Gifts of the Queen

by Mary Lide

  I said, 'My lord, this is a grief to you.'

  He gritted out, through clenched teeth as if the words stung, 'I did not bring you here for this.'

  I could understand that. What man cares to seem helpless, unable to defend his family, friends? He had suffered great loss before. Could not I fill the void for him?

  'At least we have each other,' I ventured. 'For me, it is not as before, not knowing where you were, whether you were still alive.'

  He did not answer. I thought that I must goad him into speech, else his silence would drown us.

  'Sieux can be rebuilt,' I said.

  Silence.

  'It must be rebuilt,' I cried. 'Castles have been taken and destroyed. And rebuilt. Friends have died and been avenged.'

  Then he did turn to me, the moonlight glinting in his eyes.

  'And how,' he said, his voice ominously low, 'shall we do it? "Must" is a hard word, lady wife.'

  There are ways.' Yet his expression frightened me. If he did not think it could be done, no man could. But he had at least replied. That gave me hope.

  I said, 'I do not think it will be easy. Who ever thought a castle could be built overnight?'

  'It can be overthrown in one,' he said.

  'There must be men to build it up once more.'

  'Again, that "must," ' he said. 'There are no "musts" here lady. You prate as if a child. Soldiers, peasants, cannot build up walls. Men are paid to do it, stoneworkers masons, skilled about their craft. Or your siege masters—there are your best builders of all.'

  'Where are there such builders?' I interrupted him.

  'In the towns,' he said, 'there you would find them.'

  'Then go to the towns,' I said. 'Bid them take work here. Are there not quarries among the cliffs where stone can be found?'

  At that, he did laugh, a sharp, short sound, as if mocking at himself. 'Aye,' he said, 'there are quarries here no doubt, although overgrown. We have not had need of stone at Sieux these many years. And masons in the town, also no doubt, who, if they will spare the time from their chapel building, could build a castle for me here. But you did not heed me. There are men to do it, but they must be paid.'

  'Paid?' I said, the idea new to me. 'How paid?'

  'With coin,' he said almost impatiently, 'gold or silver, they care not which. They are townfolk,' he said, as if that said it all. When still I did not understand, he added, 'Men who have their own laws and customs, who live outside the feudal ones. They need no overlord to act for them; they have their own guilds to protect them and select a master to speak for them. And they hire themselves out for pay, having no duties else, no overlord. To "bid" them come here as you suggest, to order it, stands outside possibility. Even if I brought them here as prisoners, I could not get them to work. And to hire them . . . have you forgot how little I have left?'

  At that, I was silent in my turn. I had know of it, of course, have I not just said he had been beggared by these wars. But knowing does not always mean understanding. I had come from a small fief, but even I had felt the lack of revenues when Cambray had been captured early on.

  I tried to remember how the accounts of Cambray were kept. Dylan, the seneschal, would have them in his charge. Upon a certain day in the autumn months, at his command, a man who could read and number would unroll the great scroll where the records were kept, would read out each serf's name, have him pay his dues, work and goods in return for protection. That is the feudal law, the feudal way. So many sacks of grain, of flour already milled, so many heads of sheep or cattle, so many hours of work in field or barn or castle guard, in return for a lord's watch and ward. But when peasants cannot work the fields, when the harvest is not planted or reaped, when the cattle is lost or stolen, what revenues should a lord get? The wars that had stripped my little estate of all its wealth had stripped Sedgemont likewise. Moreover, Raoul had freed many of his men at Sedgemont. Knowing that Henry would brand him as traitor, he had wished to spare his men the same fate. It must rub deeply that he could not have spared his men at Sieux. But, in any case, most of his wordly goods had gone to provide for those who would have been destitute without him. The rest Henry had taken or had demanded as relief or tax when he had restored Raoul to his lands and given him title of earl. A relief unfairly levied, the tax having been paid already when Raoul had first inherited upon his grandfather's death.

