Armed in Her Fashion

by Kate Heartfield

  “I did not mean any harm to Jacob. You know I love him as if her were my own.”

  “I have seen how you love your own,” Jacquemine said more quietly, her eyes flashing. “I should have known better than to listen to one word from you. You have always been a stubborn fool and you have brought me great misfortune. When we get to the mill I will take my children and go, and you will not come near them, lest you—lest you frighten the wits out of them.”

  The gorge rose in Margriet’s mouth and she managed nothing better than a nod.

  They found a messenger at the Deer. He charged twice what he ought to have, but these were dangerous times.

  “Find Claude Jouvenel, in Lille, who may be a woman or may be a man.”

  “You don’t know which?” the messenger asked. He was barely more than a boy, and smirked.

  “I don’t know which at the moment,” Margriet snapped. “The name ought to be enough, if you are not a fool. I know Claude is in Lille.”

  “And what shall I tell him or her?”

  “To come to Ypres, to meet me at the Deer tomorrow.”

  “No,” said Jacquemine. “Tell Claude to meet us at the mill. Beatrix will know which one.”

  Margriet nodded. “All right. Yes. At the mill. Bring Claude there and I will pay you the same again.”

  “And if this person will not come?” the messenger asked.

  “Tell Claude—” Margriet rubbed her tingling hands together. “Tell Claude I am dying. And I need help, urgently. Tell Claude there is another chance at the reward. Go!”

  The messenger rode off, not fast enough for Margriet’s wishes.

  They decided to stay at the Deer for a night after all, for the sake of Margriet’s tired legs, and because Claude would not get the message until that night anyway. Beatrix and Jacquemine asked Margriet for her plan but she begged them to wait until the morning, said she did not have the strength to talk now, which was mostly true. She wanted to think, first.

  At the Deer she ate nothing but a bit of bread and water, and slept sitting on the privy, leaning against the wall in the cold. Jacquemine did not want her in the bed with her, and Margriet did not have the strength to go up and down the stairs to the privy with each clench of her guts.

  Beatrix thought she heard, from time to time, the roar of a metal dragon, the squelch of mud erupting, the boom of thunder deep in the earth. Her distaff was still at Gertrude’s and yet with each step they took toward it, she relived the visions it had shown her.

  These visions were true, in some way. They were not true now. But she had asked the Nix to tell her what would come for them, and so the distaff was showing her—some future. Must it come to pass? Surely God had ordained all things—and yet, if that were so, he had also ordained that Beatrix should see these sights, and do what she could to prevent them.

  She shook her head. What could she do? She could not even stop her own mother from dying. Mother, whose brain was clearly addled already, who was convinced that she could get the inheritance back. Beatrix could not care less about her father’s sack of goods if it were a sack of offal. She hated to think of good people like Gertrude Vermeulin, cowering in fear when the metal dragon came. And all this beautiful country, which Beatrix had only started to see!

  She was grateful, yes, in spite of everything, that she had at least this one day to walk this beautiful country, that she was not shut up in the beguinage. She was—dear God, she was happy to be alive.

  They bought bread, meat, and apples from the Deer, and bought a new flask to share between them and filled it with ale. Margriet’s purse was getting light. But if God smiled upon her enterprise, she would have plenty in a few days’ time. Of course, in a few days’ time she would also be dead, or close to it.

  Her stomach took a bit of bread and small ale without complaining, which she counted as a good omen. Her hands and feet tingled, and she itched everywhere. For now at least, all the patches of dead skin were hidden, under her wimple or her kirtle (there was a fresh patch on her ribcage), which was a mercy. Jacquemine and Beatrix knew, though.

  Margriet on her weak legs struggled to stay abreast with them. It had rained in the night and the road clung to their shoes.

  The millrace gurgled merrily down the slope toward the little dark building where Gertrude and the children waited. It was otherwise quiet as they approached, and Margriet almost expected another pot to fly from the window. The quiet annoyed her, and she called, “Gertrude! We are here!”

