Keturah and Lord Death Read online

  “It will be a celebration in honor of the king,” John said to those gathered. “He loves fine clothes and a good hunt and delicious food. We will satisfy his every delight.”

  The crowd loved their young lord. “Aye, John,” they called. Two or three cheered.

  “Where is Choirmaster?” John Temsland asked. “Summon him. The king loves music—we will give him music. It will be godly music, and perhaps God will help us.

  This time more in the crowd cheered. Already servants were running down the hill to the village to get Choirmaster.

  Lord Temsland was afraid of no one, but he revered two offices, that of the king and that of the churchman. The manor was bigger than the parish church, but over the years Lord Temsland had lavished his church with a stained-glass window, a bell that rang for Sabbath and for weddings and funerals, and—glory of glories—an organ.

  For three years it sat in the church, a symbol of civilization in Tide-by-Rood, polished to a shine, stately and ... silent. No one knew how to play it. And then Choirmaster came to our town—a strange thing, for no one came to our town—and brought the organ to life.

  Now Lady Temsland, always calm and unruffled, had a slight blush upon her cheek, and said, “Son, we must find some new and wonderful dishes to delight the palate of the king when he comes.”

  “Send for Cook!” John cried.

  Cook came quickly, as if she had been awaiting his summons.

  “Here I am, m’ lord,” she said.

  “Undoubtedly you have heard,” John said respectfully, for he loved the old woman. When he was an infant, she had nursed him. After he was weaned, she took a place as pie mistress of the kitchen and often made him cinnamon sticks from leftover crust. “The king is coming to our fair,” said John. “Be prepared to serve all of your best meats and breads and pies. Perhaps you might also concoct a new dish, Cook, something the king has never had before.”

  Cook rubbed her soft whiskers. “And what would that be, Johnny?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. You are the cook.”

  “Don’t forget, young sire, we’re just a poor village in the farthest corner of Angleland. Do you think I have anything here to interest a king?”

  “You will try, Cook,” John commanded, though he was unused to asserting his authority.

  “Can’t do it,” she said bluntly.

  I saw Beatrice gasp and Gretta’s eyes open wide.

  John reddened. Everyone in the room looked from him to Cook and back again. Cook stood her ground.

  “You will do as I say,” John said firmly.

  “Can’t, Johnny,” she said.

  He sputtered, “Cook, you mustn’t call me...”

  “I changed your nappies, sire,” she said.

  “By the...!”

  Lady Temsland leaned over and laid a soft hand on her son’s. “Perhaps, Cook, you will call him Johnny only when he comes to the kitchen to steal cookies,” she said with a small smile. “Dear Cook, I am sure you can come up with something wonderful.”

  “I am old, lady,” Cook said, more humbly.

  “Your sons, though?”

  “They have learned to cook by rote, lady. Not one has the gift. They are all three hopeless knaves, taking after their father, who thankfully died years ago.”

  Lady Temsland nodded understandingly, though she could not entirely quit the smile from her face. “Well then, we shall have to depend upon God for help.”

  I spoke up. “If I may, lady.”

  Even Lady Temsland, who was always composed, seemed surprised that I would speak up again. Beatrice blushed for shame in my behalf.

  “This Keturah Reeve,” Cook said, her whiskers bristling, “she cannot cook.”

  “Padmoh will help—she won Best Cook. And I can help. We can all help.”

  Every eye was upon me, but it was John Temsland’s eyes that I felt. “And what can you do?” he asked me.

  “I can do tricky things with eggs and herbs and cheeses.”

  “Peasant food,” he said, sighing.

  “But delicious,” I said.

  Everyone was shocked that I had contradicted the young lord. My boldness came, perhaps, from remembering that one whom even the young lord must obey wanted to marry me.

  “Sir, it is said the queen has a lemon drink every year at Christmas,” I said. “Lemon is a precious fruit, but if your lordship could lay hands upon two or three, I could make a dish with them that the queen would love.” And one, I thought, that would win me Best Cook at the fair and Ben Marshall for a husband and perhaps even a shoe full of gold.

