Sworn Sword

by James Aitcheson

  ‘Thu bist nithing,’ she screamed, over what sounded like protests from Ælfwold. ‘Thu and thin hlaford!’

  Nithing. That word, at least, was familiar. Had not the priest himself used it of us not so long ago?

  ‘What is she saying now?’ I asked Eudo.

  He shook his head as he drew away from the door. On the other side I began to hear footsteps. ‘Quickly,’ he hissed. ‘Let’s go.’

  I turned and made for the stairs, but in doing so forgot about the table behind me. I crashed into it, and it shuddered loudly against the floorboards. I stumbled forward, cursing my stupidity. Before I could recover, the door flew open.

  Ælfwold stood there. ‘Tancred,’ he said. ‘Eudo.’ He looked confused for a moment, before his face turned to anger. ‘I told you to stay behind.’

  I was paying him little heed, however, for behind him was standing the oath-breaker’s wife herself: a woman somewhere in her middle years, although she was not unattractive for that. Slight of build, her complexion was milky-pale, her neck long and graceful as a swan’s. It was not hard to understand what one even such as Harold Godwineson might have seen in her. But her eyes were brimming with tears, her cheeks wet and glistening in the candlelight, and despite myself I felt a sudden stab of sympathy for her. What had the priest said that had driven her to such sadness?

  Then I saw that she clutched to her breast a sheet of parchment that curled at the edges, as if holding on to the memory of the scroll it had once been. The same parchment that I had found and read in the priest’s room last night; it had to be. Was that what had distressed her?

  ‘Why are you here?’ Ælfwold demanded. ‘Were you listening?’

  I hesitated, trying to think of some reason I could give, but nothing came to mind. The silence grew, and I felt I had to say something, anything at all just to break it, when anxious shouts rose from the floor below. I looked down the stairs and met the aged eyes of the nun Burginda. She was pointing up at us, and beside her stood Cynehild, the abbess, her gaze fixed unflinchingly upon us.

  ‘You,’ she called up to us. She raised the skirts of her habit and climbed the steps, the hem just trailing upon the stone. Burginda followed close behind her. ‘You’re not allowed in here. These chambers are for the sisters of the convent alone.’

  ‘My lady—’ I began to protest, though in truth I could think of nothing to say. For I could hardly tell her why we were really here, and what good would it do in any case?

  She reached the top and glanced about the room. ‘Ælfwold,’ she said, in French still, no doubt so that we too could be party to what she had to say. ‘You know that men aren’t allowed in the nuns’ dormitory.’

  ‘I told them not to come with me,’ he said angrily, and he glared at me. ‘I don’t know what they are doing here.’

  A number of other nuns were beginning to gather at the bottom of the stairs, and I spotted amongst them the two sisters we had passed beneath the cloister.

  ‘I don’t just mean them,’ the abbess said, almost spitting the words. ‘You cannot be here either. This is not a place for any man, even a priest.’

  She walked past me and Eudo towards Eadgyth, whose face was streaming with tears, then looked back to us, placing an arm around the lady’s shoulders.

  ‘You dare to upset the nuns under my care,’ she said, her voice rising. She was speaking to all of us now; her eyes, glinting as if aflame, settled first on the chaplain, then on Eudo, and finally on myself. ‘You dare to come here and disturb the order of this house.’

  ‘Min hlæfdige—’ Ælfwold began, more gently, almost beseeching, I thought.

  The abbess was not to be placated. ‘There will be order in this house,’ she said, raising her voice over the chaplain’s, silencing him. ‘As long as you are here, you will respect that order.’

  I bowed my head. None spoke: not myself, nor Eudo or the chaplain, nor the nuns gathered outside the dormitory below.

  ‘Now,’ the abbess said. ‘Return to the guest house while I decide what is to be done, and consider yourselves fortunate that I’m not expelling you from here forthwith.’

  The priest bowed deeply to Eadgyth. Her face reddened, and I thought she might be about to cry once more, but she did not. Instead she clutched at the parchment, crumpling it in her hand, and threw it at the priest, her gaze defiant.

