What’s wrong with me? Why DO I feel so tired?
Is Garon out in blazing sun like this? (It’s always hot in Outremer, or so they say.) Is he alive and in the sun? Or buried in the earth and in the dark? We’ve had no word, which is to be expected. All news of the croisade is stale. We only heard the other day that King Richard’s married a princess with an outlandish name and taken her with him to queen it in Jerusalem (if they should ever reach it). But no one knows what battles have been lost or won, and I have almost stopped believing he’ll return.
Is that what’s wrong with me? Have I lost heart?
Is it the prospect of a life trapped in the manor that depresses me, with all the endless dairying and baking and preserves – with one day’s tasks so like another’s, knowing that I’m weaving dower sheets for daughters I may never bear? Or is it worse than that? Am I afraid of losing what I have, a woman unprotected in a world of predatory men?
Unprotected? Come, that’s hardly what you are, Elise, with face-ache Kempe and three trained sergeants at your beck and call, besides your bondmen and My Lord and Lady of Warenne (and if the very worst came, I suppose Sir Hugh?).
He left the manor soon after we laid Lady Constance to rest in the fenced burial plot beyond the orchard – before Epiphany, before we’d even sung the first mass for her soul – and left us with his little daughter. On Plough Monday we heard he’d gone to join the Earl at Conisbrough for his knight service, saw neither hide nor hair of him through Lent or Holy Week.
The blackthorn was in flower before he finally returned. I was at my chamber window as it chanced, shouting to the maid Berta to stop her foolish chatter at the manor gate and bring the milk directly to the pantry – when she looked up, and I looked after her to see who it was on the chalk track.
‘Look Edmay, here’s your father on a courser,’ I called out to the child behind me on the settle with old Hod. ‘He’s come to take you home for sure.’ And it touched both our hearts to see the joy in her thin little face as she jumped down and ran to see him for herself.
She took a little while to understand, poor poppet. But I knew in a day that she was not the reason why he came. I was.
He wouldn’t dream of taking her to Meresfeld with him so long as she was so contented here, Sir Hugh pretended to believe. He would prefer to visit her at Haddertun, he said – but when he came, spent little time with her and too much altogether plaguing me. (And if anyone knew how to make a thoroughgoing nuisance of himself, it was Sir Hugh!) Wherever I was needed in the household, he somehow managed either to be there before, or to intercept me on my way – in courtyards and on stairways, descending to the laundry or returning from the yards. He’d interpose himself between me and my purpose, raising insolent black brows in query, smiling his infuriating smile!
Spoken or unspoken, its message was the same: ‘Why trouble to pretend, my dear, when we both know I have the remedy you seek?’
He was here at Whitsun and again at shearing. I never know now when he’ll next appear. But at least I’ve learned not to return his smile – at all costs not to meet those dangerous dark eyes. I am disdainful, haughty as My Lady of Warenne; a look I’ve practiced and perfected in my mirror. (Definitely unenticing!) I tell the man repeatedly, monotonously, that I know Sir Garon is alive, I know he will return – that I am bound to wait for seven years in any case before I wear a funerary badge. It’s well-trodden ground between us.
At shearing time I thought to add that if I were ever to remarry, at some time in the far distant future, Sir Hugh de Bernay could be sure he’d be the last – THE VERY LAST MAN IN THE WORLD I would consider!
At which he’d dared to wink at me across the pens, and say in the full hearing of the hayward and the rest, that frankly the idea of marriage had never crossed his mind. But as I’d raised the subject, he would give it all the serious attention it deserved. And when I stamped my foot for sheer vexation, had laughed his bitter, ringing laugh and called me hypocrite and fool.
‘Admit it Lady, you were purchased for Sir Garon just as I was purchased for his mother – and ask yourself what either of them knew or cared about our feelings in the matter when they bought us,’ he said drily, ‘a withered heiress and a numbskull boy.’
