“It’s broken,” Roger said. “We’ll have to bind it up, somehow.”
Fulk pushed himself up so that he could take off the rest of the coat and shirt. His right arm was swollen, immense, and black, the skin stretched taut and shiny over it. Dear Lord Jesus, he thought, if it heals straight and strong I shall go on a pilgrimage.
“I’ll be right back,” Roger said. “Will you be all right?”
“Yes,” Fulk said. Roger’s fussy concern embarrassed him. He watched the tall knight stride out the door and sank back against the wall, listening to his own breath hiss between his teeth.
With the clarity of something seen by lightning, he remembered the raid on which he had broken his leg—the pain had burned it into his mind. For weeks he had been trying to drive Peverel’s men from a village they both claimed, and on that night he had done too well—he and Roger and a dozen other knights had crowded a band of Peverel’s up against the bank of a river, and in desperation Peverel’s men had turned and charged back through Fulk’s knights. We did that here, too—he knew that the big man had attacked him because Fulk had come between him and his line of escape.
The pain spurted like blood through his arm. Sweet Lord Jesus, he thought. Lady Mother, Hold Mary. His mouth tasted bitter. They would have to go home by the road, if they could cross over the bridge. He felt suddenly weak; with his eyes fixed on the wall, he saw the edges of his vision turn dirty brown and darken, until he could see only a tiny patch of wall—like looking through a hollow reed. He strained against the darkness, and it gave way, the light came back, and he shook his head. If I had stayed with Margaret as a Christian man ought, this would not have happened.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, quick and coming nearer, and Roger came through the door and knelt beside him. He had cut a bundle of sticks. Putting them down, he pulled off his coat.
“How do you feel?”
“I’ll be all right,” Fulk said.
Roger folded his coat and Fulk’s together, with sticks wrapped inside them to stiffen them, and laid them down neatly on the ground. “That man—the one who attacked you— he has only one hand.”
“He needed only one.”
Roger hacked a piece of rope into thirds. “Who do you think he was?”
“Just someone we frightened.”
“Hunh.” Roger took hold of Fulk’s arm at the wrist and the elbow, pulled them strongly apart, and twisted. Fulk whined. He could feel the edges of the bone rubbing together; he could not catch his breath. Roger laid his arm down on the folded coat and tied the cloth and sticks into a bundle around it. The pain faded to a dull throb. Clammy with sweat, Fulk watched him bind the cloth tighter with their belts. The splints held his arm stiff from elbow to wrist.
“Good.”
“He must have been an outlaw,” Roger said, “who lost his hand for thievery.”
Fulk shook his head. “If strangers had cornered me here I would have attacked them.”
Roger was making a sling from Fulk’s ruined shirt. “What about your ribs?”
“Never mind.” He put his good hand flat on the floor and pushed himself up, and with Roger beside him went out the door and into the corridor.
The dead man lay in a heap against the wall, his cudgel broken under him; his left arm ended just before the wrist. Fulk crossed himself uneasily. He had always thought it was bad luck to kill a crippled man.
“We can send someone here to bury him,” he said. “Lay him out straight, Roger.”
“I’ll take his coat, too,” Roger said. “You can’t go back half-naked.”
“No,” Fulk said. He was shivering; he cradled his arm in its sling against his chest and watched Roger pull the dead man’s legs and arms straight and push the body up against the wall.
“That should warn any other outlaws not to stay here, too,” Roger said.
Fulk leaned against the cold stone wall, nauseated. He wondered who the dead man was—he suspected he came from Cheshire, where rebellious villagers sometimes got their left hands cut off. Roger stripped off the man’s coat and brought it to him. Made of undyed, coarsely woven wool, it was less a coat than a shawl, and it hung on Fulk like a tent.
They went out into the courtyard. The sun was going down. A cold wind rustled the leaves up against the monastery wall. Roger led over Fulk’s horse and held it, and Fulk mounted, stepping up into the cool air. He felt strange, as if he were dreaming, detached.
“We’ll have to take the road back,” he said, and nudged his horse forward.
