Midwinter Nightingale (13 page)

“No chance he was making for Darkwater and Three Chapels?”

“Nay, lovie, Darkwater burned down, didn't you know? Tis all blazed away to cinders, so I did hear. The ghosts have their way at last!”

“Ghosts?”

“Darkwater was allus beset by a tribe of ghosts from crusaders' days, my dearie. Now they will have the place all to their own selves. Was that
all
you wished to buy, then, my lady?”

Jorinda looked long and thoughtfully at the witch bottle but in the end decided against it. For one thing, it cost ten pounds.

“You needn't expect you'll get a princely allowance from me, my girl, now you are back at home!” Sir Thomas had snarled at her only that day at breakfast. “Times are hard, the vines failed, rents are down, takings are dwindling and if you choose to come home before term has ended, that don't help me any, for old Madam Whatsername, your headmistress, won't take a penny off the fee, the skinflint! So you'll have to manage on bread and scrape like the rest of the household.”

“Of course, Granda,” Jorinda had said meekly, though she noticed that “bread and scrape” for Sir Thomas consisted of his usual four-course breakfast.

“Yes, thank you, that is all,” she told the peddler. “But if you should see the duke of Battersea on your travels, you might tell him that he will be very 'welcome here.”

“Ah, now, my lady duck,” said the woman, regarding her with brilliant eyes, “don't-ee waste heart's breath on
that one; he'd bring ye naught but grief and tantrums. Give me a silver sixpence, do-ee, and I'll cross yer palm and bring ye better news.”

“There couldn't be better news,” objected Jorinda, but she found a sixpence in her purse and impatiently laid it on her palm, from where the peddler woman swiftly removed it and stowed it away among her brown draperies. “Now then, let's see what fortune has in store for 'ee.” She bent her shawled head over Jorinda's hand.

“Shall I be a queen? Or the king's sister?” Jorinda asked eagerly.

“That's what they all ask! That's what they all wish to hear! Every milkmaid and chambermaid.”

“I'd have more chance than a milkmaid, I should suppose!” Jorinda grumbled.

“Nay, my pretty, your queens is all in the past, leading back a thousand years to the royal house in Byzantium.”

“I know all about them. Granda goes on about them for hours together.” Jorinda was impatient. “What lies ahead? That's what I want to know.”

“I'll tell ye what, mistress.” Suddenly the peddler was serious and emphatic. “There's one lies in yer path as has power to do ye mortal harm, somebody as is close kin to ye. Somebody of the male sex as would not scruple to use ye very ill. Keep yer course away from that one; don't ye touch so much as the hem of his coat! Or ye'll be in danger—and worse than danger of this world—danger of things beyond this world, beyond all we know!”

Her speech was so fierce and vehement that Jorinda
was startled into silence. Biting her lip, she watched the peddler swiftly gather all her wares together and pack them into a canvas sack, sling it over her shoulder and stride away down the grassy hill. “Mind what I say, now!” she called back.

Acting on a sudden impulse, Jorinda ran after her and made another purchase. As she walked back toward the house, there came the sound of a trotting horse in the other direction, and she turned to see old Gribben come out of the woods on his flea-bitten gray.

“Did you find the duke of Battersea?” she called hopefully as he dismounted.

“Nay, that I didn't,” he answered grumpily. “And I got yer ribbon, but there was nary a macaroon to be found. Here.” And he handed her a small bundle.

“Oh, that's too narrow! That's no use at all.”

“Twas all they had. Some folks is never satisfied. An' I picked up a bundle of mail for Old Sir, and there's one for you—here.”

“For me?” Jorinda was all agog. “Maybe it's from the duke—oh.” Her face fell as she saw the writing on the cover. “It's from my brother, Lot. What does
he
have to say, I wonder?”

