“I thank you for your kindness.”
The girl bobbed her head, then set the basin down. “When you are dressed, I shall have Cook make a goodly meal to warm your insides.”
“I cannot eat. Worry has stolen my appetite, as surely as a thief.”
“We must pray for God’s mercy,” the girl said, placing Mouse’s clothes on the bed. “In the meantime, your sword and your puppets are safe in that trunk in the corner. Your horse is in the stable, but my lord says you will want different trappings before you ride again.” She turned toward the door. “He says you are to ask for anything you need.”
“There is aught I need but my puppeteer,” Mouse said.
When the maid had gone, Mouse tumbled from the bed and opened the trunk. There lay her beloved puppets in a dirty tangle of shattered limbs, broken strings, and tattered costumes that smelled strongly of smoke. She gathered them all into her arms. “I will not cry,” she whispered, “but I am sore afraid.”
The sorcerer’s head tilted to one side, as if he were listening. Mouse gazed intently into his black eyes. “If it please you,” she said thickly, “cast a spell to make our puppeteer well, for I cannot live without her.”
Then the door opened and a small voice said, “Oh!”
In came a little girl of no more than seven summers. She set the tray she carried on the chair and tiptoed across the room. “Oh, they are wondrous. If it please you, may I touch them?”
Mouse wiped her eyes. “You must take care, for they are very old, and now they are broken, as you can see.” She lifted Sir Alfred, who had lost an arm in the fray. “This one is my favorite.”
“Are they magic?” the girl asked.
“I once thought so. But I have learned the real magic lies in the happiness they bring to others.”
“Will you give a show for us?”
“When my puppeteer is well again.”
“Nurse Catchpole says the wound is mortal, but we must pray all the same.”
For the first time since her ordeal began, Mouse allowed herself to consider all she would lose if her puppeteer should leave her. “She will live. And if you wish to see my puppets again, you will speak no more of death.”
“Forgive me,” the child said prettily. “Surely you are right.” She touched Sir Alfred’s damp, smoky cloak. “What happened to his other arm? Why does that wire come from his head? Will you show me how he works?”
“Mayhap another day.”
“On the morrow?”
“I cannot promise.”
“For All Hallows’, then,” the girl said, her eyes alight with mischief. “I should like a play with witches and ghosts, if it please you. Something scary to shiver the bones and send Nurse Catchpole screaming from the room in terror.”
“Lunette?” a woman called from the hallway.
“Nurse Catchpole! I must go!” The girl waggled her fingers at Mouse and hurried away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Puppeteer’s Tale
“She has awakened,” the duke told Mouse on a cold morning three days later. “She is very weak but begs your presence straightaway.”
Setting aside the new head she was carving for the dragon, Mouse rose and drew the puppeteer’s gray cloak tightly about her shoulders. Despite the fire crackling in the grate, the stone walls of her bedchamber seemed to hoard the chill wind that had the night before dusted all of Gimingham with snow.
“I must apologize for failing to look after you properly,” he said as they left the room and continued along the corridor. “My thoughts have been so taken by the plight of your companion, I have quite forgotten everything else. Is there aught you need?”
“I am well, sir.”
He nodded. “My daughter, Lunette, has spoken of nothing but your puppets since the day you arrived. If her attentions become too burdensome, you have but to say so.”
“She is no burden,” Mouse said, hurrying to keep up with his long strides. “Tell me, how fares my puppeteer?”
He stopped before the door to a bedchamber and fixed her with a kindly gaze. “You seem a sensible young woman, so I shall speak plainly. Her wound is so grave, I cannot believe she will live. Still, such matters are not for mortals to decide.”
He opened the door. Mouse rushed to the bed where the puppeteer lay, looking pale and insubstantial as moonlight, her silver hair like a halo around her head. Against the white linen her black eye patch was stark as a lump of coal in snow.
“Mouse.” Slowly, the puppeteer’s blue eye opened, and she smiled wanly. “You are not harmed. But what of our puppets?”
