Hawks of Sedgemont

by Mary Lide

  “Last night,” Lady Olwen said, “when those Celtic men rode into Cambray, I was in the stable myself and so was trapped there. I was not afraid,” she said defiantly, “but I had gone to get a handful of grain, which the grooms will never let me have, swearing my horse should be out at grass with the other ones. So when I heard a man come into the stable, leading a horse that was lame, I thought it was one of the Cambray grooms and hid behind the grain bins down at the back. It is dark there, and I knew no one would notice where I was. When I realized neither man nor horse belonged to Cambray, it was too late to escape, and as ill luck would have it, he put his horse in the stall next to mine. So there I was with a skirt full of oats,” she blushed again, “trying to tiptoe.”

  She tossed her head with its coil of red hair, much as her little horse tossed its mane.

  “I was not afraid,” she repeated, “but I did not want to be seen, so I crept along toward the door. There is no way to step through straw quietly. And as I moved there in the dark, I thought I heard a rustle on the other side of the partition, as if a man was following me. I sensed that every step I took he took one as well; when I paused, he paused. Then I did become afraid,” she said, “and opened my mouth to shout out. Something thick and heavy dropped over my head. It smelled of wood smoke and damp and earth, and before I could throw it off, the man who had been tracking me jumped on me, too. He came so fast, so silently, so hard, he knocked me to the ground. I thought he would crush me to death; I could not even breathe, and everything went black. When I came to, he had propped me up inside the stall by his horse’s feet and with both hands about my rib cage was forcing air back into my lungs. I hawked and spat. Sweet Jesu, what a way to meet, to be vomiting over his boots. If I’d had a knife, I’d have stabbed him for making such a fool of me. He stood up, brought over a bucket, and splashed water on my face and hands. The water dripped cold, ran in rivulets through my hair and down my gown. It gave me back speech fast enough. I swore at him, all the groom’s oaths that I know.

  ‘Christ’s wounds,’ I wheezed, the least of them, ‘Christ’s bones, I’ll have you flogged or worse.’

  “I tried to haul myself to my knees, but he pushed me back with his boot, stood staring down at me, legs apart, his hand on his sword hilt.

  ‘Well,’ he said after a while, ‘you’ve not much look of a murderer about you, I admit. But the stableyard’s no place for a girl. Has Cambray come to using maids to do men’s work?’

  “ ‘Murderer?’ I gasped at him. ‘Murderer yourself, to treat me thus. You’ve almost split my head in two, God’s wounds. My father’ll make short shrift of you.’

  ‘No doubt,’ he said. ‘I expect little better from Normans or Norman keeps. But save your breath. You curse more freely than a fishwife. My father would whip any daughter of his for uttering such foul words. Be quiet or I'll wash your mouth out.’

  “ ‘You’d not dare,’ I said next, ‘you oaf.’ For I tell you he made me angry, such a mixture of impudence and jest. No one has ever talked like that to me before; no one has mocked me so.

  “ ‘Then keep away from me and my horse,’ he said, cool as you please. ‘Plan no mischief against me and mine. And show me courtesy.’

  “I could have lashed him for insolence, his mouth set in a straight line, his hair standing all on end where he had rolled me over, with wisps of hay caught in the curls. I guessed he was Celt by the way he spoke—Norman-French, correct enough, with odd words of his own thrown in—but it was too dark in the stable to make out much else except the flash of his teeth when he grinned at me. As now he did.

  ‘Off you go,’ he said, not even a hand to help me up, no word of pardon, no courtesy. ‘Back to your nursery maids; over young to come rolling in the straw with men.’

  “I rounded on him.

  ‘I am the Lady Olwen of Cambray,’ I told him. ‘My father is the Earl of Sedgemont. Address me fittingly.’ But it was hard to be dignified with water dripping down my chin and my mouth full of vile and bitter taste. And in truth, when I moved suddenly, my head spun around and my cheek flamed where he had caught it against a wall. I tell you honestly, I wished for once to be better dressed, among my mother’s womenfolk.

