Servant of Birds

by A. A. Attanasio

  "You saw the castle wall," Roger says. "The tourney is only days away. The wall won't be repaired by then. The assise de bataille will give us some shred of legitimacy to assume authority. With the knights who have come to the tourney from across the kingdom, we will have enough force to swarm Neufmarche—or to exact the gold to pay our penalties and keep our castle."

  -/

  Rachel sits in the warm water of her bath. The aches of her journey melt out of her. She has asked to be alone, and only a young maid remains to comb her hair and sort her clothes.

  David's illness troubles her deeply. He is old and still wearied by the journey that brought them here. The climate debilitates him, the nights damp and chill. She wants to spend more time in prayer with him, to mitigate her guilty feelings over Dwn and to celebrate the new hope that the jewels have won. He is too weak. The castle physician has declared that until his fever breaks, he must not even stand to pray.

  Several masses must be said for Dwn, and now, with Maître Pornic out of the way, Gianni can conduct the services in a manner closer to Hebraic tradition. That will please Grandfather. There will be readings from the Torah and the singing of psalms.

  The sharing of the consecrated wine and bread will suggest the Passover meal. Then, even she can partake without offending God. And the cold inside her that is the heart’s fire will trouble her less.

  Rachel mulls this over as she soaks her bruises: These people worship a Jewish god. Why not adore the rituals he adored?

  -/

  Gianni Rieti kneels before the altar of the chapel, trying to pray. Oddly, he misses Maître Pornic, misses the holy man’s veteran faith. How difficult it is to worship the invisible, he thinks with his eyes closed, seeing only darkness and blood-shadows, feeling no presence but the urgency of his own body. God—Holy Lord and Master—you have given me a chapel, given me a flock—now give me the strength to be your priest.

  He opens his eyes and finds Ummu curled up asleep on the feet of the Blessed Virgin. Ta-Toh slinks over the statue's shoulders. The statuary of the chapel displays exquisite artistry: the crucifix frightfully detailed, stained glass windows precise and lit with unearthly fire.

  Why do they not move me with half the fervor of my loins? He leans his face in his hands. Is Maître Pornic right? If I hold this burning within me long enough, will it change to something wonderful? Am I that strong? Or is this unnatural? Give me a sign. You blessed the baroness with a miracle. Bless me with a simple but clear sign.

  Listening for thunder or an eagle’s scream, Gianni hears only Ummu’s raspy snoring and the distant clop of hooves in the bailey. Then, Ta-Toh barks, and Ummu yawns: "An apparition."

  Gianni twists hard about and sees sun smoke pouring through the arched doorway and a woman's silhouette. Madelon approaches.

  Ummu clicks his tongue for his monkey and disappears behind the transept.

  "I've come to pray for you," the young woman announces, kneeling beside him. "Maître Pornic has been banished to his abbey, and now you must minister to the castle. You must be in great torment."

  Gianni stares at her with feverish eyes. "I am."

  "How could you not be, Gianni? I know from your life’s story, you are not a priest. You are only disguised as a priest."

  "I have been truly devoted to our Savior since the miracle of the Grail. I saw it with my own eyes—and it has changed me."

  Madelon places her perfumed hands at both sides of his face and gazes longingly at him. "Poor Gianni. You are a penitent of love. Why do you deny this? So long as you pretend you are a priest, you belong to the Devil and he burns you with lust. Let love set you free."

  "You would love me?"

  "If you abandon this pretense of being a priest, if you are simply a knight—then yes, I will love you."

  She releases his face and bows her head in prayer. With a childlike shine in his eyes, Gianni watches her cross herself and rise. She nods to him with an elusive smile, then floats away into darkness and disappears in another gush of sun smoke.

  "She is tickling your anus," Ummu says, popping out from behind the altar.

  "No," Gianni says with a sad tilt of his head. "I lost my soul a long time ago, Ummu. And here is where she has found it."

  -/

  Denis Hezetre faces a target at the far end of the lists and fits the nock of an arrow to the string of his bow. He stands alone on the field, for the sun has dropped low in the sky and slanting rays fan over the target. This appeals to Denis, for the glare in his eyes corresponds to the blindness in his heart that he has felt since the baroness' return.

