For My Lady's Heart (32 page)

“Charcoal,” William snapped to the bevy of persons hanging back at the
door.

“Anon!” A jester in a pointed cap came pushing through with two pails of
fuel and set to work at the hearth.

“Your lady’s grace,” William Foolet said diffidently, “the falcon...”

Melanthe had no intention of handing Gryngolet over to this odd crew. “I
will inspect the mew whilst the chamber airs,” she said, maintaining a
courteous tone. “A meal before the fire will do thy master well.”

“Stews are preparing, and fish baked in bread, my lady. Will my lady see
the kitchen?”

“I think it prudent.” She looked at Ruck, who sat on a window seat,
leaning against the painted stone embrasure, his expression brooding and his
eyes with the distant cast of too many hours waking. Melanthe felt weary
herself, but wonder and curiosity drove her. She went to him and caught his
hands. “Thou wilt not come, but stay and rest,” she ordered gently.

He frowned and looked as if he would object. But at last he said only,
“It is the way they left it. Ne do I wish aught changed.” The note of sullen
defiance did not quite conform with the way his hands closed about her
fingers, detaining her, almost a pleading touch.

“No thing would I do here,” she promised, “without I crave thy leave, my
lord.”

A fresh rue came into his face. He released her, standing. “Alter what
you will, then,” he said shortly, “for naught I could deny that Your
Highness asked.”

He moved away, kicking a stray charcoal that had rolled onto the carpet,
sending the piece clattering into the hearth. With his back to her, he
lifted the trestles from where they stood leaning in the corner and began to
set up the small table himself.

She wandered through a dream of chalk-white pinnacles and vapor. Cloud
wrack blew across the highest turrets, the gilt banner staves and azure
peaks of the roofs vanishing and reappearing again overhead. The battlements
dripped icicles on carved stonework—a face here, a winged creature there,
their features made stranger and more distorted yet by the transparent
masks; whole chimneys and flying arches interlaced with spires and lances of
crystal and whitened stone.

Rich and cold it was, and empty, although a little flock of minstrels
followed her about, staring at her as if she were as incredible to them as
this place was to her. Hovering just behind her elbow like a pair of anxious
dry nurses, the fat and slim Williams ordered the gaping band to disperse
repeatedly, to no effect whatsoever.

She did not speak to them, but took her own path: the bailey, the
gatehouse, the constable’s chambers and guard rooms; weapons and armor dim
with disuse. Her diligent escort offered no explanation for the deserted
spaces.

It is the way they left it.
Ruck had said, but she could hardly
comprehend this lost place, falling by inches to time and ruin while
minstrels played in the hall.

A soft ringing echoed in the courtyard. Out a window Melanthe saw a
priest walking across the bailey, swinging bell and censer—he at least
dressed in the white surplice and red vestments of his office and not in
some extravagant motley. She followed him to the chapel, faithfully pursued
by her silent troop.

Golden arches, golden cherubim and seraphim, golden chalice and paten,
golden roodscreen—the sanctuary was a marvel of magnificence, all warmed and
dyed by the hues from trefoiled windows, She watched from the lower end,
carrying Gryngolet, while at the altar the chaplain softly sang a Mass for
the Dead. When he came to the memento, he recited names aloud in a long
litany, beginning with the lords of Wolfscar and intoning on and on,
mounting up to more than a hundred before she stopped counting. Inscribed
tablets stood upon the altar, but he did not seem to read them, droning the
names with the sure familiarity of long practice. When he had done, the
minstrels behind her joined him in a
De Profundis.

She left before the chantry was done, descending the stairs, the Williams
hurrying after her. Finally, in the lesser hall and the servants’ spaces,
she came upon something of normal life and exertion. The chimneys had fires.
Beds lined dormitory chambers. Even her speechless retinue seemed to find
their voices, whispering and talking behind her. As if released from an
enchantment, William the Foolet cleared his throat. “Will my lady’s grace
judge the mews?”

Melanthe allowed herself to be escorted. The birds’ quarters were not as
much a shambles as she had expected, with clean sand on the floor and high
barred windows for air and light. Hew Dowl was introduced to her, with some
pomp, as “the son of the late lord’s falconer who died in the pestilence.”
Hew himself was no more than an austringer, it appeared, flying only two big
goshawks—kitchen birds, but hardy and practical, a meet pair to keep the
larder filled. The close sight of Gryngolet was almost enough to unman him.
He was struck mute and could only indicate the facilities that he kept by
dumbshow and mumbles so thick with northern speech as to be unintelligible.

