Within A Forest Dark

by Mary Ellen Johnson

  Margery felt suddenly lightheaded. The smells of sweat and perfume, from the smoking candles in their sconces and in the wheels overhead, from the riot of bouquets and funeral wreaths were all so overpowering. As was the atmosphere, oppressive with sadness. Then she felt Matthew's hand around her waist. He'd disengaged from the procession to stand beside her, and comforted by his nearness, she pressed her thigh against his. Together they watched the parade, with Margery counting the faces of those she knew. She spotted Desiderata Cecy, and did not miss when the woman swiveled her head to seek eye contact with Matthew. Margery didn't risk a glance at her lover to observe his reaction but she felt a nag of disquiet. Foolishness, of course, for his and Desire's relationship was so long in the past, before marriage, young Ralph, widowhood—and now the creature was mistress to a king. When Desire's name was brought up, wasn't silence or a shrug of the shoulders, as was Matt's wont, preferable to rage, which would have implied emotional ties rather than indifference?

  Margery slid her arm across her stomach to rest her hand atop his fingers, and then she froze.

  There, right behind Desiderata Cecy, was her father.

  Thomas Rendell.

  Thomas was near as lean as she remembered and with the same piercing blue eyes, though his hair was threaded with more grey than brown. Margery felt as if her heart had stopped before it once again resumed with a frantic hammering. Two decades might have passed but she felt a child again. Matthew had already told her that he had seen her father at the last parliament, and that his first wife, Lawrence Ravenne's sister and the demanding creature of Margery's memory, had died some years back without ever giving him anything but still-borns. Since he'd remarried, Matthew said, Thomas had fathered two healthy sons. Margery guessed that the far younger woman beside him was indeed his wife. She had a kind, if not pretty face, and judging from the look of her was about to bless her husband with a third heir.

  Her father. But he was merely the man who'd created her. Nothing more. And so much time had passed, what did it matter now?

  As Thomas bent toward his wife, his gaze swept the crowd and he spotted Margery. He appeared as startled as if seeing a spectre and halted before being pushed forward. He craned his neck, looking back until she was lost among the crowd. Did she look enough like Alice that he had remembered? Was that what had so startled him? What other reason could there be?

  Matthew pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head, as if to comfort her. So, here it was. Sometimes we can wallow in the past, or allow it to simply drift away, little noticed and little mourned, or have it all come crashing back at a certain glimpse of a face, or inhalation of a fragrance or when we hear the familiar piping of a flute or view a certain landscape and find it achingly familiar and achingly elusive. And then we realize the past is not past at all...

  Ten years old, so cold and frightened, standing by the dovecote. The day as grey as the pigeons cooing in their compartments... the weight of the basket of bread in her hands... the dirty straw clinging to her wooden pattens... the frown between Thomas's eyes... his wife glaring like a hag meant to scare people... her fluffy white dog. Had it squirmed in its mistress's arms? Had it yapped at Margery? What words had passed between her and her father? That she couldn't quite remember. Simply the feeling of desperation, the surety at the conclusion of their meeting that she and Alf would starve...

  The procession had passed and around her the mourners were dispersing, heading for the courtyard. "Would you like to speak with Lord Rendell?" Matthew asked, as they fell in step with the others. "Will you be fine? What might I do?"

  She was touched by his solicitousness. "Let us just return to Eastbridge Hospital and rest. There are so many people." She fanned a hand in front of her face. "I am just having difficulty breathing... I knew he might be here. I thought I would be better prepared."

  They exited Canterbury Cathedral's massive doors and paused to allow their eyes to adjust to the afternoon light...

  When she felt a hand on her arm and was face to face with her father. "I had thought you dead." Thomas gazed down at her, his expression filled with wonder. "I heard Lord Hart speak of you but I never connected you with my Margery."

