Of Myths and Monsters

by Robert Adams

  Then, for some reason he never had been able to fathom, she had moved her entire household to the castle that was the accustomed seat of the Earls of Rutland. Not long after, she had sent back her two widow lady attendants and all of her maids, women who had been with and served her almost since she first had come to Whyffler Hall with him who would become her husband. She herself, however, had not remained as much as six months at Rutland. She had come back in the very dead of winter, draft beasts and a few men had died in getting her and her household back to Strathtyne with her son and her new flock of servants and lady attendants.

  The new servants had all been folk of the south or the east or the west; all had felt themselves far superior to the Northumbrians and Borderers and had made no bones about it, putting on airs and constantly criticizing North Country ways, mocking Borderer speech and poking malicious fun at the habits and traditions of the folk of Whyffler Hall and the rest of the barony. Sir Geoffrey had had to be quite harsh in order to prevent physical punishment being wrought upon the flesh and bone of many of these new-come servants by persons who had been given great instigation. He had hated having to do this, for he had not cared at all for the newcomers himself, but they had been hers, the Lady Krystal's, and he had felt that he must protect them as he protected her to the very best of his ability.

  The chatelaine's new ladies had been, if anything, even worse, in Sir Geoffrey's keen estimation. All save two were landless widows—in the wake of so many years of fighting in England, the kingdom lay virtually awash with widows, it seemed—and these two, older gentlewomen, were dowerless spinsters, their respective families' fluid wealth having been all dissipated during the war years and the lands having been rendered by resultant circumstances too poor to provide dots and, thereby, husbands for them.

  Quite willing and able to do or say anything, no matter how dishonest or dishonorable, in order to retain the sponsorship and security which their current positions assured them, Sir Geoffrey believed, the coterie of gentle-born harpies had done no real slightest service to their mistress, but rather had done no less than actively abet her descent into madness. They never had disagreed with her, not even obliquely.

  Instead of performing their true function of gently guiding her in her proper dealings with all strata of society, lending her full support when she was right and gently or jocularly chiding her when she was wrong, they had instead not only publicly approved her every action, no matter how outrageous, how beyond the bounds of courtesy, honor, or decency, but had gone so far as to encourage her to think thoughts and do things that went far past the mere contumelious.

  He had himself heard the terrible sextet instigate the duchess to pen letters to Archbishop Harold of York, divers court functionaries, senior officers of the royal army, and even to His Majesty himself that would have caused her husband great difficulties at the very least, had the faithful knight allowed them to ever get out of the barony. As the duchess had gone farther and ever farther into her clear madness, Sir Geoffrey had silently mourned the sweet, kind, friendly woman who had been, but known that there was nothing that he could do to bring her back.

  He had, for this reason, been greatly relieved when she had gone down to lodge with her household on the estate of the archbishop of York. Those of her alien servants who had not gone there with her had, without her presence and status to protect them, quickly found Whyffler Hall, the Barony of Strathtyne, indeed, the whole of the borderlands, so unsalubrious to their health and well-being that they could not but quit their service and return to where they had come from, right speedily too, most of them.

  After the word had come up to Strathtyne about the regrettable necessity of placing the mad duchess in the care of a nursing order, the two spinsters had made an appearance, apparently expecting to be lodged, fed, and otherwise maintained in perpetuity. After thinking hard on the matter for the month it took his letter to reach His Grace, and the Archbishop of York's reply to come back, Sir Geoffrey had gone to the spinsters and offered them some choices. One was a promise to quickly find them both husbands among the yeomanry or, possibly, among the lesser gentry of Strathtyne or one of the neighboring baronies, perhaps English, perhaps Scots. One was to provide them work under the supervision of the chamberlain of the hall, Henny Turnbull, that they might have the opportunity to earn their keep. One was to convey them to any of several North Country convents, that there they might either take the veil or make other arrangements with the superior. The last was that he see them suitably transported back to York and the disposition of the Archbishop.

