Tale of Birle (35 page)

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.”

Then Birle did laugh. “Yes, my Lord,” she said. “And is this your good parting? Is this memory going to make the time less long?”

“Lady, you know me too well,” Orien said.

“I hope so,” Birle answered. Later, when he thought of this parting, he would understand her meaning.

B
IRLE SAT ON THE BROAD
stone doorstep. Sunlight fell over her. The little spring bubbled quietly and the stream flowed out from it, across the grassy meadow. The house waited behind her, its door open and windows unshuttered. Birdsongs and the hum of insects were all the living voices the breeze carried.

Soon she would have to rise and go inside to change into the skirts and shirts chosen from the stores that clothed the castle's servants. She would comb her hair and braid it again. But not, she thought, into the two braids to be wound around her ears. She wished neither the two thick braids crowding the sides of her head, nor the bother of hair hanging loose. The fashion she had made for herself, her slave's fashion of a single braid, that was what suited her.

There was much to do—the cart that rested on its two long shafts beside the stone house must be unpacked, the house needed airing and cleaning before she stored away the supplies that had been packed for her at the castle. The horse, her own sumpter beast, grazed the meadow; her front legs were hobbled, but that seemed not to trouble her, not with the new grass and cold water. There was much for Birle to do, but for a long time she sat unmoving, after the long journey. Here at the southern edges of the Kingdom spring had settled in, and the air in her mouth tasted of all of spring's remembered sweetness.

Longing and regret would return to her, Birle thought, and the longing was the worst. But for these few minutes, her heart was quiet. She listened to the spring, and didn't know if the water wept or laughed.

What Nan would think of the summons Gladaegal brought, Birle didn't know. The summons he carried asked the Innkeeper's wife to go out to the holding, when she could spare the hours. It might be days before Nan had the hours to spare. Birle didn't mind putting off the scolding Nan would give her. Aye, and she deserved this scolding—but she was glad to have many days in which to whet her appetite for the humble pie that Nan would serve her. She stood up, and stretched.

A woman came hurrying along the path out of the trees. She hadn't even taken the time to remove her apron, or put on a cloak, or roll down her sleeves.

This would be a fine fury, then. Birle stood, waiting.

When Nan looked up and saw her, her feet hesitated. Nan had a face like a chipmunk, cheeky, with round brown eyes. “Lady?” she asked, and then shook her head briskly, as if to clear her sight, and scurried up the path. “Birle!” she cried, and her feet ran the last few steps.

Birle found herself wrapped around by Nan's plump arms, and hugged tightly. “Aye,” Nan said. “Aye. Aye.” What she meant by that Birle had no idea, but her own arms were around Nan, holding her father's wife close. When they drew apart Nan's face was bright, her round cheeks pink. “Look at you,” she cried. “Just look at you. And me, I look a mess, I abandoned the pastry half-mixed, just look at me.”