Catherine, Called Birdy (6 page)

She pulled one of my plaits and said, "Song maker, Birdy? Don't stretch your legs longer than your stockings or your toes will stick out." Then she added, "You are so much already, Little Bird. Why not cease your fearful pounding against the bars of your cage and be content?"

I do not know exactly what that means but it troubles me.

24
TH DAY OF
N
OVEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Minver, who threw her comb at the Devil

Today I asked Morwenna about spells. "What," I asked, "is a spell against warts? Against sickness in sheep? Oh, ah," I asked, feigning innocence, "what would one use for a spell to come between lovers if one has no dragon dung?"

"Facing the lovers by moonlight," she said, "throw dirt from a new-made grave and say 'Love abate. Disintegrate.
Turn love to hate,' and what are you up to now, Little Bird?"

That sounds too fearsome to me. I must find a spell that does not involve graves.

25
TH DAY OF
N
OVEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Catherine, a virgin of Alexandria whose body was broken on a spiked wheel

Catherine, who is my own name saint, was, I know, a princess who refused to marry a pagan emperor, but I do not understand the part about her dying on a spiked wheel. What is a spiked wheel? Where are the spikes? What is it for, besides martyring virgins? How was she fastened on? Was it lying on the ground or upright? Why didn't they just put an arrow through her?

Would I choose to die rather than be forced to marry? I hope to avoid the issue, for I do not think I have it in me to be a saint.

Inspired by the musicians, I made a Saint Catherine song. It begins:

Catherine, bless your namesake today.
If I ever meet a pagan king, to you I'll pray.
Hi diddly, hey diddly, sing ho.

For save yourself you didn't know how
But being a saint mayhap could do better now.
Hi diddly, hey diddly, sing ho.

This is as far as I have gotten. The hi diddlys are my favorite part.

26
TH DAY OF
N
OVEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Marcellus, a prince seized by heretics and hurled to bis death from a high rock

I am confined to my chamber with my embroidery needle.
My mother's doing. How it came about is this. Yesterday being my saint's day and my birthday, there was a feast. We sat down to dinner at an hour before noon and stayed at table until after dark. The hall was crowded with guests, musicians, and servers and was—for once—overwarm. We ate glazed eggs, apple tarts, whole pigeons and snipes, peacock in raisin sauce, red and white jellies, pig stomach stuffed with eggs and spices, and potted beef with nutmeg. I relished it all but the birds, which I never eat. During the feast, the cook and the kitchen boys paraded around the hall with a giant pastry they had made to honor me of Saint Catherine dying on her wheel, with marzipan spikes and spun sugar soldiers. The wheel was upright.

The eating went on forever. I was seated next my father, so I had no one to talk with. George was not there, so I had no one to look at. Finally I conceived a small amusement to pass the time. I took a string from the lute that once was mine but now belongs to the cook, cut it into pieces as the traveling musician had showed me, and sprinkled them on a dish of creamed herring as it passed by.

The heat of the dish made the pieces of string writhe and wiggle. The lady Margaret, seated three places beyond me, dipped her hand ladylike into the dish and lifted a piece of fish to her mouth. Screeching like a barn owl, she jumped up and set about wiping her hand on her gown, the tablecloth, my father, whatever she could reach. The cook was summoned. I thought I was safe and he would be blamed but somehow it was sorted out and my saint's day ended with the cook standing on the table, shaking his spoon at me and swearing in Saxon. I was sent from the table to prepare a potion of cinnamon and milk for the daughter of the lord of Moreton Manor, who fainted in the potted meat. What a ninny. Now I am imprisoned. Deus! It was meant as a jest.

27
TH DAY OF
N
OVEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Fergus, an Irish bishop, who condemned irregular marriages, sorcerers, and priests who wear their hair long

I am still confined to my chamber, with the army of girls here for my saint's day celebrations. Aelis, the uncle thief, is with us and I do not know how to act toward her. I have chosen for now slightly cold but well behaved.

