In Pursuit of the Green Lion (11 page)

It had been unspeakably vexing, the last two days. The woman could be seen everywhere, usually bundled up in a big apron, giving orders. He’d ridden out on a vermin-hunt with the neighbors, and there she was, having commandeered an oxcart, tasting the water in its load of barrels with a big ladle. On their return, he could hear over the terriers’ jingling bells the sound of her voice coming from the bakehouse: “This flour’s not bolted right. It’s fit only for coarse bread, not table bread.” Women’s voices in general annoyed him. They were too high and shrill. Especially when they gave orders. All women should be required to whisper, he thought grumpily. And then he’d spotted a pair of redheads racing unattended toward the bakehouse. One of them ran close enough to risk tripping up the horses.

“Not so fast,” he growled. With a single movement he leaned from the saddle and scooped up the struggling creature by the back of its garment. “Where is Mother Sarah?”

“Under the stair with Little Will. Now put me down, will you? We’re helping Mama.” And the neighbors had laughed so heartily that he had dropped the offending creature on the spot. For it seemed that he was the very last in the shire to discover that Mother Sarah was as famous for her ability to acquire husbands as to survive them. So rather than bringing order, he had loosed another of these horrendous creatures into his well-constructed male world. It was a dreadful feeling, the feeling that his universe was falling into uncontrolled chaos, and that women were the cause. They were almost as bad as lawyers.

N
OW WHEN
S
IR
H
UBERT
left with Gregory and with Sir Hugo, I felt altogether like that woman in the story who is supposed to spin straw into gold overnight. New leaven is not something that can be made in a day, or even several days, and although the brewing went well, the leaven was a worry. First you must make the starter just right and leave it in the air, and then I have a way of burying the crocks just so that is my secret, while the leaven makes itself all lovely smelling and bubbly. Or it may rot; it’s quite a worry. You never know till it’s out what has happened, and I didn’t think I’d get a second chance to prove myself and win our wager. So I was very busy and forgot entirely about the Cold Thing, which would have been healthy except that when you forget about things like that, that’s when they come and grab you.

So that’s just what happened. I was by myself in the tower passage when I suddenly stepped right into it. I shuddered and leapt back. The Cold Thing followed, hanging on to me like a clammy mist. Oh, Jesu, it’s finally decided to get me, I thought. I began to panic, but as I started to run I tripped and fell flat.

“Wait, wait!” sighed the Cold Thing, as I tried to scramble up and flee. I’d hurt my knee and couldn’t get up fast.

“Hear me, hear me.” It surrounded me as I sat, rubbing my bruised knee. It was so cold, it made me shudder. But it had me now, so I might as well speak to it.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here if you keep freezing me.”

“Is that why you run whenever I come near? Can’t you see me?”

“No, I just feel you; you’re like an icy cloud.”

“Then you can’t tell it’s me?”

“Who—or what are you?”

“Oh, Margaret, Margaret, don’t you know me? I’m between heaven and earth, Margaret, here in the shadows,” the Cold Thing sighed. Suddenly, beneath the soft windy sound, the voice seemed familiar.

“Is it really you? How did you get here?”

“Oh, it wasn’t easy. At first I sat with you all the time, but you didn’t seem to notice me. Then I lost you. Couldn’t find you anywhere. I tried hunting for your little light, but instead I found other people with lights: a fishmonger’s wife, an ostler, and an anchorite. The anchorite had an interesting one—bluish white. I’d supposed they were all orangish pink, like yours. I knew you weren’t dead, because I see all the dead people come by here—even saw my son Lionel, with his head tucked under his arm, on his way—umm—downstairs. Then I thought, wherever you were, you’d find a way to get your Psalter, so I followed it out here. Where is here, by the way?”

“Brokesford Manor, in Hertfordshire.”

“Broken Down Manor is more like it,” huffed Master Kendall’s ghost. “I certainly kept my places in better trim than this.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said. “But I still don’t understand how you got here—I mean, between heaven and earth.”

