“Have you found her?”
“Not as of yet, milady. We picked up an odd trail of twopersons traveling afoot from Fallstowe’s gate into the wood—a large man, and someone smaller, likely a woman. There seemed to be some sort of a tussle by the way the brush was flattened, but both were well enough after to continue.” Sybilla was shocked that Alys had been at the very threshold of her own home and then fled, and her mind flew with the possible reasons. But she held her tongue, letting the man finish his report uninterrupted.
“The trail led southeast, the side of the road opposite the river. We found what we think was a camp, although they had no fire. There was strange scat near the site, containing what seemed to be pomegranate seeds.”
At this, Clement gasped and looked to Sybilla. “Mother’s pet?”
Sybilla did not bother to look at the despicable weakling, only nodded to the soldier. “Go on.”
“Several miles farther, the tracks crossed the road and went down a ravine and to a riverbank. The trail was fresh, we could not have been more than a quarter hour behind them, the daylight still plentiful. But at the river, the footsteps diverged, the man heading away down stream. The smaller footprints backtracked up the ravine and then disappeared.”
Sybilla raised an eyebrow. “Disappeared?”
“The tracks were difficult to follow through the forest without the larger set to mark them,” the soldier explained without apology. “She did not take to the road. But we continued on to the most likely destination for a young woman traveling alone, with night swiftly approaching.”
“And that would be?”
“The village of Pilings, milady. We saw no sign of her, but there was this.” He took a single step forward, depositedthe pouch on Sybilla’s table, and then returned to his previous stance.
Sybilla picked up the cloth bag—it felt largely empty. She pulled open the drawstring and upended the pouch into her palm. She looked down.
A gold coin, a stylized image of the king on one side. Sybilla turned it over, and her blood ran cold at the sight of the large, scripted F.
Fallstowe.
She looked up at the soldier, and he had her answer ready before she could voice the question.
“A village woman offered it, reluctantly. Said a young girl had come from the wood begging for food. The woman thought her quite mad until the end of their encounter, when she was offered this in payment for the charity, and then asked if the road through the village was the London Road. The girl left the village in that direction, but there was no trail to follow.”
Sybilla turned the coin over and over in her palm with the meaty base of her thumb and fingertips. “Did this villager say what the girl looked like?”
The soldier nodded. “Hair the color of straw. Mayhap fourteen years. Carrying a bag containing something alive, allegedly”—the soldier cleared his throat—“a monkey.”
“Itisher!” Clement Cobb wailed, and dropped his high forehead dramatically onto his forearm. “Oh, my sweet angel, how I have betrayed you!”
“Shut up, Clement,” Sybilla said evenly. She placed the coin on the table carefully, precisely, so that it made not a whisper of noise against the wood. She looked at the soldier again. “Think you she indeed hies to London?”
“Aye, milady.”
Behind the soldier, Judith Angwedd stood with anabrupt screech of the wooden bench. “What of the man? Did you followhistracks? Where is he?” she demanded shrilly.
No one dare look at Judith Angwedd save Sybilla, who sent the woman her most level, cold stare.
“I have given you no leave to address my envoy.”
Judith Angwedd’s cheeks bloomed a shade akin to that of her hair, although the skin of her neck and around her eyes went snow white. “I must know,” she choked on the rage in her throat.
“Fallstowe’s soldiers were not sent to do your bidding, Judith Angwedd,” Sybilla clarified. “You are here upon my charity, and that is all. I understand that you wish to intercept this Piers before he reaches London—for fear of what he will witness to Edward against you, likely. But you will hold your tongue while I question this soldier as to my own interest or be gone from this castle.”
“You high-handed sow,” Judith Angwedd hissed, all color gone from her face now, as well as all previously feigned respect from her words. “I am not the only one who should be fearful of witness against me to the king. Likely your precious little princess will have her revenge on you and see you to the executioner’s block for your family’s fraud against the crown. And I hope to be there to see your head roll across the green, as your lying, witch mother’s should have!”
The air in the hall seemed to vibrate, like the moment before a lightning strike. The temperature dropped, or so it seemed to Sybilla. She rose from her chair calmly, her eyes never leaving the stricken face of Judith Angwedd. Sybilla walked the length of the table, her steps measured and sure. Holding her skirts up briefly, she stepped fromthe dais, and her heels clicked dully across the stones of the hall, her pace increasing.
Judith Angwedd’s eyes began to widen. “What are you doing?” she demanded, but it was false bravado. Sybilla could hear the tremble of her voice, could practically smell the woman’s sour dread.
“Stay away from me!” Judith Angwedd warned hollowly, and stumbled backward, her flight halted by the table behind her.
Sybilla’s hand shot out and she struck the woman across the face before she had even come fully before her, the sound echoing like a thunderclap. Judith Angwedd’s head snapped to the side. The woman had barely brought her face forward when Sybilla struck her again, and this time, Judith Angwedd cried out and tumbled down the side of the table to fall to the stones on her hip. The woman’s hand came to her face, and when she looked up, Sybilla was darkly pleased to see the tears in her wide, frightened eyes, and the small trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth.
