RAMPION IN THE BELLTOWER by Merrie Haskell page 4/8
When Rampion returned to the clavier room, the grandfather said, "Ramp, perhaps it is time we shared our secrets."
He startled her, but her voice was steady when she asked, "What do you think I'm keeping secret?"
He took a breath and asked. "What lies between you and the prince?"
She said, blushing in a way that belied her answer, "There's nothing! I've only ever seen him on the quarter-days, when he comes to pay your stipend and inspect the bells."
"Have you ever been alone with him?"
"No," she said, and again her voice did not waver. "Well, not more than the time it takes to greet him at the bottom of the stairs and climb here with him. Or, did you think all the times we arrived out of breath meant something sinister?"
He laughed, and her eyes narrowed. "Don't worry," she said. "I've kept myself chaste, and now I will die chaste. But you'll forgive me if I do not, right now, see the value in it."
He laughed again, but said immediately, "Forgive me. You have learned to speak the unvarnished truth. It puts me in mind of your grandmother."
"Hmph." It was not like him to laugh at her; usually he listened to anything she said with respect. It worried her, and she wondered what changed him more, starvation or witnessing the horrors of the blood-death. "So," she said. "You thought I was the prince's mistress, did you?"
"You would not be the first young girl of the city to be seduced by a prince. The prince's grandfather had a hundred by-blows."
She shook her head. "It cannot be easy to raise a royal bastard. It would never be my choice. And I would never leave the campanile. Not for Simen the Butcher, not for Gilpin the Prince." She spoke fiercely, but her eyes were moist.
"There's nothing, Grandpa. Just a lot of wishing on my part. He is so kind; when I go down to let him into the tower, we talk for a moment before climbing up. He seems to be interested in what I have to say."
"About the bells?"
"About the bells, your health, what I hear at the well, the places I saw when I traveled with Mother and Father."
"So you remember somewhat about your father, then?"
This startled her, for they never spoke of her father. "I remember somewhat, yes. I remember his eyes were narrow like mine, and dark. And I remember his voice, and the way he made Mother laugh. I remember the steppes where we lived, and how he loved them, and the ki-yee cries of the sakret falcons he called to him." She stopped abruptly when the stork entered from the west parapet. "Our visitor returns."
"Leave her be, Ramp."
She stared at the bird a moment, half-convinced the bird was here to see her, then looked away. "I'll try not to mind. Now, it is time for you to divulge your secret."
To Rampion's surprise, the stork stepped towards her grandfather, staring at him like he was a fish it wished to catch. Her grandfather appeared frozen, staring back at the bird. "Come now," Rampion said. "I told you truth so sharp it cut me as it left my mouth."
Her grandfather looked away from the bird and shook himself. "Have you ever..." He began, and the stork drew closer, her body drawn up tight as though getting ready to peck him. He said quickly, "I believe this stork is your mother, sent from Heaven to be with us in this trying time."
The stork flew into the rafters. Rampion looked from her grandfather to the stork, who clack-clacked at her once before tucking her head under a wing to rest. She turned back to the old man, took up the edge of her sleeve to wipe the sweat gently from his face, and said, "I do not think you have slept in many days."
"I've napped, here and there."
"Tonight, I'm putting you on your pallet again. You must sleep."
He shook his head, but asked instead, "How many days since the water ran out?"
"Yesterday morning. Do you not remember?"
"Two mornings more, then," he murmured, and her heart paused.
"Are we going to die then?" she asked in a tiny voice.
He turned his fierce light eyes on her, cupped her cheek in his tough old hand, and said, "You've been a good apprentice to me, sweetheart. And I have been a selfish old man. I never meant to trap you in this tower. Your mother..." He looked to the rafters.
"My mother is not a stork," Rampion said fiercely.
"Peace, Ramp. Peace. Before she died, she told me..."
"Told you what?"
"Never mind," he said. "I think, perhaps I could nap for a bit."
She moved him to the pallet, and he slept within moments.
Rampion went to the eastern parapet and stared for a long time at the city gate.
She knew what her mother had told him.
She was a witch, just like her mother. Just like her father, too. She was a witch, to be harrowed and hunted. The promise of a life of peace in the belltower was a beautiful lie, shattered not by the plague alone, but also by what she was at her core. Witch. Enchantress. Sorceress. Devil's consort.
She knelt on the stone of the parapet, hands clasped, and prayed. She prayed for a cool breeze, for water, for an end to the plague, for the arrival of Gilpin, for her own soul. Only when she slid, prostrate, to the flagstones did her mind quiet. For a moment, in the space between waking dread and sleeping peace, she thought she felt the prince's gentle hands on her waist, his loving voice in her ear. Even as she slept, she knew it was a dream.
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