by Sarah Bower
“Take them back then!” she shouts, her mouth contorted with rage. “Everything. They’re probably all stolen anyway. Everything you have is stolen from us. You’re a fraud, Odo. You’re nothing but what we made you.”
“I am nothing but what William made me,” he says quietly, beyond anger. “If you cannot accept that, then there is no hope for us.”
“I can’t accept it because I don’t believe it.” She had her hand on the door latch, but her vehemence propels her back into the room. “How could I hold you in any esteem if it were true?”
For a moment he believes she is going to drop to her knees and plead with him for it not to be true. But it is. There is no escaping it. He shakes his head sadly. “If it weren’t for William, I wouldn’t even be here. We would never have met.” With a rueful laugh he adds, “Not even in my dreams. The whole thing is built on William, don’t you see?”
“If you really think that, then there is no hope.” With her hand on the door catch, she looks at him. The regret in her eyes is immeasurable, but that it is there at all gives the lie to what she has said. There is always hope.
“Let me finish your hair,” he cajoles, picking up the gold ribbon again.
“Why? For whom?” Behind him, among the dark folds of the bed hangings, a woman is dancing, a woman clad in grey and white whose hands describe a ghost, a memory, a lost ideal. Gytha shivers, folds her arms tight across her midriff, pinching the flesh over her ribs to make sure she is real.
Sensing a softening of her mood, Odo holds out his arms to her. “I can only stay tonight. The king believes I am already on my way to Winchester. Please let us be kind to one another.”
“It’s Lent, your grace.”
“That didn’t seem to trouble your conscience earlier.”
“But now I am repenting of my sin. Surely you should give thanks for it.” Pushing open the door she goes out into the yard. “Bishop,” she flings back over her shoulder as she leaves.
Virgins of the Mind
Annunciation to Eastertide 1072
From the hall entrance, Agatha surveys the courtyard through swirls of dust whisked up by a stiff, cold breeze. Winter is not quite done with them yet. Her eyes water, making the figures in front of her shimmer, giving a false impression of fluidity in their composition. Freya is reaching up to Fulk, who bends from his saddle to take a package from her. Food, no doubt. She is always feeding him and, young and big as he is, he is always hungry. Leofwine sits in the dust with a grubby fist in his mouth, Thecla staggers, tugging at her mother’s skirts to keep her balance.
Although the convent bells are only now ringing Prime, carried intermittently to the ears of the people in the yard by the vagaries of the wind, the smith is already at work, the glow from his fire splashing warm orange into the grey of dawn, the clang of hammer on iron competing with the bells. Odo’s horse threw a shoe earlier, that is the only reason he is still here, the only reason he sits on the horse now, with the new shoe gleaming on the rim of its hoof, in the middle of the dusty, rutted yard, his man at arms a few respectful paces away, and stares at Gytha, who stares back as though they are both mute.
Failing to find the smith asleep in his forge, he had gone into the hall looking for him, and although he had tried to keep quiet, prowling among the wool stands and embroidery frames and the blanketed mounds of sleepers on stockinged feet, peering into the piss and stalebreath-smelling gloom without the aid of a candle, she had awoken; had sat up quickly, hugging her knees under her blanket, the plait he had so carefully made earlier frayed like a worn rope.
“I’m looking for the smith,” he had whispered quickly, in case either of them believed he had any other purpose in being there.
“Try the kitchen,” she replied, then lay down once more with her back to him, the carapace of blanket hunched up to her neck.
Yet once the smith was roused and the horse shod, she appeared in the yard, her cloak fastened over her chemise, her ankles bare above her unlaced shoes, an uncompromising set to her mouth which was at odds with something much more equivocal in her eyes.
“God grant you a safe journey, my lord,” she says now, fitting her words carefully into the silence.
He nods his endorsement. “Shall I write to you, Gytha?”
“As you please.”
