Authors: Judith Merkle Riley
“What on earth did she do that for?” I said, and fumbled under the big, sagging old bed that Gilbert and I shared. All our little family, Robert the squire, and the personal retainers slept in the solar, but only we had bed curtains, in deference to Gilbert's status as a son of the house.
I wouldn't really call that cold stone room a solar, for the narrow, high windows never caught much sun. It was a long, large room, the entire second story over the hall, and its stone walls were so thick that at the base of each window opening, two parallel window seats, facing each other, were set in the depth of the wall. There were two round rooms in the tower, the uppermost where Sir Hubert slept, along with his body servants, hawks, hounds, and whatever vermin cared to climb that high. Beneath them, at the level of the solar, was Hugo and Petronilla's chamber, from which a connecting passage led to the solar. The ground floor of the tower was the chapel, though you could not get there directly from the tower above, for the long wooden stair from the upper rooms wound around the outside of the tower to the ground. Beneath the chapel lay the dungeon, where Sir Hubert could lock up people, old wine tuns, or loot from some campaign, and no one would ever be the wiser. Comfort and privacy were not part of life in this house. The roof leaked, the rats bounded over the rushes in search of trash the dogs had left, and in summer, it had a damp, repulsive smell from the sewage-clogged moat. If it were my house, I'd begin by having a stone pit built beneath the privy that was set in the wall of the solar, so that everything wouldn't just drop down the shaft into the moat. Then I'd have the pit cleaned out regularly, the way they do in good houses in London, so that they stay better smelling.
After that, I'd change the rushes and whitewash, yes, whitewash everything so that it was clean and decent, no matter what anybody said. Then I'd sell off half the horses and get some decent tapestries. Sir Hubert would die of apoplexy.
But enough of remaking the house, which always comes to mind whenever I'm there. I opened my chest to find the shoe and tie the pair together.
“Alison, what have you two been up to? The shoe is all dried out and stiff, as if it got soaked. It wasn't that way before.” Alison got that sly look on her face that she gets when she's been pilfering sweets, and she said.
“We weren't supposed to tell, so that we could keep playing with Old Brownie, but Dame Petronilla took it and threw it in the pond. She was singing and dancing about like a monkey, and then she threw the shoe and went away. We think that's where she always goes when she goes riding. She makes wishes there. We followed her, and she never saw, she was so mad. So Cecily just fished out the shoe with a stick, and we brought it back.” My heart stopped suddenly, and jammed itself in my throat.
“But she rides with a groom or with her confessor. I'd think he wouldn't approve of a pagan ritual.”
“Oh, that sneaky old Brother Paul? He rides to the abbey, and lets her go on alone.”
The abbey? The abbey full of Austin friars? Exactly like Brother Paul? Suddenly I saw him, his sinister eyes and pliable facade, in a whole new light. How many years had he served this crazy woman, covered up her tainted soul to keep her wed into this family while he plotted with his order to relieve Brokesford of timber and water land? And Lady Petronilla? Dear Jesus, she'd gone off riding this very morning, the minute the men were out of sight. Everything would be known.
I
T WAS STILL TWO DAYS UNTIL THE GUESTS would arrive, and the manor was entirely engulfed in the preparations for the great feast in celebration of the investiture of the new priest the bishop had found for the parish church. A massive pit, lined with stones and equipped with a huge spit, had been prepared for the ox who would be put to roast on the morrow. A stream of peasants, bringing pigs, chickens, and sheep came and went through the great manor gate. Margaret, sweating and fussing, rushed from the bakehouse to the brewhouse, supervising the conversion of a cartload of new milled flour into the fine, high white rolls and bread for which she was celebrated at the very same time she was inspecting the progress of barrelsful of new ale she had brewed with that splendid, rich taste which couldn't be equalled in the bishop's own palace. With her came Alison, who never missed an opportunity to taste anything, while Cecily, more convinced than ever by the splendor of the preparations that she was meant to be a nun, had gone with Madame to starch and iron the church linen.
