Hood

CHAPTER
32

The day could not pass quickly enough for Merian. In her impatience, she forgot her displeasure at her mother's meddling and her abhorrence of all things Ffreinc, and instead fell to fretting about clothes. She stood gazing with mounting chagrin at the gown spread out on her bed. Why, oh why, had she chosen that one? What had possessed her?

As much as she loathed the idea of consorting with Norman nobility, she did not want to give any of them the satisfaction of dismissing her as an ignorant British churl. When the time came to dress for the feast, she had worked herself into such a nervous state that she felt as if someone had opened a cage of sparrows inside her, and the poor birds were all aflutter to get out.

Trying her best to maintain her fragile composure, she forced herself to wash slowly and carefully in the small basin of cool water. She put on a fresh chemise of costly bleached linen and allowed her mother to brush her hair until it shone. Her long, dark tresses were gathered and braided into a thick and intricate plait, the end of which was adorned with a clasp of gold. Merian then drew on her best gown of pale blue and, over it, a short, silk-embroidered mantle of fine cream-coloured linen. The gown and mantle were gathered at the waist by a wide kirtle of yellow satin, the beaded tassels of which almost brushed her toes. When she was ready, Queen Anora approved her daughter's choices and said, "But there is something missing…"

Suddenly stricken, Merian gasped, "What? What have I forgotten?"

"Calm yourself, child," cooed her mother, bending to a small wooden casket that had travelled with them from Eiwas. Raising the lid, she produced a gossamer-thin veil of white samite hemmed with gold thread. She arranged the long rectangle of rare cloth with the point of one corner between Merian's dark brows and the rest trailing down her back to cover, yet reveal, the young woman's braided hair.

"Mother, your best veil," breathed Merian.

"You shall wear it tonight, my lovely," replied her mother. Bending to the casket once more, she brought out a thin silver circlet, which she placed on her daughter's head to secure the veil, then stepped back to observe her handiwork. "Exquisite," her mother pronounced. "A jewel to brighten any celebration. Let the Norman ladies gnaw their hearts with envy."

Merian thanked her mother with a kiss. "I will be happy if I can survive the evening without falling over."

"Off with you now," said Anora, sending her away with a pat on the cheek. "Put on your shoes. The chamberlain will be here any moment.

Stepping into new soft leather slippers, never worn, Merian tied the slender laces above her ankles, and as the knock sounded on the chamber door, she straightened, drew a deep, calming breath, and prepared to take her place amongst the highborn guests assembling in the baron's hall.

Though it was daylight still, the banqueting room was lit by rows of torches aflame in sconces on the walls. The immense oak doors were opened wide to allow the baron's guests to come and go as they pleased; iron candletrees in each corner and a bright fire in the hearth at the far end of the room banished the shadows and gloom like uninvited guests.

Boards had been set on trestles to form rows of tables down the length of the hall, at one end of which another table had been established on a riser so that it overlooked all the others. The room was aswarm with people-both guests in their courtly finery and servants in crimson tunics and mantles, bearing trays of sweetmeats and dainties to sharpen the appetite. Up in a small balcony in one corner of the hall, five musicians played music that sounded to Merian like birds twittering in the trailing branches of a willow while water splashed in a crystal pool. It was so beautiful, she could not understand how it was that no one seemed to be listening to them at all. She had time enough to spare them only a fleeting glance before being drawn to observe the arrival of the baron and his lady wife.

"All hail the Lord of the Feast!" cried Remey, the baron's seneschal, as the couple appeared in the doorway. "Presenting my lord and lady, the Baron and Baroness Neufmarche. All hail!"

"Hail!" replied the guests with fervour. "Hail the Lord of the Feast!"

