by Mary Lide
We all worked hard, although the work was strange to men trained to fight. Even the Celtic prisoners became good at husbandry, although in general they are less skilled than most, being breeders of cattle, not farmers, in their high hills.
Towards the end of the first month, a group rode in from Sedgemont, among them Geoffrey of the yellow hair and silver tongue, all smiles, full of himself and his news. After the attack upon the camp, he had been one of the squires to ride across the border. Fortunately, as it now appeared, my uncle and his men had vanished, swallowed up by mist or bogs; and having escaped a similar fate themselves, Geoffrey’s party had turned back towards Sedgemont as bidden by Raoul’s messenger when he caught up with them. Whether the Celts would, in their turn, consider this invasion of their territory a hostile threat could not be judged, but despite the hardships he had suffered there, Geoffrey remained fascinated by all that he had seen. Contrary to what one might have thought, his experiences seemed to have roused his curiosity. He, more than anyone else at Cambray, interested himself in the Celtic prisoners, talked to them in a strange mixture of languages, which he regarded with pride as fluency, and made friends with the young son who survived despite his wounds.
From Geoffrey we learned the news also from Sedgemont, that all there were well, although they lacked Raoul’s presence, awaited his return. Twice had the castle been attacked, more by bands of disorganised mercenaries than regular troops, and twice had the attackers gone away without hurt to the castle and its folk. It was pleasant to have Geoffrey in our midst again. His good humour was undiminished, and, unlike some of the younger men, he was not above grubbing in the soil when he had to.
‘But then,’ I heard him say one day when the grumbling had been especially loud, ‘a landless man cannot be proud. The first Norman-French who came here were not all great lords. They had to sweat for the land that they took from the Saxons.’
But, in truth, the grumbling was mostly in jest. Without food, we all would starve. A castle, even one built of stone, well manned, is only as safe as it is well supplied. The Lady Mildred should have been proud of me that I hoarded our small resources and replenished them as best I could. While the new crops ripened—and we were lucky, too, with the planting: cool, damp weather for the sowing, then days of brilliant sun to swell the grain—Dylan and I set the men to gathering berries and plants, having the Celts show us which to pluck, they being used to such foods and healthier for them, seldom being prone to diseases we castle folk fall prey to: bleeding of the gums and loss of teeth and hair the most common. And when the shoals of fish came running into the bay, we persuaded men who had never seen the sea before to go up to their necks in water with long string nets to pull the catch ashore. Smoked and dried fish makes good winter eating, although the Sedgemont men would have turned their noses up, salt fish being considered siege rations at best. Our greatest need was wooden barrels and bins to hold these stores, the Celts having burned or used for vile purpose all that had been here at Cambray, but even in this we found men willing to turn their hand to such work . . . And on a day when I was free to ride with them abroad, we came up to the high moors behind the castle and saw the grey horses of Cambray, just as Giles had described them, running wild in their own valley.
‘They seem too beautiful to tame,’ I said watching them. How often as a child had I seen my father stand in his meadow down below and count them over as a miser does his gold. Some of them had been so well trained that they would come at his call, and Talisin could make his stallions stop or run or swerve as he willed from far off.
‘I wish Giles were here,’ I said, almost without thinking, for it was still difficult to speak of him or reconcile his death.
‘Aye,’ Raoul said, leaning forward in the saddle, narrowing his eyes against the sun. ‘He said as much, wishing for you when we caught a glimpse of them last spring. I’ll bid the men come here and take several, to fill the stables again. They have run free too long, like other things at Cambray.’
And he smiled at me, that lazy smile that made my heart leap.
For it was not I who wished for freedom. One memory will I unfold for you. Remember it, poet. True misery only shows itself in contrast with joy. Such as we found there needs must be followed by worse. It was late summer now. One of Raoul’s men had found and tamed a hawk, perhaps strayed from some noble household, for it soon was retrained and answered to the lure. We went hunting one day, Raoul on one of the newly caught grey horses, I on another. This was not a hunting party from Sedgemont; gone were the beaters, the baying hounds, the huntsmen to steer the game in proper style, and Raoul and I soon outdistanced all the others who rode with us. Raoul let the hawk fly and we watched it soar and wheel, a speck against the sky, until we set our spurs and traced it as best we could. It came to rest high in the branches of an old dead tree that stuck up white and gnarled out of a tangle of gorse. I lay upon the soft grass, content with sun and wind, while Raoul fought his way in to get at her. There was no one nearby. The sky was as a bowl above, pale blue, infinite. You could hear the rustle of the dry gorse, the heather, smell the honey in the flowers. At last Raoul came back, clothes torn, face bleeding from the thorns, cursing.
‘I cannot get in close,’ he swore. ‘Judas, but such briars make for better walls than stones.’
‘Then you must wait,’ I said, eyes closed against the sun, ‘until the others find you and help you break the thickets down.’
I heard him move and opened my eyes slowly. What I saw made me sit up, for he had already removed his jerkin and was struggling with shirt and boots.
‘What are you about?’ I said. ‘This is high noon. Think you in your chamber?’