Nothing is as I please, he wants to tell her, nothing has happened as I planned. I thought of everything, foresaw every eventuality; I memorised Caesar and Tacitus, studied Bede, rode through the shipyards at Avranches with saws rasping their secrets in my ears and tar fumes stinging my eyes to tears; this venture stretched and pierced me the way the sailmakers stretched and pierced their canvas, I was as bent and nailed by it as the planks and clinkers for the hulls. Yet I remained unprepared, hopelessly unarmed; I never expected to fall in love, with you or your damned country. I am a practical man; I do not believe in comets or wicker men and I know the age of miracles long ago gave way to the age of reason; I have no idea what to do now.
When he looks out of the open gate, over the narrow bridge, to the broadening rim of nacreous light on the eastern horizon, his mind escapes the mists to take refuge in thoughts of Winchester and the fight to come. It will be close, but he is certain of winning it. York’s claim to the disputed bishoprics is supported by a mass of evidence, not to mention three hundred years of custom and William’s preference for maintaining English practice wherever feasible. And as for the oath, he can hardly wait to see the look on Lanfranc’s face when he is compelled to accept Thomas’ allegiance merely to his person, for his lifetime, and not to his holy office in perpetuity. All Odo has to do is bide his time and let nature take its course; once Lanfranc is dead, with Thomas’ support, he can make his own move on Canterbury. And by the time the court assembles for Easter, Gytha will have come to her senses, and he will send for her to join him. With a nod to his man at arms, he kicks his horse into an easy trot, out of the gate toward the bridge, taking the lane south, toward the London road and thence to Winchester.
Gytha remains in the courtyard long after he is lost from view, dipping beneath the hill sloping away from her gate, obscured by the dust of Fulk’s departure. Her face turned to Freya as she gathers up the children and goes into the kitchen, she smiles, but sees nothing, is unaware of Agatha, still watching from the hall doorway. Her skin feels clammy, her back aches as though she has been kicked by a mule at the base of her spine, a pain easier to concentrate upon than that of her heart. The backache, at least, is a blessing, for she knows it heralds her courses, another month safely got through.
She must consider what to do next. She cannot stand here forever, while her blood chills and congeals, looking for the silhouettes of Odo and his companion against the brightening sky once they breast the hill. She cannot stay here at all; if she is to be a whore, she will at least be an honest one rather than playing happy families with a Norman bishop. Judith has been right all along, and she has been so blinded by foolish love she could not see it. She wonders if Judith’s understanding is a matter of her age; being past her fertility, her perceptions are no longer scrambled by the demands of her body. What a release that must be, to dry up, no longer to crave the warmth of a man inside you.
How long before Fulk returns and the escort arrives to take the women back to Canterbury? Four days, five at the most? Fulk, travelling alone, may well make the journey more quickly. Plenty of time to instruct her…Odo’s steward and pack up the little she will take with her. She will go to Saint Eufrosyna’s where she can re-enter Lady Edith’s service. No, too easy for him to find her. On the other hand, what makes her think he will even bother to look? Now he has discovered she cannot be manipulated as easily as a cartoon embroidered on linen, even though she would be a lot simpler to transport from house to hall to cathedral nave and put on display? And even if he did come looking for her, he would hardly violate holy sanctuary, even for her. Especially for her.
Practical matters, simple questions with simple answers; if she sticks to those, everyt
hing else will take care of itself. In time. “Will you carry on with the work until the escort gets here,” she asks Agatha on her way back inside, “or pack up and wait? So no harm can come to the hanging?” She gives the nun an ironic look, one eyebrow raised a little higher than the other.
