Desire Lines

by Elizabeth Kingston

  They ate in a silence that grew almost companionable as she watched him feed bits of his supper to her shamelessly groveling dog.

  “Will you take refreshment? Gladly will I ask my wife to provide a proper welcome.”

  The man named Elias stood just inside this well-furnished room of this large house, his clothes hanging off him, and spoke to Nan as though he could summon a feast with the snap of his fingers. But she had glimpsed the bareness of the house beyond this room, and the thinness of the young boy who had said Elias ben Joseph was his father and then brought them here.

  “Nay, there is only the message to deliver and then will we leave you,” she said, hoping it gave no offense. Her father always said the Jews had strange ways and she must be careful of them – not for fear of offending them, but because they might steal her away for dark purposes. From what she could see even as a child, though, they looked no different from everyone else in the town, save for the yellow badges they must wear. She reasoned they were like as anyone to be offended if their hospitality was rebuffed. “There is other business here in Lincoln we must attend before the day is done, and we cannot linger,” she explained. “But if you would not be alone with me, you may call your wife.”

  He did not register any surprise at her bluntness, but only shook his head and gestured at his son to come into the room. Then, with an apology, he closed the door on the Welshman who was left to stand alone in the little entry.

  She had come to Elias first because, of the people they sought in Lincoln, he was the only one she knew how to find with any certainty. But she had told the Welshman that the message she delivered was not for his ears, and he had not seemed to find it strange that she carried a secret message to a Jewish home.

  Now she sifted through the few papers in her leather wallet and found the one marked with Elias’ name. Truly, she only recognized the E at the beginning, but that was still a wonder to her. She wasn’t nearly as accomplished as Aunt Mary thought, but she had learned to recognize some letters, if not whole words. She handed the paper to him and waited as he read it. She did not know what it said, but she could guess.

  He took a long time to look at it. The color had left his face long before he finished it.

  “There is more that is not written here?”

  She nodded, and summoned up the words Sir Gerald had given her.

  “I am to tell you that the king is like to do in England as was lately done in Gascony. For your safety and prosperity it is best to leave of your own accord, while it is still possible. And if you will come away, you have the protection of the lord of Darian as far as he is able to give it, even unto Basel.” She twisted her fingers together, trying to remember all the words. “When the wine is next delivered, then may your family join the baggage train on its retreat, and have safe passage over land and sea. And...and that is the end of the message, though there be plainer words I am to give if they be needed.”

  Nan knew that Sir Gerald had meant for Elias’s wife to be shielded from these more straightforward words, but she thought perhaps the child should not hear it either. The boy had stepped closer to Elias and held his hand now, staring at Nan with solemn eyes.

  “Plainer words.” Elias looked something between angry and frightened. “What are these plain words? That I am to abandon my home and my friends only for a rumor?” When Nan looked doubtfully at the boy, Elias urged her on. “My son is not shielded from these matters. Speak the message.”

  Nan looked at the way the boy’s collarbone jutted out, and closed her eyes to recite. “The king has no more use for Jewish money now that Italian bankers serve him just as well, and as Christians. Remember you well the sorrows of your past, for they are like to be the sorrows of your future, do you stay. These words are kindly meant.”

  She looked away from the man and his son, and reminded herself she would not be playing messenger if Sir Gerald had not been injured, and the fault for that was her own. She worried that such weighty words would be dismissed because they came from an ignorant girl and not a knight of Morency. But it could not be helped, and at least she knew something of these past sorrows that threatened to return.

  She had lived the first ten years of her life around Lincoln, though only rarely visiting the town itself, and grew up with the story of the eighteen Jews who were hanged because it was said they conspired to kill a Christian boy. Her father had believed in their guilt, but her mother and Aunt Mary had called him wrong. And she remembered when every Jew in England was arrested for coin-clipping – she had been working for the weaver, who lamented that such an unnecessary measure interrupted his trade.

  “That great cathedral,” said Elias, his voice bitter as he looked out the window. “When the earth shook its walls to dust, my grandfather gave money to help rebuild it, and knowledge too. The windows and the carvings – there is such decoration in it as shows my people were not always so reviled. And my grandfather’s grandfather laid the stone for this house that I am told I must flee.”

  Nan nearly always kept her thoughts to herself, and easily, but it was an effort now to bite her tongue against saying he might sell this house and feed his son, and that he was a fool not to. Pride could not be eaten. It was none of her affair, though. This was the business and council of great lords, and she was only an accidental messenger.

  “This is the message you send back with me?” she asked.

  “Nay, I...” He looked down at his son, his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Give him my thanks. You may tell him I have heard his warnings and will consider his counsel.”

  She nodded, glad of the simplicity of it, and moved to the door. The Welshman waited patiently, the falcon’s cage on his back and covered by his cloak. She should have agreed to refreshment for his sake, she realized belatedly. But he looked eager to be gone from here. He inquired of Elias of the friend he sought, a falconer who would have come from Lancaster five years ago, he said.

