Longsword

by Veronica Heley

  The Clerk of the Lists came bustling up. “What’s this about staging the tourney under cover? A preposterous idea, if I may say so. …”

  Gervase gave him a cold look. “It is true that we could not hold a mock battle inside, but the individual encounters with lance and sword, and perhaps also the entertainment provided by and for the peasants, could easily. …”

  “Without the mock battle, you have nothing,” argued the Clerk.

  “Peace!” said Crispin. His eyes were deep-set today, and a muscle twitched at the side of his mouth. His scar had darkened, till it seemed almost black. “Let us hear Master William out. If I had not been so hasty yesterday … come inside out of the rain, Master William! I don’t want you falling sick again.”

  They went round the corner into a secluded courtyard, formed in an angle of the curtain wall of the castle, and clustered with ramshackle sheds, broken farm wagons, and the like. The litter of the castle had drifted here over many years, yet behind it, now that they looked closely, they could see the shape of an immense and very ancient, half-timbered barn.

  They stepped into the gloom of the barn. It had no windows, and the only light came in through two great doorways, whose wooden leaves lay in shattered pieces at an angle against the walls inside.

  “The light … impossible. …” said the Clerk, yet his nose twitched, and he began to pace out distances.

  The barn was partially filled with sacks of grain, and although a stack of discarded barrels and farm implements impeded their view, nothing could disguise the fact that the building was nobly proportioned and in a reasonable state of repair. The roof was tiled, sloping to within some fifteen feet of the ground on either side, but rising in the centre to double that height. Along the whole length of the side opposite the doors, a platform had been raised to facilitate the storage of grain.

  “Our stands are ready-made for us, you see,” said Gervase, gesturing to the platform. “If we put up handrails, and drape them suitably … staircases at either end. We have been making stairs for the stands outside, and they can easily be adapted for this place instead. The common folk can come and go beneath the platform, once we have fenced them off from the body of the barn. There are two doors already made for entrances and exits of opposing knights, and there is no reason why we should not cut more – we can effect a barrier down the centre of the barn, with the poles we had intended to use outside.”

  “The light!” bawled the Clerk of the Lists, from the far end. “How could we possibly light the place?”

  “Our smiths must work overnight to produce some large iron rings, on which we can spike candles. We will suspend the rings from the roof at intervals. The lack of light is. I agree, the greatest problem we face.”

  “No mock battle?” said Crispin, frowning and pulling at the ring on his finger.

  “It requires an area of ground greater than we can provide. Yet we can still have the procession, here in the barn. The knights can still pick their sides and challenge an opponent. Or we could go back to the Round Table method, and match a challenger against all comers to fight not only with lance but also with swords, the knight who acquits himself best to receive the crown of honour.”

  “Single combat only? Yes, I like the idea. …” Crispin put his arm round Gervase’s shoulder. “Master William, I do not know what we should do without you! I shall certainly recommend that you be the next Steward, when my father comes.”

  The Lady Beata was descending the ramp into the courtyard when Gervase met her, going up.

  She said, “What is it? You do not really have the fever, have you?”

  “I am well enough.” And yet he did not look it. There was a pallor about his cheek-bones that spoke of ill-health, or strain, or. …

  “You are angry,” she said. “Yes, I can see that you are. Once in the stocks, and then … yes, I can see how being imprisoned would anger you. But my brother has made amends, has he not? He has promised to make you Steward?”

  “Lady,” he said, and there was an infinite distancing effect in the way he gave her her title. “Lady, I served a fool for many years because I loved him. Your brother is no fool; he is something worse. He is not to be trusted. Do you really think I would serve him, after this? I go at Christmas.”

  She held her head high, and he passed on with a slight bow.

  Crispin lay in his great chair by the fire after supper, drinking, and staring into the fire. He called Gervase to him.

  “My father will be here next Friday or possibly on Thursday. … I will speak to him on your behalf, about the Steward’s position. You have my word on it.”

  Gervase bowed, but made no reply.

