“Orien doesn’t know this,” the Earl said, “but your grandparents saved my life, and my father’s.”
“The girl should have a seat,” the Earl’s Lady said. A servant brought a chair forward, setting it beside the Lady’s. Birle sat down gratefully. The Earl seemed to be waiting for her to say something.
“I never heard anything like that,” Birle said.
“If I were given a goblet of wine I could tell the story. If you’d like to hear it. Would you?” the Earl asked.
“Aye, my Lord,” she said.
“You probably should hear it, since you seem to have stolen this boy’s heart from him.”
At his way of putting it, Birle could have laughed out loud. So that was what the castle said she had done, stolen Orien’s heart, as if she were an enchantress. To think that the castle believed that made her want to laugh.
“And you look just like your grandmother when you smile,” the Earl said. “Just like her.”
Birle heard his pleasure in his voice. That it pleased him satisfied something in her, so that she dared to ask, “What is this story?”
He drank the wine, and told the tale, of long ago feuding in the castle, and war in the lands as brothers fought for the title. He and his father had fled to the north, where they had been caught by a blizzard, and the Innkeeper’s daughter had kept him safe in an isolated house they chanced upon, and the Inn’s servant had brought his father safely through the blizzard. Birle listened, trying to imagine Gran a girl of sixteen and Granda a servant. As the Earl described the long days of being snowed in, she wondered if this was how Gran and Granda had learned to read. The Earl had been then just a boy, he said. A boy might not know that the people were forbidden to know letters. “My grandson tells me that you know how to read,” the Earl said.
“And write,” Orien added. Both he and the Earl were watching her, as if they had agreed about something she didn’t understand.
Birle had had enough of feeling that everyone knew and understood things of which she was ignorant. “I think it must have been you who taught letters to my grandmother,” she said to the Earl. “And given them the books that were in the cupboard in their holding, and the maps, and also had them taken away when the house was empty.”
At least she had surprised the smug expressions off their faces. “Now that Birle has given us her greeting,” the Earl’s Lady said, “we would ask you, Lady, to tell us something of this foreign city. Orien tells us nothing of the time, except that you brought him out alive from slavery. He said your master was a philosopher. What does that mean?”
It was this question, and Birle’s answer, and all the questions and answers of that first long afternoon, that made the Earl’s apartment the place in the castle where Birle most liked to be. It was a place where the map of the skies could be mentioned, and the ideas of alchemy considered. Here too Birle had a use—for while she couldn’t heal the Earl, she could make him more comfortable. She knew that aged cider added to his bath water would ease the itching that tormented him, and that the sores she could soothe with an ointment of comfrey and honey would not appear if he moved from his bed. She advised hot infusions of chamomile and catnip for sleeplessness. In the Earl’s apartment, Birle had work to do. Although the Earl was won more slowly, his Lady had—from that first meeting—seen into Birle’s heart, and smiled upon her.
The Earl’s Lady shone like sunlight over the people of the castle. Birle understood why Orien had never mentioned his grandmother—she was too close to his heart to speak of. The Earl’s Lady was the treasure at the heart of the castle—for Birle and for all of the others, servants and Lords alike; all came to her for wisdom, or for help, and just as often to bring her some gift. Only Gladaegal’s wife was unchanged in the presence of the Earl’s Lady, almost as if by her stiffness she hoped to curb Gladaegal’s spirit. Birle had studied Gladaegal, watched and listened. She thought now that Orien had been right to doubt his brother—not for what the dark young man would do, but for what he must feel, being the younger brother, to whom the title would not come, whatever his worthiness. In the presence of the Earl’s Lady, Birle could see clearly what might otherwise have kept hidden—that Gladaegal admired his brother more than he envied him.
It was the Earl’s Lady that winter afternoon, when Birle had returned to her seat to pick up the book from which she had been reading, who didn’t allow her to return to the task. “I think, my Lord, that Birle has something more important than reading to discuss with us.”
“With us?” the Earl grumbled. “You mean with you.”
“I mean with us,” his Lady said, “and that is why I said it.”
“Then it will be bad news,” the Earl said. He shifted in his chair. “I’ll tell you how I know, so you won’t have the trouble of asking. If it’s good news you simply tell it to me, when you judge the time is right. Only bad news needs discussion. So it won’t be anything I’ll be pleased to hear. Well, Birle, what is it?”
Birle took a breath, and waited for just one moment more, hearing the soft wooden clicking of the needles, feeling the warmth of the fire on her back, seeing her own white hands as they held the book open on her lap. Then she made herself say it. “I would ask your permission to leave the castle, my Lord.”
“You don’t have it,” the Earl said. “There now, that’s settled, let that be an end on it. You’re laughing at me, Lady,” he complained to his wife. “Well, Birle, is it that you wish to visit your family? I could give you leave for that.”
“I ask your leave to go, and not return.”
“I’ve answered that request.”
“I think, my Lord,” the Lady said, “that if you forbid her she’ll run away from us.”
