The Black Chalice (16 page)

“And he owes me the north of the Reinmark!”

“Yes. We’re his best-loved vassals, the two of us. He wanted this alliance very much; he’ll never forgive you if you destroy it. And a man who earns Gottfried’s enmity is as much to be pitied as a man who earns yours. Don’t forget, my lord: I’m not the only man who came back from Palestine in high favor. There are others— young men, brave men, as willing to fight and hold these borders as you have been.”

He rose. “We are, as you said, guests in your house. We won’t stay long. You may slaughter us; the choice is yours. But I swear to you, it will cost you Ravensbruck.”

“For a whore? And a whoremonger? For a whelp of the weathervane of Dorn?” Arnulf laughed, and then spat. “Your father was a spineless fool, and you’re nothing but a mercenary with a purchased fief and purchased honors. Gottfried will spit on you as I do.”

“Are you sure?” Karelian said softly. Darkly. The power in his voice surprised him; it was almost sorcerous. “That is the question, is it not, my lord?
Are you sure?”

* * *

Adelaide recovered slowly. She was pitiably grateful for her life, yet she didn’t really seem to want it much. Her life was a shadow to her now, a story with no further meaning. One quiet afternoon, when the fever was gone, and she could sit up comfortably, and speak without coughing, he sent the others from the room— and immediately the fear leapt back into her eyes, the fear and the voiceless, numb waiting.

She judged the whole world by Arnulf of Ravensbruck, and why should she not? It was all of the world she had ever seen.

“Will you tell me what happened?” he asked.

The question bewildered her. “Did his lordship not tell you?”

“He told me what he chose to tell me. I want to hear what you have to say.”

She looked at her hands. “I wronged you, my lord. I have nothing to say.”

“Was I so unworthy a mate for you, then?”

“Unworthy?” For the first time, there was a flicker of something in her eyes besides fear. “It was never that, my lord. I thought you were kind and generous; I admired you….”

She fell silent, and the flicker went out.

“And Rudolf of Selven?”

“He’s dead,” she whispered.

Dear Jesus, I know he’s dead….

“They said his father was not the lord of Selven,” she went on softly, almost as if she were speaking to herself. “They said he was sired by one of the hunter elves. The dark ones, who don’t need light to see. No one really believed it, only me. I knew he was different; he wasn’t one of them at all.”

“You could scarcely have known him,” Karelian said, “living as you did.”

She looked at him as though he were a fool. He did not know whether to be angry about it, or to wonder if perhaps he was.

“I knew him,” she said. “He loved me more than the world.”

“Did he ask to marry you?”

“Yes. Years ago. My father never said yes or no; he said it was too soon, I was too young. He let Rudi hope; he encouraged him to hope. He used him. He used him and used him, and then he killed him.”

Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes and spattered onto her nightdress. She seemed unaware of them.

“When his friend Nicholas rebelled, Rudi would have joined with him, except for me. Instead he brought him back. Because my father promised. He said: bring him back, and you can name your own reward—”

“But I was assured there had been no other betrothal,” Karelian said. “The duke had your father’s word on it.”

“It wasn’t a betrothal. It was only a promise, and no one else was there. My father knew how Rudi would take the promise, but it was easy enough, afterwards, to say he’d never meant it so. He just laughed about it. ‘Come now,’ he said, ‘you know such a promise has limits; suppose you asked for my castle and my lands— would I have to give them to you?’ He had a better offer for me now. He could marry me to one of Gottfried’s favorites, to a man with royal blood. He offered Rudi twenty marks and one of his bastards.”

Karelian said nothing. It was a lord’s right, of course, to arrange his affairs as he judged best. It was the duty of his vassals and his children to accept his decisions. But there was also such a thing as justice.

“He used to leave me things,” she went on. Her voice was soft now, drifting. “Colored stones, flowers, pieces of driftwood… we had places to leave things, behind tapestries, and in cracks in the walls. Once he left me two flowers, all knotted together, I don’t know where he found them, there was still snow everywhere. He said he would take me to the sea one day; there are castles there, under the water…. Do you know where they buried him?”

“No.”
But his head is on a pike on the northern wall; pray God you never have to see it there….

“Sigune says the hunter elves come sometimes and take their children back. When they’re still little. I wish they had taken him…. Father sent messengers to the prison … three times … to tell me he was still alive … still alive … like that….”

