The Magic Mirror

by Susan Hill Long

  “Father, you’ll never believe it!” Petra shouted up to him, atop his fine horse.

  “Believe what?” Lord Geoffrey’s sharp eyes took in his daughter’s eager face. She looked…well.

  “My sister is not dead!” Petra cried, her voice filled with joy. “She is here! Here, in Knightsbridge! She came and found me and stayed in the lady chapel but now she’s—”

  “Petronilla!” Geoffrey boomed. His heels dug into the horse’s sides, and the horse reared and sidled in confusion, while Geoffrey’s expression changed as rapidly and dramatically as the clouds passing overhead.

  “Petronilla,” he said again, glancing all round at the riders, “your nerves play cruel tricks.” He swung his leg over his mount and dropped to the ground, slapping the horse’s rump and tossing the reins to a squire. He bent his head as to kiss his daughter, but hissed in her ear instead. “Inside, Petra,” he said, guiding her into the palace. “We’ll discuss this in private.”

  “Yes, let’s!” said Petra, smiling broadly at her father. “And how do you find the Toad?” she asked sweetly. “Is he well?”

  “Petra!” chided Geoffrey. “If you must know, I never met him—he was evidently ill and thus in seclusion—but never mind that.”

  “We’ll soon brew the bride ale for Maggie and not me, I wager!” Petra said.

  Geoffrey stopped and pointed. “Go wait in my chambers while I catch my breath.”

  Geoffrey walked slowly, removing his riding gloves finger by finger. Petronilla’s greeting was outrageous! Beatrice, alive? Impossible. Here in the royal city? Inconceivable. He ripped the gloves from his hands and bit the leather between his teeth.

  He had been sure…He had ensured…

  Cursing now the saints, the River Severn, and his trust in the thief John Book, Geoffrey slapped his riding gloves against his thigh. Then he went to meet with his daughter.

  “Petra, how can you be sure this girl is not a fraud?”

  Father and daughter faced each other across the room, their figures reflected many times over, for there were mirrors everywhere. Mirrors hung on iron hooks mortared in the stone, on pegs and in corners; they rested flat on the table and bench.

  Petra pointed to one of the mirrors on the wall. “She is my likeness, Father—a more precise reflection one could not imagine—and she wears a comb of Mother’s, the mate of mine. She could be no other, of that I am certain.”

  A new puppy pranced at Petra’s heel, and she bent to scoop it up. “Besides,” she added, smiling, “a soothsayer read our palms and divined for each of us the same!”

  A fortune-teller? A comb? Geoffrey would not be undone by trifles. He frowned at the absurd bow around the dog’s neck as Petra stroked its head. Another pet to go the way of the others, mayhap by means of that ribbon—that would bring her back to earth, for the girl was fairly floating. Look at her. Face pinked with enthusiasm, her smile easy, and the way she stood there, regal and possessed of herself. In his absence had she not been given the elixirs? She was changed. He didn’t like it.

  Geoffrey cleared his throat, poured a glass of red wine, and drank it down. With a careful mixture of opium and mandrake he’d dandled her tempers like a puppet master. He’d grown fond of ruling alone. Now that she was old enough to wed, he’d settled her marriage to a duke he’d been assured was a drooling idiot, thus increasing Geoffrey’s holdings threefold and securing his position of control as regent. What now? he thought. What now?

  Schooling his expression, Geoffrey turned to Petra and opened wide his arms. “Bring her to me at once!” he said, putting on a merry voice.

  “Yes, Father, I will, without delay!” She went to leave the chamber, but turned. “I beg of you, Father, one thing. Margaret—let us call her Margaret, for that is how she knows herself—she is lame, surely caused by…by my…” Petra set the pup down to cover her trembling. “I beg you, do not tell her that I am the cause. She and I love each other as sisters.”

  Geoffrey looked at Petronilla—those eyes, so like her mother’s. He stretched his lips into a smile. “Have I not made to you my solemn vow?”

  Petra ran to him and embraced him.

