The Illuminator (68 page)

“We will hide with the honeybees. The bees are our friends,” she said, her voice so low it melted into the summer breeze. “But you must be very still and very quiet. Still as a mouse. So m-milady can't f-find us.” They crawled in between the gnarly roots to the womblike space just big enough for the two of them.

“Me mouse.” The blond head bobbed a promise in an answering whisper.

“Suck on t-this,” Magda whispered, breaking off a bit of honeycomb and
giving it to her as she covered the child's head with her apron to protect her from a curious bee. But she knew the bees would not harm them. They would remember her gifts during the long winter, her gifts of sticks soaked in honey-and-rosemary water that kept them alive.

Magda could feel the child sucking on the honeycomb, feel its stickiness as it dribbled between her own budding breasts, where her heart beat the rhythm of a warrior's drum. It was cool inside the tree and dark and smelled of honey and tree mold and earth, and the drone of the bees made a sweet lullaby. They settled on her arms in soft brown patches and lit on the apron that covered the sleeping child. But they didn't sting. Not one.

Soon the sucking stopped, and the baby's breath rose and fell moist and rhythmic against her skin.

But Magda did not sleep. Her bladder was full and she could not relieve herself. She would not sully the purity of the bees' home. She tried to think of something else. She thought of Half-Tom and how funny he'd been when he heard her singing in the bee tree. How his kind eyes smiled at her. She wished he were with them. She felt safe with him. And he thought she was smart. She almost felt smart when she was with him. Her foot was asleep. She shifted her weight gently, so as not to wake the sleeping child.

The smell of smoke was strong now. From inside the house she thought she heard a woman scream. But she had to stay here. She must protect the child. That was her part. She prayed to the Virgin and to the god of the tree to keep them safe.

Finn heard the commotion before he saw it, but he paid scant attention. He was on the fifth panel of the bishop's retable. He'd been working in a fever to finish it since Kathryn told him of her plans to marry the sheriff, her plans to take Rose's child. It had become all there was of his life. He no longer feared that if he finished, the bishop would have no further reason to keep him alive. It was a last gamble. Please the bishop. Promise more. Use it as a bargaining tool for a pardon. So he ignored the shouts and curses coming from below, ignored even the constable's voice rising loud and threatening above the rest. “Halt, I say. Disperse in the name of the king.”

Finn didn't even look up. Whatever happened outside his chamber did not matter to him. He worked with the force of a whirlwind, his sable
brushes scattered higgledy-piggledy, his paint pots no longer lined up neatly on his worktable. Patches of gold and crimson stained his shirt, and large brown circles spread beneath his armpits. For this last panel, the Ascension, he was unable to see the face of Christ. The Saviour's triumph over suffering when Finn was so locked into his own torment was not something his muse could conjure. Frustrated with repeated efforts, he blotted out the figure's upper body and in a fury of ocher blended it into the background so that Christ ascended into an opaque cloud. All but his legs, which dangled above the gathered apostles, was obscure. A suffering Christ he understood. A triumphant Christ eluded him.

Finn spread the last of the azure onto the Virgin's cloak. The figures of the last two panels were clumsy, lacking the grace and detail of the earlier panels, but haste drove him with an overseer's whip. He daubed the finishing touches on the apostles' rapt faces—more fearful than triumphant; rapture, like triumph, was becoming a distant memory. He surveyed the whole. He took an artist's pride in the five panels—not painted with the intricacy, the fine detail of his initial letters, lacking the imagination of his marginalia and the sensuous, convoluted swirls and knots of his carpet pages that so delighted the workings of his mind—but beautiful in their mass of color, color so vibrant it almost overwhelmed the senses. Even the hurried work at the last showed passion. On the whole it would do.

Send for the bishop to negotiate a furlough: that was his next task. Gain his release at least long enough to get his granddaughter away from the sheriff's clutches. That was all that mattered. No use to reason with Kathryn. She'd made up her mind. He would take Rose's child to the anchoress to be cloistered with her, just as Saint Hildegard of Bingein was given to the sainted Jutta.

A little bit of azure was left in the pot. He cut it with a glaze of white and applied it to the horseman's cloak in the second panel, then stepped back to survey it. The mounted figure following Christ as He carried His cross looked more like a fourteenth-century courtier than a first-century Jew. It was no accident that the youthful figure bore a remarkable resemblance to the bishop, but without the arrogant expression. A flattering portrait by design.

Finn was applying the last stroke of blue, emptying his brush of its expensive pigment, when he heard the shouts from the yard, the clash of metal, this time too loud to be ignored. He went to the window and looked out. In the
courtyard a melee had broken out. A couple of prison guards grappled with a score of rebels, who looked like burly farm laborers and seemed to be getting the best of the slack-bellied guards. The door at the bottom of the steps scraped—the unmistakable sound of metal against stone. More shouting, closer now. On the stairs. A rush of stamping feet, then a gruff, familiar growl behind him.

Finn turned to see Sykes crossing the threshold to his cell. Another quick glance out the window showed the constable on the ground, wounded or dead.

