by Sarah Bower
“I have seen him, and I love him.”
At this, Martin smiles, a smile of disconcerting, almost frightening, sweetness. “Well, woman, I think we must trust each other. There aren’t many young women who would take to the road all alone as you say you have done. Sebastian will be impressed by your dedication. Wait here with me, and I will take you to him once darkness has fallen. My people tell me they have seen military patrols on the road since Sext. Kent’s men. I don’t suppose you know anything about that? Do you?” He slices an egg in half, sliding his knife blade with slow precision through slippery white and crumbling yoke so they do not separate.
Sweet Mary, Mother of God, her escort must have found their way out of the woods and back to Canterbury. She will be discovered. She will end by leading poor Tom straight into a trap. But what can she do? If she admits to knowing the reason for Lord Odo having turned out his soldiers, Martin will never take her to Tom. He might even kill her. On the other hand, he must be well used to evading detection by the authorities. If she pretends ignorance, they both stand a better chance. She shakes her head and shrugs.
Martin smiles again, mashed egg yolk cementing the gaps between his front teeth. “You look hungry,” he says. “Sit down.”
***
The sacristan closes the chapel door softly behind him, and at last, Odo is alone. He kneels at the foot of the altar steps, raising his eyes to the Crucifix but letting them slip out of focus so that all he sees is a cross-shaped blur, shimmering dark gold in the glow of the two remaining candles either side of the altar. He prays that his mind might be emptied of its troubles and become a space fit for God to enter, that God will guide and fortify him and grant his soul peace. Then he places his palms flat on the floor and lowers himself until his body is prostrated, knees, hips, ribs, forehead pressed against the stone, and stretches his arms out to his sides in imitation of Christ on the Cross.
To begin with, he is afraid it is not going to work. His body clamours for his attention. The cold makes his head ache, as though the stone had entered his skull. His ribs hurt when he breathes. The muscles in his neck and chest begin to burn in protest at their enforced immobility. Far from emptying, his mind seethes, going over and over the litany of his preparations the way Osbern checks off items on his fingers when they are planning a complicated journey.
His orders have gone out to every soldier under his command in the east of England. His officers must stop at nothing to find her; those who do will be well rewarded, any who shirk their duty will quickly know what it means to disobey, or even misunderstand him. She is to be taken to Dover, the strongest of his castles, and held there until he arrives. He has explained to the king that an urgent matter of internal security has arisen on his Essex border, necessitating his immediate departure from the conference. He hopes the matter will be resolved quickly. In the meantime, Thomas of York has his proxy. Lanfranc was also present at their meeting, tugging his beard, his black eyes darting from Odo to William and back again. Lanfranc’s face was a mirror in which theirs appeared superimposed, William’s wary and puzzled, his own haggard, pulled out of shape by his lies. William believed him, he is certain of it, because he wanted to, and because he could never understand what Gytha means to him. William does not have those kinds of dreams.
Images come to him. As night settles on the castle and the cold of air and stone slows his blood, they float into the empty spaces in his mind. William and his father, facing one another across the corner of the high table in the hall at Conteville. His father’s stricken expression. William is talking. He cannot hear what William is saying, but he knows it is something terrible and unexpected, and about him. A phrase: he’s the clever one, the Church is the best place for the clever ones. Agatha, crying, but her clothes are wet so perhaps it’s just rain, or river water. His mother, so small in the great bed. He prays, but his sisters place the pennies on her eyes. His tears are purple, no, blood red. Unstoppable. They will all drown in his tears. He gulps down air, his ribs grinding against the chapel floor. A dark woman stands beneath the apple tree, a small, still, dark woman. Watching him.
Peace. His breathing steadies, slows, deepens until the stone feels like waves rocking him. The door to the chapel opens, and he feels the draught stirring the hairs on the back of his neck. Footsteps are coming toward him, the muted thud of soft leather on stone, familiar footsteps, a long stride, heavy, not quite as long as his own. Rising stiffly to his knees, he smells fresh wax like the scent of morning; they are preparing for Matins, then, screwing fresh candles into the tall, gilt iron stands flanking the altar. He rubs his forehead, flexes fingers and toes. His arms, released from their discipline, feel as light and tremulous as wings.
