The Plague Tales

by Ann Benson

  Fifteen

  They rode along the rutted, dusty road from Windsor to the estate where Adele had lived with her parents as a child, before being sent to Windsor to serve the Princess Isabella.

  “I have traveled this route so many times that I know every tree and rock,” she said. “I think I could complete the journey with my eyes closed, were the horse obedient.”

  “Do you find this one to be so?” Alejandro asked.

  “He’s a very gentle mount. See for yourself,” she said.

  Since she knew the route so well, he had been riding behind her on the narrow road. Now he rode up beside her, and saw that the child Kate was asleep against Adele’s bosom. Would that it were me, he thought with some envy.

  “Sir John chose that horse well,” he said.

  “Indeed,” Adele said. “He treads so evenly that I could be lulled off myself.”

  The woods were cool and quiet; their occasional words and the clop-clop of the horses’ hooves were all that disturbed the stillness. When a hawk cried overhead, it seemed an intrusion into their privacy.

  The air that Alejandro breathed was warm and sweet, and although he knew that the journey he now undertook could not possibly end happily, he felt at peace. “It is difficult to believe that such a world as this could be filled with so much turmoil.”

  Adele sighed deeply, her chest rising and falling as she did. Kate squirmed a bit in response, and Adele clutched her more tightly. “More turmoil awaits me ahead, no doubt.”

  “How so?” Alejandro asked.

  “Since my mother’s death, I am the sole proprietress of my father’s lands and holdings,” she explained. “They are not insubstantial.”

  “I do not understand,” he said. “How can it be troublesome to have such good fortune?”

  “As my father was fond of telling me, fortune makes itself. One must work to create prosperity. He was a shrewd and careful steward of his lands, and having no son, he passed his wisdom on to his daughter. Now I am the mistress of these holdings, and I am obliged to see that my tenants and overseers care for it properly. And that they themselves may prosper. My father always told me that the best way to inspire loyalty among one’s tenants is to treat them fairly. He was a good lord to his subjects.”

  “Are you as good a lady to them?”

  “I try to be,” she said. “I am fortunate to have in my employ an excellent overseer, one who served my father before me. Of course, there will still be many affairs requiring my attention when we arrive there. Nearly a year has gone by since my last visit. It was when my mother died, and was laid to rest in the sarcophagus, may God have mercy on her soul. I brought some of her possessions back with me to Windsor, among them the ruby you seem to admire so much.”

  “You have noticed, then.”

  “I watch your eyes; it matters greatly to me where they settle.”

  “Then you should be a happy woman, since they are only for you.”

  “To the degree that one can be happy in such a world as this, I am.”

  “As am I,” Alejandro said.

  They rode on in silence, each one content to be in the quiet presence of the other, until Adele pointed to a tree ahead of them and said, “A road comes off to the right just ahead of that tree. We are not far away now.”

  As they rode into the courtyard of the manor house, a fat housekeeper came out to see who approached. She shouted out a happy greeting when she saw her mistress. Adele waved back to the woman, who ran to a nearby bell and rang it loudly for a few moments.

  “The others will come quickly,” she said. “The bell will summon them.”

  “That bell would summon the devil, I think.” Alejandro jumped down off his horse and took Kate from Adele. As he brought her down from the saddle, she awakened, and seemed lost for a moment. He held the small child in his arms and cooed reassurances into her ear, until she was fully awake and aware of her surroundings. By then Adele was off her own horse and at his side.

  The housekeeper waddled toward them, clucking out an effusion of grandmotherly joy. Soon Adele’s overseer appeared from one of the outbuildings, and added his own voice to the greeting. There was a flurry of welcome in the courtyard, which continued well into the house.

  Then there was the bustle of settling in. Adele was an impressive mistress and directed the servants to do her bidding with firm but gentle authority. “Make ready my own chamber, and settle young Kate there,” she instructed the housekeeper. “I shall be quartered in my mother’s suite, and Dr. Hernandez will be given the master suite.”

  “As you wish, my lady,” the old housekeeper said. “It is good to hear friendly voices in these rooms again.”

  “And I warm to the sounds of my childhood home,” she said. Out of Kate’s hearing she added quietly, “But sadly, we shall be here a short while, for we bring young Kate to her mother’s deathbed, after which we shall promptly return to Windsor.”

  Then she raised her voice again and said, “See that a good board is laid for supper and send out for all of my stewards. Let them dine at my table tonight,” and winking at Kate, added, “with some sweets for the child if such can be found, for when we have shaken and washed off this dust, we shall all no doubt be very hungry.”

  As Alejandro watched Adele busy herself with the tasks of management, he imagined a small redheaded child, no larger than Kate, giving her laughter to these cold walls. It was a delightful image that lightened his heart. He had never given much thought to Adele’s own station in life outside her service to Isabella, and she had said little of it. This estate was nearly a kingdom in itself! He thought, It is plain that she has no need to marry. As long as her holdings are well managed, she will never want. And in that moment it was also distressingly plain to him that with such an attractive dowry, the king might be tempted to force her into a loveless match for the sake of a beneficial alliance. Alejandro shuddered at the thought of Adele as the wife of some man who might care nothing for winning her heart, and everything for winning her wealth.

