Needle in the Blood

by Sarah Bower

  “We came across her in some kind of encampment, in the forest near Rochester, my lord. One of your verderers tipped us off. Said there were too many for his men to deal with on their own. They fled when we raided them, just left two women behind, this one bleeding and another very weak, blathering on about them taking her baby. We didn’t pursue them. We thought we’d found what we were looking for.”

  “Where is Gytha?” he asks, addressing himself to Margaret. “Did she get away?” Did she make no attempt to help the girl?

  “Gytha?” repeats Margaret. “Is she not with you, my lord?”

  Her stupidity irks him. “Clearly not, girl, or I would not be asking.”

  Margaret shrugs and shakes her head. One of her guards casts Odo an enquiring glance. He nods. The guard slaps her across the face. She flexes her jaw, probes with her tongue for loose teeth and spits a couple out. Tears spring to her eyes and tremble on her lower lids as she stares at the teeth, tiny parcels of blood and bone among the floor rushes. Odo can see her trying not to blink.

  “Answer His Lordship when he asks you a question,” says the guard.

  “Try again,” says Odo with icy patience. “Surely you do not expect me to believe you have no knowledge of her.”

  Again the wretched girl shakes her head, eyes widening in fear as the soldier raises his hand a second time, but Odo makes a gesture of restraint. No point in frightening her witless.

  “Sit down, Meg,” he says, more kindly, and to the men, “Let her go.”

  The girl looks about for somewhere to sit.

  “You,” he commands one of the men, “bring her a chair. Yes, that one. Where are your manners, man?”

  The soldier lifts the chair with some difficulty; it is a heavy object, high-backed with carved arms. He puts it down behind Margaret. The other soldier pushes against her shoulders until she sits.

  “Leave us,” Odo orders, then, seeing panic flit across Margaret’s features, adds, “Find a woman.”

  “A woman, my lord?”

  “A woman. Presumably you know what one looks like. From the kitchens, anywhere. It will make the girl more comfortable.” He smiles at Margaret. “I don’t think she wants to be left alone with me.”

  The soldiers leave. For a long time Odo remains as he is, with the window at his back, saying nothing. He knows she cannot read his face, blinded by the light shining behind him, in whose beam he can see everything he needs to see of her. She no longer looks like much of a catch for young Guerin, her exposed calves and the backs of her hands covered in scratches and bruises, bits of leaves and twigs entangled in her hair. Her head is uncovered, her feet bare, and she is wearing a white robe of some stuff that leaves little to a man’s imagination, stained with blood and semen.

  As he shrugs off his long surcoat, she flinches and begins to tremble like an ill-treated dog. He crosses the room and holds the garment out to her. “Put it on, make yourself decent.”

  She grabs the surcoat and tucks it around herself as though it is a blanket, staring at him over the embroidered hem with great, vacant eyes. He moves away and sits on the edge of a bench beside a long table littered with the usual paraphernalia of his office—seals, pens, blocks of wax, parchment rolls, a silver sand caster. He picks an apple from a wooden bowl, but the flesh feels pappy beneath the wrinkled skin so he gives it to Juno, sitting with her muzzle in his lap. Pushing her away, he leans forward, resting his arms on his knees.

  “So,” he says, in the voice he keeps for penitents, “tell me what happened.” He wonders if she will speak to him alone, but calculates he stands a better chance than with the two soldiers present. She knows him; she knows he has no interest in any woman other than Gytha. And he cannot wait for his men to unearth some other female from wherever women are to be found in this barracks. Every moment of ignorance puts Gytha at greater risk.

  The beginning of Margaret’s story is clear enough. With only a little prompting he finds out about her seeing Tom in the infirmary, how she deceived Agatha about her father, and how her chance meeting with Hawise led her to Tom’s camp. Then everything becomes hazy. She starts sentences, but stops halfway through, leaving meanings suspended in the air, broken bridges going nowhere. She speaks in riddles, of blind friars and men with rat’s heads, a ditch full of corpses and a wedding. She becomes agitated, squirming in her chair, tossing her head from side to side, stiffly, as though it is being yanked by some outside force. The words are stuck inside her. Arrows, she says. A heart stuck full of arrows like a pin cushion. Buried. Suffocating. Tearing open. Lungs, legs. Parting her thighs, she scratches at herself, then starts to sing. A hymn to Saint Margaret.

