Longsword

by David Pilling

  Godberd fell onto his back and lay prone, wincing at the pain in his bruised spine. The din of battle raged around him. His opponent had landed face down in the mud. When he was recovered, Godberd heaved the man onto his back and twisted off his helm.

  The face underneath was young, clean-shaven and handsome, or would be if not disfigured by a broken and bleeding nose, bloody lips and a swelling eye.

  “Name?” rasped Godberd. The youth was clearly concussed by the beating he had taken. The pupil of his good eye struggled to focus.

  “William Leyburn,” he mumbled. “Sir William Leyburn. I yield.”

  Godberd struggled to his feet. The sound of fighting had receded into the distance. He looked around and saw they were alone, save for a few bodies and a couple of riderless horses. His men had routed the enemy, whom he presumed to be royalists, and chased the survivors into the forest.

  He turne back to his prisoner. “Leyburn. I know that name,” he said. “There is a Marcher baron named Roger Leyburn. He fought for and against Simon de Montfort. Are you a kinsman?”

  “His son,” the fallen knight croaked. Godberd’s heart leaped. An enormous ransom could be screwed out of Leyburn senior, assuming the old turncoat wanted his son back.

  He was checked by the memory of Abbot Simon lying unconscious on the floor of Garendon Abbey, his aesthetic face beaten to a pulp. Godberd had allowed his greed to override his better judgment at Garendon, and ordered his men to assault a defenceless monk.

  For all his bluster, he did fear God. Shame and fear of divine punishment assailed him. Now another man lay defenceless at his feet.

  “This is a test,” Godberd said aloud. Leyburn stared up at him, uncomprehending, and looked even more baffled when his conqueror grabbed his wrists and helped him to his feet.

  “I’m keeping your horse,” said Godberd, “and your sword. Where did you come from?”

  “Leicester,” the youth replied, still dazed, his legs wobbling.

  “Then you and your men, if any are still alive, can walk back to Leicester.”

  “No ransom?”

  “None. Hand me your sword and go, before I change my mind.”

  The young knight did so and limped away. Amazed at himself, Godberd watched a fortune in ransom money disappear among the trees.

  “It must be a test,” he muttered. “Did I pass?”

  As ever, there was no reply.

  18.

  Esther’s strange existence at the rebel camp in the Isle of Ely had begun to take on a dream-like quality. There were times when she expected to wake up in her lonely bed in Lincoln, with Miriam hammering on the door and demanding to know if she intended to get up or sleep until Christmas?

  God remained deaf to her pleas of escape. Sir Robert d'Eyvill forbade her to leave the top floor of the hall, ensured she wanted for nothing, and allowed no-one but his servants to enter. Two of his sergeants guarded the stairs.

  Esther found his attentions both unsettling and repulsive, and struggled to remain polite during his visits. Robert was hopelessly awkward and tongue-tied on these occasions. After uttering a few meaningless pleasantries, he would turn on his heel and depart in a hurry.

  Lacking any other diversion, Esther spent long hours at the window. More men came in every day, fresh horses and supplies and equipment. The rebels made frequent sorties into the surrounding countryside. Esther glimpsed the trails of smoke from their raids.

  Plundering, burning, and killing. Esther was sickened, and vowed to try and escape at the first opportunity. Perhaps she would be killed in the attempt.

  It was better than remaining among devils, she thought.

  Her eye was frequently drawn to the little group of tents in a corner of the bailey. That was where the Jewish women were kept. None of their ransoms had been paid yet, and they were still being used as whores by the garrison. For some reason the soldiers didn’t use them during the day, perhaps from some perverted sense of shame. At night she could hear their screams and pleas for mercy.

  That was not her only ordeal. Robert insisted on sleeping in her chamber, on the floor next to her bed. His naked sword lay in the space between them. He never touched her, or spoke, but even so Esther found his presence unbearable. To share a bedchamber with a man who was not her husband, and a Christian to boot, was revolting. She passed most of her nights in sleepless prayer.

  On the fifth day an unlikely saviour arrived in the form of Robert’s brother, Sir John. Esther stood at her usual place by the window and watched his approach from the west. She counted almost a hundred men at his back, banners flying, spear-heads gleaming in the autumn sun. He raised his mailed fist in salute as the gates of the bailey swung open to admit him.

  D'Eyvill didn’t take long to make his presence felt. Esther heard his harsh voice as he inspected the camp, and was grimly amused to witness his confrontation with John Fitz John. The two exchanged harsh words, and then d'Eyvill struck Fitz John in the face and knocked him to the ground.

  Esther stood back from the window. What would happen now d'Eyvill had returned? So far Robert’s authority had protected her, but his brother was in command here.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall below, followed by raised voices. Esther sat on the edge of her bed and listened.

  “It is not enough,” she heard d'Eyvill roar, “to discover our valuable hostages are being used as camp whores. I must also be informed that my own brother, whom I once credited with a degree of sense, has been keeping one of them as his mistress! By the Face of Lucca, is this a military camp or a brothel?”

