Wicked

by Jill Barnett

  But nature always showed signs to remind you of how fickle she could be, like that moment when the winter stars first came out. They blinked and winked high up in a dark night sky, and looked like chips of ice, sparkling up there in the very same way ice winked when it was the coldest day of the year, those times when you had to be careful, to protect yourself because if you didn’t, you could lose your fingers and toes.

  But as Sofia walked along a gravel-laden path in the garden, she wasn’t thinking about the signs of nature or of frostbite. She was listening to the way her shoes crunched on the gravel. To her it sounded like a rabbit munching on a fresh carrot.

  Her anticipation was running higher and higher the closer she got to the garden bench. She walked faster, past the plump cabbages and turnips, past the herb plot, where she paused and turned ’round in a circle because the fresh, heady scent of thyme and rosemary drifted into the air and made everything smell hungry.

  She slowed her steps when the bench was in sight, suddenly self-conscious of what she was doing.

  Imagine what he would think if he saw you running there, you foolish girl?

  Sir Tobin de Clare already had plenty of arrogance. If he thought she was even half as excited as she was, he wouldn’t be able to get his head through the castle hallways.

  So instead of running, she practiced her saunter, counting slowly between steps like one marching into a church during High Mass. When she finally reached the bench, she stood there for a long time before she let herself sit down. She wiggled a moment or two, then tucked her feet under the bench and just sat there. An instant later she crossed them at the ankles instead, then she adjusted her cloak, fluffed out her skirt so it covered the toes of the red slippers she was staring down at.

  She sat on her hands, then decided that would look stupid, sitting on her hands like someone who bites her fingernails and is trying to stop, so she folded her hands in her lap, which didn’t feel exactly right either. She didn’t want to look as if she were praying. She opened her hands and placed them palm down on her lap, then stared down at them for a long, long time because they felt enormous, like they belonged to someone else.

  Time seemed to drag like the half-dead. She looked about her, but did not see Tobin de Clare anywhere and certainly didn’t want him to come and see her looking for him. Perhaps she should have been late. She drummed her fingers on her thigh, then realized what she was doing and slapped one hand over the other. Finally she just sat there, staring at the tufts of pink heather at the edge of the garden, at the way they half covered the stones. She looked at the newly blooming primroses with bright yellow centers the color of sunshine. Time moved even more slowly, so she picked at the wool of her cloak with two fingers until there was a big, fluffy ball of fuzz between her fingers. She stared at it, then dropped it beside her on the stone bench, shaking her head at her silly nervousness.

  An instant later something quick and dark darted down from a nearby tree. She jumped, until she realized it was a small, brown missel thrush with a white breast. The bird had scooped up the ball of fuzz in his beak and flew right past her nose, then headed back toward the tree with the wool in its beak looking as if it had a big blue mustache.

  She watched it use the wool to build its new nest, the way birds would every spring. She sat back, locking her hands around her knees as she leaned back farther and watched the bird as it joined its mate in the tree.

  This year they were building their nest in an old apple tree, which with each passing year leaned more wearily toward the ground, as if it were getting too old and tired to even try to grow upright. The nest was on a low branch, where it would be vulnerable to the castle cats and the magpies that so often tried to steal the young.

  She wanted to warn the nesting birds away, to tell them of the risk they were taking. But they would not understand her warning, so instead she sat there, watching the birds build their doomed nest, while she did the one thing she’d promised herself she would never do: wait for a man.

  Lady Sofia Howard’s dark silhouette was visible from the archway at the upper entrance to the buttery, where a group of young men stood drinking goblets of rich, dark wine from Bordeaux—too many goblets to count.

  She was still sitting on the same bench in the garden on which she sat when she first came there, right after the bells tolled for Vespers. Since then, the night air had turned damp and dewy.

  Sir Tobin de Clare had watched her pull her cloak tighter around her as time passed, until now, when it looked as if she were huddling there, a March hare among the flowers and herbs, amid the low bushes and trees that now were only black silhouettes.

  He turned back toward the others in the room. “She has been sitting in the garden long enough. Two candles have already burnt down to their nubs.” He pushed away from the arched wall, tossed back the last vestiges of his wine, and crossed to the other side of the archway. He faced the others. “I have won.”

  Richard Warwick was leaning against a cask of wine and looking out at the garden. He turned and faced Tobin, spilling his wine, then he laughed. “You did it, de Clare.” He shook his head in disbelief, then wobbled slightly from his drunkenness, which did not stop him from lifting his wine cup to his mouth and drinking even more deeply, so deeply it ran down his chin and neck.

  The men who were there in that room were all witnesses to the wager. They were the same men who had sought Lady Sofia Howard’s hand and been spurned for the effort. All young noblemen, all wealthy men, all proud men. No mere woman, no woman of such pride, even a ward of the King, would play them for the fool, not without some kind of recompense.

