A Midsummer Tempest (8 page)

“By twists and turns, the treasure came to us, who lack that strength and purity of love which kindles it.” Like a stooping hawk: “But thou art mortal, Prince! With this for compass, thou canst seek the isle, and on the way know where is help or refuge. Thy right hand wilt thou need for reins and sword. Wear this upon the left.”

Jennifer clutched her breast. Rupert was as shaken. He took a backward step and stammered, “I have no one—”

She leaned near. Her hair floated cloud-wan, bearing odors of thyme and roses. “Not Mary Villiers?” she whispered.

He made as if to fend her off. “She was never mine.”

Jennifer broke from her companions, sped through the dew-bright grass. “Leave off thy gramaries on him, thou witch!” she yelled.

Titania smiled as she withdrew to Oberon’s side. “Here’s one to make exchange of vows with thee,” she said.

Rupert caught the maiden’s wrist. “Be calm, they mean us well,” he began. She halted, but faced the queen and challenged:

“What dost thou mean?”

“Thou heardst us speak, my child,” Titania responded gently. “Take each a ring and give it to the other, pledging faith, that he may have a torch to show his way, and thou thyself what safety thine bestows.”

Jennifer stood awhile, staring first at her, then at Rupert, there in whiteness and shadow. The moon was lowering and a thin cold ripple went through the air. At last the girl said, “I cannot give him what he owns already.”

Beneath the oak, Puck remarked to Will, “If he’ll not take the maiden’s ring she proffers, he is a fool, unless his softness lies elsewhere than in the brain.”

“A liavely wench,” the man agreed. “How spendthrift be’t, to risk thic slender waist.”

Rupert looked long at Jennifer in his turn before he joined his clasp to hers and said, as carefully as if his tone might shatter something of crystal: “My dear, I am not worthy of thy troth. And ’tis a pledge unsanctioned by the law or holy Church—”

Her words stumbled. “It only is forever.”

“I know not, nor dost thou. Let me remind that thou and I are worlds and wars apart. Nor do I like this pagan ceremony.”

“But … thou’lt go through with it … to get the help?”

He nodded. “I am a soldier; and it is my way to charge ahead into the teeth of chance. If thou wilt stand me true till I return, or till I fall, I’ll do the same for thee. Then afterward, if such be fate, we’ll talk.”

She told him through tears, “I’ll live in hope of what thou then may’st say.”

“Kneel, children, here before the sacred stone,” Oberon
commanded. They did, hand in hand. As he stepped in front of them, his elves made a whirlpool of dim fire above his crown. He laid palms upon their heads. “By oak and ash and springtime-whitened thorn, through ages gone and ages to be born, by earth below, by air arising higher, by ringing waters, and by living fire, by life and death, I charge that ye say true if ye do now give faith for faith.”

They answered together, like speakers in sleep: “We do.”

Titania came to her lord. “Place each a ring upon the other’s hand,” she told them (they obeyed), “and may the sign of binding prove a band that joins the youth to maiden, man to wife, and lights the way upon your search through life.”

Oberon and Titania together: “Farewell! And if the roads ye find be rough, keep love alive, and so have luck enough.”

They and their followers were gone. Darkness overwhelmed the glade.

“Where art thou, darling?” Jennifer cried. “Suddenly I’m blind!”

“The moon has slipped below the treetops, dear,” he answered. “Bide unafraid till thou canst see by stars.”

Puck nudged Will Fairweather. “I likewise have to hurry on my way,” he said. “Methinks this night has not yet done with pranks.”

“We too must travel off, tha prince an’ me,” the man replied. “When once his landlord finds ’a’s left tha inn without a stop for payin’ o’ tha scoare, we’d better have zome distance in between.” His voice was troubled. “I caered not for his magickin’ myzelf. Her heart war in it, but not whoally his. Half done, it could recoil if ’a ben’t caereful. … An’ we doan’t even know which way to head!”

“To west, I’d say, where ye can find a ship.” Puck advised. After a pause: “And, h’m, to speak of inns and such—My friend, if sorely pressed for shelter, think of this. There is a tavern known as the old Phoenix, which none may see nor enter who’re not touched by magic in some way. If flits about, but maybe ye can use
his ring to find it, or even draw a door toward yourselves. … I must be off. My master calls. Away!” He was gone.

Eyes grown used to the lessened light, Will made out Rupert and Jennifer at the rock.

“I hate to send thee back, alone and weary.” The pain was real in the prince’s voice.