She was choking with sobs, wrenching sobs that convulsed her body like a seizure. She turned away from Karelian and wrapped herself into a ball on the bed. She did not want comfort. She did not believe comfort was possible, and perhaps it was not— at least not for a very long time.

He knew he should feel deeply wronged— by her, and even more so by Rudolf of Selven, who apart from everything else had tried to murder him in cold blood. But he felt only empty. Betrayed yes, but less by them than by his own unfolding reality. He had fought for twenty years so he might come to Ravensbruck, or somewhere like it, with land and rank and bridal gifts, and this was what he had come to.

Raven had warned him.
You know what kind of world lies outside my walls….
Yes, dear God, he knew, and every time he forgot, the world reminded him with a club.

He thought of her now with unbearable regret. Raven the sorceress, the dreamer of other worlds. Raven kneeling over him in the depths of Car-Iduna, her splendid body swaying in the curtain of her hair, her eyes and her voice dark with knowing. Beautiful Raven who still shadowed his path, who sent her witch-birds out to shield him from the treachery he himself — however innocently — had set afoot. His longing to see her now, to wrap her in his arms, was so bitter he could have wept.

Rudolf of Selven abandoned his honor for love, and I my love for honor. Which one of us, in the end, will prove to have been the greater fool?

THIRTEEN

Shadows

Hard and fell am I to him, though I hide it from others.

Volsunga Saga

* * *

It was long past midnight, the sky clear above the northern mark, the white land lit with a waxing moon. In the great hall men slept restlessly, with troubled dreams, or did not sleep at all. Sigune heard their silence, their quiet waiting for blood. She heard the moon pass shimmering; she heard the snow crunch beneath the feet of the hunter elves.

Arnulf sat by his table, waiting for a sign.

He had not returned his guests’ greetings at the supper feast. He had neither spoken nor eaten. He refused to be laid to bed. He was the ruler of Ravensbruck, and he ruled it absolutely. Alone.

“Sigune.”

She took the candle and walked to the table. “My lord?”

“It’s cold here.”

“I’ll put more wood on the fire, my lord.” She began to turn away, but instead he motioned her to sit.

“Will she die?” he asked. She hated his voice when he shouted. She hated it more when it was soft like this.

“Not of her sickness, my lord.”

“Then poison her.”

She said nothing.

“If you disobey me, I’ll kill you.”

“It’s a grievous sin, my lord. What you ask of me.”

“To kill a whore like her? It’s no sin at all.”

Across the hall, a man shifted, groaning in his sleep. Idly, Sigune moved the candle, easing its light away from her face, towards his own.

“The count of Lys will know, my lord.”

“Don’t be a fool, woman. How could he know?”

“He is watching, my lord. He warned me. He knows I’m your slave. If she dies, he said, I will judge it murder, and both you and your master will answer for it.”

Arnulf sucked in his breath. “He has a devil in him, that one. God damn him.”

She was silent, watching him. She had never seen the count of Ravensbruck react like this before. He was a man who vented anger readily, a man who struck and cursed and killed as his passions moved him. His pride was inhuman; people who wounded it usually died. He took pleasure in his own immense capacity for cruelty. He waited sometimes to strike, when it was tactically wise to do so, but he rarely waited long, and he never worried about the consequences.

Now he was faltering. He was genuinely unsure. He was — as much as Arnulf of Ravensbruck ever could be — afraid.

And it was beautiful to see.

“Won’t you try to sleep a little, my lord?”

He looked at her, and she saw time shift in his eyes, saw him remember, actually consciously remember who she was: Sigune the Wend, the pretty one. He had liked her the best of his mistresses; after her, they had been only playthings, only cunt.

“I should have kept you,” he said.

He seized her wrist, pulling her towards him, drawing her hand to his loins. She did not protest. She was a slave, and in any case it did not matter; nothing mattered now except watching him go down.

* * *

You misjudged Karelian of Lys, did you not, my lord? A warrior hero, a favorite of the Golden Duke— you were so sure he’d be exactly like yourself.

The count of Ravensbruck slept, his head resting on one arm on his wooden table. The candle had burned out; his body was only a shadow against the faint light of the hearth.

