Armed in Her Fashion Page 10
“Huh?”
Claude was sitting back down. She kept her knife drawn. She moved so much like a man. The effect of long habit, Beatrix supposed.
“Cuwaert the rabbit,” Beatrix explained. She tried to think of the French words for rabbits and hares. “You know. Conyn? Lapriel? From the stories of Reynard and Ysengrim. Don’t you know those stories?”
“Ah,” said Claude. “Yes, I know them. I doubt I know the same version as you, though. Do you think the travelling condotierres in Spain and Italy tell the same animal tales as merchants in Flanders? Perhaps they do. I suppose we’ll have to compare them some time, and find out.”
Beatrix sighed. She and Baltazar had talked, half-joked really, about going to Spain one day. About walking the Camino to Compostela, step by step together in strange lands. What was her place in the world now, a world without Baltazar in it? All her dreams had been with him, or of him.
A sound broke through the night: laughter, and a crash, a little distant. A snatch of many voices, singing.
“A camp?” whispered Mother.
“Perhaps there are some soldiers, some of ours,” Beatrix let herself hope out loud.
Mother shook her head. “No Flemings would be singing. You have heard the accounts of the Battle of Cassel as well as I have, Beatrix. Chimeras.”
They were silent for a moment.
“That’s our pinch point,” Claude said at last. “A revenant would pass through the camp, if the camp were near his path. He’s a creature of Hell, as are they. He would be drawn to them if he was alone in the wilderness. I’ve seen them come home sometimes, together, the revenants following on the heels of chimeras.”
What could this girl have been doing in Hell? It was the wrong time to ask, but there was never a right time.
Mother grunted. “So we go to the camp, I suppose.”
“No,” Claude continued, her fingers kneading her wounded arm. “We discussed this. I know their ways. One of us will attract less attention than three. You stay here. Keep your knives close to hand. There may be wolves, and other things.”
Mother shook her head. “We should stay together.”
Claude was right, but Mother would be stubborn until someone gave her an excuse to stop. Grandfather had said, be her better judgement.
Beatrix said, “I think Claude should go to the camp. We have a friend who knows the ways of soldiers and even of chimeras. God has brought us together for a reason.”
Her mother twisted her mouth.
The sky was purple. Near them, but in the opposite direction from the chimera camp, there was a little ridge with a copse upon it; the shadow of that ridge stretched and covered them. At the edge of that shadow something like a spark appeared, disappeared, reappeared at a little distance.
“Look,” Beatrix whispered, and pointed. “Fireflies.”
Soon there were dozens of them, lighting up the damp clearing. They sat quietly and watched, pointing every so often to show each other where the fireflies were, their sweaty skin shivering as the air chilled.
Beatrix toyed with her distaff, twirling it so that the patch of moonlight shifted on its wooden shaft. She pointed it at the next firefly when it appeared. And then the next, as if she were scratching a tiny line of light onto the darkness of the world.
“You’re quick,” said Claude. Her voice sounded loud in the night. For long moments they had been sitting without speaking, listening to the rustle of the leaves in the cool evening wind.
“She always did have keen eyes,” said Mother.
“There’s another,” said Beatrix, and pointed. It was a gamble; she began to move the distaff before the firefly appeared, but she knew roughly where it must be, and if she was behind it would be a matter of a moment.
She was not behind. The firefly appeared where she wanted it to be.
Beatrix stood and whirled and pointed behind, into the depths of the shadows. A firefly appeared.
“Ha,” Claude said.
“We will let God decide our quarrel,” said Beatrix. “If I can point to the next three fireflies, Claude goes to the chimera camp. If I cannot, she stays here.”
“I like that wager,” Claude said. “I trust your eyes.”
“God does not care where you point your distaff and neither do I,” said Mother. “You’re silly girls playing games at spitting distance from a camp full of monsters who’ll run you through if they find you.”
Beatrix let her distaff fall, and shivered in the cold night.
“I once pulled an arrow the length of your leg out of my gut,” said Claude tightly, “and stuck it into the neck of a knight under his camail and held it there while he slashed at me with his sword until he choked on his own frothing blood. Call me a silly girl again and see how I like it.”
“Do what you like,” snapped Mother. “But if you tempt God, you’ll get what’s coming to you.”
It was not such a thrill, this time, when Beatrix pointed her distaff and the firefly appeared. Still, when Claude clapped, Beatrix sniffed in a new lungful of fresh cold air and tried again. She did not even wait or wonder; she knew she could call the firefly where she liked.
For the third and final firefly, she pointed her distaff far above, and there it appeared.
“Incredible,” said Claude.
“It is, really,” said Beatrix grinning and sitting down on the damp ground. “I almost think I can call them. I didn’t mean to cheat.”
Mother cocked her head.
“They are only flies, my dear,” Mother said, with an effort at gentleness. Treating her like a child again, always.
“You will see,” Beatrix said. “Claude, stand, and go where the fireflies lead you.”
Claude harrumphed, and rolled her eyes, but she stood up.
