‘I don’t think I understand.’
Flambard gulped hot stew and waved the spoon. ‘You can’t be that simple. Take you, first. She’ll push you aside.
The king might want to keep your friendship going but you don’t suppose she’d allow it, do you? You’ll be in the outer darkness before you know it. No more being courted by the court, Ralph. No more people entertaining you to dinner and slipping you little presents to say a word in the king’s ear.’ Flambard’s hot, bright eyes observed Ralph’s shocked discomfort with amusement. ‘I know all about it. You manage very well. You know exactly how much influence you’ve got and you never forget your place. But that place gives you a certain importance and you like that, don’t you? Well, why not? I like mine too. And you pay for yours. You provide services that go against your nature. But you won’t ever have the option of purchasing importance that way once Edith of Scotland is queen in Rufus’ court, believe me.’
‘But if she’s only twelve…’
‘Her father is Malcolm of Scotland, as tough and canny a warrior as ever swung an axe, and her mother is the much-revered Margaret who must have a lot more to her than piety and good works or she couldn’t run her virtuous spirit in double harness with Malcolm without catastrophe and there hasn’t been any catastrophe. Added to which, Edith, through her mother, is descended from the same house as the Old English ruling family. If she becomes queen, she’ll have a huge, invisible weight of support behind her, from every soul in the land who secretly hankers for the days before the Normans came. And on top of that, you don’t imagine, do you, that she’d be handed over to Rufus without being given a vast, influential entourage of her own, handpicked by her parents and most unlikely to be sympathetic either to you or to me? The first thing,’ said Flambard, ‘that that vast and influential entourage will do, will be to clean up the court.’ He took a final mouthful and scraped the spoon round the bowl in an engagingly thorough search for the final drops.
‘They’ll get rid of the immoral elements like you and the irreverent ones like me. I make money out of the church, remember? The saintly Margaret’s handpicked party will join instant forces with Anselm to put a stop to both of us.’
Ralph was silent. Flambard, watching his face, put the empty bowl aside. ‘I’m not asking if you love him, Ralph. But I can tell you this: he loves you. He’s the king and he’d put his royal dignity first if it came to a clash between it and you, but still, he loves you. Oh yes,’ said Flambard, observing Ralph’s startled expression, ‘everyone thinks I have an abacus where other men have hearts.’ Laughter suddenly lit up his features and for the first time Ralph truly appreciated how he had acquired those nicknames, Flambard and Passe-Flamme. That amusement was strong and illuminating and more: it was infectious. ‘But if I use other men’s feelings to my advantage,’ Flambard said, ‘I don’t deny the feelings are there. One reason why Rufus cares for you is that you are always careful never to embarrass him. He appreciates that. Do you want to see him embarrassed?’
‘Embarrassed?’
‘Yes! All this talk of heirs. I don’t know what makes Anselm so sure there’d be any child of the marriage at all. Just what do you think is going to happen after the wedding when Rufus is left alone with a pure-minded, piously-reared, nobly-born girl scarcely into maidenhood and certainly not yet released from it? Well, what?’
‘Well, I…he…he has been known to have girls.’
‘Professionals, hired to attend drunken parties where hardly anyone knows what they’re doing or with whom anyway. Even at that, they have to help him. I don’t attend those parties – as a prelate I have to conduct myself with some degree of propriety. Not much,’ said Flambard, ‘but some.’ His amusement shone out again. ‘But I hear things. Do you think this modest little Edith of Scotland will be able to help him? And what will it be like for either of them? I’m not completely callous about her plight either. If you care for the king at all, Ralph, if he is anything, anything, more to you than a cow to be milked for station or land – though he’s short-changed you shockingly with this place, I must say – and if you are capable of feeling the smallest compassion for a young girl faced with a nightmare marriage, then you’ll do as I ask and save them both.’
CHAPTER SIX
Interview in a Rose Garden
July 1093
On that July morning, getting out of bed at sunrise, into a world echoing with blackbird and song-thrush, looking from the dorter window at a dawn sky of blazing gold, like a fanfare of trumpets transmuted into vision, Edith had found the courage, or the anger, to pick up the hated black veil, tear it in half, fling it down and tread it underfoot.
