Her Kind

by Niamh Boyce

  ‘Escaping?’ he glanced up from his quarry.

  ‘On an important message,’ I said, gently touching his shoulder for fear he’d release the bow, ‘for Dame Kytler.’

  He looked up at me, slight interest in his brown eyes, flicked the arrow back into his burlap and returned to his tower.

  I smiled to see how Milo kicked up dust as he moved further into the distance. I hoped he’d be happy by Flemingstown Woods, as I’d once been. Though they would be alone, and we had been far from alone. There were many shelters back then, built outside the town, leaning against its walls. A few hadn’t the means to pay tithes; others weren’t welcome inside. Some were like my father, who just couldn’t bear rules and curfews.

  ‘Let the burgesses have their plots,’ he used to say; ‘we have the world outside it.’

  In truth, we had next to nothing. Jose Kytler was like a merchant king and all either wove for him or owed him, and often both, like my mother. Alice ran as wild as I did; we used to rush into the woods together, shrieking like owls. It worried Líthgen. ‘If anything happens to that girl,’ she’d say, ‘Jose Kytler will have our heads.’

  ‘I’ve never heard a word of complaint from his mouth,’ said my father.

  ‘He doesn’t even know you’re alive,’ my mother replied.

  ‘Well, if I don’t live, he can’t have my head,’ Father said, squeezing Líthgen’s waist and kissing her neck. But he was long dead now, the outlaw who had eased his arms so contently around his wife.

  13. Basilia

  Though it wasn’t very warm, Dame Alice wanted to be fanned as she worked at her desk. She kept pulling out the front of her gown and damning the heat. She scratched a line under a name.

  ‘Damn King Edward, too; so much for my five hundred pounds. Perhaps Ledrede’s latest sermons are spreading across the kingdoms. Since poor Roger’s death, he’s been ordering that no one pay the moneylender till she’s paid her dues to the bishop.’

  It was commonly said that even the king was in debt to my mistress, but I was startled by the amount. Was she jesting? Dame Alice seemed very serious as she twisted the thick gold band on her thumb. She always wore her father’s signature ring while doing accounts. The seal was small, but it was the old Kytler one. She sighed loudly, and finally looked up.

  ‘There are nicer things to think on. Come here and see this likeness for my tomb.’

  She lifted a scroll from her drawer and unrolled a drawing of a sleeping woman. It was her effigy, the dame explained. The drawing was like her, but with a smoother, rounder face. The mason had even included the line of her parting, the neat coils of hair on each side of her head. Her face in death will not look like that. I saw Alice crouched: she was in pain and her hand was raised as if to defend herself.

  ‘Whatever’s wrong, Basilia?’

  She glanced impatiently – I had dropped the fan. The vision came again. It was clearer. My mistress’s silken skirts were speckled with earth. Each breath that left her mouth hung in the air like smoke. Embers crumbled from a nearby brazier. It was night, and the only other person awake was about to end her life.

  I went over to the window, and looked out over the orchard. The vision was a warning. My mistress was in danger. I thought of the poppet Fiachra had carved for some mother; could a charm like that protect Dame Alice?

  The day after the vision, my blood came. Esme was grinding cardamom seeds and Helene was on the stool by the fire binding kindling. There was a bowl of poached plums on the table, sitting in their dark juice. I had just spooned one into my mouth when the cramps started. I gripped my belly and bent over. The women fussed about how I looked.

  ‘She’s green in the face,’ Helene said, smirking. ‘It must be her time.’

  Esme pressed her knuckles into my back, which eased the ache for a bit. I caught her raising her eyes at Helene as they shared some meaning. It vexed me, it was all so womanly, and they were trying to include me.

  Upstairs in my chamber, I found that they were right. There it was between my legs, the bright blood. It’ll only be a little, my mother had said when she told me about the curse: ‘Nothing to worry about; it won’t hurt.’

  When she came into the room later, I was curled on the edge of the bed. She didn’t offer tonic to soothe the pain.

  ‘Stop crying – it’s an honour, and about time, too. I was getting worried.’ She handed me a wad of rags. ‘Rinse these afterwards and reuse them, and on heavy days stuff them with moss.’

