by Liz Lyles
“Yellow is a bright color.”
“Not this one. And why put yellow with brown? It makes me think of mud. Or mustard.” She made a face. “Of course Mrs. Penny would make me wear this gown every week. I think she does it on purpose.”
“What would you rather wear?”
“Blue!” she answered promptly, smiling at him, one of her rare and dazzling smiles. “Like the rivers. Like sky.”
He smiled, drawn in by her whimsy, her wonderful spirit and defiance. “I should have known.”
“Have you seen the ocean before, Philip?”
“Only once, although in London I’ve walked along the Thames River. It is an awfully big river and it leads out to the ocean. All the ships dock there from the continent.”
“Is it beautiful?”
He grinned. “No, it stinks. All the privies run off into the river. And after a rain, it is worse.”
“Why don’t they bury it instead?”
“Because it is London and the streets are all cobbled. How could you bury so much waste?”
“I don’t think I’d like London very much,” she said. “Not if—” she broke off at the sound of heavy footsteps outside the door. “Mrs. Penny,” she mouthed.
He nodded and they jumped up to dash towards the door. “Meet you downstairs,” he cried, as the door was flung open and they ran under the fat arms of the nurse and to the head of the stairs.
*
She had thrown another book at Mr. Pole after he refused to let her participate in the day’s lessons. He said she wasn’t prepared. She knew she was. “What did I do wrong?” she demanded, furious that he would single her out again.
“You don’t know your Greek letters,” he answered.
“But you haven’t taught me Greek,” she replied.
“And so you aren’t ready to learn. Go work on your letters by the window, sit with Mrs. Penny and Eddie.” That’s when she had picked up her book and thrown it at him, again hitting him squarely on the head. Mr. Pole sent Mrs. Penny to the Earl and now she had to go face her uncle in the solar.
“Why?” Was all the Earl of Derby said when she walked in.
Cordaella swallowed. “He calls me a bastard. He won’t let me learn with the others. It isn’t fair,” she said, her voice falling to a whisper.
“And so you dare to strike him, a man? A scholar?”
“But he is rude. He says cruel things to me.”
The Earl lifted the switch. “Lie across the stool,” he said emotionlessly, as if eager to return to his maps and papers. Tears started to her eyes. “I will apologize,” she said hastily.
“Of course you will. After I give you ten. I will even let you count them for me. Practice for your numbers,” he added, waiting for her to take her position on the stool. Reluctantly she crossed the floor and knelt next to the low stool. “Pull up your skirts, but leave the chemise down. We don’t need any cuts or infection.”
Her lower lip trembled as she leaned across the stool, her skirts pulled over her back. She could feel the Earl lift them higher. “You may begin counting now,” he said bringing the switch down on her back, the thin strip of leather whistling as it swung through the air.
“One,” she said, wincing. The switch fell again. “Two.” The tears trickled from her lashes to her cheeks and she squeezed her eyes tight as the switch came down for a third blow. She counted every blow just as he had told her, her back and fanny blistering hot, her stomach so sick she was sure she would be ill right there in the solar.
“Now go apologize. Immediately.” He stood back and after setting the switch back on the table, wiped the perspiration from his hand. “Next time you will earn yourself twenty. You can count that high, can’t you, Cordaella?”
She could see why Philip hated him so much. How dare he treat her this way? But she hid her anger and resentment. “Yes, my lord,” she whispered.
“Good day, Cordaella.”
“Good day,” she said, clenching her jaw to still the angry retort, “my lord.”
*
After leaving his lordship behind, Philip led Cordaella through the cold, damp tunnel below the castle, the space so narrow that they could only walk single file. It was dark in the tunnel and trickles of moisture seeped through the stones. If it weren’t for Philip’s candle, she would have tripped a dozen times. At last they came to a small door in the smooth wall and Philip pushed it open. He pulled himself up over the ledge and then helped Cordaella crawl out.
She sucked in the clean fresh air. “Where are we?”
“Take a look around.”
