Longsword

by Veronica Heley

  Sir Bertrand cantered on, holding one half of the lance, the shaft … for the other had broken away, embedded in Crispin’s helmet.

  Crispin swayed in his saddle, both hands to his helmet.

  Beata’s hand was a claw on her father’s, her face as white as his.

  She said, “My God! What have I done!”

  Lord Henry half-rose in his seat. His lips moved. No sound came. Suddenly, he was an old man. At the third attempt he said, “Crispin loses this bout, evidently. He forfeits horse and armour to Sir Bertrand.”

  Telfer moved forward and said, his voice shaking, “See, he is not hurt … he is still in the saddle.”

  “Yes,” said Lord Henry, yet he moved stiffly as he resumed his seat. “Sir Bertrand is the victor, undoubtedly.”

  Beata fell back in her chair, breathing through her mouth.

  “Not much hurt, you think?” asked Lord Henry.

  Crispin was struggling with the tip of the lance, trying to break it away from his helm. His squire was running down the length of the lists … and how long it was taking him to get there! A great hubbub and outcry rose from the people. Sir Bertrand brought his horse to a halt, and waited to see what might happen.

  “But he is not badly hurt … is he?” said Lord Henry.

  Someone screamed. It was Joan. Lord Henry looked at her as if he had never seen her before.

  Beata rose, with an effort. She said, “I must go to him.”

  Crispin brought his horse to a standstill. Sir Bertrand walked his horse round the barrier, and dismounted, taking off his helm. Varons was running up, and Jaclin, running to hlep Crispin, who had managed, using both hands, to tear off his helm. A great gasp, and then a groan ran through the hall, for blood was streaming down one side of Crispin’s face.

  “He is not badly hurt, I dare say,” said Lord Henry. “Such things happen in tourneys. … Telfer, I want that lance inspected, to see if the point be blunt or no.”

  “Joan!” Beata bent over the hysterical woman, and beckoned for help.

  Jaclin leaped forward to catch Sir Bertrand a blow on the cheek.

  “And that for you … now you will have to fight me instead!”

  “Sir Jaclin!” Varons had hold of Jaclin’s arm, and was trying to restrain him.

  “I demand the right to avenge my cousin Crispin!” cried Jaclin, appealing to Lord Henry.

  “You cannot refuse him!” The Clerk of the Lists looked from Jaclin to Lord Henry.

  “No, I cannot refuse him … but I am sure my son is not badly hurt.” Lord Henry roused himself, beckoning to Telfer. “The physicians must be sent for at once. The banquet is to go on as arranged. Sir Jaclin will fight Sir Bertrand tomorrow, when the country games are over.”

  Sir Bertrand was approaching, and saluting them. “My lord, I claim Lord Crispin’s horse and armour.”

  Crispin was being helped to dismount, and laid on a hurdle. At Varons’s direction he was borne off the field, his hands to his face.

  Elaine smiled down at Jaclin; the first genuine smile she had given them all day. She said, “Cousin Jaclin, you shall wear my favour tomorrow, if you will, and I shall pray that you be the victor in the tourney.”

  “Impossible,” said Lord Henry. “Elaine, you forget that Sir Bertrand is your champion, not Jaclin.”

  “I forget nothing,” said Elaine. “And now, if you please, I will help my sister with Joan.”

  The banquet was over, the last of the guests had dispersed to their rooms, and the noisy hum that had pervaded the castle was gradually being replaced by silence. Here and there a yawning man-at-arms stood his turn. Lights yet burned in the infirmary, where Anselm tended the sick; in Crispin’s chamber, where his doctor and his father’s physician argued over their remedies; and in Lord Henry’s chamber, where his daughter Beata stood like a chidden child before him.

  “I hold you responsible for this,” said Lord Henry. “You set them against one another with your lying tales. You incited Crispin to attack a man for whose safety we were responsible not only as an honoured guest, but also as your sister’s betrothed. You, and you alone are to blame. …”

  She blinked, but her wide eyes were tearless, and her mouth set hard.