“Damnably uncomfortable way of spending a night,” comments William, genuflecting awkwardly beside his brother, knee joints cracking, his bulky torso appearing to topple forward from the hips. Odo stands up, then helps William to his feet, a hand beneath the older man’s elbow.
“I find it…consoling, from time to time.”
“All the same, I expected you to be away by now, seeing this border security matter is so urgent.”
Odo shrugs. He wants to keep the tone light, light enough to blind William to the heart of the matter. “Travelling in the dead of night seemed more likely to exacerbate the risk than curtail it. I will be gone before Lauds.”
“And back when?”
“As soon as I can. Thomas of York knows my mind. I am satisfied my absence need not hold you up, God willing.”
“God? Something in my water tells me God’s will has little to do with it.”
“God’s will, Your Grace, is expressed in everything. But for His will there would be no Earth nor men put upon it.”
“Don’t you go playing the bishop with me, Odo. Best you remember by whose will you hold that holy office. Besides, it’s not men that concern me but the other half of creation.”
The two deacons have completed their preparation of the chapel and retreated to the sacristy. Any moment now the bell will start to toll, summoning the faithful and the sleepless to prayer. He is wasting time; as the night thins and the stars grow pale, she is slipping away from him. He must go, but William must not learn the extent of his desperation. “Animals?” he enquires, injecting a note of humorous surprise into his voice, smiling his downturned smile.
William pushes himself away from the pillar against which he has been leaning. By the light of the newly lit candles, Odo observes an unhealthy flush creep up the bolster of flesh between William’s collar and his hairline. Better not overdo it; he feels William’s health is not all it used to be. “Sorry,” he says, ducking his head so William can look down to meet his gaze.
“It’s the woman, isn’t it?”
Odo fights the impulse to look away.
“I thought as much. Why did she not come here with you?”
“She was reluctant to set herself up as mistress in the house where she once served. She’s…sensitive that way.”
William gives him a shrewd look. “Nonsense. The place is hardly recognisable. You’ve had masons and carpenters crawling all over it ever since it fell into your possession.”
“All right,” Odo concedes. “She refused. She wouldn’t accept your terms.”
“It’s not up to her.” William’s sandy brows knit in an uncomprehending frown. “She’s yours; she must do as you require.”
Odo shrugs but says nothing. He will never make William understand, and he has no time to waste trying.
“Beware, brother,” William continues, “she has completely turned your head. How many times did I beat you at chess at Christmas? I swear Mortain would have made a stronger opponent. But chess is one thing, this…I should forbid you to go. For your own good.”
Now he stands up straight, arms folded, balanced on the balls of his feet like a prize fighter. “It is your prerogative to do so.”
William makes himself comfortable against the pillar once more, flexing his back a
gainst the pitted stone as though using it as a scratching post. “Tell me about her.”
Keep it brief. Thank God for Matins; the chapel will fill up soon and the service begin, preventing William from detaining him longer. “What do you want to know?”
William spreads his hands. “Is she pretty?”
“Not especially. Small. Like Matilda, and Maman.”
“And willful, it seems. Must be good in bed then. Can’t imagine what else a man would want with a bloody minded woman unless she was pleasing on the eye.”
“Presumably you don’t expect an answer to that.”
“I’m your king, Odo; I always expect answers.”
The clergy are assembling, William’s chaplain, assorted priests and deacons attached to the Papal legacy, gliding along the nave and side aisles to converge on the door to the sacristy where they jostle briefly for precedence; everyone feigns ignorance of the king and his brother.
“Very well, this is my answer. I love her. That’s the best I can do.”
William makes a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Oh, if I had a penny for every time I’ve heard you say that…”
“You’d be a poor man.”
