The symbol also appeared, in miniature, on the spine of the book, separating the title from the author’s name.
To the Four Directions.
Lazarus Took.
I had found the book at Prospero’s on my way for my weekly lunch with Dale the week before. I had had to look twice at the spine when I first saw it: I had never seen a Lazarus Took hardcover before. The four books I had read had all been paperbacks: this was something new. Well, not new—the copyright page read: Alexander Press, 1951.
Turning to the first chapter, I couldn’t help myself: with the first sentence it was like I was eleven years old again, reading in the apple tree or the hayloft at my grandparents’ place in Henderson.
TO THE FOUR DIRECTIONS
“I’ll get a beating if I am late to the stables,” Tamas complained. But that didn’t stop him from following Matthias through the winding alley in the dark.
“You worry too much, Tamas,” Matthias said. “You have time for a little food. The stable-master will be asleep for hours yet. Besides,” he said, hopping over the short wall into the back garden of The Mermaid. “I would be more worried about my mother.” Matthias flashed his best friend a sly grin.
“Oh, I am,” Tamas muttered, heaving himself over the wall. He almost fell on a stack of discarded bottles.
“Shush. We don’t want to wake—”
The water hit Matthias in the face as the back door swung open, soaking him from head to foot.
“What—?” he sputtered.
“Oh, I am sorry,” Mareigh, said, smiling sweetly. “I thought you must be a thief. No respectable person would be stealing through the yard at this hour of the night.” She passed the bucket to Arian.
Matthias tried not to stare at the serving girl.
“And you, Tamas, what are you looking at?” Mareigh demanded, glaring past her sopping son, hands on her hips. “Does your mother know where you are?”
“She knows I am with Matthias.”
“Sad thing for a mother to give up on her son like that.” She stepped back from the door. “Well, come on,” she said. “You’re better off inside. Someone has come looking for you.”
Matthias glanced at Arian, but she was already busying herself at the stove. He sat down at his usual spot at the table, Tamas across from him.
“So, would either of you know why I had Zekariah and Jarrett and their friends pounding at the door an hour after closing?”
Matthias hid his hands, with their scraped knuckles, on his lap.
“He said he was looking for you, son of mine,” she said. “And he seemed to have fewer teeth than when he was gracing us with his custom earlier.”
He tried not to look at Tamas, not wanting to give anything away, but his mother noticed something in his expression. “What did you do?” she asked, sounding defeated.
“Nothing,” he said. As Arian leaned past him to set cups on the table he became almost dizzy from her closeness, the sweet smell of her.
His mother brought her hand down on the table with a hard smack. “This is not funny,” she said. “If there are people looking for you in the middle of the night, I should at least know why.” She turned to his friend. “Tamas?”
Matthias almost groaned.
“There was a fight,” Tamas said quickly.
“And I suppose they had it coming.”
Tamas risked a nervous glance at Matthias, and Mareigh caught the look.
“Matthias,” she said, her voice dropping sternly.
“He did have it coming,” Matthias said weakly.
Arian had stopped her work, holding a cloth in one hand as she listened, ready to spring into movement should his mother happen to look her way.
“These are customers,” she said, not waiting for him to explain. “They put the bread on our table, and a little coin in our pockets.”
He looked at Arian again. His mother always claimed poverty, but one as poor as she claimed to be didn’t have a servant like Arian to jump at her every command, to keep the bar and the taps in the tavern shining. And she was the only woman to own one of the taverns on the island, close to the castle, safe behind the walls.
She sighed heavily. “You know what you need to do.”
“I won’t,” he said.
“You will,” his mother stressed, in the voice that had settled hundreds of tavern fights. “You’re fifteen years old—when are you going to learn there are consequences to your actions? You will give them a few hours to sleep off the worst of it and then you will apologize.”
“I will not,” he said, pushing back from the table. “They had no right—”
“Matthias, they are our livelihood.”
“And that gets them as much ale as they can buy. It doesn’t give them the right—”
Again his mother turned to Tamas. “What did they do?”
Tamas sank on the bench. “You know how they get when they are in their cups. Joking and bragging.” He glanced at Arian, who was making a good show of wiping the counter. “They started in on Arian. Saying she would make a good wife. Someone to come home to. And then Jarrett said that there was no reason to marry her, when you could just pay her by the hour.”
As Tamas spoke, Matthias watched Arian, the long, slow stretches of her arm with the cloth, the way the raven hair that escaped from her kerchief fell over one eye.
He and Tamas had been drinking at a table close by, had heard every word the fat drunkard had said about Arian, every piggish laugh that his friend had given in response. Arian had kept her head down, her eyes averted, but he had seen the scarlet on her cheeks.
He had almost come to his feet when Jarrett’s clumsy paw circled her waist and tried to pull her close. But Arian moved lightly away, made off to the kitchen, to safety.
Both men laughed, and Jarrett said, “It’s more fun when you have to chase them a little.”
