Keturah and Lord Death (3 page)

“I told him a story and then refused to tell the end. Let me live one day, I said, and I will tell you the end of the story on the morrow. ‘Tis a story of love, a love that is greater than death, I told him, and I revealed that I myself would have such a love. He told me that if I could find a love like that before I returned to tell the end of the tale, he would free me of the bond.”

I could not bear the hopeless look in Beatrice’s eyes, nor the grim one in Gretta’s.

Gretta stood tall and put her hands on her hips and looked out over the village. “Now, I wouldn’t marry a single one of them,” she said. “There’s not a perfect one among them. But... Tailor comes very close.”

“Tailor? Not at all, Gretta. He would be perfect for you,” I said.

Gretta looked at me with a shrewd eye, and back to the bustling village. “When I find a man who will let me increase him in perfections, I will marry,” she said. “And Tailor seems not to be a man who will be bossed. He must be perfect for you instead.”

“No, Gretta, no. Tailor I could never love. Besides, everyone knows your stitches are the only ones Tailor could bear to look at all his life.”

“He has never seen my stitches. He mourns his wife still too greatly to notice such things. No, I have decided, Keturah. I shall never marry. You shall marry Tailor, and I shall be the best spinster and needlewoman in the village, and I shall live to keep my figure and my heart, and I shall grow old and never live to regret unruly children.”

“There is Choirmaster,” Beatrice said.

“Choirmaster! For Keturah?” Gretta exclaimed. “But I thought
you
liked—” She stopped; then, looking meaningfully at Beatrice, she said, “Ah, yes, Choirmaster—a most eligible bachelor.”

“He is intelligent,” Beatrice said.

“But gloomy,” Gretta replied.

“We could cheer him up,” Beatrice said bravely. “He is a devout man.”

Gretta answered, “But what about his nostrils?”

“Keturah shall have to try not to look up them.”

“But that is impossible!”

“Shush, Gretta,” Beatrice said, smiling. “He is an elegant man. And if one can’t help but look up his nostrils, at least he keeps his nostrils clean. I’ve noticed he has a fresh handkerchief every day.”

“You know I have always thought well of Ben Marshall,” I said slowly.

“Ben Marshall is not bonny enough for you, Keturah,” Gretta said.

“You say that about every lad,” Beatrice said with a sigh. “Of course he’s a handsome lad, Keturah, and well off, too. But there is the tradition—he must marry a Best Cook.”

Gretta leaned across the table on her elbows. “He will never love a wife as dearly as he loves his pumpkins and his squashes,” she said.

Beatrice said encouragingly, “He is a frugal man, I think.”

“Aye, another strike against him,” Gretta said, thumping the table and straightening up.

Beatrice frowned at Gretta and then smoothed her frown into forgiveness. Beatrice generously forgave Gretta many times a day.

“Padmoh wants him,” Gretta added. “And while she is better suited to him, she is a scold and would make his life a torment.”

Padmoh Smith was likely the best cook in the village. She ate eggs every day and sported her girth as proof of it. She had already won Best Cook two years in a row, but Ben Marshall had not yet proposed. Still, Padmoh could make a loaf that would cause a hungry man to weep with desire, and a stew that would make even a fed man beg. Grandmother said that although she was as plain as a fencepost, when a man ate her pie he began to think she was beautiful.

Grandmother also said Beatrice was pretty, though not beautiful, but when she sang, men began to forget that she was not beautiful. Demonstrate talent, said Grandmother often to me, and you will still be loved by a husband when beauty has faded.

But when it had come time for me to demonstrate talent, I did not demonstrate. I could bake a pie and I could tell a story, but neither would win me a husband, Grandmother told me sadly. I might make a fair midwife in time, she said, but it would be my beauty that would get me a husband.

In my mind, any beauty I possessed had not done me good but only caused me grief. Gretta and Beatrice said the other village girls claimed that their sweethearts had been led away by me. That was nonsense. I had no interest in any of their sweethearts, and if the boys spoke to me or stood about me, I was as silent as I could be. I found that I could be very silent. Besides, what need of beauty for a poor peasant girl, living in her own wattle-and-daub with her own peasant husband and her little peasant baby?

