The Firedrake (18 page)

The Count shut his eyes and opened them.

“They say you walked into the middle of a group of men and killed one who had maligned you, without speaking a word, smiling. Is that why you love him? What kind of man are you?”

“My lord, you’re unsettled.”

“Have we lived this long to pass the world on to such as you and he?”

Laeghaire blinked.

“I’m sorry. You must excuse me. I have pressing things on my mind. I am… old. You must excuse me. I meant no offense.”

“My lord, I took none.”

“I honor you and respect you. You must excuse me. Please. You have my leave to go. I—For your comfort, they say that Harold Godwinson—the Earl of Wessex and the closest man to holy Edward—is in Normandy now, to swear England into William’s hands a second time. In Edward’s place, or as his chief man. Is he his chief man?”

“There are other great men.”

“Good. Then. Please.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Later he sat in his room and watched the child sleeping. Murrough lay still. His damp hair clung to his head. Laeghaire wished he could take the child and put Hilde on the brown stallion among the packs and ride back to Ireland, ride the wet sea and ride the hills, and come at last into the house where his father sat under the eaves, talking to his sons’ sons of the great old folk of Ireland.

All summer long he did nothing. He rode out often. Once he thought of buying another horse, and spent nearly a full month dickering with a man in the town of Ypres, going there for days on end, but at the end of the month he did not buy the horse. He spent the rest of his time with Murrough. They played the fingers game and Laeghaire told Murrough stories out of Irish history, of Cuchulain and the others, and how the Irish came to Ireland before the Flood. Murrough would pull himself up and try to walk, swaying like a drunken man, and he would almost always fall, and Laeghaire would laugh at him and tell him he was a colt to be trained, and when he laughed he would see the boy’s eyes like a colt’s and his strong round cheeks and his shouting mouth laugh back.

By the time the summer was over Murrough walked all the time. He would follow Laeghaire, if Laeghaire went slowly enough, but if he didn’t, Murrough would stand and cry to be picked up and carried. He knew he could not keep up with Laeghaire if Laeghaire walked fast. Sometimes he tried, and always fell and skinned his knees.

Sometimes Laeghaire went to the armory, to oversee the smith with the new weapons. He took Murrough with him there. The boy crawled and climbed around the great empty room. One day he knocked over a shield and sat, amazed, while the shield thundered and rolled on the floor. Murrough began to laugh. He laughed uproariously at the shield that rolled and thundered on the floor.

“Hunh,” Laeghaire said. “It might have hit you, little one, you sprouting colt.”

“Father, do you fight giants ever?”

“Not very often, little one.”

Murrough climbed up and sat on Laeghaire’s shoulders. He pulled Laeghaire’s ears and drummed his heels on Laeghaire’s chest. “Tell me a story.”

“What story?”

“Mac Datho.”

Laeghaire told him. Mac Datho had a hound that the King of Ulster, Conor, and the Queen of Connaught both wanted, and to keep them from getting it, Mac Datho had a banquet. At the banquet he served up a pig that he had been fattening for seven years, and there was a quarrel between the Ulster men and the Connaught men over who should carve the pig. They all told stories, one after another, about their deeds and how many men they had killed—

“How many men have you killed, Father?”

“Of Ulster men, none, but of Connaught men, quite a few, and of Germans and French and various others, even more.”

“Are we Ulster or Connaught, Father?”

“We’re Kerry men, and no better fight in Ireland.”

This satisfied Murrough, as it always did. “And in the end,” he said. “Go on, Father.”

He told the rest of the story, of Cet Mac Magach and Conall the Winner of Battles, and he thought telling it that the Irish heroes could have their fancy epithets. When Cet told Conall that it was true that Conall was the better man, Murrough began to rock back and forth, excitedly. “ ‘But if my brother Anluan had come, you would be the second only,’ said Cet Mac Magach, ‘for Anluan is the greatest warrior of Connaught, and Connaught breeds the best warriors in the world.’ And Conall said, ‘Your brother came here tonight, and I brought him.’ So saying, he took from his belt the head of Anluan Mac Magach, and threw it down, and all the Connaught men had to give way to Conall the Winner of Battles.”