  When they had finished the supper, Adele commented on the variety and quality of the foods that the housekeeper had managed to assemble before them on such short notice. “You have set out a remarkable board,” she said, “complete with honey cakes for all, I see! We shall all become too sweet, I think.”

  The housekeeper winked and said, “Ah, Lady Adele, you may be right for the old ones among us, but can a little girl be too sweet?”

  Adele looked at Kate, whose face and hands were smeared with honey. The child’s drooping eyes betrayed her fatigue. “I think not, but a little girl can be too tired,” she said. “Perhaps it is time for this one to go to sleep.”

  The child made no protest as the housekeeper led her away to Adele’s childhood chamber. As soon as the child was gone, Adele turned to her chief overseer, and asked for his report.

  “As you can see by the contents of the board, my lady, we are still fortunate. We still have help to bring in the yield.”

  “I take it to be your meaning that others are not so fortunate.”

  “With so many dead, many other estates do not have enough hands to bring in the harvests!” he said. “We have lost four farmers, but their parcels were not the best, and the others have rotated parts of the labor to see that their crops do not go to seed. For a small consideration, of course.”

  “Naturally,” Adele said. “No man shall work uncompensated on my holdings. And the wool? How goes the shearing?”

  “We are blessed again this year,” he said. “The yield is very high.”

  “And the prices? How is the market with so many dead?”

  “Prices have fallen, of course, but no doubt they will rebound as things get settled. I see no reason for us to sell our stores too quickly, though; we can hold them for a year or even two if necessary. There is enough other income to see to all of your expenses, and we can afford to wait for wool to rise again.”

  “Then that is what we shall do,” she said. She looke
d around at the gathered stewards of the various parts of her estate. All had the same anxious looks on their faces. “Now, I sense that there is much more you would all like to tell me. Please speak freely.”

  With great urgency in their voices the stewards described the daily uncertainty of their existence. Everything familiar had changed, or soon would, and their lives had none of the simple solidity of the recent past. The local dead from outside her holdings were named, and it seemed to Adele that every other person she knew was among those taken by the scourge.

  “Everyone is numbly inured to the grief of losing a loved one,” the overseer said, “for it has become a common occurrence. The shock of death has begun to lose its power, and the passing of a single human being is hardly worth noting anymore.”

  The sad news weighed heavily on Adele, and left its mark on her face. She excused all but her housekeeper and main overseer, to whom she gave the tasks of preparing for the next mornings travel. After asking Alejandro if he required any additional preparations, which he declined, she dismissed them both, with her sincere thanks for jobs well done. Finally, they were alone.

  Alejandro could feel the very coursing of the blood through his veins; sitting across from him at this table was the first woman he had ever touched with true affection, and he knew that in time his love for her would grow to something he could no longer contain.

  Here there is no princess requiring attendance, and no manservant who might tell tales to his prince in return for a few coins in a cloth purse, he thought, his heart pounding. In this place Adele is the mistress of her own fate and, God be praised, mine as well.

  “Adele,” he said softly, needing to hear the sound of her name, “I cannot say what is in my heart right now.”

  “Alejandro …” she breathed. “You need not say it. It passes through the very air without a sound. My heart is full of the same nameless thoughts.”

  So lost were they in each other that the freshening of the evening’s light breeze to a chill night wind went unnoticed, until the flame of a nearby torch flickered. Alejandro rose quickly and closed the shutters against the noise and the sudden chill. Turning back toward the table where they had been seated, he suddenly found Adele only an arm’s length away, never having heard her footfalls behind him. She moves like a cat, so quietly, and with such grace. She reached out to him and took his hand, then lightly traced a pattern of swirls on his palm with her small finger, and they stood, engrossed in the simple pleasure of that touch, for a long white. Humming softly, she closed her eyes and swayed to her own tune, until Alejandro finally broke the spell by lifting his other hand to touch her cheek.

  “Adele,” he said, “I fear that if we do this thing, I shall not be able to bear the solitude of all the nights after this one. When we are again at Windsor, it will be no simple task to find a private place.”

  “And I fear that if we do not, I will eternally regret my own foolishness, for God alone knows if we shall have another chance.”

  Alejandro could not define the end of his fear and the beginning of his joy, for the two ebbed and flowed and were inseparably blended in his heart. The battle between his faith and his freedom raged potently within him; in one moment he was an independent young man in the arms of his lover, in the next a devout Jew with an obligation, even a longing, to uphold the customs of his family and ancestors. And he could not forget that the mark of his faith was cruelly burned into the skin of his chest.

  It will be dark, he assured himself, and she will not see it.… I will keep her hands so busy that she will not be able to feel it.… And what if she does? he asked himself. Will she betray me?

  She will not, he told himself. She loves me; of that I am certain. And does not the Talmud say that each man, when he meets his Creator, must account for the pleasures of his life that he has not experienced? His God demanded that he live his life with as much joy as possible, and had made it painfully plain that the life in question could be snatched away at any moment.

