by Mary Lide
‘I was sent here for safety’s keeping,’ I said at last, as I had said often before. ‘Nothing more.’
‘Safe from what?’ she said shrewdly, eyeing me askance from under her fine-arched brows. ‘Was it to be safe perhaps from sin? Did you not ask for a man to marry you? Who was your lover? They say it was one of Sedgemont’s groomsmen. Was that the sin for which your lord sent you here?’
I would have argued with her, but she was too full of words for me, who had once used them myself as weapons.
‘Or is it the Lord of Sedgemont who was the danger? Is not he young and vigorous? Did not you try to overthrow him with your body before his men?’
She had never dared say that before. I wondered almost idly who had been the talebearer. None had spoken of it in my presence until now.
‘Or have you thought,’ she said, pressing close, ‘that he may intend to keep you here forever? Locked up, that no one should know where you are? But should you count yourself among the blessed, free of all wordly ties, then could you bestow your lands as you wished, freely to God’s House. Naked and poor would you make a worthy bride.’
Had I been quicker, I would have pondered that ‘naked and poor’. Ladies of rank are not expected to come empty-handed to holy orders. ‘Naked and poor’ would have little to recommend it. But it was what she had said first that struck hardest. And she sensed that at once.
‘For, Sister,’ she said, calling me that name although I was no kith or kin of hers, ‘is it not also true that having asked for a man, you refused the one who offered? And he was no stable groom, he. What makes you set yourself so high that you may pick and choose among the great lords of the land?’
She rattled off the names of women in the holy works who had defied their earthly lords to their eternal damnation. I have told you before I had little skill with books, but I have hated learning the more since she used it against me.
‘I do not choose to wed at all,’ I said, when silence became painful.
‘So. Then earthly marriage is not to your liking. And if Lord Raoul of Sedgemont will not let you go, but means to pen you here all your life, why cavil at becoming a Bride of Christ? Is it not pride puffed up to think that you, a silly maid, can know better than those who are set to rule and guide you? Did you think to defy the Lord of Sedgemont and not anger him?’
‘He did not send me here to make a nun of me!’ I cried at last, fear making me speak it aloud.
She looked at me again, searching, pitying.
‘And if he did?’ she said, pressing hard. ‘How would you know? Or how prevent it?’
And again, she said later, ‘They say your mother had converse with the devil, that she could foresee the future plain and clear. Is not that the devil’s work? And did she see what would bring her joy?’
And then later again, each time upon the hour did she return . . .
‘And did you not shout against the friends of Lord Raoul, in his own Hall, that all should think you had visions too? Would you be held in league with the Prince of Darkness? Those who consort with him are burnt for it, on earth here as in hell hereafter.’
And again.
‘Have you thought of the burning?’ Her eyes dark and fierce, pressing on the nerve of fear. ‘Dare you think of it? Put your hand then upon this flame.’ And she held out a taper, faint and wan in her bleak room where even in the morning all seemed dark.
‘See how your flesh shrinks back. But that was but a moment’s pain. Imagine it for eternity.’
And then again, when neither candle flame nor whip could make me speak.
‘Imagine eternity. Then is every second as a year, every hour a torment without cease. But those who are among the saved, God’s children, shall await the Second Coming with joy. As a Bride of Christ, would you be named among the blessed. You should be on your knees, you child of death, to give thanks to God, that thus you can at one time be saved from sin and from the Lord of Sedgemont’s doom.’
I turned aside, hunching my shoulders against the blows, hiding my scorched fingers in the folds of my gown. I knew she lied in many things, but there was such a mixture of truth and lie, and both so intertwined, that it would have taken a clearer head than mine to have sorted them out. But one thing she did not know. The mention of my mother, that unknown woman I knew so little of, gave me an extra kind of endurance that she herself must have had—the courage that perhaps Lord Raoul had spoken of when he had said one need not fight the less because the cause is lost—well, even if my cause was lost, I still would not give way.
