‘I thought you’d lost it months ago,’ I said.
‘I did,’ he answered. ‘Some bastard stole it from my pack around Christmas. I bought this one while we were in Eoferwic.’
He held it before him, closing his eyes as if trying to remember how to use it, then put the beaked end to his lips, breathed deeply, and began: softly at first but slowly building, lingering on every wistful note, until after a short while I began to recognise the song. It was one I remembered from our campaigns in Italy all those years ago, and as I listened and gazed into the fire I found myself there again: feeling the heat of the summer, riding across the sun-parched fields with their brown and withered crops, through olive groves and cypress thickets.
Eudo’s fingers danced over the holes as the music quickened, rising gracefully to a peak, where it trembled for a while, before settling down to a final pure note and fading away to nothing.
He lifted it from his lips and opened his eyes. ‘I ought to practise more,’ he said, flexing his fingers and laying it down beside him. ‘I haven’t played in a long while.’
If he hadn’t said so, though, I wouldn’t have been able to tell, so confident and sweet was his playing.
‘Give us another song,’ Wace said.
The fire was dwindling, I noticed, and most of the stack of branches we’d collected was gone.
‘I’ll go and find some more wood,’ I said, getting to my feet.
It had rained earlier that day and so there was little dry wood to be found anywhere, but eventually I’d gathered enough to keep the fire going, for a few hours at least. I began to make my way back, a bundle of damp sticks beneath my arm, when I thought I heard a voice amidst the trees, not far off.
I stopped. The night was still, and for a moment the only other sound I could hear was that of Eudo’s flute, this time playing a quicker song: one that was lighter and more playful. But then the voice came again, low and softly spoken. A woman’s voice, I realised, and as I came nearer I saw that it was Beatrice.
She was kneeling upon the ground, her head bowed and her hands clasped together in prayer. Her back was to me, the hood of her cloak drawn back to reveal her fair hair, which was bound in a tight braid at the back of her head. My footfalls sounded softly upon the sodden earth and she showed no sign of having heard me.
‘My lady,’ I said. ‘I thought you were abed.’
She looked up with a sharp intake of breath, her expression putting me in mind of a deer that has just heard the sound of the hunting-horn.
‘You startled me,’ she replied crossly, her lips tight.
‘It isn’t safe to be wandering the woods. You should be with the others.’ I glanced back towards the fire, wondering how they could have let her from their sight. I would speak with them later.
‘I’m not wandering,’ she said. ‘And I don’t need you to watch over me.’
She turned and again bowed her head, closing her eyes, hoping perhaps that if she ignored me, I would soon go away. As the faint moonlight fell upon her face, however, I saw that her cheeks were wet, and I realised she had been crying.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
She said nothing, but she did not have to, for no sooner had the question left my lips than I already knew the answer. ‘You’re thinking about your father, aren’t you?’
She raised her hands to her face, as if hiding her tears from me. ‘Leave me,’ she said between sobs. ‘Please.’
But Aelfwold’s words from a few days ago were still fresh in my mind, and the sight of Beatrice on her knees and trembling was more than I could bear. Here was a chance to set things right.
I crouched beside her, setting down the firewood before gently resting my hand upon her shoulder. She flinched at my touch, though she did not try to get up, or to shake my hand away.
‘You don’t understand what it feels like,’ she said, ‘not knowing whether you will ever see someone again.’
Lord Robert, Oswynn, Gerard, Fulcher, Ivo, Ernost, Mauger: I would not see any of them again. Not in this life, at least. But I knew that wasn’t quite what she meant.
‘No,’ I said instead, ‘I don’t.’
I didn’t know what more I could add, nor did she speak, but I stayed there, until my legs began to ache and I felt my wound twinge and I sat down on the wet leaves instead. The damp seeped through the thin cloth of my braies, cold against my skin, but I did not care.
‘I barely knew my father,’ I said quietly, after a while. ‘Or my mother either. Both died when I was young.’
Almost twenty years ago, I realised. What would they think of me, were they here to see me? Would they recognise the man I had become?
‘The closest to a father I ever truly had was Robert de Commines,’ I went on. ‘And now he is gone too, along with all my sworn brothers, and Oswynn-’
I broke off, suddenly aware of Beatrice’s gaze resting upon me. I had hardly spoken of my family in years. Why was I doing so now, and to her? Why was I telling her about Robert, about Oswynn?
‘Oswynn,’ Beatrice said. Her tears had stopped, and in the soft light her skin was milky-pale. ‘She was your woman.’
I sighed deeply, letting the bitter night air fill my chest. ‘She was.’
‘You cared for her.’
Not as much as I should have, I thought, though at the same time probably more than I had ever dared admit to myself. Would I ever have made her my wife, had she lived? Probably not; she was English, and of low stock besides, the daughter of a blacksmith. And yet she’d been unlike all the other girls I’d known: strong-minded and fiery in temper; unafraid of anyone; able to face up to even the most battle-hardened of Lord Robert’s knights. There would never be another like her.
‘I did,’ I said simply, leaving Beatrice to take from that what she would.
‘How did she die?’
‘I don’t know. It was one of my men who told me. I never saw what happened.’
‘Perhaps it was better that way.’
‘Better?’ I echoed. ‘It would have been better if I had never left her in the first place. If I had been with her, I could have protected her.’ And she would still be alive now, I thought.
‘Or else you might have died with her,’ Beatrice said.
‘No,’ I said, though of course she was right. If the enemy had come upon them suddenly, as Mauger had said, there was probably little I could have done. Yet what did it matter to Beatrice what had happened to Oswynn?
Discomfited all of a sudden, I got to my feet. ‘We should get back. The others will be wondering where we are.’
I held out my hand to help her up; she took it in her own. Her fingers were long and delicate, her palm cold but soft. She rose, smoothing down her skirt, brushing off the leaves and twigs. There were patches of mud where she had been kneeling, but that could not be helped. She pulled her hood back over her hair, while I gathered up the wood for the fire, and together we returned in the direction of the camp. Eudo had finished playing, for the meantime at least, and the knights were laughing amongst themselves as they took draughts from a wineskin that they passed around.
We arrived at the edge of the clearing, where I bade her a good night and watched her make her way back to her tent. For the first time in weeks, I realised I felt free, as if merely by talking about Robert and Oswynn a weight had been lifted from my heart.
I was going to join the others by the fire, when I glimpsed Aelfwold standing in the shadows beside his tent. How long had he been there? I made to walk away, ignoring him, but hardly had I gone five paces when he called my name. For a moment I considered pretending that I had not heard, had not seen him, but then he called a second time and I turned to see him marching towards me.
‘What were you doing?’ he demanded.
I stared back at him, surprised. I had known the chaplain only a few weeks, but never before had I seen him provoked to such anger. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean,’ he answered, and gestured towards the ladies’ tent.
I realised then that he must have seen me with Beatrice. Indeed, how must it have looked, the two of us emerging together from the trees?
