Gifts of the Queen (7 page)

'He who would destroy a castle,' Raoul said, 'must grind it to dust. Henry's men did their work well, but not well enough. Had Geoffrey of Anjou been alive to see to it, we had not been so fortunate.'

He was rubbing his hand over the stone as he spoke. I passed my hand over another, as did his men, at first hesitatingly, and then with growing comprehension. Beneath my fingers, the beveled edges ran cool and straight. There were many such stones, piled upon each other, pried out of place, levered out perhaps. Some had shattered as they fell, some had been smashed with hammers, but for the most part, they lay where they had been pushed, intact, ready to be used again.

'And see here.'

On his knees, with a dagger in his left hand, he was already scoring lines across the patch of earth; each time he spoke, he etched the lines in deeper as if to make an imprint that would last. 'Henry's men left us another hint on how to rebuild Sieux,' he was saying. 'Henry himself is a good siege master, as are all the Angevins. Here, 'a slash,' he breeched the wall. Well, it was a weakness as we all knew. From the battlements, there was no view down, a blind angle then that must have been remedied some time. When we rebuild, we'll throw out a skirting wall, a curtain wall, thus and thus.'

Again a decisive stroke. His men were already hunkering around him, drawing lines of their own, arguing, agreeing. One summed it all. 'By the Mass,' he said, straightening himself and scratching, 'I cannot cut stones, nor yet lay a wall to order, but, by God's breath. I'd haul those stones with my teeth to best that bastard yet.'

'You may have to,' said Raoul. He smiled at us, the scar on his cheek suddenly very clear. 'Used stones will spare us time and expense. We needs must save both . . . They have given us the stones of Sieux. We shall use them to advantage.'

There speaks my hawk, I thought, well-satisfied, and left them to their talk. Presently, they went back to the fire, opening a wine cask, one of the villagers had brought, settling down to their drinking, their storytelling. Thus did they honour their dead companions, after all, that they should not be forgotten. And for the first time since our sad homecoming were the men of Sieux mourned and comforted in soldier fashion.

I lay by myself, content to have it so, and thought too of my father Falk, and of his dear friend who had been Raoul's grandfather, and of all the men they had known who would have remembered them. And I thought too, almost defiantly, that when my child, my son, was born, he should have memories of Sieux's towers . . . standing strong again.

When Raoul returned to his place beside me on the inner wall, he was more cheerful, or rather, overlying grief were plans, things that could be done. Yet, as he eased his long legs in beside my own, I could feel the tautness of his body like whipcord.

'You are over-reached, my lord,' I told him softly, 'rest now.'

He sighed and stretched himself painfully. 'Others have said as much,' he admitted. 'King Stephen, when the mood was on him, would swear I'd carry his kingdom on my back. Well, it is my way. I am too old to change.'

He leaned upon his saddle. For a moment, with his eyes dosed, the lashes against his cheeks, he gave the lie to his own words. He looked almost as he used to do, the laughing, mocking boy who had plagued me when we first met. A great wave of sympathy coursed through me that this, his happy day, had ended so bitterly. To hide my thoughts, I went on resolutely.

‘Is there no one nearby to help us, no friend?'

He sighed, answering as if to a child. 'When I was in England last year, there were not many men then to give me help. Still fewer here. I would not alarm you, Ann, who, God knows, has suffered harm enough, but I have shown you where Sieux lies to the south of Normandy, between it and Anjou and Maine. Now that Sieux is destroyed, the Norman barons would like well enough to take my lands. If we can but keep secret our plan to rebuild, that will give us a breathing space. Henry cannot leave England now. The Angevins have slunk back to their dens and will not stir without him; let's hope the Normans will bide their opportunity to deal with us.'

'Cannot the king help you,' I said, quailing at his words although his voice was calm. 'King Louis of France?'

He did not think to do so before.' And Raoul's voice was still level when he spoke. 'Louis may live to regret his lack of foresight. But he is a shifty man, never letting his right hand know the left. He should be quicker to our defense a second time, not liking Henry to have gained so much land as to own three-quarters of France. Nor does he like it that Henry also owns his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine who once was Queen of France. Louis does not take kindly that she left him to marry Henry within two months. I should not like it myself. I'd not let my wife leave me to take another man.' He smiled at me. 'So it is to Louis's gain to keep Sieux as barrier between Henry's lands south and north, but I would not rely on Louis to act as he ought.'