  Only God could have ripped him from Guy’s side and turned him into a foe. What a clever and symmetrical irony. As surely as God makes sport of His creatures and their passions, Denis knows with equal certainty that only God can keep his heart true.

  Denis raises the bow and draws the arrow back on the string. He opens his eyes directly to the sun’s shafts. Light winces through him, hurting his eyes, matching the pain at his center. The target disappears in the fiery radiance. Just as he knows Guy is still there for him, Denis knows the target exists somewhere too.

  He fires into the sun, then turns away without looking, knowing his aim is true.

  -/

  Ginger-haired Hellene sits down on the couch beside the empty fireplace, dizzy with anger. She juts her lower lip and blows an irate gust of air over her face. Then, she fixes a demented, almost cross-eyed look on her husband William, who stands by the window tugging at his thick mustache and staring into the distance.

  "Find your sister, Hugues," Hellene says to the glum twelve-year-old in the corner, without looking at him. The husky lad hangs his head and shifts his weight reluctantly, much preferring to stay and listen. "Bring Madelon here now," his mother adds in a sharp tone that sends the youth shuffling out the door.

  Once out of sight, Hugues stops, presses his back against the wall and, biting his lower lip, listens.

  "Why must Thierry go to Saint David's?" Hellene asks in a voice of hushed violence.

  "I have already told you, Hellene. This is a pilgrimage to atone for Dwn's death."

  "That was an accident. You said it was the horse that struck the van."

  "Thierry's horse."

  "Why can he not atone here at the chapel or at the abbey? Saint David's is four days away. And if Howel's men catch him again—"

  "Thierry will take the longer route—down the Usk to Newport. He'll leave after the tourney and have a sturdy escort among the departing knights."

  Hellene shakes her head, and her shoulders slump with the weight of remorse. "Why do you never heed me, William? I told you Thierry was to stay here with Harold. The tourney is too near for him to have risked injury on the high road. He's fifteen, William, and a dubbed knight. He's old enough to win his place in a—"

  "Fine family, like Marshal or de Braiose," William completes in shrill mockery. He turns from the window with a vexed frown. "Lanfranc is a fine enough family. There's no need to place him anywhere. Someday he will be the lord of this dominion."

  Hellene fits a perplexed expression to her stern features. "William—even before Grand-mère returned, I wanted something better for Thierry than this petty dominion hidden in the hills of nowhere. Now with Grand-mère installed again, fresh as her twenty-first summer, he will never be baron of this castle. He must seek his fortune elsewhere, so why not among the daughters of the great landowners of the south? He's a striking lad of no little skill."

  "On that, wife, we are agreed. The best of the maidens will vie for him." William sits beside her, his manner gentled by their shared concern. "But if he marries among the nobles, he will have to serve their fathers—and they serve the king and the Plantagenets, who are contending with Philip Augustus, king of the French. Do you know – or should any of us care – for what they contend? A swatch of foreign countryside northwest of Paris called the Vexin. Those great houses would place our Thierry out on the battlefield as a pawn, to win a patch of
land on the frontiers of Normandie. Here, at least, he is free of the royal war games. Here, he will be his own lord, for the king's writ does not run in the March."

  "Better lord of a pinkynail domain than cat's-paw for an empire," Hellene agrees. "But Grand-mère—"

  William lays a restraining hand on her knee. "Is she truly your grandmother?"

  "Of course," Hellene responds, taken aback. "The king and the pope—"

  "Vellums can be forged." William bends closer. "I must tell you a thing. When Howel appeared in the hill forest, he had Longsight Meilwr with him. The old bard’s blind now, but when Howel had him smell your grandmother’s hair, the revered fart cried out, 'She's not the Servant of Birds!'"

  Hellene purses her lips skeptically. "Your Welsh is weak. For all you could tell, he might have said, 'She's none but the Servant of Birds.'"

  William shrugs. She is right, and that is why he did not tell Guy what he thought he had heard. "Even so. Does this woman seem anything like Ailena?"

  "Mother believes so."

  "Clare is just happy to get out from under her brother's thumb. What do you think?"

