“I take it that the Assize doesn’t meet then.”
No, they concurred.
“Are there any lesser courts in the region?” I asked the bloated priest who seemed a cut above his peers in intelligence.
“Local moot courts do such business as there is,” he said, “though their strength varies from place to place, depending on how angry the people be. Those under bad lords, or under Count John, have little stomach these days for laws.”
I remained standing, lost in thought, until Maid Marian asked me gently if she could show me to my quarters. I thanked her and bade Robin and the others good night.
“I hate to leave you here with the animals,” Marian said later as we stood in the stable.
“I’m used to it, and it’s warm. Thank you for the tunic.” I handed her her robe, having dressed in my male attire once more.
“Please keep it for remembrance. And, Alix, may I ask you a great favor?”
“Anything at all.” Poor wretch.
“Will you come stand with me on my wedding day?”
“I promise, God make it soon.” God make it at all.
“Amen to that.”
I gave her instructions of how she might find me and we kissed goodbye. I then stretched out on clean straw piled by the wall and began to scheme. All my hopes for Hugh of Northumberland were now dashed—what could I do? A twofold problem: to unseat Roncechaux; to find a legal claim superior to Enoch’s royal writ. My brain grew weary.
I was wakened by Thistle’s whinny and saw a shadow against the open arch. I took my father’s dagger in readiness.
“Lady Alix, don’t be afraid.”
Robin Hood!
What to do? I didn’t want to kill the rogue, which would invite certain death for me, yet I suspected his intentions. He sat beside me where I now crouched on my knees.
“Maid Marian has confided your great love,” he said thickly. “Tell me, do I remind you of the king?”
“The king …”
“Aye.” He reached forth and took my free hand. “I thought that if you pined for him, I might give you solace.”
I could feel his hot breath on my cheek and leaned back. “No, thank you anyway. I’ve resigned myself to being alone.”
“Nonsense, your kind is never alone.” Before I knew what he was about, he’d wrested my dagger from me. “We’d be a good pair, sweet-cuds, both in bed and in the field. Swordplay in both places.”
“What about Marian?”
“She’d be delighted. The poor wench is lonely and needs a friend.” Without further ado, he locked me with one arm while that active hand reached under my tunic and found my nipple.
“No! …” And I was smothered by his lips as he pressed me into the straw, his hand working feverishly, his mouth sucking like a man dying of thirst, his legs pushing my knees apart. ’Twas so swift and expert that I thought I was lost.
Then his lips descended to my nipple as if to satisfy their thirst there, and at least my mouth was free.
“Stop! Oh please, stop! King Richard will never forgive you if you kill it!”
His head rose. “It?”
“I carry his babe in my womb, only no one must know. Our son will be heir to the crown—already pronounced so by Richard—and Count John would murder me if he knew. Don’t harm England’s hope, I beg you.” And I broke into racking sobs.
He rolled off me carefully and straightened my garments in the dark. “Tell the king his secret is safe with Robin Hood,” he said fervently. “I misread you, My Lady. I thought you were a camp follower of the king.”
Quickly I rose, my fingers once more entwined about my dagger.
“I’ll return you to the priests in the morning.” And he left me alone, but not to sleep more that night, for my heart beat in my ears like a drum.
NEVER WAS ANYONE more relieved than I was to rejoin Father Thaddeus at dawn the next day; his manner might be brusque, but it was honest. With unspoken consensus, we moved as rapidly as we could to get away from Nottingham and Sherwood Forest with its dangerous inhabitants. Again we were forced to sleep outside, but at least I needn’t fear a hot-tongued varlet stealing into my bed. Except that I had a dream.
