Briar and Rose and Jack
Page 4
Rose flashes him her most charming smile, her head tilted engagingly, her blue eyes sparkling. This has never failed her. “I need an apple,” she asks of him. “No, two! Pleeese, Allard?”
“An apple? Now what do ye want with an apple? They won’t be in season for another two months. Make it a nice dish o’ berries and I’ll consider it. Ye’d like a nice dish o’ berries, now wouldn’t ye?”
A quick conference goes on between the girls; then Rose assents.
“All right then, Princess. Here you go,” he acquiesces, preparing a bowl of blueberries for Rose as Briar comes out from behind her and tries to look appealing.
“One for Briar, too!” Rose demands.
“As you like, my pretty,” he says, and dutifully complies. The girls promptly transfer their plunder into the leather pouches attached to their belts. Then they make haste out of the kitchen, past the scullery, and through the kitchen garden. They slip past the stables and the mews without their usual stops to socialize with the inmates. When they come to the kennels, Briar insists that they pause for a short visit. They are quickly surrounded by the castle’s hunting dogs: basset hounds, Alaunts, beagles, bloodhounds, spaniels, and terriers. Briar’s favorite is a greyhound named Toby, a black-and-white brindle who adores tummy rubs. Toby licks Briar’s face affectionately and wiggles all over. Rose, however, is actually afraid of dogs, though she would never admit to something so cowardly. When the dogs jump up on her, she wants to run, but she forces herself to pat their heads and say, “Good dog. Nice dog.”
They stay only a few minutes, then hurry on their way. They are eager to get past the gatehouse before they are caught, for most everyone in the castle knows that they should be at their lessons in the afternoon, with the other girls and the women. Yet temptation propels them onward.
They are not as unobserved as they think. From a window above them, two jaded eyes follow their progress toward the gatehouse. Bishop Simon observes them sneaking. He chooses not to interfere. He smiles to himself and settles down to wait. It is not a pleasant smile.
At last the children reach the barbican. The drawbridge is down, the portcullis up, and a steady stream of sweating peasants, artisans, and craftsmen travel in and out of the gatehouse along with horses, carts, and the occasional knight or holy man. It is easy for two small girls to blend into the bustle of humanity and avoid the notice of Durwin, the porter.
Ha! Once again they have escaped the confines and constant supervision of the castle proper and are making their way with exquisite subtlety and stealth along the streets of the impoverished little village. If anyone does observe the two fugitives, they pretend ignorance and do not meddle, but they keep a careful watch over their young princess, for such they know her to be. The girls venture forth unopposed, on past the last thatched hut at the edge of town, making their way to a sweet spot beyond the bend where a thicket grows down to the edge of a wide stream.
It is a scrubby collection of twisted trees, underbrush, and tangled vines, with a few rabbit trails the children have worn into narrow pathways. To the young adventurers it is the forest primeval. Beneath the branches, their rebellious hearts leap like deer, and every green, hazy shadow is fertile with supernatural possibilities. “Quiet!” hisses Briar as a twig snaps under Rose’s elegantly shod foot.
“I am!” Rose says loudly.
“Shhhh!”
“I am!” Rose whispers.
The girls look around with eagle eyes to see if they have been followed, but there is no sign of any human presence. Today they have decided to catch a unicorn, or maybe two. It is common knowledge among the womenfolk that unicorns will come to a pure maiden sitting under a tree. Briar, having thought the matter out, remembers how much the horses in the stable appreciate the occasional stolen apple, but as none were available, the blueberries will have to do. “Do you really think a unicorn will come for blueberries?” she asks doubtfully, while Rose, whose dimpled smile has won so many hearts, never questions that the unicorn will come to her. She is already imagining the surprise and joy on everyone’s faces when she and Briar cross the drawbridge bringing a real unicorn docilely home. Now, alight with excitement, the two girls spend considerable time and care choosing the sort of tree that a unicorn might find appealing.
