Once inside the castle walls, Mama found us a place in the courtyard, crowded already with people and their animals and belongings. We would sleep that night in the great hall, but as the day was fine, we stayed outdoors till dark. Papa was busy helping with the sheep.
Prince Julian came looking for us shortly after we arrived. He was dressed splendidly in black and gold, with the royal coat of arms upon his tunic and a real sword at his belt. He was seven or eight, I suppose, and smitten with war fever. He told us breathlessly how he had strapped on his cousin’s spurs and helped him don his armor. Then he saw that I had been crying.
“What’s the matter with Bella?”
I hid my face in Mama’s lap and would not look at him.
“She lost her kitten in the crowd,” Mama said, stroking my hair. “Poor wee thing! Then Robert Miller slapped her when she cried.”
Hearing her speak of it, I wailed even louder. I wept because the soldiers were coming. I wept because we had been forced from our home and had left my poppet behind. And I wept because the miller had hurt me. But most of all, I wept because I had lost my kitten—and it had been my fault! I had not understood that I had to protect it; I had not understood that it could die! And so, because I had been careless, that soft, living creature, which only moments before had been playing so charmingly in our yard, was now crushed and ruined! And no one—no one—had the power to bring it back! Oh, how it frightened me, that terrible first experience of guilt and death!
Julian sat down beside me and took me onto his lap. “Hush, Princess Bella,” he whispered, “and I will tell you a story about your kitten.” I nestled into his embrace and began to feel safe again.
My kitten was a twin, Julian explained, so he was known as “Kitty-Pair-of-Kitties.” His brother was always good. He never bit or scratched. He caught lots of mice but always disposed of them properly. He had no fleas and kept his whiskers clean. He was, in other words, of no interest whatsoever.
Kitty-Pair-of-Kitties was just the opposite. He was a perfect rascal and had one hair-raising adventure after another. One day, when he was still only a tiny kitten, he was accidentally dropped into a crowd of people hurrying into a castle. But he was quick on his paws, our hero! The moment he landed, he leaped nimbly onto the back of an ugly man (who was in the habit of smacking poor, innocent little girls) and dug his claws deep into the man’s back so that he shrieked like a demon and flung Kitty-Pair-of-Kitties into the bushes, where he landed safely.
Then, as he was hungry and as he thought it likely that someone (being in a hurry) might have left some cream in a butter churn, he hurried off to investigate. Naturally he found one straightaway. He took a flying leap from a windowsill and knocked over the churn, making a terrible mess all over the floor. But being a perfect rascal, Kitty-Pair-of-Kitties didn’t care. He just crawled inside, covering himself from head to toe in thick, delicious cream, then proceeded to lick off every bit of it.
After a while he decided it might be well to escape before his crime was detected, so he went trundling out of the house—though not very gracefully, since his tummy had grown so fat and round by then, from eating all that cream, that he could barely walk. Alas, this particular house was at the top of a rise, and Kitty-Pair-of-Kitties lost his balance. Before he could say “meow!” he had rolled tummy over tail all the way to the bottom of the hill!
That seemed as good a place as any to curl up and take a nap. So that’s exactly what he did.
“What will he do when he wakes up?” I asked, calmer now.
“He will go help my uncle’s knights fight the bad soldiers from Brutanna!”
“How will he do that?”
“Well—I must think. Wait, I know! He will jump down at them from a tree, and he will land on top of their helmets and peer in through the visors—upside down, you see, like this—and hiss at them!” He demonstrated and made me laugh. “And the soldiers will be so astonished, they will scream and fall off their horses.”
“And run away!”
“Yes.”
“And will they make him a knight—Kitty-Pair-of-Kitties?”
“Yes, of course they will.”
“Good,” I said.
That night the sky glowed red, and we smelled smoke in the air. One of the duke’s men, who had been standing watch on the ramparts, told us the raiders had torched the village of Seddington, some miles away to the east. “But the duke’ll send ’em packing soon enough,” the man said.
“That may be,” grumbled Thomas, one of our neighbors. “But while the duke is busy fighting over yonder, who’s to stop some more of ’em from coming over here? They’re not addlebrained, you know! They’d like nothing better than to set fire to our fields and burn our village, just to deprive the duke of the income.”
Thomas was a sour man, always arguing and stirring up trouble, and so he was called “Thomas the Quarreler,” to distinguish him from Thomas Baker.
“Then may God protect us,” Papa said.
“As He protected the good folk of Seddington?” Thomas snapped. “Truly, Martin, I do not think God has taken any notice of us these last hundred years and more.”
“For shame, Tom!” Mama said. “God always watches over us!”
“Perhaps you are right, Beatrice,” he said. “Only, would you not think, as He looks down from heaven, that God would begin to grow weary of so much death and destruction? Raise a hand to help us down here? Might this not be a good time for that great miracle of His we’ve been hearing so much about these last few years—the Worthy Knight, who will appear on the field of battle all aglow with heavenly fire, and bring an end to the war? Where is he, Beatrice? He is long overdue, don’t you think?”
“He may come this very night, Tom, or the next. He will come when God sends him.”