  They took a few more steps and the door creaked open. Gertrude put her face to the crack, then opened the door.

  “Thank God and all His Saints,” she said. “I was beginning to think you would be gone a week.”

  “What’s happened?” Jacquemine asked sharply. “Where are the children?”

  “They’re fine, fine,” Gertrude said, but tears welled in her eyes and she began to blubber and fell, hanging on the door.

  “Saints save us,” Jacquemine muttered, and elbowed her way past Gertrude, into the mill. “Agatha? Jacob?”

  Beatrix gave Gertrude her hand and helped her up.

  “Come on,” she said, and pulled her into the mill.

  “Where are they?” Jacquemine shrieked.

  Gertrude pointed toward the back of the mill.

  “In the privy,” she blubbered.

  “What, both of them?” Margriet asked. “Jacob, too?”

  Jacquemine darted back out the door.

  She returned a moment with a child under each arm, both of them blubbering like Gertrude. “She put them both in and barred the door with a rock,” Jacquemine muttered.

  “What in the name of Christ were you thinking, foolish woman?” Margriet asked.

  Gertrude put her head in her hands. “I wanted to keep them safe. I kept thinking I heard the hounds coming, and that’s where I was, and I was safe. I stayed in with them at first, but then I thought I should stay here to distract the hounds when they came. I was going to run off so they would chase me. And so I just went in every now and again to bring them food and water and cuddle them a little. I was so afraid.”

  “God have mercy on you, Gertrude, for I cannot,” Jacquemine said, but there was nothing more to say, and her voice had gentled now that she had her two children, one on either side, an arm over each.

  Beatrix put her arm around Gertrude.

  Margriet wanted desperately to kiss each of the children on their foreheads, on this the last day she would ever see them. These children who had nursed from her breasts, these children she knew like her own mind, from their eyelashes to their toenails. Lost to her now, like all else. Would she see them in Paradise? She might not recognize them; they would doubtless be grown, then, perhaps even old.

  Margriet told Gertrude about the trial while Jacquemine gave the children apples and rocked them until they both fell asleep. She leaned against the wall of the mill, her face wan.

  “We’ll wait here until they wake,” she whispered.

  “And then you’re all going again,” said Gertrude.

  Margriet shook her head. “Vrouwe Ooste is going to Dunkirk, with the children. But Beatrix and I will wait here for Claude for another day or two, if you are willing.”

  As if summoned by the thought, someone halloed outside the door. Gertrude flinched.

  “That’s Claude’s voice,” Margriet said, and pushed herself onto her unsteady feet. She opened the door to Claude and the messenger.

  “You came,” she said, and tossed the messenger his coin. “Come in, Claude, and have some food. But softly. The children are sleeping.”

  Claude grabbed her arm. “Margriet. What did you mean by your message?”

  Margriet pulled away, walked in to the mill where it was dim. The sun was shining today; it made her head hurt.

  “I wanted to get you here, that’s all,” she said.

/>   “Margriet,” hissed Jacquemine. “You will tell her. There is no point now in lying.”

  Margriet shut her eyes. Jacquemine was right. Claude would see it for herself soon enough. Margriet might start to gibber and screech at imaginings, or fall to the floor and shake. What did it matter if the whole world knew? Beatrix knew, and that was the hardest thing, and it was done.

  “You have the Plague,” said Claude.

  Margriet looked up, caught Claude’s eye. It had not been a question.

  “Yes,” Margriet whispered. “Keep your voice low. No need to wake the children.”

  “I should have guessed earlier,” said Claude. “I saw you touch a hot cake and not notice it. Since Bruges, then?”

  Margriet nodded. All was made plain now. It was her last judgement among women, among living women.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  We will go to Hell, you and I, and get the sack.”

  He stared. The Plague must have reached Margriet’s brain already.

