My dear daughter, too long separated from me, be assured of my affection. Come to me with all haste before you grow any older. I will await you with a joyous heart.
Your loving mama,
Elladine of Ylles .
You can imagine my amazement. I was struck by how clean the parchment looked upon which all this had been written. It could have been delivered that very afternoon. The more I looked at it, the more I thought that in a sense it had been delivered that very afternoon. After reading the letter several times, both pages of it, I replaced it in the box and the box in its hiding place, sliding the stone carefully into place. Set well in, it cast no protruding shadow. I could only believe she had left it sticking out so that I would see it. It had been put there for me, and me alone, to find. Mama.
I climbed into my bed, pulled the bed curtains shut, propped myself upon my pillows, and pulled the coverlets up to my chin. This was something that required thinking about, though thoughts were slow and reluctant to come. The first one to emerge teasingly into the forefront of my mind was that even though the letter had been written almost sixteen years before, my mother was alive, just as I had always supposed. I thought of Beloved’s mother, how she had known at once I was not hers, and something lurched in me, just behind my breastbone.
My next thought was that Elladine had said she had left me the means to find her, though I could not imagine what she meant. The contents of the box included only the ring, the packet of needles and the three hanks of thread. Which led to the fleeting suspicion that Mama, however lovely, might not have had all her wits about her. This would explain the aunts’ attitude, certainly. Even women as reconciled to the holy will as the aunts might bridle at having a madwoman in the family. It would also explain papa’s locking her in the tower, since such is known to be the fate of madwomen and madmen whenever madness and towers occur in appropriate contiguity. Towers, or, in a pinch, attics.
The letter, however, far from seeming the ravings of lunacy, had been odd but well-reasoned. I was sure that Mama was not mad. Absent, yes, and for reasons that seemed sufficient to her, but not mad. I would have to figure out how to find her.
My final thought was that the name of the wicked aunt was Carabosse. The two adjacent Ss in that name reminded me of something. I got my mysterious thing off the chest and looked at it. One of the letters could be a B, and another an R. Is this the gift she gave me? Is it her name upon it? And if so, what is it?
[“Wicked aunt” indeed. I confess, that hurts to read.]
7
DAY OF THE VISITATION,
JULY, YEAR OF OUR LORD 1347
My thoughts and worries concerning my own future have been somewhat interrupted because the wedding guests have started to arrive. The day after I found Mama’s letter, Weasel-Rabbit and her entourage came down the roadway on horseback and in two carriages, followed by an enveloping cloud of dust. Other parties arrived thereafter, both large and small, some of them with marquees they have set up in the meadow as though they had come to a tourney. All the aunts have moved together into one suite, and their rooms have been reserved for various countesses and barons. Poor Father Raymond is dithering about, trying to remember where he put the festive vestments. The wedding is to take place in our own chapel; the abbot from St. Paternus (a great, rich, important abbey down the lake a bit, near the main road to London) will officiate. Father Raymond will assist him.
Down in the kitchens, the head cook is screaming at the kitchen boys and having the tantrum he usually has whenever he has to cook for more than just the family. The whole place smells of roasting meat and baking cakes, spices and stewed fruit. There will be a banquet each night, three nights running, with the abbot attending the banquet the night before the wedding.
I have resolved to be very good, for the sake of my soul. Aunt Tarragon always goes on about the state of my soul, much more than Father Raymond does, which is odd. Over the past few days I have stayed out of Weasel-Rabbit’s way and out of the aunts’ way and out of Papa’s way in the easiest manner imaginable, by putting on my boy rags and working in the stables. Besides, that lets me see what kind of horses everyone has and whether they look well-treated or not. Weasel-Rabbit has horses which look ill fed and badly groomed, not at all consonant, I feel, with her rather extravagant equippage. Her carriages have tall painted wheels and a suspended, woven bed with soft pillows to sit upon, very elegant. Such carriages would indicate (though the matter had certainly not been discussed with me) that Papa is marrying into a fortune. Since I can not see why anyone would willingly marry Weasel-Rabbit otherwise, it explains a great deal. Supporting five half sisters takes a bit of doing all by itself, and helping get up a new crusade (which Papa talks of from time to time) is frightfully expensive. Just maintaining Westfaire involves constant outlay. Papa needs a wealthy wife, though I can’t figure out why such a wealthy woman should have such poorly cared for horses unless she is at the mercy of idle grooms simply because she does not know the difference.
