Chapter Eight #3
“A beggar!” Alys said aloud with a grin. Of course! Should she scamper in to town, a clean and tidy woman walking along the road alone in a sable-lined cloak, it would only serve to raise suspicion and interest. She came to an abrupt halt.
Alys slid out of the pack and eased Layla’s confinement to the ground, then took off her cloak and hid it away in Piers’s pack.
She looked fondly at her filthy palm once more before scrubbing the crumbly dirt all over her cheeks and forehead, while Layla chattered and writhed and fought within the bag on the side of the road.
“Fear not, noble Layla—your captivity will be short. A beggar, they will want to be rid of rather quickly.” She paused suddenly as another idea came into her head.
She quickly jerked the tie out of her hair, wincing as several strands went with it, and then bent to the ground, swiping up a large handful of the forest floor.
She raked the molding leaves and twigs through her hair, tangling and snarling her locks until they stood out from her face in crazy, dirty lumps.
“There! A mad beggar, they will wish gone immediately!” She reclaimed Piers’s pack and hitched her sack over her head to seat the strap across her chest. “Sorry, girl. Ow! Don’t pinch!
” She gave the bundled monkey a light pat through the bag and then she skittered around the curve of forest and breached Pilings behind the farthest row of cottages.
The settlement was largely quiet, save for the honking of some goose across the town and the sharp ringing sound of perhaps someone banging a spoon against the side of a pot. A dog barked twice, from a safe distance away, and then all was silent.
Alys stepped carefully along the narrow avenue of daubed wall and wood, her crunching footsteps making her wince.
She pulled a face as she realized there was no rear window on the north wall of this particular cottage.
She came to the corner of the house and slowly, slowly peered around it.
The village center was straight ahead, and empty.
She bolted across the twenty or so feet to duck behind the next cottage backing the wood.
She reckoned in this manner, she could make her way around the entire town without being seen.
The rear of the next cottage was also devoid of anything useful, as was the one after. She was coming upon the far corner of her current cover, growing more cross with each impatient step, when she ran full body into the woman coming around the side of the house.
The woman, matronly and kind-faced, cried out and threw up her hands, dropping her shallow basket of kitchen scraps. Alys stepped back quickly, and then, remembering her ruse, dropped into a crouch.
“Halloo, halloo! Don’t ‘urt me, milady, I beg of ye!” Alys was rather proud of her put-on accent.
“Good gracious, child!” the woman gasped, and took in Alys’s appearance with a look of distrust. “Just who might you be, and what business have you sneaking about the backside of my house?”
“Only hopin’ fer some small scrap to eat, milady.” Alys bobbed her head and grinned like an idiot. It was quite difficult to keep from laughing outright at the woman’s horrified expression. “Would ye ‘ave mercy on a poor beggar?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Are you one of the wood people?”
Alys froze. She wasn’t certain if the village woman truly thought her to be one of the storied rebels who, according to legend, dwelt invisibly among the trees, or if the question was some sort of test, and so she didn’t know which answer would best help her mission.
“You can tell me if you are,” the woman continued. “I vow I shan’t turn you in.”
Alys nodded her head once quickly, and waited.
“Oh, you unfortunate thing!” The woman pressed a palm to her bosom. “I just knew they were in a poor state, no matter the rumors. Did they turn you out?”
Alys nodded again, completely baffled by the conversation she was participating in. The woman seemed convinced that Alys was a character from a fictional tale.
“They says I’s mad,” Alys whispered. “‘No food for you! Get out!’ they says.”
The woman pressed her lips together and shook her head. Then her face grew thoughtful. “You’re Ella’s girl, are you not? Your hair, it—”
Alys nodded again. The situation was growing more strange by the moment.
“I thought as much.” The matron smiled sympathetically. “You’d be what? Fourteen now? I haven’t seen you since you were just walking. I must say I’m not a bit surprised for the way they’ve treated you, the lawless heathens.”
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.