The Prince of Poison

by Pamela Kaufman

  The Scots gave me the fattest cuts of pork, fresh salmon, and honey cakes, while they ate beans with pork fat or turnips with the same. They informed me that the crops were good this summer, that we had plenty of pigs and sheep to carry us through the winter months, just as if I were their mistress. Gruoth tended my needs; most important, she informed me that my two leopard bags—the one with coins, the other with jewels—were hidden under my bed, though she hadn’t opened them. I asked her about Theo’s document, but she didn’t know—she couldn’t read.

  When it chilled at nights, someone put a furry beast—Wolfbane—into my bed to keep me warm. Indeed, he did keep me warm, as most any beast is warmer than a human, but I also think he kept me alive. That dumb animal loved me—you would think I kept him alive. Perhaps I did, for he was a skeleton when he came and soon developed thicker fur and fat. He snuggled on top of me, licked my face, groaned in the dark, rested under the cover and back on top of me all through the night. Aye, he knew nought of God or Jesus, but he was my spiritual support e’en so. He loved me when I needed love.

  Then I began to gain a little from the rich food, especially from suet cakes that were prepared for the Nativity. When I rose one winter day, I found my tunic snug. I covered myself with an old fur cope belonging to my mother.

  I was a little unsteady on the stairs, but stood upright as I walked through the Great Hall. The Scots gaped at me in astonishment; Gruoth rushed to my side, but I pushed her off. Outside, I stopped a moment to adjust to the wind’s bite. My eyes watered, my chest hurt when I breathed, and my feet soon lost all feeling. Nevertheless, I bent against snow flurries and pushed forward, across the moat, through the spinney, and down the park.

  I fell heavily. The snow deepened around me as I struggled to stand; I finally was upright again. However, when I passed under a flailing ash, I broke a stick for support. Down and down I slid, toward the ice-covered river where my father and mother lay at rest. I knelt beside their graves to pray. When I’d finished, I edged sideways to a level spot where I would dig a grave for Theo. Over and over I punctured the frozen ground. My stick broke.

  “Try this.” Enoch lay his thwittle on my shoulder.

  I struck the turf with his dagger—the blade splintered. I covered my face with my mittens; hot tears mixed with tiny ice shards. What a failure I was: I hadn’t been able to save Theo’s life, and now I couldn’t even dig his grave.

  Enoch knelt beside me. “Cum back to the Hall quhar it’s warm, Alix. Ye shouldna be out here on yer ferst day outa bed.”

  Theo’s soul rose in a snow swirl; he smiled, shook his pale ringlets.

  Find my mother and father in heaven! I ordered him silently. They were murdered as well—they’ll help you!

  “Lat me halp ye oop. It cums a blaw.”

  I’d forgotten about Enoch—what was he doing here?

  I liked the cracking ice on whipping black branches, the upward draft of snow.

  His hands pulled me to my feet.

  “I must—Theo!”

  “War that his nam?”

  “Aye.”

  His voice was sympathetic. “Ye be totty, Alix, creepin’ oot of yer bed in swich a storm. Theo will wait.”

  Faceless Theo would wait. His mortal coil was in a prisoners’ grave. Had he been alive when they ate him? Can you live without a face?

  I faced Enoch with his frosted beard. “I had a baby by Richard, Enoch.”

  “I knaw.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Cum.”

  “I killed him. I knew that the king was after him and I should have killed the king first, you see.”

  “Aye, I see. Cum, befar ye freeze.”

  Enoch’s hands held me upright as we fought our way up the park, slipping, falling, grunting with my weight. Drifts held the Great Hall’s door closed. At Enoch’s shouts, Scots pushed it open from the inside. Gruoth ran to me. When had she become pregnant? I’d had a baby, Theo, one baby to last me forever. She thrust a methier of hot mead into my hands.

  “’Tis her ferst time oot o’ her bed,” Enoch announced to the company, who already knew it. The Scots had been tactful all these months when I was catatonic on my pallet, especially Gruoth. Even Enoch, insofar as he’d left me alone.

  He may have given me Wolfbane, though; aye, I thought he had.

