Gifts of the Queen (20 page)

'Save you, Lord Raoul,' she said, this paragon, this lily flower—whatever poet praises a woman whose hair is black, or red, whose eyes are brown and not sky blue, whose feet are not small and who always runs? 'It is long since last we met,' and she smiled, showing her small white teeth. Beside him, she was not tall, although taller I think than I, and her golden hair complemented his. 'Too long,' she said, and smiled up at him, 'we should not have let so many years go by.'

'So much for time,' he said, and he too smiled, not his boyish grin but thoughtful, remembering perhaps days long past, 'it outdistances us all in the end.'

She tapped him on his shoulder with her painted nails. 'Then we should make excuse to catch up with it,' she said. 'I would have news of you.'

Well, I make no excuse for the way I felt. I had never liked her since I had heard of her, and although red hair may not grace a poet's verse, they say it is a sign of temper and of jealousy.

'My lady and the Count match together,' broke in another remembered voice whose false sweetness I recalled, malicious-sweet with waspish bite. 'When betrothed, all the world thought them well paired.' Mistress Alyse had come to her mother's side, dressed in the pale blue she favored, her eyes like her mother's, flat and cold. She held a little lapdog in her arms that panted too, showing its pink pointed tongue. She smoothed its silken fur with bejewelled hands, the more it yapped and snarled. No greeting she gave to me, although her mother prodded her, asked only if I should attend the feast. 'Then shall you see my Lady Isobelle dance,' she emphasized those words, and nodded to where the lady stood, many lords of note crowding round, but she kept Raoul beside her, her little hand upon his arm. 'No more graceful dancer than she,' she went on, 'the lightest in all of Normandy. She and Count Raoul danced at their betrothal feast without stint, all night long. And in the morning, his men claimed he said he had slept in Paradise.'

And she smiled to herself to see the effect her words had on me. Now, I had not imagined Raoul had led a monkish life, and he himself had admitted once that in his youth when he first had known Isobelle she had attracted him. In his youth. Later, he had vowed he cared not for her, she was too much the older, had not been chaste. I said, 'That betrothal was long ago, too many years perhaps for your lady to wish to dance. Dancing is for younger feet.'

It was mistake to cross her; venomous, she struck back fast. 'Since the tourney is in her honor,' Mistress Alyse said, 'and he is ranking guest, I think they'll dance. Unless he is too lame or halt. Or unless the damp air has made him stiff.' And she smiled to think her barbs had caught.

Well, loyalty is to be admired, I suppose, among women-folk as it is among men; it had not occurred to me that one of the reasons for her dislike was that she saw me as an interloper, usurper to the place her lady should have held. Despite the warnings, it had not dawned on me before that not only had she, Alyse de Vergay, been cheated out of her due as part of an earl's entourage, she felt her lady had been cheated too, and I the cause. Not to have understood until now the bond between these two women, so unalike, made me stupid, tongue-tied. And now she made me feel once more, as she meant, the contrast between what Lord Raoul had lost, what now had in its place.

'These will be French dances,' she was saying, 'hard to perform, intricate. I do not think anyone else could learn them. Dainty steps and delicate, not clodhopping through the mud in men's boots.' And she stared openly at the hem of my gown where dirt had splattered from our ride.

'But Lady Ann is used to mud and dirt,' her mother cried cheerfully, as if it were a game, 'she is no fine lady to let a little rain worry her. You, my love, must wrap your mistress against the cold . . .'

Well, I give you but a glimpse of how they chattered on. I did not let them see again the misery they caused. But it is true, and now I will confess it, my other anxieties paled in comparison. I do not mean they vanished quite; but considered side by side, the one came always uppermost into my mind. Raoul had good cause to claim that women put domestic issues first. And so now, as if I did not already have enough difficulties to choke me with, that Raoul and I should be so at odds, I had the worry of this paragon flattering and pleasing him the more I nagged.