That decided it for Matthias. He slapped Tamas’s arm as the two drunks left. Tamas did not even try to argue—he had seen that look in Matthias’s eyes before, and he followed his friend out the door.
They trailed behind Zekariah and Jarrett for a while, putting some distance between them and the tavern. They each picked up a good-size chunk of wood from in front of the butcher’s shop, and when the two men staggered into the noxious alley behind, Matthias simply nodded at Tamas.
The drunks were leaning into the alley wall, looks of hard concentration on their faces as they pissed, trying to keep their balance.
“So,” Matthias said, and both men started. “You think it’s funny to mock a bar girl, do you?”
With a glance between them, Zekariah and Jarrett straightened up, fumbled with their belts, and pulled themselves to their full height. “And what are you, then? Her prince come to her rescue?”
Jarrett laughed. “Looks more like the bastard cur of that tavern wench, come for a beating.”
His laugh faded when he saw the wood in the boys’ hands.
The fight was quick and dirty, and left the two men in sodden heaps in the muck of the alley.
“Is that true?” his mother’s question jarred Matthias out of his reverie, but she wasn’t talking to him. She had turned to confront Arian.
The girl paused a moment, not able to meet the older woman’s gaze. Finally, she nodded.
“You should have told me,” she said, in a voice as close to understanding as Matthias could ever recall hearing. “I would have taken a round or two out of them myself. You need never tolerate that, do you understand?”
Arian kept her eyes on the ground, looking more uncomfortable with the sympathy than she would have been with Mareigh’s temper.
Tamas sighed and deflated a little, obviously relieved.
Matthias, though, knew that it was not yet over.
“And as for you,” his mother said, rounding on him. “What business is it of yours if some customers have a little fun at the expense of the help?”
“She was—”
“That is her busine
ss. And mine. It has nothing to do with you.”
She took a long look at his face, and he willed himself to be stony, to give nothing away. But she had seen something. And she did not like what she saw.
“Unless—”
A furious pounding at the front door seemed to shake the whole tavern.
“Open in the name of the King.”
“Matthias,” Mareigh whispered hoarsely, turning toward the front room.
“Mother, I didn’t …”
She shook her head. “I’ve told you your temper was going to be the end of you.” She looked at the serving girl, who shrank under her gaze, and back at Matthias. “You’ve brought this down on all of us.”
He could barely breathe.
Mareigh tied on a fresh apron. “I’ll get the door, and pretend that I don’t know exactly why they’re here. You two”—she looked at Matthias and Tamas—“take the back door. Don’t go home,” she said sternly to Tamas. “They’ll be looking for you as well. Find a place, maybe on the shore, to wait this out.”
Matthias was stunned; the idea of running from the King’s Men had not occurred to him, and now to have his mother suggest it …
“Go,” she snapped, pushing her way through the swinging door into the tavern.
He didn’t move. What was she doing? She had worked so hard to build this place, and now she was suggesting that he run. It could ruin her. If anyone even suspected that she had helped in his escape, the Royal Fiat that allowed her to run the tavern on the island, inside the walls, would disappear like a night of drink. How could he have been so stupid?
But then he looked upon Arian, and he realized that he’d really had no choice. He would do it all again, and damn the consequences.
Her eyes were wide and dark, shining against her ivory skin. She was looking at him as if she was about to cry.
Tamas tugged at his sleeve. “Matthias, come on,” he whispered frantically.
He could hear his mother shouting, “All right, all right, give a poor woman a chance …”
Matthias wanted to go to Arian, to say something to comfort her, but there was no time.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They ran out the back door and retraced their steps, again not bothering with the gate. It seemed like hours since they had tumbled over the stone wall. This time they pushed themselves over it—
—and into a small group of King’s Men, facing them in an orderly row.
Waiting for them.
The captain of the King’s Men stepped forward. “I command you halt, in the name of the King.”
The soldiers lowered their halberks toward the boys, backing them against the wall with the gleaming metal blades, then herded them into the tavern kitchen.
Mareigh was already sitting down, her hands on the table in front of her. Arian was sitting beside her; she bit her lip as Matthias walked through the door.
More of the King’s Men stood surrounding the table, their halberks at their sides.
When Mareigh saw her son, her face fell.
They had caught him anyway.
“Matthias,” the captain said, grasping the boy’s sleeve. “Take a chair.”
Matthias shook off the captain’s grip, then stumbled as the captain pushed him onto the bench across from his mother. How did the captain know his name?
The captain turned to Tamas. “You, boy.” Tamas wilted under his gaze. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the stables?”
Tamas looked blank at the question, then nodded.
“Then I suggest you hie yourself over there and not give the master further cause for a whipping.”
Tamas barely hesitated. Matthias watched his friend race out the back door—it was only right. Following the men from the tavern, the beating in the alley—it had all been Matthias’s fight. It was better that Tamas avoid the consequences.
And given the number of King’s Men gathered in the kitchen, the consequences would be dire indeed. He tried not to think of the stories he had heard of the dungeons, buried deep within the castle. The stories of men who went in and never came out.
