Chapter 22: Falling Leaves
Oats and apples ripened, the leaves began to hint at golden glories to come, and the harts in the forest to get cantankerous with one another. The seasons rolled over the land as ordained from of old. But in Ardinéa there was confusion among the sons of men.
Fearnon's death and the Queen's disappearance with the days-old Princess Féarna under unbelievable circumstances had not only left King's Leigh without a sovereign, but had put an apocalyptic mania in the streets of the city which took eyes off of events in Caer Leighame, where the canniest kind of vying was going on.
Fearnon had no living parent nor brother, nor, when it came down to an issue, could anyone find out Charis's lineage. His eldest sister, the Princess Liona, was wed to the Earl of Rovehill (he had a younger sister also, Linfar, mother of the slain twins). Liona was a striking, handsome woman who spoke eloquently and had many admirers. She was challenged by Lord Clewode, only a second cousin of the King, but with a following because of the great need for a leader in matters of war. Also Liona had produced no heir and was past the age. These emerged as the main contenders.
Night and day they had ridden with the body of the Fearnon back to King's Leigh, with couriers racing ahead on the fastest horses. When the King entered the city, the whole of the province had crowded in to see him, even while many fled to relations in the north and east with tidings and their children and valuables. Wild-eyed preachers of repentance lifted their arms in the streets, striving to be heard over the rowdy buskers and opportunistic hawkers of foodstuffs and wares. Parades and processions, both sacred and profane, overran the crowds with banners, music, incense, and sheer numbers.
Gilling arrived in the pandemonium, and realized it was as good a time as any to say good-bye to King's Leigh. He collected a few clothes and instruments that were left in their rooms and gave the rest to friends. It was amazing, the amount of things one could be burdened with and not realize it. He hated to be in the empty rooms, without the continual noise of his children. He offered his services as a messenger and took a bulging wallet of letters and coronets and left, riding and leading a leggy, fast pack-horse. He was glad to leave the chaos. His first stop, with letters from Lord Clewode, Gareth and Gregory, was Brycelands, in Cynrose.
The arrival at Brycelands of Hildreth with her children and servants and men-at-arms, together with Elora and the rest of the Troubadour's family, was a joyful though worrisome time. Brycelands was full of servants going to and fro, and the children in a pack running up the stair and across the gallery above the main Hall and back down again.
Hildreth exclaimed over Ryanh, but then passed him back to Willa. Hildreth had nurses for her beautiful daughters; even a wetnurse for the baby. Margaret told herself that Hildreth merely wanted to become pregnant again as soon as possible in order to produce the son she was surely eager for. But Hildreth was not overly taken with children, wishing instead to read books or embroider, to take long, hot baths and have her handmaid fuss over her golden hair, combing and plaiting. She fussed over Margaret's hair, plaiting new styles while Margaret read over the letters from her father and brother Aelfred.
"So Father is to wed Lady Phoebe," Margaret stated flatly.
"Aye, and about time. I believe she'd have wed him years ago. It's time he had someone to comfort him. I don't believe she's of the age to have children, but why should he be alone? And she is quite wealthy."
"Oh, aye, that I know." Margaret's conscience was scalded. She resolved herself. "Aye, I am glad he will wed. God give them joy!"
"Of course, that letter is a week and some days old. He was leaving on a foray with the King, and Lord Eldred, and my Herrick, and three score knights with their squires, and as many archers; all to ride the border and survey what was going on. Oh, Margaret, I am always so proud when Herrick rides with the King! This time, when he returns, for once I will be more slim than when we left, for the food has been terrible on the way here. No wonder you don't come often to court. Between that, and your husband not being about for all those years, my dear, you have hidden yourself away. Our mother was a Duchess, you know; she had no need to strive, but you, well, one would think you didn't care at all about your place."
Margaret winced as Hildreth tugged severely the remnants of the plaits she had been working on from Margaret's brown hair and flicked the comb through it. "Hil, I have to say that I don't give it a lot of thought. The people that matter to me, love me for who I am. And if I look for esteem, I hope it is in the eyes of God, rather than man."
Hildreth didn't seem to know how to respond, and Margaret winced, realizing how sanctimonious she probably sounded. But there was nothing for it, and she sighed as she turned over to Aelfred's letter.
Margaret chuckled to read it; Aelfred was as diffuse in his enthusiasms as ever. He had completed his law studies at last, however, and was assisting in the magistrate in King's Leigh. But now he took a belated interest in the arts of war, and persuaded their father to allow him to continue squiring for him. Margaret read the letter aloud, and Hildreth commented. "That gives him a chance to leave court occasionally to get breathing room from the many female admirers of the future Duke of Briardene."
They shared a laugh over that. Margaret put the letters down on a nearby hassock. "What of the Troubadour these days?"