  It was the first she had heard his voice since yesterday. Gone was his easy conversation with Fuss or his idle observations on the weather or landscape as they walked. She missed it. His silence and careful distance made her more aware of him every minute. His eyes never turned to her, and yet still she felt scorched by his look.

  But they would part soon, and she would grow used to silence again.

  It had been her intention to ask Elias where to find her sister, but in the end she did not. He said he knew the falconer they sought, a very good man, well-regarded by all. She did not want to ask him where to find a common whore who shared Nan’s looks. Not in front of his son, in this house his grandfather’s grandfather had built.

  They took their leave of him, following his instruction to climb the street past the cathedral and then follow the lane behind the castle. They would find the falconer near the west gate. She watched the Welshman walk with ease up the steep street. He was strong now. There was no more need to journey at a slower pace and rest often, nor keep away from busy roads and crowded inns for his peace of mind. He flinched less and slept more. He was easier among people now.

  He was recovered – not entirely, but enough that it would not pain her to leave him.

  They reached the great cathedral and stopped to look at its grandeur. Seeing it from the road this morning had caused memories to rush in, the distant days of her girlhood when they would work in fields close enough to see it etched on the horizon. Bea had begged to come here when their mother was dying, sure their prayers would fly to God faster if said in such a place. Even from the outside, it seemed to soar straight into heaven. Though Nan had since seen many great castles and manors and churches, there still was nothing else like it.

  “Will we go in?” The question slipped out of her, to her own surprise. “To give thanks for a safe journey. And it’s a sight to behold, though you’ve seen such sights before, to be sure.”

  The Welshman blinked at her. He had been staring at the immense size of it, at the many pilgrims milling about, and the merchants ha
wking medals and trinkets.

  “Never have I seen anything like this,” he answered, looking again at the expanse of stone, his eyes following the spires up into the sky.

  To think that he, who was so worldly, had never seen such a magnificent thing. It made her feel suddenly like she possessed a great wealth. It was different than the other things she had given him – food and shelter, her protection and her words. Those were given because they were necessary for his survival, but this could be given only for joy.

  She signaled to the Welshman that he should go ahead of her toward the cathedral. Some in the crowd cast a curious eye at the lump of the falcon’s cage still beneath his cloak, and she meant to safeguard it from any mischief. Near the great arched door, she signaled Fuss to stay outside to wait, and they stepped inside.

  It was only a few steps until the nave opened up before them, and she could not help but raise her eyes to it. They called it a ceiling but as a child she was sure it was heaven itself, the way it went on forever, the columns reaching up to meet graceful arches. Even now she was sure it was more than just mortar and stone and clever design, because to look at it made her spirit lift up and out of her. She could feel it leave her body and join the upward sweep of light. It made her feel tiny and mortal, and perfect and endless, all at once. It stole her breath away.

  This was how she knew men were liars or fools when they called her beautiful – because this was beauty. This.

  She only let herself look for the length of a long breath, before eagerly turning to watch the Welshman take it in. But to her amazement he was not looking up. He was still studying the carvings behind her. The enormous black stone font apparently fascinated him. She stepped close and he did not even notice, so she put a hand to his arm to draw his attention. He looked at her, startled, and she glanced at the nave, then back toward him.

  His eyes followed her glance, and she watched his breath stop. He looked as she must, every time his falcon flew up into the endless heavens. Every time he murmured lovingly to it when it returned to him. Every time he stroked a fingertip through its feathers, a miracle of nature held easily on his wrist, looking at him from ancient eyes and trusting him above all else.

  Now his face turned up so far that the dark hair fell away from the scar by his ear, exposing the patch of shiny skin. His features were a little like the falcon’s – dark eyes under a heavy brow and sharp cheekbones – but his full mouth was a soft contradiction to that. It turned up naturally at the corners, giving him an air of good humor. Now his lips parted as he stared in awe, and the air rushed out of him in a soft sigh.

  He stepped forward, still looking up, dazed by the sight, into a pool of color caused by the daylight coming through stained glass.

  “It is more beautiful than I could have dreamed,” he said.

  “Aye, it is,” she said softly. Unnecessary words. “It is beautiful.”

  She blinked, and turned her face away from him and back up to the soaring heavens.

  They made their way slowly around the nave, following in the wake of a sea of pilgrims, and said their prayers of thanksgiving. Soon after, they left and found the lane that led around the castle and toward the west gate, where lived the falconer.

  At the Welshman’s bidding, a boy outside the mews ran in to call his master. The man who emerged was handsome, with rugged features and deep brown skin, and dressed so well he might easily be a lord. Nan suppressed her urge to bend her knee in courtesy and offer to fetch him ale.

  He did not even see her. He only saw the Welshman and stopped dead, staring at him.

  “Gryff?” He said it like it was an unthinkable word. He looked the Welshman up and down, and his eyes filled. “Do I dream?”

  The Welshman stepped forward and put a hand to his shoulder, then embraced him like a brother.

  “Hal,” he said, his voice choked with happy tears.

  He kissed the falconer’s cheek as they gripped each other, crying and laughing, rejoicing to find one another.

  It was such a sight that Nan felt her own eyes prick with tears, overwhelmed by too much beauty in one afternoon.