Holding tightly to the puppeteer’s hand, Mouse said, “Sir Alfred has lost an arm, and most of the others are dirty and broken. But they are safe.” She swallowed the hard lump in her throat. “And your sword is safe too, but the wagon will want repair when you are well.”
Tears spilled down the puppeteer’s cheek. She closed her eye.
The duke motioned Mouse to a chair beside the fire. “Sit here, my dear. Your puppeteer bids me tell you this tale, which begins many years ago, when I was young and newly installed in these parts.”
Mouse sat but kept her gaze fastened on the puppeteer.
“One evening,” the duke began, “I came upon a band of travelers who had stopped for the night in an abandoned church near Marbury Wood. It was very late and very cold. The travelers welcomed me to their fire and shared their meat and drink, though they had little to spare.
“In this troupe were a minstrel or two, a jester, and a puppet master and his young daughter. She was a winsome sprite in a crimson cloak, with silver-colored braids and eyes so blue, they put the flowers to shame. After we had supped, she climbed onto her father’s wagon and, with her puppets, performed the story of Jason, who made rain by casting water upon a sacred stone.”
Mouse nodded. She had learned the story of Jason and the wondrous tasks he performed in his quest for the golden fleece just after Midsummer’s Eve, when a week of rain held her and the puppeteer captive inside the wagon.
“Later that night I became so ill, I thought I might die. When morning came, the others in the troupe resumed their journey, but the puppet master and his daughter stayed behind to care for me.”
The bedchamber door opened, and Lunette came in balancing a tray laden with cups of ale, a bowl of steaming broth, and a plate of raisin cakes. “Cook says you must eat.”
“And so we shall,” the duke said. “But you should be at your music lessons, Lunette.”
“Chords and scales! Pray tell, Father, how can I possibly concentrate on anything so boring while there is a real puppeteer in the house?” She grinned. “I gave the serving girl a ha’penny to let me come in her stead.” To Mouse she said, “Have I not been patient for three entire days? When will you show me how to make the puppets dance?”
“This is hardly the time to beg favors,” the duke told her. “Go along now and leave this young woman in peace.”
When Lunette had gone, he handed Mouse a cup, then took up the bellows and tended the fire till the flames rekindled. “Where was I?”
“The puppeteers stayed behind to look after you,” Mouse prompted.
“Quite so. The next evening Ordin, enraged that I had recently recovered some land he had stolen from me, overtook me and set upon me with fist and dagger, despite my weakened condition.”
“Coward,” Mouse muttered.
“Indeed. And to think he was once a respected landowner, a friend to our king, till he fell out of favor and was overcome by bitterness. Never before had a man looked at me with such hatred. Had it not been for the puppet master and his daughter, I would not have lived to tell this tale.”
The bedcovers rustled, and the puppeteer opened her eye again. “Father was very brave.”
“As were you, my dear,” the duke said. To Mouse he said, “Though they had no weapons save a spade and the rocks lying in the field, they fought my attacker and spared my life. This only enraged Ordin further. He shouted a
t me that he would not rest till I lay dead and all these lands were his. But in his enforced absence my holdings grew till it would have been impossible to usurp my land, with all my men here to guard it. I can only suppose he began then to live for revenge against those who had saved my life.”
“That morning in the wood,” Mouse began, frowning, “Ordin said it was my puppeteer who had sent him to prison.”
The duke nodded. “She and her father witnessed against him for the attack on me in the churchyard, and he was sent away. Thankful for their aid, I sought them out at the fair in Reedham and gave them a silver sword as a token of my gratitude.”
“Besides our puppets, it was the thing Father held most dear in this world,” the puppeteer murmured.
“That is not quite so,” the duke said gently. “You were his greatest treasure.” He lifted his own sword from a table near the fire and placed it in Mouse’s hands. “The carving is meant to represent the three faces of time. The wolf devours the past, the lion gives courage for the present, and the dog is a faithful companion for the future.”
“Come closer, Mouse,” the puppeteer rasped.
