Keturah and Lord Death

Beatrice nodded and sighed deeply. “They say in countries across the sea that women sing in public. But here, of course, it is impossible.”

I nodded. “There would be a scandal.”

Beatrice took another deep breath and stared down the door. “Surely if a woman can cook for the king and a woman can sew to please the king, a woman can sing for the king.”

“Like Tamara in the Bible, Beatrice,” Gretta said, “sometimes a girl has to take extraordinary measures. That Keturah could find these clothes is proof that all is according to plan.”

Beatrice seemed to contemplate the sinfulness of it all, but gradually her face filled with rapture. She drew her hands together as if she might pray.

“Yes, I see,” she said in a tone that allowed me to hear the music in her voice. “It is all very clear now. We have had a miracle.”

Face flushed, she ran out the door to choir practice. Once, exhilarated perhaps to be free of the skirts she had worn her whole life, she turned and waved to us and smiled joyfully. I smiled too. Even Choirmaster could not stay gloomy with Beatrice around, and I felt encouraged that Lord Death would be cheated of the man’s soul if my plan worked.

Of course, there was still Tailor to worry over, but I had a plan for him as well.

Grandmother sent a message that she would spend the day with Goody Thompson, who would be bedridden for some time, and I made a potato and onion pie and then a raspberry pie while Gretta stitched. I wondered that though barrels of cobbles had been dumped in the square, no one yet had come to continue the work on the road. It made me taut as spun thread.

After a time there came a knock at the door. I jumped, and Gretta answered it.

It was Henry Bean, John Temsland’s constant companion. He bowed to me. “Mistress Keturah Reeve,” he said formally.

“You have known me since we were babies together, Henry,” I said. “Come in.”

“I am come on an errand from the young lord, John

Temsland. He is ready for the interview you have requested.” Henry stepped away from the doorway and bowed again, gesturing grandly. “If you will allow me to escort you.”

I remembered I had promised to return John s clothes, but they were at choir practice with Bill. There was no time.

I glanced back at Gretta, whose stitching had fallen into her lap. “I will be back shortly, Gretta,” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

I ignored Henry as I walked, thinking of how to tell John Temsland everything I must. In the middle of my musings I stopped, remembering suddenly the eye in my pocket.

I turned and waited for Henry to catch up with me. “Henry,” I said.

“Yes, Keturah?”

“Henry, you have become a man almost,” I said.

He smiled and puffed out his chest.

Could I love him? He was not handsome, but neither was he uncomely. He loved a good hunt and was not much for the fields. Still, it seemed he had become John Temsland’s man, and whoever married him might have something more than a little peasant cottage.

“I have been a man for some time,” he said proudly. “Why are you squinting at me?”

“Henry, could you love me?”

His mouth opened and shut with a snap. He took off his cap, ran his fingers through his hair, and put his cap back on. “Well, now, Keturah,” he said uncomfortably, “ ‘tis well known I have loved you since we played hide and seek as little ones together.”

“But grown-up love, Henry? If I could summon up a love for you, could you return it?”

“Well... yes, I suppose I could,” he stammered.

With great hope I touched the charm, but it was looking around, back and forth, up and down, more quickly than ever. I sighed. “Never mind, Henry. All is as it should be. A few days ago I didn’t need my one true love. Now I do, but you are not it. Nor will you ever be.”

I began walking again. Behind me, after a silence, Henry laughed a great laugh. “And pity the man who is,” he said, throwing his arm around my shoulder. “Keturah, you have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, and I don’t know which I like more.”

He led me to the manor and into John Temsland’s chamber.

“Mistress Keturah Reeve,” Henry said by way of introduction. After a bow to me, he left.

I stood just inside the entranceway of the chamber where John Temsland was looking through a window at his father’s lands and people.

“I am sorry, sir, but I do not have your clothes,” I began. It was best to tell him that first, I thought, before I spoke of the more important thing.

He seemed not to hear. He did not move or look at me when he said quietly, “The gossip is that when you leave a birthing, the mother dies.”

I answered nothing.

“When you stay and attend, the mother lives, even if she should have died,” he said.

“Who tells you this?” I asked.

“It is the talk of the whole village,” John said. “Goody Thompson says she saw you conversing with an invisible being—an angel, say some; Death, says she. Some say that is why the fairies stole you into the wood and why they brought you back alive.”

“Sir...

“John.”

“John, sir, if you are angry with me for the loss of your clothes, I can repay you in time. I will work in the kitchen—”

“You are welcome to the clothes, Keturah,” he said, “though why you needed them I ca

“I will, sir—John.”

“Keturah, I credit you with the grand idea of improving the village—building a road and freeing the mill of rats. Everyone credits you with the idea. And therein lies the problem.”

“Problem?”

“Yesterday, when they thought you had only been stolen by fairies, they found you alarming, shall we say. They fear the fairies and their wild-wood magic, and they were nervous of one who had supposedly communed with them.”

“I have seen no fairies, nor their enchanted halls,” I said.

John turned away from the window and smiled kindly. “I believe you,” he said. “But now this new tale—that is another thing altogether. No one has seen a fairy—’tis like there is no such thing. But all have seen Death’s handiwork, and they all hate him, down to a man. Now they fear you with a fear that begets hatred, Keturah. The air around you, they think, is infected with death. They despise you because you remind them of their own mortality. The sight of you bodes their own end.”

I looked at my feet.

“That leads me to the problem, Keturah. You see, because it was your idea to build the road, they will no longer do it. They—they believe that you are on Death’s errand.”

I looked up at him in alarm. “But it is just the opposite!” I cried.

He studied me a few moments and then gestured to a chair. “Sit, Keturah. You are trembling.”

Gratefully, I sat down. “Sir, I would tell you my story, but you would not believe me.”

“My name is John, and I will believe you, Keturah.” His eyes were full upon me. Every bit of him seemed willing to listen.

“But you don’t know me. How will you believe the tale I am about to tell?”

“I’ve known you for almost your whole life. I’ve listened to you tell stories around the common fire, and watched how even as a young girl you captivated your listeners.”

“But—but you were never there.”

“Ah, but I was. Hiding nearby, in the shadows where no one could see,” he said.

I remembered him as a young lad, always on the edge of village activities. He played football with the boys, but was not allowed to join in the festivities of the wi