Gifts of the Queen

by Mary Lide

  I took my place with them, reached for a dagger from Walter's belt, having lost my own. 'I come with you,' I said in answer to Walter's look, 'he is my son.'

  We pushed our way through the brush, thick and matted, whatever path swallowed by neglect. There were many horsemen, those elusive horsemen we had been trailing all week, and suddenly I saw what the French men had claimed—no woman, shut into a nunnery, her father dead, his lands attainted for treason, could have mounted a troop that size without some help; and no troop that size without someone to back and shield it could have ridden so fast and left no clue. And that thought too was one to chill, but I beat it back. I would remember no smile, no cruel laugh. But sometimes when an iron hoof mark showed itself clearly in the mud, sometimes when we saw how bushes had been cut and slashed to make a track, the sense of evil began to take on substance, concentrate. And when once, silently, one of the stonecutters brought us something hidden in his hand, a scrap of silk, pale blue, found hanging from a bramble thorn, I had a sense, a feeling, that soon would come a reckoning.

  The last few miles, we turned aside. Master Edward, riding in front, showed us the way, a longer route but secret. At his suggestion, we pulled tufts of grass to muffle clink of bridle or saddle iron, and those who wore mail, Walter, his two men, they hid it beneath their cloaks and rode bareheaded for fear, even in this underbrush, a flash of light should reveal us. I saw how Walter and his men turned to Master Edward willingly for advice, although he wore no spurs, carried only his sharp paring knife. I live to serve you, I and my men. So a third time for my sake they served. Praise God. At each turning Master Edward stopped, took note of tree or rock, ponderous and slow like a tree himself, yet his memory never failed; even after all these years he drew us on unerringly and led us ever deeper into this tangled wilderness.

  The last hundred yards or so we came on foot, the horses left out of earshot with some apprentices to watch, three men having gone ahead to test the path. I would have thought us lost, nothing in front of us but a wall of trees, until suddenly we came out into what must have once been an orchard and, beyond it, a ruined clump of huts and a rutted village street. We crept forward then to the edge of the orchard grove. I noticed, in that strange way one has to notice unrelated things, how underneath the gnarled and mossy trees yellow' apples lay rotting in the grass, covered with swarms of small wasps and flies, and I remember thinking how strange to see sweetness gone to waste and fruitfulness rotted away.

  The village would have been a dismal place at best, now it was overgrown with vines and nettles rank and thick, its street or what had served as one, knee-deep in leaves. On one side of it, the remaining huts leaned together like a circle of stones, a blank wall facing out, no door or window well, the walls themselves almost overgrown. Once there would have been hives in the orchards here, and pigs and noise, children sitting in the dust, all the sounds of village life that we know at Sieux. And for a moment, I had a thought of how Sieux would be if transplanted here, and of how a little boy would have played with his friends. Today all was emptiness, only wind and bees, nothing else. But Master Edward had sent some of his men slithering round, they were good at that, used perhaps to burrowing underground or crawling into attic space. Walter went with them, all of them with weapons drawn, while we waited in the long grass. I noted how, for big men and broad, the masons moved most cleverly; and since talking was now impossible, they used hand signals among themselves, usual for them when the noise of their trade made communication otherwise impossible.

  We watched the huts. The first two were almost caved in, the frame of wood sticking up like bones through the ruin of their mud walls, but the rest seemed sturdy enough. Then Master Edward tugged at my sleeve. From the central hut, a sort of gateway led to an inner court, built like that perhaps, or more like caused naturally now with the passing of years, a rough sort of passageway. A shadow moved against the wall, something stirred, and as we listened, we caught the strike of hoof against stone. The shadow crept back.

  Master Edward sighed, wiped his forehead and smiled. 'We have them,' was all he said, but I noticed how he sat more comfortably and began to sharpen his knife.

  Presently, there was a scuffle in the grass; it was Walter creeping on all fours. He had shed his mail coat and his spurs, and in shirtsleeves crept, his face darkened with dirt, his hair damp with heat.