  “That is your plan? It’s madness. That’s why you sent for me? You want me to fight anyone who needs fighting? You forget. My sword arm is wounded.”

  “You fought my husband well enough,” Margriet said quietly. “But anyway I hope there will be no fighting. I want you because you have been there and know what Hell is like, inside. And I want you to get past any locked doors.”

  “I do not have the key to Hell, or do you forget?”

  “Of course I don’t forget,” Margriet snapped. “But you managed to steal a suit of armour from what was doubtless a locked chest under guard.”

  Yes, he remembered the click of the padlock in his hand, the strange magic of it. Margriet had squirreled her questions about that away. She probably only thought him a lockpick.

  “Somehow,” Margriet said, “you escaped from Hell before. If anyone can get me into Hell, you can. Don’t you want to get the mace?”

  “Yes, and I would also like to fetch the golden fleece from Colchis and the waters of youth from Prester John’s kingdom and Holy Grail from the castle of the Fisher King. What you ask is not possible. I have been in Hell. I have been a prisoner there. You will not succeed.”

  “But you got out,” said Margriet.

  The woman’s shrewish eyes were narrowed. Damn her. She thought she knew everything. She knew nothing.

  “God’s teeth, woman. Yes, I got out. I was invited in, taken with some of the best fighters in my company. I will tell you what I learned while I was there. The Chatelaine said we were guests, and set about trying to convince us that we should become chimeras. One of my comrades was made into a kind of chimera she called a gonner: she gave him a metal arm that shot bolts using an explosion of black powder. It worked like a charm. We all watched him shoot targets in the great belly of the beast. When he missed, the beast would rumble, but that was all. It has a hide like iron.”

  “I am not suggesting we try to cut its hide.”

  “No? And how would you get in and out? Through its mouth? There came a day when I thought that I, too, would let the Chatelaine choose a weapon for me. But that day, my comrade was practising, and the powder exploded too wildly and he was killed. Blown to little bloody bits.”

  “Yes,” said Margriet, which was the last thing Claude expected her to say. “I saw something like that, before the gates of Bruges, the day—the day we left. I saw chimeras with metal arms attack the gate, only some of them were wounded themselves, and wounded their colleagues next to them. But you found your way out.”

  “Only because I convinced a smith to make me the mace, which took him many days. The mouth is shut in an iron contraption like a bridle. The Chatelaine was the only one who could open it.”

  “How will you get out?” Gertrude asked.

  “By then,” Margriet said, “we will have the mace, won’t we?”

  Again they looked at each other, and again were silent.

  “Even if I were to get in,” Claude began, and stopped. He did not like this scheming; there were so many cracks in it. Yet could he live the rest of his life like this? Would he have to cut off his right arm to stop this infernal itch? And would that be enough to stop it, this phantom torture that did not need mere flesh to make itself known?

  “If we were to get in,” he said, “we’d need weapons, and there are none to be had anywhere.”

  “There, I can help you,” Gertrude said.

  “You?” Claude asked.

  “Why not? We have a scythe, and we have hooks and hoes and all manner of things that can be beaten into shape. We will beat our ploughshares into swords, or something sharp to poke people with anyway.”

  They stared at her.

  “Good,” said Margriet roughly. “You can also help us make ourselves look like chimeras.”

  “Not me,” Claude said, shaking his head. “I don’t wish to be anything but myself.”

  “You are the best known there of any of us!” snorted Margriet. “You will be recognized, be you in man’s clothes or women’s. At least wear a helm or something to cover your face.”

  “All right,” Claude said, and nodded. “So long as I can see well enough to fight, well enough to see where my enemies are and my friends.”

  “You’re all mad,” said Jacquemine, as Agatha murmured.

  Beatrix knew it was mad. Jacquemine was right. It was death, probably. And yet it was better than a life locked away, listening to her husband call her name every night.

  “You propose to raid Hell,” said Claude slowly, “with one spinster, one wounded man-at-arms who can barely hold a knife, and one wet nurse who is half-dead of Plague.”

