Wild Wood

by Posie Graeme-Evans

  Jesse nods, her face expressionless.

  “Very good. Five, starting to wake, gently and happily. Four, closer to waking and you’ve just had a pleasant dream. Three, getting ready to stretch and open your eyes.” Jesse stirs but her face stays serene. “Two, sleep is almost gone.” Jesse’s eyelids twitch. “One, you can see the light. It’s lovely to be almost awake. Zero!” Rory snaps his fingers twice. “Fully awake.”

  Jesse stretches luxuriously.

  “Feel good?” Rory smiles at his patient.

  “Yes. I really do. Did you find it useful?”

  “Very.” He holds up the notes.

  “Any answers about the . . .” She mimes sketching.

  “Not as such. I’m not expecting the anxiety you’ve experienced will go away instantly, by the way, though this is a very good start.” He pauses. “Do you remember much of what you said?”

  “Not really. It’s a jumble. I know there was water and”—she waves her hand vaguely—“there seemed to be someone else around. I could hear her talking, but it was my voice.” She hesitates. “That sounds a bit nuts, doesn’t it?”

  Rory pauses before he makes a careful note. Then he leans forward and touches Jesse’s good shoulder. “Confusion often happens ahead of a breakthrough. Therapy takes the time it takes, but consistent effort, just chipping away, asking questions, is important. The good news is I haven’t picked up any cognition impairment.”

  “Such big words.” Some kind of smile. “But what if I don’t have any time? Or money, either. I can’t stay here forever. My life’s on hold.”

  He says carefully, “Your treatment as a result of the emergency is, of course, without charge.”

  “There’s a but somewhere in there.”

  A half nod of acknowledgment. “Rehabilitation is a separate issue.”

  “And this is rehabilitation?”

  Rory puts the cap back on his old-fashioned cartridge pen. “How about I do some work on what I’ve observed and we can talk later about your concerns.”

  “Back in the ward.” Her expression is gloomy.

  Rory manages a grin. “Don’t want to exhaust you.”

  “I know, I know, ‘rest is best.’ ”

  “Exactly.” Rory picks up the phone on the desk, dials a number, and murmurs into the mouthpiece, “Yes, ready now. . . . That would be good.”

  Jesse makes a disappointed sound that is neither yes nor no, but she gets into the wheelchair without protest when the nurse appears. “Thanks, Dr. Brandon.” Somehow, she doesn’t want to call him by his first name. “I’m sorry to be such a difficult patient.”

  “Not difficult—not compared with some.” His grin stays in place until the door closes, but he stares down at his notes as if the words make no sense. Finally he writes, Rehab and Where?

  Distracted as he thinks, he doodles and a shape begins to emerge on the page.

  He stares at what he’s drawn.

  9

  AT THE end of a cart road that wandered away from the village, a house stood by itself. Every man on the estate knew what this house was for and who lived there, hidden behind the holly fence. It was called the House of Women because whores had always lived there. The wives and daughters of the village spat as they walked past, and stones were thrown at the shuttered windows, but the whores never came outside to challenge the women. They knew how frightened the good wives were of losing their men.

  Mary, the bawd at the House of Women, called herself an ale wife, because that was all she sold since her looks had faded. Perhaps her mother had been a pious woman or perhaps she had been hopeful. Some in the village said it was a disgrace for Christ’s mother’s name to be dishonored by such as she; as a child, I did not know what they meant. But the first day Maugris took me to the House of Women, when I was fifteen, I understood; Mary had me out of my clothes and into her daughter’s bed in less time than it took to skin a rabbit.

  Mary did not know how old the daughter was—she reckoned by seasons because she could not count. Perhaps Rosa had seen a summer or so more than me, but a boy will often seem younger than a girl of the same age. Yet in all the time since that first day, there had never been a child from Rosa’s body, so far as I knew. Not mine, nor anyone else’s. Rumor said the ale wife knew how to enchant babies away so they never grew in her daughter’s belly. Others told another story. The old bawd kept a bucket by the bed, and each time Rosa gave birth, Mary drowned the child and buried it under the holly hedge. That was why it grew so fast.

