Longsword

by Veronica Heley

  “Now I should have thought you would be anxious to stay … to prove your devotion.”

  Gervase’s lips thinned. “If you know that,” he said, his voice harsh, “then you know why I must go.”

  “On the contrary, I see no reason why you should, and perhaps – who knows? – it has been deferred a year already. …” Gervase started. “You had not thought of that, had you?” said the voice of the tempter.

  “That you should even consider such a thing …!”

  “What thing?” The voice was creamy with satisfaction. The bait had been well and truly taken, and both men knew it. “Sit down again; you are as restless as a small boy. Let us consider the advantages of the position. It is true that, lacking a family of my own, I have made the proper administration of Mailing my life’s work, yet I think many a man finishes his life without having left so great a mark on the world as I will have done, when I die. More, I am a rich man, owning land given me by a grateful master. You laboured long and hard in the past, to be rewarded with kicks and blows. My Lord Henry understands the value of a good servant … are not Master Telfer and Captain Varons proof of that? More, my Lord Henry is kind enough to call me ‘friend’, and to be troubled that I am still at work when I should be ending my days peacefully sleeping by the fire. I have already written to him, saying that I believe I have found a suitable replacement. …” He indicated a letter on the stand beside him, which had certainly not been penned by Gervase.

  “Is there no man in Malling anxious to assume your mantle?”

  “None. Or rather, none on whom both Lord Henry and his son would agree.”

  “And there is an objection to your plan. Would not Lord Crispin dismiss anyone Lord Henry appoints?”

  “Crispin is young,” said Hamo, and very wilful Swaun you …” He seemed about to say more on the subject. Then, abruptly, he dozed off. He was doing this frequently nowadays. Gervase made up the fire, and waited. Presently the old man opened his eyes again and resumed the conversation as if there had been no pause in it. “Crispin. The lad must always seek to test the limits of authority. He will test you, be sure of that. I do not think he will find you wanting. If you bend before his wrath, then he will despise you, and treat you accordingly, though I do not think you are the type to bend easily. …” The old man chuckled. “No, we are all three agreed on it – Varons, Telfer and I – you are the man for Mailing. You look at the land, and turn over in your mind what acreage can be sown next year; you look at the sheep, and consider discounts and costs; you inspect barns, and give orders for their repair before they need rebuilding. You are a careful man with other men’s money, you are ambitious, and you will work hard in the hope of retiring with a manor of your own eventually.”

  “How can you know me so well?”

  Hamo made an impatient gesture. “Fool! Do you think Lord Henry would ally his daughter to a man of whom he knew nothing? I made exhaustive enquiries at Ware when it was thought you would wed the Lady Elaine, and I was pleased with what I discovered.”

  “If you know so much, then you know why I left Ware. …”

  “You should have left earlier! Could you not see which way the wind was blowing? You were as foolishly fond of your uncle as he is of his new wife … don’t interrupt! Of course I didn’t believe that stupid tale about a stolen ring. I doubt if anyone in his senses did. I’ll tell you another tale I didn’t believe … that you were found making love to your new aunt, just before you ‘stole’ the ring!”

  Gervase’s face turned a dark red. With an obvious effort he swallowed a hasty retort.

  Hamo laughed until he coughed, and had to be given some wine. “If you could see your face! Eh, but it makes me laugh to think … did she try it on, the other way round? Eh? Is that why she’s so vicious in speaking of you? Is that why you had to be not only disgraced, but also driven away?”

  Gervase set his teeth.

  “No-one ever believes that the woman can make advances, sometimes. …” Hamo settled himself deeper in his pillows. “So that was it … I did wonder. You can’t go back, you know. No matter how your uncle pines for you … yes, he does talk of you now and then, mourning your loss … but then his lady wife gives him a kiss, and he forgets all about you.”

