by Deryn Lake
‘Very good, Sir. Shall I await the reply?’
‘Yes. It is imperative that we make haste.’
The man looked puzzled but was given no further information as Paul disappeared into his chamber and picked up a quill pen.
*
Market day in Battle, and the approach road taken by Hamon de Sharndene — whose visit to Nichola had been delayed by the impassable weather conditions — was crowded with people, some herding cattle, sheep and pigs; others struggling beneath baskets of eggs and produce; more yet clutching squawking hens and honking geese; but all watching the antics of a dark-skinned girl with a twirling skirt and long naked limbs, who danced to the music of a pipe played by a man with a wooden stump in place of his leg.
In normal circumstances, Hamon would have enjoyed being part of the excited throng heading for the Abbey Green. Would have loved the sights, smells and company of the heavily-painted women entertainers who had joined the ranks of the market-goers. But today he was anxious to see Nichola without delay and he cursed as a fluttering hen caused his horse to rear up, knocking over a woman with a great pannier of fresh loaves, tipping her flat on her face in dung, her baking ruined. She shouted and waved her fist, and it was only by dismounting and pressing more money into her hand than she could possibly have earned, that Hamon managed to avoid the angry throng turning on him.
Meanwhile the dancing-girl had approached him, and smilingly offered her services. It was with a sigh that Hamon refused. Before the advent of Nichola he would have carried the girl off at once and delighted in her for the rest of the day.
She winked a vivid eye. ‘Another time perhaps.’
‘Perhaps.’
Much as he had guessed, Nichola’s little house was empty, and Hamon, on foot and leading his horse, joined the vast crowd thronging towards the market. Tying his mount to a ring in the wall, Hamon walked amongst the stalls, seeing, with some amazement, everything on sale that anyone could possibly need. Mounds of herrings spilled over sweet confections, and apples rolled amongst great and glistening cheeses. There were trays of delights: hot cakes to be consumed with wine, pies oozing with meats, vast heaps of dumplings, sugared sweets and barrels of sweet-smelling ale. It was as good a market as he had ever seen, even in the City of London.
Happily, young Sharndene jostled his way through the crowd, swollen in number today by a horde of pilgrims — complete with their personal entertainers — who had come to kneel at the high altar erected on the very spot where Harold, last of the Saxon kings, had fallen. Of Nichola there was no sign in the thronging multitude but Hamon, believing that at any moment he would catch a glimpse of her, contented himself with watching the antics of two little dwarves who were dancing before a wretched bear.
Suddenly he felt himself swept into the very essence of the place. He heard the abbey bells; he heard whistles, shouts and screams; the barking of dogs, the screaming of babies, the high silly laughs of the dwarves. He saw the brightness of spices on a plain wooden stall and the shabby dark brown of the old bear’s coat. He smelled roasting meat and unclean bodies, manure and ale and musky scent. He saw and touched and felt joyfully at one with the whole glowing pageant of the heaving, shoving, roaring, jostling company that had come to Battle market on that crystal-bright spring day.
And then he glimpsed Nichola wearing green, cool as a wood-nymph.
‘It’s Hamon. I’m here,’ he called out.
An eddy of people swept before him as the pilgrims’ singer launched into a noisy song and the bear finally succeeded in swiping a dwarf — a fact which pleased Hamon enormously — and temporarily he lost sight of her.
‘Nichola,’ he called at full voice.
Once more she came into view and he saw that she had not heard him and was deeply in conversation with a man, a man whose back was turned and yet who had a vaguely familiar look.
A thrill of unease swept Hamon and he began to push towards her, cursing those who stood in his path. Once again he shouted and this time she did hear and turned to see who had called her name.
He saw a look of amazement, followed by one of horror, cross her features. Then her companion turned as well. Hamon froze where he stood, unable to move. He was staring into the face of the man he knew better than any other on earth. Robert de Sharndene was also in Battle that day.
