Wildwing (23 page)

IT’s Time I Told

W
ill. James. The falconer lad and the missing boy, they’re one and the same. He must have toddled into the lift and bumped the door shut. And Mr. Greenwood never suspected because he thought the bloody thing didn’t work.

Came in a box, he did
.

For the rest of the day, as we ride from field to pond, from marsh to stream, my head is whirling. Mr. Greenwood’s gaze keeps drifting to Will. He hums those notes again and again, and each time it sounds lighter, freer, as he lets go a weight he’s carried for fifteen years. He’s changing in front of my eyes. It’s as if he’d been shrouded in ice, and now that ice is melting layer by layer. His eyes are bright and glowing. His face becomes a warmer pink.

“Wonderful hunting,” he says with feeling. “Wonderful!”

That, of course, satisfies Sir Hugh; in his book, hunting is all it takes to move any man to rapture. “Let’s head on,” he says to Harold. “Across the upper bridge.”

Mr. Greenwood rides in front of me, easy on his roan. And still the coat of ice keeps melting. A haze of joy shimmers around him, like mist rising from damp ground in a sudden burst of sunlight. His shoulders, which were always as stooped as an old man’s, are straighter by the minute. It’s like he’s just been released from an evil spell.

As we near the bridge, he turns to stare at Will yet again, and this time his eyes meet mine. He says, so low only I can hear, “Don’t tell him, Addy. Please.”

And then he’s swept up again by Sir Hugh.

Don’t tell him?
How can I not tell Will that he has two fathers? That he’s just like me, a misfit from another time? How can Mr. Greenwood even stay on his horse, instead of running over and wrapping his son in an embrace big enough for all those years of longing?

Will has been lagging farther and farther behind. Now he cries, “By God’s bones!”

I glance back; he’s dismounting to pick up something he dropped—on purpose, because he’s looking right at me, pleading, glaring. I know he’s asking me to come join him and plan our escape. But now that I finally have my chance, I do nothing but stare. He’s starting to look bewildered.

I want to shout: You think
you’re
confused? What am I to do—now that I know who you are, and Mr. Greenwood is floating along as light as an eiderdown feather, and people will die if I don’t wed Sir Hugh, and the king is arriving; that’s right, me, the wife-in-waiting—what am I to do?

And since I don’t know the answer, don’t know how to think past the tumult in my head, I turn and ride in the other direction.

By the end of the day we’ve bagged three mallards, two teal, and best of all, in Sir Hugh’s opinion, a goose. Sir Hugh is as pleased as a cat with a pile of mice.

Stupid, I’m saying to myself as we ride back over the drawbridge. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why didn’t I talk to Will when I had the chance?

We dismount in the bailey. Mr. Greenwood walks over to Will and rests his hands on his son’s shoulders, warmth beaming from his eyes. “That was a fine hunt, William,” he says. “You’re a remarkable young man.”

How can he even call him William? Isn’t he dying to say “James”? Will stands speechless at the surprising show of affection.

Sir Hugh strides over to his guest. “Come,” he says. “We need a spot of wine after that. And I want to follow up on what you were saying about fertilization and crop yield.” He wraps his arm around Mr. Greenwood’s shoulders, steering him toward the keep.

As they pass me, Mr. Greenwood looks in my eyes. “Not a word,” he whispers.

Sir Hugh, deep in the highlights of the hunt, doesn’t hear him. And Will has already taken Pilgrim to the mews.

I glance around—stables, kennels, kitchens, the windows of the keep—and there’s no sign of Eustace. I call toward Sir Hugh’s departing back, “I’ll be in shortly.” He doesn’t even turn, just waves a hand over his head.

I hurry to the mews, trying to be invisible to the people around me, like Will sneaking up on the ducks.
I shouldn’t be doing this
, I think.
Not after Eustace made his threat so clear …
but I reach the door and slip inside, closing it silently behind me.

Will straightens from Pilgrim’s perch. “God’s breath, you had me scared!” he says, rushing over and grabbing my hand. “We leave tomorrow. It’s our only chance; the king comes the day after. I heard Eustace and the cook planning your wedding feast.”

“Will…”

“Twenty heron! Three oxen! Won’t they be surprised when—”

“Will, we can’t go.”

He stares at me in disbelief. For three heartbeats there’s silence. I see the anger building in his eyes. Then: “Why not?” And, long and sarcastic:
“My lady.”

When I don’t answer right away, he turns and hurls his satchel on the table with such force, all the bits of metal on the wall jangle. His jaw is setting into stone. “I see. You want to marry his exalted lordship after all.”

