The daughter of Lady Katryna and Baron Seymaur. The Painted Pig spoke of her. Katryna died in childbirth and Seymaur was executed as a traitor. Their daughter would have had her title and inheritance seized by the throne. It comes to me that this Lady Miranda has a very good reason to hate the Queen.
The head cook squats over the syllabub and spoons a bit into his mouth. He spits it out.
‘What is it?’ asks one of the lower cooks.
‘Tastes off. Could be poison,’ he answers with hard in his voice. ‘Get the Queen’s secretary.’ Black Fingers.
That’s when I follow Lady Miranda out of the tent at a run.
31. GRISTLE
MIRANDA’S BODY IS dark against the low light of the field kitchen pit fires. She’s running, but not very well. It’s dark, and the field’s uneven. And she’s no doubt accustomed to flagged stone beneath her slippered feet.
I veer away from her. I’m not running well either. My ankle keeps me stumbling. But the jakes aren’t far. They’ll give me some cover, and from there I’ll make my way across the field and towards town. All I know is, I want to stay away from Miranda. With luck, Black Fingers’ll go towards her first.
It’s as I’m rounding the corner of the jakes that I hear his voice. ‘Milady? How now? What’s happened?’ I look back to the field kitchen. His arm is still wrapped in a cloth. The Country Mouse.
I should keep going. I should break for the edge of the field before Black Fingers and his guards swarm out of the tent. But he’s alone with a killer. My breath comes fast and hard. Grass tickles against my swelling ankle.
‘What – why are you here?’ Miranda says.
‘The tent was too warm, I came out to take some air. It’s Lady Miranda, isn’t it? Are you unwell? You were running.’
‘I am unwell, yes. And turned around. Tell me, which way is the road?’
‘The road? I’ll call somefolk to help you. There must be a linkboy about.’ The Country Mouse turns towards the main tent. ‘Hello?’ he cries. ‘Hello?!’
Quick as a fox, Miranda pulls a long, iron flesh-hook from its place near a pit fire with a gloved hand. ‘Keep quiet!’ Miranda says, jabbing the hook at the Country Mouse. ‘Do as I say, and take me to the road or I’ll gut you.’ Her body’s bent like she’s been cornered by dogs. Before I know it I’m running towards them.
She sees me out of the side of her eye and steps back without thinking. Good, she’s off her balance. But she’s still got the hook. Its tapered prongs glisten with meat fat as she turns on me. It’s the first time I see her fully. A forgettable face in a simple wool dress and wide sleeves. A small gold brooch her only adornment for the revels. Lady Miranda is Mush Face. The girl who went hungry in Bethany’s castle even though her mother had been a queen.
With my lame ankle, I haven’t got much hope in a fight, so I use what I’ve got. I hold the S on my collar up to catch the firelight.
But Mush Face doesn’t falter like Fair Hair did. Her breathing doesn’t even change. This should be a warning to me. She’s desperate or mad. Indeed, before I can think what to do, she jumps forward and slashes at me with the hook. My ankle rolls as I jerk out of the way. I fall hard on the ground, nearly landing in a pit fire. Wavering heat flushes my face. I roll away from the fire only to find myself looking direct at the prongs of Mush Face’s flesh-hook.
There’s a thud as the Country Mouse charges into her, knocking the hook away. She scuttles after and rises up with it clutched in her two hands like a broadsword. ‘I’ll kill you both.’
The Country Mouse is on the ground, holding his burnt arm and breathing fast. Knocking Mush Face was too much. She rushes him, raising the hook like she’s going to strike.
I scream the only words left to me, ‘Tell me your sins!’
My voice startles her to stillness, the flesh-hook still raised to strike. ‘Are you the Maker’s revenge?’ she breathes.
‘Your sins,’ I say again. I don’t have any other plan.
Mush Face keeps the hook aimed at the Country Mouse. ‘If you have followed me, then you know my sins.’
‘Recite them,’ I call.
