‘Oh, they’ll trust you! Look around, Matthias. Where can you go?’ Vane clapped him on the shoulder and drew him closer. ‘Matthias, I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I’m glad I met you. You were no trouble on our journey north. You are a good companion. I think you have many secrets but that’s your business. Let’s go back to the hall. Sir Humphrey is going to celebrate our arrival as well as my early departure tomorrow.’
Matthias found that he was soon accepted as one of the castle garrison. No one seemed really to care that he had fought against the King. As Vane, quite the worse for drink later in the day, commented: ‘Everyone has secrets whilst both myself and Sir Humphrey have fought for both York and Lancaster.’
Vane left the following morning. Matthias stood in the gatehouse and watched them go until he could glimpse nothing but a faint cloud of dust.
Sir Humphrey came looking for him. The previous evening Matthias had slept in the hall. The Constable now showed him quarters in the east tower of the great keep: two spacious chambers adjoining each other, one for sleeping, the other for working. Matthias was then taken on a quick tour of the castle. Sir Humphrey spoke in quick, clipped sentences. He explained the routine, the hours for meals, the time of morning Mass. What should be done on Sundays and Holy Days. How Matthias would be paid four times each year as well as receive fresh robes at Christmas and Easter.
Matthias soon settled down. The regular routine of the castle was soothing: up just before dawn, Mass, work, then they’d all assemble in the hall to break their fast. They’d eat again early in the afternoon and work until dusk. Matthias’ duties were varied. Sometimes he’d sit in his tall, high-backed chair crouching over a sloping desk, transcribing letters, documents and reports for Sir Humphrey. At other times he’d carry out inventories of the castle stores, provisions, arms, the muster rolls, the salaries, the profits of crops, the purchase of fodder for the stables. He also took care of manuscripts, making sure that the archives were kept in good order, the chests regularly washed and cleaned, that everything was arranged in chronological order and that proper returns were made at Michaelmas, Hilary, Easter and midsummer. Such duties were not onerous.
Matthias soon found Sir Humphrey asking his advice on this or that. Father Hubert also had proved himself to be a good friend. He’d question Matthias closely about his studies at Oxford, the treatment of manuscripts and gently ask favours, such as Matthias examining the chapel lectionary and missals and repairing their calfskin covers.
The rest of the garrison accepted him for what he was, a principal retainer to Sir Humphrey. Vattier, however, continued to watch him constantly. At first Matthias was rather wary, believing Vattier knew him from somewhere else. However, three weeks after his arrival, the man-at-arms leant across the supper table.
‘You would make a good swordsman, Matthias.’
Matthias held his unblinking gaze. ‘So you keep saying, Master Vattier.’
‘Tomorrow morning,’ the sergeant-at-arms replied, ‘you must prove me right.’
Matthias glanced along the table. Rosamund stared back, round-eyed, an impish glee in her eyes. He swallowed hard and returned to his food. That young woman was making him distinctly uncomfortable. Whenever they met, Matthias would catch her studying him intently. Sometimes he thought she was making fun of him but, now and again, he glimpsed a sad glance. Rosamund was kind enough. She brought some flowers for his chamber or arranged for pots of herbs to be placed in the small chancery. Sometimes she would come there, sit on the window seat, ask him a few questions then abruptly get up and leave. Matthias wondered if she was strange, slightly fey. Sir Humphrey openly adored her. Father Hubert called her strong-willed, ruthlessly determined but a very pious girl, a dutiful daughter.
‘She is strange, mind you,’ the priest commented one morning after Mass.
‘What do you mean?’ Matthias asked.
‘Well, she’s a charitable, kind-hearted girl. If anyone falls sick, she always offers help and sympathy but, Matthias. .’ the priest shook his head, ‘as for you, I don’t know.’
Matthias pushed away his trencher. He had now been three weeks in the castle. Sir Humphrey trusted him; Father Hubert did; Vattier seemed intent on making him a swordsman but had Rosamund glimpsed his true nature? For a moment Matthias felt a wild surge of rage at the forces which had brought him to this: a stranger amongst strangers, with little choice or control over his life.
