Margaret of Ashbury 03 - The Water Devil Read online

  “Not all the animals are harmless, Gregory.”

  “Oh, Margaret, will that stay your pet name for me forever? Really, it's embarrassing now that I've risen to the grandeur of a purchased knighthood finagled by father.” His eyes glittered with cynical amusement as he spoke. “See it my way. Noble creatures make noble sport. I feel the blood pulsing through my veins for the first time in ages. A lawyer, a corrupt judge, and an entire abbey full of scheming monks! There's a game for you! If we win, father has to acknowledge the superiority of learning forever. Ha! That will sting! If we lose, we don't lose much—that gloomy little spot by the water and a lot of oak trees that he might very well take into his head to sell anyway. Either way, the title to the house here stays unencumbered.”And he went whistling off to Malachi's place to fetch the brass-bound Saxon chest, made ancient by hanging above the vapors of one of Malachi's glass kettles for the past week.

  Of all the people of the household, only Peregrine was truly happy about the trip. “D'ere's frogs in the moat,” he sang, “frogs, frogs, and teeny tiny baby tadpoles, and Grandfather will give me a horse, a horse, a really truly big one.” And he trundled around on his little stick horse shouting orders in imitation of his grandfather. And his grandfather did shout orders: “Take those mules around by the gate! Do you call THAT a packsaddle? Look at that one limp; it's unsound, I say, take it BACK! Gilbert, what in HELL are you taking that arrow-chest for? Oh. I see. That's Madame's luggage? ABSOLUTELY NOT! THAT WOMAN DOES NOT GO! I CAN'T STAND HER!”

  “My lord father-in-law, if she does not go, the girls will not be able to go, and if they don't go, I won't go,” I said.

  “Well,” he grumbled, “she does seem to keep them in good order. Not that they aren't a pair of she-devils, mind you.”

  “You don't want them turned loose in your house without supervision, do you?” I reminded him.

  “Right, absolutely right. But keep that woman out of my sight. She makes me furious, the way she thinks she knows everything in the world. I can't be responsible for myself if I see too much of her.”

  Not that Madame wasn't a good bit of trouble. She delayed everything by checking all the girths herself, and instructing Cecily and Alison on the way a lady should be handed up into the saddle and having them repeat it several times, while everybody fumed. But at last we were mounted and ready, and we made a grand procession. A noisy one, too, for Hugo not only had the latest fashion in dress, he had the latest fashion in harness, and there were little silver bells mounted absolutely everywhere, on the bridle, the saddle, even the crupper on his dandified dapple-gray pacer. With every cheerful little “ring-a-ling” I could sense steam coming out of old Sir Hubert's ears, but he rode, firm and dignified, as the head of a family should, at the head of our caravan, his hounds beside him, and his son and heir behind him.

  Gilbert rode just behind the two of them, tall and graceful on the big bay gelding he'd brought back when we came from France, with little Peregrine in his pointed red hat mounted in front of him, clutching the gelding's black mane and exclaiming at every new sight. I just beside them, the picture of female frivolity on my little cream colored mare, with my lap dog tucked up behind the saddle in a big pannier. Hidden in the straw beneath Lion's cushion was the long, flat Saxon chest of unknowable antiquity, filled with the dust of ages, kindly supplied by the mix of fireplace ash and the dust of a big puffball broken up by Brother Malachi as a final “artistic touch.” Old as he was, Lion loved his cushion, and no one would dare approach the pannier without his barking a warning. Behind us came the girls, double mounted on a big sorrel gelding, and Madame, straight and dignified on a little black mare. Then came a train of baggage and drovers. Around us, before and behind, were the armed grooms from the manor, without whom no one respectable can hope to go safely, in this world of wickedness.

