The Forest Queen

by Betsy Cornwell

  “See, Silvie, it’s not John you’re defending now. It’s your family. It’s yourself. You want to believe you’re not complicit in this, in all the ugly things nobles do.” He took a step toward me. “It’s not just your brother who’s villainous, Silvie.”

  The knife felt hot in my hand. “Didn’t I send out bread, Bird? Didn’t I shoot the hart? Didn’t I—” Didn’t I leave everything in my world, for the sake of Little Jane?

  And for my own sake, too.

  I looked back at her, still pale and trembly, and I knew that I’d never done anything in my life that wasn’t at least partly selfish.

  I knew, too, that I shouldn’t be worried about that right now.

  “You said we needed to think of practicalities,” I said. “Let’s debate my family’s and my class’s merits later.”

  Bird opened his mouth, ready to say something, then looked at Little Jane and closed it again. He shrugged.

  “Right,” he said. “We have a midwife to jailbreak.”

  Bird stepped out from the shadows and greeted the guard with a friendly wave. “Simon,” he said. “Good to see you.”

  “Bird!” The man stood and shook Bird’s hand, and then mine as I stepped forward too. That was good: men always nodded to women, never shook their hands. Between the darkness, my hood and scarf, and the trousers I’d borrowed from Bird, I was well disguised.

  “You’ve a lady guest, I think,” Bird said. “The Mae.”

  Simon frowned. “Aye. Another one who couldn’t pay on time, I thought at first; but then I realized she was clergy, and none of them pay tax at all. I didn’t think they could be jailed, either—​the Brethren Cardinals might as well be our second and third kings—​but here Mae Tuck is, dragged in by none other than young Master John himself.”

  The word complicit rang in my head.

  “She’s to be kept for malicious falsehood, on his orders, and she’s to stay here until his say-so.” Simon shook his head. “You know as well as I do where arguing with the young master would get me. The lads inside like it no more than I—​wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to escape just for her sake. Mae Tuck brought half of them into this world, and the other half have wives or mothers or sisters who’d have died in childbed if not for her, or been saddled with babies they couldn’t feed. She’s as close to a saint as we get around here.” Simon sighed. “But then, what am I telling you for? You know yourself the good she does.”

  Bird nodded, and I felt a twist in my gut as I wondered how exactly he’d encountered a midwife’s services before.

  “Well, you see, Simon, we’ve come to do your inmates’ work for them,” he said. “I’ve a girl here who is very much in need of Mae Tuck’s help, and we won’t be leaving before she gets it.”

  “I can’t let her out,” Simon said firmly. “Not when I’m the only one on duty. You know that. It’s more than my head is worth, to be found disobeying the sheriff in such a fashion. But . . . your girl could come in to see the Mae, if she likes. I hate to think of any young one needing help as isn’t getting it. You know I’d free her if I could, Bird . . . I’d free all of them, or nearly.”

  Bird nodded. “Hardly anyone’ll be free after the king’s harvest, the new taxes being what they are,” he said. “Indeed, you might be the only one.”

  “Bring the girl in,” Simon said. “I’ll tell no one, I promise.”

  Little Jane stepped out of the shadows. She smiled tremulously.

  “Little J—” Simon cut himself off, reddening. “Jane. Everyone’s been wondering where you went.”

  Little Jane’s hands clenched at her sides. “Has my father?”

  Simon looked down. He shook his head and opened the jail’s heavy door.

  The smell inside stuck to my nose and tongue, so thick I could both taste and feel it. The source, a trough cut into the stone floor and running at a shallow incline toward an aperture in the far wall, was clear enough in the light of the lone torch on the wall; stale refuse still clung to it in places, and sticky rivulets of drying urine.

  Beside me Little Jane tried to suppress a gag.

  Almost every other inch of floor was covered by a sleeping or drowsing body. I couldn’t believe how many people fit into this little cell. Five or six occupants would have crowded it, and I counted two dozen.

  “John said it was rarely filled at all,” I whispered. “He said it was foolish to keep paying the guard when the jail was empty.”

