The Copper Sign (15 page)

“Are you crazy?” William looked around.

“I just wanted to show it to you!” she said with a shrug. After all, she had carried the other sword around with her, although that was not allowed either.

“What will you do if you get caught with it? This sword here is certainly very sharp!”

“It certainly is!” Ellen said proudly.

The gleam in William’s eye when he saw the weapon made up for his strange behavior and long absence. He looked at the sword admiringly and whistled through his teeth as a sign of his approval. “If I had enough money, I’d buy it from you at once.”

Ellen shrugged regretfully and carefully packed it up again. “Once you become a famous knight, I will make a magnificent sword for you that even the king will envy,” she consoled him.

“Now there you go exaggerating again, you little rascal!” William laughed, grabbed her in a headlock, and roughed up her hair with his left hand.

Since she was still holding the sword in her hand, she couldn’t resist without the risk of harming him. She tried to ignore the wonderful fluttering in her stomach. At this very moment she dreamed of lying in William’s arms and being his wife and lover.

After he let her go she almost decided this was the time to tell him her secret, but at the last moment made up her mind not to.

“As for the sword for the famous knight, you can start with that soon. You see, I’m already a knight!” William declared proudly and waited for his words to have their effect.

“What? I thought that was supposed to be next year…Didn’t you say it was your older brother’s turn first?”

“Ah, the ways of the Lord…” he said, raising his arms to the heavens.

“You must tell me all about it, William!” Suddenly Ellen realized what his knighthood meant for her, and she turned serious. “I’m sorry…Sir William. You must explain that to me.”

“Well, as long as it’s just the two of us together, William is fine, as always.” He grinned and threw a stone into the brook.

He doesn’t at all look like a knight
, Ellen thought wistfully. “So go ahead, tell me!” she urged him.

William nodded and shifted around on the trunk of the tree a bit until he was comfortable. “I hope you have a little time.”

My whole life
, Ellen almost replied, but she just nodded.

“It all started when William Talvas, Count of Ponthieu, became angered at King Henry, claiming that the king had not given him lands Talvas thought he was entitled to. For this reason he established an alliance with the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne. They attacked and occupied Eu, as a messenger informed my lord, so he summoned his troops and the very next day we set out for Neufchâtel to reinforce the garrison there. The enemy troops had to be prevented from breaking through and possibly attacking Rouen…”

“And what does that have to do with your being knighted? You told me that was the most important moment in a knight’s life and was followed by a great celebration. Why didn’t you tell me that you were to be knighted?” Ellen’s eyes flashed in anger.

“Oh, Alan, don’t be so stubborn!”

“I’m not being stubborn. I just think you could have told me that Tancarville intended to make you a knight.”

“But he didn’t! And if you don’t let me continue my story, you’ll never learn what happened. You are really the only person more stubborn than I,” William grumbled.

“I’m sorry!” Ellen grimaced helplessly.

William picked up a stick and scrawled something in the damp ground. “These dots stand for Neufchâtel, Eu, Rouen, and Tancarville, and the wavy line is the Seine. Rouen, the capital of Normandy, is considered well fortified but not impregnable. The Count of Eu, Mandeville, and Tancarville agreed they absolutely had to prevent the enemy from advancing. Spies had given them precise information about their opponents, who were superior to them in number and armed to the teeth,” William said. “So that I could attack the enemy with him, he conferred knighthood on me!” William waved his hands around excitedly as he spoke, jumping up to reenact the dangerous battles he had been in—how he had been surrounded and almost vanquished by the enemy. As proof of his story, he pulled up his shirt and showed Ellen the freshly healed scar on his shoulder.

She winced and gasped audibly. “That must have been painful. Does it still hurt?”

William shook his head and tried to put on a brave face. “I survived, but they butchered my horse. It was my only possession. After we returned, my lord Tancarville gave me a pair of spurs and a beautiful, heavy cloak, but he didn’t replace my horse.”

“You were ready to give your life for him and the king, and as thanks he didn’t even give you a horse?” Ellen looked at him, dumbfounded.

