Gifts of the Queen

by Mary Lide

  He looked at me carefully, a faint frown marring that marble forehead. So,' he said again, 'we advance slowly as through a marsh. You are Celt yourself then, that you won't deny. You have their way of speaking French, a beast to be grabbed by the tail. And you have their way of answering, too; they none of them can answer a question straight. Ask any Welsh peasant or Breton serf what crops grow in his field, he will praise the weather, damn your eyes, offer to sell you his hut of thatch, anything but tell you what you ask. To find that out, you must wait until the crop is grown. Be not alarmed, lady,' he mocked me with the use of the word, 'we will not harm you. And indeed it is rather news of the count we seek. Is he here? They said he would not come. Can he ride?'

  'Find him yourself,' I said. 'He is in the lists.'

  And I gestured toward the distant jousting field, where, faintly, came shouts and hurrahs.

  His brow furrowed again. 'So, horsed,' he said, 'able to fight. That too is news.' He half-turned, his horse still blocking me, shouted something over his shoulder to his men, then turned back.

  'And tell the countess,' he emphasized the word, 'we will speak with her. Let her expect us.'

  'How shall she know you?' I said, a feeble response to his aggressiveness.

  He thrust out his hand. On it gleamed a ring, similar to the one the queen had given me. 'So shall she know us,' he said. 'This for your pains.' He bent down to return my ring with its green threads all snarled, and as I reached to catch it, took my chin between his fingers. Although the grip before had been so rough that I still could feel the marks, the touch of his fingers now was surprising soft, as a woman's hand. But his voice was hard, a threatening note to make the sun turn dark. 'And were you a man,' he said, 'we'd not have lingered to have you put the lie on us.'

  He wheeled his horse, crashed his way out of the wood, his men gathered round him and turned to gallop back the way they had come. All save one who stopped to throw a purse of coins at my feet.

  'Take that, too,' he said, half contemptuous, 'but my master bids you mark him well. Else he will to the count and tell him what he knows. Tonight at the feasting, look for him.'

  Then he too rode away. Soon nothing of their coming was left, faint dust clouds, the purse of gold, the red marks on my arm, the ring. I pushed the purse aside with my foot as if it were a sort of snake; buried it beneath the leaves. A Judas gift I thought, as if I should betray a mistress had I one. The ring I strung hidden about my neck again as I used to do. But the marks on my wrist I could not hide; they were burned into the skin. And after a while, I turned back myself.

  So, pondering the effect he made, berating myself for stupidity, wondering where I had seen such eyes, heard such voice, worried what I should do if he came again, half believing that impossible, half suspecting that he might, I found my way toward the stands, hoping to slip in as unnoticed as I had left. But I had been absent longer than I knew. When I reached the lists, a great shout went up. I saw Raoul's horse come thundering down. I knew his style and, as I watched, saw what Matt had tried to show, what he had not yet mastered, how Raoul held the lance couched easily against his thigh, how the reins hung loose upon the horse's neck, and how, at the last moment before impact, he tightened them to urge it on, leaning outward in the saddle toward the blow. Most men instinctively lean away. Hooked from his seat, his opponent rose into the air, as if catapulted, and the riderless horse galloped on. At the end of the course, Raoul checked his own horse and came riding back, his lance tip raised in salute.

  'So, Lady Ann, you have not deserted us after all?'

  It was Mistress Alyse, who came swimming out from the crowds like some enormous fish, glistening with heat, damp with it under her silks. She smiled her malicious smile and sketched a curtsy so perfunctory as to show disrespect. 'We thought you run home in fright. We thought you sent back to Sieux in disgrace. You did not hear Count Raoul's challenge to the other knights?'

  I kept my back turned to the field, ignored the shouts. Challenge all, I thought, the more fool he. At least, I had the sense to keep the words unspoke, but I felt my flesh cringe as I tensed for the next round ... I could anticipate the silence now, the pause as they waited for another knight to arm himself, the thudding hooves, the jarring crash.

  Mistress Alyse smiled because she knew I would not look at Raoul, because not looking took as much effort as to look, because she had caught me thus unprepared. 'Of course,' she answered a question I had not asked, 'he has that right. A king's champion has the choice to wait until the end.' She paused delicately; the little lapdog still tucked under her arm flicked out its tongue and snarled. Behind her, there was the sound of galloping, a thud, another outbreak of cheers.