The women's tent was large. When we finally went there, many ladies moved in and out; my own women, close to the bed where I lay, pleaded weariness, whispering to each other this name or that, those ladies of whom Walter had such hope. The bed was soft, the pillows softer still; whence came such luxury save from an heiress able to afford it? The better then for our men to win. But perversely, if you will, it was no longer win or lose or even fight that filled my thoughts; and I missed, most perversely of all, not the hardness of our wooden bed, to be sure, but those strong firm arms that held me there, although I willed myself not to think of them.
Talk not to me of her,
Raoul once had said.
We were betrothed when we were young and she was not faithful to me long. Nor I to her.
When they were young and I still an orphaned brat, dragged up those early days far from Cambray.
All night long they danced. He said he slept in Paradise.
At Sedgemont, we had almost starved, no time for dancing, no paradise in those neglected far-off days. Judas, I thought almost savagely, the word fit for him, this is not an excuse I would have thought of, to avoid seeing her.

But think of it I did, all night long, no sleep for me. Nor do I think there would have been sleep in any event. The other ladies tripped in and out without restraint. At first I imagined they went to relieve themselves in the cesspits, they had seemed to drink as much as men; but soon I realized they had other needs, and, as was so often proved, Walter's information about them was correct. Where they went with their lovers I do not know; perhaps even privacy was no great thing, and whores in a camp can always find some place, so no doubt did they, the stable lines if not too particular, the backs of tents, under the benches for tomorrow's jousts, the distant tree clumps. For hours, it seemed, I heard their voices, teasing, high, and men's, urgent with desire. These be the Norman ladies they boast of, I thought, this is how men sleep in Paradise, flaunting sin for all the world. Well, I had not been chaste myself, I had lain with a man and not been wed; I had hoped for—no—prayed for a son by him. If sin it is to lie, to so desire, then damned was I beyond redemption's hope. What hope then for those who love for sport? But among those busy performers, I did not distinguish any voice I knew. Lady Isobelle entertained in another place, did not sleep where I did, and who her companions were that night—I did not let myself think of that.

The dawning could not come too soon for me, although too soon perhaps for those knights who now must rise and work, such a blare of horns as to wake the dead on Judgment Day. Ralph de Boissert's men rode through the camp, shouting that everyone should prepare, waking us with more vigor than goodwill. The jousters, for this second day was given over to them, were soon up. They were quartered apart from us, and those who had been so active all night were no less forward now that day was here. Their squires and pages, half-dressed, were already saddling up their destriers, testing leather and steel for weaknesses. As for the masters, some, like cats who have spent all night upon the tiles, stretched and yawned, allowed their squires to shave and wash them, buckle them into their mail, prick up their spurs. Others, more devout perhaps, or contrite after a round of pleasuring, attending Mass and on their knees prayed for forgiveness or success or both. Others, cautious to the last, checked each piece of equipment themselves, paced on foot along the lists, noting its slight dips and rises, marking the proper place for them to bear down on their opponent, judging the firmness of the ground, if still soft after yesterday's rains.

From first light, peasants had come crowding in, lining up against the wooden palisades for better view, laying wagers on this knight or that. Village lads, more shrewd, stationed themselves to be of service to a fallen knight, to catch his runaway horse or drag the rider from the field. Meanwhile, the ladies in our tent made their preparations, too. Mother of God, how they elbowed each other for space, swearing worse than any trooper does, letting curses fall from those dainty lips. Several beat their serving maids for imagined faults; I saw one in tears because a rival had used a looking glass before she could. I watched them pack out their wheaten hair with bits of straw tied underneath, color those pink cheeks with special rouge, blacken their lashes and eyebrows. At Sedgemont, we would have been whipped for such lack of common decency. And the clothes they wore, such displays of silk and fur, enough to cover an acre of ground. I could not help marvel how they would drag such finery through the mud, still deep in parts, or how they could bear to sit and stew in today's heat. But when the time came for them to depart, they were too lazy, or too great, to walk; rather, mounted on white mules saddled in gold brocade, they were led along by pages dressed in their own livery. I waited until most of them were gone, my own ladies fidgeting at the delay, and dressed myself to my own taste, looped up my skirts, bid them walk ahead. You would have thought I ordered them down a road to Hell, such faces they put on, and I could guess how they winked and nudged behind my back. Then too I had brought only spring flowers and leaves to bind into chaplets for our hair, no pearls and jewels such as the other ladies wore. Indeed, I had no jewels so could wear none except the queen's ring, which, by binding it about with a thread of wool, I made small enough to set on my right hand.