“But we can do naught else,” she said. “I will abide, and pray for thee and love thee always, Rupert.”

They kissed. She felt her way off into the forest murk. Awhile he stared after her, until he shook himself and spoke flatly: “Well, camarado, let’s prepare to sail, while tide is ebb and wind not yet a gale.”

THE SCULLERY OF THE MANOR.

I
T
was unadorned red brick, floor sloping to a gutter which drained into the moat. Above an open hearth with a flue reached a swivel-mounted hook for the great kettle wherein water was heated. Firewood lay stacked beside. Nearby stood a raised counter and sink. Elsewhere buckets, tubs, tools, utensils crowded shelves or hung on walls. The gleam of copper, the deep tints of crockery made this the cheeriest room in the house.

Late at night it had grown cold, though. Sir Malachi Shelgrave’s breath puffed white. The clatter of his shoe-soles stopped when he did, but got answered by the creak of the door to outside. Shadows swung monstrous as he raised his lantern.

Jennifer came through. Seeing him, she caught one tattered breath and swayed backward.

“Hold, slut!” he belled. “Stand where thou art or be run down.”

She could not completely obey. She crumpled. Legs sprawled across the floor showed slim through rents in a stained and dripping skirt. Stiff-elbowed on hands, head fallen between hunched shoulders, locks tumbled around cheeks, she let dry sobs quake through her.

Shelgrave loomed above. “I see why God kept me awake this night,” he said deep in his throat, “that from my towertop I might espy thee come slinking o’er the bridge tow’rd this back entrance thou must have left unlatched—how many hours?” Violently: “Speak, harlot!”

Still she fought for strength and air. He set lantern on counter. Stooping through the glooms, he seized a fistful of hair and yanked her head back upward. His other palm cracked her cheeks, right, left, right, left. Her neck rocked beneath the blows.

“What foul swineherd hast thou sought,” he panted, “to wallow with him in what mucky sty? Ungrateful Jezebel, thou’lt get no peace till I have squeezed the pus of truth from thee.”

“I did no wrong,” she got out, gasp by gasp through the punishment. “I … swear to God—”

He released her and straightened, spraddle-legged, knuckles on hips. The tall hat cast a mask across his face, through which glistened eyeballs. “What, then?”

“I too tossed sleepless,” coughed from her, “thought a walk might help … unthinking wandered far, and … lost my way—”

“A maid alone, out after dark? Go to!”

She lifted her arms. “I pray thee, uncle, by the bonds between us—”

Light flashed off the third finger of her left hand. Shelgrave pounced on that wrist. He gripped it abundantly hard to draw a wail of pain. For a minute he stared, before he snatched it off. She nursed the hurt against her mouth. The finger was red where he had skinned it in his haste. Her eyes upon him were those of a trapped doe.

“Who gave thee this?” he whispered at last. Over and over he turned it. The stone sparkled like any costly gem. A yell: “I’ll have no further lies!”

She huddled mute. He raised a foot as if to stamp her teeth. She braced herself against the wall, arms and knees drawn up for shield, and waited.

He lowered the foot. “A royal thing,” he mumbled. “Is’t from the Prince of Lies—?” Shock made him lurch. “The prince. Prince Rupert—” He whirled and roared: “Nafferton, awake! What butler art thou, snoring in thy bed while hell walks loose? Ho, Nafferton, to me!” Echoes flew hollow around. Faintly came the barking of the aroused watchdogs.

Nightshirted, his butler fumbled from unlit corridor and kitchen into the scullery. “Go to the guards outside Prince Rupert’s room,” Shelgrave ordered. “Find out if he is there. Be quick, thou whelp!”

“Aye, sir.” The man’s jaws clattered. “Let me but light a candle at your lantern. ’Tis deathly dark.”

“Make haste, or learn of death.” Shelgrave snatched a carving knife off a rack.

Gaze averted from Jennifer, Nafferton got a taper kindled and fled.

Shelgrave stared at the girl. She watched him test the knife edge on a thumb, over and over. A smile of sorts stretched his mouth. “What else might send thee forth at midnight, eh?” he said. “’Twas plain as filth that thou’d grown overfond of him, that royal devil. This day past, against mine own command, thou sought’st him out.”

“There was no secret in it, uncle, none.” Her tongue tried to moisten lips but her voice remained parched and uneven, scarcely to be heard. “How could there be? I knew that thou wouldst learn. I frankly told the guards how I had lost a keepsake from my mother I had shown him and thought might lie forgotten in his room. They let me in. We spoke in their full view, he helped me search around a little while, we found it not … whereon I said farewell.”

