stone floor. It was quite dark, but there was just enough light for her to see buckets, two stools, and a few butter churns in the small open room. She was in the dairy, where they stored the milk and where she and Nicola had churned butter.
She rubbed her wrists, finding they were not tied together as she had assumed. Someone must have been holding them while they carried her.
She sat up and wriggled out of the rough hemp bag, pushing it off her legs and feet. She wiped her face with her hands, trying to get off the dust from the bag that still clung to her skin.
Why had Shiveley’s men thrown her in here? Why had they not slung her over a horse and rode her out of Glynval as quickly as possible?
She got to her feet. Her knees wobbled, but she ran up the stone steps, stumbling a bit as she reached the top. She grabbed the door handle, but it would not budge. She jerked and tugged, but it still would not open.
Evangeline stood on the tips of her toes to reach the tiny open space at the top of the heavy wooden door, the only source of light in the room. With her unusual height, she was just tall enough to see out. Some men were walking away, and one of them was John Underhill.
Was he planning to hurt Westley? Why had he attacked her? Pe
rhaps because he knew she was a witness to what he had done to Westley, but it was strange that he had not hurt her. Would he come back and kill her? And was he now on his way to kill Westley?
Westley! She had to get to him, had to warn him.
“Hey, Eva, can you hear me?” Sabina’s taunting voice came from outside.
“Sabina, let me out of here.”
“How did you find yourself in there?” Sabina giggled.
“Some men threw me in here. Can you please let me out?”
“Oh, I don’t think I will.”
Evangeline’s stomach sank and her face burned. Her mind raced as Sabina continued to speak.
“I thought I wanted to marry Westley le Wyse. Everyone knew I wanted to marry him.”
Sabina must have been standing off to the side because Evangeline could not see her through the tiny window.
“And I always get what I want. But when you came and Westley looked at you the way I wanted him to look at me, I could not let him make a fool of me.”
Evangeline leaned against the door. What was it Reeve Folsham had taught her? She stared hard at the bottom of the steps, looking for something she could use as a weapon. Sabina continued talking, but Evangeline hardly heard her as she ran down the steps and found a heavy pottery churn. She took out the paddle and the lid and threw them on the floor, then carried the heavy churn up the steps.
“Westley is not so saintly as everyone thinks. John Underhill told me how he always speaks ill of his father, Hugh Underhill. He blames Westley’s father for his father’s death. But either way, John is the one who has what I want—the will to gain the most wealth, the most land, and the most power.”
Evangeline raised the heavy churn over her head, then brought it down as hard as she could on the handle of the door. The churn fell to the stone step and broke into several pieces, but the handle also broke off and lay among the broken pottery pieces.
She pushed the door open, still holding on to the largest piece of the broken churn, and thrust it into Sabina’s face.
Sabina’s eyes widened and she screamed. Evangeline charged at her with the giant piece of broken pottery and used it to shove her to the ground, the broken edge near her throat. Sabina screamed again.
Evangeline fell to the ground beside Sabina and used her knee to press down on the pottery and Sabina’s chest. She grabbed Sabina’s hands and pinned them down on either side of her head. The pressure on Sabina’s throat halted her screaming.
“Where are they? Where were they taking Westley?”
Sabina’s face was turning red and her mouth and eyes were wide open. Evangeline eased up on the pressure to her chest. Sabina sucked in a gulp of air.
“Tell me now or I’ll—”
“They were taking him to the woods”—she gasped for air again—“behind the meadow.”
“If you’re lying to me . . .”
Sabina shook her head, her face a cloudy white now instead of red.
Evangeline left the broken pottery on top of Sabina as she stood. She ran as fast as she could to the oat barn, then she barreled out of the barn with her bow and arrows.
The reeve rushed toward her. “Where did you—?”
“Westley is in trouble! John Underhill is here. I think he intends to kill him.”
Reeve Folsham turned, and they both raced toward the meadow.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Westley and his father spoke with some of the traveling minstrels they had hired. When they had arranged for them to stay through the evening to entertain the crowd and had decided on a fair wage, he headed to the meadow where Evangeline and the others were supposed to sing. He wanted to make sure the stage his men had just built was holding up well.
Westley plunged into the crowd but could see neither Evangeline nor Reeve Folsham, who was supposed to keep watch over her. Nicola was nearby, talking to another servant at a booth selling silk scarves. He took a step toward her, and a tall burly man stepped in front of him. Something sharp stuck into his back and a voice behind him said, “We have Eva. If you don’t come with us, we will kill her.”
Westley clenched his teeth as a hand clamped down on his arm and turned him away from the crowd. The two men pressed in close on either side of him, as if trying to hide him from view, as they guided him toward the trees.
