Knight's Acre

by Norah Lofts

  Bit by bit, mainly in the way of stories, all this information had seeped into the boy’s impressionable mind.

  Sybilla said, ‘You will think differently, Henry, when you know more.’ She was tempted to make a class-conscious statement about the low status of archers but refrained out of loyalty to Walter. The best thing to do, she decided, was to go quietly ahead with her preparations, ignore Henry’s protests and his glum looks and assume that all would be well.

  Then one cold, snow-threatening evening, Henry’s place at the supper table was empty.

  ‘Where is Henry, Richard?’

  Richard hunched his shoulders in a sophisticated, unchildlike shrug.

  ‘With Walter, I should say. Playing with bows and arrows.’

  The scorn was cover for envy. Walter’s scheme had worked well. Henry was secretly pleased to have his eleven months’ seniority established in a way which Richard could not possibly challenge. Richard was mortified and humiliated by being excluded. The exclusion was total; ‘No, master Richard, you’re too young,’ or ‘Maybe this time next year, if you behave yourself.’ And for the first time, Henry was unwilling to share either the tricks or the tools of the trade. ‘It’s a kind of secret, Richard.’

  ‘Run across and fetch him,’ Sybilla said. She had noticed Henry’s increased attachment to Walter during the last few weeks and was secretly, perhaps unworthily, glad that it would soon end. Walter was wonderful, clever, faithful, loyal; and she had never heard him use a bad word or even a coarse expression. But, after all, Henry was Godfrey’s son, not his…

  John could now feed himself competently if not neatly; Margaret still needed urging and helping, her attitude towards food as remote as her attitude towards most things. Sybilla served, chopped and spooned the children’s portions while her own and Richards and Henry’s kept warm on the hearth.

  Richard rushed in, panting, fresh-faced, bright eyed from the cold.

  ‘He isn’t there and Walter says he hasn’t seen him since milking time.’

  That meant dusk which came early in the first week of December.

  A kind of panic seized her. She remembered Henry saying, ‘I will not go to Beauclaire.’ She remembered that Godfrey was stubborn, that she was stubborn.

  ‘Help Margaret to finish; keep John away from the fire. Your supper is there,’ she said and ran out. The wind was bitter.

  Walter said, ‘If he’s where I reckon, he’s all right.’

  ‘Where? Where?’

  ‘Where he’ll take no harm, my lady. He’ll come back home when he’s hungry.’

  That was the voice of experience. Walter had made two ineffectual attempts to escape when he was young and being hammered. And fond of Henry as he was, he was not worried about him. Whatever the outcome of this escapade, whether her ladyship won or the boy did, a night’s sleeping rough and a meal or two missed would do no harm.

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘I could make a good guess. But he won’t come out for the asking. You know what sent him into hiding?’

  ‘Beauclaire? Then please, Walter, find him and fetch him at once. It is so cold… Tell him he needn’t go.’

  ‘Better think for a minute, my lady. It’s giving him his head.’

  It was only fair to warn her, even though the turn of events pleased him.

  ‘Never mind that, Walter. This is no time to argue about such things.’ That, from Lady Tallboys, was curt speaking.

  The place of which Walter had instantly thought was in the wood, under a half-uprooted beech tree, almost a cave in which a vixen had had her lair. Henry had remarked upon it saying, in the soldier-to-soldier fashion that now existed between them, that it would make a good hiding place.

  ‘That’d depend what you were hiding from. Anybody with a lance or a dog’d have you nailed. Give me the open every time.’

  Now, striding along the path he knew so well that he hardly needed the dim light of the lantern, Walter thought in Foul language what a fool he’d look if the boy wasn’t there. He began to shout ‘Harry’ while he was still some way away. No answer; but then anybody hiding would be a fool to give his whereabouts away. And the boy was no fool.

  He stopped at the mouth of the cave and saw the faint light reflected from Harry’s eyes. With the roughness of relief he said, ‘Come on, out of there.’

