She pushes open the door with her stick and gestures outside. I see early-afternoon sunlight slanting in through the tree trunks, no later than when I first set out after dinner.
“But it’s been only a moment, a blink.” She smiles at me again. “You shall be home before you can blink again.”
I set out into the wood, then pause to turn back and thank her. But the thatched cottage is nowhere to be seen. There are only silent tree trunks and the giddy laughter of the river.
And a soft breeze that rustles in the leaves. It whispers, “Watch and wait.”
When I casually mention Mère Sophie at the chateau, they all claim to know something about her.
“She’s a witch!” a housemaid tells me gleefully. “I’ve seen her! Riding her switch across the moon, dressed all in cobwebs! They say the toads dance in the marsh when she flies overhead.”
Madame Montant scoffs. “She’s an old hermit who lost her reason and took to the wood.” The housekeeper narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t let me ever hear of you going down there, girl. Her foolish talk can beguile a person’s wits.”
I pretend I have only heard the name from the other servants. But I know what I’ve seen, so I watch and wait.
The floors in my chambers want scrubbing. There is no urgency today as there was the day I ran into the wood, so I decide to follow the long route to the well: out a side door in the kitchen wing and across the front courtyard to the gap between the carriage house and the main house. I’m told the main house occupies the site of the original Fortress Beaumont, and the side wings were added later as the fortune and the grandeur of the LeNoir family increased. The kitchen wing to the west connects directly to the main house for convenience, but the carriage house opposite the courtyard is a separate building. A horse track under a covered archway divides it from the main house, and this track continues over an ancient drawbridge that crosses the east side of the moat. This route circles around the east wing of the chateau and back to the stable yard that lies beyond the rear of the moat. The original intent was to provide a way for horses from the stables to be brought into the protection of the courtyard if the fortress were under siege. Now it’s used mostly to bring in horses for the chevalier’s carriage when he wants to make a splendid progress through his gilded gate. Or else by servants going to and from the well.
The swans are paddling lazily in the water as I round the outer edge of the moat and turn the corner for the back bridge. A great deal of water is still in the moat from the last storm, but the water is grey, like the lowering skies we’ve had of late. Behind the chateau, I make my way to the line of sculpted hedges that screen the back of the moat from the yard and the stone well beyond. But I have to skitter off behind a hedge when I see him coming, striding out of the park with his favorite hound, heading for the well. I hear the boisterous talk and laughter of his hunting companions still some distance behind him. But he and his dog approach the well alone. He draws the water himself, laughing as his dog leaps and capers and bares its teeth in impatience. He splashes the water out of the bucket into a gilded dish and sets it on the ground, and the dog greedily slurps it up.
He’s dressed for the hunt — collar thrust open, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, tan leather jerkin, over-the-knee boots. A magnificent animal, I suppose, as he goes down gracefully on one knee to stroke the hound’s withers, but I can’t think how I ever found him beautiful. Master and beast. Two of a kind.
We all three look up, suddenly, at an odd noise: soft, shuffling footfalls in the gravel pathway and a heavy wheezing on the far side of the well. I peer out between the leaves of the hedge as he rises. The dog sniffs the air and growls. I see him lace two fingers through the dog’s jewelled collar as a small figure swathed in a grey cloak approaches the well.
“Good day to you, good sir.” It’s a quavery female voice, frail with age. She leans upon her gnarled stick, and he responds with a curt nod. “Can you spare a cup of water for an old woman?”
“Use the river. It’s free to all,” replies the chevalier.
“Yes, I am going that way. But it’s a long walk for these old limbs, and I am thirsty now.”
I catch my breath, eager, for I recognize Mère Sophie’s voice.
“Please, kind sir, as an act of charity,” she goes on. “A swallow only, and I’ll be on my way.”
“Be off with you!” he retorts. “I want no beggars about the place.”
The growling dog now sets up an agitated barking, catching the scent of its master’s anger. The old woman withdraws a step, looking at the creature, then turns her gaze once more to the chevalier.
“One drop would fortify me, sir. It would be a great kindness.”
“Why should I be kind?” he cries. The dog is lunging in his grip now, up on its hind legs in a frenzy of baying. “This is my well and my land, and you are trespassing. Be off before I set the dogs on you!”
There are answering howls from the park, as other dogs and other hunters appear at the tree line. More men are emerging from the stable to see what’s amiss and do their master’s bidding. But I know the wisewoman’s strange powers. Surely she will serve him some reprimand for his cruelty!
But she shrugs deeper into her cloak. “As you wish.” She sighs and turns away. We all watch her creaky progress as she heads for the trees and the wood far beyond, keeping clear of the place where the snarling hounds are held in check.
“Crone,” mutters the grand Chevalier de Beaumont. “Witch!” Something more than impatience is in his voice. Could it be fear?
He bends over his agitated dog, petting and stroking. “Quiet there, Zeus. Good boy. Easy now,” he soothes, softening his voice, drawing deep breaths. He might as well be speaking to himself. Then he looks around to see his gatekeeper trotting toward him, alerted perhaps by one of the other servants.
“Andre!” the chevalier shouts. “How did that damned insolent hag get on my property?”
“Hag?” echoes the gatekeeper, mystified. “But . . . I saw no such person, monsieur le chevalier —”
“If you can’t do your job, I’ll find someone who can!” roars the chevalier. “Get your things and go!” And before poor Andre can utter another word in his own defense, the chevalier is marching back for the park with his hound at his heels.
But my heart is sinking. I let Mère Sophie beguile my wits, but she has no more power against him than I have. She’s just an addled old woman after all. I have no champion, no ally against the chevalier but my own hatred. I will nurse and suckle it. It is my only comfort.
Storm clouds are gathering as we clear away the dining things a few days later. The metallic scent of rain makes the dogs too uneasy to hunt, and their master is upstairs, brooding, for want of amusement. The chevalier’s nights have been restless; the upstairs servants whisper that he cries out in his sleep, waking in a fever, disturbing his gentlemen. He is more ill-tempered than ever with all of us since the day the crone came to the well. I dare to hope that Mère Sophie has visited some spell upon him after all.
I’m cleaning the windows in one of my chambers when I see a coach of astonishing finery enter the courtyard, pulled by four snow-white horses. Its gilded surface blazes like a sun, even on this grey day, as it climbs the drive between the flower beds and pulls up at the foot of the broad front steps.
From my window in the west wing, I see Monsieur Ferron, the steward, appear at the top of the steps as the coach pulls to a halt. A footman in emerald livery leaps off the back, plants himself on the bottom step, and cries up to the steward, “My lady seeks sanctuary!”
Monsieur Ferron frowns down at him. “Do you take us for a church, my good man?”
“Indeed not! The last church was miles away! But this storm will break soon, and my lady requires shelter.”