Ann of Cambray (13 page)

‘And who then,’ he asked, ‘have you in mind, Lady Ann of Cambray, that you offer your lands as bait? Which of my men have you selected with your airs and smiles just now? One of Sir Brian’s cronies, scarce able to heave himself upon his horse, let alone a bridal bed? Or one of my younger squires, he of the yellow crest, who swoons at your favour? Or your stable lad? I think you are overfond of him. . .’

‘It is easy to make a fool of me,’ I said. ‘I have no protection. . .’

‘Protection!’ he roared. ‘You make that claim like a bell to Mass, pat upon the hour. What woman ever could hold her mind straight without twisting all to her own ends? Protection, says she; wed, says she; demand, says she. Then, Madame Know-All, hear this.’

He took his hand from my shoulder and struck it against the wall as he spoke.

‘One: Cambray is mine to give as I choose. To him who will serve me well, who will hold Cambray as a soldier should, doing military duty along the border. Two: I have your future in mind even to the point of considering marriage for you—if there be man who can have the patience to make you fit to wife. Three: I have your welfare so much in thought that I have already refused one offer when it was made in the spring. Four: Times have changed. I may not be so nice of choice a second time...’

‘Who was it then?’ I cried. ‘How dare you, without telling me. Why was I not told?’

He stopped at that. I do not think anyone had spoken to him so.

‘Four,’ he continued slowly. ‘I am not so free as once I was to bargain with Cambray. My choice may not be to your liking.’

‘Perhaps not,’ I cried, as angry as he, ‘perhaps not. But do not think that all my worth is to be bargained in some war that has naught to do with me. It could be that I shall use you. I have some value of my own, although you scorn it.’

‘I have no doubt you think so,’ he said, slowly again. ‘Use you. I wonder if you know what you say. When you look thus, I could use you very well.’

He took another step towards me, although there was nowhere I could go, half-buried as I was in leaves.

‘Thus it is, lady, that saucy maids are used.’

His hands were round my waist, dragging me out. His kisses were on my face, lips, throat, half-demanding, half-contemptuous. I struggled against him, beating on him. I might as well have hit out at wall or tree, for all I could hold him off.

‘And thus also are saucy wives tamed,’ he said, at my ear. ‘Think you that before you make so bold demands again.’

I told myself I hated and reviled him, that this was what he did to all maids, that his men should have nicknamed him as they did. I could feel my heart beat against him as he held me off the ground and swung me round to avoid my heels. I could feel every hard line of his body, every curve against my own. As he could mine. His grip tightened so I could scarcely breathe. His free hand ran across my breast, along my flanks, searching out the pleasure points. The flowers smelled sweet, sweet was his breath, and all the air flowered round us. I freed myself long enough to cry, ‘You have no right.’

He released me then, with a look I could not understand. ‘In this world, Ann,’ he said, ‘men have all the rights ... So tempt not my castle guard. And remember this: it is a Norman custom that when a ward weds, her lord has leave to bed her first. That may be a right I shall claim if you tempt me to.’

‘You would not dare,’ I cried with my last ounce of will. He smiled down at me. ‘When you are grown to womanhood,’ he said, ‘speak to me then of dare. I will not cross you again.’

Then he was gone, dropping me like cloak or glove upon the ground. I stood begrimed with leaves and twigs, and in my turn beat at the wall, that in nothing he counted me of value, not even as a woman. And forgot, until it was too late to ask, that he had not told me who it was who had wished to wed me for my lands.

Perhaps he had never meant to tell me even that much. It may have slipped out in speech without his noticing. Or, as was his way, he may have meant to keep his own counsel on the matter and was angered at his carelessness. I do not mean that he was devious. But remember. He had long had to manage his own affairs. He had had charge of Sieux from an early age, and since his grandfather’s death had controlled it and Sedgemont. He had survived at Stephen’s court. Such men must learn the art of making decisions and keeping quiet when they are made. In this we were mismatched. Scarce had I thought of something, I must blurt it out for all the world to hear. Caution, distrust, if you like, had become second nature to him. And he was proud, arrogant as a Lucifer. All our weaknesses ran on the same paths. We were bound to rage and flare against each other.

