The Water Devil (29 page)

At this very moment, in fact, Gilbert was penning the line, “sorrow is my only companion save you, Christ Jesus—” and practically tearful thinking of the poor captive Crusader when his quill went splutter, splut, and he dipped it into his inkhorn only to find it empty. Damn! Completely preoccupied with holding the rest of the inspired and tragic line in his head, he jumped up from the window seat in the solar and hurried down the circular stair two steps at a time. In a flash he was in the chapel where he dove down behind the altar where the chest with the old vestments and writing things were kept. He had just laid hands on the ink bottle when he heard a voice above his head.

“Look up, my bold lover, and see what I am offering you.” First he looked at the ground and saw two bare feet beyond the chest. Then he looked farther, and saw bare ankles, and after that bare knees. He kept looking, and he saw all of Lady Petronilla, quite naked and covered with gooseflesh in the chilly air of the chapel. He observed that her arms and legs were covered with unpleasant, bristly hair, and that hair went all the way up her belly to her navel. Her skin was pallid and froglike in the dim chapel light. She had kept on her headdress and earrings. It was the most unappetizing and irritating sight he had seen within remembrance. Furious at the interruption, he kept repeating his last line to himself, so he wouldn't forget the end of it. “I see your color changing. The fierce blood of warrior cannot be restrained,” said his brother's wife in a seductive half-whisper.

“Can't you see I'm
busy
?” he said, still on his knees in front of the open chest.

“Put down that ink bottle and put your hands on something more
exciting,
” said Lady Petronilla, running her fingers through his dark, curly hair.

“Get your hands out of my
hair,
you floozy,” he said, standing up abruptly and still holding the ink bottle.

“Who better than a brother, to make up for what a brother lacks? Together, we will make the true heir of Brokesford.”

“You're as crazy as ever. I'm going,” said Gilbert, turning on his heel to stride from behind the altar.

“You do, and I'll ruin you. I know your greatest secret. Aha, now
that
makes you turn your head and regard me! You'll go to jail for ever and ever, and so will your father, when I tell what I know.”

“What makes you think you know anything?”

“I
know,
I
know who buried the chest that day out there in the ruined hermitage by the spring. I saw you do it. And I have kept my secret so that you would love me.”

“I have no desire to make love to you,” said Gilbert.

“Ah, but you must, you must. Hugo's seed is no good. I need a man, a man, don't you understand? I must regain my seat of honor.”

Lady Petronilla's eyes were wild. She looks more like a frog than ever with her eyes popped out that way, thought Gilbert. I'll try to calm her down by reasoning with her.

“His seed's perfectly good. He has bastards on two continents. What more proof do you want? Stick to Hugo and quit bothering me.” But there was no reasoning with a crazy woman.

“Oh, no, I know that you love me in secret. You crave my white body. I know—the signs—your eyes are bright with hidden desire—” She put her hands on Gilbert, and he jumped back, horrified.

“Get off, get off!” he cried, and as he leapt backward he tripped over the altar step. Sprawled backward and unpleasantly bruised on the stone, he was doubly exasperated that the madwoman took it for an invitation and leapt on him. Oh, curses, he had lost his
line.
Wretched interruption. Rudely, he pushed her off and scrambled to his feet.

“I swear, I'll ruin you. I'll tell the world!” she cried.

“Tell and be damned. No one will believe a madwoman,” he said, looking back over his shoulder. But as he stormed out, he saw he was not alone with the desirous Petronilla. “Oh! Madame! Have you been here all along?” Before him, standing in the doorway of the chapel, stood Madame, firm and disapproving. In her hands were a pair of attractive, wrought iron candlesticks. He looked back. Behind him was Petronilla, naked as a plucked chicken. My God, he thought, what will Madame tell Margaret?

“I have been here long enough to know that you are a man of honor,” said Madame, who smiled faintly when she saw that he was still clutching the bottle of ink. “Your ink, is it broken?” He looked down and saw the slow drip.

“Oh, I've ruined my doublet. What will Margaret say?” he said, feeling rattled and foolish.

