Tale of Birle (26 page)

The crowd sighed with satisfaction.

“What do you have to say now, man?” the Showman called to his heckler.

“I say,” the voice answered, “if I had a kiddle to give, you'd have it.”

“Birle.”

His voice spoke in her ear. She shook her head.

His hand tugged at her elbow. “Just for a few words,” he asked.

She turned and made her way through the crowd, following him. He led her a few paces beyond, where they could speak without anyone attending to what they said. She stood stiff before him; let him have his few words, she had nothing more to say.

“I wouldn't have us part thus,” he said. His bellflower eyes spoke what his words didn't. “For two who have journeyed so far together, that was an unworthy parting.”

“Aye, it was,” she agreed. Birle had no more heart for anger. Pity and sorrow were all that were in her heart, and her heart was his. “You deserve better, my Lord.”

“And you deserve the luck you've had,” he said. “Can you really read the map of the skies?”

He didn't want to talk any more about luck, or the future. “Only a little. I know only a few of the star patterns, but one of them is a pointer to the fixed star in the north. Joaquim—my master—”

“I remember.”

“He knows many more, and how they move through the sky in their seasons. Which fountain is it you go to, Orien?”

He hesitated, as if he didn't wish to answer.

“There are so many, in the city, but each one is different,” she said. If he were to wonder how she came to know that, that was not a question she would answer, to tell him what he ought already to have known. She waited.

Orien hadn't used to be so slow to decide if he would speak or no.

“I could bring an ointment, for the sores on your face, and one to draw the boils—and food, I could bring food.”

“Even Corbel's power won't guarantee your safety, where I live.”

Birle shook her head impatiently. “But Joaquim's name will. He takes medicine to the sick, and they know I serve him. Actually,” she told Orien proudly, “I'm his amanuensis.”

“Ah,” he said, teasing now, so that he was almost the young man she had first seen, “his amanuensis, are you that?”

As if some giant's hand had grabbed her heart and squeezed shut around it, there was pain in Birle's breast. If she could have gone to the mines in his place—if she could have lived this last terrible year for him—she would have done it. “They call me his maid, in the marketplace. I'll be safe, I think.” She didn't care if she wasn't.

He made up his mind then. “The fountain has four tortoises at the corners, and a frog spitting up water at its center. One tortoise has no head, and the street comes in by that headless tortoise. My master's—house—is on your left as you walk away from the fountain.”

“How will I know it?”

“You'll know it. If you risk it, bring Yul for protection.”

“Yes, my Lord,” Birle said. That was the only way she knew to tell him all that she was thinking. That was the only gift she had to give him.

He drew his shoulders up, and bowed his head to her. “I'll go now,” he said, his voice gentle, and sad. But why should he be sad, knowing she would be bringing him food, and medicine?

“I never asked you to give me your heart,” he reminded her.

“And I have never asked for yours,” she answered.

“So we make a good parting,” he said.

He turned, looked back to smile for her, and was gone.

B
IRLE SLEPT DEEP AND DREAMLESS;
she awoke just as the last darkness was leaving the sky. The stars were fading away, the air hovered: It was the silvery time of day.

Quietly, quickly, she dressed, in her plainest skirt and top. She went out to the laboratory, to find ointments; garlic to draw the boils, chamomile for healing. Yul wakened at her first step into the room. “It's early hours. Go back to sleep,” she reassured him.

He put his head back down on the straw and closed his eyes, but then she decided to tell him. “Yul? Do you remember Orien?”

He shook his head.

“When we were all on the sailing ship?”

He remembered nothing, his face said.

“With the two—when you rowed, on the sea.”

The memory frightened him.

“There was a man with me, do you remember? He rowed too.”

“Yes. A man. Not the bad men.”

“That's right, not a bad man. That was Orien.”

“Or-ien.”

“He needs medicine, and food; I'm going to take them to him, in the city. That's where I'll be. Will you tell the master where I've gone?”

“Yes. Yul will tell the master.” Yul sat up in the straw. “Birle will—come back?”