The next morning, when the other soldiers came to exercise in the outer bailey, shooting at the butts or riding with lance at the quintain, Matthias strolled out to join them. Vattier’s ugly face cracked into a grin.
‘At last! At last!’
He threw Matthias a leather corselet and told him to pick up a rounded shield and blunted sword. The clerk did so. Immediately Vattier attacked, abrupt and sudden. For a while Matthias just held up his shield and lunged wildly back with his own sword. He felt like dropping both and running away but others were coming across to watch.
‘Calm down,’ Vattier whispered, grinning over his shield rim.
Matthias stepped back. Vattier lunged again. Matthias parried. Gradually, as if the clash of weapons were some eerie music and the fight a dance which he did not know but liked, Matthias settled down. He watched Vattier’s eyes, memorising his feints, thrusts and parries. He felt cold but, at the same time, enjoyed the violence. Vattier began to represent all the hate and enmity from his past. The sergeant-at-arms was now the gaoler from the Bocardo; Symonds smirking at him; Fitzgerald laughing and clapping him on the shoulder. He took great pleasure in the clash of sword, of steel clashing against steel. The laughter and raillery of the soldiers died away. Matthias fought clumsily but there were occasions when Vattier was wary. At last the sergeant-at-arms stood away, throwing his own sword on to the ground.
‘Enough for today,’ he said, then grinned at the soldiers. ‘I have won my wager, he is a swordsman!’
The men-at-arms and archers shuffled forward to hand over their well-earned pennies. They went away glowering. Vattier came up.
‘Matthias, you may not be a good horseman, a good singer, a good clerk or even a good man. You do, however, have the makings of a superb swordsman. Don’t ask me why, it’s just like dancing. Some can, some can’t, you can. Train every morning!’
Matthias did so. The savagery of the exercise yard made him relax and purged the evil humours in his blood. He enjoyed the competition, the rivalry. Vattier taught him all he could so Matthias could move quickly, either to disarm or strike a wounding or killing blow. By the beginning of September, when the weather was set to change and the gorse and grassland round the castle began to die, Matthias had won a name for himself.
‘You have a fury in you,’ Sir Humphrey declared as they sat at supper one night. ‘I can see that, Matthias.’ The Constable leant across and filled his wine cup. ‘But I wonder what it is?’
A few days later Matthias was in the castle chapel on the second storey of the great keep. He sat on the floor, his back to a pillar. Father Hubert had asked him to look at the binding of the Bible, perhaps persuade Sir Humphrey to have it re-covered. Matthias, however, was really studying the verses from Genesis which his father had written on that scrap of paper so many years ago.
‘A swordsman, a scholar and now a man of prayer.’
Rosamund had softly entered. She was staring down at him.
‘You mock too much, my lady.’ Matthias turned the pages. ‘And a jest, like a jug of wine, eventually runs out.’
‘Matthias the miserable.’
He glanced up. Red spots of anger were high in her cheeks.
‘Fitzosbert the Grim. Why are you so grim, Fitzosbert? Why do you walk around like a man burdened with all the cares of the world?’ Rosamund walked up and down in front of him.
Matthias laughed as he recognised a perfect parody of himself. She stopped her pacing.
‘So, there’s wine left in the jug yet, Matthias?’
Rosamund sat down opposite. She opened a small linen napkin and nibbled at some marzipan. Again she imitated him, popping the pieces into her mouth as Matthias did at table. She did it so solemnly, so accurately, that he bellowed with laughter. She glowered back.
‘Why do you bother me, my lady?’
‘I like you, Fitzosbert, I really do! I have never met a man I like so much as you, Matthias!’
His jaw dropped in amazement. He was used to tavern wenches, the directness of slatterns like Amasia. Rosamund gazed back.
‘I like you very, very much, Matthias,’ she repeated. ‘And all you can do is crouch like a dog with its tongue
