Midwinter Nightingale

by Joan Aiken

  “Do, do let me try her in the Boot, Aunt Minna!”

  “Be quiet, boy! You are no help at all.”

  “That ain't true!” cried Lot. “I bet I could get her to tell us! You see those axes, girl? You see those wooden blocks? You know what they are for? See those iron screws? Those are for thumbs! You wouldn't be able to crack walnuts at Christmas once you'd had your thumbs squished in one of those.” Lot grinned evilly at Dido.

  “Hold your tongue, boy,” said the white-haired man. His voice was light and weary; something in its tone made Dido shiver. He don't care about anyone or anything, she thought; he'd watch me being sliced into rashers and not blink an eye. But there's summat on his mind. I wonder what? He ain't easy. I can feel it. Those other two are scared of him, though, and he knows it.

  “You very likely are not aware of this,” said the woman, “but the king is in great danger. He is gravely ill. Baron Magnus has the receipt for a compound, handed down in his family for hundreds of years, which could cure the king's malady. We need to find him and offer this remedy, do you see? Any day now it may be too late.”

  Oh, yes, and I'll believe that when I see pigs wearing knee boots, thought Dido.

  She said politely, “But why are you telling me this, ma'am? If you think that I know where His Grace is, you're fair and far wide o' the mark. Saint Jim's Palace is where you oughta be asking. Search me if I know why you think I can help you.”

  The woman said smoothly, “I believe you also know Francis Carsluith, Lord Herodsfoot?”

  Dido was startled.

  “Why, yes,” she said after a moment. “I met the guy two-three years ago. On an island it was, dunnamany miles away from here. Come back on a ship with him…. But he's mostly off ferreting about in the back o' beyond, a-searching for games. … I reckon he knows more about games than any other feller around.”

  The woman said, “Lord Herodsfoot's knowledge of games can be of little service to him at present.” She clapped her hands together sharply. The two hooded men behind Dido stepped forward. “Open the box!” ordered the woman. The men carried leather pouches attached to their belts. From these they took hammers and chisels.

  Dido had vaguely observed that there was a wooden crate on the floor to the side of the stage, but she had paid it no heed, all her attention being concentrated on her three captors. The crate, or chest, was long and narrow; it looked as if it might contain croquet mallets or hockey sticks. Wisps of straw could be seen sticking out from under the lid, which was nailed shut. The two men prized up the lid and dropped it on the floor.

  “Look inside, girl,” said the fat woman. Dido stood up, walked forward and looked into the box. What she saw nearly made her heart stop beating.

  Lord Herodsfoot was inside.

  Dido had met him on a Pacific island, had traveled back to England with him on His Majesty's sloop Thrush and had grown to know him well. He was in his thirties, a thin, active, intelligent man with fuzzy fair hair. Now she could only just recognize the shriveled, corpselike creature huddled into the chest among a packing of straw, like a dead bird in a nest.

  Was he dead? No, there was a faint movement of breath in the concave chest, which was half covered by some filthy rags of shirt. The mouth was half open, the eyes closed. But they opened slowly and looked at Dido. There was no recognition in them.

  “What ve you done to him?” whispered Dido.

  “Will I give im a prod, ma'am?” said one of the men.

  “Wait,” ordered the woman.

  The boy Lot left his seat on the stage and, with his hands in his pockets, strolled round and stared down at the man in the box. He said, “Once he came and gave a talk to us at school about Inca games. Stupid stuff! Only fit for five-year-olds.”

  The woman said to Dido, “You see what happens to people who don't help us. We keep them in storage till they mend their ways.”

  Dido gulped. “How d'you mean, won't help you?”

  “He, of all the king's friends, is most likely to know the location where the wretched man has chosen to secrete himself…but no persuasion will exact the information from him. So—”

  “Are you going to feed him to the fish, Aunt Minna?” cried Lot with the liveliest interest and enthusiasm.

