Gifts of the Queen (8 page)

When in the morning I awoke, for at some point even I had slept, it was to camp's misery. The day had dawned to rain, turning the ground to mud, our clothes to sodden rags. Lying on stones cricks your neck, your legs grow stiff, your back stiffer again, fires, banked overnight, blow bitter smoke into your eyes. The men were hungry, bleary, foul-mouthed, not like to give comfort nor yet to look for it. I have spent time in a border camp, as you know, although none might say so to my face; there are days, as old soldiers are aware, it is best to keep out of the way, no hope of courtesies on such a morning as this. Before it was an hour old, Lord Raoul and his men had ridden out, and so they did each day, henceforth, to scour the countryside for fodder and food, to keep watch for enemies and to look for help, although I suspected we could whistle for that. It was true I had not found many friends in Henry's court who were willing to risk themselves when Raoul's luck had run low last year. Those of us left behind began to shift the piles of stone—a thankless task, yet one we did each day, even the village women and I, sitting on the ground, sorting through the shards as if gleaners in a harvest field. Remembering us now, as we were then, bent double in the rain, I am overwhelmed by the enormity of our task. Yet I recall thinking, my legs outstretched, a wicker basket set between my knees, my fingernails scrabbling through the dirt, how in ancient times along the border, men had raised up those gray henges of stone, those circles on the Cambray moors without any help or benefit of tools. If they could, so could we, I thought. And, although at each day's end it seemed as if scarcely a stone had been moved, yet gradually a sort of wall was built between the base of the gate towers. A battering ram, nay, a tree stump with six strong men, could have rammed it through, yet it give illusion of defense, and behind it, we set up tents, established our camp with military routines. Watch was maintained along the river banks, even village lads were trained to mount guard and peasants in the outlying parts bribed to act as spies. So we lived, each day a gift from God, each night of rest a favor deserving of thanks.

When, by the week's end, the rest of the baggage train came stumbling in, we might have been settled there all our lives. But for those of you who see romance in every hour of outdoor life, I tell you it is no jest to be hungry, wet and cold, and even today I cannot bear the thought of eels. For such was our food—fish and eels and fowl, but mainly eels—with handfuls of green stuffs pulled from the peasant's plots, washed down with river water, bare mouthfuls to satisfy men with appetites. Nor is it easy to fend for yourself in a camp of men. As I did. For when in company of the baggage train, the ladies of my retinue came tottering along, poor ruffled souls, more like bedraggled birds in their ruined silks, all but speechless with shock at the state of Sieux, I determined to send them away. I made this decision on my own, and on my own I ordered it. And for the most part, they went willingly, all save the youngest, that is, and the eldest one, to voice protest, not at what they saw but rather at the ruin of their own hopes.

‘They told me when we left England,' the youngest whined, not much more than a child so much could be forgiven her, 'that as part of an earl's entourage, I should have a white pony of my own, with bridle of crimson leather, fringed with bells, and I should bide here at Sieux, be taught the ways of wife, until a noble lord should claim me as a bride.'

The other women hushed her with murmurs of common sense. 'There be no horses,' one blurted out, 'neither black nor white, nor food to eat. We do well to leave.'

But the Mistress Alyse de Vergay was not so easily got rid of. 'By the Mass,' she said, her anger loud enough for all to hear, 'I did not look to be thrust out like a kitchen wench. How dare we be treated so. The counts of Sieux were proud men once. They did not think to live like tramps nor have their offspring dropped like tinker's pups. I am no trollop to be abused although I know there is a trollop here. My
virtu
is not questionable to bear a bastard child.'

Her voice, stripped of all polite pretence, raged without cease. I have said before that she was tall, overripe and plump in her pale gown, but for the first time I sensed the determination that lay behind those billowing silks. Her face had flushed, her blue eyes burned. I could not understand the reasons for such malice and certainly would not debate
virtu
or bastardy with her. I turned my back and stalked away.