“No! Listen! Without my dowry—”

“I
don’t need to be a lady,”
he sneers. “I’ll
work with my hands
. But then she starts to think better.” He looks disgusted, whether with me or himself, I can’t tell. “I should have known when you wouldn’t come talk, me making it clear as clear, and you staying yoked to Sir Alec like an obedient beast.”

“That’s part of it. I can’t leave him. Neither can you. He’s—”

“Of course we can leave him! He’s only a guest for your cursed wedding.”

“No, he’s not! He’s—”

And then I hear Mr. Greenwood again, begging me not to say a word. I stop cold. If I can’t tell Will who he really is,how can I explain what’s happening? That there are three of us now with one foot in the future and one in the past. That I can’t separate Mr. Greenwood from the son he’s found after fifteen shrouded years.

Will is standing there waiting for an explanation. I take a deep breath, trying to pull my courage together. I have to start somewhere. And if I can’t tell him the truth about his own life, at least I can tell him about mine.

“I don’t come from here.” The instant I say the words, I see it’s the wrong way to start. I should have begun with Sir Giles and the dowry, or Eustace, his threats.

Bitterness sets in the corners of Will’s mouth. “Tell me something I don’t already know. You come from across the channel.”

“No, I
really
don’t come from here. I’m not even Lady Matilda.”

“You tried that one on me already.
Just pretend.”
He crosses his arms, a barricade across his heart. “Go ahead, say it: you changed your mind. You want to be the lord’s lady.”

I finally explode. “Oh, shut up! Shut the bloody hell up, and don’t say a single word until I’ve told you the whole thing, or I swear I’ll strangle you with my own hands!”

That gets his attention. “Then talk.”

And I do. I tell him I come not from a different place,but from a different time, hundreds of years in the future. That I’m a bastard, and girls jeered at me and some boys whistled like I’d be easy pickings. That I was a maid, curtseying to my betters, and the man I worked for was Sir Alec. Mr. Greenwood.

As I speak, the anger leaves Will’s eyes. It’s replaced by confusion, and then, a moment later, by something like fear. But there’s nothing for it but to plow ahead, even though I’m coming to the part that’s hardest to believe. How I found the lift, and whirled back in time. How the peregrine led me to the shore and the wreck, and my new life as Lady Matilda.

I stop, hoping for some response from him. A look, a word … There’s the strangest expression on his face.

“You think I’ve gone mad,” I say.

When he doesn’t answer, my heart plummets, a lead weight falling to the bottom of the sea. Why did I think he’d ever believe such a thing? And me with no proof. No proof at all … except …

“Don’t you remember?” I cry, grabbing his hand. “When they found Sir Alec, they said his footprints sprang up out of nowhere. Everyone going on about how mysterious it was, and strange—don’t you see? It’s because he came from the same time I did! The start of his trail was almost seven hundred years in the future!”

I wait. Nothing.

“No,” I say, letting go of his hand. “Why should you believe me?”

I turn away, unable to look at him. His glove is lying on the table; I pick it up, stroke the leather. “I just want you to understand,” I say. “When I came here and they took me for their lady,
respected
me like a lady, oh, it tasted sweet! But then …” My voice catches. “Then I fell in love with you. And none of the rest of it mattered anymore.”

Suddenly his hand is gentle on my shoulder, turning me around. I see it in his eyes, and I gasp, “You believe me!”

His arms are wrapping around me; his warmth flows through me like my own life’s blood.

“You never belonged here,” he says.

I shake my head.

“Then nothing holds you. Come away with me!” The urgency in his voice is at once a healing balm and an intoxicating drug. “While they’re all tired and drinking, and no one is paying us any mind. Come, Addy. Come!”

Everything in me aches to say yes, to flee with him, leaving all the rest of it far behind. And so it is that I have to wrench out the next words. “I want to, Will, with my very soul. But there’s more yet to tell you. I was climbing the far stair—”

The window darkens. We look up; there, filling the frame like a malevolent portrait, is Eustace, staring at us. And then the window is empty again.

A man’s very life …

I’m leaping from Will’s arms as the door swings open. The steward enters, closing the door firmly behind him. His fur-lined cloak brushes my side as he passes by me without a word. He stops in front of Will, reaches for the dagger at his waist, and raises the blade slowly, deliberately, until the point is almost touching a beautiful blue eye—

“No!”
I cry.

“Oh, yes, my lady,” says Eustace, his mouth cruel and excited. His hand moves forward again. But at the last moment there’s the slightest of shifts and the blade kisses Will’s temple. A thin crimson line rises, beads; a few thick drops begin to flow. Will stands motionless.

