The Third Witch

by Rebecca Reisert

  “His lady. He has a wife?”

  She looks surprised by my ignorance.

  I plunge on, steeling myself against her answer. “What is she like, this wife of His?” I dare not ask her name, but I concentrate fiercely on willing the alewife to say it.

  “Keep stirring.” The alewife pokes me in my side. Once the wooden paddle is making brisk circles, she adds, “She is a fair and noble lady, the woman to whom he is married.” Tell me her name.“When you look at them, you can see they adore each other.” Her name. “Some folk reckon the finest lady in all our land is the lady Roah.”

  No! I slam my mind shut against the image of His wife, that whore that He wed. I have enough to worry about. I will not let myself imagine her. But unbidden, a vision of her slips into my mind. No! Anytime I start to picture her, I will replace it with the image of Him lying dead. If I let myself think about the harlot He took to His bed, then I will be lost. My revenge must be as hard as obsidian, not a lump of butter on a hot oatcake.

  Despite my resolve, I hear myself asking, “Do they have any children?”

  Let there be no children. If there is any divine justice, then no children will have come from their mating.

  The alewife pokes me again. “Stir.” She makes a clucking sound. “Alas, our lord has not seen fit to bless them with offspring.”

  I close my eyes in relief. Thank you, God, for giving them no children.

  “Stir.”

  TO MY DISMAY, for the next week, I can find no way even to catch a glimpse of Him. We live in the same castle, but as far as I am concerned, He is as far away as the moon.

  We kitchen lads are set to a great deal of work. We turn spits over the fire to roast the great haunches of venison and the whole boars, spending hour after hour at this shoulder-numbing task. We stir great pots—big as lye tubs—with paddles near as tall as me, mixing batters and doughs until I wonder if it would be pleasanter to hack off my arms with the big cleaver and have done with it. Then there is a fury of slicing and peeling and scrubbings of pots, after which we boil table linens and rub them with heated stones so they can look smooth as water. We spend hour upon hour scouring cauldrons and griddles with sand in the cold scullery shed.

  Most evenings, a soldier or two—the older ones who have seenmore than their fair portion of fighting—wander into the kitchen to sit before the fire and turn the faces of the kitchen lads pale with tales of blood-soaked battlefields and men cleaved in half. Too often for my taste, the talk turns to the brave deeds of the lord of the castle. “Never has Scotland seen such a warrior as your lord,” the soldiers say in their hoarse voices. I leave the kitchen and go sit by the well. I will not stay and hear that monster praised.

  For several nights as I sit scrunched like a gargoyle next to the well, I dream about sneaking to the enemy camp to offer my help in smuggling some of their soldiers into this castle. How He would hate that humiliation—to be killed by the soldiers of the northern king within His own castle! I pay you back in your own coin, I would scream at him triumphantly. A treacherous death for a traitor! But I worry that Lisette and Pod and the other innocent castle folk will also be killed by those frost-eyed Northmen, and I regretfully abandon this scheme.

  I am squeezed by the need to make Lisette take Pod as her apprentice. I must be ready to seize my chance to kill Him, whene’er that chance comes, and I see that there may be only one chance. Pod is a boulder tied round my feet. If I can coax Lisette to take him, then he will no longer hobble me. So whenever I work near her, I praise Pod as a hard and loyal worker and tell her it would mean the world to Pod could he learn to make wafers.

  She shakes her head. “In a year or so, I will leave this castle. I have not the time to train him, Gilly. Good as he is, ’twill take more than a year to train him.”

  “I know that he can learn in less than a year,” I lie. If only I can get her to take him, she will not cast him off at the end of the year.

  But each time she just turns away, and after several days, she says, “No more, Gilly. Speak of this matter one time more, and I will have Master Cook cast you both out.”

  From time to time kitchen folk catch glimpses of Him and they report on His doings. By Saint Colum’s tongue, it makes me angry to hear them prate about Him as if He were the Savior Himself, but I press my lips together and go about my work.

  Brude the bully orders us about as if he were the lord of the castle.-One day he calls to Pod, who is plucking geese on the far side of the kitchen, and commands him to fetch a roasting pan that is no more than five steps away from where Brude himself stands. When Pod starts after it, Brude jeers, “Learn to walk, draggletail!”

