Origins

Hugh named the baby John, after his grandfather, but didn’t know what to do with him. He knew he couldn’t look after him, but wanted to make sure that the boy was well cared for. When he got back to the Keep, he asked a few of his trusted servants if they knew anybody who could take the child and it was later that day, that a small, frail looking old man approached him and bowed low.

“Begging your pardon, sire,” he said, “but I understand you’re looking for a someone to nurse a young boy.”

He didn’t say your bastard son, Hugh thought, which is interesting considering the whole of the town seems to know who the baby is and where he came from.

“Yes, that’s right,” he replied.

“Well sire, my daughter has just given birth, and she had plenty of milk and, well, she’d be happy to consider it, sir.”

“For the right price, I don’t doubt,” Hugh muttered, but then sighed. “Forgive me, I am not in the best of humours given everything that’s happened.

“So how do we proceed then, as I have no experience in these matters?” he asked.

“My daughter would be happy to look at the young ’un and see how she gets on with it…”

“Fair enough. I don’t want him to be any bother and I will obviously pay for his keep and a little extra for your troubles.”

“That’s very kind, sire, but let’s see what happens, shall we?”

Hugh followed the man to a tiny, tumbled down shack at the edge of town under the city walls. There he found a family of twelve children and a pair of exhausted looking women: obviously the grandmother and her daughter. He put the daughter’s age at mid-twenties, and he looked at the children, whose ages ranged from a babe in arms to ten or eleven.

Hugh hesitated. It seemed like such a rough and poor place. He wasn’t sure he could leave his son with them. But all the children looked clean and when he saw the younger woman’s face light up with genuine warmth at the sight of the boy and how round and well-fed her own baby was, he couldn’t help thinking that the arrangement might work. He would have preferred it if someone could have moved into the Keep with him, but he didn’t seem to have any option - this was the only family that had come forward.

He asked the man what they would want to be paid to look after his son and the man mentioned a figure that was such a paltry amount, Hugh knew they were not trying to fleece him and did not know the value of the service they were offering him.

He waited while the woman took John and cuddled him. He cried, as he must have been starving and smelled the woman’s milk. She looked up at Hugh as if asking for permission. He nodded and felt a tear in his eye as the woman clasped the baby to her breast. But he smiled when he heard him sucking greedily.

“Are you happy to go ahead?” Hugh asked.

The mother smiled and nodded.

Hugh promptly agreed to triple the figure the man had requested, and he left a deposit as a down-payment. The man tried to decline, saying it was too much, but when Hugh insisted, they shook to seal the deal and Hugh had to physically prise his hand away. Such was the man’s delight and enthusiasm for the arrangement.

Finally, Hugh took one last look at his and Constance’s child, and when he was happy that he’d committed his face to memory, left them. The other children followed along the lane until they lost interest and started playing tag together, and he smiled at the thought his son would be surrounded by such a large surrogate family.

Knowing that John had been taken care of, Hugh gave himself up to his grief and spent the evening drinking on his own in his room. He felt numb and empty. He had grudgingly accepted the fact that Constance wanted nothing more to do with him after he’d told her about his betrothal. But he couldn’t accept the fact that she was dead and that he would never be with her or see her again.

At least until we hopefully finally meet in paradise, he prayed.

He kept ordering more beer to be sent up to dull the pain, until, in the small hours of the morning, he passed out.

His wedding, birthday, and dubbing were all to take place on the same day in September, only a few months after Constance’s death. Hugh visited his son as often as he could and was pleased to see that he was thriving and growing. He was also glad to note that the other children looked better fed and healthier, and that both women looked less tired, as they’d employed some help with the money he was giving them. He knew that the arrangement was only temporary, as once the boy was old enough to be taught to read and write, he would have to find another family to look after him, but the arrangement suited them all for as long as it lasted.

On the day before his wedding, he visited John. He wanted to use it as an opportunity to apologise to both him and Constance for all the heartache and loss they’d suffered because of him.

He carried the baby out of the house and down to the harbour. He sat on the wall looking out to sea and held him on his lap.

“I am so sorry, John. I wronged your mother, and I have done you a huge disservice.” The boy grumbled and moaned. “I am truly sorry for the hurt, and I would do anything to make it better. I loved your mother with all my heart and soul, and I will forever miss her. Please believe me when I say that.”

After a few minutes explaining how he felt, John settled down, and Hugh took this as a sign that Constance forgave him. He took some small comfort from that.

Hugh looked down at the tiny boy, studying his small, delicate fingers, his little snub nose, his bright blue eyes, and his shock of auburn hair. And he bent his head over his son and wept.

Agatha had been busy. After returning from the mountain and burying Constance with the tablet tucked in the coffin, she’d made herself a shelter and a camp in the woods far from prying eyes. She’d decided that there was nothing in the town to keep her now, and she wouldn’t stay in the area. She was going to try her luck on the other side of the hills, further inland, where she could begin again, but still have access to the cave and everything she needed for her trade.

But there was something she had to do before she moved on.

On the afternoon before Hugh Malet and Isabelle de Vitot’s wedding, Agatha retrieved the black rock, the remains of the wooden tablet that encased the cursed amulet, from its hiding place. She placed it in her knapsack and headed off to the de Vitot residence.

When she arrived, she could not cross the threshold of the main house, as the sign of the Virgin Mary was carved into the doorjamb. The interlinking Ms were a ward to protect the house and to stop people like her from gaining entry. So, she retraced her steps and waited in the trees at the side of the track.

When she saw a young servant approach the house from the town, she took the ball out of the bag and tapped it hard against a rock. The black case cracked to reveal the emerald necklace inside. It was undamaged. She threw the remains of the black shell into the undergrowth and as the boy drew level; she stepped out from the shadows.

The boy jumped when he saw her. “Sorry to startle you,” she said, “but I wondered if you are going into the house?”

The youth was practically shaking in his boots as he stared at her. “Ye… eess,” he stammered.

“Good, good.” She smiled, and he relaxed a little, but when Agatha continued, a fire burned in her eyes and she spoke with many voices. “I have a present for the bride and I want you to take it for me.”

The boy frowned, but nodded.

“Good!” the chorus continued. “Now it is important that you take this and place it where the bride or groom will see it, and they will realise that it is a wedding gift. Do that for me, with no one seeing the necklace as you place it with the gifts. The bride must be the only one to see it.”

The boy’s eyes had glazed over, and he looked vacant, but he nodded.

“Very well. Take it.” She held out the necklace, and the boy didn’t even glance at it as he slipped it inside his shirt. “Now run along and don’t fail me.”

The boy nodded and ran off as Agatha slipped back into the trees.

The servant ran into the house and headed straight to the main hall. When he was there, he stopped in front of the table of gifts that had been left and checked that nobody was looking. The room was empty because everyone was preparing for dinner. So he put his hand inside his shirt and slipped out the necklace. He cast one more look around the room to confirm that he was alone, then placed the present amongst the other objects, behind a couple of goblets where an idle passer-by wouldn’t see it. Then he crept out of the room.

He stood in the corridor and frowned and looked around in confusion, disorientated. He did not know how he’d got into the house and what he’d just done. The last thing he remembered was walking along the path by the copse. After that, his mind was a complete blank.

He had a cracking headache, and he clenched his eyes closed and shook his head to clear it. When he opened them again, he felt better, so he headed back to the kitchen, still frowning and trying to work out what had happened to him.