Safely arrived at Withywoods with my charge. This Lady Shun is perhaps the most awkward task Lord Chade has ever assigned to me. Daily I am grateful that you are nothing like her. Bee is, as you warned me, a strange little girl. I do not see any signs that your father neglects her. In fact, they seem remarkably close and (blotted area). I will watch, as I have promised you, and answer true what I think is (obscured by blotch). I could write so much more to you, my dear, but there is small space for this pigeon to carry my words. And in truth, you would already know much of what I would say.
Discarded pigeon message scroll
Shun’s constant whining to have things changed to suit her kept both my father and Riddle busy for those days. My promised lessons in riding did not materialize. By the time I had returned from my walk that morning, Riddle had driven Lady Shun to town in the two-wheeled cart so that she might see what sorts of fabric were available in the market and to buy new blankets. It was small comfort to me that the cart jolted and bumped on the icy ruts in the road, and that I knew she would be disappointed in what she found. She had succeeded to snatching Riddle away and having him to herself. I found I was jealous of that, not on my own behalf, but for my sister. I knew that in some way Riddle belonged to Nettle, and I did not like to see Shun making free with his time. If anyone recalled that I had been promised riding lessons, no one mentioned it. And when Riddle and Shun returned, they were dispatched almost immediately on a much grander journey to buy so many things that my father sent two wagons with them. No one thought to ask me if I might like to go along or if there was anything I might want bought at a market town.
The following days had been filled with noise and disorder. A new wave of workmen had arrived at Withywoods. Heavy wagons drawn by immense horses came and went in the drive. Men unloaded timber and stone and carried them through the house. Rot had been discovered in a wall and what had begun as a simple repair would be anything but. Hammering and sawing and the tramping of workers and their shouted conversations to one another seemed to fill every corner of my home. I had promised my father that I would do my best to stay out of their way, and I had. I continued to sleep in my mother’s sitting room. My clothing chests were moved there and refilled with my laundered clothing. There seemed far less of it than there had been. Revel must have decided to burn some of it.
I had also undertaken, on my own, to visit the stables. It was not an area I knew well. My small size had always meant that I had a proportionately greater dread of large animals. Even the shepherd’s dogs seemed large to me, and many of the horses I could have walked under without even dipping my head. Nonetheless, I not only made my way there, but located the mare that my father had so long ago chosen for me. She was, as my father had told me, a dapple grey with one white hoof. I found a stool and dragged it to her stall, and climbed up and sat on her manger to look at her. There was no shyness in her; she came immediately to snuffle at my shoe, and then to lip at the edge of my tunic. I put out a hand to her, and she began to lick my palm. I sat still and allowed it, for it kept her head still and let me examine her face more thoroughly.
But, ‘Here, miss, you oughtn’t to let her do that. She’s just after the salt on your skin, you know. And it may teach her to bite.’
‘No, it won’t,’ I asserted, even though I had no idea if it was true. The boy looking up at me was only a few years older than myself, I suspected, even if he was head and shoulders taller than I was. I rather enjoyed looking down on him. There were bits of straw in his black hair, and the coarse fabric of his shirt had been softened by many washings. His nose and cheeks were red from enduring the bite of wind and rain, and the hands that rested on the stall’s edge were work-roughened. He had a straight, strong nose, and his teeth looked too big for his mouth. His dark eyes had narrowed at my defiance.
I drew my hand back from the mare’s tongue. ‘She’s my horse,’ I said, trying to justify myself and then hated how the words sounded. The boy’s face grew bleaker.
‘Ya. I guessed as much. You’re Lady Bee, then.’
It was my turn to narrow my eyes. ‘I’m Bee,’ I said. ‘That’s all.’
He looked at me guardedly for a moment. ‘I’m Per. I’m Dapple’s groom and exercise-boy.’
‘Dapple,’ I said. I hadn’t even known the name of my own horse. Why did I feel ashamed?
‘Ya. Stupid name, isn’t it?’
I nodded back at him. ‘It could be the name of any dappled horse. Who named her so badly?’
