In a Dark Wood Page 8

  “Will your son be in the tournament?”

  “Or lose both arms!”

  “He must be practicing now.”

  “That’s why he’s not here. He’s bending a bow out with dozens of the same mind.”

  “Good luck to him.”

  Ivo cradled the sword in his hands. “And good luck to you with this sword, my lord. And thank you for your patience with a simpleton’s chatter.”

  The sun in the courtyard was warm, and the shadow too cool. Icy hands of darkness closed round Geoffrey in the chapel as he waited for his eyes to adjust.

  A segment of glass had fallen from a chapel window, a section of sky above an angel. Geoffrey picked up the triangle of sky, brittle as a wafer and miraculously unbroken.

  The colored glass of this chapel was perhaps the most beautiful thing in the shire. It showed residents of Heaven, angels dressed in gowns that flowed to their ankles. They wore simple belts round their waists, except for the Archangel Michael, who was armored and carried a sword. The other angels carried trumpets or staffs and seemed ready to drop even those simple objects and take flight. When they gestured, the sleeves of their gowns fell back to expose graceful forearms. Their halos set off their heads not only from their bodies but from everything else in the window, from the chapel, even from the other angels. Each angel was complete in his own bubble, circumscribed by his own holiness.

  Geoffrey held the segment of glass Heaven in his hand as he prayed to the Queen of Courtesy, who knew every flaw that made him fragile. On his way out he stopped to gaze upwards through the wound in the window, through which actual day, bright and colorless, was shining. Through that hole in the perfection the sounds of the world outside were bleeding: the chime of the blacksmith’s hammer, the rumble of a wagon. The angels, surrounded by their own magnificence, noticed neither the profane murmur from outside nor the uplifted eyes of the sinner before them.

  Hugh stood in the soft, multicolored light. Waiting, a young man with the frame and steady eye of a warrior but with a youth’s shyness. “Sometimes our own character is imperfect,” Geoffrey heard himself say.

  “Indeed, my lord,” said Hugh.

  Why, Geoffrey wondered, does this brief response make me feel so desolate?

  “But like a gap in a window, perhaps a man’s character can be healed.” Hugh pressed his lips tight, perhaps embarrassed by this flower of speech.

  An ill feeling that had flourished in Geoffrey died, a weed of self-hatred. He almost confided in Hugh at that moment. He almost said, Do you think we can outwit Robin Hood?

  17

  Too many archers thought they were superior to any man who had ever drawn a bow, and too many men failed to split the prick, a small black wand in the center of the target. At one hundred paces it was difficult but by no means impossible, as Geoffrey explained to Sir Roger, who squinted across the green towards the butts with an expression of disgust.

  The weak ones would be weeded out, Geoffrey explained, by this series of eliminations, until by the time the last four faced the targets they would see the sort of shooting a man could imagine taking place only in Heaven.

  Lady Eleanor kept well under the canopy, whispering to her lady-in-waiting, the same furtive creature who acted as her chambermaid, and they both giggled. No doubt the sight of so many well-stockinged men exhilarated them.

  “Who is that?” Geoffrey whispered to Hugh, who stood beside him.

  “Thurstin, son of the miller. Strong-looking, but I doubt a miller’s son can compete with the foresters.”

  The arrows struck the target with a smack, like the flat of a sword striking wood. A cry signaled a good shot, then a groan indicated a miss, as the archers stepped up and took their turns, reacting or remaining calm, as fitted their temperaments. The sky was clear blue, and the grass perfect green. Peddlers offered hens on skewers, and beggars, driven off by the sheriff’s men with black pikes, worked the edge of the crowd, shuffling and stooping as their state required.

  Geoffrey could speak lightly, but it was obvious that the highwayman had not come to the tournament, and a terrible taste rose within him: the realization that this trap had failed. The sight of his wife leaving the tournament did nothing to cheer him. “The sight of your beauty would encourage many a fine archer,” Geoffrey said.

