The Story of Silence

by Alex Myers

  ‘Does she know anything about childbirth?’

  ‘Dearest,’ Cador said, patting her hand reassuringly. ‘You know so much about physick and the body. I am sure you can teach her what she needs to know.’ He kissed the tips of Roswyn’s fingers. ‘She alone can deliver the child. And, once she has delivered it, she can come out and proclaim to me – to everyone – that it is a son. Regardless of whether it is.’

  ‘And then?’ Roswyn gave him her other hand to kiss, but she was still looking for loose threads in this scheme.

  ‘She will take the child and raise it, if it is a girl and we disguise it. I will think of some appropriate spot. Off they will go and no one will be the wiser.’

  ‘And what will happen when it comes time for our child to marry?’

  Cador waved the objection away. ‘King Evan may have changed his decree. Or may have died. A thousand things could happen.’

  His wife must have been exhausted by all the worry, or distracted by the finger-kissing, for she could find no other point to dispute and told him, ‘It is a good plan. Let it be so.’

  Indeed, pregnancy must have addled her brain. Disguise a girl as a boy? The sham would be discovered in moments. I tried to say nothing. I tried to hold back. But I couldn’t keep from bursting out with laughter. ‘You’re having me on!’ The laughter changed to hiccups and my stranger wrinkled their nose at me. ‘They thought they could raise a girl as a boy? Swap a dress for leggings and no one would know?’ Another wave of laughter seized me, and when I surfaced from it, I found my stranger placid, staring into the glowing coals of the fire.

  ‘Yes.’

  I raised my mug to my lips and took a small swallow. ‘But a girl could never play like a boy – could never learn what they learn, do what they do. She’d be crying, hurt, and bewildered within moments. Everyone knows that …’ I bit off my remark, suddenly recalling that this is their story, and that meant …

  Griselle arrived a few weeks later, mud-spattered by a late autumn rain storm, weary from days on the road. Her eyes still bulged like a pollock’s but her lips were red and full, her step lively. She gave Cador a graceful curtsy, holding her skirt in one hand, for she had a muddy basket in the other. ‘You look the same as when I last saw you in Winchester,’ Cador said, offering her an arm to lead her from the entry hall.

  She took his arm and laughed, loud and long. ‘I appreciate your courteous lie, cousin.’

  ‘Would you like that basket taken to your chamber?’ Cador asked.

  ‘Oh, no, thank you,’ she said.

  He showed her to a small cabinet off the main hall, a cheery room hung with tapestries of twining vines and roses. A fire danced in the hearth and Roswyn waited in a chair, too heavy with child to stand. Griselle took her hand and made a low curtsy. ‘M’lady. Thank you for welcoming me to Tintagel.’

  ‘You are most welcome.’

  Cador offered Griselle the chair nearest the fire.

  ‘My lord,’ she said. ‘You’re too kind. A stool would be fine.’

  ‘Nonsense. Sit.’ Cador poured them each a cup of wine.

  She set down the basket she had been clutching and took a swig of the wine. ‘Ah. They water the wine quite too much in convents. Many’s the time I prayed for the miracle of the wedding of Cana to happen at the convent table.’ Her laughter echoed around the room, so merry and appealing that it brought a smile to Roswyn’s lips.

  ‘Indeed,’ Cador said at last. ‘I had heard you were at a convent. I hope the arrangement was … suitable?’

  ‘I stayed at a convent once,’ Roswyn said. ‘Not too far from here. St Alma’s. It had a beautiful herb garden, and when I was learning remedies, I made a visit. If you’d like to go there, it’s not but a half-day’s ride …’

  ‘M’lady, I hope never to visit a convent again.’ Griselle raised her mug, took a swallow, then bowed her head to Cador. ‘Though if m’lord requires … it’s only that …’ She sighed. ‘Our prioress was rather strict, even though many of us hadn’t taken our vows. Prayers and prayers and prayers. My knees are quite worn out. I missed … music and dancing and stories and riding my palfrey in the woods and all the simple things of life …’ The basket at her feet rocked back and forth, hissing. ‘Oh!’ She lifted the basket to her lap. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’ She released the catch of the basket and a cat, bedraggled and mud-spattered, leapt out, spitting. ‘I so missed having a cat as well. I always had one as a girl. And this one was by the road, not far from the castle.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Cador. ‘Castles and cats are a fine combination. The cooks will be especially pleased.’ He reached out a hand to the creature – a gesture of true bravery – and the cat steadfastly ignored him, settling instead by the fire, licking its haunches. Roswyn cleared her throat sharply and gave Cador a pointed stare (Griselle, smitten by the cat, was risking her fingers and ignoring her hosts).

