The Prince of Poison

by Pamela Kaufman

  At Haute Tierce, I stopped for my repast beside a cloud of purple frangia. The sky at eye level was a deep blue with two vertical clouds. The contrast between the blue and the white made me gasp with wonder. No place in the world has such skies as England; French skies are beautiful in their way but always muted with a metallic overtone, such as copper blue or silver blue or bronze blue. This was purity itself, where the very idea of heaven must have been born.

  Heaven, survival, Sister Angela, the miracle of Enoch. I laughed aloud.

  At midday, I heard the gurgle of a spring below. I slid down to a small grassy dell before a pool, where I opened my saddlebag. The money bag contained well over a hundred livres, a fortune. Though Bonel had Sea Mew, I must repay him—not even a king could give away so much money. Then the jewels, a mix of uncut gemstones and finished jewels in their settings: the familiar lion and eagle pendants, a moonstone set in silver—how did he know my favorite?—various pendants of semiprecious stones, then gemstones of emerald, beryl, topaz, amethyst, two small pale rubies, an Egyptian turquoise, and I know not how many more. “Too much, too much,” I moaned. These I would certainly give back, since I had no intention of seeking employment in London.

  A small stream bubbled among cowslips to form a pool. I removed both my habit and the new tunic beneath it—there was no one to see except a comical toad on the rock opposite —and I doubted if even he could see me, since his eyes stared in opposite directions. After I’d drunk and washed my person, I dipped both tunics to remove seawater and stretched them upon a bush while I slept.

  The sun was still high in its run when I woke. The toad had leaped to a closer rock, and perhaps he could see me now—I put both tunics on again, the habit on top. They were still a bit damp, but no matter. My unbraided hair was also damp as it fell free to my waist.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Toad. Thank you for your company.” I reached past his puffed cheeks to stroke his beating throat, and froze. This was the toad my mother had called the golden leopard-prince; though mainly covered with yellow spots outlined in black, he had faint scarlet lines between his eyes, meaning he was poisonous. Fortunately—like some spiders and snakes—he was not aggressive, but if one should be bitten or eat him in a stew, that would be farewell forever. I backed very cautiously to my hillock and out of sight.

  Riding through white and yellow and pink flowers on all sides, I reached my descent just when the sun had lowered to eye level. Slowly, I guided Shark down the steep path to Dere Street, which seemed haunted. I imagined Dame Margery waving goodbye from her bush after Roland de Roncechaux had murdered my parents, pictured Enoch rounding the bend for the first time, blowing his pipe. Oh, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. After how many years? Was I still beautiful? Aye, Bonel had said that I was. Surely Enoch . . .

  Every stone, every tree sighed welcome home. My blood churned, my eyes pooled. If only Theo were with me! I had only my flatulent Shark to savor the moment with me.

  There was the path to Dunsmere. Now Maisry beckoned eerily; a flock of crows gave warning.

  Here were the fields where Maisry and I had flung black mud at one another; long curved furrows gleamed in the retreating sun. Enoch had plowed early.

  Here was a break in the low stone wall Dame Margery and I had followed.

  “Hoyt!” Shark turned.

  I stopped before the ford where the Wanthwaite River gurgled over the stones. I dismounted, removed my habit. Oh, to have a reflecting pool! I ran my fingers through my waves. Was it unseemly to show my hair? Yet Enoch was my husband—hadn’t he said a hundred times how he loved my pale locks? I dipped water to my heated face, then mounted again. Shark walked cautiously across the ford.

  On the far side, I dismounted again. I pulled the neck of my new tunic downward to display my throat, pinned the moonstone set in silver on the ruff. Up the spinney, Enoch and England.

  Chickens clucked with contentment on one side; I missed my ducks. A new lamb bleated somewhere in the hills—an orphan lamb deserted by his mother. You’re not deserted, Theo—tomorrow your father and I will come! The soft lowing of cows, a horse whinnying in alarm. The dovecote. I smelled the pigs, though they made no sound.

  I walked across the moat bridge, somewhat surprised that the iron gate was open. Below this bridge, my injured father had bled to death. Dame Margery had sat close, mourning Maisry’s death.

  I passed the donjon, the cheesehouse where my wolf, Lance, had been caged. Yet there were happy memories as well. I’d walked this very path to become Enoch’s bride. There had been pine torches then as there were now. Were they expecting me? But how?

  I tied Shark in the stable. When I returned to the path, the thump of the kettle and the shriek of the pipe filled the courtyard—aye, they must be expecting me.

