Margaret of Ashbury 03 - The Water Devil

by Judith Merkle Riley

  TOGETHER THEY TOOK the main road toward Hertford, then doubled back secretly by roundabout ways across scrub and uninhabited wasteland, entering the woods by a route known only to them. A doe, startled, leapt before them and bounded off, seeking to lead them away from her twin fawns, cowering in the bushes nearby. But this was not a hunting day. In a tree above the path, rooks were having a parliament. What a lot of squawking, thought Gilbert, just like the real one. He looked over at his father, riding straight and square, and saw from his eyes that the old man was thinking exactly the same thought.

  “The Duke will be coming home in the fall or winter sometime, before the meeting of parliament,” said Sir Hubert.

  “If the French can raise the rest of the ransom for King John. Until then, he sits in Calais.”

  “Sits in style,” harrumphed the old man. His face was weathered, his beard and hair nearly all white now, but he could wield a twohanded sword as if it were a feather, ride all day in full armor and keep watch all the night after without nodding. His eyes were of that pale blue that has seen much death, and dealt it out, too, without ever a pang of conscience. His very passing shadow inspired terror in peasants. Ice-hearted and strong, he seemed to be without weak spots, until now. How curious, thought Gilbert, that oak trees would be the way to his heart. Oak trees and Peregrine.

  But they had passed from the mixed forest into the oak forest. It was not an accident that only oaks grew here. Centuries of culling, long before memory, had removed everything else. Above them, birds sang in the airy canopy, and at their feet, the shadow and sun spread ahead of them on the path like a dappled carpet. In the distance, they heard the rushing sound of water, and they approached the pond from the far side of the temple of yews, tethering their horses beneath it while Gilbert scouted to see if anyone was at the spring.

  “Don't bother,” said his father. “Ever since it ate my priest, most people have abandoned it utterly, except at the full moon, which isn't for another week and a half.”

  “Margaret won't go, either, and she used to come to get water for brewing. She says she doesn't like to think she is drinking a priest.”

  “There's a foolish woman for you. No matter where she gets the water, everyone's drinking him, at least, if they use the brook. And washing in him, and wading in him.” They hoisted the boxes from behind their saddles, and slashed open the wrappings. “The people say he's gone, sucked into the underworld. That keeps them from having fantasies about hauntings and staring eyes like that woman of yours who won't even eat oysters.” Within the outline of the gray, weedy ruins, they found a likely spot and began to dig. “But I have a different notion,” Sir Hubert went on. “There's the damndest, biggest eels that ever lived down in that hole. I think they eat up whatever, or whomver, is sucked up by the spring. All those chickens and cheeses and offerings. I fished up a big one out of that hole for my pond last year, but the otters ate it. And now those monster eels have gone and eaten Sir Roger, I wouldn't have the stomach for one of them. It would be like eating him, at second hand, you see, and it wouldn't be respectful.” The old man paused, astonished that he had revealed so much of his inner thinking to anyone. Gilbert paused, too, amazed that his father, in fact, had thoughts, and such calculated and sensible ones, too.

  As they lowered the box into the hole they had dug, Gilbert thought he heard a scrabbling sound coming from the direction of the pond. Silently, he put his hand on his father's sleeve, and made a gesture toward the pond. There was a scratching, crackling sound of brush being broken, and the soft sound of a four footed beast treading on the carpet of oak leaves. The sound was receding from the pond.

  “Some deer, coming to drink,” said his father. How interesting, his father seemed to hear perfectly well out here alone. It was only with people he seemed not to hear a word, especially when those words displeased him.

  They finished burying the box, trampled the ground, and spread some of the heavy stones on the site. Riding out of the forest the way they had come, they returned home by the main road from the opposite direction, feeling full of satisfaction.

  WELL, THEY'VE GONE OFF with it, I thought, and now that it's planted, we can go home and let it sprout at leisure. This is the shortest visit we've ever had here, and I hope it's the last. At least everyone is satisfied now. Sir Hubert gets the rights to the spring and I get my house, and things can go back the way they were. Madame took Cecily off to help her polish the altar silver in the Brokesford chapel, Mother Sarah took Peregrine and her spinning off to the orchard, where he could hunt for worms in the early fallen cider apples, and I took Alison to help me find all the children's scattered things in anticipation of packing.

