by Sarah Bower
She confesses, going into as much detail as she is able before a series of small gasps from the priest warn her that she is overstepping Lanfranc’s boundaries. He absolves her, but the penances he sets her are perfunctory, determined more by the status of her person than that of her sin. Absolved, but not resolved. She remembers the scourge lying beneath her bed; she will perform her prescribed penances but add to them the scourge. She hears voices at the gate heralding the arrival of Brother Thorold and the lay brother who assists him but, intent on her own purpose, she leaves it to the guard to escort him to the door of the atelier and slips quickly, shadow-like, through the wicket before the formalities of gaining entry to the castle are complete.
The scourge is dusty, its three knotted tails laced with cobwebs. So much the better. She strips herself to the waist, takes the shaft of plaited leather firmly in her right hand, and lays the scourge over her left shoulder to her back. She continues, lashing the same place over and over until she has attained a rhythm that is hypnotic, until the skin yields and parts and her blood begins to flow, and the yearning so long held in check forces itself out of her in great, rib-cracking sobs.
How long before the knocking on the door finds its way through to her consciousness? She clutches her habit around her shoulders and goes to answer. It is Gytha, who takes in her dishevelled clothes and hot, red eyes but makes no comment.
“Brother Thorold thinks it would be best to move Alwys out of the dormitory, Sister. He wonders if he can bring her into your bed chamber.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Ask him to give me a few moments.”
Gytha nods and goes. She cannot help Agatha any more than she can help herself.
***
In midafternoon Brother Thorold calls Agatha into the sickroom for a consultation, after which Agatha puts on her outdoor clothes and sets off in search of Hamo, who is away supervising the land clearance for the new castle. Agatha goes on foot, the distance across Wincheap Green being hardly worth the saddling of a mule, but when she finds Hamo she envies him the height of his horse, elevating him above the pall of smoke swirling about the site and out of the eye line of the sullen, uncomprehending huddle of the dispossessed, watching their homes fired and their livestock scattered by the earl’s men. Hamo himself looks no happier than his men or their victims, but then, he never does.
“My lord,” says Agatha, dispensing with courtesies, “I have need of your assistance.”
“I am at your disposal, madam,” he replies with a small bow.
“I need a good swordsman. Accurate.”
Sister Jean’s request presents Hamo with some difficulty. “The best men are on campaign with Lord Odo,” he says, “but I expect I can find someone.”
“Not squeamish.” They both survey the men firing the marked houses with pitch flares, faces grimy with soot and scored by streams of sweat, Odo’s green and gold livery dulled as though it too has been tempered by flame. “And available immediately.” She follows Hamo’s gaze until it settles on a burly young man with tow-coloured hair who seems to be parleying with the people who have been evicted. The helpless, reluctant way he hovers on the edge of the group does not fill Agatha with confidence, but she has no option other than to trust Hamo’s judgment. Hamo nods toward the young soldier.
“That one,” he says. “He has good reason to be grateful to be removed from this duty. He’s got a girl with a baby living in this quarter. That’s why he hasn’t gone after Hereward. Couldn’t have kept his mind on the job. Good enough otherwise. Hey, Fulk.”
He spurs his horse forward among the smouldering wreckage, the horse’s ears flicking nervously as sparks fly before the wind, until he is close enough to Fulk to make himself heard. Agatha, eyes smarting, watches as Fulk listens to his orders, nods, and begins to walk away from the rest of the group. Immediately a young woman, clutching a bundle of rags which Agatha presumes must be the baby, darts out from among them and begins to follow him. A tall girl, but very thin, with jutting cheekbones and fine, pale hair that seems to reflect the cold sun shining above the smoky glow of the fires. Fulk turns and tries to argue with her, but she is not to be deterred. He ignores her studiously as he presents himself to Agatha.
