Emont did not wake even during his coughing spells, and I grew stiff from sitting still. I leaned my forehead on the corner of the mattress and dozed. When I opened my eyes again, the room was dark and cold, and my neck was sore. The fire had died to an orange glow, and the candle was half spent. All was silent except for the distant hoot of an owl. As I stirred the embers, they sparked and smoked, so I put fresh wood down, coaxing the flames back to life. Although I was unsure of the hour, I thought that it must be time to rouse the master for his medicine. I shook him gently, and his eyelids fluttered. He coughed and turned onto his side.
“Sir, you must wake and take your medicine. Wake now.”
He opened his eyes, still coughing, and looked at me, confused. “What is it?” His voice was croupy and weak.
“I am Agnes, sir, and I have your medicine.”
For some time, he stared at me blankly. Then, narrowing his eyes, he said, “You despise me too, don’t you?” His cough was a wet rattle. “Contempt. I see it.”
“Sir, I am sure that no good Christian holds you in contempt. Now it is time to take your medicine, sir.”
He nodded docilely. He drank from the cup that I handed him, and though he grimaced, he finished the draught. He lay back and closed his eyes.
“I hate this place,” he rasped, coughing again. “Would that my father had never bargained with that woman.” He made no more sound, and soon fell back asleep.
I nursed Emont for two days, after which his fever subsided. He continued to speak and sometimes cry out in his delirium, and I was never sure whether he was aware of my presence or not. When his eyes did focus on me, he seemed content to have me there. Though much of what he said made no sense, I suspected that his unhappiness ran deep. I was too young to understand how a wealthy man could be sad, but I perceived bleakness in him.
Elisabeth did no laundry while I was gone. Upon my return, she ordered me to work through the night to catch up, and when she found me asleep in the morning by a dying fire, she beat me with a dolly stick.
A fortnight later, when Emont requested my aid again, Elisabeth was in the laundry with me.
“What does the master want with this gormless girl?” she snapped at the chamberlain.
“Shut your gob,” Geoffrey replied.
“You can’t take her from me. I’ve only got the one.”
“Are you telling me what I can and cannot do?”
Elisabeth seemed to catch herself. She pressed a hand over her eyes, and when she lifted it, her brow was smooth and her lips curved in a coy smile. “I never tell you what you cannot do, now do I?” Her tone was one I had not heard before.
To my astonishment, Geoffrey smiled too. “The girl will be back before you notice her gone,” he said.
Elisabeth’s laugh was edged with frost.
I followed Geoffrey back to Emont’s chamber. The shutters were closed, and the light from a low fire imparted a desultory, reddish glow. An iron candelabrum hung from a ceiling beam, and though it was daytime, the candles were lit, slumped and melted, lowering stubby fingers of wax drip by drip. The master slouched in a chair by the hearth and motioned me over when I entered. I curtsied and waited expectantly, but his head remained bowed. He tapped an empty cup against the armrest; the metallic clank rang loud in the silence.
“Geoffrey,” he said without turning his head. “Leave my wine. You may go.”
The chamberlain set a flagon on the floor beside Emont. “The laundress needs the girl back tonight,” he said.
Emont mumbled something unintelligible and waved the chamberlain away. Geoffrey pressed his lips together; a crooked tooth poked out, which made him look more like a grizzled old hound than the tyrant I feared. He slammed the door, which made me jump, but Emont did not react. He turned his head slowly to look at me. His eyes were sunken, and the shadows made his gaze baleful. He extended the hand that had been curled in his lap, and I saw the glint of a blade.
“Can you help me?” He held out the knife. The handle was made of smooth bone with a gold tip. A silver cross had been inlaid where the handle was widest.
“Sir?” My thoughts darted like rabbits, trying to divine his meaning.
“Oh, ah, if you would be so good as to trim my nails. I can manage the left hand but not the right.”
