Within A Forest Dark

by Mary Ellen Johnson

  For the first time, Maria took note of Canterbury Cathedral's bells, distant but persistent in the still afternoon air. Soon, surely, they would cease their tolling for the world must move on without its prince. The sight of the cathedral's spire or the booming of its bells no longer caused her to shrink inwardly or bile to rise to her throat, as had been the case for so many years. When she'd been publicly scourged and humiliated by a bishop long dead for sins few could remember and fewer were old enough to have witnessed.

  Maria rested her cheek against the coolness of the window stones and closed her eyes. This morning had shaken her, seeing the knight, Matthew Hart. Memories were peculiar things. They might become ancient, would become ancient, as the years stacked up, one atop the other, like stones in a castle wall. One would inevitably forget individual memories with years compressed into a handful of incidents, impressions or benchmarks.

  This was the year Blanche was born.

  There is the stream where Thomas fell in as a wee lad.

  Those were Richard's exact words when he spoke about loyalty to his half-brother the king.

  Right here in front of this cherry tree is where Phillip, scarred and broken, returned from his final battle.

  I sense the same unrest as before the kingdom turned against the old king.

  Yet, at other times, something would trigger her and full blown memories would rush her, as vivid and compelling as when she'd actually experienced them.

  And now, here I am, the last person to keep alive Richard and Phillip, my parents and Eleanora, and all those I loved who have gone before me. And who revisit every spring.

  Until Fordwich's cherry blossoms drifted like fragrant snowflakes to the ground where they would return to the earth. And lay in wait for another year.

  Maria heard a movement on the stairs. She turned.

  Ah, Thomas's daughter.

  Clasping her hands in front of her, she squared her shoulders and readied herself.

  "Enter, Dame Margery," Maria called.

  * * *

  Here Margery was, seated across from a legend. She considered it all passing strange, for last night she'd asked Matthew to tell her about Lady Rendell. All of England knew something, even if it was only ancient stories, long embroidered to seem fantastical, but since childhood Margery had consciously closed her ears to any mention of her heritage.

  As best he could recount, Matthew had obligingly sketched the outline of Lady Maria Rendell's life. When a young noblewoman, she had cast aside propriety to openly live with the bastard brother of Edward II while the kingdom crumbled about them. She'd been captured by her lover's enemies, publicly flogged and made to crawl half-naked and half dead to St. Thomas Becket's tomb. Then, following the death of her lover, who Maria's husband, even after their betrayal, had unsuccessfully tried to shield from a Scot's blade, Maria Rendell had largely disappeared. To live a quiet life with a husband who wore a silver half-mask to hide the scarring from the blade of that anonymous Scotsman. And with whom she'd borne two more children. And had passed the decades.

  Maria Rendell: infamous, famous, largely forgotten, but a living part of England's history. Like their king Edward.

  "Wine?" Maria asked.

  "Thank you, my lady."

  One of Maria's maidservants poured them each a goblet while another lit a fire, for the afternoon had turned chill, before both retreated to the adjoining bedchamber.

  Watching Maria's face as she made polite conversation, Margery decided she looked much healthier and even oddly, more regal, than His Grace the king, though she must be of a far greater age. Her grandmother's hair was thick and white and in private she wore it braided, without a covering, causing her eyes to appear even bluer.

  A woman who dared risk all. For love.

  Maria was recounting the building of the tower. "When my lord husband and I knew his death was near, I said, 'I would like a quiet place where I can remember. A place where I will always feel peaceful.' He oversaw its construction as best he could. His final gift to me."

  Margery felt tears prick her eyes, why she could not imagine, so she sipped her wine and pretended great interest in the fire. In their cages, Maria's popinjay and jackdaw occasionally fluttered their wings while a pair of turtle-doves cooed, as if carrying on a soothing conversation. Margery noticed a lute leaning against a bench stacked high with comfortable looking pillows, a writing desk flanked on either side by shelves with books, more than Margery had seen in any one place.

