Gifts of the Queen

by Mary Lide

  For answer, one reached up, carefully, so as not to touch me in any way, and pulled back the cloak. They gave another hiss, of surprise or pleasure, or desire, I cannot tell, but it did not help me.

  'No one thought the Normans such fools as to send a squint-eyed wench. But we've no time to dispute that with you today.'

  Their captain nodded, turned back to talking with his other officers; the spokesman came forward nimbly and seized the reins.

  'Take this spy,' he mocked the word, 'hang her high, so her Norman masters will know what little she achieved for them.'

  Then I did begin to struggle as they tried to force me from my horse, kicking and scratching to tear myself free from their hard and sinewy arms.

  'By God,' said one, spitting a tooth I'd knocked loose, a wildcat. What say we try her wares, pity to waste such charms.'

  In the end, my skirts hampered me and they threw me to the ground.

  'Let's see if she's worth the struggle,' another grinned. Suppose the body matches the face?'

  'If made like other women I've known,' another said, 'no matter what the face is like.'

  But all the same, in a single move, he snatched at my gown, tearing the fabric neckline to waist so that my bare flesh was exposed. They paused to stare as I tried to cover my nakedness, gave another hiss.

  God's Paradise,' at last one breathed. 'The pigs have sent a prize after all.' Their voices were soft, those western men I had known as a child, I could not believe even then what they said could be meant so cruel; I did not even think they meant to threaten me, not until they tried to tie my hands and gag my mouth.

  'I am no Norman.' Then I did cry out, fear giving me back my voice. 'I am kin to both Norman and Celt. I am Ann of Cambray.'

  They laughed at me, hands on hips, observing me. 'And I the Lord of Maneth,' one jeered, 'who is dead, who thought to whip us with his Norman rods. I've marks on my back still that are his.'

  'And here's my rod,' another made a crude gesture. 'See how you dance to that.'

  'Stuff in the gag first,' a third, more practiced, advised, 'lest she tear it off with her fangs.' So they spoke, every word an obscenity to urge them on, dragging my hands behind my back with a strap, the leather biting into the flesh, trying to push a thong from their hair across my face. I bit the man who held the gag, struggled long enough to shriek out my name, again and again, until the air rang.

  'Silence her.' Their captain rode forward angrily. 'Enough noise to rouse the entire Norman army. Who shouts the name of Cambray?'

  He swung himself off his horse, came to stand above me, his booted feet planted on either side. I looked up. He was younger than I had thought, with long red-gold hair, like to the others in build and looks except for the beard which, now, seeing him close, I saw but partly covered the great gash that had seared his face from chin to ear, a sword cut or thrust along his left cheek.

  'Who shouts Cambray?' he repeated impatiently; he poked me with his boot.

  'Speak up. I know Cambray well. And have little love for it since it gave me this.' And he fingered the side of his face as he spoke.

  I looked up at him and despaired. Despite the years, the beard, I knew him, too. But would he remember me, a heap of rags thrown disjointed at his feet? When he had seen me last I had been the lady of Cambray. His father, a Celtic warlord, had taken my castle once and held it until Lord Raoul had won it back again.

  I said, as steadily as my voice allowed, 'Your wound was taken in fair fight. Lord Raoul fought with your father and his men, captured Cambray for me, who am the lady of all its lands. I know you, Dafydd, son of Howel. Do not you know me?'

  He bent to look more closely, his eyes narrowing in thought. I knew what he was remembering and why.

  At last, 'Aye,' he said, 'aye, I remember Cambray,' as if even that much stung his lips.

  I bit my own, willing him to fairness. He had been cut down in a surprise assault, a young boy then, almost too young to bear arms; his father had died and we had tended him and his companions as best we could. But we had also kept them chained like dogs, in fetters, to make them work for us. I heard myself plead with him in a voice I hardly knew. 'Lord Raoul dealt fairly with you. He bears as bad a scar himself, and the Lord of Maneth gave him it, whom he killed. He comes as warden of the marcher lands, to keep the peace as my father and Lord Raoul's grandfather did in their day . . .'

