In Pursuit of the Green Lion (54 page)

“And you’ll tell me how it fared with the girls—I worried greatly, you know.”

“Of course. But Margaret, you know you can’t hold me here forever. I’m required to ascend, once heaven has been opened.”

“I know. But can you ask them to let you come back? For special occasions? Perhaps when Cecily and Alison are married?”

“I’ve put in a request already.”

Margaret was so caught up in the comfort and quiet of the moment, and her mind so engaged in pleasant conversation with the long loved voice, that she did not hear the commotion at the front door, the loud voices, and the clatter of spurred feet invading the hall.

“Well, where IS he?” boomed through the parlor door. And before she had time to take her feet from the footstool or the baby from the breast, she was confronted at close range by an unexpected sight. His liripipe was wound all askew; his white beard and hair were flying about like a depiction of Jupiter among the storm clouds. His shaggy eyebrows were restored to their thunderous menace. He was wearing his best red velvet surcoat, the one he saved for weddings, baptisms, and the visits of high dignitaries. My God, he’s well, thought Margaret.

“My lord father-in-law,” she said, rising to greet him. Clustered at the door she could make out various figures. Hugo. Her husband. Sir William Beaufoy, from the Duke’s suite. Sir John, the neighbor from the country. It was exactly as Gregory had foreseen. The final disaster.

“Is this HIM?”

“Yes, my lord father-in-law. It is your grandson.” The baby, his peaceful moment broken, looked up at the source of the disturbance in a vaguely annoyed fashion. Milk dribbled down his chin.

Old Sir Hubert took in at a glance the odd, baby swan–colored fuzz, which was beginning to show curls, the watchful, all-absorbing little eyes, and the trickle of white oozing from the corner of a determined little mouth.

“Looks not unlike his father at that age,”he said. Then he prowled about a bit, as if to see them, mother and baby, from all angles. “Are his limbs straight? Unwrap him, madame, if you please.” Margaret silently removed the swaddling clothes and held the naked baby up to face the old man’s inspection. His eyes narrowed, and he peered shrewdly up and down at the tiny body, the way he’d inspect a horse for sale. Something about the waving white beard or glaring blue eye offended the baby. He startled, his tiny limbs suddenly stuck out all stiff and trembling, his minuscule fingers spread wide apart. Almost simultaneously, he turned red all over his body and began to howl. Somehow, his mouth seemed to be by far the largest part of him at this moment—larger than his head, if that were possible.

“Sounds
not unlike his father at that age,” observed the old man.

“Now, now,” clucked Margaret, as she wrapped the baby up again and tried to console him.

As the howling subsided into hiccups, the old man said, “He looks as if he’s a heavy feeder. Is he a heavy feeder, madame?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“His father required two wet nurses.” There was a long silence. “His mother was in bed a month.” Then he looked again at them both.

“I am told that a day after the birth you rode a full day’s march for seven days, and your milk never failed.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I chose well. You are a strong woman.” Margaret could feel the rage rising in her. If this is what you mean for a compliment, you stingy old thing, you can take it right back home again with you, she thought.

“I am told that you bartered my son’s ransom over a game of dice, by wagering your life.” She could see Gregory’s eyebrows go up in shock. She’d hoped to keep the dice game a secret from him forever, it was so demeaning. God, what a tactless old man. He leaned his face into hers suddenly and growled, “What madness
possessed
you, madame?”

“The dice were loaded, my lord.”

“Loaded? Hugo, you never said—” the old man spluttered. “Loaded! HAW! Loaded indeed!” His face turned red with suppressed delight, and his eyes flicked over Margaret as if he suddenly saw her as someone else entirely. “You ARE a de Vilers woman, after all! Come in, my lords, come in, I say, and do honor to the woman who cheated the Devil himself with a set of loaded dice!” And as they poured into the room to do just that, Margaret flushed scarlet with embarrassment.

And, of course, they had to stay for the party, even if they were on their way to Dover, to sail for France again. As Margaret left to order more places laid, she could hear male voices congratulating Gregory on the birth of his son and grumbling, “Imagine! Holding a prisoner of rank without ransom! Dishonorable! Unheard of! And a Devil worshiper, too, they say!”And above it all rose the voice of the old Sieur de Vilers:

“Dammit. You look THIN! I’ve seen better-fleshed SKELETONS hanging on GIBBETS! You can’t go back into the field looking like Death in PERSON!”