  “ ‘I beg your pardon, lady,’ he said, but his courtesy was only another mockery. ‘I am Taliesin, Prince of Afron, in the north. And if you are lady of Cambray, then act the part; offer me suitable hospitality, as is a traveler’s due. And as is fitting to my rank. Warm wine I need, and food, and warm water for washing off a week’s dirt. And fresh soap—and a quiet-mouthed maid to lather it.’

  “I knew he laughed at me, but ‘God’s wounds,’ I said again, ‘if it’s washing you need, there’s the horse trough; stick your head in it.’

  “Then he did reach out and drag me to my feet. ‘Be careful,’ he warned me. ‘I’ve younger sisters and cousins of my own. I know what courtesies a maid should show. I’ve whacked bare bottoms in my time. If Cambray wenches are so ill-mannered, I’ll whack some here!’

  “He spoke as arrogant as a king. Jesu, but I bit my tongue. I thought he might. Prince, indeed. Whatever he was, it was clear to me that he was the oldest son, used to having younger womenfolk bow down to him. I almost told him so. ‘You need an older brother,’ I should have said, ‘to knock courtesy into you.’ But ‘If you don’t know the difference between murderer and maid,’ is all I said, ‘you’ve lots to learn. Go tend your horse and I mine.’ He looked over the partition as I spoke. ‘That white mousekin,’ he mocked again. ‘A lady’s lapdog, more like. Why, lady, my hound would eat it at one bite!’

  ‘That horse will best anything,’ I told him, boasting, angrier than before. ‘It can outjump any horse on the moors.’

  “Then he did begin to laugh; he laughs like Hue does. I wished Hue had been there to have shown him how such laughter ends.

  “ ‘Lady,’ he mocked me for the third time. ‘I’ve not come to run in children’s games. I seek an audience with the Earl of Sedgemont, it is true, and although I have no trust in Normans, I will confer with him about business of my own. But having seen him, that is all I seek. And my horse outruns the world.’ “He straightened up. ‘So since you have breath enough to curse me back home again, get you gone. I’ll tend myself. Although were you older perhaps you’d not want asking twice!’ And he grinned, that stupid grin Hue gives to maids to make them giggle as he comes near. ‘The horse trough is good enough if that is all that Cambray can offer me.’ ”

  She was silent then for a while. “Well,” she said, almost apologetically, “I felt ashamed when he said that. For hospitality is due to all men, even those who swagger like a king. ‘There are men to serve you,’ I told him, ‘and servants enough to tend your horse. And no harm will come to you within Cambray gates. Give you good-even, sir.’ I spoke as calmly as I could. ‘I hope we never meet again.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, standing there, smiling at me in his arrogant way, so his teeth gleamed. ‘I doubt it, else that mousekin of yours may be gobbled up. And so may you.’ ”

  Again she paused. “So that is why,” she said firmly, lips jutting out as she does when determined, “why for honor’s sake I must see him again.”

  I almost choked. “But why?” I cried. “Dear life, you just said you hoped never to do so.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Because I lied. In truth, I believed we would. I thought to make him feel ashamed in turn when he saw me in my father’s hall. But I never did. My father saw him alone. ‘Too many important matters to discuss openly,’ my mother explained. But I listened,” she said. “I crept to the stairs and heard some of what he said. Not all of it. I am no thief to eavesdrop on what is not for all ears. And, Urien.” There was misery in her voice. “He is a prince. My father greeted him with that title. My mother told me so herself; Taliesin spelled in the Welsh way, with an extra e. My mother had a brother who died young and whom she loved more than anyone. His name was Talisin, spelled in the Norman way, since her father and his were Norman. I heard
this Celtic prince outface my father in his own hall. For he was angry, Prince Taliesin; his voice was stiff, more formal than any Norman lord I’ve heard. And although my father spoke him fair in his courteous way, the prince would not eat or drink with him. ‘A bed I’ll take,’ I heard him say, ‘more for my men’s sake, since they have ridden hard. And I’ll leave at dawn. But I break no bread; I drink no toast.’ So you see,” she repeated simply, “it is for my house’s honor, as well as my own, that I meet him.”

  She looked at me, her dark eyes intent. “He did not have to mock,” she said. “I know what he is. So now shall he know me.”

