The Prince of Poison

by Pamela Kaufman

  M. Berengarius returned alone. I’d said that I’d learned the craft of cutting gems in Rouen. How could I prove it?

  I handed him one of my sapphires. I hadn’t cut it, I admitted, but I could describe exactly what had been done, including a close evocation of the original gemstone. He asked sharp questions about the use of saws versus the use of hammers.

  Then he took the sapphire to show his wife.

  This time he returned with a jug of fine ale. Did I know where Bonel was now?

  I thought he was in the Middle East, married to a woman named Miriam, but I could be wrong on both counts. I’d not seen him or heard from him for many months.

  M. Berengarius’s expression softened. Yes, Bonel lived on the outskirts of Cairo; yes, he’d wed an Egyptian Jew; I might be interested to know that Bonel himself was now in the jewelry business. In fact, M. Berengarius and Rebecca bought many of their gemstones from him. Of course, Bonel continued his work with Jewish refugees, especially those from France or England, but he was more of a businessman. And a family man, he added slyly.

  I said I was very happy to hear such good news of my friend. And, indeed, I was.

  “Next time I write, I’ll tell him that we’ve taken you into our business,” Berengarius said.

  “Then you’ll . . . ?”

  “Of course, if we can agree on terms. And we owe him—he finds us many fine stones.”

  “I know, Egyptian turquoise.”

  He smiled.

  “If you mention me, could you tell him, please, how happy I am for him? How I had worried?”

  Aye, he would do that. Could I wait one more heartbeat?

  When he returned this time, it was with an offer. On Bonel’s high praise of my skill, and because M. Berengarius and his wife couldn’t handle their supply of gemstones, which therefore cut into their profits, he was willing to try me for a month without pay, after which I could have a percentage of whatever I created.

  I accepted on the spot. Could he recommend a nearby house where I might rent a room?

  He seemed surprised. I would live here, of course, in a room above the store. He and Rebecca would share their vittles, poor though they might be. In short, I could expect no cash, but I was being offered room and board. He then invited me to share the boiled chicken, which should now be ready.

  Tears came to my eyes: I was in a commune again.

  He even agreed to a few weeks’ delay during which time I would return to my home for supplies, including a small cache of jewels.

  When Enoch greeted me suspiciously at the inn, I told him that chicken broth had cured my flux.

  Now London had new charms: we took a boat up and down the Thames to gaze on its many parks and castles from the river; we visited the horse fair on a Monday, gazed at the White Tower, even at Bermondsey Castle, where the king was not in residence. I memorized every event for future reference, as I’d unconsciously memorized every day of Theo’s life. Leith, too, was memorizing; she gazed at Enoch’s happy face with love, laughed at his japes, clapped her hands with joy. I forgot Lady Fiona; she would have her father. Then he suggested we go to Cornwall.

  “Enoch, have you forgotten . . . ?”

  “Doona ye think Leith shuld see wonders wi’ both her parents?”

  The same argument—I turned away.

  Cornwall was soothly another country, more strange than Wales. Enoch held Leith firmly while she peered down cliffs at the churning sea, pointed out caves and quaint dwellings. We gazed at strange gashes in the hills—tin mines, Enoch thought. One stormy night, we watched a ship crash into the dangerous rocks along the shore. At last, however, even Enoch admitted it was time to return to Wanthwaite.

  Now I demurred. “We made an agreement, milord.”

  “Doona spake of swich things in front o’ Leith.”

  I didn’t argue. Let him handle the inevitable conversation with his daughter; let him introduce her to the idea of Lady Fiona as well. I hoped she would remember me, aye, I did, but I also recognized that from this point on I must stay out of her life.

  When Enoch told me that our return to Wanthwaite might take all summer because it was a rare opportunity to show Leith the wondrous castles between here and Wanthwaite, however, I was beyond astonishment. A whole summer—would M. Berengarius hold my position for me until autumn? Then Leith clapped her hands at the prospect of seeing great castles, and I succumbed. Yet I asked Enoch with my eyes what was in his mind? His bland eyes gave no reply.

  At the first opportunity, I sent a runner with a missive for M. Berengarius, telling him I would be delayed.

