Chapter 17 #2
Slowly, he raised his hands to his face, the hands that had for a little while touched hers.
No cinnamon today, no violets. But perhaps the faintest ghost of her, of the laughing maiden who had lain with him in joyous harmony.
A ghost of paradise.
* * *
In moments, someone knocked on the door and Claire let in two men struggling with her wooden desk and bench. At her direction, they set them close to the window where the light was good.
She fussed with the desk after they’d left, comforted a little by something from the past, something from better days.
Days that they could have again if she was clever and resolute. Days as meaningful as dust.
The men returned, one carrying her box of inks and cases of brushes and pens, the other her folder of parchment and vellum.
She knew she should start on her plan, start finding proof of Renald’s guilt, but she didn’t want to take the first step toward the end. Instead, she took out the story of the Brave Child.
It was weak, she knew, but reality encircled her like a gnarled woodland full of fanged beasts, a place of destruction, of utter loneliness. She’d rather be here with pictures, with stories whose plots always turned out as they should.
And this was Thomas’s happy tale. Once she had … once the matter of Ulric was sorted out, everything here would belong to her brother, as it should. She sat at her desk and smoothed out the half-finished page, but realized then that she hadn’t told Thomas the truth.
She half rose, but then sat again. It could wait. No one knew but her. She’d take just a little time.
Her hands shook, though, and were strangely cold.
She rubbed them together. As she did so, she smiled sadly to see that she’d finally drawn the cow’s face right.
But then she saw the blots in the margin.
She picked up a sharp knife, ready to scrape down to clean parchment, but then she put the knife aside.
Let them stay. Let the blemishes record forever how her life had been ruined on the day that Renald de Lisle arrived at Summerbourne.
And it would be ruined, she knew, even when she’d put things right. Her heart would stay broken forever.
She stirred her ink and picked up a pen, waiting for the steadiness that always came through this work. But when she tried to trim the pen, she almost cut herself. She put down pen and knife, and wiped her palms on her skirt, knowing it was hopeless.
Renald de Lisle had left her no refuge at all.
Swallowing tears, she bound the work up again and returned it to the chest. She had to move her father’s book to settle the larger one, and she stroked it tenderly.
She knew her father. He’d doubtless written the last entry just before going out to death, making sure the story was finished. She truly had read his last words.
She wished again that he’d not chosen to write a story. If only she had her father’s thoughts about the rebellion, perhaps she could make more sense of it all. Suddenly she wondered if it was both jumbled together. Her father had often leaped from one subject to another.
She untied the boards with clumsy fingers, and flipped eagerly through the pages, but eventually she had to accept that it was all the same.
It was the story of Sebastian, though with some new elements.
Sebastian seemed to have met some people on a lengthy journey to Count Tancred’s, whereas in the old version that part was brief.
But then she was caught by a word.
Salisbury.
Traditionally, the story of Sebastian took place abroad.
Had her father put it in England this time?
Making out the surrounding words, however, she realized the reference was to the Earl of Salisbury.
The passage she was reading was about an evening at a manor called Ickworth and discussion there about the rights of Sebastian’s cause.
No, of the rebel’s cause!
There were real events mixed in with the story! Excited, she sat to study the pages.
And some wavered, but Sebastian, innocent though he was of worldly matters, rose to exhort them to hold to their course. He wove a story of an ancient king who seized a throne through guile and sin, and thus brought horror on his land.
The sheet slipped to the ground. This wasn’t a retelling of the Brave Child Sebastian.
This was her father’s account of the rebellion, with himself cast as the child!
She covered her mouth with her hand. He had seen himself as the Brave Child, right from the very beginning.
Perhaps he’d even believed the myth—that God would strengthen his arm.
Her hand shook as she stooped to pick up the fallen page. What did this all make of the end of his story?
She flipped to the last page, to the words she had read before. And so the Brave Child stood over the corpse of his mighty foe, triumphant by the power of the Lord God. Tears trickled from the hero’s eyes, tears of sorrow that he had been forced to kill, and to kill such a man.