  I was silent, too, for a while as we went along. I did not dare tell her that perhaps she had met her match. I knew her pride. But then another thought struck me.

  “Jesu,” I said, “if he parted from your father, your noble father, in such cold wise, he’ll not take kindly to seeing you again. Much less a fool’s trip like this. He’ll have your head if you give him such a message.”

  She looked at me sideways in her way.

  “Jesu, Olwen,” I cried again, for the first time in my life forgetting to give her name and title as I should, “Jesus, Olwen, then he’ll kill me.”

  For her look said as plainly as words, “I’ll not give the message, you will.” I began to argue now in turn. “We are alone,”

  I told her. “These Celts are armed. What you have told me so far leaves me to suppose they have little liking for anything at Cambray. Suppose they take advantage of us?”

  “Oh,” she said, dismissing my fears with a wave of her hand, “they’ll not know we are alone. I’ll hide in the cliff where the crossroads meet. And you, you will wait down there by the road. They’ll think I have an army at my back. Besides, the message is a simple one. He is to come up to the cliff alone, that great Prince Taliesin alone. He challenged me; he insulted me,” she cried suddenly, and her dark eyes sparked. The mark on her face showed blue against her fair skin. “He owes me that much recompense. But listen, Urien.” As suddenly as that anger had blown up it was gone again; now she spoke calmly, almost subdued. “Urien, stay out of sight until they come level to you. Lie hid. There are rocks and bracken to wait behind. And when you rise up, say you will speak to no one but Prince Taliesin. He is to ride up to the cliff crest and hear news of import for him. Stand up straight now,” she admonished me, “wipe your face. You have grown red with all this talk.” An unfair remark, I thought, since she had talked far more than I, and I had been trotting along on foot through the morning sun that by now had come out full against our backs. “You speak for all of Cambray like a Norman he professes to despise. They’ll not harm a boy, but if they insist, stay there with them, as hostage for him.” She spoke kindly now, having got her way, but I felt abashed. My life in exchange for a prince’s would not seem much, perhaps, but then it was the only life I had. But even though what she had told me was both strange and somehow painful, as if in telling me any of it she spoke too much, yet she had told it to me, as in the old days. And that offer of friendship contented me. Well, I was not used to women then. I did not know the way of maids. I did not know then that although they may say one thing, more often what they truly want or truly feel they leave unsaid. All those reasons that she gave to me why this, why that, why her “honor” (spoken as pompously as any Norman lordling) was at stake, as if she were a boy or man herself, were not complete truths, although not all lies. She left out the one reason that was to count the most. She must see Prince Taliesin because she must. And why she must, well, as I have said, perhaps she did not even know that yet herself. And such was her hold over me—God forgive me, I was so weak of will where she was concerned—that, when we came to these crossroads she had been speaking of, I did as she had bid me do.

