The Maiden's Abduction

Her silence was watched carefully and, when Bard opened his mouth ready to hurry her decision, a frown from Silas quelled the opening word.

‘You are La Vallons,’ she said at last. ‘And I am a Medwin. I would be a fool to trust you, would I not?’

It was Silas who answered her. ‘My brother is prejudiced and would deny any foolishness as a matter of course. For myself, I think you may not have been offered too many options these last few weeks, but that doesn’t make you a fool. A few days at sea, a change of air, would give you some time to make a better decision. I can recommend it, mistress.’

‘The company is not what I would have chosen.’

‘There are books to read on board. Your maid will be with you. Plenty to see. We shall be there before you notice the company.’

‘You’ll be there at York, Bard?’

‘I’ll be there, sweetheart. Trust me. I promise I’ll be there waiting.’

She sighed heavily, turning her head. ‘My panniers are packed. You intend sailing today, sir?’ she said to the bowl of apples, taking one to caress its waxy skin.

‘We sail immediately. The tide will be at its height in half an hour and the captain is waiting. Bard is packed and ready to be away.’

‘I see. So it was already decided.’

Neither of the brothers denied it. She was right, of course.

Having seen nothing of Scarborough in the daylight, Isolde was almost on the point of changing her mind about leaving so soon, and the surprise at what lay beyond the windows and doors of the merchant’s large house turned to a sadness that Bard took, typically, to be for his farewell. It had not been so difficult to see him go, only to believe, with regard to his reputation, that he was trustworthy. Now that she was alone with Cecily, she could think of few reasons why she had agreed to place a similar kind of trust in his disagreeable brother, who saw no need to keep up any pretence of liking her.

Despite the sadness and doubting, her spirits were buoyed up by the nearness of Dame Elizabeth’s house to the harbour, the vast expanse of sparkling sea beyond, the swaying masts of ships and the brown water that reflected every shape and threw it crazily askew. Houses lined the quay in an arc on one side, enclosing the harbour on the other side by a wall of stone and timber that extended from the base of a massive natural mound at one side of the town. It was on top of this mound that the Norman castle perched, which they’d seen against the evening sky. Now it was being mobbed by screaming seagulls, some of which came in to land at Isolde’s feet with beady, enquiring eyes and bold, flat-footed advances.

‘I’m going,’ she told them, on the brink of tears. ‘I’m going and I’ve only just arrived.’

The breeze that had brought a welcome coolness into her bedchamber overnight had now lifted the sea into more than Silas La Vallon’s hypothetical millpond, causing Cecily to clutch at her skirts, her head-dress and shawl all at the same time. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, love,’ she said.

No, dear Cecily. I have not the slightest idea what I’m doing.

Silas La Vallon’s ship was also a surprise to her, for she had thought he meant one of the squat northern cogs that piled cargo up and down the rivers, one-masted, cramped, and serviceably plain. She had seen them at York, loaded with bales of cloth and smelly commodities, and it had been a measure of her temporary madness that she had agreed to sail with him even in one of those. But this was not a cog; it was a four-hundred-ton carrack, a three-masted beauty that sat proudly on the high tide outside Dame Elizabeth’s door almost, a towering thing with decorated castles fore and aft, swarming with men and more ropes than a ropemaker’s shop.

The men grinned and nudged and pulled in their stomachs, then got on with their swarming as she and Cecily were led aboard and introduced to the master, whose aquamarine eyes sparkled with intrigue in a skin of creased and burnished leather. And she looked hard and with genuine regret at the three who stood waving and calling last-minute instructions on the quayside. The two boys watched in fascination the men who hauled in unison, the sails that squeaked upwards, cracking and billowing, the majestic swing of the bow, and it was only Dame Elizabeth who noticed the quick brush of fingers across one cheek as it received her wind-blown kiss.

Or perhaps there was another who saw, who came to lean on the bulwark by her side to wave, then to point out the Brakespeares’ house and its adjacent warehouse, King Richard’s House over there, the old Roman lighthouse, and there, over to the left, the town gate through which Bard would already have passed.

‘Yes, I see,’ she said, straining her eyes to scan the road.