He shrugged. ‘No one named her.’ He scratched his head and a bit of the straw fell to his shoulder. He didn’t even notice it. ‘She came here with no name, and we just called her the dapple, and then it started being Dapple.’
That was probably my fault. I suspected my father had expected me to come here and get to know her and give her a name. I hadn’t. I’d been too afraid of how big horses were. I’d feared to imagine what one might do if he didn’t want me on his back.
‘Per’s an odd name, too.’
He gave me a sideways glance. ‘Perseverance, miss. It’s a bit too long to shout at me, so I’m Per.’ He looked at me and suddenly confided, ‘But some day I’m going to be Tallestman. My grandfather was called Tallman, and when my father grew taller than he was, all the hands started calling him Tallerman. And that’s how he’s known now.’ He pulled himself up straight. ‘I’m a bit short now, but I think I’m going to grow, and when I top my da, I’m going to be Tallestman. Not Perseverance.’ He shut his mouth firmly and thought about it for a minute. His disclosure was like a bridge he was waiting for me to cross. It was my turn to say something.
‘How long have you taken care of her?’
‘Two years now.’
I looked away from him to the mare. ‘What name would you give her?’ I knew something. He had named her.
‘I’d call her Priss. Because she’s so fussy about some things. Hates to have her hooves dirty. And her saddle has to be just so, the pad all smooth, not a rumple anywhere. She’s prissy about things like that.’
‘Priss,’ I said, and the grey ears flicked forward. She knew it meant her. ‘It’s a good name. Much better than Dapple.’
‘It is,’ he agreed easily. He scratched his head again and then frowned and finger combed his hair, pulling straw from it. ‘You want me to ready her for you?’
I don’t know how to ride a horse. I’m afraid of horses. I don’t even know how to get on a horse. ‘Yes, please,’ I said, with no idea why I said it.
I sat on the edge of her stall and watched as he worked. He moved quickly but methodically, and I thought that Priss knew everything he would do before he did it. When he set the saddle on her back, it wafted her scent to me. Horse, and the oiled leather, and old sweat. I set my muscles against the nervous shiver that ran down my back. I could do this. She was gentle. Look how she stood so still for the saddle and how she took the bit and bridle with no fuss.
I clambered down from the top of the stall wall as he opened the door to lead her out. I looked up at her. So tall. ‘There’s a mounting block near the front of the stable. Here. Walk beside me, not behind her.’
‘Does she kick?’ I asked with rising dread.
‘She’ll be happier if she can see you,’ he said, and I decided that might mean yes.
Clambering up the mounting block was not easy for me, and even when I stood on it, her back seemed high. I looked up at the sky. ‘Looks like it’s going to rain.’
‘Nah. Not until evening.’ His gaze met mine. ‘Want a boost?’
I managed a stiff nod.
He came up on the mounting block beside me. ‘I’ll lift you, and you get a leg over,’ he directed me. He hesitated a moment, then put his hands on my waist. He lifted me, and I felt almost anger that it seemed so easy for him to do. But I swung my leg over the mare and he set me down on her. I caught my breath as she shifted under me. She turned her head to look back at me curiously.
‘She’s used to me,’ Per excused her. ‘You’d be a lot lighter. She probably wonders if anyone’s really in the saddle.’
I bit my lip and said nothing. ‘Can you reach the stirrups?’ he asked. There was no malice in his voice. No mockery of my size. I felt with my foot. He took my ankle and guided my foot toward the stirrup. ‘Too long,’ he said. ‘Let me fix that. Pull your foot up.’
I did, staring between the horse’s ears while he did something, first to one stirrup and then to the other. ‘Try now,’ he told me, and when I could feel the stirrup under the arch of my foot, I suddenly felt safer.
He cleared his throat. ‘Pick up the reins,’ he instructed me.
I did, suddenly feeling that I was alone and far away from all safe things. She had me now, and if Priss wanted to race off with me, throw me to the earth and trample me, she could. Then Per spoke again. ‘I’m going to lead her,’ he said. ‘You hold the reins but don’t try to guide her. Just sit in the saddle and feel how it moves. Straighten your back, though. Got to sit straight on a horse.’
