by Mary Lide
“I did your master a service once. ” The old voice grew stronger, as if memory had come flooding back. “And his father, too, Raoul of Sieux. We met long ago.” There was both pride and melancholy in his voice, and he smiled, a faint old smile, as he repeated a third time, “Robert of Sieux. I helped him and the Lady Ann, his mother; of all the ladies at the court I honored her.”
He did not say anything then for a long while but picked at the edges of his sleeves, seeming to have forgotten why he was there and what he meant to say, like a man whose wits have been addled with age. His son gave him a despairing glance, whispered in his ear, meanwhile looking at me malevolently.
“Sir page,” the old man began a third time, whatever thoughts had taken him away finally brought back to earth, “I know the lords of Sedgemont and recognize their colors that you wear.
Give your masters greetings. Sir Renier of Poitou am I, once high in the courts of France, when its queen was Eleanor of Aquitaine. And I served King Henry, too, ever since as a young man, full of grace, he came to marry Eleanor and bear her hence to England as queen again. As now I am come to act for that queen, with her first husband, the King of France.”
It was hard to believe, yet I would not have contradicted him, an old man whose door of memory had suddenly opened wide. “I may not be as welcome as once I was,” the old man went on. “King Louis does not hold me as dear as when Queen Eleanor and I kept all of Paris in our hands. Messenger have I been, and confidant of king and queen, listened to their secrets, heard their hearts’ wishes. So shall I be again when war breaks out.”
His voice, which had been fierce, almost jubilant, faltered. I held my peace. It does not do to tell a man who has been messenger to a king that his news is stale. But perhaps he guessed my thoughts, his courtier’s instincts the last to go; some ingrained wariness kept him always on guard, alert to every nuance, every threat, in a world where danger lurks in smiles and malice is hid in ordinary talk. ‘‘I make no claim nor seek praise,” he said, “but the real news I bring will startle everyone. Eleanor, beloved by all men, will raise up fire and sword against her husband. Then let King Henry beware.”
Here was news indeed. This time the son did try to hush him, meanwhile giving me looks behind his father’s back. I knew those looks. No son likes to hear his father boast, still less admit to bad luck, and least of all to reveal his frailty to a hostile world. “Listen to the old man’s ramblings all you wish,” that look said, “repeat a word of them, and you regret the day you were born.”
Seeing that look, I felt kindlier to the young man and was surprised that when his father moved out of earshot, under the care of the servant, the son rounded on me. I tried to duck out of his way, but he seized and shook me hard, his black eyes snapping. His breath was hot and smelled of garlic, strange in a would-be courtier, and although at first I cannot say I was seriously alarmed—after all, my lady’s squire, Joycelyn, was not far away—yet a man can take a dagger in his ribs between one breath and the next. But I will also say that, had I had time to think, I would have admired his anger. For it was on his father’s behalf, and not all sons protect their fathers with such zeal.
“My father speaks the truth, boy,” he was whispering fiercely in my ear. “Even if sickness has dulled his wits, he knows the court. News comes to him that no other men have access to. I tell you, page, with your fine clothes and swaggering ways,” for he had noted, quick as his father once must have been, how proudly I held myself, “there are plots afoot that would frighten you out of your skull, had you any brains to put therein, such a gathering of noblemen not seen since the world was young. Many lords will attend my queen, not only from Aquitaine and Poitou, but also from Normandy and Brittany, from—”
His list ended suddenly when Lady Olwen turned around. Perhaps it was this last name that caught her ear, or perhaps it was the sound of his voice growing louder than he meant, but she and her squire suddenly realized the scuffle I was in. Quick as Joycelyn was to draw his sword, my lady was quicker still. “Leave my page alone,” she cried. “Pick on someone your own size.” And she rushed toward my assailant, prepared to use her fists.
At her voice, the youth let go my arm and stood gaping at her. “Holy Mother,” he had time to ask before both she and Joycelyn bore down upon him, “who is that lady, what is her name?”
I told him, dusting myself free, not overpleased to have been rescued by a maid, but a sudden surge of pity for the old man and for the son overcame my misgivings. “Sir,” I said, in my way a courtier, too, “I bear you no ill will, nor your noble father. This lady is Olwen, of the house I serve.”
