Ann of Cambray (52 page)

They had brought Raoul to a room off one of the many long corridors that confuse Bermondsey. Already the idle and curious had gathered around to stare and point at the place, looking for advancement, no doubt, or hoping for some titbit of gossip; a newcomer at court is always fair game. I paid them no heed. Geoffrey and the other men would keep them back. But I had to venture within and meet this new earl face to face.

The room itself, like all the others at Bermondsey, was rich and dirty and cold. They had stripped Raoul of his jerkin and shirt and new bandaged his shoulder, and flung a furred cloak about him, but the fire was out, and the place smelled of dogs and fleas. He was sitting, as it seemed to me I so often found him, in a chair before the hearth, but this time he did not get up, did not turn his head when I scratched at the door and lifted the latch. This time he would not make any move towards me. I did not even know how to address him with his new titles around him. I could not even begin to think what I should say. Without sound, then, I went towards him, almost tiptoeing across the wooden floor.

His back was towards me but I knew his expression well, how he would be moodily staring out, eyes dark and brooding, his face showing no colour except for that red scar across his cheek bone. And that, I thought, he would wear now all his life. It might fade, but it would always remain to remind us of the past. I found myself praying as once I had prayed for his safety. And I was trembling.

He said, without turning round, ‘There is no need to duck and bob. Step forth where I can see you.’

The tone of his voice, controlled, formal, made me cringe and stiffened my resolve. I walked around to stand in front of him and felt the full force of his stare that raked me much as the king’s had done. It took in, no doubt, the fashionable gown I wore with its tight-drawn laces to show the figure beneath, the waistline that cost me so much pain, the rounded breasts, which, for all Cecile’s bindings, I could not hide.

‘Sleek,’ he said, ‘like a cat new fed. Court life agrees with you, lady.’

I dropped him a curtsy, not trusting myself to speak.

‘And airs to match,’ he said, anger showing beneath the coldness. ‘I have told you I like not mock servility. Or do you show but added respect for these fresh titles I now bear?’

Do not reply to him, I warned myself. It is but pain and shock that trouble him.

‘Why came you here?’ he blazed at me. ‘To make a mock of us before all men? To set your woman’s touch where no woman has right to interfere? You are not countess yet to ape the Lady of Warwick, selling her husband’s keep to his enemies because she thought he might win some benefit. Am I tied to your petticoats? Who bade you order my men do this, do that? Who bade you interfere in men’s affairs?’

This was worse than I had thought. Was this how he would repay the fears, the hopes, the waiting?

‘Or perhaps you thought to barter for me as for a slave?’ 

Then you are no worse treated than any woman, I thought waspishly, for we endure as much every day. But I said nothing aloud.

‘Or to flaunt your independence before the world, a ward whom no man controls, a harlot flirting with the court?’

I said calmly, ‘You are cold, my lord Earl of Sedgemont. Let me make up the fire.’ He watched me as I knelt to push the logs together, struck the tinder, blew to make the damp wood smoulder back to life. And I thought, are all those golden days, those lovely days, turned like this, to ash, to bitterness? And I felt the acrid smoke sting my eyes.

When I could turn round, ‘My lord,’ I said, ‘your men await your will outside. Shall I bid them enter?’

‘Yes,’ he said. Then, ‘No. God’s wounds, that even Geoffrey should defy me. I’ll strip his hide . . .’

‘You already have done as much,’ I said, coldly in my turn, ‘small payment for his devotion.’

When he did not answer, ‘Or have you forgotten, my lord, when you speak so mightily of loyalty and duty, that one day even you, the Earl of Sedgemont,’ I stressed the words, ‘might also stand in need of help; that those whom you have so often rushed to defend might one day be called upon to help you? That was not well done, to be so anxious to give but not receive. It shows a lack of Christmas spirit.’

‘And you, Madame Preacher,’ he said, ‘have grown pious faced, that once again you lecture me on duty. Ever have you done so. I’ll not have a shrew to grace my hall.’

‘You may not have anyone to grace anything,’ I replied. ‘Count me not too much on that.’

‘Your king has ordered it,’ he said. ‘Heard you not what he said?’

