Children of the May (Children of the May Book 1)

Chapter Sixteen: Lady Bertilak

There was a woman waiting for me in the gatehouse. She was small, only a little taller than me, perhaps forty years old. She had a hamster-like face: her rounded cheekbones giving the impression of gently packed cheeks. Her black hair was cut short, her silvery silk dress richly embroidered. She had a friendly smile, and her blue eyes sparkled as I came towards her.

‘You must be Drift. I am delighted you chose to join us.’ Her accent had the short vowels of the British aristocracy; she spoke much like Accolon and Bellina, but there was a warmth in her tone that was absent from their chilly and superior voices.

I stopped in front of her, trying not to show any of the hostility I felt – it was important that I understood the nature of the threat she posed to us before she became suspicious of me.

‘I am Lady Bertilak, mistress of the Castle Eudaimon. I am sorry that my husband is not here to welcome you, but he is away hunting over the sea.’

‘Thank you, m-madam.’

‘Your friends are dining in the great hall.’ She took my arm. ‘Will you escort me, my Lord of the Lake?’ Without waiting for me to respond she moved off, pulling me along with her.

We passed through the gatehouse into the huge yard of the castle between the first wall and the second. It was as tidy as my mother’s castle – who had always insisted there be none of the mess that she thought damaged the grandeur of other people’s homes – but unlike the fortress by the Lake, Castle Eudaimon seemed to be lacking any signs of work. There was always activity at my mother’s home – Enid and the other maids running from one place to another, the showers of sparks that sprayed from Martha’s forge, my sisters running around, arguing with each other – but this place was eerily quiet, with not a soul to be seen. One woman could not have lit all those lights alone: not by hand, anyway. When the moment was right I would ask Epicene if she detected any magic in Lady Bertilak.

‘I know – it is very quiet, yes,’ said the woman, as if reading my thoughts. ‘My husband insists on our servants being neither seen nor heard. Though I would prefer a less formal way of life, I have been unable to overcome his training of them since he has been away.’

‘H-H-H-H-H-Has he been away l-long, madam?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, with a note of sadness in her voice. ‘Too long. I miss him. This island is a lonely place for a woman without her lord. For such a long time my best company has been my embroidery.’ She squeezed my arm. ‘But now I have lots of new young friends, for a while at least.’

We passed through the second gate into a smaller courtyard. The two tallest towers were behind this secondary wall, forming part of the main living areas of the castle. The windows here were glazed, the light within warmly spreading against the translucent glass.

Lady Bertilak released my arm, and pushed open the large double doors directly in front of us. They opened into a long hall, where the others were sat along a huge table that ran the length of the room. The table was crammed with food of every kind: roast chickens and pigeons, a whole roast hog, pies and pasties and puddings, silver platters of fruit and piles of honey cakes. My friends were an enthusiastic flurry of grabbing hands and happy faces. Piers was already smeared in redberry sauce and gravy as he helped himself to slice after slice of the meat in front of him. They slurped from silver goblets, only occasionally remembering to dab at their faces with the edge of the tablecloth, which had been brilliant white not long before, but was now tending towards greasy and stained.

Lady Bertilak guided me to an empty stool beside Agravaine, who was feeding Christian cows’ milk by dipping a cloth in a small jug, then putting the cloth in the baby’s mouth for him to suck at.