*
That evening a great mist came up from Tide Brook, spreading shroudlike through the length and breadth of the valley of Byvelham, and then creeping on to Maghefeld, where it swirled round the palace like a ghost.
There was something about this particular fog that seemed to shut out sound. Everything became hushed in its wake and even the most adventurous creature stayed silently in its lair. Not a hare twitched; not an owl raised hollow voice; not a mouse scuttled amongst the dead leaves of a long-forgotten autumn.
Yet two people were out in it, choking and coughing in the moistened air and straining their eyes without the benefit of a lantern to see where, in the vast and rambling woods, they might possibly be. Marcus and Colin, returning from a hunting trip, had realised that not only were they thoroughly lost but that they had little hope of finding their way before daybreak.
‘Must we sleep here?’ asked the simpleton nervously.
‘Not yet. We will go on a while longer. Come on, don’t be afraid.’
At once Colin was happy, the lynchpin of his existence bringing him all the comfort he needed.
Colin could no longer remember what life had been like before he met Marcus and married Oriel. To him they had always been there. And he was not sure, in his blurred strange mind, whether this was because he recognised both of them as friends of old, or because they filled his little, undemanding life with so much joy. And yet, like driftwood in a great ocean of nothing, memories sometimes came to him. Memories that would slip away as he sought to focus them more clearly. It was then that he would turn to his gittern, plucking the strings and trying to concentrate on what it was he really knew.
Now he said, ‘I am not afraid.’ Then added, ‘Did I shoot well with the bow?’
‘Very well.’ Marcus was not concentrating, straining his eyes through the solid wall of grey that hung about them. It was just growing dark, the most deceptive light of all in which to be fogbound.
‘I used to once,’ said Colin.
‘What?’
‘When we ran in the hills.’
‘Oh.’ Marcus was not listening, thinking that he had noticed the glow of a light. ‘I believe I can see something,’ he said.
Colin smiled. Not long now till he sat before the fire and was given warm soup and hot bread and could relate to Oriel all the day’s events: they had seen a heron flap his wings; he had shot three arrows into the bull’s eye; Marcus’s face had creased when they had come across Nicholas le Mist. And not long to wait to see her smile; see the toss of her lovely hair when she loosened it; feel the warmth of her sweet lips as she kissed him on the cheek. Not long now.
In the dimness he felt Marcus pull upon his sleeve. ‘There is a light. Do you see it?’
Colin screwed up his eyes. ‘No, I don’t think so. Where, Marcus? Where?’
‘Over there.’ The squire pointed to a place, through the thick trees and confident young saplings, where it seemed to him a clearing was visible in the mist.
‘I can’t see anything.’
‘Well, I can.’
Marcus went forward. Now there could be no doubt. Through the haze he could distinctly see a forge, the furnace glowing scarlet in the dullness, the anvil ringing with sound.
And then he saw the smith. Dressed as a monk, in roughspun habit, the man stood with his back to him, the great blacksmith’s tongs clasped firmly in his hand.
‘Hey there,’ called Marcus, ‘can you help us? We’re lost in the fog. May we take shelter with you till daybreak?’
The man apparently did not hear, for he remained stock-still, standing in a strangely frozen manner, looking neither to the right or left.
>
‘Hey,’ Marcus called again, ‘can you shelter us for the night?’
At last he seemed to understand, for the blacksmith slowly turned. A light so bright that Marcus thought he would be blinded appeared to shine from his face; his eyes were glowing orbs of starlight.
‘Oh God,’ cried Marcus.
They stared at one another and into the silence Colin spoke, ‘What are you looking at, Marcus?’
‘Can’t you see him?’
‘Who? Where?’
‘The blacksmith. Over there.’
But the man had turned away again and the mist had come up so thickly that the smithy was lost to sight.
‘I must have missed him,’ said Colin apologetically.
But Marcus could not answer, too full of fear — and of something surpassing that. He felt that he had peeped, just for a moment, at immortality and wondered, in tremendous dread, if it would be possible for him to ever be quite the same again.
