Wicked

by Jill Barnett

  Soon they had filled and tied twelve bladders into plump and sloshy balls which were stacked in a pile of buoyant lumps on the bed.

  Sofia picked up one of the balls and rolled it from one palm to the other, grinning. She looked up and handed it to Edith. “Here. Feel this.”

  Carefully Edith took the ball and cupped it in her two small hands. She eyed it as if she expected it to pop open any moment.

  Sofia picked up another one. “Now follow me.” She walked over to the arched window. “Look outside, Edith. Do you see that chalk mark I drew on the stone steps?”

  “The circle with the mark in the center?”

  “Aye. ’Tis a target, like in archery. The object of this game is for both of us to drop the bladders at the same time, and whoever comes closest to the mark wins.” She paused and moved over. “Come now, let us hold out the water balls and start the game.”

  Edith moved carefully, balancing the bladder, and soon both girls were bent over the arched casement, the balls extended in their outstretched hands.

  “When I say drop, we let go at exactly the same moment. Understand?”

  “Aye.”

  “Edith?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I believe you stand a better chance to hit the target if you open your eyes. You should take aim at the mark.”

  “I don’t like heights.”

  Sofia shrugged and said, “Drop!”

  They both let go. The water balls fell like missiles from heaven and burst open on the stone step with a loud splat!

  “Look! Look! Mine was closer!” Edith was jumping up and down, laughing and pointing and apparently forgetting about her fear of heights.

  Sofia frowned. Her bladder had bounced just a little before it burst and missed the mark by a good arm’s length. “Aye. You did particularly well, for unlike you, I had my eyes open.” She paused for a thoughtful moment. “Having my eyes open did not seem to help.”

  She spun around, eyed the balls for a moment, then grabbed the plumpest one for herself. ’Twould never bounce, she thought as she walked back to the window. “Come, let us do this game again. Whoever has the most target hits by the time we have dropped them all, will win.”

  “What is the prize?”

  Prize? What prize? She had not thought about a prize. She’d had another purpose completely. But, without missing a moment, she said, “My sapphires.”

  Edith’s eyes grew wider, for the sapphires were tear-shaped and a rich blue color, a gift from the King himself. They were the loveliest of anyone’s except the Queen’s.

  “The ones Edward gave me as a reward for finding his favorite scepter.”

  Edith gave her a wry look. “You mean the same scepter you were using to prop open the trap in the barbican so you could eavesdrop on the guards talking about playing in the hay with the kitchen maids?”

  “Aye. The very same one.”

  “So let me see if I have this straight. If I win, you will give me the sapphires?”

  Sofia nodded. “And if I win, you must be the one to accompany the Queen to confession every eve for a fortnight.” Sofia looked at Edith. “Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  It was not long before plump pig bladders were falling from the tower window like missiles during a siege. They were in a tie; each had an equal number of hits when they finally were ready to drop the last two bladders.

  “Whoever is closest wins.” Sofia said as she leaned way out of the arch and eyed the target, stalling for a moment, before she adjusted her feet a little to the right. “Now do not drop it until I say to do so.”

  “I did better with my eyes closed,” Edith admitted and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

  “I have an idea, just to make this more interesting, let us both close our eyes.”

  “Fine,” Edith agreed with her eyes still shut.

  They both leaned out the window.

  “Close your eyes tightly, Edith.” Sofia said, leaving her one eye open just a smidgen and looking intently downward. “On your mark . . . ”

  Sofia waited a little longer, until she heard the squeak of a door hinge.

  “Make ready . . . ” Sofia finally closed both eyes when she felt she had the bladder right over the spot she wanted.

  The door below creaked open.

  “Drop!” Sofia whispered.

  They both let go at the exact same moment.

  ’Twas also the exact same moment that two of Edward’s knights walked out the scarcely used western doors and stood directly atop Sofia’s chalk target.

  In unison, the girls leaned out the window to watch, each gripping the stone casement in their hands and looking downward.

  There came a grunt of male surprise.

  Splat! Splat!

  The pig bladders hit the two knights square on their heads.

  “God’s blood!” came the cursing from below.