  “I am afraid that I am not well,” she said. “I have a headache, and now, furthermore, I have a heaviness in my stomach.” She said this with a soft voice and a sideways glance that implied that Geoffrey had caused her to be ill.

  “I wonder why there is a crowd of people around that potter’s cart,” Geoffrey said idly.

  “Perhaps the pots are of unusual quality.”

  “How can a pot be of unusual quality?”

  “There are excellent pots, and not excellent ones, too.”

  “I have never given it much thought.”

  “I have, and I shall send my maid to see what excites these people,” said Eleanor tartly.

  Geoffrey smiled and nodded to a passing franklin. “You do this simply to annoy me. You have no more interest in pots than you do in oxtails.”

  “Most marvelous pots,” the maid panted upon her return. “And a most witty potter, who says that my lady could have the entire cart for three pennies.”

  “The man is a simpleton,” said Geoffrey.

  The doctor waited with a great show of patience, a careful smile on his lips, his hands clasped, demonstrating that wisdom gave a man peace and that the more he was forced to endure the outrageousness of the world, the more patient he would become. He was dressed in blue, with a blue cap that flowed down his back and blue inner sleeves, to show that Heaven itself had charged him with wisdom.

  “What is wrong with my wife?” asked Geoffrey. It was late afternoon, the castle quiet after the pageantry of the tournament.

  “She has a phlegmatic stomach,” said the doctor with a smile.

  “Can it be cured?”

  The doctor smiled as if delighted. “It can be cured, with time and with the proper ministrations of the correct foods and herbs.”

  “What have you done for her anxiety?”

  “Anxiety is easily cured. The nerves are the simplest aspect of the body to act upon. I have given her a potion made from sage.”

  “And what is that?” asked Geoffrey.

  “An herb that grows in the sun in countries of the south and, since it absorbs the sun, delivers its influence into the body. It does have one danger, which is—my lord, don’t worry; I have never seen such a solicitous husband—that it removes the dark color from the hair. But it is simple to add to the potion a tincture of myrtle and garden crocus, and then there is no danger whatsoever.”

  “I am glad I talked with you, Doctor. I am much reassured.”

  “You seem much disturbed yourself, my lord.”

  “I have concerns, but I am well enough.”

  “Allow me to prescribe a mash of rye. It breaks down the concentration of humors.”

  Geoffrey started. “You think there’s something wrong?”

  “A precaution, my lord. Simply a precaution. And yet—” The doctor reached forth his slender hands, and Geoffrey cringed before he managed to hold himself still. The physician peered into Geoffrey’s eyes, pulling the lower lids down. “And yet I do see some cause for concern. Your blood may be too cold.”

  “Too cold?”

  “Mmm. Yes, I fear so. Easily remedied, however, my lord.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “Unchecked, yes, it could well be. Any imbalance, my lord, is undesirable. What we seek is a balance between the four humors, between warmth and coolness, between passion and wisdom, a perfect harmony. Not too much passion, not too much thought, not too much wind, not too much staleness of air. In short, we desire that the elaborate ship of the body be entirely well balanced so that it tips not too much in one direction or another.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I will prescribe wheat soup. It irritates the respir
atory passages, but that effect is neutralized by mixing it with warm water.”

  “This will cure me?”

  “There can be no doubt, my lord.”

  Geoffrey stepped close and murmured, “There is one further trouble, my dear doctor, which I am reluctant to confess.”

  “I am at your service, my lord.”

  “My nature has always been passionate,” Geoffrey began. “This passion has been a cause of grief to me. I am, to be brief, overly lustful. Although any lust at all is grievous.” Geoffrey faltered.

  The physician closed his eyes and lifted a hand. “Have no fear, my lord. I understand perfectly. You are filled with an understandable desire for your wife’s affections and yet do not want to trouble her during her illness.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I know of an excellent medicine for the damping of the desire for coitus. Furthermore, it sharpens the eyesight and dissipates flatulence.”

  “What is it?”

  “Rue. I have some of the optimum variety, that which was grown near a fig tree.”