The town nestled closer on to the hillside as they passed beyond the harbour entrance and out into the open sea, holding itself steady as the ship took its first pulling lunges into the swell like a swimmer lengthening his stroke. She felt the lurch as the sails cracked open and the corresponding rush of exhilaration in the pit of her stomach, as though she stood on a live beast, and found ever more to see as the distance between them and the land increased, the prominent headland at one side with never-ending cliffs on the other. Below the cliffs were beaches where white-edged surf broke and mended again, then raced in upon the rocks further along, determined to smash uninterrupted.

‘We didn’t see any of this on our way here,’ she said.

‘You’d not have seen the cliffs or the rocks because you were above them,’ Silas told her. He turned round and pointed across the deck. ‘That’s what you’d have seen.’

The water was a pure shimmering blue, bouncing sunlight and seagulls into the clear morning air, and Isolde was spellbound.

‘You can eat your apple now,’ he said.

It was still there, in her hand, and so she did, but was unable to hear her own crunching for the multitude of creaks and groans underfoot and the crashing roar of waves hurtling past. Nor did she taste a thing.

He left her alone after that, as if, having made sure she would not jump overboard, he could relax his guard. That was the cynical view she took of things, which was, perhaps, an inefficient tool to guard against the wayward thoughts to do with his nearness as he had leaned across her to point; the tiny red mark on his chin where he had cut himself shaving, the way the cuffs of his white cotton shirt clung to his beautiful hands. Silly, inconsequential things. Irritably, she brushed back the memory of his intimidating manner, despite her own defence, but it returned with masochistic glee to taunt her with every detail of their argument.

Finally, she went aft towards the shallow stairway, where a cabin was built high on to the stern of the ship, its sloping roof decorated with gold-painted finials and cut-work edgings. It was large enough only for a wide bed built above a cupboard, a shelf that served as a table over their luggage, and two large boxes in a corner. Cecily was sitting upon one of them, hugging a basin to her chest and groaning. Her face was grey. Isolde took a blanket and wrapped it around her maid’s shoulders, helping her outside to the deck. ‘Deep breaths, love,’ she said. ‘Stay in the corner and go to sleep.’

Food and wine were brought to them mid-morning: cold meats and mussels, delicious patties and cherries, none of which Cecily could look at but which Isolde devoured to the last crumb. The wind was strengthening and the sea bore dark patches, and the high head-dress swathed with a fine veiling was no longer an appropriate statement of restored dignity. It would have to come off again. She took Cecily back to the cabin, wondering why the crew needed to carry a supply of live chickens and two piglets from Scarborough to York.

The glass-paned window that looked out directly over the ship’s wake began to streak with rain long before Isolde noticed it, for the constant pitching and tossing had made Cecily’s first voyage memorable for all the wrong reasons, and Isolde was disinclined to leave her so wretchedly helpless. When she did emerge from the cabin to replenish her lungs with fresh air, the deluge of fine rain made her screw up her face and draw her cloak more tightly across her shoulders as she made her way across the slippery deck to the bulwarks.

‘Where are we?’ she asked one of the crew as he turned to watch, holding out a hand to steady her. ‘Where’s the land?’

The man looked out into the bank of cloud as he pointed. ‘Over there, lady. It’ll be hidden for a bit until this lot clears.’

She sat on a wet wooden crate for safety. ‘I thought we’d be staying within sight of it, going south.’

‘Nay.’ He smiled. ‘If we had a northerly, now that’d be different: that’d blow us due south in record time. But we don’t get northerlies in summer, do we? So we have to fill our sails with whatever we can catch, and then go from side to side, see? Like that.’ He zigzagged with his hand. ‘Your old maid taken bad, is she?’

That sounded like a perfectly reasonable explanation, and it satisfied Isolde, who knew little either of geography or navigation. Once again, she settled herself against Cecily’s unhappily sleeping bulk, covered herself with blankets, and began an examination of the leatherbound books on the shelf above her. Silas La Vallon had an interesting collection, though she had not thought his taste would run to stories about King Arthur, La Belle Dame sans Merci, the Legend of Ladies, or a Disputation between Hope and Despair, which proved to be not quite the help she had expected. The possibility that these might have been selected for her benefit flashed through her mind, but was dismissed. Darkness came before supper that evening, and the bucking of the ship and the consequent swinging of the lantern made reading difficult. And Silas La Vallon, to please her, kept well out of sight.

