The Unfortunate Son (2 page)

The Captain Visits

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HIRTY-SIX

Tariq’s Revelation

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HIRTY-SEVEN

Rumors

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HIRTY-EIGHT

Freedom

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HIRTY-NINE

Beatrice and Louis

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F
ORTY

Returning

THE MIDWIFE BRAGGED that the beautiful countess dropped her first three babies as easily as a peasant. When the fourth was delivered even more quickly, the old woman cackled. She tipped the last drops of wine into the mouth of the exhausted mother, snipped the cord, and handed the slippery infant to the young wet nurse, who wrapped him in a warm blanket.

“Perfect. A second son for Count de Muguet,” announced the midwife.

She hoped the count would be generous. His lordship’s bad temper was certain, but his generosity was unpredictable. Leaving the other servants to attend the mother and child, the midwife rushed from the chamber with the good news.
The baby cried, a cry strong enough to be heard through the thick oak door. Muguet nodded and flipped the midwife a gold coin. Delighted, she scuttled away.

Inside the dim, candlelit room, the wet nurse cradled the blanketed baby in one arm and wiped his nose and mouth with a damp cloth. The infant was plump and alert, with a lovely little face. She carried him to a windowed alcove.

Perfect
, the young woman thought, with a bittersweet smile.

As the sun’s first light brightened the room, the wet nurse ached for her own little boy. Her son would be waking; he would cry for her, hunger for her milk, but he was a year old, old enough to be weaned. From today, her milk belonged to this baby; the count would pay handsomely. But this was the first morning apart from her son, and she fought her tears as she rocked the newborn in her arms.

This child will never know hunger
, she thought, and she kissed his forehead.

Laying the baby on a table, the wet nurse unwrapped the blanket and began to rub olive oil into his skin. She studied the rosy infant: five toes on each foot, five fingers on each hand, bright eyes, pale downy hair. But something was missing. She gasped and covered her mouth. On the right side of the baby’s head was a tiny seashell of an ear. But on the left side, there was nothing at all. Just smooth skin where an ear ought to have been.

The young woman crossed herself and set a drop of
honey on the baby’s tongue with her finger. Taking a deep breath, she now wondered if this unfortunate child would ever have a happy day. The wet nurse knew what everyone in the castle knew: the count despised imperfection. And here was his son, with an obvious and strange flaw. She swaddled the baby from head to toe in fine white linen just as the count stormed into the birth room.

“Where is my son?”

The startled nurse held up the linen-swathed child for his father.

The count was not a tall man, but he was square, with short legs and broad shoulders; his arms were thick, his fists were enormous, and his voice was loud. His presence was big. He nodded with a rare smile.

“Good. Another hearty boy. Wrap him in this, and bring him to the chapel,” he said, and he tossed the wet nurse a priceless golden cloth, embroidered with pearls and silken threads of all colors. “I shall welcome this fine son into my family before God.”

SITTING IN THE shade of a large linden tree, the old woman worked a knife along the edge of silvered driftwood, flicking the blade until the shape of a fish was unmistakable. A small, perfect fish. She laughed and shook her head, plying the knife with her knobbly hands, carving a scaly surface and tiny fins.

“Another fish for my lady Beatrice’s sea,” she said, and then she laughed again.

Glancing sideways at the old woman next to her, Beatrice smiled and picked at the rows of a fishing net; she gathered loose cording with a hooked needle made of sheep bone.

The old woman, Mattie, had a round face framed by willful white curls; her brown eyes were deep-set under heavy
dark brows, and her wide smile dimpled both cheeks. As she dropped the carved fish to the ground and reached for another piece of wood, Mattie looked up at the clouds. Overhead a black kite wheeled in the sky; the edges of its wings looked like fingers as the bird dipped and rose, moving from left to right across the sky. She pointed to it and smiled.

“That bird brings us luck. A good change is ahead,” said Mattie.

“We are lucky enough already,” said Beatrice, tying knots in the net’s loose ends.

Mattie put down her knife and squinted at the girl. “There’s never enough luck, dear one.”

“Never
too much
luck, you mean?” said Beatrice.

