Margaret of Ashbury 03 - The Water Devil

by Judith Merkle Riley

  “WHERE DID SHE GO, where did she go?” Margaret cried, shaking the nurse by the shoulders as Sir Hubert and his grooms rushed upstairs to the solar.

  “Oh, forgive me, I didn't see her!” wept the old nurse, “She was so fast!”A dreadful thought filled Margaret. Petronilla had not come through the hall. She could only have fled down the outer tower stair. If she hasn't killed him by dropping him from the tower, then there's only one other place a person as crazy as that would go.

  “The spring,” said Margaret, as she flew past the screen and down the front steps without further thought. Behind her came Gilbert, and even as the others, slow to comprehend, were searching the solar and tower rooms, they had taken two of the clerks' little saddled cobs that stood in the courtyard and were off at full gallop through the gate, past the fields and into the meadow at the edge of the oak wood. There they thought they saw a figure in a flying gown on the magistrate's big bay gelding vanishing among the trees, and they followed, slower now, their little horses, no match for the bay, dripping sweat and breathing hard. By this time the hue and cry had been taken up at the manor, and the rest of the grooms and manor folk were in pursuit.

  But as Margaret's horse crashed through the underbrush into the clearing, she saw she was too late. Petronilla had ridden directly into the spring, the black, wailing bundle still thrown in front of her saddle. Green, bubbling water flowed around her knees and the horse's belly. The crackling aura of high madness came from her, her eyes were bright and lunatic, and her smile a crazed grimace.

  “Ah, I wanted you here,” she cried. “The water devil has sent you here at my command so that you will know what I have done. See my sacrifice! Everything that was yours now is mine!” And before they could reach her, she flung off the bundle into the center of the bubbling pool and then whipped the bay so hard that he lept in a single bound to the muddy margin of the pond, scrambled up the bank, and then headed back into the woods. Before Gilbert could drive his horse to the center of the pool, the black bundle had vanished utterly.

  By this time, the rest of the household had caught up with them, and what they saw was a terrible sight. Gilbert on horseback, circling the bubbling center of the pool, searching for any sign of the child, and Margaret, dismounted, fetching a long stick to try to probe the depths. The Lord of Brokesford gave a terrible cry, a cry so great that the birds stopped their song and the trees themselves trembled. “Look, look,” said one of the grooms to the magistrate, and as they stared, they saw the great stone by the side of the pool was oozing red blood.

  “She's thrown him into the center,” said Gilbert, his voice cracking. “I can't even see him. He's gone.” But the Lord of Brokesford was no longer there; he was off in pursuit, and all they could hear was the crashing of his horse through the underbrush.

  The magistrate and the grooms had dismounted, milling about looking for something, a pole, a hook, anything. Even though they knew it was hopeless, they couldn't give up the idea of doing something, not just standing about like fools. But Margaret had waded out into the pool, carrying her long stick, her eyes blank and unseeing. “For God's sake, Margaret, stop! Don't go any closer, I can't lose you, too!” cried Gilbert.

  But it was then that everyone saw the strangest thing, the secret talked about over peasant hearths on winter nights, the awful thing that no one who saw it could ever forget, or ever speak of aloud. There was a strange sound from the center of the spring. It went, ‘glorp, gulp.'And then the waters ceased to rise, and the pond was deadly still. In the eerie silence, Margaret cried,“By the holy mother, I charge you, give me back my child!” The sound of it echoed through the woods, and then there came a strange rustling, like a breeze in the yew temple. Down in the green, still depths, something moved and floated. A bit of black, unwinding, down in the shadows. No one on the bank moved a muscle. Gilbert's horse stood stock still in the shallows. Something was drifting, drifting softly below the green. A bit of red, a child's smock, too far to reach. Then a face. Was it a face? Bloated, white, silent, the eyes closed, it drifted peacefully in the green depths, then turned away, as if to descend again.

