The Story of Silence
Page 42
‘Call for the chancellor and the steward and the king and his counsellors.’ They could see Griselle itching to ask them what the plan was, but they waved her away. ‘Please,’ they said.
The latch rattled and the king and his advisers entered. Silence had hoped to spot Alfred, but he was not there.
‘What is your wish, m’lady?’ said the chancellor, bowing to Silence.
They grimaced at that, then smoothed their face. ‘I am far from a lady, Lord Chancellor,’ they replied.
‘Ah. Well, as to that. Your Nature has been revealed. We cannot unsee what we have seen. And if you are to be the queen, you must be a lady.’
Silence paused for a moment, sorely tempted to untangle that mess of logic, but decided to let it be. The king did not like puzzles or fancy reasoning. He liked meat and wine, and (here Silence thought of Milly, at the inn) anything – land, women, treasure – that was just out of his reach.
‘Your Majesty.’ Silence bowed low and, in the corner of their vision, saw Griselle drop into a deep curtsy. ‘You have asked me to be your queen. But I fear I cannot give myself to you. I am pledged to another.’
‘What’s this? A secret engagement?’ The king puffed up, cheeks reddening at once. How he loved to be outraged.
‘It was years ago, before I ran away to Brittany and became a minstrel. A lady, a true friend, made me swear an oath that I would be true to myself. Your Majesty, ever since my birth I have been torn between my Nature and my Nurture, as if my self were at war with my self. But I have always tried to be true.’
They paused to let that sink in, waited until the king said, ‘I see.’
‘I used to believe that I could choose, the one or the other. I used to believe that I could simply go with how I had been Nurtured, and live as a knight all my days. You would have me choose my other half, my Nature, and by choosing this, to live as a lady, your queen.’ They drew a deep, shuddering breath. ‘But I can do neither. As I swore long ago,’ here they took Griselle’s hand, ‘swore on a relic of a saint, that I cannot be one half of what I am meant to be; I must be both. To be truly noble. To be fully honest. I must be myself.’
‘And how do you propose to do this?’ the chancellor asked. ‘You cannot go on being a knight.’
‘Though that is what I have longed for all my life, I will cede knighthood, as I will also cede queenhood. I will cede being Earl of Cornwall. I will cede names and titles to you, Your Majesty, I turn over all of these things – the land and title, the money and property.’
The king gaped. ‘All of Cornwall?’
Silence thought of the gulls, the cliffs, the sky and the sea of their home. The forests and birds and tracks and creeks. Silence realized suddenly that they would not disappear if Silence did not rule them. That they would remain and grow and perhaps Silence would grow too. ‘All but Ringmar, which I would ask be given to Griselle and the seneschal.’
The steward murmured, ‘Fitting,’ and whispered into the king’s ear as Silence waited. The two conferred, then the chancellor added his whispers to the proceedings, and the earls leaned in and added their counsel, until the king threw up his hands.
‘You would give me all your lands and titles. You would refuse to be queen. And then what? You would leave here?’
Silence nodded.
‘But you would be no one,’ the king said, baffled.
‘I would be myself,’ Silence replied.
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘And so,’ my stranger says. ‘There you have it.’
I jolt upright, as if I had been asleep, as if I had been dreaming. ‘Have what?’
‘My story, you silly man, what else?’
Dawn is near; I can hear the birds in the bushes. This long night is drawing to a close.
‘That can’t be the end,’ I say, rubbing my eyes.
‘Why not?’
‘Well, what happened next?’ Don’t they understand anything about how stories work? How the wicked must be punished and the good rewarded. ‘Nothing’s resolved.’
‘My name was cleared. The queen was put to death. Off we go. Done.’
‘But the king!’
‘Remains my king,’ my stranger replies.
‘That’s hardly fair,’ I murmur. ‘He didn’t learn anything at all. In the best stories, there’s a sort of lesson at the end.’
‘Perhaps I’m working towards that,’ my stranger says and stretches their legs out.
‘So, what happened next?’ I press.
‘What happened next, what’s happening now, minstrel … that is not part of the story. I left Winchester. I am here now.’ They stare into the dark corners of the inn. ‘What happened next? Why do we torture ourselves so? Why must the story go on? Let it end there. I am trying to be no one. It’s easy. Each place I go, I am less of who I was before, more able to imagine what I might be. A houndsman? A carpenter? Perhaps I’ll try my hand at baking.’
‘But why?’ I am utterly baffled. ‘Most of us spend all our lives striving to perfect one skill.’
‘Yes. Most of us insist on being one thing and denying all else. Heldris.’ My stranger leans close. ‘We are not one thing. We are multitudes. And it isn’t simply about what we do, but who we are, and how we understand ourselves. I am beginning to work this out, what I am becoming, how I will keep on becoming …’
‘To what end?’ I murmur. My stranger’s voice scares me – it wakes within me certain thoughts I had long ago tucked away as impossible dreams of boyhood, of taking to the sea, of learning to read the stars. It is true: I could be someone else, someone not other than myself, but more so, a deeper, truer version.
‘I doubt there is an end,’ my stranger says. ‘Or rather, the end is myself. Perhaps I’ll find that place of perfect in-betweeness.’
‘That makes it hard for the storyteller, that bit about there being no end.’ I stretch my arms above my head; my legs are all pins and needles from sitting on this stool for so long. ‘Are you searching for Merlin?’
