Almost Innocent

by Jane Feather

  They had not believed he could live, but he had clung to life with an astonishing tenacity, barely conscious most of the time, yet submitting with the trust of an infant to the nursing, the feeding, and the cleansing, and with the stoical courage of a man of war to the agonies of his broken body.

  It was growing dark, and soon the bell for vespers would summon the abbey’s inhabitants, monks, pilgrims, and chance travelers alike, to the chapel. The evening chill would not benefit a man newly arisen from his sickbed. Brother Armand called to the man in the garden.

  Edmund de Bresse looked up at the shout and waved a hand in acknowledgment. He was reluctant to go inside, however, relishing the physical labor, for all that hoeing between rows of cabbages was neither dignified nor particularly strenuous labor. But his body, so long deprived of movement and exertion, seemed to stretch with pleasure, to come alive again, bringing him awareness of his whole body, of muscle and sinew and the blood flowing strong in his veins. For one who had almost crossed the frontier into death, who had hovered for many weeks in the gray, twilight land of near death, this recognition of his body, even in its complaints and the stiffness of disuse, brought the sweetest joy.

  He had little memory of the attack, remembered vaguely the agonized crawl through the undergrowth when his assailants had left him for dead. He had wanted to lie still and die; death had beckoned most strongly, offering surcease from his pain, but some stubborn will to live had driven him to crawl on his hands and knees away from the blood-drenched ground on which he lay. He remembered the clearing, the pile of faggots beside the tumbledown hut, the strange fog through which he saw the bearded face peering down at him. And then he remembered nothing else; only pain was coherent and then the terror that he would live but would not be whole.

  He had not known why the fear should be so all-pervasive, so consuming of his conscious moments, until the time when he opened his eyes and the fog was not there. The pain was still present, but it was no longer everything, it was an addition to himself, not intrinsic to himself. His first thought was of his wife, a wife who could not have a husband who was not whole. He had flexed fingers and toes, run his hands over his shape beneath the blankets, and had sought confirmation from the calm-eyed monk watching at his bedside.

  He had spent many days drifting in healing lethargy, thinking of Magdalen, seeing those clear gray eyes, the rich mass of hair, her mouth so redolent with promise. He had been content to lie in the infirmary, thinking of her when he was not asleep, and dreaming of her when he was not awake. But in truth the two states had been very similar, as much as anything because of the potent draughts fed him by Brother Armand, draughts that kept him still as his body knitted. And then, as his strength returned and the strength of the potions was diminished consonantly, had come the knowledge that the world to which he belonged was continuing without him and he must do something about reentering it. And with that knowledge had come the anxiety that now tormented him. If he was believed dead, what had become of Magdalen? Had Lancaster given her to some other knight in the interests of power or alliance, while he had been lying here dreamily recuperating?

  The Father Abbot had been sympathetic but insistent that the patient was in no fit state to leave the care of Brother Armand. One of the monks would be leaving in three days’ time on a journey to their sister abbey at Swindon. He would make a detour to Westminster on the way back and carry a message to the duke.

  Edmund glanced up into the darkening sky where rooks cawed, circling the bare winter treetops, the flock gathering for the night. Brother Felix had been gone three weeks. If he did not return by tomorrow, Edmund would leave here anyway. He was strong enough now to accomplish what could not be more than two days’ walk to Westminster at the easy pace necessitated by a man not yet robust. The abbey was isolated, tucked away from the well-traveled roads, its brotherhood given to prayer and meditation and the pursuit of learning rather than involvement in the temporal world. They received hospitably enough those guests and pilgrims willing to penetrate the forest this far in search of a night’s lodging, but their work was more in the scholarly realms of books and texts, in the meticulous, exquisite illustration of those books and texts than in feeding and correcting the souls of ordinary folk. Edmund’s urgency had failed to impress them. It belonged too much to the world of men. But it was time now for him to take his own life in his own hands again.

