Briar looks at them in disbelief. “Half of everything?” she asks, having never before contemplated just where the offerings to the giant came from.
“It’s true, child,” says Mother Mudge mournfully. “Half our crops, half our silver pennies, and half our livestock, and just about anything that might be of any value. The soldiers come and collect it all, and what can we do? Then King Warrick gives it away to the giant—but this is no kind of talk for bedtime! Don’t you worry yourself about that giant, dearie. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable in the loft and think about better things? You’ll find plenty of straw up there for your bedding.”
Briar climbs the ladder to the loft, where the straw is indeed plentiful. She burrows into it, making a nest for herself. The straw itches and her back hurts, and now she is directly above the cows, so she smells their manure quite strongly, mixed with the haze of smoke from the peat fire. Though there is a hole in the roof for the smoke to go out, it takes a circuitous route, enveloping Briar and making her cough. It is the first time she can ever remember not sleeping in her own bed with Rose, and thinking now of Rose, she feels lonely and abandoned. Though Briar senses the difference between Rose’s treatment and her own, it has never occurred to her to blame her friend for it. But she has just a sliver of hope that someone will listen to Rose tell the true story and that the injustice will be remedied.
There is a sudden hard knock on the door, and Mother Mudge, who was about to bed down herself, turns and opens it. From above in the loft, Briar is astonished to hear the low, clear voice of her devoted godmother, Hilde, asking if Mother Mudge had seen a girl child roaming alone in these parts. Briar is filled with warmth. Hilde still cares about her, cares so much that she is out searching for her, even after nightfall. Either that or Briar is in even more trouble than she thought. While Mother Mudge debates what to do, Briar climbs out of the loft and down the ladder and guiltily shows herself, head hanging as if she expects to be reprimanded.
“There you are, child!” says Hilde. “You’ve given us quite a worry! How did you come to be here, of all places?” Behind her stand two sturdy guardsmen with torches, looking on impassively.
Briar, gratified to hear that someone has been worrying about her, lifts her head hopefully and says, “I ran away. I was out in the forest until almost dark. Jack came and brought me back here.”
“You went into the deep forest alone? Don’t you know there are wild beasts and ogres and all manner of dangerous things there? Praise be to all the saints for Jack!”
“Mother Mudge too!” Briar adds. “She gave me her supper.”
“A good thing for you that there are kind people in the world!”
Hilde asks to shake Jack’s grimy hand. A moment later she shakes his mother’s, and when Mother Mudge takes her hand away, there are three gold coins in it. Hilde gives her a warm smile. “You’ve behaved most admirably, and I thank you. The queen thanks you as well,” she assures her. Hilde takes Briar’s hand. “Come now, child, they’ve left the drawbridge down while I looked for you. We must hurry back.”
Briar says goodbye and thank you to Jack and his mother. She is full of trepidation about going back to the castle, but though Hilde’s manner is reassuring, it is also implacable, and Briar goes along without a peep. As they approach the drawbridge, she is full of wonder that it is down after nightfall, and because of her! She fears that she will receive another beating for being the cause of this, but she is comforted when Hilde says, “The queen herself insisted that you be found, my girl! I hope you appreciate it. Come, she’ll want to see you. We’d better get you cleaned up first.”
Back in Hilde’s chamber, Briar’s godmother calls for water and clean clothing to be brought. She puts a soothing ointment on the child’s bruises, hoping as she does that Bishop Simon will live to regret this day’s work. She determines to tell the queen of the bishop’s treatment of the girl.