  The mead went to my head. When I tried to walk, I stumbled.

  “Lat me halp ye, Alix.” Enoch placed a firm arm around me and led me up the steps.

  I was not so drunkalew that I didn’t wonder at his kindness, especially after I’d told him the truth. Aye, on the road as well—he must have surmised that something was amiss about the jewels long before we went to Runnymede, for I thought the last time he’d mentioned them had been in Wales. Something—Enoch was not stupid.

  I welcomed the familiar cold and dark of my room. I fell across my bed.

  “Waesucks!” Enoch, on his hands and knees, scooped handfuls of snow from under my window. When he’d finished, he placed a fur pelt across the opening, which billowed and flapped. Now the room was darker than before.

  “Where’s my wolf?”

  “Aye, I’ll bring him to ye.”

  By the time he returned with Wolfbane, I was already alseep. He put Wolfbane in my bed nonetheless.

  It was late March before I realized that I was pregnant—aye, very pregnant! How could this be? An immaculate conception? Was that what John had said? Or no, Mistress Eglantine and the sisters who’d thought I was a saint whispered maybe. Was Theo returning to me? Tears ran down my cheeks.

  Deorling! Someone had called me Deorling.

  Deus juva me!

  I stared at Wolfbane, lying under my covers. His tilted golden eyes stared back. The wolf knew the truth! I played for three heartbeats with the notion that the wolf had turned into a man in the dark, that he was a wolf-man, then pulled back the fur cover.

  “Let me see!”

  I lifted one of my own pale hairs from my mat, brushed short wolf hairs into a pile, then found one red curl. I moaned aloud.

  Enoch, it must be Enoch.

  And I’d thought he was my wolf—why hadn’t my real wolf protected me? Had Enoch enchanted him somehow? I’d heard oft of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but never a Scot in wolf’s clothing!

  Wait until I told Lady Fiona.

  And yet—that was the least of it—I was going to have a baby. Enoch’s baby. How could I have been so stupid? Grief was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Now, think! What else? I pressed my brow—Lady Fiona, Lady Fiona—she’d been here—she already knew—aye, I recalled her face bending over me. Was it a scheme? What scheme? Was she barren? Were she and Enoch plotting to use my body for their own purposes?

  My head pounded. Benedicite, what had ailed me? I’d been in a melancholy disposition . . . I moaned aloud. Of all the terrible things that had befallen me, my kidnapping, King Richard’s lies, Theo, this was the worst! I would murther that heinous Scot, aye, without so much as a Hail Mary for forgiveness! The varlet deserved to die!

  Yet, again, what was his purpose? His kindness these last few months now took on a sinister cast—but what? He wanted Wanthwaite and he wanted Lady Fiona—how did this help him? I couldn’t fathom his purpose. At least I had no illusions about his welcoming me with open arms—however belatedly—nor did I think he was a necrophiliac on top of being a bigamist! But why?

  He would tell me before this day ended! Before he ended. I reached under the bed for my dagger.

  Sitting alone in the Great Hall, Enoch watched me tread very carefully down the steps.

  I pulled a bench opposite him.

  “Hu de ye feel?”

  What a question! “Why do you ask?”

  Gruoth entered at that moment with a mug of hot spiced wine; Enoch waited until she’d retired to the kitchen.

  “Wal, ye been oot in the cald several times nu—do ye ha’e quinsy?” His lips were very red, his eyes very blue.

  “No, milord. Your baby’s safe.
”

  His face turned scarlet. He pretended confusion. “Babby? My babby? I doona knaw . . .”

  “That you raped me? That houghmagandy makes babies? Except in one instance, of course: perhaps the Holy Spirit entered my body as He did the Holy Virgin’s!”

  “Ye’re no virgin, haly or otherwise! Boot raped!” His astonishment quickly turned to anger. “Ich raped ye? Ich coudna rape ye yif I wanted to—ye be my wif!”

  “Yet you did, milord, I know not how many times! I was in melancholy disposition and didn’t . . .”

  “Ye war in a swoon!”

