‘He is a man of few words but with much in his heart.’ He traced the interlaced pattern. ‘Precious metals woven together with such delicacy and craft – and as carefully chosen to be a gift for you. Perhaps this is what he wishes to say but cannot find the words. Hm?’
She liked it best when he told stories of Dafydd. He told the story of their first meeting and she thought how strange it was to hear the same tale but on another man’s tongue.
‘Such a scrawny little creature they brought to me!’ Heinrijc Mertens shook his head over the memory. ‘Starving thin and stinking like a midden. Crusted all over with blood. Oh, he’d taken a beating had the boy, from those street thugs. He could barely stand but he still had fight in him! I can see him now. He must have felt fear but he gave no sign. He gave me back look for look.’
‘He said you sat him down and gave him meat and broth.’
‘Of course. The boy was half starved. To throw him out on a night like that would have been the end of him. There is too much hunger in this world. No one should go hungry.’
‘That is what he says.’
‘Well then.’ He sighed. ‘Such a boy – he has never given me cause to regret that night. He has been like a son to me – and like a father to this one.’ He ruffled Rémi’s hair. ‘Rémi is the first he brought home to me. My good friend Jehan was alive then, and still practising his skills. A clever man, a brilliant chirugien. He is with the angels in heaven now, these three years past. It was Jehan who was the miracle-worker with this one. But so much pain you suffered, little one. So much. Too much for me. It was Davit who helped to hold him down though it was as much agony for him as for the child. He wept afterwards, asking me again and again if he had done right after all. My poor Davit.’Always there was a place at the board kept for the absent one. ‘And what a hungry stomach he will bring! Always the hungry one, my Davit. Forever in the kitchens sneaking chewets of beef and dipping his fingers into the sauces and the coppetts of raisins and figs. Sniffing at the spices – he said that cinnamon and ginger and cloves and saffron were sent by Heaven to be united with toasted bread and wine and sugar and sharpened by wine vinegar. Grains of Paradise! He’d a passion for those. And the long black pepper that’s going out of fashion these days, I fear. We always use it in this household. Davit’s preference, you see, and always he brings a bundle back with him. Always there when the pies were baked, he was, forever under Karel’s feet. But he was a good boy for lugging the bundles of faggots to the bread ovens. That’s heavy work, girl, but he’d not complain. And he’d spike them. He had a real knack for that, spiking the faggots on to the oven fork and thrusting them right to the back of the oven when they were alight, right to where they were most needed. Inhaling kitchen smoke until his nostrils were twitching and his eyes shed burning tears and still he didn’t complain.
‘He’d been a kitchen boy in England. Did he tell you that? In the great kitchens of the castle at Hereford. Feeding the fire: that was one of his jobs and he said it was worth all the hard work for the fragrant hot loaves that came out of the ovens. Said he was clumsy in those days, forever in trouble for misplacing spices in the wrong jars. He said he grew so red-hot turning the spits he didn’t think hell-fire could be any hotter so he’d nothing to fear in the next life. Such blasphemy, the wretch,’ Mertens said, cheerfully.
He’d said more than that, remembered Mertens: that the place itself was a hell created by Queen Isabella and the hated Mortimer. The execution of De Spenser in the market place, the boy said, had sickened him to his soul. He spoke just once of another boy, a squire’s son, who had screamed with night terrors because of what he had witnessed, and who could blame him? Such wickedness – worse than anything he had been threatened with. It was then Davit had decided he could no longer stay in that place and so had quietly escaped a country that reeked like a slaughter house and came to one where he was set on and beaten almost to his death.
‘Did I tell you about the time he brought home a slave from your country? Amit, who you’ve met – another treasure! It is wonderful to see how he cares for the animals! Wonderful! It was when Davit was acting as interpreter for that strange traveller from some outlandish place…what was his name now? Rémi, what was his name? Ah, I have it! Battuta. Ibn Battuta, the young man from Tangier who had set out to travel the world. He’s travelling still, for all I know. He made Davit a gift of Amit as a slave. Davit never was one for slaves but he said the man was better with him than another. Amit and a fellow slave escaped – took the horses they were charged to take care of. Of course, they were caught and recovered. Punished, Davit said, severely punished. When he left Ibn Battuta he took Amit with him and gave him his freedom. And would you believe it? Amit chose to stay with Davit, chose to leave his country and come here to the low lands. He has learned to speak our language but he told me he was glad to have conversation with you, dear girl, in his own tongue.’ He sighed. ‘Another who will be glad to see Davit home. In spring, dear girl, in spring!’
