Midwinter Nightingale

by Joan Aiken

“Oh, yes. I have heard something about it; he has to do something with the archbishop.” Simon wondered what could be unchancy about that.

  “Ay. But,” said the king, “we don't want His Reverence carfuffling aboot the hoose like a loose cannon until the final moment comes, do we noo?”

  “No, I see that,” said Simon. “He's a nice old gentleman, but he'd have precious little to do here. But is there not some farmer who would put him up, or some inn?”

  “Dear boy, there's nae farm or village closer than Birk Hill. And that's thirty miles if it is a yard. And anither thing: Folk would get wind of my being in these parts if the auld Reverence was dandering to and fro ilka tuthree days.”

  “Nobody knows that you are here?”

  “Nary a soul!” said the king triumphantly. “Save yer-self and Madam, and Father Sam and Tammas Lee, who took the message to ye, and he's silent and trustable as a lockit door.”

  Simon left that unanswered. He had already decided not to distress His Majesty by telling him that, after delivering his message, the trustworthy Tammas had fallen, drunk and incapable, between the wheels of two carriages in Westminster Palace yard and received injuries from which he had not recovered. Simon had been informed of the accident and had been at the man's deathbed. Tammas had opened his eyes and gasped, “I didna tell! They made me drunk—I that never touched a drappie in my life, not in all my days—but I didna tell! Say that to His Grace the duke….”

  “Don't worry …the duke knows.”

  “They twa camstery callants—tell the duke of Battersea—”

  “The duke knows,” Simon repeated, but Tammas had already shut his eyes and gone elsewhere.

  Now, after a moment's thought, Simon said, “Sire— Cousin Richard—why would Sir Angus McGrind and Sir Fosby Killick be wandering in these parts?”

  This news flung King Richard into a great agitation. “Saints save us! Ye saw that ill-visaged pair in these wet woodlands? Ye did not tell them that I was here?”

  “Would I be such a fool? They were asking about big houses in the neighborhood; I told them there were none closer than High Edge. They took me for a shepherd and Father Sam had already told them the same tale.”

  “Ay, Father Sam's as staunch as a stone pillar.”

  “But why? What would have given them the notion to come seeking you in this direction? For I think that was what they were doing.”

  “Ill chance it was,” said the king. “I mind the occasion well. Once at the Court of Saint James's, we were a' daffing about our latter ends—Sir Angus was there— and I was sic a fule as to say that I would like fine to meet my end in a holding in the Wet country, where I had passed happy hours long ago as a young laddie with my cousins. The cunning knave must have recalled my words.”

  “Who else was there?”

  “I canna recall. It is a hard thing,” said the king crossly, “if a puir devil of a king canna find himself a decent, quiet deathbed wi'out a wheen skellums sprattling to be at his bedside when the call comes. Tis plain self-advancement brings Sir Angus—much he cares for my comfort—and there's ithers wi' darker ploys, Baron Magnus and yon harridan the duchess of Burgundy, fine they'd like to get their mittens on Alfred's torque.”

  He stopped suddenly, and a troubled, lost look came over his face.

  The old lady, who had left the room after admitting Simon, now reappeared with a steaming posset in a silver mug, which she placed on a small table by the king.

  “Now, now, Richart, that's enough; that's quite enough!” she scolded him. “The laddie is weary with travel, and hungry too, I'll be bound; and you must not work yourself into a fret, indeed you must not…. Drink this posset now and take it easy for a while's while. Let the young man rest and return again when you have rested also. …”

  She laid hold of Simon's arm with a surprisingly strong hand. He, taking the hint, rose to his feet, saying, “I'll come back in an hour or two, sir, when you have had a nap; and when I come I will have the group portrait roughed out for you.”

  “Ay, do so,” said King Richard contentedly. “I'll be blythe to see what you have accomplished.”

  Downstairs the old lady—she was known simply as Madam by the aged retainers who took care of the house, but she was in fact Lady Titania Plantagenet, the king's great-aunt, sister of King Henry IX—led Simon into a warm and spacious kitchen, where he was given a 'welcome meal.

