ONE

 

 

Forest of Savernake,

in the fifth year of the reign

of King Richard II

 

On Plow Monday, all the chickens died.

Elayne knew she shouldn’t have tried to substitute a chicken feather for the quill from a magical hoopoe bird. But Savernake Forest did not harbor hoopoe birds. In truth Elayne had no notion what a hoopoe bird looked like—the only place she had ever seen the name of the creature was in the handbook of charms and experiments that contained her formula.

Elayne felt that it was hardly certain her small attempt at a love spell had caused the complete demise of the Savernake poultry. But Cara’s suspicion would fall on Elayne. Cara’s suspicion always fell on Elayne. It could not be hoped that her older sister would overlook the sudden termination of every fowl in town. 

Elayne pulled her mantle close, striding over the frozen ground away from the village. She could feel the black feather and small waxen figure hidden beneath her chemise, tickling her skin like a finger of guilt. 

As she neared the abandoned mill, a small herd of the king’s deer looked up from browsing at a frost-rimed thicket. They bounded away as Raymond stepped out from behind the great mill wheel. He held out his gloved hands to her, but Elayne turned her face away, suddenly shy. She thought him the handsomest man in Christendom, but in her agitation and guilt, she could not quite look at him just then.

"No welcome for me?" he asked, amusement in his voice.

"Yes," Elayne said. The word came out a breathless squeak, barely audible. She forced herself to raise her eyes, assuming worldliness and experience with a lift of her chin, and made a little courtesy. "Kind greeting, Sir Knight."

"Oh, we’re on ceremony, then," he said, grinning. He gave a bow worthy of the king’s court—not that Elayne had ever been within a week’s ride of the king’s court, but she felt certain that Raymond’s great sweep, showing the red-and-black slashed sleeves of his doublet under his fine scarlet cloak, must be admirably suited to it.

She evaded his gaze as he straightened, feeling that if she could not touch his face—only touch his face, or take a loop of his thick chestnut hair about her finger—that she would die of unrequited love before the night was gone. Instead she put her foot onto the frozen millrace. Eluding his offered hand, she jumped over the icy channel and started to walk past him. He turned as she did and walked with her, brushing her shoulder. Elayne made a skip, moving ahead of him, pushing aside a bare branch that overhung the doorway of the old mill.

He laughed and flicked her cheek. "You’re avoiding me, little cat."

She said lightly, "It’s a favor to you. In faith, sir, you can’t wish to dally with such a rustic as I!"

He caught her shoulder, turning her to face him. For an instant he looked down into her eyes—she felt his hand, his fingers pressing her through the thick gray wool of her cote-hardie. "No, how could I not?" he asked softly. "How could I find a sparkling diamond at my feet and fail to pick it up?"

Elayne stared at his mouth as if she were the one bewitched. He leaned his hand against her, gently pushing her against the wall. The stone pressed hard into her shoulder blades. She glanced aside, afraid they might be discovered. Branches cast a wavering light in the doorway, but the old mill was empty and silent. She put her palms against his chest, as if to hold him off, but inside she was praying that he would kiss her, that at last, after weeks of this dangerous play and ferment between them, she would know what it was like. She was seventeen, and she had never been in love, never even been courted. She had not known that a man who stole her sleep and dashed her prudence, a man like Raymond, could exist.

"I’m only another lady, like the rest," she whispered, her heart beating against his hand. "Perhaps not so meek as some."

"You, my love, are an extraordinary woman." He bent his head close. Elayne drew in a quick breath. His lips touched hers, warm and soft in the crisp winter air, softer than she had expected. He tasted of mead, very strong and wet—not completely to her relish. As his tongue probed between her lips, he breathed heavily into her mouth. In confusion and a sudden distaste, she pushed him away so quickly that he had to put out a hand to the wall to catch himself.

He lifted his eyebrows at her. He stood very straight. "I do not please you, my lady?"

