Whited Sepulchres (12 page)

Everything looked all right for the nobles’ dinner, and Adam nodded to show him that he thought the same. The idea of food made his stomach groan anew, but he tried to ignore it – it would be ages until he got anything to eat, as he’d have to serve at table and make sure the earl and his family had eaten their fill before he could help himself to what was left. Which might be a while if the Lady Isabelle got going. He turned to the wine, and he was just picking up a large jug of the stuff when Thomas appeared again. Somehow he managed to trip on nothing in particular, and he crashed into Martin’s legs just as he was turning. Martin lost his balance, tried to save himself, and ended up pouring wine all down the front of his tunic. The shock of the cool liquid made him jump, and he bellowed at the boy – who didn’t have a drop on him, of course – both about his tunic and the waste of the wine. Thomas stuck his tongue out and Martin realised he’d done it on purpose. All the irritations of the morning got to him and he raised his fist, really meaning to teach the brat a lesson this time, but his arm was caught from behind him.

Furiously he turned, but he couldn’t hit Adam, and why was he rolling his eyes and jerking his head like that? Oh.

The noble party were on their way in, and the Lady Ela was staring at him with even more venom than her son had done after the birching episode. Thomas skipped over to her and Martin admitted defeat. He stamped off to get changed – damn it, he’d have to put on that old tunic which was too small – and wished that he was somewhere else, out in the open, riding a horse very fast, away from all these
people
.

It was crowded at the high table, and Joanna squeezed up on the bench to allow Matilda and Rosamund to sit next to her at the end. Lady Isabelle was over towards the middle, and as she had her brother and future bridegroom close to her, and plenty of squires waiting at the table, she wouldn’t need any more assistance. Joanna almost rubbed her hands at the thought of a nice peaceful meal, being able to concentrate on her own food, with a bit of chat with girls her own age – something she didn’t get very often here at Conisbrough, and maybe, if she was honest, the chance to keep looking up to see what Martin was … oh. Where was he? She peered around, trying not to make it look too obvious, but there was Adam, there was Thomas, there was Eustace – who she supposed she’d be getting to know better once she’d joined Sir Gilbert’s household – there were William Fitzwilliam’s and Henry de Stuteville’s squires, but there was no tall figure looming over them. For no particular reason that she could think of, she was assailed by worry. One member of the household was already dead, to say nothing of all that trouble a few weeks ago. What if? How would she – oh, there he was. He hurried in, trying to look unobtrusive, wearing a very ill-fitting tunic that she hadn’t seen for a while, the one which had a rip in the elbow. She had meant to ask him if he would like her to mend it for him, but somehow she had never got round to it … Matilda was talking to her, and she hadn’t heard a word.

‘I beg your pardon?’ She reddened.

If Matilda did know what was on her mind, she was far too discreet to say anything about it. ‘Would you pass the venison?’

Belatedly Joanna realised that the dishes had been placed on the table, and that she was forgetting her manners. ‘Of course, here.’

After the three of them had helped themselves, and after Thomas had splashed some wine in a cup for her, she dipped a piece of bread in the venison’s rich spiced-wine sauce and chewed thoughtfully, leaving the other two to a discussion on embroidery techniques. She tried very hard to avoid looking towards the middle of the table. Come now, have some respect. He won’t want to see you staring at him like a moonstruck child. Look away. Over there, down towards the rest of the hall.

Something was different from usual. What was it? The men were all there – a little more crowded than normal, but that wasn’t it. The food was on the tables, the ale in cups, everyone ready to eat … but they weren’t eating. One or two of them had spoons or knives at the ready, hovering, but everyone was looking round at everyone else, and there was an uneasy silence. Oh dear Lord. It was because Hamo had been poisoned. She dropped her bread in fright and looked round, about to tell the others to do the same. But everyone at the high table was eating happily, oblivious to the disquiet in the rest of the hall; evidently there was nothing wrong with their food. She picked up her bread again and continued her contemplation of the lower hall. Someone had cracked and started to eat, and now the rest were following suit. Once they all realised that no harm had come to any, the normal buzz of conversation resumed.

The contrast in colours in the hall was quite distinct. Up here, all was bright, the noble party in their Sunday reds and greens, and even some blue on the earl’s sleeves, but down there it was brown and grey, with only the occasional dark russet standing out. There was one other who was noticeable, though – a monk, a Cistercian judging by his white habit. He was sitting towards the bottom of the hall, but she could see him quite clearly as he spoke with the man next to him. He certainly had a good appetite for a monk – he was shovelling the stew off his trencher with gusto. Mind you, so was Father Ignatius at the other end of the high table, so maybe that wasn’t too unusual in a man of the cloth. Did they get much to eat in monasteries? She didn’t know, never having been inside one, but most of them were from good families, weren’t they? So they’d hardly let them starve. When you did see them out and about sometimes they certainly didn’t have that gaunt ravenous look that one associated with labourers, but they didn’t exactly look like beefy warriors either. Although this one did have something of a strange air about him. She was observing him from the side, of course: the high table went across the hall on the dais, but the two long boards for everyone else ran the length of the space. As he raised his head to drink, she was suddenly struck by a resemblance to someone, but she couldn’t think who it might be or where she’d remembered it from. She looked again, but now he’d turned to talk to the man on the other side of him, and the moment was gone.

