When they came to the back room and kitchen door, there was little André, just standing there at attention, his back straight, and arms at his sides. The firelight from the large oven illuminated his porcelain delicate beauty of suspended childhood.
Percy put down the tray on a table then turned to the older woman. But before she could speak, Mistress Saronne exclaimed to André, “Now go upstairs, boy, right now, you hear, child? Go up there and wait for me! Hurry, now! Scoot, scoot!”
And as the boy obeyed, and moved away in his little measured paces, his feet making small creaks on the stair, the woman turned to Percy. “Oh, for the love of God, I beg you not to say anything to anyone, my dear!”
“So you do know that he is not alive—”
“Yes, yes, oh, I beg you to hush!” And the poor woman wrung her hands and then took Percy’s with her own, clutching them in a moist trembling hold. “However did you know, girl? Oh, I know not how you discovered it, but please don’t say anything! Yes, my poor little André fell down a few days ago, and hit his head against a railing. There was only a little blood, and I cleaned him all up, right there at the back of his curly sweet little hair, and after the washing it was all covered up, just as well as you please! And he looked all fine and rosy, just a little bit pale, and he went to lie down for a bit, and then he was up and wouldn’t lie back down ever again. I had no idea about death stopping yet, so at first I wanted to take him to the apothecary, and then of course we all learned the truth of the world. . . .”
Mistress Saronne started to tremble, and Percy looked at her with compassion.
“And now,” the mother continued, “he does not sleep. He never sleeps. He sits or stands all night, and plays with that wooden toy of his. And he does not know. He doesn’t know!”
“Oh, I am so very sorry. . . .”
“Never you fear, my girl, I am glad I have him now, and it doesn’t matter in the least what he is. He is a precious good boy. He listens to me, and helps around the tavern, and serves the customers, and he never says an unkind word to his old mother or to anyone. It is God’s blessing that I have him with me for as long as I do—however long that may be.”
The woman let go of Percy’s hands and again clutched her apron. “So you see, it is so important that no one knows! Not so much the customers, or the neighbors, but I don’t want him to know! Oh, he mustn’t!”
“But,” Percy said gently, “will he not find out eventually? And once he does, he will be faced with the truth no matter now much it may hurt or scare him. He does have the right to know. . . .”
“But he’s so young! He’s but a baby! He can’t know about death yet! No, not yet, please!” And Mistress Saronne broke out into deep heartrending sobs, with snot and tears distorting her face into a mask of grief, while she bit her knuckles. “And as for his father, he is gone out of town, and when he comes back, oh Lord Almighty, at least he will be able to speak to the boy! It is a miracle, this whole thing is, to have him with us! But oh—I just cannot tell him—either one of them!”
“Would you like me to speak to André on your behalf?” asked Percy. “Also, it is a hard thing to say, but now that no one can die, there is yet a way for the dead to be put to rest. I am able to do that for André, if you like. . . .”
“Oh, God, no! Oh, no, no, please, don’t take him away!” There was panic in the face of the woman.
“I will not take him away without your or his consent,” Percy replied. “But it may be the right thing to do, to ask him what he wants. It is not a happy thing for him to be as he is, neither properly alive nor dead. This is not real, none of it. He will never grow, you know, never get older—”
Mistress Saronne began to sob once more, and in that moment, there was again a creaking on the stair. And then André’s little shape came down, and he stood before his mother and Percy, looking at them both with very intent clear eyes.
“Oh, what are you doing here, André? I told you to stay upstairs!”
“Why are you crying, Ma?”
“It’s nothing, child, I am—I got onions in my eye, you know how I cry from all them awful peeled onions!”
“Where are the onions, Ma? I don’t see any.”
Percy watched their exchange, and then she turned to the boy very gently and asked: “André, you don’t want to go upstairs and sleep, do you?”
“I am not sleepy.”
“Would you like to sleep?”
He paused, looking at her, with that same soft watery intensity that was caused by the connection with her for which neither she nor the dead had any words.