I heard the heavy thump of his dismounting and knew I must escape. But before I could get back to Nesta, he’d reached out to grip my arm – his movement swift, his aim precise. ‘D’ye think I don’t know that you want me? D’ye want to hear me say it – that we men know just as dogs do when a bitch comes into season? D’ye think that I can’t smell it on you?’ he asked me with his mouth against my ear.
‘No. No I don’t!’
‘No twice? Does that mean, no you doubt that I can smell it? Or, no you’d rather that I couldn’t?’
And when I wrenched away from him to fumble for my jennet’s stirrup, he made a show of stooping with cupped hands. ‘I’d show you ways of doing it that would not make a child, d’ye see?’ he whispered – then threw me up into the saddle.
‘I see the devil in the thought Sir – that’s what I see!’ I spoke to fill a silence that might otherwise imply I understood – and I turned my face away.
‘But is the prospect of the devil, now you recognise him, fearful or exciting?’ he said softly. ‘Surely you know, ma chère that when the ram draws back ’tis only to strike harder. Why not say yes, admit it and be done?’
I put moist fingers in my ears and wriggled them, to make a noise like woodblocks striking one another that drowned out every other sound, including his insulting voice. It’s obvious men like him think that we cannot do without them – which simply isn’t true – and even if I have considered how it might feel to be with him in that way, I’ve only done it once or twice to pass the time – and to convince myself that it could never happen!
I raised my head to look a little while ago and saw he wasn’t there. It’s strange how difficult it is to think of other seasons in these long summer days. The men are singing now to keep the rhythm – stooping figures in a lake of golden corn – the long flank of the downs – the boys, the dogs their pink tongues lolling… (But no one on a horse, and thank the Lord for that!) The glare’s intense – the sun so hot that I can feel it burning through my gown – so stuffy in the house, I had to be outside…
A bright green grasshopper clings to a grass stem, so close I only have to reach to… Ah, he’s up and gone! I should have let him be. When you lie back, flat in the clover, to feel no larger than an insect… Oh God, I feel so weary – limbs so heavy, hot and heavy, hard to move. And there’s no need – why try? – why not simply…
Silvery larksong, wingbeats, dancing dust motes, mindless patterns – swirling, turning shapes as all the drowsy sounds of summer fade…
I’m looking not up into sky but into water – stewpond-gazing, Hoddie calls it – watching fishes darting just beneath the surface, gleaming silver, weaving through the lily pads – the green spears of the reeds – sun on water, rainbow hues as if it’s filmed with oil. I’m floating, spinning like a leaf, breaking the reflection… But there’s a frog – oh, beautiful! I’ve never seen a green so pale and clear! It’s like a jewel. I hear the little splosh his body makes as he springs from the rushes – have to follow, need to touch him, have to catch him, have to…
He’s on the bank and leaps again – now in a sandy hollow just ahead. I think that I can reach him… But now he’s curled with his long legs tucked up against his belly – and fat, not green, but living pink; a fat pink baby!
I reach to touch him, feel his warmth… He leaps away through tall green grass. So green! I have to tell him, tell him to come back!
He runs so fast, a child, a naked running child…
Where are we? I have never seen a place so beautiful, so green! Long ribbons, ropes of pink and white striped trumpet bindweed hanging from the trees. Magic colours – pale bright green, sky blue, lavender – the colours of the glass in the new windows of the church at Lancaster, with sunlight shining through them!
I’m brushing through the ribbons, through the weeds… Banners, silken banners, banners of Damascus silk. A scent of watermint and nectar. I know it now, have always known this place of Outremer, of course I have!
And there’s… why, it is Garon – so close and just ahead! But not a child, a naked man. Sun on the pale skin of his buttocks – and in the distance, shining; the shining pinnacles of his Jerusalem!
Come back! Oh wait for me!
He’s gone. Lost in the ribbons… (Sleeping. I’m asleep and dreaming.) But not waking – don’t have to wake when I can reach him though the colours – touch him, catch him… Wait, oh wait!
But one eye’s already open, and now two.
The light’s so bright I have to squint. My throat is dry – arm numb where I have lain on it – awake and back in the long grass at the forest edge…
Was it the sunlight on my eyelids that made those lovely colours?