"No, you do!" she said quickly, patting his sleeve. She was already ashamed of herself, to be such a coward. "It’s only—if someone should see us—oh my...Raymond!" She bit her lip. "You make me so abashed!"

His stiff expression eased, for which Elayne was grateful. Raymond de Clare did not bear any affront lightly, even the smallest. But he smiled at her and brushed back her woolen hood, pulling her earlobe. "I shall not let anyone catch us."

"Let’s go to the Hall. We can walk together there, and talk."

"Among a throng of people," he said dryly. "And what do you wish to talk of, my lady?"

"You must make a poem to my hair and eyes, of course! I’ll help you."

He laughed aloud. "Indeed." He smiled down at her. "Do you suppose I need help?"

"I feel certain that any knight could profit from a lady’s fine ear for these things."

"All this reading and writing of yours. Perhaps you’ll compose my proposal of marriage also."

"Certainly, if you should require my aid," she said airily. "Mark me the bride of your choice, and I shall study upon her, to discover what will be the most persuasive words to win her hand."

"Ah, but only tell me what words would persuade you, little cat."

"La, I shall never marry!" Elayne declared, but she felt her lips curl upward to betray her. To hide her mirth, she tilted her head so that her hood fell down across her cheek as she gave him a sidelong glance.

He snorted. "What, then—will you wither into an old crone, reading books and stirring over a pot of hopeless spells?"

"Hopeless!" she exclaimed. "Mark me, such incantations aren’t so vain as you suppose!"

He nodded soberly, in just such a way that she could see that he was making a fond mock of her.

"Wella, then," she said, shrugging. "You may believe me or not. I cannot see why I should cease my learning only because I marry."

He shook his head, smiling. "Come, in serious discourse now—though I know how it pains you to speak soberly."

Elayne straightened. "I don’t tease on that point, I assure you, Raymond! Married or maid, I shall pursue my study. Lady Melanthe does the same."

"I hardly think her example is one to be followed—" He broke off as Elayne looked up quickly at him, and added, "Of course your godmother is admirable, may the Lord preserve her, but Lady Melanthe is Countess of Bowland," he said. "Her manners aren’t those of the wives of simple knights."

"Then I must take care not to marry a simple knight!" Elayne said. "It may happen that some foreign king will be looking about him for a queen."

"How sad for him if he lights upon you, my dear heart—since only a moment ago you proclaimed that you would never marry."

"No—" She made a wry face at him for catching her out. "I shall become a nun."

"You? A celibate?" He pulled off one of his gloves and leaned an elbow against the doorjamb, tracing the soft leather against her lips. "That I cannot conceive. Not while I live."

His certainty pricked her a little. "Can you not?" she replied, keeping her face solemn. "But I would rather reverence God than be subject to a husband."

"Hmmm..." He trailed his finger across her mouth. "I don’t think the church will see you casting magical spells any sooner than your husband will." 

Elayne was breathing deeply, creating wisps of frost between them. "And how, pray, would this mythical husband prevent me?"

"My foolish darling, do you suppose I’d beat you? No, I’ll keep you warm and happy, and too busy for reading books."

Under his touch, Elayne felt that she would turn to steam and float away. But the excitement held an edge of terror. Elayne wasn’t afraid of him, oh no—and yet she was frantic.

"Still!" she exclaimed with a flurried laugh. "I shall not marry! I don’t propose to be commanded by a mortal man. I will have visions instead, and order the Pope what he ought to do."

"Little cat," he murmured. "Not commanded by your husband? What jest is this?"

"Another of my unholy fancies." She flicked her tongue at him and ducked away, catching his hand. "Come to the Hall, and I’ll tell you all about it."

But he did not let her lead him. "No. Your sister will be there, looking daggers at me." He drew her close, his hands at her waist, sliding them upward. "I have a better purpose, Elayne."

He began to walk her backward, bearing her into the darkness of the empty mill. She laughed to cover her confusion, allowing him to push her step by step into the abandoned room where old reed baskets and rotten barrel staves lay scattered.