Roger rode up alongside him. Fulk thought, He is waiting for me to fall off, so he can catch me. Abruptly he remembered why they had come here, to see if the place was safe again for monks, and laughed.
They had broken up the bridge once themselves, when Chester was attacking Stafford, so that he could have to come back the main road. Fulk’s men had mended it again hastily, to chase Chester north again, and it was that mended part that was broken now. The three stone piers still stood, but the slab of stone between this bank and the first pier had fallen into the river, and lay now in the rapids just beyond. Someone had laid a plank across the gap, so that people could cross on foot. Roger scratched his nose, staring at it.
“They’ll take it,” Fulk said, and patted his horse.
“Mine. Not yours. You must ride my horse over.”
Fulk shook his head. “If I’m on him, he’ll go anywhere—he just won’t be led.” He tapped his heels against his horse’s sides, and the bay arched its neck and poked its head down, ears pricked, toward the bridge.
“He won’t go,” Roger said.
“He will, he has to.” Fulk rapped the horse's ribs again.
The bay took three tiny steps forward and stopped, its forehoofs on the plank, and backed up in a rush.
“Hah! Make a liar of me?” Fulk kicked the bay hard, turning his foot so that his spur hit. The bay stepped out onto the plank. The ringing of its own hoofs on the wood frightened it; it quickened stride, panicked, and bolted across. Fulk reined it down with difficulty—the pain in his joggled arm made him sweat.
Roger followed him across. “I wouldn’t trust a horse like that,” he called, and mounted, smiling. “As apt to leave you or throw you as obey, that one.”
“You, perhaps, not me.” Fulk pressed the bay over beside Roger’s horse. Black specks swam across his vision. He was cold, but he was sweating; the harsh cloth of the dead man’s coat rasped on his skin. He knew what this was, this sickness, and he strained against it, holding it away until they reached Stafford.
“When shall we go back to Tutbury?” Roger asked.
“Soon. I’m not sure. My lady is so sick, I can’t leave her until she is better or—” He thought, How strange, that Margaret should be dying, and I almost died today, both of us at once. The road darkened ahead of him. The sun was setting. But when he looked, the sun still hung in the sky, over the trees on the horizon.
Roger was talking, but Fulk could barely hear the words. A vast humming filled his ears. The light seemed to be fading away, as if it were deep twilight. He clung to his saddle with his good hand, staring straight ahead. At the end of the road was Stafford Castle; all he had to do was keep going.
“My lord.”
“Yes,” Fulk said. “Yes.”
THREE
Fulk held out his good arm and a page slipped the sleeve of his coat over it and draped the coat over his other shoulder. His right arm in its sling was strapped to his side. They had bandaged him and braced him with splints so heavy he felt off balance; standing up still made him lightheaded. He reached for the ivywood cup on the table. With a crash, the door opened, and his younger son Hugh rushed in. He had come to Stafford while Fulk was sick, just before Margaret died.
“Chester’s here,” Hugh said. “God, he just got here, he’s got forty men with him.”
With the wine buzzing in his head Fulk turned so that a page could put on his belt. “Somebody tell the cook we need twenty more hams, then for
Chester and ten for his men.”
He settled the belt and picked up the wine cup again. Rannulf came in behind Hugh. His face was thinner than before, and shadows like old bruises lay under his eyes. “My lord, our guests are in the churchyard.”
“I’m ready.”
“Did you see Chester?” Hugh cried. He was tall and big-boned, like Margaret, and with his bushy hair always reminded Fulk of a bear. Rannulf sneered at him.
“Can’t you ever keep your voice down?” I saw Chester long before you did.”
“I saw him when—”
“Oh, be quiet.” Rannulf shoved Hugh to one side. “Do you need help, my lord?”
“Stay away from me.” Fulk went to the door, trailed by pages, and his sons followed. Hugh's great voice went on and on about Chester. Fulk had been staying in the room above the one in which Margaret had died, and the stairs were narrow and dark. He set his feet down carefully on each step and held onto the iron grips set into the wall. They said that he had nearly died, too. At the foot of the stairs, he had to stop and let his head settle.
