A Lady Under Siege (13 page)

“They do have wings, you’re right.” Betsy slowed her trampoline act so she could examine her pyjamas, which were covered with supercute My-Little-Pony-style cartoon unicorns, with manes like the hairdos of homecoming queens. “A Pegasus is a horse with wings.”

“Those are Pegacorns,” Derek proclaimed. “Those are some clever marketer’s idea of what six year old girls want to cuddle up with.”

“I’m not six, I’m ten,” Betsy protested.

“Doesn’t matter. You were hooked at six. Or three. Now they’ve got you for life. At ninety-three you’ll be dusting your little glass menagerie of crystal unicorns and porcelain Pegasuses, or would that be Pegasi? My own dear mother treasures a shelf of little glass birdies in her nursing home, I swear on a stack of Bibles. They’re her best friends, I’d say.”

Betsy finally noticed her own mother, standing on the deck. “Mom,” she called. “Derek says unicorns are a crock.”

“Don’t lie,” Derek scolded her. “It’s most unbecoming in a child. I said no such thing.”

“You did!”

“I never used the word crock. They’re mythical beasts, myths are never a crock. They’re beyond that, like Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.”

Meghan came down into the garden. “Time you got out of those unicorns anyway,” she said. “Go get dressed. And then, my dear, I think it’s practice time on the piano.”

“Really? You haven’t made me practice it in weeks.”

“Exactly.”

Betsy attempted a cartwheel on the grass. Her form was excellent, a perfect whirling swirl of a circle that brought her to a standing stop in front of her mother. She beamed up at her. “I’m getting good,” she squealed happily.

“Practice makes perfect,” said Meghan. “Same for the piano.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” Betsy said, holding up her bandaged finger.

“If you can do cartwheels on that hand, you can play a piano. Anyway, your pjs will get all grass-stained if you’re not careful,” Meghan said. “Go get changed.”

“In a bit.”

“Betsy, I need to talk to Derek. Alone.”

Derek set his hammer down. “Sounds ominous,” he said.

“Is it about me?” Betsy asked.

“No.”

“If it’s about me, I have a right to listen,” she insisted.

“It’s not about you.”

“Is it about your dreams?”

“Possibly.”

“Mommy has strange dreams,” Betsy said to Derek.

“So you mentioned,” he answered. “She’s lucky to remember them. I never do. Or maybe I’m the lucky one, I guess it depends on the dreams.”

“Hers are really strange—”

“Betsy,” her mother cut her short. “Go inside, get dressed, and I want to hear that piano for a good half hour before I see your face out here again.”

“You don’t have to yell,” said Betsy.

“I wasn’t yelling.”

“It’s most unbecoming in a mother.” She smiled at Derek, expecting him to appreciate what she thought was a splendidly clever echo of a phrase he’d just used himself, but he was looking down around his feet for a can of beer he’d set there. He picked it up and drained the last remaining dribble. “Just let me grab another, be right back.” That left Betsy alone under her mother’s withering glare. She slunk into the house.

“
A
REN’T PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO
wait until noon for that?” Meghan asked when Derek returned.

“Maybe. But then I’d have to keep track of the time.” He took a swig from the can and said, “Working in the sun like this gives a man a thirst.”

Meghan said, “I’m not sure how to broach this. You’re going to think I’m strange.”

“Normal is strange to me,” he replied.

“This is not normal. Betsy’s right. I do have very odd dreams these days. It’s really one dream that continues every night, and related to it, I need to say something to you.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Have you ever heard of anyone named Thomas of Gastoncoe?”

Derek shook his head no. From inside the house the first notes of the piano could be heard. Betsy was playing a childlike, somehow compelling version of Good King Wenceslas.

“Well, Thomas is someone who looks just like you,” Meghan continued. “And I have reason to believe he might be in your head, listening to me now, so I’d like to speak directly to him, if I may.”

Derek looked amused. “Fire away.”

