The White Cross

by Richard Masefield

  The little house became a playground. Shuttlecocks shot through the branches of the fig, and cloth balls splashed into the pool. We found Alia fast asleep one night with one that John had made her grasped tightly in her hand. And at the sight of it, Khadija smiled.

  When John and I climbed on the battlements behind King Richard’s palace, to view the reconstruction of the city walls, Alia stood between us, watching with round eyes the labourers and masons who climbed the wooden scaffolding like sailors in the rigging. Or perched with mortar boards. Or worked with rope and tackle, to haul the blocks back in place. She came with us on expeditions to the harbour and the souks, her small hand held in John’s, attempting with pursed lips and an almighty frown to match his jaunty whistle.

  One day she led the way herself, dancing ahead through vaulted passageways to show us where the women fetched their water from a reservoir beneath the city streets. Lit by an opening high in its rock-cut ceiling, it took the form of a huge drum-shaped cistern with stairs built wide enough to take two women with their buckets passing. In contrast to the heat above, the air down there was wonderfully cool. The water in the reservoir was clear and pure. It was the means, Khadija told us later, by which the city had survived not only for three years of siege, but on this site since ancient times. Supplied by springs fed underground through conduits from the mountains, ass-driven wheels and networks of lead pipes conveyed its water all about the city. Even to our garden pool. ‘And they told us Saracens were barbarous,’ I said to John in wonder, ‘when all the time they have been capable of this.’

  By then I’d come to see that even after a destructive siege, the life of Acre was superior in every way to anything we had at home. In the city’s roofed bazaars and open markets, women with dark flashing eyes and all their wealth of besant coins looped through their veils, sold silver jewellery from Cairo and Aleppo, perfume jars of ivory and alabaster, quails, marmosets and nightingales in cages. From laden stalls there drifted through the press the smells of spices, pepper, cinnamon and cloves. Silk merchants rolled out bolts of fabric unlike anything we’d ever seen – gold-brocaded, striped and spangled, bordered with embroidery and dyed in brilliant colours. Vases and ceramics caught rainbows in the surface of their glazes.

  And in Khadija’s house and garden, riches of another kind. She was a woman of Islam with a wealth of knowledge and experience which it seemed to me exceeded anything our English monks and bishops had to offer. Among so many things, she taught me to see beauty in the commonplace – in the shape of a single leaf, the pattern on a lizard’s back, the colour of a petal floating in the pool. I learned to feel it in the evening breeze. To smell it in fresh linen, hear it in the chirrup of a sparrow. To pause and smile, not at another’s folly, but at my own good fortune. I discovered beauty – in Acre, in myself and in Khadija.

  Discovered it and lost it.

  Have I? Have I lost it? Or have I brought it with me? Has it become a part of who I am?

  One afternoon, while I sat in the shady refuge of her chamber watching her spin out the wool she’d carded from the Quartermaster’s sheep, I told Khadija that I had a wife at home, whom I’d served ill and left without support or comfort.

  ‘It may be,’ I said, ‘that I have left her with a child. I have no way of knowing – and God only knows what will become of her while I’m abroad.’

  ‘Muhibb, thou sayest right. Allah knows all and guides her feet.’ With the distaff under her left arm, she twisted the carded wool onto the wheel she spun with her free hand.

  ‘If He wills to protect, then she can take no harm. Is thy wish to return, yes?’ Her eyes glowed briefly as she raised them to take in my nod.

  ‘Be sure then when you meet that thou wilt bring her joy.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  There are times when any of us could be forgiven for thinking men were put on earth for the sole purpose of bringing grief to women. Yet still when they abuse us we seem to want to take a share of blame upon ourselves.

  I did it after that man raped me – told myself I’d smiled too much, had led him on. (Recalling it, I’m doing it again. Does that make sense?)

  I woke just now in a state of confusion – saw light through the bed-curtains, and thought that it was morning. But then I saw the outline of the cradle, understood the light was moonlight, knew I was in bed, at home. At Haddertun.

  What time of night? I’ve no idea how long I slept – can’t tell if he’s asleep as well? Or is awake like me?