  ‘You are most welcome,’ Cador began. ‘You and your cat. And I assure you there will be dancing and songs and stories. We have a very good bard here, Sticks by name. We do, though, have one request to make of you.’

  ‘Have you ever delivered a baby?’ said Roswyn, one hand across her massive belly.

  Griselle was aghast. ‘Never, m’lady! Some convents are known for that, but not St Agatha’s.’ She looked at Cador. ‘Surely m’lord has midwives who can …’

  ‘You see, fair cousin,’ Cador began, ‘this is the favour we need of you. To deliver the child. And whatever its Nature, declare to all that it is a boy-child.’

  ‘Well and good if it is a boy. But what if it’s a girl?’ She leaned close, as if to catch Cador’s words more quickly, her eyes becoming wider, shinier still.

  He gave his wife a glance. ‘Ah. Yes. Should the Nature be that of a girl, we would ask that you would take the child to some pleasant retreat, where you shall have every comfort and freedom, and raise the child as if it were a boy.’ He smiled, pleased with how clear and proper this all did sound.

  Griselle stared at him for a moment. Then she began to laugh and laugh; eventually she caught her breath and wiped tears from her eyes. ‘You are a funny lord,’ she said. ‘Make a girl a boy. And would you like me to raise this cat to become a dog?’ From the hearth, the cat gave her a baleful look.

  ‘That is impossible,’ Cador scoffed.

  ‘It’s all that we ask of you,’ Roswyn said sweetly. ‘And you don’t have to accept. There are lovely convents nearby. And besides, it is just until we have a true male heir.’

  Griselle straightened in the chair and picked up her mug of wine, taking a steadying swallow. ‘I’ll do it. You’ll never know a finer boy.’

  In due time, Roswyn was ready to deliver. Cador sat in his hall with his retainers; they ate, drank, and then Sticks the bard began to play, plucking out notes on his harp. ‘Now you all know the story of how Uther Pendragon came to these very halls …’ The knights called their approval – we do! We do! – and though a few cried that he should tell that story again, Sticks ignored them and said, ‘Tonight, I will tell the story of Arthur’s birth, in hopes that our Lady Roswyn will produce an heir as fine and as noble.’ Murmurs of approval as the notes of the harp rang and fell; the melody sounded to Cador like the patter of rain on flagstones, a gentle spring rain, lulling him as Sticks sang of Igraine’s beauty and the love between her and Uther. ‘Now Merlin had made Uther promise,’ Sticks said; words that made Cador sit straight up – Merlin! Promise! – ‘that he would turn the baby over to his care. Now, it might seem cruel, but Merlin knows what is best, and he could see into the mists of the future and knew that the child would only be safe if he were carried away and raised in ignorance of who he truly was.’ Cador rubbed his eyes and waved for a servant to pour more wine as the bard continued. ‘And Arthur was born and his father carried him down from this very hall, down the side of the cliff and there, on the shore of the sea, handed him to Merlin.’

  A sigh went through the hall as the wind picked up, finding the gaps in
Tintagel’s stones and whistling through them, insistent. Cador shivered and swallowed more wine.

  ‘Merlin then was a young man. Very powerful. And he took the baby in his arms and swore to Uther that his line would rule in Cornwall forever and again and then he turned and went into his cave and though many a brave knight tried to go in after, none could pass through the darkness that had closed behind him.’ The harp sounded a few notes, melancholy chimes. ‘The rest of the story is for another time,’ Sticks said (likely remembering that it involved the death of Arthur’s mother and father and was not truly fitting for the moment). ‘But mind you, there are those who say Merlin has lost his power as he has grown old, and there are those who say that Merlin will never come again to Cornwall’s shore, but they are wrong. Merlin is waiting. For the one true knight who we were promised would come again.’

  And then Sticks struck up a lively tune and had just gone through a verse when Griselle came down – pale and drawn and eyes bulging – and announced: ‘My lord, you have a son!’