Beatrix pointed, and pointed again. Claude walked farther from them, toward the chimeras’ camp. Beatrix nearly choked on fear and excitement as one after another lit up, marking the path.
Claude walked a little slower now, backward, frowning.
“Go on,” Beatrix said, in a loud whisper. She set her distaff down. “Don’t you see God approves?”
“How do you know they’re on God’s side?” Mother grumbled. “Might just as well be the other fellow. Might just as well be the other fellow’s wife, come to that. Perhaps these flies are her minions. Why should Claude follow them?”
Claude’s face looked pained.
“It is my task,” she said. “I said I would protect you, and help you find what you seek. If I do not return by daylight, don’t come looking for me. Keep on your path, or find another.”
“Claude—”
“I had a friend,” Claude interrupted, “who taught me that the best way to help your comrade in battle is to give him no reason to worry about you. Don’t give me a reason to worry about you. If I’m delayed, steer well clear of the chimeras.”
She checked that her knife was secure in its sheath, and strode away up the hill into the darkness that lay between them and the halo of lights and laughter on the top of the hill.
“Don’t do anything foolish,” Margriet called in a hoarse whisper. “Keep to yourself. Keep out of danger. Don’t eat or drink and for God’s sake come back quickly.”
Claude skulked around the tents where once he would have diced, have drunk, have slept with a good sword next to him. Here where he belonged.
And yet he should not have come. Not weak, not wearing these clothes. Still, what choice did he have? He needed the mace, so they needed information. And if he hadn’t come, the devil only knew what Margriet would have done. He had promised to protect the women and so he would.
He crouched behind the first tent of the encampment, feeling exposed in the light of the full moon, exposed in his woman’s clothing. It was worse, wearing them here. A kirtle was not so different from a surcoat, in a town. Bu
t here in a camp, among aketons and armour, he was a fish gasping for water.
He would have liked to steal some proper soldier’s clothing first. He was no thief. In war time, you raided what you could, and this was war time if ever any time was. He did not know who to be, dressed like a woman; he did not know what to say. The sooner he got back into harness, the better.
It was unlikely he’d find decent clothes just lying around. He might find some braies, a chemise, a hood, drying near a fire, or thrown over a tent line. He needed more than underthings.
By a fire sat three chimeras. One was holding a squirrel on a spit made of his own arm, which was a pike. The chimeras ate the strange food of Hell when they were within the Beast, but most of them preferred to eat the food of men when they were out on campaign. They were partly of Hell and partly of Earth.
And partly of Heaven? Some people said the chimeras lost their souls, when they went through the fire. Claude had not been through the fire himself, but his mace had. And now the mace was a part of him, a missing part of him.
The chimera nearest was squat, with legs twice the length of its body folded up beside it, mantis-like. It turned to Claude; its face was a human face. Some of the chimeras went through the hell-fires with bits of metal, and came out armoured. Some went through with animals, and came out part beast themselves.
If he found himself again in the Chatelaine’s workshop, what would Claude ask her for? Other than his mace back. He wouldn’t mind a practical improvement. Give him armour to wear as his own skin, in God’s name give him a body that would serve him, and no more bonds and stuffings.
But for now he was here in the guise of a woman, and he needed information to take back to Margriet, as if that would stop her tongue. If he would have to play a woman, a woman he would play. A woman who belonged in the camp, whose presence would not be questioned.
He stepped out into the firelight.
The chimera holding the spit stood and pointed it at Claude, squirrel and all.
“Good evening,” Claude said, forcing his voice to be loud and blithe, fearing it was tinny; forcing himself to hold his hands out, to show the terrible truth that he bore no weapons. Well, except for the blade tucked into his belt, but that was nothing but an ordinary dagger of the kind every woman—and certainly a whore—might bear.
“I’m supposed to find Robert of Artois,” Claude said, “but I do not know if he is still here.”
The third chimera, a man nude above the waist with the head of a raptor and great feathered wings where his arms should be, stood and cawed at him. Its companions laughed. Claude laughed, too, hoping it was the right sort of laugh.
“You boys would be delightful company, I am sure,” he said. Voice high, voice high. “But I am bound for this Robert. I am a gift. He will be angry if he hears that his gift was spoiled or delayed. Tell me where I might find him, and I will come back tomorrow night and give you all a treat for half my normal price.”
Pike-arm sat down again on his stool and put the squirrel-spit back over the fire. The red light leaped and licked the shadows and a fountain of sparks shot up, like Beatrix’s flies.
“There’s hardly anyone left in this camp,” he said. “Just us wounded, and those too sick with the runs or worse things. Most are with the vanguard. The others have gone back to Bruges this morning for an assault.”
An assault on Bruges. Margriet de Vos and her daughter had left just in time.
“Ah.” Play it slowly, calmly. Don’t rush. “And where might I find the vanguard? What the devil is a vanguard, anyway?”
“It means her Mercurial Majesty and the Beast,” said the Mantis-man.
“New to this life, are you, pet?” the soldier asked softly.
Claude laughed again. It rang false. He was no good at this, at playing for time and information. That had never been his job.
