Needle in the Blood

by Sarah Bower

  Where is he? The water in her basin is growing cold; she can no longer feel her feet. How long since the portress ran to Sister Prioress who ran in turn to Mother Abbess, who then sent word to Sister Jean-Baptiste, as Agatha is known in the convent, that the bishop’s party had been sighted and was expected within the quarter hour?

  “You will greet His Reverence,” Mother Abbess instructed her. “According to his letter, it is you he has come to see. You will offer the water for washing.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Always, yes, Mother. She glances at the Abbess standing beside her. Though her face is invisible behind the damp folds of her hood and veil, Agatha knows what she is thinking. She mistrusts Sister Jean-Baptiste, nobly born, well educated, so beloved by those who have served their novitiate under her that they all seem to keep in touch with her. On the days when letters are permitted, they arrive for Sister Jean from all over Europe, once, even, from the Holy Land, from a house said to stand in the shadow of Mount Sinai itself. Sister Jean was the one they asked to stand for election when the old Abbess was dying; her current superior only holds her position by default, because Sister Jean said she was unworthy. Bishop Odo was asked to intervene. Bishop Odo replied that his noble sister knew her own mind.

  Agatha sighs; Mother Abbess darts her a reproving glance; Agatha makes a short prayer for patience, which God answers by carrying the muffled thud of hooves on snow and the jangle of harness to her ears. The two nuns, and the novice waiting beside Agatha with the towels, turn their heads sharply toward the gate.

  I have seen something wonderful, something marvellously surprising in this wet, wretched island of bogs and haunted forests. It made me think immediately of you, dearest sister, and of a service you might do for me.

  The words he wrote to her, in his own hand, in the note accompanying his letter to the Abbess, in which he requested, with all courtesy and every expectation of being obeyed, an audience with his beloved sister and daughter in Christ, Jean-Baptiste, and that the enclosed message be given to her. A service you might do for me. She knew he would ask one day.

  She does not recognise him at first, among the small party of armed men who trot single file through the gate and reassemble in the courtyard. Although it is only a short time after Sext, the afternoon is dark and flares have been lit in the courtyard, sending gigantic shadows of men and horses leaping up walls and across the snow, the play of light and shadow confusing the eye. She looks for a mule, for episcopal dress, with a tiny trickle of dread, insistent as water dripping from the thatch over the kitchen, whose fires have melted the snow. What does it mean when you cannot recognise your own brother, your favourite brother, the person you love most in all the world?

  Then a figure detaches itself from the rest, taller perhaps, but dressed the same, in short cloak and mud-spattered leather gaiters. As he approaches the women, he pauses suddenly, as though he has forgotten something, to unbuckle his sword from its belt, a task which seems to cause him some difficulty and is eventually completed for him by a second, shorter, older man she recognises as her brother’s servant, who takes the sword and stows it in a saddle scabbard. Odo then pushes back his hood to reveal his tonsure and the familiar contours of his face with its strong bones and seducer’s smile.

  “You are welcome, my lord,” says Mother Abbess, curtseying, as Agatha steps forward with her bowl of water.

  “I am glad to be here. The God of Moses has thrown all His box of tricks at us on the journey save fire and pestilence. I will save your gentle ears any account of the sea crossing.”

  So why has he risked it? wonders Agatha, handing the water bowl to the novice and taking a towel to dry his hands. As she performs this service, she realises why he struggled with his sword. His left hand is badly bruised and splinted at the wrist. Though she is tender and careful with him, he cannot repress a hiss of pain as she dries it. Yet she observes no swelling; it is not a recent fracture, just poorly tended, probably beyond proper healing.

  “Thank you, Sister,” he says, exchanging with her the briefest of glances, teasing, affectionate, before she lowers her eyes and kneels with the others to kiss his ring and receive his blessing.