She could destroy it, she realises. How easily sparks might fly from the hearth or a hot coal go astray, how effortlessly Odo’s lies and pretensions be reduced to dust, mingled with earth and straw and the scorched bones of her house. Then the villagers would come, scrape among the ashes for the odd coin or pewter vessel, and content themselves with the least damaged planks and palings to repair their fences. No doubt the steward, fearful of his master’s anger, would order a few hands lopped off here and there, some confiscation of grain or livestock to set an example. Though Odo’s place in history might be compromised, hers would be assured. Oh, that was in the year the earl’s madwoman burnt the manor down, they would recall. That dish? Part of my mother’s wedding portion the year the old hall was destroyed. Look, there’s a burn mark on its base I could never polish out…
“I think it best to carry on,” Agatha is saying. “Or the Devil will find work for idle hands. Will you join us today? I’m inclined to think you need something to occupy your thoughts, other than…”
“We wouldn’t want the Devil to find any more work for my hands, would we?” cuts in Gytha with a strained laugh. She looks for Margaret, who is helping a young lad lift the shutters down from the hall windows, and is already making her way toward her as Agatha, screwing up her eyes at the white light angling across dust motes, remarks that she is late with her prayers.
“Meg.” Waiting for Margaret to lower her side of the wattle oblong to the floor, she then slips her arm through the girl’s and draws her aside. “Fulk has gone this morning,” she tells her. “He will be back in a few days with news of your brother.”
***
“Gone?” Margaret repeats, collapsing onto an upturned half barrel the smith keeps outside his forge, to sit on when he needs the cooler air.
“The day after the Annunciation, apparently,” says Gytha. “Brother Thorold couldn’t persuade him to stay. But Fulk only just missed him; he can’t have gone far, especially if he’s still not completely recovered.”
Margaret looks up, naked trust beaming from her broad face. “That’s true.” Then she frowns, her features folding in on themselves. “But if he isn’t at Christ Church, how can I go after him? Sister Jean will never let me.”
As the two women consider this problem in silence, Alwys appears in the yard, carrying Leofwine on her hip, Thecla trailing from the end of her stump as though the best adults were designed with stumps for little girls to hang on to. They meander across the yard at Thecla’s pace, Alwys with her face turned up to the buttermilk sun pouring over the jumbled roofs of the outbuildings whose shadow holds Margaret and Gytha in its depths. Margaret wonders if Alwys would have any more idea who Tom is than he would of her. How their family has unravelled as Lord Odo’s embroidery takes its inexorable shape.
“I think she might be persuaded,” says Gytha, “if you don’t mind stretching the truth a little.”
Glancing from the empty dish of her sister’s face to Gytha, whose features seem to be fighting for space in their pinched, heart shaped frame, Margaret is certain she does not object to tearing the truth to shreds if it will give her the chance to save Tom. “Tell me,” she says.
“Let’s walk.” Gytha takes Margaret’s arm and guides her around to the south side of her house where vegetables and herbs grow in strips and squares divided by plank walks, rocking and wobbling beneath their feet exactly as they do beneath Sister Jean’s stout hide shoes when Margaret, a short time after listening to Gytha’s plan, asks Sister Jean if she can speak privately with her, and Sister Jean suggests a walk in the garden.
“So, Fulk has brought you news of your brother?”
“Yes, Sister. He is fully recovered, Saint Dymphna be praised. Brother Thorold told me he had gone home, though he had no memory, apparently, of my visit to him, and that he has since sent a gift of preserves to the abbey with a message that our father is dangerously ill and that God’s providence worked through Brother Thorold to enable him to be reunited with his son before he dies. Sister, please may I go to him? I know it will make difficulties for you, but surely you can bring in someone to replace me for the time being. Besides, I cannot work well if I am thinking about my father dying.” God forgive her, but the lies come so easily, bubbling up inside her like a brook of clear water through rock.
Agatha surveys the garden, its rows of crinkled spring cabbages and beanstalks entwining bowers of hawthorn and hazel. The rosemary is dotted with pale blue stars of blossom and chives nod heads of tousled purple. New sage leaves sprout silver green among the brittle, frostbrowned remains of last year’s growth. Lily of the valley, she thinks, that will be out in the cloister garden at Saint Justina’s by now. As the end of her task draws closer, time seems to move more and more slowly, so that her hopes of one day returning to Falaise, to the order of the community and the immutability of its stone buildings, seem as remote as ever. What must it be like for a young woman who has just learned her father is dying?
“Of course you must go,” she says. “You will have an escort from among the men Lord Odo is sending us. Will two weeks be sufficient? I will expect you back by the second Sunday after Easter, or you must send word by then if your father is still sick.”
