Needle in the Blood (33 page)

“That should disperse the blood and stop the skin discolouring, sir. I’m sure nothing’s broken, but perhaps your physician should take a look, just in case.”

Odo grimaces. “I think I’ll leave well alone.”

“As you wish, my lord.”

Odo prods the injured area cautiously with his fingertips, feeling for swelling or broken skin, for changes she will notice the next time she kneels beside him on his bed and removes his clothes, slowly and lovingly, as though unwrapping a longed for gift.

It has been six weeks. As Osbern dressed him after she had gone, leaving the reproachful imprint of her lips on his forehead, he was so preoccupied, he could not seem to understand what Osbern wanted of him when he asked him to raise his arms, or turn this way or that, or sit while Osbern fastened his shoes. Like a half grown boy not in control of his body, he fumbled the clasps holding his cross chain to his shoulders, knocked John’s figure of Saint Odo off his prie dieu when he knelt to pray.

Feeling faint and somehow separated from himself, he could not concentrate on prayer. For hours, days, until he reminded himself how she had taken pleasure in him. He had not imagined the way her body was wracked with pleasure and her cunt clenched around him like a strong fist, how she held him as though she wanted to climb right inside his skin. How nearly she had admitted to loving him. To hold her, he must go to her; with the reminder of his physical presence, he was certain she would be unable to resist him.

He went to the atelier. He stood behind her, breathing in her scent of salt and camomile and the sharp smell of the wool which the dyers soak in sheep’s piss to set the colours. That translation he had made of Aesop for Agatha lay open in her lap, his words, sprung from his mind, his mouth, his hand guiding the pen, gathered in the slack of her skirt, between her slightly parted thighs. He smiled broadly, though only Margaret, at the opposite side of the frame, had the benefit of it. When Gytha finally turned to look at him, he rubbed the side of his nose with his finger, hoping she would remember their conversation about Ovid.

He was barely halfway across the outer ward when she caught up with him, panting a little, her cheeks flushed, eyes cast down beneath their thick, black lashes. His only acknowledgment was to shorten his stride to match hers. He had no idea what he might say if he opened his mouth, no idea where it might end if he were to take her lightly by the elbow, as a gentleman should, to guide her around puddles or piles of horse dung. The hour was close to None; the only person in the hall was a spit boy turning a hog’s carcass over the fire, so absorbed in whatever pictures he could see in the flames, leaping as fat sputtered into them, he never noticed Odo and Gytha climbing the stairs to Odo’s apartments.

He dismissed his servants, but without waiting for them all to leave, he gathered her into his arms and kissed her, long enough to know he was right, she was as hungry for him as he for her. Yet when she pulled away from him, he thought only the space of time measured by a single heartbeat had passed.

“I missed you.”

“You could have come sooner.”

“It’s only been two days.”

“Really?”

“I still love you. I didn’t imagine it.”

“And are you still jealous?”

“I try not to think about it. I fill my mind with you as you are now, not then, or in the future. To be honest, now is as much as I can cope with.”

She made no reply to this, but took him by both hands and led him through to his bedroom. “Lie down,” she said and, when he started to undo his belt, shook her head and repeated her command. Bemused, he obeyed, watching her, his arms folded behind his head, as she removed her cap and let down her hair, running her fingers through it, shaking it down her back to her buttocks. Then she bent to unlace her shoes, the hair falling forwards, dark, glossy coils catching on her breasts as she straightened up.

She knelt beside him on the bed and began to undress him. She worked methodically, starting with his shoes, his belt, smiling to herself as she laid his jewel-handled dagger on the nightstand. She made him sit up and raise his arms as she pulled his tunic and shirt over his head, then removed his chausses, working them skillfully over his erection. He reached for her with a groan, but she shook her head and pushed him away, saying nothing, as enigmatic as Emma, the mute.

Then she began to run her hands over his body, lightly at first but gathering force, stroking and squeezing his flesh like a potter moulding clay, making him her own. When she touched his flanks, he doubled up with laughter.

“Ah,” she said triumphantly, “ticklish.”