And that was all we did that first day. I sat on Priss and Per led her. He didn’t say much. ‘Back straight.’ ‘Thumbs up on the reins.’ ‘Let her feel you’re there.’ It wasn’t a short time and it wasn’t a long time. I remember the moment when I finally relaxed and let out the bit of air I’d been holding in the bottom of my lungs. ‘That’s it,’ he said, and that was all.
He didn’t help me get off her. He just led her back to the mounting block and waited. After I was off, he said, ‘Tomorrow will go better if you wear boots.’
‘Yes,’ I said. Not thank you. Because it didn’t feel as if it was something he had done for me. It was something all three of us had done together. ‘Tomorrow,’ I added, and I went small and quiet from the stables.
To think about it, I went to my secret place. I wanted to be alone and think, and to check on my most prized possession. I no longer entered through my father’s study, but came and went by the hidden door in the pantry. I still dreaded rats but at least all the hammering and noise seemed to have driven them out for a time. Visiting my cloak had become routine. Daily, I ate my breakfast and then slipped away as soon as possible to gather my cloak and play with it.
I had discovered its limitations quickly. I could not put it on and parade invisibly through the halls. It took time for the cloak to mimic the colours and shadows of the place where it lay. I was careful in my experiments, for I feared that if I ever once dropped it with the butterfly side down, I’d never find it again. And so I had tested it privately, covering a tree stump in the woods, draping it over a statue in Patience’s garden room and even spreading it flat on the floor of my mother’s room. The tree-stump had become a flat mossy spot in the woods. I could feel the stump, but I could not persuade my eyes it was there. The statue had likewise vanished, and the cloak had copied perfectly the pattern of the rug I had spread it on. Folded, it made a very small packet indeed, one that I could slip under my waistband and carry with me. Today, with the cloak hidden so, I took it out to the grove of birches that overlooked the carriage drive to the main doors. I climbed one and found myself a perch overlooking the drive.
Securely wrapped in the cloak with only one eye peering out, I was confident I would not be discovered. From my vantage, I could watch the comings and goings of all the tradesfolk moving in and out of my home. It was not my first time to do so. The cloak was surprisingly warm for how thin it was. This meant I did not have to bundle myself in layers of wool against the winter chill. Whenever I saw an arrival that I wished to investigate further, I could clamber quickly down from my hiding-place, sneak back into the house, hide my cloak and quickly emerge dressed as if I had never left the manor.
I was at my observation post that afternoon when I saw a morose young man on a gleaming black horse ride up the carriageway. He had a mule with two panniers of luggage strapped to it on a lead line. The rider was warmly dressed for the cold day. Black boots hugged his legs to his knee. His woollen leggings were dark green. They matched his cloak, a heavy one trimmed with wolf fur. His dark hair was not in a warrior’s tail but fell to his shoulders in natural ringlets. He wore two silver earrings in one ear, and a sparkling red stone dangled from the other. He passed so close under my tree that I could smell him, or rather, the fragrance he wore. Violets. I had never thought of a man smelling like violets. I quickly decided by his fine clothing that this must be my tutor. I stared down at him, trying to reconcile a babyish memory of danger from a boy with the man I saw below me. I wondered what had befallen him on his journey, for both his eyes were blacked and his face bruised purple and green all over the left side.
Despite his battered face, he was the handsomest person I had ever seen. His shoulders were wide, his back straight as he rode. The bruising could not disguise his straight nose and strong jaw.
I watched him ride up to the door, his posture very stiff. My instincts warred in me. I had been prepared to fear and hate him. Now I wasn’t sure what to make of him. He had no servant to dash ahead of him, nor did he shout for anyone to come and take his horse. Instead he dismounted stiffly. He gave a small grunt of pain as his foot touched the ground, and once he had both feet on the ground, he leaned his head against his saddle, catching his breath. When he straightened, he stood for a time, stroking his horse’s neck and looking around. Dread, I decided, was what he felt. He did not come as a man hired to tutor a girl, but as someone expelled from one life into another. I wondered if he had come of his own will. I remembered something I had read in my father’s writing. ‘Chade, you old spider,’ I whispered softly, and was shocked when he flinched a look in my direction. I sat very still, my legs tucked tight to my body, peering through a tiny gap in the cloak’s shelter. His gaze went right past me. Still, I held my breath and remained motionless. He turned back to look at the door of the house. And still he hesitated.