She turned slowly about, gazing at the mossy trunks and pale green ferns growing at the foot of the trees. “Why, we’re outside Peveril!” She ran her fingers lightly across the soft moss on one tree trunk, the texture something between goose’s down and cook’s best custard.
“Yes,” he said, grinning. “Past the walls and gate without a problem. What would the guards think?”
“I think your father would have a fit.”
“But he doesn’t know,” he said, carefully closing the tunnel door, hiding the opening beneath a wild tangle of ivy and vines.
“Has this always been here?” She stared at the hidden entrance, intrigued.
“I think so. The tunnel must be a good two hundred years old at any rate. It was probably built back when the castle and walls were just wood.”
“What is it for?”
“Defense, I suppose. Escape in times of siege or war. Means for provisions.” He looked from the old castle to the forest. “And if you continue this way, straight through the wood, you’ll come to a clearing. That’s the mews, of course. Someday you’ll have a chance to see my father’s birds. He doesn’t hunt them now as often as he once did.”
“You have a falconer?”
“But of course,” he said. He then saw what she was getting at and he flushed. “I see, you mean like him—” and he floundered, at loss for words.
“Yes, like my father.”
He didn’t know how to answer her and so he changed the subject. “I don’t think anyone else knows about the tunnel. It has always been my secret.” He looked at her uncertainly. “Do you think you can make it over these trees? I have a favorite log I sit on, but it is a rather rocky climb.”
She hiked up her skirts. “I like a rocky climb.” She smiled at him and stalked into the woods, climbing over the first of the rotting tree stumps and jumping down past the great mound of wild mushrooms. “This is lovely,” she said, taking care not to smash any of the purple wildflowers blooming between fallen branches.
He pulled himself up on top of the big tree that lay across the small clearing, making room on the log for her. She threw one leg over the trunk and then another, settling her skirts over the smooth bark. “I love it here,” she said, drawing a great breath. “Why didn’t you show me before?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You might have even liked my mountain.” She turned to look at him, wispy blonde hair falling across his forehead. “Ben Nevis,” she said it as if it were sacred. “No one but us lived on it.”
“Your mountain? But surely you didn’t own it.”
She wished he hadn’t said that. It made her feel bad, feel small. Of course they didn’t own it. People didn’t own mountains. They couldn’t own nature or fairy faith. It was all just part of things. “No one lived on it but us.” Her chest hurt when she answered, as if suddenly reminded of all that she had lost.
He leaned on his arm, rubbing his cheek against his jupon. “Sometimes I feel sorry for you,” he said softly. “You don’t like it here much, do you?”
“No.” She didn’t even like him very much at that moment. He didn’t understand anything.
“And yet the others envy you. Can you believe that?”
“Envy me? Who?”
“Elisabeth. You must know that she is terribly jealous. She wants to be terribly rich and Grandfather Macleod left you everything—his estate, the lands, the income.
”
“Absolutely everything?” she repeated, feeling rather dense. They had never talked about her inheritance before.
“Well, almost everything. But you weren’t supposed to inherit. My Uncle Dunbar was first, and then his sons. But they all died at Angus the same day. And so you, who were only supposed to have enough for a small dowry, inherited all.”
“But what about you? And Elisabeth and Eddie?”
He shrugged. “We were given fifty thousand sterling each. It isn’t a significant amount, not when compared to your four or five hundred thousand. I don’t know. It may be more, particularly if the port in Aberdeen is developed.”
“I had no idea.” She sighed. “No wonder Elisabeth hates me.” She ran her fingers along her skirts until they reached the hem, her stockings soft and warm. She had never worn stockings until she came here. But then, she had never worn underskirts and chemises, or shoes with silver buckles. “No one has ever hated me before,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t like it. It hurts.”
“I know how it feels. I think my father hates me.”
“He can’t hate you.” She squinted, trying to see him in the glare of late afternoon sun. “He is your father.”
“Fathers don’t have to love their children. They don’t even have to like them. I have heard of fathers—mothers, too—who never see their children. Especially in families like ours. Many fathers and mothers live somewhere else.”
Her brow wrinkled, black eyebrows rising curiously. “Then who raises the children?”