“She will say that a woman who strips herself naked and leaps on her brother-in-law behind the holy altar of the family chapel ought to be confined again,” said Madame. There was an awful shriek from Lady Petronilla.

“You'll never, never do it. I'm
cured.
I had four devils. I'm a marvel. No one will ever consent.” Petronilla's screeching echoed in the chapel as Madame accompanied Gilbert down the crooked little stone passage. While he walked, he was transferring the ink from the bottle to his inkhorn, which was a fairly complex undertaking, involving asking Madame to hold the cork for him.

“Dressed or undressed, that woman is preposterous,” said Gilbert, beginning to be absorbed back again into his
plainte.
The line had come back, and he was imagining how it would sound set to music. “Oh, the cork. Thank you, Madame. I'm glad you heard everything, otherwise who on earth would believe me?”Amicably, they walked through the great hall, beneath the ham and venison laden rafters, and Gilbert was so relieved he never stopped to ask himself what else Madame might have heard, if she had heard everything that transpired behind the chapel altar.

“AHA, THERE YOU ARE
, Gilbert. Ink down your clothes again, just as I was beginning to have hope for you! Oh, and Madame. Have you any IDEA how many of his clothes he ruined before he ran off? The idea that he would ever CONSIDER trying to enter a Carthusian monastery—when they go about in WHITE! Ha!” Gilbert's ears turned red and he bit his lip. Sir Hubert turned again to glare at his ungrateful spawn.“You revert, you REVERT, Gilbert! A hiding would do you good!” The lord of Brokesford planted himself directly in front of his second son so that he could progress no farther. “STOP daydreaming and LISTEN! I need to take counsel with you privately.” Irritation, irritation, thought Gilbert. Why does the world conspire against my creative inspirations?

“Well, don't try the chapel is my only suggestion, Father. It's full of Lady Petronilla dancing about naked.”

“Not
AGAIN
! What did I pay that canon FOR, if not to get rid of all those devils? Pah! Never mind. We'll go outside.”And grabbing his second son by the arm, the old knight led him to a place where wildflowers grew in the grass, and no ears but the Brokesford mares and their foals could hear.

“Listen, I need your opinion about something. We're both into this thing up to our hips now. The lawyer has given up his suit.”

“Well, that's good isn't it?” Gilbert hoped to brush him off quickly, before his
plainte
dissolved again into the divine ether from whence it had come.

“Good except for one thing. The abbey has purchased his deed.” “Well, that means the abbot thinks he can win the case when the lawyer cannot. It probably means he can mount an even bigger bribe to win over the king's magistrate.”

“Oh, you think so? Then I'm relieved. I thought maybe he knew something—had guessed something. If he can prove our deed's forged, then that Westminster magistrate that's coming here for the settlement might well open us to retribution by the King himself. Think of it, Gilbert. An abbot with lands that would be bordering ours, and the the family in prison, and unable to defend—”

“He can't prove a thing, no matter what he guesses—or wishes. Malachi's the best in the business.”

“Malachi, Malachi! Thanks to you, you daydreaming mooncalf, I've put my life and lands in the hands of a lunatic alchemist! What on earth could have led me to such stupidity?”

“But, Father, you're no worse off than before, when you had no case at all.”

“I
was
better off! We have more to lose now! All I needed was a better bribe for the judges at the assizes, and you were too selfish to mortgage the house you got by marrying that London widow!”

“Margaret is not ‘that London widow,’ she is my wife that I have pledged to God to care for, and I would
never
mortgage her house, because I can't pay it back!”

“That's what I mean! Selfish to the bone! You don't need a house! You can always live here!”

“I can't imagine a worse fate! Shut up with a dancing lunatic and a family that doesn't know Aquinas from Hob the Plowman! Every time I get my life in order, this place catches me in its claws!”

“So now you despise the manor where you were born and bred! I see the depths of you, Gilbert, and they're not pretty! You have set
me up to be betrayed to a King's magistrate. Is that how you reward me for my paternal devotion? I tell you, I should wring your head off your shoulders this very moment!”At this Sir Hubert dove after Gilbert, intent on strangling him. Gilbert stepped back, and the attack failed, merely knocking him to the ground.