  I’d always thought I knew myself, and what I was, and what I wanted. But what that man did in the wood changed everything. I felt as if I shared his sin and was forever branded as a sinner!

  I’d always managed somehow to convince myself that I was equal to any hand that life could deal me – found something ludicrous to smile at in almost any situation. But in the wood life ceased to be a game, and I became a different person.

  I crept back down the cattle path that summer afternoon, when I was certain he had gone – trod through a drift of campion flowers spattered with drops of red like blood – to see no sign of him when I peered from the cover of the trees. No sign the harvesters saw anything amiss. The reapers all backturned, intent on holding their line straight. The women and the children shocking sheaves. The child Edmay was at the far end of the field, scarce taller than a sheaf herself, with Hod beside her, working with a will.

  She straightened while I watched, to brace her back and shade her eyes against the sun. But before she looked in my direction, I’d already stepped back to the shadows. No one must see me bruised and bloodied, starting-eyed like something taken from a trap. That’s all that I could think.

  I left the forest further down and out of sight, to cut across the common pasture and avoid the village. Swallows flashed about me catching the insects I disturbed.

  Somewhere I’d lost my hat, and as I stumbled through the grass, I twisted my loose hair into a knot. I knew I had to fight the heavy, hopeless feeling pressing on me like a weight. But for the present all I wanted was to reach my chamber and to bolt the door. Saving my worst thoughts for later when I was alone.

  With but a single gate into the manor, I had no choice but to march through it, with one hand gripping the torn bodice of my gown. Head down to hide my swollen face. I heard a sudden hush in conversation and felt the grooms’ eyes on my back. A woman tentatively called out my name. But by then I’d passed the guardroom and the wicket to my little garden. Reached the outer stair and bolted up it, three steps at a time. Ran into my chamber, slammed the door and shot the bolt – then I positively howled!

  I would have thrown myself onto the bed, but couldn’t bear to pollute the quilt or sheets with the rank smell, the leavings of that man. Or any part of me he’d touched. I was tainted! Ruined! Fit for nothing but the floor!

  That was where I was, still crouching with my back against the door, when Agnès knocked the other side to ask if she could serve me – and when I could trust myself to speak, I begged her send someone to the harvest field, to fetch Hoddie to me.

  ‘And tell her to make haste.’

  I wanted to scream it at her, but somehow managed not to – although when she tried the lock, I yelled for her to leave me on my own.

  Then after what seemed like a long eternity of ages – before she’d even climbed the stair, Hod’s jangling complaints left none in doubt of how far she’d been made to tramp in the hot sun. Or at what cost to her blamed feet.

  ‘But as I live, I’d never think of comfort when my lamb is calling,’ she assured me when I closed the door behind her. ‘By Saint Jim, I’d cross a field o’ starks barefoot an’ gladly if…

  ‘God a’mercy! Will ye look at the state o’ your pore face!’

  She stared at me aghast as I turned back into the light.

  ‘He caught me in the wood while you were all out harvesting,’ I told her shakily.

  ‘My eyes an’ limbs, ye’re never serious?’

  She didn’t need to ask the name
. But I needed to say it, give it substance. I took a ragged breath and then another.

  ‘It was Sir Hugh,’ I said. ‘He hit me Hoddie. Then he raped me.’ And I almost had to smile at the variety of shocked expressions chasing one another over Hod’s unlovely features, while she searched for something comforting to say.

  ‘There then!’ were the first words that came to hand.

  ‘And ’aven’t I ’eld always that the devil stuck ’is bit on Adam, an’ all men after ’im, whiles God was backturned makin’ Eve?’ she offered as she took me in her bony arms.

  If she said more, I can’t remember what. It was enough to let her stride about and shout at servants, have water heated and herbs fetched in from the garden. Enough to be a child again. To let her bathe me, soothe me, call me lambkin, poultice my bruises with her own concoction of crushed comfrey leaves and parsley – comb out my hair and fold me in clean linen sheets. Push pain away and filth and guilt. To let my mind go blank. To banish thought – and sleep…

  ‘Wake, wake up my Lady!’