“Wet nurses.” He could tell she didn’t understand. “Nurses like Mrs. Penny.” His voice took on a practical tone. “Then later come tutors and lessons and apprenticeship.”
“Will you be apprenticed?”
“Eddie will. I’ll be assigned as a page to a knight or squire. Eventually I’ll earn my knighthood and so forth.”
“I think I’d rather be a knight than an apprentice.”
“But it’s not so easy, Cordy.” Philip swung one leg from the tree trunk. “I don’t get to choose. My father will decide everything. He’ll even decide when I must leave Peveril and when—if ever—I can return. I hope to inherit, but nothing is certain.”
“You must be rich.”
His laughter was low, almost mocking. “Rich? Of course. The Etons are new nobility…all we have is money. And that’s Father’s only ambition. If we were a different family, if we were an old family like the Percys or Beauforts, we would have many estates and hundreds of acres of land. There would be places at court for both Eddie and me.
Instead we’ve only our name and our purse, and I can tell you, from what I’ve heard Mr. Pole say, that it’s the Eton purse the King wants, not the family.”
“That’s terrible,” she said. “It sounds so unhappy.”
“Everything about Peveril is unhappy.” He hid his face momentarily, his lashes fluttering against the skin on his hand. “Perhaps that’s why Elisabeth is so hard on you. She is miserable, too.”
“But why? Is it your father? Aunt Mary?”
“I can’t say. I don’t know enough people to figure out if the whole world is unhappy, or if it is the English, or just this family. But I realize it is duty—our responsibilities—which weigh so heavy, which confine us. The only thing I’ve learned is that complaining changes nothing. It only begs for more trouble.”
“You make the future sound wretched.”
His lashes lowered, his mouth trembling imperceptibly. “I know,” he said quietly, feeling the weight of his thirteen years, “sometimes I think it is. But that is why books are good.” He gripped the tree trunk with his hands, wanting to hold on forever. “Books do not speak loudly and they do not interrupt. They can’t make fun of you and they wait patiently until you understand. Even difficult translations—” he said, half smiling, “—even they give you time.”
“Reading books?”
“Yes.”
“But reading is hard.”
“It only takes practice,” he answered warmly. “And after a while you forget you are reading. Instead you just live.”
“In books?”
“Yes, you live in them,” he said with a frown, “well, not in their covers, of course, but through the pages.”
“You must be a very good reader.” She sighed, wishing there were more days like this, more hours to be outside, unattended. “Would Mrs. Penny be furious if she knew we were here? Without a chaperone?”
“Yes.” He bit into his lip, adopting his father’s mannerism without knowing it. “And I hate being punished.”
“So do I. My papa never beat me.”
“No?”
She remembered the whipping from two weeks earlier and how painful it was to sleep. For over a week she had to lie on her stomach and it hurt just dressing, pulling the chemises over her head. “No,” she said, thinking of her father’s hard features, the shock of black hair falling in his eyes. “He said I learned well enough from a hard look or sharp word. Or making my own mistakes. Like the time I burned myself.” She smiled wistfully. “I never did go near the fire again.”
“Cordy?” He didn’t look up. “What happened to him?”
Her face flushed hot and heavy, the skin feeling stretched, swollen. “Cordy?” he whispered. “Do you mind me asking?”
She forced her voice to come out quiet and even, though it hurt her to speak. “They killed him.” She tried not to think about it, not to picture it. “There were three men and they murdered him with knives.”
He shuddered. “How do you know there were three men?”
“I heard them. I watched some.” Her voice was small, cold.
“But what did they want?”
“I don’t know.” She stared at the canopy of trees above them, the blue of the sky appearing through breaks in the leafy green. The sky seemed far away here, unlike the mountains where the sky had always seemed so close, even the sun and moon had hung just above her head. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she whispered, the fear chilling her heart, numbing her legs and arms. “I don’t like thinking about it. It makes me sad.”
“Yes.” He sat up and shivered, looking away from her. “I agree. It makes me sad just thinking about it, too.”
