The White Cross Read online

  The watch has spotted us and sounds his horn – a stir, a movement rippling along the line, a horseman stooping to My Lady’s litter… The curtains part – a gold-embroidered sleeve, and now the head of an indignant lapdog, yapping fit to shatter steel.

  That was all four days ago, and I have to say I’ve never understood why people who’re incapable of affection even for their children can lavish it on frightful little dogs. The Countess sits at ease in her solarium, surrounded by her women and her pages. (I say at ease. But she’s bolt upright in her chair dressed gorgeously in gold brocade, with on her lap in pride of place a Maltese cur that looks like a dishevelled rat!)

  Whenever people speak of Countess Isabel they mostly use respectful words like ‘dignified’ or ‘illustrious’, but never call her handsome. Her mouth is like a trap – pouched yellow eyes as hard as pebbles, big chin protruding from her wimple, big nose stuck in the air. That’s how she normally appears, yet here’s my plain and haughty lady playing with her lapdog, feeding the pampered creature sugar from a bowl, crooning at it in the way that mothers croon at babies – and looking, well very nearly human!

  A woman with, as Hod would say less teeth than summers in her past, with royal blood in her veins from both sides of the Narrow Sea, My Lady Isabel was a princess by the age of twelve as wife to the son of King Stephen. Then married after he was dead to King Henry’s natural brother, Hamelin, she’s now the new King Richard’s aunt. As grand a dame as it is possible to be without a gold crown on your head!

  When we reached Lewes Fortress My Lady barely had to nod to have her Flemish tapestries hung on the walls, her coffers and her presses stored, her costume changed, her every wish obeyed – whilst we poor lesser mortals stood for hours to wait for stabling, for porters and for quarters to be found; travel-stained and travel-weary, longing for our beds.

  Now four days on, I’m washed and brushed and combed and drenched in rosewater, laced breathlessly into my best blue gown. And waiting still.

  I wonder if I’m brave enough to catch My Lady’s eye and step out from the window? Ten measured steps, soft-footed with the maidenly decorum I’ve rehearsed – a flutter of surprise amongst the demoiselles, Maman’s bleat of protest. But I’m unannounced, the courtesies are unobserved. My Lady’s hand’s stops in mid-fondle, distainful eyes consider me from crown to toe, the rat-dog on her lap begins to tremble, crouches, springs dementedly to her defence!

  Oh I don’t know, on second thoughts I’m probably best where I am.

  I dreamt last night that I was still a child, curled up cosily between my sisters, Cecily and Garda. I even snuggled into Maman’s back, thinking it was Cessie’s – until I felt how soft and fat she’d suddenly become. And that was when I woke to voices in the castle ward, and rubbed my eyes and saw the lime-washed ceiling of the women’s dormitory – and then, mon Dieu, I knew the County Palatine of Lancaster, my father and my sisters were behind me never to be seen again this side of Paradise!

  ‘Be good, mon enfant. Be a credit to your line.’ That’s all my father had to say when I was parted from him.

  That’s when my childhood ended.

  My Lady’s solar is a pleasant sort of chamber with a good view of the inner ward. From where I’m sitting in the window I can watch them getting ready for the tournament tomorrow; a thing that no one’s seen in England since I was in my cradle. Smiths, fletchers, armourers spill from their workshops on the cobbles to watch the knights at exercise. (I’m sure their language must be shocking. But the wind’s against me, I can’t hear a word.) A ginger cat up on the roof above the forge is stalking a fat pigeon it’s no holy hope of catching…

  ‘My Lady Blanchefleur.’

  Holy Saint Mary, no one’s called Maman anything but ‘Lady Blanche’ for years! The bird bobs twice – explosions of grey feathers as it flies. The cat’s pretending that it never wanted pigeon dinner in the first place, stays on the roof to wash its bottom, one leg in the air. But inside, Maman is already half way to My Lady’s chair – dumpy, pink about the gills despite the powder, rustling and bustling in her stiff bokeram, collecting rushes in the hem of her long skirts. So eager to oblige she practically scuttles to the curtsey and wobbles coming up.

  ‘I take it that your daughter is prepared and ripe for marriage, Lady Blanchefleur?’ the Countess wants to know. She doesn’t mention age and nor will Maman. But ‘ripe’ she says, as if I were some kind of fruit!