She felt him lifting her skirts. His other glove fell to the ground. She tried to dance away, but he held her confined between his legs as he backed her into a corner. His mouth came down upon hers again. His bare hands searched into her chemise.

This was too dangerous by far. She had only meant to make him love her and wish to marry her. She gasped a protest, but he seemed deaf to it, his fingers working to unbutton her coat. He grasped her loosened gown, pulling it up, exposing all the length of her legs to the cold air.

"Raymond," she yelped as he touched her skin.

He spread his palms under her breasts. "I want you," he said huskily into her ear. "You witch, you make me mad with it!"

"Please. Not here." She grabbed his wrists through the fabric of her skirts, pulling his hands away. But he wrenched free with an easy twist.

"Where then? Elayne—you slay me! Great God, you are so warm." His hands explored freely under her smock, from her hips to her back to her breasts again. He squeezed them together. She whimpered, thrilled and horrified at this brazen touch.

He was a courtier; he knew the ways of high-born ladies, while Elayne knew no more than the hall of a country castle at Savernake. She had not had any suitors at all before, much less a worldly knight like Raymond. Until this moment he had been a gentle and gallant admirer; had done no more than kiss her hand and tease her and call her delightful names.

Her chicken’s-wing love charm, it seemed, had unleashed another man entirely. He wasn’t gentle now. His mouth on hers drove her head back against the wall. He pushed his knee between her legs. She wrestled, ducking away with an awkward shove. He pulled at her, grabbing her chemise. She felt the thin thread on the charm around her neck give way and fall as she stumbled free, brushing her skirts down frantically.

"Raymond!" she exclaimed between gulps of air.

He stood back, his cheeks red. "You don’t desire me, then," he said, breathing hard himself.

"I do!" she cried, holding her arms around her. "But not like this."

"I beg your pardon, my lady." He stood straight. "I did not aim to offend you."

"I’m not offended, but..." She blinked in the dimness. Her voice trailed off. She should never have met him here. It bespoke an invitation she had not meant.

"Is it marriage?" A rat scurried into the far corner as he knelt to retrieve his gloves. "I intended that. Do you doubt me?"

She had doubted, of course. He came in his fine court clothes, on business of purchasing horses for his lord John of Lancaster, and lingered for weeks at a remote castle like Savernake where there were no entertainments or amusements to be had. Her sister wasn’t impressed. Cara felt she could do better. But Elayne cared nothing for that. She had known from the instant he first smiled at her that he was the one.

"I don’t doubt you," she said. "I love you."

His grim look eased. "Little cat. You’ll drive me to distraction!" He smiled at her. "I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have handled you so brutally. I don’t know what caused me to lose my head."

She tried not to look at the black feather and small waxen figure that had fallen to the floor and now dangled unnoticed from the gloves he had retrieved. "Never mind," she said brightly, hoping the charm would drop away unobserved in the dim interior. "You shocked me. I’ve never before—I should not have—Cara would be wild if she knew that I’d come to meet you here."

"It wasn’t wise of you. Another man wouldn’t have let you go so lightly."

She dropped a courtesy. "You’re kindness itself to spare me, Sir Knight!"

He frowned a little. "Elayne, I speak soberly. You must promise me that you’ll be more circumspect." 

Elayne blushed. "Circumspect?"

"Yes," he said. "If we’re to wed, you must leave off your childish ways. It’s charming in a girl, perhaps, to run about the countryside and trifle with foolish spells and mischief as you do, but I won’t tolerate such in my bride."

She lowered her face, thinking of the dead chickens. Verily, she had always been too impulsive. Cara and Sir Guy complained of it often. Why cannot you delay for a moment to think, Ellie? Why cannot you hold your tongue, young lady? It is not for a woman to say such things. I beg you will be restrained, Ellie, don’t laugh so much or ask so many questions.

