The Beatryce Prophecy Page 6

  “The man said that he killed too many people to count with that sword.”

  “What else did he confess?” asked Jack Dory.

  “I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember.” She felt the dark breath of the abyss on her neck. She shuddered. “Where is Brother Edik? I want to see Brother Edik. I want to go back to the monastery.”

  “You cannot go back. There is no going back.”

  Terrible words!

  “They are looking for you,” said Jack Dory. “The monastery is surely one of the places they will search. It is the king himself who wants you. I don’t know why. I expect it is because you can form letters. They say you are bewitched.”

  What world is this I now inhabit, and how shall I live in it?

  The wind blew through the leaves of the tree, and Beatryce felt it blow through her, too, as if she were some hollow thing.

  “They are only letters,” she said. “It is not witchery. They are letters and words.” She looked down at her hands. There were dark places on the thumb and forefinger of her right hand—ink stains.

  That is where the words come from, she thought, those dark places.

  “What else did the man confess to?” asked Jack Dory.

  “I said I do not remember. Why must you know everything there is to know? You annoy me.”

  “Aye, well, and you annoy me in return,” said Jack Dory. “After all, it is only because of you that I am hiding up a tree in the dark woods.”

  Below them, Answelica bleated once, and then again. There came the sound of footsteps. Someone was making their way through the undergrowth.

  “Shhh,” said Jack Dory.

  “Do not tell me to ‘shhh,’ ” whispered Beatryce. “I know very well when to be quiet. I am not some dullard.”

  “Shhh,” Jack Dory said again.

  Beatryce rolled her eyes at him and leaned forward. She could see nothing.

  A voice said, “Ah, look at this. A goat. A goat. A sweet goat.”

  And then the voice turned the words into a song:

  “A sweet goat all alone

  awaiting me

  in the green woods.

  Hello, my all alone,

  hello, my sweet goat gone

  all alone.

  Will you come with me,

  my sweet goat a-waiting

  in the green woods,

  will you come a-gallivanting

  with me?”

  It was a very pretty song, with a very pretty voice singing it.

  When the song ended, there was a small silence. And then came a familiar noise—the sound of Answelica’s head meeting a human body with great force.

  Both Beatryce and Jack Dory leaned forward.

  Someone was flying through the air, someone in robes with long gray hair.

  Beatryce could not tell if it was a man or a woman. The robes were gray and the hair was gray, and altogether the creature resembled a spirit more than a human being.

  But here was the wonderful thing: whoever they were—man or woman or ghost—they were laughing.

  It was a man on the ground.

  He was on his back and he was laughing. He pulled his knees up to his chest and laughed and laughed.

  At least Jack Dory thought it was laughter. He was not certain. The man seemed to have lost his wits entirely, either to sorrow or joy.

  The man’s hair was long, and his beard was longer. It came down almost to his knees.

  Answelica stood over the man with her head lowered, studying him.

  “Ah, goat, goat,” sang the man. “Wheeee. Goat, goat, sweet goat, won’t you go a-wandering with me? Wheeee.”

  He sat up and patted Answelica on the head, and the goat allowed it.

  The man wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his robe. He looked up at the tree.

  Jack Dory put his hand on Beatryce’s shoulder and pulled her back.

  “No use in trying to hide,” said the man. “I know that you are up there. I can smell both of you. It is a smell I know well; it is a smell even stronger than the smell of goat. You smell of fear.”

  Jack Dory heard Beatryce’s sharp intake of breath.

  “You are right to be afraid,” said the man. “You cannot go through these woods without encountering great danger. These woods harbor evil. However, I could, were I so inclined, offer you safe passage. My knowledge of these woods is deep and wide.”

  There came another thud.

  Jack Dory and Beatryce leaned forward.

  The man was on his back again, rolling around on the forest floor, laughing and laughing. “Or perhaps I will not offer you safe passage,” he said, “as your goat—wheee—your goat seems intent on killing me.”

