Keturah and Lord Death (10 page)

“Foxglove, yes. I have foxglove for those who fear to find it for themselves.”

“Please,” I said. “I will have some. For Grandmother.”

“For your dear grandmother. She has always been kind to me.”

Soor Lily arose and fetched foxglove, bringing me a folded paper of crushed leaves.

I went to take it, but she snatched it back so quickly and so deftly that it vanished, leaving me wondering if she had really held it out to me at all.

“Please, Soor Lily. I have no money,” I said, my voice trembling in spite of my intention to be firm. “I’ve nothing more to give you. If I ask even the smallest favor of Lord Death again, I will most certainly die.”

“No, no. It is just foxglove, pickable for anyone who looks. No, sweetums. This is but a small thing, this foxglove, and so I ask only a small favor of you.” She stroked the foxglove thoughtfully. “Look at my sons while touching the charm.”

I was speechless.

“It is a nothing price, yes?” she said quietly, nodding.

When I remained silent, she went to the door and the window, and one by one her sons assembled. The room that was so roomy now became stiningly small as the seven men trooped in, hunched and pouting like little boys caught in a misdeed.

Soor Lily placed the foxglove on the table. I gazed at it for strength to do what was required, and then, slowly, I reached my hand into my apron pocket and touched the charm.

One son folded his arms tightly, seemingly angry that he must be looked at. One, the baby whom Lord Death had allowed to live, looked frightened and bit his fingernails. One was pigeon-toed. Another picked at his ears, and still another breathed through his mouth, allowing spittle to collect at the corners of his lips. The other two hid behind their five brothers so I could barely see them.

Soor Lily put her mouth close to my ear. “Hold the charm now, sweetums,” she said. “Look at my darlings. That is the price I ask for foxglove—to look. Is that not the smallest of fees? Only look.”

For a moment I thought of grabbing the foxglove and running, but I knew I would never be able to run through that wall of men.

I gritted my teeth and held the charm while I looked. I felt the tiny jerking movements as my eyes passed from one man to the other. The men shrank from my gaze.

“Yes, that’s it, pretty Keturah. Look, look,” Soor Lily whispered. “Wouldn’t you be the perfect one to whom I could teach my magic arts? Aren’t you the very daughter I should have had? And don’t I keep smelling plague in the air? What if the road is not enough? If only you could love one of my sons, perhaps one of them might live...”

I studied the face of each one, and still the charm, blessedly, looked and looked and did not cease in its looking. At last I said, utterly relieved, “I have looked, and I will not love any of them, Soor Lily.”

Soor Lily put her long white hand on her bosom and made a sound like a wounded bird. “Not even one?” she whimpered.

“Not even a little,” I said.

She looked at them sorrowfully. “It is hard to believe, but it must be true,” she said. “Run and play now, sons.”

They vanished so quickly and silently that it was as if they had never been there.

“Goodbye,” she said to me.

“Not yet, Soor Lily. I have somewhat to say to you.”

She cowered a little. “Of course,” she said meekly.

“You are no wise woman,” I said.

She shook her head regretfully. “Not wise, not wise at all,” she murmured.

“I paid your price, didn’t I?” Panic rose in my voice. “Did I not pay? Did I not save your son alive?”

“Yes, yes! He is whole again, my baby,” she said. Her shoulders rounded and her head hung.

“But your love charm is not working. It slows down for Ben, but it does not stop. You tricked me,” I said with all the indignation I could muster.

With the other half of my anger, I took the eye out of my pocket and placed it on the table. She gazed at it, appalled, as if it were a severed hand.

In desperation, I spoke my heart. “Oh, woman, what shall

I do?” I pleaded. “Perhaps it was the wrong eye, and it is the other eye that is necessary. You do have powers, don’t you?”

As if it caused her the greatest distress to say so, she said, “Yes. Oh, lass, that I do.”

I clutched her arm, which was as hard as a man’s. “I must marry today—don’t you see? I must marry my true love today... or—or go to
him.”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I thought as much.” Slowly she placed a long, pale finger on the eye. “There could be only one reason why it keeps looking,” she said sadly. “Only one reason.”

