Remembrance

There was something else that only she knew: She had at most two years more to live. Months ago she had begun coughing blood, just rusty smudges, but enough to alarm her. She had not allowed any of her maids to see this but had instead gone to an ancient old woman who had looked into Alida’s eyes, then looked into a bowl of grease-stained water and told her of the future. She had foretold Alida’s death within two years and she had predicted that someone not of her blood would gain all that belonged to her sons. But the old woman had explained to Alida that predictions were what could happen. What did happen was based on what people did to alter the future. In other words, if Alida did nothing, when she died, everything would go to a boy who was not of her blood.

And now, armed with this information, Alida meant to change the future. She was not going to see all that her family had worked for, all that her husband had built, given to a boy who was of no relation to her.

“Come, husband,” she said sweetly, “you and I know the truth and you must look at the facts. The boy looks like Gilbert Rasher. Put the boy amid that dreadful man’s sons and you would not be able to tell them apart.”

“Then it is good he is to marry my daughter,” John said, anger rising in his throat. “Do you mind, woman, that I can send you from this house, that I can—”

Alida knew she must not betray her fear. “Yes, you can, but do you not see that I want the same as you do? I want the boy to marry our daughter also. He is good stock. I am sure he will give the girl many fat, healthy sons.” She nearly gagged at these words, at pretending that she was as obsessed with sons as her husband was. She had given him two boys who were intelligent and sweet natured. That they could not lift the back half of a building did not seem to her to be a detriment.

“My concern is Gilbert Rasher,” she said loudly, making herself heard over the anger that was closing his ears. “Do you not worry that that man will come forward and claim his son? He was never paid for the boy, remember? After the…the fire, you refused to give him the payment you had promised him. He wanted a daughter for a wife as well as land.” She had to pause as she remembered that John had promised the odious man Peniman Manor—her manor.

Alida could see that John was listening to her now and she went on rapidly. “If Rasher were to come forward and claim the boy and he were married to your daughter, he could cause great trouble. He could demand an enormous dowry from you for the girl. He could petition the queen about the way you have said the boy is yours and it is easy to see that the boy is not.”

At this John’s hands gripped the arms of the chair. He did not like her insinuation that he could not have produced a son like Talis. It was, of course, her fault that he had not. Had he married a stronger woman, a more robust woman, she might have given him the son he needed. Conveniently, he forgot that Talis’s mother had been small.

Alida went to him, knelt by his chair, and put her hand on his. She wasn’t as pretty as she had once been, but she still had pretty ways and she knew how to look up at a man as though he were the bravest, strongest, et cetera, man on earth.

“You must make sure it is safe before you marry the boy to your daughter. You must have something in writing, a document sworn to in secrecy. You must pay Rasher for the boy, make amends to him for what happened so many years ago. You know, don’t you, that Rasher has lost two of his sons to accidents?”

Over the years she had kept up with Gilbert Rasher and his brood of foul-mouthed dirty sons. They had tempers and strong bodies, and, with their father’s admiration, the boys bullied and berated everyone. Twice, people had grown sick of the “boys” and killed them. After the eldest had been found with his throat slit, Gilbert had demanded an investigation. Every person who had even the slightest reason to hate his son was to be brought before him.

It was said that the queen’s laughter had echoed off the palace walls when she was told how one hundred and twelve people had been brought before Gilbert Rasher, all of them having valid reasons for wanting to see his son dead—and that was just the people who had not been able to flee the countryside when his death was announced. Gilbert had been enraged when, later, the queen had ordered that no one was to be hanged for the crime (Gilbert had decreed that seventeen men and three women were to be hanged for the killing). The queen said that any man who had made that many enemies had not been murdered but justifiably executed.

Alida did not tell her husband that she had been told that, when he was drunk, Gilbert sometimes blamed John Hadley for all his misfortunes. He said that all his “bad luck” had started that night when the babies had been born and later died in the fire. According to him, if he’d received all that John owed him—he never said what John owed him for—he would have been able to make himself into a rich man. As it was, his crops had failed, not because he taxed his peasants to the point of hunger, but because he had never received payment from the rich John Hadley.

