The Unfortunate Son (14 page)

Blanche held the lavender to her nose and inhaled. She looked up at Beatrice.

“There was nothing I could do but pray no one would notice. I carried him to the family chapel. It’s beautiful there. One window is filled with colored glass. A noblewoman held out her jewel-covered hands, and I gave her the baby.”

Blanche rubbed her eyes. “I watched from the back. The baby was placed on a pillow, between two ladies—I don’t know who they were—his godmothers? They began to unwrap him, but mostly they admired the gold cloth. They hardly looked at the child.
Maybe he won’t be so unlucky after all
, I remember thinking.

“The old priest traced a cross on the baby’s forehead. A younger priest was about to dip him in the water, but he stopped. He whispered to the old priest. The old priest shook his head. The young priest said something else. Muguet stepped forward. He was furious. The young priest held up
the child. The count looked at his son for a moment, and then he slapped the young priest hard. I can still hear that hand on the priest’s face. The monster. The young priest fell to the ground, holding the baby. The count was that strong.”

Remembering her father’s death, the awful sound of his skull cracking, Beatrice’s eyes filled. She swallowed and wiped her tears. Blanche looked at the girl and continued.

“The count stormed out. The young priest left the infant on the floor, and everyone fled the chapel. All except me and the old priest. The baby was wailing, and the priest kept asking me for the child’s name. What did I know? No one had told me what he was to be called. I remember the priest threw up his hands. ‘This infant must have a name,’ he said. Then he asked me for my father’s name.”

Blanche sighed. “My father’s name was Luc.”

Mattie put her arm around the woman. “There, there. You don’t need to tell more of the story.”

“No. You need to understand about Luc. He wasn’t my son, but I loved him.”

“Your husband doesn’t,” said Beatrice.

“Hush, girl,” said Mattie sharply.

Blanche continued, “Poor Pascal. He was a good man. When the countess was heavy with child, and I was chosen out of all the young mothers in the count’s great household, everyone was surprised. Such an honor! Me? Wet nurse to the count’s baby? My husband and I were nothing. Pascal
cleaned the count’s horse stalls. We were so poor, but we had a baby boy who had grown faster and stronger than any baby in memory. And after I was picked?” Blanche smiled. “Oh, the almonds, hams, and honey—such wonders began to arrive from the count. Pascal was sure they’d make him a groom. All he ever wanted to do was work with horses. If only Luc had been born with two ears.” Blanche shook her head.

“What happened to Luc’s mother?” asked Beatrice.

Blanche shrugged. “There is an ugly history there. I didn’t return to her chamber; after the baptism, I took Luc straight to the nursery. I never saw her again, but it was an easy birth.”

Mattie said, “She was young and strong. I was surprised to hear that neither she nor the baby survived. Of course, by then, I was with my Beatrice in Sir Étienne’s house. I wasn’t hearing much of the castle.”

Blanche untied her cap and then retied it. She smoothed her dress and looked at Mattie. “The baby and the countess survived the birth. What the countess didn’t survive was her husband’s temper. Count de Muguet was furious, crazed even. Pascal heard he killed his wife and the midwife.”

“All this because the child was missing an ear?” said Mattie. “May Muguet rot in hell.” She spit on the ground.

“What happened to
your
baby?” Beatrice asked softly, kneeling in front of Blanche.

Blanche covered her face with her apron. Then Beatrice reached up and wrapped her arms around Blanche’s neck, and she and Blanche wept together. Blanche pulled Beatrice to the seat beside her and took her hand before speaking.

“The next day, two soldiers came to the nursery for me and Luc. One was Sir Guy. He led us outside the castle wall. My husband was there. His eyes were red, and he was alone. No one said anything. We got into a mule cart with Luc. Then the guards mounted, and Sir Guy rode in front and the other followed.” Blanche dropped Beatrice’s hand and smoothed her apron. She continued.

“The only thing Pascal said? ‘He is gone.’ Over and over. I knew he meant our son. Later I learned how. Sir Guy came to our home for Pascal and my baby and took them to the count. Pascal was so proud of our little son. He couldn’t help bragging; he had no idea why he was there. He thought the count was going to reward him, but the count began to laugh and said, ‘This peasant thinks he has a perfect child. Take the boy’s ear.’ He ordered the other soldier, not Sir Guy, to cut off my son’s ear. So much blood.” Blanche shook her head. “Our baby didn’t live through the night.”

