The Lazarus Vault

XXII

I kneel in front of Guy. The stones on the floor are cold and hard against my knees. On the altar, a burnished sword gleams in the candlelight. The white linen shift is smooth against my skin. Gornemant has drilled the symbolism into us since the day I came to Normandy. White for purity, for the law of God you will defend.

White as naked skin in moonlight. In the depths of the night, when I should have been keeping my vigil, I crept through the castle to the storeroom by the orchard. Ada was waiting for me. It’s never warm enough to remove our clothes, but we pulled my tunic and her dress down to our waists to feel each other’s bodies, nothing between us. The room smelled of last year’s apples, sweet and cidery. The barrels were almost empty, but the ripeness lingered in the air.

When we’d made love, we lay on a piece of sackcloth on the floor. The moon shone through the grated window; shadows criss-crossed Ada’s back. I stroked her bare skin, breaking the shadow bars. I heard snuffles in the darkness — her crying. The tears made tracks down her cheeks, a silver cage. I wiped them off.

‘We’ll be all right,’ I whispered in her ear.

Gornemant steps around me and fastens a red cloak over my white shift. Red for the blood I will shed in the service of the Lord.

Ada shed blood last night. Just a scratch, a cut on her finger where the scab had torn off. As she fumbled with my tunic, a few spots smeared on the white wool. I panicked; in a few hours I’d be standing in the chapel, the entire household watching me. Ada crept to the kitchen and fetched vinegar, a rag. By the time she’d finished, the stain was little more than a watermark.

A narrow belt girds the shift around my hips. Gornemant says it’s to remind me to shun the sins of the flesh. I loosen it so it hangs lower, covering the worst of the stain. When the priest comes to the part of the oath where I swear myself to a life of purity, I hope he doesn’t look down.

You swear by almighty God to defend the church, your lord, and to protect the defenceless from the mighty.

I repeat the oath. Guy lifts the sword off the altar and holds it above my head while the priest says his blessing. For a second I see the image of Guy as he was in the copse that day, the hiss of air as the sword cut through the knight’s windpipe, the drip of blood falling on leaves. If he knew what I’ve done with Ada, he’d cut my throat right here in the chapel. Instead, he slides it into the scabbard and buckles it around my waist. I stand, so that Gornemant can fix my gilded spurs on to my boot.

My leggings are brown, brown for the dust that is every man’s destiny, proud or humble. I’m no stranger to dust and earth these days. Dust on the flagstones in the storerooms and cupboards; dust in the stable straw; damp soil under the rock where we first kissed. We are creatures of earth, and the gold rings or spurs we wear to flatter our nobility mean nothing but vanity. The spurs aren’t even mine, only borrowed for the day. Tomorrow they’ll be iron.

Guy swats my shoulder with the palm of his hand.

‘Receive this blow in remembrance of Him who ordained you and dubbed you.’

I don’t need to be taught the symbolism to know what it all means. It means I am a knight.

Gornemant suspects. Last week, he told me a long story about a Flemish count. One of his knights had been sleeping with the count’s wife: when the count discovered them together, he had his butchers beat the man raw, then held him upside-down in a latrine until he suffocated. Or choked on effluent — no one could tell afterwards. Gornemant gives me a heavy look. ‘A lord must be able to trust his knights in all things,’ he says, ‘as much as his own right arm.’

In the Bible it says, ‘If your right arm offends you, cut it off.’ We both know that.

I want Guy to be able to trust me. I want to honour my oaths. I thought that sleeping with Ada might be an ending, that possessing her body would cure my desire. Instead, it’s only made it worse. From the moment I met her, my love has been a wound. Now, a fever is spreading. The more often I have her, the more often I want her. Instead of being grateful for the times we have, hasty and snatched, I resent the times we’re apart. On the nights when I see Guy leave the hall to follow her to her room, I want to snatch a candlestick from the table and ram it through his eye.

My frenzy makes me reckless. Last week, one of the grooms surprised us in the stables as he came to fetch a cropper. Thankfully, the hinge on the stable door squeaks. We were able to cover ourselves, and made a great production of having come to show Ada Guy’s new colt. But servants gossip. I know I should rein myself in, temper my passions unless we can be absolutely safe. Next time, we wait until Guy’s away visiting one of his outlying tenants. We meet in the guard room at the top of the north tower: you can bolt it from the inside, and since Athold’s death Guy hasn’t bothered with a sentry there. It’s as safe as can be had.

I get there first. It’s a cloudless night and the moon is full: it shines through the windows and arrow slits, gleaming off the heads of the spears in a rack on the wall. The whole room is filled with silver light. I spread a cloak on the floor and wait.

I see Ada’s approach by the candlelight creeping up the doorframe. The stairs are steep and uneven: she doesn’t trust them in the dark. When she appears, she’s wearing a spotless white shift. No coat or dress, just a mantle of marmot fur.

The candle she carries lights up the tower like a beacon. Anyone could see it. I pinch out the flame with my fingers and hug her close, pressing my mouth into hers. She doesn’t reciprocate. There’s a stiffness in her, a withdrawal. I step back.

‘Are you all right?’

She stands so still that in the moonlight she looks like a statue of herself, a stone Ada. It reminds me of a telling of the Tristan story I’ve heard, where Tristan builds a wooden likeness of Yseult in a cave so he can stand and watch it hour after hour while she’s separated from him.

‘We have to stop.’

Perhaps Tristan was wise. The statue would never have said that. They’re words I’ve dreaded hearing since our first touch.

‘Why?’ I’m not sympathetic; I sound like a child.

‘Guy. Of course.’

‘Do you love him?’ I know she doesn’t.

‘He’s my husband.’

It’s not the ‘husband’ that offends me: it’s the ‘my’. I hate any implication that Guy belongs to her, or she to him. She belongs to me.

She reaches out a hand to console me, but I shake her off. I don’t want to make this easy for her.

‘We can’t go on,’ she insists. ‘Would you kill him? Fight all his knights and vassals, defy the world just so we can lie together? It’s impossible. You can’t write a happy ending to this story. If you love me, let me go.’

If I love her? Let Guy come, let him beat me and drown me or burn me at the stake — I’ll fight for her with every breath in my body. Only never deny our love.

A noise sounds on the stair. I look at the door — Ada didn’t bolt it. I start towards it, but before I’m halfway across the room it flies open with a crash. A figure stands in the entry, a burning brand in one hand and a naked sword in the other. The glare of the light blinds me.

‘Peter?’

It’s Jocelin.