  The bell for vespers sounded from the chapel, and reluctantly he left his cabbage patch, returning the hoe to the little shed and making his way to the chapel, feeling the good earth beneath his fingernails, the roughness of his wool habit against his skin, the plain, elemental sense of being alive. And he went to give thanks for the gift of life.

  Brother Felix hurried into the chapel just as the last peal of the bell died. Edmund, taking his place in the pew reserved for the lay brothers of the abbey, saw him, and his heart jumped joyfully. He found it hard to concentrate on the office, but it was one he had heard from earliest childhood, and concentration was not necessary for its correct performance. As he left the chapel, Father Abbot beckoned to him.

  “Brother Felix has returned, my son. He brings you a letter from the Duke of Lancaster.” The abbot smiled at the young man’s eagerness as he turned to the messenger. They had all heard the ravings of the patient during the dark days of his delirium, and they all knew of one Magdalen who occupied the nooks and crannies of the fevered brain, and they now knew that he had raved of his wife, his pregnant wife, whom he seemed to love with a very great love. There were those in the abbey who felt such a great love would be better directed heavenward, but the abbot had come late to monastic life and knew the joys and perils of the flesh. He smiled upon the young man’s love.

  Edmund took the rolled parchment, heavily embossed with the Lancastrian seal. His fingers trembled slightly as he broke the seal and unrolled the sheet. Lancaster’s message was concise. He expressed satisfaction that his son-in-law still lived and commanded his presence at the Savoy as soon as he was fit to travel. His lady had journeyed into Picardy soon after her husband’s disappearance, to make good the de Bresse and Lancastrian claims to her husband’s fief in his absence, and it would be well for her husband to join her with all speed to lay to rest troublesome rumors of his death. The message ended simply enough, recommending the recipient to God’s continued grace.

  “The news pleases you, my son?” The abbot had been watching Edmund’s face.

  “Yes, indeed, Father Abbot.” Edmund re-rolled the parchment. “But I must leave here and journey to Westminster without delay. The duke commands my presence.”

  “Then you must negotiate your release with Brother Armand,” the abbot said with a laugh. “He will not want his good work undermined by your overtaxing your strength. I ask that you heed his wishes.”

  “I would not be so wanting in gratitude, Father, to do otherwise,” Edmund said, gracefully but with perfect truth. “But I believe myself strong enough to essay the journey.”

  “Let us go in to supper, and you may talk with our apothecary later.” The abbot walked toward the refectory, Edmund in a fever of impatience at his side. But he controlled his impatience and performed the serving tasks that came to his hand as a lay brother before taking his place at the long table. He had asked permission to serve the abbey and its brothers during his convalescence, giving thanks with the most humble of tasks for their care and God’s mercy. In the service he had discovered a peace and contentment unknown to the knight working at war, but he was now ready to take up sword and spurs again, to pursue glory and honor in the name of England and St. George, and to pursue his wife in the name of love and lust.

  The next morning, clad still in the robe of the lay brother, a monk’s sandals on his feet, a simple cloak his only protection against the February cold, a heavy staff his only defense, Edmund set out to walk to Westminster. His way lay through the woods, but they presented no danger to a traveler dressed as he was, and if he felt the eyes of the wood’
s outlawed inhabitants upon him, from undergrowth and treetop, there was no threat in the surveillance.

  He arrived at the Savoy when the household was at supper and was received by the duke’s chamberlain with flattering attention and the information that his grace would receive him as soon he had refreshed himself. He would find his apartments undisturbed, and his squire and pages would be summoned from supper in the great hall to attend him. Edmund was unaware that these arrangements had been designed to preserve for public consumption the duke’s tale that the Sieur de Bresse was taking an extended absence from court, but he was too weary to question such comforting details. A barber was summoned to close-crop his black hair and trim the beard, grown during his illness and to which he found himself now so accustomed he could not imagine being without it. He dressed in tunic and hose beneath a burgundy velvet surcote, a silver belt girding his loins, his two-pronged dagger sheathed at his hip, and he felt the wonderful resurgence of his old self as energy flooded back to muscle and limb.

