Winter Siege (40 page)

Him … Gwil … Her grief for him was unremitting, sucking her to unholy depths like an unsuspecting traveller into a bog, only to spew her out again just as she prepared to drown. His memory infused everything she did and became the prism through which she was reluctantly discovering a world without him. She thought constantly about how much he would have loved this castle, its opulence and elegance and especially the calm order imposed throughout by the venerable Earl Robert.

‘You’d really like him, Gwil,’ she said, lifting her face to the heavens – despite Milburga’s chiding that a dialogue with the dead wasn’t healthy, she persisted. ‘Nothing like his sister; real charming he is, kind too, clever like her but nowhere near as haughty with it.’ Gwil would have approved of the Countess Mabel too, another of those redoubtable, aristocratic females by whom Penda was surrounded.

Whether or not he would have noticed the change in the Empress, she wasn’t sure. He had never observed her quite as keenly as she had and the changes were subtle; nevertheless, she had changed as they all had.

She was still beautiful, of course, in that glacial way of hers, but her hair was a little more grey-flecked nowadays and although her presence was still intimidating, somehow its ferocity had calmed, lending an impression of increased contentment. And the reason for it? By all accounts an unkempt, stocky, russet-headed boy of about William’s age who ran hither and yon all day with an energy which even Penda found ageing: her son, Henry.

She got her first glimpse of them together in the hall at breakfast one morning, the Empress’s still elegance a sharp contrast to the fidgeting, chattering scruff of a boy beside her, who leaped up from his stool every so often as some new idea or other struck him, only to be forced back down by his mother. It was exhausting to watch but however badly he behaved, and his tantrums were infamous, the Empress would merely incline her head and patiently entreat him to do as he was told, wearing, at all times, an expression of such indulgent amusement that it was obvious to all who saw it that she adored him.

‘Future king. That’s what they say,’ said Milburga, following Penda’s gaze. ‘Little sod more like! Bright though. Very. They say it’s his brains what singed his hair red.’

Indeed Henry’s precocious thirst for knowledge was such that his pursuit of his tutor – a certain Master Matthew – who was reputed, under normal circumstances, to have the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of saints – bordered on persecution. Henry was often seen chasing him around the castle battering him with question after question until the poor man appeared near collapse.

And yet, however exasperating Henry could be, Penda was grateful to him for his kindness to William, whose grief, like hers, seemed boundless. The bright, self-possessed child of Kenniford days had dwindled to a listless shadow of himself. According to Tola, who attended him, he wet his bed nowadays, beset by night terrors in which he cried out in his sleep begging his dead father’s forgiveness for some imagined crime.

‘Blames hisself for what happened, poor little devil. Always the innocent what suffer, ain’t it?’ she said with a sorrowful shake of her head after one particularly bad night. And Penda could only agree that it was; and yet, to her shame, she found herself unable to console him. To be reminded of that night when they had clung together while the Devil did his work was more than she could bear and she could not speak about it.

Fortunately, however, Henry Fitzempress had decided, quite unilaterally, that he and William were going to be friends.

He appeared out of nowhere at Mass one morning, shuffling noisily into the pew beside Penda, whom he acknowledged with a broad grin, before leaning across her to engage William, sitting beside her, in an astonishingly loud whisper. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked, unabashed by the tutting and shushing which had struck up almost immediately around him.

‘William,’ William mouthed back, anxious not to offend his inquisitor but equally nervous about invoking the disapprobation of the other worshippers.

‘Good,’ said Henry cheerfully. ‘Well, I’m Henry. Do you know much about Vegetius?’

William, looking bemused, turned to Penda, who could only shrug.

‘Oh, it’s all right,’ Henry added quickly, sensing the other boy’s discomfort. ‘Not many people do, but when I’m king all my soldiers will study him because he was very clever.’

‘Oh,’ said William.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Henry. ‘I’ll teach you all about him, if you like.’ Then he picked up the book he had brought with him and spent the rest of the service reading it, and Penda, who knew very little about letters, was nevertheless fairly certain that whatever it was, the Bible it wasn’t.

After that the two became inseparable and Penda watched them, with a mixture of relief and gratitude, scampering out of the hall after breakfast every morning to go either to the tiltyard, or hunting, or the dreaded ‘vegetable lessons’ – as William referred to them – with Master Matthew.

