Something Red (22 page)

Lady Svajone had established herself by some means as a person of influence in the castle. With her affectionate greeting of Molly, all reserve on the part of Lady Isabeau seemed to vanish. She ceased to jingle her ring of keys; she turned to a page who stood attentively just behind her, a boy perhaps eleven years of age, clad in livery of murrey. Against the deep claret of his blouse the ubiquitous fountain badge was worked in white thread. Lady Isabeau introduced him as Hubert, and gave him instructions for the settling in of Molly’s party. She kissed Molly on both cheeks, and then Lady Svajone as well; the grim knight gave a small bow; and the two moved off, trailed by Lady Isabeau’s attendant women. The lady and castellan of Blanchefontaine were immediately surrounded by a small cloud of pages: some who came to report, others who were dispatched again on errands—a castle does not run itself.

Vytautas caught sight of Hob, and nodded to him, a nod that somehow seemed to Hob to recall their meeting at the monastery, and to suggest that this in some manner made them old friends. Hob smiled, and bowed politely as Father Athelstan had taught him.

“. . . glad we are to be seeing you,” Molly was saying. “We’re after having no word of you at Osbert’s Inn”—Hob thought to himself that if he had not known what grief lay behind those two words, he might have missed the slight hitch in Molly’s voice—“and weren’t we set upon by a
band of wolf’s-heads, an ambush in the forest, and then we’re thinking you must be meeting an evil end on the road—”

The little noblewoman broke in. “Nay, nay, we are not at this, this inn, we are travel the road to here, coming here, we are going with the, the steps of quickness. This inn, we passened them by, at this inn, I am being so fearend—”

“Frightened,” murmured Vytautas.

“Frighten, yes,” said Lady Svajone, not quite mastering it, “and wishened to pass it by, the inn, and we are running till we are run to this . . . stonehouse, this”—here she looked at Doctor Vytautas—“
pilis
?”

“Castle,” said Vytautas.

“Casta, yes, this casta,” she said. “When we cross the water, the, the flat place in the water, the not deep place, we are crossing that little river, is remind me of my homeland, so many rivers, and then we are saying fare them well to the masons, they are with us till then, and we come here, through the forest, and to here, to this place.”

“We came to the inn after yourselves had passed, and stayed but a few nights. And then we went back there, after the attack it was, and . . . ” Nothing in Molly’s face or voice changed this time, but she fell silent for a few moments. “. . . and found everyone within killed, and many of them friends of mine, and they all despatched by some murthering thing, some huge beast, what we call in Erin an
ollphéist,
a monster, and it haunting our trail all this time.”

Lady Svajone’s hand flew to her throat, and she leaned more heavily on Azuolas. Her mouth opened in surprise; her white eyebrows lifted high in shock. This latter action further revealed her eyes, clear eyes hitherto half-concealed in their drooping wrinkled lids, eyes of a true gray, large and slightly tilted. Hob found them surprisingly lovely amid those aged features.

“Makes terrible! Terrible! All those peoples who, who, they are to be, being, your friends!” She wrung her hands; she gave a little shudder.
The two esquires looked on, enigmatic as cats. They watched the group carefully: they knew that something was wrong, but had no knowledge of the language. Gintaras looked pointedly at the doctor. Vytautas pursed his lips, shook his head very slightly, and the younger men relaxed somewhat.

Lady Svajone leaned forward, looking up into Molly’s face. “But we are hearen that this Osba’s, Osbra’s, is strong place, yes? And we are see, as we pass, those so strong walls. . . . Is like little wooden casta, yes?”

Molly nodded. “Like a little castle, yes, and protected by ten great dogs as well, and weren’t even those dogs slain along with the people.”

The old woman began to tremble violently. “Makes terrible! The monks are tell us of this dogs, these dogs, when we are at the, the monk casta.”

“Monas—” began Vytautas fussily, but she waved a hand at him.

“Yes, yes, with the monks, they tell us stay at Osbra’s, the dogs to protect us. How can people not be so fearend, frighten, if even these big dogs is, are—to dead, to death? Killet, are killet, and their bellies slashet open like fishes! I am frighten to ever leave this casta!” The tiny frame was shaking perceptibly, and she seemed near tears in her terror.