"I will do better," she said, staring helplessly at the love charm that still dangled from his hand. At any moment he would look down and see it. "I will try."

"And I want your pledge," he said, "that you’ll do no more of these small spells and magics. I know you mean no harm, but it is sinful."

She nodded. He meant to marry her. The charm had worked. What other magic did she need to do?

"Good." He reached out and raised her face, his fingers under her chin. "Don’t look so wretched, little cat. I do love you."

She looked up at him, wetting her lips. He loved her. Without taking her eyes from his, she caught his hand and drew his gloves away, closing the charm within. "May I have them for a keepsake?"

"They are yours, and gladly," he said. "I ride tomorrow to Windsor, to seek out consent of my Lord Lancaster and the Lady Melanthe."

 

* * *

 

Elayne had an angel, a guardian watching over her, so Cara always said—usually in disgust when Elayne emerged unscathed from some illicit adventure. But it was true. Not that she would ever speak of it to Cara, but Elayne saw him now and then—in dreams, or half-waking. She could hardly describe it or even remember it clearly. A vision, not a friendly one, but full of darkness and power. She didn’t speak of it because someone who didn’t know her angel might misunderstand, and think him something of the Devil’s sending. 

But he wasn’t from the Devil, that she knew, any more than her natural spells and potions were. He was simply...her angel. If he was more dark than light, perhaps it was because he held many evil things at bay.

She had been under his protection this eve, for certain. No one had seen Raymond kissing her—Elayne’s blood pounded at the thought of that kiss, of being caught in dalliance. A quiver ran through her. She glanced about the empty chamber as if her older sister might suddenly leap out from under a stool or behind the hangings. She put down the book in her lap and checked again to make certain the buttons on her cote-hardie were secure. An extraordinary woman, he had called her. A sparkling diamond. And then he had kissed her.

The older she grew, it seemed, the more a stranger Elayne felt among the people she had loved for as long as she could well remember. She loved Savernake Forest: the ancient oak groves and the enormous beech trees, the wild fey places and silent haunts of deer and pheasants. She loved to ride the fine horses that Sir Guy bred and husbanded for the Countess Melanthe. She loved her nieces and nephews and the pack of dogs and children that adventured with her about the countryside, against all of her sister’s and the priest’s strictures on chaste and virtuous behavior.

She even loved Cara, though they chafed at one another so. It was only that the ordered round of daily life at the castle that was Cara’s greatest pride and comfort seemed an intolerably narrow prospect to Elayne, as predictable as the cattle chewing their cuds in the fields.

But Raymond de Clare had transformed it. He was one of Lord Lancaster’s men—a knight from the court of the great duke himself, delighting in Elayne’s free custom. He had grinned at her, winking when Cara fussed at her unfettered laughter. He contrived with her in merriment and defended her from her sister’s chiding. 

Cara said he was merely toying with Elayne; that she had best have a care with a man who had experience of Lancaster and the King’s court both. Even Sir Guy had cautioned Elayne about Raymond. A man might praise an unbroken filly, Sir Guy said, but he would buy a well-gentled mare when it came to laying out his gold.

Elayne huffed softly, recalling that advice. She set aside her book and pen, holding her skirts back at the hearth, and lit a tallow candle from the fire. See what they would say when Raymond returned with her guardian’s blessing on the match!

She sat down again on the chest where her books were stored, warmed her fingers between her knees, and then pulled the writing pedestal near. Elayne had long ago ceased to speak aloud of her deepest questions and thoughts and dreams, holding them to herself like the secret of her dark angel. But she had a place to keep that silent part of herself—the gift of the one person who seemed to understand her. Her splendid, enigmatic godmother, the Lady Melanthe.

Black-haired like Elayne, regal as a tigress, and as dangerous, there was no one to compare with Lady Melanthe. Cara was plainly frightened of her. Sir Guy was in awe. Yet they never mentioned her without a blessing, without gratitude, even something like affection mingled with the dread. As if she were a mythical goddess rather than a mortal woman.