  ‘Indeed she is, My Lady, as she’ll be pleased to tell you for herself.’ It sounds like something she’s rehearsed.

  An inclination of the noble chin and Maman dimples, looks straight at me; my signal to approach. The walk as I imagined it was quicker and more graceful. It seems to take an age! The Maltese dog’s asleep. My Lady waits with one hand on its neck, her gaze as yellow as a hawk’s. (You feel its power and her awareness of it, both.) I’ll swear she misses nothing as I curtsey, including what’s inside my head!

  ‘Yes, charming’ (‘passable’ is how she makes it sound), ‘and not too narrow in the girth for one of her low stature.’

  The corners of My Lady’s mouth lift visibly within the white frame of her wimple – a measure of the smile she saves for dogs. ‘She should fare well in Sussex, with our favour and a groom who knows what he’s about.’

  It’s true that I am far from tall, and Garda claims that no one could be beautiful with a short neck like mine (hers naturally is like a swan’s!). But what’s beauty when it comes to it? Pale skin, good eyes, fair hair, straight teeth and plenty of soft curves? Maman says men like as much soft flesh as they can get, in sucking pigs, in poultry and in wives. And although I’ve often asked the Everlasting God to make me better looking, it’s surprising what you can achieve with beanflour and boiled chamomile and veiling from the sun. And clothes of course. The dress I’ve chosen for today is pale sky-blue, the colour they call celestyne, twist-wrung to fall in fluted pleats from hip to toe; too elegant for words!

  I wonder what the Countess meant by calling him a groom who knows what he’s about?

  ‘I mention him because Sir Garon is expected.’ My Lady’s eyes are on my face. ‘I’m told he’s on his way up from the camp to be presented.’

  Which leaves me where? To thank her dutifully for her attention? To go? Or stand and wait? I’m opening my mouth – have been called a chatterbox for years, but just now can’t think what to say…

  Thank heavens! Maman’s hand is on my arm to pull me down into a second curtsey. ‘My Lady, we are grateful for your favour.’ (Maman’s voice, not mine) ‘And with your leave will watch for the young man’s arrival from the window.’

  And what a perfect prune I feel to be led there in silence like a filly on a halter!

  The stone mullion of the window’s cold against my cheek. The ward below is crowded with horseflesh and men; the best they say, bred on the Earl’s estates in Normandie and Conisborough or else shipped in from Friesland (the horses, not the men) – great slug-haunched destriers without an ounce of grace between them.

  A hit! The quintain must be made of iron from the loud noise it made. But see how quick the fellow was to duck the sandbag on its pole. And here’s another lancing for the painted Saracen – just like a boys’ game, taking turns.

  But when will HE ride in? Oh WHEN?

  I must have sat here for two third parts of an hour with my thoughts upon a treadmill turning round and round inside my head. Why when you want a thing to happen does it have to take so LONG?!

  COME ON! COME ON!

  Please Lord, I know I don’t pray near as often as I should. But if you can’t make him come soon, could you do something with my patience?

  But wait! More riders; someone trotting through the inner gateway, now in shadow, now in light…

  It might be. Could it?

  Wait, oh wait, I think it must be – two, three, four horsemen in the group. No, more than four, and only one of them impeccably well dressed.

  It HAS to be him, HAS TO!

&nb
sp; He rides so well, as upright in the saddle as even Maman would advise; a slim young man and dark – I hardly guessed he would be dark – hair black without a trace of curl and a black beard to match the ravens on the keep. Dark men have so much more to them I’ve always thought, and this one’s all in red, a gallant hue; frieze tunic, cloak, gloves, beret – all in Irish red. He surely must know that it suits him?

  But now closer, close enough to see his face…

  Heaven-sent, he has to be! Oh thank you Lord!

  His face is long and narrow – straight Norman nose, the nostrils sharply angled – and singular, no other word for it, as handsome as a herring.

  (I wonder what it would feel like to be kissed by someone with a beard?)

  But sweet Jésu, he is looking up to see me looking down!

  Now just take care, Elise… Hold still, you’re not at fault. It’s good that he should see you’re not afraid. (Eyes dark as well and narrowed in the sunlight.)