  My Margery? What was Thomas saying? Was he speaking to her or Matthew or someone else? What did his words mean? Her head seemed stuffed with wool. Dimly she took notice of Simon Sudbury passing in his stiff gold-embroidered vestments, still wearing his miter; of grey-garbed Franciscans distributing alms to waiting beggars as Prince Edward would have wished; and of Thomas's wife standing discreetly nearby, in seemingly easy conversation with others. Had Thomas told his wife about her?

  "Why did you never contact me?" Her father's words tumbled one over the other. "You look so very much like Alice. It took me back so far. I still dream of her sometimes." He reached out to briefly caress Margery's cheek. He looked so pleased to see her; 'twas not pretense, that was clear enough.

  Matthew had turned away to speak with a pair of mourners wearing Prince Edward's badge.

  "I often thought of you after our last meeting," Thomas was saying. "Those were terrible times and I should not have sent you away with only money. I should have visited you at your cottage. But I knew, at least, you were being well cared for. I could do that much. To make certain you lived in comfort."

  Trying to make sense of his conversation, Margery frowned. To what was he referring? She'd tossed the money back at the bailiff. She thought about all the things she could now say, reminding him that he had commanded her to go away, and threatened her with removal. Hadn't he? Her memories were so jumbled. Besides, did any of it matter? A lifetime had unscrolled itself and she had survived and now here they were...

  "I did not take the money. The bailiff must have kept it."

  She remembered the man, probably long dead, reaching down to pick up the purse, tossing it in his hands, measuring its weight. Once she would have told her father it was Judas money but viewing the situation from adult eyes, she could more clearly understood his dilemma.

  Thomas drew back in surprise. "I did not know. All this time I'd thought—"

  "It doesna matter..."

  "But it does! And after I returned from the Poitiers campaign, I even travelled to Ravennesfield on my way to Cambridge Castle. There I was told that your cottage had burned down and no one knew where you were."

  Their cottage had burned? All these years, when she'd thought of her childhood home, she'd been remembering something that did not exist.

  "You returned?" Margery continued mentally rearranging childhood certainties, re-shuffling memories and rearranging them as she would furniture in a long unused room. Aye, I remember this. No that makes no sense. It belongs over there.

  Thomas nodded. "I cared for your mother and I care for you. I still have masses said for her soul—for both of your souls, for I had thought you dead, as well."

  Margery felt a shiver, as if she'd been a ghost. For that's what he'd thought her to be—just a memory drifting across his thoughts the way a wisp of cloud crossed the moon. As if it were an ill omen.

  "You could not have known the bailiff kept the money," she said finally. "Just as I could not have known of your return to Ravennesfield." She lowered her head. So much to think about, so much to assimilate. "Mayhap it all worked out for the best. If I had taken your money, some village lad would have wed me for my dowry and then I would never have met my Lord Hart... and I hear Ravennesfield is very poor."

  Margery raised her gaze to his and forced a smile. "The priests say, 'All things work to the good for those who love the Lord.' Mayhap this is one of those times when they are right."

  She glanced at Matthew, whose attention was split between the retainers and her and Thomas. Yes, had life not led her from Ravennesfield and to her beloved 'twould have been a hollow existence.

  "Will you and Lord Hart not come to Fordwich before returning to London? I would talk with you further. Part of your heritage is there, you know."

  What did she
know of Thomas's family? His mother had been a fabled beauty, mistress to the hapless Edward II's illegitimate half-brother, Richard of Sussex. Hadn't his mother, Maria Rendell, done penance here at Canterbury Cathedral for their adulterous relationship? Hadn't she been stripped naked to the waist and flogged in front of hundreds? And forced to crawl to the steps to Becket's tomb in humiliation and beg forgiveness for her adultery? If Margery had heard mention of it in London, locals must still gossip of it here in Canterbury, particularly if Thomas's mother had run afoul of local priests. Particularly for sexual sins. Odd that, of all transgressions—murder, witchcraft, idolatry, whatever—some of the clergy seemed particularly preoccupied with sins of the flesh. For the first time Margery wondered whether their confessors might have separate concerns from their Creator...