“Nonsense,” he grumbled. “God is asleep!”
“Thomas!” Papa said. “Mind your tongue! It is a sin to speak thus, and you will bring God’s punishment upon us.”
“God has already punished us,” Thomas said. Then he turned away and said no more.
It was late and had been full dark for some time. The duke’s servants had lit the torches several hours before. Now, as I lay upon my bed of rushes on the floor, nestled close to Mama, I gazed up at the cavernous space of the great hall, with its giant beams touched by the warm glow of the torchlight. I turned to look at the marvelous tapestry that hung above us, with pictures of hunters and animals and trees upon it, only I could no longer see them in the dim light. And then my eyelids grew heavy and my body softened, and I no longer listened to the conversation of the grown-ups. I was young and I was tired, and so I slept.
I woke while it was still dark. All about me people were moaning and weeping, and I heard angry voices saying “all gone” and “everything” and “may the devil take them.” Over and over I heard the word Brutanna, spoken like a curse, like a bad taste you spit out of your mouth.
The air reeked of smoke and other foul smells I could not name. I began to cough and wipe my eyes.
“Mama?” I said. But she just patted my hair and said to go back to sleep. Her voice was husky and strange, as though she had been crying.
And then it was morning, and the duke’s men had returned. There was not so much smoke anymore, but the smell was still in the air—it would not entirely go away for many months.
I remember little after that—only a few terrible images. But each of them is clear and vivid and distinct in my memory, like the scenes I saw depicted on the great tapestries up at the castle.
I see the smoldering ruins of our village: the network of roads and lanes still there, but where cottages had once stood, only piles of charred beams.
I remember the stinking, blackened fields and poor Mad Walter, all coated with ash, combing the stubble in search of something to eat.
I remember a man, lying in one of the lanes, still as a stone and covered in blood. Mama pulled me away from the sight, but I heard others say it was old Henry Carpenter
, who had lost his wife and three children to the pox so many years before, and had never married again but only lived alone with his sorrow.
I remember asking where my poppet was, and Papa saying I ought not to think of such things now, for we had lost everything. But children are not sensible creatures. Will stormed about, threatening to go to Brutanna and kill everybody there, and I wept for my poppet, and for my kitten, and for Henry Carpenter, and for all that had once been comfortable and familiar and was now destroyed.
I know not how we rebuilt our houses and the mill and the bridge and all the rest, nor how we survived that winter with our harvest gone. I know we stayed on at the duke’s castle for many months, and most likely it was he who fed us. Such things are the business of grown people, who look ahead and plan and build. I only felt the terrible loss, and the nightly fear that they would come back again—those bad men, those cruel strangers.
I could not understand what had made them travel so far to burn our little village, when they did not even know us and we had never done them any harm. It was a big question for such a small girl. I never did find the answer.
Prince Julian of Moranmoor
When Bella was six, her interest turned to fairies. She claimed to have seen them in the twilight out upon the meadow. Will told her that they were only glowworms, but Bella said no, she had watched them from up close, and they were beautiful and had golden hair and wings like dragonflies and wore silver robes, and many other particulars. I know not where she got such ideas. Not from her family, of that I am quite sure. I think she just made things up as she went along—and yet she seemed truly to believe them.
One day I got the notion that Will and I ought to build a little fairy castle for her, down by the river, to see her amazement and delight when she beheld it. And so we set to work upon it, meaning only to make it a simple thing and be done with it in an afternoon. But first Will suggested we pave the courtyard with river pebbles, then I said we ought to have proper crenellations, and a portcullis for the entrance, and a moat with a drawbridge—and before long we had made something quite grand and not unlike my uncle’s castle (though very much smaller).
The moat was a problem at first, for each time we filled it the water soaked away into the ground. Then Will thought to line the moat with reeds and pebbles, and this kept the water in.
Each day I would bring with me some bit of fancy stuff to decorate the castle—a strip of red silk for a banner, some patterned velvet for a tapestry, and the like. I took great pleasure in the most delicate work, such as making the little portcullis out of sticks and twine. Indeed, I found I was quite cunning with my hands, a gift I had not known I possessed until then.
When it was almost finished, Will remarked that he thought it looked like a very good castle, but that aside from being so small, it did not seem particularly fairylike.
“We cannot find any real fairies, Will,” I told him.
“No, but we might catch some glowworms and put them inside.”
I thought that over. I did not see how we could keep them inside unless we closed the little shutters, and then Bella would not be able to see them, and most likely they would die in there.
“I do not think that would work, Will,” I said. “We must think of something else.”
That night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I had a great inspiration. I would tie a bit of string to the bottom of the little entry door, run it down under the ground through a conduit, and out to a place beyond the outer walls. I would make a loop at the far end so I could pull the string with my thumb—over to the side where Bella would not notice it—and the door would appear to open magically of its own accord!
“That is most ingenious,” Will said the next day when I showed him my idea. “But what will she see inside when the door has opened? If we cannot make any fairies and you do not want to use glowworms?”
“I have thought of that, too,” I said. And I told him.
