The Illuminator

by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

  This one had fine red hairs that covered it, and squarish moons on his nails, like Roderick. Like his father. Alfred’s arm. Alfred’s hand. She turned around, greedy for a sight of the face that matched the arm.

  “Alfred.” She dared not touch his cheek for fear he would shame her by pulling away.

  But his face was a mask of courtesy, none of the insolence she’d seen at their last meeting. “My lady mother,” he said, acknowledging the greeting politely.

  He bowed to Sir Guy and retreated to wait beside the cup board with his fellows, according to custom.

  “He is much changed. More subdued. I trust you have not broken his spirit. His father would not have liked that.”

  Sir Guy laughed. “A squire’s training involves more than battle skills. He serves me well. He will be a fine knight one day. Already he sleeps in the knights’ hall.”

  “Thank you for that,” Kathryn said sincerely. She knew this was a sign of favor. Most squires slept wherever they could find a corner to make a berth. In winter this was especially a hardship—she could not bear to think of him sleeping on the cold ground.

  “I show him favor because I was a friend of his father.” He took another drink from the silver cup they shared. “And because I desire marriage with his mother. But we will speak of that later.”

  Something else to avoid. The duchess had not returned. Kathryn should have used her hostess’s indisposition as an excuse to escape. But then she would not have seen Alfred.

  “In the meantime,” the sheriff said, “would you like me to summon your son so that you may speak privately with him? After the banquet, of course?”

  “Oh yes, please.”

  He speared a sliver of swan’s breast with his knife and held it to her lips. “Now, we must not offend the duke, must we?”

  She opened her mouth and slipped the bite from the blade of the knife with her teeth. He smiled his predator’s smile.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  … rivers and fountains that were clear and clean they poisoned in many places.

  —GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT

  (14TH-CENTURY FRENCH COURT POET)

  Eight bells. Mayhap now she could excuse herself from the feast without being rude, Kathryn thought. The table linens had been drawn and the mead and ale and cider replenished until the noise level in the hall rendered polite discourse impossible. A few of the revelers, deep in their cups, lay in snoring heaps between the trestles. The duchess had not returned, and the remainder of her gentlewomen had retired—all but one who flirted outrageously with the knights around her, apparently delighted that her sisters had left the field to her.

  “Will you have need of Alfred much longer?” Kathryn shouted in the ear of her mess mate. Sir Guy held his liquor well, but she didn’t want him to forget his promise. This might be her only chance to speak with her son.

  He sloshed the liquid in his half-filled cup, appraising further need for his cup bearer. “I’ll send him to you later,” he said.

  “I’ll be waiting.” She removed a silver ribbon from her sleeve and laid it in front of his trencher. A shiver crawled up her spine. “To remind you,” she said.

  As Kathryn passed the duchess’s quarters, she paused. Since she was leaving at first light, she should thank the duchess for her hospitality. But as she suspected, her ladyship was still indisposed. Kathryn made the obligatory inquiries, thanked the women and asked that they convey her thanks to her hostess. “Tell the duchess I will pray to Saint Margaret for her lying-in.” This sentiment she sincerely felt. Kathryn doubted the woman could survive a difficult birth.

  As she climbed the last of the steps, she saw that her door was ajar. Good. Sir Guy had not been too drunk to remember. She paused just outside the half-open door. Alfred’s back was to her. Her pulse quickened; her palms began to sweat. He was talking to Glynis, and the flush on the girl’s cheek and her high-pitched laughter revealed her delight in finding Master Alfred at last. The laugh died when she looked up to see Kathryn framed in the doorway. She bobbed her usual attenuated curtsy.

  “Glynis, you may leave us.”

  “But, milady, I’m not done with the packing, and it’s cold in the hall—”

  “You can go to the kitchens and gossip with the others. You’ll be welcome there to sit by the fire. When you come back, we’ll do the packing together.”

  Blushing, Kathryn suspected, now more with anger than pleasure, the girl dropped a hurried half-curtsy and retreated, flinging a last flirtatious glance in Alfred’s direction. Her son looked embarrassed.