  Bird snorted.

  Little Jane’s efforts at suppressing her nausea came to nothing, and she let go of my hand to kneel over the trough and heave.

  I bent down next to her to hold her hair away from her face, and when she was done, to rub her back and offer her my handkerchief. The smell of her sick barely registered among the other odors in the dank, sour room.

  Simon came in with his lamp at last, and the sound of several bolts sliding closed followed him.

  I felt a prickle on my skin as I heard the locks, and found my breath coming short. Such a small space, and to be trapped here, trapped . . . with men who had crossed my brother . . .

  I wasn’t trapped. I wasn’t. No one here knew who I was, and as soon as Little Jane was seen to, the three of us would be free to go.

  That so many others really were trapped here, I couldn’t bear to think of.

  “A girl here to see the Mae,” Simon’s voice called out, clear and firm, but not aggressive.

  Nothing left in her to throw up, it seemed, Little Jane stood again, taking my handkerchief with a grateful nod and dabbing at her eyes before she wiped her mouth.

  “Little Jane Carpenter?” A woman’s voice came from the back of the room.

  Simon held up his lamp, and Mae Tuck bustled her way carefully over the heaps of men.

  I’d expected someone tall, perhaps not as tall as Jane or even myself, but . . . someone imposing. Yet the middle-aged woman who stepped forward was of a completely ordinary height, and in the lamplight her skin, eyes, and hair were all that grayish-dun you see on the fur of wild rabbits: a vanishing, camouflage color, made to pass beneath notice.

  She wore the gray wimple that all Sistren wear, and her dress was firmly buttoned all the way up to her neck and down her sleeves, finishing over her thumbs so that it was almost as if she wore gloves.

  But her partially covered hands were quick and steady, and when she reached out and took Jane’s arm, I saw both kindness and authority in her touch. “Thank goodness you’ve found me,” she said. “You had me worried when you ran away like that. You need someone looking after you—​anyone in the condition does, and you’re only a young one, my dear!”

  Little Jane looked ashamed. “Mae Tuck, I didn’t run away. I was . . .” She swallowed. “I didn’t mean to run away,” she finished quietly.

  Mae Tuck pursed her lips. “Well, never mind. Let’s have a look at you, and in a cleaner spot than this. I’ve a corner set up, for seeing to the lads’ maladies.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Boys? A little privacy for us ladies, if you wouldn’t mind?”

  In an instant these rough men, of whom I had been so afraid, leapt to obey the Mae. They crowded closer together and faced discreetly away from the far corner of the little cell. One stone jutted out farther than the others from the wall there, and a small, squat pottery jug and some neatly folded scraps of fabric sat upon it.

  “It’s not my physic, but it gets me by,” Mae Tuck said. “Simon, bless him, saw the sense in bringing me a few salves so I could keep the worst of the wounds in here from festering. It’s only what I used to do before I was dragged in here myself, of course, and he was bright enough to say I could keep only what could easily be hidden in the event of a surprise inspection. Isn’t that right, my boy?”

  Simon nodded. “I won’t tell you the state of this place, of the men inside, before Mae Tuck started looking after them,” he said.

  I was sure he was right: if the jail was that disgusting after the midwife’s arrival, I couldn’t even ima
gine what it’d been like before.

  Mae Tuck led Little Jane into the corner. Bird and I turned away, too.

  “I’m sorry to bother you like this, Mae, it’s just I—​I’ve been feeling a little weak, and I got afraid,” I heard Little Jane say.

  The Mae laughed. “Bother me, now? No such thing. All the bother I’ve had or am likely to have has come from our own dear young sheriff. You’re no bother to me, Little Jane, nor ever could be. I doubt you’ve ever been a bother to anyone in all your life.”

  Little Jane didn’t answer, but I heard the small catch in her breath. I knew she was thinking of her father.

  “Now,” Mae Tuck went on briskly, “let’s have a look at you. Hmm, your pulse is fluttering true enough . . . When did you start feeling weak?”

