In Pursuit of the Green Lion (20 page)

“I saw you in the same sty with that God-accursed family. Why should I do anything for you?”

“For your revenge, lady,” I gasped, my mind working quickly for a reason. “If I escape from them, almost all their fortune, which comes to them through me, will vanish like snow before the sun.”

“And who are you, that you were there with them?”

“I am Margaret de Vilers, the widow of Sir Hugo’s younger brother.”

“Ah—” said the lady, and smiled her lovely smile, showing all her pretty, white little teeth. “Then get in with me, all you three. You can’t go alone, with all the brigands there are about in this wild place.” So her ladies assisted us to climb into the back of the wagon, where we settled down miserably amidst the baggage. The whole thing jolted and joggled so that I knew I’d be a mass of bruises by evening. It just goes to show that splendor can be very tiresome; it’s better to walk than ride in misery. But I was so tired, I was soon overtaken by a fit of weeping. Thinking to distract me, Cecily began to chatter. She is in many ways older than her years, and sometimes sounds so quaint, particularly when she’s speaking French, that it always amuses me.

“Mama, what’s an abom—abomination?” she asked.

“Silly, that’s what the priest does, if you’ve been bad,” answered Alison.

“No, that’s absolution, dummy,” answered Cecily.

“An abomination,” I answered, drying my eyes, “that’s something disgusting, like—like devils, or something smelly.”

“Do toads count?” asked Cecily.

“Yes; toads are ugly, and witches make poison from them. Though I suppose hanged men’s fingerbones are worse.” I was beginning to cheer up.

“Oh,” said Cecily, disappointed. “Too bad we couldn’t get the fingerbones.”

“Yes, they wouldn’t have been all icky, icky, sticky,” said Alison.

“What do you mean?” I asked her, suddenly suspicious.

“Well, they made my skirt
all
icky, carrying those toads for Cecily.”

“Mama, are we really going home to London? To our real house?” Cecily interrupted quickly, to change the subject.

“Of course we are,” I answered.

“But it’s not the same; Papa’s dead and those bad men will find us.”

“I’ll think of something, I swear I will.”

As we had been speaking in French, the dark lady had been listening but pretending not to. Now she turned her head to look into the back of the wagon and addressed Cecily: “So, little redheaded savage, what did you do with the toads?” Cecily was silent and looked embarrassed.

“We put them in Lady Petronilla’s bed,” chirped Alison, “because she’s a mean lady. We don’t like her, Cecily and I.”

“You, you Cecilia,” said the dark lady, looking at Cecily from under half-closed lids, a lazy, amused little smile parting her lips. “How many?”

“Oh, lots and lots—it took two trips. There’s heaps of them down in the mud by the moat. She’ll get warts, which is just what she deserves.”

“I told you, Fra Antonio, my curses always work,” said the dark lady to the Dominican, who was riding directly beside where she sat in the wagon. She spoke to him briefly in her own language. The Dominican chuckled. So did her ladies, who had been silent during this interchange. Then she turned back to Cecily.

“Little savage, I like you, so I will give you a gift.” The girls perked up.

“Sweets?” asked Alison hopefully.

“No, your lives. I intended to have your throats cut secretly before we reached the monastery at Wymondley, so we could throw out the bodies before we left this forest. Or maybe poison—no, too slow.” She looked speculatively up at the masses of gold and russet leaves that towered above us on each side of the rutted, narrow road. “Yes, better to cut your throats. So many bandits here….”

“Not much of a present with no sweets,” grumbled Alison. Then the dark lady turned to look at me and smiled that lovely, innocent baby’s smile at me.

“You were foolish to tell me you carry the only de Vilers heir,” she said.

“But I didn’t—” I said, stifling my growing horror.

“You think, perhaps, I am stupid?” she inquired, lifting her chin. “You bring the money; the brother dies, the older brother inherits. If you die, you can’t go and remarry someone who’ll try to claim the money. If you live, he puts you in a convent. But if you’re pregnant with an heir, he’d be better off killing you both, otherwise he loses the money. So you run off. It’s simple. I know a lot about inheritance. That’s why I’m a marquesa today. That, and aconite.”

Good Lord. Foreigners do things differently than we do.

