Needle in the Blood (51 page)

“I just thought,” Margaret persisted, “as you’re called Irene. But perhaps it’s just a providence.”

“We’re all here thanks to providence, and God’s grace.”

“And William of Normandy,” adds the woman with the baby.

“Hold your tongue, Frieda.” Irene lifts the cup from the embers, the trailing end of her head scarf wrapped around her fingers and sets it down on the lip of the fire pit. “Sit down and drink this. It will help you sleep.”

The women shuffle round to make room for Margaret, who sits down next to the nursing mother.

“What’s your baby called?”

“Sebastian,” the woman replies, as if it is a stupid question. Margaret takes a sip of her drink. Its bitterness sets her teeth on edge but she dare not spit it out.

“I’m going out to check on Goda. I’m sure it’ll be tonight,” announces Irene. As soon as she is gone, the atmosphere in the tent relaxes.

“Tell me about her,” says Margaret to the nursing mother. “Oh, Irene’s the spiritual leader of the women. She was Sebastian’s first disciple.”

“How did they meet?”

“They say he was left for dead at Hastings and she found him. Just like the real Irene. He was buried under a mound of corpses, apparently, that’s what saved him. The Normans didn’t take prisoners. She still looks after his wounds. They never heal, you know. It’s a miracle.”

Something in the woman’s tone puzzles Margaret. “Why are you here?” she whispers.

The young mother glances cautiously at her companions, but no one is paying her any attention. The lute player has begun a song, one Margaret recognises as a hymn to her own patron saint for women in childbirth, and several of the rest join in.

“I was a priest’s wife. When we got a new bishop sent from Normandy, he said priests couldn’t marry, it was an abuse of the sacrament, and if my husband wanted to keep his living, he would have to get rid of me. Shall we say he saw the error of his ways?”

“Is that his child?”

The woman looks down at her baby, who has fallen asleep. Pulling the front of her dress closed, she says, “He always does that, leaves me with one empty and one full to bursting.” She leans to kiss the baby’s head then gives Margaret a hard, searching look. “You know nothing about what goes on here, do you? Take my advice, get out. Now, before…”

But it is too late. Irene comes back into the tent, letting the flap fall behind her, sealing them into the drowsy warmth. “Nothing yet,” she says, then looks sharply at Margaret and the young mother. “Drink up. You’ll need your beauty sleep for tomorrow.”

There is nothing for it. She gulps the remainder of the drink down in one, shuddering as the bitter herbs hit the back of her throat. Within minutes she is sound asleep, oblivious as the women half drag, half carry her onto the brushwood bedding and cover her with a blanket.

***

The sun is already well up by the time she wakes, and the tent is empty, only the lingering, sour smell of sleeping bodies and the cold ash in the fire pit as evidence of its previous occupation. She gets up and goes outside. It is another bright day. Her head feels sluggish and the sunlight striking through tree branches stabs behind her eyes. She rubs them, noticing as she does so that her hands are covered in dried blood, her nails filthy and broken. Not an embroiderer’s hands. What would Sister Jean say? She looks around. The camp seems deserted, though the cooking fire is lit, the cauldron suspended over it from an iron tripod giving off a wholesome aroma of boiling mutton, and some of the horses have been hobbled and turned out to graze in the surrounding woodland. She notices a stream running alongside the clearing and, kneeling on its bank, splashes her face with cold water, tasting bracken as she swallows a mouthful. She cleans her hands as best she can, then dips a corner of her skirt in the water and rubs it over her teeth. Feeling better, though hungry, she sets out to explore before they all come back. She supposes they have gone to hunt, empty traps, gather berries.

Incongruous among the makeshift shelters is a military tent, the kind used by officers, big enough to be divided into two chambers, the hides painted with designs in red and blue. Standing before its entrance is the portable altar from the night before, now covered with a piece of linen embroidered in whitework, looking suspiciously like a priestly vestment. There is also a cross made from a broken arrow. Deciding the tent must be Tom’s, she is about to lift the flap and go inside when she is distracted by a commotion on the edge of the clearing.