8
ST. BERTHA’S DAY,
JULY, YEAR OF OUR LORD 1347
The preliminary banquets went quite well. There are enough minstrels about that Aunt Lavender has not felt called upon to entertain us upon the lute. Indeed, all five aunts-in-residence spend most of their time with Sibylla’s mama, and I am left largely to myself.
There was one noteworthy encounter in the cloister garth this afternoon. I had gone down to the chapel with Grumpkin, not intending to pray, you understand, but simply to see if Father Raymond ever found the vestments he was looking for. He had. They were stored in a chest in the muniments room and he had finally remembered putting them there himself. While I was talking to Father, Grumpkin fell asleep on one of the prie-dieux so I knelt down at the next one. The chapel was so peaceful, the light in it so rarified and the smell of it so—well, the chapel has a certain smell, though only I seem to be aware of it. I have asked Beloved about it, and I have asked Doll, and even the aunts, but none of them notice it. Perhaps it is only the candles or the incense, though it seems different from that to me. More illusive. Less natural. It is very pleasant to me. It makes me want to go on sniffing at it, as though it were a flower.
At any rate, the chapel smelled so whatever-it-is that I prayed a small prayer and determined to behave myself and not absolutely hate Weasel-Rabbit. I knelt for some time getting this resolution firmly in mind, and then Grumpkin woke up and meowed to go elsewhere. I have noticed that cats are little impressed by religion. We went out of the cool, gray light into the brightness of day. Grumpkin was trailing along as usual, batting at my skirts, when we confronted Sibylla coming out the passageway that leads to the kitchen gardens. She took one look at Grumpkin and let out a howl one might have heard as far as Alderbury. “A cat,” she screamed. “A cat.”
I should have thought the matter self-evident. There is nothing uncatly about Grumpkin. He is a red and cream-colored tabby of most ferocious mien, and I picked him myself from among the litter the stable mouser kindled three years ago. He is called Grumpkin because his furry eyebrows make him seem always frowning or, at the least, very thoughtful about things. He is indeed a cat, and the matter does not usually occasion remark.
“Get it out pf here,” screamed Sibylla. “It’ll have to be killed. I can’t bear cats.”
I seized Grumpkin up and went off in the opposite direction, trying very hard to hold on to my resolution not to hate her. I think perhaps I could have persevered in a state of grace if Weasel-Rabbit hadn’t gone immediately to Papa, demanding Grumpkin’s execution.
I’m not sure Papa even paid much attention. So far as Papa is concerned, horses are simply things one rides upon and dogs are simply things one hunts with and cats are simply animals that infest the stable and are tolerated because they dispose of vermin. I don’t think Papa has ever had a pet, but if he ever has, he has long since forgotten it. I’m sure the fact I love Grumpkin never entered his mind. At any rate, he listened to Weasel-Rabbit and the
n told his scribe to take care of the matter. The scribe told one of the men-at-arms, and the man-at-arms, laughing, mentioned it to Giles. Giles knew how I felt about Grumpkin, even though I’d never said a word to him about it. Well, he watched me, sometimes, so he would know, wouldn’t he? People who really look at you do know how you feel. Giles told the other man he’d take care of it and came to find me. He bowed, quite formally, and explained the situation. We talked it over, with me trying very hard not to cry and mostly succeeding, and Giles suggested that he take Grumpkin down to the stables to live with Martin for a time and then report the cat disposed of, which he would have been, in a sense.
