‘He confessed?’
‘Yes, my son. Here in this Priory, to his Prior, in the confessional. He was a man who abased himself. He longed for your return.’
‘Then I am sorry I grieved him.’
‘It was his grief, my son. That was why he gifted you Bradwell. He said he should have loved you better.’
Edgar felt tears come. He bent his head. ‘I wish I could have known him better.’
Giles moved uncomfortably. He thought of his own father, and the way he had renounced his older son, and Giles too when he had supported his brother. What had become of his father? Was he still alive? If so, better to beg forgiveness than be like Edgar, home, and his father dead. But, he reminded himself, he was committed now to this manor. He had to stay. He had no choice.
They were leaving the Priory when Edgar stopped. He watched the men at work. Tilers, working at a kiln. ‘What are they doing?’ he asked.’
‘They are not of us. They have come from Hanworth – Potterhanworth, they call it – to work here and then they will leave. As well for us – they are not God-fearing men.’
‘But they have the skill of making tiles.’ Edgar picked up one of them. It was part of a length of piping. He smoothed his hand over the round pipe. ‘What is this for?’
‘The latrines, brother. They need repair, though we have little money to pay for the work. It is necessary and so the work must be done.’ He shrugged. ‘God will provide.’
Edgar hardly heard the Prior. He stared down at the round piping. Surely they could do something with this? He tried to recall the intricate piping of the hamams. Couldn’t they channel hot water and cold? Blue would know, he thought. He wished again the big man were here with him. Protection as well, he thought. They needed Blue. Time he sent a message, now the snows were melting in the high mountains. Perhaps, if they chose to come, they could be here by the year’s end. Too late for the baby’s birth but if they were here…
And then it was Easter and Alfred was regretting his choice to join Edgar and Agathi at Bradwell. His choice? Philippa was avid with curiosity to see the changes made to the manor. So here they were, arrived on Holy Saturday for the third of the Tenebrae church services held late at night in the dark hours. Father Emanuel was in his element. He loved the drama of the late night services; the candle holder that they called the hearse, with its lit candles extinguished one by one, after the readings from the Psalms, from Lamentations, from Jeremiah…then the last, single candle hidden behind the altar, the mighty clap of the slammed book that represented the earthquake after the crucifixion; the single candle returned.
Have mercy on me oh God according to your unfailing love; according to your unfailing compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
Alfred stood with tears streaming down his face, and Philippa could not prevent it.
Easter morning before dawn, and the villagers were already gathered before the little church. They watched the sun rise and sang loudly, lustily, songs of joy. They could be heard in the hall where Edgar and Agathi and their guests prepared themselves for the Easter morning service. In the little church, all the black cloth had been removed, and carved wooden figures of the Risen Lord and the disciples and Mary Magdalene were prominent on the altar. Rejoice! The Lord is risen!He is risen indeed. The sun streamed in through the east window scattering bright motes through the one modest window of stained glass. It lit up the walls in notes of yellow and blue and red, and the walls showed Christ in Glory: Alfred’s heart was deadweight.
He had ridden home shamed after that Lenten visit. His youngest brother, so badly treated by their father, now so much grown, and so much the man; no longer the girl-faced boy he had been, but a man who had travelled in the far countries, who had had adventures, married a Greek girl of great beauty…and what he had done for the manor! Philippa must see that this was for the best. She must see that Edgar was a worthy lord of the manor. And that dangerous man, that Cedric, and Eudo’s gang, they must not harm his brother and new sister-in-law. He could not acknowledge, not even to himself, that Cedric’s escape owed anything to Philippa. She could not wish their brother harm. Surely not. But eating away at him was the worry that she could, and would. She was vengeful if she did not get her own way; he had found that out in the first months of their marriage.
The visit during Lent was bad enough. Edgar had invited them to confession in the little, black-hung church, and he had refused; he said he had promised Philippa they would go together in their own church, but in truth he hadn’t the courage to face Edgar and Eric in the ritual before they went to the church and the priest; to bow to each member of the household and to any sinned against; to say, ‘In the name of Christ, forgive me if I have offended you.’ To have Edgar respond, ‘God will forgive you.’ No, this he could not do. And so he let the moment for truth and forgiveness escape him, and now here they were, invited to the Easter feast. The boar that he had frowningly said was killed out of season and that had all but killed his brother; that would be the centrepiece. He spared a thought for the villagers crowding into the hall. No important men. Not Sir Roger, who was laid low again. Alfred sighed with relief and contemplated Philippa’s sour expression. Perhaps it would do her good to see how ordinary folk lived. Perhaps she would be the sweeter for it.