  “Tobias!” John called.

  “Sire,” said the boy, stepping forward.

  “Tobias, might I count on you to search out lemons for Keturah to make a dish for the queen?”

  “Yes, m’lord, for her and for you—and the queen, of course.”

  “Very well. Here—this should be enough.” John took a purse of coins from his own vest. “Take a horse. Any one that you choose. And hurry back—we’ll need every man’s help.”

  “Yes, m’lord!” Tobias flashed me a smile before he ran toward the stable. In the moment that I watched him go, John Temsland and his mother turned to enter their private apartments, and I had lost my chance for an interview with John.

  Still, there were plans in place to clean up the village, and the day was not over.

  The villagers began to scatter, planning how they also might win a shoe full of gold and a wish granted. Some returned to their cottages to cook and sew and clean. Tobias hitched up one of the lord’s horses. Some of the men were already pacing out the town square to cobble it.

  Come, Lord Death, I thought grimly. You shall not have Tide-by-Rood, or me, after all.

  My two friends and I linked arms as we walked together from the square. Beatrice spoke eagerly about the upcoming visit of the king, wondering what he looked like and if he had small or large feet, until Gretta hushed her.

  “Forgive us our gaiety, Keturah,” Gretta said. “We have not forgotten your bargain. In fact, I have devised a plan so you can marry the least imperfect man in the village. I will sew a lady’s gown for the queen and say you did it, and it will be so beautiful that you will win the king’s shoe, and you will use it for a dowry to wed Tailor.”

  I smiled gratefully and said firmly. “Thank you, Gretta. But he is for you.”

  “Nonsense. How can I possibly marry a man whose favorite color is orange?”

  “Well, if not he, then Choirmaster,” said Beatrice. “But I don’t know how to win his heart for you.”

  As if by saying his name she had conjured him, Choirmaster appeared before us. He had a bag dangling from a stick that he carried over his shoulder, and he was walking toward the forest.

  “Choirmaster!” Beatrice called.

  He stopped but did not turn around. Then he continued to walk.

  “Choirmaster!” she cried, louder this time, and ran with all speed to him. Gretta and I followed more slowly.

  Finally he turned about and nodded his head gravely. “Well met, Beatrice,” he said. He nodded to Gretta and me.

  “Where are you going, Choirmaster?” Beatrice asked.

  “Into the forest,” he said sadly.

  I laid my hand on his forearm. “Good sir, that way is death.”

  “That I well know, Sister Reeve,” he said, and he made to turn himself about and enter the trees. The trees seemed to reach their branches toward him, whispering to him to come, come.

  “Sir, what can be so bad?” Beatrice asked with alarm.

  “I tried to explain to the young lord,” he said. “But he would not listen. The king loves music, he said. You must have the choir sing, he said, well enough to charm a king. Alas, I cannot make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. I told him my lead soprano has grown whiskers and become a tenor all of a night, but he would not listen to me. He expects beautiful music. Beautiful! Here in Tide-by-Rood! I would lose my post at best—and perhaps a body part as well, depending on
how badly the choir sang. Ah, how did I end up here?”

  I knew how Choirmaster had ended up here—people in the richer towns could not bear to be quite as sad and somber as Choirmaster could make them.

  “Oh!” Beatrice suddenly cried aloud. “Dear Choirmaster,” she said, “I believe I may have a solution to your woes. I mean—I mean, I believe Keturah may have a solution to your woes.”

  “Indeed?” He took out a great white handkerchief and dabbed his stupendous nose with it.

  “She—she has a—a cousin, whose name is Bill. And he sings.”

  “Bill? Why have I never heard of him?”

  I wondered the same myself, and then I realized what Beatrice was suggesting. As a girl she could not sing in the choir, but as a boy she could.

  “He—he rarely sings, sir, for his mother fears making the angels jealous,” I said with an encouraging look from Beatrice.

  “Truly?”

  “She will send him to you, and you shall have your soprano, and beautiful music,” Beatrice said.