Yet later that same day, when I was working in the field, my courage ran not so high. My back was stiff where the lash had fallen; and although I could have been glad for the open air and the keen cool smell and taste of autumn, yet they weighed upon me. Almost a year ago, Lord Raoul had returned to Sedgemont, and we had hunted the great boar through the forests there. A year gone by then. And what had become of him, I thought, and of his little band of men, of Giles and Geoffrey and the others who had ridden out of Sedgemont, that they should have forgotten me? And for the first time I wondered what would happen if they all should die upon some far-off battlefield, God forbid, for who then would I have to remember, and who would then remember me? But someone had not forgotten me, and then, suddenly, horribly, all the rest was made clear.
We worked on in the faint sun of that autumn day, our long gowns scratching harshly as they dragged across the earth. Like bleached figures we moved upon the brown fields. Presently the sun would sink behind the hills, the long services would begin, the long arguments. Perhaps, I thought for the first time, there is little use to stand against her, perhaps I should listen to what she says. To give up everything is to have no desire. Perhaps that is the easiest way.
The girl ahead of me, a small homely soul, younger than I but already about to take her vows, mouthed at me. It was against the strictest rule for her to speak. Yet she was calling me by name, and we were all nameless here.
‘Lady Ann,’ her lips were saying, ‘Lady Ann, listen, pretend not to look.’
How could she know my name? How dared she break the rule? We pulled on the autumn weeds until we were again at the far part of the field, where the others were out of earshot.
‘A messenger,’ she said, ‘from the west. Go to the tree and see for yourself.’
I knew at once where she meant, what tree. But why?
We bent and pulled, two rows apart, she slightly in front. I could feel the sudden hope flare in my cheeks. Out of the silence to find a friend. Out of the waiting to find news.
We turned the row along an inner wall.
‘Hurry,’ she said aloud, so I could not miss her words, ‘there is danger.’
My first thought, of course, had been that the message came from Lord Raoul, but that thought died upon the instant. Had it been his message, whatever it was, they could not have kept that from me. From Sedgemont, then? But that, too, seemed unlikely.
‘At the hour of prayer,’ she said again, when we turned at the next corner. ‘I heard them talk. Go then.’
I understood her perfectly, although she spoke in broken phrases, as if pulled from her with the effort. We worked on in silence in the afternoon’s growing chill. The sound of the chapel bell was a sword thrust. The other nuns stood upright, smoothing their skirts, wiping their hems free of dirt. They began to drift slowly towards the gate that led to the chapel courtyard. She waited behind them, gathering our tools in a wicker basket, spreading her skirt to shield me as I slid into a corner. Out of the silence to find such a friend. I sought her long after, that small homely girl with the red cheeks that the wind nipped, but she was lost somewhere among those silent white-gowned women. She waited as long as she dared, lingering, so that the others would not suspect if they turned back. When the last one had disappeared, she pushed something into my hand.
‘I heard them,’ she cried. ‘I heard and stole this.’
But then she was gone too, in a flurry of white. The bell h
ad stopped ringing now. The chapel doors would be shut. All the nuns and the lay workers would be inside. They would miss me, but it would be a while before they would send to search. I held the little bag she had handed me, thinking it looked familiar, although until I opened it I did not remember what it was. Cecile had given it to me before I had left Sedgemont. Inside were my mother’s chaplet and my father’s ring, the heavy gold ring with his seal that he had always worn. I stared at both, holding them in my hands. How had she found them? Where? Both had been taken away with the rest of my belongings. What had she heard that had made her dare? I stood for a long time staring, as the last rays of the sun caught and sparkled on the gold.
Then, gathering my thoughts, I turned and ran. Let me explain.
