Margaret of Ashbury 03 - The Water Devil Read online

  “Perfect!” he said, “absolutely perfect! That's exactly the sort of thing they need to know, Margaret. They need it in their bones. Look at it this way—it's a protection for them. The world isn't like this house, Margaret. Wild women aren't tolerated. But a lady, who can't think like anything but a lady, will always be looked after.” I just stared at him. “Let's agree, Margaret. They can stay here, at least for a while more, if you can get that woman to teach them to be ladies. Iron-clad ladies, which is what they need to be.”

  “But—but we can't. Master Will saw her in the street, and asked if she would consider rejoining a household—ah—such as ours, for example—and she said the disgrace would kill her.”

  “And what was she doing in the street?”

  “Fainting.”

  “Of hunger? My opinion of her grows higher by the minute. Margaret, I know the type well.” He chuckled. “This will be a pleasure. I'll send two of those fellows who had dinner with us in full armor to her door—with a message that Sir Gilbert de Vilers, companion- in-arms to the great Duke of Lancaster and general all-around war hero, requests a parlay. Margaret, you just haven't lived in these circles long enough to know the advantage of a title—even a purchased one.” He stretched out in the chair, put his hands behind his dark, curly head, and grinned, his brown eyes glittering with mischief. My old Gregory, too clever and too troublemaking to fit quite properly anywhere—not in the university, the battlefield, the cloister, or the court. He'd still be ambling about the City, irritating people with satiric verse, if the wily Duke of Lancaster had not seen his virtues and trapped him in his net. To be made immortal by a poet of stature—it was an agreement that pleased them both.

  I watched him as he stretched out like a cat, wiggling his toes in his long leather-soled hose. There was still a lump on the shin of his bad leg, where it had not been set quite straight, though I nearly had it fixed. These days, he had taken to wearing the stained old padded leather gambeton that had once gone beneath his chain-mail around the house. It was his new disguise. Knight, returned from the battlefield. It impressed the neighbors. His eyes would spark with satiric malice when they deferred to him in public places. “Margaret,” he said, “I count it as a challenge to recapture Madame for you. One of considerably less difficulty than capturing the Sainte Ampoule.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT HAD RAINED ALL MORNING AND ALL OF the night before, but now as afternoon shaded into evening, damp mist blew between the old oaks. Rooks cawed in the wet green roof above the bubbling spring. The little rags were plastered with water to the tall rock. Hugh the swineherd, well aware that this was a day no mortal would choose to be about, had chosen the time to check his traps. They were quite illegal, but the temptation to poaching was great, and the fear of a wily fellow like himself being caught was small. Beneath the old hide he had wrapped about him to keep off the wet, he carried a sack with two of the lord's rabbits. Head down, and thoughts on supper, he slogged barefoot through the mud, paying no attention to the rushing sound of the roiling green water. It was not until he was nearly full upon her that he saw the figure of the water devil, all in black in the form of a woman, her face veiled, walking “sunward” around the pond.

  “Stay there, you have seen me, and now you cannot leave,” she said, her voice soft, but as powerful as steel. Hugh fell to his knees.

  “Pardon me, a sinner,” he cried, crossing himself. “Just let me go, and you can have the rabbits.”

  “Rabbits?” she said. “Why would I need rabbits? No, I want something more precious that you have.”

  “N-not my soul,” cried Hugh, in despair.

  “No, not your soul,” she said, and he felt her hand on him, cold as the green water itself. In the midst of his thrill of terror, he felt a thrill of something else.“You are a fine, sturdy fellow,” the succubus said. “Give me your seed.” He could feel the icy hands working on him until he didn't know whether he was in heaven or in hell. Gently, the succubus pushed him back into the mud and mounted him. Now he was frantic with desire. It was her powers, her supernatural powers that sucked away the seed from him as she writhed atop him, and he could hear his own moaning mingle with that of the succubus. As he convulsed in ecstasy, he never even saw the dagger come down again and again….

