Needle in the Blood

by Sarah Bower

  A half remembered scent of rosemary and sandalwood envelops her as he leans over her shoulder to inspect her work, his gaze coming to rest on the image of Harold, hands outstretched to touch the reliquary shrines, the city of Bayeux rising steeply behind the Bastard on his throne. The scent makes her dizzy, and her palms begin to sweat.

  She has been working for many days on Earl Harold’s hands; Sister Jean often chooses her for the most intricate work. But, inexplicably, this time she has been unable to follow Sister Jean’s drawing. On the shrine closest to Duke William, the one to which the duke points and Harold’s gaze is directed, instead of the flat of his palm, he rests only two fingers, the others curled under in a fist, just as if he were pointing back at the duke, accusing him of something. Perhaps the light was poor, or the charcoal smudged. She offered to redo her work, though she knew Sister Jean would let it pass; she does not want her great design transformed into a soiled rag of unpicked stitch holes.

  But he won’t. He has an eye for detail; he lets nothing pass. He will have Gytha dismissed. Her chance will have passed before even coming into being. Like the lives of her children. She picks up her needle; if she cannot have the man himself, she can at least indulge herself in the small pleasure of stabbing his image right in front of his eyes. That will not be lost on him either. And perhaps, who knows, it may work the way stabbing wax dollies or burning straw men works. There are all kinds of ways of procuring a man’s downfall.

  “You have made Bayeux very pretty,” he remarks, an edge to his voice which makes it sound as though the prettification of Bayeux is some kind of misdemeanour. “Quite a fairy city.”

  Gytha stares at the scene, needle suspended, eyes raking the outlines of charcoal and wool. Where is he? Surely he is there. This is his city, the shrines come from his cathedral. Surely he was present to deliver the coup de grace. They are such great hunters, these Normans, with their acres of forest suddenly off limits to people who have depended on its bounty for generations. Surely he must have been in for the kill.

  “If I had drawn it as it is,” Sister Jean replies, “I doubt it would have impressed the eye as you would wish.”

  But he is not there. No sign of him, not a smudge or a shade that might be made to resemble him. Not a ghost, not a trace. Gytha lays down her needle again with a sigh of vexation.

  “You may carry on working,” says Sister Jean. “His lordship wishes it.”

  “His lordship is in my light.”

  Although the normal low hubbub of the workshop has already been silenced by Bishop Odo’s presence, now the silence thickens, settles over the women like a fog as their breath freezes in their chests and their hands fall motionless over their work.

  The bishop stares at Gytha, disbelieving, expectant, as though waiting for her to repeat herself so he can be sure he heard her right. Sister Jean raises her eyes to heaven, her lips moving as she offers up a silent prayer. Suddenly he smiles. Perhaps her prayer has been answered.

  “Forgive me,” he says to Gytha, who glares back at him as though she has failed to detect the touch of sarcasm in his tone.

  As the other women sit with eyes downcast, as modesty dictates in the presence of a man who is not a relation, Gytha thinks of each of them in turn. Of Judith and her exiled grandsons, of Emma torn from her family, and of Meg and Alwys and their four dead brothers. Of herself and her skill with a needle, and how he has appropriated even that from her for his own ends. Summoning all their losses into her eyes, she gives stare for stare.

  Until Bishop Odo’s smile fades, and turning smartly on his heel, he stalks out of the workshop with Sister Jean and the little page hurrying behind him.

  “Well really,” says Judith once they are out of earshot, “there’ll be no chance of my talking to him about my estates now.”

  “Oh, shut up, Judith,” snaps Margaret.

  Alwys shakes her head in wonder. “He didn’t know what to say to you.” She looks across at Gytha, her green-flecked eyes round as platters. “You beat him, Gytha.”

  Gytha shrugs. “Women have their tongues; men have everything else.” But inside she is exultant. A victory, a victory, chants her heart, though her mind tells her it is only a small one, and the real challenge will be to build on it.