  "I remember when my son came back from Sturbridge Fair," Maria said suddenly, "where he... met your mother."

  Margery held her breath, not certain what would come next; whether what Lady Rendell might be about to impart would give the lie to a lifetime of Margery's assumptions about her heritage.

  "Did Lord Rendell... your son... speak of—"

  "No, but a mother knows her child. And Thomas, unlike his father, hated travel. So when he continued those yearly journeys and always returned so different, I knew something was brewing." She shrugged. "I assumed it was because he had decided he would marry that... Lady Beatrice and was pursuing all the arrangements. And after the marriage I did not see so much of him for he has other holdings. But I've not forgotten. And now it all makes sense."

  Maria smiled and then changed the subject to Margery's son. "Please tell me about him. God has blessed me so far with fifteen great grandchildren."

  Margery complied as best she could, wondering if she was making a muddle of it, if Lady Rendell was silently judging her, thinking her lowborn or a potential source of trouble and embarrassment and softening her with friendly banter before verbally annihilating her.

  "Your Lord Hart," Maria said abruptly. "He reminds me of someone. A man I loved a very long time ago. Well, a man I still love. For love does not die when the person we love is gone." With a slight smile she added, "Mayhap it just goes underground. Like a great silent river."

  Being compared to a dead man seemed a troubling portent, though Margery politely asked, "Might I ask who Lord Hart reminds you of?"

  "Richard, Earl of Sussex."

  "Good morrow, lovedy," someone called. Margery jumped before realizing her grandmother's popinjay was addressing someone or no one from its cage. She laughed nervously.

  Maria ignored the interruption, continuing to gaze at her, as if considering. "I was so very young when first we met and then so in love with my lord husband that I didn't even notice him, the illegitimate brother of the old king.

  "I used to call Richard my golden knight. My twin sister had the sight and she described him thus before we even met. She referred to him as 'the golden knight who shines like the sun.'"

  Margery felt the oddest shiver. She had long thought of Matthew as her faerie knight, only she'd imagined him shimmering under a full moon. But hadn't she also called him golden? Margery sensed strange undercurrents, like the great river Maria had mentioned, flowing beneath them, joining them all, pulling them in some mysterious, pre-determined direction. She suppressed the urge to rise, to cross to the window where she would comment on the view, or murmur fatuous comments about the colorful tapestries covering the walls, or flee the tower altogether.

  Instead she stayed silent and waited, wondering what would come next.

  "Of course, when I looked closely I saw no more than a superficial resemblance between my Richard and Lord Hart. But he interests me, your knight."

  Margery licked her lips. Could her grandmother possibly know about Limoges, about all the deaths, and about Margery's inner conflict, her torn loyalties, or perhaps about other things that Matthew had kept from her? Looking into those brilliant eyes, it seemed that Maria Rendell, like the hedge priest, John Ball, could see everything.

  "Your knight is... sad." Maria did not add that he was also dangerous, dangerous in a way Richard or Phillip had never been. Richard had been a reluctant knight and Phillip, ah, her dreamer, her restless adventurer, who would never settle down but always yearned for exotic places. Until
he did not.

  "There have been many losses," Maria said uncomfortably. "He just needs... time." She gestured vaguely, as if waving away further discussion.

  Perhaps Maria sensed her discomfort for when she spoke again, it was in generalities. "Mayhap 'tis a good thing not knowing when we start where we will end. Though we always wish otherwise, wondering, 'What will happen tomorrow? How will this unfold?'"

  Maria nodded. "I question all the time."

  Maria's eyes were sharp upon her. In their cage, the turtle doves cooed. The popinjay repeated, "Lovedy, Lovedy," while a log in the fireplace cracked as flames devoured it.

  "In the end, how could I choose which one I loved the more?" Maria said, returning to her earlier conversation. "'Twas like the sun and the moon. Both are necessary. The sun for life, but the moon... it is that light that keeps the darkness, all the bad, hidden, forbidden things at bay."

