Treatise on the Ethics of Vampires - two

two

The summer of my seventeenth year is easily the turning point of my life. Up until then, my existence consisted largely of helping both my mother and grandmother tend the village and gather herbs, barks, flowers or seeds, all depending on the season. It was this repetitive seasonal habit that one doesn't really notice until it's been interrupted.

My half-sister died from the Black Death. The cursed beast engulfed the countryside. More were stricken, than not. Even my beloved mother fell ill.

That damn bloody day, never will I forget it, though I would count my self blessed if I could. It was the eve of when my rotten half-sister perished. I say rotten, because she bartered with the local bully to torment me since we were both eight years old. From pushing me into the river in hopes I'd drown, or hidden up in a tree, pissing down on me. Gilly, singularly unpleasant, but still, I wouldn't wish her death. I tended to her, and gave her lettuce opium to dull her pain. Her husband sent me home, and that was the beginning of the end of my world.

I arrived in time to hear my mother speak to Grandmother Bet about finally arranging my marriage to my father's apprentice, who now ran the forge. “'Tis time she wed. He will settle her. Do you remember how I ran wild until I wed? Now that Ned is gone, she needs a man's influence in her life. She will be respected once she weds.”

“Aye, you were like a leaf upon the wind, Berengaria. But Lisbet likes not Montfort. Do not waste our girl upon that turd. You loved Neddie. There is no such affection between Lisbet and Monfort, I can promise you that. She needs to escape this town. To hear the so-called mothers of this village crow how Lisbet will give their spawn the pox or worse, oh, it angers me beyond reason. Lisbet deserves a better life, my dear.”

I did not like Crispin Montfort and his reptilian eyes. He was older than I, and liked to lord over any small children who crossed his path. Of course, when he was within ear or eye shot of my parents, he had hid that character defect, but I saw it first hand on more than one occasion. Once I saw him kick a cur puppy that had followed me on my way to Father's forge when I was twelve-- he held my gaze as he did so. I took the puppy to the Abbey, for the Fathers to pray over. Much to my surprise, the Abbot himself held the young dog in his hands when it breathed its last, done in by broken ribs that punctured the poor beast's lungs. After that day, I held Crispin in utter contempt and loathing.

I don't think I could have married the man and resist the urge to purge his choler with a daily herbal preparation, whether he wanted it or not, beginning on the wedding night.

I made my way to the table and sat down. Mother didn't look well, nor hadn't felt well for the past day, most likely due to exhaustion. We ate some wheaten bread topped with cheese, then Mother retired to bed.

That was the night she fell ill to the plague demon.

Grandmother Bet and I made her as comfortable as possible, though it seemed an exercise in futility. Her pained moans upset me greatly, and I do not know if I can convey the feeling of hopelessness and helplessness at watching my mother suffer.

I wandered over to the hearth and stared into the fire. So many had died, and while death is a natural part of life, being touched as many times as I had, it never stopped being a shock. I missed my father dearly; not more than two hours ago, my sister was delivered into Christ's arms and now my mother's life hung in God's Hands. I felt an arm wrap around me, breaking through my dark thoughts. I turned and hugged Grandmother Bet. She returned the hug, and sent me to fetch a pail of water from the well.

It was an escape for me, to remove myself from the walls that would soon have the rancid sickly-sweet stench of illness clinging to them. I picked up the pail and left the house. With a determined step, I walked down the flower-lined path of flagstone, to the gray-stone fence that sat waist high. I open the gate. The bolt stuck and I ended up slamming my thumb into the stone, bruising the nail bed and tearing the nail half off. With a curse, I dropped the pail and clenched the damaged finger in my other hand, thinking this must be my day of days. It bled profusely, and with my teeth, I bit the nail hanging off, wincing as I did so. With a sigh, I then tore a strip from my chemise to wrap around the injury.

The well sat in the village square that held the Wednesday market. It was a short walk from our cottage, and with the evening settling in, I could see all the twinkling stars the indigo night held. As I ambled down the main lane in Buckfast and past a mixture of stone houses and wattle and daub shacks, many thoughts swirled around my mind. Ginny's death, which led me to Father's death, in turn led to the possible marriage to Crispin, and now more ferocious than the others... my mother's potential demise. There was never a sigh heaved heavier than mine.

I stood at the well, constructed of slate and wood, looking up towards the heavens brightly lit by the early night's full moon. With all my soul, I prayed to the Virgin Mary and Lord Jesu and God Himself, to save my mother from the plague and to protect my grandmother from the demon as well. Berengaria of Buckfast was needed-- not just by me, but by all. Who didn't benefit from her knowledge with herbs? True, we had lost many to the cursed boil and cough, but some had been saved. And before that, she was at beck and call for any illness or injury, saving a great many from infection and putridity. She was needed by all. And I couldn't bear the thought of losing her. True, death comes to all. Yet...