  “If it be so,” she said, “then let it be so. I told no lies. I have done nothing of which I should be ashamed in trying to save my sister from a man such as Sir Bertrand. He is a would-be murderer, and a thief of other men’s reputations.”

  “Silence! You anger me. Your childishness is beyond folly. Do you think I did not enquire of the circumstances surrounding the theft at Ware before I invited Sir Bertrand to become my son-in-law? Gervase Escot was brought before a court and convicted of. …”

  “And what a court! What justice did he have? What justice could he possibly receive when it was in the best interests of the judge to convict him! Oh, if only Crispin had not been wounded! I had a plan to show you the truth of that matter … I am sure Lady Escot was behind the theft, and that Sir Bertrand aided her in everything! It was Sir Bertrand who sent men to kill Gervase when he lay in prison at Ware. That at least he can prove! Will you not hear him?”

  “Beata, if you say one word more on that subject, tourney or no tourney, guests or no guests, I shall have you whipped and confined to your chamber till I can hand you over to the abbot! Have I not enough to bear? Does Crispin not have enough to bear?”

  “At least allow me to nurse Crispin!”

  “No, you shall keep well away from him, lest you inflame his fever with your dangerous ideas. The doctors took away his eye – did I tell you?” He had already told her twice. It seemed to oppress his mind, for he kept returning to it.

  “If you will only allow me to help nurse him, I promise not to speak of. …”

  “No, I said! Get you gone to your chamber. It is late, and tomorrow you must sit at my side and watch young Jaclin being torn apart by Sir Bertrand … for surely the young cub will be no match for an experienced knight … fool that he was to challenge … yet I do not think the less of him for it! It was well done, was it not? I did not think the lad had it in him. Well, well. He will be beaten for sure, but I will make it up to him. You and your sister will smile on Sir Bertrand when he wins … do you hear? You will smile and give him your golden garlands and, God willing, he will forgive us the insults we have put upon him.”

  “Is he worth so much to you?” The girl was bitter.

  “At least I shall be able to save his marriage to Elaine. There will be that, at least.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Beata went straight to the infirmary after leaving her father. She told her nurse to wait with Anselm while she made her way to the far end of the cloisters, where a glow showed that a fire had been lit in one of the cells. Varons was sitting with Gervase, in the room which had once been Hamo’s. The captain rose with a muttered apology, and left the room when he saw Beata. Gervase drew a stool to the fire for her, and kneeling, chafed her cold hands.

  She had fled to him meaning to pour out a complaint of her father to him, to say that she would do it all again if necessary … she had had some wild notion of urging him to fly with her, to rape her … but at the first touch of his hands, at the first glimpse of his smile she closed her eyes and her hands clasped around his, holding him to her.

  She said, “Just once, I wish I could see you dressed as you should be. …”

  He laughed. He took his hands away from hers, and went to sit on the far side of the fire from her. He had taken off his caped hood, and his hair gleamed rich and dark in the firelight. He wore the homespun tunic of a peasant, and his woollen stockings had been darned and patched by their previous owner. He had shaved his chin, but left a moustache, whitening it with flour, like his eyebrows.

  She said, “Now I know how you will look when you grow old.” She felt as if something in her would break if she did not go into his arms. She would have started from her stool to go to him, but he lifted the fingers of one hand. It was the slightest of gest
ures, but it checked her.

  “Varons is watching. And others, maybe. Your nurse of a certainty.”

  “We are watched? How dare they!” Yet she sank back.

  “I always know when I am being watched. And perhaps it is better so. One touch of your hand, one smile … it is like wine to a thirsty traveller … one step more, one incautious movement, and I am not sure I could hold myself back. …”

  “Or I,” she said.

  They sat unmoving, one on either side of the fire. She had had so much to say to him, but everything that came into her mind seemed either too trivial or too weighty to speak of, when this might be – must be – their last meeting.

  “I can’t believe that it will happen,” she told him at last. “That I should never see you grow old, never come to you in bed, never hold your child in my arms. …” Her hands made a groping movement, as if holding a small child against her shoulder, with its feet on her lap, setting her cheek against imaginary red curls.

