‘Ye’r not wrong there boy,’ John Hideman thought, ‘an’ better managed too. We’d be ashamed back home I’d say to waste so much good grazin’ for the want of wattles an’ a likely dog or two.’
‘If only soldiers were as good as sheep at doing what they’re bidden,’ considered Jos, who’d come with me to see how Raoul was faring. ‘Same goes for whores,’ he added with a wink to make the others laugh.
Although in truth we none of us had seen
so many people gathered in one place, and thinking back I am amazed how quickly we became accustomed to live with such a multitude of men.
But I am running on ahead, and wasting time on Richard’s muster in Touraine – when what I should be thinking of is how I left Elise that spring, of how things were between us when we parted. Of whether we were joined by more than church vows and a warm rod of flesh? Of how much we’d gained from one another in six months of marriage – and of how much I destroyed?
There’d been no further arguments the day that I returned from Meresfeld. There would have been no point, because by then we both knew that the die was cast.
The winter that year was mild and wet. By Christmastide the field we used for training had turned into the kind of quagmire Sussex folk call winter butter.
We rode to Lewes, Kempe and I, to make our first payment of interest to the Jew out of the manor tithes. I took the men for game drives in the forest, fought them against each other in the manor courtyard and practiced archery at butts.
‘The manor squad’
I called them in my own mind. It had a working ring to it I liked. And by and large they all did well. Bertram and Jos competed with me for the best scores in our contests. John had a good seat in the saddle. And Alberic, though bandy in the leg department was still a hulking lad. A big fair fellow with a flaxen beard, he waved a sword as lustily and flung a spear as far as anyone could ask. Yet like a plough-steer bred for gentleness, remained too kind to make a first class soldier.
‘’T’ud be a shame to tell a lie,’ young Albie said when he was shown how to disable an opponent with a left kick to the groin. ‘To say the truth it don’t seem nice to do that even to a Sarsen,’ he believed. ‘I can best him the kiddy right ’nough, make no mistake o’ that. But I’m no one for gelding bullocks, never was. Reckon I’d as soon hamstring ’im in the ord’nary way. Or else take off ’is head.’
He fumbled at his shirt strings with fingers like flag tubers, convinced like every other villein that he’d never change. ‘Aye Sir, the short an’ long of it same as I said, is that I’d sooner kill the bugger dead than tarrify ’is nutmegs.’
The days by then were short. Spending more hours in the house together than out of it apart, Elise and I preserved a kind of truce. There are few things more warming on a winter’s night when it comes down to it than a live woman in your arms, and the least of our encounters in the bed were still better by a league than any other indoor pastime. For her part, Elise avoided any mention of croisade, while I made nothing of her failure to conceive, when every month unwelcome as confession her red courses sent me out to sleep beyond the beam.
I swear I’ve eaten enough honey and sweet almonds to rot all my teeth. Which would suggest the Devil’s sent me a barren tail, as Maman warned he would the day she found me with my hands up underneath my shift? Is that why I can’t make a child – to show Garon I’m a true wife after all, and put him in the wrong?
‘So what ye do is work ’is codsack while ’e’s sleeping, gently lamb like flaking suet, to thicken up the seed.’
‘Really Hodierne. You shouldn’t say such things!’ (I had to hide a smile though.)
‘Now then, ’tis best to lift yer hips soon as ’e’s done to stop the juice run out,’ was her next offering. ‘Ye may believe it takes a good sight more’n fitting ends an’ yowling “geemenay!” to make a firstborn child.’
But still it hasn’t happened has it? – not by the usual method or any other Hoddie can devise. Now time is something else that’s running out!
I rode again to Meresfeld at the end of February when I knew Sir Hugh to be away on service with the Earl. To find my mother bodily recovered but in no better frame concerning the croisade. She offered me her cheek to kiss. She asked me why young men embarked on folly imagine valour to be worth more than sense, and afterwards refused to bless me.
‘The war’s in Outremer. Not here, Mother,’ I told her miserably.
