Gifts of the Queen (5 page)

He pursed his lips, whistled the tune as Walter, my squire, might have done, than sang:

No love ever has been due
Betwixt the Counts of Sieux 
And bastards of Anjou.

Except the word he used for 'love' was a soldier's phrase. And he had an even coarser term for 'bastard.' I had to laugh.

'There,' he said, 'I have made you smile after all. Your father, Falk, taught me that tune.'

He hesitated. I think he searched for words. To bring a wife back to Sieux was a new experience for him.
I have not yet had wife or children to my bed,
once he told me, 
but if you will, I shall lie with you until it is you who cries cease.
But that was lust, not love. Two-Handed Raoul, who could have any woman in the land, also had to learn that paramour and wife are not quite the same; he too had to become used to me.

He said, 'I have told you, Lady Ann, of all my grandfather's friends, the man he trusted most was your father, Falk. When I was sent for safety to Sieux as a child, Falk brought me here. Falk took me hunting for the first time. We rode together on his gray Cambray horse. And he cuffed me soundly afterward for spoiling his aim. He taught me the value of keeping quiet; he taught me how to use my eyes and ears. He taught me too how to fight.'

He said, almost formally, 'Sieux was Falk's home for many years. He loved it well. So may it be his daughter's home, safe for her and her child.'

Well, long ago, ten years ago, when I had lost all that I loved at one time, brother, father, friends, Cambray, I had never thought to have love given back to me. Yet so it was, and Raoul the man that God had given me to love. Out of all hope had Raoul escaped from certain death and been restored to lands and titles. Out of all hope had he married me. Yet I was a bride he had been forced to take, a wife he had not looked to have. A king had ordered him to wed. Out of loyalty to me who had been loyal to him, he had married me to give my child a name. A courteous man, he would show me courtesy.
You will never know if he loves you
—so had the lady of the moors warned. Perhaps she was right. Love in marriage is much to hope for. But where love is, it is a gift that is freely bestowed. It cannot demand a similar love in return. Scarce three months ago I did not know if Raoul still lived. If God had given us each other back, if God had made us man and wife, surely, I thought, that too was for a cause? What I looked for at Sieux was not rank or fame. All I wanted was an interlude, a time of peace, a respite from other men's wars, and a chance to show Raoul my love. I did not think then, nor do I now, that was overmuch of happiness to ask.

Perhaps Raoul hoped as much himself. Releasing me, he picked up an old horn beaker and filled it full. Behind us, his men raised their goblets in silent toast. In silence we drank the bitter wine. Safely home. Was not that also something the lady of the moors had promised?

Pray God, I thought as we mounted for the last ride down to the river plains. Pray God for safety for my noble lord; pray God for safety for my child.

I suppose, as I rode along those last miles, thinking on these things, my pace had slackened. But when I noticed it did not matter, for Lord Raoul was not so far ahead that I could not sometimes hear the laughter of his men. Besides he deserved to have first look at his castle on his own. If it were Cambray to which we now returned, I should have like to see it for myself, and savor it alone.

My two squires and I ambled more slowly, letting our horses mouth the peaty water. Presently, as Raoul had explained, the lake began to narrow again at its eastern end, where the river funneled from a channel running swifter there with a rush and clatter over pebble shoals. There would be good fishing among these rocks where the water plunged from a gorge, and by the lakeside where the meadows had opened wide, good pasture for the spring herds, good hunting in autumn for flocks of geese and ducks. The path had begun to rise above the water's edge once more; and as we rose, we left the mists below us like some gray cloak spread, and moved into clearer air. You could see dimly ahead the great cut the river made to our right, around the cliff edge like indeed to a ship's prow. And so in this way, idly, without haste, we came to the start of the cliff climb, where Raoul was waiting with his men. They did not speak as we came up; there was no sound, save the tired horses' stamping against the flies, the distant water's chatter. There were no trees on the cliff, bare rock it was with a few stunted bushes and sparse grass. You had to tilt your head as you looked up to where the day was already ending in a rack of clouds. And there, above us at the cliff's height, where should have stood the towers of Sieux, there was nothing, a blankness against the sky. At last Raoul spoke.

