Longsword

by Veronica Heley

“In the convent, you mean? You go at Christmas, don’t you? Ah, I shall miss you. Crispin says Father wants me to be married at Christmas. Then we shall both be gone. …”

  “Yes, in the convent. What am I to do with myself? Sit and embroider, sit and listen to the gospels being read at me? Kneel and pray? Kneel and sing? Sit and pray? Walk slowly around the cloister with my eyes on the ground? Talk softly within permitted hours, and eat to the sound of yet more readings from the gospels?”

  “It is a good life, surely.” There was gentle rebuke in Elaine’s voice.

  “For some, maybe. But for me? Think, Elaine! Think of what I am … and think of that life. For once in your life, Elaine, think! And help me! Am I not busy from morning to night, working with my hands and my head and every part of me? Is there a minute of my day in which I am safe from interruption for some question of the household, or of the infirmary? What of the constant cares of the farm, and its produce? Of the charity at the gates? Of all the hundred and one things I do during the day … am I to stop short, and do nothing for the rest of my life?”

  “To pray is a holy work … a lifetime’s work. …”

  “So Father Anthony says. I do not believe it.”

  “Blasphemy!” whispered Elaine, her eyes going to the door. Suppose someone should overhear …!

  “Commonsense! Prayer is all very well, but it is not enough. I can sit in the chapel and think with pity of the poor people at the gates waiting to be fed, and I can call down blessing on their heads but that will not put bread into their mouths, will it? A poor man’s sores need to be tended, a starving child to be given food … ‘feed my lambs’ … prayer is nothing … you have to use your head and your hands to get anything done.”

  “But without prayer … you pray twice a day … you go to Mass. Beata, what has come over you? This is most unlike. …”

  “I have feared the future for years, and thrust the thought of it from me. Every time someone reminded me that I was destined for the church, I would experience a sense of shock, and then I would think that something would prevent it from happening! Why, last year my departure was postponed … why not this years also? Why should I ever go? For weeks at a time I have been able to forget, except when my hair grows long enough to remind me that every twelvemonth it will be cut short again, to remind all men that I am not a woman … just a thing destined to be sold to the church to redeem my father’s vow … his pride, rather …!”

  “Beata, I must not listen to. …”

  “You will! Elaine, I think I am going mad!”

  Again Elaine’s eyes went to the door, but this time in the hope that someone might come and help her. She asked, “Have you spoken of this to Father Anthony?”

  “I have tried, but he dismisses my words as the foolishness of a girl who is fed over well. I am told to fast, to make a novena of prayers. I have done neither. I need my strength to carry out the work I do here among the sick and the poor. I need every minute of my day, not to spend in prayer, but in nursing the sick, or in so arranging matters on the farm that I have money for charity. I have no time for prayers as you think of time for prayers. I sit down and try to pray, and the thought of some sick child, or of some task left undone comes into my mind, and the more I try to dismiss it, the more uneasy I become. Sometimes I force myself to sit still for almost half an hour, and when I get up, I fly from the chapel as if on wings, and there are always a hundred more things to be attended to, because I have stolen that half hour from my true work. …” She had finished. Head bent, and hands lax, she dropped onto the bed and sat there, quite still. She did not weep, but shivered and then set her teeth.

  Elaine fidgeted with her hair, and with the neck of her gown. She put a pleat in her skirt, and then smoothed it out again. Twice she opened her mouth to speak, and twice closed it again.

  At last, “You asked me for help, but what can I do?”

  Beata lifted her head. Her eyes were ringed with shadows, and she looked ill. She put out her hand, and it trembled. Elaine took her sister’s hand, and patted it, making little noises of a reassuring nature, as if she thought her sister were sick in her body, and not in her mind.