  Henry said, in the bitter voice of one betrayed by a friend, ‘I might have known. Well you can stand and shout till you’re black in the face. I’ve got my arrows and I’ll use one like you used yours at Vernay. So don’t reach in.’

  ‘I don’t need to. I’ve got a message from the lady, your mother. She’s changed her mind.’

  ‘About sending me away? Oh Walter…’ His voice shook with relief. Then suspicion came. ‘Or is it a trick to get me out? Will you swear on your word of honour?’

  It was strange, Walter reflected, how the terms of chivalry came so easily. He said, gruffly, ‘Did I ever tell you a lie? Honest men give their word and I give you mine. Now then, out of there.’

  The boy had bested his mother. Somebody must now take over control.

  Smelling very strongly of foxes, Henry crawled out. Walter had a small quiver of the heart at the sight of the bow. But he acted coldly, giving such short answers that finally Henry said, ‘Are you very angry with me, Walter?’

  ‘You expect me to be pleased? Dragged out from my fire and my supper. And your mother worried to death.’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Walter. But it was the only way.’

  ‘Left to me,’ Walter said, thumping the lesson home, ‘you could have stayed there till hunger brought you out.’

  ‘I’d sooner starve than go to Beauclaire.’

  ‘Don’t talk silly rot. You don’t know what hunger is, leave alone starvation. You’ve never missed a meal in your life.’

  ‘Supper I have.’

  ‘And made up for it the next day. Now, listen to me. You go in and tell the lady, your mother, that you’re truly sorry. And mean it. Moreover, you don’t go telling Richard where you’ve been or why. You how he copies everything you do.’

  ‘What can I tell him, Walter?’ Very meek now.

  ‘You just say, “I can’t tell you” or “Mind your own business!” See? This is between us, the lady, your mother, you and me.’

  Already, rather cloudily, Walter saw the next step.

  A few days later, when Sybilla said, ‘Richard, Henry does not wish to go to Beauclaire, silly boy that he is; would you like to go instead?’ Richard was not merely willing but eager. The wedge between the brothers that Walter had inserted had been driven home by Henry’s behaviour. There was some mystery, some secret about which Henry would not talk, even when they were in bed together, the time when, in the past, all differences had been made up. Richard, whose knowledge of the world was small, visualised Beauclaire as a palace where he would not be Henry’s young brother and kept out of things. He had also overheard some of Sybilla’s coaxings.

  So Walter had his way. He had not deliberately manoeuvred Henry’s escapade, though he had prepared the way for it by his stories—Henry had heard how bowmen could live off the land and, given two bits of dry wood to rub together, make a fire. Sending Richard to Beauclaire in Henry’s place had been Walter’s idea entirely. After all, he asked, what was difference between them? Eleven months and less than two inches in height. Henry was slightly broader but did that matter in a page? And look, he admonished Sybilla, how their intermittent quarrels had hardened down to permanent hostility. So sensible and logical.

  By accident, Lady Astallon chanced to notice Richard and said, ‘Welcome back to Beauclaire, Henry.’

  Richard straightened up from his bow—both boys could be mannerly when they cared to be—and said clearly, ‘My name is Richard Tallboys.’

  The correction conveyed nothing to her but the need to make it sparked something in the mind of the boy who had already discovered that Beauclaire was not exactly as it had been pictured. Here, even more
than at home, was the need to assert and prove himself. His name was Richard Tallboys and one day it would be a name to be reckoned with.

  Nothing so crudely undignified as a tug-of-war for Henry went on in the now peaceful home; but Sybilla made conscious efforts to prevent Henry from becoming a mere farm boy. The present state of affairs was only temporary; Godfrey would come home with money and Henry would take his proper place in the world. So her insistence upon a certain standard of manners became more stringent and, to Henry, tedious. Once she rebuked him for coming to table without washing his hands and he said, ‘Mother, I did. This is ingrained dirt.’ He sounded proud of it.

  Perhaps, she thought, a little learning… But Henry, like his father, was content when he could write his name. She tried to entertain him with stories, myths, legends, tales from the Bible but to him they seemed poor, remote stuff compared with Walter’s stories which always began in the same thrilling way, ‘I remember one time…’ Walter had been there, seen with his own eyes, played his part.