‘Now, before God,’ he said, 'I had not thought Henry to have done so much.'

And after a long time, he moved up the path. I remember thinking, I should have known. And my heart grew heavy with what we would find at the gates of Sieux, and what he would do when he got there.

The cliff was steep. We had to strain for footing on the flinty ground. The horses in front sent out showers of dirt and grit and, before we were halfway up, a hail of arrows came rattling down, like dead leaves falling. Had I had better knowledge, I would have known it for a flight too soon loosened, too ragged to be dangerous, but it made the horses shy, and a man cried out where a bolt took his upper arm. Some of the men tugged at their shields, which they had slung for comfort behind their saddles, others freed their swords, snatched for their helmets.

Raoul spurred forward, without pause, without armor, bare-headed in shirt and jerkin. He threw the reins loose across the horse's neck, with his left hand plucked forth his sword. Its blade glinted as he drew; I heard his cry, that terrible battle cry that I had heard but once before, that made my blood run cold. His men took it up, the battle cry of the Normans, men of the north, the old berserkers calling down their gods of havoc and war. They rode like furies up the path, and far off, I heard that thin shriek of fear I never hoped to hear. And I thought, covering my face with my hand while my belly heaved. Not again.

Then, without thought, without will, I too went lumbering up the path, the squires shouting at me to hold, trying to force their skittish horses round mine to bring me to a halt. Without thought I rode, but whether it was in my mind to stop the slaughter or to help it, I cannot tell. I only know that when reason came back, it was already done. As indeed I might have known from the start. No disciplined band would have given themselves away so soon, or shot down on armed men to lose the advantage of surprise.

Lord Raoul had already paused where two men had fallen in a welter of blood. Others were scrambling over the cliff's edge; the rest, with some of Raoul's men in pursuit on foot, went backing down the further side of the path. Even as I looked, another fell. Miserable curs they were, dressed all in rags. We had caught them at their food, for their cooking fires still smoldered in the outer bailey beside the gates.

Gates did I say? There were no gates, no walls, only two twisted piles of wood and iron that had once held the drawbridge chains, from which the great beam sagged now too low for man on horseback to pass underneath. The towers that had stood on either side scarcely reached waist high, black with soot and smoke, and all the walls that had stretched beyond were tumbled down into the courtyard, filling it with stone. And on the cliff side, the fallen blocks fanned out, like to a giant scree.

But there was worse. Where the walls, or what was left of them had stood at the steepest side, things were still hanging. I averted my eyes, but not before I had seen the rusting chains, the stains they left, the foul and rotting things they held. I turned and heaved my heart upon the ground. And fear and grief, and something darker I cannot name, blew like a great cold wind upon the distant moors.

When I looked up, the work was done. For what revenge was worth against those wretched creatures, squatters all, within the castle ruins? Lord Raoul had known it, yet had not, could not, prevent it. All were victims here, of revenge, of cruelty, of blood. Already Raoul had summoned his own men back. They picked their way carefully among the fallen rubble, no easy work to run and fight in boots and spurs with all your harness on.

I had not thought Henry to have done so much.

That said it all. Henry the King. This was his answer then, his safe passage promised, his kiss of peace. It must have been a bitter thought. And I could not help remembering how, through all of my childhood dreams, dark and hideous, I had seen Cambray and Sedgemont, sacked and destroyed. No nightmare had ever been as real as this, these broken towers.

Still sitting on his horse, which pawed the ground as if it scented blood, Raoul was withdrawn and silent. His eyes were their darkest gray, almost without focus in their intent. He had sheathed his sword and his ungloved hand beat nervously upon the saddle rim. I had seen him thus once before, when battle's heat or rage or despair so took him that it numbed him to all else. But there could be no battle here, with only dead men left. Those whom he should fight were already gone, marched safely home when their butcher work was done. He fought today against shadows.

And, against my will, the thought came again how, once as a child, Raoul had seen an army attack his castle here. Count Geoffrey, Henry's father, it had been at that time, whose troops had milled about the walls.

