Keturah and Lord Death (9 page)

That evening, as I prepared to take samplings of my pies to Cook, I watched the sun set in a green sky and plotted the story that would save my life. Gretta stitched by the fire, and Beatrice practiced her arpeggios and chatted with Grandmother.

A laurel-leaf willow tree that grew at the very edge of the forest, and had been growing beyond its bounds for some time, brushed up against the window as the evening breeze came on. One slim bough tapped with the wind.

Knowing that it was a harmless tree did not lift my heart at all. All day long our cottage seemed to hunch away from the shadow of the forest, and now that shadow encroached boldly upon it, almost touching it. Would that Grandfather were still alive and still able to take his ax to the trees that stole slowly into our little plot of land.

Then a face appeared at the window, and my heart pounded hugely in my chest, like the thump of a great empty drum, until I realized it was our cow, Bridie. She always huddled close to the house as night fell.

A knock at the door startled Bridie away.

“Who could that be?” Grandmother asked.

At the door, to my relief, was Tobias, and in his hands a small burlap bag. He was flushed and dirty, and behind him his horse was lathered.

“My lemons!” I exclaimed. “Did you get my lemons, Tobias?”

“I did,” he said. “The most beautifulest round lemons you ever saw.”

I tore the little burlap sack out of his hands. “Round? But Cook said they were ovals. Like eggs laid by the sun, she said.” Gently I eased the fruit from the sack onto the table.

Tobias grinned. I stared. Behind me everyone gathered and craned their necks to see.

“Ah,” said Gretta, “you have done it now, Tobias.”

“Yes,” Tobias said proudly.

“Tobias,” Gretta said, pinching her brother by the ear, “what color is the sun?”

“Why, it is yellow, Gretta,” said he, wincing.

“Tobias, what color is a dandelion?” she asked, tugging on Tobias’s ear.

“As yellow as the sun, Gretta,” Tobias said, grimacing.

I had not breathed one breath since I saw the fruit.

“Keturah,” Beatrice said finally, “why are your yellow lemons so... orange?”

“It is because they are oranges, and not lemons,” Gretta said, yanking Tobias’s ear. I stayed her hand.

Tobias began backing away. “But—but the man said they were lemons, or as good as. Sweeter, he said.”

“Go back, Tobias,” Gretta said. “Go back and get lemons. Yellow—
yellow!
—lemons!” She chased him out of the kitchen and threw two of the oranges at him.

I ran after him. “Tobias!” I called. “Tobias! Stop!”

He stopped, panting, and regarded me cautiously, as if I might try to pelt him with fruit.

“Have them!” I said. “Surely after your long journey you at least deserve to eat some.”

He gazed longingly at the oranges. “I was tempted many times,” he said, “but I didn’t want to eat even one of your... lemons.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “How was I to know, Keturah? Have I ever seen a lemon before? Or an orange, for that matter?”

“Come, Tobias, come in. Rest yourself,” I said. “Come, I have been cooking pie.”

He followed me into the house dejectedly, and Grandmother served him. Gretta scowled at him, and Beatrice sniffed often and refused to look at him.

“When I am done, I shall go again to seek out lemons for you,” he said.

“Never mind, Tobias—only if you can.”

“Of course he will,” Gretta said. “And not just for Keturah, but for John Temsland and the queen.”

Tobias nodded, determined.

“You must not go to Great Town, Tobias,” I said, “for fear of the plague.”

Beatrice patted his hand. She had already forgiven him for orange lemons.

When Tobias left, I realized with a start that the forest shadows touched the cottage.

No. I could not make myself go. Not yet. Didn’t I have to take samples of my pies to Cook for her opinion? Surely he could wait. Surely he had forgotten about me, busy as he must be, escorting popes and peasants and emperors to their doom.

I put a large piece of each pie on a tray, went out into the evening, and fastened my eye upon the cookhouse where Cook slept in a tiny side room. Cook must taste my pies now and tell me which one would win me the prize. She would be angry with me for waking her, for she was always early abed, but wake she must, for Ben Marshall must love me, and must marry me, Best Cook of the fair.

True, I did not see in him my one true love as yet, and the charm’s eye did not stop for him, but that could change at any moment. I felt a pang of regret that Padmoh, who wanted him too, should have to fail in her objective if I succeeded. But I consoled myself that her interest was the man’s garden and not the man himself.

I was halfway between my home and the cookhouse when a mist of cloud began to creep across the early-risen moon. It darkened the ground enough that I did not see a small depression, and I stumbled. Immediately I was steadied by some force I could not see, and then, as if the coming night clotted into a visible personage, I perceived that Lord Death was beside me.

We walked together in silence for a time, and then I said humbly, “Sir, I was going to come, truly.”