  The fat woman frowned, but gave an order to the two men, who nailed the lid back onto the crate, taking no particular pains over the job. Then they unhooked the rope from the contraption that Lot had referred to as the Iron Duchess. This caused the front section, with the spikes, to fall into place with a loud clang. At the noise, Lot smirked at Dido, who felt an icy prickle of the spine. Supposing a human had been encased inside that metal suit! But what was happening in front of her was far worse.

  She said hoarsely, “You can't—you can't—” She tugged at her bound hands.

  “But we can, my child,” said the duchess of Burgundy. “Furthermore, we can do either of these things to you. And many more.”

  A length of cord was wound loosely round the long wooden crate. The hook dangling from the ceiling pulley was slipped under it.

  “Lift!” ordered the duchess. “Lift now and swing it.”

  She and the white-haired man removed themselves, without haste, from the platform as the crate, with Lord Herodsfoot inside it, began swinging, faster and faster, across the platform toward the great sheet of glass.

  “No!” cried Dido. “No, no, stop it, stop!”

  But they did not stop. With a final tremendous crash of splintering glass, the crate swung clean through the great window; the cord round the crate loosened and flew off. The wooden case fell into the water. Its trajectory caused it to land near the farther bank of the moat. Dido, from where she stood, could see the eager commotion as all the inhabitants of the water hurtled toward the box and its contents.

  “It will take them less than a minute to get inside that lid,” observed the duchess. She turned to the two men. “See that the window is replaced. At once.”

  “Yes, my lady” They bowed and left the room.

  “Now do you understand, girl?” said the duchess. “I hope you have learned by this example not to temporize with us.”

  Dido was shaking with shock. She had not the least idea what temporize meant. She said slowly, as if the words were coming into her head one by one, “Well, ma'am, the only place I can suggest is an island on a river in Scotland. It's called the Garple Burn. There's a mighty lot o' nightingales on that island; my pa made up a song about them for His Majesty:

  Heck sirs! Just listen to the nightingales sing! Jug jug! Tereu! Hey ding-a-ding-a-ding!”

  “Be quiet, girl,” hissed the duchess.

  The white-haired man looked as if he was about to faint. He darted a poisonous glance at Dido.

  The boy Lot took a flask from his pocket and drank a hefty swig from it.

  Collecting herself, the duchess asked Dido, “You think the king might be on that island?”

  “He was very fond of it, my friend Owen Hughes told me…. Used to go fishing …”

  “Hmnnn. We shall have it inspected.”

  Two things then happened. The white-haired man said urgently to the duchess, “Margaret, I must set off, without delay, on the Black Pilgrimage. To the city of Chorazim.”

  “Oh, no! Why? Why must you?”

  Dido shivered. This announcement filled her with cold fright. She had never in her life heard of the city of Chorazim, but she felt certain that it was a bad place.

  The white-haired man left the room. At his departure Dido felt a huge sense of relief, but the duchess seemed decidedly put out by his announcement. “That will delay all our plans,” she muttered.

  Lothar grumbled. “It's perishing slow round here. I could do with a B & S. What do you say, Aunt Minna? And what d'you want to do with the gal? Put her in a box like old Whiskers?”

  “First we will send to Scotland, to this Garple Burn Island—”

  There was an interruption. A bell rang; there was a knock at the door and commotion in th
e passage outside, and a voice called, “Madam, there's a messenger from Marshport—Captain Zeal—he says it's urgent.”

  “Oh, very well, let him come in. Why in the world your father must choose just now for his inconvenient pilgrimage I simply cannot fathom.”

  “Something to do with the crown, perhaps,” said Lothar, bored. Then, apparently hit by an idea, he asked Dido, “Say, gal, d'you know about Alfred's crown?”

  “Alfred's crown,” said Dido slowly. “No. I can't say I do.”

  But into her mind floated a memory of Dr. Whitgift saying something about the coronet ritual. That'll be what they're after. That'll be it, no question. I'm glad I put them on the wrong track with that Scottish island. Hope they waste days looking for it…. But then she had a terrifying thought. Suppose there is such a place? Suppose that's where King Dick really is? That song seemed so real….