Well, we have both been wrong before, about men. I wish I knew who has wrapped that shield around him. A woman, I’m sure of it, and a stronger one than I. It is her power you fear. Oh, he’s a match for you, and more; he’s earned his reputation. But there’s something else, and you know it, only you don’t know what it is. Your instincts are good, Arnulf of Ravensbruck. So many wars, so many enemies, and you’ve never walked into an ambush, never trusted a lying messenger, never drank from a poisoned cup.

You sense danger. Real danger, not just the threat in an enemy’s good sword arm. And it’s killing you. Tearing your bowels out because you aren’t sure. He has barely fifty armed men and a handful of servants. He was nothing before the crusade, just a knight errant making war for his bread. How can you hesitate— you of all men, lord of the north, bane of the Vikings and terror of the world?

Is it that wounded body, my lord? The knowledge it has given you of limitations? Oh, you can give orders, your men still fear you, but it’s no longer quite the same, is it? Deep in your bones you know it’s not the same. They can turn on you now, or they can just smile and walk away. You haven’t even sent for your sons because you’re safer without them.

You have begun to die as a man. Perhaps one day you’ll know what it means to live as a woman. Standing in a broken house with no armor, no weapons worth mentioning, no men to command. And nowhere to run. With only your body and its bottomless capacity for pain, watching your enemies come on….

May the gods keep me living and beside you until then!

FOURTEEN

Departure

There are in the world a great many situations that weaken
the conscientiousness of the soul. First and foremost of
these is dealings with women.

Saint John Chrysostom

* * *

All during my time of service with Karelian of Lys, he only once did a thing which I failed utterly to understand. I knew why he chose to ride into Helmardin, and why he came to love its sorcerous queen. And later, after our fateful gathering at Stavoren, I knew also why he turned to darkness. But I never understood why he chose to shelter Adelaide of Ravensbruck.

Neither did anyone else.

“It’s the Christian thing to do,” Reinhard said. It was the best answer he could come up with, and it was a rather weak one, considering Karelian’s not very Christian life. “He will leave it to God to judge her, and that’s the Christian thing.”

Otto regarded him without much sympathy. “The point is, Reini, he isn’t leaving it to God. Whatever God’s will for her might be, Karelian’s sword is in the way of it. And so is everybody’s neck. Including yours.”

“He’s a good man. Are you going to condemn him for it?”

Otto ran his hands through his long, ill-kempt hair. “No,” he said heavily. “No, I’m not. But how long do you think Arnulf will put up with this? Dear Christ, our lord is Arnulf’s son-in-law, and we’re in Arnulf’s house, and that Wendish crone is Arnulf’s slave….” He shook his head, and then, quite suddenly, he laughed. “I must say, if I weren’t afraid of the outcome, I would rather enjoy watching it. I’ll wager no man has ever stood up to Arnulf like this before, not ever. Pity it wasn’t for a better reason.”

He looked at me then, wondering if he had said too much. I looked down, and said nothing. It was the middle of the morning, and we were gathered in a huddle near the main stairwell of the castle of Ravensbruck, throwing a few dice around and otherwise pretending we did this sort of thing every day.

“It’s a bit like Constantinople, actually,” Otto said dryly. “Bowing and scraping and waiting to see if old Alexis would pile gold in our laps, or take us out and hang us.”

I had not been with them in Constantinople, but except for the tension, I could not imagine why he would make such a comparison. The other had been a confrontation worthy of kings. This one… I shook my head. It was bad enough that Adelaide had betrayed Karelian’s honor, and her own. But there was the dreadful matter of her father’s accident, and the murderous sorcery she had concealed. There was the attack against Karelian in the forest. So much wickedness already, and she was only seventeen. Surely any man in his right mind would leave such a woman to her fate. At least leave her to the justice of others, if he had no wish to punish her himself.

But no. Karelian meant to keep the wench, and even to defend her if he had to. It was beyond comprehending. And there was nothing Christian about it. Reinhard was wrong there, as he was about so many things.

I would have understood Karelian’s decision if he loved her. I might even have understood if it had been only a matter of personal arrogance, a battle of wills against a man he frankly detested. But the count of Lys did not love his wife; and he was too sensible to endanger himself and all of us merely out of foolish pride.

