Martyn!”

“Megge.” He held my gaze as he squeezed my arm, and I laughed out loud. My arms went around his chest, all hard muscle, and my cheek rested on his.

After a moment, he released me. “Someone here would like to meet you.”

With his hand on my elbow, he led me toward the lovely Kaatje and the golden girl at her side. He kept his voice low. “She’s not truly Hugh’s wife.”

When we had reached them, Martyn extended an arm. “Kaatje, meet Megge.”

Her eyes were the color Morwen had often had described as “the very blue of the Welsh sky I was born under.” She stepped closer, and her outstretched hands took mine.

“Megge.” Her voice, low and resonant, as if her throat were honeyed, was warm and welcoming, as if I were the newcomer. Bending from her great height, she kissed my cheeks. “Finally I meet the Lady of Bury Down.”

“Nay!” I shook my head. “I’ve not yet—”

She squeezed my hands. “Megge, then.” She released my hands and took my arm. “Come, Megge. We’ll have some food and ale to refresh ourselves. We shall talk. And then we’ll set out.”

“Set out?” I pulled away. “Where?”

She drew me toward the cottage. “We will talk inside.” The door opened, and a stout little woman with the blackest hair I had ever seen appeared in the threshold.

I hissed to Martyn, “Where are the Chandlers?”

“They’re away. In Aldestowe, with family. I spoke with them there and asked if we might stay in their cottage for a few days. They know why we’ve come and have allowed us to stay.”

I looked now at Kaatje. “While you waited for Tinker to find you?”

Britlen nodded. “Aye.”

“But how did you know he was here?”

“Gynneys sent word about the ram,” Martyn said.

I turned back to Kaatje. “Why was Tinker looking for you?”

Not seeming to have heard my question, Kaatje took her arm from mine and linked it with Britlen’s. Together they walked toward the little woman standing in the doorway. Kaatje touched the woman’s meaty upper arm.

“Megge, I’d like you to meet Ffion.”

I hesitated. “Fiona?”

“FEE-on,” Kaatje said.

I bowed my head. “Good day to you, Ffion.”

Her hand came up to her mouth as she stared at me, then she hastily bent as if to curtsy, but flinched and simply lowered her eyes. “Good day to you, lady.”

“Nay, Mistress. I’m called Megge.”

“Aye, ’twas that I said. ‘Megge, Lady of Bury Down.’”

“She’s asked us to call her Megge,” Kaatje said gently to Ffion. She took my arm again and led me inside.

Ffion hurried in behind us and began dipping a ladle into a kettle of bubbling pottage and setting full bowls on the table.

Suddenly remembering the reason for my trip to the village, I opened my woolsack.

“Sit, lady.” Ffion pulled out a stool.

Martyn smiled and winked at me, then led Britlen to the table and sat beside her while Kaatje sat next to me. The food before me smelled delicious.

Ffion took my sack, set it on the floor, and handed me a piece of hard bread. I dipped it in the pottage. While I waited for it to soften, my stomach began to churn and growl. Forgetting all about Amice’s tunic, I ate until I burped and then looked at the kettle to see if there was more.

“Megge.” Martyn reached over, lifted my sleeve, and encircled my wrist with his thumb and forefinger. “Look at you. I hadn’t noticed until now.” He pushed my sleeve up to the elbow. “Why, you’re naught but bone.” He studied my face. “Even your face has gotten thin. Aren’t you eating?”

“Your hand’s gotten bigger, is all.” I pulled mine away.

Ffion poured ale into a cup and handed it to me.

“Brighida and I feed ourselves,” I said as I drank the ale and set down the empty cup. “And your mother comes with bread and ale. We’re not helpless, you know. I just haven’t eaten since early this morning.”

Kaatje tilted her head. “What brought you to the village today?”

I leaned over and took the tunic out of my bag. When I held it up, Ffion gasped. “You found her!”

“You know the girl who wore this tunic?”

“Nay, I don’t know her, but I’ve seen her. A little girl. The dress was far too big for her.” She thumbed the neckline. “And unfinished.”

“I found her in Bury Down grove days ago,” I said. “Alone. Barefoot. No cloak.”

“I caught sight of her some time ago, dressed just that way,” Ffion said. “She was walking the cliff road alone. I called out, but she fled. Like a rabbit she ran, like something hunted. And she was gone.”

