‘Giles, how it stinks!’
Newark had been bad enough but here heaps of filth were piled outside the houses in the street. It was putrid, a suffocating stench that tore at Kazan’s throat. ‘How do you English live in such squalor? It is barbar.’
‘I suppose we are used to it, Kazan.’
She wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘Me, I cannot live in such a place.’ No free lodging at a well-protected han with its well-run kitchens and stables and hamam with its piped water and efficient latrine. They passed a church, a hospital, a gaol where the stench was even worse.
The next morning she reined in Yıldız by the bank of the river. They were well away from the town and its castle. ‘This river – this Soar, you call it? I shall bathe here, where there are shallows. I shall make myself clean. You must watch out for me.’
Giles kept his eyes diligently averted from her but he couldn’t help imagining that slim, naked body and her hair, longer now, falling past her shoulders, gold-copper-bronze in the early morning sun, spread out on the surface of the water. He remembered Dai saying he had first seen Kazan in the yürük camp when her hair was gloriously long, falling to her waist. And then she had cut it off, all that gold-copper-bronze loveliness. She had told them so herself. ‘Snip snip snip, like that,’ with her Nene’s scissors. ‘And my head so light I thought it would float from my shoulders.’
‘What did you do with your hair?’ someone asked. Thomas, perhaps.
‘I burnt it.’ She said no more. It was final. She had cut her hair and burnt it. But she had mourned its loss, Giles knew. ‘And then I came searching for you and I found you.’ She was triumphant, happy, this courageous boy-girl.
She was shouting to him from the riverbank. ‘Now you Giles. You must bathe. You must wash the stink of this English town from you!’
And he laughed. So fastidious. But…did he really stink? He immersed himself in the cold river water and washed thoroughly.
From Leicester they fell in with a band of pilgrims travelling to St David’s in far west Wales. ‘Two pilgrimages to St David’s,’ one of them told her. ‘That’s equal to one pilgrimage to Rome, and so much more in the saving of our souls.’
The land was rising-falling now, and hills were smudged on the horizon. They came to Coventry, an important town, with a great north-south road through it that crossed with their east-west road. The townspeople and the Prior had been granted permission, barely ten years earlier, to collect taxes to fund the building of a stone town wall to replace the earth banks and wooden palisades. ‘An ambitious project,’ said a Coventry merchant who was travelling with them. He’d been months away from home. ‘So many gates and towers are planned I wonder if it will ever happen.’ But there was a beginning – he saw it straight away – scaffolding and builders and the just-started stone foundations of a town wall. ‘See! Oh, this will make our town the greatest in all England.’ He was smiling, certain of himself, certain that he was a man who came from an important place. ‘It’s the cloth trade,’ he said, ‘and with the blockade that can only get more important. Our workers are in the cloth trade – drapers, tailors, dyers, weavers, fullers. We’re a match for the Lowlanders, indeed we are. And now King Edward has decreed the tax on exports to the Low Countries, with our own industry we are bound to triumph!’ Then there were the leather workers, the saddlers, shoemakers, glovers. And the other crafts – the carpenters, the coopers, the goldsmiths. As well as the butchers and bakers of course.
Of course. A town had to eat.
‘But it stinks, Giles, all the same. All these towns stink.’
The castle was half ruined. It was a sign of times to come. No castle but a manor house south of the town. And a Franciscan friary, and friars walking about the town in their grey gowns.
‘You are thinking of Thomas,’ she said.
‘Yes. I hope he has found a peaceful life with the Franciscans.’
‘He was your very good friend.’
‘None better, Kazan.’
Left behind in Venezia. Dafydd left behind. No use thinking of that now. Sometimes thinking did you no good.
They picked their way through marshland, still in company with the pilgrims. They passed a French family, a noble man and his wife and two young boys, dazed with shock. Philip of France had declared Edward of England’s fiefs in France confiscated; Edward’s answer was to wreak reprisals on the French land-owning families in England. Bereft of their homes and lands, grateful to have their lives spared, what could they do but return to France?
