“There’s the room your mama used sometimes,” said Doll. Doll is older than most of the other servants, and she was present when my mama was still in residence. “Up in the dove tower,” she said, raising her eyebrows up under her hair and jerking her head back. Doll is stout and red-cheeked and has more energy than any five other women. She stood there, looking at me intently, hands on hips.
The dove tower is slender and tall, the tallest of all the castle towers, its top decorated with spiky finials and a long pole for flying banners. Around it the white doves make a constant cloud of wings and a liquid tumult like water falling into a fountain.
“Up in the dove tower, then,” I agreed, and we all went back through the hall and wound ourselves here and there through little side passages until we came to the tower door. It screamed when we opened it, like a goose being killed, and the dust on the stairs puffed under our feet as we crept up, round and round and round until we were dizzy. The door at the top hung loose with great nails sticking out of it, and the room itself was filthy with bits of bird nest and veils of spider web. Doll sent a girl to ask Martin to come up and fix the shutters and the door, and he did that while one of his boys unstuffed the chimney and two of the women scrubbed the floor and walls and another one swept the mess down the stairs. Martin threw the carpet down into the yard, for it was eaten to rags by moth and mouse. The doves from the cote below had made somewhat free with the space, but under the dirty coverlet the bed was all right, and so were the bed curtains we found in the carved armoire, once they’d been shaken free of dust and well brushed and hung. I cleaned out the armoire myself (finding something interesting in the process) and put my clothes in it. Then I sat on the chair and felt important. It has arms! Only Papa and Aunt Terror have chairs with arms. Everyone else sits on benches or stools. While I sat there, I examined the thing I’d found in the armoire, but there wasn’t time really to figure out what it was, so after a time, I put it under the chair seat, which lifts up to make a storage place, and told myself I would examine it later on.
Doll showed me the privy closet over the moat. The door is in the wainscot beside the fireplace. I’ll have it all to myself. I can see the lake through the little windows. The tiny panes of glass are quite intact and clear now that the bird droppings have been washed away. There are three windows in a row, and the middle one goes all the way to the floor and opens on a balcony where a kind of pole juts out over the stableyard. Martin calls it a spar, and says he’ll fix the pulley and put a rope on it tomorrow, so that water and firewood can be hauled up from the stableyard below. By late afternoon everyone was finished with the cleaning and went off, leaving the room neat and sweet-smelling with my lute hung on the wall, a pitcher of water and a bowl to wash in on the chest, a kettle by the fire for hot water, the woodbox filled, all my things tucked away, and me here alone, looking around at the sky like a bird from its nest.
Without a carpet or rushes, the floors will be very cold. Without tapestries, the walls will be even colder. Still, the hooks are still there to put wall hangings on, if I can find some, and the worst of the cold weather is over. It will be warm enough for a night or two, until Sibylla leaves and I can steal my carpet back from my old room. I must stop writing and go down to supper.
Though we made a noisy enough bustle getting the tower room cleaned, it seems the tower is so high and remote no one heard us. None of the aunts noticed where I went; they all spoke as though I’d moved into a room in Papa’s wing. I suppose Sibylla and her mama think that’s what I’ve done. At table this evening she peered at me as a chicken does at a bug, acting very discontented and disappointed, as though she had been counting on my making a fuss about moving, perhaps, which would have given her something to complain to Papa about. Poor fool woman. She doesn’t know Papa.
“All settled?” he asked them vaguely, not waiting for an answer. “Good. It’s always good to get settled.” Then he went back to talking with Father Raymond about the pilgrimages he intends to make before and after the wedding while Sibylla sat there, caparisoned like a tournament horse, playing with a slice of overdone venison and staring at the back of his neck. I thought of telling her that’s mostly what she’s going to see of him. The back of his neck as he plans some journey or the back of all of him as he rides away.