  When he turned a deaf ear to their protestations that, as Her Grace of Norfolk had repeatedly assured them that they owned a lifetime sinecure of her and her service, it was his bounden duty to keep them at the hall in the style to which they were accustomed so long as they lived and with no common toil or labor expected of them, they had at last and grudgingly agreed to meet with some of the prospective bridegrooms.

  Sir Geoffrey had then sent off a galloper with a letter to his friend Sir Michael Scott, laird of that ilk, and presently that worthy had appeared at Whyffler Hall with his servants, mounted gillies, and four widowers, all of the clan's petty gentry. The Scotts had not been long at Whyffler Hall when both spinsters had sought out the seneschal, importuning him to afford them both speedy transport back to York. However, before he would agree, he wrung from them formal, written, well-witnessed documents of voluntary and willing withdrawal from the service of Her Grace of Norfolk. On the eve of their departures, he had their effects searched, and upon finding a multitude of items stolen from the hall among them, he had the two women—gentle-born or no—stripped and striped for the thieves they had proved themselves to be, before sending them on their way.

  When first the Archbishop Harold's knight, Sir Rupen Ademian, had come up to Strathtyne to see what had once been the master suite for the old tower cleaned, renovated, and partially rebuilt in order to house the mad duchess and the nursing sisters who would bide with and care for her, Sir Geoffrey had not known whether to rejoice or worry at the possible return of all of the old problems which had attended her last tenure at the hall. Therefore, he had done both.

  The letter borne up to Sir Geoffrey by Sir Rupen from the Archbishop had specified that although he was to remain seneschal and intendens of His Grace of Norfolk in all mundane matters, just as he always had been, Sir Geoffrey was to recognize that it was to be upon Sir Rupen that the full and unfettered responsibility for the care and welfare of Her Grace was to fall. He was to render Sir Rupen his fullest cooperation, see that his needs and desires were accommodated, and not question any of his decisions in regard to his charges—the duchess and her nurses. The letter had gone on to point out that as she was incontrovertibly mad, orders or requests that came directly from her rather than through her nurses or Sir Rupen were to be invariably disregarded or ignored, especially as regarded demands that she be allowed elsewhere in the tower, the main hall, or upon the grounds unaccompanied by at least one of the sisters.

  Still picturing her to himself as she for so long had been, Sir Geoffrey had found it difficult to believe that the frail, sickly, terribly emaciated woman lifted from out the coach and set upon her feet to shufflingly hobble into the hall possibly could be Her Grace, the Lady Krystal Foster, Duchess of Norfolk. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes dark-ringed and fever-bright, and the hands that he recalled as slim and graceful now resembled nothing so much as the bony claws of some old hag of a beggar woman, grimy on palms and backs, the nails ail cracked and encrusted with filth. Once, when her wimple slipped almost completely off, he could see that much of her ravens-wing-black hair had fallen out, while what remained growing amid the sores and oozing scabs was dull, lifeless, and graying.

  She had not acknowledged the greetings of Sir Geoffrey, Henny Turnbull, and other senior members of the hall staff, not even those of the only two of her former maids that the seneschal had been able to hire back. She had just shuffled along where she w
as guided through chambers and corridors of the main building toward the west wing, which had been built onto the ancient tower. Slowly moving, she had said no single word, her expression never had changed . . . until, entering still another chamber, she had confronted a tall, framed mirror, when she had stopped stock-still, staring at the horrible apparition that gazed back at her.

  After a moment, she had raised both clenched fists and her ravaged face toward heaven and shrieked, "Oh, God damn you, Bass Foster! You motherfucker, just look what you've done to me!" Then, screaming unintelligible noises, she had whirled, lifted from its place a solid, heavy chain, and hurled it smashingly into the mirror. That done, still screaming, she had attacked the two sisters like some savage beast and had not slackened until Sir Rupen had stepped in and struck her senseless with his fist. Then he and the somewhat battered nursing nuns had borne her hurriedly through the rest of the hall, up the tower stairs, and into the suite above.