  England was a summer garden. Enoch and England, I recalled as if in a dream. I’d fought to return; now I must leave the countryside. Leave Enoch and Leith.

  Enoch gazed over Leith’s curls. “Castles be magic fer a little gel!”

  It was true—I recalled how Maisry and I had pretended that an old catapult was a dragon. For Leith, mayhap dungeons and torture chambers in the bowels of castles would seem the homes of invisible giants; mayhap the towers and walkways would guard secret lovers. Or, instead of military fortresses, she might see crouching dragons.

  Our first castle was in Northampton, a castle I’d never seen. As we approached, we choked on the stench of burning flesh.

  “Do they ha’e a pig on a spit?” Leith asked.

  Enoch pulled us off the path. In a moment, he became a warrior—I hadn’t realized that he carried his pike!

  “Dinna move! Ond be quiet!”

  While I pulled my steed behind a bush, Enoch rode up a steep mound where he could see.

  He returned.

  “The castle be on fire!” Sweat poured down his face.

  “The king again?”

  “He ga’e the kiss of peace to the barons.” His frown deepened. “Boot mayhap thar be some personal quarrel between the king and Northampton we doona knaw.”

  Never underestimate his perfidy.

  We made a wide swath off the road through brambles and thorns. Then, suddenly, tiny folk blocked our way. As featureless as mushroom, they stared with frightened eyes. One man spoke in a difficult mumble: They were serfs, and when the king’s army had attacked, the master had told them to hide in the wood. Was it safe to return now?

  “King John—war he here?” Enoch asked.

  Aye, the king himself. The man shuddered: a terrifying sight it had been. The man, called Rupert, believed all the gentlefolk were dead. He stopped. And the house servants. And the peasants. What we saw before us was all that had survived. A woman joined him with an even more difficult dialect: They had sick and dead among them.

  I gathered Leith close. Rupert—the small man who spoke—had I seen him before? Surely not, and yet . . .

  Enoch abruptly rode into the gloom and disappeared. I was astonished—why hadn’t he taken Leith? Suddenly, an arrow whizzed close to my ear and lodged in the heart of the man called Rupert. Several serfs screamed—he collapsed before I could shield Leith! The woman who’d told us about the dead ran into the crowd. When Enoch finally returned, he slid off his steed without speaking and wrenched the arrow from the dead man’s chest, wiped blood on the grass, and salvaged his weapon. Horrified, I realized that he was in his war garb: horned hat, thwittle, a sword, even blue woad. The woad—or something—made his blue eyes wild. I jerked Leith’s head in the opposite direction. She struggled back—she smiled.

  I turned furiously at Enoch! Was this Scottish blood? Was my little girl contaminated?

  “What ails you?” I cried. “How could you murder a harmless serf in front of your own daughter?”

  “Nocht harmless.” Enoch pushed the dead body with his foot, then thrust his hands up the man’s sleeves and removed two sharp daggers. “He cum close sae he could use these!”

  I gasped! Not at the daggers—I recognized the man myself! Lying in profile—that nose—like a parrot’s beak—one of John’s knights in Fontevrault Wood!

  How had he gotten here? Who else among the serfs knew
? How had Enoch known? More important—Leith. She was gazing calmly at the dead man. She wore no brechan feile or blue woad, but she was a Scot.

  Enoch deliberately led us on a parallel path some distance from Dere Street. Yet when we reached Frothingham far to the east, we found smoldering ruins and the same desperate mushrooms in the forest. This time I helped Enoch test every one of them by demanding that they give their names and occupations; their accents proved they were English. Like the other serfs, I noted, they appeared to be young—no old people and few children. I deduced that such people at the extremes of life died soonest, though perhaps the middle group killed their ancients and their babes for greater mobility. In any case, from that point, our mushrooms proliferated exactly in proportion to the burning castles we passed. We had to stop in Nottingham to forage for food.

