murdered her own baby, but in doing so has destroyed manor property, my property, mistress. The death of a midden brat does not concern me overmuch, but the loss of a future workman does, not to mention the generations of villeins he might have fathered. By rights I should hang her twice, once for murder and again for theft. But I am inclined to show mercy. I will merely hang her once. That will suffice. Take the girl away and lock her up till morning.'
Someone was screaming. Elena didn't know if it was herself or her mother who was shrieking, for her legs buckled under her and she crumpled senseless to the ground.
9th Day after the New Moon,
June 1211
Bluebells — Some call them Deadmen's bells, for a mortal who hears a bluebell ring is listening to his own death knell.
A bluebell wood is the most enchanted place on earth and mortals should never venture there alone for it is full of faerie spells. A child who picks bluebells alone will vanish, never to be seen again. An adult will be pixie-led and wander round and round in circles, unable to escape the wood, until he dies of exhaustion, unless someone should find him and lead him safely home.
There is a game that mortal children play in innocence, laughing as they weave through each other. In and out the dusty bluebells. . . they sing ... I am your master. They should not play such dangerous games so lightly or wantonly, for the master they name is none other than the Faerie King himself who will lead them on a merry dance from which there is no return to this life.
The Mandrake's Herbal
Retribution
Raffaele grasped Elena's arm so hard she thought he would snap the bone. He tugged her towards the open metal grill in the floor of the undercroft beneath the Great Hall.
'Down there,' he ordered, indicating the rickety wooden ladder which plunged into the dark pit below. Raffaele held up his lantern to illuminate the first rungs. Although the sun had not yet set, in the far corner of the undercroft behind the kegs and barrels it was already dark. Elena peered down. The pit was twice as deep as a man's height. The bailiff stood at the bottom, staring up at her, holding up a short iron chain which was fastened at one end to the wall, while from the other end of the chain dangled an open iron collar. The flame from his lantern flickered across the beaten earth floor covered with dirty straw, and over the stone walls green and slimy from the damp. A stench of decay rose up on the cold, wet air that seemed to come from an open grave. Elena shuddered, trying to pull away.
'No, please don't put me down there, please, I beg you.' She turned desperately to Raffaele. 'You could chain me up here in the cellar.'
'And have you rescued?' Raffaele said harshly. 'You choose, you can either climb down that ladder yourself or I'll throw you down, and I can promise you lying there with broken bones will be a thousand times worse.'
Raffaele was holding her so close to the edge that she knew the slightest flexing of his arm would send her crashing down. The violent way he had dragged her from the Great Hall left her in no doubt that he was angry enough to do it. In the Hall he had seemed to be on her side, the only one who believed her. She couldn't understand why he had turned against her. Did he too now believe what Joan had said?
Shakily Elena climbed down the ladder and offered no resistance when the bailiff pushed her against the wall and bolted the iron collar around her neck.
'You'll be in good company down here.' The bailiff inclined his head towards a rough stone wall on one side of the cell. 'Sir Gerard's mouldering behind there. You'd best make friends with his corpse; you'll soon be one yourself.'
He tugged hard on the chain, to test the fastening, jerking the collar so that it bruised her throat, almost choking her. 'Not that you'll be resting in some fancy leaded coffin. Osborn'll have your body hanged in a gibbet cage till you've rotted away to bones, then they'll pound them to pieces and toss them in the marsh. And good riddance too, that's what I say. Nowt more evil creature on this earth than a woman who murders her own innocent bairn;