They must keep a constant look-out, there’d have to be signals and escape routes.
Upstairs in the solar Matilda was also taking a bath. She had commanded a tub and buckets of hot water be carried up so that she would not have to leave Adeliza who lay in her bed in a drugged sleep, periodically still shuddering with rasps of whispered screams. The Wealy woman, Epona, had turned up that morning from wherever the Wealas had disappeared to, taken one look at Adeliza and produced a small bottle of St. Gregory’s cordial, giving her some drops on a spoon and bringing peace after a night that had drained Matilda of all strength. The calm presence of the huge blonde was comforting.
There was a knock on the door. Epona opened it and Matilda heard the voice of Badda asking if she could have some of Sigward’s clothes for the mercenary “so’s we can wash hisn”. Epona turned her head to the steam emerging from the washtub. “No,” snapped Matilda out of it.
“That’s mean,” Badda said to Wilberta returning downstairs. “After all he’s done for her.”
But Wilberta said: “She’s shamed. She can’t put her husband’s clothes on her fancy man.”
So it was Maggi who turned out the best cloak and gown of Stunta the clerk. She sighed. “Wonder where the old fool is now.”
In the circumstances the feast that night was wonderful; the women had worked hard to welcome Matilda and to celebrate their victory. They’d cooked goose, four types of duck, as well as carp, the ubiquitous eel, lamprey, bean and lentil stews, withered pears and apples, honey cakes and such ale and mead as the intruders had left them. Willem marvelled that they had coped so well all this time without any men between the age of Kakkr, who was at least sixty, and Wifil, who was ten, to help them.
Matilda left Epona with Adeliza to make a brief appearance and drink a toast with her fellow-liberators, but her anxiety was chilling and there was more relaxation when she’d gone. Then they drank to Willem and he to them. They drank in silence to Steward Peter, “Good old boy for all he was a Norman.” Before they all got too drunk Willem made them a speech.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” (Cheers.) “Last night five of you were the best troop I’ve ever had under my command. But what are you going to do if it happens again?” There was immediate silence; even the toddlers stopped playing.
He gave them with care, repeating the difficult bits, the accumulated wisdom from his bath that morning.
“What if they come at night?” shouted Maggi. He was beginning to respect Maggi: if they were really his troop he’d make her his lieutenant.
“That’s good. Now you’re thinking. It’s not likely, but, well, what about dogs?” They shook their heads: dogs, needing red meat, were a luxury they could no longer afford.
“All right, better than dogs, you’ve got geese. And you intercommon with cattle, or you did; well, now intercommon for defence. Get the villages together. Make plans to protect each other.
“One last thing, when in doubt run away.” Contract rules. “Hide your valuables and run, but run first. If anything like last night happens again – God preserve us all – and you have to kill, make sure you kill them all. Nobody gets away, nobody.”
He sat down and stood up again. “But make sure they’re the enemy. For Christ’s sake, don’t kill just anybody.”
It was as well he added that; two days later when he, Kakkr, Milly and Badda were struggling with the upper stones of the keep, Maggi came panting up. “We’ve got one, captain.” A man had skated up the Swallen. Maggi, Wilberta and Shudda who were on guard at the Waits had made sure he was alone, then emerged pointing crossbows at him and made him lie down. Wilberta had sat on his head while the others tied him up. “He’s a Fleming.”
In their tongue “Fleming” did not mean someone from Flanders, but was the generic term for “stranger”. Nevertheless, the swearing coming from the prisoner in the hall was as Flemish as Willem’s own. His nose was bleeding and he was angry. “These bloody women broke my nose,” he yelled at Willem. “The fat one sat on my head.”
“You were lucky. Who are you and what do you want?”
“If you’re Willem of Ghent I’ve a message for you,” said the man, sulkily, “but I won’t give it now.”
Willem was amazed. That a message should find him in the middle of a war when he was hiding in the most impenetrable part of England, which even he hadn’t known he would be hiding in, could only be delivered by some herald from God. Apologetically he sat the broken-nosed angel down, released his hands and called for refreshment.