I sighed. “A love greater than death,” I murmured, and then, just then, I did not know what that meant.

“Well, one thing is certain—we go a-manhunting,” Gretta said.

It felt good to have my friends in my confidence, though I confess not my full confidence. I could not bear to tell them what Lord Death had said about the plague.

“I won’t let Death have you,” said Gretta with great calmness, yet beneath the calmness was a vibrating anger.

I put one hand on her cheek and held Beatrice’s hand with my other. “How many die every day under that same heaven which one day cannot be swayed?”

“I will fight him,” Beatrice said tearfully—Beatrice, who escorted bugs out of her house with all gentleness. Her pretense of good cheer and bravery had vanished, and I squeezed her hand.

I shook my head. “Beatrice, this is not a man you fight. This is a man before whom you curtsey.”

“No,” she said. “I hate him.”

“Now, now,” I said softly. I kissed her hair. Why did it pain me to hear her say this? “It will not be tonight. Go home and rest.”

When I went to kiss Gretta, she drew away. “If all else fails, you must fight him, Keturah,” she said. “I shall be forever angry with you if you don’t.”

III

J
determine to solicit Soor Lily.

I slept the night away and awoke the next morning with a gasp, having thought myself there with Death in the underland of my dreaming. I looked out my window and saw that the dawn was a gray bird beaked with crimson.

My days lost in the wood had not faded in my memory. I had a remembrance of the hardness of trees and the bitter taste of leaves and the black earth that gave me no water. Plague, I thought.
Plague.

From my window I could see the forest looming dark and deep, seemingly without end. But I could also see the village, close and safe. No—not safe. My village was in terrible danger, but what could I do to save it?

It began to rain. Our poor and shabby village seemed even poorer and shabbier when it rained. It made the gray houses grayer, and the barns and sheds saggy, as if being wet was more than they could bear. The square turned to mire, the yards to muck. The color went out of the bay, and even the manor looked a great, bare mound of stone.

And yet, I thought, had there ever been so sweet and glorious a place?

“He has allowed his lands to fall to ruin,” Lord Death had said. From that one clue, I hoped, I could perhaps stave off the plague. To save myself I had already devised a plan. I would go to Soor Lily, the village wise woman, and seek a charm by which I might discover my true love. Then, by whatever wiles a decent girl might employ, I would have him wed me this very day.

I had been afraid of Soor Lily all my life, and I was not alone. Her seven enormous sons protected her from those who would drive her away. Still, many of her worst critics in their time of need had gone to her for medicines and potions, and for a price Soor Lily had helped them. Now my fears had been adjusted, too, and I would go to her.

No sooner had I done that than I would go to John Temsland and seek his help against the plague, though by what means I knew not.

The rain stopped and the sun burned away the moisture in the mud and mire. A white haze settled knee deep over the village. Two children ran laughing through it, and the cows dipped their heads in it to graze.

I lay back on my pillow to see the stone hearth, the trestle table, the benches painted with flowers and birds, the thatch ceiling above, hard as oak. In the corner was Grandmother’s chest, which stored my old cornstalk doll and linens for my someday wedding. Everything was the same, yet everything was different. Last Sabbath, the cottage in which I had been reared seemed tiresomely small and drafty. Today, it seemed the dearest cottage in Angleland. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling: wormwood, feverfew, lungwort, and marjoram. Last Sabbath I barely noticed them; today they were the sweetest scents in God’s kingdom. Strange, thought I, that only yesterday I had been about to die, and here I was today for the first time alive.

I thought of my friends Gretta and Beatrice, and remembered wistfully how, as children, we would whisper together as we imagined our true loves. Would mine be someone from the town of Marshall? Or maybe someone who had come a great distance to live in Tide-by-Rood? Even as a young girl, Gretta would say scornfully that no one of any worth would come to our ragged little village. I had agreed heartily, but Beatrice dreamed of a traveling musician who would come to take her away.