Baron Neufmarche, tall and regal in his black tunic and short red cloak, with his long, fair hair brushed back, the gold at his throat and on his tunic gleaming, stood on the threshold and passed a beneficent gaze over the glittering assembly. He carried a small jewelled knife on his wide black belt and wore a cross of gold on a gold chain around his neck. Beside him, slender as a willow wand, stood the baroness, Lady Agnes. She wore a pale gown of silvery samite that glistened like water in the torchlight; on her head was a small, square-cornered caplet beaded with tiny pearls. A double circlet of tiny pearls adorned each slender wrist. Oh, but she was thin. The outlines of her hip bones could be seen through the fine material of her dress, and the bones at the base of her throat stood out like twin arrow points. Her cheeks were hollow. Only when she smiled, stretching her tight lips across her teeth, did a scrap of vitality steal into her features.

Neufmarche and his wife were attended by a dark-haired young woman-their daughter, Lady Sybil-whom Merian judged to be a few years younger than herself. The girl wore a bored and aloof expression that declared to the world a lively disdain for the gathering and, no doubt, her forced attendance. Behind the imperious young lady marched a bevy of courtiers and servants carrying trays heaped with tiny loaves of bread made with pure white flour. Other servants in crimson livery followed pulling a tun of wine on a small wagon; still others brought casks of ale. Two kitchen servants followed bearing an enormous wooden trencher on poles; in the centre of the trencher was a great wheel of soft white cheese surrounded by brined onions and olives from the south of France.

The servants proceeded to make a slow circuit of the room so that the guests might help themselves to the cheese and olives, and Merian turned her attention to the other guests. There were several young ladies near her own age, all Ffreinc. As far as she could tell, there were no other Britons. The young women were gathered in tight little gaggles and cast snide glances over their shoulders; none deigned to notice her. Merian had resigned herself to having her mother's company for the evening when two young women approached.

"Peace and joy to you this day," one of the young women offered. Slightly the elder of the two, she had an oval face and a slender, swan like neck; her hair was long, so pale as to be almost white, and straight and fine as silken thread. She wore a simple gown of glistening green material Merian had never seen before.

"Blessings on you both," replied Merian nicely.

"Pray, allow me to make your acquaintance," said the young woman in heavily accented Latin. "I am Cecile, and"-half-turning, she indicated the dark-haired girl beside her-"this is my sister, Therese."

"I am Merian," she responded in turn. "I give you good greeting. Have you been long in England?"

"Non," answered the young woman. "We have just arrived from Beauvais with our family. My father has been brought to lead the baron's warhost."

"How do you find it here?" asked Merian.

"It is pleasant," said the elder girl. "Very pleasant indeed."

"And not as wet as we feared," added Therese. She was as dark as her sister was fair, with large hazel eyes and a small pink mouth; she was shorter than her sister and had a pleasant, apple-cheeked face. "They told us it never stopped raining in England, but that is not true. It has rained only once since we arrived." Her gown was of the same shiny cloth, but a watery aquamarine colour, and like her sister's, her veil was yellow lace.

"Do you live in Hereford?" asked Cecile.

"No, my father is Lord Cadwgan of Eiwas."

The two young strangers looked at each other. Neither knew where that might be.

"It is just beyond the Marches," Merian explained. "A small cantref north and west of here-near the place the English call Ercing, and the Ffreinc call Archenfield."

"You are Welsh!" exclaimed the elder girl. The two sisters exchanged an excited glance. "We have never met a Welsh."

Merian bristled at the word but ignored the slight. "British," she corrected lightly.

"Les Marches," said Therese; she had a lilting, almost wispy voice that Merian found inexplicably appealing. "These Marches are beyond the great forest, oui?"

"That is so," affirmed Merian. "Caer Rhodl-my father's stronghold-is five days' journey from here, and a part of the way passes through the forest."

"But then you have heard of the-" She broke off, searching for the proper word.

"L'hanter?" inquired the elder of the two.

"Oui, l'hanter."

"The haunting," confirmed Cecile. "Everyone is talking about it."

"It is all anyone speaks of," affirmed Therese with a solemn nod.

"What do they say?" asked Merian.