  As they go indoors, he addresses himself to the Abbess. He has brought gifts from England. Some plate come by in Winchester, a pair of particularly handsome gold chalices from the island of Saint Columba, etched with designs in knotwork, a pleasing crucifix set with agates, a vial of water from the pool at Bethesda. The carcass of a boar they were lucky enough to kill en route and some flagons of a liquor made from honey by which the English set great store. The king? The king, God be praised, is in excellent health and spirits. And now, by Mother Abbess’ leave, time is short and he has urgent business with his sister while the horses are rested and his men refresh themselves.

  Agatha accompanies him to the room normally set aside for lay guests. It has a larger fireplace than the nuns’ parlour and more comfortable furniture, and she has been given permission to light some candles, though only tallow; beeswax candles are kept strictly for the great festivals and the Feast of Saint Justina. By their smoky light she examines him, with concern.

  There are new lines on his face, deep grooves gouged from cheek to jaw, and grey peppering the light brown curls fringing his tonsure. The fine skin beneath his eyes is blue tinged and puffy, like the skin of a bruised plum. He has lost weight since she last saw him and his complexion, beneath its superficial weathering, is pallid.

  “What happened to your hand?” she asks, as if his answer to that might contain replies to all the other questions she feels forbidden to ask.

  “A horse fell on me.”

  Agatha crosses herself. “Then you are lucky to be alive.”

  He shrugs.

  “And you look thin,” she persists, shrewish in her anxiety. She expects him to protest, but he does not.

  “There has been some fever among the troops. I was not seriously affected, thanks be to God.”

  “Troops? Surely you are not still with the army? I thought the fighting would be done by now.”

  “Done?” He repeats the word as though it is in a language he does not understand. He pauses, massaging his wrist. “It’s like trying to press air out of a bladder. As soon as we manage to put down one rebellion, another breaks out somewhere else. Always just beyond our reach, in some pathless forest or the far side of a river without fords. Or at least, none marked on the maps we have. The roads the Romans left are ruined, some say deliberately. William may have bribed or bludgeoned their thegns into submission, but these people don’t take account of their lords the way it’s done in Normandy.”

  “So our brother’s coronation was not universally welcomed. We had heard as much.” She gestures toward a chair and, though he does not sit himself, he grants her permission to do so.

  “Which?” he asks. “Winchester or London?”

  “Wasn’t one enough? Did he harbour some doubt after all about what he was doing?”

  “Winchester was Godwinson’s capital. London is the better place strategically, but Winchester has political significance. I…he…we…”

  “No need to explain. I dare say you will never unravel one from the other. It is London I am thinking of. We heard all sorts of rumours. Rioting, fires. Is any of it true?” she asks, smoothing her habit over her knees and folding her hands in her lap. The smell of wet wool is added to the mingled scents of tallow and lavender and the whiff of the stables.

  “It was nothing, a misunderstanding. The Saxon thegns set up some ritual shout or other, the custom, apparently, at their king makings. Our guards thought there was going to be a riot and set fires to contain it in the usual way. They had it under control within the hour.” He stands in front of the hearthstone, pinpoints of fire reflected in his eyes. She fears the element of fire may have gained the upper hand in him, drying the blood that gives him his normally sanguine temperament. That would account for the fever and the weight loss, the sense she has of a man devoured from within,
the skeleton burning beneath the skin.

  “You know,” he says, “at the coronation, when I did homage to William for Kent, and I knelt and put my hands between his, I felt something between us, some force, like lightning. I really believed we were invincible, that if we had done this, we could do anything. Less than a hundred years since Rollo embraced Christianity, and now his descendant is made a Christian king. Like Charlemagne.”

  “I guessed that might be his reason for choosing Christmas Day. Such a dull man, but so good at the grand gesture. Or was that, perhaps, your idea?”

  He gives her a tight, enigmatic smile. “I wished only to please God, though He has shown us little sign since that He is on our side. I had expected it to be easier.”

  “Surely you of all people haven’t fallen into the trap of confusing the easy way with the right one, Odo.”

