Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  Jenevive gave a small, bitter laugh. “Funny. I honestly don’t remember his name. It was summer Solstice. Remember that Adelard musician who played that ugly horn made of mammoth tusk?” As Tabitha and the others absorbed that, Jenevive laughed at herself again. “And what’s extra funny is that I saw him the next day down in the kitchen, and he was kissing a boy. Cook’s nephew, Scoe.”

  Pamela gasped, and Tabitha stared, but Beatris did not seem surprised. Jenevive made a noise of disgust. “Do you still wonder why I never told you? I felt so stupid. You all would have laughed at me.”

  “We would not have laughed at you,” Beatris said consolingly. Then she suddenly sat up straight. “Alain! Everyone says he was with a woman, but what if he was with a man?”

  “Scoe?” Pamela gasped again.

  “It fits,” Beatris declared, but then lowered her voice and leaned forward in her chair. “Someone shoved him so hard against the ceiling beam that it killed him. A woman might not be able to do that, but a man could.”

  “Scoe could not,” Jenevive said. “Not that skinny little rat.”

  “Someone else, then. It makes so much more sense, that a man did it instead of a woman.”

  Jenevive paused, then said, “I suppose you could be right.”

  Pamela’s mouth still hung open. “Are you saying Alain was …”

  Beatris nodded. “It’s possible.”

  Tabitha had to hold her mouth tightly shut, because if she had not, she would have started laughing. No, Beatris, it’s not.

  “But he—Marjorie—but—” Pamela simply could not wrap her mind around the idea. She was so naïve.

  “I think the men need to be questioned too,” Beatris said firmly. She looked over her shoulder at Mistress Cortille across the room, then scowled and turned to Tabitha. “When your father comes back, we should ask him to consider it.”

  “Yes.” Yes. This was better. She did not like the thought of ruining Alain’s reputation, but it would turn everyone’s attention away from Marjorie. Tabitha had pinned her puppy’s death on Big Nille, who was as big as a man. This time, she would pin it on an actual man, and that lie would save Marjorie.

  Unless people remembered the puppy, who had died like Alain had died, slammed against a wall. Her wall.

  No. Even if people remembered, they would not suspect Tabitha. There was no reason to suspect Tabitha.

  “Tabitha?”

  All of them were looking expectantly at her, and she realized that she had lost their words. Calm and still. Calm and still. She shook her head slowly. “Forgive me. I was—I was thinking about what you said. It’s very hard for me to believe that Alain was that way.”

  Beatris nodded sympathetically. “Do you want me to be the one to ask your father about this? If it’s too … too awkward for you?”

  Awkward. It was such an understatement. “No, I will do it.”

  Another long wait tormented Tabitha, more so when Pamela repeated the same speculations over and over. Tabitha wanted to snap at her to stop, and since it was normal behavior for her to do that, she finally did. Pamela looked hurt, but even Beatris had had enough of the chatter, and she also asked Pamela to stop, though much more kindly. Jenevive did not seem to notice any of it, staring blankly at the floor with her own thoughts. Tabitha wondered if she was hiding a secret too.

  At long last, Mistress Sabine appeared in the doorway. Her gown and her cap and veil were as neat and orderly as always, but she was gripping a handkerchief and her voice was only barely steady. “Please come back upstairs now, girls.”

  Father said I could talk to Marjorie. He promised. Tabitha and Beatris nearly ran into each other in their haste to lead the way, but then Beatris dropped back, and they all quickly climbed the stairs, with Mistress Cortille trailing behind. The two guardsmen and their dogs were now standing in front of Mistress Sabine’s closed door, and Tabitha’s father was just outside the open door to the girls’ chambers. Tabitha hurried to him. “Can I talk to Marjorie now?”

  Her father looked solemn, which was how he always looked when he addressed his foster daughters, but there was something else in his silver eyes that only Tabitha could read. He was confused. He gestured to the room beyond and did not speak until everyone was inside and the door was shut.

  “This will be hard for you all to hear.” He did not react to Pamela’s small gasp or Tabitha’s sudden freezing in dread. “I believe Lady Marjorie killed Sir Alain. She will be confined in Mistress Sabine’s chamber until I can have a place prepared, a secure place that is fit for a lady.”

