Maid Marian (28 page)

Soon enough they began to knock their staffs in earnest, and the cracks flew fast and near the head, near enough to make me glad for the woolen wrappings still on each end. Robin had always the upper hand, but I was pleased to see that Stephen progressed. He had learned well and did not make such a feeble opponent. At last they ended by tiring themselves, for Robin would not strike a hard blow at Stephen, and Stephen could not get his staff end near any of Robin Hood’s bones to drub him.

When they stopped to rest, Sir Thomas clapped loudly, perched on his bale like a happy young egg. “Well played, lads, well played. You’ll have to work harder, Stephen, my boy, if you want to beat the likes of Nick Atwood, eh, what?” On he continued, baiting the boy, until Stephen’s face turned red as a beet, and he tossed down his cudgel in anger.

“Where are you going?” Sir Thomas cried out, working his way awkwardly off his hay bale. “Stephen, I had wished to speak with you! Stephen? I go tomorrow!”

But Stephen was gone, away through the drizzle, and in another moment Sir Thomas went after him, followed by his bulldog trio.

“Robin!” I whispered, sneaking out of my place when they had all gone.

He came back to me and grasped my hands while we laughed away our fright and nerves.

“So much for wooing Stephen to our side,” I said wryly.

“The lad just wasn’t ready for us,” he replied good-naturedly, grinning at me.

“And it sounds as though your lot leaves tomorrow,” I whispered, leaning in to be circled by his arms.

“Indeed, it does,” he answered. “But look here, Marian, we’ve come quite a way. I expect we shan’t have much longer to wait for Denby. I’ve found this out—here, this’ll cheer you. I’ve watched Sir Thomas’s men at skirmish, and they’re no better fighters than you could beat with your old cudgel. If we can but call a few of the old band, I feel sure we can take them and all of the manor.”

“And the Denby reserves?”

“They’re more fit as farmers than fighters, that bunch. I suspect that when they hear your name, they’ll prefer to swear oaths than fight against you.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said, sighing, pushing away the miserable thought that by this time tomorrow I’d be alone once again.

W
HEN
R
OBIN HAD GONE,
I renewed my efforts with Lady Pernelle, frantic for something to take up the time I had been devoting to the kitchen and hayloft. I have not, I realize, made much mention till now of how my relationship with that lady progressed, perhaps because I detested the moments we spent together and hated to think on them more than was necessary. But over the summer I became her intimate friend, her privileged confessor, and the maintenance of this role required of me my greatest playacting performance yet.

When I was in a room with Lady Pernelle I changed my mood, swung my temper toward spite and nastiness, and let my mouth fall in a foul expression. This suited the lady perfectly, and in those moments when I was able to reflect her best, her secrets trickled forth to me. At times, of course, she reminded herself of my lowly place and the impropriety of sharing her thoughts with a serving girl, but at these moments she pleased me best, for she would then wander to a window casement and speak her problems aloud in French, thinking I would not understand and that she was safe to converse with herself. I did my best to act unhearing, but of course I never missed a word.

Most of her grievances involved Sir Stephen, for his youthful defection from her style of thinking cut her as deeply as any betrayal. To her mind he embodied every last evil when he questioned her notions or spoke in her court (it was always
her
court and
her
manor; she never once acknowledged his rightful claim to it).

In merrier times she spoke of Sir Thomas, and it piqued my interest to hear her admit that she thought little of him but for one simple function that he performed. He, and he alone, I assumed, was worshiper of her beauty and form. He gushed and raved over her classic face, her well-formed limbs, and her electric mind, and this obsequious attention won him a fixed place in her heart.

I wish I could say that I learned a great deal about the management of such a land as Sencaster from my daily observation of Lady Pernelle, but alas I did not. She spoke very rarely of matters of state, focusing rather on visits to be paid and visitors to come, dwelling, I think, on the social aspects of her rule rather than the theoretical. Her business was done over silver wine cups and pigeon tarts, where I, sadly, could hear nothing of it.

The weather in August drifted from warm to overheated and put me in mind of Ovid’s poems of Athens and Rome, the warmest lands my imagination had ever dared tap. By day I thought on downtrodden Ceres, the harvest goddess who holds the shafts swept free by the scythes and sickles of laborers, and by night I contemplated Adonis and thought of my own love, so far away.

It did me good to think of Robin in Denby Manor, for I could envision the very halls and passageways where his feet trod daily. And from there it was but a rabbit’s leap to a future vision of Robin as lord of that selfsame manor, hosting his guests in the great hall and tending affairs with his vibrant spirit. I saw myself also in that dream, negotiating with laborers and hearing the cases of the poor and the miserable. In fantasy, I delighted myself with the skill I used to manage our every last concern.

This dream was my constant solace and guided me through my work and my rest. With it in mind I took the jibing from my peers for having run off at nights during Lammas; with it in my bones I ignored Stephen’s jokes over my honored teacher, the Denby Manor cook. But most, perhaps, it stayed with me when I froze my own heart to become a companion to Lady Pernelle. It was my promise that my feelings would surely thaw again and return me to my old cheerful ways.

