There was no place private enough to hide his hurt, the sense of outrage. White-faced, Brien pushed his way through the knots of men, all talking at once, questioning, commenting on this astonishing development; because of his high position many called out to know his opinion, one or two even caught him by the arm, but he shook himself free and made for the stair at the opposite end of the hall. He went up blindly, not caring where he was going except that it must be away from everyone, somewhere he might be alone. At last he came out on to the roof of the keep, but even there a sentry saw him and brought his weapon up in salute. Brien turned from him and went up the last few steps on to the summit of a corner turret and there in a space not five feet square he was, at last, quite alone. He put out both arms on the stonework and laid his forehead against the crenellation. The grief, the agony he had suffered before was as nothing compared to this. How could she have done it? Without sending for him, without revealing one word of her intentions, she had included him among all the others; it was as if she had said ‘you are no different from the rest’, as if she had repudiated all that had passed between them, broken faith with him with a fearful finality. He had always known her tenacious hold on her position came first, that she willed with all her considerable strength to win a crown for her son, but she was the same woman, surely, who had given her body to him with such abandon? Now she had struck at him, inflicted a wound so deep, so fatal, that he did not know how to sustain it.
Here alone under the stars, in the bitter cold of the first hard frost of winter, crushed by Maud herself in a manner no other could have achieved, he drew in deep breaths of the strong air as if to clear his head, and in silence cried out to the night – Aaliz, Aaliz! Jesu, how could she have hurt him so? How could she leave him thus, turn her back on him without a word after all that there had been between them? That she meant to do so, he was sure. She would be surrounded by her ladies, her household, she would ride away to take ship and he would be able to do no more than kneel and kiss her hand with the rest. Why? Was she afraid of him, afraid perhaps that he might turn her from her purpose? But she was afraid of nothing, and she had made it plain how she regarded him now.
He twisted his head in anguish. Why had he loved her? Had it not been better before those winter nights in Wallingford? He was shivering, shaking with cold and shock. No, better to be wounded than never to have entered the lists at all, and before her coming he had been, to himself at any rate, but half a man.
Suddenly he heard steps below and whispered voices and then Thurstin’s head appeared in the opening of the stair. ‘My lord – I did not know where you were. I’ve prepared your hot wine and – ’
Brien turned on him. ‘Did I call you? Leave me – ’ his voice became almost a snarl, ‘leave me, for Christ’s sake!’
Terrified, Thurstin disappeared. Brien sat down on the little stone ledge, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. The prospect of going back to Wallingford, continuing the war without the knowledge at least of her presence in the west where he could reach her if she needed him, was intolerable. Could he go with her, among her escort, to Normandy? Yet if he did, if she allowed it, he would have to see her reunited to Geoffrey – and the thought of Geoffrey lying with her, touching her body that he had loved, was so nauseating that he thought he would indeed be sick. Was he now to pay too dearly for the joy he had taken, see his love as lust and Geoffrey’s lust sanctified by the Church? He fought down the nausea, pressed his hands against his eyes. Holy Cross, what did one do with desolation such as this?
At last, stiff with cold, not knowing where else to go, he climbed down the stone stair and out on to the battlement where the sentry gave him a curious stare and bade him goodnight. He went down the spiral and along the gallery to his own small chamber set in one of the squared outlets of the keep and wondered if he could leave in the morning before anyone was aware of it. Yet he knew he could not – whatever she had done to him he would not repay her in the same coin.
He opened the door and saw a candle burning, the bed prepared, but Thurstin was not there. Instead to his complete and utter astonishment he saw Maud herself, sitting on a stool, her hands for once idle in her lap as if all her energy, her fearless determination, were stilled by a burden of sorrow as great as his own. He stood staring at her, at his love who had broken him, taken his trust and destroyed it, and he could find nothing to say, no words to tell her what she had done.