Time passed. A warm spring and a fine summer led to an exceptionally early harvest and for several days at the end of July the air in the wards hung thick with trailing clouds of chaff and dust, echoing with men’s sneezes as grain-laden carts trundled over the cobbles to bring in the harvest.

One particularly glorious afternoon, Maud was enjoying a rare moment of peace, standing at the solar window overlooking the river, watching a kingfisher dart through the willow trees, its iridescent blue wings sparkling like sapphires in the late-afternoon sun.

For the first time since their arrival in Bristol, nearly three months ago, she had managed, for almost an entire day, not to think about her future or dwell too much on her past and was feeling unusually happy. Of course she still grieved for Father Nimbus and for the loss of Kenniford, always would, and knew that at some point she would have to address her future – not that Lord Robert and Lady Mabel hadn’t been hospitable, they had, uncommonly so, it was just that now she was feeling better, she also felt redundant and bored and it didn’t suit her. Just for the moment though, just this afternoon, she would refuse to think about anything …

It was remarkably warm for so late in the day; a haze of spent sunshine still hovered on the horizon and she yawned, leaning dreamily on the window sill, her chin in her hands, tasting the sweetness of the air.

An unexpected knock on the door made her jump and she turned round, surprised to see the room behind her empty. She must have nodded off while the other women left. She was just about to call out, ‘Come in,’ when the door opened of its own accord and the Empress walked in.

‘No, don’t bother,’ she said as Maud’s hands flew to her head in a futile attempt to straighten her circlet. ‘It looks rather fetching drooped over your eye like that. Who knows? We might all be wearing them that way soon. Besides, I shan’t be here long. There was just a little matter I wanted to discuss with you.’ Then she stalked towards a chair in the middle of the room and sat down. Maud’s heart sank.

‘Now,’ said the Empress when she had made herself comfortable, her elegant hands folded neatly in her lap. ‘I remember you asked me once not to marry you off …’ She was looking up with that enigmatic, faint, cold smile which had chilled Maud’s spirits once before. ‘Remember?’

Maud nodded, a fearful anticipation rendering her speechless. She had dreaded this moment since that terrible night, all those months ago, when they had waited together in the postern and she had made her plea.

‘Well, I’m afraid’ – the Empress continued looking beyond Maud to the window – ‘I have bad news …’

Maud opened her mouth but before she could say anything the Empress raised her hand. ‘It’s no good remonstrating,’ she said firmly. ‘You are a prize, madam. Even without Kenniford your dowry is considerable; besides you have other estates and the fact of the matter is that one of my knights is in need of a reward, a rather substantial one too, so I’m left with no alternative but to give you to him.’

Maud, by now leaning against the wall for support, clamped her hand to her forehead. In a single stroke her beautiful afternoon, her
life
had been ruined and she was powerless, once more, to do anything about it.

‘Oh, don’t look so glum.’ The Empress tutted, rising from her seat and turning to the door. ‘It’s not as bad as all that. Sir Alan of Ghent would make a rather pleasing husband, I would have thought. Better than your last one anyway.’

Maud’s legs began to buckle under the shock. ‘
SIR
Alan!’ she repeated, gaping like a fish at the Empress’s retreating back.

‘Indeed,’ she replied over her shoulder. ‘Hasn’t he told you? I knighted him this morning.’

‘S’pose it shouldn’t ’ave come as a shock,’ Milburga confided to Penda later that evening as they prepared for bed. ‘But it did.’

‘But I thought she wanted to marry him?’ Penda asked, frowning; after all, or so it seemed to her, it was fairly obvious that they were in love.

‘Oh she did!’ Milburga replied. ‘Does! It’s just the way the Empress done it. Come as a bit of a shock, poor little love.’ She sniffed loudly, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. For the rest of her life Milburga would regale anyone who would listen with the story of how her beloved mistress broke her heart for ever more when she told her that she was to be married again and whisked off to France.

The days passed quickly after that in a flurry of wedding preparations. Milburga, with Penda as her underling, established herself at their forefront, setting about them like a whirlwind even though the slightest mention of the impending day sent her into a fit of sobbing.

