Pagan's Daughter (24 page)

‘What you want is of no importance,’ Gerard replies gloomily. ‘It is the Lady Blanche’s wishes that must be respected. Perhaps she has despaired of you, owing to your want of proper reverence. You do not strike me as a fit candidate for the
consolamentum
.’

And you don’t strike me as a fit candidate for the human race, my friend. Frankly, when I compare you to Isidore, it’s like comparing lilies to pond-slime.

That’s why I can’t stay here. That’s why I
must
find Isidore.

Tomorrow, perhaps. I’ll leave first thing tomorrow, while Pons isn’t looking.

‘Who is your affianced?’ Peitavin suddenly pipes up. (Smart little horse-fly.) ‘Is he a believer?’

Gerard frowns him down. Clearly, he’s not meant to be talking to women.

‘He is not my affianced.’ Fart-face. ‘I shall never marry him.’

‘You were asked for his name, girl!’ Gerard snaps. ‘Now give it to me and speak in a civil manner while you’re about it!’

‘He is Hugues Saquet. Of Lanta.’ If it means anything. I can see that it doesn’t—not to old Droopy-drawers. But Peitavin snickers.

‘Hugues Saquet is very old,’ he explains, when Gerard shoots him an inquiring glance. ‘He is so old that he is incapable of sinning. He couldn’t even eat meat or cheese, not having the teeth for it.’

‘Ah.’ Gerard nods. ‘I understand. Well—that makes sense. A marriage is no sin unless it is consummated. Your grandmother is a wise woman. You must go back to her, and present your apologies for your prideful disobedience.’

Over my dead body. ‘And how am I to do that, with a French army between me and Toulouse?’

Hah!
That’s
scared ’em! They all stretch their necks as if they’re about to crow like cockerels. The short one even groans and clutches his belly.

‘The French?’ Gerard gasps. ‘They’re coming?’

‘Didn’t you know?’ Where have you been living, at the bottom of a well? ‘Lord Olivier seems to think that they might be heading this way.’

‘Lord Olivier?’ It’s Peitavin again. He seems to have forgotten that I’m a girl, and unworthy of his address. ‘Lord Olivier de Termes? Is he here?’

‘I came with him. And with Guillaume de Minerve, and Pons de Villeneuve, and—’

‘Then they’re rallying,’ Peitavin interrupts. For all that he looks like a botched job, there’s something quick about him. He turns back to Gerard. ‘Lord Pagan was right. He
said
La Becede would be the target, because there are so many Perfects here. That’s why he sent for help. He could see it coming.’

‘Then we must go!’ At last the tall Perfect speaks. He sounds as if he’s talking through a mouthful of pebbles. ‘We must go at once, before they arrive!’

‘In the dark?’ Gerard retorts savagely. ‘Don’t be a fool, Brother. If we go, it must be tomorrow. At first light.’

You’ll be lucky. There’s a pause as the short Perfect scrambles to his feet and staggers past me, bent double. (Just as I thought: an attack of the flux.) Being forced to step aside for him, I can’t exactly help it if one of my feet crosses the threshold, can I?

Apparently, however, I’m forbidden to enter the chapel. Gerard says, ‘You can’t come in here.’

‘Lord Pagan said that I was to sleep in here. With you.’ It’s not my idea of a happy conjunction either, but where else am I supposed to go?

Gerard shakes his head vigorously, so that his dewlaps jiggle.

‘No, no,’ he says. ‘This is no place for a woman. You must go with the other women.’

‘What other women?’
I
haven’t seen any.

‘I’ll take you. Here. Come with me.’

And suddenly he’s out of the chapel, heading down the stairs. For a man who looks as if he’d always be tripping over his own loose skin, he’s surprisingly fast on his feet. I’m going to have to hurry, if I want to catch up.

