He Drank, and Saw the Spider

by Alex Bledsoe

  “Eddie, look at this,” Liz said.

  I joined her at the monument she’d found. It was a woman’s statue, draped in cloth with her head down in sorrow. Beneath it was chiseled the name bianca glendower and a pair of dates barely fifty years apart.

  I remembered the fierce, strong-willed maternity I’d sensed in her, and how I’d been glad to know she’d be there to help Beatrice raise Isidore. It looked like she only got to do it for a few years.

  We turned when a door opened. A man with white hair and beard, dressed in well-cut clothes just a hair too ostentatious for good taste, strode out ahead of Clancy. My memory of Owen Glendower was hazy, since I’d spent only a few moments with him, but this man seemed a reasonable image of how he’d look sixteen years later.

  He offered his hand as he approached. “Hello, Mr. Large Hoss,” he said. “I’m Owen Glendower.”

  “LaCrosse,” I corrected. “Eddie LaCrosse.”

  “Ah. My son has trouble with details.”

  “I don’t have trouble with the tales,” Clancy protested. “I can tell a story with the best of them. Once there was this hummingbird—”

  “Clancy!” Glendower barked. More calmly he added, “Shouldn’t you be on your way to the market?”

  “I can’t remember what to—”

  Glendower held up a piece of vellum with a list on it. Clancy snatched it and strode away toward the house, then caught himself and rushed the opposite direction, toward the drive. “Don’t take one of the guest’s horses!” Glendower called. To us he added, “He’s a good soul, but his mind tends to wander. Now, Mr. LaCrosse, was it? What can I do for you?” He realized where we stood. “My late wife,” he said sadly. “She died of fever less than a year after we built this place. She was a remarkable woman.”

  “I know. I met her once. At this same festival.”

  He still looked blank.

  “Sixteen years ago.”

  The blank look stayed there for a moment; then he turned whiter than his beard. “You,” he said with a whisper.

  “Me,” I agreed, and gave what I hoped was a friendly smile.

  He looked around to make sure no one overheard. “Why are you here?” he whispered urgently.

  “We’re on vacation,” I said. “Mr. Glendower, this is Liz Dumont.”

  “Charmed,” Liz said.

  His words spilled out in a panicky rush. “You’re wondering about the house, aren’t you? You think I used up all of Isadora’s gold building it?”

  I held up my hands. “I’m not here to—”

  “Yes, I used her gold as seed money to expand my farm, but I promise you, I paid it back and more. She’s got a dowry only a king could rival!”

  “That’s fine, I just—”

  He grabbed my tunic in desperation. “Please, don’t kill me! I did the best I could for her! I love her, I’ve helped raise her as one of our family! She has no idea where she really came from!”

  I pried off his hands. “Stop and listen, will you? I just wanted to visit, say hello, see how she was doing. I don’t want to give away any secrets, and I don’t want anything from you.”

  He stared at me, then at Liz for confirmation. She nodded. He stood back, straightened his clothes, and said, “Well, then . . . I, uhm . . . it’s nice to see you again, Mr. LaCrosse. And to meet you, Miss Dumont. It appears time has been good to you, sir.”

  “Better than I deserve,” I said with no irony.

  “You and your friend must be hungry and thirsty after your long ride. May I offer you some refreshment?”

  “That would be great,” I said. “Thank you.” Liz took my arm as we walked into the mansion.

  The foyer was stone as well, decorated with tapestries and lit, when needed, by a large iron chandelier. Many voices came from somewhere else in the house. “The kitchen staff is getting ready for our banquet,” Glendower said. “You’ll have to excuse the commotion.” He picked up a large bell from a table and rang it three times.

  A pretty young maid came running out of somewhere and skidded breathlessly to a stop in front of us. She said, “Yes, sir?”

  “Tea and cakes for our friends, please, Mopsa.”

  “I’m Dorcas.”

  Glendower waved his hand at her. “What ever.” After she scurried off, he said, “Never hire twins. Sometimes I think they switch names just to confuse me.”

  “Could be worse,” I said, again recalling Grand Bruan’s two Jennifers. “They could have the same name.” Then I remembered that Liz, too, was a twin, although her sister Cathy was dead. I wished I’d kept silent.

  The tapestries that decorated the foyer’s stone walls depicted pastoral scenes that could’ve occurred a hundred yards from the house in any direction: shepherds dressed in incongruous furs reclined on hillsides, their sheep contentedly grazing before them, a dog keeping a far more watchful eye than his daydreaming master. “Who did your decorating?” I asked.

  “My daughter,” he said. “She’s quite the weaver. I’m sure you remember her.”

  “Oh, he does,” Liz said, winking at me. “Her name is Beatrice, I believe?”

  Before I could respond, a woman said, “Who’s talking about me?”

  Chapter

  TEN

  She entered the foyer in full stride, followed by another, younger woman carrying a basket. “So who’s this?” she said as she joined us, oblivious of the fact that the woman behind her was about to spill tomatoes all over the foyer.

  Beatrice’s hair was still golden, although it was combed loose around her shoulders instead of braided. Her gown fitted well enough to verify that she hadn’t gone matronly, either. And that sauciness remained, the sense that the world had better look out. But it was shadowed by a weariness that comes only from bitter experience.