As often as I turned my mind to it, I could find no plan to bring me closer to the realization of that dream, no action I might take now that would carry me to my love and Denby. Robin’s words of the weak defenses of the manor guard had cheered me greatly, but these were, truly, my least concern. ’Twas Lady Pernelle who had me frightened, for once we beat Sir Thomas out, she would be on us like a spitting dragon, and we must be prepared to take her.

Chapter Twenty-four

A
S
S
EPTEMBER MOVED IN
after August, the weather began to hiss and pout, dropping weeks of rain on Sencaster Manor and flooding the fields for miles around. This put such a strain on our small household that several of the lady’s best servants fled the house with shattered nerves, unable to bear the near-constant shouting, for with poor weather, Stephen stayed within.

I knew not why, but since our meeting with Robin and Sir Thomas in the practice stables, Stephen no longer wished to spar and refused to enter that stable again. Perhaps this was from some bitter connection he had made with our place of practice, or perhaps, having fought with my own master Atwood, he saw that I had little more to teach him.

I, of course, thought far more highly of the advice and philosophy I had shared in our meetings than the actual skill I claimed to be teaching, but ever since his dismissive comments to Robin on my odd opinions, I feared raising any matter further with him. And so I said little of our discontinued parries and left him to his own devices. As a result he stayed within, and not an hour seemed to pass without his finding some point of conflict with his mother or of her finding some fault in him.

At times I wondered what drove them to it, what nasty imp sat upon the shoulder of each, promoting such strife and violence. Did Stephen, perhaps, feel this his way of defending Hugh’s memory, reliving the battles he had fought? And did Lady Pernelle lunge at Stephen from fear of losing Sencaster forever and being forced into a convent? The more I pondered this, the more I saw that my simplistic reasonings were too far from the mark: these two warred from a deep instinct for preservation that was based on a past I knew nothing about.

Since they were so often thrown together, their habits became oddly entwined. They would drink their spiced wine by the evening fire, content in silence for a quarter of an hour before words began and cursing and slander. This might continue till the moon had risen, then Lady Pernelle’s cup would crash to the floor, and she’d fly at Stephen with her talons and claws.

I asked my fellow serving girls what had become of them the winter before, for at this rate it seemed unlikely that either would survive past Christmas. And to my great surprise I heard that while they’d always had spleen-filled words for each other, this summer marked Stephen’s first foray into his mother’s court. Before I came, I was shocked to learn, Stephen had kept to his own rooms, to his tutor, and his play fellows, and he had left his mother in her own environ.

“What caused this change, do you think?” I asked Dame Ena while we worked at churning the thin autumn cream.

“I can only come to one thing,” she told me in a conspiratorial whisper. “’Twas about the time Sir Thomas first came to stay the night, if you know what I mean, that Stephen started coming round. Something in it got to him and made him turn against her enemy-like—not that they were so lovely-dovey when he was a boy, but back then she had her spats with Sir Hugh, and Stephen was safest kept away.”

T
HIS EXPLAINED A GREAT DEAL
to me, but it also put me into a state, for I saw in a flash that Lady Pernelle was nearing the end of her own tether. Where before I had thought her accustomed to these daily spats of venom and bile, I now saw that they were singular, and I understood why she seemed so tense when Stephen was near.

Not a full week later I had my own wretched confirmation. I went to comfort Lady Pernelle after one of her fiercest moments yet, in which she lunged at Stephen with her dining knife, and he’d cut his hand in fending her off. How she moaned and shuddered in her quiet room! Truly, she frightened me, and I had to struggle to keep my bitter countenance. I could only hold it steady by thinking of sour milk in my mouth, and this left me little time to consider what she was telling me.

“I cannot continue on this way!” she cried, writhing in her bedclothes. “He will kill me one day, I know he will—it cannot be!”

Lady Pernelle had long held delusions that Stephen was attempting her assassination, a misbelief that might have been humorous, since she was the one who held the knife, had it not been extremely pathetic.

“If it is to be him or me, I say now, let it be me!” Her eyes had grown quite red and wild, and her pale cheeks were sunk to the bone. In truth, she resembled the very devil. “Tell me, Kate, come closer and listen. Stephen must be put down—nay, come back and hear me out! You would not want him to kill your lady, would you, Kate? Your lady who has housed and clothed you these many months, who houses all the people of Sencaster? All the people of Titfield town? You would not turn me out for a boy, a sniveling, stupid boy, would you?”

I recalled myself and shook my head, looking as evil as I could manage to fit her mood, for frightened as I was by her, I was loathe to let any other servant be privy to her devious plans.

“Come, Kate, and listen well. I must have some special potion to do my work—to make things right! For it is only right, ’tis within the law, for I am still ruler of Sencaster Manor, and what I say is the rule of the land. So come, Kate, lean in closer. I must have a potion, do you hear me? And a special one. It must be made of the reedwood tree or of colchium mixed with portion flowers—either one will do the trick. Can you not go and fetch it for me? Please, my Kate?”