“I like that story,” Murrough said.

“That’s obvious.”

Hilde came in soon after that, with bread and meat and wine, and they ate there in the armory. Murrough chattered about what had occurred to him during the story. He spoke part German, part Flemish and part Gaelic. Laeghaire understood it all, but Hilde did sot, and Laeghaire told her what was in Gaelic.

“It’s not right that he should speak a Babel like that,” Hilde said.

“Let him. When he grows older he’ll know the difference. I do.”

“You are… much older.”

“Naturally.”

Murrough went off to play with the fallen shield. Hilde came into Laeghaire’s arms. Laeghaire kissed her mouth. “Are you unhappy?” he said.

“I’m not unhappy. I love you, and I think that you love me, and I’m not unhappy.”

Murrough was christened in the autumn, when he could say his prayers correctly in Latin and Flemish. The Bishop of Ghent christened him, and the Count of Flanders stood as his godfather. There was a great ceremony and a feast afterwards. Laeghaire got drunk from toasting his son too much, because he began toasting Murrough at the beginning and ended toasting him long after Murrough had gone away to bed. In the middle of the feast, Karl came and sat near him and told him, with much excitement, of a campaign the Duke of Normandy had fought in Brittany. Laeghaire was unhappy because the Duke of Normandy had seen fit to carry on a campaign without the greatest knight in all Christendom, and he told Karl so.

“But my son will do greater things than I. His godfather is the Count of Flanders. My son will be a great man.”

“He is your son, my lord.”

Laeghaire put his hands to his face. He massaged his eye sockets with the heels of his hands.

“I’d have him a lord,” he said. “I want him honored. He’s the bastard of a runaway monk and a girl who deserted her betrothed to be sold to a killer.”

“You’re drunk, my lord.”

“Yes. Am I talking loudly?”

“No. No one’s heard you but me.”

“You know everything about me anyway. I had the finest hand in the monastery, Karl.”

“My lord, you do all things well.”

“No. No. No. No. I’ve wrecked my life.”

A long time later or maybe just a little bit later he heard Karl say to Hilde that he had never seen him this drunk before, and Laeghaire wondered because nobody was really that drunk, and he went up to his room with only a little help from Hilde and lay down on his bed and slept.

In the deep cold of that winter, Hilde’s baby was born dead. She was sick for a long time afterward. Laeghaire was afraid that she would die. He sent Murrough down to stay with a woman in the town. Hilde lay in the bed with her face turned to the wall. She breathed lightly. When she was fed her eyes barely opened.

He wondered if she knew about the baby. He told Murrough about it, one time when he rode down to visit him. “You had a baby brother, but he died.” Murrough turned his head a little, tilting his face. “Died? Who killed him?” Murrough asked him once, another time, about Hilde, and Laeghaire said that she was resting. The child’s round face looked at him, thoughtfully, serious. Deep blue eyes, the thick straight black hair. Laeghaire put out his hands and touched Murrough’s cheeks with his fingertips. Murrough climbed up onto Laeghaire’s knee and sat. He drew Laeghaire’s arms around him.

“He doesn’t understand,” Karl said. “He isn’t old enough.”

Laeghaire watched Murrough playing with the children of the Flemish woman. Hilde lying under the heavy coverlet dry and empty never moving or talking or even looking. Murrough’s high loud laughter made him recoil. He went to his horse and mounted. Never moving or talking or looking, tight, surrounded, packed in. Get out of here.

“He was frightened because he saw your face. You were frightened and he knew it. That’s all.”

Karl solemn patient crossing himself against death, now riding earnest beside him, trying to cheer him. Riding back to the castle and the room tight and cramped in with the woman trying to put something back into that corpse there, the life standing right at the lips ready to leap out and go, the room thick with the smell of the corpse and the nurse woman and the dead child. Two children born in that room now one dead the woman dying.