  'Who does she say she is?' he next asked, never taking his eyes off me. I do not think he heard half I said, lost in his own thoughts.

  They told him, cutting short their jesting as they saw his expression change. They pulled me up at his command, dragged back the hair from my eyes, wiped off the blood and dirt. I felt myself blush beneath the bruises, those of today added to yesterday's, and shook myself free. His eyes followed every move I made as, when a boy, he had fixed them on me, when, like a wolf cub on a chain, he had panted for liberty.

  'By Saint David,' he said at last. He whirled on his men, snarled at them to untie me, threw a wool cloth to cover my nakedness.

  'I thought you hated all Norman swine,' one grumbled beneath his breath.

  Dafydd, son of Howel, rounded on him, his eyes black with remembering. 'I do,' he said, 'but she, I owe her a life, mine, twice saved by her. She is who she says she is.'

  They worked faster then, although balked of their prize. And, in truth, Cambray is a word they all would know, and think of with liking as they thought of Maneth with hate.

  When they were done, 'I have no quarrel with you, Lady Ann,' he told me. 'Save wonder that you ride without escort among my border watch. Where is your noble husband, where his men?'

  When I did not reply, he eyed me narrowly, sharply bid his men bring food and drink. He took my wrists to make the blood flow back, himself fed me water and their harsh brown bread. I was not hungry, although I had not broken fast for so long, the thought of food choked me, but I drank the peaty tasting water while he sat beside me, talking of old times, how Lord Raoul and I had ridden away from Cambray, and how, after we were both gone, he and the other prisoners had been given choice, either to stay at Cambray as part of its guard or go free, never to return.

  'I chose freedom,' he said; 'who would not? They gave us food for our journey, gave us back our swords; we parted, I think, as friends. But I have never been back to Cambray since, never thought to hear word of you. By Saint David, who is my namesake, patron saint to me and my kin, to forget Cambray would be to forget part of myself. You saved my life when your men would have tossed us over the cliff at the battle's end, you saved it a second time when you tended me.' And he fingered the scar on his face.

  'Lady Ann,' he said, 'you claimed just now to be both Norman and Celt. So, I think, am I, not by birth but by what I learned of your Norman ways and the promptings of my own thoughts. There was much to admire at Cambray. So that, although it is true I hate all Normans in a general way, I also remember some good of them, although I do not tell my men that. Your squire, of the fair hair and merry smile, many were the hours we spent together; Jesu, how he struggled with our language as if a rope were tangled in his tongue.'

  Sorrow broke over me like a wave, I bowed under it. 'He is dead, killed yesterday among my escort ambushed by a Norman lord.'

  He crossed himself, muttered prayer for the dead man's soul.

  'God have him to His care,' he said, 'he was a brave and trusty man. But what manner of men would attack you, what Norman lord, without cause?'

  That, too, was a grief better not spoken of. 'He is not known to you,' I said, 'but his brother is, Henry, King of England.'

  'King Henry,' he said, starting up, 'but he has sent word he will meet us at Caer at July's end. He has bid the Princes of Northern Wales attend him there. They but wait his message to ride to his camp.'

  I did not recognize the place at first, for he gave Chester its Celtic name, Caer, which also means 'camp' or 'fort,' in memory of the great Roman one that had once stood there.

  'No,' I said, 'Henr
y is not there yet. He lodged last night at Maneth. He waits the mustering of his troops on the seventh of the month. And he will cross the river at Basingwerk . . .'

  'Jesu,' he swore again, 'here be news.'

  He spun round on his heel, ready to shout an order to his men, then, recollecting, turned back to me.

  'Lady Ann,' he said loudly, and beckoned for them to pour him a horn of their fermented drink, mead, it is called, which the Celts prefer.

  'Lady Ann,’ he said, 'I drink to the honor of your house, ever were they loved by us. You are welcome in their name, to ride among our company.'

