Armed in Her Fashion

CHAPTER SEVEN

Claude sat at the Ooste table and ate the thin pottage they gave him. Dark, greasy bits of meat—rat, probably—floated in it. No worse fare than he’d had on the Modena campaign, but the company then had made up for it. He and Janos had won six ducats at dice and got drunk on crisp Vernaccia wine. He could still feel the smack of it between his eyebrows.

Claude glanced up at the table. No dice here. Certainly no wine. The dour-faced little girl stuck out her tongue, taking advantage of the fact that her mother was pacing behind her with a mewling baby. The old manservant and the even older cook would not even look at him.

Damn it, all this for a mace, a weapon he barely knew how to wield. But what choice had Claude had? He had not known how it would attach itself to him, how it would worm its way in to his flesh.

What would he take back now, of his choices? Claude had been desperate for a way out of Hell. But the Chatelaine would not relent. Every day she asked him to submit to the fire, to become one of her grotesques. And Claude might have given in, if the Chatelaine had not been so fascinated by him, had not called him a natural born chimera. Claude did not like to be teased.

When he learned that the Chatelaine’s mace worked as a key, that it even opened the mouth of Hell itself, he saw his way out. That angry smith was just waiting for a chance for treason.

The smith had not warned Claude. Claude had not known what the mace would do.

As he ran to rejoin his company, he had considered keeping the thing. It was heavy but he liked the feel of it on his arm.

But it would have made him too easy to find, once the Chatelaine sent someone to look for him, as she would. The Chatelaine did not seem the kind to let a grudge go easily. Besides, Claude was a crossbowman. A mace was good for close combat with armour: a knight’s weapon, or at least a squire’s. That weapon, if it was to be a weapon and not a mere encumbrance, would reinvent him. He’d need to get a full harness of armour, and a warhorse, and a squire or attendants he could trust to clean out his clothes—clothes that would sometimes have the wrong kind of blood in the wrong places. And knights and squires would be married off; they had obligations to their lords.

No, he had decided. Let him remain a crossbowman. Let him go back to his company with a new name, a different colour of false beard, and without the weapon. The Chatelaine’s chimeras would not find him without it. They would not expect him to get rid of it.

He had had a devil of a time ripping the thing off his arm. Every pull in one direction hooked it deeper in the other. Finally he peeled the edges away from his skin with a dagger and tore it off. He screamed with pain, but the pain would pass, or so he thought.

He came upon a Flemish trader. Still wearing the tunic and hose they’d given him in Hell, Claude wanted new clothes to help him escape the Chatelaine’s spies. The trader was not the sort to ask questions.

He walked away in the trader’s clothes. The pain in his arm dulled.

But the itch had begun that night and had not subsided, and his arm felt weak without the mace on it. By the time he rejoined his company, by the time the battle of Cassel began, the arm was near useless.

“When that Margriet gets here, she’ll get the other end of a tongue lashing for once,” said Jacquemine Ooste, bouncing her baby on her knee and spooning pottage into its mouth. The baby was still fat. A strange sight in a besieged city. Jacquemine’s little daughter, Agatha, ate her soup hungrily.

A knock at the door. They all froze.

“That’ll be her,” said Jacquemine smoothly. “Get the door, Hans.”

The old servant looked at her under caterpillar eyebrows.

“The revenants don’t knock,” Jacquemine said. “They call.”

“We don’t know that they can’t knock, though,” said Hans.

They’d be here all night, listening to the knock, at this rate. And if it was the wet nurse, Willem’s wife, then Claude was finally getting near the mace. His arm itched as if his very skin knew it, too.

“God’s teeth, I’ll answer it,” said Claude, with a grin. He rose.

The cook squeezed her face into a sour rictus. There was one who did not approve of swearing. Well, so be it. A woman like her would find some cause to hate a man like Claude eventually. Better to push the righteous away from him quickly, before they could find cause to be disappointed. Much better to force people to choose at once, friend or foe, and then he knew where they stood.

But Jacquemine held her hand out, motioning Claude to stay. She took her knife from the table and held it in her hand, blade out, as she walked. Her baby bounced on her other hip.

Jacquemine Ooste was interesting. Part of it was the way she held herself like a figurehead in rough waters, with her wimple and veil and fine surcote never out of place. Part of it was that Claude had expected his own golden skin to be the darkest skin in most rooms in Flanders. The woman had spoken to Claude in French at first, but Claude had insisted on Flemish. This was how he had learned seven languages; he might as well improve his eighth. Claude did not like to be at a disadvantage.

Jacquemine went out into the little anteroom and came back with a woman older than herself—that must be the infamous prodigal wet nurse—and a young woman with a distaff as long as a poleaxe in her hand, to which a skinny strand of flax still clung.