  “Thank you, Father,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

  Lord Geoffrey called everyone to the castle for a feast of four courses. The soaring walls of the great hall were hung with banners and coats of arms, and as light faded in the tall windows, the torches were lit along the walls, and there were candles on every table, as well. Margaret, beside Geoffrey at the high table, was seated on a grand but uncomfortable chair. The table groaned with food, the likes of which Margaret had never seen nor imagined. First came the potted meats and the cheese, then ground beef in spiced wine, a leg of pork, and a black swan—plucked, roasted, and covered over again with its own feathers. The servants had outdone themselves, and on one day’s notice, too. The linen-draped table was finer dressed than Margaret herself had ever been up till the evening before.

  Margaret barely needed to chew the soft bread, a spoonful of orange conserve on top, and she savored every bite of food on the trencher she shared with Petra, though at the same time her heart squeezed: everything was so strange and new; she would have taken a kind of comfort in choking down the old familiar tough brown rye. She swallowed the bread, fed morsels to Walter under the table, and studied Lord Geoffrey from the side.

  The meeting in Geoffrey’s chamber had been quick. “The prodigal daughter has returned,” he said softly, and then embraced her, though scarcely touching her. “Stepdaughter, I should say. Half-sister, I should say, though”—he waved his hand dismissively—“it matters not. Dear Beatrice. How we all doted on you!”

  He’d motioned for her to turn round, and like a squab on a spit she had done so, and he observed her twisted leg and then moved behind her and lifted her hair from her neck. He paused, and Margaret thought she heard a sharp intake of breath before he bent to kiss her nape and let the hair fall.

  Margaret submitted to his scrutiny with the confidence of one just washed. He’d find no pests on her this day! She had bathed in hot water, and Petra’s maid, Emma, had scrubbed her raw and washed her hair with scented oil, and picked out every louse and nit; she’d never been so clean in all her life.

  Now Geoffrey, dressed in a fine quilted doublet, rose from his ornate chair and lifted high his goblet. Petra wore a gown of deep crimson silk, and Margaret was dressed in a rich green velvet that, by its similarity to her cherished velvet scrap, gave comfort. Its beaded bodice made lovely tinkling noises when she moved. The castle’s great hall went quiet. Margaret dared not breathe lest her dress interrupt. She stifled a snort. If Bertie could see her! Would he know her? She hardly knew herself.

  “God’s mercy has shone upon us this day, and our family’s tragic story has been turned upon its head! Let the celebration ale flow! Let the people rejoice! To Beatrice!”

  “To Beatrice!” came the response from all the great hall.

  Below them, less important people ate bread that was not white, but it was still fine wheat bread, and farther down the line there was coarser cocket-bread, and finally, away at the far end of the great hall, was served the rough brown rye.

  It was lowly bread, for lowly folk, and as the smells of rich food not meant for them reached their noses, the people in the hall remembered the sad story of the lost girl, and the queen who died of grief. And they rejoiced at the sight of Isobel’s true heir, returned to them by God’s own grace.

  “What joy!” said a slender man seated between his portly wife and a neighbor who had not bathed. “The elder one is come back, never dead at all, but found by a good soul and raised in all innocence of her true identity.” The man had bought a pair of new shoes fit for the fine occasion. “Imagine!”

  “It’s a shame about that one,” said a wizened old lady sitting farther from the nobility. She pointed to Petra and then tapped a finger to her temple. “Touched in the head. Right good she won’t be queen.”

  “Now we got a cri
pple, we’re better off, eh?” said her companion, whistling through a gap in his teeth. He took a great pull of ale, then dragged his sleeve across his mouth, and belched.

  It was near dawn when the last revelers left the great hall and the kitchen went quiet and the dogs quit nosing the rushes for scraps and bones, and Margaret and Petronilla, stuffed and woolly-headed, flopped into bed at last and whispered.

  “Of course it’s a shame you must wed him, Margaret, but how much better to wed a duke than a woolmonger!”

  “If neither be for love, then I agree,” said Margaret, biting her lower lip. “But why not for love?” Much to Margaret’s surprise, Lord Geoffrey had seemed to agree that she and not Petra should marry the Toad.

  “Pshaw. Love’s not a promise anyway. My maid Emma wed for love. She wed for love three times, and buried two out of three!”