At last we were ready to show Bella her great surprise. I said the king of the fairies and all his court were staying at his castle nearby, that I had spoken with him the day before, and that the king was most anxious to meet the beautiful Princess Bella—only we had to make haste, for they would not be staying long. The fairies had urgent business in the north and must be away soon.
“Oh! Oh!” she cried, dancing about with excitement, covering her mouth with her little hands. “Let us go now!” And she raced away, down toward the river.
We caught up with her and told her she must not run. She should walk slowly and show respect, for these were no ordinary fairies, but the king and all his court. She squeezed my hand and looked up at me and said, “I will, I will.” Thereafter she walked so solemnly she might have been following a funeral procession to the churchyard.
“There it is, Bella!” I said as we neared the riverbank. (I kept firm hold of her hand, lest in her excitement she fall upon the castle and ruin it.) “Now approach carefully and kneel down, as is fitting.” I felt her tremble—and such expressions of amazement and suppressed glee and even a little fear crossed her face! She kept her lips pressed together to keep from speaking or crying out, poor thing.
“You can whisper,” I said.
“Oh, look, look, look!” she said (in a whisper that could be heard from the top of the rise), pointing out every feature of our creation. She admired the drawbridge and the guard towers, crying, “Oh! A portcullis, just like Castle Down!” (She had by then forgotten to whisper and was beginning to bounce and wiggle.) I looked at Will and saw that his face—like mine—was flushed with pride. Strange as this will sound, that day remains in my memory as one of the grandest of my youth.
Bella began tugging on my sleeve. “Julian,” she said, “I want to see the fairies now! Are they inside?”
“They must be,” I said. “I suppose we ought to knock, though, don’t you?”
She agreed that we ought, so I tapped gently upon the door with my finger. I waited a few seconds, then slowly pulled the little string, and the door magically opened. Bella shrieked with joy and leaned over to peer inside.
I had made tiny furniture for the great hall—a trestle table and little benches and a king’s chair covered in red velvet. On the table lay a silver thimble and a note on parchment, written in strange characters. I delicately slid my fingers inside and drew it out.
“Can you read this, Will?” I asked.
“I cannot read at all, Julian,” he answered. “Not even common writing, as you know—and this looks something strange.”
We all studied it with great interest. Then I told Bella that I knew a bit of fairy writing, though not much. I would try to puzzle it out. So I looked at it awhile, Bella hanging on to my arm, her face eager and glowing with excitement.
“Here,” I said, “I think I have made something of this. It is from the king. He says he is most disappointed that we did not come in time, for they had to leave with the dawn this very day. But he wishes Bella to enjoy his hospitality, though he be not here to offer it in person. And so he has left behind a flagon of ale. The king regrets that it is so small, for he understands that humans are very big and drink great quantities—but, sadly, it is the largest they possess.”
I handed Bella the thimble. She took it carefully between two fingers and solemnly drank the few drops it contained. Then she held it in her hand for a moment, gazing at it with a reverence worthy of the crown jewels. At last, as if responding to some inner command, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and placed the thimble back upon the table.
“Wait!” I said. “Here is a postscript: ‘Please tell Princess Bella that I would be most honored if she would keep the flagon as a token of my esteem.’”
How she smiled then, her eyes wide with wonder and amazement! Once again she reached her little fingers through the door, this time to retrieve her prize. She clutched it to her heart with both hands and looked up at me with an expression of perfect rapture. I thought it remarkable that such a small gift c
ould produce so much joy. It pleased me enormously—and indeed, I do believe that at that moment I was every bit as happy as she was.
Our little castle was destroyed in the first hard rain thereafter, and Bella never did get to meet the king of the fairies, of course. But the thimble remained her greatest treasure. Beatrice sewed a little pouch for it, and Bella wore it round her neck always—even when she was a grown girl and had long ceased thinking of fairies.
I often wondered, in those later years, whether Bella had figured it out—that I was the one who had given her the thimble. I rather hoped so. I liked to think that she went on wearing it out of affection for me.
Maud
I waited three years before returning to Edward’s house. I did not relish going there, you may be sure. But I longed to see Isabel again, and as I had been the one to carry her away after Catherine died, I thought I would offer to bring her home again.
Edward heaved a great, heavy sigh when I was ushered into his presence. I found him less distraught than when I had seen him last, but he still did not look well. It was as if he had—how shall I say this?—dried up, like a grape in the sun. No, no, that is not right, for a grape grows sweeter as it shrivels into a raisin, and such was not the case with Edward. Perhaps it would be better to say he had spoiled, like last week’s table scraps.
He did not rise to greet me when I entered the room, nor did he offer me a seat, but I took one anyway.
“What brings you here?” he asked, with no attempt at courtesy.
“Your daughter,” I answered. “Isabel. I was thinking that by now she is likely weaned, and as you may be occupied with other matters, you might wish me to go there and bring her home. I thought perhaps it would be more convenient for you.”
“It is not convenient for me at all,” he said. “I have no wife to attend to a child, as you well know, and no desire to have one in the house. I told you that before.”
Bella at Midnight Page 3