Longsword

by Veronica Heley

  “I’ll ram my dagger down his throat!” exclaimed Crispin, and meant it.

  “It would be better simply to tell your father the truth,” said Gervase, passing his hand over his eyes. “I do not say that a trap such as you describe would not work, but so much would have to be left to chance, and. …”

  “No, I like the idea,” declared Crispin. “We will do it in the evening, after the jousting, and before the masque. Master William – Lord Escot, I mean – you must be hidden close by, to advise me when to jump out on him, and what to say.”

  “He is not to go back to the cage, then?” asked Beata.

  “Of course not,” said Crispin. Then bit his lip. “Only … his being out of the dungeons must not be known before we spring our trap.”

  “I will go to the infirmary,” said Gervase. “And shave off my beard. I shall find some old clothes to wear there, no doubt.”

  “Better still,” suggested Varons, “I will send you over such clothing as might be worn by retainers attached to some nobleman visiting the castle; Telfer will know which one. Then if you wish to leave the infirmary walls and are challenged – which is unlikely since so many strange faces are about the castle now – you will say you serve such-and-such a man.”

  “And keep your ring,” said Crispin, handing it back to Gervase. “Yes, I insist. It has acted as your messenger once, and you may have need of it again. Till tomorrow. …”

  Gervase bowed his thanks, and withdrew.

  A circle of tiring-women surrounded Elaine. The Queen of Beauty was seated, having a wreath of gold leaves set upon her fair head when Beata hurried in, her nurse at her heels. While the tiring-women laced Elaine’s dress even more closely to her slender figure, Beata pulled on a matching gown, and rammed another wreath of gold leaves on her head. As her nurse pulled Beata’s lacing tight, Elaine said with a sigh that she had been nigh on two hours getting dressed.

  Beata had been going to say something about how well her sister was looking, but desisted. She frowned. Then she saw that the tiring-women were also frowning.

  Beata said, “Perhaps it is the gold of the silk that makes you a little pale. It is too near the colour of your hair, or. …”

  Elaine said, smiling as if at a secret, “Yet it becomes you well, Beata.”

  “Oh, what does that matter!” Beata brushed her nurse aside. She was wearing a dress identical in cut and material to that of Elaine and yet, as was plain to them all, the Queen of Beauty appeared drab beside her darker sister’s flashing vitality.

  “A different wreath?” suggested Beata. “Something with colour in it?”

  “No,” said Elaine. “We have to wear identical wreaths of gold leaves, that they may be given to the victor in the tourney. You will enjoy being Queen of Beauty jointly with me, will you not, Beata?”

  “Oh, that! I suppose it depends who wins.” She made a gesture of dismissal, and the tiring-women and her nurse faded away. Beata seated herself by her sister, and began to stroke first her hand, and then her cheek. “Elaine, dearest. You look so pale. I was not going to tell you, but now. …”

  “He’s been arrested, hasn’t he? I noticed he was not at the feast, and one of the women said. …”

  “He is all right. Crispin had him released last night. But that is a secret, and you must not breathe a word of it … promise?” Elaine nodded. There was a slight smile on her face now, which pleased Beata, but her cheeks remained pale. “What would you say,” began Beata, “if I told you there might be a way of preventing your marriage with Sir Bertrand?”

  “I would like it.” said Elaine. “You know that.”

  “Yes, I do. I had not been in company with him above a minute before I understood the sort of man he was. I wonder what woman he took to his bed last night, to keep himself warm?” The two sisters smiled at each other.

  Elaine said, with a sigh, “It is useless to dream of such things. Father would never allow me to refuse him.”

  “Perhaps the man can be induced to withdraw. Perhaps I am trying to arrange it. Perhaps the man who can force Sir Bertrand to withdraw was once one of your suitors, someone it would not make you miserable to marry.”

  “Gerald?” There was a touch of hauteur mingled with incredulity in Elaine’s tone, which made Beata stare.

