In a Dark Wood Read online

  9

  “Sir Roger is here,” said Hugh.

  “Good. Ask him in.”

  “He did not want to come,” said Hugh, bringing a second chair to the meeting table.

  Geoffrey did not want to see him, either. The lean face of Nottingham and the white nakedness of the prisoner had made him feel something he had not felt before, and he wanted to sit on the sill of the window and watch men come and go.

  The thoughtful stride of the doctor across the courtyard told him that Lady Eleanor had yet another headache or perhaps one of those strange weaknesses in her legs. The doctor wore blood-red, slashed with blue, and the lining was shiny taffeta. His boy accompanied him, carrying a large black basket, drugs, roots, powders, and leeches, as Geoffrey knew from his own brushes with illness.

  “He was so busy with his studies that he said he had no time for any business but God’s.”

  “Sir Roger said that?”

  “According to Henry.”

  “That doesn’t sound at all like Sir Roger. He’s been keeping to himself lately, but he’s always been a good man at meat and drink. Filled with stories from the East.”

  A kitchen wench leaned a huge black tub against a wall, went back inside, and came out with a large brush.

  Sir Roger found his way to the chair but remained standing.

  “I hate to trouble you in your studies, Sir Roger, but I need a man with experience in handling the attack.”

  Sir Roger did not speak for a long time. The air was touched, for a moment, with the spice of horse manure. “The attack on what?”

  “Miscreants.”

  Sir Roger turned away, shaking his head. He folded his age-knobby hands and said, “I’ll do no more damage to my immortal soul than I have done.”

  Geoffrey waited for more, but when he heard only the chime of the smith’s hammer across the courtyard, he said, “Your soul must be the most precious gem in the kingdom.”

  “Black as tar. I have been studying.”

  Studying was a well-known form of mortification, like fasting, but more difficult.

  “When angels appear to mortal men, it is in the guise of youthful eunuchs,” Sir Roger continued. “Beautiful youths, brighter than the sun.”

  Geoffrey covered his eyes with his hands.

  “They are clad in divine garments. Gold and white silk, and their hips and knees shine like green grass and citron.” The old knight groaned as he sat. “I have a Saracen arrowpoint in my thighbone. A black tooth in my timber.”

  Geoffrey turned to the window. A cartload of wood creaked across the stones below, pulled by two oxen that looked out upon the bustle of the castle with eyes that understood and forgave.

  “Exactly so do the sins of my youth anchor themselves, black and rusting, in my soul. When we die, we pass twenty-one tollhouses, each manned with a demon smeared with feces and speaking fire. Each represents a sin: slander, envy, falsehood, wrath, pride, inane speech, usury and deceit, despondency coupled with vanity, avarice—”

  “This is grievous …” Geoffrey began.

  “—drunkenness, evil memories, sorcery, gluttony, homosexuality, adultery, murder, theft, fornication, and hardness of heart. I have left some out. Slander, envy, falsehood, wrath—”

  “Please stay seated, Sir Roger. A terrible list. But, and I am an ignorant man, it seems that a further sin is to think too much on sin.”

  “Yes, that, too!” howled Sir Roger.

  “I depend on you for good advice, Roger.”

  “Then I will tell you of the Seven Deadliest.”

  Geoffrey put his hand on Sir Roger’s shoulder. He released him at once, appalled. The man had wasted. The burly Sir Roger, who had sworn that when knife was in meat and drink in horn he was the best man under the sky, was gone. This skeleton remained.

  “Pride,” said Sir Roger. “Lechery.” Was there a special emphasis in his voice? “Envy. Anger. Avarice. Gluttony. Ah, gluttony.” Regret, or nostalgia? “Sloth.”

  “A terrible list,” said Geoffrey.

  “A terrible list.” Agreement so vehement it was like sarcasm. “How will any of us reach Heaven?”

  “Heaven!” said Geoffrey, exasperated.

  “God’s retinue …” began Sir Roger.

  “Sir Roger,” said Geoffrey, speaking fast, before the old man’s mind clouded further, “I need to catch a highwayman who hides in the forest. My men are inexperienced, and I can’t race them like a brace of hounds through the woods. Even if I did, they’d fail.”