“Over there!” Briar points to a twisted oak spreading its branches in the midst of the little woodland. They examine it from all sides and judge it fitting. They seat themselves side by side, spreading their mashed-up blueberries on their laps and warning each other to be quiet. Only the sounds of the woods can be heard now: the lazy rustling of myriad swaying leaves, bursts of birdsong, the tiny flutter and buzz of insects. It is hot, even in this shady place, and the sweet, pungent scents of the forest are simmering into a heady perfume. Briar and Rose relax in the dappled light, and they begin to talk, very softly, so as not to frighten any unicorns. They speak of everything, from grand thoughts of how the world should be run to simple-minded humor.
The afternoon passes with the slow progress of a fern uncurling, with still no sign of a unicorn, and after a while the girls begin to eat the blueberries themselves.
Finally, Briar says, “Oh, let’s do something else. Something fun. Let’s pretend something.” Rose agrees, and they get up and wander through the underbrush, swinging on the occasional vine in search of inspiration.
“Let’s pretend we are sisters!” Briar says, for this is her favorite fantasy.
“But we always play that!” Rose responds. “We need something new.”
Perhaps it is inevitable on such a day that they are drawn to the water’s edge. A narrow log rests on the shore, half of it floating in the water. Briar looks at it thoughtfully. “If only we could make a raft. Now that would be fun! We need another—help me look—we need another log.”
Rose immediately falls in with the plan, and the two search in the underbrush for a fallen log of just the right size: large enough to support some weight but small enough for them to maneuver into the water. They scour the area until Briar nearly trips over the very sort of log they are looking for, a bit longer than the girls are tall and only a little bit rotted on one end. Breaking off a few extraneous branches, Briar, much the stronger of the two girls, picks up one grimy end and drags it to the water to lie next to the other log. The two logs combined look as if they might conceivably keep a child of nine afloat.
“But what do we tie them together with?” Rose asks.
“Maybe vines?” Briar poses. They manage to pull down some small vines but quickly see that they are not supple enough. Only then, observing Rose’s efforts, does Briar come up with the idea of using their long tie belts, one at each end, to fasten the two logs together. The belts quickly come off, and with relative ease, they get the logs’ ends on land tied up. Then, careless of their clothes and shoes, they step off into the water to tie up the other ends. Standing back to survey their work, Briar has another inspiration.
“A barge! It is like the Lily Maid of Astolat! One of us can be Lady Elaine and lie on the raft with a lily in her hand and be dead.”
“Oh, I should be Lady Elaine, on account of being a princess.”
“But Lady Elaine was not a princess!”
“Then we will take turns being Lady Elaine, and first you can be Lancelot, and when you see me floating dead on the barge, you beat your chest with grief and gnash your teeth and such.”
Briar, who can see great scope in this role, quickly joins in the spirit of the thing, and they look for a sprig of something to use for a lily. Meadowsweet being plentiful along the bank, they deem it a suitable substitute and proceed into the water, dragging the Lily Maid’s barge. Rose gingerly tries to sit herself on it as a prelude to lying down. The barge is not so easily tamed, bobbing up, down, and around as Briar attempts to hold it still. With a few failed tries and no small amount of luck, Rose sits, saturated to the waist, and, with help from Briar, actually lies down on the poetic vessel, soaking the rest of herself in the process.
“Shove me off!” Rose answers as she concentrates on keeping her precarious balance on the barge while maintaining the look of a dramatically dead Lily Maid, clutching her lily with one hand and holding herself on the wobbling raft with the other. Briar sees that the moment is right and pushes her out into the deep water.
For a few romantically charged moments Rose teeters atop the raft, and then the poorly tied belts separate, the logs split apart, rolling and splashing, and Rose manages one very lifelike scream before plunging into the water.
Chapter Two
FOR SEVERAL SUSPENDED HEARTBEATS Briar looks on in horror while Rose flails in the water, grabbing wildly for one of the logs.
