Shield of Three Lions

by Pamela Kaufman

  My eyes fair popped from my head above his palm, but he held me steady till I stopped struggling.

  “I’ll kill you dead before you take my title and lands,” I spat when he released me.

  His grinning teeth shone in the faint light. “In twa years I’ll begin to worry.”

  He pulled folded bedsteads from behind the drapes and rolled our mats out upon them, then climbed into his and was soon snoring. I retired behind the curtain to change my wet clerk’s robe for a dry plaid cape and shirt, then lay down, seething.

  My patience was fast running out. All right, I was in France and apparently I knew as much as anyone as to the king’s whereabouts. I needs must go on the road and find him myself. As for Enoch, let him drop into the garde-pit where he belonged.

  And when I woke, Enoch was gone.

  PANICKED, I RAN DOWN THE STAIRS TO FIND HIM. HE wasn’t in the hall, so I turned to the cellar. There I found Madame Annette creeping on spidery legs around a wine vat in her half-buried kitchen.

  “Have you seen Enoch?”

  She poured out a whine of Parisian French which was hard to follow, but I gathered that Dagobert was waiting for me in the street. As I left, she pushed two packets into my hands.

  “For Haute Tierce,” she said brusquely.

  Heart pounding painfully, I climbed the stairs and stood dazed in the bright sunlight. All I could think of was Enoch.

  “Ho, Alex, here!” Dagobert appeared from behind a cart on the road and walked up the muddy pathway. “Ah, I see that the queen has baked you a tart. May I?” He sniffed our packets of food and gave a fastidious shudder of disgust. “Merde.”

  “Have you seen my brother, Dagobert?”

  “He was eager to get to the Petit Pont to find Magister Malcolm, but said that you needed to sleep and that I was to bring you to him when you woke.”

  “Thank you,” I said shyly. Much relieved, I noticed now that the air was fresh after the rain, sweetened by honeyed flowers, the rising sun shining through new grape leaves turned the world a bright green-gold.

  “’Tis my pleasure, since I have a class in the healing arts at the same time that Magister Malcolm meets.”

  “What healing arts are you learning?” I asked politely as we strolled.

  His brown eyes shot me a suspicious look from under his plucked brows. “Are you planning on practicing physic?”

  “Not at all,” I answered, surprised at his belligerent tone.

  “Ah, then. Forgive me, but I had to ask. So many false practitioners, you know. We who are working for our ecclesiastical license cannot be too careful. Just now, we’re studying the innards of the body. Do you know, for example, how you digest your food?”

  I didn’t forsooth.

  “The stomach is normally cold, but when we eat, the liver turns on like a flame and heats the stomach from below, whereupon our food is cooked. You see? When the flame is too low, so to speak, the patient takes hot foods and herbs to ignite the liver.”

  He was so delighted by his knowledge that his pasty face flushed a lively purple, almost obliterating his many blackheads. Encouraged by his friendliness, I asked my usual question.

  “It must be wonderful to study in Paris, but my real reason for being here is to find the King of England. Do you know where he is at present?”

  Dagobert halted.

  “No, I don’t know where he is.” He began to walk again, his head drooping low.

  I followed, thwarted once more.

  “But I know someone who could tell you if anyone could,” he added. “She’s known as Fat Giselle. Have you heard of her?”

  I shook my head.

  “Ah, well, perhaps her fame hasn’t spread to England, but all the students here know her. Yes, Fat Giselle has a far reach.” He smiled suddenly, displaying an expanse of pale gum. “I’ll take you to meet her.”

  “Please don’t concern yourself. If you just tell me where she lives—”

  “No, no bother at all, and you’re very young.”

  I didn’t see what that had to do with it, but before I could ask we saw Enoch.

  “Oh, Dagobert, please do me a favor: don’t tell Enoch about Fat Giselle. I’d like to surprise him.”

  “My oath on St. Martin,” and he squeezed my hand.

  Enoch hurried toward us.

  “You two are slow as bears in January. Alex, are you feeling better? You were overweary last night.”

  He was speaking Parisian French but was the same old Enoch e’en so. Now I wished that he had disappeared. Why had I been so frightened? He fell in stride with us along the grassy ridge at the center of the lane.