  But these were the slanders of the village women. Truth was, I thought, if Rosa began lying with men as a very young girl, she might not be capable of children. A useful thing in a whore, though sad perhaps.

  However, the things Rosa had learned to do with her body were pleasurable, and since I was a Dieudonné, I might have been treated better than the villagers. I paid well for her services and for a time was even persuaded, and perhaps Rosa was too, that some special sweetness lived between us, especially at the beginning.

  Today I tied my horse behind the hut so it could not be seen from the track. Angry though I was, I looked forward to being with Rosa again for many reasons. My dreams last night had been potent, and though my body was still weak, it was good to feel the sap rise. Also, being with this girl always left me cheerful, and I could speak to her as few others in my life since she was shrewd in her way; beds, after all, are the place for conversation as well as other things.

  Thinking to surprise her, I crept through the only door the hut possessed. Perhaps that is not wise in the house of a whore, but I found Rosa throwing peat on the fire and coughing at the smoke.

  I was shocked. It had been two years since I had last seen her, but she seemed older; the bloom gone from her skin, and her hair, once so thick, was a straggle of wisps around her face. The worst of it was she was no longer buxom, but far too close to thin. Soon Rosa would look like her mother. Would ale feed them when men no longer came for either the daughter or the mother?

  “A welcome for a stranger?”

  “Bayard!” Rosa ran at me and jumped. I caught her easily, and she wrapped her legs around my waist, her lips at my ear. “So handsome,” she breathed. “So fine. Brawny Cock Robin returned to his nest.” She leaned back to look at my face, and the muscles I was left with worked hard to hold her weight.

  A clever girl, she uncoupled herself and slid down my body, pressing herself against me. “I heard you nearly died, wasting away in your bed.” Her eyes were innocent but the hand that eased under my jerkin and down my breeches was not. She grinned. “Don’t feel like that to me. And I have a bed too. Deep and soft and hot and open, all open, for you, sweet cockerel.”

  It was not unpleasant being with her again, and with the promise of what was to come, my temper improved. Also, she was chewing an herb, new mint from the pot by the door perhaps, and she smelled fresh. My mother had taught all her sons to be fastidious, and I had encouraged Rosa to wash when I was with her, though Mary had not liked such things; I was pleased she had kept the habit. But I knew last year’s harvest had been a bad one after a wet summer, and it was easy to see the coin Rosa made between her thighs had grown scarce, for the house was comfortless, and peat, not wood, was stacked beside the hearth; poorly dried, it filled the room with smoke.

  Perhaps I did not hide dismay well enough for Rosa said, in a humid whisper, “I can promise you delight, my lusty knight; a good ride and no quarter until the battle’s done. When has Rosa ever let you from the saddle with less?”

  An open shutter threw light on her face. There were lines around her eyes and beside her mouth, and she’d lost a tooth or two. It made me sad for what was gone, but I let her take my hand and lead me behind the wattle screen and to the bed she shared with her mother at other times.

  She cupped my face in her hands. “I had thought our time together was done, my love. And that distressed me because I could not tell how many times we had lain here on this bed. But now you are here again, and you
can count. Tell me how many times we have coupled, so that I may remember each when you are gone again.”

  I unlaced the strings that held the bodice of her kirtle together. “The stars in the sky are not more numerous. How may we count the stars?” The linen beneath was clean enough, and I pulled it aside to find her breasts. She laughed as I took them in my hands and, eyes half closed, guided my fingers to her nipples. I felt them, hard as blackberries, and when I put my mouth there and teased them with my tongue, she gasped. “Ah, you do not forget. You never forget.” She knew her trade, Rosa, that I will say.