  Hellene knits her brows. "She behaves very differently. More indrawn, quieter. And yet, there is something haunted in her features. She has witnessed wonders."

  "Think on it, Hellene. If she presents any sign at all that she is a Pretender, seize on that and tell me—for the sake of our son."

  Outside the bedchamber’s open door, Hugues pushes off and dashes down the passage to find Madelon and share his amazement.

  -/

  Gerald Chalandon stands with his son Thomas in an upper apartment of the donjon, narrow shutters thrown open from the keyhole windows to admit a floral breeze. "This is a miserably hot chamber," Gerald says staring at the dark rafters and drab walls. "Why do you insist on residing here when there are ample suites in the palais?"

  "You'll need those suites when the noble guests arrive for the tourney," Thomas answers and heaves open the shutters on one large ogee window. Below sprawls the inner courtyard, the elegant, Gothic arched palais, and a rose-trellised corner of the castle garden. "You don't expect the earls of Hereford and Glastonbury to make do with an attic apartment? Besides, here my mother and sisters will leave me alone. Those stairs are too formidable for any of them."

  "They see you so rarely. Can you blame them for dogging you when you are here?"

  "I'd blame them less if they'd stop asking me when I'm going to be tonsured."

  "Really, Thomas. You've been an acolyte since you were seventeen. How much more bookwork do you need to become a priest?"

  "Grand-mère wants me to leave the abbey." He levels an incredulous look at his father. "She wants to name me Uncle's heir."

  Gerald rubs his jaw, and grins. "She is right, you know. You are her eldest grandson. And certainly Guy will never spawn heirs. You should be baron."

  "Father, I have not the mettle."

  "Nonsense. Mettle is for warriors. Wisdom is far more valuable to a ruler than ardor. And you've plenty of wisdom. You should. You've had your face in the books long enough."

  Thomas sits on the sill. "I don't want to be baron. I hadn't the heart to tell Grand-mère, but-—" He smiles luminously. "I'm ready now to be a priest. I'll be taking my vows on Saint Fandulfs Day, the anniversary of Grand-mère's departure for the Holy Land."

  Gerald's face flinches with his surprise, and he forces himself not to frown as the hope of seeing his son a baron slips away. He claps Thomas's shoulder and gives him a broad, crooked-tooth smile. "Your mother will weep with happiness, convinced God's grace has won out. But tell me, what tome raised your heart to heaven?"

  "No tome, Father. Grand-mère's miracle has convinced me of God's sacred intent in this world."

  "Ah, yes. And you doubted God’s intent?"

  Thomas hangs his head. "You have always taught me the supremacy of the spirit, and I have never doubted you. But, for you, that supremacy was in song."

  "That was my soul's calling," Gerald avers, eyes fogging over. "Though I am of humble origin, my song was heard by the countess of Ventadour herself, and in her court I learned the art of poetry and courtesy."

  "You were touched by the lamentable transiency of things," Thomas coaxes, "and you sang of that."

  Gerald nods wistfully, satisfied by his son's indulgence.

  "For you, Father, spirit is in the song. But for me, the spirit shines in all of God's creation—in the regal flight of geese or in the morning smoke above the heath. Even the gloomy flags of scum on a pond are precious as silk to me."

  "To the great bafflement of your uncle," Gerald says, smiling gently. "He never could understand how you could find beauty in a pond's rinsings."

  "But is it not so? What men have crafted is clumsy by comparison to creation's simplest offerings."

  Gerald sighs with satisfaction. "You have found your way to bliss, Thomas. Well, then, forget the seductions of power. Ignore your grandmother's pleas to sit in the chair of state and follow your faith."

  "It is Grand-mère who showed me the way. It's not in books. I'll never be a prelate, Father. I want to live as a simple monk and learn from God's first book—as it was in the beginning and ever shall be." He clasps his white cassock nervously. "There is really only one obstacle left."

  "Obstacle? Surely not Uncle Guy. He has found his right disciple of the sword in Thierry."

  "No, no, that's not it. A shred of doubt remains—the Devil's shadow that falls on every act of grace in this world." Thomas runs a hand through his fine hair. "Maître Pornic questions the miracle and wonders if Grand-mère is a Pretender."