Still, Melanthe liked the fit look of his birds, their plumage
full-summed and their weathering blocks positioned out of the wind.
Gryngolet went to him without protest, and Melanthe had no nonsense out of
Hew Dowl about his own opinions when she gave orders for the falcon’s care.
Gryngolet preened contentedly—her ancestors had flown the snows and ice
rivers of the northman’s country, and this chill mountain air was well to
her taste.

With Gryngolet comfortably disposed, Melanthe went next to the kitchen,
where she met the cook and his sister assisting him, whose parents had
perished in the Great Death at Wolfscar. Likewise with the bottler, and a
girl peeling onions, and the smith, all honorably descended from the castle,
though they wore the gaudy livery of minstrels, and some of them she
recalled with instruments from the procession outside. Forebears in the
former lord’s household appeared to be the only parentage worth the telling.

William the Foolet clearly acted constable, marshal, and seneschal at
once, such as the offices were. William Bassinger appeared to have no tasks
beyond the lending of his rich low voice to noble and gracious talking, and
tasting of the stew. After she had overlooked the pantry stores and buttery,
they led her to the ladies’ bower.

It was a chamber like the others, frigid cold, rich in hangings and
carved cupboards and carpets. For the mistress there was a bright oriel bay
overlooking the court, with its own hearth and three large windows that sent
shafts of light through the dust. Melanthe lifted her hand, dismissing her
curious retinue. “Only the Williams,” she said, and the rest had sense
enough to find urgent business elsewhere.

She walked slowly across to the bay, glancing at the ceiling, where
painted vines bloomed with golden flowers against a ground of stars and sky.
With the hem of her mantle she brushed off a chair by the window. An
embroidery rack had been left with the work still upon it. She turned and
sat, fixing a straight gaze upon the two Williams, ignoring the cold.

“Now, my men,” she said in French, “we will have some honest talking.”

William Bassinger bowed, and Foolet knelt on one knee. “Your Highness,”
he said with flawless humility.

“Rise, and look at me.”

She waited until they obeyed, and waited still longer, a sustained and
steady observation. Bassinger’s brows slowly rose and his lashes lifted, his
face growing more and more roundly innocent above the white beard, until a
babe could not have appeared as blameless. William the little Fool only
stood without expression, a light color in his cheeks the single flaw in his
calm.

“Tell me what has happened here,” she said.

Bassinger bowed. “Your Highness, as God maintains me, may I bend my poor
talent to the task you set?”

“With all dispatch!”

“Your Highness, I beseech the Saviour of the world to fill me with such
ardor and excellence as to give you great delight and pleasure in my tale—”

“Not a tale, but a history,” she said impatiently. “Not one word but
true.”

He gave her a hurt look, then lifted his chin and filled his chest with
air. “Then I begin forthwith, to tell Your Highness of the glorious and
stirring history of my Lord Ruadrik, the grandsire of the father of the
father of our present lord.”

Melanthe lifted a forefinger from the arm of the chair. “Nay, let us drop
a father or two. Begin with your lord.”

“Ah, but Your Highness, his father the Lord Ruadrik was a great man, very
great of heart and body, so I have heard tell.”

Melanthe saw that it was useless to press him faster than he would go.
“Very well, but say me nothing false.”

Bassinger puffed up in mild indignation. “My knowledge is exact, Your
Highness, from sources of faultless authority, being my lord your husband
and Sir Harold.”

“And who is Sir Harold?”

The Foolet spoke. “A knight of the old lord’s. Our present lord’s tutor
in arms. Lives he in the postern tower. He waxes a little—mad, sometimes.
Your Highness will have a care of him, I pray.”

Melanthe raised her brows. “A most interesting household. Recommence,
William Bassinger.”

“Your Highness, I tell you of how our lord’s father Ruadrik of Wolfscar
was in his youth among the companions of our noble King Edward of England,
may God protect him. It was in the king’s minority, when his unwise mother
the queen and that vile traitor Mortimer held sway in the land, such that
any man of honor and understanding deplored the state of affairs, even to
fearing for the life of our young king himself. For all know that the
traitor murdered most foully the former king his father.”

He paused, to see that she was attentive. Melanthe nodded at old history
and urged him on with her fingers.

“But by the grace of God,” Bassinger intoned, “our king had good friends
and true, and Ruadrik of Wolfscar was one. Under the advice of Lord Montagu
and others, the king laid a trap for—”

“Yea, at Nottingham, they went in by a secret passage and took Mortimer
by surprise,” she said, to cut short what was like to be a long adventure.
“Wolfscar was one of the king’s party?”

Bassinger appeared to have a good deal of trouble swallowing her rude
interruption, but after a moment of offended silence, he agreed. “Your
Highness, Ruadrik of Wolfscar led the way.”

