Longsword (4 page)

He opened his eyes and pushed and pulled himself into a sitting position. His arms trembled with the effort he had made. He laughed again, and again no sound escaped him. That he should be reduced to this! A child had more strength than he. His eyes went beyond the end of the bed to the bare wall opposite, and then up to the corner of the wall and ceiling above. In that corner, where joists of ancient wood ran, some long-dead craftsman had carved a crude winged figure holding a cross. The cross was held in front of the figure at such an angle that anyone who looked up from the bed might suppose that the cross was being held out to him.

Gervase looked, as he had looked a hundred times before. He tilted his head back against the plaster wall behind him, the better to study that cross. Was it meant for him? The angel seemed to say that it was. Yet Gervase saw that he could reject it or not, just as he chose.

He, Gervase Escot, who had died and been born again, could now decide of his own free will to devote the rest of his life to good works. Or not. It was clear to him that he had come to a crossroads in his life … cross roads … to a cross in the road. …

The girl had seemed sure that he would live to fight again, but he doubted it … the fighting part, anyway. He had done with wars, with dirt and disease and all that senseless expenditure of energy. Then what remained to him? He had had some idea, a long time ago … when he first left Escot. …

Without a sword, without clothes … without skills, except for fighting.

“So what do you want me to do?” he asked the angel.

The angel didn't reply. How could it? It was a carved figure, merely; a crude figure of wood with awkward wings. He wondered how that old-time carver had thought the angel would ever fold those wings. They were such large wings, and so very, very stiff. Not much of the angel could be seen, in fact, what with the cross, and its wings, and a rather uneven halo.

“Well,” said Gervase to the angel, “perhaps good looks aren't as important here in the infirmary, as they might be outside. …”

And then he laughed aloud. And stopped, for he thought he had heard someone call for help. He looked suspiciously up at the angel, but naturally enough, the angel hadn't moved. The call came again, imperative, somewhat desperate.

Gervase sat up straight and looked out through the open door into the cloister, and beyond that into the green garth beyond. It was late in the afternoon, and it was raining. There was no-one about. It was the one time of day, in fact, when Anselm, who appeared to nurse anything up to a score of people with sporadic help from a young lad, was not present. Anselm always went to the buttery after his noon meal, and thence to the chapel. Gervase suspected that he went there to have an uninterrupted sleep, which was rarely allowed him at night. Usually the young lad was about somewhere, but this time he seemed conspicuous by his absence. The Lady Beata and her nurse would not reappear until they had distributed alms at the gate at sunset, and as it happened, there were very few occupants of the beds in the infirmary at the moment.

Gervase waited for someone to come. There was a big ward with a dozen beds in it at the far end of the cloister, to which most travellers were taken if they fell sick en route. Someone would come from there … or one of the women might hear, from the big room on the far side of the cloisters. The cells were reserved for those members of the castle who might fall ill and need attention. The cry had come from the cell next to Gervase. He did not know the name of its occupant, but he guessed that he was of some importance in the household, by the amount of time and trouble the Lady Beata took with him. The calls for help were repeated at frequent intervals. The man began to sound frantic.

Ah well, thought Gervase; no-one can expect me to do anything about it.

Oh, no? said the angel. Or rather, Gervase thought that was what the angel said. Conscience, he said to himself.

Perhaps the man's fallen out of bed.

Quite probably, from the sound of it.

Well, I can't lift him back again.

No? said the angel.

Gervase swore. He passed from swearing in English to French, and thence to Latin. Latin is a good language in which to swear. He swung his legs out of bed and stood up. The stone floor struck cold through the rushes. He winced. He was naked, and he had no clothes. More, the angel had not taken it into account that he had no strength in his legs. He sat on the bed. The angel prodded him off. He had got out of bed yesterday, hadn't he? And walked as far as the door? No! He snarled at the angel. He had not walked as far as the door. With the Lady Beata on one side of him, and the loutish boy on the other he had been dragged, feet trailing, to the door and back again. He had not walked.

He couldn't.

