Tale of Elske

by Jan Vermeer

  “You may,” the Earl answered.

  His wife said, “No.” His son’s chair scraped on the stone floor.

  Beriel addressed her uncle. “In the spring of last year, a year ago—or perhaps a little more than a year— In the spring,” Beriel said, pale but keeping her eyes fixed on her uncle’s face, “there were men let into my apartments. At the palace, and the door was locked behind them. So that I couldn’t escape them. Night after night, they came. And raped me.” She kept her eyes on the Earl when she asked, “Is this so, Aymeric?”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  Silence settled over the table.

  Beriel watched her uncle. Elske, that she might report what she observed, watched the other two, both as still as deer, startled into fear. The fire whispered to itself.

  “I don’t—” the Earl’s Lady started to say but her husband interrupted her again to inquire, “Who would have wished such disgrace on you?”

  “My brother,” Beriel said. “Guerric,” she said. “The King.”

  “She accuses our son, our Aymeric, of this—vileness,” the Earl’s Lady said, and warned Beriel, “I will hate you forever if you accuse my son.”

  Beriel gave Elske a troubled glance.

  “I would not wish your hatred, Aunt,” Beriel said.

  But it was not the hatred that troubled her, Elske knew.

  “Then that’s an end on it,” the Earl’s Lady declared. “I will forget what you have said.”

  Elske saw what troubled Beriel: The Earldom would be divided by the hatred of the Earl’s Lady for Beriel, if Beriel were Queen and had accused the Lady’s sons of rape. Beriel could not speak openly without risking a necessary ally; and that was what troubled her.

  “I will accuse Aymeric,” Elske said.

  All turned to her.

  “I will accuse both of your sons,” Elske said, to the Earl.

  “I cannot credit it,” he said, but Elske could see that he half-believed her.

  “Why would Beriel lie about such a thing?” Elske asked.

  “To be Queen!” the Earl’s Lady cried.

  “In the Kingdom, must a woman be raped before she can be Queen?” Elske asked.

  “She has always hated my sons, with a jealous hatred.”

  Elske said, “She has hated Guerric thus, and he her. But not your sons.”

  “Why doesn’t she accuse her brother, then?” the Lady demanded, furious.

  “She does,” Elske said, and turned back to the Earl, who was studying Aymeric’s bent head. “If I had a son,” Elske said, “I would not wish this shame on him. I would not wish to leave him in his shame.”

  The Earl nodded.

  “If I had a daughter,” Elske said, “I would wish to keep her safe from such shame.” The Earl’s Lady said nothing.

  At last, the Earl spoke. “Aymeric,” he said. “My son. I ask you if this accusation is true. I ask you to tell me only what is true, because I will take your word in this.”

  “Tell him it’s not true,” urged the young man’s mother.

  Aymeric raised his unhappy eyes to Elske’s and said, “Lady, it is true. I did that thing.”

  “He’s just a boy,” the Earl’s Lady explained to Elske.

  “And your brother?” the Earl demanded.

  Aymeric looked at Beriel for the first time. “Lady,” he said. “I would give an arm not to have used you so. If I could, I—” His words stumbled, halted.

  “You cannot, Cousin,” Beriel answered him.

  “Whatever revenge you wish,” Aymeric said, “even my life—”

  “No!” cried the Earl’s Lady.

  “And your brother, Ditrik?” the Earl asked again, more sternly.

  “I cannot speak of my brother. I have given my word,” Aymeric told his father.

  “Which means he extracted a promise from you,” his father said, “and that means there was need of a promise. But I can at least be glad you were stripped of honors and sent home. I can know that my heir is not such a villain as to become another man’s hired murderer.”

  “Aymeric cannot be your heir,” Beriel announced.

  “Who—?” the Earl started to demand.

  “Have you no other sons? I think you have one other, and daughters, too, although they are young.”

  “Who are you to say who cannot—or can—be Earl Sutherland?” the Earl demanded.

  “I am your rightful Queen,” Beriel answered. “Aymeric has shamed his name, dishonored it.”

  “He has shamed you,” the Earl’s Lady said. “And you wish revenge.”