His household was waiting in the courtyard just outside the door, all in mourning, and when he came out their faces turned toward him in unison. It was a bright, windy day, a vivid English summer day; he looked up at the brilliant blue sky, and his uncertain spirits lifted.
“Lean on me, Father,” Hugh said, in a muffled voice. Fulk glared at him.
Rannulf, on his right, peered around Fulk at his brother and whispered, “Leave him alone. He’s well enough.”
Fulk made his strides longer. Hugh said, “He isn’t. You saw—”
“Be quiet,” Fulk said, between his teeth. With the household massed around them, they crossed this courtyard to the gate into the churchyard. Roger was standing beside the gate—like Fulk he wore all black.
“You look well, my lord,” he said quietly.
“Not as well as I will.”
“Look among Chester’s knights.” Roger stood to one side to let him pass.
With Hugh and Rannulf behind him, he walked into the churchyard where a mass of Margaret’s friends and relatives waited in their fine, somber clothes. Margaret had died while he was still unconscious, and the things left unfinished between them dragged at him like the weight of his bandages. Walking toward the chapel door, he wondered about what Roger had said and decided he knew what it meant.
Margaret had devoted much attention to this chapel of Saint Anne, endowing it every year of their marriage with rich gifts, and when she was dying she had told Rannulf she wanted to be buried here and was pleased she died at Stafford. Dying, she told much to Rannulf, including that Fulk should find a husband for Hawisse. Hawisse was standing near the door, grim-faced as ever. Fulk went past her and into the chapel.
It was too small to hold all the guests. Margaret lay behind the altar rail, her hands folded on her wide breast. Painted statues of the Holy Family, crowned with gold, stood in niches on either side of the altar. Through the gap in the curtain over the door to his right, Fulk could see Father Michael standing, talking to the monk and the two boys who assisted him. Fulk could not bear to look at Margaret and finally looked down at the floor. He went to stand before the altar, opposite her head, his heart beating unevenly. The shuffle of feet filing into the church went on for a long while, the only sound.
He began to wonder if he could stand all through the funeral Mass. He wished that he had seen her before she died. Probably she had felt the same as he did now, full of vain regret. Remorse. He listened to the sound of the guests filling up the church. With one of her children sick, Madelaine had not come, but her husband had, and Derby, and Leicester’s son, monks from the Bishop of Lincoln and the Bishop of Winchester, whole pack of Clares, and even a knight of the Earl of York’s. Tutbury had fallen the week before, and people had the leisure to go to funerals.
The doors swung shut, and the shuffling of feet stopped. All around the chapel people coughed and shifted their weight and talked. Fulk turned to look over his left shoulder into the back of the chapel. Chester stood almost directly behind him, his feet widespread and his great belly drooping over his belt, but his knights were lined up in tow ranks at the back of the church. Fulk squinted to see in the dim light. The third man from the end in the second rank was Thierry. Fulk turned front again.
Chanting, the priest and his censers went around the chapel, and the sting of incense came into the air. Thierry was here. Everybody would think it so chivalric and noble that he came to Margaret’s funeral in secret. Margaret herself would have known better. Fulk could take him prisoner. The priest turned and made the sign of the Cross and blessed them, and they all muttered and crossed themselves. The priest’s vestments, stiff with gold and pearls, flashed in the light from the candles. If Thierry was with Chester he was in Prince Henry’s favor. He could not take him prisoner. Rannulf’s voice in his ear droned prayers, earnestly intoned.
The priest had a deep voice, good with the Latin, but he was slow. Fulk’s knees began to quiver. Just before he would have had to sit, they all knelt, and he relaxed as much as he could. They said King Henry had chosen Roger of Salisbury because of the speed with which he said Mass, and there was something to be said for that after all. He spoke the prayers with the others, the words coming up from long memory, from long usage familiar to his lips.