It was to be a great occasion. Not only would the bishop's representative come to install the new priest, but afterward, the long awaited new altarcloth and a splendid new silver paten would be dedicated for the use of the church. How worthy the younger son of the house was, said the pious old ladies of the parish, to give such a gift in thanksgiving for his safe homecoming from France! And his stepdaughters, the heiresses from the City, had not been too proud to embroider the cloth with their own hands. Then, even though the bishop himself
wasn't coming, he was sending as institutor a canon from the great cathedral itself, a man reputed to be so holy that he once caused a plague of grasshoppers to remove themselves by simply preaching God's word to them. The event promised to be altogether uplifting.
“You'd think the bishop would have come, being a cousin and all,” old Sir Hubert growled as he passed by the great pit on horseback, accompanied by his two sons, a half-dozen armed grooms, and an oxcart manned by a couple of peasants and their boys. They were off to Hertford to select and bring back the wine, which seemed entirely too much trouble for the lord of Brokesford if the bishop himself weren't coming.
“It's all the better. If the bishop had come, you'd have to order twice as much wine, father,” said Sir Hugo, and the old man made a grumpy noise, which might have been decoded to mean, “even if you do cover your harness with gewgaws, occasionally you make sense, Hugo.”
“Vintners, never trust 'em,” said Sir Hubert aloud. “If you don't taste every barrel, they'll pass off vinegar on you. There's no one like 'em for bribing the stewards of great castles to accept short measure. Only lawyers are worse.”
“Priests follow not far behind. Who have you got for ours, father? Not some stiff-necked troublemaker, I hope.”
“Ha, nonsense. I've got a cousin, of course. Not one I've ever met, mind you. One of Sir Philip's by-blows, raised up for a priest by his uncle the abbot. The bishop assures me he's young, poor, and pliable, and the abbot paid me a nice little sum for the place— hence the wine. Bad priests and bad wine, I refuse to let either get past me.”
“It does depend on what you call bad. Easy penances and Sunday hunting are not the sole measure of a priest. What about his care for the souls in the village?” The old man's eyes narrowed as Gilbert spoke. His irritating second son was reverting to that priggish, annoying tone he had. He thinks he has me by the nose because of that damned deed faked up by his shifty friend. Puppy.
“He'll get on famously. He's only one step up from a peasant
himself. No pretentions. He'll plow his furrow like the rest, and I'm throwing in a mule with the position.”
“Well, then, the mule settles it, doesn't it?”
Needs taking down a peg, thought the old man. But I can't heave a bench at him until after this thing's over.
As they rode through the gate, a yellowish, furtive face appeared at the tower window. Lady Petronilla, “ill” in her room, had ascertained that the masters of the manor had departed, leaving her, the ranking lady of the place, mistress of the house.
“I'm stifling up here, I need to take the air,” she said to her old nurse. “Help me put on my riding habit, and then go and tell the grooms to saddle that little pacing mare Dame Margaret brought. I've been wanting to try her out.”
“But lady—”
“No buts. I am mistress here now. Dame Margaret must lend me her Burgundian mare, whether she wants to or not.”
“I mean, my lady, that Brother Paul is not here to accompany you.” Her nurse took her hunting surcoat from the chest, helped her strip off her silver embroidered surcoat and settle the green one over her shoulders until it covered her black kirtle.
“Who would dare touch me on this estate? My belt and dagger, now, and hurry.” Her eyes seemed to roll in her head so that the whites showed along the tops, her complexion seemed to puff and swell, eerie brown spots becoming visible on its pallid, unhealthy surface.
“But, my sweet lambkin, the appearance—” The old nurse was kneeling at her feet, attaching her little sharp spurs to her soft leather hunting boots.
“I'm not your lamb or anyone else's. I can look after myself,” said Lady Petronilla, grabbing up her riding crop and a bundle in a linen sack from the open oak chest that held her things, and striding from the room. Behind her, something eerie, like a scent without a scent, seemed to linger in the room. It made the nurse's eyes widen, and the hair go up on the back of her neck.
“Another of her spells, and Brother Paul not here to help me.
God knows, it will end ill. I should have claimed my age, and remained behind at my brother's house, sooner than travel to this house with her. But without me, what would she have done? What will happen when they discover the truth? Lord, lord, spare me, I am an old woman, and what I have done, it has been for love of the dear child she once was.” She went to the chamber window, and peered down from the tower. It gave a wide view of the courtyard and the fields beyond the moat. Beyond the gate she saw a tiny figure on a cream-colored mare, dashing away at full speed on the narrow path that led away from the village and to the meadow, and beyond it, the woods. “Sweet Jesus, send her the son she requires, before she loses her mind entirely,” muttered the old woman.