In my dream I again stood by the lighthouse on the Straits of the Far with Enoch and Richard, only Richard held the falcon he’d taken from the peasant and the Scot held a huge white swan. The iron-eyed king cut a circle in the stones with his spur and set his falcon in the center. “I challenge your swan!” he cried. “Let the birds fight and winner take all!” And so the two feathered beasts were placed on the ground, the falcon with his tufted feet and small glinting eyes, the swan crouched low with breast outthrust, head curved back, and soon they were twisted in knarls of bloody feathers, screaming and hissing when a beak went home, and in a short time the swan was victorious. The king picked up the carcass of his bludgeoned bird and without a word faded into the elements. Smiling grotesquely from his blue face, Enoch pushed me with the huge white fowl. Instantly the beak and feet disappeared in a cloud of downy softness as I was embraced by the beast. Yet one part remained hard, for I was simultaneously penetrated in a sharp hot stab that made me cry aloud. Astounded by my own keen joy, I rocked with the bird, warm, secure, thrilled, praying my dream would go on forever.
I woke still spellbound, grinning like an idiot, my liver throbbing. And then guilt hit. Deus juva me, what sort of evil gripped my mind that I could have such a wicked vision? ’Twas the planet Jupiter’s influence, no doubt, my body’s distress, a visium-nightmare and not, Deo volente, a visio-prophecy I slunk furtively to my horse hoping that no one could read my stricken face, but gold does not always glare and thoughts are secret if one is wise enough to stay quiet.
Aye, I might fool the holy fathers, but I couldn’t deceive myself. As we pounded through the cold weary day, I tried to find an acceptable explanation for my vivid vision, and tried as well to push down the recurrent excitement it still caused in my nether parts. Macrobius teaches that contact with the dank earth can cause black bile to flow, thereby creating a melancholy humor as the natural virtue takes over. Be as be may, however, I couldn’t ignore the disgusting stimulation of Robin Hood’s lips on my nipple and over and over I wiped the offending breast viciously with my arm. But worse: that the stimulation should cause a sensuous arousal by Enoch! Never mind that he pretended to be a swan; ’twas the Scot and his terse I’d dreamt of to my everlasting shame. The liver is a most immoral organ and I wondered if ’twas possible to numb it with some sort of drug. Or, failing that, have it cut out.
The next day our progress was slowed by the steeps of the Pennine mountains where Enoch and I had cut into the forest. Spinneys gave way to knarry twisted tree sculptures rising from boulders, their shapes suggestive of clutching monsters and bent seers; the road, too, turned back on itself and narrowed at times to treacherous cuts along cliffs that dropped dizzily to sure death. Streams now became thunderous weirs which we crossed by clinging to ropes. We met no one, saw little wildlife except for circling hawks.
That night we stayed at the Inn of the Gray Falcon and I was appalled to see how Betty and Bibs had declined from their former hospitable selves to haunted fearful shadows, ready to leap when the wind blew. Bibs now carried a knife in his rope belt and the door was braced with a heavy log. They’d been bound and robbed three times but felt lucky to have escaped with their lives.
I jogged our hosts’ memories about my previous stay.
“That was the beginning of our ill fortune,” Betty whispered so that I could hardly hear. “That was when Jimmy …” And she gave way to tears. I’d noticed her son’s absence, of course.
Bibs said heavily, “Your Scottish friend—or brother—was here two nights ago looking for you.”
“Asked for you—or your sister, for he said it might be a lass.” Betty frowned, confounded.
And I thereby gave up a night’s sleep as I lay before the fire, turning feverishly on my pelt, watching the coals pale to ash. How ha
d the Scot possibly gotten ahead of me? While I was with Robin Hood, no doubt, and I thanked the Virgin devoutly that at least he hadn’t seen me. I hoped he was on his way toward Durham to see Bishop Hugh. If so, I could regain lost time.
Now we paced rapidly across dunes of thistle and gorse, site of my first bleeding. The unimpeded northern gales blew a cold rain into our faces, then icy needles and finally snow in tiny whirling flakes that rose in an updraft. Well did I remember that Enoch and I had been unable to find a croft for the first night and, sure enough, when darkness fell the holy fathers took uneasy refuge within a circle of rocks. There we built a huge fire, huddled close in our furs, and woke blanketed in snow.
Now the descent. I rode at the rear, trying to discover the point where Dame Margery had put me on Dere Street, but it all looked so different under its white mantle.
“Alex, come to!” Father Thaddeus called sharply.
I had dawdled to a standstill, gazing anxiously. We were on a curve with thornbushes on my left, a bank, but I wasn’t sure. With a lurching stomach, I spurred Thistle onward. A half hour later, the irritated father again admonished me.