“Just like Orien, they’re as alike as two peas. Never a warning and never a word of explanation. One day he’s here, and the next he’s gone, and when it pleases him he comes back.” Then the Earl changed the subject, but whether to divert her or to ask a question that troubled him, Birle didn’t know. “Do you know why he left, Birle? Did he tell you?”
“I know what he said about it,” she answered carefully. “But I’ve learned, here, that what is said often masks the truth.”
“Can you tell us what he said?” the Lady asked.
“He feared that he would be too gentle an Earl, which he feared wouldn’t serve the lands and the people well.”
“Like me.” The Earl spoke what she hadn’t.
“Like you, but not to judge you harshly, Lord. Orien admires you, and your service to the people. What he said was that two such Earls, one after the other—that was where he saw danger.”
“He doesn’t seem troubled by that any longer,” the Earl said.
“No,” Birle agreed. “He doesn’t.” She didn’t know what was in Orien’s mind; he was most often away, visiting the southern Lords, hunting, talking with the priests and Steward, drilling with the soldiers—he was seldom at the castle. “And there was his father’s death, the manner of it, and his father’s jealousy, and he feared Gladaegal. For what Gladaegal might desire.”
“Foolishness,” the Earl announced. “He should have known better.”
“What about you, do you fear Gladaegal?” the Lady asked.
“No, I don’t.”
“Why not?” the Lady asked.
“Because—because Gladaegal holds his honor dear to him. If he had murder in his heart he’d do it openly, before everyone. If I feared ambition’s hand,” Birle added, because in this room she could speak her mind openly, “I’d fear his Lady. But she would never dare to plot harm, because she also knows that Gladaegal is a man who would give his own wife to the executioner, if honor required it.”
“In fact,” the Earl told her, “it was murder, as Orien feared. But the huntsman wasn’t suborned. The huntsman meant murder, to revenge his daughter’s shame. He was brought to law, and hanged. The truth didn’t come out until after Orien disappeared, but how was I to know what he was thinking? He never said—he nev
er explained or asked—he just disappeared. Have you told Orien your desire?”
Birle shook her head. She would not have dared to put the question before Orien, the Earl that would be, to make formal supplication, to stand before them all to hear him answer her.
“Are you so unhappy?” the Earl asked.
“How could I be unhappy? It’s only that I’m not content. I have no work,” Birle said. How Nan would laugh if she could hear Birle saying that, Birle thought. She tried to explain. “Among the people, a man and his wife work the holding, or the loom, or nets, or whatever the work of the house is. Among the people, a man and his wife are both necessary to the well-being of the house. I can’t change myself into a Lady, any more than my master could change stones into gold. I can act the part, but—” She put the book down on the floor and stood up, because she thought it would somehow be more possible to make them understand if she was standing. “Do you know it was fully ten days, when I first arrived, before I remembered to inquire about the mare who carried us here?” For which Yul had been sold, she thought, but didn’t say. “We left the beast tied up on Hearing Day, and then—I didn’t remember her for ten days.”
“Was it not well cared for?” the Earl asked.
“But I shouldn’t have forgotten. I never would have anywhere else. Also,” she went on, “I am with child and I didn’t even think of it until I noticed that while all the other Ladies take to their beds for the length of their woman’s times, away from the company, I never have needed to. Not that I wish to spend the days abed, not that I would need to do that. It’s not that. Also I am with child,” she said again. She stood before them, waiting for their anger, or their pity for her shame.
“What troubles you is that you didn’t notice, or think of it?”
“Yes, Lady.”
“I think you ought to give her the permission she asks,” the Lady said to her husband. “I think you ought.” Tears rose to Birle’s eyes, for sorrow and relief, both; she brushed them away.
“What about Orien?” the Earl protested. “You’ll break his heart.”
“I don’t think that,” Birle said. “Now that he’s back here, home, himself again. . . . ” She didn’t know how to let them understand what Orien didn’t wish them to know. “My slavery was as much a gift as a burden. But Orien had all taken from him, strength and honor, all hope. He was a slave to ill fortune, and now he is—again—Fortune’s favorite. Now he will be the Earl, and he’ll find a Lady to wed.” But she didn’t want to speak of that, or think too precisely about it. “If I thought it would break Orien’s heart, then I would stay.”
“It is his child you carry?” The Earl was angry now.
“Yes,” Birle said, remembering. “Yes, it is Orien’s child,” and proud too. “A betrothal can be broken off. A marriage cannot.”
“But—” the Earl waved his hand impatiently.
His Lady interrupted him, and didn’t let him finish the thought. “The Ladies of the castle live apart, even wife from husband. The Earl’s Lady, perhaps most of all—it is only in these last years, my Lord, that you and I could spend long hours together, in the friendship of our hearts. You liked it no better than I did, my Lord,” she reminded him. “The children of the castle sleep in the nursery, and are left to the care of servants. I often wished for myself that it were not so, for the good of the child and of the mother.”
Birle said, “Lady, I think you know my heart.”
The Earl had fallen back into his chair. “My Lord,” Birle said, “it troubles me that Orien didn’t need to leave, but thought he did. He never had to run away, but he didn’t know that.”
“I should have guessed his mind,” the Lady said.
“He didn’t wish you to,” Birle said. Once again she took a deep breath. “I ask your leave to go.”
