Longsword (11 page)

The Lady Elaine was devotedly served by two tiring-women, perfectionists in the art of presenting beauty. For nigh on an hour she had been sitting on a stool while the women pulled on and off coloured silk stockings, tied garters, pampered her skin with lotions and tried the effect of certain beribboned garlands on her hair.

Beata came in with a rush, tearing off the net which had made such a poor job of controlling her locks, shook back her hair, pulled a comb through it with her teeth set against the pain of dealing with tangles, and looped her girdle more closely around her waist. As she turned to the light, Elaine saw that Beata's left cheek was swollen and red.

“Enough,” said the Lady Elaine, waving her women away. “I wish to speak with my sister. Beata, where have you been? Nurse has been looking all over for you, and I wanted you. …”

“With the priest,” said Beata, picking up a hand-mirror and putting it to a use different from that for which it was intended. It was cool against the heat of her bruised cheek.

“So he did hit you. Let me see … I have a lotion here.” Elaine was not unintelligent, and she loved her sister despite – or perhaps because of – the fact that they were so unlike. “There, now … if you wish to cry. …”

Beata tossed her head. “I am not going to cry. Nothing and nobody can make me cry. Father Anthony scolded me, but little I care for him. Or for anything that my brother says or does! I am going to write to my father, to tell him what is in my mind, and no-one is going to stop me. Surely Father will listen to me. …”

Elaine blinked at her sister. Beata straightened her shoulders, and turned to Elaine with a brilliant smile. “Well, and what have you found to do on your first day back at Mailing? I was at the farm in the morning, you know. …”

Elaine was easily reassured that all was now well with her sister. Was she not anxious to make a confidence herself? “Well, it was all agreed, as you know, that I should marry young Gerald. …”

“Gerald? You go too fast for me. The last time you were here there was some other man spoken of for you … Gervase something?”

“Escot. Yes. They tell me he was very ugly, so I am glad I am not going to marry him now.”

“Some ugly men are such delightful company that you forget their appearance … or come to think they have an air of distinction better than good looks. …”

“Do you think so? Well, anyway, Father told me ages ago that the man was not to be thought of any more, because his uncle had married and was like to produce an heir, which made this Gervase Escot of little importance … and I was glad because Father seemed to think that Gerald would do well enough as my husband. Gerald is not so very rich, of course, but his family is good.”

“He is a pretty lad, and loves you well.”

“Yes, I think he does.” She stated her opinion dispassionately. “I thought it would be not so bad to be married to him. …”

“You would rule him, of course.”

Elaine smiled, and then sobered. “But now Crispin says that Gerald is not to be thought of, either. He has received fresh instructions from Father, about another match, and Gerald is to be discouraged.” She sighed, but as one regretting the loss of a pretty trifle, rather than of a lover.

“Well … poor Gerald,” said Beata, her attention wandering. “But you have had a-many lovers and by this time … who is to be the next, pray?”

“Someone called Sir Bertrand de Bors. I do not like him.” She said this with the gentle distaste of one refusing a dish at supper. “He is always pulling on my arm, or trying to touch my neck.”

“You have met him? Well, at least that makes a change. Of all the men proposed for your hand so far, you have had first-hand knowledge of only two.”

“There was that Scots knight. …” Elaine began to tell off her lovers on her fingers. “But then there was some trouble on the border and his castle was burned to the ground. Then Gerald for a little, and after him Sir John from London, so great in his self-esteem I thought he would burst his tunic. Then there was Sir Gervase Escot – though him I never saw – and now Sir Bertrand.”

“Well, what is this new man like? Hamo would have known. …” Beata sighed.

“Ah, dear Hamo.” The regret was as lightly expressed as for the loss of Gerald. “Well, Sir Bertrand is a connection of the Escots. They say he is rich. He has gained many prizes in tourneys of recent years, though I do not think he has been at war – not in France, anyway. He bore my ribbons in the tournament at York recently, and carried everything before him. He is so big that. …” She gestured widely with her hands “And so tall, and his hands have hairs on their backs. I don't think,” she said in considering fashion, “that he is as rich as Sir John was, but he is related to our sister-in-law Joan, and half the nobility in the Sussex area, and he was able to help Father in some litigation or other. I don't understand what it was all about, though he did try to tell me. When he looks at me he makes me feel uncomfortable … and he leans on me when he sits next me at table.”