  “Would you help me distribute alms at the gate at sunset every night? Would you come with me round the infirmary, and see what has to be done there? If I am to go at Christmas, someone must be found to take my place. …” She gave a hard sob, a dry sound, quickly stifled. “I know what you will say; you are leaving at Christmas, too, and therefore cannot help me. Yet there must be someone, somewhere in the castle. … There is a man who might … the affairs of the farm would be safe in his hands, and he could be trusted to see the money went to charity, and not into my father’s coffers. …”

  “The new secretary? The one Crispin put in the stocks? He made a bad beginning, but. …”

  “Perhaps Hamo was wrong to think Master William had been sent here to help us … perhaps he will not stay. Perhaps it would be better if he went.”

  “Oh, no,” said Elaine, yawning. “Crispin likes him now. He was angry to hear his orders had been disobeyed, and he thought the new clerk held his head too high for a servant, but when Crispin went to see how he did in the stocks, Master William was studying the manorial rolls, lying flat on his back, reading. …” She laughed at the remembrance. “With the two other clerks fussing around, writing notes at Master William’s dictation! Crispin threw back his head and laughed, and so did we all. Then Crispin bade Captain Varons release Master William, and said he would give him a purse of silver coins to ease his back.”

  “I wish I had been there,” said Beata, convulsively clasping and unclasping her hands about her upper arms. “I had been sent to be scolded by Father Anthony. Could he stand unaided?”

  Elaine did not make the mistake of thinking her sister’s query was for the priest. “Not at first, but Crispin took one of his arms, and the younger of the two clerks took the other, and then Master William bowed his thanks to Crispin. Crispin told him not to be such a fool again, and that was that.” Now she, too, fell to fidgeting. “I wish Sir Bertrand were not coming. I wish it were not he. I wish. …”

  “For Gerald?”

  “Perhaps.” She sighed. “for no-one special, but Gerald would do, I suppose. Crispin says Father will hold a tourney here at Christmas to celebrate our double wedding, you to the church, me to Sir Bertrand. …”

  “Horrible!” said Beata. “If I must be sent out of sight, let it be with the minimum of ceremony … let me creep away, unnoticed. To celebrate a forced marriage, to expect me to smile and enjoy … no, I could not!”

  “Ah, but you will!” said Elaine, putting her arms round Beata. “You must help me, and I will help you, and we will go smiling to our bridegrooms. I shall need your supporting arm when I met him again. I must confess I am a little afraid of this Sir Bertrand. …”

  “You will enslave him, as you do all your other lovers.”

  “I do not think so.”

  Beata put her head on her sister’s shoulder, and they clasped one another, seeking comfort. And though neither found the reassurance they sought, yet they found some ease in having opened their hearts to each other.

  Chapter Seven

  Gervase went looking for the Lady Beata, and found her in the cloisters of the infirmary. She drew him into one of the unoccupied rooms, telling Anselm to go on ahead, and that she would be with him in a minute.

  “I am a little stiff,” he admitted, acknowledging her enquiry as to his health. “But a ride out to the nearest manors will clear that. What I wanted to ask you was about. …”

  “Rocca,” she said. “Yes. I will tell you what I know, but it is not much. He was appointed bailiff on the death of his father – who was bailiff here for some twenty years, and who was a good man withal. Rocca was appointed on Crispin’s recommendation some two years ago, even though Hamo opposed him at the time. At first there seemed little reason to suppose the appointment a bad one. The returns from the farms hereabouts increased slig
htly. The harvest was good that first year. However, this year we had a dreadful storm which flattened the crops just when they should have been harvested. You would have expected the yields from the peasants to have dropped because of the storm, but they didn’t. My father, of course, was pleased. But I have noticed as I ride to and from the Glebe Farm that a certain air of neglect … I do not know that I can give you anything by way of evidence. …”

  “You think he squeezed the peasants to give the same high return this Michaelmas as if there had been a good harvest. You think he did it to curry favour with your father – or your brother?”

