Chapter 8: By Water to Caen

I had avoided the Lady on our journey from Canterbury town, down the Thames, the Channel crossing and the mooring within the haven of Brugge. I had found it too painful to be near her, fearing I would surrender to my deep hidden feelings for her. But, after our shared adventure in the pinewoods of Flanders, I take comfort in the pleasure of us being jolly companions once again, disguising my true infatuation by the simple bonds of platonic friendship.

So, when we cast off from Brugge and head down the Channel seeking the mouth of the mighty Seine river and the castle palace of Rouen, I sought the Lady Elinor out where she stands alone on the windward side, where the cross wind lifts her long and unruly reddish brown hair and spins its glossy tendrils around her beautiful face. The late afternoon sun is ahead of us and her face glows like the gilded statue of Our Lady that I saw in Canterbury Cathedral. She is a beautiful young woman. It is all I can do to swallow and try my best to speak plain and not falter in my resolve in the sanguinity of peaceful solitariness.

“I have been thinking on my few days visiting with your mother in Pitstone, Elinor.”

She raises her eyebrows in response as she turns to look at me. No doubt my face is as afire in the setting sun just as hers is. My calling her by her given name without her title, speaking as equals for the first time in near four years, does not escape her and she smiles beautifully, almost taking my breath away like being plunged into an ice bath.

“Yes?” she smiles, “She told me all about your discourse three weeks ago.”

“Did she leave anything out of her account, do you think?”

“No, she was very open about all your colloquies. By sleeping with her, and keeping her temperature constant, and forcing her to drink that sweet honey broth you got the Inn kitchen maids to make, gave her back the vitality and will to fight whatever fever ailed her. She swears that you saved her life and for that I am most eternally grateful.”

“I know not if saving her life be true, but I am glad my efforts did not fail her as I feared they might have. She is a wonderful woman, your mother, with a saintly presence, and is a life well worth saving.”

“She is. Thank you, Robin.” She stares at the river mouth for a moment. “She thinks a lot of you, Rob, you know, we all do, those who know you. You stayed three whole days and nights and thereafter returned each night for a week after visiting local fairs, before you had to depart for good.”

“Aye, by then her fever was broke, I think, and tho’ weak she had the appearance of well-being and getting better, the grave sickness that afflicted her had passed. But then I had a couple of fairs near the coast in Southamptonshire, which were too far to travel to and from within a day. When I heard no further message, I confess I feared the worst.”

“She loves you for what you did,” she giggles, “and she remembers your name and title perfectly, insisting on referring to you as ‘Sir Robert of Oaklea’ in all our conversations.”

“Ahh, so not reduced to a ‘Giles’ or something like ‘Gurl’?”

“No, never! She says you will always be regarded as ‘Sir Robert of Oaklea’ in polite society, and ‘My Dearest Robin’ among my family and close friends.”

“In that case she will have to be my ‘Dear Margrett Lady Pitstone’, when referred to in my family when I have one of my own.”

“Aah, thinking of settling down with the girl who fills your dreams at night and raising a manor-houseful of babies are we?”

“My dreams are not freely for sharing La-, err, Elinor.”

“No, my dear Robin, I accept that but, are you aware that you talk much in your sleep?”

“No, not at all, well, I clearly wasn’t until now. Has your mother reported thus to you?”

“Aye, she thought I should know some of your deepest secrets, especially those ones where they bear upon me.”

“Why should your mother hold back any secrets from her daughter, the biggest pedlar of secrets I know?”

“Your secrets I have not been sold on, Robin, nor would I ever sell them. Mother thought I should be aware of how you feel, or at least felt about me, when you were uninhibited by sleep.”

“Dreams are just dreams, Elinor, simply the unordered ramblings of old memories. Those you refer to were clearly triggered by my concerns at the time over the health of your mother and the effect her suffering might have upon you.”

“So you will deny that you mumbled many compliments of me, ones she described as favouring my skin, my hair, the fullness of my lips, my sparkling eyes, the—”

“Those must be very early memories of you, before I discovered what you were really like, my Lady.”

“That was cruel, Robin,” she sniffs, “and I have been trying to be ever so nice to you and tell you how high you stand within the Pitstone Inn household.”

“My apologies, Lady Elinor, I meant no—”

“There you go again! I try to be nice and friendly to you and you revert back to rigid formality of title rather than by name. Even my half-sister and I call each other ‘Maudie’ and ‘Nolly’ even though we are at loggerheads over our futures. I am your friend, Robin, after all and we have protected each other’s backs often, as recently, in fact, as only this morning.”

“Please accept my fullest apologies, my dear Elinor, please.” I hesitate a moment, “er, ‘Nolly’? Really?”

She grins back, “Aye, we were really good friends as girls together, and I would never stand in the way of her becoming Queen Matilda of England.”