He has been in the earl’s service since he was a boy, having travelled from Normandy in his retinue as a groom. He knows the earl as well as any man in his position can know a man like the earl, but this is the first time he has seen Lady Agatha up close. A lot of stories circulate about what goes on in the lady’s atelier, all the more colourful for the fact that it is off-limits to everyone except Lady Agatha, the earl, and the embroiderers. Most of the men call it Odo’s brothel, some of a more superstitious turn of mind mutter darkly about needles, image making, infidels, and the presence of identical twins. Witchcraft, they murmur, crossing themselves discreetly. Fulk is not an imaginative man, but there is more than enough in his mind to make him nervous as he bows to Agatha.
“I hope you are as strong as you look, Fulk,” she says, appraising him. “I’m afraid what I require of you will need a strong stomach as well as a good sword arm.”
“I’ll do my best, madam.”
“Where are you taking him? You can’t take him. What am I to do?” It is the girl, her baby cradled in the sharp angle of one arm, clinging to Fulk’s sleeve with the other hand. Hamo removes one foot from the stirrup and kicks her aside, his spur catching in her shawl and tearing it before he manages to disentangle himself. Agatha presses her lips together, forcing the words she might have spoken back down her throat. She must think only of Alwys, but perhaps compassion may have a practical use here. She has no time to become embroiled in Fulk’s domestic difficulties.
“Is he the father of your child?” she says to the girl. Doubt flickers across her face as she looks at the nun, but her voice does not waver when she replies. “Yes, Mother.”
“And you are homeless?”
“I hadn’t much to begin with, and they’ve shooed off my chickens and broken my loom…”
“Very well, you may come with us.” She glares at Hamo. “I will find you work and lodging in the castle. On my own responsibility. But we must make haste.”
As they make the return journey, Agatha explains to Fulk what will be required of him. He is horrified; he’s a soldier not a butcher of women. But he makes no protest, feeling his Freya’s arm through his and her full, milky breast bouncing against him as they walk.
***
Little work is being done in the atelier. A few of the Saint Augustine’s women who do not know Alwys well are seated at their frames, but most have joined the other group and are standing around, bent together like saplings tied to form the ribs of a bower, consoling themselves with gossip. They know Sister Jean has gone out looking for Lord Hamo, and they are certain they know why. Margaret is with her sister. Gytha, who is only distracted by the sudden silence which greets Sister Jean’s return, is still reading Aesop.
“How is she?” asks Judith, unable to anticipate anything from Sister Jean’s expression. Sister Jean shakes her head.
“Gytha,” she says, “may I speak with you a moment?”
Gytha closes the book and follows Sister Jean out of the workshop, feeling all eyes on her back. Again.
“Why me?”
“She knows you. You won’t panic. I can’t send Leofgeat, not in her condition, and I can’t do it myself because someone has to keep an eye on Margaret.”
After what Margaret has told her, Gytha is forced to acknowledge the wisdom of this, whatever Sister Jean’s true motive. “What will happen to Alwys?”
“That depends.”
“I suppose it does.”
The silence is unbearable as they walk down the stairs to the door, past the drawings, the terrified faces of conquered and conquerors, the palaces and ships, the burning houses and horses with broken necks.
“You seemed very absorbed in Aesop,” says Agatha suddenly. “I wasn’t aware you could read so well.”
“I
can’t really. I was never taught, just picked it up as I went along.”
“You have quick mind. Your curse, I think. My brother made that translation, you know.”
“Lord Odo?” Gytha asks, for the sake of feeling his name on her lips, its moon shape in her mouth.
“Of course. Literature couldn’t be said to be one of Robert’s talents.” She smiles and pauses, then says, “I’m sorry, Gytha. They’re in the Great Hall. They needed a large table.”
***
The bell is ringing for Vespers as Gytha enters the hall through the wicket in the main door, and Brother Thorold and his lay brother are saying their prayers. He will be praying somewhere, she thinks, if he’s still alive, kneeling on the wet earth among tents and cooking pots, or the cold floor of a woodland church, or a cushion in the chapel of a great house thrown into turmoil by his arrival. Praying for victory, for courage, that lances will not splinter nor bowstrings snap, for safe deliverance from the coming night. For her? She would like to hope so, would like to be able to pray for him.
