by Norah Lofts
He said, as they approached the little town, ‘Tana, we must now be careful. We need help from the Church and if they knew the… the truth about us, help might not be forthcoming.’
‘Why do we need help from the Church or anybody. We are free, we have plenty of money.’ She sounded defensive.
He needed to make contact with the one international body that he knew of. After all, William was a Bishop, able to read and write the Latin which was the Church’s common tongue. William, he thought, would not have accepted his complete disappearance without some enquiry and where a question could penetrate, so could information. He was not so stupid as to imagine that anyone, friar or priest, in this little country town on Spain’s border, would have information of what had been happening at Knight’s Acre in his absence but it was possible that they could put him into touch with someone who did.
His natural delicacy—remembering last night and all the other nights—prevented him from explaining honestly; so he said that what he craved was some news of what had been happening in England during the past six years.
Tana, prey to no such scruples said, ‘You mean your wife!’
She had known of Sybilla’s existence—and of the four children—from one of the first of their supper-time talks. He had offered the information then with no thought of being defensive. She spoke of her past, he spoke of his. Nor since the flight of innocence had he in any way deceived her, careful to point out that in England a man could only have one wife. Nor had he been free with endearments; nothing more than ‘my dear’, never, even in his most abandoned moments, using any of the terms which were Sybilla’s, ‘Darling’, ‘Sweeting’.
If Tana sensed any reticence in him, she gave no sign; her own endearments were fervent, picturesque—had he known it, Oriental in flavour.
She now asked, ‘What do you mean by being careful?’
‘Sleeping apart.’
‘It will take the heart out of my breast. But if it is your wish…’
And so they entered Santisteban.
EIGHTEEN
At first their welcome was not very warm; their shoes were in tatters, their clothes in rags and much soiled; they looked like beggars and foreign at that. But they had money and by chance the first inn they saw was the best in a town that boasted four. Tana proved herself capable of communicating by mime; they needed food, they needed wine, hot water for washing; after that she needed more hot water in order to wash her hair; they both needed clothes and sleeping places—she folded her hands together and laid her head on them in sleep’s posture. She gave Sir Godfrey a look that he could not interpret and held up two fingers. Two rooms.
Life in Santisteban, except on market days, was dull; a small crowd gathered to peep through the open doorway or window to view this couple who had come from nowhere, looked so poor yet acted as though they were rich. Somebody ran for the priest.
He was a fairly young man and intelligent; he had more Latin than many of his kind who knew just enough to stumble through a ritual. Sir Godfrey had never known more Latin than was needed to make the correct response and even those phrases, through long disuse, were rusty; also his Latin was English-Latin, Father Pedro’s was Spanish-Latin and the two things were different; but Sir Godfrey crossed himself and said a Hail Mary, quickly and badly but just well enough to establish himself as a Christian. Then Tana mimed again; on the white scrubbed table she drew a Crescent, enemy of the Cross; she pointed to the mountain range and then ripped from Sir Godfrey’s shoulders what remained of his Moorish peasant robe and exposed the scars which the scalding khurbash lashes had made.
And the priest, understanding the mime, said, ‘Where is Fernando?’
He was easily found. An old man now, crooked and crippled, willing—if he could be caught sober—to undertake any job which a one-armed man could do. But, like Sir Ralph Overton and many another man, he had once, until he was disabled, worked his way about the world. He was a professional mercenary.
Partly to compensate himself for his now humble status and partly to lure an absorbed audience into paying for another cup of wine, Fernando told long, boastful stories about his adventures and the priest sensibly decided that if there was one person in Santisteban capable of understanding these strange tongues, Fernando was the man. He knew less than he claimed to do but wine emboldened him to bridge any gaps with guesses. He informed his hearers that Sir Godfrey was English and a Christian and a martyr; he had been a prisoner with the Moors and beaten very often for refusing to give up his faith; he confused six with sixteen, thus increasing the captivity by ten years and, failing to understand Tana’s role in the story, explained that she was Sir Godfrey’s daughter.
To his audience, few of whom had ever been more than twenty miles from Santisteban, Fernando’s cleverness was impressive and Sir Godfrey’s story so moving that tears were shed, generous and pious resolves taken on impulse. There must be a feast to welcome back this man from the dead; two feasts, in fact, one given by the civil authorities and one by the members of the Hermandad, that ancient, self-elected body of men who were responsible for the keeping of law and order. Kind ladies ransacked their wardrobes to provide Tana with an outfit and the tailor’s two most respected customers managed to convince him that it was nothing less than his duty to enlarge the suit of clothes upon which he was currently at work, to make it fit Sir Godfrey, too tall for borrowed clothes, and to do so fast and without charge.
Father Pedro also knew a generous impulse. A prisoner with the Moors, this good Christian must certainly have neglected his religious obligations and probably committed sins as well; but he had suffered for his faith and was entitled to leniency, an overall absolution and a mass of thanksgiving. Never an ostentatiously pious man, and for years a stranger to God, Sir Godfrey was greatly touched by this consideration for his soul; and although he knew that the priest would not understand, he confessed that he had committed adultery, many times. He also knew that absolution always included the adjuration to avoid the occasion for sin. This, in his mind, he was determined to do; and he asked, as he had not formerly done, God’s help in resisting temptation.
