The Silent Songbird (Hagenheim #7)(3)
“I shall leave you alone for a while.” Muriel turned and her footsteps receded to the door. Then she seemed to hesitate and said, “I am truly sorry, Evangeline. But God will sustain you.” The door clicked open, then shut again.
If she were like other women, she would let the king use her as a gift, a favor, a pawn. But she would do something no other noble ladies that she knew of ever did. She would refuse to marry Lord Shiveley. If necessary, she would run away, take on another identity, lose herself in the English countryside. She had imagined it many times, had thought long and hard about the different ways she might escape.
All her life Evangeline had lived in various royal residences—mostly at Berkhamsted Castle—wherever the king sent her to live. The king was so afraid she might be kidnapped and held for ransom he had ordered her to stay inside the walls, only allowed to venture out occasionally when she had guards nearby. Most people in England probably did not even know the Duke of Clarence had a second child or that her name was Evangeline.
When the king visited, he and other special guests would accompany her on a hunt in the adjacent deer park or a walk around the gardens. She obeyed, accepting that she was not the master of her own fate. Evangeline had rarely done anything courageous or unexpected.
Tonight was a good time for a change, to see if she was brave enough to carry out her fantasy of running away.
Westley le Wyse thanked the servant girl for the water.
Above him in the castle window, a young red-haired woman was staring down at him. Was she the one who had been singing just moments before? He had been listening, rapt and still, to that voice, the one singing a rustic ballad with such refinement and grace, until it suddenly went silent. As soon as their eyes met, she disappeared from the window, almost as if someone had snatched her back.
He only glimpsed her, but he got the impression she was not a servant by her clothing and hair, and that she was quite lovely. The rumor was that the king had a ward living at Berkhamsted Castle, a young woman with an ethereally beautiful voice. Some said she was the illegitimate daughter of the king’s dead uncle, Lionel of Antwerp, which meant she was the granddaughter of King Edward. But she might be only a myth. Legends often were created from some tidbit of gossip.
“Did you hear the news?”
He shifted around to face the servant girl who lingered in the bailey with her bucket of water.
“King Richard is coming to Berkhamsted Castle tonight.”
That would be a sight. Even Westley’s father had never seen the king.
“We are all busy with preparations for the king and his retinue. What provisions did you and your men bring for us?” The girl was standing on tiptoe, trying to see over his shoulder.
“Wheat flour, oats, malt, and some large cheeses.”
It had been a good year for several crops in Glynval and the surrounding land. Westley had come to Berkhamsted Castle with his father’s servants to sell their excess.
“This is my little sister.” The servant girl indicated the golden-haired child playing behind her. “I have to watch her today since my mother is sick.”
The little girl looked to be about six years old. She was squealing and grunting as she leapt and spun about, trying to catch a bright-yellow butterfly that fluttered just out of her reach.
A horse’s angry neigh drew Westley’s attention to the other end of the bailey.
“Steady,” said a man holding the horse’s bridle. Its neigh grew into a high-pitched screech. The horse leapt straight up, snatching the bridle out of the man’s hands. The horse’s hooves touched the ground and the animal bolted forward. The cart knocked the man to the ground as it jolted past him.
The horse galloped across the bailey—heading straight for the little girl.
“Get out of the way!” Westley pushed the servant aside as he raced toward the little girl, willing her to move out of the path of the horse.
The girl suddenly seemed to hear the noise of the horse’s hooves and the clattering cart barreling toward her. She froze and stared, her mouth open.
Westley ran and grabbed her around her middle with one arm, then dove to the side. He held her above him as his shoulder and back collided with the ground.
Chapter Two
When Muriel left her room, Evangeline wandered back to the window that faced the bailey.
While she watched Alma talk with the handsome young man, a horse broke away from its handler and careened toward Alma’s little sister.
The child saw the horse coming. Why didn’t she run? She seemed frozen.
Evangeline screamed, “Run!”
The young man leapt toward the girl, grabbed her, and pulled her out of the way just in time.
The horse galloped on and crashed the cart into the stone wall around the well. The cart now in pieces, the horse kept going and finally stopped at the opposite wall of the bailey.
Evangeline clutched her chest as air seeped back into her lungs.
The little girl was crying. The young man set her on her feet, and Alma ran to her and hugged her. Was the stranger hurt? He took quite a hard fall as he protected the child in his arms.
He got to his feet as the other men with him rushed to his side. He must have spoken to Alma and the little girl because they turned toward him. How Evangeline wished she could hear what they were saying! She leaned out of the window but couldn’t catch their words. She imagined he asked the kitchen maid if the child was uninjured and imagined her replying, “Yes, only frightened,” as the child’s crying lessened.