The circular staircase makes me dizzy. They always do, when I’m due for a feed—especially if they smell of urine. I remember coming up these stairs, but I entered them from the Great Hall. This time we don’t seem to be going anywhere near the Great Hall, presumably because it’s now full of knights discussing important matters. Instead Gerard leads me down and around and up again, past the latrines (no mistaking
that
smell), through a storeroom (mostly lumber and flax), into a wine cellar where the air alone could make you drunk. From the wine cellar, more stairs lead up into what must be the buttery: dirty men snap at us as we squeeze by, because they’re trying to pour wine and carve meat for the new arrivals.

If I was alone, I might grab one of those cakes. But Gerard would see me chewing.

God, I’m hungry.

‘This way,’ Gerard declares, as if he can read my mind. Perhaps he saw me eyeing the pig’s trotters. I’m half expecting that we’ll plunge into the kitchens next— you generally find them next to butteries—but all at once we’re in the bailey again.

I can’t believe it. How did we get here?

‘Hurry,’ says Gerard, snapping his fingers. And now I can smell the kitchens. They’re off to the right, and very close—about ten to fifteen paces from the keep. (Wisely placed, I suppose, if you’re concerned about fires.) They also seem to be stone-built against the rampart walls, but it’s hard to see in the darkness. Gerard isn’t interested in them anyway. He doesn’t want me fed. He just wants me out of his sight.

Someone makes lewd sucking noises, but I don’t know whether they’re aimed at me or at the Perfect. It’s the Perfect, after all, who’s wearing long skirts. I can’t see who made the noises, either, because there are quite a few dim, faceless figures moving about, and they’re all of them men.

It’s my experience that you can never find a corner to yourself, in a castle like this.

‘There is much sin around us,’ Gerard mutters. ‘You must guard your eyes, and pray that God will keep you from all temptation.’ Like cakes, you mean? ‘Here,’ he adds, waving me into another structure jammed up against the walls. ‘In here.’

It’s very confusing. All at once I’m in a room with a thatched roof, and there’s a lot of smoke everywhere because a fire is burning in a brazier over near the open window. Something’s boiling on the fire, in an iron pot, but this isn’t a kitchen. At least, I don’t think it is. There aren’t any tables or knives or dangling hams. Instead there’s a lot of firewood heaped about, and something that might be a big, stone trough, and there are wooden buckets, and piles of rags, and many tunics and tablecloths hanging from ropes strung high across the room.

Whatever’s cooking in that pot, it smells
abominable
.

‘Woman!’ says Gerard. ‘Ah! There you are.’

There she is. A mountainous great lump of lard, spilling over the sides of a three-legged stool. Her big round face is flushed, and her thin hair is plastered to her scalp with sweat, and she’s picking peas from a pod, popping them, one by one, into her rather small mouth.

She doesn’t bother getting up, I notice.

‘This is Babylonne, from Toulouse,’ Gerard announces. He hates speaking directly to any woman, let alone one with breasts like two melons in a sack, so he addresses himself to the wall over her right shoulder, carefully avoiding her eye. ‘Babylonne is related to Lord Bernard Oth,’ he explains. ‘She needs modest clothes and a place to sleep. You must assist her until she can be returned to her family.’

And that’s that. He’s said all he’s going to. Abruptly, he turns on his heel and walks out, leaving me abandoned like a chewed bone in a dish.

There’s a long pause. I can see another woman perched on a woodstack; she’s mending a cloak. There’s also a boy, about ten years old. He seems to be trying to delouse himself.

‘If that fellow was trampled in running water and dried,’ the fat woman observes at last, ‘he’d feel a lot happier in his own skin, because it would shrink to fit his bones.’ She tosses her empty pea-pod onto the floor, where a wandering dog snaffles it up. ‘What did he say your name was? Babylonne?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Maura.’ The fat woman gestures at the woman on the woodstack. ‘That’s Grazide. Are you some kind of bastard, then?’

‘Yes.’ If it’s any of your business.

‘I thought so. They wouldn’t be throwing you in here with us if you weren’t. Not someone with your relations.’ Maura turns to Grazide. ‘See if you can find her a scrap to wear, will you, my dove? Something with long skirts.’ She turns back to me. ‘I suppose that’s what he meant by “modest”, is it?’

