The old man took her dismount for acquiescence and bent to recover his bumpy cane. She scooped it up for him, fearing he would fall flat on his face. He grunted and began to hobble toward the gates. She peered over the edge of the drawbridge as she followed him and saw the water in the moat. It was so murky that it offered her no hint of reflection.
They crossed the drawbridge and came to an open court beyond the portcullis. "Where is your stable?” Eleanor asked.
"There, milady. But, the men will—”
"I prefer to see to my horse’s needs myself.” She went into the stable, a large, dank hall with a few stalls in a dilapidated state. "Oh, what a mess. Whew! Ah, a shovel.” She picked up the tool and scooped out the least dirty stall as Roderick watched helplessly. Then she found some fairly clean straw and scattered it about, keeping back a handful or two for rubbing down the horse’s coat. When she was satisfied with her arrangements, she led the horse into the stall and gave him a good rubdown, although he had barely worked up a sweat. Still, it was a gesture of affection she could hardly deny her new friend. She found some rather wormy grain in a damp barrel and carried several handfuls over to the manger, tossing anelids on the filthy floor and hoping he wouldn’t get sick. Then she stroked his great neck and murmured foolish pleasantries, reluctant to depart. The horse snorted and blew and gave her a nudge, clearly indicating that the audience was ended.
When Eleanor, Wrolf, and Roderick crossed the court, night had come. The drawbridge was pulled up and several men loitered in the court, more visible by their muddy brown auras than by the single torch flickering against the wall. They huddled together, eying her, muttering ominously. As she approached, they sorted themselves into a hostile mob, nervous and spoiling for a fight.
"No wench can hit our master!”
"What’s she here for, anyhow?”
"Here, now, Roderick, what call had yew to bring her in here!”
"Let’s grab her.”
"Break her jaw so she can’t bite.”
"Let’s have a bit o’ fun before we kill her.”
Eleanor was tired from a long day on horseback. She was hungry, and she found she had neither the patience nor the energy to deal with a pack of suspicious yokels bent on rape and murder. The cloak across her back was hot and heavy, and again she felt as she had when she had spoken to Clovis, that she was an empty cup into which someone had just poured some fearfully potent liquor. She brought the end of her staff down on the stones with a ringing smack.
"Silence!” The men hesitated. "Your master is a coward and a thief!” They rumbled angrily. "Oh? Then would you see me as I really am?” Eleanor pushed back her cloak and lifted the staff, feeling the power of the elements themselves flow through her booted feet.
Light coursed around her, throwing great shadows on the flagstones. A huge ball of silvery light seemed to emanate from the head of the stave. The men stared at her and seemed to shrink back. Sticks and stones fell from nerveless hands, and they scattered into the darkness like a covey of quail. In a few moments, the courtyard was empty.
Eleanor felt the strange power leave her. She wondered who or what it was, and the answer came into her mind, that it was Bridefire, the essence of Bridget. Sally would not have let the men off so quickly or so lightly. Now, with the deity withdrawn, Eleanor was scared, though she did not show it. I am going to have to keep a good grip on my Irish temper from now on, she thought. I might have killed someone. She got a response to that thought from the sword. It had no scruples about killing. Killing was what it was for. She was distracted by her thoughts of an amoral weapon by Roderick’s fluttering apology.
"Milady, I beg your forgiveness for the men. They did not know... who you were. As, indeed, I do not. Oh, if only he were not so foolhardy. Who are you?”
Her name rose to her lips and died there. Sally’s voice touched her mind. "Never give your name to strangers.” And she knew her basic magic well enough to know that made good sense. "You may call me... Esperanza,” she answered, amused at herself. Still, the Spanish word for hope was as good a name as any, and her last name in the bargain.
Roderick shuffled his feet and nodded his head. "Oh? Esperanza. It is a foreign name,”
"I have traveled across the sea.” That was true enough. If one did not say which sea.
"Welcome to thee, Lady Esperanza. These are dark nights.”
"Yes, for strangers to travel,” she answered, using the passwords from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Valley of Fear without thinking. Then she realized that her response had confused the old man, and she was furious with herself. "Forgive me, Roderick, but I am tired. I am glad to be here and sorry that I had to punish Clovis.”
