Odo's Hanging

by Peter Benson

  I do not need a voice. This thought came to me, sat at my feet and watched me move. It did not say anything, it did not move, it kept still. It had no body and it had no smell. It was part of me, it was as pure as what we were doing, and the sounds we made in the grass. Martha was never going to give me a voice. She would give me a hundred other things, she would move me sideways, forwards and change the way I walked, but she could not change the way I talked. No one talks like me, and that is how it was meant to be. Now I am part of another person, and she has enough voice for two. The hollow is warm, I cannot hear the brook, she has my hair in her hands, and pushes my head between her breasts. She has her legs around my waist, she rolls me on my back. I stare at the sky, I close my eyes and the sky does not disappear. It is painted on the inside of my lids, weeping clouds. I can put my hands up and scrape my fingernails across it, and pull its nerves. It is smaller than we are, and moves slower. It cannot have my joy or change its face. There are jewels on the floor and jewels for you, and jewels in the seas of morning dew. I do not think I knew Martha. She kept a part of herself hidden, even when she showed me all I thought she could. Her legs were smooth and her belly was lying on mine.

  ‘Robert?’

  What?

  ‘Do you love me?’

  Yes.

  ‘I love you.’

  I love you.

  She closed her eyes and laid her head on my shoulder. I held her around the waist and pushed in. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  I was growing from the inside out. There was no pain at all, no warning and no sin. From the hollow to the sky and back again, in the wing of a wood pigeon flying from the forest to the stream; the forest was quiet for us; its voice is something no one who hears it can forget.

  I dreamt I had a voice, but lost it. When it came, when I said, ‘Listen to me,’ to Turold, I could not think of anything else to say, so I took it from my mouth and carried it to a cliff.

  I held my voice in my hands. It was made of blue air. Below me, waves broke along the shore, sea birds circled overhead and a cold wind blew inland. I was alone, but someone was whispering in my ear.

  ‘Get rid of it,’ said the whisper.

  My voice looked at me and said, ‘How long have you wanted me?’

  All my life.

  ‘You do not need it. You are better off without it.’

  ‘No you are not.’

  ‘Even if you had it, no one would listen to you.’

  ‘They would.’

  ‘Believe me,’ said the whisper.

  ‘No,’ said my voice, ‘believe me.’

  The sea birds cried as they circled.

  ‘Listen to them,’ said the whisper.

  ‘Do not listen to them.’

  ‘They have voices…’

  ‘They are birds. You are a man.’

  I am a man.

  ‘Bird, man, woman.’ The whisper coughed. ‘What is the difference?’

  ‘The difference is plain,’ said my voice.

  Who do I believe? My voice is warm but does not know anything. The whisper is wise.

  ‘In one way, it is, but not in the most important way.’

  ‘And what,’ said my voice, ‘is the most important way?’

  ‘The way you cannot see.’

  ‘And that is the way you can see, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  My voice laughed now, but as it did, a bird swooped down and picked it up in its beak, and carried it to a cliff ledge. It laid my voice at the edge of its nest, turned it over and stuck its bill into the softest part. I opened my mouth, my voice screamed, the bird tore it apart and fed pieces to its chicks. The chicks had birds’ bodies but human faces; the bird that killed my voice had a bird’s face and a bird’s body. It was a black-backed gull and it could smile, all the way from my cot to the floor, where I was lying when Turold tripped over me on his way to the workshop.

  Ermenburga dozed in the workshop, Turold looked at her with a needle in one hand and his other hand resting on the hanging. I was growing. The top of my head was level with his shoulders. I held the wool box on my lap and watched a man give news to King Harold about Duke William’s army. The man is panicking, Harold cannot believe the news. The English army have marched from the north, the Normans have rested, feasted and they ride horses.

  As Ermenburga dozed, she made bubbling sounds, like a pigeon. Turold put his hand over her head but did not touch her. I put my fingers to my nose and smelt them.

  Ermenburga woke slowly, opened her eyes, smiled at Turold, looked at his hand and whispered, ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He looked blameless, a boy caught at the bakery door.

  ‘The sisters never do nothing. Why do you?’

  ‘When I say I am doing nothing,’ said Turold, ‘I do not mean it…’

  ‘You are deceiving me?’

  ‘No, I am thinking.’

  ‘And the sisters do not need to think?’

  ‘I did not say that.’

  ‘I think about…’

  ‘I know,’ said Ermenburga, and she put a finger to her lips, ‘what you think about.’ She turned her head away from him. ‘Forgive me. I was playing…’

  ‘I was playing too.’

  I was sniffing my fingers.

  ‘Do you forgive me?’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive.’

  ‘You are…’ said Ermenburga, and then she stopped. She held her breath and put her hand over her mouth. I do not know what she was thinking, I do not know what he wanted to say. There was a bridge in the air between them, I could see it and so could they. The bridge was guarded by archer angels and pots of fire. I do not know what this meant, I was thinking about something else. All I know is what I heard and saw. Some weeks, nothing happened, then a week was full of incident. A week would pass and the work progressed as the story it told had done, and the work did not allow any interruptions. As the work grew, it grew itself senses, and these senses gave themselves the power of understanding. The understanding meant nothing at all, but that did not matter, for it was only a story.