  “I can’t blame her,” she said when the girl had gone. “I would be reluctant to leave such a handsome young man were I still a maid.” She held him out from her extended arms, like a length of fine silk. His hair and the faint stubble of a fledgling beard glowed rust-colored in the candlelight. She stroked his jaw lightly, a tentative touch, lest he draw back. “You’ve your father’s beard.” A slight inversion of his head? Her imagination? Or a signal that his mother’s touch was unwelcome? “Sir Guy’s livery becomes you.”

  He said nothing. How to fill the awkward silence? If she embraced him, would he draw back? She had never understood that last meeting, the hard flint of his eyes the day he’d asked her permission to go to Sir Guy. Had his eyes softened? Or were his courtly new manners merely a mask?

  “Have you no kiss of greeting for the mother you’ve not seen in months?”

  He reached for her hand, lifted it to his lips. She jerked it back. “I want to hold you in my arms,” she said, pulling him to her. He didn’t hug her back, but neither did he pull away, and when she released him she thought she saw a glittering wetness in his eyes.

  She sat on the bench in front of the fire, patted the pillow beside her. His maroon-stockinged legs scissored beneath him gracefully, and he sat, not beside her but at her feet, facing away from her. His back rested against the bench.

  “I’ve missed you, Alfred,” she said to the back of his head as she picked at the gold embroidery on his shoulder. It was hard to keep her hands off him. She wanted to stroke his hair. At least he still had hair.

  “You had Colin … and the illuminator to comfort you.”

  The illuminator. So that was the source of his anger. How long had he known?

  “I had neither to comfort me,” she said, still speaking to the back of his head. Then she told him about Colin leaving. About Rose and the baby. Suddenly, she had his full attention. He turned to face her.

  “Colin! Sweet, innocent little brother deflowered a virgin!”

  There was a bitterness in his laugh that Kathryn didn’t like. She would never be able to tell him that Rose was a Jewess.

  “It’s too bad about Rose. She was very beautiful,” he said wistfully. “It’s funny, isn’t it, Mother? You were so afraid that I would make trouble, when all along it was Colin you should have sent away, sweet, honey-voiced Colin, instead of me.”

  He hugged his knees up to his chin and said nothing for a long moment, apparently rolling this new knowledge around in his head. “So, I’m uncle, then. Uncle Alfred. Jasmine. A funny name. But I like it. The world is peopled with too many saints already.”

  He flashed a grin, reminding her of the merry, irascible Alfred who had always made her laugh even when he needed whipping for his misdeeds. Was that little boy somewhere in this austere young man with his courtly manners?

  He frowned and the bitterness was back. “I don’t understand why Colin ran away. I should have thought Saint Colin would have stayed to pay the piper. Rose was comely enough to be his wife, that’s for sure. He could not likely do better.”

  “No. He would not likely have done better. Rose was as good as she was beautiful for all her youthful indiscretion.” Goodness in a Jew? Kathryn shook off the voice in her head as she explained. “Colin didn’t know about the babe when he left. He left because he felt guilty about the shepherd’s death. He and Rose had used the wool house as their trysting place. He thought it was his fault, all of it,
and he would go away and—I don’t know—atone by shutting himself up in some dark monastery.”

  “What a damn-fool way to think! How like him. Glynis and I were—“ He squirmed and turned away. “If I had been in the wool house, I wouldn’t think that the fire was my fault. John was probably drunk, started it himself, or maybe it was Simpson, covering up his thieving.”

  He leaned forward and poked at the fire, then half-turned so she could see his profile. His shoulder touched her knee. He did not look at her. “You were right about him, Mother, that’s what I was coming to tell you, the night I saw—the night I found your pearls.”

  “You found my pearls?” Kathryn’s throat tightened. It was Alfred. It was the young master of Blackingham who placed them there, Rose had said. “Then why didn’t you bring the necklace to me, Alfred?”

  A log split apart with a crack, sending sparks up the chimney.

  “Alfred, what did you do with the pearls?”