  Hod’s voice. Hod’s large hand on my shoulder. ‘He’s ’ere my Lady, d’ye ’ear me? Downstairs in the hall.’

  ‘Who? Who’s here?’ For a moment I stared stupidly at the grey plaits that framed her face.

  ‘Sir Hugh, that’s who. God pick ’is wicked eyes out, an’ stuff their ’oles with salt!’

  Then all at once the knowledge flooded in. I was awake and shaking like the dodder. Terrified! ‘He’s here? Downstairs? But why? Why is he here? What can he want?’

  ‘Same as Master Reynolds who’s bin at the fowl-yard.’ Hod gave a bitter laugh. ‘Sly fox ’as come back ’asn’t ’e, to take another bite.’

  ‘I can’t see him, I can’t! Not after what he’s done!’

  I heard the rising panic in my voice and struggled to control it.

  ‘Nor shall ye, lamb. An’ so I’ll tell ’im to his ’ead, an’ set ’im down in front of all – blamed if I don’t!’

  If Hoddie’d had a chin to jut she would have jutted it. As it was she used her nose.

  ‘No Hoddie he’s too clever. He’ll twist your words, I know he will, and say I led him on. He will defame me, tell them I’m no better than a whore – and say that I’m unfit to hold a manor in my husband’s name!’

  The desperate thoughts came one upon another, while I stood beside the bed with eyes tight shut and both hands to my temples.

  And all the time, at any moment he could mount the stairs… Oh God, there was so little time!

  Think! Think Elise, I told myself to stem the fear. And then it came to me – and in a flash I knew what I must do.

  I ran to where the keys were hidden under the loose window board, and flung back the heavy coffer lid to lift a sac of coins for Hod to see.

  ‘There’s thirty shillings here,’ I said. ‘I’m taking them with me to Lewes.’ I rummaged for my agate brooch and garnet pin in my jewel casket – threw my summer mantle on the floor and tossed them onto it. Then slammed the coffer lid and turned the key.

  ‘I’ll go for justice from My Lord the Earl and Lady Isabel, and show them what he’s done to me before Sir Hugh can fill their ears with lies!’

  ‘But not alone, my dove. Not leastways without a stout ’and longside of ye to see ye safe.’ Hod clenched a hefty fist to show me what she meant. ‘Best if I come-along, ye’r never going to make it on your own,’ she added staunchly.

  ‘No Hod, you have to stay to keep him from suspecting. Tell him I am sick abed. Or that I’ve locked the chamber door and won’t come out. Feed him – make him wait to see me. Say anything you like to keep him here. Do you understand? To give me time to get away.

  ‘Now, help me dress and quickly! I’ll need a change of linen and another gown. The blue – my stoutest boots, the burnet cloak…’ Urgency, a sense of danger, sped my movements, cleared my brain. The broken creature of the wood forgotten in the need for action, whilst Hod packed the clothing in the mantle and knotted up the corners.

  When Garon’s grandsire, Sir Arnould de Stanville, fortified the manor for Mathilde’s War, he’d had constructed as a means of possible escape, a narrow stairway hidden in the wall of the main upper chamber – its entrance covered by a tapestry and stout oak chest. Its exit through a poultry house in the farmyard below.

  There must have been some chinks and crevices for insects to creep though. Because the candle that Hod held to light me down, cast my dark shadow on a tunnel of grey cobwebs, which wrapped themselves around me like a dusty shroud. A crack of daylight showed above a doorway at the bottom of the stair.

  ‘Look after Edmay,’ I urged her when we reached it. ‘And give Kempe the coffer key. We’ll have to trust him not to thieve.’

  I set down my bundle, to use both hands on the rusty bolts. ‘Hod, bolt this door behind me when I’m through.’

  The top bolt pinched my finger when it finally gave way. But what was pain? I almost smiled again when I looked back to see the old thing swathed in webs, and looking like some kind of animated duster.

  ‘I’ll send to you when I am safe and know what’s best,’ I told her as we hugged across the bundle.

