another.
'Hold hard - there's a corner come down - let me not trip!' Thus, standing on a chair, did I bully my brother from above. It was my task to unhook the tapestries from the wall while Izzy gathered up the edges and held them away from my feet.
'I have it,'he assured me. 'Step down.'A spider ran over my neck as I dangled one leg in the air, almost causing me to fall, but at last we laid the third hanging on the worn flags of the floor. Izzy loaded me up and we progressed along the corridor, my brother going ahead to open each door as I came to it.
'Wait,' he said as we emerged into the sun. I was glad enough to stand and do nothing as he ducked back into the house, coming out directly with the carpet-beaters. There were five of these, supposedly from Turkey, of fine withy and all different in form. Godfrey said they had been presented to My Lady by some traveller much taken with her in that far-off time, her youth. I wondered what Caro would say to such a gift. With Izzy holding up the hangings behind me like a maid holding her mistress's train, we passed by the maze where I had been scolded by Caro, by the pond where Christopher Walshe had been fished up by the armpits that very morning, and along a stony track to the orchard.
Zeb was not there. 'He is sloth itself,' I grumbled, all the while dreading the sight of him. We spread the hangings over some bushes until our brother should come up with the line. Izzy sat in the shade of a pear tree and began swishing about him with the beaters, as if killing flies. 'This for me,' he said, setting one apart from the rest. 'Do you wish to choose?'
'They're all alike.' Surely Zeb was lingering in the house expressly to torment me.
'Not in the least,' said Izzy. 'This one is the fastest, and that the prettiest.'
Sometimes, I reflected, my brother had odd notions: he had preferences in cups and candles as well as in the customary things like
food and music, wherein each man has his particular taste. He had once told me that when we worked in the fields as children, every implement had for him its own character. But this was, after all, a small oddity. Apart from Caro, I loved Izzy better than anyone I knew, much more than I loved Zeb or my mother, perhaps because he never teased me.
A whistle, full and liquid, drifted over the orchard among the songs of blackbirds and thrushes.
'See, he is not so late,'said Izzy the peacemaker.
Zeb's face, solemn, even strained, was oddly out of tune with his warbling of' There Lived a Pretty Maid'. He nodded to us, then began looping the rope he had brought over the apple boughs.
'Higher,' suggested Izzy. Zeb obeyed without question.
'We are alone,' I prompted him.
'There.' Zeb gave a final tweak to the line and turned to face us. 'If someone comes, we put up the hangings.'
'Yes, yes!'My shirt was all damp. 'But tell us, how did you break it to them at Champains?'
'Godfrey gave me a note for the master. He - Mister Biggin -called me into his study and asked me was I sure, how was the lad, dark or fair — you know how it goes. In the end I did persuade him that what we have in the laundry is the earthly shell of Christopher Walshe.'
And did you say how he died?'
'Drowned, of course. When you find a lad in a pond—' he shrugged. 'Would I had known about the stabbing. There will be more explanations tomorrow.'
'Not from you, surely? You don't think they suspect you?' Izzy urged.
'Perhaps not of killing the boy.'Zeb picked up the hanging on the top of the pile and laid it ready. 'They kept asking me how we knew it was he, as if our knowing him were some proof of guilt.'
I felt a twist of fear. 'What did you say?'
'I told them Godfrey knew him. That was nothing but truth, Godfrey did know him from when he was sent over there last year.' Zeb took a beater (like me, not choosing for the beauty of it but merely
seizing the nearest) and lashed out at the pallid face of Chastity, represented in the act of taming a unicorn.
I took
'Hold hard - there's a corner come down - let me not trip!' Thus, standing on a chair, did I bully my brother from above. It was my task to unhook the tapestries from the wall while Izzy gathered up the edges and held them away from my feet.
'I have it,'he assured me. 'Step down.'A spider ran over my neck as I dangled one leg in the air, almost causing me to fall, but at last we laid the third hanging on the worn flags of the floor. Izzy loaded me up and we progressed along the corridor, my brother going ahead to open each door as I came to it.
'Wait,' he said as we emerged into the sun. I was glad enough to stand and do nothing as he ducked back into the house, coming out directly with the carpet-beaters. There were five of these, supposedly from Turkey, of fine withy and all different in form. Godfrey said they had been presented to My Lady by some traveller much taken with her in that far-off time, her youth. I wondered what Caro would say to such a gift. With Izzy holding up the hangings behind me like a maid holding her mistress's train, we passed by the maze where I had been scolded by Caro, by the pond where Christopher Walshe had been fished up by the armpits that very morning, and along a stony track to the orchard.
Zeb was not there. 'He is sloth itself,' I grumbled, all the while dreading the sight of him. We spread the hangings over some bushes until our brother should come up with the line. Izzy sat in the shade of a pear tree and began swishing about him with the beaters, as if killing flies. 'This for me,' he said, setting one apart from the rest. 'Do you wish to choose?'
'They're all alike.' Surely Zeb was lingering in the house expressly to torment me.
'Not in the least,' said Izzy. 'This one is the fastest, and that the prettiest.'
Sometimes, I reflected, my brother had odd notions: he had preferences in cups and candles as well as in the customary things like
food and music, wherein each man has his particular taste. He had once told me that when we worked in the fields as children, every implement had for him its own character. But this was, after all, a small oddity. Apart from Caro, I loved Izzy better than anyone I knew, much more than I loved Zeb or my mother, perhaps because he never teased me.
A whistle, full and liquid, drifted over the orchard among the songs of blackbirds and thrushes.
'See, he is not so late,'said Izzy the peacemaker.
Zeb's face, solemn, even strained, was oddly out of tune with his warbling of' There Lived a Pretty Maid'. He nodded to us, then began looping the rope he had brought over the apple boughs.
'Higher,' suggested Izzy. Zeb obeyed without question.
'We are alone,' I prompted him.
'There.' Zeb gave a final tweak to the line and turned to face us. 'If someone comes, we put up the hangings.'
'Yes, yes!'My shirt was all damp. 'But tell us, how did you break it to them at Champains?'
'Godfrey gave me a note for the master. He - Mister Biggin -called me into his study and asked me was I sure, how was the lad, dark or fair — you know how it goes. In the end I did persuade him that what we have in the laundry is the earthly shell of Christopher Walshe.'
And did you say how he died?'
'Drowned, of course. When you find a lad in a pond—' he shrugged. 'Would I had known about the stabbing. There will be more explanations tomorrow.'
'Not from you, surely? You don't think they suspect you?' Izzy urged.
'Perhaps not of killing the boy.'Zeb picked up the hanging on the top of the pile and laid it ready. 'They kept asking me how we knew it was he, as if our knowing him were some proof of guilt.'
I felt a twist of fear. 'What did you say?'
'I told them Godfrey knew him. That was nothing but truth, Godfrey did know him from when he was sent over there last year.' Zeb took a beater (like me, not choosing for the beauty of it but merely
seizing the nearest) and lashed out at the pallid face of Chastity, represented in the act of taming a unicorn.
I took
Similar Books
