by Rose Tremain
“Denmark was lost at Lutter!” says Christian. “All that it had been until then in prosperity, in esteem. For we paid dearly there, so very dearly . . .”
“And Bror Brorson was one who paid?”
“Bror should never have died! Our infantry were far outnumbered and I saw hundreds upon hundreds of our pikemen fall. But Bror should have survived, because the cavalry held on at the centre and on the left flank, and we regrouped and mended the broken lines and faced Tilly’s onslaught three times, and at the third I cried out to the men that we could do it, that Tilly’s cavalry were falling . . .
“But as we turned to go in for the third time my horse went down, shot from under me. You cannot know what sudden confusion and terror assails the cavalry soldier who finds himself on the ground, what helplessness and feeling of smallness! He knows that he is undone unless, by some flux in the battle, another horse, one that has no rider and gallops wildly about the field, comes his way. For battles are won by movement, by the forward push, and a fallen cavalryman, in his heavy armour, cannot move properly and feels that he will be hacked to death in the very next moment.
“And so I called out, to say that my horse was gone . .. and then what I saw ... a cavalryman turned out of the advancing line, and came riding back to me and dismounted. The noise of the fighting was so terrible that at first I could not hear what he said to me, so then he thrust the reins of his horse into my hands and I understood that he wanted me to take his mount.
“And it was Bror. I said: ‘I shall not take your horse, Bror! I shall not!’ But he, even then . . . when I had seen already how he was . . . so thin that he looked almost starved . . . even then in spite of this, he was strong, just as he had always been, and it felt to me almost as though he lifted me onto his horse, and the next moment I seized the reins, just as though the horse had been mine . . .”
“By giving you his horse, Bror Brorson did no more for his King than any man would,” says Vibeke, but Christian is not comforted by these words.
He is pounding the area of his heart with his fist. “As I rode away, I told Bror to go towards the woods, to take a musket from one who had died, but when I looked behind me he had not gone but was standing where I had left him, watching me ride away. I knew what he felt . . . how helpless and how his armour that I had insisted upon imprisoned him and prevented him from running to the safety of the copse. And yet I did not stay—I could not stay! I knew that all depended upon my cavalry and so I had to ride on, to rejoin the line, to urge them forward.
“The line was still holding. And I thought to myself how, in all probability, Bror had saved my life and how, with our cavalry, we would now win the day and ride back to Denmark bearing victory in our hearts and on our sleeves. And then I would rescue Bror! I was determined upon it, and how splendid it appeared to me! I would make amends for all my years of neglect and bring Bror to Rosenborg to care for the horses, and order that he be well housed and fed, and given the respect that he deserved—as the King’s friend.
“But it was then that I saw, coming into the valley, the new men Tilly had held in reserve. I had not had them in my calculations. And they were a wall of men, numberless, or so it seemed, a wall that could never be broken by such of us as remained.
“When their musketeers began firing, I gave the order to retreat . . . This was my only tactic, for I saw that we were beaten.
“We wheeled round, some of those behind unseated by the sudden turning of the front line, and I cursed myself for my want of skill in the field, berated myself that I had led my soldiers here to this chaos, and imagined how I would never be forgotten for this and did not deserve to find forgiveness.
“We rode back across a valley of Danish dead, and the shame and sorrow of this I knew that I would always remember. But we could not stop to take them up and carry them with us. Our own cannon had been captured by Tilly’s infantry and began to fire upon us as we fled.
“We rode through Lutter, northwards. And after a little time I could hear Tilly’s army singing and cheering, and the sound of this froze my heart. Because I could guess how many we must have lost. And the folly of this—when I might have stayed in Denmark and never come into these Religious Wars at all—all the horror of this came into me, just as though I had been pierced with a sword, and I could feel my flesh go cold.”
Again the King falls silent. Vibeke can feel, now, that the fever in his body has broken. He is shivering and his skin feels clammy, and she tries to pull up a coverlet, to wrap this more closely around him.
