In Pursuit of the Green Lion (10 page)

It was terrible, the thing, as it inched along in the pitch black. A shapeless mass, about three feet high, it shambled slowly toward my side of the bed. I could barely make it out. But I could feel it coming closer, ever so slowly and inexorably. So I gathered my courage and whispered at it, “What do you want, and why are you here?” The moundlike thing shifted, and a tiny, indignant voice issued forth from its depths, “Mama, Alison
peed
in the bed!”

Then another indignant little whisper replied, “Did
not
, you did it!”

“I never did that, it
was you
, baby, baby, baby!”

“I never did it either.”

“Then why’s it all wet in there, so we can’t sleep?”

“The Devil did it.”

I was relieved and annoyed all at once. “Both of you stop that this minute,” I whispered fiercely to the mound of blankets they had put over their heads and wrapped about them, to keep out the cold. “You’ll wake everyone up.”

“Then let us in with you, Mama, it’s warm and dry in your bed.”

There was a shifting in the bed, and a low, growling voice said, “Don’t you
dare.”
I could hear an indignant voice from beneath the pillow. “There are things no man should ever put up with, and wet children head the list,” came the threatening whisper.

So I got up and herded the mound back to its own bed. Fleas bit my ankles as I crossed the floor, and I nearly stepped on one of the dogs in the dark. Then I turned their mattress over and tucked them up in a dry blanket. And as I kissed them Alison said, “It wasn’t my fault, Mama; Papa didn’t come to tuck us in and kiss us good night.”

“He’s forgotten us and gone away,” added Cecily forlornly. My heart felt so heavy for them. I’d been selfish, thinking of my own grief.

“Dear hearts,” I answered. “Papa’s been in heaven for more than two months now. He didn’t forget you. He’s thinking about you both in heaven.”

“No, Mama, he never went to heaven at all. He stayed with us. He sits on the bed at night, and sometimes tells a good story. But now he’s forgotten us. Alison’s just a big baby, and thinks he won’t come back at all. But
I
know he will. He promised.”

I can’t deal with children’s fantasies at night. I have enough trouble with my own. I told them not to wake anyone, and we’d talk about it in the morning. Besides, I was freezing. But before I fell asleep, I marveled at how children change things in their minds. Their father had been a busy man. He’d have never once considered putting them to bed, even though he was a veritable wellspring of good stories.

T
HE MORNING AFTER, OF
course, I forgot all about what Cecily and Alison had said. Children can’t be held responsible for their nighttime doings. Besides, things are always different in the morning. The sun comes up and makes the earth new, and it’s just possible that something good might happen. This morning the squires were exercising by cleaning chain mail in the hall, for Sir Hubert wanted all the armor glittering white for his trip to petition the Duke. Cecily and Alison had trailed behind the two young men to admire the process, for with them it was a kind of sport. They stitched the mail with a coarse needle into a sack full of sand, making a kind of heavy ball, which they pitched about, shouting and leaping, until the sand had quite worn away the rust on the links.

I had plans for the morning. Special plans, all for me. I’d said I was going to do mending, and that’s what they thought they’d seen me go alone upstairs to do. Now I tiptoed quietly to the stair door, and shut it ever so silently. Then I piled the girls’ spare clothes beside me on the long window seat, in case anyone came through. But beneath the clothes was my new ink, reed pens, and two big sheets of paper, one half written. I’d been so careful to be quiet for the last two days, I was just bursting at the seams, and had to tell the paper what I thought of them all. So first I wrote what I thought of lords, and then I wrote what I thought of love, and then I wrote what I thought of the housekeeping in this place, and how much better I could have done it, if I could give the orders to the steward and bring in some women from the village to dig out this den.

How different it was with Master Kendall! He let me run anything, as long as it was well run. And he always liked how pleasant I’d made his house, and praised me when it smelled of lavender, and nothing jumped out of the corners and bit him as he passed by. Nobody, he said, had ever made his house so comfortable and proper—not his steward or even his first wife, though she was a blessed woman, and he’d cross himself at her memory. And then he’d kiss me and say, “Margaret, you’re such a dear girl, I can’t imagine how I ever lived a day without you.” My goodness, things like that make it possible to undertake anything.

So there I was, with my feet tucked up under me on the window seat. The first pale spring sun was full on the page, and outside the birds were chirping and the first leaf buds forming on the bare branches of the trees. I was all lost in writing, and so full of happiness that I barely heard the ferocious voice calling from the tower passage, “GILBERT! I want you here! Search in the chapel, he may well be wallowing about on the floor in there. I’m off for the stable, have him meet me there.” But as the hawk’s shadow makes the coney scuttle for his hole, the first footsteps caused the paper to disappear under my skirts as I looked up to see who it was.