MARGARET STOOD AT
the low door of the thatched roof malt house, the sweet smell of ferment surrounding her like a cloud, and setting the peasant delegation outside all wild with anticipation. Alison stood behind her, barefoot in her blue smock, her red-gold hair streaming down her back like liquid. Several village matrons, clad in russet, their hair done up in cheap kerchiefs, stood, equally barefoot, in front of the group. Nervously, they eyed one another. How to begin?
“Mama, mama, all done!” cried Cecily, working her way through the little crowd, with Madame right behind her. “Every piece so nice and white and smooth, and not a bit singed! You won't see finer linen in the cathedral!” Madame smiled and shrugged a little, as if to say, forgive her exaggeration. The peasants turned to look at the little girl with the fast wilting rose tucked into her fuzzy braid. They eyed her almost hungrily. Ordinarily, Margaret would have noticed, but she was too frazzled with the preparations, and too tired from the early part of pregnancy, to be as alert as she usually was. “Mama, can we play now? We want to go riding.”
“Grandfather took Old Brownie with him this morning,” answered Margaret. The peasants seemed to shift and look at one another. Something had been resolved. They pushed a spokeswoman forward, the old midwife's daughter.
“Good Dame Margaret,” she said, “we can take them riding. Let them come with us for the afternoon. We've games in plenty for these little dames.”
“Very well, but you must have them back an hour before sunset,” answered Margaret.
“As safe as if they had been in church the whole time,” said the midwife's daughter, and the little crowd all nodded and murmured their assent. Margaret, who saw among the crowd many to whom she had given her aid and trust, was relieved to think that her girls would be amused and out from under foot. There was genuine relief, then hilarity among the group that escorted the little girls from the brewhouse door, and one of the older women broke into song. The others joined her, one by one, and then the girls, too, as if they had learned it from them on some other jaunt to the village. They sound so happy, thought Margaret, returning to her work. But Madame, who trusted no one, noticed something. The song was not in any English she had ever heard, not in the north, not in the south. It had a curious tune to it. Something that sounded very, very old. Madame's eyes were like the eyes of a lioness; her nostrils flared. She remembered the pledge she had made to Gilbert de Vilers. As quiet as a shadow, she followed at a distance, letting no one see her.
By the time she had reached the village, she held back, waiting behind the wattle fence of one of the gardens as she heard cheering. The girls seemed in their element, vain and pleased with themselves, as the old village women brought out circlets of bright summer flowers to put on their heads. She heard the sound of lowing, and saw the men leading a snow white heifer, garlanded with flowers, down the main street of the village. A dozen hands lifted the girls up. Madame's heart nearly failed her as she saw the girls mounted double on the heifer, waving and smiling to the people surrounding them. A strange village, strange customs, God alone knew what could happen, and she was all by herself. Madame knew of the savage roots of the ancient world that lay deep beneath the reach of the church, of the Anglo-Norman overlords. As a child at the fireside she had been regaled by tales of secret pagan sacrifices,
and brave bishops who faced vile heathens with fire and sword. Her insides froze as the parade headed off across the fields in the direction of the woods. She knew what had happened to the priest. It was as clear as clear to her that the girls were being taken to be offered as human sacrifices to the hideous pool, and she had no way to send for help.
Desperate, Madame hurried on behind the sinister procession. She got a stone in her shoe, and started to limp. Oh, wretched shoes, too light for this long walk, she thought, sitting down on a boundary stone to empty out her shoe.
“My lady, they have left you behind, too?” said a little voice beside her, and she looked down to see a peasant boy with club feet laboring along with the aid of a crutch.
Sweat was rolling down Madame's pale face, and her gray hair was straggling from beneath her headdress. One of the pins had dropped from her kerchief, and it was crooked, but she hadn't noticed, although she was usually so precise that she could feel any displacement of correct dress. “I'm too old to keep up,” she said, hoping the boy would leave.