Authors: Judith Merkle Riley
“Soon, soon,” he said, handing them a few quarter-farthings.“I'm to confer with the Bishop before Saint Austin's Day, and until then, my own confessor will come regularly on Sundays. You'll not be without consolations of the spirit.” As we took the last leg of the dusty road up to the manor gates, he said to Gilbert,“as if they were ever interested in consolation of the spirit before. But ever since Sir Roger fell into the pond, the moiety of them wish there were considerably more Christianity around here—fasts, flagellations, allnight vigils—the sort of thing you used to annoy me with—” I saw Gilbert's jaw tighten. He had always considered his father's attitude toward religion far too lax.
“The moiety? And what about the rest?”
“Oh, they worship the pond. Just as they always did.”
“AND WHERE IS
my loving lady? I expected her to greet me,” announced Hugo as he strode into the hall. The baggage had been put away and the drovers sent back with the mules, and Hugo paused in the center of his father's great hall, looking at the solar staircase in expectation. In summer the chickens don't live in the hall, but there were plenty of hounds lolling around on the filthy rushes. I would wear pattens in these rushes, if it would not be an insult, but instead I brought old shoes that I used in the garden. Good things are wasted in this house. The train of my Sunday dress I pin up so it does not touch the floor, but only let it down in the chapel, which usually stands so vacant that even the dogs forget to go and follow nature there.
Up in the rafters above the hearth, hams and haunches of venison hang, to get the advantage of the smoke that usually rises up through the louvres day and night. Folk here think it a treat to reach down the leg of some long-dead animal, hard with salt and smoke, green and slimy within and without, and slice it up to eat with rare and elaborate ceremony. I do not eat dead things, which makes them think me odd, but the eyes of those pitiful creatures would appear
to me in my dreams if I ate them, and I prefer not to have them on my conscience. Last time I was here, I caused a great argument about the nature of oysters, which was purely theoretical because there are no oysters here. I said if they were, I would not have them, because since they could open and close their shells there might be some hidden eyes that I might not know about, and Sir Hubert said that Gilbert should beat such fancies out of me, and he said no, and there was a disagreement in which furniture was thrown. In other houses they play chess and hear music after supper, but these are not the style of Brokesford Manor. The main hearthfire in the center of the hall was out, and in deference to the heat they were cooking outside in the courtyard, where I heard the squalls of a pig being slaughtered in celebration of the lord's return. I felt my stomach turn, and for a brief moment wondered if they had eaten all the eggs that day.
Not seeing Lady Petronilla, Hugo went and shouted up the solar stair for her. His voice echoed loudly, for the solar stair, being stone and built essentially like a tube or a rising cavern, carries sound well when the doors at the top and bottom of it are open. It is circular, built into the wall, with slots above it for raining down arrows and boiling oil on people whose presence is not desired upstairs. The doors at the foot and the head—heavy, studded oak—are marked with old scars from times gone by, when unwanted guests tried to hammer them down with battleaxes. I myself prefer a pleasant, hospitable home, airy and bright, with real glass windows, cozy wood paneling, and neat whitewashing. In short, exactly what I have, and do not ever wish to mortgage to save any portion of this grim, squalid estate.
As I was seeing to the disposal of Lion's basket and Peregrine, who is too young to know the difference between clean and dirty, was fishing for bones in the rushes, Lady Petronilla's old nurse made an appearance at the foot of the stairs.
“My lady sends her deepest apologies,” she said, dipping low before Sir Hugo. “She is in a delicate state, too weak to rise.” Behind me, I heard Madame sniff. I knew what she'd say: the lady of the house, no matter if half-dead, should rise to greet guests, and offer
to bathe the feet of her husband and possibly any visiting knight with her own fair white hands. If three-quarters dead, she should send her pucelles. But of course, Brokesford had no pucelles. What family would send girls to be educated in a place where there was no great lady to instruct them? Brokesford had no pages, either, for the same reason. I always regarded Lady Petronilla as a woman who wanted her advantages, but never lived up to her responsibilities. And that is the kindest thing I can say, considering what she tried to do to me on my last visit.
“Delicate?” said Hugo, a hopeful look in his eyes.