  As we passed by the tall, bright-painted houses and high-steepled churches of the city that I loved, and through Bishopsgate into the rolling, summer-scented countryside beyond the walls, all I could think was, the sooner we're done and away from Brokesford, the better. I'd reason enough not to be fond of the place, even then.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BROKESFORD MANOR LOOKED EXACTLY the same, if not worse. Memory had never bathed it in golden light, and time had not mellowed it. There it stood, looming above the village, a miserable tumbledown heap, behind walls left to decay and a moat rotten with sewage. It was horses that had stolen the roof slates and caused the stones to fall from the wall. It was horses that had stripped the walls of all but weaponry and souvenirs of dead animals, set the moths in the chests, and impoverished the village. War and horses, to be exact. Sir Hubert's attempt to breed the perfect English destrier and the fact that every so often those destriers, expensive and delicate as they were, demanding of grooms, feed, training, and arming, had to be taken abroad and slaughtered. True, there was compensation in theory, but it was often slow in coming. So for the sake of glory and his chief passion, the meadows of Brokesford supported nothing that could give him milk, hides, or wool. The fruits and grain of Brokesford went to market for the work of armorers and smiths, and his stables were better kept than his house.

  As we rode through the village, it looked as unprosperous and neglected as before. A few women with babies on their hips came to the door of their wattle and thatch cottages, and bobbed their heads in greeting. All the men and women who were able were at the haying, as we could see in the distance. The heat of August lay heavily on the land, and I could feel sweat running from beneath my headdress. Dogs and little boys ran beside us as we passed the church, where a handful of old men sunning themselves in the churchyard came out to bow humbly and ask the Lord of Brokesford if he had brought them a new priest.

  “Soon, soon,” he said, handing them a few quarter-farthings.“I'm to confer with the Bishop before Saint Austin's Day, and until then, my own confessor will come regularly on Sundays. You'll not be without consolations of the spirit.” As we took the last leg of the dusty road up to the manor gates, he said to Gilbert,“as if they were ever interested in consolation of the spirit before. But ever since Sir Roger fell into the pond, the moiety of them wish there were considerably more Christianity around here—fasts, flagellations, allnight vigils—the sort of thing you used to annoy me with—” I saw Gilbert's jaw tighten. He had always considered his father's attitude toward religion far too lax.

  “The moiety? And what about the rest?”

  “Oh, they worship the pond. Just as they always did.”

  “AND WHERE IS my loving lady? I expected her to greet me,” announced Hugo as he strode into the hall. The baggage had been put away and the drovers sent back with the mules, and Hugo paused in the center of his father's great hall, looking at the solar staircase in expectation. In summer the chickens don't live in the hall, but there were plenty of hounds lolling around on the filthy rushes. I would wear pattens in these rushes, if it would not be an insult, but instead I brought old shoes that I used in the garden. Good things are wasted in this house. The train of my Sunday dress I pin up so it does not touch the floor, but only let it down in the chapel, which usually stands so vacant that even the dogs forget to go and follow nature there.

  Up in the rafters above the hearth, hams and haunches of venison hang, to get the advantage of the smoke that usually rises up through the louvres day and night. Folk here think it a treat to reach down the leg of some long-dead animal, hard with salt and smoke, green and slimy within and without, and slice it up to eat with rare and elaborate ceremony. I do not eat dead things, which makes them think me odd, but the eyes of those pitiful creatures would appear to me in my dreams if I ate them, and I prefer not to have them on my conscience. Last time I was here, I caused a great argument about the nature of oysters, which was purely theoretical because there are no oysters here. I said if they were, I would not have them, because since they could open and close their shells there might be some hidden eyes that I might not know about, and Sir Hubert
said that Gilbert should beat such fancies out of me, and he said no, and there was a disagreement in which furniture was thrown. In other houses they play chess and hear music after supper, but these are not the style of Brokesford Manor. The main hearthfire in the center of the hall was out, and in deference to the heat they were cooking outside in the courtyard, where I heard the squalls of a pig being slaughtered in celebration of the lord's return. I felt my stomach turn, and for a brief moment wondered if they had eaten all the eggs that day.

  Not seeing Lady Petronilla, Hugo went and shouted up the solar stair for her. His voice echoed loudly, for the solar stair, being stone and built essentially like a tube or a rising cavern, carries sound well when the doors at the top and bottom of it are open. It is circular, built into the wall, with slots above it for raining down arrows and boiling oil on people whose presence is not desired upstairs. The doors at the foot and the head—heavy, studded oak—are marked with old scars from times gone by, when unwanted guests tried to hammer them down with battleaxes. I myself prefer a pleasant, hospitable home, airy and bright, with real glass windows, cozy wood paneling, and neat whitewashing. In short, exactly what I have, and do not ever wish to mortgage to save any portion of this grim, squalid estate.

