CHAPTER FOUR

AND SO, LIKE A GREEDY GREYHOUND, you swallowed it whole?” Sir Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Derby, Lincoln, and Leicester, Steward of England and Lord of Bergerac and Beaufort across the seas, had received his petitioners, as was his habit, in his bedchamber in his immense fortress at Kenilworth. Still a vigorous man, although already well into middle age, England’s greatest warlord radiated an almost visible aura of power even in repose. And well he might: lord of over a score of castles in England alone, he possessed the powers of the crown within his own vast dominions. He had his own seal, his own courts, his own diplomatic missions. His wide lands supported not only their own administrators, but the immense and busy household that moved with the Duke himself from castle to castle when he was not in the field.

The Duke was sitting erect on the richly embroidered counterpane of a vast, silk-hung bed, his gouty foot, newly inflamed by yesterday’s banquet, propped on a little stool before him. These were the last petitioners of a morning’s long business, begun at dawn. The case was a bit different. Amusing, even. A man the Duke usually saw more of in the field than at home, when the fellow visited only annually to do formal homage for his estate. The knights and clerks that stood about him ready to take care of anything he ordered had grown restive thinking about the noontime dinner that would be waiting for them.

“I’m afraid that is so, my lord,”answered the Sieur de Vilers, head bowed, hat in hand, on his knees among the rushes on the floor. His two sons, each in a similar posture, flanked him.

“I knew old Kendall,” said the Duke, letting his gaze wander out the window. Outside, a brisk wind was pushing clouds across the blue spring sky. Crocuses were poking up through the dead earth in search of the sun, and you could hear through the unglazed window the lapping of the water in the wide artificial lake that surrounded the castle on three sides. “He sold me a number of rarities. And, of course, no one was a better judge of a length of crimson than he.” It was one of the Duke’s weaknesses, the smell of the fabulously expensive dye on a length of new crimson as it was unfolded. And Kendall had made a great deal of money catering to it. “A shrewd eye he had, a collector’s eye. And no finer piece than his little dolly. I saw her dancing last winter at my masque, when I opened the Savoy to the London merchants. Did you know that? A lively little thing she was, who seemed to know all the most fashionable new steps.”

“No, my lord, I had no idea.”

“She turned down every go-between in the City,” he said, the distant look still on his face. Including mine, he thought. And quite ungracious of the little wretch, considering that I expect gratitude when I stoop to a merchant’s wife. He paused a moment, as if thinking things over. Then he stopped. He inspected Gilbert at leisure. It had been nearly a decade since he had seen him last, the maddest of an impetuous lot of new-made squires nourished in his household at Leicester. It was hard to believe that the tall, austere figure kneeling there in the threadbare, mended brown velvet surcoat was the same one who featured in the raucous new ballad that was sweeping London. It was something about how the old merchant’s walls were high, high, high, but his wife was young, young, young, and a bold young squire, dressed as a humble friar, had sneaked in by the kitchen door, kitchen door. He’d have to have his minstrel sing it again tomorrow night, after they were gone. The melody wasn’t much, but there were several quite lurid verses describing goings-on in the chambers while the old man slept. If they hadn’t been borrowed wholesale from another ballad, they might have seemed more serious. But Gilbert?

It wasn’t something he’d have ever suspected of Gilbert, and he believed he was a good judge of men. How could anyone ever forget that prank where the other squires had substituted a pair of naked laundresses in place of themselves in the bed that two of them shared with Gilbert, just to see the horrified expression on his face when he woke up and found them there? Just what was it he’d shouted as he’d snatched up the sheet and run off? He’d forgotten, but it had been very funny, even at the retelling over dinner all that long time ago. Even then, Gilbert had acquired a reputation for being a bit more priggishly holy than is proper in a military man. Of course, that had never bothered the Duke much. As long as a man fought like a fanatic on the battlefield, he could do whatever he liked with the rest of his time. Even pray and scourge himself, if that was his preference.

“So it’s your son Gilbert who snatched her up, is it?”

“Yes, my lord. But he hadn’t the slightest suspicion that Master Kendall had left everything to her. It’s unseemly. An allowance maybe, or a lifetime interest in the house. But everything? None of us thought it possible. But now, you see, our honor requires that we keep it.”

The situation had its entertaining side. A faint smile crossed the Duke’s face. A little thought flitted across his mind: It’s a good thing they can’t see my face in that posture.

“Sir Hubert, rise, and your sons also. The honor of the de Vilerses is dear to me. Just what was it the Earl said?”

“About the shabby cadet branch of the de Vilerses?” said Sir Hubert, rising. The veins stood out in his temples just thinking about it. Sir Hugo’s nostrils flared. And Gilbert, looking tall and somber, clenched his jaw.

“No, the other bit—”

“Oh, the part about the palsied claws of an aging patron?”

“The Earl is young, and needs to be put in his place. How many men do you need?”

“We could do with thirty. He can’t mount nearly as many.”

“I’ll send fifty. Sir John”—and he gestured to the aide who stood beside the bed—“go and see that two score and ten men at arms are prepared to depart for Sussex on the morrow. I assure you, I am wrathy that the Earl should interfere with my knights’ livings on the very eve of my new campaign in France. Brother Athanasius”—and he gestured to one of the two clerks that always stood by him, wax tablet and stylus in hand, when he heard petitions—“I will need a letter written to the magistrate, informing him that the de Vilers matter concerns me, and another one to my lawyers in London.” The clerk bowed and left with a swift step. Sir John left, giving orders, as men moved in and out of the bedchamber.

“The new destrier, Sir Hubert. I’ll try him when my foot permits.” The Duke was at his best when he was at the center of a hive of activity. He sounded positively mellow, now that the formalities were over.

“Beautiful mouth, my lord. You’ll never find a better anywhere.”

“Of that I’m sure. You’re getting quite a reputation for your horses.” Sir Hubert turned red with pleasure. The Duke had the key to his heart. “And you’ve brought me two fine sons, as well.” Sir Hubert seemed a little taken aback, and glanced at Gilbert furtively. He still looked exactly the same. Less than he ought to be.

The Duke shone the light of his charm on Hugo in turn.

“Sir Hugo, your father’s courage in my service has been measureless, and you look to be like him. I’ve had my eye on you for quite a while. I expect great deeds of you.” It was Hugo’s turn to look content beyond words. The Duke could charm the birds out of trees when he wished, or men to their deaths in the mud of foreign places, all for glory.

“And you, Gilbert. At long last you will be joining us.” Gregory looked surprised. “Better you than these fishmongers and soap-sellers’ sons I’m plagued with.” Gilbert looked puzzled. “Surely, Kendall’s manors, once secured in your name, will bring an income over fifteen pounds a year, will they not?”

“Why, yes—that is, once the debts are paid off,” responded Gregory, still puzzled. He had been over the accounts himself. The income, though considerably more than a poor knight’s fifteen or twenty pounds a year, was irreparably mortgaged for many years in the future to lawyers and to the Bishop. For having a university degree had meant that he was automatically in minor orders, and marriage to a widow would have brought penalties for bigamy except that the Bishop, for a tidy sum, had exempted him. Then there were the loans to cover the bribes for getting murder charges dismissed as self-defense, and for the repair of the roof of the hall at Brokes-ford Manor, which his father had said he was owed for his trouble. Then there were all the curious inheritance taxes, which included the best beasts on each estate being driven off by the overlord and the priest. Even elopement isn’t simple, he’d found: a web of indebtedness and financial ruin stretched like a nightmare before him. All at a stroke, by becoming rich, he had become poor.