  ‘How little I have left,' he said. I had not really known what that meant. I was used to so little myself, I had not thought that a lord might feel the need so keenly. What lord, however low, who does not carry his purse openly to scatter alms to the poor? What lord, however low, who does not like to ride out with his men well equipped, his horses sound and matching, his armor blazing with his colors? Some lords would squeeze more from the peasant; force their payments, but Raoul was not the man, nor I the woman, to steal more than our rightful share. And, I thought, my Norman ladies were at least right in this, and I the fool not to have minded for him, that we rode out like out-casts and lodged like paupers. And I thought as well, but even so, there must be some way.

  Perhaps he was thinking it, too. For at last he said slowly. There is one hope.'

  He turned toward me on his sound side. The moor caught his eyes again, how they gleamed, and a new timbre was in his voice. I felt resolution flooding through him. He said, The baggage train. Tomorrow, or the day after it will come. There's our gold.'

  I must have stared at him, because he laughed, amusement creeping back as he spoke.

  He said, 'In the town, there are men who would barter for coin what I could sell: saddles, spare armor, horses.' He smiled, 'Iron spurs serve as well as gold, plain saddles as well as fancy ones. What we can sell at their fair we will.'

  'But Raoul,' I almost hesitated to say it, what knight is there who does not wear his golden spurs, what squire so humble that he does not hope to keep his second horse? But I would not mention that, rather I hoped to keep him talking to raise his spirits and so raise mine.

  'And those builders, which ones are best?' I asked.

  He said, 'It is true about the siege masters. I meant it for a jest, but it is true the best castle builders in Normandy have been the men who knew how best to tear them down. Geoffrey of Anjou, this Henry's father, was one, my grandfather, Raymond, who built Sedgemont, another. And your father, Falk, who built Cambray. Think, how was Cambray built?'

  Again I stared at him. 'Of stone,' I said at last.

  'Yes, yes,' he said almost impatiently, 'but in what manner?'

  He pulled himself to his feet, clumsily, limped to the fire and thrust a torch into the embers to make them flare up, bright as day. The men who had been on watch turned to look at us, black silhouettes against the silver sky, then moved on, recognizing who we were. But what Raoul had to say was for all his men.

  ‘Look here,' he was saying, 'here and here.'

  With a sweep of the torch that illuminated the litter of stones, he went to where the larger ones had been tumbled down and stuck the torch between the cracks.

  ‘And where,' he said, 'Hell's teeth, think, where did Falk get the stones along that benighted borderland? Where could he find men to quarry stone or shape and fit it?'

  ‘He found the stones,' I said, almost stupidly, 'there was a fortress built before, he took the stones from that.'

  ‘Yes,' he said, 'so he used stones that had been used before. Roman stones a thousand years old. Now look here, and here.'

  The rest of his men, who had been sleeping, or lying as we had been, brooding and remembering, were stirring now, coming toward us. Like us, they had bedded where they could, stripped down to shirt or tunic for comfort's sake. Their tired faces with the stubble of beards show suddenly intent and watchful in the harsh light.

  'He who would destroy a castle,' Raoul said, 'must grind it to dust. Henry's men did their work well, but not well enough. Had Geoffrey of Anjou been alive to see to it, we had not been so fortunate.'

  He was rubbing his hand over
the stone as he spoke. I passed my hand over another, as did his men, at first hesitatingly, and then with growing comprehension. Beneath my fingers, the beveled edges ran cool and straight. There were many such stones, piled upon each other, pried out of place, levered out perhaps. Some had shattered as they fell, some had been smashed with hammers, but for the most part, they lay where they had been pushed, intact, ready to be used again.

  'And see here.'

  On his knees, with a dagger in his left hand, he was already scoring lines across the patch of earth; each time he spoke, he etched the lines in deeper as if to make an imprint that would last. 'Henry's men left us another hint on how to rebuild Sieux,' he was saying. 'Henry himself is a good siege master, as are all the Angevins. Here, 'a slash,' he breeched the wall. Well, it was a weakness as we all knew. From the battlements, there was no view down, a blind angle then that must have been remedied some time. When we rebuild, we'll throw out a skirting wall, a curtain wall, thus and thus.'