  Geoffrey shook the vial in his hand, studying the grainy brown surface of the clay. The cork worked free with a wet pop. “I can’t see into it.”

  “Two good, strong gulps would start the cure, and then just before sleep tonight you should finish the rest, because it is at night that desire is at its apex.”

  Geoffrey swallowed, once, twice.

  “Jesus’ Face, that’s the bitterest stuff I’ve ever tasted in my life!”

  “No good is accomplished without travail,” said the physician.

  18

  “I am very pleased with the quality of these pots,” said Lady Eleanor that evening. “I am very sorry that you have only five left.”

  “The sorrow is all mine, my lady. But when the people heard me calling ‘Pots, cheap!’ they came running.”

  Geoffrey eyed the potter without much interest, carving the rind off a green apple. The man was dressed in tatters, but his shoes were of good quality, the sort a footman might wear while accompanying a hunt, and the sword at his side was in a black scabbard tipped with brass.

  “Why,” asked Geoffrey, “did you sell so cheap?”

  “I wanted to enter into the spirit of the tournament. What better way than to sell everything as cheaply as possible? And now, my lord, I am so sorry to have sold all but five, I give these to you as a gift, from my heart.”

  “Oh, no!” said Lady Eleanor, looking pink-cheeked and alert. “Allow us to compensate you for your skill and for your—”

  “We are grateful, and we accept your gift,” said Geoffrey. The apple was now bare of skin. He cut the fruit in two and dug the pits out with the point of the paring knife. “You do not come from this shire, do you, potter?”

  “No, my lord, and it’s difficult to say where exactly I do come from. I travel so much plying my trade that I seem to be everywhere at once.”

  “How marvelous it must be to be everywhere at once,” laughed Lady Eleanor. “Sometimes I feel that I am nowhere at all.”

  “And that, my lady, must be a terrible sensation.”

  “Oh, it is, my good potter, it is indeed. But you will allow us to provide you with a meal. You will dine with us, potter.”

  “By all means,” said Geoffrey with no enthusiasm. “You will join us and tell us stories of the road.”

  It was not unheard of for the sheriff to entertain a traveler, such as a minstrel or a wayfaring merchant. A potter was a lowly guest, but this potter did have a gentle, courteous voice and a way about him that was immediately appealing, an eagerness to have fellowship that inspired even Eleanor. Geoffrey chewed his apple and hoped, dimly, that the potter would provide diverting conversation. It was not a strong hope and faded as he realized that Eleanor was more interested in the man’s leg, and in the man’s quick eye and merry laugh, than in his conversation.

  The potter wore a borrowed tunic to the table, a coarse wool equal to a wealthy miller or a traveling clerk from a distant shire come to give the compliments of his own sheriff. The potter drank deep of the slightly inferior white wine the sheriff served tonight, and the candlelight made the craftsman’s face dance with shadows and made his eyes twinkle above his auburn beard.

  Geoffrey sucked the flesh off a partridge’s wing and leaned forwards. “You are from north of here, I gather.”

  “True enough, my lord. From north of here, but not far.”

  “From where, exactly, if you will forgive my being blunt?”

  “My lord, you must be blunt. A sheriff has many duties and many worries on his mind. A humble potter can talk, chattering like a finch in the bush, all day, and no one will mark a single word.”

  “My husband was born blunt. If he were a potter, he would sell every pot for as much as he could, walk all over the shire with a full cart as a consequence, and die of weariness.” She picked at the leg of a bird, but apparently the physician’s potions had not yet helped her stomach.

  “Where?” asked Geoffrey calmly, as if all intervening talk had been the merest rustling of leaves.

  “Barnsdale, my lord.”

  “You carry a sword.”

  “These days even millers carry swords, and bucklers, too. I have to protect myself from envious potters, who lack skill and business sense.”

  “You pushed your cart through Sherwood Forest?”

  “With these stout arms.”