  Eagerly, I ran past the schoolroom, the chapel, the privet hedge, the geroldinga apple tree now in blossom, straight to the Great Hall! I stopped at the entry.

  What a party they’d prepared! Drunkalew as mice, Highlanders flung their skirts and leaped to the beat. “Cum, my buxom burdie, fling a foot!”

  “Ho-la! Gae aft, lass! Gi’e a hap, stap, a lowp, then a cuchie!”

  I couldn’t stand still—I jiggled to the piper’s beat!

  “Grab her hurdies!”

  My eyes searched—Gruoth had seen me, and there were Edwina and Thorketil. All dressed in their best brechan feiles! Round and round—I grew dizzy. Where was Enoch?

  “Lip the lassie!” shouted a high tenor voice.

  “Gi’e her the skean dhu!”

  “Swape!”

  Enoch thrust a broom into the hands of a short dark-haired lassie jigging before him, aye, Enoch! Taller and leaner than I remembered and dressed in his best kirtle and skirts, I knew that red-gold hair as if it waved to my shoulders, had felt that beard against my face!

  Then I froze. Goddes halp, this was a wedding, aye, Enoch’s wedding! I tried to find a shadow—I kicked a torch! But there was another—where could I go? Where could I hide?

  Enoch grabbed his bride most ardently—he kissed her full on the lips!

  “Alix!” Gruoth screeched.

  Death had attended the wedding—I was death. I was not the welcomed survivor, but the bad folet Lucinda. The guests froze. The pipes whined to silence.

  Enoch stared wildly at me and fell to the rushes. Blood spurted from his head. The black-haired lassie knelt beside him.

  5

  I spent the night on the rushes wrapped in Gruoth’s arms close to his pool of blood. He, of course, slept in his wife’s arms up the stairs in the room my parents had shared. Gruoth assured me that Enoch had believed I was dead; otherwise he would never have married, would he? Or at least he would have gotten an annulment first.

  I managed with great effort to learn the bride’s name: Lady Fiona of Loch-Baver, close to Inverness.

  And yes, she was rich; she’d inherited vast estates from her father and later her first husband.

  And yes, Enoch had courted her for some time; two years, in fact.

  I announced myself delighted for his good fortune. Of course, he would be returning to Scotland now. Could Gruoth and her husband, Donald, accompany me to London the following day?

  I didn’t really change so abruptly, but what could I do? I’d always been a good actress; some would say liar.

  When I entered the stable at dawn, I almost fell over Enoch. He was squatted in a corner with a huge white bandage around his head.

  We stared at one another in the gloom.

  “Are you badly hurt?” I asked courteously. My voice sounded like a horse’s whinny.

  “Nay.”

  He stood. Enoch. Not an apparition or a dream, but Enoch. Had I glorified him in memory? I didn’t think so—just the opposite. He was a Scot, of course, which he couldn’t help and which explained his red-gold hair and his outlandish skirts. His eyes were the blue of the English sky, I’d gotten that right. How could I have forgotten his red, red lips and his hairy arms, his strong h
ands with their sensitive fingers? His beard was trimmed short (for his bride?), and he had two new thin lines between his eyebrows.

  “Waesucks!”

  I supposed that was a compliment, but maybe not.

  “Be ye a folet?” he asked.

  “A witch?” Did I look that bad?

  “Ye doona luik real.” He continued to stare. “Lak ond unlak Alix.”

  “People grow up, milord.”

  “Aye,” he agreed. Then, after a pause, “Ye’re a lady.”

  As opposed to the child he’d left at Wanthwaite, aye. I waited in vain for a real compliment. So much for my new tunic and silver pin.

  I couldn’t get around him. “Would you mind?”

  He knelt in front of a nest of straw. “Ich be afeared he’s dying.”

  I started. “Who?”

  “My wolf, Dingwall.” He hesitated. “It war meant fer ye—Ich brought her back fram Scotland quhan ye war . . .”

  Stolen away. In spite of myself, I was touched. I knelt beside him. The wolf, lying on a sheepskin, was definitely dying. Her suffering was palpable, her expression almost human. Looking at her silver mask and yellow eyes, I began to tremble. Was it the wolf, or was it Enoch? We both rose together.

  “She doesn’t look good, Enoch. What’s her trouble?”

  He stroked her muzzle, then turned to me.

  “Waesucks!” he said again.