Presentable at last, Briar is taken to Queen Merewyn’s chamber, where the queen remains awake. She knows she must resist the urge to take her child in her arms and make much of her, though that is what she wants to do. Briar must never suspect that the queen is her true mother, and so Queen Merewyn only questions her gently. The girl confesses her terrible crime of playing in the water with Rose, expecting to be condemned all over again, but the queen, who has already listened to the story from Rose, is concerned primarily for the girls’ safety. She upbraids Briar firmly for going into the deep forest alone and, furthermore, forbids the two girls from leaving the castle again for the remainder of the summer. This in itself is a terrible blow to the child’s intrepid spirit, knowing it will take away not only the special spot she and Rose have adopted for their own, but will also deprive her of her discovery of the place by the waterfall. And what of her new friend, Jack? She lowers her head, staring at her feet, and tries not to pout, as Hilde has always warned her against this evil habit. Hilde thinks she detects in the girl’s demeanor signs of incipient rebellion and holds on to the thought.
Meanwhile, Briar, despite the blow of this new edict, is still able to feel relief that the queen is not condemning her or accusing her of trying to drown Rose. Briar demonstrates her gratitude with a long, graceful curtsy. No questions are asked about the time she spent in the forest, and she does not volunteer anything, except to relate the kindness she received at the hands of Jack and his mother. The way those two had looked at her when she spoke of the heavenly music makes her reluctant to tell of it again. She is sent on to her room, accompanied by a guardsman with a torch, but Hilde and Queen Merewyn continue talking long after she is gone. Hilde lets the queen know of Briar’s bruises at the hand of the bishop.
“I resent every blow he administered!” says the queen. “But I fear I have little power to prevent his abuses. I will speak to the king, though with little hope. If she is to be educated, Bishop Simon is the only person qualified to teach.”
Over the years, the queen has listened to Hilde’s counsel concerning the upbringing of the two girls, and the queen hearkens to her now.
“There is more to education than Bishop Simon can teach them,” Hilde says. “I quite admire their striking out to have an adventure on their own. While I appreciate the importance of all that they are taught, I place more value on self-reliance! Given their freedom, that is something the children can best teach themselves.”
“Surely,” the queen responds, “you’re not suggesting that I allow them to go drowning themselves in that stream.”
“No,” Hilde agrees. “But they are curious and spirited. Unless I am much mistaken, they will get into other scrapes. Perhaps you had best have them taught how to swim.”
* * *
That night, the king and queen are preparing for bed. Queen Merewyn waits for the right moment to approach the king on the subject of Bishop Simon. At last she says, “Husband, it has come to my attention that the bishop is using a heavy hand with a cane to discipline our Briar, and for no good reason. I want you to petition the church to replace him.”
“Petition the church to replace him? Why, it is only through his holy intercession that we have not been utterly destroyed by the giant’s marauding! I can do nothing against the bishop, lest he cease to protect us with his special prayers and masses.” He pauses, thinking about Briar, something he rarely allows himself to do. But though he is very careful to let nothing show in public, he does not deny his concern for his firstborn daughter to the queen. “Still,” he says, “I’d give much to protect our child from his untoward punishments. He presumes too much.”
“What, then, shall be done?”
“Only this that I can see: let the child take care that she does not give him cause to use the cane.”
Chapter Three
HIGH IN THEIR ATTIC ROOM, Briar and Rose are reunited at last. Rose, having cried herself to sleep, awakens at the sound of Briar entering the room. Rose leaps out of bed and rushes to her side. In the flickering light of Briar’s candle, Rose anxiously se
arches her face for signs of pain or anger or grief.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re back!” she says. “Are you all right? Where have you been? Tell me everything. I’ve been suffering torments over you since we were parted!”
Briar smiles wanly, and though she is ready to collapse from fatigue, her head is still too full of the events of the day to rest. She wishes to unburden herself to her lifelong friend, but she has no words for what she has experienced of cruelty and of beauty. She has been stretched, and has grown larger and deeper, and there is a space now between her and Rose, a breach in their extraordinary connection that she does not know how to bridge. And there is the question: Did Rose defend her? Did she try? Trust must be restored.
As if she had somehow heard the question, Rose takes her hand and says, “I tried to tell them what really happened, but no one would listen. Then I threw a fit and demanded to talk to my lady mother, and she listened. She said you must be found, and she ordered a search of the whole castle and the village. We’ve been so worried about you! That horrible Bishop Simon is the one who should have been thrashed! He made everyone believe that you were trying to drown me. I do believe he hates you!”