  Again a decisive stroke. His men were already hunkering around him, drawing lines of their own, arguing, agreeing. One summed it all. 'By the Mass,' he said, straightening himself and scratching, 'I cannot cut stones, nor yet lay a wall to order, but, by God's breath. I'd haul those stones with my teeth to best that bastard yet.'

  'You may have to,' said Raoul. He smiled at us, the scar on his cheek suddenly very clear. 'Used stones will spare us time and expense. We needs must save both . . . They have given us the stones of Sieux. We shall use them to advantage.'

  There speaks my hawk, I thought, well-satisfied, and left them to their talk. Presently, they went back to the fire, opening a wine cask, one of the villagers had brought, settling down to their drinking, their storytelling. Thus did they honour their dead companions, after all, that they should not be forgotten. And for the first time since our sad homecoming were the men of Sieux mourned and comforted in soldier fashion.

  I lay by myself, content to have it so, and thought too of my father Falk, and of his dear friend who had been Raoul's grandfather, and of all the men they had known who would have remembered them. And I thought too, almost defiantly, that when my child, my son, was born, he should have memories of Sieux's towers . . . standing strong again.

  When Raoul returned to his place beside me on the inner wall, he was more cheerful, or rather, overlying grief were plans, things that could be done. Yet, as he eased his long legs in beside my own, I could feel the tautness of his body like whipcord.

  'You are over-reached, my lord,' I told him softly, 'rest now.'

  He sighed and stretched himself painfully. 'Others have said as much,' he admitted. 'King Stephen, when the mood was on him, would swear I'd carry his kingdom on my back. Well, it is my way. I am too old to change.'

  He leaned upon his saddle. For a moment, with his eyes dosed, the lashes against his cheeks, he gave the lie to his own words. He looked almost as he used to do, the laughing, mocking boy who had plagued me when we first met. A great wave of sympathy coursed through me that this, his happy day, had ended so bitterly. To hide my thoughts, I went on resolutely.

  ‘Is there no one nearby to help us, no friend?'

  He sighed, answering as if to a child. 'When I was in England last year, there were not many men then to give me help. Still fewer here. I would not alarm you, Ann, who, God knows, has suffered harm enough, but I have shown you where Sieux lies to the south of Normandy, between it and Anjou and Maine. Now that Sieux is destroyed, the Norman barons would like well enough to take my lands. If we can but keep secret our plan to rebuild, that will give us a breathing space. Henry cannot leave England now. The Angevins have slunk back to their dens and will not stir without him; let's hope the Normans will bide their opportunity to deal with us.'

  'Cannot the king help you,' I said, quailing at his words although his voice was calm. 'King Louis of France?'

  He did not think to do so before.' And Raoul's voice was still level when he spoke. 'Louis may live to regret his lack of foresight. But he is a shifty man, never letting his right hand know the left. He should be quicker to our defense a second time, not liking Henry to have gained so much land as to own three-quarters of France. Nor does he like it that Henry also owns his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine who once was Queen of France. Louis does not take kindly that she left him to marry Henry within two months. I should not like it myself. I'd not let my wife leave me to take another man.' He smiled at me. 'So it is to Louis's gain to keep Sieux as barrier between Henry's lands south and north, but I would not rely on Louis to act as he ought.'

  He shifted awkwardly to find resting place, burst out 'God's breath, but it is no jest to be trussed up thus, like to barnyard fowl, not able to belt my own sword on. Devil fry me, I had not thought these wounds would take so long to heal that I am like to die of boredom first.' He was silent for a while until again, the words broke out. I had never heard him speak so unguardedly. 'Ann, I am caught here in a trap. I must endure it best I can, but it will be hard on you. If we go back to England, then are we truly in Henry s grasp. If we bide here, the wait will be long and dangerous. We shall have to shift to defend ourselves. Will you mind that? Will you mind to be so far from friends and home at such a time? By the Holy Rood, I did not bring you here for this.'