“Daughter, then, of the Lady Ann.” A slow, painful blush overspread his cheeks. Before my lady and her squire could reach us he went toward them, cap in hand, with a courtier’s bow that revealed him in a better light. “Lady,” he said, and now you saw how he had been trained to address a highborn lady of rank with skill and taste, “lady, tell me how I shall serve you, and it is done. My name is Bernard from Poitou. With my father I am come to court about state affairs. Sir Renier is he, cousin to Queen Eleanor, long her councillor, a man, I think, not unknown to you.”
She knitted her brows together. “Aye,” she cried, “I think my mother has spoken of him. And you, what do you do, Bernard of Poitou?”
“Lady,” he replied, “if you remember that name, you will know my father and I wish you well. But there may be others,” he hesitated, “who will not be so kind, who, conjuring up old enmities, will look to do you harm.”
“But who would harm me?” she asked in her forthright way. “Not with my brother, not with my squire, Joycelyn, not with my faithful watchdog, the Celtic bard.” And she smiled at me and bid Joycelyn put up his sword.
“Perhaps so.” Bernard of Poitou sounded dubious. “But my father is wiser than you think. In his day no man was more skilled to scent out danger and intrigue, a wolfhound on the trail not more quick. He knows what spies Queen Eleanor has called out, and where put them, in high place and low. He knows what old friends she relies upon to give her fresh access to Louis’s court. Be careful, I beg.” He flushed again. “Perhaps I speak out of place,” he said. “I shall be new in Paris myself.” He gave a sudden rueful grin that made him seem less surly, gave his ill-favored face a certain charm. “This is my first venture into the high world of courts and kings, and I must seek out service where I can. My father believes, nay prays, that he will find his purpose in life again, and I am come to give him comfort and support. Better, I think, we should have stayed at home. However, since we are here, we must survive as best we can. And if there is any way I can be of service to you, ask and it is done.”
“There is one thing.” Lady Olwen’s face grew pensive; she bit her nether lip, and I saw how her fingers played with the streamers from her wide sleeves, winding them into little knots. “You spoke of Brittany. Tell me, what do you know of Prince Taliesin?”
“The Welsh prince?” Bernard of Poitou did not blink or show surprise, his father’s training standing in good stead. “Lady, I think all men will know him soon. He brings half of Brittany with him.” One look at her face convinced him to go on. Gesturing to the servant and his father that he would follow them, he hunkered down beside my lady there in the stableyard and began to tell her what he knew, while I, in dismay, stared at her, not believing she would so openly speak of the one man she should not. And so we heard Prince Taliesin’s tale, pieced together in later years from what Bernard of Poitou now told and the prince himself remembered.
“In Brittany,” Bernard now told us, “the prince landed in Finisterre. He did not lack for friends, it seems, but what he lacked at first, to Breton eyes, I mean, was experience. A Welsh prince, not used to fighting in Norman battlefields, might well prove more of a hindrance than a help, or so the Bretons thought, even though they heard he had brought an army with him, and Welsh bowmen are an asset to any cause. Viscount Guiomar of Finisterre is rough, a giant of a man whose lisp belies the f
erocity of his character. His open contempt toward the young prince, when first that salt-drenched band appeared on shore, has become legendary. I tell you what I know, lady,” Bernard added apologetically as my lady’s face clouded at this news. “Take heart, it ends well. ‘Damn his eyes,’ the viscount is first reported to have said, ‘I’ll not play wet-nurse to a Welsh cub scarcely dry behind his ears.’ And he is supposed to have added in an aside, which, since his broken voice carries as well as a loud one, was easily heard, ‘On foot, no less, like all those Welsh bowmen they brag about.’ Viscount Guiomar meant that for an insult, of course, being Norman-influenced enough to despise any soldier who walks. Not my opinion, lady, you understand,” he added hastily, as Lady Olwen began to protest. “I merely report what was said, and I know the prince rides as well as the next man. For listen now. When the prince and his Celts arrived at the viscount’s fortress, a windswept, dilapidated affair, I hear, not so much in need of repair as of being finished (a Breton fault—they seldom stick to one task long), on seeing the prince, the viscount was obliged to change his mind, for Taliesin took the last remark as a compliment. ‘If I could walk or run like my bowmen,’ the prince is supposed to have said, ‘why, my lord, then would I, as soldier, be content, and so would you, since no men run or fight as well as they do. Myself, I prefer a horse. My legs are long and get in my way afoot.’ ” This was a clever and wise reply that made Guiomar smile, although he hid his amusement. And indeed, they say that lord of Finisterre is like the place where he lives, as fickle as a summer sea, one moment smiling fair, the next running to storm, and no man knowing the reason for the change. ‘Ride, then,’ the viscount is supposed to have said to the prince, and beckoning to his grooms had them lead out secretly a black stallion, a great, heavy, hard-mouthed beast, which in fact was already deeded to the Church, having, like its master, killed a priest. It had not been ridden in a while and was stable-wild. It fought and reared, throwing the grooms about like twigs. But when Prince Taliesin saw it, judging its temper and noting, as the grooms had failed to do, that its mouth was a mass of sores where the curb chain had cut too tight, he vaulted into the saddle without touching the rein and, when the grooms let it go, brought it to a standstill, using knees and spurs. Watching him, Viscount Guiomar is said to have sworn by God’s legs, his favorite curse, and lisped, ‘Christ’s balls, but the lad speaks truth.’ Leaping from his chair, he embraced the prince wholeheartedly in Celtic style.”