“What’s that you’ve hidden so quickly, sister? A lover’s favor, perhaps?” Hugo’s sharp eyes never missed details, especially when spying traces of the prey at the hunt or when there was anything to do with what might be a woman’s intrigues. “A fine bag of surprises my addle-headed brother has here—a sly woman with secrets hidden beneath her skirts. Hand it here.” He stuck his left hand on his hip and extended the right. If only I were a man, I’d write in the open, on a table, and shout at people who disturbed me, “How dare you!” But Hugo was twice my size and perfectly capable of breaking a bone or two. I couldn’t keep it from him. By this time his father had come up behind him. He waited silently behind Hugo, his arms folded, looking grim and stern.

“Hand it over, madame,” repeated Hugo. I reached beneath my skirts, which I’d spread out on the window seat over the paper, and handed him one of the sheets, without moving from my place.

“Worse than a favor. It’s writing.” Hugo took the sheet and squinted at it, holding it at different angles to the light. “A lover’s letter, no doubt.” He looked hard and cold. It was, after all, a matter of the family’s honor. Then he held the sheet out to the old man: Sir Hubert scrutinized the page, drawing his white, bushy eyebrows together.

“Hmm. Nasty handwriting, this. Can’t make out a single letter. Call the priest.” A boy was sent off and soon returned with Father Simeon in tow. They sat him down on the other window seat opposite me, and watched gravely as he peered at the sheet and read, “‘To restore the color of faded garments, soak them in verjuice and hang them out of the sun. I do not know if this works, but Mistress Wengrave swears it’s a sure remedy.’

“‘To rid the hall of flies, hang branches of fern upside down from the ceiling. When the flies have settled, throw the branches away….’”

He squinted further at the paper. “These are recipes, my lord. Women’s recipes. Not a love letter in here anywhere. Perhaps she wrote them herself. The handwriting’s most unscholarly.”

Did you think I was so stupid as to give my writing over to the enemy? The real sheet that I’d been writing on was still hidden under my skirts. I always keep a false one, just for surprises like this. It’s a good thing I’m in black, I thought, or I might have got a nasty ink spot on my dress from all of this paper shifting. Sir Hubert looked at my hands, clutched together on my lap.

“Hold them out,” he said quietly. “As I thought. Inkstains. Whatever you are, madame, it’s plain you’re no lady. But in this house, you’re to act like one. Hand the ink and pen over to the priest. If you’ve any more recipes you wish recorded, you’re to dictate to him before witnesses. I won’t have even the suspicion of dishonor on my house. And as for reading, do as the queens of France and England and the great ladies of the court do. If any writing comes to them, they make a great show of how they do not know how to read it, and have the paper unsealed and read to them by a clerk, before witnesses. That is how a lady preserves the honor of her house. And that is how I expect you to conduct yourself under my roof, no matter what that featherbrained second son of mine says. Do you understand?”

What could I do but bow my head and hand over the ink and the pen, sitting ever so still to preserve the sheet of writing still hidden beneath my skirts? For, of course, if they ever saw that, I don’t know what would become of me.

M
ARGARET WAITED UNTIL SHE
saw the broad backs of the two men pass the upper door of the stairs before she furtively folded the sheet of paper that remained to her. She scurried across the room and knelt to hide it in the ornate chest that had been brought from her old house. The chest was foreign, and cunningly made to conceal a secret compartment beneath a false bottom. Master Kendall’s house had been full of odd things like that, for he had been very fond of rarities and curiosities. Margaret had been one of his curiosities, too, although she had never really suspected it. Kendall had a rival in Germany who possessed a jeweled statue of Saint George and the dragon so finely made that it fit in the palm of his hand. Then there was that Italian who had the fabulously made table-clock that depicted not only the hours but the planetary epicycles; he’d refused to sell it to Kendall at any price. But Margaret was the ultimate possession; in a stroke, he’d outdone them all. Her presence in the house had filled him with a kind of complex and exquisite joy; her acquisition was his crowning achievement.