  “But he has not dishonored me,” Beriel said quietly. “The dishonor is not mine, for all they wished it so, and tried to make it so. As to revenge,” Beriel said, in a voice that turned her aunt’s face pale with fear, and respect. Beriel took a breath, and said it again, “As to revenge, I think his own heart has been taking my revenge upon Aymeric. I need no more.”

  “And for Ditrik?” the Earl asked.

  “Ditrik has sought my death,” Beriel answered. “He is a traitor.”

  Elske remembered Beriel locked into her chambers in Trastad, as if she were a criminal. She remembered Beriel standing naked in her pride, in the bath, in her shame, with the child pushing her belly out. She remembered the silence of those laborious hours of birth. “He is Fruhckman,” Elske said.

  The Earl sighed deeply, accepting. “The word is foreign, like the lady, but I know its meaning. We must lay what plans we can, Niece.”

  “Yes,” Beriel agreed, and she spoke in a new voice, ready to make her plans with the Earl. “Your captains have sworn their allegiance to you, as I think. If I can win them to my cause, will your vow to the false King be broken?” she asked.

  But before the Earl could answer this, the doors into the hall burst open and a young man strode into the room. He wore leather armor and carried a long sword, sheathed, at his belt. His dark brown hair clung to his forehead and neck, wet with sweat. Beardless, he had not shaven, so his face was shadowed. His strides, in booted feet, carried him swiftly up to the table.

  “My Lord Earl, I must speak with you,” he said, noticing none of the others in the room.

  The Earl rose and the younger man bowed slightly, impatiently, while the Earl said, “I give you greeting, Lord Dugald. What brings you—?”

  “I need troops,” the man interrupted. “Forgive me the lack of courtesies, but—my father has sent me—he sent first to the King, who has denied us. Wolfers are poised to pour down into our lands, like crows circling over a wounded bear, and our people are— Can you give me any soldiers? I must be answered, and quickly, for I have been away too long, and I would not have my men defend the holdings and villages and my sword not raised with theirs, and my life not given with theirs, if needs must. What say you, my Lord?”

  “I will give you soldiers, and weapons, horses, and supplies, also,” the Earl said.

  The dark-haired man went down on his knee, then, in gratitude. He was white-faced, and trembling with fatigue, Elske saw. She rose from her chair, so that he might sit. He accepted this place, without thanks.

  “Do you not greet me?” Beriel asked him. “Am I so much changed, my Lord Dugald?”

  He turned to her, surprised. “Beriel? And alive? Why did you leave us to this fortune?”

  “The fortune of the Wolfers?” Beriel asked. “Or the fortune of this King?”

  He did not hesitate. “Both,” he said, “and one as ill as the other. I take it, then, that the rumors were false?” This was a blunt man, and privileged to speak plainly.

  “Are not rumors most often false?” Beriel asked him, teasing. “I am as you see me, Dugald,” she said, neither lying nor telling the truth.

  “I see little, blinded as I am with tiredness and hunger,” he answered, with a little upwards lifting of the ends of his mouth, to make it a pleasantry. “And it’s many days’ ride before me, back to my own lands, where . . .”

  “But first you must rest,” Beriel told him
. “You’ll be of little use to your soldiery if you ride so exhausted.” He opened his mouth to argue but she raised a hand to silence him, and he obeyed her command. “Moreover,” Beriel announced, “I have need of good counsel here, as I determine how to make my claim on the throne. So I ask you to sit, take some rest, take refreshment, and give me the benefit of your counsel. Grant me this, Lord Dugald.”

  “It is granted, Beriel,” he said. “But I will not deliberate overlong,” he warned her with a smile.

  The Earl’s Lady rose then, to give order for food, and the Earl asked Elske to take that empty seat before he turned to the newcomer, to explain where they had arrived in their talk. Elske could feel Beriel’s anger at being left out of the men’s talk, as if she had nothing to contribute, as if it didn’t concern her. The newcomer was too engrossed to even notice Beriel’s growing fury, as he leaned in front of her to hear what the Earl was saying. Elske couldn’t help but smile, although she could help laughing where any might hear it.