  Margaret was on it like a flash. She waded deep, too deep, past her waist, past her shoulders, and grabbed at the drifting red of her baby's smock. Now she was too deep to recover, but Gilbert had ridden out and grabbed her by the hair, beneath her kerchief, pulling her through the water as she clutched at her baby's smock. As they reached the shallows, he grabbed at her shoulders to set her on her feet, but she said in a harsh, alien voice, “Don't touch me.” Her eyes were glassy as she strode from the pond, her clothes and hair wet and every inch of her dripping with green pond slime, her kerchief lost, drifting in the water.

  She held her child by the foot, and water gushed from his mouth and nose. She squeezed him by the middle, and more came out. No one dared touch her. Something crackling, like light, like the bright shine that reflects from water, was moving all about her face and hands. She laid the baby out on the ground, and leaned over it. What was she doing? No one could see, no one dared speak. They could hear her gasping horribly, then saw her fall over the child as if struck dead. Gilbert grabbed at her and turned her over. She was sheet white, as if her heart had stopped beating.

  “Margaret, Margaret!” he cried. “Oh, God, she has been struck dead with grief. Why did you spare me?”

  “No, no, my lord. Look. Look at the baby.” Gilbert looked, and saw the strangest sight he had ever seen, though he had seen much. A faint pink color was creeping into the still, white face. He put his hand on the little chest. It was moving up and down. He put his hand on Margaret's chest. It was moving up and down, too.

  “Is she alive?” asked the magistrate, kneeling down beside them, his face twisted with concern.

  “Something, something,” mumbled Gilbert, “she's done something.” Then he heard a sound, a soft sound. Margaret moaning.

  “Mother Hilde,” she said. “Where is she?”

  “She's not here. I'm here,” said Gilbert.

  “Get my ladies, get my ladies. I'm losing the child I carried,” she said, and tears squeezed silently from her eyes, tracking through the green slime to find their way to the ground. Tenderly, Gilbert wiped her face.

  “Don't cry,” he said,“oh, please don't cry. Peregrine is breathing.” “I thought so,” she answered, her voice barely a whisper. “I have given birth to him twice. Lord keep him, I think I can never do it again.”

  THE LORD OF BROKESFORD pursued the faint sound of hooves and the crashing of brush with all the skill he brought to the pursuit of a fleeing stag. At length, at a distance, he saw Petronilla, her horse at full gallop across the scrubby waste at the edge of the woods. His jaw set as grim as death, he pushed his horse through the dead leaves, over ditches and the through the rippling brook itself to cut her off. She was a fleet rider, with the shining brilliance and daring of one who is truly insane, but Sir Hubert was fired with deadly determination that gave him almost a foresight of how she would move. Now she galloped across the meadow, and still he pursued, getting closer. Then seeing that he was closing the distance, she turned, riding hard past the coppices and slowing only to re-enter the woods, where she hoped to lose him. But every secret path she took was known better to the old knight, who had hunted in these woods since childhood. No matter how she tried, she could not shake him off. Branches grabbed at her headdress, tearing it away, and her braids came down, tangling as she doubled back through the underbrush. Her horse was dripping sweat now, and slower. She cut past a formation of strange looking rocks, poking up through the forest floor, and Sir Hubert knew he had her. He turned away, and she thought she'd lost him, and slowing to a walk, she followed a little deer trail that was strange to her, but looked as if it led to the abbey land. He'd never touch her there, on sacred ground. The abbey, and safety, her voices sang to her.

  But the trail led to a damp, brushy spot enclosed on three sides by a stony rise of ground too thickly overgrown to pass through. And as s
he saw she was enclosed and turned to ride out again, she saw the Lord of Brokesford waiting on the path by which she had come. He sat immobile there, blocking the narrow, overgrown path on his great horse. His eyes were the hard eyes of an executioner.

  “Let me pass,” she said.

  “You will never pass out of here alive,” said the Lord of Brokesford.

  “Oh, you must let me. I carry the only heir. Did you know? I shall bear a son now. The pond has said it. It took my sacrifice. The green woman loves me.”

