The morning of the wedding, the sun shone bright and chill. The trees put forth buds, a good omen for the couple. The unfurling leaves were the glaring green of early spring.
The company had high hopes of the feast ahead. Insider reports from the Banks' pantry listed roast venison, a whole sturgeon, a jelly in the shape of a swan, a plenitude of quails, comfits and last year's pippins. Jake saw Sean had joined them unofficially. Well, the poor lad would fill his stomach today. He himself was rejoicing at the thought of odious Kyle Stretton being tied for life to that strumpet. He coaxed his nag up beside the brooding Will. "Haste to the wedding, eh, Will."
"The Lord shall root out all deceitful lips: and the tongue that speaketh proud things."
Jake cleared his throat. Will had been a gloomy owl about this day ever since finding that Lady Bella would be present to hear his verses praising her rival. "They are very bad couplets you wrote," he comforted pleadingly.
Will would not be comforted, but continued to mutter psalms. "Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners: and hath not sat in the seat of the scornful."
Jake rode to the wedding in a more chastened silence.
Will unbent when they reached the Banks' manor. Master Scout ran up to his horse like a puppy hoping for a walk, all exuberance and open love. Breathless and exclamatory, Scout informed Will that this would be his last great holiday as a baby. Soon, "my lord my father" would be setting him to a tutor, like a big boy. "Already I am so tall!" he announced untruthfully.
Once upon a time, Will would have been bitter that everything was arranged so easily for Scout. He himself had had to sweat, cheat and steal to learn his letters, and he still begrudged great men their luxury. But Scout was a child, the worshipping little brother he had never had, and so he only envied the tutor. Will set a high value on education.
He was extracting promises from Scout, that he would study so hard that he would exceed even the expectations his lord his father had of him, when Jake tapped Will on the shoulder.
"Will."
"What is it?"
"Sean is sneaking off to the kitchens already. Come with me; let's bring him back."
Will shook his head. Sean had come for hunger's sake, and he was not the man to stop him. That aside, Sean's dancing, if he were induced to perform with the rest, would not reflect much glory on the company.
The masque was abominable. Finn had decided in favour of Ryder's nonsense. Will took a grim pleasure from the guests' inattention. They played during the feast, after the ceremony. His entertainment would have held them from their plates. At it was, Grace's praises were drowned out by a great chewing, gnawing, gnashing and gulping. The show was loud and shiny enough to impress only the most sheltered.
Jake, outfitted in canvas as Master Finn's conception of a leviathan, pursued the shipwrecked mariner with unleviathanlike gusto across the hall. There was a squeak of sheer terror from beside the servingmaid's entrance. A turnspit child, eyes as wide as they could go, was shakily stepping forward to "rescue" the threatened mariner. The mariner (Finn, his rumpled style of attractiveness at last artistically validated) looked startled for a fleeting moment. Scout, who like the servants watched the show hid from the adult lords and ladies, put a hand on the other child to stop him. He reassured, "You need fear naught. It is all in your head." Jake supposed it was as good a definition of fiction as any.
Will slipped away after the performance. The household, guests, hosts, and servants, were in the gardens where comfits and suckets and sweet stuffs were laid out in a banqueting place. The trees were hung with lanterns, and later they would dance.
"It is soothing to be alone," Will whispered to himself.
He was not alone; Jake had followed him.
He ran his finger along the wainscot. It was fine carpentry work. The music of the Waits was scarcely audible, here in the quiet hallway. Jake's voice was unwelcome to him. "You are a sullen fool," Jake said.
"You do not understand."
"Your feud with Ryder-" Jake broke off. Both of them had heard the most horrible sound, like a cat being tormented.
"This way, but quietly." Will went first.
Jake and Will rushed into a room overlooking the gardens, and stopped short. The sound was Sean. He lay across the table, a handle - no, a hilt, dear God, protruding from his belly. He whined at every breath. He seemed not to have strength to do more.
"Sean, what, what can I do for you? Wait, wait, I'll call a physician. We'll help-" Jake turned to Will, his adam's apple bobbing convulsively.
Will brushed him aside. The injury looked mortal, and he'd wager Sean knew it as well as they. "Who did this, Sean?" They had no time to waste on pretence.
"Grace Banks. She caught me - she hurt-"
Jake found a buffet with wines at the side of the room. He passed Will a glass and Will drizzled hippocras onto Sean's lips.
"Must tell, must warn."
"Warn who, Sean?" Jake's brows drew together.
"She asked, my London contact. I couldn't help, I told her."
"Warn who, Sean?" There were other, lesser, hurts, including a bump on his crown which must have staggered him earlier, but the stab in the gut was going to kill him.
"Finn."
"Finn." Jake looked at Will, dazed. Will was angry, worried, frightened, yes, but not surprised. Sean was choking on the spiced wine. Poor boy. Poor, misguided lad.
"I'll take the knife out now, Sean."
Will whispered some blessing or prayer - Jake couldn't hear - and withdrew the blade. Sean died in a spurt of blood. Too quickly. Too soon. Shocked, trying to take in what had happened, Jake stepped away sharply. He stared out the window; Will stared at Sean.
This had silenced both.
Jake croaked, "I see Lady Grace." Her bridal hair hanging loose in chestnut swathes over her shoulders, a wreath of delicate flowers crowning her, she was being escorted past gooseberry bushes by the distinctive figure of Burleigh's son, the stranger lord with the posture of an old man and the face of a young. Will strode over and watched them too. Dear Jesu, thought Jake. Walsingham and Burleigh are the peace party. God preserve us, then, from the bloodthirst of the warmongers. "Will," he said, "You cannot go down there."
"Can I not."
"You are covered in blood," Jake said, uninflected.
Will came to himself again. "I must find Finn."
Jake scanned the paths. He could not see the company master.
"If we cannot find Finn, then Calhoun. He can protect him."
That was a good thought. Calhoun and his daughter were in a secluded nook on the edge of the grounds. Will could approach without being seen by other guests.
When they got close, they could hear Calhoun and his daughter, hidden by a bank of imported yellow foxgloves.
"God's death, father, he is the best tutor Scout could have. Scout trusts and respects him..."
"I like not the way he looks at you."
"God's blood." She called on God often in her speech.
"Bella. I do not like these terms in your mouth."
"The Queen uses these oaths."
"The Queen is the Queen," Calhoun said unanswerably.
At any rate, Bella abandoned the topic of her speech patterns, and resumed, "Young Crodsky values education with a passion."
"Hast thou held so much converse with the boy?"
Bella hesitated between yes, (damning), and no, (invalidating her argument). "I see in him an upright influence on my innocent sibling."
Calhoun smiled at her uncharacteristic primness.
"Scout tells me - oh, God."
"Sir, Madam." Will was a sight to frighten soldiers. "Finn is in trouble."
"Is that Finn's blood?"
Will shook his head. "Sean's. He implicated Finn as a spy to Lady Grace, and possibly to young Cecil before he died."
Bella sat down abruptly, acutely distressed, in need of a paladin. Her father paced off, grim and silent, but Will gave her a look of comfort, fumbling about his person for something to distract her. Like Jake, he had concealed a mess of delicacies from the pantry for later. He came up with a handful of spiced redhot sweetmeats.
Jake eyed the couple narrowly. There was much he had not been told.