Scarlet

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  We then endured the good wishes of Bran, Iwan, and the others in turn, and I was pummelled good-naturedly by one and all. When the festive drubbing was finished, I turned to Tuck and said, “Friar, I’d be much obliged if you could perform the rites without delay.” I glanced at Nóin and saw the desire in her dark eyes. “As soon as may be.”

  Tuck nodded and adopted a solemn air. “Is it your wish to be married to this man?” he asked.

  “It is, Friar,” she replied. “I would have done it long since, and there is no better day that I know than this, and I would mark it always in my heart as the day my man was given back to me.”

  “Then so be it!”

  Turning to the Grellon crowding around, the little friar called, “Hear now! Will and Nóin have declared their desire to be married. Let us give them a wedding they will never forget!”

  If I had any notion of simply saying a few words before the priest and carrying off my bride to a little greenwood bower in the manner of my English father, that idea was dashed to pieces quicker than it takes a fella to spit and say “I do!” The forest folk fell to with a will. I suppose the safe and successful return of the rescue party was the best excuse any of them had had to celebrate anything in many a month, and the people were that eager to make a fair run at it. Nóin and I were immediately caught up in the preparations for this sudden celebration.

  The cooking fire was built up; partridges and quail were pulled from the snares, then plucked and spitted along with half a young wild pig, and six coneys and a score of barley loaves set to bake. The children were sent into the thickets to gather raspberries and red currants, which were mixed with honey and made into a deep red compote; asparagus and wild mushrooms were likewise picked, chopped, and boiled into a stew with borage and herbs; the last of the walnuts which had been dried over the winter were shelled into a broth of milk and honey; and many another dish to make the heart glad. Whatever stores had been set aside against even leaner days were brought out for our wedding feast, and it did rightly make a humble man of me, I can tell you.

  While the men constructed a bower of birch branches for us to enjoy our first night together, some of the women gathered flowers to strew our path and for Nóin to carry, and one or two of the younger ones helped dress the bride and make her even more lovely in my eyes.

  As for myself, with little else to do, I set about trying to drag a razor through the tough tangle of my beard. I succeeded in cutting myself in such extravagant fashion that our good friar took the blade from my hand, sat me down and, expert barber that he was, shaved me clean as a newborn. He also combed and cut my hair so that I appeared almost a nobleman when my clothes were brushed and my shoes washed. He found a new belt for me and a clean cloak of handsome green. “There now!” he declared, like God regarding Adam with a critical eye. “I have made me a man.”

  I thanked him kindly for his attentions, and observed that my only regret was that I had no ring to give my bride. “A ring is a fine thing, is it not?” he agreed. “But it is by no means necessary. A coin will do; and some, I have heard, have a smith bend the coin to make a ring. You might easily do this.”

  This cheered me no end. “You are a wonder, no mistake,” I told him. “I can get a coin.” And, leaving the friar to his own preparations, I set off to do just that.

  The first person I went to was Bran. “My lord,” I said, “I do not think I have asked a boon of you since swearing the oath of fealty.”

  Lord Bran allowed that, as he could not think of any occasions, either.

  “Then, if it please you, my lord,” I continued, “I will make bold to request the small favour of a coin to give my bride.” I quickly went on to explain that I had no ring, but that Tuck had said a coin would serve as a suitable token.

  “Indeed?” wondered Bran. “Then leave it to me.”

  Well, we were soon caught up in countless small activities and the mood was high. Before I knew it, the sun had already begun its descent when our good friar declared that all was finally ready and we gathered beneath the Council Oak to speak our vows before our friends. Tuck, scrubbed until he gleamed, and beaming like a cherub fresh from the Radiant Presence, took his place before us and called all to solemn purpose. “This is a holy time,” he said, “and a joyous celebration. Our Heavenly Father delights in love in all its wondrous forms. Especially dear to him is the love between a husband and wife. May such love increase!”