But I move ahead. First must I tell you how a second marriage offer was made for me, without my asking, and how Lord Raoul managed that, and how we crossed each other for the third time. For since it was clear to me, at least, that our wishes never would run straight, I had sense to see we would never avoid a battle of will. Except I was young enough then to hope that in the end I might win.

It was not difficult to guess who had made the offer for my lands. I was not vain enough to think my person of importance in this. You will have guessed it, too. For it must have been someone from the west, well placed, ambitious for more power, having something of his own to offer Lord Raoul in return. Only one such man there was, and he had come to Sedgemont in the spring. My flesh crawled at the thought. And while I lay as in a swoon, I had heard them discuss it; no wonder I had guessed right—like a horse that is to be bought or sold. Then, too, there was the man himself. He was old, widowed with grown children, my father’s contemporary although younger than he had been. Yet not so old then that he might not want a new young wife who could bring him added land and power, how had Lord Raoul put it, ‘knot up’ his own estates along the border with Cambray’s. And Sir Brian, what had he said, ‘A good fighter, better on our side than on the other.’ Perhaps then, if he came wooing again, Cambray would be the prize to win his support. And his support was needed if Henry of Anjou came back to England. I tell you that before I had no care for kings or queens, although I have known them and their courts since. But for the first time then I saw how our lives were bound together, such is the chain of things, from highest to lesser to least. And whether I would or not, my little life would be tied to greater causes, and a kingdom’s battle.
Anything that the great do has some effect on everyone.
So had Lord Raoul said. So it proved.

They say among my people, who have such powers, that if you think upon a thing long enough, you can will it to happen. I knew, before Giles came running to tell me, who had arrived in the night and entered Sedgemont gates at early dawn. If I had been Maneth and had heard of Sedgemont’s loss in France, I would have galloped all night, too, to catch him disadvantaged and press a suit that was so much to my own interests. But I was calm when Giles described who had come, remembering each horse as other people do faces. He knew how far and fast they had ridden and who had come with Lord Guy.

‘But two horses are missing,’ he said, ‘two bays that came last time.’ And he described them and their peculiarities that I might remember them. We looked at each other, thinking. Lord Guy would never risk bringing men I might recognise. Nor would he come on the same errand again unless he had some hope of success this time. That frightened me. Yet it must be borne, and I could not change my fate either.

I was calm too when they came to bid me attend the lords in the Great Hall. All knew why they had come. I tell you, it was in the air, that even dark-faced older men should think of it. Lady Mildred herself helped deck me for the ritual, exhorting me the while on duty; Cecile, thinking of love, twined garlands as if for her own betrothal feast. But she could not wish me joy; she was too honest for that. Giles kept close watch at the door with sword drawn. But even he could not keep away what was to be. Yet I could not believe my hopes would end with such a man. And the dread, if that is not too strong a word, that I had felt when he was here before revived.

When I came into the Great Hall, they were all standing around the fire. The false summer had long gone; the rains fell winter-cold and hard. What else is there for men to do on such days, except drink and talk and plan the world? Few of Lord Raoul’s men were there; for the most part, they kept to the outer halls. Sir Brian and his friends sat at one end, engaged in a game of chess. They favoured long furred robes against the cold, and caps upon their heads. Only Lord Raoul wore more martial gear, leather jerkin, belt with dagger, hose cross-gartered into boots. His squire kept watch at the door, with sword and shield, perhaps to cut me down where I stood if I did not obey.

‘This is the lady,’ Lord Raoul said, taking me by the hand. I did not look at him but felt my arm tremble beneath his touch. He led me forward. I kept my eyes downcast but had already noted Lord Guy of Maneth, heavy cloaked, dark faced, large. It is the hardest thing that I know for women not to show emotion. Else they will take us for heifers offered for sale, mindless as beasts. Yet, for all my poise, I felt a cold wind blow.

‘Lord Guy of Maneth,’ Lord Raoul intoned his rank, lord of this, holding land of that, vassal to another. . .how much he held already along that border, how much he had gained in this short while, how well Cambray would round out his possessions.

‘And his eldest son, his heir, Gilbert of Maneth.’