Tana, miming sleep, had indicated a wish for two rooms but that was because Godfrey had said they must be careful; she had every intention of waiting until the house was asleep and then creeping along to his bed. In this she was thwarted because the inn-keeper’s wife, though sharing the charitable impulse and saying that she would not charge for accommodation, was thrifty, too, and did not prepare guest rooms. Tana was to share the bed of her own daughter—what more could anyone ask? Sir Godfrey had a bed in a room which held four, one occupied by the son of the house and one by a permanent guest, a childless widower who found living at the inn more convenient than keeping house on his own.
So they slept apart; and the civic feast and the Hermandad feast were both strictly male gatherings. ‘I did not think it would be like this,’ Tana said, looking more miserable than she had done during the hungry days. The wives of the leading citizens of Santisteban were kind to her but she was not grateful. ‘It is like being back in the harem again. With dumb women! They give me things—which I could buy—and they pat me. Like a pet monkey.’
He felt sorry for her, the more so because he was beginning to enjoy himself. He was back in a world which though strange was not completely alien to him; he could talk only to one person, Fernando, and that imperfectly, but then he had never been much of a talker and when men lifted winecups and smiled in his direction, he understood. And smiled back growing, minute by minute, more into the shape that he had once known, a man among men. There were even moments when he dared to think hopefully of Knight’s Acre; James and Emma only five miles away; William at Bywater, Walter close at hand… All his family and many of his friends had thought, at one time or another, that he was feckless and now that quality in him which had made him buy Arcol and thus run into debt, and build a house a bit bigger than he could really afford, took over. He had a naturally happy nature an
d all his training had been directed at a certain insouciance. A man of forethought—what if my horse stumbles or, riding at the ring, I do not withdraw my arm soon enough and break my shoulder—such a man could never have become the knight he had been, reckless, feckless.
As he was restored, Tana dwindled. She had her moment, astride a horse again. Fernando had understood the word horse, the two uplifted fingers and the word “good”. He was also capable of understanding that though clothes, accommodation and feasts might be free, horses must be paid for and he had provided the best that Santisteban offered.
Tana could not get away from this disappointing place quickly enough and she rode as Sir Godfrey had never seen a woman ride before, crouched low, her hair—what had happened to the net?—mingling with the horse’s back-blown mane. Wicked, absolutely wicked to think that she brought to horse-riding the same violence and skill as she brought to love-making and to remember and yearn …
They now carried with them what was virtually a passport, written by Father Pedro, warmly commending, to anyone who could read Latin, this Englishman who had come back as from the dead. The letter repeated Fernando’s errors about how long the imprisonment had lasted and about the relationship between the man and the girl. It also mentioned something very near to Father Pedro’s heart. He judged it unlikely that a man regularly beaten for adhering to his faith would have been able to have his child baptised; since the baptism of those of mature years demanded some collaboration from the subject, and since he could not communicate himself with the girl, Father Pedro could only hope that should this letter fall into the hands of some English-speaking priest, he would take action.
For the first four days of their journey the letter was very helpful—even in one small village where the priest could not read it completely. He recognised Latin when he saw it, however, and gave the missive due respect. The village inn being so poor and squalid, he invited Sir Godfrey to sleep in his own house and arrange for Tana to be accommodated in the home of a parishioner. Tana said, with some justification, ‘You are using the Church as a shield against me.’ She hoped very much that soon they would be forced to halt for the night in the open, or in some village with an inn and no priest, both hopes doomed to disappointment for they were riding through a countryside relatively highly populated and Spain, though its civil life was falling into chaos, was still the most ardently religious country in Christendom; every village had a priest.
On the evening of the fifth day they reached a town which had what Sir Godfrey had been hoping for—a Dominican Priory in which lived a friar who understood English, who had in fact spent some time in London. For Sir Godfrey to be able to communicate was like being freed from another form of captivity. But the interview took an embarrassing turn. He had already handed in his letter and there were discrepancies. Sir Godfrey had said six years, the letter said sixteen.
‘That was a mistake, Father. I was in captivity for six years.’ He tried to explain about the man in Santisteban who knew a very little English; he mentioned being in Escalona in early 1453, in the attack upon Zagelah in the February of that year. His congenital inability to narrate and explain did little to allay the ever ready Dominican suspicion. Nor did it account for the young woman, described in the letter as his daughter. Unless English knights had begun to take girls with them when they went into battle. Even that Father Ignatius could almost believe, having lived in England… At the same time Zagelah, six years ago, had made a mark on the collective Dominican consciousness. Father Ignatius switched his impersonal, celibate gaze from the young woman, admitted to the only room in the Priory in which women were allowed to set foot, said:
‘There was a report that the Count of Escalona took certain members of my order with him.’