“So this is where ye've been keeping. Better quarters than the dungeon, I'd say.” Sykes waved a short-sword—Finn recognized it as one the constable sometimes wore—around the room, then picked up a half-eaten joint of meat from the remains of Finn's meal and proceeded to take a bite of it. His mean little jet eyes bored into Finn as his broken teeth stripped the meat from the bone before flinging it into the air. Finn ducked to keep it from hitting him. Sykes laughed as he wiped the grease from his left hand onto his sleeve. His right hand still held the sword pointed at Finn. “Where's yer little midget friend, Illuminator?”

Finn tried to keep his voice calm, though his quick assessment of the situation made him feel anything but. “You wouldn't be taking advantage
of
a little rebellion to settle an old score, would you, Sykes? Before you do something you'll regret, you might consider that I'm under the special protection of the bishop. You've already committed an offense against the crown. Will you offend the Church as well?”

Sykes laughed, showing a jagged canine among his long yellow teeth. “Listen to them fine words. ‘Offend the Church, offend the Church'! What did the Church ever do for the likes of Sykes?”

He staggered a little. Drunk on ale or power? Finn wondered, half hoping it was the former. He would be easier to handle.

“The Church's day is over. We're giving them high-flying bishops and nobles a taste of their own.” He sniffed the air. “Smell that? That's probably some nobleman's fields, maybe even his castle aburnin'.”

Finn had noticed the acrid smell earlier and thought it was just some steward burning off his lord's pasture to sow it fresh. But it was stronger now.

“And it's not just here, neither. It's all the way to Londontown. Won't be none of them rich palaces or abbeys left standin' when we're done.”

So it was a mob, not just a prison riot. And they were burning and pillaging
nobility in all of East Anglia. Blackingham would be undefended except for Colin. That meant the child was in danger. And Kathryn.

“Listen, Sykes, whatever it is you want, I'll—”

More steps on the stairs. A motley crew, mostly peasants, one or two disgruntled guards, gathered behind Sykes. One of them warned, “Someone's coming. The constable is dead. We've turned all the poor sods loose. Now we'd best git while gittin's good.”

“Well, this here's one bird's not going to fly.” And Sykes lunged at Finn. But Finn had anticipated his move and ducked under, came up behind him, and twisted the sword from him. He shoved Sykes hard with his body, then bolted toward the stairs.

“Stop him! Kill the bloody swine!”

The lone man standing beside the door shrugged. “He's done naught to me. We let the rest go. Do your own killin', Sykes.”

Only loud angry curses dogged his heels.

When he got to the yard, Finn looked frantically around for a horse.

A young blond boy was mounted on the constable's horse, looking pleased with himself and his new mount. A shock of recognition sparked in his blue eyes. When he spied Finn, he jumped down, flinging the reins at him. “Here. You've more need of it than me.”

Finn looked at him in surprise. “Thanks,” Finn said as he mounted. “Where can I send it back to you?”

“No need.”

Where had he seen that cocky grin before?

“Just call it even.” The boy gave a cheeky salute.

It was the lad who'd held his horse for him outside the tavern on the day he'd first encountered Sykes. The boy he'd given the blanket to.

“But I wouldn't be seen with that horse around here, if I was you.”

Finn didn't hear him. He was already halfway across the bridge and headed toward Aylsham and Blackingham Manor.

Kathryn was dreaming. Smoke. Smoke everywhere, pinching her nostrils, stinging her eyes. The wool house was burning. Her throat constricted. She couldn't cough. Couldn't breathe.
Jasmine! Where was Jasmine?
She struggled to call out for Magda. For Agnes. But her mouth wouldn't open. She couldn't
move. Her limbs were heavy, her bones turned to lead. The wool that she was saving for her sons' celebration. Up in smoke. Agnes was crying. Poor Agnes. Crying for her shepherd with his melted flesh. No. Not crying for her John. Screaming Kathryn's name. Shrieks from far away.

“Milady. Wake up, milady. They've come. They've come!”

Kathryn woke with a start. The smoke was real. And Agnes was real, too, leaning over her, coughing through her shouts, the irises of her eyes bright with fear, the whites red and tearing.

Kathryn sat upright. “Jasmine! Agnes, where's the babe?”

“She's not in her cot, milady. I went there first. Magda must have taken her. Don't ye worry none, milady. The babe will be safe with Magda.”

Kathryn tore open the bed curtains. No smoke was visible inside the flickering shadows, though the smell was strong enough to make her nostrils pinch.

“They've set fire to the pasture, milady.”

“Don't worry. They'll not burn the house. We've done naught to them. And they'd be worse off without us. I'll go down and talk to them. Reason with them.”

“There'll be no reasoning with a mob, milady. We should flee while we still have our lives.”

“No, Agnes, we'll hold our ground. There will be someone among them whose mother, or child, or wife we've helped. You have probably fed most of them from your stewpot. They'll not harm two women alone.”

Agnes only shook her head, muttering, “Even ye cannot talk sense with this rabble lot.”

“Go back to the nursery. In case Magda forgets and returns there.”

Kathryn pushed Agnes toward the door and reached for the handle, but it opened of its own volition.

“Simpson!”

Well, here was more trouble than a woman should have in a year of bad days! An unruly peasant rebellion and a traitorous devil all on the same day.

Her former steward stepped across her threshold. In his right hand he carried a torch. In his left a bucket.

Agnes stood her ground, between Kathryn and the steward. “I meant to warn ye, milady,” she said. “This rotten apple came with the rebels. Using them for cover most like to worm his way back. Send him packin'. You don't need the likes of him.”