Needle in the Blood (15 page)

“I’ll not have any of the women in my atelier ‘affecting’ you, Odo.” She narrows her eyes at him. “You were first among those advising William to take this course of action; you should have considered what it would mean for you. For all of us.”

“It is God’s will William should be king of this place. The Blessed Edward promised it. How should I stand by and let Godwinson have it by deceit?”

“Oh, God’s will is it, bishop?”

“Sarcasm is unseemly in a woman,” he snaps.

“There are a great many things in me that are unseemly in women,” she snaps back. “You must take me as you find me, or pack me off back to Saint Justina’s.”

Suddenly he smiles. “How could I possibly do that, when you have created such a wonder for me up there?” He glances up in the direction of the workshop above them.

“Oh, Odo, do you really think so? I can hardly judge for myself, being so close to it day and night.” Her eyes sparkle; despite the chill in the room, smelling familiarly of damp stone and cold incense, there is a touch of pale pink in her cheeks. Her excitement is endearing, and it is justified, and he meant what he said, but there is something more.

He has never seen the like of it before, excelling even Earl Byrthnoth’s hanging in its artistry and vitality. It is, so far as he can tell in its current, fragmented condition, a faithful reproduction of all that he told Agatha during that first summer, more faithful, perhaps, than he intended. War horses, for example, are never gelded, everyone knows that; there’s no need to show it quite as explicitly. The narrative is everywhere punctuated by exquisite fairy castles and fabulous beasts, the multi-coloured sea and the knotted, muscular trees reminding him of the stone columns growing in the nave of his new cathedral, branching out to support the vaults whose soaring arches will bear his worship straight to the ear of God.

Yet it is more than the sum of these things, and that disturbs him. There are elements he cannot grasp, lying beyond his recollection or control and affronting his sense of order. They are connected with his feelings on entering the atelier, his unrestrained joy in the windows coupled with an obscure sense of threat aroused by stepping into this community of women. The issue of celibacy does not preoccupy him the way it seems to vex the Cluniac reformers, but the life of the warrior priest does not bring him into contact with women very often nowadays; William, having once captured his Matilda, sees no need for women. A distraction, no more use than music, or that moth eaten collection of Ovid his hare-brained little brother always has his nose stuck into. He smiles inwardly, hearing William’s harsh, somewhat high-pitched voice in his memory, suddenly sensitive to an emptiness at the heart of his life, and to how the women are beginning to fill it with the richness of their own experience.

“I think,” he says, groping after words that will express his feelings without causing offence to hers, “that it has a life of its own.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

In the ensuing silence, as he tries to marshal his thoughts, the household chapel bell begins to ring for None. Agatha’s servant comes in with a basket of wood to lay a fire in the brazier.
At last
, thinks Odo, who cannot understand why his sister continues to live as though she were still in the convent. Agatha crosses herself and murmurs a brief prayer. Odo bows his head. She then goes to the table beneath the narrow window overlooking the garden, unearths an hour glass from among the piles of notes and sketches and wool samples, and turns it over. The servant lights the fire and excuses herself.

“It’s familiar, of course,” he continues slowly, picking his way through his impressions, holding out his ringed hands toward the nascent flame, “but at the same time I feel like a stranger looking at it.”

“Perhaps it’s the distance of time.”

“Partly, maybe, but also, yes, I think what I mean is this. First I told you what I remembered, and you turned my memories into sketches, and now the sewing women are turning your sketches into something else again. Everyone adds a layer until the original becomes unrecognisable. Like wrapping a surprise for a child.”

“Had you thought that maybe your memory isn’t reliable? In my experience, it’s often the events we swear to ourselves we’ll never forget that vanish soonest.”

“But there are elements in what I’ve seen today that I’ve never experienced. In Judith’s work, for example. God, that woman! She’s shown a horse drawing a plough in one of her borders. I’ve never seen a horse drawing a plough. I can’t imagine such a thing. Why risk a horse’s wind like that instead of using oxen?”