“Yes, I will, of course I will.” But he wasn't listening, he was wrapping his fingers tightly around a fold of her skirt. Birle bent over to gently loosen them. “I wouldn't go away and leave you behind, Yul.”

He shook his head. “If Birle dies. Gran died, and didn't come back.”

“Aye,” Birle said, “if I die, I can't come back, can I? If I live, I promise you, I will come back. I think today I will live,” she said.

“Yes.” Yul lay back down, rearranging the straw under him to make it more comfortable, and closed his eyes.

From the food stores in the house, Birle added bread and cheese to the medicines in the basket, then a jug of wine. She unlocked the door and stepped out, pulling it closed behind her.

It was not until she arrived at the guarded gateway into the city that she remembered the soldiers. It was not until the two guards ranged themselves before her that she remembered she needed some reason to be going into the city at this hour, long before the morning bells had rung. She had no tale ready to tell them.

One of them was older, with gray in his beard and eyebrows, the other young. Both had their hands ready at the hilts of their swords and both yawned, sleepy after a night's watch, but both red shirts were as clean and unwrinkled as if they had just been put on. The older one stood in her way. “And where do you think you're going, girl?”

Birle tried to think of an answer, but her mind was sluggish. She could think only of Orien. She made her face a mask of fearlessness as she sought for the reason that would satisfy the soldiers.

“Well?” the younger asked, more suspicious the longer she took to answer.

“I must go into the city,” she said.

“We will know your errand,” the older said.

“Aye, but—” Birle couldn't find any ideas in her head. If she had to turn back now—she couldn't bear to turn back, and wait for the bells to ring. “I must,” she repeated.

The young soldier looked at her, and laughed. “Some man, I'll wager. She's from the castle, slipping out to meet some man, and if Corbel knew that one of his slaves—”

“That's not true,” Birle said. She wasn't slave to Corbel.

“Or she's been sent out to find him another maid from the city. I told you, didn't I? When battle draws nigh, Corbel's appetites increase—and so do mine, but I can't feed them as richly as the captain. So I wager we'll pass this little missy through more than one time. The city is full of maids who'd be happy to lie in Corbel's bed—he'll not thank us for hindering her.”

“Let it be on your head, then,” the younger soldier said. “Because if she's a spy—”

“If she's a spy, then it never hurts to have done the enemy a good turn, should fortune's tides turn against Corbel. You have your way, girl, you can pass. If it's a lover you go to meet, treat him well, in memory of two poor soldiers with no girl to come to their beds. And maybe, by summer, we'll not need beds, for being tucked up forever in the earth. If it's a girl for Corbel you fetch, we can all hope she'll give him good sport. And if it's the enemy you serve, remember how we two let you pass, with no word spoken.”

Birle just nodded her head. She cared no more than they did what was false and what true in their words, just so they let her pass. She didn't mind if it was Corbel's chain at her throat or the soldiers' whim that gave her passage. She didn't care if it was she who had made things turn out as she wished them to, or if it lay in somebody else's power to do that, so long as they did turn out as she wished. When the soldiers parted to let her pass, she went through without any thanks or farewells.

Birle knew where to look for the tortoise fountain—in the poorest part of the city. No one was yet about on the streets. It was as if the whole city slept, full-bellied for once. Those who slept out on the dirt streets or in doorways had carried within them their burden of food and drink as far as they could, then collapsed under it.

By the time she came to the tortoise fountain, some few women had come to stand yawning in doorways, and children's voices could be heard. Birle didn't remember if she had been on the street that wound away from the headless tortoise before. Wooden huts, carelessly built, most leaning against one another for support, the doorways sometimes pieces of rough-fitted wood and sometimes only cloth hanging over the opening—this looked like any of the city streets. She studied the dwellings on her left, walking away from the fountain. He had said she would know it.

She did know it. As soon as she saw the shed, she knew this must be the place. Even on those streets it looked mean, uninhabitable. A thick chain hung from a ring on the doorpost. Without asking anyone, she knew it, and knew who had slept at night, thus chained, at his master's door, and knew also that the hut was empty.