“Well, I think I would have heard of him, had he led the way, but I can
believe that he was in the company. And for this service, I presume he was
rewarded?”

“He was made a knight of the Bath, and his lands extended from here to
the abbey in the south, and the lakes in the east, and the coast on the
west, and two miles north.”

“Knowest thee who held these lands before him?”

“Your Highness, I be no lawyer,” Bassinger pronounced solemnly.

“They were escheated of a part of Lancaster that had no heir, my lady,
and held by the abbey,” the younger William said, “but the king suspended
the escheat and gave them to Wolfscar for reward.”

“And the license to fortify? These lands appear not rich enough for such
a castle.”

William Bassinger would have spun out another tale, of Scots and battle
heroics, but William Foolet cut him short. “There be a mine for iron in the
hills, Your Highness. The king gave my lord’s father the income without
encumbrance for the building of the castle, for there was no northern
defense.”

“Iron?” Melanthe looked about her at the silk and cushions with
skepticism. “A full rich iron mine must it be,” she said.

The fool’s unfoolish eyes regarded her. She waited. “Gold there be in it,
too, my lady, and silver,” he said at last, reluctantly.

Melanthe steepled her fingers and rested her chin on the tips. For a long
while she watched the slow fall of dust motes through a shaft of light.

“Why,” she demanded softly of Foolet, “did the abbot not ward him as Lord
Ruadrik told me should have been?”

“It were evil days, my lady. I think many monks died. None came here.”

“He should have gone to them!” She looked to Bassinger, for Foolet could
have been no more than a child. “After the death passed. Thou shouldst have
taken him!”

“My lady, you may be assured that had I known of the arrangement, I would
have moved both Heaven and Earth to see my lord Ruadrik into the hands of
those who would guard and care for him, for I loved him as my own son. I was
not made mindful of this warding. I think he did not apperceive the will of
his father, whom God absolve, for some time.”

“What time?”

“I found his father’s testament, my lady,” Foolet said, “among the manor
rolls. My lord Ruadrik had ten and five years then, and we went to the
abbey, my lady.”

“And?”

Bassinger made an apologetic gesture. “The clerks had no record of the
king’s grant of the land to my lord’s father. There was a fire, it seems.
They were short with us, my lady. We left them.”

“Left them! Without seeing the abbot?”

“My lady, with such a rude welcome, I advised my lord to withdraw, ere he
let news abroad that might be harmful to him. It is a very covetous abbey,
my lady.”

“Thou half-wits, there would be record among the king’s rolls, if the
abbey’s was lost!”

“I am no lawyer, my lady,” Bassinger murmured. “We carried out his
honored father’s will.”

“My lady,” Foolet said anxiously, “we did try. But we were afraid then;
we realized that he could not prove himself—”

“None knew him from the font? No retainer? No villein?”

“Only Sir Harold,” William Foolet said in a hollow tone.

“One is enough, if he is a man of good standing.”

“I think not, my lady. His mind is—uncertain.”

“The priest, then.”

“My lady, our chaplain came into the valley after the pestilence. There
were a few such who came from outside, in the first years, and we made a
place and welcome.”

She frowned at him. “Come, they did not all perish, those who knew him.
What of these you’ve named to me as in this valley at their birth?”

“Yea, my lady. But you saw them; they are younger than my lord. It is
their parents who could have said, and they have died since.” He shrugged
helplessly.

“I am no lawyer, my lady,” Bassinger repeated, “but I think that to make
a claim stick against that abbot, a hundred peasants who could name my lord
Ruadrik would not suffice. And so I counseled my lord.” He drew air into his
chest expansively. “He saw the wisdom of my words, and being a young man of
great heart and spirit, he betook him to prove himself worthy of his lands
by his own exertion. He eschewed these ink-stained clerks and lawyers and
went out into the world in search of adventures and glory—as is proper to
one of his knightly lineage, my lady, I’m sure you will agree. I have
recorded his ordeals and victories in a poem, and will be pleased to delight
my lady’s grace with the singing of it. It is not finished yet, for we still
await the great deed by which he will prove himself, and take his due
reward, but God willing comes it soon.”

Melanthe gazed at him. At first she thought that he was making a mirth.
But he looked back at her with a pleased expression.

“By hap my lady would care to hear the prologue?” he asked.

“God confound you!” she breathed. “Have you made him go ragged and
nameless about the world, as if he is of no account but what he wins by his
strength of arms?”

“My lord does no thing but what he chooses of his own self.” Foolet’s
voice was stout, but his gaze wavered almost imperceptibly.