“Oh! Oh no!” Briar cries. She runs into the water up to her waist, but the logs have drifted just out ofreach, and neither girl knows how to swim. As Rose clings, coughing and spluttering, to the end of the log, Briar staggers back out of the water, her skirts sopping wet and dripping. They drag about her in the mud as she frantically looks for a long, sturdy stick.
“Hold on!” she yells to Lady Elaine. “Lancelot will save you!”
Rose chokes and finally manages to shout, “Hurry!”
In desperation, Briar uses all her strength to break a low branch off a tree, and she drags it to the streambed. She wades in again, poking the branch out in an attempt to reach Rose, who has drifted somewhat downstream.
“Grab on!” she calls out. “Grab on and I’ll pull you in! Just hold your breath and grab on and don’t let go no matter what! And kick!”
Rose reaches out with one hand and manages to grab the branch, but she refuses to let go of the log with her other hand. “I can’t!”
“Yes, you can! Quick, before you’re out of reach!”
Rose takes a deep breath and grabs the extended branch with both hands. Her head immediately sinks underwater; nonetheless, she holds on for dear life and kicks as Briar quickly hauls her in to where she can stand on her own. Rose surfaces, choking and gasping, throws her arms around Briar, and cries, “Oh, Lancelot! You saved me!” Suddenly they hear something crashing through the woods. For a moment Briar thinks it might be the long-awaited unicorn, but turning, she sees that it is a ragged, skinny boy, slightly smaller than herself, pushing his way through the underbrush toward them. A few yards from shore, he comes to a stop, observing that neither of the girls looks to be in danger, and says, “Oh! I thought you was in for it proper! Are you all right, then?”
Briar battles with warring emotions. As she and Rose stand waist-deep in the water, they exchange a wordless look. They can see that the boy intended to help them in their dire straits, but both are incensed that someone has invaded their secret haven. Rose adopts her most commanding royal manner and says, “Get you gone, boy. This is our private place!”
The boy stares first at one girl and then the other, and the girls stare back, taking in the shock of yellow hair sticking straight up from his head in a fantastic cowlick and his big, sincere eyes. He looks behind him to see whom she is talking to, for none of the village children have ever spoken to him this way. He stares harder at them, sure now that they are not from the village. Briar blushes and turns her face away, always conscious of the reactions of strangers seeing her for the first time, but the boy says only, “You sure you’re all right? You look all done in. Here, I better help you.”
He wades into the water and, taking Rose by one arm, leads her firmly toward shore. Briar takes her other arm, and soon Rose is collapsing on the muddy bank, making her own pool of water in the mud. She pants and shivers while the water runs off her clumped hair in little rivulets.
“Thank you, loyal squire,” Briar says to the boy.
“Wait,” Rose objects. “He’s your squire?”
“Lancelot has to have a squire, doesn’t he? Don’t you want to be my squire, boy?”
“What’s a squire do?” he asks warily.
“Why, everybody knows that! He waits on his knight and has to learn all about chivalry and heraldry and jousting and everything. It is very unbecoming of you to ask.”
“I can’t help it if I don’t know nothing. No one ever taught me nothing. I’m just a poor peasant anyhow, but I’ll be your squire.”
“What is your name, boy?” says Rose.
“I’m just Jack, is all.”
“I think we ought to grant him a boon,” Briar says in Rose’s ear, “on account of his coming to save us, even if we didn’t need saving.”
“Hmm,” Rose says. “Yes. You have earned a boon, boy. What would you like? You get to ask for something, and if I want to, I’ll give it to you.”
“Ask for something? Could I have some of them blueberries I saw you eating?”
“You were spying on us?” demands Rose.
“Well, I was, but I didn’t mean no harm. My ma saw you headin’ this way, and she told me to keep an eye out in case you should run into trouble. I didn’t mean to bother you none.”
The girls confer privately, taking note of his scrawny arms and legs and his dirty rags and bare feet, and they promise to bring him a whole bag of food next time they come.
