The White Cross

by Richard Masefield

  ‘My husband and my son are bound by ties of kinship, Madam,’ Lady Constance tells her stiffly.

  ‘In which case you might do well to give our Champion a son of his own making,’ the Countess remarks, ‘to square the perfect circle of devotion.’

  It was not until the fighting stopped that I was able to take stock of all my hurts. My cheek was cut and one eye blacked. A purple bruise spread half across my chest, with others on my arms and legs. The fingers of both hands were swollen. My head would scarcely turn upon my neck, and when it did, I felt as if a red-hot band was clamped around my temples. In short I was a wreck. But that was only part of it. A well fed cur defending a full manger against a herd of starving cattle could scarce have acted worse than I did at the tourney feast next day.

  To be the second knight in tournament was something for a youngster, Rob de Pierpoint assured me with a friendly cuff. The thing was bravely done, he said. My Lord of Warenne, all my confrères said the same. I hadn’t failed. My problem was that Hugh de Bernay had succeeded. It was next thing to torture for me to witness his triumph at the feast, and I took refuge in self-pity, drinking steadily to drown my misery in quantities of ale.

  The banquet was postponed from midday to mid-afternoon, by which time the great hall of the fortress had been cleansed of old floor-strewings and carpeted with rush. High on its walls hung rows of antlers, old charms to lure the spirits of the deer into the hunters’ paths. The light was poor. Strong-smelling tallow candles lit rows of chattering faces down the tables – except at the Warennes’ high board on the dais, where my Elise and Lady Blanche were placed and where all the candles were of red beeswax set in silver holders. Sewers bearing laden platters scurried from behind the draught-screens. Ewerers brought finger bowls and jugs of wine.

  We knights and squires sat down the hall, so tightly jammed together that we knocked each other’s elbows as we ate. On either hand of me were men I’d known for years, Sir Dickon and Sir Mark le Jeune, along with Jos and Fremund and the tourney captives who were bound to us until their ransoms had been paid.

  ‘See Haddertun, your favourite relative is summoned to receive his trophy from the Bishop. You have to hand it to the man, he’s earned his prize however you mislike him.’ Sir Dickon’s idea of good sport was pouring salt into my wounds.

  I wished Hugh joy of it.

  ‘I’m sure a coloured stone in a brass basket dressed with feathers from a blighted peacock is just exactly what he needs,’ I said bitterly, as through the din of upward of two hundred mouths, through barking dogs and mewing hawks I heard the Earl of Warenne’s laughter at some remark de Bernay made as he took up the bauble – and glumly supposing the joke to be at my expense, reached out to fill my beaker from the nearest jack.

  I see him at a crowded table in the lower hall, flushed and dishevelled, positively guzzling beer! He’s proved his courage and I’m proud of it. So why can’t he be too? How silly to feel disappointed when he’s done so well. Why can’t men lose with a good grace, as women have to nine times out of every ten?

  I’d like to go to sit beside him, offer him some comfort, but dare say that would only make things worse. Besides, it isn’t often that you have the chance to hear the conversation at high table. Back home in Lancaster we ate in silence, talking only in the gaps between the courses. The silence, Maman said, respected those at lower tables who, unsure of where their next meat might be found, saw eating as an earnest business. Here nothing is in short supply. I’ve loosed my girdle and am already round as a blown sheep!

  The Archbishop’s just set down a brimming mazer of red wine to address My Lord the Earl on his left hand.

  ‘The wine is excellent, My Lord. But now perhaps if you have no objection, I should like to give your doughty champion his award while he’s still moderately sober.’

  The old man’s slight with an untidy fringe of grey hair round his tonsure, dressed simply in a woollen cassock none too clean. He speaks French with a gentle drawling accent. (Maman says he comes from Devon.)

  ‘The Knight of Bernay? You seek to honour him yourself, Your Grace?’

  My Lord of Warenne looks surprised. But then he always does, because his right eye’s clouded from some injury whose scar contorts the brow above into a quizzical expression. The other eye’s blood-red from working for the twain. ‘Ah yes, I see the smoke of what you’re at. You mean to catch him off his guard and pin a cross on the poor fellow while he’s kneeling for his prize? Is that the way of it? To sign him up for this croisade you’re all hell bent on, hunting Saracens in Palestine?’

