Needle in the Blood (25 page)

At the end of The Fox and the Crow he has written, “‘
The moral of this story is…
’” then something in French, then “‘…
that you must know you can stomach lies before you swallow them.
’” Which gives her an idea, a kernel, an embryo she will nurse. This one will not die.

***

She listens avidly to Sister Jean’s readings from Aesop, sizing up each tale to see if it will fit the mould of her idea. Her sleepless nights, whenever Odo will leave her alone, when, perhaps, he sleeps himself and does not dream, are peopled by Aesop’s creatures, the smooth-talking fox, the vain crow, the frog and the mouse running a three-legged race from drowning, the lion made foolish by childlessness. The darkness around her seethes with them, as though her thoughts have taken physical form. The air rustles and whispers, pads across the floor on bare feet, murmurs her name.

“Gytha. Are you awake?”

“Alwys? What is it?”

“I thought you were awake. I didn’t want to disturb Meg.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s my finger.”

“Your finger?”

“The one I pricked the day the earl left.”

The day the earl left. A full and frank account of our discussion about Godwinson’s death. Oh, of course. Lord Odo has had a change of heart, Sister. He would like to tell the truth now. Surely he could see how easily she has compounded his lies with her own. What a myth they have created between them, what a bond of dreams and make believe.

“I’d quite forgotten. Sorry.”

“I don’t think it’s right.” A note of genuine fear in her voice refocuses Gytha on the present. “It’s all swollen up and throbbing fit to burst.”

Gytha gropes under her bed where she keeps a stub of candle and a flint. Glancing into the darkness in the direction of Margaret’s bed, but detecting no sign the other twin is awake, she whispers, “Come out into the hall and let’s have a look at it.”

They go out, closing the dormitory door softly behind them. Gytha strikes the flint against one of the few patches of wall not covered with pictures and, by the light of the candle, examines Alwys’ finger. It looks like a half cooked sausage, the skin stretched and shiny, on the verge of splitting. At the tip, where the needle entered, it is crimson. “Cold water,” she says with a confidence she does not feel, “I’ll go to the well. You get back into bed. I might be a little while, I shall have to get Sister Jean up to unlock.”

Agatha is not asleep when the knock comes on her parlour door. She is kneeling at the prie dieu in her bedroom, contemplating the image of her patron saint hanging above it, oddly animated by the warm, flickering light of a candle. The saint, chastely clutching the flaps of redundant skin over the bloody gashes where her breasts used to be, seems to be laughing. Her mouth gapes more in a grin than a grimace, her shoulders heave with mirth. Is this, thinks Agatha, the best she can do with her prayers, make the saint laugh? She wishes she could see the joke. Cupping her hands over her own shallow breasts, she wonders if the solution can truly be so simple; she would do it if it was.
It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
For the saint perhaps, the victim of cruelty, tortured by the lover she had spurned. But what defence of virtue is there for the victim of Margaret’s cheerful indifference? How can she fight an enemy who does not even know she is one?

Having no servant to attend her at night, she answers the door herself, half expecting, half dreading to find Margaret standing there, conjured up by the demon of her mistress’ perversion. But it is not Margaret.

“Gytha? Is all well?”

“Sorry to disturb you, madam, but Alwys is complaining of her finger, the one she pricked. It’s very swollen and I wanted to get some cold water to bathe it. Can I have the key so I can go to the well?”

It isn’t difficult to see how she has bewitched Odo, with her bold eyes, her red lips and black brows, and the hair falling as heavy as water below her waist. But it would be disappointing to find she had set out to do it deliberately.

“Come in,” she says.

“I just need the key, madam. I needn’t disturb you for long. I’m sure it’s nothing serious.”

“Then it can wait a minute or two. Sit. Please.” Her tone is not to be gainsaid.

Gytha, unfamiliar with the layout of the parlour, looks around in the gloom for somewhere to sit.

“I wanted a word with you in private. Now is as good a time as any since we’re both wide awake.”