***

She has set a pattern for their encounters. Every time, this is how they begin. She strips him naked and explores him, telling him the story of his body, which is not the story of the body he knows, consecrated to God and to William. She tells him that the way the hair curls on his chest reminds her of embroidering chain mail, and that one day, she supposes, it will turn as grey. That the skin on the insides of his knees and elbows is so soft, it is almost impossible to believe it belongs to the same body as the callouses on his hands. His navel, she says, is as deep as the first joint on her index finger, and she is unsure whether to trust a man with curly eyelashes. She tastes the iron of swords and the nails on the Cross in his mouth when she kisses him and the sea in his seed. His earlobes feel like velvet, and his penis, when hard, is silky as a mushroom cap. He is unique, and the way she loves him is unique, learned from him and not from other men.

He is relieved she was not here to witness his defeat this afternoon, though he was not thrown and managed to deflect the worst of the blow, turning his horse’s head as his opponent’s lance collided with his shield, the shock fizzing through his arm and shoulder and jaw, exploding behind his left eye. She was away in the castle somewhere with Freya and the dressmaker from Rouen, putting the finishing touches to her gown for this evening’s feast. That is some consolation at least, for two broken lances and his wounded pride. And the other man is what he would term a professional, travelling round Europe from tournament to tournament, making his living by winning prizes. His squire has already been to Odo’s tent to lay claim to horse, shield, and a purse in lieu of the splintered lances. Wincing as Osbern draws his shirt sleeve back over his arm, he wonders what kind of dancing partner he is going to make. Still better than his brother Mortain or his fat nephew Curthose.

“Will the king be there?” she had asked him, thoughtfully testing the length of primrose yellow silk between her fingers.

“William doesn’t particularly enjoy feasting. But he’s sent me a gift, a Life of Saint Odo with three new miracles.” He was glad she was too absorbed in examining the fabric to notice his expression.

As Osbern eases him into the rest of his clothes, he hears raised voices outside the tent.
Another man down
, he thinks ruefully, though the English are not usually so responsive an audience, more interested in the pie sellers and the acrobats who do balancing tricks on the lists between bouts than the jousting knights themselves. Well, what can you expect of a people who fight on foot with axes like a rabble of serfs and think football is a game for gentlemen? Then suddenly the commotion is closer, the hide hung across the entrance to the tent shivering as a body seems to stagger into it before regaining its balance and moving away.

Drawing his knife from the belt Osbern is about to fasten around his hips, Odo steps forward and pulls back the hide in a single, rapid movement. He comes face to face with a man as tall as himself, whose strange, green eyes, dense and luminous as enamel slipped over silver leaf, are disconcertingly familiar. Though big, the man is gaunt, no match for the two guards standing with long pikes crossed to bar his way. He is a Saxon by his colouring and the style of his sandy moustache, worn long and without a beard.

“Who are you, man? How did you get here?” asks Odo in English.

“God is watching you, Norman.”

“Not through your eyes, I think,” he replies with a confidence he does not feel, appraising the stranger’s long cloak of lambskins so white they seem to glow from within, making the glitter of the standards fluttering around the tournament ground seem tawdry by comparison. “Get rid of him,” he tells his guards, “then report yourselves to your commander for a flogging and have him send me some more competent protection.”

The intruder struggles, his chest pushing against the crossed pikes. He is stronger than he looks. Odo raises his dagger to the man’s throat.

“Don’t think I won’t use it,” he warns, and as the man straightens up and lifts his arms in a gesture of surrender, draws its point, almost in a caress, down over his breastbone, cutting open his threadbare shirt.

He gags, almost drops the knife. The smell is terrible, like rank meat. His dagger has cut, not only the shirt, but a wad of filthy bandages underneath. The man’s chest is densely scarred, whorls and roundels like contours on a map, purple and angry red, some weeping thick yellow pus. The pikemen shy away in disgust as Osbern, casually threatening, tossing his own knife from hand to hand, comes to stand beside his master.

“Do not pity me, Norman,” sneers the intruder. “I am beyond harm. I was dead, but rose again.”