He shifted awkwardly to find resting place, burst out 'God's breath, but it is no jest to be trussed up thus, like to barnyard fowl, not able to belt my own sword on. Devil fry me, I had not thought these wounds would take so long to heal that I am like to die of boredom first.' He was silent for a while until again, the words broke out. I had never heard him speak so unguardedly. 'Ann, I am caught here in a trap. I must endure it best I can, but it will be hard on you. If we go back to England, then are we truly in Henry s grasp. If we bide here, the wait will be long and dangerous. We shall have to shift to defend ourselves. Will you mind that? Will you mind to be so far from friends and home at such a time? By the Holy Rood, I did not bring you here for this.'

I tried to tell him what was in my heart; if only he would be safe, then could we all be safe from Henry's reach.

He said, almost unexpectedly, 'Long have I known Henry of Anjou, since we were both lads here in France. And ever since that boyhood, he has pitted himself against me. Ambition gnaws at him that he must be first, and he has inherited the Angevin rage along with their lands. That rage will choke him yet; it twists him from man to beast. He is a good soldier, that I grant, but rage destroys his reasons, turns him mad. It is his greatest enemy.' He smiled his rueful smile, 'And to think I showed him once how to hold a lance. Got rot me, that he should ride as I do. Or did.'

He was silent for a while after, shifting and turning on his hard pillow.

‘It is not easy to fight with your left hand,' he said, as if admitting to a weakness. 'I can do it if I must. It is the strangeness that takes your opponent off his guard. Although, after the first surprise, he has your weaker side exposed to his counter thrust.'

Again, silence. At last, he said what I believe was truly in his heart. ‘I thought to bring you here to keep you safe until your child was born. By my knightly oath, no less an that.'

When he spoke me fair, I wanted to put my finger to his lips to stay his words. Hard was it for me to tell him openly how I felt for him. But God had given us each other back; we were man and wife by God's grace; an archbishop had seen us wed; surely, by God's mercy, we should live to know each other's worth. Yet he had been forced to marry. Without Henry's threat, might he have still thought on his past loves, and remembered his old betrothal, his former pledge to the Lady Isobelle? Would he resent marrying me?

He had lived long alone, trusting no one's counsel but his own; since boyhood had he fended for himself, pitting his wits against the intrigues of Stephen's court, I think it was hard for him to trust anyone, or to put his naked thoughts before the world. I know his pride was cut to the quick that his physical weakness left us so exposed. Once the most active and brave of men, he saw weakness as failure, and failure was more painful than those unhealed wounds. When he spoke of such things, simple as his words were and often hidden beneath a jest, they seemed forced from him as if he confessed to some crime. Beneath them, I sensed the hurt of a vulnerable man, sensitive to the needs of all he felt his duty to protect. And what he said was simple indeed.

'Nor hold it against me,' he said, 'that I make so poor a show of protection for you.'

'And you,' I whispered back, my confession to match his own, 'you will not mind, who could have married a great lady, to take me of so little worth?'

'Mind,' he said, 'and what is worth more than one who would have died for me.'

He stretched out his hand and took mine in his own. 'You have been great comfort to me these past months,' he said 'Without you, I would be dead. What other friend stood by me in Henry's court ? What other woman have I known who would have endured today with such grace? It was to have been other than this, our homecoming. But lady, this day is done. Passed, if not forgot. Since we cannot go back, we must go on. We have scarce had any time to ourselves since our marriage day, so long since first I took you to my arm: on such another day when we won Cambray for you.' He smiled, that rueful smile. 'I thought to have had you to myself this night,' he said, 'unless, lady, you would shrink from me, a crippled man who gives you a bed of stone.' He jested, but underneath there ran a hint of truth.

I turned to him, where his hand was slipping around my waist beneath his cloak, his clever fingers already feeling for the laces of my shift. I tried to tell him he was all that I desired, but shyness held me back. I could not speak for fear that I should weep. And then his mouth was covering mine and there was no time for words. I tried to say. It is not meet but those words did not come either.