  ‘Go,’ the abbess said.

  The day was not warm but suddenly it felt stifling in that chamber.

  ‘My apologies, my lady,’ I said to the abbess as I left. But I did not dare meet those fiery eyes again, nor witness the wrath of God contained therein.

  Twenty-eight

  THROUGHOUT THE REST of that day the priest said nothing to us. Towards evening one of the nuns arrived with news that the abbess wished to speak to him, and he went to her hall to meet with her. I wondered what they were discussing, for he was gone some time, and it was dark when at last he returned.

  While he was gone I spoke with Malet’s men, to see what else they knew, which turned out to be very little. As I had thought, this wasn’t the first time that Malet had sent them here, nor was the name of Eadgyth unknown to them. On the other hand, it seemed that they hadn’t known until now who she was – that this was the same Eadgyth who had been wife to the usurper – and so that at least had been a surprise to them. But still I did not trust them completely; the thought that they had been hiding things from us all this time made me more than a little uneasy.

  All six of us were gathered at the long table when the priest came back in, bringing the cold air with him. It played at the hearth-fire and rustled the rushes that lay upon the floor.

  ‘We’re to leave tomorrow morning,’ he announced, and made for the stairs.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ I asked. It seemed as though we had hardly arrived, though I supposed that, now we had done what we had come for, there was no reason for us to stay.

  He paused for a moment, regarding me with tired eyes. ‘Our business here is done,’ he said. ‘We leave for Lundene at first light, at the request of Abbess Cynehild. She has given us her grace and allowed us to stay this night, but no longer. Make sure that you are ready to leave on the stroke of prime.’

  He carried on up the stairs; I watched him go. The abbess had decided, then, that we should leave after all. It didn’t surprise me, for we had broken the rules of the convent, and though I was not proud of that, at the same time neither did I feel particularly ashamed. We had done only what we had to, though I was still unsure what we’d learnt. Nothing of what Eudo and I had heard seemed to have been of much consequence. Except, that was, for Eadgyth’s mention of her husband, Harold. And what was it that she and the priest had been arguing about?

  The rest of us retired not much after that. For a while I lay upon my bed, listening to the calls of the owls in the orchard. There had to be some way of finding out, though I could not see it. After I had seen how distressed Eadgyth had become earlier, I could hardly go back, for she would only raise the alarm. And I couldn’t bring myself to force information from a nun.

  Eventually I must have slept, for the next I was aware the moon was shining in through the shutters, throwing faint light across the wall. I blinked, trying to work out what had woken me. I lay still, taking shallow breaths.

  Footsteps, light and quick. They came from below: from the hall. Briefly I wondered if it could be Ælfwold, or one of the other knights, but I had grown used to the sounds of their movements by then, and I didn’t think it was any of them.

  I sat up, suddenly alert. I was still dressed; I had learnt last night how cold it could become in this house, especially with a draught blowing in. The wind was less blustery tonight, but even so, it was not warm beneath the blankets. I shook them off and rose, lifting my knife-sheath from the floor and buckling it to my belt. Then, barefoot, I ventured out on to the landing, towards the stairs.

  The hearth-fire had long since burnt out, but whoever it was must have had a lantern with them, for a soft glow li
t up the stairs and the hall below. But who would be about at this hour, and in this house? I placed my hand upon the hilt of my knife, and then, moving slowly so as not to make a sound, started down the stairs.

  The lantern-light flickered and I heard a crash of metal, as loud, I thought, as the bells in the church. A muttered curse followed – a woman’s voice. I edged further down the stairs, keeping as much as I could to the shadows, crouching low.

  A figure dressed in brown cloak and habit knelt beside the hearth, hastily collecting the cooking pots she had knocked over, replacing them where they had stood. The copper gleamed in the light of the lantern, which rested on the table beside a vellum scroll. Another one, I thought.

  She was turned towards the hearth, away from me, and so I could not see what she looked like. Even when she stood up and turned, still her face lay in shadow. She made for the door, pausing only to retrieve her lantern. The scroll she left on the table as the room fell into darkness.