  The crossroads met at a cliff, although a better name, I think, would be a cliff fort, and so I call it, a Roman fort, built centuries long before, for where the road went under it, you could see how the path twisted and turned to avoid the many fallen stones and boulders tumbled down from the walls above; and the path had certainly been there since time began. The road divided at this point. One branch went north, past the foothills that separated Celtic lands from Norman ones. The other branch continued west. More like a track than road, it wound under the shadow of a fort that had been built on, or rather into, the cliff face, for in places the natural rocks formed part of the outer walls. Lady Olwen left me there, hidden in the cool, damp ferns, while she herself rode up to the fort along one of the many goat trails that threaded themselves through the rocks. I lay on my back, glad to rest out of the sun, and stared curiously at the strange walls cut in jagged outlines against the sky. Many stories were told of this fort. The men at Cambray claimed Lord Falk had brought the stones from here to build Cambray; had pried them out, great hewn stones of granite, and had had them hauled on sleds of wood, drawn by oxen or by men themselves when the wooden runners caught and stuck. But some said that the outer walls were older than Roman, carved by giant men who had lived in these parts when the world was young, and that once a battle had been fought here between those giants and their gods, and a Celtic king had outfought them all. Well, true or not, whoever built this fort and strung these walls along this natural outcrop of rock had chosen well. For the fort guarded the roads east, north, and west, and not one man alone, not a single traveler, certainly never an army on the march, could have passed without coming under its scrutiny. And looking about me curiously, I determined that even the open land at the foot of the cliff must once have been man-cleared, too, for all that it now was overgrown and stone-littered with great boulders stuck like white teeth among the gorse. Once this must have been a wide open corridor, with room for men and horses to pass freely up and down, and at the western end was still the outline of what must have been a separate watchtower. I marveled at what manner of men could have so built, so dug and cleared, to make this fortress impregnable. And what manner of heroes, or gods, could have overthrown such work to leave it scattered, gone to ruin under the winds and sky. The clatter of horses’ hooves over the flinty ground woke me from my reverie. I almost bolted upright, until I remembered Lady Olwen’s many instructions, so crouched down until the riders had drawn level with me. They rode slowly today, these Celtic horsemen, matching their pace to that of their foot soldiers, and they rode at ease, unbraced, their cloaks folded behind them, in their shirtsleeves, bareheaded, their weapons sheathed. I cannot say their air of fierce resolve was gone; rather, it seemed put aside, not forgotten but waiting to be remembered. At their head rode their lord, or prince I suppose I should call him, in Celtic style. Seeing him now clearly for the first time, I was struck again by how young he looked, with a fresh, open face, dark blue eyes, startling, almost black, against his suntanned skin. He should have been hunting with his men, I thought, laughing with them, not riding as he now seemed, alone with his thoughts. For the eyes that looked out from under that thatch of copper hair, curled and crisped with the heat, had a faraway look, almost sad, as if, off guard, he could give sadness a name. And there was a look, too, a shadow, behind that youthfulness. I had no words to describe it then, but now I think I would call it a sense of purpose, a dedication, that makes even good men dangerous. Such men can cause more harm than evil men, although they themselves be not evil and act for good. I do not say I saw all these things written in his face, only their shadow. And when I leapt up under his horse’s nose from my bed of fern, whatever dark thoughts had been troubling him vanished into anger, real and immediate and certainly common to all men, as he fought to subdue his horse. For that gray-black horse, rested after a night’s stabling, well fed, well shod, tossed its head and reared back as if it had been frightened by a snake. No mounted man likes to be made a fool, and I might easily have been trampled underfoot, to say nothing of being broached by a dozen spears, had it been any other man. As it was, his guard knocked me down with the butt ends and held me there, like a rabbit pinned, until their prince had controlled his hor
se and could give his orders how to deal with me. Before he could kill me, I gabbled my message out—not easy that, with a spear at your throat and men’s boots planted on either side your head.

  “Greetings, Prince of Afron,” I croaked, “greetings on your house from the house of Cambray. If you will ride up to the cliff fort,” for so I thought the phrase elegant, “you shall find a thing to your advantaging.” A formal message, then, delivered with as much aplomb as I could muster. Imagine my chagrin when this great prince laughed. His laugh changed him, made him a boy, and for a moment I could see what he would have been if all cares had been laid aside.

  “By Saint David,” he said, when he could speak, “you need a royal trumpeter, to say nothing of a coat of gold, to deliver such a speech. No messenger sounds his best sprawled on his back. But if you are trying to tell me that your mistress is that quick-tongued brat of yesterday, tell her, if she would speak with me, that she come down.”

  “She has many men with her, my lord,” I lied with as much dignity as I could manage. Then he laughed again and spoke with his men, who guffawed.

  “An ambush perhaps?” one mocked, pricking me to make me squirm. “We’ve seen no men. We’ve followed your tracks a mile long; a girl on a pony trotting all the way and a knock-kneed boy. Here’s the one, and the other has been peeping from the rocks at us this past half hour.”

  Then I did blush; all her carefully laid plans gone to naught. “Get up, lad.” Prince Taliesin was mocking me. I saw what Lady Olwen had meant at once, a mockery both good-natured yet sharp, to make you want to cringe. “If your mistress, your Norman lady, is afraid to come down, then we’ll go up. But let me give you a word of advice. If you do everything a woman says, you’ll be a dead man before you’re grown.”

  “You must go alone,” I cried, for that was a point she had been determined on.