“Oh, Margaret, you have no idea how unpleasant it was. At first I floated above my body—it was very nice of you to wash it yourself, by the way—most women would have hired someone—but then, you always were special. They usually let you stay until the funeral, if it’s a nice one. But then I found out that—well, it was a question of the infernal regions—if you see what I mean.”

“I was so afraid of that,” I cried, wringing my hands. “It’s because you died unshriven. I started praying right away. I set a schedule, and do some extra in between.”

“Yes, that’s what did it. The praying, I mean. You bothered them so much, they couldn’t decide what to do with me. So here I wander, neither up nor down, and most people can’t see me, but I can see everybody. It’s a poor kind of company, here in the shadows, and I’ve missed you dreadfully. That, and of course I dislike seeing that dreadful fellow Perkin Greene taking over my trade.”

“Oh, Master Kendall, I’ve missed you so much, and our house that we made so beautiful—and it’s not fair at all that you should suffer so, just from having died so suddenly.” I put my hands over my face and wept.

“Now, now, don’t cry so. You know I never want to see you cry. It’s not at all painful, this existence—just dull. No one to talk to until now, except that ridiculous Weeping Lady—I had to put her in her place—told her I knew His Majesty and also the late king personally, and then I didn’t hear any more about social-climbing merchants trying to take over her chapel. And a damned dismal place it is, too, as if I’d ever want it. No, the buttery and under the stairs are far more interesting.”

“Master Kendall!” I was shocked. He laughed, that cold, gusty laugh that was like an echo of the laugh I loved so. Oh, he always knew how to put everything right with that laugh.

“Don’t think they’re unfair up there, Margaret. That wouldn’t be right. There were just a few things I never told you about—the piracy, for example. I was much younger then, and thought they’d forgotten. Also I thought I had a very good excuse. And there were one or two other things I’d still be embarrassed to tell you about. You were always such a lovely little thing, Margaret, and I wanted you to think the best of me.”

“But I did, and I do. I will always love you.”

“Ah, Margaret, you seem to be getting very fond of that trouble-making Brother Gregory—or should I say Gilbert?—these days. I must say, I never thought he had it in him, running off with you that way. Though now I’ve seen his family, I understand a good deal more.”

“Are you angry at me then?”

“For what? For not weeping at my tomb perpetually? Or burying yourself in a convent, young and lively though you are? Oh, no, Margaret. I only want your happiness above all. I loved you more than anything on earth when I was warm and living, and now that I am cloudy and cold, I know you need youth and warmth beside you. Just promise you won’t forget me, that’s all.”

“Oh, how could I not promise that? You know I loved you with my whole heart, when you were living, and I love you still.”

“There’s only one thing …”

“What’s that?”

“I can’t go until I’m sure you’re well looked after. And in all the time I’ve been watching that tempestuous young man who’s married you, there’s one thing I’ve never heard him say.”

“I know,” I said, bowing my head. “Maybe it’s not in his nature.”

“If it’s not in his nature, then his nature’s not for you, no matter how much fun you have between the sheets.” Goodness, Master Kendall could be blunt. But then, we’d always been honest with each other.

“I know you too well, Margaret. You can’t live without a warm heart next to yours. So remember, I’m waiting to hear it as much as you are. Then I can go up or down or wherever it is I’m bound—though I must say I hope your prayers work and it’s the glorious region and not the hot place. But no matter where, I’m not moving until I hear it. Even they can’t make me.”

What was it we were both waiting for? It wasn’t much, but they were words that had never actually come out of Gregory’s mouth in my presence. In all the time he’d known me, he’d never said, “I love you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

A
ND SO, LIKE A GREEDY GREYHOUND, you swallowed it whole?” Sir Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Derby, Lincoln, and Leicester, Steward of England and Lord of Bergerac and Beaufort across the seas, had received his petitioners, as was his habit, in his bedchamber in his immense fortress at Kenilworth. Still a vigorous man, although already well into middle age, England’s greatest warlord radiated an almost visible aura of power even in repose. And well he might: lord of over a score of castles in England alone, he possessed the powers of the crown within his own vast dominions. He had his own seal, his own courts, his own diplomatic missions. His wide lands supported not only their own administrators, but the immense and busy household that moved with the Duke himself from castle to castle when he was not in the field.

