A Lady Under Siege

16

On the afternoon of the second day of their journey they ascended a low, wooded ridge. At the summit the land was cleared for grazing, and afforded a view down the other side. A pleasant river snaked through neatly tended fields, and in the distance a village appeared to nestle against the walls of a stout castle much larger and more grand than the one Sylvanne had known. The men called out happily at the sight of their homes.

As they descended through the fields women and children toiling at the harvest dropped their rakes and scythes and rushed to greet them. There was much merriment, and if some embraces were overly tearful, at least they were tears of joy. Sylvanne rode aloofly among the peasants, aware of eyes upon her, but looking neither left nor right. In front of her the oaf Gwynn had lifted Mabel from the back of the cart to walk with him, and was introducing her to one and all as his betrothed. Mabel blushed like a girl paid her first compliment, and protested only mildly.

One farm wife broke from happy reunion with her husband to stare at Sylvanne unabashedly. “So this be the great Lady herself,” she proclaimed. “I can see why our Lord obsesses. Quite the fair flower, ain’t she?”

“Beauty’s not enough,” her husband added. “She’ll need to perform.”

“If she’s half as eager as I am, m’Lord will be delighted with her,” she grinned, jumping up into his arms and wrapping her legs around him with such force that he tumbled to the ground with her on top, to the laughter and teasing of the many merry onlookers.

More and more peasants and villagers joined the happy throng. They paraded into the village and crushed together in the narrow lanes leading to the castle, which soon loomed over them. Then suddenly they stopped, having reached the point where a lowered drawbridge spread across a narrow moat. Kent dismounted and took the reins of Sylvanne’s horse in his hand. He yelled for the disorderly mob to make a passage for them, and they squeezed through the crush onto the stout timbers of the bridge. Sylvanne looked over the side at the blue waters of the moat and saw half a dozen pure white swans approach, gliding closer as if to have a look at her. “Even the birds are curious, Madame,” Kent laughed. Then they passed from the sunlit bridge into the shadowed passageway of the barbican, then through it and back outside into sunlight. The castle had two walls of defences, with the space between—the bailey—occupied by stables and liveries, servants’ quarters and storage sheds. Here the cobblestoned path to the inner sanctum was lined with maids, menservants and vassals, a flood of faces all freely gawking up at the Lady upon her horse. On their master’s orders, no one spoke, and after the carnival-like chatter of the peasants outside, the sudden silence gave Sylvanne a chill.

They passed through another gate to the inner courtyard, where yet another gaggle of onlookers waited at the bottom of a long stone staircase. Their finer attire showed them to be courtiers and noblepersons, but they gaped at her just as openly as any peasant had. Kent held out a hand and helped her dismount from her horse, and when she wobbled for a moment, unsteady on legs made stiff from the long journey, a murmur of concern went up from the crowd, as if this first impression marked an inauspicious portent. A single voice called out, “Welcome, m’Lady,” but was shushed by the others. Sylvanne composed herself, and allowed Kent to lead her up the staircase. Behind her she could hear a buzzing of low voices, of whispered, pent-up remarks that exploded into chatter as she passed through the doorway and entered the castle.

The hall was murky and dim. She blinked her eyes to speed their adjustment, as Kent guided her further within. They made a left turn, then a right. Light fell upon them from a high window. They reached a dead end in the hallway, and stood before a heavy wooden door. Kent rapped upon it, and a voice bade them enter.

Kent stepped aside to allow Sylvanne to pass, then followed behind. She stepped into the room, and saw that it was dominated by a large canopy bed, its four heavy oak posts ornately carved with coiling, climbing snakes. Upon the bed, under rumpled white linen, slept a young girl, no more than twelve. Standing over her, with his back to the door, was a man. He brushed a wisp of hair from the girl’s forehead, and felt her cheek with the back of his hand.

Kent cleared his throat. “She is here, m’Lord,” he said.

Thomas of Gastoncoe turned around. “There you are,” he said. He searched Sylvanne’s eyes for a glimmer of recognition, and found nothing but seething anger there.

“Do you not know me?”

“I expect you to be Lord Thomas,” she replied.

“Yes, yes, you can guess who I am, but do you recognize me? Have you not seen me before?”

“Never,” she said coldly.

“But you have. I was at your wedding. That’s how I know you.”

“I swam in a multitude of new faces then,” Sylvanne said. “Preoccupied with my own passage from girl to wife, I remember few.”

“It was a magnificent feast, given by your husband. Nothing spared.”

Sylvanne gave him a withering look. “Indeed, it was the happiest time of my life,” she said. “And now I find each new day to be my unhappiest.”

Thomas dismissed Kent with a glance. With a bow, he left them.

“I’m sorry to hear about your husband,” Thomas told her. “A fine man, but stubborn. We passed good times together at the jousts. I was something of a mentor to him in those days, trying to curb his impetuous nature. We used to talk about going off crusading together. I was surprised when he didn’t go with his father. What was the nature of his illness?”

