Gifts of the Queen (40 page)

He helped me, almost gentle as a woman, and when the laces snarled, he took his dagger and slit them loose himself.

'Harry,' I cried, starting up, 'do not march on Wales, I beg. Do not. I cannot help you, nor can anyone.'

He disentangled himself from my hands. 'No one has called me by that name in a long while,' he said, almost wondering. 'There was a huntsman at my uncle's court, my uncle of Gloucester that is, a border man. I cannot remember his name, but he called me 'Harry' in a Saxon way. It is strange to hear it on your lips, but I like it well enough. There is no one left to call me by any sort of name.'

As he spoke, he still chafed my hands; his own were rough and bridle-worn as Raoul's are; and when he spoke, he stared into the flame as if he were remembering from long ago. 'Ann,' he said, I admit I have done you wrong, but not all the wrong that you blame me for. Sieux I took in fair fight, my father and I, before his death. That was our soldier's right, but not to tear down its walls and hang its guard. Nor did I plot your death, nor Raoul's; I am ill thought of among my peers, but those are lies.'

'You tremble still,' he said, 'lie down. Do not fear me. In truth, I am not my brother who they say has slept with all the women in France. He swore he had lain with you, but that must be a lie. Is it a lie then,' and he spoke almost beseechingly, 'is it a lie that he slept with my wife? Ann, you who know them both, tell me the truth? And is it a lie that my father slept with her to persuade her to marry me? Then am I cuckold twice, to be the sport of all men, master of many lands and nothing else.'

There was suddenly such misery in his voice, I almost pitied him.

'And my father, that handsome man, more beautiful than his beautiful son, Geoffrey le Bel, are they both called, yet
he
was a man. The brother would have lands but without the danger, without effort. Not so my father. What he took, he earned. Yet to die as he did, so suddenly, in his prime. He never honored me as he should to leave a will so carelessly writ and to die without a word for me, only a curse, that he would not be buried until I agreed. I had done all and more that a son of his could do. Did I fail him in battle, did I lag behind? Did not I flesh my sword as a boy? And shall my mother's shame be on my head, that I am not even a count's son? Am I so ill formed, Lady Ann, that women would not look at me; am I so low bred that men should refuse my name and rank?'

He almost wept then, self-pity oozing from him like the damp in these walls. Yet I pitied him, poor wretch. 'No,' I said, although my voice still shivered—not even the fire's warmth could touch me—'a woman could like you, great King.'

'Ann of Cambray,’ he said, 'I will forgive you the trick you played on me. I regretted giving you away even as I ordered it. But I pledge you my word: I'll not harm you. I will lie beside you to share the warmth, for to tell truth, I, too, am half perished with the cold, and this floor is damp and hard. Here's my sword and my word.' He unsheathed his great sword and placed it carefully in the middle of the bed. 'I lie on one side,' he told me. 'Be satisfied. The blade is sharp; you have the right to pick it up if I misplease you. Which I will not, cannot. Eleanor has drained me dry, not able even to pleasure myself. There is something about you. Lady Ann, that I have not met in any woman I have known, not love, not lust, but soul to soul. I honor you. And I have told you things I have told no one.' He suddenly gave a rueful laugh. It made him seem younger than he was. It made that other side of him seem unreal. 'I have fought with many men, twice your size and strength, and never been bested yet. But you have bested me. So here's my hand. And here I give you the kiss of peace. I will not hurt you or yours, I vow. Do you not hurt me. So Harry of England bids you swear.'

And so we swore, a promise that I have kept all these years, so I thought he would keep faith with me. And so we slept, that sleep exhaustion brings. And when I awoke, it was already day. Burnt out torches, dead ash, a dark void to a winding stair, a drifting light that filtered round the moth-eaten tapestries. If sin it is to lie beside a man, without love or lust, for comfort's sake, then God must count it sin, I cannot. We have not yet reached that stage, praise be, where today priests judge sins by magnitude, which one is worst, which one least, debate their niceties by the hour. Put simply thus, he did not spill his seed in me, he was not the father of my son. But I also know that when I woke, the sword was on the ground and we were in one bed.

