Perfect Shadows

chapter 12

It was still and peaceful by the river, shrouded in the snow that had been falling lightly for most of the day. The water was a black line, thick as tar between the white banks, its chatter hushed in the cold. I leaned against the orchard wall, watching the ragged clouds tear and drift away, to reveal the hard glitter of the stars. The waning quarter moon was still hidden in the horizon glow: it would be new for Twelfth Night. I had toyed with the idea of accompanying Hal to the masque but had decided against. It would be better to stay away, as Hal had let slip that Percy and Essex had been closeted together with Cecil. Three men who hated me, and Essex asking eagerly and often of Hal if I had been yet persuaded to join their revels—if that did not bode some new plot against me I was Pope Joan. My musings were interrupted by a sound behind me, not close, but not too far. A woman was laughing softly, and I thought that I caught the sound of soft footfalls, as if she were dancing in the snow. I made my way to the wild woodlot beyond the orchard.

She was there, dressed in a flowing cloak, and dancing in a glade carpeted with drifted snow. She paused at the sight of me, poised as a fawn for flight, but then she ran towards me. She stopped a few feet away and did me a reverent courtesy. Her shadowy hair would be the color of honey in the sunlight, I thought, and her black eyes would probably be brown. She was delicately formed, her bones small and elegant. She dropped to her knees before me, holding out her slender hands. “My Lord! I have come to write my name in your book!” Her voice was high and sweet, like the birdsong that I had almost forgotten in my long exile from the sun.

“Do you know me?” I asked gently.

“Oh yes! You are the Black Man of the wood! Your servant with the cloven hoof said that you would meet me here, and here you are! I will sign my name in your book, and you will give me powers and spells. You are my only Lord and Sovereign, and I will do whatever unspeakable things you ask of me, only let me write my name in your book!” She grasped at my cloak, her eyes lit with the glow of unreason. She was mad.

“You have mistaken me, lady,” I said mildly, trying to disentangle her fingers from my clothing, but she held tighter, kissing the cloth. I raised her, not entirely gently. She stepped back and drew a pin from her cloak. She stabbed it repeatedly into her finger until the blood flowed freely, then made an elaborate show of signing an imagined book with her blood, the fallen drops black against the trampled snow. She stepped away then, arched her head back, and flung her cloak from her, to stand before me naked in the dim snow-light. Her fingers strayed to her ripe breasts for a moment then she threw herself down on the fallen cloak, spreading her legs and writhing lewdly.

“Take me, my Lord, take me now,” she moaned, foam starting to fleck her lips as she fondled herself. I first drew back in disgust from the madwoman, then stepped forward, dodging her attempts to ensnare me. As she sat up to reach for me I clipped her neatly behind the ear with the edge of my hand, and she crumpled. I wrapped her in her cloak and bore her back to the kitchen, where I placed her before the fire. I would have to inform Sylvana of our unwelcome guest, and set someone to finding out where she belonged.

I softly drew the door to the office open, and saw that Sylvana had slumped into sleep before the fire, still in her human shape, but curled up with an animal grace. Richard had crossed to the stable even as I had left the house, and the lights in Rhys’s quarters showed that they were yet awake. Well, they had much to speak of, and I would not disturb them. I had fetched my own drink before now; the memory was abruptly clear, and I grinned wryly at the thought. It had become a game, slipping down to my landlady’s cellar and back into my lodging without being seen. She had said nothing, but I suspected the subsequent increase in my rent went to cover my depredations. I went to the cellar after wine, considering what I ought to do about the madwoman. I settled on binding her securely, but not cruelly, with silken scarves before returning to my office and the refractory ledgers. At least when the wench awoke she would be unable to either hurt herself or run away.

After a time Sylvana stretched and yawned, sitting up and smiling a little sheepishly. I told her of the problem I had left before the kitchen fire, and she scurried off, only to return a few seconds later, a disconcerted frown on her face. Wordlessly, I arose and followed her. There was no one in the kitchen but ourselves, and the door stood open.

The madwoman had not freed herself, or if she had, she had taken her bonds with her, but it was my thought that someone had taken her. I went out to the stable, and found Rhys face down in the straw, so deeply asleep that he could not be awakened. Richard, in a like case, had fallen across the small hearth in Rhys’s cottage at the back of the stable. It was well for him that his doublet was of sturdy English wool, for his right arm was so close to the tiny fire that his sleeve was smoldering. I pulled him away from the fire, dowsing the smoking cloth with a flagon of ale from the table. It had a peculiar odor, which I suspected explained the unnatural sleepiness of my household. I laid Richard on Rhys’s bed and returned to the kitchen where Sylvana had fallen asleep again as she stood leaning against the wall, but she woke immediately upon my return. I told her of my discoveries and we went back to the house to find Jehan and Sylvie, sprawled together in the serving-man’s big bed under the eaves; both drugged asleep. From there I went back into the cellar, to investigate the adulterated tun of ale. It was almost empty, and careful scrutiny revealed that the slats in the top had been tampered with. I went back upstairs, but look as I might, I could find nothing missing but my disagreeable guest. The late winter dawn was bleaching the eastern sky when I threw myself across my bed and let the day-trance overtake me.