Her face suddenly loses its dullness. ‘I killed them.’ She speaks hard and direct, as if she’s got no shame to say the words aloud. ‘My father fornicated with the Queen when she was fourteen. Did you know that?’ She searches me for surprise and finds none. She says harder, ‘Corliss and the other tutors taught me to read Latin, Greek, Hebrew. It was the one benefaction I received. And what did it buy me? I discovered a tapestry with the Queen’s shame woven into it. The Queen got with child by her own stepfather, my dear papa.’ The hook’s still aimed at the Country Mouse. ‘That gabby-goose Tilly Howe confirmed it once I gave her enough wine. Tilly delivered the child. The Queen made Corliss and the rest swear to kill it. And now I’m killing them. For my half sibling who was murdered. For my mother, who was betrayed by her husband and stepdaughter. For the fortune that was stolen from me.’ She looks at my collar. ‘You know the truth. You heard their Recitations. There were hearts on Corliss’s and Tilly’s coffins.’
I do know the truth. No hearts were recited. But Mush Face thinks there were. She doesn’t know the bastard wasn’t killed. Tilly Howe kept that from her.
‘Those are my sins,’ she says with a sort of pride. ‘I killed two. The fire was a mishap.’ She nods at the Country Mouse. ‘It’s more difficult to control than poison, but the old lady wouldn’t take my wine. She’ll die soon anyhow. Her burns have turned black, and she’s fevered with the corruption. She’ll not last two days. And, now that the Queen is as alone as I am, I will kill her too.’ A blackness comes into her eyes, and her fingers tighten on the hook. She’s going to try to kill us.
She pulls back to strike, so I go straight for her, grabbing at the hook’s shaft. We wrestle it between us. Years of scrubbing and rinsing bedclothes builds you up different than years of books and embroidery; still, she holds fast, pulling me around in a circle. I feel sudden heat against my legs. She’s turned me up against a pit fire. Clever as a fox, she is. I push back against her hard, but my ankle gives and slips down into the pit, my heel burning in the embers. One more push from her, and I’ll fall fully into the fire.
I grab behind me. Metal burns into the palm of my hand as I catch the handle of a cauldron hanging from the spit. I shriek like a crow and swing it as hard as I can into her face. It catches her jawbone, throwing her head back with a crack. She lands on the trampled grass, moaning like an animal.
I fall to the grass too, breathing hard. But something sharp sticks me in the chest. It’s a golden brooch, the one Mush Face was wearing. It must have fallen in the fight. I pull it out of my skin. A pair of golden wings. It’s Baron Seymaur’s badge. It must be her only token of her family. I recall I saw the wings that awful night in the castle’s banner room beside Katryna’s badge of a girl coming out of a rose.
No, the golden wings weren’t in the banner room. But I feel as if I saw the two badges together. A girl coming from a flower and golden wings. Where was it?
Then it comes to me. I saw them in Corliss’s tapestry. In the tree, there was a girl coming out of a flower with golden wings. The two badges, joined into one.
The whole picture comes into my mind, the Queen touching her belly with one hand and touching the tree with the other. The joined badges are the fruit of the tree. The fruit of the Queen’s tree.
All at once wards slide into place, and the lock opens.
I stagger to standing. Across the grass, Mush Face has raised herself up to hands and knees. ‘I haven’t told you the list of foods,’ I call to her.
Mush Face raises her head. Her jaw hangs at a sickening angle.
‘When you die a traitor’s death,’ I say, ‘I’ll eat pig hearts for each of the women you murdered.’ Mush Face pushes herself to kneeling. ‘There’s no punishment for being born a bastard,’ I tell her. Her head swings towards me, her eyes confused. ‘But if you succeed in killing the Queen,’ I go on,
‘I’ll eat swan heart on your coffin. For killing your own mother.’
She looks at me, not believing. But I’m right. The belly knows. Mush Face read the stranger word, Chavah, on the tapestry and believed it was the only message, as folk who know their letters would. But common folk see meaning in pictures, like beggar’s marks.
The tapestry says that Queen Bethany’s bastard is the child of Baron Seymaur and Katryna. At least, the child thought to be Baron Seymaur and Katryna’s. Mush Face is the Queen’s bastard.
‘That’s a lie,’ Mush Face cries through her broken jaw.
The Eucharistian countess in the dungeon served Katryna as a lady-in-waiting. She spoke about a cuckoo bird, and I thought at the time she was talking nonsense, but she wasn’t. She must have known, or at least suspected, the truth.