  Ermenburga sat, Turold went back to work. He put out his hand for wool, I had it ready, I looked straight in his eyes and he said to me, ‘What is different about you, Robert?’

  I am growing.

  ‘You are taller, but that is not what I mean.’ He looked me up and down, he shook his head and stitched into William’s face. ‘Your face has changed,’ he said.

  How long?

  Weeks.

  I am thinking about Martha.

  ‘And you work harder.’

  I want to do the best I can. I do not want you to think I am useless.

  ‘Are the sisters putting something in your soup?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Sisters?’ He called to them, but they would not look up. Some smiled but the rest stared at their work.

  They will not answer.

  ‘The dumb lead the dumb,’ said Turold, ‘or do the dumb lead the dumb?’

  I forget.

  Once we started, we did not stop. Martha and I fucked on Sundays, we fucked in the lodging and behind a barrel. In daylight in the woods, in the dark in the woods, we were the beast with two backs in fields, and flat on top of each other in the yard behind the bakery. We fucked on a hill with sheep watching, and in an orchard of apple trees. Bees flew over our heads and flies bothered our creases, the grass was long, a leaf drifted down and landed on my head.

  I had her in a barn, we returned to Rainald’s hollow and went like rabbits. The more I fucked the more I could, the more she had me the more she wanted me. At twilight beneath the city walls, beneath a cart, beneath a blanket. She bit my neck and I nipped hers, she licked my stomach and laid hers on my face. Her skin was warm as breath, it felt like breath, I sucked it into my mouth and circled it with my tongue.

  In an empty watchtower, we sat afterwards with our backs against the walls. When wood pigeons flew over, she said, ‘How are your birds?’

&nbs
p; I feel guilty about them. I fly them but I do not give them the attention I should. I shut them in at night, but I think I will leave their door open.

  I shrugged.

  She put her hand on my thigh and squeezed. ‘You do not carry them as much as you used to.’

  I do not need to.

  ‘Why not?’

  I looked at her. She is simple and bright. She notices things, she wants to know about the world. She has been covered by the King’s cloak, she is loved. I put my hands on her breasts, held them there and then opened them, as if I was releasing them. I stared into the sky, as if I was watching their flight. They moved slowly, and disappeared into the trees. ‘Robert,’ she said.

  Martha.

  I feel the world inside. It is giving itself a body. It is giving itself legs, it will wear shoes. I want you now, I want you every day, in every place and every way.

  William points the way, and then, across twenty spans of the hanging, mounted knights gather speed as they charge the English. Some carry gonfalons, others spears. The horses canter, archers aim, the horses break into a gallop and here, in a brave stand, the English knights defend themselves.

  In the border, two birds lie on their sides and the first of the dead is stitched: a soldier on his back, a spear stuck in his throat. The noise of the battle is in the linen, the thunder of the horses, the shouting and wailing of men, arrows and spears whistling through the air, shields clattering together.

  With his gonfalon beside him, Harold repels attack with an axe. Headless bodies appear below him, Turold had his hair cut short. He said it would help him think, that his head liked to be cool.

  Harold’s axe is heavy. He holds it with both hands. His moustache is long and greasy, the axe falls on a horse’s neck, the shield wall holds.

  ‌24

  In late summer, Bishop Odo travelled to Kent. Trusting us to work, and believing a spy was a greater pleasure for Turold than a worry, he did not leave one; he did not misjudge, and returned to Winchester in autumn, refreshed by an inspection of his estates, reassured by them and fresh sea air. When I saw him in the workshop, he was content, he did not shake his head at the gap between the palace at Rouen and the horse, he clapped Turold on the back and laughed. He had lost weight, his cheeks did not puff when he spoke. ‘As usual,’ he said, ‘you and the sisters produce the best work.’

  ‘We try.’

  ‘And you succeed! You succeed, Turold, and you please me.’ He stared at the image of the knight Vital and scratched his balls. ‘I think,’ he said quietly, ‘that I allowed the hanging to worry me, and that was a mistake. It is your job to worry about it, and my job to worry about other affairs. I see that now…’

  ‘I never worry about it, but I…’

  ‘It is difficult for me to separate my wider concerns from the interest other people have shown in your work, but I must.’

  ‘I think…’

  ‘Thinking again?’

  ‘I think you know what I think.’

  ‘I think I do.’

  Odo looked at me, looked away then looked again. He narrowed his eyes and said, ‘Robert?’

  I took a step towards him.

  ‘It is Robert, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Turold.

  ‘What has happened to you?’

  ‘He has grown.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Odo shook his head, ‘And something else…’

  What?

  ‘…something in your face, Robert.’

  I do not know anything about my face. It means nothing to me. I do not care about the shape of my nose or the colour of my eyes. Martha has told me it is the face she wants, that is all I need to know. Martha’s breasts are growing. Her hair is longer. Hair is growing on my chest. I shrugged at the Bishop, and he shrugged at me. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you could tell a few secrets, couldn’t you?’