Her eyes, dark and shadowed, were fixed on him. She said, ‘I sent your page to sleep in the hall. I have been waiting a long time for you.’ And then, almost with horror because all was not as it had once been, he saw her hold out her arms to him. He stumbled towards her, fell on his knees beside her and laid his head in her lap, shaken with tearless sobbing.
‘Do you think I do not know?’ she whispered and cradled his head in her arms, ‘Oh my love, my love, I have hurt you.’
He clung to her, his fingers in the folds of her gown, unable to control his weeping, all the confused emotions of the last hour finding relief at last. She held him until he was quiet, until only an occasional shudder shook him. Then she said, ‘My heart, you are so cold. Drink some of the wine your man left you. Come, sit on the bed and we will drink it together.’
He obeyed, too exhausted to do otherwise, and the wine flowed into his stomach and his limbs, warming him. At last he said, ‘Aaliz – why?’
She gave a long sigh. ‘Do you not see? It is I who spoiled our hopes, I who turned men from my cause because I have no tact, no diplomacy. With Robert beside me, with his wisdom, his sense to guide me, I thought I could overcome it all, but now, without him, I see I cannot do it. I must go, prepare Henry for kingship, teach him as my father would have done – for he will be King.’
‘You may be right,’ he said wearily, and set the cup down on the table. ‘I cannot tell, but why did you not send for me, explain? That I should hear it thus, in the hall, as if I were no more to you than any knight – it is as though you had drawn a sword on me yourself.’
‘Do you not understand that either?’ She gave him a faint unhappy smile. ‘Beloved, if I had told you beforehand do you think I could have said it, do you think you would not have persuaded me to stay? Only if I said it first would I have to stand by my decision.’
‘Aaliz – ’ his eyes were stinging, his head aching, but he felt as if she had lifted the horror from him, ‘you have not ceased to care?'
‘Care? Did you think me so changed?’
‘I was afraid – ’
‘Oh,’ she turned toward him reproachfully, ‘have you so little faith in me?’
‘Forgive me, forgive me for doubting you, but it seemed – ’
‘I had to do it that way or not go at all, and I believe,’ she added with an effort that betrayed how great the cost was, ‘that I must go, that my duty lies in Normandy now. ’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, you cannot leave us. You are our purpose. We need you.’
‘Do you? Well, perhaps you do, but as for the others – they will do better without me.’
‘Aaliz, no! Do not go.’ And yet he knew she was right, that men would more easily place their hopes in the person of her son. He looked helplessly at her. ‘You will come back?’
She sighed again, a sigh that seemed to him to be the epitome of sorrow. ‘If I do it will be as the mother of a king.’
‘You will always be Aaliz to me.’
She shook her head. ‘I think she died the day we rode from Wallingford.’
He looked at her so wretchedly that she took his face between her hands. ‘Dear love, we must face the truth. We will not have another winter paradise as we had then. Now I am the Lady, and I can do no more here.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you know that better than I, you are a King’s daughter.’
‘Sometimes I think that was my misfortune, and yet, if I am honest, I would not have chosen to be other than I am. Only,’ she caressed his cheek and thought how thin he had become, ‘only
when I am with you I would rather have been a lesser woman that we might have kept our happiness.’
And then all the hurt was gone and he caught her in his arms, his mouth on hers with such intensity that he hurt her lips. When he lifted his head she cried out, ‘I would never have brought you such sorrow – I wanted only to love you and you will remember me with pain.’
‘Never,’ he said violently, ‘never. My love, I have wounded you too tonight by my lack of trust.’
‘I think we must forgive each other,’ she said, ‘for we cannot part otherwise. And,’ she raised her eyes to his, ‘it is the end for us. I can see naught else. Geoffrey – ’
‘Don’t! ’ He put a hand over her mouth, his eyes passing over her as she sat beside him in the candlelight. Her veil had fallen off and her hair was loosed about her shoulders and the thought of Count Geoffrey touching that beauty, possessing her body, tormented him. ‘I cannot bear you to speak his name.’