“Ah hah,” said the man triumphantly, “that had you. And I know the lady here, Matilda of Risle.”
Matilda was sent for; she was abstracted and pale. “He’s a sea captain. His name’s Turold.” She woke up. “Have you a message from my son?”
Turold thawed with the attention. He explored his nose and clicked it back into place. Young Edmund, it appeared, was thriving and sent his love. “But I’m here for Somebody Else.” He delved into his tunic and produced a crumbling piece of vegetable matter. “That’s a dirty old piece of plant,” said Badda, leaning over his shoulder.
Matilda smiled for the first time in days. “The Plantagenet.”
“Fitzempress.” Turold smirked modestly. He turned to Willem. “I was to say that if you presented yourself at Caen as soon as maybe you might find yourself offered a position to your advantage.”
Willem grinned: “He can’t be above ten years old.”
“Maybe he is,” said Turold slowly, “only he seems older. His father’s letting him have his own household, any road up. His choices wouldn’t suit his mother, I dare say – too low-born some of ’em – but he met you at Bristol, seemingly, and liked the cut of your jib.”
“When do you sail?” Willem looked at Matilda who looked away.
“Soon. From Cradge.”
The mercenary nodded. “Looks like I’ll be there.”
“How did you know this man was here?” demanded Matilda. Was her name being linked with every mercenary in England?
Turold drew her over to a corner and spoke low: “That man” – a thumb bent at Willem – “was asking for you in Bristol. Fitzempress said he was a man who’d find what he was looking for. You’d mentioned this place to Fitzempress long ago as a good place to hide. And the prince heard you needed to hide.” The ship captain leaned nearer. “I was to say he was sorry there’d been a… a tactical error in your case. He don’t approve of what his mother done. And I was to ask: is the Postern still open?”
Matilda wiped her eyes. A tactical error; all that pain and horror reduced to a boy’s idea of a mistaken manoeuvre.
“Does he treat my son well?”
Turold nodded. “He’s one of the puppies always with him.”
She had nothing left to lose. “Tell him it’s open.”
Once again in the solar she continued the fight for Adeliza’s life. The periods between the drug were calmer and the dreadful shuddering had ceased. Her eyes followed Matilda, occasionally frowning in pain. New bruising kept coming out on her body and Epona was afraid something inside her had ruptured. “But she’ll live?” Matilda was terrified. Epona shrugged.
During her consciousness Matilda talked to her, recalling happy times, promising happier times in the future. “You don’t know you’re better dead, Adeliza. Never. Are you listening to me?” Adeliza’s big eyes watched her helplessly. “Promise me you’ll try. Promise.”
Adeliza’s bruised mouth smiled. “Yes, Matilda.”
Matilda blew out her breath in relief. Adeliza had always obeyed her. She changed into her nightrobe and lay down on the mattress on the floor beside the bed. Epona could watch tonight.
In the early hours a movement from Epona woke her up. There was high moonlight outside the window and the winter noises of the Fens, but there was a new silence in the room. She scrambled up and watched Epona crossing Adeliza’s hands on her breast. “Oh nonsense, she promised me.” But for the first and last time in both their lives, Adeliza had
disobeyed her.
They knelt and prayed. After a while Matilda put her cloak over her shoulders and went out.
Epona watched her cross the courtyard and go out of the gates; the commander only had a thin nightshirt on under the cloak and flimsy slippers on her feet. She must go and bring her back to bed. Then Epona thought of somebody who’d do the job better. She went down to the hall bay where the mercenary slept: “You’re needed.”
By the time Willem was out of the gates Matilda had reached Fenchel’s lodge and was standing in its doorway, facing the keep. She would pull the thing down and make the stones into a shrine for Adeliza so that no woman would ever be spitted on it again. “And how amazing I am,” she thought, “that nothing will live around me and I feel nothing. I never will again. How amazing and dreary are the ways of God.”