  'All of them,' he reported, spitting out mouthfuls of sand', 'their horses saddled in the yard, one a woman's. Ten men there on guard but drinking. Three more to watch the way they came, three on the other side, the rest within the biggest hut.'

  But to Master Edward's questioning look, the question I forced myself not to ask, he shook his head. No sight, no sound then of my son. But if he had been alive at the ford, he still must be alive. They would not carry him all the way if dead; they would not carry him this way to kill him here.

  Master Edward had bent down, ungainly in his holiday robes. He and his men began to strip them off, their workaday tunics worn beneath. 'Thrift,' I heard him say, 'our wives wash both at one time.'

  One of his companions wiped his lips. 'Stonecutting is thirsty work,' he said, 'but soldiering is worse.' He gave a grin on catching my eye. I felt a wave, not of relief, but of hope perhaps.

  They were not soldiers, but they spoke and jested as soldiers do; they planned their attack efficiently; their knives were sharp. I thought, Thank God, that guildsmen are so quarrelsome. And for the first time since the ford, felt we had some chance.

  Master Edward had already thought out the detail of what he would do, drew it in his precise way with his knife, as if planning a layer of stone. The six outer guards were to be removed silently, not difficult, needing younger men with knives (although knives against mail coats is hard, until two others hastily showed their bows, yew bows these, meant of hunting, yet good enough at close quarters). I thought of the archers at Boissert, who had misfired and died for it, but buried the thought. The guards dead first; next, one man alone at a signal prearranged was to burst into the yard where the horses were penned, to stampede them while the rest of us stormed past against the inside doors, such as they were, makeshift too, easily broken through. But that first charge must be a knightly one; Walter's then, with sword and shield, on horseback to give him speed and weight. And I must stand with the apprentices in the orchard here, to guard the path so no one might escape and to watch that our own horses did not stray.

  'Take care, my lady,' Walter said, his attention already fixed, assessing the best place to break through and take them unaware. His west country voice sounded suddenly very calm compared with all these French ones. 'We'll have the little one soon,' he said. I remember how he had held Robert in his arms and wished him joy. I saw the day of your birth, he had said. Pray God, I thought, not the day of his death. I tried to wish Walter luck in turn, but he had already gone, no time to strap his mail coat on; and by and by, I saw him and his horse disappear to the edge of the orchard behind us. Three other masons had already crept with our young French guard, left and right they went, to where, if they did their work well, the outposts would lie on the bloodstained earth.

  Then we crept closer too, as close as we dared to the narrow road and, one by one, the men crossed, a handful of them, flitting over among the noonday shadows against the crumbling walls. Had there been door or window slits on that wall, our plan would have been nigh impossible, but those crafty peasants long ago had kept the outer walls blank so no one could look in and spy, so now no one could look out. The wait seemed long, almost as long as the whole ride back. Then suddenly there was a great cry.

  Walter broke out from the bushes on the far side from us, charged his horse right into the yard, swinging with his sword. Master Edward and his men rose from their crouch, their cloaks and aprons wrapped about their arms as shields, and followed him. The de Boissert men were resting in the sun, their coats unbraced, their sword belts off. Some snatched for them, were cut down; others, fleeing from Walter's horse, ra
n upon the masons' knives. But already Master Edward was hammering at the door, two of his men tearing at the rotting frame. And I, unable to stand aside, had run across the road, last of all but my knife drawn, too. I saw how the terrified horses, cut free, went galloping off, reins dangling, saw the last of the de Boissert men fall back with three of our men to pen them in, but they were armed, these last of the de Boissert guard, and they were desperate. And I saw how the door to the inner room had splintered but had not given way.

  Walter was already backing his horse against the southern wall. He lashed the beast's sides until it kicked and flailed, and its great hooves tore out clods of clay and dirt. Again and again he backed, using his shield rim to smash at the wooden door-frame, until at last he broke through, he and his horse, half in, half out. The wall was reduced to a shell against which Master Edward and his men, steady as veterans, thrust their shoulders. But inside the room were veterans too, four men who had been forewarned and had chance to take up their own weapons before the masons could rush in. And they, in turn, were desperate men. Even as I watched, a sword blade flicked out, caught Walter as he pushed himself off his horse.