  ‘Lady, I am here, the man you’ve dreamt of all your life’ (my words, not his). But on my soul it is the first, the very first time I have felt like this. That glance when he looked up stabbed into me, RIGHT INTO ME!

  And I thought all that talk of Cupid’s arrows was a nonsense. Or am I being silly? (The things that flash into your mind. How can you tell what’s false or real?)

  But God, oh God – a gift from heaven! I am in love, I know I am. I feel it in my bones!

  Which only goes to show how wrong one’s bones can be. It’s too absurd, no other way to see it! The man’s not nearly young enough. Surely I could tell that even from a distance? (And a good thing anyway he isn’t my intended. Because a man like that is bound to be unfaithful.)

  That’s what I thought when they announced him to My Lady, blushing madly as I realised my ridiculous mistake.

  ‘My son-in-law, Sir Garon, has ridden in but recently from Haddertun and is employed in raising tents and paying fees. He begs you will accept me as his envoy,’ was how this fellow, Hugh de Bernay, put it to the Countess. ‘But if the ladies will entrust themselves to my protection, I’ll gladly be their escort to the camp.’

  His voice was light and self-assured, and when he smiled he smiled not at My Lady, whose expression gave back nothing, but at me! Which made me wonder how he could have picked me out from all the other damsels in the window.

  His hair was oiled and silky, combed behind his ears and parted at the crown, his dark brows constantly in movement like birds in flight – mouth dark inside the neat-trimmed beard – unsettling red lips. And even when he smiled his eyes were restless.

  DANGEROUS? Is that too strong a word?

  In any case the black beard and dangerous smile are all just now invisible as we clop out across the wooden bridge that spans the castle ditch. All I can see just now of Sir Hugh de Bernay are his cloak and cap above the swaying rump of his bay horse. He rides ahead like Orpheus in the legend, leading me and Maman with Hoddie on her mule, two mounted men-at-arms before us and another two behind. Down from the outer gate, across the moat and into Lewes Borough.

  It rained last night and everything in sight is sparkling clean. Every stone and cobble, every sprouting weed stand out with perfect clarity as if someone has drawn around them with a quill. It’s cool enough to ride unveiled. The air smells wonderfully fresh with puddles in the roadway, sky shingled with a mass of little clouds like dapples on a pony – a splendid, helpful kind of day for our first meeting.

  The cottages which crowd about the castle ditch are like a group of gossips leaning in at confidential angles. A woman in the roadway has baskets swinging from a yolk; a bundle on her head and half a dozen sharp-faced children turning back to stare – a donkey cart, a boy with a hand-barrow, two ragged beggars both with sticks, a young man and a girl caressing one another in a doorway. So much to life on every side you can’t feel anything but hopeful!

  Today and very soon I am to see Sir Garon, and from the moment that we meet my life will change completely! However fair or ill he looks, he is to be my husband and the first man out of water I’m to see entirely naked.

  Is it wicked to look forward to a thing like that and still feel hopeful?

  ‘Be sure, chérie, to keep your feet well covered.’ (I wondered how long it would take Maman to notice how I’m riding.)

  ELISE AND GARON, GARON AND ELISE sound like the names of lovers in a chanson. Like Abelard and Héloïse. ‘Brave Sir Garon, storming Lewes Fortress to rescue fair Elise!’

  Maman says that marriage is the only means outside a cloister by which a breeding female can avoid a mortal sin. She says that women have to take men in and push their babies out to win respect, and thinks we have to show our worth the hard way with our legs apart and on our backs. But Maman doesn’t know it all. Because if knights and ladies can be courteous and loving to one another in ballads and in chansons, why not in life? Why not, if they’re well-matched? Why not see marriage to a man as something positive and thrilling?

  The way is steeply downhill to the Saxon Gate. My little mare needs a firm hand to keep her footing on the cobbles – as much attention as I have to spare. Which isn’t much at all with all there is to see. Beyond the Priory towers the meads are blossoming; a field of moving colour! I’ve never seen so many tents and banners in so many hues – white, hempen, scarlet, saffron-yellow, emerald and blue, parti-coloured, striped and quartered. Aquitaine, the fairest land in Christendom, has come to England with Duke Richard who was raised there. They say that men in Aquitaine are valued quite as much for penning ballads as for wielding swords, and I can well believe it. Pastimes in Aquitaine include great tournaments like this, and banquets, courts of love and gardens of delight. With Richard come to rule in England, everything will change!