“That won’t happen again, believe me. The next time I’ll look out for myself, and I also intend to be one of the victors in the future.”

William’s story had been so exciting that at least for that day Ellen had lost her appetite for any further fighting with him. Certainly his wound was still very painful to him.

“Let’s not fight anymore today,” Ellen suggested and lay down in the grass.

Without saying a word, William stretched out alongside her, and they both stared into the blue, late summer sky. He had given everything he had, putting his life on the line in battle expecting nothing more from it than the appreciation of his lord, and he was so bitterly disappointed. Sometimes life was so unjust, Ellen thought. Again she wondered whether she should entrust her secret to him. Would he then perhaps be better able to understand her? Once, a year ago, she had been at the point of telling him. She had thoroughly planned what she was going to say but then couldn’t bring herself to do it—and it was the same this time.

They had been staring into the sky silently for quite a while when William suddenly sat up. “I saw you again recently with this English cook maid—what’s her name?” William made a wide, suggestive gesture over his upper body and raised his eyebrows.

“Ah, you mean Rose,” Ellen answered crossly.

A lot of servants and even a few squires had been giving Rose the eye. William was no “child of sadness,” as he said, insinuating that he knew how to enjoy himself, so his allusion to Rose’s shape made Ellen furiously jealous, but she of course could not let that show.

“Yes, that’s who I mean. She’s pretty cute. Are you getting it on with her?”

Ellen hated to hear William boast about his womanizing, but when he tried to coax a few piquant details from her nonexistent love life, she found that equally dreadful.

“That’s all in the past,” she lied and waved her hand dismissively, hoping he would drop the matter.

“So then, you’re not the father.”

William seemed happy with this conclusion, but Ellen gasped in horror. “What are you saying?”

“She’s with child. Our dear friend Thibault is bragging that he…and I thought perhaps you were the one…I can really pity the poor girl if it was him!” William shook his head incredulously.

Ellen didn’t know what to say. Why hadn’t Rose told her anything? And why did it have to be Thibault? How could she? “Have the two been getting it on together for very long?” she asked angrily.

“It seems so. I don’t know exactly, of course. I wasn’t there holding the candle for them, you know,” he said, mightily amused at his own joke.

“It’s getting late,” Ellen mumbled, even though the sun was still high up in the sky. “I have to go.”

“It seems to upset you, the thing with Rose. If I had known that she meant so much to you…” William seemed to be seriously sorry.

“She doesn’t, really. She’s from Ipswich, just like my family—that’s the only thing we have in common,” Ellen answered gruffly. “And as you know, I can’t stand Thibault. Rose doesn’t deserve to be saddled with having his bastard child. I wonder why she ever got involved with him.”

William shrugged. “Ah, who can understand women? They think differently from us men, if they even think at all. It’s a waste of time.” He rolled his eyes in mock despair.

“In any case, I must leave now,” Ellen said. She stood up, took the bundle with the sword, said good-bye to William without looking him in the eye, and hurried out to the road.

On the way through the forest Ellen was thinking about Rose and Thibault and didn’t hear the hoofbeats of approaching horses. With no time to hide, she stayed on the road, trying not to look too conspicuous, and carried her bundle with the sword in it as casually as possible.

As the riders approached, one of them rushed ahead and called out to her gruffly: “Hey, lad, is this the road to Tancarville? Answer me!” The young squire who had addressed her looked down haughtily from his horse.

A handsome knight with strikingly green eyes, evidently his master, came over and scolded him. “You have no reason to be so unfriendly—go back and join the others!” he snapped at his squire.

Ellen looked at the knight inquisitively, and as their eyes met it seemed to her that she knew him. Still, she couldn’t remember ever meeting him before.

“What’s your name, lad?”

“Alan, sire.”

“That sounds like an Anglo-Saxon name to me.”

“Yes, sire.”

“Do you know the way to Tancarville castle?”

“Yes, sire. You just stay on this road—it isn’t very far on horseback. After the next sharp turn in the road you will come out of the forest and then you can see the castle.”

“Thank you.”

