In Pursuit of the Green Lion (18 page)

She looked me up and down.

“Dear sister,” she said. “What a lovely cross. May I touch it?” I was going to say no, for the Burning Cross has a peculiar property. Master John of Leicestershire, who gave it to me years ago, said if I could wear it I could have it, because it burned all those who did not walk closely with God. Of course, I didn’t believe him; I thought it was a graceful way of offering me payment for saving his daughter’s life, when I told him I’d take no money for it. But it’s done some odd things since then that make me suspect that maybe John might have been right. But as the word formed on my lips I saw the look in my new sister-in law’s lovely eyes. It was greed. She expected me to say, “Beloved sister, it’s yours.”

“Of course you may touch it,” I said. “It’s an old relic, from the time of the Crusades.” She reached out her beautiful hand to fondle it and her eyes said, “Don’t wait so long, dear sister, to offer it to me as a wedding present. It’s not gracious.”

“Lovely—ah!” she cried. “My finger’s burnt.” She put her finger in her pouting, exquisite little mouth and sucked on it. “There’s something wrong with it.”

“I am so terribly sorry, dear sister. It must have been an insect. See? Little Alison touches it without harm.” And I leaned over to demonstrate. As she looked down at Alison, a cold look flashed across her face.

“My dear lord, do introduce me to the rest of your guests and family.” She smiled, and he led her away to meet the neighbors and their wives, their two hands held high, joined only by his index finger crossing hers, in that elegant gesture of the French court.

“A lady, a real lady,” I heard the servants murmur behind me.

“How elegant, how courteous, how beautiful!” I could hear the guests whisper as the beautiful couple circled the room. As soon as I was unnoticed, I ran upstairs to weep. The solar was full of guest beds, as was every room in the house. The chapel, all shining in its new paint, was hung with flowers, and Father Simeon was already arguing in there with the little Franciscan that Lady Petronilla had brought with her as her confessor. So I was reduced to hiding under the tower stairs with the rats, and weeping there until there wasn’t a tear left in my body.

That night, lying in bed alone in the dark, I was waked up by a terrible pain in my belly. Was it a dream or not a dream? I opened my eyes to find a dreadful serpent peering at me with horrible red eyes.

“Get off!” I said.

“Off?” it said, with that dreadful smile serpents have, and its forked tongue flicked in and out. “You mean out, don’t you?” I looked down the length of its shining green and red scales, to where its coils lay. No wonder it hurt so—it had gnawed a great hole in my belly, and coil after coil of it oozed endlessly out of the deep wound.

“God save me!” I cried—or didn’t cry, for no one in the room waked up.

“God? You want God? He’s very far from wherever
I
am,” hissed the odious monster, and writhed so that the pain nearly tore me apart.

“Who, or what, are you?”

“I am Envy, dear sister, and I have eaten out your guts. When I am finished with them, I will eat out your heart, and you’ll die.” I screamed, screamed soundlessly again and again. How had I given myself over to this evil monster? I knew. It was when the chests upon chests were carried in, until the servants marveled. It was when the beautiful greyhounds she’d brought were admired by everyone, even the old lord. And when her chaplain had sprinkled holy water on the great new marriage bed her father had sent, and her old nursemaid had exclaimed, “My little rose! My precious beauty! So soon we are a woman, a great lady, a mistress in our own house!”

Yes, that’s when I’d let the thing in. And dream or no dream, it was eating me alive. How could I get rid of the awful thing? I leaned over the side of the bed and vomited into the chamber pot, and the bitter taste of it reminded me I was awake. I stood up in the dark, and felt on the perch for the great, soft
robe de chambre
that the old lord had given me, and wrapped it around my naked body. A bit of moonlight came from behind a cloud. My girls—who would protect them from Hugo’s greed if Envy ate up my heart? Who would save the baby? Who would find Gregory? I tiptoed to my sleeping girls, to hear their breath in the dark—half drowned as the faint sound was by the snores of Mother Sarah, who slept in the straw bed on the floor beside them. Silently, I crossed to the tower door, and pushed it open ever so slowly, so it wouldn’t squeak. I’d go to the chapel, and beg God to take away the terrible serpent—I must before I died here in this dreadful house. The cold air in the tower passage took away all the sleep that remained in me as I felt along the wall.

The chapel, too, was dark, but moonlight came faintly through the windows and made the new whitewash glisten darkly. The Last Judgment, with “all those figures,” was a dark shadow above the altar. Through the narrow, arched windows, you could glimpse the cold stars trembling high on the dome of the sky. The world seemed so empty and cold.