“Delicate,” said Goody Wilmot, the hairs in her chin aquiver with hidden meaning.
“Don't count your chickens before they're hatched,” growled the old lord. But Hugo, being the gullible sort, took exactly the meaning that was intended, and went bounding up the stair.
“Where's Damien?” asked Cecily, looking about hopefully as Sir Hugo's squire, the ever-cynical Robert, came in from exercise at the quintain. He smiled a malicious smile. “
Sir
Damien has gone a-courting, the deceptive rogue,” he answered. “You will have to make do with me.”
“
Sir
Damien?” I asked, hoping to avert the storm.
“Sir, and most unfairly, too, if I do say so. The king asked for volunteers at the gates of Montrouge, for a mission of certain death, and offered instant knighthood in the bargain. Young Colart d'Ambréticourt, curiously enough, could not find his helmet and so declined the honor. I, regrettably, had misplaced my breastplate. Damien the ever-needy leapt at the chance. None returned but him, as Fortuna would have it, and he is now a hero, with the king's favor, a knighthood, and a tidy little property in the bargain. A disgusting turn of events, and entirely unjustified by his native qualities.”
“He's got a knighthood, and he didn't come to get me on his white horse?” Cecily was bitter.
“It's me he was coming for,” said Alison, and Cecily stamped on her foot.
“What is the name of the lady?”
“Rose, the second daughter of Sir Thomas de Montagu.”
“I hate her,” said Alison.
“Betrayed!” cried Cecily, “I will never love another! His cruelty has pierced my heart!”
“I'm sure I'm much prettier,” said Alison.
“He was supposed to
wait,”
said Cecily.
“I'll grow up and
fix
him,” said Alison.
“You will
not,”
I said. “You'll behave.” But both sisters had started to howl. Madame put her cool white hand on Alison's shoulder.
“The usual course that a lady takes, when betrayed by her one true love, is to enter a nunnery,” she announced.
“A nunnery?” said Alison. “My hair is too pretty to cut off.”
“There's nothing left. I'll
devote
myself to prayer and contemplation,” announced Cecily. A strange, ironic little smile flitted across Madame's face.
“So be it,”she said,“you must begin by humbling yourself. Possibly picking up your own things would be a start.”
“I was thinking more of carrying alms to the poor.”
“In you, Cécile, that would be pride,” said Madame, her face impassive. “But perhaps you can make a start on it, and help carry the baskets for the lord's almoner.” Somehow, the juxtaposition of Madame's idealized view of chivalry and the reality of this place had a certain charm. The visit was looking up.
“The lord has no almoner here,” I said.
“Well then, his chaplain, when he takes the
tranchers
to the poor after supper tonight.”
“The chaplain is a drunk and a lay-about. The dogs eat the trenchers.”
“That is hardly appropriate,” said Madame.
“Rose, Rose, Rose, I hate her,” said Alison. And suddenly I feared that here in the country, with the infinite new possibilities for trouble that the place presented, and without the spur of adoration to keep them in order, Madame's bridle of fine manners and French
might well fail the test. Lord, get us out of here before they do something truly horrible, I prayed silently.
WHEN DAME PETRONILLA CAME DOWN
, followed close at hand by her old nurse and the confessor she had brought from her father's house, it was for supper, and she looked very strange indeed. Though it was summer and she no widow, she was dressed in a heavy, furlined black surcoat over a kirtle of green so dark as to be almost black itself. The honey blonde hair beneath her veil was coiled tightly beside her ears in two silver mesh crespinettes. Though younger than I, she had the look of someone who had aged abnormally. Her face was puffy and yellowish white, with strange brownish stains, like very large, faded freckles. Her eyes glittered and darted about the room, catching on this one and that one, then fixing on me.
“Why,
Lady
Margaret, where's your son?” she asked, her smile wide and eerie. There was something coming off her, like a scent or a feeling, that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
“The children eat apart,” I said. How could the men in the room stand there, so unknowing, not feeling the strange thing I felt?
“Quite right, quite right,” said Hugo, “my good lady is nervous in her condition.” The others went on talking about hunting, and things that happened in France.
