Chapter 3 #2
“He would not nip into the village for a pint when Mrs. Gwinnett’s toddies await him here, and he would not abandon his sheep to the vagaries of the elements.”
I bowed on those not-very-reassuring notes, bundled up as best I could, and met the frigid fury of the storm the instant I set foot outside the manor.
The wind was bitter, the snow nearly blinding.
I could make out the dark outlines of the trees that sheltered the stable and kept it from the view of the house.
In that direction, I headed. The scrape of shovels and brooms on the terrace was soon muffled into oblivion. Very likely, the ropes and paths between outbuildings would have to wait until the terrace—Miss Weatherby’s equivalent to a garden path—was cleared.
The way down to the stable was unmarked by any step. My tracks might guide the footmen in their shoveling, if I was careful.
The trick to navigating in snow was to never hurry. To take modest steps, slowly, treating all footing as uncertain, for it often was. To find an arrangement of one’s scarf that afforded warmth for the face but also facilitated breathing was another challenge.
I trudged along, head down, halfway enjoying the ordeal and making gradual progress toward my destination.
I reached the tree line and turned back to see that the house itself was barely a shadow against the gray maelstrom of snow. My toes were already cold, my eyes protesting the wind.
I slogged onward, the stable a mere fifty yards ahead.
I was halfway there when it occurred to me that I had yet to see a maid of any sort at the Knot.
Atticus had not referenced maids in his observation of the staff belowstairs, and yet, maids usually had some responsibilities in every room of a properly run stately home.
Hyperia would have been able to speak to the maids directly, and it was the maids, ranking below the footmen, who often gathered the most intelligence about the goings-on in any home.
Had I been able to, I would have jotted myself another note: What of the maids? Where are they? What do they know?
The wind chose then to escalate from aiming a stinging spray of icy pellets on the unlucky to hurling knives, sabers, and javelins of frigid agony.
“Sir Clive rode in a half hour ago, my lord.” The head lad, a wiry Irishman named Lavelle, nodded as he spoke.
Lavelle’s complexion suggested his antecedents might have hailed from Africa, though his accent was pure County Mayo.
“Came in a-stompin’ and a-mutterin’ and violatin’ the Second Commandment—Third, by his worship’s lights—and promisin’ perdition to stubborn ewes what don’t know a snowstorm startin’ up in plain sight. ”
We conversed in the aisle of the stable, a relatively cozy space, thanks to the living bulk of the equines housed therein.
All wore rugs, including Atlas, who was stabled next to the famed Rabbit.
The stable was closed up tightly, the great heavy doors drawn across the ends of the aisles, buckets of water lined up outside the saddle room door.
A single lantern hanging beside the same door cast the only illumination, giving the barn a cavelike quality.
Over the moaning of the wind, horses chomped steadily at their hay and shifted occasionally in their stalls.
“Stomping and muttering is the least that this weather deserves,” I said. “Did you see which way Sir Clive went?”
“He said he was going to the springhouse. If the door isn’t closed, the spring is more likely to freeze.
I told him nobody would leave the door open in this weather, and what my employer said to me then isn’t fit for the godly ears of me sainted mother’s best boy, much less for a lord of the realm.
Quite colorful when he’s annoyed, is Sir Clive. ”
And this precocity was apparently a point of pride with Lavelle. “Sir Clive hasn’t returned to the house.”
The Irishman’s grin faded. “Miss Dulcie will ring a peal over his head for tarryin’ in this weather, and well she should. Fine snow soon becomes deep fine snow, and Sir Clive is not a young man, nor carrying any extra meat on his bones.”
“I’ll need a walking stick, and you will please set the grooms to staking out the path up to the house.
The footmen and gardeners are busy with the back terrace, but the weather demands greater effort with the paths to the outbuildings.
Stake the path first, set out the ropes, and don’t bother clearing any snow until that’s done. ”
“There’s only me, MacGinty, and Old Dingle to hand, my lord.
Half day for the rest, and they thought they had time for a pint and pie in the village before the weather set in.
They go to flirt with the innkeeper’s daughters, and the blacksmith’s daughters, and so forth, if you take my meaning.
Deny ’em a half-day outing, and the lads go into a decline. ”
The weather was worsening by the moment, which ought not to be possible. “Take what men you have and stake out ropes marking the way to the house as clearly as you can.”