But her chin was raised in disdain; she was ostentatiously reluctant to muddy the skirts of her gown as she crossed the yard; she smiled tightly at the assembled villagers; then there was her astonished, jealous scrutiny of the rich tapestries and silken cushions. No sweetening here. Alfred wondered why he had been persuaded to marry such a proud, disdainful daughter, and so many years older than he was. He sighed. Why fool himself? Her father’s lands and manors had persuaded him, and his father’s urging. And there was the prospect of winning favour from the King himself. He must not forget that. It would make up, in some part, for this marriage that was doomed to be barren.
Alfred looked about him at the crowded hall and wondered at the sight. So much joy and goodwill, and all for his youngest brother. The courses were served, sometimes a little lacking in grace but these were the boys of the village who did this service, beaming with pride, trying to remember the rigorously taught table skills. Oluf was one of them, young but given the honour because he had been the one to attempt to capture the boar. The insignificant sub-cook Philippa had been so ready to send to this lowly manor – what was his name? William? What an artist! The boar’s head was served with much reedy fanfare and flourishing on a bed of bay and rosemary, celery to represent the tusks, and strangely there was rosemary in place of its ears. Eric had provided the Pascal lamb. There were chewets of chicken; pigeons stewed in a rich herb and garlic stew; grain pottage preceding the meat; braggot and mead and ale and wafers fit for the highest table. Over all was the sense of comradeship. A group of musicianers – villeins, surely? – struck up a lively tune.
‘We’ll have dancing later,’ Edgar said in his ear. ‘Thank you, brother, for leaving us the gift of the eggs. Our boys and girls, tell the truth, had much fun this morning.’ Alfred had refused the offering of Lenten eggs. ‘Let them be given to our villagers as the Easter gift,’ he said. He was surly, refusing thanks, his conscience pricking him. The older eggs, hard boiled, were too old to eat. Now, Edgar was smiling, telling him how the children had searched for the gaudily dyed newer eggs; how they had rolled the old eggs down the hill, as if rolling away the great stone from the sepulchre, but whooping with glee and rolling after them. ‘And Kazan joined them!’ Edgar laughed. ‘She has never seen anything like it. She enjoyed herself enormously, and I am glad for it. She has been so sad, waiting for news of Dafydd. Now, Easter brings hope to all. It is the Resurrection and new life, brother. The old life is dead and gone, and we should give thanks for this.’
‘So we should.’
That morning’s service had not been filled with the Easter Laughter Edgar remembered from the past; Father Emanuel was a cauti
ous, sober man who preferred the drama of the Tenebrae services, suffering and death, more than the joy and jokes and laughter of Easter Sunday. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy, he had intoned, and the villagers moved restlessly, crammed together in the tiny nave, releasing the heady sweet smell of new-strewn herbs and spring flowers. No rank odour from them, either; all new-washed and best clothes on and, since the new clothes had been gifted before Easter, there were additional gifts of stockings and shawls and bonnets and hats with curly brims festooned with feathers and flowers. Today’s feast, Edgar promised, that was when they would celebrate Easter’s Great Joke of life over death; and then they would have their Risus Paschalis. He fingered the two pouches containing the salted, dried ears of the black boar. There was a third pouch containing the tail. He would enjoy giving these to Oluf and Kazan and Giles. A pity there was no Mehmi to make a song in honour of the killing; Mehmi would have enjoyed it as much as any of them.
Alfred looked along the high table to Philippa. He hunched his shoulders uneasily. She was deep in conversation with Agathi and he worried. He knew that expression of hers; it meant mischief.
‘Agathi, my sister,’ Philippa was saying, ‘I am so very happy to find you amongst friends. You seemed so lonely when I first met you, such a newcomer to our country, such little knowledge of our language. You must have felt a stranger here.’