[The device Beauty found in the tower room was one I, Carabosse, had left there for her: a clock. It has my name on it, and I hope it will serve as an introduction so she will not be completely surprised, later, when we meet We plan for her to leave Westfaire, which is conspicuous now and will be even more so, and go to another place, a hidden place where she is unlikely to ever encounter the Dark Lord Thus far, things are progressing precisely as Israfel and I expected they would, as the Pool showed they would. The immediate future is usually quite clear in the Pool, and we had foreseen Sibylla. We had anticipated the succession of events leading to Beauty’s occupation of the tower, I had even foreseen her pleasure in it.
What I had not anticipated are my own feelings, I fear I am growing fond of the girl. She has something none of her fairy godmothers gave her, something that came entirely from her human heritage. It is a kind of courage. An indomitability. Like a buoyant little boat, she pops to the top of every wave. Loquacious though she is (and Father Raymond was perfectly right about that), even a little arch at times (and why shouldn’t she be? Most of her aunts have exactly that manner), still, she has something attractive about her. Perhaps it is the outward sign of what we did to her, Israfel and I.]
5
ST. ETHELREDA’S DAY,
MAY, YEAR OF OUR LORD 1347
After Sibylla left, in the days between the betrothal and the wedding, which is supposed to take place very soon, I got the tower arranged to suit me. Martin and I stole my carpet from my old room and replaced it with one out of the attic. Laid over a nice layer of straw, it made the floor much warmer. We could find no wall tapestries in the attic, but we did find some painted wall cloths up there, blue background with a design of little starry flowers in silver, quite good enough to take the chill off the stone. Also, Martin put up a new firewood rope.
After that, I had time to really look at the thing I found. It is round, like a wheel, about as big across as the palm of my hand, and as thick through as four of my fingers held together. It has four little feet like lion’s paws. It is made of shiny metal which could be gold, for it is very heavy for its size. The round front is made of glass. Under the glass are nine numbers, Roman numbers, set in a circle. The numbers start at the top right with fourteen, and go on around the circle to twenty-two, which is at the top. There is a lacy golden arrow starting in the middle and pointing to the fourteen. Well, actually pointing about halfway between the fourteen and the fifteen. On the back of it is a place like a keyhole, but there is no key. On the top is a handle, like two dragons, fighting or kissing or just being heraldic. And that’s all.
Except the noise it makes. I can only hear it at night when things are very quiet, but I can hear it then. The tiniest ticking, the faintest crepitation, like something very small inside there, breathing or tapping its toe.
Oh, on the front of it, twining all around the numbers is a design of leaves and vines, and I think they are meant to spell out letters. Sometimes I look at them for a long, long time, trying to make the letters out. Two, I’m almost sure, are Ss. Two, I’m almost sure, are As. I think there’s a B and a C, but I can’t be sure. Since I don’t know what it is, I call it my mysterious thing, and it sits on the chest with my other things.
I like the tower very much.
As it happened, Papa had gone off somewhere before the aunts even found out where I am living. When they found out, there was much consternation, buzzing, and confabulation. The aunts wanted to know who suggested such a thing?
No sense getting Doll in trouble. I told them it had been my own idea.
More wide eyes, open mouths, and thrown up hands. More fussing and steaming and orders to move here, move there.
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“My mother lived up there,” I said to them at last. “If you want me to get out of it, you’ll have to tell me why!”
Which settled them down in a hurry. Not one of them is willing to say why or what or when. Since Papa is off viewing decayed bits of saints’ bodies, he isn’t available to offer an opinion. Aunt Sister Mary Elizabeth and Aunt Sister Mary George, whose thoughts on the matter were solicited by Aunt Terror in a thick letter sent by messenger, have replied that they are unaware of anything ungodly about the tower room. This sent the aunts into a frenzy of calculation, trying to decide whether either of the elderly nuns was present at Westfaire at any time when my mother was here.
I stood it as long as I could, and then I went to Doll “Doll,” I asked her, “tell me what this is all about.” I’ve asked her about my mother many times over the years, and she has always shaken her head at me. Still, the last time I’d asked had been a long time ago, when I was a child.