“You are aware of the new law, surely? It has been in force for the last three years. Not, of course, that a man of honor would require a law to point out the right course of action.” Gregory still looked puzzled. He had become addled with laws lately, and couldn’t tell what was meant.

“My lord, I need to be informed. I was in the Carthusian monastery at Witham for most of that time, and heard nothing of the outside world.”

The Duke absorbed this piece of information, paused, and spoke again: “For the past three years His Majesty has required that every landholder with rents over fifteen pounds a year take up the obligations of knighthood and required military service. Our next ceremony will be at Whitsunday.” The Duke looked contentedly at Sir Hubert’s exultant face. “It is a good thing when lands are removed from the hands of the merchants and bankers. Gilbert de Vilers, you’ll mount many a good man from these lands of Kendall’s. I have made a good bargain for the King this day.” When he did not see the appropriate look of gratitude on Gregory’s face, but rather one of shock, he continued suavely, his canny eyes never leaving Gregory: “Gilbert, they tell me you’re a scholar. It’s a curious activity for a scholar, carrying off a woman at sword’s point. But then, how many soldiers are scholars?” Gregory never moved, but looked unspeakably embarrassed.

“Did you know that even I have given thought to my soul’s health? I am composing a book of meditations that might well interest a scholar’s eye. One like yourself, who is something more than a scholar.” The Duke watched with satisfaction as Gregory’s curiosity stirred, and showed itself on his face.

“I often think, perhaps a scholarly mind, one that has given deep thought to the sacred, of course, would be able to offer comments to improve my little work.”

“It’s all in the composition. If you have a felicitous arrangement, you have everything, my lord,” Gregory blurted out, being unable to contain himself.

“That is what I thought—what do you think of ordering the be-wailment of sins according to the parts of the body?”

“Why, that’s brilliant,” said Gregory, and he really meant it. The Duke looked pleased with himself. Sir Hubert and his eldest looked uncomprehendingly at each other.

“I suppose I should tell you,” said the Duke, as if the thought had not just occurred to him the previous day, when he’d been told the de Vilerses were here, “I have need for a man in my personal suite in France. Someone who’s a scholar, but not a useless one. A soldier, a gentleman of good family. I’ve been thinking that a chronicle of my campaign—written right there, not by some sleepy monk who’s never seen anything of life and understands nothing about chivalry—would be a worthy thing to have.” He watched as Gregory’s mind started working over the idea. He knew it was not the princeliness of the offer—the glory of the Duke’s service, or the handsome rewards that a great patron makes to a chronicler—that would turn Gilbert’s head, but the fact that it touched his weakest spot, his vanity about his intellect. And while, for amusement, the Duke collected women, his serious work in life was collecting men. He had made it his study and his art, and he understood the wellsprings of men’s actions perfectly. It was why he had grown great, when others remained small. And now that he was growing older, he would sometimes awaken in the night, when not on campaign, and think what a fine thing it would be to have his greatness all recorded in black, red, and gold. Illuminated, of course, at least in the final version. It was not quite as great an idea as the one he’d had about charming God Himself with a book of meditations, but it was very nearly so.

“Would you—”

“My lord!” exclaimed Gregory with unfeigned joy.

IT WAS WATKIN THE herdsman’s middle boy, standing barefoot beneath the new leafed willow at the brook’s edge among his woolly charges, who first spied the mounted party. A row of dark shapes in the distance, silhouetted against the rolling first green of the spring meadows, they toiled slowly along the narrow track to Brokesford Manor. As they approached you could make out the figures of Sir Hubert and his two sons in the lead of a half-dozen mounted retainers, two laden sumpter horses, and a clear dozen hounds, including the old spotted bitch that never left the old lord’s side.

The child ran across the field shouting, “They’re back! They’re back!” to tell the manor folk to open the main gate. The Lords of Brokesford did not look like men who had come home empty-handed, though even the hounds that ran beside the packhorses looked wearier than when they’d departed.

Margaret had left the low, thatch-roofed malthouse well content with the progress of the reforms there. She was wrapped from neck to ankle in a big borrowed apron, and had now settled into the bakehouse to sniff the new leaven in the crocks that had just been lifted from the cool earth of the floor. The wide brick ovens stood cold this morning, the ashes newly raked out of them. Tomorrow would be baking day. She wrinkled her nose at the acrid, sweetish smell of the yeasty brew in the last crock. It was good, all good. And what’s more, she’d taken advantage of everyone’s absence to browbeat the steward with the proximity of Easter and the need to placate a particularly demanding Lord, whose eye was not only on the sparrow but on the dirt in the corners. Several old layers of rushes had been dug out of the manor house and thrown on the compost heap, and new ones laid on the scrubbed stone. Even the chapel was whitewashed in a manner that the Weeping Lady pronounced to be adequate, but still beneath her.

“What the—?” said Sir Hubert as he rode through the great gate. The kitchen midden and attendant pigs had been banished from the forecourt. As he dismounted and saw the horses led off, he noticed that the piles of muck in front of the stable, which somehow never managed to be removed, but instead grew higher all winter, had been carted off, with a subsequent diminution of flies. Well, that at least is not an altogether bad idea, he thought, though I wouldn’t want her to know it—it might make her think she had a right to shift everything around.

“Where is that wife of yours, Gilbert? Don’t City women know how to greet a returning lord?” At that very moment Sir Hubert was gratified to see a figure streaking from the bakehouse to the kitchen door at the end of the hall, stripping an apron off as she ran. By the time the bowing steward had welcomed him back to his hall, Margaret, still breathless, stood beside him, holding out a large cup of ale from her own brewing. Greeting the old lord in the accepted fashion, she offered him the cup. Only Gregory spied the vague air of well-controlled sarcasm in the elaborate gesture. His father took it as his due. She’s coming along, the old man thought. That beating Gilbert gave her did her no end of good. A few more and she’ll be entirely trained to the family standard.

Sir Hubert lifted the cup to his lips and drank deep; the look on his face changed to astonishment. He passed the cup silently to Hugo, who drank and said, “Better than the Duke’s,” looking with surprise at his father. Then, remembering himself, he passed the remainder to Gregory, who finished it off without any surprise at all. After all, everyone in London knew about the ale at Master Kendall’s house. It had been one of the attractions of his tutoring job there, back when he had been a free soul meditating on the Godhead. In a way, you could almost say that everything had been caused by that ale; it had kept him coming back despite every annoyance caused by Margaret’s daftness. Margaret remained kneeling in front of them, waiting for the answer to be witnessed by the entire household, which had crowded silently into the low, arched curve of the open door to watch. They backed into the hall, and one or two of them even held infants on their shoulders to let them have a better view. There wasn’t a soul in the shire who didn’t know about the strange bargain the lord had made in a moment of weakness. And when news that the new ale was stronger and sweeter than any in Christendom had spread to the neighboring manors, interest had mounted daily in anticipation of his return. How would he keep his promise? How could he keep such a promise?

“It is good,”he said.

“Better than yours, as I swore,”reminded Margaret.

“Yes, better,” he said. He didn’t want to puff her up. Puffed-up women are one of the original sources of trouble in the world. If anyone knew that, it was he. He counted it as one of his duties to mankind to keep women from puffing themselves up, though it had been a most monumental duty in his own marriage. A job requiring a hero. It was one of those things that God, being male, questioned you about before you were let into heaven, and he was proud to say that he hadn’t neglected it.

“Hear how a knight keeps a bargain, even one made in a moment of weakness,” Sir Hubert addressed the assembled crowd in a lordly fashion.