Mouse knelt at the puppeteer’s bedside.
“I would not leave you with a wrong impression of your friend Simon Swann,” the puppeteer said. “Though I tried to discredit his story, it is mostly true. Some years after the duke had given us the sword, Father and I were on our way to a fair in Staffordshire when we were set upon by three men, just as Swann told. Two were strangers, but the third was Ordin. He beat Father unmercifully, and when I went to Father’s aid, Ordin attacked me with his dagger. Though I was badly hurt and blinded in one eye, I hid in the wood and escaped with my life. Father and the two musicians traveling with us were not spared.”
The duke brought the puppeteer the bowl of broth and held her shoulders while she tried to sip it.
“Hush now and sleep,” he said. “The rest of this tale will wait upon another day.”
But the puppeteer continued. “Someone, mayhap it was Swann, buried them deep in the wood and left Father’s sword to mark the graves. When darkness fell, I retrieved the sword. As soon as I was able, I disguised our wagon with paint from our pots. I bound up my hair and, from that day to this, traveled as a man.” She stopped to recover her breath, then went on. “I have spent my life looking over my shoulder, knowing Ordin would not rest till he had found me, too.”
“But surely some kind family would have taken you in,” Mouse said. “The duke—”
“I would have looked after her as my own,” the duke agreed, “if I had but known of her plight. As fate would have it, I was abroad for some years and knew nothing of it.”
“I was far from this place and unsure of where it lay,” the puppeteer said. “In time I grew quite content living on the road, giving shows with my puppets.”
“Were you not afraid?” Mouse said.
“Of course I was, at first. But I had lived with Father all my life, so it was easy enough to wear his clothes, to walk and speak as he had. Being alone did not frighten me nearly so much as living as an orphan, at the mercy of strangers.”
Sudden guilt washed over Mouse in such a hot, sickening wave that she thought she might faint. “If only I had told you!” she cried. “I saw Ordin at the ribbon seller’s in Marlingford. I asked him to our play. And that day in Wickham, when we ran from those horrid boys and your hood slipped off your hair, he must have seen us then. If you had not been rescuing me—”
“My dear Mouse. This trouble is not of your making,” the puppeteer said. “I saw Ordin in Marlingford as we drove into the village and, later, as he watched our play from the back of the crowd. As he made no move to harm us, I was certain he had not recognized me. But then I saw his face at the theater in Reedham while we waited for our permit. His gaze was so full of hate, I knew he had found me out.”
“That is why you were so jumpy that day,” Mouse said. “You were afraid. Why did you not tell me?”
“I did not wish to alarm you on the eve of your first performance.”
“Someone followed me in the crowd that night,” Mouse said. “I meant to warn you, but then Simon found us, and I was so happy to see him, I forgot. Oh, I am such an addle brain! This is all my fault.”
She bent over the puppeteer’s bed. Now that she knew about Ordin, everything else—Alice the goose woman’s tale, Simon’s story, the puppeteer’s nervousness and secrecy—all made sense. Still, she was disappointed her mentor had not trusted her with the truth. “Why did you not tell me sooner?”
“I hoped to keep you safe, little one,” the puppeteer said weakly. “For I have grown much fonder of you than I intended.”
“That is why you refused me your name, that morning in Marbury Wood.”
The puppeteer nodded and tightened her grasp on Mouse’s hand.
“Ordin cannot harm us anymore,” Mouse said. “When spring comes and you are well, we shall go just where we please, merry as the day is long.”
“You must not hope for things that will never be,” the puppeteer whispered. “Come closer, Mouse, and do not let go of my hand. Death comes soon.”
“The pain makes you speak so!” Mouse cried. “But you must not say such things. I cannot bear it.”
“We bear what we must.” In the flickering firelight the puppeteer’s face was serene. “Will you swear a solemn oath?”
Choking back her sobs, Mouse nodded.
“Look after our dear puppets.”
“By all the saints, I do swear it.”
