Gifts of the Queen

by Mary Lide

  I love to see

  Meadows, with pavilions spread

  Knights, horses, in battle red,

  Maces and swords and helms all rent,

  Shields riven apart and bent.

  I tell you I find no such pride,

  In food or wine or gentle sleep,

  As hearing the battle cry, 'On, on ride,'

  The battle cry, the horse's leap . . .

  Verse after verse in this fashion until they had lathered themselves into a fret; the knight's dream of war, enough to send the hounds slinking away and startle young Robert into howls. I saw at once where the older man had coined his phrase: Without the art thereof, war is but a dream.

  Myself, I would have preferred a drinking song, and certainly they had downed enough wine to come up with a bawdy one, such as often had sent us women scurrying (not so much, I might add, to cover our ears but our mouths, that our laughter be not heard). But with its end there was another pause. I had the feeling that we were now come to the point of what their visit meant, all else but prelude to that.

  The older lord turned again to Raoul. His words came out like arrow shots. 'Shall we not try the truth of it? A tourney, in the old style, to welcome you? Where else got you your practice in your youth, to serve you as King Stephen's champion? Too long have we been sitting on our arses waiting for the spring. We'll call up each lord from here to the coast, let everyone bring as many knights, as many men, as he needs. We'll celebrate your return, boy, as we used; a mêlée in the old style, two sides as in real war, in open fight, each lord accompanied by eight knights, until one side cry hold. Let all who are engaged do battle. And God preserve all men who are unhorsed. But as sop to those younger, weaker men who prefer the pretence of war rather than a mêlée , which is war, just better planned, we'll offer a day of joust, men riding with a lance against each other, one by one. And he who is judged most successful in the joust or fight, we'll give him as prize the horse and gear of every knight he knocks from the lists.'

  Excitement filled the hall at his words. And even Raoul, although he still kept silent, his eyes too had brightened for a second. I was appalled. I had heard of mêlées of course, who has not; my father had fought in many a one in his youth to win his fortune with his sword. But at such a time, in such a land, so threatened with war, to seek the excuse for its pretense was, as Raoul had said, to be nature's fool. I could not believe he would take part, or that he would be tempted by what was promised. For the older man was going on, 'And we'll let the champion choose a lady as his queen. We'll put all our women-folk on display. The jest of it, they'll fight among themselves as fiercely as ever on the battlefield to ensure their place as the chosen one. Their squabbles will afford us better sport. And I'll offer the tourney in a lady's name: my daughter, Lady Isobelle, whom you remember well. And you, my lord, have a new wife, whom I have not yet met I think. Roll her out. I hear she is no prude. We would know her charms, considerable as I have heard by all reports.'

  It was not the words themselves but their tone that was meant to offend, and even the words themselves held a threat, as if he might yet risk offending more. Yet, in truth, I paid them less heed, and much of what he intimated slid over my head; it was the name of Isobelle that rang its warning note. Now Isobelle is a common name in France, princesses and queens are so called. I knew of but one, and I had hated her since I had heard of her; first, because she had been Lord Raoul's bethrothed, second, because she had so readily thrown him aside, that Lady Isobelle de Boissert, whose father had forbidden the match when the capture of Sieux had left Lord Raoul disinherited. I looked at him, the Sire de Boissert, then, with even more dislike. And the slight, gray-faced man, jumping up to come between him and Raoul; I thought I had recognized his gossiping, his pale blue eyes, his weasel face, thin where his daughter was fat and fair. No man seemed less like to arrange an ambush by himself. But his overlord would be more than capable of it, aye, and of conspiracy, too.

  'My lords, my lords,' Jean de Vergay flapped back and forth, 'we'll look to the ladies at the joust; we'll have an Easter feast to drive away all cares; we'll set up tents; we'll. . .'

  Ralph de Boissert held up his hand deprecatingly. 'Gently, gently,' he said. 'I did but ask in courtesy, Raoul. Your lady is as welcome as the buds in May. My daughter yearns to make her acquaintance known. Alas, I have no wife, but the Lady de Vergay, my loyal vassal's wife, she will act the part, and equally will welcome yours, one so young, as we have heard, so unused to Norman ways. We'll greet her fairly in most gracious style.'