“And you shall come,” he answered, “but I thought to remind you.”

His lips seemed very close to my ear, but I did not look at him.

His cloak billowed out behind him and brought the full night. He made no effort to touch me, but I felt beside me a man. I looked up at his face, severe and handsome, and saw sorrow stretched along the lines of it.

“I believe I will not stay with you tonight, Lord Death,” I said softly. Could he hear the doubt in my voice?

He made a small bow and was silent.

“What does it feel like to die, sir?” I asked. “It hurts—I know only that.”

We walked for some time in silence. At last he said, “It is life that hurts you, not death.”

I shivered to think of the green-black night in the forest, and said, “My lord, why do you trouble me by walking with me in the dark? It is cruel.”

“I think to protect you from them,” he said.

And then, without turning my head, I saw the black shadows of men against the blue-black night. They were watching me, and still, and silent.

“It is gallant of you, sir,” I said softly, “but I am more wishing of their company than yours. And it is your company, after all, that makes them fear me and hate me.”

He said nothing. I was almost there...

I ran the final steps to Cook’s house and pounded on her door. “Cook!” I cried. I pounded again. “Cook!”

I could hear her cursing within, and then she swung the door open. She was dressed in her nightclothes and wore a woolen nightcap on her head.

“What is it? What? Has the moon fallen out the sky?”

“Cook, you must taste my pies!” I said. I glanced behind me to see nothing but moon-washed dark, and slipped into her kitchen.

She stood speechless, perhaps for the first time in her life. I picked up a piece of pie and shoved it at her. “Eat,” I said, “and tell me if I will win Best Cook.”

She took the pie and said, “You are mad, but they say mad cooks make the best sauce.”

Cook chewed and tasted each pie once, twice, thrice. At last she spoke.

“Keturah, you make the best pies I have ever tasted, but every woman in the village can make pies of this variety. If you want to win Best Cook, you will need to make a new kind of pie, one that will make every woman clamor for your recipe.”

“Tobias says he will find me lemons.”

“Do so, and Ben Marshall will be yours. If you want him.” She peered at me and wiped her mouth with her apron. “Are you sure you want him?”

“And why should I not?”

“Because he wants a cook, not a true love, and you want a true love.”

I drew in my breath. “How—how did you know?”

“John Temsland told me so.”

I stared at her in her nightgown and apron. “John Temsland spoke of me to you?”

“He did.” She gazed at me sideways with her eye that still had some short vision in it. “He mentioned you more than once.”

I was helpless to think of a reply, and attributed my lack to fatigue. “I must go home,” I said at last.

“Wait.”

She woke her son, insisting that he accompany me home. The poor man grudgingly complied, and was so sleepy he saw neither my more powerful escort nor the men who watched me in the shadows.

Within sight of the cottage, Cook’s son turned back, crossing himself as he did so.

IX

Another story;
the extraordinary price Soor Lily exacts
for a little of her foxglove and which price I pay in full,
though not without the deepest trepidation.

The stars had come out again.

I had heard tales of scholars who said the stars were really great suns, but so far away they appeared as pinpoints of light. Everyone knew that it was impossible and laughed at the scholars.

But now, as I gazed upward, I hoped it was true—hoped that the cold, empty sky could be filled with such heat and light, that the universe could be something impossible, something beyond my eyes and imagination, something unholdable.

No, I could not leave these stars just yet. I entered the cottage.

The fire was low. “Grandmother?” I called. She was not in her bed. And then I saw that she was lying on the floor.

“Grandmother!” I went to her side. She was awake but pale as a candle, and there was a film of sweat on her forehead and upper lip. “Grandmother?”

“Keturah, I’m glad you’ve come,” she said quietly.

“You are ill!” I said.

“Help me to my bed.”

Slowly I helped her to her bed and covered her well.

She settled under the quilts, and I took her hand. It shook in mine like a captured bird. “I am afraid, Keturah.”

“Grandmother, I will protect you,” I said.

She glanced all about the room, fear in her eyes. “Do you see him, Keturah? Is he close?”

“No, Grandmother, he is not close.”

I gripped her hand with both of mine.

“Grandmother, wouldn’t I tell you if he were near?” I said gently. “All is well. Here, let me brush your hair.”

“Keturah,” she said with weary surprise. “I am dying.”

“No, Grandmother,” I said.

She looked at me long in silence.

“No,” I said again, more firmly.

“Will you let me die alone?” she asked.

Angrily I said, “Grandmother, it is only the ague, that which vexed you last winter.”

She frowned slightly and gazed out the window. “It is not truly death I fear. It is leaving you behind. As long as I am alive, the memory of your revered grandfather protects us. As long as I am alive, Lord Temsland remembers to give us a small pension. But when I am gone, you are alone. You will be vulnerable when the reputation of your grandfather dies with me.”

