by Niamh Boyce
She put her hands over her face and released a sob.
‘I am sorry, so sorry …’ I said, until she stopped weeping.
Alice let me finish fixing her hair. As I worked, she avoided the mirror and studied her rings. Afterwards, I realized her face powder had remained completely dry.
Alice thought it was a secret, but I wasn’t the only one who had seen her ride out at night. There was much whispering about it. Most guessed it was a man she was meeting, but some, more ill-disposed to Alice, said it was a faerie, or worse. Then, mere weeks after Sir Roger’s funeral, she announced plans to remarry. The house was buzzing with the news that Alice’s betrothed was due to visit that Saturday. We’d finally meet the man who had drawn her like a moon-struck girl. Cleaning began at dawn. The tapers were replaced with beeswax candles. By even-time, the hall smelt of rosemary and sweetly smouldering turf.
We lined up to meet our future master and Alice entered, her arm linked with that of a tall man wearing a short blue tunic and black hose. Sir John of Callan had a lean face and a full mouth. Helene let out a low sigh; Esme chuckled. He was younger than our mistress. We were surprised to see two girls following on their heels. Alice introduced them as Cristine and Beatrice, her stepdaughters to be. I watched my mistress carefully. Her smile was too wide to be natural. Had she known of the girls’ existence before this, she would have mentioned them. Had Sir John not told her?
A little older than Líadan, the knight’s daughters were twins. Both had budding rose lips and darting fingers decked in false gems. Their flaxen hair was braided into ram’s horns and dressed in silver netting. Most striking was their skin, pale as pearl dust. Their father told us how wonderful our mistress was, how happy they would be as man and wife. There was something about his eyes, and the uncertain curve to his mouth, that made him appear insincere, mocking even.
The sisters fidgeted with their sleeves as if unused to such swathes of fabric. As one touched her cuff, so did the other; as one straightened and smiled, so did the other. I thought of mirrors, of trickery I saw once at a fair. But the girls were just twins; it was that simple, nothing magickal. The four went off to Hattons’, where Lucia was throwing a supper in their honour.
‘Lucia will have to set some extra places, for the twins,’ said Alice as they left.
‘Lucia will swallow her tongue when she sees those thighs,’ muttered Helene.
‘He seems a little young,’ I added.
‘Far from young – he’s well over thirty,’ Esme answered. ‘Alice told me.’
‘A lady her age,’ said Helene, ‘what would she want with a fine man like that?’
‘The same thing as any woman,’ I said without thinking.
I found out later that Alice had known nothing of the twins until the very day they arrived. I asked her directly.
‘Surely he mentioned his daughters, all that time?’
‘We didn’t do much talking – you wouldn’t understand.’
She wasn’t pleased but consoled herself that the girls lived in Callan. They dwelt in their late mother’s house, over a day’s journey away, and there they would stay.
On the morning of Alice’s wedding, while out fetching water, I found a glass bead by the well. Dark blue, it was the shape of a bird’s head, with a yellow painted eye. I slipped it in my purse and carried the bucket to the kitchen. I was to prepare whitening for Alice’s skin. I enjoyed the quiet, the crackle of the fire, wished I could stay longer, but she was waiting upstairs with her jars and bottles lined up in front of her. I mixed the whitening powder with more rosewater and went up.
I daubed Alice’s skin till it was like ivory. I braided and wound her plaits into two plump ram’s horns, using oil infused with ambergris and musk to smoothen the kinks and stray hairs. I tweezed her brows till they were almost gone, then greased her lips with beeswax and lightly rouged her cheeks. Alice dipped her finger in the pot and dabbed her mouth.
‘Do not look at me like that, Petronelle.’
‘Only harlots redden their mouths.’
‘It’s for my husband I make myself handsome. When did you get so unbearably pious? I wager you, too, would pretty yourself for a man’s embrace, if you had half the chance.’
‘The only embrace I long for is Christ’s,’ I said to irk her.
‘That wasn’t always true; Basilia didn’t fall from the clouds, did she? She came from somewhere else entirely. Oh, look at you blush.’
She was very giddy; that kind of talk was unlike her. She opened a small pouch then and took out a phial. It held shimmering brown powder. The shape of a tiny beetle was burned into the stopper.