  “No, not Gerald. Of course not Gerald. What would you say to. …” Beata set her sister’s hand aside, and stood up. It had been one thing to talk of reviving the marriage between Gervase and Elaine to her brother, as if it were a remote possibility, but when it came to speaking of it directly to her sister, Beata’s nerve failed her. “It is asking too much!” she said, and put her hand over her eyes.

  “You have a headache?” Elaine asked softly. She put her arm round her sister. “There, now. It is all in the hands of God. I have prayed that this marriage will not take place, but if it is to be, then …” she sighed. “I would rather not wed him, I must confess, but I will not have you making yourself ill with worry about it. You know what you are, Beata; always busy with other people’s affairs, just as Nurse says! And yet I thank you for it,” She kissed her sister. “There! Now, you must look your best today … as indeed, you do! I wish the beggars at the gate could see you in this dress, with the gold leaves in your hair; they would never think of calling for me, then. I have been such a vain, silly creature in the past, have I not? Well, I am trying to mend my ways. I know now that when the people at the gate called down blessings on me, they were pleased to see someone looking pretty, but they would have been even more pleased if you had gone among them in an old gown, attending to their wants with your own hands. Beauty is nothing. It has brought me nothing but trouble. I am glad to be done with it.”

  “I don’t understand you. You are still beautiful, Elaine!”

  “You are more beautiful now than I ever was, and you will grow more lovely with age.”

  Beata threw off her sister’s hand, and thrust her fingers through her hair, forgetting the splendid wreath set there. She said, “Do you want him, or don’t you?” Then, seeing that Elaine did not understand her, she stamped her foot, and frowned. “Gervase Escot that was … Master William that is … Lord Escot, by the grace of God. …”

  But Elaine only stared at her sister, until Beata ran out of the room, and slammed the door behind her.

  Crispin woke late, and in a foul temper. He was only just in time to slip into his place in chapel before Jaclin and his comrade were knighted by Lord Henry. Jaclin, freshly bathed and shaved, wearing new clothes, made his vows in a ringing tone, earning the grudging approval of all those who knew his history. Perhaps he might turn out all right after all, they said, trooping back to the Great Hall after the ceremony. There a light repast was set out before a roaring fire, and there the women awaited them, clad in their most gorgeous gowns, ready to tease the men on their hopes for the tourney.

  Crispin, trying to catch his father’s eye, was disappointed. Instead, wherever he turned he seemed to find Sir Bertrand in his way, laughing too loudly, swearing too much, his roving eye confidently assessing the women in the hall; serving-women, washerwomen, noble-women … it was all one to him–or so Sir Bertrand’s eye seemed to say.

  Crispin ground his teeth and looked black. When Sir Bertrand made some jest about their letting the ladies pick the two sides for the mock battle, Crispin retorted that whatever side he led would beat Sir Bertrand’s. At which Sir Bertrand whistled, and one or two of the older men looked uneasy. It was not wise to take ill feelings onto the tourney field, said one. Blunt weapons or no, rules or no, you could not foresee what might happen if enemies met on the field.

  “Laws,” said Crispin, looking at Sir Bertrand, “are broken now and then … or bent to the advantage of the judges … but rest assured that those who break the law will themselves be broken by the law.”

  “Whatever that might mean,” said Sir Bertrand, setting his jaw at Crispin. Whatever else he was, Sir Bertrand was no coward.

  But Crispin only showed his
teeth in a mirthless grin, and tried to catch his father’s eye again. If only Lord Henry would see reason. …

  Beata, meanwhile, had succeeded in doing what Crispin had merely attempted to do. She took her father’s free arm while he walked with Lady Escot, and drew him to one side. Lord Henry looked at her with sharp black eyes and said, in a tone whose mildness belied its content, “I hear ill news of an undutiful daughter.”

  She gave him a brilliant smile and said mockingly, “Pray allow your undutiful daughter to remind you it is time we began the morning’s sport. And while we lead the company to their places, let your undutiful daughter tell you that though she has given serious consideration to such desperate remedies as running away, or throwing herself off the ramparts, yet she considers that since you were the instrument of bringing her into this world, and have fed and clothed her for nigh on nineteen years, so her body belongs to you … though her soul is still her own.”

