The Champion (38 page)

Monday left Florian and fetched the book. It was bound in leather and embossed with gold leaf. Embedded in the front cover was a wonderful carved ivory panel. Monday’s fingers traced the inlaid design with tactile delight. The servant looked at her.

‘I will give the book to Lord Hamon.’ She held her chin high and spoke with authority.

‘Yes, mistress.’ The maid twisted the melted lumps of wax off the candle spikes and dug at the more stubborn pieces with the pointed tip of a small knife, her attention studiously on her work.

Monday’s place in the castle hierarchy was an ambiguous one. On the one hand she had arrived at Lavoux pregnant and alone, her previous life that of a tourney follower. The regular servants, products of a ‘decent’ life, regarded such a background with hauteur and scorn. On the other hand, Monday was a companion to Lady Aline, the best sempstress the keep had ever seen, and apparently of noble blood. Therefore they treated her with caution, and a cool politeness.

Monday sighed, and retreating to the lower trestle, sat down beside her son.

‘What’s that?’ He pointed a wet, crumb-smeared finger.

‘A book. No, don’t touch. I’ll show it to you. These are called pages, and these dark squiggles are writing – they tell a story.’

‘Story.’ Florian seized on the word hopefully.

Monday turned the pages with great care. It was a tale about King Arthur, written in French and full of technical details about jousting and the art of warfare. Edifying to a man perhaps, but boring to a woman, and completely out of the scope of an infant of Florian’s age. And yet the flow of the words tugged at her. In her mind’s eye she saw Alexander’s fingers closed around a quill, the fluid motion of his hand across a sheet of vellum, and her own clumsy attempt to emulate.

‘Later,’ she said, guiltily aware that the word seemed to be one of the most common in her vocabulary. Later and later until it was too late.

‘Tents,’ said Florian firmly, appearing to think that she had postponed the story in order to take him outside. ‘See tents.’

‘Ah, there you are, thief,’ declared Hamon in a tone that was jovial, but with a brittle edge that revealed both anger and anxiety. ‘My book, if you please.’

Monday jumped and turned guiltily to face him.

His chestnut hair was damp from his early-morning ablutions, and there was a tiny cut on his chin where his barber had made a mistake. ‘I’m … I’m sorry,’ she stumbled. ‘I saw you had left it on the high table and I was curious. I’ve never really looked at a proper book before. The church has a Bible, of course, but only the priest is allowed to read from that.’ She smoothed her hand over the gorgeous cover and handed it back to him, a wistful look in her eyes.

‘Oh, you can read, can you?’

She nodded, and flushed scarlet beneath the look that he gave her. The slight narrowing of his eyes, the questioning set of his lips, made her pulse quicken. Hamon was handsome, charismatic and somewhat given to playing with fire. ‘Not well, my lord. I have had but small opportunity.’

‘That could soon be remedied,’ he said softly.

Monday kept her eyes on the trestle, not daring to meet his.

‘What could soon be remedied?’ Aline interrupted, joining them. Although there was a smile on her lips, it did not reach her eyes, which were full of suspicion.

‘Her lack of opportunity to read,’ Hamon said, holding up his book to his wife. ‘I left this in the hall, and I found her looking at it. She obviously knows how to appreciate such a fine object.’ His tone was slightly barbed now. ‘As I keep telling you, there are people in God’s world who actually read for the pleasure it brings.’

‘Oh, indeed,’ Aline said sweetly. ‘And I keep telling you, an ass is still an ass, whether he is lettered or not.’

Utterly embarrassed by the situation, Monday rose to her feet and swung Florian up and across her hip. ‘I pray your indulgence,’ she said breathlessly. ‘My son has been begging me to see the tents. I cannot linger.’ And she made her escape, her heart hammering against her ribs and her cheeks still burning. For all that she saw Hamon’s game for what it was, it did not prevent her body from responding to his attractiveness. She knew the danger, for she had responded similarly to Alexander, and it had been her downfall. Hamon might only be teasing, probing to see how far he could extend the boundaries of play before being rebuffed, but his behaviour was a danger to the stability of her life. Aline, for all her generosity, was fiercely territorial, and if she decided that Monday was a threat would think nothing of throwing her out.

Out of breath, Monday slowed to a more sedate pace as she left the inner compound and walked across the lower bailey to the castle gates. They were open to admit the dawn, and she and

Florian were by no means the first occupants to come as visitors to the tourney field. Two grooms and the kennel-keeper preceded her through the gateway, and a kitchen maid had used the excuse of gathering watercress by the stream near the ditch to spy on the array.