  I tried to tell him what was in my heart; if only he would be safe, then could we all be safe from Henry's reach.

  He said, almost unexpectedly, 'Long have I known Henry of Anjou, since we were both lads here in France. And ever since that boyhood, he has pitted himself against me. Ambition gnaws at him that he must be first, and he has inherited the Angevin rage along with their lands. That rage will choke him yet; it twists him from man to beast. He is a good soldier, that I grant, but rage destroys his reasons, turns him mad. It is his greatest enemy.' He smiled his rueful smile, 'And to think I showed him once how to hold a lance. Got rot me, that he should ride as I do. Or did.'

  He was silent for a while after, shifting and turning on his hard pillow.

  ‘It is not easy to fight with your left hand,' he said, as if admitting to a weakness. 'I can do it if I must. It is the strangeness that takes your opponent off his guard. Although, after the first surprise, he has your weaker side exposed to his counter thrust.'

  Again, silence. At last, he said what I believe was truly in his heart. ‘I thought to bring you here to keep you safe until your child was born. By my knightly oath, no less an that.'

  When he spoke me fair, I wanted to put my finger to his lips to stay his words. Hard was it for me to tell him openly how I felt for him. But God had given us each other back; we were man and wife by God's grace; an archbishop had seen us wed; surely, by God's mercy, we should live to know each other's worth. Yet he had been forced to marry. Without Henry's threat, might he have still thought on his past loves, and remembered his old betrothal, his former pledge to the Lady Isobelle? Would he resent marrying me?

  He had lived long alone, trusting no one's counsel but his own; since boyhood had he fended for himself, pitting his wits against the intrigues of Stephen's court, I think it was hard for him to trust anyone, or to put his naked thoughts before the world. I know his pride was cut to the quick that his physical weakness left us so exposed. Once the most active and brave of men, he saw weakness as failure, and failure was more painful than those unhealed wounds. When he spoke of such things, simple as his words were and often hidden beneath a jest, they seemed forced from him as if he confessed to some crime. Beneath them, I sensed the hurt of a vulnerable man, sensitive to the needs of all he felt his duty to protect. And what he said was simple indeed.

  'Nor hold it against me,' he said, 'that I make so poor a show of protection for you.'

  'And you,' I whispered back, my confession to match his own, 'you will not mind, who could have married a great lady, to take me of so little worth?'

  'Mind,' he said, 'and what is worth more than one who would have died for me.'

  He stretched out his hand and took mine in his own. 'You
have been great comfort to me these past months,' he said 'Without you, I would be dead. What other friend stood by me in Henry's court ? What other woman have I known who would have endured today with such grace? It was to have been other than this, our homecoming. But lady, this day is done. Passed, if not forgot. Since we cannot go back, we must go on. We have scarce had any time to ourselves since our marriage day, so long since first I took you to my arm: on such another day when we won Cambray for you.' He smiled, that rueful smile. 'I thought to have had you to myself this night,' he said, 'unless, lady, you would shrink from me, a crippled man who gives you a bed of stone.' He jested, but underneath there ran a hint of truth.

  I turned to him, where his hand was slipping around my waist beneath his cloak, his clever fingers already feeling for the laces of my shift. I tried to tell him he was all that I desired, but shyness held me back. I could not speak for fear that I should weep. And then his mouth was covering mine and there was no time for words. I tried to say. It is not meet but those words did not come either.

  Now I think that he was right, now I believe that it is both right and just that life should be born of death, that after sadness, pleasure comes; grief is not forgotten because it is put aside for its place. We lay beside each other on the ground. Everything was still, only the beating of my heart like a drum. Nothing mattered then, Henry's revenge, our present danger, the loss of Sieux. It was the first time since our marriage we had been alone, cut off from the rest of the world.