  ‘No please, “hell bent” is hardly how I would have chosen to express it.’

  The old Archbishop’s passing the gold mazer to his host, most carefully to save it dripping on the cloth. ‘But in essentials you are right, My Lord, and surely must agree with the necessity for this croisade.’

  ‘Necessity?’ Earl Hamelin’s banged down the mazer. (The red wine’s bound to stain.) ‘The only necessity I recognise is loyalty to the Crown. As far as I’m concerned croisades are fools’ errands and ever have been – although I’m not so much a fool myself as to stand in Richard’s way to free the Sepulchre, if that is what he’s set his heart on.’

  ‘Your Grace, I’m grateful for the honour.’

  Sir Hugh de Bernay looks amused, as well he might with a green garland on his head and that preposterous prize! But neatly clad, and lighter on his feet than he has any right to be, considering the way he fought.

  He surely must have noticed where I’m sitting?

  ‘And with My Lord of Warenne’s leave, I’d honour you still further.’ The Archbishop speaks for all to hear, his smile exhibiting as many blackened stumps as teeth. ‘I’d offer you the cross, my son, and God’s own blessing of Salvation, if you will march with us to free Jerusalem and slay its infidel invaders.’

  ‘Forgive me, Your Grace, but I cannot recall Our Lord instructing us to slay our enemies. I thought He held another view entirely?’

  Sir Hugh’s smile whiter, much!

  ‘Christ’s words were not intended for the enemies of God, my son,’ the Archbishop assures him. ‘The heathen of this world can never be deserving of forgiveness. So tell me, will you ride with us to do His work in Outremer – in Christendom-beyond-the-sea?’

  ‘To leave my wife and daughter unprotected?’

  ‘The property and families of those embarking on croisade will be vouchsafed the protection of the Church. The late Pope Gregory’s encyclical confirms it.’

  ‘Your Grace, I have already said I’m grateful for the honour.’

  With his free hand Sir Hugh is stroking his long nose. ‘And by the faith I’d go and gladly, if the Church could find a substitute to supervise my wife’s estates and guard My Lord of Warenne’s interest here in Sussex.’

  ‘Hah!’ snorts the Earl nudging the old archbishop’s elbow. ‘Damn me, he’s scored a point there, Baldwin! Funds are very well, and I for one will pledge my nephew all he needs. I’ll even help him sell off land and titles in the cause if he’s a mind to do it. But England isn’t going to run itself while he’s away.’

  My Lord of Warenne winks his one good eye at Hugh de Bernay. ‘Not if we send our best knights off on some wild gander’s chase across the sea, and keep none back to hold his lands for him while Richard’s busy lopping heathen heads in Outremer!’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was not the first feast I’d attended in the fortress but certainly the best. The Earl’s cooks had excelled themselves to honour the archbishop. There were so many succulent roast meats brought steaming from the kitchens we hardly knew what we were eating. God only knows how many different dishes were carried down the boards – the carcases of oxen and wild boar, poultry on their spits and small birds seethed in milk, herons, plovers, gulls and even starlings. A swan in all its feathers in a pond of bright green pastry was borne through the hall to loud applause. A goose with the head of a sucking pig sewn onto it was set before the Countess
as a jest. And later there were mounds of oysters, pears in honey, brightly coloured jellies moulded in the shapes of animals and castles, each course announced with a great trumpet fanfare.

  Not that I was in any kind of frame to do them justice. For if I ate enough to sink a barge, I’d drunk enough to float a merchantman. And as I drank my separate aches became a single pain.

  With my chin propped on my fist I watched the candle flames dance in the ale. In my unfocussed eyes the banqueters about me, shovelling the food and soaking in the drink as fast as they could go, appeared as figures in a dream, as noble as the knights of Camelot – the very cream, the very peak of civilized existence. And yet to me unreal. The banquet and the tourney, even the poor fellow I had killed, seemed none of them quite real.

  As for my honour… ‘De Bernay saved my life and wears the crown, but what of that?’ I asked my friend Sir Mark for whom I felt a sudden warm affection.

