Chapter 37      What History Tells

 

 

 

Richard of Llandaff, Chaplain of Norbury, took notes.  He had a half-shuttered tallow lamp burning on the table beside his paper, and behind him,  the window was thrown open to the light of a pleasant winter day.  His hands were wrapped in tattered wool, with fingers free, and his breath puffed little white clouds as he struggled with his quill.  He used a black feather, which held the point well and made fine, close lines, excellent for conserving precious French paper.

Stewart smiled to himself.  The learned chaplain had scribed nearly invisible guidelines on several sheets of good paper with a thin lead disk, which now held the unused papers against occasions gusts, all in preparation for his visit.  From the amount of paper at hand, the cleric intended to keep him busy all night.  Well, perhaps not all night.  He smiled outright.  Mayda would be waiting for him, and cleric or no, there he would be tonight.

Looking up with pinched precision, the Chaplain said, "When you left Morkin's villains, how did you prevent their following?"

"Well," Stewart said thoughtfully, "Morkin died of his wounds."  No use tangling their position with an exact recount of Edward's exploits.  "And by then, the rest of the lot had all they needed of us.  They were more glad to have us leave than stay, and for our part, we had partaken sufficient of their hospitality."

Chaplain laughed.  "Very good!  Now Aubrey, poor fellow, may God rest his soul, Aubrey was laid out in a cart?"

"No.  He received his wounds in that bad place, but he died in the house of Gavin."

"And poor Lovel.  He died that night?"

"Yes."

"I shall miss that dog," said the Chaplain, pausing at his paper.  "As will Alexander, I imagine.  Many a time I saw them taking nest in fresh hay together.  His only unjudging companion, his best, undemanding friend before his knight drew him nigh.  Yes, I shall miss Lovel.  He spent some of his time with me, you may recall."

"Yes."  Lovel had been well acquainted with everyone of Norbury who had a lonely or generous nature and time for a big dog.  It was odd how loneliness and generosity appeared so often together.

The chaplain scribbled a bit more.  "And this former Templar knight, Gavin, he knew something of medicine?"

"An herbalist and surgeon.  His wife, Una, also."

"Ah, I see."  He made a few tiny notes in the margin of the paper.  This took some seconds, then he said, half to himself, "We must talk more of Gavin later."

"As you wish," agreed Stewart softly.

Chaplain looked up, concerned.  "And as your new duties as chamberlain permit, of course.  Congratulations, by the by.  Lord William is a generous man."

"Yes, he is.  But I must count my good fortune a boon of Thomas and Cadmon, both worthy knights and true, with honor and largess aplenty, and by God's grace, my friends."

"You are lucky to have gained such friends in so short a life, Stewart, though I vouchsafe this is but known to you."

"God is my witness, Chaplain.  I have been lucky in all things since knowing them.  I have found my wife and trade early, and warm myself by the knowledge of their goodwill."  Indeed, the position of chamberlain, offered by Lord William at the behest of his friend's entreaties, would spell a comfortable, beautifully unadventurous life for him and Mayda.  He was very thankful for the providence of friends and the cooperation of God.

Chaplain contemplated him lengthily.  "You have a gift of language, Stewart.  Would you like me to teach you to read?"

What say!  Oh, what say!  Good fortune followed upon its own heels.  Did he tap his lifetime reserve in the second decade of his life?  Never mind!  Bask now, shiver later.  To say no, to tarry, in the last few months, these anchors he had learned not to drop.  Hesitation was but the cooling of the body at death.  "Yes," he said, his voice choking with gratitude, "Yes!"

The chaplain smiled benevolently.  "We shall accomplish it then.  Few are those who have the desire and the wit.  We shall have joy of winter evenings with our texts!  But slew to this history while it is fresh.  It spoils if left alone too long.  Men are such poor vessels for the truth and their memories curdle like milk."

Stewart nodded.  Yes, Chaplain, he confessed silently, and even my retelling will sand a few rough corners off, but if I tarnish my additions and omissions a bit, and place them alongside showy incident, you will not notice.  And if you do not notice, you will not feel the loss by way of it.

He continued his reminisces, enjoining similar discretion for a few other singularities.  He kept to himself the sudden, exultant waking of Thomas the night before his, Stewart's, marriage, the convulsive shudder as the knight started up in a sweat and shouted, "Catapult!" close on to the hollow crack of a barrel tap sharply hammered into a cask in the tavern below.  "Catapult!"  he had exclaimed with terror and dismay, still on that perilous bridge between sleeping and waking.  And when he had fully awakened, he had found himself disturbed, for the first time, by lingering memory.

