Read The Silver Stag of Bunratty Online
Authors: Eithne Massey
The Silver Stag of Bunratty (3 page)
But in Maude, Lady Johanna had met her match. The lady-in-waiting and, indeed, the nursemaid plans were abandoned very early on. But Maude’s rebelliousness had not made life easy for her and she hated Bunratty. She had nearly gone mad during the winter, trapped between the walls of the castle. But at least Bunratty
was
a castle, with proper stone walls; she had heard such terrible stories about Ireland before she came over that she had been afraid that everyone lived in mud huts like the peasants in Outremer. The peasants here lived in mud huts too, with thatched roofs, and pigs scrambling through them and sharing their quarters with their owners. That was, no doubt, the kind of place the Irish boy came from, though he called himself the son of a chief and seemed proud enough to be one.
Now she said to her brother: ‘Are you going to spend all day with the Irish wolfhound?’ She did not look in Tuan’s direction. ‘I want you to come and practise shooting with me. Myles has set up the target on the roof.’
Matthieu smiled, and said to Tuan: ‘My sister, Maude, is the best shot in Bunratty, so I don’t know why she wants
me
to practise with her. I’m hopeless. But would you like to come with us? I’m sure Myles will be able to find a bow and arrow for you.’
‘So he can shoot us dead and escape?’ said Maude scornfully, at last turning to Tuan.
‘I would not do such a thing,’ said Tuan angrily. ‘I have agreed to come here of my own free will to act as a surety for my people. If I escape it will break the truce. I would not want to be the cause of warfare.’
‘Another dove of peace!’ said the girl scornfully. ‘As if there weren’t enough pigeons in the castle already.’ As she said this, one fluttered in from outside. It sat on the windowsill and looked in at her, its head to one side. She made a face at it and it flew away.
‘I’m not afraid of battle,’ said Tuan. ‘I’ll challenge any knight you dare to put against me at shooting the bow or in hand-to-hand combat.’
The girl looked at him closely and then she smiled. A small, pleased smile.
‘Very well, we may just do that,’ she said. ‘But not today. Today is for fun. Come on, you two! Last one to reach the tower roof smells like Fat John!’
liar was working in the kitchen, a vast, cavernous place. Most of the servants worked here, as it took a great deal of people to keep everyone in the castle fed. The long tables were piled with food of all kinds. The kitchen smelt of a hundred different things – woodsmoke and roasting meat and raw fish and spices – and was always full of noise and bustle.
Cliar’s tasks included everything from fetching water to strewing and clearing the rushes that covered the floor, from stirring the vast pots of soup and stew that were hung over the open fireplaces to helping the kitchen boys who turned the spits. If she was lucky, she might be asked to help with grating sugar from a sugar loaf and mixing it with almonds to make sweet marchpane.
This morning her job was to help Margaret knead the
dough for the next day’s bread. Once the dough was kneaded, it would be let sit for hours, before being baked in the great ovens that almost filled one wall. Vast quantities of bread were baked every night, for the castle was home to a standing army, soldiers who patrolled Sir Richard’s lands to keep them free of the Irish clans.
Kneading the dough was hard work, but Cliar liked it. It left plenty of time for talk, and it was always warm in the kitchen. The work was certainly better than the endless chopping of vegetables that was one of her main tasks, or the even more endless scrubbing of floors. Cliar could not remember a time when her hands had not been raw and sore from her work in the kitchen. Sometimes Margaret gave her some pig grease to put on them and sometimes the lady in the north west tower gave her sweetly scented ointment, which worked far better than Margaret’s lard. But most of the time Cliar’s hands were covered in blisters from water and the harsh soap that she herself helped to make from wood ash and lye. At soap-making they sang to keep their spirits up, but at bread-making Margaret told stories or exchanged gossip with the other servants. The heat and the exertion seemed to make Margaret say more than she usually did, which was quite a lot.
Today Margaret was on one of her rants against Lady
Johanna. As always, Cliar wished that her old friend would learn to keep her voice down, for there were those in the castle who might report what she said to Lady Johanna herself. Many of those who worked in Bunratty had come over from England with Richard De Clare’s lady and owed their first loyalty to her. But even if they were loyal to her ladyship, no-one could be said to love her. It was hard to love the Lady Johanna, with her nose forever twitching its way into other people’s business and her merciless punishment of anything she considered below her standards. The fact that her standards changed according to her mood didn’t help matters at all.
‘The old stoat has me bothered with her complaints about the linen,’ Margaret grumbled. ‘It can never be white enough nor smell sweet enough for her. And it’s hard enough to keep it clean at all without a good day’s drying since Easter. What a spring! More like November, April was!’
‘Never mind Easter! There’s hardly been a good day’s drying this past year,’ agreed Janet, who was passing by carrying half a dozen rabbits by the ears. ‘If it’s a bad summer, I think we may all give up hope. The harvest of last year could not have fed an ordinary household, much less Sir Richard’s army.’
‘It’s this cursed, endless rain.’ Margaret threw her eyes up to heaven. ‘I hear it’s worse in other parts, though, and that there are people leaving their children in the forest because they can’t feed them. The poor things end up eaten by wolves, like as not.’