“Dame Margaret”—he addressed her in the polite form—“you may have pen and paper when you wish them, if your duties are fulfilled, and you may read books.” Shocking. The people looked at each other. “But only when a man of this household is present, preferably Father Simeon.” Oh, admirable. A lordly judgment. Heads nodded in agreement at the old knight’s wisdom—a Solomon, fit to chop a baby in half anytime.

Margaret thanked him and rose. Her face was totally expressionless. The old lord looked benignant as he thought he detected a look of humble gratitude in her eyes. But he was deceived: Margaret was suppressing a powerful urge to tell him exactly what she thought of him. Now, tongue, she was telling herself, just stay out of trouble this once, and I’ll write down what I think of him later, that pompous, ignorant, rapacious old hypocrite.

“And now, dinner,” boomed Sir Hubert, breaking the silence. “A celebration is in order, for the retaking of the estate at Withill. And I shall keep Saint Edward’s Day with a great feast, for justice has triumphed in a world full of iniquity.”

“Your father is very mellow,” said Margaret in greeting Gregory as the milling knot of retainers and gossips dissolved to see to the laying of the tables.

“We’ve got it all, Margaret, except for the law cases that are pending. And those should go our way too, now. We did sap the walls of Withill Manor and burn part of the roof, so the hall will have to be rebuilt. The stables went up, too—the thatch was just like tinder. But we pried every one of the Earl’s men out of the place, and sent them packing. Didn’t lose a man, either, although old John took a swordstroke. And can you believe, after it was all done, the Earl sent a message that his steward had overreached himself against his orders, and he’d never meant to offend the Duke? It just goes to show, winning is everything.” They were standing now beneath the wall forested with antlers. A shaft of light from the high window caught the rich green folds of wool of Gregory’s heavy fur-lined cloak.

“That’s a new cloak, isn’t it?”

“From the Duke. Hugo’s got a velvet gown, and Father a new brace of hounds—those brindled ones, over there. Margaret, you’ve no idea how gracious, how admirable he is—how far-sighted and noble! The greatest and most perfect leader of men in all of England, save only for the Prince, and of course King Edward himself.”

“Gregory, what happened there?” Margaret sounded suspicious. Gregory had thought the Duke too stern, too unbending, and too undevoted to matters of the mind and soul previously.

“You’ve no idea what a spiritual force he is …”

“Gregory, what’s made him a spiritual force, since he’s just as he always was?”

“And his insight …”

“For God’s sake, tell me what he has done.”

“Why, Margaret,” said Gregory happily, “he’s made me a gift—enough to pay off all the debts on the property.”

“A gift? What on earth for? Great men don’t give gifts for nothing.”

“Of course not. I’m entering his service. I’ll be going to France in his personal suite. Can you believe the good fortune? I tell you, there’s many a good family that can do nothing but dream of an honor like that. He’s arranged for me to be knighted, Margaret, knighted! It was never in my future, you know, Father couldn’t afford the fees. Why, you’ll be a lady—aren’t you pleased? He knights twelve of us on Whitsunday next. And that’s not the end of the honors he’s granted me. I’ll be personally writing down his noble and courageous acts in preparation of the greatest chronicle of our times. Just think, a chronicle of action and chivalry, not the stale maunderings of some dried-up cleric. My name will be celebrated forever! He said there weren’t many capable of doing it—a scholar who was also a soldier—”

Margaret’s eyes widened in horror.

“—a man of ancient family, who understood chivalry as well as letters—”

Margaret turned pale.

“A noble commission, nobly granted—”

“Not France,” she said. “Sweet Jesu, not France.”

“But Margaret, it’s an honor,” Gregory said gently.

“I’m all alone here. I haven’t anyone but you, Gregory. Don’t you see, if anything happened—doesn’t our marriage mean anything?” she asked, putting her hand on her heart.

“The greatest honor of my life—”

“Couldn’t you just talk to people when they got back, and write it down that way?”

“That’s not what the Duke has in mind, Margaret. Don’t you see I’m a new man? Why, I could go on to anything. We might even be at court someday. Aren’t you even grateful? He’s secured your inheritance and cleared the debts on the property, all with one princely gesture. And now—why, I’ve got a patron for my poems, the work on meditation that I plan to write—”

“Oh God, oh God,” said Margaret, clutching his sleeve. She was shaking all over. Gregory put his arm around her and gently led her to one of the benches along the wall of his father’s hall, directly opposite the fire. They sat there in the midst of the noise and confusion as if they were entirely alone.

“You have to understand, Margaret. I’ve got my life’s work back.”

“I know,” said Margaret, snuffling into her sleeve, “I only want what’s best for you.” He’s caught you, that old hunter, she thought. Caught you like a hare in a net, and you don’t even understand it’s been done.

Hugo strode by the little scene.

“You really have a town woman there, don’t you, brother? A true lady’s heart beats with fierce joy when her lord rides forth to smite his enemies,” he announced. And he passed on without waiting for an answer to see that his breastplate was being properly cleaned up after the battle for Withill Manor. Margaret lifted her head from her arm and stared after him, red-eyed.

“That’s because if he’s anything like you, she’s glad to be rid of him,” she said spitefully.

“Margaret!” Gregory was shocked.

Margaret bit her lip as she sniffed. She’d had a number of conversations with the Weeping Lady on this topic, and knew exactly what she was talking about.

I COULDN’T BELIEVE WHAT he told me that day. My God! I’ve never heard of a more harebrained idea in my life. That’s how it is with the great ones: They get a touch of brain fever and everyone else has to run off and get killed for their half-baked schemes. And all the while bowing and saying, “Yes, my lord! Brilliant, my lord!”

It’s one thing to go off to a nasty, dangerous place like France, where everybody hates the English goddams, if you enjoy killing and raping and looting. It’s much more difficult to enjoy these occupations at home, where it makes the neighbors mad. Whereas in a foreign country, you can have your sport and come home rich—if you don’t come home dead. Or rather, part of you comes home. Usually your heart in a sealed casket, since it’s easier to ship. I tell you, you can always tell when something’s too unpleasant for a sensible person to get involved in: they call it an honor, every time.

But what business is it of a man who plans to write a book of meditations going to France? It’s not as if he’s going to come home either rich or happy. In fact, you can pretty well bet it won’t work out. But who asks a woman? Now, given the way old soldiers like to brag and lie around the fireside, I’d say, if you have in mind to write a chronicle, write it all when you can stay cozily at home. You’ll only get into trouble if you write the truth, anyway, since it might contradict all the tall tales they want to tell.

But do men hear good sense when they’re all puffed up with deeds of chivalry and courtoisie? Oh, no. It’s their upbringing, I think. It makes them gullible. And especially they don’t want to hear good sense from their wife. Myself, if I were a man, I’d pay the fine, avoid the knighthood, live comfortably as a squire in the country, and keep my arms and legs in the bargain. There’s plenty who do. In the City, they think it’s a sign of cleverness, not cowardice, to pay off one’s service. The fine is just part of the price of doing business, and a sensible investment. Master Kendall explained that to me when he paid off the fee himself, being “too old for the honor,” as he put it in his letter to the King. But, of course, Gregory couldn’t get away with it—not with his family, and not if he hoped to win his court cases and collect his rents someday and pay off his debts. So glory and honor sweetened the agreement, and turned his head in the bargain.

Still, I could see the temptation to believe it was all for the best. That night at supper his father and older brother kept staring surreptitiously at him, as if he’d done something really unexpected and admirable. Every so often Gregory’s father would look him up and down, thoughtfully—the way you’d inspect a colt with bad conformation that has outrun the best stallion in the district. Silently, marvelingly. And he’d mutter, “The Duke’s personal suite. Imagine!” as if no one could hear. Gregory didn’t say a thing, but gloried in it. And you know, when men decide to box one of their number into a corner with some “honor,” the victim can’t usually back out, no matter how much he wants to. It’s like having a marriage arranged that you don’t care for. You can’t just run off. You have to go through with it and hope it works out for the best. But in my experience, it usually doesn’t.

