Karen Harper by Mistress of Mourning

Author:Mistress of Mourning
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH

Mistress Varina Westcott

I suppose my feelings that day Nick and I ventured outside Ludlow were much like Princess Catherine’s when she and her husband went out on their last day together. I could not wait to escape the confines of the castle, and it was a partly sunny day with a fresh breeze after the smell of dank, centuries-old stones and dusty tapestries and draperies—and the heaviness of death and grieving. With a sense of adventure and freedom, despite our terrible task, I too would be with the man I loved.

Since Nick evidently knew the area surrounding the castle fairly well, I wanted to be somewhat familiar with it before we rode out. I rose and ate early and attended an early mass, for it was the Sabbath, though it would be no day of rest for me. With my Welsh maid, Morgan, I went up on the battlements where we had seen the princess and the man with the cape looking down on us yesterday. It was windy but deserted up there. Though I studied the area where we had seen the man, I had come to survey the countryside. Ah, how Signor Firenze would have appreciated this view, however much his great skill had been portrait painting.

Below the rocky escarpment on which Ludlow Castle had been built, the very view from my chamber window, rushed the wide River Terne, leaping with white water over boulders in its way. From another side, I gazed down on the village of Ludlow, mostly gray stone buildings that looked like toy houses from here. Our guide, the apothecary’s boy, Rhys Garnock, would have a steep walk up to the castle to meet us today, for Nick had said he had no horse of his own and we must provide one.

Around the village lay fertile fields, separated from one another not by English hedgerows but by two plowed furrows and a grassy path, though in areas where sheep or cattle grazed I saw some stone fences. A dense forest edged the fields, and the vista beyond was misty moors, mountains, or marshes, the latter referred to as bogs here, mostly of peat and grasses. I saw nothing that could be called a cave, though Nick had said we would visit the ancient cave tomb called a cromlech where the ghost of the Welsh freedom fighter Owen Glendower was said to be seen. I almost asked Morgan its location and whether she knew of an old herb woman who lived in the forest, but it was best to trust almost no one.

When we returned to my chamber, I sent Morgan away and changed into my boy’s attire, including my riding boots. Nick knocked shortly thereafter and rocked my poise again by whispering on the stairs, “Prettiest boy I’ve ever seen.”

Actually, I thought that young, thin Rhys Garnock was almost as well-favored, with his light brown hair, fine complexion, and rosy cheeks. I guessed his age at about twelve or thirteen. He seemed eager to please, and it did please me that his English was so good.

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