The Firedrake (17 page)

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I did not like him, my lady.”

“Oh. That’s awful.”

The other ladies murmured like wild bees. Laeghaire glanced at them. One of them put her hand quickly over her eyes, but her mouth smiled at him.

“You’ve beguiled my ladies, sir.” The Duchess frowned at them. “They are always fascinated by bloody, devilish men. I trust my lord reproved you for killing poor Sir Néel.”

“Not overmuch. He had some need of me, and no need of Sir Néel, who was beyond need.”

“What a pretty tongue you have, for a murderous man. Will you stay to have some dinner with me?”

“I am going to Ghent, my lady.”

“Only stay a while. I weary of these chickens.”

“I have—” He looked at the ladies. “Soon after I left to go to Maine, I had a son born, and I have not yet even seen him once, my lady.”

The smiling mouths pouted.

“By all means, Sir Laeghaire. It was good of you to come. I had no idea I was keeping you from anything quite so urgent.” She rose; he rose; the ladies swept up to their feet, all their skirts and sleeves rustling. “Although it seems so odd that such a bloody man as you should have a home and family. You have my leave.”

“My lady.”

He went toward the door. He heard the women whispering behind him. When he came out into the courtyard and mounted the black horse, he saw a glimpse of a white face and a full sleeve at the window, and he heard them giggle, shrinking back.

It was a bad ride north. It rained a lot. He rode during the day and slept at night, at first, but the closer he came to Ghent the more he wanted to be there, and he rode almost all the time. He let the horses graze and sleep from dawn until the sun was past noon, every day, but he slept very little himself. He thought, I miss Hilde. He had not thought of her all the time he had been away. Now he missed her. I’ll tell her that. She’ll be happy.

He rode in the dripping afternoon, with the rain beating on his shoulders and head and running over the black horse’s neck and mane, and the brown stallion crowding after him under the pack. He was going back to where his son was and his woman. In the deep dry heat of the kitchens full of the smells of food and cooking and Lisabet fat from tasting, and the ovens singing with the heat and the kegs of beer and wine standing double and triple height against the far wall, and the flour and salt in sacks, where Hilde was with the child she had borne, all alone when he was far off and maybe only a dream to her, Hilde dragged out of her home and sold to him. The rain made all things neither far nor near, just wet. He rode on, very happy, and sang an Irish song to himself, a song he would teach his son.

He would call him Murrough, after his brother, and after the prince the pin-blessed warrior had loved enough to throw away his life and Aoife for. He would teach him Gaelic and listen to Hilde sing him German songs and watch her suckle him. And watch the milk he had put into her breasts by his loving her make his son grow.

Ghent was quiet in the rain. He rode at a gallop through the town to the gates of the castle. The gate was shut.

“Who goes?”

“Laeghaire of the Long Road.”

The guard shouted his name back into the castle. The gate inched up. He rode through it into the courtyard. He drew the men there toward him from all directions, all running toward him. They cheered him. He dismounted and someone snatched his reins and he crowded by them, and their cheers became laughing.

He went into the corridor and it became familiar to him, and a warm shock came over him, to be back here again. He walked down to the kitchens. He heard Lisabet’s heavy voice even before he opened the door. She was screaming about something. He opened the door and saw her beating a scullion over the head with her spoon, down by the great ovens. For a moment he could not find Hilde.

She was chopping vegetables. Her hands moved deftly with the big knife. Her feet were bare and wide-spread on the floor. Around her waist she had a bright red scarf.

He went into the kitchen, ducking the eave over the steps, and passed Lisabet. “Shut up,” he said to her. She stopped and turned to gape at him. He went on down to Hilde. The kitchen people grew quiet and stared. He put his arm around Hilde’s waist and kissed her ear. She turned, gasping, with the knife in her hand, and he caught her waist.

“You’ll have my head yet,” he said, laughing.

“Laeghaire. Laeghaire.”

The tears welled from her eyes. Her eyes were blacker than he remembered. She threw her arms around him and kissed him. Her mouth moved from his mouth to his cheek and eyes and nose. He laughed. She backed off just far enough to get a running start and flung herself into his arms again.

“I was afraid you’d died and they didn’t want to tell me. I thought you wouldn’t come back ever. Oh, dear God, oh dear sweet God, my own dear Laeghaire—”

He kissed her mouth. He wanted her.

“No. No. Wait. You have to see the baby.”

She backed out of his arms, teasing him. “Wait ’til you see him. He’s perfect. Where is he? Lisabet—”

“He’s here, lady.” One of the scullions came forward. He held the baby. Hilde went to take it, but Laeghaire was there before she was, and he took the baby and held it in his arms. The baby wailed and fought to get away.

The kitchen people began to laugh. Laeghaire felt himself blush. He looked around at them. The baby screamed and beat him with its fists. Its face twisted with anger and got bright red. Laeghaire took it to a stool. He sat down and held it on his knee. He held its face to look at him. Its eyes were blue, and its hair was black. It looked like him.

“Don’t yell like that,” he said. He said it in Gaelic. “You make them laugh at me. I’m your father. Do you want to make your father a laughingstock?”

The child stopped yelling. It took hold of Laeghaire’s hand, leaned out, and caught for his surcoat. Laeghaire drew him close. The child stared up at him. He talked to it in Gaelic. He had not spoken Gaelic for nearly six years. He had saved it to be spoken to his son. He watched the baby’s eyes and saw its mouth try to say words.

“You’re happy,” Hilde said.

“Yes.” He looked at her. “Yes.”

“What shall we call him?”

“Murrough. For my brother.”

“I thought maybe we could call him Klaus.”

“Let’s go someplace else.”

She stood up. She took the child from him. “All right.” She smiled at him.

Laeghaire started off. Hilde turned suddenly. “May I go, Lisabet?”

