Servant of Birds

by A. A. Attanasio

  And who is being remembered? Falan wonders. When he volunteered for this assignment, the caliph identified Rachel Tibbon as a Jewess, the old man's granddaughter, a mere pawn whom the wealthy old baroness had selected to fulfill her vengeful ruse. He had not cared then who that Jewess was or had been before the Persian magician affixed her mask. Only now, knowing he will never see her again, does he truly wonder. Who is being remembered that such fierce dread should own her?

  "Come with me," he tells her. "Come back to the House of God—Jerusalem."

  Rachel shakes her head, aware that David is casting her hopeful looks.

  "Much danger here," he says in mangled langue d'oc.

  "Much danger everywhere." Rachel reaches up, and Falan takes her hand. She smiles tautly, aware.

  When they reach the Usk and Falan leads his two camels onto the barge for the journey south to Newport, he feels purged of all fear for her. "We are all the cattle of heaven," he declares, then unclasps from his throat the gold band of his servitude. He hands the torque to Rachel. "Go with God."

  The barge, untied, poles out into the current, and Falan looks away. Above the river and the broken spine of the land, the sky dazzles radiant blue. Behind him, his promise fulfilled, he does not need to look back to know that his past waves him on, free to be alone in the world again.

  -/

  "She is gone with her knights," Thierry Morcar says. "Drop the portcullis and keep the witch out."

  Guy looks up from lacing his boots with a proud cock of his head. "Noble thought, lad. But this is the Pretender’s keep now."

  Thierry frowns and looks to Roger Billancourt and William Morcar, who are also fastening their riding boots. They have exiled themselves to the barracks in a stupor of drunkenness since their defeat in the tilt yard. The oak-raftered structure, with its gray plank walls, wattle partitions, and hay-matted bunks, ranges empty now that the visiting knights and their squires have departed. "You're not simply giving it over to her?"

  "She won the assise de bataille, didn't she?" Roger says sourly, not looking up from lashing the cuffs of his boots.

  "And that's it? That's all?"

  "The garrison has sworn her vassalage," Guy says bitterly.

  "They're your men," Thierry presses. "You've been their lord for ten years. Talk with them."

  "I want to tell the boy everything," his father insists.

  At Guy's nod, William hobbles over to his son, one boot on and one in his hand, and sits on the bunk beside him. "The black knights have had words with your uncle. Seems the marquess has taken a fancy to the Pretender. He's made us foreswear plotting against her—at least till Saint Margaret's, when he claims he'll take her for his own. In return for our not molesting her, he promises us the castle."

  Thierry's pugnacious face brightens. "Then I need not trouble myself to pilgrimage to Saint David's."

  "Oh, you'll pilgrimage, all right," Guy says, standing, kicking his boot tip against a post. With his topknot gone, he has cropped his black hair short over his ears and braided the locks at the back of his head in a tight rat's tail. "You're going to worship at Saint Branden's."

  "Saint—what?" Thierry casts a baffled look at his father, who is grimacing too intently to answer as he tugs on his boot.

  "Branden Neufmarche's castle," Roger Billancourt says, rising shod. His faded black trousers are tucked into his boots, but he is still bare-chested, the scars of ancient wars braiding his thick shoulders. "You'll tell everyone that you're making the pilgrimage, but instead, you're to reside with our friend Branden."

  "Since when has that toad become our friend?"

  "Since we offered him all the land and the fortalice that the Pretender has given to the barbarians," Roger replies, removing his tunic from the bunk post.

  "But that's our land," Thierry protests.

  "It will be the king's when the penalties are not paid," Guy says, removing his dagger from the hay where he had slept and tucking it into his boot. "The marquess claims he will pay the debt. But we think not. He wants the Grail-Lady to soothe his old age, not a frontier fortress to defend and maintain. The castle is forfeit. We will make our alliance with Branden. We've proven our mettle against him, and he'd rather have us fighting for him than against."

  "But, Uncle, you can't be Branden's vassal. That's unnatural— he's a craven, pompous sot!"

  "Not his vassal, Thierry, his ally. We will defend the land and fortalice we've given him against the claims of whomever the king bequeaths our castle."