But they do love the trappings of war, men do. Even Gregory got that serious, self-absorbed look about him as he announced he needed a new cuirass and helm, more suited to his new dignity, and went off to the London armorer’s to equip himself. He returned with all sorts of this and that, including a long military surcoat with the three cockleshells and the red lion of the de Vilers arms embroidered on it, cut fore and aft to the waist for the saddle. It was as if he’d caught a disease. I missed his sense of irony, the easy self-mockery with which he’d catch himself in a particularly pompous moment, the sharp way he could see through the shams of the world. Now he was all caught up in the glory of the things he’d once poked fun at: who sat where, who got served first, how many retainers should he engage, how would he modify the family coat of arms to serve as his personal one, how many horses should he go into debt for, and should he order a pavilion, and what kind? And, of course, he started treating me the same way. One day he came in all hot from exercise with the identical rolling horseman’s gait his father and brother had, and addressed me as “my lady wife,” in all seriousness.

“Gregory!” I was shocked.

“Please respect my station,” he said, and in vain I searched his face for a trace of his old sardonic smile. “You may call me my lord husband, or, after Whitsunday, Sir Gilbert. You should get used to it, so you won’t lower my dignity before others.” I turned and fled. By our Blessed Lady, I thought, it won’t take much more of this before he’s turned into his father. I needed to hide, I needed to think, but everyplace was aswarm with family or grooms. So I ended on the cellar steps, with the spiders, wiping the tears off my face and the grime onto it.

“Good Lord God, how are we to deliver men from their folly?” I wept. But God, who is often so talkative about some things, was entirely silent about this point. I waited a long time, until the tears were worn out. “A lot of use You are,” I said, picking myself up and dusting off my skirts. “I’d think if You were considerate, You’d be offering Divine Guidance when I’m needing it so much.” I smoothed my surcoat down and found a clean bit of sleeve to wipe the smudges off my face. “So,” I said to myself, “that’s how it is. Well, women have been married to fools since the world began, and they’ve never yet managed to change the situation. I’ll just have to do my best, there’s no more I can do.”

AND SO WE WENT to Leicester to see Gregory knighted in a mass ceremony on Whitsunday. There were a few spindly young sons of great families—too great to speak to anyone, of course. But for the most part, I felt right at home in the crowd of rich woolpackers and vintners and soap-sellers who’d put down good hard money for themselves or their sons for the honor and celebration of it. I even knew a couple of them who were from the City, and one had the gall to jostle me before the entrance to the church service and say, “So, Mistress Margaret, we do bring ourselves up in the world, don’t we?”

All freshly bathed and looking somewhat hollow-eyed from their all-night vigil before the altar, the candidates went up one by one in church, then knelt to take the blow from the Duke before receiving the belt and sword. Gregory’s father and brother buckled on his spurs themselves, and he was so set up that he unhorsed three men in the tourney afterward and was never unseated himself, though he took a hit very nearly at the center of his shield.

But at night, after all the feasting was done and the great dancing chamber at Leicester castle emptied, instead of rejoicing, he looked haunted. We sat up together in the big guest bed and I put my hand on his lean, scarred arm.

“What’s wrong, Gregory?”

He started. “Don’t call me that anymore, I’ve already told you.”

“My lord husband, I never do in public. Can’t I save some little bit of our first feeling for private?”

“It reminds me of—of what I’ve done. And of what I am, instead of what I should be.” I took his big, rawboned hand into my two small ones and held it tight. Even in the shadows beneath the curtains I could sense the trouble and the worry in his dark eyes.

“And what have you done, but save my life and give me hope again?”

“All this honor, on a dead man’s grave,” he muttered to himself. “I wanted to dedicate myself to God, and then I sinned, and instead of being flung into the fiery pit, I was rewarded with the honor I’d never dared dream of.”

“Oh, husband, put it from your mind. How else do heirs get titles but on another’s grave? So how is it different, that Master Kendall should die, and that you should be lifted by his inheritance to a life of ease?”

“But Margaret, I didn’t inherit you, I stole you.”

“But not while he lived. You always acted with honor. You had his trust and friendship. That was more than his sons ever had.”

“Trust—my God, that’s worse. My mind is eaten up by what we’ve done together—he trusted me; I took his wife. I’ve violated God’s commandments for this sweet, sweet sin. I can’t pray with a clean heart …” I could feel him shudder. “If it weren’t a sin to marry a widow, then why would the Church forbid it to me?”

“Calm your conscience, Gregory. It’s in the wrong place, entirely. There’s a hundred men quick enough to snatch up a widow for her money without the tiniest fragment of your guilt. They’d do nothing but rejoice, as you should be doing.”

He sounded horrified. “Even you—you think I did it for the money—for this”—he swept his arm around to gesture to his new world—“and for—oh, God, for—”

“Gregory, I know you didn’t. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“I suppose it does. It must,” he muttered feverishly.

WE RETURNED TO BROKESFORD for the last days of preparation before the ride to the coast to sail for France. Everything was in a turmoil: Sir Hubert rode through the village, making his final selection of those who were to go with him, and there was much weeping and wailing in the little cottages by the muddy lane. Gregory had acquired two boys to mind his horses and a stolid, spotty-faced squire named Piers, who complicated my life by claiming he was in love with me as with the untouchable stars. When I told him to stop, he said it was a holy passion that burned with unquenchable zeal and beat on his breast, before he went off in pursuit of Cis, who pushed him into a watering trough. The girls sat awestruck while Damien tried on his armor and polished the horse gear. They asked to feel how sharp the edge of his sword was, and he told them they didn’t dare—and besides, the grease on their hands would spoil the blade. So of course Cecily managed to cut her finger.

In short, everyone rushed about, posing and putting on airs in the way that is common before a military campaign. All except Gregory. After the morning’s exercise, he would sit silently at Father Simeon’s little octagonal writing table in the corner of the chapel, writing without cease from late afternoon into the night. Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer. Why wasn’t he out bustling and boasting, and getting drunk with the rest of them?

The sun was already setting, and most of the household in bed already, when I sought him out in the chapel. By the light of a single flickering candle, a feeble replacement for the vanishing daylight, he was deeply engrossed in his writing. The pen traversed the page in his right hand, followed a few inches behind by the little knife for scraping out mistakes in his left. I called quietly to him, so that I wouldn’t startle him. If he were startled, he might make a blot, and Gregory is a great perfectionist about his writing. If he makes a blot, there’s no speaking to him for hours sometimes.

“Margaret?” He looked up from his writing. “What are you doing here?”

“Come to ask the same of you,” I answered. And when the ink was safely put away, I stood behind him and embraced him, kissing him on the neck.

“Oh, Margaret,” he said in mock reproach. “Truly it is written that women’s appetites are unquenchable. Doesn’t any other thought ever cross your mind?”

“Yes, it does—I want to know why you’re writing all the time. After all, the Duke hasn’t done the great deeds you’re supposed to write about yet.”

“Oh, yes, he has, Margaret, and I’ve got to put down the already has been before I write the will be.”

I looked over his shoulder at the writing. It was in Latin, but I could make out some words. “But I just see writing with angeli and Deus and—that looks like Adam and Eve down there, and—that thing, there, that looks like the Tower of Babel.”

“You know, Margaret, it may be a mistake to teach women how to read, if they’re not going to have an education.”