The angel shrugged. It was remarkable how his shoulders went up and down, when he was, after all, only a wooden figure.

Gervase pulled at the edge of the sheet on his bed. If the sheet came off easily, he would be able to cast it around him until he could get to the door and call for help. If the sheet stuck, then he would be justified in getting back into bed and forgetting all about the matter. The sheet came off easily. Gervase pulled it round his shoulders and, steadying himself with one hand against the wall, he shuffled to the doorway. The rain hissed down, pounding on the grass, sending spraylets far into the cloister, almost as far as Gervase. He could see no-one, hear nothing. Except for the sick man's cries, which were becoming more urgent and more weak with every passing minute.

“Malediction!” said Gervase to the angel. He turned with care to the right, steadying himself as before against the wall. The next cell was larger than his, with skins on the floor, and a fire in the hearth. The bed was not only furnished with linen sheets, but also a brocade coverlet; more, a thick curtain depended from a rod above the bedhead. An elderly man was sitting up in bed, beating with twisted and swollen hands at the bedclothes and curtain, set alight by an overturned candle.

“Help!” cried the elderly man.

“I'm here,” said Gervase. There was no time to run for help – even if he were capable of running, which he was not. He pulled off the sheet which covered his nakedness, and threw it over the flames. Then he dragged on the coverlet, pulling it down over the burning material, and smothered the flames. He ended up on the floor, the flames out, the stink of burned cloth in his face, laughing weakly at his predicament. He lay on the floor … the old man lay on the bed … neither could move without help, and no help was forthcoming.

“Brother Fire, harm me not!” said Gervase, harking back to the preachings of St Francis of Assisi.

“Must you make a jest of everything?” demanded the man in the bed. Anger and fear brought colour to his thin cheeks. “Can you not see I am helpless? My leg … I am so swaddled about with clothing … Get up, sirrah! Cover your nakedness, if you please!”

Gervase rose to his knees, but his trembling legs would not support him, and he rested there, leaning against the bed, fighting off a sick dizziness which threatened to smother him. …

“Get off me, sirrah! Can you not see I am in pain? Where is Anselm? And the boy?”

Gervase took a deep breath, and the faint feeling receded. The old man was suffering from shock. He'd had a near escape from death. There was bound to be a reaction. If there were any wine to be had. …

Nearby was a chest, upon which stood a bowl of fruit, a flagon of wine and some goblets. Gervase lunged for the chest, poured wine for the old man, and gave it to him. His hands were so misshapen with rheumatism that he had to use both of them to hold the cup, and he trembled so much he spilt some of the precious liquid on his fine white beard. He must indeed be a person of some consequence, for a furred cloak had been thrown over his shoulders to keep him warm. A confidential secretary, perhaps? He had none of the look of a man who labours in the vineyard, but much of the air of authority which pertains to the owner thereof. A writing stand and portable desk stood nearby, on which were set out parchment, ink-horn and quills. On a peg on the wall hung a scholar's black gown, made of the finest wool.

“Cover yourself, pray!” said the old man, gesturing to the black robe. “And give yourself some wine, too. You deserve it.”

Gervase looked at the robe, and then down at his shivering nakedness. He thought a scholar's robe would sit ill on his tall frame. Yet he was chilled, and the cloth of the robe would be warm. A linen shift hung beneath it; again, the quality was not such as he had been used to in the past, but it was a world removed from the rags in which he had returned to Malling. Should he cavil at wearing good linen again, because he had once worn something finer? The robe had a deep square yoke, from which the body of the gown fell to his calves in heavy pleats. The long full sleeves were slit up to the elbows, to allow the forearms freedom. He put on shift and robe, and at once his teeth stopped chattering; he felt as if he had taken a step of some importance.

The man on the bed inclined his head to Gervase and said, “I'm Hamo, steward of Mailing, and confidential man of business to Lord Henry. You must be the discharged soldier from the next cell. You shall be rewarded for your prompt action, when my lady comes.” He spoke with the kindly condescension of a servant high in favour with the nobility.