Meghan clasped her hands together at her waist, like a child composing herself to sing in front of strangers. “Thomas,” she began. “In my dreams last night I heard what you said to Sylvanne. I was there, in her mind. If there is anything I can do to help you, to cure your daughter’s illness, to bring her back to health, I will do it. I’ll start by advising you to give her lots of fruits and vegetables. Oranges, if you can get them. Or lemons or limes. Vitamin C, but you don’t know what that is. It can’t hurt. Try chicken soup. Go to Sylvanne, and tell her what Daphne’s been eating, and what medicines her doctor has been giving her. Tell her, make her listen, and I will hear it.”

She studied Derek’s face. He looked back at her neutrally.

“And one more thing,” she continued. “I know Lady Sylvanne has already tried to attack you with a sword, so your guard is up. Keep it that way, don’t ever drop it, because she wants your head. She means to kill you. Her husband planted the seed on his deathbed, he told her to learn the story of Judith and Holofernes, from the Bible—if you don’t know how it ends, well, Judith got into his bed and cut off his head.”

Meghan took a deep breath and exhaled. It felt very good to get that off her chest, regardless of what Derek might think of her. “There. That’s it, I’m done,” she said.

Derek looked around for his hammer. “All right then,” he declared. “This fence will be finished in just a bit.”

Meghan watched him pick a slat up from the ground and pull a nail from it with the hammer’s claw. “Thank you for taking this so well,” she said.

“How do you know how I’m taking it?” he asked. “All you’re seeing is the surface politeness.”

“And what’s underneath?”

“Loads of things. Bemusement. It’s kind of cute. Then bewilderment. What the fuck is she talking about? But mostly it’s a pleasant surprise—it’s nice, it makes you more interesting. You’re more complicated than I thought.”

“Now you’re smirking.”

“Am I? It’s hard not to.”

From inside the house they could hear Betsy’s rendition of Good King Wenceslas collapse into childish random bashing of the keys.

“I better go keep her on course,” Meghan said. Derek nodded and turned back to his work.

18

T
homas had for many nights been in the habit of staying up late at Daphne’s bedside, propping himself up with pillows on a divan, watching his daughter by candlelight. Some nights he called for the night nurse and returned to his own bedroom to sleep; on others the soft pillows and dim flickering light caused his eyes to droop and shut, and in the morning he would awake to a cold room, sore-necked and fully clothed. This night was something new—when he awoke the candle was still lit, and the night nurse stood over him with a look of concern on her face.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I thought you called me, Sire.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You were talking quite strenuously,” she suggested.

“Was I? Yes, likely I was.”

He remembered now, and remembering, he sprang to his feet in excitement, colliding with the hapless nurse in his zeal. He caught her by her arms before she fell, righted her, then hurried to the bed and his sleeping daughter. He leaned in close and whispered eagerly, “She hears me, Daphne. The woman of my dreams hears me.”

To the nurse he barked, “Go and see that Lady Sylvanne is roused and brought to me—No, on second thought, I’ll pay her a visit. I must speak to her at once.”

“Then should I—” the night nurse began, but he had already hurried past her out the door.

T
HE GUARDSMAN ON DUTY
outside Sylvanne’s room had fallen asleep, a young soldier hardly more than a boy propped up against the stone wall, resting his cheek on the pole of his halberd. When Thomas snatched it from him and brought the bayonet-like tip to his chin, the poor lad nearly died of fright. “Forgive me, m’Lord,” he pled.

Thomas tested the blade of the oversized axe and proclaimed, “I should behead you here and now.”

“As you wish Sire, as you wish,” the young man sputtered.

“I wish you would stay awake,” Thomas scolded him. “Now find the key and let me in. If you’re unlucky I’ll remember this later, but for now I’m intent on a greater purpose. Hand me that candle.”

The soldier did as told. Thomas entered a small anteroom, where he could make out the maid Mabel lying on a small cot against the wall. Fussing in her sleep, she turned and rolled away from the candle’s light. The door to Sylvanne’s room was open a crack. Thomas pushed it wide and entered. She lay upon a large bed in the center of the room. He moved quickly to her bedside, and called her name softly.