  “That’s horrible,” said Margaret.

  “Her men were horrible,” said Petra, patting the bed to encourage Walter to hop up. “Emma chose for herself and chose unwisely, for each among them beat her black and blue.” She shook her head and frowned, freshly tying the dog’s purple ribbon in a great looping bow. “Though I’m sure I’d judge more fair than Emma, had I her freedom.” Walter sighed and put his head down on his paws.

  Margaret went up on her elbows. “What would he be like, then, your husband?”

  “Good and kind and true, certainly, and with a playful spirit. One who’d make me laugh.”

  A picture crossed Margaret’s mind’s eye. Black hair glossy as a crow’s wing, head bent over a whittling knife, a wink in the glow of a fire’s embers, a song, a kiss on the ha—

  “And what of your husband?” Petra asked.

  Margaret flushed and plucked at a gold thread gone loose on her pillow. “None would have me,” she said. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the canopy. “The Toad will be sore disappointed when we meet.”

  Petra just laughed. “Oh, we’ll have such fun tormenting him. And you’ll have hardly any business with him at all, you’ll see.” She flopped beside Margaret. “All will be well, Sister. I shall never leave your side, nor shall you leave mine.” Her face sobered, and light from the candle flickered across it. “An oath!” she cried, sitting up. Her movement caused the flame to flutter and dance, and for a moment sooty smoke clouded Margaret’s eyes. “As the knights take their oath to God, so shall we to each other. An oath of fealty!”

  She flew to her little table and from her basket produced a sewing needle; then she dashed back to the bed, grabbed the astonished Margaret by the wrist, and pricked her thumb.

  “Ow!” said Margaret, and stared at the little ball of blood that formed, ruby-like, on the skin. “Does a knight bleed his thumb before God?”

  “No, but we are ladies. You’d rather the clout of a sword hilt?”

  In the next instant Petra pricked her own thumb and pressed it to Margaret’s.

  Petra spoke quickly. “I promise that from this day forward I will be faithful to my sister, never cause her harm, and protect her from all others in good faith and”—Petra swallowed—“and without deceit.” She glanced away. “Now you, Margaret.”

  “I promise…”

  “That from this day forward—”

  “That from this day forward I will be faithful to my sister, never cause her harm, and will protect her from all others—”

  “In good faith—”

  “In good faith and without deceit.” She finished the pledge in a rush.

  The two girls smiled furiously at one another, proud and glad and bold. Then they pulled their thumbs away and stuck them in their mouths like grinning gargoyles.

  “That thtung,” said Margaret, around her hand.

  “Yes, but now we are forever bonded, no matter what.”

  Margaret smiled at Petra, and her heart felt big in her chest. “No matter what.”

  Walter sneezed in his sleep.

  After three days’ travel, Bertram and Brother Henry had come to St. Winifred’s Well. A crypt built into a hillside protected the clear waters of the holy spring, which continuously filled a basin shaped by eight points of a star. Near to the crypt stood colorful tents where pilgrims might remove their traveling clothes, to then take their illnesses to the healing waters of the well. Henry and Bertram sat apart from their companions on the grassy bank beyond the wall that enclosed the crypt.

  Henry was pleased with the journey. “I feel at peace, Bertie,” he said.

  Bertram sat unusually silent.

  “No singing today, then, Bertie? No tune on the bladderpipe?” the friar asked.

  Bertram shook his head, glancing at the bagpipe beside him on the embankment, and said nothing.

  “Bertram,” Henry said, “do you remember how you came to be in my employ?”

  “Of course,” Bertram replied. “Mother and Father died of the pestilence and Taggot drownt and I alone was spared.”

  “Yes, yes, but why came you to me, I mean, that day in Minster City, at St. Paul’s? ’Twas God’s hand at work. A miracle you found me.”

  Bertram looked up at Henry. “I knew your broken nose. I saw your profile at prayer, and ran to you like a calf to its mother.”

  “Thanks to God I am not handsome,” said Henry.