“Father,” he gasped, as the heavy weight pressed the breath out of him,“get off, or
I'll
betray you.” Gilbert's father grabbed him by the throat and started banging his head on the ground. God, my
plainte,
passed through Gilbert's mind. The blue, cloudless sky and tall grasses whirled above his sight. He could hear the “crack” every time his head hit, and he couldn't breathe. I can't even hit him back. Fathers, you can't touch them. So this is how it ends.

“What in the HELL do you mean, you unnatural beast?”

“Can't—talk—kill me—you stand—alone—”

“What is going on in that malignant, overgrown brain of yours?” said Sir Hubert, removing his huge, ham-like hands from his second son's throat. Spying the new look of bitterness in his son's face, he was somewhat taken aback. He stood, and Gilbert got up, dusted himself off and rubbed his neck for a while.

“Lady Petronilla says she saw us bury the chest.”

“Well then, that's no problem. She's a lunatic. She was possessed of multiple devils around that time, and posing as a succubus to boot. We'll just say we didn't do it. Whose word counts more, two men of good family, or a crazy woman?”

“If you succeed in killing me, father, people of sense will assume you're getting rid of the only witness who could testify against you.”

“Who's talking of killing? We just had a normal little disagreement, that's all. It's always done you good, a bit of discipline.”

“It's never done me good, and if you ever touch me again, you will never see me or my family again. My door will be closed to you in this life, father.”

“Family? Family?
I'm
family.”

“Margaret's my family. Peregrine's my family. Those little girls that Kendall left are my family.”

“Nonsense! Nonsense, my boy! Why, we'll pull through this together!” Sir Hugo put his arm around Gilbert's shoulder.

“I
said,
don't touch me, Father,” he said, pulling away. “The time for that was long ago, and it has passed by.”

“Without a doubt, you are the thorniest, most obnoxious, most conceited and self-centered excuse for a human being I have ever encountered. It's all from thinking too much! The mind works on itself. Entirely abnormal! You'd have been better off born with an extra nose than too much brain! You're exactly like your mother!”

“We won't go into that, Father. I just don't want you to touch me again.”

“Neither did
she,
” grumbled the old man as they walked toward the stable together.

L
OOK, MAMA, PEREGRINE'S
HELPING
.” I looked down to see Peregrine clutching a handful of smashed rose petals. He opened up his fist, and there they all were, all scrunched up.

“Why, that's just right. Put them in the basket right there.” Along one section of the ruined outer wall of the manor, wild roses had grown, climbing among the tumbled stones in the breach and showing their flat, sweet-scented faces to the sun. Nothing finer for rose-water and for a special jelly I make of the rose hips that captures summer in a pot for the short winter days. Madame and the girls, Peregrine, and I were all laboring there in the sun, all of us in big straw hats that hardly began to cast enough shade. Madame and I cut off the hips with little knives, while the girls managed the big baskets of rose petals.

“I'll put 'em in Cec'y's basket. Then it will be more,” announced Peregrine.

“I don't want scrinchy-scrunchy ones in mine, so there,” said Alison.

“Sing again, Cec'y,”demanded Peregrine. And Cecily started the song over in her thin, high little voice:

Then Alison joined the song, her voice sweet and graceful,
and Peregrine followed, still unable to carry a tune, with nonsense words that mimicked the girls:

Madame pushed back her hat, and wiped the sweat from beneath the edge of her kerchief with the back of her sleeve.“I do so love the country,” she said, and I could see her face soften as she watched the children.

“I wish I loved it more,” I said,“but since my lord husband and his father quit speaking, it's like living under seige.”

“Sir Gilbert has the noblest heart in the whole world,” said Madame. “His honor is whiter than lilies. His father is the one who is in the wrong. He should take pride in a son like that. It is just that he has lived too long as he pleased—like these roses, here. He wants a bit of trimming back.” I couldn't help but chuckle secretly a bit at that. I had a sudden vision of Madame, armed firmly with a large pair of clippers, trimming up that wild old man, making him shave properly and wash decently and comb his hair every day. A little training and a nice trellis would do him good.