by Kage Baker
"Joan, my lady," she replied, watching without interest as the stuff piled up. Our clothes looked pretty much like anyone else's, so there was nothing worth her attention, until I, in my enthusiasm, inadvertently snatched up with a bilge-stained underskirt my calfbound copy of the latest issue of Immortal Lifestyles Monthly and flung them both on the laundry heap. The magazine bounced once and clattered to the floor, landing open at the new holo releases page.
There in large blackletter was trumpeted the rerelease of Metropolis (the silent version, not the 2015 Spielberg remake) with a full-page photo of Maria the Robot in all her brassy glory. I raised horrified eyes to the chambermaid, who was staring fixedly at the picture of the villainous she-mechanism. Omigod!
Nef cleared her throat. "Do not be afraid, good Joan. It is what we call in Spain an iron maiden. You have such things here, have you not, to punish the wicked? In this book it doth depict the torments awaiting sinners," she said firmly, scooping up the magazine and snapping it shut. "For shame, thou, Rosa. Holy monks labored a year to paint this missal for thee, and wilt thou carelessly drop it?"
"I pray you excuse me, Doña Marguerita," I stammered. "For, to be sure, those holy monks paint like the angels."
Don't overdo it. "Look you, good Joan, this gown of mine hath been sadly stained by mud." Nef thrust it at her. "I would not for all the world see it ruined. Bid the laundress take some pains with it." And she put sixpence in the chambermaid's palm.
Now the chambermaid's gaze did a fast shuttle between the money and the gown, and in the thought balloon over her head Robot Maria was fading, being replaced with an image of all the nice things Joan might buy if she kept the money for herself. Having distracted Joan with this moral dilemma, Nef tucked the magazine out of sight in the depths of her bag.
"That will be all, Joan," she prompted. With a half curtsey Joan stooped to gather up our clothes and backed out of the room, muttering her thanks.
"What're we going to do?" I collapsed onto a chest, wringing my hands. "Do you think she'll tell anybody? I can't believe I did that!"
"Oh, it happens." Nef, eyeing the water, stripped down to her shift.
"But they told us in school—"
"It'd be the end of the world if the monkeys saw anything anachronistic, right? Uh-uh." She poured out water, grabbed up the soap, and began to lather vigorously. "I mean—you know history can't be changed. So does it matter if an illiterate chambermaid sees something she can't understand? What's she going to do, write to the newspapers? As long as you can explain something away with a good story, you're covered."
"You don't think I'll get in trouble?"
"Nah." Nef groped in her trunk and found a linen hand towel. "Because, you know what? Even when our little mistakes make it into the history books—and it happens, every once in a while—nobody notices. Well, sometimes people do, but if they try to talk about it, everyone thinks they're crazy. In this century, anyway. So don't worry."
I watched doubtfully as she bathed. "But shouldn't we make a report to Joseph about it?"
"I wouldn't." Having finished, she opened the window and tipped the basin out. "Unless you want him to fuss at you unnecessarily."
"Not really," I admitted. I sat there irresolute a moment, grateful for the advice of an older and more experienced operative, until it occurred to me to wonder whether she'd left any hot water for me.
That first night I lay awake in the darkness for hours, listening. There was the beat of rain on thousands of green leaves, outside in the wet night. The breathing of nine mortal souls, slowed and trapped in dreams. A mouse busy in the walls of the kitchen. A clock. The horses in their animal dreams, out in the stable. Distant, chaotic animal thoughts, from farther out.
But he did not dream. Four walls away and a floor above me, I could hear the creak of a wooden chair as he shifted his weight from moment to moment. I could hear pages turning, exactly one minute apart, page after page, perfect as a machine. I could hear his breathing and the pulse of his angry heart.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
« ^ »
Next morning I packed my field kit, though rain still sheeted down the leaded windows. We had all accepted the fact that it wasn't ever going to stop, but I hadn't let myself think about having to work in it.
Sir Walter was seated at the long table in the great hall when we came down; he was breaking his fast on buttered eggs and fried beefsteak. Nicholas sat opposite him, though he was not eating: they seemed to be having an argument. Nicholas's fists were clenched, making the knuckles white. Sir Walter's face was red, and his eyes protruded slightly. They fell silent as we entered the room.