  I realized I was eavesdropping. Most of the men in the cell had taken up quiet conversations among themselves, those who hadn’t already managed to fall back asleep; I decided to do the same with Bird.

  “What did your mother have to say, in her note?” I whispered. “If you don’t mind telling me, I mean.” I couldn’t quite bring myself to sit on the floor, so I leaned against the wall with him, the sides of our bodies touching.

  “That she’s proud of me. That she’s glad I’m well, and that she is too, and not to worry about her.” He took the paper out of his pocket and looked at it again. “That she’s praying for all of us.” He scanned the note, and it seemed as if there was more, but I didn’t let myself even glance at her words. Soon enough Bird put the paper away, and he looked back up at me with an easy smile.

  I smiled back at him.

  Little Jane came toward us, smiling too, both hands resting on her belly. “Mae Tuck says I’m to eat more meat, as much as the baby and I can stand, and to find wild spinach and dandelion leaves when there’s none to be had,” she said. She made a face. “She said my blood went a bit thin, and it made me weak and dizzy, that’s all. The baby and I share our blood, you know.” She sounded knowledgeable, confident, and I was stunned at the difference that a few minutes of talking to the Mae had wrought in her.

  I turned back toward the far corner, and I was about to curtsey to the midwife when I remembered myself and bowed instead, keeping a hand on the hem of my hood so it wouldn’t slip. “Thank you, Mae,” I said sincerely, pitching my voice low. “If I can ever do you any service—” But the courtly words died on my lips.

  Perhaps I could indeed do her a service, a real one, if I only had the courage.

  I just didn’t know if I had.

  The Mae nodded, touching two fingers to her heart and then gesturing toward my own, a typical blessing. I felt both grateful for it and ashamed.

  “The service you can do me is to bring Little Jane back here in a week, and again a week after that,” she said. “And to feed her well in the meantime; she needs to eat, even though she won’t often feel hungry. Were we both still in the village I’d have her visit every day. I . . .” She sighed. “In fact, if you wouldn’t mind a little crime, you could break into my annex at the parsonage and find a certain elixir, and give it to her to drink. It’s only an extract of elderberry and ginger, but it will help with her nausea.”

  “Thank you, Mae,” I said again, wishing I could thank her in a more meaningful way.

  But I could. There was more courage in me than complicity, than submission to my brother. I’d started to find it when I sent bread to the people, when I shot the hart, when I took Little Jane—​and myself—​to freedom.

  I should have known it in the clearing, or at the Hunt Ball, or indeed long before, but at least I knew it now. I was strong enough to oppose my brother.

  I turned back to Simon, the guard and Bird’s friend. I had to trust him—​or rather, I knew that trusting him or not didn’t matter.

  “May I speak to you for a moment?” I asked. I could feel Bird looking at me quizzically, and I waved him away. “Go on outside,” I told my two companions. “I’m sure you’re longing for the fresh air, and I’ll catch up with you there.”

  “But, Sil—” Bird stopped himself just in time, and before he was able to call me by any other name Little Jane was already headed for the door, practically sprinting. I knew he’d feel duty-bound to follow her out.

  I looked around the dank cell. “I want to take the Mae with us,” I said to Simon. “For Little Jane’s good. Please.”

  Simon smiled sadly. “And I want to send her with you, honest,” he said. “I’d nearly do it, too, if it were only myself at stake. But you clearly don’t know the young sheriff here, if you’ll excuse my saying it. He’s the type to punish you sideways, through the ones you love. I hope you understand.”

  “But say you had permission—​or a command, I mean—​from someone else in the Abbey, from another Loughsley? Surely you could let the Mae go then, and John could do nothing about it.”

  Simon eyed me sharply. “If you’re thinking of petitioning the family, you won’t get far,” he said slowly. “The old master is . . . ill, has been so for a long time. His mind is weak, and even when it wasn’t . . . he never met with petitioners from the village, only fellow nobles. And the only other Loughsley is—​was—​his daughter, but there’s been some kind of scandal with her, too, something the young sheriff’s made sure to keep hushed up. My mother works in the Abbey, and she tells me the girl is gone.”