“Not new to this life but to this circumstance, you might say. I know a lot about men but very little about travelling with an army. I came here from Ghent, hoping for good business, hoping that victorious soldiers might want to celebrate. I made a good impression on a knight and he sent me to this Robert. But now I can’t find him, and I’m afraid I’ll lose my business and my luck.”
“Hmph,” said the soldier. “You must be good at the work because God knows you aren’t much to look at.”
Why should it sting? Good, then. Safer that way. He had known, all along, that he would fail at being a woman, so what did it matter to have it confirmed? So long as they did not guess the truth about him, so long as the lie got him information he needed. And if his face was flushed, all the better for the act.
Still he ought to be more careful. He’d been too confident. He had thought his body would be disguise enough.
“If you’d tell me where they went …”
“West,” said the squat Mantis-man. “West and south. To Ypres.”
“Ah.” Claude tried to appear disappointed. “A long walk. And I hear there are revenants abroad.”
“Can’t hurt you if they don’t know you,” said the Mantis-man.
Claude shook his head. “Oh, I don’t think I’ll be going after all. I’ll stay here, where it’s safe. It is safe, isn’t it? Do revenants ever come through the camp?”
“Most nights,” said the Mantis-man. “They crawl into the wagons like vermin during the daytime, give you a nasty shock if you aren’t careful. Two came in last night and just left here, at sundown.”
“Two! How strange to think of revenants travelling across country, just like anyone else might. But without any baggage, of course. No need for sumpter horses.” He giggled in a way he hoped suggested nervousness.
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” said Pike-arm. “One of the two who came through today had a big sack. Heaven knows what he kept in it. But don’t worry. They moved on, at sundown. They won’t be back tonight. The one with the sack wanted to get it to the Hellbeast right quick.”
“They all want to get to the Hellbeast right quick,” said the Mantis-man.
Pike-arm shook his head. “Not if they’re on the hunt for someone. The young one, he went in the other direction. Back to Bruges. Hunting his bride. He went about moaning ‘Beatrix, Beatrix.’ He won’t be back to the Hellbeast until he finds her.”
There were many young women named Beatrix in this land, Claude told himself, trying not to let the gooseflesh rise on his arm. Anyway, if the revenant was headed for Bruges, he would not find Beatrix there.
“Tell you what, my girl,” said Pike-arm, sticking the butt of the spit into the ground. “Stay with me tonight, I’ll keep you safe from the ghosties.”
He gave Claude a hideous grin.
Claude forced himself to smile. “And who will keep me safe from you?”
He turned and walked away as quickly as he could without running. He was not afraid of this nobody. But he had work to do.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The fat moon lay in its bed of silver clouds, holding its belly and groaning in pleasure at all the stars it had eaten. The beech trees were the columns of fairy cathedrals, but the shadows were many and dark among them. What would move there, what would approach, if Beatrix dared close her eyes?
“Will you tell me a story?” she asked.
Mother grunted.
“A fox story,” Beatrix said. “Reynard and Ysengrim.”
“Tell it to yourself. You know it by heart.”
Beatrix lay on her back and stared up at the moon and the stars, spinning her distaff over and over in her hands. A lovely view but it was a shame one had to be cold and damp and hungry to sleep under it. Perhaps heaven was a sky of stars with a warm, soft bed underneath it, and loaves fresh out of the oven and greasy bacon and as many figs and raisins as you could eat. She licked her lips.
Baltazar was always teasing her about Cockaigne, about her always growling stomach.
She closed her eyes and let herself pretend, for just one moment, that he was with her. In the darkness she slid her left hand through the sides of her kirtle and let her fingers rest between her legs, let them rest there, pushing slightly, a weight, a locus of longing. With her right she held her distaff tight.
Mother’s voice shook Beatrix out of a doze a little while later, with a vague tight headache and a sour taste on her tongue.
“Who’s there?”
Mother was sitting up, holding her knife out. Beatrix propped herself up on an elbow and pointed her distaff as if it were a spear.
“I don’t hear anything, Mother,” she said.
After a while she lay back down, but gently, noiselessly. Her mother stayed sitting up.
“That fool Claude. What can be keeping her?”
Out of the blackest shadows under the trees, a man stepped.
Beatrix recognized him as a revenant first, and as Baltazar second.
It was something about his eyes. Something about the way he looked at her, as if she were nothing.
“Beatrix,” he said. “Beatrix.”
Margriet sprang to her feet. She brandished her knife.
“Get out of here. You have no business here.”
“So you are dead,” Beatrix said.
Baltazar kept walking forward.
“I’ll use this knife,” Mother shrieked. “Get one step closer to my daughter and I’ll cut your balls off. You might not die of the bleeding but it will give me satisfaction.”
Mother had always liked Baltazar. Everyone had liked Baltazar. Because he had a laugh or smile or kiss for everyone. And now that beautiful mouth was slack.
And now Mother was terrified of him.
“My love, where have you been?” Beatrix whimpered.
Baltazar stopped walking and held out his hands to both of them. “Beatrix, I was a long time dying, before the Chatelaine found me, and saved me.”