Since the feelings I have about Giles are often very hot and tempting ones, I usually try to stay as far away from him as I can. Usually I manage it fairly well, but this time I was so grateful to him about Grumpkin I did not stand a distance from him. I stood very close, where I could smell the warmth of him, and handed Grumpkin to him, telling my good cat to be patient and wait for me. Giles touched my arm when he took Grumpkin from me, not meaning to, I think. I can still feel the place he touched.
All of which made the whole matter even more troublesome and upsetting! It seems that Weasel-Rabbit was determined to take everything away from me. First my room and then my cat! I tried to think what else I might have that Weasel-Rabbit would want, but I couldn’t think of anything at all, which just shows how naive I was. The rest of her plan emerged late this afternoon, before the final banquet.
I am not supposed to go into the small anteroom adjacent to the muniments room, which is between the small and large dining halls. The anteroom is a cosy warm place where Papa’s steward and bailiff and the scribe work during the daytimes and where male guests sometimes retire after dinner to play at dice or cards or chess and talk about their travels in ways they cannot do while the aunts are present. Hidden behind the tapestries is a little oriel window, covered over because it lets in the cold, and under it a low seat just large enough for me. Sometimes I go there to hide. It is the one place no one has ever found me. If one can bear the boredom of hearing the same stories over and over, one can learn quite a bit about swiving and having one’s pleasure and what men of Papa’s sort think of various classes and types of women. I have learned that men talk about women quite a lot, when they aren’t talking about hunting or fighting, though considering that they use the same words and the same expressions for all three things, perhaps there is not much difference.
I hid there because I wanted to be alone. I was upset over Grumpkin; I was upset over how I felt about Giles; I was trying to keep my resolution, trying very hard to exercise Christian forbearance, which Father Raymond constantly suggests that I do. At any rate, there I was in the oriel window when I heard voices through the tapestry. One, which I had learned to know well, was Sibylla’s mama. The other I assumed was the abbot, for Sibylla’s mama cooed at him in a tone she uses only with royalty and people of importance.
“Sibylla feels that she cannot take responsibility for the girl, Your Reverence. We have all heard about her mother.” The words “her mother” were said in a very low, meaningful voice, the same tone of voice in which Aunt Tarragon talks about certain bodily functions, as though they were both repellent and inevitable. “Sibylla will undoubtedly bear children. She would not want those children exposed to … well, you understand. Sibylla feels, and I must concur, that it would be wisest to send Beauty to the convent where her aunts are. She can be with her kindred there. As a nun, she may perhaps expiate some of her mother’s … well, you understand.”
Evidently the abbot did understand. He hemmed and hawed, but he said he would discuss the matter with Phillip, Duke of Monfort, Westfaire, and Ylles, that is, Papa, and see if something couldn’t be arranged.
Sibylla had not been content to have only my room and my cat. She also intended to have my future.
Somehow, without even intending it, I found myself back here in my tower room, at my work table with a new quill, a pad of ink, and a bottle of water. Spread out before me was the second page of the letter from mama, which I had rolled backwards to make it he flat. Mama’s writing is not unlike my own. We both write a fine, curly hand. There was plenty of room at the top of the page, and the words seemed to flow out of the pen of their own accord. “This first day of July, year of our Lord, thirteen hundred and forty seven.” The wedding was scheduled for the following day, the fifth. Dating mama’s letter back to the first allowed four days for the letter to have been on the way from somewhere before reaching me. When the ink was dry, I folded the parchment up and addressed it to “Beauty, the daughter of Duke Phillip of Monfort and Westfaire and the Lady Elladine of Ylles.” I sealed it and marked the wax with the signet ring from the box. It shows a winged being which I take to be an angel.
I feel rather glum as I look at what I am to wear to the banquet, a dress provided by Aunt Lavender which has all too obviously been made over from something previously worn by someone else. It has achieved a pallid limpness much like that of the cleaning rags which are always drying on the kitchenyard wall.
