The Baron's Ring

by Mary C. Findley

  “Lito, stop bothering the baron,” Thomas snapped, and Tristan felt the boy pulling away again. “We’ll talk about it some more at home.”

  “He’s not bothering me, Thomas,” Tristan said firmly. “I want him to understand. Lito, the last thing my eyes saw were some hot coals that came flying at me. They were so hot and so bright my eyes seem to have just shut up inside somewhere and they won’t open up again and let me see. I can’t read books, and I can’t correct your lessons. How will I know if you spell a word wrong, or if you make a mistake in your sums?”

  “Oh,” Lito said soberly. “I didn’t think about that. Mayra used to say your head was stuffed with so many things it was all right that the school hardly had any books. She said you had at least a hundred books in your head. Maybe a thousand. Wait! You can still tell us about the things you remember. And Mayra can do all that other stuff. She doesn’t need to go to school anymore, She married the teacher. So she can tell you what we write.”

  Tristan hesitated, but only for a moment. He felt Thomas and Ilesa beside him, about to burst into another reprimand and drag Lito away. He took a deep breath. “If we did do school like that, Lito, and my wife helped me, could you remember to call her Lady Mayra, and could all the others, do you think?”

  “Of course, if you say we should, Master Tristan,”

  Lito said. “So when will the school begin?”

  “I must ask the Lady Mayra if she wishes to be my helper with the school first,” Tristan answered.

  “Of course she does,” Lito laughed. “She loves school, and she loves to help you, Master Tristan. And besides, she’s been standing right there listening to us practically the whole time, and she’s smiling so big I know it makes her happy just thinking about it.”

  Tristan was a bit disturbed at first to find this new method of teaching school was a great deal more informal than it had been before. It was more like the times he had shared with Mayra outside regular classes. But the children loved it, Mayra was blissfully happy, and Tristan soon got over his feeling that he had no idea what was going on.

  Classes were usually held at the estate. They wrote lessons with chalk on the long stone terrace (which was carefully cleaned by the pupils after Mayra checked the work). Older students figured yields of wine based on the projected grape harvest. They determined how much the cattle herd had grown in the last five years. Vancus took them through the vineyard and the wine production cellar. Tristan had Gringus the town carpenter make wooden shapes and counting blocks so he could teach the younger children shapes and check some of the figuring work himself.

  But the second day of school five students were missing. “That’s odd,” Mayra said when classes were over. “Two of them are Brinarra and Clothis’ children. They’re right here on the estate. I’ll just go see Brinarra in the kitchen right now.”

  “Now you be careful what you say to Brinarra,” Tristan admonished. “We can’t do without those pastries she makes for Sundays, you know.”

  Laughing, they parted ways and Tristan joined Vancus in the vineyard. Several hours later when he returned to the house no one seemed to know where Mayra was. He prowled the whole place and finally, without much hope, went to their sleeping quarters. Mayra was never in their rooms at this time of day, never there at all except for sleeping and dressing and bathing. Tristan listened at the door, sniffed the air, found no trace of Mayra’s customary perfume or the tinkling of the bells or polished stones or beads hanging from her clothes. He was about to leave the room when he heard the muffled sound of a choked-back sob.

  “Mayra?” he called out. He approached the bed and found a huddled form swathed in blankets and buried under pillows. Tristan touched soft hair and found his wife trying to stifle heart-rending sobs.

  “My love, what’s wrong?” Tristan pleaded, trying to draw her head into his lap. “What’s happened? Are you ill? Where is your mother?”

  “A birthing across the valley,” Mayra managed to say thickly.

  “I’ll send for her right away.”

  “Don’t, please, I’m not ill.” Mayra said, clinging to Tristan with all her strength.

  “Tell me what’s wrong. You haven’t cried like this since we were married.”

