The Lazarus Vault

XII

Jocelin’s mother — my lord Guy’s wife — died some years ago. It’s something Jocelin and I have in common, though it doesn’t bring us any closer.

Guy has decided to remarry. I think, cruelly, perhaps he’s so disappointed in his heir he wants to try again. But in fact, Jocelin will be a perfectly acceptable heir. He’ll keep his boot firmly planted on his vassals and tenants; he’ll collect their tithes and their taxes enthusiastically; if there’s a war, he’ll fight energetically for his Duke and probably win lands and favour.

But Guy can’t wait for a war to expand his territory. Jocelin has three sisters, and they’ll need dowries soon. For a long time, Guy has had his eye on an estate across the river: good pasture, forests with rights of hunting and firewood, fields to grow corn and a mill to grind it. The land belongs to the Beauchamp family, but they are rarely there. Most of their interests are in England now: crossing the sea each time one of their tenants demands justice, or if the King decides to visit, has become tedious. They have a daughter, and they are willing to endow her with the Normandy estates as her marriage portion. Messengers go to England with a proposal, return with a price, risk themselves at sea once more with a counteroffer. Guy holds two farms in Berkshire whose rent he never sees: they become part of the bargain too.

At last the contract is agreed. Gornemant the seneschal sails to England to collect Guy’s new bride. He takes four knights, three grooms, six servants, a butler, a cook — and me.

When I left England I was a boy with the tonsure raw in his scalp. Now I am sixteen: a man, in some ways. My hair has grown out, though my companions still call me ‘monk’, and I have a credible beard. I will never be as big as Jocelin, but I occasionally beat him in the training ground. Every time I do, it feels like one step nearer my revenge.

We step ashore in Dover, a mean little town at the mouth of a river. High cliffs loom over us. I only ever saw England on my way to Normandy, and that through my tears. But I can tell the country is prospering. King Henry has been on the throne some thirty years, and peace makes England flourish. When I meet my uncle in Windsor, he wears a scarlet cloak and a vair mantle, fresh from the furrier. When he rests his elbows on the table, it leaves a residue of chalk dust.

He serves me larks’ tongues and capons, and wine he has brought from Burgundy. Then he tells me the king has appointed a new castellan to my father’s castle. I don’t know, but I guess, that my uncle has profited in some way from this arrangement. It’s quite clear that I’ll never claim my inheritance.

‘But look at you,’ he says, with gruesome joviality. He hasn’t looked at me properly all day. ‘You’re a man, now. You can make your own way.’

I know what he means. I’ve grown up; his obligations are discharged. He’s rid of me.

I stare at my plate. ‘I’m still a squire,’ I mumble.

‘You’ll be a knight soon.’

‘What about the men who killed my father?’

My uncle shifts uneasily on his stool. Once a year or so I write him a letter reporting my progress, and each time I ask this question. He has never answered it.

‘It was impossible to find them. There were no witnesses.’

‘I witnessed it.’

My uncle wipes the gravy from his mouth with a napkin.

‘Wales is a dangerous place. Many die violently. It’s impossible to bring all the perpetrators to justice.’

Afterwards, I’ll always wonder what that signified. Did my uncle connive in his own brother’s destruction? I could believe it. Wales is a dangerous place; many die violently. It would be easy to arrange one more death — and the men who killed my father spoke French, not Welsh.

From Windsor, we follow the Thames upriver to Wallingford, then strike west. It takes three days, but it’s a pleasant journey. There are frosts at night, but at dawn they dissolve into spring mists. The sun shines from a creamy April sky and makes the world mellow gold. Up on the hills, the trees are in bud. I’ve never seen a country more at peace with itself.

The Beauchamps live in a fortified manor house in a broad valley west of Wantage. It’s a handsome house that, like its owners, has sprawled away from its original military purpose over the past decades. Handsome outbuildings and new wings almost completely obscure the stout fortress at its centre. A mound still lifts up the tower, but it seems less formidable when surrounded by terraced vegetable gardens. Its builder once diverted the river for a moat, but the current generation have constructed weirs and dykes to make fishponds.

That evening, we dine on carp and trout, stuffed with raisins from the local vineyards. Walter Beauchamp doesn’t need to impress us much: the marriage benefits Guy more than him. Ada is his youngest daughter, and he could always send her to an abbey if needs be. But he sets out the table in his great hall and brings in his household to entertain us. In the gallery, a minstrel plucks his psaltery.

