The Water Devil (3 page)

Is Your Grace mathematical, then? I didn't know You were an accountant, too.

Margaret, there are days I don't know why I put up with the irritation you give me.

Because of my love, Lord. Only You know how I crave to hear his step in the hall, and the sound of his voice calling my name. I want to see him again, so tall and fine in his old green velvet gown, and hear him laugh when he discovers he's forgot a pen stuck behind his ear. It is our secret, Lord, how I feel for the warm spot in the bed where he ought to be. I want to bake and brew in double portions again, and make a face at his horrible puns, and feel him kissing the back of my neck—

“Mother, you're doing it again.”

Lord, keep my little ones safe, my fatherless girls, who need Your blessing, my dear baby, his son—

Margaret, you have, on many occasions, already made your wants abundantly clear. As Supreme Judge of All Things, I assure you that you are one of the half-dozen most talkative of My creations. Why don't you attend to Margaret's business, and leave God alone for a bit to do God's business?

But, Lord, I haven't finished praying for my relatives, and neighbors, and old Gammer Kate who sells eggs but her chickens have died, and—

Margaret, has no one yet informed you of the saying that ‘short prayer pierces heaven'?

I thought that was a priest's idea, since you, Lord, have an infinite capacity to listen—

A vast sigh, like a wind in all the trees on earth, seemed to spread through the universe.

“Mother,” Cecily's voice was urgent as she tugged at my sleeve. “You have to stop. People will see.” I opened my eyes. Sure enough, a faint pinkish-orange haze seemed to stand in the room. That meant I was seeing through it, and the glow was all around me. Oh, dear. I thought about the sadness of orphans and the tragedy of sailors who are lost at sea and the grief of heathens who will never hear the Gospels until it started to fade. One can't be too careful if one has this problem, although if the world were a better place, it would be not be considered inappropriate, especially in church. After all, aren't you supposed to talk to God in His own house? But I guess that's not how priests see it. They want to do all the talking themselves.

It is all God's fault anyway. Long ago, in a time of great terror and trouble, God appeared to me in a vision of light, strengthening my heart and giving my hands the gift of healing. Of course, being God, and having a sense of humor somewhat different than ours, He left behind this visible and highly embarrassing sign of grace, which has caused me nothing but trouble since and set me on many of my more outlandish adventures. If Master Kendall had not snatched me from the street to cure his gout, I'm sure I would be dead right now. After all, plenty of people have been burned alive for far less than glowing, and it does rouse up envy in certain circles. Luckily, no one was looking my way. The altar bell had announced the elevation of the Host, and drawn all eyes to the front of the church.

It was as we made our way out to the light of the crowded lane by the church that a man still in spurs, his coarse, heavy face topped by a jeweled beaver hat, jostled up against me, then bowed extravagantly. I nodded, my face cold as ice, and passed by him in a hurry. Where do they come from in war time, these profiteers who think a woman whose husband is abroad must always be seeking nocturnal entertainment? I heard his companion say.

“No luck yet, eh?”

“The ones who pretend to be cold are always hottest, once they're bedded.”

“I'd rather have one of the little ones. The Kendall heiresses. I hear they're worth a tidy sum—” But the voices were lost in the crowd. Filthy things. They'd not be beyond a dowry kidnapping. I'll have to make sure myself that the shutters are bolted at night, Mother Sarah can be so forgetful. It's high time Cecily and Alison had their own companion, not just a nursemaid who's getting old and frail. Someone who will keep them from flying away with every idea that flits through their heads. If I could place them in the Duchess's household—but their father, Master Kendall, was not a lord, and they might not be well treated—

“Mother, I heard that man,” Cecily's sharp little voice interrupted my thoughts.

“I did, too. Not just Cecily,” said Alison. “And he left off the important part. He said we were rich, but he forgot to say I'm pretty.”

“And vain!” hissed Cecily. “I won't have you married against your will,” I answered. “I'm never going to marry at all,” announced Cecily. “Then when you're a dragon,
I'll
marry Damien when he comes home rich from the war with step-grandfather.'

“You will
not
,” said Cecily, giving her sister a sharp jab in the ribs with her bony elbow.