“Dere Sis,” Lot had written, “if you have good Ideez for a king's name, send them.” Then there was a series of names, some crossed out—Simbert Lamnel, Warbert Purbeck, Lamkin Simbeck, Purnel Warkin—in careful print. Under these, Lot had written, “Sum O the boyz used to laff at my riting. Now their sory. Ha ha!”

“Wasn't there any talk in town about the duke of Battersea …and the sheep?” Jorinda asked Gribben.

He was stabling the mare among the pillars of the undercroft.

“No, there warn't,” he growled. “But I bought a couple of newspapers for Old Sir. Simmingly the archbishop of Wessex has bin found a mangled corpus outside his front door.
That
won't worrit Old Sir nor grieve him overmuch, I reckon.” And he stomped off up the stairs, leaving Jorinda openmouthed at the foot.

She was about to follow Gribben and put away her purchases when she noticed a post-scriptum on the reverse of Lot's letter.

“Dad sez do U no were king has hid king As crownet? Thatz the trump card dad sez. If so cum bak an tell him.”

Knitting her brow over this, Jorinda went up to her grandfather, who was exploding with rage over a communication he had received in the mail.

“Some smooth-tongued insolent fellow has the gall to send me a bank draft for that missing flock of sheep— calls himself the duke of Battersea! I daresay he's no more the duke than I am the seljuk of Rum. How do I know if this is worth the paper it's written on?” Furiously he waved a slip of paper.

“Bank of Battersea; it looks respectable enough, Granda. How much is it for?”

“Two hundred pounds. That's twice as much as that Burgundian agent fella was offering,” snarled Sir Thomas. “That's suspicious in itself!”

Jorinda's cheeks were glowing. “Just as I thought! I knew he'd be true and staunch!”

“What are you gabbling about, girl? Now, here's a bit of news in the paper: Whitgift of Wessex done in by wild beasts, gnawed to death on the Essex marshes—”

“Oh, dear! And I had just sent—”

“Well, I can't say I'll weep millstones over him. I mind when he was a lubberly young curate riding a wrong-footed cob, out with the Sheepwash Hunt, and he headed the fox. Never saw such a sapskull in all my days. Nay, he'll be no loss. They'll have to appoint a new one, though, right smartly, for King Dick's on his deathbed, it's said, and there's that doleful business of King Alfred's mortarboard to be gone through.”

“Mortarboard, Granda?”

“Oh, some mumbo jumbo got to be gone through before the next fellow can be sworn in as eligible for the throne.”

“If the Burgundians should take over this country, Granda—”

“Never you mind about the Burgundians, miss! I'm sick and tired of the Burgundians! I'd rather take my chance with the other lot. Anyway, politics ain't a fit subject for young females.”

“But you
like
the Burgundians, don't you, Granda, because they plan to buy your vineyards and turn them into orchards and hop gardens? They say there's a big field of ice floating down from polar regions….”

“Hold your tongue, gal; I've changed my mind. Plain Saxon's good enough for me.”

Changing the subject, Jorinda said, “Granda, I've had a letter from my brother Lothar inviting me to go to Fogrum Hall. It's not a school any longer, you know. Lot has bought it with money our father gave him and he's living there and—and our father is there too….” She hesitated over this but went on hastily “And they want me to come there; they've changed their—shall I go there, Granda?”

Sir Thomas exploded again. “No, miss, you shall not! What? Go and consort with that precious pair? Riffraff if ever there was! Your scapegrace brother—expelled from every decent school, even Fogrum, where he was only accepted because it had once been his mother's home and she was queen of England—a useless, good-for-nothing hobble-de-hoy if ever there was one. And as for that father of yours, I'm sorry he ever took up with my girl Zoe. An ill day that was for her! A man who is a byword and a nayword all over Europe! They should never have let him out of the Tower; that was the only place for him. No, miss, I shall
not
permit you to go and live with them!”

“I might run away,” threatened Jorinda.