Blanche pointed to the house and swept her arm all around. “This was the price he paid us for our son and for our silence. Land. As though I would trade my child for the
moon, let alone a piece of land. But here it is, a fine stone house with a grove of olive trees, and it is ours, for always and for our children.”

“And so you took Luc,” said Mattie.

Blanche shrugged. “We were told to take him.”

“Then that was the count’s plan. He made Luc your son,” said Beatrice. “With the theft of an ear.”

IT WAS AFTERNOON, just after the the muezzin’s midday cry. Luc had grown accustomed to hearing these calls to prayer, sung out from every mosque in the city, five times throughout each day. The heart of the summer’s heat had finally broken, and the late September days started warm but cooled once the sun set. Salah sat at his desk, where he had been reading. Luc rubbed a lemon-soaked cloth on the silver pitcher Salah always used when he treated patients. Salah knew from practice and observation that there were fewer infections when silver, rather than a base metal, was used for medical tools and vessels. The precious pitcher’s polished surface gleamed under Luc’s cloth. When he saw the shine, Salah nodded.

“This is the third season you have lived here, Luc.”

“Yes, master.”

“You understand every word of our language now, don’t you?”

“
Almost
every word, master.”

Luc reached for Salah’s tools. The blades of some of the scalpels were obsidian, a black, hard stone that could be honed to the sharpest point. The rest were silver: tweezers and tongs, picks and needles; Luc began to polish each one. Salah watched the boy.

“The unguent for skin disease?” asked the old man.

Luc looked up and said, “Olive oil and garlic. I made the paste this morning.”

“What would I ask you to hand me for a patient who complained of flatulence?”

Luc looked up from polishing for a moment with a half smile. “Peppermint and dill seed. I shall try that on Pons when I return home.”

“Home?” Salah frowned. He leaned back and twirled his beard with his long fingers. “You are more than I hoped for, Luc. You work hard, and in a short time, a remarkably short time, you have learned so much beyond the language,” he said, pointing to the jars of dried herbs and powdered potions. “You have a fine mind and as strong a character as any lad I have ever known. You are made of iron, I think. But are you flexible?”

“I am a slave,” answered the boy. “What does it matter?”

“Metal that will not bend is metal that cracks.”

Luc shrugged. “I do know that I am fortunate to have you as my master.”

“
But
you are my slave?”

Luc met Salah’s eyes and said nothing. He put down the polishing rag and rolled the tools in a clean cloth before replacing them in the leather-covered box on Salah’s desk.

Salah clasped his hands and rested them across his chest. “A tree is best measured when it is down, Luc,” he said, raising one eyebrow. “Do you ever speak a word to Bes?”

Luc studied his master’s face, searching for anger.

The old man continued. “Not a single word. I am right, am I not?”

The boy sucked in his cheeks and nodded.

“A traveler to distant places should make no enemies.”

“I am not a traveler. I was taken.”

Luc swallowed hard against the lump in his throat, fighting the bitterness that threatened to undermine the amity that he had recently felt from Salah.

“The remedy against bad times is to have patience. I have traveled to many places, Luc. I have spent much of my life, perhaps too much, as a stranger, living alone among foreigners, often among infidels. I even lived among your unwashed people. You are unlike them. You are unlike anyone I ever met. I am surprised by you.”

“I was born different,” said Luc, reaching his hand to his ear.

The old man smiled. “Yes, but that is just the obvious difference. You are different in many ways.”

Luc put his shoulders back and stood up straight. “I don’t understand what you mean, master.”

“No?” asked Salah, raising his brows. “Your hearing is excellent.”

The boy nodded. “Good enough.”

“Yes, and you see things at a great distance, before others.”

Luc nodded.

“Up close, you can discern the smallest of things?”

“Yes.”

Salah held out his fist, palm up, and opened his hand for a single moment before snapping it shut.

“What is in my hand, Luc?”

“Coins.”

“How many?”

“Four.”

“Silver?” asked Salah.

“Three silver, one gold.”