Fifteen
A wild and blustering March morning and a wind coming in from the ocean, full of crisping brine and the distant cry of sea birds, a wind that swept inland, puffing full-cheeked at fogs and vapours, bringing in its wake skies the colour of an angel’s eye and clouds the shape of wings. There was a high bright sunshine everywhere and trees leapt to dance as the breeze hurried past and the world drew a sweet breath of springtime.
‘It’s daylight,’ said Colin. ‘Look Marcus. The mist has gone.’
There was no immediate answer and for several moments the simpleton sat in silence staring at his sleeping friend. He saw the bony cheeks, the hawk face, the heavy-lidded eyes, relaxed, at peace, almost as if the squire were dead. He saw the long brown hair lift of its own accord, ruffled by currents, and he saw the thin fingers of Marcus’s hands, the smallest of which wore a ring, curling like the petals of a flower.
The hands lay innocently, in quietness, and, looking at them, Colin felt in a terrible and frightening way that he was seeing something that was yet to come; that one day Marcus would lie like that on the forest’s ferny floor, with nothing to comfort and love him but the rustling grass snake and the short-sighted hedgehog.
‘Oh God,’ said Colin, hugging his knees to his chest, ‘if that happens, make me die too. Don’t let Marcus go away.’
*
The sweet, wild wind teased Margaret de Sharndene all of her journey home to the moated manor. And when she paused a moment on the hill above and looked down to the house she saw that the breeze had made playful little waves on the moat and that the swans bobbed joyfully, enjoying the excitement, and stretching their primeval necks up towards the gate of the sun.
Margaret felt such a love for life at that instant, such a stirring of warmth inside her. Paul d’Estrange, by his obvious fondness for her, had brought about the final metamorphosis: she had at last become the mature and considerable woman she was always destined to be.
Much to her astonishment, as she sat enjoying the morning, she saw Robert approaching Sharndene from the opposite direction. She wondered instantly what was wrong, for he had stated clearly that his duties at the abbey would keep him away at least a week. She concluded at once that he had quarrelled with his mistress and could not resist a triumphant smile.
Her husband had still not noticed her presence and Margaret kept her horse motionless, observing him through the eyes of a woman cherished by another man.
‘He’s grown old,’ she thought. ‘He looks like a miserable squirrel. I wonder what I ever saw in him? Or what the owner of the sarcanet glove can possibly do? I vow he’s a silly, hunched figure.’
And Robert certainly looked depressed, slumped in his saddle, his face like a gargoyle, plodding forward slowly towards his home.
‘She has thrown him to one side,’ Margaret decided certainly. ‘He’s too weary and boring for her despite his money and position. And serve him right!’
It was not in her nature to be vindictive but she had suffered too greatly when he had grown away from her not to feel a thrill of spiteful elation.
Quite unable to resist the urge to rub a little salt in a well-deserved wound, Margaret called out, ‘Robert I am here. Opposite you. You are returned quickly.’
‘Yes,’ he shouted back, having at last seen her, ‘I have some news to impart. Come to the house and I will tell you of it.’
They trotted down the opposite slopes and met at the drawbridge.
‘Well, well,’ said Margaret, grinning somewhat, ‘you look a-brim with worry. What is wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ answered her husband, bearing a patently false smile. ‘In fact quite the reverse. I met Hamon in Battle, absolutely by chance, and he has finally found himself a bride. A widow woman whom I vaguely know. I have come back to tell you to prepare; there is to be a wedding this week.’
Margaret stared at him in amazement. It was such an odd story that it seemed more than likely to be true. And yet ... ‘How old is she, this widow?’ she asked. ‘What is she like?’
‘Er ... about nineteen or twenty, I believe, and reasonably pretty from what I can remember.’
‘You do not know her well, then?’
‘As I said, hardly at all. But you can shortly judge her for yourself. They are only a few hours behind me.’
He laughed hollowly and Margaret peered into his face narrow-eyed.
‘Why do you stare at me like that?’
‘It is only that you appear ill at ease.’