  "Whoever it is," Roger adds, "will be no one of consequence to be posted so deep in the wilds of Epynt. In time, knowing the hills and the castle as we do, and with Branden's men in our command, we will have our keep back."

  Guy yanks open the door, and sunlight barges in. "Come, Thierry, let's take our falcons to the woods and have our pleasure while we may. There's toil enough to come."

  -/

  Trees like shaggy oafs crowd the trail, and Rachel and her escort do not see the Welshmen until the forest warriors surround them. The brawny men in their pelts and nut-oiled hair lean casually on their tall spears and snicker at the alarm of the Normans. Denis and Gianni swing their horses closer to Rachel, and the sergeants back their steeds against each other, in a futile attempt to guard all sides.

  "Tell your men to stand at ease," Erec's voice calls in Welsh from the forest. He steps smiling through the ranks of his men. "The Servant of Birds is the only shield they need in these woods." Rachel returns a thin smile, though she feels vulnerable without Falan.

  "You show your fear too readily, baroness, now that your master-at-arms has departed," Erec remarks with amusement as he steps between the horses of her knights and takes hold of her bridle. "Are you afraid that I will try to overpower you?"

  Rachel glances around at the bearded men. Their hardened faces watch her with suspicion and curiosity. "I am scared," she admits.

  "Do not be. I have come with news that will gladden you. Step aside with me into the forest. This is for your ears alone, as I do not know who among your men understands our language."

  Rachel begins to dismount, and Denis and Gianni stop her.

  "Don't go," David whispers. "He will carry you off and murder us."

  Rachel stares at Erec's broad and ruddy visage and says, "For honor's sake, keep me in sight of my men."

  "Done."

  They walk to the edge of the road and stand between the solemnity of two yews, their backs to the uneasy cluster of Rachel's men. "I know of your plight with your king. You owe him three hundred pounds of silver."

  "Yes. I must have it in a fortnight—by Saint Margaret's."

  "How will you get it?"

  Rachel peers uncertainly at the bear-shouldered man. "Are you offering me the money?"

  Erec puffs his cheeks out and lifts his tufted eyebrows. "No true Welshman has that much of the king's money." A wolfish grin sharpens his features. "But I know who has. There is a rival tribe to the north in a boar fen above the Bridge of Lost Steps—bandits all, cow-raiders and wife-stealers. They've hoarded twice the silver you need, all of it robbed on the king's highways these last seven years, since Richard has been sending his tax-collectors to squeeze the barons."

  "Will they lend me the money?"

  Erec squints. "Lend the money? To a baroness of the Invaders? And sworn enemies of the Rhiwlas clan?" He sucks air through clenched teeth. "They'd sooner piss standing on their heads." He leans in closer. "Their chief, Dic Long Knife, has been using those funds to buy damascene steel swords from Irish traders—arming whole clans with them, who before had only staves and arrows. My father Howel fears they'll be coming for his lands soon, but he is too chary in his old age to strike first. His last prayer at night and his first in the morning is that someone might hamper them." He winks. "Give me three of your staunchest men, men whom I can trust, and I will steal Dic Long Knife's money."

  Rachel's pulse races. "You can do this?"

  "For you." The wolfish grin flashes a
gain. "That is my price. When I bring you the money, you become my wife."

  Anxiety rebounds in her. "I cannot marry you."

  "Why not? I am a Christian."

  Her mind scrambles for some escape. "I am a Norman. Your people despise me."

  "You are the Servant of Birds. You speak our language, you know our ways. The people will love you—as I do."

  Rachel feels a blush prickle the sides of her neck under Erec's keen gaze. First the marquess—and now Bold Erec! Though there is much about Erec that appeals to her—his brash good looks, his ready smile, his courage—she does not want to marry him. She looks back at the men, sees her grandfather watching after her apprehensively. Where are the moneylenders of Caermathon?

  "You must decide soon, Servant of Birds. And even then, nothing is assured. Dic Long Knife is a man who lives up to his name."