“Girls, girls. Quiet. No, Alison, you can't pinch Cecily back again. Everyone is looking at you.”With some effort, our little parade was set in motion again, with Mother Sarah between the two girls, who still bounced with indignation, and Peregrine, now seated on the steward's shoulders, pointing at the mules and passersby with a pudgy finger.

“Look, Perkyn, there's a spotty one. I want it. I will have a blue spotty one and a green spotty one, too.”

“Roans don't come in blue and green,” said the old man, his voice serious.

“Mine will. I will have extras for Cec'y and Alison, but only mine will fly.”

“That will be a sight to see,” said Perkyn.

At the corner of Thames Street we were halted by the vast household of Sir Robert Haverell, the vintner, coming down St. Mary Hill Lane. Down every lane and alley, people leaving the churches that dotted the City clustered and strolled in their Sunday best. Merchants in the colorful livery of their guilds, their wives in gold chains and fine linen headdresses, strolled surrounded by their servants and children. Carriers and porters in decent brushed russet mingled with Billingsgate fishwives, their coarse gray gowns covered with brightly dyed and embroidered Sunday surcoats. There were even here and there a few knights with their spurred heels, surcoats gleaming with embroidery, although they were those who were too old or lame to have gone abroad on the latest campaign. Bells were calling across the City, from tower to tower, from St. Martin-le- Grand to St. Mary's, St. Margaret's, St. James-in-the-Wall, St. Dunstan's. Deep beneath the clangor you could hear the resonanting sound of the great bell at St. Paul's Cathedral. Pausing there at the corner, Sir Robert gave me a formal nod, but his wife spoke.

“Why, good morning, Dame Margaret. Have you word from Sir Gilbert? We have prayed for his good fortune abroad. His patron's glory brings honor to our parish.”Ah, yes, I thought, and substantial wine orders. God of commerce, bless you for my false friends. They are better than none at all.

“Papa's coming home soon,” announced Peregrine.

“Why, how big his dear little boy has grown. Why, it seems only yesterday you brought him home from abroad with Sir Gilbert. My, you are a big boy.”

“Yes, I'm big now. I'm going to have a horse. Grandfather says so.” “And his own horse, too. Why, someday, he'll be a great lord.” I could feel Cecily and Alison sizzle behind me.

“Now, my dear, if you're having another grand feast like the one you had when Sir Gilbert returned for France, you must remember
us. I'll have my husband reserve the very best—but we do need to know as much ahead as possible! My, that was memorable! People still talk about it, you know. The poetry—how
original
! And your noble father-in-law and his distinguished guests—such an honor! Can we look forward to another visit from them soon?”

“Doubtless,” I answered, beginning to feel sour. Unannounced visits are his style, I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue. That dreadful old man thinks my house is his personal town home. He turns everything upside down, eats everything that isn't locked up, terrorizes the children and servants with his shouting, and tries to seduce the housemaids. The only virtue of this campaign is that he is out of the country, along with my husband's irritating older brother Hugo. Would that they would take hold of some Frenchman's castle abroad and stay there! There's no honor I wouldn't wish for them: governor of Calais, a fortress and lands in Aquitaine—just far from here, Lord! And let them take my sister-in-law, that snobbish Dame Petronilla, with them! At least she's mewed up out there at Brokesford until they return—

“Wife,” said Sir Robert, nodding agreeably, but not too intimately, at me, “we must be going. Duty, you must understand, Dame Margaret. My burdens draw us from your agreeable company. But do remember us to Sir Gilbert, and tell him our prayers have been with him and all the other heroes of our King's glorious enterprise.”With his wife and vast household, he swept off toward his vast stone-and-timber house that stood not unlike our own parish castle near Sommer's Key. Goodness, I thought, his household seems bigger every time I see it. War or peace, the vintners always prosper.

THE NEXT DAY A LETTER
, dirty, much traveled, and covered with seals, arrived by common carrier.

“What are you looking at, Mother?” asked Cecily, as Alison danced around demanding that the letter be opened at once, and Peregrine scrubbed across the floor of the solar pushing the lid of an old jug that he was imagining as a horse and rider.

“The seals—they're all melted underneath, as if they'd been pried off and fastened back.”