‘Spanish Fly,’ she said, ‘otherwise known as Aphrodite’s Assistant. I’m going to slip it into his wine –’
‘It made Esme’s sister vomit blood. She said that only for –’
‘Oh, stop fussing. It’s all in the measuring: a little lends itself to lust, too much sickens. The poor fool should’ve known that. And she’s not Esme’s sister – I don’t know why we all go along with that charade.’
‘Why, who is she, then?’
Esme often spoke of her sister but I had yet to meet her.
‘Her love.’
Alice looked up then. She was hoping I would blush. She liked to think she was more worldly than me, and I suppose she was.
She jabbered on as I dressed each ram’s horn in a pearl-bead caul. The veil was so fine you could barely see it fall down her back. We had laced her chemise tight to push her bosom upwards. Alice lifted her hand mirror and went over to stand by the window.
‘So many lines.’ She frowned, touching the side of her mouth.
‘You only notice them now?’
‘Could you not lie to me?’
‘I prefer truth.’
‘The first time I wed, I was fourteen. I hadn’t a blemish, not a mark. I still recall that night; Sir William was like a flabby goat, passing wind as he spent his seed. It makes me sad somehow to think on it, though he was a good man.’
He might have been a good man, but Will was their only living child. And he came after a decade of sharing a bed.
‘And Roger, the poor beast, was never cruel. I’ve been blessed.’
Alice didn’t mention her second spouse; she never did. It was said he struck her more severely than a husband should. She shook her head as if she, too, were thinking of him. She requested her cloak then. I unfolded the royal-blue mantle from her armoire and fetched the Gaelic brooch from her jewellery box. Both were gifts from Sir Arnold, who had as many Irish allies as Irish enemies. She smiled as I pinned the cloak closed, her eyes hatched with lines; and there was happiness in them. She wasn’t marrying for silver this time.
Sir John and Alice exchanged vows in the doorway of Saint Mary’s Parish Church. ‘I take you as my wife, for better or worse, to have and to hold to the end of my life,’ promised Sir John, and they kissed each other full on the mouth for a very long time. Kjarval, the finest musician in the country, played the sweetest, lightest music. The ladies outdid themselves, every cuff and collar was furred, every gown was slit to show the rich fabrics beneath.
The house was lit like a cathedral. As well as the chandeliers, there were candles in every nook and corner. The heavy scent of beeswax gave the hall a church feeling. The harp was magnificent, painted, as it was, in red, blue and gold, and carved with mermaids. When I reached out to touch it, the harpist waved me away, shushing and hands fluttering, as if it were a baby that shouldn’t be woken.
The party ate course after course and townspeople filled the lane outside, waiting for the leftovers. Wan faces gazed in, as Prince gnawed a meaty joint by the foot of Alice’s chair. I wondered if such a large feast was a good idea – the drunkenness, dance, music, all the flavours of celebration spilling out into the street when so many were hungry.
After the feast, the wedding company, with the exception of young Will, who stayed on drinking with his manservant, trooped up to Alice’s chamber. Our mistress
sat up, her skin flushed, her hair still coiled and jewelled. She was now wearing a brazenly yellow chemise. Her husband lay on top of the covers; he was bare-chested in a gilt buckled belt and hose. The priest approached the bed.
‘Keep it short, Father,’ laughed Sir John.
‘Let us pray, blessed Christ, O Lord, thou who watched over Israel, watch over thy servants who rest in this bed, guarding them from all phantasies and illusions of devils.’
The bed cover darkened as he sprinkled it with holy water. The party raised their cups to Alice and John and proceeded back down to the banquet hall, chattering and giddy. When the dancing began, I excused myself and retreated to the kitchen, where Esme was turning hens. The grease from the birds dripped and hissed into the fire.
‘It’s not long since we fed Roger’s funeral company – could she not have waited for another month or so?’ she said.
‘Look at him,’ said Helene. ‘Who could wait?’
‘Stop being so lustful – go up to the hall and replenish their ewers.’
