Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “Beatris.” Mistress Sabine reached across the table to pat Beatris’s arm. “Slow down. Take a breath. Perhaps if we made some tea …”

  “I am all right,” Beatris said, and her voice returned to low calm. “Thank you. I am sorry.” She folded her hands in her lap and sat straight in her chair. She looked at Tabitha again. “Marjorie said that when the duke talked to her, he did not believe her when she said she was not with Alain.” Before Tabitha could protest, she went on, “And she said when you talked to her, you looked at her as if you did not believe her either.”

  “She misunderstood! I do believe her! About everything! I just asked her to tell me why …” Tabitha shuddered again.

  “I never would have thought it of Baron Louard,” Mistress Sabine said. She was frowning hard at the table, but Tabitha could see that her eyes were red from held-back tears. Mistress Sabine had been flirting with Baron Louard last night.

  “That’s why she thought no one would believe her,” Beatris said. “Everyone likes her father. No one would want to believe something like that about him. If she told anyone why she was not a virgin, her father would deny it, and it would be his word against hers. And—” Beatris winced, then pressed her hand to her mouth.

  After a moment, Mistress Sabine looked up, then prompted, “And?”

  Beatris’s voice was tight. “Marjorie was—was still swollen down there. Sister Raula saw it. She told Marjorie that it was her fault that she had let Alain touch her. But it was not Alain, it was her father. Not last night, but the night before, when she had supper with him.”

  Mistress Sabine whispered another prayer. Tabitha could not move from her frozen shock. Whenever Baron Louard visited Marjorie, on the first evening of his visit, he would take her to supper at a fine place down in the city. Now Tabitha knew why. It was so that he could take Marjorie to the inn where he stayed. And then rape her.

  Behind them, Pamela started sobbing. Beatris immediately got up and went to her, helping her up and sitting down with her arm around her on the nearest cot, which was Marjorie’s.

  “Sister Raula said the robe was proof,” Mistress Sabine said. “Proof that she had killed him, because there was already proof that she had been with him.”

  “Marjorie said she almost never wears the robe,” Beatris said over her shoulder. “And we all know that’s true. Now we know why. He gave it to her, after all.”

  She wore it enough for it to hold her scent. Tabitha wove her hands together and looked closely at her fingers so that she would not have to look at Beatris.

  “So who did wear it?” Jenevive asked. She had been silent the entire time, and now her question hung like an axe over Tabitha’s head.

  “We can’t answer that,” Beatris said, to Tabitha’s great relief. “Someone might have taken it from the wardrobe weeks or months ago. What we need to do is convince the duke that Marjorie is innocent so that he keeps looking for the real killer.”

  “Yes.” Mistress Sabine stood, her small mouth and chin set in an expression of grim duty. “I will go to the duke and tell him what Marjorie told you.”

  “No,” Beatris said instantly. Pamela still wept in her arms. “With respect, Mistress, I think I should go. The duke may have questions for me since I am the one who talked to Marjorie.”

  “I will take you to him,” Tabitha declared impulsively, also standing. “It’s late, but he will always see me.” She had to make absolutely sure that nothing that Beatris might say would kindle any suspicion of the truth in her father’s mind. Neither she nor any of her other friends could come under scrutiny. And if she had to again try to implicate Mistress Sabine in order to do that, she would.

  “I will go with you,” Mistress Sabine began.

  “I can visit my father without an escort, Mistress,” Tabitha snapped.

  “Please stay, Mistress.” Beatris had gotten Pamela to her feet and was leading her to the table. She transferred Pamela to Mistress Sabine’s arms without either of them seeming to realize how she had done it. She turned to Tabitha, who nodded, and they started for the door.

  “Girls,” Mistress Sabine said sharply, but then faltered when they both looked at her. “Girls … I really should go with you.”

  She does not want to. She is too squeamish to tell my father about this.

  “We can do this,” Beatris said firmly. “For Marjorie.”

