by Mary Lide
10
At the river fords we met, Lord Raoul, his men, more men from Sieux, and we, with our sad and heavy load. Lord Raoul's face was weary, drawn, his men bone tired. He sat on his horse as if turned to ice. I do not think he knew what he said, his thoughts so fixed on this one thing that even I for a while was put aside.
'Save him. Ann, he must be saved.' And he took his son into his arms, carried him before him to Sieux. I remembered the way Walter had held him, Walter of the gentle ways who had many younger brothers and a large and thriving family. And I remembered how Raoul had always been alone, mother and father dead before he could have known them, his grandfather faraway in England. A lonely child he must have been, not used to children, not used to sons. He could not bear to lose this one, his firstborn.
At the castle gates, another sober group waited us, my women bathed in tears and our castle guard, the loyal Dillon and the men left in his charge, almost speechless for grief. As we passed into the courtyard, we trampled over the place where Robert had been born. The new walls were clearly visible. I remembered what Master Edward had promised: that before Robert was grown, they would stand to their full height. I almost thought now that promise would never be kept; I almost thought that the second Robert would follow the first, be lost before he could grow to boyhood. Yet I could not despair. We had already suffered too much to have despair destroy us. We took the child and laid him before the fire in the tower room. All night long my women waited with me. But we did not wait alone; Raoul joined us. He was wearier than I had ever seen him, plastered in mud. He had not changed his clothes for a week. I do not think he had slept or broken fast. He came in quietly for so large a man; he had not even removed his mail coat and his spurs grated over the wooden floors for all that he trod with care. He stood and watched us as we tried to bring the child's fever down, using damp cloths steeped in herbs. Presently, without a word, he went away, and I thought, if I thought anything, he could not bear to watch. But he returned; he and Dillon had been to the river's edge, in the dark, and hauled up buckets of water, cold and fresh, with its hint of ice. We scooped out the weed, Dillon and I, the day we had so scooped weed before forgotten then, although we laughed at it afterward, and I wetted the cloths and placed them on Robert's body that lay motionless, as if its vitality had burned away.
Raoul helped me. All night long, he worked with me, and sometimes our fingers crossed and touched over our child. Flesh of my flesh. So that night Raoul labored to give his child new life, so that night did Raoul woman's work.
And sometimes when I dozed, for moments perhaps at a time, so weary now myself I scarce could stand, Raoul kept vigil in my place. And when the child's fever at last began to break, and he tossed and cried, it was Raoul who held him. Raoul's broad hand with its long fingers could span the child's chest, and the skin was brown against the whiteness of the child's skin, but you saw the father in the child's face; you saw the child in his father's eyes. There are times when words get in the way. I knew without Raoul's telling me what his thoughts were that night. I knew what they must have been as he rode back; I knew, I had known them myself. He knew without my speaking of such things all of my guilt and regret at having gone to Poitiers. I sensed his, at having outfaced Henry in such fashion. Well, it is not only conspiracy that makes tangled nets, so do we live our lives, who knows how the ends ravel out. I think Lord Ademar had expressed it well: a sort of fate drives us on and holds us together despite ourselves. That night, without speech, without explanation, was the bond between Raoul and me tightened another notch. And when the dawn at last came and I knew the child was still alive, and the women dragged back the sacking that hid the window slits, we heard, faintly, that tap-tap-tapping of the masons on the castle walls. In their dour, uncompromising way, they too were already at their work. I looked at Raoul and thought. Thank God for you to back me this night.
He took my hands in his, those large strong hands, and turned mine over, as if examining them. Then he drew me to the window where he could see beyond the busy courtyard toward the cliff, the lake and the hills. He said, suddenly, abruptly, 'Ann, I have seen you sitting on the ground, digging up the stones of Sieux to make its walls. I have seen you twice stand as firm as rock when our enemies would have overwhelmed us. And now, today, you have given me back my son. Look about you, ma mie. Here is Sieux spread before you, the Sieux you have helped rebuild. I told you you would be countess here one day in your own right. No lady more deserves that name.' And he kissed me on the lips, the kiss of love, before all men.