“Who are you?” Westley ground out.
“Just keep walking.”
The knife point pressed harder into his side. If it was only the one man and his knife, Westley would risk grabbing the knife handle and wrenching it from him. But since there were two men and Westley had no weapon of his own, he would wait for a better opportunity.
First he needed to find out where they were keeping Evangeline.
John Underhill and a few of his men stood in the middle of the trees. John’s face and eyes bore a dark look that was never there when they were children. Even his lips looked thinner, giving him a harder, colder expression.
“John. Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” The sneer on his face transformed him even more into someone Westley had never seen before.
“What have you done with Eva?”
“My father was right and you were wrong all those years ago.” John stomped closer, sticking his finger in Westley’s face. “He knew we were too soft on the villeins and servants, and they would turn against us. But you said that was not true. You said the better we treated them, the better off we would all be. And then it was not half a year later that they slaughtered my father.
“Then when my father was not even cold yet, your father was giving out extra food to the peasants, paying them wages for work they had always done for us as an obligation.” John lowered his finger but snarled, lifting his top lip like an animal. “My father always said, ‘If you don’t take control of the villeins, if you don’t weigh them down with more work than they can do, then they will take control.’ And he was right.”
“I’m sorry your father was killed, John. No one, least of all me or my father, would ever have wanted that to happen. We would have done anything to prevent it.”
“You didn’t care about my father. He always said you were too soft. He didn’t even want me to play with you as a child, but I believed my father was wrong. I would sneak away and go fishing with you. I listened to you, but my father was right and you were wrong.”
Westley tried to remember those conversations. “Your father loved you, John, and you loved him. That is a good thing. God would not—”
“Shut your mouth! Don’t talk about my father, and don’t talk to me about God!” John stabbed his finger at Westley’s face and spittle flew out of his mouth as he yelled, “You were wrong, and now I want you to admit it. Admit you were wrong!”
Madness seemed to shine out of his bloodshot eyes. A dark vein in his neck bulged as if ready to explode; another swollen purple vein at his temple throbbed.
“You and Lord le Wyse killed my father. With all your softness and talk of all men being equal in God’s eyes. You filled the villeins with these notions, and they rose up and killed my father. And I blame you.”
“Then why are you trying to hurt Eva? What did she do?”
“I was only using her to lure you here. But if she doesn’t do as I say . . .” He curled his lip again. “She must have seen me when I pushed you in the river. I wasn’t planning to kill you. You just made me so angry. But now . . . You will admit you were wrong about the villeins, that your father was wrong, and that my father was right.”
“Sabina must have been lying.”
“I didn’t know Sabina then.” He actually smiled. “But when I explained to her that you are not the perfect man everyone thinks you are, she told me she was sorry she ever helped that other girl save you. Now she wants to be my wife.” His smile grew wider.
“When did you become so full of hatred?”
“What I am full of is justice and truth. I want justice for my murdered father, and I want you to s
ay that he was right, about everything.”
“So, will you hit me in the head and push me in the river again?” The knife was still pressing in between his ribs, but he was trying to buy some time.
“I should kill you the same way they killed my father—with a knife through the chest and beaten with sticks until his face was unrecognizable.”
Westley glanced around. He had to make a move soon. But the oaf beside him tightened his grip on his arm. John pulled out his own knife and held it up to Westley’s nose.
His stomach twisted. How would he get out of this?
Suddenly a high-pitched yell split the air. They all turned around to see Evangeline holding a bow and arrow aimed at the man behind John. She let the arrow fly.
The man screamed. “She shot me!”
Just as suddenly, the man on his left grunted and fell face-forward into the ground, his knife still clutched in his hand.
The man to Westley’s right, with a block of wood in his hand, suddenly disappeared behind Westley’s back. Scuffling, like two people fighting, ensued behind him.
Seeing the shock on John’s face, Westley tried to snatch his knife away. But John did not let go, and they both struggled for control of the weapon.
Westley was slightly taller, and he used his height to push down on the knife handle, pushing it toward John’s forehead and forcing him backward so far he fell to the ground on his back. Westley pinned his left hand to the ground while he pounded and squeezed John’s right hand until he knocked the knife loose.
Evangeline aimed her next arrow at the man’s left shoulder and let it fly. The arrow struck him just where she aimed it.
The man screamed and grabbed at the arrow shaft. “I’m killed!” He stared at her, then roared like a bear. He started toward her, and she tried to snatch another arrow from the leather pouch at her hip. Her fingers fumbled and nearly dropped it. Finally, fitting it to the string, she pulled it taut and aimed at the man’s chest.
His eyes bulging, he stared at the arrow.
“You should go get that shoulder bandaged.” Her voice was surprisingly even.