Across the field they’re sharpening their blades. I can’t see Hod or Edmay, but – ah, there they are, up in the furthest corner by the horse. They’re…
Lord, I should have known it – they’re talking to Sir Hugh!
Hand’s tingling, pins and needles. (Move the fingers and move slowly backwards.) If I crouch – edge back behind the hawthorn, straighten, sidle into shadow…
He’s looking up. (But can he see me? How does my pale linen look in shade?) I’m screened now by the trees in any case – and he’s hardly likely to ride over. What reason would he give?
The path into the forest bears the prints of cattle baked in clay. A bramble catches at my skirt – ahead the rising trunks of beech trees, smooth as flesh. Tangled limbs above and twisted cords of clematis – ripe summer smells of foliage and dry grass. But cooler, so much cooler shaded from the heat and glare.
Something rustles in the undergrowth. (A bird or some small woodland creature, searching like me for a place to hide?) Where trees have fallen, sun still penetrates. Brown-speckled butterflies dance in the shafts above the brambles and field roses – vibrating crickets, the men’s voices fainter with each step I take.
One leaning branch has red hairs in its bark, dry blood. Some cow has used it to rub off a tick. A red-breast robin flits out of nowhere, tilts his head, a bright black eye, and flits away. And here a clearing trampled by the cattle – flies buzzing on fresh dung. (Another world – but real, not like my dream.) Here logs grow moss and flowers fail for want of sun. Still air, the richer scents of cattle, leaf-mould, rotting wood, a pecker drumming on a distant tree trunk. The vastness of the forest.
There is a thing they call wood-madness. Is that what I have, what I’m feeling? Suddenly alive! An urge to take my clothes off, swing from branches! Hoist my skirts to urinate – become a creature of the wood!
Is that what makes my hearing so acute?
What was it that I heard?
A twig? A fluttering of wings?
Suddenly I’m listening, alert!
I hear the drumming pecker – and a blackbird closer chattering his warning. But it isn’t my imagination. There’s something’s moving – something large. A stag? Or…
There! Between the trunks, across the clearing – a dark shadow. Halting. Listening like me.
They say that there are spirits in the woods – Jacks-in-the-leaf, green-clad, green-skinned from head to foot…
It’s turning, moving out into the open, to see me and be seen. A shaft of sunlight through the branches gleams on a black head of hair!
Stay calm and hold his gaze. Don’t let him see for God’s sake that you are afraid!
Say something normal, anything. (But what, oh what…?)
‘I saw a hare run in and followed, but I couldn’t catch her.’ (That sounded lame, ridiculous!)
‘I rather think that it was I who saw the hare run in, and now it seems I’ve caught her.’
He doesn’t smile, I wish he would! His voice is soft but far from gentle. And what always seemed a kind of game is now in earnest, all pretence forgotten. (Why did I think that I could ever call him to my aid?)
I search his eyes for signs of mercy, indecision. But they’re fierce, relentless, hard and black. I see a wounded violence in them – subjugation that’s intended for us both.
Outside the wood they’re setting stooks, forcing sheaf butts hard into the stubble…
He’s already passed the point of turning back – and what for me felt safe, has now become a trap!
He’s right, I am the hare – nowhere to hide – and he’s the predatory stoat, braced ready to cut off my first attempt at flight. Wanting – daring me to move. (Dear God, I think he needs my fear. It’s what excites him most!) My best, my only hope is not to let him see it. His face is gleaming, wet with perspiration; charm peeled away to show the animal beneath.
I see his throat move as he swallows. He’s panting, red-mouthed…
So am I, my own mouth dry and sticky with saliva, gulping air – need more, can’t seem to breathe in fast enough…
‘PLEASE!’
‘Please what? Please spare me your uncouth attention? Or please to use me like a bitch on heat, knowing I’ve been begging for it this twelvemonth?’
Too late for him to change his course. Too late for me to run.
I won’t look down to where the state of his excitement’s obvious. I have to meet his eyes, to hold them – hold him from me…