The convent was built, as are many such places, in a square, with an inner courtyard in the centre and the main buildings grouped about the edge. The cloisters or covered walks ran around these central buildings that contained the ones of main importance: the chapel, the dormitories, and the refectory, where we slept and ate. Around that central block were open fields, where we had been working. Beyond them, another line of buildings that housed storerooms, granaries, stables, and rooms for the lay workers and for visitors. The high walls of these outer buildings helped enclose the inner block more securely. But there was one place where, if one could climb up high enough, one could look over the wall and see beyond it into the small courtyard that, in turn, opened onto the main gates. Once, perhaps all newcomers to the convent knew the place, and had learned to climb the tree that hung over its wall; once the younger nuns would have played in the garden there with their lady guests. Now all was overgrown and decayed, rank with weeds. But I had gone there in the early days, scaled the tree to whistle to the dumb boy who lived on the other side, and had hidden Giles’s knife at its roots. I knew at once where I was to go. The grasses and weeds slashed at my ankles as I ran. In the gathering darkness, I could have been any shadow, scratching in the earth among the roots to find the little knife I had buried there. I freed it from its oiled wrappings and slid it into my sleeve as I began to climb the branches of the tree that hung over the wall. When I was high enough, I could swing myself out so I could see what was in the courtyard beneath. I had not run so fast or climbed so high for a long time and my skirts hampered me, but although out of breath, I began to whistle as I used to, to summon the boy. He had always come willingly, like a wild thing, famished for scraps of food that I saved from my own frugal meals, but it had been months since I had seen him, had been free of my own time, and he might have forgotten. In any case, I thought, suddenly desperate, he cannot help me, for how can I explain to him what I must find out, although death and danger should mean something even to his feeble mind. And then the whistle died, half-uttered. I did not need to find out what I could see for myself—the great war horse, still saddled from its ride, tethered in the yard below. Nor did I need to see its rider to recognise it. I could still remember Giles’s description in the stables at Sedgemont.
‘Two bays,’ he had said, ‘that came the first time. One tall and big-boned, with a mane that falls forward and one white sock upon the off-hind foot. One that came the first time but did not return a second.’
And there it stood, the bay horse from Maneth’s stable. And there was the man, stepping out of the small room that must once have seen the coming and goings of many guests but now was always empty. Perhaps he had gone outside to relieve himself, for he was still fumbling with his clothes when he came to stand beside the horse. And he stared at the boy who came running towards the tree, his face lit up with smiles. It was too late to make gesture to silence or secrecy. Both boy and man had seen me at the same instant.
‘And who is come to spy untimely upon men’s affairs?’ The man himself I had never seen, a short squat fellow with a slash across one cheek. But the voice I knew, had heard a hundred times in nightmares echoing down those winding stairs. Paralysed with fright, I looked down at him as he looked up at me. Then with one hand he dragged the terrified boy to his side, while with the other he reached up above his head to grab for me. I began to hurl myself backwards, not caring how I went, but he was too quick and caught at the dangling folds of my gown, tugging and ripping until he could pry my arms free and pull me down into the courtyard. It was a long hard fall although he took some of the weight. But I landed crookedly, with a jar that sent all things reeling. Before I could struggle, he had dragged me into the entrance of his room and pushed the boy before him to cower in a corner. I could feel his hands about my face and body pushing back the clothes. His breath was hot with sweat and wine, and with something else that made the skin freeze where it touched.
‘What white dove is it,’ he panted, ‘fluttering down?’
I closed my ears and eyes to that hissing sound I had hoped never to hear again. He was running his fingers across my breasts, squeezing and pulling, until he came to the velvet purse that I had strung about my waist. He dropped me abruptly when he felt it, and took it to the table where he could shake out its contents, kicking the boy aside as he went. I heard his whistle and the clink of gold. I struggled to sit upright, and saw him standing there, a squat figure with legs apart, his shadow dense and thick in the candlelight. In one hand he held my father’s ring, slipping it on and off his finger with a strange, slow gesture.
‘Now by all that’s holy,’ he swore, hissing at me.
