In Pursuit of the Green Lion (23 page)

And as I wept into the late supper of pottage she had dished from her kettle, she said: “Margaret, after a good night’s sleep, we can come up with a plan. You can always make things come out, if you use your wits. And you aren’t even empty-handed. What did you bring with you?”

Silently I laid the things out on the table. Gregory’s last letter, with the ink splotch, then my little Psalter. I could see them shudder as the Cold Thing expanded in the room.

“What is the cold stuff I feel?” said Mother Hilde calmly, just as she speaks when she attends a bad birth, so that she won’t frighten anyone.

“Master Kendall’s ghost,” I said, “he said he’d come with me to show me how to get money so that I could pay Gregory’s ransom and get him back.”

“Advice from ghosts? Really, Margaret, and to think you believe talking to plants is odd. It’s nothing compared to conversing with ghosts. But then, you always did hear voices. Where is he now?”

“Papa’s over by the fire,” said Alison, pointing with a chubby finger.

“Yes—he says it’s ever so annoying he can’t get warm anymore,” added Cecily.

“Well, well. Three of you. Goodness, Margaret, you’re always full of surprises. I wonder how the new little one will turn out? As fey as these two? Oh, don’t start so. You can’t hide these things from me—or even Goodwife Clarice, here, who has just begun to learn from me. How many months along, would you say, Clarice?”

The woman responded seriously, as if repeating a lesson. “Two—maybe nearly three, it seems to me, Mother Hilde.” I could feel myself blushing.

“Oh, Margaret, my dear Margaret. You know how well I taught you. Now say, just how did you give yourself away?” I looked down—no one could see through the heavy folds of my bulky surcoat and unlaced kirtle. Then I saw how I’d set my hands, right across the top of my belly. “Oh!” I said, and snatched them away. Mother Hilde laughed.

“Yes, it was the hands, Margaret. They tell better than words. Now, show me the next thing.”

“There’s this,” I said, taking out the little casket from the dark lady. “I think maybe I should throw it away. Look.” As I opened the little box they gasped. It was beautiful, that ring, all set with stones that glittered in the firelight.

“Hugo’s wedding ring—and poisoned with a deadly venom. Don’t any of you dare touch it.”

“Don’t throw it away just yet,” said Mother Hilde. “Things like that don’t come to a person for no reason at all. Odd, it’s beautiful and terrifying all at once.”

“That’s just what I thought of the dark lady herself.”

“Strange, strange,” said Mother Hilde, shaking her head. “She must have loved him a great deal once, to risk so much and come so far. Love into hate, all poisoned, like the ring. And yet in the end, she couldn’t give it to him. You’ve given me a puzzle, Margaret, and I don’t know what it means. Show me what else you have.” I took the reliquary off my neck, and unfolded the tiny pair of shoes.

“Madame Belle-mère followed them,” I said. “But she’s not here now. She’s probably gone off sight-seeing. She gets bored easily and is very snobbish—this neighborhood wouldn’t please her.” Mother Hilde picked up the little shoes and turned them over in her hands.

“His, I suppose.” She put them back on the table. “This is very serious, Margaret. I’ll ask for a dream tonight, to show me what it all means. Otherwise, I’ll make a divination with hot wax. But the last thing, you don’t have to show to me, for I know what it is.” A little voice piped up uncertainly. It was Bet, the little girl with the cheerful brown curls and thin, serious face.

“We’d like to see it, please, since we’ve heard about it.” Without another word, I took out the Burning Cross, which glistened all ruddy in the firelight.

“Oh,” the girl sighed. “That’s very beautiful. I want to be a midwife someday, just as you were.”

“Well, don’t be exactly like me, or you’ll wind up before the Bishop—and that can be very uncomfortable.”

“Tomorrow,” said Mother Hilde, “I’ll go myself to your house and see if Hugo’s been there yet—but now, to bed everyone. Margaret will have plenty of time to answer questions tomorrow.” And for want of other space she tucked us all in with her in the big bed in the front upper room that was hers and Malachi’s.

It was as she turned back the sheets that Cecily pulled on her apron conspiratorially: “Mother Hilde,” she whispered. “Don’t let Alison in the bed. She wets.”

“I do
not
, it’s you!” squeaked Alison indignantly.

“My dear girls, in Mother Hilde’s bed, no one wets. You’ll sleep on the side with the chamber pot, and remember to wake up. That’s how it
always
is in my house.” She spoke so assuredly that it simply had to be so, and it was.