  “Mama, I want to go ride Old Brownie,” said Alison.

  “It's not fair, when your sister is working, for you to play.”

  “Yes it is fair, because when I go with her, I always have to ride behind because she says she is the oldest. I want to ride in front, where it's not so slippery.”

  “You should take turns.”

  “She says there's no reason to take turns. She's the oldest, so she says when to take turns, and I can't ride in front. Mama, why did you make me be second? I wanted to be first. If I were first, I would share more than Cecily does.”

  “I didn't do it, my love, God did it. First or second, I am very happy you're mine.” We were in the solar, hunting about. I found Cecily's shift stuffed behind the little trundle bed the girls shared, and one of Peregrine's shoes.

  “Mama, my birthday is a whole month ahead of hers. I've been waiting to catch up. If I am very good, will I be older than her next year, when my birthday comes back again?”

  “It doesn't work that way. Goodness does not change time. Even though your birthday is in an earlier month, every year you will be the same number of years behind her. You can't catch up.”

  “Not ever?”

  “Never.” Alison sighed deeply. “Alison,” I asked, “where is Peregrine's other shoe?”

  “Cecily put it in your little chest under the bed.”

  “What on earth did she do that for?” I said, and fumbled under the big, sagging old bed that Gilbert and I shared. All our little family, Robert the squire, and the personal retainers slept in the solar, but only we had bed curtains, in deference to Gilbert's status as a son of the house.

  I wouldn't really call that cold stone room a solar, for the narrow, high windows never caught much sun. It was a long, large room, the entire second story over the hall, and its stone walls were so thick that at the base of each window opening, two parallel window seats, facing each other, were set in the depth of the wall. There were two round rooms in the tower, the uppermost where Sir Hubert slept, along with his body servants, hawks, hounds, and whatever vermin cared to climb that high. Beneath them, at the level of the solar, was Hugo and Petronilla's chamber, from which a connecting passage led to the solar. The ground floor of the tower was the chapel, though you could not get there directly from the tower above, for the long wooden stair from the upper rooms wound around the outside of the tower to the ground. Beneath the chapel lay the dungeon, where Sir Hubert could lock up people, old wine tuns, or loot from some campaign, and no one would ever be the wiser. Comfort and privacy were not part of life in this house. The roof leaked, the rats bounded over the rushes in search of trash the dogs had left, and in summer, it had a damp, repulsive smell from the sewage-clogged moat. If it were my house, I'd begin by having a stone pit built beneath the privy that was set in the wall of the solar, so that everything wouldn't just drop down the shaft into the moat. Then I'd have the pit cleaned out regularly, the way they do in good houses in London, so that they stay better smelling.

  After that, I'd change the rushes and whitewash, yes, whitewash everything so that it was clean and decent, no matter what anybody said. Then I'd sell off half the horses and get some decent tapestries. Sir Hubert would die of apoplexy.

  But enough of remaking the house, which always comes to mind whenever I'm th
ere. I opened my chest to find the shoe and tie the pair together.

  “Alison, what have you two been up to? The shoe is all dried out and stiff, as if it got soaked. It wasn't that way before.” Alison got that sly look on her face that she gets when she's been pilfering sweets, and she said.

  “We weren't supposed to tell, so that we could keep playing with Old Brownie, but Dame Petronilla took it and threw it in the pond. She was singing and dancing about like a monkey, and then she threw the shoe and went away. We think that's where she always goes when she goes riding. She makes wishes there. We followed her, and she never saw, she was so mad. So Cecily just fished out the shoe with a stick, and we brought it back.” My heart stopped suddenly, and jammed itself in my throat.

  “But she rides with a groom or with her confessor. I'd think he wouldn't approve of a pagan ritual.”

  “Oh, that sneaky old Brother Paul? He rides to the abbey, and lets her go on alone.”