  ‘Trust to me, lamb. I’ll keep ’im ’ere, if I ’ave to hogtie the bugger. An’ if he asks me where ye’ve gone, be sure I’ll shut up closer than an oyster. Wild ’orses wouldn’t drag a stuttick of it outter me,’ she promised, unaware of the strange picture of a horsedrawn shellfish she’d just conjured in my mind. The last sight I glimpsed of her before she closed the door, was a forced smile beneath two shining tear-tracks in the dust that coated Hod’s plain face.

  ‘There then. Lor’ save you an’ protect ye, lamb,’ she ended gruffly.

  But for a pair of sitting hens in the nest boxes set along one wall, the poultry house was empty. I picked my way across the smelly droppings to the outer door and peered into the sunlit yard. The air was hot and heavy, threatening a storm. A gleaming tide of barley straw swept out across the cobbles from the open portals of the barn. That’s where the busy chickens were, competing with a flock of pigeons for any grain left in the litter. Otherwise with all afield, the yard was deserted.

  I could have, should have sidled through the shadows of the barn to make sure there was no one on the track beyond. But that wasn’t what I needed.

  I needed to break free. Do something wild and violent. Run headlong through the barn across the threshing floor. Send hens and pigeons clattering into the air – release the fear and anger, feel the power of my own body – racing, shouting, fighting back!

  So that was what I did, although the madness lasted only for as long as I could run flat out. Which was no further than the outer boundary of the orchard, where a tree root brought me to my knees and to my senses, both at once. And the one, the one thought in my mind, as I knelt trembling with the effort, listening for sounds of a pursuit, was to escape to Lewes fortress and the protection of My Lord and Lady of Warenne.

  Once I had crossed the millstream, I planned to leave the road and scale the long ridgeback of Caburn – which lay guarding the approach to Lewes like a huge hound with its head between its paws.

  Thinking back, I have no sense of leaving the domain. The next thing I remember is the hill itself – the steepness of the bostal track, the effort that it cost to climb it in the sultry heat.

  There was no sign of a pursuit the first time I turned. Nor yet the second. But the third time I looked, it was to see that God had sent the hills themselves against me. The whole long ridge of chalk across the valley surged toward me as I watched it, cresting to engulf the manor!

  ‘Holy Mary,’ I thought in a panic. ‘The downs are moving!’ And because I dared not trust my eyes, I closed them tight.

  But when I dared to look again, I saw it was a bank of storm-clouds that was moving, not a hillside – their shadow that crept out across the land – and felt the fool I was! Next thing, a gust of wind blew back my hood to bring the smell of wet earth to my nostrils. Then the deluge, as a curtain s
eamed with silver came folding and unfolding while it swept across the fields – as unreal in its way as moving hills.

  Then it was on me, stinging, wrapping my wet gown about me, slashing through the grass stems to dissolve the chalk beneath my feet. The trees down on the Ram’s Combe road were heaving like a sea in tempest. I heard the whinny of a frightened horse. But all I could see were outlines, looming slopes which vanished into cloud before I reached them.

  Buffeted and battered, blinded, stung and deafened, I barely caught myself from stumbling over the lip of a deep chalk pit cut into the hillside, and balanced on the edge of the abyss, stared down upon the wet and steaming backs of cattle taking shelter from the storm.

  Beyond the pit the hill rose steeply, surely to the summit? Yet as I laboured upward, each curved horizon gave way to another. Until at last I was the only upright thing in an empty prospect, dark as night, with nothing visible but gusting rain and sodden turf on every side. Until quite suddenly a jagged fork of lightning bathed everything in brilliant light – the leaden under-surface of the clouds, ten thousand diamond raindrops, every grass blade on the hill. To show me I was standing on the very shoulder of the sleeping hound!

  The next instant, thunder cracked directly overhead and rolled around the summit. My hood fell back again. My heavy, saturated plaits lifted my face into the lancing rain.

  I stood alone invisible to all but God, inviting the elements to scour me, cleanse me and beat back into my body some feeling – any feeling that was not of self-disgust or of defeat!

  A violated woman in the centre of a summer storm. The same woman safe and warm in bed. Is it what’s happened in between that’s altered how I feel?

  Another flash! A livid vein of lightning threw up the knotted branches of a thorn tree, deformed into a slanting shape and clinging to the bank of a descending combe.