And with that she walked her horse across the drawbridge, Robert following behind wishing that the planking would open up and let him drop into the moat below. He supposed, at that moment, that the word misery must have been created especially for him. To be told on arriving at Battle that Nichola no longer wished to consort with him was bad enough, but to discover that the object of her changed affections was his own son was more than a human should have to tolerate.
He had felt instantly old, gazing into a bronzed mirror that very day and noticing the pouches beneath his eyes, lines around his lips, and the hangdog expression on his face; to say nothing of the profusion of grey suddenly and quite clearly visible throughout his hair.
‘God ’a mercy,’ he muttered now. ‘I may as well give up and sit in the corner for the rest of my days.’
But small hope of that. Shortly he must fulfil the promise that Nichola, in the last few private moments they had had together, had begged him to make.
‘He must never know,’ she had said. ‘Please Robert, if you have any thought for me left, do not tell him.’
He had looked pompous. ‘Why should he not be told? Is he not man enough to know that his father is still vigorous?’
The expression on Nichola’s face had been the final insult. In one quick glance she had managed to convey that, in comparison with his first born, Robert’s idea of lovemaking was that of a schoolboy.
He had grown instantly furious. ‘To hell with him — and with you too. You are a whore, Nichola Rougemont.’
She had looked at him coldly. ‘Think what you will — it is of little consequence. However, as I am to be your daughter-in-law within the week you had better decide whether or not you will give us your blessing.’
‘You are very confident, Madam. Suppose he throws you aside when he learns the truth?’
A sly and secret smile had spread over Nichola’s face. ‘I do not think that is likely to happen,’ she had replied. And he had known then that she and Hamon had found the kind of bed magic together that meant they would never give one another up.
He had been about to give a cutting reply but at that very moment Hamon had walked in, looking so absurdly happy that his father had not had the heart to say a single word.
And now here Robert was at Sharndene, with Margaret peering suspiciously, and the bridal pair probably no more than three hours away.
He sighed deeply and Margaret, who had come up to him silently, said, ‘I learned last night that we are to be grandparents.’
He gaped at her. ‘Not J
uliana?’
‘Not as far as I know, thought she does seem to be gaining weight. No, it is Oriel.’
‘But surely the idiot is not capable!’
Remembering her secret conversation with Paul when he had called her to the palace on the previous evening, and their pact, to reveal the truth to no one, Margaret smiled and said, ‘Apparently he can play the husband occasionally. Oriel tells me in the cold weather he stayed with her for warmth and the result of that will be born in the autumn.’
Robert shook his head. ‘So it is all weddings and beddings?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, well. A cycle has ended. Now I suppose we must learn to endure our advancing years.’
Margaret swished her gown. ‘You may do as you wish. I personally have a great deal of living ahead.’
Robert sighed again. ‘You have changed so much. Why, at one time you were so besotted with Hamon you would have gone into mourning if you had not picked his bride yourself.’
‘I was foolish then. I realise now that one cannot live other people’s lives for them.’
Robert sat down, suddenly very tired. ‘I believe it is that wretched Gascon who has influenced you in all these things. You have not been the same woman since he arrived at the palace.’
Margaret nodded. ‘It is true he has opened my eyes to much philosophy.’
‘And has he also opened his arms to you in bed?’
Robert had never spoken to his wife in such terms and now she turned on him a disdainful glance, ready to trade insult for insult.
‘We are not all of your stamp, Robert. I know full well that you have had a mistress in Battle for months and have almost exhausted yourself with her. Why, you have aged ten years in as many weeks.’ A curious expression crossed Margaret’s face. ‘I suppose that by some curious mischance she and Hamon’s bride are not one and the same person?’
Robert glared furiously at his wife and marched out of the hall without looking back, leaving Margaret to stare at his retreating form.
‘Very convincing,’ she said to herself. ‘But I wonder. Anyway, I shall know as soon as I see her. I could never mistake the owner of that horrid little glove were I to live to a hundred years.’