  “Your Grace,” Beatris said before Tabitha or anyone else could answer this horror.

  But the duke held up his hand. “There is more you should know.”

  “Father,” Tabitha broke in before he could continue. “We were wondering if you had had all the men questioned as well. Sir Alain may have been …” She trailed off and looked away, because suddenly it really was too awkward to say this to her father.

  Mistress Sabine opened her mouth in shock, but Tabitha’s father just shook his head. “We have no reason to suspect that Sir Alain was a deviant. But we have a very compelling reason to suspect Lady Marjorie murdered him.”

  “What reason?” But she knew. The robe. They found the robe in the middens.

  “The guardsmen searched these chambers and the privy. In the middens they found a robe with blood on the sleeve. Mistress Sabine told us it was Lady Marjorie’s. We showed it to Lady Marjorie, and she did not deny that it was hers.”

  No one spoke for what felt to Tabitha like a very long time. Calm and still. Calm and still. She swallowed hard. Her heart was pounding again, and sweat was erupting down her back. It’s normal to be shocked. It’s normal to be speechless.

  “Your Grace,” Beatris said, and now her voice was shaking. “Did Lady Marjorie admit to killing Sir Alain?”

  “No. She denies it. She had no explanation for the blood on the robe, or for why it was down in the middens.”

  Beatris seemed to take heart from this. “She did not do it, your Grace. If she says she did not, then she did not. She is not a liar.”

  Tabitha’s father shook his head. “I wish I could believe that, Lady Beatris. The guardsmen also found an empty wine bottle under Lady Marjorie’s bed. It speaks ill of her character.”

  Then Jenevive said, “I did it.”

  Everyone snapped their heads around to stare at her. Tabitha felt like she was falling deeper and deeper into a well, drowning in her horrible deceit. At that moment the only thing she could think was whether or not she should let Jenevive do this. Help Jenevive do this.

  “Jenevive,” Beatris whispered. “No.”

  Jenevive lifted her ruddy face and stood up straight, but she did not quite meet the duke’s gaze as she spoke. “It was me. I liked Sir Alain. I told him I would meet him. I wore Marjorie’s robe because it’s pretty. And I stole the wine from the cellar.”

  Beatris stepped to Jenevive and seized her hand. “No! Don’t do this. You—”

  Jenevive jerked free so hard that Beatris fell into astonished silence. “I got drunk. He tried to force me. I pushed him away and he hit his head. I came back here. I did not say anything because I knew no one would believe that he tried to force me.”

  Tabitha’s father had recovered his grave expression, and his voice was no different from before as he asked, “Lady Jenevive, how did you get past the guard dog in the foyer?”

  Jenevive hesitated for the barest moment. “The dog was asleep. Both the dog and the guardsman were asleep.”

  The duke shook his head. “The dogs never sleep on duty.”

  “The dog was asleep,” Jenevive repeated stubbornly, then added, “Your Grace.”

  “If you had said that the dog simply did not bark, I might have believed you.”

  “I am not lying, your Grace.”

  “How far did Sir Alain get, my lady?”

  Jenevive’s eyes finally met his in confusion. “How far?”

&nb
sp; “You say he tried to force you, and you pushed him away. But from what I saw up there, he did not simply try to be with a woman. I will not describe the details, so you must trust me when I say that it was obvious he succeeded.”

  He saw it. He saw Alain lying naked on the floor where I left him. Don’t blush! Don’t blush! Calm and still! Calm and still!

  They all looked at Jenevive. She did not budge. “I did it,” she said stubbornly.

  Beatris turned to Tabitha’s father. “Your Grace, she told us all yesterday that she never wants to get married. I think she wants you to send her to a cloister.”

  “I hate you,” Jenevive hissed between her teeth.

  The duke looked at Jenevive again. “You may not want to insist on your guilt,” he said. “A cloister is not necessarily Lady Marjorie’s fate.”

  Oh, God, he is going to execute Marjorie!

  “Your Grace,” Beatris interjected again, and when the duke looked at her, she swallowed. “Your Grace, I know you may not … may not appreciate this suggestion. But would it be possible to ask a magus to talk to Marjorie?”