“You know full well,” Sylvanne spat.

“I apologize if you believe this unfortunate siege contributed in any way to his death.”

“An apology changes nothing. He’s dead, and we live.”

“Yes,” he responded. “And how is it that he died, while every other person in your retinue, everyone from maid to valet, from soldier to charwoman, survived? I know of some who clambered down over the walls and deserted you, but even of those who stayed within, how was it that he was the first and only one to die?”

Sylvanne returned his gaze defiantly. “He refused to eat while others went hungry,” she said.

“And you were not so noble? Or so impractical? You ate while he starved? If so, m’Lady, you are as much responsible for his death as I. Or did he eat somewhat? Or did he eat nearly as much as others, and only now, in death, do you seek to raise him to a false sainthood of self-denial?”

Sylvanne began to cry. She turned her back to him, hating herself for showing him this weakness. Thomas spoke with sympathy. “I don’t mean to make you suffer more for it. You’ve lost a spouse, I know what emotions that arouses, what torments bruise your heart. All I mean to suggest is that, considering that every other person placed in his circumstances survived, then some other malady must have caused his death. And I apologize if my actions in any way hastened it.”

He came to her, and placed a hand gently on her shoulder. She jumped at his touch, twisted away from it, and turned to face him, enraged, electrified.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” she growled. “Don’t you ever lay a hand on me.” She stepped back, eyes darting madly about the room. She spotted a short sword in a scabbard hanging over the back of a chair, ran to it, unsheathed it, and held it with two hands, aiming it toward him so that the tip was chest high. Thomas was alert, and wary, but not frightened, for his martial training had included techniques for fighting unarmed against a swordsman. Not that she was any swordsman—he could tell that from the awkward, insubstantial way she waved the blade at him. The fury that burned like passion in her eyes failed to translate into menace with a weapon. He smiled at her, and the hint of condescension in his eyes drove her mad. In a frenzy she charged at him, wildly slashing with the blade. He ducked nimbly behind one of the posts at the foot of the canopy bed, and when Sylvanne lunged fiercely at his head her sword came to an abrupt halt, embedded in the bedpost, perfectly bisecting one of the ornate snakes carved there. Sylvanne tugged on the hilt, struggling with all her strength to free the blade, but she couldn’t make it budge.

Thomas watched her in amusement for a moment, then stepped around the bedpost and grabbed her by her wrists. In a calm, unruffled voice he called for Kent, who entered immediately. “Help me pacify the Lady,” Thomas commanded. “I want her hands tied securely, but as comfortably as possible. And afterward free this damn blade, but carefully, without causing further damage to the poor furniture.”

In short order Sylvanne sat sullenly in a chair by the bedside, her hands roped together behind her back. In the fading afternoon light Thomas lit a candle and turned his attention again to his daughter Daphne, still asleep under white linen sheets, oblivious to the high drama that had just transpired.

“There there, my darling,” Thomas whispered to her. “Daddy’s here. I’ll keep a candle burning day and night. Promise me you’ll keep a candle burning too. We’ll keep a flame alive, won’t we?”

Daphne lay mute and still. He studied her thin, sallow face for a moment, watched the feeble rise and fall of her breast as she breathed. “She was once so full of life,” he whispered. “You should have seen her.”

Sylvanne was unmoved.

“I know I shouldn’t expect your sympathy,” he said to her. “But will you hear me out, let me explain myself?”

Sylvanne closed her eyes. “If I could close my ears against your voice the way I shut my eyes against the light, I would.”

“This is not what I envisioned at all,” he told her, his voice tinged with disappointment. “I sought you as an ally, and now you’ve made yourself a captive. I wanted, and still want, needed, and still need, your help.”

He waited for her to open her eyes, but she kept them shut. He fetched a chair and placed it beside hers, sat in it and leaned close to her face.

“I’m grateful that you cannot close your ears, for what I’m about to tell you requires they be wide open, and your heart and mind also.”

Sylvanne made no response. She continued to keep her eyes closed.

“So be it,” he said. “Listen to me carefully. Do you imagine that the future will be very much different than our present age?” He paused, then, realising it was futile to attend an answer, continued, his voice filled with an agitated enthusiasm. “Can you imagine that mankind might move forward, with fantastic inventions? Machines that can fly like giant birds, transporting people in their bellies, or astonishing glowing objects that make all of human knowledge available to anyone? Can you imagine such things might be possible?”

She opened her eyes at last and looked at him neutrally. Taking this as encouragement he spoke even more excitedly. “I don’t just imagine these things. I see them, in my dreams. Since the death of my dear wife some months ago I dream them every night without fail. But what I experience is more than a dream—I inhabit the body of a man. He’s a man of the future—a freeman, neither owned nor owing to anyone. An everyday man, not a great king, nor a renowned poet, nor respected physician, though I wish he were. There’s nothing remarkable about him at all. But every night when I lie down to dream I become entrapped in his thoughts and actions. I watch his world, this staggering complex world of the future, so much of which I can’t comprehend, through his eyes, from a place I occupy in his mind. Derek is his name. Does that name mean anything to you at all?”

