Ann of Cambray (9 page)

His laughter, showing blackened teeth, choked off into silence at Giles’s reproving nudge. He set down the ale pot and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Ah, well, but he is young,’ he said lamely, ‘and wears wounds as a sign of valour. He got a spear point through the thigh at Worcester a month gone and yet continued with the siege even when he could not walk.’

‘Does he have no sense then?’ I asked, hoping to spot a weakness.

‘Nay, plenty,’ Dylan said, settling down, glad to play the soldier’s favourite pastime of gossiping of his generals. ‘They say he tried to prevent Prince Eustace, the king’s son, from running amok three years ago. The prince was all for burning and harrying the south. “Not so,” said Lord Raoul, “I’ve seen the like of that too much in Normandy. We’ll have no such Angevin work here.” Spoke out sharply for I heard it myself. They say the king thinks highly of him for all that he is young. He is a good man among men, I know that well enough.’

‘And Lord Guy of Maneth?’

‘Ah, that’s another kettle of fish. Such men be hard to gauge,’ he said, echoing Lord Raoul’s own words. ‘I’d be not overeager to trust him.’

‘Where gets he all his power?’

The old soldier shrugged. ‘He was vassal to the Earl of Gloucester. After the earl’s death, who kept the underlings in check? He used to claim he was the equal to Lord Falk, your father, having not a quarter of Lord Faulk’s land or standing, but he was often underfoot at Cambray, thrusting forward with friendship.’

‘And his men, who follow him?’

Dylan shrugged again, and repeated what Giles and I had already heard. ‘He brings into his service many oddities, scraped from where he can get them. But his castle of Maneth, north of Cambray, lies along the western border, too. He has border men at his command, sod them. And Norman French when he can scrounge them.’

‘Then Maneth castle will be of importance to the king if there be another war?’

‘Perhaps,’ Dylan said shrewdly, ‘for who can trust a man like that, jumped up like an ill-grown weed? Yet I’ll swear to this, Lord Raoul is Stephen’s man. Blood oath he gave upon a battlefield, and he’s not one to turn his back upon an oath so sworn. I’d not give a broken arrow for any of the rest. If Henry offers them enough, they’ll turn to him, and the king can whistle in the wind. But for all that, Maneth castle will not hold the key to the west. Cambray will. Mark my words, lady, you will be needed at Cambray in the end.’

‘I?’ I said, surprised. ‘Why?’

‘Have you not thought of it? You are the last of your name. If there would be anyone the Celts would heed it would be Ann of Cambray. And we have all been gone too long, my lady.’

‘I know,’ I said sadly, for had I not said the same things to Lord Raoul myself to provoke him. And now this dour soldier said as much to me.

‘But Lord Raoul holds me as his ward.’

‘Well, well,’ he said, his dark eyes quick and assessing, ‘you have grown much, Lady Ann, from the little wench we left. One day, you will see, you will return to Cambray. Then glad shall I be to your service or your lord husband’s.’

‘It may be so,’ I said, rising, trying to brush off the straw from my skirts, not liking the implications of his words, although I had time to reflect on them in the months that followed. None of us could have known then by what strange paths that day at last would come.

That was my last chance of liberty. As I had guessed, Lady Mildred kept me close, and although Giles stood armed at the door, I had small chance to speak to him alone, and he must often have been bored, on guard at the women’s bower with only their chatter to amuse him. As he had intended, Lord Raoul left abruptly, taking advantage of a change in wind and weather to hope for quick passage to France from a southern port. The summer wound on slowly. News came a little more readily now, for most of Lord Raoul’s men remained behind at Sedgemont with Sir Brian in charge. People came and went as I presume they had done before the wars began; it seemed a pleasant sort of existence, and even the harvest promised well; the great fields around Sedgemont were heavy with grain. At times, travellers came to spend the night and tell us of doings elsewhere. In this way we heard of the death of the Queen of England. They say she had been greatly loved and the king grieved for her heartily. And these journeyers brought us tales of the marriage, as Raoul had predicted, of the one-time Queen of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine, to Henry of Anjou; it was a scandal of the greatest kind, despite the fact that she brought him so much wealth, as Lord Raoul had said, as to make him the most powerful man in France.