I hesitated, and she clutched at my gown all the tighter till I could scarcely breathe. Her breath was sour on my nose, and I squirmed by instinct, but then I managed to control myself, for I suddenly saw my own solution. Reshaping my face in its curdled expression, I turned to the lady and looked her fixedly in the eye.

“My lady,” I said, “I may know of a person who can make you this very potion you seek. I daresay, it may not be of the ingredients you specified, but I know a wise woman near Titfield town who lives deep in the woods, far from her neighbors, and is known to concoct all manner of potions. But you must tell me clearly now what result you wish for the potion drinker, and that I’ll tell to old Dame Hettie.”

I had described, of course, dear Dame Selga with new shifts and braces, but it had the effect I was hoping for.

“He must die,” she hissed. “He must die, of an instant—no lingering death.” She waved her hands before her face in an effort to express herself. “It must wreck his innards and turn them to dung, his blood to vinegar, his eyes to wax. I wish to never hear his voice again, nipping at me from noon to night—I want it silenced and forever! Go tomorrow, my loyal Kate. Promise me you will go tomorrow and will not return until you have it! Truly, I cannot last alive here one more day, for he will have me if I do not have at him first.”

In this way my own greatest fears came to fruition, and I now bore a hand in them. But in truth I admit I was relieved, for glimmering faintly in the depths of this turmoil I saw the light of my own redemption, of Stephen’s escape, of Robin’s elevation. I grasped at it with both my hands and leapt full after it into the mist.

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
I rose up early, yawning and stiff-eyed from my short rest, since I had attended Lady Pernelle until late that night, coaxing her thoughts away from Stephen and toward the land of sleep and slumber. I donned my kerchief and the old monk’s cloak that I’d fashioned with Robin our first night in the inn, and started out for Titfield town, a modest village in the south of Sencaster.

In my pocket I already bore what I sought, the very glass bottle of chilling white powder that Dame Selga had sold me in return for my silver. Trusty Annie had brought it away from Warwick Castle in my bundle of things, and I, in my flight from Sherwood Forest, had thrown it into my meager sack, snatching it on impulse with my comb and my pennies. And ’twas lucky I had, for now I found that this very potion I’d been too afraid to use on myself, I was determined to give to Lady Pernelle. Dame Selga’s potion seemed to be Stephen’s final hope, for if I did not supply his mother with some poison, she would be certain to discover a more lethal variety for herself.

Despite the bottle that weighed in my pocket, I walked the road to Titfield town, in part because I feared Lady Pernelle might have me followed, and in part to allow myself time to think. For suddenly the moment of action was sprung up before me, and I wished for some solitude to plot it all out before I ran too short on time.

One mile or two before Titfield I passed through a large market town, filled with farmers bartering livestock. This suited my purpose, and I paused here to watch the scene until I spied a young man with a ragged tunic who seemed too short of coin to buy the heifer he had his eye upon.

“Good sir,” I said, approaching him. “I have a task I would pay for, if you would be willing to take it on.”

He nodded a mite gruffly and looked me up and down.

“’Twill seem to you a bit of a jest,” I continued, “but my lady requests to have it done, and she has sent me with pennies to pay for it. I wish to have a man travel the road from here to Denby-upon-Trent, going on horseback, but leading behind him a pig on a rope.”

Here the man began to laugh, for such a deed would create a great spectacle, but when he saw that I did not laugh and that I had pennies within my palm, he sobered right quick.

“What should become of the oinker after?”

“You may keep it if you take on the job and if you will find your own horse to ride.”

In another minute, all was settled, and the farmer rode off happy as could be, for though he’d not gotten the cow he wanted, he now was richer a pig and five pennies for a day’s easy work.

This thing I’d just done may seem odd, but it was truly all to plan. Long ago I’d pressed upon Robin the need for a system for calling Clym to Denby or Sencaster if one of us should have need of him. I’d thought this up, that a man could ride from Sencaster to Denby leading a pig, or from Denby to Sencaster, and that Clym would know which town to visit by considering the direction the man was headed.

The beauty of the scheme lay in the very spectacle it caused, for if Clym did not spot the pig himself, he would be sure to hear of it from his fellow travelers, for this was just the sort of joke they liked to share while walking a road. Robin had liked the idea at once, but it was on his suggestion that we altered it somewhat to make it easier for Clym. If I needed his help, the man should travel leading a pig; if Robin wanted him, an ox should be led.

That done I wandered to the men with carts and hired two of the most swarthy among them to travel this day to Needwood Forest for as many of Will Scarlet’s band as they could fit in their cart boxes. These they were instructed to take to Denby directly, to the manor itself, where Robin would greet them.

When I had finished these critical tasks I felt some relief, for small as these steps had been, they served to include my friends in the plot and helped me feel less solitary. And now I was free to walk through the Titfield woods without wasting anxiety on what had been done. I had enough to contrive as it stood, and the green wood soothed me and boosted my mind almost as if the very air there were filled with ambrosia or magical ether. In the heart of this wood I rested myself for a quarter of an hour, time enough to gnaw on my cheese and coarse bread and find myself a creek to drink from. Then, still enwrapped in contemplation, I turned back to Sencaster and the manor house.