  That seemed a good final statement. Tabitha swept out of the room with Beatris on her heels.

  “Thank you, Tabitha,” Beatris said. She shut the door behind them and followed Tabitha to the staircase. “She said she wants to stay with you. Just be your lady-in-waiting, never get married, never have to see him again, just be left alone. I told her you would do that.”

  “Of course I will.” She was not sure she could face Marjorie every day, but it was an easy promise to make right now.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Beatris picked up the candle, and they turned right to reach the door to the servants’ corridor. It was dark and deserted, and the candle threw jumping shadows as they hurried toward the door that led to another suite of servants’ rooms. Tabitha knocked, and a guardsman with a dog answered. His eyes widened, and he bowed hastily as his dog lay down. “M’lady?”

  “I need to speak with my father,” she said. “It is extremely urgent.”

  “Yes, m’lady.” He nudged his dog to get up, then led Tabitha and Beatris past the doors to servants’ rooms and to the door at the end of the corridor, which led to the duke’s council chamber. He opened it, and the dog remained at the open door to the dim room as the guardsman stepped around the big table to the door leading to the duke’s study. Beatris put the candle on the table and shivered, hugging her arms to her chest. Tabitha did the same, for the fire on the hearth had been banked and neither of them had thought to put on wraps or cloaks, or even veils. The guardsman returned to them and bowed. “M’lady, m’lord duke says that he will be with you in a moment, once he concludes with Baron Louard.”

  Marjorie’s father is here! Tabitha and Beatris stared at each other in alarm. They had known that he was returning to Betaul. Tabitha’s father had sent a messenger after him when the robe was found and Marjorie was confined. But Tabitha had not thought he would arrive before morning.

  The door to the study opened fully, and Baron Louard came out. He was not wearing a cloak or over-boots, but his clothes were creased and stained with travel, and his bristly black hair was damp. “My ladies,” he greeted Tabitha and Beatris with a nod of his head.

  Tabitha could not help it. She flinched back in revulsion, unable to speak, and she heard Beatris make a strangled sound. Baron Louard looked surprised, but then an instant of panic widened his eyes.

  Yes. We know what you did!

  Tabitha turned to look at her father, who had followed Baron Louard from the study and was frowning behind his beard at her lack of manners. She opened her mouth to speak, but he was already talking to the guardsman. “Summon an escort to take Baron Louard to visit Lady Marjorie.”

  “No!” Beatris cried. Everyone stared at her, and she shut her mouth, but then she resolutely turned to Tabitha’s father. “Your Grace, I beg you, don’t let him visit Marjorie until you hear what we have to tell you.”

  “What on earth is this?” Baron Louard demanded. His lean face had hardened, and if Tabitha had not seen the earlier flash of panic in his eyes, she would have believed that he had no idea what Tabitha meant to tell her father. “I need to see my daughter!”

  The duke was studying Beatris’s expression, and he paused for what seemed like a long time before he addressed the servant. “Have Baron Louard made comfortable here for now.”

  “Your Grace!” Baron Louard protested.

  The duke turned back to him. “My lord, you need to wait until your cloak and boots have been brushed clean. Please have a seat.”

  Baron Louard put on an extremely offended expression as he nodded and said, “Your Grace.” He took a chair at the foot of the oval
council table with the air of a man prepared to wait only a very short time. Tabitha hurried into her father’s study with Beatris right behind her, and the guardsman shut the door behind them.

  It was a little warmer in the lamplit room. In front of the hearth, her father’s two favorite dogs were sitting on their haunches, watching her and Beatris. She hoped their attention had made Baron Louard uncomfortable.

  “Ladies?” Tabitha’s father gestured for them to sit, and she and Beatris took chairs on the other side of the massive counting table. Today it was piled with paper, including a half-written letter to one side of her father’s place. The duke sat down and looked at her. “Tabitha. What do you need to tell me?”