  They are interrupted by a servant who brings food and drink and waits to serve the bishop, but Odo dismisses her.

  “I will wait on His Reverence,” says Agatha, though Odo shows no sign of interest in the meal she has so carefully arranged for him, the cheese and bitter apples she knows he cannot get in England, the brandy usually dispensed only to the sick. He crosses to the window and peers out, rubbing away the frost with his sleeve.

  “I have very little time,” he says, pacing the room, picking things up and putting them down, forgetting his injured hand and wincing when he tries to bend his fingers. His prowling makes even this room seem small, the early dark closing in around them, swallowing the candlelight. “I must tell you about the Byrhtnoth hanging.”

  “The what? Who is Byrhtnoth? Odo, please sit down.”

  He does so, but on the edge of his chair.

  “Well?” she prompts. “If you have so little time, you must tell me about the hanging. Is this the marvellous and surprising thing you wrote to me about?”

  “I saw it in the abbey church at Ely, an odd place. The local people call it an island, though it stands on a marsh, not water. Shall we say it aspires to be like Mont Saint Michel, but fails. For one thing, their churches admit scarcely any light, as though they are loathe for God to see what goes on in them. They’re pagans, Agatha, for all their Saint Augustine and Saint Cuthbert and Bede’s History. I have seen images of the Norse gods on their altars and everywhere odd little shrines stuck with blood and feathers.” He shivers and stretches out his hands to the fire.

  “Odo, has something happened to you? I do not know you like this.” No, not strictly true. She has seen him this way twice before, torn between the risk and its consequences, between love and duty, and both times it was William’s doing.

  He frowns, his mouth working, whether to form words or keep them back she cannot tell. “I…dream…” He shakes himself, like a dog shaking off water. “No, nothing has happened to me, just a touch of fever as I said. This hanging. It’s not woven, the style is more like…embroidery on clothes or vestments…except for the colours. No gold, no purple.”

  “No gold? I would have thought you would have wanted plenty of gold, Odo.”

  “You miss the point, Agatha. It’s a story, a chronicle in pictures, about the Earl Byrhtnoth, who was some sort of tribal leader in East Anglia about a hundred years ago. When he was killed, his widow apparently made this work as a memorial to him and gave it to the abbey. It’s on a long strip of, I don’t know, linen I suppose. It hangs around all four walls of the church, like a frieze. You see it by torchlight, and the figures seem to leap out at you, so real I kept my hand on my sword hilt, I half believed some warrior was going to jump down from the wall and revenge himself on me for William’s triumph.” He gives a sheepish laugh.

  “I notice you have taken to wearing a sword.”

  “All pictures of this Byrhtnoth and his people, fighting, feasting, holding councils, even love making,” he goes on, choosing to ignore her reproof. “It seemed to me to unfold like life does, some stages orderly and clearly seen, others obscure, muddled, contradictory. That’s why it doesn’t want gold. It’s the story of a life, a real life. There’s a commentary, but it’s in English. I’ve set myself to learn to speak the language, but they make their letters strangely so it’s difficult to read. It doesn’t matter, though, the pictures speak for themselves. Wonderful pictures, ordinary people, so the artist didn’t have to conform to the conventions.”

  “Of representing the saints, for example? No haloes, no eyes raised to heaven? If you have one leg shorter than the other or a nose shaped like a bottle, the artist can show it? I begin to see what you mean.”

  “None of the constraints of holiness.” Their eyes meet and they exchange smiles of understanding.

  “And it set me thinking,” he goes on, “that it would be an excellent way to record what we have done.”

  “Surely a chronicle would have more permanence. Or a poem. You could be Turpin to William’s Roland. Your strip of linen sounds perilous to me. It could rot in the sun, be eaten by mice, anything. Looked at back to front.”

  “Perhaps, but so can a book, and whoever reads books, other than a handful of monks and scholars? A hanging could be displayed anywhere…”

  “Big enough.”

