Lion Heart (30 page)
Huntingdon felt the weight of delay pressing on his shoulders. He had no secure means of passing a message to Hubert Walter, who was said to be in Angevin, travelling tirelessly to encourage Richard’s vassals to remain loyal, assuring them that Richard would be released soon. He had the Pope’s and the Emperor’s personal promise.
Now Huntingdon could wait no longer. He found it intolerable that he, who had fought the infidel and escaped death many times, should be held up by this minor bishop in a godforsaken corner of the world, a man made greedy for enrichment and fearful of reprisals. They would leave with or without the Bishop’s blessing, and without his escort. The Bishop had a small contingent of spies among the monks, and the knights only spoke of their plans when they were out in the woods hunting or exercising their horses.
Huntingdon invited the Bishop to speak to him: he said that he wished, as an act of gratitude, to show the Bishop the treasure they were carrying. Huntingdon wore his surplice and his soft boots of deerskin to welcome the Bishop. He took the key from a pouch that hung from his neck and unlocked the sliding bolt of the chapel and pushed open the door. Fully armed, William de l’Étang, Raoul de Mauléon, Bartholomew de Mortemer, Roger de Saci and Master Robert waited for the Bishop in the locked vestry off the chapel where the cross was kept in its gold-and-silver-banded cruciform reliquary.
‘In here, my lord Bishop, is the sacred relic. Pray go ahead.’
Roger de Saci emerged from the deep shadows and seized the Bishop’s arms from behind, as Raoul de Mauléon closed and locked the door. The Bishop was forced into a large oak chair. When he was securely tied to the chair, William de l’Étang lifted his episcopal robes and Roger de Saci produced his dagger – the same one he used for feeding his falcon – and expertly made a small incision in the Bishop’s scrotum. The Bishop screamed, as a thin stream of blood fell onto the chair and the floor.
‘My lord Bishop,’ said Huntingdon, ‘be silent. To hear you squealing like a pig is of no consequence to us. We have seen thousands of men mortally wounded who behaved with more courage than you at the moment of their death. You are a snivelling poltroon, a traitor, a worm, looking for advantage while our sovereign lord, the noble King Richard, who took the cross and defeated the infidel, is in captivity, in defiance of all the covenants safeguarding those who take the cross. His captors have been excommunicated by the Holy Father and yet you, a cleric of no standing, ignoring your pope, have reached well above yourself in asking for payment and by attempting to hold us here, we who are on the King’s and God’s sacred business. If you wish to retain the ownership of your testicles, swear now before God that you will aid our departure in the direction of Limousin and swear that you will repent of trying to obstruct God’s work. This is your only hope of salvation. You should be ashamed of yourself: instead of behaving like a Christian, you have been plotting against our sire, Richard, whose prowess against the infidel exceeded, as the
jongleurs
testify, that of Roland at Roncevaux. Do you swear, before we make a eunuch of you?’
‘I swear, by almighty God,’ the Bishop said. He was sweating and trembling, and his words emerged as a thin falsetto.
Huntingdon produced a piece of parchment. The Bishop signed. Huntingdon saw that his damp face was as white as a woman’s breast. Perhaps he was losing too much blood. Fortunately Master Robert was standing by with a pot of vinegar; now he doused the wound liberally. The Bishop screamed again. He was taken to a sparse guest room and locked in. In the very early morning, well before first light, Huntingdon and his comrades, led by a guide they had enlisted at a remote farmstead, rode out in the direction of Limousin with five spare horses tethered to the cart.
The fact that Huntingdon’s men set out for Limousin is supported by a note in the rolls of the cathedral of St-Pierre in Poitiers: Master Robert, the rolls record, has arrived from the direction of Limoges, having come home from the Holy Land. He has returned the Crusader cross he has worn for four years to the Bishop of Poitiers, as a token that he has fulfilled his vows to God. The Bishop blessed him.
No more is known of the rest of the party, except for the sad story of Henry of Huntingdon, who was killed on his own lands two months after the Feast of St John, when his horse fell and crushed him.
29
Ed has emailed
me from Australia. He has been offered the job, and he has taken it. He says that Lettie was very upset because I had told her I didn’t trust her. He suggests that I should apologise; if I don’t it will be difficult to have me living in his house. He is, he says, going to rent it out anyway now that he is living in Perth:
keeping a base in the old UK in case the job goes tits-up
.
I picture good-natured Ed in Australia. I see him hot and russet on the beach wearing his flowery Vilebrequin cozzie. He is worrying about the Great Whites, but also worried that he has offended me. He is very sensitive about upsetting anyone and perhaps that is why his career in hedge funds came to a premature end. In Perth – a town, I once read, that is full of white cockatiels flying down the main street – he will want to settle this rift immediately; I email him right away.
Ed, all I can tell you is that Lettie seems to know an awful lot about Noor and her kidnap. For better or for worse, she was advising me on what I should do. The whole business has made me oversensitive, a little paranoid, and I am worried about having another episode. You can’t imagine – or perhaps you can – how awful it is to lose control of your self. In your rational mind you know what to do, but you simply can’t do it. I am terrified it will happen again. But I will apologise to Lettie.
I have been seeing Ella, informally, and she is a great help. Forgive me, Ed, and congratulations on your job. Perhaps I can come and visit you in Perth and we can wear one of those hats with the corks when we are downing a few tinnies. You need to learn the lingo fast, mate. Talking of sharks, I read about a graffito near a beach in South Africa:
Great Sharks Eat Whites.