‘I loathe him,’ she said passionately, ‘I will never let him enter my bed again.’
‘If I thought that – ’
‘I mean it,’ she reiterated. ‘He has his sons, he can satisfy his body elsewhere.’
He took her hands and lifted them one by one to put them to his lips.
‘I thought,’ she went on slowly, ‘that if you knew that it would ease some of the pain. Oh my dear, my heart, I think even we did not envisage such pain.’
‘No,’ he agreed in a low voice. ‘I would urge you to stay, or beg you to take me with you, but I see it would be no good.’
‘None. We must do what we have to do – my duty is in Normandy and yours is here. Do you remember once before I said that love had come for us too late? If it had been in our youth, before duty had become so heavy on us – ’
She broke off and he sat silent. Those words again – too late, too late – and again they stirred the chord of memory. And yet Waltheof had begged him to believe it was never too late – for what? But the Prior was wrong and the sands had run out for them.
For a long while they did not speak but sat with their hands clasped closely together. The candles flickered in the draught from the window and there was utter silence about them. Eventually he said heavily, ‘It must be past midnight. You ought not to stay.’
She turned on him fiercely, ‘I cannot leave you so soon – not when I have hurt you so much. I will be yours once more, make one more memory with you.’
‘Aaliz, think!’ he said in a shaken voice. ‘I would not have your name sullied.’
‘I do not care – and the castle is asleep. Brien, Brien – ’ and now it was she who was weeping. He took her into his arms, wondering how he could ever have doubted her, and now it was he who comforted her, carrying her to the narrow bed, and when he made love to her it was not with the wild passion of five years ago, but with a deep and sorrowing love that must find some sort of union to sustain them in the days that were to come. They lay still and close in each other’s arms, her head in the curve of his shoulder, with no desire for sleep, only to prolong the moment of intimacy, to draw every last particle of comfort from their embrace. He lit a fresh candle so that he could look on her beauty, burn every detail on to his memory. ‘I do not know how to tear you from me,’ he said. ‘As well tear the heart from my body. It would end my life no less certainly than what we have to do.’
‘We shall grow old,’ she answered and shuddered, ‘and then it will not hurt so much.’ But as she looked up at him, at the long, distinctive features, the expression in the grey eyes, she thought that unless that picture could be blotted out nothing would end the grief.
‘When I am dying,’ he said, ‘you will be with me, in my mind, then as now.’
Her arms tightened about him as she brought his mouth down to hers, but this time he could not lose himself sufficiently to forget even for one moment that he would never hold her thus again.
CHAPTER 5
The Abbot of Malmesbury was much beset by the business of running a large abbey and dealing with numerous manors and glebe farms, but he never forgot why he had entered the religious life and he made a point of attending especially to the travellers who came to the guest house as well as to the needs of his own monks. At the moment, for example, there was a party of pilgrims bound for Rome, a knight on his way to fight in the Holy Land, two merchants bound for York, and the lord of Wallingford who had arrived several days ago. It was the latter who interested him the most for he had never seen a man so outwardly courteous and quiet and yet, to the Abbot’s perceptive eye, so inwardly distraught. The Abbot watched him, seeing him barely able to sit still for more than a few moments together, pacing beneath the leafless trees on the sward before the gateway, walking in the cloisters. The Abbot had thought he would leave this morning for the baron had said he was on his way home, but though the young man who attended him hovered with the horses saddled and ready, the baron seemed loth to go, and after dinner which he had taken at the Abbot’s table, though eating practically nothing, he had disappeared in the direction of the herb garden.
It was quiet now. The monks were resting on their beds and the Abbot, who should have been on his, nevertheless turned his steps in the same direction. He would talk to the baron, see if he might reach out and help one who was clearly in distress for he saw his Lord Christ in every man.
