The Life of Sir Archambeau: Ch. 2 - Geese and Pie, Oh My!
Horse and knight stopped on the ridge at the edge of the tree line and inspected the clearing below. A wolf howled far away behind them.
Amid the plat stood an unfortified manor house, a two-story building of grey stone in obvious disrepair. Moss grew in patches on the wood-shingled roof, and white smoke blew out the chimney. A dilapidated portico covered the front entrance. Sunlight glinted off—Archambeau’s eyes widened—glass windows. Those were rare; he had only ever seen glass windows on churches. Most houses had wooden shutters or, if the family could afford it, panes of animal horn.
An acre yard surrounded the manor, enclosed by a stone fence. Loose stones littered the lawn where sections of the fence were damaged. A simple gate a cart’s width wide allowed entry into the front lawn, where geese waddled about on the grass, honking when the fancy struck them. Vainqueur licked his lips at the green grass. A dirt road snaked from the gate and vanished into the woods to Archambeau’s left. The forest encroached on the house from behind and needed thinning.
To have an estate like this and let it all fall to such a state seemed a tragedy in itself. The family must have landed on hard times.
Archambeau played with the reins, thinking. If this was where the lady lived and had vanished too, why didn’t she say as much? If smoke wasn’t puffing out of the chimney and if geese weren’t in the yard, he would have said nobody lived there. Why had she not told him her horse was heading west to go home, not simply going west because it was stubborn? He couldn’t see a stable yard, unless it was behind the manor, nor was there a dappled horse anywhere—if it even existed. A cursory glance in the immediate area yielded no hoofprints.
Only one answer made sense to him in the moment: The lady knew about the manor and had lied about her horse to play a joke on him because she was a faerie; she had to be.
He let out a long sigh. He knew in his gut that wasn’t the truth. This whole affair was becoming tiring.
His eyes fell upon the dirt path snaking toward the woods. Now was the time to leave. He had looked over the hill and seen what was below and could now follow the dirt path back to the main road and continue on his journey to reach Villaruiss before sunset.
And yet he wanted to go down to that manor and knock on the door to see what was what. If the maiden did indeed live there, he would demand an explanation as to how she’d disappeared without a sound. If nobody lived in the manor, then he would spend the rest of the journey to Villaruiss grumbling.
“What do you think?” he asked Vainqueur. “Does a lady live in that manor? Or are they missing a servant? Or were we hoodwinked?”
Vainqueur stared at the green grass and knickered, nodding his head up and down. With a click of his tongue, Archambeau pulled the warhorse after him and they plodded down the hill into the clearing.
He paused at the gates. Closer up, he saw that moss grew on the exterior walls of the manor and stones were missing from them. A few of the glass panes were broken. Fallen shingles lay in an almost neat line down and around the house, and the narrow portico that covered the front door had a stone banister railing and gabled roof, also missing shingles.
The manor sounded quiet, apart from the noisy geese starting to get on his nerves, though it was clear someone lived inside. Archambeau once heard a man describe geese as “regal creatures.” They certainly waltzed around the yard with their heads held high. They pecked at the ground, eating a spread of barley, wheat, seeds, and half-squashed berries. Images of their serrated tongues flashed through his mind, and he promptly forgot about the birds.
The knight pushed the gate open, and the rotting thing toppled backward, startling the geese. They waddled away, wings raised, honking. Archambeau’s eyes flicked to the windows; he hoped nobody inside saw. Wishing he’d been more careful, he walked over the gate and entered the yard. He propped his spear against the fence and placed his helmet on it before kneeling to hobble Vainqueur. The air cut through Archambeau’s short, straw-colored hair, shaved at the back, and he shivered.
On the portico, he knocked thrice on the arched oak door, the solid bangs echoing inside. Taking a pace rearward, he put his hands behind his back with shoulders straight and waited. The rusty ring latch was flipped up, resting at an angle against the door. The window to the right of the door was broad and in need of cleaning.
Seconds slipped by before a heavy bolt moved, then the iron hinges screamed as the door opened inward.