  Meanwhile a bearded man in a military uniform had come into the room and was engaged in a low-voiced consultation with the duchess. Dido, whose hearing was razor-sharp, picked up a phrase here and a phrase there. “…urgently need supplies for the troops when they land …”

  She tried to listen through Lot's exasperating gabble: “Of course I shall be king as soon as the old man kicks it. Maybe before. D'you understand, gal? Before that I'm going to change my name. The fellers used to sneer at Lot Rudh—used to call me Lottie and Rednosed Rudy. What do you think of Simbert Lamnel …?”

  “Boots for the troops ordered from the Continent have not yet come to hand …”

  “…or Lamkin Simbeck or Purbeck Warkin …what do you say to those?”

  “…and the flock of sheep expected by the commissariat department have not arrived yet; they were expected a week ago….”

  “…or Warbert Purnel, which do you think is best?”

  “Oh, I should choose Purbeck Lamkin. I reckon the troops ud go for that in a big way,” Dido answered inattentively.

  The duchess was saying, “Yes, yes, no doubt very inconvenient, but I am not to be troubled by such minor matters. Have you news from Caledonia, from Bernicia? It is crucially important to keep track of the movements of those northern Saxons.”

  “You are not listening to a word I say,” grumbled Lothar. “I think Simkin Purbeck is best.” He gave Dido a vicious poke to call back her attention. “Stupid gal! I say, I say, Aunt Minna, shan't we chuck her in the moat like Curlylocks?”

  “No, I have not done with her yet.”

  The two hooded men had returned with an outsize pane of glass, which they leaned against the wall.

  “Find a box for this one,” the duchess ordered them, indicating Dido. “Put her back in the shell room, let her eat air for a few days, maybe a week. Then we'll see if she has anything more to say….”

  “Can I tickle her up a bit, Aunt Minna?”

  “Yes, I suppose so, but don't damage her—not yet.” The duchess's voice diminished as she walked away. The last thing Dido heard her say was “Come to the map room.”

  The two men grabbed Dido by her arms and towed her away along the passage to the room where she had been before. “We'll find a box to fit you,” they promised, and left, locking the door. Dido hoped this meant that Lothar could not get in. She did not at all fancy the prospect of being tickled up by him.

  In the meantime she decided that the best thing she could do was go back to sleep, as there was evidently no prospect of getting anything to eat.

  to meet me?” asked the king.

  “Of course they 'will, Your Majesty,” Simon assured him.

  “Cousin Dick, Cousin Dick.”

  “Cousin Dick.”

  Simon had no idea who they were. Every day, at about this time, when afternoon was tending toward evening, King Richard grew unaccountably worried and distracted. He would ask, over and over again, if Simon could lend him the rail fare to Back End. Where Back End might be, Simon did not know, nor what the fare was likely to be, but he constantly assured the sick man that there was plenty, plenty of money in the silk sack that lay on the mantel shelf.

  “And they will be waiting there to meet me? And they will know me?”

  “Certain sure they will, Cousin Dick.”

  “And those other ones, the group, the ones in black jackets, they won't stop me?”

  King Richard showed great anxiety about “the group in black.” He would stare fixedly at the far end of his chamber and exclaim that the men in black were walking in procession from one side of the room to the other, that they must have come to seize him and were liable to do so at any moment. Simon had great difficulty in restraining the king at these times; he was frantic to get off his couch and run for his life. Simon knew that if the king were to stand up and take even two or three steps, he was so weak that he would collapse on the floor. If Lady Titania was at hand when the king fell into such a state, she could quiet him down with the remedies she always carried with her: a few drops of columbine juice or a pinch of fennel powder. But Simon was not qualified to administer these, and Lady Titania, having given the king his lunch, often walked out into the woods looking for herbs, tree bark, fungi, nuts and even samples of soil and chips of rock, which she used for medicinal purposes. So, at these times, Simon had to soothe the king as best he could. Generally, after an hour or two in this feverish state, the king would sink into an exhausted slumber as dark fell.

  So it was today.

  After Simon had reassured the invalid over and over that there was sufficient money in the royal exchequer for his journey fare to Back End, and that friends would be there to see to his comfort when he arrived, the sick man lapsed into his usual sudden slumber.