  Edith’s mouth fell open and she stood frozen.

  But not Sofia. Grinning, she grabbed Edith’s hand and jerked her away from the window, then she ran to the doors, dragging her friend with her as she ran down some back stairs and hid in small dark shadowed niche two floors below.

  They could still hear the men swearing.

  Edith looked at Sofia. An instant later they both began to giggle.

  “My Lord in heaven,” Edith gasped. “Who was it, do you suppose? No one uses those doors!”

  Sofia began to laugh so terribly hard she had trouble catching her breath. “I know the knight in the cloak.”

  “You do?”

  “Aye.” She giggled again. “’Twas Gloucester’s eldest son.”

  “Sir Tobin de Clare?”

  Sofia nodded, now laughing so hard she was making snorting noises into her hand.

  Edith stopped laughing and studied her for a long time. “Did you know he was in the castle, Sofia?”

  “Know he was here? Me? Why Edith! Are you suggesting that I planned this whole game just so I could hit him over the head with a pig bladder full of water?”

  “Aye, I am. I have known you for many years, which is why I did not volunteer to put that apple on my head, dare or no. I would not put it past you to do something like this.”

  Sofia drew herself up into a stance she thought showed her indignance. “Truly, Edith, what is the likelihood that he would come out those west doors of the tower? You said yourself that no one ever uses those doors.”

  Edith was silent for a pensive moment, then she searched Sofia’s face. She sighed and said, “I suppose even you could not plan something so intricate and devious.”

  “Aye.” Sofia said clapping her hands. “But what good fortune it was that he merely happened to choose those doors at that particular time.”

  The bell rang announcing None, and the girls left the tower to meet the Queen in the solar. ’Twas later that day, though, well after Vespers, that Sofia accompanied the Queen on her evening visit to the castle priest.

  After Queen Eleanor was through, Sofia went inside the small, dark confessional. Once there, she blithely admitted with no remorse that it was she who had given the arrogant and cold Sir Tobin de Clare the wrong direction.

  So as the Lady Sofia knelt in the chapel, her head bent in one of the hundred and thirty three prayers she must say for penance, she smiled, for that one single look on Sir Tobin’s arrogant face—his wet and red face—was well worth a night of sore knees.

  Chapter 8

  They said revenge was sweet, and it was. Sweeter in reality than it had been in Sofia’s dreams for the past two years.

  She slept late the next morning, later than was her usual routine. She felt lazy, like a cat that had just finished all of the cream, and she stretched her arms high above her, her hands in fists as she groaned a little, then arched her stiff back and yawned.

  She lay quietly under the soft, warm feather coverlet, trying to ignore the coming day. Sounds echoed inside the Gloriette from the bailey below. The watchman’s horn. The constant creaking of t
he carts and wagons which brought supplies into Leeds. A coarse shout here and there. Horses clopping on the stones in the courtyard. Dogs barking. Goats braying. Birds singing on the ledges of the tower.

  But those things did not bother her overmuch. She just closed her eyes and the only thing she heard then was the sweet, wonderfully rewarding sound of Sir Tobin de Clare swearing his way into Purgatory.

  She sighed, then thought back to the image of his wet and surprised face looking up at her. ’Twas like living one of her dreams all over again and she wished ever so much that she could do it again, with a hundred pig bladders. A thousand! She wiggled underneath the feather covers, then pulled them up under her chin. After a moment of utter satisfaction, she began to laugh, just as she had so often since the day before, and during her penance prayers, and probably even during her sleep.

  Finally the hubbub in the bailey grew to such a din that the deaf, or even the extremely satisfied, could not ignore it, so she threw back the covers and rose. She slid her feet into her fur slippers, then padded across the room to the arched window that overlooked the farthest end of the inner bailey. The shutters were open and she rested her chin in one hand and looked yonder toward Canterbury and the world beyond. There was a light breeze in the air, cool and crisp, and it ruffled the hair at her temples and dried out her lips when she moistened them. For a moment she let that breeze brush against her face.

  She heard a sudden shout and the horn blew from the watchtower, then there was the creaking, loud squeal of the portcullis in the barbican slowly rising.