  “If I could only clear my name. …”

  “Well, you can’t. Put it out of your mind. Mud sticks, and without proof – and who can obtain that sort of proof? – you are without redress. No, you must continue to be Master William of Leys, and to hide that dark red hair of yours under a cap. Keep your beard, guard your tongue, forget about your sword, and entrench yourself as chief clerk here before Sir Bertrand comes. …”

  “Sir Bertrand! Sir Bertrand de Bors? My aunt’s cousin, the man who brought the charge of theft against me, and who. …”

  “Who engineered your downfall, no doubt. Not that you can prove it, of course. Yes, he will be coming here, sooner or later. What, man! Do you ache to be at his throat? And what good would that do you, or Mailing? The man comes as prospective husband for the Lady Elaine, and you had better forget all about being Sir Gervase Escot of Ware, and sink yourself in the personality of Master William of Leys. When the time is ripe, you can tell your story to Lord Henry if you wish … though if you take my advice, you will let the tale grow old before you refer to it. Lord Henry is under some obligation to Sir Bertrand, in connection with that court case we were discussing the other day, about the boundary of the Derbyshire estate.”

  “Did Lord Henry ask you to enquire as to Sir Bertrand’s character?”

  “He did, I did, and nothing good I found to tell, except that the man is brave, wealthy and fond of his cousin. I have advised against the match, yet I think it will go forward, for the reason I have stated. Besides, it is more than time that the Lady Elaine were wed. You are well out of that by the way. …”

  Gervase winced. Beata, as a nun – every time he thought of her as a nun, it hurt. “I cannot stay, Hamo. She asked me to go.”

  Hamo said, “She might not have realised how much you would appreciate the proposition I have outlined to you. Of course you are devoted to her. Who is not? I daresay the castle will survive the spectacle of you making a fool of yourself over her. Or did you think, perhaps, that she asked you to go for her sake?” His incredulity and amusement grated on Gervase. He hardened his jaw.

  “I promised,” he said.

  The old man shrugged. “Oh, if you are thinking only of yourself … doubtless when I tell her what an opening you have missed, she will add her word to mine.”

  “I do not believe she would. …”

  “You think too highly of yourself. What is it to her, what you do? Only she will have some thought for the estates. If she goes at Christmas she will at least have the satisfaction of leaving Mailing in good hands. And if she does not go. …”

  There was a whisper of cloth against the lintel, and she was standing there, looking at him, with her hand to her throat. She paused a moment, then moved past him to Hamo’s bedside, without looking at Gervase again. They had not come face to face for some days – he was not usually with Hamo at this hour – she obviously had not expected to see him there. …

  “I was trying to persuade him to stay on,” said Hamo, growing irritable as she sought to set his bedclothes to rights. “I thought he might make a good steward, take the burden off me … when you are gone, and your brother left to his own devices … Crispin needs a strong man at his elbow. …”

  “When I am gone!” She repeated the words with a degree of wildness that made Gervase frown. “Why, are you so anxious to be rid of me?”

  “I was only thinking of the future – of his future, too. He is so conceited, this long lad here, that he boasted you feared his remaining. …”

  “Now that I did not say,” Gervase protested; but she turned further from him, her hand on Hamo’s forehead.

  “Would not a man of his talents be appreciated here, when you are gone?” asked Hamo, peering out at Gervase from unde
r Beata’s hand, with a wicked grin on his face.

  “Of course,” she said. She turned her head and smiled in Gervase’s direction, but although her eyes were brilliant, they did not rest on him, but passed over his shoulder. “Of course you must stay. I am sure you will do well.”

  Then she was gone.

  There was a long silence. Gervase looked up from contemplation of his hands, to see that the old man was spent, leaning back with his eyes closed, but not asleep. His breathing rasped in the quiet of the cell. When Gervase put some wine to Hamo’s lips, he refused it, trying to brush the goblet aside with hands that had lost all their strength.

  “You … will stay? You are … needed here. …”

  The eyes filmed over before Gervase could say yea or nay. The lips moved again, and Gervase bent close to hear the words. “You … used me up … with your nonsense … send … for that fool of a priest. …”

  The mouth hung open, the breathing ceased, and then restarted. Gervase went for Anselm, and the priest.