He slept, that great king, who would have an empire, buried in the coverings above his head; his shirt, his clothes tumbled on the floor like a child's thrown this way and that, and on the chest, his golden crown where he had tossed it carelessly. Yet he would have an empire and would fight to conquer it. He had tested me and I had won. And I kept faith with him, have told no one what was done there, what was said, until now. But he did not keep faith with me—and that's to come.

I tried to stand, the room spun round; my body ached as if whipped with cords. I longed to sink back down again, but could not, knew I must go on. We have short nights, long days, in summer here; I judged it already past four of the clock. The birds had not yet begun to sing and the evening had left great fog patches on the moors. Silently, I put on my clothes, still damp, torn and stained, burnt about the edges from the fire and smelling of smoke. Then, taking shoes in hand, I felt my way down the main stairs to the stableyard.

There were guards of course; they turned to laugh or shrug as I passed. Who knows what the huntsmen, pages, thought of me, a king's paramour who leaves at dawn? They did not know me nor I them, but before the week was gone, they would not laugh again. Without their help, I reached the stables, found my horse, and saddled it, although, from time to time, I was forced to lean against its side, the world swam before my eyes much as it had done on shipboard, as if the ground still heaved.

I took a saddle, any one, the closest at hand; with difficulty, I swung it on, fastened it, climbed into it, a knight's high saddle, well-worn and ill kept, but it would serve, and called to the guards to open the sally port. Easy was it to ride into Maneth Castle and easy to ride out, this place of nightmare where my darkest fears had been. Every movement wrenched my head loose, I felt it floated off; the slightest pressure jarred my spine as if the bones were unstrung. Down the narrow causeway we went, and at the curve, I leaned back and stared at that place which had brought me so many years of sorrow. It was just a gray shape after all, silhouetted against the morning sky. I cannot say what I thought of it, not then, not now. Like many things one dreads, dangers, even death itself, met up with they do not seem as dreadful as we think, and come upon us with the ease of familiar friends. As for Henry, who was great king, I often think of him as I knew him that night, when he revealed his inner secrets, when he had me in his power and I had him in mine. Fate had caught him, too. He could no more escape from what he was than could any other man. And at the very end, he kept faith in his fashion, although he came to it late. And that too in time shall be told.

The path soon degenerated into ruts and pits; I had to pick my way carefully until I came on the open moors, similar to those near Cambray but without the sea to give them added depth. But the northern mountains were clearly visible as they are not further south. I remember noticing that and thinking it strange. I felt the sun's warmth upon my back and kept the horse's head pointed away from it, west. I closed my eyes. Although I was locked in the saddle by the high seat, I felt giddiness and sickness in waves sweep over me. And somehow, not knowing what I did, I turned north, not south when we came to Offa's Dyke. I cannot explain how this happened. It was against my will, plan, but fate perhaps overruled me. And when I spotted a break leading to the bed of the dyke, I plunged down through the surrounding bank. The gulley was treacherous, rough with stones and flints, steep-sided and deep, but within the ditch the floor was wide enough for several men to ride abreast, or race their chariots up and down as I think they must have done in those far-off days. And I thought too of those legends which tell how a giant had plunged his hand into the earth and scooped it out in clods and turfs, tossing them aside to form our western hills. A small stream ran chuckling under the fern; except for that there was no sound, just a far-off bird cry, sharp and high like a lapwing's. After a while, when this open floor began to close in, I put my horse at the other bank and we scrambled up on the western side, the Celtic side of the boundary line. And so, beating down the bracken fronds that came almost to my waist, at last I came into my own people's land. I cannot explain, I tell you, what made me follow this unknown route; something deep, something unfathomed. So they say a salmon returns to its native stream. What makes it remember or know the way back from those far-off ocean depths, or what brings back a bird each year to the same nesting ground?

I suppose there was a watch at the crossing point. The path we now traveled was well marked. Although I saw no one, there were signs if I had had the sense to make them out: flattened earth, cattle and horse droppings, torn and scorched grass where someone had camped to make a fire. I might have guessed too that, hearing of Henry's approach as they must, the Celtic princes, suspicious as are all the Celts, knowing Henry and fearing him, they must have been on the alert. And, it is true, in places I came across great brush piles, watchfires they were, which, when lit, would warn the populace that the border had been crossed. So we journeyed northwest as I suppose and when this malaise, this daze, into which I had fallen, lifted, the morning sun had already dimmed, as often it does on the moors, sun in morning, rain by noon, and patches of fog began to roll about us, wet and thick so that there was soon no telling where we were. And as the mists drifted in and out, so did my thoughts.