He laughed at me. ‘In truth,’ he teased, ‘I was but so full of thorns, I took off my shirt to rid me of them. But now you have put me in mind of other things . . .’
He limped towards me, one boot off. When I would have slipped from his grasp, he fell with me to the ground. The soft air breathed of mint and clover, the soft grass bent like down.
‘They will see us,’ I cried. But I did not really care. Is that not what desire is, blotting out all senses save that one? Is that not what love is, protection against the cold and dread to come? We lay together in that open place with only sky and sun, and at night we barred the door and were alone.
There be those who love but once and cannot let it go.
The old woman who had first told me that had warned that it was both blessing and curse. I think I must have known long ago, even when Giles and I were in the forest together, how it would be for me.
Yet, beneath, there was still darkness, fear, despite my effort to keep it at bay. We held the world at a distance, but it has a habit of crowding in when least expected. When he spoke of freedom, it was not only the loss of mine, but his, too. I sometimes thought I had only myself to blame to think that I might tame him, win him to content here. For it was not love, nor its surfeit, that made him restless, so that sometimes in the night I would hear him pacing in our room, soft footed, in the way he had when something troubled him. Remember, he was trained from youth to administer large estates, command men. It was not easy for him to sit down as a country knight amid our rural pursuits. I do not mean either that he shirked what must be done. He worked as hard as anyone. I have seen him knee-deep in mud, straining with thongs to shift the fallen stumps that blocked a sluice; there was nothing that the men did that he would not try himself. It was only that it seemed less fitting somehow, as if by strapping on one of those new horse collars they use these days, one could expect to make a war-horse pull a plough. Raoul never complained; like Geoffrey, he was at heart optimistic, and Geoffrey, I have always held, the most sweet of men. But at times I sensed a weariness in Raoul, a dark side that I did not understand. He had told me that first night at Cambray that he felt a respite, and that I think was true. He also said that we were far from the great world, but that I think he really did not believe. Reserve and caution had become part of his natu
re; he would not even know how he used them against those with whom he should be most open. We all have secrets, it is true. As you now know, some of mine have lain silent these many years. Well, I did not know all his secrets either. And in the end it was they, not another woman, that drove him from my side.
We had slept well that night after the hawking expedition, to the low surging of the sea, which I remembered from childhood. No wonder salt winds are so much a part of me: they have woven themselves into all my childhood dreams, culled up from the deep sea caves into the windings of the castle walls. During the night there had been rain, drumming through the darkness, but it ceased just before the dawn. I awoke to silence, as if released from some loud sound. Or was it the drumming of my own heart? My first thought, as always now, was that someone had crept up through the passageway, but that was already well blocked with fallen stone and we kept a guard posted. My second thought was for the castle walls, but when I ran to the triple window I could see the watch pacing back and forth, could even hear the snap of the Sedgemont pennon as it beat against the stones. The air was thick with mist, warm and soft, having within it promise of more rain. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw Raoul, leaning against the battlements, staring off into the distance. He had wound a cloak around himself for warmth, and the wind blew at his hair; he might have been one of those statues carved from stone they use now to decorate church walls.
I hurried into my clothes, not staying to braid my hair or tie my shoes. In the Hall beneath, men were still abed, lying in rows against the walls. I crossed among their sleeping bodies, hushing the dogs that rose up from the hearth and moaned when they saw me. I drew the bar upon the lower door and went down into the clean-smelling air. Cocks were already crowing in the yard. The men who had taken an earlier watch were stretching themselves by the well, laughing loudly at some sly jest. Within the guardroom, tapers were still lit, and I could hear voices laughing and talking, reminding me of the time we had heard men laugh as we stole towards them.
The Celts themselves were stirring. We kept them chained by the leg to an outer wall. I frowned at that as I went by. There must be a better way to keep them than tied like beasts. The young boy watched as I passed, and when I gave him greeting in his own tongue, his scared face broken into a smile.
There is no treachery here, I thought, and felt my sense of panic ebb. I ran up the steps by the battlements above. Raoul was still where I had seen him and did not turn at my approach. I leaned against him, feeling the beating of my heart steady itself, feeling the warmth, the nearness of him.
The grey mist was lifting. Away to the west, the great rack of clouds that had brought the rain had settled over the mountains; behind us, the blue line of sea faded away. And before us spread the open fields, divided into strips as is the custom, although there were no peasants left to take their share and the village lay desolate, in ruins. Each strip ran a different shade of green, washed clear and bright by the storm. Beyond them, as far as the eye could see, the open moors stretched to the world’s rim, softly purple in the early sun. Nothing stirred in field or moor. Down below in the castle yard, the leisured morning rituals began, a thin blue streak of smoke curled upward, we heard a muffled cry and response. All was as peaceful as a jewelled picture book.
Raoul felt it too, although when he spoke it was not of Cambray but of Sieux.
‘It was a place like this,’ he said, ‘although the castle was old and large. A gem set among the woods and flowering meadows, les beaux prés de France. Someday should I sing for you the lays of Normandy to show you all its beauty. Or ask Sir Brian, who has ever loved both songs and place. The hunting there is so rich that you can stand and watch the wild fowl fly overhead. In ranks they fly until the air is dark with them, and they cry mournfully to each other among the riverbeds. And on such a day as this the Angevins took and burned my castle there.’