  I am about to answer back, but his cruel words make me take a close look at Pod. I do not want to admit it, but Pod is, in truth, a draggletail indeed—raggedy clothes, hair as matted as a lost sheep’s, fingernails and toenails solid black crescent moons. Perhaps if I make him sweet and clean, Lisette will take him off my hands.

  That night, after we scrub the kitchen flagstones so they glow like a polished plum, I tell Pod to follow me. I lead him to the laundry shed. After I make sure no one is around, I say, “Take off your clothes.”

  I turn my back and begin to ladle water from one of the rain barrels into a tub.

  He taps me on the shoulder. He has not even started to take off his filthy clothes. “Pod,” I say, and my voice crackles like a cat’s fur in winter. “I told you to—”

  He gives me a puzzled look.

  “Have you never had a bath, lad?”

  His brows pull together. “ ’Tis not Midsummer,” he says firmly.

  “Midsummer or no, Pod, you need a bath now.”

  He looks as scandal-struck as if I had suggested going to the castle’s chapel and stripping the statues of the saints stark naked and painting them scarlet. I make my face and voice stern. “Take off your clothes, boy, and climb in this tub, or I will wallop you within an inch of your life.”

  He gulps and pulls off his tunic. There is a bruise on his chest that I do not like the looks of, but I do not ask about it. He peels off the rest and steps into the water. He shivers. “ ’Tis cold, Gilly.”

  “Hush.” I shave off a sliver from the big brown cake of soap on the trestle table in the corner. There is a brush next to it which I use to scrub him. Soon the water is gray with scum floating on the surface.I scrub his hair, too, and then I have him straddle the draining trough as I ladle fresh rainwater over his little body.

  Next I pick up his tunic. It is so raggedy that I fear it might dissolve to a handful of threads should I wash it. It would be very heaven to give him some new clothes, but new clothes are hard to come by. So I sigh and soak the tunic in a fresh tub of water. I rub the soap in with my hand and then squeeze the water through it, over and over, careful not to pull at the worn and tired cloth.

  “Gilly, why aren’t you a girl anymore?”

  Startled, I bang my elbow on the rim of the tub. I whirl around to face him. He is standing in the middle of the floor, his arms wrapped around his body, looking small, clean, damp, and puzzled.

  “Pod,” I say with all the intensity I can muster, “you must never say that. You must not let anyone know I am a girl. Never. You must forget that ever I was a girl.”

  I dare not think what punishment might await us both should the truth be told. For all I know, in this witch-mad country, it might be seen as a form of witchcraft. At the very least, I would be whipped. It is entirely possible that my transformation would be seen by the church as one of those sins deserving of death. God’s bread, but I have not come this far to be betrayed by the thoughtless prattling of this boy. “Say anything about it, Pod, and I will turn you over to the Witch Hunters myself.”

  For a while there is no sound but the swish-spurt of water through his tunic and my angry breathing.

  Then he asks, “Are you still a girl, Gilly, or are you just a boy now?”

  “Pod—”

  “I will not tell anyone, but I wo
uld like to know.”

  I rub harder against the cloth. “I am all boy now, Pod. The girl I was is dead.”

  After a while he says, “I’m cold.”

  “Let me rinse out your tunic, and we will go over to the fire.”

  As soon as the tunic is rinsed, I lead him next door to the dryingroom. We weave through the drying racks to the fire. Sheets hang from the tallest racks, making magical cloth walls like the sides of huge white tents. The room smells of lavender from the bundles of drying flowers hung from the rafters. On the lower racks are several men’s tunics, and I toy with the idea of stealing one and cutting it down for Pod. What a fool you are to risk your mission for a little witchboy. Besides, it is certain that someone would recognize the tunic should Pod wear it, and he would be punished as a thief.

  We sit near the fire between two racks of small clothes, white and fragrant. It is like snuggling in a nest of ruffles. I sit cross-legged facing Pod, and with my broken-blade dagger, I scrape most of the dirt out from under his finger- and toenails. I am pleased to see his clean hair drying into pale little curls around his face. When Pod is clean, he is a handsome little lad. Surely Lisette’s heart will melt like goose grease when she sees him.