Bernard looked down at the Lady Olwen, who had followed him, her eyes bright, her head on one side, as she holds it when engrossed. “And so they say,” he finished simply, “thereafter, riding on that black horse at the head of his men, Prince Taliesin helped the viscount in a local quarrel and so proved his worth with battle skills, a bonny fighter, so they claim, quick and clean, a swordsman as well as a horseman, certainly trained in all knightly skills. And when the word was given for the Bretons to rise, place was made for the prince under the viscount’s banner. All through these months they have been skirmishing, the prince and his six horsemen, who, they say, like shadows, follow him wherever he goes (having sworn in their turn never to leave him), together showing themselves a match for any Norman cavalry. And in the taking of the castle at Dol, a fortress that lies on the western boundary of Normandy and that has been the scene of much bitter controversy, the prince himself led a sortie that drew out the castle guard and so enabled the Bretons to break inside. Afterward the viscount is said to have thrown his arms about the prince’s neck and called him son, and knighted him upon the spot.”
As the Lady Olwen clapped her hands, Bernard added dryly, “Not that the prince welcomed it, but Viscount Guiomar explained that to the Norman mind, a man unknighted is not considered of noble birth, and since he is shrewd in all his dealings with a Norman enemy, he pointed out to the prince that if Taliesin was to deal on equal terms with them, best to prepare in a way they would understand.
“And so it is, the favorite of the Breton lords, their honored friend Prince Taliesin, has left them quartered for the while along the border near Dol and has himself struck across Normandy, he and his six companions. They await Prince Henry, to make a claim of him. And that, lady,” he said with a bow, “is all that I know about Prince Taliesin.”
“God be praised.” My lady threw her arms about Bernard and embraced him in her carefree way. “Master Bernard, you are truly my friend. I thank you for your courtesy.” Gratitude rendered in such wise was enough to make his very ears burn red.
But when he had gone, promising to tell her when Prince Taliesin arrived, my lady turned to me and thanked me, too, for making a new friend for her. I hung my head. She guessed at once what my thought was—my expression gave me away —and rounded on me, suddenly fierce.
“And should I forever be silent?” she cried, and there was a note in her voice that was new to me, a resolution, I think, an acceptance of things. “Shall I nurse my grief, not daring to confide in anyone, not even in you, my best friend? Must I sit here, go there, do this, be that, as if I have no will of my own, and never know how Taliesin fares? And should I forever listen to someone else bleating in my ears, such lustful words I do not care to repeat? Oh, Urien the Bard, I thought you cared for me more than that. Robert’s punishment thrust me into a living tomb. What shall I do if even in my thoughts I cannot escape?”
She was taller than I by now, and looked at me, her dark eyes piteous, like a hart struck by a spear. Her words were like wounds in my own flesh. What could I do or say who must also be silent in front of her? She took my hand and held it so tight that her knuckles turned blue and white. “Urien the Bard,” she whispered, “rejoice with me. I shall see him again, I feel it, I know it to be so. But I swear I want nothing from him, only to see his face. Nor shall I look at him except as one friend may look at another one after a long and dangerous absence. I swear I will ask for nothing else.”
