Midwinter Nightingale (23 page)

“Oh, dear,” said Simon. “Was that the right thing to do?”

“Best she should join her brother,” grunted Harry. “She were a no-good wench. A real hussy. Thinking to marry you! What next? And as for him …”

“But she was killed defending me.”

“Only accidental. She never helped another body in her life, less 'twas by mistake. Don't waste your sorrow on her. What we got to worry about is how to get Himself down to the Priory afore darkfall.”

“And in good time,” exclaimed Simon, “here comes Father Sam!” He peered through the curtain of snow, which was falling faster now. His voice almost cracked with astonishment and joy “Father Sam and Dido!”

down the hill beside the sedan chair. She had undone the leather curtain so that the king could see out, and she was holding a slow and disjointed conversation with him.

“Do I know you?”

“I carried your train at Your Majesty's coronation. A fine affair it was. All those oranges dangling on the pillars of Saint Paul's—”

“Oh, do call me Uncle Dick, my dear girl.”

“Sure, if you say so, Your Maj—Uncle Dick—and the congregation all munching on almond cookies—”

“And, havers, I'd no say no tae one o' they almond cakies at this present.”

“Maybe they'll have some over yonder,” said Dido hopefully, scanning the spiky outline of the monastery
perched on its mount, fitfully glimpsed through gusts of snow.

Lot's black horse had been harnessed between the two rear carrying poles; the poor beast was so tired and shocked that it offered no resistance to this unusual arrangement, did not even take fright at the two bears who padded companionably alongside. The sheep, docile and humble, trailed in the rear, and old Harry rode Simon's Magpie. Simon and Father Sam bore the two front carrying poles, and the whole party proceeded at a cautious and creeping pace down the zigzag path, which was both steep and slippery The gale had not abated; driven snow scoured their faces and their goal seemed a daunting distance away across a wide expanse of island-studded white flatness, which appeared and disappeared behind clouds of sleet and spume.

Father Sam was explaining to Simon why it had taken him such a long time to make his way to the viaduct.

“The Saxon Army, poor dear fellows, their commander Egbert Wetwulf is so very much taken up with what they call 'reflection prowess'—a very worthy tactic I am sure it is, very worthy indeed, never a doubt of that—it puts the whole army in thought accord with one another, hardly any need for speech, they tell me, and of course that is excellent, excellent; it turns them truly into a band of brothers. But, ye see, while they are, as they call it,
reflecting
—they sit cross-legged and pass into a deep, deep trance; some of them even levitate, rise a little way into
the air—but that, d'ye see, means they are somewhat immune to outside influences; they hardly see nor hear.
Well!
So there they all were! And I could see that if they were not roused from that insensibility, they might very likely freeze to death in such weather as we are having. And if the Burgundians were to arrive at such a time—it hardly bears thinking of. So I felt it my duty …”

“A good thing you did,” Simon agreed. “I suppose Lothar must have grabbed one of their spears as he rode by. I wonder how he knew we would come this way?”

“I imagine Lady Titania Plantagenet must have told him.”

“Why? I thought she was on the king's side, devoted to him.”

“She has—had—the gift of augury.”

“What's that?”

“Foretelling what is going to happen. She must have known what would come to pass …up to a point at least. Your young friend has it too.”

“Dido has? I don't get it.”

“Not
a comfortable gift,” said Father Sam, shaking his head. “At present, in Dido it is only latent …like that wretched boy with his wolf persona. He, at least, is no loss. Nor his scatterbrained sister. A pity she had not come across the Saxon Army. She would have done better with them. A set of excellent, high-minded lads. I told them it was their duty to go and argue with the Burgundians before engaging in warfare and they agreed to try that method….”

“Is that the railway up there?” the king asked Dido. “Do you think I could be in time to catch the five-thirty train to Back End Junction, where I might change and get the express to King's Cross?”

Dido was cautious.

“I wouldn't depend on that, your Maj—Uncle Richard, sir. If I was you, I'd stay overnight at the Priory. I daresay the monks in that place are a very decent set of 'welcoming fellers and will cook you a fine dinner.”

She certainly hoped so. It seemed like a hundred years since those cucumber sandwiches.

The king was anxious and melancholy.

“Do I belong here?”

“Not here, perhaps, Your Royalness, but soon we'll find where you do belong.”

“I have left myself behind—”

“You'll find yourself, I reckon, when you're in a nice bedroom with a cup of hot soup inside you….”

“My dear … I wonder if you can advise me. I feel I am very close to my latter end. What I chiefly wish to know is this: In the next world I shall find my two dear wives waiting: my dearest Edelgarde, the mother of Davie, and my equally dear Adelaide. Now, shall I have to introduce them to each other? Or will they have become known to each other already? And what about my son?”

Dido gave this some careful thought.

“Don't you reckon, Your Maj—Uncle Dick—that everybody knows everything, once they get there? And don't need to be told nothing?”

“Yes. Yes … I believe you may be right. I do hope so. That would take a great weight off my mind. Another question that troubles me: this religious establishment whither we are tending. Do you ken if they harbor any nightingales in their policies?”

“Policies?”

“Estates, demesnes—”

“You got me there, Uncle King. But—even spose they have nightingales—ain't they birds that sing in summertime? Not very likely they'd be yodeling around in weather like this.”

“Oh,” said the king sadly. “I wonder if you are right.”

