It was what Dafydd had told him in Venezia, Giles thought. His fate, always to take his friends to safety. Never to stay and fight.
‘You have a wife, Giles, and you must take Dafydd and Kazan safe home. Promise me this.’
‘I promise.’
‘My friend,’ Thomas said. ‘We have had a good life.’
‘Nothing better.’
‘Then no sadness, no grieving. This is my choice.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘May’appen, as Blue says, you’ll remember me sometimes.’
‘Always. Always!’
‘Go now – quickly – no time.’
They followed the stony stream bed down between the high earthen banks, down to the rushing river that washed away all scent of them and their horses; crossing it then up, up and out into the safety of the marshland. Above, the bright blue day and golden sun mocked them. Behind, Conor and Thomas; a peasant, half Irish, half Welsh, and an English knight’s son, were fighting a hopeless battle.
31
Bradwell Manor
September 1337
I shall sing songs in your praise
Man of peace,
Man of honour,
Man of courage in danger,
Man strong and steadfast.
(Will-the-Wordmaker: Lament for Dick – Flint, September 1277)
A misty morning at the very end of September; mist wreathing over the beck and breathing over herb garden and pleasure garden alike so that trees and bushes and late flowers dripped with moisture. Spiders’ webs hung from branch to branch, leaf to leaf, glistening in the early morning light. In the high tree tops, magpies chattered, and in the lower branches robins were already challenging their territory.
The new barn stood proud and weather-tight, harvest safe-stored. All the gifts of autumn had been harvested. Ellen gloated over the haul. Elderberries and blackberries, sloes and hawthorn, rosehips and hazelnuts. Good wintering this year. Apples and pears and quinces, medlars and plums… The herb garden had yielded sage and rue and feverfew, hyssop and lavender, rosemary and thyme…an abundant harvest. Only last week Oluf and Niko had come back from the good God knew where, both gibbering with excitement. Black coneys! Black coneys in the warren! Wasn’t this good news? Yes, at least four pairs and half-grown babes.
Best harvest of all was the girl-child, born weeks early on a night of new moon. A good omen but Bernt wild with worry, and Oluf no better. It was the women who arranged it all. Her dear friend Agathi and Agathi’s Hatice, her own Hilda…and a healthy child, red-faced and squalling, already a crop of pale curls. And such a hungry mouth! She bent over the nuzzling bairn, rejoicing in the painful pull on her nipples, and her milk-swollen breasts.
Agathi was calm, serene, her body swollen with the child she carried. She stared out at the misty morning. Another moon – less than a moon – and she too would hold her child in her arms, God willing. It was Edgar who was anxious. She was not. Such unlooked for blessings this year. And greatest of all – no, not greatest – that was Edgar – but next greatest was that her family was here with her: her brother Niko safe and happy, making mischief with Oluf but both of them growing now to be serious, strong young men; Mehmi, whose music gave such happiness to the soul; her dear Hatice, her rock through all the bad times – and Blue.
Blue! That man-mountain, that one-time drunken nowter… ‘Need a new barn,’ he’d said that first day. ‘This un’s no good fer yer. See daylight enough through the planking fer Kingdom Come.’ It was like the Creation. God forgive me the blasphemy, she thought. First day, black poplars eyed up, Edgar and Bernt consulted; second day, trees chopped; third day, stripped, shaped, smoothed; fourth day, wooden timbers erected… Stone walls to waist height – keep the vermin out, Blue said – then lath and plaster. ‘May’appen we can build the rest in stone later, Edgar.’ He’d called him ‘Maäster’ at first but Edgar had been as angry as Edgar could get. ‘Never that, Blue. Never, between thee and me. No master, no servant. We are friends, you and me, working together for all our good.’
All the men working together, villein and sokemen, and Father Roger’s men hauled in to help. ‘Though they are your men now, Edgar, my son.’ Father Roger was an ill man. He didn’t expect to live out the year. ‘No weeping for me, bonny girl. I’ve had a good life – a better life since you and Edgar came home. I hope only that God spares me to see the child. That is all I wish.’
Luke as well was lost to them. The wounds, the fever, his age had all been too much. He had died and was buried in the church yard close by the East End so that Resurrection would find him there amongst the first. Edgar mourned him.
After that, after the harvest, Blue had looked at the bath huts and talked with Edgar and Jack Smith and travelled down to Potterhanworth. Now he and Jack Smith were crooning over the water pipe channelled from one of the springs down to the smithy where the pipes were heated by the roaring furnace until the water coursing through was steaming hot, scalding hot…not terracotta pipes. They cracked. Not as useful as Edgar had hoped. Lead pipes. That was it! Soft and malleable. And so very efficient. Such hot water! A second pipe channelled cold water.
With them was Simon Weaver, recovered now from his racking cough. Brought back into the village and welcomed. A life given: a life taken away. Simon was still wary. Still worried that he was seen as the enemy. His son didn’t worry. He was happy, learning to sign with Edgar; learning to be a wayward boy with Niko and Oluf. But not so wayward. Those two had learned hard lessons.
And golden-eyed Kazan and the quiet, dangerous Welshman were together again, married, one body, one soul, one heart. A year ago Agathi had been a miserable slave held captive by the evil Veçdet. No hope of escape. Now here she was, free wife of the lord of the manor, her beloved, the father of her child. All the same…
She watched Kazan walk in the early morning mist through the sodden pleasure garden. Such loss. They had returned, Dafydd and Kazan. Giles and Esyllt? Those two had stayed behind in the Marches, with Giles’ mother and father, and years of agony to be reconciled. ‘Let there be a child,’ Agathi breathed. A child would heal all wounds.
