Where the Stones Sing (13 page)

Cat's Eye View

uincunx kept an eye on what was going on in the priory, though he had moved his quarters to under the vaults of the crypt. Roland had become far too clever at catching him if he hung around the priory kitchen, and although Quincunx missed the scraps, the warmth and the
occasional
cuddle that he had had access to there, he had a strong sense of self-preservation and knew he was safer away from human sight. He still managed to forage through the scraps from the kitchen, but he had developed quite a taste for the rats that lived in the crypt. He had also found a large chest that had been left carelessly ajar, and nestled down every night in a bed of fine lace and lavender-scented, embroidered linens that were being kept safe for the arrival of important visitors.

He had noticed Kai coming to the cathedral almost every day when no one else was there, and had heard the echoes in the stone, the singing and the voices. The curiosity of cats had brought him to watch her, but went no further than that.

Today however, he noticed someone sneaking in behind her. The hairs on his back rose. It was Roland.

Kai was helping Dame Maria in the quiet of the
still-room
, one of her favourite places in the city. There, and in the cathedral with the voices around her were the only places she felt safe from the waves of fear and sorrow that had engulfed Dublin. It was terrible how hopeless everyone felt. Myrrh and herbs and verjuice were used to try to help the plague victims, but nothing seemed to make any difference, although they did
sometimes
seem to ease the agony of those who were dying. And lavender and rosemary water, much less expensive and easier to obtain, did that just as well. In Dame Maria's stillroom, they made vial after vial of those mixtures, pouring the ingredients from mysterious earthen bottles full of essential oils and rosewater and grinding and mixing in herbs and roots.

The room smelled clean and fresh and pure. Kai
sometimes
longed to live in a house like Dame Maria's, to be part of this clean and orderly world. The priory was clean and very orderly, but it was also rather comfortless and masculine. The canons did not care for decoration, except for in the church. And Kai deeply loved beautiful things: the sheen of an oak table, the glint of light on a well-shone silver cup.

Nobody in the priory seemed to share her need for that particular kind of beauty. Brother Albert found beauty in music and in the words of the psalms, and did not care much about bodily comfort. The person closest to sharing her love of beautiful things was Prior Stephen. He was himself an
artist, and he talked of one day, when the bad times were past, commissioning a hymn book that would be a work of art, worthy of the songs that were contained in it. It would be decorated and illustrated in the most beautiful colours. But even in Prior Stephen's case beauty was a song of praise to the glory of God, not something to be treasured for its own sake.

Kai cared about beautiful things simply because they were beautiful. Almost as much as she cared about having order around her. She had had far too much disorder in her life. And she had also had too much of people watching her, suspecting her of something. She hated the fact that Tom had started to spy on her. And Roland had been watching her from the first day she had arrived in the priory. Now he seemed to be constantly spying, trying to find out where she went to during the long periods she spent with the voices in the cathedral. He also never missed a chance to make some horrible comment about her or her father. He himself was ecstatic because his father was due home any day, and he was sure that he would bring with him the news that he was to be the new justiciar. Then he, Roland, would be taken out of the priory to a fine new home in Dublin Castle. One afternoon, he came to choir in new clothes, swaggering into the church.

Tom and Kai put their hands over their mouths, trying to stifle their giggles. He looked ridiculous. It was like nothing
anyone had yet seen in Dublin. Roland was dressed in
parti-coloured
tights of yellow, green and purple, with a red
doublet
and a purple hat with a yellow plume.

‘Can you just imagine what Jack would have had to say about that outfit?' whispered Tom and the pair of them
subsided
into giggles, and were soundly scolded by Brother Albert. But after the service, Dame Maria smiled too when they spoke to her about Roland's clothes.

‘A popinjay, like his father,' she said briskly. ‘And no sense of the decorum of colours.'

‘Do you know Roland's father?' asked Kai.

‘Yes I did. We grew up together, and a more unpleasant little boy I have never met.'

She continued, ‘We used to call him Sebastian, because Sebastian was the patron saint of cantankerous children; he was always mewling and complaining and telling tales to our elders, especially if he thought it would get us into
trouble
.'

‘I can't imagine you doing anything bold,' said Kai shyly.

Dame Maria laughed. ‘I was a demon, and I got poor Albert – yes, he grew up with me too – into so much trouble. He would never have thought of half the mischief on his own. I hung around with boys until I was forced to grow up. But they were happy days! My husband was one of the gang too and a great friend of Albert. We had such good times!

