In Pursuit of the Green Lion

by Judith Merkle Riley

  “Why, that’s very impressive,” I answered humbly. A snobbish ghost. There’s something new all the time, isn’t there? “Could you tell me what it is?”

  “Of course not. It’s a secret. But I’ll tell you this much. It’s men I’m getting even with. They’re nothing but a trouble and a bother. Take my word for it, and don’t waste your life on loving any of them. Or it’s soon enough you’ll be a Weeping Lady. There. Wasn’t that impressive? Not many people get advice from a Weeping Lady.” The wisp of fog swirled around me.

  “And by the way, if you want to do any more glowing, come in here. I like the way it feels. All warm again. It’s very nice. And tell the Cold Thing that followed you here not to bother me anymore. This chapel’s only big enough for one apparition.” The wisp of fog thinned and vanished, leaving me vexed and curious, instead of peaceful, as I expect to be when I’m in a chapel. It took me no end of time to compose my mind again and resume my prayers.

  When I’d gone on a proper long time, long enough to secure Master Kendall’s soul for another day, I finished up and went to rummage in the big chest of books and vestments that was kept in the corner behind the altar. But after I’d folded the sheet of paper I’d found and tucked it into the bosom of my surcoat, I heard the sobbing resume. I looked up to see a wisp of fog whirling up above the crucifix. The Weeping Lady was still there. But where was the ink? Ah, there in the bottom of the chest, well stoppered. I poured it off into the little jar that used to hold my rose water, leaving just enough so Father Simeon would think he’d forgotten that he’d used it himself. The weeping stopped. A long column of mist was forming in front of me, and I thought for a moment that I could make out in the vapor the tall figure of an elegant-looking lady with a long, straight nose, and hair that might once in life have been darkish, all tucked up under a fancy French headdress. She had a large number of rings on her long, slender fingers, which interested me at the time, since I wondered how jewelry, which is so hard and lumpy, could become all misty like that. She was peering intently at me.

  “I saw you,” she said. “You took paper and ink.” I blushed.

  “Did you take them for yourself?”

  “Yes, I did,” I confessed.

  “Then you can write?”

  “I can,” I answered.

  “I can write too,” she said rather haughtily. “I can write my name. Not many can, but I am exceptional. Why do you need a whole sheet of paper? Are you having a letter written?”

  “I’m writing for myself. I write things I learned from Mother Hilde, so they won’t be lost. Recipes and secret charms for childbirth, and things like that. Also I write my thoughts, because everyone tells me I talk too much and I’m trying to reform, but if I can’t talk to someone about the things I think, then I might die.”

  The Weeping Lady looked rather sympathetic at this last. She swirled a bit, so I couldn’t see her face. Then she formed up again and said firmly, “Then you’re a nun. Mother Hilde is your abbess. Why aren’t you wearing a habit, and what are you doing here anyway?”

  “I’m not a nun. Master Kendall hired someone to teach me to write, because I begged him. Mother Hilde is the wisest woman in the whole world, but she’s not an abbess. She is a healer, and a wise-woman, and a midwife, and she taught me all of her secrets, long ago. I am writing them in a book for my daughters.”

  “A midwife? I don’t trust midwives. I’m sorry she wasn’t an abbess, though I don’t trust them either—they’re always hunting for endowments.” The shape separated and wavered at the edges, as if she were finding it difficult to concentrate herself. “Do you know I had eleven babies?” She rippled and swayed. “All but two are dead. They weren’t even a year old. It was my husband’s sins that killed them. I couldn’t pray enough to keep his sins away. Oh, it was cold, cold, so cold. And then I died. Are you sure Mother Hilde isn’t an abbess?”

  She sounded so disappointed that I said, “She really isn’t, but I have a brother who’s a priest.”