  “Sir!” said Jack Dory. He rose to standing in the crook of the tree and held the sword out in front of him. “I would advise you to look at what I carry.”

  “Stop,” said Beatryce.

  Jack Dory ignored her. He said, “Do you think, sir, that we would come through these woods unprotected? Do you think us fools? We are not fools. I know very well what hides and festers in these woods. I know what evil lives here.”

  There was a long silence.

  Answelica let out a questioning bleat.

  “We are protected by the king,” said Jack Dory. “We would have you know that we are on royal business. We are, in fact, carrying a message to the king.”

  “Liar,” whispered Beatryce.

  Yes, it was a lie. But Jack Dory felt this was a situation for lying. And further, why not make it a clever lie? Why not say that they were running toward the very thing that they were running from?

  “We have been entrusted with important words,” said Jack Dory, “words upon which the fate of the entire kingdom rests. This monk in the tree with me—do you see him? This monk is mute, and his growth has been stunted by various and assorted troubles.”

  Jack Dory was having a fine time now!

  Beatryce pinched his leg.

  “Ouch,” said Jack Dory. “As I was saying, this stunted and deformed monk is a personal scribe to the king, and I must make sure he returns to the king safely. So that the message can be delivered.”

  The man had stopped laughing. He was standing now and looking up at the two of them, studying them. His face was smooth and unlined, which was disconcerting given the length and color of his beard.

  “You have a message for the king?” said the man.

  “Aye,” said Jack Dory. “We do.”

  The man began to laugh again. “You have a message for the king, a message—hee-hee-hee—for the king.” He bent over and put his hands on his knees. “Oh, stars and saints in heaven above, look down upon me and—hee-hee-hee—laugh with me.”

  Answelica looked up at Beatryce and Jack Dory, and then at the laughing man, and then back at them again, as if to say, “Here is a very fine specimen of humanity. Should I send him flying again?”

  “He is mad,” Jack Dory said to Beatryce.

  “I am not stunted,” said Beatryce.

  “Your temperament is stunted,” said Jack Dory.

  The man with the beard stopped laughing. He said, “Look here, sooner or later, you will have to come down from that tree. Come down now. I will do you no harm. I promise you. I would not interfere with the—hee-hee-hee, oh, stars and saints above, the irony of it! The sweet irony!—message for the king.”

  Jack Dory stood in the tree with Beatryce beside him and the goat and the man below him. He stood with the sword in his hand. The birds were singing.

  A bee formed lazy circles above his head.

  “I believe him,” whispered Beatryce.

  “I do not believe him,” said Jack Dory, and he did not whisper.

  “Answelica believes him. See? She has not attacked him again.”

  “What does it matter what a goat believes?”

  “I am leaving,” said Beatryce. “You can do as you will.” And she started climbing down the tree.

  What could Beatryce know about the dark woods
?

  What could a goat know about whom to trust?

  Nothing.

  But what choice did Jack Dory have, truly?

  None.

  Where Beatryce went, he must go.

  Somehow that had happened. He was not sure how—but whither she went, so went he.

  Jack Dory sighed. He followed Beatryce.

  The bearded man led them through the woods.

  They went single file behind him: Answelica first, Beatryce behind Answelica, and Jack Dory behind Beatryce.

  The goat picked up her legs very high, prancing as if she were the one in charge. She glanced behind her occasionally, looking at Beatryce.

  “Are you here, then?” Answelica seemed to say. “Are you with me?”

  “Yes,” Beatryce answered with her eyes. “I am here.”

  As for Jack Dory, he was carrying the sword out in front of him, and whenever Beatryce turned and looked behind her, she saw the terrible, gleaming menace of it.

  The sword knew something.

  The sword had a terrible story that it wanted to tell. But Beatryce did not want to hear that story.

  She remembered what Jack Dory had said: the king was looking for her.

  The king!