  He is appalled, but dare not interrupt for fear of silencing her altogether. A discreet cough reaches his ears from the other side of the hide covering the entrance to the room. Slowly and quietly he crosses the room, lifts the curtain aside and nods to the woman standing there to come in and sit on the bench where he had been, where Margaret can see her. She is respectable, neatly and plainly dressed, with floury hands and the aroma of fresh bread clinging to her. His men have chosen well. He himself goes back to the window and leans against it, keeping his face in shadow. They are like figures in a tableau, he and the two women, no one moving or speaking. But something happens; as he had hoped, the atmosphere becomes more relaxed; Margaret shifts a little in the chair, making herself more comfortable, then looks straight at him. With a silent prayer that he will be forgiven for any abuse of his estate, he fingers his cross with the hand that bears his bishop’s ring.

  “Confess me, Father,” she says, taking his bait. Good. Now he will get the truth out of her. Glancing at the other woman, she beckons him closer, so he positions himself to one side and little behind the chair, knowing it will be easier for her if she does not have to look him in the eye.

  “Go on, child. God is listening.”

  What she tells him nauseates him, makes him sweat and shake like a man with an ague. Her words make him want to hit her, or throw himself to his knees before her and beg her to tell him she has made it all up. It is not the fact that she has been raped by this ranting imbecile, nor that, in some curious, convoluted way, she seems to have enjoyed the experience. Odo has been in the world a long time, longer, he thinks, since the invasion, than his years make possible. Very little surprises him, he expects no more or less of human nature than is offered, and he can adapt himself to feast or famine as he finds. Now, though, he has surprised himself. All he can think, over and over, images as vivid as fever dreams burning his mind, is that this might have been Gytha, could still be Gytha, on her knees in the mud like a bitch in heat, ploughed half senseless by some hedge preacher who cannot tell the difference between earthly lust and religious ecstasy.

  “Forgive me, Father.”

  What? She cannot have finished; she has not yet made any mention of Gytha.

  “Are you sure you have told me everything?”

  She pauses, frowning, then says, “Sure, Father.”

  “But what about Gytha? Tell me about Gytha, Meg.”

  The room seems suddenly very quiet; he realises the mill has stopped working.

  She turns to look at him. “Only the first bit was her idea.”

  “The first bit?”

  “The story about my father being sick. But you shouldn’t be angry with her. It was me carried the deception through. On my own,” she adds, a note or pride entering her voice.

  “When you left Winterbourne she was not with you? You were alone?”

  “Except for the soldiers.”

  “Yes, yes.” He waves his hand impatiently. “The soldiers, of course. But not Gytha?”

  “No, my lord.” She snivels, wiping her eyes and nose on his surcoat. Their eyes meet briefly. He knows she is telling the truth.

  He makes the sign of the cross on her forehead. “Ego te absolvo.”

  “Please, my lord, can I have a bath?” she whines, rubbing her eyes.

  “This is a barracks, girl.” H
e shakes his head wearily. “Tomorrow I will have you taken back to Canterbury. No doubt you can have a bath there. Now get out of my sight, both of you.” He can no longer bear to have them near him, these women who are not his love.

  ***

  When Osbern wakes him, the first sound he hears, above Osbern’s urgent whisper and the long sighs of the sea, are the bells ringing in the town’s churches. Matins? Lauds? It is pitch dark outside the circle of light cast by Osbern’s candle. Matins.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” He sits up, swallowing stale saliva, disentangling himself from a dream in which he had been running along a beach, but then the sand turned into skeins of wool snagging his ankles, and the sea was a sheet of white linen, flapped up and down by mummers playing the pageant of Noah. He is astonished, and feels guilty, that he was asleep.

  “A party’s just ridden in from the west, sir. I think they’ve found her.”