But now, once more confronted in the rose garden by her Aunt Christina, she had lost her nerve. ‘I’m… I’m sorry, Mother Abbess. I was late this morning, I came out in a hurry, I forgot. I’m sorry, I forgot the veil.’ I can’t go through that again, after all. I can’t bear it. I’d rather die. I will die, if she does that to me again. No, no, please…
She’d put the torn veil into her personal chest and locked it. Her aunt couldn’t have found it there. Or could she? Christina did not approve of her charges having any privacy. She almost certainly had a key to that chest, which was abbey property.
But the veil which Christina was now holding out was not the damaged one; it was a new one, intact, and her voice was calm as she said: ‘There is a particular reason why you must wear this today. I don’t want to hear that you refuse to wear it because it’s halfway to being a nun. That is exactly how you must appear. And you would please your father by doing so. Your father would not want you to be molested. The king is coming here to see you.’
‘The king?’
‘Yes, King William Rufus. And whatever excuse he gives, his intentions will be bad. He has heard you are pretty. Some decent man, afraid to give his name, has sent me a warning. The king is on his way, now. He’s young and wild and does whatever comes into his head and…’
‘But will molesting me come into his head?’ asked Edith, quite seriously, startling her aunt by the maturity of her tone. ‘I believe,’ said Edith, ‘that he doesn’t like women.’
There were a few timid giggles from the other girls, who, once again, had hung back at the sight of the abbess. They had been weeding the roses. Christina withered the amusement with a sharp glance. ‘You are not old enough to know anything of such things or such men. The king respects nothing and no one. Well, hardly anyone. It is possible that even he would not actually insult a vowed nun, so…’
‘But I’m not a vowed nun.’
‘And you want to be insulted, is that it? Perhaps you do! Nothing would surprise me, with you, Edith. But I hardly think the prospect would please your father. If the king sees you wearing a veil, he may think you are a nun and in this instance, your father would approve. Now put this on at once.’
It was such a glorious day, thought Edith rebelliously. The garden lay flooded with July sunshine and the scent of late roses. And in the midst of all this loveliness, there stood Aunt Christina, draped in black, gaunt as a scarecrow, spoiling it. The disapproving lines of her face, thought Edith furiously, would turn fresh milk to curds on the instant if her aunt as much as glanced at a milk pail.
A nun hurried from the abbey building at an unmonastic speed, wimple awry. ‘Mother Abbess, he’s here, the king is here!’
‘Put it on!’ Christina deposited the veil on Edith’s head willy nilly, with shaking hands. ‘And keep it on! And stay here! He may not come so far. I must meet him.’
She and the nun hastened away. Edith stuck out her tongue and half raised her hands to her head but let them drop. One of the other girls said: ‘Old sourpuss! I bet she wishes the king would molest her! Another said soberly: ‘I can hear a man’s voice. I think he’s coming out here after all.’
From within the cloister, there were indeed voices. A masculine one, undoubtedly accustomed to making itself heard, and coming nearer while it was talking, was declaring jovially that
in Winchester a previous batch of Romsey’s rose plants was thriving. ‘We want to inspect your latest ones! Ah,’ said Rufus, stumping out into the sunlight, ‘so this is the famous garden where you cultivate them?’
‘Back,’ muttered Edith, and with the others withdrew into one of the trellised walks, out of sight. She found a place however where she could look through the trellis unseen and the others crowded round to peer inquisitively with her. That was King Rufus, was it? He was a funny looking man, with that red face and barrel-shaped body and that long light ginger hair that didn’t go with the rest of him. But oddly enough, Edith rather liked his resonant voice.
Christina was looking bemused. From what Edith could hear of the conversation, it seemed that although a message had come to say that the king was making for Romsey in order to see the King of Scotland’s daughter, now that he was here, he only wanted to talk about Romsey’s famous roses.
