“Any vital news?”
Adeliza shook herself from her reverie. “None of enough importance to disturb you on the day that you have returned to us.”
Fitz smiled slightly. It was good to know that the land that he had loved and left had survived the lack of him. Perhaps his steward had enjoyed the chance to work without his lord hanging over his head, commenting on his every decision.
“Fitz?”
Adeliza’s voice was delicate as usual, and the iron at the core of her being was lacking. Fitz sat up, and turned to look at her.
He did not reply, but Adeliza continued, her words tinged with nervousness.
“Tell me… what is happening in England?”
Fitz closed his eyes again, still sitting upright. Adeliza bit her lip.
“Fitz, is it true that many battles have occurred since the winter season?”
“I do not wish to talk of war.” It was not anger that filled Fitz’s words, but something slightly more harsh. A bitterness mixed with exhaustion. He was a man who had seen too much anger.
“I am sorry, my lord,” Adeliza said quickly, returning to a more formal tone. Her eyes lowered themselves, leaving the man who was lying on the bed. “I just wondered – England is such a far-off land.”
There was a long gap before any further words were spoken, and then it was Adeliza who spoke once more.
“Tell me of England.”
Fitz did not bother to open his eyes as he replied. “I do not wish to speak of it.”
“I wish to know more of it. Tell me –”
“God’s teeth, Adeliza, will you not leave the subject alone?” Fitz exploded. “War is never a beautiful thing, and that is what I have been doing for the last years – waging a war on a country that will not lose!”
Adeliza cried out. “It was only a simple request, Fitz!”
“And I am only telling you that I do not want to speak of it!”
“Your letters contained nothing, and I have been waiting many months for proper news,” Adeliza bit back. Fitz had not even bothered to open his eyes during the entire exchange. “I know that we never married for love, but I had hoped always to be able to respect you.”
She knew that she had gone too far, said too much, as soon as the words poured out of her mouth. But there was nothing to be done now: they had been said.
Adeliza looked, terrified, at the man whose power she was under. He was her husband, and she had learned to like him, but this was the first moment that she had been truly afraid of him.
“My lady Adeliza, come and sit by me.”
She did not move. Adeliza looked at her husband, with a wary look in her eye. He was acting strangely, even for Fitz, and she could not decipher the reason. Tiredness, yes, she had seen it in him many times. But this was something different. This was something much more.
“Adeliza, come here.”
His tone was firm, but once again there was no anger there. Fitz’s eyes were still shut.
Adeliza rose, and carefully sat on the bed. Her back rested against the headboard, alongside her husband’s. As Fitz felt the bed move, he opened his eyes. Reaching an arm around his wife, he drew her close, and began to speak quietly.
“England is a country of wildness, and of magic, and of terror. It is the country beyond the water, and it is filled with a people that are proud and humble, both at the same time. Every word they speak is a blessing, and every look at us is a curse. The land of England is covered in forests, and within them wild beasts lurk. There are parts of England that no man has ever walked on, trees under which no maiden has wept for a loved one, and stones that no child will ever gather. You can try to ignore its calling, and try to pretend that you do not even hear it, but even I am starting to realise that it is no home for me. England does not belong to anyone. It did not belong to the English, and it does not belong to us Normans now. England cannot be owned, and it cannot be possessed.”
Adeliza sat, entranced.
“Why?”
“Because it possesses us.”
Chapter Fifteen
As Fitz walked into the room, a loud cheer went up from all around.
“FitzOsbern! FitzOsbern!”
“Welcome home my lord!”
He smiled. It was good to see so many of the people he cared about, after such a long time. Age had not been gentle, and death had taken a few from their number, but those who remained were very dear to him. He could see that his steward had lost a few more teeth since he had last spoken to him.
Someone took his hand and, looking down, he saw that his daughter Isabella was smiling up at him. She looked completely different from the last time that Fitz had seen her; the baby smile and the wild hair had given way, he saw, to a more refined look. It was almost as if a different child stood before him – but Fitz mentally corrected himself. Neither of his daughters could be described as children any longer.
“Papa?” Isabella said, slightly nervously, but her smile remaining. “Is it good to be home?”
Fitz did not reply at first, but bundled the girl into his arms for a hug. She laughed, and he could not help but join her merriment.
“Indeed, child,” he breathed, “it is good to be home.”
Laughter broke out amongst the gathering, and Adeliza’s voice swept over them all.
“Food, I think, Pierre.”
A man standing at the side of the room immediately bowed his head, and a stream of people entered the room, bearing platters of food heaped high. The scent emanating from each one caught Fitz’s attention as his mouth watered. Good food had been in short supply throughout the long journey.
“I can see your appetite has not dampened, Father!” Emma called out with a broad smile on her face.
Fitz returned her smile. “And I may still enact that threat that I gave you once when you were a small child – that if you do not let me get to my meal, I shall eat you instead!”
Waving a casual arm towards the minstrel standing by the fireside, he beckoned everyone to take their places at the tables, and begin to eat.