  Oh, it was cleverly done. He baited, withdrew, came back with wicked barb. As I had guessed from the start, a dangerous man. Yet Raoul was dangerous, too. He would not dare bait Raoul too far. And this time, Raoul was ready for him.

  'Spring,' said Raoul, 'is treacherous. And what promises fair can turn to foul.'

  'My lord Count,' Sir Jean was still rattling on, a peacemaker by profession he, perforce, if all his womenfolk were venom-tongued, 'you'll not fail us. We depend on you. What greater champion than King Stephen's man?'

  'He'll not fail us.' Ralph de Boissert stood up abruptly, pulling on his gloves, tying the straps of his cloak. 'It is too long since we saw him joust. He stands as much to lose, so more to gain. He needs to show us how he fights now.'

  He stamped out, and the others followed him. We heard them mounting up, the clash of salute, the grinding of the heavy gates drawn into place. I waited until they were gone, rounded on Raoul before he had chance to question me.

  'How dare he show his face here?' I said. 'How dare Jean de Vergay poke in his snout? How dare they wind us in their plans?'

  'Less so,' Raoul said, 'than when de Boissert thought to have me a son-in-law. What caused the disturbance in the yard, which servant wench?'

  I said, reluctantly you may be sure, 'I poured a pail of milk onto his boots when he mistook me for a serving maid.'

  He stared at me as if I were mad. I felt my women shrink, those men still within the hall scrambled out of doors. For now, his rage did break out, the more I think he had kept it pent up so long, and endured in silence, as patiently as he had his wounds, all the checks and hinderances that his weakness had caused. The anger was not directed at me, but since I was there I felt the force of it. That too is natural between men and their wives. But I was nervous, over anxious, too. I make no excuse for myself except that. My response to his anger was not likely to mollify him.

  'Damn him then to Hell,' Raoul roared. He paced about. 'Impudent cur. And you, God's bones, what possessed you to roam so dressed, so employed? God's my life, we'll have ladies to serve you yet, even if I drag them here myself. You'll not disgrace yourself again. But while you've got your village folk at your command, busy them to equip us for this Eastertide. We'll not ride out as beggars again. Ralph de Boissert thinks to make a mock of me. He has bitten off too much. He'll have a bellyful of us before he's done. Set a trap for me. I shall trap him.'

  'You'll not be such fool to go?' I asked.

  Raoul took hold of my arm, in stronger grip than any of de Boissert's men had used, and propelled me to the door. It was not much for privacy, and the wind blew cold, but he propped it half ajar against his shoulder and kept me there.

  'You'll not go,' I said again, alarm making me too sharp, 'into a snare that he has set? Who knows what devilry he has in mind, but even a simpleton could see he plots against the king. And if he tried to kill us once, why not again? As for his daughter, that Lady Isobelle, why should you wish to see her? She never showed you much care. Why attend a joust in her honor who never honored you?'

  'He wants to see if I can fight,' said Raoul. 'When I have knocked him head over cock, then let him spew out for help.'

  'And when you are knocked from the lists yourself,' I said, 'what then?'

  'You'll make a nice little widow,' his voice was sarcastic, 'a plump little widow for a Norman lordling. Has it occurred to you I might not fall? And, unless my men get practice, how are we to fi
ght together again?'

  'You'll not risk your men, too,' I blurted out. 'Leave Sieux unguarded, all for pride?'

  'Christ's balls,' he bellowed out, 'am I a child that you order my life and my men? You'd not expect me to ride in a mêlée alone? And not to go is impossible. They'll not put coward's curse on me because of you. I'll not live in fear of them. Nor shall I boast of what I've done and can do. Watch me. And watch you shall. I'll have you along if I have to haul you by the hair. Put scorn on me because of you! Remember your place: you are a countess, no peasant's wife.'

  'And what of my son?' I made one last attempt. 'What of him when I am gone?'

  ‘That too is a thing,' he said. 'My son.' When he lowered his voice in that way, the worst was to come. 'I'll not have him bred up a monk, a gelding for your women's bower. I'll have him from your charge, back to Sedgemont, yet. . .'

  'You would not dare,' I cried.