The herb garden was bleak on this cold day, no break in the clouds above, the wind in the north-east, and there was little life in the neat beds, but a few leaves of tansy still survived and the rosemary which stayed green all the winter. He found the baron and there fell into step with him, tucking his chilled hands into the sleeves of his thick habit. ‘I had not expected to find you still here today, my son.’
Brien glanced at him. ‘You wish me to leave? You expect other guests?’
The Abbot shook his head, smiling. ‘No indeed, you are welcome to stay as long as you wish. But I am curious, my son, for I see you are in great turmoil of mind.’
Brien drew his cloak about him. ‘Is it so obvious?’
‘To me yes, because I am used to dealing with men’s troubles – to others, no. You hide your feelings well.’
‘And would continue to do so,’ Brien said and the Abbot’s silence was sufficient reproach that he added, ‘Forgive me, I should not have said that. I know you mean well.’
‘You cannot tell me what it is that distresses you so deeply? It can be no small matter.’
For a while Brien walked in silence. His loneliness, the need for consolation, to unburden himself was so great that he was momentarily tempted to yield. He looked down at the tidy beds, the delicate tracery of the rosemary leaves, the grey walls that sheltered this garden, the greyer sky above. He sighed. ‘You are right, but I cannot speak of it. I am bound by a loyalty I cannot break.’
The Abbot did not answer at once. He considered that men who rushed too easily into speech more often regretted it. After a long pause he said, ‘If I were to shrive you – ’
Brien shook his head. ‘Not even there.’
‘Then,’ his companion said, ‘it is indeed a grave matter that you cannot trust to the sacred vows of the priesthood. My son, I fear for you.’
‘You may well do so.’
The Abbot crossed himself and his lips moved soundlessly. Then he said, ‘Is there no way in which I may aid you?’
‘I am no green boy, Father.’
‘I did not think it, but age does not protect a man from the onslaughts of the devil. The Church’s first duty is to praise God, the second to help His children attain Heaven. Can it not do that for you?’
‘I fear not.’ Brien glanced up at a rook, black against the dull sky, its raucous cry breaking the stillness. ‘I must carry my sorrow alone.’
The Abbot stood and turned so that Brien must stop walking too and face him. ‘My child – no man is beyond redemption if he desires it. Why else did Our Lord suffer the scourging, and the crown of thorns, and the cross itself?’
Brien did n
ot meet his eyes. ‘Even He said that there was one lost sheep out of the hundred.’
‘And that the shepherd would search until he found it. Is there not encouragement there for the least of us?’
There was a long silence and they began to pace again. ‘I do not know,’ Brien said at last and this time there was no flat denial but enough uncertainty to give the Abbot hope. Because he understood men, especially those who suffered, he said in a matter of fact voice, ‘Stay here as long as you wish, my son. You will find our house a place of rest. Come,’ he took him by the arm, ‘let me show you more. I think you have not yet seen our scriptorium. We have many fine books.’
He led Brien out of the garden, talking of the grief of all the monks at the loss of the Earl of Gloucester, their great benefactor. ‘We say Mass each day for him. Most of our -gold and silver ornaments, our chalices and vestments were his gift,’ he said as they traversed the quiet cloister, ‘and as for the library, he gave us many of our treasured manuscripts. One of our monks, William, wrote a history of this country for the Earl but he died, poor fellow, before he could finish it – that must have been five years ago, about the time the Empress escaped from Oxford Castle, for I remember that was the last entry in his book.’ And at once the Abbot sensed in the figure beside him a sudden rigidity. ‘We grieve that she has gone,’ he continued smoothly, ‘but if, as you say, she will send her son, we all pray that he will resolve the troubles of our poor country.’ He glanced at the mask-like face beside him and wondered. This man mourned Earl Robert and the departure of the Empress, that much was clear, but there was still more, something he would never learn from one so controlled.
The Lion's Legacy (Conqueror Trilogy Book 3) Page 32