  "Won't you come to Fordwich?" urged Thomas. "'Tis just a short ride away. My wife, my mother, all of us, would be pleased to share our... your home and hospitality."

  Margery looked at Matthew, who had reappeared at her side. She hoped he'd offer excuses for it was all too overwhelming, but a look passed between them and he must have misread her expression for he nodded.

  "Dame Margery and I would be honored," Matthew said.

  Margery opened her mouth to gainsay him but seeing the pleasure in her father's eyes, she managed only to echo, "Honored."

  Chapter 24

  Fordwich

  Lady Maria Rendell recognized her son's natural daughter among the group approaching her, across Fordwich Castle's great hall. Maria's eyes remained sharp, at least at a distance, and she'd been waiting for them. With curiosity more than excitement for not much of life excited—or surprised—her anymore.

  She watched her son, arm in arm with his wife who moved slowly with her pregnancy, and as always thought of how Thomas looked like his father. Phillip had not lived long enough for his hair to grey but with Thomas's increasing years, the resemblance had increased.

  Then she studied the young woman, Margery Watson, and there was no doubt. Something about the eyes and the composition of her features. The family resemblance that was marked in some fashion on all of Maria's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

  Maria rose from her chair beside the roaring blaze in the great fireplace to properly greet them. She was relieved that today she could stand easily enough for at times her joints ached. But at her advanced years, that was to be expected. The only difference between old age and the many crises in her life was that old age was a permanent condition. The others had passed into memory, where, should she choose to dwell on them, they could still cause her sorrow. So generally she did not.

  Thomas turned to address his daughter and they both smiled. Ah, Maria was pleased because her son was pleased. Thomas, child of her heart, had not had an easy life. First there had been her public scandal when he'd been old enough to suffer the slights, ostracisms and humiliations from merciless peers and the enemies of her lover and the old king, Edward II. Then, Thomas's first wife—now there had been a harridan of legendary proportions—and no living children. The endless campaigns for someone who, unlike his father, would be happy to never leave his demesnes.

  But at least today's wars are on French soil.

  Not as it had been in the days of the old king when England had seemed soaked in blood. And now Thomas had Constance, placid and adoring and on her way to providing a third legitimate heir.

  "Lady Mother," Thomas said, kissing her on both cheeks before introducing her to Margery, who curtsied before her.

  Nervous, Maria thought. But she hides it well.

  Maria pulled her up and smiled into her eyes. Aye, Thomas's eyes. And Margery looked at her directly, a sign of good manners.

  "Welcome to Fordwich Castle," Maria said.

  Margery no doubt responded but Maria didn't hear for she had spotted the man behind her granddaughter and her heart felt as if it had turned in her chest. Richard, Earl of Sussex, the man she had loved. One of the men she had loved. Still loved.

  But Richard had been dead decades. He'd be an old man. Older than I am. Maria blinked again and she saw that it wasn't Richard, of course could not be Richard. My eyes have grown as weak as the rest of me.

  She beckoned to the knight and he came forward, bowing before her. Lord Matthew Hart, earl of Cumbria and Hertford.

  "You remind me of someone," she said bluntly.

  "Mayhap my brother?" Matthew asked, a bit surprised by her directness. "He oft came to Canterbury on pilgrimage. Or my father, Lord William Hart? He and my lady Mother spoke of attending one of your cherry fairs, though that was many years past."

  Maria didn't ask how his parents fared, for most likely they were dead. Another unpleasant consequence of age.

  "Perhaps so." Her smile covered her initial shock.

  So life can still surprise me.

  As they uttered the usual courtesies, Maria took inventory. While at first glance Matthew Hart had the same color hair and eyes, roughly the same build, her Richard had been taller, or at least it seemed so in memory. And he'd ever had an aesthetic air about him that toward the end she had labeled "otherworldly." She preferred that word to "holy," though some had described him thus and even sought to have him declared a saint. Regardless, from their first meeting her Richard had possessed a vulnerability and gentleness that his knightly persona could not completely hide.