He was silent, thinking of far-off things. His next words surprised me. ‘Lord Falk,’ he said, and as he spoke he played with my father’s ring, ‘Lord Falk was once a simple knight, was he not, without demesne, taking service among the lords of Normandy as he could find it, until he came to my grandfather at Sieux, a landless knight who came to fortune late?’
‘Aye,’ I said, ‘he never sought to hide it. Fate had nothing worse, he used to say, than to be a landless knight, for when old age had dulled your skill, then were you thrown at the world’s mercy. A landless knight has but two roads: to follow his lord in battle or to make a round of the tourneys in peace. In either case he hires out his skills at other men’s commands, and when those skills are gone, he too is ended.’
‘Or goes perhaps to the holy wars, where God will reward you if this world does not.’
‘You do not think of Outremer, across the distant seas?’ I said, suddenly anxious, for he had spoken of it before. He did not answer me but spoke again of Cambray.
‘And the lands he held here of my grandfather were dear to him?’
‘My lord,’ I said patiently, for he must have known it, ‘before your grandfather brought him to England as one of his household knights, he was already old as men are reckoned. He did not expect such graciousness even from the Earl of Sedgemont.’
‘And he was an honest man, a keeper of oaths?’
‘You have said so yourself,’ I said, puzzled. ‘All my men say so. I do not boast of it.’
‘You should,’ he cried, startling me. ‘A man without such honour is an empty husk. What if that loyalty, which brought my grandfather fame and made your father’s fortune, brings to me no fortune? I have wasted my patrimony in King Stephen’s wars, but I do not seek to break my oath to him. Nor do I complain or doubt. I speak but to give myself purpose.’
‘Purpose?’ I repeated stupidly.
‘Ann,’ he said, ‘I have not told you all the nature of this king. I have not fairly set him before you that you may know him better. I have not even told you how we first met. All men will testify to his charm, his grace then. He wore it as some men don costly chain about their necks. He had no false sense of position, he was not too proud to mix with his fellow men. We met in the mud, and he pulled me from it with his own hand.’
He mused awhile, remembering, no doubt. Then he roused himself to tell the story.
‘The battle was not my first; even in France, there was war enough, and I have told you how the Angevins had raided Sieux before. But I was raw then, untried, overeager. He saw how my horse was broached and I like to be pricked by a half-dozen spears. It was the second battle of Lincoln where he sought perhaps to make amends for the humiliation of the first, when he had been captured by the Empress Matilda. He and his squire, they straddled my body on foot, and when he had beaten the enemy back with his great war axe, he raised me and staunched the blood himself.’
He stretched out his arm. My father’s ring gleamed dully, but he was not looking at that. I saw the thick red scar that I had first noticed long ago, a scar that ran across his right wrist.
That all but cost me my life.
So that was the story of his wounding that gave him his nickname; that was how his life had been saved. That scar was as a band of steel then, a chain, to bind him to the man who had rescued him.
Blood oath he swore, Dylan had said. It would not let him go.
He said, ‘Upon the battlefield, when I could speak again, I swore oath, blood oath to Stephen for my life. He was as young as a god then, Ann. Joyous he walked. Men ran to follow him, a man of honour who made that sour-faced Impress Matilda seem a harpy, intent to rend and harry the country she coveted. Did you know that when he, in turn, had the empress in his power, at Oxford, he let her go for courtesy? And when her son, this Henry, a half-wild boy, came back to England without consent it was Stephen who sent him gold to buy a passage back to France, as to a son? That was the sort of man I served . . .’
He mused awhile again. ‘Yet there was another side of him,’ he said abruptly. ‘His father, who was Count of Blois before him, led hi
s men to the Holy Land. In a beleaguered castle there he left them, abandoned them to perish whilst he escaped, letting himself down from the walls in a basket. Stephen of Blois has lived with knowledge of his father’s shame, although the old count returned to the wars, driven there, they say, by his wife, that he might wipe out the disgrace by his death. The thought of it has haunted Stephen all his life; given him title of most chivalrous knight in its despite. And cursed him with the same weakness of will . . .’
He turned to me at last. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘he has summoned me back, although I angered him so when last we met. I thought we should not meet again.’
I could not hide how my bright thoughts dulled, joy spilling from my bones at his words.
‘Why?’ was all I said, but the how and wherefore rang like thunder in my head.
He said, as if to justify himself, ‘You have long known that I am Stephen’s man. My grandfather had the same knack I seem to have inherited: to quarrel with those we most admire, or rather, to tell them when they do not act as they should. But that does not change our loyalties. After the signing of the Treaty of Westminster, which I would not sign, I came back to the border because Stephen, in his rage, told me to waste my life away there. I would have achieved what even he thought impossible, obtained a treaty from the Celts, with your help, had not Maneth attacked.’
I said, ‘Stephen has not treated you well. Long is the list of grievances against him. Twice did he betray you in the war that you fought on his behalf.’