“That’s mean, I must say. So why don’t you remedy the defect by explaining it all to me?”

He sighed, and explained very slowly and clearly, as if to a simpleton or a deaf person.

“All proper chronicles start at the beginning of the world, Margaret—and I have a long way to go to catch up to now. I’d hoped to do it all before we leave, but things have been so disorderly around here lately.”

“Why don’t you just write about the Duke, and leave out the Tower of Babel?”

“Margaret, if you were educated, you’d understand that a chronicle that just starts now is nothing but gossip. It lacks substance.” The room had grown dark as we spoke, and the flickering candle threw his handsome features into relief, as he raised one dark eyebrow and smiled that faintly mocking smile of his.

“I’m sorry I don’t know all about the Classics and the Authorities the way you do—I just thought it would save time.” I still think it’s a good idea, no matter what men think.

“I suppose I shouldn’t fault you, Margaret. But writing is not a matter of common sense, like buying fish in the market. It’s a matter of adherence to a proper discipline and form. It’s like that notion you once had that everything should be written in English, because more people speak English than Latin. Sensible, except that people who speak only English can’t read, and nobody who can read respects a work that isn’t in Latin. By adherence to correct form, one avoids foolish mistakes and embarrassment. That’s why the standards of civilization are absolute and universal. It’s like truth: you can’t have two kinds.”

I still think that idea of mine was a good one, too, even if it does have a few little rough spots to work out of it. But I’ve never told him that either. Besides, he’s so charming when he gets didactic. His face grows all serious, and his eyes shine, and then he’ll tell you all about Saint Augustine or Aristotle or somebody else who’s been dead a long time.

“So you see,” he went on, “just as Latin adds substance to a work, so does starting at the beginning of the world.”

“Did Aristotle start at the beginning of the world?” I asked.

He smiled. “Oh, Margaret. You’re a ninny, but a dear one. Aristotle didn’t write chronicles. But I assure you, he always began at the beginning.”

So that was the end of it. But there were certain advantages. I’d lie in bed with my eyes open and staring, waiting for him because I couldn’t sleep without him. And when I saw the candle nodding and bobbing through the dark, as he picked his way around the dogs on his way to bed, I’d rejoice that everyone else was sound asleep. Because then, oh then, we set the sweet darkness on fire.

BUT OUR TIME TOGETHER was too short, and as the hour of departure arrived, we grew more feverish, as if we might never again see one another in this life. And more and more we realized what it was that we might be losing; yet something kept us from saying it out loud, perhaps it was the fear of loss itself. In this frantic time, even the beginning of the world had been abandoned. Only iron constitutions had kept Sir Hubert and his neighbors from collapse during the frantic round of drunken dinner parties that accompanied their parting. It was busy under the stairs and in the tower bedrooms, too, for this was a time when women could deny nothing to heroes who might never return.

“So, Margaret, we ride for Dover, encamp until the men and horses are enrolled, and then it’s overseas to Normandy and glory.” I was sitting on the window seat in the solar, doing mending, while Gregory was explaining things to me to allay my fears; it was all easy, he said. He had spread several packets on the seat opposite, and was checking over their contents. The girls were listening quietly for once.

“You enroll horses? They’re paid too?”

“No, not that. Just men are paid—and I might add my military pay’s gone up considerably now that I’m no longer just an esquire. But note is made of the value of each horse we bring with us, to compensate us if one of them’s lost.”

“But who will compensate me if you’re lost?”

“Don’t be silly, Margaret. I’m not a horse. Besides, I get a third of my pay for the entire campaign in a lump sum in advance. I’ll send it to you from Dover, to pay the Lombards. All right? Don’t look so pale. I’ll be back. It’s only a few months, after all. It would be different if I were riding with Father. He sticks at nothing, and damn the consequences. There’s a reason I don’t tell you stories about when I was in France with him the last time. But a commander’s staff is different. You get only as much glory as you wish for.—Piers, could you go see if they’ve finished packing my sumpter horses yet?”

Gregory looked over his last packet, and checked it once again, before he wrapped it himself and sealed it against the damp in a rawhide cover. It was the box of pens, paper, and a well-sealed inkhorn that would not part company with him until he returned home again. Damien was finishing the last of his packing, too, on the floor of the solar. We all turned to look as Robert the squire sauntered by him, a flower from some lady tucked in his hat, whistling casually.

“Sir Hugo says you’re to hurry,” he said, inspecting Damien’s work. Then he smoothed down one of his eyebrows with a forefinger, and teased, “So, Damien, you’re wearing no favor? You haven’t any lady?”

“I certainly do,” said Damien cheerfully, strapping up his pack. “My lady mother.”

“Your lady mother?” Robert repeated with some sarcasm. “Then she’s given you her favor?”

“Why, yes indeed. Her kiss when I went away into service, and I’ve never had a better favor.”

“Damien, you will always be a bumpkin. You need a proper lady, not your mother. I myself”—and he smiled a wicked smile—“have Sir John’s wife, the lady Genevieve.” Robert, you sly-boots, I thought, that’s the only reason you bothered to come up here. Kiss and tell; they’re all alike, men are, old or young. With a very few exceptions—so few as to hardly count at all.

“And so have half the world,” said Damien cheerfully. “When I choose a lady, she will be chaste, and not pass out favors the way a priest sprinkles benedictions. Then I’ll worship her from afar and gain a noble reputation, long after everyone’s forgotten who you wallowed in the mud with.”

“Tall words, tall words for a man who’s as slow as you are,” answered Robert, who was not much annoyed, since he’d made his point.

“Damien, Damien.” Cecily had left my side, and gone to stand by him where he sat on the floor. Her sister trailed after her. Cecily had untied the ribbon that held her tousled red curls, and held it out to him.

“What’s this?” he said, looking up.

“My favor,” she said, extending the limp, soiled object. Robert laughed sarcastically. Alison’s face turned red and swelled up, and she burst into tears.

“No fair, Cecily, you’re always first!” she howled.

“You haven’t a lady,” Cecily insisted.

“Alison, Cecily! You behave!” I was shocked at how forward they’d become. Cecily set her chin in that stubborn way she has. It was going to be a scene.

“Don’t worry, Dame Margaret. I won’t hold her to it.” Damien was always sweet-tempered.

“You said you haven’t got a lady,” Cecily repeated.

“Mine too, mine too! Cecily can’t be anybody’s lady. She’s too mean!”Alison’s fat little fingers undid her own hair ribbon.

“Well, it seems that I do now,” said Damien, looking bemused. “Two little ladies, in fact. When you grow up, you’ll choose finer knights than me by far, but for now, I’m honored.” That was one of the things that made Damien so winning. He always took children seriously, at their word. Taking the two hair ribbons, he twined them into an elaborate lover’s knot, and tied the ends about his sleeve.

“There,” he said. “Now I can do battle with dragons—with ogres—and even with the French.” He smiled his wide smile, which was just like sunshine. Robert looked disgusted. Gregory, who had watched the entire proceedings with a look of austere disapproval, just shook his head as if to say, Women, shameless as soon as they’re out of the cradle.

“My lord husband,” I said, “you’ve asked for nothing from me.”

“From a wife? France is no tourney; besides, this time I’m packing pens.”

“And a sword. But you will take my blessing, won’t you?” He looked amused at my presumption. After all, who’d studied theology?

“Of course,”he answered. “Always.”

I couldn’t help it. As he knelt before me where I sat on the window seat, I could feel the light surging up inside. As I put my hands on him, I could feel it springing and seeking. It shone through the bones of my hands, and flowed between us like a thin sheet of flame. It trickled through all the places in both our bodies, healing as it went—an old bruise, a muscle strain, a little kitchen cut. It was like being in the presence of a living thing. And when it was done, it spread to illuminate the room—pale orangish pink, before it glimmered and vanished.