  Bertram smiled. “You said a cheerful lad would be a good companion, as a squire to a knight. But I was never any squire, and you—why did you give up your knighthood, Cousin? You never said. I never questioned, but often wondered.”

  “And why did you never question?”

  “Because I was afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That if I questioned, if I failed to entertain, to serve, I would be turned away.”

  “Have we no trust between us, then, after these many years?”

  Bertram looked away and tugged on a blade of grass. “Well, after a time I thought…you would confide in me if you truly trusted me….”

  “Let me tell you something, Bertram. A finer son I could not have had. I think of us not as master and servant, but as father and son.”

  Bertram looked up.

  “And you are free to go at any time.”

  Bertram’s lips parted, and he tipped his head slightly. “But I have pledged to serve you.”

  “No more, Bertie. I release you. I always thought to release you when you were ready. It is time.”

  Bertram was silent; frowning, he studied his feet.

  “Is there not somewhere you would go, then, Bertie?”

  “Cousin. I belong with you.”

  “You have belonged with me, Bertie. But you will find your own place—find it, mayhap, more than once.”

  “I don’t understand. When I alone of my family was spared…” He swallowed, and when Henry reached a hand to clasp his shoulder, Bertram turned to him. “I expect God in his wisdom meant to strike me. Taggot was in my care, and I failed. I let go. In the river, I let go. And she died.”

  “Taggot’s life was not yours to claim, no more than any man’s. You did not fail her, but did your best. And you were a child yourself. Had you held on, you too would have perished in the water, and I would not have carried on.”

  A frown of confusion creased Bertram’s brow. “What do you mean, you would not have carried on?”

  “God gave me charge of you, a duty. And I allowed you to believe you were indebted to me, when it is I who owe my life to you. Had I not been trusted with your care, I would not have cared for myself enough to live or die. Like you, I was afraid. Afraid I’d lost my soul by my wrongdoings.”

  “If I could have offered my life instead, Henry, I—”

  “It is not our place to bargain with God, Bertram, noble though your thoughts be. And sincere, I know.”

  They both sat quiet, and the water gurgled mysteriously. Bertram picked up his bagpipe, absently twiddling the tuning pegs, and wondered what the water could be saying. Surely Maggie would know. He listened hard, but heard no words.

  “I continue on pi
lgrimage,” Henry said, “for I believe God is not yet through with me, and I have much to learn along the path. Might God have something else in store for you, Bertram? Might that be why he spared you?”

  “To do what?”

  Henry shrugged. “Things are not always as they appear; that is what I know of truth.”

  Bertram rolled his eyes. “Must you speak in riddles?”

  “All of life is a riddle.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Bertram said, and stood abruptly. “It isn’t any riddle at all. It’s simply one step beyond the other, in a chosen direction.”

  “Hmm.” Henry rose and started toward the well. “And what, then, is your chosen direction?”

  Bertram looked quizzically at the monk. “I have always followed. I have followed you these last seven years.”

  Henry nodded. “And now I believe that I shall follow you.”

  Bertram shifted his weight side to side and scratched his chin. He swallowed. “I—I choose to go back to Knightsbridge.”

  “Ah,” said Brother Henry, his smile knowing. “I see.”

  “See what, Cousin? I—”

  “Bertie.” Brother Henry smiled gently. “After these many years, do you not believe I know your heart?”

  Bertram flushed. Then he looked to St. Winifred’s Well. “There is something I may give Maggie yet.”

  After the grand feast presenting Margaret to all of Knightsbridge, the next days passed in a flurry of lessons: Margaret would learn to be a lady. She learned that embroidery called for the patience of St. Simon and the eyesight of St. Lucy, that flowers spoke in language both foolish and lovely, and that of all the herbal remedies—oil of violet, water of rosemary, henbane, calamus, and clove—none accomplished forgetting. She would gladly forget her betrothal to the Toad. She might forget Bertram, too, for to think of him caused her a new kind of sorrow. If she held the magic mirror in her hands now, would it be Bertram she’d see in the glass, and not the wild-eyed man? Oh, those haunted eyes! She remembered him now with a pang, for she’d left her quest unfinished. And what of Minka? She could not forget her, either.