  He leaps out of bed, wrapping himself in the fur-lined gown Osbern holds out to him. He does not even wait to put on his shoes, running barefoot down the two flights of spiral stairs, across the great hall and out into the inner court, Osbern lighting his way as best he can. At first all is chaos. The yard is full of men and horses, gigantic shadows leaping up the high walls and guard towers as their torches flare and gutter. A wind has got up and blows grit into his eyes, making them water and blurring his vision. Striding out into the melee, he is oblivious of stepping on stones or mounds of dung; every sense strains toward her. Where is she? Is it another mistake, another spiteful twist of fate?

  Then he recognises the little roan mare, her neat head alert despite a night on the road, and his heart lurches, seems to crash against his chest like a drunk colliding with a wall. He shoulders his way through the commotion to where the mare is standing, her front feet performing a nervous tattoo, between two taller horses with cavalrymen on their backs. He takes hold of the mare’s bridle and rubs her nose, and looks up into Gytha’s face, flickering in and out of shadow. He waits for her expression to change, for a smile or a frown, even a blink of her eyes or a movement of her hands resting on the pommel of her saddle. Nothing. Her stillness and her blank stare curdle the hope in his heart, wither the words of love and relief and welcome set to pour out of him. She mocks his vulnerability, or worse still, she does not care.

  He sees himself prostrated in the chapel at Winchester. He is haunted by Thomas of York’s dismayed expression and the suspicious narrowing of William’s pale eyes when he told them he was leaving. He knows a clerk has come from Lanfranc with the charter for him to sign, granting jurisdiction over the three bishoprics to Canterbury, though so far he has managed to avoid seeing the man. The messenger he could not evade was Fitzosbern’s. Fitzosbern has never trusted him and was reluctant to believe that his army’s incursion over his neighbour’s borders during the search for Gytha had been an accident. Unable to eat or sleep, he is at odds with his brother’s best friend, making concessions to Lanfranc, ashamed to think he stood by and let his man strike Margaret, whom Agatha loves, whom he should protect, and Gytha cannot bring herself even to acknowledge his existence.

  All these days of waiting, he has tried to convince himself, with a picture so vivid he could feel her lips, her tongue, her arms around his neck and the tug of his curls wound around her fingers, that there would be a joyful reunion, an outpouring of pleas, confessions, and absolutions, the abscess of grief and fear swelling inside him lanced. Instead the abscess hardens, grows hotter, erupts into blind fury. He drops the mare’s reins and turns on his heel, kicking a dog as he makes his way back inside. Its yelp brings temporary relief, but all he knows, all he can see through the hot fog in his brain, is that he must get away, out of the crowd, put distance and doors and walls between Gytha and himself before he strikes her, or worse. His body tenses, fists clenched, veins and sinews pulled taut, the muscles in his throat clamped around his windpipe so he thinks he will suffocate with rage. A great, inarticulate roar tears itself from some deep place where he is at one with wolves and bears, the mandrake ripped from the earth, Adam in the wilderness.

  When he comes to himself again, he is standing in the middle of his parlour, sweat soaking his forehead and temples, suddenly cold in his armpits and between his shoulder blades. He shakes like a man with an ague, his teeth chatter; he cannot make his arm obey him as he tries to raise it to wipe his face on his sleeve. As his eyes come back into focus, he sees the room looking as though it has been in a fight, the carved chair smashed into kindling, the table overturned, parchments scattered, ink oozing between the floorboards, quills bent and broken. Juno’s yellow eyes consider him watchfully from a dark corner where she lies with the half eaten apple between her paws.

  Like the man from whom Christ cast out devils, he knows he has been in some dark, indescribable place, but now he is purged, empty and clean. Sheepishly, he picks up the embroidered camel from the floor, caressing its dented frame with the ball of his thumb, pressing a loose topaz back into its setting. Calling Osbern to clear up, he goes back down to the hall where his men are now holding Gytha, awaiting his orders. She is seated on a bench close to the door, where the lowest members of the household sit, condemned to tolerate the draught. Hunched and muffled in her cloak, she looks small and defeated, and he can no longer imagine how she could ignite such rage in him. Dismissing the soldiers, he squats beside her, lightly touching her knee. A shudder runs through her, unleashing a rush of pity in him so overwhelming he can scarcely restrain himself from folding her in his arms. But his instincts, sharpened by his love, warn him against it.

