Wildwing (10 page)

To His Most Excellent Lord, Sir Hugh of Berringstoke, From His Faithful Servant Eustace

M
y lord, all greetings and due respect. Your affairs progress as well as could be expected. I have arranged to purchase sufficient wheat to cover our losses at a most reasonable price. Hops are now brewing for beer.

The reason for my writing after such a brief interval is not, however, a happy one. Lady Matilda made her first appearance at table this day, and it is apparent that the travails of her journey have affected her grievously, resulting in the loss of the most basic knowledge and etiquette.

The household was forced to wait for some time before she rushed in late. After staring about like one dazed, she sat, not at the high table, but at one of the lower trestle tables, until the woman Beatrix approached, whispered in her ear, and led

her to the appropriate seat. When the boy brought the pitcher,

instead of holding her hands over the basin for washing, she raised a goblet as if expecting it to be filled for drink. I was forced to wash my hands before her, in spite of the breach of etiquette, to demonstrate the method as tactfully as possible. Her eyes were as wide as if she had never seen such a thing.

As for the trencher of bread we were to share, she placed it firmly before her, tore off a segment, and proceeded to actually eat it, as if it were finely milled white bread. I feel it is my duty to inform you that, as I lifted my eyes in shock, I espied other members of the household staring, aghast. I glared at them in silent communication, and none disgraced your lordship with laughter.

The lady acted as though the goblet was for her use alone, compelling the lad to run and fetch another for me, and I forced myself to drink singly. Halfway through the meal, she noticed those at other tables sharing trencher and goblet and, in sudden comprehension, grabbed the goblet newly brought to me and took sip. I barely know how to mention this, my lord, but she neglected to wipe the rim.

Her speech is likewise somewhat odd. Her manner alternates between an overfamiliarity with those beneath her and a tone that is so formal as to be almost stilted. It is much like a closed tap on a barrel of ale, opened full to flow with sudden force.

I can only surmise that, in addition to the shock of her losses, the lady suffered a fearsome blow to the brain. We must pray that she will improve with time. I assure you I will keep a close eye upon her until your return.

In a positive light, I report with relief that her ladyship’s bodily health appears robust. She eats, while with few manners, with great gusto. She rushes about as if seeing everything for the first time, and appears to prefer outdoor activity to the comforts of the solar. It is to be hoped the fresh air will encourage her return to full awareness.

May I again urge you to consider returning as soon as possible? Haste is of the essence. The string of missives from Sir Giles continues unabated, and we must prepare for a possible escalation in his approach, particularly should her ladyship’s state imperil your plans. The constable has raised the subject of increasing the number of men-at-arms, but funds for this, as for all else, are not yet in your coffers.

Striving diligently for the furtherance of your estate, and thinking only of the safety of Berringstoke, I remain yours obediently and respectfully in this as in all other things,

Eustace, Steward of Berringstoke

By the Fire

B
eatrix and I are sitting by the fire in the solar, each with our stitching in our laps. Beatrix picks up a linen napkin from a basket at her side and starts hemming. Her stitches are nice and quick. Me, I’m staring at the swath of forest-green silk spread across my lap, wondering how to go about embroidering something like the lady and unicorn on my needle case. I knot my thread and make a first pass through the cloth.

“That bread you set your food on,” I say. “Remind me what it’s called.”

My first meal in the great hall didn’t go nearly as well as I’d expected. I have a lot to learn, and Beatrix, tut-tutting about my poor muddled head, is helping.

“That’s the trencher, my lady. You share one with yourtable partner. After the meal, the boy collects them, laden with sauce and drippings, and gives them to such as are poor and hungry. Alms, it is, as the good Lord wishes of us.”

Lovely. I’ve been eating the plates.

I start outlining a castle with tiny stitches. “And the goblet?”

“Shared as well, my lady. Your partner will offer you platters of meat and other fine dishes, and you, likewise, offer them back to him.”

“But if we share a trencher, how do I know whose bit is whose?”

“Well, you don’t take that much at a time, now, do you? You just learn to keep track. And you must not”—she clears her throat, takes a stitch or two—”simply must not eat the meat off your knife! Hold it in your fingers, there’s a proper lady.”

“It’s hard, without a fork.”

“A fork? At your seat? Why, what would you do with a great long thing like that? A kitchen tool, that is.”

I start on a pennant for the top of my slightly lopsided tower. Just plain, straight stitches again. I don’t know anything fancier: no little knots, or flowery shapes, or raised bits. The flag is halfway filled in, and already it bores me. I toss the green silk aside, rethread my needle with someof Beatrix’s white, grab a napkin from her basket, and start hemming.

Now
this
kind of stitchery I can do in my sleep. I did it with Mum often enough. I picture us sitting late at night, Mum and me, as I help her finish up the hemming, hardly a word between us, but there’s a quiet ease in the air, and our needles practically fly through the cloth until we stop for a sip of tea… .

