The Burning Time (18 page)

One of those lads, the young lord of the manor, found himself lately engaged in frequent heated argument with his mother, about precisely such behavior.

“No, Will. I am
not
saying you cannot be a friend to Maeve,” Alyce repeated, her irritation rising as she and her son sat at
the large kitchen table with the manor account ledgers spread before them. “But then you must
act
like a friend. You must be honest with Meave. You must not mislead her.”

“Mislead her where, into what?”

“You know into what. Into thinking that marriage lies in the future. Which it does not.”

“Because? Merely because—”

“William. You
know
why. Maeve is a good-hearted lass, smart, fair to look on. Will Payne and his family have lived on Kyteler lands since they arrived from Boly, oh, decades ago—well before she was born. But Maeve and you … Will, you are not merely an Outlawe heir; you are sole heir to the Kyteler estates, here and elsewhere in Eire. Never forget: you are not free to follow any road you choose. It needs be, lad, that you wed someone of your station. Nor would Maeve, a musician’s daughter, be happy with … she would feel like a fish in the air, like a wren underwater. You know this. You have known all this since you were five summers old.”

“It seemed … so far off then,” the young man muttered glumly.

“Time runs more swiftly each hour we use it. That, my son, is called growing up. Later, t’is called growing old.”

“But I cannot see why … why should some girl I have never
seen
become lady of Kyteler Castle someday? Why should a stranger—”

“I have sworn to you I will do my best to ease the arrangements in your case, Will. I promise you will be allowed to become acquainted—even friends—with your future wife before you are betrothed. For her sake as well as yours.”

“You have already gone and chosen her then, have you?”

“No, dearest, I have not. But you should know that there are many who look at me askance for
not
having done so by now. A goodly number of young lords are wedded fathers by your age, you know. Oh, Will. Perhaps I overindulged you. But I wanted you to enjoy your youth in ways I had not been permitted to enjoy mine …” She rubbed her forehead. “And t’is not as if I have been idle, you know. I have been somewhat preoccupied with other matters.”

“Aye, and there’s the real reason. You are always preoccupied with other matters, Mum.”

“William.”

“Truly. I think I fall near the bottom of your thoughts—after the land, the healing, the Craft, the estate children, the serfs’ welfare. And now declaring war on the Church.”

“
William
. You know you are my
most
cherished concern.”

“I know I was when I was little. But that was before you started the healing studies, and the teaching and all.”

“My love, I know we have quarreled on and off of late. These are difficult times for all of us. And I admit I am weary.
Then, when I find you are not doing
your
share of work on the estate, Will, I—oh my dear, life is not all jousting with Robert, nor flirtation with maidens. You are not a child any longer, nor are you a peasant lad without responsibilities.
Look
at these accounts, Will. You swore to me you would keep them up to date. Yet now I discover—”

“Mum, you already manage everything. You did in secret even when all the stepfathers were around, but now everybody sees it. You and I both know you do it better than I ever could. So why should I pretend to try?
You
command here. There’s naught left for
me
to do.” He shoved his stool back from the table in a sulk, and made as if to rise. His mother put out a restraining hand.

“William, wait. You know that I cannot give you authority until you prove worthy of it. Our people’s livelihoods, their very lives, depend on decisions made by me—and someday by you. I cannot bear to think of you acting callously and greedily, as do most lords. I cannot bear the thought that—”

“So you do
not
trust my judgment, then. Is that not what you really mean?”

“No, my dear, no!”

“How pleased you are when one of your maidservants, or the Galrussyn men, or the Fabers, come to you, asking to be heard. Even visitors from afar. You listen to
them
. But not to your own son. Anybody can just—”

“You are not anybody. You are in a special position. And I do listen to you. But Will … look around us. We have begun something different here on Kyteler lands. Our serfs know it. Everyone knows it. The preserving of what we have managed to accomplish so far requires great care. You are young, Will, still somewhat of a gangling, awkward—”

“
Lad
? Though others my age are already husbands and sires? Robert is thinking of joining whatever remains of The Bruce’s Scots troops off in the Fermanagh mountains with the Ulster chiefs—regrouping, people say, to rise against the English. I might go with him, then. There is no need for me here, a useless wee boy acting like a daughter, clinging to his mum’s skirts.”

Exasperated, Alyce sprang to her feet and slammed the table with her fist.

“You will
not
go off on some doomed adventure to get yourself heroically, witlessly slain.
Damn
Robert de Bristol
and
Robert of Scotland—who, let me remind you, sold out his own people
and
the Irish, which is
why
those fools will still be hiding in the mountains when your grandchildren walk on Kyteler land! You will remain
here
. You will work at your studies with your tutors, and you will work at learning how to run the estate with me. Enough of this foolishness!”

He sprang up, too, looming taller than his mother, glowering down at her.

“And just
wait
? Wait for you to choose my wife? Wait for you to die before I come into my full title? You are already old. What if you live for
years
?”

Alyce winced, and her son bit his lip with instant regret. But he was too firmly held in the grasp of resentment to stop.

“And meanwhile I cannot even have a bit of fun with Maeve? Her father is thinking of wedding her to Robert! You think I will stand by and let that happen? Well, I will
not
. I will claim my rights. I will claim
droit du seigneur
!”

“
Never
,” Alyce spat at him. “No son of mine will rape a maid on the night of her wedding to another man, no matter
what
right is yours!” Standing on tiptoe, she reached up and boxed his ears.

Head ringing, William spun and ran out through the kitchen door. His mother started after him, crying after his receding shape, “William! Come back at once! I never meant to … William?”

