by Mary Lide
Such was the message, it is said, the earl himself had sent to King Henry years ago, when Sieux lay in ruins. They say, too, that Henry’s officer was so taken aback, he almost stuttered in reply. “My lady,” he said at last, with a reverence akin to awe. “So shall I report to him. But it is not Sieux he seeks, only your sons.”
“Then tell him this,” she cried, her eyes ablaze. “As he has sons who defy him, how does he answer for them? Will he kill them when he catches them? Remind Henry it is not honorable to seek vengeance of a boy for wrongs that were done before his birth. Nor is it worthy of a king to use a girl to avenge a memory of another girl, years ago. Shame on your king, who has broken faith with us.”
So she, too, defied the king, as have done other ladies of these times. And, they say, such was the impression she made that her injured husband, hearing it, cried, “By God, she swore she would lead a charge one day. Take care she does not try.” And sitting up in bed, he could scarce be prevented from tumbling out to stop her himself. And, it is whispered, when neither she nor the earl are near, that a song is sung of her in those parts, no doubt a scurrilous one, how the lady of Sieux proved as valiant as a man and, not hesitating to act in her own right, bested men as might another man.
Bien fous les soldats du roi,
Qui de la gente dame, dans leur émoi,
Croient vaincre les remparts,
Quelle illusion, pour ces soudards . . .
And so on, the rest not suitable for gentle folk. And so Henry, although to his shame he besieged Sieux, did not capture it, and presently, losing heart, he withdrew again. But all this happened later. As we pondered in the forest, we knew only that we could not go there.
Well, the way to Sieux was barred. That left but west, westward through southern Brittany to the Atlantic coast.
Easily said, westward. First there were Henry’s men to outwit, along the forest edge; then all of Brittany before us, where Henry’s army was out in full force, the Breton rebels for the most part seized, the rebel castles under attack, all Henry’s vassals warned to prove their loyalty by catching us. Not one castle, not one town, not one village was safe; already Henry’s decree had been sent even to outlying farms where peasants might give us help, and death the punishment allotted for those who dared break his command. And what of us who would make this journey, enough to test the endurance of seasoned warriors? With but five men, one wounded lord, a lady, and a half-size page, how should we endure hardships that would make this ruined hut seem a palace? Where to get food, shelter, supplies? And when we reached the coast, where to go from there? I tell you, my heart sank as I listened to the Welshmen’s plans. But so it was decided that night, our fate and theirs. And whether we would or not, we were bound to go with them.
Chapter 14
We stayed five more days in that hut, part hut, part ruin, not the best days I have ever known. Nor yet the worst; anticipation of what was to come might have made them seem an oasis in a barrenness. The weather continued fine after the storm; we had lodgings of sorts, and the following day, when the men were able to set their nets, small game to eat, caught in those sorts of traps that Lady Olwen had loved to set. Heat became more of a nuisance than cold, the canopy of leaves acting as a shroud, a coverlet, to keep it in, so that airless and humid, the little dell became a kind of tepid bath. By noon we were bathed in sweat and plagued with flies, which bred in swarms around the pools of drying mud. In one way the Celts were better served than we; their hours of guard duty done, they could strip down and, free of their weight of mail, lave their cuts or lounge along the water’s edge.
Within the hut my lady kept watch of her own, sitting by her brother’s side, his head in her lap so she could brush the flies away from his wounds. She seldom stirred, sat patiently, pinned down by his weight and by her heavy, clinging robes, her clothes still bloodstained. As for Lord Hue, he seldom moved either, but his fever did not worsen, praise God, and toward the morning of the third day his eyes flickered open before closing again in what seemed more like a natural sleep.
On hearing of this, Prince Taliesin approached. He had not come near us since that first day but punctiliously, with each changing of the guard, had sent one of his men to inquire for the lady’s comforts or had let me run back and forth as messenger. To tell the truth her wants were few; all was for the sake of her brother, who, poor soul, had he but known, would have scorned such favors. For my own part, to act as messenger suddenly became a thankless chore, little to recommend it, certainly bringing nothing but ill will from both sides, so that even I began to balk at a service that offered such scant reward. I even vowed to myself that were we free from here, which, God willing, sometimes I thought we almost might be, the lord and lady could make their own peace without benefit of me.
