Ann of Cambray (6 page)

‘Is it your will, then,’ I said, ‘that death goes unnoticed here? Have there been so many deaths that one more means nothing? Shall I lead you to the room to show you where an old woman lies stabbed? What profit to you? What vengeance shall she have?’

The lords and ladies were talking to one another now, their eyes wide with astonishment or fear. Lord Guy was still shouting; I could see his dark eyes glinting and the flush on his face. But the man in the centre said nothing.

I pushed back the cloak and edged my father’s sword from its sheath. It was heavier than I had thought, the hilt carved in some Celtic fashion. Years of neglect had stiffened the leather casing and the blade caught and jerked as I strove to drag it forth. I felt the edge slice across my arm, yet I hardly noticed the pain of it. With both hands I heaved it up; the lights from the tapers caught and twinkled on the rich gold carvings. My mother’s father had given it to him once as a pledge of peace, witness of the faith between them. Now I would raise it as a sign of vengeance for the wrong that had been done.

‘Justice,’ I cried again, and then louder, in my own tongue, ‘Vengeance. Against murder and betrayal. To me, Cambray.’ It was the battle cry of my house. Behind me in the Hall I heard one faint echo: well then, there was one man at least to back me. They were all on their feet now, the womenfolk agape, the lords at the High Table starting. Lord Guy was repeating my name, ‘Ann of Cambray. ’Tis Ann of Cambray herself.’

‘Who is with me?’ I cried again, not turning although I could hear the guards pounding up the Hall, and the rasp of their weapons. ‘Who stands by me?’

The man in the centre chair moved so suddenly that everyone gasped again. In one movement he had leaped from his place and vaulted across the table, sending goblets and plates clanging to the floor. Behind him the chair crashed slowly on its side and his guests and courtiers started forward like puppets tied to a string. He came limping towards me, hand outstretched.

‘There is no need to cry for vengeance, Lady Ann,’ he said. ‘We shall do what is needful.’

I stared at him. Would I have known him after all? It was not the mincing boy I remembered, that conceited fop whom I had kept to scorn in my thoughts. He seemed larger, taller, broader. And he wore simple clothes as a soldier wears who stands not on ceremony. No jewels even, except a heavy gold chain about his neck. And the hair was different, cut in a fringe across the front and waved to shoulder length. But the face, the slant-shaped eyes, the cold grey-green stare, I had never forgotten.

We stood side by side, his hand clasped about mine upon the hilt. We might have been fighting with one sword between us, and the blood from my arm ran down his as he raised the sword higher, repeating my cry, ‘To me, Cambray.’ Then I could not move. The cloak fell from my shoulders; my blood mingled with the other stains upon my gown. I heard them all clearly now, panting and pushing. I was some animal whom the hounds circle, smelling the scent of wounded flesh. They were all around, servants, guards, soldiers making a circle. My grasp upon the sword slackened against my will; he caught it before it fell and lowered it so that it rested, point to the ground. I tried to pull the cloak back in place to hide from their prying eyes, but the circle grew smaller.

‘You are hurt,’ he said sharply, ‘where, how?’ his hands rough on my shoulders and along my ribs. I tried to tell him that it was Gwendyth’s blood, not mine, her blood he must avenge, but could not. Something tore and jerked in my throat; the circle grew so small that it disappeared, and I within it fell through into darkness beneath. . .

When I came to myself, how much later I do not know, and where and when it was not at first clear, I lay cocooned in a comfort that I had never known. The room was large, too large to make out all of it in the dimness that surrounded me. The bed was softer than down, spread with silk coverlets and rugs and curtained round with rich material whose design I presently made out in the flickering light of a fire. At first I lay still as if in a swoon, seeing all these things but not aware of them. Then gradually awareness came back, and with it grief and pain. Beyond the curtained bed, I could hear now the sounds of people moving, talking, of furniture shifting as a chair scraped upon the stones, the thud of a man’s boots as he strode back and forth.

‘Nay, my lord.’ A voice I did not recognise at first, hushed and unctious, as if used to explaining things to the old and ailing. ‘Nay, my lord. There is no danger: Great exhaustion, but no fever.’

Another voice, impatient, curt: a young man’s voice.

‘Deep, my lord, not dangerous. The flesh is healthy. ’Twill heal with a scar, but that is all.’

Another question. I strained to hear the reply.