And here in her own manor – hers and Edgar’s – her beloved Kazan and the dangerous, gentle, contradictory man that was Dafydd were blissfully reunited; desperately unhappy because their great friend Thomas was dead. Killed protecting them. Another dead to give him life, Dafydd said. How could she help them in their bitter anguish? They would not stay here: she knew that.
Edgar’s brother Alfred had already left, gone to join the third Edward’s army against the French. He had left his manor in Edgar’s care. ‘Should I not come back,’ he had said, but they had known what he meant. No coming back. Death and maybe glory but no coming back.
‘What glory?’ Edgar said, but once only, and she was not sure she was supposed to hear him.
‘Agathi? A feast for our friends.’ Edgar stroked her smooth silver-gold hair. ‘They are to leave us.’
Long summer evenings had given way to dark nights. A full moon shimmered above the shallow valley. It glanced across the old stone manor house and gleamed through the arched window openings. Inside, lit sconces shut out dark. The whole village was gathered together to celebrate the finishing of the new barn, and the harvest safely gathered in, and Ellen and Bernt’s bairn, but in truth it was a sombre gathering.
‘Where?’ Dafydd said. He leaned across the table towards Agathi. ‘First back to Ieper and Heinrijc and Rémi – and Rémi’s wife. Can you believe my little reckling has taken a wife? After that, we shall go to the far countries. Kazan and me. We both want to see those wondrous worlds. That land of Sakoura’s…the holy city…we want to see those places.’
Years of travelling. When would they be together again?
‘Always we are together. How can it not be so? We have seen so many things together.’
Kazan was serious. Leaving? What is that? It means nothing. While the heart remembers there is no leaving. But it was wisdom hard-learnt. Leaving meant everything. The sound of a vanis
hed voice, the touch of a hand, the familiar, fragrant smell of the beloved; the day-to-day living of petty argument, foolish laughter, meaningless talk… Leaving? What is that? It means nothing. While the heart remembers there is no leaving.
Nene, Sophia-the-Wise, I hope you are right. These are my dear friends. Already I miss Giles who faithfully looked after me for so many months; his wife Esyllt that good, brave girl who followed him into danger; my dear Thomas, the beautiful man I once thought was Bamsi Beyrek of the Grey Horse. And perhaps you were, dear Thomas. You kept my Dafydd safe; you saved us. We shall mourn you for ever and ever. She looked up into the sky with its bright full moon and paler stars. It was Nene who taught her the names of the stars in the vast sky. Nene’s soul was a star high above, watching over her. There must be somewhere the stars of her grandfather, the Wordmaker; and Thomas, that dark, handsome man who wanted only to be a peacemaker.
‘Come, Kazan.’ It was Mehmi. ‘Let’s sing and play together for our lost ones. Let us honour them.’
Mehmi who was also bereft and whose joy was in making music.
Let the white horse come
Let it go free
And let go of your grief
Set that free as well…
He laughed, rippled the strings of the deep-bellied oud. ‘For my warrior boy-girl,’ he said to them all. ‘For our Kazan.’
Warrior on the prancing Arab horse
What warrior are you?
Shame it is for a warrior to hide his name from another.
What is your name, warrior? Tell me!
I am Çiçek, granddaughter of Sophia-the-Wise
I am Çiçek, granddaughter of Will-the-Wordmaker
I am Çiçek, who rides a bright star
I am Çiçek, who shines brighter than a thousand suns
I am Çiçek, wife of Dafydd the Welshman
The strings quivered into long silence. A sigh rippled round the room. Yes, this girl-warrior, this bright star, was truly the wife of Dafydd the Welshman.
Select bibliography
Cooking and dining in Medieval England by Peter Brears, Prospect Books, 2008
Giotto: new concepts of space and sense of reality by Matteo Cecchi, ATS Italia Editrice, 2011
Giotto and 14thC painting in Padua by Davide Bansato, Marselio, 1998
Giotto by Arnim Winkler, Uffici Press S.A. Milano, 1968
Life in the Middle Ages, selected, translated and annotated by G.G. Coulton
Lincoln: a place in time by David Vale, FLARE, 1997
Lincolnshire Dialects by G. Edward Campion, Richard Kay, Boston Lincs, 1976
Lincolnshire Dialect Dictionary: Wodds and Doggerybaw by J.M. Sims-Kimbrey, 1195
Lincoln: Wigford; historic Lincoln south of the city edited by P.R. Hill, Survey of Lincoln, 2000
Lincoln: south-East; Canwick Road, South Common, St Catherine’s & Bracebridge edited by Andrew Walker, Survey of Lincoln, 2011
Lyrics of the Middle Ages edited by Hubert Creekmore, Grove Press Inc, New York, 1959
Making the Boughstave Longbow by Don Adams, FLARE (Friends of Lincloln, Archaeology Research and Excavation), 1988
Medieval English Lyrics edited by R.T. Davies, Faber, 1963
Medieval Gardens by Anne Jennings, English Heritage, 2004
Venice; the Biography of a City by Christopher Hibbert, Grafton Books, 1988
Venice; a guide to the principal buildings by Anotonio Salvadori, Canal & Stamperia Edrice revised ed 1995
Venice; Pure City by Peter Ackroyd, Chatto and Windus, 2009
Violence in Early Renaissance Venice by Pro Guido Ruggeiro, Rutgers UP 1980
Francesco’s Venice (BBC DVD) 2006
About Margaret Redfern
Margaret Redfern was born in Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire. She is a BA graduate of Lancaster University and MA graduate of University of Wales Trinity Saint David. She has lived in Turkey, Wales and England and currently lives in Lincolnshire. She has been a teacher of English Literature and Language for much of her life and has also written for IPC magazines and Bauer Publications. She currently contributes to Pembrokeshire Life and Down Your Way magazines.
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The Heart Remembers Page 32