Please, Lord. Please, My Lady. All the saints in the calendar pray with me...
Save her. Or give me the strength to carry onward.

A scuffle of dirt and gravel came from behind, startling me out of my reverie. One of my hands flattened over my heart, to keep it from bursting out my chest and the other clenched the bucket's hemp handle. I whirled around to face the intrusion. Revealed by moonlight, Rowan D' Morsang stood half-lit in the shadow of a great oak tree no more than ten feet away from me. He stood with hands held at his side, head cocked. The moon lit his sympathetic expression, and again I felt that rush of self-consciousness arise.

His melodious voice was as velvety as a lamb's ear leaf. “I wish to tender my sympathy to you about your sister's passing. I heard from the tavern keep that the wife of the miller passed, even with your good mother's tending this evening. The plague has taken many loved ones.” He handed me a soft square of linen. “Dry your eyes. You have plenty of time to grieve your loss. She is now out of pain's reach. She is safe in the care of Lord, the Christ.”

“Thank you.” I didn't have the heart to tell him my tears were for my mother, not my sister. Lost in thought, I never realized tears were streaming down my face. I knew naught what else to say as I studied him. His eyes shone brightly-green in the moonlight, and they held me entranced. This man made many maids and goodwives heart flutter, but he had eyes for none it was thought.

He smiled at me with perfect white teeth, the likes I never saw before. “You have quite a talent with herbs. You made that wonderful salve a few seasons back. I owe you far more than a packet of needles for such a treat. I detected a touch of lavender-- am I correct?”

I was taken aback that he remembered me or the salve traded for sewing bits. As gifts for Christ's Mass, my mother, grandmother and I all worked to make many little pots of it to hand out to all. He had gotten one of the surplus. I was flattered that the salve was a treat to him. “Again, I thank you,” and as an afterthought I added, “Yes, lavender. My mother keeps a special plant that she managed to breed from two separate types. Its... its her most beloved plant in the garden.” Removing one's gaze from those piercing eyes proved almost impossible.

“I mean no offense, but sometimes it helps to talk about one's feelings. I sense you have more on your mind than the passing of kin.” I jumped a little at his astute observation, and furrowed my brow. How did he know...? He must have read my expression and sought to reassure me with an answer. “I've always had a knack for understanding people, think nothing of it.” His demeanor felt friendly and genuinely concerned.

If there was a way to describe how his eyes felt on me, I would strive to do so. The closest I can liken it to is a sense of instantaneous trust and affection, which isn't something I would conjure up at the whim when it comes to strangers. He was different, hypnotic and alluring. I simply couldn't resist answering his unasked question.

“You know of my half-sister. My mother has now fallen ill after she returned from the miller's this eve and she would like me to wed a repulsive man for whom I have no liking or respect... who might have killed my father to gain the smithy.” I tried to keep a hopeful note in my voice, knowing it was a failed attempt at best. “I will do better than my best to save her.” Curse my chin for quivering. “And I can join a convent to avoid marriage to him.”

His brow furrowed. “Would you accept my assistance for your mother if I were to offer it?” Soft and tentative was his voice and it lulled me in an instant.

“Yes. If there is anything you can do to save her, I would be most thankful.” Desperation means grasping at any straw offered. He had seen the world outside this village and Abbey, perhaps there was something he knew that could help. Anything. To me, that was a rather large straw he offered.

He smiled that beatific grin at me. Again, my cheeks flamed a sun-burnt red in the summer moonlight. “Let's fetch the water and tend to your mother.”

Rowan got the water for me as I stood in a daze at this unexpected change of events. Every breath I took was filled with more hope than the one before. With bucket in hand, he asked me where to go.

I led him to the little stone cottage. My mother's herbs and flowers greeted us with their potent summer scent. The barn out back where the hens and cow lived seemed no larger than our house. My heart thumped wildly in my chest and blood thundered in my ears as I opened the stone wall's iron gate my father crafted for my mother as a wedding gift. I prayed to the Lord, and mere moments afterward here was a possible solution to save my mother with Rowan's help... Please Lord, thy will be done.

Grandmother Bet turned at the sound of us entering the house. Her eyes darted from his face to mine and back to him so I hastened to say, “He offered his assistance with Mother.”

Golden firelight flickered over her frame as she stood up from where she was squatting, poking the fire in the hearth. “I see.” She laid down the poker and addressed Rowan with her authoritative voice, fists resting on her hips. “Well, have you a suggestion to rid Berengaria of this demon or was it an excuse to dally and impress my granddaughter?” Her eyes were so dark a blue to appear black, and they could freeze water in August when the mood moved her, as it did now.