“You’re too smart for me, Beatrice,” Mattie chuckled, putting her arm around Beatrice and drawing her close. She kissed the girl’s forehead.

Shaded from the September sun by the yellowing leaves of the linden, Beatrice and Mattie sat on a long wooden bench in front of the home they shared with the old woman’s brother, Pons. The limestone cottage had two sturdy doors and four shuttered windows that lit its one room. Inside, each beam was hung with more wooden fish than anyone could count, strung on threads of different lengths, so that when the shutters were open, any breeze brought the room to life with fish and their swimming shadows. Every wooden surface in the cottage was carved with shells and sea creatures. The heavy table was wave-edged, and a starfish trimmed each corner.
The place was magical, and children from the village would scamper up to the old woman and beg to come inside. The children believed that the beautiful Beatrice, with her long dark chestnut curls and her milk-white skin, was a mermaid who had come to live among them and that she could calm the mistral, the sudden and biting wind that blew from the northwest.

Beatrice was not from the sea. But like the mistral, she came from the northwest, from a corner of Provence a four-day horse ride from the Mediterranean fishing village of Mouette. Beatrice was the daughter of a disgraced, and now dead, knight; Mattie had been her nurse from the time she was weaned.

There had been children born before Beatrice, but none had survived. Her father, Sir Étienne, had been a handsome, pleasant man but an inattentive master to his tenant farmers and an indifferent husband. He had loved his little daughter as much as he loved anyone, but he was absent from their stone manor house most of the year, serving Count de Muguet, so Beatrice rarely saw him. Her mother was timid and anxious, quick to worry and slow to laugh, but Beatrice was a beautiful, sunny child, with glossy brown hair, clear blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. She was liked by all and loved by Mattie.

Seven years ago, when Beatrice was eight years old, Sir Étienne was accused of stealing from his liege, Count de
Muguet, to cover gambling debts. His debts were undeniable; whether he had stolen was unproven, but the accusation was enough. The count was the law, with the power of life and death and everything in between, so Sir Étienne was brought before him.

That terrible morning the sky was blue, and the spring sun was warm; warblers and larks sang from the trees. Green nubs poked through the earth that edged the castle’s pebbled courtyard, where a rowdy crowd had gathered. Mattie had been taking Beatrice to her mother on the other side of the castle gate when the child slipped free from her grasp and wove through to the front of the thick throng. Mattie desperately pushed forward to regain the little girl’s hand, but the mob was too tightly packed. Beatrice watched as her father rode in alone through the castle gate on his bay courser.

The count waited on the threshold of his château. Sir Étienne rode across the courtyard and pulled his horse to a stop; he removed his helmet and faced his accuser. In a deep and growling voice, the stout Count de Muguet spoke: “Sir Étienne, you have failed me, your lord, and yourself. You have shown yourself to be no more than a scoundrel and a thief. You have brought disgrace upon my name, upon yourself, and upon your family. That knighthood by which you received honor is brought to nothing, and you and yours are undone. Let all who are witnesses here today take example and beware.”

Sir Étienne dismounted, and a soldier led away his horse.
A herald stood on each side, and another took his shield, spoiling it with dog feces. Then the shield, once proudly displaying Sir Étienne’s coat of arms, was hung upside down from a post near the castle entrance. The crowd jeered and whistled as, one by one, each piece of his armor was removed and broken into pieces. His spurs were hacked off. Stripped of all that was knightly, Étienne turned his face to where his young daughter stood motionless. He placed his right hand over his heart and hung his head. Then he dropped to his knees and knelt in the dirt. The count stepped forward and took Étienne’s sword. He raised it high and, with all his strength, smashed the flat of the sword down on the crest of the kneeling man’s head. The crowd fell silent except for a little girl’s scream. Étienne slumped forward into the dirt.

The count leaned over the dying man and said, “Now you are nothing.”

A coffin was dragged forward, and the heralds threw Étienne’s body into the wooden box. Four soldiers hauled the coffin from the courtyard, leaving it beyond the castle walls. Beatrice screamed again and ran after her father. As she knelt sobbing over the coffin, her mother, who had remained outside the gate waiting to say farewell to her daughter, tapped her shoulder.