But he starts up, pushing the coverlet away. “Foul war!” he cries out, holding his throat, as though something were trying to choke him. “Worse than plague! War more terrible than all! For what men do ... the things that they had never imagined . . .
“For I went back, in the darkness, with others, to find the dead and bring them back. And by moonlight ... by the big summer moon, I came upon them, the dead and those who ... I had prepared myself to come upon our dead, but those we had passed in our retreat had seemed like sleeping men and what I had imagined were souls at rest.
“But there was no soul at rest in the village of Lutter. Not one. Hell was come in and barbarity such as my mind could not comprehend. We had known that Tilly’s men were lawless, that they dug up graves for gold, ransacked churches for treasure, raped the peasants’ wives . . . but here at Lutter . . .
“They had taken out his eyes. As if his eyes had been precious stones. And he was ... He had nothing to hold to or cling to nor any ground to lie upon, but he was in the air, impaled upon a stake, but not dead yet, Vibeke, not dead, not at rest, and his arms reached out and reached out—to hold fast to something, but there was nothing. There was nothing and no one. Only the empty air ...
“And when I saw him, I called out ‘Bror Brorson!’ saying his name, just as I had said it in the Koldinghus school when I fought death at his bedside. I kept on and on repeating it, louder, louder: ‘Bror Brorson! Bror Brorson!’ as if that saying of his name could save him a second time. Until I understood that by the force of crying it out, it was itself changing and becoming some other word: Rorb Rorson . . . Rorb . . .
“And then I had myself lifted up on the shoulders of my men and I took him in my arms.”
The King says nothing more. The story is told now. It is over.
He lies back against the pillow of Vibeke’s breast and he is very pale, with, round his eyes, an area of bruising that Vibeke touches gently with her thumb.
CONCERNING TRUST
As April comes in, Charlotte Claire draws a picture of the days remaining until her wedding. Each day is represented by some object connected to the task of preparation for becoming Mrs. George Middleton: a satin shoe, a lock of hair cut off by a pair of scissors, a prayer book, a lace garter, a recipe for a syllabub, a posy of lilies, a knife. When Anne Claire asks Charlotte why she has included the drawing of the knife, she replies: “It is not a mere knife, Mother. It is a lancet. It is to remind me that George is mortal.”
“We are all mortal, Charlotte,” says Anne.
“I know,” replies Charlotte, “but George is more mortal.”
As each Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday passes, Charlotte draws a neat line through it. And now only sixteen days remain. “I know,” she says to her father, “that it is ungrateful to wish time away. When I am old or even a little old, I shall wish it all back, I am sure, but it cannot be helped.” George Middleton, of course, has not been shown Charlotte’s picture of days. Though she wishes him to know that she ardently looks forward to her wedding, she does not wish him to know quite how ardently. He has no need to know this. It might make him complacent or too vain. But she thinks that she may keep the picture as a souvenir and, when she and George are ancient together, when their children are grown up and their grandchildren frolic on the Cookham lawns, she can dig it out from wherever she has hidden it and show it to him then, and perhaps a watery look—of tears or of laughter, it
does not really matter—will come into his eyes?
In his turn, George Middleton looks forward to the wedding day. He tells his dogs that “soon we shall have Daisy here.” And he has the feeling that, in a very short time, it will be as if Daisy had always been there. And this is exactly how the thing should be— conferring alteration upon the past by its absolute rightness.
Only one matter troubles him. A letter from Charlotte’s brother has arrived at Cookham and George Middleton finds that he simply cannot decide what he should say or do about it.
The letter is courteous and friendly, but rather brief:
. . . There are matters here in Denmark which prevent me from returning to England in time to see you married to my sister. I cannot describe to you what these things are, but must beg you to believe that they have an important bearing upon my own future. Will you therefore explain to Charlotte that, though I shall think of you and even play for you some little song on the third day of May, and that I long to be told I am to be the uncle of some beautiful Cookham child, I cannot be at the ceremony?
