Armed in Her Fashion

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was foolhardy to follow Baltazar anywhere—the whelp barely knew where he was going himself, half the time, and yet here they were following him into the shadowy woods. Not only following Baltazar, no, worse—following the corpse that used to be Baltazar. With each step in her son-in-law’s footprints, with every heart-rent question she asked him, Margriet’s daughter walked closer to the cliff-edge that was the Grief.

And yet, what other path would lead them to Willem and his sack, here in the dark, burnt, silent expanse of conquered Flanders? She had imagined, she supposed, that they would find him on the road, the road that she and her good-for-nothing husband had travelled so many times in their donkey cart, looking for someone to buy his good-for-nothing wares. She had been so angry, last night. She had put little thought into the matter of finding Willem, not until they were out into the dim starlit world outside the city, and saw that the road was a hazard, not a comfort.

She had put even less thought into how she would take the fortune from him. Corpse he may have been but he seemed at least as strong as he had been in life, and less inclined to recoil or avoid pain. And what wife would contemplate indignity to her husband’s body, even a good-for-nothing dead husband’s? And yet he was stealing away her right and her daughter’s right, and for that she would gladly undertake some small sins, yes, even now when her remaining days might be few.

She would wrest it from him, if she could.

In her pack, Margriet had some rope. She had not taken it thinking of using it to bind Willem—or perhaps she had, if she was willing to admit it. He would not expect her to have followed him, and would certainly not expect her to walk up to him and throw a noose around his arms.

Margriet tied the overhand loop in the rope-end, the same knot she had used to snare the Nix, as a child, all those years ago. She tied as they walked, ignoring Beatrix’s inquiring frowns. Margriet needed no light to see her work although she would have liked to feel the rough fibres against her fingertips. No matter. This was a knot she knew like the bonds of love. She was the daughter of a boatman of Bruges. Her knot would not fail.

They followed the flitting corpse that had been Margriet’s son-in-law. He was easy to see, even in this murk: his hair was still as blond as flax, though it was matted with blood behind one ear.

He said he had been called. He said he could not lie. Yet what was he if not a deceit, a counterfeit? She could not trust him, and yet he said he had been called. And he seemed to obey Beatrix, when she pointed her distaff and said, walk.

As soon as they had the sack, they would make for Ypres, and hire a pair of palfreys, and like pilgrims make their way to Dunkirk or Calais. Margriet would see her daughter on a boat before she died, see her well across the ocean from Baltazar’s corpse.

Willem was not blond. They were nearly upon him before they saw him. He turned his head and looked and them, at his wife and daughter, and then carried on walking.

“Father!”

He ignored them.

“Baltazar, why doesn’t he stop? Why won’t he speak to me?”

“He is driven by his last desire, my love. It seems it has nothing to do with you, or with your mother.”

Nothing for it now but to act, and quickly. Willem might not care what Margriet did but he would damn sure care when she took the sack from him.

“Be ready to run,” she hissed to Beatrix.

It was a fine rope, a sound knot, and would have been a good throw if Margriet’s fingers had let the rope fly free. Instead they cramped—the night air, perhaps—no, the Plague, the damn Plague! The noose dropped sadly to the ground and she bent to pick it up.

Now she had Willem’s attention. He turned and took a step toward her. Her heart sped.

One more throw.

This time she managed to fling the noose but Willem had enough warning to catch it. He dropped the sack and pulled her toward him, hand over hand on the rope, as if they were children playing tug-of-war. There was no way she would get the rope around him now. Curse her blasted fingers! She should have asked Beatrix to throw it but she could not have asked such a thing of her, and she would have hesitated anyway. She loved her father, God only knew why.

Willem made no sign that he even recognized his daughter, his face doughy and blank. That face, that irritating blank face. The face that had watched her lift up dead baby after dead baby for his blessing, and never once given her any comfort.

“You unnatural creature,” she spat at him, pulling the rope. “Leaving me all those years to patch the patches while you were hoarding like a miser. The shame you brought upon us! When I would go to the cloth hall or the market and all the other wives would look at my poor clothing with pity. And at home, what did I have except the constant, rotting stench of your filthy feet, and a woman can’t wear that, or the foulness of your farts, and a woman can’t eat that.”

Willem’s face did not change.

“My one comfort was that you were so often on the roads. You must have wondered, on those journeys, whether your wife kept the commandments. Or did the thought never enter into your doddering pate? Do you know how many men asked for my favours, before and after our marriage? But I will tell you now, although you never asked, that never a moment’s indulgence did I give any of them, all the while you were doubtless inflicting your belches and groping upon whatever poor maidens you encountered on your sinful business. And leaving me at home to milk money out of my breasts. But do you know how relieved I was to have my milk become our livelihood? Because then I had a reason not to lie with you, not ever again, for fear of souring the milk.”

“Mother, stop,” screamed Beatrix, coming up beside her. “Father, leave us, for she won’t stop until you do.”

“We stay where we list,” said Baltazar.