Gervase bowed his head, and kept his amusement to himself. Yet surely Hamo was in the right of it, and a landless knight without a sword was worth far less than a trusted clerk.

“I was reaching for my desk,” continued Hamo, “but my hands are no longer as nimble as they were once … though certainly Anselm left that candle too near the edge. My lord expects a report from me at the end of each week: a confidential report, not to be trusted to my junior clerks.”

Gervase looked at the crippled hands, and wondered how the old man ever managed to hold the pen nowadays. He was a gallant old gentleman, this Hamo, with a lively eye and a shelf of books nearby to show that he had more than the rudiments of education in him.

“I'll pen it for you, if you like,” offered Gervase. “That was a nasty shock you had. If you will trust me to do it for you?”

“You can write?” His incredulity was not flattering.

“I learned as a child, and then, when I was laid up with a broken leg in France, I improved my penmanship, lacking better employment for my time. The monks who cared for me were kind enough to say I could be trusted with simple tasks in that direction.”

Knight and steward eyed one another. Finally Hamo gave a sharp nod, at which Gervase drew the desk towards him, and picked up the quill in his left hand.

“That is the devil's hand,” objected Hamo. “No letters of mine will be written with the left hand.”

“The monks said it did not matter which hand I wrote with, provided the task was done with God in mind. I write very ill with my right hand; if you wish, I will prove it to you.”

Hamo raised his eybrows, but began to dictate his report. Presently Gervase's hand began to tremble, and he had to stop a while to rest. Finally the letter was finished, and handed to Hamo for checking. Gervase sank to the floor, and let his head fall back against the wall. His mind was not on the letter, but on the impossibility of walking back, unaided, to his own room.

Presently Hamo looked up from the letter. “Passably written,” he said. Then he frowned. Gervase had fallen asleep, sprawled against the wall, the quill still in his hand.

Hamo's eyes narrowed. “Left-handed,” he said to himself. “Red-haired, left-handed, educated … and something of a swordsman. Now I wonder. …”

The girl had brought him a dog to nurse back to health. The dog had been gored in an encounter with a wild boar, and Crispin, Beata's brother, had ordered Flash to be destroyed, because in his pain the dog had snapped at Crispin.

“Flash is a favourite of my father's,” said the girl. “It seemed wrong to me to destroy the dog if a little rest and good care would set him to rights. Crispin is so hasty, sometimes. My father is away for six weeks, and knows only that the dog was gored. He doesn't know that Crispin has ordered Flash to be destroyed. My father would care for the dog himself, if he were here … he loves so few things or people … I would save the dog for him, if I could.”

Flash licked Gervase's hand, and he smiled. The dog's right hind leg had been badly torn, but the wound was clean, and the animal looked interested in his surroundings. Beata crouched on the floor beside Flash, her hands clasped on her knees, her attention on the dog. She said, “If my brother discovered that I had disobeyed his orders and brought the dog to you, there would be trouble. Flash must be kept out of his sight … must remain here in the cloisters, until my father is returned.”

Gervase was pleased to be allowed to do something for her. And in any case, the dog's bright eyes were already giving him his reward. He scooped him up, balanced himself on unsteady legs and bore Flash to a dark corner by his bed. A letter lay, half-written, on the writing stand, which had now found its way into his own cell.

“I interrupted you in your work,” she said, tucking a strand of wavy hair back into its net. “I'm sorry. Hamo is full of praise for you. …”

“Not to my face. …” He grimaced, easing the heavy collar of his gown over his right shoulder. He was still weak, and there was a place on his back where the skin had not healed properly.

“That is his way,” she said, with amused indulgence. “But a kinder mortal never existed. Why, he took the trouble to teach me how to read and write when I was small, and now and then he will even lend me one of his precious books. He said you learned to write in France?”

“My leg was mauled in a skirmish before a besieged town gate, some four years back. I was left to recover at a priory where the monks divided their time between farming and copying manuscripts. I had learned the rudiments of the art in childhood, but my uncle had never encouraged such pursuits, so … I liked it there.”