“Would she make a good Queen?” I ask.

“Not on her own, no, she would have to have loyal men around her, skilled in war, diplomacy and managing the exchequer. Without them she would be completely hopeless. She has the beauty and apparent grace of her dear mother, my lovely Aunt Edith, who took full part in ruling England as Regent. But Maudie is headstrong, hardly ever listens to good advice and has the same foul temper which she gets from our father, without the ability to control it. I fear she will marry for power and title, not for love, for she has never known love before. I fear for her Robin. If Gervaise wins the Crown of England for William Clito, my cousin will unite the two states into a single kingdom—”

“And that will mean war with France.”

“Aye.”

“Yes. Louis will never stand for it.” I say. “If Duke Robert is truly mad as you say, and William Clito succeeds to the Dukedom of Normandy and Matilda becomes Queen of England, after Henry dies, and they each settle for those possessions, there is a chance of peace, especially if Matilda marries well and has an heir, even if the child be an infant when Henry dies.”

“Aye, Robin, there is much at stake, which is why the Cornflower Jewel must remain safely out of the warmongers’ hands.”

“I think your mother feared that you would get caught up in this plotting somehow and that even Henry would not be able to protect you. Was that why he sent you to Scotland and you upset him by not agreeing to travel along his chosen path for you?”

“Aye, Robin, you are right, he was roundly vexed with me. Come, let us sit in the gunwales here, as this true story will take a while to recount.”

We sit on the deck with our backs leaning against the gunwales, which was less tiring than standing up and trying to balance as the ship made its way down the estuary to the sea. Once we are settled, Elinor continues.

“My father heard confirmation from my own lips what Maudie had told him about her husband the Emperor and my husband being lovers and we sisters were either untouched or barely by our husbands’ or indeed any man’s carnal attentions.”

“I have heard, many times on my travels, that wives frustrated by inattention from their husbands, take lovers.”

She glowers at my insinuation, her eyes narrow to slits. “I am loyal to my husband, however disloyal he may be to me, and I have taken no lovers, nor did I ever tell my father of my husband’s preferred tastes in lovers until he drew it out of me after Maudie, free of her marriage bonds by widowhood, confessed for the both of us.”

“My apologies, Elinor, my comment was one of generality, not directed at you or your sister’s actions.”

“Anyhow, my father was more angry than I had ever seen. He put in hand an annulment of my marriage by despatching the Archbishop’s cleric to Rome with an edict drawn up by the Bishop of Rouen. My widowed sister Maudie had already turned down eligible bachelors in and around the vassals of France. Scotland was too closely related for Maudie, being a first cousin of King David’s son, so my father sent me all the way up to Dunfermline with a message, offering me in betrothal to his son, Henry, upon his maturity. He thought that with my Scottish mother, once I was declared Henry’s full and legal daughter and become an eligible unwedded princess, he wanted me to move to the safety of Scotland under David’s care.”

“But you cared not for the Princeling Henry?”

“I care for him very much, Harry is a sweet boy, but I could never marry him, Robin, for little Prince Henry is my first cousin.”

“Really? I suppose that threw a wheel off King Henry’s hell-bent ambitions for you. So, how did this happen?”

“My mother, known as Margrett in Scotland, is of the clan of MacMalcolm. My mother Margrett is the first daughter of King Malcolm III of Alba and Queen St Margaret of England. My mother married a Clan Chief Robert of the lowland Elliott Clan, who swore to uphold Malcolm’s claims to Alba against Macbeth but when an opportunity fell to Robert Elliott to seize power, he tried to steal the crown himself, failed and rather than be executed for treason, he was exiled to England. My Mother was in love with her first husband and stuck by him, while he worked as a mercenary for a series of barons in the south, as far from Scotland as he could get and find employment. While he was a fiercesome warrior, he was also a gentle giant to his woman.”

“I know but little of the Kings of Alba, except that they change very frequently. David was made king only last year I think.”

“Aye, he was exiled to my father’s Court as a young man. I knew him for a year before he returned to Scotland, without being aware of our kinship. My mother was daughter to Margaret, the second wife of Malcolm III and she was elder sister to my Aunt Edith, who married Henry I in 1100 and was renamed Matilda, a Norman name, as well as sister to King David. However, neither my Mother nor Aunt knew they were both married to Henry until I first went to court when I was 8 in 1111. At first Queen Matilda resented me, but soon thereafter, the Queen let me know I was to regard her as my ‘Aunt Edith’, although I had no clue of the relationship between the two wives or her potential role in extending the influence of David I in Scotland, who has eyes on the former kingdoms of Cumbria and Northumbria.”

“How did the Queen discover you were her niece?” I ask.