A servant emerged suddenly, to ask courteously, ‘May I be of service, sir?’
FitzVigilant had a boy’s voice still. ‘I’m the new scribe,’ he announced uncertainly, as if he could not quite believe it himself. ‘I’ve come to be Lady Bee’s tutor.’
‘Of course. We’ve been expecting you. Please, do come in. I’ll call a boy to take your mount and mule, and see that your things are carried up to your room.’ The servant stepped aside and gestured him toward the open door. With the cautious dignity of a man in pain, my tutor carefully ascended the steps.
The door closed behind him. I sat still, watching the space where he had been. I had the feeling that something momentous had happened in my life. I had a very tiny awareness that I should hurry inside and make myself presentable. I suspected that my father would soon be summoning me to meet my new tutor. Uneasiness roiled in me. Was I afraid? Eager to meet him? Likely he would be a part of my life now for many years.
Unless he killed me.
When common sense asserted itself, I clambered down, folded my cloak carefully and stuffed it under my tunic, and dashed for the servant’s entrance. I tiptoed past the kitchen door and then sped down the hall. I reached the pantry and slipped inside.
Someone was waiting for me there. I stopped dead and stared.
The mice? He was sitting in the middle of the pantry, his kinked tail curled neatly around his mismatched feet.
‘How did you know to come here?’ I whispered.
He stared at me, mice dancing in his green gaze.
‘This way,’ I told him. I dropped to my knees and crawled behind the stacked crates of fish. He followed. When I turned around to shut the hatch to the secret corridor, he darted back out of it. ‘No. Come in,’ I told him. He did. I reached to shut the door. He darted out. ‘I can’t leave it open wide.’
He sat down outside the entrance and stared at me with stubborn patience. I waited. But he was content to sit there and exist until I was tired of waiting. At last I said, ‘Just this first time, I’ll leave it open more than a crack. Until you trust me.’ I crawled back inside, he followed and I left the door ajar. I seldom shut it all the way, as I’d never discovered how to open it from the pantry side. As I moved slowly away from it, I more felt than saw that he was following.
Much as I wanted the mice and rats banished from my domain, I wished he had not come today. I had things to do. My black-and-white shadow dogged my steps as I threaded the maze within the walls. I travelled by touch and memory now and he seemed to have no qualms about ghosting after me in the darkness.
When we reached my den, I put my cloak in its hiding-place. I had wrapped biscuits stored in a bowl on my shelf. I took them out of the bowl, and filled it with water from the stoppered bottle I now kept there. ‘Here is water,’ I told him. ‘Whatever you do, you must not miaow, nor make much noise of any kind. And I’ve left the pantry door ajar, so if you wish to go back out, you’ll be able to do so. But don’t let Cook or any of the kitchen girls catch you in the meat pantry. They’ll take a broom to you!’
He was so motionless that I wondered if he had followed me this far. Then I felt a head bump against me, and then he wound himself past my legs. I reached down, and his fur sleeked by under my touch. I crouched down, and on his second pass, he allowed me to stroke his sides. He was a lean barn cat, half-grown and ribby and long. He turned, and suddenly pressed his bared teeth against my hand. ‘I’ll bring you fish and meat, too,’ I promised him. ‘So you don’t get tired of eating mice.’
He head-bumped his agreement to my offer. I suddenly felt he had honoured me somehow. I stayed crouched in the darkness, thinking. ‘You’ll need a name,’ I told him.
Not really.
I nodded silently, understanding that if he decided he wanted me to give him a name, he’d let me know. Very cautiously, he set a paw on my knee. As if I were a tree that might not be sturdy enough to climb, he ventured onto my lap. I sat perfectly still. He put his front paws on my chest and then sniffed my face, particularly my mouth. I thought it was rude but I sat still for it. After a few annoying moments, he climbed down, curled into a circle, and began to purr himself to sleep.