Monday’s shoes brushed lightly over the grass, leaving a dark trail in the dew, and soon the soft leather was soaked and the hem of her gown grew heavy. The sights, sounds and smells of her early life encroached upon her senses and filled her with nostalgia. She saw women going to wash their laundry at the stream, the sound of their laughter floating on the early-morning air. She saw men grooming their horses or talking in groups, their arms folded. She saw cooking pots being stirred, and scented the unforgettable aroma of onion and wild garlic pottage. Home, this territory had once been home. A small shudder rippled down her spine. Amidst the nostalgia was the fear of suddenly happening upon a tent of patched canvas, a blue and yellow banner flying from its post, and of seeing two men mending harness at its fire, one blond and well built, the other dark, with a smile in his eyes to break her heart. Involuntarily her arms tightened around her child, and he wriggled, clamouring to be set down.

No sooner was he on the ground than he set off at a twinkling run towards the tents. For a two-year-old he was remarkably sure-footed, a source of constant pride and even more constant worry to his mother. She raised her skirts above her ankles and hurried after him.

‘No, sweeting, hold my hand,’ she said, grasping his chubby fingers.

‘No!’ Florian tried to tug away, his voice rising, and when she held on harder, he started to screech in earnest, his face becoming a dramatic, dusky red. Heads turned, and she and her son became the focus of attention ranging from disapproving through sympathetic to frankly amused.

‘A good clip round the ear-’ole, that’s what he needs!’ declared a middle-aged woman with pursed lips and a sour face.

Monday was swept by self-defensive anger and rounded on the woman. ‘I do not see that it did you much good when you were a child!’ she retorted. ‘Go and poke your besom elsewhere!’

The woman drew herself up to do battle, but was thrust out of the way and deflated by a large, fair-haired man with an apron-adorned paunch and a leather patch covering one eye. ‘Live and let live, mistress,’ he said gruffly. Turning to Monday, he lifted her in his arms, swung her round, and kissed her soundly on both cheeks. Florian, astounded by this treatment of his mother by a very odd-looking stranger, abandoned his tantrum and stared at the two of them with huge eyes and a lower lip that did not know whether to quiver with laughter or distress.

‘Well, well,’ Edmund One-eye declared, looking her up and down. ‘Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!’ He chuckled at his own weak jest. The woman who had shouted at Monday put her nose in the air and stalked off. ‘Where have you been hiding yourself?’

Monday smoothed her hands over her gown. She was both delighted and afraid to have encountered Edmund. He knew everything and everyone on the tourney circuit, and although she could ask him whatever she wanted to know and be answered, others could ask him too. ‘I haven’t been hiding at all,’ she said with a forced laugh.

‘You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?’ Edmund sat on his haunches and appraised the little boy. ‘What’s your name then, young man?’

Unsure about the eye-patch, Florian covered his own eyes with his hands. ‘Don’t know.’

‘This is Florian, my son,’ Monday said.

‘Fancy name.’ Edmund hid his face behind his fingers and peeped through them as Florian was doing.

‘He was born on St Florian’s eve.’

‘May, then.
When the spray begins to spring
.’

Monday gave him a wide look. The quote was the first line of a song Alexander had written. Edmund continued to play a gentle game of peep-bo with Florian, until the boy forgot to be shy, and giggled aloud.

‘I have some cinnamon bread at my stall, and a cup of hot wine,’ Edmund said after a few more minutes of this game.

Monday gave him a false smile and shook her head. ‘It is kind of you to offer, but I …’

‘Just for a moment. Surely you can spare the time for an old friend? Don’t you want to hear the news and gossip of the camp?’

She bit her lip. ‘I don’t want to become a part of that gossip.’

Edmund rose from his haunches. ‘You were a part of it three years ago this autumn,’ he said pointedly. ‘I tell you what. I promise to keep my mouth closed about this meeting, but only if you come and drink a cup with me.’

Monday looked over her shoulder. ‘They will be seeking me in the castle,’ she said, but remained where she was. Yes, it was true they would be looking for her, but not in earnest until after the breaking of fast, so she had time to take her own meal with Edmund … if she so desired. ‘Just for a short while,’ she capitulated, and this time her smile was a little warmer.