  “Yes. Also, there have been tales of villeins fleeing our lands, which never was the case before, and each one that goes reduces the rent roll … and I know Rocca boasts of having put down seditious talk among the peasants with severity. I may be wrong, but I think he confuses ‘grumbling’ with ‘sedition’, in order that none dare speak against him, or petition my father for leniency. There are whispers among my folk at the Glebe Farm about Rocca, but they will not talk freely, even to me. They seem to think Rocca all-powerful. He is supposed to have been promised the management of the Glebe Farm, in addition to those he already has, when I go into the convent. I do not think my father has given him this promise, but Crispin might have done so. This worries me; the Glebe was part of my great-grandmother’s dowry and the profits have always been devoted by the women of our family to charitable purposes. I suppose Crispin will say that he will gladly set aside an equal amount from the ordinary revenues, to be spent on charity, but it is not the same thing as having control of the finances myself … and I suppose he could also say that there will be no-one to administer the affairs of the Glebe properly when I am gone, and that Rocca will have to do it in my stead. Joan will not do it, nor Elaine … if they can tell wheat from barley I should be surprised … or add a column of figures, or bully the miller, who will be honest only so long as he is in fear of my tongue. …” She caught herself up, and went out into the cloister, tying a veil over her hair, and fastening her cloak.

  “Well, that is enough of my troubles. I must ride out to the Glebe today, for my reeve’s eldest son is sick, and I promised to send him over some medicine last night, but then … something happened to prevent me. If I go straight away … there is a poor woman came in last night; she is still in labour this morning, and the midwife in the throes of another case. …”

  “Your hair is beautiful,” he said, following her, and speaking low. Her hands stilled, and her colour rose. Her eyelids drooped, yet she spoke no word to reprove him for his impertinence.

  “Ah, there is Jaclin …” She turned from him, speaking sharply. “He is waiting for you, no doubt. I wish he had a feeling for the land. I am never so happy as when I ride out and about, but he … if only he could even read and write! But he is all for the tourney, and war. I suppose he has heard that Father intends to hold a tourney here at Christmas.” He exclaimed something. “Yes,” she said. “Jaclin intends to blood your sword prettily … that is exactly how he talks about it, as if it were a magic weapon, to ensure his conquering all in the lists. …”

  “He is a fool.”

  “Treat him gently, for my sake, if not for his own. He longs to be a great warrior, to have my father notice him, to be of importance in the world.”

  “Hola, Master William! Why were you not in the tilt-yard this morning? Did I not tell you I wished to practise?” Jaclin grinned. “I hear you need to be chastised before you will obey orders – is that so?” He grasped Gervase’s upper arm, and shook him. “Is … that … really … so?”

  “Enough, Jaclin!” said Beata. “We ride out on business now. When Master William has an hour to spare. …”

  “Will you not ride with me?” said Gervase to Jaclin. “We could practise in some private glade away from the eyes of the curious … and your knowledge of the country would help me to a better understanding of my duties.”

  Jaclin smiled. Preening himself, he led the way to the stables, where the Lady Beata’s horse was already saddled up, and a sorry-looking mule waited nearby for Gervase.

  “You cannot ride that!” said Beata, to Gervase. “It was Hamo’s, but it is so long since he rode out … he was ailing for over a year.”

  Gervase put one long leg over the mule. The soles of both feet touched the ground. He looked around, collecting the attention of the grooms.

  “Have you nothing a trifle higher off the ground?” he enquired, with no sign of ill-temper.

  The head groom, laughing, allowed he might be able to supply something more in keeping with Gervase’s height.

  “Something good,” said Jaclin, fussing over the girths of his own horse. “He rides out with me, and I don’t want him falling behind.”

  The head groom, after enquiring if Gervase were accustomed to the saddle, produced a sluggish palfrey. Checking Beata’s protest with a smile, Gervase said the palfrey would no doubt be excellent if he intended to amble along, writing letters on horseback, but as he wished to encompass two manors that day …?

  A frenzied barking interrupted them, and Flash tumbled into the yard, tail oscillating. He flung himself on Gervase, who pulled his ears and disentangled the frayed end of rope which had been tied round the dog’s collar.

  “Oh, no!” groaned Beata. “Has he got free again?”

  The head groom hid a smile. Jaclin stared. Gervase looked at the head groom, who kicked thoughtfully at a pebble. “Well?” said Gervase. “Are you going to give us away?”

  “I will take him back to the Glebe with me,” said Beata.