  1283

  He stood, dazed and despairing, in a corner of the hawk-house with Hal’s father. Moris Hartwin had become like a true father to him over the years, and seemed perfectly pleased to treat Gryff like his own son. It was he who had heard the ominous whispers between lords as they hunted that morning and repeated them now to Gryff.

  “It can only bode ill.” Gryff had said it at least a dozen times now. Every debate and every imagining – every path came back to this. “To hope it is for my safekeeping is senseless.”

  Prince Llewellyn was dead. Gryff had learned it two weeks ago and was still surprised at how it grieved him. The prince had been such a large and looming figure in his life, and now he was no more. But the uprising did not end with Llewellyn’s death. The fight against England continued and, predictably, some of the Welsh nobles began to turn on each other now that hope was fading. They traded their loyalty away to the king for English titles and promises of continued wealth.

  Those few Welsh who stayed true to the fight followed Llewellyn’s brother Dafydd now. Gryff had sent yet another message to his father and brothers, warning them that the king’s wrath would be unlike any they had yet known if they dared to follow Dafydd. He had begged them to see the sense in making peace now while the king might still reward them for it. If they waited too long and fought to the bitter end, they would hang.

  His only reply was the news yesterday that his father led a fresh attack on the king’s army.

  And today Gryff learned through whispers that he was to be taken from Lancaster’s household at last, to be carried for reasons unknown to an unnamed place. It filled his mind with dark portents.

  “Know you what Edward intends for Llewellyn’s daughter?” he asked Moris. “Will has said the king is resolved that she will never marry nor live free. She is a babe in arms, born only months ago and damned because of her father. Already they plan prisons for the sons of any Welshmen who have led the fight against Edward. The fathers will hang and their children be made captive for life.”

  Moris rubbed a hand over his face. He had begun to look old in this last year.

  “We cannot know any of it for truth. It is yet only rumor and intention.”

  In better times, Gryff would have laughed at this optimism. Now he only pulled his cloak tighter around himself, shivering in the January freeze. Hal often said that his father was too good, always expecting reason and justice.

  “When they come for me, then will we know it as truth.”

  “Cannot William discover what is planned for you?”

  Will was at court, and if he knew anything he would never trust such intelligence to a letter – if he would share it at all. Of late Will had grown closemouthed and even more cunning. He valued his place at court and in the king’s trust highly. Mayhap more highly than any friendship.

  “Did he know of it and wish to warn me, he would have done it already,” Gryff answered, feeling his heart sink further. It was the first time he admitted to himself that he did not feel sure of Will, who was no longer a lonely boy hoping to make a friend. Will was in line be a great Marcher lord and, as such, would be nearly as powerful as the king himself. Now more than ever, as powers shifted, a Marcher lord could not be trusted to stay loyal to a powerless friend.

  “They say the king speaks of such bloody vengeance against the Welsh that any who think to defy him will quake in terror. If I am suspect–”

  “But you are not!” Moris was insistent.

  This much was true. Gryff had spent nearly a year in demonstrating that his loyalty was to Edward and not to Wales.

  “My blood is suspect,” he said bluntly. There was no hope that the king would forget that he was Welsh, and that his father was even now laying siege to a Norman castle. Gryff had to admit it was a most efficient way to end all resistance to Edward’s rule: stamp out the bloodline of ever
y man who fought against it. “I tell you true, if I knew a way to escape these walls, I would fly far from here. I would flee to somewhere safe, though I know not where that might be.”

  “Haps you should,” came Moris’s unexpected reply. “If it is your life in the balance, you should.”

  Gryff blinked at him, this man who cared for him like a father and who rarely spoke with such a dire tone. To flee was unthinkable, an irrevocable decision that would likely damn him in the king’s eyes. Before he could say so, there was a noise, the sound of someone entering at the far end of the hawk-house.

  “Say nothing to Hal of this.” Moris spoke low and urgent. “He can say in truth he knew naught, do you choose to flee.”

  It seemed absurd even to think it. He would have said something to Hal despite Moris’s warning, but he did not want to burden his friend with so much grim news. It was easier to curse the cold and talk about which birds should be flown on tomorrow’s hunt. It was easier to forget that no matter what he might choose, his days here were numbered.

  Gryff spent every moment of that day expecting the king’s men to carry him away and, now that the seed of the idea was planted, he passed a sleepless night considering the possibility of fleeing. To France, perhaps, or further. First he would have to find a way to escape this fortress filled with men loyal to the king, and that was a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

  But then he realized it might not be so difficult. He had lived here for so long and was such a part of the household that he had all but forgotten, until recently, that he was a hostage. And everyone else here, including the household guard, had grown just as relaxed in their attitude toward him. Still he thought of no way it could be done. Outside these walls the only people he knew were his Welsh kin, and to go to them was certain death. He had no horse, no coin, no place to go.

  In the morning, it all seemed like the most desperate kind of fantasy. He put it out of his mind and tried instead to dismiss the growing dread. He tried to tell himself that there was no noose tightening around his neck, that the king would let him live in peace and free once the war was done.