He did not speak to an unwilling audience. Men and women, glad to see their master return after so many years, could not be held back from enjoying the luxurious fare that had been prepared in his honour.
Fitz sat down at the head of the table, with Adeliza on his right. A petulant Roger was on his other side, and Fitz saw that he would have much catching up to do with his second son. There was obviously something playing on his mind, but the contents of it danced out of Fitz’s sight. He would have to see to that tomorrow.
One woman caught his eye. It was a moment before he recognised her. The woman he had so unceremoniously startled. The woman who was his prisoner.
Catheryn stood, desperately trying to decide where she should place herself. Over the last few months, she had become accustomed to seating herself by Adeliza – but those places were now rightfully taken by her husband and her daughter. Not a servant, not a guest, not a member of the family: there were few precedents for this. Prisoners were not typically allowed to participate in events such as this, and Catheryn had no idea what she was to do.
Fitz watched her. She was quite obviously confused, undecided about what she should do. He turned, and caught Adeliza’s eye.
They looked at their prisoner, thrust upon them by a king many hundreds of miles away.
“Catheryn?” Fitz hazarded. He was not entirely sure exactly how he was meant to address this woman – half prisoner, half noble.
Adeliza came to his rescue. She rose in a stately fashion, and a hush fell across the room. Even the minstrel stopped playing to listen to his lady – who blushed.
“My lady Catheryn,” she said, softly. “Will you do us the honour of taking your place by my youngest daughter? Emma, I am sure, will value your company.”
Catheryn looked at Emma, who smiled.
“I would be honoured, my lady,” Emma said shyly, “if you would sit by me. I am but to perform a small task, and I shal
l return directly.”
It was now Catheryn’s turn to burn, although her cheeks reached a deeper red than Adeliza’s ever did. Was such an insult ever to be borne? The girl whom she had comforted, removing herself from her own seat so that she would not become tainted by the presence of an Anglo-Saxon woman? Emma had needed her then, but was she now just dirt?
But then Isabella rose, and Roger too moved from the table.
“You are not…?” Fitz laughed. “Surely, you are all getting a little old for this?”
“Age should be no barrier to accomplishment,” Isabella threw back at him as she wove her way through the tables to reach the fire, where the minstrel stood, confused. “You should know that by now, Father.”
The room laughed, and Catheryn relaxed. She finally realised what was happening. Beside the minstrel, tucked out of the way and in unassuming plain leather cases, were two lutes. Emma and Isabella reached for these, and the three siblings positioned themselves as a trio, facing their audience.
Catheryn was so captured by their beautiful music – Roger’s strong voice perfectly balanced by the interchanging harmonies of the twins – that she almost forgot to take her place at the family table. There was a divide between her and Adeliza that Catheryn knew she could no longer cross.
When the siblings finished their song, the room erupted with applause, and none was greater than that from their father.
“Marvellous!” he shouted over the din. “I can only assume that you have been practising – something that I could never get any of you to do whilst I was here!”
Emma beamed. “You are a much less frightening prospect when you are across the sea, Father, but in some ways, that made us want to make you all the more proud.”
“Yes,” Isabella added as the three young people took their places at the table once more. “And it even meant that Roger had to talk to us every now and again.”
“Oh hush!” Adeliza hissed as the girls descended into giggles. Roger did not make any sign that he had heard them, and it was still not enough to force a remark from his lips.
Emma dropped into her seat beside Catheryn, still giggling.
“Now you must tell us about England,” Emma said, wildly reaching for any food that was within her reach, “and about the heathens that you met there!”
It was not until the words had left her mouth and resonated in the air before her that Emma realised what she had said. Every eye turned to her, and Fitz cast a glance at Catheryn.
“My lady, I am so – I do apologise!” Emma stuttered, barely able to get another word out.
Catheryn took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Mind it not,” she said quietly. “It was but a slip of the tongue. You would not be so embarrassed if you knew what was said about your kind over the water.”
Emma laughed, but it was a strained laugh, and she looked down at her plate, evidently deciding not to say another word that evening.
“And yet, the beast of England does not have the manners of the men and women of Normandy. Do not you think that you are, in some ways, a different creature?”
The incendiary words had been spoken by a voice that Catheryn did not recognise. But by following the direction in which each and every person was looking, she looked at Roger.
He was clutching his knife a little hard for a man of calm, but his gaze did not falter as it met hers.
“My lord Roger,” Catheryn said slowly, “I would no more say that a man of Anglo-Saxon stock was a different creature than I would say a man of Normandy was. I see little difference.”
“You lie!” Roger shouted, flecks of spit covering his lips. “We all know the ravenous appetites of the Anglo-Saxons, their complete lack of control, their inability to learn more than a basic way of life. You are lucky we came to civilise you –”
“Civilise? Is that what it is called, when churches are burned to the ground and honest men watch their cattle slaughtered because it can be done?” Catheryn realised that her arms were on the table, and that she had balled her hands into fists.