‘I’ve so far lost four sons to God,’ was all she said by way of a reply. ‘How can you think I’d willingly send Him another?’
That’s how we parted.
We left Sussex in early March before the Lenten Fair, to meet Archbishop Baldwin’s main force on the Dover road and join the streams of soldiery converging on the seaports. We knew so little of the journey we were facing beyond our summons to a muster at King Richard’s citadel of Chinon in Touraine. They said that it would take us many weeks to reach Marseille, a seaport none of us had heard of. They said a ship would carry us across the Middle Sea to fight the enemies of Christ somewhere about Jerusalem, eighth wonder of the world. It was to be a great adventure, our chance to battle for the right and prove our worth for once and all.
That’s what they said and how we saw it at the time.
On the eve of our departure, a solemn mass was offered for us at the manor church of Saint Peter ad. Vincula, which had been cleared of sacks and kindling for the purpose and thoroughly limewashed from flags to rafters.
I knelt before the altar with my little manor squad, five brothers called to Christ to hear prayers for our salvation and receive the host from Father Gerard’s old, unsteady hands. Outside the church three cottage lads begged earnestly to join us on our quest. But even if we could have taken bondmen, I’d mouths enough to feed.
So I denied them. Saved their lives.
There had been times as I lay close beside Elise in our cocoon of duck-down, when I’d acknowledged all I felt for Haddertun and those within its bounds, felt tenderness and gratitude toward the woman in my arms. But that last night she turned away. She wasn’t in the mood, she said, refusing me the comfort that I needed.
It wasn’t what I’d planned. I wasn’t to be thwarted. So yes, I forced her. There’s no other way to view it – pulled her over, pinned her with the weight of my own body. Punished her for making me feel guilty. Afterwards we lay in silence without touching. And when she slept I left the bed to dress. Disgusted with my own performance.
Beneath my weather cloak I wore an unbleached linen tunic sewn with a white cross. Jos knew I was abroad and met me at the stables. Our baggage was already packed, had only to be loaded. Together in the lamplight we saw to the harnessing of mules and horses, sent Bertram down to fetch the fellows from the village as the stars paled in the sky. We took two rounsey geldings, my stallion Raoul curvetting on a lead-rein, with three big mules for coffers and equipment.
And I was here and there and everywhere. Fretting over lists and loads. Issuing instructions. Wolfing down the breakfast that Jos served me. Overseeing tasks that barely needed overseeing. Doing anything that I could think of to distract myself from what I’d done. What I was about to do.
Mist from the millstream seeped across the fields and round the the village houses. Muffling the church bell tolling Prime. Beading fabric. Wetting hands and faces in the manor yard.
Elise stood hunched into her warmest mantle by the gateway with her maid and Steward Kempe, and Father Gerard in his soutane waiting to bless us on our way. I can see her face this moment in the pale dawn light. Upturned with droplets in her hair and desperation in her eyes.
‘You can rely on Kempe to help you and to pay the interest on the loan.’
I spoke it bleakly like a stranger, when I should have tried to reassure her. Should have told her I was sorry for my clumsiness and violence. Should have told her as I’d told de Bernay I was certain to return. Instead I frowned at her to hide my feelings.
Oh lord, what made me such a fool? And there is worse to come.
‘I’m not afraid to die in service of the cross,’ is what I told her next. ‘I’m not afraid to die. But if I should then you’ll be honoured lady, not disgraced.’
My words of comfort and apology! But I was desperate by then to be away.
White-faced, she stood against my stirrup to hand up the flask of wine and pack of salted fish that were to be my first meal upon the road, and said…
What did she say as she held back the tears? How did she frame the thoughts that I could see in her too-brightly-shining eyes?
‘Pray for me before Christ’s Holy Sepulchre, if you should ever reach it.’ She paused to breathe. And then – ‘God save you and protect you.’ That was all.
I stooped to take the flask and basket. Sought acceptance in her eyes but failed to find it. Kissed her. Heaved a breath and rode away. As awkward at our parting as our meeting.