"Ah, if only the old master had done so, before his death, we might not have come to this. But he pampered Master Clovis, yes, and spoilt him. And paid no mind to poor Lady Iseult, though he is the elder. Here is the hall, milady.”
A few half-starved dogs stood up and wagged hopefully, then took one look at Wrolf and fled ignomini-ously to a dark corner, yelping piteously. The hall was long and dark, a fire dying in the enormous fireplace, the dogs and people giving off faint nimbuses in the gloom.
Before the fire, Clovis lay on a pallet, a woman bending over him and placing wet cloths on his brow. Eleanor looked at the woman while Roderick shuffled forward to lay a small log on the grate. The fire licked at the log like a hungry beast.
The woman was fair, though darker than Clovis, her long braids like streams of honey over her shoulders. Her tunic was worn and patched, and the hem of her shift was dark with dirt. But the likeness between the unconscious man and the woman left no doubt in Eleanor’s mind that they were closely related and that this was almost certainly the Lady Iseult.
She measured them in the radiance of their beings, as had become almost instinctive in her few meetings with people since Ambrosius had told her what the glow was. She knew, too, from the reactions of people, that her own was very bright, though she had no idea why. And the story was plain enough. Clovis flickered, his light fading in and out like a wavering candle. The woman glowed with a steady brightness that the added fire did nothing to diminish. This, at least, confirmed Eleanor’s suspicion that it was Clovis who was succumbing to the Darkness, not the entire castle.
"Lady Iseult, here is milady Esperanza. Oh, the fire burns the wood so quickly! How is Master Clovis?” He put another log in the hearth.
"He sleeps and does not wake. Lady, why did you strike my brother?”
"He threatened to rape me and steal my horse. It seemed just cause at the time.”
"But your body is his by right.”
"Nonsense. My body is mine, and I give it where I please, not to any cock-a-hoop petty lordling with more balls than brains. Certainly I don’t lie with cowards. Stop defending him out of duty, as he goes to the Darkness, and look to yourself. Stand up and look to the light, Lady.”
Iseult staggered to her feet, jerked by an invisible chain. She turned and stared at Eleanor, then stumbled forward and knelt, clutching the hem of Eleanor’s gown and sobbing. Eleanor took the trembling hands and held them, smiling.
"Here, now, none of that. Oh, you poor dear. It’s all right now.” She bent down and hugged the woman and kissed her cheek. "No, no, I am not She to whom you pray. Shh, that’s almost sacrilege. I am but the youngest of her servants. There, now. Dry your eyes. I am only hope, not deliverance. Why, woman, you are skin and bones. Why is Lady Iseult dressed in rags and halfstarved?” She patted the bony back and addressed her question to Roderick. Several servants in the hall looked away, and the old man shuffled and hummed and coughed.
"’Twas by his order.”
"Why?”
"I know not.”
"He... wished to lie with me,” Iseult whispered. "I could not.”
"Of course you couldn’t,” Eleanor whispered back. She looked at the sleeping cause of all the problems and was half-tempted to leave him where he was. But those forces that had invested themsel
ves in her, Bridget and Sally, would not tolerate that. She felt their command: "Heal, always heal.”
"Roderick, is there a large barrel or cauldron in the keep?”
"Yes, milady.”
"Good. Have it brought before the fire. Heat water and fill it. And meanwhile, I require food, and so does Lady Iseult.” The problem with having a couple of goddesses inside you is you get a little bossy. Eleanor was not used to asserting herself, and it made her acutely uncomfortable.
The next half hour was a bustle of activity. Nervous women in kerchiefs and aprons brought out roasted fowls and the cooked haunch of some animal while some of the men Eleanor had confronted in the courtyard dragged a barrel before the fire. Pots of water were heated and the barrel slowly filled.
Eleanor, feeling that charge of the keep had obscurely passed to her for the moment, forced meat and a mealy bread on the still stunned Iseult. The lady ate like a wolf. In fact, Wrolf’s approach to the scraps Eleanor tossed him was more elegant. There was a boiled fowl as well, and Eleanor hacked a leg off it and chewed at it messily, ignoring the lack of seasonings and trying not to recall Sarah’s savory stew. She was not about to send her compliments to the cook. She realized with a start that she had some assumptions about the food of the Middle Ages, mainly gathered from old movies, which had nothing to do with the reality.