  Dagobert breathed deeply. “Ah, Paris! The jewel of the universe! Except of course fair Poitiers.”

  “And Edinburgh,” Enoch agreed, “the grandest pearl e’er made.”

  “Edinburgh? Is that in England?”

  “Scotland, land of the Scots, the Picts and the Caledonians.”

  “Yes, but you are English nonetheless.”

  “Never!” Enoch shouted, turning beet-colored.

  Dagobert instantly apologized, for he meant no slight; it was simply that all students belonged to one of four nations, English, Norman, Picard or French. Personally I thought the Scots belonged with the French as the lowest of humankind but apparently every nation had its own vermin and the Scots were ours. ’Twas important to understand about nations, Dagobert continued, for the city had no power over us; we were under the king’s governance which is to say we were lawless, for both Philip and his father Louis before him were most tolerant of students. However, if we had a grievance our own nation might help us.

  “Are there no laws at all then?” Enoch asked, nonplussed.

  Dagobert nudged the Scot slyly. “Indeed there’s one, very important: make your sexual preference known at once!”

  “Preference?” Enoch was bewildered. “For one doxy?”

  “If you like doxies,” Dagobert replied. “About half the students have other tastes. ’Tis said that even the ducks are not safe in Paris.”

  Enoch stopped dead, his face blank. Then they both rent the sky with their guffaws; I laughed too, though I saw nothing funny in harming ducks.

  “However,” Dagobert gasped, “make certain that King Philip doesn’t hear of your deviations, for he permits Stewes in Paris just to be sure that no one sins. That puts him in a stew!”

  Again I laughed along with them so they shouldn’t know my ignorance. Just then we reached the noisy rue de St. Jacques and Dagobert shouted information about our fellow-students. There were about seven thousand in Paris, half of them serious, the other half roisterers; they ranged in age from twelve to eighty, in class from shepherd to count, in origin from the four corners of the world. We found ourselves almost trampled by lines of arm-linked men crying out ribald japes in Latin, laughing and tippling, openly kissing buxom wenches that I doubted were students at all.

  We all crowded onto a narrow bridge along with hawkers and talemeliers where vintners beat drums to offer free wine to eager samplers; screaming students crowded round baskets of roasted eels, pork flanks and capons; everyone ate and shouted. In the midst of this chaos, teachers stood on platforms lecturing to small groups on the street, in narrow alleyways between houses, on stairways between floors, inside rooms, everywhere.

  “Exedrae!” Dagobert yelled, pointing to the narrow alleys. “Magister Malcolm in number three after Haute Tierce!”

  And we lost sight of him.

  Holding my arm in a firm grip, Enoch got us into the relative calm of an exedra and led us to a bench by the Seine where we could watch small boys diving naked into the current to find coins. No sooner had we settled than the heavens pealed in a cacophony of bells to sink the small isle, for it seemed that all of Paris was made up of bell towers ringing the hours of prayer. We bent our heads, then raised them to silence. The bells had stopped, even the pounding on the new Cathedral of Notre Dame. Everyone was eating.

  “Well, bairn, this be
our first dinner in Paris,” Enoch said cheerily.

  We carefully removed the coarse gray linen from our packets to find a pot of pudding and a pot of stewed fruit. Eagerly I bent to my pudding, prepared to suck it direct from the pot as I, too, was hungry. Just as my lips touched the rim, a piece of pudding quivered in the center, rose in a shape like my finger and wove back and forth before my crossed eyes. It climbed from its nest and crept over my hand, leaving a wet trail.

  “Enoch,” I gulped. “Look you.”

  “Hmmm?”

  His mouth dripping yellow slime, he gazed uncomprehendingly at where I pointed, then exploded onto the ground where his own spittle came alive.

  “That cheap slut-daw!” he cried. “Givin’ us slops fram a middling! I’ll kill the hud-pykis, see yif I don’t!”

  And I began to laugh. I howled till my eyes streamed, clutched my aching ribs.

  He gagged, choked, slobbered and glared at me. “Aye, laugh and make gekkis at me. At least it’s better than a face sour as a slaeberry. I thought ye didna know how to crack smile.”