William’s pale eyes, their whites bloodshot in the candlelight, remain fixed on him for a long moment while he wonders desperately if his brother has any more to say or if he can simply leave. His feet tingle, yet he feels bound by William’s look, as though it is boring into his heart, searching for what is written there. “Go on,” says William finally, “go.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” Odo bows, to give himself cover while he composes his features into the right expression of respect and affection with which to take his leave. He is angry at the time wasted but William, he thinks, is disappointed, which makes them even, but is troublesome nonetheless.
“I want you back by Lauds on Easter morning, Odo. I fancy we will have the play of Our Lord’s appearance to Mary Magdalene, as we do at Rouen. Eh?”
Odo smiles, holding William’s gaze. Reassurance, he tells himself, trustworthiness, loyalty, love, marshalling these emotions in his eyes as though preparing an assault. He backs away a few steps before turning and fleeing toward the door at the north end of the transept.
“You’ve still got dust on your forehead,” William shouts after him. “And, Odo, remind her she has no choice but to accept my terms, same as all the English.”
The eyes worked, thank God. You cannot perjure yourself with a look. Today is Holy Tuesday; even if his men find her today, he has no intention of leaving her to return here in time for Easter. He will contemplate the mystery of the Resurrection in the arms of his own Magdalene. Her rapt gaze will make the miracle plain to him.
***
Though everything is set for a quick departure, a fast horse and two of his knights equally well mounted awaiting him in the castle’s outer court, he finds his trials are not yet over. When they reach the city gate, the officer of the watch is reluctant to open up for them.
“In the name of the Earl of Kent,” barks one of Odo’s men, doling out his words slowly and deliberately, as though talking to an idiot or someone hard of hearing. The officer stands his ground, a torch held in front of him so Odo cannot read the expression on his face. With a momentary failure of nerve, he wonders if, after all, William has sent orders to have him detained in the city. No, of course not, William never changes his mind. He spurs his horse forward into the wavering circle of light cast by the officer’s torch and pushes back his hood to reveal himself.
“You know me, I think,” he says to the man, who glances from his face to the amethyst on his left hand and back again.
“I do, my lord.”
“Then open the gate.”
“It’s not as simple as that, my lord. There’s a rabble outside been clamouring to get in since before the watch changed.”
Odo’s horse stamps impatiently; letting the animal have its head just enough to trample the ground a little in front of the officer’s thin shod feet, he says, “A rabble? I hear nothing. No shouting, no clash of arms. What sort of rabble?”
“The holy sort, my lord. They’ve probably got a chap on a donkey and a stack of palm fronds for all I know.”
“Watch your tongue, man, and the minute you get off watch find yourself a priest and make confession. Now get that bloody gate open. Surely the might of the Norman army is equal to a few hedge preachers.”
The officer shrugs off any further responsibility for what may happen next and orders his men to open the gates. A muted soughing reaches Odo’s ears from the other side of the dense oak barrier as two of the watch remove the pegs holding the latches down and heave the bar free of its iron rest, a sound like wind in the upper branches of the trees bordering the road. Yet the night, in this hour between Matins and Lauds is still, holding its breath.
His knights loosen their swords, hands hovering nervously over hilts. Retreating to flank their officer in the entrance to the guardhouse, a lightless room hollowed like a rectangular cavern out of the city walls themselves, the two men of the watch seem determined to do nothing more. Odo walks his horse into the wedge of night sky filling the narrow gap between the gates, seeing nothing but the black outlines of trees and stars fading as the darkness is suffused by the blue glow of coming day. His scalp prickles where the hair, if he were not tonsured, would stand on end. He descended into hell. What is this rabble? A host of the undead sinking back into the earth at his approach? He crosses himself. Perhaps the last days are truly at hand. He signals to one of the knights behind him to bring up the officer’s torch.
“But this persecution flames up today and tomorrow blows away, today burns hot and cools tomorrow.” The voice is not loud, but resonates, as though the air in which it hangs is a sounding board, a drumskin stretched over the void. It is a voice he has heard before. Faces appear, flickering in and out of his vision, distorted by the play of fire and darkness, noses fantastically elongated or eyes evaporated from their sockets, gaping mouths, teeth of flame.