The meal was silent. Various servants and liege men took places at the far end of the table, gobbling up bowls of a stew that looked nasty and smelled worse. The bread they got was worse than that which she and Iseult shared, for she could see the animal life that had been baked into it. Roderick sat down by her and hacked off a slab of cooling meat. The fat was congealing, and Eleanor was glad she had stuck to boiled bird.
"The water is as hot as it will get, milady,” he muttered, dribbling juices from the corners of his mouth.
Eleanor rose from the table, causing some confusion below the salt, for the servants were undecided if they should go on eating or stand. She waved a calm hand at them, and they stayed where they were.
Since she had entered the cold, drafty hall, there had been a voice inside her that she recognized as Sally’s. "Wherever you can, child, heal. Bring light and joy. Always joy. Remember our two voices raised in love and know that you can give that harmony to others. You have given me back my own laughter. I had forgot. Let your light shine in the joy of life, and heal!”
Somehow, in the month of which she had no memory, only fragments, Eleanor had accepted that task as well as the ones Bridget had set her. In truth, she felt more confident about healing than about killing beasts and driving out the Darkness. And she found that she had made a discovery in that lost month. She was a joyous person, and she had never known it before. She knew, too, that she took more pleasure in solitude than in the company of others, and in that, she was like the Lady of the Willows, but Eleanor felt now that she understood both of the goddesses better.
The water in the barrel was tepid to the touch. Eleanor rubbed her greasy fingers in the stuff, then closed her eyes and thought of fire. Her right hand became a glowing member, which she could "see” even with her eyes shut. She thrust it into the water, and the water churned and bubbled. When she was satisfied that the water was hot, she withdrew her hand and watched it turn back into its normal self. She went to the table.
"I want Clovis put into the water.”
Roderick got up sputtering. "But—”
"Remove his boots and mail and stand him in the tub.” She used a voice that was neither Sally’s nor Bridget’s nor her own, but a curious combination, which nonetheless carried command. A couple of men got up from the end of the table and came to the sleeping Clovis. They took off his boots, and Eleanor wished her nose were less fussy. Then they sat him up and dragged off the mail. One took Clovis under the arms and stood him up, and the other lifted his legs into the water.
With some difficulty, they got him into the barrel, for Clovis was both flaccid and awkward. Water splashed over the sides and onto the filthy floor. Eleanor opened the vermilion bag and unwrapped the tied napkin. She took a piece of willow bark out and dropped it into the water. Clovis sank down until the liquid was up to his shoulders. Eleanor got out the little wooden cup and poured it over his head as the bitter scent of willow pervaded the hall. It seemed to sweep out all the dank and musty odors that had accumulated there, and Eleanor paused a moment, feeling the poignant memories and the terrible sense of loss the scent brought back to her.
Then she filled the little cup with the water and poured it over Clovis’s head. Speaking very softly, she said, "In the name of the Light, I bless you. In the name of Joy, I bless you. Be thou reborn in the hope of life. You will wake and be whole and clean and strong. In the faith of life everlasting, I christen thee... Lewis of Nunnally. May you turn your face ever from the Shadow. Come now, Lewis, and cast off the Darkness and look only to the Light.” Eleanor leaned down and kissed the damp brow.
His eyes snapped open. He looked at her blankly for a second. "What a comely girl you are, indeed. What is this? Am I a pickle? Or are the stores so scarce you must boil me for dinner in my clothes? No, I see some meat upon the board. What is all this, dark maiden? No, you are not dark. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much light. It’s quite blinding and it’s giving me a headache. Iseult, Roderick, what is happening?” The men helped him, dripping, from the barrel while they tried very hard not to laugh in his face.
Iseult rose, smiled, and hugged her brother. "You’ve been ill, Lewis, and this wise woman has healed you. Now come and eat. Go get him some dry clothes,” she directed a servant.
He sat in the great chair at the head of the board. "111? I don’t remember being ill. And why are you wearing those old clothes, Iseult? Are we poor, sister? I can’t seem to remember anything.”