The Duke was sitting erect on the richly embroidered counterpane of a vast, silk-hung bed, his gouty foot, newly inflamed by yesterday’s banquet, propped on a little stool before him. These were the last petitioners of a morning’s long business, begun at dawn. The case was a bit different. Amusing, even. A man the Duke usually saw more of in the field than at home, when the fellow visited only annually to do formal homage for his estate. The knights and clerks that stood about him ready to take care of anything he ordered had grown restive thinking about the noontime dinner that would be waiting for them.

“I’m afraid that is so, my lord,”answered the Sieur de Vilers, head bowed, hat in hand, on his knees among the rushes on the floor. His two sons, each in a similar posture, flanked him.

“I knew old Kendall,” said the Duke, letting his gaze wander out the window. Outside, a brisk wind was pushing clouds across the blue spring sky. Crocuses were poking up through the dead earth in search of the sun, and you could hear through the unglazed window the lapping of the water in the wide artificial lake that surrounded the castle on three sides. “He sold me a number of rarities. And, of course, no one was a better judge of a length of crimson than he.” It was one of the Duke’s weaknesses, the smell of the fabulously expensive dye on a length of new crimson as it was unfolded. And Kendall had made a great deal of money catering to it. “A shrewd eye he had, a collector’s eye. And no finer piece than his little dolly. I saw her dancing last winter at my masque, when I opened the Savoy to the London merchants. Did you know that? A lively little thing she was, who seemed to know all the most fashionable new steps.”

“No, my lord, I had no idea.”

“She turned down every go-between in the City,” he said, the distant look still on his face. Including mine, he thought. And quite ungracious of the little wretch, considering that I expect gratitude when I stoop to a merchant’s wife. He paused a moment, as if thinking things over. Then he stopped. He inspected Gilbert at leisure. It had been nearly a decade since he had seen him last, the maddest of an impetuous lot of new-made squires nourished in his household at Leicester. It was hard to believe that the tall, austere figure kneeling there in the threadbare, mended brown velvet surcoat was the same one who featured in the raucous new ballad that was sweeping London. It was something about how the old merchant’s walls were high, high, high, but his wife was young, young, young, and a bold young squire, dressed as a humble friar, had sneaked in by the kitchen door, kitchen door. He’d have to have his minstrel sing it again tomorrow night, after they were gone. The melody wasn’t much, but there were several quite lurid verses describing goings-on in the chambers while the old man slept. If they hadn’t been borrowed wholesale from another ballad, they might have seemed more serious. But Gilbert?

It wasn’t something he’d have ever suspected of Gilbert, and he believed he was a good judge of men. How could anyone ever forget that prank where the other squires had substituted a pair of naked laundresses in place of themselves in the bed that two of them shared with Gilbert, just to see the horrified expression on his face when he woke up and found them there? Just what was it he’d shouted as he’d snatched up the sheet and run off? He’d forgotten, but it had been very funny, even at the retelling over dinner all that long time ago. Even then, Gilbert had acquired a reputation for being a bit more priggishly holy than is proper in a military man. Of course, that had never bothered the Duke much. As long as a man fought like a fanatic on the battlefield, he could do whatever he liked with the rest of his time. Even pray and scourge himself, if that was his preference.

“So it’s your son Gilbert who snatched her up, is it?”

“Yes, my lord. But he hadn’t the slightest suspicion that Master Kendall had left everything to her. It’s unseemly. An allowance maybe, or a lifetime interest in the house. But everything? None of us thought it possible. But now, you see, our honor requires that we keep it.”

The situation had its entertaining side. A faint smile crossed the Duke’s face. A little thought flitted across his mind: It’s a good thing they can’t see my face in that posture.

“Sir Hubert, rise, and your sons also. The honor of the de Vilerses is dear to me. Just what was it the Earl said?”

