Ann of Cambray (40 page)

I could not have closed my eyes a second’s space. Yet, when I opened them, all was changed. While I stood brooding on the awesome choice, there had been others who were quick to take advantage of the confusion. Even before the words had finished their echoing, before the Celtic bowmen on the walls had time to train their long bows, men had leapt to Raoul’s side, cutting him and Geoffrey free. Some had driven the womenfolk like cattle before them to the safety of the keep.

Raoul, in turn, had snatched at a weapon, and raced before me so I, too, could back with him, whilst the French phalanx, still in order with their shield wall high, in turn, came behind us. Within seconds then the situation was reversed. We were still outnumbered, but lined up on the steps, with the Lady Mildred and her women already scuttling inside. We had a wall at our backs, a refuge beyond. And if we were divided, it still not being clear on those side the French would fight, yet they were less in number than we, and we still had more men without the walls if we could get to them.

Lord Guy knew he had lost the advantage that chance before had given him. He was too busy explaining and cajoling his own followers to try to recover it.

‘We could attack now and have him at our mercy,’ I said, speaking my thoughts aloud.

‘Perhaps,’ Raoul said as quietly at my side, and I felt his hand in mine, alive and warm, ‘but we still cannot count on the French to help us. Patience. His own men will do it for us.’

We stood waiting whilst the argument flared about us in the courtyard. Maneth’s men, I think, at least the mounted knights who rode with him, would have ignored the import of the challenge, but the bowmen on the walls were another matter. I knew what they would be saying. We borderfolk think alike; and a Judgment of God is strange to us, strange yet binding, for we are more superstitious than the Normans, although it is their law, not ours. Maneth’s Welsh bowmen, whom he needed to control the central court, would no more fight now than argue with a priest on matters of faith.

‘Ann,’ Raoul said, his words like a breath of air, ‘shall I unsay what I have said? It is your life as well as mine.’

‘No,’ I whispered back, and felt the strength from him flow into me as my determination flowed back to him. ‘They will not dare speak against it. It is the only chance you have for a fair fight.’

‘They will know that we are linked together,’ he said. ‘They will suspect you.’

‘I know that, too,’ I said, suddenly turning and smiling, ‘so first I must convince you that that is what I wish. If God has brought us together again, perhaps he will keep us yet awhile.’

‘I wanted no more deaths upon my hands,’ he said, nodding to the courtyard, his face still taut, streaked with blood and dirt, and I knew he thought of Sir Brian lying there alone.

‘You fight to avenge one more,’ I said. ‘My lord, you cannot be rid so easily of us yet awhile. We need you.’ And I smiled at him.

He gave a sound, half-groan, half-laugh, sleeving the blood from his cut mouth. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘you cling like one of your western burrs. Go you within and comfort the other womenfolk. I will come to you when I can.’

I would have cried again to take care, but dared not. For I saw how the light had come back into his eyes, although his face was still strained with pain and grief. And I saw how the men I had brought from Cambray turned and closed behind him as he went towards the Frenchmen on the stairs. Someone had given him both sword and shield. He was Lord of Sedgemont again. I had no need to fear for him yet awhile.

When it was clear to me what must happen next—either that Lord Guy must retreat without the castle walls, being unable to control his men, half of whom I now saw must have come with him from France and were as contemptuous of his border people as the Celts were of them, or, as seemed most likely, he must abide by the judgment he had called upon his own head—I, too, retreated up the stairs.

Sedgemont is not built like Cambray, and these stairs are too wide to be guarded easily. But the Great Hall is designed for defence, with massive doors and window slits that give down upon the stairwell. And, in the morning, not standing on ceremony as happens now, would the two men fight each other. To the death. But now we had the night, which an hour ago we had not thought to see.

And the French, not so much bemused as relieved, were willing to let the process take place, having no way in their power now to turn it aside. They hammered their moral advantage home. All arms were to be laid down. There was to be no fighting without the gates. Except for the French, only the combatants were to carry weapons. The soft French lisped about my ears, yet I noted how the more they spoke, the more pompous rolled the words, the more precise the instructions, all in the name of the king.

Well, king he is in name and deed by now, I thought as I went up the last steps, more tired than I knew, but he may be surprised what has been done in his name today.