  “You think me mad, like that woman by the churchyard.”

  Geoffrey pulled his sword belt back into place. “May I speak bluntly?”

  “You think I should be sealed into a stone tower just like that madwoman, that shrieking hag.”

  “Some people think her half a saint.”

  “You think I am like her. I can’t sleep. I wake and think: I have wasted my life.”

  The very phrase appalled Geoffrey. He had never imagined such a thought. How could a life be wasted? He did not want to listen to Sir Roger suddenly and found himself listening to the distant clatter of the smith’s hammer, thankful for such a common, simple noise.

  “We catch what we want by letting it come to us,” said Sir Roger.

  The memory of the boar spear made Geoffrey frown and rub his hands together. “How am I supposed to lure this man here?”

  “What does he like?”

  “I don’t know anything about him.”

  “If he wanted to lure you, what would he use?”

  If a man wanted to lure Geoffrey into the forest, he would use women.

  “Whatever you do,” said Sir Roger, “do not play his game. Play your own.”

  The concept of the game was very important. Every courtly man understood the importance of the contest as a test of wits and courage and as proof that life itself was a serious game, human souls to the winner.

  Sir Roger had been stout. He had killed dozens. He had been to Jerusalem and had despised weakness wherever he discovered it. Even now he seemed strong, but it was a much different strength. Again, Geoffrey laid a hand on Sir Roger’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t keep to yourself. You should grace these halls with your presence.”

  “What is that strange man who says nothing?”

  “Ah,” said Geoffrey.

  “I thought, at first, that he was a relative, a brother of your wife’s, who has become weak-headed and whom you have taken in.”

  “No, he is a Fool.”

  The old man formed the word Fool with his lips.

  “It is a fashion in Paris. And—and other places. He amuses people.”

  “He pretends to be separate from human relations, like a ghost.”

  “Apparently,” said Geoffrey.

  “Why does he do this?”

  “It’s his duty.”

  “But why did he discover that duty, of all others? Was his father a Fool? Did a nobleman discover him and teach him to be a Fool?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never asked him.”

  “Do so. I want to know.”

  “He never talks.”

  For the first time Sir Roger offered something like his old smile. “Make him talk.”

  Long after Sir Roger had gone, Geoffrey watched the kitchen wench bent over her pot. Her arms were bare, and her gray dress flattered the curves of her body as she worked.

  He sent for Henry, and when Henry puffed into the room smelling of sweat and wine, Geoffrey spoke without taking his eyes off the girl’s white arms. “What does this prankster like most, this Robin Hood?”

  “The forest, I suppose, sire.”

  “I mean, what sport? Feasting? Drinking? Swordplay?”

  “I have heard that he draws a good bow.”

  Geoffrey turned to embrace the robust deputy. “My good Henry! Most prized Henry! You are a gift from God!”

  Henry stammered his thanks.

  “We will organize an archery contest. With a gold mark for the winner.”r />
  This was well within Henry’s talents. He hurried off, breathless with enthusiasm for publicizing the contest into the farthest reaches of the shire, into the forest even, to draw those yeomen rarely seen in the city. Archery contests were not uncommon; Geoffrey asked Henry to hold one from time to time to keep the men in condition and to amuse them, although Geoffrey was always slightly bored with such events.

  Geoffrey stepped through the water that had flowed from the wash-pot. “My dear,” he said softly.

  “Oh!” gasped the girl. “You frightened me, my lord!”

  Geoffrey gave her his best smile, the smile that was his greatest gift. “You have a beautiful voice,” he said.

  Blushes. Downcast eyes. Her knuckles were harsh red from her work, and her forearms were beefy. Her eyes, however, were dark, and her lips were red. “We can always use a beautiful voice about the hall. Meet me in the East Tower tonight, after the first watch. I’d like to talk with you further.”

  The brush was as black as the iron it scrubbed, with thick, sharp bristles. Geoffrey touched the brush, as if to say, “You do not deserve such crude labor; you deserve a place of special honor.”

