by Ann Benson
The abbess stood very still for a few seconds, as if she were assessing him. And then the woman in the white flowing robes greeted him with a precise bow—not the curtsy that would be expected.
A voice came from behind the mask. “This is how a proper bow is made.”
He stood, stunned; once again, he let his mind drift back to his time before in Windsor.
This is how a proper bow is made, the little girl told him. And then, as neatly as any well-bred young squire might do, the child he knew as Kate executed a perfect bow at the waist, one arm before her belly, one behind her back. And then came her grin, with teeth just beginning to bud through her upper gum.
But the voice—could it be hers? The voice he’d just heard seemed lower than what he remembered.
She would be a woman in full bloom now. In his mind, she was still the hopeful girl with a simple wreath of flowers in her hair as she gave her vows of marriage to Guillaume Karle. Sorrow and time would have set their hands upon her in ways he could not anticipate. He pulled in an anxious breath and stepped forward, leaning in so only the abbess could hear, and said, “Thank you for the excellent instruction. One senses that you might have taught someone before this.”
The abbess stepped closer to him. “I have,” she said. “A traveler who came here, many years ago.”
The voice was hers. He reached out and took her hand.
“Daughter,” he whispered.
“Père.”
They stood quietly together.
“You are here, at last,” she said.
Alejandro whispered, “I am. And so are you.” He found that he could barely breathe. “Let me take you in my arms and hold you….”
“No,” she said quickly, “we cannot, for my guards are nearby—their eyes are upon us now.”
So they stood together in quiet peace, a black devil and an abbess in white, with their hands entwined, as bears and lions and jesters and brides danced all around them. They were enclosed in a bubble of bliss, and nothing could reach them through its rainbow surface. Neither one could move, for fear of losing the other. Finally, Alejandro said, “We must act according to your plan. Tell me what you will do.”
Kate nodded quickly. “Do not look away, but twenty paces toward the rear of the room are my guards. They are two, not costumed, but in their ordinary garb. Large fellows, and brutal if provoked, so we must do nothing to anger them.” She glanced to her left briefly and then looked into his eyes again. “Chaucer waits in the shadows. When he hears the music of the king’s entry, he will get his white robes and mask and stand by the privy, over there.” She pointed low, so only Alejandro could see. “When the dance begins, I will join in, and while it is still early in the dance, he will come through the crowd and take up my ribbon, and I will slip away, on the opposite side, so the guards will not have a clear view. When the king and others enter, my guards will stand with their fellows, for a very brief moment. It will be just long enough for Chaucer to throw off the white robes. He will be differently costumed underneath and will move to the other side of the room. They will find the white robes in the privy.”
“Then you will go through the gate—”
“No. There is a stairway on the south wall, the Hundred Steps. It is in some disrepair; no one takes much notice of it, without enemies on the hillsides. It will be difficult going, a steep downward climb.”
“I remember it,” he said immediately. “But it is very treacherous….”
“I have had plenty of time to memorize its peculiarities.” The tempo of her words quickened. “The fifteenth step is badly broken; take care to place your foot very close to the right side. And the forty-second step is barely there. Try to step right over it, or you will surely tumble! When you reach the bottom, turn right, and just a few paces ahead, there is a low spot in the outer wall; the drop from there is only about twice our height. I will await you on the crest of the hill, under the apple tree. Do you recall it? We looked over the wall when I was a child; you said we might put a swing there when the plague was past. I have looked upon that tree every day with such longing. It is in full flower now; the petals drift down, almost like snow, so you can find it, even in darkness. We can meet there.”
A clarion sounded, startling them both.
“I will make sure that I am but a few steps behind you.”
She nodded, her eyes tearing. “I must leave you now, Père.”
He gripped her hand even harder. “Too soon!”
“Please,” she said in a desperate whisper, “Isabella and de Coucy will be presented after the dance. I am to be called forward thereafter, and the king will speak again to claim me as his own child. I must be well away before then!”
He squeezed her hand one last time. “Take care, daughter of my heart,” he said, and then, with terror in his soul that he would never claim her again, he let her go.
A contingent of soldiers in ornate regalia parted the crowd as the king and queen entered. Loathing rose up within him when he saw the king, but he felt genuine pity for the queen, for she seemed a shrunken woman in comparison to what she had been. Her hand was placed lightly on her husband’s arm as he strode down the short staircase with his chin in the air. She made two steps to each one of his, and though her steps were still graceful, their entry was nearly comical. Alejandro might have found it all quite amusing, were his hatred for the man not so cavernous.
As the royal couple moved forward in their glittering garb, the sea of guests moved aside in a synchronized wave of bows and curtsies on both sides of the hall. Kate stood at the outer edge of the viewers, just a few feet in front of Alejandro. He saw the king nod very slightly as he passed his white-robed daughter, though Alejandro could not be sure if he knew who she was. The queen seemed not to recognize her and made no specific gesture. Kate dipped slightly in the same manner as all those around her, as would be expected. Alejandro knew it was a bitter moment for her, but this would not be the proper time for an act of overt rebellion. Her disgust for the man who had sired her would become plain soon enough.