  Simon, worn out from offering fervent promises and reassurances—and occasionally being obliged to restrain the distraught patient—sat himself down wearily and munched a few fragments of crusty bread left over from the noon meal, for which the king had displayed little appetite.

  It won't be long now, Simon thought sadly; I must ask Lady Titania if we had not better send for His Grace the archbishop. I suppose she has a messenger ready.

  As Simon reached this decision, his eyes were fixed absently on the end of the room; now he was startled to see a silent procession of black figures progress at a stately gliding pace from one side of the chamber to the other and apparently disappear into the wall. They did this for several minutes. It was like watching a funeral cortege of ghostly monks.

  Can this house be haunted? wondered Simon. But he did not believe in ghosts and had never heard any ghostly legends about Darkwater Farm.

  Then it occurred to him that what he was seeing exactly tallied with the king's account of black figures walking across his bedroom. Simon had always assured the sick man that these figures were imaginary, delusions, hallucinations cast up by his fevered brain. And I still believe that, thought Simon, but how comes it that I am having them too?

  Am I going crazy? Have I caught Cousin Richard's malady?

  Then another solution occurred to him. There was a sour, dry taste on his tongue from having eaten the leftover crusts of bread. A large flagon of water, with glasses, always stood in the king's bedchamber; Simon himself filled it twice daily from the well in the courtyard. He swallowed a long draft of cold, fresh water. When he looked up after drinking, the dark figures were gone, totally. There was nothing to be seen at the end of the room but a haze of gathering dusk.

  It was in the bread, Simon thought. Something in the bread that he eats for his midday meal makes the king see those spooky figures. But Lady Titania bakes that bread. Does she know what effect it is having on the king? Is she putting some drug, some medicine into the flour? Is she doing it to poison him?

  A small crumb of the bread remained on the silver platter. Simon put it into his mouth and sucked it slowly. A last black shape made its fluttering way from side to side of the room, rather fast, as if in haste to catch up with the others.

  What should I say to Lady Titania? Why has she done this?

  Simon began wandering back
and forth across the room, absolutely undecided. Lady Titania seemed wise, kindly, wholly devoted to the king and his interests, but what did he really know about her? Where did she come from? Where had she been during most of the king's reign?

  I wish there was somebody else I could ask about this, thought Simon.

  There came a tap at the door—a soft, hesitant tap. Simon went to the door and opened it, with his finger on his lips, warning that the patient was asleep. Mrs. Wigpie the housekeeper stood outside.

  “I'm right sorry to trouble Your Grace,” she whispered apologetically, “but Madam's still abroad in the woods, and there's a person come asking if we want our chimneys swept. What should I tell them?”

  Simon stepped through the doorway and closed the door behind him. “Do” we “want the chimneys swept?” he asked.

  “Well, no, Your Grace, Mr. Dewdney from Low Edge, he mostly does em twice a year, in May and November. Count he's been so terrible bad with rheumatics, he's a bit late this year….”

  “Do the chimneys need sweeping?”

  “Not sos you'd lay your head on the block for,” Mrs. Wigpie said doubtfully.

  “Would this person do a good job?”

  “That I couldn't say, sir.”

  “Humph,” said Simon. “Maybe I'd better come and see whoever it is. His Majesty has just gone off to sleep. He's safe to be left for twenty minutes or so.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Wigpie. “I'm sure I don't know what's keeping Her Ladyship out so late these days. I expect she'll soon be home with her bits of plants and mosses.”

  Simon crossed the courtyard to the outer entrance, where Harry the gatekeeper was waiting rather irritably to raise the drawbridge as soon as Lady Titania returned. Rather an odd time for a chimney sweep to call, Simon thought.

  The aspirant sweep, who had been sitting on a mounting block, now stood up. With a shock of dismay, Simon discovered two things at once. First, the “sweep” was not male but female, dressed in sooty men's breeches and a black velvet cap. And, second, he knew her perfectly well. She was Jorinda Coldacre, the girl he had met on the train.