With grace, he told her, “I have more than a suggestion; a solution. Now my turn to ask a question. Have you a hogshead of vinegar?”

Instead of answering him, she turned to me and bade me to fetch a bucket of apple cider vinegar from the large barrel kept in the barn's store room. I walked off to attend that and he asked her to gather some penny royal, garlic and wormwood. As he spoke, she reached up and pinched off the requested herbs from bunches hanging from smoke-stained rafters.

I returned with the pungent apple cider as requested. Rowan now talked quietly in earnest with Grandmother, and she nodded a his words. His auburn head turned at my approach. Rowan took the bucket of vinegar from me, slopping it into the small empty pot hanging over the hearth. To it, he added the herbs. Then after reaching into a brown linen sack hanging off his belt, he possessed a handful of tiny white grains. Salt. More precious than gold, he added every grain of a king's ransom that rested in his large palm into the pot. For that, I fell in love with him. That he would generously use such a precious ingredient as salt on a perfect stranger was unheard of. He became my hero in that moment.

Rowan's concentration was focused on his brew. He brought it up to a boil and then removed it off the heat. Once it was blood-warm, he instructed Grandmother Bet to filter and bathe mother with the concoction. “If the boil appears, bathe the area in the brew, lance and bathe it again. Use the strained herbs as a poultice. Mix a dram of the brew with beer or wine and give it to her to drink, but only once a day.” All the while, Grandmother nodded along and I felt tired and useless.

“Girl,” my grandmother said. “One more bucket of water this night, and then seek your rest. I will tend your mother. You need your sleep so you can tend her in the morning.” With a royal flick of her wrist, she dismissed me to attend my last remaining parent. Rowan escorted me back to the well, as he headed back to his lodging by the river.

When we were out of earshot to Grandmother Bet, Rowan asked me “Is she always that fierce?”

I harrumphed. “Never have I known her not to be fierce. She will tell a woman in labor that it's useless to fight nature and to relax. Once she told my Da that he may be bigger than her, but she brought him into the world, she could just as easily take him out of it. Fierce doesn't describe her well enough. But bully does.”

His laugh tumbled past his smiling lips at my observation, and yet it didn't seem odd to me that he was laughing, and I minded not a whit. His amusement lightened my melancholy mood a wee bit, but it was an important bit nonetheless. Deep in my bones I knew my mother would die. After Father's death, she never regained her lighthearted happiness. Perhaps the peddler's brew would succeed where my mother and I could not. Perhaps she would heal. I walked along side Rowan, the sound of our feet crunching the ground below and the insect-song of night played in our ears.

At a loss for what to stay, I struggled to find a way to tell him I appreciated him helping, but would appreciate his help much more if it proved beneficial... his voice filled in the silence.

“I shall stop by tomorrow eve, if you like, to check on your mother.”

I nodded my acquiescence as we approached the well. Rowan bent to pick up the well's rope. I stopped him. “I am capable, but I thank you,” I wasn't helpless, far from it. Grandmother and Rowan took over the care of my mother, all the while I felt as useless as a cart with one wheel. I needed something to do to take my mind off this night, if only for a brief moment. “And I thank you for all you've done. You have my gratitude this night and another pot of that salve by tomorrow night.” I lowered my bucket into the well, half facing him.

“Again, young healer, a more than generous bargain.” With a bow more formal than I've ever seen before, he turned to go.

Perhaps it was the hauling of a water-filled bucket up twenty feet that gave me the fortitude to tell him as he walked away, “My name is Lisbet.”

Rowan paused mid-step, and with cat-like grace, turned around to look at me. “It is with great pleasure I make your acquaintance, Lisbet of Buckfast. I am Rowan Eleazar D'Morsang, and ever at your service.” With a regal incline to his head, he acknowledged when I replied it was a pleasure and made for his camp. Bucket sloshing in hand, I turned to go home. The scent of summer hung in the night air. The moon shone silver in the impossibly dark sky while stars glimmered with secrets as old as time.

And yet again, my concentration was broken as I heard Goodwife Ellisa call out from her open door, “Like your father, you are. Shameless, and at the well, too!” With the grace of a wet hen, she turned around and slammed the door shut.

I stood there for a moment, utterly dumbfounded by her actions before gathering my wits and made my way home. Iron seeped into my bones, and my gait grew clumsy. I wanted sleep, blessed sleep, anything to escape the reality of the past twenty-four hours. When I entered the little stone house crafted from river rock, Grandmother sat at the table. When she saw me, she patted the chair next to her, indicating it was discussion time.