  She looked down at her thumb and forefinger, at the smudges of ink there.

  Yes, the king was looking for her because she could read and write.

  She felt the deep, dark hollow inside of her twist and open.

  Who was she?

  Answelica, again, looked back at her. Beatryce smiled at the goat.

  They walked on.

  The woods were green to the point of darkness.

  The man with the beard turned suddenly. He said, “I have been in many a procession in my life, but never one as strange as this. I can walk with a goat at my heels, but I cannot walk with a sword at my back. Lower the sword, boy. I assure you that I am not intent on evil.”

  “Ha,” said Jack Dory.

  “Lower the sword and tell me your name,” said the man.

  “His name is Jack Dory,” said Beatryce. “And I am Beatryce, and the goat is named Answelica.”

  “Ah,” said the man, “so you are not, after all, a mute monk whose growth has been stunted by various and assorted troubles.”

  “I am Beatryce,” said Beatryce. “Who are you?”

  “Who am I? I am someone who gave up his name quite some time ago.” The man smiled. He stroked his beard. “In truth, I gave up everything quite some time ago. But you may call me. . . let’s see. . . Cannoc. Yes, Cannoc. It is easier, I suppose, to have a name than not.”

  “Cannoc,” said Beatryce.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Where are you taking us?” asked Jack Dory.

  “Lower the sword,” said Cannoc, “and I will tell you.”

  Jack Dory made a sound of disgust. He lowered the sword.

  “I am taking you somewhere safe,” said Cannoc. “You must trust me.”

  “My parents died in this wood,” said Jack Dory. “I am inclined to trust nothing and no one here.”

  Cannoc nodded. “Terrible things happen here.” He paused. “But then, terrible things happen everywhere.”

  “Aye,” said Jack Dory. “They do.”

  “We have only a little way to go before we are safe,” said Cannoc. “Will you abide with me for just a short while longer?”

  “Yes,” said Beatryce for both of them, for the three of them.

  She trusted the man.

  Why?

  Because his song about Answelica had been so beautiful. Because he laughed so well.

  And why did she trust Jack Dory?

  Because of his whistling and cartwheeling. Because he had come for her and taken her from a dark room.

  And Brother Edik? She trusted him because of his crooked, wandering eye; his golden letters; and his great gentleness.

  And then there was the goat. Beatryce trusted Answelica for the boniness of her head, the softness of her ear, and for her fierce, uncompromising love.

  Were these good reasons to trust?

  She did not know.

  She could only say that she did trust.

  “Jack Dory?” said Cannoc.

  “Very well,” said Jack Dory.

  Cannoc nodded. He turned and resumed walking.

  Answelica gave Beatryce a grave and knowing look. She turned and followed Cannoc.

  Beatryce followed the goat.

  And Jack Dory followed Beatryce.

  “Cannoc?” said Beatryce. “Perhaps you would sing again? Perhaps you could sing the song about the sweet goat in the green woods?”

  Cannoc laughed. “I could sing that song,” he said.

  And he did.

  Jack Dory was right, of course.

  The king’s soldiers came to the monastery in search of Beatryce. They came that very day. And it did not take them long to learn that the girl had indeed been there and that Brother Edik had been the one to find her.

  He wept as they questioned him.

  He wept because he was afraid.

  But more, he wept because he should have never let her out of his sight. He should have gone with her.

  “Listen, you crooked-eyed man,” said one of the soldiers. “I will get the whole truth out of you. This child, this girl, she could read and write?”

  “Yes,” said Brother Edik.

  “She is the one, then, whom the king wants,” said the soldier. “It is her.”

  It was here, in this moment, that Brother Edik remembered being a young man, standing before Father Caddis and saying, “These words were given to me.”

  “Say them,” Father Caddis had said.

  “There will one day come a girl child who will unseat a king and bring about a great change,” said the young Brother Edik.

  “Your words will be entered into the Chronicles of Sorrowing,” said Father Caddis.

