Needle in the Blood (69 page)

“You must let her go.” His handsome face is disfigured by a triumphant sneer.

“I must do nothing of the sort,” Lanfranc replies testily. It is cold out here, the wind beginning to snarl around the corners of the buildings and slap the face of the abbey fish pond on the far side of the monks’ burial ground where they are standing among hummocks and headstones. He sniffs.

“She is innocent,” crows Odo. “She never intended to procure herself an abortion. You got the wrong end of the stick, old man, and I have witnesses to prove it.”

“Do you have the cunningwoman then? I could not find her anywhere.”

“No, of course I don’t. Neither of us will find her; she’ll be too well hidden. People value such women. They take care of them. They believe in Christ, but they like some insurance.”

“Nevertheless, I shall continue to look.”
But not too hard
, he adds to himself,
because if she doesn’t reappear, I can take back her assart which clutters up my forest.

“As you please. She is of no interest to me. I have other news which changes everything. Mistress Gytha is pregnant, so even if you try her, you cannot carry out any sentence until after my child is born.”
My child
. His collarbones ache with joy and impatience.

Lanfranc tugs at his beard. Perhaps it would be wisest to let Odo see the woman. Obviously he has not had this information from her directly, or even from the cunningwoman, who is no doubt prone, like most of her sort, to making such predictions, so it is always possible he is wrong and she will tell him so, and it must be her who tells him; he will not believe anyone else. If he is right, though, if he is right…He looks at the younger man’s flushed cheeks and shining eyes and shudders. He is as certain as he can be, since seeing the locket, that the woman is engaged in some diabolical practices involving the killing of infants. The thought of what she might do to a child of Odo’s shrinks his vitals, if, indeed, the child is his and not the spawn of the Devil himself. “Come, then, I will take you to her.”

***

A rage like a whirlwind descends on him as the guard unlocks the door to the strongroom and stands aside for he and Lanfranc to enter, sucking everything out of him but a boiling fury whose heat stings his eyes and dries his mouth and leaves his body trembling like the last, desiccated leaf on a winter tree. He turns to Lanfranc to protest, but his voice has shrivelled to no more than a dry whisper and his words are jumbled, meaningless. Not that he needs them; as Lanfranc’s gaze shifts from him to the figure cowering in the corner and back again, he sees that he is understood by the shame and mortification in the Archbishop’s face.

“How could you?” he manages finally, “How could you treat her this way? I thought you were a Christian.”

But she is not, Lanfranc wants to reply, though considering the confined space they are in and the knife in Odo’s belt, he thinks better of it and says nothing, merely bows his head beneath Odo’s contempt. A frightened whimper comes from the corner, tugging Odo around to face his mistress. His anger dissipates as quickly as it came, dissolved in pity as he drops to his knees in the filthy straw and gathers her into his arms, burying his face in her hair, breathing in its loved, familiar musk through all the other smells of her imprisonment. Wet cloth, piss, shit, sweat; loneliness, starvation, fear of the dark. He raises her face and kisses her, feels with his tongue that she has lost a tooth in her upper jaw, near the back. Tracing the lines of her small bones with his fingertips, he conjures warmth back into her skin, desire as he touches her breasts and she squirms against him with a little sigh, then falls still as he cups his hand over her belly and contemplates his child, their child, their miracle.

“Freya told me,” he whispers.

It is just another dream. Her dreams have become almost unbearably vivid since her imprisonment, as though her mind is trying to fight the solitude and boredom by filling her cell with visions. Sometimes its workings are too rich for her so she awakens retching and vomits up the little they give her to eat. She feels her lover so deeply and intensely inside her she fears her heart may tear; she hears the singsong lilt of her mother’s stories with such clarity the words flay her like tiny knives. When Adam comes to her, she believes she is one of his barrels, strapped tight in iron bands, stuffed full of salt fish, her father’s raw red hands reaching in to turn and sort and weigh and value. The best dreams are of her children, because they have the same calm reality she feels now, and she only knows she is dreaming when she realises the children are no longer babies but grown, playing, squabbling, helping with the chores. And that there are five of them.