Sylvanne heard a voice, and felt herself shaken awake. She opened her eyes and saw Thomas standing over her bed, whispering, “M’Lady, m’Lady.”

She recoiled from him in fright. As she gained her senses her fear turned to fury.

“You’ll not have me,” she whispered. Finding her voice, she shouted for Mabel.

“Have you? You misjudge me,” Thomas chided her. He announced eagerly, “I bring wonderful news—the woman of the future, the one of whom I spoke, who looks your twin, who lives in my dreams—she also lives in dreams, or so it seems. She told me she is inside you, she has seen me, and it’s my hope that she is watching me now, and hears me as I speak.”

“How dare you come to me in the night like this,” Sylvanne hissed. “Have you not compromised me enough? Get out!”

“Madame, Madame. I know now what you are about. You have no more secrets from me. This Meghan—from her vantage point inside your mind, she sees all, and can tell me what goes on there. Judith and Holofernes! You see! I know all about it. She is the one who told me—how else could I know?”

“Mabel!” Sylvanne screamed. From the other room came the sound of Mabel grunting as she woke. She came running quickly, quite disoriented, and made more so by the sight of Lord Thomas in her Lady’s chamber. Sylvanne fixed her with an accusing glare. “What lies have you been telling this man?”

“Nothing, ma’am. I’ve spent no time with him at all.”

“M’Lady, whether you believe me or not has no further relevance,” Thomas interjected. “I speak to another, one whose soul has migrated the centuries and lodges now in your mind. She is unfelt by you, that much is apparent. Yet she sees me, and hears me, and when I communicate with her you become a mere vessel of transmission. When the sun rises in a few hours I intend to bring you to Daphne’s bedside, where you will listen to my physician describe his remedy. Through you that other entity, the woman Meghan, whom I pray may be my daughter’s saviour, will be informed. Even though you don’t intend it, you do me a great service, and I am grateful.”

He spoke with such enthusiasm that Sylvanne almost believed him for a moment. She put a hand to her chest as if seeking her heart’s pulse. “I don’t feel her,” she said.

Thomas answered without hesitation, “I’m certain she is there. I do not merely believe it, I know it, absolutely.”

A
FEW HOURS LATER,
with the arrival of daylight, the three of them gathered at Daphne’s bedside—Thomas, Sylvanne, and the Physician, a portly, ruddy-cheeked man of middle age named Blunt, who had laid out his tools upon the bed beside the girl, spreading them atop the same swath of coarse hemp cloth in which he normally kept them wrapped. He took hold of Daphne’s forearm and removed a filthy bandage. On her white flesh, just below her elbow, a pus-filled, swollen wound gaped grotesquely. Thomas and Sylvanne watched as he took up a rust-flecked scalpel that looked more suited to woodworking, and gently scratched it across the wound. Pus gushed out and soaked into a dirty rag he had placed under her arm.

“And so you see, this is how I’ve been attending to her of a morning, for some weeks now,” he pronounced. “Of the four humours, she withholds too much yellow bile—this is how we encourage it to the surface so as to drain it off. As you can see, the blood itself is corrupted.” With the scalpel he made a small incision near the wound. Blood began to trickle down her arm into the rag, soaking it crimson red. “It’s absolutely vital to allow some blood to escape, in order that poison burble out with it. The poison concentrates around the wound.”

Thomas turned to Sylvanne, and said gravely, “Do you see what is being done? Give it full attention.” To the Physician he said, “An authority I trust has opined that fresh vegetables and fruits, oranges in particular, might be beneficial.”

“Oranges?” the Physician scoffed. “Worst possible thing. Too acidic. And besides, where would you get them?”

“I’ve already sent someone to the south,” Thomas said. “I’m hoping that he might with luck find a trading ship arrived from Spain.”

“I’ve thirty years experience. Never heard of oranges causing anything but cankers in the mouth. Do you wish to give her those?”

“There’s plenty you don’t know,” Thomas replied.