The chair she finds is severe, its arms carved with open-mouthed, sharp-toothed beasts which bite into Gytha’s palms. But it is outside the circle of light cast by the single candle, which Agatha has put down on a low table in front of her empty hearth, and that makes Gytha feel easier.

“Yes, Sister,” she says.

There is a pause. Agatha, like a skinny ghost in her white shift, seems to float across the room as she paces back and forth. Eventually she says, “Be careful.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. Odo…the earl…enjoys female company, but he is not…influenced by women. Do not imagine that you have found a way to gain power over him.”

Power. The very mention of the word makes her wonder what others see in her that she does not see in herself. “I don’t, madam,” she says, the right reply and the true one for once in accord.

“And do not forget his calling. His love is not his own to give.”

And the son? John? “Correct me if I’m wrong, madam, but the earl is merely a clerk. He is not in orders, not sworn to celibacy.”

“No, but it is expected among the higher clergy, as you are well aware.”

“Nor poverty, it seems,” Gytha continues. “Clearly he is cautious in what he swears to, for fear of being tempted to break his word. He is very strong on the solemnity of oaths.”

“As you know, Gytha, I’ve a fondness for your clever tongue. But sometimes it tires me.”

“Then speak plainly, madam, and I can do likewise. Then we can get this over and done with and attend to Alwys. What should I be careful of? What do you think has transpired between the earl and me? Tell me, and I’m sure I can set your mind at rest. I do not think you will find that the balance of power between us has changed.” Oh no, not even if the rebel Hereward, bereft of everything but his sword arm, kills him.

She has been over it so many times. She has analysed each move, every word spoken, considered every alternative, every meaning both obvious and hidden. She has missed nothing, not the tiniest catch in his voice or the faintest falter in his gaze. She looks at Agatha, now perched on the edge of the table, and Agatha’s face twists beneath her gaze. A starveling smile stretches her lips; her pale eyes strain. She hugs herself close.

“Perhaps you should tell me,” she says, “as you have no confessor.”

When Gytha lived in the convent, she was aware of certain friendships more than usually intimate and exclusive. She was neither shocked, nor surprised, nor envious of them. In her experience, love is a scarce enough commodity in this world, and she attaches no blame to those who take it where they find it. She does not feel unlucky, merely unworthy. She is no elegant, high-waisted Edith Swan Neck or sweet-natured Meg. She has wit and common sense, but these do not inspire love, and she could not hold onto her children, no matter how fiercely she loved them. She feels more pity for Agatha, with her self-imposed restraints and her vigilant conscience, than for herself, for whom no such effort of will has ever been necessary. Until now, cautions her heart, until now.

“There’s nothing much to tell, madam. His lordship kissed me. Just a kiss, the sort of silly impulse men have before they go off and get themselves killed. I’m sure by the time he comes back, God willing, we shall both have forgotten all about it. It meant nothing.” As she says this, she believes it, and suddenly everything seems simple. He might have picked any one of them; he only chose her because of her knowledge of the camel.

“Well, perhaps not,” says Agatha.

You’re wrong, says Gytha’s heart, you know you are. It changed everything.

***

She takes the key to the wicket and goes to fetch the water. It is a beautiful night, cold and clear, the stars seeming close enough to touch in a moonless sky. Most nights, the stars are small and distant, indifferent to Earth as they sing their songs to heaven, but tonight they are gathered round, peering down at humanity, expecting something. She leans against the well parapet and looks up. Somewhere a dog howls, answered by whickering from the stables. Footsteps crunch along the Roman walls as the soldiers on watch change position. Are the stars out wherever he is, looking at him with the same close scrutiny? Does he feel it? Or maybe it’s raining, cold rain angling under tent flaps, needling him awake. What does he do when he can’t sleep? Talk to that sinister servant of his? She wonders if his nightmare has returned, what is a day’s journey from here for an army. She is so small and ignorant. She shivers, shaking off all the useless questions, and starts to wind up the bucket from the well, the splash of water in the shaft echoing loudly in the quiet ward. Steadying the bucket against the parapet, she fills the jar she has brought with her for the purpose, then lets the bucket go, the winch handle spinning as the rope unwinds, the crash as it hits the surface of the water far below, the water leading its own life, hardly disturbed, hardly depleted. Nevertheless, she apologises to the well sprite for disturbing its rest before going back inside.