"No, no. But you have been ill a long time. Have some meat.”
"I’m not hungry. Who is she?” Eleanor was putting her cup back in her bag.
"The wise woman is Esperanza. She came a great distance to make you well.”
"Sperance? Does that not mean hope in the common tongue? I thought you were locked up in a box somewhere. No, that is another story. I suppose I should be thankful, milady, but since I have no memory of being ill, it is difficult to be grateful. Still, from the look on my sister’s face... it must have been awful, and I am glad to be spared the memory. Turn away from me, will you not, for I am quite dazzled.”
Eleanor drew her cloak about her and pulled up the hood. She was relieved that by renaming Clovis she had not apparently changed his personality. He seemed to be the same obnoxious, egotistical kind of fellow she had met before the gates. He still had reacted first to her sexually, just as he had outside. But she wondered why her light bothered him. Iseult had not complained of it. Where wili I ever find a man with enough light of his own? she wondered.
"There is no box large enough to hold hope,” she said.
"Perhaps.” He clearly wasn’t philosophical. "But why is there no music?”
VIII
The stunned silence that followed his question indicated to Eleanor that whatever had happened to the household musicians, it was a very bad thing. The people at the far end of the table hung their heads, and Iseult and Roderick turned very pale in the firelight.
"They are gone, my lord,” Roderick said in a strangled voice.
"But I want music!” the young man said petulantly. He pouted and frowned.
Eleanor’s palm itched to slap his pretty face, but she resisted the impulse. Instead, she fumbled in her mind for a tune, for there were many there, jostling each other. One cannot spend a dozfen and more summers in Ireland without acquiring at least a nodding acquaintance with the rich musical heritage of the island, and indeed Eleanor had virtually been nursed to the sound of the Rovers and the Chieftains. She rarely sang herself, having a soft voice and a limited range, unlike her father’s bari-tenor and her mother’s hefty alto; song was the one place where Daniel and Elizabeth ever disp
layed the spirit that had led them to wed, back before the sadness of all the lost babies corrupted their love into a kind of coldness.
The song that rose to her lips was not a typical drinking song or a tale of love betrayed, both subjects so dear to the Gaelic heart, but an odd tune in a minor key Eleanor had always thought had come back from Syria or Greece with some Crusader, so Eastern were its rhythms and progressions. But it swelled out of her throat with a will of its own, the words still in Gaelic, for she had no intention of trying to translate and sing at the same time. But it was a song of roses, and like its subject, the song had a certain fragile fragrance of its own.
Lewis stared at her, his mouth in a slack smile, and then closed his eyes. He was asleep, snoring gently, before she was done, leaving Eleanor to reflect on music to soothe the savage beast and sleep to knit up the raveled sleeve of care. He was ridiculously young and vulnerable-looking in his slumber. The serving folk muttered uneasily. Wrolf, asprawl by the fire, growled them into silence.
Iseult looked at her brother. "He is only sleeping. ’Tis quite normal. Carry him to bed. What was that you sang, lady?”
"Just a tune from far away. Just a song of roses, nothing more. What... happened to your musician?”
Iseult looked ill. "There were two. He hacked them up in a fury one night, then., .ate them.”
Eleanor decided she did not want any further details. Besides, she could hear something far away on the Plain, a sound that made her blood run cold, and sweat run down her body. It was a horrible, keening scream, and the others heard it, too, for they shifted nervously in their places.
"What was that?”
"A great animal that stalks the Plain, a sort of... wolf. We have tried to kill it, but-—”
"Does it attack the keep?”
"It tried, but the very stones seem to have some virtue to keep it at bay. My mother told me the castle was built from stones set in a circle and that the circle was a temple of the moon.”
Eleanor looked at the stones around her and heard a faint echo of the song she had heard at Avebury. The voices of the stones were weak, and she grieved a little for them. Still, there was light and energy in them yet. Her "hearing” seemed to expand, and she felt the suffering of the earth as the creature moved across it and heard the voice of the ancient spring somewhere beneath the castle. It was Sally’s music, that spring, and it spoke to her quite clearly.
Adrienne Martine-Barnes - [Sword 01] Page 9