‘There’s the lass I remember,’ Edmund approved, and lifting Florian in his arms, led her through the mass of tents to his booth, where a lad he introduced as Americ, his apprentice, was already busy with customers.

Edmund furnished Monday with a goblet of hot wine and a slice of his famous cinnamon bread with a generous smearing of butter. For Florian, who had already eaten, there was a small handful of raisins to nibble at, and a lump of raw dough with which to play.

‘Now then.’ Edmund stretched out his legs and rested his own cup on his belt buckle. ‘How do you come to be living in that castle up there?’

‘I thought you were going to give me your news,’ Monday prevaricated, deliberately taking a huge bite of the cinnamon bread so that further speech was impossible.

Edmund narrowed his good eye at her deception. ‘Depends what you want to hear, and how much you already know. You left us in the late summer, outside the walls of Vaudreuil, but was that before or after Hervi’s accident?’

‘Accident, what accident?’ Cold sparkles ran down Monday’s spine. ‘I know nothing, tell me!’ With a heroic effort she swallowed the cinnamon bread, and pushed the rest away untouched.

Edmund pursed his lips. ‘It’s not altogether clear to me,’ he said. ‘All I know is that Eudo le Boucher had some sort of grudge against Hervi and it came to blows. They were on horseback and Hervi’s stallion threw him. Poor bastard landed badly and shattered his leg.’

Monday’s hands flew to her mouth, and she stared at Edmund in horror. ‘Oh no, God have mercy!’

‘Oh aye, it was God indeed, or the agents of God. The lad took him to the monastery at Pont l’Arche and left him in the care of the monks. Hervi lives, so I have heard, but without the limb; they had to cut it off when the flesh rotted.’

Monday shook her head, totally overwhelmed. It was impossible to think of Hervi thus maimed when he had been so full of frank, masculine vigour. ‘Poor Hervi,’ she muttered. ‘Poor, poor Hervi.’

‘From what I have heard, he was making a good recovery, and speaking of becoming a monk himself.’

‘Hervi, a priest?’ Her tone was incredulous.

Edmund nodded slowly. ‘I thought the same as you, but the tale came from Osgar le Gros, who had it from Alexander, so he says.’

Monday took a shaky drink of the hot wine. She had wished for Hervi not to be here among the tumult of soldiers, but not because he was maimed.

‘And what of Alexander?’ she said, her eyes on the cup, her voice husky as she stumbled over his name.

Edmund’s single eye was piercing enough for two. ‘He lives a charmed life, that one. Eudo le Boucher went after him too, and was the victor, but your lad emerged with naught more than bruised pride and a lack of funds. I have heard that he has recouped his wealth on the tourney grounds of England and that he is now a knight in the service of William Marshal himself. Again, I had this from Osgar. He saw Alexander at a tourney, oh, over a year ago, although Alexander was not competing but seeking information as to your whereabouts. Apparently he has been making efforts to find you … and so far his trail is cold.’

‘I didn’t want him to find me,’ Monday said hoarsely. ‘I told him as much when … when our ways parted.’

Edmund nodded. His gaze cut to the child, who was thoroughly absorbed in hiding the raisins in the lump of dough. ‘So he does not know that he is a father?’

Monday drew a sharp breath through her teeth. ‘Is it so obvious?’

‘Child, I am only half blind, and that means I see more than most men. Even if he looked nothing like the lad, I would have harboured my suspicions.’

‘I left the tourney life to make another one for myself and Florian at Lavoux. We’re settled here. I’m a sempstress and companion to the lady Aline, with a roof over my head and no worry as to where the next meal is coming from. I could never go back to this.’ She gestured to the tumultuous world of the tourney camp, glimpsed through the parted canvas flaps of the booth. ‘I did not want to become a soldier-of-fortune’s trampled wife.’

‘Nor do I blame you,’ Edmund said. ‘You had your share of suffering when you followed the tourneys. But still, it is a shame that your son will not know his father. He was a good lad at heart, whatever happened between you, and from what I hear, he too has made his break from this kind of life.’

‘It is in the past,’ she said stubbornly. ‘People know me as a diligent, respectable widow.’

‘Who sits in the company of a one-eyed rogue in the midst of a tourney ground,’ Edmund retorted, making her redden. ‘I can see your need to build a shield against the world, but take care that it does not cut you off from it. And there ends my lecture.’ He pointed at the remains she had pushed away. ‘Not hungry?’