  The words, ‘Walter says,’ cropped up continuously.

  ‘Walter says he’s going to try his hand at brewing. He says his old mother made the best ale in Kent. Did you know that you start off with a dead rat in the mash?’

  ‘How horrible!’

  ‘But it is strained before it goes into the cask,’ Henry explained with something, a kindly condescension in his voice which made Sybilla say, ‘I hope, Henry, that you do not copy Walter and speak of me as your old mother.’

  He gave her Godfrey’s candid blue look and said, ‘Of course not. Walter always says, “the lady, your mother,” and I say “the lady, my mother.” Once I said “she”’ and Walter said, “who’s she? The cat’s aunt?”’

  Walter indeed could not be faulted, except over his steadfast refusal to go to Mass which made Henry demur occasionally.

  Upon this one point, Sybilla intended to have her way; Henry must be seen, properly scrubbed and scoured, properly dressed, every Sunday morning. So she spoke. ‘Walter, I should be much obliged if you would not speak of your Sunday morning plans to Henry—they almost always concern something he would like to do, too.’

  Walter understood immediately; he gave her his rare, lopsided smile.

  ‘My lady, this coming Sunday I’ll clean out the pigsty.’

  Father Ambrose, welcomed in few houses, struggling against apathy and indifference, had made a habit of having a word with as many members of his congregation as possible. Those who could dodge past unaccosted did so, for the kindly words often savoured of reproach. ‘I hope your mother’s rheumatism is not worse.’ ‘Is Robin ailing?’ Sometimes, as the weeks went by, Sybilla wished that she could sidle past and avoid the inevitable question, ‘Any news of Sir Godfrey, my lady? And always the same answer. ‘Not yet, Father.’ Question and answer marked the passage of time, emphasise the distance, the immensity of the sea…

  NINE

  The tower had been built as a fortress but it had not been used for years. The Count of Escalona had two powerful neighbours who were almost perpetually at war with one another and, wanting no part in their quarrel, he had made a three-cornered treaty, promising to help neither in return for a promise from each of them to respect the neutrality of that part of his province adjoining the river.

  Father Andreas did not wait to see knights and horses disembark; he went ashore himself, climbed the slight slope and eagerly examined the door of the fortress. The mark he hoped to find there, a newly-scratched Cross, was not there. So the Mary Clare had not, as he had hoped, arrived first and her contingent of knights would not be waiting at the little mountain town, Santa Ana del Monte, which was regarded as Escalona’s real frontier.

  With his own knife he made the agreed sign, raw-looking amongst the graffiti of sentries long-since dead, and breathed a prayer that the Marie Clare might be safe and not too far behind. And he added a prayer of thankfulness that The Four Fleeces had made the voyage without loss. Shambling about, finding their land-legs, men and horses came ashore, the animals led by the donkey, who preceded Arcol. Alone of the four-footed voyagers, the donkey had improved in condition and now, fleshed up and lively was, Sir Godfrey considered, capable of bearing his armour sack. Presently, Father Andreas mounted his mule and led the way.

  To everyone—except of course Sir Ralph—this was a strange kind of country, rugged but not grey with, in sheltered places, the green of trees, in January. In the north, only grass was really green at this time of the year; or garden plants like laurels. The warmth of the sun on their backs after midday was strange, too. Sir Ralph enjoyed pointing out orange trees and lemons and the grey-green olives and Sir Godfrey, who knew the borders of Scotland and of Wales, wondered where were the people who tended the trees, gathered the crops. The borders, he knew, were scantily populated, more sheep than men, but they were not deserted as this country seemed to be.

  Santa Ana del Monte, when they reached it, was strange, too—a small town, completely walled and still contained within its ancient boundaries. The knights from the north knew that all towns had once been walled but four centuries of freedom from invasion had resulted in walls allowed to crumble, the gateways which led out of them only remembered by the names of streets which now ran into sprawling suburbs. Santa Ana del Monte was till as tight as a drum; red walls in good repair, a guarded gateway. Strange houses; in fact a street seemed to be one long wall with no windows on the ground floor, a heavily grilled gateway or two giving entrance to several houses; upper windows protected by out-curving bars.