  He gestures toward a pale gold gown draped across a drying rack. “That would look pretty on Momma.” Then he jerks his chin toward a white linen night dress whose sleeves and bodice are woven of Flemish lace. It is a lovely trifle. “You would look pretty in that one, Gilly.”

  “Pod,” I frown, “I told you not to say—”

  “But I did not say you were a girl. I did not, Gilly. You know I did not. I just said that you would look pretty in it.”

  My stomach tightens. God help me, both my quest and my safety depend on the silence of this lackwit who does not even understand when he misspeaks. I feel all pushed and pulled. To calm down, I scramble to my feet and walk away from him. I find myself in front of the lacework gown. It is lovely indeed, one of the loveliest gowns I have ever seen. I stroke the lace, and my rough hand rasps across its surface. The gown is faintly warm from the fire, and its white cloth glows like an eggshell lit by a candle. Before I know what I am doing, I lift it off the rack. It is surprisingly heavy in my hands. Then quicker than you can say Peter Pumblekins, the gown is over my head and falling down my body. O, how wondrous it would be towear such a lovely thing. It fits me smoothly as if it were made for me, exactly the right length and width about the shoulders and arms.

  I give Pod a shamefaced grin, but he is staring at me openmouthed.

  “Gilly,” he breathes, “you look like a princess.”

  There must be enchantment in the gown, for suddenly I feel giddy. I lift the skirts and sweep him a deep bow. “In sooth, Lord Peapod, I am the Princess Moth, empress of all butterflies and shape shifters. I am the queen of confections.” Just as a clever cook can fashion a banquet trifle in which a pastry castle can enclose a fondant swan, which in turn encases a marchpane egg, so I am a girl dressed as a boy dressed as a girl. “I am the regent of riddles,” I call out laughing. I do not know why I laugh. “I am the princess of puzzles, the duchess of disguise.” I hold out my hand. “Lord Peapod, come dance with me.”

  He does not look as though he understands my foolery, but he laughs, doubtless because I laugh. He puts his hot little hand in mine, and we begin to weave in and out through the panels of drying sheets, footing it in our own fashion, part jiggle and part hop. I feel carefree and as light as a soap bubble.

  F O U R T E E N

  I BEGIN TO DREAD the two mealtimes of the day. The rush to set up the trestles. The mad dashes up and down the stairs, carrying platters and kettles so heavy that my arms and legs battle to see which aches more. Each time I carry something to the Great Hall, I bob and weave, trying to catch a glimpse of Him at the high table, but the bottler’s apprentice takes the platter from my hands before I can even get a sight of the high table. He kicks me and curses me, watching to make sure that I disappear from view. Twice I try a ruse. I pretend to go down the stairs, then turn around and tiptoe back up, but there is always a man at arms to keep watch near the top of the stairs, and once he serves me such a cuff that I tumble down a dozen steps or more. When I pick myself up, I see nothing is broken, but I ache from the bruises for the next two days.

  Each day I grow angrier and angrier. God, the Divine Cat, has made me his plaything, amusing himself in batting me about like a lame mouse.

  Then Lisette causes everything to change.

  Toward the end of the week, she sends Pod up to the Great Hall with a tray of fresh wafers.

  “Is that wise?” I whisper to her. “Pod is nervous around great groups of folk.” This is my chance. “Let me take them instead.”

  “No,” she says, giving Pod a fond look. “Now that he is so pretty and clean, ’twill do him good to master this task.”

  “I will do it, Lisette.” I reach for the tray.

  But Lisette slaps my hands away. “Pod is longing for a glimpse of the lord and his company. He has told me many times that he has never seen a lord before.” She glances at Pod proudly as he carefully places the wafers on the tray.

  Even I do not have the heart to gainsay him. He is so proud to be chosen for this task. He has scrubbed his face until it is as pink as a piglet’s, and he has had me scrape under his nails with a knife until they are as white as moons. Before he leaves the kitchen, he wets down his hair and smooths it back from his face.

  “You look as comely as a coin,” Lisette tells him, and when he looks anxiously at me, I nod and smile. So proud and heedful he looks as he walks slowly out of the kitchen, the carrying board held tightly in both his hands. I do not have the heart even to feel jealous. In a hand’s span of time, though, he is back in the kitchen, his face soggy with tears.

  “One of the men at arms called me names and knocked my tray out of my hands,” he wails.