  He smiled at her and then me. “Thank you, Keturah.” He frowned. “But if he can’t sing...”

  “He can sing the river still, Choirmaster,” I said, and Beatrice blushed pink as a spring rose.

  “Tell him to come first thing after chores tomorrow.”

  “And if he comes, Choirmaster,” Beatrice said, “will you play a happy song? And will you come to dinner at Keturah s house?”

  “If he can sing as you say, anything might be possible,” Choirmaster said. He looked at the burden on his shoulder as if he could not remember where he had been going.

  We bade him good day, and he turned back toward the church.

  “And how, my pretty Beatrice, how will you possibly become a boy by tomorrow morning?” I asked.

  “I shall pray,” she said, “and as a boy, I shall sing until Choirmaster makes happy music, and then you shall love him and he will marry you in gratitude for the choir, and the king shall give you his shoe full of gold and the wish of your heart.”

  I did not let her see my smile. I had devised many plans that day, and now I had one more, one that included the happiness of my friends. Though evening was gathering over the forest, my heart was full of hope as we continued home. Lord Death would not have Choirmaster either.

  Gretta and Beatrice parted to go to their own homes and talk with their families about the exciting turn of events for Tide-by-Rood, but only after a promise that I would call for them if I had need of anything.

  My heart was lighter than my step as I walked the upward path to home, for I felt a strange fatigue in my bones. A breeze out of the forest, cold and scented with bitter pine, reminded me that although work had begun on the village, John Temsland was yet unaware of the grim reason for my plan. And the day was wearing on.

  Again I wondered why the eye would roll and roll in the presence of Ben Marshall, and again I suspected that the charm would not tell me once and for true until I had paid Soor Lily’s price.

  Though the very scent of the forest breeze made my arms gooseflesh, I knew I would pay the price—not only for the charm, but for the honor of it. I could not bear to see even Soor Lily’s great lump of a baby son go to Lord Death.

  By the time I arrived at home, Grandmother was at work with the evening meal and solicited my help as soon as I crossed the threshold.

  “Into the garden with you, and fetch me beets and peas, dear.”

  I went, and wearily I gathered. I did not look at the forest. I picked the peas closest to the cottage, and thought the whole time how I might help Beatrice become a boy and where I might procure boys’ clothing. I had almost enough beets and peas for the meal when I heard thrashing in the forest just beyond the garden.

  I was so afraid, I dropped the vegetable basket. Perhaps it was Lord Death building me a marriage house, I thought. Angrily I put the vegetables back in the basket, and then listened again. More thrashing, and so I cautiously approached the forest’s edge and peered into the green gloom.

  Now I could hear that the thrashing had the wild sound of an animal. I sighed with relief. Then, above that, was a human sound.

  I stepped carefully into the wood, assuring myself with each step that it would be the last, that I would go no closer. Just when I was about to turn back, I came upon a clearing, and in it, a sleek doe, and beside her, a young man in brown wool and green. His head was deeply hooded, and from within his hood he was speaking to the doe. He had not seen me. He had one hand stretched out to the doe, as if to calm her, and in the other he held a knife. I did not know his voice for certain, but it was familiar.

  I crept closer.

  I could see now that the doe had walked into a snare. Her hind leg was pulled taut and trembling by a rope. Quietly, so I would not startle her, but loud enough for the youth to hear, I said, “The lord of our parish will hang you.”

  He half turned toward me and seemed to consider me from within the shadow of his hood. Very slowly he lifted a single finger before his face.

  “Do not silence me, stranger,” I said in a voice at once still and stern. “This forest belongs to Lord Temsland, and if you are caught trapping his deer, by the king’s law you can be hanged.”

  “This is not my snare,” the youth said quietly. “I only wish to free her.”

  Speaking with low, gentle words to the doe, the youth approached her. She had thrashed against the rope so hard that her leg was bleeding.

  “Why do you wish to free her when you could eat her instead?”

  The youth said nothing for a moment, and then nodded toward the deep of the forest. “Because she is his mate,” he said.