When Lady Melanthe approved of Raymond’s proposal, they would have no more to say.

Elayne stirred the inkwell, contemplating.  Cara always dismissed her attempts at poetry as an idle occupation, suggesting that Elayne’s needlework stood in far more urgent need of improvement. Elayne gave the unfinished basket of mending a shamefaced glance. It was true enough—compared to Cara’s exquisite embroidery, Elayne’s hems and laces always looked as if a porpoise-fish had tried to ply a needle with its flippers.

But Lady Melanthe herself had provided for Elayne’s instruction in letters, in both the Italian and the French style. She insisted that Elayne be able to comprehend any documents that her godmother sent her. A number of manuscripts, both interesting and tedious, had arrived at Savernake with regularity, fair copies of letters by persons in every sort of station from archbishops to journeymen tailors.

Even the dullest Latin writ could challenge her to ponder things she had never considered before. Was an oath valid if extracted under threat of a red-hot plate? She followed a judge’s reckoning on the point with anxious interest, relieved to find at the end of the legal document that he decreed the wife in question need not undergo the ordeal that her husband demanded to test her honor.

But even better were such implausible volumes as The Description of the World. Cara claimed she had heard of that one long ago in Italy, where they called it Il Milione—"The Million Lies"— because everyone knew it was only a fable made up by a Venetian rascal. But Elayne devoured every word of Signor Polo’s tales of his travels to far China, and wondered if such things as birds the size of elephants and money made of paper could be real. Even if Cara did not always approve of the texts, she never prevented Elayne from studying them. That the Countess Melanthe entrusted Elayne with such valuable articles as her books and letters was plainly a singular compliment.

Lady Melanthe also sent Elayne gifts each year, and the gift on her twelfth birthday had been a daybook, blank pages bound in beautiful blue-dyed calf hide, locked with a finely made hasp and golden key.  It had not been long before she was composing text of her own. Her prayers and weightier thoughts she recorded in Latin, and experimented with the sweet dance of the French tongue in little poems and ballads. But as she grew older, she found her best pleasure in writing down anything she liked, in a language no one else would know.

And there was the wisewoman, Mistress Libushe of Bohemia, who was to teach Elayne the lore of herbs, along with such surgery and practice of medicine as a noblewoman should require. But there often seemed to be more to Lady Melanthe’s gifts than met the eye, for Elayne learned of much beyond simple ointments and curatives from Libushe. It was the wisewoman’s strange native tongue, so unlike the French or Latin or Tuscan or English, that Elayne borrowed to write her uncommon speculations and musings in her daybook.

Elayne sighed, tapping her lower lip with the quill. She did not dare to write her love poem in any other tongue, but her grasp of Libushe’s Bohemian language was hardly adequate to convey the chaotic feelings inside her. Elayne longed for Libushe to talk with now, as they had so often while walking through the meadows. Mistress Libushe had a way of making confusion into sense. But the wisewoman had departed Savernake of her own accord when Elayne reached her sixteenth year, leaving an abiding sense of loneliness that had not subsided until the day Raymond sat down to the table in Savernake’s great hall.

"Elayne!" Cara’s voice interrupted her work with a shrill note that boded ill. Elayne slammed her daybook closed without even blotting the ink. She leaped up and stuffed the love charm and Raymond’s gloves in the chest while her sister was still laboring up the stairs to the solar. Elayne dropped the lid and sat down on it.

"Elayne!" Cara’s generous figure appeared under the carved wooden portico at the door. A man followed close behind her, bringing a scent of livestock and sweat in his coarse woolens. Elayne recognized the husband of a village woman who kept a large hen-roost—the same roost that had yielded the black chicken feather in exchange for a thimbleful of ginger powder pilfered from Cara’s coffer.

Elayne stood up, bowing her head and giving Cara a deep curtsy. "Fair greeting, sister!" she said warmly.