“And you, you have come to flaunt yourself with another pregnancy. I see everything now; I see the secrets people are hiding—” I could feel in her eyes some abnormal, sharpened perception. It was true; she could see what others usually ignore, or are blind to. I could tell, and it made my skin crawl.“—you are a crass little thing, you use your son to climb to favor. But I, I have a son, too. A son more highborn, the heir.” She smiled a secretive smile.
“This time, we'll be more careful. Everything will be at your hand,” announced Hugo grandly. How could he not know something was wrong? But now her eye caught on Madame, steady and pale in her black gown, who was taking in everything. I looked at her, I saw her eyes, and knew that Madame felt what I felt, too.
“You don't approve of me, do you? Who are you, woman in black, and why do you follow Margaret like a shadow?”
“Dame Petronilla, allow me to present to you Dame Agathe, who dwells with our household.”
“You will not sit at the dais.”
“Madame is a lady born, and of our family, through distant connections.”
“I'll not have a black shadow near me, near me. She will steal the child from my womb. I know, I know, she takes from one and gives to another. That one is mine, mine that is gone, that you took,” she said, pointing to my belly where nothing, as yet, even showed.
“Don't you dare touch me,” I said, standing to my full height and speaking firmly. Fearing me, she turned on Madame, so frail and pallid, who had to speak and act so carefully in a household where she was dependent.
“You—it's you. Put her out, put her out, I say,” she shrieked suddenly, and flew at Madame with her hands like claws, to rake her with her nails. Gilbert and I caught her wrists, and as he touched her, she looked at him with an odd look, something like awe, and became quiet.
“Come now, come now, my sweetest,” said her old nurse, who had been standing silently at her elbow.
“Ha! This proves it!” cried Hugo, ever oblivious. “She really is in a delicate condition! Women like this are always a little unstable. Are there any little treats or rare fruits you crave?”
“There's rare fruits I'd taste,” she said, looking sideways at Gilbert, and again, my skin crawled. “But I'll get them for myself,” she said, her eyes bright.
“My dear one has been frail, since coming home from the Duke's court,” said the nurse.
“Perhaps, Madame, it would be best if you rested again in your chamber, and had supper sent up,” said her confessor, Brother Paul, a wiry Austin friar, longtime in her family, whose back always seemed slightly bent in a permanent suppliant posture.
“Sound like that's for the best,” boomed Sir Hubert, settling the matter. “Madame, you must look after yourself, for the sake of the heir.” Was it possible? I thought I saw a bulge beneath her heavy surcoat.
“Oh, yes,” she said, looking up at Sir Hubert with a melting look. “That's true. I have more than one to think about,” and casting her glittering eyes about the room, she allowed herself to be led back upstairs to the chamber in the tower she shared with Hugo, their hounds, hawks, and body servants.
“You
bit
that bread, Alison. That's disgusting, and now it can't be given away. Into the dog basket with it.” I watched as Cecily flung away the bread, and Alison picked it out of the basket to inspect it.
“I didn't do that,” she said, turning it over several times.
“You did so. Those are your teeth marks. I know them. Besides, they're too small for anybody else's.”
“They're yours,” announced Alison, “and you're blaming me.”
“They're not. My life is far too tragic now to go around biting off bread. Nuns never forget to break their bread off. I'm thinking of taking the religious name, ‘Mary,’ after Our Lady of Sorrows. My lot is grief, grief forever.” Madame's eyes were amused, but I found it hard not to snort.
“Mademoiselle Cécile,” said Madame, “your stitches have grown fine enough that you might work with me on embroidering an altarcloth.”
“
My
stitches are just as fine as Cecily's. I want to, too.”
“They are
not,
besides, your fingers are always dirty—” “Mademoiselle Alison, you may be allowed to do the plain stitching, but only if you are very, very good,” announced the wily Madame.
It was bright midday sun, just after the dinner hour, and Madame was overseeing the packing up of the scraps and trenchers into baskets, one for the dog kennels, one for the poor. It had been the storm of storms, when Madame fixed her eye on Sir Hubert and
asked permission to make herself useful in her own humble way by assisting his chaplain in taking the leftovers to the poor.
“Are you questioning my largesse?” shouted my grim-faced father-in-law.