Briar’s eyes tear up, partly from relief at finding that Rose is still her faithful friend and partly from hearing the stinging truth that Bishop Simon hates her. She bows her head and sniffles.
“Oh, I am sorry! I shouldn’t have said that,” says Rose.
“No. It’s true,” Briar acknowledges with sorrow. “But why? I try to do everything he asks. He seems to get mad when I give the right answer!”
“I think he doesn’t like it that you’re so smart. Maybe he’s afraid that you’re smarter than he is! Can’t you just try to pretend to be dull-witted for a while and see if it helps?”
“Then he’ll sit me in the corner with the donkey ears on. And everyone will laugh. That pig Lord Henry will laugh and call me names. They all will.”
“But it would still be better than making him so angry! When you know the right answer, just wink at me and then keep it to yourself. Let Bishop Simon think he’s winning. Secretly you’ll still know you’re the smartest. And I’ll know too. Maybe after a while it won’t be so much fun for him, and he’ll give up putting you in the corner. It’s worth a try.”
Briar agrees. Though she seethes with the injustice of it, the plan offers a shred of hope, and she likes the idea of practicing a subterfuge on the sadistic clergyman.
“But tell me now what happened—unless you don’t want to. Was it terrible?”
Briar only nods, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. After a long silence she says, “I ran away. The villagers drove me out of town, and I went far into the forest, farther than we’ve ever gone. I wanted to never come back.”
“But how would I ever have found you? How were you found?”
Briar’s mind is flooded with memories of unearthly music, and of her astonishment at hearing her own voice sing with it and feeling her own feet dancing to it. She does not know how to express to Rose that she found herself. After another long silence she says merely, “Jack followed me. He took me home to his mother, and she was kind to me. And then Hilde came to their cottage, and she brought me back and took me to the queen. And the queen was kind to me.”
“But is that all?” says Rose. She is left feeling unsatisfied by this account, which tells her so little. She senses that some great change has come over her dearest friend and that for the first time, she is being shut out. She reaches a hand to touch Briar’s shoulder, but Briar winces in pain and the hand is withdrawn. Rose feels a flash of unreasoning anger, perceiving rejection where none was meant, and she turns away wordlessly to prepare for bed. Briar, unable to manage her own undressing, wears her clothes to bed, lying gingerly on her side, and Rose lies down facing away from her. They are both silent. It is a long time before Briar hears Rose’s breathing become slow and heavy, and a longer time before she feels herself begin to relax. Despite her many hurts, her mind keeps harking back to the exquisite music she heard in the forest. Her whole body remembers what it felt like to sing and dance so joyously, and it seems now like an inexpressibly lovely dream. Yet she knows that it was real, and remembering it, she feels the same peace, the same delight that enveloped her then.
At last, she sleeps.
* * *
When morning comes, Briar awakens first, poking Rose’s shoulder and calling her “lazybones.” Her gestures quickly restore the happy normalcy of their old relationship.
Rose, all resentments forgotten, giggles and bounds out of bed. “I’ll beat you downstairs!”
“No, you won’t! I’m already dressed!” is the rejoinder. Briar splashes water on her face and lunges toward the door, though she is moving a little stiffly.
“Cheater!” cries Rose, struggling into her clothes as Briar exits the room and starts down the stairs. Rose finishes her toilette and runs after her, but Briar has stopped at the bottom of the stairs, unwilling to go any farther. Bishop Simon stands at the entrance to the chapel, oozing self-importance and universal condemnation. Rose sees the difficulty and takes Briar by the hand, keeping herself between her friend and the clergyman as they hurry past him into the chapel for the morning service. Briar finds it almost impossible to listen to Bishop Simon’s voice as it drones on through the psalms and prayers. She thinks that such a man should not be allowed to speak those sacred words. She fervently prays that snakes and toads will come out of his mouth instead. Her wish is not granted, however, and she suffers through the service, repeating rhymes in her head so she does not have to listen. Already she dreads spending the morning under his tutelage.