  As I was seeing to the disposal of Lion's basket and Peregrine, who is too young to know the difference between clean and dirty, was fishing for bones in the rushes, Lady Petronilla's old nurse made an appearance at the foot of the stairs.

  “My lady sends her deepest apologies,” she said, dipping low before Sir Hugo. “She is in a delicate state, too weak to rise.” Behind me, I heard Madame sniff. I knew what she'd say: the lady of the house, no matter if half-dead, should rise to greet guests, and offerto bathe the feet of her husband and possibly any visiting knight with her own fair white hands. If three-quarters dead, she should send her pucelles. But of course, Brokesford had no pucelles. What family would send girls to be educated in a place where there was no great lady to instruct them? Brokesford had no pages, either, for the same reason. I always regarded Lady Petronilla as a woman who wanted her advantages, but never lived up to her responsibilities. And that is the kindest thing I can say, considering what she tried to do to me on my last visit.

  “Delicate?” said Hugo, a hopeful look in his eyes.

  “Delicate,” said Goody Wilmot, the hairs in her chin aquiver with hidden meaning.

  “Don't count your chickens before they're hatched,” growled the old lord. But Hugo, being the gullible sort, took exactly the meaning that was intended, and went bounding up the stair.

  “Where's Damien?” asked Cecily, looking about hopefully as Sir Hugo's squire, the ever-cynical Robert, came in from exercise at the quintain. He smiled a malicious smile. “Sir Damien has gone a-courting, the deceptive rogue,” he answered. “You will have to make do with me.”

  “Sir Damien?” I asked, hoping to avert the storm.

  “Sir, and most unfairly, too, if I do say so. The king asked for volunteers at the gates of Montrouge, for a mission of certain death, and offered instant knighthood in the bargain. Young Colart d'Ambréticourt, curiously enough, could not find his helmet and so declined the honor. I, regrettably, had misplaced my breastplate. Damien the ever-needy leapt at the chance. None returned but him, as Fortuna would have it, and he is now a hero, with the king's favor, a knighthood, and a tidy little property in the bargain. A disgusting turn of events, and entirely unjustified by his native qualities.”

  “He's got a knighthood, and he didn't come to get me on his white horse?” Cecily was bitter.

  “It's me he was coming for,” said Alison, and Cecily stamped on her foot.

  “What is the name of the lady?”

  “Rose, the second daughter of Sir Thomas de Montagu.”

  “I hate her,” said Alison.

  “Betrayed!” cried Cecily, “I will never love another! His cruelty has pierced my heart!”

  “I'm sure I'm much prettier,” said Alison.

  “He was supposed to wait,” said Cecily.

  “I'll grow up and fix him,” said Alison.

  “You will not,” I said. “You'll behave.” But both sisters had started to howl. Madame put her cool white hand on Alison's shoulder.

  “The usual course that a lady takes, when betrayed by her one true love, is to enter a nunnery,” she announced.

  “A nunnery?” said Alison. “My hair is too pretty to cut off.”

  “There's nothing left. I'll devote myself to prayer and contemplation,” announced Cecily. A strange, ironic little smile flitted across Madame's face.

  “So be it,”she said,“you must begin by humbling yourself. Possibly picking up your own things would be a start.”

  “I was thinking more of carrying alms to the poor.”

  “In you, Cécile, that would be pride,” said Madame, her face impassive. “But perhaps you can make a start on it, and help carry the baskets for the lord's almoner.” Somehow, the juxtaposition of Madame's idealized view of chivalry and the reality of this place had a certain charm. The visit was looking up.

  “The lord has no almoner here,” I said.

  “Well then, his chaplain, when he takes the tranchers to the poor after supper tonight.”

  “The chaplain is a drunk and a lay-about. The dogs eat the trenchers.”

  “That is hardly appropriate,” said Madame.

