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Authors: Judith Merkle Riley
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the mud off my sleeve. The acid in my voice made him laugh.
“You’re a hard case, Margaret. But don’t think I give up all that easily. Whether you like it or not, I’ll have you riding like a de Vilers. After all, I haven’t the least intention of ever giving Hugo the satisfaction of paying him off.”
“What? You have a wager?” I was furious. Gregory didn’t seem bothered at all.
“Father put him up to it, I’m sure. He thinks he’s sly, but I know he did it—it’s got his mark on it, that idea. Hugo’s too dense to have noticed without Father’s prodding.” I was so livid, I couldn’t decide which one of them enraged me the most. Making sport of my misery! I could just see Hugo gloating, with that stupid smile of his.
“We’ll ride again tomorrow,” I snapped.
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” he said serenely.
And so I went to nurse my wounded spirit in the solar, where I had in mind to spend the rest of the afternoon teaching my girls their stitches, as a way of keeping their fingers out of trouble. There I found Broad Wat bemoaning his fate. A formidable widow was being acquired from a neighboring hamlet for his relief, but it was not soon enough, in his opinion. He had worn himself out giving rides and telling lies. When threats and bribery no longer had any effect, he had resorted to numbing his senses with a plentiful supply of ale, brought up by a parade of kitchen boys eager to hear his lurid complaints. When I emerged from the narrow stair, he was lying on the straw bed before an audience of kitchen boys, half dead by his own account, while Cecily and Alison ran rampage through the solar.
“It’s punishment for my sins, that I’m trapped with them for another three days,” he was complaining. And while he talked, the kitchen boys laughed behind their hands. For they could see what he could not—that as he spoke the girls were engaged in pouring an unknown liquid out of Wat’s great mug onto the head of some unwary soul beneath the window. Clearly, it was time for female intervention.
The girls left off their activities to crowd around me while I hunted through the ornate little chest where I’d been told the sewing things were.
At the bottom of the chest was what I wanted: a strange looking box, all bound in carved brass that was badly in need of polishing. In it was an embroidery hoop with a bit of unfinished work in it, looking a bit as if it were destined for a priest’s vestments. There was also a distaff, richly set with silver, and under it a pile of neatly folded baby clothes. I lifted up the first. A little girl’s smock, unfinished, too small for Alison. Then a little gown for a newborn, half-sewn, pretty linen but no hem. A tiny cap, with heavy quilting set in rolls about the crown, so a baby learning to walk wouldn’t split his head on the hearthstone. No strings, and the rolls not all stitched down. What kind of woman was this, so rich she could afford to leave good stuff unworked—so many things unfinished?
As I held the dusty, darkened little things, I could feel something very sad about the chest. In my mind I could sense what had happened. It was a rich woman’s box, yes—a woman whose embroidery surpassed mine, for she had learned on silk and velvet, and I had learned on coarse stuff. But it was a poor woman’s too. A woman whose fine stitches and piety and silver hadn’t been able to save her children. I could feel it like a certainty inside me—each little garment was for a child, unfinished at the time of death, and put away because she couldn’t bear to complete the work. And then she put away her embroidery, too, and died. A woman’s life, all shut up in a box, was what I saw there. Maybe it would be my box, too, in the end. I put my hand on my heart, to keep it from hurting me. And while I was still, kneeling in the rushes beside the box, the Cold Thing came back and surrounded me, and made me shudder.
But there was more. Beneath the
“You’re a hard case, Margaret. But don’t think I give up all that easily. Whether you like it or not, I’ll have you riding like a de Vilers. After all, I haven’t the least intention of ever giving Hugo the satisfaction of paying him off.”
“What? You have a wager?” I was furious. Gregory didn’t seem bothered at all.
“Father put him up to it, I’m sure. He thinks he’s sly, but I know he did it—it’s got his mark on it, that idea. Hugo’s too dense to have noticed without Father’s prodding.” I was so livid, I couldn’t decide which one of them enraged me the most. Making sport of my misery! I could just see Hugo gloating, with that stupid smile of his.
“We’ll ride again tomorrow,” I snapped.
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” he said serenely.
And so I went to nurse my wounded spirit in the solar, where I had in mind to spend the rest of the afternoon teaching my girls their stitches, as a way of keeping their fingers out of trouble. There I found Broad Wat bemoaning his fate. A formidable widow was being acquired from a neighboring hamlet for his relief, but it was not soon enough, in his opinion. He had worn himself out giving rides and telling lies. When threats and bribery no longer had any effect, he had resorted to numbing his senses with a plentiful supply of ale, brought up by a parade of kitchen boys eager to hear his lurid complaints. When I emerged from the narrow stair, he was lying on the straw bed before an audience of kitchen boys, half dead by his own account, while Cecily and Alison ran rampage through the solar.
“It’s punishment for my sins, that I’m trapped with them for another three days,” he was complaining. And while he talked, the kitchen boys laughed behind their hands. For they could see what he could not—that as he spoke the girls were engaged in pouring an unknown liquid out of Wat’s great mug onto the head of some unwary soul beneath the window. Clearly, it was time for female intervention.
The girls left off their activities to crowd around me while I hunted through the ornate little chest where I’d been told the sewing things were.
At the bottom of the chest was what I wanted: a strange looking box, all bound in carved brass that was badly in need of polishing. In it was an embroidery hoop with a bit of unfinished work in it, looking a bit as if it were destined for a priest’s vestments. There was also a distaff, richly set with silver, and under it a pile of neatly folded baby clothes. I lifted up the first. A little girl’s smock, unfinished, too small for Alison. Then a little gown for a newborn, half-sewn, pretty linen but no hem. A tiny cap, with heavy quilting set in rolls about the crown, so a baby learning to walk wouldn’t split his head on the hearthstone. No strings, and the rolls not all stitched down. What kind of woman was this, so rich she could afford to leave good stuff unworked—so many things unfinished?
As I held the dusty, darkened little things, I could feel something very sad about the chest. In my mind I could sense what had happened. It was a rich woman’s box, yes—a woman whose embroidery surpassed mine, for she had learned on silk and velvet, and I had learned on coarse stuff. But it was a poor woman’s too. A woman whose fine stitches and piety and silver hadn’t been able to save her children. I could feel it like a certainty inside me—each little garment was for a child, unfinished at the time of death, and put away because she couldn’t bear to complete the work. And then she put away her embroidery, too, and died. A woman’s life, all shut up in a box, was what I saw there. Maybe it would be my box, too, in the end. I put my hand on my heart, to keep it from hurting me. And while I was still, kneeling in the rushes beside the box, the Cold Thing came back and surrounded me, and made me shudder.
But there was more. Beneath the
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