  “But not completely totty, so much the worse for you! I recall that Lady Fiona came into my room. Aye, well you may blush!”

  His fingers rapped on the table. “Very weil, I made ye wi’ child. Ond ye’re richt, Fiona knawed all aboot it ond quhy.”

  “Ah, a reason! Not pleasure, but some scheme—what scheme?”

  “I’ll tall ye aft ye calm doon!”

  “Does Lady Fiona realize how this complicates our annulment? Do you?”

  Enoch had always been difficult for me to read: when pushed, he played the Scottish buffoon or pretended outrage; the ardent lover was a new role at this time, though I remembered . . . Now he became the hard lord of the manor.

  “Quhat’s between me ond the lady be our business, not yours. Boot she knaws aboot our houghmagandy and quhy.”

  “Since I was the victim, I demand to know why as well!”

  “Later.” He rose.

  “Enoch, I’ll not play games. This is serious. You deliberately made carnal love to a sick woman not your wife. My fantastick cell founders—what could be your reason?”

  “Hu fer along be ye?”

  “I’m not certain. Perhaps five months. Why? Do you want to eat your bairn’s face?”

  He paled. I thought he would strike me! Then he suddenly became the outraged victim!

  “Yer wolf bit me oncit!”

  “But not on your terse! Pity!”

  “I ha’e to ride south today,” he informed me coldly, “boot I’ll be back wi’in ten days. We’ll talk then.”

  “I take it that I’ll have to learn to sleep alone while you’re gone. Or will one of your knights service me—I’m insatiable, as you often point out.”

  “Ye ha’e Wolfbane.” He walked to my bench. “Alix, bath Fiona ond I be happy that ye’re wi’ child.”

  I slapped him before he finished. What a travesty!

  While Enoch was away, I rode into Dunsmere to consult with Father William, a young priest I didn’t know. I told him my situation as well as I knew it myself and found him as baffled as I was. Enoch was right about the canon law permitting him to refuse to take me back, and he could even kill me within the law. On the other hand, since he’d made carnal love to me, the situation had altered. Holy Church was most particular in protecting children, especially the present pope, Innocent III; Father William doubted if any annulment would be granted that would make the child a bastard. On the other hand—he began to sweat—the situation was strange in the first place since King Richard had stolen me on false pretenses from my husband. That was surely a sin and might be illegal as well; yet kings might be above the law, or perhaps they were the law, he wasn’t sure even about the canon law. My best option was to consult the ecclesiastical court at Durham; if I couldn’t ride north in such weather and in my condition, the court would visit Dunsmere this spring.

  He could tell me nothing about the moot court, of course, except that he doubted if it existed.

  There was no possibility of my riding north, for we were truly in a late blizzard. At the very height of the storm, Enoch returned. Thorketil managed to save his feet from frostbite by soaking them in hot water, but an ugly sword wound on his shoulder began to fester.

  “I thought summer was the fighting season,” I greeted him. “Or did you get this in Scotland?”

  “Ich got it in the south, fightin’ yer king.”

  We stared at one another, both of us thinking of Theo.

  As his wife—though the term was shaky—I bathed his wound. With my hot poultices filled with agrimon and aloe, with a neat cut to drain corruption, the wound healed. The day Enoch climbed slowly to his room in the tower—the room I’d occupied as a child—he signaled that we would have our talk.

  I went to my own room to prepare. By now, everyone knew I was gravid. Edwina, who was about my size and had had three children, had lent me her laying-in tunics with their cunning side panels. I thought for a wretched moment of my tight red tunic and nun’s habit.

  “Ach, ’tis the happiest news there be fer a woman!” Edwina assured me.

  There was little I could do to prepare for the interview. I dabbed lily water on my wrists and temples, straightened my braids, then rapped. When there was no answer, I opened the door cautiously.

  Enoch sat upright on his bed, leaning against the wall; his eyes were closed. Across his lap lay Theo’s document!

  His grave, I thought, overjoyed, I’ll put it in his grave.

  When I reached for it, Enoch’s eyes opened.

  “Sae ye see it.”

  “It’s mine, Enoch. My only tangible proof that Theo ever lived.”

