Wynter's Thief, page 24
“I see. Tell on, about the maid Wynter.”
Quietly, simply, Father Damian tells of the test he had set up for me, of the sacred cup and the parchment underneath with his prayer to the saint. “It was the most accurate and holy test I could devise,” he says. “I do not believe Mistress Wynter could have passed that test and found that water unless her divining was indeed a gift from God. Wynter is a goodly maid, reverent and true. I am as sure of that as I am that God is in His heaven.”
“Thank you, Father Damian,” says Sir Godfrey. “You may step back. And now we will hear from the maid herself. Stand before me, please.”
So I move to the centre of the table, facing him. He is but five feet away, though a little above me. I feel his steely eyes on me, see his colours, his power. His eyes are two shining pools, reading me, drawing me in. Yet his colours are true and good; this comforts me, gives me strength. I feel calm as I step up to the raised table and bend and kiss the Book.
The judge thinks awhile before he begins his questions. He asks first, “How did you know it was going to rain, and that the village of Ocken Underwood would be flooded?”
“I had a dream, sir. I dreamed that I stood in sunshine and held a bowl in my hands, and in it was the village of Ocken Underwood, all the houses and the manor, and the lanes, and the fields of wheat ready to harvest. The sides of the bowl were the hills round about. It was small, sir, but very true to life. And while I stood there in the sun, looking at this village in my hands, it rained out of the clear sky, and I stood in running mud, and the bowl in my hands filled with water, until all I could see were the roofs of the cottages. I saw that the harvest fields were underwater. When I woke, I knew what the dream meant.”
I hear people shuffling behind me, beginning to talk.
Sir Godfrey commands them to be silent. Then he says to me, “What did you do about this dream, Maid Wynter?”
“I told Fox, though I don’t think he believed me at first. I went to the marketplace and told the people there.”
“Were you not afraid you would be mocked? This was not a usual divining, but a foretelling of an exceeding great change in the weather. An unlikely change, though you were right about it. Surely you knew you would not be believed.”
“Fox warned me I would be mocked, sir. But I believe my gift is sacred, given to me to help people. To do nothing would be to deny what God gave me.”
Sir Godfrey sits very still, and I cannot read his face. I wait. We all wait, while the clerk scratches away with his quill. I become aware that it is raining outside; the drops pelt against the windows and drum on the high, tiled roof. I wonder if I shall ever dance in the rain again.
Sir Godfrey asks, “Now tell us, Mistress Wynter, what you experience when you divine. What you say about yourself is most important. Speak the truth only.”
So I do. “Before I divine, I pray for the help of the saints and feel a stillness in my heart, and in the quiet, I hear the voice of the wind and the singing of stone, and the music of hidden waters deep in the earth. It is like the music of angels, and I hear it, and I know. I know where the water is, where lost things are, and if a storm is coming, or a flood. I know if locusts are going to ruin a crop, and what is in the mind of the wild creatures God made, and the evil that is in some people.”
He leans forward, holds up a hand. His face is stern, and I fear I am making a dreadful mistake, for he does not understand. “Explain,” he says. “You hear music in the air?”
“Not in the air, sir. I don’t hear it with my ears, but in my heart. It is like …”
There is a commotion somewhere in the hall, to the side by the stairs, and I strive to ignore it. I continue, “It is an inward thing, like feeling for a different force, something beyond …”
I falter as Lord Rathborne stands up, and the judge follows his gaze.
From the corner of my eye I see a man coming down the stairs. Servants huddle about him, stumbling on the steps, helping him. At the foot of the stairs, on the crowded floor, people part to let him in. I struggle to keep my thoughts.
“Go on, Wynter,” says Sir Godfrey. “It is the lord’s son, come to join us. Give him no mind. Speak on.”
“I know where water is,” I say, stammering. From the corner of my eye, I see the lord’s son, swinging by on crutches, only one booted foot showing beneath his long green gown. He reaches the table, turns and looks at me.
It is Fox.