A procession of people comes toward her at a kind of dancing march, the juggler of the night before turning cartwheels alongside. Somebody is singing to the accompaniment of the three-stringed lute. At the head of the procession is Tom, ruddy cheeked, his hair loose and pouring down his powerful back like water over iron bearing rocks. He has a holly garland on his head and wears a fine woollen gown beneath his cloak of light. His beauty makes Margaret catch her breath and wonder, for a second of insane exhilaration, if he has been right all along.

“I have a new son,” he announces, “a new soul to welcome Our Saviour when He comes among us.” His voice is not loud, but it seems to make the air quiver and stun the birds into silence; it contains echoes of Tom’s voice, but something more, fired into his chest with the Normans’ arrows. Balanced on his outstretched arms he carries a small bundle of wool and linen from which the occasional cry hiccups. Seeing the way his lizard eyes soften and crinkle at the corners each time the baby makes a sound, Margaret remembers Christine and Little Tom, and hope rises in her.

In the middle of the crowd, among whom Margaret recognises Irene, the rat-faced man and some of the women from the night before, though Martin is nowhere to be seen, the new mother is carried on a litter. She too wears a wreath, of ivy studded with woodland flowers, wood goldilocks, windflowers, and herb robert. Swathed in sheets, she grips the sides of the litter to keep her balance, her round, very young face split by a dazed grin. Margaret assumes she must be Goda, whom Irene spoke of the night before.

The litter bearers deposit their burden beside the fire. Tom, making his way through the crowd of his followers, the men all slapping him on the back, some of the women touching his sleeve and smiling at him, kneels beside the litter and places the baby in his mother’s lap. She strokes his head. Tom unlaces the front of her gown, exposing her breasts, which he begins to fondle, his fingers circling and squeezing her nipples. Smelling his mother’s milk the baby begins to root frantically and then to cry, high, thin wails of desperation as Tom now kisses the woman’s mouth, pulling back her head with one hand entangled in her hair, now her throat, now closing his own lips over her breasts, one then the other, while she smiles and rolls her eyes ecstatically and no one takes any notice of the baby. When he finally rises and starts to walk toward his tent, his chin is shiny with spilt milk and some spots of blood have soiled his gown, just where the fabric bulges over his groin.

Sickened, Margaret makes a run for the forest behind the tent, praying he has not seen her, that no one will notice she has gone. She hopes Martin is right about the earl’s soldiers. She will find them and tell them everything; she no longer cares what happens to her. She is so ashamed, nothing the earl could do could hurt or humiliate her further, no torture he can devise could be more than her foolishness deserves. Thank God the other boys are dead and Alwys out of her senses so they do not have to witness Tom’s degradation. Beloved Tom with his bold eyes and his broad grin, who always insisted she was his favourite sister even though Alwys had prettier hair and quieter manners. How proud she was when he danced with her at May feasts and harvest suppers, the village girls looking on in envy. Remembering how his bright plaits used to swing around his head as they skipped and whirled, she is overcome by grief and starts to cry noisily. She is the only one left, and now…

“Not so hasty, my girl.” Strong fingers clamp her arm, her flesh grinding against bone. “You wanted to meet Sebastian. Well, now’s your chance,” hisses Martin, his voice muffled by his hood. She struggles, but Martin is very strong for a man so slightly built. Twisting her arm up into the small of her back, he holds her facing him. “Do you not find him beautiful?” he asks, and though she can see nothing but dark hollows where his eyes hide behind their blinkers, she can feel the calculating, knowing way he looks at her. “Most women do. He gives most of them that itch between the legs.” He makes a couple of obscene thrusts with his groin. Margaret lowers her eyes. “And then he scratches it,” Martin continues, thrusting his face close to hers so she can feel the warmth of his breath through the hood, “as you’re about to find out.”

