The Water Devil (6 page)

“Everything's smoked up—let's see—” he poked off ash and blackened, crumbly stuff to reveal the metal beneath.

“Looks all ashy and black, like silver tarnish,” said Cecily, her voice sad.

“Child, must you be so blunt?” said Malachi. Frowning, he tapped the ash off his rod. “The mercury hasn't vanished the way it was supposed to; it's created some sort of compound. A—blackish, silvery—compound. I wonder if it's good for anything? Let's see, if I reversed the process before the three-headed dragon and calcinated the—”

“Smoke is everywhere. Looks like making hams id here. Whad are those bones on the string? They look like muddon bones.” Alison, ever fastidious, was holding her nose, making her voice sound as if she had a bad cold.

“Mutton indeed, they're—”

“Malachi, must you?” I asked. “They're still so innocent.”

“Saints' backbones,” announced Sim, Malachi's apprentice, in a cheerfully malicious voice. No one knew how old Sim was, including him, except that he didn't seem to grow much and his head was too big for his body. More than twelve, less than twenty, and cynical enough for three old men. “They're all nice and old looking now,” he added.

“Margaret, you must understand that there's a world of difference between innocence and gullibility,” rumbled Malachi. “Now these, girls, are my stock in trade for my summer business…”

“Saint Ursula's martyrs—hundreds of 'em—they'll fetch a pretty penny this summer when we go travelin'.” Sim's voice had a froggy sound. Was it due to change sometime? Then he
had
to be more than twelve. Let's see, would that make him about eight when Malachi found him in the street—but then he could have been ten, so if you add on…

“They look more like pig's backbones, not mutton,” said Cecily
in her sharp little voice, peering closely at the strung-up vertebrae. “Will you wrap them up fancy, like the ones in church?”

“—my stock in trade, which is, in truth, faith and hope, without which the human race could not carry on, which these—ah— artifacts—allow people to attain through contemplation—”

“You'll need the money for a new glass egg,” observed Cecily. “It's good you can make more of these whenever you like.”

“Child, more and more I begin to understand you are your father's daughter—ah, yes, old Master Kendall was a shrewd one, that he was.”

“Yes, it's better to make things the way you do to get money. Mama had to sell her ray-robe, the fancy one with the gold embroidery that I liked to try on, and the money stepfather left in the box in the chest is all gone anyway,” announced Alison.

“Alison, you stop!” I cried, my calculations of Sim's age rudely interrupted.

“Margaret, if you wish to keep household secrets, you'll need to lock these children in the wardrobe.”

“Step-grandfather already did that,” said Alison, her face smug. “I'm not surprised about that, not in the least,”said Malachi.“Margaret, I am lamentably short of ready cash in this season, but—”

“I didn't come for a loan, Brother Malachi. I came for this,” I said. Reaching into the bosom of my gown, I took out his letter, all crumpled and covered with seals, folded and refolded, and stained with its far traveling.“It's a letter from Gregory that he said to bring to you.” Malachi sat down on the tall stool before the athanor, unfolded the letter and peered at it closely.

“Wanna see my
skulls
?” Sim asked Cecily. “They're killed Frenchmen.”

“Me, too,” said Alison. “Do Frenchmen skulls look like English? Mother Sarah says they've got horns.”

“Sim, have you got a mother?” I could hear Cecily ask as the girls followed him to the chest in the corner.

“Never did,” he said. “I just
came,
that's all.”

“You're lucky,
our
mother wants us to be ladies—” but the voices faded as they dove into the trunk.

Malachi squinted at the letter. He held it several different ways, then sighed, then scratched his head in thought. “Impossible,” he muttered, “as usual, Gilbert's out of his mind.” Clearly, this would take time. I sat down on the window seat with Mother Hilde, where clean air poured through the open shutters. Birds were at work in the garden, nesting in Mother Hilde's crabapple tree, no doubt. It always was a favorite spot with them.

“You still call him Gregory?” asked Mother Hilde.“So do I, unless I remember. But Malachi knew him in their student days, so he's always called him Gilbert.”

“I try to remember not to call him Gregory when I'm in company. He really doesn't want people remembering he was ever at the abbey—there's so much gossip, you know, and now his writing has put him in favor with the Duke—but it
is
the name I first knew him under—”

“Ah well, it's worse with lords. Every time they get new lands, they're my lord something else.”