  Tabitha opened her mouth, but suddenly did not know what to say. It was such a terrible thing, such a disgusting thing. “It …” She felt her cheeks growing hot with embarrassment, and she looked down at her hands, unable to meet her father’s eyes. “It’s terrible.”

  “It must be,” he said. He turned his piercing silver gaze on Beatris. “Lady Beatris, can you tell me what’s wrong?”

  “Your Grace.” Beatris took a steadying breath. “I spent time with Marjorie today.”

  “Yes, I heard that you were with her.”

  “Yes, your Grace. I convinced her to talk to me. She was not with Sir Alain last night, or any night. She lost her virginity when she was twelve. Baron Louard raped her.”

  Silence held the room. Tabitha lifted her eyes, but not her face, to try to see her father’s expression. If he was shocked, he did not show it, but he had to be, because he did not say anything for a long time. Finally, he said, “Sister Raula told me that Lady Marjorie had been touched within the last day or two. Not gently. Did Baron Louard rape her again? Here?”

  “Every time he came to visit,” Beatris said, her voice low but steady. “That’s why he insisted on taking her down to the city for private suppers.”

  “She never told you before this? Any of you?”

  “No, your Grace. She did not think anyone would believe her. Your Grace, what he has done to her, she—she thinks she somehow deserves it.” Beatris’s voice broke, and she immediately stopped talking. Tabitha stared at her hands, pleating the folds of her skirt between her fingers.

  The duke pushed back his chair, and Tabitha was afraid he was going to dismiss them, but he only started pacing along the bookshelf. After several turns, he frowned back at them. “Lady Beatris, Lady Marjorie has not spoken to me, to Sister Raula, or to anyone else. You say that she did speak to you?”

  Beatris sat very straight. “Your Grace, I would never bear false witness.”

  “I know. But she would not even speak to Tabitha. Why did she speak to you?”

  Tabitha wanted to know that too. She still felt offended by it.

  “I think she just broke, your Grace.” Beatris shook her head, biting the inside of her lip. “Just ... one too many people asking. She did not want to tell me.”

  Tabitha wanted that to be true, but she knew it was not. All people, even Marjorie, trusted Beatris in a way that they did not trust her.

  She has earned it, her conscience told her. I have not.

  “Your Grace,” Beatris ventured after a long silence. “She could not have done it. The murder. What Sister Raula saw … we know why now. It was Baron Louard. It was not because Marjorie was with Sir Alain.”

  Tabitha’s father rested his arms on the back of his chair. “That’s not necessarily true,” he said quietly.

  “What?” Tabitha gasped.

  “A girl who has been repeatedly raped since childhood can become promiscuous.”

  Tabitha could not find her voice, but Beatris still had hers. “But, your Grace! She was raped, she would never want anyone to touch her again! She—”

  “It’s known to happen,” her father interrupted. “Mistress Cortille tells me that this tendency is discussed in one of Sorceress Josselin’s books. And it happened to someone I once knew.”

  “Who?” Tabitha asked, her voice small and high.

  He shook his head. “That’s not important. The point is, now that I know this, I think it is more likely that Lady Marjorie was with Sir Alain, not less.”

  “No!” Beatris protested in anguish.

  “Lady Beatris, I must consider the facts. There was blood on the robe. Sir Alain wanted to court Lady Marjorie. Sister Raula described Lady Marjorie’s condition. You have told me what her father did to her. I believe that she might have been trying to get away from her father by attaching herself to Sir Alain. Then, if he was rough with her, she might have tried to get away from him as well.” He spoke so dispassionately that it seemed as if he did not care about Marjorie at all.

  “But, your Grace!” Beatris protested. “Even if she wanted to be with him, she would not go to meet him. I know she would not. But even if she would have gone, she did not. I know. Nobody left our chambers last night. Nobody. I know. I wake up every time someone leaves to go to the privy. I am a very light sleeper.”