  Turning in my arms, she took my jerkin off and slid her hands over my back and my arms. Raking the skin with her nails until it puckered, she said, “Come, beloved, and you shall see more of me. All that you wish.” She paused before she slipped from the top part of her clothes, turning into and out of what light there was, so that her body was revealed for my pleasure. Then, both of us naked to the waist, she pushed me back over the side of the bed. There she straddled me, pulling up her skirts with one hand, pressing me deep into the mattress with the other. She was just a shape in the half dark, her head higher than my own, but as she unlaced the points of my breeches and her fingers grew busy between our bellies, I forgot to think her old. When, at last, she teased me no longer and, with a quick shift of her hips, had me between her legs, it was all I could do to hold the tide for even a little while. Then I stopped trying.

  The little death is a pleasant thing after the itch is sated, and this was often the time when Rosa and I dallied the day away talking. Today, lying on the bed with no covering but Rosa’s body, I half woke as the air struck cold.

  The girl was not asleep, though she pretended to be; having known her so long, I could tell. If I was not to meet another of her clients—arriving as I had, unexpected—I must dress and leave.

  Rolling the girl off my chest, I yawned and sat up. The creak of the ropes under the palliasse was familiar. The bed was old, and too well used.

  Rosa murmured, “So soon, my love. Would you not stay with me a little while?”

  I felt her arms around my belly and put a hand over hers. “If I do not return soon, they will look for me.” It was the truth. I did not want another argument with Godefroi.

  She murmured, “But the night is a long time away.” For a pause I said nothing. Rosa, a sensible girl, wriggled off the bed. She turned away slightly, but I watched her skirts drop to the floor and cover her legs. These were sturdy with round calves. I had been surprised the first time I saw them since her upper body was delicate, yet the contrast was erotic. I had come to appreciate those legs and Rosa’s wide hips, for both seemed made to bear a man’s weight as he worked up a sweat.

  Rosa knew I was looking at her as she went to the settle. Returning with my clothes, she swayed her hips, thinking to provoke me. When I did not respond, she stood back with a swallowed sigh and watched as I dressed. “You are too thin, Bayard.”

  I did not say the same to her, though I thought it. Perhaps she saw it in my eyes, and did not look at me as her finger traced the scar on my chest. “Is it true you died, and she brought you back?”

  I had the shirt half over my head, and Rosa did not think I saw her sign the evil eye. “I was not dead. Just”—what had I been?—“just close. There is nothing strange in a man recovering from his wounds. I was well nursed.” I hurried to tie off the points of my breeches. This was not a conversation I wanted to have.

  “Well nursed?” Rosa swatted my hands away and continued what I had begun. “Some say your nurse is a sorceress. That when she flies from the keep on nights without a moon, she curses the children so they die in their cradles. There have been many deaths in the village.”

  Outside, rising wind rattled the latch, and Rosa quickly turned. Wide-eyed, she stared at the door as if expecting Flore herself. “They say too that she does not eat and neither does she drink. Can that be true?”

  I took the girl’s chin in my hand. “And are ‘they’ the other men who lie in your bed?” She dropped her eyes and would not look at me. “The woman is pregnant. Food turns her stomach. It is common enough.”

  “And how do you know? You a chaste, unmarried knight.” The glimmer of a naughty grin. And then a frown. “Bayard, be careful. Promise me. I mean it.” Her voice was earnest. “She has enchanted the Lord Godefroi and all the bad things in this year have been . . .” She did not finish the thought. Perhaps she remembered whose brother I was and where my loyalty must lie.

  “Who says such things? The men who come here?” I was dressed again. A man who, only moments since, had thought himself the equal of gods and angels. That is what a woman does with what lies between her legs.

  She sniffed. “Not the women. They do not talk to us. But I know what I know.”

  “This is foolish. The Lady Flore—”

  Rosa spat on the dirt floor. This time she made the sign and did not try to hide it.

  I continued calmly, “The Lady Flore is”—I was not sure what word was best—“is not a witch.”

  “No?” Rosa stood on her toes and grasped my shoulders, forcing me to look down into her face. “Ah. I see. You too have been bewitched.” She dropped her hands and stood away from me. “I say she is a whore and a witch. And I should know.”

  “Which?”

  She stared at me. “Do not think me stupid because of what I do, Bayard.” Her face, in the half-light, was less old than ancient.