Her voice rang clear in the kitchens. Lisabet took a step forward.

“Yes.” And she bowed, awkwardly. “My lord.”

“I missed you while you were gone.”

“Ummmmmmm?”

“Did you have any other women?”

“Every woman between here and the city of Le Mans.”

She bent her head and bit him where his throat joined his shoulder. He jerked her away.

“You’re not bleeding. I meant to make you bleed.” She put her hand where she had bitten him. “I bled.”

“You’re meant for it.”

“Were you hurt?”

“Once or twice. Once a horse almost crushed me.”

He had to tell her about it. He made love to her again after that.

“Let’s call him Klaus.”

He was half asleep. “Go feed him. He must be hungry.”

She climbed over him and went and got the baby. She brought him back and fed him. Laeghaire yawned,

“Why Klaus?”

“I’ve always liked that name.”

“I want to call him Murrough.”

“If you wish, my lord.”

“I wish.”

They were building a ceiling over the old underground stable, a roof to the vault that would be a floor for the stable on top. The old stable would be a storage room. The Count said that the old vault had been too small. Hilde said that a giant and a giantess were buried in the earth of the vault floor, and that they had cursed the place. She said that Lisabet had said that the horses’ hoofs were falling off because of it. Laeghaire went down to the stable and watched the men building.

All that spring he thought he would go crazy from boredom. There was nothing for him to do. The Count called him in once, to pay him for the work done in Maine, but at the same meeting the Count told him that he ought not to have gone and captured Mayenne. Laeghaire said that he could hardly have known that. The Count insisted that he did know it, and that he had done it because he loved William of Normandy, that everybody loved William of Normandy, and an ordinary Christian could not find men to do his work for him any more without their falling into the hands of William of Normandy. He sent Laeghaire once to Paris, just after Easter, with a special message all sealed up and wrapped in a wax-coated cloth.

Laeghaire spent much time with Murrough. The child had learned that Laeghaire was his father. He was just beginning to talk. He would say things in German and in Flemish and in Gaelic, all at once. He liked to be with Laeghaire. Laeghaire taught him games, like the games he had played when he was little. When he was gone, he made Karl watch the baby.

Hilde had gone out of the kitchens. The Countess thought that a woman with a young child should not work so hard. Besides, she found Hilde interesting. She gave her presents and taught her to speak the language of the court. Hilde talked about the other ladies of the Countess’s court with some pity because they had no men. She was pregnant again by the beginning of the summer. She had changed. He knew it and he learned it every time he saw her, every time he was with her. She spoke differently. She wore her clothes differently. Often he found her making new clothes for herself. She made him things, surcoats and tunics. Karl would sit and play with the child while Laeghaire was off on some minor errand of the Count’s, and when Laeghaire came back, Karl would tell him something of the child and something more of Hilde, and when Karl spoke of Hilde it was with a strange tone in his voice.

“Everybody in the guard thinks of her,” Karl said once. He leaned against the shield he was cleaning. Murrough played on the floor a few feet away. “As if she were a saint. But she hardly even knows they exist. Isn’t that strange?”

“I think you’re a puppy baying at the moon for love.”

“Oh, my lord, I can’t love your wife.”

“Karl.”

“My lord?”

“She is not my wife.”

It was a small distinction. Maybe it was no distinction at all. He stayed in Ghent because of her and Murrough. She had given him Murrough and she would give him another child in the winter. He remembered what William had said, that he was bound. But that had been different when William had told him. He had been a fighting man, a knight, and an honored and respected captain, and here he was a hanger-on. Noel’s words. Dead men’s ghosts behind him.

In the early summer Lanfranc, the Prior of Bee, came to Ghent. He came to parley with the Count before he, Lanfranc, left for Rome. Guillaume told Laeghaire that William wanted to return to the Count’s good graces. Laeghaire could hardly see that William had left them.

He met Lanfranc in the little side chapel when he went to confess before the Countess’s holy day. Lanfranc was sitting before the altar, with his hands clasped, but he was not praying. Laeghaire could see him, when he went down to the altar to pray, and he saw from the corner of his eyes that Lanfranc had stood and was coming toward him. He shut his eyes. The wood of the altar floor creaked, and Lanfranc, kneeling by him, said, “My lord said that I was to give you his deepest regards.”

“Give your lord my answering deepest regards, priest.”

Lanfranc’s long narrow face turned. Lanfranc smiled.

“The finest swords rust from disuse,” Lanfranc said. “I was only to tell you that he does not forget your service.”

“And for this we behave like spies, meeting in a chapel and praying?”

Laeghaire got up and went off. He heard the priest laughing behind him.

Later, the Count told him that Lanfranc had come to find out how much the Count would give to have the marriage of his daughter to the Duke of Normandy, long under the ban of the Pope, made lawful and blessed. The Count told Laeghaire that he had told Lanfranc that he would give nothing, because it seemed that William was giving everything. William was sending Norman warriors to Italy, to help this Hildebrand against the Emperor and against the other monks and priests trying to gain the Chair. “He wants to make a pope, be King of England, and teach God. He’s a wild man.”

“He is, that.”

“You do love him.”

“My lord.” Laeghaire grinned. “As you do, my lord, only as much as you do.”

“What is he? What damned beast is he? You hated him, before. Remember? In my offices you told him things I have never heard any man say to him. They think he’s half God. He’s muscle and bone and meat, like the rest of us—the poor fool.”

Laeghaire lifted his head.

“Could you beat him in a fight?” the Count said.

“I’ve never seen him fight.”

“He’s a very devil. He does everything better than any other man. I’ve never seen you fight. But Sir Josse tells me that the men you led swear you sprout horns when you see enemies and that you cured a wound by passing your hand over it. They say—”