  Glendower said, “Beatrice, this is an old friend, Mr. LaCrosse. Do you remember him?”

  She looked me over. “I’m afraid not.” She turned to the girl with the tomatoes. “Do you think we’re handing those out at the door? Go take them to the kitchen before my brother starts throwing things again.” As the girl scurried away with her produce, Beatrice said to me, “When did we meet?”

  “Sixteen years ago,” Glendower said carefully, trying to convey the date’s significance. He narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth, pre-wincing against the anticipated explosion.

  “I didn’t have a beard then,” I said. “And my hair was longer.”

  Beatrice still shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “He brought us a gift back then,” Glendower hinted.

  She cocked her head a little. “Really? And what was that?”

  Then it hit her.

  “You,” she said, sounding exactly like her father.

  “Me,” I said again.

  Her face shifted through an eloquent symphony of expressions: recognition, relief, rage, sadness, yearning, and finally, guarded worry. “Why are you here?”

  “Just passing through,” I said, trying to sound nonthreatening. “Beatrice, this is Liz Dumont. Liz, Beatrice.”

  They shook hands quickly, the way women do. Beatrice gave Liz an up-and-down evaluating glance. Liz just smiled and said, “Pleasure to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” Beatrice said. Her lips moved as she almost said several other things, then settled on, “I suppose you want to see Isadora.”

  “She’s working on her gown for to night,” Glendower said. “Isn’t she?”

  “Yes, and she’s way behind.”

  “Is she still having problems with—?”

  “Yes,” Beatrice said, the way you say it when you don’t want something discussed in front of strangers. To us, she continued, “If you’re staying for the festival, it might be better to see her then.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. The terror coming off both of them made me feel very guilty. “Only if it won’t cause any trouble.”

  “But you can’t take her,” Beatrice blurted, the words bursting out as if they were escaping horses. “I don
’t care who her real parents might be, I’ve raised her, I’ve loved her for sixteen years, and that counts for something. They can’t have her back!”

  “I don’t want to take her,” I said. “And I still don’t know where she came from. Do you?”

  “No. I never tried to find out.”

  “That’s fine, then. She doesn’t even need to know who I am.”

  “Then wh-why are you here?” The fearful tremor in her voice told me all I needed to know about her attachment to her daughter.

  “Really, we were just passing through,” Liz said. “We made a delivery in Mahnoma and decided to go festival-hopping.”

  “I didn’t realize where we were until we got here,” I added. “Then we just thought we’d stop in and see how you were doing.” I indicated the house around us. “Pretty well, it seems.”

  We were all silent. Finally Glendower said, “I apologize for our reactions. I’ve had sixteen years to dread this moment, and as you know, you only dread the worst. I imagined you coming back in the middle of the night, putting a knife to my throat in my bed, and demanding the gold back. Or worse, taking Isadora away. I’m sure Beatrice had her own worries.” He held out his hand. “I shouldn’t have thought so little of you. A man who rescues a baby and then turns over a sack of gold he could’ve easily kept isn’t the kind of man who would skulk back to retrieve it.”

  I shook his hand. “I understand. No grudge here.”

  The maid Dorcas returned bearing a large tray. She scowled and said, “I didn’t know Miss Beatrice would be joining you.”

  “Now you do,” Glendower said. “Fetch another cup. Is it that complicated?”

  She put the service on the table and scurried off.

  Glendower gestured at the tea. “Shall we?”

  And as if we did it every day, standing there in the foyer, we took tea with the biggest sheep farmer in Altura.

  It was late afternoon by the time we left Glendower’s Aerie. We’d discussed the price of wool, the cost of grain storage and, gods help us, the weather. I’d watched my father squirm through social engagements like this, and now I had a whole new sympathy for him. The elephant in the chamber was Isidore, aka Isadora, who neither appeared nor was mentioned again.

  “I need a drink,” Liz said as we rode back to town.

  “You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”

  “You’ve been taking me places that make me say it.” She looked back at the house. “Would we be like that if we got rich?”

  “I’ve been rich.”

  “Well, lah-dee-dah,” she said, and mockingly stuck out her tongue.

  “At least now I don’t have to worry about her. Isidore’s in perfectly good hands.”

  “Isadora.”

  “Right. Isadora.”

  “And you can accept just seeing her from afar to night?”

  The Glendowers told us that the ceremony for Eolomea, with Isadora in the title role, would happen in Mummerset just after full dark. “Sure. I mean, what would I say to her, anyway?”

  “And you’re ready to put all this aside and enjoy our vacation?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  She didn’t have to answer. The look in her eye said it all.

  The festival was even more rambunctious by the time we got back to town right at dusk. Luckily the tavern had opened, and we found a lone empty space at the bar. I let Liz take the stool, and I stood beside her. The atmosphere was giddy and festive, the way hardworking people often are when they’re allowed to cut loose. Later, as the drinking progressed, things might turn ugly. Old grudges could be restoked, new insults not tolerated. But for now, all was well.