"You do not know?" wondered Cecile, almost quivering with delight at having someone new to tell. "You have not heard?'

I assure you I know nothing of it," Merian replied. "What is this haunting?"

Before the young woman could reply, the baron's seneschal called the celebrants to find places at the board. "Let us sit together," suggested Cecile nicely.

"Oh, do please sit with us," cooed her sister. "We will tell you all about the haunting."

Merian was about to accept the invitation when her mother turned to her and said, "Come along, Daughter. We have been invited to join the baron at the high table."

"Must I?" asked Merian.

"Certainement,"gushed Cecile. "You must. It is a very great honneur."

"Precisely," her mother replied.

"But these ladies have kindly asked me to sit with them," Merian countered.

"How thoughtful." Lady Anora regarded the young women with a prim smile. "Perhaps, in the circumstance, they will understand. You may join them later, if you wish."

Merian muttered a hasty apology to her new friends and followed her mother to the high table where her father and brother were already taking their places at the board. There were other noblemen-all of them Ffreinc, with their resplendently jewelled ladies-but her father was given the place at the baron's right hand. Her mother sat beside her father, and Merian was given the place beside the baroness, at her husband's left hand. To Merians relief, Lady Sybil was far down at the end of the table with young Ffreinc nobles on either side, both of whom appeared more than eager to engage the aloof young lady.

As soon as all the remaining guests had found places at the lower tables, the baron raised his silver goblet and, in a loud voice, declared, "Lords and ladies all! Peace and joy to you this day of celebration in honour of my lady wife's safe return from her sojourn in Normandie. Welcome, everyone! Let the feast begin!"

The feast commenced in earnest with the appearance of the first of scores of platters piled high with roast meat and others with bread and bowls of stewed vegetables. Servants appeared with jars and began filling goblets and chalices with wine.

"I do not believe we have met," said the baroness, raising a goblet to be filled. In her gown of glistening silver samite, she seemed a creature carved of ice; her smile was just as cold. "I am Baroness Agnes."

"Peace and joy to you, my lady. I am called Merian."

The woman's gaze sharpened to unnerving severity. "King Cadwgan's daughter, yes, of course. I am glad you and your family could join us today. Are you enjoying your stay?"

"Oh, yes, baroness, very much."

"This cannot be your first visit to England, I think?"

"But it is," answered Merian. "I have never been to Hereford before. I have never been south of the March."

"I hope you find it agreeable?" The baroness awaited her answer, regarding her with keen, almost malicious intensity.

"Wonderfully so," replied Merian, growing increasingly uncomfortable under the woman's unrelenting scrutiny.

"Bon," answered the baroness. She seemed suddenly to lose interest in the young woman. "That is splendid."

Two kitchen servants arrived with a trencher of roast meat just then and placed it on the table before the baron. Another servant appeared with shallow wooden bowls which he set before each guest. The men at the table drew the knives from their belts and began stabbing into the meat. The women waited patiently until a servant brought knives to those who did not already have them.

More trenchers were brought to the table, and still more, as well as platters of bread and tureens of steaming buttered greens and dishes that Merian had never seen before. "What is this?" she wondered aloud, regarding what appeared to be a compote of dried apples, honey, almonds, eggs, and milk, baked and served bubbling in a pottery crock. "It is called a muse," Lady Agnes informed her without turning her head. "Equally good with apricots, peaches, or pears."

Whatever apricots or peaches might be, Merian did not know, but guessed they were more or less like apples. Also arriving on the board were plates of steamed fish and something called frose, which turned out to be pounded pork and beef cooked with eggs… and several more dishes the contents of which Merian could only guess. Delighted at the extraordinary variety before her, she determined to try them all before the night was over.

As for the baroness, sitting straight as a lance shaft beside her, she took a bite of meat, chewed it thoughtfully, and swallowed. She tore a bit of bread from a loaf and sopped it in the meat sauce, ate it, and then, dabbing her mouth politely with the back of her hand, rose from her place. "I hope we can speak together again before you leave," she said to Merian. "Now I must beg your pardon, for I am still very tired from my travels. I will wish you bonsoir."