There was no response to this confession, so Elaine looked up to see her sister gazing at her with apparent attention, while tearing her veil into shreds.

“Beata! What on earth is the matter with you?”

“Nothing. Or rather, everything. Elaine, what am I going to do?”

Elaine stared at her sister without comprehension. “Do? Why? Is there anything you want to do that you cannot? Are you worried about Father Anthony scolding you or Crispin being out of temper?”

“That! That is nothing! No, I meant … what am I going to do with the rest of my life?”

“In the convent, you mean? You go at Christmas, don't you? Ah, I shall miss you. Crispin says Father wants me to be married at Christmas. Then we shall both be gone. …”

“Yes, in the convent. What am I to do with myself? Sit and embroider, sit and listen to the gospels being read at me? Kneel and pray? Kneel and sing? Sit and pray? Walk slowly around the cloister with my eyes on the ground? Talk softly within permitted hours, and eat to the sound of yet more readings from the gospels?”

“It is a good life, surely.” There was gentle rebuke in Elaine's voice.

“For some, maybe. But for me? Think, Elaine! Think of what I am … and think of that life. For once in your life, Elaine, think! And help me! Am I not busy from morning to night, working with my hands and my head and every part of me? Is there a minute of my day in which I am safe from interruption for some question of the household, or of the infirmary? What of the constant cares of the farm, and its produce? Of the charity at the gates? Of all the hundred and one things I do during the day … am I to stop short, and do nothing for the rest of my life?”

“To pray is a holy work … a lifetime's work. …”

“So Father Anthony says. I do not believe it.”

“Blasphemy!” whispered Elaine, her eyes going to the door. Suppose someone should overhear …!

“Commonsense! Prayer is all very well, but it is not enough. I can sit in the chapel and think with pity of the poor people at the gates waiting to be fed, and I can call down blessing on their heads but that will not put bread into their mouths, will it? A poor man's sores need to be tended, a starving child to be given food … ‘feed my lambs' … prayer is nothing … you have to use your head and your hands to get anything done.”

“But without prayer … you pray twice a day … you go to Mass. Beata, what has come over you? This is most unlike. …”

“I have feared the future for years, and thrust the thought of it from me. Every time someone reminded me that I was destined for the church, I would experience a sense of shock, and then I would think that something would prevent it from happening! Why, last year my departure was postponed … why not this years also? Why should I ever go? For weeks at a time I have been able to forget, except when my hair grows long enough to remind me that every twelvemonth it will be cut short again, to remind all men that I am not a woman … just a thing destined to be sold to the church to redeem my father's vow … his pride, rather …!”

“Beata, I must not listen to. …”

“You will! Elaine, I think I am going mad!”

Again Elaine's eyes went to the door, but this time in the hope that someone might come and help her. She asked, “Have you spoken of this to Father Anthony?”

“I have tried, but he dismisses my words as the foolishness of a girl who is fed over well. I am told to fast, to make a novena of prayers. I have done neither. I need my strength to carry out the work I do here among the sick and the poor. I need every minute of my day, not to spend in prayer, but in nursing the sick, or in so arranging matters on the farm that I have money for charity. I have no time for prayers as you think of time for prayers. I sit down and try to pray, and the thought of some sick child, or of some task left undone comes into my mind, and the more I try to dismiss it, the more uneasy I become. Sometimes I force myself to sit still for almost half an hour, and when I get up, I fly from the chapel as if on wings, and there are always a hundred more things to be attended to, because I have stolen that half hour from my true work. …” She had finished. Head bent, and hands lax, she dropped onto the bed and sat there, quite still. She did not weep, but shivered and then set her teeth.

Elaine fidgeted with her hair, and with the neck of her gown. She put a pleat in her skirt, and then smoothed it out again. Twice she opened her mouth to speak, and twice closed it again.