How should I know? When I shrug, she smiles. She has terrifying teeth, all black and jagged like burned battlements.

‘You neither know nor care,’ she says, in her booming voice. ‘I understand. But perhaps you can tell me if you’re meant to be fed?’ Seeing me glance at the steaming pot, she laughs, and slaps her knee. ‘No, no, that’s not for you, my piglet! That’s for our brave sergeants, to make them strong!’ By now Grazide is laughing as well. She’s a scythe of a woman, all sharp angles and narrow limbs.

‘And to keep them clean in thought and deed,’ she adds, to Maura’s great amusement. They shriek together for a while, until Maura finally gasps, ‘We’re boiling soap. Fat and ashes. You wouldn’t enjoy it, Babylonne, it’s an acquired taste.’

Oh. Right. I see.

‘Go on, Grazide, get off your bony rump and find the poor girl some clothes!’ Maura continues. Whereupon Grazide puts down her sewing and goes to do as she’s bid. Maura beckons to me. ‘I can offer you some bread, and a bit of cheese,’ she says, studying my face with narrowed eyes. ‘How would that suit you?’

‘It would suit me very well.’ I’m trying to be polite here, because there’s something formidable about Maura. I don’t sense any fear in her at all—not of anyone or anything. ‘Thank you for your kindness.’

‘Oh, it’s not kindness to feed a skinny little sprout like you,’ she replies. ‘It just makes people uncomfortable, seeing the condition you’re in. You need feeding up, my lamb.’

‘That’s right,’ Grazide interjects, from over near a pile of clean washing. ‘Men like a bit of flesh with their bones, don’t they, Maura? They like something they can chew on.’

Hah! That sounds funny, coming from
you
, Spindle-shanks. Maura catches my eye, and winks. ‘Grazide’s had most of hers chewed off already,’ she smirks. ‘Haven’t you, Grazide? Grazide’s very popular, hereabouts.’ She waits for a moment, before adding, ‘Now that there isn’t much choice.’

‘Oh, you don’t know anything!’ Grazide retorts crossly. She flings two garments across the room, with such force that—ouch! They sting when they hit my chest. One’s a scab-coloured
bliaud
, the other’s a cesspit-green gown to go under it. Both of them look well worn.

‘What do you mean, “there’s not much choice”?’ (This gown has no end. It’s going to be much too long, I can tell.) ‘Do you mean that there aren’t any other women here?’

‘A few in the village,’ Maura replies. ‘But the ladies of the family, and all their attendants—they left weeks ago. They didn’t stay long.’

‘Because the French are coming?’ It seems like a sensible question to me. I don’t know why Maura thinks I’m so hilarious.

‘The French?’ she titters. ‘God help us, the French would be a fine distraction! No, no, you can’t blame the French. The French never built this place.’

‘The ladies never linger here,’ Grazide interrupts. ‘They only stop on their way to somewhere else.’

‘I mean, it’s not exactly Narbonne, is it?’ Maura shifts in her seat, and breaks wind so loudly that the dog scurries behind a woodpile. When she speaks again, she seems to be imitating a person of high birth— to judge from the pursed lips and fluting accent. ‘Imagine sitting through a siege in a place like this! No baker’s oven. No proper forge. Leaky cisterns. Blocked latrines.’

‘At least there’s a well, though,’ Grazide points out. ‘There’s not a single well inside the Castelnaudary defences.’

‘We wouldn’t be here ourselves,’ Maura continues, ignoring her friend, ‘if the men could wash their own clothes, poor helpless souls that they are.’

‘Or sew their own seams,’ Grazide remarks.

‘Though they can ply a needle well enough if Grazide’s around, eh, my poppet?’

More shrieking laughter and slapped thighs. (These women can’t seem to get their minds out of their drawers.) But I have to admit, it sounds as if I’ve stumbled into what is, basically, a fortress. Not a court’s cradle or a young township or even a well-defended farm but a stark, grim stronghold which has been stripped down to its fundamentals, so that it might serve as a shield mounted high for the French to joust at.

The question is—when will they strike their first blow?