  'The Countess of Sieux has forgot,' the second voice was cold, the sort of silver-gold voice a paragon would have, a trill to it that readily could become too loud and shrill, a voice that could wound, if no one she wished to impress were near, 'the countess has forgot that Count Raoul is not a lad, new-spurred.'

  Mistress Alyse rocked with laughter as her father had rocked with doubt. She swayed back and forth as if she had never heard such jest. Perhaps it was, for when she could speak, 'And so she told him,' she sputtered, 'imagine, before his men, that he was a fool, as if he did not have the strength to master horse and lance, as if he had not only lost his arm but addled his wits.' They both spoke as if I were not there, or at best, an inanimate thing beneath their contempt. 'Why does she not turn and watch?' Mistress Alyse went on. 'I hear she watched closely enough when he fought for her, her champion, rather than the king's, against the charge of witchcraft.'

  'And is that true?' Isobelle de Boissert wondered, as if amazed. 'And did she cast a spell to make him lie with her? I hear, for that, Celtic witches are most powerful. . .'

  'As she tries now perhaps to lie with other men,' Alyse de Vergay spoke not to me, but she pointed at the leaves and grass that still clung to my cloak and gown,' to wait for them in broad daylight, like any whore.'

  That was the last jibe she would make at my expense. I advanced toward them, hands outstretched, voice hard. At the expression in my eyes, they cringed away. Let men put the name of witch on you.

  'If I am Celtic witch,' I cried, peppering my speech with Celtic words, most of them too vulgar to translate, 'if I can put forth spells, do not cross me lest I put one on you. As you hope to marry, if you are not too old, or have children of your own, if not past childbearing age, do not tempt me to curse you.'

  The effect was gratifying. They both cowered, crossed themselves in alarm, each trying to hide behind the other's back. But Isobelle de Boissert was not done yet. She poked Alyse de Vergay forward, spoke around her, her fine white skin suddenly racked into a net of little lines that made her look her years, her cupid mouth distorted with spite. 'God protect us,' she cried. 'She has no power over me. And God protect Count Raoul who needs it, tied to such a bawd. I shall have a marriage soon, greater than hers, who was betrothed and wedded within the hour. What was so done in haste can be undone and there are churchmen here in France to prove that truth. Let her not think to curse my marriage day; nor let her think that one so made as hers will last.'

  'Wedded and bedded, too,' Alyse de Vergay piped up, 'upon the altar, to have a child born so soon. Born they say with six fingers and toes, witch's get. How dare she play the prude. God will protect the innocent.'

  'Innocence,' I said, 'you mock the word. All here is false, double-faced. God has spoken once on my behalf, will speak for me now. Isobelle de Boissert's father broke faith with Lord Raoul, not Raoul with him. Faithless was her father, and faithless yours, to attack us. God has no liking for faithless men.'

  'You lie,' Alyse de Vergay's face had flushed with fright. 'My father is loyal to his overlord.'

  'Who is loyal to Henry, Duke and King,' Isobelle put in as swiftly.

  I seized upon their fears, remembering what was said of both men, remembering what I knew, wanting to turn the knife on these evil-tongued shrews. I should better
have kept silent.

  'Then tell de Boissert and de Vergay both,' I said, 'in Wales we have a word for traitors, and a curse. Let them twist to serve the world, one day the world will so twist them. And as their loyalty is held in such low repute, so will honest men hold you, their daughters. I am the Countess of Sieux, that my name, that my rank. Remember it.'

  There was silence. It merged into the silence behind our backs.

  'Fool,' Isobelle de Boissert spat out the word, 'she will rue that speech one day.' She suddenly spun round and began to clap. Alyse de Vergay followed suit; I was forced to turn myself. Raoul came thundering past, his last opponent tossed over the rail, still tumbling on the ground. The black horse shook itself, the white foam flew; Raoul's squires came running to catch it and take his helmet which he now threw off. The lance was shattered but he held it up and the black and white ribbons fluttered from the shaft. See how I fight. He had shown them very well.