  “She is not my mistress. I have not touched her.” Esther recognised Robert’s voice, low and sullen.

  “What, then?” d'Eyvill demanded. “Fitz John tells me you keep her here in isolation. No-one but you and your servants have seen her for days. Where is she? Who is she?”

  Robert mumbled a reply that Esther couldn’t hear, but it drew a bark of laughter from his brother.

  “The moneylender’s widow!” he cried. “I thought you were making sheep’s eyes at her, back in Lincoln. My poor besotted brother, what do you hope to gain? She will never lie with you unless you force her, and there will be no more of that in this camp. Esther of Lincoln has rich relatives in York. They won’t pay a decent ransom for soiled goods.”

  Now it was his brother’s turn to lose his temper. “She is not some chattel, to be sold at market!” he yelled. “You will not raise a penny for her! She is mine.”

  Esther raised her hands to her face. If there were any doubts before, she now knew that Robert was infatuated with her. He must be, to defy his fearsome brother.

  “Well,” she heard d'Eyvill say in a quieter tone, “this Hebrew witch has certainly lit a fire in you. For the sake of peace in the family, I’ll indulge it. But she can’t remain here. Put her out of sight somewhere.”

  A moment later Esther heard familiar footsteps on the stairs. Robert appeared, flushed and trembling.

  “You heard, lady?” he asked. Esther gave a mute nod.

  “Come with me. Please.” He offered his hand.

  She rose, steeling herself. “Do you still hold to your promise not to dishonour me?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he replied, giving her a startled look.

  “Then I must insist on being allowed a little more freedom. If you keep me hidden away, everyone will think I am your concubine.”

  Robert hesitated. “We will come to an arrangement,” he said, “but for now, you must come with me.”

  She reluctantly took his hand and followed him down the stairs.

  19.

  The Beast and his followers were among the men John d'Eyvill brought back to the rebel camp at Ely, loaded down with plunder taken from the town and abbey of Ramsey.

  As soon as he arrived, Hugh began work. He made himself useful about the camp, volunteering for menial tasks such as fetching water and firewood. It suited him to be thought of as a dependable halfwit. That way no-one looked at him twice as he wan
dered about, or suspected that all the time he was compiling mental lists: stores and fodder, horses and pack animals, arms and armour, the number of knights, sergeants, archers, crossbowmen, esquires and servants. Hugh meticulously listed them all, down to the last spear and crossbow.

  At meal times he sat slightly apart from his comrades, listening with an expression of dumb incomprehension to their talk and grinning foolishly whenever anyone glanced at him. Master John had advised him this was the best and least dangerous way to operate as a spy in an enemy camp, even though it meant swallowing his pride. If the rebels didn’t suspect him, they didn’t respect him either, and he had to endure any number of insults.

  “Here’s your dinner, lackwit,” some greasy brigand might say, offering him a handful of greasy straw from one of the fodder bags. Instead of responding as he would have liked, Hugh gaped stupidly and tugged at his forelock, much to the hilarity of the brigand and his mates.

  Despite these humiliations, all went smoothly until he saw the black-haired woman.

  He was in the stables in the outer bailey early one morning, checking on his grey courser. The Beast had believed his claim to have stolen the animal from Grey, but wouldn’t allow him to keep her.

  “A serf like you, riding a thoroughbred?” the Beast had sneered. “I think not. She is mine now. You may rub her down and feed her for me.”

  He was annoyed at losing the horse, which he had named Falcon, though unsurprised the Beast had seen fit to take her. She was far superior to the common rounceys, sorrel horses and baggage ponies that occupied the stalls next to her. Hugh took care to keep Falcon up to strength. He planned to steal her back when the time came to desert.

  The black-haired woman entered the stables with two hard-faced youths for an escort. They scowled suspiciously at Hugh.

  His eyes fixed on her. She was tall, almost as tall as him, willowy and graceful. Her raven hair was unbound and fell in tresses to her waist. Perhaps not classically beautiful – her mouth was a shade too wide for that – to Hugh she looked ethereal, an angel stepped out of an altar-painting.

  He was too awestruck to notice how thin she was under her ankle-length blue smock and red shawl, or the lines of suffering and exhaustion in her face.

  She stopped and returned his gaze with interest.

  “Most men in this accursed place look at me with lust or revulsion,” she said in a tired voice, brushing back a lock of hair, “often a mixture of both. I have become adept at reading their eyes. You, however, look at me as though I was some graven image.”

  One of the esquires stepped forward. “Keep your eyes to yourself, pig,” he snarled at Hugh, “or I’ll have them out on the point of my knife. Understand?”

  Hugh tried to look contrite. The esquire was just a boy, with arms like twigs and a pathetic attempt at a beard on his spotty chin. He stuck out his pigeon chest and tried to deepen his voice, obviously trying to impress the dark-haired woman.

  “Leave him be, boy,” snapped Esther, “and take your hand off that dagger lest you do yourself an injury. I want to talk to this one. He seems interesting.”