“I was willed a cloak brooch by ‘Aunt Edith’ when she died six years ago. It was made of silver and engraved with a symbol that was quite familiar to me. Set in the engraved lines were precious stones. It was a lovely brooch and was valued by her, in memory of her parents.”

With that, she unbuttons the first three buttons of her jerkin and opens the left hand side, to reveal a brooch pinned to her white linen cotehardie just above her heart. It is about two inches across and the gems sparkle in the warm dying rays of the sun.

“My mother cried when Father collected me and took me to Court, even though he assured her I would be perfectly safe in his charge. She had given me a brooch, one I had never seen before, when Henry took me to Court in 1111.”

She pulls open the right side of her jerkin, revealing another brooch, of the very same basic design, but looks much more valuable with larger and more numerous jewels.

“Both of these brooches show the badge of the Clan MacMalcolm,” Elinor continues, “Queen Matilda, my Aunt Edith’s one is made of silver, my mother Margaret’s is solid gold and decorated in many more precious stones.” She pauses, looking at both badges for a moment, before raising each to her lips and kissing them both. She looks at me.

“When I was eight years old I was told by Mother that she had once been the leading Lady of the Clan MacMalcolm, but had been banished from the Scotch Kingdom along with her husband due to his treason. She told me that it was only her position in the Clan that saved her husband from execution, but she was also expelled from her family, all mention of her was to be erased, because she decided to stay loyally married to her treasonous husband. She told me nothing of her being a princess. But the sins of the mother do not pass to the daughter, she assured me, so if I was ever in Scotland, my mother’s brooch would protect me.”

Tears escape from her eyes and run down her cheeks. She wipes her tears off with the backs of her hand, but I hand her a clean kerchief and she smiles as she dabs at her eyes.

“Sorry, the memories of my dear Aunt Edith are still painful, she passed from this life so young and she cared for me almost as much as she regarded her real children, Maudie and silly Willie, I never knew why until recently.”

“Silly Willy?”

“The boy was Duke of Normandy and even Regent of England while my father spent most of his time in Normandy. He was spoiled rotten by King Henry all his short life and was lazy in his scholastic lessons. He would sit behind Maudie and me and pull at our hair or poke us for his amusement. And he was allowed to play truant and go off and hunt and fool about with his silly friends. All his friends around him were wastrels, with him being the worst of them. You know how Prince William Adeline died, do you?”

“He drowned in an accident at sea about five years ago?”

“They sank in Barfleur harbour, Robin, they hadn’t even reached the sea itself. The “Blanche-Nef” was the newest and fastest of the Royal Fleet, so was the last of the little flotilla to leave the wharf. The sea was as calm as a pond, the outgoing tide upon the late afternoon and evening. Apparently Willie carried on drinking and making merry with the inn maids well after the rest of the ships sailed at the start of the tide. He was taking wagers that they could leave hours later, even in the dark of night, and still beat the others across the Channel into the Port of Southampton en route for Winchester. His bride, Matilda of Anjou, only a girl of 14, disapproved of his drinking and open whoring, so she sailed in a different vessel in the Royal Flotilla, accompanied by my father. This lack of restraint only encouraged Willie to drink and boast more. Even the officers of the crew were plied with drinks, as I have been reliably told that they were all unsteady on their feet by the time they left.”

“The crew too?”

“Apparently the steersman was so falling down drunk that they had to tie him to the tiller. He tried to cut the corner getting out of the harbour and struck a rock far outside the shipping lanes so hard that it ripped the bottom out of the boat and was stuck fast on the rock and soon started to fill with water. It sank in less than an hour. The ship launched a small skiff and Willie managed to get on it. Because it was dark, no one on shore had seen or was even aware of what happened, but if the skiff had been rowed ashore, they might have had time to get other small boats out to save them all. But our half-sister, Countess Maud of Perche, was left behind and implored Willie to go back for her. Willie was a strong swimmer and he stripped down to his birthday suit, dived in and swam back to the ship while the skiff turned around to pick up more people. He helped Maud to jump into the skiff, but the little boat was then overwhelmed by the number of passengers who tried to jump on board, and it overturned and sank. Only one man, a sailor, made it to shore. Poor Willie and Maud were drowned.”

“It seems that your brother died as a hero in the end.”

“I suppose he did. That is a beautiful thought, Robin.” She wipes a tear from her eye. “He was so full of fun and life.”

“Too full, perhaps.”

She smiles at me, a smile fit to break my heart. All my resolve during my knight’s vigil was clearly for naught. No man can help how his heart feels; it is well known that the heart rules the head, and rules it absolutely.

“So, your Uncle David must have been highly amused when you passed on King Henry’s offer to betroth you to your young cousin?”

“Aye, he was amused, and I was shocked as he turned over my brooches in his hand, both saddened that one sister was dead and the other not only exiled but forgotten by her people, but my marriage to Harry was then completely out of the question.”