Quillifer

by Walter Jon Williams

  But now, in time of peace, no stirring action beckoned, and any large prize would run aground trying to make the port. I waved to the stranded sailors as we passed, and the sailors waved back. Within minutes the sea of reeds fell away, and our little boat pitched on the open sea. Sun-dappled spindrift flew over the bows and stung my face. Kevin swung onto the new tack, southwest, and the lugger raced along under a freshening wind. I stretched out along the thwart.

  “The sun above, the sail full, the horizon boundless,” I said. “Is it so strange that I prefer this to the practice of law?”

  Kevin looked at me from beneath the broad brim of his hat. “You don’t care to be a lawyer, then?”

  I considered this, and shrugged. “It is a path superior to many,” I said. “And I must walk some path, a path to take me into the wide world.”

  “Your father said, did he not, that you enjoyed argument so much, that you might as well do it for a living?”

  I made a broad gesture and invited fantasy to fly into my words. “I could become a famous advocate in the courts of royal Selford, or a member of the House of Burgesses in water-girdled Howel, or a judge whose wisdom echoes down the generations. . . .”

  Kevin grinned. “Why not all three?”

  “Why not?” I echoed. “But yet, on such a day as this, I find myself stifled by the thought of spending my life in dusty legal chambers, or pleading the case of some poacher or profiteer before a drowsy judge—or for that matter drowsing on the bench myself, listening to advocates monotonize their cases.”

  Kevin laughed. “Monotonize. You just made that word up, didn’t you?”

  “Ay.” I shrugged. “It’s a little unrefined, I admit, far from my best.” I looked at Kevin. “Your father already sends you to sea, to do business abroad and meet with his affinity.”

  Kevin made a face. “And to encounter young ladies, with whose fathers my own father wants a connection.”

  “Your plight does not stir my sympathy.”

  “You have not met the ladies in question. Either they simper and say nothing, or they demand to know how much money I can expect to inherit, and how much of it will be spent on them.” Kevin shivered, then looked out to the blue horizon. “If you cannot abide the law, you know, you could run away to sea. After twenty years, provided you survive war, pirates, and tempest, you might find yourself the proud captain of a crumster, carrying tubs of tallow from port to port.”

  I made my sad-clown face. “It is a mournful picture you draw, cousin.”

  A gust heeled the boat, and Kevin drew the tiller toward me to keep the boat on the wind. I leaned out over the rail to keep the boat in balance. The gust faded, and as the boat righted, Kevin’s look turned thoughtful.

  “My father and I need lawyers now and again,” he said. “Contracts must be drawn up, debts collected, defaulters pursued. We might be able to employ you—not in Ethlebight, where old Clinton handles our needs, but in other ports.”

  I sat up with sudden interest. “Boats and the law!” I said. “Delightful duality!”

  “I’ll speak to my father. But when does your apprenticeship end?”

  “Eight or twelve months, though it’s really up to Master Dacket.”

  “And of course, you’ll have to avoid jail or the pillory for seducing the Mermaid.”

  I preferred not to discuss Annabel. All too well could I imagine her beneath her angry father’s belt, or rod, or him hustling her off to a nunnery. There was nothing I could do to prevent it, for a father possessed absolute legal authority over his daughter. If I could somehow break into the Greyson home, free Annabel, and run with her, we might flee far enough to avoid her father’s wrath—but only to starve to death in some distant country, without friends, support, or money.

  Again it occurred to me that fathers, as a breed, are unreasonable. Greyson had turned his own house upside down, pursued me over half the town in the middle of the night, and doubtless now was straining his imagination for ways to punish his daughter—and all because of a harmless dalliance. What mad fury had possessed him, and why? He was doing far greater damage to Annabel’s reputation than ever I could have.

  Why, I wondered, are the young denied the opportunity to be young? Why should we not love, and be carefree, and enjoy our pleasures before age and care ruin them?

  I thought of Annabel again, and considered that if I were a character in a poem by Bello or Tarantua, I would be in agonies of shame and worry, perhaps rolling like a dog on the floor while weeping and calling Annabel’s name—and yet I was not weeping.