They fired the vines. For spite. Because they could not get in they destroyed all they could,
Raoul had told me. Like beasts then, that tear and ravage for sport. And now, raving this time by luck or skill got in, they still must despoil, still must ravage.

I cannot say how long Raoul sat upon his horse, hunched forward as if in thought. Perhaps it was no longer than a moment, and it was I who saw that moment stretched out as if it would have no end. Or perhaps for him time moved as slowly, and before his eyes passed all that he must remember of Sieux. He had last seen it as a boy when, come to the age of sixteen on his grandfather's death, he had returned to England to take up arms for Stephen. He had known before the last campaign, before King Stephen's death, that Henry had seized Sieux. But seized only, not sacked. This devastation must have a later date.

You could see grass already green among the stone some pale yellow flowers grew at the cliff top, and there were paths beaten down among the boulders. How much later then had Henry sent more men to destroy Sieux? And how much later, or was it at the same time, had he ordered the castle guard dragged from the dungeons below and hanged on the shattered walls? The household guard, friends of Raoul's childhood, his companions, men he had hoped to see again, he would be remembering them, their lives, their shameful deaths. And in their memory would he find the ghosts of his own childhood, his hopes, his own dreams. Had Henry's men laughed and whistled about their work? Had they marched away with their banners flying? Or had they crept silently, in the dark, stained with murder? No king, I thought again, no Christian king, anointed of God with holy oil, would show such cruelty to men unarmed, helpless prisoners, without just cause. And I remembered what I had heard of Henry, whose mother let him see men die that he might become used to death, whose ancestors had come with their long ships to wrack the world, for the glory of the conquest, the joy of war, who in his rage, men say, would roll upon the ground and tear his own flesh. The boy Henry I had known in London, the young king, cherishing his wife and her desires, now had he showed the terror of his claws. And the thought came clearly, deadly clear, that even here, we were not safe from him.

Raoul's squires were already running to his side, helping him climb down from the saddle (for he needs must have someone hold the stirrup iron), were unstrapping his spurs, his sword belt. One by one, the mounted men swung off their horses as stiffly, as if too tired to move. Most of them had had comrades here, others would know of them by repute. How was their jesting this last day turned to dust.

Yet there was much to be done, no place for brooding. None of us had time to grieve. Space must be made for men and animals; covering secured against the weather; defense of sorts established so that, by nightfall, we could know some security. The squatters had done us this much service, for where their fires were still burning, they had partially cleared the stones away by tipping them over the ravine. There would be room enough there to spread a canopy against the wall, unstrap the saddles, spread them out. Only when this was done did Raoul turn to face me.

There was no shade in this bare and broken place, just white stones streaked with gray and black, no shadows, nowhere to hide. His face was blank, his voice expressionless as he helped me over the rubble, and for a moment, all the world swung dark.

The moment passed. Lord Raoul was speaking, formally. 'Lady,' he was saying, 'this is not the welcome I would have you have, but you are welcome all the same to Sieux.'

I took his hand, sensing its light tremble as it closed upon my own. Across the palm I could feel the calluses from rein and sword and the open cuts where he had grasped the hilt so tightly. I smiled at him as I picked my way with care.

'Why, my Lord,' I said as brightly as I could, 'it is no hard thing to camp out. We can bivouac in France as well as along the Celtic border. And look,' for I would not have him bear the weight of my distress, 'at least the weather may clear tonight.' I wished to do him courtesy for courtesy, and no doubt he thanked me for it, although he made no open sign. But like a drum, the words beat in my mind: 
I had not thought Henry could do so much.

The twilight here was short, not as lingering as I was used to in more northern parts. Water had to be fetched in leather buckets from the river, a tiresome business, for the wells, two of them, a rarity in castles as I knew, had been so choked with stone, packed down and rammed in tight, to be rendered useless until we could clear them. For ease, we tethered the horses down by the river's edge where there was some grazing, too far away for comfort if we should be attacked, but then, if attack came, we were all dead; we had no defense, and we were too few to do more than sell life dearly.