  Definitely not the case with this one.

  But there was something more behind Lord Hart's proud visage, something she would seek out. And once she sensed it, she would approach gently and then, if God so willed it, it might reveal itself...

  "I am sorry we meet at such a sad time," Maria said, silently probing. "The whole world mourns our prince."

  "Aye, my lady. Very sad," Matthew Hart echoed.

  Immediately the truth came to her in one word: despair.

  Maria abruptly turned to her son. "I hope you all will forgive me but I am suddenly very tired." She beckoned to one of her maids who ever hovered nearby.

  Maria must ponder why God had brought Thomas's daughter and her knight into her life at this time. There must be a reason. There was always a reason.

  "Please do visit me after dinner in my tower rooms," she said over her shoulder to Margery. "There is much I would like to know."

  * * *

  Maria gazed out the window opening of her tower chamber. From this great height, above Fordwich Castle's battlements, she could see cargo ships docked on the River Stour directly in front of her; if she turned her head to her left the spire of Canterbury Cathedral rising above the roofs and trees of the town; and directly below, the cherry orchard fanning beyond the castle walls.

  With the passage of time, Maria increasingly stayed to her tower rooms. The stone stairs were precipitous and even though she'd had a rope attached as a railing and her maids to aid her, she marked her physical deterioration with the difficulty by which she maneuvered the winding passageway. She was largely content here in her spacious perch with her birds, her alaunt, Canis, her books, her music and her memories.

  Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren loved the tower. They thought it enchanted because of the stories she spun for them, pulled from old legends or invented on the spot, and later, after they aged, because here they could shut out the outside world. Maria had worked hard to make it so, particularly with the lush tapestries covering every wall, depicting the Arthurian legends, primarily Merlin, born of a mortal woman, sired by an incubus. Since Merlin was known to be a shapeshifter, Maria would point to a fox or deer or horse or bird, a maid or a crone on a tapestry and ask, "Is that Merlin? How about that one?" Or to Canis (or Canis's predecessors), head between his paws, watching them, and ask, "What about him?" The younger children loved the fantastical tales. The older, she hoped, loved the tower because it was peaceful and she preferred listening to judging.

  In spring when the cherry trees were in bloom, Maria and whatever child or children had arrived for a visit, would sleep in the orchard.
When alone, she still did so. As a young woman, she had wrapped herself in her mantle and curled beneath a favored tree. Now, she made those times a ritual, complete with feather mattresses, pillows, and fine bedding. No way, of course, for her old bones to settle easily atop the earth.

  Canis moved to her. Absently Maria stroked his massive head; he rubbed his greying muzzle against her skirt.

  "Old friend," she murmured, scratching the underside of his jaw.

  What no one save herself knew was that the cherry orchard was a magical place. Not only could Maria mark many of the important events in her life in relation to it, but the orchard was something more. For when she lay beneath the lacework of branches and blossoms and gazed through them to the night sky, she sensed ancient powers at play. And when she slept, she dreamed such dreams. Not so much dreams as relivings of her past, as if in sleep she accessed a hidden door that allowed her once more to spend time there.

  Mayhap it was because of the sight. Her fraternal twin, Eleanora, had always experienced premonitions, though Maria suspected she herself had been, what?, too selfish, too caught in her distractions, too busy rushing at life, to share her sister's gift. Until the night her beloved Richard had been killed in a bordering raid against the Scots and her equally beloved husband wounded. She'd awakened screaming from that particular dream which hadn't been a dream at all, but a seeing.

  With time those seeings had increased, though Maria said very little. If she declared, "Aye, I can sometimes glimpse... things," she would be dismissed as a madwoman. But someone could also mark her as dangerous and she'd long since ceased courting danger. She was content to be labeled wife, mistress of Fordwich, adulteress, mother, widow, grandmother, crone. No one need know the dramas, battles, journeys—the whole panoply of a life, of many lives—that re-played themselves on certain spring nights in the cherry orchard.