A square-faced old woman greeted him, holding a staff as tall as he was. She only came up to his shoulder. Her black hair was tied in a down-to-the-waist braid which lay over her chest and stomach, exposing a broad forehead, wrinkled like the rest of her face. High cheekbones made her jawline more pronounced; she looked like a more mature version of the young maiden. The dark green chemise dress she wore was elaborately laced with yellow thread along the cuffs and square neckline. A grey band ringed her midriff above the pleats of the skirt. Big, clouded, unseeing eyes stared at a patch of nothing above his right shoulder, in the direction of the geese sneakily waddling to the open gate. When Archambeau shifted his feet, however, those clouded eyes snapped to him and the ghost of a smile touched her lips.
Archambeau went to speak but the old woman greeted him first: “A visitor! Welcome! Come inside, please.”
She stepped aside, still smiling, and gestured for him to enter. Her firm voice almost compelled the knight to obey; it would be nice and warm, and maybe he could sit down in a chair for a while instead of in the saddle, but he stayed on the portico.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Archambeau began, “but I’m only disturbing you to ask if a young woman lives here. I came across her in the woods being chased by … bees. I regret to say she vanished before I could help her home or find her horse, which had run off. I soon happened upon your manor by accident. Does she live here?”
The woman raised an eyebrow as if she had expected him to say something else. “By accident? What a coincidence. Very Christian of you to save that poor woman, sir knight.”
“You know I’m a knight?”
The woman laughed. She did look awfully similar to the maiden, almost mother and daughter. “I’ve met many people in my lifetime, young sir, and knights have a particular way of speaking. Formal and polite, like their mother is watching—and she is, so you best stay that way. Your armor has a distinctive sound too.”
Archambeau didn’t think he spoke any differently from anybody else. The armor did, however, make a noticeable crackle as he moved, a sound he had gotten used to, though he’d barely moved since the door opened. Her hearing must have been better than his own.
“In answer to your question, the young woman you helped does not live here.”
Archambeau stifled a groan. He was certain now the maiden was a faery.
“Are you sure you do not want to come inside to rest your tired feet?”
“No, thank you,” he declined again, staying firm against her enticing invitation. “Could you tell me if the path leading from here connects with the road that goes to Villaruiss, or if I’ve gone too far south toward Égletons? You see, I want to be sure before I leave here.”
The blind woman’s smile widened like he had stumbled across a secret only she knew. “It’s good to be sure about the path ahead. I can help you find your way.” The staff changed hands, then she again stepped aside and gestured for him to go in. “Please, enter; you are no doubt travel-weary and hungry, and I will not take no for an answer. It’s been such a long time since I’ve had visitors. Your horse will love the grass in the yard.”
The knight opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off, “Don’t worry, you’ll get to where you need to go before nightfall.”
Her tone suggested he should stop standing on her portico and take her offer of hospitality. In the distance, a wolf howled. Archambeau relented. She seemed lonely and in need of company, so he would humor her for a bit, no more than an hour, before he would leave. Today was a day to be sidetracked, it seemed.
The musty smell of the entrance hall wrapped around him when he closed the door. Standing in the left corner of a high-ceilinged room, he noticed how the wide window to his right allowed plenty of light inside; beneath it stood a low and equally wide table with a ceramic pot of lavender. Supports ran up the walls, and cobwebs stretched the gaps of the beams. A red-and-yellow rug covered a large portion of the floor, the corners chewed at by rats and mice; it was the most colorful part of the hall. On the right wall were stairs leading to the second floor.
“You can wash your hands back here.”
She gestured at a waist-high cabinet along the back wall, where a kettle dangled from a delicate chain hung above an empty basin. Beside it lay a plain white towel. A heavy layer of dust coated much of the entrance hall, but the kettle, bowl, and towel were spotless.
Archambeau tucked his gloves into his belt and set his hands over the bowl. The blind woman must have heard something, because she tipped the kettle forward and rose water poured out of the spout. He washed his hands and face and then dried himself, now smelling nicely of rose with a hint of lemon. It felt good to have clean hands.
“Better?”
Not waiting for an answer, she deftly turned around and walked to the hallway, staff tapping the floor. Archambeau ran a damp hand through his hair before following her out, glancing at the stairs.