  'By the Living Cross,' he said, 'dare me not. I bring you as accoutrement, not encumbrance, to me and my men. I'll not have you weep duckweed round my neck. God's wounds, a bachelor have I lived all these years and never thought to have a wife who talked me down as no man has. Henry did me a service when he had me marry you.'

  'And he ordered me so well,' I cried, 'yoked to a man who cares more for revenge than sense. You'll grow like those other Norman lords you pretend to despise, gross with wine and blood, squint-eyed, peering for battle praise, knock-kneed, leaning over a broken lance.' So I whipped my anger to curdling point. Well, that was my way of looking at things. It was not his. I speak, he had told me once, of state affairs. No woman lives who cannot help muddling them with domestic ones.

  'Rage all you please,' he said, 'but keep it for my private ears. No need to spill out worse for all the world. You've not done so badly as it is. Long has your tongue become. I'll tie it in a knot to keep it quiet.'

  He suddenly looked at me and, in his way, almost laughed.

  'Dear God,' he said, 'we make a fine pair, you and I, squabbling like two children in the rain, while our murderers go unharmed. But we ride when I say ride. You'll attend me there.'

  So are vows of peace made to be broken soon. It was not an easy start to our most difficult threat so far. Nor was it easy to keep a quarrel hid when it has been shouted, blared forth. Nor easy to keep domestic quarrel alive when you share one room, one plate, one bed. I would not hold my tongue for all that he had mocked at it. And then, the words he used to describe Empress Matilda rankled also. Beautiful and chaste, as if they explained a woman's worth, nothing more, all for a man's pleasure, none of her own self. I felt a wife, a woman, could be a comfort to a man so that he might share, if not his troubles, at least his spirit with her, that she be more than a statue set for the world to admire. But most of all I felt my fears should be considered. For it was fear as well as anger that I felt.

  6

  Now I would not have it thought everything was so simple as I have made out, nor so dark. There were many reasons for the decision Lord Raoul made, and even I, reluctantly you may be sure, came to accept them in time. For if you could have seen the way Sieux prepared, how Raoul and his men exercised when the weather cleared, how provisions and fodder were somehow procured, armorers brought from Saint Purnace, we having none left of our own, surcoats hastily patched, you too would have thought an army's march was under way, and how paid for, how maintained, any man's guess. And seeing how those blacksmiths hammered and hit—I passed the forge at midday once, when the fire's heat was enough to make you cringe, and the smith, with arms bare, and chest, like some demon sent from Purgatory. He took the spear he was hammering and plunged it into a water pail where it hissed and steamed until he drew it out. He held it up, testing its sharpness with his blackened thumb.

  'How’s that for strength and point,' he said to all the world passing by. 'Lord love us, but that will split a gut, even a de Boissert one,' and he lunged into the air as if testing it against a living man. The sun glinted on the arc it made. Perhaps it was the fire's heat that made me pale, perhaps the swish of the spear.

  'Lady Ann,' said Matt, to comfort me, 'they use a wooden lance at joust, not one to maim and kill. The skill lies in how you turn it, inward at the very last, to thrust your opponent from his seat.' He mimed the action for me with a fallen branch; small comfort indeed, for if a wooden lance at a joust, certainly one steel-barbed in the open mêlée . In the mêlée , men fight as fiercely as on a real battlefield. A combatant there might readily be killed or wounded or maimed by such a spear. And even if he lived, defeated, he would forfeit all his gear, his horse, and certainly his sword and shield. But my squires would not speak of that, for they were anxious that I should feel at ease. And knowing, as they must, how things stood between me and their lord, they tried to put them to rights, no simple task that, either, a thankless one to come between man and wife.

  But, as Walter finally pointed out (and these were reasons I did accept). There are not many ways a knight can hope to acquire land or wealth. A tourney gives us who have no family inheritance a chance. Long may it be before I can earn a hauberk and a horse of my own, and since only knighted men may fight, the other knights of Sieux might earn one for me, too. And if we win enough and well enough—and we will—we could pay the mason's fee this spring.'