“Thank you, Sister.” She smiles at Sister Jean, at her powdery skin crazed with fine lines like a sheet hung to dry without being properly shaken out, at her shrewd, blue eyes and her clean, deft hands. Excitement fizzes and ferments inside her as she thinks of her plan. She may never see Sister Jean again. One thing is for certain: if she finds Tom and succeeds in taking him home, she is never going to embroider another stitch as long as she lives. Not even shirts for her husband when she gets one.
***
At the beginning of Holy Week, a party of men from the garrison at Canterbury arrives at Winterbourne to escort Lord Odo’s tapestry back to its rightful place. Of course it is sensible, as the danger of contagion has passed, thinks Agatha, of course the work will go better in the light of the great windows, where smoke and sparks are sucked up a chimney and the women can sleep soundly in their own beds instead of chattering all night in the den of cushions they have made around Gytha’s hearth. Yet it is comfortable here, a chaotic peace prevails among children and piglets, removed from the iron grid of watch changes and chapel bells ringing the hours. And when they leave, it will be without Margaret.
Of course they must go, Gytha tells herself, as she must. She has already made a bundle of the few items she will need – an extra gown, a change of linen, the small leather pouch containing her bronze locket and her white rosette, all rolled in her second best cloak which is perfectly serviceable. She has removed her jewel case from beneath the bed linen piled in the chest at the foot of her…his bed, and hidden her bundle there instead. The jewel case, smelling faintly of camphor, his mother’s ring added to the treasures it contains, is now stowed behind a loose brick at the back of the bread oven, a place decreed as a secretum should the household ever be under threat. Briefly she wondered if she should take one of her necklaces or bracelets with her, as a dowry offering to the nuns, but she will not. She has no wish to contaminate the next stage of her life with what has gone before, no intention of incurring any further debt to Odo. She will take the roan mare, simply because it would raise suspicion if she left the house on foot or on any other mount, but she will have a groom from Saint Eufrosyna’s bring her straight back again as soon as she arrives.
***
Margaret is the first to leave, mounted on a jennet which seems too small for her between the tall horses of her escort. They are crammed into a corner of the courtyard, now filled once again by the two great carts, serviced by a revolving stream of men carrying boxes, frames, trestles, stands out of the hall,
then returning empty-handed for more. Soon the hall will be empty, with no more trace of the embroidery than the body of a dead moth dismembered by ants.
At the jennet’s head stands Freya, with a basket of provisions, and Sister Jean, handing up last-minute advice on the proper conduct of a young woman travelling unchaperoned at this busy time of year when pilgrims are making their way to the great religious centers for Easter. Margaret nods each time Sister Jean pauses in her speech, she accepts Freya’s basket with an eager smile, but her eyes rove the yard until they light on Gytha, standing at the gate.
“Good luck,” she mouths as the little party rides past her, taking the same direction as Odo had done, and holds up her right hand, the middle and index fingers crossed. For a blessing, for the triumph of earth over water, life over oblivion.
***
By early afternoon, the loading of the carts is complete, covers lashed down, the oxen, to the accompaniment of much whooping and hooting, shouldering, shoving, warning flicks of the whip above broad, pink muzzles, backed into the shafts. In response to the women’s complaints about the hardness of the benches running down either side of the wagon in which they are to travel, Gytha has invited them to help themselves to the cushions spread around the hearth.
“There are plenty more,” she reassures them, returning Agatha’s curious gaze without blinking. “His lordship will probably never notice they have gone. At any rate, they will be restored to him in Canterbury.”
As one of the guards bolts the tailgate behind the last of them, Agatha mounts her mule, eschewing the offer of a leg up from another of the soldiers. Watching, Gytha is reminded that she is only a year older than Odo, a woman in the prime of her life, yet shrivelled by her self-imposed drought. In time, she thinks, both relieved and disbelieving, I shall become the same, sexless, invisible. Free. If I can find the strength for it.