  The hall erupted in cheers. Wine flowed into cups, cups were raised to the health of the lady mother, to the health of the babe, to a bright future for the heir, to the health of Griselle (she enjoyed a mug or two with them), and Cador smiled, laughed, and wiped a tear. Only then did it occur to him: this is what they’d agreed Griselle would declare, whatever the truth. It might be that he had a daughter, not a son. No, he resolved, as if the matter was his to decide: I have a son.

  ‘Take me to the chamber,’ he ordered. ‘This pregnancy was hard on my wife, and I would see that she is well. And I would meet my son.’

  Griselle led him to where Roswyn lay with sweat-soaked hair plastered to her brow, so pale the dark circles under her eyes looked as if they’d been painted with pitch.

  ‘My love.’ He knelt at her side.

  ‘My love,’ she echoed. ‘It is a girl, a daugh—’

  He stopped her words with a finger on her lips. ‘Never say it. Here is our son.’

  Cador admired the baby. The perfect bow of lips, the skin clear and opalescent, the fringe of sun-yellow hair. Everything, everything, perfect: the whorl of the ears, ten toes, two little nostrils.

  Griselle coughed gently.

  ‘What is it?’ Cador asked.

  ‘The baptism.’

  ‘Good God. It must be done. But the priest cannot know.’ Here was a loose thread Roswyn had not foreseen.

  ‘I will fetch the priest,’ said Griselle. ‘With luck, he is full of wine. I will tell him the babe isn’t well, that the baptism must happen now, without delay, for the child has taken a chill.’

  Cador squinted at the pink and rosy baby. ‘He would have to be drunk indeed to believe that. I know nothing of babies, but even I can see this one is hale.’

  Griselle scowled at him. ‘You fetch the priest. I’ll fix the baby.’

  Alarmed, Cador replied, ‘Do not hurt the child!’ and ran out, calling like a madman for the priest. ‘Quick! Quick! My son has caught a chill, he is ailing, he must be baptized post-haste!’

  Meanwhile, in that high chamber, Griselle rubbed the baby’s limbs with the winter snow that rested on the window ledge and covered the baby’s lower half with a napkin. When the priest came, flushed from the pace Cador had set on the climb to the chamber, flushed from the evening’s wine as well, Griselle held the baby in the crook of her arm so that its head flopped back, as if it was too weak to support itself. She bobbled it up and down so the head jostled loosely.

  ‘Feel his arm,’ she insisted. ‘He is so cold.’ The priest flinched when his fingers made contact with the icy skin. ‘He may die at any moment. Hurry or you’ll consign his soul to the flames of hell!’

  The priest fumbled out his holy water; he didn’t even question the napkin, but delivered the blessing as hastily as he could and asked Cador, ‘What will the child’s name be?’

  Silence.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cador had delayed certain preparations, holding out hope, as any father would, that his child would be born a boy. (His child was a boy. Would become a boy. Had to be a boy!) And so that winter, as snow piled over Cornwall’s stubbled fields and the wind sent gusts of smoky air down Tintagel’s chimneys, he quietly made arrangements. To any curious mind, it would seem that the earl was merely readying a hunting lodge, making certain that provisions were laid in, comforts ensured, security seen to. And what earl doesn’t like to hunt, and to hunt in comfort?

  Roswyn stayed cloistered with the babe in a high chamber, allowing Griselle the freedom to come down in the evenings and listen to Sticks play the harp. She even could be found listening to his stories in the morning, all the children of Tintagel gathered about for their lessons; while the other women of the castle withdrew to knit and gossip, Griselle would plonk herself down with the young ones and set to her embroidery, her little cat, Mooch, batting at every stray thread. And in the evenings, she would dance with the squires – the knights were busy courting the younger ladies, and Griselle paid them no mind, picking up her skirts to show the squires exactly how to do the steps of the round dance, and laughing her too-loud laugh.

  Betimes, Cador would sit in the high chamber with his lady wife, and the two of them would kiss and coo at the babe and marvel at how perfectly Nature had made … her. For between the two of them, they could admit Silence was a girl. And what a girl! Already, she had creamy fair skin that blushed sweetly pink and hair the hue of sunlight. ‘Perhaps,’ Cador ventured, ‘we could try to make another … so that this one doesn’t have to be a boy.’ And Roswyn quite agreed.

  But alas! As with so many things in life, it was not to be.