Aelis says her father will not speak to her of marriage to my uncle, and George has not said one word to her this entire visit. For one who claims to be perishing of love, she looks healthy enough.

Perkin's granny says to put yarrow up their noses and spit, and Aelis and George will love no more. Corpus bones! I could more easily get dirt from a hundred graves than stuff yarrow up George's nose!

28
TH DAY OF
N
OVEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Juthwara, who wore cheeses on her chest and was beheaded by her stepbrother

As Aelis and I passed George on the way in to supper, I threw a fistful of dirt at each of them, spattering us all. It was not really from a grave, but from the edge of the churchyard, yet it must suffice, for I am not venturing deep into any graveyard with this jealous evil in my heart. George and Aelis looked dusty, puzzled, and sore vexed.

I said the turn-love-to-hate chant under my breath so no one could hear me, for sure else I would be punished, cast away, locked up, or laughed at, no one of which I relish. I do not know how long it will take the spell to work. By supper's end they did not yet look like people whose love had turned to hate.

29
TH DAY OF
N
OVEMBER
,
Feast of Saints Paramon and others, three hundred seventy-five martyrs killed in a single day

After supper yestereve George accompanied the baron's
party back to Finbury Castle. George is now home again, ill-tempered and drunk. Corpus bones, all that men seem to know of doctoring is prescribing ale.

When will the curse work?

30
TH DAY OF
N
OVEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Andrew, fisherman, apostle, and martyr, missionary to Greece, Turkey, and Poland

Three weeks and three days before Christmas comes in. I had it in my mind to make a Christmas song, but I can think of nothing to say except when will the curse work?

2
ND DAY OF
D
ECEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Bibiana, beaten with leaden whips until she died

So troubled was I by events of yesterday that I did not write but sat long with my mother, who sang and stroked my hair as if I were a child. This is how it happened.

The sun looked likely to shine yestermorn, so Gerd the miller's son and I left our chores undone and went to Wooton village where they were to hang two thieves. Never having seen a hanging, I could only imagine the huge hairy bandits with cruel scarred faces, snarling and growling fearsome curses, while we onlookers shrieked and shrank back in fear. I thought it sounded better even than a feast or a fair. Perkin could not be found, so I made the clay-brained Gerd go with me.

It looked to be a gay occasion, even though the rain started before we were far along, which dampened our spirits a little and our shoes a lot. The sheriff had just constructed a new gallows, so the whole village turned out to celebrate. People were packed all around the church square, villagers and strangers, priests and children, peddlers and players, and hawkers selling every kind of food and drink. I bought sausages, bread, an
onion, two meat pies, and an apple pastry and ate most of it, for it was my penny, not Gerd's.

We were all laughing and shouting when we saw the sheriff pull the cart in. I was calling "Dead bandits never rob again," which I thought quite clever, as the cart passed me by, carrying the two bandits, ropes already tied about their necks.

The sheriff dragged them from the cart and up the ladder to the gallows. Corpus bones! They were no more than twelve years old, skinny, frightened, and dirty. Their scared stupid faces knocked the jolly right out of me, and when one leaned off the platform and grabbed my sleeve, slobbering and crying "Help me, noble lady!" I turned and ran. I was near out of the village before the first was shoved off the platform, but I could hear the cheering and laughing behind me.

Gerd caught up with me and we left Wooton, the clodpole rubbing his eyes with his grubby fists in sadness for missing the fun. I vomited up my bread and sausage but Gerd kept his. All the way back to the Stonebridge road, we could hear the laughing and cheering of the crowd.

The wretched day grew worse still, for on our way home we saw a funeral procession ride down the road toward London. It was midday and the rain had slowed to a drizzle, but it was near as dark as dusk. Never have I seen so many men and horses so quiet, their bells and bridles muffled. The only sound was the thud of the horses' hooves on the wet ground.

First came a crowd of men wrapped in black cloaks. I could not tell who they were but the tall man in front had the saddest face I ever saw. Following them, two horses—one before and one after—carried a sort of litter with the coffin. And in the rear marched hundreds of soldiers in battle dress, without a smile or a wave for us, without a sound, except for the slow measured tread of their boots.