“Poor little Beatrice. Don’t cry for him. Look what his carelessness has done to us. The count has confiscated everything. We have no home. We have nothing,” she said, trembling and wiping her eyes. “Say good-bye to me now, Beatrice.
Mattie has promised to look after you. She is a good woman. Good-bye, Beatrice.”

Beatrice’s mother kissed the top of her child’s head, and turned to mount a small palfrey; the little girl watched her mother and a servant ride off. Earlier in the week, their priest, Father Thierry, had visited Beatrice to explain that the count was angry with her father and intended to punish him. Because her mother was going to a convent, Beatrice was told that she would travel far away with Mattie. Beatrice hadn’t understood that she would be saying good-bye to her parents and to her home forever.

Beatrice knelt and put her hand to her father’s cheek. He wheezed, and blood pooled under his cracked skull. His eyes never opened. His breathing roughened, and he was still. She pushed his shoulder, first gently, then again, with more force.

“Papa! Please!” she cried, tears running down her face, pushing his lifeless shoulder harder and harder. “Please don’t go. Don’t leave me.”

Beatrice felt a hand on her head, and looking up, she saw Mattie, who had struggled through the mob and finally caught up to the little girl.

Mattie pulled Beatrice to her feet and drew her close; in the warmth of Mattie’s arms, the girl wept. Mattie wiped her own eyes and kissed Beatrice’s forehead.

“There, there, my dearest. No worries. You’re with me now, my child.”

Beatrice sobbed, “You won’t leave me?”

“Never.”

“Why couldn’t Mother take us?” sputtered the little girl, sniffing and gulping air.

“Father Thierry told you, dear child. Your mother is going away. She’ll become a nun at the Abbey of Saint Clotilde. They only accept noblewomen. They would never have someone like me, and since your father, God rest his soul, is no longer a knight, they won’t take you.”

Beatrice wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

“Why won’t they take me?”

“Hush, my Beatrice. It doesn’t matter. You are still my lady.”

“Always?” asked the little girl.

“Yes,” replied Mattie. “Always.”

AS THE AFTERNOON shadows lengthened, Beatrice rolled the fishing net and left it by the cottage door. She followed Mattie inside and opened the shutters, which had been closed throughout the day to keep the cottage cool. Mattie snapped apart a head of garlic, slipped off the purpled husks, and chopped the smooth white cloves. The chickens clucked, and the goose hissed, scratching and pecking under the kitchen table. Beatrice shooed them to the back annex, a space in the rear of the cottage where Pons kept the animals: three or four hens, sometimes a goose, and the annual pig. Adding sticks to the hearth, she knelt to fan the flame with a flat piece of wood. A pot hung from a hook, and Beatrice used her skirt to protect her hand as she removed the hot
cover. Onion slices simmered in fish stock. Beatrice tipped in a basketful of mussels that she had gathered and cleaned that morning, added Mattie’s garlic, and replaced the cover.

On a shelf by the window, there were three blue-glazed bowls, three wooden mugs, and three wooden spoons. Beatrice set them on the table as Pons came through the door. He was a wiry man, with bandy legs and bare feet, a thick head of white hair, and a short gray beard. His face was dark and creased by the sun and sea, and he carried a basket of beets, onions, and two waxy aubergines.

When she saw the eggplants, Mattie clapped her hands and said, “I knew this was a lucky day!”

“I traded the carpenter’s wife a couple of mullets for these,” said Pons, holding up the basket of vegetables. “Who made my net good as new?”

“The mermaid, of course, Brother,” answered Mattie.

Pons handed the basket to Beatrice, kissed her forehead, and collapsed on the bench.

“Lord, I am weary. And hungry,” he said. “I’d wager that heaven doesn’t smell as good as this cottage.”

He rubbed his eyes and began to knead his hands.

“Your hands are bad, aren’t they?” asked Beatrice.

“I can barely make a fist,” answered Pons, opening and closing his fingers.

“It’s time you had a boy to help you,” said Mattie.

Pons shook his head. “Would you have me spend my days worrying about a boy instead of the fish?”