  Was I deficient in some crucial element of character, that I did not feel such extremities of anguish? Should I now be rending my garments, or hurling myself into the sea to drown?

  Yet I could not see how my drowning would improve the situation in any way. Annabel would be no better off for my death, or my torn clothing would make no impression on her father, nor for that matter any loud displays of anguish. He would simply thrash me with the same fury with which he had threatened his daughter.

  I had not meant to do any harm. Surely, intentions should count in these matters.

  Because I did not wish my thoughts to dwell on Annabel, or on my own lack of merit, I turned the conversation to admiralty law, and so discoursed on jetsam, merit salvage, carriage hook to hook, inherent vice, and laches, estoppel, and actions in rem, or “against all the world.” Kevin listened patiently—he probably knew much of this already—but if he were to trust me with some of his family’s business, I wanted to demonstrate my own thorough knowledge of the subject.

  To leeward of us were islands with prosaic names: Cow Island, Pine Island, and Mutton Island. At high tide, the islands were surrounded by a turbulent sea, but when the tide raced away, the retreating waters revealed mucky causeways that connected the islands to the mainland. The low isles were a lush green and dotted with flecks of white, the flocks of sheep that formed most of the islands’ population. Mutton Island was well named; there were many more sheep than cows on Cow Island, and more mutton than pines on Pine Island. The salt grass that grew on the flat country around Ethlebight was perfect grazing for sheep, and produced a distinct flavor and tenderness in the meat that had made Ethlebight mutton famous throughout all Duisland.

  Kevin and I shared the jug of cider and bites of gingerbread as we passed the first two islands. Kevin wanted to talk about Annabel, and I kept diverting him until we took the channel into Mutton Island. We moored at the pier, and I left behind in a locker the cap that marked me as an apprentice lawyer.

  I did, however, take the jug of cider, and Kevin bore the satchel of food.

  We gave the mooring line enough slack so the boat could ride the tide up and down, then walked along onto the island. A shepherd, wearing a big straw hat and carrying a staff over his shoulder, gave us an incurious look from amid his flock. His dog, far more interested, stood alert on stiff legs, eyes fixed on the intruders.

  We took the only path inland. White clouds of sheep drifted around us. The island was mostly salt-grass meadow broken by clusters of gray stone, and ahead I saw quickbeams and maples planted as a windbreak, the maples already scarlet in the early autumn, and the green leaves of the quickbeams right at the cusp of going gold.

  We passed into the trees and saw in a glade a modest country house of red brick, probably intended as a summer retreat for Sir Stanley’s in-laws. Brown brick outbuildings and empty paddocks for sheep stood dark in the shadows of the trees. I paused in the shade of a maple and considered my approach.

  “If we go to the front door,” I said, “Sir Stanley could go out the back. Or he could have the servants bar the entrance.”

  “We should hide and wait,” Kevin said.

  “The shepherds already know we’re here.”

  I considered that it was unlikely that the lower servants would ever have been told why Sir Stanley was hiding here, or indeed that he was hiding at all. I turned off the path and moved through the grove. The first of the outbuildings
was a woodshed, the second a stable with empty stalls, but with a scent of horse that had not faded. Past this was a paddock with sheep still in it, and beyond a brick creamery with a sagging thatch roof. I paused for a moment with my nose in the air, and thought I scented a whiff of warm, fresh milk. I walked to the door of the barn, looked in, and saw a young woman sitting by a milking stand, drawing milk from a sheep while other ewes, impatient for their turn, flocked around her.

  “May I beg a sip of milk?” I asked.

  At my unfamiliar voice, the dairy maid turned on her stool, though her hands remained at their work. She was about my age, and had a heart-shaped face under a blue cap. Her lips were full, her eyes dark, her complexion rosy. I felt my interest quicken.

  I nodded at the grandly dressed Kevin standing uncertainly in the creamery door. “I’ve taken the young gentleman to the island in my boat,” I said. “And it’s thirsty work.”

  She looked at the jug in my hand. “Have you emptied your own jug, then?”

  “It’s variety I seek,” I said. “That and a few words with a lovely maid such as yourself.”