  “Rose, Rose, Rose, I hate her,” said Alison. And suddenly I feared that here in the country, with the infinite new possibilities for trouble that the place presented, and without the spur of adoration to keep them in order, Madame's bridle of fine manners and French might well fail the test. Lord, get us out of here before they do something truly horrible, I prayed silently.

  WHEN DAME PETRONILLA CAME DOWN, followed close at hand by her old nurse and the confessor she had brought from her father's house, it was for supper, and she looked very strange indeed. Though it was summer and she no widow, she was dressed in a heavy, furlined black surcoat over a kirtle of green so dark as to be almost black itself. The honey blonde hair beneath her veil was coiled tightly beside her ears in two silver mesh crespinettes. Though younger than I, she had the look of someone who had aged abnormally. Her face was puffy and yellowish white, with strange brownish stains, like very large, faded freckles. Her eyes glittered and darted about the room, catching on this one and that one, then fixing on me.

  “Why, Lady Margaret, where's your son?” she asked, her smile wide and eerie. There was something coming off her, like a scent or a feeling, that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

  “The children eat apart,” I said. How could the men in the room stand there, so unknowing, not feeling the strange thing I felt?

  “Quite right, quite right,” said Hugo, “my good lady is nervous in her condition.” The others went on talking about hunting, and things that happened in France.

  “And you, you have come to flaunt yourself with another pregnancy. I see everything now; I see the secrets people are hiding—” I could feel in her eyes some abnormal, sharpened perception. It was true; she could see what others usually ignore, or are blind to. I could tell, and it made my skin crawl.“—you are a crass little thing, you use your son to climb to favor. But I, I have a son, too. A son more highborn, the heir.” She smiled a secretive smile.

  “This time, we'll be more careful. Everything will be at your hand,” announced Hugo grandly. How could he not know something was wrong? But now her eye caught on Madame, steady and pale in her black gown, who was taking in everything. I looked at her, I saw her eyes, and knew that Madame felt what I felt, too.

  “You don't approve of me, do you? Who are you, woman in black, and why do you follow Margaret like a shadow?”

  “Dame Petronilla, allow me to present to you Dame Agathe, who dwells with our household.”

  “You will not sit at the dais.”

  “Madame is a lady born, and of our family, through distant connections.”

  “I'll not
have a black shadow near me, near me. She will steal the child from my womb. I know, I know, she takes from one and gives to another. That one is mine, mine that is gone, that you took,” she said, pointing to my belly where nothing, as yet, even showed.

  “Don't you dare touch me,” I said, standing to my full height and speaking firmly. Fearing me, she turned on Madame, so frail and pallid, who had to speak and act so carefully in a household where she was dependent.

  “You—it's you. Put her out, put her out, I say,” she shrieked suddenly, and flew at Madame with her hands like claws, to rake her with her nails. Gilbert and I caught her wrists, and as he touched her, she looked at him with an odd look, something like awe, and became quiet.

  “Come now, come now, my sweetest,” said her old nurse, who had been standing silently at her elbow.

  “Ha! This proves it!” cried Hugo, ever oblivious. “She really is in a delicate condition! Women like this are always a little unstable. Are there any little treats or rare fruits you crave?”

  “There's rare fruits I'd taste,” she said, looking sideways at Gilbert, and again, my skin crawled. “But I'll get them for myself,” she said, her eyes bright.

  “My dear one has been frail, since coming home from the Duke's court,” said the nurse.

  “Perhaps, Madame, it would be best if you rested again in your chamber, and had supper sent up,” said her confessor, Brother Paul, a wiry Austin friar, longtime in her family, whose back always seemed slightly bent in a permanent suppliant posture.

  “Sound like that's for the best,” boomed Sir Hubert, settling the matter. “Madame, you must look after yourself, for the sake of the heir.” Was it possible? I thought I saw a bulge beneath her heavy surcoat.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, looking up at Sir Hubert with a melting look. “That's true. I have more than one to think about,” and casting her glittering eyes about the room, she allowed herself to be led back upstairs to the chamber in the tower she shared with Hugo, their hounds, hawks, and body servants.