“Odo,” she says sleepily and smiles, and closes her eyes, her cheek resting against his chest. He lets her stay that way for a moment, cradling her carefully in his arms, afraid, suddenly, that she has lost her mind, not wanting to wake her in case it is true. But he must. Lanfranc’s gown rustles as he shifts his footing. The oblong of muddy light afforded by the grating blurs and wanes. He cannot let her spend another night like this. He must persuade her to speak, so Lanfranc can hear it from her own lips.

“Why did it have to be Freya?” he asks, his voice still soft, but with an insistent edge.

It seems an age before she replies. Holding her gaze, he tries to prompt her by the force of his will. He dare not say more in case Lanfranc accuses him of putting words in her mouth. Then all of a sudden it is as though she has come back into focus.

“I was afraid for…” She darts a scared look at Lanfranc and falls silent.

“But more afraid for her than for our baby?”

“I didn’t think…”

“You convinced yourself the child would die, didn’t you, the way the others did? So you thought to save…the girl rather than yourself.”

She nods miserably. He is careful to shift his weight so Lanfranc can see her.

“But he won’t die, darling. He’ll grow like John, you’ll see. He’ll be bigger than me one day.”

With a curious smile, both loving and vexed, she says, “She, Odo. The wise woman said the child would be a girl, that she would be born under the sign of Gemini and her stone would be pearl.” Her eyes hold some inner light, like phosphorescence on the sea.

“A daughter.” His voice is full of wonder. Raising his right hand, he makes the sign of the cross with his thumb on her forehead. “God be praised. She will be as precious to me as Our Lady to Saint Anne. You hear that, Lanfranc?” he asks, rising to his feet. “Now, my love,” raising her also, his hands beneath her arms, feeling how close her bones cleave to her skin, “I’m going to take you home.”

“Wait.” Lanfranc steps into the doorway, raising his hand as though bestowing a blessing. “What the woman says is hardly proof. She must be properly examined.”

Odo feels Gytha shudder against him.

“And how can we know the child is yours…?”

“What?” He laughs in disbelief.

“…and not some trick of Beelzebub,” finishes Lanfranc.

“If she were the Devil’s handmaid, don’t you think she would have escaped your clutches by now, old man? Or at least made sure she kept herself clean and well fed, as Lucifer tempted Our Lord in the wilderness?”

“If she does not flinch at the Cross, she has the power to resist miracles. This is her means.” Lanfranc is imperturbable “You are her instrument.”

She senses his withdrawal in a slight tensing of his muscles, the opening of a little space between their bodies as he straightens up. The fear he dispelled begins to trickle back like a cold sweat between the shoulder blades, a sickness, the nagging whine of a wheel that needs oiling. He has fallen for Lanfranc’s plausible logic. He doubts, he does not love her, he too believes their daughter will die. Though her throat does not contract to form sobs, tears begin to spill out of her eyes, catching on her lashes, at the corners of her mouth, on the sharp edge of her jaw. Her nose runs. She should make some effort to wipe her face, but she is so tired, so desperate for peace and order and freedom from dreams.

He understands. He is drawing his knife now for her, to put her to rest like the little roan mare on the beach at Rochester. Yet he is not looking in her direction but at Lanfranc. He takes a step toward the Archbishop, pulling her with him then, in a whirl of movement too complicated for her to follow, and suddenly he has his free arm braced across Lanfranc’s chest and his knife at the old man’s throat.

“And
you
are
my
instrument,” he hisses between his teeth.

The guard who let them in makes a half-hearted attempt to rescue his lord, but he has only to adjust his grip on his pike for Odo to jerk the knife up under Lanfranc’s chin, the blade pressed against his windpipe, well enough honed to shave a few hairs from his beard.

“Stand aside,” says Lanfranc, sounding like a strangled cat, “he will not harm me.”

“Keys,” says Odo to the guard. He hesitates, and Odo gives the knife another jerk; the guard holds out the keys. “Take them,” says Odo to Gytha. “Lock him in. Get inside,” he orders the guard, and Gytha locks the door behind him, dropping the keys on the ground. Odo kicks them down the passage. “Walk,” he tells Lanfranc, “to the main courtyard.”