  I looked, and there stood the great hart, still and staring, the beast that had eluded the lord’s traps and hunting parties for years, the one I had followed into the forest to meet Lord Death. He seemed to meet my eyes, and for a moment I could not breathe.

  In one motion, the youth dived to the stake that held the rope and cut it through with his knife. The doe leapt twenty paces in a bound and was away, the rope still knotted around her foot.

  The hart in the shadows cast his round eye upon me and upon the youth for another moment, and then slowly walked after the doe.

  The youth stood breathing deeply and put away his knife. I saw that it was a fine knife, but I did not recognize his hands or his stance. He was relaxed now, obviously pleased with himself. He bowed to the retreating back of the hart. “She will worry the knot off” he said, more to himself than to me.

  “That is the leader of the herd that razed three haystacks this past winter,” I said.

  “The very one,” said the youth.

  “Lord Temsland has been hunting him for a long time and would have hunted him today if it were not for a visit from the king’s messenger.” An idea had come to me—an answer to Beatrice’s prayer. “Did you consider that he may have trapped the doe as bait?”

  The young man tipped his head.

  “If Lord Temsland knew what you have done,” I continued, “you would be hanged by your thumbs for sure. You must do something for me so that I don’t tell.”

  I could see enough of the shadows of his face now to guess that he might be smiling, but I could not be sure.

  “At your service, lady,” he said. He bowed so low that it might have been mockery.

  “I need your clothes,” I said.

  He said nothing, but neither did he run away.

  “Sir, you will obey if you hold your thumbs dear,” I said. “I need a set of boys’ clothing. Go behind that bush and disrobe.”

  For a moment he did not move, and then he bowed slightly. He did not go behind the bush. He removed his boots, then his trousers, replaced his boots, and tossed the trousers at my feet. His face was toward me the whole time, as if he were daring me to watch.

  I felt myself flush as I picked up the trousers. “The tunic too,” I said.

  In a single motion he removed his hood and tunic. And there stood the young lord John Temslan
d.

  I could not help myself. I gasped. Again he bowed.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” I choked out, so frozen with fear that I could not release my grip on his clothes.

  “There need be no begging, Mistress Reeve,” he said, and he smiled gaily.

  “But about your thumbs ...”

  “If my father discovered my secret, that for some time now I have been foiling his efforts to have the hart, I would lose my thumbs indeed, son or no,” he said. “But it is cold, and I would have my clothes back.”

  I looked down at his clothes, still in my hands, and remembered that in this very wood I had met Lord Death.

  I curtseyed. “I am sorry, sir,” I said in a choked voice, “but I need them now. But if you would have them back, I will bring them to the interview you promised me.”

  I ran, and the evening wind could not cool my flaming face.

  I hid the clothes beneath Grandmother’s raspberry canes, and hurried into the house with the vegetables for supper. If Grandmother noted my preoccupation and my alarm at every unexpected sound, she was silent on the matter.

  VI

  A second meeting, and my attempts to delay.

  I ate only a little supper, watching anxiously through the window as the shadows of the forest reached toward the cottage. No, I would not go—I could not go. Not yet, at least. There was still a little time, and Grandmother wished me to come with her to the common fire.

  From down in the church the saddest tunes rose and fell like clouds of spring butterflies as we made our way. Most were already at the fire, but if we passed a man, I made sure to touch the charm in my apron pocket. Always it flicked and jerked and never rested. None of the men looked at me, though one or two greeted Grandmother.

  “Am I ghost indeed, then, Grandmother?” I asked.

  She gripped my hand. “It is fear of fairies. They will soon forget.”

  I nodded and held her hand tightly. Knowing that Death’s dark realm lay just beyond the wood made my shabby little village seem bright. The crops in the fields had come up thick and fine, and in a day or so we would have rosy apples in the orchard. I felt affection for everyone I could see: Edwin Highfield cleaning his well, Mother Johnson limping from witch’s shot, and the wagon master’s son secretly holding hands with Mary Teacup there in the orchard. These were the same wattle-and-daub houses I had always known, the same climbing roses that adorned them. Surely I was safe, safe...