  A contingent was coming through. In the distance she could see golden brown dust still billowing in the air over the road. She heard the horses’ hooves pounding a hollow, echoing beat across the wooden drawbridge.

  It was probably only the King’s hunt party returning. They always rose at dawn, an ungodly hour, then went out to kill the animals in the woods. Sport was what they called it.

  In Sofia’s mind sport had nothing to do with killing animals that were a hundred times smaller than you and everything to do with water-filled pig bladders. She found herself smiling again, then she just giggled, because it was very, very hard not to keep gloating when gloating was so amusing, and she was all alone so no one would see her anyway. It was wicked to laugh so, but that certainly did not stop her.

  However, the sounds from below changed in pitch and caught her attention. There was the rattling sound of men dressed in mail and armor. The voices were many and unfamiliar. And there were too many horsemen. Those were not the sounds of a hunting party returning.

  Idle curiosity sent her leaning half out of the tower arch, her waist bent against the stone ledge, her long dark hair hanging thickly over her shift so she needed no robe to cover her.

  Her hands clasped onto the handles of the iron shutters to better see what was going on below, and she rose up on her bare toes. She could almost make out the first of the horsemen. Almost. His mount was side-stepping in and out of a darkly shadowed archway.

  The door to her chamber opened suddenly and Edith rushed in all excited, her voice almost a shriek. “Sofie! You must get up! Quickly!” She spotted her standing at the arch and paused. “Oh. You are up.”

  Sofia turned back to the window, staying where she was and trying to see who was below. “Aye,” she said distractedly. “I am up.”

  “Hurry. The Queen asked for you. I told her you were still in bed.”

  Sofia spun around, horrified. “You didn’t. I shall get fifty penance prayers for Sloth and have to sew with the Queen’s women every morn for a fortnight!”

  “Nay. I mean, aye, I did, but you will not be punished because then I lied. God help my poor wretched soul.” She made the sign of the cross. “I told her you had a great ache in your head.” She crossed herself again and muttered something about lying for friends that Sofia could not make out. “Eleanor said she would send Lady Mavis and Lady Jehane to help with your headache and to help you dress.”

  Sofia groaned. “Now I do have a great headache. Mavis and Jehane? Lud . . . ” She sagged back against the stone wall. The Ladies Mavis and Jehane were fiercely loyal and hell-bent to serve their Queen. The younger women of the court called them the Poleaxes behind their backs, because the two women were rigid as a mace shaft and they could slaughter you with their sharp tongues. Worse yet, they were Eleanor’s private friends as well as ladies-in-waiting, the Queen’s most trusted. Even the King’s men obeyed if either of them gave a command.

  Sofia sagged back against the stone wall. “Edith, tell me how can such a great morning turn into such a bad day?”

  “I do not think it is bad, Sofie. There will be a feast in less than an hour. You should see the panic belowstairs. The servants and the cook are having fits trying to prepare everything. The Queen herself has been seeing to everything. She says that this day is—” Edith cut off whatever else she was going to say and she looked suddenly ill.

  Sofia frowned for a moment, then turned to Edith and asked, “What makes this day special?”

  Edith shrugged and wouldn’t look Sofia in the eye.

  “Why would the Poleaxes need to help me dress? Who has come here?”

  “I do not know.” Edith turned away swiftly, her hand on the iron door handle as if she were trying to escape.

  “Edith! What is going on? What did you start to tell me. The Queen has been what?”

  “Nothing,” Edith mumbled to the door.

  “You are lying to me, your most true and loyal friend in the whole wide world. Turn around.”

  Edith turned slowly. Her face was bright pink, which meant she was either fevered or lying.

  Sofia spun around quickly, hung half out of the arch again and tried desperately to see who was below. The entrance to the Great Hall was to the east, a short distance from the Gloriette, so she had to shield her eyes from the late morning sunlight. But all she could see of the troop of men was one last dusty pair of boots. The men and their colors were hidden from her view by a wooden scaffold built for the varlet who had been lime-washing the castle stone.

  The chamber door closed with a telling creak and Sofia spun to face an empty chamber. “Edith!” She ran for the door. “Edith! Come back in here!”