  ‘The crown’s a ring of laurel leaves, that’s all, and by tomorrow will be wilted. And what’s so special I should like to know about a prize that’s no more than a useless bunch of feathers and a lump of rock? Jesus Mary, that’s what I call special over there.’

  I belched and patted Mark’s hard thigh, pointing tipsily at the high table. ‘That little maid in blue, d’ye see, the damsel with the face of a church Madonna sitting up as grand as any? She’s to be my wife, d’ye hear – MY wife, that’s the best of it. My wife and never Bernay’s!’

  I think that’s what I said, but can’t be sure because it was the last thing I recall before the laughing faces at the tables began to blur and merge into long banners of pink flesh – before the clamour of the lower hall receded into silence, and in a shower of oyster shells I toppled backwards off the bench.

  The thing is that he’s not about to dance or even stand unaided, propped up against against the serving screen with all the other drunkards. One of them has vomited disgustingly all down his tunic – not a pleasant sight! – the rest oblivious, including my Sir Garon.

  Now that they’ve cleared the boards My Lady Isabel’s retired. So has Maman, and they’ve had the trestles set against the wall for dancing. The hall’s suffocating, reeks of smoke and sweat and onion farts – and God, I’m feeling…

  Well, ready for some exercise, that’s certain!

  The figured dance is boisterous as ever. Twelve couples, with as ever far more girls than men – red-faced and laughing – weaving patterns, swirling fabric, changing partners with each stanza. The minstrel plays to banish melancholy. So he says – an unattractive little man with lantern jaw and large misshapen joints. Yet no one can deny his talent on the lute or think his clear voice aught but beautiful.

  At the coming of spring season

  Trees to leaf require no reason.

  Fowls of the air in company

  Their different songs then sweetly sing,

  And that which lords most long to see

  ‘Tis only ladies who can bring!

  As often as they sing of war men sing of love; of one thing or the other in a chanson (well, usually it’s love).

  Another circle round again, still clapping hands – and cooler with the neck of my blue gown unfastened. Swoop and sway and circle round. My girdle-tassel’s jumping like a live thing.

  I noticed him again while they were lighting the fresh candles, no longer crowned with laurels as he moved out onto the floor – noticed him and knew we must touch hands…

  A prickly branch on a may tree

  Is how my love doth seem to me…

  In spite of his exertions, despite the fact that like the rest he’s had a deal too much to drink, you’d have to say he’s agile – sleek as a wet weasel.

  ‘So here we have the lady who’s so unimpressed by champions that she refuses to regard them.’

  ‘You flatter yourself Sir as worthy of regard.’

  ‘When all I meant to do was flatter your attractions. But tell me, are you still resolved to be so cruel?’

  His eyes are bloodshot and his voice is dolorous. But naturally he’s teasing, these older men say anything they like…

  I wish he wouldn’t smirk like that. It makes it hard to be severe.

  In the night-time stiff and frozen,

  In the wild wind tossed and blowing,

  ‘I wouldn’t call it cruelty Sir, but preference for another.’

  Until in sun her blossoms open;

  Beneath her petals something showing!

  We finish on the final turn, but ’though we stand apart our shadows go on dancing in the torchlight, vis-a-vis.

  He is so close that I can smell his sweat, look straight into the forest of black hair between the neck bands of his tunic. It’s strange, but when you’ve had a little wine yourself you seem to see things differently…

  Look down – black hair. Look up – exciting eyes as dark and deep as lakewater (and why is it that dark men, dark unpleasant men, are so often and so much more interesting than fair and pleasant ones?)

  A moth with yellow underwings has settled on his shoulder.

  ‘What, preference for the fledgeling youth? But isn’t it enough that you have vowed to marry him?’ he’s asking. ‘Don’t tell me the young beanstick’s to your taste as well? You haven’t heard perhaps that he’s a small, a very small…’

  ‘Small what?’

  ‘A small to near invisible appreciation of the female sex.’

  He’s smiling at me, laughing in my face.

  But now I’m telling him my duty’s to Sir Garon, as his should be to Lady Constance.

  ‘You devastate me. But if you will recall it’s taste we’re talking of. Not poxy duty, ma petite.’