A tear splashed onto the page, and she hastily mopped it. Her father had written the end, anticipating the sadness of killing Renald de Lisle by the power of God. He truly had believed in the fable. He’d been childlike in so many ways.
Such a man. She read the words again. So, he had met Renald before the end. Would he have written of it? She flipped back through the pages, and eventually found it.
Hoping to weaken him with kindness, the tyrant gave the child rich lodgings and fine foods.
He tempted his affections with gentle company and his mind with scholarly delights, thinking to remind him of the joys of this world.
The child did not fear to lose them unless it be God’s will, but he would not weaken for such earthly temptations.
Count Tancred himself came to him in his fairest form, beguiling him with true warmth, tormenting him with false logic disguised by embroideries of fact. The Brave Child almost weakened, but by God’s will he stayed resolute.
Then they found the sharpest weapon. They sent his opponent to him. Sebastian discovered that he would not fight the tyrant, but his substitute, a comely man with youth still in his merry soul.
Merry soul, Claire thought. Even when she had been most under Renald de Lisle’s spell, she would not have described him in those terms. But then she remembered him at ease with their neighbors, chatting with Ouisa in his arms, and she wondered.
Yes, then, briefly, he had been merry …
She returned to the writing.
Sebastian came to see the test God put upon him. His true trial was not to face a tyrant and strike him down. Instead, he must kill a man he might have liked, a mere tool of wrong, so as to bring a friend to the awareness of his own evil.
He wept and prayed, but the cup could not be taken from him.
Claire, too, wiped tears. “A man he might have liked.” She closed the book, too shaken to read more. Her father had still considered the king his friend. He had seen the good in Renald, as she knew he must. Still, he had stuck to his course. He had done what he knew to be right.
And that must be her guide. Even though a part of her heart clung foolishly to dreams, she must pursue the honorable course. She must punish the murderer and rescue her family.
Rebelliously, she thought that God’s ways were extremely difficult to comprehend. Bad people should be clearly bad. They should lack all virtue and charm. And the least He could do was keep His pact with His people and let good triumph over evil!
Then she crossed herself and begged pardon for such impertinent thoughts. The ways of God, they were always told, were beyond human understanding.
As she secured the book again she absorbed the fact that Renald had indeed spoken the truth on one thing. He and the king had done their best to persuade her father out of his course.
They’d still killed him.
She must never forget that.
She must not hide from the cruel reality of what had happened.
She tried to imagine it.
Her father had been kept in the Tower. She’d never been to London, but she imagined the White Tower as big, heavy, and of cold stone. He’d been a prisoner, even if in luxury.
He, a gentle soul, had been forced out in mail to fight a warrior twice his size and vastly more skilled. Her father had doubtless been like Lambert in the sword dance, sweating and gasping as he tried to match the unmatchable.
She flinched from it, but she made herself envision Renald, graceful in his mastery of his dreadful sword, playing with her father as he’d played with Lambert, then moving in at his leisure for the kill. Moving in to drive that dark, deceitful sword through mail and into her father’s loving heart.
She wept, but clung to the sickening image as her own mail, as protection against her weak and foolish heart.
Renald had gone out that day to kill. He’d admitted it. To kill as cold-bloodedly as a cowherd slaughtering beef. He claimed to take no joy in killing and probably spoke the truth. The cowherd took no pleasure in slaughter, either.
Ignoring conscience, ignoring justice, he’d killed a weaker man on his master’s command, and pretended—still pretended—that it was the will of God. No honorable woman could ever reconcile herself to that.
Desperate for advice and comfort, she went in search of her mother. She found Lady Murielle in her small chamber, sitting by a window, ominously still.
“How are you, Mother?”
Lady Murielle sighed. “It’s a sad situation, but we’ll put him off.”
“Put who off?”