Behind us, on his little bed, Robert suddenly called our names. He was awake, his blue-gray eyes conscious although they did not focus yet but gazed beyond us as if looking at something only he could find.
'See, young sir,' Raoul's voice was as warm and comforting as his hand about my waist. 'I have brought you a something from Poitiers.' It was a little carved shield, with a gold hawk painted on the crimson wood. Robert held it in his hand until he slept. Well, he would live, and all the castle rejoiced, not such rejoicing in our time there, not such happiness since we first returned. And that night Raoul held me in his arms and plighted again his troth to me. This is our wedding night. Now had I what I long had dreamed of, then were those days at Cambray recalled, now did my lover lie with me without stint. By Jesu, he had once said, I shall love you until you it is calls cease. That night neither of us had reason to hold back, now did we truly know what it meant to be man and wife. Warm flesh, warm skin, to bury out the winter colds, we lay as one. 'And now,' he said, his breath warm too against my throat, 'now shall I know what loves you promised me.'
It is both meet and right that after sorrow pleasure comes, that in our time we should know it. Thus was the sadness of autumn turned to happiness. We nursed Robert back to health, a slow business that. And sometimes I think, had he not possessed the power that children have to spring back from illness, then swallowing that sleeping draught would have killed him before Alyse de Vergay could have carried him to the forest rendezvous, so unskilled was she. And she, so nervous in her haste to steal him away from our village unobserved, she might have killed him there, and brought away a dead child instead of the live one she hoped to bargain with. But by the Yuletide, Robert was well enough to sit by the fire and listen to Matt's stories. Raoul gave him another dog, although he never loved it like that first. And I think a caution grew in him from that time, to make him more quiet than is natural in a child. He never whined as sick children do, but watched, as if from a distance, as if removed from us, as if suspicious of womankind. As for Matt, the winter winds proving hard, he needed nursing also, a shortness of breath still plaguing him. So he too sat by the fire and by degrees became the new castle storyteller, taking Walter's place; and his tales grew with the telling until who knows what tremendous feats of arms he invented for my son. And Robert lay in his father's lap and listened. At the Yuletide too we had a knighting, long overdue. Matt wheezing through the ceremony, unable to keep the night vigil, perhaps even unwilling to without a companion by his side. We hung a pair of golden spurs in Walter's name in an alcove of what would be our chapel, and seldom a day passed but I went there to pray for him. Yet I sometimes think he is not at peace whom death took so cruelly in this foreign land, and God who knows all things and sees all should find place in His mighty kingdom for a man so far from home. In the spring we were to go back to England. That was a thought to cheer the mind, lift the soul, although by then we had many friends at Sieux, trusted and kind, who it would be hard to part with and who had been good to us. And remembering how we had sat in the rain on that first day, grubbing in the ground for shards of stone, I could scarcely believe in such a space of time Sieux could have become alive again.
We were to leave in the middle of May month, and early began to prepare for this. How the ladies chattered as they sewed, how the young squires and pages bustled importantly about, how at times I found myself skipping along. But with the spring came other news: Henry's answer to
Raoul. He was clever, I tell you, Henry who was England's king; and his call to arms was not what I had expected although I should have done. No move is made without its counter one. Revenge is never forgotten although it lags one step behind. Henry had spent the winter in France, and went back to England a scant month before we did, having made a peace with his wife.
The reasons for this truce are obvious when you think what she most wanted was a son, and he too must have felt the need for another heir to ensure his inheritance. And she must have sensed she had gone too far, tried Henry too far; after all, Henry was young, and other kings had put aside their wives. I myself do not think she felt remorse. That concept was not part of her personality, but she may have realized the quarrel between them had to be mended sometime. What concessions were made or what conditions laid down or how arranged we did not know, but, as Sir Renier had said, in royal households as with ordinary men, wives and husbands have to come to terms if they are to live together at all. (And beget sons Eleanor did, the next one born at Oxford in the autumn of that year, a Richard who was to become king, and a brother to follow him, another Geoffrey, and at the end, England's curse, John Lackland.) I think, too, on considering it, the reason Sir Renier had helped me, helped us, was not so much because he cared for me and felt he owed us some recompense (both of which were true and so he may have felt) but because, loyal to the queen, he wished to save her from herself, wished to prevent her being embroiled in such an ugly episode. Yet how far she was involved or how much she knew, that I cannot say.