  I heard feet upon the landing and turned to see a shadow standing at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Tancred,’ it said, and I recognised the voice as belonging to Wace. I motioned for him to be quiet and he followed me as I went down into the hall, moving as quickly as I could, though it was dark and the steps were not even.

  ‘What was that noise?’ Wace asked, more softly this time. ‘What are you doing down here?’

  I glanced back up past him towards the landing. If any of the others had been woken by the noise, they had no sooner fallen asleep again. But I heard no further signs of movement.

  ‘There was someone here just a moment ago,’ I murmured. ‘One of the nuns, I think.’

  The table was in front of me, the scroll upon it. I picked it up. It was smaller than the one Ælfwold had carried, and sealed with a blob of dark-coloured wax, into which I could feel imprinted some sort of symbol, though it was too dark to make it out.

  ‘She left this here,’ I said. Yet another letter. But why come in the middle of the night to leave it here, rather than give it to us during the day? I tucked it into my belt and went to the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To follow her,’ I said, and hurried outside.

  A cloud had passed in front of the moon and the convent buildings lay in shadow. There was no sign of her. I shivered as cold gripped my bare feet; the grass was white with hoarfrost. Over my shirt I had only my tunic.

  ‘She’s gone, whoever she was,’ Wace said, with a yawn. ‘And it’s too cold to be standing here.’

  He went back inside, leaving me there. And then, amidst the trees in the orchard, I spotted the soft glow that could only come from a lantern and, holding it, a dark figure making for the cloister. If she reached it then she could easily lose me. There were too many buildings, too many doorways that one could slip into, and I didn’t know my way around.

  I ran after her, my feet pounding the hard earth. She was nearly at the other side of the orchard when she must have heard me, as she gave a glance over her shoulder, lifted her skirts and began running too. Stones, sharp and hard, dug into my soles, but I didn’t care, for I was catching her, when she turned beneath the arch between the church and the chapter house. The arch that led into the cloister. She disappeared from sight and I willed myself faster, arriving just in time to see her duck into the church to my right, at the same time as on the other side of the courtyard another nun came into sight, swinging a lantern of her own. The circatrix, I realised, on her nightly rounds.

  I shrank back behind a pillar, watching her even as I kept glancing at the church door. The stone was cold upon my fingers. I was breathing hard, the air from my lips turning to mist, and I tried to still it so as not to be seen.

  The circatrix stopped by one of the doors on the southern range, sliding a large key from a ring at her belt into the lock. She gave the door a shove; it opened with a great creaking of hinges and she entered.

  Without a moment’s hesitation I made for the church entrance. The door was already slightly open – not by much, though if the circatrix had noticed it, she would have known that something was wrong. I went in, taking care to close it again.

  Inside, the church lay in almost complete darkness. Only the moon gave any light, its milky gleam coming in shafts through the great glass windows that I had seen when we arrived, lending everything a grey, ghostly appearance. Columns rose up in two rows from the nave, decorated with plant-like designs in many shades, though it was too dim to see what they were. Nor did I have time to admire them: I didn’t know how long it would be before the circatrix’s rounds brought her here.

  All was quiet, and I wondered if perhaps there was another way out of the church that I had not seen from the outside. I stepped forward across the stone floor, towards the centre of the nave, and looked around for any sign of the nun. Beyond the choir benches lay the chancel with its high altar, draped with white cloth trimmed with gold, upon which rested a gospel book. To either side were side altars, smaller and less grand in their decoration, but probably no less effective as hiding-places.

  I tried the high altar first of all, approaching slowly, listening out for the slightest sound of movement that might give her away. But I could hear nothing, and when I reached it and searched behind it, there was no one there. I crouched down, lifting the cloth to reveal the cavity where relics were often kept, but it was barely large enough for a child to squeeze into, let alone a woman.

  I heard footsteps behind me and turned as a shadow darted out from behind one of the columns in the nave, running towards the door. She had a start on me but I was faster, and before she had even reached the handle I had caught her, placing my hand on her outstretched arm and spinning her about to face me. She gave a stifled cry and tried to shake me off, but I held firm.