The other women were already setting the Hall to rights as best they could, giving orders to the frightened servants who had remained to prepare something for us to eat, trying to bring order to the confusion. Like Cambray, Sedgemont looked as if it had suffered a siege, and men presently came to drag out the heavy tables and benches to form a barricade along the doors. We all worked feverishly, leaving nothing to chance, and, at the last, when the dead bodies of the French knight and Sir Brian had been brought up and set in a corner chamber, wrapped in their cloaks, I went to where the Lady Mildred sat and knelt beside her to keep watch with her.

She said nothing to me, gave me no word or look, but when the other men finally came up and barred the doors, she rose from her place, brought warm water and cloths to wash Lord Raoul’s wounds, and bade the men to table although the fare was scanty at best.

Lord Raoul sat in his usual place in the great carved chair, and I sat at his right and the French envoys, silent now, to our left. We spoke but little, it still being to our advantage to keep up some semblance of unfamiliarity as I noticed Geoffrey and his men did, as if they did not know Lord Raoul, but when we drank from the common cup, I noted how Lord Raoul raised it to toast me and placed his lips for courtesy over the rim where I had pressed mine. And when the food was done, he called for a lute, which I had never heard him play before, and sang himself, such songs from France that made our hearts both sad and gay at once. They were songs, I think, that once Sir Brian, in his youth, had loved, and he played to do his old henchman honour, that like a Norseman of the olden times he might be remembered and honoured in the Hall that he had guarded so well.

No one dared to sleep that night. I joined the Lady Mildred and the other women at the death watch, and when there was time to whisper, drew such comfort as I could from Cecile, who watched with us. In the young hours of the morning. Lord Raoul came himself, bringing a taper that he bent to light from mine. His face was expressionless as he stood there looking down at the body of a man who had been as father, adviser, friend to him all his life, whose last thought perhaps, as he had moved into the arrow’s path, was to protect Raoul. I knew that look now; beneath it he hid all those thoughts he did not dare reveal. And yet it seemed to me that to a man like Sir Brian, there could be no more-fitting end. It was one he would have wished for himself.

‘Yet I hoped to avoid this,’ Lord Raoul’s voice, when he spoke, reflected strangely my own thoughts, ‘another senseless death that most of all I would prevent. He begged me, Ann, to close the gates and fight. “Better death than dishonour,” he said. I would not answer him, reminded him of his age, of his wife. You see how even our best intentions trap us.’ He sighed, his face half-hidden in the shadows. ‘And now once more, despite all my efforts, our lives are bound as one. If I fall, Ann, your life will be forfeit as well.’

‘And as you live,’ I said, ‘so shall I.’

‘Yes,’ he said, not boastingly, ‘I shall kill him for you. But I would have you leave before. Tomorrow at dawn, before we can begin, we shall send word to your men outside. Geoffrey will know what to do.’

‘Raoul,’ I said, ‘have I not told you clearly or often enough? Without you, I care little what happens to me. Come with me then.’

He said nothing in reply. His silence gave me heart to continue.

‘Westward,’ I said, ‘there are ships that could bear us far away. Beyond France even, where people know nothing of these Angevins, these civil wars. I heard you speak before of Outremer. We could go there together.’

After a while he moved beside me, flexing his hand along the wall so that the shadow of his fingers spread against the rough surface.

‘It would only be a dream,’ he said. ‘Your father knew what is the lot of a landless man. Remember, you told me of your old soldier in the ruined fort, how you could have wept for his broken strength. And a woman at any army’s tail, her fate is far, far worse. You could not come with me. And I will not run away.’

‘Then let me go to the king,’ I said. ‘That is what I hoped to do.’

‘I will not beg for my life,’ he said. That stubborn, bitter pride. He said abruptly, ‘Was it true, then, what they planned? Was Maneth a monster so vile?’

I felt the tension in him as he spoke. I did not want to speak or remember it.

‘And the messenger who was killed, was that true also?’

I said, ‘I never spoke of it for shame, for guilt. He would have possessed me and so ran upon the knife point. I would not have spoken of it even now. But you know yourself that I was virtuous when I came to Cambray.’

‘Yes,’ he said. He did not move. ‘And is that all? Are there any secrets else? I would not have lies, half-lies, concealed between us. We bear the weight of too many things, too many misunderstandings . . .’

I should have told him then the secret that most concerned him. Why kept I quiet? Because I feared I might yet be mistaken? Because it seemed unfair burden on him when he was so much under stress? Or because he, most of all men, would have a son to be proud of?