He had gone unhesitatingly to one of the newest varieties and clearly he knew something of the subject for he was asking how it was propagated and when would be the best time to take plants to Winchester.
Then, in mid-sentence, he stopped.
Watching, Edith saw him raise his head from the flower he was examining. It was precisely the movement of a deer that scents danger. He had sensed the watching eyes. His gaze swept over the trellis. Instinctively, Edith drew back, pushing the others away as well. But he must have glimpsed the movement for at once, with Abbess Christina trailing after him and attempting to draw his attention to some crimson roses in the opposite direction, he came round to the entrance of the walk. He looked along it to where the girls stood clustered. ‘More pretty blossoms!’
Behind him, Aunt Christina made frantic signs. Edith, recollecting herself, knelt. The others did the same. ‘King Malcolm’s girl’s here, isn’t she?’ Rufus turned to Christina. ‘Is she one of these? If so, p…present her.’ He had a slight stammer, Edith noticed.
Seeing that her aunt was going to hesitate and would probably annoy him, she called: ‘I am the lady Edith.’ He extended a hand and, rising, she went towards him. A breeze caught the veil as she stepped from the shelter of the trellis. She caught it back and Rufus, his attention drawn to it, suddenly blushed. ‘I see ... I didn’t know. You’re well, Lady? They take care of you here?’
‘Excellent care, sir.’
‘Good. That’s good.’ He appeared to grope for some-thing more to say and Edith thought: ‘Poor man, he’s shy. This isn’t his world. Girls in a rose garden, clothes that mean dedication to the eternal – he doesn’t know where he is with any of them. He’d never have molested me. What a fool Aunt Christina is.’
‘I hope to see your father soon,’ said Rufus. ‘I expect him sh…shortly at my c…court.’ He was so nervous that he was actually sweating. ‘Have you any m…message for him?’
It was as if a dungeon door had opened.
‘Please give him my respectful love, sir, and say that if while he is in England he has opportunity to visit me, I should be overjoyed to see him. And please, would you say to him that… that you found me in good health, and veiled as a nun. He would want to know those things.’ She did not look towards Christina.
Rufus, she thought, had sensed the ulterior motives behind this daughterly message, but he was too shy to question her. He said: ‘Of course. Pleasure. Well.’ He then stared at them all for a few seconds more, made a noise that sounded like ‘Harrumph!’ nodded to them and went. Christina accompanied him. She returned alone, walking rapidly, in wrath.
‘If you imagine that that naughty, deliberately insulting message you gave the king will save you from what I have waiting for you, you are mistaken. You don’t imagine he will pass the message on, do you?’
‘He may,’ said Edith. She looked her aunt in the face. ‘I wouldn’t gamble on him not giving it, Mother Abbess. But,’ she added softly, and with dishonourable intentions, ‘meanwhile, I will wear the veil.’
Rufus kept his word. Within a week, her father Malcolm was in Romsey as though a strong wind were blowing him, demanding to see his daughter and when Edith came to the guest chamber, he took one furious look at her, let out a roar of rage, and tore the black veil off her head. ‘My lord!’ expostulated Christina, who had come with her. ‘When a young girl is considering whether she has a vocation…’
‘My girls have vocations when I say so and not before, and I’m no more likely to say so than the sun’s like to set in the east. Is that what you meant King Rufus to think? That she’d got a vocation? I come all the way from Scotland to talk marriage with him; marriage, woman, and he’ll not even see me! But he sends me a lackey with a message saying my daughter in Romsey is dressed up like a nun and wants me to visit her! He came here, didn’t he? Well, he came here to propose and if he never got the words out, it’s your fault, woman, or I’m an infidel. Pack her things! She comes home with me to Scotland, this very day!’
‘Thank God you’re back, Ralph. You were gone too long. I wouldn’t have given you as much as a chicken run if I’d known you’d go and spend all summer there and forget me. I know I said you could have four months but I didn’t think you’d take me at my word. Oh Ralph, Ralph!’
In the dim summer night, Ralph could hardly see his king but Rufus’ voice and now the urgent buttings and burrowings of his heavy body told him that the king was in distress and that Ralph, as a dutiful and affectionate lover, must enquire into it.