The matter settled, they continue their play, first with Lancelot marrying Lady Elaine, even though he really didn’t—it was just pretend. Then they have a go with Lady Elaine dramatically dying (again), then a long pause as Briar and Rose talk out the finer points of how she must be buried. They set the squire to digging with his bare hands, but his progress being too slow, they get down on their knees and help him. Their finely woven tunics are by now totally encrusted with mud, not to mention blueberry stains. When their efforts prove unsatisfying, they decide that Elaine’s ghost would most likely remain aboveground, haunting Lancelot anyway, a concept that affords even more enthusiastic play, with the squire trailing along behind. The squire soon grows weary of this and complains that there is nothing good for him to do. He says that he is going home, and Briar and Rose, getting hungry, decide that they had better go home too. They bid Jack goodbye and trudge back through the village, their muddy skirts dragging. When they finally reach the drawbridge, the traffic has slowed, and as they enter the gatehouse, Durwin spots them easily.
“Princess Rose!” he shouts. “Where have you been? Half the castle is looking for you, and if they find out you slipped by me, my pay will be docked again!”
Rose has the good grace to look abashed, calling out, “I’m sorry, Durwin!” but the girls hurry past him and on into the courtyard. They try to stay in the shadows, knowing they have reached the area of greatest peril. From here to their attic bedroom, the way is fraught with the danger of discovery, and they are both fearful of being caught in their present frightful state. They go as quietly as thieves, sticking close to the walls, listening for sounds of approach. They can hear Rose’s name being called from several different directions but are finally forced to take their chances going up the central stairway of the keep. On the second level, they must pass near the archway that leads to the chapel. They are tiptoeing along in their sodden shoes, making slight squishing sounds, when Bishop Simon emerges from the chapel door and blocks their way.
“Princess Rose! Oh, my dear princess! What has happened to you? Why, you’re half drowned!” He looks at Briar with hellfire in his eyes, and pulling himself up to his full height, he rages, “What have you done?”
Briar stands, speechless, staring stupidly as she tries to think of an answer that will deflect Bishop Simon’s wrath. The girls have not prepared a story, placing all their hopes on returning undetected as they have often done before. As the clergyman grabs Briar by the collar and shakes her, she realizes that he is not waiting for an answer. Rose looks on, her hands to her mouth, terrified and helpless. The clergyman calls out, “Here! They’re here! I’ve found them!” several times, and people come running to see. Bish
op Simon had spread the alarm early in the afternoon that the girls were missing and had done his best to upset everyone as much as possible about their disappearance. Then he had watched from his window for their return, intending to blame the whole affair on Briar. Though the girls’ absence all through the afternoon may not be too terrible an infraction, to find them soaking wet is a stroke of luck he had not anticipated. Brimming with malice, he intends to make the most of it.
A small crowd has gathered about them, and Lady Beatrice, Rose’s nursemaid, bursts in upon them. “There you are, Princess!” she says. “And look at you! Why, you’re soaked from head to toe! And muddy! And your dress and shoes are ruined! You certainly don’t look like the most beautiful princess in the land now!” She glares accusingly at Briar, whose friendship with Princess Rose has always rankled her. Having absorbed Bishop Simon’s teachings, she has long believed that Briar’s character is as malformed as her face, and she considers both to be an affront to Rose’s beauty and sweetness. It is perfectly clear to her that any misbehavior of Rose’s has always been the result of Briar’s bad influence. As she surveys the evidence of Rose’s near drowning, she announces that she has known all along that the association would lead to trouble.
“She’s been dunked right in!” she exclaims. “And look at this one,” she adds, pointing a finger into Briar’s face. “Why she’s only wet up to the waist! What did you do, push her in?”
“Well . . .” Briar objects weakly, remembering that she did push the makeshift barge, with Rose on it, out into deeper water. With everyone accusing her, she begins to doubt herself and wonders if she has indeed done something unforgivable.
“No!” Rose objects.
But her nurse takes her by the arm and says, “Don’t try to protect her! She pushed you in, didn’t she?”
“I asked her to!” Rose has the temerity to say.