I could not resist her blandishments. “If you do everything a woman says,” so said the prince, “you’ll be a dead man before you’re grown.” Aye so, but in his time he was as helpless as I. No word was ever spoken of Sir Renier or his son to sound alarm, and so it was, as God willed, we came by slow degrees to the greatest city of the world, and once again I held my peace. Not my lady. Now she chattered like a magpie, pointing out all the sights, although they were as new to her; forever begging Robert to make haste; all for hurrying night and day, happiness spilling from her like effervescent wine. But when we came to the city gates, she, too, was overwhelmed. In later years I was to see this mother of cities many times, in fair weather and foul, but never like this, now, as a boy, fresh from the Cambray border, wide-eyed and curious. The impression remains from that early February day when we finally clattered through its streets, of towers, houses, churches, bridges, all mixed together pell-mell, with a muddy, winding river in full spate to bind them in. That jumble of buildings, the filth in the streets, and the herds of pigs allowed to roam as scavengers I shall never forget, most of all the pigs. Indeed, they said a former king’s son, brother to the present one, was killed when his horse stumbled over a herd of swine, and sure enough the pigs that day looked sufficient big and sufficient tusked to kill a man. In later years, when Paris became again the center of Crusade, with walls and towers and turrets and new battlements to transform a small city into a citadel, I came to know it well, certainly better than this first time, when we seemed to spend most of our days either waiting for someone to arrive or planning how we were ourselves to leave, when, in the midst of this upsurge of war, Earl Raoul hung grimly to his hope of peace.
One other thing I also recall. In those days many great lords had built small fortresses of their own, like small castles, set within and without the city walls, with vineyards and garden plots scattered in between. Most of these were grouped about the central island, Île de la Cité, one end of which was dominated by the king’s own fort, the other by the bishop’s palace, with stone bridges linking both to the mainland. Earl Raoul, tr
ue to his own idea of things, had chosen lodgings for himself away from this more noble part and close to the center of a different world, which, again in later years, was to interest me more than any noble one. This was the University of Paris. For if there was one thing Paris was famous for it was its scholarship; and although scholarship has never been my prime concern (a poet studies men, rather than their brains), yet even I, from a rustic backwater, could not fail to notice the excitement that the university generated, almost palpitating, as we wound our way through the crowded streets where the students lived.
The house roofs met over our heads, making a tunnel, if not a tower of Babel, in which every tongue was spoken although none, I swear, was ever listened to. At every doorway students, in their long black gowns, came surging out, like squires bent on quarrel, with tongues as sharp as swords and wits like weapons to beat each other down. And as we tried to make a passage through, like to die of suffocation if not from stench, I thought I had never seen such a violent, gesticulating, shouting, laughing, crying, arguing mass of men, alive with thoughts to their fingers’ ends. They reminded me of a shoal of fish, leaping and sparkling in the sun. I could have watched and listened to them for weeks.
To tell the truth there is little else I recall of that first time in Paris; nor, in the end, was our arrival as pleasing as it might have been. For when, by dint of force, using the butt end of their spears, the flat of their swords, our weary troops pushed a way clear, I found Earl Raoul’s quarters were not so grand as I had hoped, a palace being the least of my expectations. Although the building was stone-built, with guards in plenty and a great open meadow to the rear, and although afterward I realized how well the earl had chosen, close to the students’ section, where any armed men would seem intruders and certainly would have as much difficulty in passing through as we did, I had hoped to be at the center of the world of court and kings. Nor was I happy, I suppose, to find us stranded here, without the Lady Ann, my mentor and my guide, who, as I have explained, had stayed behind at Sieux. And least happy of all to discover, in her stead, the smiling person of Lord Gervaise, dressed in the latest Paris style with long furred gown against the cold, waiting before the thick iron-studded gate to lift the Lady Olwen from her horse. Nor, being ever alert where she was concerned, overzealous on her behalf, was I pleased to catch the look the earl at once exchanged with his son. For the earl gave his nod, that half-shrug of his which asked as plainly as words spoken aloud, “Is that the man? Will he do?” Aye do, to turn a noble lady into a noble wife. I scowled, limped off, saddle-sore, and would have given my right arm to have been back safe with my lady at Cambray, far from these noble lords and all their schemes. Sunk deep into my own personal misery, I never thought at first what the lady herself would feel, to see the man she had played with now standing there, waiting for her to fulfill her debt.