  “Come with me,” he says, his voice quiet and even. She says nothing, but rises stiffly to her feet then suddenly smiles, a flicker of recognition in her eyes so brief he thinks he must have imagined it, but knows he did not. She is looking, not at his face but down at his hand, still clutching the camel in its bent frame. He smiles back.

  Osbern has wasted no time setting the room to rights. He invites her to sit, which she does, on a faldstool brought in to replace the smashed chair whose severed limbs are now piled beside the brazier, smoothing her skirts under her the way he remembers, with a lurch of his heart into his sore throat. The lamps are all lit, and by their light he considers her. Though she has not removed her cloak, she has pushed back her hood to expose features pinched with exhaustion. She might veil her feelings, but she cannot conceal the greyness of her skin, the frown lines between her brows, her lank hair gathered into an untidy bunch at the back of her neck. Her eyes look dull and dry, yet she never seems to blink. He does not know if she is looking at him, or beyond him, at things he cannot imagine. A momentary terror grips him. Perhaps, like Margaret, she has lost her mind. Perhaps, like Margaret…But no, she was sane enough when she recognised the camel, and she seems to have no cuts or bruises, no signs of misuse. And if any man had attempted such a thing, she would have fought, surely, out of love for him. Wouldn’t she? There are so many words inside him his chest aches with the effort of containing them, yet he has no idea what to say to her. Perhaps he should simply fling himself at her feet and beg her forgiveness.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, but makes no move toward her, telling himself it is because Juno is now sitting on his feet, and Gytha will not like it if he kicks the dog out of the way; in an abstract way, she is sentimental about Juno.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks. Her voice has a husky, cobwebbed note to it, as though she has not used it for a long time.

  “What?”

  And simultaneously she says, “What for?” A brief flicker of humour kindles between them, then she looks away again, twisting her fingers in her lap.

  “Tell you what?” he repeats.

  “About Lady Edith?”

  Swan Neck? It had been a gamble to leave her at Saint Eufrosyna’s when he decided to set Gytha up at Winterbourne, but he had believed she would keep silent. She owed him that much, he thought, chiding himself immediately for being so trusting of an Anglo Saxon. �
��How did you find out? Both she and Abbess Biota were sworn to secrecy on pain of losing Edith’s dowry.”

  “Her ladyship sent for me,” she replies, her voice gaining strength and clarity, “after seeing us together at Candlemas. It seems you were…careless, my lord. Or perhaps you just assumed that, having told her to keep quiet, she would simply do as she was bidden. You forget how curious women are. Must I remind a bishop to consider Eve and the serpent?”

  “And must I remind you how women continue to be punished?”

  His words hang in the air like a foul smell, float like scum on bad water. He does not even have to look at her for confirmation of his arrogance, his tactlessness, his want of any feeling save the fury of self loathing swelling in his throat. Her very silence on the matter of her children should have been enough to warn him, that and the four locks of hair he discovered, in a moment of curiosity of his own, in the cheap locket she keeps under her pillow. Is he really the same man who stood on the dais in the great hall of Rouen castle and preached the crusade against the English with such conviction, in phrases so exquisitely constructed, even William had tears in his eyes as his vassals, hard-nosed realists the lot of them, fell to their knees in waves, like scythed grass, to pledge their allegiance to his great enterprise? Yet this mere woman, this little English seamstress, has the power to tie his words in knots, to jumble and break them until he vomits them up like a spiteful imbecile.

  This time he does kick the dog, which scurries, whimpering, to Gytha’s side, where it leans against her leg, its head in her lap. He glowers at them, this alliance of motherhood, wondering how many times he has sat with the bitch during whelping, worried because she has such slender hips, stroking her, singing to her, even on one occasion having Turold play to her on the citole. They look back, woman and dog, mute and uncomprehending of his cruelty. Damn them, damn their invincible vulnerability.

  He draws a deep breath, sucking the cold, smoky air down into his lungs to damp down his emotions. “Is that where you went? To Edith? Yet that is not where you were found. I would have made the connection if Saint Eufrosyna’s had been mentioned.”