  “Certes I can laugh,” I gasped when I could. “Jump in the river, Lord Enoch, and I’ll die laughing.” And I was off again.

  At first he glowered at this new peal, then shook his head and took my shoulder gruffly. “Come, lad, no more harsh words. Ye’re my brother and ye’ve a bonny face when ye smile. Come, I’ll buy ye a pigeon pie to prove my good will.”

  I followed him back to the main street and grabbed a pie, a spitted pork, a ham turnover, a sweet pastry and canestel, taking a fast bite from each so they couldn’t be turned back.

  “Traitor!” he howled. “Whale-belly! Do ye think I’m made of silver?”

  Again I smiled, though ’twas hard with my mouth so full, and noted that Enoch ate near as much as I did, lacking only the ham turnover. Satiated at last, we walked to the third exedra which was still empty of students.

  Belching in the noonday sun, I stretched along a bench and dozed a bit as students drifted in. Most of them were clerics, although Enoch had said we were to study civil law, not canon, and most appeared older than average. Those who weren’t clerics wore a student’s uniform garb, so couldn’t be distinguished by nation.

  They stood to respectful attention when Magister Malcolm arrived. He was a wizened old man, slightly bent in the shoulder, shuffling of foot, and his hair blinded me with its whiteness. He was richly dressed, however, in a heavy scarlet cappa lined in miniver in spite of the heat, and a curious four-sided board with a gold tassel atop his thick locks. Two students helped him to his platform where he made the sign of the Cross as he reached for some parchment pages with the other hand, then muttered a fast prayer ending “Ego sum alpha et omega, Amen,” and looked up.

  His eyes met Enoch’s and suddenly his old face was radiant.

  “My Lord!” he cried in a strong youthful voice. “Lord Enoch!”

  He leaped from his platform like a roe and hurried toward us. Everyone was astounded but no one more than I. Lord Enoch? Lord Enoch? Then I felt a tree fall on my head: Enoch had managed to send Malcolm a message about Wanthwaite! What else could it be? I watched the ancient master embrace the churl, tears freely flowing, and knew he must be privy to the scheme to steal my estate.

  The two men were muttering to each other in a strange tongue when the students began to stamp impatiently and Magister Malcolm tore himself away, his hand lingering on Enoch’s hairy arm. Enoch looked different than I’d ever seen him, exalted and ecstatic as if he’d beheld a saint. Forsooth I, too, felt as if a miracle had taken place, though I wasn’t sure exactly what it was.

  Now the exedra fell quiet: Magister Malcolm began to speak, this time in the rolling thunder of an organ. In spite of myself, I was hypnotized by his words, then appalled as I began to translate.

  “Raptus mulieris ne fiat defendit tam lex humana quam divina.”

  He was lecturing on the laws concerning the rape of women: Rape of women is forbidden by human laws as well as divine. Rape? The same act as Enoch’s with Gladys but done with different intent. With the intent to kill. I forgot “Lord” Enoch and my own full gullet as I strained to understand.

  The magister quoted the authority of antiquity, “Et sic fuit antiquitus observatum, quod si quis obiaverit muliere vel alicubi invenerit, si sola vel socios habuerit …” I didn’t catch every word, but the gist was that the practice in former times was that if a man met a woman or happened upon her, whether alone or with companions (as I had been with Maisry), he must let her go in peace.

  Here a student interrupted and asked what was meant by “in peace.” Master Malcolm answered that it was a euphemism for “not raped” which would not have the same interpretation if applied to a man.

  “Si per inhonestatem tetigerit …” (If against her will he throws her to the ground … and again I heard the thud when Maisry struck the earth, heard the hauberk falling.) “Quod si impudice discooperuerit eam et se super eam posuerit, omnium possessionum suarum incurrit damnum …” (If he impudently disrobes her and puts himself upon her, he incurs the loss of all his possessions …) “Quod si concubuerit cum ea, de vita et membris suis incurrit damnum …” (If he … with her, he incurs the loss of his life and members, and I supposed that word concubuerit must mean to let his incubus-organ bite her.) Aye, ’twas a good law of the ancients, I thought grimly, provided the lady lived to make her claims. A wave of despondency made me sink to a ledge so that I could no longer see the master, though I continued to listen.