  Heavy days – what on earth were heavy days? She took her scissors from her belt and snipped a corner from my blood-drenched smock. Folding it into a square of black felt, she sat on her bed and stitched shut her tiny relic of my moon blood. She looked up as I groaned.

  ‘Ah, shush, it’s only a little.’

  It was not a little, and it hurt like Hell must. How was anyone meant to live like this?

  Early the next morning I was summoned to Alice’s chamber. The dame wore no veil – I was startled by the primrose yellow. I had forgotten my mother had coloured her hair. It made the skin beneath her eyes look like lavender bruises. An extra desk had been placed in the room, just under the window. She pointed to it and bid me sit. I was going to learn my letters, she told me; it would keep me from roaming.

  She set a tablet in front of me and demonstrated how to inscribe letters into the wax with a stylus. She spoke the letters, as she drew them … A. B. C. D. E … When they were put together, she explained, they took on a meaning. This carried on for ages; over and over she sang the sounds. Then she put a piece of parchment alongside my table. On it was a list prepared by a scribe. Bell, Vespers, Alb, Prayer, Dog … Alice recited. She was not pleased with the words. They were not, she said, the kind I would need. She watched over me as I began to copy. The parchment was stained yellow with pollen. The monk had drawn little creatures in the margins. Alice left me to practise while she made a better list at her own desk. The words might as well have been insects crawling across the page, but the curls, slopes and flicks were nice to copy.

  At first, I rested my wrist as I wrote, but the wax kept softening under my touch. Keeping my hand aloft made it ache, but I kept on going, making loops and strokes … Dog, Sun, Crocus. After a while, I got distracted by the view from the window. I could see over the orchard and all the way to the river. There, the boys were harvesting pearls in the shallow bend. Wearing only their braies, each with a satchel strung across his shoulders, they waded out, holding forked rods aloft. Piotr Hatton, Lucia’s husband, was barking orders from the silt bank.

  Alice came over waving a page. She read aloud from a list of newly inked words. Due. Paid. Man. Woman. Child. Beef. Lamb. Capon. Ale. Pelt. Spice … and on and on. She looked out at the Hattons’ workers and tutted.

  ‘Of the mussels, only one in a hundred holds a pearl, often not a pearl of any worth.’

  Alice worked at her counting table while I inscribed wax. I envied the scratch of her quill, wished that dry whisper for my own writing. It was hard not to drift when sitting by an open window. Almost without realizing, I had drawn a blackbird from the tree outside. He was perched on a large red apple, spearing the fruit. I watched as the flesh split, and he stabbed and stabbed with his beak till the apple dropped to the grass.

  Across the room, Alice stacked groats, pennies, ha’pennies and farthings on her casting board. Sometimes she would fill cloth bags, which would quickly disappear from sight. She spoke as we worked, flitting from subject to subject, with no expectation of an answer. She said she missed Roger, for talking to at night, those nights he stayed home. She ranted then about Ledrede: he was costing her business; as sure as if he’d put his pious hand in her purse.

  ‘A foreigner dictating ridiculous laws from a hill built high with the bones of our ancestors.’

  She said Ledrede spied on the good citizens of Kilkennie from the ancient tower, and had every merchant burying their coins for fear of his pouncing and demanding a portion for the Church.

&n
bsp; ‘It’s a surprise,’ said Alice, ‘that he isn’t attending the births of our citizens to tax their first breath. The view would do him good, I’d expect; that fresh wound might send him galloping back to Avignon.’

  I thought of the rags stuffed between my legs, the braies I had to wear beneath my skirts.

  After a week, I became better at shaping letters and words in wax, and Alice set me to work with ink and a quill. I leant too hard at first, and the nib crushed. It took time, and a few damaged quills, to make the shapes I wanted. I liked the rounded letters best, loved the gloss the ink had before the parchment drank it up. I preferred the monk’s first list, and sometimes copied from it. I began each day by pumicing yesterday’s letters from the page, wiping the grain away and then dipped my quill to begin. Abbot, Bee, Beauty.