“Margriet, you’ll feed the baby before you eat,” Jacquemine said sharply. “Your daughter is welcome to join us now. It’s good to see you, Beatrix. I hope you and your aunt and your grandfather are as well as can be hoped. God have mercy on us.”

The girl inclined her head. “Thank you for your welcome, Vrouwe Ooste.”

The older woman reached forward and plucked the baby from Jacquemine’s arms, cooing, “Oh, come here, little thing. Come here.”

She walked behind the carved screen with the child, and Jacquemine followed her.

Claude stood, at a loss. He needed to speak with Margriet de Vos. How long did it take to nurse a baby? Should he sit and wait?

The girl Beatrix rested her distaff against the wall and sat at the table. The daughter. Willem’s daughter? Claude smiled at her and she returned it, looking at him with some confusion. What must he look like, in his kirtle and his loose scraps of hair? Like an unkempt woman, he supposed. Certainly not like a man-at-arms. The wet nurse and her daughter both wore neat linen wimples.

Claude sat next to her.

“You are Willem de Vos’s daughter?”

The girl looked up, startled. She nodded. The cook came back from the kitchen with a bowl for Beatrix and she spooned it in to her mouth. Ravenous, like everyone else in Bruges.

From the far side of the screen came the voices of Jacquemine and Margriet, arguing.

“The baby’s been wanting you.”

“Oh, little thing, heavenly fat dumpling, don’t fuss, here you go. Vrouwe Ooste, I was delayed in part by my husband, who has come back to Bruges as a revenant.”

Several spoons clattered onto the table.

Willem de Vos was a revenant. But what of the mace?

The manservant, Hans, looked stricken. Beatrix’s mouth twisted as if she were about to cry. The little girl’s face fell and her eyes went pink and wet. Claude couldn’t have them all weeping. Claude waved his hand dramatically in front of the servant’s rheumy eyes, reached over and slid his bowl of pottage to his own place. He slurped it up noisily, looking at the little girl. She sniffed, then giggled a little.

“Margriet, I’m sorry,” Jacquemine said from beyond the screen. “You don’t mean you—you met him out on the street, I hope?”

“I would never invite him in, Vrouwe Ooste. But I must leave Bruges, I am afraid. Tonight.”

“Leave Bruges! I’d like to see you manage it!”

Claude put the spoon down and listened hard.

“I know a way,” the wet nurse was saying. “A small and secret way, a dangerous way. Vrouwe Ooste, I have been at the walls. I have seen the chimeras. They are going to attack Bruges. Soon. You must think of the children. If you will come with me, tonight, perhaps you can find some shelter in an abbey.”

Nobody spoke or caught each other’s eye. The manservant gripped the table. The little girl’s lip quivered.

“Let them come,” said Jacquemine Ooste. “We know how to deal with invaders, in Bruges. We will survive, Margriet. You and Beatrix can stay here with us. Surely it is at least as safe here as it is out on the road, or even at some abbey, in these times.”

“I am going to the Chatelaine, to lay a claim on my husband’s wealth. It seems I was married to a wealthy man after all. I learned as much from his revenant tonight.”

“Bah. A liar, in death as in life, I have no doubt.”

“I have seen it, Vrouwe Ooste. A great chest with real groats and florins, and a great silver ewer.”

“No golden spurs?”

Magriet chuckled. “No, but some war pelf, I think. There were weapons. I saw a sword, and some plate, and even a great mace with a hollow handle.”

Claude’s heart sped.

“But Willem has taken it all away, away in a sack.”

That trader. The wet nurse’s husband. A revenant now, on his way to Hell, with the mace.

“You would abandon us?” came Jacquemine’s voice, quiet as a feather on the air. “For the sake of some silver?”

“I have a right to it. My daughter does, too.”

“And my baby must starve so you can get your due?”

“The baby is nearly two. He only nurses twice a day now anyway. And I’m losing my milk, Vrouwe Ooste. I doubt I could nurse him much longer in any case.”

“Oh, I see you kept that knowledge to yourself until it suited you. Where will you go, Margriet? Do you even know where to find the Chatelaine?”

“I’ll follow my husband. Catch up to him. The revenants only move at night, don’t they? We never see them during the day. He must be on his way to Ypres. The Chatelaine has gone there to meet the French King.”

“How do you know that?”

Silence.

“Inheritance falls under canon law,” Jacquemine muttered. “It isn’t the Chatelaine’s to award it to you.”

“And how do I tell which diocese contains Hell, Vrouwe Ooste? Willem is her servant now, and he has stolen my due. If she is his lord, then let her chastise him. Perhaps she does not know the Flemish customs of inheritance. I will explain it to her.”

“And you will walk? Two women alone?”

