Black Pearls - Louise Hawes [73]
"What villains?" I asked, laughing, taking her hand in mine.
"The boys who sing the song about a lady on a horse." She frowned and stamped a dark curl out of place, so that it fell across one eye. "Ride a cock horse to Coventry Cross ..." She sang in a flat, tuneless voice. "...to see a bare lady upon a gray horse..."
Though I had never heard the ditty before, I knew its subject all too well. As Ebba sang, I saw again the crowd in the streets, the stupefied stares, the consternation.
"No mantle or dress, no gown to her name, only her hair to cover her shame." When she had finished, the girl pulled her hand from mine and pointed to a hole in the garden wall. "I took the stones from there," she told me. "And I threw them at those rude boys until they ran away."
"I see." I let the girl lead me to the wall, where the missing stones left a gap the size of a small dog. At least ten fat stones had been pried from their nests. "And just why," I asked, "did you see fit to answer their song with kicks and volleys?"
Ebba's dark eyes narrowed and she folded her arms. "They said the song was about you, Auntie. Of course, I called them rogues and liars."
"Oh, my dear," I told her, "you must not let wagging tongues hurt you so."
"I shall not, Auntie. I made them change the song."
"Howe'er did you manage that?"
The girl smiled slyly. "Two of the scoundrels—Eadmund was one, Wilfrid, the other—came back next day to show me the bruises on their ankles." Her smile grew wider, and I doubted her mother's scolding had taken root at all. "I pledged to deal them twice the blows if they did not tell the truth. I told them your horse is white, as any fool can see." She nodded at Felicity's foal, Fidelity, who was, indeed, white, and whom I had taken to riding since her dam now saw fit to do nothing more taxing than crop grass by the stable.
"I told them, too, that you ne'er go abroad without your gowns and rings. 'My aunt is a fine lady,' I says. 'Mind ye put that in your song, or ye shall soon have black eyes as well as purple shins.'"
I could not help myself. I threw my arms around the sprite, rewarding both her saueiness and the injuries she had done. I stooped to run my finger around the empty space in the wall. "I shall speak to your good mother," I promised. "It seems to me this lovely niche you've contrived is the very spot for the flower urn I mean to give her."
Naturally, there is more to tell, things that happened later, when both Leofric's children were grown—my husband's death, Ælfgar's victories in battle, and Ebba's marriage to a wealthy merchant. But I prefer to end my tale here, with the moment I will relive until my current affliction carries me away. While I suffer the leeches and foul-tasting medicines my physician brings me daily, while I wait for Our Holy Father to call me to him, I still take delight in remembering that girl-child. How she stamped her feet and kicked boys' shins. How she changed a song and built the world anew in the image of her love.
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Thank You
Kate O'Sullivan has been, while these stories unfolded, as close as any human could come to the Ideal Editor. I laugh each time I remember her wry comments in the margins of the manuscript; I smile when I think of the cartoons, movie reviews, and other mood-lifters she sent my way; and I remain nonstop grateful for the way she "got" what I was after from the start, for the grace and tact with which she helped to grow this book.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Front
Dame Nigran's Tower
Pipe Dreams
Mother Love
Ashes
Evelyn's Song
Diamonda
Naked
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