“Be my gizzard’s worth,” she said. “Be worth my life and soul if they found out.” She wrung her hands, one in the other, trying not to look at me.
“Not from me,” I swore, spitting in my hand and making a cross on my chest with ashes from the cook-fire.
She wrung her hands again, staring over my shoulder. Finally she gave a kind of sigh and a shrug and said, almost in a whisper, “When your papa insisted on makin’ a great celebration out of your Christenin’, she invited some relatives of hers, and when your papa found out about that, they fought about it. I don’t know what it was about because I couldn’t hear anythin’ except them yellin’. Then, when the Christenin’ was over, your papa took you away and gave you to a wetnurse down in the village, then he locked your mama in her room up there in the tower. He nailed the door shut, and he went up every day to yell at her through the door, tellin’ her the whole thing had been her fault and she’d had no business marryin’ him without tellin’ him.”
“What did he mean?”
She flushed and twisted her hands together. “It’s not something I’d speak of, Beauty. Besides, I don’t know for sure. None of us common folk knows for sure. Third day after your mama was locked up, your papa got no answer when he yelled at her, so the carpenter jerked the door open and they found her gone.”
“Jumped?” I asked, thinking Doll knew something she wasn’t telling me. Her face was red, like she was holding something back, but I didn’t want to push her too much or she’d refuse to talk about it at all.
“Too high to jump,” she said.
“Went down the firewood rope.”
“Your papa took the firewood rope down first thing he put her in there.”
“Flew away?” I offered as a jest, watching in amazement as Doll crossed herself.
“There’s those that say she did exactly that.”
“I did get christened, didn’t I?” I asked, wondering why Mama had made such a fuss about it.
“Of course you did, silly,” she snorted, going back to her cleaning, obviously not wanting to talk about it anymore. Needless to say, this has given me a great deal to think about.
6
ST. LADISLAS DAY,
JUNE, YEAR OF OUR LORD 1347
Yesterday Papa came back from his trip full of plans for the wedding, which he seems in a monstrous hurry to accomplish, and this has given the aunts something else to worry about besides where I am housed. None of them chose to be the one to tell him I am living in the tower, and I’m certainly not going to tell him.
The weather has been having a sulky spell, with gloomy clouds and chill rain. I’ve kept the shutters closed and a fire going, to make a warm shadowy space. What with the wall hangings and the carpet and the low ceiling (though it is vaulted up from five stone piers to join in a carved rosette high in the middle), it stays warmer than my old quarters did, even though the fireplace is a tiny little thing next to the door where the stairs go down behind the one straight wall. Though it took him several days to get used to it, Grumpkin has come to like the tower room, both for sleeping and for prowling about on the balcony. I love it. I can practice on the lute without anyone’s hearing or learn new songs or read, all by the light of the fire with the one candle making strange shadows.
Which led me to my discovery. This afternoon I saw that a shadow on the chimney piece looked exactly like a face. One of the stones was a nose. I went over and stroked it, watching the shadow of my hand, feeling the nose shake a little. The stone was loose. I fiddled with it and jiggled at it until it slid out into my hands, not heavy at all. It was only a thin piece shaped to fit into the front of a little space. And behind the stone was a box.
I took the box out, replaced the stone, and sat down before the fire to look at it. The box is well-made of a pale satiny wood, and though it has a keyhole, it wasn’t locked. Inside was a packet of needles and three hanks of thread, a ring with a carved stone, and some tightly rolled sheets of parchment. These I unrolled and found the top sheet was a letter directed to me.
Dear Beauty:
Since you have not had a mother’s love, my child, I believe you deserve at least a mother’s explanation.
I did not leave my own country with the intention of marrying anyone like your father. I met the duke quite by accident; he wooed me with great ardor; I fell under the spell of his passion.