  A few moments’ light conversation with a pleasing young maid, I thought, will do no one harm. Annabel Greyson was beyond my reach, perhaps forever. Surely, I had the right to seek a balm for my wounded heart.

  The woman’s hands continued their work, twin streams of milk foaming into the pitcher. I eased myself through the sheep clustering about the milking stand, and leaned against the wooden gate to the pen.

  “I’m willing to share my cider, if you like,” I said. “I imagine you see enough milk around this place.”

  “I’m paid mostly in beer and cider,” said the dairy maid. “Cider is nothing to me.”

  “I’d give you wine, if I had it.” There was a pause. “I could bring wine tonight, if you’d care to meet me.”

  She gave me a look from under her cap. “You would come all the way from town to bring me wine?”

  “I have a boat, so why not? I would bring you a moscatto from far Varcellos. A wine as sweet as the finest peach, as sweet on your lips as your smile.” At the compliment I saw the smile tugging at her lips, and I pointed. “There!” I said. “Sweetness itself.”

  I am not, I think, handsome, though some I believe find my countenance amiable enough. Were I as pretty as my schoolfriend Theophrastus Hastings, say, I would scarce have to speak to women at all; they would simply tumble into my arms as they tumble into his.

  But because I have no great share of beauty, I must call upon other resources, chief among them the art of conversation. I strive to amuse.

  I also listen. It has been my observation that many who can declaim with the greatest actors of the age are not as facile when it comes to hearing what others are saying.

  The dairy maid finished with the ewe and brushed the animal off the milking stand. The waiting ewes jostled one another in their eagerness to be milked, but one was quicker than the others and jumped onto the small table. The maid took the pitcher and prepared to empty it into a bucket standing by her feet.

  “Ah,” said I, “and may I not have a drink? The milk drawn out by your own clever hands?”

  “If it’s the milk you’re really after, you can have some.” She offered the pitcher. I took it and drew in several drafts of warm, foamy sweetness. I deliberately left myself a white mustache, and returned the pitcher. She laughed at the froth on my lip.

  To use the tongue would be vulgar, I thought, and so removed the stain with a sleeve. She poured the remaining milk into the bucket, and then began to turn to the waiting ewe.

  “May I know your name?” I asked.

  “Ella,” she said.

  “I am Quillifer.”

  Ella looked thoughtful. “I’ve heard that name,” she said.

  I leaned closer. “Will you share my moscatto with me tonight? I will bring it, but only if I don’t have to drink alone.”

  Ella looked at me slantwise from beneath her dark brows. “Surely, you can find drinking companions in town.”

  “But none so lovely,” I said. “None with such roses in her cheeks, hands so clever, or lips so sweet.”

  The roses in her cheeks crimsoned. “If you will bring the wine,” she said, her voice a little throaty, “I will help you drink it.”

  “The pleasure of the moscatto shall be thine. Where shall we meet, and when?”

  She looked up at me, her hands jogging the sheep’s udders. “Here. The creamery is empty at night.”

  “The hours till nightfall shall seem each a year.” I leaned over her and put on my pleading-lover face. “May I have a kiss to seal the bargain?”

  “Not in front of the gentleman,” Ella said, tossing her head toward Kevin. “He’ll gossip.”

  “If not your lips, like a lover,” I said, “and if not your cheek, like a brother; then may I kiss your hand like a suitor?”

  Ella removed her hand from the teat, wiped it on her blue wincey dress, and held it out. I brushed the taut knuckles with my lips.

  “Until tonight,” I said. I looked up at Kevin, still standing uncertain by the door. “My gentleman bears a message for Sir Stanley. Is he at the house?”

  Ella resumed her milking. “Nay. He’s gone hunting, and won’t be back till the tide is out.”

  “That will be soon, will it not?”

  Ella’s lips twitched. “I know nothing of tides; I work in the creamery. But I know that my Master Golding will be here soon, back from scalding the curd, and that you should be gone before he arrives.”