"Good morrow, good friends!" cried Joseph easily. "And is this the morning meal in England? The famous English beef?" His gaze took in the eggs, fatty beef, and butter, and Nefer and I could hear him ticking as he evaluated what the cholesterol was doing to Sir Walter's arteries.
"It is even so." Sir Walter turned glaring from Nicholas. "Shall I order another mess of eggs fried, Doctor Ruy? Or there is excellent venison pasty, cold—"
"I think not." Joseph smiled. "Our Spanish stomachs are not yet accustomed to English abundance. We eat but sparingly before the midday. Perhaps a little of your English small beer and plain barley bread? What say you, ladies?"
I was dismayed. No coffee? Of course not. Not even any tea, yet. Orange juice?
"There were excellent oranges in your garden," I ventured, curtseying. "I would be most honored, gentle sir, and most grateful, kind sir, to taste of one."
"Fair lady, what you will! You shall have a paste or conserve of orange, or perhaps a dish of cloves and marchpane kneaded up with peel of orange, or a dish made up with oranges boiled with parsnips—"
Joseph was shaking his head at me. "Even a plain orange, simple of itself, please you," I stammered.
"Raw?" Sir Walter looked incredulous.
"At some better time, daughter, when good Sir Walter need not send his poor servants out into the rain for such a trifle," reproved Joseph.
"To be sure, my father. Sir Walter, I pray you excuse my inconsideration." Bright pink with mortification, I curtseyed again and sat down. When I raised my eyes, I found myself looking straight into the cold stare of Nicholas Harpole. I lowered my eyes hastily.
"No, no, we will have a new custom now, a dish of fruit to the table," Sir Walter said gallantly. "There are orange groves in Seville, as I hear tell. Are there oranges in the New World?"
"No, my friend, the fruit there is of a different sort from our accustomed fruit," Joseph told him. "There is, for example, the aboccado, which doth resemble your English pear, save that…" Blah blah blah. I sat there burning with embarrassment. After a while I sneaked a look at Master Harpole. He was still looking at me.
Servants brought in our bread and beer, and I picked at mine, still preoccupied with being a self-conscious teenager. Joseph talked on and on, too boring for words; then, suddenly, there was light in the room, as though God had opened an eye and looked in the window. It took us all a moment to realize that it was the sun.
"Why, look you, the rain hath ended," remarked Sir Walter. "Lady Rose shall have her orange at last, shall she not? And see my garden at its best to boot! Pray you, Nicholas, bear her company and show her what oranges there are."
Nicholas rose to obey, and so did I, groping for my field kit. And so did Nefer, like the good duenna she was supposed to be. "Doña Marguerita!" Joseph spoke up. "By your leave, remain with me. I would discourse with you privily concerning certain things."
She gave him a narrow look and sat down.
"Lady." Nicholas gestured toward the doorway. In silence he led me from the house and out into the garden.
There were still clouds breaking up and rolling back, but most of the sky was blue. The difference was breathtaking. England seemed three times bigger. The garden was, impossibly, more green; the beech trunks shone like bronze. Somewhere near us a river rushed and chattered. Birds cried out. England was aggressively a
live, to the point of being intimidating.
By the time we reached the orange tree, the wet grass had soaked our shoes. Nicholas squelched up to the tree and assumed his tour-guide stance.
"The orange, Lady," he told me. I looked for a ripe one.
"Truly I did not think to put you to trouble," I murmured. "I minded not where I was. In Spain it is our custom to have fruit at breakfast."
"Your Spain is not our England," said Nicholas.
"That's true too. I pray you excuse me."
"What needs your excuse? Sir Walter has bid you make free with his oranges. Take his oranges therefore and so make an end of it, Madam."
Green leaves dripped on me. He stood so perfectly still, with such composure, and his voice was so beautiful saying such cold things. I pulled an orange down and showered us both with late rain. He did not even flinch, but watched distantly as I dug my thumbs into the peel and tore the orange into sections. It did not want to be peeled. Juice dripped on my palm, ran stickily down my wrist. "Will you have any?" I held out a piece, vain social gambit.