  Lisette turns pale. She clutches the front of her apron as if she were squeezing her heart. “The wafers?”

  “They all tumbled down the stairs and broke,” he wails. “The serving boys, they went diving for them and stuffed them in their mouths and belt pouches.”

  In less than a moment, Master Steward storms into the kitchen, his face like thunder over Dead Moor.

  “Where is the lad who dropped all the wafers?”

  I try to shove Pod under the table, but he is too slow. Master Steward whacks him over and over with his polished staff. I am shouting and trying to push Pod under the table, and Lisette is crying, and Pod is squealing, and the other kitchen workers are roaringout opinions, and the dogs out in the yard start to bark. It is all fury and thunder, and yet there is a tiny part of me that wants to laugh at this comical disorder. All at once, Master Steward recalls his dignity and pulls himself up as tall as he can, points at Pod (who is safely under the table) with his staff, and states in a voice like a pope, “Never let that lad carry the wafers again.”

  He struts to the door, and I firmly seal my mouth against my laughter at the silliness of this scene.

  Just before Master Steward leaves, he whirls around and points his staff at me. “I understand this one was caught trying to sneak into the rooms above the Great Hall. I do not want him found up there again.” He glares at Master Cook who has come over and is wiping his hands on his apron. “ ’Twill be your place, Cook, if either of these lads comes near the upper chambers.”

  Then Master Cook says, “You and your brother will leave the castle at first light.”

  F I F T E E N

  NO,” I call out.

  I cannot leave so close to my target. This cannot be happening. Never again will I get such a chance.

  Master Cook’s face draws tight with anger. “If I say you are to go—”

  “Please, great sir, give me one more chance. ’Twill not happen again.” His face does not soften. “Please.” Although it sickens me with disgust, I fall to my knees. “I beg of you.”

  Lisette speaks up. “I fancy, Master Asw
ald, ’twas naught but ignorance and a desire to gawk at the castle.” His face remains stiff, so she adds shrewdly, “And Master Aswald, you have already trained these two lads in the ways of the castle. Do you really wish to bring in two untrained louts now that the lord is home?”

  He still looks unconvinced.

  I crawl to him like a fawning spaniel. I will do anything, anything to reach my goal. I reach up and paw his arm. “Please, great master. I will be good. I will do whatever you wish. Besides, we still have your recipes to write into a book so your art of cookery will not be lost to the world.” I force myself to kiss the top of his shoes.

  Never, never have I lowered myself like this. Never have I felt such humiliation. But I must do it. My life will be worth naught should he turn me out-of-doors.

  I feel his hand stroking my hair. His hand strays down to my neck, and his thumb caresses my skin in little circles. My stomach lurches, but I do not let myself move.

  “One more chance,” he says. “But just one more.”

  That night, after all the castle is asleep, I draw a bucket of water from the well. I scrub and scrub till my neck tingles with cold and rawness, but I cannot wash myself clean.

  STILL, TRY AS I MIGHT, I find no way to come near Him.

  In the meantime, to my shame, I develop a new, odd, secretive habit.

  One morning when I am polishing the cutlery, I catch a glimpse of a sliver of the face of a servant boy who looks familiar. With a jolt, I realize the boy is me. I peer more closely at the reflection in the blade and feel a clutch of fear. Where did Gilly the girl go? Who am I now? It is as if a spell has been placed on me and I have changed completely into something unknown and strange, as if I have become a boy indeed.

  As soon as I can snatch the chance, I creep off to the chapel to study my reflection in one of the windows there. I stare and stare, but I see nothing of the girl in my face or stature. I examine my hands. The fingers are tapered, but the hands are so marred with calluses and half-healed cuts and cracked fingernails that ’tis more the hands of a boy than of a lady. From all the running and kitchen work, my arms and legs are hard with muscles. Finally, desperate to find some trace of the girl in me, I smooth my hands down the front of my tunic, only slightly relieved to feel the small swell of my breasts. Yes, there is still something of the girl about me, but then I hear a noise and jerk around. The old priest totters into the chapel. I whip my hands behind my back. I cannot afford ever to be caught smoothing my tunic to reveal the girl-shape underneath. If I amfound out —I dare not even imagine the punishment that might be mine if anyone sees beneath my disguise.