“I am trying not to raise my voice, my lord, because you are a son of this house and I have great affection for your mother, but you do not know of what you speak!”
“I know you died as cowards! I know none mourned the dead, because you Saxons are incapable of emotion that deep, whilst each and every drop of Norman blood will be remembered forever!”
The boy – for he looked like a boy now, all of his manhood washed out of him – stared at the woman who had been living in his home for months now, taking the food from their mouths.
Catheryn stood up. The room stared at her, torn in their attempt both to look at her, at Roger, and away from both. She seemed majestic in her power, in her presence in the room. She looked taller somehow.
“My husband is named Selwyn,” Catheryn said slowly. “I say that he is called Selwyn – and yet none shall call him by that name now, for his bones lie on one of the greatest battle fields across the water. He died protecting his land for the people that he loved; loved with a passion. He said that he would die for them, and he was a man of his word. And yet it did not matter that his blood… his precious blood was spilt, for it made no difference to the horde that attacked my home. Every waking moment is a point at which I am without him. Every sleeping moment is a time when I long for his comfort. My children… my son is dead, and my daughter may be just as lost to me. Sometimes I pray that she is, so that she will never know the shame and dishonour that our enemies cast on us, simply because we lived in a place that they wanted to own. And so I defy you, Roger FitzOsbern, to call my people cowards; I defy you to say we do not mourn; and I defy you to say that our loved ones will not be remembered.”
The glare from her eye was enough to force Roger to drop his head, but even if he had been blind, her words would have shamed him once, twice, three times over.
Catheryn sat down, and there was still silence. No man or woman seemed willing to break it.
“Harsh words have been spoken here,” Fitz said finally, “and passionate ones. I cannot speak for all of the Normans; nor can I even hope to speak of the feelings of those that live across the water. But in this no bitterness is spoken, and so I would ask that whatever feelings are nursed in the breasts of the people around this table, that they would be kept there, hidden from sight. There is no use for them here.”
Heads nodded around the room – men who had fought battles, and had seen the light of life leave men’s eyes, and then wondered at it all. Women smiled, painfully, at the remembrance of a missing face.
“I am sorry, Father, if my words offend you.” Roger’s voice held strong, if it did waver.
“’Tis not my forgiveness you should be seeking, son.”
Roger looked at Catheryn, but did not speak again.
“Come now,” Fitz said, with a touch of roughness in his tones. “I will not have discord.”
Roger swallowed. The words were evidently difficult for him to say, but it was clear that he must say them.
“I apologise, my lady Catheryn.”
Catheryn looked at the boy for a moment. In many ways, he was still a child – but she suddenly had a flash of what her boy might have been like had he had the opportunity to reach that age. He would probably have been wild, just like Roger: wild, and full of opinions that he did not yet quite fully understand. He would have followed his father in all but sense, and though she smiled, she knew that he would almost certainly have fallen into mischief. It seemed as though Adeliza’s son was just a boy, like all other boys.
“I accept your apology, Roger,” she said softly.
For several minutes, nothing could be heard above the clatter of knives to teeth, and the satisfied munching of people who had been waiting a long time for such a good meal as this.
But before long, Isabella’s incessant mind had to speak.
“Father, tell us about Queen Edith.”
“She is just Lady Edith now, Isabella,” Fitz reminded her. “Our Que
en is Matilda, and her coronation was most magnificent.”
“I did not know that you had attended,” Adeliza said, looking suspiciously at her husband.
Fitz shrugged. “It did not seem important to tell you at the time.”
Emma laughed. “Father, how could you? I would have loved to be there – was Edith very beautiful?”
“I have heard that she was,” added Isabella. “Does she still wear a crown?”
Fitz shook his head. “She no longer has that honour,” he said, “and yet, despite the lack of finery, there was certainly something very regal about her. From all accounts, she was a very popular queen.”
“And her son – Harold – he is well?”
Adeliza’s words, innocently spoken, were met with much laughter throughout the room. Even Catheryn could not help but smile at the strange question.
Adeliza looked about her, confused. Turning to her husband, who was chuckling, she whispered angrily to him.
“Why does everyone laugh?”
“My lady,” Fitz said formally, “Queen Edith and King Harold were not mother and son, but sister and brother. She married King Edward the Confessor, and her brother took the throne after his death.”
Adeliza’s cheeks burned. She looked around the room – Pierre was laughing openly, and the minstrel missed a note, so broad was his smile.
She swept up her skirts, and within a moment, had left the room.
Chapter Sixteen
Catheryn could see her. She was smiling and laughing, running past her in a flash of blonde hair kept tightly underneath a veil. Her daughter, Annis.
Catheryn watched as her daughter ran across the field, and once the girl was lost from her view, she turned to her husband.
“Selwyn,” she smiled.
“Did you miss me?” Selwyn said, moving towards her and clasping his arms around her.
Catheryn breathed in the deep scent that Selwyn always had; a rough sort of smell, a mixture of the land that they loved and an essence that was only him.
“Of course I did,” Catheryn murmured, “but –”