But her words angered and distressed me, the more I suspected she voiced what the other ladies dared not say. We had housed them, these Norman ladies who thought themselves so fine, at the village edge in a half-ruined barn which Henry's men had stripped bare. It smelled of mice and rats but scarce contained a wisp of straw to harbor fleas. I resolved I would not have them there, not for one more hour than was necessary, and so went at once to bid our men prepare an escort without delay. I would have those ladies hence before the day was done. The men were tired, but listened to my orders patiently. Now, as chance would have it, Lord Raoul and his guard had just ridden in and were down in the horselines, sorting through the saddles and accoutrements to determine which could be spared for sale. Lord Raoul looked up quickly on hearing me; his ears were sharp and my voice was perhaps too loud. He eyed me thoughtfully. Then, as I flared past, he threw another strap on the pile and caught at the hem of my cloak with his good hand.

'Hoity-toity, lady,' he said. 'What brings you here?'

Still too angry to speak coherently, I bit my lip. He must have known why.

'Accompany me,' he suggested in a courteous way, but his hand was firm on mine so I could not escape. He drew me out of earshot. I glimpsed a flicker of mirth run through his men. They thought, no doubt, their lord led me apart to chastise a wife who took too much upon herself . Their mirth fanned my rage.

I shook myself free and faced Lord Raoul, no wifely precepts left in me today; forgotten were all those demure ways I had tried to adopt. Oh, I know my faults. I can be as blunt as any man and certainly think what often would make a man's ears burn. I know what marriage vows and Holy Writ and all men's Holy Sacraments enforce: that womenfolk must be controlled by men, and wives must obey their husbands. I know, too, that no man likes a harpy as his wife, but there are some things that no one, man or woman, should endure.

'I'll not have them here,' I blurted out. 'Off they go. I'll see their backs; they'll give me space . . .'

Certainly Alyse de Vergay could,' he broke in dryly, more than twice your size.' Which showed he knew exactly who had stirred my wrath and why, but he waited graciously for me to finish my complaints. Cunning in my way (for what man likes to hear women complain?), I pointed out these ladies were so many useless mouths to feed and their needs were such, their demands so great, we would in no way satisfy them.

'How else will you be served?' he asked. He spoke abruptly, to the point, but still courteously. 'Who will attend you when your time is come?'

'I shall manage,' I repeated stubbornly.

He sighed, set me down firmly on a stone, stood back, legs apart. 'Lady,' he said at last. 'I have no time to play at games. God's wounds, 'tis hard enough to find food and keep a shelter over our heads. I cannot act as wet nurse to a babe.' He caught back the end of his speech, but not before I guessed what he would have said. Bad enough even to have a babe at all.

'I know,' he went on trying to be reasonable, I grant him that, 'you find our Norman ways difficult; I know you dislike these ladies. But, in truth, I'd rather them than their menfolk about our ears like bluebottles on a side of beef. I d rather Norman women here as spies than their men.'

‘Spies?' I cried. I know my voice rose a notch. 'I'll have no spies in my household. What are those men, Alyse de Vergay's father for one—if she be not too old to have a father left—and who is she, that I am loaded with her for convenience sake?'

He said, still in that controlled, patient way, although I could tell his temper too was rising, 'Lady Ann, you need those women for women's work. But think. I have showed you where Sieux is set, between Normandy and the lands of Anjou. We think of ourselves as Normans, we men of Sieux, but we are not bound to a Norman overlord. I hold my lands direct from the King of France. What I have not explained is that Henry has not been long Duke of Normandy, which his father took. The Norman barons have little liking for Henry, and while he is away in England, will take the chance to stir up trouble if they can. Nor did I explain that the Normans have small liking for Sieux, either, and have long been jealous of our independence. The more they know of our plight, the more like are they to take advantage of us. I'd rather their womenfolk as hostages for peace than have Jean de Vergay, since you have named him, roll up his siege machines before our gates. Although, in truth, he is more like a weasel than a man, burrowing at his overlord's heels. That overlord is the Sire de Boissert. If Jean de Vergay's fighting days are done, for he suffers, so they say, from a weakness in the breast that causes him fainting spells, de Boissert's fighting days are not. There's little mischief in Normandy that does not have his mark on it.'

There was a tone of contempt in his voice when he spoke that name. I remembered how, when Sieux had been lost, it was the Sire de Boissert who had repudiated his daughter's betrothal to Raoul. I could tell there was still no love lost between Raoul and him.