  This brought a rousing chorus of agreement from the onlookers, and Tuck waited for silence before continuing. “Therefore,” he said, “let us ask the Author and Sustainer of our love and life to bless the union of these two dear people who have pledged life and love to one another.”

  With that he began to pray and prayed so long I feared we would not finish the ceremony until the sun had gone down, or possibly the next morning. Eventually, he ran out of words to say to bless and beseech, and moved on to the vows, which we spoke out as Tuck instructed. There in the greenwood, beneath that venerable oak, we pledged life to life, come what may, and I took Nóin to be my wife. When the time came to give my bride a token of honour, I turned to Bran and, taking my one good hand in both of his, he pressed a coin into my palm. “With greatest esteem and pleasure,” he said.

  I looked down and saw that he had given me a solid gold byzant, gleaming dull and heavy in my hand. I gazed at that rare coin as at a fortune entire. Truly, I had never had anything worth so much in all my life. That he should think so much of me made the tears come to my eyes. The long months of my captivity were somehow redeemed in that moment as I placed that matchless coin in the hand of my beloved, pledging to honour and keep her through all things forever more.

  Then it was another prayer—this one for children aplenty to bless us and keep us in our old age—and we knelt together as Tuck placed a hand on each of our heads and proclaimed, “I present to you Master William Scatlocke and his wife, Nóinina. All praise to our Lord and Kind Creator for his wise provision!”

  Of the feast, I remember little. I am told it was very good, and I must have tasted some of it. But my appetite was elsewhere by then, and I could not wait until Nóin and I could be together. We sat on the bench at the head of the board and received the good wishes of our friends. Mérian, with Lord Bran in tow, came by twice to say how much she had longed for this day on our behalf. Iwan and Siarles came to give us an old poem that they knew, full of words with double meanings which soon had everyone screaming with laughter. The celebration was so light and full of joy that I clean forgot about my mangled fingers, and I cannot recall giving them a solitary thought all that fine and happy day.

  When the moon rose and the fire was banked high, Angharad brought out her harp and began to sing. She sang a song unknown to me, as to most of us, I suppose, about a beautiful maiden who conceived a love for a man she had seen passing by her window one day. The young woman decided to follow the stranger, braving great hardship crossing mountain and moor in her quest to find him once more and declare her love for him. She persevered through many terrors and misfortunes and at last came into the valley where her love lived. He saw her approaching—her beautiful gown begrimed and bedraggled, her fine leather shoes worn through and wrapped in rags, her beautiful hair dull with dust from the road, her once-fair cheeks sunken with hunger, her slender fingers worn, her full lips chapped and bleeding—and ran to meet her. As she came near, however, she chanced to see her own reflection in a puddle in the road, and horrified at what she saw, she turned and ran away. The man pursued her and caught her, and knowing what she had endured to find him, his heart swelled with love for her. And in that moment, he saw her as she was, and the power of his love transformed her broken form into one even more beautiful than that which had been.

  I confess, there might have been more, but I was only listening with half an ear, for I was gazing at my own lovely bride and wishing we could steal away to the birch bower in the wood. Bran must have guessed what was in my mind, for as the song concluded and th
e people called for another, he came up behind me and said, “Go now, both of you. Mérian and I will take your places.”

  We did not need urging. That quick I was up and out of my seat and taking Nóin by the hand. We flitted off into the wood, leaving Bran and Mérian at the board. By the light of a summer moon, we made our way along the path to the bower, where candles were already lit and the mead in a jar warming by a small fire. Fleeces had been spread on a bed of fresh rushes. There was food beneath a cloth for us to break our fast in the morning. “Oh, Will!” said Nóin, when she saw it, “It is lovely—just as I always hoped it would be.”

  “And so, my lady, are you,” I told her, and, pulling her close, kissed her with the first of countless kisses we would share that night.

  As for the rest, I need not say more. If you have ever loved anyone, then you will know full well. If not, then nothing I can say will enlighten you.