  A hesitation, and then he said, “I’m surprised you haven’t already found them. You’ve only to look in the illuminator’s quarters.” His full mouth contorted his face. He had his father’s full mouth. His father’s sarcasm.

  “Why would my pearls be among the illuminator’s possessions?” she asked evenly.

  “I went to your room after the shepherd’s burial.” He turned away, stared into the fire intently as though he were divining pictures in the dancing flames. “I saw you with him. I planted the pearls in his room. It was a foolish, childish thing to do, of course, the girl was in her room. She could have told you I did it. It was stupid.”

  “Then why did you do it?” she said to the back of his head.

  “I guess I was hoping you’d think he stole them. Maybe even be angry enough to send him away, instead of me.”

  So he had planted the pearls, just as Rose had said, just as she had feared. But not because he’d killed the priest. She wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time. So much pain for all of them. And all for a child’s prank. But it could be fixed, Holy Mother of God. It could all be fixed! It was not too late.

  But first, she had to fix this.

  She wanted to shake him in her frustration. She wanted to hug him to remove the pain she’d caused him. Her voice trembled slightly when she said, “Alfred, what were you thinking to commit such folly?”

  “I’ll tell you what I was thinking, Mother. I was thinking that you betrayed my father.”

  He worried the crimson cloth of his tunic, winding it with his fingers, still not looking at her. She disentangled his hand, clasped it between her own.

  “Your father is dead, Alfred. Did you think harming an innocent man would ease your hurt?”

  His lips were pressed into a hard line that quivered slightly. He didn’t look like a man now. He looked like her little boy trying to put on the face of a man, a boy mimicking a father’s rough ways.

  “Did you think I was betraying Roderick?” Her voice was low, her tones somber but gentle. She stroked the back of his head. “Or did you think I was betraying you?”

  She might as well have shouted at him. He jerked his head away as though her touch burned, and turned to face her, waving his hand in the air like an actor in a mad mystery play.

  “You despised my father! Don’t deny it.”

  She kept her voice low, her movements slow, so as not to startle him.

  “I don’t deny that there was no love between us, had never been. But how could I say I despised the man who gave me the two things I treasure most? You and your brother.”

  “You hated him. And you said I was his image.”

  “But I never—”

  “You said it many, many times.” His voice had grown deeper as he’d grown taller. He even sounded like his father. “I reminded you of Father too much. Is that why you sent me away? So you could be alone with your paramour?” His voice cracked and the last word came out shrill and brittle.

  How to answer him best? Which charge did she take on first? But he didn’t wait for her to decide.

  “Nothing to say, Mother?”

  “Alfred, Alfred, you must know how much I—”

  “Now they say you’re here as the sheriff’s lady. I’ve watched you on the dais, flirting, smiling up at him, night after night. It makes me sick. My lady mother twice a whore.”

  The slap echoed in the air. The imprint of her hand glowed white against his cheek. Tears pooled in his eyes, she could feel them welling in her own. Her palm still stinging from the slap, she reached up to touch his face, longing to kiss the hurt away, but he flinched and she withdrew her hand.

  “The sheriff hasn’t told you, then?”

  His rage had chased away all courtly courtesy; resentment contorted his features. He mumbled, “The sheriff tells me nothing except how to walk, how to stand, how to ride, how to fight, how to talk—and how to polish his armor.”

  “The illuminator is in Castle Prison for the priest’s murder. I refused to give my paramour, as you called him, an alibi in order to protect you. I loved you enough to sacrifice my own happiness for you. And the happiness of a good man. If you can’t feel that love, Alfred, I know not how else to prove it.”

  The tears that had pooled in his eyes now poured down his cheeks. She touched his face, the fading imprint of her hand.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you,” she said, sighing deeply. “The devil makes pawns of us all.”

  “Was your reunion with your son satisfactory?” the sheriff asked from the hall outside her chamber. Kathryn was in her shift and had hastily thrown her cloak around her to answer his knock.

