by Mary Burns
I rose, pulling my wrapper about me, and went to the door. Opening it a crack, I peered out—it was a chambermaid, not Maisie, but a remarkably true copy of her—fair curls, pink cheeks, blue eyes. Lord, like daisies in a field. I opened the door wider to let her in.
“Beg pardon, Miss,” she said as she came in, walking and bobbing a curtsy at the same time. “I’m Annie. The gentleman said as I was to wake you in time for dinner.”
My first thought was Lord Parke, but that didn’t make sense. Must be John she meant.
“Mr. Sargent?” I said. At her blank look, I continued. “Tall man? Dark beard? Not English?”
“Yes, Miss, that were he, thank you, Miss,” she said. She glanced around the room, saw my coat which had somehow fallen to the floor behind the sofa—had I done that? and not noticed?—and moved to pick it up and hang it in the wardrobe. She turned the gas up on two other lamps in the room, and motioned to the fireplace.
“Did you want me to make up fire, Miss?” she said.
“No, dear, thank you,” I said. I stood by the door, looking around the room. Things seemed slightly askew, but how? There was my coat, of course, but that could have happened accidentally. My small trunk stood in a corner near me—I hadn’t had time earlier to do anything with its contents—and as I stepped toward it for a closer inspection, I saw that one of the buckles was undone, and had been put back through the loop without the metal prong going through the hole in the leather, as if done in haste. Now that I would never do.
Someone had been in my room—while I was asleep! The thought froze me in place with horror, then catapulted me to my bedroom—the book! Someone was after Uncle Chaffee’s book!
“Miss?” The girl tentatively spoke. I must have seemed like a madwoman to her.
I found the book promptly, in my reticule where I had placed it for our journey. Thank goodness the stealthy marauder hadn’t actually come into my bedroom! I had chills at the thought.
Annie had come to the door of the bedroom, and was gazing at me in open astonishment. “Are you all right, Miss?” she said. She looked as if she were going to bolt for the door if I made any more sudden moves.
“Yes, Annie, thank you, I’m quite well—I just had to check something,” I said. My initial fear was turning to anger—and a certain macabre satisfaction. This could only mean that Uncle Chaffee had indeed been murdered. Why else would someone search my room?
“Help me to dress, my dear,” I said, motioning the girl into the room. “I mustn’t be late for dinner.”
She came in with a good enough will, though warily, and proved to be quite as good helping me dress and arranging my hair as Maisie had been. A thought struck me.
“Annie,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Did you happen to meet anyone in the corridor as you were coming to my room just now?”
“Meet anyone? Just now, Miss?” she said. Her face as I glimpsed it in the mirror in front of us reflected her obliging attempt to consider this. “Not as such,” she said, working on a particularly wayward curl above my right ear.
So literal! I calmed myself and asked more specifically. “Did you happen to catch a glimpse of anyone, perhaps just disappearing around the corner as you walked up the hall?”
She screwed up her face into a pretty frown of concentration. Then the sun broke through.
“Yes, Miss,” she said. “Now you mention it, I did see a bit of coat tail and leg round the corner, just as I came up from staircase.”
“Could you tell who it was? Was it a man or a woman?” I asked.
She nodded, patting the obstinate curl firmly into place. “A man, sure,” she said. “But I saw nought but his leg.” She looked at me via the medium of the dressing table mirror, troubled. “Could it been him was in your room, Miss, afore I come to you?”
So Annie wasn’t nearly as witless as she sounded. But I didn’t want her to worry—or carry tales to the rest of the staff.
“Oh, my, what makes you think that? No, my dear, nothing like that, I assure you.”
To further soothe her feelings, and my own, I chatted idly with her.
“I suppose Maisie doesn’t work in the evenings,” I said, turning away and walking toward the wardrobe. Annie tidied up the dressing table as she answered.
