Ann of Cambray (25 page)

She brushed my hair, restored now to its own length, twining it with ribbons in the old style.

‘There is an old song,’ she said, ‘that they still sing in the hills.’

She began to croon to herself, one of those Celtic lays that you, my poet, so much admire, so strive to emulate. It tells of death, betrayal, disaster; which of our songs does not? There was one part I think I must have heard Gwendyth sing, for it sounded familiar, especially the line that begins, ‘Warriors all, we fall before our time, drowned in the arms of the sea . . .’

I had forgotten words and tune, but on hearing them I marvelled that they were so familiar.

When she had finished, she said, ‘Our strength has been destroyed, our fate controlled by these last years. When was there not a time that our young men were not betrayed, our hopes ended?’

‘But if she knew of their deaths,’ I cried, ‘could not she have saved her son, saved her husband?’

‘You speak as if it were a gift, this knowledge, to grant, to withhold,’ the old woman said. She shook her head. ‘I cannot answer you. To know is one thing; to change what happens, another.’

She put her hand on mine, it was still strong and firm, like Gwendyth’s, showing no sign of age.

‘If she had had the power to alter the future, be assured she would have, although God grant us mercy from such power. She loved her children dearly, even you, whom she saw but for one short hour.’

She patted my hand again, guessing perhaps at the sadness that welled forth from my heart.

‘It was long ago,’ she said again. ‘Had she and Lord Falk lived, they would have held your worth as high as your brother’s. But your father was Norman, lady. Why would he listen or understand such things as we have been speaking of? Why would she warn him, to break his heart before its time. It died soon enough when your noble brother died. That all men could see for themselves. But when she left him, his life stopped.’

We did not always speak of such far off and melancholy things. Nor was the Cambray I knew such a sad place. But the most part of what I can tell you comes from the lips of that old dame, God rest her soul. And in a strange way, she comforted me. Since then, whenever the future has looked dark, I have found strength in marvelling at my mother’s courage, who, knowing, had tried to shield the others from the pain of knowledge. God grant us all such depth of love, such endurance.

So we passed time peacefully enough, in the pavilion Lord Raoul had set for my use apart from the others. It was surrounded by guards under Giles’s command, but I did not feel confined; there was so much to talk and to think about. Sometimes I walked in the evening with my womenfolk and saw the boys and squires about their accustomed tasks, and was tempted to stop and speak with them, although I never did. And once I went to the outer wall, where I used to creep in the evenings, and heard the outcry from the women’s quarters beyond the lines. They were leaving, had been ordered to leave. I forced myself to turn away without watching, although I would have dearly loved to wait and see if all had gone, including the red-haired woman. Shame prevented my asking or speaking of her. Yet jealousy of her still burned my thoughts. Had Talisin had such a woman, I would have shrugged, knowing it was the way of men. But not with Raoul.

Jealousy is a deadly sin, they say, and rightly so, hot and spiteful, turning all things sharp with malice. I told myself this, berated myself for such pettiness. I was no simpering maid, reared to high thoughts and flowering words; I had already killed a man for lust. You have seen how I was dragged up at the castle tail, scrabbling in the back corners of the peasants’ world. But there had been a time, in the golden afternoons at Sedgemont, when I had thought, too, of love as golden, full of promise. And Raoul was right when he taunted me with such hopes. But whether he sent her away to please me, or whether, as I suspect, it was good sense, not wanting to jeopardise his standing if the Celtic lords should come, I do not know. Nor what parting, if any, they had. Those were questions better left unasked, better unanswered.

I have said I saw Lord Raoul but seldom. By day, he was often gone with his guard, riding with them from dawn to dusk across the moors through the wildest parts of the borderline. Sometimes they came dragging back, the horses deep in mud, the men too tired to roll from their backs. By such patrols he kept the southern marches firm, free of looters such as I had seen at work farther north, rid of raiding tribes like the one that had taken Cambray. There were frequent skirmishes, to keep his men in training, minor affairs without loss of life. But he drove himself and his men all the harder that the Celtic leaders still had sent no word, made no response to his messages. Until one day . . .

I was listening to another of those long tales of love and grief that delight our Celtic taste, when I heard the sudden clash of arms, the sound of footsteps, voices. He burst in upon me, smiling, dressed in more noble fashion than I had yet seen, charm high upon him like a sheen.