  But now we’re down the hill and through the gateway to the river wharf – a powerful smell of fish and tar, the masts of ships above the roofs. And what a beastly clamour – all gabbling in Engleis (ugly, guttural language I’ll never understand it). A man in leather breeches, hairy top-half bare, is calling out some impudence. I have my nose stuck in the air in the best manner of the Countess, but inside have to smile at Hoddie’s answer in the same coarse tongue, and at the laugh that follows.

  We’ve so much more of everything than they have, that it’s mean to envy common folk their laughter. But I do.

  ‘Well really!’ Maman’s observation to no one in particular, but doubtless aimed at me. ‘It’s well I had the forethought to leave our purses with My Lady’s steward. For I swear I’ve never seen so many rogues and vagabonds at liberty together.’

  ‘Nor I, Maman.’ (Which isn’t strictly true because they’re worse in London.) In fact this crowd at Lewes Port seems wonderfully lively – fishwives in clogs with herring baskets, naughty women with their hair all anyhow and breasts exposed. Hucksters selling everything from tripe to Holy Virgins carved in chalk… and see over there a mummers’ show with a fantastically plumed Saint George and baggy-trousered Turk, whacking at each other with their wooden swords. The Christian and the Moslem.

  ‘And I wonder, can we guess which one of them will win?’ Sir Hugh says drily as we pass.

  The tents look older from this distance, patched and seamed from years of lying folded I suppose, the ways between them mired and stinking of horse piss…

  But we’ve arrived and I am unprepared!

  A freckled boy with a snub nose and bright red hair has Nesta’s head. Sir Hugh’s already off his horse and at my stirrup offering to lift me down. (Don’t look at him, Elise!)

  ‘May I assist you to descend, My Lady, as Hades asked Persephone before he ravished her?’

  The red smile in the hairy beard so horridly suggestive. The very devil in that smile! It makes you want to slap him (and I hope to heaven Maman didn’t hear). I can’t respond in any case without seeming ill-bred.

  And thank you very much, I think I can vacate a saddle without your sort of help, Sir!

  But his hands are there already, gripping m
e too hard, too close – a strong man’s hands with heavy veins and black hair on their knuckles, and taking much too long to set me on my feet. Oh God, aren’t men impossible! But there it’s done, and I am free to turn my back upon the wrong man and step forward to the right one.

  I’m chewing at my lips to make them red (and calm, Elise – keep calm and do this properly).

  ‘Take heed, my love. A graceful sway, a lifted hip and slightly outthrust belly to suggest fecundity and other qualities I need not name,’ hissed in a whisper that Sir Hugh can hardly fail to hear. Maman’s convinced that my appearance at first sight will make a difference through the years ahead. ‘For recollect, my dear, we’re dealing with a young man who very likely hasn’t the first notion of what a wife brings to marriage.’

  I am presentable, I checked in my steel mirror at the fortress. Attractive modesty is what we’re aiming for, but without seeming aloof – and silence, because I’m apt to speak before I think, as Mother’s all too fond of pointing out.

  The tent flap’s up and the sergeant is announcing our arrival, speaking loudly (something pompous. I can’t listen while I’m concentrating on the graceful sway.) Now then – a quick glance underneath the lashes…

  His mother, Lady Constance, is tall and angular in a sage gown (and looking rather stern). A little whey-faced girl of six or seven summers presses to her skirts. Another vacant-looking woman in the shadows, probably a nurse. He’s tall as well, I saw that instantly, and something in his favour, taller than Sir Hugh by half a head – straight-limbed, rawboned and standing stiffly like a soldier – long legs, a horseman’s breadth of shoulder underneath the shabby jerkin, large hands (although in keeping with the rest of him, which is more than can be said of his enormous feet!).

  He does look strong, and healthy absolutely. But unfinished somehow, not so much more than a boy – short hair, unwashed and a coarse tanner’s brown cut level with his ears… Look, someone’s darned a moth hole in his sleeve.