  “Big enough, I grant you. My idea is that it should have a permanent home in Bayeux, in the new cathedral, but it could travel. And be seen and understood by anyone, lettered or unlettered, Saxon or Norman. And it has the merit of simultaneity, like real life, the good and the bad balancing one another. It seems to me that’s impossible to achieve in books, where you see only one page at a time. Books tell, pictures suggest.”

  “Couldn’t that be dangerous? If you want to be sure people understand events from your point of view?”

  “Only if we had something to hide.” He pauses, as though expecting some response, then goes on, “So, I shall take you to see this Byrhtnoth hanging, and then you’ll understand what I want.”

  A sense of dread creeps over Agatha like a chill. The fire has settled to a dull glow and the room, outside its penumbra, is almost in darkness. She stirs the embers and piles on fresh wood. Perhaps she has misunderstood.

  “Why must I understand it, Odo?”

  “Didn’t I say? You are to design it for me. That is the service I wish from you. I’ve considered it all ways round, and you’re the obvious choice. You have the gift of representation. You can join my household so that I can recall and describe events for you whenever we can snatch a few minutes. Longer periods are difficult, as you can imagine. Then, when the design is ready, who better to seek out embroiderers with the skills I need? The king’s sister, and a religious, you can gain access anywhere. I will make sure you have all the authority and money you need.”

  “Wait, Odo, wait! I can’t do it. I can’t leave here. I haven’t been outside this place for fifteen years. I no longer know how the world works. And just because I used to enjoy drawing as a child doesn’t mean I can succeed in a task such as you envisage. You must find someone else. English needleworkers are supposed to be some of the best in the world. Surely you can find someone better than me in England to design and execute your hanging.”

  “You haven’t understood me properly, Agatha. Of course there are people skilled enough in England. There’s a strong tradition in Canterbury, I’ve discovered, which will no doubt be very useful to us…”

  “Ah yes, your new seat of power. Tell me, how does a Norman bishop feel recast as a Saxon earl?”

  “I have hopes of more.”

  “More, Odo? Are you not lord of half our brother’s new kingdom already? Must you have all his toys?”

  “Not land, Agatha, the Archbishopric. Can’t you see me as Archbishop of Canterbury?”

  She shakes her head in exasperation. Is nothing ever enough for Odo? It is clear William plays on this hunger of his, keeping him close with promises like a falconer training a young bird with titbits, but she thinks it must be an uncomfortable alliance, however much they love one another. “He would be mad to concentrate such power in one p
air of hands.” Especially yours, she adds to herself. “What about Lanfranc? Surely he stands to gain also?”

  Odo gives a dismissive wave, pulling in a sharp breath between his teeth as the shards of bone grind together in his wrist. “What did Lanfranc do besides go and talk to the Pope? I preached the campaign and gave a hundred ships full of armed men and horses. Besides, Lanfranc will never leave Caen. He’s already turned down Rouen. Why should he want Canterbury? It’s even further from his beloved Alps. Now, this hanging. The reason I need you is this. You’re the one person I can tell everything to. We’re so close in age it sometimes feels to me as though we’re twins. We have everything in common, even William. Especially William. We’re the ones he’s made the most difference to, aren’t we?”

  She nods, forced to acknowledge the truth of this. Because of William she has bent her will to the Rule of Saint Benedict and hobbled her imagination with the discipline of prayer.

  “Talking to you will be like talking to myself. Because it isn’t simple, and if I’m to make a true record, I can’t make it simple. I can’t do it without you. Do you understand?”

  “Not really, but it’s true I owe you a service, and English earl or no, you’re my bishop, so I must do as you bid me. But Odo…”

  “Yes?”

  “What if, in the world…what if…?”

  “You will be strong, as you always have been. I have never known a woman more determined to resist temptation, nor man neither, come to think of it. I have faith in you, Agatha, I always have, or I would not have taken your side against William over the matter of your marriage. Now, I want to leave before nightfall, so go and make yourself ready.”