  Just as winter’s back had broken and the Trevillet river had shed its ice, just as the first hearty ewes were dropping their lambs, just as the tenderest shoots of onion were pushing through the melting snow, a terrible fever swept through Tintagel. Knights and their ladies took sick, wracked with aches and trembling, now with chill, now with heat. Roswyn readied poultices and taught Griselle how to grind herbs and fashion tinctures and teas and elixirs. The two women tended to the ill until Roswyn fell ill herself, fainting away while she and Cador enjoyed a meat pie by the fire of their chamber.

  ‘My love!’ he cried as she swooned. He barely managed to catch her limp body before it crashed against the stones. ‘My love!’

  The baby set up a wail, as if it knew it would have no more milk, no more nourishment, no more mother.

  Griselle came running when she heard Cador cry; helped him settle his lady wife in bed, cover her with the heaviest furs and pelts, stoke up the fire. For everyone knew that heat broke a fever, and soon the room was sweltering. Griselle took the babe in her arms, let Cador minister to his wife, pour the bitter potions that her own hands had mixed.

  The raw wind of spring rattled at the shutters, as if demanding entry. Cador held Roswyn close – how she burned, how she burned. He lay down in bed beside her; if the fever took her, let it take him too. He held her there, his tears carving twin tracks down his cheeks, cool water against the fire of their joined flesh.

  Griselle sang softly to the baby to quiet its cries, rocking it in her arms. Roswyn gave a moan now and then as Cador held her tight. And Cador, Cador tried to pray. He appealed to St Alban, known for his healing. ‘Please, save my wife …’ He knew he ought to get down upon his knees, or send for the priest to assist him in his efforts, but he couldn’t bear to unwrap his arms from around Roswyn, couldn’t bear to leave her alone, shivering and moaning in bed, even for a moment. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pray, but instead of seeing the mighty saint, it was Merlin’s dirty form that swam into his addled mind. And as Cador held his wife close, his lips against her hair, he thought of the wizard and murmured, ‘You promised to help. You did! Please!’ over and over again: please, please, please, until he fell into a restless sleep.

  Somewhere in that night (Silence swears they remember this, though how a babe can remember such a thing, I do not know), a great b
lack crow prised open the shutters of the room and hopped inside. Its claws crackled against the stone as it hopped closer. Haw? Haw? Its call was quiet, probing, but nonetheless roused every being in the room save one. Mooch, hunched down near the hearth, watched it with a half-open eye. Griselle, slumped at the foot of the babe’s cradle, startled awake with a snort and crossed herself. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,’ she murmured. The crow gave her a wide berth. Haw? Haw?

  And Cador … he sat up in bed, shirt soaked through with sweat. ‘The fire,’ he said, and Griselle roused herself to throw another log upon it. The chamber glowed red-gold with new flame and the crow hopped onto the bed.

  ‘Well?’ Cador said, pointing at the crow. ‘Can you save her?’

  The crow picked at the bed coverings with one foot. Haw. It cocked its head to look at Cador out of one eye. The other flashed, yellow as an egg yolk, in the firelight, and Griselle lifted her amulet of St Agatha from her neck, kissed it. Slowly, the crow turned its head to one side, then the other, before hopping sideways and up, landing on the headboard of the cradle. Haw! It croaked its loudest cry yet, spread its wings, fanned its tail, and lifted up, turning a circle around the chamber, and crashed through the shutters into the night. Mooch leapt after it, giving a swipe at the empty window slit, catching only a glancing blow at the tail. A single black feather floated down.

  They buried Roswyn as soon as the ground grew soft enough to dig. The fever had burned its way through Tintagel, claiming many fine men and women, but all of Cornwall turned out to mourn Roswyn. Some recalled her as a small child, her father’s little pet, riding along with him as he inspected the fishing boats in the spring, the crops in the autumn. Some recalled her as a young woman, a healer, who would help them when their sheep were afflicted with hoof rot as readily as when their children had a cough. Cador nodded his head, receiving their kind words, raising a flagon to toast her memory again and again.

  Griselle tended to the baby while the rains of early spring fell, soaking the fields and turning the tracks that led to and from Tintagel to soupy mud. Now she brought the baby to hear stories by the fire, held the child in her arms as she turned the steps of the dance; she weaned the child, replacing mother’s milk with goat’s milk, which Mooch liked to share.