“Would you like to lie down and go to sleep at last, André?”
The boy was silent, regarding her. And his mother, no longer hiding her state, burst into hard weeping again.
“I can help you go to sleep, André, but only if you want.”
“Can I have dreams?” he said. “I haven’t had dreams, not yesterday, not before that.”
“Can you promise him dreams?” the mother exclaimed in a wild voice, then added, “You’re the one they speak of, aren’t you? I know you! Oh, I know who you are!”
Percy felt her throat closing up, and she said, “I cannot promise dreams. I—I can only give you rest.”
The boy nodded then, never taking his eyes off her, and not once looking at his broken hysterical mother. “Yes,” he whispered. “Then, yes, I want to go to sleep. And I will dream on my own, all by myself. Help me go to sleep. . . .”
“No!” Mistress Saronne slowly slid down on the floor, holding herself with her arms wrapped around her middle. “No, please! Oh, God, no. . . .” Her words trailed off into incoherent sobs.
“André,” Percy said. “Go and kiss your mother before you sleep.”
The boy obeyed, and turned, then slowly lowered himself on his knees before his mother. “I love you, Ma,” he said. “Good night.”
Mistress Saronne grabbed him in a big messy embrace, and held him, stroking his curling baby hair, his cool ivory forehead, his round cheeks with their faint shadow of a wilted rose. She released him at last, and said, “Go on, now, go. . . !”
Thus, Percy Ayren took the little boy by the hand, and together they went upstairs. There she turned down the quilt of his small bed and helped him crawl inside, and then tucked the blanket covers around him. His small feeble shadow sentinel streamed at the side of the bed, delicate like vapor over a warm milky bowl—waiting.
“Where’s your cavalry man and his horse?”
And when the boy dug in his pocket and offered the wooden toy to her, Percy held his fingers briefly, and then put the soldier figurine up to his chin and along the boy’s chest, where she lifted it up and down, saying, “see, how he rides!”
A smile came to André, and he watched the moving soldier and his horse, as they navigated the hills and valleys of his chest and blanket.
“Where does the cavalry man ride?” he asked, settling back against the pillow.
“Oh, he rides on an Adventure! I’ll tell you a story, André, a story about this very special brave Cavalry Man and his Horse, as they gallop!”
“What’s the Horse’s name?”
“Well, you’ll have to ask the Horse himself, but he’s a fine and wondrous Horse, faster than the wind, and I think he’ll show you his name, once you close your eyes. . . .”
“I can see it!” André smiled, as his eyelids came down, with soft pale lashes brushing against his cheeks.
And Percy continued the story.
When she came downstairs, the mother sat like a stone on a bench in the kitchen. Percy’s face was immobile, leached of all energy and her eyes were red-rimmed.
“Is he—”
“He’s gone,” Percy said. “Peace be with you.”
And as Mistress Saronne rushed upstairs with a hoarse, rending, guttural sound, Percy came out into the common room of the tavern, mostly emptied of customers, where the knight had long since finished eating and was waiting for her, his face locked in a sober
expression. He had left a generous pile of coins up on the counter.
“My Lord,” Percy said, looking at him and yet past him. “We need to go now.”
Beltain nodded, rising.
And there was no need to say another word.
Chapter 15
Lady Amaryllis Roulle and Lord Nathan Woult waited for what must have been at least a whole day and most of the night before the urchin Catrine returned for them again with a plan for escaping Chidair Keep.
It was long past evening twilight, and an anxious-faced servant girl had come with their poor meals of whatever turnip-and-carrot swill concoction the kitchen made that day, together with a new pitcher of water. And then another servant came to empty their chamberpot.
Amaryllis, still miraculously elegant despite her many days without proper ablutions, used a bit of the fresh water to sprinkle her hands, in an illusion of washing before a meal, then stirred the fearsome lukewarm gruel in her bowl with one slim finger and tasted the mushy carrot stew with a grimace.
“I am afraid they are feeding us whatever they must feed the pigs,” she observed. “Has it gotten even more foul, or am I mistaken?”