They passed the great castle of Kenilworth where the second Edward, that unhappy king, had been imprisoned. ‘Where he was forced to resign the throne,’ Giles said.
Onwards, travelling towards the south-west on the old road made so carefully many, many years ago, and all but ruined by ransacking. ‘All the way to the west country, to Exeter. I’ve never been that far but I know soldiers who have.’
‘Is it not strange,’ she said. ‘We are following the roads the old ones made? Perhaps they were the same people who made the roads in my country – see how these roads are made in the same way? If so, they must have been powerful people.’
Yes, he thought, it was strange, but not thought of until Kazan had spoken of it. Roman roads, here and as far as the far country of the Turks. Same, but different.
They took the road to Gloucester. ‘The second Edward’s shrine,’ Giles told her then he laughed. ‘A strange thing we heard, not long after we’d set out from Ieper. I’d forgotten about it till now. A strange story told us one evening by a traveller coming from the High Mountains. He said the second Edward was not dead, not buried in his shrine in Gloucester. He was alive and living in some monastery in Italy. He’d escaped, and another man was buried in his place. Sounds impossible but this traveller was certain it was the truth.’
‘A very strange story,’ said Kazan.
‘Thomas was persuaded it was the truth. He questioned the man for so long we all went to our beds and left him.’
‘Did he find out any more?’
‘If he did he didn’t say. You remember what he’s like when he clamps his mouth shut? Nobody can prise anything out of him.’
Kazan laughed. She remembered.
After that, there were tracks and overgrown roads and more forest and the hills grew steeper. Clouds gathered. They crested one of the steep little hills; at its high point there was a break in the trees and a distant view of a line of blue hills. ‘See that? It’s Wales.’
Wales! Dafydd’s country, that remote, mysterious, blue line of hills.
‘Still a way to travel, Kazan. We can stay at Deerhurst tonight.’
‘Do you think, Giles,’ she asked, ‘when we return to Bradwell, he will be there?’
‘I am sure of it, Kazan.’
‘You are a good friend, Giles. What would I do without you?’
‘Well enough, Kazan. Well enough.’
She smiled back, that confiding smile that wrenched at his heart. Then they were crossing the Severn that the Welsh called the Hafren and that became like a huge sea itself before it met the real sea. The weather was changing. Storm clouds chased in from the west. The air grew chill and the wind rose. She was shivering. ‘This is your English summer, Giles?’
‘No, Kazan, it is a Welsh summer. See – the clouds are piling in from the west.’
The rain was pitiless. They were drenched, and a full two hours before the next town. He looked at her, doggedly urging on Yıldız. He gritted his teeth. ‘My father’s manor is close by, Kazan. We can go there.’
‘Close by? Close by! We are passing your home and you would say nothing if it were not for this rain? This Welsh rain?’ She was angry, spitting the words at him, rain running down her face and into her eyes, clogging her lashes together until she could not see.
‘Maybe so,’ he said. ‘Don’t expect too much.’ He shrugged. ‘We may be sleeping in a barn if we’re lucky.’
She blinked the rain from her eyes and tos
sed her head. ‘You are a fool, Giles.’
They left the high road, travelling into a narrow valley. ‘A cwm, we say here.’ She remembered Dafydd telling her that, long ago it seemed. ‘It’s a beautiful valley, the most beautiful in all the Marches. The hills rise above it, rounded and green, and a little river rushes through it. The church tower was built square and solid, to defend its people against attack – from Norman and Welsh alike. War and peace. That is what we know in the Marches. Peace and war.’
‘I think you love this place very much, Giles.’
‘It is my home. It was my home.’
Beautiful even now, with rain obscuring the hills and the swollen river noisily crashing over rocks and boulders.
And then there it was, his father’s manor, and the land that Giles knew from his childhood. They rode down the steep valley. The cwm. There was no bridge. They splashed across the fierce-flowing ford and into the manor precinct. The hall itself was built of wattle-and-daub, the timber silvery-grey and the panels a deep ochre. Nearby was the church, solid and stout, as Giles had said, its tower built square and wide for worship and protection. Dogs surged out from the manor enclosure, barking madly. A manservant followed them, an old man, stumbling on the rain-glossed stones that paved the yard, trying to stay upright.