  The esquire coloured. “Our lord said you were not to talk to anyone,” he began, but she waved him and his smirking companion away.

  “Go and stand by the door,” she said. “I’ll call for you if he starts molesting me.”

  Chastened, the boys shuffled off, casting dark looks over their shoulders. The woman smiled tautly as she approached Hugh. Her smile, he noticed, didn’t reach her eyes, which had a feverish, hunted quality about them.

  “This is a beautiful animal,” she said, stroking Falcon’s muzzle, “fit for a lord, though you don’t have the look of one.”

  “I am nobody, lady,” Hugh replied, “this is not my horse.”

  “I am no lady in the Christian sense. My name is Esther. I am Jewish.”

  He gazed at her stupidly. He knew of the Jewish prisoners in the camp, but had not ventured near their enclosures. His late father had hated Jews with the same intense passion he brought to everything else, and taken part in attacks on Jewish communities in London.

  Hugh’s views were mixed. The Jews he had seen in London seemed like quiet, busy people, keen to get on with their lives and avoid being noticed. They were unbelievers and usurers, certainly, but he had never witnessed Jews murder each other in the manner of supposed Christians.

  “You haven’t told me your name,” Esther prompted. Her eyes searched Hugh’s face.

  “Hugh Longsword,” he answered. “Forgive my rudeness.”

  Esther looked away, delicately stroking the courser’s mane. “Longsword,” she mused with the hint of a smile, “what a suggestive name. Do you live up to it, I wonder?”

  Hugh reddened, and she stifled a laugh. “Ah, now you must forgive me!” she cried. “That was unworthy, especially since you’ve been so courteous. More so than any other man in this pit of devils, save one.”

  Her face clouded. “I have a self-appointed guardian. Thanks to him, I have been spared the worst. The other women were not so lucky.”

  Hugh didn’t respond, and she carried on talking. “He kept me hidden away, first in the hall, and now in a draughty old storehouse, with only grain and mice for company.”

  She lowered her voice and leaned closer. “I was desperate to get out, so feigned an interest in horses. That appealed to him. He occasionally lets me come down here and fuss over the animals.”

  “Who is he?” Hugh asked warily, wondering why she was so quick to confide in him.

  “Sir Robert d'Eyvill, brother of the knight that commands this pack of thieves. That made you jump. Did I frighten you?”

  Hugh cursed his lack of composure. “I don’t know him,” he explained. “I came here in the company of his kinsman Sir Nicholas. The d'Eyvills are not a family to cross.”

  “No-one knows that better than I,” said Esther. “They dogged my poor husband to his grave, robbed and murdered my neighbours, took me away from my home.”

  Her voice was tinged with anger. Twin spots of red appeared on her pale cheeks. “Not an hour goes by that I pray to be quit of this place,” she added. “A ransom demand has been sent to my relatives in York. Whether they will agree to pay it, God knows. I have not seen my kin since I was a child.”

  Again he sensed that she was trying to read his thoughts. In the corner of his eye he saw her guards shifting impatiently, keen to be gone.

  “I will be here every day for the next week,” he whispered, “at this time.”

  Esther gave a little nod. “Take good care of the horse,” she said in a loud voice, “she is a finer animal than you deserve.”

  She turned and walked hurriedly out of the stable.

  Hugh visited the stables at the same time for the next three days. Esther didn’t come. His disappointment was tempered by the knowledge that she had to be careful, and decided to keep his routine going. Sometimes he was distracted by thoughts of her beauty, and had to force himself to set lust aside and ponder their brief conversation. Esther had made no secret of her desire to escape from the camp. She was either naïve or desperate to say as much to a complete stranger.

  Hugh let his heart and loins rule his head. He had already gleaned enough information to take back to Master John at Kenilworth, and decided to take Esther with him. He poured all his mental effort into planning their escape.

  The day after meeting Esther he took part in a raid led by the Beast. The outlaws descended on a peaceful little settlement called Dry Drayton, an estate of nearby Crowland Abbey, and burned the village and the manor house to the ground. Hugh helped with the firing of the church, and rode back full of loathing; for himself and his unwanted comrades.

  On the morning of the fourth day Esther returned, shadowed by the same two esquires. There were more people in the stables this time. Hugh was careful not to look at her as he gave Falcon a sack of oats mixed with sweet fresh straw, taken from one of the barns at Dry Drayton. To keep the horse trim, he daily exercised
the courser in the meadows west of the camp.

  Esther paid him no heed either. The esquires dogged her steps as she walked along the stalls, singing quietly to herself.

  “Good morning, Hugh,” she said in a bright, brittle voice. “I have prevailed on Sir Robert to allow me more freedom, and he promised to take me hunting tomorrow. There is plenty of sport to be had in these fens, no end of stags and roe deer. The men need to eat.”

  She glanced sidelong at Hugh. “Anyone is allowed to take part in the hunt, if they wish.”

  “I’ve never ridden on a hunt before, but I will come,” he said blandly.