  “I had a dream, too. I dreamed of taking you home to Ware, and of your sitting beside me in the hall, and running to meet me when I came in from the hunt and the harvest. …”

  “Now that I never dreamed,” she said. “I always saw you here at Malling in my dreams, in the hall, in my bed, presiding over the court.”

  His smile was quizzical. “I suppose that is because you have never been anywhere else but Mailing. Yet even if everything had been different, you would have had to leave home to live with your husband’s people.”

  “Well, I shall soon be leaving Malling, shall I not? How it will enlarge my experience of life!” She tried to laugh. “Do you know, I keep thinking of the boy who loved nothing better than to roam the woods, and hunt and play with his little dog. And then he was sent to a monastery, never more to hunt and roam. So he used to climb the tower on the gatehouse of the monastery every day, to catch a glimpse of the woods in which he had once been happy. …” Her voice broke. He did not speak, but leaned forward to put another log on the fire.

  She put her fingers to her temples, pressing on them, forbidding herself to give way. She said, “It was your one-time mistress Anne who put the ring in your wallet, wasn’t it? You must have some idea of how it got there; I can think of no-one else whom you would have shielded.”

  He sighed. “I suppose it was. The ring was wrapped in a fold of paper, and she might not have known what she was putting in my wallet. Once before she put a good-luck charm there – before I went on my third campaign to France – a charm she purchased of a wise woman, intended to bring me luck. I suppose she thought it was some such charm … and it is true she did have the opportunity to put it in my wallet, for I did visit her that day. She mended the neck-fastening of my tunic … that was her idea, not mine. Yes, I think she put it there, but I doubt she knew what it was when she did so.”

  “But why did you not call her to give evidence?”

  “Why, at first the charge seemed so ridiculous that I thought no-one would believe it. I thought that to have dragged her into the matter would merely bring her into undeserved trouble … she might have been accused of stealing it herself, and being a bond-woman, might have suffered dire penalties. Anyway, I had no time for second thoughts. The accusation was made, the ring discovered in my wallet, and I was judged guilty in less time than it takes to drink a mug of ale.”

  “No jury? No waiting for the travelling judges?” He laughed, in derision. “Then … what will you do now? Father’s mind is set against reopening the case.”

  “I have been discussing the matter with Varons. He believes, and so does Telfer, that your father would be very happy if I could slip away from the castle before he has to hand me over to Sir Bertrand. So I will look out for a chance of leaving in the retinue of one of the visiting knights … or slip away with the kitchen hands, when they go out into the villages nearby for provender. We see no great difficulty in arranging that. Afterwards …” He shrugged. “Lady Escot is in possession at Ware, and though I am in law entitled to a certain proportion of the property, without influence or money – and as a fugitive from justice – I cannot take what is mine. No, I shall make my way. …”

  “Not to the monks! I beg you! Is it not enough that one of us must lose his life?”

  “Now I do not see it that way. But the answer to your question is ‘No’. If I have anything to give., then it is in the world, and not in the cloister. I have heard that there are hospitals in London, founded by this great man and that. I will make my way to one of those, and offer my services. I shall not be unhappy there.”

  She struck her hands together, and was silent. How was it that he could feel so little, while she was in torment? He had gone beyond her, almost out of reach. When he had been taken from the cage, there had been a look on his face then, as now, of peace. She could not understand it. She did not wish to understand it. She guessed that such peace was attained not by railing against fate, but by accepting it.

  “There is no God!” she declared.

  “Is it not more comfortable to believe in God, than to deny Him?”

  “Everything has gone awry!”

  “You are so very like Crispin, and Jaclin. Do you know, I thought I disliked them both, and now that I am come to the point of leaving, I find I have grown to love them. Yes,” he said, nodding and smiling. “Even Crispin! And even Jaclin! Men are such odd creatures, and it seems I am even more odd than most. …”

  Now tears did come to her, but silently. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.