  Gerald opens his hands, weighing this skepticism. "You must remember that Maître Pornic believes the greatest miracle is the sunrise. He sees God's face in a flower. Of course he would question anything supernatural."

  "There is more. On the way from the abbey, Longsight Meilwr came out of the woods and smelled Grand-mère’s hair. Without hesitation, he claimed she is not the Servant of Birds."

  This raises Gerald’s tiny eyebrows.

  "What if she is a Pretender, Father?"

  "Guy will burn the impostor. Your mother will be crushed."

  "Worse. It means God no longer touches us, not as he touched the prophets."

  Gerald grabs the toe of his chin and nods slowly. "Poor Clare."

  -/

  At night, Falan dreams of al-aswadan, the two black ones: water and dates. The clatter of sunlight through the fronds of the date palm play over a dazzling dune, beneath which he sits staring into a pool deep and black as a crypt. A voice says: "The unknown is not the void. It is the glitter in the void."

  When he wakes, he knows he must return to the desert.

  -/

  From her window, Rachel watches brightly colored tents going up on the wide meadow beyond the tollhouse road and orchard gardens. Her maid informs her that the first knights for the tourney have begun to arrive.

  Rachel sits in the windows broad alcove refusing food, refusing the pleas of Clare to come out, and watches the great pavilions unfurl. She recalls Ailena telling her that the Church long ago denounced tourneys: the prior popes, Innocent II, Eugenius III, Alexander III—and even the current Holy Father, the great and wise Innocent III, Rachel has heard—have all prohibited Christians from participating in staged combat under peril of their souls. "But Richard Coeur de Lion was weaned on jousting," the old baroness fulminated, pounding a tabletop. "So long as he is king, war will be the greater religion."

  Ailena Valaise's voice sounds in Rachel’s memory as clear as though she had spoken moments ago. The Persian magician, who worked his spells so well, himself no longer has a name or even a face in her mind. But Ailena's face, crumpled-looking as crushed damask, is forever pressed close so that she can whisper her long stories for hours without wearing out her voice.

  Rachel wishes the magician were here now, to attend to her grandfather. His fever has abated, and he is seriously enfeebled. Though reluctant to lo
se hope, she fears that David will probably never be strong enough for the return journey to the Holy Land.

  A knock at the door announces Falan. Using an argot of sign language, Arabic and Hebrew, he manages to communicate to Rachel that he intends to leave when the tourney concludes and wants to know if she will accompany him.

  Rachel stares up into his deep blue eyes and sees the colors of the desert in the sandy stubble of his beard, the wind-contoured hollows of his cheeks. "God shall decide," she answers. "If my champions are defeated, I will go with you. But if Allah favors my knights, I will stay and rule as Ailena wanted. Either way—" She touches her throat and indicates the gold band around Falan’s neck. "You will be in my bond no longer."

  Falan bows and touches the center of his brow, proud to know he has fulfilled his mission so well that Rachel feels secure enough to stay without him.

  Falan departs to resume his post outside her door, and Rachel, wistful and lonely, leans deeper into her window to view the bustle of the impending event. Forges ring from the smithies preparing the jousters' gear, horse dealers from Merthyr Tydfil crowd the stables, and troubadours newly arrived with the first knights roam the bailey singing of the belle saison of love and war. Carpenters from as far away as Brecon and Strata Florida have been hired to help out the levy of peasants in preparing the lists and lodges, and the din of their hammers echoes off the herded hills.

  No one can say for sure how many champions will arrive. For weeks, long before the baroness returned, servitors had coursed the country for thirty leagues around heralding the event.

  To her side, in a sun-laminated pane of the open window, Rachel glimpses her reflection and notices the obsession in her fervid stare. If her knights are defeated, then staying here would be far more dangerous for her grandfather than the perils of travel.

  She closes her eyes to pray, though she has not trusted God since the horror. She searches for words to petition the Lord, not for her but for David. The words do not come—and she is afraid to reach too deeply for them, afraid she will stir up the prayerful voices of the dead. As always, God remains infuriatingly silent. She opens her eyes, understanding that if she has any destiny at all apart from chance, it is in her hands alone.