  Enoch had no illusions about the danger: John had been here, might still be here, but our case was desperate. He hid our serfs in the famous nearby Sherwood Forest and told me to bring Leith and follow him. He assured me that he would hide us in some safe place while he entered the town with three hand-chosen male serfs; he would be more comfortable knowing we were near than leaving us with the mob. The serfs he selected understood Enoch’s instructions, and they had the same fierce eyes. Enoch knew Nottingham well, since we’d had one meeting there with Stephen Langton, and he hugged the city wall to an opening into an ancient churchyard. He signaled silently that Leith and I should hide among the tombstones, but not enter the sanctuary.

  The wet grass was long, the graves overgrown around smooth gray stones; it was easy to conceal ourselves among a bed of rhubarb plants. Enoch and his three “knights” left.

  Though hardly peaceful, the graveyard was silent; far in the distance, I heard male voices cry out. Then a low moan nearby.

  A huge milch cow grazed among the tombstones.

  “Moo-moo,” said Leith.

  I put my hand over her mouth.

  The moan repeated.

  “Be sommun thar?” Hardly more than a whisper.

  I pushed Leith deeper into our rhubarb. Very quietly, I crawled on all fours toward the voice. A very old man lay prone in his own blood beside a lopsided stone cross, a cow herdsman to judge by his rags. His eyes were dim with pain: His right hand was cut off.

  “Benedicite!” I quickly threw the amputated part into the bush. “Who did this terrible act?”

  King John—oh, not the king himself, but one of his foreign routiers; he’d said that old Tom had had a hand in the new charter—this was his reward!

  “I knaw naught o’ no charter.”

  But I did.

  He couldn’t read or write—how could he make a charter? Mayhap the routier had been confused, mayhap the king objected to Tom’s bringing his cow into holy ground to graze. Yet hadn’t the priest said he could? Hadn’t his da and his da before him brought their cows here? Kept the weeds down, especially on old graves where no one came to tend them. Would I tell the king so?

  Enoch tapped my shoulder. He took in the scene at a glance and signaled I should follow. I started to speak—he put a hand over my lips. Old Tom was now twitching in his death throes. Only one serf followed Enoch.

  We had beef and milk and sour cherries that night. We all took small portions and packed the remainder for tomorrow. Enoch, now a Scottish chieftain again, circumvented castles as we marched north, though he sought survivers in the forests.

  We happened on Rockingham by mistake. Though it looked to be an old burn, we found one of the original family still alive, an ancient female, the grandam of the castle, who had hidden in a dry well. She died on the first day we rescued her.

  We passed close enough to know that Dunmow was burning, then York.

  “But he already sacked it once!” I cried about York.

  “Stay here; I’ll see yif I can halp.”

  He returned hours later. Lord Robert de Ros still lived; he would say no more.

  We both now had a single thought: Wanthwaite.

  Once off Dere Street, we passed the lane to Dunsmere without comment; we smelled smoke.

  On the near side of the Wanthwaite River, a few palings still burned—Enoch signaled our followers to stay back. He carried Leith as we walked silently on foot up the park, into the spinney. An eerie sensation of dj vu gripped me—I expected to find my dead parents at the top.

  Wanthwaite was no more. Flat. Not a wall remaining. Smoke still rose from where the kitchen court and the Great Hall had stood. Our new tower overlooking the fells didn’t even smolder—nothing remained but cold ashes.

  Enoch heaved with sobs. I pulled him to my shoulder. Neither of us spoke.

  Leith, also sobbing, squirmed between us.

  When he’d recovered sufficiently, we approached the ruins cautiously. Where were the people?

  Enoch pointed to our wood. No one came.

  We both whirled at a rustling behind us. A man, utterly black with soot, came toward us with outstretched arms. I recognized a woman behind him.

  “Nicola! Oh, Nicola!” I clutched her close.

  “I came to warn you,” said the man with Lord Robert’s voice, “and found this! I thought—Nicola thought—oh God, who are they?”

  “’Wina!” Leith screamed.

  Deus juva me, she was right! On the spit—one of Edwina’s flaxen braids was still intact on a shriveled piece of meat! She and Thorketil—it had to be—were splayed on a large iron spit we’d used for boars.

  Nicola flung herself into the ashes. Lord Robert pulled her away.

  All of us wept, but I was most aware of Enoch. Those sobs weren’t about a title or money—he loved Wanthwaite.