  “Heir soul – I devoutly trust – is with God!” Lord Henry bowed his head no more than two inches as he fronted the company, with his daughter on his arm. Smiling, he indicated to the Clerk of the Lists that he was ready to proceed.

  “My soul?” said Beata, seating herself beside him. “Why, my soul remains my own – if I have such a thing, which I sometimes doubt. But that is no business of yours, Father. My body is yours, and you may dispose of it as you wish, but do not ask for intangibles as well. …”

  “My vow to the church binds you body and soul, Beata. …”

  And they smiled and bowed as they indicated that the abbot and the other noble guests should be seated. The Clerk of the Lists marshalled his helpers, directing the peasants to this side and that, re-aligning targets and benches on which the onlookers might be seated.

  “Your vow, dear Father, promised something you could not wholly fulfil. You, being at a loss for something with which to bribe God, promised him something which was of no great value to you: to wit, a girl child. I submit to you that though her body is yours to sell as you wish – as much or as little as any bond-woman on your estates – yet her soul is her own, and remains her own property, and does not fall within the scope of your vow.”

  “Well, well. We will let the Mother Abbess deal with your scruples.”

  “If I ever get there. …”

  His hand tightened on her arm. She turned a smiling face on him, and said, “I reserve the right to hope, even until the eleventh hour.”

  “You were content enough before. You will be content again.”

  “Now of that you cannot be sure, any more than you can be sure that Crispin will ever sire you another grandchild, if he is forced to remain shackled to a woman he finds repugnant.”

  “Do you try to bargain with me? Your willingness to go quietly into the convent, against Crispin’s divorce? Folly! You will both do your duty. You have no choice in the matter, either of you.”

  “Why, the letter of the law may be observed, truly. But the spirit? Can you force me to fulfil your vow by going with a willing heart? Can you force Crispin to enter Joan’s bed with eagerness? I think not. Any more than you can force Elaine to smile when she marries a man charged with attempted murder.”

  A great throng of country folk began to cheer as the first of the contestants were singled out by the Clerk of the Lists, and bowed before Lord Henry, prior to starting the first game.

  Men such as Lord Henry can smile and smile, and think of other things. So now he smiled, and his eyes flicked from Elaine’s pallor to where Joan sat beyond, munching on some nuts, with her eyelids puffy and her fat white fingers covered with rings … and beyond them to where the young maidens sat, fingering their locks, and whispering to each other, laughing and glancing at the young men out of the corners of their eyes.

  “That is a grave charge,” said Lord Henry, low in Beata’s ear. “Attempted murder? You can prove what you say, I trust?”

  “Lady Escot knows. …” Beata avoided answering directly. She bent forward, applauding the winner of a wrestling bout. Her voice was a murmur, easily lost … yet Lord Henry did not lose it.

  “You know nothing of the matter,” said Lord Henry to Beata, under cover of the applause. “You know nothing of life. My plans are well-conceived. …”

  “And include a faulty knight. …”

  Lord Henry set his teeth. The winner, a sweating, brawny smith, came up to receive a prize from Elaine; and then it was the turn of the archers.

  “Your suit prospered in the London courts?” asked Beata.

  “Thanks entirely to Sir Bertrand.”

  “Ah, the faulty knight. I wonder how impartial a judge he will find you, when he is brought up in court on a charge of attempted murder?”

  Lord Henry’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment his look of good humour vanished. Beata turned to look full in his face, and for a moment the two stared at each other. It was a contest as deadly as any they would see on the floor that day. Lord Henry had the advantage of years, and experience, but Beata’s superb beauty and will-power were founded in love, and would not be denied. Yet neither could say that they had won, when the plaudits of the crowd below dragged their eyes thither.

  “You have proof?” said Lord Henry, for the second time.

  “If you will come secretly to the green solar this evening, an hour before the masque is to begin, I believe you will be satisfied. …”

  “Beata!” But his daughter, smiling at him, had risen, and gone to bend over Joan, asking to change places with her.