Agathi inclined her head. ‘But that seems long ago now, sister.’ She wondered what was coming next. She distrusted Philippa’s cat-and-cream smile.
‘I am glad your friends are here. Kazan and Giles are your very good friends, I think?’
‘Yes. Kazan and Giles are our family.’
‘Hm. I wonder, Agathi…’ Philippa paused, patted her mouth with her napkin.
‘Yes, sister?’
‘Kazan and Edgar…are they not very close? Closer than you would like them to be?’ She nodded across to where Edgar was helping Kazan to another delicious wafer, another goblet of wine. He was laughing, teasing, and Kazan was protesting that she wanted no more. ‘I have seen how it is with them.’ She covered her sister-in-law’s hand with her own. ‘I know how you must hate this. I feel for you.’ She gazed into Agathi’s eyes, soulfully, waiting for the flicker of unease. It didn’t come. Agathi gazed at her, amazed, unable to hide her contempt.
‘What are you saying, sister?’ Agathi asked in a voice that was dead calm and even. ‘That Edgar – my Edgar – is unfaithful to me? And with my dear friend? Shall we ask him? Here? Now? At this table?’
‘No…no…he would deny it.’
‘Of course he would deny it. He would deny it because there is no truth in it. Kazan is our beloved sister and our saviour. We owe her more than I can tell. More than you can understand. Of course Edgar loves her. And so do I.’ She drew a deep breath. Philippa was looking less assured. Agathi didn’t care. ‘I remember you wondered today,’ she continued, ‘if Ellen’s baby was truly her husband’s, or if it was John Reeve’s after all. Of course it is Bernt’s child. Perhaps you might wonder if my own dear baby is Edgar’s. What a sad creature you are, to so want to destroy the happiness of another. But I think you must be very unhappy, you who have no child. I am sorry for you.’
Philippa froze. This was not how it was meant to be. ‘Forget what I said, sister. I meant only to be of help.’
‘No you did not,’ said Agathi. ‘You wanted to hurt us, me and Edgar. Ellen and her husband. Kazan, who you do not know. That is why I say you are to be pitied. And your husband, my Edgar’s brother, he is to be pitied also.’
Philippa toyed with a morsel of wafer. She lifted the goblet of wine to her lips, put it down untasted. ‘I am the daughter of a great Lord,’ she said. ‘You have no right to speak to me like this. You are a foreigner here.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘You are a heathen.’
‘Have more hippocras, sister,’ Agathi said. ‘It is sweetened with honey and spiced with cinnamon and ginger and grains of paradise. It is a wine that is very soothing and douce.’ Philippa did not answer. Agathi gestured to the boy who was wine-carrier and who came sprightly with importance to fill their goblets. ‘You know I am no heathen. But let us not quarrel on this happy day. In truth, Edgar and me, we have good friends who are Muslim. Christian or Muslim, what does it matter if the heart is true?’ She considered a moment, decided. ‘Prepare yourself for a shock, sister. Edgar rescued me when I was a slave. He saw me and loved me when I was a pathetic creature, in rags and chains. Do you think I could ever doubt his love? Or he doubt my love for him?’
‘You? A slave?’ Philippa was aghast.
‘Yes. I was taken captive. So it is in my country. You are lucky here, in this cold, flat land of yours. There is no one to come to your home and kill your mother and father and take you as slave.’
Philippa was silent, intent on the brimming goblet. Agathi watched her. ‘They took my little brother also. Then he helped my Kazan to escape when she also was captured. We are bonded together in a way you cannot comprehend.’ Agathi considered the woman sitting next to her. ‘I am sorry for you,’ she said again. ‘But it is Easter, and a time of rejoicing, and so we shall not talk about this anymore. Listen now to these musicians of ours. We are proud of them.’ Though I wish we had Mehmi here, she thought, who sings and plays like the angels themselves. Dear Edgar, she thought, we are in a dark place and we need our friends about us. All our good friends. She glanced across the length of the table, saw Edgar was talking eagerly to Eric and Giles; Alfred was gravely watching her. She nodded, not smiling. How tired he looked. How wearied with this great trouble that weighed on him, heavy as millstones. How can we help him? she wondered.