“Do not fear, Grandmother,” I said. “Sleep now.”

I unwound her braid that fell to the floor and brushed her hair, smooth as silver silk. Then I began to plait her hair again. It felt warm and comforting to have my hands in her hair, as when I was a little child. At last she fell asleep, but she seemed at times to forget to breathe, and she slept terrifyingly still.

I left her then and ran into the forest, black and dark as a nightmare. He was waiting for me, his horse, Night, beside him. “Do you think by flaunting your power you will make me love you?” I cried when I saw him, rage killing my fear.

He stood tall, composed, lordly. “Your grandmother is very ill, Keturah,” he said calmly. “I told you she would die soon. I told you in the forest when you were lost. It has begun.”

It was true that he’d told me this, but it made no difference. Warning made no difference. “Why must you hide in shadows? Why am I the only one who sees you? Are you a coward?” Oh, how good it felt to rail against him.

“I am here for all to see, Keturah, if they wish it,” he said, still calm. “I have touched them all in some way.” He stepped closer to me. His tone had an edge to it now. “They think my realm is far away. Would they sleep at night if they knew how close I was? Would they sing so roundly by the fire if they knew I was waiting in their cold beds? Would they be so glad of the harvest if they knew I rested in their root cellar? It is not I who am the coward.”

He stepped closer again to me. His limbs were powerful, graceful, his movements almost a dance.

“Not at all, sir,” I said, matching my tone to his. If I must lose Grandmother to him, I would not do so in silence. “They know what you are, and that you are near.

We all know you. When it is winter and we must walk in the blizzard snow, do not our fingers and toes whisper death? And when winter is at last over but the potatoes are gone and the bacon is moldy, can we not hear our bellies whisper death to us? In the dark, don’t we know? And when we are paralyzed by nightmares? We know what you are. With our first cries we rail against you. We see you in every drop of blood, in every tear. No wonder they hate me for communing with you.”

He took another step toward me. “The story,” he said. “That is all I care to hear from you. Now there are two stories, and two endings, and I shall have them both, Keturah. My patience is spent.”

Yes, the story, I thought. With the story I would take my revenge upon him.

“And then one day,” I said fiercely, “Death did find love.” Of course, I thought—there could be no other ending.

“But you said it was hopeless,” he protested.

“It was hopeless, but in story, all things can be.”

“I don’t believe it. This is a most unsatisfactory ending.”

“That’s because it is not the ending.”

“What? Another beginning?”

“Death found his love, but the object of his undying love did not return his affections.”

“Astonishing,” he murmured wryly.

“He watched her all her life, watched her grow up, watched her become more beautiful by the day, and watched her become a woman. He listened by the common fire, in the deep of the shadows, as she told tales. And he loved her more every day. She paid him no attention, and lived her life as if he were invisible and not real at all. He sought a way to make his true love see that she was his lady, his queen, his consort. Desperately he examined every means—he could abduct her, but he wanted her willing. And so he lured her into the forest, and all but killed her, and then arranged to have her come to him each night to weave him a tale.”

I stopped, but he was utterly silent, utterly still.

And then he laughed—a great, deep, echoing laugh that made the branches lash as if startled and the black stallion shy and whinny. He raised his arms and spun in his high black boots and laughed again, and his laugh rang into the forest as if he would laugh all the trees down.

And then the mirth left his face and he said, “I will not hear this tale anymore. I will hear the tale of the girl. What of her, Keturah?”

I hugged my arms. How foolish to think that anger and cruelty and revenge could hurt Death. I began to shiver. Please, I begged in my heart.
Please
...

“Once there was a girl—who guessed Death s secret... and she asked him—asked him for her grandmother’s life, knowing that he loved her.”

“And in this story,” Death asked, “what did he do?”

“He granted her this wish because—because she was the one he loved.”

The wind spun around me. Leaf dust stung my eyes and choked me. But Lord Death was not touched by the wind. All about him was still.

“And did she return his love?” he asked quietly.

“Ah, that,” I said most quietly, for the heart had gone out of me, “that is the ending, and I cannot tell it until tomorrow.”

After a long silence, he said, “Go. Your grandmother sleeps a healing sleep. In the morning, give her foxglove tea. I will see you tomorrow. Do not be late. And Keturah, I warn you—never ask again.”

It took me a moment to realize that he had given me hope. I looked up to thank him, but he had gone.

I ran through the black forest until I arrived home, where the candles guttered in the windowsills and the coals breathed in sleep.

I knelt by grandmother, vigilant until the sun paled the sky. By morning light I could see that the gray was gone from her face, and I left to go to Soor Lily’s.