  Thomas Montgomery raised his cup and staggered forward. “To de Clare!” He swilled back his drink and swiped at his mouth with a sleeve, then refilled his cup and that of Robert de Lacy, who was slumped along a wall like a fallen Punch puppet, his feet propped atop a wooden press, his head back and his eyes closed. “De Clare!” He repeated, lifting his goblet but still not opening his eyes. He sighed tiredly and pulled out his fat purse. He opened one eye to a mere slit, then tossed the whole purse of gold to Tobin, who caught it in midair, his stance and demeanor surprisingly sober, like that of someone who had not a single drop of wine.

  One by one the men paid their losses in bags of gold and silver, except for Geoffrey Woodville, who paid in rubies and emeralds because he was an ass and had to feel he was above everyone, even his own peers.

  Tobin looked down at his winnings. There was enough money hanging from his hands to buy gold spurs and any number of mounts, as much money as he could have earned in tournaments if he had been like the legend of William the Marshall and had won them all. Even though he did not need the money. His father was one of the wealthiest men in the land. He did not care about the money, but the others did.

  They kept giving Tobin toast after loud toast. When their shouting grew more lewd, he stepped away from the wall and turned, facing the garden again, for just a moment, to cast a quick glance back toward the bench where Sofia had been sitting and waiting for him to meet her.

  The bench was empty.

  He frowned and did not turn back toward the others for a moment, even when Montgomery said something to him and slapped him on the back. He took another full goblet of wine offered him from one of the others, then raised it to his lips and drank, staring at that empty bench and wondering why his drink was not satisfying the emptiness in his belly.

  He stared down at the wine; it tasted sour and bitter, which was odd, because they had broken the seal on a cask of Edward’s best French import, heavy, sweet wine from Bordeaux.

  “To de Clare! Who conquered the Thorn Rose of Torwick!”

  “To the best man in the bunch of us! To Sir Tobin de Clare!”

  “Aye! To de Clare! I shall wager the Thorn Rose is still sitting on that bench, and that it has turned to ice from her cold and frozen arse! ’Twas worth the loss of my fat purse to see her sitting there all that time!”

  They laughed and made mo
re lewd comments about the frost around various private parts of Lady Sofia Howard.

  Tobin felt no triumph, certainly no honor, which was the catalyst for this bet, at least what it had started out as—his honor, based on an arrogant comment he’d made in a fool’s moment, one from which he could not back down. As he stared into his wine goblet all he saw before him was a pair of violet eyes looking back at him. He listened to the others go on about the frigid and thorny Lady Sofia.

  But he knew the truth, what the others did not know. There was no frost in her. Her thorns were there to protect her; it was all an act, one he would have explored further had he not already made the wager and had his honor at stake. He took one more drink of his wine and then for a reason he could never explain, he glanced up.

  She stood in the doorway, Sofia Howard, the young woman they called the Thorn Rose. The archway was so massive that she barely filled even a small part of it and she was not small. Yet it dwarfed her, made her look weak and more vulnerable.

  She had that same blue cloak wrapped around her, the ends of it clutched in her tight, white-knuckled fists. Her face was colorless as snow, the expression on it nothing but a hard and bitter mask, her eyes narrowed and focused on him alone.

  He did not know how long she had been there, but he could see it had been long enough to understand the way of things.

  He did not move. He did not speak. He’d done enough humiliating this night. The others need not know she was standing there.

  Something sharp and burning stabbed deep inside of him. Something foreign to him, something that felt like it might be shame.

  She stood there for a moment longer, as if she were trying to memorize what she was seeing. In that instant, he suddenly understood that this was no ordinary folly, no prank to be forgotten. No jest. No amusement. No battle of pride.

  She turned away, slowly, her head high.

  For that one instant he wondered what it took for her to do that. There were no tears. No sobs. No hysterical female crying. All she did was walk away, her head up and the rich, blue cloak dragging heavily behind her.

  He stared at that empty doorway for a long time, still seeing her even though he knew she had left. It was as if her image were burned into his eyes. For the longest time he could see nothing else. He shook his head and looked away quickly as he raised his cup to his lips, then drank deeply, over and over, trying to banish the image of what he had seen and even more, what he felt when he saw her face and the look of loathing she gave him.

  He said nothing to anyone, but drank until there was nothing left in the cup. Then he drank until there nothing left in any of the ewers.

  His mind never dulled, his mood did not change. He couldn’t even get drunk. Because all the wine in the world could not wash away the guilt he felt at what he had just done.

  TWO YEARS LATER

  And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life

  for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand,

  foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for

  wound, stripe for stripe.

  —Exodus 21:23

  Chapter 7

  It was the perfect day for mischief.

  Sofia had spent the entire morning, every single hour of it, in the Queen’s solar with Eleanor’s ladies, stitching hangings of infamous battles and poking her fingertips with the embroidery needle, until they were bloodier than the battlefield bodies depicted on the tapestry.

  Even all her wonderfully inventive gasps of pain, all that sucking on her fingers and frowning did not sway them to let her escape. By the time she did escape, she was convinced that Purgatory was truly a place where all you did for an eternity was sew. She went in search of something that would truly amuse her. After all, she had wasted an entire morning. With the exception of one small diversion, Sofia headed for the kitchens and found the perfect thing to keep her busy.