  “I went to see Brinarra, and I found Kisla playing in the kitchen hallway,” Mayra said, a rush of words breaking from her. “I asked him why he wasn’t at school and he said his mother said he couldn’t go. He said he didn’t know why. I went into the kitchen but I was just in time to hear Brinarra talking to the others. I heard her say that I had taken advantage of their poor blind baron, turned your head with my perfumes and silks and was probably drugging you just like the old mistress had done to her husband, and that next I would be after their husbands.”

  Tristan sent for Ilesa and cradled Mayra in his arms while he waited for her to arrive. He left Mayra alone, quiet for the moment, and told Ilesa what had happened.

  “When this first came out,” Ilesa said, “the night it all happened, in fact, we tried to make sure no one outside the house knew what had happened to Mayra. People in town were simply told that you intervened to stop Mayra from being beaten. Many of the household servants, of course, must have known the truth but we were sure we had persuaded them of Mayra’s innocence and the need for silence on the subject. Most of them were so sympathetic and helpful we never dreamed something like this would happen. Tristan, remember that in Mayra’s mind, she was a princess preparing herself for her prince. The perfumes, the ornaments, the clothes were for you. Even though you can’t see her, every day you know how beautiful she has made herself for you by the smells, the sounds, the feel of the fabrics she chooses. She delights to do that, and you delight in her. It’s so beautiful and obvious to anyone who understands.

  “But some of these people don’t know what a princess is like. They do know what their mistress was like. Unfortunately, they are jealous and suspicious of such a beautiful thing as Mayra. Some might say she mocks you by being beautiful when you can’t possibly appreciate it. They may have held their tongues until Mayra became their children’s teacher. Perhaps they honestly think they have a just cause. If so, this is only the beginning. You have to stop it now, and Brinarra is likely the place where it began, so it can be stopped through her.”

  “How can I stop something like this?” Tristan demanded. “A gossip doesn’t listen to truth or reason.”

  “She’ll listen to fear,” Elisa said firmly. “I’ll go to Mayra. You deal with your servants.”

  Brinarra and her husband Clothis, who was Tristan’s chief herdsman, entered the study and found it in utter darkness. They stumbled in the doorway.

  “Baron?” Clothis quavered.

  “Yes,” Tristan said coldly. “Come over here to the desk. If you are having a hard time, remember that this is how I live my life every day. I need to speak to both of you about something your wife has done, Clothis.”

  “My – my wife?” Clothis asked. Tristan heard him hiss, “What have you done?” under his breath. His wife seemed too frightened to speak.

  “You may have noticed that my wife is almost always at my side,” Tristan said. “That’s because she helps me see. I can’t get along without her. Besides that, she’s graced my house with carvings and pine boughs and many things to help me see when she is not there. She also wears perfumes and ornaments so that I may know where she is. It’s a great comfort to me to have her do these things, to know that she makes herself beautiful and fragrant and musical because she loves me. She’s not, however, with me now. She’s in our chambers, and she wears neither ornaments nor perfumes. When I went to find her I couldn’t tell where she was. Do you have any idea what it’s like to lose your wife, Clothis?”

  “No, My Lord Baron,” Clothis choked.

  “All this has happened because your wife told lies about my wife, Clothis.”

  “My Lord Baron, I – “ Brinarra began.

  “Don’t speak,” Tristan said. “I know this to be true,
Clothis, because my wife heard what your wife said, comparing her to your old mistress, claiming that she meant to steal their husbands after she had done poisoning me. My wife was driven to her bed, weeping, because of a lie this woman told to amuse her fellows, to make herself important – I don’t know why. I do know that she must leave my house immediately, and be off my land by sunset. And since I own the home you both live in, so must her husband, and your children, with all you can carry, for I won’t have anyone on my estate who’ll destroy my happiness and that of my beloved wife for sport. Go, now.”

  Tristan heard them turn and stumble toward the door. “What have you done?” Clothis said to his wife in an undertone, his voice quivering with rage. “Even if we leave Larcondale, people will still know about the great and good baron and what you did to him. I wish I had cut your tongue out, stupid gossip. You’ve destroyed our lives. No one will give us work anywhere.”