  “They must have pretended . . .” I gasped.

  “Aye!”

  But why?

  We turned to the labyrinth. There we found Gruoth and Donald and Dugan and most of our household, all wretchedly hungry, all besmattered with waste! Then our serfs and peasants came from our woods. Everyone was dazed; everyone glad to be alive.

  Edwina and Thorketil, we learned, had deliberately pretended to be Enoch and me to gain time.

  The following day, Donald accompanied me to the sisters’ house by the sea. We returned with six pigs, my two original ducks, plus ten others, one cow, and two nags. I’d taken Bonel’s money, which had survived inside its leopard sack, but the sisters refused to accept coins. While we were away, Enoch had constructed an open-sided hut in the forest for our new dependents. Gruoth had overseen the cleaning of the labyrinth, where the rest of us slept. We now used our new metal blade from Germany to make our plows easier for men to pull. Our oxen had been slaughtered, of course, as well as our horses.

  The serfs ate raw birds that they caught with their hands. Everyone else used arrows; we didn’t eat our catch raw, though it was difficult to start a fire. We gathered sufficient berries and roots to serve with our game. The men built a crude shelter where the Great Hall had been. Then Agins, a carpenter from Dunsmere who knew how to do wattle and daub, quickly constructed one cottage for us, then three more.

  The cheese house had burned, but not the cheeses. On the pretext of searching for food, I found my cache of jewels intact. I thrust them in a sack.

  The assault on Wanthwaite—indeed, on all northern barons—changed our assumption that our charter had made any difference. If anything, England was more dangerous than ever. I knew it; Enoch knew it. And Lord Robert knew it as well.

  After my first gratitude that he’d come to warn us had passed, I marveled that he would stay in such wretched conditions.

  “Dunmow be burned,” Enoch reminded me.

  “But he has so many castles. Surely one must be intact.”

  “Aye.”

  One evening as we shared mead in our cottage, Lord Robert looked out on our patchy late oats. “Our charter is worthless. You know why, don’t you?”

  “Tell me.”

  “The king added a clause that it would be in effect only fifteen days, and he kept his word.”

&n
bsp; I jumped up. “Did Stephen Langton know?”

  “That would be my guess. The pope wrote that if John signed the charter, he would no longer be king. I daresay this was Langton’s version of a compromise.” He pressed his lips. “He’s the pope’s man.”

  “Whar be the wallydrag?”

  “Somewhere in Europe, beyond all our reach.” Lord Robert continued: King John had harried all the way up to Scotland, and sooner or later he would come back.

  Despite our bravura, we all fell silent. There wasn’t much more to destroy in Wanthwaite, but there were still people.

  “Harrying be the werst kind o’ attack there be.” Enoch looked at me.

  “Stephen Langton,” Lord Robert mused. “Yes, it explains . . .”

  “He had two masters,” I said bitterly. “Pope Innocent and King John.”

  “But not us.”

  “No.”

  Nicola spoke shyly. “What will you do? Write another charter?”

  Enoch ignored the question. “Sae the king ha’e heavenly permission!”

  “You don’t believe that!” I scolded.

  “Nay, this king doesna need permission, nocht fram heaven nor fram auld Clootie.”

  “You’re right, Enoch; he would have done it anyway.” I couldn’t contain tears. “But to burn Wanthwaite!”

  After a silence, Enoch changed the subject. “Hu fares Eustace?”

  “I’m riding out tomorrow to check.” Lord Robert walked into the darkness.

  He returned within a week.

  “As I suspected, the king went into Scotland.”

  “Did King Alexander defeat him thar?” Enoch asked eagerly.

  “Rumor says that the Scottish king surrendered at Berwick; all southern Scotland is now under John’s rule.” Lord Robert put a sympathetic arm around Enoch’s shoulder. “At least the Highlands are free.”

  Enoch groaned.

  Lord Robert continued. “Not all castles were razed, you know. If the lord was in residence, John offered a way out.”

  “York’s wasna burned,” Enoch agreed, “nocht completely.”

  “Do you know why?”

  Neither Enoch nor I could answer.