  ***

  “God forgive me, but damn, and double damn.” Agatha slams the door to her parlour and leans back, pressing her palms flat against the sturdy panels to stop her hands shaking. “I’ll get rid of her, Odo. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what she was thinking.”

  He is standing with his back to her, apparently studying the drawings and wool samples on the worktable beneath her parlour window, shuffling them about beneath his fingers. Agatha is irritated by the gritty whisper of parchment against the fine coating of sand from her caster.

  “No,” he says, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant.

  “Well, she would be a great loss. With such small hands she is second to none when it comes to very fine stitching. If you don’t mind…”

  “I thought I’d get used to it,” he interrupts, turning to face her, “the hatred in their eyes. Or that they’d come to hate us less once they realised we meant to abide by law and order. But I haven’t, and they don’t. Just some little jade of a seamstress with a sharp tongue, and look how she affects me.”

  He is her little brother again, his honey brown eyes full of hurt and bewilderment. I’m to be a priest, he had protested, sitting beside her on the bank of the moat at Conteville, putting his hands over hers to correct her hold on her fishing rod. William is sending me to Bec. Can’t you stop him? This is where I belong. Sweeping out his free arm to embrace the rambling house with its tangled string of yards and gardens, its orchard and pasture, the village and its common full of tethered goats, beehives, and stiff-legged chickens, fringed with cultivated strips of green and brown and the silky silver of bean plants. Of course not, she had replied, casting her line again, William is like winter. Harsh, inevitable, to be endured.

  “I’ll not have any of the women in my atelier ‘affecting’ you, Odo.” She narrows her eyes at him. “You were first among those advising William to take this course of action; you should have considered what it would mean for you. For all of us.”

  “It is God’s will William should be king of this place. The Blessed Edward promised it. How should I stand by and let Godwinson have it by deceit?”

  “Oh, God’s will is it, bishop?”

  “Sarcasm is unseemly in a woman,” he snaps.

  “There are a great many things in me that are unseemly in women,” she snaps back. “You must take me as you find me, or pack me off back to Saint Justina’s.”

  Suddenly he smiles. “How could I possibly do that, when you have created such a wonder for me up there?” He glances up in the direction of the workshop above them.

  “Oh, Odo, do you really think so? I can hardly judge for myself, being so close to it day and night.” Her eyes sparkle; despite the chill in the room, smelling familiarly of damp stone and cold incense, there is a touch of pale pink in her cheeks. Her excitement is endearing, and it is justified, and he meant what he said, but there is something more.

  He has never seen the like of it before, excelling even Earl Byrthnoth’s hanging in its artistry and vitality. It is, so far as he can tell in its current, fragmented condition, a faithful reproduction of all that he told Agatha during that first summer, more faithful, perhaps, than he intended. War horses, for example, are never gelded, everyone knows that; there’s no need to show it quite as explicitly. The narrative is everywhere punctuated by exquisite fairy castles and fabulous beasts, the multi-coloured sea and the knotted, muscular trees reminding him of the stone columns growing in the nave of his new cathedral, branching out to support the vaults whose soaring arches will bear his worship straight to the ear of God.

  Yet it is more than the sum of these things, and that disturbs him. There are elements he cannot grasp, lying beyond his recollection or control and aff
ronting his sense of order. They are connected with his feelings on entering the atelier, his unrestrained joy in the windows coupled with an obscure sense of threat aroused by stepping into this community of women. The issue of celibacy does not preoccupy him the way it seems to vex the Cluniac reformers, but the life of the warrior priest does not bring him into contact with women very often nowadays; William, having once captured his Matilda, sees no need for women. A distraction, no more use than music, or that moth eaten collection of Ovid his hare-brained little brother always has his nose stuck into. He smiles inwardly, hearing William’s harsh, somewhat high-pitched voice in his memory, suddenly sensitive to an emptiness at the heart of his life, and to how the women are beginning to fill it with the richness of their own experience.