  From where I stood, I had but partial view and that was blocked by Master Edward and his men. Dodging through the yard took me but a second, but by then our men had broken down the wall into the little room. It was small, almost too small to draw a sword, and here the masons should have had an advantage, their knives being that much shorter and easier to hold. But swords wielded by skilled men could keep them back. Only Walter, on his own feet now, could match with the swordsmen there. And he, although he tried to cover our men, was more intent on moving to where the woman stood against the outside wall. It was Alyse de Vergay; I recognized first her pale eyes, now almost bulging with alarm. But she was desperate also, and in her hand, she held a knife. She stood between the door and a kind of alcove where my son lay asleep. Not asleep, I thought, desperate with fright myself, not with this noise, this confusion, breaking around him. But he did not move, lay on his back, motionless yet not dead. If dead, why would she threaten him with a knife, her own face a twisted mask, a thing to chill thought with?

  Walter was on his feet, but his arms and legs were crisscrossed with blood where the men inside had hacked out at him, his face streaked red where her knife point had flicked his forehead.

  'Stand back, squire,' she said, 'or give me safe conduct to leave with him.'

  Walter could stand, but only just, he swayed upon his feet, yet his voice was calm. He spoke to her almost soothingly. 'Come, mistress,' he said, 'give me Lord Robert and go free. Why should you harm a child?'

  'Lord, is it?' she sneered, watching his sword with unwavering eye; she was nimble on her feet for her size, the long ride seeming not to have daunted her. Except for her torn and stained dress, the knife, she might have been the Alyse de Vergay who outspoke me when first we came to France. Yet there was a wildness in her speech, as if it ran without her control. 'Lord,' she spat. 'A guttersnipe, he was doomed before his birth. No,' as Walter moved, step by cautious step, 'he belongs to us; his name was writ that day at Saint Purnace. He should have never have escaped us there. He should have been another's child or not born at all.'

  Walter said, spitting blood, 'Why have you tried to kill him before? Why try now? Your words make no sense.' He attempted a smile. Behind his back. Master Edward had come between him and those de Boissert swords, was trying, with his fellow masons, to trap the swordsmen against some rickety stairs that led to a hayloft.

  'Look, lady,' Walter's voice was patient, a gleaner in the fields, a watcher by a cider press. 'Lady,' he repeated the word to gratify her pride, 'your guards are overrun, your men outside dead or captured, you alone, what chance for you? What gain for you, what profit, why kill, to your own greater harm?'

  'He lies,' one of the de Boissert swordsmen cried, his voice the louder that Walter's was quiet, 'what force backs him, only city scum.' And with a soldier's dislike of city folk, he tried to drive past Master Edward's knife, and was beaten back.

  But, 'Liars all,' she repeated, 'they promised me much to come to Sieux. What did I get, sent off like a servant wench? The rightful mistress of Sieux would grant me more than that.'

  'Stand firm,' the swordsman next encouraged her. 'Do not yield. Remember what reward if we do what was asked . . .'

  'Reward is not necessary for me,' she said, edging round; she stood within a knife's edge of my son, 'what I do, I do without reward. But I have friends, powerful friends, they'll help me. You lie, Sir Squire, like all at Sieux who put on airs to impress, jumped up like weeds.'

  Her men made another rush, but Walter did not even turn round, a trusting man was he to let a friend guard his back in such a place. To her, he made his next appeal. 'Give up your knife, repent. My lord will be merciful.'

  'Merciful,' she almost screamed the word, 'what mercy then at Boissert Field? Overlord dead, my father in his death swoon, my brothers disarmed and disgraced.' She made a feint with the knife to make my heart stand still, but still could not quite reach. 'Rather,' she said, 'come you away with me. My friends will treat you handsomely. And take the child with us; dead or alive, Count Raoul shall pay. A ransom will cripple him, make me an heiress worth the marrying. That shall be my just reward. You are young. Sir Squire,' and now she smiled a caricature of a smile, both arch and grotesque.