Perhaps our true loves would be found among those we knew already—but there we would pause and shake our heads. Gretta would list the qualities she would insist upon in a husband, and Beatrice and I would roll our eyes. “There is no man that perfect, except my father,” said Beatrice. “And he is taken.”

“And you, Keturah—what of you?” Gretta would ask.

“I? I will marry my own true love, and I care not who he is, how old or young, how poor, how fat or thin,” I would reply.

“Ah, Keturah, you are as beautiful as the women who populate your tales,” Beatrice would say. “You shall perhaps marry a knight or a duke.”

“Only if he is good enough for her,” Gretta would say.

“I would marry Hermit Gregor if he was my true love,” I would answer stoutly, and we would dissolve into giggles.

Though I was very young, I meant what I said, and it was as true today as it had been then.

Yes, we had all then dreamed of true love. Repenting of traveling musicians—perhaps because none came to Tide-by-Rood—Beatrice had determined to marry a man of God. She would sing in heaven’s choir, she vowed, and she embroidered crosses on all her underthings. Gretta, finding fault with the most faultless of men, declared there was no man fit to be her husband. Still, she had always admired Tailor, and in her effort to emulate him she had obtained a certain fame in Tide-by-Rood. In a day she could stitch a cap, in two days a dress. Everyone said a stitch sewn by Gretta did not loosen, and a gown stitched by her felt like heaven’s robes. Gretta was not beautiful, but she was perfect in her plainness as she was perfect in everything. Her teeth were perfectly whole and white, her hair curled perfectly around her face, and she had a perfectly trim figure. God had probably feared to make her any other way.

Grandmother awoke, but I stayed still, in my bed, pondering my faceless true love. She added kindling to the banked embers and knelt to pray.

“God, I thank thee for the trial of the lass, and pray for strength to live to see her wed. And if it be not greedy to ask, I pray she be happily wed. Thy will. Further, watch over the old parson, and tell him that Dan Fieldbottom is stealing the holy water to sprinkle his cows. Thy will. And wilt thou thicken the frumenty, that I may lay more by for the winter. Thy will. Amen.” I added my own silent amen, and my own prayer for my village, my friends, and my dear grandmother.

If my first breaths were of mourning, it was tempered by the blessing of being weaned on love. Grandfather and Grandmother Reeve raised me with all the tenderness of true parents and all the patience of grandparents. It was not just their kindness to me that I remarked, even at a young age—for I compared my own upbringing with that of others—but also their love for each other.

When Grandfather died, Lord Temsland, who was known for his frugality, gave Grandmother a small pension for the remainder of her days. I would be left alone, without protection, after she died. She wished to see me wed so she could die in peace, she said, knowing that then I would not have to hire myself out a spinster for my share of flour and pork.

We were not starving on Lord Temsland’s pension, but neither was there any danger of our ever being fat. Grandfather had died without leaving a dowry for me, but Grandmother expressed great hopes that my beauty might dazzle a man enough to take me as I was.

I had no desire to marry a man who wanted me only for my beauty, if it was true I had it, and so I had not cooperated with my grandmother’s aspirations. I covered my hair with a brown scarf, spent little attention on my dress, and refused to learn the subtle feminine arts. My stubbornness served me well. So far no one had declared any love for me. Today, I decided, I would not wear a scarf.

The wheat berries that had been soaking in the pot all night began to simmer over the small fire. Grandmother gave it a quick stir, and came to rouse me. When she bent over my bed to prod me, I clasped her round the neck, drew her to me, and kissed her hard and full upon the cheek.

She smiled at me. “Up, then, Keturah,” she said tenderly.

“Yes, Grandmother.” I leapt from my bed.

Grandmother milked and I made biscuits, though I was slow with fatigue, and so there was hot bread and butter with our porridge, and warm milk and stewed plums also.

When we had finished, Grandmother reached out and stroked my hair. “Keturah, you must have no more adventures. It is unseemly for a girl of marriageable age. Eat—come, you must have more! Surely you have a high appetite after starving for three days.”