His luck is with him. The service of None is still in progress, and they see no one as they make their way through the maze of stairs and passages, the Archbishop frequently stumbling because Odo has forced his head up at such an angle he cannot see where he is putting his feet, Gytha almost running to keep up with her lover’s long stride. Coming to a side door which leads into the great court, Odo kicks it open with the flat of his foot and pushes Lanfranc out into hazy evening sunlight lying like spilt honey in the ruts and puddles. A couple of link boys hurry past with their torches, going to light the lamps in the refectory, but the group approaching Odo’s two men at arms and the three horses is just a tarry mirage to them, veiled by heat haze from their flambeaux, and they carry on chatting together as they do every evening.

Odo’s men approach, leading his horse between them. Eyebrows are briefly raised, but they know better than to ask questions and the elder of the two, who has been in Odo’s service for twenty years or more, remembers he once had the duke’s uncle, Archbishop Mauger, at knifepoint over a disputed game of chequers.

“Help Mistress Gytha to mount,” Odo orders the man, “and be careful with her.” The guard dismounts, takes Gytha around the waist and lifts her bodily onto Odo’s horse, then remounts and the three animals walk toward the gate, the two soldiers bunched protectively either side of Gytha, who clings to the pommel of Odo’s saddle. The horse is the tallest she has ever ridden, and a sudden, irrational notion enters her head that this must be what riding a camel feels like, and she thinks,
When we get home, I shall tell him.

Seeing Bishop Odo and the Archbishop enter the court, the porter comes out of his lodge to open the gates. Then looks again, and hesitates, his hands braced under the bar, his mouth agape like a baby bird’s.

“Open it,” Odo tells him. The porter’s eyes fly to the Archbishop’s face. Lanfranc nods as well as he is able with Odo’s dagger wedged under his jaw and the porter lifts the bar. Once the gate is fully open, Odo releases Lanfranc, sheaths his knife and mounts his horse behind Gytha.

“Good day, Lanfranc.” His smile, as he turns the horse and spurs it through the gate, is very broad and full of mischief.

Only much later, when Gytha has washed and eaten, and he sits watching her sleep, her hair tangled around her heart-shaped face, her lashes casting long, blue shadows across her pale cheeks, her body so frail and infinitely precious beneath the lavender-scented sheets and the fox fur coverlet, does he begin to wonder what he has done. What act of love began the work of creation going on inside her? Some long night of lazy passion, or one of those intense encounters that glitter like jewels in his memory, on beds of leafmould or in the dark turns of deserted stairs?

And what sort of world will this daughter be born into, now that he has made an enemy of Lanfranc, his brother’s most loyal friend? He has ordered the castle guard doubled. No one is to go in or out except on his personal authority. Even now they are bringing up crates of swords, bows, and halberds from the armoury to be kept in readiness in the hall, and the fletcher and his boys are hard at work increasing stocks of arrows. He has told Agatha to dismantle her workshop and dispatched men to carry the chests containing the embroidery and all Agatha’s plans up to the keep also. When his love awakens, he will have to tell her it is not safe for her to leave the tower, that she has simply exchanged one prison for another, albeit one with fine food and a feather mattress. But the air here is poisoned by his guilt; it cannot do his child any good.

He creeps out of his apartments, instructing Freya not to stir from her mistress’ side, and goes in search of his confessor. Compline has been sung, and by rights his household should be settling itself for the night, but everywhere is bustle and restlessness, the hall packed with soldiers and the women from the atelier who would normally return to their homes in the town at night, light spilling from the forge, the armoury, and the fletcher’s workshop, torches snaking up and down the motte. It is as though the entire castle is infected by a fever.

He finds his confessor at the horse lines with Countess Marie; they are trying to persuade one of her daughters there is no need to take her pony up to the hall. Prising the man away from the distraught child and the countess, who has a mutinous, volcanic look about her, he goes with him to the chapel, where he tells him, without sparing either of them, how, incensed by Lanfranc’s accusations against his mistress, he drew a knife on the Archbishop and held him hostage for her safety.