Then what moved him to take such a risk?— for a risk it surely was. From hour to hour we could not predict how Arnulf’s moods would swing, or how the county itself might divide in the face of them. The lord of Ravensbruck had always held his power in large part by fear. He was faltering visibly now, and a void of chaos was opening around him. Old hatreds began to surface everywhere, and whispers of mutiny were in the air. More than once I was certain that he would turn on us, or that his followers would turn on him. Either way we would find ourselves in the midst of a slaughter, with no allies on either side to count on.

It did not happen. We lived to ride safely out of Ravensbruck, and we owed it to God’s will, and to the distant but always acknowledged power of the duke, golden Gottfried with his fame and his ship full of eastern treasure, Gottfried who was Karelian’s cousin and who looked upon him almost as a son. But if this is to be an honest chronicle, then I must tell you we owed it also to the count of Lys himself. We did not approve of his decision, or comprehend his motives, but there wasn’t a man among us — and few, I think, among the knights of Ravensbruck — who did not end by admiring his mastery of an impossible situation.

He carried the argument by never opening it, refusing to justify himself, refusing to be baited by anyone. He was Adelaide’s lord. Arnulf himself had acknowledged the fact, and was bound to stand by his original and proper decision. No one else had anything to say about it. The matter was closed.

He left the count of Ravensbruck with no opening short of a full-scale, unprovoked attack. He ignored innuendo; he used cunning words to turn other men’s words around, till they themselves did not know whether they had insulted him or praised him. He refused utterly to be drawn into the divisive politics of the county. If he was Adelaide’s lord, he was also Arnulf’s ally, and the one bond was no more open to discussion than the other.

I watched, fascinated, as the men of Ravensbruck faltered, every one of them, not least the count himself, watching his neighbor and smelling the wind, waiting to be just a little bit surer of his position in the face of a man who was so flawlessly sure of his own. And the course of inaction, once begun, became harder and harder to reverse. The world jolted like a cart on a rough mountain road, tottered horribly… and righted itself, and went on.

That was my first clear understanding of the meaning of personal power. The strength which a man might carry inside himself was a strength which could shape worlds. Although his rank and his reputation and his fighting skill might all seem part of it, in its essence it was different from those things; it was separate and strange. And it was in no way moral, no more than a magnet was. The man who possessed it might be good or evil; his strength drew men to him just the same, or held them at bay.

* * *

We lived those last days as though we were under siege, and we left as soon as we could— much sooner than we might otherwise have chosen. It was still deep winter; the roads were barely passable, and the weather was foul. We loaded the pack beasts in freezing darkness and gulped down our last meal by torchlight, wrapped in layers of wool and booted to our thighs.

The servants moved around us like shadows, and kept their eyes down, not looking at their lord who sat with both elbows on the table, staring at the smoke-blackened wall. They stepped carefully over the bodies of fighting men who lay near the braziers pretending to be asleep. I saw the Wend woman watching us, always watching from places where the light would never reach her face; every time I looked at her I shuddered.

Then a door from a side chamber opened, spilling out light and, God help us, music: a reed pipe and bells, both played painfully ill; the lads who carried them were frightened half to death. Behind the boys came a priest. And behind him came Arnulf’s daughter, the lady Helga, veiled and gowned as for a bridal.

We had not seen her since our return from the ill-fated hunt— neither her nor her mother, who was now in the same dungeon which had prisoned Adelaide. Perhaps Arnulf had forbidden her to appear, or perhaps she was too frightened to face the chaos she unleashed when she betrayed her sister. She was pale now; her gown looked hastily and shabbily made.

My heart stopped. I saw, vaguely, several of Arnulf’s men scrambling to their feet, as bewildered as we were, looking at each other, looking at the girl, looking at the count of Ravensbruck who was rising as well, leaning on the arm of his squire.

“My lord of Lys,” he said. He was actually smiling, like a proud father about to yield his daughter’s hand in marriage.

He’s mad,
I thought frantically.
He is utterly gone, and oh Jesus, sweet Jesus, help us now…!

Karelian’s face was ash.

“What is the meaning of this, my lord?”

Arnulf did not answer him. He made an impatient gesture towards Helga.

“Come here, girl. Give him your hand.”