  He startled himself as well as me. It was a moment of intimacy that neither of us expected or wanted. He licked his upper lip. “Ich be nocht sartain, boot Ich think she war bit, mayhap by a rat, mayhap a snak.”

  Now I had the woodly thought that he was referring to King John as a snake. I touched the wolf. Mayhap a toad? No, toads don’t bite, and I doubt if a wolf would eat a toad. Nor spiders—a snake. There were few adders this far north, but there were a few.

  I forced myself to peer through the gloom at the horses. Shark looked only slightly better than the wolf, but there was a line of fine healthy steeds against the wall. I signaled to the stable boy to saddle a black mare.

  “That be Fiona’s,” Enoch said, his voice now hostile.

  “Your wife’s? Thank you for warning me, milord.” I signaled for a bay mare.

  “She canna be my wif if ye’re alive; Ich thocht ye war daid,” he said defensively.

  I couldn’t stop myself. “After you go north, I hope to resume my life here. Not as your wife, of course.”

  “Ich thoucht ye daid becas King Richard died twa years ago.”

  Soothly. I didn’t want or have to explain. Theo, oh, Theo—I’m coming! All the pent-up emotion I’d felt for Enoch and England now centered on my darling boy. Yet I must explain to some extent.

  “The present king looked on me as a rival to the Crown and tried to kill me.”

  “Rival? Boot ye be female!”

  I stumbled on quickly. “As you can see, he failed, but I was delayed. To be honest, I planned to resume my life here as I’d left it. Well, that’s impossible.” I took a deep breath. “You’re wed to another—I must accept that fact—but Deo gratias, I still have Wanthwaite.”

  And England.

  “Nay, Alix, Wanthwaite be mine ond that horse ye just saddled be mine!”

  “You have your estates in Scotland, Gruoth told me.” I was now seated on the bay. “This horse and all the animals at Wanthwaite as well as all the furnishings, grain, ale, and foodstuffs were left me by my parents, and they’re still mine.” I couldn’t resist a jab. “Your Lady Fiona’s vast estates, I am told, make Wanthwaite look paltry. I congratulate you on finding such a rich lady!”

  I’d touched a nerve.

  “Quhat Fiona ha’e be nocht yer affair!” he roared. “Ond Ich nocht be wed to her yit! Boot quhen I git my annulment, this property be mine!”

  I feared he might be right, but I would fight for Wanthwaite! If the canon law supported him, well, I would find another law! Come to think of it, I could kill Enoch after I’d killed King John.

  “Wanthwaite be mine! Bought fer a goodly sum, ye recall. Fiona ha’e deeded all her land to me, boot we’ll live in Wanthwaite! I’m makin’ her an English baroness!”

  No time to argue now. I raised my quoit and kicked my steed.

  He grabbed my bridle. “Yif ye claim Wanthwaite, quhy do ye lave it nu? Quhar gang ye? Ond quhy?”

  I’d been afraid he would ask, yet I know not where the lie came from that I uttered. “To tell the truth, I must go to London to pick up the Crown Jewels Richard left to me. I’ll return at once.” I felt pleased with myself. Plausible. Impersonal. Safe. And I knew about jewels. A perfect lie; I hadn’t lost my skill.

  He still held my bridle. “Quhar be they in London?”

  My jaw dropped for a beat—what could I say? A good lie stays close to the truth.

  “I’m meeting someone—er—at Baynard Castle. Aye, a lady at Baynard Castle.” I raised my quoit. “Let me go, if you please!”

  “Quhy a lady? Quhy didna ye carry them yerself?”

  Oh, he was shrewd. “I mentioned King John, didn’t I? He feels—with a certain justification—that the Crown Jewels should stay with the Crown. Therefore, I was forced to send them with my friend. I’ll be in the city only one day before I return.”

  “This lady mun be a fool to tak swich a risk. King John be muckle dangerous.”

  Oh, Deus juva me, he was! I forgot Enoch, forgot everything but Theo! Was it possible that the king had stopped Lady Matilda de Braose? Had Queen Eleanor deceived me?

  Should I have taken even a day to come to Wanthwaite?

  Enoch was waiting.

  “Yes, he is dangerous. I must hurry!”

  He didn’t release my bridle.

  I tried to assuage him. “I’m truly sorry, Enoch, that our marriage turned out as it did, and I thank you for the wolf.”

  He led my steed into the courtyard. Gruoth and Donald awaited on the moat bridge. If Enoch saw them, he said nothing. He pulled off his bandage; his wound was no longer bleeding, though his hair was matted.