“—and John, have Cook send to the bakeshop at the end of the street for absolutely
everything
they have. I don’t care if it’s an insult to her skill. These people are heavy feeders. I swear, there won’t be enough. Oh! The wine! And the tables! Do we need another? How
will
we fit it in?” And Margaret rushed off, full of worries, to inspect the progress being made on rearranging the places in the hall.

With the first course, the neighbors noticed across the potages the fancy French manners Margaret had picked up abroad. Her husband certainly seemed suspiciously deft at table for an Englishman, but then, wasn’t he gracious as he offered her the cup and the best bits of the dishes? And didn’t she look happy? And one had to admit the company was most distinguished, as well as witty. Nobody had mentioned that there’d be gentry present. That made the evening ever so much more elegant, and one’s husband looked mollified already. Why, one had yet to hear a single discussion of accounts receivable.

And while it was really altogether improper that the little Kendall girls had been allowed to be seated at table like adults for the evening, one had to admit they behaved most admirably, even if they had been seen cuffing each other when that old knight’s good-looking squire had looked in their direction. But you must credit Mistress Wengrave for the unexpected improvement in their manners, and certainly she is a candidate for sainthood, my dear—oh, you hadn’t heard. If you only knew, you would understand—a martyr, yes a martyr, for almost an
entire
year.

With the second course, when the elegantly displayed peacock was brought in and set among the profusion of dishes, it became apparent that the wines were very well chosen, and the air seemed most delightfully warm and rosy in the room. Sir John had begun to form a good opinion of the merchants of the City, who were clearly men of gravity and far sight, not the comfort-seeking, money-hungry, and ignoble parasites that he had been led to believe. A younger son who was a bit on the frail side, like his little Thomas, who wasn’t really suited for the clergy, might do very well in a place like this, if he could purchase him an apprenticeship with a respectable-looking fellow such as this Alderman Wengrave, who spoke so intelligently about banking and the new laws concerning coinage.

“Not at all bad for a younger son, is it?” Sir Hubert leaned over to Sir William and whispered in a voice that could have been heard all the way to Dover.

“You certainly seem to have established him well, though I must say, it wasn’t quite the common way of doing so,” replied Sir William, noting the way that Sir Hubert’s Gilbert and his Margaret seemed to be able to finish off each other’s sentences, as if each knew what the other was thinking already. It was a trick he and his good Dame Alys had, but then, they had been betrothed in the cradle and had been raised together with the knowledge that they would wed, if, by God’s grace, they lived to grow up.

“I am NEVER common,” harrumphed the old lord, looking quite piratical, even in his best clothes.

“That, I would never say, Sir Hubert. But have you noticed how they get on together?”

“Don’t think it has escaped my eye. And damned unseemly it is too. A man shouldn’t get set on a woman that way. It weakens the fiber.”

“You are fortunate in your grandson,” said Sir William, tactfully changing the subject. His own Philip had yet to do as well by him.

“Fortune? It’s the STRENGTH of the BLOOD!” the old lord announced. “Look over there.” Sir Hubert waved a wing of pheasant in the direction of the girls and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper that made the rafters shiver. “The woman’s a girl breeder, if I ever saw one. I spotted it right away. ‘Fit only for a second son,’ I said to myself. ‘If there’s anything in him, maybe he’ll get something worth having.’With a girl breeder, the POWER of the MALE SEED must overcome the FEMALE FLUIDS.” It was fortunate that Gregory was in the midst of making a pun in Latin and did not overhear. But Margaret did, and her face turned bright crimson. The old lord paused to consume the pheasant wing, crunching the bones with some relish and swallowing noisily before he continued. “Now, at least, I begin to think some part of the boy’s in working order. Who knows? Maybe if he hadn’t weakened his mind with too much book-reading, he’d have accomplished something.”

As the last remnants of the fruits and confections were removed, and yet more wine brought, there were those who thought the evening might have been a bit too high-flown for them after all, for Robert le Clerc stood and raised his cup for a long-drawn-out toast in Latin. But those who knew the tongue quickly explained to their neighbors that it was an invocation to Bacchus, the god of wine, though they neglected to mention how very pagan it was, for Robert had been much taken, of late, by the more disreputable works of Ovid.