  In the early morning Hamo stirred on his bed, and opened his eyes. He did not see the anxious faces watching about his bed … his eye passed through Beata … and Telfer … and Varons … and Gervase … and seemed to seek out the new-risen sun, which was striking at the roof of the chapel opposite. Then Beata, with her hair loose about her, and her mantle slipping off her shoulders, laid him back on the pillow, closed his eyes, and folded his hands over a sprig of rosemary.

  Chapter Five

  The early Mass had finished, and the priest departed, but still Gervase knelt in the shadow of a pillar, and still the girl knelt before the altar. It was the second day after Hamo’s funeral, and though many at Mailing had attended Mass on the day he was buried, today their minds were on the return of Crispin and Elaine to the castle.

  The girl had shed no tears this morning. She had attempted to cover her unruly curls with a white veil, but the heavy locks dragged at the light material. She rose to her feet, pulling at the veil. She stamped her foot. The back of her neck, the square set of her shoulders expressed something more active than sorrow.

  “What, do you watch me still from the shadows? Come out!” She did not look at him, even now. He rose and went to stand where he could see her face, and still she looked at the altar, and not at him.

  “You think I weep for him? I do not. I weep for myself. Does that shock you?”

  He shook his head.

  She said, “I tell you that I could curse him, now, here in chapel … he knew very well that I needed him now, more than ever. …” Her fingers twisted and tore at her belt. “I hope he hears me now, and I hope he suffers.” She glanced at him, and glanced away. “You thought I was so holy, didn’t you? You thought I came here to pray, and to meditate. I tell you I come here to scream and curse. …”

  She caught her breath, and bowed her head, but still she did not weep.

  So that was how it was with her! Gervase stroked his beard and wondered why she did not take her grief and resentment to the priest. And then he thought of the fat complacency of this particular castle chaplain, and understood that she could look for no help there … only conventional words of solace … and her trouble lay too deep for them. …

  She said, “If you tell me to seek resignation in the love of Our Lord, I will scream!”

  No, he thought; she has tried the priest, and he has failed her.

  He said, “Yes. He’s left us in a mess, hasn’t he?”

  At once the tension left her body. She put her hands over her eyes, sighed, shook her head, and busied herself once more with her veil. He thought she looked worn out. There were dark marks round her eyes, and her mouth had a tendency to tremble when she did not hold it firm.

  She said, “I cannot go through with it. Yet there is no way out. No, I cannot do it.”

  He said, “I cannot go through with it, either. Yet I see no way out of it. And so I will do it.”

  “Ah, you reverse my meaning. You say we can do what we have to do? I used to think like that, once. Now I do not.”

  “You are tired. …”

  “And you are not? Did you not watch beside him until he died, and did you not watch the following night beside his body? And are you so far restored to health that you did not feel every hour of those watches as a year off your life?”

  He did not answer that he had loved Hamo; she knew it.

  She sighed again. “Well, today is another day. I have to ride out to the farm, and then make my rounds in the infirmary. If I could rest, then … but I cannot, for my sister and brother are returned. Elaine will wish me to spend some time with her, and the priest wants. …” She laughed, a hard laugh. “He wants me to hand over Hamo’s legacy to the church. Did you know that Hamo had left his all to me? The money I shall distribute in alms at the gate, but the manor. … No, and no. Doubtless the priest will have some more hard things to say about my lack of piety … did you not know that I was devoid of Christian charity? Oh, but I am. I will not give those acres of rich meadowland to the church. I do not know yet what I will do with them, but they are mine to give or withhold, and surely I will withhold them if it seems to me right to do so. Telfer is to have two of Hamo’s books, and the others I will take for myself … until Christmas, that is. His clothes are for you, and his desk and other furniture. His room in the keep is also yours … you must have a page show you where it is, and you must sleep there from now on.”

  “Are you sure you want me to stay?”

  “No, I am not sure, but that was what he wished, and so. … Come or go, what difference should it make to me?” She gave him a look of defiance.

  “No difference, if you would have it so.” He looked back at her, holding her eye in his.

