The Firedrake

by Cecelia Holland

  Tosti rested for a while. Every day he would send the page for Laeghaire, and they would walk together around the castle and into the town. Aldric was always around, but the others of Tosti’s retainers soon disappeared. The Count told Laeghaire that they had all left Ghent by the fourth day of Tosti’s visit, sick of their master and longing for better chances. The lady Judith rarely left the Countess’s chambers.

  Tosti took his meals in his own chambers. Laeghaire wondered why, since everybody knew who he was and he never stayed inside during any other time of the day. One night, however, several days after the last of the retainers had gone, Tosti suddenly appeared in the dining hall when the meat was being put on the table. He excused himself to the Count, turned, and scanned the table. He headed straight for Laeghaire. Laeghaire told Hilde to move over on the bench.

  Tosti sat down. “Well. I thought to join the quick.” His eyes flew over the men nearest him. A servant put a cup and a trencher in front of him, and he carved himself meat.

  “Your wife is at the table with the Count,” Laeghaire said. “Go eat with her.”

  “So eager to be rid of me, Irishman? My beloved spouse and I are not speaking. I have disgraced her.” Tosti broke off a chunk of bread. He began to eat with great energy. Laeghaire thought he did nothing more hatefully than eat. He glanced up at the head of the table. The lady Judith was staring at Tosti. Suddenly she rose and. left the hall.

  Now everybody was watching Tosti. He lifted his head and looked after his wife. “I thought so. My very presence in a room as wide and airy as this has sickened her. Put her off her feed, like a nursing cow.”

  The Count stood up. “Your voice penetrates even this wide and airy room, Saxon.”

  “May I call to your attention, my lord, that I may have lost my earldom but I did not lose my birth, a fact you and your bootlicking Irish hound seem to feel free to ignore.”

  Laeghaire got up and backed away from the table. He looked at the Count. Tosti kept his back to him.

  “Cut the leash,” Tosti said to the Count. “You can be rid of me within the hour. I assure you I am no match for the far-famed Laeghaire of the Long Road.”

  “Sir Laeghaire,” the Count said, “you will accept the lord Tosti’s apologies. And he will, I hope, accept mine.”

  Laeghaire turned on his heel and walked out of the room. He walked the length of the table to the back door. He slammed the door after him.

  He stood in his room looking at Murrough, asleep in the cradle by the fire. Hilde came in. She skirted the table and came to him. “Don’t be angry,” she said. She stood behind him and put her arms around him. His muscles tensed.

  “You haven’t been angry for so long, it’s been so wonderful. Please don’t be angry.”

  He put his hands over her hands. He could feel the bones under his fingers.

  “He gave you an insult, but he’s a fool, and nobody will think any less of you if you do not repay him for it.”

  She rested her cheek against his back. He turned around and kissed her. She sighed. He patted her belly.

  “Go to bed.”

  “You aren’t angry any more?”

  “No. Go to bed.”

  She smiled and began to undress. There was a knock on the door. Laeghaire said, “Who is it?”

  “Tosti Godwinson.”

  Hilde put her hand on his arm.

  “Just a moment,” Laeghaire said. He sat on the table. Hilde took her clothes and went into the alcove and drew the curtain. Laeghaire told Tosti to come in.

  Tosti opened the door. “I wanted to express my most abject apologies. I seem to have let my rancor get the upper hand.”

  “Be quieter. You’ll wake the baby up.”

  “Baby?” Tosti crossed to the cradle and looked down. The torch was behind him. It cast a glow all around his head. He rested his hands on the side of the cradle.

  “Is it yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a boy, isn’t it.”

  “Yes.”

  Tosti was silent. He stood looking down at Murrough.

  “When did you marry?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Oh. My mistake. I seem to be extra clumsy tonight. I couldn’t get a son. I have three daughters.”

  He looked down at Murrough again. “Deal wisely with him, Irishman.” He turned and left.

  Hilde came from behind the curtain in her shift. “What did he mean?”

  “Who knows? Go to bed. You must be sleepy.”