But now it was time for the joking and laughter and music of the Easter feast.
20
Ieper
April 1337
Gull, see whether you may spot her
…I love her
(Dafydd ap Gwilym: 14thC)
The sky was bright blue with white clouds floating like boats on the sea. A seagull flew past the open window, dazzle-bright, strong-flight but the man saw nothing of it. His eyelids were shut fast. A mutter and murmur of voices. Stronger. Shouting. Matje. The name came to him, floating with the clouds. Who was Matje? He heard Matje’s son laughing. Her son? How did he know that? A voice louder than the rest hushing the boy’s laughter. The man stirred. Where was he? He stretched, felt the dim rumour of pain run through his body. He sighed. Somewhere close someone spoke a name. ‘Dafydd?’
He was tired. Too tired to answer. His eyes were heavy-lidded, too heavy to lift. He sighed again, shifted slightly and fell asleep. In his sleep he dreamed of a beautiful maid fashioned out of gleaming gold-copper-bronze; a maid with shining golden-rimmed eyes. A shining maid, a lovely girl, as bright as daylight, whose eye was a glowing ember. How he longed for her. ‘Kazan,’ he murmured. ‘Fy nghariad.’
The man sitting by the bed felt tears start to his eyes.
He was dreaming. Broad blue skies and racing, rain-threatening clouds. Wind whipping across his face. A girl riding a piebald mare, mane blowing in the wind. A girl with gold-copper-bronze hair blown by the wind. Rain clouds racing across a broad blue sky. He shouted to her, the girl on the piebald mare, but no sound came from him. He shouted again, barely a croak. Again, but the wind blew his shout away into the racing clouds. Again, and he thought she heard him because she reined in and threw up her head, listening, tilting her head so that her hair, that gold-copper-bronze hair, was blown back from her face. She laughed. Kazan’s joyous laugh. He opened his eyes the better to see her.
It was dark. Candlelight cast flickering shadows. Next to him, a slumped figure on a cushioned chest. Head back against a painted wall. Snorting snores. Rémi? What was Rémi doing here? Where was here? He closed his eyes, shifted slightly, fell asleep, longing to go back into the dream.
Rémi woke suddenly. What had woken him? What was it he had heard? A cry? Dafydd? No. He was sunk deep, unconscious still. The do
or of the chamber opened. Thomas. ‘Is all well?’ he asked.
Yes, Rémi signed back. Thumbs up.
‘No sign of him waking?’
Rémi shook his head.
‘He muttered – something – earlier when I was sitting with him, though he didn’t wake. Just now, I thought I heard him cry out.’
I was asleep but something woke me. I thought it was Dafydd I heard. But see – he has not woken.
Thomas sighed. How long will you stay in your far-off land, Dafydd? How many lives are left to you, Dafydd?At least he was quiet now. His breathing was even, calm. No more dreadful whistling and gasping for breath and nightmare muttering. He laid his hand on the brown man’s forehead. No burning. No fever. His face, thought Thomas, was serene.
‘Rémi – see – he is sleeping. Just sleeping.’
21
Venezia
May 1337
…a man
Who would welcome me into his mead-hall,
Give me good cheer
(The Wanderer: Anglo-Saxon)
Plain sailing. That’s what they called it. No storms, no contrary winds, clear skies all the way along the coast until they were nosing their way through the islands of Venezia. They turned past the island of San Giorgio, past the high walls of the Benedictine monastery where the bells of the newly built campanile clanged out the morning call to prayer. So strange, these bells; not the call of the muezzin from the giddy height of the minaret, though they had grown used to the bells of the monastery on the island. They entered a broad channel, the Canalazzo, which wound its way through the whole of the floating city. They stared in amazement. This they had not expected. Where were the walls and gatehouses?
‘The sea protects us,’ said the captain, ‘by God’s will. He has preserved us so that we may live in these watery marshes. He has enabled us to raise a new and mighty Venezia.’
Like my land, wattery like the Fens; same but different. The Fens were open, honest and open to God’s eye. Here were narrow streets and dark canals and high buildings. A don’t trust this place. Bad deeds can be done in a place like this.
The Heart Remembers Page 21