  Shaken to his very core by the horrible episode, Sir Geoffrey had somehow managed to get through his various duties for the rest of the day and early evening. That night, in his Spartan chamber, he had prayed long and earnestly on his knees before his prie-dieu. Not until he was lying in his bed had he allowed the hot tears to come, to be absorbed by the same pillow which muffled his wrenching sobs.

  More than merely familiar with the incredibly labyrinthine manner in which the courts of high churchmen were always operated, Sir Ugo d'Orsini easily weathered the endless delays, readily applied just the proper amounts of golden grease to the succession of greedy palms, and weathered the probing interrogations of the secretaries, armed guards, self-appointed watchdogs, and confidants of Harold, Archbishop of York, with a serene good grace surprising to many of those same interrogators. When asked about this by some of them, he replied simply that he had been them, he would not have trusted a papal knight either, not any farther than he could throw a large destrier. However, despite all that was said to him, from sweetly phrased importunings to near-threats, he had refused stoutly to surrender the impressively sealed letters to any save the man to whom they were addressed, the man he had come to England to see, the Archbishop of York, Harold Kenmore.

  At length, however, after much expense and many trials, his dogged persistence triumphed and he was granted audience by the Archbishop. Knowing full well that he was being closely watched, Sir Ugo spent his time between the announcement and the date of the actual meeting innocently enough. He hired on a local who spoke decent French and specialized in such as showing significant points and areas of Yorkminster and the secular city of York to those interested; that took most of a week, moving at a slow, unhurried pace. Then he sought out the knight who ran the Royal Cannon Foundry, Sir Peter Fairley, introduced himself as an Italian knight, and indicated his desire to obtain a brace of the lightweight pocket pistols newly developed by the justly famous gentleman-inventor.

  Sir Peter lifted a box from a shelf and bore it over to his incredibly cluttered worktable. Reseating himself, the Englishman opened the box and took from it a handgun with graceful, pleasing lines; its grips were of a dark, polished wood, but they were the only wood upon the weapon. The ignition system was a reduced-size flintlock. The trigger folded up into a groove and only fell to the usual position of triggers when the flint-holder was brought to a position of full cock. The barrel—of about twenty bore, Sir Ugo estimated—was of gunmetal and looked exactly like a model of a cannon's tube—complete with the expected reinforces and muzzle swell and even including a carved wooden tompion to seal the bore.

  Moving his work-stained fingers with no wasted motion, Sir Peter competently disassembled the compact weapon to show its features to Sir Ugo, hampered in his demonstration, however, by Sir Ugo's less than perfect command of English and his own quite atrocious mastery of French. Finally, he had called in one of the craftsmen recently hired, a wandering Genoan, to translate.

  Later, in the inn room where he resided, Ugo had taken his new weapons from out their fitted, fruitwood case to disassemble and reassemble them himself, before finally loading and priming them, then replacing them in their case and locking the case in one of his chests. He was impressed with the quality of the workmanship, of course, but even more so by the new-type lock, one which would never need the time-consuming process of spanning in a tight spot. Even more impressive were the bronze barrels that could be preloaded, attached to the frame with three short twists of the wrist, leaving one with only the momentary task of priming, cocking, and firing; moreover, no less than four barrels were provided for the two pistols, and a special hollow in the wooden butts held a fresh flint in case the ones in the cocks' jaws should shatter unexpectedly. Sir Peter had assured him that parts of one pistol would fit the other and then proved that statement. Sir Ugo, some ounces of gold poorer, felt the money very well spent and now was distinctly admiring of the English Royal Cannon Foundry and the multitalented gentleman who commanded it.

  With still more days remaining before his audience and the men set to spy upon his movement having, by now, become familiar if often shadowy figures, Sir Ugo repaired once more to Yorkminster, where he asked directions and, for a mere bit of silver, soon arrived at the library placed hard by the scriptorium. He tried his French on the monk tending the library, but the reply was in such abominable French that he switched to Latin. After he had identified himself and, upon inquiry, modestly admitted his relationship—that of great-great-grandnephew—to the noted religious and philosophical writer Fra Placido Pietro d'Orsini, then spent a full hour listening to fulsome praise of his long-deceased, distant relative, the keeper of the tomes became much more friendly and gladly fetched him the references he sought.