The boisterous singing went on most of the night. I went to bed but lay awake, turning the glass bead between my fingers. I examined the bird with its yellow dot eye. I’d thread it along with some other beads and make something pretty for my daughter. I held the lone amber at my own neck as I watched Líadan sleep. She was curled on her side as usual. There was a flickering beneath her lids. She travelled far in her dreams, and was always startled on being woken. Her eyes would be empty, as if her soul hadn’t caught up, was still off travelling. I leant over and lifted a strand of hair from across her mouth. We used to talk about the meaning of dreams. They were sealed away now; she no longer told them to anyone.
That morning, I found Helene and Esme stumbling about, repairing the damage to the dining hall, both with bad tempers and sore heads. The pup whined and whined. Prince was nowhere to be seen. Everyone had searched but not a trace of the mastiff was found. Alice entered the hall, draped in nothing but her mantle, her hair loose about her thin shoulders. She was parched – had no one heard her bell? Helene served her some ale, showed her a wedding gift that had not been opened. Pleased, Alice unwrapped the pale ribbons and muslin to find a carafe. She uncorked it and sniffed, and her smile left.
‘Honeywine,’ she said. ‘Who delivered this?’
None of us knew who had delivered it, but we all knew someone was taunting Alice, mocking her age. All the honeywine in the world wouldn’t bless this bride with a child. As if to distract from bad news with worse, Helene told her then that Prince was gone, taken most likely by the beggars who had crowded Low Lane last night.
‘Murderers,’ Alice guessed. ‘How could they? And one of God’s creatures.’
‘Maybe another of God’s creatures might live to see another day,’ said Helene. ‘Maybe a starving child has a belly full of meat.’
‘Oh, you do not mean that!’
‘No,’ Helene agreed; ‘I do not mean it, of course I don’t.’
Helene did that often – they all did. Said what Alice wanted to hear, not what they really thought.
I ventured out for some peace. It was drizzling. I walked to the end of the garden and found my oak hive, the one I had snared myself. The bees were calm. I lifted out a small honeycomb and stepped away from the tree. I thumbed the creamy surface, breaking open the small pools of gold. There were some eggs, too, curled pearls in their cells. From one, a young bee began to emerge. I felt a sharp pain in my cheek, a sting. I scraped my skin with the side of my knife. Held the blade to examine the barb, thinking how quickly the venom had entered my flesh.
Later in the kitchen, I was mending with Helene and Esme. I picked a needle, held it close, licked the thread and fed it through.
‘Oh, look at your face – you were bitten,’ said Helene.
‘Bees don’t bite, they pierce. The barb’s like a tiny sword, you see, a narrow spike with a sac of poison.’
‘Sir John can sting me any time, as long as he doesn’t leave anything behind.’
‘You turn everything sinful,’ I said.
Helene was very mischievous of late, reckless with her words. I prodded my needle into her arm. She cried out.
‘Was your mirth worth the pain?’
‘Yes!’
‘One more word,’ I warned, ‘and I’ll tell Alice how you swoon after her husband.’
She sobered then, brought her stitching closer. ‘He’s only her husband because of trickery. She cast a love spell, that’s what Cristine said.’
‘He’s her husband because he wants to be,’ I answered.
That silenced the maid, though I wasn’t sure that she believed me. Cristine said. What else did Cristine say? The sooner those twins were back in Callan the better for all of us.
15. Basilia
Alice was all the time in her chamber with her new husband. My mother ran back and forth, with bowls of warm water, soft towels, lavender douches, and sticks of cinnamon for her breath. There were calls for sweetbreads, chicken legs and wine, and oh, empty the chamber-pot again. The new husband was a tall man, a strutter. Worse, he was a widow with daughters. In the days after the wedding, the twins slept in a chamber we called the coffin. There was no window, so it was pitch without a taper lit. ‘Don’t go up in flames now, girls,’ smiled Helene as she handed them a candle. They were not pleased, but no one really wanted them to be. After a week, those horrible sisters – ‘Can she not speak? How funny,’ they giggled. ‘What if we gave her a pinch?’ – trotted back to Callan.
