by Ellis Peters
The officer of the guard had entered the pavilion, and stood waiting to be invited to speak; Adam Courcelle was one of Prestcote’s chief tenants and his right-hand man, a tested soldier at thirty years old.
“Your Grace has another visitor,” he said, when the king turned to acknowledge his presence. “A lady. Will you see her first? She has no lodging here as yet, and in view of the hour … She gives her name as Aline Siward, and says that her father, whom she has only recently buried, was always your man.”
“Time presses,” said the king. “Let them both come, and the lady shall have first word.”
Courcelle led her by the hand into the royal presence, with every mark of deference and admiration, and she was indeed well worth any man’s attention. She was slender and shy, and surely no older than eighteen, and the austerity of her mourning, the white cap and wimple from which a few strands of gold hair crept out to frame her cheeks, only served to make her look younger still, and more touching. She had a child’s proud, shy dignity. Great eyes the colour of dark irises widened wonderingly upon the king’s large comeliness as she made her reverence.
“Madam,” said Stephen, reaching a hand to her, “I am sorry indeed for your loss, of which I have this minute heard. If my protection can in any way serve you, command me.”
“Your Grace is very kind,” said the girl in a soft, awed voice. “I am now an orphan, and the only one of my house left to bring you the duty and fealty we owe. I am doing what my father would have wished, and but for his illness and death he would have come himself, or I would have come earlier. Until your Grace came to Shrewsbury we had no opportunity to render you the keys of the two castles we hold. As I do now!”
Her maid, a self-possessed young woman a good ten years older than her mistress, had followed into the tent and stood withdrawn. She came forward now to hand the keys to Aline, who laid them formally in the king’s hands.
“We can raise for your Grace five knights, and more than forty men-at-arms, but at this time I have left all to supply the garrisons at home, since they may be of more use to your Grace so.” She named her properties and her castellans. It was like hearing a child recite a lesson learned by heart, but her dignity and gravity were those of a general in the field. “There is one more thing I should say plainly, and to my much sorrow. I have a brother, who should have been the one to perform this duty and service.” Her voice shook slightly, and gallantly recovered. “When your Grace assumed the crown, my brother Giles took the part of the Empress Maud, and after an open quarrel with my father, left home to join her party. I do not know where he is now, though we have heard rumours that he made his way to her in France. I could not leave your Grace in ignorance of the dissension that grieves me as it must you. I hope you will not therefore refuse what I can bring, but use it freely, as my father would have wished, and as I wish.”
She heaved a great sigh, as if she had thrown off a weight. The king was enchanted. He drew her by the hand and kissed her heartily on the cheek. To judge by the look on his face, Courcelle was envying him the opportunity.
“God forbid, child,” said the king, “that I should add any morsel to your sorrows, or fail to lift what I may of them. With all my heart I take your fealty, as dear to me as that of earl or baron, and thank you for your pains taken to help me. And now show me what I can do to serve you, for there can be no fit lodging for you here in a military camp, and I hear you have made no provision as yet for yourself. It will soon be evening.”
“I had thought,” she said timidly, “that! might lodge in the abbey guest house, if we can get a boat to put us across the river.”
“Certainly you shall have safe escort over the river, and our request to the abbot to give you one of the grace houses belonging to the abbey, where you may be private but protected, until we can spare a safe escort to see you to your home.” He looked about him for a ready messenger, and could not well miss Adam Courcelle’s glowing eagerness. The young man had bright chestnut hair, and eyes of the same burning brown, and knew that he stood well with his king. “Adam, will you conduct Mistress Siward, and see her safely installed?”
“With all my heart, your Grace,” said Courcelle fervently, and offered an ardent hand to the lady.
Hugh Beringar watched the girl pass by, her hand submissive in the broad brown hand that clasped it, her eyes cast down, her small, gentle face with its disproportionately large and noble brow tired and sad now that she had done her errand faithfully. From outside the royal tent he had heard every word. She looked now as if she might melt into tears at any moment, like a little girl after a formal ordeal, a child-bride dressed up to advertise her riches or her lineage, and then as briskly dismissed to the nursery when the transaction was assured. The king’s officer walked delicately beside her, like a conqueror conquered, and no wonder.