  Tosti and the Count suddenly became friends, and Tosti sat at supper by the head of the table with the Count. The lady Judith at first dined and supped in her chambers. But she could not avoid Tosti, especially dining Advent, when everybody went to services three times a day. Laeghaire always stood by Tosti in the chapel. He watched them, day by day, draw closer together. Finally, after the Vespers of the fourth day before Christmas Eve, they left the chapel together. Laeghaire went out after them and crossed the courtyard to the outer stair. He saw them walking slowly together, apart from the others. Tosti’s head was bent toward Judith’s. He was talking. His left hand moved in an easy gesture. Suddenly Judith turned to face him and smiled. Her eyes shone confidently.

  It was beginning to snow. Laeghaire went into the castle.

  Christmas was quiet. The Count invited no guests. He gave presents to all the children. Murrough got a wooden horse set on wheels, with a cord to draw it around by. The grown-ups held a feast. The Count knighted Karl the next morning, in a single ceremony, and Karl had presents from all the people in the castle. His knighting had been a gift from the Count.

  “When it stops snowing,” the Count said, “we will have a mock fight, Sir Karl. Between you and Sir Laeghaire.”

  Karl laughed. His laughter and the expression on his face remained with Laeghaire a long time. He did not remember the last time he had himself laughed. He was not unhappy.

  He took his spell of guard duty on Twelfth Night. The lights of the hall and the Feast of Fools and the Court of Misrule were nothing for him. He thought of Karl laughing and Tosti and Judith, their heads bent together, smiling. He thought of Murrough, pulling the wooden horse after him running in the hall, the wooden wheels clattering on the stone. He was not unhappy. The thing that lives in a cocoon, he thought, is not unhappy either. I see with my eyes and my ears hear and I touch with my hands.

  Somebody scrambled up the ladder and came swiftly toward him. It was Hilde, wrapped in his old cloak. He knew her by the giggle that came from the depths of the hood.

  “False monk,” she said, “I brought you your piece of the cake.”

  A hand crept from the cloak’s folds and deposited a crumbling bit of cake in the snow. The great mass of the cloak turned and staggered off.

  “Come back here. You’ll hurt yourself. Or the baby.” He drew her down by him. She sat between his knees and leaned back against his chest. He put his arms around her and pulled the edge of his own cloak over her. She shook off her hood. In the dark heavy lump of the cloaks her hair shone. She smiled. She put her head against his shoulder.

  From the hall came a burst of noise. The lights flickered over the empty courtyard. Laeghaire closed his eyes. He smelled the scent of her skin and her hair. He dozed.

  Tosti came hunting him one day, when he sat playing with Murrough in the stables. Tosti drifted in and stood watching until Laeghaire looked up.

  Murrough stood. Laeghaire said, “Go play. Go find your friends.”

  The boy stared at Tosti. He backed off a few steps, suddenly shy. He turned and trotted off. Tosti watched him.

  “You’ve been lax in your duties, Irish,” Tosti said. “You are supposed to accompany me.”

  “Even courting?”

  Tosti grinned. “No. Not at my courting, my dear man. Not at my courting.” He wandered on light feet around the back part of the stable. “Aha! What’s this? The earth has opened and will swallow Ghent whole?”

  “What?”

  “A fis
sure, one might say a veritable cleft. In the floor of the stable.” Tosti banged his heel on the stable floor. “Hollow. A shame. I thought to see marvels. Hallo. Yes. It even echoes.”

  “That’s the old vault. It’s underground and it gave the horses thrush or something. The Count closed it up.”

  “Leaving a gap? Bad judgment on the part of your estimable carpenters. A man could fall and break his neck.”

  “It’s a little narrow for that.”

  “In truth. Your boy is very handsome.”

  “Yes.”

  “My dear man, you are supposed to thank me and immediately raise your opinion of my taste some two or three notches. Not admit it.”

  “Have you convinced the lady Judith that she is unshamed?”