I looked back once just once to see her in the gateway. Rigid as a statue. Straight-backed with small hands tightly clasped. I waved. The others raised their hands. But not Elise.
The creepy steward’s creeping closer as if to demonstrate his loyalty – as if to show that he, not I, is in control! All men think women cannot do without them. But that isn’t so – and Garon isn’t even looking. Old Father Gerard’s blessing him, with Joscelin behind him grinning like an ape. He bows his head. He claims to know exactly what he wants – but I have never seen a man with such confusion and remorse stamped on his face!
How could I have ever thought that marriage to a knight could be other than hard, crude and violent? Or that he’d value me enough to change his mind? All men are children who break things without compunction – things like their pledges to love and hold themselves to their true wedded wives!
I don’t feel lucky any longer to be a part of Garon’s life. Or to be left behind him with a swollen quim and debts to be repaid. He can’t have ever cared for me as he pretended. If he had he couldn’t leave – and even if he manages to stay alive, who knows but that he may not win himself a new domain in Outremer and take for wife some dusky Sarasine who’ll bear him swarthy sons?
I’ve failed to hold him here in any case. Failed even to hold in enough of him to make a child while he is gone! Failed, Elise, in every way. Failed, failed, FAILED, FAILED!
He gives a little cough to clear his throat. ‘I’m not afraid to die in service of the Cross,’ he’s mumbling.
Then you’re a fool, that’s all – is what I’m thinking and should be brave enough to tell him. Because you should be, Garon, ought to be afraid. Anyone, the meanest vagabond, should value life and fear to die.
‘But if I should succumb,’ (another nervous cough) ‘then you’ll be honoured lady, not disgraced.’
As if I care for honour! As if honour ever warmed an empty bed, or held a fief, or paid a silver penny of a loan! Husbands ride out to test their faith and prove their courage, fighting to the outer boundaries of creation for the delusions they call ‘destiny’ and ‘honour’. Wives cheated of their dreams must stay behind – their only trials to be for qualities of patience and obedience, and other so-called feminine accomplishments.
I can’t even tell if I’m more wretched to be left alone than fearful of his death. I twist the handle of my basket wishing hopelessly that I could go as well – riding pillion, clinging to him like the goose-grass. Holding onto him for all I’m worth!
‘Pray for me before Christ’s Holy Sepulchre, if you should ever reach it.’
But I cannot think he will. It seems so far away – remote, fantastic, utterly unreal.
What else to say?
‘God save you and protect you, husband.’ I made up my mind last night to speak as little as I could, in case I said too much.
He’s leaning down to take the wine and salted trout, to grip me by the shoulders. His scars have healed. His hot brown eyes, direct for once, are searching mine – searching them for tears which I refuse to shed. Now kissing me – too clumsy and too hard!
Someone’s shut his dog inside the kennels with the hounds to stop him following his master. The poor thing’s howling like a soul in purgatory, and I know how he feels! I am constrained as well, shut-in, with a door closing on my life. We could have been so happy here. I could have tamed him, taught him how to laugh with me at the absurdities of life. I know I could, if only there’d been time.
But he’s already through the gate and turning in the saddle, while I stand like a block of stone to watch the mist close round him. Hopeless.
I wondered if I would cry after all. But in the end I haven’t. Loneliness will to be a new experience – if not a pleasant one then something new at least. And if you think, my friend, that I am going to spend the months or years that you’re away moping round the place in widow’s weeds, then you can think again!
No tears. There is a shiny yellow celandine in flower against the wall. And I’m left talking to his back-turned cloak!
Of course I had to go. Of course I did. It was what I’d always wanted, wasn’t it? To champion the right?
There are times on the other hand when being certain of yourself is no great help. If I could change my memory of how I left Elise, I’d have her waving. But that isn’t how it was, and when I try to think of how it felt to see her, set-faced standing in the gateway, all I can feel is what I’m feeling now.
It’s not as if her hands had been bound like Khadija’s. She could have waved.
She
wasn’t bound!