When school begins, she sits on the back bench close to Rose and tries to blend in. Her breathing is ragged and uneven as she waits to see what Bishop Simon will do. For a time, he paces back and forth, conducting the students through numerous rhyming stanzas designed to teach them the rules of Latin grammar. His raptor eyes are squinting to observe the slightest wrong movement of the lips, his ears listening for the smallest mistake, waiting to heap his scorn on the first to falter. Lady Arabella, Elizabeth, and Jane, having heard about Briar’s beating of the day before, sneak insulting looks at her as they repeat the required phrases, while Lord Henry and the other boys stare and snigger openly. Even so, they are all word-perfect in their recitations. Though the children have little idea of the meaning of the words they say by rote, they have become very good at parroting them. So the bishop is at first thwarted, for his true satisfaction lies not in the teaching, but in the refined art of shaming and punishing.
The lessons drag on, and Briar tries to make herself very small and unobtrusive. Bishop Simon acts as if she is beneath contempt, calling on everyone in the class but her. Briar, whose last nerve is on edge, withers under the strain. She picks at the skin of her cuticles until it bleeds. And so it goes. Each day, for weeks, the pattern continues, until she begins to let down her guard.
One morning, Bishop Simon seems to be in an exceptionally good mood. He drills the class on the times tables, up to ten times ten. Briar knows the times tables up to twenty times twenty, but he does not call on her. An hour passes while he reads out the names of the entire line of kings and queens of the Kingdom of Wildwick, then tests them on it. Briar knows them all by heart, but he does not call on her. Another hour passes while he fires Latin proverbs at them for translation, but he does not call on her.
“Repetitio est mater studiorum,” he says loudly, and points to Bosley, the altar boy.
“Um, ah, repetition, um . . . is . . . is the mother, um . . . study . . . the mother of studies. Repetition is the mother of studies,” the boy answers nervously. Bishop Simon glares at him, but makes no comment. Briar, following his every move and expression, sees that he is avoiding even looking at her. And so her guard is down when he turns on his heel and faces her with the look of a feral cat who has cornered a particularly juicy mouse.
Pointing his finger at her, he almost shouts the
words, “Sus laborem vestrum omni tempore!”
Briar starts an involuntary smirk, but quickly suppresses it. The priest has made a glaring mistake, a mistake that nearly makes her laugh. She immediately realizes that he must have meant to say, “Sustain your efforts at all times,” but she knows that instead of sustineant, the Latin word for “sustain,” he has said only sus, the word for “pig.” She nearly blurts the word out loud but bites her lip instead.
Too late.
“Is something funny?” Bishop Simon roars, flushed with anger. With his closed fists on his hips, he demands an answer.
Realizing the enormity of her crime, a terrible chill goes down Briar’s spine and all through her. Rose takes a strong grip on her hand, serving as a reminder, if she needed one, that she must keep her knowledge to herself. “No, Bishop Simon,” she quavers.
“Stand up when you speak to me!” the bishop bellows. “I saw that smirk on your face! Is there no end to your impertinence? Translate that sentence! Sus laborem vestrum omni tempore! What does it mean? Speak up!” His eyes boring into her, he grabs his cane and summons her to the front of the class.
Close to panic, Briar forces her body to move. Would he really beat her again, now that he has done it once? She thinks he would. Should she run from the room? But then would she ever be allowed back in? Would her education cease? Her brain strains to think of a safe reply, but her mind goes blank. Finally, she blurts out the translation for what she thinks he intended to say.
“Sustain your efforts at all times?”
The bishop, obviously furious that she has answered correctly, immediately looks for some other angle of attack. “A lucky guess! Beware the sin of pride, lest it be your downfall!” Ignoring all his own sins, the old villain slaps his cane against his palm, letting the moment stretch out while she stands there, frightened and tremulous.
Briar and Rose and Jack Page 6