“Where she sends you, you mean,” Beatrix snapped. “You have no wills of your own. If you did—”

Her voice broke. It must be a horrible thing, Margriet realized, to be in love with a man. It always ended badly in stories. If she had known Beatrix loved Baltazar, she would never have let her marry him. Poor child.

Beatrix set her mouth, her jaw clamped. It was an expression Margriet knew well: first from the bad times in Beatrix’s childhood, when she had gone days with nothing but sawdusty bread or skinny canal fish in her stomach, and then again from the past month in Bruges, during the siege. She had often wondered what was in her daughter’s mind when she wore that expression: prayers for relief or prayers for fortitude?

She let the rope go slack a bit, let the remaining rope run through her hands, let him think he was winning the tug-of-war, and then she gripped so tightly her fingernails bit into her flesh, so she could be sure of her grasp, and she yanked as hard as she could. Willem was not a big man but he was big enough that her yank made little difference. Still, he stumbled forward just a little. And the sack was on the ground beside him.

She darted forward and took the sack-end in both hands. It was heavy and he was on her before she could drag it a foot.

“Beatrix!” she shouted, and turned and scraped her nails across Willem’s face.

He did not cry out, but he did pause, long enough for Margriet to bend her knees and kick him hard in the gut, so that he stumbled back and fell on his arse.

“Beatrix, take it!” She shouted. “It is your right. This is not your father. It is a corpse, under sorcery. Your father may not have been much but would he steal your inheritance, if he were truly your father? Would even Willem de Vos leave his daughter a widow with nothing?”

Beatrix, good girl, was already dragging the sack away in one hand, her distaff in the other. She was younger, stronger; she was nearly running with it. She would make it. Baltazar made no move but only watched her.

“I told you yesterday, Margriet,” Willem said, getting to his feet, “that neither of you are widows. You will accept this.”

Willem strode toward Beatrix. Margriet ran toward him and grabbed him around the knees. He fell flat on his chest.

“Run!” she screamed.

But Beatrix had stopped, foolish girl, and was staring at her.

“He told you yesterday … about Baltazar? And you did not tell me?”

“Run, foolish girl! I kept you safe. Why do you think I took you out of Bruges? I am giving you your chance! Run!”

But now Baltazar was walking toward Beatrix, holding out his hands.

“Wife,” he said. “I came back for you. You are not a widow. You are my wife. Your place is by my side.”

Beatrix stared at him. What had gone wrong with the girl? Margriet screamed her daughter’s name with every ounce of her breath, screamed so loud it rang in her own ears.

Willem had caught up with Beatrix now, and bent to take the sack. It was over. They could not manage this, two women against two revenants. If God had given her a little more time to plan—

Someone came crashing through the trees, a man in mail and helmet, swinging a sword. The sword flashed high in the moonlight and the man yelled and the sword thwacked Willem on the shoulder.

The corpse that had been her husband stumbled back, with a great gash nearly clean through his upper arm. There was nothing on his face, no expression. The wound did not bleed. Whoever this man was, he must want the sack. Margriet had only the space of a moment while her husband reeled back and the man-at-arms lunged after him.

The sack was no lighter the second time, and her fingers slipped on the rough cloth. But this time, Beatrix was at her side, and grasped a handful of cloth on one side and they ran with the sack between them.

“Don’t look back,” she panted.

“Do not speak to me, Mother,” Beatrix said. “Not one word.”

The night breathed cold against Margriet’s hot cheek. What cause had Beatrix to be angry? What right? How dare she?

Margriet glanced behind—if the revenants were not dogging their steps, the man-at-arms must be. But no—he somehow had Baltazar pinned to the ground under his knee and was slashing again at Willem’s arm.

She cringed; it was hard to remember, when she saw the hand fall away from the arm, that this was not her husband. But it was in any case her husband’s body.

“Don’t look back, Beatrix,” she muttered again, and tugged the sack, walking forward. Whoever the armed man was, he had business with Willem or Baltazar, it seemed. Her husband had made an enemy. The man who had killed him? People said a dead man would bleed, in the presence of his murderer, yet Willem did not bleed, not even when his flesh was hacked off.

They were nearly out of the copse and into the open field. As the trees thinned, she could see that the eastern horizon was pink. Morning. Two nights and one day now, with only a few hours of sleep snatched here and there. By God, she was too old for this. She might vomit, the moment she got a moment to think.

Over her shoulder, someone crashed through the bushes, coming closer. She whirled; it was the man in mail and helmet.

Margriet put her free hand to her waist to pull her knife and with the other, thrust her end of the sack toward her daughter.

“Run, now,” she yelled. “I don’t care if you say no masses in my name, I don’t care if you curse it. I’m a dead woman now and don’t you dare stop running.”

But the man in the helmet reached out his empty hands, palms toward them. Then, panting and putting one hand to his side, he lifted his visor.

“It’s me, you blind idiot,” said Claude.

“By all the saints,” Margriet breathed. “Where did you—?”