  Stripped from the waist down, covered with mud and blood, Hugh listened to the gurgle of the waters as darkness came and a full, white moon rose over the forest. Home, he must get home. His rabbits lay in the bag where they had fallen. Even dying, he was a thrifty soul, and pushed only one rabbit into the green water at the edge of the pond. There in the white moonlight he watched the furry carcass bob in the the shining waters until something, like an unseen hand, seemed to pull it below.

  He was never sure just how he had come back, or who had bandaged his wounds, but when the priest came to his bedside, he confessed everything but the rabbit.

  “Unearthly desire and ecstasy? All in black, you say, and without a face? Surely we are warned of such things. A succubus, without a doubt. Few have lived to tell the tale. What saved you is the cross you wear at your throat. She has taken your seed to make devils, have no doubt about it.”

  “Oh, Lord Jesus forgive me. I never wanted to add to the world's store of devils.”

  “Did you suffer temptation?”

  “It was beyond temptation. All entirely against my will. A powerful spell settled over me, so I could not move. You understand that, don't you Father? And yet—and yet, the pleasure was so great as to be indescribable.”

  “Pleasure? The penance will be heavy for that evil pleasure. Better you had never suffered any but pain. Give thanks to God that you were spared so that you might whiten your soul. You were closer to hellfire than you ever knew that night.”

  As Sir Roger sat in the little parsonage that night, he grew angrier and angrier. Rumors of diabolical pleasure, supernatural beings, succubuses hot with desire—matters were getting out of control. The pond thing would debauch the entire parish if something were not done, and soon.

  “MADAME, IN DEFERENCE to your rank, you would be seated below only myself and Lady de Vilers at table.” Gregory the impudent monk peered out of Sir Gilbert de Vilers's eyes to see how he was doing. He had not deferred or begged, but received her like a great lord giving an audience. Indeed, for extra effect, he had hung his coat of arms and several ferocious weapons of war on the wall opposite his crucifix, where they would be fixed in front of her eyes during the negotiations. The battle pennants and the balance of the weaponry he had hung up in the hall, along with assorted wolf pelts and animal heads that he felt had no place in the house of a civilized man.

  “She'll need to understand there's been a change around here,” he addressed the shade of old Master Kendall, as he had stepped back to admire the cacaphonic effect his decorations made when mingled with the cultivated old merchant's elegant Italian tapestries. “You know why it has to be. Margaret always seems to require these eccentric indulgences, doesn't she?”

  In fact, the shade of Master Kendall was very far away, but Gilbert always felt it necessary to address him whenever he made changes in the house. The office, so far, had required the longest apology. It was a quiet place now; there were no apprentices scurrying in and out, no Hansa merchants negotiating a price for Russian sables or Italian velvet, no ship captains demanding payment or crates of luxury goods piled in the corners. Chests of books and papers lined the walls, untidy piles of manuscript lay heaped atop them and on the octagonal writing desk, with its little reading stand perched at the center. The shrewd old merchant had had an eye for a bargain; first he had found Margaret, beautiful and untutored, in the street, laying hands upon the sick, and made her his own. Then, when his life was near its end, he had, in a way, found Gilbert, too, so that his well-beloved treasure would not be abandoned to greedy hands.

  Gilbert had propped open the door of the office so he could see into the hall when the old lady made her entrance. He was not disappointed. Escor
ted by the steward, she caught sight of the pennants, stiffened, and then walked cooly by as if she had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. She's definitely the one, Gilbert said to himself. With satisfaction, he noted her composure as she entered, tall and straight, in her neatly brushed black widow's gown. Slyly, he checked the edges of her sleeves, the elbows, the places where well worn wool goes threadbare and doesn't look as dark as the good part. Yes, she's done it, he thought, pleased with himself for spotting it. She's colored in the spots with ink. Just right. Beneath her freshly starched headdress, her iron gray hair showed only in that tiny spot before the ears. Her pallid, proud face, as white as the wimple beneath her chin, showed no emotion whatsoever as she gave her dignified greeting. Excellent, thought Gilbert. Deferential without being obsequious. An elegant balance that the girls would do well to master.

  Now things were going excellently. She had made a ritual refusal of his offer three times, and each time he had offered an added incentive. Now, he produced the one thing he knew from Margaret mattered most to her, her place at the table. Her face remained impassive. A faint smile almost appeared on her pale lips, but vanished before the mind could finish sending the order to the mouth.