She waits for them to finish beside the great double doors, locked now in case anyone in the household has not heard the news and comes to hall expecting dinner. Torches flare in all the wall sconces and a good fire burns in the hearth at the center of the hall. The long handle of a cautering iron protrudes from the fire and rests on a trivet on the hearthstone. Smoke dawdles in the ceiling space, winds among the posts and beams supporting the earl’s apartments, before drifting out around the leather curtains that have been hung at the windows to thwart the curious.
The figures in the hangings, the hunting scenes, illustrations of scenes from the Chanson de Roland, the great painting of King William investing his brother with the arms of his earldom on the wall behind Odo’s place at high table, seem galvanised by fire. The hart leaps, the dogs race, heroes do battle against the Infidel, the king’s hands fumble with buckles. The furniture is laid out as if for dinner, the high table on its dais forming one side of a square of long trestles, with spaces at the corners for kitchen and buttery staff to serve. Such a pretty scene, such extravagance of light and warmth for the woman lying on the table opposite the doors, like a joint of meat ready for carving, oblivious to it all.
The two monks rise from prayer and Gytha crosses the hall to join them. Fulk is also there, solemn and tense, testing his sword blade against his thumb; she had not been able to see him before, with the bright hearth between them.
“What would you like me to do, brother?” she asks.
***
The chapel bell has fallen silent and the service of Vespers begins with the psalms. There is a large congregation, people drawn to church by a pervasive sense of foreboding. Lord Hamo and his wife and daughters are present, as are Judith and Emma, Agatha and Margaret. Margaret seems close to fainting, swaying from time to time against Agatha’s shoulder. Agatha struggles with her burden, but it is hers to bear and she does not look for help. Freya is there, with her sleeping baby swaddled against her chest in strips of clean linen, and several of the Saint Augustine’s women prepared to risk returning home after dark to pray for Alwys. One of Hamo’s little girls, sensitive to the cold smoke drifting over the wards from the site of the clearances, has a coughing fit, causing the priest to lose his place and Marie to dart a sharp, anxious glance at her daughter. For each of these daughters she has already lost a son.
***
Brother Thorold folds clean napkins and wedges them beneath Alwys’ injured hand. He works methodically but gently, and Alwys, who seems to be unconscious, does not react as he lifts her arm at the wrist and packs the napkins underneath. The lay brother, who must maintain the pressure on the veins, consults quietly with Fulk about how close to the wrist he can grasp them without endangering his own fingers. Gytha sits on a bench opposite the men, close to Alwys’ head. She has a bowl of rosewater next to her, and a barber’s strop, the thick leather oiled and gleaming. From time to time, she strokes Alwys’ fine, tight curls back from her forehead. The smell of the wound is unmistakable in its almost familiarity, its wrong side of the blanket relationship to the smells of sex and childbirth. Brother Thorold has made the right decision.
***
“We remember in our prayers our sister, Alwys. Christ who triumphed over the torments of the Cross, have mercy upon her. Pour the balm of Your healing upon her and restore her to health. Amen.”
“Amen.”
***
Brother Thorold gives the strap around Alwys’ upper arm a last tug, as though tightening a girth. He pours wine from a small flask over Alwys’ wrist, skin, and the napkins under her hand, which are stained purple. The lay brother braces himself, then bears down with all his weight on a point two or three inches above her wrist, his thumbs feeling expertly beneath the tendons for the blood vessels to be blocked off. Fulk, his face glistening with sweat, gives his hands a last wipe down his tunic and picks up his sword.
***
The priest pronounces the dismissal, then looks up at his congregation and says, “Any who wish to are welcome to stay and keep vigil.” Nobody stirs.