When the king and queen were seated on the dais, there was another bright fanfare. In swept Isabella, gloriously attired as a princess of Arabie. All heads turned to watch her glide down the stairs with silks and gossamers floating all about her. She stopped on the bottom step for a moment of admiration; the crowd buzzed in approval of her costume. She brought a fan out from behind one of her veils and fluttered it a few times in front of her face, which brought a round of hearty applause from the observers. A bevy of attendants, each similarly though less dramatically costumed, rushed forward to pick up the silk veils that trailed out behind her.
Her turbaned prince, complete with his gilded scimitar, awaited her at the foot of the dais. For one short moment, Alejandro stood on his toes and saw de Coucy reach out to take the hand of his fiancée and then lead her up the steps onto the platform. The resplendent pair then turned to face the crowd, to yet more applause.
Alejandro’s hand twitched for want of a sword.
The king rose and spoke—interminably, it seemed—of the fine qualities of Enguerrand de Coucy, of the suitability of the match between him and Isabella, of the joy it all brought to him and his queen. Would they feel that way, he wondered, if they had known de Coucy as he and Kate had, eight years before?
Alejandro recalled the very young man who stood with sword in hand and made it clear that the physician had a choice: He would sew up the ruined sword arm of Charles of Navarre, or watch Kate die. And though Navarre had probably been the one who ordered the death of Guillaume Karle, Alejandro had done what was asked of him.
Liars, both; no sooner had Alejandro finished with Navarre’s arm than de Coucy made it known he would have his way with Kate. But before he could take her, she had pulled the knife from her stocking and thrust it between his legs, against his manhood. What kept her from plunging it home, he would never know. De Coucy had been forced to let her go. He had hated her, and she him, ever since.
It begins at last, he thought.
He looked behind to the place where the guards would be. A few paces away, he saw a figure in a white robe well back of them with the mask full on. Though Alejandro could not be sure it was Chaucer, his heart told him that it was; the young man played his part perfectly, never casting so much as a glance in Alejandro’s direction.
The tempo of the music quickened, and with it the pace of the dancers who made their way around the pole holding ribbons in their raised hands. The crowd dispersed somewhat and became less defined as the king’s guests greeted one another and began to socialize while the ribbons twirled in the center of the room.
Soon the ribbons were a blur, so frenzied was the May dance. Alejandro’s heart raced as he watched Chaucer make his way through the crowd. He glanced at the guards; they had relaxed their vigil, lulled perhaps by the immensity of the festivities and some notion that their charge was contained within it.
Alejandro saw a flash of white, and in the blink of an eye, Chaucer’s hand reached over Kate’s head and took the ribbon from her. She slipped low into the crowd and through it, and finally disappeared from view.
Alejandro felt a stab of panic; it was all according to the plan, but he was desperate not to lose sight of her. He worked his way through the celebrants as quickly as he could, heading toward one of the corridors that ran along the side of the hall. He approached two large gentlemen who seemed rooted in their position; the crowd was thick, and there would be no going around them. He made a polite bow and gestured with his hand in a request that they part. They nodded in return and stepped aside. Alejandro passed between them and found himself face-to-face with Elizabeth of Ulster.
He came to a stop and stood staring into the hard, violet eyes of the woman whose venomous disdain for him might be even greater, he imagined, than that which Isabella felt. Elizabeth was as coldly beautiful as he remembered when he had pursued her—with his own escape in mind—in Paris.
She was attired as a gem-studded butterfly on this night, but he saw no evidence of metamorphosis in her hateful expression. Alejandro had used her shamelessly as an unwitting player in his attempt to flee from de Chauliac, and with the help of Guillaume Karle and Kate, he had managed to get away, leaving his guards and a bewildered young Geoffrey Chaucer in a state of disarrayed confusion.
In truth, he had found her enticing; she was an educated woman, and he had found her company delightful. But always in the back of his mind was the guilty knowledge of his own duplicity; there could never be a love between them, not even the courtly sort of love that men and women of nobility seemed to find so convenient. Even so, he could not help but recall that she—the wife of a prince, the mother of children who might grow one day to rule England—had brought herself willingly to the flirtation.
Their escape from Paris had felt like a victory of sorts, until her son fell ill with plague. De Chauliac had convinced Alejandro to return to help save the child. Through his and Kate’s efforts, the boy had recovered, but Elizabeth had repaid him with only viciousness. It was in the attic of her Paris estate that he had last seen Kate, before this evening.
Elizabeth’s eyes opened wider and then narrowed again. Had she recognized him, though only a small portion of his face was visible?
She was a woman scorned, jilted, and duped, and, as such, would know her tormenter anywhere. He glanced back quickly at the dancers, then rushed past her as she began to speak. He looked back again and saw that the white abbess was just stepping away from the pole. He looked once more in the direction of the guards; they seemed completely unperturbed. A few paces later, he looked back one last time and saw a young man wearing the traditional red robes of a physician emerging from the shadows. Alejandro squinted to get a better look at him.