  “I will come back tonight,” said I, “with the wine, and without the young gentleman.” I darted a kiss to her cheek—she gave a cry of mingled delight and surprise—and then I rejoined Kevin. We two walked around the creamery and began the stroll to the ford.

  “He will come at low tide,” I said. “And brother, I shall need to borrow your boat tonight.”

  Kevin looked over my shoulder at the creamery. “You didn’t think to ask if she has a friend?”

  “There comes a time,” said I, “when a man should shoot his own fowl.”

  “Perhaps, then,” said Kevin, “a man should also own his own boat.”

  “When I return,” said I, “I’ll bring you a cheese. Or a sheep. Whichever you like.”

  Kevin sighed. “I shall have to content myself with a cheese. Yet now I am wondering why I came.”

  “A pleasant sunny day on the water, and yet you complain. You should have talked to the girl yourself, an you liked her.”

  We placed ourselves beneath a maple on the path leading to the ford, and applied ourselves to the satchel, and its bread, meat, and cheese.

  Wind whistled in the high branches. Sheep drifted across the grass like foam on water. I began to feel sleep tugging at my eyelids, and then I was started into alertness by the sound of a hunting horn.

  “A recheat!” said Kevin. He was more familiar with the vocabulary of the hunt than I.

  I cupped my ears. The mellow call, rich as cream, came from the north. I rose to my feet, then jumped onto one of the lower branches of a quickbeam. Riding over the rich grass on the northern horizon I could see a party of horsemen.

  “Ay, they come,” I said. “You might wish to take cover, stand at a distance; you are too brightly colored. And hand me the satchel.”

  Kevin passed the satchel to me and withdrew farther into the glade. A dove flapped away as I climbed higher into the tree. I could see the hunters coming on, hear the dogs calling—not the baying of the hunt but a pleasant gossip within the pack. The hunting party was coming at a slow walk, the horses and men tired with their morning exercise.

  The quickbeam’s berries were turning red with autumn. The wind chuffed overhead, rattling the dry leaves. I pulled the writ from my pocket and took a firm grip on my leather satchel with its cargo of meat and cheese.

  The horn blew another recheat. I heard a door bang from the direction of the house, as the servants bustled out to assist the hunting party.

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nbsp; The staghounds scented their home and bounded into the lead, barking amiably as they arrowed for the kennels. Like a gray-brown river they poured along beneath my feet, followed by some of the grooms. The hounds, grooms, horses, and hunters were all spattered with mud from crossing the causeway.

  Sir Stanley rode in the middle of the party, a big man with a thick neck and long gray mustaches that reached halfway down his chest. He wore heavy boots and hunting leathers and a goodly coating of mud, and he held the reins in one hand and a braided whip in the other. His horse was heavy-framed and yellow where it wasn’t spattered by ooze. Behind came the grooms, one bearing the straight sword their master used to kill the stags once the dogs had cornered them, and another with the gun used for hinds, who were less sport because they had no horns with which to defend themselves, and therefore could be shot instead of attacked on foot. Behind came sumpter horses bearing the bodies of the kill, already cut up and packaged and ready for the kitchen or the smokehouse. The trophy heads were carried in a basket: a red stag and a fallow buck, and a small but angry-looking boar.

  My pulse beat high in my throat. I calculated my moment, then made my leap and landed in a crouch just ahead of the rider, and to his left, on the side away from the whip. The big horse reared and bellowed in surprise. The rider clutched at the reins.

  “Sir Stanley! Sir Stanley!” I called out. I waved the satchel near the horse’s head and provoked more rearing. The hooves lashed out. Sir Stanley cursed, sawed the reins, and finally backed the yellow horse down. Rage turned his face a brilliant scarlet. He turned to me and roared.

  “What do you mean, waving that damned thing, you jack-in-the-box!”

  “Hold this, sir. You may have broke the martingale.”

  I held out the writ as I feigned an interest in the horse’s bridle; the yellow horse backed away again, and out of exasperation, Sir Stanley snatched the writ from my hand.

  “No, I see the martingale is all right,” I said. I gave the knight a brilliant smile. “And sir, that is a writ in your hand, and you are commanded by the justice of the peace to the Assizes.”