  She would be there, she said, her eyes downcast.

  “Don’t be afraid if it is dark,” he said. “I will be there, waiting for you.”

  10

  Hugh tried to read the sheriff’s mood, but as so often, Geoffrey’s expression told nothing. Hugh ached to learn more about the meeting with the king’s steward, but he could not bring himself to ask.

  Boys chased hoops, driving them ahead with sticks, and another strode ahead on a pair of stilts. Geoffrey’s horse tossed its mane at the sight of the children, and Geoffrey looked back to say to Hugh, “Ivo tells me your swordplay is improving.”

  The young man colored. “Ivo is a good teacher.”

  Geoffrey nearly said, You make me proud. But some inner reserve held him back. His own father had been a stern man who had once made a pilgrimage to Rome and felt that praise fed a young man’s pride. If I had a son, Geoffrey found himself musing, I would want him to be like Hugh. It was the serious look in his eye that had captured the sheriff from the first. Geoffrey had never regretted taking on a greaver’s son, an orphan, as a squire. But to care for someone left one open to possible pain. What if something should happen to Hugh? Geoffrey didn’t think he could bear it.

  Two rough timbers, three times a man’s height, were topped with a cross-beam. Four studs supported the angles: two at the top, two at the bottom. The gibbet stood on a knoll, an announcement of the law’s power. In the distance a stream turned a mill wheel as a small white figure stood in a doorway. A magpie, black and white, perched on the cross-beam, looking towards the city, peaked buildings and a spire of chimney smoke that rose into the smoke-colored sky.

  The thief would hang here tomorrow, until he rotted. The magpie would be replaced by a flock of carrion crows, black as numbers on a page. They would circle as the body was cut down and gradually turn to other duties.

  “Birds teach us what lesson, Hugh?”

  “Cheerfulness, sire, and acceptance of our duties.”

  “Good.” And yet there were often shadow lessons, lessons you were never taught but guessed at yourself. A blackbird consuming a man called happily as it worked. “It’s important to be cheerful as much as possible. Not too cheerful. Only as cheerful as is proper.”

  A peasant in a black cap the shape of his skull struck a tree with a stick, and acorns fell to the ground. Pigs ate them, and a dog watched the pigs, sitting alertly as the man worked. The dog was well fed, although a fly tasted a sore on its backbone. Pigs wandered, snouts to the ground, into the trees, where other peasants rested, leaning on their sticks. Branches littered the ground, and the trees were naked stalks until, over a man’s height, foliage began. Acorns sprinkled the dirt, each brown tooth capped with the helmet that had held it to the tree.

  Geoffrey’s horse tossed its mane, but Geoffrey held the horse in, enduring the pig stink and the sight of the expressionless faces of the peasants. How disgusting pigs were.

  His horse twitched a fly. The insects craved the presence of pigs, having sprung, by the effect of sun, from pig feces. “I have a special assignment for you, Hugh.”

  The young man looked grave.

  “I want you to stand guard here, watching these pigs.”

  The walls were the color of parchment, and a crack here and there made them look temporary. The trees near the wall had been trimmed after the current fashion, as if the trunk were a tree’s best feature. The golden-leafed branches of fruit trees tangled into the air just over the walls, and in some places red-leafed ivy covered the walls, although the ivy had been pulled away in places, leaving scars like the marks of stitching.

  The hedge had indeed been trampled. A fly preened on a day-old pig dropping. Wild roses were squashed, and a privet bush had been destroyed. Geoffrey had little patience with gardens and preferred an embroidered lily to a real one. Still, he could tell destruction when he saw it.

  11

  He slipped through the trees, leaving Hugh behind. The clearing was littered with leaves as broad as hands. He deliberately pressed one with his foot, and it crackled. He knelt and gathered his brown riding cape round himself. The pupa of a moth clung to a twig beside him, a horned sarcophagus primed for resurrection in the spring.

  A woodpecker drilled a tree high above him. Its yellow head was a glint through the branches. The forest was restless with itchy noises. Another leaf paused like a glove on a lower branch, then slipped, palm up, to his knee. She let him wait.