They stood. Rannulf’s voice wavered, and tears shone on his cheeks. Hugh prayed with his usual gusto. How different they were. Hugh had been raised in Pembroke’s household, and Fulk rarely saw him. More a Clare than one of Fulk’s blood. He fought down the desire to look at Thierry again—he could always say he hadn’t seen him. The priest spoke of the justice and mercy of God and of the loneliness of each soul apart from Him.
Even death had its uses for Holy Church. He had told her that power was not base. His head swam. Stay on my feet. Just to his left Rannulf was praying softly, in a quaking voice. He could lean on Rannulf. He gripped his hands together in an attitude of prayer and watched the altar dissolve into one long blur. A tremendous buzz sounded in his ears.
Kneel. He collapsed to his knees, and his head cleared; a rush of cool air filled his lungs. All through the chapel, voices rose in the Credo. He should think about her. He should be sorrowful. She was happier dead. Certainly hope so, he thought, since she is.
Unbidden the memory leaped into his mind of their wedding in the cathedral at Caen, and how then they had mouthed the things their elders had taught them to say, understanding almost nothing. Bewildered little boy and unhappy bewildered little girl. She’d wanted to become a nun. All girls did at her age. He did not remember what he had wanted. Certainly not Margaret; she had been fat as the Martinmas hog even then.
Twenty years since, he mouthed the things his elders had taught him to say and understood almost nothing. They had never come closer together than that day. They were strangers when she died. But he thought of times they’d been together, always fighting—on the day Rannulf was born they had fought over names and godparents and nurses; and regret and loneliness filled him, and tears burned in his eyes.
His hands rammed into his belt, Chester said, “Your lady’s death is a sorrow to us all, Fulk. You have my grief attending yours.”
“Thank you.” Fulk waved off a page with a platter of cut fruit. “She was a great-hearted woman, you know. She kept faith with me, in her own way. I wish I’d listened to her more. You brought a strange guest to me.”
Chester’s bushy brows rose. His fleshy face was pocked with small deep scars, and he never blinked, so that his bulging pale eyes had a stony stare. “It was Leicester’s idea. Thierry is a good drinking companion for the prince. Would you prefer I’d left him there?”
“Not at all.” Two of the Clares came up, and Fulk took a step to one side to greet them. “Excuse me.”
“My lord,” the taller of the two said, clutching Fulk’s good hand. “God be with you in your bereavement.”
“And with you, sir, to have lost your
kinswoman. I’m very pleased you came.” The other was mumbling condolences and striving fiercely to catch hold of Fulk’s right hand, buried in the sling, and Fulk pulled his fingers away with his left. “I beg your pardon.”
“Philip.” The taller one smiled and drew the other away.
“God bless you, my lord.”
“And you.” Bowing, they left him.
“Byzantines,” Chester said, drinking. Red wine dribbled down his chin. He stood with his feet widespread and his stomach thrown forward, like a woman with child. “They’re all Byzantines.” It was his word for anyone he didn’t like. “Look at their clothes.”
Fulk was tucking the end of the sling around his hand. “It’s the present style, very French. Like the women covering their hair. So Thierry is doing well for himself.” He could see Rannulf and Hugh, greeting guests—Hugh vivid and dark and Rannulf pale as ice. “I’ll have to go back to the army and protect my interests.”
“He makes friends easily, Thierry does.” Chester smiled. “People are so easily fooled. The prince sends his sympathies. He wants you back at once.”
“I’m flattered. Alain, thank you for coming.”
Alain de Redvers, one of his tenants, took his good arm and bowed. “A jewel is gone from your treasure that you can never replace, my lord. What a splendid company to gather in these difficult times. You must be pleased.”
Fulk bowed and said something appropriate. Alain exchanged words with Chester and rushed off—the leather of his shoes was dyed three different colors, and the turned-up toes shimmered with bells.
“Byzantine.”
“What is the prince doing now?”
Chester reached out to take a jug of wine from a passing page. “Gathering everybody to go to Wallingford, having secured the west. He fights like a chess player. The confrontation should be interesting. The aging king, with the weight of years and experience, and the ambitious youth in all his glory.”
THE EARL (A HAMMER FOR PRINCES) Page 6