The baroness offered her husband a brisk smile and whispered something into his ear as she stepped from the table. Her sudden absence left a void at Merians right hand, and the baron was deep in conversation with her father, so she turned to the guest on her left, a young man a year or two older than her brother. "You are a stranger, I think," he said, watching her from the corner of his eye.

"Verily," she replied.

"So are we both," he said, and Merian noticed his eyes were the colour of the sea in deep winter. His features were fine-almost feminine, except for his jaw, which was wide and angular. His lips curled up at the corners when he spoke. "I have come from Rainault. Do you know where that is?"

"I confess I do not," answered Merian, remembering her mother's caution and trying to discourage him with an indifferent tone.

"It is across the narrows in Normandie," he said, "but my family is not Norman."

"No?"

He shook his head. "We are Angevin." A flicker of pride touched this simple affirmation. "An ancient and noble family."

"Still Ffreinc, though," Merian observed, unimpressed.

"Where is your home?" he asked.

"My father is King Cadwgan ap Gruffydd-of an ancient and noble family. Our lands are in Eiwas."

"In Wallia?" scoffed the young man. "You are a Welsh!"

"British," said Merian stiffly.

He shrugged. "What's the difference?"

"Welsh," she said with elaborate disdain, "is what ignorant Saxons call anyone who lives beyond the March. Everyone else knows better."

"I have heard of this March," he said, unperturbed. "I have heard about your haunted forest."

Merian stared at the young man, agitation knitting her brows as curiosity battled her reluctance to encourage any Ffreinc affinity. Curiosity won. "This is the second time this evening someone has mentioned the haunting." Searching the lower tables, she found the two girls she had spoken to earlier. "Those two-there." She indicated the sisters sitting together. "They spoke of it also."

"They would," muttered the young man, obviously irritated that his important news had been spoiled.

"Do you know them?"

"My sisters," he said, as if the word pained his mouth. "What did they say?"

"Nothing at all. The baron was seated, and we had to come to table, so I learned nothing more about it."

"Well then, I will tell you," said the young man, recovering something of his former good humour as he went on to explain how the forest was haunted by a rare phantom in the form of an enormous preying bird.

"How strange," said Merian, wondering why she had heard nothing of this.

"This bird is bigger than a man-two men! It can appear and disappear at will and swoop out of the sky to snatch horses and cattle from the field."

"Truly?"

He nodded with dread assurance. Apparently, the thing was black from head to tail and twice the height of the tallest man, possessing glowing red eyes and a beak as sharp as a sword. He smiled grimly, enjoying the effect his words were having on the young woman beside him. "It can devour a human being whole with one snatch of its beak, and also outrun the fastest horse."

"I thought you said it swooped from the sky," Merian pointed out, dashing cold water on his fevered assertions. "Is it a bird or a beast?"

"A bird," the young man insisted. "That is, it has the wings and head of a bird, but the body of a man, only bigger. Much bigger. And it does not only fly, but hides in the forest and waits to attack its prey."

"How do you know this?" asked Merian. "How does anyone know?"

Bending near, he put his head next to hers and said, "It was seen by soldiers-not so many days ago."

"Where?"

"In the forest of the March!" he replied confidently. "Some of the baron's own knights and men-at-arms were attacked. They fought the creature off, of course, but they lost their horses anyway."

The tale was so strange that Merian could not decide what to make of it. "They lost their horses," she repeated, a sceptical note edging into her tone. "All of them?"

The young man nodded solemnly. "And one of the knights."

"What?" It was a cry of disbelief.

"It is true," he insisted hurriedly. "The knight was missing for three days but was at last able to fight free of the thing and escaped unharmed-except that he cannot remember what happened to him or where he was. Some are saying that the phantom is from the Otherworld, and everyone knows that any mortal who goes there cannot remember the way back-unless, of course, he eats of the food of the dead, and then he is doomed to stay there and can never return."