  Canis, stretched out before the fire, whimpered in his sleep. He twitched and then his legs started moving, as if he were running.

  Maria continued. "I thought I could never love anyone the way I loved Phillip. And then I did. And continued to love them both, even after they were gone. And, yet, I do not mourn them."

  Margery nodded, though she could not imagine how that could be. To love and yet finally, finally not mourn the loss.

  "Furthermore, there is a part of me that is grateful they departed while they were young and strong and vibrant, before they'd been ravaged by time."

  Maria thought of her dead husband. She thought of Edward III. Time was indeed a harsh taskmaster.

  "So we tell ourselves," she continued. "When in truth it would not matter the age or the circumstance if only that loved one could remain with us for just one more day. And then another." She reached out and with a slippered foot gently rubbed along Canus's spine; he thumped his tail in acknowledgement.

  "I seldom talk about such things, but before our visit I prayed that something in my words today might touch you where you need to be touched. And so we will converse and I will hope you'll carry something with you when you leave, something that will make a difference. If not for today, in the future."

  "What do you see? What do you know?" Margery wanted to ask, as if Maria Rendell were a soothsayer. Even though her grandmother had acknowledged that the knowing might not be a good thing.

  They stared at each other and then Maria's face brightened. She put down her wine and reached out to clasp both Margery's hands. "Ah, now I understand," she said softly. "Why we were to meet. And what I am supposed to say."

  * * *

  Only the incessant tolling of Canterbury's bells and Matthew Hart's footsteps disturbed the cathedral's solitude as he walked across the long nave, toward Trinity Chapel, where his prince was entombed. He ascended the stairs to the right of the quire. Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour or the building's emptiness. Perhaps it was the lingering presence of St. Thomas Becket, of the millions of pilgrims who'd worshipped here, perhaps it was the nearness of his prince. Whatever the reason, Matt was glad he'd ridden from Fordwich at a time when no one else was about so he could say his final good-bye.

  Trinity Chapel, added to the cathedral in the early thirteenth century to venerate Thomas Becket, was reached by various rising tiers of steps, reminiscent of the approach to a throne room. Twelve Miracle Windows, depicting Becket's many cures, reflected the soft glow of the single wheel of candles flickering above the tomb. Becket's gilded and jewel-encrusted shrine rested in the center of the chapel—the destination of Lady Rendell, when she'd performed her public penance a lifetime ago. If Matthew had not discussed the incident with Margery last even, he would not have given it a thought. In truth, these ancient stones had witnessed far more, including the slaughter of Saint Thomas only footsteps away.

  Matthew paused only long enough to make the sign of the cross before veering south, to Prince Edward's tomb.

  In 1363 the prince had endowed a chantry in the cathedral's crypt and in his will had directed that his body be buried in that particular chapel, called Our Lady of the Undercroft. The public, however, did not consider a tiny room tucked away in some nondescript dungeon a worthy resting place for the Black Prince. So Trinity Chapel had been chosen instead. England's greatest warrior was to be forever enshrined near England's greatest saint.

  Edward's tomb was surrounded by lighted candles. When Matthew reached it, he stared down at his prince's effigy—the drooping mustache, sightless eyes, gauntleted hands touching at the tips in perpetual prayer, the golden spurs upon his poulaines which rested upon a crouching beast.

  He reached out to run his fingers over Edward's gauntlets. Then rested a hand atop one ridged surface.

  Once Matt had assumed God would take care of them all because it was right and proper to do so. Then there had been no need of prayer; now it seemed pointless. God had not cured Edward; he would not now restore him to life. Nor would he restore England to her halcyon days. The Lollard priest, John Wycliffe, whose radical ideas were so popular among John of Gaunt's court, held that God's reason and will were within human comprehension, but Matthew no more believed man could understand God than he shared Wycliffe's belief in predestination.

  But what exactly is truth?