Long before spring Edgar and Agathi were made man and wife in the porch of St Martin’s church. It was a Benedictine monastery and this troubled Edgar. It was gentle Agathi who urged him to make confession to the Father Abbot and seek his advice. ‘It will ease your soul,’ she said. The Abbot was pragmatic. ‘You have done no wrong. You made no vows. Even so my son, go to your abbey and offer penance.’
Heinrijc Mertens grunted. ‘A bag of silver coins should accomplish that.’ He came of the long tradition in this country of distrust of Christian ceremonies. One of the leaders of that long-ago revolution had declared he wanted to see the last of the priests hanging from the gallows, and Mertens’ father had more than once said the same. But now, with this golden, innocent couple standing before God making their vows, his eyes were bleared with tears. ‘Ah my dear girl, when my boy comes home, then it will be your turn and we shall have such rejoicing.’ He rubbed his hands together in anticipation and refused to heed Kazan’s repetition that she was not promised to Dafydd as he refused to consider that his boy would not come home.
All winter long they waited. All the long holiday of the Nativity, though some days before Epiphany Edgar and Agathi left for England in a brief, calm spell before the snow-storms closed in again. There came news of them: Edgar’s father was dead. His brothers were overjoyed to see him safe and well. They welcomed his foreign wife for his sake, but who could not love gentle, beautiful Agathi? More, Alfred, the eldest, had made him reeve of one of his manors. True, it was a small manor with an old-fashioned hall built long ago but it was built of good stone. The service buildings were badly in need of repair, and the manor had been as badly managed, but it was a living and in a good part of the shire, not on marshy ground but higher, yet not so high as the unworkable heathland. With hard work, it could be reclaimed and its people given a better living than the miserable state they were in now.
‘So overjoyed, these brothers of his,’ muttered Giles, ‘they make a reeve of him and set him to work.’
‘Now you sound like Thomas,’ Kazan told him. When he didn’t answer, she rested her head against his arm. ‘You miss your friend,’ she said. ‘Always we speak of Dafydd, and when he will come home, but you must wonder what has become of Thomas, and if he is safe in the friary of the Franciscans. He will send you word, Giles. He will not forget you.’
‘I know he will not.’ They were in the solar, watching the snow falling on the town. ‘I miss them all,’ he said. ‘All our brave company. Don’t you?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do.’ It seemed so long ago, that late summer journey from han to han, across the great plateau and down the treacherous mountains to Attaleia. So many adventures, such danger, such friends; and here they were, the sad remnant: she, Giles and Rémi, and now Father Mertens, all mourning the loss of their loved ones.
5
Attaleia
Late January 1337
If there is love, the heart burns; it softens like a candle
(Yunus Emre, 14thC)
Like a hundred harvest moons they were, swollen round and ruddy, hanging from the green branches: fruit of the orange tree, sweet as honey once the bitter skin was fetched off, just like Sakoura had promised. Like the setting sun back home in the fens, a burning blaze sinking into the darkening marshlands. Not like that here. A blink and darklins was gone. Howry enough it was here in the winter months, with the sea turned iron grey and waves crashing into the harbour mouth and rain clouds smowered over the mountain tops and a snide wind whipping round the smootins and streets of the town in spite of its great high walls. Other days, fair enough, it was blue skies and a warm wind. Never snow. Never a good, sharp frost biting at toes and fingers and noses. Snow was up on the mountains, and bitter cold. Not down here on the coastal plain. But it was wrong of him to grizzle when he’d known many a drear winter’s day when it seemed spring was never going to come. All lowering grey skies and vicious rain that drenched you through to the skin and your belly groaning with hunger.
Not like that here. Plenty of belly-timber here. A good man to work for, Sakoura, and Hatice more like a friend to that pretty wife of his than a servant. Easy work with a cosy home to come back to. Bath house just around the corner, hot water piped. He’d never been so well fettled in all his life. Not never so sober, stone cold, not even sheep drunk, and not wanting none, neither. Yes, it was a good life here for himself and Hatice, and the boy Niko was content.