Bethany wanted to kill her bastard. She asked Corliss, Tilly, and the Painted Pig to do it. They swore they would. But then they deceived her. They helped Bethany, but not in the way she asked.
When Katryna’s labouring went poorly, it wasn’t just Katryna who passed. The babe died too. Fragile things, babes. Corliss and the others replaced it with Bethany’s bastard. They made a bastard into a changeling.
‘There were hearts on the coffins!’ Mush Face screeches with gritted teeth.
‘They were placed there wrongfully,’ I finally say aloud. ‘I don’t know who put them there, but they never were recited.’
I let that sit for a breath. Then I say one last thing. ‘You killed the only folk who wanted you alive.’ Corliss, Tilly, the Painted Pig. ‘All the rest, if they find out who you are, will want you dead.’
She’s a clever woman, Mush Face, and I see the wards in her own heart clicking into place. Her eyes spark bright and then get dull. She knows it’s true.
From the direction of the main tent come men’s cries. Black Fingers and the guards. Mush Face scrambles to her feet and stumbles away into the field. I need to run too.
I look for the Country Mouse. He’s pulling himself up. The guards will be here shortly. He’ll be safe with them. Blood’s seeping into his linen bandages. No, not linens. His shoulder’s wrapped in a shawl. The one I left behind.
For just a moment he looks over at me. Then he turns and calls out to the guards coming from the main tent. ‘She ran off that way,’ and he points them away from us, in pursuit of Mush Face.
Whispering a thank-you with my heart, I stagger off into the dark field.
32. FRUMENTY
I LIE AGAIN ON the grave of my da. It seems the safest place to wait out Black Fingers and his guards. And I know I won’t be back again for a good long time. Black Fingers. The Willow Tree. Mush Face. I need a fresh place where no folk want me dead.
Looking up at the gravestone from where I lie, the O, N, and S in OWENS look the same even though they are upside down. It seems a kind of magic that they can do this. The W, on the other hand, turns into an M for May. And the E becomes something I don’t recognize. Kind of like where I am now. Some of the things about me are the same. Some are new. And some have lost all sense.
I say three prayers on the grave. Two to the Maker, first in thanks for guiding me safely out of the field, even though my ankle’s a swollen wreck and my hand badly burnt. And, second, a prayer for safe passage out of town. The third prayer is to my mother for teaching me all the things I thought I didn’t want to know. I see now I needed my Daffrey blood to come this far. To make good on my promise to Ruth. And I’ll need my Daffrey blood again in the coming months. I finish the prayers as always, May it be. May it be. May it be.
In the darkest part of the night, I return to Dungsbrook. Brida is sitting on my-now-her rug. Jane and her children are asleep on the other side of the hearth. I take off the skirt I took from the actor behind the stage and place it next to Brida. A gift. I wish I had something for Paul.
Brida sees my burnt hand and takes a noisy breath through her nose hole. She points to the drippings jar by the cook pot. Grease. I put a good dollop on my hand and slip the jar into my apron pocket for later.
Up in the loft I return the coif I took. Then I open Ruth’s box one more time. I touch her ring and the charms made for her babes who didn’t live. I know now why the women were poisoned. Whether Mush Face will be caught and who placed deer hearts on the coffins are still mysteries. But I did my best by Ruth. I know it.
All at once the door below opens. My whole body tightens, sure it’s Black Fingers and his guards. But there’s no voice, just soft footsteps. Must be Paul or Frederick returning from the revels. I stay still and quiet for a good long while after the footsteps cease, just to be sure. Then I collect my own box. I drop Fair Hair’s lock of hair inside. Like the things in the other sin eater boxes, no folk will know the whole story of it. But it’s something. A marker that I’ve lived and I’ve mattered.
There’s a soft mewling as I climb down the ladder. Jane’s baby in its sleep, I think. But it’s not. It’s a kitten. Right in the middle of the floor. Whoever opened the door must have left it. What an odd thing. The kitten has a strip of cloth tied around its neck. The cloth matches my lost shawl.
I run to the door and look out, but the road’s empty. Back inside I stare at the kitten. I scoop it up and drop it in my apron pocket with the drippings jar.