“But since Papa won’t tell us a story tonight, will you?”

“Papa?” Mother Hilde said quizzically, looking at me for an explanation.

“Master Kendall’s ghost has been telling them bedtime stories.” Mother Hilde nodded.

“It makes sense,” she said. “He never had a moment for them when he was alive. My, you must have been having a time, all alone with that strange family in the country.” I didn’t say anything. Then Mother Hilde began the story of the clever beasts that frightened away the robbers, but before she was half done, the girls were asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms. It was lulling, the story. I lay there listening to Mother Hilde’s voice, the familiar creaking of the timbers of the old house, and Lion whuffing in his sleep at the foot of the bed. My eyes were just shutting when Mother Hilde said to me: “You love him desperately, don’t you?”

“So much my heart’s broken with it,” I whispered into the dark.

“It’s not easy, loving. Malachi’s not the first, but he is the greatest of my loves. And the last, before I am buried—I hope by his side. You know, Margaret, I’ve come with him a long way. To this city, to another way of life. You’ll have to face much more to get your Gregory back—you’ll have to risk everything.”

“I know that, Mother Hilde. I am terrified. But my love drives me on. I can do nothing else.”

“Oh, Margaret, it won’t be easy for you. A woman who loves must be prepared to go into far places. And not all of them—how would Malachi say it?—geographical.”

“But you’ll help?”

“Of course, Margaret. I’ve never turned away love in need yet.”

T
HE VERY NEXT MORNING
, as Mother Hilde went to poke about Margaret’s house by the river, to see if the neighborhood was free from mysterious strangers, including Sir Hugo, Margaret went down to the docks with her little girls and her dog trailing behind her. She had in mind to ask what ships had recently come from the Continent and who had ridden through returning from the great ports of Dover and Southampton. For one thing she knew, and that was that sooner or later, news of everything and everyone must pass through London, which is the hub of all gossip in the entire realm of England.

“Oh, look, Mama!” Alison’s pudgy finger pointed to an interesting sight on the quay. A foreign galley, bobbing gently at anchor, was being loaded. A squalling black horse, blindfolded, struggled in a sling being lowered into the galley’s hold by ropes and pulleys. Two strong men held another black horse, the last of the team, on the quay, while a boy finished tying the blindfold. Behind the horse, a lavishly carved and decorated wagon had attracted the attention of a crowd of admiring street urchins and loafers. The captain of the dark lady’s guard was shouting orders to the deck crew, as workmen began the task of dismantling the wagon for loading.

“I think we’d better inquire elsewhere,” said Margaret, hurrying her children away from the docks.

“Hey, you.” Someone tugged at Margaret’s cloak from behind. “I’ve seen you hunting up and down. It’s news from France you’re after, isn’t it? Bordeaux?” Margaret turned to see a stout woman in clogs, carrying a basket of fish on her head. With the hand that was not aiding the balance of the fish, she still held tight to Margaret’s cloak.

“No, news from Calais—the Duke’s army, not the Prince’s. But how did you know?”

“There’s lots of ’em here—women in black, that haunt the dockside. You’re wasting your time here today, mistress. The last ship from Calais came in nearly a week ago, and who knows when there’ll be another? You’d be just as well off asking at the Bridge what troops have come overland from Dover. Or—I know, if you’re lucky, some of the sailors from the last ship might be still lying drunk at the Golden Horn, where you can make inquiries. Then there’s the Keys, where the soldiers stay, but that’s a stew, and a decent woman shouldn’t be seen there. Or try the Castle. The quality stays there on their way inland from the Cinque Ports. There’s lots that ask there. What are you looking for? Father? Brother? Or husband?”

“Husband,” answered Margaret, thanking her and starting to leave.

“Then it’s not so bad,” said the woman, surveying Margaret and her daughters with a knowing eye. “You can’t get a new father or a brother, but husbands are a-plenty in this world. Take my advice and get a new man, for the sake of the children.” Margaret looked shocked.

“Fool,” said the woman, as she watched Margaret hurrying away in the direction of the Golden Horn, a child clutched with each hand and the odd looking little dog trailing behind.

I
T WAS A GREAT
relief when Mother Hilde told me that Sir Hugo hadn’t yet thought of searching the London house for me, or mounting a guard on it to snatch me the moment I arrived. But then, I never thought he was the brainy type.