‘Bestir yourself, my lady of Cambray,’ he said. ‘Put on your geegaws and your courtesies. They are coming.’

‘Who, my lord?’ I asked, pretending calm although my heart raced at seeing him. But he was pulling me up from the chair, where the women had been braiding my hair, so that it fell loose.

‘Your mother’s kin,’ he said, smiling down, his eyes bright, even his hair alive. ‘Your Celtic lords, your sly foxes lured into the open at last. God’s wounds, I began to think they had no family pride, to want to greet you. Put on your mother’s jewels to show them all previous rumours have lied, that you are cared for, safe. They have come to see you as your father’s heir. And make treaty with his overlord, God willing. Then will our work here be done.’

There was an eagerness in his voice that told me something I had not thought before, how much perhaps he too wished to be away from here, how grievously this long, unexpected exile from Stephen’s court had cost him.

I sent my women scurrying.

He held me still, that hand I remembered heavy on my shoulder.

‘They are not children to play at games,’ he said. ‘I will show you to them to satisfy their curiosity. I would not have you speak out of turn. Say nothing, do nothing, that I do not bid you. All that is needed is that you be there.’

I could guess at the anxiety behind his words. He had been waiting for this occasion for months. It galled him, no doubt, to have to owe it to me. Yet he should not have feared that I would spoil the chance for him.

‘I will say nothing to disgrace you,’ I told him stiffly. ‘I will be a model of decorum, my lord.’

He put his finger across my mouth.

‘Swear not so much,’ he said. Tempt not your Celtic gods. But think, think, before you speak. I have set no trap for them. They come of their own accord and I will offer them a treaty such as we had in King Henry’s day: to rule freely behind the boundaries they agreed to then. There is no treachery unless they will see one.’

‘I shall be honey sweet, my lord of Sedgemont,’ I said coldly. ‘As overlord, you can do no other than order me.’

‘That is what I am afraid of,’ he said. ‘Play not Countess of Warwick with me here. I shall not drop dead of shock, but you may wish it.’

I wanted to say again, ‘Trust me.’ But could not.

‘Well, then,’ he said, letting me go. ‘See to it. The fate of Cambray as well may rest upon it. They have already crossed the outer guards.’

‘I cannot be ready in time,’ I cried in panic, sending everyone flying before me.

‘You will be,’ he said. And I was, in a dress they had sewn for me these past weeks, pale green it was, with the sides and underarms caught up to show the darker kirtle beneath. Giles went before me to hand me over the rough ground, and a small page, one of those I had lived among, came behind me carrying my mother’s gold circle, for they had told me I should not wear it as a maid unwed, a nicety I had not thought on before.

Lord Raoul was standing to greet me, still dressed in his splendid clothes. Coming towards him over the grass in the innermost part of the camp where his pavilion stood, I had the feeling of brilliancy everywhere, blue sky, green fields, burnished mail, gleaming weapons, standard blazing in the spring sun.

‘The Lady of Cambray,’ Lord Raoul said. His voice was vibrant as I remembered, his hand steady. I took it so he could lead me forward. Beside him sat a small, dark man, overflowing one of those wooden stools soldiers use. He was half-smothered in furs despite the warmth of the day. When he stood up, he scarce came to Raoul’s shoulder, yet he was broad and solid, and when he moved, his legs, bound with thongs, seemed like trees, thick and ponderous. But his gait was stately, too, his hair was long and black, and his eyes small and quick, with a brightness that reminded me of Gwendyth. I would not have known him, but there was something about him that gave me pause to think.

‘So this is little Ann of Cambray, full grown,’ he said. ‘I should know you, kinswoman. I am half-brother to your mother, whom I dearly loved. She was as second mother to me years ago, before marriage took her far away.’

He spoke in Norman-French as we did, slowly and coldly. Yet I sensed a warmth beneath his words.

‘The Lady Ann has spoken often of her Celtic kin,’ Lord Raoul said at my side, ‘although her home has been at Sedgemont.’

The Celtic lord nodded almost disdainfully, and behind him I heard his entourage cough and stamp, as nervous as horses in new quarters.