“Certainly not our problem, Mother Hilde.” With a shout, Malachi stood suddenly, his round, pink face alight. “Eureka!” he cried.

“That's Greek,” said Mother Hilde, looking pleased. “It means he's happy. Such a brilliant man, such a mind! He's even happy in other languages.”

“Margaret,” he said, rounding the big brick athanor and approaching the window seat, “this recipe is a hash. I've come to the conclusion the letter is a code. Gilbert wrote it to evade the censors.”

“Exactly my thought—but is he all right? Does he say when he'll be home?”

“I'm coming to that, I'm coming to that. The key is alchemical— that, and certain common turns of phrase based on our long acquaintance. It is a code decodable only by me.” Malachi extended the letter and pointed to the recipe. “You see here? Gold stands for
the king, and the conversion of the plain cloth to making France ours. Now, here, where the gold precipitates out in solution—that means the king has lost, Margaret, and is coming home. Let's see, full moon in Aries—yes, some disaster, fairly recently—” “But is Gregory coming home? When? Does he say?” “Here—let's see. Ah, the devil! He knows I always used to call them Gemini. So rude of him! Hmm, yes. Mercury, the metal of Gemini. With luck, Margaret, he'll be home in late May or early June. Now here's an interesting thing, Margaret—he seems to be saying that even if the army didn't do well, he's made some money. I wonder how? He always was an ingenious chap. Even in marrying you, Margaret. Well, I don't think you have to worry about that box in the chest much longer, except for searching out a new hiding place, where those children can't find it.”

But in the midst of joy, another worry stabbed through my mind like a lance. “Malachi? Does he say anything about his older brother and his father returning home, too? Pray God he gets here before them, or it's more than the cash box I'll have to hide. Lord, lord, keep that awful family of his all penned up at Brokesford at least until I've had time alone with him.”

W
HAT ON EARTH IS KEEPING OLD Peter so long? They saw them feeding here only yesterday.” Impatiently, the Lord of Brokesford flicked away a fragment of pigeon pie that had fallen on the worn and greasy bosom of his old leather hunting coat. The offending remnant of pie was still in his hand; he avoided further mishaps by downing it at a gulp. Newly returned from France, directly returned to his estates without incident, and happily returned with all his limbs intact and both sons living, he felt especially blessed. God had clearly willed it all, it was obviously a reward for his virtue, and he felt filled with the contentment that comes from a sense of righteous deserving.

It was pink dawn, an excellent English dawn and not one of those dank, inferior, foreign ones such as he had seen entirely too many of on the march to Calais. From the clouds the night before, from the signs of the birds, of the stars, it promised to be fair. English sun, English grass, and English cooking—all better. He surveyed his little universe with the eye of a man who knows that he is lord of everything that counts. Cloths had been spread on the dewy grass of the meadow beside a meandering stream. Arrayed on the cloths were the plentiful dishes of a hunt breakfast being consumed by Sir Hubert, his family members, neighbors, and guests. Grooms held the saddled horses and the impatient hounds. All were waiting for the return of the old lord's chief huntsman and finest scent hound, who were trailing the herd of red deer from this, their last grazing spot, to the place where they now fed. A little tent of
twigs marked the place where the stag had fed, there among the does and fawns. It was this scent that Old Peter and Bruno were following; today they would hunt the stag.

“Ah, this air. There's no better spice for a dish,” said Sir William Beaufoy, Sir Hubert's old comrade-in-arms and guest of honor. He had not paid a visit to Brokesford Manor since long before the campaign; indeed, since their last adventure together, a little matter of devising a scheme for ransoming Sir Hubert's youngest, and most ungrateful, son from captivity in France.

“It will do you good to get away from the close air of the court. As for me, I feel a new man when I'm away from that harping shrew with whom I'm forced to dwell.” Sir Geoffroi, the old lord's nearest neighbor, helped himself to a large slice of smoked ham as he spoke. At these words, Sir Hugo, eldest son and heir of the Lord of Brokesford, cast a sharp glance at his wife, Lady Petronilla, who had made her views most clear on being forced to retreat from the delights of the Duke's court. She avoided the look, staring coldly into the distance.