  Within a few moments she was scurrying up the steps of the Gloriette at Leeds, heading toward an upper chamber where Lady Edith, who was now betrothed to a nobleman on a diplomatic journey to the north, was sitting by an arched window that opened to rays of warm and precious sunlight. She was bent so her head was lit by the sunshine, which turned her red hair coppery. And she was working intently on a lovely and intricately embroidered wedding tunic for her betrothed, should he ever come back to wed her.

  Edith was a saint.

  Sofia was not a saint, and she had no desire to be one. She would have never had her friend’s patience for sewing and she had learned her lessons on waiting for men many times over, but Edith claimed that her betrothed was a kind man, even though he was almost three times her age.

  A kind man. Now that was what the Greeks called an oxymoron. She dashed into the chamber quicker than an arrow from a crossbow. The doors slammed against the plastered walls with a loud bang.

  Edith jumped half out of her chair, then looked up startled. After a second she said, “You do know how to make an entrance.”

  “Always have and always will,” Sofia said brightly as she turned to close the doors, her gown whipping around her ankles in a flurry of rich scarlet silk trimmed in threads of finely spun gold. She turned back around, hiding her hands behind her like someone who has a prize to be chosen in one of their hands. She pressed her back to the doors and gave Edith a devious and wicked little smile that, had the King spied that look, might have caused him to lock her in the tower before something dire befell them all.

  Edith put down her sewing and stood. She eyed Sofia for a moment, then took a few steps toward her. “I know that look. What do you have? Something up your sleeves?”

  Lady Sofia grinned. “Perhaps.”

  “What?”

  “A surprise that will clear all the dullness of this dullest of days.”

  “I do not find this day dull. I find it peaceful, but I suspect it will not be so much longer.” Edith came closer, stretching her neck and trying to see what Sofia was hiding behind her.

  “You are a saint and can find the joy in almost anything. I, on the other hand, found this day horridly dull, until a few moments ago.”

  “Let me see what you have hidden behind you. And it better not be your bow.”

  Sofia shook her head. “’Tis not my bow, silly. Fetch that water ewer from the table and then I shall show you.”

  Edith brought over the water so quickly she was sloshing it all over the floor tiles. She stood before her. “I have the water. Now what?”

  Sofia pulled her hands out from behind her and gaily tossed two handfuls of pink, flaccid objects on the Queen’s daybed.

  Edith squinted her eyes and bent over the tick. “What are those things?”

  “Pig bladders,” Sofia said with a laugh of wicked glee. “I stole them from the kitchen.”

  Edith made a face. “Why?”

  “I spotted them tucked inside a tin the other day when I was looking for that apple to shoot off Lady Juliette’s head.”

  “Poor Juliette.” Edith shook her head. “Has she recovered yet?”

  “No. She is still having a witch’s fit.” Sofia’s voice was filled with disgust. “’Twas only one small scratch and she will have to part her hair toward the left for a while. One would think I had skewered her, when in truth, the arrow only sliced through just this much,” Sofia held up her fingers, “of her hair. Besides, she was stupid enough to let me try the shot. I was nearly successful, too.” Sofia chewed on a nail thoughtfully, wondering what would have happened if her angle had been more to the west.

  “What are you going to do with pig bladders? Not shoot them, I hope. And be aware, Sofia,” Edith added in a rush. “I will not let you aim your bow at me, nor will I be the stand for any kind of target you wish to take aim at.”

  “Of course not, Edith.” Sofia clasped her friend’s hand and patted it reassuringly. “I would never expect that kind of silliness from you. You are much too important to me for that. You are my dearest friend.” Sofia turned and picked up a bladder a
nd dangled it in front of Edith’s face. “What say you? Would you like to hear my plan?”

  Edith crossed her arms and eyed Sofia suspiciously. “I have learned not to commit. You explain first.”

  Sofia stretched the bladder wide, then she turned to Edith, holding open the bladder. “There. I shall hold it while you fill it with water.” She paused thoughtfully, then muttered, “I only wish it was the oldest and strongest vinegar instead of water.”

  “Why vinegar?” Edith tilted the water pitcher slowly and began to fill the thing.

  “’Tis nothing. Just a thought. Now be careful.” Sofia stretched the mouth of the bladder open even more. “Pour slowly.”

  “Look! It is swelling. And swelling!” Edith paused and tilted the ewer upright.

  “Do not stop yet. The thing needs more water.”

  “I must stop.” Edith’s eyes grew almost as round as the bladders. “It will surely burst!”

  “That is the point, Edith. It must be stretched taut. We should fill it almost to bursting.” Sofia held it up and eyed it, then instructed Edith to pour a little more water inside until the bladder had swelled so she could see the water inside.

  “Stop.”

  Edith tilted the pitcher upright.

  Sofia lifted the bladder, which was stretched so taut you could almost see clear through it. In fact, she could see Edith’s worried face.

  “Do not fret so. I promise this will be most amusing. There. ’Tis perfect!” She tied off the bladder and carefully set it on the mattress, then grabbed another one and stretched it open. “Now fill this one, too.”

  Edith was frowning at the water-filled bladder as if she expected it to explode right there.

  “It will be fine. Just help me fill the others.”