  The curious street along which they clattered, their shadows now streaking long before them, debouched into a wide square with a fountain spilling over into a kind of horse trough. A few women were washing clothes in the trough, beating the stuff against the stone verge. They were there and then they had vanished. In such debatable land anything strange was suspect; go inside, close the gate, that was the custom, the inherited wisdom. So, out by another gate and there were the silk pavilions.

  ‘Now,’ Father Andreas said, ‘I can offer you welcome to Escalona.’

  Nobody, not even Sir Ralph at Navarre, had seen such a camp. Heated water, braziers lighted as soon as the evening chilled, as it did, rapidly, once the sun went down. Such food, much of it familiar but all delicious, and such wine.

  They lingered, lounging about except while exercising their horses, for four days. Father Andreas was waiting, hoping, praying for some sign of the Marie Clare. None came, and with the resources of the temporary camp exhausted, they must move on; and it seemed that Father Andreas must face his patron with this handful of knights—all good but so few!

  The next day’s journey was easier, the narrow trail sloping gradually downhill. There was another camp, again wonderfully well provided, and then, towards sunset of the second day, they came to the ferry. The water across which it plied was dark and still, not a river, a moat; but such a moat as none of them had ever seen, so wide, stretching so far to left and to right. It was, in fact, part of the vast irrigation system installed by the Moors who had occupied Escalona, until the present Count’s grandfather won it away from them and drove them over the mountains to the east into Zagelah.

  There was only one raft, poled by two men and capable of taking three horses and a few men, a little baggage at each crossing. It was growing dark before they were all on the far side and Lord Robert said, ‘Just as I always imagined the Styx. And old Chiron must have his penny.’ He gave each of the men a coin. Sir Godfrey had no idea of what he meant but Sir Ralph said, ‘I seem to remember there was no return passage across the Styx.’ His suspicions about their having been brought for more than for a mere tournament had hardened at Santa Ana de Monte. ‘Why not hold the tourney here?’ he asked, gazing about the wide plateau on which the little town and the spacious camp stood. ‘Think of the time and expense it would have saved.’

  However, as they approached the city of Escalona itself, even he felt that any man who owned such a beautiful place w
ould naturally wish to show it off. In the last sunset light they saw the rose-and-white city with its domes and towers. One dome struck a note of a different colour, turquoise blue against the evening sky. In its centre stood a great cross of gold. The building under it had once been the main Mosque of the Moslems and was now the Cathedral Church of St. James. Seen from a similar distance, London was a low huddle of drab-coloured buildings.

  The approached the city through gardens and orchards, clattered through streets which, though secretive, were not stamped by the fear which had been plain in Santa Ana del Monte and similar places they had passed through. Here and there the gateways to the houses were open, giving glimpses of courtyards in which trees grew and fountains played. There were even—and this in January—some flowering shrubs. It was much warmer here, for the heartland of Escalona, of which the city was the centre, was a wide valley, sheltered on north, east and west, by mountains or high hills.

  Lights began to sprout everywhere. ‘Oil lamps,’ Sir Ralph explained. ‘Oil from the olives. In such places the olive tree is as the pig is to us.’

  Their journey ended in a vast, brightly-lit courtyard, swarming with servants who led away the horses, carried away the baggage. Arcol went willingly enough, following the donkey into a stable of great splendour but once there refused the attentions of anyone but his own master; so Sir Godfrey was a little late at the bath house. This was a great hall, walled and floored with marble with a sunken pool in its centre. The water was warmed and perfumed. All the knights had been in the saddle for a long time, after a long time out of it, and they were all men who, even when lodged in palaces and great abbeys, had thought themselves fortunate to have a squire who could obtain a bucket of hot water. They shed their years and splashed and wallowed like schoolboys, calling to one another in voices which in this place had a curiously hollow yet resonant sound.