The Lady Mildred told us as much of the story as she saw fit, savouring the scandal, I think, from the safety of her own virtue, how this Eleanor had gone on Holy War with the King of France but been so unwifely as to have refused to bed with him, even when, upon their return, the Pope himself had placed them both therein and reblessed their marriage. But little good that had done the godless lady, who had slipped from the court at Paris and fled back to her own lands, there to wait the coming of the young Count of Anjou as her next husband. This tale, if the Lady Mildred had but known it, only served to inflame a hope of mine, growing daily. For perhaps, I thought, I too could find means to escape from Sedgemont, although the lands I fled to were nothing compared with the broad acres of Aquitaine and Provence. But every day the Lady Mildred had some story of good and evil to keep us in our place and make us reflect what would be our fate if we did not learn to behave modestly, bow down meekly, submit to men’s will. Like Gwendyth, she was appalled at my choice of pastimes and companions. Unlike Gwendyth, she had the power, she and Sir Brian both, to reform me at her pleasure. I began to realise more than ever that the life of a lady was not what I had in mind at all.

It was several months later when I sat one afternoon in the solar at Sedgemont, the larger upper hall above the main one where we feasted. Usually this would have been occupied by the lord of the castle and his family, but Lord Raoul kept bachelor quarters elsewhere. There were more ladies than hitherto, women who had returned with their husbands or fathers, the wives and daughters of Lord Raoul’s own knights or of his nearby vassals. I still had scant liking for any of them, a gaggle of geese I thought, pecking and scratching at one another. The days had dragged slowly by, although the Lady Mildred kept us busy from dawn to dusk about women’s tasks. But I took unkindly to such work—even now, you have noticed it—well, there are some things that I learned from her that made sense, and high or low, all women see to them: the ordering of the food, the setting of the table, be it only crusts of bread, the seeing to the use of meat and drink so that the first-come stores are taken first, the latest kept in clean bins and casks, safe from vermin—that makes sense. A woman needs such knowledge, just as a man must know how to oversee his stalls and byres and put his own tools and weapons in order. Even if there be servants and serfs to do such things, the mistress and master of the house need learn them first so that they know when they are well served. The daily tour of inspection of the crofts and storerooms at Sedgemont was a triumph of efficiency. We followed in the lady’s train as she swept from one place to another, attended by Sir Brian, who kept the keys and opened the doors for her. Models of neatness were these stores, and wherever she passed, skirt dragging over the floor without fear of rubbish or dirt, the menials made great show of effort, sweeping and strewing the halls with fresh rushes daily, scouring the trestle tables before they were stacked away until the next meal, cleaning the plate and pewter and setting it in place.

‘Chaos and dirt bring all to confusion,’ she was fond of saying. ‘A castle stocked is that much safer from attack.’

But the other chores, those I hated. Mountains of mending, sewing, the making of new garments for the folk who worked within the castle walls, from serfs to lords, that kept her most occupied and gave me most labour. Carding of the wool we learned, and dyeing it and weaving it, and cutting it, and sewing it. . .and finally, for the higher folk, embroidering it. This last work she reserved for herself and her older women, that Lord Raoul’s clothes should be well adorned, although it seemed to me I seldom saw him wear finery now. But what miles of seams she left for us to finish. Even my dresses I learned to stitch, those I had once worn having grown so tight that either I had to make new or go indecent. And I had sworn to take nothing from the coffers of Sedgemont! Yet, to speak fair, the Lady Mildred was generous to us all, if we but merited it by hard work, and although the colours and shades she chose were often more suitable for an older man like Sir Brian, she laboured long to bedeck Lord Raoul and his guard as befitted their high station. Yes, I know the men at Cambray do not now complain too loud in my hearing of my deficiencies and I have trained women to please them. But I take little part in these sewing rites. Though you must admit that I have learned from the lady what is due in other things.

Embroidery was the Lady Mildred’s joy. She told us often, at least once a day, how she had been trained at the Norman court of the Norman dukes in the tradition of the duchess whose husband had become the first Norman king of England. The great banner that the duchess and her women had stitched in honour of the Norman victory must be a marvel of the world, to hear her talk of it. And now she sought to make one similar here for the lords of Sedgemont, where for seven years she and her women had sat and sewed it, panel after panel, a saga of Sedgemont history.

