I clapped my hand to my mouth to hold back my scream.
The whole mountain—aye, all of it—my friends and servants, the knights, hacked, chopped to bits.
And my family?
I began my awful search. John Leggy, Father Michael, old Robert and young Arthur in loose embrace, all, all.
All but my mother and father.
When I was sure, I entered the castle.
I gazed in disbelief at the animal hall where the bloody pulps of pointer pups lay mixed with brilliant parrot feathers. At least the parrots weren’t there. Could they survive naked in these northern forests? Our poor old mastiff Courage, his toothless gums bared in a feckless effort to guard our home.
Slowly, in a trance, I walked up the steps.
No one in my chamber.
I paused. Not a sound.
I stood in the arched doorway of my mothers chamber and gazed inside. The first thing I saw was her torn ruby tunic lying in a heap on the floor.
Her beautiful white body lay almost as I’d last seen it and I thought for a moment that she slept. Then I saw the deep gash across her throat where the murderer had drawn his sword, not deep enough to sever but deep enough to kill. And her legs splayed obscenely.
And her skin, scratched and imprinted by the mail of the incubus-knight, plain as a signature that she’d died in Maisry’s manner. Still, she might have been alive except for her eyes, bluer in death than in life but the rays no longer leading inward, for the soul was departed. I reeled and pitched forward.
The chamber faded into oblivion.
I woke, hours or days later, I didn’t know.
My mother?
I may have screamed though I heard naught. I wanted to die. To die and be with my mother. How could I live without my mother? Mother!
I huddled into the wall and prayed for God to take me and I cared not how so long as it was soon. Every moment in this wretched world was now torture. Then I heard footsteps and my heart leaped—my prayer was about to be answered!
“God help us!” Dame Margery filled the archway. “Catherine!”
Then she saw me. “Alix? So it was ye! Deo gratias! He’s waiting—in such pain.”
I looked at her dully was folded into her bony arms.
“Your father is under the moat. We heard ye cross.”
I came back from a long distance. “My father?”
“Hurry he’s in a very bad way.”
My father alive? I could hardly believe it.
“Wait.”
I pulled the stopper from the Virgin’s vial to shake out the milk, but the bottle was empty. Quickly I squeezed a few drops of my mother’s blood into the vial, took a lock of her hair. ’Twas all I would ever have of my mother.
“I’m ready.”
Dame Margery made the sign of the cross and we left.
Speaking brokenly and with many omissions, the dame tried to tell me what had transpired after Maisry and I were discovered to be missing. Both she and my mother had guessed early where Maisry and I had gone and Dame Margery had been sent to fetch us home. She’d met that same company of monks I had seen, but they’d stopped her and asked courteously if they could find succor at the castle. She’d assured them that Lady Catherine was ever a devout lady. Later she’d heard the bell, and unlike me, had understood it as a call for help. Immediately she’d turned back and had seen my father with his small band approaching the castle. By the time she’d arrived, the battle was raging. It was then that she’d deduced how the Scots had made their entrance. The Scots? I asked in disbelief. Aye, they’d worn the monks’ robes, then discarded them inside for Scottish war dress, thus taking our unarmed knights unaware. Dame Margery had hidden under the moat and been able to pull my father to the bank when he’d fallen into the water, mortally wounded.
When we reached the far side of the moat-bridge, she pointed down a steep embankment where a shallow earth-lip extended into the ditch.
“There.” But she held my arm tight so I couldn’t yet move, then asked the dreaded question. “Where’s Maisry Lady Alix? With my mother in Dunsmere?”
Horrified, I looked up into her blinking red eyes. “I—I—” and I swore I’d never tell her the worst. “She’s dead. Killed by one of the knights,” I sobbed. “I’m so sorry, so sorry …”
She weaved unsteadily. “Not Maisry. Why?…”
“She’s dead,” I repeated. “I saw him kill her—I don’t know why.”
But I did: because she wouldn’t tell him where I was.