But my appetite was satisfied, and I laid down my spoon.

“Grandmother,” I asked after a time, “who commands Death? Is anyone greater than he?”

She looked at me, puzzled, and then shook her head. “What thoughts you get, child!”

“Tell me, Grandmother. If we do not speak of him, how will I know how to greet him, or what manner of address I should give him, and what my conversation should be when he comes to me?”

She thought a moment, perhaps thinking of her daughter, her son-in-law, and her husband. “One is greater than death,” Grandmother said, “and that is life. For life will be, and work as he may, death must bow in the end to life. When death came for my daughter, life gave me you to comfort my heart. But hear me, child. People don’t like to hear death’ s name. If you are in polite company, he is not spoken of.”

“But he has touched every one of us, Grandmother,” I said. “Who does not have a loved one that he has not robbed away? We should speak of him. He is to everyone familiar.”

“Nevertheless.”

I knew that word meant that she would speak no more about it. But I was not ready to end our talk. “Grandmother,” I said shyly, “what is love?”

She looked steadily at me, as if trying to determine whether I was being impertinent. My question, however, was sincere, for though I knew what marriage was and how some loves looked and how babies came, still I did not know how love was supposed to feel.

She said, “Do you not love the babies you tend while their mothers are afield?”

“Yes,” I said, “but...”

“It is all of a one, my dear, all of a one. There’s that baby who is loved, and then one day he loves so as to make another baby. Wear our souls out in love, we do, or looking for it.”

She leaned closer to me. The color of Grandmother’s eyes was hard to tell, the sun had bleached them so, but they were quick and piercing.

“Now I will tell you a true thing, child, and if you are wise you will remember it. The soul, it longs for its mate as much as the body. Sad it is that the body be greedier than the soul. But if you would be happy all your days, as I was with your grandfather, subdue the body and marry the soul. Look for a soul-and-heart love.”

A soul-and-heart love, I thought. Yes, that was what I would have, and I was minded of my urgency to see Soor Lily for a charm.

I asked, “What chores today, Grandmother?”

“Lass, everyone who came to mourn with me did chores enough to last a week. The women cleaned and washed, Ben Marshall cared for the garden, and Tailor did all my mending and tanned a fleece. Tobias did the yard, and Gretta and Beatrice did all the carding and spinning. Take the day for your own, child,” Grandmother said, “but go not one step into the forest. I won’t lose you again.”

That command I wished with all my heart I could obey.

I had two errands—to speak to John Temsland or his father, and to visit Soor Lily. While the latter was the easier to accomplish, it was the more dreaded.

Soor Lily lived near the road to Marshall, a short way into the green gloom of the forest, with her seven great sons, each the size of two men, who loved her and obeyed her slavishly and would not leave her for a wife. Though the air was still as I entered the wood, leaves of the trees whispered and seemed to bend, as if they were a little more alive than other trees for living near Soor Lily.

When I came to her house, I saw that the door was of oak and enormous, so that her boys, I supposed, might enter in without ducking, as they must do to enter any other house of the village. Not that they were often invited.

As I stood nervously before the door, I saw two of her big boys peering from behind the outhouse, and two more in her huge and mysterious garden. I shouldn’t be here, I thought. I should speak to John Temsland first. But even as I turned to go, Soor Lily opened the door.

“Come in, Keturah,” she said, half bowing. Her manner was unsurprised, as if she had been expecting me.

“You know my name?” I asked. We had never spoken to each other before.

“Everyone is speaking of you today, and not in quiet voices. But before, I knew you for your beauty.” She spoke in a soft, watery voice. “ ‘Twas no fairies you saw in the wood, Keturah,” she said, and I felt glad that she did not believe it.

Soor Lily had been well named. Her walk was measured so that she seemed to float like an autumn lily in a pond. Her clothes she wore in layers like petals, and no one could tell if she was fat or thin. Her skin was pale and waxy, her expression unreadable.