Blue heaved a sigh. Content enough. The boy missed his sister. He missed Kazan and Dai. Didn’t they all? He’d caught Hatice pink-eyed just this morning. Nothing, she said, just a lash caught in her eye. Nothing. But he knew she grieved for Agathi, just as he missed the boy Edgar. And that fustilugs, that cheeky boy-girl Kazan. And Tom and Giles and that mumbling boy Rémi who had them all beat with his finger signing. All of ’em, truth be told. He’d never had friends like them, not never in all his born days, and now they were gone. Had they reached safe landings? May’appen, come summer, there’d be news. Until then, swallow down grief like it were gristle. They’d chosen to stay, Hatice, Niko, him. Beds made. All the same.
Then Mehmi’s abi, his eldest brother, came with news: Kara Kemal was dead, and not long after they had left him. ‘But no fault of yours, young Mehmi. Our father said to tell you this. He spoke of you even in his pain. He said it was time for you to be a bird of heaven, and like them make beautiful music for all to hear.’ Aksay bent his head. ‘He spoke the Mevlana’s words right to the end. This is what he said:
There is neither death for us
Nor sorrow, nor care, nor grief,
In this ocean, which is one vast love;
This ocean of love and generosity.
‘It was our great honour to have had such a man for our father, Mehmi. He was truly a great man.’
Mehmi wept. ‘I have money now,’ he said. ‘When spring came, I was going to bring it to our father, with gifts of all the foods he loved most to eat. You must take it, abi, and when I have more I shall send more. There must be no more poverty in our father’s house. As for me, I shall do as he said; I shall become a bird of heaven.’
That evening, Sakoura gathered the household for a feast in honour of Kara Kemal. After, there was the telling of the Hoca stories, and laughter, because this was a man who had loved laughter and family and friends. Then Mehmi played for them, a mournful song first in the fashion of the old days of the Oghuz because Kara Kemal was a hero amongst heroes, as great as Bamsi Beyrek of the Grey Horse; as great as Prince Kazan; as great as Dirse Khan.
My father, oh my father,
my white-bearded father
I am separated from you by death.
This black earth will eat us too.
The end of life, even a long one, is death
When the hour of your death came
It did not find you apart from the pure Faith
I shall pray for you, my father.
May your place be Paradise.
After, Sakoura said, ‘Now you must sing the song of the white horse, Mehmi. That too will honour your father.’ Mehmi balanced the tanbur in one hand, its long neck leaning against his shoulder, his right hand whispering the strings. He began to sing the story of Karoğlu.
Let the white horse come
Let it go free
And let go of your grief
Set that free as well…
Listening to the notes trickling from the tanbur, and to Mehmi’s true voice raised in song, with lamps flickering and casting shadows over the gathered household, warmed by the high-leaping fire, Blue remembered that evening in autumn when they had found shelter with Dai’s friend Kara Kemal, and they had feasted together, and talked, and told stories, and Mehmi the youngest son had played this same song, and they had been lost in wonder, all of them. A day later, Mehmi had joined them at the han, and with him came the boy-girl Kazan who had cozened their stories from their souls. Let go of your grief…
It was Kazan who had insisted on the rescue of the boy Niko, and it was Dai who had saved Agathi and Asperto and Hatice from slavery; and so he, Blue, had found his mate in honest Hatice, and golden-haired Edgar his beautiful silver-haired Agathi. Their lives were bound together, tied up tight. Let go of your grief. Dai should be told of the old man’s death.
He turned to Hatice, opened his mouth to speak but she was there before him.
‘We must travel to your country. We must find our friends for they are truly our own dear family. What do you say, husband?’
The big man felt his eyes burn and brim with tears. ‘A says yer a rare woman, Hatice my lass, the bewtifullest as ever was, that’s what yer be.’ He wiped his sleeve across his face. ‘Look at me, blubbing like a bairn. Best see what the boy says.’
‘He’ll say yes, and gladly,’ Hatice said with certainty.