But then the cozy feeling around the picture starts to twist, and becomes something darker. That was all coming to an end, wasn’t it? I stitch faster to close up the memory, before pain starts sneaking through.

Beatrix looks at me and smiles. “Aren’t you a dear to help me so, instead of your own work! But there’s no need, now, really.”

“Oh, I want to do things for the castle, too,” I say.

She nods appreciatively. “An eye out for everyone. That’s a lady’s role, true enough.” She stops to work out a snag in her thread. “Now, the man who cuts the bread is the pantler. The one with the wine is the butler. In the absence of his lordship, you must keep the conversation flowing with the wine, so the spirit is lively. Ask the harpist to strike up a song now and then.”

“Doesn’t Eustace do all that?”

“He did today, because you’re poorly, but once you’re well, it’s more your place.”

Exactly who is this Lady Matilda, that she’s so important to the castle? I’m about to prod Beatrix for more information, but she’s still talking.

“At meal’s end, you must wait for the ewer and basin to be brought again. Your dining partner will pour water over your hands, as you do for him. You left Eustace in a bit of a spot today.”

The truth is, I couldn’t leave the steward soon enough. There’s something in his sharp eyes that makes me feel exposed. Something in his voice, no matter how flattering, that sounds like a threat.

“I’d rather he weren’t my partner,” I say.

She ties a knot. “Things will all change soon enough.”

She looks up with a look of such understanding, it’s almost as if she
knows
about me. My needle slips, pricks me through the cloth. A bright spot of red appears on the linen, and I gasp. I never slip in my stitching!

Beatrix gently takes the cloth from my hand. “There, you see? Back to what you know, my lady. That will be best.” And she hands me the shimmering silk with its misshapen outline of a castle.

The Bailey

A
dozen slavering dogs strain at their leashes: bloodhounds as big as colts, and brindled beasts that are all long legs and fangs, and smaller dogs that stare at me with fierce intelligence in their eyes, working the air with their muzzles, memorizing my scent.

“No sudden moves, if you please, my lady,” says John, the master of the hounds. He’s a stocky, bearded man with a hunting horn slung over one shoulder. “They don’t know you yet.”

“But they will soon enough!” declares Father Bartholomew, the castle chaplain. He runs a pink hand across the fringe circling his bald dome, but it springs right up again, a most unruly halo. He’s taken it upon himself to show me around the bailey.

“His lordship is particularly proud of his lymers, and with good reason.” John nods at the legs with teeth. “You can expect excellent hunting when he returns.”

“And venison for the table,” chortles the chaplain. “Does your ladyship enjoy the chase?”

The chase? Am I supposed to know how to do that, too? I decide not to say anything, because I’m having a hard time trying to figure out what Lady Matilda should know about a castle, and what would be unfamiliar for her here, in this place. It’s all new to me, a tumult of sights and sounds, not to mention the smells: dogs and cooking and sweat and fresh wood, all jumbled together. I’m trying to absorb as much information as I can, without saying anything stupid.

Luckily, Father Bartholomew doesn’t wait for me to answer, but starts walking away from the kennels. “Now, if you will allow me,” he says, “I’ll show you the perfect place to sit when you want privacy and a touch of fresh air.”

We pass a small shed, just big enough for the single man sitting at a table with a pot of glue and a stack of wooden shafts. There are dozens of arrows leaning against the wall to dry, and yet there’s a frenzy to his motions as he trims and glues on feathers, as if he has more to finish than he can possibly manage.

“Does he always work that fast?” I say.

“The fletcher?” My guide shakes his head. “They must be stocking up. A bit of an alert, I hear.”

“And why is that?” I ask, as we near the stables.

Instead of answering, he stops, distracted, and points to a gleaming black steed, half again as large as the other horses. It snorts as a man cinches a saddle on its broad back.

“That must be the new destrier they’re sending his lordship,” says Father Bartholomew. “To replace the horse he lost in the jousts.”

“Lost?”

He nods. “Broken leg this time, I heard. Not forfeited like the last one. Oh, you should hear the stable master go on about it!”

I glance back at the horse, somewhat concerned about its fate, as we start walking again. A red-haired boy pitches hay from a loft, its fresh scent competing with the ripeness of dirty sweepings at the side of the building. Half a dozen horses stare at us with eyes as dark and deep as mountain pools.

Past the blacksmith’s shed with its hammering and heat; the carpenter’s, where men are working a two-handled saw back and forth across a log—”Lots of wood down in that storm,” says Father Bartholomew; past the well and the skinny boy hefting two full buckets on the yoke across hisshoulders; past the gatehouse?”Where the men-at-arms live, of course, though they’re too busy training to introduce you to the constable;” past chickens and pigs and bake sheds; until finally we reach the far wall and come to a stop.