  Alice talked freely each time I wrote in her chamber. She didn’t mind that I didn’t answer. Sometimes I didn’t even listen; I’d watch the pearl-divers. Near the end of the day, they’d come out of the water and gather around a brazier for warmth. Then they opened mussels and flung the husks to the ground. There was a song they sang as they worked. It was a slow but lively air in which no one led and everyone followed. It was sung over and over, till the bank was festooned with dark blue shells.

  As the month passed, Alice’s mood grew lighter and lighter. She even slept late sometimes. One day she led me down to the cellar and opened a heavy door I had not noticed before. We had to roll a barrel out of the way to get to it. She took a key from her chatelaine. ‘This is a copy, just for you.’ She unlocked the door, lifted her candle and went down some steps. There, in the middle of the crowded floor, was a bull’s head. In the flickering candlelight, its horned shadow darted about the wall. I jumped backwards.

  Alice set her candle on a table laid with silver ewers. She lifted a pole and opened a shutter high on the wall and weak light spilt in. The room was thick with dust motes. My nose itched as I stepped amongst the treasures. I almost tripped on a rug showing a tree woven in an unnatural shade of blue. Baskets were stacked with embroidered cuffs, dyed threads and gilt-handled scissors. There was an entire wall covered in pelts. Alice caressed each one, naming as she went. Miniver. Sable. Vair. She stroked against the nap, rippling and darkening the fur before smoothing it down again. Beaver. Rabbit. Wolf.

  ‘Aha, you are paying attention now,’ she said.

  Stuffed hawks were stationed on the floor, wings outstretched as if they were about to fly. I wasn’t to gawk, she declared, I was here to work. She unrolled a scroll; it was a list of items, their owners and their debts. ‘An inventory,’ she called it, ‘such as a lady makes before she marries.’ Knowing I wouldn’t recognize some words, she had drawn pictures beside them. A tiny hawk. A squat candlestick … her drawings were poor but true. I had to check everything was accounted for, and in order. Alice alone added to or subtracted from the list, no one else.

  When Alice left, I looked about the room. So this was the Pledge Room. I thought of the people who owned these items. Did they long for their return? I selected a pale shimmering box, placed a green velvet cushion between two trunks and made myself comfortable. The box was mother of pearl and contained pouches, rings and silver bracelets, most of which were tagged and numbered. Some were cut-off pieces, silver hacked from bracelets, armlets and collars. One piece was worked with spirals. Dame Alice’s dislike of the Irish didn’t stop her doing business with them. I selected a ring and eased it on: it was shaped into the tiny figures of a man and a woman, who reached out and embraced at the centre of my finger. Did the girl who once owned it still wait to be wed? I sensed a great loss as I twisted it off.

  I loosened the mouth of a large velvet purse, poured out a necklace of amber beads. It was my mother’s. Why would she pledge it to Dame Alice? I held the beads up. Their shine was not outwards but into themselves. If you looked long enough, their honeyed centres crackled with gold. I held them and felt warmth seep into my heart. ‘They are all I have of your father,’ she always said, ‘besides you.’ What had my mother pledged the beads against? Or were they just here for safekeeping? I was loath to return them to the purse, but I did. I locked the door and hung the key on my girdle. It rested on my hip as I walked. I felt like Dame Alice – keeper of keys, guardian of locks, chests and rooms stuffed with valuable things.

  That night, Dame Alice returned from some meeting very pleased with herself. When only she and I were left in the hall, she ordered me to drag the screen around us. We sat close to the fire, her in her special chair, I on a stool. Alice decided to tell me a tale she had learnt as a girl. She sipped wine to wet her throat before she began. ‘Fadó, fadó, a long time ago’ was how my own mother always started a story, but Alice did it differently.

  ‘Once,’ she began, ‘in a forest far from here, dwelt Lord Halewijn. His voice was deep and haunting and he sang a magickal song. Every maiden who heard it fell under its spell and was drawn into his woods.’

  What song could be so strong as to make a person lose their senses? I couldn’t imagine.