I have no place at the table. I stand in the folds of the heavy fabrics which line the wall, like a green man half buried in foliage. Every so often, I emerge to refill Gornemant’s cup, or recharge his plate. Otherwise, I listen and observe, always learning.

As a result, I’m probably the first man in the hall to notice Guy’s bride. Her father has waited to unveil her until the first two courses are under our belts, until wine has softened our eyes. While servants clear dishes, I glimpse a flash behind a curtained doorway, a head peeping round to see the men who’ve come for her. All I can make out in the gloom is the gleam of precious stones, the pearls she wears in her hair and the gems at her throat. At least, I think that’s all I see. Later, she’ll tell me that I stared straight into her eyes without realising it.

The psaltery falls silent. The men at the table look up as Guy’s bride makes her entrance. She carries a silver dish in front of her, humble as a servant, but she’s beautiful, noble and richly attired. Two squires escort her. Beauchamp has them carrying candelabras, ostensibly replenishing the lights at the table, in fact casting a shimmering nimbus around their mistress. The candles make her skin as soft as ivory, her hair like gold leaf, her jewels a bright constellation.

I’m transfixed. The moment she enters the hall, it seems to me that the room grows so bright that the candles and the fire lose their brilliance, like stars washed away in the sunrise. I feel like the knights and wanderers in my mother’s stories, encountering their wayward damsels and enchantresses. I’m gripped by magic.

At the end of the table, Gornemant’s reaction is more businesslike. The stars haven’t dimmed for him. He examines her with clear-eyed purpose, like a cook appraising a doe brought in from the hunt. Will she do? Will she please Guy? Was she worth surrendering the Berkshire estates for?

She puts down the grail-dish she’s carrying and curtsies. A poached lamprey swims in its own juices in the silver platter. Her father’s steward carves it and serves the portions on whole flatbreads, while Gornemant asks her a few trivial questions. She answers demurely, her eyes downcast. So as not to stare, I make myself watch the other knights. They can’t believe Guy’s luck. Even if she looked like a horse, he’d have taken her just for the land. As it is …

Ada Beauchamp curtsies and retreats. The candles stay, but the light goes with her. On the pretext of fetching more wine, I follow. I find her in a courtyard, leaning against the wall with her head tipped back to the stars. Her breath makes small clouds in the chill night. Through the kitchen window I can see the cooks preparing a sugared cake in the shape of a boar, Guy’s emblem. But here, we’re alone.

‘When you’re the lady of Hautfort, you’ll have servants to bring the fish.’

She laughs. ‘My father says that men like to know a woman can serve.’

Her voice is deeper than I expected, mellow. She looks at me as if she expects me to say something, but every word I ever knew has suddenly flown out of my head.

She says, ‘How long have you served Guy de Hautfort?’

‘Six years.’

‘What sort of man is he?’

I want to talk about her, not Guy. ‘Fair.’

She’s looking at me intently. For a moment I think she’s disappointed, then I realise she wants to hear more. She wants reassurance, to know that she isn’t being led across the sea to some ogre.

‘He’s a good man.’ Maybe. ‘Kind and gentle-hearted.’ Less plausible. ‘Handsome.’

She smiles. I wonder if she’s seen through my lies. ‘And his son?’

She holds my gaze. I try to think of something to say about Jocelin, any benevolent lie, but I can’t. Her eyes seem to dare me to speak the truth.

‘He’s a pig.’

That makes her laugh. I’m glad I said it; it forges a bond between us.

‘I’m Peter.’

‘Ada.’

Now that I’m close, I can see that her hair doesn’t really shimmer like the sun. It’s a trick: she’s braided it with thread-of-gold. Absent-mindedly, she pulls out a strand. She winces; she’s pricked herself on one of the pins holding her braid in place. A drop of blood beads on her fingertip. She presses the finger between her lips and sucks out the blood. I watch her mouth and tremble: a revelation. I don’t have much experience of women, beyond a scullery girl who lets me unlace her bodice and touch her breasts in Guy’s woodshed. Only now do I understand how the men in my mother’s tales felt, why they risked all for the love of a lady.

‘I should go,’ she says. ‘My mother will want to hear everything.’ She gives me an earnest smile. ‘Thank you for introducing yourself. It’s nice to know there’ll be at least one friendly face in Hautfort.’

‘More than one, for sure,’ I mumble.

I watch her disappear into the lighted doorway. The enchantress has vanished: I’m the forlorn knight alone on the hillside. I remember her sucking her finger, the ruby lips and the luminous skin.

She’s pricked me — and I know that instant the wound will never heal.