‘The only sure way not to find Merlin is to look for him. I’m looking for myself first.’
I dare to ask, ‘May I join you in your search?’
When they take my hand, my hopes rise, but they say, albeit kindly, ‘I must go alone. But I thank you for taking this story from me. It is freeing to let the past be held by someone else. It is yours now. In a sense, then, I am yours. Let this be the end.’
But it is not the end. The end comes with the dawn, when I go out to the jakes and return to find the inn empty. My stranger is gone, and they will not be here again.
I go back outside, and gather an armload of wood from the pile, then bring it around to the kitchens. Mary is there, bringing the fire back to life. Isolde has the basket for eggs. I take it from her without a word and head to the coop. There, I gather eggs and contemplate the sun that rises, fat and yellow. Isolde is glad for the eggs and gives me a mug of wine, a hunk of bread. I put them aside and pick up my harp. This is a story that will not end with me; that will not end with Silence. If I tell it right, it will be a story that sings on, speaking to self after self, telling the tale of what it means to be and become.
I must write the ending while the smell of them is still upon me – straw and dog and sun and woodsmoke. An end that will let them go on their own path, be their own self. Let them get away.
Silence stood, naked, stripped before the king and the court. He heard the gasps of the onlookers, could not keep the flush from rising up his body, enflaming his cheeks, and he stared out over the heads of the crowd, the knights with whom he’d fought, the squires he’d trained, the lords he’d hunted with. All of them staring.
His ears rang so loudly that it felt as if he’d been struck deaf; he saw the king move his lips, but could make out no words at first, then gradually the ringing subsided and he caught the final pronouncement. ‘… to death!’ And it was a relief, to think that this would end, that he would be punished and it would be over … but it was the queen, Eufeme, across
the dais from him, who collapsed, shrieking, pleading for mercy, until the guardsmen dragged her off.
Now King Evan turned to Silence. ‘No one in this hall can dispute your honesty, your virtue, your loyalty. I have had you at my side as a knight, but now that your Nature is revealed, I would have you as my queen.’
Silence could hide nothing, naked and alone on that dais. She bowed her head and said, ‘I am yours to do with as you wish.’
The hall broke out in cheering, cries of joy. Griselle led a flock of ladies up to the dais, where they whisked Silence off to an upper chamber. There, with the help of rose oil, lemon balm, hot water, pumice stones, and a retinue of ointments that would have stunned an apothecary, they set about transforming Silence, undoing all that had been Nurtured, letting Nature be revealed.
Three days, it took them. From that chamber they could hear the cries of Eufeme and the false nun as they were drawn and quartered. But they paid little heed, so fixed were they on curling her hair, cutting the sash of her dress just so, fitting her feet for delicate slippers.
And when Griselle led her down the stairs to the great hall, where the king and his counsellors waited with the priest, everyone sighed and gasped, for the new queen was beauty, perfection, Silence.
Author’s Note
False rape narratives are a troubling topic. For a woman to falsely accuse a man of sexual assault is quite rare. Indeed, the opposite force most often holds sway: only a tiny fraction of women who are sexually assaulted make a report to authorities.
Queen Eufeme, however, does falsely accuse Silence of rape. This is a detail from the original 13th-century poem, and it was a detail that I included with a great deal of thought and concern.
Ultimately, I wanted to use this false accusation as part of the plot not only to be true to the original, but also because Queen Eufeme’s behaviour in this instance illustrates the deep misogyny of the medieval world and shows the reader exactly what men thought of women in that time period.
In brief, women were believed to be entirely dishonest and untrustworthy. They were also sex-crazed and unable to control their impulses. Women’s wickedness knew no bounds.
The original poem Silence is full of a strange and delightful ambiguity about women. They are consistently criticized and stereotyped in characters like Eufeme, but also elevated and praised in characters like Silence.
By preserving the false rape narrative, I hoped to present to the reader some of the complexity, as troubling as it may be, that existed in the medieval world around gender and sexuality.
Acknowledgements
As is always the case, this book would not be possible without the support of so many people. To consider the matter chronologically: this truly began at Georgetown University, with Professor Kelly Wickham-Crowley’s class on Medieval Sexualities. That’s where I first read Silence and my marginal notes bear witness to just how much the poem blew my mind. I thank Georgetown for granting me the fellowship with which I enjoyed my studies and had time to ponder such poems.
From there, I began to write … I want to thank the librarians at Phillips Exeter for finding me obscure volumes on Merlin, David Weber for being an early reader, and my colleagues in the English department for occasionally letting me bore them with details I was thinking about.
My wife, Ilona Tipp, was (as she always is) my earliest reader. She gives me encouragement every day to keep thinking, speaking, writing, and exploring. It’s best when we do it together.
My agent, Alison Fargis, was also an early reader. Together with the indefatigable Maddie, Alison offered insightful critique and helpful commentary … as well as tons of encouragement. Thanks also to Ben Fowler, who championed this book on the other side of the Atlantic.
And then … after the drafting and planning and early revisions … many thanks to Vicky Leech at HarperVoyager for taking a chance on Silence. It came to her as a strange text with an obtrusive and obnoxious narrator (of whom I am very fond) and she saw the potential in the pages. Her comments were beyond brilliant and I think Mooch the cat is particularly grateful for having been brought to life.
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