I think then that I saw how deep the resentment lay behind his words, how deep the anger beneath that even, contemptuous voice.
I have never seen Raoul laid low before.
If Henry felt it, should not Raoul himself, should not I?

I said, ‘And I have told the king I might not consent.’

‘You did, by God,’ he said, almost starting up until a fresh spasm of pain caught him back. ‘By the Mass, and what did he say to that?’

‘He will not let us slip free so easily,’ I said. ‘He wished us joy, thinking no doubt we shall rend each other as well as ever he could. But I am still afraid. I do not know what he is about.’

‘I told you as much before,’ he said, ‘but you would not listen. Now has he us both in his grasp. Why came you here in the first place?’

‘And I have told you that, to save your life.’

He said slowly, distinctly, ‘Think you I want it saved on such terms?’

I said, as distinctively, back, ‘Pride, pride, you will choke on it. What use is pride or honour to a ghost? Where are all your fine words gone if your head is stuck above the White Tower with only dead lips to mouth them?’

And I thought what the queen had said, had warned:
Such men cannot endure unless they will change their ways.

I said, ‘At Sedgemont, you would not wed because you would not have your friends, your peers, think that the only way you could win back Cambray. At Cambray, you said you would not wed because you feared to have me dragged down with you. High words, fine thoughts. I accepted them. But is it not also true, you would not wed because you trust no women. Am I to blame for that? Must I bear the weight of your suspicions upon my back? What makes you think I am so faithless myself? Was it to trap you that I made my way to your border camp, that I came to Sedgemont to see you fight Maneth, that I crept out through the storm into the forest to bring you succour? If you would not wed because you would not wed, well then, that too I can accept.’

‘I did not know you came into the forest,’ he said slowly, ‘but I. . .’

‘There are many things you do not know, will never know,’ I said, breaking in upon him, too angry myself now to stop. ‘Did Giles die, and Sir Brian, and all those other valiant men, to make a fool of you? Did Geoffrey and Cecile, and those three Sedgemont guards here outside the door, risk their lives to ruin your honour? You will not wed because you will not wed. That I can accept. But not that you refuse to live because I loved you. I wanted to save your titles and lands, not for myself, why should I care for myself? Once you mocked my parents that they were wed to make a peace. It seems to me as good a reason as any to wed to give a son a name.’

His sound arm shot out, grasped me by the sleeve, dragged me towards him on my knees. The delicate fabric ripped and tore. My hands were black with the fire, my face smudged with smoke.

‘Son,’ he said.

I would not look at him. I had not meant to spit it out, this last secret between us. But I could not unsay it.

‘You lie,’ he said, the pulse beating in his cheek. ‘You cannot be with child, at least not mine. Whose then, if not mine?’

‘Count the months, my lord,’ I said, ‘since you were at Cambray. It is now close to the end of March. Do you not remember that last day before you left for Stephen’s court?’

I knew he remembered. ‘Since that day have I wanted a child of yours,’ I said, ‘to hold when you were no more. What time have I had for other men? Be not so churlish, my lord. I make no claim for myself. Only for the child.’

‘You cannot be with child,’ he repeated stubbornly. ‘I could still span your waist, had I use of both hands.’

I knew what he must be thinking; Cecile had shown me many tricks I would not have thought of, would not have known her capable of. Yet very soon, despite all our efforts, I would not be able to hide the fact. True, sickness and constant anxiety had taken their toll, but even I, after all these months, must at last show some visible sign of pregnancy.

I shrugged much as he might have done when argument was no longer worthwhile. ‘Then your son will be born a bastard,’ I said. ‘But since he must be born, then will time prove which of us is correct. Once, my lord, you told me at Sedgemont you would not have children unless there was something for them to inherit. At least your child can have that if you will acknowledge him. Is that not something to live for?’

He said slowly, unwillingly, ‘God’s wounds, but how you have changed, so stern, so fierce have you become. Yet still proud yourself. I begin to think what you say is right after all. 'So do wild cats fight for their young. But why did you not tell me before? Had I not right to know?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘At Sedgemont, I could have told you. But you were fighting for your life and that seemed more than enough. And afterwards, what chance was there?’

‘I would not have guessed it,’ he said. ‘I have had little experience in such matters.’