Speechless, Merian could but shake her head in wonder.

"All the baron's court have been talking about nothing else," said the young man. "I have seen the man that was taken, but he will speak of it no more."

"Why not?"

"For fear that the creature has left its mark on him and will return to claim his soul."

"Can such a thing happen?"

`Bien sur["The young man nodded again. "It has been known. The priests at the cathedral have forbidden anyone to make sacrifice to the phantom. They say the creature is from the pit and has been sent by the devil to sift us."

An exquisite thrill rippled through Merians frame-half fear, half morbid fascination.

"You live beyond les Marches," her companion said, "and yet you have no knowledge of the phantom bird?"

"None," replied Merian. "I once heard of a great serpent that haunted one of the lakes up in the hills-Llyntalin, it was. The creature possessed the head of a snake and the slimy skin of an eel, but legs like those of a lizard, with long claws on its toes. It came out at night to steal cattle and drag them down into the bottom of the lake to drown."

"A wyrm," the young man informed her knowingly. "I, too, have heard of such things."

"But that was a long time ago-before my father was born. My grandfather told me. They killed it when he was a boy. He said it stank so bad that three men fell sick and one man died when they tried to bury it. In the end they burnt it where it lay."

"I would like to have seen that," the young man said appreciatively. Smiling suddenly, he said, "My name is Roubert. What is yours?"

"I am Merian," she replied.

"Peace and joy to you, Lady Merian," he said, "this night and all nights."

"And to you, Roubert," she smiled, liking this young man more and more. "Have you ever seen a wyrm?"

"No," he conceded. "But in a village not far from our castle in Normandie, there was a child born with the head of a dog. By this, the father knew his wife was a witch, for she had had unnatural relations with a black hound that had been seen outside the village."

"What happened?"

"The villagers hunted down the dog and killed it. When they returned home, they found the woman and the baby were also dead with the same wounds as those inflicted on the dog."

"Here now!" interrupted a voice next to Merian. She turned to see Baron Neufmarche leaning across the empty place toward her. Glancing down the table, she saw that her father was deep in conversation with the Ffreinc nobleman next to him. "What is this nonsense you are telling our guest?"

"Nothing of importance, sire," answered the young man, retreating rapidly.

"We were speaking of the phantom in the Marches forest," volunteered Merian. "Have you heard of this, sire?"

"Hmph!" puffed the baron. "Phantom or no, it cost me five horses."

"The creature ate your horses?" wondered Merian in amazement.

"I did not say that," replied the baron. Smiling, he slid closer to her on the bench. "I lost the horses, it is true. But I am more inclined to the view that, one way or another, the soldiers were careless."

"What about the missing footman?" asked the young man.

"As to that," replied the baron, "I expect drink or too much sun will account for his tale." He paused to reconsider. "Still, I grant that he was a solid enough fellow. Whatever the explanation, the incident has much altered his mind."

Merian shivered at the thought of something wild and freakish arising in the forest the very forest she and her family had passed through on the way to Hereford.

"But come, my lady," said the baron with a smile, "I see I have upset you. We will not speak of such abhorrent things anymore. Here!" He reached for a bowl containing a pale purple substance. "Have you ever tasted fruinenty?"

"No, never."

"Then you must. I insist," said the baron, handing her his own silver spoon. He pushed the bowl toward her. "I think you will like it."

Merian dipped the tip of the spoon into the mushy substance and touched it to her tongue. The taste was cool and sweet and creamy. "It is very good," she said, handing back the spoon.

"Keep it," said the baron, closing his hand over hers. "A little gift," he said, "for gracing this celebration with your, ah, presence lumineuse- your radiant presence."

Merian, feeling the heat of his touch on her skin, thanked him and tried to withdraw her hand. But he held it more tightly. Leaning closer, he put his mouth to her ear and whispered, "There is so much more I would give you, my lady."