Читать книгу Below the Salt - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 26

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It was a day in June in the year of Our Lord 1175. There was peace in Merrie England but in the north and west of France the old English king, who was called by his subjects Harry Secund, was waging a fierce and bloody war against a great golden ingrate of a son named Richard. The division between Saxon and Norman was still wide in the island kingdom. It was easiest to believe that more than a century had passed since the Conquest when the eye noted such things as the decay of the empty walls of Rawen Priory, from which the monks had been expelled for disobedience to the Norman king.

Here, in the ruins of Rawen, lived a handsome and strong but very unhappy man who was called Edward the Saxon. On this particular day, which fairly sang with sunshine and the green of the fields and hills, Edward started out to ride to the market town. He had no particular business to transact there and nothing in his pocket for the purpose. Being of a touchy pride and a sharp temper, he had few friends and, indeed, wanted none; but he had a great desire, nevertheless, to cut a good figure in the eyes of the world. His supertunic was neat and showed touches of bright embroidery at neck and wrists, and the feather in his hat was new and without a hint of tarnish.

He sighed deeply as he eyed the rich rolling land through which he rode and the sturdy trees against the sky line. He said to Sigurd, his servant, who cantered beside him: “My great-great-grandfather was robbed of the sweetest land in England. Think you that God is punishing Duke William for the suffering he brought to England?”

When they reached the point where the narrow, rutted road from the priory joined the highway running north to Baudene Castle, a long mounted train came into view. Through the dust raised by the hoofs of many horses the two Saxons could see a glint of steel and a show of cowled heads as well as burnished helmets.

“Master,” said Sigurd, his square and well-tanned face alight with interest, “the man of Baudene is returning. With his Norman bride.”

“We’ll wait here for them to pass,” instructed Edward the Saxon. “And there must be no hint of greeting. No raising of hands and no touching of forelocks.”

The two men sat their mounts in motionless disregard as the train passed. There were a number of women in the party, including one who rode beside the earl and who had loosened the ends of her wimple so that her black locks had fallen down to her shoulders.

“It has been said, master,” declared Sigurd, watching the slender figure beside the earl, “that the new wife of the man of Baudene is fair to look upon.”

There was no need to call her attractiveness to the notice of the young thane. He had eyes for no one else. The bride had the blackness of hair and the whiteness of skin so often found in Norman women but her eyes set her apart. They were a dazzling blue. As he watched her ride by, without so much as a glance in his direction, the thane felt his heart doing somersaults like a painted clown at a fair.

When the long train had passed the junction of the two roads and the horseman in the rear had sounded a derisive note on his horn, Edward touched heel to his horse’s flank and they resumed their journey in the opposite direction.

“Am I to spend the rest of my days coveting my neighbor’s wife?” he asked himself. “The priests call it a sin. But truly Hugh de Baudene has been a bad neighbor, as cruel and arrogant as that hawk on his wrist. And I recall that in the Bible it is always a rich man who covets the wife of a poor shepherd or a humble grower of vines on a hillside. I think perhaps it often happens that a poor neighbor falls in love with the fair wife of a rich man and that he isn’t judged wicked because of the hunger he conceals in his heart.”

At the same moment that these thoughts were running through his head, the bride in the rich burgundy cloak, with a hand touching carelessly the gold chain about her neck, was asking her lord a question. “Who,” she wanted to know, “was the tall young man with the golden hair who sat so still back there? He didn’t raise a hand in greeting as we passed.”

“A scurvy knave,” answered her spouse. “A stubborn Saxon who skulks in some ruins and dares to think himself my equal.”

The grim castle that the Normans had built at Baudene, on taking over the land, had been decked out gaily for the arrival of the bride. The drawbridge was ankle-deep in roses, the cables of the portcullis were wrapped with summer flowers, a company of gleemen sang romantic songs from the battlements, and a goliard, disguised as a fawn, skipped fantastically before the party as they crossed the moat. The bride tried to enter into the spirit of the occasion but, when she urged her lord and master to join her in a measure in the courtyard, where the servants had assembled to greet them, he shook off her hand and grumbled, “I was never one to trip a light foot, wife.”