“Just imagine a dunderhead like Sir Hugo married off to that foreign marquesa. Why, Hilde, she’d be running him about like a lap-dog, she’s so much cleverer than he is. I wonder what possessed her?”

“Now, Margaret, there’s no telling the ways of love. But I don’t think it would have lasted long, myself. The first time he managed to figure out that she’d used him, he’d have probably strangled her, or beaten her head in, from what you tell me of his character. No—it doesn’t usually work out, matching two minds so unlike. She’s probably better off the way she is.”

“But tell me, how are things at the house? Is everyone well?”

“Well for now, Margaret, but not for long. Your grooms, the kitchen boy, the steward, the cook and her assistant, have stayed on out of loyalty to you. But the pantrymaid has run off to be married, and the rest are grumbling because those stingy de Vilerses haven’t paid their wages. The fare’s thin, and you’re lucky they haven’t pawned the silver. I stopped by Master Wengrave’s house next door. Master Kendall’s apprentices all look as if they’re doing well, though Mistress Wengrave is considerably stricter with them than you ever were. I had a chat with her, Margaret, and told her what’s happened. She says you’re welcome there, and you’d be safer than in church. They have enough stout fellows to fend off any number of your in-laws, and since Master Wengrave’s been made an alderman, no one would dare cross him by carrying you or his goddaughters off secretly. Of course, I should warn you I didn’t tell them your suspicions about the Duke. If any of it’s true, they couldn’t hope to keep you.”

“Master Kendall always said he was a good man in a fight. I remember the day he made his will, and named Master Wengrave as Cecily and Alison’s guardian. I never understood what he meant then.” My eyes felt a little itchy thinking about that day, and I had to wipe them a bit.

“Well, it’s been a fight, ever since you were carried off, according to Mistress Wengrave. He filed suit to recover the girls, and he’s been hounding them in court ever since. He says it’s not proper for Roger Kendall’s girls to rot away in the country, or get locked up in a convent to satisfy some grasping stepfather. Mistress Wengrave says he gets quite wrathy about it. He says it’s not the money, it’s the principle. Something about signaling to the gentry that they can’t rob the City with impunity.”

“Oh, that sounds like him, all right. That’s what they’d talk about, he and Master Kendall, when it wasn’t Mercer’s Guild business, or the organization of the new wool staple.”

“So then, what do you want to do, Margaret?”

“Oh, Mother Hilde, I’ve walked all over until my feet are sore, and the girls howled. I haven’t found out anything except that another convoy of merchant cogs are due soon—they were still loading at the same time as the one that’s just arrived. They’re carrying wounded and some English knights returning home on parole for their ransoms. I’ll meet them when they land, but until then there’s nothing I can do—except, maybe, see about the mess at home.”

“A half year’s wages for a household, Margaret—that’s no joke. And you’ve come away without a penny on you.”

“Never mind, Hilde—I’ll just ask Master Kendall. And if he’s right about the money, then he’s right about Gregory, too, and he really is alive. Then I’m not being foolish hunting for news of him. Have I told you, Mother Hilde, how many people have made fun of me today? Even a fishwife! And I’ve had three proposals of marriage, though the men were drunk and it doesn’t really count. And six rowdies at the Unicorn sang a horrible song about how fickle women are, all the while I was talking to some old sergeant. And—Mother Hilde, you haven’t heard that horrible song about the merchant’s wall was high, high, high, have you?”

“I’m afraid I have, but I wasn’t going to mention it.”

“They sang that, too, even though they didn’t know it was about me, and I’ve never been so embarrassed in my whole life. It’s more than my feet that are bruised, Mother Hilde. I’ve had a
horrible
day!” And I started to cry. If Mother Hilde hadn’t embraced me and said, “There, there!” for some time, I’d be crying there still.

But after dinner, when Hilde and I were washing the dishes, while Bet carried water and Clarice scoured out the kettle with sand, Mother Hilde said thoughtfully, “Margaret—you ought to think of your safety. If any of those relatives of yours remembers about me, then there’s not a way on earth we can prevent them retaking you. You should take the precaution of going to Master Wengrave’s as soon as you can, before they think to make inquiries in the City.” And because I remembered how little they scrupled to leave the bodies of indiscriminately slain commoners behind them, it seemed to me better not to lead them to Mother Hilde’s house.