  “I doubt he will go willingly,” said Gervase, fondling the dog, who expressed his appreciation by rolling over on his back, with his legs in the air, wriggling and growling with mock ferocity.

  “Fetch the roan,” said the head groom to one of his lads.

  “And as to dogs … dogs come and go, and we don’t take no notice of ’em … right?”

  “The roan?” queried the stable lad.

  “Yes,” said the head groom, smiling at Gervase. “The sooner Master William is out of my yard, the better … with all his party. …”

  The roan was a good horse, and after a small difference of opinion with Gervase as to who was going to be master, suffered him to do as he wished. They rode west to the Glebe, where they left Beata, and then went on to the first of the outlying manors administered by Rocca. Jaclin became loquacious, pointing out this and that, condemning a neglected coppice here, and a tumbledown cot there. The eyes of the peasants were sullen as Gervase and Jaclin rode among them. They worked listlessly, and the ribs of their beasts of burden showed as sharp ridges through their hides.

  “They all look half-starved to me,” said Gervase to Jaclin.

  “They’re a feckless lot,” replied Jaclin, shrugging. “Doubtless they’ve been drinking. Father Anthony says they’re a den of sinners down here. Rocca’s always complaining he can’t get them to do a proper day’s work.”

  “An empty belly does tend to slow you down,” said Gervase. He slid off his horse to visit the mill, to which the peasants must take their corn to be ground. He came out looking thoughtful. “Not enough corn going through the mill to feed the sparrows! I thought this was supposed to be the most prosperous of the manors hereabouts … that is, according to the taxes levied last Michaelmas by Rocca. I see no signs of prosperity here, except. …” He pointed to a large house which was even now being extended by an extra wing. “Is that Rocca’s house, by any chance?” It was. Gervase looked at the bailiff’s house, and then looked at the lathe and plaster hovels that made up the rest of the hamlet.

  “Come on!” urged Jaclin. “We’re wasting time. There’s a convenient glade in which to practise half a mile on.”

  Stripped to the waist, Gervase tried to teach Jaclin how to throw the sword from hand to hand, and how to wield it with equal skill in either hand … and failed. Jaclin began to curse, and to become angry with Gervase who could manage it so easily.
/>   “I am left-handed,” said Gervase, trying to explain.

  “A sign of the devil in you,” snarled Jaclin.

  “Then why seek to master the trick of it?”

  “Because I want to be the best! I must triumph at the tourney at Christmas. My uncle shall give me the prize, and then I shall go to the wars, and earn fame and fortune. …”

  Gervase put his head between his hands, fatigue immobilising him. He was too soon out of a sick-bed, too ill-equipped to teach a healthy young animal like Jaclin … and above all, he was out of sympathy with what Jaclin wanted to do.

  “Surely your uncle needs you here, checking such creatures as Rocca …?”

  “Such work is for peasants! Come, we will at it again!”

  “I can do no more today,” said Gervase. “But tomorrow at dawn I will meet you in the tiltyard – or where you wish – before I commence the day’s duties. And whenever I ride out, if you wish to come with me, we can take the opportunity of practising in secret. It may be some time before you are able to take on a fully-armed knight in combat.”

  It was soon after dawn in the tiltyard. Jaclin, on horse-back, had been trying to hurl his lance through a ring which dangled from a chain above his head. Three times had he driven his horse past the ring, and three times failed to score. Now he beat at his horse until it reared, protesting at this ill-treatment.

  “It is not the horse’s fault,” said Gervase, growing angry. He threw off his cap and gown, and as Jaclin slid down from the horse, Gervase gentled the nervous animal with hand and voice. “You must ride parallel with the wall, and not at it,” said Gervase. “You are pulling the horse to the left at the last minute, and thus spoiling your aim. Also, I think you changed your grip at the moment you thrust forward. …”

  “You think you could do better?” Jaclin’s temper was mounting.

  Without a word Gervase picked up the lance, mounted the horse, steadied him, and set off down the yard … steadying the lance, lifting it with elbow crooked, thrusting it at the ring, which did not even twitch as the weapon passed through, and then catching the lance again as he cantered forward.