She was right. The boy’s dark eyes sparkled. ‘We shall be with Agathi and Edgar and Kazan? And Dafydd and Tom and Giles?’ He mouthed the names lovingly.
‘Yer right, Niki boy, we’ll be with them.’
‘And Mehmi comes with us?’
‘A doesn’t know about that.’
‘But I do,’ a voice broke in. Mehmi, the tanbur slung across his shoulder as if he were ready for travel that moment. ‘Mehmi comes with you to this infidel land you miss so much, big man. May the good Allah help all true believers!’
6
Rochby Manor
Mid-January 1337
…would you go mine errand
To the lord of the house, harbour to crave…
(Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 14thC)
It was just as he remembered it: the old, straight road, rising-falling-rising for miles, as far as the eye could see; the dark holloway where branches curved overhead then the slope upwards and out from tree shadow into open land; gentle, rolling hills covered in abundant woodland stretching down through folds and dips to the stream running through the valley bottom.
‘You should see it in summer, Agathi,’ he said, ‘when the sky is blue and the sun is warm and all these woodlands are green and loud with bird-song.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘It’s not at its best, midwinter.’ The trees were bare now, black against the iron grey of the sky, branches clattering together. A murder of crows lifted and circled in a solid black cloud, their harsh cries raucous in the freezing air.
Agathi shivered despite her warm travelling dress and fur-lined cloak. To her, it was bleak and cold. Not even in the high mountain passes had she been chilled to the bone as she was here but she would not complain: this was her husband’s land. Drifting snow was thick on the ground and heavy on tree branches. At times, her mare stumbled and slipped so that she had to cling tight to keep from falling off. The sky was leaden with the threat of more snow to come and soon the short day would end. ‘We’ll be at my father’s house long before dark,’ Edgar promised.
Would they be welcome? Surely his father would not turn him away, nor his young, tired wife, not on a wintry day like this one, and Epiphany just gone? He watched a k
estrel hovering, wings fluttering then swept back as the bird plunged earthwards. He hoped it was not an ill omen. Superstitious nonsense, he told himself; he was getting as bad as Blue. He pulled on the leading rein of the horse plodding patiently behind him, heaped with baggage, so much of it gifted by Heinrijc Mertens. ‘You cannot arrive penniless at your father’s house after such a long absence,’ the old man had said, and Edgar had protested that he was not penniless. Indeed, Dafydd had insisted on Edgar’s share of profit, though he’d done nothing to deserve it.
‘But you did, Edgar,’ Kazan had said. ‘You rescued Agathi, and then you helped to rescue me and Niko, and now you have helped Giles bring us through the high mountains of mist and ice and snow to the home of Father Mertens. We shall be always in your debt, dear Edgar.’
‘Besides, you are a married man now and must take care of your beautiful young wife – isn’t that so, Rémi, my boy? Giles?’
And because they were all agreed, and he was a man with a wife to protect, he had become a man of substance – some substance, anyway. Enough to be independent of his father should he and Agathi not be welcomed.
How familiar it all was, despite his seven-years’ absence: those five long years at Croyland and two years of travelling in strange lands. The manor village was tucked into a fold of the hills, sheltered from the biting north-easterlies. The road dipped down past the mill and joined another road coming in from the east. Both were heavily rutted with wagon wheels and horse-traffic; frozen solid now but they would be churned mud come the thaw. The roads joined just before the stream crossing. A new stone bridge, Edgar approved, supported by a neat pointed arch; though it was not so fine and elegant as the bridges that sprang across the gorges in Anatolia, he thought, and smiled to see how his world view had changed. Wood smoke curled out of the holes at the ends of the thatched roofs of the village houses; light flickered through cracks and gaps. From the barns and sties and over-wintering pens of the demesne farm came the subdued sound of pigs and cattle settling for the night. A buxom young woman chased the last of the hens into shelter, safe from foxes, safe from the bitter night. She looked up at the sound of their approach, horses’ hooves and jingling harness, then dipped her head and pulled her shawl more closely about her head and shoulders. A glimpse of her face only, but Edgar did not recognise her. They rode past the smithy and Edgar looked for Jack-Smith who had always had a welcome for the youngest son of the squire but the man hammering sparking metal on anvil was a stranger.
The Heart Remembers Page 8