“You’re shocked? Don’t think I did all the poisoning myself. No—they poisoned each other, except for one or two—then it fell in my lap.” She raised upturned palms above her lap and gazed upward, as if about to receive a gift from heaven. Her heavy jeweled silver earrings swayed and glittered.

“Why,” she said, looking at me again, where even the shadow of the wagon’s hide cover did not conceal my wide and horrified eyes, “even my poor little husband didn’t last more than a year—just long enough to give my precious here his name. So young he was, only seventeen, and so impetuous and incautious.” She looked briefly sentimental, then smiled and wrinkled up her powdered nose as she gazed into the distance. “Sometimes when the storms come at home, it’s best to leave the country for a time. A holy pilgrimage—so pious, so blameless—then, when we come home, the sun is shining again. Politics—men’s politics. Like a little black cloud, don’t you think? Only the most foolish of young men stay around to pick quarrels.”

She paused and looked back at me again with new interest, as if she’d seen a gnat on my nose. “By the way, take my advice and be sure to use a taster at meals. It’s not only elegant, but practical. If you can’t afford one, or go and lose too many, cats will always do. Just feed them under the table. Everyone will just think you’re eccentric. I always keep a lot of cats. That’s why I’ve done so well.” She nodded cheerfully, and her jewelry tinkled. I must say, when people like that get talkative, it makes me nervous. The baby crowed, and the nurse produced a rattle and began to hum a wordless song to him. Her ladies joined in, singing words I could not understand. I could hear a buck crashing through the underbrush; the men’s heads turned, and I could see the look of watchfulness turn to regret as they realized what it was.

“Is he really Hugo’s?” I asked, just to be tactful.

“Oh, that, of course. Mama’s lovely baby. Too bad he didn’t acknowledge him—he’ll never have another. I’ll see to that. I know just the proper
strega
to see when I get home to have the spell cast. I always take complete vengeance. It leaves so much less mess. Why I don’t kill Hugo, I don’t know. I suppose I could send someone to do it, if I chose. Ah well, if he lives, he’ll suffer more. Was the younger brother like Sir Hugo? If so, you’re lucky to be rid of him.”

“He wasn’t at all like him. Not in the least. He was dark and scholarly, and couldn’t stand Sir Hugo. He said—said Hugo was immoral, and, and—oh, he was everything that is good and kind, and—” I began to weep dreadfully, thinking of how I loved Gregory. She turned and translated for her ladies, who appeared most interested, shedding a tear or two by way of sympathy.

“Ah, I see you loved him. That was foolish of you. A woman should never marry the man she loves, or love the man she marries. It clouds the mind. I loved only once, but it was a sickness that passes. Imagine, me—a new widow, grieving over my first husband’s tomb. And such a nice statue I had ordered too. It was very tragic. And there
he
came, the foreign adventurer, and rolled his ardent blue eyes heavenward, pledging eternal love and service before God. I looked up from the tear-drenched stone—his profile, gazing upward, was the picture of manly devotion. Love, stupid and stupefying love, smote me down right there, like an enemy’s sword.” The dark lady looked most dramatic. She clenched her fist and beat it on her breast in imitation of a sword striking home, to accompany this speech. “Now I have suffered much and traveled far for my love, and it is a great relief to be rid of it. It was growing to be a ridiculous burden. Now I will join my lands in a powerful alliance and keep cats.” Then she peered at me suddenly and said, “But did he love you in return for all this foolish love of yours?”

“At first I thought he didn’t, then I knew he did—he was writing this when he was—lost.” And I took the paper out of my bosom. Why I was so honest, I don’t know. But I couldn’t think of any other way to be with a person who was so complicated and more than a little frightening. The ladies leaned forward to peer at the paper, jostling together as the wagon hit a particularly savage rut. Then they returned to gossiping among themselves.

“A poem—or part of one. How sweet. The queen of his heart. Must be he was in love too. Your hands aren’t
that
white, you know. And you don’t wear enough rings to make them really beautiful. You look as if you do a lot of work with them.”

“I know. It’s just the way he saw them.”

“Besotted,” she pronounced. Then she looked at me closely. What’s she thinking? I wondered. I hope it’s not something new and bad.

“But the bosom of your gown is rather lumpy. What else have you got in there?”

“My Psalter,” I said, reaching it out from under my surcoat.