  “Indeed. You have a knack for acquiring the verbal idiosyncrasies of the people you converse with. Do not mock me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I came hither the bringer of substantial news. A messenger appeared this morning from the coast, was ushered into the Count’s presence, and there gave him news that the King of England is dead. God rest his immortal and most holy soul.” Tosti crossed himself, and Laeghaire did, too. “And, further, that my dear brother has crowned himself King. On Epiphany, before the corpse was hardly chilled. And thus, Irishman, I need your aid.”

  “To go where?”

  “To Normandy.”

  “No.”

  “I feared as much. ‘To go where?’ You revealed yourself, dropped your shield. Then I shall go myself.”

  “I’ll have to tell the Count.”

  “Tell the Count, my dear, I shall go alone. Aldric is too old to play these games, and Judith must remain here. Until I can return her to her place as Countess of Northumbria. Under a King who owes me at least one part of his crown, William of Normandy, perhaps; a Northman, perhaps; even an Atheling—but not my brother.”

  “You talk too much.”

  “So I do. So I do. Let me talk a moment more. My brother is going to die.”

  “All men die.”

  “Ah, but I am going to kill him. The first, most terrible crime.”

  “Why hate him?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve always hated him. He always means well, but he has gotten us into more trouble than anyone else. King of England. Is he a fool? Doesn’t he know what he’s doing? Do you remember my father?”

  “Yes.”

  “My father was as near to God as any man I have ever known. As near as holy Edward.”

  Tosti spat. He went out. His boots rang on the floor.

  The next day he was gone. The Count raged a while and at last admitted that no man could have stopped him. Laeghaire hardly cared. William was going to have to fight, for England. William would need knights. Laeghaire remembered Maine like a fire. He waited for William to call him. For two or three days he waited for each moment because each moment might bring him his summons.

  Hilde had the baby, very quickly. One moment she was coming to Laeghaire telling him that she was going to have it, and the next she was lying on the bed, asleep, and the new baby wrapped in swaddling in the nurse’s arms. It was a girl. Hilde called her Traude, and Laeghaire called her Dierdre. Hilde was well right away and very happy. Six days after the baby was born, she died, and they buried her in the castle graveyard outside the wall.

  “Don’t worry. Well get another,” Laeghaire said.

  “But I wanted this one. I wanted my little girl. You have Murrough, and I wanted a girl.”

  Murrough sat on the bed, looking from one face to the other. Laeghaire put his arms around Hilde. “We’ll get another. She’ll be happier where she is.”

  “She wasn’t christened.” Hilde pulled away from him. “And we will never have another. It’s a punishment on us, for our sin. I’ll keep having them, and they’ll keep dying, they’ll just keep dying. I hate it. I hate it.”

  “Murrough, go outside.”

  “You go too. Go away.”

  He went out after Murrough. Murrough turned and looked up.

  “What was my mother mad about?”

  “Your little baby sister.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s dead, Murrough.”

  Murrough caught Laeghaire’s hand. “She’s dead? I can’t see her any more?”

  “No.”

  “Did she go to Heaven?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did she die?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When I die, will I go to Heaven?”

  “Stop talking about it.”

  Murrough’s fingers tightened around Laeghaire’s. His face turned up toward Laeghaire’s. Suddenly he began to cry. Laeghaire picked him up. Murrough wept.

  “Hush. Be quiet. Don’t worry. Hush.”

  “Why are you mad at me?”

  “I’m not. I’m not.”

  Murrough was a heavy weight in his arras. He stood in the hall with the child in his arms. Murrough cried against his shoulder. He should marry her. It would not take away the sin. They had lived together for a long time, slept in the same bed, without a marriage. He did not think it would take away the sin.

  He fought the mock fight with Karl, with a wrapped sword and a padded shield. ‘The whole castle came to watch, in the field where the squires trained. The snow was melting and the horses moved in mud to their fetlocks. Murrough sat by the Count. Hilde was with him. The two horses were well matched, although Laeghaire’s stallion was much older and wiser than Karl’s horse. Karl fought well. Laeghaire rapped him several times across the ribs. Once Karl beat down Laeghaire’s shield and almost tapped him on the shoulder. They fought for nearly the whole afternoon. Twice Karl fell off his horse. The people cheered wildly and threw snowballs at them when they made bad moves.