  Crispin pulled the ring off his finger, looked at it, and then put it back again. “Advise me,” he said. “What I should do about my wife.”

  “The bishop is surely better qualified than I to. …”

  “He is one who bends with every wind that blows. You do not bend. I like that in you. You might have supposed that I did not like it, and for a while I did not. And yet, when all is finished, I find I have come to trust you. You say you wish to leave us at Christmas. …” Again Gervase bowed, and said nothing. “You will not go,” said Crispin, looking dark. His hand began to beat on the arm of his chair.

  “Until Christmas you may count on my loyal service. After that, I think you will find Master Thomas satisfactory.”

  “Christmas … it may never come. I wish my father had never conceived the idea of a tourney. It will bring all the riff-raff in the county to our gates. What the devil am I to do about my wife?”

  “I think you have already decided, my lord.”

  “Yes, but the manner of it … this damned tourney, and she the rightful chatelaine of Mailing, with her cousin about to marry into the family … tell me how to get out of that, and I’ll fill your purse with gold.”

  “My lord, divorces are not uncommon. There are precedents. If these affairs are conducted with dignity and resolution. …”

  “Dignity! I can make myself feared, I know. Or can I? You don’t fear me, do you? Do you?”

  “No, my lord.” Gervase spoke wearily, as to a fractious, tiresome child.

  Crispin laughed aloud, and smote the arm of his chair. “I like that in you. Here!” He took off his ring, and held it out to Gervase “Take it. Put it on your hand and wear it always. I know myself well enough to suspect there will be times in the future when I shall forget that you are a good man, and I shall wish to hurt you … if that should ever happen again, you must hold up that ring, or remind me of it … Understand?”

  Gervase contemplated the sapphire, and perhaps his mind went back to another ring, found in his wallet at Ware. He shook his head. “My lord, it is too valuable. What would men say if they saw me wearing that?”

  “They would say that I valued you as I ought to value you. Come. I can be a good friend, when I choose. You cannot refuse me.”

  Gervase put the ring on his forefinger, with reluctance. “I will wear it till Christmas, if you so wish. After that. …”

  Crispin gave him a tigerish smile. “You will not leave, Master Steward. I know how to hold on to my own, and you are my man now. I have shown you my bad side hitherto, have I not? Yet I have a better nature … when I am not overwhelmed with problems.”

  “The lady Joan is your legal wife,” said Gervase, somewhat hesitantly. “And surely she is also the chatelaine of Malling. Yet she is much worn down by the tragic death of her son. Doubtless she would be glad to share the duties of chatelaine with your sisters. …”

  “Elaine! A beautiful, destructive fool! If I had not punished that ostler, we would have had half the servants in the castle putting their arms round her!”

  “The Lady Beata, on the other hand, is accustomed to acting as unofficial chatelaine in the frequent absences of the Lady Joan … and I believe she does not lack for sense. If the three ladies were to receive your guests together, especially since the celebrations are in honour of your sister
s’ marriages …?”

  Beata stood in the chamber she shared with Elaine and looked about her. Clothes and jewels were everywhere, but none of them belonged to her.

  Ten days, she thought; and her fingers curled within her palms. Only ten days, and she would have to part with everything that she loved. At that moment she hated her father. He had rejected her plea that she be spared her fate … well, and good. That was his right. Yet could he not at least have written to her himself? Need he have belittled her so? To send a message through Crispin that she take her maidenly scruples to the priest was hardly helpful. …

  Father Anthony had said that she must pray for faith, and resume her fast. ‘I don’t believe in prayer,” she said. “What is more, I’m not sure that I believe in a God who can let such things happen … though when it comes to Rocca, I can manage to believe in the devil.”

  Prayer, she thought, was useless. Only deeds were of use in this messy, workaday, heart-aching world.

  She took out the knife with which she cut up her food, and setting it within the neck of her gown, ripped it to the waist, and then to the hem. She kicked it aside, and advanced on her sister’s clothing. If there were only ten days of womanhood left to her, then for those last few days she would at least dress becomingly.