“Perhaps because there were no oxen, Odo,” says Agatha quietly. “That scene is taken from Judith’s memory, not yours. Foraging parties from your army had taken all the oxen from her farm for meat. The horse was her husband’s war horse. He was killed in a raid, as you know. Judith was never going to ride a great brute like that, so she made the best use of him she could. I take full responsibility. Naturally it can be changed if you so desire. One layer you missed out, though. The effects of what I’ve seen and heard, watching you enforce the will of God, as you put it.”

Odo shrugs. “I am bound to do so, as God’s servant and William’s.”

“Oh William, your eyes are full of stars where he is concerned. You know there are those less smitten with our brother than you are who call what you do terror and the gratification of lusts.”

“Are you mocking me, Agatha?” His expression is searching, almost doubtful.

“Do I smile? I had better be careful if I am, in case my head ends up hanging from a castle gate like those of the Dover conspirators.”

“That was so long ago I can hardly remember what I did.” He fiddles with his rings.

“Three years. Shall I remind you?”

Many of Eustace of Boulogne’s rebels had fallen from the cliffs as they fled, drowned or hacked to death on the jagged rock face. Odo had their bodies retrieved from the beach, their heads cut off and hung from the castle walls as a warning to any others who might consider plotting against his brother or himself. He remembers the way the little flags of skin at the edges of their severed necks fluttered in the autumn winds as they dried. He used to mutter words from the Requiem Mass under his breath whenever he passed them. Sometimes, when he is at Dover, he still does.

“There’s no need. Now I must go. I have work to do. But I can come again? Any time?”

“Of course. Do you intend to preach tomorrow? I should like the women to hear you.”

“Probably not till Christmas Eve. I shall be very busy until the festival. I intend only to preach then and Christmas morning Mass. I’m sure two of my sermons will be enough to have you all praying for my departure.”

“False modesty. You speak well, and you know it. I expect Archbishop Lanfranc is fearful of an empty church on Christmas morning, with one of his star pupils performing just up the road.”

“Lanfranc has nothing but the ruins of the old cathedral to preach in. If they flock to me, it’ll be because I can provide a roof over their heads so at least they can doze off in some comfort while I ramble on.”

“Oh, he’s started building, didn’t you know? They began house clearances as soon as he got here and went on digging out the foundations until we had some very heavy rainfall about a month ago, around your saint’s day, that put paid to it for this year.”

“So he’ll be afloat in an outsize waterhole, preaching from a boat like Our Lord at Galilee, will he?” says Odo, trying to keep his voice light and unconcerned. House clearances, he’ll give Lanfranc house clearances. “Well, maybe I could hold Mass in the keep and call it the Sermon on the Mount. Now I really am going. I must find Hamo.” He’ll keep his petitioners waiting just a little longer while he and Hamo, his castellan, go through the rolls to find out exactly who owns what around the site of Christ Church.

“You know what we could do,” he adds, pausing on his way out of the door. “When it’s finished, we could copy it, do it properly, with silk, and gold and silver thread. As many times as we like. One for all my houses.”

“What?”

“The hanging, of course.”

“Odo, when it’s finished, I’m going home. Remember what you said? It needs no silk or gold.”

***

“You’re quiet tonight,” says Margaret, speaking into the darkness in the general direction of Gytha’s bed. It’s late, and the fire has died right down, leaving the dormitory in almost complete darkness. Gytha, whose hair is so thick, tends to sleep with her head uncovered so there is not even the pale smudge of a cap to locate her by. During the lengthening lulls in the women’s conversation, the silence of the snowbound castle is absolute. “I thought you’d have a lot to say about our earl.” Margaret waits; the rest wait. No reply. Gytha is asleep. Her sleep is untroubled. He is here now; the time of waiting is over. God has kept her alive for a purpose; once she has fulfilled it, she can go to her children.