There was much excitement and confusion in the bride’s dorter when her clothes were produced from the saddlebags, with many exclamations of delight on the part of the maidservants. She joined in the talk and asked many questions, declaring that she could not wait to become acquainted with this beautiful land of green fields and thick brush where she was to live. There was much comment, therefore, about this and that and it required no more than a single discreet word to bring forth a flood of information about the neighbors and particularly the lonely Saxon who dwelt in the ruins of Rawen Priory. He was, the bride learned, about twenty-eight years of age and unmarried, refusing to bring a wife to such a sorry home and such dim prospects. He lived an austere life, although women threw themselves shamelessly at him. At early dawn his horn could be heard as he rode out to hunt, wakening the echoes like the piping of Pan, and at night the last faint blast as he returned tired from the chase.

“By’r Lady, it is well I am married and settled down,” thought the Lady Maude, “or perchance I would pursue him shamelessly also.”

Her almoner, Father Alonzo, who had been born in Anjou, contributed one disturbing piece of information about the unfriendly neighbor. “His family owned all the land hereabouts before the Conquest,” he said. “This man still holds to a sense of grievance. Our wardens are under orders never to set foot on his meager acres for fear of having their ribs tickled by a Saxon arrow.” He added as an afterthought: “He went with the marshal to the Crusades.”

“It seems to me,” thought the bride, “that this poor man has reason for feeling as he does.”

A few months later the Lady Maude’s confessor fell ill and she rode on a Sunday morning to hear mass at the little church of St. Willibald’s in a nearby village. It was a measure of her devotion that rain was falling heavily and that she had to be so completely bundled up in a cloak that only her bright eyes could be seen. She did not at first perceive the tall and lonely neighbor dismounting at the same instant. He also was wrapped up and in the very shabbiest of cloaks.

They came face to face on the stone steps of the church and the lady was so startled that her lips parted as though she intended to speak. Then her cheeks flushed and she stood perfectly still on the rain-washed stone. But she looked steadily into his eyes. Lowering her head after a moment, she began the ascent of the steps ahead of him. Her heart was beating furiously and her hands clasped the missal as though it offered her the protection she needed.

She heard him say behind her, in a whisper which could not have reached other ears, “May God bless this most wonderful and memorable of days when I have seen my lovely lady face to face.”

It had become clear to both of them that neither would forget the other, even though they might never meet again.

A year later Hugh de Baudene was killed in a tournament held rather secretly in a hamlet off the New Forest to avoid the restrictions that the old king had laid on this costly sport. As his wife had borne him no children, the question of what would happen to the huge Baudene holdings became a bone of contention at court. The king, jealous of all the rights and privileges of the crown, and needing the money moreover, was determined to sell the hand of the bereaved Lady Maude to a second husband of his own choosing. The royal anterooms—for the king was back briefly from the civil wars in the south—were filled with candidates for the fair widow, all of whom were prepared to pay Henry handsomely. The bids kept mounting up in a steep spiral.

One morning in August, Edward of Rawen donned his best raiment and rode off from the priory. Male attire was rather plain in these days but the materials used were of the best. Even this poverty-stricken thane wore soft green shoes which fitted his calves tightly and his supertunic was of silk from the East, held at the neck by a large garnet which had been in his family since the days of great King Egbert.

The first hay had been cut and the field hands were taking it in ox-drawn carts across the lowered drawbridge when he arrived at Baudene Castle. The hoofs of the Saxon’s horse had reached a point directly under the portcullis before a guard emerged from the entrance to the outer bailey and barred further advance with a steel-tipped pike.

“How now, Sir Stranger?” cried the man, not recognizing him and rather awed by the fineness of his attire. “What errand brings you so boldly to our gates?”

“I am Edward of Rawen and I desire speech with the Countess of Baudene.”

The guard threw back his round head and roared with laughter. “Geoffrey-with-the-Whiskers will have you fed to the dogs!” he exclaimed. A man perched on top of the nearest load of hay joined in the merriment. He lifted an arm and a forkful of hay descended over the head and shoulders of the bold visitor. The guard was still making threatening gestures with his pike and muttering maledictions on all Saxon swine when a plump individual in a gray tunic came stumping out from the gloom of the courtyard.

“Our gracious lady will see you,” said the newcomer with an unwilling nod. “You are to follow me. But tread not too closely on my heels, for there is already a heavy odor on the air which offends my nostrils.”

The Lady Maude came to greet him in a small niche off the Great Hall. Her blue gown was so long that it frothed with every step she took. Edward the Saxon caught his breath. She was without a wimple on her head and so for the first time he was seeing her in all her beauty and charm.