  Lord Henry’s eyes glittered, for he was not accustomed to receiving a challenge on his home ground. In spite of years of self-discipline his first reaction was a violent one. But he could not order his daughter to be taken out and whipped in the middle of the games, and so he turned to Joan and was courteous, and smiled down at the contestants, who looked up so eagerly to catch his eye, waiting for a word of praise. And beneath his smile his brain began to work on the problems propounded by Beata.

  But Beata took Joan’s seat a little way along, where she could look across the contestants below to where a man in a hood, with whitened eyebrows and moustache, stood a head taller than the retainers around him, and watched her, and the contestants, and her … and her. …

  It was as if something had burst into flame inside her. She thought she could not bear the pain of seeing him and knowing there were only two more days … and on the second of those she would be turned into a thing of black and ugly poverty … and yet, although she knew it was folly that he should have come, she was glad and glowing with beauty and consciousness of his love, she leaned over to hand the prize to the winner of the single-stick contest. And the winner, poor fool, thinking the smile and the radiance for him, was so struck out of his wits that he could not even mumble his thanks, but had to be dragged away with his chin on his shoulder, still looking back at her.

  Presently Lord Henry beckoned Crispin to take his place and withdrew to a recess in a window nearby, where he might still oversee the company, but also talk in some degree of privacy with whomsoever it pleased him to summon to his side. As he settled himself Telfer and Varons came discreetly up, and behind them, though in more hesitant fashion, came young Master Thomas.

  “I am displeased with you, Telfer … and you too, Varons,” said Lord Henry, still smiling, but allowing his eyes to grow chill. “What an impossible position you have placed me in, allowing a rogue like Rocca to force my hand! The man came whining to me before church this morning, complaining that you have withheld Master William’s effects from him, against my orders.”

  Now Telfer and Varons had met that morning with the Lady Beata, while the better part of the company were in chapel, and they were well informed on the matter.

  Telfer lifted his arm, to show that he had an extra bunch of keys on his belt. “It was not Master William’s effects Rocca wanted, but the keys to the chest in which the accounts are kept. Master William thought they would be less misused in my hands than in Rocca’s.”

  “H
a! Rocca has cheated me? With my son’s approval?”

  “Your son now realises how hasty he was in putting Rocca forward for the position of bailiff. If you were to dismiss Rocca and set in hand an investigation into his accounts, I believe Crispin would be extremely relieved. As to Rocca’s villainy, Master William believed that if a search were to be made of Rocca’s house, papers might be discovered which would make all clear. More, if Rocca were to be detained here for questioning, the peasants would lose their fear of him, and talk freely. At the moment he has power of life and death over them, and they will not speak.”

  “Powers of life and death? Rocca? Who says so?”

  “Master William made a memorandum on the subject, which he entrusted to Thomas the Clerk. If you will cast your eye over it?”

  “You believe it?” Telfer nodded. Lord Henry expelled his breath with some force. His smile had vanished, and his fingertips drummed, lightly, on the arm of his chair. He said, “I am indeed in an impossible position! Everything that you told me last night, everything that I see around me, bears out your statement that I owe much to Gervase Escot, and yet … my hands are tied!”

  Telfer exchanged glances with Varons. Telfer said. “The man was wrongfully convicted.”

  “How can we be sure of that?”

  Telfer paused. “You looked into his face last night, my lord. You had already given the order for his arrest to Rocca. Once you have made a decision, you rarely have doubts, and yet it seems you have doubts this time. …”

  “Why should I have doubts?”

  “Because of what you saw in Gervase Escot’s face. You saw integrity, my lord. As we did. As Hamo did. You know now that Gervase Escot was not guilty of stealing his uncle’s ring. You cannot send him back to Ware in chains, to be branded, imprisoned and perhaps murdered by his enemy.”

  “The man should have left Malling before I returned. I could not ignore the presence of a fugitive from justice, once I had been officially informed of it.”

  “Let him go now, then … quietly. Let him be given means to escape. Varons will see to it. You need know nothing of it, and can make a great show of anger when it is eventually discovered that the man has gone.”