When I opened my door, I saw that down in the village center below, the men and boys and women were already at work. The people sang and laughed as they worked on the road, and young John Temsland went from group to group upon his horse. Each group cheered him as he approached, and he encouraged them with words of praise, and dismounted to add his own strength to whatever task was at hand. Some of the cottages sparkled gaily with new whitewash, and the boats bobbed brightly with new coats of paint.

Jenny Talbot, a young girl who often walked with her pet pig at the edges of the forest so that it might find acorns, was close by our cottage. Her pet had become the most enormous pig in the village, but her father did not have the heart to slaughter it because of his daughter’s love for the creature.

I stopped, unseen, to watch her for a moment. She chattered sweetly to the animal, and sometimes she picked up acorns and fed him. Occasionally the pig raised its head, seemingly to listen to her, and picked the acorns delicately out of the palm of her hand.

How had I never noticed before how dear she was? How dear, in fact, was everyone in my village, and every house and tree and garden. How comforting the whisper of the wheel of the mill, the clanging of the smith’s hammer, the lowing of cattle, the laughter of women. Were there any jewels so beautiful as the apples in the orchard, any decoration more lovely than the flowers that grew around every cottage and sprouted in the thatch of their roofs and tumbled over arbors?

Jenny saw me then, and curtseyed.

“Jenny,” I said, “why do you curtsey when I am in no station above you?”

“I thought to cry out, and then curtseyed instead,” Jenny said. “They say you are a witch who covens with Death.”

“You must not believe everything that is said, Jenny. The poor fortunes that brought me close to Death have made me love life no less. Come now, tell me, is that not a new frock you are wearing, Jenny? It is the same green as your eyes.”

“Yes, and I have another that makes my eyes blue,” she said, “but I may not wear it until fair time.”

“How do you come to have two new frocks?” I asked.

Jenny’s was one of the poorer families in Tide-by-Road.

“Lady Temsland has given cloth stuff to every family in the village. She says if a clean and pretty village will keep death away a time, as you say, perhaps clean and pretty people will keep him away longer still.”

Surprised as I was, there was no time to think of a reply, for I felt an urgency to get to Soor Lily’s for foxglove for Grandmother.

“Goodbye, then, Jenny of the changeable eyes,” I said.

“Goodbye, beautiful witch Keturah,” she said ever so politely.

As I walked down toward the village square, I saw that fresh-washed linens hung on the lines. Honey Bilford was firing her pothook, and her neighbor was sweeping out her root cellar. Young men polished their spades, sharpened their axes, and oiled the yokes. Young women scoured crock and kettle until they could see their pretty faces in them. Down by the water, some of the men were repairing the pier, and Andy Mersey was carving a beautiful sign that said “Welcome to Tide-by-Rood.” The church bell shone like gold.

I met the cobbling crew along the way, and in the middle of them was John Temsland. Someone told him of my approach, and he straightened. The men drew away, scowling and muttering, but at a word from John they all doffed their hats.

“Keturah, what think you?” John said. “By tomorrow, one will be able to walk to every house in the village without muddying his feet. The women have been just as busy as the men. There isn’t an untidy cupboard or a dirty corner in any cottage of the village. Mother has got the manor fitted as royally as she can, too.”

“You have all done well,” I said.

“It was your counsel that inspired us, Keturah Reeve,” John said.

I blushed and said, “I must be on my way. Grandmother is poorly.”

He stepped aside with a slight bow, and I hurried up the path.

“If I may, I will pay my respects to your grandmother later,” he called after me. I nodded my head in quick assent, and continued on.

The thatch was being freshened on every cottage roof, and girls were lining the pathways with whitewashed stones. The door and shutters of one cottage had been painted an apple green, and those of other cottages were yellow, a bright blue, and lavender. Rosebushes had been pruned and barrel irons polished. People worked and laughed, but when I walked by they looked away, and no one spoke to me.

I could not guess what price Soor Lily would ask for foxglove, but whatever it was, I set my mind to pay it. Walking on the cobblestones eased the fatigue in my bones.

The wise woman was standing at the door when I arrived, as if she had been apprised of my coming. I could see two of her sons hiding in the bushes to the side of the house.

Soor Lily seemed more solicitous than before, more hoveringly nervous. She set tea before me so carefully the bowl made no sound as it touched the table.

“Keturah,” she said, “it is not enough, is it? The road, the mill—they will not be enough, perhaps.”

“I don’t know... Yes, of course they will...”

“You are not well. See how pale you are, and how your hands tremble, and you are wasting. So thin.”

“I am fine. I didn’t sleep well. I—I have come for Grandmother, Soor Lily. Please, I need foxglove.”