  ‘One day, a girl heard Halewijn and mounted her steed to follow his voice. This girl was a princess, and wore a red skirt stitched with pearls. As she rode into the forest, she met a white bird who warned, “Those who go there, do not return!” But the princess galloped on. The trees bent and their rustling said, “Those who go there, do not return!” But she could not stop, driven mad as she was with longing. She entered the clearing where Halewijn stood, tall and dark, and the wind lifted her veil and whispered, “Those who come here, will not return.” Still, she dismounted and walked towards Lord Halewijn as if in a trance.

  ‘“Welcome,” he said, “come, untie your hair.”

  ‘And so she untied her hair, and as it fell so did her tears, for she stood in a gallows’ field and women hung from every tree. Lord Halewijn gave the princess a choice of death. She chose a beheading, for its swiftness. “Sir,” she said, “first take off your shirt, a maiden’s blood spreads far.” The lord laid down his sword to remove his shirt. As soon as it was out of his hands, the princess used it against him. She sliced off his head and it landed by his feet.’

  I giggled. It struck me as startling, to have your head and feet beside each other. Alice got in a huff and refused to tell me the rest of the story. She waved me away to bed, but I sneaked down to the Pledge Room instead.

  I unlocked the door and set my candle on a table. I didn’t care about a silly princess who didn’t listen to warnings, but the story nagged like a bad tooth. I curled up on my green cushion, flicked open a peacock fan and pretended to be the empress of a large kingdom, who rode to and from her ivory palace on the back of a magickal swan. But it was dark, and there were shadows growing up along the walls. The objects seemed to glare and gloat. I rubbed the scar on my neck, and pictured the princess in red, pearled and crowned. Down went her arm, down went the blade, like the beak of the blackbird, again and again – she kept cutting off that head. Then I saw the wolf’s yellow eyes, his bared wet teeth, felt the edge of my mother’s knife.

  14. Petronelle

  I was on my dead father’s horse, my possessions tied across my back, a child swelling my stomach. The lackeys and their axes were catching up. Flemingstown Arch was close – if I could just pass through. If I could just … I woke in our small room, my child a grown girl and only an arm’s reach away. My damp shift stuck to me like a second skin. Alice’s bell sounded from down the corridor, an impatient trill – how long had she been ringing? Shivering, I dressed and rushed to her chamber. Alice sat at her dressing mirror, her face already powdered, her cheeks rouged. The shutters were open, and the sky outside was red.

  ‘Sleepyhead,’ she said.

  I fetched a comb and stood behind my mistress. There was a small smile to her lips, and shadows beneath her eyes. I wondered if she had been to bed at all. I unpicked threads of straw from her hair. Our fine dame with her canopied bed was courting like a peasant.

  I longed to ask about Otto,
but didn’t know how to begin. I lifted her yellow hair gently and brushed the length, untangling each knot as I went, for lately her scalp was easily hurt. I looked at her pale neck. There was a red mark there, the shape of a clasp. She’d lain in her necklace all night. Is that what her secret lover was after? Her wealth? It wasn’t her beauty; not any more. Though Alice was still fetching on occasion, it took work to achieve the effect. Even then, there was no hiding the lines and loose skin. How I would’ve longed to see Otto age; to hold his hand, to argue even. We never argued then; we’d lie on the forest floor and watch the red leaves swirl slowly towards the ground. It must’ve been cold, but I don’t remember any cold. What was Alice saying? She was holding two pretty combs. Ivory.

  ‘I’ll gift these to Basilia, when I’m old and no longer need them.’

  When I’m old, indeed, as if that day had not already arrived. Oh, Alice.

  ‘I think also that she should have at least one presentable gown.’

  ‘For what?’ I asked.

  ‘For courtship, of course.’

  ‘My daughter wishes to remain a virgin; she wishes to become a nun.’

  ‘No, Petronelle, you are confused,’ Alice answered. ‘The one who wishes to be a nun is you.’

  Her eyes met mine in the mirror. Now was the time …

  ‘I wanted to ask –’ I began.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s been said that Otto didn’t go to battle, that he was killed before he left Flemingstown.’

  She reached to touch the necklace that was no longer there.

  ‘Who told you such lies? It was Líthgen, wasn’t it? What else did she say?’

  ‘Nothing else.’

  ‘My brother rode through Flemingstown Gates. It was the last time I saw him; now never distress me with this again.’