I stroke the cat’s fur as I slip out of the back of the house. I want to go to the Domus Conversorum to thank the Instrument Maker for his help. But I don’t want to be seen. And I have an odd feeling, like I’ll be seeing him again.
Instead, I go through the woad dyer’s yard, since its stench makes it the last place any pursuers would want to go. I find a stout stick to help me walk on my sore ankle, and up I go along the river’s marshy edge, past where the pig men dump offal and where the rakers burn rubbish, on and on until there’s no more sign of folk except stone fences and pastures. I walk until my ankle can’t keep on.
The kitten and I make our bed for the night in a sheepfold. It’s musty and sour-smelling but warm enough. Mouse, as I’ve named the kitten, and I lick grease from the jar for our supper.
I’m not certain where we’ll go. But anywhere there are folk, they’ll need a sin eater.
AFTER
WHIPPED SYLLABUB
I COULD’VE THROWN AWAY the collar. I could’ve boarded a barge and made my way to a strange land. I had the choice. Instead, I chose to keep walking. I walked along wooded paths. Across fields. Through country villages. Whenever folk saw me, whenever their eyes widened at a lone beggar girl trespassing on their land, whenever their lips opened to call for a constable, I lifted my hand to the collar, and they buggered off. The collar proved right useful. I wore it every day of my walking. At night it sat in my box. I was wearing it when I found a place that felt right.
The town I’ve chosen is smaller than where I grew up. But there’s a school for Makermen that keeps it full of folk. There was a sin eater living here when I arrived, but she didn’t seem at all surprised when I opened the door to the house with the S hung over the door holding a skinny kitten.
She’s an old body, and nothing seems to surprise her much. I go with her to Recitations and Eatings, and sometimes when she’s doing poorly I go alone.
One day when autumn has begun to drive light from the mornings and evenings, I’m called to the Recitation of an old body. It’s a day when the old sin eater’s doing poorly. I put on my collar and go alone.
The man was a doctor, he recites. He worked for a highborn family most of his life but left their employ when the daughter of the family, by then a married woman, died in childbirth and her babe not long after. He couldn’t bear to stay. But before he left, he did something. ‘I partook in a grave misdeed.’ He doesn’t name names, but I start to put things together, because the old body doing the reciting is called Old Doctor Howe. He’s Tilly’s father. The lady he served was Katryna. And her stepdaughter was Bethany.
Another old body sits with Old Doctor Howe. A man with a stoop and a merry look in bulgy eyes. When Old
Doctor Howe begins to weep with his rememberings, the bulgy-eyed man takes Doctor Howe’s hand and holds it to his cheek, like a mother or a goodwife.
Doctor Howe tells me the rest, confirming what I guessed in the field that night, without even a prompt. ‘The stepdaughter was with child as well, and far along.’ He slows his words. ‘She made her ladies swear that when the babe was born to smother it in its swaddle.’
Old Doctor Howe gathers himself. ‘We decided . . . We agreed,’ he amends, ‘that we would keep her from ruin. We would bury the past, but we could not murder the baby girl. We placed her where she would be safe and never spoke of it again.’
It’s the bulgy-eyed man I give the list of foods to. He has a musty-mouth smell that reminds me of the Willow Tree, but his eyes are filled with grief as he marks the foods down on a slate.
Two days later, the old sin eater and I are at Old Doctor Howe’s Eating in his large home. Lots of folk come and sit. The main chamber has a big tapestry across from where they’ve set the coffin. It’s of the heavenly plains and shows Adam, the keeper of the fields and orchards. It reminds me of Corliss’s tapestry, and I recall that I never sorted out who placed the deer hearts on the women’s coffins.
As I’m chewing mustard seeds, I give it a good think. Queen Bethany thought her babe was killed. She would have expected to see deer hearts on Corliss’s and Tilly’s coffins. Mayhap somefolk placed the hearts to continue the fiction. Mayhap they thought she would have the bastard killed if she learned of it. Or mayhap they thought she would claim it. My granddam said once a babe’s out and living, a mother can’t deny it. A queen with a bastard would lose her throne, and her closest advisers would lose everything with her.
I see the bulgy-eyed man in a chair at the back of the chamber. I wonder that he doesn’t take a seat closer to the coffin. He must be close kin to have taken the list of foods for Doctor Howe.
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