  “And God alone knows if we shall live long enough to feel that regret,” he finally said. “Suddenly I have lost my willingness to leave it in His hands.” He took her in his arms and said, “I have not been with a woman before.”

  “Nor I with a man.”

  “Then we shall learn from each other,” he said, and drew her into a kiss.

  It was but an hour’s ride to where Kate’s mother lay dying, and as they neared their destination, Kate grew whiny and fussy. Alejandro wondered what disturbing thoughts were shattering the child’s peace. She must be terrified, he thought, as I myself would be by the prospect of watching my mother’s life fade away.

  Perhaps, he thought, what she really fears is losing the hope of ever knowing the lady well enough to call her “Mother.” Kate hardly knew this woman who, with the help of England’s king, had given her life, and soon the opportunity would be forever lost. The child might not really understand what it was that caused her own unrest.

  But I understand your fright, little one, he thought, for I, too, am without a true home. He marveled that she had any of her wits about her. She could not be enjoying this journey and the inevitable misery at its conclusion.

  But he would never forget this journey for the indescribable ecstasy it had brought him. All of the pain of the past few months had been erased in one sweet night and replaced with joy, and despite the chaos of the world around him, all was well within his heart. He and Adele exchanged glances again and again, reliving the deep joy of their discovery of each other. Their eyes would meet, and a thrilling rush of emotion, almost painful in its intensity, would course wildly through him like a raging but welcome flood.

  She had not noticed his scar. And were she not as virginal as he himself was, she might have known the difference between him and a man who had not given a piece of his flesh to God, but she had said nothing. All she had uttered were words of love and moans of ecstasy, sounds that still echoed in his ears.

  Now as they rode along, Adele spoke almost formally, not wishing to betray the new intimacy between herself and Alejandro while Kate was able to observe them together.

  “We have arrived at our destination, monsieur,” she said stiffly, and nodded in the direction of a modest but solid-looking house just before the next crossroad.

  Alejandro dismounted, then lifted Kate off the horse that she and Adele shared. He cleared his throat nervously, trying to find his gentlest voice to tell Kate the sad things that needed saying before she went inside.

  “I know Nurse has told you that your mother is gravely ill,” he said to the small child. “Soon God will claim her as His own and she will live among the angels.”

  Kate’s eyes squeezed tightly shut and she fought to contain her tears. Searching around his many pockets, Alejandro found a small cloth and offered it to the frightened little girl, who was trying bravely to maintain her composure. She accepted his kind offer with a weak but grateful smile, and wiped her eyes.

  “Kate,” he said, “your mother may not look the same as she did the last time you saw her. No doubt this heinous blight has diminished her beauty.”

  The little girl nodded, eager to convey her understanding, but failed to convince her skeptical escorts that she would be unaffected by what she was going to see.

  “The king has strictly ordered me to use all of my medical skills to protect you from contagion, in honor of the great affection he still bears your mother. He could not accompany us himself, but he is anxious for you to have the opportunity to see your mother again.”

  The small child sniffled, then slowly raised up her eyes and looked directly at him.

  Alejandro smiled. “Good, brave child! I have brought some herbs in a mask that you must promise to wear faithfully while you are inside this abode, for otherwise you are in danger of contracting the contagion yourself. And sadly, Kate, I am afraid you must not embrace your mother, or even touch her, for such actions might allow the pest to travel from her body directly into yours. The kings w
rath will be huge if you disobey me in this matter, and I have no wish to be subjected to any more of his anger.”

  Kate nodded again, with terrible seriousness, then wiped her nose on her sleeve.

  “Would it help you to know that I understand your suffering, my small friend?” the physician asked. “I was separated from my own mother and father on a journey to France, shortly before I was pressed into this service by the pope’s physician.”

  Finally she spoke, flashing a temper that betrayed her kinship to Isabella. “But they must have been old! My mother is young, and beautiful, and it isn’t fair for her to die!” She sobbed, and fell into Alejandro’s arms, and he comforted her as best he could.

  Before knocking on the massive door the three travelers donned their cloth masks, which were filled with a protective mixture made from what remained of Alejandro’s dried medicinal herbs and leaves. When the serving girl opened the door to them, she stepped back abruptly. The three travelers bore a distinct resemblance to giant birds of prey in their beaked masks and winglike cloaks. Suspecting chicanery, and knowing that in this house of women they were ill prepared to defend themselves, she started to slam the door shut again.

  But Adele spoke quickly. “Wait!” she said. “We are envoys from the king, and here is the lady’s child, as she requested. God grant that we have not arrived too late.”

  In a dramatic gesture of realization the servant girl raised her hands up in the air then clasped them together quickly, whispering, “Thank you, blessed Virgin, for bringing the child safely here, and God curse King Edward for his neglect!” then reopened the door rather quickly, and rushed them into the house. “There’s chill enough in here already, and the lady cannot seem to find a moment of warmth! Come in, and close the door to cold drafts and evil vapors. Quick! Before the bad air gets in!”