  The abbey? The abbey full of Austin friars? Exactly like Brother Paul? Suddenly I saw him, his sinister eyes and pliable facade, in a whole new light. How many years had he served this crazy woman, covered up her tainted soul to keep her wed into this family while he plotted with his order to relieve Brokesford of timber and water land? And Lady Petronilla? Dear Jesus, she'd gone off riding this very morning, the minute the men were out of sight. Everything would be known.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IT WAS STILL TWO DAYS UNTIL THE GUESTS would arrive, and the manor was entirely engulfed in the preparations for the great feast in celebration of the investiture of the new priest the bishop had found for the parish church. A massive pit, lined with stones and equipped with a huge spit, had been prepared for the ox who would be put to roast on the morrow. A stream of peasants, bringing pigs, chickens, and sheep came and went through the great manor gate. Margaret, sweating and fussing, rushed from the bakehouse to the brewhouse, supervising the conversion of a cartload of new milled flour into the fine, high white rolls and bread for which she was celebrated at the very same time she was inspecting the progress of barrelsful of new ale she had brewed with that splendid, rich taste which couldn't be equalled in the bishop's own palace. With her came Alison, who never missed an opportunity to taste anything, while Cecily, more convinced than ever by the splendor of the preparations that she was meant to be a nun, had gone with Madame to starch and iron the church linen.

  It was to be a great occasion. Not only would the bishop's representative come to install the new priest, but afterward, the long awaited new altarcloth and a splendid new silver paten would be dedicated for the use of the church. How worthy the younger son of the house was, said the pious old ladies of the parish, to give such a gift in thanksgiving for his safe homecoming from France! And his stepdaughters, the heiresses from the City, had not been too proud to embroider the cloth with their own hands. Then, even though the bishop himself wasn't coming, he was sending as institutor a canon from the great cathedral itself, a man reputed to be so holy that he once caused a plague of grasshoppers to remove themselves by simply preaching God's word to them. The event promised to be altogether uplifting.

  “You'd think the bishop would have come, being a cousin and all,” old Sir Hubert growled as he passed by the great pit on horseback, accompanied by his two sons, a half-dozen armed grooms, and an oxcart manned by a couple of peasants and their boys. They were off to Hertford to select and bring back the wine, which seemed entirely too much trouble for the lord of Brokesford if the bishop himself weren't coming.

  “It's all the better. If the bishop had come, you'd have to order twice as much wine, father,” said Sir Hugo, and the old man made a grumpy noise, which might have been decoded to mean, “even if you do cover your harness with gewgaws, occasionally you make sense, Hugo.”

  “Vintners, never trust 'em,” said Sir Hubert aloud. “If you don't taste every barrel, they'll pass off vinegar on you. There's no one like 'em for bribing the stewards of great castles to accept short measure. Only lawyers are worse.”

  “Priests follow not far behind. Who have you got for ours, father? Not some stiff-necked troublemaker, I hope.”

  “Ha, nonsense. I've got a cousin, of course. Not one I've ever met, mind you. One of Sir Philip's by-blows, raised up for a priest by his uncle the abbot. The bishop assures me he's young, poor, and pliable, and the abbot paid me a nice little sum for the place— hence the wine. Bad priests and bad wine, I refuse to let either get past me.”

  “It does depend on what you call bad. Easy penances and Sunday hunting are not the sole measure of a priest. What about his care for the souls in the village?” The old man's eyes narrowed as Gilbert spoke. His irritating second son was reverting to that priggish, annoying tone he had. He thinks he has me by the nose because of that damned deed faked up by his shifty friend. Puppy.

  “He'll get on famously. He's only one step up from a peasant himself. No pretentions. He'll plow his furrow like the rest, and I'm throwing in a mule with the position.”

  “Well, then, the mule settles it, doesn't it?”

  Needs taking down a peg, thought the old man. But I can't heave a bench at him until after this thing's over.

  As they rode through the gate, a yellowish, furtive face appeared at the tower window. Lady Petronilla, “ill” in her room, had ascertained that the masters of the manor had departed, leaving her, the ranking lady of the place, mistress of the house.

  “I'm stifling up here, I need to take the air,” she said to her old nurse. “Help me put on my riding habit, and then go and tell the grooms to saddle that little pacing mare Dame Margaret brought. I've been wanting to try her out.”

