The Firedrake (20 page)

“They’ve all fallen asleep, my lord.”

“Good. Aldric was my reeve, Irishman. He stayed loyal to me by his own will. The rest of these dogs had to. They would have been torn to pieces otherwise. I was their only means out of England.” He looked around, saw a chair, and dragged it over to the fire. He flung off his sodden cloak and sat down. He propped his feet up on the logs by the fire. “Ah. Warmth. It’s damned cold. What did you tell the page, Irishman?”

“To bring you food. I don’t hold deep speech with pages.” Laeghaire drifted around the room. The King of France had occupied these chambers. He ran his fingers over the surface of the tapestry. It showed Charlemagne at the hunt, his beard divided neatly over each shoulder as he charged, crossbow aimed, after a pard.

“The second Charlemagne. He caused me: much trouble.” Tosti stretched. “Still, it had to come. And it weakened my brother considerably.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, I was to swear myself into the hands of the honored master of God’s will in England. Serve as his vicarius, I think the phrase is, in his hot campaign for the crown of England. Unfortunately, I wanted too much. He offered my brother a daughter to marry, but he would not marry his son to my daughter—who is, incidentally, now a hostage to my brother in York. Pleasant city, York. Also, I wanted some estates in the south. He is a man of meager thanks. He decided that I wanted too much and gave too little, and—zip.” Tosti snapped his lingers. “Of course, the house of Mercia has had certain designs on my head for a long time, and this played into their hands. I might add that he gained a powerful enemy in the north, if by any ill luck or trick of the Devil he should take England. What do you think of him?”

“He will take England.”

“Oh. Oh, I see how the land lies. The proverbial sword in the right hand. Yea verily. Irishman, he’ll use you until he has no more use for you, and he’ll fling you into the sea.”

“No, he won’t.”

“He can be as sweet-tongued as the very Devil, to whom, I am sure, he is a close blood relative. Among his other connections. Here’s the food.”

Tosti and Aldric ate in silence, bolting down the meat and bread, swallowing it half chewed. Laeghaire felt sick at the sight of them. He went to the door. “If you want me, I’ll be in my room or at the stable. Send the page for me.”

“He’ll come for you when I leave, anyway,” Tosti said. He swallowed. He smiled viciously. “How pleasant to have seen you again, Irishman.”

Tosti rested for a while. Every day he would send the page for Laeghaire, and they would walk together around the castle and into the town. Aldric was always around, but the others of Tosti’s retainers soon disappeared. The Count told Laeghaire that they had all left Ghent by the fourth day of Tosti’s visit, sick of their master and longing for better chances. The lady Judith rarely left the Countess’s chambers.

Tosti took his meals in his own chambers. Laeghaire wondered why, since everybody knew who he was and he never stayed inside during any other time of the day. One night, however, several days after the last of the retainers had gone, Tosti suddenly appeared in the dining hall when the meat was being put on the table. He excused himself to the Count, turned, and scanned the table. He headed straight for Laeghaire. Laeghaire told Hilde to move over on the bench.

Tosti sat down. “Well. I thought to join the quick.” His eyes flew over the men nearest him. A servant put a cup and a trencher in front of him, and he carved himself meat.

“Your wife is at the table with the Count,” Laeghaire said. “Go eat with her.”

“So eager to be rid of me, Irishman? My beloved spouse and I are not speaking. I have disgraced her.” Tosti broke off a chunk of bread. He began to eat with great energy. Laeghaire thought he did nothing more hatefully than eat. He glanced up at the head of the table. The lady Judith was staring at Tosti. Suddenly she rose and. left the hall.

Now everybody was watching Tosti. He lifted his head and looked after his wife. “I thought so. My very presence in a room as wide and airy as this has sickened her. Put her off her feed, like a nursing cow.”

The Count stood up. “Your voice penetrates even this wide and airy room, Saxon.”

“May I call to your attention, my lord, that I may have lost my earldom but I did not lose my birth, a fact you and your bootlicking Irish hound seem to feel free to ignore.”