Without thinking he reached to take the fruit from my hand; then halted and jerked away, with an odd expression in his eyes. He took a full pace backward from me.
I gaped at him. Then I understood. Judeo-Christian mythology, right? Adam and Eve in the Garden, primal woman as tempter to sin. What subtle symbolism. Now I hated him.
"Thou ill-mannered and arrogant man!" I exploded. "Thinkest I have read no Scripture and will not see the insult in thy refusal?" I switched to Greek. "And have you read the Gospels in Greek, as I have, uncivil one?" I switched to Aramaic. "Let me tell you, young lord, this is not Eden and you are not Adam but rather Lucifer himself, you are so full of pride, so do not compare me to Eve!" And to Hebrew: "Shame on you! I am a stranger come into your country and have done you no wrong." And to Italian: "If you hate the Pope, you may write him an insulting letter for all I care, but I assure you he is not hiding in my skirts!" And to German: "Now I wish earnestly I were again in Spain, for though God knows it is a land of monstrous cruelty, yet folk there have good manners!"
Of course I had to spoil the effect by flinging the orange at him too. He sidestepped it neatly without appearing to notice. The orange sailed out of sight and landed with a soft thump somewhere in the grass.
"I'm sorry," I said at once, in English again. He stared at me a second longer before he recovered himself, setting his scholar's biretta straight on his lank hair.
"Well, I am cast down. The point is taken, Lady. You speak eight languages."
"More," I said resentfully.
"Is it even so? Well, well, there's a marvel. And canst quote Scripture too!" He said it snidely enough, but he came a step closer.
"Folk have tongues to proclaim truth in Spain as well as elsewhere," I said. "But they dare not. Nor would you, señor, if you were there, lest the Inquisidors come for you. And if once you learned a lesson of silence from them, you would not soon forget it."
I was pale and shaking. The adrenaline rush, of course, but it was effective. He came close and peered into my eyes. "Now, I truly crave your pardon," he said abruptly. "But if you do not love your Inquisition in Spain, you may imagine how much the less we wish to see it here in England."
"Pray to God, Master Harpole, that you never have such cause to hate it as I do," I said. There. Would the old trump card work?
It did. His hostility was deflected. He took my hand in his own and squeezed it. His hand was warm.
"Well, what a fool I am," he said. "Come you, Lady. Another orange, and shall we walk this garden whiles the sun doth shine? What would you see here?"
I swallowed hard. "I would see Julius Caesar's holly bush again," I told him.
He led me straight to the miracle hedge. I set down my field kit (designed to look like a quaint wicker basket) and drew out my holo camera (designed to look like a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles). I held them up to my eyes and paced slowly along the hedge, shooting the images, grateful for the work to calm my nerves. Nicholas leaned against a tree, watching me.
"Had you your learning from your father?" he inquired at last.
"I had." I broke off a leaf and held it up to the lens, turning it slowly. "He is a doctor, as you know, and a very learned man. I am his only child, wherefore he hath taught me much."
"Ah." Harpole nodded. I groped for my knife (designed to look like a knife) and cut a whole sprig to display for the imager.
"He hath many books, on divers dangerous subjects, which, were they found, he would be burned for a heretic at least," I ventured. Well, it was true. "And, sorrow to tell, he was for some while in the dungeons of the Inquisition." Also true.
"I am sorry to hear it."
"They did not murder him, praise God; but he came from that place a ruined man," I improvised.
"He hath healed himself well, then. He looketh not old," remarked Nicholas.
"That is thanks to a certain Greek physick he hath learned of. I promise you, sir, were it not for that, he'd be in his grave now this many a year." Certainly true again. "There was great learning in Spain once, sir, though none would know now."
He just nodded.
"You have read your Galen and Averroës, then," he said. Was he setting me a trap?
"Yea, and my Avicenna too, howbeit the Moors are not so well regarded as formerly." Under guise of examining the hedge's roots I thrust a soil corer in for a sample. I wrapped it with the holly branch and folded it into the basket. Not two feet away I spied a beautiful little specimen of Calendula albans and pounced on it, holo camera at the ready. Nicholas observed me closely.