“About the shabby cadet branch of the de Vilerses?” said Sir Hubert, rising. The veins stood out in his temples just thinking about it. Sir Hugo’s nostrils flared. And Gilbert, looking tall and somber, clenched his jaw.

“No, the other bit—”

“Oh, the part about the palsied claws of an aging patron?”

“The Earl is young, and needs to be put in his place. How many men do you need?”

“We could do with thirty. He can’t mount nearly as many.”

“I’ll send fifty. Sir John”—and he gestured to the aide who stood beside the bed—“go and see that two score and ten men at arms are prepared to depart for Sussex on the morrow. I assure you, I am wrathy that the Earl should interfere with my knights’ livings on the very eve of my new campaign in France. Brother Athanasius”—and he gestured to one of the two clerks that always stood by him, wax tablet and stylus in hand, when he heard petitions—“I will need a letter written to the magistrate, informing him that the de Vilers matter concerns me, and another one to my lawyers in London.” The clerk bowed and left with a swift step. Sir John left, giving orders, as men moved in and out of the bedchamber.

“The new destrier, Sir Hubert. I’ll try him when my foot permits.” The Duke was at his best when he was at the center of a hive of activity. He sounded positively mellow, now that the formalities were over.

“Beautiful mouth, my lord. You’ll never find a better anywhere.”

“Of that I’m sure. You’re getting quite a reputation for your horses.” Sir Hubert turned red with pleasure. The Duke had the key to his heart. “And you’ve brought me two fine sons, as well.” Sir Hubert seemed a little taken aback, and glanced at Gilbert furtively. He still looked exactly the same. Less than he ought to be.

The Duke shone the light of his charm on Hugo in turn.

“Sir Hugo, your father’s courage in my service has been measureless, and you look to be like him. I’ve had my eye on you for quite a while. I expect great deeds of you.” It was Hugo’s turn to look content beyond words. The Duke could charm the birds out of trees when he wished, or men to their deaths in the mud of foreign places, all for glory.

“And you, Gilbert. At long last you will be joining us.” Gregory looked surprised. “Better you than these fishmongers and soap-sellers’ sons I’m plagued with.” Gilbert looked puzzled. “Surely, Kendall’s manors, once secured in your name, will bring an income over fifteen pounds a year, will they not?”

“Why, yes—that is, once the debts are paid off,” responded Gregory, still puzzled. He had been over the accounts himself. The income, though considerably more than a poor knight’s fifteen or twenty pounds a year, was irreparably mortgaged for many years in the future to lawyers and to the Bishop. For having a university degree had meant that he was automatically in minor orders, and marriage to a widow would have brought penalties for bigamy except that the Bishop, for a tidy sum, had exempted him. Then there were the loans to cover the bribes for getting murder charges dismissed as self-defense, and for the repair of the roof of the hall at Brokes-ford Manor, which his father had said he was owed for his trouble. Then there were all the curious inheritance taxes, which included the best beasts on each estate being driven off by the overlord and the priest. Even elopement isn’t simple, he’d found: a web of indebtedness and financial ruin stretched like a nightmare before him. All at a stroke, by becoming rich, he had become poor.

“You are aware of the new law, surely? It has been in force for the last three years. Not, of course, that a man of honor would require a law to point out the right course of action.” Gregory still looked puzzled. He had become addled with laws lately, and couldn’t tell what was meant.

“My lord, I need to be informed. I was in the Carthusian monastery at Witham for most of that time, and heard nothing of the outside world.”

The Duke absorbed this piece of information, paused, and spoke again: “For the past three years His Majesty has required that every landholder with rents over fifteen pounds a year take up the obligations of knighthood and required military service. Our next ceremony will be at Whitsunday.” The Duke looked contentedly at Sir Hubert’s exultant face. “It is a good thing when lands are removed from the hands of the merchants and bankers. Gilbert de Vilers, you’ll mount many a good man from these lands of Kendall’s. I have made a good bargain for the King this day.” When he did not see the appropriate look of gratitude on Gregory’s face, but rather one of shock, he continued suavely, his canny eyes never leaving Gregory: “Gilbert, they tell me you’re a scholar. It’s a curious activity for a scholar, carrying off a woman at sword’s point. But then, how many soldiers are scholars?” Gregory never moved, but looked unspeakably embarrassed.