‘I think I was especially wild, because I was a little jealous of the other three. They all sang in the choir, you see, and I
wasn't allowed, because I was a girl. I was so jealous – I loved to sing. You have no idea how hard it is not to be allowed to do things that you want to do, just because you were born the wrong sex!'

‘Don't I though?' thought Kai wryly, saying nothing. If Dame Maria only knew how much she wanted to know more about making simples and how she made the lovely tapestries on the walls. She could never ask, because it would not be at all natural for a boy to be interested in such things. On several occasions already, she had almost tripped herself up with her interest in things a boy would be unlikely to find fascinating. When she had asked about making beeswax polish, Dame Maria had looked at her quizzically, but she had quickly covered up with a story about Brother James wanting to know the recipe. ‘I told him about the way you keep the wood in your house so beautiful.' Then Dame Maria had cheerfully shown her how to mix the beeswax and pine resin with flax seeds and distilled lavender flowers for the recipe.

Now she asked Dame Maria, ‘Why is Roland so angry all the time? He hates me, and I don't know why, really. I didn't do anything to him, yet from the beginning he has been
horrible
to me. And poor old Dinny has to run away him from all the time.'

‘Roland is a difficult boy, hard to like. But much of that is because of his parents. His mother you have seen – she is a
strange woman, always involved in some enthusiasm or other. Before she became mixed up with that group of very strange people she was mad into some other fad. She has never had much time for Roland. That is one of the reasons he is in the priory. His father could not be sure that she would look after him properly while he was away in England. And Roland's father has been away a long time. In fact, he is hardly ever in Dublin, and when he is, he is very hard on the boy. Roland worships his father; he loves and admires him, but he cannot ever meet his expectations. He does not have the brains of a lawyer like his father nor the courage to be a soldier. I think that is why he is so sour and bitter all the time. Though in fairness, other people have had harder backgrounds and do not end up like him. Look at poor Jack, for example.

‘Jack was an orphan, wasn't he? What about him?'

‘Yes, he was an orphan, and his past was a hard one. Yet he had no bitterness in him. He was one of the happiest boys I have ever known.'

‘Yes he is,' said Kai, thinking of Jack's seemingly endless optimism.

Dame Maria looked at her, puzzled by her use of the
present
tense and Kai said hastily, ‘Do you think it is to do with the humours? Is it because Roland is choleric?'

Brother Albert had given them a lecture on the humours one day. Jack and Tom had slept through it, made drowsy by the autumn sunlight that drifted through the windows,
but Kai was enthralled at Brother Albert's descriptions. The melancholic, the sanguine, the choleric and the
phlegmatic
; Kai loved the words and the fact that it seemed to put some order on the confusing fact that people were so very different.

Jack and her father, she decided, were sanguine, not a care in the world, always sure that things would turn out well. Dame Maria had a large melancholic streak. Edward was phlegmatic, gentle, quiet, waiting for the world to move rather than trying to make it move himself. Tom had a large dose of phlegmatism too. She could not quite be sure what she was herself, but Roland, she had thought, as she watched him squash a drowsy autumn bee under his slate, was
definitely
choleric. Always ready to take on the world in a battle, even if the world itself did not really want one. Why did he have to kill that bee? What was it that drove him to destroy everything in his path?

Now Dame Maria sighed.

‘Perhaps it is that – but then I have known people with the same kind of temperament who have used it to the good. And how is it decided what humours we are given out when we are born? It is all a great mystery, Kai. But although I know Roland is difficult, I do feel sorry for him. He never seems to be happy.'

As there was still no news about her father and brother, Kai decided to visit Ymna, to see if she had managed to find
out where her father was. Perhaps she could tell her where Edward was too. When she arrived at the wash-house, Ymna, her arms red from the water, gave her her usual hug.

‘There now, my dear. You've got so thin. Those old monks musn't be feeding you at all. But tell me, my honey, have you heard any word from your father?'

Kai shook her head.

‘That's what I was going to ask you,' she said. ‘I thought you might have heard something about where he is. Or where Edward is too.

‘Nothing. My people have had no word of either of them. I only hope your father is not in any trouble.'

Kai could not help smiling.

‘He's always in some kind of trouble, Ymna. He's never happy unless he is.'

‘I'll send word out again that we need to know where he is. But don't be worrying too much, lass. Ned is like a cat, he always lands on his feet.'

But on her way home Kai could not help but worry about her father. It was all very well to say that Ned Breakwater always landed on his feet, like a cat, but even a cat had only nine lives. Jack had been like a cat too, and his lives had run out. She couldn't bear to think of never seeing her father again. For all she knew, she could even be an orphan, like Jack.