A truce then was somehow arranged between the royal pair, and a royal triumph planned through the southern lands. They were well received. Great feasts and merriment attended them—even Count Raymond of Toulouse put on displays of loyalty—but it was also said that in order to rid the queen of a vassal she accused of treachery, Henry attacked and sacked the castle of the Viscount of Thouars, that young lord whom I had met. They say the queen called him troublesome, a nice euphemism to cover her displeasure; but the great are ever fickle in their choice of friends, and once the viscount had smiled at me!
In any event, the king attacked his lands; the queen appeared content, and harmony was restored. By what means she won Henry to her will I have said I cannot guess and still cannot, but two other points I should like to make. First, Henry did create his brother count, so was Geoffrey's ambition gratified, but not at the expense of Eleanor's lands. For, as has been mentioned several times, Brittany was uneasy, and among the restless cities there, one of the greatest, the port of Nantes, was in revolt. Nantes is a rich city, they say, a harbor on the west Atlantic coast, a city of ships and trade where the river Loire comes to the sea. The Loire is the lifeblood of Anjou, the artery down which all its goods and commerce flow, and to have the means to control its major port would delight the Angevins. The matter was simply arranged. Disliking their ruler, Count Hoel, the citizens of Nantes asked Henry to find them a new one, and he, encouraging them, gave them Geoffrey Plantagenet. Thus was every one pleased; and although neither Henry nor Geoffrey, raised even a finger to take the prize, it fell easily into their hands, a bribe perhaps to keep a royal peace. I missed the sage comments Walter would have made when we first heard that news. The second point was something on which Walter had already said his say: Isobelle de Boissert's wardship to the king. Now it was openly proclaimed, her lands and estates were held attainted in traitor's fee and she herself banished for life to her nunnery on pain of death. Since it had been obviously true that she could not have mounted such a group of soldiers on her own or armed them after her father's death, this public humiliation meant that Eleanor's support too had been withdrawn. I would be loyal to you. So much for women's loyalty, even that of a queen. And Isobelle's loss was Geoffrey's gain.
As for us, we journeyed to the north coast in the spring, in luxury, our entire household in state, a journey such as Alyse de Vergay had coveted—turn memory back, stop thought. I do not wish to speak of her; she lives where darkness dwells, when in the night not even prayers can keep remorse or memory at bay. We were to sail from Barfleur, and on our arrival there, Robert and I came down to the quay to watch the loading of our ships and admire the careful way the barrels and crates were bestowed on deck, the bundles of gear without which no noble household moves a step. I myself prefer, like snail, to carry my goods upon my back. The mariners scrambled in the riggings, barefoot, as nimble as Master Edward's apprentices, and the master mariner, like a good general, supervised all their maneuverings from the center of the deck. I thought, as I watched the white sails furled, dripping wet with dew, how from this selfsame port those years ago, a Prince of England had set out. The only heir, his father's sole legitimate son, he would have inherited England had he lived. His ship was the fastest in the royal fleet; but since the weather had held calm, he and his companions, sons of his father's lords, allowed the other ships to leave without them, idled the hours away on shore. When they hoisted canvas it was late, they had drunk too much. The helmsman carelessly let the ship drift on the rocks. And so was drowned that prince, that William, who if he had lived, would have spared his country so much harm. Thirty-seven years earlier had he been drowned; and yet his death has overshadowed all our lives so that it could be said our wrongs, our griefs, can be traced to him. Yet certainly he and his friends had never thought of what awaited them when they set sail that day . . . Nor did we. Fate had not done with us yet.