Strangely, I did not take his statement so amiss. It made him seem younger, more vulnerable.

‘If you had not let slip the fact,’ he said, ‘would you still have told me? Most women would have blared it forth from the start to fit their own ends.’

‘I have used it,’ I said sharply, ‘although not as many women would have done, to trap you. Since Cambray have I prayed for your son, to remember you, remember what we were.’

‘Who else knows?’ he asked again. ‘Cecile, she must have helped you.’

‘The queen,’ I said, ‘she guessed. And one of the French envoys at Sedgemont,’ which was stretching the truth a little, ‘but not, I think, the king.’

‘No,’ he said, almost absentmindedly, ‘else he would not have offered us to each other, in spite of his vulgar jests. Had he known, he would have found greater delight in keeping us apart.’

He turned his head at last, slowly. I still could not guess what he was thinking, what he would say or do.

He said abruptly, ‘These new honours sit uneasily. I feel I shall have little pleasure in this new court. There may not be place for me here. Perhaps I should go back to Sedgemont. Or should I give it to Geoffrey to hold for me?’

I did not know what to say, so much could not have been hoped for.

‘I need someone,’ he was saying, almost to himself, ‘to take Sir Brian’s place, someone who will still cherish the Lady Mildred for her full honour. We’ll have him there. And Cecile to keep him in control. He has grown too full of himself these days; to be seneschal may scarce contain him. I’ll have him knighted and wed and live happily thereafter! Shall that content you, lady?’

I was still uncomfortably caught between his knees, and his hand still grasped my arm so that the pressure of his fingers left marks along the skin.

He said again abruptly, the words jerked out of him by shame, ‘I may yet be crippled. I do not know if this arm of mine will heal. . .’

‘Of course it will,’ I said stoutly, pity contending with love. ‘You will need to use it along the western marches.’

‘Aye, that too,’ he said. He almost sighed. ‘I had come to enjoy life there more than I ever thought possible. When Stephen sent me back there after Wallingford, I was intended to be in exile. Angry I was with him and with myself, hating the wet and cold and loneliness. But after a while I came to enjoy even that; at Cambray, I knew what your father and brother felt. And I have come to lack the mists and bogs now that they are left behind. Perhaps I should go back there after all, and win a truce from your kinsfolk before the new king takes it upon himself to wrestle it from them by force. Although do not tell him I said so.’

‘I am no confidante to him,’ I said, ‘but if you take care, rest as you should, not jar your shoulder abroad as you have been doing, it will heal as straight as ever it was. You can leap astride your horse at Geoffrey’s knighting as King Henry did at his. I stitched the wound for you myself. . .’

‘Now by all the saints,’ he said, ‘do I fear the worst. What, the Lady Ann who scarce could sew a seam straight, whom they mocked at Sedgemont to hem our shirts?’

In the semi-darkness that surrounded us, I caught a gleam, was it of a smile?

‘Do not scowl,’ he said, although my head was bent, so he could not know. ‘I thought it was a dream, an illusion, but when I lay in the forest, it seemed you came one time; the memory was comforting like coolness after fever. But that was so unlike what I had always thought of you, I could not believe it then. God’s death, that is another reason to owe my life to you.’

‘And I to you, as equal a number,’ I said. ‘We do not play at games, my lord, to match each point with point.’

‘Judas,’ he said, ‘how fierce you have become. This is more like I remember you. I should not wish court life to have spoiled you.’

‘No, it has not,’ I said, trying to break his grasp.

‘But you have become used to it. I wonder that it has trapped you to its comforts.’

‘No,’ I said again. ‘Too many times already have you hinted what you dare not say aloud, that I have accepted this new king. I am first your loyal vassal, my lord Earl of Sedgemont. As your loyalties are made, so will mine follow you. I have but waited at the court for the king to tell him what I could, to plead for our cause, yours and mine. And never had the chance even to do that.’

‘You said enough,’ he said dryly, and again I felt the ripple of, laughter, was it? that undercurrent that I had first sensed in him so long ago. ‘You and Geoffrey both, babbling like jesters. I thought he would string you up before us. Well, so you have outfaced him in his own Hall, as once you did me.

He may not forget that, although he may not hold it against you. He admires courage of sorts.’