  Matthew had no idea. Formerly he had believed that life consisted of black and white, right or wrong with no bothersome shadings in between.

  So many things were changing, so many things he could not understand. Even the very fabric of daily life seemed to be unravelling. Nowadays, bondmen's' children were made bishops, and bishops' bastards were made archdeacons. For the proper amount of silver soapmakers and their sons could be knighted; sons of lords might become merchants' laborers and be forced to pledge their incomes. When a tailor's boy could wear golden spurs, the pursuit of knighthood had become a business like any other.

  But perhaps the fault lies not in the world, Matt thought, but in myself. Perhaps from the beginning I was wrong in my assumptions.

  He left Trinity Chapel and untied his horse from a hitching post located outside the massive entrance. Cathedral bells followed him out the precincts, mingling in a joyless tolling with those of St. Mildred's, St. Peter's, and Canterbury's other churches. Trapped by the narrow leaning buildings on Mercery Lane, the sounds melded and echoed until they seemed omnipresent. An omnipresent reminder of death.

  Matthew passed out the city gates, which were readying to close, and guided his stallion along the largely deserted roadway back to Fordwich Castle.

  * * *

  The following morning, before Matthew and Margery readied to leave Fordwich, they took a walk in the castle orchard. With the fall, leaves were starting to carpet the ground along with rotting cherries left over from the summer harvest. Both agreed that the resultant scent was surprisingly pleasant.

  "My... Lady Rendell..."—for Margery found it difficult to call her "grandmother"—"said something to me yesterday, during our visit."

  "Aye?" Matthew had slept surprisingly well, as if somehow he'd left his despair beside his prince's tomb. And he'd awakened feeling different, though he couldn't pinpoint exactly how. "Was it about your father?"

  "No, though we spoke of him too."

  As they strolled, her hand atop his, Matthew inhaled deeply and imagined what the orchard, which seemed to spread forever, would look like when heavy with fruit. Kent was famous for its cherries, as was Fordwich's orchard. He wondered if Harry had ever attended one of the fabled Cherry Fairs. Today the thought was not accompanied by the usual bittersweet pang.

  "I hope Lady Rendell did not say anything to disturb you."

  They halted along the pathway and faced each other. The orchard was very quiet, not even the trilling of a bird, the rustling of a startled hare, or voices drifting from the castle bailey. Matthew had the sudden odd feeling that the surrounding trees might be leaning toward them, listening.

  Margery said, "It's just a saying, something I'd not heard before. My... grandmother said, 'Life though pl
easant is transitory, even as is the Cherry Fair.'"

  "Transitory," Matthew echoed. He repeated the word, weighing the feel of it upon his tongue. He knew all too well life's fleeting nature, though some things, such as this orchard, seemed to him as if they would last forever. Foolish, for all things died, though that certainty did not stir the usual blackness.

  "I have found life to be pleasant, as well," Margery said, looking into his eyes, seeking assurance.

  "Aye, most pleasant indeed," he said, kissing the tip of her nose.

  "Next year I promised my lady Grandmother that we would return for the Cherry Fair," Margery continued. "'Tis tradition. When all the trees are in full blossom. Fordwich Castle holds a market here and people attend from all over. There is dancing and tables set among the boughs and so much food and merriment and just like Queen of the May, they crown their own queen."

  "If I can convince Lord Rendell to also hold a tourney, I will count the days." While he was jesting, Matthew was surprised that he meant it. He felt a connection to this place and its inhabitants, with their joyously spreading branches and deeply grooved trunks. Fordwich's trees might not be as ancient as Cumbria's mountains, but they possessed the same comforting sense of permanence.

  "Might we bring Serill?" Margery asked. "Both Lady Rendell and... Father wish to meet him."

  "Of course."

  Matthew drew Margery into his arms, she rested her head against his chest and, at least for the moment, both felt at peace. As if life might, once again, be not only transitory, but pleasant.

  As is the Cherry Fair.

  The End

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