‘Just give me a moment,’ she would say, her face raised to the heavens to breathe deeply of whatever it was that sustained her until the next bout. ‘Be all right in a moment.’ At which point Penda would put her arms around her and hold her until she was.

Before they knew it, Lammas Day was upon them, the eve of harvest festival, and that evening, in the dwindling heat, as swallows swooped above their heads picking off the last of the day’s midges, they all sat down to a banquet on the lawn.

Penda sat beside Maud on the dais, opposite Henry and William who, like many of the other diners, proudly sported the cuts and bruises sustained during the course of that morning’s game of football. It had taken place on a large strip of land on the demesne – ostensibly, a contest between two rival parishes who were bitterly disputing the rights to a local stream – but actually involved almost every able-bodied man and boy for miles around. Its aim, as far as Penda could make out, was to chase a spherical object the size of a large pumpkin, made from a leather-clad pig’s bladder stuffed almost to bursting with dried peas, the length of the field and pass it, by any means possible, between two posts at either end. It was both brutal and anarchic – she lost count of the number of bloody-nosed, broken-limbed casualties dragged past her during the course of it – but utterly compelling, somehow reminiscent of the Kenniford ramparts during the siege, and she had longed to join in.

‘What you fidgeting about like that for?’ Milburga asked at one point, as bored and disapproving of the game as Penda was excited.

‘I want to know what’s going on,’ she replied, stretching her neck and jumping up and down in an effort to see over the head of a tall man who was blocking her view. ‘I don’t understand the rules.’

‘Rules!’ Milburga spat. ‘What bloody rules? Ain’t no rules. That’s it, that is. You watch! Them’ll chase that bloody thing till they’re nearly all dead of exhaustion and then they’ll want feeding.’ Which turned out to be a pretty accurate assessment of the proceedings.

‘D’you see that really
huge
fellow I got the ball off?’ she overheard Henry asking William excitedly over supper. ‘Oh come on! You
do
remember!
Must
’ve seen him! The giant! ’Bout seven feet tall?’

‘Nope,’ William replied blithely, a mischievous smirk on his face as he loaded his trencher from the enormous plates on the table in front of them. ‘I didn’t actually. I only noticed when you got flattened by the little short one what looked like a girl.’ There was a howl of protest as Henry suddenly lunged at William, grabbed him around the waist and wrestled him on to the floor, then shrieks of helpless laughter as they disappeared, tussling like puppies, underneath the table.

‘Boys!’ Maud said, looking on with indulgent incomprehension. ‘They’re just so … so …
different
, aren’t they?’

Penda laughed.

‘But it
is
good to see William enjoying himself again,’ she added. ‘He was such a worry when we first arrived, but a different child entirely since Henry came along.’ By now both boys had clambered back on to the bench and were eating quietly; she lowered her voice and leaned closer to Penda: ‘Actually, I have great hopes of that friendship, you know?’ she said, inclining her head towards them. ‘When Henry becomes king –
if
he becomes king, that is – I’m rather hoping he will find some sort of position for William in the Church. Somehow I have always thought that the ecclesiastical life would suit him.’ She stared thoughtfully at them for a while before turning to Penda. ‘And you,’ she said, squeezing her hand gently. ‘I’ve been just as worried about you, you know. But you also seem a little happier these days, am I right?’

Penda didn’t trust herself to reply, suspicious of the lump which had risen in her throat as it often did whenever there was a reference to Gwil, however oblique.

‘Oh, I do know how you feel,’ Maud continued gently, as if she had read her mind. ‘But it will get easier. You’ll always miss him, of course you will, but it will get better with time and you do have a future, you know, a bright one too.’

Penda shook her head, hardly daring to look up in case she unravelled completely.

‘Come now,’ Maud said, taking Penda’s face in her hands and turning it towards her. ‘You do, you know. And I would like to help you. When I’m … when
we’re
married … Sir Alan and I … we will be leaving for France. But there’s this manor of mine in the fens …’ She paused, dabbing gently at a tear which had plopped on to Penda’s cheek. ‘Somebody told me once – Gwil, it must have been – that you came from there? … Anyway, it’s not a huge place – well, not as far as I can remember anyway, although I haven’t seen it since I was a child – but I want you to have it as a token of my gratitude for all that you did for Kenniford … for William … and for me.’