  Eight days. Beata danced in the hall, twined flowers in her hair, and laughed … and just when her laughter verged on the hysterical, she felt Gervase’s eye on her, and checked herself. And then rebelled that he had dared to check her. What if she did laugh too loudly? What if she were to curse and make lewd jokes as other noblewomen did? If he could have danced with her, she would not have cared … but he could only watch, in his cap and coif. …

  She lay in the great bed she shared with Elaine, but she did not sleep. She lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling, and her eyes glowed in the light of the lamp which had been left burning nearby.

  Elaine could not sleep, either. She propped herself up on one elbow, and considered her sister’s tense body, and shining eyes. “What are you thinking of?”

  “Of men,” said Beata, and closed her eyes with a shiver. “I think of how it would be to lie with a man. …”

  “Beata!”

  “Why so shocked? Did not God give us these desires that we might procreate? Am I not a woman first, and only destined for the convent by a man-made whim? May I not think as other women think, feel as other women feel, for the few days of life left to me?”

  “You talk as if you were going to die!”

  “It feels rather like it.” She turned her head to look at her sister. “There’s no one to overhear you, little sister, if you wish to speak openly. Listen – the women are snoring in the next room. Do not tell me you have never dreamed of a man taking you in his arms, and laying you down, with his strength leaping to meet and mingle with yours … and his leanness … his long back … his strong arms around you, and his strong thighs …!”

  “Don’t!” said Elaine, in a frightened whisper. “Of course I don’t think of men like that. I didn’t know that you could. …”

  “Have you lived all your life in a blindfold? Have you no ears, that you have not heard the women talk of life and birth? Or seen them coupling in the hay at harvest, or behind the buttery, which is the usual place of rendezvous in this castle?”

  “I have thought, now and then. …” She fiddled with her hair. “But of course it could never be!”

  “Of whom? You intrigue me. Not Gerald, I dare swear! Nor that wretched ostler! Of Jaclin?”

  Elaine buried her hot face in her pillow. “Don’t be absurd!”

  “Of whom, then? Not Sir Bertrand, I must suppose. Who can have caught your fancy about this place? Tell me, my sweet. You know I will keep your secret.”

  “Well, if you promise not to tell – and of course I know it would never be possible, but there is a man in the castle who, if he is not of noble birth, yet was surely gently born. …”

  Beata’s mind leaped to the truth. She said nothing, but something in her attitude caused Elaine to shrink away from her.

  “Beata, you frighten me. You said you would not tell. Indeed, he has said nothing, and I have been discreet. No-one would ever guess! Just because he is not a knight, you look down on him, but I assure you that I do not. He is so kind, so gentle, and yet so clever. If I could only have married someone like him, I think I would have been happy.”

  “Why not ask Father if you may marry him, instead of Sir Bertrand?” Beata burst into wild laughter.

  Elaine said, with a forlorn attempt at dignity, “I know I am a fool, but I am not so foolish as to wish to harm him. I would not want him to suffer, as others have suffered for my foolishness.”

  Beata gave a great sigh, and turned from her sister. Presently Elaine slept, but Beata lay awake for a long time, pondering what Elaine had said.

  The corpse of the blinded ostler was taken out of the infirmary and buried. Beata did not attend his death-bed nor did she have a mass said for him. Father Anthony enquired of Elaine – who had substituted for her sister that morning at Mass – why the Lady Beata neglected her duties. Elaine bit her lip, and wished herself elsewhere.

  “I think … that is, I believe … some cousins arrive at noon, and Beata wished … that is, I did remind her about Mass, Father …”

  Father Anthony sent a page with a request that the Lady Beata attend him in chapel. She returned a negligent answer, and did not go. He went in search of her, and found her in the Great Hall, consulting with Telfer on domestic matters. She wore a gown of dark blue, into which a pattern of light green leaves had been woven. One of Elaine’s tire-women had been at work on Beata’s hair, and it shone as it waved and curled about her head and shoulders. She had confined her locks with a fillet of gold, but discarded her nets and veils.