I noticed at once, that predawn hour, that Taliesin’s cuts were healing fast, but although he still wore mail and sword belt like a Norman knight, the hauberk would not last long, so hacked and ripped was it become that even his men’s skill could not repair the damage done; an armorer was needed to patch the broken links. He ducked his head with its golden curls under the broken lintel and stood looking down at us in the semigloom, face shadowed. It was not easy to tell what he thought—certainly he gave no indication of feeling anything, no change in expression or voice, merely cold reserve—but I noted how his knuckles had whitened where he grasped his sword hilt hard, and I sensed, not saw, the sympathy that he felt for our predicament.
Lord Hue lay beneath the blanket, his hands stretched in front of him as he used to hold them at Falaise; he appeared asleep again, his long eyelashes, like to the lady’s own, fanned across his cheeks. The Lady Olwen was leaning against the rough walls, for a moment caught off guard, her own eyes shut. She looked frail, her bones like sticks—one almost felt pity for her surge through the prince, but he beat it down. He did not speak or look at her but bent instead toward the sleeping man and said something in his ear, the words so shocking loud and bleak that we all started as if an arrow had come whistling viciously into our midst. “Ware arms,’’ the prince had cried, the traditional order of attack. The Lady Olwen sat bolt upright and clutched her cloak. The effect on Hue was even more evident. His eyes opened wide, their grayness suddenly intent and alert, and almost imperceptibly, his fingers inched to where his sword would have been had he one, as if by instinct he reached for it, proof, if proof there was, that at least his soldier’s training was intact. Lady Olwen soothed him, her hands soft and cool across his face, until, seeming to recognize her touch, he settled back to sleep again. But her words to the prince were less kind.
“Monster,” she hissed at him when Hue’s eyes were fast shut, “what do you want of my brother, to mock him thus?”
Prince Taliesin straightened himself up painfully, for a slash across his knee had stiffened and his rib cage was still bruised and raw where Henry’s lance had caught. “Lady,” he drawled, in that cold and distant tone he used for us these days, “at the week’s end the moon will be dark. I hope, nay believe, the rains will return to give us the extra cover that we need. I plan to make a move at that time. But we cannot ride with an unconscious man. Seeing your brother now, I feel sure he will soon regain his wits, perhaps today. I trust you will help him regain his strength. For unless he understands what we do, we cannot move him, to his jeopardy and ours.”
She cried, “He can never ride alone. One of you must support him.”
“Then Urien must.” The prince’s reply was bleak. “I need all my fighting men. I cannot spare anyone to act as nursemaid. Arrange it as you wish, but we leave here at the week’s end.”
She gaped at him, then scrambled upright, her white thighs and long legs gleaming for a moment before she could straighten her skirts, her feet bare, mud-caked, as they used to be when she was a child. She pushed past the prince, her hair flying so that it hooked about the buckles at his belt, but she never paused, simply tore it free and went outside, her back rigid with offense. The prince hes
itated for a second before following her, as did I, an air of resignation rather than anger in his eyes. But Lady Olwen was filled with more than a usual rage. Her dark eyes snapped, and her bare feet almost stamped with fury. “You want him to live,” she cried, rounding on the prince, a wren fluttering its wings at a hawk’s menace, “you want him conscious to know all that you do. What is it exactly you mean to do to us?” She emphasized the word. “What is it, monster, you will ask of us to gratify your pride, your revenge? Or am I mistaken, do you want to carry us all back dead?”
He let her talk on for a moment or so, standing nonchalantly in front of her, twisting the golden bracelets he wore, her words like rain to be flicked aside. And when she was done, “Lady,” he said, in the same stiff, formal way, his own feelings held in check, “you speak with as little sense as if you, not your brother, had taken a blow to the head. Think. If you were Henry the King, how much longer would you grant us respite before you grew weary of the wait? Henry’s men know where we are. It is a simple matter for them. All they have to do is decide which is easier: to let us try to break out or for them to come in. Sooner or later they will come. We have tested their patience long enough, and Henry is not a patient man. A few days more, and they will be on the move. I mean to catch them first before they catch me.” He paused. “And not only these woods to cross,” he added for her benefit. “We do not make a royal progress, as perhaps you would prefer, but a forced march.”
“And if I insist we be left here . . . ?”
“Then you come by force,” he said, almost disinterestedly. “You can ride or be carried. Facedown, across saddle, you’d not have breath left to complain. And in such likelihood my men may not be as gentle as I would be. They still mourn their dead companions, who died for you.”
“Then send to Prince Henry, let him rescue Hue,” she cried. “He is Hue’s dear friend; he would reward you well.”