‘And there are worse things than wolves in the forests now – men that eat children, they say!’ Janet shivered. ‘There are gangs hiding there that are more savage than the wild animals themselves. I don’t know how you have the nerve to go there to gather Dame Anna’s plants, Cliar. I’d be terrified.’
Cliar smiled. She loved her days in the forest. But nobody in the kitchen seemed to understand that. ‘It’s in the forests south of the Shannon that the wild men are, they say, not up here. And at least now we are nearly at the end of the hungry months,’ she said.
‘And there’s to be a hunt soon,’ said Janet. ‘I heard the master of hounds say so when I fetched these rabbits. That will mean venison for the larder. Did you hear that the Silver Stag has been seen?’
Margaret stopped her kneading. ‘I did not, then. That’s a sign of death, they say.’
‘Oh nonsense,’ Janet laughed. ‘If they catch it, it will be a sign of food for weeks to come!’
Young Marcus, who was supposed to be minding the spit, called over: ‘Is it really true that the stag is pure silver?’
Margaret lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘It is. It’s seen by moonlight, in the forest, and its body is like the moon itself and its great antlers shine like the silver cups on the lord’s table.’ Marcus looked scared.
Allison, who had been listening to the talk without saying anything, snorted. She was one of the English who had come to Bunratty with Lady Johanna and she looked down on the superstitions of the local people. ‘Old women’s stories! I warrant it was seen by someone who had too much of Lord De Clare’s good wine!’
Margaret shook her head. She too was English, but she had lived in Bunratty too long to dismiss the strange stories that were told about the castle and the lands around it.
‘If the stag has been seen, it is surely a sign that something important is going to happen,’ she declared. ‘Great change will come to Bunratty. Mark my words!’
She turned to Cliar. ‘Why child, you’re as pale as a ghost. Are you not well?’
Cliar shook her head. She couldn’t speak.
‘Well, I’ll finish up here. It’s nearly done anyway. Get you up to Dame Anna and ask her for a posset. I cannot
have you sick tonight. Kate and Matty are both sick already and the rest of us will be needed to serve in the Great Hall. Hurry on, now.’
Cliar moved away from the table as quickly and quietly as she could. Over the years she had learned to move like a cat, unseen; it helped avoid trouble. But now she moved with a purpose. She had to tell this news to Dame Anna as soon as possible.
s she made her way to the north west tower, Cliar felt her stomach start to settle. Dame Anna would know what to do. She’d thought she was going to be sick when they had started talking about hunting the Silver Stag. She had never told anyone, but once, coming home late in the snow on a winter’s evening from a plant collecting expedition, she had seen him. He was standing with his head raised high in the woods to the north of Bunratty. His antlers were shining against the night sky and the frosted branches of the trees, his figure etched in moonlight and starlight. She had never seen anything so beautiful; he seemed so free, so far away from the noise and dirt of Cliar’s daily life in the Bunratty kitchens. She had gazed in awe at the magnificent creature. The thought of him brought down by dogs and arrows, cut to pieces to become
gobbets of meat for the table was unbearable.
Cliar was sure that Dame Anna would be able to help; she was wise and knew things that other people, even Margaret, did not. Margaret was clever and kind, but she could do nothing to change the ways of Bunratty. Dame Anna was not especially kind, indeed she was somewhat frightening, but she was powerful. She seemed to know so much, though she never left her tower and she often refused to share her knowledge. Deep inside, Cliar also felt that Dame Anna knew something about Cliar’s own life before she had come to Bunratty. Margaret said that it was impossible that Cliar herself could remember anything about her early life, for she had been found as a tiny child, left in a straw cradle at the gates of the castle. But sometimes, in her dreams, she heard a soft voice singing – why was there the sense of a woman, a woman with coils of long red hair that Cliar would lift her hand to, to pull and play with? And why did she remember the laugh that would follow, and a man’s voice, deep and gentle, with laughter in it too?
Cliar, the kitchen women had called her, after the wisps of straw carried by young girls at Lughnasa. She had been found at Lughnasa, that day at the end of July when young girls carried those burning wisps up to the top of the hill at
Lough Gur, the magical lake to the south of Bunratty. This was done in honour of the god Lugh and the goddess Áine, Lord and Lady of the Harvest. Cliar sometimes wondered what her real name was and who her mother and father might have been. She knew they could not be alive, for she was sure that the red-haired woman would never have left her by choice. But somewhere, perhaps, she had cousins and kin, a family who would give her a place in the world. It seemed that everyone else had one. The Irish hostage, Tuan, might be far from his family, Matthieu and Maude might be orphans, but at least they all knew who their people were. Even the ghosts of the castle had a place, and knew their kin.