  When Elske smiled, the newcomer turned his head to her. Quickly, she made her expression solemn, but his stone-brown eyes stayed on her. “Has our Aymeric brought home a bride, then?” Lord Dugald asked. “And the stories of the King’s dissatisfactions with you, are they then also false? Will you, too, come to my aid?”

  This man would not long be diverted from his own purposes, Elske noted.

  “She is not my wife,” Aymeric said, “although I might do much worse than such a stranger. For you are a foreigner, aren’t you?” he asked Elske. “From the great city of Trastad, I think, for that was a Norther word you spoke, was it not? Fruhckman?” he repeated it, with a sad smile.

  Lord Dugald did not smile. He put a hand on his sword’s hilt, as if Elske had drawn on him. “It is a Norther word. Who are you?” he demanded of Elske.

  She did not look away. “Elske,” she said.

  “Wolfer?”

  “Yes.”

  She studied him as closely as he studied her, and thought she could trust him to see into the truth of her.

  He shifted in the chair. “Are you not afraid I will slay you?”

  “Why should I fear you, when your care is for your people?” she asked him.

  “And my lands, also—for I am the Earl that will be,” he told her, then, “How came you here?” he asked.

  “I am the Queen’s handmaiden.”

  “Oh—ho—Beriel, so that is how the river runs,” he laughed. “So you will be Queen?”

  But she would not be jested with on this point. Solemnly, she answered him. “I will. And will you bend the knee to me?”

  Lord Dugald, too, grew solemn. “My Queen, I will. Whom even Wolfers serve, she has my sworn loyalty. As you always did, from when we were children. Northgate is ever for the law, and thus for the Queen.”

  Beriel rose then and placed her right hand on his left shoulder. “I accept your sword, Dugald, heir to Earl Northgate. Now, then,” she said, and turned to them all, taking her place once again at the head of the council of war, “let us lay our plans. For we waste time here, while the Kingdom is being wasted around us. What is your choice, Uncle? Will you let me speak before your soldiers to win them to my cause?”

  It didn’t take long for the decisions to be reached. The Earl’s soldiery was divided into three parts. One part would remain where they were, for although the Earl didn’t think his own lands were in danger, Beriel would not have him defenseless. The second part was given for Lord Dugald’s use. The third part of the army—those who chose so, if any did—would ride with Beriel, to confront Guerric at Arborford, to ask him to bring the question of the succession before the law or, if he required it, to do battle with him. Beriel expected battle, although the two men chided her for bloodthirstiness; she argued that she knew her brother, knew what he was capable of, and would trust him only when she had buried him.

  It did not please them to hear her speak so. The Earl told her she did not mean the words she spoke, but Lord Dugald only looked at her thoughtfully. Elske believed Beriel, and hoped to ride into battle before her mistress, or beside her, and wondered which place would enable her to better protect the Queen.

  Aymeric would ride with Beriel, as her herald. He would bear letters to the First Minister and to the King, ordering the two before the law to answer certain charges. “If I die in this, then the dishonor I have done you, my father, and you, my Queen that will be, and to myself, also—then all will be paid,” Aymeric said, as if he almost hoped for death.

  With them also, to his dismay and deep pleasure, would go Win. When he protested to Beriel that he should ride with Lord Dugald to the Ram’s Head, to stand with his family and his neighbors in need, she reminded him that he had vowed to serve her, and argued that she needed his service now even more than when he first pressed it upon her. If he chose to go home she would not bar his way; but her own will was to have him at her side, someone she could trust absolutely. Hearing her will, Win did not hesitate to promise his life to his Queen.

  A brief speech won many of Sutherland’s soldiers to her cause. Elske watched from the background how Beriel stood up tall on a mounting block to look over the men, and pick out their captains with her glance. She said only: “I am the Queen that will be. I am the rightful Queen under the law, and I ride to place my claim before this cowardly false King. Who rides with me?” Her voice carried easily as a falcon in flight over the assembled soldiers. She stood high-shouldered and unafraid. There was that about her that all recognized, and trusted, and wished to follow.

  To her surprise, and chagrin, Elske was sent with Lord Dugald and his soldiers. “You must,” Beriel told her. “I order it. You will understand the Wolfers more than our own people can. At least you can speak their tongue, so that if it comes to treating, you can speak for us.”