At last, “You asked me for help, but what can I do?”

Beata lifted her head. Her eyes were ringed with shadows, and she looked ill. She put out her hand, and it trembled. Elaine took her sister's hand, and patted it, making little noises of a reassuring nature, as if she thought her sister were sick in her body, and not in her mind.

“Would you help me distribute alms at the gate at sunset every night? Would you come with me round the infirmary, and see what has to be done there? If I am to go at Christmas, someone must be found to take my place. …” She gave a hard sob, a dry sound, quickly stifled. “I know what you will say; you are leaving at Christmas, too, and therefore cannot help me. Yet there must be someone, somewhere in the castle. … There is a man who might … the affairs of the farm would be safe in his hands, and he could be trusted to see the money went to charity, and not into my father's coffers. …”

“The new secretary? The one Crispin put in the stocks? He made a bad beginning, but. …”

“Perhaps Hamo was wrong to think Master William had been sent here to help us … perhaps he will not stay. Perhaps it would be better if he went.”

“Oh, no,” said Elaine, yawning. “Crispin likes him now. He was angry to hear his orders had been disobeyed, and he thought the new clerk held his head too high for a servant, but when Crispin went to see how he did in the stocks, Master William was studying the manorial rolls, lying flat on his back, reading. …” She laughed at the remembrance. “With the two other clerks fussing around, writing notes at Master William's dictation! Crispin threw back his head and laughed, and so did we all. Then Crispin bade Captain Varons release Master William, and said he would give him a purse of silver coins to ease his back.”

“I wish I had been there,” said Beata, convulsively clasping and unclasping her hands about her upper arms. “I had been sent to be scolded by Father Anthony. Could he stand unaided?”

Elaine did not make the mistake of thinking her sister's query was for the priest. “Not at first, but Crispin took one of his arms, and the younger of the two clerks took the other, and then Master William bowed his thanks to Crispin. Crispin told him not to be such a fool again, and that was that.” Now she, too, fell to fidgeting. “I wish Sir Bertrand were not coming. I wish it were not he. I wish. …”

“For Gerald?”

“Perhaps.” She sighed. “for no-one special, but Gerald would do, I suppose. Crispin says Father will hold a tourney here at Christmas to celebrate our double wedding, you to the church, me to Sir Bertrand. …”

“Horrible!” said Beata. “If I must be sent out of sight, let it be with the minimum of ceremony … let me creep away, unnoticed. To celebrate a forced marriage, to expect me to smile and enjoy … no, I could not!”

“Ah, but you will!” said Elaine, putting her arms round Beata. “You must help me, and I will help you, and we will go smiling to our bridegrooms. I shall need your supporting arm when I met him again. I must confess I am a little afraid of this Sir Bertrand. …”

“You will enslave him, as you do all your other lovers.”

“I do not think so.”

Beata put her head on her sister's shoulder, and they clasped one another, seeking comfort. And though neither found the reassurance they sought, yet they found some ease in having opened their hearts to each other.

Gervase went looking for the Lady Beata, and found her in the cloisters of the infirmary. She drew him into one of the unoccupied rooms, telling Anselm to go on ahead, and that she would be with him in a minute.

“I am a little stiff,” he admitted, acknowledging her enquiry as to his health. “But a ride out to the nearest manors will clear that. What I wanted to ask you was about. …”

“Rocca,” she said. “Yes. I will tell you what I know, but it is not much. He was appointed bailiff on the death of his father – who was bailiff here for some twenty years, and who was a good man withal. Rocca was appointed on Crispin's recommendation some two years ago, even though Hamo opposed him at the time. At first there seemed little reason to suppose the appointment a bad one. The returns from the farms hereabouts increased slightly. The harvest was good that first year. However, this year we had a dreadful storm which flattened the crops just when they should have been harvested. You would have expected the yields from the peasants to have dropped because of the storm, but they didn't. My father, of course, was pleased. But I have noticed as I ride to and from the Glebe Farm that a certain air of neglect … I do not know that I can give you anything by way of evidence. …”