"He has ridden with the King on foray as well. He is fast friends with King Fearnon these days. They go to Church together, can you imagine!" She began yet another set of plaits in Margaret's hair. "Dame Sintia was quite wonderful for company on the journey here. She had a sharp tongue for slothful innkeepers, and rules her children closely; but she loved a good song, too, and a good laugh." Hildreth leaned close to Margaret's ear. "Where did she come from, anyway? She sounds to be from Briardene."
"I am not sure. But is she not also wise? She gave me some good advice years ago. I was talking of the problem of some poor I had here, loaded with debts from blighted crops and ill fortune. I was giving them charity, but she said, A length of linen will clothe for a year; a loom for a lifetime. Well, these folk weren't weavers, but I brought a cooper over from Hartsfall to teach them to make casks and butts and pails, for we had no such in Brycelands since the old cooper had died; and let them cut the wood from fields I wanted clear. They paid their own debts and kept their pride."
"Hmm...I suppose as the manor mistress, you must concern yourself with such things."
Margaret was more hurt than offended. After a moment she summoned courage.
"Hildreth, I know what you must think of my life. You and I find value in different things. I am very abundantly blessed and have all I could desire to make a woman content. I enjoy being concerned with things on my estate, with people of all degree. God made people to be in community with each other, not for some to toil all their living away while others take away their increase and live in purposeless luxury, never giving thought to the hands that do their work.
"I have beautiful gowns and jewels, but they are not as lovely to me as the face of my bairn, or as the orderly array of my village when I look out upon it and know that all within it are safe and have bread to eat and their children are clothed. Even if it means less jewels and gowns for me. I know the names of most of the people and have been able to use the knowledge and skills we received from our own mother to ease their illnesses, and the truth that God has given me to combat their fears and superstitions, and to give them hope. That brings me much greater satisfaction than new gowns."
Hildreth put the finishing touches on Margaret's hair. and then leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Good, Maggie. I am glad to know you are happy, and I admire your beneficence. It is not what I would choose, but if you are content, then I accept that. Contentment is better than jewels. Ah, are you still wearing that old thing I gave you?
"Hildreth! It means the world to me!" said Margaret, her hand closing on the cross pendant that hung down the front of her gown.
"Now I am teasing you. I am glad to see it, it
reminds me of Mother. Come, now that your hair is perfect, let us have a turn in the garden, let the wind spoil it, so we can do it over."
Margaret stood and looked in the mirror. "I love it, Hildreth. Thank you." She embraced her sister and kissed her cheek.
Tamlyn burst into the room. "News from King's Leigh. I held the courier so that your party could hear it all." There was trouble in his face, and the church bell began to toll for the King of Ardinéa.
When the courier had given his news and departed, the Hall was full of discussion. Hildreth wanted to depart as soon as possible for Caer Aldene; Margaret urged her to stay longer and await news. But Tamlyn spoke.
"My lady Hildreth speaks wisely, Margaret, and you and Ryanh also should go to Caer Aldene, where it is the safest. There is no better refuge for you while Ardinéa is in turmoil than your father's castle. Caer Cynrose will have so many comings and goings, Aldene will be better."
Margaret gazed at him. "And what will you do, my lord?" she almost whispered.
"I must go down to King's Leigh, and put myself into Lord Clewode's service."
Margaret sighed deeply, and nodded gravely at him, her eyes wide. He continued, "I will lead half the century of footsoldiers, and hire lances on the way. If their lives are laid down for the sake of Ardinéa, then mine will be also." Margaret's eyes glistened with sorrow and admiration. "The other half of the century I will leave armed, under command of the one they elect to be constable over them, to protect the Brycelanders. Take with you what you value most of what we have; the Queen's disappearance bodes not well for Ardinéa."
That evening, Tamlyn had dismissed Willa from their bower early, and sat holding and caressing Ryanh, talking and playing for nearly an hour, until the infant was worn out and cried for the breast. Filled and content, he fell asleep quickly, and Margaret laid him in the cradle, covering him and staring at the blossom-like face, so much to her like a tiny, angelic Tamlyn.
When she turned to Tamlyn, he was filling a wash basin from a kettle he had set near the fire earlier. He had stripped to the waist, and had a towel in his hand. He rose and came over to the bed, took Margaret's hand and led her to the hassock by the hearth. Margaret gasped with surprise when he set her foot in the basin and wordlessly washed it with scented soap, rinsed and dried it, and then the other. She saw him kneeling as a servant before Galorian, and cringed from the bitterness that tried to raise its head; focusing instead, as she had learned to do, on the fact of his presence here and now and the overcoming tenderness of his gesture. She gazed at the blond curls going tawny and wanted to touch the beard he had trimmed closely. He was drying the second foot now, and pushing the basin aside, he laid across her lap, wrapping his arms around her waist. They were thickening again with hours of staff fighting and of hacking at a post in the stableyard with an old sword. She spread her hands over his arms.