The mask came down, and Chaucer smiled.
There was no doubt in his mind that Elizabeth would sound the alarm for him to be caught. Alejandro damned the luck that had put her in his pathway, when he needed the advantage of every moment! He hurried, faster than he thought wise. The shadow of the wall along which he crept provided decent cover, but the torches were bright and damnably plentiful, so Alejandro stayed low as he made his way in the darkness toward the Hundred Steps. Up ahead was Kate, the white robes of her costume flowing out behind her as she hurried toward her freedom. He lost sight of her momentarily in the curvature of the wall; when she came into view again, it was because she had bolted away from the wall across the courtyard, toward the place where the Hundred Steps began.
She was halfway across the open expanse when he heard a voice call out, “Stop!” A figure approached from the opposite direction and followed Kate’s path. She did not stop but ran even faster. She seemed to be fumbling with the front of her robe as she ran, though he could not see clearly. The follower began to catch up to her; Alejandro moved faster through the shadow of the wall in their direction.
The figure spoke again. “Katherine Plantagenet!”
He saw the silhouette of his daughter freeze in place, then slowly turn.
And then the voice came again. “Where goes my bride-to-be? I thought we were getting along so famously!”
With that, Alejandro saw her turn again and dash toward the entry to the Hundred Steps. Her pursuer lunged forward and grabbed her by the hem of the white cloak, and she lurched backward, stumbling into him.
“No!” she cried. She turned and hit at him with her fists. “You shall not have me again!”
Alejandro saw her reach down and pull something from her ankle; he was still too many steps away when she began to stab at Benoit. He saw Benoit clutch briefly at his arm. And then Alejandro heard the scrape of the sword against its scabbard.
He pulled off his devil’s cloak and rushed forward, throwing the massive garment over Benoit from behind. It settled over him like a shroud. Benoit struggled to throw it off but was soon completely entangled in the folds. He fell to the ground, thrashing and writhing. Alejandro bent over him for one moment and spit on him.
Then he turned and ran toward the Hundred Steps; Kate was already well on her way down when he finally reached the entry. He counted each touch of his toes in the darkness as he made his way down, but quickly lost count in his effort not to trip. It seemed an hour before he placed his foot down and felt level ground.
He ran to the right, as Kate had told him to do; panic began to take hold when he did not see her. The dip in the wall was where she said it would be; he put one leg over the jagged rocks and seated himself on them. Down below he could see the white cloak, which she had left behind; it made a target toward which he could leap.
Twice my height! It sounded easier when spoken than it seemed on seeing it. Nevertheless, Alejandro leaped; it seemed an eternity before his feet hit the earth again. He tumbled forward in a hard somersault. Somehow he managed to pick himself up off the ground, and he ran forward into the night, hoping that God had not set any trees in his immediate path, for he would be hard-pressed to see them. He was ten steps beyond his landing place when he heard a commotion from above. As the noise grew louder, he turned and looked back. He saw no soldiers but knew it would only be a matter of seconds until they were there. He plunged through the darkness; soon he was running up the hill toward the apple tree; in the dark, in silhouette against the tree trunk, he saw Kate.
They clutched each other in a short embrace, and then Alejandro took hold of her hand. “Follow me,” he said. “The horse is not far.”
They ran again, both panting hard,
until they reached the horse. Alejandro quickly mounted, then reached down and pulled Kate up behind him. With her arms around his waist, he heeled the horse hard, and they rode off into the night.
Twenty-two
James found Janie in the kitchen early the next morning.
“Breakfast will be in just a few minutes,” she said. “I made oatmeal.”
“That’ll be great. Thanks.” He let a moment pass. “How are you doing today?”
“Getting by,” Janie said. “But just barely.”
“I expect that’s all you’ll do for a while, at least until Tom’s up and around,” he said.
“That situation will present a few challenges too,” she said. “He’ll have to learn to live in a whole new way.”
James was quiet for a moment before saying, “I want you to know how sorry I am. It all happened so fast, there wasn’t anything anyone could do.”
She looked directly at him. “I know that. I mean, it was all just an unfortunate series of events…nature’s way.” She pointed at his wrist. “If that cut had been just a little bit deeper, nature might have had her way even worse with you, you know.”
He raised his wrist and regarded it for a moment. “Gravity still works, I guess. Wish everything else did too. I was hoping you could take a look at it. It’s a little sore today.”
She set down the wood spoon she’d been using to stir the oatmeal. “No time like the present. I’ll be right back.”
She returned in a few moments with a bottle of home-distilled grain alcohol and a pair of small scissors.
“Give me your arm.”
He complied. She removed the wrapping from his injury. It was red along the stitch line but otherwise clean and healing. “Looks great,” she said. “It would probably look neater if I hadn’t been so upset when I sewed you up.”