Margaret struggles frantically, twisting her arm this way and that until her scratches start to bleed again and she can feel the sticky blood gluing her skin to Martin’s. She must tell him, make him believe her. After all, she and Tom are not unalike, with their red hair and green eyes, their height, the freckles on the backs of their hands. But her throat is clenched with fear; she cannot squeeze the words out. Then Martin laughs, a laugh of such pure spite it makes her angry and frees her voice.

“He’s my brother,” she shouts, using her weight now to try to break free of him, but he is like a cat with a mouse, loosening his grip only to tighten it again when she squirms.

“We are all brothers and sisters in Christ,” he replies imperturbably.

He doesn’t care, she realises. He is simply there to gratify his master’s appetites; he does not look gift horses in the mouth.

“So what’s in it for you? Surely you can’t be content with his leftovers?” If it has to happen, please God let it be anyone other than Tom.

“What he has consecrated can satisfy any hunger. How could I disdain to eat from God’s holy vessels? And we are all charged with the duty of bringing new, unsullied souls into the world to greet Our Lord when He comes again in glory.”

Margaret gives up. Martin staggers as she goes limp in his grasp. These people are so steeped in sin it has no meaning for them. As Martin leads her toward Tom’s tent, where Irene stands holding the entrance flap open, she prays to God to understand that this is not her will.

Eastertide 1072

Odo knows what his officer meant. It was obvious from the way he refused to meet Odo’s gaze, and cleared his throat before coming out with the word. Attacked. He felt as though he was watching the man from the opposite side of an unbridgeable ravine rather than across an average-sized room whose only obstacles were a few unopened packing cases. As a commander, he encourages honesty among his officers; a soldier who cannot speak his mind is like a fire burning unseen in the foundations of a castle. But in this he is not a commander, he is a victim.

“Give me a few moments,” he says, “then bring her to me.”

“My lord.” The officer bows and hurries away.

Odo stays as he is, arms folded, leaning against the deep, narrow window embrasure. No wide casements here at Dover; it is nothing but a fortress, a stone tower dominating the cliffs above the town, squinting at the sea through arrow slits. Besides, he can hear the view from this room, the boom of the water in the mill race like the heartbeat of the sea, gentle today, breathing steadily as the tide creeps up the beach to tickle the feet of the cliffs. Knowing the mill is there behind him, the sea around it tamed, put into his service to grind flour from which he will profit, in money or labour or kind, gives him some consolation. It helps him confront what he must confront before she is brought up to him.

Attacked. Raped? Or simply reverted to her old ways like those lickspittle Christians who keep Norse idols on their altars? You might own every pig in Christendom and all the silk worms in Damascus, but you still can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. He has been a fool to try. He hears footsteps on the stairs, two pairs of men’s shoes and a kind of bumping and shushing sound. Bare feet dragging against the edges of the steps. How dare they? What has happened to her shoes? A hard knot of anger forms in his chest and settles against his windpipe, making it difficult to breathe. He sees her feet, small as a child’s, the way her little toes curl in under the ones next to them and have a thin ridge of hard skin where they meet the ground. He imagines the fine, high arched bones bruised and splintered. Looking up, he presses his folded arms hard against his ribs to stop his hands shaking.

“That’s not Mistress Gytha, you bloody fools.” He shouts, but his anger has dissolved. He shouts from relief, the way parents do when telling off a child for playing dangerous games.

The two soldiers look flummoxed. “But she said she was one of the embroiderers. From Canterbury. She recognised your livery, sir,” says one, too surprised to remember protocol.

And well might he be surprised
, thinks Odo. It is an extraordinary coincidence that two of the women from his atelier should be roaming the country unescorted. It is too much of a coincidence to be true. “Explain to me how you found her.”

“We came across her in some kind of encampment, in the forest near Rochester, my lord. One of your verderers tipped us off. Said there were too many for his men to deal with on their own. They fled when we raided them, just left two women behind, this one bleeding and another very weak, blathering on about them taking her baby. We didn’t pursue them. We thought we’d found what we were looking for.”

“Where is Gytha?” he asks, addressing himself to Margaret. “Did she get away?” Did she make no attempt to help the girl?