  The potter held up one arm, letting the sleeve of the coarse tunic fall, and displayed a muscular arm, and brown, too, from the sun.

  “And no one troubled you along the way?”

  “No one. Save a surly miller who swore that traveling craftsmen should be strung from a gibbet.”

  “One of our local gentlefolk,” Geoffrey said. “He is worse than the sourest of women when it comes to saying the exact words a man doesn’t want to hear. And yet I understand that his son, Thurstin, won the gold mark today.”

  “A worthy accomplishment.”

  “Especially when you consider that we have, here in Nottingham, the finest archers in the kingdom.”

  “I see you have a Fool, my lord.”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t he the wittiest creature? See! He chews exactly like my husband.”

  Geoffrey spoke with more lightness than he felt. “My wife enjoys him, and guests find him amusing.”

  “But the credit is yours, my lord.”

  “How mine?”

  “For allowing yourself to be mocked in your own household. This is a mark of greatness and subtlety. You allow others their laugh and attain thereby a greater stature.”

  Geoffrey nodded in acknowledgment of the flattery, but he was struck by the potter’s vocabulary. Subtlety was the sort of word Baldwin understood, a word that itself required subtlety, if not a court background. And yet the potter planted his elbows on the table and chewed with the unconcern of a wandering craftsman. “I am not as pleased as you think me to be,” said Geoffrey. “I tolerate him.”

  “Just as you tolerate flattery from your inferiors, my lord.”

  “I am told that you are a skilled potter.”

  “I have studied my craft.”

  “Was your father a potter?”

  “And his father, off into the past. All of us potters, clay between our fingers spun by the kicking wheel.”

  “And have you always plied your wares on the road?”

  “No, I have only recently begun to travel. I heard of the great prosperity of Nottingham under the guidance of the sheriff, and I knew I had to travel here, pushing my wares ahead of me. A dull way to travel. You see constantly exactly what is ahead of you, exactly what you saw at home: rows of pots.”

  “Your hands are not callused in the places a cart pusher’s hands are callused, and you are too light of step to be a man who has done it long.”

  “They told me, and I did not believe it. They said, and I did not hear. The sheriff of Nottingham is canny. That’s what they said. He sees and he knows. Sees a
nd knows. That’s what they said.”

  Geoffrey wiped his mouth. “If you wanted to make money, why did you stand calling out that you were practically giving your pots away and proceed to do exactly that?”

  “A cartload of pots is a heavy thing, my lord.”

  Geoffrey regretted the cheap wine. A servingman in drab gray livery poured Geoffrey some more, and Geoffrey sat back to watch the Fool, who was juggling four red wooden balls, to the delight of Lady Eleanor.

  “What brought you to Nottingham today, potter?”

  “The tournament, my lord.”

  “It was a wonderful sight, and you missed it by selling your pots.”

  “I came not to watch it, my lord, but to participate.”

  “And you came too late.”

  “To my great sorrow, my lord. And yet not too late to challenge the winner.”

  Geoffrey sipped the wine. “You love games, potter?”

  “They are my passion.”

  Geoffrey crooked a finger and said to a servant, “Bring us some bows.” For a moment the sheriff said nothing. “What sort of contest do you suggest?” he asked at last, as if he cared little.

  “Nothing unusual. A simple feat of archery. Say, an arrow sunk into a roof beam in the great hall, and that arrow split, and that one split, until a last, tenth arrow stands where the others stood. And I put this ounce of gold down as a wager that I can best the miller’s son.”

  The servant brought bows, and the potter stood and selected one. He flexed it, then, with one fluid motion, strung the bow and held it at arm’s length. “This,” said the potter, “is right weak gear.”

  Geoffrey made a gesture of apology.

  “But I have in my cart outside another bow, a bow that Robin Hood gave me.”

  Geoffrey gently put down his wine cup and leaned forwards. “You know Robin Hood?” he asked softly.

  “Know him! Many times Robin Hood and I have shot under the Trysting Oak.”

  “Go and get your bow,” said the sheriff.