  Perhaps she guessed what his reaction was, or, perhaps, in the clever way half-demented people have to guess at truths, she became more cunning, her speech slurred as if she spoke at random, to distract. But I sensed a deeper purpose underneath.

  'You think me old. But, had my mistress been the lady here, then should I too have married to my rank. Lord Raoul owes me some recompense. This ensures I get it.'

  He said simply, 'My loyalty is already sworn. I serve Count Raoul and his lady wife.'

  I think the mention of my name drove her on, or perhaps it was the coupling of both names, or even nothing that he said, simply the workings of her own mind.

  'My loyalty is fixed longer than yours,' she cried, 'to her who should have had this place, to her who should have this as son. Shut in a nunnery, that living death, what hopes for her or me? I act for her, her mouthpiece, her right arm.'

  'Lady,' Walter made one last attempt; he spoke to reason with her, 'it was not she who was put aside; she and her father themselves broke the marriage vow. The Lady Ann is good and kind . . .'

  And should she have it all?' she cried, malice and envy creaking out, 'let that Celtic whore who took my lady's place know what it is like to live with death. If our lives are done with, so be hers.'

  Quicker than seems possible for one so built, she jerked rack the covers from my son, thrust down at him with her knife. There was no time to stop the blow, no other way. Walter leapt too, one great leap, threw himself across the child, thrusting up with his sword as she thrust down. There was a long intake of breath; they fell together, rolled upon the floor, a crash, a thud that reverberates in my ears until the world's end.

  Master Edward ran to push her off, dead she was, her mouth agape upon those last cruel words. Do not put a curse on me.

  Her curse is with me until my death.

  Walter still lived, his eyes closed, a froth of red about those lips that smiled so readily. I wiped his face clean, pushed back his hair. I suppose about me swordsmen still raged, I suppose the last de Boissert men fought on and were killed. After a while, someone handed me the child, a bundle he seemed of fragile bones, yet alive. But he neither woke nor slept, his face as gray as unwashed wool, his eyes purple shadowed, his mouth stained blue from whatever drug she had given him. She had coaxed him to eat perhaps, that early hour while my village women slept, then took him forth, carried him to where a horse, and further on, other horsemen had waited her. His shallow breaths kept time with Walter's, a bitter smell upon his lips, a dose of some plant to quiet him. I held him on my lap, and Walter's head was in my arms, but I could not weep for them. And whe
n they gave me back the ring, I strung it round my neck, a weight like lead.

  Walter's eyes opened once, those warm west country eyes now lustreless. He tried to smile. 'So am I cured of French women in the end,' he said. A spasm caught him, he bit it back, never spoke to me again. I think he thought he was in his home, for he called for his brothers there, bid them saddle a horse. I held his hand, I willed him to think of it, to be in the western hills and smell the heather on the moors, and feel the western wind beating up the Channel coast. And I stayed with him, until his spirit rode away. And Master Edward came and pried my hand loose.

  Well, he died, and all those de Boissert men, and she who died with them. Three masons were dead, one of our French guard, killed by a random blow as they stormed the hut, and Master Edward's nephew wounded in his arm which never grew straight again. And other wounded who had to be cared for. All dead, maimed; that my son should live ... So we took up our dead and wounded, piled the other corpses, set the huts ablaze. They say the flames could be seen from Saint Purnace, and no man now dares go near that black and scorched patch of ground.

  As for her, who had murdered twice, and poisoned, 'Hang her body up,' I said, 'that she should have a murderer's end.' Well, that too is something to regret, but it was so done. Yet sometimes I think of her and wonder what was loyalty to her, who claimed it as her excuse, and what was the bond between her and that Isobelle that she should sell her soul for her. We made a cradle for the child, his breathing still irregular, his flesh wracked with fever spells so that it seemed he would shiver his joints apart. We departed hence, silently, no joy in us. And the ring about my neck was worn for remembrance.