“Did you know that even I have given thought to my soul’s health? I am composing a book of meditations that might well interest a scholar’s eye. One like yourself, who is something more than a scholar.” The Duke watched with satisfaction as Gregory’s curiosity stirred, and showed itself on his face.

“I often think, perhaps a scholarly mind, one that has given deep thought to the sacred, of course, would be able to offer comments to improve my little work.”

“It’s all in the composition. If you have a felicitous arrangement, you have everything, my lord,” Gregory blurted out, being unable to contain himself.

“That is what I thought—what do you think of ordering the be-wailment of sins according to the parts of the body?”

“Why, that’s brilliant,” said Gregory, and he really meant it. The Duke looked pleased with himself. Sir Hubert and his eldest looked uncomprehendingly at each other.

“I suppose I should tell you,” said the Duke, as if the thought had not just occurred to him the previous day, when he’d been told the de Vilerses were here, “I have need for a man in my personal suite in France. Someone who’s a scholar, but not a useless one. A soldier, a gentleman of good family. I’ve been thinking that a chronicle of my campaign—written right there, not by some sleepy monk who’s never seen anything of life and understands nothing about chivalry—would be a worthy thing to have.” He watched as Gregory’s mind started working over the idea. He knew it was not the princeliness of the offer—the glory of the Duke’s service, or the handsome rewards that a great patron makes to a chronicler—that would turn Gilbert’s head, but the fact that it touched his weakest spot, his vanity about his intellect. And while, for amusement, the Duke collected women, his serious work in life was collecting men. He had made it his study and his art, and he understood the wellsprings of men’s actions perfectly. It was why he had grown great, when others remained small. And now that he was growing older, he would sometimes awaken in the night, when not on campaign, and think what a fine thing it would be to have his greatness all recorded in black, red, and gold. Illuminated, of course, at least in the final version. It was not quite as great an idea as the one he’d had about charming God Himself with a book of meditations, but it was very nearly so.

“Would you—”

“My lord!” exclaimed Gregory with unfeigned joy.

I
T WAS
W
ATKIN THE
herdsman’s middle boy, standing barefoot beneath the new leafed willow at the brook’s edge among his woolly charges, who first spied the mounted party. A row of dark shapes in the distance, silhouetted against the rolling first green of the spring meadows, they toiled slowly along the narrow track to Brokesford Manor. As they approached you could make out the figures of Sir Hubert and his two sons in the lead of a half-dozen mounted retainers, two laden sumpter horses, and a clear dozen hounds, including the old spotted bitch that never left the old lord’s side.

The child ran across the field shouting, “They’re back! They’re back!” to tell the manor folk to open the main gate. The Lords of Brokesford did not look like men who had come home empty-handed, though even the hounds that ran beside the packhorses looked wearier than when they’d departed.

Margaret had left the low, thatch-roofed malthouse well content with the progress of the reforms there. She was wrapped from neck to ankle in a big borrowed apron, and had now settled into the bakehouse to sniff the new leaven in the crocks that had just been lifted from the cool earth of the floor. The wide brick ovens stood cold this morning, the ashes newly raked out of them. Tomorrow would be baking day. She wrinkled her nose at the acrid, sweetish smell of the yeasty brew in the last crock. It was good, all good. And what’s more, she’d taken advantage of everyone’s absence to browbeat the steward with the proximity of Easter and the need to placate a particularly demanding Lord, whose eye was not only on the sparrow but on the dirt in the corners. Several old layers of rushes had been dug out of the manor house and thrown on the compost heap, and new ones laid on the scrubbed stone. Even the chapel was whitewashed in a manner that the Weeping Lady pronounced to be adequate, but still beneath her.