Armed in Her Fashion

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The Chatelaine stood and everyone else in Hell’s great Hall stood as well, if they had legs to stand upon.

“Let us eat and drink, and give thanks for our victories,” she said.

The chimeras cheered, if they had mouths to cheer with. The revenants flitted around the edges of the Hall; they required no food but it was night and they were restless. She had called them home. They all looked at nothing, their faces blank. There were Willem and Baltazar; she would have liked to give them some reward, not because it would mean anything to them, but because it would remind Chaerephon how close they had come to losing, and what they had lost by winning.

A woman, small-bodied, knelt before her. Her torso was a piece of wood, the sides undulating voluptuously. Three strings and a bar of wood ran down her middle.

Beside her stood a tall man with a long pipe where his nose ought to be, running down to his waist, and another sticking out his back from between his shoulder blades. As he breathed, his chest wheezed, his abdomen puffing and collapsing like an enormous bladder.

“Fresh from the smithy, I see,” the Chatelaine said. “You’re the two who wanted to play music.”

The woman nodded. Little mouse. They had both been rotted in the lungs when they came to her, and near death. Small good she would have been in battle anyway. It was an annoyance that the Hell-forges would not work on unwilling subjects, but perhaps there was a wisdom in it.

“Go ahead and play for me, then,” the Chatelaine said, waving her hand. “Be good for something, before you die.”

A Monkey-man ran around the room as they played a quick tune, wheezy and uneven. He was too conscious of himself. He was hoping to be made her Fool, but what need had she for another fool? She was surrounded by them and she was disinclined to laugh.

Monoceros came and knelt at her side.

“I am sorry for being late,” he said. “I was bringing in the last of the grotesques from Bruges. There may be a few strays about the countryside but the good ones, the sound ones, are all in. We could leave now any time.”

“Oh, could we?” she said sweetly. “Could we leave? Do you give your consent?”

Monoceros knew better than to say anything. He tried to bow his head, giving only a hint of a movement before he checked himself, and kept his head high so as not to gore her. Even on his knee he was as tall as she was sitting in her great chair made of the carved bones of extinct beasts, the chair that had belonged to her husband.

She pitied Monoceros a little, the first and most loyal of all her creatures.

“I am peevish,” she said. “Here, sit next to me and I’ll tell you the reason.”

Monoceros took his chair, an ordinary wooden chair with its bars and finials and roundels painted blue and red, like you might find in any chateau. He leaned close to her.

“The Beast will not move,” she said softly, holding a goblet in front of her mouth. “It refuses. It has laid eggs.”

“Eggs?” He raised his eyebrow, making the horn shudder.

“Chaerephon did not want me to smash them but I am not so sure. I do not trust him, Monoceros. He is not mine, you see.”

“I am,” he said. “You know that I am.”

“Yes,” she said. “You are my very first. And best, still.”

She reached her hand out and patted his huge shoulder, his skin like smooth and burnished bronze. She almost expected him to purr like his great cat.

“I need more chimeras and better,” she said. “Chaerephon is getting me black powder. I need you to find me some people who want to be weapons. Strong young people.”

He nodded.

“And Monoceros—”

“Yes?”

He leaned closer, understanding that this was a secret. She swallowed and spoke as quietly as she could, holding out a small iron key.

“Go into my chamber. I have kept everything that came from Willem de Vos there in a chest. Open it and take the counterfeit mace. Destroy it.”

He nodded.

Claude then went in search of what he needed. Margriet had given him some of the contents of her dwindling purse.

He bought a bit of pitch-in-spirits from an apothecary, and three skinny rabbits from a hunter. Fur, and meat. It was not a market day, but the ragman had some bits of leather and wire that might come in handy when making their disguises. He even had the beak of a giant bird, and a long bit of metal that looked like a bone. The people of Ypres were doing a brisk trade in chimera fashion.

It felt good to walk the streets in chausses and aketon again, to have people call him sir. He strode into a tavern.

The moment his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw Monoceros.

The horned man was sitting around a table, talking with three boys. They looked terrified, and they looked as if they were trying not to look terrified. New recruits.

Monoceros looked up, caught Claude’s eye, and smiled. He stood. His horn nearly scraped the ceiling.

“In men’s clothes again,” he said quietly, coming closer.

Claude nodded. He reminded himself that he was free, that the Chatelaine had no hold on him.

“I thank you,” he said. “It was a great kindness.”

“I was impressed by your testimony,” Monoceros said. “You are an honourable … man.”

Claude’s heart beat faster. “An honourable man in stained clothing and without a denier to his name,” he answered.

Monoceros glanced down at his clothing—a mistake, for his eyes lit on the bundle of leather and cloth scraps and the little bottle in Claude’s left hand.

“Then you must let me buy you a drink,” Monoceros said. “Let us tell our best war stories, and see how strong the hearts beat in these whelps before I let them become chimeras.”

“I would rather a sturdy crossbow and passage to new lands, but if a drink is all that is on offer, I will not say no,” Claude said.

Monoceros laughed.

Beatrix and Gertrude walked in silence to the church to fetch the horns. Gertrude seemed to sense that Beatrix needed to be silent, needed to have an argument with her mother in her head, which was the only place it was possible to have an argument with Margriet de Vos.

As they were leaving, Beatrix had tried to be light and joyful with her mother.

“We will have to give your gold to the Church,” said Beatrix to Mother. “If we even get it.”

“The Church took my brother,” Mother snapped. “Now the score is even.”

“Do you really think you can settle scores with God?” she had asked quietly.

“I do not, of course, my daughter,” Margriet said. “But if I can raid at the gates of Hell, surely I can ask for a small dispensation at the gate of Paradise, where I shall be shortly, so let’s finish this business.”

She never thought about Beatrix, never thought to apologize to her, or ask her opinion. Stubborn to the last. And she would be in her grave soon, and there was no point in trying to change her now, but Beatrix wanted to all the same.

The ground was cold but firm and she and Gertrude went quickly.

“I should just keep walking,” Beatrix said out loud, to have it said, out in the cold air.

“You know, I have always been a good walker,” Gertrude said. “I wanted to go on pilgrimage.”

“So have I!” Beatrix said. “Well, Baltazar and I spoke about it, often. We were going to go together, one day.”

“And why not go without him?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Beatrix said. “I never thought of it. Every time I thought of the future, Baltazar was in it.”

“Let’s walk there now,” said Gertrude and took her hand. It was warmer than her own, despite the cold air, as if Gertrude were more alive than she was.

They swung their arms like children.

“We’ll walk for three days to Paris,” said Gertrude, “then on to Spain.”

But their feet took them to the little tumbledown church, where Gertrude said a prayer and smashed a window.