The knight looked Ellen over from head to foot. His magnificent horse pranced about nervously. “What is that you’re carrying?” he asked, pointing at her long bundle.

Ellen had the feeling that the question wasn’t intended hostile way, but she was nevertheless wary. “My journeyman’s piece.” She made no move to unwrap it, hoping he wouldn’t ask to see it.

“What is your trade?”

The friendly knight’s curiosity made Ellen feel uneasy, but she replied modestly, “I am a blacksmith, sire.” She hoped this answer would satisfy him.

“May I look?”

Ellen hesitated briefly and then shook her head. “Not here, please! It would be better if you came to the shop,” she pleaded. “Ask for Donovan, please!”

Surprisingly, the knight gave a friendly nod. “Yes, I will do that, Alan. I’ll see you soon.” He gave a sign to his companions to follow him, and they rode off.

Ellen took a deep breath. One of the men kept turning around toward her, exchanging animated words with his master. Although she liked the knight at first glance, there was something about him that disturbed her.

The very next day the stranger came to the workshop, this time without his retinue. “A good morning to you, Master Donovan.” The knight smiled amiably.

“Upon my soul, Béranger…excuse me, sire, Sir Béranger!”

The knight laughed. “Nice to see you again, Donovan. Everywhere people talk about your swords! Tancarville is mightily proud of you.”

“Thank you, Sir Béranger. You were still a squire when I last saw you. How long ago was that?” Donovan asked, shaking his hand warmly.

“An eternity! It was almost twenty years ago that I was in Ipswich, and those were my best years. I was a free man then, if you know what I mean.” He winked at Donovan and laughed. Then he turned to Ellen: “Good morning, Alan, I am coming to have a look at your journeyman’s piece.”

Donovan, astonished, looked back and forth from Ellen to Sir Béranger. “Do you know Sir Béranger? Then go and get the sword, Alan. It would suit him very well.”

After Béranger de Tournai had carefully examined the sword, he nodded his approval. “That’s a very nice piece—perhaps it would be something for my son. His knighting ceremony is still two or three years away, but it would certainly be an incentive for him. Perhaps you know him—his name is Thibault.”

“Oh, I don’t have any contact with the squires, but Alan knows most of them.” Donovan gave Ellen a questioning look.

At the mention of Thibault’s name, Ellen’s mouth dropped and the color drained from her face. There was no way Thibault would get this sword, she would see to that. Ellen’s mind raced, trying to think of what she could do or say to prevent the sale, but even before she had come up with something, Donovan suggested to the knight that he stop by at the workshop with his son.

“You are right, master. I’ll come by with Thibault in the next few days so he can try it out.”

“A wise decision, Sir Béranger.” At that moment he caught sight of the ironmonger’s wagon outside. “I hope you will excuse me…an important delivery.” He bowed, and Sir Béranger nodded.

Ellen stayed behind with him in the workshop. How could this friendly nobleman be the father of that devil Thibault?

“Are you also from Ipswich?” he inquired. Ellen nodded absentmindedly, though that wasn’t the case; then she corrected herself. “My mother was.”

Béranger de Tournai nodded as if she had only confirmed what he had long since known. Stroking his smooth-shaven chin, he asked, “I think I know her. Isn’t her name Leofrun?”

Ellen felt a burning sensation in the pit of her stomach that quickly spread to her head. “How do you know that?” she asked, surprised. No one here knew the name of her mother, not even Rose.

“She had beautiful hair, long and blond like the wheat fields of Normandy, and her eyes were as blue as the sea,” the knight rhapsodized without answering her question.

The description of Leofrun seemed far too flowery to Ellen, and she didn’t respond.

“She was the most beautiful maiden I ever saw. We were in love and met secretly. But one day she did not come and I never saw her again. Then I heard she had married.”

Ellen was unable to understand his words and could neither speak nor move.

“When I saw you in the forest, I was still unsure, but Paul, my oldest friend, also noticed how much you look like her.”

“Like my mother?” Ellen’s voice cracked with scorn.

“No, Alan, you don’t understand, you look like my mother!”