‘I’m sorry I was gone so long. There was much to do. My lord, is something wrong?’
‘No. What should be wrong? You’re back, that’s all that matters.’
‘Were you afraid I wouldn’t come back?’ He stroked and petted, made his voice teasing.
‘I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to let you come back! The moment you were out of sight, Anselm was at me again about marriage – no, it’s all right, it’s all over, it won’t happen and I never want to hear the word marriage again as long as I live! A man like me is cut off from all that and Anselm had better realise it.’
Carefully, but asking because it was natural to do so, Ralph said: ‘I’m relieved. Did he have a particular lady in mind?’
‘Oh yes. I even ... I went to Romsey Abbey,’ Rufus muttered. ‘To see Edith. Malcolm’s girl. You know.’
‘Yes. She’s being educated there, isn’t she? Is she nice?’
‘Of course she’s bloody nice!’ The hot, chunky body beside him was suddenly taut with anger. ‘Pretty, milky- skinned, bright eyed little thing, she was, all among the roses. Delicate as a rose. I could see me, t…tearing all her petals off and destroying her. I said, I’m cut off from all that. No family life for me, Ralph. A monk I knew as a boy in Caen put a stop to that. I’d have wanted to run away anyhow, when I saw her, even if she hadn’t been wearing that d…damnable veil.’
‘Veil? Has she taken vows, then? I’d heard that King Malcolm forbade it.’ Cunning Christina, Ralph thought. So that was how she’d fenced Edith from the king.
‘He did. He’s had her out of Romsey and away to Scotland now. But she looked like a nun. That veil finished me. These religious people, Ralph, they think you can buy your way out of death by giving up life but you can’t. Buy your way out, I mean. I tried that when I was ill but it was only fear t…talking, not hope, I thought I was t…trying to escape damnation but the truth is, I was trying to escape death and I can’t. Whatever I do or don’t d…do, I’ll have to die one day and then…’
Ralph began to say something, unconvincing even to himself, about salvation and was roughly grabbed and shaken like a badly-behaved child. ‘Don’t give me those old stories. Don’t… give… me… those… tales! Do you hear? Damnation, salvation, they’re neither of them real. Death means darkness, night without end and the worms. The priests dress it up with prayers but what it comes to in the end is you’re nailed up in a box and buried because if you were left in the open you’d stink and look disgusting and who wants to see in advance what they’re going to be themselves when th
e maggots get them? You die, you turn into n…nasty rubbish that’s got to be got rid of. And if I’m…married Edith, one day I’d turn on her and shout all that at her, smash that pretty dream she and Anselm and people like them live in. I can’t!…live with all that piety and all those lies, all that p…protection payment!’
‘Protection…?’
‘Yes, all the pleasures of life, given up to a God who isn’t there, to buy a salvation that d…doesn’t exist. Danegeld, Ralph. But the Danes always came back for more and so do the maggots.’
Ralph sought for comforting words and found none. He said the king’s name, Rufus, half a dozen times, and held him firmly.
‘She’ll die too, one day,’ Rufus whispered. ‘Think of that. Fresh, sweet thing, she is, used to being cared for. Used to sleeping in a clean bed, wearing clean clothes – imagine her, shovelled into the ground. If there’s a God, He’s a brute and the only way to live is to be a bigger one. Come here, Ralph.’
He went to sleep afterwards, his blunt sun-reddened nose squashed against Ralph’s arm. Ralph watched the dawn lighten slowly, and wished he too could sleep.
He could not. At the Tun, he had begun to forget how protective Rufus made him feel. It had taken Flambard to remind him. He had come back, prepared to resume his duties, as much because he knew Rufus needed him as because he himself wanted the exhilaration of the court.
But he had changed. His body remembered the warm soft flesh of the Maiden at Beltane, and the supple felineness of the other one, the Mother, the Truham woman who had partnered him at Lammas.
At the Tun, he had remembered Rufus’ needs as burdensome. Only now did he understand how heavy that burden truly was.
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