“There will be a wedding,” says Eustace, wiping his blade.

“Yes,” I say, answering him but meeting Will’s eyes, seeing that he now understands. “A wedding, and my dowry, to do with as you will.”

“Not as I will. As we must.”

Another Door

“T
he king may have the finest tailors in all of Christendom, but not one of them”—Beatrix notes where she’s going to snug a seam tighter—”no, not
one
of them”?she shifts the girdle an inch lower on my hips—”not a single lace-loving one of them ever made a kirtle prettier than the one I’ve sewn for you.”

And it must be true, because I look like a fairy princess stepped out from some book of enchantments. The gold weave of the Baudekin cloth sings in the solar’s candlelight, and each pearl ripples in response. The emeralds sparkle like green stars. And it’s not just the cloth and gems making me so magnificent. Beatrix has worked a miracle with the cut of the gown, so it hugs and drapes my curves at the same time. When I move, it’s like the dress is anotherliving thing, dancing with my body so we’re entwined in a duet.

“It’s the most beautiful kirtle ever made,” I say.

She puts her hands on her round hips and sighs in exasperation. “Then why, by God’s faith, do you look so miserable? A miracle from the neck down, you are; but from the neck up, why, you’re as long-faced as a cat that’s been doused with a bucket of water.”

I fluff out the skirt, pasting on my best smile, but it doesn’t fool Beatrix one bit. She shakes her head slowly.

I sigh, and all the boldness I was clutching flows out along with my breath. There’s nothing to hold me up anymore but the heavy fabric of my gown.

Beatrix walks across the solar to grab a stool, lugs it back over, and, with a firm hand on my shoulder, sits me down.

“Most everyone marries,” she says gently. “It’s God’s will.”

“Are you married, Beatrix?” Why did it never occur to me to ask before?

She nods. “He’s back in town. And making a great mess of things, I shouldn’t wonder, while he waits for me to return.”

“Return?”

“Of course.” Another look at my face. “Why, my lady, you didn’t think I could stay forever, did you? When the king comes tomorrow, he’s bringing two proper ladies-in-waiting to live with you. As it should be. Everyone would think it strange if you only had one such as me for your companion. It wasn’t even fitting for me to come hawking with all of you, so there you were, the only lady with all those men!”

“That doesn’t matter to me.”

“It does to others. I hear one of your ladies is a widow, a bit older, but good on horseback. Not so likely to fall asleep when you’re out training that bird of yours.”

I grab her hand. Beatrix, all kindness and practicality, who treats me more like a daughter than a lady … My shoulders sag; tears start flowing down my face.

“Why, what’s this, my lady?” she asks in concern. “It’s what you came here for, isn’t it? To be lady of Berringstoke?”

“But I’m not—” The words catch in my throat with the pain of losing her, losing Will, and all at once I’m sobbing. I try to stop, but it only makes the sobs stronger, and rougher, until they’re tossing me back and forth like a gale at sea. I draw in a ragged breath. “I’m not even—” But my words are snatched away by the storm. Will! To see him every day, but never again be able to touch him. And his whisper warmin my ear, his hand in the small of my back as he pulls me closer—lost! All lost.

Beatrix is sitting beside me, wrapping me in her arms, trying to shelter me through the crashing waves of my grief.

I’ve lost him forever, and all because of this golden gown. A gown that’s not even rightly mine, because—the words finally burst from my lips—”I’m not even Lady Matilda!”

“Ah,” says Beatrix, “I wondered.”

I’m so shocked, I stop sobbing and sit up, staring at her face.
“You knew?”

“I wouldn’t say I knew, but from that day when I saw you making your bed, I wondered how a lady had such knowledge in her hands. The way you crisped those covers!”

Somehow I’ve come to my feet, and there I am, standing in front of her in my grand gold gown. And her still sitting, as she’d never do with a real lady.

“And you so friendly with me,” she goes on. “Well, you must have learned faster than anything, because it was no time until I was sure I’d been mistaken. God’s faith, it’s a bold chance you took!”

“You’re not angry?”

“By the Virgin! Why should I be angry?”

“I’m an imposter. And a thief. I’ve stolen Lady Matilda’s name, her money—her
life!”

Beatrix shakes her head. “And what good are they doing her, down at the bottom of the deep blue sea? And her guardian, the king: surely he has enough gold already without claiming her lands back again.”

“But you’re always saying, ‘It’s God’s will.’ Beatrix, I’ve taken someone else’s place, not what God gave me!”