The hallway was dark, long, and narrow, made more restrictive by the console tables along the left side that stuck out and forced them to walk almost against the right wall. Candelabras held half-melted, unlit candles on each one. The surfaces were dusty like everything else. To liven the gloom, faded portraits of grim-faced men, women, and children hung above the tables.
“Do you live alone?” he asked, following the outline of the woman and the tap, tap, tap of her staff.
“I do not have many needs,” she answered, turning right down another hallway.
This corridor was a tad brighter and wider, with candles burning in half of the wall sconces. The woman’s staff became muffled by the rug going the length of the corridor, woven with floral patterns in green thread.
On the left wall, two candles illuminated a landscape painting. A king prayed at the altar in a church, a single candle flame lighting the entire left side of the scene. At the far-right end, shrouded in darkness, was a queen crying before a depiction of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus.
The old woman paused without warning and the knight nearly ran into her. She half turned, staring at an empty wall. “Tell me, why are you traveling to Villaruiss?”
“There’s a new expedition to find the Holy Grail.”
She nodded like she expected the answer and resumed walking. “It’s always the same few things with men, isn’t it? What do you hope to gain by finding the Grail?”
Archambeau chose to let the comment pass. “I hope to make a name for myself. They say the Grail is in the Pyrenees mountains.”
On the right, they passed a closed door with light flickering under the sill.
At the end of the hallway, it widened on one side to accommodate two doors. On the right wall was a three-pointed arched window showing the yard, an unbroken section of fence, and the hill. Immediately to his right hung another painting, so faded from the sun that all he could make out was a boulder and a river.
The blind woman entered the door on the right, and Archambeau trailed after her into a vast and empty dining hall close to forty feet deep. Her staff made the satisfying tapping on the stone floor again.
A bird flew past the large hole in the slanted roof. The rafters were split, and the cracks in the beams were large enough to see from the floor. Cobwebs wrapped tight around them like the spiders were trying to keep the roof from collapsing. A clutch of spider eggs decorated one beam. A fireplace shared the left-hand wall with a sitting room. A chill blew into the room from the rusting metal windows with chipped glass panes.
The debris from the hole had long ago been swept against the far wall. Above the pile hung a tapestry of a faded man on his deathbed, holding his hands out, palms upward, as he addressed those surrounding him, whom Archambeau took to be his wife, children, and grandchildren.
A dining room table sat in the center of the room, right below the hole. Crafted from dark walnut wood, it seated six. A clean red table runner fell nearly to the floor on each side. Sunlight shone on a three-tiered gold cake tray. Each tier was full of pies the size of a man’s hand.
The pies looked appetizing, though the roof was a concern. But it was the tapestry that drew Archambeau’s eye, and his feet obediently followed. The colors were still vibrant despite the piece’s age. The grandchildren were crestfallen, and sadness tinged the wife’s face, and though he was dying, a smile was on the man’s lips.
“This seems a morbid scene to hang in a dining hall.”
The woman, who stood by one of the chairs, tilted her head. “It is a joyful scene; a man’s family is with him in his final minutes on this Earth. It is a moment to cherish, and a reminder that life is short, so eat with those you love while you can.”
Archambeau looked at the tapestry again and found himself agreeing. “Was he a family member?” he asked, stomach rumbling.
The old woman plucked a pie from the platter. “He was a friend.” She held the pie out to him. “For you.”
The pie was still warm to the touch and smelled of blackberries and sugar. “My thanks. Did you bake these?”
“I did.”
The old woman lived alone, but someone had to visit the manor to deliver the flour and sugar for the pies, along with the rest of the supplies she needed to live. The young lady was the obvious answer, yet the old woman had said she didn’t live here, and Archambeau believed her.
“I may have added too much sugar.”
Salivating from the smell, he took a big bite. Though the dough was dry, the blackberry filling was deliciously tart. A spurt of filling broke free of the crust and hit his nose. Wiping it off and licking his finger, he took a second bite. That was when he discovered the pie contained a surprise within the filling: His tongue rubbed against something metal and circular. Tucking it in a cheek, he swallowed the filling and then spat out a ring into his hand.