Vytautas seemed alarmed by such extreme emotion, and he stepped close to her and said something in a soothing tone in their own language, and with an arm about her shoulder, took her wrist with his other hand and surreptitiously felt there for the echo of her heartbeat, while darting a look at Molly that was both a warning and an appeal.

But Lady Svajone broke free and tottered forward; she embraced Molly and, as she looked up into Molly’s face, she sighed and visibly relaxed. A smile overspread her face and she said, breathless, “I am happiness that you have come to me, my dear, for happiness that you are safe and also because I am to be safe, to be feel safe, with you near.”

Molly, as was her instinct, put her arms around the little woman
and made comforting noises, and indeed the Lietuvan was so small that she seemed a child in Molly’s embrace. At last she stepped back with another sigh. At once Azuolas was beside her again, ready to bear her up if she began to fall.

“It’s happy I am to see yourselves as well,” said Molly, “and it is well that you parted with the masons at the ford. We ourselves went south, and we found . . . some indication that the masons, the same that set out with you, that they were after being killed as well, and by the jaws of this beast, and others as well, nearer to this castle. We were after thinking that you, also—well, that your bread was baked; that yourselves were after perishing with the rest.”

The old woman put her hand out and Azuolas smoothly slipped an arm under it for support. But now that her first panic had passed, she maintained her composure to a great degree.

“Makes terrible,” she said quietly. “They are going them, they are walking them to the house of God, to builden in the house of God. Terrible, terrible.” Again she put a hand to her throat. “I am frighten that it follows you here to this casta. We will be killet, killened, like those at the inn.”

A shadow passed over Molly’s face as the specter of the inn arose again, and Hob himself thought:
Margery.

“It’s safe enough that you are here,” said Molly.

“But the people are killet at the inn, what was so safe.”

Molly gestured toward the hall. “Consider how much higher are these walls than the inn’s, and they being thicker as well.”

And with pats and murmured assurances, Molly and Vytautas between them managed to calm the old woman down. Behind them, Gintaras kept a stern and wary eye on the little page Hubert, who stood fidgeting nearby, a bit too close to Lady Svajone for the esquire’s liking.

Presently they took their leave, and continued their slow progress down the hall, and Molly’s party was free to continue.

*   *   *

W
ITH A BOW TO MOLLY
, Hubert turned and led them up the hall; at the rear came Jack, walking easily with the chest. Toward the front of the hall a curtained alcove led to a turret stairwell. They wound their way up and up. The shallow wedge-shaped treads of stone were worn a bit where others had gone before; all noises were amplified by the stone cylinder the stairway was set in; midway, an arrow slit admitted a fitful stream of cold air.

They came out into a corridor. One side was stone, with windows to the outside; the shutters in these windows shifted and groaned as the bitter wind sought entrance. The hallway was noticeably cooler than the great hall below, with its two fireplaces. Hubert led the way past a sturdy oaken door, stopping before another such. He opened this and stood aside for Molly and Nemain to enter.

This was a solar, a private apartment within the castle. An outer room, and a smaller inner room with a curtained bed-closet. This was of oak, with a feather mattress, sheets, pillows, quilts: Hob marveled at such luxury. Two could sleep in it, secure from drafts and warm by reason of shared body heat. Molly pointed and Jack brought the chest into this room, depositing it with a thump.

Hob was looking about at the rooms: walls covered with rough white plaster, a small fireplace in the outer room and a somewhat larger one in the inner room, and here came two men in the ubiquitous Blanchefontaine white-on-murrey livery, bearing wood-and-leather-strap cots and simple bedding, for Jack and Hob to use in the outer room. Behind them came two men struggling with a heavy wooden tub lined with cloth and filled with steaming water, which they placed at Molly’s direction in the inner chamber. When they had gone, Nemain closed the door to the inner room, and Hubert was left with Hob and Jack, who threw himself down on one of the cots without any bedding and let out a gusty sigh.

Hubert turned to Hob. “Let me show you where the garderobe may be found, and I pray you tell your mistress, for I will soon be needed elsewhere.”

He led Hob out into the corridor and along to the garderobe, away at the corridor’s end. This privy was down a short hall that led into the east wall of the keep, ending in a turret room that overhung a sheer drop: behind and below the castle ran a small river valley. The page showed Hob the box where straw was kept, to clean himself with.