"Then let me also wash yours," she murmured.
"No," he said, muffled in the fabric of her shift, and from the tone of his reply she knew not to say anything more. She bowed her head and prayed inwardly over his inner battle, and her own.
The morning before she left, when he went to the armory, she followed him with the lamp into the inner room where he and Faulk gathered the heavy armaments, and then to the place by the stable where she helped array him, handing to him piece by piece his coif, belt, scabbard, surcoat, dagger, sword, spurs, gauntlets, shield. Fighting all the while the blurring of her eyes, living only for the kiss he would give her before he mounted the war-horse Shoan, and unprepared, when it came, for the depth of his kiss, the fierce tenderness, that would leave no chamber of her heart undisturbed, that so thrilled her, that she could not help but return his smile when he pulled away.
She walked out to watch him ride in his mail, and a breathtaking wind was blowing up the long slope from the west, and she smiled into the wild beauty.
So Margaret departed from Brycelands for Caer Aldene with her sister, with Gilling and Elora and Sintia, with several of Lord Herrick's guards and a cartload of valuables and provisions, driving the best horses and the albino kashmir goat, with a few sheep and pigs for provender. The cows and the rest of the livestock were left in the care of village milkmaids, with the cows' milk for payment.
In the wide plain before Deermont, Margaret gazed eastward, looking for the twin peaks in the afternoon sun. From here they were mere bumps on the horizon, dark with distance. Closer were many rolling hills and lower mountains, and she wondered which was the mountain on which she had used Tamlyn's sword; it was impossible to tell. She wanted to talk with Willa about it. But Willa rode behind, with the other servants, laughing and talking. Margaret rode with Hildreth, who was tired of travel and not in a mood for talk. Margaret found a lot of time to pray over Tamlyn, who rode the opposite direction, south and west to King's Leigh.
At Saint Savior's they were made welcome in the guest cottage. Margaret met many old friends she had known during her winter there and on subsequent visits; and the children had no lack of holders and coddlers and playmates in the sisters there, and the abbess was content to let the cloisters ring with childish laughter in between the offices. Hildreth much admired the illuminated books which they produced, and ordered a copy of Augustine for a gift to Herrick. They enjoyed the singing at Vespers and the hot baths provided them in the guest lodge, which was full to bursting with their retinue.
In the morning they bade farewell to the sisters and faced a chill wind in the road north. The clean smell of drifting leaves and woodsmoke was on the breeze. They turned off the road to allow a contingent of men-at-arms and footsoldiers to march through. Then the road veered east, hard by the foothills and the dark forests of the eastern Wilds.
By the Laughingbrook, Margaret simply had to stop and visit the woods. She dismounted and called for Willa to accompany her. When they had withdrawn into the trees, Margaret drew Ryanh from within her mantle where he was warmly ensconced. He objected pitifully for his sleep to be disturbed as Willa took him, clucking and baby-talking to him as she wrapped him against her own warm chest. He cried louder and turned continually around toward Margaret. Finally she washed her hands in the freezing brook and shook them dry and took him. He left off wailing and laughed in anticipation as she fumbled with her dress opening within her mantle, and took him close to nurse.
In the sudden quiet, there was a clamor of voices, a clash of steel, neighing, and hoofbeats from the direction of the road, just beyond the trees. Willa reached a hand out and gripped Margaret's arm, both of the women staring round-eyed toward the sound of yelling, of hooves, and screaming, and the clang of weapons. Margaret began in the direction of the road, but Willa pulled her back. "Stay, my lady! Stay!" By force of her larger size, and Margaret being encumbered by the nursing child, Willa pulled her backward into a gully that cut the bank of the brook.
Where a tree had fallen in a windstorm, its root-ball stood exposed by the rock where it had stood, and under this Margaret and Willa crouched, hearing unfamiliar voices ringing in the woods above them. Ryanh began to fuss; in her fright, Margaret's milk was binding up. She gazed down upon him, fixing her mind on him and on her milk flowing, trying to breathe evenly, and she jiggled him a bit to soothe him. He fell quiet again, nursing hungrily.
"Jesu...Jesu...Fear not, for I am with you, be not afraid, for I am your God," Willa was whispering under her breath.
The sounds from the road receded and died in the stirring breeze, which showered them with yellow leaves.
How long they sat there, clinging to each other, they could not have said. The voices diminished, but to their straining ears every sound formed itself into a pursuer. The light changed as if evening was drawing on. Over the murmur of the brook, they could hear a distant bell, ringing and ringing. Ryanh had fallen asleep but now stirred and woke. Margaret finally turned to Willa, whose face was streaked with tears. "What happened? What shall we do?"