What was her place? Up to a year ago it had been in the kitchen, running errands for Margaret and listening to her complain. But then everything had changed. Then she had met Dame Anna. From the time Cliar was tiny, she had heard stories of the lady in the north west tower, and had seen the servants delivering flax and fleece to the door at the bottom of the staircase. No-one ever saw the lady come to collect it, but the next day it would be gone. A few weeks later the servants would find linen and woollen cloth, finely spun and woven, left in bundles outside that same doorway. Food and drink were left in the same way. Indeed, Cliar herself had sometimes been
the one sent to do so, leaving the food beside the strange figure carved in the stone by the doorway, and collecting the scraps and used dishes afterwards. Once or twice, crossing the courtyard, she had caught a glimpse of a figure in the window of the tower. But no-one, not even Margaret, would talk to her about Dame Anna. Dame Anna spun and wove and made medicines for the castle, but she was never seen. From the window of her tower, birds flew in and out constantly: a flock of grey pigeons and two strange birds – a black dove and a great white owl.
Then, one day Cliar found an abandoned kitten, left to die behind the waste heap where she had gone in the early morning with the ashes from the kitchen fires. She was just in time to save it from Wolf, one of Fat John’s favourite hounds, a malicious beast that possessed an appetite as large as its master’s and a character just as unpleasant. She lifted the tiny kitten up, felt its heart beating faintly in the palm of her hand, and looked into the eyes that were just beginning to open to a milky blue. One of its legs was dangling, broken. Cliar had a basic knowledge of medicine and she splinted the broken leg. She kept the kitten hidden in a box in an alcove in the barn, well away from the castle cats and dogs. She told nobody about the sick kitten. She knew that the only solution she would be offered was a sack
and a stone and the river. Despite her careful feeding and nursing, however, the kitten was weakening and the leg did not seem to be healing. After a few days she realised that there was only one person who could help her.
Dame Anna had medicines that could cure the most dreadful illnesses, heal the deepest wounds. But the kitchen gossips had filled Cliar with horror stories about the lady in the tower: she was a witch with no back; she had iron teeth and red eyes; she had no nose but a bird’s beak; she would turn Cliar into a toad as soon as look at her. Even Cliar’s special friends, the castle ghosts, were frightened of Dame Anna, and had gibbered in a frantic manner when they realised what Cliar planned to do.
It had taken all her courage to take the kitten and push open the door of the tower, to walk alone into the musty darkness, to climb the narrow, twisting, forbidden stairs to the lady’s room at the top, the kitten mewing faintly in her arms. Looking at the little creature – seeing how near it was to death – was the only thing that gave her courage to continue.
But as soon as she pushed open the door at the top of the tower, she walked into a place of light and birdsong, and the ancient lady seated by her spinning-wheel looked up and smiled at her.
‘I have been waiting for you for a long time, Cliar,’ she said.
Dame Anna took the kitten gently from her and showed Cliar where his leg had become infected. She told her that the only thing to do was to amputate it so the infection would not spread. They did it together, after putting the kitten to sleep with one of Dame Anna’s potions, and Cliar managed to help Dame Anna without fainting or getting sick, though it had been very hard to watch the surgery.
After it was all over, the old lady smiled and said: ‘He will be fine when he wakes up, and will soon learn to walk on three legs. As for you, you have a strong stomach and a gift for healing. You must come and help me. I will teach you how to use your gifts.’
The kitten had indeed healed quickly, and the lack of a fourth leg did not stop him from becoming one of the champion mousers of the kitchen. And from then on, Cliar was called to the tower to help Dame Anna and to gather the plants she needed for her potions.
Now she moved as quickly as she could across the bailey to where the western stairway led to Dame Anna’s tower to tell her of the threat to the Silver Stag. But suddenly she froze. There was a scurrying of feet and barking and
shouting, and a group of people came rushing into the yard. Her stomach suddenly flipped over, for she heard the voice that never failed to make her feel faint and sick, to want to run away as fast as she could.
‘Give me that dog!’ Fat John was shouting. ‘If that little runt of a mongrel cannot learn to obey I’ll break his legs for him first and then drown him in the Ratty!’
Tuan, Maude and Matthieu were running as fast as they could, pursued by Fat John, who was cursing violently as he ran. A half-grown, panting dog ran with them, barking excitedly as if he thought this was all a game.
‘I will not!’ Maude turned and shouted back at him. ‘You were cruel to him! He’s only little and he was terrified! How dare you do that to him!’
‘Why not?’ said Fat John, with a sneer in his voice. ‘It’s only some mongrel, and mongrels do not deserve to live unless they learn to know their masters.’ He gave Maude a nasty look. ‘Do you know your master?’
‘I shall tell my guardian!’ Maude kept her back straight and was trying hard to control the quiver in her voice. ‘He will punish you.’
‘For the death of a half-breed dog? I think not, my little lady.’
Tuan joined in. ‘It’s a barbarous way to treat an animal!
If you don’t want it, let us keep the dog.’
Matthieu also joined in, his voice shaking but courageous: ‘You’re nothing but a big fat bully! Leave him alone!’
Fat John blocked the doorway to the hall, a smile on his face. ‘I’ve trapped you now, my pigeons. You have nowhere else to go. Hand over that dog or I’ll come over and get it from you!’
The children looked around desperately.
Cliar had no time to think. ‘Come,’ she said to them, ‘Come quickly.’ She ran to the small door in the wall of the north west tower, and pushed it open, hustling them in before her. She had only a moment to catch a glimpse of Fat John’s outraged expression before she slammed the door in his face.