“Oh no, Miss, I mean, she usually does, but His Lordship asked for her special,” she said. “Mister Lurbridge, he’s owner of inn, Miss, doesn’t half like it but there’s no use to go fronting His Lordship.”
I was, I admit, more than a little taken aback. Just ask and have, was it? My uncertain but previously increasing esteem for His Lordship took a decided plunge.
“And was Maisie happy to be so asked for?” I said, reprimanding myself severely in my mind for such low curiosity.
“Oh yes, Miss, all us girls is keen to go with His Lordship, on’y he’s ever so particular about who he chooses.” She sighed, and moved toward the door. “Wisht I could go more often.”
I believe my mouth actually dropped open upon hearing this. Well! These Northerners were apparently a little more liberal on such matters than the rest of the country. I busied myself looking for my gloves.
“Will that be all, then, Miss?” Annie said, her innocent blue eyes fixed on my face. “Shall I come back in an hour to make up fire and help ’ee to bed?”
“Yes, yes, that will be fine,” I said, thinking only of getting her out of the room so I could have my thoughts to myself a few moments before going down to dinner.
I was so agitated that I entirely forgot to give her a parting pence, and thought of it only after she had left, closing the door behind her with extreme care—but not without it giving that signature click that chilled the very blood in my veins when I heard it again. The distressing information I’d just heard about Lord Parke and his revels was swept away by the awful fact of the intruder in my room. I retrieved Uncle Chaffee’s book from my reticule and clutched it like a talisman, imploring it to reveal its secrets.
I would not sleep tonight, I vowed, until I had looked very carefully on every page of this book. I sank onto the bed—which Annie had managed to straighten and make fresh again, I hadn’t noticed when or how—and began paging through the little volume slowly. A chapter title caught my eye—The Most Sacred Relicks of Glaston Abbey—and I turned to the page, thinking of Uncle Chaffee’s collection. A certain amount of the text was in Latin, but that was not much of an obstacle. The archaic English was actually more of a challenge. I scanned the list.
De Sancto Dunstano Cantuarie archiepiscopo
De Sancto Patricio Hyberniensium apostolo
De Sancto Edgaro rege
St. Dunstan, St. Patrick and King Edgar—well, here were important relics indeed, as far as historical interest went. I continued perusing the names: Saint Benedict, Pope Urban, Saint Laurence, John the Baptist! Truly? John the Baptist? That seemed highly unlikely. Surely no one really believed in this sort of thing in these more rational times.
I felt both puzzled and dismayed. What was the point of all these pieces of bone and cloth and hair? The list in the book was quite lengthy, and I wondered if any of them were part of the Reverend’s collection. It would be interesting to see a list of what he had, and if that in any way coincided with these listed in the book by his ancestor. Regardless, why was one of them stolen from his library? And which one?
The mantle clock struck eight, and I jumped. I put the book back in my reticule—I would not let it leave my side from now on—and went to dinner. I couldn’t wait to tell John what had happened.
16
The King will follow Christ, and we the King
In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing.
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand! Let the King reign!
–Idylls of the King
21 June 1539
Midsummer’s Eve, or Litha’s Eve
Arthur whispered the Angelus as the sun sank behind the farthest hill. Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae. He found that even without
the Abbey bells ringing the times for prayer, the strong habits bred during the past four years led him to pray without conscious decision—they were part of his being, what made him who he was, a young squire in the service of Christ the King.
He picked his way through the darkening woods, his hand on the donkey’s warm neck. His heart stirred as he remembered the Abbot’s words to him: I have a quest for thee, as great and holy as any that Arthur or Joseph undertook in holier times than ours. He felt as if he’d been taken out of his own time, out of time altogether—travelling by night and sleeping by day had rearranged his normal sense of things—and was truly taking part in a legendary journey. The mystical events that had happened in the clearing seemed part of another world to him, a secret world into which he had been initiated, and he thought of them often.