The dame fell awkwardly to the ground, then threw her apron over her head and huddled in a shaking heap. I patted her and tried to embrace her again, but she waved me toward the moat.
I slipped down the rocky embankment to a narrow ledge by the water where my father lay like a pile of discarded armor, his legs extended into the water. He heard me coming and turned his head. For a short moment we gazed at each other: I saw his left hand kneading his stomach, the trickle of red between his fingers. He lifted his right hand in horror and pointed to my stained tunic.
“You’re not …” he gasped.
“No, no, I’m all right, Father. ’Tis someone else’s blood,” I said hastily and knelt beside him. “Can you walk?”
His breathing was labored but his eyes were clear. “I’m dying, Alix. I waited for you.”
I couldn’t bear his words and started to deny them heatedly, but his eyes stopped me.
“Don’t waste time,” he said with difficulty. “I must instruct you … try to raise …”
“Aye! Don’t talk.”
I slipped behind him and tugged on his torso, using my body as counterweight. He moved but cried out with pain, and I stopped. I slipped his shield under his head which gave him some relief. But the blood from his wound had now increased, pooling the moat water red.
He waved me closer, and whispered, “List to me well, Alix.”
“Yes, Father.”
“We were … sacked by Osbert, Lord of Northumberland. Northumberland.”
Surely he was in a delirium.
“Northumberland? Osbert? Our liege lord?”
His lips made a bitter line.
“And your suitor. He … wants … Wanthwaite.”
I was horrified. I recalled a sour-breathed, croaking warrior, the dreadful things my mother had told me.
His eyes twitched impatiently and I realized that we hadn’t time to discuss my feelings.
“He and his foster son, Roland de Roncechaux …”
I waited.
“… want to make Northumberland a palatinate, their own kingdom.”
I didn’t understand palatinate.
“Want our land,” he said.
“Did Northumberland lead the Scots then?”
“No, Roland … brigand knight … beast.”
The knight at the fair with N on his shield. Roland de Roncechaux. Aye, it must be. And he killed Maisry my mother. I tried not to weep before my father.
“And you knew that they were going to attack?”
He turned his eyes to mine. “Too late.”
I pressed his hand.
“But you can still … go to King Henry …” and his whisper became so low that I could barely hear it. Yet he went on and on, remembering every detail.
“Repeat,” he ordered.
I tried. King Henry was our friend and the only lord great enough to o’errule Northumberland, would give me a royal writ … would assign me to a good husband … send an army back with me if need be. There was a law in England against the sacking of castles and Northumberland would be punished, only … only …
“Don’t go to the Assize Court,” my father completed.
“Not to the Assize Court. But why?” I’d forgotten already.
“Osbert of Northumberland is the judge.”
But I hardly heard him. All I could think of was that crimson flow from his wound.
“… as a boy.”
“What?”
“Go as a boy. Crucial
… life depends on it. Boy, Alix …”
“Aye, Father, I will. Dress, name, everything.”
“Find … companion. Never alone. Look … fier. And boy.
They’ll ride Scots to border … back soon. Hurry … boy.”
“I’m to go as a boy.” He seemed obsessed by my disguise. “Or I might be abducted.”
“Or worse.”
Maisry my mother. Aye, I would go as a boy.
“And tell no one but the king who you are. Don’t be beguiled …”
“No one but the king,” I assured him.
Now he seemed to have difficulty with his thoughts as well as his words. His brow twisted with effort and he tried to lick his dry lips. I cupped my hand and dipped for moat water; he drank and the liquid spilled red down his chin.
“Even as a boy … not safe alone. Always … on road … travel with a companion. Seek a strong man, armed … feed you, help you …” he repeated himself.
“Aye, Father, I can do it. Only, please, rest now, you’re wasting your strength.”
He was still struggling to remember everything. “Take my commendation … King Henry …”
“Don’t, I understand. Take the commendation for capturing the Scottish king to prove who I am.”
His eyes approved. “And your grandfather …”
“Who fought with King Henry against the Scots. I’ll remember, I promise.”