Fox, clean-shaven and with his bruises gone, dressed in fine clothes, embroidered and bejewelled. Fox, with his hair carefully combed and curling on his shoulders. Fox, pretending he has only one leg. Fox –
He turns to the judge, apologises, and is helped up to the table, where he sits. I hear the judge ask me to continue. I cannot. I stare at Fox, and I cannot understand. It is a trick, a cruel jest. I burst out, near tears, “Fox! What are you doing?”
He frowns, appears almost amused, as he does when he is teasing me. “I am come to hear you speak,” he says. “I’m sorry to interrupt. My name is not Fox. It is Sir Richard.” He has changed his voice, the way he talks.
I think I am demented. “But you are Fox!” I say. I glance at Lord Rathborne, and he is rising to his feet, staring at me, his face white.
I rub my eyes, look again at Fox, and he stares back as if I am insane.
“Why do you jest?” I cry, my voice shrill, out of control. “Why say your name is Richard? You are Fox! Fox! My Fox!” I am ranting, gone mad from the strain. I tear my hair, moan, bend over as if I am in pain. And I am, I am, for now they will surely judge me a witch, a mad witch. Around me, people are shouting, pushing, and I fall over. The hall is in an uproar. I hear the judge shouting for peace, and getting none. The world spins, all is frenzy and madness, and I think I will be sick. Hands take hold of me, lift me up. Someone puts a chair behind me. I sit with my hands over my face. I dare not open my eyes lest I see devils leaping about, and Fox with horns and a tail. Because the devil it surely is, come to mock me, to drive me from my wits and condemn me from my own mouth. God save me, for I am surely a witch after all, or demon-possessed, and now the truth comes out, treacherous and lethal.
Of a sudden, I realise it is quiet but for my moans and sobs.
Someone takes my hands down from my face, holds them, tells me to look at him. It is Lord Rathborne, and he is crouching before me, so our faces are level. I dare not glance past him at that apparition. I concentrate on the lord’s eyes, tilted up a little at the outer corners, like other eyes I know.
“Tell me, Wynter,” he says. “Tell me why you call my son by the name of Fox.”
Tears run down my cheeks. I dare to look again, see Fox in his lordly green, still sitting in his chair behind the black cloth, solemn and watchful now. I gaze back at Lord Rathborne.
“Because he is Fox,” I say. “Fox is sitting there, and I am mad.”
“Nay, not mad,” says Lord Rathborne, his hands still wrapped about mine. His voice is hoarse, and his eyes are wet. “The man you see is not Fox. But we will bring your Fox, and they will stand together. For I swear, there is a miracle happening in this place.”
He stands and nods to a woman-servant nearby, and she kneels beside me, her arms about my shoulders. Shaking, lost in a strange, dim dream, I realise that all the village folk have gone. Sir Godfrey is on his feet in front of the table, his arms folded, hands in his black loose sleeves. Servants hover about, and men are bringing the Lady Adelaide back into the hall. Lord Rathborne rushes to her, bends over her. Her hands flutter to her face, and she weeps.
Movements are slow, time is disjointed. I hear voices, but they are harsh and garbled, and do not belong to this place, this dream. I grasp onto little things, details that make sense: the long, pointed toes of the judge’s shoes, red as poppies in the strewn rushes. The Bible on the black tablecloth, the way the candlelight glints on the metal clasps, the shining of the old leather, much-used. Nearby, a silver candlestick drips tallow onto the black cloth, and it pools and hardens while I watch. The pageboy waits at the end of the table, pale and afraid, as bewildered as I am. I wonder if he will always remember the day he saw a witch go mad. From behind me a servant says, “They are bringing the prisoner in now, my lord.”
Vaguely I am aware of a group approaching. I see Fox back in his dirty yellow shirt, his bare feet, slender and white, sticking out from the ends of his ragged grey breeches. He is shining from the rain, water drips from his beard, his hair is plastered down across his still-swollen eyes. I look to the long table, and there sits the other Fox, all in green. Only he is trying to get up, and the pageboy takes his arm to help him. It is beyond belief, the stuff of witchery and devilment.
My true Fox comes to me, draws me up, holds me in his arms. And the smell of him, the strength and gentleness of him, his tender voice, brings me back from delirium, and I am myself.