A second foolishness that he ignored, although he might have pointed out that it was friendship with that prince that had first got Hue into such a state. Instead he merely said, in his dry way, “Aye so. But that prince would not honor us. Lady, whether you will or not, you must come with us. Remember,” and now a bitterness did creep into his voice, “remember you swore once to follow me to the world’s end; you wanted to be with me; you begged me not to leave you behind.”
She did not know how to answer him. “That was in a different time,” she said at last, hanging her head, speaking low.
“Just so.” His reply was still dry, but his eyes had begun to smolder, with pain or regret I cannot say. “Just so. And thus in different wise is our leave-taking arranged.”
“And what will your father do with us?” she next tried to outargue him, “murder, revenge, rape, which?”
He said, still reasonably, as if he should take her accusations seriously, “Murder and revenge are things all men can answer for; rape is more in a woman’s line. What sort of rape would be to your taste, which would suit you best? And how would you have it arranged? Here now, or later, as you will.”
She stared at him, her mouth half open, took a startled step back, put out her arms, thin like sticks, to ward him off. It was the sort of jest he might have made before, but there was not a mocking smile from him today, only anger in those dark blue eyes.
“We are your hostages,” at last she gulped forth, “treat us with more respect.”
“Hostages.” He suddenly shot the word out at her, threw his head back, and laughed, not his hearty, boyish laugh but a sound threaded with bitterness to make her start back a second time. “Hostages,” he repeated. “God’s wounds, lady, you speak like a fool. What hostages? A wounded knight whose wits are gone, a half-pint page like a bag of bones, a sharp-tongued wench whose words would flay the skin from a man’s back; a fine idiot I shall look to bring you home. My father’s court would laugh me to scorn. Not hostages, lady, for my Celtic pride, but prisoners.” He spun around to hurl that word at her. “Prisoners of war for me to do with as I will.
“Aye,” he went on when she did not answer him, “aye, to leave you here might make sense, a weight about my neck, an added care. But I could buy my freedom with you if I had to. Have you not thought of that, mistress-know-all? Henry wants you back more than he wants me. A nice fat reward for you, no doubt to slake his royal lusts on you. So I take you for insurance at worst, upon a safe passage out for my men and me. Rape is it?” Again he made another menacing move to make her recoil. “That is a word to bleat about. Celts are not the only men who relish rape. Or do you think Norman knights are gods, accepting graciously what is offered them? Why do you think King Henry wanted you? Do you believe he meant for you to go off freely from Falaise, without even a farewell embrace?” She was silent, remembering perhaps her meetings with that king. “By the living cross,” Prince Taliesin swore, truly angry now, “you are more naïve than I thought. He used you as bait, Lady Olwen, bait, as once you said you would never countenance for any living thing; true Norman bait for me and my men. So listen carefully that there be no mistake. You owe your life to us, and you have endangered ours. Yet for pity’s sake we will not abandon you. Hue must be made fit to ride, and you, lady, ride with us.”
He had crowded right against her, not as he once might have done; words he might have said in love or jest spilling out in bitterness, even little traits of her character that once had pleased or amused him held up for scorn. “Take care,” he had told her, “words hurt.” Now he showed her how. He looked down at her one final time. “I’ll not have you as hostage, Lady Olwen,” he told her simply. “My brothers’ lives were worth much more.” And he turned away from her.
Left alone, she began to follow him, hesitated, stayed where she was, by turns confused, thoughtful, and disturbed. She started to send me after him, then called me back. I soon realized I was useless as a go-between. Each of them felt the other was wrong, each was so convinced of being right that my sympathies were torn between the two. Now, I am honest enough to admit that I knew if they were to be reconciled, they would have to make the effort themselves. She understands her feelings better than I do, I argued silently; let her choose when and how to speak. But that was not quite the whole truth. Although this was not the time or place for such pettiness, I will confess I was mutinous, jealous. I knew the prince did not deserve to be estranged from her, but I felt that I was not obliged to help him back into her favors, which I would have liked to keep for my own. Since this is the only time my vocation failed, and if in the ensuing days I closed my eyes and ears, perhaps I can be forgiven. I could not watch unmoved; I could not spy; better, I thought, not to watch at all. I withdrew into my shell, did what had to be done, suffered for them, suffered myself For these reasons, then, I shall let her tell her story in her way, as later I came to hear it. Later I could endure the telling; not then.