I stood on tiptoe at the high stone windowsill and looked out at the dark, silent world. “God, God,” I whispered out into the silence. “Where are You now? You’ve abandoned me here alone, and I’m lost.” I suppose I expected God to answer. Sometimes He does, you know. But you never know when. It has to do with logic—His logic, which is too deep for me to follow. Half the time when He speaks, I don’t understand a word of it anyway. But this night, nobody answered. The shadows of the trees below rustled in the night breeze, and I remained utterly alone.

“You want to run away, don’t you?” Oh, just what I needed. To be bothered by the Weeping Lady in the midst of a spiritual crisis. I tell you, there’s no privacy anywhere.

“I know you want to run away. I can tell by the way you stare out of windows and count over the things in your chests. I used to do that too. ‘I’m going home to my mother,’ I’d say, and he’d say, ‘I’ll beat you so badly you’ll never step over that threshold again.’ You have no idea how I’ve enjoyed watching him scream and suffer down there in the hall. If you run away, he’ll die and go to hell, which would please me greatly—except that his little image, Hugo the knightly, will take his place, and I don’t want him to have the pleasure.”

It’s very tiresome to hear someone so narrow-minded when one is pondering great issues, like why God is silent, and also trying to get rid of a large personal problem.

“You’re planning to leave with that smoky old merchant. I’ve been listening. Well, I want to go too. It won’t be interesting when
he’s
in hell and Hugo is lording it over everyone, so I’d like to be gone, as well. London might suit me. It’s interesting there. I’m going to look into cradles, as all the other Weeping Ladies do.”

This was the last thing I needed.

“You don’t want me, do you? Pretty snippy, for a daughter-in-law. Oh, don’t be shocked. You thought I was stupid like all those other Weeping Ladies. You ought to know he gets his brains from
me
—not from that shriveled old mummy on the bed downstairs. I knew perfectly well that he grew up. Of course, boys are like kittens. Very cute when little, ugly when they grow up. It took me a while to recognize him—not much of the kitten left. But you couldn’t mistake the nose. Very elegant. A long, Norman nose just like mine and Father’s. And all mixed up in his mind, and ungrateful for good things—just like a
man
—you’re welcome to him. I had him when he was pretty. Besides, he needs someone with sense to look after him. He hasn’t got much, not that I didn’t try. No, you need me to go with you. Especially if you decide to go hunting for him.”

“This is not what I need—not tonight. Can’t you see I’m suffering? Bother me tomorrow, won’t you?”

“Tomorrow? Tomorrow’s too late. No. Tomorrow morning I want you to take the little badger skin shoes, the ones with the holes in them, and put them in a sack about your neck. They’re his, you know. I made them myself. A child shod in badger skin shoes will always grow up to be a great horseman. Now, once you’ve got them, I can follow you anywhere, just as that pushy merchant followed your Psalter right here to my lovely chapel.”

“But—but—”

“Don’t you ‘but’ me. Don’t you know you shouldn’t annoy ghosts? I might do something nasty. But instead, I’ll do something nice, to convince you I mean business. You know that big snake you’ve got? Oh, don’t look surprised. I saw it. I had one, too, when my sister married a great lord of Brabant. Oh, he was learned, pious, and good. His wealth came in stacks, and my sister dressed in silk and never had to lift her hand. Then I found out he was hunchbacked, and made friends with her again. After all, family is family—you can’t do without. I heard none of her children had normal bones. ‘Too bad,’ I wrote her, ‘but at least they’ve normal brains, which is more than I can say for mine.’ So—suppose I take away the snake. Then will you take me?”

“If you can, I will.” The thing had begun to stir again, and the pain alone would kill me if I didn’t rid myself of it soon.

“You follow me and listen,” said the Weeping Lady. I felt my way in the dark after the soft swishing noise she made, to the door of the room next to the chapel. The great room of the Sieur de Vilers, now inhabited by Sir Hugo and his bride. Through the door I could hear muffled sounds.

“Put your ear to it—after all, you can’t go through it, as I can. Don’t worry, I’ll keep watch—you won’t be caught,” said the Weeping Lady.

This is what I heard.

“Wake up, wake up—I want it again.”

“Mmm. No. You’ve hurt me,” a pouting voice responded. “I won’t be able to go hunting for a month.”

“You should be proud: when they display the sheets tomorrow everyone will praise you.”