  “A priest? Oh, that’s nice.” She sounded approving. Good, I thought. It’s important to humor spectres. “I’ve a son who’s a priest,” she added. “Probably much more important than your brother by now. My, he was a pretty little boy. Just like me. I had my confessor teach him reading and Latin when he was just a tiny thing. He was ever so quick—not thickheaded, like my first. Bad blood, that one had. That’s what comes when you marry beneath yourself. My father would never have stood for it if he’d lived. ‘Never marry beneath yourself, my little chick,’ he’d say. ‘It’s better to be a nun.’ Now, my little boy, he must be very large by now, but he’s gone away to be a priest and I’ve never seen him since the day I died. He was too little to be left; I heard his weeping even on the other side. But I’m sure he remembered what I’d told him. ‘Be a priest,’ I said, ‘not a sinner like that creature I married. Stay pure. Remember, you’re not like them.’ Oh, the pity of it, that I married beneath myself, and was brought to all this grief.”

  As she spoke I began to have a curious suspicion. It grew and grew in me, and made my skin crawl.

  “You must have very fine blood,” I said very carefully. “Even now you look very elegant.” The Weeping Lady swirled a gracious acknowledgment. “Just who was it you wed? Would you care to tell me his name?”

  “Oh, what a crude young man. Mother was quite taken in. A true chevalier, she said, come to rescue us in our distress. Well, he did look nice in his armor, I must confess, and he carried my favor to victory in the tournament, which did turn my head at the time. But can you imagine? The moment we were wed he spent my dowry to repair his tower and didn’t even have the chapel painted. Oh, Father, how right you were!” She became agitated and rose to the ceiling awhile, and then billowed down.

  “The only thing he ever spent a penny on was his horses!” she hissed spitefully in my ear. “A new saddle blanket? Spare no expense! A new dress for his poor wife, who’d married beneath herself? Never! I wore out my wedding clothes, I tell you, and then I died. A woman can’t live without a decent dress. But I tell you, I’ve come back to haunt him, haunt him, haunt him, until he’s ashamed to show his face in public! Take my advice! Never marry beneath yourself!”

  “And the name, just so I’ll know how to follow your sage advice?”

  “Sir Hubert de Vilers, may the Devil fly off with him! A horrid blond young man, a bit on the square side—very vain about his swordsmanship. You can’t mistake him, no, not at all!” Her anger had swirled her all up again, so I couldn’t see her, but it didn’t matter. Even after she was gone, I had to put my hand over my heart, it thumped so. There was absolutely no mistaking it. I had a Weeping Lady for a mother-in-law. It was really altogether too much.

  Now, Mother Anne, who was not my real mother but my stepmother who raised me up, was a woman of great practical sense, and she always warned me about mothers-in-law.

  “Now, Margaret,” she always said, “when you get married, be very careful of your mother-in-law. Remember, they are always angry at the girl who marries their son, so be respectful! Don’t give them any cause to get peevish! Give them the best of everything at table, and make sure their bed’s warmed before they get in it. Call them ‘Madame my mother’ even if they’re no lady at all, and kneel before them in respect. I’ve had several mothers-in law, and believe me, I know. That’s the only good thing I can say about your father—he didn’t come attached to a mother-in law, and for that I’m grateful.”

  Oh, Mother Anne, I miss you now! Surely, surely someday we’ll meet again. And when we do, I’ll tell you about my first mother-in-law, because Master Kendall was so old, he didn’t come with one either. You’ll be amazed! And I certainly never needed your advice more than now, in this very delicate situation I’ve found myself in.

  THE NIGHTS THAT FOLLOWED were hard, hard. I’d turn restlessly in bed, sitting up suddenly in a cold sweat, worrying about the Cold Thing, and listening to the breathing all around me. The circles grew underneath my eyes, but I n
ever told anyone why—that I was worried by Cold Things, by ghosts that swirled and boded no good, especially if that foolish Weeping Lady ever managed to catch up with the changes in the house and find out that her little boy wasn’t a priest after all, and it was partly my fault.

  Sometimes, if there was a moon, I’d get up and tiptoe across the rushes, around the sleeping dogs, and go to stare out the window at the stars, I was so torn with hidden fears and secret anguish. They were so cold and sparkling, all set up there on the dome of the sky. How did God ever manage to stick them up there, so they could move about without falling down? I’d put my elbows on the windowsill, even though I was half frozen, and watch the clouds scudding across the moon until my numbing feet sent me back under the covers. Gregory’s lucky. He can sleep through anything. Then I’d hear his soft breathing in the dark, and feel the warmth of his body, and my heart would melt inside me, in spite of everything—because of everything. Who knows?

