Gifts of the Queen (44 page)

' "If not you," Henry cried next, as if in pain, for they were breaking the arrowhead from his arm, "your Celtic wife has revealed our plans. Ask her, when you see her next, where she heard of them."

' "She is at Cambray," Lord Raoul said soberly.

' "Is she then? Then ask her how she escaped my brother Plantagenet, and what became of her escort? Ask her why she came to Maneth Castle and not Cambray. As she came to Poitiers perhaps. Ask her where she was a week ago. Ask her when she shared our bed . . .’”

'In one bound, Lord Raoul leapt off his horse, took Henry by the throat. All smeared with blood, he pinned him to the sand.

' "You lie," was all he said. "Unsay that lie."

' "My lord Earl." Horrified, the king's men hurled themselves at him and tried to drag him off. But Henry lay upon the ground and smiled. Lord Raoul stood up—you know how tall he is, easily recognizable, and how he can look, his face implacable. He threw away his helmet, let it roll on the ground, unbuckled his sword belt with steady hands, took his sword and threw it so it soared in a great arc and fell with hardly a splash at the water's edge. He unstrapped his spurs and ripped them loose.

' "Here, boy," he cried and with one hand wrestled with the straps of his mail coat. No one dared approach him. "Here boy," he said again, and dropped coat and sword belt, shield, in a heap at Henry's feet. In shirt and jerkin, he vaulted back into the saddle, sat there looking at the king. His horse's hooves were within inches of the king's face.

' "One day, boy," he said again, the contempt in his voice made men wince, "one day we shall have the truth from your own lips, not here, not now, but one day." The king's men had started back in alarm, terrified by that great horse; not so the king, I grant you that, he lay there without moving a muscle. But even he did not smile then.

' "Do what you will with our lands," Lord Raoul said, "there are other lands, and other wars. I hereby renounce all allegiance to you, a thing of straw. I dishonor you, who would seek to dishonor me. I spit on you."

'He clapped his feet against his horse's back, bounded away, leaving Henry and the surviving lords staring after him. They say he rode southward without drawing rein, and two of his men, a knight and squire, secretly having gathered up his gear, followed him. But his guard wept for rage. And that is what they say. Lady Ann.'

Daffyd said no more, and after a while, he too went away. Once, long ago, in a single moment I had lost all I loved. I remember how my father sat when they brought my brother's body back.
Drowned,
he had said. He slid from his horse and never spoke again, turned his face to the wall, so died himself. So turned now I to the wall, and hoped that death would take me too, having lost a second time all that I held most dear. Betraying, betrayed for vengeance's sake.
I had not thought Henry could do so much.
Now did he that much to me. Yet I lived, and a great sickness took me instead, welling up from my heart's core. I heard people around me, I knew when they brought me food, I must have heard them talk. Rumors of other battles reached my ears, but not my brain, how at Angelsey, an island in the north, Henry's troops again were overwhelmed, for he, recovering from the rout at Basingwerk, still fought on. I heard how Prince Owain finally made a truce, land for peace, and how the king disbanded his men, withdrew and returned to England, still in the mood of darkest gloom. Life in Prince Owain's castle went on as before. But of Lord Raoul no news, never news of Cambray or Sedgemont. The child in my womb quickened and grew, but never word of it either, until it seemed to suck my life away, a canker rather than a child, eating into the living flesh. And so I lay in a little side room which for kindness they gave to me, they themselves being more used to crowd together in some communal bed with only a stiff sheet to cover them. But I lay apart, a thing apart, as if never again to know life or warmth, and felt my loss complete.

Sometimes young Dafydd would visit me, bearing gifts as in the Celtic way, and I would lie for hours perhaps with the flowers he brought, not seeing them, only the blank stones. Sometimes the Princess Lilian would play her Welsh harp, or
crwth,
and the sound of her music too passed me by. And so time moved on and I lay there. Until one day, I sensed a difference. Had it been spring, I would have said it was the sense of living things, of sap rising, green grass, which in man as well as animals makes its presence felt. But this was the autumn of the year, when the first frosts covered the ground, and from the high windows of my chamber, a keen wind came whistling in. The room I think had been used for storing food, apples mostly, of which they eat vast amounts and drink as cider too, and although a bed filled most of the space, there were still some withered fruits lying forgotten on the rough wood shelves which lined the walls. A cool current of air streaming down brought into the room a cold white light, as if the frosts without were filtered through inside, and the scent of apples was suddenly strong and sweet.