  CHAPTER 44

  Caer Rhodl

  Even though he had known this day was coming, the news caught Baron Neufmarché off his guard. He had just returned from a short trip to Lundein and afterward gone to his chapel to observe Mass and to offer a prayer of thanks for his safe return and a season of gainful commerce. Father Gervais was officiating, and the old priest who usually mumbled through the service in a low, unintelligible drone, perked up when the lord of Hereford appeared in the doorway of the small, stone church tucked inside the castle wall.

  Priest and worshipper acknowledged one another with a glance and a nod, as the baron slipped into the enclosed wooden stall which served his family during their observances in the chapel. The priest moved through the various sequences of the daily office, lifting his voice and lingering over the scripture passages so that the baron, whose Latin he knew to be limited, could follow more easily. He chanted with his eyes closed, saying, “Deus, qui omnipoténtiam tuam parcéndo maxime et miserando maniféstas,” his old voice straining after the notes that once came so easily.

  At those long familiar strains, Bernard felt himself relax; the toil of his recent journey overtook him, and he slumped back on the bench and rested his head against the high back of the stall. He was soon asleep, and remained happily so until some inner prompting woke him at the beginning of the dismissal. Upon hearing the words “Dominus vobiscum,” he roused himself and sat up.

  Father Gervais was making the sign of the cross above the altar of the near-empty sanctuary. “Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus,” he intoned, his deep voice loud in the small, stone chapel; and Neufmarché joined him in saying, “Amen.”

  The service concluded, the elderly priest stepped down from the low platform to greet the baron. “Dear Bernard,” he said, extending his hands in welcome, “you have returned safely. I trust your journey was profitable?”

  “It was, Father,” answered the baron. He stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. “Very profitable.” The old man took his arm and the two walked out into the brilliant light of a glorious late-summer day. “And how are things with you, Father?” he said as they stepped into the shaded path between the castle rampart and the rising wall of the tower keep.

  “About the same, my son. Oh, yes, well . . .” He paused a moment to collect his thoughts. “Ah, now then. But perhaps you haven’t heard yet. I fear I may be the bearer of bad news, Bernard.”

  “Bad news, Father?” The baron had not heard anything on the road, nor in the town when he passed through. None of the household servants had hinted that anything was amiss; he had not seen Lady Agnes since his return, otherwise he would certainly have been informed. His wife delighted in ill tidings—the worse the better. He glanced at the old man beside him, but Father Gervais did not appear distraught in the least. “I have heard nothing.”

  “A rider arrived this morning from your foreign estates—what do you call them? Eye-ass?”

  “Eiwas,” the baron corrected gently. “It is a commot in Wales, Father, ruled by my client, Lord Cadwgan—a local nobleman enfeoffed to me.”

  “Ah, your liegeman, yes.” The doddering priest nodded.

  “The messenger, Father,” prompted Neufmarché gently, “what did he say?”

  “He said that the king has died,” said the priest. “Would that be the same one, King Kad . . . Kadeuka . . . no, that can’t be right.”

  “Cadwgan,” corrected Neufmarché. “King Cadwgan is dead, you say?”

  “I am sorry, Bernard, but yes. There is to be a funeral, and they are wanting to know if you would attend. I asked the fellow to wait for you, but we didn’t know when you would return, so he went on his way.”

  “When is the funeral to be held?”

  “Well.” The priest smiled and patted his temple. “This old head may not work as swiftly as once it did, but I do not forget.” He made a calculation, tapping his chin with his fingertips. “Two days from tomorrow, I believe. Yes, something like that.”

  “In three days!” exclaimed the baron.

  “I think that’s what he said, yes,” agreed the priest affably. “Is it far, this Eye-as place?”

  “Far enough,” sighed the baron. He could reach Caer Rhodl in time for the funeral, but he would have to leave at once, with at least one night on the road. Having just spent six days travelling, the last thing he wanted was to sit another three days in the saddle.