‘Her father’s, my lord. She bore it into the Hall beneath the cloak. Dragged it more like. It is old and heavy. She could not draw the blade clear.’

‘So much the better.’ That was Sir Brian who spoke now. ‘It was madness to come upon you, so armed. What did she expect to gain?’

I lay within the cocoon of the bed and listened to them talking, almost idly, detached, as if they were speaking of someone else. The only things that were real were the softness of the bed and the ache along my arm. Perhaps I even dozed for a while. But the talk went on.

‘Your concern does you credit, my lord. But remember who and what she is. The Celts are never to be trusted. They are as sly and smooth as snakes. Who knows what plan she had in mind, or what use she meant to make of such an exhibition? There are men who can use this to their advantage.’ Sir Brian’s voice was full of scorn, like the one which had sneered at me as a child for my birth. It would sneer at me again.

‘I think not,’ said Lord Raoul. I recognised him now. ‘I think she acted on impulse, out of shock and fear. I do not think she counted the consequence.’

‘If Anjou comes to England again, as he purposes, the western borders will be of consequence,’ Sir Brian said. ‘The Celts may rise on his behalf as they did for his mother. That might be motive enough for her to win their sympathy.’

‘Guy of Maneth thought of that also.’ Lord Raoul’s voice was thoughtful. The walking back and forth continued. I even knew his walk now, a slight limp, as if favouring one leg.

‘But she has had no converse with anyone, not even with Cambray, let alone the Celts beyond,’ he went on as thoughtfully as if continuing an argument with himself. ‘Nor is there any proof the Celts will rise, nor rally to Anjou or to anyone else. And Maneth’s power has grown overfast since the Earl of Gloucester’s death for me to hold him as detached observer of the borderlands. I do not remember that he played an important part in the last struggles.’

‘He is a good fighter,’ fretted Sir Brian, ‘better on our side than the other ... It might be wiser to have granted his request.’

‘Well, so be it.’ Lord Raoul sounded more impatient again. ‘I refused him. Let it be sufficient that she will live. I thought her cut in twain.’

‘But there are other wounds, my lord,’ said the soft, older voice. I knew who spoke now: it was the castle leech. We had ever been on good terms with him and he had always held Gwendyth’s skill highly. In truth, she had not had the same confidence in him, but I think she misjudged him, for he spoke kindly of her. And of me, as he now proved. Silence followed his remark.

‘God’s teeth, what mean you?’ Lord Raoul said. ‘Will you handy words with me?’

‘My lord,’ said the old man again, ‘this only. Have you thought what has become of her all these years while you have been away? She has grown from childhood.’

‘Why should his lordship wonder?’ Sir Brian spoke sharply. ‘He has had cares enough without thought for a half-breed wench. And my lady wife has been here to befriend her.’

‘Patience, good sir,’ Lord Raoul said, ‘let the fellow speak.’ 

‘I meant only, lords,’ he said, ‘that you have been gone overlong and she has had no one to check or guide her if you did not, as her liege lord and guardian. I speak out of turn, but she and that old woman who was killed lived as poorly as the serfs out in the fields. If she has acted rashly, it was for lack of guidance surely.’

‘Then why stayed she not with the Lady Mildred and the other women in the bower?’ Sir Brian asked. ‘Why set she up her own household, God save the mark, as if she were a princess of the blood? Why came she not under our protection as she should?’

‘I mean no harm, my lord, no harm.’ The old voice quavered at Sir Brian’s anger, yet went on, good, kind, old man. ‘God forbid that I should speak against you. The Lady Mildred has held this castle well and all within it safe. But look you, my lords, if the Lady Ann and her servant have lived as servants themselves, perhaps you should know of it. l or pride perhaps she lived so, not wishing to be beholden to your lordship. I know not. No one will say it was your prime concern . . .’

Lord Raoul broke in at that. ‘Judas, I have been battling across a country to keep a king on the throne; I have had little time for what concerns the women in their bower at Sedgemont.’

‘True, true, my lord,’ the voice went on soothingly, ‘but things beyond all men’s control have made her no man’s care. The Celtic lords may remain firm but they will not be pleased to know their kinswoman is nigh starved of hunger and ill of neglect.’

‘You speak out of turn, old man,’ said Raoul. ‘You tempt me to harsh reply.’ But his voice was not harsh. ‘Those are not easy words, to be taken lightly.’