‘Eh – Master Giles. It’s Master Giles. Welcome to you, young master. Too many years. Too many years without you, young master.’
‘Walter. Is my father well?’
‘He’s alive, young sir, but not so well. Never since your brother…’ He broke off, cleared his throat. ‘And then you were gone, and your mother so saddened. But come now, young sir, and make them all glad.’ He shouted towards the stable block and a young boy came stumbling towards them. ‘Take my lord’s horse, Gareth.’
Giles swung down from his horse. He stood up straight, his shoulders back like a soldier ready for battle. He and Kazan walked up the steps to the great hall. The servant went ahead. He started to announce the visitors but a woman was there in the wide space of the great hall with torchlight flickering over her. Years after, Kazan remembered that moment: the high timbered hall, the sconces lit against the dark day, the woman standing there, one hand clenched against her heart, the other gripping the door frame. A young girl moved to stand close to her, shielding her, it seemed.
‘Is it you, Giles?’ She didn’t move from the doorway. She didn’t reach out towards him.
‘Yes, mother.’ He was stiff-straight, stiff-mouthed. He had, after all, warned Kazan there might be no welcome for them.
‘My son.’
He saw then that she could not move. If she had tried she would surely have fallen. Afterwards, he couldn’t even remember moving; just that moment when he reached her and his arms were round her, this small, bird-boned woman who was his mother. ‘Yes, it’s truly me come home. What of my father?’
‘Walter has sent for him.’ It was the young girl. A plain young girl, very slender, with dark eyes and dark hair and a frowning face.
‘Esyllt?’
‘Here he is now.’
A man bent with age and trouble, his close-cropped hair silver now, not the ginger-red of Giles’ hair, but he could only be the father they were so alike. He came into the hall slowly. ‘Giles?’ His voice faltered. ‘Truly you?’
‘Truly, father.’
He stumbled across the space to where Giles stood with his mother. ‘Thank God. Thank God you are here. Thank God you are returned to us. My son.’ He reached up skinny arms to hold the big, broad body of his despised youngest son. Giles enclosed his father’s frail old body in a young man’s embrace. All was forgotten, forgiven in that moment.
Kazan watched and wept.
For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.
There were tales to tell, and Kazan to be explained. News to be told. Giles’ brothers and his two sisters were married, living in other manors. One brother was in England. ‘Some good connections,’ Giles’ father crowed, ‘on both sides of the border.’ Not land, here in the marches, but protection. ‘Robert ap Gruffudd has offered for Esyllt. He is a powerful Marcher lord,’ he explained to Kazan, nodding complacently. ‘A good match. An excellent match.’
Kazan watched the face of the young girl who was the companion of Giles’ mother. A ward, the girl-cousin, orphaned daughter of the lord of the neighbouring estate. Yes, a frowning face. Blue eyes, she realised, dark blue, like the stormy sea of her winter childhood. Giles’ mother and father welcomed the return of the lost son but this young girl was angry. Not the face of an about-to-be betrothed. This girl kept her place behind her lady. So stiff. So angry.
Giles was bewildered. ‘I’ve known her forever, Kazan, since we were children. She used to follow me around – a nuisance sometimes but she was a lonely little thing. Besides, we were friends. Why should she be angry with me? And as for Robert ap Gruffudd! Why, he is more than twice her age. That is no match. No match. She is too young.’ He was angry, this phlegmatic man who rarely showed any feeling. ‘This is my father’s doing. You can bet on that. She cannot want to marry him!’
Best ask the girl. Kazan waited in an arbour in the pleasure garden, blowing on the swan pipe and pleased with herself because there were the beginnings of a song.
‘We have always kept this carefully,’ Esyllt said, ‘despite the raids by the English and the Welsh. That is what it means, living here in the Marches. We do not know who will attack.’
‘Giles said so,’ Kazan said. They both spoke a careful Anglo-French. ‘War and peace – peace and war. Always, here in the in-between country.’