  A red slipper kissed the green grass, and Geoffrey stood. “You’re late!” he whispered, meaning passion more than impatience, but he meant also that he was thankful that she had come at all.

  “I have duties,” she said, releasing the clasp beneath her chin. Her wimple hung loose, and she lifted it, disclosing auburn hair that caught the light and kept it, as if itself a source of illumination. “Besides, haste is such an ugly habit.”

  “I have always despised it,” he breathed.

  “Everything in its time,” she murmured, smoothing back her sleeves to display her white wrists, which Geoffrey kissed slowly, anything but hastily. “The world was made quickly so that we could pleasure in it at our leisure,” she said, her voice growing throaty and close to his ear.

  The abbess wore a different brooch this time, a small golden sun that was already warm, before he touched it, from touching the cloth over her breast. He kissed it, a surrogate mouth, a kiss that made her shudder.

  “You saw what the creatures did?” she said, her throat vibrating at his lips.

  A dog snuffled. Leaves crackled. The abbess was wide-eyed. She melted into the shadows. So quickly—she was gone.

  At first Geoffrey thought the peasant had a pig by the leash, but the animal wrinkled its snout and showed yellow teeth.

  The man pulled the shapeless wool-brown cap from his head. “What are you doing?” Geoffrey spit.

  The man uttered a lump of sounds.

  “What?”

  “Lad sent me along.”

  Geoffrey curled his lip.

  “Said you looked for me, my lord,” the man continued, with all the grace of a man letting half-chewed food fall out of his mouth.

  “Your pigs,” said Geoffrey carefully, “have upset the abbess terribly.”

  The peasant wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and studied the ground.

  “She is nearly mad with horror at what they have done to her garden.”

  The peasant’s chin reached his chest.

  “Sick with horror. Unable to carry out her duties, driven by a profound loathing for what”—the pig dog showed its teeth again—“your pigs did to flowers that are intended to give thoughts of Heaven and which that herd trampled into the dirt like so much filth.” The dog growled, and Geoffrey drew his sword. The dog lunged.

  “Release your dog,” said Geoffrey calmly.

&nb
sp; “No, no, my lord,” cried the peasant. “He’s a servant, my lord.”

  “Let him go!”

  “No, my lord,” said the peasant, falling to his knees. “He’s all I have,” or words to that effect, misshapen sounds a turnip might utter if it were given voice.

  The sword hissed through the air and lopped a branch off a holly bush. Geoffrey showed teeth. Thus with your dog, he gestured, and thrashed the holly bush to pieces, leaves and twigs raining down upon him as he stood panting.

  The peasant knelt, with closed eyes, supplication filling his body and making the smell of him reach Geoffrey, and the smack of peasant after the scent of that gentlewoman was sickening.

  “Go,” said Geoffrey, and the peasant dragged his dog through the trees. The sheriff heard the crackle of a step.

  The sword did not slide smoothly into the scabbard. Geoffrey forced it in and kicked a tangle of holly out of his way.

  “Did he find you?” asked Hugh.

  “I gave him a stern scolding,” said Geoffrey. “I don’t know if he understood much. It’s hard to know what goes on in the mind of someone like that.”

  The gibbet cast a messy, indistinct shadow, and the birds that perched on the cross-beam became indistinct, too, as they released their hold on it and soared into the air.

  12

  It was hot in The Vixen. A great stub of wood sputtered flame in the fireplace. The room smelled of beer, and sweat, and smoke, and the ale tasted good, better than the kitchen beer of the castle.

  Hugh enjoyed the company of Sam, the innkeeper, a red-faced man who drank his share of his own ale, until a voice broke over Hugh like a staff. “The bootmaker’s son, back from his prayers at the abbey.”

  Thurstin stood in the middle of the room, ruddy with firelight, his hands on his hips. “Back from his lord’s pleasure in the abbey garden.”

  Hugh turned back to his ale.

  “Too highborn to share a story or two with a miller’s son. A fine squire. Shadow to such a worthy sheriff. Dusting off the sheriff’s knees when he’s done servicing our local brides of Christ.”