Stewart kept to himself Thomas's shocked utterances, his flow of tumbling words spoken in soliloquy with Stewart as empathetic listener, hard words about the young knight's villainous father.  From what Stewart could make out, for the subject had never again been mentioned by Thomas in the intervening days, his father, under siege within his castle, had given his young son, Thomas, to the enemy as hostage against fortifying his castle while ostensibly asking permission to surrender it from his suzerain lord, and who, subsequent to a secret midnight reprovisioning, had brazenly declared the situation to the enemy.  In a rage, the enemy baron had trussed child Thomas and placed him in the bowl of a catapult, threatening to launch him over the wall if the father did not immediately open the gates.  The bitter memory of the father's reply raced out with the force of a torrent:  "You hinder me not!  Let fly my son over the wall to me, for I have yet hammer and anvil to forge another!"  By good fortune, the enemy baron fared a better father than blood had borne, for he ordered the boy taken down from the engine, amidst the angry shouts and protestations of his knights, and released.

The blow setting the cask tap had, apparently, mirrored the sound of a catapult trip latch.  Such must have been the association which linked past with present so effectively.  What a memory to keep bottled up inside!  Poor Thomas.  To lose one's parents as Alexander had done was tragic, but to find that your own father had cheerfully invited your murder was quite another abyss altogether.  How angular God had made the world.  No earthly architect could begin to fathom the plan.

It was this fearsome revenant which had so long haunted Thomas's dreams.  But since that night, no specter had challenged the peace of his sleep, or so he had been told by Alexander, for from the next night on, he, Stewart, had slept in the warm comfort of a marriage bed.  Mayda, he said admiringly, in you, God hath set the angle quite fair.

But of Thomas, Stewart remembered hearing of a similar happening with the great Earl of Pembroke, William Marshall and his father.  But unimaginative cravens often imitated the actions of their more inventive brethren.  So too, Thomas's father had doubtless reenacted, for his own pleasure of stature, this incident from the past of the earlier castellan, and congratulated himself on its successful performance.  What cost a son if one's stature is enhanced in the eyes of one's enemy?  As Edward had once said of King John, "Shit is upon two legs, walking about.  Thinks it is somebody!"  Stewart smiled.  Ah, Edward, he said to himself.  You know the clay well.

He looked up, finding himself smiling and the Chaplain regarding him quizzically.

"A thought to add to my history?"

"No," said Stewart apologetically.  "A private humor of a rough man.  It would not fit well your learned hand."

The chaplain accepted this easily enough, but Stewart could see he secretly desired the telling of it.  Some things were not for public histories, though.  Some things were for yourself and your friends, only.  Memories of deeds performed bound men better than a book's quarto sutures.

The lamp flickered as a wisp of air curled up and around the flame.

Chaplain sighed.  "Evening breeze.  Our light will douse shortly, I fear."

"There is always the morrow."

"That is true, but I tell you frankly, Stewart, I am impatient for these papers to lie filled and done.  But I cannot keep you."  His tone said he wished otherwise, but patience evidently named a virtue he strove to affect, and he visibly prepared to accept refusal with good grace.  The unsaid words played beside the words he spoke, however, like a lyre accompanies a lyric.  These unspoken words entreated:  If Stewart would but consent to stay later, they could stoke the fire, light a few candles, and scribble pleasantly deep into the night.  The chaplain paused and waited.  The pause wanted filling, like a song needs a refrain.  The silence wanted an affirmative nod.

Before the journey with Cadmon, he would have been obliged to acquiesce, but now he felt he could say no and not feel guilty afterwards.  This intangible gift, too, had come from Cadmon's vast stores of worldliness.  Stewart shook his head and said, politely, that it would keep until the next day.

And, when the time would come, on the morrow or the day after, when the part of the journey after the final combat in the woods unfolded, Stewart determined to neglect telling of the wonderful night he had spent sewn up in a sheet with Mayda on their wedding night, of their cool, warm, sweaty embraces and their whispered pledges of love, while outside in the tavern, his friends and half the village of Oakham had danced and drank and supervised the tumbling in the linen envelope 'til dawn's stupefaction.  Nor would he tell of the tavern keeper's proud display of the wedding cloth, hanging on the standard outside his door in the street for all to see the red stain of virgin's blood and signet of husbandly duty well done.  Some things were not for the ears of a cleric, even if that cleric did endeavor to a make a good history.

Stewart shook his head slightly.  He blushed to think of it.  He could ill stand the look of dismay or shock or whatever expression a learned cleric would deliver, were he to breach himself truthfully to the episode.  Let it pass.

"Good night, Stewart," said the chaplain.

"Good night," he answered and let the door close behind him.

As he returned to the chamberlain's quarters, his and Mayda's home, he reflected on how much change the familiar cloaked.

Life at Norbury, after the tumultuous celebration of their return, had  fallen back into comfortable routine.  Little had changed since their departure.  Of course, the stable had been rebuilt, but habit had forced a near recreation of the pre-existing structure, and so Alexander reported that he hardly felt like it was a new building at all.  Even the shrine to Epona had been redone and placed in its familiar position.