Dido wondered why His Majesty had such a wish for nightingales. Something to do, perhaps, with that business the old archbishop had been clacking on about— the coronet ritual? Mercy, what a long time ago that seems, thought Dido, the old gager and his tea things in his spooky little hidey-hole on the bank of London River. Only a few days ago …

She was reminded of the archbishop's riverside retreat, because they had now arrived at just such another bankside area—a dank willowy neighborhood with clumps of reeds and bulrush and a wooden slipway running down under the flat white surface of snow-covered ice. There was a tumbledown open-fronted shed, with a bench, under a clump of willows, and a bell hanging on a rope from a branch.

“Do we ring the bell?” asked Simon.

Father Sam shook his head.

“There'd be no point. The bell's for the ferry. But there can be no ferry so long as the Middle Mere is iced over. What we have to discover is, will the ice bear us?”

Simon pried a sizable rock from the side of the track and hurled it as far as he was able onto the ice. Nothing happened.

“But one rock isn't as heavy as two horses and five people and a sedan chair.”

“And two bears,” said Dido. “And a flock of sheep.”

“Send the bears out,” said Father Sam. “See if the ice will bear them.” He laughed heartily at his own joke, but Simon was scandalized.

“Why put
them
at risk? They didn't ask to be sent to this country. I'll go.”

“No, no, my boy, that would not do,” Father Sam said hastily. “You are next in succession to the throne. Harry had better go.”

“I can't swim,” grumbled Harry.

“I'll go,” snapped Dido, who found this discussion a silly waste of time. “I swim like a herring—though let's hope I don't need to.”

She set out with caution on the ice, which, under a couple of inches of snow, was extremely slippery. And, once she was fairly out in the channel, away from sheltering banks and thickets, the wind, icy and buffeting, made it hard to keep upright.

Peering ahead, she saw clumps of rush and snow-covered islets. And, from time to time, between gusts of snow, she had a glimpse of the high-arched monastery
buildings climbing the steep slope on the far side of the channel. To her right the high silhouette of the viaduct appeared and disappeared in the storm. Somewhere down there, under the ice, between those tall stone legs, lay a shattered carriage and four horses and some drowned people. A grim thought. Not that any of em's much loss, thought Dido. Lot and Jorinda—what a pair! And the two old gals—one of em at least as bent as a buckle. The duchess was certainly no angel and t'other one, according to Simon, seemed to have been playing both ends against the middle.

Now, rounding an islet sprouted over with frozen willow wands, she could see her way clear ahead. This was probably the main channel, where the current would be strongest and the ice was likely to be thinnest. Wish I had a pair of skates, thought Dido. She remembered a winter in London when the Thames had frozen, and in Rose Alley where she lived there had been only one pair of skates among seventy children. Belonged to Sindy Rogers, the ironmonger's kid, but she let us all have a go. Didn't take long to learn. Hey, there's a feller in black a-waving on the far shore. Does he mean yes, it's all rug, come along? Or does he mean go back, the ice won't hold ye? Well, I'm a-going and hope for the best. If the ice won't hold, he can blame well jump in and haul me out.

But the ice did hold. And in another five minutes Dido was safe on the farther bank, having her hands enthusiastically shaken by a long-legged lad in monk's robes,
who cried, “Welcome! Welcome to the Priory! Welcome indeed! Father Mistigris would be here himself to 'welcome you, but a ship has foundered on the seaward side of Otherland Bank and all the brothers are down there helping to rescue the crew. But I see there are others of your party…. Do you want to signal them to come, now we know the ice will carry them?”

Dido said dubiously, “One of em's the king. And he's sick, in a great clumsy carry-chair. And there's a pair of bears. And two horses …and a flock of sheep. I dunno if 'twill be safe to fetch the king across in that contraption; it's mighty heavy. But he's awful sick and like to die.”

“I'll fetch a stretcher from the barn,” said the boy. “I'm Brother Mark, by the way. We quite often get sick people coming here.” He disappeared, running toward a stone, thatched building, and came back in a minute with two poles and a canvas sheath. Meanwhile the sheep had decided, on their own initiative, to amble across and were now clustering hopefully outside the barn. “Yes, go in, go in,” Brother Mark absently told them. “There's plenty hay inside.” And the flock at once did so. “Now let us cross and get your friends.”

Mark had also brought out two pairs of skates made from deer's antlers. He passed a pair to Dido, who gratefully put them on.

“Say, thanks, Mark, that'll make a power of difference.”

The skates did indeed make a difference, and they were
able to cross the channel in a few minutes. The party on the other shore had seen the stretcher and waited.

“That was well thought of, Mark,” said Father Sam. “I doubt the sedan would be too heavy. But I trust that our royal friend, wrapped in his quilts on the stretcher, will take no harm if the crossing be done as fast as possible.”

With everybody helping, the exchange was made and the king, wrapped in coverings, was borne across the channel by Simon and Father Sam, wearing the skates. Mark brought the king's bag of needments; Dido and Harry led the horses, who slid and whickered nervously on the ice and were kept at a safe distance behind the sick man in case their weight proved too much. The bears followed independently, studying the ice as if they hoped to find fish under it.

“Brother Isaac will take care of them,” called Mark. “He is a great fisherman. Now I fear we have to climb three hundred steps.”

The bears and horses were left in the barn, and the rest of the party took turns carrying the stretcher up the steps, which was far more arduous than the trip over the frozen channel.