“Marvelous! You found the ring,” the blind lady proclaimed. “It’s traditional for one Michaelmas pie to be baked with a ring placed in it; whoever finds the ring will marry soon.”
“But you gave me this pie,” said Archambeau. He held the pie up, forgetting she couldn’t see, then pretended he hadn’t done that, forgetting again.
“I never said there wasn’t any trickery involved,” she countered as he took a third bite. “A young man such as yourself should be married by now. Especially knights: They all need a woman to look after them.”
He would not be surprised if this was a ploy for him to marry the maiden, who was surely the lady’s daughter.
“I’ve never heard of this tradition,” he said around the pie in his mouth.
“Do not talk with your mouth full. The tradition comes from Ireland. The women there have baked pies for centuries and will continue to bake pies for centuries more.”
Archambeau finished off the pie, the final bite as delectable as the first. He walked past the blind woman, brushing the crumbs off his hands, and she sighed at the mess he was leaving on the floor. He was unaware.
He sucked the ring clean, dried it on his tunic, and held it up to the light between his thumb and forefinger: It was a plain band of iron too small for any of his fingers. If the tradition was to be believed, one girl came to mind: Alice from Ains, the town he had grown up in. He wasn’t sure he wanted to marry her. She wasn’t the kind of woman to marry a knight without any land, a knight forced to travel around the kingdom seeking tournaments and mercenary work.
“I’ll marry, then?” He looked to the old woman for confirmation.
Still by the table, her hand was resting on one of the chairs. “If you learn some manners, yes, like how to eat without leaving crumbs. I do not need to see to know a knight will make a mess.”
“That’s hardly fair; you didn’t give me a plate.” The room wasn’t exactly clean either.
“You never asked for one.”
That hardly mattered! This was her domain to exercise her will unto it as she saw fit. If she wanted him to use a plate, she should have given him a plate or told him he could not eat without one. He went to say as much but held his tongue. As Master Guarin had instilled in him, a knight did not complain to a lady, however wrong she might be.
“I apologize. I should have asked for one. Thank you for the pie, and I meant no offense.”
Caught off guard, the blind woman raised an eyebrow. “I expected you to say something foolish. I accept your apology. This conversation was more fun on another path. You must be tired from your escapades today. You may sleep here for the night.”
“I won’t impose.” He slid the ring down the quillon of his sword. “I wish to make it to Villaruiss before the sun sets.”
“Nonsense. The hunt won’t start for two days yet. Stay here awhile. You’re the first company I’ve had in a year.”
He was a moment away from saying yes despite it all. “I can’t. I’ve delayed too long already.”
“Then I must ask one favor of you, Sir Archambeau. I believe a bird has nested in one of the upper rooms. If you could take it outside, I would appreciate it.”
Passing the staff to her other hand, she left the dining hall without waiting for an answer. The knight hurried after. The hallway was even darker than before as the candles began to burn out.
How did she know the hunt was starting in two days if he was the first company she’d had in a year? Then it struck him that he had yet to ask for her name, and he couldn’t be sure he had introduced himself, yet he must have since she knew his name.
“My apologies, I never asked for your name.”
“Tell me, Archambeau,” she said, “have you ever wondered what lies in your future?”
“I have not. Tomorrow is much like today, and today is like yesterday; at least that was true before I embarked for Villaruiss. In Ains, life was predictable, but now tomorrow is a mystery.”
“You’ll appreciate this, then.”
Confused by what she meant—the entire day had been confusing—they left the gloom of the hallway for the spacious entrance hall. Crossing it, they spiraled up the stairs, the wood slats protesting under the knight’s weight. He hoped the stairs wouldn’t give way beneath him.
The second floor further revealed the state of the manor’s decay, for at the end of the hallway, the roof had caved in. A nesting bird made sense now. Dark wood panels trimmed the bottom of the walls, and sconces hung from the bare timber frames, their candles lit. The hardwood flooring was scuffed from the many years of wear, and the rug which stretched across it had unwound itself at the corners. There were eight rooms, four on each side facing their opposites, and every door—planks of tan wood strapped together by metal braces—was shut.
“This is the room,” she said, pointing to the first room on the left.
Pushing the door open—