  In the inner chamber behind the presence chamber, John of Gaunt received a man, thinner and paler than the eager, intense young knight of the lists at Westminster on that hot August afternoon. There was a look in his eyes that Lancaster recognized. It was the look men wore after deep suffering, a look that banished a man’s youth once and for all.

  Edmund knelt to make submission to his overlord and father-in-law, aware of a tension in the duke, an assessing watchfulness as he sat in his great carved chair beside the table, playing with the massive ruby on his middle finger.

  “Tell me what you can remember of your assailants,” Lancaster said without preamble, indicating that Edmund should rise. He gestured to a page to pour wine and then dismissed him.

  Edmund told the tale as best he could, wondering why his father-in-law should be interested in details of an outlaw attack. They were common enough occurrences. The duke’s vivid blue gaze never left his face and he stroked his little forked beard, making no attempt to interrupt. When Edmund had concluded with his description of the monks’ care and skill at the Abbey of St. Jude, his listener said nothing immediately. It was hot in the womblike room, and Edmund felt suddenly dizzy, aware that he had eaten little after his exhausting walk and that the wine was making him light-headed.

  “Sit down, man!” the duke exclaimed as Edmund swayed and grabbed the edge of the carved oak table. “God’s nails, you’re but barely recovered.”

  Edmund dropped abruptly into an armless chair, too faint and sick for a minute to protest sitting in the duke’s presence. Lancaster himself refilled the jeweled goblets and pushed one across to Edmund. “Drink, your blood’s thin.” He waited until Edmund had obeyed and some color had returned to his gaunt cheeks. Then he said, “It’s time you understood the danger in which you and my daughter stand. Lord de Gervais and I thought to circumvent it without involving either of you, but it seems it cannot be done.”

  Edmund listened as John of Gaunt told him of the de Beauregards’ mission as agents of the French king, of their intention to wrest the de Bresse fiefdom from the influence of the English and return it to France. Not a word was said of a foiled and bloody assassination attempt in the fortress of Carcassonne, or of the circumstances of the birth of the girlchild on whose life depended the de Bresse fealty to the English king. He was told only of a family, fiercely loyal to France, enraged that one of their own, Magdalen of Lancaster, should be used against France, and of their determination that Lancaster’s plans should come to ruin by whatever means, foul rather than fair, came to hand.

  “So you must be on your guard,” Lancaster concluded, rising from his chair. “When you journey into France, you must take with you a force sufficient for protection against attack, covert or open. Lord de Gervais is with Magdalen at the moment, holding your fiefdom for you. When you reach there, he will be free to return to my side.” The duke pulled at his beard again. “I have need of him and of his counsel. The peasants grow unruly, and the damned Lollards seize any opportunity for fomenting unrest. It comes to something when the king and his ministers sit uneasy at government because of the whines of villeins.”

  “I will gather together a force without delay, my lord duke.” Edmund had risen with his overlord, but his legs still trembled, and there was a mist before his eyes. “I will summon all who owe me allegiance.”

  “Requisition in my name what vessels you need,” Lancaster directed, with princely carelessness dismissing in advance the prior claims of merchant-owners. “I will expect you to leave within three weeks.”

  But Edmund woke in the morning with a return of the fever that had ravaged him in the early days of his recovery. For a month he lay upon his sickbed, and when he was sufficiently recovered, he faced the frustration of a series of spring gales and high tides that kept all ships in harbor. It was the end of April before he had gathered his force and they were ready and able to take ship for France.

  Magdalen was standing half dressed in her chamber on a warm April morning, absently stroking the hard mound of her belly, reflecting that the child within had been less active than usual for the last day or so, when water gushed from her body in a startling torrent.

  She stared in disbelief at the puddle at her feet, then her voice lifted in alarm. “Erin! Erin!”