  “No,” Mother said. “The spinster stays here.”

  Beatrix looked up. So Mother didn’t want her, after all. She was to be disposed of, again, always.

  “If you wish to kill yourself,” Claude said, in a soft infuriating voice, “there are easier ways.”

  “Why would I want to kill myself?” Margriet retorted. “I’ll be dead in a week anyway. But I want to see Beatrix settled before I go.”

  “As likely to see her a revenant, if you bring her to Hell,” said Claude.

  “That’s why she isn’t going near.”

  Beatrix frowned. “What do you mean? It’s a mad plan, it’s suicide, but I have nothing to live for anyway. If you want me, Mother, I’ll do it.”

  Mother smiled at her. “That’s my girl. But it is too dangerous for you.”

  Beatrix shook her head. They were worried about Baltazar. But she had met Baltazar three times—the night of the fireflies, the night of the owl, and the trial—and three times she had denied him, or nearly had. If Mother was going into Hell then she would need help.

  “I’m not going inside,” she said. “But I will be near. I will call the revenants out.”

  They all looked at the distaff, leaning against the wall.

  “All of them?” Gertrude whispered.

  Beatrix nodded. “All of them, all of them who are in the Beast that night anyway.

  “Yes,” Beatrix said. “It will create such a flurry of confusion, and the mouth of Hell will open, and you can get in unnoticed. And you will have less to deal with, inside.”

  “Draw them out,” Claude said, as pale and as quiet as Beatrix, her face like an ash that might flame up any moment. “Draw them to where?”

  Beatrix swallowed. She would need to call them to herself.

  “They can’t hurt me. Only Baltazar can, and I can deal with him. I’ve done it before.”

  “They can drive you mad,” Margriet said. “Or drive her into a river, or off a cliff.”

  “This is Flanders,” said Gertrude. “There are no cliffs.”

  “You, too?” Margriet whirled on her.

  “If Beatrix wants to do this, I think we should not stand in her way,” Gertrude said, and walked over
to sit beside Beatrix and take her hand in her own. “I know she can fight off a whole army of ghosts.”

  “Not Baltazar,” Margriet retorted. “If she calls them all, Baltazar will be among them.”

  “What is one dead husband, Mother?” Beatrix said.

  “If he knows where you are, the Chatelaine will soon know it, and send her hounds after you, or something worse.”

  “I will do it,” said Beatrix, her jaw set. “If this is what will satisfy you, Mother, I will help. Father’s chest is for me, you said. It is mine. Therefore it is mine to claim as my right. It is only just.”

  Mother stared at her for a long time, and then she laughed.

  “My girl,” she said. “My dazzling girl. Deep waters, but with something like a Nix in them, just waiting to flash up into the air. Yes, it is your right. You shall do it. And Claude and I will go inside.”

  “And what about me?” Gertrude asked.

  “You!” Mother said.

  “You can come with us,” Beatrix said. “We are going to Hell.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Margriet said. “Who would go to Hell for a lark? We have business with the Chatelaine.”

  “My children’s murderer,” said Gertrude, her eyes now fever-bright.

  “Will you smack her with a frying pan?” Claude asked, smiling.

  “Her frying pan or your sword would be about equal use against that hellkite and her minions,” Mother grumbled. “Come to think of it, why shouldn’t Gertrude settle her debt with the Chatelaine? Is it not customary for a lord to pay restitution for the actions of his troops? And the Chatelaine owes Gertrude a great deal.”

  They all stayed quiet for a moment. The air still smelled of burning.

  “Please,” Gertrude said, and came to her and took her hands. “I have as much cause as you to see the Chatelaine brought low. I cannot stay here hiding until they come and cart me away. Please.”

  “We are in your debt for the food and shelter,” Margriet said slowly. “And so it seems to me that if you name this as your payment, if you truly want to come with us, that is your choice. But do you have the courage? What if we are set upon on the journey?”