  She almost had her hand on the door when it opened and the Poleaxes marched in the way King Edward marched on Wales. Lady Mavis, a tall, gaunt woman with brown hair and a voice as commanding as the Queen herself, clapped her hands. “Inside with you! All of you!”

  All of you?

  A stream of servants came inside carrying a tub, bucket after bucket of hot water, soaps and perfumes, towels and a huge bucket of chipped ice, which must have come from the King’s icehouse in the lower cells of the donjon. Sofia stepped back against the wall, eyeing them unhappily. When she looked at Lady Mavis she was sorely tempted to mimic Edith and make the sign of the cross, or better yet, hold one up in front of her.

  But she could do nothing. She was cornered.

  Lady Jehane came through the doorway, bringing up the rear, her arms crossed with determination and her look as unyielding as a stone wall. She stopped, scanned the room, then her gaze landed on Sofia. “Her Majesty claims you have a great ache in your head.”

  Sofia slumped slightly, sliding partially down the wall. She raised one limp hand to her brow. “Aye,” she said in a weak, breathy, and withered-sounding voice. Then she wobbled a little so it would look as if she were ready to faint.

  Through a small crack she had made in her fingers, Sofia saw Jehane’s eyes narrow slightly before she spun on her heel like the captain of the King’s guard and marched to the doorway. Jehane cupped her hands over her big mouth and bellowed, “Hear ye all! Hasten! Bring the King’s barber and his largest pail of leeches to bleed the poor, suffering Lady Sofia.”

  Leeches? Sofia’s belly tightened. She shuffled sideways to her bed, then collapsed on it, groaning. “I am too, too weak. Ah. Too weak with . . . with pain to be bled. ’Twill, oh my . . . ” She took a deep br
eath. “Just . . . just make me weaker.” Then she let her voice trail off with a sorrowful hissing sound. Just for good measure, she whimpered. Twice.

  Then Lady Mavis was towering over her, so Sofia moaned again. And again. Mavis left for a moment and Sofia took advantage and shifted a bit, then turned her head just enough to see out of the corner of her eye. Mavis picked up something, shifted it back and forth in her hands for a moment, then she turned and came back toward her.

  Sofia closed her eyes quickly. She could feel Mavis standing over her, pausing, looking down at her. The urge to open her eyes was great, but she did not do so.

  The next thing she felt was a heavy and lumpy towel landing on her face. It was freezing!

  “The ice inside this towel will kill the pain in your head,” Mavis said in a matter-of-fact tone, then she put another towel full of ice on top of the first one, until Sofia could hardly breathe and her teeth began to chatter. Mavis pressed them down with her hands and Sofia could feel the ice freezing into the hollows on her face: her nostrils, the sockets of eyes, her lips, her temples. It was so cold that it burned her skin and hurt like the very Devil!

  “I know all about head pain,” Mavis was saying. “Do I not, Jehane?”

  “Aye, Mavis. You always said that ice is better than leeches.” Jehane paused, then added in a thoughtful tone, “Perhaps, if poor Sofia’s pain is truly so very severe, for her we could do both cures.”

  Both?

  “Leeches and ice?”

  “Aye. Freeze her and bleed her at the same time.”

  Aye, and then the two old heartless cats can draw and quarter me.

  “Hmmmm.” Mavis was thinking.

  This is not good.

  “I shall fetch the barber immediately,” Jehane said. “We wouldn’t want the poor child to suffer any longer than necessary.”

  Sofia could hear Jehane’s clipped footsteps heading for the doorway. She shot upright. The towels and ice scattered everywhere. “ ’Tis a miracle!” Sofia shouted before Jehane could get very far. “You are truly the best, Lady Mavis. My headache is gone.”

  Jehane poked her head around the corner of the open door, then exchanged a triumphant look with Mavis that annoyed Sofia, but even she would not have leeches put all over her skin just to continue such a charade. She hated leeches, hated them more than worrying about what was going to happen to her or what these two sly and demanding women would do to her. She also knew that Jehane was not making an idle threat. The stern and dire Lady Jehane would not hesitate to use leeches all over her.