Alys Clare - The Rose of the World

‘They’re separating,’ Ninian said. ‘Look, one lot are heading off north, and the others seem to be going down towards the abbey.’

‘The young man who has Rosamund is in the second group.’ Meggie was watching closely. ‘The man in the russet tunic is going with them, and a couple of others too. They’ve stuck close by him all the way,’ she added. ‘They look like his bodyguards.’

Ninian did not comment. She turned to him, a question framed, but he leapt up and hurried back to their horses. Soon they had remounted and were following the smaller group on the road to the vale. After a couple of miles, it became clear they were not going down into the vale, for they had taken a narrow track that swung round to skirt it to the south.

‘I think,’ Ninian said, ‘they intend to go round to the east of the abbey and enter through the main gates.’

‘Too grand to trot up the path that leads to the little west gate?’ Meggie suggested.

‘More likely because the main gate’s more suitable for horsemen. Come on — ’ he kicked his horse to a canter — ‘they’re getting too far ahead. Even if we’re fairly sure where they are bound, we don’t want to lose them.’

They hurried on. Meggie could make out the members of the group quite clearly now. The leader, in his russet tunic. The man who looked like Ninian, Rosamund sitting in front of him on the black horse. The two burly men who she thought were bodyguards. What were they going to do? Would they ride into the abbey and say that they had found Rosamund wandering and so had brought her to that place of safety so that the nuns could look after her until she could be reunited with her family? It seemed likely. Perhaps the man in the russet tunic had been angry with the young man who’d taken Rosamund — Meggie recalled the furious, shouting voice last evening — and wanted to put a wrong to rights as quickly as he could. If he was the young man’s lord, as he seemed to be, then it would be up to him to inflict punishment and The group had split again. The bodyguards were riding away northwards along the track to the abbey gates. The man in the tunic and the man who looked like Ninian, with Rosamund still sitting in front of him, were heading off to the east.

They were not heading for the abbey at all.

Meggie felt sick with dread. A loud warning alarm was ringing inside her head. Something was about to happen, something terrible. She knew it was, and she did not know how to prevent it.

The two horses were cantering up the gentle slope towards the dense woodland. Just up there, directly ahead of them, was St Edmund’s Chapel. Filled with horror, Meggie looked at Ninian.

There was no time to explain, and, indeed, she had no idea what she would have said. All the strange skills that she had inherited from her mother and her grandmother seemed to coalesce, and she felt as if her skin were tingling. She did not know if Ninian felt it too; just then it did not matter. She kicked her horse and yelled, ‘Hurry!’

Rosamund was worried. They had told her they were going to Hawkenlye Abbey, and she had been very relieved because she knew lots of the nuns and the monks there and they would look after her. She did not understand what had happened. The man — his name was Olivier — had been kind to her and she quite liked him, but he had told her quite a lot of lies. He’d said there was going to be a party, and that she must not tell her family because it was meant to be a surprise. Well, that amounted to a lie because although there had been a sort of party at that lodge place last night, none of her family had been there, so it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d told them after all.

She did not know what to make of the lord. He was kind, too, and he had made her laugh. He’d made sure she had a nice private place to sleep — as private as possible, anyway, in a lodge full of men — and he had come over himself to make sure his orders had been carried out. Rosamund thought he was quite a grand lord. For one thing, he had been hunting and stayed at that lodge, and for another, it seemed to her that he was used to issuing a lot of commands and having them instantly obeyed. Olivier and the other men called him my lord and most of them seemed really in awe of him.

Rosamund was worried because now it looked as if they were not going to the abbey after all. It might still be all right if instead they were going where she thought they were… She felt Olivier kick his heels into Star’s sides to encourage him up the long slope, and, looking to her right, she saw the lord’s lovely chestnut gelding cantering easily along beside them. The horse was so light on his feet that he almost looked as if he were flying.

They reached the place where a semicircle of land jutted out from the dense woodland, almost opposite the abbey gates below. Olivier drew Star to a halt, and the chestnut stopped close beside them. Olivier was talking to himself. It frightened Rosamund, and she twisted round to look at him.

His eyes looked odd. They were wild and darting from side to side as if he was trying to watch several people all at once. That was peculiar too, because Rosamund could not see anyone in the clearing except the lord on the chestnut horse. She listened, trying to make out what Olivier was saying.

‘I did it,’ he whispered. ‘Yes I did, and you can’t tell me I didn’t. This time I got it right and I haven’t made any mistakes.’

Whoever he thought he was talking to must have replied. He was quiet for a few moments, as if listening, then he hissed, ‘I did! I did do it right!’

She did not know what to do. Every instinct told her to get away from him. He scared her. He still had an arm around her waist, but it did not feel as if he was holding her very tightly. Without giving herself time to think too much — she knew her nerve might fail if she did — she wriggled out of his grasp and slid down to the ground, landing with a thud and jarring one ankle.

‘Ow!’ she cried.

Olivier leapt down after her and was just about to grab her when the lord said curtly, ‘No.’

He, too, was off his horse. He walked across to her and, bending down, smiled at her. ‘You know this place, do you not, Rosamund?’ he asked.

She eyed him warily. ‘Ye-es,’ she said slowly. There seemed no harm in agreeing.

‘You’ve been here before,’ he went on. He reached out and took her hand, clasping it lightly in his. ‘I would guess that you come here quite frequently.’

‘It’s St Edmund’s Chapel,’ Rosamund said. Everyone knew that. ‘It was built by Queen Eleanor, and it’s where people go to pray for the soul of King Richard.’ Everybody knew that, too. She wasn’t giving anything away.

There was only one thing that was secret. Rosamund swore to herself that nothing on earth would make her reveal it.

He still held her hand. There was a pause while he looked right into her eyes. His were so blue, so very blue. She waited. ‘I think you come here with someone else,’ he said. He was panting, she noticed, as if he had been running hard.

‘Sometimes I come with my grandmother,’ she said. Was that what he wanted to know?

‘No, not your grandmother!’ For an instant he sounded impatient and the nice smile vanished, but then quickly it was back. ‘You come with a much younger woman, a very pretty girl with brown, curly hair and eyes that dance with light.’ His mouth was open, and his thick tongue came out like a darting snake and licked his lips.

Rosamund knew who he meant. She did not understand why this man with the hungry eyes and the wet mouth wanted to find Meggie, but she knew enough to realize that it would not be good if he found her.

She opened her eyes wide and said, ‘I come here with the nuns. Some of them are young but, of course, you can’t see what colour their hair is because they’re veiled.’