  Tabitha held her breath, but she should have known better than to think her father would lose his temper or composure no matter how sensitive the subject. “Lord Daniel and Lord Maisenblere suggested this as well, Lady Beatris, and offered to go to the basilica to ask for a magus from the Lord Archpriest’s staff. But despite what you may have heard, magi are by no means infallible. People can and do lie to them all the time. Their inflated reputations give them more power than their magic does.”

  Beatris bowed her head. “Yes, your Grace.”

  The duke waited, but no one else said anything. He looked at Tabitha and gestured toward the door. “Tabitha, a word?”

  “Yes, Father.” She calmly preceded him out to the corridor as he took his leave of the others. When he closed the door behind him and turned to her, she immediately begged, “Please say you would not.”

  “Would not?”

  She swallowed. “Execute Marjorie.”

  He looked at her hard. “Tabitha, do you know anything more than you have already told?”

  “No!”

  “No detail is too small. Even if it does not seem important, tell me.”

  It was her only chance to cast suspicion on someone besides Marjorie. A small detail. The robe. “The robe,” she whispered.

  “What about it?”

  “Mistress Sabine was admiring it. She said she wished she had one.” This was not quite a lie. Mistress Sabine had agreed with all of them, when Marjorie had showed it to them, that it was beautiful and that Marjorie was lucky to have it.

  Apparently this detail was too small, because her father asked, “Do you have any other reason to think that Mistress Sabine could have done this?”

  Tabitha shook her head, but then on an inspiration said, “Just the way she looked at him.” Again, this was not quite a lie. All women’s gazes had followed Sir Alain.

  Her father shook his head in irritation. “Nothing, then.” He snorted in frustration, and when he spoke again, his voice held the confusion she had seen in his eyes earlier. “I can’t understand how I misjudged that one so badly,” he murmured. Then he looked at her. “Tabitha. From everything you know of Lady Marjorie, do you think she is capable of killing someone?”

  “No,” she insisted.

  “Don’t just react. Think about it. Think hard. There is darkness in every heart. What have you seen in hers?”

  Tabitha shook her head. “I don’t have to think about it. I have only seen kindness in her.” The darkness is in mine.

  Her father heaved a sigh. Then he nodded at the door to Mistress Sabine’s chamber. “Go in. I really, really hope she will talk to you.”

  She nodded, turned away from him, and went quickly to Mistress Sabine’s door. She had lied to him. She could hardly believe that she had looked her father in the eyes and lied to him. Oh, God. Her back itched so badly.

  When Sister Raula opened the door to the guardsman’s knock, the chamber beyond was very dim. “My father says I can speak to her,” Tabitha told the wrinkled woman, who just nodded and stepped aside to let Tabitha in. When she made no move to leave, Tabitha stared at her until she got the message. She closed the door behind her, cutting off the light from the corridor. A key turned in the lock.

  Tabitha looked around. “Marjorie?”

  She could see the bed, and the chair beside the rectangle of dim light that was the curtained window, but the shadows were deep. She had to walk around the bed before she saw the shape of her friend sitting on the floor, curled into herself, her face pressed to the side of the bedstead. Even when Tabitha sat on the bed and repeated Marjorie’s name, the girl did not move or speak.

  Tabitha found herself a little irritated. If I did not know better, I would think she was guilty. “Marjorie,” she said firmly, “I know you did not do it. None of us think you did it. All you have to do is tell Sister Raula why you are—” She stumbled on saying it so plainly. “Why you are not a virgin. Or why she thinks you are not. Everyone knows that a girl who rides horses can tear her maidenhead. Did you ride horses back home? It could have happened then.” She was talking too much, too fast. Her cheeks felt hot. Calm and still. Calm and still. But normal.

  Marjorie made no sound. From the other side of the bed, Mistress Sabine’s little clock ticked. Tabitha thought about touching Marjorie’s shoulder, but that seemed more like something Beatris or Pamela would do, not herself. “Please,” she said softly. “Talk to me, Marjorie. I can’t help you unless you do.” Yes, that was something she, Tabitha, would say in this situation. She would want to help, to intervene with her father on behalf of her best friend.