  My greatest fear was of the Cold Thing, however. I feared—no, I knew—that one day it would come between us. It would come in the night, and reveal its beastly, unnatural self. It would shake its huge, shaggy head and seize me in its slavering jaws. Or maybe it was a devil, and in the morning, they’d be able to find nothing but a faint stain on the sheets, where I’d lain, and smell a whiff of brimstone. Oh, it was coming to get me, all right. I could feel it near. It was just biding its time.

  A little longer, please. Leave me a little longer, Cold Thing. Let me have him just a few more nights. I know what you’re waiting for, Cold Thing. You’re counting my sins, and when you’ve got the last one, which is wanting him too much, then you’ll take it all away. Oh, yes—it was at night that the thought of the Cold Thing frightened me. When the sun is up, I can manage anything—even the formidable task of placating a Weeping Lady. But night makes even common things eerie. The shadows of the clothing on the perches look like monsters’ faces, and the sound of rustling insects like ghosts’ footsteps.

  So now, whenever I heard a rustle in the night, my eyes would fly open with fear, and sleep would vanish until I recognized the sound of mice scampering in the rushes, the whuff, whuff of a dog having dreams, or even the sound of someone using the chamber pot. But then, late one night, I woke to a rustling sound that did not turn itself into something ordinary. It sounded like the feet of a large animal, most probably a hound of hell, or some other awful monster, shuffling slowly toward the bed to fetch me at last. Gregory was rolled into a ball, the pillow over his head, sound asleep but grinding his teeth with worry. He’d never tell me what the worry was, but I knew anyway. He’d lost his life’s calling, and being married isn’t a calling, and coming into money isn’t a calling either. And farthest of all from a calling is having to come home and be shouted at instead of being free and a scholar, and in search of God. So I didn’t wake him up. I just got up my courage to pull aside the bed curtains and peep out. Maybe all they’d find in the morning would be some greenish slime in one slipper, but that’s the way it was going to be.

  It was terrible, the thing, as it inched along in the pitch black. A shapeless mass, about three feet high, it shambled slowly toward my side of the bed. I could barely make it out. But I could feel it coming closer, ever so slowly and inexorably. So I gathered my courage and whispered at it, “What do you want, and why are you here?” The moundlike thing shifted, and a tiny, indignant voice issued forth from its depths, “Mama, Alison peed in the bed!”

  Then another indignant little whisper replied, “Did not, you did it!”

  “I never did that, it was you, baby, baby, baby!”

  “I never did it either.”

  “Then why’s it all wet in there, so we can’t sleep?”

  “The Devil did it.”

  I was relieved and annoyed all at once. “Both of you stop that this minute,” I whispered fiercely to the mound of blankets they had put over their heads and wrapped about them, to keep out the cold. “You’ll wake everyone up.”

  “Then let us in with you, Mama, it’s warm and dry in your bed.”

  There was a shifting in the bed, and a low, growling voice said, “Don’t you dare.” I could hear an indignant voice from beneath the pillow. “There are things no man should ever put up with, and wet children head the list,” came the threatening whisper.

  So I got up and herded the mound back to its own bed. Fleas bit my ankles as I crossed the floor, and I nearly stepped on one of the dogs in the dark. Then I turned their mattress over and tucked them up in a dry blanket. And as I kissed them Alison said, “It wasn’t my fault, Mama; Papa didn’t come to tuck us in and kiss us good night.”

  “He’s forgotten us and gone away,” added Cecily forlornly. My heart felt so heavy for them. I’d been selfish, thinking of my own grief.

  “Dear hearts,” I answered. “Papa’s been in heaven for more than two months now. He didn’t forget you. He’s thinking about you both in heaven.”

  “No, Mama, he never went to heaven at all. He stayed with us. He sits on the bed at night, and sometimes tells a good story. But now he’s forgotten us. Alison’s just a big baby, and thinks he won’t come back at all. But I know he will. He promised.”