‘Then see for yourself, my lord,’ said the leech. ‘Is this a sleep of exhaustion? Faintness and pallor like this come not from flesh wounds.’

A sudden movement gave me warning, time enough to turn my face aside and close my eyes. I could feel the light upon my hair now, and beneath my lashes, sense rather than see how Lord Raoul came close to the bedside. But it was Sir Brian who spoke first.

‘God save the mark,’ he swore, ‘but how that hair flames red as Hell. And yet, my lord, it is an unusual face. It may be men will make a bid for her and take the burden upon themselves no doubt. They say her mother was the fairest of her race. So may she be if she be true.’

His words were blunt enough, not cruel so much as detached. He might have been speaking of Lord Raoul’s horse.

‘Nay, look,’ said the leech, ‘see this then.’

He switched aside the bedcovers. I lay exposed to their gaze, naked but for a linen shift open to the waist, my arm strapped to my side. Rigid with fear, I dared not move or breathe for fear they would see how conscious I was of their scorn. Where the others stood and how they looked I cannot tell. But I knew that if I opened my eyes I would see first Lord Raoul’s cold grey-green stare. At last he reached out and pulled the covers back in place.

‘ ’Tis skin and bone,’ he said. ‘God’s death, is there never end to woman’s folly? Rot me if there has not been more trouble these past hours than all seven years previous. Send then to Guy of Maneth, that my mind will not change. He leaves at dawn and would learn how she does. You marked how he was last evening, first not knowing her, then over-eager to claim acquaintance . . . But he had not seen her since Cambray . . . And when she wakes, bid the Lady Mildred take her to her charge. We will think on things further. And that, too, you may tell the Lord of Maneth. But I will avouch this, sirs: she has grown taller perhaps, but no different from that hellcat I remember when I left.’

His voice ended abruptly. I heard him go limping from the room. When all were gone, I lay upon the down-filled bed and felt my body shiver with shock. It was not so much what they said, their plans and policies and military moves—those made my head ache to think on but I did not at first consider them as closely as I should. It was their disdain, disinterest, that men should think so little of Gwendyth or me as to make her death and my grief of no importance. Except for the kind old leech, not one had spoken of me but as something ‘worth bidding for’, as Sir Brian had so gracefully expressed it. No doubt they did have plans for Cambray, no doubt it was as important as I was not. But no man could have the one without me too. That was the law. As for Lord Raoul, when we had first met he had called me ‘brat’, ‘she-wolf’, and I had not forgotten. But to be labelled thus—‘hellcat’ was it? ‘sly as a snake’, and worst of all ‘skin and bone’—these things lay not within the realm of forgiveness. Long would he rue the day he spoke those words. Yet I tell you now, in part he spoke truth, for I was slow in coming to womanhood and was then as slender and unformed as a boy. And he did not know that I heard him. But, for those words, I could have killed him where he stood. So thus between anger and grief, I watched the rest of the night through.

After the death of my brother, I count these the saddest hours I have ever known. For now I truly was alone and must make use of my wits, such as they were, to save me, since there was no one else I dared to trust.

How long I lay thus, I care not to remember. I woke to full consciousness to see the Lady Mildred advancing purposefully across the room, the leech bowing and muttering behind her. God’s death, but she could so fill a space with purpose when she wanted, that, small woman that she was, she seemed the largest of us all.

What had been spoken of in the night, what had happened, became now as a dream that I had imagined. Reality was billowing arms, and honeyed words and determination, strong as steel. For a little body, who gave the impression of fragility, she was indomitable. For the first time I realised that the Lord of Sedgemont had not made so poor a choice in having left her to guard his castle in his absence. Now, having been told to take me to her charge, she was determined upon her duty. I was too weak at first to protest and, in some ways, found amusement in watching her. As for the other maids and waiting-women, well, one might do worse than echo Lord Raoul’s observation about women in their bower. They bored me silly within the day with their chatter and their concern and their sly prying. Yet I found I could not lift a hand or foot without their help. The worst part of that convalescence was having them dance in attendance around me. I was washed and groomed and fed like a lapdog whom they half-feared would bite. And although once it was clear that my wound was mended, I sank from favour, yet grimly Lady Mildred clung to the hope that she would yet make a lady out of me. Well, Gwendyth had hoped so, too. We would see who would win at this second try. One thing at least was true. Under her wing, I need have no fear of any new attempt upon my life. She would not have let a man within the room without first rousing all of Sedgemont about his ears.