The Earl spoke to his wife. “You tell me I must give it?”
“There is no must for the Earl of Sutherland,” she answered. “I tell you only that I think you ought. Do you wish to go home, Birle?”
The Earl didn’t allow Birle to answer. “If we should give leave, and I will,” he announced, “then I will tell you how it will be. As your Earl, I tell you. You will have the holding your grandparents had.” He held up a hand to silence her. “At the first of spring, you may go there, not before. You may not travel until winter has left the land. I’ll send you under the care of a messenger and servants. No, Birle, you must let me do it this way, so that you have supplies to keep you until the holding can do that, so that you travel safely and live comfortably.”
Birle sat down at his feet. She hadn’t thought the Earl and his Lady would want to help her; she had hoped only for their consent. “I don’t want to dishonor Orien,” she said. “My idea was that if the people of the castle were told that I was sickening for a sight of my homeland, and the grip of winter disheartened me—they would ask no questions. Although they know the truth, they don’t believe it.”
“They don’t wish to believe,” the Lady explained. “The Ladies so seldom leave the protection of castle and servant that they know nothing of the world beyond, the world beyond is no more than what they imagine it to be. The Lords let the women tell them what to think on matters such as these. The Ladies understand that a Lord might find a servant fair, and he might desire her, and she might give him pleasure. But not wed her—that he may not do.”
“So I will be forgotten.”
“Will Orien forget you?”
“Aye, Lady, I hope I will become a memory that makes the other memories of the time better for him. I would be no less than that,” Birle said. “But no more.”
“So I will equip you for a journey to the south,” the Earl said.
“But not with a messenger,” his Lady suggested, “or with servants. There must be no talk. If servants know the journey’s end, word will spread. Birle wishes to disappear, but how could she do that if there were rumors to fly after her and hunt her out? And how could Orien undertake the earldom, with rumors to feed hope?”
“I can travel alone,” Birle assured them.
The Earl had his own plans. “You’ll go with Gladaegal, then. His word will be his bond. That is my will, Birle—for I wouldn’t sleep easy not knowing that you were safe. That’s settled, then. At the first of spring, when Orien goes to bend his knee to the King, you and Gladaegal will travel the River Way, into the south.”
“Aye, my Lord,” Birle said.
The Earl’s Lady stopped her knitting. “Orien will expect a wedding when he returns from doing obeisance to the King. What will you tell him?”
At the question, so gently asked, Birle’s eyes filled again with tears, which she couldn’t wipe away. “I’ll tell him what I can, to give him ease,” she promised them.
+ + +
After that, there was only waiting, for the time. The waiting passed quickly—or so it seemed to Birle. One day, icicles as thick as a man’s arm hung down outside of the arched windows, and then they were gone, washed away by days of cold rain. Patches of furrowed earth appeared from under the snow, and the bowed golden grasses of last year’s meadows. The first flowers raised timid heads in the castle gardens. “This is the sixty-second spring of my life,” the Earl said, on a morning when he was too weak to get out of his bed. “Can you smell the new year in the air, Birle?”
“Yes, my Lord,” Birle said. She was reading to him again, to pass the time, the old stories of animals who spoke and acted like men. This was her sixteenth spring, she thought. She wondered if it hurt the little flowers to have to push up through the covering earth. After the long, safe sleep of winter, it would be hard to be naked to the air again.
“The year turns on a wheel, like Fortune’s Wheel,” the Earl said. “What would your Philosopher say about that, Birle?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Orien goes to the King in the morning, do you know that?”
Birle could barely lift her head under the weight of that knowledge. But the plans had been carefully made, and so she
stood with the others, Lords and Ladies, to bid farewell to Orien, who would be Earl. When she took in deep breaths, the dress she wore stretched uncomfortably tight around her ribs—another month and she wouldn’t be able to conceal the child.
Another month and the child’s father would be long out of her sight, long and forever, she thought, and watched him bow over the hands of the Ladies and exchange a word with his Lords. When he stood before her, she could do little more than look at him—tall, strong, proud, and glad, the curved scar at his cheek, a man who carried his power like the sheathed sword at his side, the promise of ringing steel—and his bellflower eyes smiling down at her. “Lady,” Orien said, “it’s a short journey I make, too short for sorrow.”
“I would make every journey with you,” she told him.
“You have much to do here in preparation. It will not be for long, Lady.”
“It seems long,” she told him. “It will seem very long.”
“With a wedding at the end of it,” he reminded her.
“Aye, my Lord,” she said, her voice so quiet only Orien could hear her. “Until we are wed I will carry you close in my heart.”
“And after?” he asked, laughing.
She didn’t begrudge him his gladness but she answered sharply from her own heavy heart. “After will have to take care of itself. Your men grow impatient, my Lord.”
He bowed over her hand and walked away. But when he came to where the groom held his horse’s reins out, he turned and strode back, Orien in a shirt as green as summer leaves, with the golden wings of the falcon outspread across his chest—the Earl that would be. He bent his mouth close to her ear and said softly, “Do you think of the forest bed, Birle? I do, and of the nannies and billies.”