“Anything else?”

“A small stone carving,” answered Luc.

“A carving of what?”

“A flower.”

“What kind of flower?”

Luc shook his head. “I do not know.”

“You saw the flower, but you do not know the name of the flower?”

“Yes, I do not know the name.” Then Luc added, “But …”

“But?”

“The flower has three outer petals.”

“And?” asked Salah, leaning forward toward the boy.

“And three inner petals.”

Salah leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Your vision is remarkable.”

“I have always seen things as I see them.”

“I suspect that all your senses are exceptional. These are gifts, Luc. Gifts to be thankful for.”

The boy bowed his head.

“You accept things, but do you appreciate them?”

Luc met the old man’s eyes. He said nothing.

“You are like a distant shore, Luc. We both have much to discover about you. I do know that you have sure and steady hands. I have watched you in the kitchen with a knife. With your dexterity and your extraordinary eyes, you could be of use to me in surgery. Are you willing to learn?”

The boy hesitated. “How will Bes take this?”

“A curious response,” said Salah. “Bes has an envious nature. He has envied you from the beginning.”

“Me?”

“Of course—you are a tall, handsome lad.”

“But I’m a freak.”

“What is Bes?”

Luc did not reply.

“Never mind. It will not be easy. Not for any of us,” answered the old man. “But understanding develops by degrees. I shall take care of Bes.”

“As you wish,” said Luc.

“An old man who has no children has nothing more than wishes.”

“A slave does not even have wishes.”

Salah frowned. “Listen to me, Luc. I am not offering you freedom. I am offering you knowledge. Unlike freedom, knowledge can never be taken away. If you work hard, you will have valuable skills. You will have a better future than fishing.”

“I was happy fishing.”

“Bloom where you are planted. Do not bore me with your past life. I offer you a wider world. Are you too stubborn to understand that? Perhaps you are too willful to be anything more than what you are.”

Luc stood silently, head down, staring at the floor.

“One day your life will pass in front of your eyes. Make it worthy to look at,” said Salah.

MOUETTE BUSTLED WITH harvest-fair preparations. Lemons, figs, and plums had been stewed in honey, candied, and preserved in sealed crocks for the lean winter season. Large wheels of cow’s-milk cheese and small rounds of goat and sheep cheeses from upland herds were stacked alongside sacks of chestnuts and walnuts. Farmers carried baskets of cabbages, carrots, and cauliflowers. Tinkers arrived with packs of pins and pots and ribbons. The itinerant cobbler set up his stall. Everything would be sold for coins or bartered for salted fish. Mattie had worked for weeks carving more than a dozen pairs of wooden shoes that people would fight to buy from her. Soon she would set out for the fair with Beatrice, but first, she had other concerns.

“Come here, Beatrice. I won’t have your hair looking like a sea monster.”

“Turn me into a mermaid,” said Beatrice, straddling the bench by the front door. Mattie sat behind her, and combed the girl’s long hair. The chickens clucked about the yard, scratching in the dirt for insects. The swineherd had taken the pig for fattening on beechnuts and acorns in the hills above the village. Cadeau rested his head on the bench in front of Beatrice, and she patted him while Mattie worked the wooden comb.

“You are my mermaid,” said the old woman, holding the comb between her teeth as she picked at a knot with her fingers.

“Can a mermaid make wishes come true?” asked Beatrice.

“I don’t know.” Mattie laughed, and took up the comb. “But if I
had
a wish, do you know what I’d wish for?”

Beatrice nodded. “I do.”

“What would that be, my lady?”

“You’d wish for a husband for me. A lord, no doubt, who’d whisk me away on his fine steed to live in a hilltop castle.” Beatrice held out her hand, trying to catch a twirling yellow leaf as it floated from the overhead branch.

“Sounds like a fine wish to me,” said Mattie.

“But not to me,” sighed Beatrice, dropping her hand to her lap. “What would I do all day? Sew? I prefer this life, here with you and Pons.”

“So you don’t have anything you would wish for?” asked Mattie.

“I have one wish,” said the girl. “To bring Luc home.”

Mattie stopped combing and patted the girl’s shoulder.

“We all want him back. But you can’t make wishes come true, and there’s nothing we can do for him.”