“I’ve come to my turn-off,” I said uncertainly. “Thank you for your company.”
He rode back to where I sat. “I don’t like to leave you alone in this heavy wood, boy. You’ll die of exposure within hours if you become lost. Is there no path? No sure sign?”
I dismounted. “Wait while I look, if you have time.”
I climbed up the slippery snowbank, clinging to spiny bushes with my leather gloves till I could stand upright. The awesome forest was a maze of sinister shadows and black trunks, a haphazard limbo. I stumbled along the ridge of the bank, trying to remember. Then I paused, studied.
“Wait just one moment; I’ll be back,” I said to Father Thaddeus.
I sat and slid down the far side to the level, then lurched to a small winding form and brushed the soft snow off the top. My heart leaped: a drywall. Aye, now I recalled, we’d followed a drywall all the way. This was my thread to Wanthwaite.
“I found it!” I shouted.
Shortly I’d said farewell to the holy fathers and was under the shadows of the reaching beech trunks. Carefully I turned Thistle westward.
I crunched slowly and silently through the drifted snow. A wan sun broke the gray cloud cover and turned the world to a dull glisten cut by purple shadows. Then in the far distance I heard a familiar clink like a smithy at his task and knew ’twas the bell of Dunsmere. I forced myself to kneel and pray, took out a slab of bacon and bread to eat.
I followed the meandering wall over hills and through valleys, ever glancing ahead and to my left. What a long way we’d walked, me with my blistered feet. Then the wall turned to my right and I hesitated—hadn’t we found it near here? I studied the landscape, trying to imagine it by moonlight in spring, saw the copse wed used as guide. I turned away from the wall and forced my eyes upward to the horizon.
There it was—Wanthwaite.
Silent and still as a memory.
Towers, park, bridge hidden by trees. And somewhere in the sky above, the souls of my parents, waiting, hoping.
IT WAS COMPLETELY DARK WHEN I REACHED DUNSMERE village. Thistle stumbled again and again in the rutted paths, and I had to wait for the thin high moon to float from behind the clouds before I dared urge him ahead. Finally I dismounted to lead him. But lead him where? The huts looked as alike as overgrown toadstools in the night and I couldn’t remember the exact location of Dame Margery’s.
Then a bowlegged wight opened the door of his cot, stood silhouetted against the dim light and pissed into the street.
“Pardon me, sir,” I called, “can you tell me where Dame Margery and Tom live?”
He leaned forward as if trying to see me. “They done nothing wrong,” he snarled.
“Of course not,” I replied, startled. “I’m an old friend, back from a long journey.”
After another pause as he pondered, he pointed and said gruffly, “Three houses beyond the church, then second behind the pigsty.” And he slammed the door.
Once I’d passed the church, the pigsty was easy to smell and soon I stood in front of a structure which I vaguely recalled as the hut where Maisry and I had hidden. It had no windows or firehole to show that it was occupied, but I knew Dame Margery must be there. I knocked on the door.
“Dame Margery!” I called loudly. “Dame Margery open up! It’s me, Alix, come home at last.”
No answer.
Perplexed and apprehensive, I knocked harder. “Daughter to Lord William and Lady Catherine. For God’s sake, let me in!”
The door opened a grudging crack. “Who are you? Who sent you?”
I tried to enter but she kept the door firmly in place with her foot. “Surely you haven’t forgotten me, Nurse. I’m Alix, your own milk-daughter …”
“Alix be dead. I seen her buried myself, two years ago. Be ye from the Devil?”
I crossed myself fearfully to ward off the omen of death.
“I’ve been with King Richard on his Crusade—that’s why it’s taken me so long—but I’m alive, no ghost. Feel my hand.”
She shrank back.
I became desperate. What a disconsolate homecoming! “Look you, I went with the Scot, Enoch Angus Boggs. Remember? And I took my wolf Lance. Soothly you couldn’t have seen my actual body in the grave because here I am. Think, Margery.”
“The face war mashed in.” Her voice wobbled. “And the clothes war different, but Sir Roland said as how he seen the face and ’twar Alix. He found you in the Inn of the Gray Falcon.”
