Armed in Her Fashion

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“We will go to Hell, you and I, and get the sack.”

He stared. The Plague must have reached Margriet’s brain already.

“That is your plan? It’s madness. That’s why you sent for me? You want me to fight anyone who needs fighting? You forget. My sword arm is wounded.”

“You fought my husband well enough,” Margriet said quietly. “But anyway I hope there will be no fighting. I want you because you have been there and know what Hell is like, inside. And I want you to get past any locked doors.”

“I do not have the key to Hell, or do you forget?”

“Of course I don’t forget,” Margriet snapped. “But you managed to steal a suit of armour from what was doubtless a locked chest under guard.”

Yes, he remembered the click of the padlock in his hand, the strange magic of it. Margriet had squirreled her questions about that away. She probably only thought him a lockpick.

“Somehow,” Margriet said, “you escaped from Hell before. If anyone can get me into Hell, you can. Don’t you want to get the mace?”

“Yes, and I would also like to fetch the golden fleece from Colchis and the waters of youth from Prester John’s kingdom and Holy Grail from the castle of the Fisher King. What you ask is not possible. I have been in Hell. I have been a prisoner there. You will not succeed.”

“But you got out,” said Margriet.

The woman’s shrewish eyes were narrowed. Damn her. She thought she knew everything. She knew nothing.

“God’s teeth, woman. Yes, I got out. I was invited in, taken with some of the best fighters in my company. I will tell you what I learned while I was there. The Chatelaine said we were guests, and set about trying to convince us that we should become chimeras. One of my comrades was made into a kind of chimera she called a gonner: she gave him a metal arm that shot bolts using an explosion of black powder. It worked like a charm. We all watched him shoot targets in the great belly of the beast. When he missed, the beast would rumble, but that was all. It has a hide like iron.”

“I am not suggesting we try to cut its hide.”

“No? And how would you get in and out? Through its mouth? There came a day when I thought that I, too, would let the Chatelaine choose a weapon for me. But that day, my comrade was practising, and the powder exploded too wildly and he was killed. Blown to little bloody bits.”

“Yes,” said Margriet, which was the last thing Claude expected her to say. “I saw something like that, before the gates of Bruges, the day—the day we left. I saw chimeras with metal arms attack the gate, only some of them were wounded themselves, and wounded their colleagues next to them. But you found your way out.”

“Only because I convinced a smith to make me the mace, which took him many days. The mouth is shut in an iron contraption like a bridle. The Chatelaine was the only one who could open it.”

“How will you get out?” Gertrude asked.

“By then,” Margriet said, “we will have the mace, won’t we?”

Again they looked at each other, and again were silent.

“Even if I were to get in,” Claude began, and stopped. He did not like this scheming; there were so many cracks in it. Yet could he live the rest of his life like this? Would he have to cut off his right arm to stop this infernal itch? And would that be enough to stop it, this phantom torture that did not need mere flesh to make itself known?

“If we were to get in,” he said, “we’d need weapons, and there are none to be had anywhere.”

“There, I can help you,” Gertrude said.

“You?” Claude asked.

“Why not? We have a scythe, and we have hooks and hoes and all manner of things that can be beaten into shape. We will beat our ploughshares into swords, or something sharp to poke people with anyway.”

They stared at her.

“Good,” said Margriet roughly. “You can also help us make ourselves look like chimeras.”

“Not me,” Claude said, shaking his head. “I don’t wish to be anything but myself.”

“You are the best known there of any of us!” snorted Margriet. “You will be recognized, be you in man’s clothes or women’s. At least wear a helm or something to cover your face.”

“All right,” Claude said, and nodded. “So long as I can see well enough to fight, well enough to see where my enemies are and my friends.”

“You’re all mad,” said Jacquemine, as Agatha murmured.

Beatrix knew it was mad. Jacquemine was right. It was death, probably. And yet it was better than a life locked away, listening to her husband call her name every night.

“You propose to raid Hell,” said Claude slowly, “with one spinster, one wounded man-at-arms who can barely hold a knife, and one wet nurse who is half-dead of Plague.”

“No,” Mother said. “The spinster stays here.”

Beatrix looked up. So Mother didn’t want her, after all. She was to be disposed of, again, always.

“If you wish to kill yourself,” Claude said, in a soft infuriating voice, “there are easier ways.”

“Why would I want to kill myself?” Margriet retorted. “I’ll be dead in a week anyway. But I want to see Beatrix settled before I go.”

“As likely to see her a revenant, if you bring her to Hell,” said Claude.

“That’s why she isn’t going near.”

Beatrix frowned. “What do you mean? It’s a mad plan, it’s suicide, but I have nothing to live for anyway. If you want me, Mother, I’ll do it.”

Mother smiled at her. “That’s my girl. But it is too dangerous for you.”

Beatrix shook her head. They were worried about Baltazar. But she had met Baltazar three times—the night of the fireflies, the night of the owl, and the trial—and three times she had denied him, or nearly had. If Mother was going into Hell then she would need help.

“I’m not going inside,” she said. “But I will be near. I will call the revenants out.”

They all looked at the distaff, leaning against the wall.

“All of them?” Gertrude whispered.

Beatrix nodded. “All of them, all of them who are in the Beast that night anyway.