As they returned along the hall, Hubert halted before a stone basin in a recess. He showed Hob how to work a valve at the end of a pipe that sprang from the back of the recess, like a branch growing through a wall. A gout of water sprang forth into the basin, swirled away into a hole at the bottom; Hob stepped back in astonishment. Hubert laughed. “There’s a tank above and water brought up from the well and down from the roof cisterns to feed it. You may draw water to wash yourself, or to drink.” There was an air of proprietary delight in showing this unsophisticated visitor a feature of castle life, but the young page’s open and friendly manner drew on the unforced camaraderie of boys, and Hob could take no offense.

Drawing Hob by the sleeve away from the recess, Hubert asked, “Do you not have such, in your castles away in Ireland?” and not waiting for an answer, rattled on: “How does it come that two queens travel with so tiny a party? Are they outlawed? Have you come with them from Ireland? What is it like to sail on the water?”

Hob looked desperately along the passage toward the door of Molly’s solar. “I, we . . . ” he stammered. Just then another page, perhaps fifteen years of age, appeared at the end of the corridor.

“Hubert!” he called; he made urgent gestures and turned to go back.

“I pray you will excuse me,” said Hubert, and bowed prettily, and hastened off after his older fellow, leaving Hob to make his way back to the solar.

*   *   *

S
OON AFTER HOB HAD RETURNED
, the inner door opened and Molly called Jack in to carry the tub out to the outer room, which he did handily, carrying the full tub that two men had wrestled with, puffing only a little, and spilling only a cup or so. Molly shut the door again after him.

Jack bathed first, washing himself with a soldier’s practical efficiency. He rose, dripping like a dog, and accepted a dry cloth from Hob; he toweled his thick locks with one hand while pointing to the now-cooling water. Hob threw off his clothes and bathed hastily while Jack dressed in livery that Molly had given him. It had been a while since they had had the luxury of bathing, and Hob was surprised to find a faint suggestion of down at his groin. The water began to take on a chill, though, and in any case Jack was now dressed and gesturing for him to hurry.

There was a set of livery for Hob as well, a little large, but serviceable. Over hose of green went an overshirt of watchet-colored wool; to Hob’s delight there was a leather belt dyed a rich blue, with a gilt buckle. Hob had never seen these garments, which presumably Molly had produced from the trunk that Jack carried in; the occasion for them had not arisen in his time of traveling with Molly and her troupe.

The door to the inner room creaked open, and Molly came out, and Nemain behind her. Hob stared at them in wonder. Molly had her mass of gray hair coiled up against her neck, and a white veil floated down over it, not really concealing the silvery gleams beneath. One end of the veil ran under her chin and back up, knotted at her temple so that it hung down again as a tassel. Her gown, rather longer and more flowing than currently fashionable, was of a night-blue silk, worked in silver-gray thread that formed a border of the Irish endless-knot design, the coils writhing and crossing all the way around the neckline. Molly’s hips, robust and shapely, were girt about with a white leather zone;
from this were slung her ring-pommel dagger in its sheath, her keys, her pouch.

And here behind her was Nemain, gowned in woodland green, boyish hips cinched with a cloth-of-gold zone; her fiery hair, new-washed, had been left uncovered, but bound about with a cloth-of-gold fillet. Hob hardly recognized the mischievous playmate of last summer.

Molly took Hob by the arm. “Hob,
a chuisle,
do you mind that you told me that your old priest was after teaching you your manners at table?”

“He showed me, Father Athelstan, he showed me somewhat, Mistress, but—”

“You must act my page, lad; do you cut and serve for Nemain and myself, for I have told them that we are two queens, and we in exile, and you and Jack all our retinue, and one must look these Normans in the eye, bold as a badger, else they’ll try to trample you into the earth.” She gave his arm a little squeeze and turned away.

Nemain was eyeing him critically. She reached out, tugged at his overshirt where it was bunched beneath the leather belt, plucked a thread from the shoulder.

“Are we ready, then?” asked Molly.

“A moment,
seanmháthair,
till I find the garderobe,” said Nemain.

“I can show you,” said Hob.