Now, dressed in the shabby clothes of a maidservant, in a place where nobody knew her, heading out on a pilgrimage that meant something only to her, it was as if a small weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
It had briefly rained in the night and the world smelled fresh and clean. She gave a small skip of delight. It would be like a little holiday.
There was very little traffic on the road. So far she’d passed two women and a youth heading in the opposite direction, the youth pulling a handcart laden with vegetables. They’d nodded and sent a cheery greeting and continued on their way.
A short time later a cart appeared, heading in the same direction she was going, but the driver had smiled ruefully and indicated by gestures that he was turning off the road shortly, and indeed she’d seen him do it.
Otherwise Zoë was wholly alone.
But it was a glorious sunny day, and she was young andfree and doing what she’d always wanted to do—seeing her mother’s old home.
An hour later it was getting hot, and her feet were starting to get sore.How much farther to Maman’s home?she wondered. Was it twenty miles or twenty kilometres? She wasn’t used to walking in these boots.
Hoofbeats clopping along behind her made her turn. A cart with three men sitting on the driver’s bench was approaching. She waited, wondering whether they would offer her a lift, but as they drew nearer, she decided she didn’t much like the look of them. Their horse was bone-thin, dirty and unkempt, and anyone who treated an animal like that was not to be trusted.
“Hey, pretty girl, you look hot. Want to ride with us?” the driver, a man with a villainous-looking mustache, called to her as they drew near. He wasn’t much cleaner than his horse. The thickset man next to him sent her a broken-toothed grin and waved her over. The third man said nothing, but the way he was staring at Zoë sent a shiver down her spine.
“No, thank you, I’m almost home.” She crossed to the opposite side of the narrow road, hitched up her bundle and waited for them to drive on.
The driver shrugged and said something to his friends, who laughed. They drove on.
Zoë waited until they’d turned the corner and were out of sight, then she trudged on.I know how to look after myself. I handled Monsieur Etienne, didn’t I?
She gave a small shiver. Talk about misplaced confidence. What would she have done if those men had insisted? Next time a cart or wagon passed her she would hide.
She turned the corner and froze. The cart was just ahead of her, the horse tied to a tree, and two of the three men were walking toward her. Two? Where was the third?
A rustle in the bushes opposite told her where he waslurking. She whirled and saw him stepping forward, his thick arms reaching out to grab her. She flung her bundle at him and ran, diving into a thicket of scrub and pushing her way through it, heedless of the scratches caused by thorns and sharp twigs, fleeing for her life.
She did not know how far she ran or for how long, but she had a stitch in her side and was gasping for breath when she noticed a hole, a fox hole probably, half-hidden under a thicket of brambles. Without hesitating she wriggled in backward, dragging some weeds and a fallen branch after her to hide the entrance.
She hoped there was no creature inside. Even if there was, it would surely be less dangerous than the three animals that were searching the scrubby undergrowth for her, crashing about and swearing most foully.
She lay there, her heart pounding, trying to breathe silently. Footsteps came and went, passing so close all she could do was to hold her breath and close her eyes and pray.
Eventually the sounds faded. Had they given up? Or were they bluffing, pretending they’d left in order to lure her out?
What a fool she’d been, convincing herself she could manage alone. When she was a child roaming the back streets of London, she’d been wary of everyone, alert to the slightest hint of danger. But after years first in the orphanage, which was run like a prison, then living in luxury with Clarissa and Lady Scattergood and later Lucy and her husband, those finely honed instincts had been dulled.
She waited for a long time, huddled in the hole until her cramped limbs drove her to wriggle carefully out. She brushed dirt from her clothes, listening for any sound that might alert her to the men’s presence. But all she heard was birdsong, untroubled and cheerful.
She cautiously crept back to where she had left the road. There was nothing very valuable in her bundle—just someof Marie’s clothing, her sketchbook and pencils and some bread and cheese and sausage—but she needed them.
Thank goodness she’d made that money belt, still firm and tight around her waist.
It took a while to find her bundle. They’d torn it open and flung her things about. The women’s clothes, shabby as they were, hadn’t tempted them. The food was gone, and her sketchbook—oh no!—it had been tossed into the road and lay half in a muddy puddle.
She dived on it and did her best to wipe it clean of mud and damp. The paper would dry in the heat and the sketches, though stained with mud, were still mostly visible. At least they hadn’t taken it or ripped it to shreds in their rage at being balked of their prey. And where were her pencils? She searched among the roadside weeds and found them broken in pieces. She collected them, regardless. A stub of a pencil was better than none.
Her arms stung, crisscrossed with fine lines of dried blood where they’d been scratched. She’d brought a little pot of Clarissa’s healing salve, giving Marie the rest, but where was it? Had they smashed it? She searched through the long grass at the side of the road and eventually found it, undamaged. Applying it to her scratches, she felt instantly better.
She knotted up her bundle again and resumed her journey in a much more sober state of mind. She would be far more careful in future. At the first sound of horses or men, she would melt into the scrub at the side of the road.
Whether it was twenty kilometres or twenty miles, she would rather walk than take the risk of what had almost justhappened.
Chapter Two
Five hours later she was starting to limp. The sun overhead beat down relentlessly. The road was dusty, the fields on one side were filled with serried rows of grapevines and on the other, open fields bordered by a thick hedge. There was no sign of the next village. Zoë was wearing her own leather half boots—Marie’s feet were too large for an exchange of footwear—but they were new, and she’d never had to walk very far in them. She was hot and thirsty and a blister was starting.