  “Why then, do we discuss it? Oh, I want to hurt someone … something. …” She clutched at her hair, and now tears came. He made a movement towards her and she fled, the door of the chapel banging closed at her heels.

  “Christ preserve us!” said Gervase, in heartfelt prayer.

  He went out into the chill morning. The dog had been waiting outside the chapel for him. Gervase bent and fondled Flash’s ears. What now?

  Jaclin strode up, arms akimbo, surveying Gervase. “Well pigsmeat! Back on your legs again? No longer needed to nurse the old man? No excuse now, have you, for refusing to serve me? See my new sword?” He gestured to where a long blade in a well-remembered scabbard hung at his side. Gervase looked and his eyelids contracted with the effort not to show how keenly he felt his loss. He told himself that he had parted with the sword of his own free will, yet was that strictly true? Had he not been feverish at that time? Or was his distress due to the fact that he felt Jaclin unworthy of such a good weapon?

  “Your pardon,” said a liveried servant, bowing low to Jaclin, “but the clerk is required instantly in the keep.”

  Jaclin grabbed a handful of Gervase’s gown, and drew him near. Eye to eye they stood, while Jaclin exposed his teeth, and his colour deepened.

  “You’ll show me that trick now … scum that you are!”

  “And be dismissed the castle within the hour, because I refused a summons to the keep?”

  Jaclin’s gaze lost its intensity, and he loosed his hold. “Well, go then. Crawl to my cousin Crispin, as Hamo did. Crawl, snake; down on your belly and crawl. And when you have finished crawling you may creep to the tiltyard and if there is any manhood left in you, I will make you eat it!”

  Gervase bowed, and turned to follow the servant.

  The man waited till they were crossing the courtyard, and out of Jaclin’s hearing, before venturing on a comment. “It is Master Telfer that sent for you … not my Lord Crispin. But I thought you would not wish to go with Master Jaclin, anyway.”

  “I thank thee. I am hardly fit enough yet to tangle with him. Back, Flash! You must not come with me today.” The dog seated himself, wagging his tail. “Back home, I say!” Gervase indicated the door to the cloisters. The dog whined, flattened his ears, and slowly wi
thdrew the way they had come, turning to look back after Gervase many times until he finally disappeared from sight.

  The servant shook his head at Gervase. “If my Lord Crispin sees that dog … he has a hasty temper. …

  Telfer was sitting at a table in a pleasant room high up in the keep. The glazed window overlooked a walled garden, and the panelled walls were painted in a cheerful design of red and green. There was no fireplace here – doubtless that was why the old man had been taken down to the infirmary, where the end cell could be heated. Not many bedrooms, even in a well-maintained castle, could boast of a fireplace. However, there were cushions on the settle, and skins had been laid over the rushes on the floor. A smaller room led off this – more of an alcove than a room – in which were a bed, a chest, and a stand for washing things. A comfortable chair, together with a footstool, stood by the window, and beyond that a cupboard on the wall contained books and rolls of paper. A great press behind the door was also filled with papers, and beyond lay an oak chest with a massive lock, the lid of which now lay open so that they might see the contents. The servant bowed and left the room.

  Telfer stared at Gervase, and Gervase stared back. There was about this encounter something of the wary assessment of two gladiators in the ring. Neither could be sure of the other’s goodwill or intentions.

  Telfer spoke first. “This is your domain. Those are the tools of your trade. They are bringing up Hamo’s writing desk and other effects now. Here are your keys. Guard them with your life. The manorial rolls, the proofs of Malling’s ownership, are in that chest. Any monies you collect should also be kept there. You will see there is no money there now; of this we will speak later.”

  In silence Gervase took the proffered bunch of keys and attached it to his belt.

  “Next door to this you will find two clerks, junior to you. They are to be trusted so far but no further. They are limited in experience though one of them, Hamo said, might be considered promising. The affairs of Malling are administered from these rooms, and you will hold yourself available at all times for those who wish to speak to you on such matters. Theoretically, you are responsible only to Lord Henry, but in practice you must also consider the demands of his son. I will give you what assistance is in my power, and the clerks will explain to you what is usually done.”