I have been having sex with Ella, despite my good intentions. She is still troubled – even paranoid – about the consequences of being seen with me. Our relationship is unstable because of her anxiety. She has an urgent need for sex; her husband’s infidelity has left her with the fear that nobody desires her, and having sex with me is helping her over this fear, and helping her to catch up on her due quota. While Ed has been away I have been meeting her at his house most evenings. We have a drink, we kiss, and then she takes her clothes off and places them neatly on a chair. Her eyes turn inwards, so that she looks like a blind seer, and she moans. I think of Noor. I don’t make comparisons.
Ella comes to me with a faint scent of the hospital, which reminds me that I am not in Jerusalem. This clinging hospital aroma is the smell of death. All the more reason to think of Noor in the scented, golden, historical, ancient light of Jerusalem. In my mind,
in medias res
, I am fucking Noor, struggling to hold on to her.
When Ella comes, she cries, a brief Freudian squall, bringing relief to the parched sexual prairie, and she clings to me, sometimes almost strangling me, for a moment or two and I feel trapped both in a headlock and in a terrible lie. In the past I have spoken to close friends about imagining sex with someone other than the person you are having sex with. It was surprising how many said they did it often. The strange thing is that I am very fond of Ella and I think she is almost beautiful, but at a certain level – the atomic level, perhaps – I don’t find her sexually attractive. I can’t explain it, but some small tics, some aspects of her body, some of the things she says, small turns of phrase, cause me to resent her, as if she is trying to take Noor’s place, and I can only regain my equilibrium (and the necessary ardour) by thinking of Noor, moist and golden. If I never see Noor again, this will be the image that will for ever remain in my mind.
I long to capture the ecstasy of Room 6 and I am always disappointed. Ella talks calmly and sensibly afterwards, before rushing to her empty house to turn on the lights, making sure that she is seen there. By whom, she never tells me, but I assume it is by medical and psychiatric people: health professionals.
So Ella and I are on different tacks; she is recovering her self-esteem, which requires me to be sexually ardent, and I require the comfort of human intimacy.
I am taking refuge in the Bodleian, although I am moving back to London to stay in Haneen’s apartment as she is in Jerusalem for the next few months. I feel that I must write, and Haneen’s flat is so bland, so detached from life, that I imagine it will be perfect. Yesterday I explained to Ella that I had to go back to London, and she cried.
‘Why do you have to go now?’
‘I have to deliver my dissertation and I need the British Library.’
‘It looks as if you are trying to get away from me.’
‘No, I am not, believe me. You’ve helped me in so many ways.’
I have the familiar feeling that I have disappointed Ella, only the latest in a line. It weighs on my spirits.
‘I’ve helped you, but now you want to go?’
‘I do want to go. Ed’s going to rent this place and it won’t be available. Anyway, you don’t want me to come to yours, which I understand. But because you are terrified of being seen in public with me, I am finding it difficult. I need a period of peace to write and to sort things out.’
‘So I am dispensable.’
‘Ella, please, don’t do this. You’re wonderful, but there is a cloud hanging over both of us: you still love your husband, and I love Noor. You know as well as I do, probably better, that this has been a kind of interlude.’
‘I could love you, I’m sure.’
We were lying in my bed almost naked; the light of Jericho outside the windows was feeble, enervated, dismal.
‘Ella, this isn’t the real thing. You know that.’
‘Do I?’
‘I think you do.’
‘Maybe I do. Maybe I should have realised sooner that it is one way only with you, that you are a taker.’
She turned away from me and hid her face in a pillow. I felt for her and at the same time I was resentful; I saw myself as innocent, but still it was obvious that I was contributing to her unhappiness.
‘I wish you had never kissed me,’ she said, muffled by linen.
‘I was mad then.’
‘And I am mad now.’
When she was gone I felt terrible unease. I don’t want to be the agent of anyone’s unhappiness, but it seemed to me unfair that after having sex with her in a therapeutic spirit I should have been declared the guilty party by a tribunal of one. In our encounters I had never felt ecstasy. I made love to her diligently; I ran through the whole repertoire, the whole rigmarole, and all the time I was fully conscious, detached. She wanted me to say I loved her, but I couldn’t. It would have been better if I could have lied convincingly; many people like the company of implausible flatterers. But also there was something I could not have told Ella, that having sex with her made me think of what I had tried to avoid – Noor being gang-raped – and that squeezed my heart so painfully that I feared it would stop.
Noor was right, it would never be forgotten; it would rise to the surface like the leisurely and odorous exhalations from the depths of a stagnant pond.
I lie in the bed, the sheets definitely in need of a visit to the laundry in Walton Street, while the miserable unrelenting rain taps on the dirty window with soft persistence.
Maybe I should go to sunny Perth and take my chances with the Great Whites. Maybe I should give up this task of writing an account of Richard the Lionheart and the True Cross, and get on with my dissertation. I want to get to the essence of Richard I, but I only understand medieval monarchs via Shakespeare, just as everything I know about Russia comes from Russian novels. My father saw historical figures as his confidants, who were talking to him about many important subjects, such as the spirit of a nation.
I was thinking about these things earlier, as Ella straddled me, holding my hands and rocking feverishly back and forth, like a child on a playground horse. As it happens, I don’t know much about children either.
30
Dearest Richie
,
First, I just want to assure you that you were not used in any way by me. In fact it was against the rules for me to have a relationship with you at all. As you said in your letter, you smiled at me, and I thought like what a lovely smile and how good-looking you were. And the rest is history. It really was a
coup de foudre
, as we say in Montreal.
I don’t really know why your guys would be questioning you. As you said, you have nothing to hide.
I am feeling a little down today, because I am having another operation tomorrow. By the time you get this, I will have had it, hopefully the last. Something didn’t quite work out as the doctors believed it would. There is nothing I can do except try to be patient. I will be in hospital for about four or five days.
If you trust me – which I know you do – you will believe that I didn’t use you as cover or in any other way.