Sleeping had been a fitful and precarious business, noisy with shouts and pounding feet, howling wind, clattering sails and the constant rush of water all around them. Using the close-stool had in itself been an unexpected peril, especially when trying to manoeuvre Cecily on and off it, and, by first light, Isolde had realised that sleep and ships were incompatible.

After watering her maid with some of their precious ration, then suffering the inevitable consequences only moments later, Isolde clutched a blanket tightly around herself and left the cabin in an attempt to reassure herself that land did exist. A fine line of blue stretched across the horizon below the clouds. ‘There!’ she called to the master. ‘Look! Is that it?’

He came through the door beneath the forecastle where she understood his cabin to be and joined her, cheerily. ‘That’s a bit o’ blue sky, mistress. We might get a bit o’ sun later, and a good westerly, by the feel o’ things.’

‘But that will blow us away from Hull, won’t it? I thought we’d have been within reach of Hull by now.’

‘Eh…no. We shan’t be seeing Hull today.’ He laughed, not bothering to explain. ‘I’ll send ye some food up, mistress, seeing as you’re awake already. Did ye not sleep so well?’

‘Not much,’ she said, frowning.

‘Aye, well. It’s always worse on’t first night. Better tonight, eh?’

Disappointed, she returned to the cabin and made an effort to straighten it, and when the cabin boy brought the tray tried with her most beguiling smile and a toss of her glorious red hair to bedazzle him. ‘Who does this ship belong to?’ she said, sweetly, taking the tray from him.

‘Master Silas Mariner, mistress. He’s the owner.’

‘Silas Mariner? Ah, easier to say than La Vallon, yes?’

‘Yes, mistress.’

‘And where did you berth before you went to Scarborough?’

Like a man, he took the full force of her green eyes, smiled, and said, ‘Sorry, mistress. If I want to keep my job, I have to keep my mouth shut.’ He bowed, and closed the door quietly.

It was mid-day when Isolde tried yet again to elicit some information regarding direction, distance, time of arrival—anything concerning land or the lack of it. She made another attempt mid-afternoon, and again in the evening, by which time Master Silas Mariner-La Vallon had failed to return to his cabin in the forecastle before she appeared on deck.

‘I realise that you are doing your best to avoid me, Master La Vallon,’ Isolde said, as he turned to make a polite bow, ‘and I am grateful for that. However, there is a problem which I need to discuss.’

‘You are mistaken, mistress. I was not avoiding you but waiting for you. And I am aware of your problem. My crew are well trained. They have to be.’

The fear and anger that she had tried since dawn to contain took another leap into her chest, making her feel as if she had bumped into something solid. Her legs felt weak, but she allowed herself to be led over coils of rope and across the drying deck into his cabin, which was not the master’s, after all. It was larger than hers, but wedge-shaped, the table piled with papers and instruments, ledgers, quills and inkpots.

As the cabin dipped and rose again, she held on to a wooden pillar and waited until he had closed the door before turning to him. Her voice held more than a hint of panic, which she had not intended. ‘For the fiftieth time of asking, sir, where are we?’ The words seemed to come from far away, adding to the sense of unreality that had dogged her all day, and, in the exaggerated pause between question and answer, she saw that he, too, had discarded the earlier formal attire for the barest essentials of comfort. His shirt, a padded doublet of soft plum-coloured leather and tight hose were his only concessions to the North Sea’s cutting edge.

‘I will show you,’ he said. He brought forward a roll of parchment from a pile on the table and weighted its corners with a sextant, a conch shell, a glass of wine and one hand. ‘There…’ he pointed to the eastern coastline ‘…there is Scarborough, and this is where we are now, down here, see?’ His finger trailed southwards, passing Hull, where Isolde had expected to enter the estuary of the River Humber in order to reach York on the Ouse. His finger stopped some distance from the coast of Norfolk, nowhere near land.