Nathan dipped his chunk of bread into his own dish, and then scooped up a large glob and popped it into his mouth. “Really, my dear, you are far too fastidious. Think not of what it is, but what it could be! This stuff is not half so bad now, though it could use a bit of salt and pepper, and—oh, all right, it could use gravy and wine and the entire contents of a proper pantry.” Unlike the lady, Lord Woult looked very unkempt, with his tussled hair, several days’ growth of black beard, and circles under his eyes. In the near-darkness of their chamber, he could very well have been taken for a monstrosity.
Amaryllis looked up, barely registering the sight of him—untrimmed beard and whiskers and his hair standing up wildly—and shook her head in piteous disdain.
“What?” Nathan said, pausing with his mouth stuffed full of bread and stew.
“Dear Heaven, but have you looked at yourself, my dear boy? You appear perfectly horrendous. It’s a good thing I know there is a handsome man underneath that apish Caliban. It is also a good thing the moon is not out yet, to illuminate our woe, or I would be forced to look at you.”
“Hah!” he said, and continued chewing. “It is not to be helped now, is it? Not all of us can maintain esthetic decorum while locked up and denied toiletry and cosmetics.”
“Tis too true,” she replied, then sat back on her cot with resignation and dipped the tip of her finger again in her stew, scooped up something unspeakable, and brought it up to her mouth.
“I, for one,” continued Nathan, stuffing his face, “can certainly use a barber’s blade and comb, and a nice soak in a rosewater bath, followed by an application of emollient and powder, all while listening to a dulcet melody played on the harp and viol. However it is but a cruel poet’s fancy. And to be honest, I would gladly sport a beard worthy of Bacchus for a fortnight, all in exchange for a well-done ragout, a platter of escargots de Bourgogne, and a large plump coq au vin.”
“The poets always do languish so prettily,” mused Amaryllis. “Always a drafty attic and sallow cheeks, and never a stench-filled privy and boils.”
“Dear God, My Lady, let us not speak of boils! We are quite far removed from boils, just yet. I choose to hope that we shall never achieve that blessed state wherein one exudes pus.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh, fie!” Amaryllis uttered a sound very close to an undignified squeal while her gentleman cellmate burst out in an ungentlemanly laugh. He then used his last chunk of bread to wipe the bowl clean and landed the bread in his mouth.
“How can you eat and speak thus in the same breath?”
“A man learns to make do, my dearest Amaryllis,” he replied, wiping his mustache with the back of his hand, then dropped his empty bowl, letting it clatter on the stone floor. And then he belched.
“Ah! Ah! Lord, but I don’t think I can endure another moment of this Tartarus!” the lady cried, and turned away from him, setting aside her own barely touched bowl. “You are turning insufferable!”
“Oh, come now, do learn to suffer me, sweets,” he retorted, lying back down on his cot and putting his hands under his unruly head of hair. “After all, m’dear, you are the one who brought up boils. . . . Incidentally, do you intend to eat the rest of that?”
In silent indignation, Amaryllis handed him her portion.
A quarter of an hour later, the servant returned, together with the usual guard, to take away their finished dishes. And just moments after their footfalls receded in the corridor, a soft scratching knock sounded on their door.
Nathan perked up, and Amaryllis turned her head in apathetic despair. They watched the door and its noises, until it opened, and there again was the freckled girl by the name of Catrine.
“Good evening, Your Lordships!” she said, slipping inside and shutting the door behind her.
“It is a horrid evening,” said Amaryllis, “but I expect you will make it all better, now that you are here.” And she rolled her eyes in disdain.
“Really now, girl, we did not think you’d return,” Nathan said, sitting up. “All hope was dashed and I grew another fingertip’s width of mustache. It’s been what, a day?”
“Begging all pardon, but I’m so very sorry, but they put me to work an’ I couldn’t get away, even a minnut. Had to make ready, Lordships, gathered us a bit of supplies.” Catrine pulled out a satchel that she had hidden among the folds of her skirt. Inside was a ball of twine, some needles, a few other small blades and hand tools, several tallow candle fragments, a flask of oil, and a small lantern.