  'And see,' Isobelle de Boissert said softly, and now she spoke to me direct, 'how he will crown me as his queen.'

  To the victor then, the spoils. I turned on my heel and left.

  7

  He burst into my pavilion at day's end, sending the women running as from a thunder cloud. The worse for them. I expected him, had wound my courage up, waited for him, changed into my wedding dress, appropriate I thought for such an interview. I stood beside a storage chest where my women had been mending linen, and folded, unfolded it, to give my hands something to do. He himself had barely stripped off his mail coat, you could see the marks of it at neck and wrist; his hair was wet with sweat. He clanked into my presence, as dishevelled as a groom in stable yard, his pages running to catch his sword and gloves, his belt, as he let them fall, until he booted them out. I heard them cowering outside, muttering among themselves.

  'What have you been doing, what saying, where have you been?' he rapped the questions forth.

  'Nowhere, nothing,' I said.

  His hand came out, rough and callused with the riding he had done, and slapped mine flat upon the top of the storage chest.

  'That nowhere, that nothing,' he said, ominously slow, 'has set the camp ahum. What bicker like a fishwife? Blurt out insults like a village idiot? God's wounds; bed down with anyone like a common tramp . . .'

  Careful, I told myself, too proud to explain, too proud to contradict what they must have already told him, but it was too late to care. 'I was bored,' I said, 'where else to sleep?'

  'Then you never saw our triumph?' he said. He spoke as slowly but I marked the pulse of anger in his cheek, live flesh he had, and beneath the skin, choler, to make the blood run fast.

  'Oh,' I said, pretending to stifle a yawn, 'I saw your triumph if you speak of that.'

  He swore, a soldier's oath. 'Not mine alone,' he emphasized. 'I speak of the men of Sieux. They conquered all the field as I knew they could. Under a tree then, like a country wench. With whom?'

  'Why not?' I retorted. 'Although I was alone. Better so than watch your men tear themselves to bits at your command.'

  He said, 'The men of Sieux are at our command, but without them, we would all be dead, you and I and our son. Some courtesy was due to them at least. Some courtesy to us as your lord, to gad abroad on foot like a country slut. Have you forgotten who we are?'

  That 'we,' that 'our,' was the final touch.

  'Forget,' I cried. 'You forget I am country bred. And slut if you would have it so, although who spoke that slander spoke it false. But I have two legs to walk upon, a mouth to speak when spoken to, eyes to see who plays the idiot. I put no shame upon your house, only what you put on me.'

  'By the Holy Cross,' he said, 'what do you mean?'

  'Only this,' hot rage to match his own, 'I am loyal to my marriage vow.' I nodded at the ribbons which someone had rebound about his shirt sleeves. 'I thought,' I said, rather than watching me, all the world watched you and the lovely Isobelle.'

  'The devil,' he said taken aback. 'What do you know of her?'

  'Enough,' I said. 'I can see beneath my nose. Unless there is more to tell.' He released my hand, tugged at the ribbons to free them, threw them underfoot. 'They were nothing,' he said, 'a woman's gewgaw.'

  'Then your nothing for mine,' I said, 'enough to make her queen.'

  'God's breath,' he said, 'you do me wrong again. I looked for you. Is it my fault you sulked apart? Nor had I time to go crawling through the crowds searching for a wife. Was that all that soured you thus? What would you have me do when one of her maids, or she, threw them? Throw them back, say, "I cannot, my wife does not permit," box her ears for impudence as I could box yours? I took them in common courtesy.'

  I let him talk, the more he spoke, the more he damned himself, but that word 'courtesy' also should not pass.

  'Courtesy,' I said, 'courtesy, that is all you Normans bleat about, as if each thing you say or do has stock response. Hypocrisy to hide the truth. Where I come from, for courtesy, a husband does not flaunt his former loves, nor do they claim what is not theirs.'

  'Careful what you claim, lady wife,' he said. 'Where I come from, women do not claim to own men.'

  'That is not what I heard,' I said. 'I heard those Norman ladies you admire so much flaunt their bodies to entrap; use what charms they have, not many at that, to impress; put on airs to make men think them saints. I have not tried their sort of love.'

  'Nor shall not, while I am by.'