Somehow I heaved a sigh without her notice as I made my way to the table. Rather than sit next to her, I chose the seat across so I could feel like her equal, unsheltered from the comfort her arms held. I sat silent as she began changing my life forever.

“I cannot lie to you my girl, your mother may not make it. Perhaps the peddler's brew will work, perhaps it will not. He said she might have already slipped past the point of no return. We need to plan for your future. Your mother wished you to wed Crispin – I know how you feel about that lout, but when she and I are both dead and gone, you will have stature and respect as the smithy's woman and as the healer and midwife. Give him children and your position is assured. That is as good a future one could have here.”

She paused for a moment, staring deep into my eyes before continuing, “I do not know what happened when I first sent you to fetch that water, but you have another offer for your hand. That handsome peddler you brought home offered to pay a bride price to wed you. His proposal is that with your healing skills and his traveling, you both can tend people far and wide. I do not know the man, but I don't think he can be any worse than Montfort. Truth be told, he seems much more likable. You'd see the world outside this village and heal those who need it with the herbed comforts you make. Your future wouldn't be certain, and if you were to conceive, your traveling days would be cut short. And this house wouldn't be yours, as it'd belong to the blacksmith and his wife.” She reached across the table and held my hands in her paper-skinned ones. “I leave the choice to you. Think on it. D'Morsang will return tomorrow eve to check Berengaria’s progress. Depending on how she does, will determine whether he wants your answer. He does this to protect you, he told me. Taking you away from here will help you to heal from your father's, sister's and mother's passing. You are ripe for adventure my dear. Question is, do you want that adventure with a loathsome, cabbage crawling slug living in Buckfast or do you prefer the complete unknown where your mind will focus on what is going on in the now instead of what happened back then?” She chuckled and momentarily tightened her grasp on my hands before releasing them. “He didn't tell you any of this? You look like you swallowed a live eel.”

Stunned. Silence shocked me as the realization hit. Not that Rowan asked for my hand, although that was completely unexpected, but that she wanted me to go off with him. I could tell by the way she described my choices for adventure. As I sat and thought on it, I realized I'd have a new life. No one would shun me when I wasn't needed because of my cursed natal day or my father's wandering eye. No one would know. And I could do true good, helping those with my panacea. Plus this would surely save Crispin Montfort's life, as I wouldn't be tempted to keep him subdued by sly use of herbs. Marriage to him meant the marriage bed... I had attended enough birthings to know how a child is conceived, and I did not want to ever do that act with Crispin. Everything about him repulsed me.

Unlike Rowan.

There was no choice. Although the thought churned my stomach, if my mother were to perish like many before her, I would escape my past. Yearly I could travel through Buckfast and visit with Grandmother Bet. My eyes closed as I tried to focus my thoughts. With a deep breath I told her that I already made up my mind.

With an indulgent smile she replied, “I know. But do take time to think about it. Security or uncertainty. Your future isn't something that should be taken lightly.” Gently she reached out and tilted my face towards hers. “Sleep in the barn loft tonight. I will tend your mother. You need rest, child.” Her familiar arms and scent wrapped around me and I felt the first wrenching sobs escape past my lips and tears well up to cloud my vision as tiredness overwhelmed me. “Come now.” A blanket was draped over one arm. “Fresh, sweet hay and a lavender scented blanket. That's a sure cure for you, my girl.” She led me outside and around Mother's carefully lined herb beds and flower gardens. Enit the cow loowed at us in greeting as we approached the open-faced barn. Grandmother slung the folded blanket onto my shoulder, kissed my forehead and pushed me towards the ladder. “I love you, Lisbet. When God closes one door, He usually opens another.”

“I love you too.” A massive yawn engulfed my head as I climbed up to the loft. We stored fresh hay there. I chose the biggest pile and spread the blanket upon it before nestling down. Faster than I thought possible, sleep conquered my busy mind and I knew peace, for a little bit.

The dreams that besieged me that night still haunt me to this day. In his painted wagon, Rowan and I traveled the countryside, seeking out the ill and dying to cure with his tincture and my traveling pharmacea. We roamed across England, verdant and calm. Populating this world were rotting bodies, corpses floating and fouling in all waterways. There were children, women, men. Some hung out windows, clothing in tatters, or were crumpled in a heap in a doorway. The stench was overwhelming. Bodies nestled on tree branches, or hanged from them. One could not help but to view death at every turn. Everywhere he and I went, death followed, but never subdued us. To calm me, Rowan used his intense green eyes to banish my fear, and I felt like a lamb led to slaughter as I trusted blindly in a man I didn't know.