  He drank to me formally, as a Norman would; his men raised up a cheer, then quickly scattered to whatever post they were assigned; the cooking fires were doused; we were ready to set off. A faster parting than a Norman army makes, no pack trains, no baggage carts, whatever Welshmen need they string over their shoulders. One of their small ponies was led up, I straddled its broad back, and we jogged off. Listening to the men chatter as they worked, listening to them-whistle as we rode along, I might have been a child again, riding with my father's men above Cambray. But I had seen another side of them I had never seen before, cruel and angry, bitter against their enemies. They love their freedom and will die for it. So should Henry find to his cost if he attacked. And so we rode together over the moors, until the day had ended, and came by darkness to their Celtic camp high up in the mountain pass.

  12

  Their camp was such as my father had often talked about, like the one I think from which he had taken stones to build Cambray, an old place, made in Roman times. The outlines of gate towers, barracks, stables, were still clearly visible, and where the walls were intact, new roofs had been hastily thatched over with straw and great gates hung at the entrances, the whole laid out neatly in rectangles and lines. There was even a commander's house, brick-built originally, its marble facing long since disappeared, and only three columns of the ten that had once supported its front porch. The High Prince of Northern Wales was quartered there, and there we went after his guards had let us through. They were truculent, those guards, and my presence with Dafydd's men led to much dispute, it being considered lack of decorum to escort a lady into an armed camp. Dafydd was forced to pick a quarrel with them until, by dint of threat of fisticuffs and worse, he pushed his way past. He was quick-tempered, Dafydd, son of Howel, and proud. I do not think he liked not to be recognized, but that was a sign of his youth, although I have heard my father often say that Celts were vain, desirous more than most men not to lose face. And as he rode through the camp, I noticed how his men now ran beside him, one on either side, holding his stirrup irons as mark of respect.

  'Look well at them,' he shouted back at the discomforted guard, spoiling the effect, 'You'll see their faces often enough.'

  I marveled again at the lack of formality between him and the common soldiers yet, on the whole, I do not think that was a handicap. When the time was ripe, they would fight; well, it was their land and their freedom they fought for. Preparations for war were going forward in every corner of that camp; archers, footmen, spearmen, the whole entourage of a high prince in movement, messengers riding constantly in and out of the gates, stacks of weapons sharpened, harnesses and leather coats restitched.

  Sweet Jesu, I thought, if the Celts are so arming themselves, how will Raoul avoid a war, with Henry's men equally well prepared? Dafydd tried to explain who each man was, warlords all as his father had been, their names a jumble in my head, all sons of this prince, or that, as they style themselves, all famous men. Afterward, I thought I should have remembered some of those names from my father's time. But the highest prince of all, of the north, of Gwynedd, as the Welsh name is, Owain Gwynedd, his name I did recall. I had heard my father say that he was the most dangerous man he had ever fought, a stack of gold offered for his head, with little hope of ever catching him.

  'Crafty as a mountain cat is Owain,' Dafydd now explained, proud of him, 'for twenty years or more, he has been a thorn in the Norman side. So strong is he that he took back Oswestry, used its castle for his own fort, won us land that has not been Celtic ruled for five hundred years. A just man, a peaceful man, but when aroused, their opposite.' So I think my father had spoken of him. But for all that he called himself a prince, he was not yet a high king!

  'When a boy,' Dafydd was continuing, 'he led that famous charge against the Normans, which caused their great defeat. They had crowded on a bridge, retreating from a Welsh force; the bridge broke, their weight of horse and armor snapping its wooden piles; the river was choked with drowning men and those who shed their armor to keep afloat our archers shot them down as they swam ashore.' He relished the story, the Celtic side of him uppermost; it was what he hoped, they all hoped, would happen a second time. But his words had that same effect that Henry's had, approaching disaster, no way to stop it, a boulder hurtling down a hill, a tidal wave.

  When I saw Owain, strangely enough it was of my father that he reminded me, a gray-haired old man, bent with age, yet powerful enough to pick up his Celtic sword in one hand, sing out his Celtic war cry as eagerly as a young man. And, like all the Celts I've ever known, he could still go uphill on foot or run a mile if he had to.