  -/

  "Alms! For the sake of Christ, alms!" A group of forty people are chanting for charity before the drawbridge of Castle Valaise when Rachel and her men return. Waifs and vagabonds from all over the countryside got swept into Epynt with droves of tournament-goers and left behind to mingle with the lame and halt of the village.

  The sergeants clear a path for the baroness and her knights. Once inside the bailey, Rachel orders the porter to bring a bag of copper obols. Clare and Ummu, who have come from the palais at the herald's trumpet call, scowl with disapproval.

  "Mother, there are debts owed in the bailey." Clare points to the guildsmen, who have gathered in ranks to petition for payment of their services rendered during the tourney. "The poor are always with us, but our guildsmen will leave for more lucrative keeps if we don't pay them." She says this loud enough for the merchants to hear, so they will know she has done her best.

  "Then we must pay them what we owe them."

  "Mother," Clare whispers, "we haven't the money."

  "I thought you and Gerald had procured some pounds from the visiting earls."

  "We've ten pounds," Clare says in a proud hush. "But that is for the king's penalties."

  "Is it enough for the guildsmen?"

  "Barely. But the penalties—"

  "Pay them, Clare. And worry no more about the penalties. I will fulfill them. The family's home will be secure."

  All protest in Clare evaporates at the look of stern confidence and command in the young woman's resolute face. That is so clearly the impelling look of her mother's face, remembered from earliest childhood, that tears abruptly smart in her eyes.

  This is, perhaps, the most trying time in Clare's life: having to humiliate herself in front of noblemen by asking for money, all the while pondering for too many days now what kind of life she and Gerald and their family would have if the king should take away the only home they have ever known. Peeping into the abyss of destitution has nearly cost her her mind.

  Since the tourney, she has pretended to be strong, for she is used to considering herself the eldest. But no— She stares gratefully into her mother's beautiful face. She recognizes the authority there, and an internal explosion shatters all pretense in her, reducing her once more to the child she has always been.

  "Mother!" Clare embraces Rachel, nearly toppling over the slender woman with her strenuous sobs.

  "All shall be well, Clare," Rachel promises, patting those large, heaving shoulders and visualizing the Chalice, gleaming as intensely gold as the sun, to allay her own extreme dread. "All manner of thing shall be well."

  Clare moves away and wipes her eyes. "You have always taken good care of us—of Gerald and me and the children. When you left, it was so horrible under Guy." Her voice has softened to the timbre of a young girl’s. "But now you're back. And so is the music. Gerald has convinced two of the troubadours to stay with us, two of the best. There is song again, Mother. Just as before."

  The porter returns with the bag of obols.

  "Pay the guildsmen, Clare, and the troubadours, too. I will attend to the poor."

  "Lady," Ummu offers, stepping ahead of her. "If you will permit me. I am not unfamiliar with the deceptions of mountebanks."

  With David, Denis, and Gianni following, Rachel and Ummu confront the beggars on the drawbridge. The crowd presses closer to touch the blessed baroness' robes in the hope of miraculous cures.

  From passing through the village on her journey to and from the abbey, Rachel recognizes the blind woman led by a little girl, the lad with the withered arm, the old man with no legs on his wheeled platform, the harmless idiot, and the widow whose husband, slain in a brawl, left her with nine children. Numerous others she has never seen before. She moves among them, distributing obols, fending off groping hands, and recalling the baroness' counsel that she and the land are one: Then, these unfortunates, too, are me.

  While Rachel loudly disclaims her power to heal, the dwarf approaches a crook-backed man disfigured with brown, glossy sores. Ta-Toh reaches out and, to the startled cries of the onlookers, peels away one of the sores.

  Ummu takes the scab, sniffs it, and waves it in the air. "Prune skin!" He kicks the man's shin, and the impostor's crooked back straightens with his howl. "A miracle! Ummu works a miracle! Who will next receive my healing touch?"

  The dwarf seizes by the back of his neck a young man on his knees foaming at the mouth. "Soap!" he decries and boxes the man's ears. "Another cure! Saint Ummu's miracle hands are reaching out!" He snatches a crutch from a fleecy haired man and drops him to his knees. The man wails piteously, until the dwarf snatches with the crutch at the halt man's groin, and the stranger leaps to his feet. Cursing and spitting, he retreats from the gathering, followed by a dozen others.