Cara made a huff of dismissal. "Do not play innocence, Elayne," she said in her accented English, still heavy with the inflection of Italy even after years. "What you done to Willem’s fowl?"

"Was no ordinary fowl, lady," Willem said angrily. He glared at Elayne, gripping his cap between grimy fingers. "Was my fighting cock, the best bred cock I was hoarding for Shrovetide! And my wife’s chickens, dead to a hen!"

"No, I heard of that, but I hoped it wasn’t true!" Elayne exclaimed, brazening it out. "Sir Guy said that all in town were taken."

"Aye, there’s not a poultry to scratch," he said. "Between last night and morn they all took dead, and we found ’em laying about the yards and streets."

"Dread news," Elayne said. She wanted desperately to sit down, but she remained standing. She knew what they would say next.

"Aye, dread enough. ’Tis the Devil’s work," he said harshly, staring at her.

Elayne crossed herself. She assumed her most profound air of concern. "Does the priest say so?"

He instantly looked away, crossing himself, too, as she met his stare, and glanced aside at Cara. "Your sister has the Evil Eye, lady, God save us," he muttered.

Cara looked flustered. "What a wicked thing to say!" she snapped. Her ire turned from Elayne to the villager. "I not never allow such words in this abode, I warn you!"

" ’Tis the color," he said. "It’s no natural blue."

"You show ignorance," Cara said. "Lady Elayne descends of noble blood. Such purple tinge be a mark of well-born in our people."

"Aye," Willem said forebodingly. "Foreigners."

Cara’s mouth pursed. Her eyes and complexion were their own betrayal of distant birth—Cara was olive-skinned, with eyes of deepest brown. She far preferred to speak her elegantly fluent Italian tongue with Elayne. But she always took ill to any suggestion that she wasn’t as thoroughly English as the man she had married. "Bah, I am too busy with you. You take this complaints to Sir Guy," she said with hauteur.

"That I will, lady," Willem said. "I want ten crowns of him to repay my fighting cock, and another twenty shillings for the loss of the hens."

"Ten crowns!" Cara cried. "You not never saw ten crowns in your wretched life. Why Sir Guy should pay for your dead cock that took ill?"

Willem narrowed his eyes. "He’s your husband and master over your sister, now, aren’t he not? Me wife says the girl was there, giving her fine gifts for to be let at the hens, and the next day they all die...’Tis witches’ work, and I know it. You kept that foreign witch woman here, and she taught this girl her heretical ways, and now look you! My cock as was to fight at Shrovetide is lifeless as a stone!"

"Mistress Libushe used no heretical ways," Elayne said firmly. "She was sent by the Countess Melanthe herself, God keep her, to instruct me in herbs and medicines."

"Aye, and ask what else she instructed you in. Creeping about the countryside and meeting with men at the mill, even this very day!"

At the sudden look Cara cast her, Elayne lost her courage. She evaded her sister’s eyes. "I did nothing to harm your fowl, Will," she said. "Libushe taught me to heal the sick animals, not hurt them!"

"Meeting with men at the mill?" Cara demanded in Italian. "Meeting with men at the mill?"

"I only passed Sir Raymond there on his way to leave town," Elayne replied quickly in their native tongue. "I spoke to him briefly, to tell him farewell."

"Elena, you are the veriest little fool," Cara hissed. "Great God, you will end a whore upon the streets in your recklessness!"

Elayne bowed her head. She had no defense for herself.

"Foreigners," Willem grumbled, watching them with his jaw pushed forward.

Cara turned to him. "This was certainly not Elayne at the mill," she snapped. "All day she do my bidding here at the castle. And you—I do not like you with your Evil Eye and rude claims to defame my sister. Be gone now." 

"I will see Sir Guy," Willem said.

"Be gone at once!" Cara demanded. "Or the guard will cast you from the gate."

"Foreigners!" Willem snarled, and turned without even a bow for the ladies of the castle. "Heretics! The priest will hear of this."