“Goodness, Margaret, you have such cool hands,” said Gregory. He wriggled his shoulder. “Hmm. Odd. That bruise I took at the quintain feels much better. Did you see how the sun came from behind a cloud just now? Quite lit up the room.”

Damien and Robert were totally silent. They had stopped what they were doing and stood stock-still.

“Why are you staring?” asked Alison. “It’s just what Mama does for bumped knees.”

“My lady Margaret,” said Damien, and his voice was shaky, “may I have your blessing too?” Robert followed silently behind him, and each knelt in turn. How could I refuse them what they needed, even if it revealed me?

But as they stood, awestruck, Gregory whispered in my ear: “Margaret, it’s not kind to trick the gullible.” I didn’t answer. I suppose sometimes husbands are the last of all people to recognize a wife’s qualities. But you’d think, since he knew the whole story of my adventures with the light, he’d have recognized it when he saw it.

“What’s going on here? You’re slow! Too slow! The men are in the courtyard and the horses waiting! Enough of touching farewells!” Hugo had come up the stair unnoticed, and his shout broke into the strange silence of the room.

“Damien, that pack should have been loaded long ago!” he barked. Damien swung it onto his back. With Cecily and Alison holding my hands, we followed the men down the stair through the hall and into the courtyard.

The pink of dawn had faded, and the morning was fresh and fine. Birds sang in the orchard, where the blossoms had already given way to the new green fruit. Grooms held the great destriers, which the squires, mounted on their palfreys, would lead on the long trip to the coast. The armor was already loaded on the sumpter horses, and the last of the baggage was being strapped up. The men from the villages, with no armor but leather breastplates and helmets, stood, some holding pikes and others with longbows on their backs, while their women embraced them and wept.

Gregory had already informed me that as the only lady present, I must set an example. I stood, sick and forlorn in the arch of the door, clutching his big sword. He was the last of the family to mount. As his horse was led to him at the foot of the stair, he mounted solemnly, and I handed up the sword to him with an impassive face, as the villagers turned to watch the little drama. With the gentry, staging is everything. I’ve seen players at work, and I know. Then the gates were thrown open, and Sir Hubert, dressed in his finest, gave the signal to go. They were a brave looking lot, even for a little manor, with pennons flying and gold-embroidered surcoats glistening with the de Vilers coat of arms. And no family was better mounted. Sir Hubert had stripped his stables for the venture—and his stables, even then, were notable.

As the last of the party passed through the gate, I could feel a terrible lumpy thing moving inside me. It got bigger, and pushed into my heart, which pounded violently, and then to my throat, where it nearly choked me. They were well down the long avenue of trees when the thing seized my whole body. It was panic. Raw panic.

“Wait, wait!” I screamed after them. The women in the courtyard stared at me.

“Don’t go!” I cried, and I began to run like a madwoman after them. People drew aside to let me run through the courtyard and frantically past the still-open gates. The departing men proceeded as they had begun, at a dignified walk, the unmounted soldiers marching behind the mounted party. My breath was tearing through me, my chest was bursting as I ran—ran past the marchers, who turned to stare, the grooms, the packhorses, the squires with the destriers dancing beside them on their halters, to where the family rode, staring impassively ahead. Gregory rode just behind his father and brother. As I drew even with him and grabbed his stirrup, I was panting so desperately that I couldn’t speak. He pulled out of the line of march as I dragged at his stirrup, looking down at me reprovingly the while.

“Margaret, what is it? You’re making a fool of me,” he hissed, reining in his tall black palfrey by the side of the road.

I still clutched at his stirrup, which was all that kept me from falling, as I managed to say in between gasps, “Wait—oh, wait.”

“For God’s sake, for what?” he said, looking down into my panicked, tear-stained face.

“Say it, in God’s name—say it. Don’t go without saying it.”

“Say what?” He looked utterly puzzled now.

“Say ‘I love you.’You have to say ‘I love you’ before you go.”

“Oh, Margaret, you idiot,” he said, and his face looked all tender. “You know that’s true already.” He leaned down and gently detached my hands from his stirrup, and kissed my upturned face as you would a baby’s.

“Now don’t you make any more fuss, and do act like a lady,” he admonished, turning his horse, which was dancing with impatience. “God bless you, Margaret,” I could hear him say as he spurred his palfrey to canter back to the vanishing column.

“Oh, Jesu,” I whispered to myself. “We didn’t—” My knees grew so weak, I had to sit down, right there in the dust by the side of the road. “I’m lost.”

NOW LET ME WRITE down this true thing: there is something that changes about a manor when none but old men and boys are left. It is the women. Women who sit silent speak out, women who are weak plant and sow and reap; women who are simpletons make hard judgments, and women who faint at the sight of blood defend great houses with arrows and boiling oil. It is as if a spell is lifted: when the men return, the spell does, too, and we all become stupid and weak again. It is a mystery, how it happens. And, of course, the men don’t think it does, for they were gone during the transformation. Though how did they suppose their world was there for their return if we were as incapable as they believe?

So it was at Brokesford, where the first sign of change was in the village brewster’s house. Without husbands to forbid women’s gathering, drinking, and gossiping, the benches were full of chattering women who ended a hard day’s labor as any man would. And then, with the lords gone, poaching increased, for the women were as fierce hunters as any men. The steward turned a blind eye to peasant vermin hunting in this season, for it protected the harvest and the chicken coops in the absence of more genteel sport.

Often as not, I’d find the bakehouse, the malthouse, or the dairy abandoned and have to go myself to retrieve their wayward occupants. There they’d be, surrounded by a crowd of other screaming peasant women, clubbing coneys as the little creatures fled the muzzled ferret let loose within their burrow. As they came to the surface, they’d be entangled in the nets spread over the entrances, and thence it was but a brief time before they were converted into stew and mittens. But I can’t bear coney hunting. The only time a coney utters a sound is in mortal terror, as it sees the club descend. It’s a thin, high scream that tears through the mind. It would take me all my strength to penetrate the eerie wailing to order the manor folk back to their duties.

And, of course, since I was the lady of the place, at least for the time being, I found myself constantly accosted by petitioners, mostly appeals for reversals of judgments of the steward’s court, or, increasingly, women with familiar-looking little blond children in their arms, asking for alms. I suppose they thought I’d be more compassionate than the old lord, who always said, “If I support one, they’ll all be at my door; and who’s to say they’re mine, anyway? These women who can’t keep their skirts down—pah! They’ll all claim anything for a handout.”

But I’ve never yet been able to turn away a child in need, and even though the old lord had left me without a penny of ready money, I found meals and gleanings and old garments and lengths of coarse wool from somewhere so that they did not leave as naked and hungry as they came. But the steward complained that I gave away too much, and each time we clashed it was fiercer, so that I dreaded each confrontation more than the last. And, of course, it was embarrassing explaining to the girls, who were curious. But I suppose it’s my fault for telling them that the way you get babies is by being married. I thought at the time it was a better story than saying that God sent them from heaven in a basket on a rope, but I hadn’t anticipated the difficulties.

“Mama, why do those women with babies come here to ask for bread?” asked Cecily, who was always observant. “Why don’t they just bake it in their own houses, or buy some from the bakers?”

“Umm. Well, they don’t have houses or money, Cecily.”

“Did their houses burn down?”

“Not quite. You see, they—ah—aren’t married.”

“Oh. But where did the babies come from? Did God make a mistake when He lowered the basket?”

“Where did you hear about the basket, Cecily?”