  “Will you not take something, ma'am?” Simon inquired as she sat opposite him at the long farmhouse table.

  “Nay, my boy, we elder ones need little to keep us going…. But tell me about the flock of sheep. Where and how did you come by them?” Simon told the history of the sheep and she nodded.

  “I would fancy,” she said, after some moments' thought, “that those sheep were intended as food for the Burgundian army”

  “Ma'am,” said Simon, utterly astonished, “what can you mean?”

  “I have it on excellent authority,” said Madam, “that the Burgundians are planning an imminent invasion of this island. Their wine crop has failed, it is said, due to colder winters, and moreover, they are being harassed by the Euskara from the south; they have already invaded Normandy I am told. Everybody seems to be moving north.”

  “But this is dreadful news, Princess—”

  “Oh, do call me Aunt Titania. You are my great-nephew too, I daresay if you are one of the Batterseas.”

  Simon was deep in thought. “Does Cousin Richard know of this?”

  “No, he does not,” said Madam firmly. “And above all things, I would not wish him to know. Let his last days be untroubled ones.”

  “They are really his last?”

  “Yes. Only a few days left. And they are already shadowed by several concerns, which I hope he will divulge to you as you paint his portrait.”

  “Any way that I can help him, my lady—Aunt Titania—you know that I will be glad—will do my very best—to help make his end a peaceful one. Are you quite sure about the Burgundians?”

  “I have it from a reliable source that they plan to land at Marshport.”

  “Marshport. Yes, that was where the sheep were to be sent.” Simon was dying to ask who or what was the old lady's reliable source. But there was a steely quality about her that discouraged close approaches, however well intentioned.

  “Ma'am—Aunt Titania—His Majesty seemed concerned about Baron Magnus and the duchess of Burgundy.”

  “Ay, and well he might be. My sources tell me that Baron Magnus, having been released from the Tower, has gone directly to Fogrum Hall, where his misbehaved, ill-conditioned son had been sent as a pupil. As ye may mind.”

  “Yes, I certainly remember Lothar!” said Simon with emphasis. “When Cousin Richard first married the Lady Adelaide and her young son used to be about the Court of Saint James's, I remember that he was in trouble or making trouble from one day's end to the next. He was a terrible boy”

  “He was that! Until the king would have no more of him, and Lady Adelaide converted her own childhood home into a school and had Lothar dispatched there, to the great relief of all at Court. But now the boy has bought up the place with his evil father's money, and I've nae doubt turned the school into a nest of conspirators. I have heard—from my sources—that the duchess of Burgundy plans to go there.”

  “And that is bad news?”

  “She is one of Richard's bitterest enemies. Not only did she once hope to marry him herself—much chance the ill-visaged cateran ever had—but she claims that she herself has a right to the throne by her descent from my brother Henry, which is nothing but bare-faced impudence, for her great-great-great-grandmother, Polly Stone, was naught but a milkmaid and one of Henry's passing fancies— What was I saying?”

  “That Fogrum Hall is full of the king's enemies.” “Ay. That it is. And you, my boy, must paint his portrait and rid his mind of its cares and ease him to his latter end before they discover his whereabouts and come rampaging here to cut up his peace.”

  conscious
again, she thought at first that she was back in the ship, because everything seemed to be swaying about so. But then, as she began to gather her wits together, she realized that the regular sound she could hear was the clip-clop of horses' hooves.

  That's rum, she thought. I'm in a carriage, but how did I get here? It ain't Podge's curricle, for I'd feel the wind a-blowing, and I don't. Whose rig is it, and who stowed me here?

  The next thing she discovered, when she tried to put this question to somebody, was that her mouth was stuffed full of cloth, with a bandage tied over it; and when, indignantly, she tried to remove the bandage, she found that her hands were tightly bound with rope. In fact, thought Dido crossly, I've been scrobbled like a simple, green ninny. Now, who can have done that? And where the plague are they taking me?

  Since nobody was at hand prepared to give her this information, Dido very sensibly decided that she might as well go back to sleep. It was dark and the carriage blinds were down, so there was nothing to be learned from looking out the windows. But before sleeping she went on a mental quest, rummaging in her memory for any recent event that might have some connection with this abduction.