Orien might have spared her this, she thought, and then she knew why he hadn't. Aye, if she had known he would be gone before the morning, she'd have insisted that he act, make some attempt at escape, she would have . . . It didn't matter whether cowardice or concern for her safety had led him to deceive her, since the end result was that he had already been taken to the mines. Taken to his death.

She had thought that it would be easier if he were dead, and she were to know it—but it was not. Aye and he was no coward, to bid her farewell in that fashion.

Birle stood staring, the basket heavy on her arm. He had told her clearly enough, but not in words—in the fact of his absence he made sure she must know. He thought to spare her, but he didn't know her heart. He measured her heart by his own.

How long she stood there, Birle didn't know. How long she stood, helpless in her understanding, she neither knew nor cared. The piece of cloth hung for doorway across the street was pulled aside and a woman demanded, “What are you after?”

She was not an old woman, although her eyes looked old and tired. Her clothing was ragged and bright, like finery someone else had worn the goodness out of before giving it away. Birle tried to swallow down the lump in her throat, so that she could force words out.

There was something in Birle's face that made the woman willing to speak. “You needn't bother asking for the tailor. He's gone to Corbel's armies. Well, he won't last long there—he'll make no more of a soldier than he did a tailor. I wouldn't waste my tears over him.”

“And his slave?” Birle could hardly put words to the question.

“Well, he was the bonnier of the two, I won't say you nay.” The woman had a ragged smile, like a rose as its last petals fall. “But you'd best forget him. They took him off to the mines at sunset yesterday. Him and others. Corbel decreed that they might go with their bellies full, in honor of the feast. If I'd had the four kiddles, I'd have bought the lad for myself—he was biddable, and he told tales well, and for his eyes. Tears for that one wouldn't come amiss. Well, and the truth is I shed a few myself when I heard he must be sold.”

Birle had no tears. She had not thought there could be a grief too deep for tears, but now she knew it. She nodded her thanks to the woman and turned to make her way back to the Philosopher's house.

It was midday when she opened the door into Joaquim's kitchen, the basket still on her arm. She didn't remember finding her way back through the streets, or passing through the gates. She didn't remember seeing or hearing anything. She didn't remember how long she had been gone, or why. She replaced the food she had taken. Yul was digging in the garden and didn't notice her, but she couldn't make herself go to greet him. She went into the laboratory to put the medicines back on their shelves.

Joaquim was stripping dried leaves from a bunch of comfrey. For an infusion, Birle thought. She had no desire to help him. A beaker bubbled over a low flame at the far end of the table—the liquid in it was golden, and a handful of pebbles rumbled in the liquid. She would have gone back into the house, but her master called her name.

“What is this story Yul told me? Who is this man, Orien?”

Birle didn't care that he was displeased. “It doesn't matter.”

He looked up at her. “What has happened?”

Birle shook her head. Nothing had happened.

Now his voice was gentle. “Is there some harm my knowledge can mend?”

“There's nothing to be done,” she told him. She didn't want to talk. She was having difficulty enough forcing breath down into her chest.

“There are some,” Joaquim told her, “who say that the Lady Fortune has a wheel, and all men are fixed upon it. The wheel turns, and the men rise, or fall, with the turning of the wheel.”

Birle nodded her head. She would agree with those who thought so. She would agree that she was bound to such a wheel, and—being fixed upon it—must follow its turnings. She felt as if the wheel's weight were on her back, as if at the same time she must ride it, she must also bear it. She would agree that it was thus for her—but what of Orien? She could not accept that Orien must be fixed to such a wheel.

“Who is this man?” Joaquim asked again.

“He's been sold to the mines,” she said. Joaquim's face told her what she already knew. But having spoken so much, she said more. “In the Kingdom, he would have been the Earl Sutherland. There are two Earls, who serve under the King and rule over the Lords and people. Orien was heir to the Earl Sutherland; he was the eldest son.”