“Come, the lord king waits,” said the guttural voice of Willem Ten Heyt in his ear, and he turned and ducked his head beneath the awning of the tent. The comparative dimness within veiled the large, fair presence of the king.
“I am here, my liege,” said Hugh Beringar, and made his obeisance. “Hugh Beringar of Maesbury, at your Grace’s service with all that I hold. My muster is not great, six knights and some fifty men-at-arms, but half of them bowmen, and skilled. And all are yours.”
“Your name, Master Beringar, is known to us,” said the king drily. “Your establishment also. That it was devoted to our cause was not so well known. As I have heard of you, you have been an associate of FitzAlan and Adeney, our traitors, until very recently. And even this change of heart comes rather belatedly. I have been some four weeks in these parts, without word from you.”
“Your Grace,” said Beringar, without haste to excuse himself or apparent discomfort at his cool reception, “I grew up from a child regarding these men whom you understandably name your traitors, as my peers and friends, and in friendship have never found them wanting. Your Grace is too fairminded a man not to admit that for one like me, who has not so far sworn fealty to any, the choice of a path at this moment may require a deal of thought, if it is to be made once for all. That King Henry’s daughter has a reasonable claim is surely beyond question, I cannot call a man traitor for choosing that cause, though I may blame him for breaking his oath to you. As for me, I came into my lands only some months ago, and I have so far sworn fealty to none. I have taken my time in choosing where I will serve. I am here. Those who flock to you without thought may fall away from you just as lightly.”
“And you will not?” said the king sceptically. He was studying this bold and possibly over-fluent young man with critical attention. A lightweight, not above the middle height and slenderly built, but of balanced and assured movement; he might well make up in speed and agility what he lacked in bulk and reach. Perhaps two or three years past twenty, black-avised, with thin, alert features and thick, quirky dark brows. An unchancy fellow, because there was no guessing from his face what went on behind the deep-set eyes. His forthright speech might be honest, or it might be calculated. He looked quite subtle enough to have weighed up his sovereign and reasoned that boldness might not be displeasing.
“And I will not,” he said firmly. “But that need not pass on my word. It can be put to the proof hereafter. I am on your Grace’s probation.”
“You have not brought your force with you?”
“Three men only are with me. It would have been folly to leave a good castle unmanned or half-manned, and small service, to you to ask that you feed fifty more without due provision for the increase. Your Grace has only to tell me where you would have me serve, and it shall be done.”
“Not so fast,” said Stephen. “Others may also have need of time and thought before they embrace you, young man. You were close and in confidence with FitzAlan, some time ago.”
“I was. I still have nothing against him but that he has chosen one way, and I the other.”
“And as I hear, you are betrothed to Fulke Adeney’s daughter.”
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br /> “I hardly know whether to say to that: I am! or: I was! The times have altered a great many plans previously made, for others as well as for me. As at this time, I do not know where the girl is, or whether the bargain still holds.”
“There are said to be no women now in the castle,” said the king, eyeing him closely. “FitzAlan’s family may well be clean away, perhaps out of the country by now. But Adeney’s daughter is thought to be in hiding in the town. It would not be displeasing to me,” he said with soft emphasis, “to have so valuable a lady in safekeeping — in case even my plans should need to be altered. You were of her father’s party, you must know the places likely to be sheltering her now. When the way is clear, you, of all people, should be able to find her.”
The young man gazed back at him with an inscrutable face, in which shrewd black eyes signalled understanding, but nothing more, neither consent nor resistance, no admission at all that he knew he was being set a task on which acceptance and favour might well depend. His face was bland and his voice guileless as he said: “That is my in-tent, your Grace. I came from Maesbury with that also in mind.”