As it happens with my people, from the moment of the wooing, my memory of my past existence was dimmed. I was first enveloped by your father’s encompassing desires and later smothered by his overwhelming aunts. The former caused me to lose my memory and virginity, though temporarily; the latter have caused me almost to lose my mind. I hope this is also temporary.
Time passed and I learned that I was pregnant. I was not unhappy about this. As I grew large, however, your father began to absent himself. I should say, absent himself more frequently, as it is common knowledge in this household that your father is a libertine. As I grew larger yet, he left me completely to myself. Among my family, celibacy restores both memory and virginity, a useful attribute under certain conditions—if one wishes to trap a unicorn, for example. To say I was horrified at what I had done is to say both too much and too little. I regretted the liaison as being beneath my dignity, but at the same time, I delighted in the prospect of having a child. Children have a very special meaning to our people.
Then you were born. Your father planned to have you christened. I considered this unnecessary and demeaning. His religion is stealing our birthright, day by day and year by year! Why should I take part in it! However, your father insisted not only upon the ceremony itself, but upon making it a cause for semipublic display.
Since all your father’s aunts would be attending this ceremony, however, fairness dictated that my own aunts be offered the same opportunity. They would have been mightily offended otherwise.
I let the letter fall into my lap as I considered these confusing words. How very strange. I reread the first of the letter, but it made no more sense the second time. I shook my head and went on.
I did not invite Aunt Carabosse. She came uninvited! For some inexplicable reason of her own, she laid a curse upon you, my child. Upon your sixteenth birthday you were to prick your finger upon a spindle and die.
I crushed the letter to my breast in sudden horror. My sixteenth birthday was only days away. I forced my eyes back to the parchment where it trembled in my hands.
No one heard this except your great aunt, Joyeause, who was standing beside the cradle at the time. She came to me after the guests had departed to tell me she had modified the curse as best she could. The curse now implements as follows: “When Duke Phillip’s beautiful daughter reaches her sixteenth year, she shall prick her finger upon a spindle and fall into a sleep of one hundred years, from which she will be wakened by the kiss of a charming prince.” Or perhaps it was Prince Charming. I have been much upset by all this and did not pay proper attention to what she was telling me. No one knows what Aunt Joyeause has done but me—and you, if you read this letter b
efore your birthday, as I am confident you will do for I have set a timely discovery spell upon it.
[Most of the above is nonsense. Joyeause did overhear what I said, since she was closest to me at the time. What I said was that the duke’s daughter would be pricked by a spindle and fall into an enchanted sleep. All that bit about the hundred years and the prince is pure invention. I never said the child would die, and if Joyeause tried for a thousand years she couldn’t change one of my spells. Joyeause has always been a dilettante.]
Your father, already offended by Carabosse’s attendance at an event to which she was not invited, became outraged. He raved at me, and I had no time to remonstrate with him before he dragged me off to this tower! He says he has hidden you away and will hide all the spindles in the castle, perhaps all those in the dukedom. He castigates himself for marrying one of my race, and me for being what I am. Men are like that. They marry for reasons that have nothing to do with what they expect from matrimony and then damn their wives for not being what they want later. They marry for beauty and charm and sex, and then expect their wives to be sensible, parsimonious and efficient.
Now that memory and virginity are restored, I need not remain here to be insulted. I choose to return to my ancestral lands. My powers at the moment have been considerably diminished by the time I have spent here, and I cannot find you to take you with me. You will find this letter when you are old enough. If you cannot come to me before the curse takes effect, come as soon thereafter as you can. I have left you the means to do so. Keep safe the box in which you find this.
I put down the letter and wiped my face where the tears were running down, making an itchy mess of my eyes and nose. I did have a mama. And evidently I was not to die on my birthday, though the fate Grandaunt Joyeause had planned did not seem a thrilling alternative. I could not understand how Mama expected to see me after the curse, since even mothers did not, as a general rule, live more than one hundred years. The letter continued briefly on a separate page.