When the duties of reunion had done sufficiently, Cadmon had gone into the stable and shared a heartfelt reunion with his Squire Horse, and had taken the old horse with him on a walk into town and fed him molasses mixed with grain at the inn until the big animal was in danger of colic.  The knight doted on the old horse and spoke to him as one would speak to an old friend.  It warmed Stewart's heart to see it, for he surmised the ancient destrier formed the last link between the knight and the happiness of his past.  And, the mirror was not unreflecting, for the horse genuinely warmed to the presence of his owner and keeper as to no other.

Throughout the manor, no one would have recognized Alexander of old in the carriage of the new without the help of recognizable features of face.  In truth, Alexander walked about the yard in all comfort, now.  No jeers emanated from his former stable mates.  They recognized him as having crossed the bridge away from them, as having become another person altogether, perhaps, for they paid him the subservient respect afforded the other senior squires and their knights.  No challenges issued from the ranks of squires.  They no longer pelted him with insult or invited him to fight.  He had proven himself, had been successfully divorced by one life and married to another.

Stewart remembered Alexander of old standing alone in the shadows of the barn timbers, or high and removed on the parapet, like a solitary bird looking down at the world, all the time watching and envying the exercises of the squires in the practice yard below.  Now, he stood in the yard, trading friendly blows with his peers, taking instruction from Cadmon, sword fighting with Thomas, and even conversing with the banneret.  His world had changed more than anyone's.  A new coat for old.  Good luck to him!

And, Thomas.  Good, generous, tormented, Thomas.  Good luck to him, too!  Fortune waved like a pennant from Cadmon's lance.  To some came the good, to others came the ill, but to all who rode under its shadow came fortune of one sort or another.  He was a bringer of ends.

All told, the coming of Cadmon had cost several lives, not that blame could be laid at that good knight's feet.  He had chewed as he must, given the meat he was served.

Yet, as good a man as he was, there was one who would forever wince at the mention of his name.  Poor Dell.  Edward's poor, reluctant apprentice, now with inner scars deeper and uglier than those which seared his hand.  The torture Dell had undergone at the will of Jacques and his men had vastly changed him.  With Lady Em's ministrations, those surface wounds had healed, but those deeper ones -- well, one wondered if they would ever fester until death made final lance at the boil.

Stewart had met Dell a few times and had judged him ill paired with the life of a smith, yet in the end, he had proven himself worthy of much.  His fate bothered even the corroded sensitivities of the smith.  Even Edward, whose hoary, encrusted manner would heedlessly insult God Himself, even he commended the young man and seemed fitfully regretful of past words spoken. So much so, that he entreated Cadmon to find the boy a position in an abbey.  The search was still out, but with the influence of Cadmon, and through him, Lord William, success, such as it was, would doubtless come.

Cadmon, the cork upon the bottle, had declared the day after the reunion celebration, he would leave in a fortnight's time.  No entreaty from Lord William or imploration by Lady Em could stay his mind.  He had provided no reason and talked little afterwards, but any decent man could guess the course of his journey to come.  He had a wife to properly bury and justice to wreak upon the author of his woe, Count Linceul, a continent away.

A day or two later, though, at table, the chaplain had found occasion to ask Cadmon, in front of Lord William, to belay his hand and remain with them at Norbury as their premier knight.  Lord William had resoundingly seconded the suggestion, but Cadmon had merely shaken his head and smiled wanly.  Chaplain had said, "Cadmon, here you have friends, a home, men who will stand by you.  In finding this man you seek, you may lose everything.  Vengeance cannot restore her life."  The chaplain referred, of course, to Cadmon's murdered wife.  No one had dared broach the subject before, but the chaplain brazenly did so then, so confirmed were his convictions in the matter.

The expression in Cadmon's eyes as he moved his gaze to the chaplain saddened him to remember.  It was profound.  He still remembered Cadmon's words verbatim.  Cadmon had said, "Is the thief who has spent his stolen silver not still a thief?  Justice and vengeance are the same, good cleric, one is but the other robbed of passion.  Vengeance will not restore her life, but justice may restore mine."

Cadmon had halted the chaplain's response with a gesture and there the conversation had ended.  So far as he knew, the subject had not entered conversation at the manor since then.

The big surprise had been the sudden, spontaneous formation of Cadmon's retinue, a mesnie of recent veterans.  Of course, everyone fully expected Alexander to accompany his knight, but when Thomas and James both declared for Cadmon, and despite the knight's protestations, were given permission and congratulations by Lord William and the banneret, this event had taken the household by storm.

Thomas stood square and sound, a gallery of knightly virtue.  But James?  Many had exchanged glances at this occasion.  Well they should, but they had not seen James of late, had not witnessed his midnight escape from Gavin's house nor seen his selfless charge into the trees to flush out Cadmon's quarry.  There shone exemplary loyalty and courage, and generosity, too.  They had not seen the change in him.  Or had they?  Perhaps some had, those blessed with quick and perceptive character judgment.  Both Lord William and the banneret had immediately offered their good will.  Their rejoicing would not have been so quick had they thought ill of the declaration.