The Burning Time Read Online Free
stay and oversee the unloading of the Bishop’s wardrobe trunks, and promising he would rendezvous with his new master at the Wexford Inn, Father Brendan Canice had remained a discreet distance behind, boarding the third dinghy. So Bishop Richard de Ledrede never saw his tutor and aide step ashore, half-kneel as if to re-lace his boot, and swiftly, discreetly, kiss the blessed soil of Eire.
II
THE RIGHT TO A WINDOW
DAME ALYCE KYTELER ignored the silver snuffer on her bedside table, pinched out the candle flame between calloused fingertips, and slid in under her goosedown coverlet. Slowly, the Lady of Kyteler Castle stretched her left leg over to one edge of the big bed and her right leg over to the other, encountering no obstacles in either direction. She wiggled her toes, cooing small warbles of delight. What
bliss
to sleep alone, after all the husbands. No elbow to intrude into her ribs, no sag to upset the balance of the sweetgrass reed mattress, no icy feet pressed against her calves, no grunts and snores rupturing her sleep.
The bed curtains were drawn back, so Alyce could lean against her goosefeather-stuffed cushions and look out through the narrow window in her turret bedroom. Sir John le Poer considered his wife quite mad for, among other things, having chosen to sleep in a room with a window. Sensible persons, he insisted, knew perfectly well that night air brought evil humours and disease, excellent reason for nothaving windows. Castle windows, John had more than once lectured her, existed solely for military purposes—as sentinel lookouts, and, if besieged, for aiming crossbows and lobbing arrows through. In response, Alyce had shrugged that military purposes were boring and that fresh air was good for you. Besides, the window was small enough, barely a slit, although during the weeks of Mí na Nollag—particularly near the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year—even this slit of a window provoked gusty dreams, and that despite the tapestry she had hung to cover it during the cold months. How splendid it would be, she thought, hoisting herself up on one elbow, to work a magick beyond her own considerable powers and create an invisible panel or wall that might keep out the cold yet let in the view. Or, failing that, she thought more practically, persuade the Cathedral masons to divulge their secret for forging those leaded, rigid, colour tapestries set high in church walls, tapestries through which the light glowed. Not that a glimpse of the star-jeweled night sky through her own window wasn’t worth a frosty draft or two.…
But at present none of that mattered, anyway. It was the month of Júil. She could lie back down in the warm summer darkness and watch the sliver of a new moon glowing through cloud wisps in a celestial game of hide-and-seek. No chilly drafts—and no complaints from John. Savoring the pure luxury of it, she stretched again, gurgling a low laugh of pleasure.
The young moon would be big-bellied and full in time for the coming holy-day, a happy coincidence to make the next sabbat even more distinctive than it already was: the Festival of Grains and First Fruits that the Druids had named Lugnasad, now also called Lammas. Lugnasad, one of the four great Cross Quarter Days of the year, was only a little more than three weeks away, in fact—a realization that jolted Alyce to start mentally listing all the work yet to be done. Pear and ash wood to be cut and dried for the bonfire, new candles to be dipped, chervil seed and pennyroyal to be pounded for incense, kirn dollies to be braided, crescent cakes to be baked from the thousand-year-old recipe … and all this in addition to the normal round of seasonal tasks: the first of the summer crops to be harvested, the fresh catch from the River Nore to be salted and dried, the—
Alyce sat up with a start as Prickeare, her plump but distinguished elderly cat, landed on the bed with a thud. Prickeare, whose charcoal grey coat was so
II
THE RIGHT TO A WINDOW
DAME ALYCE KYTELER ignored the silver snuffer on her bedside table, pinched out the candle flame between calloused fingertips, and slid in under her goosedown coverlet. Slowly, the Lady of Kyteler Castle stretched her left leg over to one edge of the big bed and her right leg over to the other, encountering no obstacles in either direction. She wiggled her toes, cooing small warbles of delight. What
bliss
to sleep alone, after all the husbands. No elbow to intrude into her ribs, no sag to upset the balance of the sweetgrass reed mattress, no icy feet pressed against her calves, no grunts and snores rupturing her sleep.
The bed curtains were drawn back, so Alyce could lean against her goosefeather-stuffed cushions and look out through the narrow window in her turret bedroom. Sir John le Poer considered his wife quite mad for, among other things, having chosen to sleep in a room with a window. Sensible persons, he insisted, knew perfectly well that night air brought evil humours and disease, excellent reason for nothaving windows. Castle windows, John had more than once lectured her, existed solely for military purposes—as sentinel lookouts, and, if besieged, for aiming crossbows and lobbing arrows through. In response, Alyce had shrugged that military purposes were boring and that fresh air was good for you. Besides, the window was small enough, barely a slit, although during the weeks of Mí na Nollag—particularly near the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year—even this slit of a window provoked gusty dreams, and that despite the tapestry she had hung to cover it during the cold months. How splendid it would be, she thought, hoisting herself up on one elbow, to work a magick beyond her own considerable powers and create an invisible panel or wall that might keep out the cold yet let in the view. Or, failing that, she thought more practically, persuade the Cathedral masons to divulge their secret for forging those leaded, rigid, colour tapestries set high in church walls, tapestries through which the light glowed. Not that a glimpse of the star-jeweled night sky through her own window wasn’t worth a frosty draft or two.…
But at present none of that mattered, anyway. It was the month of Júil. She could lie back down in the warm summer darkness and watch the sliver of a new moon glowing through cloud wisps in a celestial game of hide-and-seek. No chilly drafts—and no complaints from John. Savoring the pure luxury of it, she stretched again, gurgling a low laugh of pleasure.
The young moon would be big-bellied and full in time for the coming holy-day, a happy coincidence to make the next sabbat even more distinctive than it already was: the Festival of Grains and First Fruits that the Druids had named Lugnasad, now also called Lammas. Lugnasad, one of the four great Cross Quarter Days of the year, was only a little more than three weeks away, in fact—a realization that jolted Alyce to start mentally listing all the work yet to be done. Pear and ash wood to be cut and dried for the bonfire, new candles to be dipped, chervil seed and pennyroyal to be pounded for incense, kirn dollies to be braided, crescent cakes to be baked from the thousand-year-old recipe … and all this in addition to the normal round of seasonal tasks: the first of the summer crops to be harvested, the fresh catch from the River Nore to be salted and dried, the—
Alyce sat up with a start as Prickeare, her plump but distinguished elderly cat, landed on the bed with a thud. Prickeare, whose charcoal grey coat was so
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