“Dear God in heaven.” Odo crosses himself, with his left hand, his amethyst catching the hard winter sunlight falling through the tentflap.

“You think holiness resides in a stone, priest?”

Arrow wounds, he realises, beginning to understand. He gives the Saxon his best self-deprecating smile. “As the saint says,” he says, switching to Latin, “‘since the world began life has betrayed those who placed their hopes in it.’”

“Then you know me, Norman. Be on your guard, you will see me again.” And before any of them are aware of it he has gone, swallowed up by the crowd which closes around him as though he had never been.

***

“You look very pale,” whispers Agatha as he takes his seat beside her for the rest of the tournament. “Where were you? What took so long? Are you really hurt? You should give this up, you know, a man of your age.”

“Getting my injuries seen to, and no, they’re not serious, and yes, I should give it up. Stop nagging and tell me what I’ve missed. I got waylaid by some hedge preacher pretending he was Saint Sebastian.” His had been the last bout on horseback, and they have moved onto hand-to-hand combat; the English, he notes, glancing across to where Agatha’s women sit like a row of magpies, are taking more notice now.

“Saint Sebastian?” queries Agatha. “How odd. You didn’t miss much. The last pair fought with maces. Dull, all brute force and no skill. Saint Sebastian was probably more entertaining. This is better, though one-sided. You see the one on the right, in the leather and mail, his grip’s all wrong? He’ll tire quickly.”

He laughs, then sucks in his breath sharply as the air jerking through his body jars his shoulder. “You should have been a man, Agatha.”

“Yes.” She continues to stare at the men fighting, but they are just a blur, flashing blades, dust clouds, a few grunts and the remorseless clang of iron on iron as if she were condemned to sit in a smithy all day. How noisy it must be on a battlefield, she thinks, stealing a sidelong glance at Odo. He knows, of course. He has spoken to the priest. There are so many things they cannot speak about, yet he ought to understand.

“I was thinking,” he says, “that I might arrange a marriage for Margaret once the tapestry’s finished.”

“Embroidery,” hisses Agatha. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

The man with the faulty grip stumbles and drops to his knees. A ragged cheer goes up from the crowd. Odo slaps his thigh three or four times in appreciation, then, to the accompaniment of excited oohs and aahs, the man struggles up again and the fight resumes.

“Shall we have a bet on it? I’m not sure I agree with your assessment.”

“Really, Odo, are you not deep enough in sin by taking part? Must you gamble as well?”

He shrugs. “You know me. Anyway, what do you think? My squire, Guerin. His prospects are good. Some land in the Cotentin, enough to keep the crippled sister as well. And he can’t take his eyes off her.”

He has guessed. Who else could it be? Stuck up Judith? Emma with her twitch? Mad, maimed Alwys? Gytha? This is his way, to trick and tease. She suddenly remembers a time early in their childhood, before William, before Bec or Saint Justina’s, when he crept up behind her and pushed her into the moat at Conteville.

Then, of course, dived in himself to pull her out and talked Maman out of beating her for ruining her clothes.

“Will his family agree? Will hers?”

“Her father is my vassal, and I dare say he’ll be relieved to get rid of a daughter who will be well over twenty and another one who’s good for nothing. As for his, I’ll make sure Margaret brings a good dowry. Good enough to make them think of her as if she were my daughter.”

“Will Guerin wait?”

“He can’t marry before he’s knighted, and that won’t be for a year at least. He hasn’t seen sixteen summers yet.”

At which age, Odo had already been a bishop for three years. Lucky Guerin, not to have his decisions made for him by William of Normandy.

Odo’s gaze is challenging. There is no way out, it tells her. She struggles until her muscles ache to keep the smile on her face. There is a surge in the crowd as the man with the faulty grip brings the flat of his sword down conclusively across the back of his opponent’s neck, sending him sprawling. When he does not move, a couple of his servants run in from among the tents clustered around the ends of the lists to drag him from the field. Each takes hold of an ankle; the man’s head bumps over stones and hummocks of grass. The victor bows to the raised platform where Odo and Agatha are seated with Hamo and his family and Odo’s birthday guests.