“Well,” said Stephen, warily content, “you may remain in attendance against the town’s fall, but we have no immediate work for you here. Should I have occasion to call you, where will you be found?”
“If they have room,” said Beringar, “at the abbey guest house.”
The boy Godric stood through Vespers among the pupils and the novices, far back among the small fry of the house, and close to the laity, such as lived here outside the walls on the hither bank of the river, and could still reach this refuge. He looked, as Brother Cadfael reflected when he turned his head to look for the child, very small and rather forlorn, and his face, bright and impudent enough in the herbarium, had grown very solemn indeed here in church. Night was looming, his first night in this abode. Ah well, his affairs were being taken in hand more consolingly than he supposed, and the ordeal he was bracing himself to master need not confront him at all, if things went right, and at all events not tonight. Brother Paul, the master of the novices, has several other youngsters to look after, and was glad to have one taken firmly off his hands.
Cadfael reclaimed his protégé after supper, at which meal he was glad to see that Godric ate heartily. Evidently the boy was of a mettle to fight back against whatever fears and qualms possessed him, and had the good sense to fortify himself with the things of the flesh for the struggles of the spirit. Even more reassuringly, he looked up with relief and recognition when Cadfael laid a hand on his shoulder as they left the refectory.
“Come, we’re free until Compline, and it’s cool out in the gardens. No need to stay inside here, unless you wish.”
The boy Godric did not wish, he was happy to escape into the summer evening. They went down at leisure towards the fish ponds and the herbarium, and the boy skipped at Cadfael’s side, and burst into a gay whistling, abruptly broken off.
“He said the master of the novices would want me, after supper. Is it really proper for me to come with you, like this?”
“All approved and blessed, child, don’t be afraid. I’ve spoken with Brother Paul, we have his good word. You are my boy, and I am responsible for you.” They had entered the walled garden, and were suddenly engulfed and drowned in all those sun-drenched fragrances, rosemary, thyme, fennel, dill, sage, lavender, a whole world of secret sweetness. The heat of the sun lingered, heady with scent, even into the cool of the evening. Over their heads swifts wheeled and screamed in ecstasy.
They had arrived at the wooden shed, its oiled timbers radiated warmth towards them. Cadfael opened the door. “This is your sleeping-place, Godric.”
There was a low benchbed neatly arrayed at the end of the room. The boy stared, and quaked under Cadfael’s hand.
“I have all these medicines brewing here, and some of them need tending regularly, some very early, they’d spoil if no one minded them. I’ll show you all you have to do, it’s not so heavy a task. And here you have your bed, and here a grid you may open for fresh air.” The boy had stopped shaking, the dark blue eyes were large and measuring, and fixed implacably upon Cadfael. There seemed to be a smile pending, but there was also a certain aura of offended pride. Cadfael turned to the door, and showed the heavy bar that guarded it within, and the impossibility of opening it from without, once that was dropped into its socket. “You may shut out the world and me until you’re ready to come out to us.”
The boy Godric, who was not a boy at all, was staring now in direct accusation, half-offended, half-radiant, wholly relieved.
“How did you know?” she demanded, jutting a belligerent chin.
“How were you going to manage in the dortoir?” responded Brother Cadfael mildly.
“I would have managed. Boys are not so clever, I could have cozened them. Under a wall like this,” she said, hoisting handfuls of her ample tunic, “all bodies look the same, and men are blind and stupid.” She laughed then, viewing Cadfael’s placid competence, and suddenly she was all woman, and startlingly pretty in her gaiety and relief. “Oh, not you! How did you know? I tried so hard, I thought I could pass all trials. Where did I go wrong?”
“You did very well,” said Cadfael soothingly. “But, child, I was forty years about the world, and from end to end of it, before I took the cowl and came to my green, sweet ending here. Where did you go wrong? Don’t take it amiss, take it as sound advice from an ally, if I answer you. When you came to argument, and meant it with all your heart, you let your voice soar. And never a crack in it, mind you, to cover the change. That can be learned, I’ll show you when we have leisure. And then, when I bade you strip and be easy — ah, never blush, child, I was all but certain then! — of course you put me off. And last, when I got you to toss a stone across the brook, you did it like a girl, under-arm, with a round swing. When did you ever see a boy throw like that? Don’t let anyone else trick you into such another throw, not until you master the art. It betrays you at once.”