“Sharp wench.” He tried to smile. “Fortunately they don’t know you escaped, won’t be looking for you. Otherwise you’d have no chance … would be dead by sundown.”
I couldn’t tell him that I’d been seen. Let him die in peace.
Red spittle bubbled in the corner of his mouth. Quickly I wiped it away, but it came back, more and darker in hue. I stroked his sticky hair. He looked at me with glazed eyes.
“Kate?”
Did he think I was my mother? No, and I must answer, the biggest lie I’d ever told.
“An arrow struck her while she was at prayer. She felt no pain.”
I was vindicated for my falsehood by his relief.
“Go to the king, Tickle-Bones. Kate and I cannot enter Heaven till you return … wait in Purgatory.”
“I’ll be back,” I vowed, letting my tears come now, for I knew he could no longer see.
“Only then can we go to Heaven. Kiss me …”
I did, in our secret way, forehead … by the time I reached his lips he was dead.
NO TIME.
I took my vial, combined a drop of his blood with my mother’s, a lock of his hair, took his engraved sword to bury.
But I kept his dagger for myself.
“Dame Margery! Help me!”
She half-slid, half-tumbled down the bank.
“They’re coming back. Hurry, slide him into the water.”
He didn’t slide easily. I sloshed into the stagnant moat, ooze to my hips, and tugged his legs till he was submerged. We made the sign of the Cross and pulled each other back to the bridge above.
I looked into the park—no one yet.
“I have to find food! Hurry!” We ran across the bridge to the kitchen.
We were both weeping but it didn’t matter. “I mun lead ye to Dere Street close on Hadrian’s Wall,” Margery said shrilly. “He told me as I must. Will ye eat turnips, My Lady?”
“Anything! Hurry!”
We both made bundles of our skirts, threw in bread, meat, onions, beans, everything mixed.
“Let’s go, dearie,” the dame said.
“No, not yet.” I thought I heard a voice from above, mayhap in my own head, but ’twas my mother nonetheless. “I’ll be right back, Margery.”
And I ran away before she could protest, past the smoldering bodies, over the privet hedge, past the leek garden, the pot-herbs, the medicinal plants—where I neatly swooped up a handful of hemlock—past the hawthorn into the orchard. ’Twas like a dream, the blossoms still falling, my mother’s voice still echoing from only yesterday.
“Mother?” I said in a wavery thick voice. “Mother?”
The blossoms swirled in an updraft and I saw her form bending and swaying.
“Mother!” I ran to her but she was far ahead and I kept running in and out of the trees, sobbing. Then I saw her direction: ’twas toward our fruit cellar, and it came to me what she wanted. The deep fuchsia cherry tree shivered by the path as memory flooded back.
“Yes!” I panted, “I understand.”
Soon the treasure was up and I reached inside the box, grateful that I’d had to weigh and feel the coins for their value. I took silver livres, then fished for the gold coins from Byzantium and found twenty, tossed in a few deniers and marcs for immediate expenses. I carefully replaced the box.
“Don’t leave yet,” my mother ordered. “Put your father’s sword with the silver and bury it with my vial and blood when you return.”
“Yes, yes I will.”
I pressed the wall to the right as I’d been instructed and a door swung open. Quickly I thrust my father’s sword into the small room with our other silver objects and pushed the stone façade back in place.
“Will you talk to me again?” I asked the empty air, but there was no answer.
I retraced my steps toward the hall where I took the scroll, then to the kitchen. As I passed the hellish pile, my father’s whisper now entered my brain: “Go as a boy…. Tell no one your true identity until you reach the king.”
Holding my breath, I circled the human butchery to find someone near to my size. My fathers young messenger Arthur was closest and his clothes appeared unharmed. Gulping back nausea, I began slowly to disrobe his stiff cold body. With my arms near full, I still must find weapons: I settled on a hunting bow and arrows carried by our archer, Gerald, for those with my father’s dagger were all I could handle. I loaded Arthur’s hat with my coins, threw his fur over my shoulder and walked awkwardly back to the kitchen.