Isolde felt herself trembling, but pulled herself up as tall as she could despite the tightness in her lungs. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t see. I don’t see at all. What’s happened? Have we been blown off course by the storm? Is that it?’

Silas allowed the roll to spring back, and she knew by his slow straightening, his watchful air, his whole stance, that he was preparing for her reaction. His shaking head confirmed that there was more to come. ‘No, mistress, there was no storm last night. That was just weather. We are on course.’

‘On course for where? Hull is behind us now.’

‘Yes. We are heading for Flanders. We always were.’

The room swam.

‘No,’ she said, breathless now. ‘No, sir. You may be, but I am not heading for Flanders. Turn this ship round immediately. Immediately! Do you hear me?’ She whirled, heading for the door, the master, anybody. But once again he was there before her, and this time, with no one to witness, he caught her in a bear hug and swung her round to face him, wedging her against the door with his body. All the defences that she had been taught, which were supposed to be crippling to an attacker, were useless, for her feet were somewhere to the side, her hands were splayed above her head, and the shock had numbed her. Worse still, the reality which had been hovering out of reach all day now descended with cruel precision, wounding her, making this new and frightening restraint all the more unbearable.

She fought him with all her strength, refusing to call for help. This was his ship. These were his men. No one would interfere. She was more alone than she had ever been before, and her anger roared in her ears. ‘I was a fool to trust you,’ she snarled, twisting in his grip. ‘I was a fool. You and your confounded brother. I should have seen what was happening. This is for Felicia, isn’t it? And I walked straight into the trap. Fool…fool…what an idiot!’

‘If that’s what you want to believe, believe it,’ he said, drawing her hands slowly down to the small of her back. ‘It makes little difference what you believe, except that you’re going to Flanders.’

‘I’m not going anywhere with you!’

‘You’d have gone anywhere with my brother.’

‘I would not! I had no intention of staying in York with him: I was using him to get away from that place, that’s all. Otherwise I would never consort with a La Vallon.’

‘You’ll consort with the La Vallons whether you like it or not, wench.’ He lifted her easily, as he would have done a child. ‘And you’re wrong again. My brother is no part of my plans.’

‘I don’t believe you. Put me down! No…oh, no!’ The soft bed hit her with a thud from behind and then, as she rolled away, the panelled wall cracked into her forehead. Stunned and utterly confused, she felt him pull her back and capture her wrist, tucking her other arm safely behind his back where she felt only a broad expanse of silky leather. Immediately his long legs and body were sprawled across her, holding her immobile and shaming her by their closeness. His brother had never been as close to her as this. Never.

With closed eyes and clenched jaws, she waited for what she was sure would happen next, though she had no details to guide her. When all she experienced was the deep rocking of the ship nosing its way through the water and the rhythmic thud-thud on the sides, she opened them, warily.

He was leaning on one elbow and looking down at her face, his eyes wandering over hair and skin and finally coming to rest in hers. ‘Well?’ he whispered. ‘You think I’m about to rape you?’

She gulped. ‘Aren’t you?’

To her relief, he did not smile. ‘No. You’ll come to me without that.’

His sentiment was so totally absurd that it was not worth an answer, and she looked away disdainfully. The memory of his regard at supper had scarcely left her, and the details of his contact over the last twenty-four hours had imprinted themselves upon almost every one of her waking thoughts. But the idea that she would ever give herself to him willingly after this unforgivable treatment was quite ridiculous. She would take the first opportunity to free herself.

She squirmed, and felt his legs tighten their hold. ‘This is unworthy of you, sir. Let me go now. You must know that this is not the way to avenge your family for the abduction of your sister. You knew—?’

‘About Felicia and your father? Of course I knew. Even before Bard told me.’

So. That was what she had thought. ‘And he plotted with you to do the same?’

‘No, he didn’t. I’ve told you, Bard is not part of my plans. He never has been.’

Her green eyes flashed like sunlight over mossy waters. ‘Rubbish! Don’t tell me he’ll be standing there on the quay at York waiting for you to deliver me, as you said you’d do.’

‘He will. He’ll wait and wait, and then he’ll begin to ask questions, and he’ll discover that I’m not due at York. We called there before Scarborough, so the cargo we’re carrying is for Flanders. Poor Bard.’ His tone was anything but concerned, and Isolde was tempted to believe him.