Laeghaire got up and backed away from the table. He looked at the Count. Tosti kept his back to him.

“Cut the leash,” Tosti said to the Count. “You can be rid of me within the hour. I assure you I am no match for the far-famed Laeghaire of the Long Road.”

“Sir Laeghaire,” the Count said, “you will accept the lord Tosti’s apologies. And he will, I hope, accept mine.”

Laeghaire turned on his heel and walked out of the room. He walked the length of the table to the back door. He slammed the door after him.

He stood in his room looking at Murrough, asleep in the cradle by the fire. Hilde came in. She skirted the table and came to him. “Don’t be angry,” she said. She stood behind him and put her arms around him. His muscles tensed.

“You haven’t been angry for so long, it’s been so wonderful. Please don’t be angry.”

He put his hands over her hands. He could feel the bones under his fingers.

“He gave you an insult, but he’s a fool, and nobody will think any less of you if you do not repay him for it.”

She rested her cheek against his back. He turned around and kissed her. She sighed. He patted her belly.

“Go to bed.”

“You aren’t angry any more?”

“No. Go to bed.”

She smiled and began to undress. There was a knock on the door. Laeghaire said, “Who is it?”

“Tosti Godwinson.”

Hilde put her hand on his arm.

“Just a moment,” Laeghaire said. He sat on the table. Hilde took her clothes and went into the alcove and drew the curtain. Laeghaire told Tosti to come in.

Tosti opened the door. “I wanted to express my most abject apologies. I seem to have let my rancor get the upper hand.”

“Be quieter. You’ll wake the baby up.”

“Baby?” Tosti crossed to the cradle and looked down. The torch was behind him. It cast a glow all around his head. He rested his hands on the side of the cradle.

“Is it yours?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a boy, isn’t it.”

“Yes.”

Tosti was silent. He stood looking down at Murrough.

“When did you marry?”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh. My mistake. I seem to be extra clumsy tonight. I couldn’t get a son. I have three daughters.”

He looked down at Murrough again. “Deal wisely with him, Irishman.” He turned and left.

Hilde came from behind the curtain in her shift. “What did he mean?”

“Who knows? Go to bed. You must be sleepy.”

Tosti and the Count suddenly became friends, and Tosti sat at supper by the head of the table with the Count. The lady Judith at first dined and supped in her chambers. But she could not avoid Tosti, especially dining Advent, when everybody went to services three times a day. Laeghaire always stood by Tosti in the chapel. He watched them, day by day, draw closer together. Finally, after the Vespers of the fourth day before Christmas Eve, they left the chapel together. Laeghaire went out after them and crossed the courtyard to the outer stair. He saw them walking slowly together, apart from the others. Tosti’s head was bent toward Judith’s. He was talking. His left hand moved in an easy gesture. Suddenly Judith turned to face him and smiled. Her eyes shone confidently.

It was beginning to snow. Laeghaire went into the castle.

Christmas was quiet. The Count invited no guests. He gave presents to all the children. Murrough got a wooden horse set on wheels, with a cord to draw it around by. The grown-ups held a feast. The Count knighted Karl the next morning, in a single ceremony, and Karl had presents from all the people in the castle. His knighting had been a gift from the Count.

“When it stops snowing,” the Count said, “we will have a mock fight, Sir Karl. Between you and Sir Laeghaire.”

Karl laughed. His laughter and the expression on his face remained with Laeghaire a long time. He did not remember the last time he had himself laughed. He was not unhappy.

He took his spell of guard duty on Twelfth Night. The lights of the hall and the Feast of Fools and the Court of Misrule were nothing for him. He thought of Karl laughing and Tosti and Judith, their heads bent together, smiling. He thought of Murrough, pulling the wooden horse after him running in the hall, the wooden wheels clattering on the stone. He was not unhappy. The thing that lives in a cocoon, he thought, is not unhappy either. I see with my eyes and my ears hear and I touch with my hands.