*
Simon Pole left the children momentarily on pretext of taking a walk. But they knew better. He was on the chamber pot, and would probably be away a good while. Philip, Elisabeth, and Cordaella looked at each other for a long moment, considering their unexpected reprieve. Eddie was in the nursery taking his afternoon nap.
“I am sick of learning,” Elisabeth grumbled, closing her book with a bang.
Cordaella glanced up and said nothing. She waited for Philip to speak. Inevitably, Philip intervened, carrying the conversation and easing tensions. “Just another hour,” he said to Elisabeth, “and then Eddie and I take our fencing lesson.”
Cordaella’s face crumpled. If the boys were fencing it meant that they—she and Elisabeth—would be stitching. “Ha!” Elisabeth said, with a triumphant little laugh. “There is something for you, Cordy. Embroidery. Tapestries.” She knew how much her cousin hated sewing. “Just wait until you have to stitch an entire one by yourself. It will take you a year, at least.”
“At least,” Cordaella agreed, returning to her book.
“You can’t read,” Elisabeth said interrupting, “so don’t try to pretend.” She stared at Cordaella, ignoring her brother. “Why do you bother with it, anyway? You were too old to begin with and you’ll never really need to know how.”
“All ladies should know how to read.” Philip stood up and restlessly paced the floor. “It’s important.”
“I don’t agree. It’s silly to fill your head with stories from old civilizations. Things that happen now are more important.” Elisabeth fidgeted with her skirts. “I would rather read about court and what is happening in London. I want to hear about the expedition in France. Those stories are exciting—not ancient epics.”
<
br /> Cordaella rose up on her heels, looking longingly out the window. “Why can’t we go outside?”
“Because Mr. Pole told us to read twenty pages each. I haven’t even read seven,” Philip said.
“I don’t care what old Mr. Pole said.” Elisabeth rose. “And I am sick of this chamber.”
“Then let’s go out,” Cordaella proposed.
“We can’t.” Philip stubbornly buried his nose in the book.
“Fusspot!” Elisabeth said, sticking her tongue out at him. “You are a stuffy old man already, Phil.”
“Do come, Philip,” Cordaella urged. “Let us go have a look outside. It would be so nice to walk—”
“But we’ll get in trouble.”
“We will get in trouble anyway,” Elisabeth retorted.
“She’s right, Philip,” Cordaella said, suddenly desperate to be outside and free. She longed for the mountains with the open space and the huge sky and the smell of heather and pine. “And I am going,” she said, putting the book down. “I don’t care if I do get in trouble.”
“Me, too.” Elisabeth pulled her cloak over her dress. “I will go with you. Besides, I haven’t had a whipping in years.”
Reluctantly, Philip rose. “But where will we walk?” He and Elisabeth turned expectantly to their cousin.
Cordaella was still staring out the window and little by little her expression lifted, the dark brows arching as a thought came to her. “Why,” she said with a quick laugh, “perhaps we can try the mews.”
“The mews?” Elisabeth said, darting a hasty look at her brother. “To the falconer’s? But how would we get past the gatekeepers? You know they won’t let us out without Father’s permission.” She was still watching her brother who had picked up his book again. “Maybe we shouldn’t,” she said after a strained moment. “We would get caught.”
Cordaella thought of her last whipping and looked out the window at the wonderful sky, the clouds high and thin against the deep blue. She would have to learn to appreciate the sky from here. Slowly she sat down again, frightened by the realization she was becoming like the others. Just a sheep. No mind of her own.
*
Supper was always eaten in the great hall, the earl and his family sitting at the main table on the dais. Cordaella sat near the end of her uncle’s table, directly across from Mr. Pole. Mr. Pole was the only one of Peveril’s staff who sat at the earl’s table. She wished she didn’t have to sit across from Mr. Pole, it made her sick just to watch him. It wasn’t that he was messy; he was just the opposite, nibbling on the venison, picking at the duck, his bites so small that it took him forever to finish anything. He could make the fish course stretch for fifteen minutes, and she thought dinner was already too long, some nights lasting two hours or more.