But at the back of her mind she heard again the peddler's words: “There's one lies in yer path as has power to do ye a mortal harm …somebody of the male sex as would not scruple to use ye very ill …”

She ran up to her bedroom and went to stare at herself in a mirror that she had found in the root cellar and hung on her wall. She kept it covered by a shawl in case it was
really valuable and she was forbidden to have it. It was oval, framed in large pearly stones the size of walnuts.

Jorinda frowned at her reflection, pursed up her lips, smiled so that dimples appeared in her cheeks and then let out a ferocious growl. She put out her tongue at the mirror image and crossly twitched the shawl back over the glass.

She hid a large box under her bed.

the doorway, thinking the king was asleep. But the invalid suddenly raised his head from his pillow and said, “Is it today or tomorrow?”

“It's today, Your Majesty”

“Cousin Dick, Cousin Dick …”

“Cousin Dick. I have brought a draft of the family portrait for you to look at …if you feel up to it?”

“Deed an' I do. Bring it here, laddie, and rest it on the old Madam's chair.”

Simon had sketched his draft on a piece of board the king's aunt had found for him—it was probably the top of an old table—which he had scraped and rubbed flat with sandpaper. On this he had drawn a family group: the king between his first and second wives, his son Davie, a boy of about twelve, kneeling on the ground in front of the adults. The people sat in a room with tables
and chairs, but behind them stretched a huge open landscape, mountains, forests and lakes.

The human figures were drawn carefully and in great detail; Simon had taken pains to render the likenesses as close to the originals as he could, and he had tiptoed in once or twice to draw King Richard while he was asleep. The landscape and furnishings were sketchily roughed in.

The king studied it for a long time. Then he dashed away a few tears.

“I like it fine, fine!” he said at length. “Ye have drawn the puir lasses as if they sat there in front of ye. Ay, and young Davie too, 'tis the very spit of him. I wouldna have ye alter onything, not a thing. Except …could ye no' make the lasses a mite more leesome? A wee bit o' smile, maybe? They're unco' serious! I'd not wish to gae doon to posteerity betwixt sich a downcast pair!”

Simon promised to see what he could do.

“Let's see now, how lang hae ye been here?” said the king. “A full week, is it?”

“No, only four days, Your Maj—Cousin Richard.”

“Ah? It seems longer. Have ye no' heard the nightingales sing yet?”

Simon was startled. “Nightingales, sir? Surely it is hardly the season for them? I have heard pheasants in the woods, and owls, cousins of my Thunderbolt,” he added, rubbing Thunderbolt's tawny head, which the owl gravely inclined toward him.

“Nay,” said the king, “the coverts aroond Darkwater
are aye weel-furnished with nightingales; yell be hearing them soon enow. Old Madam ll tell ye …”

He yawned, and his head drooped. But then he anxiously jerked it up again and opened his gray eyes wide. “We maun find it!” he gasped. “We maun find it and give it to His Reverence afore Saint Lucy's Day!”

“Yes, of course we must, sir,” Simon answered soothingly “But there is plenty of time. Saint Lucy's is Midwinter Day, is it not?”

“Och, aye, so 'tis. 'Lucy who scarce seven hours herself unveils.' Ye 'll find it afore then, will ye no', like a good laddie?”

“Certainly I'll find it for you, Cousin Richard,” Simon told him. “But what is it? Won't you tell me what it is that you want found?”

But the king's head had fallen forward on his chest and his eyes had closed. Simon, alarmed, was about to call the old lady, but she appeared at that moment with a glass of wine and a crusty piece of bread on a gold platter. The wine was dark green.

“Walnut-leaf wine—'tis all he will take now,” she said as she caught Simon's eye fixed on the gold-rimmed glass. “That and the very fresh bread—it must be straight from the oven. They keep him going. Come, Richart, come, my bonny boy, take a sip of wine for your auntie Titania!” The king was with difficulty roused from his somnolent state and persuaded to sip a few drops of wine and mumble a small morsel of bread. Then the old lady beckoned Simon from the room.