  The bartender was a stout, round man with a florid mustache that curled up on the ends. I wanted to ask about Audrey, to see if she was still around, but after the weird tea party with the Glendowers, I thought better of it. If she showed up, I’d say hi, but I wouldn’t ferret her out.

  After her first tankard, Liz motioned me close and said, “I don’t know if I ever told you, but I was Queen of the Fair once.”

  “No. How old were you?”

  “Thirteen. They tossed a coin between me and my sister, and I won. Boy, did she get mad.” She smiled, but then it faded a little as it always did when she mentioned her late twin. “Anyway, I got to wear a fancy gown, ride on this beautiful horse, and wave to everyone in town.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Not really. Knowing everyone is watching you isn’t my thing.”

  “Mine, either.”

  I paused to take a drink of my own. If I hadn’t done that, the next few days might have been peaceful and relaxing, and probably the fate of two kingdoms would have been completely different. But I did.

  And I heard a voice say, “Boy, when you become king, don’t let them call us thieves. Instead call us ‘gentlemen of the moon,’ because she’s the one who watches over us as we steal.”

  I recognized it as the same man who’d invited a “swaggerer” to join him back in Mahnoma. I spotted him once again with his back in the corner, presiding over the table before him. This time, only one man sat with him. This companion was young, tall, handsome, and clean-shaven. He wore the same sort of rustic clothes as the others, but on him it resembled a costume; he had never sweated in them doing hard work so that they dried to fit.

  He responded to the fat man, “That’s not a bad idea, since thieves who work at night have to follow the moon’s phases, just like the tides do. Maybe I should call you ‘moon-calves.’ ”

  They both laughed, and the fat man touched mugs with his young friend. The younger man drank, then said, “Are you paying for this round, then?”

  “Ah, sweet Jack, a thief broke into my room last night while I slept, searching for gold.”

  “What did you do?” the younger man asked.

  “Why, I woke up and searched with him! Neither one of us found a single coin!”

  They both laughed.

  I looked at the younger man more closely. There were things wealthy, important men taught their sons that were subtle but hard habits to break. Sitting up straight was one of them; resting your forearms and not your elbows on the table was another. This youngster had internalized both. His skin was also considerably paler than everyone else’s, indicating he had not spent a lifetime outside doing farm labor. And yet, at the same time, he didn’t look uncomfortable or nervous. And I noticed that when another young man, with the bearing and demeanor of a local, said hello as he passed the table, this young man responded in kind, and they exchanged genuine smiles.

  I nudged Liz and leaned close to her. “Check out that table in the corner. See the young guy?”

  “I sure do. He’s yummy.”

  I mock-glared at her. “I think he’s a little above you.”

  “He could be, if I can ditch my boyfriend.”

  “Are you done?”

  “For now. What’s up?”

  “I heard the fat guy ask him to do something when he becomes king.”

  “So he’s a prince?” she said quietly, so no one else would overhear.

  “I think so.”

  “Of where?”

  Altura had a prince, I knew, but I didn’t know his name, age, or personality. Still, if he was in Mummerset, it made sense that he’d be that one. “Here, I suppose. Altura.”

  Liz turned and tugged on the sleeve next to her. The man’s smile diminished a little when he saw me, but he still said, “Hello, lovely lass. What may I do for you?”

  “What’s the Alturan prince’s name?”

  “Prince John,” he said. “Bonny Prince Jack, we call him.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, he’s . . .” He stopped and look puzzled. “I don’t rightly know. That’s just what we call him.”

  “Have you ever seen him?”

  “He’s on the four-bit gold piece.”

  “But not in person.”

  He smiled. “Little lady, there would be no reason
for Bonny Prince Jack, or Good King Ellis, to ever come to a wide spot in the road like this.”

  “Not even for your festival?”

  “There’s festivals all over Altura at this time of year, all over the world, for that matter. I’m sure they could find a better one.”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  He nodded, and blushed a little. “My pleasure, lovely lady.”

  I gestured for the bartender to refill the man’s drink on us. Liz smiled smugly at me. “How’d I do?”

  “Pretty good,” I admitted.

  She rested her chin on her palm and studied the young man. “I hate to say this, since we’re both showing off our investigative skills, but . . . so what?”

  “It’s the fat guy with him. I get a certain feeling when trouble’s around, and he’s trouble.”

  “He looks harmless.”

  “Can you think of a better disguise for trouble?”

  “Okay, even saying you’re right, he’s not our trouble, is he?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Well, then. Stop trying to impress me and just buy me another drink. And one for yourself, while you’re at it. You’re going to need several, I suspect.”

  “Why is that?”

  “To bend the rod you’ve got up your ass to night,” she said, and pinched my nose for emphasis. “I want you to have fun, and I will tolerate no excuses.” Then she kissed me and bit lightly at my lower lip.

  We resumed drinking, and soon we were drawn into the circle around a bard, who had a seemingly vast repertoire of songs, some so absurd as to be ridiculous. “Here’s one that’s sung to a very doleful tune,” he said, “about a loan shark’s wife who gave birth to twenty money bags. And here’s another about a fish that appeared and sang this pitiful tune against the hard hearts of women.”