“For your ladyship,” says Father Bartholomew, nodding and smiling at a small wooden door, just the right size for me. After all the clamor and bustle, it looks welcome indeed. This must be my own private entrance! I’ll be able to slip out quietly and walk in the woods whenever I want time to myself.

“How lovely!” I say. He reaches toward the door, but my hand is there first. He stands back, looking pleased that I’m so pleased, and I lift the latch. The door opens.

But it’s only a garden, nestled inside yet another ring of impenetrable castle walls. I sigh in disappointment, but luckily the chaplain doesn’t notice.

“The perfect place for your needlework,” he says, plumping with pride. “They’ve been readying it for your arrival. Such sweet-smelling herbs. And look, roses!”

Yes, there are rosebushes with a last few autumn blooms, the sweet, simple kind with a single ring of pink petals. And a pear tree with a stone bench beneath its laden boughs.

“A place of peace away from the frenzy of the baileyin times such as these! And with all the preparations afoot, you’ll be glad of it, I daresay.”

“Preparations?” I ask, assuming this time he’ll tell me.

“Exactly,” he says. “Quite private!”

He pulls the door shut again. “Now I’ll show you the chapel. I want to be certain you know where it is because, that is, you see …” He pauses, wringing his hands in embarrassment, then goes on all in a surge. “That is to say, we’ve missed you at matins, and I assume it’s because you weren’t sure where to find us, or perhaps it’s because of your head, or—well, in any case, you’ll be joining us, of course, now that you’re feeling better.”

It’s clearly been quite the oversight on my part. Another thing I’ve been doing wrong.

“Why, certainly,” I say.

As we start back, I hear the drawbridge clanking down, and my breath catches. I turn to look. Each time someone rides across the drawbridge, I wonder: Does
this
person know the real Lady Matilda? Will
this
be the one to find me out?

Father Bartholomew is still rambling on. “Unless you prefer morning mass to matins? I could start doing morning mass, if that’s what you’re used to. A much bigger production, of course, and people around here tend to be so busy.”

A wagon rolls into the bailey. I recognize the men following on horseback: the tall man and Oswald and Robert, who brought me from the shore. I start to relax, but then I notice the grim set of their jaws. They see me and freeze for a fraction of a second, as if they don’t like what they’re about to do.

They dismount. The tall man hands his reins to Robert, and then he’s walking over to me with that long-legged stride. His eyes are too serious by far.

They’ve found me out.

“Dear God!” Damn, I’ve said it out loud. Father Bartholomew nods in response, then lowers his head and raises his hands in prayer.

The man reaches us and bows low and long. Too long. He’s reluctant to rise.

“What is it, Edward?” asks Father Bartholomew impatiently. He, for one, can hardly wait to see what’s about to unfold.

Edward—so that’s his name—straightens and looks down into my eyes. “Several bodies have been found washed ashore,” he says. “And one of them is a woman.”

They know
. I look around frantically, wondering which way I can run. But my legs betray me; my knees buckle.

Father Bartholomew wraps a thick arm around myshoulders, clamping his hand down like a vise. “I’ve got you, my lady,” he says.

“If you would come this way,” says Edward.

I nod—what else can I do?—and follow him back to the wagon. Father Bartholomew is still attached to me like a limpet.

What is the punishment for impersonating a noble lady? Will they show me the door? No, too easy. Whip me? Throw me in a dungeon to rot? The sword at Edward’s waist swings with every step.

A small crowd has gathered and stands gazing solemnly at the back of the wagon. Several forms lie shrouded in cloth of a familiar dark green. The men used their capes to wrap the bodies.

Can I still plead my wounded head and say I didn’t know I was an imposter? There are far too many men here for me to run, and the drawbridge is rattling back up… .

Edward reaches for the first body, lifting the cloak to reveal a face. A portly middle-aged man, so heavy with water, it’s like he’s still beneath the waves. A hole gapes where his nose should be.

I gasp, and Father Bartholomew tightens his hold.

“His name?” asks Edward.

I shake my head and whisper, “I don’t know.”

He nods, replaces the covering, then takes a step to reach the other body. I’m holding my breath. He lifts a corner of the cloth slowly, watching my eyes the whole while.

It’s her. It must be. Pale hair still wound in an elegant braid. A weak chin, slightly buckteeth. Even death can’t hide her plainness. As plain as I thought when Beatrix said, “Their descriptions didn’t do you justice.”

It’s all over now. They know.

“As I assumed,” says Edward. “Your lady-in-waiting.”

I stare at him. “My?”

“We only need her name for the tomb, my lady, and then we won’t distress you any longer.”

“Her … name?”

He nods.

I stare back down at the lifeless body, the skin bleached pure white, and I find myself whispering, “Adelaide. That was her name.”