“Papa letter,” said Peregrine, not looking up.

“Well, I suppose someone must always read letters from abroad,” I said, inspecting the address: To my right trusty and heartily beloved wife, Margaret de Vilers, abiding on Thames Street in London, be this letter delivered in haste.

“What's in it, mama, what's in it, in it, in it?” chanted Alison. “Hmm. I can't really say. It starts out plain, and then I can't make head nor tail of it. It starts out with ‘right trusty and well beloved wife, I recommend me to you and pray this letter finds you and the children well.'Then there's things about the estate at Whithill which I already know well enough, and then he says because of the king's many triumphs he will be occupied in France for a very long time, and then he says he had the good fortune to meet a very learned man outside of Paris—goodness, he doesn't even say where, does that mean something?—and learned of a method for dying and converting plain, coarse hempen cloth into cloth of gold that will interest that wise adviser and companion of his youth, Brother Malachi, and I must take it to him at once and recommend him to that holy man and not be troubled in my mind for he has great hope of God's grace. That's the part I don't understand. It's all Latin mixed with alchemical things. Goodness, when has Gregory ever called Malachi a holy man? They've known each other far too long for that. And now he writes as if Malachi were a stranger, possibly even a hermit far gone in sanctitude. Holy! Why, it's hardly the same Brother Malachi at all! I think he knew the letter would be read.”

“I want to go, I WANT to go, take ME!” shouted Alison. But I had already called for Mother Sarah to watch Peregrine.

“Mother, please, please let me come too. I have something important I need to ask Brother Malachi,” said Cecily. I was puzzled by the serious look on her face. Usually the girls only want to see Mother Hilde, my dearest friend who lives with Malachi and calls herself his housekeeper these days. That's because Mother Hilde bakes the best honey-seed cakes in all of London, and has the greatest store of
fairy-tales of any woman I've ever known. What on earth could Cecily want to ask an alchemist?

“You can go only if you hurry and get ready decently. And you, Alison, only if you behave.”

“So there, Cecily, I'm going to Mother Hilde's, too!” exulted Alison as we hurried from the house.

O
UTSIDE THE WALLS OF PARIS, THE King's great army had been encamped for many days. The Bishop of Reims had sealed up the Sainte Ampoule and ordered the city gates closed, a detour through Burgundy had brought the king a bribe of two hundred thousand gold moutons to go away, and now the capture and sack of Paris, which might have cheered everyone up, seemed to be an increasingly remote possibility. For one thing, the French had finished the city wall since the king of England's previous visit; it now encircled all of Paris, high, gray, forbidding. For another, the Dauphin, a useless caitiff, seemed determined to hold onto the throne that would have added such luster to the name of Edward the Third.

The only virtue of this siege, thought Gilbert de Vilers, is that nothing happens, so I can catch up on my writing. Above the walls, through the open flap of his little canvas pavilion, he could make out the old familiar landmarks of his student days; the squat towers of the Bastille, the rows of flat, crenellated towers of Les Tournelles. Farther away stood the peaked, slate roofed towers of the Louvre and Saint-Pol, and towering above all else, the square towers and massive nave of the mighty cathedral of Notre Dame. What a strange, strange thing, he mused, to be on the outside, a “Sir” on his name and his armor hanging beside him on a pole in this cramped tent, instead of wandering inside, lord of the taverns of the left bank, picking quarrels and singing bawdy songs in merry company. They said they were eating cats and rats inside the walls. He knew they'd never give up. Gilbert sighed. Everybody asked his advice, and
nobody took it. The only positive thing of the entire campaign was a handy side-fee he'd tucked away for assisting the negotiations with the Burgundians. A piece of luck that, from his previous travels, he'd known the Abbot of St. Michel Archange.

The light was fading as Gilbert wrote,

Actually, said Gilbert to himself as he wrote, if I'd been the Dauphin, I wouldn't have come out either. If they lost both King and Dauphin, they wouldn't have a chance. And if they've got even a single spy, they know we're as badly off as they are. We've burned down everything for twenty miles, and what we didn't burn, they did before they retreated into the city. There's no food, there's no fodder, the cart horses are dying and the men are grumbling. We can't last.