  “I think,” he says, groping after words that will express his feelings without causing offence to hers, “that it has a life of its own.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  In the ensuing silence, as he tries to marshal his thoughts, the household chapel bell begins to ring for None. Agatha’s servant comes in with a basket of wood to lay a fire in the brazier. At last, thinks Odo, who cannot understand why his sister continues to live as though she were still in the convent. Agatha crosses herself and murmurs a brief prayer. Odo bows his head. She then goes to the table beneath the narrow window overlooking the garden, unearths an hour glass from among the piles of notes and sketches and wool samples, and turns it over. The servant lights the fire and excuses herself.

  “It’s familiar, of course,” he continues slowly, picking his way through his impressions, holding out his ringed hands toward the nascent flame, “but at the same time I feel like a stranger looking at it.”

  “Perhaps it’s the distance of time.”

  “Partly, maybe, but also, yes, I think what I mean is this. First I told you what I remembered, and you turned my memories into sketches, and now the sewing women are turning your sketches into something else again. Everyone adds a layer until the original becomes unrecognisable. Like wrapping a surprise for a child.”

  “Had you thought that maybe your memory isn’t reliable? In my experience, it’s often the events we swear to ourselves we’ll never forget that vanish soonest.”

  “But there are elements in what I’ve seen today that I’ve never experienced. In Judith’s work, for example. God, that woman! She’s shown a horse drawing a plough in one of her borders. I’ve never seen a horse drawing a plough. I can’t imagine such a thing. Why risk a horse’s wind like that instead of using oxen?”

  “Perhaps because there were no oxen, Odo,” says Agatha quietly. “That scene is taken from Judith’s memory, not yours. Foraging parties from your army had taken all the oxen from her farm for meat. The horse was her husband’s war horse. He was killed in a raid, as you know. Judith was never going to ride a great brute like that, so she made the best use of him she could. I take full responsibility. Naturally it can be changed if you so desire. One layer you missed out, though. The effects of what I’ve seen and heard, watching you enforce the will of God, as you put it.”

  Odo shrugs. “I am bound to do so, as God’s servant and William’s.”

  “Oh William, your eyes are full of stars where he is concerned. You know there are those less smitten with our brother than you are who call what you do terror and the gratification of lusts.”

  “Are you mocking me, Agatha?” His expression is searching, almost doubtful.

  “Do I smile? I had better be careful if I am, in case my head ends up hanging from a castle gate like those of the Dover conspirators.”

  “That was so long ago I can hardly remember what I did.” He fiddles with his rings.

  “Three years. Shall I remind you?”

  Many of Eustace of Boulogne’s rebels had fallen from the cliffs as they fled, drowned or hacked to death on the jagged rock face. Odo had their bodies retrieved from the beach, their heads cut off and hung from the castle walls as a warning to any others who might consider plotting against his brother or himself. He remembers the way the little flags of skin at the edges of their severed necks fluttered in the autumn winds as they dried. He used to mutter words from the Requiem Mass under his breath whenever he passed them. Sometimes, when he is at Dover, he still does.

  “There’s no need. Now I must go. I have work to do. But I can come again? Any time?”

  “Of course. Do you intend to preach tomorrow? I should like the women to hear you.”

  “Probably not till Christmas Eve. I shall be very busy until the festival. I intend only to preach then and Christmas morning Mass. I’m sure two of my sermons will be enough to have you all praying for my departure.”

  “False modesty. You speak well, and you know it. I expect Archbishop Lanfranc is fearful of an empty church on Christmas morning, with one of his star pupils performing just up the road.”

  “Lanfranc has nothing but the ruins of the old cathedral to preach in. If they flock to me, it’ll be because I can provide a roof over their heads so at least they can doze off in some comfort while I ramble on.”

  “Oh, he’s started building, didn’t you know? They began house clearances as soon as he got here and went on digging out the foundations until we had some very heavy rainfall about a month ago, around your saint’s day, that put paid to it for this year.”

  “So he’ll be afloat in an outsize waterhole, preaching from a boat like Our Lord at Galilee, will he?” says Odo, trying to keep his voice light and unconcerned. House clearances, he’ll give Lanfranc house clearances. “Well, maybe I could hold Mass in the keep and call it the Sermon on the Mount. Now I really am going. I must find Hamo.” He’ll keep his petitioners waiting just a little longer while he and Hamo, his castellan, go through the rolls to find out exactly who owns what around the site of Christ Church.