Jimmy! I withdrew my hand and leaned on the doorpost, grieved beyond measure. A poor innocent boy had been my surrogate in death. Like Maisry. A black rage now made it difficult to speak: “’Twas Jimmy, the stableboy.”
There was another long silence as Margery digested this, whereupon the door opened. She gripped me in powerful arms.
“Lady Alix, be it you? Alix, friend to my Maisry?”
“Aye, Nurse, I’m home!”
She pressed me so close and tight that I felt my ribs begin to pain and I couldn’t breathe at all. Her chapped lips kissed my face all over, her hands ran through my tangled hair and she repeated again that I was home, thanks be to God, I was home. I, too, was toty with joy as her voice, her smell and feel brought back a host of memories from my infancy onward, joy and sadness as well. We stood mumbling and swaying so in almost pitch dark, for the only light came from the feeble glare of the firepit; even so, I gradually became aware that we were not alone. Margery’s husband, Tom, the town tippler, lay curled on a fur close to the fire, his eyes closed, his slack lips twitching as he occasionally snorted. From the far wall, I heard the plaintive tremor of: “I … see … some … body!”
“Aye, Mam! ’Tis Lady Alix!” Margery shouted to the shadowy creature; then, to me, “Sit close by the fire, dear, and take off yer cape. Yer hands be like ice. Have ye et?”
I looked uneasily at a stringy rat boiling in a pot. “I brought some bacon.”
“Bacon! We haven’t had—” Her voice became restrained. “No, dear, this squirrel be good enow fer the likes of us. Tom just killt it fresh.”
I put a firm hand on her arm. “Bacon for all, Nurse. How often do we have such a wondrous homecoming to celebrate? Now I must see to my horse.”
“Aye, we’ll put him in the cow-byre.”
Together we led Thistle to the back of the cot where a lean-to was attached for cows. ’Twas sweeter and warmer than the hut, I trowe. Quickly I unsaddled my beast and removed the slab of bacon from my drafsack. Soon we were back by the fire and dipping crusts in good bacon fat. Tom snorted and worked his mouth at the odor, but didn’t wake.
All the time we ate, Margery keened for the dead child who was buried beside my mother. What a heinous crime! What an ogre Sir Roland was.
“He war sent by Northumberland to look to Wanthwaite after the Scots left, but we’d be better off with Scots.”
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br /> ’Twas the most damning judgment Dame Margery could make.
I didn’t recall how much of the true tale of the sacking I’d confided of yore, but now told it exactly as my father had related it to me. She listened intently, then nodded with satisfaction.
“I knowed it in my gullet, that I did. Ask Tom when he comes to if I didn’t say over and over, that Roland no more ‘rescued’ this castle than a wolf rescues sheep.”
“Rescued!” The revulsion of two years ago seemed like yesterday “When he … he … killed my own mother.”
The dame leaned close, clasped my hands so I winced. “And Maisry?” she asked hoarsely. “He murthered her as well?”
I nodded dumbly, then realizing she couldn’t see in the dense smoky pall, muttered, “Aye, I witnessed it.”
Her hands continued to squeeze mine painfully. Words were not necessary; anger and grief ran through our fingertips and we understood each other completely.
“I … smell … some … thing,” came the querulous voice.
Dame Margery released my hand and sopped an oatcake in the bacon fat. “Come greet my mam. She’ll rest easier when she knows who ye be.”
We squatted beside the fragile supine figure. Her bones were twisted as grapevines, eyes and ears clouded, but there was nothing wrong with her mind. “You was here that last day with Maisry. You held my hand.”
“That’s right,” I shouted, then told Dame Margery: “We were running away from Roland after he spotted us at the fair.”
“He ran after ye?”
“Aye.”
I answered her relentless questions as honestly as I could, until finally she left the subject of Maisry.
“Ye said you were in Jerusalem with the king. Did ye get yer writ then?”
“Yes and no,” I hedged. “He granted me a writ for Wanthwaite, but said that I was too young to assume the barony. Therefore he made a writ assigning the Scot as my guardian.”
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