Somebody scrambled up the ladder and came swiftly toward him. It was Hilde, wrapped in his old cloak. He knew her by the giggle that came from the depths of the hood.

“False monk,” she said, “I brought you your piece of the cake.”

A hand crept from the cloak’s folds and deposited a crumbling bit of cake in the snow. The great mass of the cloak turned and staggered off.

“Come back here. You’ll hurt yourself. Or the baby.” He drew her down by him. She sat between his knees and leaned back against his chest. He put his arms around her and pulled the edge of his own cloak over her. She shook off her hood. In the dark heavy lump of the cloaks her hair shone. She smiled. She put her head against his shoulder.

From the hall came a burst of noise. The lights flickered over the empty courtyard. Laeghaire closed his eyes. He smelled the scent of her skin and her hair. He dozed.

Tosti came hunting him one day, when he sat playing with Murrough in the stables. Tosti drifted in and stood watching until Laeghaire looked up.

Murrough stood. Laeghaire said, “Go play. Go find your friends.”

The boy stared at Tosti. He backed off a few steps, suddenly shy. He turned and trotted off. Tosti watched him.

“You’ve been lax in your duties, Irish,” Tosti said. “You are supposed to accompany me.”

“Even courting?”

Tosti grinned. “No. Not at my courting, my dear man. Not at my courting.” He wandered on light feet around the back part of the stable. “Aha! What’s this? The earth has opened and will swallow Ghent whole?”

“What?”

“A fissure, one might say a veritable cleft. In the floor of the stable.” Tosti banged his heel on the stable floor. “Hollow. A shame. I thought to see marvels. Hallo. Yes. It even echoes.”

“That’s the old vault. It’s underground and it gave the horses thrush or something. The Count closed it up.”

“Leaving a gap? Bad judgment on the part of your estimable carpenters. A man could fall and break his neck.”

“It’s a little narrow for that.”

“In truth. Your boy is very handsome.”

“Yes.”

“My dear man, you are supposed to thank me and immediately raise your opinion of my taste some two or three notches. Not admit it.”

“Have you convinced the lady Judith that she is unshamed?”

“Indeed. You have a knack for acquiring the verbal idiosyncrasies of the people you converse with. Do not mock me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I came hither the bringer of substantial news. A messenger appeared this morning from the coast, was ushered into the Count’s presence, and there gave him news that the King of England is dead. God rest his immortal and most holy soul.” Tosti crossed himself, and Laeghaire did, too. “And, further, that my dear brother has crowned himself King. On Epiphany, before the corpse was hardly chilled. And thus, Irishman, I need your aid.”

“To go where?”

“To Normandy.”

“No.”

“I feared as much. ‘To go where?’ You revealed yourself, dropped your shield. Then I shall go myself.”

“I’ll have to tell the Count.”

“Tell the Count, my dear, I shall go alone. Aldric is too old to play these games, and Judith must remain here. Until I can return her to her place as Countess of Northumbria. Under a King who owes me at least one part of his crown, William of Normandy, perhaps; a Northman, perhaps; even an Atheling—but not my brother.”

“You talk too much.”

“So I do. So I do. Let me talk a moment more. My brother is going to die.”

“All men die.”

“Ah, but I am going to kill him. The first, most terrible crime.”

“Why hate him?”

“I don’t know. I’ve always hated him. He always means well, but he has gotten us into more trouble than anyone else. King of England. Is he a fool? Doesn’t he know what he’s doing? Do you remember my father?”

“Yes.”

“My father was as near to God as any man I have ever known. As near as holy Edward.”

Tosti spat. He went out. His boots rang on the floor.

The next day he was gone. The Count raged a while and at last admitted that no man could have stopped him. Laeghaire hardly cared. William was going to have to fight, for England. William would need knights. Laeghaire remembered Maine like a fire. He waited for William to call him. For two or three days he waited for each moment because each moment might bring him his summons.