I was lying, as I have said, my hair grown lank, uncombed. I felt someone take up a brush and begin to smooth out the snarls, begin to braid it with long cool hands. I turned my head painfully. Someone was sitting by my side, a woman cloaked against the cold. Her woolen hood was drawn over her head, and beneath, her tunic fell like silk. I thought she smiled at me.

'Ann of Cambray,' I thought she said, 'long has it been since I had word of you. Long since you promised me much and gave me naught. Now am I come to claim my due.'

Perhaps I dreamt; perhaps I watched her for a while; perhaps she came a second time. She gave me food, a bowl of soup which I swallowed because I must. She held my head and I remember her fingers, how they smoothed the hair black from my face.

'Sa, sa,' she said, and put the horn spoon into its bowl. 'So, Ann of Cambray,' I thought she said for a second time, 'now do I ask you for my fee. What will you give me in place of it?'

And afterward or perhaps another day, or perhaps this was a continuing dream, she said, 'Ann of Cambray, a third time have I called your name. I cannot call you again. What will you give me to make up the past? What will you give me for your future peace? We cannot undo what the gods have writ. Nor do we foretell your future, or anyone's, only what you yourself know in your heart. But give me my fee that I too may know peace.'

Now, round my neck I still wore that linked chain which the queen had torn, and on it the great carved ring from which it seemed to me so many of my griefs were sprung. She must have guessed what was in my mind, for she pushed back the covers and drew it off. The white cold light from the window slit played on the stone, setting fires within its carved shape. She weighed it in her hand much as the queen had done.

'So,' she said, 'a bitter thing, but I will take it upon myself.'

'I did not ask for bitterness,' I thought I said. 'I did not ask for men's lives. I would not live to have those guilts upon my soul.'

'Then you should have stayed in your nunnery,' she answered me, or I thought she did. 'All who live will sin, and all must bear one another's guilt. Die if you wish, but grief is for bearing, not for turning aside.'

'I remember all you said,' I told her, struggling to sit up, I remember your words and the shadow they have cast upon my life.'

'Or have the shadows come and you have made them fit my words?' Her voice was shrewd as I too remembered. The future is only the past made new. Like ripples in the lake, it flows on, not back. Have you sought me all your life to curse me or to have me take away a curse you think I laid on you? I bring you hope. A long life and hard will you have and men will die for you. Be comforted. Men will love you and you them, in the way of humankind, and love is worth the cherishing. Perhaps it is the only thing worth keeping in this world. Take pleasure in your happy days. Make peace with them and make peace with death. And if you have a son, cherish him. He most of all will need your love.'

'And Raoul?' His name broke out at last, out of my silence and despair. I thought she watched me for a long while then, settling my golden chain with its heavy ring about her own neck. And I wept all those tears I had not wept since Walter's death, since Geoffrey of Sedgemont's death, since the end of my love for the queen and Geoffrey Plantagenet, since Henry had betrayed me to my lord, and since Raoul had ridden away and left me here. And it seemed to me, that where ice, numbness had been, a warmth began to grow again.

'I cannot tell you news of him,' I thought she said, when I was done. 'His life is his own, not mine. But he has never broken faith before. If not before, why should he break it with you? And if you have a son, which you must live to bear, will not Raoul claim him as he claimed his firstborn? Was it not a son he wanted when you parted with him?'

'How should you know that?' I cried.

'Nay,' I thought she said, and almost a smile touched her lips, 'I asked a question, you have answered it. But Ann, when I was young, I knew your mother very well, we were like two daughters born at one time, although she was younger and the fairer of the two. The seventh child of a seventh child was she, the fairest of her race. She lived to endure many griefs; they did not daunt her.'