The mercenary paused where he could see her. She was talking to herself and her hands moved in little reasoning gestures. He had seen men like that when they’d been exposed to too much killing. She was in battle shock. He’d been like it himself once and the saving of him had been poor Dyrika, the camp follower, who’d said: “Willem, what you need is flesh,” and taken him to bed and warmed him back to life. It didn’t matter whether he wanted Matilda or should want her, she needed him. “My son, do as you have been done by.”
He went up to the lodge and pulled her aside so that he could open its door and take her inside to Fenchel’s bed.
The moment his arms went round her, Matilda gave in. “Mother of God, let me sin this once. Just this warm, one, lovely sin in this death-ridden world.”
“Don’t think.”
As her body absorbed his semen and his sweat, she was amazed at how personal the making of love could be. Her husbands had committed the sexual act with the expected woman on the expected bed; they would have done the same whichever woman it was. This man made love to the person that was Matilda because it was Matilda. He lubricated her parched soul with it. When he wasn’t making love to her physically he spoke it, holding her across his chest and crooning words as if he’d saved up every endearment from every language he knew to use on her now.
She tucked her head under his armpit and strolled her fingertips over him, exploring the varieties of textures which had never concerned her before. “What nice backs men have.”
“It’s not their backs you should worry about.”
Just before dawn he said: “Turold sails tonight. Do I still go to Fitzempress?”
“You know you do.” She was sane – he had done that much for her. She had sinned against God and her class; only the Mother would understand, and only she just this once. This was still Sigward’s island, there was still a war to be won and too many emotions and taboos to be coped with. “I want you to look after my son.” Except for the English lands it was the only beautiful thing she had left to give Edmund.
“Who’s going to look after you?”
“I can cope now.”
She would be safe from remarriage, at least. As he dressed he lectured her, repeating the instructions he had given the islanders on defence, the constant look-outs, the geese, the escape routes. She barely heard what he said, she was watching every move he made.
“Will you promise me to remember all that?” he asked her.
“I’ll remember.”
He kissed her almost absent-mindedly. He had already gone back to war.
“Goodbye, commander.”
“Goodbye, captain.”
After he left she stayed on in bed for some time, her hands on the place where his body had been. Eventually she said: “Well, that’s that,” and got up. By the time she had got back to the hall, he had gone.
* * *
On the night after Brother Daniel received official, though completely illegal, confirmation from King Stephen that he was now Abbot of Ramsey, he had a boy brought to the cellar of the abbot’s house. The other boy had died as they all did eventually, and this one was younger, but bigger, more intelligent, and he fought back. It took four days of starvation and drugs to get him compliant.
“Now then,” said Abbot Daniel, “I want you to scry for me. I want you, my darling, to ask Our Master how long I have got.”
He murmured as he held the boy’s head over the scrying glass until it was fixed like a hypnotised chicken’s. The abbot’s voice became smoke drifting across the glass and the sand bowl over which the boy’s hand was poised. “How long, howlong, howlong, howlong, howlong.”
The boy’s finger drew a vertical line in the sand. “Howlonghowlong.” By the side of the line, on its right, came a circle and then underneath it another circle.
“Eighteen,” said Abbot Daniel. “Master, I thank you. A soul is well lost for eighteen years.”
Chapter 13
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When the castles were built they filled them with devils and wicked men. By night and by day they seized those whom they believed to have any wealth, whether they were men or women; and in order to discover their gold and silver, they put them into prison and tortured them with unspeakable tortures, for never were martyrs tortured as they were… If two or three men came riding towards a village, all the villagers fled before them, believing that they were robbers. The bishop and clergy were forever cursing them, but that was nothing to them, for they were all excommunicated and forsworn and lost. Wherever the ground was tilled the earth bore no corn, for the land was ruined by such doings and men said openly that Christ and his saints slept.
So says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which was written at Peterborough at this time.