As it later seems, I crossed their outposts more than once, and my erratic wanderings, following first this path, then its reverse, must have puzzled them, for I let my horse pick the easiest way. Nor did I see them, although they had long kept track of me. It was that thin bird's cry, cutting through the fog, that alerted me. I heard it again, and thrice again, and after that, rode more cautiously, not wanting to tumble upon someone unawares. And sometimes now, as the mists closed round, for they thinned and then grew dense again, it seemed I heard other sounds, a clink of metal clipping stone or a rustle an animal makes as it pushes its way through bushes and fern. My own brain had cleared somewhat; I began to guess what followed me. Tense with alarm, I continued cautiously to advance.

The fogs had lessened in the place where I finally came to a halt, a kind of dell or grassy plot, surrounded by thick gorse bushes whose yellow flowers seemed to give a yellowish tinge to the air. More clearly than ever before, I sensed a presence. Perhaps they had already gathered there, and hearing my approach had taken cover; more like, I think, they had been tracking me these many miles, just outside my eye's gaze so that, although I had caught glimpses of them, I did not know what they were. Now on the rim of things, they began to put on shape, become substantial, real; a horse or two moving slowly in step, a foot soldier carrying his round shield and throwing spear, and surrounding them, as I took in more, archers, with their rough elm-carved Welsh bows. Finally, behind them, on a slope, a group of mounted men, their leaders I presume, for they were better armed, better horsed. But young, all young.

They were watching me intently as I them; but as they came into view and the mist eddied past, some turned their faces away so I should not look at them. And I remembered how once my men had so turned away from the lady of the moors. Yet many came crowding up to take in this strange sight, a woman alone on a horse. I had not thought how it would look. They were young as I have said, smallboned, wide-shouldered, short and stocky like the ponies they rode. Their leaders, I guessed that their rank, rode moorland horses with coats and manes untrimmed. My own horse towered above theirs; yet if I had tried to outrun them, theirs would soon have outpaced me over the rough grass. The men were shaggy and ill kept, too, not bearded as are most Norman men, but with long, fair moustaches that grew low on their chins. Their hair was long, bound back with thongs, little of a Norman man-of-arms with them, no mail coats, no steel helmets, no Norman swords. I saw all this clearly although afterward when the fever raged, I wondered if in truth I had seen or merely thought I had. Their armor was leather padded jerkins, coiled leather caps, with little to choose between master and men save that the archers wore leather bracelets on their arms to strengthen them. Little to choose then between master and men, informality was their style, except when the master gave an order it was obeyed. They talked softly among themselves in their own tongue, but when a spokesman questioned me, as he now did, he spoke in Norman-French, haltingly, and his voice had that border lilt that I had not heard for a long while. It made me think of Walter and I almost smiled. But these questions were not for smiling, and since I was not willing to speak of Cambray nor to use my name, and since it even hurt to answer in monosyllables, they had little news from me. Nor was I inclined to tell them I came from Maneth Castle; I had enough sense not to mention a place which the Celts also abhorred. My answers, then, not well thought out, hesitantly given, were almost worse than giving none, nor could I make coherent reply to all the other questions that they then hurled at me, almost drowned in the hubbub as more and more men crowded round, questions about the Norman troops, their strength, where Henry's army was bestowed, who led it, military questions that, even if I could have taken them in, I could not have replied to.

Meanwhile, one of the men was looking over the horse, testing its forefeet, fingering the bridle and saddle.

'A Norman warhorse, lords,' he reported in his own tongue, having satisfied himself with thorough Celtic common sense, 'ridden hard yesterday, see, the dried mud, and stabled in a Norman barn, although ill groomed. And Norman war gear, Norman saddle. As for the markings under the saddle flaps, I would judge both horse and rider have not come far, from Maneth by the look of it.' They gave a hiss at that name, have not I just said it was ill omened among the Celts, many of whom had suffered there or had known of men who had; once brought there, they disappeared, and their lands and property fell forfeit to those lords. Of all the border castles Henry should have torn down, this was the one the Celts would have destroyed; this was the one that was an offense to them to let remain.