Raider's Tide by Maggie Prince

Author:Maggie Prince [Maggie Prince]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007393183
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2002-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

I ride to Kendal on Saint Hilda, with Verity on Meadowsweet, and George and Jonah, two of Father’s henchmen, on the cart with the wool. Half our shearings we keep and the other half goes to the Kendal Wool Market. The half we keep is made into woollen cloth by women from the valley, and half of that is then sold by Mother to wool merchants who travel from the south, going in a great loop from us round the wool farmers of the Yorkshire Ryddings, then down through Suffolk.

Verity is oddly quiet on the journey, but at the wool market she brightens up and bargains even better prices than usual. There is something about her which seems to say take it or leave it, I hardly care. She laughs and jokes, ignores aggression and innuendo as though they had not happened, closes deals sharply as bewildered buyers name prices they had not intended. It is all rather impressive. On the way back I ask her, “What is it, Verity? You’re in a strange mood.” She looks at me, her cheeks flushed but her manner edgy, and for a moment I think she is going to tell me something momentous. Then she just laughs and shrugs her shoulders.

I visit Robert the following day. I have been taking him juniper infusions to cleanse his blood, but today he pushes the cup away and says, “Enough! It’s vile.” He looks in dismay at the new set of clothes I have brought him. They are old and worn, filched from the cupboard at the back of the men’s common room, but at least they are bigger and likely to be a better fit. He takes them away to a place upstream where the beck flows between high, mossy banks, to lie and soak himself before putting them on. When he comes back, with the clothes disdainfully half laced and flapping, he says, “Beatrice, I need to get the strength back into my arm now. Will you bring me a bow?”

I hesitate. A Scot with a weapon, on the loose in the woods, doesn’t seem like a good idea.

“I could teach you to shoot, too,” he adds. I stare at him. To be taught to shoot by a Scot seems the ultimate crossing of boundaries.

“I can shoot perfectly well already, thank you Robert,” I reply.

“You could shoot better.”

“You haven’t seen me shoot.”

“I don’t need to. I’ve seen you push people off towers. That’s enough. You hesitate. You fumble. I owe my life to it.”

“Are you sure you want to teach me to have a more decisive attitude towards killing, then?”

“Aye, we might eat better if you go off into the forest and kill a stag or two, my sweeting. I can’t yet, wi’ this arm.”

“Heavens above, you’re criticising the service now, are you?”

We both start laughing. He takes hold of my right arm. “Are ye right-fisted?” He raises my elbow until it is level with my ear, and then slowly pulls it back. I can almost feel the arrow between my fingers, the bowstring pulling hard.

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