  “Quite, my lord,” she said through a crack in the door. His breath was sour, but his speech was not slurred and he’d been sober enough to climb the stairs. “Thank you for arranging it.”

  His shadow lengthened and flickered against the wall in the guttering rushlight. “I would train my own son no differently,” he said. “Which brings me to another subject.”

  Kathryn pulled her cloak tighter. “By your leave, my lord, may we speak of it another time? The hour is late to be visiting a lady in her boudoir. As you can see, I was preparing for bed and tomorrow’s journey home—”

  But he leaned his weight against the heavy oak door and pushed past her. “God’s Blood, Kathryn, it’s a long climb up these tower steps, and I didn’t undertake it for my health.”

  He was still wearing the costume to which his new honor entitled him. It was a woolen mantle lined with scarlet. Blue garter symbols, each one embroidered with the motto Honi soit qui maly pense—“Shame on him who thinks ill of it”—stitched in gold thread, decorated a lighter background. Over this he wore a surcoat of crimson wool.

  “We will speak of it now,” he said. “Tomorrow, we leave at dawn and there will be no time. I have to go on ahead. My men will accompany you, of course.”

  She turned her back on him and bent to stoke the paltry fire with the last piece of wood. She’d hoped to save it for the morning to warm her departure preparations.

  When she turned around, he was sitting on the bed, leaning back against his arms for support, one blue-stockinged leg crossed over the other, watching her.

  “Do not look at me with that calculating eye, sir. I am not a mare that you are appraising in the horse market.”

  She hugged herself, rubbing her arms for warmth. He shifted his weight, crossed his legs at the ankles. The toes of his leather slippers pointed at her like poised darts.

  “Say what you have to say, please,” she said. “I am bone-weary.”

  He nodded. “As you know, Kathryn, I have no heirs, and—”

  “I thought you had a son in France.” She knew he’d lost his firstborn to the plague, and that his second wife, Mathilde, had died in childbirth three years ago. The child had been stillborn.

  “Gilbert died in the same battle as your husband.”

  “I’m sorry. I did not know. You never spoke—”

  “Are you still fertile?” He drummed his ringed si
gnet finger against the counterpane.

  “I beg your pardon.” She felt her skin flush. “Did you say—”

  “A simple question. Is your womb still viable?”

  “If you mean—well, yes, but that circumstance is more burden to me than boon. My sons are sufficient, and I have a ward.”

  “You have a ward!” His eyebrow arched.

  “I’m godmother to—to the granddaughter of Finn the illuminator. His daughter was defiled and found herself with child. She died giving birth to it.”

  “Was the miscreant who took her hymen brought to justice?”

  Her face felt like a burning brand. “The perpetrator was a wandering minstrel.” She turned her gaze to the fire. “We never knew his name.”

  “And you care for the child out of fondness for the illuminator.” The steel of his sidearm glinted cold, like his eyes.

  “I care for the child out of Christian charity until such a time as her mother’s father will be set free and can come for her.”

  He grunted and grinned the lopsided, crooked smile that she detested. “You will likely see the child’s troth plighted and stand godmother to her children ere that happens.”

  The room was warmer now. She would like to have removed her cloak, but as she wore only her shift beneath it, she merely moved away from the fire and sat in the chamber’s lone chair.

  “How so, my lord sheriff? When the illuminator is innocent?”

  He appeared to be examining his cuticles. “You were not so sure on the occasion of his arrest.”

  “Alfred has told me the truth. He planted the pearls in Finn’s—in the illuminator’s—chamber because he was angry over some perceived slight. It was a childish thing to do. He had no knowledge of the consequences. When I told him, he repented that childish action. He will testify before the bishop that it was all a mistake.”

  “Ah. But how came Alfred to be in possession of the pearls? That’s the question, isn’t it? Is he prepared to explain that to the bishop as well?”

  “I like not that insinuation, sir. He found the necklace among the overseer’s belongings. My steward was a thief. If he stole from the living, he would suffer fewer pangs to steal from the dead. He has since been turned off Blackingham land. I’m sure when the bishop hears the truth, he will release the illuminator.”