He looked at her expectantly, and from the hard glare he received in return it was clear she thought he was insane.

“At first, on waking every morning,” he continued, with less confidence than before, “I obsessed and tormented myself as to what these night visions of mine could mean. Then, suddenly, two months ago now, a new person entered Derek’s world—my world. This person, a woman, looks exactly like you. Not like a sister, or cousin, in appearance she is you exactly. Her name is Meghan. Do you know that name? She has a daughter, Betsy, two years younger than my own. Meghan? Betsy? Derek?”

Sylvanne looked at him without comprehension. His voice became more desperate.

“Do you know what a television is? Television—wondrous machines. Have you ever, in your dreams, watched a television?”

“You’re mad,” she growled.

“You think so?”

“You’ve destroyed my life, for nothing.”

He sagged back in his chair, distressed by the thought she might be right. At that moment his daughter Daphne began to cough, softly at first, then more violently. He rose from his chair to look upon her. Just as suddenly as she had started coughing, she stopped. He watched her settle back into sleep.

“Whatever I’ve done was for her,” he said. “In the future, you see, they possess amazing medicines, and such clever interventions as to make us poor primitives look like mere beasts, poking and prodding in ignorance at our wounded flesh. I inhabit Master Derek’s head, but have no influence upon him, for if I did, I’d make him busy himself with seeking out and consulting the best medical authorities of his time and place. But I can’t—I can’t convey to him my daughter’s symptoms, or make him take any interest in the science of healing the human body. I’m merely dragged along impotently with him through the life he leads, which I can’t help but judge to be a dissolute, pointless existence. Through his eyes, from time to time I catch tantalizing glimpses of medical knowledge that might save my poor daughter’s life, but they remain mere glimpses, nothing near to specific diagnosis or remedy. The knowledge is there, tantalizingly close, yet inaccessible to me. And then, just when I began to despair at the cruelty of it, the hopelessness, I saw a woman, a beauty like yourself. Not merely like you. You. Exactly like you, she looks, in all features of face and body, and even to the graceful way you carry yourself. She, or you, came to occupy the dwelling next to his. Do you understand me? I thought if I could talk to you, you might know of this other world, of this Meghan, and have her talk to Derek—do you understand?”

“You wish me to speak to people you’ve dreamt? You are mad.”

“Am I? If so, I’m sorry.”

He turned away to keep her from seeing a tear streak his cheek. He wiped it with his sleeve and turned to her again. “I’ve already lost a wife,” he said. “I can’t stand to lose our child. I can’t stand it.”

Sylvanne was unmoved. “If it’s pity you seek, don’t ask it of someone so ill-treated by you,” she said. “For what you have done, God will spare you no mercy.”

“From what I’ve seen of the future, there is no God,” Thomas answered. “It’s every man for himself, and every woman too.”

There was a gentle knock at the door, and Kent entered, followed by Mabel, who was excitedly chattering to him. “And such gorgeous draperies! Must have come clear from Persia, I should—” She cut herself short as she realised into whose presence she had entered. She glanced from Lord Thomas to the sickly girl upon the bed, then to Sylvanne, seated in a chair in an odd posture, wondering at first why her Mistress kept her arms behind her back.

“Her rooms are ready, Sire,” Kent announced.

“Madame, wait till you see them—you’ve never dreamt of such luxury!” Mabel gushed.

“My dreams come up short, do they?” Sylvanne replied, not taking her eyes from Thomas.

He ignored her remark, and informed her, “I’ve had several fine steers slaughtered for my returning soldiers to feast upon, and made certain the choicest cuts were set aside for you. If beef is not to your liking, feel free to ask the kitchen for any fish or fowl you please, cooked to any taste your palate fancies. You’ll be served meals in your rooms, for now. You’re staying in my wife’s quarters. I’ve tried to make it as comfortable as possible.”

“Have you changed the sheets since she died?”

He met her icy glare with a gentle, supplicating look. “Please don’t hate me,” he pleaded. “Go and eat what I’ve offered, then have your maid bathe you, aided by my wife’s former maidservants, whom you will find to be sweet-natured, trustworthy girls. Then sleep. Perhaps in restful sleep you’ll feel your pain subside, and your heart begin to soften.”

“He talks of softening my heart while he keeps my hands shackled,” Sylvanne said.

“Of course, of course,” said Thomas. “How thoughtless of me. But you must promise to be good.”

“You don’t know the meaning of that word,” Sylvanne snapped.

“Yes, well. Eat. Bathe. Sleep. Tomorrow is a new day.” He gestured to Kent to take her away.