This afternoon, I sat with my segment stretched upon a frame, and all the puckered stitches caught awry whilst I daydreamed with my hands upon my lap.

‘You tug and fret at it,’ the Lady Mildred said at last, taking it from me with her small white hands, which could undo the worst of tangles. ‘You rush at the work not caring for it.’ And she rapped my knuckles with the points of her small gilt scissors until I was hard put not to stick my fingers in my mouth.

‘You must go slowly,’ she repeated, ‘small stitches, so that the back is as fair as the front.’

I swallowed logical reply. For if this mighty work was to be hung upon a wall, where it hangs today, who would ever see the back? But the part that I was set to stitch, with its red bird cobbled in haste to hide the pinpricks of blood, was never finished.

‘See how the colours clash.’ Another rap upon the fingers. ‘And the design is out of trim. You have not even matched it with your neighbour.’ The girl who sat next to me gave me a glance, of sympathy or scorn I could not be sure. I wound my hands into my skirts and bade myself be still. Again a rap.

‘You will never learn if you pay no heed. You should have begun such work years ago. You have much to learn if you would control your own household.’

There was a giggle at that. The catching of a husband, and the arts to acquire him, was something the Lady Mildred also spoke frequently about, although I sometimes felt she marked me out for the greatest share.

‘No man will wed a slovenly wench,’ she said, ‘who can not braid her hair without knots and whose dress is often unlaced.’ And she flicked her sharp scornful stare about me, where I sat. I might even then have erupted into rage, as I had tried before, only to have Sir Brian reprimand me before them—which was worst of all—had not there been a disturbance at the door. We all turned our heads willingly, for seldom anyone came to the women’s quarters, save Sir Brian, and unless there was some guest of special note, we never even dined in the Great Hall. It was one of Lord Raoul’s men, wearing his gold and red surcoat thrown over his chain mail in the new fashion. A tall fellow he was, with yellow hair, blushing and grinning sheepishly.

‘I bring greetings,’ he said, ‘to the Lady Mildred from my lord and news of his return from France.’

We all murmured at that, the girl beside me most of all. She was watching the young man with her heart in her eyes.

‘And purposes to stay through the autumn months, God willing.’

The Lady Mildred rose to accept his greetings, staring down poor Cecile, next to me, into silence. I thought crossly that she should have been married to Lord Raoul himself. He deserved such a shrew as wife. And she knew all the courtesies befitting such high state. No doubt she told Sir Brian so every day. It was a pity that he had no lands of his own where she could perch and crow to her heart’s content. ‘And to the Lady Ann, Lord Raoul sends special messages.’ That was a surprise. No one had sent me greetings before: the Lady Mildred’s fingers jammed into my ribs, but she need not have concerned herself. I knew how to respond in proper form and sent a flashing smile with it, to the fellow’s distress, for he turned more crimson than before.

‘Lord Raoul bids you, that is you ladies all, that is. . .’ he floundered the more beneath our smiles, ‘to the first hunt of the season. Until then, he lodges with his southern vassals. But he bids you prepare. Tomorrow that is, tomorrow prepare. And for a feast that same night.’

We smiled at him again and he turned and fled, leaving the bower ahum with excitement. Lady Mildred looked grave. I knew she could not ride herself but would not dare forbid it when Lord Raoul himself had invited us.

Beside me, Cecile, who had looked at me askance before and who had been like to run towards the tall messenger, whispered, ‘What luck for you, Lady Ann. What shall you wear? Pray that the weather holds. He who brought the news, Geoffrey, is my betrothed. Now he returns, perhaps we shall be wed. What shall you ride? My father will give me one of the horses he took as booty this past year.’

I bit my lip in vexation. Her father was one of the castle guards. Her betrothed was returned to Sedgemont. But I had nothing to wear and nothing to ride, although the lack of the one was more troubling than the other.

‘She can use the green gown we gave her,’ the Lady Mildred said, hearing the murmurs, setting her seal of approval in her own way. ‘And you, Mistress Cecile, should think of other things, less wordly. As for horses, there are plenty, I have no doubt, fit for a woman, in the stables here. So must we all take what God offers us, not puffing ourselves up with sloth and pride.’