  I can’t deal with children’s fantasies at night. I have enough trouble with my own. I told them not to wake anyone, and we’d talk about it in the morning. Besides, I was freezing. But before I fell asleep, I marveled at how children change things in their minds. Their father had been a busy man. He’d have never once considered putting them to bed, even though he was a veritable wellspring of good stories.

  THE MORNING AFTER, OF course, I forgot all about what Cecily and Alison had said. Children can’t be held responsible for their nighttime doings. Besides, things are always different in the morning. The sun comes up and makes the earth new, and it’s just possible that something good might happen. This morning the squires were exercising by cleaning chain mail in the hall, for Sir Hubert wanted all the armor glittering white for his trip to petition the Duke. Cecily and Alison had trailed behind the two young men to admire the process, for with them it was a kind of sport. They stitched the mail with a coarse needle into a sack full of sand, making a kind of heavy ball, which they pitched about, shouting and leaping, until the sand had quite worn away the rust on the links.

  I had plans for the morning. Special plans, all for me. I’d said I was going to do mending, and that’s what they thought they’d seen me go alone upstairs to do. Now I tiptoed quietly to the stair door, and shut it ever so silently. Then I piled the girls’ spare clothes beside me on the long window seat, in case anyone came through. But beneath the clothes was my new ink, reed pens, and two big sheets of paper, one half written. I’d been so careful to be quiet for the last two days, I was just bursting at the seams, and had to tell the paper what I thought of them all. So first I wrote what I thought of lords, and then I wrote what I thought of love, and then I wrote what I thought of the housekeeping in this place, and how much better I could have done it, if I could give the orders to the steward and bring in some women from the village to dig out this den.

  How different it was with Master Kendall! He let me run anything, as long as it was well run. And he always liked how pleasant I’d made his house, and praised me when it smelled of lavender, and nothing jumped out of the corners and bit him as he passed by. Nobody, he said, had ever made his house so comfortable and proper—not his steward or even his first wife, though she was a blessed woman, and he’d cross himself at her memory. And then he’d kiss me and say, “Margaret, you’re such a dear girl, I can’t imagine how I ever lived a day without you.” My goodness, things like that make it possible to undertake anything.

  So there I was, with my feet tucked up under me on the window seat. The first pale spring sun was full on the page, and outside the birds were chirping and the first leaf buds forming on the bare branches of the trees. I was all lost in writing, and so full of happiness that I barely heard the ferocious voice calling from the tower pas
sage, “GILBERT! I want you here! Search in the chapel, he may well be wallowing about on the floor in there. I’m off for the stable, have him meet me there.” But as the hawk’s shadow makes the coney scuttle for his hole, the first footsteps caused the paper to disappear under my skirts as I looked up to see who it was.

  “What’s that you’ve hidden so quickly, sister? A lover’s favor, perhaps?” Hugo’s sharp eyes never missed details, especially when spying traces of the prey at the hunt or when there was anything to do with what might be a woman’s intrigues. “A fine bag of surprises my addle-headed brother has here—a sly woman with secrets hidden beneath her skirts. Hand it here.” He stuck his left hand on his hip and extended the right. If only I were a man, I’d write in the open, on a table, and shout at people who disturbed me, “How dare you!” But Hugo was twice my size and perfectly capable of breaking a bone or two. I couldn’t keep it from him. By this time his father had come up behind him. He waited silently behind Hugo, his arms folded, looking grim and stern.

  “Hand it over, madame,” repeated Hugo. I reached beneath my skirts, which I’d spread out on the window seat over the paper, and handed him one of the sheets, without moving from my place.

  “Worse than a favor. It’s writing.” Hugo took the sheet and squinted at it, holding it at different angles to the light. “A lover’s letter, no doubt.” He looked hard and cold. It was, after all, a matter of the family’s honor. Then he held the sheet out to the old man: Sir Hubert scrutinized the page, drawing his white, bushy eyebrows together.

  “Hmm. Nasty handwriting, this. Can’t make out a single letter. Call the priest.” A boy was sent off and soon returned with Father Simeon in tow. They sat him down on the other window seat opposite me, and watched gravely as he peered at the sheet and read, “‘To restore the color of faded garments, soak them in verjuice and hang them out of the sun. I do not know if this works, but Mistress Wengrave swears it’s a sure remedy.’