We sat down, Lord Raoul, the Celtic lord, and myself, and wine was brought. It seemed wrong to be sitting as with strangers.

‘I was young when I left the borderland,’ I said suddenly in our own tongue. ‘But I have never forgotten it.’

I felt Lord Raoul’s start of displeasure, but before he could restrain me, or the interpreter beside us could speak, I translated for him myself, giving my most brilliant smile. On the other side, I felt my Celtic kinsman shift and half-smile, in turn, and a flicker crossed the faces of his men.

Lord Raoul looked at me, neither smiling nor moving.

‘Tell him,’ he said—was there warning in his look?—‘that as he and his kindred were good friends to Lord Falk of Cambray, and through him to the Earl of Sedgemont, so would I stand high in their esteem.’

‘My lord uncle,’ I said, and again I saw a half-smile cross his face, ‘as dear as you were to my mother, so dear we would be to you and yours again.’

I could hear the translator repeating the words back for Lord Raoul. He could not fault me so far.

‘Times have brought us far apart. But Lord Raoul of Sedgemont would be as good a friend as his grandfather, the late earl, was.’

‘I knew your father, Falk, well,’ said my uncle—half-uncle?—but I think he liked the name. ‘He broke no treaty with us; we were as blood kin.’

‘Think of me ever so,’ I said. ‘And as my father was vassal to the lords of Sedgemont, so hold we faith of them.’

Beside me, I could feel Lord Raoul shift in his turn.

‘Bid him know that we would renew those treaties, ever made in friendship.’

‘It is what we also wish, my lord of Sedgemont,’ the Celtic voice broke in, speaking again in Norman-French, taking again that sterner tone. ‘But these past years have been hard on the borderlands. Ten years almost it is since Falk died, and who has kept the border policies since then? It has not been our men who have raided and despoilt the villages and farms.’ 

Raoul said patiently, ‘There have been errors on both sides, my lord.’

‘And we have heard many rumours, accounts of battle and rebellion,’ my uncle said. ‘Even rumour of your death, kinswoman.’ He turned back to me. ‘They said you died at Sedgemont.’ There was a pause. Even Raoul did not know how to answer that.

‘Yet here I am,’ I said with my bright smile. ‘Come back with the spring and end of war.’

They all laughed at that. The wine went round more freely. Lord Raoul let out his breath again.

‘The old treaty set the boundary marks,’ he said. ‘Lord Falk and his men kept the Norman side safe, your men the other. Both parties to the treaty were content. We have not seen many Celtic patrols, although we have been here these past months.’ 

My uncle said, ‘During the reign of King Henry, late of memory, the boundary was agreed upon, and on your side you built a line of castles to hold it firm. That was to our advantage as well as yours. But since these civil wars, who cares where the boundary runs? New castles have been built across the line. Year by year, our lands are eroded away by your settlements.’ I could see Raoul was thinking of Cambray.

‘And we have lost Cambray, my uncle,’ I said, leaning on his arm, forestalling Raoul, ‘I would go there if I could.’

My uncle watched us both through his small half-shut eyes. Then he took a great pull of wine.

‘Your wars have plagued us as well,’ he said at last. ‘When men fight for a throne, there are always those who take advantage. We have our malcontents as well as you. We do not like these shifts of fashion that lure the restless and misfit among our people across the border, to their loss and shame. Only Lord Falk’s good sense prevented greater evil when the wars first began. If Cambray were restored to you, would you not restore the lands we have lost farther north to the lords of Maneth, the greatest offenders of the Norman treaty?’

‘While we have a king over us,’ said Raoul, ‘we must hold faith to him. So would you find that your chief concern if one of your princes became overlord of all. I am empowered to make a treaty as it was made originally in King Henry’s day. When the time comes to fight at Cambray or Maneth, and we shall, you have my promise, we shall put both to rights, be those at fault Norman or Celt.’

He spoke grimly. My uncle watched him closely again.

‘So be it,’ he said. ‘Then shall I bear back tidings to my kinsmen and great lords, that they may talk of it. For they, too, long for peace as it was in the days of Falk and the Earl Raymond, both blessed in memory. I feasted with your grandfather, my lord, near to Cambray once. It was close to the start of these wars. “If men fight for the honour of their king,” he said, “then will the kingdom be torn apart.”