  A brief search led the baron to the one place he might have guessed his wife would be found. She was sitting in the warmest room of Castle Hereford—a small, square chamber above the great hall. It had no feature other than a wide, south-facing window which, during the long summer, admitted the sunlight the whole day through. Lady Agnes, dressed in a gauzy fluff of pale yellow linen, had set up her tapestry frame beside the wide-open window and was plying her needle with a fierce, almost vengeful concentration. She glanced up as he came in, needle poised to attack, saw who it was, and as if stabbing an enemy, plunged the long needle into the cloth before her. “You have returned, my lord,” she observed, pulling the thread tight. “Pleasant journey?”

  “Pleasant enough,” said Neufmarché. “You have fared well in my absence, I trust.”

  “I make no complaint.”

  Her tone suggested that his absence was the cause of no end of tribulations, too tiresome to mention now that he was back. Why did she always do that? he wondered, and decided to ignore the comment and move straight to the meat of the matter at hand. “Cadwgan has died at last,” he said. “I must go to the funeral.”

  “Of course,” she agreed. “How long will you be away this time?”

  “Six days at least,” he answered. “Eight, more like. I’d hoped I’d seen the last of the saddle for a while.”

  “Then take a carriage,” suggested Agnes, striking with the needle once more.

  “A carriage.” He stared at her as if he’d never heard the word before. “I will not be seen riding in a carriage like an invalid,” he sniffed.

  “You are a baron of the March,” his wife pointed out. “You can do what you like. There is no shame in travelling in comfort with an entourage as befits a man of your rank and nobility. You could also travel at night, if need be.”

  The baron spied a table in the corner of the room and, on it, a silver platter with a jar and three goblets. He strode to the table and took up the jar to find that it contained sweet wine. He poured himself a cup, then poured one for his lady wife. “If I got a carriage, you could come to the funeral with me,” he said, extending the goblet to her.

  “Me?”What little colour she had drained from the baroness’s thin face; the needle halted in midflight. “Go to Wales? Perish the thought. C’est impossible! No.”

  “It is not impossible,” answered her husband, urging the cup on her. “I go there all the time, as you know.”

  She shook her head, pursing her thin lips into a frown. “I will not consort with barbarians.”

  “They are not barbarians,” the baron told her, still holding out the cup of wine. “They are crude and uneducate
d, true, and given to strange customs, God knows. But they are intelligent in their own way, and capable of many of the higher virtues.”

  Lady Agnes folded her spindly arms across her narrow bosom. “That is as may be,” she allowed coolly. “But they are a contentious and bloody race who love nothing more than carving Norman heads from Norman shoulders.” She shivered violently and reached for the shawl that was perpetually close to hand. “You have said as much yourself.”

  “In the main, that may be true,” the baron granted, warming to the idea of his wife’s company as he contemplated the more subtle nuances of the situation. To arrive at the funeral on horseback leading a company of mounted knights and men-at-arms would certainly reinforce his position as lord and master of the cantref—but arriving with the baroness beside him in a carriage, accompanied by a domestic entourage, would firmly place his visit on a more social and personal footing. This, he was increasingly certain, was just the right note to strike with Cadwgan’s family, kinsmen, countrymen, and heir. In short, he was convinced it was an opportunity not to be missed.

  Placing the goblet firmly in her hand, he drank from his cup and declared, “Ordinarily, I would agree with you. However, my Welsh fiefdom is an exception. We have been on productive and peaceful terms for many years, and your appearance at this time will commence a new entente between our two noble houses.”

  Lady Agnes frowned and glared into her cup as if it contained poison. She did not like the way this conversation was going, but saw no way to disarm the baron in his full-gallop charge. “May it please you, my lord,” she said, shoving back her chair and rising to her feet, “I will send with you a letter of condolence for the women of the house and my sincere regret at not being able to offer such comforts in person.”

  She stepped around the tapestry frame to where the baron was standing, rose up on her toes, and kissed his forehead, then bade him good afternoon. Bernard watched his wife—head high, back stiff—as she walked to the door. Oh, she could be stubborn as a barnyard ass. In that, she was her father’s daughter to the last drop of her Angevin blood.