He glanced behind him at Gwillem Moor who walked at the donkey’s side, sure-footed as the beast itself. Although it seemed obvious, it occurred to Arthur that it made no difference to the harper if it were day or night, so why shouldn’t he walk equally well at any time, in any kind of light? He wondered if the man had always been blind, or if it were something that had happened to him—like a curse, or a magic spell?
“Gwillem Moor,” he said, his voice as low as he could make it, “may I ask if you were always blind, or did you become so?” He blushed, mindful of the Prior’s admonitions to talk no idle talk nor ask questions out of mere curiosity. The Rule of St. Benedict was very clear about avoiding floods of words—The tongue holds the key to life and death.
Although Arthur could not see it, the harper smiled a little at this question, and nodded his head, as if agreeing with someone. “My mother,” he said, “who now sings with the angels, brought me from her womb with the Sight that guides me.”
Arthur waited to see if he would say more, and when he didn’t, he decided it would be best not to ask any more questions. They trudged on in silence in the growing darkness, and made their way through thick woods and dark shadows. Hour after hour passed—the moon rose, almost at the full, and lighted their way when the cover of the tree branches thinned, or they found themselves in a clearing. Stopping only to let the donkey drink from a stream, or for themselves to ease their thirst, they travelled for miles until the moon set and the dawn began to gleam in the East. They paused to take their bearings as they came to the edge of the woods with the hills ahead of them, the morning light breaking behind them.
“My mother heard a riddle at my birth,” Gwillem Moor spoke softly, almost in Arthur’s ear. “And sang it to me ever after.” He took a breath, and sang a strange little song:
Kingsword will flash
Mansword will slash
Flesh will be riven
Sight will be given
Song will be done
At the set of the Sun.
Arthur marvelled at the strangeness of the man and the riddle, and at the surpassing strangeness of finding himself on a journey with a Welsh bard who riddled like Taliesin and seemed another Merlin.
Gwillem Moor stepped a pace forward, lifted his head and sniffed the air. “Woodsmoke,” he said, and pointed a hand to their right. “It is folk I know. They will take us in for a day and a night and a day, so we will not be on the mountain when Litha rides through her realm.”
As the sun rose full above the trees, the two travellers entered a cleared-away space in the woods, where a daub and wattle hut, reinforced with strong saplings, sparkled with dewdrops in the morning light. The door was open, and chickens pecked the ground in front, while a sow with piglets grunted, nursing, under a lean-to shed on one side of the dwelling.
Gwillem Moor whistled a low, curious trill of sound, more like a bird’s song than a man’s, and waited.
A cheerful looking matron appeared at the door, rubbing her hands on her apron as she looked sharply across the meadow. Spying the harper and his companion, she nodded, turned to say something to someone inside the house, then came forward to greet them. Her man followed just behind her, still munching his breakfast bread and cheese.
“Good morrow, Gwillem Moor,” said the woman, placing a hand on the harper’s arm and giving it a little shake. “And wasn’t I just telling my good man here, t’other day, how t’were time and enough to see blind harper again? Welcome you are, and your young friend here,” she added, casting a motherly eye upon Arthur Joseph.
“Blessings be on your house,” said Gwillem Moor, “for your generous heart.”
The woman’s husband, without a word, had taken the donkey’s rope from Arthur’s hands, and was leading beast and cart around to the back of the house. When Arthur made as if to follow him and help, he waved him away, with a smile and a nod, pointing to his wife and motioning for Arthur to follow her into the house, where she was walking with the harper.
Anxious about the contents of the cart, Arthur spoke in a low voice as he caught up with Gwillem Moor. “Will everything be safe…” he started to say.
“Do not worry, lad,” the harper said. “Crofter knows, aye, and his wife too, well what needs be done.”
The goodwife welcomed them into the small dwelling, which was clean-swept and redolent of fresh rushes and herbs scattered among them on the floor. Morning pottage was spooned into bowls for them, and they sat on a bench against one wall to break their fast. Arthur found himself so hungry at the smell of the hearty fare that he almost dug in without saying his prayers, but caught himself in time.