'Send Alyse de Vergay off in a rage,' Raoul was continuing, 'and her father will support her in all her wrongs. In private he cowers before her, but in public he boasts she is worth twice his sons, and should have been a man herself. The more he bleats for peace, the more he longs for war, although he cannot fight himself. Off he'll trot to complain to his overlord, with enough gossip to whip de Boissert in a fret.'

‘They'll get no gossip from me,' I began, when he interrupted me.

'Aye so. Comes a thought in your head and all the world knows.' Which comment did not endear him to me. 'But before you open your pretty mouth, Lady Ann, to talk me down, think. And as a start, control those Norman ladies as you should.'

'It is too late,' I said. 'I have already ordered them to go.'

'Ordered!' he choked on the word. 'Ordered. No one orders my men but me. That is man's work. Keep you to yours.'

'No,' I repeated stubbornly. Well, it is not fit for a wife to contradict her married lord, and I know it is part of the marriage vow that women should let men control them. But God knows men are not always wise and God, I think, does not really favor fools. 'No,' I said. 'You order them be gone. I'll be better served by peasant folk.'

I saw how the muscle twitched in his cheek as he ground his teeth. 'I shall not quarrel with you, lady,' he gritted out, 'to upset you now, but it is not fit for your rank and state.'

I saw how the scar on his face stood out, that scar a coward had given him. It had paled and faded these past months, but I think he minded it more than any other wound he had, caused by a blow that he could not even return, bound and imprisoned as he had been. On seeing that scar and remembering how that blow had been given, my own anger died. I stifled the hot reply I had planned. What rank or estate, when we live like tramps? Those words belonged to Alyse de Vergay and her like. Instead, what I said was to mollify.

'If my ladies leave, my lord, there will be no one to tell the queen how we use the gifts she gave us,' I said. 'And we can live simply, without luxuries, as those spoilt creatures cannot. I have never even looked but I am sure the queen gave me many rare and costly things which make up a large part of the baggage train. With your other gear you can barter with them at the fair. There will be your mason's hire.’

He hesitated, still frowning. ‘The gifts of the queen were made to you,’ he said at last. 'How should she feel if we used them to rebuild what her husband has destroyed?'

'She was, is, my friend,' I maintained stoutly, on securer ground when I spoke of the queen. 'She rewarded me out of love. And out of fairness too, I think, knowing that Henry had been unfair. She alone persuaded Henry to make peace with you. She persuaded him somehow, let no man ask how or why, to let us be wed. She and her kinsmen, her southern courtiers, alone befriended me in Henry's court.'

I could see how he mulled over my words and made sense of them despite his first rejection of them.

'Royal gifts,' he said, 'usually come with a price. And the great are ever fickle in their friendship. But I cannot deny we could make use of them.'

'The queen helped me,' I argued next, 'because she claimed I befriended her first. I helped her when her second child was born. She has often told me she counts me as having brought her good luck so that she was delivered of a healthy son, especially since her older son is weakly and sick. She wished such fortune for me. Of all people else, she would approve that I put what she gave me to such good use.' I looked at him sideways. 'Besides,' I said, 'you would not deny it was women's work that prompted her to show me favor in the first place.'

He almost laughed. 'Christ's bones,' he said, 'you have not lost the knack of twisting words after all. Well, lady, if we follow your plan there goes my hope of keeping secret what I do at Sieux. Even if your ladies depart, all of France soon will know who gave those gifts to us and what we use them for. But that's a risk I'll take. No sense then to keep those ladies. Let them go and gossip to their heart's content. But, lady,' and now his voice was stern, 'leave the ordering of men's affairs to me. Concentrate on women's work, and give me, in turn, a healthy son.'

'And suppose,' I said meanly, for I love to have the last word, 'it is not a son I bear? Suppose, after all, it is a girl child? What then?'

Then he did laugh. 'A second Ann of Cambray!' he mocked me, with his sudden grin that lit up his face. 'By the Mass, I'd run. One of you is enough for any man.' And so my lord had the last word himself.

He drew me up, clamped his left hand about my waist, and led me forward toward the tent where we were camped.