“I don’t know what is happening,” I say.
“We are together, that is all that matters,” he whispers, kissing my hair, my brow.
Lord Rathborne comes over to us. The servants make way for him, and there is silence. Fox stares at him, and I realise they have not seen each other before. Over the lord’s shoulder, that other Fox waits, watching.
The lord approaches Fox, turns him gently away from me, puts his hands on Fox’s shoulders. Long moments he looks at him, and then he pulls Fox to him, crushes him so close Fox cries out in pain, and the lord sobs, huge wrenching sobs such as I have never heard before from a grown man.
“Everard, Everard,” he says, “my son, my son.”
Narrative 15: Fox
The lordly stranger is embracing me so hard I howl with pain. His words blast me into confusion. He calls me Everard, and I try to pull away, but he holds me closer, crushes my sore ribs, says, sobbing, “My son, my son!”
I am aware of people standing about, utterly silent. Something stupendous is happening, and I don’t know what it is. I pull away from him and he stares at me strangely again, his gaze fixed on my brand. Then he peers deep into my swollen eyes, studies the rest of my face, as if he cannot believe what he sees. He is distraught, or overjoyed. It is hard to tell. Mad, for certain. I glance at the others waiting about; in the dimness their faces are grave, astonished. Some are smiling. I see a young man in green standing by the table. His face is somewhat familiar, and he stares at me as if I am a ghost.
“I am Fox, sir,” I say to the man holding me. “Not your son. You are mistook.”
He swallows hard, as if fighting to control himself. “Who is your father?” he asks.
“I don’t know, sir. My mother abandoned me when I was a weanling. I grew up in the streets of Bryn, looked after by a youth called Meredith. He saved my life, protected me, when I was too small to look after myself.”
The man’s eyes fill with tears and he sighs deeply. “Why the brand?”
“We lived by thievery. There was no other way. But the one time we were not guilty, we were arrested and blamed. Meredith they hanged on a tree outside Bryn. I was too young to hang, so they branded me.”
He shakes his head, leans forward and kisses me hard on the brow. “Oh, Everard!” he says. “To think you were so close, all these years!”
“I am not Everard, sir.”
He takes my hand, says, “Jesu! You are cold!” Removing his cloak, he places it about my shoulders, fixing it with a jewelled brooch at the shoulder. Is he mocking me? I say, somewhat fierce, for he is insane and I will not play a part in his delusion, “Who are you, sir?”
He holds the folds of the cloak, his knuckles on my breast, smiles with a warmth and love that would be wonderful if I deserved them. He says, “I am your father, Everard. Lord Rathborne. When you were but two summers old, you and your twin brother Richard were both kidnapped. I paid the ransom, but only Richard was returned to us. The kidnappers demanded more money for you, and we were negotiating over it when their messages stopped, and we heard no more. Neither were they ever caught. Five years I searched for you, all through Buckinghamshire, through the shires on our borders. My wife – your mother – died of the grief that you were not found. But now, this day, you are found. And you are welcome home, more welcome than anyone ever was, apart from your brother when he came back. Look – come and meet him. Your twin brother. Richard.”
He puts an arm around me, takes me to the table where the man in green stands, leaning on crutches. He is better built than I am, not so lean, clean-shaven, but his hair is dark and long and curling like mine, and he does indeed appear like the reflection I see when I look into still water, or at the wide blade of a knife.
Richard does not move, though he smiles, almost dutifully. Mayhap, like me, he does not believe this. But some of the others around us come close, look from me to Richard, and nod, smiling. An old man claps Lord Rathborne on the shoulder, weeps like a child, saying, “My lord! God has been good this day! Your long-lost son is found!”
I wish I could say I feel joy, but I don’t. I still think they are wrong, that there has been a mistake. There is something unreal about this, disconnected from me, from my life. Or I am dreaming or delirious, still in the prison cell waiting to be brought here. I turn and look at Wynter; she is smiling, crying, looking back at me with an expression I cannot read. I want to go to her, but a tall, gaunt man in black steps forward, speaks to the manor lord.