The girl shrugged. ‘It is what we know. It is easier now, with the third Edward, but who knows what will happen, when we are at war with France.’
‘Perhaps it will be easier now Giles has come home.’
‘If he means to stay.’
‘I think so.’
The girl shrugged. ‘And you? Will you stay?’
Ah, thought Kazan. This girl, her anger, her rudeness, now I understand. ‘I go in search of my man’s family. Giles has said he will come with me, to protect me. He made this promise to my man. It hardly seems fair when he wants to stay here.’
‘Giles is not your man?’
‘No. Never.’
‘I thought he was.’
‘You are mistaken. He is my very good friend. That is all.’ She watched the sun shine out from behind the clouds. A plain girl – until she smiled. Then she was frowning again.
‘But he may not choose to stay. Who knows with Giles? He is a soldier. He will fight for the King.’ Esyllt picked a spray of sweet scented honeysuckle. ‘Lord Robert will never leave here. He will always be here to protect my family.’
Do you love this Robert? Kazan longed to ask her. Would you give your heart and soul and life for him? No. She would not. Kazan knew it with all her heart, the heart that was given to Dafydd. With her soul. But would this Esyllt give heart and soul and life for Giles? She did not know. All the same, she thought it best to tell Giles that the girl did not love Robert ap Gruffudd.
Giles frowned. ‘I know that. It is not a love match. How could it be? She has some idea of it being best for the family.’ He shot a glance at Kazan. He loved her. He loved her courage, the way she braved all odds. How, then, could he dream of another girl? A girl whose dark hair flowed past her waist; a girl who glowered at him from eyes that were as dark blue as a late summer night; a girl he had known since she was knee high. A foolish, infuriating girl.
And Kazan? She was smiling, serene and certain and so remote from him. She was the unattainable. Hadn’t he always known that? But now here was this mortal female, angry and confused and entirely loveable and desirable, and about to be betrothed to an old man.
‘What should I do, Kazan? How can I prevent this marriage?’
‘I think you know the answer, my dear friend.’ Her hand went out to his, pressed itself on his, and he wondered if she had ever known of his hopeless
love for her. She smiled, Kazan’s mischievous smile. ‘You are her love and she is yours. Yes, it is so, my dearest of friends. You must tell her so, though you have been absent so many years.’
‘Too many years.’
Kazan shook her head. ‘Never too many years. When two people love, time is not important.’ Her face was sad. ‘Time is not important. Believe me. The beloved is all and always they are together, those two, the loved and beloved’
Giles squeezed the hand that lay over his. ‘He will come, Kazan. I know it.’
‘And so do I, my friend, but sometimes I am so very tired.’
‘There is always faith.’
‘I know. I try. Sometimes God seems so very far away.’
The confession shocked him. He who had renounced faith when his brother was burnt alive. ‘You are wrong, Kazan. God is here and he hears us.’
‘You think so?’
‘I am sure so.’
She smiled, but it was fleeting. ‘I am glad of that, my friend.’ Glad as well because this friend of hers who had renounced God, after his brother’s cruel death, was ready to welcome God back into his heart and life.
He walked that evening in the pleasure garden that had been so carefully tended by his father, and his father before him. Scents of lavender and thyme and fennel. The full moon hovering in the sky above him. Half-moon, when they had routed Eudo’s gang. Such a short space of time; such an eternity between that night and this. Home was around him. He had not thought he had missed his home so much. Esyllt. She was so much a part of his home, his growing-up. How could he have forgotten? Her voice, shouting to him. ‘Come and see, Giles! Come and look!’ And there would be some small wonder – a new born chick, a flower, a bird, a rainbow. She took nothing for granted. And now she was full grown and no longer his shadow. But still he remembered her voice. Come and see Giles! Come and see!
He kicked moodily at the stump of a tree. Did she love him, as Kazan said? Surely not. She was angry because he had stayed away so long and had distressed his parents. He glared at a bed of thyme. And she would be betrothed to Robert ap Gruffudd. A good man but too old for her. He stopped short. There she was, ahead of him, sitting in the arbour that his mother had always loved above all others.
The Heart Remembers Page 27