Their skin was chapped red from wind and weather, flushed, too, from the warmth of the fire. It made them look hearty and hale, as rugged as a druid’s oak. And though there wasn’t a whisker about them, let alone a long white beard, there was something of the druid about them, a wise look. They were pensive as Isolde spoke, nodding and now and then reaching down to scratch the ears of the inn’s cat, which twined around their ankles. (Wretched animal! Just that morning it bit my finger when I had tried to pet it.)
From the keep, the bell rang for Compline and several men stood, gathered cloaks, and bundled out into the night. Compline. Another day gone. I ought to be on my way in the morning; it wouldn’t do to stay put for long. Mary brought me a pitcher of wine, and Isolde gave me a stiff nod: I was done for the night.
I set the harp aside, poured myself a mug and tried to study the person by the fire while appearing to be deep in thought. It didn’t work. They stood and said, ‘I won’t keep you from sleep, good sir.’ And, oh, their voice. Husky, unbroken. Pure.
‘Stay,’ I said, raising my tankard. ‘I’ve wine to drink and maybe you’ve a story to tell.’
They considered their mug. They considered the flames licking the logs. ‘I’ve a story or two in me.’
I crossed the room and we settled at a table. I caught again a whiff of that smell – as if I had plunged my hands into the soil of a just-ploughed furrow, felt the blood-warm earth.
‘You play well,’ they said. ‘Why aren’t you singing at some duke’s court?’
‘Indeed, I played at Count Perville’s for some seasons, when I was a stripling. Played at Earl Norchester’s as well.’ Their eyes lit up at that name, and I added, ‘Years ago, mind,’ before they could ask a question I didn’t wish to answer. ‘But Life at court is for young men – wooing and flirting and gossip. I’m here for but a day or two. Good Mistress Isolde has given me hearthspace.’
‘Isolde is indeed a good woman,’ they said. I couldn’t look into their eyes for long; they were not just the grey of the ocean, but seemed to embody the roll of the swells, commanding and compelling. ‘And good people are few to be found, and so, when found, to be treasured.’ They made a little bow on their stool – a gesture that would have been awkward from anyone else, but was courtly and smooth from them. ‘I am Silence. Of Cornwall.’
I smiled. ‘And I am Heldris. And at this moment, I suppose I am of Cornwall as well. And what do we have but this moment? Do you dwell in the village or in the keep?’
‘Neither. And both.’ They stretched their legs with a sigh. They were nice legs, with the roundness of calf that comes from hours in the saddle.
The fire popped. We sipped at our mugs.
‘Silence,’ I said. ‘A most unusual name, I’d venture. How did your parents happen to select it?’
‘Have you more to drink? The story might take a while to unfold.’
‘I will appeal to Isolde.’
They chuckled. ‘It will be a good measure of you, minstrel, to see what she accords as your due. Isolde is wise and a good judge of character.’
I rose, reluctant to go, certain that, like some visitor from the land of Fey, if I turned my back, they would disappear. But wine loosens the tongue. I ducked into the warm lair of the kitchen, getting a jug and a hissed warning from Isolde: ‘Mind your manners with that one or I’ll dent your head with my ladle.’ She would, too. I returned to the fireside and poured wine. When they reached for the mug, I saw nicks and cuts on their hands, white welts of scars on rough skin – what a man gets from working in fields or forests or shops. And there on the thumb, and there, on the finger pads: yellow-waxy callouses I recognized as even more familiar.
‘Do you play?’ I tipped my head towards my harp, wrapped and leaning against the wall.
The hands disappeared beneath the table, as if they’d shown too much, and the stranger said only, ‘Another life.’
‘Tell me about that life.’
‘It starts,’ they hunched forward, staring into the leaping flames, ‘with twin girls …’
‘Ah!’ I could barely contain myself – twins are always deformed or twisted, either on the outside or on the inside, or one is perfect and beautiful and the other an ugly wretch. Or one is saintly and delightful and the other evil and malevolent.
‘… daughters of some earl, I forget who. This was years before I was born. You know the type. Rich lands, beautiful girls. The twins married off at first bloom. To two earls. Also of the usual sort.’ They spoke in a hitching, hesitant way.
Dear listener, what follows is the story as I recall it. Or as I recount it. Or, perhaps, as I have shaped it. For stories bear the imprint of all who tell them. Silence told it to me in that little inn, and I have told it to myself many times since then. And now, listener, I share it with you. I share it in the spirit of truth, knowing that you, in turn, will make it your own.
CHAPTER ONE
Once there were twin girls, born – perfect and beautiful – to Earl Le Valle. Their mother died when they were but infants, and their father raised them to be pleasant, mild, and diligent alike. He doted on them. Even the household staff could seldom tell them apart, they were so equally flawless and winsome. As they grew, they ripened, like grapes on the vine, swelling just right, softening just so, sweetening to perfection. And at the height of that perfection, two dashing earls – we’ll call them Rodney and Jacques – married the twins in great joy at their father’s court.
No expense was spared for the wedding festivities. The earl hired a dozen minstrels (minstrels are the most important part of any wedding), a dozen jugglers, and a troupe of mummers. Hunters flushed a hundred deer from the earl’s woods and so the kitchen-yard was filled with a hundred spit-boys roasting the meat to perfection. Feathers flew as geese and capons were plucked. The priest even had the altar boys polish the church bell. In short, everything was done to perfect excess and the twins were married and their husbands took them to their separate manors.
Not long after, the twins’ father died, and the two husbands laid claim to the earl’s estate – each saying his wife was the older twin. The girls themselves, of course, had no memory of their birth, and their father had insisted on raising them as equals, never disclosing their order of birth. Retainers were questioned, their old nursemaid was dragged from retirement, but no one could say for sure. The old earl had been so fair-minded – so naïve – that he had never recorded which girl emerged first. Rather, that silly fool had told them they came out side by side, holding hands (poor mother!).
The husbands fumed, stormed, and consulted their counsellors but there was no resolution at all. They appealed directly to King Evan, known across England for his sense of justice and his utter faith in the law. (Now, of course, as king he makes the law, which makes his faith in the law rather, well, self-serving, but let us never mind that. A king ought to be praised, if a minstrel wants to make a living.) King Evan considered the matter carefully and discussed it with his advisers, who examined every letter of the law. But even they could make no resolution of the quandary, apart from to suggest evenly splitting the land and holdings. Neither husband would agree to this – half a holding! When it could all be his? And so in the end the earls agreed to a bout of single combat to settle the matter.