  “She’s not gone far,” I said. I lowered my hood. My brown skin and dark blond hair would mark me as a Loughsley right away, even if Simon had never seen my face.

  I was half expecting a gasp, but he didn’t look surprised. “I’d say not,” he said, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. He looked me up and down, and then he began to laugh. “You’re no Little Jane, but you’re tall enough I didn’t think twice about your being a lad,” he said. “The more fool I! At least, not until you said your brother’s name that way.”

  “What way?”

  “So familiar, so knowing, but . . .” He stopped himself. “No common man would say a lord’s first name so casually. And you’re not from our own village, so how would you even know the sheriff’s name?”

  I nodded. “That was a slip; I’ll be more careful next time. Thank you for telling me.” I glanced back at the door. “Then you’ll let me take the Mae?”

  He sighed heavily. “Mistress, it would please me greatly,” he said. “And I don’t think John could argue with it himself, stickler for the letter of the law as he is . . . if only I could prove it was you gave me the order.”

  “Ah.” I tried to think. “Of course.”

  “No chance you’d come back in the morning to tell him yourself, I imagine?”

  He asked the question drily, but I still felt embarrassed. I couldn’t say what it was exactly that I feared so much about seeing John again, but something had fundamentally changed in our relationship now that I had escaped him once, and I felt certain deep in my bones that I didn’t want to know what would happen if we met again.

  “Piece of paper?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Couldn’t use it if I had it, my lady—​not to write on, anyway.”

  I blinked, trying not to show my surprise.

  “There’s not many outside castles or churches who can read and write, you know,” he told me, not unkindly.

  “Well, if there’s anything I could write on at all . . . John would know my signature, you see. My way of writing,” I explained.

  Simon looked around. “I’ve some whitewash here,” he said. “Was going to repaint the cell in the morning. Gets dingy real quickly.”

  “I believe it,” I said, smiling. I was starting to have a rather theatrical idea.

  * * *

  Bird leaned forward with his hands on his thighs. He’d barely stopped laughing since we’d left the jail the night before, and he’d woken up laughing still.

  “It’s like an old ballad!” he said between attacks. “Couldn’t you have used a sword, for real effect?”

  “You know I�
�m hopeless at swordplay,” I said. “John’d never recognize my writing if I did it that way.” I grinned.

  “Say it again,” Bird said, wiping his eyes.

  I sighed, but it was such fun to make Bird laugh, and in this case, so easy.

  “‘As daughter of Loughsley, I have freed the Mae of this village, Sara Tuck. I will do all in my power to free any who are subject to injustice here.’ And then I signed my name.”

  Bird burst into laughter again.

  “I don’t see what exactly is funny,” I said. “Did I say something foolish?”

  Bird managed to get his breath back, but he was still grinning widely. “Not foolish at all,” he said. “It’s beautiful. It’s just I keep picturing John’s face when he reads it—” He stopped himself from laughing again. “What you wrote, it’s perfect. ‘Any who are subject to injustice’ . . . Silvie, that’s everyone in the kingdom. You’ve promised to free us all. And it won’t just be John who gets that message: everyone in the village will. It makes me—​love you, even more than I do, anyway, and feel so proud of you. So proud.”

  Our eyes met, and that warmth began to steal up between us again, the heat that suggested a kind of love that wasn’t just that born of more than a decade’s friendship. A kind of love I wasn’t ready for, because it meant risking that friendship, and risking the freedom that I’d given up so much to achieve.

  I looked away from Bird, and down at the fire.

  “Let’s have tea,” I said, “now that we’ve a kettle, and real tea leaves, at least for the time being.”

  Bird shot me an odd look. “We have them forever, or for as long as you want them,” he said. “They’re yours for the taking, remember?”

  I shrugged. “I suppose.” I still wanted to believe we would be able to survive out here, on our own, free from Loughsley. Free from everything.