  Finally Karl thrust up his hands. “Quarter,” he said. He took off his helmet, laughing. “By the Cross,” he said, “you killed me a dozen times.”

  “You’ll be a good knight,” Laeghaire said. “Hold your shield higher. Cover your neck with it.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Murrough ran up. He danced around them, laughing. He caught the brown stallion’s stirrup. Laeghaire bent and swung him up. Karl said. “That’s dangerous.”

  “He plays in horses’ stalls. He’s an Irishman. We’re half horse.”

  “When I grow up,” Murrough said, “I’ll be like my father.”

  “He’ll be a very devil of a knight,” Karl said.

  “No, he won’t He’ll be a landed lord, e count, like his godfather.”

  The others were all around them now. Murrough jumped up and down, hanging onto Laeghaire.

  “Where?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  No word from William. Rumors. William had sent to Rome for a special blessing on his claim against the oath-breaker. Tosti was in Normandy, helping William. The Pope would call a holy war against the usurper Harold. Harold had been crowned by the Archbishop Stigand, who was not invested from Rome, and the Pope hated him. The Emperor was sending aid to William, the rumors said. They said that the Spanish Moors were seeking an alliance with Harold Godwinson, and with Harold’s help would crush Christendom.

  There was no word from William. Laeghaire thought of going to Normandy uncalled. He did not want to. He wanted William to send for him.

  Hilde was better. She was merry most of the time but sometimes she would be quiet and sit alone and think. He could not reach her any more. He made love to her once but she was dull and empty in his aims. After he was finished he lay in the darkness, trembling, and listened to her fall asleep.

  He took his horses for long gallops to condition them. He worked often with Karl and one or two of the squires. All the long spring he fretted. The Count knew it, and called him in one day to tell him that it would be a while before William would send for him. England was a bigger enterprise than Maine. Wait. Be calm. Wait. He rode hard, leaping the horses over the swollen streams and the windfalls of the gone winter. The
brown stallion ran at the end of the whipping rope, his great body flecked with lather. Both horses began to trim down. Laeghaire sat in his saddle one day in the late spring and watched the brown stallion stamp and wheel at the end of the rope. The stallion was fresh and wild. He had not been ridden since the fight with Karl. His legs bent and drove down, smashing at the ground, tearing clods of turf out of the ground. He played like a colt, arching his neck. Spring wildness. He wanted a mare. His eyes rolled. The muscles of his haunches arched and flattened and his tail, cocked high, flew back and forth. Laeghaire could not stop watching him. He had had the stallion since he was a colt. Now the stallion was in his prime, sleek and strong and proud in the mean glitter of his eyes. He wished he were the stallion and could leap and dance and strut, fling out his hoofs and claw open the ground.

  When Laeghaire went back to the castle that day, Lanfranc the Prior of Bee was there. Lanfranc said that he had only come to visit and bring some minor news, but when he said it he looked at Laeghaire, and Laeghaire thought, It’s a fine honor guard, my lord. He laughed. The Count turned, surprised, and Laeghaire made his face straight.

  That evening, Lanfranc sought him out and said, “I must go back to Normandy in four days. The Duke said that if I saw you I was to tell you that he is calling knights to take England.”

  “For the fun of it?”

  “England is rich. Booty, land, women …”

  That night he dreamed that he rode in English fields, and saw a witchwoman there. He dreamed they stood and stared at one another for a long time, and suddenly he jumped for her and caught her, and in the middle of the sunny fields he raped her. In the dream he was happy about it, but when he woke up he saw Hilde and was a little ashamed and put it out of his mind.

  “We’re going to Normandy, aren’t we?” Hilde said.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “In three days.”

  “I’ll get ready.”

  “Good.” Laeghaire called to Murrough.

  “Here, leave him here, he’s sleepy. He woke up again last night. Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to run my horses.”