  “What is it, my lady?” The woman came in from the privy chamber, where she had been sorting through piles of linen newly returned from the laundress.

  “Look!” Magdalen pointed to the floor, her face ashen. “It is coming from me.”

  “Nothing to alarm you, lady,” Erin said, customarily placid. “The child is coming.”

  “But it is too early. And why is there all this water?”

  “An eight-month babe,” Erin said. “They survive as well as most. Are there pains yet?”

  Magdalen shook her head, still bemused, but reassured by Erin’s calm manner. “Just the water.”

  “That has to happen sooner or later,” Erin told her, “or the babe cannot be born.”

  “Why not?”

  Erin shrugged. She had no idea why these things happened, only that they did. She had assisted at enough births to know what needed to be done if matters proceeded ordinarily, and there were other women in the castle who were more experienced.

  “I’ll send for the midwife, my lady,” she said. “You had better lie down, and I’ll bring towels to make you more comfortable.”

  Gingerly, Magdalen lay down on the bed, submitting to Erin’s attentions because she had no choice but to trust those who knew what was happening to her better than she did. She knew little beyond the absolute basics of the process of birth, having been brought up by the spinster Lady Elinor, whose own knowledge had been scantily theoretical, and there had been no other woman to enlighten the girl.

  It occurred to her now that she should have asked more questions of Erin and Margery, who did know about these things, instead of drifting merrily oblivious in her love-lost world for the last eight months.

  “Tell me what happens,” she demanded, sitting up against the pillows, since lying down seemed unnecessary.

  Erin scratched her nose. “Well, there’ll be some pain, my lady, and then the child comes.”

  “Much pain?”

  Erin didn’t want to frighten the girl, but neither could she see much virtue in lying to her. “Some women have more than others,” she said.

  “Much?” Magdalen insisted.

  “I believe so, my lady.”

  “I wish my lord were here,” Magdalen said.

  “Birthing’s women’s work, lady.” Erin went to the door. “I’ll fetch the midwife now.”

  The door closed behind her, and Magdalen sat gazing at a dancing sunbeam on the quilt. She touched her belly again, wondering what was happening inside her. Maybe birthing was women’s work, but she would be comforted at the thought of Guy’s presence in the castle. But he was gone with his knights to attend a tournament at Compiegne, under the auspices of the Duke of Burgundy. Ordinari
ly, she would have accompanied him for the three days of feasting and revelry, but her condition had prevented it. It had not occurred to either of them that she was close enough to her time to make his own absence unwise.

  The midwife came in with both Erin and Margery. She was an old woman with gnarled hands and graying hair beneath a grimy coif. Her voice had a curious high-pitched whine, and Magdalen took an instant dislike to her.

  “I would have Erin and Margery attend me,” she said, drawing back from the woman. “I have no need of your care, beldame.”

  “No need for fear, lady,” the woman whined, drawing back the coverlet. “I’ve seen many a child into this world … and out of it. And mothers, too,” she added, prodding Magdalen’s belly before proceeding with a more elaborate examination.

  Magdalen lay rigid beneath the probing, rigid with distaste and fear, convinced that no good would come to her from this woman. The first pain came so suddenly, was so sharp, that she cried out with a species of indignant surprise.

  “Start wailing now, my lady, and there’s no knowing what you’ll be doing later,” the beldame declared, laying a hand on the tight abdomen.

  Magdalen pushed the hand away with all her force. “I will not have this woman in here,” she stated. “Get you gone, beldame!”

  Erin and Margery, alarmed at this vehemence, encouraged the muttering crone to leave the chamber. “She knows much, my lady,” Margery said, coming back to the bed.

  “She has the evil eye,” Magdalen said. “She will have my child born squinting or crooked of limb. I will not have her near.”

  The two women shrugged. Women in labor were known for their strange fancies. Soon enough, the Lady Magdalen would be too absorbed in her own struggle to heed who attended her.