“Proud of what? Giving up everything for this shabby little house? You swore we’d live in London.”

“And so we shall—”

“Ow! Ow! You get off! I tell you, I’m not one of your peasant wenches.” There was the sound of flesh hitting flesh.

“You little bitch—that’s what you get for clawing me. Try that again and I’ll break your nose. Then you won’t be so popular in town.”

“You touch me again and I’ll go home to Father. You deceived him. Your manor’s a hovel, and your father is nowhere as near death as you let on.”

“Talk like that and I’ll break every bone in your body. You aren’t going anywhere—but—here.”

There was the sound of screaming muffled under a pillow. At last came panting, and a thin gasp. “My father will have you murdered for this.”

“Not for taking my marital rights, he won’t—he’ll just want to hear the details.” There was a nasty chuckle, followed by a half sob.

“You’ll talk differently when he finds out you won’t be Lord of Brokesford before Christmas, as you promised, and you haven’t yet got full claim to your brother’s property,” came a voice full of injury.

“Tell him that, and you ruin yourself as well as me. Neither you nor your dear papa want to be a laughing stock, do you? It’s too late to be unmarried, so make up your mind to be a dutiful wife and bear my sons, and you’ll be living in luxury in London yet.”

“Then get rid of that whey-faced widow. I can’t stand her. Lock her up somewhere—the cellar, a convent—just so I don’t ever see her again. Or those nasty brats. Promise me that, and do it right away, and I’ll know you mean what you say.”

“Those nasty brats are worth good cash. But it’s my business when and where I get rid of them.”

“Promise me soon, and I’ll be sweet, dear lord.” I could hear the whining, wheedling tones of a conniving infant.

“That’s more like what I want to hear from you.”

Tomorrow? The tone suddenly became sharp and commanding.

“You force me? I tell you, unless you understand that I make all decisions, I’ll beat you until your father doesn’t recognize you—”

“A happy couple, aren’t they?” whispered the Weeping Lady rather maliciously. “How’s your snake?” I felt my belly. It didn’t hurt at all.

“Gone,” I said.

“I thought so. And now you’ll take me. You’re very wise to escape. But you’ll have to sneak away. They don’t like you, but they don’t want anyone else to have you either. That would spoil their property claim. Yes, you must be either dead, locked up, or forced to enter a convent. I know all about that. I had a cousin once forced to take the veil. And the convent they put her in was no better than a prison. All her lovely hair shaved off. I myself would never have wanted my hair shaved off, annoying as it sometimes was. But then, it’s all your fault anyway, for marrying a rich man and outliving him. How on earth did that dreadful old merchant pile up more than a knight? Trade’s such a despicable way to make money.”

“Instead of stealing it, like a gentleman?”

“Exactly,” said the Weeping Lady.

A
S THE FIRST PINK
of dawn shone through the high solar windows, I complied with the Weeping Lady’s wishes, and folded up the little shoes tight and stuffed them into an oblong reliquary on a chain and hung them about my neck beneath my surcoat. But the cock had barely finished crowing when the girls came howling to find me, followed by Mother Sarah.

“Mama, Mama, she
hit
Alison for no reason at all,” cried Cecily.

“And, mistress, when I tried to stop her, she beat me with the riding whip she carries. Said I didn’t know my place,” and the formidable Mother Sarah sniffed up a tear.

“She is mistress now, and there’s nothing I can do. Just stay out of her way, until I think of something,” I said.

But later I heard Mother Sarah grumbling to Broad Wat, behind the screen in the hall, as Wat sponged off the old lord’s face. “She’s too young to be a mistress, that vicious little cat. May the Devil fly off with her.”

“Make up your mind to it, Sarah. She is mistress,” responded Broad Wat. “But”—and I could hear the old lord groan as Wat lifted his head to assist him to drink—“she’s not master … nor is
he.”

“The children, Mother Sarah, where are they?” I broke in upon the little scene behind the screen. Wat was straightening the pillows and pulling up the covers to make the old lord more comfortable; he had followed him faithfully through every campaign, and now even into his campaign with Death. He’d never doubted me once he’d seen the changes I’d brought about, but had questioned me closely to learn all that I knew that would assist his master. Now we looked at each other and we understood each other without speaking. We’d both been in hard places, and knew what must be done. Mother Sarah was watching him, wringing her hands. I could see now that one of the cuts had brought blood where it touched the unclad skin of her hand. She’d saved her face with her arms. She was still so distraught, I didn’t have it in me to be hard.