“My Lord Rathborne,” he says, “this is a mighty day for you. I understand that, and I honour it. I honour your joy. But I must also honour the law, and the reason I am called here. I have another trial in another town on the morrow, so must do this work today. Your son – this Master Fox, or Everard – is yet to be tried. And by God I must try him, and do it right fairly, though it grieves my soul. Will you please send out men to call back the village folk if they wish to attend, and ask for the witnesses to come.”
Lord Rathborne turns to one of the men nearby, gives him orders. I am taken to stand by Wynter, just to the left of the long table. I take her hand, and when she looks up at me, I see fear in her. “Don’t worry,” I whisper. “They’re all mistook.”
“I don’t think they are, my love,” she says, and I wonder why she weeps.
Some men leave the hall, others sit behind the long table, beneath a marvellous tapestry of a hunting scene. I gaze up at the carved and arching beams high above, the graceful crossbeams and struts, at the whitewashed walls with other tapestries. I am not dreaming. But something stirs in me – a longing, painful and joyous, such as I felt when I first saw the manor and knew what was behind the high window. Is it memory? I think of the cottage where Wynter and I stayed, and how I was afraid of it, thinking it haunted. Had I been held there as a child, a prisoner, while they negotiated my ransom? But it was too close to home, surely – if this manor is in truth my home. And yet what better place to hide a child – right under the noses of those who seek for him. I remember the boards in the floor, covered with dirt, with the little pit hollowed out underneath. Is that where I was concealed?
Feelings pour over me, sorrow childish and overwhelming, and joy, and hope. I want to rush out, back to the cottage, to my early life, to make sense of the memories that come thick and fast, too momentous for me to bear. Then I realise that the great hall behind me is filled with the voices of many people, of the shuffling of feet, and there is a smell of wet clothes, damp leather and ale. I turn to see the villagers surging in, craning their necks, shoving one another, eager as dogs at a bear-baiting. Some of the men are drunk, loud and unruly, and guards with swords take them out. People in the front are staring, open-mouthed, at Richard, then me, and back to him again.
Seeing them all there, eager and gawking, puts me in mind of the day Wynter divined, the day I first saw her. And it comes to me then, the realisation that this day we are both tried, and by this night we may both be condemned to death. It no longer matters, who or what I am; whether I am felon or saint, thief or lord. Everything now is without meaning, irrelevant. Everything except Wynter. Only she matters to me, the feel of her small hand in mine, the brightness of her love. That is real, though all the world disintegrates into mayhem.
My hand folds more firmly about Wynter’s, and I turn to the front again. Lord Rathborne is sitting at the judge’s left, two other men with him. A woman is with them, pale and glad. Sir Richard is there, too, his dark eyes on my face. It is impossible to tell his thoughts. I have a feeling he resents me, and want to tell him there is no need, his place as only son will not change, since tomorrow I will be dead.
The judge makes an announcement.
“For those of you who were not here for the first trial, my name is Sir Godfrey de Berneval, and I am here to judge the accused. I will call first upon three witnesses, then I will hear the young man you know as Master Fox. He will continue to be known by that name throughout the trial. After that, I will make my judgement on both him and Mistress Wynter, whose trial I consider complete, though it was interrupted. Would Simon Jackson come forward, please.”
Simon trudges up, slow and unwilling, as if it is his own hanging he is coming to. I feel sorry for him; like me, he could not have known, that bright day when Wynter and I were wed, what a dreadful fix things would come to. As he bends over to kiss a big book that lies on the table, he is trembling.
The judge questions him, and Simon answers honestly, twisting his felt hat in his hands, wringing the water out of it all over his sodden feet. I hear how Tom swore he’d crush one of Simon’s hands if Simon didn’t join in a prank with him. Rage grows in me, as I hear how Tom’s taunting had all been in jest, to wind me up. And how I had fallen for it! Killed him, all for naught. Still swallowing my rage, I listen while Simon finishes telling of how Tom Machin beat me, and how in the end, to save myself, I hit him with a wooden mallet.