‘Then,’ he said, ‘Maneth doubly deserves to die. Else will he spread those stories of your ill fame to the world to do you harm. After, shall you leave, go to where we can keep you safe. Do not fret for me. Now think. How many men have we to command?’

He numbered them aloud as I named them to prevent my speaking of these other matters, forming his plan. Geoffrey and his men made ten, but they would be unarmed. There were ten more outside, however, who would have weapons to spare, would know how to help at the right time. Ten French under their two captains, armed. Maneth’s men three times as many, and bowmen on the walls, but all disorganised, perhaps unarmed if they came into the courtyard.

‘Ann,’ he said, ‘we whisper here in a holy place beside the dead. God knows, I have not been a believing man, but something of your faith has come to give me hope. How often have we parted never to meet again? Perhaps there is a way out of this maze if only we know the secret. Stand watch for me beside the Lady Mildred, pray for me.’ He suddenly smiled. ‘Look not so worried,
ma mie.
This Maneth is a fighter, too. Like a cautious soldier, I go to find out how he fights, to see what my men know of him and his ways. Do not be afraid. He will not escape us this time. You shall see him fall. I fight for you, and Sir Brian and all our wrongs.’

I stayed beside the bier, felt his fingers brush lightly against my hair, heard his soft footsteps retreat. Beneath the shelter of my hands, I saw how he stopped, as if by chance, to speak casually with this man and that. Perhaps he was planning his battle strategy, but I knew as well as if I listened with them that he was also arranging for my escape. Whether I would or not, he would have me gone the next day. Alone. He would not come with me. He would fight Maneth and then go to his own death with the French. Nothing I could do would change him. He would not run away himself.

I knelt and tried to pray, but I almost did not know for what I prayed. Thoughts swirled through my head like those western mists that had surrounded us all day. What would happen with the morning? What would become of Raoul? How could I save him, despite himself? It seemed to me then that we were so bound up that nothing could untangle us from the frets of our own actions, our own desires. We had become so much a part of those greater events that I had thought to avoid, that only when they were resolved would we be free of them and able to make a real peace with each other.

I knelt and prayed. But it was not for the death of that one man whose hatred had so bedevilled us all these years. Rather, I prayed that God, in His mercy, would spare Raoul, find some way to rescue him. Otherwise, it mattered not if he died at Maneth’s hand tomorrow in his own courtyard, or if the French killed him in the forest quietly without witness. I, too, must die with him. But it was not our lives only. One other life was bound up with his and mine—our child’s. If Raoul should not live, then tomorrow we all should die, too, or thereafter. Not all the sins in the wide world can demand the death of innocence ... Yet our child was the fruit of sin, of lust, and who knows what payment that requires.

‘Spare Raoul,’ I found my lips repeating as I watched by Sir Brian’s corpse. ‘Spare him and so spare us. I will not ask anything else.’

God listens to prayers, judges us. I tell you, He requites what is required of Him. Now shall you hear how Raoul paid for his sins and mine.

The morning came. Time, which at Sedgemont had once dragged, now raced towards me. I felt as grey as the day that unfolded about us, without light, overshadowed with mist and sleet. There had been flurries of snow throughout the night, and the great courtyard was covered with a thin layer of ice. Guy of Maneth, who had camped with his men in the yard, must have rested hard, too.

Before dawn, the Sedgemont servants were dragging out benches to make a barricade and places for the spectators to watch. The French carefully supervised this; their men stood guard, heavily armed, although there were not many of them, and watched the piles of swords and knives grow at their feet. No one passed in or out of the great courtyard unless he laid his weapons by, but the gates still stood open, for Maneth’s men controlled the outer walls. Along one wall facing, the keep, an extra row of seats was built for the French envoys and for the ladies of Sedgemont. Today, such trials-by-combat are more elaborate, the time and place are carefully chosen, the combatants are kept apart and closely watched, but the spectators still come as to enjoy a circus. This was more rough-and-ready, but although the French were concerned about the lack of ceremony, Raoul, as challenger, had the right to set their rules aside. And, in truth, it used to be more a French custom, known but seldom practised amongst us here. As for the Celts, I have told you we hold it in the utmost veneration and fear, thinking only a strong man, firm in his belief, would dare invoke it.