  He heard them turn, rush back toward him. Someone went down hard upon the floor, then two someones. They were on their knees before him. Tristan stood up. He crossed his arms and waited.

  “This is a great wrong, a great wickedness we’ve done,” Clothis said meekly. “We know that you serve God, My Lord Baron, and that He’s a God of great mercy. In His name, please have mercy on us. If you can give us any way to earn our bread, anything, far from your home and your wife’s person, to make it as clear as you please how we’ve wronged you, yet save our lives and keep us from starving, please pity us and our children.”

  “What will your wife do to right the wrong she has done to my wife?” Tristan demanded.

  “How can I unsay what I said?” Brinarra wailed. “Cut my tongue out now, My Lord Baron. My husband’s right. I’ve always loved to gossip. I’ve seen it hurt people, and it seemed like the only power I had in the world. Now I know that it’s the power to destroy everything I love. My Lord Baron,” Brinarra gasped suddenly. “You said that your wife’s scents and tinkling things help you. What if we all had something of that kind? What if we wore bells, or some kind of bags of herbs with a particular scent for each person, different things so that you could tell who we are before we even speak, so you would know we are coming? I have seen you startled when someone came on you suddenly at your work. We could even put bits of wood or metal on the bottoms of our shoes so that they would make a noise in the house. Surely these things would help you know where we are, and tell you that we honor and love you, and wish you happiness.”

  “Brinarra, these ideas sound very welcome to me,” Tristan said. “If you can do so much, I had better let you stay. Go to my wife, and beg her pardon, and promise to make as sure as you can that your lies are understood by everyone to be lies, and then tell her about these things you have spoken of. See what she says. If she will forgive you, and wishes to try these things you have said, then you may go back to your work, and remember that you have more to do than ever.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

  II Timothy 2:4

  When the troop of soldiers came and occupied the barracks built for them after Lord Drokken’s visit Tristan was pleased with the reports of their conduct at first. They deployed themselves in good order each morning and at the changing of each watch. They seemed to be at all the right places at all the right times. So Tristan was told when he inquired about how the soldiers were handling themselves.

  Suddenly people began to miss things. Sometimes the thefts could not be anything but mischief and pranks, but sometimes property was taken, and Tristan knew there were few people in Larcondale who could afford to lose what they had. Acts of vandalism, senseless destruction, fires clearly not accidental began to occur. Tristan admonished the soldiers to redouble their patrols, because outsiders did come in over the mountain passes, might even have made the arduous journey along the wilderness road that eventually got one to Parangor, outsiders who needed to steal from or harass his people.

  The soldiers cheerfully agreed. Then Bettany, a young farm girl, reported being attacked near her home in the twilight by a man who kept a hood over his face. She was not seriously harmed, but when her father brought her to Tristan she was clearly badly frightened, her dress torn, and suddenly Tristan realized that “his” soldiers had decided that their Larcondale assignment was not to be taken seriously, and that Larcondale didn’t need guarding, it needed shaking up. These men had grown bored and contemptuous of their duties and had decided to have a little fun.

  Being judge, jury and executioner was not a position that appealed to Tristan, but the villagers caught on only a day or two after he realized it himself and they had no qualms about proclaiming their “guardians” guilty and demanding that Tristan take action.

  He was sure, however, that not all the men were in need of punishment. Perhaps they were only in need of a lesson. Tristan pondered how to give them that lesson, and then hit upon a plan that sent him back to Mickle’s forge.

  Alex did most of the work there now. Three years had passed since Tristan had come to Larcondale, and three years had, as nearly as Tristan could judge, added another foot of height and easily thirty pounds of muscle upon sixteen-year old Alex. The years had not been so kind to Mickle, and he spent more time warming himself before Brentin’s fire at the tavern, nursing his gouty joints, than at his business.