  "Our little saint has driven out the demons," Gianni observes, prying the hands of the devout from the baroness' robes.

  "We must do better," Rachel says. Never and always, the darkness speaks in her. She shakes her head. She will not listen to it. "I want you to help these people, Father."

  Gianni flinches. "Please, my lady, do not call me that."

  "You are a priest."

  "I am a knight. I will take Falan's place. I will even sleep on the flagstones outside your door. Let the rabbi serve as your holy man."

  "Something must be done about these people," Rachel sighs, exhausting the last obols in her pouch and offering her empty hands to the disconsolate people. The air rings with something more than the pleas of the poor. The voices of the dead glisten just within hearing: Her dead family sings a joyful song in Hebrew. Why?

  She looks to her grandfather to see if he can hear them, and he is muttering a prayer, blessing the people. "Rabbi—and Gianni—I want you both to devise some honest work within the capacities of the blind and the lame, to find some way to give true relief to the widow and others like her in the village. As for the idlers and lowbrowed rogues, they must be dissuaded from begging and shown the virtues of honest toil. And we must place the idiot where he can receive decent care. Perhaps the abbey."

  "Maître Pornic insists that only the soldiers of Christ may reside and work at his abbey," Denis says. "The poor are to be tended by Christian charity and wandering monks."

  "Then we will take care of our own," Rachel decides.

  "For so long as they are our own," Denis mutters.

  "The money will come."

  "From where, lady? The moneylenders have ignored our entreaty. I have sent another sergeant to beg for their help."

  "I will get the money."

  Denis stares intently at her. "You must not sacrifice yourself. I know about the marquess and his offer. His knights brag how you will be his. But to save us, you must not lose yourself. To marry that lecherous old man would be wrong."

  Rachel returns her attention to the thronging beggars and says in a distracted voice, "Love proceeds from wrong to wrong."

  -/

  Hellene kisses Thierry's cheek, stands back and admires his stocky strength. He is no fop, she thinks, like Father. She has always been unhappy that her father, Gerald, began as a troubadour and not a manlie
r knight. Her William has been man enough for her, and she passes him a look of shared pride in their son.

  The Morcars stand in the wide court outside the palais, bidding adieu. Like a squire, young Hugues holds the reins of his brother’s hackney, wishing he could go on the pilgrimage, too.

  Since Thierry's valiant display of battle prowess during the tourney, the whole family has been plump with respect for him and aching that he must make so hazardous a journey at so uncertain a time. When he returns, the castle, that once might have been his heirdom, may no longer belong to them.

  "Keep to the king's highways," Hellene advises. "And when you get to Saint David's, have a Mass said as well for our castle. If God so loves Ailena, he may yet save our keep."

  "I shall, Mother." Thierry looks knowingly to his father, but William betrays no sign of complicity. He hugs his son and stands back.

  "Do not speak well of yourself," William offers. "Rather, do well."

  Thierry nods, turns to his twin sister, who weeps softly into a handkerchief. "Madelon, stay your tears. I am not off to war. Perhaps on my pilgrimage I will find the Grail and drink from it and come back younger than Effie. Then you can be my nurse."

  Madelon sobs a laugh. "Don't you dare."

  Thierry punches his brother’s arm. "Guard them well," he instructs and then mounts his steed. With a gesture of farewell, he trots across the ward, pauses at the inner gate to look back and wave, and then rides off.

  "How could Grand-mère do this," Hellene moans, "after he has done so very well in the tourney?"

  "She is not Ailena," Hugues announces bitterly. "She is afraid of Thierry, because she is a witch."

  -/

  Among the clouds, a wedge of geese flies north. Rachel, sitting in the castle garden, watches them appear and disappear as they dwindle into the distance. Blythe and Effie run about, playing dame-and-maid around the sun dial, and under the rose arbor Leora attentively supervises the petit point of her older daughters, Joyce and Gilberta.