“Now, here we go, Lordships!” Catrine exclaimed. “Today the Keep is nearly empty, since the Duke an’ his dead army had gone off to war—”
“What war, by Jove?” Nathan said.
“Dunno, Lordship, the kitchen staff say they had gone to take Letheburg, and that the crazy Duke has made a high and mighty ’Liance—”
“Ignacia!” Amaryllis said. “That is surely her work! Remember, Nathan, what she said to him, something about an alliance with the Sovereign. I was so stunned that I paid little heed to the details of her treachery.”
“Well, well . . .” Lord Woult mused.
“And anyways,” Catrine continued, “as I say, the Keep is almost empty an’ lightly guarded. They’d gone off yesterday, but I waited long enough to make sure, and now is the best moment to run!”
“Must we really follow your harebrained scheme to go down into the dungeons and follow some kind of subterranean hell-maze?” Amaryllis interrupted again. “If you say the Keep is so lightly guarded now, why not chance an escape past the walls? I am certainly willing to brave the difficulties of the forest—”
“There’s been a snowstorm, Your Ladyship,” Catrine said, scratching her brows with her dirty knuckles. “So much snow, buckets an’ buckets. The forest is very deep now, waist-high in some places, and I wouldn’t wanna wade through it if I were you, or to get lost in all that wilderness.”
“Ah, a pity. . . . In that case, what are we waiting for? Let us instead descend into your delightful hell.” And Amaryllis stood up.
Half an hour later, after walking in silence along abandoned unlit corridors of a very unsightly old portion of the Keep, with Catrine ahead, shushing them every few paces whenever Nathan made too much noise, they arrived at a stairwell.
The stairs went down, and they could see it twisting into a distant well of darkness below. The moon came out, shining in a clear night sky, and casting even pleats of light through the narrow slit windows of the outside walls.
“The dungeons are way down there!” Catrine spoke in a high whisper. “And then, right next to them is where we get out! It’s a great big—oh, well, you’ll see!”
“I still don’t understand, is there a tunnel of some sort?” Nathan began.
But Catrine said, “Shush!”
And Lady Amaryllis shook her head in disgust and sim
ply began walking down each stair, carefully placing each delicate booted foot forward, and holding on to the walls. She was still favoring one foot a tiny bit, because of her sprained ankle, but it had healed enough so that she could keep up a steady pace.
They went down and down, with just a few landings to mark lower floors, and eventually the well of darkness had grown so complete that they could only see a bleak bluish spot of moonlight if they looked up. After half a dozen floors, they were now moving entirely by feel, carefully testing each step down.
“When can we get some light?” Amaryllis whispered tiredly. “Surely a candle would not kill you, nor would anyone really see us down here in this abysmal cellar.”
“If your Ladyship insists. . . .” There was a sound of striking of flints, and a tiny candle flame bloomed in the darkness. It threw wild jerking shadows along the circular stone stairwell and illuminated Catrine’s grubby face, and Nathan’s fierce bearded visage.
“Much better,” Amayllis said and proceeded walking down.
“We could still be seen, ’tis true,” Catrine mumbled. “But it is not as likely now, Ladyship. Besides, we are almost there.”
“No doubt,” muttered Nathan. “I can just about hear devils stirring their coals.”
“Oh, no, Lordship!” Catrine said. “Nuttin’ of the kind, don’t you be afeared.”
They reached the next landing, and it was blessedly the last. It had gotten significantly colder too, if that was possible, considering the chilly draftiness of the upper floors. By the light of Catrine’s candle they saw a wide tunnel, and on both sides, rows of ancient cell doors of partly rotten wood planks and reinforced iron castings. Some had tiny slits with vertical bars set in place. Beyond the bars was absolute darkness.
“What a horrible place!” Amaryllis whispered, her breath curling in vapor from the cold air. “Are there any prisoners languishing in those cells?”