He had known what she was from the first time he spied her. He had seen it several times on his travels before, and was too shrewd to mistake it, even concealed beneath a threadbare russet gown and a worn hand-me-down cloak. First the look of her eyes, when they shone all tawny in a stray beam of light, and then the curious repose of her face had caught his eye. Then there was the way she walked—a fluid motion perfectly centered, a kind of balanced straightness without stiffness, and the graceful, competent look of her hands. There was no doubt at all; she was one of Them, even if she didn’t know it herself. How deliciously ironic, to find one in the back alleys of the City, in the form of a girl not yet twenty.

He’d snatched her up, of course, and been repaid with countless hours of enjoyment, watching her antics as she tried to appear exactly like everyone else. The greatest amusement he had was indulging her completely, just to see what she’d do: she wouldn’t wear the jewels, they were “too cold,” but she gobbled the sweets like a street urchin. Unless he forbade it, she’d give away the clothes. She had to see what was in this, or how that went, so he’d hired Madame just to watch the funny faces she made, trying to learn to pronounce French vowels. He’d even indulged her freak to want to learn reading. And just when things were getting altogether too stuffy with his business and associates, she’d find some eccentric in the street who’d move into the house and refuse to be dislodged, turning everything charmingly topsy-turvy. The Cold Thing sighed. His treasure thrown among the weeds. And not a thing to be done about it. Bitter. Bitter.

The Cold Thing followed Margaret down the stairs, and criticized the sloppy way the indoor grooms laid out the trestle tables in the hall for dinner. It bobbed about the room, frightening one of the hounds, who suddenly howled and bolted, to everyone’s surprise. It drifted into the kitchen to criticize the food as it was being laid in the serving dishes. One of the kitchen boys, who was dipping a crust of bread into the pot-juice on the sly, felt a cold draft on the back of his neck that made his scalp prickle. Then the Cold Thing floated out to see how well the squires carved—Robert was deft, but Damien would always look like a bumpkin—and finally settled itself across the table to observe the face that Margaret would make when she bit into the bread and found it bitter and heavy with bad leaven. That girl could certainly bake; it was something in her touch. The bread always rose high and sweet. And her brewing—ah, that alone would have been worth marrying her for, even if she hadn’t been as pretty as a little wild thing met unexpectedly in the woods.

Aha, now she was breaking the bread—now she’d bit it. The Cold Thing laughed—a series of silent gusts of icy air. It was a wonderful face she made, and well worth waiting for. She was pretending she hadn’t tasted anything amiss, but her nostrils flared, and an instant of shocked distaste flickered in her eyes. Now the old man had bitten it. He growled, “A man could break a tooth on this,” and pitched the remainder of the piece he’d bitten under the table for the dogs. “A bakehouse that can’t turn out a decent loaf. Damned disgrace. Ought to flog them all, and see if it improves their style,” he grumbled vaguely in the direction of his daughter-in-law.

“It’s the water,” she said unexpectedly, breaking her usual silence.

“Umpf?” he raised an eyebrow at her. The brothers turned their heads.

“The well water is sour. It spoils the leaven. I’ve watched them—the well’s near, and the spring is far, so they don’t bother to spend the effort to get sweet water. It spoils the brewing too. I think your well is too close to the moat. The sour water seeps into it underneath the ground.”

“If you’ve done criticizing my table and my well, madame, I challenge you to prove the truth of what you’ve said.”

“And if I do?” The old knight scrutinized her face a long time. Damned impertinent woman, he thought. Another beating would go far to improve her humility.

But the notion of better ale corrupted his knowledge of right, just for a moment, and he said, “I’ll give you back your pens and ink.” Hugo looked shocked, and Gilbert’s mouth twitched and his eyes glittered with amusement. The Cold Thing chuckled, but no one could hear it.

B
Y THE MORNING AFTER
the Feast of Saint Benedict, when the Lord of Brokesford, flanked by his sons and retainers, rode forth to the Duke’s court at Kenilworth, he had become a man of many worries. First, there was the question of the petition to the Duke, but almost next in importance was the fact that in a moment of weakness, before witnesses, he’d given his son’s mad wife a chance to turn the house upside down in his absence. A lord cannot break his word, and the story had now become a living thing, traveling about on its own swift feet through the shire, causing derision, speculation, and even the placement of a few wagers. Then there were the negotiations for Mother Sarah, who belonged to a village on Sir John’s neighboring demesne. He’d had to trade a pretty wench for the old dragon, who was famous for nagging three husbands to death, just to acquire someone fierce enough to keep those beastly little girls under control. That had caused considerable merriment among the neighbors, as well. It’s women who bring this kind of ruin on a man, he thought to himself in a rare moment of meditation. They don’t have to do anything but be, and they destroy the correct ordering of the world.