“Yes,” I declared. “You bungled the ingredients. You cheated me.”

“Bungled, cheated,” she repeated, as if she were considering the possibility. Then she shook her head slowly. “No. No bungling nor no cheating, lass,” she said. “Only one reason.”

“What, then?” I begged. “Tell me, what is the reason?”

“Keturah, you already love another. It looks for the true love you already have.”

I opened my mouth to laugh or rage, I did not know which—but no sound came. She looked into my open mouth curiously, as if she could read in my throat the words that would not come.

Finally I said, “No. I do not love another. That is the problem, Soor Lily.”

“Yes,” she said gently, calmly. “You already love. True love. So sorry. A tragedy.”

“Why should I lie to you? I do not love!”

“True love.” She began to blubber. “So sad, so sad...”

“Stop it!” I insisted.

Immediately she stopped. Her sad face vanished and she beamed at me, happy to be pleasing me. She placed the eye gingerly back into my apron pocket and took me by the arm. “Goodbye, sweetums,” she said, guiding me toward the door. “Goodbye, good luck, God bless,” she murmured, as she pressed me out the door. “So pretty... Goodbye.”

I stumbled back to the road, half-blind with fear and confusion and anger.

Already love!

I stood upon the cobbled road, unsure what to do, where to go.

No, I finally determined. I would go back. I had seen Soor Lily’s handiwork, and I knew it had great power. She must try again.

I turned to go back to her house, but just off the road stood one of her great sons.

“Goodbye,” he said.

I thought to walk around him, but I saw that all seven of her sons were guarding the way.

“Goodbye,” another said. “Goodbye,” said each in turn.

I walked back to Tide-by-Rood and to home.

X

Of Tailor and Choirmaster and what I decide; of good lemons and bad news.

Gretta and Beatrice had let themselves in and had done all my chores. Now they were stitching, and their faces were filled with worry. Grandmother was sleeping still.

“I have been to see Soor Lily,” I said quietly, and I began steeping foxglove tea.

“The charm is not working, is it?” Gretta said flatly.

“She says it is because I am in love already.”

“It must be Ben.”

“It must be, but the eye does not stop for Ben—it only slows.”

“It is waiting for your pie,” Beatrice said hopefully.

“Perhaps,” I said. I sat on the edge of Grandmother’s bed with the foxglove tea and stroked her hair until she woke with a smile.

While I helped her sip the tea, Gretta and Beatrice whispered together. Before Grandmother had finished the tea, the color had come back to her face and I had persuaded her to have breakfast.

“You were right, Keturah,” she said. “Death is not as near as I had thought, perhaps.”

After she had eaten, she took up her spindle and assured me that she might feel well enough to make supper also.

“If you are well enough, Grandmother Reeve,
^”
Gretta said, “might we borrow Keturah for a time?”

“Of course, dears, run and play. Ah, youth is so carefree and innocent.”

My friends escorted me outside and pounced upon me immediately. “You have not looked at every man while you held the charm,” Gretta said accusingly. “Have you?”

“Indeed I have,” I said. “At the hunt, at the gatherings, among the work crew...”

“Tailor?” Gretta demanded.

“Tailor—no ...”

“Choirmaster?” Beatrice asked.

“Choirmaster—no ...”

“Just as we thought,” Gretta said, her hands on her hips.

“But they are for you!” I said. “Gretta, confess that you love Tailor yourself.”

“It is true that I admire him, Keturah. He is kind to his children, and he mends Hermit Gregor’s trousers for free. But a man who does good of his own free will is a man who cannot be bossed—and that, Keturah, can be a dangerous thing. Besides, I saw dirt in the corners of his house.”

“Not everyone, perhaps, can be as perfect as you, Gretta,” I said.

“Sister, friend,” she said sternly to me, “we show ourselves in everything we do. Dirty floors, dirty soul; unmade bed, unkempt soul. Perfection in cleanliness demonstrates perfection of being. Every perfect stitch is a glory to God. Now that man, he lives in—”

“Comfort,” I said.