  I would not.

  ‘He wouldn’t, even if he could,’ said Turold.

  ‘Do you mean,’ said Odo, ‘there are secrets? Things you have kept from me?’

  ‘Nothing is kept from you.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even the smallest thing?’

  ‘There is nothing small about this work…’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘My Lord,’ said Turold. ‘If we are to finish I must…’

  ‘You will finish.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘No buts but the King’s scene, I think.’

  ‘Do not remind me.’

  Do not ask me if what I remember is fact. I do remember Odo’s face, I do remember Turold saying that there were no secrets in the hanging, I know I felt released, but did not know what from. I had longer legs and a bigger head than when I arrived, I had carried pigeons with me, but now I had given them their freedom. Occasionally, they returned to the loft, but mostly they roosted in holes in the city walls.

  ‘Why not?’ said Odo.

  ‘The space irritates me. I carry it in the back of my mind; as I finish one scene and move to the next, I know it’s there, waiting for me.’

  ‘And for me?’

  ‘I would not know.’

  ‘Have you ever wondered?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What you would do if William failed to return.’

  He will return.

  ‘He will return. The Queen said…’

  ‘The Queen?’ Odo’s face tensed. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘He has not forgotten me or the hanging. A sketch of his scene will arrive by messenger.’

  ‘So your irritation will be eased…’

  Turold turned to the work. ‘However great the man, his design cannot do anything but intrude upon mine. It was not meant to be tinkered with. However…’

  ‘However?’ Odo’s eyebrows were up, there was a smile on his face.

  ‘As with Brother Lull’s text, so with the King’s scene.’

  Odo laughed. ‘You are comparing Lull with William?’

  ‘No.’ Turold took a threaded needle and stabbed the linen. ‘Not as men…’

  ‘William will be glad to know that…’

  ‘…only in the sense that…’

  ‘I know the sense…’

  ‘…they both made a contribution.’

  ‘It is a contribution now, is it?’

  Although I have given my pigeons their freedom, I still leave corn for them. I spread it in the loft, on the cleaned floor beneath their perches. As they had flown, so a part of me flew; the empty space was filled by Martha.

  We fucked in the pigeon loft, and while people made music beneath us. We fucked as the sun came up and as the moon went down. The stars were out, the stars were in. Wind came and ripped leaves from the trees but we did not stop. I was tired but had the energy to carry on. I forgot my wishes, I spared myself and I spared Martha. She was there and I was there, we were there together, and after every fuck we arranged the next.

  On your knees.

  Queen Matilda, and she will not stand for nonsense today. She has heard from William, she catches Turold in conference with Bishop Odo, her Ladies are pale.

  On your knees.

  Odo goes pale. As the Queen enters the workshop, a blast of cold wind blows in, and leaves race across the floor. The sisters drop stitches, Turold leaves Odo.

  Kiss the ring.

  Listen to her skirts rustle.

  The Queen has given birth to nine live children. She is deep in thought, and walks slowly. Turold bends towards her, she stares at him, her face is grave, then changed by a slight and knowing smile.

  ‘Messengers have arrived,’ she said, ‘carrying this.’ She held up her sleeve so he could see a roll of parchment there. He opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not here. It might upset someone.’ She looked around Turold, towards Odo. The Bishop was holding his chin in his hand, hovering. He bowed at her look, she raised a hand, he took a step forward, she showed him her palm.

>   ‘His scene.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Turold took a deep breath.

  ‘You are relieved?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked at the Queen’s sleeve, she put her hands behind her back and shook her head.

  ‘I will send for you.’ She looked at Odo, who took a step forward.

  ‘I hope…’

  ‘Bishop Odo!’

  ‘My Lady.’

  ‘You spend more time in Master Turold’s workshop than you do at your offices.’

  Odo did not know whether to shake his head, nod, smile or stare at his feet. He had a wink, twirled his hair and winked again.

  ‘Bishop?’ said the Queen. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Majesty; I was bitten by a bee yesterday,’ he said, ‘and have a rash.’

  ‘A rash?’ The Queen peered at him. ‘Maybe one of my Ladies could provide you with some balm. I think Hilda is the one to ask.’

  Odo bowed low, almost banging the top of her head with his nose. ‘I thank you,’ he said, ‘for your concern,’ through clenched teeth, ‘but sister Ethel has already applied a balm of her own.’

  ‘Sister Ethel?’ said the Queen, ‘I have heard of her.’

  Turold opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I stood by him. Above us, Harold’s brothers died, the borders choked with bodies, weapons and shields.

  ‘Her potions appear vile but seem to work.’

  ‘If it smells bad,’ said the Queen, ‘then it must do you good. Is that true, Bishop?’

  ‘I know no one who would argue otherwise.’

  ‘But is it true?’

  ‘My Lady,’ said Odo, and he bent his head again. ‘It is.’

  ‘That’s a comfort.’

  ‘I feel much better today,’ he said.

  ‘Have you been ill?’ said the Queen.

  ‘The bite. It swelled to…’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the Queen, and she held her hand up. ‘Forgive me,’ and then she turned, closed her sleeves and walked away.