“No time,” Claude panted. “I’ve bound your husbands but that bit of rope won’t hold them long.”

Margriet peered over Claude’s shoulder but could see nothing but dull shapes in the gloom beyond.

“My arm’s killing me,” Claude said. “I could barely make a dent with this sword. But it did what it had to do. If you two can manage that sack a little farther, we need to find somewhere to hide. We passed a rotted sty a while back, at that burned cottage, you recall? We can rest there.”

They stumbled forward. In the sickly daylight Margriet could see now that her daughter’s cheeks were stained with tears. She had not cried before Baltazar and Willem; she must have been crying as they were running. Poor girl. Let her have her anger. Margriet had never known her to be angry, not truly angry, not once in all her years. Come to think of it, if she had not pushed the child from her own womb she might have wondered whether Beatrix was her daughter; she had so little of Margriet in her.

Claude put her arm across Margriet’s path to stop her.

“Wait,” the girl hissed. “Something’s not—”

At the edge of the trees, where the field began, the grasses were tall, and thick, all in among shrubs and saplings. From that grass rose a dozen monsters. She knew them for chimeras by how they moved, before she got close enough to see their abominations. Those three sprang from the grass with the smooth-jointed speed of insects; that other one came scampering out of the bush like a frightened partridge.

And, then, out of the darkness of the woods, a line of hounds came running at them. Two-headed hounds, running in a circle around them, their human mouths laughing and their dog mouths snarling.

“There is nowhere to run, Claude Jouvenal,” said the biggest of the chimeras, a brute with a horn jutting from his forehead like a unicorn. The horned man smiled at Claude as if he were greeting an old friend, but his right hand at his sword belt called him a liar.

If the chimeras wanted them dead, surely they would be killing them by now.

They had been nothing but threatening blurs a few moments ago, but they were becoming clear now as they drew closer, as she could see them better.

The horned chimera stood a foot taller than any man Margriet had ever seen. Like a vine, the copper-coloured horn grew whorled and mottled with green, so thick at the base that it stretched from his brows to the beginning of his yellow hair. His skin was like leather, plated here and there with grafted armour, and he wore no tunic, only chausses and a belt.

And then he spoke, startling her.

“You took it off, you crazy woman,” shouted the horned man, in French. “You did not like the look of it?”

Margriet had always spoken very good French. Her father had drilled it into her. One day you may find that someone wants you to say scilt ende vrient, he had said. She, being a know-it-all as usual, had informed him that it would be the other way around if the French were trying to test a Fleming, that it would be écu et ami, except that écu et ami wasn’t hard to say, so they would probably pick something with an r in it.

In any case, she had not thought that when the moment came, the problem would be not that she didn’t understand the French, but that she just didn’t understand.

She stared at the horned man, and opened her mouth as if some words might come out, some words that would work.

“I got rid of it,” Claude said behind her, her French much smoother than her Flemish, perfect langue d’oc. “I sold it.”

The creature’s smile grew broader. “The Chatelaine would have words with you.”

“Take me if you like. But let these women go free. They are not mixed up in this business.”

The horned man’s smile faded.

“The whole world is mixed up in this business.”

There was no daylight in Hell. It was difficult for newcomers to tell day from night, there, but after a few years its denizens became attuned to the groans and rumbles of the Beast’s digestive system, the telltale borborygmi of its waking moments.

In the evenings it sighed and shuddered before it slept, and that, too, the Chatelaine could feel in her bones.

In the stretches between, people relied mainly on the great clock that stood in the Hall, plunder from one of the Chatelaine’s husband’s trips to the surface a few hundred years before. Its system of tanks and tubes filled a bowl with oil every hour, when a float triggered a metal serpent to stick out its tongue and ring a small chime. The trouble was that the hours were all the same length; this had been no problem at all underground, but now that they were living on the surface the Chatelaine had a revenant reset the thing at Prime if they were within the sound of bells, and just after sunset if they were not. By the end of each day, to a degree depending on the season, the time in Hell was askew from the time outside.

The Chatelaine was awake on this morning long before the Beast. She lay staring at the red ceiling; there may have been no daylight in Hell but it was never deeply dark, either, for the faint glow of the Beast’s blood lit every room.

The messenger had said that Bruges had fallen. And that Monoceros had gone, with a band of his best and a passel of hounds, looking for Claude Jouvenal. Today, perhaps, the Chatelaine would have her in chains, and would have the false mace, too, and all would be well. Bruges had fallen—at great cost, yes, but now Philippe could not deny her Flanders. She had conquered it. She would rule it, and she could build up her army again, chimera by chimera.

There was a tap at the door. She rose and put her ermine over her shoulders as Chaerephon opened it and looked in. He looked relieved to see her awake.

“Philippe is here,” he said. “He brought you a gift, he says.”

“A gift?”

Chaerephon shrugged, all the bones of his shoulders and neck moving under clothing like the levers in her husband’s clock. He wore very little now, only a tunic and breeches and, always, a long brown cloak. “Not a large wooden horse. A bird.”