The captain stepped to the head of the table, and with both hands lifted the bronze helmet from his head. His hair was long, damp with sweat. He had bright blue eyes and a short, well-trimmed beard.
He set the helmet carefully on the table, and nodded toward Matthias’s mother.
“Good morning, Mistress Mareigh,” he said.
“And to you, Captain Bream.” Matthias’s mother met the captain’s gaze and held it.
Matthias looked between them: his mother knew this soldier? Matthias had seen him in the street on occasion, but he wasn’t one of the soldiers who frequented The Mermaid’s Rest.
Arian shuddered next to him, close enough to touch.
“I trust you are well,” the captain said.
Mareigh looked pointedly at the men ringing the kitchen. “I’ve had better mornings.”
Matthias flinched at his mother’s tone. He expected the captain to lash out at her, with either words or, more likely, his hands.
Instead, he looked at the guards. “Gentlemen,” he said.
At the single word, the men broke rank and filed out through the swinging door.
“They’ll wait in the tavern,” he said. “Out of sight. I am aware that the sudden appearance of the King’s Men can be bad for business.”
Mareigh nodded. “I appreciate that.”
“We’re here about your son,” he said, turning to look at Matthias.
Matthias pushed back from the table, starting to rise to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t …” He glanced at Arian, then back at his mother. “My mother, she told me to wait here while she answered the door, but I was scared so I ran.”
The captain listened to him, his face set in a dark scowl that broke, surprisingly, into a smile. “What are you talking about, boy?”
The question stopped him. “About what happened this morning.”
The captain took a satchel from one of the men. He tossed the bag as if it weighed nothing, but it landed on the table in front of Matthias with a heavy smack.
“About Zekariah and Jarrett.”
“That is none of my concern. There are clothes in there. Boots. You’ll need to clean up.”
Matthias glanced at his mother; she seemed as puzzled as he.
“Clean up,” the captain repeated. “The Queen has summoned you.”
The sound of the door slamming brought me back to myself. Davy’s footsteps were already fading into the house, up the stairs toward his room. Jacqui was standing in the doorway, her keys in her hand, her purse under her arm.
“You’re not coming to his game?”
It wasn’t really a question, and I didn’t answer. I just closed the book slowly.
She shook her head. “You should have bought him The Lord of the Rings.”
She walked away before I could say anything.
Mareigh swept aside the heavy curtain and stepped into Matthias’s sleeping room without warning. He hurriedly finished pulling the new shirt over his head.
“I’m worried for you,” she whispered, so as not to be overheard by the guard at the foot of the narrow staircase.
Matthias was scared too, more than he would let his mother see. His insides had turned to water when the captain delivered his summons, and the feeling was only getting worse.
“You know the captain?” he asked.
“Captain Bream,” she said. “He served with your father.”
“But …”
She squeezed his arm so tightly it hurt. “Stop,” she said firmly. “We don’t have much time.”
He pulled his arm away from her and took a step back. His legs pressed against his low bed.
She moved closer to him. “You have to be careful,” she whispered. “The Queen …” She shook her head as if she had decided something. “She gets what she wants.”
Of course she g
ets what she wants, she’s the Queen. He didn’t dare say so; his mother’s face was white and taut.
“I’ll be all right,” he whispered, though he feared the words were a lie.
He hugged his mother close, holding her tight until Captain Bream called for him from the tavern below.
“Be careful,” she said, as he started down the stairs.
The captain looked at him appraisingly as he descended. “That will have to do, I suppose.”
Matthias had hoped to see Arian one last time, but the captain led him directly into the street, where the King’s Men formed a tight circle around him. There was nowhere for him to turn, no way for him to run, and he fell into step with them as they led him away, up the sharp rise of the island, toward the castle.
“Are your teeth brushed?” I asked, up to my elbows in soapy water.
“Nolan fed?”
“Yup.” He was already in his pyjamas, and his face was red and shiny from a recent encounter with a washcloth.
“Okay. I’ll be up in a sec.”
I finished the dishes and opened a bottle of red wine, leaving it on the counter to breathe as I went upstairs to read David his story.
Jacqui and I passed on the stairs: she was coming down after kissing David good-night. I tried smiling at her, but her face displayed the same stony rigour she had maintained since dinner.
I tried to put it out of my mind before I got to David’s room.
Davy’s bedtime was my favourite part of the day, and we had stumbled into it by accident. When Jacqui had gone back to work at the ER after her maternity leave, we had talked about the importance of consistency and routine. Knowing how crazy her schedule was going to be—shifts all over the map, on-call so often—we had decided that it would be best if bedtime were my domain.
It worked for me, too. I was at home, busy with the new book, and finding routine was essential for both my writing and my sanity.
At first it had been easy. Babies don’t need much of a bedtime routine. As Davy got older it became more involved: fights about tooth-brushing, constant negotiations for extra time, arguments about TV shows.
That was before we discovered reading together.
Bedtime Story Page 2