  When Telfer had departed, she turned on the priest with a fierce gesture.

  “Can you not see I must be about my father’s business?”

  “Lady Beata! That is nigh on blasphemy!” The priest was much perturbed. “I must recall you to a sense of your duty. …”

  “Am I not my father’s daughter? I am not yours, Father, until Christmas. So leave me be.”

  The priest could hardly believe his ears. Was this the quiet girl whose spiritual life he had overseen for so many years?

  “This is not like you!” he exclaimed. “That wretched creature we buried this morning … if Master William had not sent for me to be with the man, he would have died alone and unshriven. Moreover, I hear you are eating meat, which is strictly forbidden you in Advent … and you have not been to Mass this five days, nor to confession. …”

  “And shall not. What, am I to be a nun before my time? I warn you, Father, leave me alone. My father constrains me to enter the church; well, he has the right, and I know my duty. I will come to you on Christmas Day, and you will hear no word of complaint then. But not even the bishop will get me into that church, or force me to bend the knee to your futile God, before that time.

  “My child!” He was not accustomed to defiance, but he was no coward, and was merely collecting his thoughts for a return to the attack when she walked away. He could not believe it; the girl had simply turned her back on him, and left him in mid-sentence. He opened his mouth to recall her but it was too late, for she was even now greeting a group of guests who had just arrived at the castle.

  “I will write to Lord Henry about this,” said Father Anthony.

  Seven days, and still Lord Henry dallied in London.

  For the first time in weeks, Beata went to the gate at sunset to distribute alms. Elaine was there, as she usually was nowadays, and Gervase, accompanied by one small page and one large dog.

  “This will not do,” said Beata, as they gathered up their baskets at the end. “Who can we ask to take on this duty for us? The alms-giving must not cease at Christmas, when we go.”

  Gervase seemed in a reflective mood. “It is true that one tend to think everything ends at Christmas … that on
e has no responsibility for what happens here after that. …”

  “But you are not going, too?” said Elaine to Gervase. Her colour rose, and her eyes widened.

  “Why, of course he is going!” said Beata. “He finds the uncertain temper of our family distasteful, and the rewards. …” She snapped her fingers. “A prison cell.”

  “And a ring,” said Gervase, turning the sapphire round on his finger, “which I must remember to return before I go.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Elaine, and now tears began to fill her eyes – those fatally beautiful, blue eyes. “Why do you have to go? And where will you go?”

  “He will go to the devil!” snapped Beata. She swung one basket into the other, and lifted both to her hip. As she turned, she stumbled over the dog … with her arms full, she could not save herself.

  But Gervase was there, reaching for her arm, breaking her fall, and then setting her back on her feet. She stood, trembling, not looking at him or Elaine. He also was speechless. The baskets lay tumbled on the floor, but neither Beata nor Gervase moved to pick them up. Elaine had given a little cry of alarm, but it seemed that neither Beata nor Gervase had had heard her.

  Without looking at them, Beata walked rapidly back into the castle, brushing down her arm, where Gervase had held her.

  Elaine might not be very clever, but even she could pick up and interpret the complexity of emotions which had been involved in the incident. She saw that Gervase’s eyes were following Beata, and she remembered the look on his face when he had leaped forward to save her sister from falling … and now Elaine, too, began to tremble. For she understood that Beata and Gervase loved each other, and that Gervase would never … could never … love her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Six days, and the atmosphere in the castle was charged with excitement. The population of the village below had trebled, for a number of landless knights had been drawn to the neighbourhood by the tourney. Two heralds had appeared and were even now consulting about titles and escutcheons, muttering to each other of saltires, chevrons and the like. Many of the invited guests had arrived, but still the lord of the castle tarried in London, although letters had been received from him saying that he was to be expected shortly. The retainers of the guests swelled the ranks of the servants, and by night as by day a subdued murmur hung over the castle, as from a hive of bees about to swarm.