  “Alex,” Tristan called out, as Cleves, his young driver, pulled up his trap before the forge. He heard the heavy step of the young man come out onto the porch.

  “Ah, Baron Tristan!” Alex shouted, pleasure transparent in his voice. He tromped down the porch steps and engulfed Tristan’s hand in his. “Welcome. It’s been awhile.”

  “It has, Alex,” Tristan admitted. “Tell me, are any of the guard about?”

  “Aye, my Lord,” Alex replied, lowering his voice. “Two of the rascals in the square.”

  “Meet me at the tavern in about half an hour, then,” Tristan said. “I have some work I need you to do for me. And bring a few friends if you can trust them and they can handle a little adventure.”

  “Aye, Baron,” Alex said. His tone was so merry Tristan could almost see the grin splitting the boy’s face. “I can think of two or three.”

  Tristan made several more stops about the village. He heard of new “incidents” and got many demands for action. He heard real anger and fear in the voices of his friends and reassured them as best he could, stating that he had a plan and they must be patient just a little while. Then he went to his meeting at the tavern, and if the soldiers “guarding” the square had cared to notice, they would have wondered why a full dozen of the biggest and most muscular fellows in Larcondale all needed refreshment at the same time as the Baron.

  The next morning Tristan was awakened by an anxious knock on the bedroom door. “My Lord Baron,” Vishnar, his manservant, said, “the captain of the guard asks to see you. He says it’s most urgent.”

  Tristan threw on his clothes and followed Vishnar out to the terrace. Captain Agman, he had been told, was a capable-looking man in his thirties, fair of hair, very sober of manner. No one had ever reported seeing him smile. The captain had been pacing up and down the terrace before Tristan’s arrival. Tristan had heard him some way off. By the sound of it he seemed to be in full battle gear.

  “My Lord Baron, I must report my troops have been attacked,” the captain said in a funereal tone.

  “Attacked, Captain?” Tristan repeated. “I hear no sounds of battle. Are we overrun, then? If so, the enemy has done it very quietly.”

  “My Lord, every man posted on last watch last night was found this morning by their reliefs tied up and gagged, secured to various objects, some of them hanging upside-down, all of them with disgusting things on their persons – rotten eggs, manure, and the like. Two were even buried up to their necks.”

  “This is distressing news, Captain,” Tristan said. “Have you caught the brigands
who perpetrated this deed?”

  “Not as yet,” the captain replied. “But there is more. This morning when the soldiers turned out for morning roll call someone sneaked into the barracks and covered every bed, every shoe and boot, every uniform not being worn in more of these noxious items.”

  “Shocking.” Tristan shook his head. “It appears someone has decided your soldiers are not worthy of respect, Captain. In fact, quite the opposite.”

  “My Lord Baron,” the captain retorted, “this is a difficult assignment.”

  “How so, Captain?” Tristan inquired. “I had always thought that Larcondale was a peaceful, pleasant place, and that anyone would count it a privilege to live or serve here.”

  “These men are trained for war, not guard duty,” the captain said. “Especially not such pointless duty. This valley is hemmed in by mountains and forests, two narrow, difficult passes letting in those from the rest of Tarraskida, one impassable road through a vile wilderness that eventually makes its way to Parangor, a place ruled over by your own brother. What need is there for guards?”

  “So, Captain,” Tristan said, “you concede that your men are idle and bored and that they find their duty tedious. Do you also concede that they have found opportunities to amuse themselves at my people’s expense – that they have stolen from them, destroyed their property, presumed to put their hands on one of our young girls?”

  “My Lord, if they have had a little harmless diversion – “ the captain began.

  “Perhaps you and I have different definitions for the word harmless,” Tristan said through gritted teeth. “But, if you will have it so, perhaps my people have also had a little harmless diversion. Do you wish our harmless diversions to continue? They will as long as yours do. Perhaps they might become less harmless, for your men are not defenseless girls and poor farmers.”