I had not been aware of holding my breath, but it came out in a rush. “I should open the shutters so I can see.” I bustled to the window. Though the day was overcast, I was momentarily blinded by the flood of light.
In ordinary sunlight, the room and its inhabitant looked shabby and forlorn. Dark patches of soot on the walls and ceiling appeared to be centuries old, as did the faded tapestry and drapes. Wine had been spilled on the bedclothes. I wondered if they had been changed since I last stripped the bed. Emont’s fine silk robe bore stains, and his stockings were crumpled around his ankles. Scraggly whiskers fuzzed his cheeks and hid the dimple in his chin; his long hair was tangled and matted.
The fire flared and spat when I fed it a log sticky with pine sap.
“Let me have the knife,” I said. After the words left my mouth, I feared that I had been rude, but Emont held the knife out obediently. I never trimmed my fingernails; mine broke or I bit them off. I decided to approach the task like whittling, aiming the blade away from the fingers. I took his hand, which was small for a man, soft and pale as pastry dough. It looked dainty in my rough, blistered paw.
“No,” Emont said. “Not like that. Use the knife to curve.” He placed his other hand on top of mine to demonstrate. His palm was warm.
The sharp blade peeled the nail away like bark from a tree. When I had finished cutting the nails on his right hand, I said, “Should I help with shaving, sir? Or perhaps your hair?”
“I could use some tidying, couldn’t I?” He raked his hair with his fingers. “Perhaps you could assist, thank you.” He filled his cup with the wine Geoffrey had left and took a great swallow. He coughed and then said, “You have eyes like a cow.”
“Sir?”
“Your eyes. They are soft and brown and solemn. Just like a cow.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Not that I am comparing you to a cow. You seem like a clever girl.”
“Cows can be clever too, sir.”
He seemed to find my statement amusing, though I had meant it sincerely. Emont laughed heartily before draining the rest of his cup. “Get on, then,” he said. “Make me beautiful.”
I brushed his hair first, as I was confident that I could do it well. Untangling snarls and smoothing his curls made me homesick, not only because it reminded me of brushing my sister’s hair, but because it had been so long since I had felt a tender touch. Loneliness lodged in my throat like a piece of gristle.
I fetched a bowl of water and the razor. Emont closed his eyes and tipped back his heavy head while I scraped at his whiskers. A contented smile made his appearance more youthful. “You have the touch of an angel, Agnes,” he murmured.
After I patted his cheeks dry, Emont thanked me distractedly and poured himself another cup of wine. He propped his stockinged feet against the hearth. “Shut the window before you go,” he said.
I walked slowly back to the laundry. Nothing good awaited me there.
Elisabeth was stirring the fire; a shower of orange sparks turned to gray ghosts. “The sun is already setting,” she said. “You had better hustle. I wouldn’t like to have to punish you.” She held the poker aloft and waggled it, as though mocking the threat implied by the gesture.
“The master asked after you,” I said.
The laundress’s expression went blank.
“He wanted to know how I like my position.” I paused. “He said I looked tired and asked if I was overburdened. I told him you had been feeling poorly and so hadn’t been able to do your duty of late.”
Elisabeth lowered the poker in a leisurely fashion, but I could see her jaw working as she clenched and unclenched her teeth.
“I am t
o report back to him. He is a most considerate master.”
The laundress did her part with the laundry that night, and she never beat me again for the offense of being called into the master’s service. I wish that the same ruse could have fooled Geoffrey, but he knew the master intimately. Geoffrey understood that Emont had only the murkiest idea of how the manor was run and that Emont depended on him completely to maintain a facade of respectability. Moreover, love of drink breeds a sort of blindness to other people, and Geoffrey knew that our master would not take a real interest in my life. The chamberlain sharply resented my incursion into his territory, but he did not feel threatened by me. He knew that his power over Emont far exceeded any small influence that I might have.