And Bacchus, so handsomely invoked after so many centuries of neglect, spread his blessing on the evening. For when Master Will arose to announce that he would recite in English, he rejoiced all those who had no French. When he denounced the fickle faddism of foreign rhyming and the neglect of the fine old alliterative style, he rejoiced all the old knights, who expected a heroic saga. There was, to be certain, a brief moment of trepidation when he began with a Gospel text: “In quorum manibus iniquitates sunt; dextra eorum repleta est muneribus,” that is to say, “In whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes.” But it dissolved into general hilarity when it transpired that his subject for the evening was lawyers.

“Lawyers?” growled Sir Hubert. “By God, I could tell him a thing or two about lawyers. I think I may like this, after all.”

“Lawyers?” Sir Thomas turned to Master Wengrave. “The man can’t teach us anything about those rogues. Say on, sirrah!”

“Law is so lordly and loath to make an end / without presents or pence, it pleaseth full few …”recited the poet.

“Your contract was voided, then?” inquired Master Wengrave.

“How
did
you guess?” responded Sir Thomas sarcastically. “They’d had a silver cup and a hatful of florins from the other side.”

“Tchah. Bitterness will get you nowhere. Just raise your prices.”

“Learning and covetousness she coupleth together …” the poet was reciting, and Sir Thomas and Master Wengrave turned from their conversation to applaud the man’s well-turned phrase.

“Hear, hear! Well said, Master Poet!” Sir Thomas had entirely lost his customary gravity.

“Of course, I mean to revise substantially.” He could overhear the poet speaking modestly to the scholars at the lower table, who were applauding too.

“Not a line different, I say!” cried Sir Thomas. “Tell me where you live, fellow. I’ll send you a new woolen cloak in the morning!”

“Husband!”his good Dame Emma cautioned him.

“Don’t ‘husband’ me! I tell you, there’s something to this stuff,” announced Sir Thomas.

After this, there was nothing that could go wrong, even when Robert’s witty sonnet to a faithless florin moved Sir Hugo to say, “No money? Why, that’s not a topic for a great soul. And the fella hasn’t got a single symbol in it!” and clamber up from his seat.

Gregory’s face registered horror: the dreaded moment had come. His eyes rolled toward Margaret like those of a startled horse about to bolt, but she put a calming hand on his arm to steady him as he rapidly gulped down the entire contents of the cup. At Sir Hugo’s first rhymed couplets, old Sir Hubert gave a cry like a wounded bear.

“Betrayed, by God! It’s a disease! What in the HELL did you do to him? Gilbert, I hold this to your account—” Sir William put a firm hand on the old man’s arm to keep him from rising to do some act of violence, and handed him a full cup, that he might follow the example set by his second son.

There was great murmur and emotion in the hall as Hugo declaimed the work he had polished to its highest point.

“What is that, what is that, dear Master Barton?”

“Umph. The French is not like that in my contracts—very flowery.”

“But he’s saying?”persisted Mistress Barton.

“Um—a great—no, truly great soul—cannot be imprisoned within stone walls—”

“Why, it’s about his brother! How touching, how noble of him!”

“—and—uh, poetry flies free to heaven, like—um, birds. Something, something—immortal.”

“Oh, it’s lovely!” cried Mistress Barton, wiping her eyes. Several others followed suit, for the ardent and unselfish tribute of a
preux chevalier
is always so touching.

“Migod, Robert, no wonder Gregory wanted to hide from his family,” said Nicholas, still pink, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“To think he’s been concealing the presence of a mind like that from us all this time. Damned ungenerous of him,” responded Robert, his sides still aching and his head resting on the table.

“There’s only one proper thing to do in revenge,” announced Jankyn.

“What’s that?” chorused the others, secure in the knowledge that Latin had protected this interchange from the company.

“Why, I’ll set it to music, and we’ll sing it to him if he ever dares set foot in the Boar’s Head again,” responded Jankyn in high glee. “Won’t it be a treat to see his face?”

“Hilde,” said Brother Malachi, who had overheard everything. “I think that I had better warn Gilbert that he’s in trouble again.”