  The magister went from Roman law to that of the Franks who punished the offenders animals by cutting the scrotum and tail of the horse close to the buttocks, a most unjust and cruel act as a horse has never been known to rape. Dogs were treated in like manner and even a hawk was relieved of its beak, its claws and its tail which left it little reason to live at all. The second step of the punishment was that the rapist’s lands and title were awarded to the woman, even if she were a whore, for if she’d cried out at the rape she was not a whore at the moment of attack. This was a point hotly argued by several students who could see women of ill-repute gaining great fortunes by invoking such a law. Magister Malcolm answered with a long involved story about a jongleurs wife and how this jongleur had died while entertaining a count, and then the count had raped the wife. I didn’t know the meaning of “whore” and couldn’t follow the tale for my mind was gripped again by the terrible events at Wanthwaite … my own mother.

  I glanced around the exedra as Magister Malcolm paused for questions: all the students were men except for me, and most were clerics. What did they make of these awesome statements? Were they as impressed as I was? Enoch and Gladys Stump—aye, there was a difference, for certes the dame had wanted the Scot to do what he did.

  Then the master began speaking again of the rape of virgins. Maisry. I closed my eyes; his Latin rumbling brought back the buttermilk sky the caw of crows and a drum beating. Et est raptus virginum quoddam crimen quod femina imponit alicui, de quo se dicit esse violenter oppressam contra pacem domini regis, quod quidem contra pacem domini regis … ut sit membrum pro membro, quia virgo cum corrumpitur membrum amittit. By which I learned that the rape of a virgin is a particularly heinous crime for the rapist destroys her member, and therefore must lose his own.

  I continued to follow, for it seemed that if my friend had lived she would have had recourse with the law. And I would have helped her. The dry lecture in law translated itself in my head as a joyous act of vengeance. I heard the words at the same time that I relived that awful day, only now I supplied a different ending. So much we might have done, if Maisry had lived. I was in such a trance that I hardly noted when the lecture was over.

  Finally everyone was gone except for Magister Malcolm, Enoch and me. “This be my new brother, sir.”

  Seen close, Magister Malcolm’s oak-leaf eyes were so keen that I felt he must be a sorcerer. He took a long time to study me as if searching my heart, then touched my cheek gently.

  “He
’s all right, Enoch, all right. You’re just sad, aren’t you, lad? Ask Jesus to help; confess your despair and He’ll ease your burden, for you know that your mother and father are in their heavenly home.”

  “Yes, sir, I know.” In Purgatory, that is, until I could regain Wanthwaite. I glanced at Enoch. Had he revealed everything about my life?

  “And they’re happier there than they ever were on earth. You cannot imagine, Alex, the joy of the afterlife.”

  Soothly I couldn’t, though I tried. Perhaps ’twas because my thoughts had been taking such a different direction since his lecture.

  “And now you have a brother, a whole new clan who loves you.”

  “Aye,” I said, unimpressed.

  “Enoch tells me that you would like to accompany him to my lectures on the law. I’m afraid they’ll be beyond you, but you’re welcome to listen.”

  “I understood today’s.”

  “Ah, on rape, hardly a fitting subject for an innocent child, but I’ll do better from now on.” He smiled so sweetly that I could have worshiped him on the spot if I hadn’t known how he was abetting Enoch.

  Enoch now spoke again in pure Scottish, what I think is called Gaelic, and Malcolm’s eyes grew even softer.

  “Poor bairn. Try not to dwell on such evil; put hatred and revenge out of your heart for it can only corrupt you. Already you see His goodness at work, for didn’t He send you Enoch?”

  “Yes, sir, I know, sir. Thank you.” My eyes slid to Lord Enoch and my heart was instantly corrupted with all the hate and vengeance I could muster. Learn the law and retrieve Wanthwaite, would he? I’d see him in Hell first.

  “Why did Magister Malcolm call you Lord Enoch?” I asked the churl as we walked home.

  “Likely because that’s my name.”

  “You’re not a lord!” I cried. “I’m the baron! And therefore lord.”

  “I be the Lord of Dingle-Boggs,” he said smugly.

  I stopped where I stood. “You lie, and you know it. There’s no such place as Dingle-Boggs.”