“If I may, Vrouwe Ooste, I’ll take my pay now. Beatrix and I will not stay here tonight.”

“Mmm?”

“My sou, for the week. Today is Wednesday.”

There was a silence.

“Margriet de Vos, you are a wonder. At a time like this, you are thinking of your sou? I’ll have to go to the strongbox. Watch the children.”

Claude waited until Jacquemine Ooste had gone up stairs to the bedchamber. This was his chance. If he could catch up with Willem de Vos before the revenant reached the Chatelaine, he could take it from him. It was his, as much as it was anybody’s. He had a right to it. He’d need to avoid the chimeras; they’d take him back to Her. Perhaps it was a blessing, after all, to be disguised as a woman. To travel as a woman among women, to draw no unwanted attention to himself, until the mace was his again and he was strong again.

He rose, kicking his chair back, and darted around the screen.

“Who are you and what do you want?” the wet nurse asked.

“Take me with you,” he said. “I am a condotierre. I can be your guard.”

The wet nurse opened her eyes wide. “What sort of jest is this?”

“I am a man-at-arms, I tell you. A crossbowman. I know I don’t look like one now, but I am.”

“And I’m the pope.”

“Look,” Claude said, showing her his fingers on his weak right hand. “The callous from my crossbow string.”

The girl Beatrix joined them, looking from her mother’s face to Claude’s and back again.

“Hmpf. A callous from the loom or the spindle, more like,” said Margriet, examining his hand and then letting it drop. “You are some girl whom the good Vrouwe Ooste has taken in like a stray cat, and a liar, too. We eat stray cats now in Bruges, do not forget. Why on earth would you want to come with me, girl?”

His arm burned.

“I, too, have business with the Chatelaine,” he said softly. “You are hunting one of her revenants. You need someone who knows her ways.”

“Indeed? How do I know you won’t betray me, call the chimeras on me?”

“You can trust me.”

“But not your arm. What use is a guard with a useless sword arm?”

What good indeed? But even left-handed he could take care of himself. Claude circled around the screen back to the table, took his knife in his left hand, returned to Margriet and threw the knife hard at the wall. He hoped the mere surprise of it, and the sight of the blade quivering in the wall, would be enough to impress, that no one would wonder which part of the wall he had been aiming at.

“I’ll take my chances,” Margriet said, after a pause.

Claude burst out laughing despite himself.

“A rotten throw,” he said. “I’ll admit I am not the man I was. But you are going out of the city, where the chimeras roam. I know their ways. I fought alongside them. I will lay down my life for yours if we are attacked, if only you will show me your way out of this city and give me one small thing in payment.”

“Hmph. And what payment would you ask of me, besides the pleasure of my company, which is, of course, a blessing to all?”

He tried to speak as nonchalantly as he could. He did not want to answer questions about the mace, about why he wanted it.

“A share of the pelf if you recover it. I’ll take that funny weapon you mentioned, with the hollow handle. It has a heavy ball on one end, with points all around it? A strijdknots, I think you call it? What the French call a masse?”

“You can have that. God knows I wouldn’t know what to do with the thing and would have to sell it anyway. The sword, too; it’s yours. I have no need for arms, God help me. But if we don’t recover it for some reason, you get nothing, as I’ll have nothing to give. And we can’t carry any food. I have no right to anything here, and I can only hope that we receive hospitality at the religious houses on the way. If you can live on very little, and help us find what we can, you can come. If Vrouwe Ooste allows it.”

“She is a guest, not a prisoner,” said Jacquemine, standing in the doorway with a little bag in her hand.

“And she truly was a man-at-arms?”

“Dressed as one, anyway, the priest said.”

They spoke as if Claude were not there, as if his knife were not still quivering in the wall. He strode to it and pulled it out, sheathed it on his belt.

“Well,” said Margriet. “I don’t need a guard. But when I meet Willem, or the revenant made from his body, or whatever it is, well, I may need help getting the sack from him.”

“If you are determined to do this foolish thing, Margriet,” said Jacquemine, “you will take this copper pot and little bag of oats with you, and some waterskins. I would give you more if I had more to give.”

“That is more than I can take, Vrouwe Ooste,” Margriet said. “I will not take food out of the children’s mouths. I will only take what is my due.”

“Then let me give you this in place of that last sou, then, you stubborn thing.”

“A sou won’t be much good to you here in Bruges. Oats, though, you can eat.”

“And you think you will find a market outside these walls?” Jacquemine Ooste scoffed. “You will need something to eat, at least until you find the first religious house, and God only knows how many are yet standing.”

“Mother, take the oats and let’s be gone,” said the girl, poking her head around the corner. “And we thank you very much for your kindness, Vrouwe Ooste.”