  First I was on the ship coming in to dock in the Port of London. Then I was whistled off the ship by a cove in a boat. Then I was picked up by Podge Greenaway in his curricle and taken to collogue with old Reverence Archbishop Whitgift with his plate of cucumber sandwiches. Aha! Now we're coming to the wishbone! His old Nibs wanted me to tell him—croopus, that's it—he was a-telling me that they've lost the king, poor old King Dick—yes—and Simon was missing too, and the king's office coves wanted to ask me if I'd any notion where the pair of them might be….

  That's it! The coves who have pinched me likely want to ask the same question! But they sure are barking up the wrong cuppa, for I don't know the answer. So they can put that in their hubble-bubble and smoke it. But, thought Dido, itd do no harm to lead em on a mite, maybe, and let on that maybe I do know, but I ain't telling; that way might give Simon and His Poor Old Majesty a mite of breathing time.

  The very last thing that passed through Dido's mind came in the form of a vague dreamy question: Did Simon once tell me something …that King Dick had once said to him …about a place in a hidden corner of a dark, tangled wood with a lake where a whole bunch of nightingales sang …his favorite place? From way back when he was a boy?

  Then she was asleep.

  The next time Dido woke, it was because she had been roused by a considerable clatteration of horse hooves, whinnies, and a chorus of dogs barking and raucous male voices. The carriage was at a standstill, but started suddenly again with a jerk. Changing horses at a post house, thought Dido, but, blimey, where can we be going? Half across England by the feel; we've been hours on the road. And I ain't half hungry!

  No one came to give her any food, however, and the new horses—they must be prime stampers; someone's rich, thought Dido—went rattling on at a breakneck pace for what seemed hour after hour. Despite her bound hands, Dido managed, after dozens of failed attempts, to shove up one of the window blinds and to arrange herself on the seat with her legs tucked under her—thank the mickey they didn't tie my ankles too, she congratulated herself—so that she was able to see out as they bowled along.

  However, the view of the landscape outside gave her no clue as to where they were going. London-born, Dido had traveled outside the city very little, apart from a couple of trips to Sussex; the forested, hilly countryside beyond the carriage window might have been France, Greece or Scotland for all she knew. Not a live soul in it for miles, she thought with a shiver; who'd want to live in such a nook-shotten wilderness? Give me Battersea any day!

  The thought of Greece or France reminded her of what the old archbishop had said about the Burgundians being about to invade; the duchess of Burgundy was an enemy of the poor old king, he had said, and so was somebody else, Baron Magnus Thing. It don't do to be king, Dido thought. You gets enemies like rats have fleas; no, I wouldn't want that job for all the tea in China.

  A change in the horses' pace attracted her notice; she looked out and saw that the carriage was turning off the highway, was passing between two massive stone gateposts with carved griffins on top of them. The griffins were in shocking repair, with grass and ivy growing out of their jaws; and a great rusted pair of gates dangling between the pillars had not been pushed to, probably, for half a century. Beyond the gates ran a wide avenue between two rows of forest trees, some of which had fallen and lain in their places until they were grown over with brambles. Whoever owns this place is mighty chintzy when it comes to upkeep, thought Dido, glimpsing a vast mansion ahead; its pale stone front was three times the width of the avenue, but the stone was lichenous and moss-covered, most of the windows were dark and the steps that approached the double front doors were stained and crumbling.

  Dusk was falling but she saw a weedy moat under a stone bridge. One or two of the windows on the ground floor showed dim lights in them. At least there's folk in the house, thought Dido, and if they want me to sing for them like a canary, let's hope they'll come across with a bite of summat hot; I'd fancy a meat pie now, or a bowl of that chowder they make so tasty in Nantucket….

  The carriage drew up at the foot of the broken steps. The doors opened and two men in dark clothes came out of the house. A few words were exchanged with the driver; then the carriage door was flung wide, and without a word to Dido, the two men grabbed her by the feet and shoulders, swung her up the steps and in at the house door, then carried her like a sack for some considerable distance along a stone-paved passageway.