Twice she heaved a great sigh and looked sideways to see if I would respond, and once again, while Hue still slept, she went outside the hut and stood against the wall, on the side away from where the Celts made camp. But although she did not look at them, she knew of them, was aware of them; the more she looked away, the closer she seemed to lean toward them, as if in her very body she felt confused, as if in every part she was riven in two, longing to believe what her lover said, dreading that what Gervaise had told her was truth; longing to find Taliesin’s love, fearful that she had forfeited it. “I did not know what to think,” she after said, “thoughts beat in my brain like bat’s wings. When I closed my eyes I saw Gervaise’s face, a mask of pain; I saw those dreadful wounds, those gouts of blood. All I heard was his whispers, his suspicions, panted out with his dying breath. But superimposed I saw Taliesin. He was wounded, too, and I had ignored his hurts. He had fought with the king and won; to save my life, he had let the king go free, and I had not given him thanks. I could have better understood,” she cried, “if Taliesin had disputed with me; if he had argued, shown anger, told me I was wrong. That cold, stiff bitterness, that cold, st
iff pride, set up a barrier I could not break down. It reminded me,” she dropped her gaze, “it reminded me of my father’s pride, my father’s way, so unlike my own. Or Hue’s. I knew from the start I had done him wrong. But how was I to make amends? How apologize, say to a man, ‘Forgive me, my lord, for calling you villain and murderer’?” She almost laughed at that thought, then cried, “I wanted to run and beg his forgiveness. But what should I have begged for? Ahead, such danger lay that even to think of personal quarrels seemed to add to my offense. There was no time to ask him to talk with me; I had forfeited his goodwill, I say, and had to abide the consequence. But even so I could not believe all love was gone, wiped away, lost, although I told myself it must be so. And every time he moved or spoke, once when he laughed (not that hateful, cold laugh but the one I remembered), I felt desolate, as if that barrier kept us apart, two wraiths who mouth, wordless, across purgatory.
“I have never been so aware of anyone,” she said another time, “for when he spoke with his friends (he and his guards were companions, not like those Norman lords who keep a distance between master and men), I have never seen anyone so alive. Life flared in him; I sensed it like a current, a wind, a flame. And, I think, despite his scorn, he was aware of me. Why else, when I looked, was he always looking aside; when I moved, he had just turned his back? Pride, my pride, kept me still in my place. And pride, my pride, kept me quiet. Once I would have dared say anything to anyone. That was before my lover became my enemy.” And then she was silent, musing for a long while.
But presently, continuing in a more normal voice, “Well,” she said, “it was just as well the weather broke. We could not have endured longer there, not like that, saying, doing nothing, feeling all. But how could the prince have been so sure the weather would change? Urien asked one of the guards, who winked his eye, tapped his nose, and cocked his head heavenward, by which gestures, I presume, he meant by signs: the smell of the wind, the path of the clouds, the feel of the air. And perhaps by prayers to God. I know I prayed. But what I prayed for, God Himself must have interpreted; I did not know myself, for even in my prayers I was confused. But the fine mist, the west country mist that followed, as if by command, was all that we could have hoped—not heavy rains this time to flood the streams and bog down our path, but light, drifting, so that we, like shadows, could drift through the trees, and a heavy sky without even stars to hinder us. We left at dusk. They had brought Hue out earlier and hoisted him on a horse with Urien in front of him. Hue was still weak, but these five days had made a difference. He could move and stand at will, although when he walked, he shuffled more like an old man, one foot slowly making way for the second one. It was not loss of strength that hindered him but loss of—how shall I say?—of will. Strength would return in time, and movement to his broken hands. It was rather there existed a gap, a divide, between what he wanted and what he did, as if a distance separated him from what he was. He could speak clearly enough, but he never began the talk, only replied; questions he could answer but not frame. I sensed it was difficult, nay impossible, for him to think thoughts of his own; and although I tried to conceal that lack, it must have been obvious to us all that not only should Urien ride for him, he must think and act for him, too, Hue who could master any horse that moved. My heart contracted for him, my brother whom I loved and fought and held in my heart like my own life, for whom I had given up happiness. When I saw him thus, led like a child by the hand, uncomplaining, whatever softer feelings I had hardened anew into outrage. And yet, I will be honest, had Hue his full wits, had he had control of himself, he would never have let us leave as we did. Sense would not have quieted him, nor danger, nor even physical weaknesses. And in that perhaps God showed his mercy, to dim for him the understanding, to bank down the fire.