No, she did not want to tell John any of this. If her husband’s obsession with having a son made him blind to all else on earth, so be it.

“If he is married to”—John swallowed, not wanting to admit that Talis was not his son—“to my daughter, then he will be tied to me.” Forget money, forget about inheritance, he thought, the truth was, he liked the boy. In the short time he’d been there, the boy was already changing things in the house. Several times in the last two weeks Talis had made John laugh, had made his other sons laugh. John knew well enough what the boy was doing when he pretended to have “contests” so he could lose and thereby give the weak-lunged Philip a rest. John knew what Talis was doing when he talked at length of James’s great learning, talking of how he, Talis, was not so good in lessons as his brother.

But even though John knew everything, it only made him feel better that Talis cared about others so much. And what was more, John was beginning to look at his sons differently. Perhaps James’s head was worth something. He’d asked the boy to look over the accounts, something that had always bored John, and the boy had found many errors.

“Talis is a good boy,” John said, even liking to say his name.

“Of course he is. He is the best. All your sons are good; they have a good father.” For a moment Alida held her breath, wondering if he was going to believe this.

But then John said, “Yes, they are. In their own way, they are all good.”

At that Alida almost burst into tears. At last, she thought, all her work was coming to fruition. For many years now she had done all that she could to show her husband that his sons were clever and well worth his effort. But now, just when she was making him believe that, here was this boy taking all that she had done away from her sons. This boy, with his glorious physique, with his sparkling eyes, his easy laughter, was overshadowing her own sons. Soon all that she had worked for would be eclipsed by that boy. Soon he would take all from her sons.

It did not occur to Alida, nor would she have believed it if she’d been told, that Talis, with his laughter and good nature, had done more in two short weeks to make John like his sons than Alida had managed in twenty years of bullying. Alida was always trying to make her sons into what John wanted them to be. Talis pointed out to John what they actually were and that their talents were quite useful.

“Now,” Alida said sternly, “you must plan for the future. You want the boy and so do I. He is intelligent and he is strong. He will do well at managing the estates when we are gone.” Gilbert Rasher’s estates, she thought. She had not had any contact with the boy hers

elf, not since the day when he had arrived and carried her to her bedchamber, but Edith kept her informed of what was going on. Edith said he was cocky, too sure of himself, but…Here, Edith had put her head down and blushed. Even cold-blooded Edith had been won over by the boy.

It annoyed Alida that the boy was liked by one and all, as that made everything harder. It was not that she wished the boy harm, it was just that she wanted him out of her family. From what she knew of Gilbert Rasher, he had need of a boy like Talis, a boy with at least a shred of decency about him who could put those bankrupt estates of his in order. Yes, actually, getting rid of the boy would benefit all of them.

“Do you think the boy should spend so much time with Callasandra?” Alida asked.

John turned a blank face toward her, having no idea who she was talking about.

“Your daughter. The one this boy wants to marry.” John still looked a bit blank, and he obviously did not have any idea why she was mentioning this girl. “Yesterday Edith reported to me that Callasandra had defied her most impertinently. I was going to speak to you about it. I have given Edith the care of this girl, as she has the most unsuitable education I have ever encountered. She can neither sew nor play any music.”

Alida did not bother telling her husband of Callie’s knowledge of Latin and Greek, as well as of mathematics, not that she wanted to hide such a thing, but because she knew her husband would not be interested in this.

“It seems that two nights ago Callasandra slipped out of bed and stayed away all night.” She raised her eyebrows at her husband to let him know what she thought their daughter was doing. “She did not return until morning and her corset and hood were missing. Later one of the gardeners found both of them in a field near the old castle.”

John did not like this at all. “Can you not control your daughters, madam? Do you mean to make whores of them?”