  Dido had passed the last two hours of the journey in mincing and munching the bit of cloth in her mouth and gnawing the bandage that held it in place; now she spat it out and demanded: “Where are you a-taking me? What place is this? And when does I get a bit of prog?”

  “You keep a still tongue in your head,” said one of the men, and swung her so hard that she bumped painfully against the stone floor. “You tell Their Excellencies what they want to know. Then perhaps you'll get summat to eat. Not before!”

  The passage here took a sharp turn to the right and the men carried her what seemed like another quarter-mile along it. Then she was pitched through an open door and fell in a heap on a damp brick floor. The door slammed and she heard a key turn in the lock.

  “Oh, consarn it!” said Dido angrily. She felt really hard done by.

  She had come back to England after a well-earned holiday visit to old friends in Nantucket, anticipating, or at least hoping for, an affectionate greeting from her friends Simon and Sophie Battersea and some sort of 'welcome from her sisters Penny and Is. She certainly had not expected to be kidnapped, deprived of food for twelve hours and flung into a cold damp prison.

  “Pigs!” she muttered. Then, because Dido would never let herself be overborne, even by the most dismally unpromising circumstances, she struggled to her feet and looked about her.

  There was nothing much to look at.

  It was just not dark indoors. Out the window she could see a huge courtyard, paved with gravel, enclosed by the four wings of the house, which must be as big as a palace. Surprisingly, the yard contained two football pitches, with goals. No one was playing football. Two or three windows had lights in them. Most were dark.

  Is this place a prison? Dido wondered. It sure isn't anybody's happy home.

  Turning to inspect the small room into which she had been thrown, Dido received a shock. There was very little furniture—a table, a chair, and a box. Under the table something moved. A dog? A cat? A person?

  Dido was reluctant to feel under the table with her bound hands; she did not want them bitten as well as bound. Instead she shoved the table, which was quite small, with her hip, to expose whatever was lurking underneath.

  A pitiful voice said, “Oh …don't hurt me! Please!”

  Astonished, Dido said, “Who the pize are you? Are you human?”

  There was a long silence while the voice ref
lected. Then it said, “Once I was.”

  “What do you mean?” Dido demanded. “What is this place?”

  “It's a school. Fogrum Hall. Or,” the voice said doubtfully, “it was a school. I dunno quite what it is now.”

  “Who runs it?”

  The voice seemed doubtful about this too. After another long pause—“It was Dr. Pentecost. But he left after Lot burned his book.”

  “Lot? Who's that?” The name Lot seemed faintly familiar.

  “Lot Rudh. His mum was Queen Adelaide.”

  “Oh, that feller, I know. But his dad wasn't the king— was he?”

  “No. Hush, though! You better not speak about him too loud.”

  “Why?”

  “He owns this place now.”

  “Lot Rudh does? But he's only a boy. He can't own a school.”

  “He does. His dad came out of prison and bought it for him.”

  “His dad?”

  “Baron Magnus Rudh. Don't speak so loud!” the voice breathed.

  “Oh, croopus,” said Dido. Again she remembered the archbishop saying, “… another most evil person, unfriend to our king …”

  “How could a person come out of prison and buy a school?”

  “He owned a gold mine in Midsylvania. Hush!”

  “Blimey.”

  If the baron owned a gold mine, thought Dido, why was he put in prison? Better not ask about that, perhaps. Instead she said, “What's your name?”

  “They call me the Woodlouse.”

  “Why? Who call you that?”

  “Lot started it. Because I curl up in a ball when he hits me.”

  “He hits you? Why?”

  “See, I'm his servant. In the school, big boys had smaller boys for their servants. Lot has me. And when he doesn't like the way I make his toast or polish his boots, he hits me. Very hard sometimes. Once he slammed the door on my fingers. On purpose. Once he burned my face with a red-hot toasting fork. You can see the marks.”

  “Why didn't you tell the boss? Doc Pentecost?”

  “Then I'd only get it worse from Lot. Much worse.”