***

In the dormitory, everything is in uproar. Everyone is awake, lamps are lit, Sister Jean has been summoned and is kneeling over Alwys who lies shivering beneath her bedclothes, her face drawn in tight with pain, sweating dark patches into the pillow. Margaret, so pale her freckles look blue in the half-light at the edge of the candle’s glow, stands behind Sister Jean, holding a shallow bowl, a towel over her arm, the way the servants in hall offer the diners above the hearth water for washing. Judith grips Emma by the shoulder in an attempt to keep her still; she has already knocked over one candle, the tallow now drying in fatty lumps among the singed floor rushes. How long has she been gone, Gytha chides herself, dreaming of stars and water like a lovelorn maid?

She sets the jar down beside Sister Jean, who nods her acknowledgement but does not take her eyes off Alwys.

“Margaret,” she says, and Margaret stoops so Sister Jean can dip a cloth in the bowl, wring it out, and dab at Alwys’ forehead and temples with it. Gytha smells roses, summer sweet. Then Alwys begins to heave, her throat arched, the muscles around her mouth working.

“She’s going to be sick.” Gytha grabs the bowl from Margaret as Sister Jean turns Alwys onto her side. A thin stream of greenish bile pollutes the rosewater. Margaret turns away abruptly.

“Are you all right, dear?” asks Sister Jean, darting Margaret a quick look, behind the prevailing drama the perpetual awareness of the other, like the bass note in music, that feeling of being tugged by invisible strings whenever the other moves or speaks, or even breathes in a changed rhythm.

“I’ll deal with this,” says Gytha, taking the bowl to empty onto the garden.

“What hour is it, d’you think?” Sister Jean asks her when she returns.

“Around Matins I should guess, madam. Still pitch dark anyway.”

“I shall send to Christ Church for their infirmarer. I don’t think this should wait till daylight.”

Gytha takes her place beside the sick woman as Agatha goes to order the officer of the watch to send one of his men to fetch Brother Thorold.

“What’s wrong with her? Why does she need the infirmarer? I’m frightened.”

“I’m sure Sister Jean is just being careful, Meg; she wouldn’t want you to be upset.”

“You see, if one of us gets hurt, sometimes the other one feels it too.”

Gytha pulls Alwys’ blanket up to cover her injured hand and muffle its smell. Alwys moans. The swelling has spread, the little tear made by the needle split and gaping like an idiot’s grin, oozing blood and pus onto the bedclothes. “Go back to bed,” she says to others. “There’s nothing more to be done until Brother Thorold gets here. We should just try to keep her cool.”

Margaret dutifully dips a clean napkin in the water jar, folds it, and lays it across her sister’s brow. Gytha watches her, touched by her tearful conscientiousness. To distract her, she asks, “Who’s the eldest?”

“I am, by half the width of a fingernail, our father says.” Seeing Gytha’s puzzlement, she explains. “The time it takes for a candle to burn down half the width of a nail.”

“Ah, I see.” Gytha smiles. “It must be confusing, having that special closeness and having to be ashamed of it at the same time.”

“We used to try to pretend we weren’t.”

Looking from one to the other broad, freckled face, each for its own reason pale as the bed caps from which their irrepressible hair springs, Gytha’s smile broadens.

“I know,” says Margaret, “but the bishop granted our father permission to put our mother away on grounds of adultery and marry again, and we were afraid we’d be sent to a convent too.”

“None of the girls in Winchester had twins that I can remember.” Gytha’s tone is reflective, as if she has forgotten she has an audience, but though she and Margaret have been speaking in whispers, the dormitory is quiet and their voices carry.