Sir Godfrey did not regard this as a test of his genuineness but he gave the right answer.
‘Oh yes. There was Father Andreas and six others, younger men.’
‘Of their fate nothing was known; death was assumed. Any detail would, of course, be welcome.’
‘I cannot say what happened; only what was arranged…’ his clear, candid gaze clouded. ‘In a battle one does the part assigned… There is no time… The Count of Escalona had his son… It was arranged that he and the religious should follow when we had made an entry—and cleared the streets…’ Impossible now not to remember Robert, roasting inside his armour. ‘It was a disaster. The Moor, Abdullah, we betrayed; and so were we in turn. I never heard of any other prisoner. I think my death has been assumed.’ That brought him back to his real reason for seeking out an English-speaking member of the loosely-knit but widespread Church. ‘My brother is Bishop of Bywater… I rather hoped, or wondered, if enquiries… or news from England.’
‘Enquiries would hardly have reached us here, Sir Godfrey. In Seville, possibly. Some news seeps through from time to time. Civil war, I understand, brief and ending in a compromise.’
This news did not affect Sir Godfrey much. War was still something that involved only fighting men; his sons were too young, James was too old and William had never been a militant cleric. He had himself once fought in a battle on a field between two others; in one a peasant was ploughing and in the other a boy was flying his hawk.
Then Father Ignatius said, ‘And the young woman? Is she your daughter?’
‘Does the letter say that? In Santisteban there was this one man… an old soldier who knew a few English words. No indeed. This lady was also a prisoner. In Zagelah; and I owe my freedom to her. But for her I should still be there…’ Suddenly the weight of his debt to her settled on his mind as heavily as the marble slabs had pressed on his shoulders. But for her…
Tana sat there, upright, immobile, scowling, so obviously aloof from it all and yet disapproving, that only someone with a rightful regard for her immortal soul would have ventured on the next question.
‘Is she a Christian?’
‘No, Father.’
‘A Moor? A Moslem?’
‘No. She… she has a faith of her own. But I do not understand it. The lady only speaks Arabic—and my knowledge of that language is limited.’
‘There are Moors in Seville. Converts,’ Father Ignatius said, not sorry to defer the matter but adding that Sir Godfrey must be mindful of his duty and his responsibility. He then changed the subject by enquiring whether they needed financial assistance and seemed relieved to learn that this was not so. He recommended a certain inn.
That night he woke and in the dark, in the haze of being aroused from a deep sleep, found her in bed beside him. For a moment the thought that he had only dreamed the awakening and was now dreaming this, for like all cautious travellers in unfamiliar places he had bolted his door. But she was real enough—and importunate.
Once, hotly and openly pursued by a lady intent upon dalliance, he had felt ridiculous, so much so that he had cancelled his name from the lists of remaining events in the week-long tournament and simply fled, feeling even more ridiculous. But for that lady he had had no feeling at all; with Tana his flesh was at least in love. And although he had vowed to God—What could God do, short of striking one of them dead or him impotent? Which was far, far from being the case…
Afterwards she snuggled against him, soft and content as a cat. He asked how she got into his room, and she said, through the window. That should perhaps have sounded ludicrous, too—and would have done with any other woman—but with Tana it was simply further proof of devotion, unintentionally inspired and completely undeserved.
‘Now that I belong to you again, I shall enjoy this country,’ she said.
With another woman it would have been possible, even easy, to think an uncouth thought—A bitch on heat—but not with this woman who had been willing to die for him and with him.
And a fall from grace was a fall from grace; depending only upon his own will, he had made a resolution and failed; asking the help of God he had made a vow and broken it; repetition of the offence could hardly worsen it.
So t
here followed days and nights over which, in memory, an enchanted air seemed to hang. They were free and, for the first time since they had attained freedom, Tana was happy. It was still fine weather and away from the hills warm, even at night. They now avoided villages and towns or paused in them only long enough to buy food. Money knew no language, coins in a palm, a finger pointing, obtained them all they wanted.
They made no further contact with the Church. News, if there was any, would be in Seville—where this happy gypsy journey must end.
He had occasional bad moments, realising that when there was no sexual traffic between them—as in their first days in the mountains and in their first days in Spain, he had been able to see himself taking Tana to England, of somehow fitting her into his life. So long as she was his saviour, the thing was possible; while she was his lover, it was not. That must be thought about—not today, tomorrow. Some obscure instinct told him to make best of now. And now was travel through country where the first-harvested grapes had already been crushed and made into wine, unmatured, something one drank like water and within a short time felt the effects of; where the later-harvested grapes were being gathered and carted, in donkey panniers, on low carts, on the backs of women; where, because the wine harvest was a season of plenty, meat was available. And Tana could cook, in two ways. She could make a tripod of green branches over a fire and from it suspend a joint, much in the manner of somebody using a spit, or she would dig a hole, line it with stones, light a fire in it and then put meat and onions, wrapped in leaves, into the red-hot cavity and close it down with the clods.