  “You know what we could do,” he adds, pausing on his way out of the door. “When it’s finished, we could copy it, do it properly, with silk, and gold and silver thread. As many times as we like. One for all my houses.”

  “What?”

  “The hanging, of course.”

  “Odo, when it’s finished, I’m going home. Remember what you said? It needs no silk or gold.”

  ***

  “You’re quiet tonight,” says Margaret, speaking into the darkness in the general direction of Gytha’s bed. It’s late, and the fire has died right down, leaving the dormitory in almost complete darkness. Gytha, whose hair is so thick, tends to sleep with her head uncovered so there is not even the pale smudge of a cap to locate her by. During the lengthening lulls in the women’s conversation, the silence of the snowbound castle is absolute. “I thought you’d have a lot to say about our earl.” Margaret waits; the rest wait. No reply. Gytha is asleep. Her sleep is untroubled. He is here now; the time of waiting is over. God has kept her alive for a purpose; once she has fulfilled it, she can go to her children.

  ***

  The Feast of Saint Stephen dawns bright and frosty, and Odo decides to delay his departure to enjoy a day’s hunting in his forest bordering the Stour. A noisy, high-spirited party, attended by foresters, huntsmen, falconers, and a cartload of servants to dispense two cartloads of food and wine clatter out of the city by Wincheap Gate just as the sun clears the castle keep. The change in the weather has raised everyone’s spirits, after a nativity celebrated mainly indoors due to days of relentless snow and wind. As many as could be accommodated abandoned their tents in favour of the keep, and Odo was thankful for his private quarters, however cramped, wedged as they are between the great hall and the main bedchamber over it. At least he has been able to pass his nights in relative peace, with only his dogs and Osbern for company, away from the mass of sleepers above and below him, snoring, farting, fucking, talking in their sleep. Though he makes it his business to know who lies under whose quilt and what they say in their sleep.

  Overcrowding, wet feet and clothes, stinging eyes and sor
e throats for everyone as the wind made the fire in the great hall back up, and the effects of too much rich food and wine, have led to several displays of unseasonal bad temper. Two knights fought a duel over a perceived slight to the pedigree of one man’s falcon. The loser had his nostril slit, the wound becoming infected and slow to heal, and has now sworn to have vengeance on the man who thus disfigured him. The resolution, Odo fears, will cost him time and money he can ill afford, but he can afford quarrels among his vassals even less.

  The pleasure of dancing was marred by the fact that the damp, smoky atmosphere put the music frequently out of tune. Master Pietro, laid low with a chill, had been unable to make his eagerly anticipated contribution to the Christmas table, a disappointment which did nothing to improve Odo’s humour, already bleak as a result of his discovery that Lanfranc has overstepped no boundaries in clearing the site for his new cathedral. All in all, Christmas was about as enjoyable as he had anticipated.

  By High Mass on Christmas morning, his throat was so badly affected by smoke that he could not speak above a whisper and had to have his sermon delivered for him by one of his chaplains, who read in an incantatory monotone that effectively killed every phrase so carefully wrought to convey the joy and mystery of Christ’s birth. Odo felt isolated and misunderstood in his attempt to share the meditations that had drifted like visions through his mind as he observed the Christmas Eve vigil, alone, kneeling on the beaten earth floor of the chapel, entranced by the pain in his knees and back and wrist, and the cold that seemed to freeze the blood in his veins. Joy is such a simple thing, he explained to his puzzled clerk as he walked up and down his parlour after Lauds, flexing his stiff joints, hands thawing around a cup of hot, spiced wine. It isn’t angels praising God or kings bearing gifts: it’s relief from pain, it’s a new baby with a monkey face and a cry like a seagull, it’s being warm, and safe, and not alone. My lord, what shall I write, the clerk had asked. Leave your materials, he had replied. I’ll write it myself.