“Ah,” she said. “So that’s why I couldn’t kill you.” She fumbled around in a little coffer at her feet and pulled out a tiny box.

“Mother of savages, I have a present for you too. I meant it for Hugo. What possessed me not to give it to him, I do not know. A betrothal ring. But after he had damned his soul to hell by swearing falsely on the True Cross, I thought I’d done enough. Did you see how he writhed? As if in hell’s fires already.” Looking very satisfied, she opened the little box. Inside lay a fabulously worked gold and silver ring, set with jewels and made in the form of a snake swallowing its tail.

“Don’t touch—it’s poisoned. One of the greatest poisoners in Rome made it for me. You may need it to get rid of a husband someday. Or escape the world yourself. Just put it on. It works very quickly, and is painless, though it leaves a very ugly corpse. I myself keep something like it always about me. We can never tell when life will catch up with us. Have I ever told you about my grandmother’s cousin? Burned alive with her daughters, and her male children flayed to death before her eyes. Where I come from, we exterminate enemies root and branch—then there’s no one to come after you for vengeance. Oh yes, a ring like this, it can be no end useful.”

I shuddered and took the box, thanking her as best I could. She wasn’t the sort of hostess one wanted to offend. That evening at the monastery we were housed in luxury and ate at the right hand of the Abbot himself. But all the while, my heart was singing, “London, London and freedom.”

“T
HE BITCH HAS FLED
! cried Sir Hugo when the searchers reported to him in the hall. “So much the better. They’ll be killed on the road, and that ends all claim to every penny. I should give a feast of celebration.” Those of the household who had placed their bets on Hugo’s ascendancy growled and cheered in agreement. But behind the screen, those who had tied their fortunes to the old lord’s recovery clustered about him. Propped up on pillows, he smiled a faded version of his once wolfish smile.

“The child is safe, Wat,” he whispered. “This begins to get interesting. I think I wish to recover. Bring me spiced wine—but feed a little to one of those pups, first. I don’t like the looks of that nurse Dame Petronilla brought with her.”

And so things stood for the next several days, until the horn at the gate blew for distinguished company, and Sir William Beaufoy, accompanied by a dozen armed men, was admitted with a message sealed with the Duke of Lancaster’s own seal. It was court day in the hall, and the crowd of peasants cleared a path for the splendid company, who came straight to the dais where Sir Hugo was dispensing judgment in his father’s place. With great formality, Sir William had the clerk that accompanied him step forward and read the letter to the assembled company. The news made Sir Hugo turn pale. It seemed that Sir Gilbert de Vilers, before leaving for Normandy, had made a will leaving everything to his widow, and left it in the safekeeping of the Duke’s household in England. And now, in the firm tones of a lord to a very minor vassal, the Duke reminded Sir Hubert and his eldest son that he, the Duke, was the sworn protector of widows and orphans. At the pain of his great displeasure, they were to send the widow and her daughters to Kenilworth, where they would be housed in luxury until the Duke should arrange a suitable marriage for her with one of his own good knights.

“I can’t,” said Sir Hugo, turning pale. “She’s fled.” The curse, he thought. It’s the curse working. First the toads, then this. To the death, she said.

“Fled?” replied Sir William. “Then if I were you, I’d go in search of her and not return until I’d found her—and in good health too. The Duke’s displeasure is not a thing I’d want to risk.”And, satisfied with the flurry of orders Sir Hugo gave to organize the search party, Sir William concentrated his attention on consoling his old comrade-in-arms, Sir Hubert, on his deathbed.

“So,” whispered Sir Hubert on the great bed behind the screen, “the big fish swallows the little fish.” He had been seeing things more clearly since his mortal illness. The surface look of the world had faded, and the bare bones of events had become visible.

“Fish? What do you mean?” said Sir William, who was sitting on the edge of the bed beside his dying friend.

“Oh, nothing. The fish in my pond, back before we ate them at Lent,” and the sardonic tone in the old man’s voice was unmistakable. “Things become interesting now. I intend to get well. I want to see how it turns out.”

But Sir William feared that all this talk of fish meant that Sir Hubert’s mind had begun to wander, as it so often does before the end. Trying to console me by hiding it all. Gallant fellow. A pity, a terrible pity, Sir William thought. And as he offered up a choice morsel of court gossip to his old friend, he reminded himself that he must tell his wife to mend his black hose.