“Why, de Lisle!” Her mother grasped Claire’s wrist. “You mustn’t marry him! Not now. I’ve seen how you look at him, but you mustn’t marry your father’s murderer!”
Claire looked wildly to one of the women who hurried forward to soothe her lady. Soon Lady Murielle was staring out of the window again.
Claire moved away, rubbing at her wrist, still red and white from the fierce pressure. “Has she been like this since she woke?”
“Pretty well, lady. In a fret over you, that you not say your vows.”
Claire crossed herself. “Sweet Saviour aid her.”
The woman made the sign of the cross, too. “He will, lady, never fear. I’m sure with rest she’ll soon be herself.”
Claire prayed for it, but remembered the miller’s daughter who counted stones.
What now? She’d come here in hope of advice, perhaps even of a shoulder to cry on. All she’d found was more burdens. More reason to destroy Renald.
She returned to the solar, finding Prissy there darning her silk veil. “Leave it,” Claire said sharply.
“But, lady—”
“Leave it! It’s better ruined.”
Prissy put the veil down and eased out of the room, almost as if she expected a blow.
Claire pressed her hands to her face. She mustn’t do that. She mustn’t take her hurt out on the innocent. Renald was the only one who deserved to suffer.
She needed some sort of occupation, one that wouldn’t stir emotions, but she didn’t want to go around the manor. She might bump into Renald anywhere and she wasn’t ready yet. She wasn’t strong enough yet.
She’d try again to find ease in her writing.
She took out another stack of parchment bound in boards, one very like her father’s.
It was her own record book. She didn’t record day-to-day events, for her days never seemed interesting, but her father had encouraged her to start recording customs of the manor, things like charms, and recipes for food and healing.
She wasn’t sure there was much point to it, for everyone knew these things, but she’d continue.
She flipped through the loose sheets to a clean one, but suddenly realized that, whatever else they might be, her days were no longer uninteresting. Could she write of recent events? She could try. Perhaps somewhere within she might find something to help pin down Renald’s guilt.
She dipped her pen and began at the beginning, when the sound of a horn announced people approaching through a storm …
She had reached her betrothal when the door banged open and Felice stalked in “Well really, Claire! You are the lady of the manor now, or had you conveniently forgotten?”
Claire sighed and wiped off her pen.
She hadn’t found anything to help in her plan, but writing of events had been healing in a way.
Felice came over and flicked the corner of a piece of parchment. “You can’t spend your days on such foolery anymore.”
Claire pulled it out of harm’s way. “Is your music foolery?”
“My music entertains others.”
“Perhaps my writings will entertain others.”
“When so few can read them? It would be more to the point if you told stories as Clarence used to.”
“But I have no gift for that.”
“Then do something useful. Murielle is completely out of her wits, you know.”
Claire stood. “It’s just shock.”
“If you choose to think so. Anyway, she can wait. We need to know how much of the feasting food should be given to the poor, and how much kept for the hall.”
“Ask Renald. It’s his property.”
When Felice’s brows rose, Claire knew that snarl had been unwise. She had to remember that at the moment, everyone thought they were in harmony, and just under vow of chastity for a month. Until she decided what to do, she’d best pretend that was true.
She bound up her work. “I’m sorry. I took a sleeping draft and it’s given me a headache. But I’ll see to the food. Perhaps you could check how many fowl and other animals we have left. We may have to buy more next market day.”
“Giving me orders now, are you?”
“As you pointed out, I am the Lady of Summerbourne.”
Felice’s lips tightened, but she snapped, “As my lady commands!” and stalked off. Unkind though it was, Claire couldn’t help thinking that if Renald had ended up married to Felice he’d have been halfway to just punishment.
As she walked to the door, a glint drew her attention to the golden cup once more sitting on its shelf. The king’s cup, given to her father by Henry Beauclerk not long after he’d become king. A gift of friendship, and of gratitude for pleasant times here in the place he’d called paradise.