  “Please,” she said again to break the silence. “Marjorie, did someone seduce you? Or ... did ... did someone force you?”

  Even this brought no reaction. Tabitha’s hands were clutched tight in her lap as her mind raced. What should I do? What should I say? She has to tell me! Father will execute her!

  “Marjorie.” She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. “My father thinks you did it. He might execute you. If you don’t tell me who you were with, then he is going to keep thinking you were with Alain. And I know you were not.”

  Marjorie did not move, did not speak, did not help. Tabitha held back the urge to shout at her. Calm and still. Calm and still. Marjorie was hiding something horrible, or at least horribly embarrassing. Tabitha had to coax it out of her gently. How?

  She tried. She told Marjorie what Jenevive had said about kissing the musician, and what Beatris had said about not laughing at her. She repeated Beatris’s words about how important it was to tell the rest of them if one of them ever got raped. She asked the same question a hundred different ways. She spoke softly, and then she spoke firmly. She filled the silence with words, and then let it stretch out between them unbroken for what felt like hours at a time. She resisted the urge to shout, and twice she had to resist the urge to slap Marjorie’s face.

  The second time, she actually lifted her arm before she stopped herself, and Marjorie flinched. Tabitha was so surprised at the reaction that she dropped her arm and stared for a moment before saying, “Marjorie?”

  At last, at last, Marjorie stirred. She lifted her head and looked at Tabitha. It was so dim that Tabitha could only see the shadows cast over Marjorie’s eyes and part of her cheek. What had happened to her? Why would she not tell Tabitha about it?

  “It’s going to be all right,” Tabitha promised. “Just tell me what happened.”

  For a moment she saw Marjorie’s blue eyes as they widened, and then Marjorie turned away. Her shoulders twitched and she made a low, gasping sound. Tabitha waited for what seemed like a very long time, but Marjorie remained a silent huddled shape between the bed and the floor.

  There was a knock at the door. Tabitha suddenly wanted to get out of the chamber, away from this pathetic, wilted flower who had once been her friend. Whatever terrible thing had happened
, if Marjorie would not help herself, then ... then ...

  Then I have to help her. I have to beg Father not to execute her.

  And if begging did not work, then she would have to tell the truth.

  The knock repeated, and Tabitha called, “Come in.”

  When the door opened, Sister Raula was right there between the two guardsmen, her old eyes intent. “My lady? Did she tell you anything?”

  “Nothing.” Tabitha walked past her and back across the landing to the black-clad figure of her father, who was still in front of the door to the sitting room. Sister Raula started to follow her, but the duke gestured for her to go back inside Mistress Sabine’s chamber.

  “You were in there for a while,” he observed when Tabitha reached him.

  “I tried, Father. I tried so hard! She never said a word. Not one word. But something terrible happened to her.”

  “Something terrible happened to Sir Alain,” her father growled.

  “She did not do it! She was not with him! She did not kill him!”

  “How do you know?”

  Tabitha stared at him, eye to eye, all her sins rising with the flush that heated her face. The duke waited, his expression unchanging, but Tabitha could not make a sound.

  I know because I did it. I let him bed me. I let him bleed to death.

  “So you don’t know,” her father concluded, having somehow missed everything. Somehow it seemed incredible that her father had not seen her guilt, heard her thoughts. “You are a loyal friend, Tabitha. It speaks well of you.” He started to turn away.

  Tabitha grabbed his sleeve. “Please don’t execute her,” she whispered. “Please.”

  His eyes were sympathetic as he patted her arm. “I have not made any decisions yet.” He nodded toward the sitting room door. “Go back inside now.”

  Be a good girl. “Yes, Father.”

  He left. She stood there and listened to his footsteps on the stairs.

  The sitting room door opened, and Mistress Cortille came out. She was frowning, and only nodded to Tabitha as she went by, but Tabitha ignored the affront. Inside, she saw Pamela sitting on her cot and crying, and Mistress Sabine holding her around the shoulders and making low shushing noises like she was soothing a baby. Jenevive was huddled on her own cot, ignoring Beatris’s attempts to talk to her. Beatris looked at Tabitha and asked, “How is she?”