  The moth has risen from his shoulder, is fluttering above our heads. His voice is slurred. He’s taking pains to form his words (but curious to hear him call me by the name that Maman uses).

  ‘And when it comes to taste, I should point out that there are few things more exciting in a woman than a pair of soft pink lips.’ (Laughing again quite horridly.) ‘We men see paradise between them, did you know?’ (And bulging where men bulge when they are stirred; a gross thing that he makes no effort to conceal.)

  ‘Bend over then and show me.’

  Detestable! Atrocious! Simply hateful! (His mouth so close it’s tickling my ear.)

  ‘You are unseemly Sir, disgusting!’

  ‘Absolutely.’ He agrees.

  Oh God it is so hot in here! I’m boiling, scarlet to the hairline!

  But look outraged (I hope I do) and turn your back on him, and lift your chin.

  Now walk away.

  I see a man reflected in the water. I almost can now that I’ve found the way to do it.

  At low tide the River Ouse lay deep between its banks, escorted to the sea by ducks and dragonflies and swallows catching gnats. I saw him mirrored in it, first upside-down against a scape of hills and roofs and coloured banners, then right-side-up above his own reflection. It’s how I see him now.

  ‘Brothers in Christ, the Kingdom of Jerusalem is on her knees!’ I see the old archbishop standing in a herring boat moored to the further bank, the violet stole that’s meant to be Christ’s yoke around his scrawny neck.

  Some minor jousts, with wrestling and falconry, cock fights and shooting at the butts had been planned for the day. But Raoul needed time to heal and so did I. My mouth was foul, my head ached like the devil, and the soft turds I’d woken to expel at cockcrow smelled obnoxious. Three of Hugh’s and one of my own captives from the tourney had already paid their ransoms and departed. But four were left for us to entertain, and by the time Archbishop Baldwin left his Manor for the river, we’d had enough of trying to amuse them.

  ‘Come lads, let’s see him cast his net across the Ouse,’ Hugh said when the archbishop’s criers reached the camp. ‘Let’s watch him work a miracle and land men in place of salmon.’

  So down we went, all eight of us, Sir Hugh and I with both our squires and four remaining captives including giant S
ir Wolstan.

  I went in hope of clearing my thick head and forcing my stiff muscles into action.

  ‘For near a century our Christian kings have ruled in Palestine. But now they battle for their very lives,’ the old man shouted from the far side of the river. ‘At Hattin near the Sea of Galilee His armies have been cruelly slaughtered. The bodies of our warrior monks, our Templars and Hospitallers, are strewn across the land where Christ’s feet trod. The holy relic of the True Cross has been taken, and from the port of Tyre a black-sailed mourning ship has brought us news that Saracens, the followers of Satan’s Prophet, lair in the Holy City!’

  ‘Sarcens!’ Jos swatted at the gnats that plagued the Lewes shore. ‘Ninety nine of every hundred Sarsens want bolts shot through ‘em front to back.’

  He wrinkled his freckled nose and grinned. ‘And after that if it were left to me I’d go an’ shoot some more.’

  But through my fuddled mind flashed images of Christ’s own patrimony, of Outremer, the wondrous land the old knights spoke of when they pointed at the severed hands and strings of Sarsen ears they’d brought back from croisade and hung as trophies on the barrack walls.

  ‘Urbs Jerusalem beata! Jerusalem the blessed has been ravaged by the hosts of Satan – by Saladin the Antichrist, the beast incarnate!’

  The archbishop’s thin voice was straining with the effort. ‘The Holy City’s brave defenders, all are slain, her women violated before its altars, her children put to the sword. Dogs lap our Christian blood! Oh Lord that we should live to see Your Sepulchre used as a stable for the horses of accursed infidels, Thy Holy Cross dragged down, befouled with their excrement!’

  ‘How graceless of them,’ Hugh remarked, ‘to disrespect a Roman instrument of torture.’

  Behind us we could hear applause for some feat of archery or combat on the meads. But no one paid it heed.

  ‘Shame! For shame!’ a voice cried from the crowd. ‘Death to the Antichrist!’ another, and sensing a response the old archbishop yelled the louder.