Not long after, Lucia Hatton called for news and a tipple. As she and Alice made themselves cosy by the hearth, I tucked myself into the alcove to eavesdrop. They talked about John, Lucia’s own husband, Piotr, the twins, and then my mother, who, Alice said, had become dour. My mistress thought she resented all the care she herself needed, now she was married again, and this time to an attentive man. Or perhaps the maid was jealous? Lucia speculated, though Lord knows why. She was free, after all, from all that poking and pulling, and, worse, some babe swelling your stomach, then ripping you asunder trying to get out.
‘You only see the bad side – have you forgotten the good? Has it been that long, Lucia?’ laughed Alice.
‘Not long enough. Your maid should count her lucky stars.’
‘I pity her lonely flesh, her skin that will go untouched till death.’
‘Maybe she prefers it that way.’
‘Maybe. Still, it must be difficult to prepare another for loving when you’ll never know it again yourself.’
‘Since when did you care what anyone else felt?’
They gained great amusement from their wonderings and now I was trapped listening to them. For if I stepped out I would reveal myself. When Lucia came over, Alice became a lesser person. I couldn’t understand why, other than to pass the time with a very boring woman. Even so, they had no right to talk about my mother like that.
Sir Arnold and his nephew Stephen came to feast with Alice and John. Piotr Hatton was there, too, and lost no chance to make sly bids for various loans. He was as painful as his wife, Lucia. Sir Arnold did not behave like a lord – he nodded when served and listened as well as spoke. He had brought Alice wine from France, an almanac and a small pouch of tiny diamonds – ‘To fill the gaps in your teeth,’ he said, smiling. Stephen was a younger, paler version of his uncle – an apprentice Arnold. He sat close to him, but did not speak much except a few words to Sir John about his stables in Callan.
After supper, John announced he was going for some air. Piotr said he’d join him. Alice glanced at Sir Arnold. ‘You, too?’
‘No, I’ll stay here, where it’s warm and cheerful.’
When the two men had left, the conversation turned to property. The nephew just sat listening. The Hattons held a plot across the river. She was eager to get hold of the land, to build her own bridge across the Nore. If it meant humouring them, well, let it be so. Arnold lowered his voice and began to speak of the bishop. It was said, he told Alice, tha
t Ledrede was garnering spies. Merchant or wretch, she needed to be careful. Children swarmed to and from the bishop’s household, the kind that would do anything for bread.
‘I just want him gone, captured, whatever it takes.’
Arnold said not to worry, that he had good relations with Ledrede’s superiors in Dublin. They would soon stunt his growth. I could not hear much of what followed, for they leant very close.
At last, the ewers were drained and the esteemed visitors readied to retire. Jose’s chamber had been prepared. Arnold explained to his nephew that the gable chamber was famed for its vantage point. From one window you could see Hightown drawbridge; from the other the castle. It was rumoured, he said, that, by a system of secret flags, castle officials used to send messages to Jose Kytler, and he back to them. I would’ve loved to have slept in it, even once – the bed was as big as a boat and canopied in red – but staying there was an honour reserved for special guests or those near death.
After the men retired, my mother and I tidied the hall. Dame Alice stayed on, warming herself by the dying fire, swaying and humming a tune. She looked well in one of her best gowns: creamy velvet with heavily embroidered cuffs and neck. She sat at the table and called us over then, to admire the almanac Arnold had brought. It had a picture for each sign. She read our horoscopes. I was a Gemini, Twins. ‘He hath two sides,’ was all she said. My mother didn’t know the month of her birth. ‘Winter,’ she said, ‘sometime in winter.’ Dame Alice was Leo, the Lion. Leo was a good sign, according to the book – ‘They that shall be born are likely to live, he who takes to his bed is quickly healed, he who takes to flight shall get through.’
We carried on clearing the hall, stacking the rush mats along the wall. My mother kept glancing at the curtain to the Altar Room, as if it were hiding cake. She had been thrilled when shown it. ‘A place to pray!’ she had cried. She just loved to be alone. I couldn’t bear that poky room. Perhaps I wasn’t my mother’s daughter; we were nothing alike. She was dark and I was red; she was tall and I was short. Perhaps she found me beside her spindle one day. Sometimes I wished I was Dame Alice’s daughter. If I was Alice’s daughter, I wouldn’t be cleaning past midnight, and I falling with tiredness.