Ann of Cambray (54 page)

Henry sat stiff necked and acknowledged the cheers with his usual gesture of goodwill, although his grey eyes had turned black with rage. He knew he had no choice except to do as he had done, but he marked them all as dangerous men and envied, more than ever, Lord Raoul’s hold upon them. But when it was seen how they had cherished their Sedgemont colours throughout their long ordeal, making the womenfolk weep for pity of them, he turned aside and, it is said, muttered as to the air, ‘I could give half my kingdom for such ragged loyalty. I may yet give half away to subdue it.’ At least he had the sense not to fight against the tide, which he had no more chance of stopping than if it had been the current in the Channel. So he turned back with the Sedgemont men and saw them reunited with the earl and watched their departure after all.

In this way then the Earl of Sedgemont and the Lady Ann rode out from London escorted in fashion becoming to their rank and station, and the red-and-gold standard of Sedgemont was seen to fly once more and outshine the Angevin colours. And if rumour of hard drinking and prodigious appetite be believed, the Sedgemont men outdrank, out-ate, and yes, out-whored the Angevins, too, as many a London landlord found to his cost. But they left London without regret and went swiftly back to Sedgemont, there to establish Geoffrey, newly knighted and newly wed. And after welcoming back those other, humbler fugitives who had been living in the hopes of such a return, without further ceremony the earl and his wife took ship for France, the mild spring weather helping them to this purpose.

So at last they came to Sieux, and
les beaux prés de France
. There, while the king was held in England by the cares and toil of his kingdom, they rebuilt the castle, established themselves peacefully, and awaited the birth of their son, my lord, my master, my friend.

In these ways then were all things knit up, the great with the lesser, with the least; Cambray with Sedgemont; Celt with Norman.

I asked the Lady Ann once what she remembered of that time, but she would answer little.

‘I was too happy,’ was all she would say. ‘I remember nothing.’

You see how it is only grief that sharpens our memories, woe that makes us think of anything at all. But we flourish such a short while in the fullness of the sun. Let it rest upon them for a moment, let its warmth capture you. We are but ripples upon an endless tide.
Ora pro nobis.

Urien Cambrensis, the Welsh poet, writes this.