We had not far to walk, dear life, you would have thought it a monstrous chore, for during the night serfs had built long benches beside the palisades, and there most of the ladies were already bestowed with those lords who did not take part, seated under awnings which gave some shade. I found a place for us, low down, not over comfortable, to one side. Matt and Walter looked distressed, the more when Lady de Vergay sent word I should join her in a central box and I refused. 'We are settled now,' was the excuse I gave, 'no need to upset everyone so late.' In truth, I had no wish to sit beside these ladies and their noble lords and hear Mistress Alyse tell me how beautiful Lady Isobelle was. And, thanks be, the trumpets blew again; it seemed they blew all day long, to cut off argument. My ladies stopped their grumbling and craned out to see what would happen next.

Now, as you may recall, a tournament of this kind was not common in France even then, the third day's mêlée  or open charge being more usual, and that I will explain in due course. Today the knights would joust, one by one, and jousting was a novelty, as was having women to watch and a crowning of a queen—all fripperies such as Ralph de Boissert had complained of, and Raoul too when he heard of them. All this was new to him since he had last been in France, and in England we did not yet know its name. Not so my womenfolk. I had guessed right that cracked heads or broken bones were counted among them as a kind of prize. And since Walter knew as little as I, we all watched and listened in amazement.

First, Sire de Boissert, as giver of the joust, rode out with six marshals all dressed in black and white, chief among them, Sir Jean. Behind them came the heralds, not yet out of breath, sufficient wind to shout out the name and quality of each man taking part. De Boissert made a commanding figure on his horse, a narrow-chested bay with strong legs. It pranced from side to side as the peasants cheered. He surveyed the field to see all was prepared, the spectators held firmly back, the lances ready, and the palings and barricade firm. Then he raised his white rod, and his marshals shouted that the jousters should prepare. They themselves, not being combatants today, scrambled off their horses into the stands.

Another blast of trumpets sent the birds flying in the distant trees. Then, two by two, the trumpeters stepped out, on foot, and after them the knights, also two by two, fighting to hold their horses back in line, their squires and pages straining on the leading ropes. Since only a knight could joust, I saw how my squires leaned forward, breathless with anticipation as these knights went by. The sun shone, the knights, still unhelmeted, waved to their friends; the serfs shouted and pointed and made their bets. Each lord seemed to wear a different color or device; some had strange closed helmets hanging from their saddle bows, with streamers flying from the crests, carved also into strange shapes of birds or beasts. But, strangest of all, as these knights passed the ladies rose to welcome them, and stripped off pieces from those fine clothes which they had just forced on their backs.

Sleeves they tore away from their lacings, girdles, hair ribbons, even fur linings from their hems until you thought they would strip themselves down to their shifts. And, as strange, the knights leaned out, caught each fluttering piece of silk or stuff, tied it round their lances or their sleeves or tucked it inside their mail coats.

Those are honor's gauges,' my women explained, scandalized by my ignorance. 'Each knight will wear a ribbon for a lady's sake. And he who fights and wins most times will be proclaimed champion of all who fight, and will have the right to crown his lady as the queen.' They rolled their eyes at my questioning; better, I thought, they might have shown shock at those lewds who would have gone naked in broad daylight, as doubtless they had stripped themselves in the dark last night. I admit, though, to disappointment when the guard of Sieux rode by, resplendent in their red embroidered surcoats with gold hawks. Never a look they cast at us, but I was sure they stopped in turn at the central box, deftly caught the ribbons the ladies there tossed to them. And Raoul, riding his black stallion with his men, I was sure the ribbons he tied on his arm were black and white.

Now the jousters were ready to begin. They lined up in turn at either end of the list. Some stayed in their saddles, testing one last time at girth and rein, balancing the weight of their lances. Others dismounted and let their squires walk their horses up and down to keep them calm. At the herald's blast, two knights rode forth, one from each side. Slowly they advanced at first, their faces hidden beneath those cruel helmets, with closed fronts and slits for eyes. Then, at the trumpet's sound, they urged their horses into a run. Down the lists they galloped, close to the central barricade, turf flying in clods.