Murrough had not been conceived in that room. Murrough had been born in the late spring. Murrough she had conceived under the trees in Germany. Bora in that room but not… Murrough was different. Murrough turned and waved to him now. Laughing he waved, bristling with energy.

They went back to the castle.

In the beginning of Lent, Hilde grew stronger, suddenly, and she got out of bed just before Palm Sunday. She laughed about being dead. She did not mention the baby.

* * *

It was a wet spring. The Count went once to Paris and left Laeghaire in charge of the castle of Ghent. He had to hear the complaints of the castle people and judge between them, and be sure that they all did what they were supposed to, make out schedules for sentries and hear reports from the chatelains of other castles in the Count’s domains. The Countess helped him. She knew much of the affairs of the country. She never overruled him, and she would not advise him unless he asked her for advice, and even then she was quiet and gentle. She told him nothing, but asked him questions that made him see what she thought ought to be done.

Once when he went to see her, she asked him if the Count had told him anything about christening the son of the Count’s heir.

“No,” he said. “Nothing of it.”

“Perhaps he means to put it off until he returns. I received a messenger this morning from my son. He is in Bruges and keeps his court there. He prefers much younger company to ours. I doubt if he has been here at all since you came, sir.”

“He was here for the Christmas feast the year that the Duke was here, my lady.”

“Oh yes, he hunted with us. I remember now. He was here when you were in Maine, too.”

She turned her head slightly. Her brows drew together. The skin of her cheek was very fine, very soft.

“Please, sir,” she said, “forgive me if I intrude on you. My daughter’s husband—my lord William—my husband says that you love him much. Do you believe—I fear for my daughter. She loves him too much, I think. He may destroy himself.”

Laeghaire glanced at her maids, tatting in the far corner. The room was small. It was dark. The tapestries moved with the drafts and the rain beat against the shutters. In Falaise the sun had poured in over the skirts of the women. That one …

“I beg your pardon, sir. I have intruded.”

The Countess stood up. She looked up at him. The wide bones of her face made her eyes seem deeper. Her eyes were like claws, reaching for him.

“No, my lady. I was wondering what you were asking me.”

“Is he a good man?”

“Good? How do you mean, good? He won’t be beaten.”

Her eyes tried to draw the thoughts out of his eyes. “He frightens me. He wants so much. I don’t understand him. Or you. How do I mean, good? Is he a monster, or is he God’s chosen?”

Laeghaire made a small gesture with his hands. His throat was dry and he swallowed. Her eyes ran needles through him. “I don’t know,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I have confused you. Here. Sit down again, and someone will bring you wine. Jan, come here, please.”

They talked of the affairs of the castle. Laeghaire went down to the kitchens to eat. He could not understand her question. He did not know how she could think that he would be able to answer it.

The Count came home after a while. Hilde was pregnant again. She served the Countess very well, because Laeghaire got many presents of the Countess. She said once that she thought the Countess was half in love with Laeghaire. Laeghaire didn’t believe that at all.

The christening feast for the Count’s younger grandson began on the Assumption. The great lords of Flanders started arriving long days before that. The young King of France came, too, and a great train of servants and attendants. Finally, on Assumption Eve, the Duke of Normandy rode into the castle of Ghent.

The castle was jammed with people. Most of the horses were stabled in the town, and some of the lesser lords stayed in the houses outside the wall of the castle. Pages charged around fetching wine for their masters, carrying messages, demanding help. Lords met in the courtyards and stood talking, while the wagons bringing supplies shoved and crushed through to be unloaded. The steward of the King of France started a fight with the Count about the position of the banner that proclaimed the presence of the King. Someone had apparently hung it on the left of Baldwin’s standard, and the Duke of Normandy’s on the right. Fitz-Osbern heard about it and showed up in the Count’s cabinet before the royal steward had got the argument completely out of his mouth.