  It had been one of Brother Edik’s first prophecies, and he had not thought about the words since. But now, suddenly, he understood them.

  It was Beatryce.

  Those words of prophecy had been about Beatryce.

  “Yes,” he said, raising his head and looking the soldier in the eye. “She is the one.”

  The soldiers searched the monastery, every inch of it, and when at last they had gone, Brother Edik gathered parchment, a quill, a flint, and a candle and put them in a satchel. He heard his father’s voice: “Oh, ho! The great soldier prepares for battle!”

  “Yes,” said Brother Edik to his father, who was not there, who was long dead. “I do.”

  He went to the kitchen and asked Brother Antoine for a handful of maple candies.

  “For the girl?” said Brother Antoine.

  Brother Edik nodded.

  “You will not find her,” said Brother Antoine.

  “Perhaps not,” said Brother Edik. “But I must try.”

  Brother Antoine shook his head. “Your task is to illuminate the Chronicles. Your task is to listen for the words of prophecy. It is not for you to intercede. If you leave, Father Caddis will not let you return.”

  “Nonetheless,” said Brother Edik, “I will intercede. At least I will attempt to intercede.”

  Brother Antoine shook his head again—slowly, sadly—but he gave Brother Edik all the maple candies in his possession, candies that he had held in reserve for some time: candies in the shape of flowers and birds and leaves and crescent moons and stars and also, of course, candies in the shape of small bewildered people.

  He filled the pockets of Brother Edik’s robe.

  Before he left the monastery, Brother Edik went into the room of the Chronicles of Sorrowing. He looked through the book until he found those words he had spoken when he was young.

  There will one day come a girl child who will unseat

  a king and bring about a great change.

  Yes, there they were. Written in Father Caddis’s hand.

  Brother Edik shook his head in wonder. He picked up the q
uill and wrote his name and the date beside the prophecy, and then these words:

  On this day, I did go in search of the one of whom this prophecy speaks: a child named Beatryce, a girl who can read and write, a child who has caused me (and also a goat named Answelica) to believe in love and tenderness and some greater good.

  Next to his words, Brother Edik drew a small illumination.

  A mermaid.

  And then he walked out of the room of the Chronicles of Sorrowing, out of the monastery, and into a field filled with blooming elderhist. The yellow flowers bowed and brushed against him as he walked past.

  “Coward,” he heard his father say. “You surely do not have the makings of a soldier. You belong nowhere but with the monks.”

  “Where I belong,” said Brother Edik aloud—to no one, to everyone, to his father, and to the flowers—“is with Beatryce.”

  He went first to the inn.

  And there he found that the man who wanted his confession written was dead, and that Beatryce was, of course, gone.

  And that Jack Dory was gone.

  And the goat?

  Gone also.

  On the floor of the room in which they had all been, there was an ink stain that looked like the map of some other kingdom, some other world, a different place entirely.

  “And did you see them go?” Brother Edik asked the innkeeper’s wife when he raised his eyes from the ink on the floor.

  “I know nothing at all,” she said. “It does not matter who questions me, I know nothing. Did I watch Jack Dory lead that monk and that goat into the dark woods? I did not. Did I see that Jack Dory held a sword? I did not see it. Did the little monk leave this parchment behind? Not to my knowledge, he did not. I do not know where it came from, do I?”

  The innkeeper’s wife handed Brother Edik the piece of parchment.

  He held it before him and read the words that had been marked through—I have killed—and the words that remained:

  Once, there was a mermaid.

  Once, there was a mermaid.

  Once, there was a mermaid.

  The same words had been written over and over, again and again.

  “I know nothing of anything,” said the innkeeper’s wife.

  “Nor do I,” said Brother Edik. “Nor do I know anything of anything. But I thank you.”

  And so Brother Edik headed to the dark woods, in the direction that the innkeeper’s wife had pointed after she told him, again and again, that she knew nothing at all.