“May I see that dress?” Kaatje asked and nodded her thanks to Ffion when she handed it to her. She inspected it much as Gus Tucker had done. “This is our fabric,” she concluded. She lowered it and looked at me. “All the women weave nettle cloth where we come from. I brought some with us to barter. But I didn’t see the child wearing this tunic.” She looked at her daughter. “Nor, of course, did Britlen.”

“Kaatje,” I said, keeping my voice soft and tilting my head toward Britlen. “May I ask what happened?”

“She saw something,” Kaatje said, having understood my unspoken question. “Something Tinker was doing. She’s never told me what he was doing. Only that when he saw her and realized that she had seen him, he threw her to the ground, prised open each eye, and touched a hot poker to it. He warned her that if she ever told me what she had seen, he would come for me. Then he fled, leaving her in a sea cave to drown when the tide came in.”

I touched Britlen’s arm. “Tinker Penneck blinded you?”

She nodded.

Incredulous, I looked to Kaatje.

“It was a miracle I heard her screams and found her. Ffion saved her. For weeks, those poultices, those salves.”

“Ffion, you are a healer?”

“Nay, lady,” Ffion said. “We’ve none in our settlement, nor anywhere near. We do what we can.”

Kaatje laid her hand on Britlen’s. “Hugh came to our settlement two summers ago, just after Britlen was hurt. When he told us that Tinker Penneck and Michael Gough had burned your mother alive and nearly killed young Brighida, and that he was going to find and arrest him, Britlen finally told me that it was Tinker who had hurt her.” Kaatje got up and went to the hearth, picked up the poker, and absently stirred the embers. “That very day, I left Britlen in Ffion’s care and joined Hugh in his search along the coastline. I’ve been helping him ever since.”

I looked upon her now as something more than a beauty. Though she had known what kind of man Tinker was and what he might do to her, Kaatje had persevered in a long, dangerous search and had traveled all the way to our village to bring him to justice.

I recalled the hatred on Tinker’s face as he had pounded on the cottage door. And his rage at seeing Hugh put his arm around Kaatje and call her his wife, and asked again, “Kaatje, why was Tinker looking for you?”

She looked at Martyn. He nodded.

“He’s my husband.”

“Your husband?” I leaned forward. “You are married to Tinker Penneck?”

Kaatje nodded. “We were young. I hardly knew him. We weren’t but sixteen when we wed, and we never shared a hearth. He preferred the company of Michael Gough. But I bore his child. And you’ve seen for yourself he still believes us wed.”

I tried to imagine this regal woman with Tinker Penneck. But, as she had said, they had been young. Clearly, she had grown into a woman while he had remained a pretty-faced boy.

“But you said Tinker blinded Britlen.” I looked from Kaatje to Martyn, and then back to Kaatje. “He blinded his own daughter?”

“Yes.” Britlen answered, turning her face toward me. “When I was eight.”

“Tinker had gone—mad.” Kaatje lifted her hands. “That’s all I can say. He went mad. He had deserted us long before that to be with Michael Gough. A detestable man. And Tinker too became detestable.”

“Tinker was detestable long before that,” I said. “My aunt Claris told us that when he was a boy, he would burn and drown animals for pleasure.”

But that face, I mused, recalling it clearly. Nearly as fine and pretty as Brighida’s or Britlen’s. What must he have looked like as a boy? An angel, I thought. And as a girl, Kaatje likely believed him one. But now, though a man, he was still behaving like a spoiled child, not wanting Kaatje but not allowing another man to wed her.

I recalled how Tinker had spat the word cuckold when accusing Claris and his stepmother, Jenifer Penneck, of making a cuckold of his father, and I understood why Kaatje and Hugh had chosen this ruse to draw him out of hiding. How well it had worked! But at such risk.

“You were willing to serve as bait to lure Tinker.”

“For blinding my daughter and murdering your mother? For so dreadfully injuring your cousin? Oh, yes,” she said, nodding. “I wanted to kill him myself. I only wish Michael had been with him today. They both belong in the gaol.” Her expression turned from anger to disdain. “But Tinker’s a coward. When they threaten him with the gallows, he’ll tell them where they can find Michael. And they’ll both pay.”

“You’re so courageous, Kaatje,” I said. “Coming here and facing Tinker, knowing what he might do.”

“Nonsense. I was never in a moment’s danger standing at Hugh’s side.” A softer expression crossed her face followed by one of resolve.