“Oh, from Mother Sarah. She told me all about it. The basket is gold, and God takes it back afterward—otherwise the world would be much too full of gold baskets. I think those women should shout up at God when they see the basket coming, ‘You made a mistake, God. I haven’t stood at the church door. Send the basket back after I’m married.’”

“Well, that’s a good idea, Cecily.” I sighed.

“Cecily’s a dummy,” said Alison. “God never makes mistakes. Those women are all married, and the papas died. Now they haven’t got any house anymore, or any money, just like us.”

“You shut up, Alison,” said Cecily, and gave her sister a ferocious cuff. “I told you not to tell Mama that.” As Alison howled I could see Cecily’s anxious face seeking out the worry in my own. “That won’t ever happen to us, will it, Mama?” she asked.

“No, sweetheart, never. You’ll always be looked after. Your papa left you a dowry for marrying.” If I can keep hold of it, I thought silently. Cecily was silent, working it over in her mind.

“Mama,” she said suddenly, “aren’t knights supposed to protect widows and orphans?” I hesitated a moment, thinking of the widows and orphans being made abroad.

“Why, yes, they are, Cecily,” I answered.

“Stepgrandfather is a knight. Why doesn’t he give them anything?” Oh, deeper and deeper. I sighed again.

“People forget, sometimes, what they’ve intended.”

A woman’s voice broke in from behind us: “You do put things in the kindest way, don’t you?” It was Cis, the brazen, with a basket of wet laundry on her head, on her way to hang it out.

“Cis, you forget yourself before children,” I remonstrated.

“Sorry, mistress. But I’m an orphan, and look how they took care of me,” she said, smoothing her old gown over her stomach with the hand that wasn’t balancing the laundry basket.

“Cis, not you too?”

“And what do you think comes from all that tumbling? If they were here instead of you, I’d be out in a ditch like a dog—and they’d have another laundress.” She didn’t sound bitter, just matter-of-fact.

“Cis, I’ll help.”

“With what? A loaf of bread? An old raggedy blanket? I tell you, lady, that good as you are, no one can live on that. But I got faith. God means better for me, and I’m going to take that better when it comes.”

But I hadn’t even time to shush her when the welcome distraction of a gaggle of shrieking women and children was upon us. Mother Sarah, old Malkyn, Peg the dairymaid, and a half-dozen others.

“Mistress, come quick! The steward’s got a thief in the dairy!”

“And where were you when he got in? At the brewster’s?” I hurried off to investigate with the whole crowd of them, even Cis and her basket, on my heels. I gritted my teeth for battle when I saw the scrawny-looking fellow the steward had by the ear. Both hands were bound behind his back, and he was pleading for mercy. A scrubby mongrel, completely overlooked, was finishing the remains of a new green cheese, lying on the ground entangled in the cheesecloth in which it had so recently been hanging.

“I tell you, we chop the hands off thieves here.” The steward showed his yellow teeth in a malicious grimace. “If you’re so innocent, why didn’t you ask for hospitality at the gate?”

“I found no one here—”

“And you’d heard the lord was gone, and the mistress is soft in the head—”

“You stop that now!” I shouted, trying to sound as fierce as the old lord, which isn’t easy. “How dare you speak against me in my presence!”

“Will you hang him here, or let him go without his hand, my lady?” the steward snarled. “Or do you intend to fill the place with thieves as well as beggars?”

“I tell you, there is not a word of this Sir Hubert will not hear when he returns. You insult me, and you bring shame on his house by denying justice. I tell you, I’ll see you beaten in the courtyard like a dog if you make one move against me. I want to hear this man.” The steward let go of his ear.

“Speak up the truth, you knave, or I swear I’ll have your tongue,” the steward hissed at him.

“It was all a misunderstanding. I can pay you back,” said the man. His face could have used considerable fattening, but I liked his gray eyes, and he spoke well.

“How do you propose to pay, since if you had a penny, you’d have been at the brewster’s, dining better than this—” I pointed to the remains of the dog’s dinner.

“She wouldn’t take what I had in trade,” he said. You could practically see through his threadbare russet gown. His moth-eaten hose reached to the ankles, and his feet, like so many others in this season, were shoeless. He chattered on, desperate to make his point. “‘A bush is fine enough for me,’ is what she said to me, ‘I don’t need any fancy picture.’ But for you, I could do something splendid. A nice coat of arms in the hall, perhaps? I tell you, I’ve done for the best. Why, the only reason I’m crossing this godforsaken shire is that I’ve a big commission waiting for me at the cathedral at York.” A painter! What a piece of luck!

“Are your paints in that bundle there? Malkyn—” I nodded in the direction of the bundle, and the old woman opened it up. There were jars, little boxes, a big board splashed with all sorts of colors, and brushes of every size and description.

“That much at least is true, my lady.” The steward looked furious at having his prey snatched from him. “Though I much misdoubt they’d be wanting a beggarly fellow like this at a great cathedral like York. And don’t imagine you won’t pay for this when I tell Sir Hubert on his return,” he grumbled sourly as the fellow, now loosed, hastily gathered up his paints. Have I told you the steward is some sort of cousin to the family? The kind of cousin with no inheritance. It gives him airs and makes him nasty. It also made him difficult to get around.

“Our chapel is newly whitewashed, and looks very bare,” I told him, and the painter was quick to overhear and interrupt.

“Why, I could paint a holy Madonna, Our Lady of Mercy, with your own beautiful face on it, most gracious lady.”

Goodness, the stranger seemed to recover in a flash. There’s something charming about a fast-working mind.

“I had in mind a Last Judgment, to go over the altar.” I turned to address the painter. The steward stood silent, his long face still sour as year-old vinegar.

“A Last Judgment?” The painter sounded calculating. “There’s a lot of figures in a Last Judgment. A lovely Madonna is much better for a chapel—it’s a question of artistic harmony, you know.” The steward turned his hard little eyes on the painter.

“A Last Judgment’s what’s best—after all, you took the cheese first. Besides, you should consider the alternatives,” I pointed out.

“Not a nice Holy Family?”

“She wouldn’t like a Holy Family, and she told me herself that she’d like a Last Judgment, just like there was in her grandfather’s castle in Brittany.”

“She wants it?” said the steward, and all of a sudden he seemed shaken. He blessed himself. “She told you?”

“Oh, yes—and just think of the opportunity. If you hadn’t been so swift about catching this fellow, she’d be bothering us all summer. I do believe you’ve saved this house from her wailing for a good long time. This ought to please her no end.” Long ago, I wished with all my heart to be as clever as Mother Hilde in dealing with people. Well, I’m getting better all the time, though I’m nowhere near her yet.

“Well, if it’s for her …”

The painter looked puzzled—he inspected first one and then the other of our faces during this exchange.

“She? Who’s ‘She’?”

“Oh, that’s our Weeping Lady. She considers the chapel hers, though she does get about on occasion. Last year she dried up the milk, and the summer before, she put a rust on the rye.”

“A Weeping Lady? You expect me to paint an entire Last Judgment in a chapel with a ghost in it?”

“Shh! Don’t call her that,” cautioned Mother Sarah, looking shocked.

“Yes, don’t ever call her that,” I told him. “She considers ghosts common, you see, and will be terribly offended. She calls herself a manifestation. She can get very nasty if she hears you call her a ghost. You should be very careful when you’re working there.”

“Working there? Working there?” He seemed aghast.

“Yes, working there,” I said, folding my arms. He looked about. Everyone else had folded their arms, too, even the steward. It seemed entirely fair. “Besides, you’ll have a bed in the hall and a place at the board until you’ve done. And you can keep your dog too.”