“Sloth,” said Gretta. “His garden has nine weeds. I counted them myself.”

“Then it must please you that he demands perfection in stitches,” I said.

“See the way his poor children are forced to dress—in rags and patches,” she continued.

“I have seen them,” I said. “They are no worse off than the poor shepherds down the way.”

“Master Tailor is not poor,” Gretta snapped.

“He is thrifty, perhaps,” I said.

“He has such dear children. Perfect, in fact. But he and his orange hose!” Then she said, lost in reverie, “So hairy and muscled is he, he seems more suited to smithing than sewing.”

Beatrice said to me, “And if the eye cannot bear to gaze upon Tailor’s orange hose, surely it will cease to look when you hear the music Choirmaster has written for the king.”

“Beatrice, you know you love him yourself!” I declared.

“I shall have no husband but shall go to heaven pure,” she said with a grand turn of her head.

“And what, my friend, can be more purifying than to give your whole self and heart to another?” I countered. “Of course I could never love Choirmaster, nor Tailor.”

“Did not Soor Lily say that you already loved?”

“She did, but...”

“Then you must try everyone. Come!” Gretta insisted. And they locked their arms in mine and walked me down to Tailor’s cottage. I confess I was too tired to argue with them, let alone tear myself away. I even leaned upon them as I walked, so weary was I.

Tailor was gracious when we arrived at his door. It was a solid, simple home, well-built and warm, but plain. The furniture was made to withstand the use and abuse of children, and the whole room smelled of an abundance of good things to eat. There was not a flower or a curtain to be seen, but it was a house full of enough.

“Come in, Keturah, Gretta, Beatrice,” he said, gesturing for us to enter his comfortable home. Gretta looked at me hopefully and nodded to my apron.

“Thank you, Keturah,” Tailor said, “for helping with Lady Temsland’ s gown.”

“Gown?”

Gretta laid some stitchery on the solid table. “The gown you have been working on, Keturah,” she said encouragingly. Then to Tailor she said, “She wishes that you would wait no longer to see her stitches.”

“Of course,” said Tailor. He picked up the gown and turned it so that he could see the seams Gretta had sewn on the skirt. At first his look was stern, as if he were summoning the strength to tell me to begin again. But as he examined the stitches, looking more and more closely, his expression softened and then became one of admiration.

“This is very good work, Keturah,” he said at last.

I blushed to hear him praise me for work I had not done, but he took my blushes for modesty.

“You need not be shy about these seams, Keturah,” he said. “I see only five stitches that are not perfection.”

“Five!” burst out Gretta.

He nodded to her briefly, then turned his eyes upon me again as if he were wondering how my art had escaped his notice so far.

“Five bad stitches? Where? You must be mistaken,” Gretta spluttered.

“Here,” he said. “And here, and these two, and this one.”

Gretta and I both peered at the stitches he pointed out. Then she straightened and said very stiffly, “They are not as exact as the others.”

“Why, sir,” I said, “the hand that sewed these stitches has not made five wrong ones since it was as many years old,” I said.

“But he is right, Keturah,” Gretta said with injured pride. “They are not perfect.” She looked meaningfully at my apron pocket where the charm lay.

Gretta looked so fierce that I touched the charm in my pocket. Yes—yes, I admired him, but... no, I did not love him. The eye twitched and quivered as rapidly as ever.

I shook my head slightly at Gretta. She sighed and then regarded Tailor as if it were all his fault. “Master Tailor, you have beautiful children. But why, Master Tailor,” Gretta asked, “do your children run in rags when all the other children have new clothes?”

“They shall have new clothes when they learn to sew them themselves,” he said. “I will teach them, but I will not sew for them.”

Gretta scowled at him, but he seemed not to notice. “So you will only let them wear clothes given to them by other people?” she asked brusquely.

“Just so,” Tailor said.

The eye flickered wildly in my hand until I could not stand to hold it anymore, and I took my hand out of my apron pocket. Behind us, Beatrice sighed.

“Good day, Tailor,” Gretta said.