  “The Volkaric do not make treaties,” Elske said. “If they have sent war bands, they will overrun what they can and avoid those places that can defend themselves. Like wolves, they disappear into the safety of the forests and hills and come out of hiding to attack where they are least expected and will be most weakly opposed. Once they have entered your land, all you can do is warn your people to flee the danger,” she told Lord Dugald. “In the autumn, they will carry their booty back to the Volkking, and then you will have time to arm and train your people, for their own defense. But there is nothing I can do at this time against the Wolfers, my Lady. Let me ride with you.”

  Win added his voice to her pleas. “Aye, and whatever Elske undertakes goes well. For did you not come out of this castle with an army to ride behind you and the Earl’s own son in your service? Take Elske with you.”

  At his words, Beriel’s blue eyes grew hard and she would not be persuaded. So Elske rode out of Sutherland’s castle at the side of Lord Dugald, with an army at their backs. Beriel had already left, for Arborford.

  Watching that army take one broad roadway while she herself rode with another army down the other, Elske felt what must be fear curl its wolf claws into her heart. For what if Beriel were to die, in claiming her throne? In battle or by treachery, what if Beriel’s life were lost? What if they were never to meet again?

  Chapter 17

  THEY MARCHED AWAY FROM SUTHERLAND’S city with two bands of soldiery, the smaller loyal to Lord Dugald, the larger serving the Earl. The two soldieries camped separately from one another, strangers and mistrustful. Each ate from its own supplies and tended to its own animals, and arms.

  Dugald gave Elske the use of his own tent and himself slept on the open ground, with his soldiers; but they shared a fire, and food, and they rode side by side, all the days of the march.

  He was a good companion for a journey with urgent business. He might talk or he might ride silent, but he never complained nor did he forget to ask after her comfort, thirst, hunger or desire to rest. While he did not sing and jest, as Win had, still the hours in his company did not drag. He spoke of his father’s land, which he would inherit, and the people of it—less pleas
ure-loving than those of the south but staunch, and true-hearted. “There are those who say that the land in the north, with its dark forests and icy lakes, its rocky soil, too, is not hospitable, but I have ever found it kind.” He spoke of the history of the Kingdom, its treacheries and disasters, its great Kings and Earls, and Jackaroo, too. He explained its laws and described the great wheel of the year with its plantings and harvestings, its fairs; they discussed how a Lord could assist in the well-being of his people.

  Elske enjoyed the company of this Lord. But when he called her Lady for the time that made it too many times, she asked him, “Do you not remember I am no Lady?”

  At that, he gainsayed her, for all around to hear. “My Queen so calls you when she names you her handmaiden, which is her Lady-in-Waiting.” And he smiled, to ask her, “Will you set me against my Queen?” He smiled, making his courtly request, and she saw no falsehood in his smile. Also, there was a different request in his eyes, asking her to trust him in this, and follow his lead, as if they were moving through the steps of a dance, together.

  Elske had neither will nor reason to quarrel with Lord Dugald, and so she acquiesced.

  During the day, Dugald and the countryside they crossed diverted Elske, but at night, even in the privacy of the tent, she could not rest for long. Tired from the day’s exertions, she’d fall immediately asleep, but in the dark of night she would awaken, and think of Beriel. Her thoughts made her restless, so she’d wrap herself around with her cloak and leave the tent.

  Sentries grew accustomed to her, and watched for her. They greeted her. “A cool night, my Lady, sit here by our fire.” She learned their names and the names of their fathers, too, mothers, sisters, sweethearts. She asked after their brothers. She learned about the cities or villages where they had lived, and the work of their fathers’ holdings, shepherd and pigman, blacksmith, weaver, farmer, fisherman. “The lakes of the north are as full of fish as a goodwife’s stew,” they told her, when she was surprised to hear of fish, here, so far from the sea. They were surprised to hear that there was a way of smoking fish, as if it were pig, to preserve it. Most of these soldiers were younger sons, ambitious to be named sergeants so that they could take a wife, and be given one of the little houses the cities of the north kept for the particular use of a soldier’s family. The one thing they never spoke of was the battles ahead. Elske guessed that the depth of their silence reflected the depth of their dread.