She moved towards Karelian. There was something quite horrible in her face, a mixture of terror and dark slyness and greed. No doubt she knew how ghastly it was, how shameful, but she would do it, oh yes, she would do almost anything, to have so fine a life for herself, to be lady of Lys.

Karelian did not take her hand.

“My lord,” he said, “I have a wife.”

“Your marriage is invalid,” Arnulf said irritably. He looked at the priest, who licked his lips nervously, and looked no man in the eye, neither his lord nor anyone else.

“Well, tell him!” Arnulf snapped.

“If a bride is found to be debauched, my lord,” the priest said, “then the marriage was made under false pretenses, and is invalid.”

“Really?” said Karelian softly. “That is canon law?”

“Yes, my lord,” the priest said, swallowing again. “Or at least, the law can be interpreted so. There have been… other cases.”

“Well. I must say, I grow more and more impressed with the Church’s capacity for adaptation. However….” He paused and smiled. “It has no relevance here. My wife committed adultery, true enough, but she came to her marriage bed a virgin.”

“That’s a lie!” Arnulf hissed. “And we all know it’s a lie! Selven boasted that he’d had her! He was dying, and he boasted of it, right in front of me, in front of my knights!”

“No doubt he did,” Karelian said. “He was a traitor and an assassin. You favored him in every way possible, yet he betrayed you. Whose word will you take in the matter, his or mine?”

So absolute was the silence then, I think even the flames in the hearth froze in mid-air. Arnulf’s mouth was slightly open; I saw confusion in his eyes. And I saw something else, something which made me realize he was not mad. Oh, perhaps a little bit: there was a kind of driven desperation in him which was real enough. But his irrationality was mostly self-indulgence. It was just another way of being absolute lord, and doing anything he wished, and keeping everyone around him afraid.

All he seemed to feel now was hatred, and it was not because of Adelaide— not any more. It wasn’t even because he had lost. In his long lifetime of conflict, he must have lost occasionally before. But this time he had encountered a man who no longer allowed him to make the rules, who changed the very terms on which they fought. Who did it in Arnulf’s own house, in front of Arnulf’s own vassals.

It was something the count of Ravensbruck would never, never forgive.

“You will swear a sacred oath on it?” he demanded. “The girl was a virgin?”

A sacred oath, if perjured, was a very grave mortal sin.

“I think my word of honor is oath enough in this hall….” Karelian looked around, at the human statues gathered in the torchlight. “In this hall, or in any other. But if you insist, yes, I will swear.”

That he would offer to do so was enough. Even I believed him then, although I no longer do.

Arnulf glared at the priest, who moved quickly to save his lordship’s face.

“If this is true, my lord, then we cannot—”

“Yes, yes, you damned fool, get out of here.” Arnulf sat down, slowly, looking over at Helga who waited rigid and utterly humiliated. Just now, she must have wished she were dead.

“Such a pretty bride,” Arnulf said. “You insult my lovely daughter, Karelian.”

“With all due respect, my lord, I do not. I would insult her if I married her when I already have a wife.”

Arnulf knotted his great hands together over the table, and glared at us. He would have liked nothing better than to call out his men, and have us cut to pieces. He would have done it in a moment, I think, if he had been sure they would obey.

Karelian allowed him little time to wonder about it. He gave us the signal to leave, and moved closer to the count’s chair.

“The day advances, my lord, and we must be gone. I thank you for your hospitality, and for your good will.” He bowed, formally perhaps, but nonetheless graciously. “I wish you good health, and good fortune. Farewell, lady Helga.”

Arnulf did not soften to his courtesy, not even a whisper.

“Are you taking the whore with you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You will regret it.”

“Perhaps.”

“The duke wanted this alliance,” Arnulf said, “and for the duke’s sake I will honor it.” It was not yet dawn, but he had a beer stein by his elbow. He raised it in a mock salute. “You’ll be well advised, count of Lys, to never,
never
fall out of favor with the duke.” He smiled, and my blood ran cold. He drank then, and put the cup down, and wiped his mouth. “And don’t ever bring that creature near me again, do you understand?”

“As you wish, my lord.”

Footsteps were coming down the staircase, careful steps, slow and unsteady. Everyone glanced towards them except Arnulf. He knew.

Adelaide walked between her servants, both of them supporting her, all three bundled in furs. Only their eyes showed, frightened eyes, and small wedges of nose.