  It took me a moment to recognise her, but then she looked up at me and I saw her face: her skin pale in the moonlight; the wrinkles about her eyes; the weary expression she wore, as if she had seen everything there was to see in the world, and wished only to be free of all its burdens.

  Eadgyth.

  She tried to tug her arm away, and I realised I still had hold of her wrist. I let it go. ‘The circatrix is close by,’ she said in strongly accented French. ‘If I were to call out now, she would hear me, and you would face the abbess’s wrath.’

  If it was meant as a threat, then it was a poor attempt. ‘And you would have to explain why you’re not in your chambers,’ I replied. ‘What were you doing in the guest house?’

  She looked back at me, lips pursed, unspeaking. I pulled the scroll that she had left out from my belt, brandishing it in front of me. ‘What is this?’ I asked her.

  She eyed it carefully. ‘It is meant for your lord.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Do you expect me to tell you?’

  I ran my fingers towards the seal. ‘I could read it for myself, and then I would know.’

  She looked at me doubtfully, probably wondering if I were bluffing, since what reason would I, a knight, have for knowing my letters?

  ‘I cannot stop you,’ she said eventually. ‘All I can do is give it to you in good faith, and hope that you will do the right thing.’

  I placed the scroll back in the loop of my belt; I would return to it later. ‘You were speaking with Ælfwold earlier,’ I said. ‘What were you saying?’

  ‘I was telling him how worthless your lord is,’ she said. ‘How he is too free in making promises that he does not intend to keep.’

  ‘Promises?’ I asked. ‘What promises has he made?’

  She did not seem to hear me. ‘It is amusing, I suppose, that it should be so, given that your people accused Harold of the same failing.’

  Of course: several years ago, Harold had sworn an oath to be Duke Guillaume’s man, to support his claim to the kingship. An oath made upon holy relics, which he had later broken when he had assumed the crown for himself. As a result he was now dead, killed on the field at Hæstinges.

&
nbsp; ‘Your husband was a perjurer and a usurper,’ I told her.

  ‘He was a good man,’ she said, and I saw tears forming in the corner of her eyes. ‘He was kind and honest and truthful in all matters, and above all else loyal to his friends. Your lord used to be one of them, at least until his betrayal.’

  ‘Malet betrayed him?’ I asked. ‘How?’

  ‘First by joining your duke’s invasion,’ she said, almost spitting the words. ‘And even now, after Harold’s death, he continues to betray his memory. He and Ælfwold both.’

  ‘Ælfwold? What do you mean?’

  But again she appeared not to be listening. ‘He is no better,’ she said, shaking her head as anger entered her voice. ‘But he is nothing but his lord’s man; he merely does what he is told. He cares not for what is right. I trusted Guillaume, and this is how he repays me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, a little too harshly maybe, but I was tiring of the way she seemed to be speaking only in riddles. Clearly she thought that because I was one of Malet’s men I knew more than I did. Although, I realised, as long as she thought that, I held the advantage.

  ‘It has been more than two years since Harold died,’ she said. ‘Two years since I stood on that field after the battle and saw him lying there. Does he think that I do not grieve, that I do not deserve to be told?’

  ‘Told what?’ I asked her, but she had already turned away, her sobs echoing off the walls and the vaults of the church. A glimmer of orange light shone in through the windows. The circatrix, I thought, and froze, thinking that the door was about to open and she would come in. But she did not, and after a moment the light moved on. Even if she was not on her way straight to the church, she must be nearby.

  I cursed under my breath. If we were caught together, the consequences would be severe, but particularly for Eadgyth. I recalled the beatings I had taken; I didn’t know whether such punishments were prescribed here at Wiltune. More probably being caught with a man who was not of the church would mean her expulsion from the convent. I didn’t wish that upon her, even if she were the usurper’s widow. For, despite her riches and her private chambers, it was plain to me that she was a broken woman. This nun’s life of humility and servitude was all she had. What else was there for her in this world?