  “It is a task of almost impossible difficulty,” she said. “Of which no one is aware more than I. They are almost beyond the reach of civilization. They should have been sent away at the age of seven, as I was, but as you recall, there was at the time great turmoil in this house. The critical task of forming their character has been neglected.”

  “In whose household did you serve, Sieur de Vilers?”

  “In that of the Duke of Lancaster, Madame de Hauvill, as both page and esquire. But as you may have observed yourself, the way of the younger son is not easy.” Now's the time to get round that promise, thought Gilbert.

  “The younger son?” asked Madame, raising an eyebrow politely. Excellent, she's coming around, he thought.

  “The de Vilers name, as you are doubtless well aware, dates to the Conqueror, and was distinguished long before that time. Ours is the cadet branch. The family estate is in Hertfordshire.”And what's left of it is so deeply in debt from this last expedition I'd be surprised if Hugo ever sees half of it, Gilbert thought to himself.

  “My husband's lands were in Lincolnshire,” said the widow. She, also, did not mention how microscopic these holdings were, or tell how they were entailed on a cousin, who had promptly thrown her out.

  “An excellent place. I have cousins in Lincolnshire.”

  “Cousins?”

  As carefully as two diplomats averting a war, they jockeyed for position with ever more obscure family connections until at last they found that they were related through the godfather of a fourth cousin twice removed. Gilbert the scholar had known all along that this was most likely the probability, since the number of families of good blood in the island kingdom was small enough that all were related in some way, especially if you counted godparents as true relatives, the way the church did. This was the final trick he had counted on to catch Madame and restore order to his family.

  “If I had only known,” said Madame, placing one hand on the bosom of her gown and breathing deeply.

  “I know you must understand my cares,” said Gilbert in that tone that walks on the fine edge between hypocrisy and sincerity.

  “Yes, a burden. They must never disgrace you.”

  “I would consider it an inestimable blessing if you might give your gracious consent.”

  “Sir Gilbert, I am honored,” said Madame, inclining ever so slightly from her seat in the second best chair.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SIR HUBERT DE VILERS HAD A TERRIBLE toothache. Shouting at his steward, his grooms, and his useless Frenchified son Hugo had failed to relieve it. “Where's the toothache wine Margaret left here in the chest in the solar?” he growled, himself rummaging around in the chest of remedies.“What's this garbage in here, little dried up things in bandages, and this box of powder? Ugh, it stinks! I don't remember that it was here when I left.”

  “Lady Petronilla's headache remedy,” said her old nurse, who was watching Sir Hubert's rummaging with alarm. Lady Petronilla was hovering by the chest, too, shocked by his unexpected demand to see its contents.

  “That was toothache wine?” said Lady Petronilla, who had drunk it under the impression that it was a “female cordial.”

  “The best going. Full of verbena, she said, and a lot of other nasty weeds that I don't remember. Worked every time. What are these needles doing in the bottom of the chest? I go away, and Brokesford gets all changed around. Well, I want it changed back.”

  “My lord, I can compound you a remedy for toothache,” said the old woman.

  “You? I wouldn't take a dog remedy from you. Stick to spinning and whispering in my daughter-in-law's ear. William! WILLiam! Get me Goody Ann, the wise woman. She'll manage something. Well, what are you hovering about me for? Go, you useless women! Go!”

  “Goody Ann passed into the next world during your absence,” said Petronilla, her face icy as she passed by him. I don't like the looks of her, thought Sir Hubert as he watched her vanish through the solar door. Losing a baby usually makes a woman more distraught, more human. She looks less human than ever.

  “Oh, there you are William. Whatever happened to Goody Ann? She knew all about teeth, even if she didn't have a one left herself. I always thought she'd live to be as old as Methuselah.”

  “My lord, she had an accident. She was growing more and more unsteady, and she tripped and fell downstairs in the dark.”

  “What stairs? There's not a stair worth falling over in the village.”

  “Our stairs. The night your grandson, Sir Hugo's heir, was lost. She had come to assist in the delivery. She missed her footing on the way out.”