He stood patiently silent then, for she had dropped on to the bed, and sat with her head in her hands, and first she began to laugh, and then to cry, and then both together; and all the while he let her alone, for she was no more out of control than a man tossed between gain and loss, and manfully balancing his books. Now he could believe she was seventeen, a budding woman, and a fine one, too.
When she was ready, she wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, and looked up alertly, smiling like sunlight through a rainbow. “And did you mean it?” she said. “That you’re responsible for me? I said I trusted you to extremes!”
“Daughter dear,” said Cadfael patiently, “what should I do with you now but serve you as best I can, and see you safe out of here to wherever you would be?”
“And you don’t even know who I am,” she said, marvelling. “Who is trusting too far now?”
“What difference should it make to me, child, what your name may be? A lass left forlorn here to weather out this storm and be restored to her own people — is not that enough? What you want to tell, you’ll tell, and I need no more.”
“I think I want to tell you everything,” said the girl simply, looking up at him with eyes wide and candid as the sky. “My father is either in Shrewsbury castle this minute with his death hanging over him, or out of it and running for his life with William FitzAlan for the empress’s lands in Normandy, with a hue and cry ready to be loosed after him any moment. I’m a burden to anyone who befriends me now, and likely to be a hunted hostage as soon as I’m missed from where I should be. Even to you, Brother Cadfael, I could be dangerous. I’m daughter to FitzAlan’s chief ally and friend. My name is Godith Adeney.”
Lame Osbern, who had been born with both legs withered, and scuttled around at unbelievable speed on hands provided with wooden pattens, dragging his shrivelled knees behind him on a little wheeled trolley, was the humblest of the king’s campfollowers. Normally he had his pitch by the castle gates in the town, but he had forsak
en in time a spot now so dangerous, and transferred his hopeful allegiance to the edge of the siege camp, as near as he was allowed to get to the main guard, where the great went in and out. The king was notoriously open-handed, except towards his enemies-at-arms, and the pickings were good. The chief military officers, perhaps, were too preoccupied to waste thought or alms on a beggar, but some of those who came belatedly seeking favour, having decided which way fortune was tending, were apt to give to the poor as a kind of sop to God for luck, and the common bowmen and even the Flemings, when off-duty and merry, tossed Osbern a few coppers, or the scraps from their mess.
He had his little wagon backed well into the lee of a clump of half-grown trees, close to the guard-post, where he might come in for a crust of bread or a drink, and could enjoy the glow of the field-fire at night. Even summer nights can strike chill after the heat of the August day, when you have only a few rags to cover you, and the fire was doubly welcome. They kept it partially turfed, to subdue the glow, but left themselves light enough to scrutinise any who came late.
It was close to midnight when Osbern stirred out of an uneasy sleep, and straining his ears for the reason, caught the rustling of the bushes behind and to his left, towards the Castle Foregate but well aside from the open road. Someone was approaching from the direction of the t9wn, and certainly not from the main gates, but roundabout in cover from along the riverside. Osbern knew the town like his own callused palm. Either this was a scout returning from reconnaissance — but why keep up this stealth right into the camp? — or else someone had crept out of town or castle by the only other way through the wall on this side, the water-port that led down to the river.
A dark figure, visible rather as movement than matter in a moonless night, slid out from the bushes and made at a crouching, silent scurry for the guard-post. At the sentry’s challenge he halted immediately, and stood frozen but eager, and Osbern saw the faint outline of a slight, willowy body, wrapped closely in a black cloak, so that only a gleam of pale face showed. The voice that answered the challenge was young, high-pitched, tormentedly afraid and desperately urgent.