Suggest nothing to her that will trouble her. Do not show this letter to her, George, but only send her my tender thoughts like doves to alight on her and murmur to her: “Charlotte Middleton, you shall be happy and you shall be blessed.”
From your affectionate (about-to-be) brother-in-law,
Peter Claire
George Middleton rereads the letter several times, as if hoping that it might contain hidden instructions that he had not at first perceived. He wonders whether, in failing to perceive them, he is being obtuse. For, knowing about Charlotte’s feelings of foreboding concerning Peter, he is conscious of his duty to inform her immediately that her brother is well. But how is he to do this and at the same time distress her with the news that he will not be at the wedding? Furthermore, if he refuses to show her the letter, will she not believe, firstly, that something is wrong and, secondly, that he, George, is being secretive and cruel? Might it be possible to read to her only those small sections of the letter that will cause her no anxiety, such as the end of it? No, it would not. For she would not be content with this scrap; she would find some way to snatch the thing out of his hand. George Middleton sighs as he folds away the letter and feels cross that Peter has put him in such a predicament. It is all very well, he thinks, to give orders of this kind, but quite another thing to execute them.
The matter is much on his mind. He cannot forget Charlotte’s sudden faintness in her blue boudoir when she believed that some calamity had overtaken her brother.
George Middleton plucks from his vocabulary (which is not as extensive as that of clever men, but serviceable all the same) the word “trust.” He will resolve his dilemma by reminding Charlotte that mutual trust is one of the foundation stones on which good marriages are built and that, in this matter of her brother, she must trust him and not beg him to reveal more than he chooses to say.
He practises the sentences: “Daisy, my beloved, trust me when I tell you that Peter has his reasons for not returning . . . Daisy, my dearest heart, trust me when I say that, as a man, I understand certain things pertaining to Peter better than you . . .” And he hopes that this will be enough, that she won’t pester him and will let the matter alone.
It is early evening on the day of Charlotte’s arrival at Cookham. George has decided that the thing must be broached before dinner and so he knocks at the door to Charlotte’s room, where with the maids, Dora and Susan, recently appointed to serve the future Mrs. Middleton, she is trying on the new petticoats and underbodices they have been embroidering for her.
He expects there to be a pause, while the maids fasten Charlotte back into her dress, but there is no pause, and it is thus that George Middleton finds himself (as if he had stepped into a tableau) in a room where Daisy stands with her hair undone and falling down her back, and her arms and legs bare, and all the rest of her adorned in a voluptuary of white linen and lacy threads. She and Dora and Susan are laughing—whether at him or at some private joke he cannot say—and Daisy’s face is flushed, and she looks at him boldly, almost daring him not to retreat from the room.
He tells her that he has something of importance to say to her but that he will return later.
“Oh, no!” she says, reaching for a satin robe, which she puts on but does not wrap entirely round herself, so that her breasts above the bodice are still visible, “for I detest the postponement of anything important, George. Such things must be told instantly or else one may go mad with supposition and speculation. Susan and Dora will go out and you must tell me now.”
He feels that he should protest, but he does not. The maids retire, each with her little charming curtsy, and Charlotte invites
George to sit down on a fragile-seeming chair not entirely designed with a man of his size in mind. He perches on the edge of it. The room smells of applewood and of something else which is no more and no less than the smell of his future wife, the smell that reminds him of daisies.
“Well?” says Charlotte. “Speak to me, George.”
He clears his throat. He tries frantically to remember the exact phrases and sentences he was going to use, but finds that they have completely gone from his mind. The word “trust,” however, lingers there, unconnected to anything, yet still insisting on its own primacy. He is dimly aware that it is a word too heavy for Charlotte’s mood, which is the lightest, most teasing of moods, but it is all he can summon up, and so he begins: “I have been thinking, Daisy . . . pondering certain matters . . . and it has come to me how very important it is that we ... how absolutely vital it shall be that we . . .” “That we what, George?”