  “Damned inconsiderate of her. I need her now. What am I going to do about my tooth?”

  “Big Wat could pull it.”

  “That carpenter? That butcher? When he pulled the miller's wife's tooth, he broke her jaw. No, I'll send for John of Duxbury. Now don't tell me he's fallen downstairs, too.”

  “No, I hear that he prospers. He married the hayward's daughter from Little Hatford and quit traveling. He has enough custom where he is, and she doesn't like him roaming.” Pity, thought Sir Hubert. John's itinerant business of tooth-pulling and bleeding had brought him regularly to Brokesford once a season for Sir Hubert's quarterly bleeding.

  “I don't want to wait. You go there, he comes here, it's twice as long. Go have two horses saddled. Hugo! HUGO, you useless numbskull! Ride with me to Hertford, I'm going to have this damned tooth out.” Sir Hubert had just remembered there was a former laundress of his there, in the shadow of the cathedral, that he had set up as a brewster. A jolly old girl, and she even brewed well, too. He had decided the best course of action was to service all his needs at once. “Hugo! Hurry up! I've decided to stay over. Fetch my sword!” He thought for a moment of Bet the ex-laundress. She had managed to produce both a boy and a girl, each a square- jawed, boisterous copy of himself. Pity Petronilla couldn't do as well. Maybe next time around. At least she wasn't barren. He'd thought perhaps she was, and was pondering methods of having her put away when the letter about the tragic miscarriage had come to Hugo abroad. He'd had a brief spasm of pity for her then, and arranged to have her sent where company would cheer her. Shouldn't have wasted pity on a creature like that, he mused. As cold as an icicle. Must be the blood. Too narrowly bred, that family. All cousins. “Hugo! There you are. What kept you? Oiling your hair and dousing yourself in perfume? An Englishman ought to SMELL like a MAN! The next thing you know, you'll be BATHING!”

  THE WARM SPRING BREEZE was rustling in the pear blossoms above the stone bench in the garden. High brick walls shut out the sounds of the city beyond. Hundreds of bees were at work among the flowers, and the scented canopy above the bench hummed as if it were alive. But soft spring and trees throbbing with life did not affect Madame Agathe, the knight's
widow charged with making Cecily and Alison Kendall into ladies, whether it suited them or not. She sat as stiff as a poker on the hard bench, her basket of threads and mending beside her, her needle flashing in and out of a pallid linen shift spread across her lap. There was a sudden flash of black and white feathers among the branches.

  “Oh, look, there's the wicked pie!” exclaimed Alison, pointing to the tree with a pudgy finger. Still round-faced at seven and a half, she was above the average height and nearly as tall now as her older sister. The neat braids of her silky red-gold hair, tied at the end with rose-colored ribbons, hung nearly to her waist, or what might have been a waist on another child. Her pretty sky-blue tunic almost brushed the top of her soleless leather slippers. All around her, a litter of shattered, split stemmed daisies from a failed garland gave mute testimony to an ambition that outreached the abilities of her round little fingers.

  “Pas en Anglais,” said Madame, never looking up from her sewing. Beside her on the bench, a gleaming silver button lay among the reels of thread in the basket. Hidden beneath the sewing things, all neatly wrapped up, were lumps of rock sugar, the most expensive and infallible bribe in Madame's armory of improvement techniques. Alison eyed the basket hopefully.

  “What's ‘pie’ in French?” she demanded of her sister in that language.

  “It's ‘pie,’ same as with us, silly,” answered Cecily, superior in her two additional years, her grander French, and the expertly woven crown of daisies that lay atop her flaming, unruly red curls. Fierce combing and tight braiding had failed to subdue that hair, which remained as rebellious as its owner. Her ribbons, snatched up in a fit of fury that morning, did not match; her green wool gown, its hem twice turned down, still failed to cover the bony ankles of her knobby, growing legs. Skinny and intense, Cecily spent her days being blown by gusts of passion; a lost ribbon, a moth hole, a sad song, a short answer, a new puppy, or a stranger's smile sent her flying to the heights and the depths at least fifty times a day and set the entire household into fits. That is, the entire household except for Madame.