It worked out very well. I don’t suppose a Last Judgment has ever been more quickly painted, though it did take several weeks even so, and I don’t think he did the faces all that well. But just think how he probably dragged out his jobs for more luxurious patrons—so it all worked out to be even, I think. And he provided entertainment for everyone as they stopped by to check on his progress. The girls especially liked to sit and bother him as he stood on the ladder, his dog lying at the foot of it while he painted devils and saints.

“How do you know devils are green?” Cecily would ask.

“God sends me the vision in my mind that they’re green,” he’d answer calmly, brushing color on a forked tail.

“I think they’re red,” said Cecily.

“Then go paint your own,” he’d say, without ever turning his head. But from him she got the idea of using charcoal to draw devils and fanciful creatures on the flat stones of the hearth. And he seemed to know when I had it in mind to scold her for getting dirty, because he came up behind me where I was inspecting the eccentric figures and said: “They’re really not bad for a child. She’s got an eye. Too bad she’s not a boy.”

But whenever he saw me coming as he worked up there, he’d turn away and look all injured. So, of course, I had to ask him: “Now what’s wrong? You eat, you drink, and all your limbs are still attached. You should be grateful to me—at least grateful enough to greet me properly.”

“I make entertainment for the whole world here—I should at least get jongleur’s wages,” he sulked.

“You might as well know, the Sieur de Vilers did not leave a penny of money in my care. He’s the tightest man in the shire, except for his horses—and he took most of them with him.” The summer foals were already racing about their dams in the meadow. All beauties, and we hadn’t lost a one. I’d seen to it myself. I knew it would set him in a good mood when he got home.

“Well, then, at least you should have warned me.”

“Warned you? About what?”

“You drive a hard bargain, madame. You didn’t tell me there were two.”

“Two? Two what?”

“Two gh—manifestations.”

“Oh, really?” I said. This was a shock. No one had ever seen Master Kendall but me—and his little girls, of course.

“Yes—there’s a smoky fellow in a merchant’s gown, forms up in a corner when She’s gone—now, she’s really not bad—quite gracious, actually. But him! He bothers me to death! ‘Why do you paint halos like that? They don’t look like platters at all. You should put points on them, like real light, not do them up like a set of dishes. Now, that vat of boiling oil—it looks just like a chamber pot. In Rome, I saw a much better Last Judgment, where the Blessed floated on clouds …’ Chatter, chatter! As if I hadn’t anything better to do! ‘So why don’t you just go back to Rome, now?’ I says, and he gets all miffed and tells me ghosts can’t cross the water, and he’s going to make sure I never sleep again unless I apologize—”

“Master Kendall? You’re back again? Why didn’t you come to see me? I’ve missed you.” I spoke into the air.

“So you know him then! You did deceive me. Imagine! Two of them! And they don’t even get along. Who is he, anyway?”

“My husband. Or rather, my former husband. He has wonderful taste. You should take his advice. But how did you see him, anyway?”

“Me? I’m a painter. That’s because I have very good eyes. I see Her, I see your Master Kendall, I see the odd light around you that no one else sees, and I see that you are always weeping even when your eyes are dry—as you are now, in fact. A lot of women do. Now, if you were really holy, your light would be all round and golden, like a platter, no matter what that meddlesome ghost—er, pardon—manifestation says, so I’m not sure what you are. But I’ve stayed to memorize your features. I was going to York, to paint for the canons of the cathedral, before I was so rudely interrupted, and I intend to make use of your face. Why else do you think I’d bother with all these figures, my lady of the hard bargains?”

“You see too much,” I said, suddenly annoyed with him.

“A lot of people tell me that,” he answered. “Oh—here he is again.” Sure enough, it was Master Kendall’s smoky form, wearing the New Year’s gown in which he died.

“Master Kendall? Where have you been so long?”

“Oh, I went to Bedford to watch the money changers cheat people. I’ve learned some very pretty pieces of sleight of hand. I’ll show you sometime. How’s that ridiculous painting coming along?”

“Ridiculous, pah!” exclaimed the painter.

“But I’ve missed you.”

“Missed me? I thought you were too busy for me—all that bustling about you’ve been doing. And really—delivering foals and bastards—that’s not very ladylike. You should be more careful of your reputation here, with these rustics….”

“I’m happy you still care so—but let me tell you about the girls—”

“Love! It’s everywhere!” exclaimed the painter sarcastically as he put the finishing touches on God’s beard.

But when he was done, everyone pronounced the painting the most splendid thing that had ever been seen in the district, and I was very ashamed that I didn’t have any money to give him. It wasn’t like that when I was married to Master Kendall, I’ll tell you. He was never stingy with artists and intellectuals. But I had an idea.

“If you’ll carry a letter for me to Father Bartholomew at the cathedral, for him to send with a captain to Normandy for me, he’ll reward you on my behalf. He’s my husband’s father’s second cousin, once removed, and he thinks well of my husband.”

“Which husband, the ghost?” responded the painter wryly.

“No, my real husband, who is alive with the Duke’s army in France,” I said somewhat impatiently, for I’d been feeling rather cross and tired lately.

“Oh, I see,” said the painter, and he looked at me and through me, with those curious gray eyes, as if, somehow, everything were explained.

So I sat down and wrote, with Father Simeon at my side, a letter that I sealed with wax three times, even though I was careful not to put anything too embarrassing to be revealed in it.

Dear God, I love him, I thought. Just let him know that, at least, no matter what. I am too weary with waiting and wanting him to ask for anything more.

The painter watched the entire process with some curiosity, and then put the sealed letter in his bosom.

That evening, watching the moon rise, I realized why I had been so tired lately. I was pregnant. It must have been the very last night he was here, I thought, for the light hadn’t begun to sink inside me yet, where I couldn’t call it up. The next morning at dawn, they found Cis in the kitchen in a pool of vomit and blood. I knew right away what it was, for I have seen it before. She’d taken a remedy to rid herself of the child, and had very nearly ridded herself of her life as well. I had her cleaned up and carried to her straw bed in the crowded little servants’ room behind the kitchen and there, before dozens of prying eyes, delivered a tiny baby no bigger than the palm of my hand. I baptized it Child-of-God with water from the cistern as it emerged, and held her hand as she lay sobbing into the long afternoon. God knows how little separates us, we women. A bit of money. Some words. A piece of paper. A man’s life.

IT WAS IN MID-AUGUST, on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, that a mounted messenger rode through the village, demanding admittance at the manor gate. He wore well-used leather and scale mail; his horse was foaming, and his face stained with the dust and sweat of the fast ride. Margaret herself saw him brought into the hall and offered drink. Between sips of ale, taken slowly to avoid cramps from the exertion, he told the assembled company that the old lord was returning home with a wound that was enfevered.

“The lance splinters remain embedded deep within it, madame, and he can neither walk nor ride. But he comes with his son, to see him married and the succession assured, before he gives up the ghost. He has done mighty deeds of chivalry; he will be remembered forever.”

“But what news of Sir Gilbert, who is with the Duke’s suite?” said Margaret anxiously. “When will he be coming home?”

“Sir Gilbert?” The man was silent a long time. Then he spoke again. “His son, Sir Hugo, is accompanying him. He’s gone mad with fever, the old man has. You’ll need to make everything ready for him here. Some say it’s the loss of his other son that’s done it. He’s lost the will to live. Though why, I don’t know. He still has the one, and that his heir, which is more than many have—”

Margaret couldn’t help it; she began to scream. It was like the eerie, thin, high scream that a coney utters only at the moment of death. It echoed among the dark arches of the hall again and again, until they led her away upstairs.