  “Be that the anely reason ye kept it? It says here that Theo—Richard’s son—war to be king. Did ye plan as he shuld be king?”

  “At first, yes.” My old hurt and hardness came back. “King John and his mother thought otherwise.” Yet I was confused. “I gave up such dreams long ago, Enoch, but it’s proof that Theo lived, that King Richard was his father!”

  “Ond that Theo war his heir!”

  “Yes.” Enoch sounded like King John.

  “Do ye plan to claim the thrane fer him?”

  The wound must have affected his fantastick cell. “Of course not; I just told you . . .”

  “Ye tald me in the snaw that ye planned to kill King John.”

  “Aye, as retribution.” I lost voice. “I should have done it before . . .”

  “Ich doona belave ye, Alix. Ye brought the document ond the babe hame fer me to mak the claim!”

  I gazed out his window, expecting to see the peasant girl in red. “Never! I was betrayed by King John and his mother—I accepted the rebuff. Perhaps Richard wouldn’t have, I don’t know, but I did!” I paused. I didn’t see her, but I spoke anyway. “It didn’t make any difference, as you saw. John killed him anyway.”

  “Quhat will happen after ye kill the king?”

  I knew he was humoring me, but no matter. “I suppose I’ll be thrown into a dungeon. I don’t really care, Enoch. John must die.” My voice trembled. “I should have done it sooner.”

  “Ich meant, quhat will happen to England?”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought. The whole world will be better off without John.”

  “Quhen did ye forgit your law studies in Paris?”

  I laughed bitterly. “At once, I think. Are you bringing up our annulment again? It may be difficult, since you raped me.”

  “I didna rape ye!” He clutched his shoulder. “Ond I war referrin’ to English law. John murdered Theo, quhich be a crime; he shuld pay, boot he willna pay.”

  “I agree. The law won’t punish him—I will.”

  “Thar be another way, Alix.” He slipped off the bed. “Schal I tal ye true? The babe ye carry nu will rule England!”

  His wild blue eyes were completely serious.

  “Enoch, I am not a queen, and this babe will not be royal.”

  “It be Richard’s babe, no? No one knawed the identity o’ the babe at Windsor.”

  Was he serious? “Benedicite, Enoch, everyone knows that Richard died two years ago! This could hardly be his baby!” I had a sudden insight. “This is why Fiona came, isn’t it? This is her scheme as well as yours!” I felt sick.

  “Aye.”

  He then meandered on about England being governed by law instead of physical force, about fairness and I know not what. I interrupted him.

  “En
och, your child is . . . your child, not Richard’s . . . will never rule England, and if you try, remember Theo’s fate.”

  “Ich be thinkin’s o’ my Brothers’ fate.”

  “Brothers?”

  “I tald ye, the Brotherhood.”

  I was dumbfounded. “You would do this to me—to your own child—for Eustace de Vesci?”

  “Not just Eustace. This be serious, Alix. We be meetin’ here in September.”

  To my knowledge, none of their wives had been abducted for the king’s pleasure. And from what I’d seen, none of them sympathized with me much.

  I spoke slowly, as if Enoch were an idiot. “Aye, King John is also serious. And what can any infant do about financial matters, which you say is your Brotherhood’s business? I’ll not have a babe of mine murdered again! Do you understand?”

  “This babe be mine by law! My son qhuich ye ond Fiona knaw, boot the English Court doesna knaw. King John doesna knaw. Ye wull say it’s Richard’s.”

  I was too amazed to speak.

  “Sit on the bed. We mun talk.”

  My heart thumped. “Only if you promise not to . . . ”

  “Doonna be daft.”

  Feeling slightly foolish at the same time that I was defiant, I sat.

  “Ye askit hu I becam wounded.” His eyes closed again.

  He’d been called by the Brotherhood to save the castle of Lord Robert de Ros in nearby Yorkshire.

  “You said the south.”

  “Ich didna want anyone to knaw.”

  “Enoch, please don’t try to change the subject! This baby complicates our annulment and . . .”

  “Quiet!” he roared.