The woman spoke only occasionally, smiling her kindness and satisfaction at seeing Arthur’s good appetite, and hovering solicitously near Gwillem Moor—Arthur sensed she was used to the blind harper’s silent ways, and respected them. He could hear Crofter’s activity behind the house, settling their donkey, brushing and feeding it, talking to it in low, soothing tones. And before he knew it, Arthur was nodding over his empty bowl, and willingly let himself be led by the woman to a corner of the big room, there to lie under a clean blanket, where he promptly fell fast asleep.
He woke as the shadows of dusk were gathering in the clearing, and remembered it was Midsummer’s Eve—they would not be travelling this night. He felt sheepish about having slept all day, especially as he looked about the cottage and saw he was alone. He rose and went outside, off into the woods a little way to relieve himself, and wandered to the rear of the house to check on their cart and donkey. To his utter surprise, there was no sign of either. Alarmed, he rushed to the front of the house, looking for Gwillem Moor, or the man and his wife, but still there was no one.
Perplexed and anxious, Arthur made himself stand still at the door of the house, looking keenly into the forest surrounding the clearing in which the house stood. The birds of twilight were calling each other, darting here and there among the branches, creating a sound that rose almost to a tumultuous noise—then suddenly they fell quiet, as a hush like a rolled-out carpet fell across the land. The sun had set behind the mountain, and Litha’s Eve had begun.
The silence grew—it felt like ivy growing in darkness, climbing up and winding itself around an oak tree, clothing it in green closeness. Arthur stood in the doorway, still peering into the dimness, and became aware of single lights—flames—appearing through the trees. He took a step back into the house, and thought about closing the door altogether, but then he felt ashamed at his cowardice. He was a knight of Glastonbury on a holy quest! What had he to fear from spirits in the forest, even Litha herself, or any of the souls who came out to dance in the Midsummer moonlight? It was not Samhain, the autumn feast when the door to the underworld opened and spewed forth the unshriven dead—rather, Litha’s feast was about love and lust, and he felt himself reasonably secure against those particular temptations.
Luckily, he was not long alone with these thoughts—from across the clearing, three shapes emerged from the shadows, Gwillem Moor and the crofters, making straight for the house. Arthur realized he’d been holding his breath, and let it out slowly.
Gwillem Moor held up a hand in greeting as they neared t
he house, and the woman smiled, setting Arthur’s heart at ease. The harper patted Arthur’s shoulder and bent to place a kiss on the top of his head.
“Come,” he said. “Let us inside, and eat and sing the night awae.”
In the evening, after the crofters and their guests had supped, they stepped outside to greet and join with a small crowd of people who had gathered in the clearing, by ones and twos, bearing torches and wearing garlands. They had come from afar, from wood and mountain, to hear the blind harper, who sang them this song.
Ar lan y Mur mae rhysys chochion…
Beside the Wall there are red roses
Beside the Wall there’re lovely lillies
Beside the Wall my sweetheart lives
Asleep at night and awake at morning.
Cold is the frost and cold the snowfall
Cold the house without fire in winter
Cold is the church without a priest
Cold am I without my lover.
Yonder’s the home and yonder the building
Where I’ve spent many a happy evening
In the loft there above the kitchen
With the girl with the yellow ribbon.
I’ve a cow with two horns of silver
I’ve a cow milks herself on her own
I’ve a cow that fills the pails up
Just like the sea which fills the seashore.
Hearing the words, Arthur began to realize that Gwillem Moor was telling these people, and entrusting to them through the song, the events of great moment that were happening throughout the kingdom and in their very presence—the destruction of the monasteries, the sorrow of the future overtaking the past, the miraculous treasure that was being carried to safety, and its eventual destination—in Cumberland, in the shadow of the Emperor Hadrian’s Great Wall.