There, standing at the door peering into the empty air, was where Annota Lange found Alyce some moments later. She curtsied, then bustled about in silence. She could not pretend ignorance of a quarrel whose shouts had been audible throughout the courtyard, nor could she dare proffer advice to her mistress. But noninterference was unthinkable to Annota, so she settled on abstract observation, pointed in its transparency.

“Ach, Your Ladyship,” she cooed soothingly, “I was pondering the other day … getting old, t’is hard. But t’is not so difficult as being young. Especially for the lads, eh? All temper and ears. Girls grow more swift and smooth, dinna ye think?”

But her mistress did not answer. Instead, she returned to the table and buried herself in the account books without a word.

As days passed with no sign of the Bishop’s interdict being lifted, nervousness already rife among the townsfolk began to be shared by some of the heathen, chiefly Petronilla de Meath, who now acted like a bird poised to take flight. She remained at Kyteler Castle, but all her former anxieties reasserted themselves. No longer the young woman shyly testing her confidence at the Lugnasad Sabbat, she now clung to every sympathetic listener, pouring out her fears and interrogating others about what they thought might happen. When some of the heath-folk finally grew vexed with her babbling, she drew back into herself, saying little, but reviving her old habit of unconscious fidgeting, her tic of ceaselessly twisting and untwisting those silverblonde braids.

One night, Alyce, unable to sleep, started down to the kitchens to brew herself a cup of skullcap tea. Padding along
the lower hall, she overheard Petronilla pacing in her room, talking aloud, half to herself and half in an address to the listener she could not possibly have known was so near, standing just outside her door. Over and over, Petronilla anguished, arguing with her invisible
amchata
Alyce:

“Are ye daft then, m’Lady? Canna ye see? Ye think t’is easy, ye think we won. Ye canna
know
them as I do. Ye dinna understand the
power
they get over a body. They got ways to make your
spirit
afraid. None can stand up to ’em.
None
. Ach, why, why t’is ye canna
see
?”

Forgetting her tea, Alyce returned to her turret room and sat for a long time, staring out the window toward the Covenstead. Then she went to her writing table, pulled up her stool, and sat down. She drew a fresh sheet of parchment, shaved a new quill nib, unstoppered her ink pot, and began composing a careful letter to the Lord Justice.

It began with jolly news about his kinsman her son William, boasting as any mother might about young Will’s looks, intelligence, recent growth spurt, and remarkable physical grace (she chuckled as she wrote this); clearly Will took after the Outlawe side of the family, she added, wrinkling her nose with distaste at stooping to such bald flattery.

Then she got to the real point of the letter.

Next, she drew a second parchment and wrote similarly to the Seneschal, praising
him
as a man of conscience, and sending her personal regards to Lady Megan.

Then she got to the real point of
that
letter.

The real point of both letters was an appeal: that the Lord Justice and the Seneschal journey to Dublin and wait upon the Archbishop, who was also the Dean of Saint Aidan’s, and that they inform him (and whomever else they in their vastly superior wisdom deemed necessary) of the Bishop’s interdict; that they take particular care to apprise the Archbishop-Dean as to how this interdict was disturbing, dividing, and provoking the people—even toward possible civil unrest. Alyce delicately wondered of both men whether they might also wish to remind the Archbishop-Dean that it was a Kyteler, one of her forebears, who had more than a century earlier commissioned the famous Crozier—the bronze reliquary of gilded silver with gold filigree, inlaid enamel, and millifiori beadwork—and donated it to Saint Aidan’s Shrine at Dublin?

By the time Richard de Ledrede was released on bail after eighteen days, his cincture hung loosely around his middle, and he felt himself a famished man. But just as he was finally sitting down to a long-anticipated dinner of a whole roast suckling pig accompanied by numerous flagons of malmsey, he was infuriatingly interrupted by a courier, just ridden in and bearing letters with official seals.

It was not appetizing news. He found himself commanded to appear before the Lord Justice of Ireland as well as the Archbishop of Dublin, to answer charges regarding his having dared place the diocese of Ossary under interdict.

At first, he fell into a fit of pique, stamping about his chamber and flinging his wine cup at the wall the way his father had done when in a rage. These
obnoxious
Irish!
How
had they put him in the position of the accused, when his proper role was as the accuser? This primitive marsh of a country had ignored him, then flouted him, then humiliated him. Now his career was at stake. And all because of one damnable bitch.

Richard de Ledrede walked to where the wine cup lay, stooped with some effort, picked it up, and placed it carefully on the table. He clapped his hands and, when the servant appeared, sent for more malmsey. Then he sat down again, determined to enjoy his dinner.

Some leisurely hours later, in better humour and surrounded by fresh candles and more wine, he reread the summons, snorting in admiration of Alyce Kyteler’s influence and the skill with which she wielded it. How he had missed political swordplay with an equal! Yet how gratifying it would be to defeat and destroy her utterly.

He called for his writing materials. Then he wrote back to Dublin in an unctuous tone, deeply regretting his inability to appear there and making ingenious excuses for refusing the “kind invitation.” He pled ill health, citing—with a smile to himself—a medical diagnosis of dyspepsia and choler. He added that it was, moreover, gravely unsafe for him to travel such a distance, since he had been warned that violent pagans
would surely waylay and murder him en route. He rolled the parchment, waxed and sealed it with the signet of his bishop’s ring, sent for a courier, and dispatched the letter.

After three more rounds of malmsey, he slept soundly that night.