“Good day, Gretta,” Tailor said mildly. “And thank you again, Keturah.”

“Insufferable man,” Gretta murmured as we walked out. “To let his children dress so. Of course you could not fall in love with such a man, Keturah.”

“Gretta, it is not his fault that I cannot love him.”

“It is just as well,” she said. “I do not think I could bear to look at his orange hose when I came to visit you.”

“Come, then,” Beatrice said. “We are to church.”

“No, no, I am so tired,” I complained.

“Then the sooner you take a good look at Choirmaster with the charm, the sooner you can go home to rest,” she said. I was so unused to Beatrice being firm that I resisted no more.

We entered the little chapel. Choirmaster was bent over his music, making notes. When he looked up, his sad expression softened a bit.

“Keturah!” he said, glad to see me. He was almost smiling—I scarcely recognized him with that hint of a smile. “Your cousin Bill is everything you promised. Thank you for sending him to me. Our choir will be fit for a king after all.”

Beatrice, turning pink, made a small gesture toward my apron pocket while Choirmaster extolled the virtues of my cousin’s voice and noted, becoming sad again, how remarkable it was that, though in the same family, I had not been given the smallest portion of this gift.

All this he said while I steeled myself and reached into my apron pocket. The eye was looking so fast and hard that it nearly jumped out of my grasp.

I shook my head a little at Beatrice, and she turned a sour eye to Choirmaster, as if he had failed her in the gravest of ways.

“Choirmaster,” she said, “Bill tells me that he believes he knows the reason you are so sad all the time. It is because you are lonely. It is because you are in want of a wife.”

I gasped a little, surprised that my timid friend would speak so boldly, and Gretta hid a smile.

“So he is as perceptive as he is talented,” Choirmaster replied. “He has guessed my secret. I am lonely indeed, but there must be no marriage for me.”

“But why?” Beatrice asked.

“If I waste my love on women there will be none left for music. Mother taught me that.”

“But you are a grown man,” she said.

“I hear her voice,” Choirmaster said, “even over the music. I hear it. Remember, son, she would say. Remember that music alone will get you to heaven.”

His eyes searched the empty air above him, perhaps looking for her ghost. He rubbed his knuckles as if they smarted. “She taught me every day to give up the things of the world. All of it was wickedness, she told me. Music, she said, was the language of heaven. I must give myself to music.”

“Is she nearby, Choirmaster? I thought you came from a far distance.”

“Oh, yes, she is nearby, though not in a place you can reach by foot or by carriage. But she is nearby. I can feel it. She would whip my fingers, Mother would, every time I made a mistake in my music. It was a dainty golden whip she used. I feel it, I feel it every time I wish to love another.”

Beatrice said gently, “Come, it cannot be so bad.”

“My mother wanted to be God’s bride, but her father would not have it. He feared what God would do to him when He discovered what kind of a wife he’d raised his daughter to be. So he married my mother to an organ builder who drank too much. She raised me on music. Before I could say ‘Mama,’ I could play a sonata. Every waking moment I practiced. I gave her little whip the name Tooth, for it bit.”

“For this I am sorry,” I said. Beatrice made small sympathy sounds, and Gretta covered her mouth.

“Are
you
sorry, Beatrice?” Choirmaster asked with much feeling.

“Choirmaster, your music reminds me of every sad thought I ever had,” she said. “Your music would wrench the heart of the devil himself. Perhaps if you made your music . . . happier, you would hear your mother’s voice less, and someone could comfort your heart.”

“There can be no comfort for me but from my music,” he said dolefully. And he sat down at the organ to play so sad a tune that I had to hurry away.

Gretta and Beatrice soon caught up with me.

“Well, you tried,
^”
Gretta said.

“It must be Ben,” I said. “The eye only waits to see if I can make a pie tasty enough to win Best Cook. I’m sure of it.”

Beatrice patted my arm. “Rest. Later we will think about pies.”

I shook my head, and though my whole body was weary, I did not slow my pace.

“There is no time. Tomorrow is the fair, and if there is any possibility I will live to see it, today I must make pies.”