Black Shuck, the Devil’s dog, was everywhere, his huge shape outlined against the sky as he ran along the droves and banks to enter churches and drag out the worshippers in his slavering jaws.
Realising the end of the world was at hand men and women joined monasteries and nunneries or, in their terror, founded new ones so that the number of convents doubled in Stephen’s reign and their voices rose to God pleading for deliverance.
“Exsurge, quare obdormis, Domine?” Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise and cast us not off.
But not at Ramsey.
To Ramsey, at last, came de Mandeville and his army. They rode through the well-tended village, past the newly ploughed fields, through the orchards to the half-acre of lawn which rolled like a green carpet of welcome from the great gates of the abbey. He did not knock nor did he shout for admittance. He waited, staring down the carved eyes of the Saviour who presided over the writhings of the Last Judgment.
The Church had excommunicated him, cursing him within and without, sleeping or walking, going or sitting, standing or riding, lying above earth or under earth, speaking and crying and drinking, in wood, in water, in field, in town. It had cursed him by the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, by the angels and archangels and all the nine orders of Heaven, that he have no part in mass nor matins nor of none other good prayers that be done in Holy Church, but that the pains of Hell be his meed with Judas that betrayed our Lord Jesus Christ until he came to amendment and satisfaction made. Fiat! Fiat! Amen.
The gates opened and through them came the new abbot, confident in the Devil’s love.
He walked up to the figure on the black horse. “Welcome, my lord,” he said, “in the name of the Master we both serve.” He smiled. De Mandeville raised his mailed fist and smashed it into Abbot Daniel’s face. The horses stepped over him to go through the gates and be stabled in the holy cloister.
On the stone portico of the abbey something trickled down the carving of dragons and griffons and soaked into the ground. Another drop broke out on the Barnack stone further along, then another, until all the outer walls of Ramsey Abbey sweated red liquid. Many witnessed the portent and reputable men later wrote of it, that at this time the walls of Ramsey bled.
Later that night a shape that screamed and wore the muddied cope of an abbot squirmed back into the fen from which it had once emerged. “Eighteen,” it was howling. “You promised me eighteen years.”
&n
bsp; But the voice of the Devil spoke back to him, amused and echoing over the waterland. “Days, you bloody fool. I meant eighteen days.”
* * *
July was the quietest month in the Fens because the birds which made them so busy the rest of the year hid their chicks in the long grasses so that there was an undertow of cheeps and rustlings to the silence.
The Fens became luscious, producing marsh marigolds instead of the buttercups of poorer lands. The colour and variety of the butterflies bewildered the eye as they bounced along the umbellifers lining the banks on invisible strings. They were nearly as numerous as the flies and Matilda batted crossly at both as she walked along the Driftway path in a tunnel of milk parsley and hemlock. The top earth had dried and powdered her boots in a black dust.
She stopped at an obstruction in her way, a contraption of sticks emerging out of the ground like a mad milking-stool, took the spade from its sling over her back and dug down round the buried trap until she could hear a movement from inside it. “Ah ha, you little sod.” She lifted the trap out, opened its tail-gate and inserted her hand warily. “They bite like eels,” Kakkr had said, “get ’em round the neck.” Between her thumb and forefinger wriggled a small, black, velvet animal six inches long. She tapped its nose against the spade shaft, killing it instantly. Its seal-like flippers ended in perfect, tiny hands even down to the fingernails and the creases in the plump, pink palms.
She tied the mole on to a string which already held a couple of dozen others, carefully reburied the trap and walked on to the next where she repeated the procedure. Then she sat down to rest under an elder. She sat inelegantly with her coarse linen skirt up over her hocks for coolness and swigged from a bottle of water, then pressed the bottle against her sweating face; it was a miracle of function in its way, having three fitting skins of tightly woven rushes which allowed continual infinitesimal seepage of the oatmeal water inside it that, in evaporating, kept it cold. When she had time Badda was going to show her how to make one.
The Morning Gift Page 23