Not for Sir Hugo the battered, comfortable old garments of his elders. In the manner of a French aristocrat, he sported a jewel on his black beaver hat and a brown velvet hunting surcoat of the latest cut. His wife, too, had put off her long black gown for a new riding habit in mossy green, and wore a little dagger at her belt beside her hunting horn. Adept with the bow and arrow, she was a woman who loved blood sports, and rode well enough to never miss the “mort,” the death of the prey. Jolly her up a little, thought Hugo. Some hunts, a little night sport, and she'll soon be pregnant again. For as long as his brain could fix on anything, he contemplated his loss. Why should everything go to his younger brother's son, just because he'd run off with some woman of the lower orders who bred like a rabbit? Irritating, irritating it was. Petronilla needed to do her duty, and quickly, too. Well, at least he knew now she wasn't barren.

“Surely, there must be some good in this woman. Can she cook?” responded the tactful Sir William.

“Cooking's all very well,” responded Sir Geoffroi.“But it all turns to poison in the stomach with the interfering. She interferes with my steward, she interferes with my stable, she knows my business better than I do, according to her. And quarrel with my wife? I tell you there's no end to it. Two mistresses under one roof—a recipe for trouble if I ever heard one. And under the conditions of my brother's will, I can't be rid of her.”

“Ah, I see, she's your elder brother's wife?”

“Exactly, and with right to a room, board and keep, two gowns a year, a full supply of candles, freedom of the household, and freedom to interfere to her heart's content! By God, I wish I could wall her up in that room, but then that ghastly lawyer her niece married would be down on me like a wolf on a lamb. Oh, he'd love the excuse to worry me out of my property.”

“Lawyers, there's no END to 'em!” Sir Hubert began to shout. “A
PLAGUE
of lawyers has descended on us, a
PLAGUE, I SAY
, to
EAT HONEST MEN OUT OF HOUSE AND HOME
! Their
GRASPING HANDS ARE EVERYWHERE
, with their—”

“I do believe I saw otter tracks just over there,” interrupted Sir William, gesturing with a cold chicken leg to the reedy bank. Only quick action could distract Sir Hubert from one of his famous fulminations. The trick, his old friend knew, was to stop the early storm clouds before they had blown together. Once at gale force, the storm would cause the budding leaves to shrivel and living creatures to flee. The old lord in a fit of passion might even give up the stag and mount an expedition against the some local justice's house instead. Already, the rustling of field mice and water voles in the grass had stopped. It was time to defy the rules of courtesy for the greater good.

“Otters, no hunt for gentlemen,” announced Sir Hugo. “Why, when I was in France, the lords there left them for the peasants to trap.” The superior tone in his voice caused his old sire to glare at him. Glaring at him reminded him of the ridiculous French hunting garb his son had affected. And
that
reminded him of his heir's irritating habit of spouting godawful French verse at every rose and
female form within ten miles. As far as Sir Hubert of Brokesford was concerned, the entire French invasion had been a disaster—the Brokesford stud stripped, no more than half a dozen suits of rather badly dented armor captured for resale, no ransoms of note, and most unspeakable, the corruption of good English morals with fancy, sickly foreign ideas.

“Otters, hate 'em,” growled the Lord of Brokesford. “They got into my fishpond this Lent, and just before I returned on Saint Benet's day they ate the big eel I'd been saving.”

“If you ask me,” said Sir Roger, a pink-faced, high-living fellow who was “Sir” by courtesy, being the parish priest, “that otter had ten good fingers and went on two feet.” Lady Petronilla, Sir Hugo's wife, gave Sir Roger a cold, narrow-eyed stare, which did not escape Sir William's shrewd eye. Hmm, he thought. I think Sir Roger's hit it. She had it cooked up while he was away from home, and blamed the otters. When the cat's away, the mice will play…. Here's another place the conversation must be headed off.

“This coppice beyond the meadow here I know is yours, but the woods there beyond the rise, are they all in your demesne, or are they divided between you and your good neighbor here? I've never really had it clear.” Sir William gestured again with the remains of the chicken leg.

“Ah, don't probe there, that's a sore spot,” said Sir Geoffroi. “There's a fine stand of ancient oaks on the other side that some lawyer from Hertford claims he has bought title to.”