As I say, my son Robert and I were watching the loading of the ship, and had discovered a place in a sail loft with a view, out of harm's way. It smelled of tar and fish; there were bundles of rope and crab pots, things to keep a small boy amused while I sat at the door and listened to the sailor's songs. Lord Raoul eased his way toward us through the stacks of barrels that lined the wharf. He had been supervising the men-at-arms, who in tower-like structures, two wooden castles at either end of the ship, would guard our passage and keep watch for pirates lurking along the Channel coasts. He was gnawing on a scrap of bread, throwing the crumbs for the gulls. They swept downwind to snatch them from the air.
'So here you are, lady, tucked away,' he said, 'as snug as worm in sea biscuit.' Not a felicitous comparison. Nor did I like to have those seagulls swoop so close, yellow-eyed and yellow-beaked, their hoarse cries reflecting their greedy selves.
They made me shiver, but Robert, suddenly seeing them, laughed and opened wide his arms. The gesture reminded me of the way his father had ridden along the shores of the lake when he knew his strength returned, and I took that as a sign, an omen of Robert's return to health. Raoul reached down to lift the child, holding him to let him throw out the rest of the bread.
'By the Mass,' he said after a while, 'I prefer the look of these ships better than the three tubs that brought us here, more like to drown than carry us, jammed to the rails. Remember how the women screamed. . .'
He choked back that unfortunate memory. 'And remember how the mariners cursed? Women on board bring bad luck they say. Be assured. This time we've the best craft that sail this route; the king himself could not have better. The master mariner is worthy of his hire, and we've enough men to fight off all the world.'
He was still throwing the bread to the gulls and had hoisted Robert on his shoulders. With one hand, the child clutched his father's hair, as once he held onto his wolfhound, and beat on his back with the other. I smiled to see their happiness.
'King Henry sailed in April,' Raoul said; carefully he threw the bread, as carefully he threw the words, 'in a goodly company. Queen and children, prince and princess, all his court. He goes west to Chester. I should join him there.'
'Why the haste?' I asked.
He shrugged. 'Oh, Henry knows the west of England well enough, I suppose,' he said. 'In his youth, he was under his uncle's tutelage, he who was Duke of Gloucester and spent time there. I should like to think he pays a visit for old time's sake, but in case not, I should be there when he is. Chester is not the best of meeting places.'
'Meeti
ng place?'
He said, quietly, 'Henry has called his feudal army out. Not quite all, one third perhaps, and those who are not summoned must pay a tax, a scutage, so that with the revenue, he can hire more men if he must. Not a new tax, but one, having found, he will use to fill his coffers. I've no doubt.'
'Army?' I asked.
'And for ships, to equip a fleet.' He went on talking as if I had not spoken; afterwards I thought there was a sort of nervousness about him that I had never known in him before; but now I only heard the words that were to dim the brightness of the day. 'Those Celtic princes of yours,' he said, 'not satisfied with quarreling among themselves, have let their quarrels spill abroad, as if civil war within their own territories was not enough. There has long been enmity between the rulers of central and northern Wales, both sides claiming land the other holds. Now a prince of the northern line has escaped to Henry's court, moaning for help, maintaining that his brother has robbed him of his estates. You might as well ask a lion which of two fat calves he'll swallow first. Henry has promised this Prince Cadwaladr, a mouthful of a name, to support him, and so attack the northern Celts.'
'Support?' I asked, a drumming in my ears and brain, 'Attack?'
'God's bones,' he said, apprehension suddenly bursting out. He handed the child back to me, began to pace up and down, his head almost at a level where I sat on an upturned keg. His squire, who had been standing behind him, had to skip out of the way. 'God's wounds, how can Henry hope to attack the Welsh? How can he march a feudal army through such a land? The Celts live on air, can run barefoot uphill and down if they have to, have skill to vanish when you think you've trapped them, like one of their highland mists. I know; I have sought them out myself often enough. They carry what they need like porters, food, weapons, especially their long Welsh bows which can put an arrow through a coat of mail. Henry's feudal knights need open fields, space to maneuver, level ground to charge, an enemy they can see to charge against. The likes of us are easy pickings for the Welsh.'