“And at the farther side of that apartment, when curtains of his bed or his broad back screened off the soldiers’ glance for just a heartbeat—did he then slip this ring between thy paps?” Shelgrave tapped it with the knife. A clear little chime went under the hysteria of dogs, the thick hush everywhere else in these shadows.

Jennifer climbed stiffly to her feet. She must lean on a wall to stay upright, and the breath whined in and out of her. But she lifted her head and answered with more steadiness than before. “Thou’st guessed aright. A token of … his love. I meant to keep it hidden till the peace … but this night I could not forbear—”

“Well, traitress,” he interrupted savoringly, “befouler of the house that sheltered thee, what say we cut the nipples from those dugs lest thou shouldst nurse a devil-brat of his, or make thee noseless like so many whores?”

“No, no, God help me!” She choked off the scream, filled her lungs, squared shoulders; and the eyes which met his were now lynx-green. “I have rights in law,” she snapped. “Hale me before a jury if thou wilt. What else thou pratest of would outlaw thee.”

He cast the knife down so it rattled across the bricks. “I have a guardian’s right, at least, thou wanton, to strip thee bare and flog thy back and butt till such foresmack of hell has chastened thee.”

An approaching uproar swung their attention to the kitchen entrance. Out of it burst a halberdier. The cresset he had snatched from a bracket in the tower streamed red gleams across helmet, cuirass, and a face whose strictness had well-nigh dissolved in terror. Behind him came Nafferton, and other servants wakened by the noise. They dared not venture into the scullery; they crowded the archway instead.

“Sir Malachi, your prisoner is gone!” the soldier bawled.

Coldness descended upon Shelgrave. “Thou’rt sure?” he asked.

“We ransacked every inch at once when your word came to look inside for him.” The man groaned aloud. “The rest still search—there is no trace to see—How might he have escaped? We heard no sound. It must be true he is a black magician. What bat-wings bore him off?”

“Cease whimpering,” Shelgrave said. “No fiend has power over godliness.”

“But I … I am a sinner.”

“Thou’rt a man. Go bid thy squad make ready to pursue, likewise the day watch and my kennelmaster. We’ll ride within the hour.”

“Into the dark?”

“The dawn’s not far. And every moment’s priceless for picking up a scent ere it grow cold.” Shelgrave leaned toward Jennifer and whispered, “Thy stench at first … or Rupert’s if they’re mingled. We’ve articles aplenty ye’ve both used.” Louder: “Get busy, there! Light up the house, pack food, prepare as for the chasing of a wolf. Thou, Nafferton, send Prudence Whitcomb hither”—he paused briefly for thought—“and Sim the under-groom.” A babble and surging had started. He raised arms to quiet it, glowered, and said, each word a hammerblow: “Have care, ye folk. Ye’ve kept the secret well that he was here, the Devil’s dragon pet. I charge you now, on pains more dire, keep still that he
is gone. It would encourage the iniquitous. Nay, wait till he is safely off in chains to London.
Then
make known what trust was ours.”

He chopped a hand in signal. They dispersed. Though the sound of their runnings and callings grew greater, and light seeped in ever more bright as flames were brought to life, Shelgrave and Jennifer had a while alone.

He said to her almost sadly: “Do not insult the wounds thou’st given me by claiming thou hadst naught to do with this.”

She answered in the same quiet tone. “Nay, it is true. I’d planned a ruse of war. By hiding of my ring and new-made rags, I hoped discovery would be belated and nowise linked to me. Did not Our Lord command that man and wife forsake all others?”

He started. “What went between you?”

“Less than I would wish,” she sighed.

“How did’st thou aid him? Unforgivably?”

“A rope let fall from underneath my skirt, a note which said that I would soothe the dogs and guide him to the hiding woods. Naught else.”

“This ring gives thee the lie, I think. There’s more. But if thou wilt deny on Bible oath—”

She shook her head.

“Nay? Then I must presume a deeper thing than fancies of a brach in heat: like witchcraft. This serpent ring could be the sign of Satan, and Rupert freed by wizardry, not wiles.” He brought fingers near her throat. “If thou hast strayed that far tow’rd hell, recall what Scripture plainly bids:
‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”

She closed eyes and fists, opened both, and said, “I swear to thee by Christ I am not such. Now I will speak no further.”