  Three days of reading the yellowed, handwritten pages gave him pause to wonder if perhaps the man he was so shortly to see was not really as old as some persons seemed to think and Cardinals d'Este and Sicola firmly disbelieved, modern realists that they were. Of course, his own basically realistic mind insisted, who was to say that—with all of the vicissitudes of the intervening times, the plagues, the wars, the copyings and recopyings that had taken place over the past time—some records had not been lost, others mistranscribed or deliberately altered for diverse reasons that no one now living would ever know or understand. Nonetheless . . . ?

  According to the oldest of the records, dating from the reign of the very first of the kings of the Tudor dynasty in England, one Harold Kenmore, Gentleman, had taken some part in the defeat of the Balderites, first relieving the siege of some castle up on the northern border, then taking part in the combined English and Scottish effort that drove the heretical fanatics back and back until they had the poor choice of dying by steel, drowning in the cold sea, or surrendering to face mutilation and the stake. Following the end of the Balderites, the name of Harold Kenmore, Gentleman, had disappeared from the records for around fifteen years, then a Harold Kenmore—the various records here conflicted; one said that this man was a member of the Goldsmiths' Guild, but others named him a churchman, though they could not seem to agree whether he was a priest, a monk, or a monsignor—was brought to the court of King Henry VII Tudor by a relative—again, the records differed, some saying that this man had been a roving Irish warlock and suspected druid, another identifying him as the then High King's father-in-law and the developer of the world-famous Tara Steel, still another averring him to be an English or possibly Scottish adventurer, son-in-law of the High King and an ambassador from Tara to London—of the present Ard-Righ's father, Brian of the Bloody Blades. There, this Harold Kenmore—priest, goldsmith, or whatever—had miraculously cured the lad who became King Arthur II Tudor, the present king's grandfather, of some wasting disease that had all but killed him and utterly baffled every other leech brought to treat him.

  The next mention of a Harold Kenmore had been two notes of a Court Alchemist, one Monsignor Harold Kenmore. At some time after that, a Monsignor Harold Kenmore was installed Archbishop of York, this last during the last years
of the reign of Henry VII Tudor, to fill one of the numerous vacancies wrought by the arrival in England of the Priests' Plague. But after that, though some gaps existed here and there, the record seemed to be unbroken; no one else seemed to have been installed in the Archbishopric of York for well over a whole century to the present. This was where the mind boggled, for if the records were accurate, if the missing ones followed the course of those available, no other conclusion could be drawn save that the man Sir Ugo would so very soon see in audience was at least more than two centuries old!

  Sir Ugo d'Orsini burned to pen and dispatch a long letter which would detail his findings to Cardinal d'Este immediately, but at the same time he knew that to do such with any relative certainty that the missive would reach the prelate at his seat in Palermo, it would have to be sent from Ireland, not England. His head whirling madly with thoughts of all he had read and the suppositions that reading of the records had aroused within his quick mind, he slept precious little on the night preceding his audience with Harold, Archbishop of York.

  After being most thoroughly, though most courteously, searched for weapons or anything resembling such, the Roman was ushered through an anteroom in which sat and stood more than a score of armed and armored guards, their pole-arms leaning against the walls within easy reach, their relaxed awareness stamping them as the veterans or professionals they most surely were.

  After passing through doors guarded on both sides by halberdiers, he was escorted into a smaller anteroom in which sat a cassocked priest and two armored men who looked like officers and were each armed with sword, dirk, and a brace of two-foot-long dags of between ten and eight bore. Flanking the doors opposite those by which he had entered were another four halberdiers and two calivermen, the flaring muzzles of their weapons looking quite big enough to easily accommodate Sir Ugo's fist.

  After another searching of his person and the cour bouilli letter case he bore with him, his escort dropped behind and the cassocked priest strode before him to the doors and nodded to the guards, who flung wide the portals.