Charlotte sits on another chair, very near him.
He notices that her calves and feet are pink from the fire. He wants to lift her foot and take it to his lips and lick the delicate line of her instep. “Trust is the word I have come up with. In what I am about to say, I want to ask you ... I want you earnestly to believe . . . that I would never . . . that I should never do or say anything which was not honest and which did not have your . . . your . . .” “My interests at heart?”
“Yes! I want you to trust me, Daisy. Without trust, there can be no true marriage.”
“I perfectly agree. But I do trust you. I know you would never . . .”
“What?”
“Never take any advantage of me in any way.”
“No, I would not.”
“Nor hurt me.”
“Certainly not. Nothing could be further from—”
“So what have you come to tell me?”
Distracted, George Middleton is about to pull Peter Claire’s letter from his pocket, but then remembers that he must not do this,
that this is precisely what he must not do. But nor can he now, with Charlotte so near him in her petticoat and robe, embark upon the question of her brother’s absence from the wedding, because he simply cannot remember how to convey any of these things. His thoughts wildly spinning, his face beginning to go red, he stammers: “It was ... it was nothing, Daisy. I merely had a foolish longing to ... to see you ... to tell you before dinner that I love you and that you may always put your trust in me.”
Charlotte stares at George for a moment. Then she gets up and crosses to him, sits down on his knee (thus putting, he notes, the survival of the chair into question) and wraps her arms round his neck. “How wonderful a man you are,” she says. “How extraordinary that I am to be married to you!”
Then she giggles and bites his ear. The chair tips and his balance is almost lost, but he regains it precariously, and now he yields to the feelings that distract him and he kisses her mouth and her hair falls about his face.
Thirteen days remain until the wedding—with each one its own image in Charlotte’s picture. But just suppose, Charlotte thinks now, something were to happen so that we did not get through those thirteen days and so I never experienced a kiss like this one ever again? Just imagine if I were never to know what it was to be in Geor
ge’s arms absolutely? And so she makes a decision and, when she whispers her decision into George’s ear, all thoughts of his original mission regarding the letter fly out of his head and the only things that preoccupy him now are how fast he can remove his clothes and Daisy’s bodice and petticoat, and how silently, when she is there before him on the bed, he can glide to the door and turn the key in the lock.
The following day, while on a walk to the kitchen garden to inspect this year’s choux-fleurs, George Middleton tells Charlotte that Peter Claire is not coming to the wedding.
If he is surprised that she accepts the news quite willingly and does not press him to show her the letter (which he declares he has foolishly mislaid) it is because he does not fully know what she is feeling. He is a man and cannot entirely comprehend what it is, to a girl like Charlotte Claire, to savour her own power as a woman, with her wearisome virginity at last fallen away, and how the wonder of this is bound to obliterate—for the time being—all other concerns.
THE TWO SHADOWS
A few nights before the court removes itself to Rosenborg, even as the musicians prepare themselves for a return to the cellar, King Christian sends for Peter Claire.
He is weighing silver.
He looks up as the lutenist comes into the room and smiles, and asks him to play “the Lachrimae, the one you played on the night of your arrival.”
When the music ends he is invited to sit down, and King Christian reaches out a hand and lays it tenderly on his cheek. There is silence in the room, broken only by the ticking of an ebony clock, and then at last the King says: “Well, I told you there might come a time when I would be able to release you from your bond. I did not know when it would arrive. But it has come. You are free to go to England for your sister’s wedding.”
Peter Claire looks up to see King Christian’s face mould itself into a smile. The King removes his hand from the lutenist’s cheek to slap his own thigh with it. “I am pawning you!” He guffaws. “You see what I am come to, when I find myself forced to sell my guardian angel!”