Her speaking of my mother was like balm upon an open wound, that lady I had never known, whose life I too had taken away. I yearned to hear of her. And, like a child, I listened to the story of Efa of the Celts. Perhaps I listened, perhaps she told it to me, or perhaps I dreamed it too, and some kind God sent it me to bring me hope and comfort. But I thought she told me it.

'Fairest of her race, she was,' I thought the lady of the moors said. 'A seventh born child of a seventh child is special born, has special gifts, and so we treasured her. A child she was, but scarcely grown to womanhood when your father saw her first, a girl who ran free like a boy, and her father doted on her and his sons did too, and all her family.

'In those days, the border was a wild and dangerous place, the more the Normans, new-come to power, would try to take lands from us and drive us back. Many were the raids we made against the invading hordes, and many the attacks they made on us. Your father soon won a name for himself, a strong, well-made man, not young, not old, not tall, not short, a dour, unsmiling man. But just. They say he had never held lands of his own before, but with strength and determination he built up Cambray, trained his castle guard, and followed his liege lord, the Earl of Sedgemont, who in return gave him lordship over these new lands. A self-made man then, but a valiant one, a good swordsman and a leader of men. And one day, he led them where no Norman had been before, on foot, which seldom Norman knights will do, to attack our fort. The way was steep as it is here and the path slippery with rain. Our men go barefoot on days like that, even leather too slippery for use, but he made his men climb up in their Norman boots. They lived like us on roots and leaves, carried their weapons in oiled rags to keep them dry, and he forced them forward until they broke through at the very foot of our walls. It was a rainy dawn, no one looked for them; but they were weary, with scarce strength to lift their weapons, and so were forced to rest. The earth walls were stone faced in part, and the top was bare save for one hooded figure who leaned out in amaze.

' "Kill me that guard, ho", your father, Lord Falk, shouts. A man staggers up, draws his sword, begins to climb the wall. It was faced as I have said with stone, rough-hewn and so gave him purchase; he soon was hidden beneath an overlap where no one could get at him. Your mother, for she it was upon the wall, come there by chance, in the early light, restless as young girls are, she, failing to see which way he went, leaned over to look for him; then suddenly afraid he would pull her down before she gave the alarm, sprang back, fitted an arrow to her hunting bow, and aimed it at your father's heart.

' "Get you gone," she cried, "I can kill a deer at twenty paces. I can kill you. Call your man off."

The other men of your father's guard having got their breath, began to laugh; one watchman and all the wall was clear. It would be an easy climb and the fortress would be open to attack. But your father held them back when they too would have scaled the wall, the sight of that one figure giving strength anew into their weary limbs.

' "Give up, boy," your father said, "we'll not hurt you. We do not war with boys."

'Then she laughed as well, shook her hair free. "If you cannot tell boys from maids," she said, "then you're no man to take this fort."

'And she called out the battle cry of her house, and released her arrow, but it flew wide. I had never known her to miss before. Our sleeping warriors heard her cry; they struggled out of sleep and armed themselves. They say your father still had time to attack, one man was almost at the topmost ledge and the others were ready to follow him, but he called them down. Afterward, his men said he was like a man bemused or bewitched. And angry with a furious rage to have been so mocked. Well, we had warning to man the walls, but he still held the pass, no food went in or out, although water we had in plenty, for it rained every day. But neither had those Normans food, nor did they like sitting in the wet. On the sixth day, your father called a parley and the result was this: the Normans would withdraw down the pass, but as surety of good conduct on our part that we would not try to surround Cambray again, or steal from those herds of his which he was trying to build up, we must give a hostage of our word, else would the Normans cut a path through the woods and return with their siege machine to destroy us.

' "As for hostages," your father said, "we'll take but one. That maid who laughed scorn at us."

'What an outcry then was made. What a moaning among the womenfolk, what a scandal among the men. But Efa of the Celts came to me. She had been weeping as you wept, but now her eyes were dry. Large eyes she had, as large as yours, and her hair flamed red.

' "I did not look to be wed," she said wistfully, little more than a child and used to running free, as I have explained, and her father, loving her, had not thought to arrange a match, preferring to keep her with him, "I had not thought to be a paramour to my enemy."