  He looked at me with his dark eyes, sideways, and smiled in a fashion he had taken up to make the village maids run after him. 'You'd not expect us to lose,' he said, and almost gave a half-wink. No, not lose to prove me right. And counting carefully, as I now did, the number of men Master Edward had brought back (for as soon as the weather allowed, he had returned), I realized how observant Walter was. There were fewer workmen this year, they went slower, not because the masons themselves were slow but because they lacked carpenters, ditchdiggers, quarrymen, each with his special skill, whose services had helped them in the past. A tourney then was needed to bring new wealth for Sieux. As for leaving the castle unguarded, that never had been Raoul's intent, he would take but a part of his cavalry; the rest, foot soldiers, swordsmen, under Dillon's command, would remain. And on that point, too, Walter dispelled any lingering fears.

  'For,' he was quick to note, 'who will there be to attack us?

  They'll all be at the tourney, those Norman lords, all, that is, who can creep and crawl. They'll straddle horse even if we have to hoist them up, the prospect of a joust will so please them. Out from their holes they'll come creeping, like weasels, sniffing out for glory's crown. We'll knock them back in soon enough.'

  The word 'weasel' made me think of Jean de Vergay, and I wondered aloud if he and his family would be there. 'Bound to be,' Walter maintained. 'If de Boissert leads one side in the mêlée as he claims. Sir Jean will act as marshal of the field. His voice is loud enough when he sings; but, mark my words, he'll put his sons to fight in his stead, not liking to venture out himself. In any case, all these preoccupations will keep their attention away from Sieux.'

  Nor did Raoul mention again his promise, or threat, I give you leave to judge which it was, to take me along with him. I suppose I could have argued I should not leave my son, and in truth had little liking for that, but he was weaned, the village women loved him as their own, the guard at Sieux would have died for him; to give him as excuse was to make but a flimsy one. And I was proud. I would not have it said that for fear of those Norman lords I hid at home. Nor would I have Isobelle de Boissert and her friends have reason to put scorn on me. And when one day I heard Walter and his companions discussing that lady, their comments made me determined not to lag behind.

  Walter had been strumming on his lute, idly plucking at its strings, a love song such as filled his thoughts these days, better than a Norman war chant at least.

  'Those French ladies,' he was saying in the manner of one who has made a pleasing discovery, 'that Lady of Boissert is generous in her love, or so 'tis said, the higher born, the more she has to give.' He struck a chord. 'They say she and her women pick out lovers as freely as a
man might choose a maid. Myself, I think that strange, unnatural, for a lady to be so bold.'

  'But one you'll profit from if you can,' Matt put in, not having reached that stage himself.

  Walter pulled Matt's hair affectionately, 'Be patient,' he told his friend, 'your time will come. Myself, I would most prefer to visit in those courts in southern France, in Poitiers. They say that there ladies hold a gathering, whereby they dictate the laws of love, what it is, how bestowed, by whom, and afterwards rate performances and keep a list. But they are discreet, as this Lady Isobelle is not, and never brag, so husbands and fathers are not forced to vengeance, seldom having proof and being too lazy to search for lovers under their beds.'

  I almost smiled to myself as I passed on. But I remembered what Walter said. And when ladies arrived to wait on me, not unexpectedly of course, since Lord Raoul had promised them, I watched them carefully. They were young for the most part, kin to Lord Raoul's vassals here in France, a half dozen or so, if not exactly dragged to Sieux at least come with no great show of enthusiasm, lured, I am sure, with promises of the tourney. I eyed them as they eyed me, set them to embroidering of the finer work, and since they too had come with but one intent, and in their quiet way determined on it, I had little choice but to go along with them.

  The day we set out, early, before Matins, was a-drizzle, like that day a year ago when with high hopes we had first returned to Sieux. At the last moment I ran back to my villagers with whom I had left my son. They stood beside the castle gates and held him in their arms to watch us pass. He did not smile or cry, but stared intently with his blue-gray eyes, as if he wished to take in everything, as if he wished to understand all that we did. To turn his gaze, I dangled a bauble I had strung about my neck, no bauble but the great ring the queen had given me, too large for me to wear on any finger, so I had hung it on a chain. 'See here, my love,' I said to make him look at me, but he kept his gaze fixed over his nurse's shoulder at the men. I smoothed his hair, his face, his hands, marveling as I always did at their delicacy, seeing, as if with new intent, how fast he grew.