I must not succumb to vanity. It does not matter how I look.
9
LATER, MIDNIGHT
As I was about to put on the limp dress, Doll knocked on my door and came in with a gown. It was of heavy India silk, the color of a deep pink rose, worked with silver and seed pearls at the neck and at the edges of the full oversleeves. Beneath the long sleeves were tight sleeves of silver cloth and the underskirt was of silver cloth as well, with roses embroidered in a border at the bottom. It had belonged to my mama, Doll said. All this time it had been folded away in clean linen in one of the attics, awaiting an opportunity to be worn again.
I looked across my room to the dress provided by Aunt Lavender. It was poor, ugly stuff, compared to this. Doll saw my glance and nodded.
“I saw what you were goin’ to wear,” she said. “Thought it wasn’t nice enough. Your mama’d have a fit, seein’ you in that. All her clothes are up there in the attic, and you should make use of them.”
“Did you like my mama?” I asked Doll.
“Nicest lady ever,” she said. “And I don’t care what they all say, she wouldn’t kill herself.”
Well, I’d never thought she had! But there was no time to talk about it, for Doll set about getting me dressed and doing up my hair in a knot in back, with part of it flowing down. Most of the women would be wearing wimples and or headdresses with peaks or wings and veils flowing from them. I hate headdresses because they muffle up my head, but then I wash my hair a lot and most women don’t. Washing the hair is dangerous because it fevers the brain, they say, but I’d never noticed mine being anymore fevered than usual.
“There now,” Doll said when she was finished with me. “You look a lot like her around the eyes.”
I caught her eye in the mirror, and we stared at one another, each knowing exactly what the other was thinking. She had piled my silver-gilt hair up, making it look plentiful and curly. She’d told me before that my eyelashes were as thick and black as Mama’s, and my mouth curved just the way Mama’s did. The dress fit like a glove, so I knew I was built the way Mama was, too, slender in the waist and nicely plump other places. I even guessed I knew why Doll had found the dress for me. She had got me up to look rather like Mama to remind Papa of Mama because Doll didn’t think Mama was dead. I smiled at her and winked. She winked back.
There was no pocket in the pink gown, but it had long, full oversleeves. I broke the seal upon the letter and pinned the letter inside my sleeve.
When I came into the hall, Papa gave me a puzzled look, as though he might have seen me somewhere before. After a bit his face cleared and I knew he had remembered. Then he looked at Weasel-Rabbit for a while, frowning. I could see him thinking that his second wife was a paltry substitute for his first. All the aunts gasped when they saw me, but they didn’t dare say anything with the abbot right there at the table. I simply smiled and sat in my place. So there we
all were: Sibylla and her mama and my papa and five aunts, also the abbot and Father Raymond and a little princeling from somewhere as guest of honor, looking at me with admiration and saying courtly things. As luck would have it, I was sitting between the princeling and the abbot.
My friend, Giles, was at a table just below me. I saw him watching me, and I blushed and nodded at him, letting him know I thanked him for what he had done. Father Raymond saw me see Giles, and he saw me blush and nod. I know because his brow furrowed up, the way it sometimes does, and he looked first at me, then at Giles, several times.
I waited until everyone was eating hungrily and the musicians were playing and the wine steward was going around for the second time. Then I said to the abbot, quite loudly, “Your Reverence, I have the most amazing news. Today I have received a letter from my mama.”
Silence. Everyone had heard me but Papa, who was busy telling Aunt Terror about a pilgrimage, and everyone stopped chewing or talking except Papa.
I said, “It’s the most wonderful thing, Your Reverence, though I’m sure you’ve heard many wonders in your life. I brought it to show you.” And with that I tugged it out of my sleeve and spread it out on the table, using his wine flagon to hold it down flat. Everyone was whispering to everyone else. Weasel-Rabbit had gone dead pale. Her mama had little sweat beads all over her forehead. The princeling was very attentive, ready to enjoy whatever happened.