  “I intend to put you down,” said the Lord of Brokesford. “You are no different to me than a rabid dog or a horse with a broken leg.”

  “You can't do that. I'm a lady,” said Petronilla.

  “You are no lady,” said the old knight, “and no decent woman, either. But you are a human being with a soul, so I will give you leave to say your prayers first.”

  “What have I done? Oh, find it in your heart to understand me and my suffering. If you saw things as I do, you would let me pass.”

  “I have no heart. I have no eyes. You have stolen them away,” said the old man.

  “But surely you're a Christian. You have to forgive. I can repent. Let me go, and I swear I'll enter a convent and pray every day, every hour—”

  “Pray now. God knows how to forgive, but He is greater than I. If I could take your life twice, thrice, a hundred times, it would not make up for that little boy.” At that very moment, Petronilla, with that quicksilver perception that comes with madness, saw him weaken at the thought of Peregrine, and his eyes drop. In a flash, she tried to push her horse past his and to freedom. But the old man was like a cat, who has paused only the better to spring forward, and as her horse leapt past him, he grabbed her by her loose braids and pulled her out of the saddle. In a single swift motion he dropped his reins, pulled the long knife from his belt, and drove it into her heart.“Monster,” he said, looking down at her, where she lay face up against his horse's shoulder, tethered by her long, honey-blonde hair. And as the life's blood oozed from her mouth and down her breast, she rolled her eyes upward to his face.

  “No greater than you,” she said. There was no horn to sound the mort.

  WHEN SIR HUBERT re-entered the clearing by the pond, he saw that they were finished cutting branches to make a litter, and he thought that they had guessed what he was about. He was leading the big bay, with his daughter-in-law's corpse thrown face down across the saddle. There was blood everywhere. Blood soaked her gown and flowed down the saddle. Blood stained the front of his garments, his boots, and his sleeves, where he had lifted her up. But then he realized no one was looking at him, and as they tied the litter between two horses, he saw that the litter had not been prepared for Petronilla; it was Margaret they were lifting up. Margaret with Peregrine thrown face down over her pale corpse. And then he saw that he had been right, and cutting down Petronilla a hundred times would never give him back what he had lost. How could he not have known, not have understood, what he had once had? His second son's tall form, hunched over in agony, was silent. We'll never speak again, he thought. Was all of it my fault? He heard from somewhere a dreadful sound, and realized then that it was himself, sobbing. How could it all have come to this? But then Sir Ralph was at his side, his voice concerned. “Sir Hubert, Sir Hubert,” he said. “They're not dead yet. Both are breathing. What is that you've brought?”

  Sir Hubert took a deep breath. He didn't believe the magistrate, but he had rehearsed what he would say, there in the depths of the woods. “Lady Petronilla committed suicide out of remorse,” he said. The magistrate glanced quickly at the old man's besmeared garments, and then at his knife hilt. Not a spot of blood on it. But at Petronilla's belt was a knife. And it was smeared and bedaubed with the blood that was running down his own good saddle. Good enough, he thought. But I want her off my saddle before the blood stains are too hard to remove. But Sir Hubert felt confused. He shook his head. “Did you say they are living?”

  “She—she went into the water and pulled him out,” said the magistrate. Sir Hubert looked at Sir Ralph's white face, and then he surveyed the shocked look on the faces of his grooms. Some were still on their knees in the mud, their eyes rolled heavenward, reciting prayers. She's done something, thought the old man. She's done another one of those things.

  “I told you that you'd want her on your side,” said Sir Hubert.

  “I think I know what you mean,” said the magistrate. “Are the daughters the same way?”

  “Not that I know about,” said the old knight. There was a merry gurgling and burbling sound as the water gushed up from the spring. Sir Hubert looked at the rock. It was dry, with a faint sparkle of crystal here and there. “I think you must be right. They are alive. The rock's dry once more.”

  “Did you always know about the rock?”