***
Fulk squares his balance on the balls of his feet, adjusts his grip and raises the sword above his head. Gytha tries the strop again, but Alwys will not bite on it. Her mouth is slack, eyes closed; surely, God be praised, she is completely unaware of what is about to happen to her. Brother Thorold nods. Fulk brings the sword down, blade flashing through torchlight. Gytha keeps her eyes on Alwys’ impassive face, which she dabs from time to time with rosewater. There is a muffled thud and the rosewater shivers in its bowl as the sword, slicing through sinew and bone and bloody napkins, makes contact with the table.
It could be Odo’s body, a Saxon sword hacking through Odo’s arm. Oh God, dear God, please…
***
In the chapel Margaret screams and falls to the floor where she lies on her back, eyes staring, legs twitching under her grey skirt, her left hand clutched in her right as though if she does not hang onto it, it will float off up into the vaults, with the cherubs and gargoyles carved on the roof bosses. The priest turns from the altar, two small acolytes who have come in to light the lamps stop what they are doing, open-mouthed, the elder of Hamo’s daughters starts to jump up and down in an effort to see over the heads of the adults.
***
Fulk drops his sword and vomits over his shoes. Gytha, wrapping her hand in a cloth soaked with rosewater, pulls the cautering iron out of the fire. Brother Thorold takes it and applies the disc of red hot metal to Alwys’ stump. A loud hissing and the smell of charred flesh set Fulk retching again. A dog, overlooked in a dark corner, venturing out to investigate the smell of cooking, sniffs at the severed hand lying among the floor rushes then, wrinkling its nose at the stench of putrefaction, retires into the shadows.
***
The congregation crowds around Margaret. Agatha, kneeling, cradles her head in her lap.
“It’s the falling sickness,” says Judith. “We need something to stop her swallowing her tongue.”
Agatha says nothing, but darts the priest an accusing glance, as though it is his fault. Yet if his absolution was not perfect, it can only be because her confession was not heartfelt.
“Here.” Marie withdraws a stout wooden pin from her hair and offers it to Judith. Her husband watches her as she walks toward the altar, the black hair escaping from her couvre chef and snaking down her back toward the strong buttocks beneath her Flemish wool gown. Judith depresses Margaret’s tongue with the pin, wedging it firmly between her teeth, then holds her legs as the priest starts to intone prayers for the casting out of devils. Hamo’s wife returns to his side, bundling her hair back beneath her veil. Unnoticed, Freya slips away as the baby begins to stir, starfish hands curling and uncurling, nuzzling her tiny, suckling mouth toward her mother’s breast.
***
Alwys lies peacefully asleep in Sister Jean’s bed. Brother Thorold has given her poppyseed for the pain, and she is unlike
ly to wake now before morning. Her fever is down and the bandages around her stump still clean and fresh smelling. Brother Thorold, satisfied with her progress, has returned to Christ Church. Margaret also sleeps, dreamless and exhausted, while Agatha lies awake in Alwys’ bed next to her sister’s, listening to the light snores, the rustlings and sudden mutterings of the sleeping women around her, trying to distinguish the sounds Margaret makes from the rest. She thought this would come to her, like learning to walk or speak, and now her throat aches with grief that it did not, reminding her that her love is not natural, like learning to walk or speak.
***
Fulk and Freya lie among the sleepers in the hall. Alwys’ blood has been scrubbed from the table and Fulk’s vomit from the floor. They lie facing one another, with their daughter between them, Freya’s knees drawn up against Fulk’s thighs. Dogs nose softly among the remains of a late dinner.
***
When the priest rises for Matins, as usual on his way to chapel, he sticks his head round the door to the bakery to wake the baker’s boy and tell him it’s time to light the oven. The boy, sluggish and yawning in the cold and dark, throws the bloody package onto the fire with the rest of the fuel, without noticing it.
***
Marie is restless. Hamo would not let her go to sleep with the women after making love to her, and she finds his presence constricting, sprawled over three quarters of their bed at least, it seems. She lies on her back, arms tucked stiffly into her sides, listening to the sporadic coughing of her younger daughter in the adjoining room. It’s the smoke, she thinks, just the smoke. But unease seeps into her heart the way the English cold soaks her Gascon bones. Unable to settle, she shakes Hamo awake.