  Tabitha suddenly could not breathe. Did Beatris know that Tabitha had been gone? Was that why she had wanted to come here with Tabitha, to expose her in front of her father?

  “Lady Beatris,” her father said, “how could you know, for certain, that you always wake up?”

  Beatris opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Tabitha let herself breathe, very quietly. If Beatris had meant to betray her, she would have done it at that moment.

  Tabitha’s father waited while Beatris struggled. Finally she said, in a small voice, “She would never hurt anyone. She does not have that inside her.”

  “Not even if Sir Alain hurt her? If he was rough with her, she could have pushed him into the ceiling beam. Even a girl her size might have pushed him hard enough to account for what I saw. He hit his head and bled to death. She may not have meant to do it.”

  Beatris put her face in her hands. Tabitha sat still and concentrated on looking horrified, to cover the guilt that writhed in her. Her father’s dry description was too close to what had actually happened. Alain had hit his head and bled to death. She had not meant to do it. But he had not been rough with her. He had been gentle and sweet.

  No, she could not let herself think about it!

  “Your Grace,” Beatris composed herself to say, “even if everything did happen as you say, can you still grant clemency?”

  “I can,” he said solemnly. He sat down again, and he looked at Tabitha. “If I find Lady Marjorie guilty, I will not execute her. I promise this as a favor to you.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Tabitha whispered in relief. A cloister. She will be sent to a cloister. Marjorie would not have to suffer a death sentence for what Tabitha had done. And Tabitha would not have to decide whether or not to tell the truth to save her friend’s life.

  The duke then looked at Beatris. “If I find Lady Marjorie innocent, I will not let her father take her back home. I promise this as a favor to you.”

  Beatris bowed her head. “Thank you, your Grace.” Her voice shook. “Thank you for everything you do for us. You are very kind.”

  “I take my responsibilities to my foster daughters as seriously as I take my responsibilities to my own daughter.” He paused. “Is there anything else you wish to tell me?”

  Tabitha looked at Beatris, who looked back at her. “No, Father.”

  As gravely polite as ever, he stood and gestured. “Then I bid you good night.”

  He opened the door for her and Beatris, and across the room, Baron Louard stood up. The servants had brought him mulled wine, but the cup sat in the middle of the council table, obviously untouched. He bowed stiffly to Tabitha and Beatris, but Tabitha, at least, could not bring herself to nod in acknowledgement. She hurried toward the door to the servants’ corridor, where the guardsman with his dog waited. She heard Baron Louard say with acid courtesy, “Your Grace, may I be permitted to see my daughter now?”

  The duke made no reply. He was probably waiting for the guardsman to close the door
behind Tabitha and Beatris. When the guardsman did so, holding up a candle to light the dark corridor, Tabitha immediately pushed aside the dog to press her ear against the door. She expected Beatris or the guardsman to say something, but neither did, and she heard a thud and an indignant yelp of pain. Then she heard the unmistakable rasp of a sword coming out of a sheath.

  She heard Baron Louard gasp, “Your Grace!”

  Then she heard her father’s voice, clear and cold. “You worthless scum. I know what you did to your child.”

  “Your Grace, I don’t—”

  “She was under my protection. You have destroyed her and you have insulted me.”

  “I never—”

  “You are no longer welcome in Betaul or anywhere near my daughter. If I take Tabitha to court, you will not be there. If she gets married, you will not be there. If she travels to visit anyone, you will not be there. You will never come within a hundred miles of Tabitha again or I will kill you.”

  Her father was so fierce, so ruthless. He would never stop protecting her. He would never give her to a husband who would beat her.

  “Your Grace, I swear, I swear by God Himself, I have no idea—”

  “Don’t speak God’s name, you filth.”

  There was a terrible pause. Tabitha held her breath.

  “You will never see Marjorie again,” her father said. She heard a sound like a choke. “Now go,” her father went on. “You have a quarter hour to be outside the city gate.” There was another terrible pause. “Run.”