  “We’re still wed, Alix, because I didna sake an annulment yet, quhich manes that yer property be mine. Them Crown Jules be mine.”

  Eyes blue as the English sky and as hard. “I’ll give you one jewel.” One of Bonel’s jewels.

  “Ye’ll gi’e me nothing! I’ll tak quhat’s mine! I’ll ride to London wi’ ye!”

  “No! You can’t! You mustn’t!”

  He wrenched my bridle away and gave it to the stable boy. “Wait richt here!”

  The instant he disappeared into the Great Hall, I pulled free and rode to Gruoth and Donald.

  “Hurry!” I shouted.

  We slipped sideways on the melting rime in the park. To think that just last night I’d climbed here with such hope. Theo! Theo! That was my hope now! My spirits soared. Theo, my sweet companion for years to come. Then his wife and grandchildren! Bliss, bliss, my golden babe!

  We’d no sooner reached the lane leading to Dunsmere than I heard male voices and the fast clop of horses behind us—Enoch and his Scots galloped after us as fast as ever they could. I glanced again and almost fell from my saddle! Lady Fiona rode on her handsome ebony filly by Enoch’s side—he was bringing her to London! She would witness when I picked up Theo? Never! Never!

  I pressed my horse faster and faster—Gruoth and Donald struggled to keep up. I sobbed openly—there was only one road to London, and Enoch knew it! Deus juva me, why had I dangled jewels before his greedy eyes?

  When we reached Dere Street, Enoch’s party crowded in front of us and stopped so we couldn’t pass. He and Lady Fiona dismounted and whispered. Then, to my horror, Lady Fiona walked briskly toward me. She clutched my rein—we stared at one another. Well, I admit that she was beautiful in the Scottish manner: violet eyes—same shade as the violet, plaid cope clasped with silver at her shoulder—perfect pale skin, large white teeth, a chin that was a little too long and too sharp for absolute beauty (like a Lochinvar ax). Most surprising, she was older than
I was and even older than Enoch, though she was still youthful, a rich widow from the Highlands, where Enoch had known her husband.

  “Lady Alix,” she said in a voice so soft I could hardly hear, “I be Lady Fiona of Loch-Baver, clase to Dingwall, which be clase to Inverness.”

  Dingwall—wasn’t that what Enoch had called the dying wolf? I felt sick.

  “Enoch tald as me ye war daid, or I would niver ha’e wed him in Haly Church.”

  I made no comment. Gruoth had told me of the many months Lady Fiona had spent at Wanthwaite—I was surprised she bothered getting wed at all.

  “Ye’re still his wife legally, boot he will get an annulment fram Haly Church quhan he returns fram London Town.”

  “Doesn’t an annulment take a great deal of money?” I asked sweetly. “Are you paying?”

  “’Twill be asey fer him quhan he has the Crown Jewels,” she replied. “Quan he’s free, I’ll be back.”

  “In the meantime, I’m his legal wife.”

  Her violet eyes widened; her voice became steely. “Nocht fer long, because ye’re a well-known houri. Everybody in England knaws aboot you and King Richard.”

  I felt sick. Was that true?

  The Church controlled marriage laws, but didn’t the assize court control property? Very well, I would let Enoch go—and good riddance—but not Wanthwaite.

  Lady Fiona had gone back to Enoch, where they spoke in low tones. Both were dismounted; both glanced at me from time to time. I tried in vain to push my steed past Enoch’s Scots. Then, suddenly, they gave way because Enoch was back at their head. Lady Fiona was leading another small group of knights toward the north, toward Scotland.

  Enoch and England, a sour mantra now. Of course, England was still the same. It was a beautiful morning.

  Thorketil, Duncan, Donald, and Wallace were the only men I recognized in Enoch’s party, former friends all. Now none of them smiled or spoke to me. Did they feel guilty for not fighting the English when Bonel had snatched me years ago? Did they, like Fiona, consider me a houri? Besides these four, there were six strangers, one of them an older man, all Scots. Aye, I would have cultivated them if I hadn’t been distracted by Enoch. I knew not whether it was the sense of intimacy or revulsion that so obsessed me: his appearance, his smell, the way he moved, his voice and laughter. Above all, there was memory of things not seen or smelled. Not just how he’d protected me on the road as my “brother,” or even more on the Crusade. But later: his feel in the dark, his body on top of mine, the bliss—almost anguish—that we shared.