‘I believed you before, but I’ll not do it again, sir.’

‘That’s sad. Now I shall have to resort to more believable methods.’

She realised what he was about to do, and, when she thought about it later, knew that she could have made it more difficult for him, though not impossible. But his eyes held her every bit as surely as they had done before, and she could already feel the warmth of him on her skin, see his head blotting out the last of the dim light in the recessed bunk. Her eyelids closed under the infinitely slow exploration of his lips upon her face, and even then she wondered why she was doing nothing to resist it. Bard’s kisses had always held more than a hint of selfishness, intended to impress but never to close her mind, as she felt his brother’s doing.

Slowly, and with practised skill, he kept her mouth waiting until she moved her head to follow him, luring her on towards the sublime capture, the first taste of his mouth on hers. And with restraint, without even hinting that this moment was, for him, the assuaging of an ache that had threatened to devour him, he left the full impact of it until she moaned and softened under him, until he felt one hand move impatiently across his back. Then he released her wrist and slid an arm beneath her back to gather her up to him as he had done during that long look which had so puzzled and intrigued her.

The reality of it far surpassed anything either of them could have imagined in the hours since they had met, and there had been plenty of imagining on both sides. Yet there was a part of her that remained on an even keel, despite the weightlessness of her mind and the amazing sensations of her body. A part that reminded her of what she was about. Between his kisses came the cautionary voice, urging her to resist before it was too late. La Vallon. The enemy. Abduction. Flanders. Revenge. Obedient to the warning, she pushed at his shoulder, then his chin, tearing her mouth away. ‘No…no…no!’

He gave her a chance to offer reasons, but she could remember nothing that would have convinced him of her unwillingness except a turn of her head and more denials. His voice was husky with wanting. ‘It’s no wonder my brother came after you so fast, maid, if that’s how it was with him, too.’

It was, she thought, a particularly insensitive remark for him to have made, and she was at once angered and sobered by the need to rebut it. How could he kiss her so and believe that her response was common to both brothers? If she had been able to read his mind, she would have seen there the instant regret of one who had been as much shaken as she. But by then it was too late.

She turned back quickly to wound him. ‘I see. So it’s that too, is it? To prove that you can so easily take what he wants from under his nose. Well, well. With a ship and a crew of this size and a woman as naïve as me, who couldn’t? But don’t think you’ll ever have my co-operation, Master Silas Mariner. Now let me go back to Mistress Cecily. She needs me.’

He twisted a hand into her hair. ‘It was you, remember, who brought up Bard’s name, not once, but twice. If you find comparisons hard to bear, then think on the boyish pecks he gave you while I try to win your co-operation.’ His kiss this time was intended to teach her the difference between a man and a boy, but she had already discovered that, and needed no further demonstration of the power and scope of his artistry. For the next few moments she needed all her strength not to cry out or to fight for survival, and there were tears of anger in her eyes at its conclusion.

‘Let me go,’ she croaked. ‘Let me go back to—’

‘You’re not going anywhere. You’ll stay here tonight, where I can guard you.’

‘Against what? Jumping overboard? Cecily needs me, I tell you.’

‘She doesn’t. The ship’s physician is with her. You’re staying with me.’

‘And what d’ye think that lot out there will be thinking, after this?’

‘My master and crew are paid to sail the ship. They do as they’re told and keep their mouths shut.’

‘I cannot stay here…please.’

‘Hush, now, maid. You’ve had a long day and you need to sleep. I shall not harm you.’ He removed her shoes and straightened her skirts, then pulled blankets over them both, enclosing her against the bend of his body, stroking back her hair and caressing her back with tender hands.

She had hardly slept last night and, after a nerve-racking day, she was exhausted. Now, within the safety and comfort of his arms and the rocking of the ship, there were no more choices to be made or decisions to be met. Nevertheless, she summoned her iciest tones to fire a last salvo over her shoulder, to where his smile was already settling in. ‘You can’t do this, you know. You simply cannot do this.’

She heard the smile broaden. ‘Remind me, maid, if you will. What is it that I cannot do?’ His voice almost melted her.