A second event that increased Geoffrey’s dislike for me might have yielded an advantage had I known how to use it. This happened on a day when there was a large party of visitors, and I had a heaping basket of white linens to clean. The guests and Emont were presumably at dinner in the great hall, but the laundress had not brought the chamber pots as usual. I was frustrated with the stains, and I decided to fetch the chamber pots myself.
I had by that time visited the sleeping quarters and solar on several occasions when my help was requested by Emont, and I knew how to access that part of the house while avoiding the great hall. I went out the back entrance near the kitchen and circled the manor house, past the garden and dovecote. I squeezed through a thicket of holly bushes that crowded the windowless base of the west wall and there mounted a neglected staircase that led to the second story. I had to tread carefully on the weather-worn steps as the mortar was crumbling and stones sometimes came loose underfoot. The oak door at the top of the stairs was never barred; it opened onto a landing that looked down on the great hall. Three long tables had been covered with white linens and set with silver; the guests in their finery were colorful and raucous, out of place in somber Aviceford Manor. As I ducked down the corridor, I heard an explosion of laughter and wondered what grown men and women found so funny.
I made quickly for Emont’s sleeping chamber, because that was the room I knew the best. When I opened the door, I saw two figures moving on the feather bed, and an unpleasant sensation trickled down my spine. The laundress was entirely unclothed, swaying on all fours, like a child pretending to be a horse. Her pendulous moonlike breasts were blotched with red; they swung heavily as her head reared back, yanked by the chamberlain, who had one hand wrapped in the nest of blond curls at the nape of her neck. Elisabeth held her eyes closed and bared her teeth in a grimace.
The chamberlain was a more unsettling sight still, as he was clothed from the waist up like an aristocrat dressed gaily for a hunt. He wore a velvet and gold doublet with a fur collar and a hat with a long curving feather that bobbed violently by his ear. With each low grunt, his naked hips and sagging bottom thrust energetically at the laundress’s jiggling rear, which he observed with intense concentration.
I might have escaped unnoticed had Elisabeth not turned her head to the doorway at that moment, just as I pulled it shut. Her face was half veiled by tangled hair, but I caught her look of unalloyed hatred before she disappeared behind the reassuringly solid surface of the closing door.
Journal Entry
The Royal Court
I am to be a grandmother! I suppose that I should say “step-grandmother.” Princess Elfilda sent for me this morning, bidding me to visit her chambers. The royal family remains at the summer palace, but Ella claimed ill health and stayed behind. She dislikes travel, but her excuse was not fabricated; she has been feeling poorly, and now we know the cause.
When I arrived, Ella was still in bed, wearing a billowing silk chemise. With gold hair tumbling loose over her slender shoulders and porcelain hands clasped in her lap, she looked like a little girl again. Two of her hounds sprawled beside her; they raised their heads and pricked their ears suspiciously but didn’t bark. Dog hair fuzzed the blankets and the kennel scent was not entirely masked by lavender oil. The queen has tried to break Ella of the habit of bringing dogs indoors, but the king takes the beautiful princess’s side in everything.
“Good morning, Your Highness,” I said. “The rose has returned to your cheeks. I trust that you are feeling better?”
Ella flushed pinker. “I am, thank you.” She unclasped her jeweled fingers and spread them over her belly. “I am with child!” she said abruptly, as though the words had been straining to escape her lips. She watched me carefully with her lambent violet-blue eyes.
“Why, how wonderful, Your Highness! How far along?”
A slow smile spread over Ella’s face, and she reclined against the pillows at her back. “I am not certain—four or five months.”
“So long! Why did you not tell me sooner?”
She ducked her head. “I feared that speaking too soon would invite bad fortune.”
Ella has already been married for two years, and the whole kingdom is impatient for a royal child. Although the baby will be far down the ladder of succession to the throne, Ella is so adored by the people that her every sneeze provokes fits of wonderment and delight. Her child will doubtless be the object of equally feverish idolatry.
“Does the prince know? The king and queen?”
“Not yet. They will return from the country soon enough.”