  I tried to kiss her, but Rosa turned her face away. Perhaps she did not want to see me leave.

  “Put it back.”

  I looked over my shoulder as I pulled the saddle off Helios. “What?”

  “Boy!”

  Dikon, the stableboy, ran as Maugris called out, “Help Lord Bayard.”

  “I can do it myself.” I heaved the saddle to its place again. Helios was sweating from the ride, and he was not pleased when Dikon tried to drag his head from the manger to put the bridle on again.

  “I shall need armor.” It was not a question. The look on my brother’s face was grim, and he was suited in a steel hauberk.

  “You will if we ride after them.”

  “After who?”

  Maugris did not reply, but as we left the stables, he called out to the boy, “Keep the horse ready.”

  Enoch, the castle farrier, was working at the entrance to the stables shoeing a line of horses. The air was acrid—scorched hooves and hot iron.

  I raised a hand in greeting. He had been kind to us as boys when we hid in the stables to avoid our father.

  Smiling, Enoch waved back but Maugris ignored the man and hurried on. The farrier’s expression soured as he crouched to pick up the next hoof.

  “That was not well done.”

  Maugris ignored me as he ducked through a low door that led into the chain of cellars where the tenants’ rent of grain, fruit, and roots was stored.

  We heard voices. Godefroi. And the lighter tones of a woman.

  Without speaking, Maugris pushed on a door.

  Head bowed, Margaretta knelt in front of Godefroi. He was staring at her. “You must have known.”

  “No, lord.” The girl did not look up. Her voice shook.

  Godefroi wheeled. “Reeve!”

  Swinson stood in the far shadows of the cellar, behind his daughter. Flambeaux picked out lines of sweat on his face. None of the three had seen us.

  “You are right to be afraid, Swinson. No servant of mine can be allowed to lie.”

  “My daughter is an honest woman, lord.”

  Margaretta’s eyes were tragic. “Father, let me.”

  Godefroi held up a hand. “He shall speak for himself.” And pointed. “Kneel.”

  Swinson’s body was rigid as he knelt, but he spoke with dignity. “Me and mine have always obeyed you, lord. And your family. We are loyal. In your father’s day—”

  Godefroi slapped the man across the face. An explosive blow. “This is not my father’s day.”

  Watching, I could
not remain impassive. Ignoring Maugris, I pushed the door wide and strode through.

  Godefroi flicked a glance from me to the reeve. “Answer what I asked. You knew he did this, both of you. Confess it.”

  Edmund Swinson raised his head. Blood joined sweat on the side of his face. He seemed sincerely puzzled. “But he is a monk, lord. Your own father sponsored him to the monastery. It cannot have been my son.” The man was pleading.

  Godefroi pulled the reeve to his feet and dragged him to where a body, dressed in Hundredfield livery, lay on the floor. “Excellent work for a man of God.” The face was covered but both hands had been cut off.

  Swinson turned his head away.

  “Look!” Godefroi ripped the covering away. The eyes had been gouged out. “Nothing to say? Your son the traitor was seen, reeve, and his men. He took the eyes with his own knife.” Godefroi kicked Swinson in the back. The reeve fell beside the corpse, his head knocking on stone.

  “Father!” Margaretta tried to reach Swinson, but Maugris stopped her, held her as she struggled.

  Godefroi shouted, “If Alois thinks to send us a message, one shall be returned.” He wheeled, glaring at me. “You! Take this girl to my wife; she will not speak of this to anyone if she loves her father.”

  “No!” Margaretta tried to claw Maugris’s face as he dragged her forward.

  Pushing her at me, he said, “For your sake and hers, obey him, Bayard. This cannot be ignored.”

  A girl when she will not be held, even so slight and young, is never easy to manage. In the end I picked Margaretta up and slung her across my shoulder.

  “Maugris!” Godefroi had his sword at the reeve’s throat as the man tried to stand.

  “Go.” Maugris pushed me through the door and closed it in my face.

  The wood muffled my brother’s voice, but it did not disguise the screams of Edmund Swinson.