***

The Feast of Saint Stephen dawns bright and frosty, and Odo decides to delay his departure to enjoy a day’s hunting in his forest bordering the Stour. A noisy, high-spirited party, attended by foresters, huntsmen, falconers, and a cartload of servants to dispense two cartloads of food and wine clatter out of the city by Wincheap Gate just as the sun clears the castle keep. The change in the weather has raised everyone’s spirits, after a nativity celebrated mainly indoors due to days of relentless snow and wind. As many as could be accommodated abandoned their tents in favour of the keep, and Odo was thankful for his private quarters, however cramped, wedged as they are between the great hall and the main bedchamber over it. At least he has been able to pass his nights in relative peace, with only his dogs and Osbern for company, away from the mass of sleepers above and below him, snoring, farting, fucking, talking in their sleep. Though he makes it his business to know who lies under whose quilt and what they say in their sleep.

Overcrowding, wet feet and clothes, stinging eyes and sore throats for everyone as the wind made the fire in the great hall back up, and the effects of too much rich food and wine, have led to several displays of unseasonal bad temper. Two knights fought a duel over a perceived slight to the pedigree of one man’s falcon. The loser had his nostril slit, the wound becoming infected and slow to heal, and has now sworn to have vengeance on the man who thus disfigured him. The resolution, Odo fears, will cost him time and money he can ill afford, but he can afford quarrels among his vassals even less.

The pleasure of dancing was marred by the fact that the damp, smoky atmosphere put the music frequently out of tune. Master Pietro, laid low with a chill, had been unable to make his eagerly anticipated contribution to the Christmas table, a disappointment which did nothing to improve Odo’s humour, already bleak as a result of his discovery that Lanfranc has overstepped no boundaries in clearing the site for his new cathedral. All in all, Christmas was about as enjoyable as he had anticipated.

By High Mass on Christmas morning, his throat was so badly affected by smoke that he could not speak above a whisper and had to have his sermon delivered for him by one of his chaplains, who read in an incantatory monotone that effectively killed every phrase so carefully wrought to convey the joy and mystery of Christ’s birth. Odo felt isolated and misunderstood in his attempt to share the meditations that had drifted like visions through his mind as he observed the Christmas Eve vigil, alone, kneeling on the beaten earth floor of the chapel, entranced by the pain in his knees and back and wrist, and the cold that seemed to freeze the blood in his veins. Joy is such a simple thing, he explained to his puzzled clerk as he walked up and down his parlour after Lauds, flexing his stiff joints, hands thawing around a cup of hot, spiced wine. It isn’t angels praising God or kings bearing gifts: it’s relief from pain, it’s a new baby with a monkey face and a cry like a seagull, it’s being warm, and safe, and not alone. My lord, what shall I write, the clerk had asked. Leave your materials, he had replied. I’ll write it myself.

This morning joy is exchanging mitre and crook for a well-balanced bow and a cap with a pheasant feather in it. Joy is pulling the cold, pure air into the back of his throat and feeling it work on the inflammation like a cold compress on a sprain. Joy is this good horse under him, so responsive to the slightest pressure of knee or thigh he thinks it knows what he wants before he knows himself, and the eager panting of his favourite dogs at his heels.

When they reach the edge of the chase, the party splits into smaller groups, some to try their hawks in stretches of open country, some to pursue boar and venison in the verdure. Odo prefers the latter; hawking in winter is hard sport for little reward. As if in vindication of his choice, he has been following the forester scarcely more than ten minutes before the dogs catch the scent of something, the huntsman unleashes them, and they’re off in pursuit, trusting to the horses to find their footing as they hurtle through the undergrowth. The wind laughs in Odo’s ears and pinches his cheeks with teasing fingers. The drumming of his horse’s hooves on the hard ground vibrates through his body with the rhythm of a dance. He is one with the animal, ducking and weaving around tree roots and low hanging branches, every nerve and sinew alive and alight with the exhilaration of the chase. He opens his mouth and lets out a long whoop, for the sheer pleasure of hearing his voice. It is not only by the recitation of prayer that you praise God.