I stepped toward the bed, intending to sit on the edge of the mattress; one of the hounds bared its teeth and growled.
“Down, Bo!” Ella lightly swatted the dog’s neck, and it settled its chin on its paws. I stopped several paces from the bed.
“You are truly feeling well, Your Highness?”
“Yes, I am.”
“There is little peril of losing the baby now. You are blessed this time.”
The prior year, Ella had presumably miscarried. She had been sick, with vomiting, and she confided to me that her monthly bleeds had ceased. Then one morning, I was called to her chambers to find her in bed like today, but pale and trembling. She pulled back the covers to reveal blood-soaked linens; the nightgown she wore was stained scarlet from the waist downward. She swore me to secrecy, and I arranged for the bedclothes to be smuggled to the laundry without the knowledge of the ladies-in-waiting. I sponged her clean and helped burn her nightgown in the fireplace. There was little call for such furtiveness—miscarriages are commonplace, after all—but the princess has always been uncomfortable with matters of the flesh. I told no one of the incident, not even Charlotte or Matilda.
“Are you sure that the danger has passed?” Ella twisted a lock of hair through her fingers and brushed the ends against her cheek, as she used to do when she was a child. I have always found the gesture annoying.
“Nothing is certain, Your Highness, but it is highly auspicious that you are so many months along and healthy. Have you felt the baby quicken?”
“No . . .” Ella frowned. “How does it feel?”
“You will know soon.” I smiled at her concerned look. “It is a lovely fluttering.”
“How much did the birthing hurt?”
I thought about how to respond. I wanted neither to frighten nor mislead her. “It is bearable, Your Highness, and it ends in the greatest joy you can know.”
Ella looked unsure but asked no more questions. She cradled the head of one of the hounds with both of her hands and kissed its nose repeatedly, making little cooing sounds. Then she smiled and said, “I hope it will be a boy!”
Charlotte and Matilda will be delighted to know that their stepsister is with child. I hope that they will be given some role in the upbringing of their niece or nephew; sadly, this is likely to be the nearest experience they will have to motherhood. It is not only their lack of beauty that prevents marriage: Though we live like aristocrats, we are penniless and depend upon the generosity of the king for every scrap of clothing and food. I have no dowry to settle on my daughters. Being aunts would give them joy and a much needed wholesome pursuit away from palace intrigue.
As I reflect on my recen
t writing about Elisabeth, I wonder whether she ever miscarried or gave birth in secret. I would guess that she had congress with the chamberlain for years, and she was not yet too old for childbearing when I arrived at Aviceford Manor. With her large girth, a pregnancy may have gone unnoticed, and I do recall at least one mysterious absence, when she left the manor for more than a week.
Perhaps the devil’s bargain she made, trading her chastity for comforts Geoffrey Poke could supply, seemed like a good bargain to Elisabeth. Nothing, however, could make up for the pain of giving away a child.
The laundress gave me ample reason to hate her, and I used to think that she had been born without a single virtuous bone in her whole body. Now that I am older and have seen so much more of mankind, I no longer believe that people are born without virtue. It gets beaten out. Misfortune threshes our souls as a flail threshes wheat, and the lightest parts of ourselves are scattered to the wind.
5
The Messenger
I was fourteen when there came an opportunity for me to escape the manor house, at least for a short time. I was by then desperate for any change. I had grown increasingly lonely, not only because I felt my isolation more keenly as I grew older, but because I lost my only friend. John was killed one snowy winter morning by the collapse of a barn roof. He had been the person I sought the moment I entered the kitchen for meals, the audience for stories I rehearsed in my mind, my guide for navigating the alliances and enmities of other servants. He taught me how best to stay out of the chamberlain’s way and where to stash the apples he brought me from the orchard. Most of all, John pulled me back from my tendency toward melancholy. Whenever tears threatened, he had some witty words or humorous antic at the ready. I did not know how much I relied on him until he was gone.
All the Ever Afters Page 5