Now I think that he was right, now I believe that it is both right and just that life should be born of death, that after sadness, pleasure comes; grief is not forgotten because it is put aside for its place. We lay beside each other on the ground. Everything was still, only the beating of my heart like a drum. Nothing mattered then, Henry's revenge, our present danger, the loss of Sieux. It was the first time since our marriage we had been alone, cut off from the rest of the world.

'And now I have you,
ma mie,'
he said, his hand about my breast. I felt his thumb brushing against the tip, I felt myself arch up, felt him trace down between parting thighs. 'What more meet than Norman pleasure his lady to her heart's desire.' Mouth to mouth, body fitted shaft and cleft, his fingers moved upon a feathered tide. And when I met each thrust, I heard myself cry out like a bird, high and exultant. He wound my hair about my throat and stopped the sound with his own mouth.

‘Ann,' he said, 'who has bedeviled me since first we met, so you are now bid welcome to your castle keep. If all is lost, we have had this.'

Well, this was the homecoming we had. I cannot distinguish now, nor could not then, pain from pleasure; bitter-sweet it was and like all the rest foretold, both true and false, so intermixed you could not tell which was which. Well again, grief there was, and happiness, and if no safety yet a homecoming of sorts. And if nothing else, we had had this.

Presently he slept, an uneasy sleep, and I noticed how often his left hand stretched, tensed, toward his sword hilt. So at Sedgemont had he lain, after his wounding when his men had placed an unsheathed blade within his grasp to let him have the feel of it. Athwart the moon, new rain clouds were already gathering, casting shadows across his face. What thoughts, what fears, lay behind those dark-fringed eyes, to make him start and turn? Who here was hunter, who the hunted, what the snare? One thing was certain: there was nowhere else left for us to go; his other lands in France, Auterre, Chatille, were too scattered, too small, unfortified. Nor should we look for friends; Sieux was ringed with enemies. And suppose that Sieux could not be rebuilt, suppose Henry's army came back, suppose Raoul's right arm did not heal . . . you see how my thoughts went turn and turn about, to make me twist as restlessly. Not for the first time, I took comfort in the memory of my mother, Efa of the Celts, that lady whom I had never known, how she had left her kin, married a Norman who had been her father's enemy. Her marriage had not been easy at the start, yet in the end, it had turned to love. They say my father, Falk, saw her first on the walls of a mountain fort which he and his men had taken under siege. On seeing her, a soldier in battle's heat, he had desired to possess her, made a bid to take her as a hostage for his orderly retreat. Thus a truce was signed between him and the Celts; an ill-omened start for marriage, you would think, yet so strong was the bond between them, my father and this Celtic bride, that in losing her, part of him had died, that in losing her son, his own heart and life had ceased. Should not I hope as much from my marriage to a Norman lord? But then, I thought of what the lady of the moors had hinted at. Once in our Celtic world, there were many women who possessed such ability to foretell the future as she had done;
awenyddion
were these soothsayers called in our tongue, who spoke as if in trance and, waking, claimed it was the will of God speaking through their voices. I do not know if their claim was true, but this I do believe: if God, as I think, put it into my mind to remember the lady of the moors on such a day, which of itself must be engraved in memory, there must be reason that, in time, would be revealed. And I should know it too if only I had the skill to make it out. Double-tongued, she had been, but not for malice or pride, almost sorrowing had she spoken.
On your lips be it recorded, not on mine.
Now for the first time, the thought ran cold, suppose what she had said was yet to come, the truth or untruth of it not yet proved, and all that had gone before was only prologue to the rest. I tell you, it was that realization most of all that haunted me. We were not safe then, not home, the prophesy had not yet begun to be fulfilled the worst still lay ahead. And I also thought this. Three times in my life so far has it been given me as gift (if gift it is) to see time out of place, and never have I wished to know what it had shown. Dear God, I would not want to have that power to foretell what happens to poor souls. Poet, long were the prayers I made to preserve us all from harm. And, most of all, I prayed that out of this morass my noble lord could find a safe way through.