  “But lady—”

  “No buts. I am mistress here now. Dame Margaret must lend me her Burgundian mare, whether she wants to or not.”

  “I mean, my lady, that Brother Paul is not here to accompany you.” Her nurse took her hunting surcoat from the chest, helped her strip off her silver embroidered surcoat and settle the green one over her shoulders until it covered her black kirtle.

  “Who would dare touch me on this estate? My belt and dagger, now, and hurry.” Her eyes seemed to roll in her head so that the whites showed along the tops, her complexion seemed to puff and swell, eerie brown spots becoming visible on its pallid, unhealthy surface.

  “But, my sweet lambkin, the appearance—” The old nurse was kneeling at her feet, attaching her little sharp spurs to her soft leather hunting boots.

  “I'm not your lamb or anyone else's. I can look after myself,” said Lady Petronilla, grabbing up her riding crop and a bundle in a linen sack from the open oak chest that held her things, and striding from the room. Behind her, something eerie, like a scent without a scent, seemed to linger in the room. It made the nurse's eyes widen, and the hair go up on the back of her neck.

  “Another of her spells, and Brother Paul not here to help me.

  God knows, it will end ill. I should have claimed my age, and remained behind at my brother's house, sooner than travel to this house with her. But without me, what would she have done? What will happen when they discover the truth? Lord, lord, spare me, I am an old woman, and what I have done, it has been for love of the dear child she once was.” She went to the chamber window, and peered down from the tower. It gave a wide view of the courtyard and the fields beyond the moat. Beyond the gate she saw a tiny figure on a cream-colored mare, dashing away at full speed on the narrow path that led away from the village and to the meadow, and beyond it, the woods. “Sweet Jesus, send her the son she requires, before she loses her mind entirely,” muttered the old woman.

  MARGARET STOOD AT the low door of the thatched roof malt house, the sweet smell of ferment surrounding her like a cloud, and setting the peasant delegation outside all wild with anticipation. Alison stood behind her, barefoot in her blue smock, her red-gold hair streaming down her back like liquid. Several village matrons, clad in russet, their hair done up in cheap kerchiefs, stood, equally barefoot, in front of the group
. Nervously, they eyed one another. How to begin?

  “Mama, mama, all done!” cried Cecily, working her way through the little crowd, with Madame right behind her. “Every piece so nice and white and smooth, and not a bit singed! You won't see finer linen in the cathedral!” Madame smiled and shrugged a little, as if to say, forgive her exaggeration. The peasants turned to look at the little girl with the fast wilting rose tucked into her fuzzy braid. They eyed her almost hungrily. Ordinarily, Margaret would have noticed, but she was too frazzled with the preparations, and too tired from the early part of pregnancy, to be as alert as she usually was. “Mama, can we play now? We want to go riding.”

  “Grandfather took Old Brownie with him this morning,” answered Margaret. The peasants seemed to shift and look at one another. Something had been resolved. They pushed a spokeswoman forward, the old midwife's daughter.

  “Good Dame Margaret,” she said, “we can take them riding. Let them come with us for the afternoon. We've games in plenty for these little dames.”

  “Very well, but you must have them back an hour before sunset,” answered Margaret.

  “As safe as if they had been in church the whole time,” said the midwife's daughter, and the little crowd all nodded and murmured their assent. Margaret, who saw among the crowd many to whom she had given her aid and trust, was relieved to think that her girls would be amused and out from under foot. There was genuine relief, then hilarity among the group that escorted the little girls from the brewhouse door, and one of the older women broke into song. The others joined her, one by one, and then the girls, too, as if they had learned it from them on some other jaunt to the village. They sound so happy, thought Margaret, returning to her work. But Madame, who trusted no one, noticed something. The song was not in any English she had ever heard, not in the north, not in the south. It had a curious tune to it. Something that sounded very, very old. Madame's eyes were like the eyes of a lioness; her nostrils flared. She remembered the pledge she had made to Gilbert de Vilers. As quiet as a shadow, she followed at a distance, letting no one see her.