  'And you,' I said, 'what may you do when I am by or not? Well, if you would act the part of Norman husband, I will act the part of Norman wife. I can imitate their ways, go to their feasting, smirk and flirt, bid other men serve me . . .'

  'Try it,' he snarled, 'I'll break your neck.'

  'Why not,' I said, 'since violence and war are your first loves.'

  He swore in earnest then, jerked me round the waist to face him. I had to stand on tiptoe to look up. 'Try those tricks,' he said, 'your dainty back will feel the mark of it. You'll smart so sore you'll not outride me for a week as you tried to yesterday.'

  Threats, threats,' I hissed at him, 'the more you rage, the more to know.'

  I felt his anger flare like my own. Tempt me not,’ he said. 'When you look like that, I could dare a hundred things. I know how to stop your tongue.' His mouth clamped down on mine to cut off breath, he held me against him, skirts bunched up, legs apart, flank to flank, so that I was pressed to his body's length, his hands hard against my spine. 'And I could ram you so full,' he said when he paused to breathe, his voice too came in great gasps, 'so full that it would be you that cries enough, no room for any other man.'

  His touch was fire; we were alone, my body ached for his. One move on my part, or his, and anger would have over-spilled, brought me beneath him to the ground. Yet I could not, must not, give way, not thus. I felt myself go limp, heard my voice say tonelessly, 'As my lord desires.'

  He held me pressed a second more, then gradually let go. I felt his passion fade. 'Nay,' he said at last, 'I have never yet brought woman unwilling to bed, least of all a wife. I did not think to have you cry rape at me.' He suddenly turned away, leaned back against the chest, wiping his face. 'Now there's a thing,' he said, anger gone too, almost dispassionately he spoke, in his way of often hiding what he really felt, 'a man, a husband, has all the rights he wants. By church law, your body's mine to take and use as I wish. Yet, although it might so pleasure me, I find I am not willing to have you by force. You'd only hold it against me the more, and still I would not have you. If that be one of your spells you speak of, you have caught me fast. But I'd not boast of it nor should you. Most men would not like to be so unmanned; I do not like it myself. You see, Ann, how it is. I told you we could fight ourselves one day into a space with no way out. And today, not time or place to try. But I'll send you back to Sieux. You have made too many enemies here, roused superstitions best forgot, caused too much talk, safer for you there, safer for me.'

  It was quiet in the tent then; outside, the movement of his men, the faint murm
urs of their voices, the distant sound of all the camp, seemed lost to another time. He roused himself. I saw for an instant in the dimness the signs of fatigue, quickly dispelled as he heaved himself upright. He had fought today and won; tomorrow he must fight again, a harder fight. 'At dawn,' he said, 'prepare to leave. Better so. I should not have brought you here, no place for women harpies, howling for blood.'

  I felt the sting: was it of chagrin or disappointment?

  'Nor look for me at the feast this night,' he said, 'there is, are,' he hesitated, 'thing to be done.'

  'Will they include de Boissert and his kin?' I said, still trembling, almost not daring to mention her name aloud.

  He hesitated a second time. 'What is done, not undone,' he said, 'will be arranged. That is all you need to know.' He looked at me, blank-faced, pale now with weariness beneath the brown, the scar etched clear, his eyes green-gray like the sea. 'Although you will not be here,' he said, almost formally he spoke, 'tomorrow, Countess, I fight for you.' And he was gone.

  Left in the tent, I might have wept, for foolishness, for grief, and for something else still not understood, some conflict between us that was not resolved. But presently, as I grew calmer, it began to seem that once again he had had the last word, and that, when I thought back over all that had been said, he had not explained anything at all, had sent me off for all the world to mock. Nor had he told me any more than he wished me to hear, what were these 'things' that must be arranged, with whom? And so gradually out of pride, building up resentment to new height, I resolved I would not 'sulk apart' as he had put it, would go to the feast, would watch Isobelle de Boissert queen it over us. Well, these things are all a foolishness, woman's whims, and I do not wish to dwell on pettiness. Yet, had I not quarreled with Raoul, had I not gone out of stubbornness to the feast, had I not looked for another man to taunt him with, our story would have ended here. So out of small griefs something good can grow.