“Right, drive a stake, fix the rope, then drive the next stake, so we’re always tethered to home, as it were. I do despise me an English winter. Puts me in mind of the damned Pyrenees, you know?”
I knew. I did not care to be reminded that I knew. “I’m for the springhouse.”
“Follow the creek, and mind how you go, sir. I can come with you, if you fear to lose your way.”
Given the weather, I feared to lose my life. Lavelle’s offer was a testimony to his loyalty to Sir Clive, or his faith in the power of prayer.
“Be about staking the path. I’ll retrieve Sir Clive. If he has any sense, he’s in the springhouse, hoping for a break in the storm.”
“Shan’t be any break, or my name isn’t Brian Patrick Lavelle. Heaven help me lads if they tried to make it home through this.”
“If they’re in a group, they’ll manage more easily. Storms like this pick off the strays. Find me a shillelagh, Lavelle, or shepherd’s crook, anything I can use as a walking stick.”
He disappeared into the saddle room and came back with a hoe. “Best o’ luck, young milord. Sir Clive would tell you not to bother.”
“And what I would tell him is not fit for the godly ears of Mrs. Lavelle’s best boy.” I retied my scarf, jammed straw into the tops of my boots, and let myself out through the wicket door.
Thanks to Lavelle’s remark, memories assailed me.
Spring came late to the northern slopes of the Pyrenees, and when my captors had freed me, I hadn’t had any sense of the date or month.
The mountains had been clad in snow, and I’d had nothing but an old cloak and a knife between me and death.
I’d had the sense to travel downslope, carefully, day after freezing, terrified day.
I honestly did not know how I survived. Parts of those weeks would forever remain submerged beneath the waters of Lethe, if I was lucky. I recalled setting snares, building fires, bolting hell-bent, insensate with fear at the sound of a twig snapping.
The cold would not allow me to dwell on the memories Lavelle had awakened.
I instead focused on following the dark thread of the as-yet-unfrozen center of the stream that trickled down from the springhouse, past the summer kitchen and brewery, and from thence down to the stable and on to the laundry.
The outbuildings provided a much-needed respite from the wind and a few yards of easier going on their leeward sides. The hoe steadied me, else I should have come to grief with every fifth step.
I’d not worn my best pair of boots, but rather, an older pair left over from my campaign years, and what a piece of good luck that turned out to be.
A foot caught in a stirrup could be deadly if a sudden dismount became necessary, and thus the cobbler’s usual approach to riding boots was to create as smooth a sole as possible.
Because my activities in Spain had involved as much walking as riding, and spare footwear hadn’t been in my kit, the toes of my boots were fitted with small rubber taps, while the heels sported metal taps with horseshoelike irregular surfaces.
I had some traction, in other words. Sir Clive, in his country gent’s riding boots, would have been hard put to keep to his feet.
By the time I passed the summer kitchen, my breath was labored, and my legs were burning, even as my toes and fingers were going numb.
I did not understand why Sir Clive, who had the loyalty of experienced staff, had been compelled to see to his flocks himself, but then, I was seeing to Sir Clive, and he was hardly my lost lamb.
The springhouse door was firmly closed. I had to bang with my hoe to gain entrance and was greeted by a version of Sir Clive with tiny crystals of ice in his bushy eyebrows.
Sir Clive backed away from the door, which was low enough that I had to stoop to enter.
The stream ran freely inside the little stone building, but wouldn’t for long.
Ice limned every surface, and icicles grew from the bottom of the raised barrel used for leaching lye from ashes.
The damp was deceptive, at first creating a sense of warmth that would turn to penetrating, deadly cold all too quickly.
“We y-yoosh ’ickory,” Sir Clive said, gesturing toward the barrel with a trembling hand. “M’wife swears by ’ickory asses.” He sounded drunk, and might well have been, though extreme cold could slur a man’s speech too.
Sir Clive’s cheeks were uncharacteristically white, and his wife had long since gone to her reward.
“Hickory ashes make a fine batch of lye,” I replied, taking off my scarf. “We’d best get you out of here, Sir Clive. The sooner the better. Give your toes a good wiggling, please.” Assuming he still could.
“Fou’ wedder.” He stood docilely while I wrapped his face and ears in black lamb’s wool. “The springhouse door muss be check. Dorothea’s boy.”