Here was an unexpected difference. I looked at him more carefully. A tall man also, but heavy, so that Raoul beside him was almost slight. Dark skinned like his father, but soft-looking where the older man was hard. Him I seemed to remember also, and the cold wind blew louder. I heard what was said, but far off. I seemed to stand outside myself and hear the words form like rain.

‘Lord Guy of Maneth has come,’ Lord Raoul was saying, his speech hurried, unlike his own, ‘to renew his suit, but for his son Gilbert, whom you may remember from long ago.’

Gilbert bowed and smiled. I should have remembered that smile. It seemed to grow and fill my mind. So had he smiled when he walked behind Talisin at Cambray.

‘I knew your brother, lady,’ he said. ‘We were fast friends, Talisin and I.’

I recalled what Talisin had said of him:
He clings like leech.
‘And as he loved me best of all would I have you love me.’

Steer clear of him,
my father had warned.
I would not trust father or son too close.

I remembered them walking through the castle yard at Cambray, my brother ahead, Gilbert at his heels. And so it seemed to me then that all the stretch of beach and sea opened wide, and I heard the waves thunder on the shore. Gilbert stood with their cloaks about his arm and Talisin ran down into the water as I had watched him a hundred times. He dived into the waves that brought him laughing back upon a rush of foam. And Gilbert took his arms as if to draw him upright, and as the next wave swirled underfoot, thrust his head and held it under, held it under. Then the wave rushed back and Talisin lay like empty weed upon the shore . . . And Gilbert of Maneth turned and laughed, his laugh louder than the waves’ sound, and the wind blew colder through the Great Hall of Sedgemont.

‘Why look you so?’ Lord Raoul was saying. ‘Lady Ann, you are white as death. Why do you not answer?’

The salt spray lay on my cheeks like tears. The great sea rolled far off. So rolls it, they say, to the world’s end, mile after mile.

Drowned,
my father said. His men wrapped his son in a heavy cloak and brought him to Cambray. My father leaned from his horse and drew his sword as if to cut his heart out of grief.

‘Perhaps she dreams of Cambray,’ said Lord Guy.

‘She thinks of it, certainly,’ said Sir Brian, moving a pawn.

‘Then shall she return,’ Lord Guy of Maneth said.

‘I shall bear you back there as wife.’ Gilbert smiled.

‘What ails you?’ Raoul said at my side.

How could I tell him I saw two things plain, set one upon the other like two pictures painted on a single frame. I have not spoken of it all these years. Yet I tell you true. Explain it as you will. While I watched Gilbert smile at me in Sedgemont Hall, I saw my brother drowned at Cambray strand. I only know that I believe there is no action, good or bad, that does not at some time come home upon a distant shore. And so to God may all things seem ripples moving endlessly on a lake. Three times in my life have I stepped outside recorded time, for grief and pain, and never wished to know it. Three times. This was the second and the worst. I would not for all the prayers in the world have spoken of what I saw. But I have told and will tell you true.

‘The lady needs time to think on such things.’ Lord Raoul’s voice was warm and comforting.

‘Let my son give her the kiss of peace, that they be counted betrothed.’

‘Thus will the affairs of Sedgemont and Maneth be knitted up,’ Sir Brian echoed.

Beside them, Gilbert bowed again and preened.

And I said, ‘I will not wed with murderers. They have slain my house.’

Then they all shouted at once. What an outcry of noise, spilling down about us. Gilbert of Maneth made the most of all. Sir Brian upset his chess pieces, scattering them upon the reeds. Then was he at Lord Raoul’s side whispering advice. Lord Raoul himself was silent, but I guessed what anger that silence held. Nor did Guy of Maneth speak except for one start, as if exclamation was forced from him. But his men hissed as at outrage.

For my own part, I had nothing more to add. I had said it all. I wished it had never been. If gift it is to catch time out of joint, I would not know. It comes not of my seeking. They say there be those who can cull such things from the air, what has been and will be. I wish them joy of it. It brought me no such joy.

‘Last time I was here,’ Lord Guy said at last, and as he moved, his cloak fell wide as if the fire’s heat overwhelmed him, and I saw the glint of steel, ‘she spoke of a servant killed.

Now she speaks of murder of all. She sings to but one tune. Maids were more careful in their talk once. I come not to be trifled with.’