Dame Margery stood in the yard, quivering with fear for she thought I’d been caught at last.
“There’s some of them Scots hid in the cheese room to trap us,” she wept. “I heard them scuffling around.”
“Lance!” I cried, wondering how I could have forgotten. “Deo juvante, he’s alive!”
The wolf leaped again and again to mouth my face in his great jaws, saying in his way that he understood the horror as well as I did.
“Hush!” Dame Margery clutched my shoulder. “Listen!”
In the distance we heard men laughing and shouting.
“They’ll catch us sure!” Dame Margery’s gaunt face showed every bone, and tears ran.
“The labyrinth!” I cried. “Maisry and I used to hide there!”
We ran awkwardly to the horse stalls, counted three from the door, knocked aside a stack of bales and pushed together with all our might. Behind us the laughter grew louder. Hooves on the bridge!
And the ancient door swung open. For an instant we saw the outline of a stone-hewn tunnel big enough for a horse, then pushed the door back and stood in darkness.
“I dropped our food,” Dame Margery whispered.
“Then we must gather it. They can’t hear us now.”
We groped on the passage floor, now more aware of a close sound: rats. Lance growled and snapped at the vermin as we began to feel our way along the walls. ’Twas a long downward passage, a half mile or more of descent, hot and airless, straight into Hell. Then a cool breeze hit and we heard water running.
“We’re at a cave by the river,” I whispered, Maisry’s and my secret chapel.
More and more knights at the ford, splashing back and forth, shouting out in thick drunken voices. Lance growled—I clenched his muzzle.
Then Dame Margery and I settled ourselves close against a wall for a long grim night.
THE COMING OF DAWN UNNERVED ME. THE FIRST DAY that my mother and father were not alive and I could not bear it. I began to tremble violently and my breath failed so I choked, waking Dame Margery from her groggy sleep. With face still
puffed from constant tears, she comforted me like a babe, crooning and stroking me.
We then began our careful preparation for my escape. Arthur’s clothes were too big for me but would do. First I slipped on his leggings made of coarse linen and none too clean and tied them at my waist with the braiel which was studded with metal disks. Dame Margery suggested we should slit the crotch so I could relieve myself with ease. Next I drew the socks of itchy dark green wool over my legs and tied them firmly by bands above my knees. His yellow linen shirt hung like a tent and the green tunic fell almost to my ankles. Dame Margery had her sewing bag at her waist and hemmed the tunic so it reached just below my knees, then punched the leather belt to fasten over it.
Finally she tore Peg’s bloodstained brown dress into neat strips and stuffed some of them in the toes of the huge yellow boots. Others she stitched inside the yellow felt hat so it sat firm. The hardest part was cutting my hair, for it seemed so final. The braids came off to just below my ears and Margery hacked a fringe across my forehead so I could see. Without the weight, my hair curled against my head and the dame said the effect was not too bad.
I then had her construct a harness of the strips to wear as a money belt between my legs. She made individual divisions so that the coins wouldn’t slide to one place to jingle and make an uncomfortable lump; I added my precious tiny vial, red ribbon and scroll to the treasure and we flattened the whole against my buttocks and inner thighs. She then devised a small bundle to carry at my leather belt with a few deniers and food; there were still strips left over to pack in my drafsack for emergencies.
Over and over our activities came to a breathless standstill when we heard lewd shouts and rioting from the castle. We clutched each other in terrified embrace and waited for the shouts to cease. Once a knight scared us most senseless when he appeared through the mist on the far side of the river, but he was stopped from crossing by the weir.
By late afternoon we were ready. I was dressed, had my dagger in my belt, my bundle on the other side, my bow and arrows slung on one shoulder, and a fur pelisse fastened on the other for warmth and sleeping. I’d been sorely tempted in my choice of fur to take my father’s fine vair, but ’twas wiser to stay with Arthur’s humble goatskin I now wore. Dame Margery said I looked like any common boy on the road, albeit a little small to be on my own.
Alix of Wanthwaite 01 - Shield of Three Lions Page 4
