Edward Marston - The Dragons of Archenfield

“How can I?”

“You were not to blame.”

“But I was, Golde. I was.”

“You punish yourself for sins you did not commit.”

“I will never forgive myself.”

“Aelgar!”

“I helped to kill the one thing I held dear.”

“That is not true.”

“What life is left to me now?”

“A good life. An honest life.”

“Bereft of all joy. My hopes are shattered.”

“Rebuild them, sweet sister.”

“Nobody could rebuild after such a loss.”

Golde became wistful. “I did.”

It was Aelgar’s turn to offer condolence. She bent forward to kiss her sister’s forehead. Both of them let tears run freely for a few moments. Golde then controlled her pain and stood up. As the elder sister, she had to be strong enough for both of them.

She looked down at Aelgar and let out a long sigh.

“What a cruel blow too much beauty can be!”

“I feel as if I want to scratch it away out of spite.”

“That is not the way, Aelgar.”

“Then what is? What is? Teach me, please.”

The entreaty brought Aelgar to her feet. She was a few inches shorter than Golde and years younger. Barely nineteen, she still had the bloom of youth on her cheeks. She wore a plain gunna of green linen and a white wimple. The heart-shaped face was distorted by grief and striped with concern, but its essential loveliness shone through. Golde had the more mature charms, but few men noticed her when Aelgar was present. The latter’s innocent beauty was almost overwhelming.

Golde took her sister by the shoulders.

“Watch and pray,” she advised.

“I have done little else.”

“Hold fast to your memories. Let them stay you.”

“They only pluck at my entrails, Golde,” said the younger woman.

“I dare not sleep for fear that those memories will haunt me afresh.

I must know ” she said with sudden intensity. “I must find out the truth.”

“In time. In time.”

“Now, Golde. I have a right to be told.”

“Yes, Aelgar,” conceded the other. “Who has a better right than you? I will go to them again.”

“Take me with you!”

“Stay within and mourn in private.”

“But I have questions of my own to ask.”

“Put them to me. I will seek the answers.”

Aelgar’s intensity drained slowly out of her. She dropped to the stool again and stared into the flames with a wan expression on her face. Her voice was distant.

“The worst is over, Golde. I fear nothing now.”

“I do.”

“What?”

Golde took her sister’s hand again and kissed it.

“What do you fear?” asked Aelgar.

“Him.”

Maurice Damville led the charge. The shepherd was herding his flock on the lower slopes when the riders came over the crest of the hill. Damville and his knights could not resist the temptation. Spurring their horses into a frenzied gallop, they tore down the incline with battle cries and obscenities mingling on their lips.

The sheep scattered in a mad panic and the old shepherd was knocked flying by the flank of a passing destrier. They pursued the fleeing animals for a few minutes, hacking at them to frighten or wound rather than to kill. When the cavalcade reassembled again, the flock was spread over half a mile or more.

Damville’s sport was not yet over. On the plain ahead of them was a small farm with a cluster of rickety outbuildings. A fresh-faced Saxon girl came out of the byre with a wooden pail filled to the brim with milk.

She was no more than fifteen, but her hair was the colour of straw and her skin shone in the morning sunlight. Her bare arms were splashed with milk. One glance was all that Maurice Damville needed.

He kicked his horse into a canter and bore down on the girl. Too frightened to run, she stood rooted to the spot until he brought down an arm to scoop her up and carry her off. The pail was dropped and its contents seeped into the grass. Urged on by whoops of envious delight from his men, Damville rode behind the cover of some bushes before he dismounted. The screams lasted for several minutes.

In one swoop, the girl lost her milk and her maidenhead.

Two hours in the shire hall had taught Richard Orbec some respect for the commissioners. They could not be deceived or fobbed off.

Ralph Delchard was a stern inquisitor. Gervase Bret was a percep-tive lawyer. Canon Hubert was relentless in pursuit of the truth.

Orbec and Redwald put their case with skill, but it was severely weakened by the appearance of a charter which seemed to grant the land in question to Warnod.

When Gervase had displayed the document and allowed the two men to inspect it, he made way for Canon Hubert to take over the questioning. The latter used a different method of attack. He bestowed a flabby smile upon Orbec.

“You have been a most generous patron of the Church.”

“I think I know my duty,” said Orbec.

“Your gifts go beyond the limits of duty,” continued Hubert. “Dean Theobald was kind enough to conduct me around the cathedral. Your endowments are writ large in stone and timber. God will reward you for this munificence.”

“It pleases me to hear you say that, Canon Hubert.”

“You have, I am told, a private chapel at your house.”

“I do.”

“Consecrated by no less a person than Bishop Robert.”

“He deigned to visit my abode and grace my table.”

“Gratitude took him there,” said Hubert. “If all the marcher lords had your belief in Christianity, we should have far more churches and far less castles.” He leaned across the table to purr his question.

“Why have you done all this?”

“Because I felt moved to do so.”

“Yes, but from what motives?”

“Does it matter?”

“Profoundly.”

“I donate money and the cathedral is restored.” Orbec was dismissive. “That is all there is to it. The ceiling of the nave will look just as beautiful, whether my reasons for meeting its cost are shallow or meaningful. People will admire that ceiling many years after my reasons have followed me into my grave.”

“You are trying to evade my point,” said Hubert. “But you raise an ethical dilemma about means and ends. Does a good result justify a bad reason? It does not, my lord. It never can. The church would rather be poor and honest than flourish on riches that have been wrongfully acquired. Reasons and results must be cohere.”

“My wealth is sinful. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I merely seek to establish a motive. Why?”

“Because I am a good Christian.”

“Whence comes this goodness, my lord?”

“From the same source as your own.”

“I wear my reason for all to see,” said Hubert, indicating his attire.

“Is yours so shameful that it must be kept hidden?”

“I came here to discuss my holdings,” said Orbec with vehemence.

“My spiritual needs are not relevant here.”

“But they are,” insisted Hubert, “because they help to establish your character. A man who seeks only to serve the greater glory of God is unlikely to seize land that is not legally his or to indulge in some of the corrupt practices that our investigation has uncovered. Good men do good works from pure motives.”

Richard Orbec weighed his words carefully.

“Then I am not a good man, Canon Hubert,” he said, quietly. “No soldier is or can be a good man.”

“That is nonsense!” protested Ralph.

“Men put on armour to kill.”

“To defend themselves from being killed.”

“A soldier is a violation of the sixth commandment. ‘Thou shalt do no murder.’ What else is a battle but an act of slaughter? You may dress it up in fine words and shower it with incense to make it smell the sweeter, but there is no disguising the truth. War is ritualised murder.”