Gerd and I ran home, trembling with fear that the king had died, for who else would be taken to London with such a company, such pomp, and such grief? The king had been king as long as I had lived. How could we have another? What would happen to us? Gerd went to the mill and I burst into the hall as if the Devil were pulling my hair. My mother was there, getting spices for the cook from the locked cupboard, and I ran to her, crying for the king and myself.

"No, Little Bird," she said, "you weep for the wrong person. It is not the king who is dead, but Eleanor, his kind and gentle queen."

On her way to join the king as he warred against the Scots, the queen took ill and died. The king, broken of heart, came from Scotland to take her back to London. He built a towering stone cross to mark the place where she lay at Lincoln Castle and will have one built at every stop from here to London. I knew then who the tall sad-faced man was. I had seen the king, finally, for the first time, and there was no cheering or celebrating or glee, only grief. I had cried with the king.

I told my mother then about the little bandits and losing my sausage and seeing the sad procession, and she cooed and comforted me and forgot to scold me for running off. This made me feel some better, but what comforted me the most was the thought of telling it all to Perkin.

Morwenna says that fairies have the faces of beloved dead and that some people who have seen fairies recognize their faces. I think I would not be afeared to meet a fairy with the queens face, God save her.

3
RD DAY OF
D
ECEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Birinus, apostle of Wessex, first bishop of Dorchester, and builder of churches

George was drunk again all day. Aelis has been taken to
London for the king's Christmas court. He never says her name. Is it the curse?

4
TH DAY OF
D
ECEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Barbara, said to have been martyred in Nicomedia, Heliopolis, Tuscany, and Rome

My brother Thomas has come from serving the king to spend Christmas with us. Because of the rain he arrived so sodden and beslombered with muck that I did not know him. He is near a stranger to me, as he is much with the king, but does not seem as abominable as Robert, so I shall not overly vex him.

Thomas says the king, still on his way to London with the queen, does not weep but rides with a face of stone, so deeply does he grieve. I wonder if the mothers of the two boy bandits hanged at Wooton grieve for them. I find I prefer fairs and feasts to hangings.

5
TH DAY OF
D
ECEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Crispina, who was shaved bald to humiliate her before she was beheaded

Thomas, very lordly in his patterned hose and pointed shoes, played the child long enough to coach the village boys in their fighting games. As I sat in the sun with my eyes closed, I could hear the thud of wooden swords on wooden shields, the screams of the dying and joyous shouts of the victors, the furious whinnying of those boys doomed to be horses instead of knights, and I pretended I was on crusade. I shall not tell George this.

6
TH DAY OF
D
ECEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Nicholas, who loves children, pawnbrokers, and sailors

There are no Jews left in England today, Thomas says. By order of the king they have all left the country. I find it hard to believe that the old lady and the little soft-eyed girl who stayed
in our hall could be a danger to England. Is it blasphemy to ask God to protect Jews? I will ask Edward.

Or maybe not. Mayhap I will whisper it just to God and trust it is all fight. God keep the Jews.

7
TH DAY OF
D
ECEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Ambrose, proclaimed bishop of Milan before be was even a Christian

Thomas says the king and the people of his court have chosen each his own special profanity so that they don't have to say "Deus!" or "Corpus bones!" or "Benedicite!" as we ordinary folk do. The king says "God's breath!" His son says "God's teeth!" Thomas says "God's feet!" I, not being ordinary, shall choose one also. I will try one on each day and see what fits me best. Today it is: God's face!

8
TH DAY OF
D
ECEMBER
,
Feast of Saint Budoc, who was born at sea in a barrel

God's ears, it is cold! The sun shines on a fairy world carved from ice. No one stirs outside. I think all of creation is huddled in our hall, so I have sneaked into my chamber. The fireplace is not lit, but I can pull the feather bed up to my chin and write in peace, even though the candle flame spits and sputters in the wind and I have twice overturned the ink.