“Yes,” Beatrix said. “It will create such a flurry of confusion, and the mouth of Hell will open, and you can get in unnoticed. And you will have less to deal with, inside.”

“Draw them out,” Claude said, as pale and as quiet as Beatrix, her face like an ash that might flame up any moment. “Draw them to where?”

Beatrix swallowed. She would need to call them to herself.

“They can’t hurt me. Only Baltazar can, and I can deal with him. I’ve done it before.”

“They can drive you mad,” Margriet said. “Or drive her into a river, or off a cliff.”

“This is Flanders,” said Gertrude. “There are no cliffs.”

“You, too?” Margriet whirled on her.

“If Beatrix wants to do this, I think we should not stand in her way,” Gertrude said, and walked over to sit beside Beatrix and take her hand in her own. “I know she can fight off a whole army of ghosts.”

“Not Baltazar,” Margriet retorted. “If she calls them all, Baltazar will be among them.”

“What is one dead husband, Mother?” Beatrix said.

“If he knows where you are, the Chatelaine will soon know it, and send her hounds after you, or something worse.”

“I will do it,” said Beatrix, her jaw set. “If this is what will satisfy you, Mother, I will help. Father’s chest is for me, you said. It is mine. Therefore it is mine to claim as my right. It is only just.”

Mother stared at her for a long time, and then she laughed.

“My girl,” she said. “My dazzling girl. Deep waters, but with something like a Nix in them, just waiting to flash up into the air. Yes, it is your right. You shall do it. And Claude and I will go inside.”

“And what about me?” Gertrude asked.

“You!” Mother said.

“You can come with us,” Beatrix said. “We are going to Hell.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Margriet said. “Who would go to Hell for a lark? We have business with the Chatelaine.”

“My children’s murderer,” said Gertrude, her eyes now fever-bright.

“Will you smack her with a frying pan?” Claude asked, smiling.

“Her frying pan or your sword would be about equal use against that hellkite and her minions,” Mother grumbled. “Come to think of it, why shouldn’t Gertrude settle her debt with the Chatelaine? Is it not customary for a lord to pay restitution for the actions of his troops? And the Chatelaine owes Gertrude a great deal.”

They all stayed quiet for a moment. The air still smelled of burning.

“Please,” Gertrude said, and came to her and took her hands. “I have as much cause as you to see the Chatelaine brought low. I cannot stay here hiding until they come and cart me away. Please.”

“We are in your debt for the food and shelter,” Margriet said slowly. “And so it seems to me that if you name this as your payment, if you truly want to come with us, that is your choice. But do you have the courage? What if we are set upon on the journey?”

“Frying pan,” Claude mumbled with the cup to her mouth.

The children woke and the women set about preparing the day’s meal, and Beatrix took up the distaff and excused herself.

Outside, the day was cold, with the sun slanting through the trees on the horizon. It was quiet. Here, at last, let this distaff be of some use.

She shut her eyes and held the distaff out in front of her. Will we succeed? Will we get the mace, and the sack, and get out alive?

Her vision blurred and she saw a great fire, and Gertrude walking away from it, her face bloody and sooty, but smiling, and in her hand was Willem’s sack.

Beatrix took a step toward the vision but Gertrude vanished.

Then the ground erupted and there was the wail of something horrible coming from above, and the ground boomed again. This was another vision, another possibility?

Another screeching wail and something hit her and she fell to the ground.

Someone was shaking her, calling her name.

She looked up into the faces of Mother and Jacquemine.

“Foolish girl!” Mother said.

Beatrix shook her head, and smiled. “I have seen a vision, Mother. I think we shall succeed. But the distaff always wants to show me another vision, every time I think of the future. It is as if that vision is so strong, so stamped on the future memory of this land, that I cannot help but call it to mind. I have seen again this vision of terrible war, of chimeras and thundering fire. Weapons of the Chatelaine’s, I think. She will bring war like we have never seen. All of Flanders turned to mud, flattened by this horrible war. Burned to the ground. All of it.”

Margriet frowned. “Then we must get far away from here, as soon as we have got our due. You must go, Jacquemine Ooste, as quickly as you can.”

But Jacquemine was shaking her head, her face so pale it was nearly grey.

“You have seen what the Chatelaine can do,” she said. “If you can weaken her, if a band of women can raid Hell and live, then perhaps the people of Ypres and Roeselare and Poperinge will rise up. Do you think so? Do you think they might?”

Mother nodded. “Yes. We have seen them rise before, haven’t we?”

“I cannot bring the children to Hell, and I cannot risk leaving them an orphan, but I will stay and help you until you are ready. I—I am a good hand with a needle!” She laughed. “Agatha is doing better. We can wait a few more days. I will help make your disguises, and cook your food.”

“But the moment we leave,” Mother said, “you must take the children and go, quickly. If we fail, the Chatelaine may send her hounds, looking for our friends.”

Jacquemine Ooste nodded, her face set.

“Vrouwe Ooste,” said Beatrix wonderingly.

Jacquemine knelt by her and smiled, taking her hand. “This is what we have always been taught, Beatrix de Vos. It is in the tradition of Bruges, in the tradition of our fathers, who always found a way to bite the hunter’s hand once the trap had sprung. Has your mother never told you the stories of the Matins of Bruges of 1302, when the women of our city fought off the French soldiers with rocks and bricks?”