He picked up the candle and came back, holding it so close that the hot wax dripped upon my skin as he pushed back the coverings from my shorn hair.
‘By all that’s holy,’ he repeated, and a grin, I cannot describe it, covered half his face and yet was not a grin at all, but was a mask that twisted the unscarred side. I could see now, as he spoke, how the one part of the mouth did not move, so that the saliva sprayed forth from the other.
‘Do not tell me that I have come all this way with a sack of gold to pay for the prioress’s prize and you have come tumbling at my feet.’ He grinned again. ‘Who are you, dove?’
I pursed my lips. He caught at my neck with his thick hand, my father’s ring gleaming in the light. Had my hair been longer, he would have torn it from its roots, but he twisted my neck until I could scarcely breathe.
‘Who, who,’ he hissed, ‘but Ann of Cambray herself, with her red scalp and her mother’s eyes. Right, am I?’
A sound behind him made him swirl. The boy, who had been slowly edging towards the door, had struck his hand against a goblet of wine that stood on a stool. With a bound, the man was upon him again dragging him to his feet. The boy opened his mouth to cry, but no sound came, although his hands beat wildly in terror.
‘Two of you, eh?’ he said. ‘Since she won’t talk, you shall. Who is she, my thief here, what is her name?’
And with each word, he battered at the boy’s face until it became a sheet of blood.
‘Stop,’ I screamed, finding my own voice at last, scrabbling forward. ‘He cannot speak, he is dumb. Stop.’
He released the boy, letting him fall like a small bundle of rags against the table.
‘But you can speak,’ he said. ‘And I know you, Ann of Cambray. Back from the dead yourself, although we thought you dead.’
He paused as if to savour the strangeness of it, walking about, stepping over the boy as if he did not exist.
‘What if I am?’ I said at last, knowing that it made no difference whether I spoke or kept silent. He would kill us either way. I could tell that from his walk.
‘My master would pay well for you,’ he said with his wolfish smirk. ‘Once it was for you dead. Now for you to be kept shut up here, but more, I think, to have you in his possession, alive. But how to get you out of here? No need for the lady prioress to have her bribe to keep you if you’ll come willingly, my dove.’
He stared at me thoughtfully, his eyes bright with anticipation. Then again he acted swiftly. Before I knew what he was about, he seized the boy and slapped his head against the wall, so that I heard
it snap like a piece of dried stick.
‘Take off those clothes,’ he shouted at me, ‘before I knock you brainless the same way.’
He held the boy in his hands and began to peel off the stained shirt and jacket, throwing them at my feet.
‘Fast, faster,’ he shouted. ‘They’ll be about us otherwise. I’ve other ways to make you fast, although I won’t touch your face, yet.’
I stood unbelieving. I heard the bell chime out the quarter hour. A quarter hour since I had run from the field and climbed the tree and discovered what danger it was that my friend had tried to warn me of, that she must have overheard.
He threw down the boy like a used sack upon the ground. His limbs came spilling out white and heavy; so had Talisin looked that day that he had died. A quarter of an hour. And I had stood and seen murder done, without lifting a finger to help. A poor half-witted boy, broken apart like a bag of bones because he could not speak.
‘Hurry,’ he said again, ‘or you will know the same. Put those things on.’
I felt the tears start and run down my face. I kept my eyes on him as I tore the rest of my dress free, shaking the pieces from my shoulders. And felt the sharp edge of the little knife slide into my waiting hand, point first, as Lord Raoul had shown me months ago.
6
The man stood to one side shouting orders at me while he went about his preparations, putting his belongings into piles, setting out his boots and spurs, placing my velvet bag alongside one of his own that clanked, heavy with coins, as he moved it. The feel of the well-known hilt in my hand, the wicked point, steadied me. I almost heard Lord Raoul’s voice laughing as he said, Remember have but one chance to strike, so strike home.