“And isn’t it Himself showed you the door in the first place, a door that was standing wide open?” Her voice is warm and sure. “Are you so meek then, or yet so proud, that you’d scorn to walk through?”

“But look what’s come of it. Forced to marry Sir Hugh, bear his children … and lose the one I love.”

Beatrix nods. “I wondered that, too,” she says softly.

I run my hands along the front of my gown, each gem an obstacle. “Riches,” I say, with a shuddering breath. “A fancy name. Once I thought they’d make me happy. And now that’s all I’ll ever have.”

I expect to see compassion on her face. But she gets a quick, insightful look, all alert, like Will when he’s sensing the shape of the wind.

“All you’ll ever have?” she says slowly, making me listen to each word.

“There’s no escaping this marriage! Unless Sir Hugh gets Lady Matilda’s dowry, people will die. Don’t you see? I have no choice. I can’t run away.”

“There’s running away,” she says. “And then there’s looking to see if another door stands open.”

How can she sound so confident? A castle maid—no, not even that, a townswoman, hired for a month—and yet there’s a strength to her like an oak. It’s me in my pearl-studded gown who feels trapped.

She stands. “You’re all done in. You need sleep.”

“But the king comes tomorrow! And the very next day, I wed.”

“The king comes whether you sleep or not,” she says, starting to unlace my gown. “And you might as well have a head on your shoulders when it comes to facing the morning.”

Loud snores saw through my bed hangings. I pull the heavy cloth aside and peer through the dark at Beatrix, her chest rising and falling with each rattling surge. I can’t sleep. Worry weighs on me heavier than the furs piled atop my bed. The marriage bed. The birthing bed.

Everything is so tangled in my mind, I can’t follow one thread straight through. I start thinking about how Beatrix knows I’m not Lady Matilda, and then about Will, the redline beading on his brow. I think of the lift—I still don’t know if it’s coming back—and getting Mr. Greenwood home. Except now it seems he wants to stay here with Will. No, it’s
me
wishes I could step in the lift and close that door behind me one last time, but I can’t, not with the debt, and Will’s two fathers … and Sir Hugh … and the king… .

I must have fallen asleep, finally, in the darkest hour of night, because suddenly I’m in my wedding dress in the middle of an oddly deserted bailey, standing atop a pedestal like a statue.

A fanfare of trumpets shatters the air. The drawbridge lowers, and the portcullis creaks open like a gaping maw, baring its long metal fangs.

“His Majesty the King!” booms a voice that’s too big, like a salesman hawking some indispensable object. The king strides through the gate like he owns the world, a large man draped in red velvet, sporting a golden crown and carrying a scepter.

“Lady Matilda!” he exclaims. “My favorite ward! It’s been years.”

Then we’re standing face-to-face, the same height in spite of my pedestal. I stare straight ahead, unblinking, an expensive possession on display.

Lines furrow his brow; his eyes grow puzzled. “What haveyou done with your hair?” he demands. “It’s supposed to be gold, like the coins in my coffers. Not brown as a chestnut.”

I raise an alabaster finger to my lips. “Shh,” I whisper. “Please, Your Majesty, don’t tell anyone. It’s only a woman’s vanity. I dyed my hair.”

He peers at me, leaning so close I smell the wine on his breath. Then he growls, low and menacing like a guard dog. “You may be able to change your hair,” he says.
“But you can’t change the color of your eyes!”

He swings around, bellowing, “Guards!”

I leap off the pedestal and start running toward the gatehouse. I’m not fast enough! The iron teeth are descending, inch by gnashing inch. A hand grabs at my skirt, rips off a strip of golden cloth, and then a gust of wind sweeps it up into the sky, sparkling in the sun—

“Imposter!” screams the king. “What have you done with my favorite ward? We’ll soon have the truth out of you! To the dungeons! All the latest equipment!”

My feet are pounding and I’m screaming and an arm grabs mine—

It’s morning. Beatrix is shaking me, hard. “Wake up, my lady!”

I sit bolt upright, my chest heaving.

“You were having a nightmare,” she says.

I grasp her hand. “Beatrix, how quickly can you sew me a veil?”

“If I can find a scrap of sheer cloth, then no time at all.” She leans closer and peers at me. “By my faith, you’ve thought of something, haven’t you?”

“It’s been staring me right in the face.” I scramble from bed and reach for my kirtle. “The castle needs my dowry so there won’t be bloodshed, but—”

“Yes?” she says, helping pull down the kirtle and starting in on the laces.

“But it doesn’t need
me,”
I say, turning to jerk the bed curtains closed behind me.