  “Never saw it before. Thought it was a fairy tale,” said Sir Hubert.

  “And the spring's started up again,” said the magistrate, still looking rather pale.

  “You mean she stopped it?”

  “Yes,” said the magistrate. “She told it to cough the boy up, and it did,” he gave a long, shuddering sigh.

  “I always thought that was a fairy tale, too. Pity I didn't see it.”

  “I wish I hadn't,” said the magistrate. “I liked my world the way it was. Orderly.”

  “Ha! Lawyers! The world never works like it does in books! Especially law books!” announced Sir Hubert.

  “It ought to,” said the magistrate.

  “Why so? Then I wouldn't have my grandson back again,” said Sir Hubert. But as he surveyed the mournful procession that set off for the manor, he didn't feel his old self-content at getting his way come back to him. Something else, something agonizing that he had never felt before, was gnawing at his insides. Remorse, bitter remorse, had stormed the high walls of his citadel.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  BY THE TIME THE PROCESSION HAD AR- rived at the manor gate, it was accompanied by crowds of silent peasants, and the village priest. Someone had set the bell in the churchyard tolling. Margaret and her son lay as still as death, and as the word spread that the little London widow, the one with the fancy shoes and city ways who married the second son, was gone, there was moaning and shrieking among the women of the village, for she had done much good among them. Then the word spread that it was not she that was dead, but Sir Hugo's wife that had taken her life, and that gravediggers were already digging outside the churchyard for her burial, and the people of the village shuddered with horror. It was the last and most terrible thing, to be refused burial on sacred ground.

  As the violet twilight gradually faded into dark, the cluster of folk beneath the window of the solar grew into a crowd, milling about by the light of a half-dozen torches.

  “What are they doing out there?” said the Lord of Brokesford, who was sitting on one of the window seats set into the solar wall. It was dark, there, in the recess of the window, and only a few cold stars shone through. The old lord had his head in his hands. He had been that way for hours, unmoving. Across the room from him, Margaret and the boy lay in the big bed, with her old dog, bleeding and bruised, at her feet. The bed was surrounded by all of the dozen candles in the manor, and his son Gilbert knelt beside it, deep in prayer.

  “They are singing prayers to the Virgin,” said the groom, peering out the window. “Every soul on the demesne must be there.”

  “Everything—everything in ruins. My plans. How can I go on? What does a man live for? Glory—my family name—and now, look at them there. Is it my fault?” For a minute, a flicker of realization floated tantalizingly near him. Somehow, somehow, might it have been a chain, a very long chain of consequences, that was rooted in his own frozen heart, his own lovelessness? But as he tried to sieze at it, it floated beyond the reach of his mind, and was lost forever. He tried to comfort himself with the thought of how wicked Lady de Vilers had been, and how he had meted out justice with an iron hand, but somehow that di
dn't seem to work, either. Something heavy was pressing down on his chest, something that hurt. Now it was going through him in waves, and he felt wrung to pieces by it. He had risked his old, hard heart on the tiny little creature that lay in the bed, barely breathing, next to his mother. And now it was broken. Outside, he could hear the voices rising beneath the stars:

  “My sweet lady, hear my prayer, and pity me if it is your will—”

  All useless, thought the Lord of Brokesford. How many times had the highest ranking priests in the land called down the blessings of God, of Jesus, and of the Blessed Mother on the great enterprise in France, and what had come of that?

  “You arise like the dawn, which separates day from dark night; a new light sprang out from you, to illuminate the world—”

  Whenever would they stop that useless singing, he thought. It's all gone. Don't they know any better? New light. Where is my new light? Who has lost as much as I?

  “Take pity on me, sweet lady, and have mercy on your servant—”

  Pity, where is pity? he thought, looking out at the dark. A sliver of a moon had risen, but shed little light. A sliver of a thought came to him, with that rising moon, and began to form in the depths of him. She had a son, that heavenly lady, he thought. She risked all. And she lost Him. Surely, she must know how my heart is dying inside me now.