Fourteen?Alys cried to herself in outrage. But outwardly, she smiled and bobbed her head again. “Can you ‘elp me, milady? I’d return to … to me mother and make amends. May’ap I ‘ad some little thing to take ‘er…? A piece of bread or … or a pig. Or a lovely, lovely chair.”
The woman winced. “Of course, of course.” She looked over her shoulder quickly and then held her palms toward Alys.“You stay here,”she said slowly and emphatically. She pantomimed along with the rest of her words. “I’ll bring you some food. If my husband sees you—very cross.”She frowned and shook her head.
Alys nodded, grinned, gave a sniffling laugh. “Husband cross. Mean. Grr!” Alys raked her fingers through the air like claws and tried not to laugh at the thought of her own husband being slightly put-out with her as well, if he only knew where she was.
“That’s right. So you stay here.” The woman backed slowly away and then turned with a swirl of her plain skirt and disappeared around the side of the cottage.
Alys stood upright with a sigh and stretched her neck by rolling her head. It was difficult work, playing at being mad. Her jaws ached and her knees trembled. She shoved her arm down into her sack, her fingers searching for the little purse. Her fingers fought with the drawn opening while Layla clung to her arm.
“Layla!” Alys whispered through her teeth at the bag, as her fingers tentatively found their intended item and she fought to withdraw her hand from the monkey’s clutches. “Get off!Let go!”
The woman came around the side of the house, a rough sack in her arms, just in time to hear Alys’s words, and see her jerk her arm out of the bag’s opening. Alys quickly resumed her previously subservient posture.
“And good day once more, milady!” she keened. At her side, Layla fought and tumbled in the bag, bumping very obviously against her hip.
The woman frowned, and her eyes dropped to the writhing sack warily. “What have you in there, child?”
Alys blinked, her mind searching for a logical reply. “A monkey.”
The woman’s eyes widened and she rolled her lips inward for a moment. “A monkey. Of course you do.”
Alys took a step forward. “Do ye wish to see ‘er? She likely wouldn’t bite ye.”
The woman stepped back quickly. “No! No, that’s quite alright. Well, then, here you are.” She stretched out her arms as far as they would reach, Alys assumed to avoid coming any closer to her than was absolutely necessary. Alys reached out and took the bag with a wide grin and bob of her entire body.
“There’s some meat, and a few other small things, as well. All I could lay hand to quickly without the husband seeing. May God bless us both with it, you poor child.”
Alys shuffled closer to the woman, who cringed for an instant when Alys’s closed fist shot out toward her.
“Fer yer kindness, milady.”
The woman held up her palms with a nervous smile. “No. You may keep whatever it is.”
Alys let a genuine smile replace the mad grin she had been keeping thus far. “Please. I would not be indebted to you, nor take from your family’s mouths without repayment.”
The woman frowned faintly and then after a moment, hesitantly held out her palm, wrapping her fingers around the item Alys placed there, never taking her eyes from her.
Alys kept her true smile as she asked, “Would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of London?”
The woman nodded absently toward the forest, the opposite side of town from which Alys had come. “Simply follow the road.”
Alys gave her best curtsey. “I thank you. Good day, milady!” Then she turned and ran straight into the wood at her back.
After the little blond thing was gone, the village woman opened her hand warily. In her palm lay a shining gold coin.
She looked into the darkening wood with a frown as she heard the sound of riders approaching like the start of a landslide.
Chapter 9
Alys was gone.
Piers whipped his head around, then turned on his heel, his eyes scanning the river below, the ravine sides. His hair lay cold and dripping on his shoulders, but the chill he felt was not from the frigid water he’d washed with. He threw the bundle of monk’s robe and his filthy shirt to the ground.
Alys was gone, and she’d taken his pack with her.
The Mallory signet ring—the tentative evidence of his birthright—hidden deep inside.
He wanted to shout her name through the trees. He wanted to take off at a run to the road. He stood there, turning in circles, his mind racing with the possible explanations.