"You see this for what it is, then," he remarked with gloomy satisfaction. "A rarer thing than ever the old knight's Portingale orange, but because it is no more than a little pale flower, he regards it but scant."
"For the light shineth in the darkness, and darkness comprehendeth it not," I quoted smugly. "John, chapter one, verse five. Tell me," and I slipped into Latin for clarity, "where does Sir Walter find these unusual plants?"
"He collected some of them himself, when he was a young man." Nicholas matched me verb for verb easily. "And now he has a standing offer out in this part of the country for anything rare or strange. The result is that men come continually to his gate with two-headed calves, or with common plants that have been altered to make them look rare. One man brought a cherry tree with tin bells fastened to its branches with wire and tried to make us believe they were the natural fruit of the tree. Sometimes Sir Walter has been deceived and paid money to a charlatan. Still, sometimes one will come bearing a true wonder for sale: and then the silly old man buys it out of habit, without true understanding of what he has bought. So he bought this flower."
"Do you make a study of botany too?" My heart beat faster.
"No. But I know enough to discern that a white marigold is a marvel, whereas a unicorn is a lie."
"What is this unicorn? I have heard it spoken of three times now. I would pay money myself to see it."
He smiled contemptuously, but on him it looked good, and at least the contempt wasn't directed at me now. "Why, you may see it for yourself." He extended his right hand and took mine. "Come, Lady, and do not fear. He is a tame beast."
Only slowly I let go of his hand. We walked on through that garden, past banks of flowers lifting their unbelieving heads to the sun, past beds laid out in patterns intricate as Morisco tiles. Down a lane between clipped privet hedges we caught a glimpse of little white flanks. Nicholas flung out his arms and announced: "The unicorn of Hind!"
The tail end backed out of the marjoram knot the animal was destroying, and a little head appeared, to look at us inquiringly.
"Ay!" I exclaimed, and bent down to stare. It thought I had a treat for it and came trotting up to see.
"Don't tremble, Lady. It will do you no harm," said Nicholas with a straight face.
"He's a goat." I examined him. He was as white as milk, his tiny hooves had been gilded, and some c
ruel surgery had been done to his horn buds before they had sprouted, and some cruder binding had fused them into one stubby twisting spike. But he was a sweet and trusting little goat all the same.
"A goat!" Nicholas held up his hands. "Can this be true?"
"Señor." I looked up at him. "I was born in Spain. I know a goat when I see one."
He just folded his hands.
"Go, goat." I swatted the unicorn's flank, and he ran off to do further damage to the herbs. "And yet, strange to tell, there is such a thing as a unicorn."
"Surely not!"
"Truly, but it looks nothing like this. A big creature, rude and ugly. It is called in the Greek, rhinoceros."
He nodded, sounding it out. "Unfortunate. Sir Walter would not be pleased to discover that he paid twenty pounds eightpence for a goat."
"Why tell him? The worthy Erasmus says, in his Praise of Folly, that no man is so happy as he who lives under an illusion."
"Very true." Nicholas's eyes lit up. "You have read Erasmus? What do you think of his Ichtuophagia?"
Thank God, thank God I'd accessed that Strongly Suggested column. "I think it is outrageous. All the same, I agree with what he says," I replied with perfect composure.
"So you admit that it is unnecessary to salvation to eat fish on fast days?"
"Oh, señor, really, what nonsense."
"Even if the Pope commands it?" he pressed.
"Particularly so. Do you imagine God cares what we have for dinner? How can one worship when religion is so ridiculous?"
He opened his mouth to speak, then paused. "You have no faith, then," he said after a moment. There was a silence while we considered each other. "I have an excellent book I would like you to read," he said at last.
"Ah! He is going to convert me to the Church of England!" I exclaimed.
But that darkened his mood. He took a step closer and loomed over me.
"The Church of England?" he growled. "The one whose leaders even now recant like the hypocrites they are?"
He must have been close to seven feet tall with his biretta on.