“For all their beauty, without your spirit they are naught but bits of wood and paint.”
“I will guard their lives as my own,” Mouse said.
“Finish our play. Make our jesters dance. And when the people laugh, remember me.”
“How can I think of laughter when my heart is broken? I cannot tell our stories without you. It is too soon! I am not ready!”
“You are afraid,” the puppeteer whispered hoarsely. “But you will find a way. A kite rises highest against the wind.”
The duke turned from the window, his cheeks glistening with tears.
The puppeteer drew a long, shuddering breath. “I leave to you, my dear apprentice, all I have in this world—our wagon and our puppets, my scabbard and sword. And my name, if you would have it.”
Mouse bent over the bed once more, her tears falling fast onto the puppeteer’s pillow. The puppeteer’s breath was but a whisper as she bestowed upon Mouse her final gift.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A Beginning
They buried the puppeteer on a rise overlooking the river. Standing with the duke and Lunette as the prayers were read, Mouse recalled the fortune-teller’s words: a long journey, a great sorrow, a dream fulfilled.
“Ashes to ashes,” the priest intoned. “Dust to dust.”
Her dream had come true but at much too dear a price. If only the puppeteer might be restored to life, Mouse thought, she would gladly give up everything. But there existed in the world no sorcery or magic stronger than death. Tears ran along the faded scar on her cheek and trickled into the collar of the worn red cloak pulled tightly about her shoulders. Sick with grief, she leaned upon the arm of the stricken duke.
From across the rise came the sound of iron against iron and the rattle of milk pails. Mouse wondered how the smithy and the dairymaids could go on about their chores as if nothing had happened, when her own world had been so completely sundered.
“Laus Deo and amen.” The priest closed his prayer book and tossed a handful of dirt on the coffin.
Mouse hid her face and sobbed.
The duke placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “This seems a cheerless place just now, but when spring comes, I shall plant primroses hereabouts. I shall make a garden for her as long as God grants me breath. Is there naught I can do to ease your grief?”
Lunette slipped her gloved hand into Mouse’s bare one. “Father says you may stay here as long as you wish. I hope you stay forever
. Oh, say you will, at least till Christmas!”
Mouse stared blankly at the little girl. Fortune had made havoc of all her dreams. What would she do now?
“We are in your debt, my dear, for ridding us of a great menace,” the duke said. “You shall want for nothing this house affords for as long as you care to stay. There will be time to think of the future once the winter snows are past.”
“Do not be so sad, Mouse,” Lunette said. “On the morrow we shall celebrate All Hallows’. Cook will make wassail and Father will take us a-souling.”
“We shall have wassail,” the duke agreed, “but I do not think it proper to go running about the village begging for sweet cakes while we mourn our puppeteer.”
“Oh.” Lunette looked crestfallen for a moment, then brightened. “Mayhap you will give a puppet play, Mouse. I should think that would be more exciting than a-souling.”
Before the duke could speak, Mouse surprised herself, saying, “Mayhap I will.”
The next night after supper, Mouse, the duke, Lunette, Nurse Catchpole, and the serving girl Mouse had met upon her arrival gathered before the fireplace in the dining hall. The wassail cups were passed, and Mouse brought out her puppets.
As she had on the day of her first performance, Mouse spread the blue cloth on the floor and arranged the folds to look like waves on water. Then she brought out Bridget, Sir Alfred, and Noah. After carefully suspending Sir Alfred from the back of a vacant chair, she said, “I shall need an assistant.”
She pretended to look about the room, pretended not to see Lunette’s small hand waving wildly in the air.
“I will help!” the girl finally cried, and then Mouse showed Lunette how to hold Noah still so his strings would not get tangled.
“Take care,” Mouse cautioned, “for he is quite heavy. You must not drop him on his head.”
“I will not hurt him,” the little girl promised, her eyes shining.
Turning to her small audience, Mouse said, “Without a proper stage, I cannot show the sword. You must use your imaginations and think of it suspended here, in the middle of the water.”
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