Deciding that she’d just imagined it, she turned her attention back to the meal in front of her, and the conversation at the table. Sir Roger, who was two places away from her on the other side of William Fitzwilliam – she wasn’t sure how that had happened, who on earth would put Sir Roger, nice though he was but a poor knight, a place nearer to the earl than the earl’s own brother-in-law? – was asking if anyone had heard anything about the death of the marshal. William Fitzwilliam, aware of the slur of his positioning next to the ladies’ companions, whether deliberate or not, had hardly spoken a word during the meal. He was eating fastidiously, careful not to get food lodged in his well-combed beard or down the front of his expensive tunic. As he heard the word ‘murder’ he stopped with the spoon halfway to his mouth.

‘Murdered? Here? Who was?’ he sounded only vaguely interested.

‘My lord’s marshal. They found him yesterday morning.’

‘Oh, one of the servants.’ He spoke dismissively and sucked the sauce from the spoon without getting any around his mouth. Sir Roger, who’d already tried to interest his other neighbour, the Lady Maud, in his topic, gave up and smiled at Joanna.

‘Poor old Hamo. Poisoned here in his own office, and nobody cares. May his soul rest in peace anyway.’

Joanna was about to repeat the customary phrase but she was interrupted by an exclamation next to her. William Fitzwilliam, in the act of raising his bowl to his mouth to finish off the sauce, had spilled the lot all down the front of his tunic. Joanna forgot her own thoughts as she hastened to pick up a cloth and help him blot the stain before his clothing was ruined.

By the time she’d finished mopping up the sauce, the minstrel was taking his place in the hall ready to perform another instalment of his story. A hush descended and he began, accompanying himself on the vielle as he had done the previous evening. Joanna listened to it half-heartedly: was this really the best story to choose as the entertainment for a wedding? Surely there was something which involved love: she’d heard that there were all kinds of different poems going around the country, some of which had fair ladies in them, and brave knights seeking their hands. But then again, what did love have to do with marriage? And the few ladies at the high table were the only women in the room – in the castle, in fact – and nobody would think of asking them what they wanted to hear. So a tale of war it was. She wondered if the minstrel might know some of the songs about love, and if so, whether he could be brought into the great chamber to sing to them sometime while the men were out? She would ask when she got the time.

She didn’t really want to listen now, but despite herself she began to be drawn in by the tale. The minstrel’s voice was mesmerising, and she listened with growing horror as Roland and his friend Olivier were lured, unsuspecting, to the ambush which had been set for them. She imagined them: brave, handsome knights sitting tall in their saddles, riding obliviously towards their doom. She remembered Giles, her brother. How had he felt on the morning of his death? Granted, he’d been killed in a tournament accident, not in a battle, but still, he would have put on his armour and mounted his horse in the same cheerful way as the heroes of the poem, never realising that the day would be his last on God’s earth. She hoped Roland and Olivier didn’t have sisters waiting at home for news of them.

As the minstrel acted out a conversation between the two friends – amazing how he managed to put on such different voices for each character – one phrase caught her attention.
Rollant est proz e Olivier est sage
: Roland is brave and Olivier is wise. Matilda and Rosamund started whispering to each other about which quality they would prefer in a husband. The performance came to a dramatic end, with the French kneeling to receive God’s blessing before the start of the battle, to riotous applause from the hall and a flourishing bow from the minstrel. The men started to file out from the lower tables: normally they wouldn’t have stayed so long at a meal, but they’d all been enraptured, and the earl, in an expansive mood this Sunday, had made no move to dismiss them.

Those at the high table remained a little longer, finishing their flagons of wine. The other companions were still debating – Rosamund putting forward the opinion that bravery was what she wanted, and Matilda arguing for wisdom – and Joanna turned to join them. Wealth or lands earned through bravery wouldn’t last long if not supported by wisdom; but then, a man wouldn’t get the prize of a rich wife or lands in the first place unless he was brave. Nobody would reward a coward. The question was still unresolved among them when Joanna noticed Isabelle making a move to leave. She hastened to assist, wondering if she would ever be given a husband, and what sort of qualities he would have.

As Edwin walked through the village on his way to find the priest, he became aware of a commotion past the furthest houses. As it was the Lord’s day the villagers shouldn’t really be at work in the fields – most of them took the opportunity to work in their own gardens instead – but Father Ignatius knew they were only trying to do the best for their families, so he often turned a blind eye. A group of men was coming in from the north, but there was something not quite right about it. Firstly, it would be light for a long while yet so it was strange that they should be coming back from the fields; and secondly, there was a lot of angry gesticulating going on. Edwin hurried towards them.

At the centre of the group was a small family whom Edwin recognised as being from one of the village’s more isolated outlying crofts, a few miles on the other side of the river near the Sprotborough road. The woman was heavily pregnant and stumbled along with a small child strapped to her back, and the man had a bloodied bandage about his head. He was carrying an older boy whose arm was clearly broken, hanging at an angle with a rough splint about it. He was pale and whimpering with the pain.

Edwin soon found himself surrounded by the angry mob. Everyone started shouting at him at once, demanding that something be done, and through the cries he made out that the family’s home had been attacked by outlaws.