  He remarked, as if he had not noticed her tears, “Jaclin said he wanted me to act as his squire. Or so Varons tells me. I think I can trust Jaclin not to give me away if I go to his chamber in the morning, and give him what encouragement I may. He issued his challenge in fine style, did he not? Yet Varons says he is now drinking hard, being afraid of meeting Sir Bertrand, and also afraid of showing that he is afraid. Fear is natural enough. …”

  He talked on, more or less at random, giving her time to recover. Presently they heard footsteps in the cloister.

  “So soon?” she asked, hand to throat. Now he let her see how deeply he himself was suffering. “Gervase. …” She put out her hand, and it wavered near him, without touching him. Then her nurse stood in the doorway, and behind her nurse stood Varons. Beata and Gervase looked at one another, without smiling.

  Then she turned and left him.

  A pall of rain fell on the castle, and the sky was dark even though it was not yet noon. In the hall Lord Henry sat, surrounded by his guests, watching the antics of the peasants as they perspired and leaped in rustic games. Lord Henry still smiled, but the lines on his face appeared grey. The two doctors came and went between Crispin’s chamber and the hall, and the news from the sick-room was not good. Now Lord Henry sent Father Anthony to lend his skill to that of the doctors, but frowned on Beata, when she petitioned once more to go too.

  Beata and Elaine sat on either side of him, stiff in their gold dresses and wreaths. The one smiled little, and the other smiled not at all, for Gervase was not in the hall to watch her.

  The weary hours passed at last, and a routine inspection of the sodden tiltyard by the Clerk of the Lists made it clear there would be no mock battle that day, either. The company would eat, and then remove to the tithe barn for the jousting. In the evening there would be the masque at which the two sisters would dance as maidens for the last time, before they were received by their respective bridegrooms.

  Lord Henry honoured Sir Bertrand and his cousin Lady Escot with many courtesies and gifts, to show that he bore the man no ill-will for what had happened to Crispin.

  Gervase was helping Anselm tend a peasant, who had dislocated his shoulder in the games, when Varons sought him out. With so many extra inhabitants in the castle, there had been a sudden influx of people with accidental sprains, cuts and burns into the infirmary, far more than Anselm could attend to unaided. Gervase had not forgotten his promise to attend on Jaclin, but had lost track
of the time in helping the old man with his patients.

  “Haste ye!” said Varons, rushing Gervase through the court. “They have finished with the games and are about to leave for the tithe barn and the jousting. There are a couple of bouts before Jaclin is due to go on, but he is far from sober, and we are having difficulty getting him into his armour. Crispin’s squire … the one whose nose Jaclin bloodied a while back … he’s attending Jaclin. Not a good choice; though the man seems honest, he bears Jaclin a grudge. Pray God the lad sits straight on his horse’s back until Sir Bertrand’s lance hits him. He would never live down the disgrace if he fell off, drunk, before he were even touched!”

  “Could not someone keep him sober?”

  Varons shrugged. Who cared enough about Jaclin to spend so much time and effort on him?

  Gervase frowned. “I am sorry for the lad. If I had been free to move about. … Well, well. He is over-young and inexperienced for this kind of thing. His first tourney … he did well yesterday, did he not? A trifle wild, but that is no bad thing, if the control is there, underneath. A pity he sought to match himself against Sir Bertrand, when he had made such a good start. …”

  “Haste ye, then! He may pay attention to you.”

  But they were too late. When they burst into Jaclin’s chamber they found Berit, the squire, leaning against the wall with folded arms, while Jaclin snored on the floor at his feet.

  Berit shrugged, meeting their accusing eyes. “He sent me for hot water to wash in, and a razor that he might be shaved. When I got back he had a fresh bottle in his hand, almost empty. Then he fell down, trying to tell me how he would beat Sir Bertrand in the lists … and he may rot in hell, for all I care.”

  Varons and Gervase lifted Jaclin to the bed, and tried to revive him, but he was too far gone.

  “It is useless,” said Berit, not without satisfaction. “The boasts of the bastard brought home to roost … ha!”

  “I am thinking of his father … that Crispin’s champion should be too drunk to enter the lists!”