They stood some distance apart and looked into each other’s eyes as intently as on the day when they met at St. Willibald’s.

“Do you share the opinion of your servants that I am presumptuous in coming thus to see you?” he asked finally.

She advanced a step nearer and put out a hand hesitantly to remove a wisp of hay from his sleeve. “I hope you will forgive the rudeness of your reception,” she said. Then she raised her head and smiled. “No. I have been expecting you. At least, Sir Knight, I have been hoping you would come, and—and thinking you were tardy.”

He leaned down to touch the top of his handsome green shoes. “I could not come unshod, my lady,” he said. “I am a poor man, as you doubtless know. It has taken me a full year—ever since that day when we met in the rain—to acquire a suitable wardrobe. I have had to clothe myself piece by piece, and the shoes did not arrive until yesterday. I have lost no time in paying my respects.”

“I feel much honored, gallant neighbor.”

“What a sweet voice she has,” he said to himself; “rather throaty but soft and full.” She did not slur her words, as most Saxons were inclined to do.

“I had to see you today or put my hopes away forever. A friend at the king’s court sent me some word last night. It seems that the bidding for your hand has reached as high as two thousand marks. King Henry will soon be reaching a decision. That is why I am here.” There was a long pause during which he kept his head lowered. “Yes, I am presumptuous. I am presumptuous beyond all measure. How daring it is of me to believe that it was your heart which spoke when you said you had been hoping I would come.”

Dark lashes closed over her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them wide again and smiled. “It was my heart which spoke,” she said.

For several moments the scene in the rain on what Edward had called that memorable day was re-enacted. Nothing was said. Eye looked into eye, questingly, trustingly, passionately.

“Words are so often of small use,” he said finally, in a tone little above a whisper. “There was once when they were not needed between us. And now I think we have reached an understanding without them. But there is one question I must ask. Have you any fear of consequences?”

“None!” she cried. “I will tell our liege lord the king to his face that I married once on the command of my parents and that now I marry for love. I am prepared to face any consequences.” Then she paused and it was in a lower and less assured voice that she finished. “Save, my dear knight, as they may concern you.”

“Then there must be no delay. We must wed at once. Before your powerful suitors can put obstacles in the way. And have no fears for me, dearest one. If the king should exact my life, I would count it well lost for a few moments of happiness with you.”

It was their good fortune that the king found it necessary to go to France again. He was at Le Mans when he received word of the marriage of the widow of Baudene to Edward the Saxon, who seemed to him most surely the least eligible candidate in the whole of his kingdom. His face turned an angry purple when he read the report.

“By God’s splendor!” he cried. “She must be taught a lesson, this pretty wanton. She must learn that the flouting of my wishes is a dangerous pastime!”

The choleric king thought of insisting that the marriage be set aside but was finally convinced that this could not be done. Then he turned his mind to punishments and he decided, first, that a large fine would be the most satisfactory kind of retribution because it would put money into his pockets, which were almost bare at the moment. Accordingly he sent a message to the chancellor at Westminster that the fair widow must be amerced to the extent of three thousand marks, which was higher than any of the bids he had received for her hand.

As it happened, however, the royal messenger fell into the hands of a patrol of Prince Richard’s men. The contents of the bag he was carrying seemed of little consequence to that prince of sultry moods.

“Burn all this,” he ordered. “It will be the better if some of my gracious father’s plans go astray.”

The newly wed couple lived at Baudene Castle in a state of bliss which could not be shaken by the shadow of retribution hanging over them. The only event which had threatened their happiness directly was the arrival in London of one Gilles de Baudene, a distant connection of the Lady Maude’s late husband. This cunning Norman was the owner of a few sour acres of land in the Cotentin and he saw a chance for profit in the situation which had developed. His first move was to give notice of suit for possession of all the Baudene lands, as the closest surviving relative of the late earl.

At the offices of the chancellery, the claimant from across the Channel was treated with scant respect. The officials were certain that King Henry had his own ideas with respect to the Baudene estates and that a distant kinsman would not be allowed any part in them. This did not seem to disturb Messire Gilles too seriously. He spent his days in the chancellery anterooms, biting his nails and watching everything that went on with his cold gray eyes. His nights were spent in the cheapest tavern he had been able to find.

The officials of the department fell into the habit of saying to him each morning, “You are still here then?” To which the claimant never varied in his reply: “Marry, yes. I am here until justice is done me by God and the king.”