  That night, he was sitting in this ancient hall, before a fire, sweet-scented of fruit wood, and as he talked, he bit into an apple with his strong white teeth. Or rather Dafydd talked, he listened, and I wondered how it was that suddenly words seemed to recede, then grow large, as if words could have shape and form. Much of what was said at that time escaped me; but as Prince Owain paid me little attention at first, I think no one noticed my distress as my fever ebbed and flowed. Owain greeted Dafydd with open arms, clasping him twice to his breast in Celtic style, in that strange offhand fashion I had come to accept as theirs. I noticed now, beneath his tunic, he wore a band of gold, or tore, around his neck, as our warriors of long ago used to wear, as I remember my brother, Talisin, had when he went to war. But when Owain heard my name, his old hooded eyes flicked in my direction; he nodded his large head with his shock of long hair, finished his apple with a decisive bite, threw the core into the flames.

  'I knew your father,' he said. His voice had a gritty sound, but he spoke more distinctly than his men, as if he were used to strangers and matched his speech with their understanding. 'We often rode to hunt together, he and I. But before that we were enemies, rivals too who would have killed each other if we could. Yet when you fight a man like Falk you come to know his ways, he becomes your second self; his victories, defeats, are yours. He swore to me, as revenge once, that he would take that which we prized most. I thought he meant land or cattle or gold, the things I cared for in those days. It was your mother he stole from us.'

  He paused then, sat looking in the fire, seeing his past and theirs. 'She was like you, lady, in looks,' he said after a while, 'and of all women, I cherished her. Yes, you are very like, and although I have not heard you speak, no doubt you have her voice; they say she sang like a lark, sweet and high.'

  'No, I fear not,' I said regretfully, my words too sounding far off, oblique.

  He raised his eyebrows, bushy white they were against his brown skin, twisted a gold bracelet about his arm, too courteous to contradict.

  'Well, sharp or sweet,' he said, 'no matter if you brought us good news today.'

  'What news?' I had to force myself to ask.

  'Why,' he said, 'where Henry will cross the river, where and when—a foolish move. The waters run fast this month, a season for high tides, and the estuary will back up and flood. To cross at all, he must go upstream to the nearest ford, where the river goes through a narrow gorge. Henry is young and reckless,' he went on, 'to think we'd let him cross unopposed. By Saint David, our patron saint, we'll make him rue the day he threatened us.'

  From the blocks of sound that his words made, I gradually began to pick out sense. 'He means no harm, a peace treaty is all he asks,' I tried to reply.

  They started to l
augh, the other lords in the room, Dafydd, Prince Owain. 'Peace or war,' the prince gasped, wheezing for breath, 'Henry is caught if he crosses at Basingwerk. And you, my lady, daughter of Efa of the Celts, you have done us a service greater than you know, to put our enemy within our grasp.' Then, at last, his words became real.

  'I do no such service,' I tried to cry, tried to deny. But Dafydd tightened his grip upon my arm, hustled me away. 'They'll not attack the king as he crosses,' I cried, my voice now far away and faint, as if I spoke through a gag, as if I spoke through echoes a tunnel makes, 'they'll not ambush him.'

  'They must,' Dafydd explained. 'Against such an army we have no chance but to attack first. Thanks to you, we have that chance.'

  There was no way it could be unsaid. Owain still kept his place beside the fire, had laughed himself into a fit of coughing; but when it was done, he summoned each noble to his side and told each quickly what was his plan. One by one, they put down whatever they had been busy with, some with drinking, they left the cup of mead half-full, some with mending a sword or leather strap, work normally done by Norman squires, that too they left against their seats; quietly, without a word, they drifted off. In a moment or two the room was empty, and I heard feet stamping along the outside colonade; I heard a stack of shields clatter apart; I heard a clash of steel as men tested sword blades. There was a flurry of birdcalls, that high note I had been hearing all day long. Then silence, and in that silence came the realization of what I had done.

  'Dafydd.' In my distress, I took him by his jerkin front and shook it, 'tell him that I am mistaken; I do not know . . .’

  He loosened my fingers, gently enough, 'The order is given, Lady Ann. He would not go back on it if he could. Besides, it is common knowledge what Henry plans. We all know he comes to war with us. War has been brewing these twenty years. Your father's death put an end to peace.'

  'Henry may not bring war,' I still tried to argue. 'There are those who will counsel against it; there are those who will not follow him.'