Odo’s horse, responding to its master’s fear, baulks at the gate and rears. Unprepared for the sudden uprush of muscle, he is thrown forward, forced to cling to the animal’s mane like a boy at his first riding lesson. He would have fallen were it not for the tall man stepping forward from the mad jostle of silent faces, calmly reaching for the reins flapping about the horse’s neck, oblivious, it seems, of thrashing hooves or bared teeth, the sheer weight of the beast should he come down on him. He talks quietly to the horse in a rhythmic murmur, like the chant of gentle waves on a shore, until it steadies. As the animal comes to rest, blowing softly through its nose, head low in submission to the man now scratching it between the ears, Odo’s own feeling of powerlessness increases, condenses to a cold sense of the inevitable located somewhere which may be his forehead or deep in his chest, but is anyway his center.
“You again,” he says, gathering his reins and looking into the unreadable lizard eyes of the latterday Sebastian. “It seems I am indebted to you.”
“God has appointed me to give succour to souls in torment, Norman.” Odo’s knights are drawn up on either side of him now, the torch held aloft by one lending its glow to the red blond hair cascading over Sebastian’s shoulders. The other has his sword drawn.
“I have no time to debate the state of my soul with you now.” And no time to arrest you and have you flung in gaol as I should. But you will keep, Saxon. He kicks his horse forward, forcing Sebastian aside, but cannot accelerate above a slow, disjointed walk as the preacher’s followers mill about him. A pathetic bunch, barefoot, ragged, mostly, it seems, young women with babies and small children. Pretty, some of them, once. Fearing they may try to cut him off from his escort, he calls out behind him, “Trot on. Don’t be nice about it. If some get in the way, it’s a few souls to keep the Devil off our backs,” and takes the whip to his horse’s rump.
“I shall see you again then,” Sebastian shouts after him as the horse leaps into a canter, but Odo
does not hear him, nor the curses of a young mother as she snatches her child from under its hooves, nor the crunch of bone in the foot of someone less nimble. His senses are ahead of him now, rushing toward the lightening horizon, to Dover, to his love. Nothing else is real.
***
Margaret, Martin, and the rat-faced man do not leave the cottage until well after dark. Martin leads them away from the road, through scrubby woodland at first and then deeper into a forest where Margaret thinks the light probably never penetrates even when there is any. The moon has not yet risen, and she cannot see an arm’s length in front of her, stumbling over tree roots and brambles, hawthorn and holly tearing her clothes. Her arms and legs are scratched raw, yet Martin is adamant they cannot risk a light if the earl’s men are abroad. He himself moves as quietly and sure footedly as a lynx, pausing often to let the other two catch him up.
“Albino,” pants the rat-faced man eventually. “Half blind. Prefers the dark. Take my hand if you like.” His fingers brush her arm, the skin exposed by a tear in her sleeve. She gasps. The rat-faced man laughs, a hoarse, high-pitched sound like the bark of a fox. “Don’t you fear, girl. Martin guards Sebastian’s new disciples very close, especially the women.”
Margaret has no idea how long they have been walking when her straining eyes pick up a flicker of light between the trunks of trees. At last. But Martin says nothing and they carry on, the light sometimes just visible, sometimes lost to them so she is sure they cannot be going straight and begins to fear a trick, despite the rat-faced man’s assurances. Her heart beats in her throat as though a live bird is stuck there. She is dizzy with exhaustion. Somewhere, beyond this forest, it must already be morning, but she will never see light again and her ears are condemned to hear nothing but the rasping breath of the rat-faced man and the occasional death shriek of some forest creature taken by a wild cat. Wolves, she thinks, bears, without light what defence do they have? Will even her bones be found? Surely bears eat bones, sucking out the marrow the way she might suck the green sweetness from a grass stalk. God has deserted her. She has gone down to Hell, and the world will close over her like water over a stone.
