Part 8 (1/2)
I could see the mast-head, but not the deck. The tide was low, the channel narrow, and on either side of the blue ribbon of water were sand-flats, crowded with every sort of wading bird, dipping and bobbing around the pools where the tide had ebbed. Bodrugan held Isolda's hands in his, examining the fingers, and in a foolish sort of love-play bit each one of them in turn, or rather made pretence of biting them, grimacing as he did so as though they tasted sour.
I stood by the window watching them, oddly disturbed, not because I, like the steward, was playing spy, but because I sensed in some fas.h.i.+on that the relations.h.i.+p between these two, however pa.s.sionate it might be at other times, was at this moment innocent, without guile and altogether blessed, and it was the kind of relations.h.i.+p that I myself would never know. Then suddenly he released both hands, letting them drop on to her lap.
”Let me stay another night and not sleep aboard,” he said. ”In any event the tide may serve me ill, and I may find myself hard aground if I make sail.”
”Not if you choose your moment,” she replied. ”The longer you remain here the more dangerous for us both. You know how gossip travels. To come here anyway was madness, with the vessel well known.”
”There's nothing to that,” he said. ”I come frequently to the bay and to this river, either on business or for my own pleasure, fis.h.i.+ng between here and Chapel Point. It was pure chance that brought you here as well.”
”It was not,” she said, ”and you know it very well. The steward brought you my letter telling you I should be here.”
”Roger is a trusty messenger,” he answered. ”My wife and children are at Trelawn, and so is my sister Joanna. The risk was worth the taking.”
”Worth taking, yes, this once, but not for two nights in succession. Nor do I trust the steward as you do, and you know my reasons.”
”Henry's death, you mean?” He frowned. ”I still think you judged unfairly there. Henry was a dying man. We all knew it. If those potions made him sleep the sooner, free from pain and with Joanna's knowledge, why should we shake our heads?”
”Too easy done,” she said, ”and with intent. I'm sorry for it, Otto, but I cannot forgive Joanna, even if she is your sister. As for the steward, doubtless she paid him well, and his monk accomplice.” I glanced at Roger. He had not moved from his shadowed corner by the window, but he could hear them as well as I did, and judging by the expression in his eyes he hardly relished what she said.
”As to the monk,” added Isolda, ”he is still at the Priory, and adds something to his influence every day. The Prior is wax in his hands, and his flock do as they are bidden by Brother Jean, who comes and goes as he pleases.”
”If he does so”, said Bodrugan, ”it is no concern of mine.”
”It could become so,” she told him, ”if Margaret comes to have as much faith in his herbal knowledge as Joanna. You know he has treated your family lately?”
”I know nothing of the sort,” he answered. ”I have been at Lundy, as you know, and Margaret finds both the island and Bodrugan too exposed, and prefers Trelawn.” He rose from the bench and began pacing up and down the gra.s.s walk in front of her. Love-making was over, with the problems of domestic life upon them once again. They had my sympathy. ”Margaret is too much a Champernoune, like poor Henry,” he said. ”A priest or a monk could persuade her to abstinence or perpetual prayer if he had the mind to do so. I shall look into it.”
Isolda also rose from the bench, and standing close to Bodrugan looked up at him, with her hands upon his shoulders. I could have touched them both had I leant from the window. How small they were, inches below adult height today, yet he was broadly-built and strong, with a fine head and a most likable smile, and she as delicately formed as a porcelain shepherdess, hardly taller than her own daughters. They held each other, kissing, and once again I felt this strange disturbance, a sense of loss, utterly unlike anything I might experience in my own time, had I seen two lovers from a window... Intense involvement, and intense compa.s.sion too. Yes, that was the word, compa.s.sion. And I had no way of explaining my sense of partic.i.p.ation in all they did, unless it was that stepping backwards, out of my time to theirs, I felt them vulnerable, and more certainly doomed to die than I was myself knowing indeed that they had both been dust for more than six centuries. ”Have a care for Joanna, too,” said Isolda. ”She is no nearer being married to John now than she was two years ago, and has altered for the worse in consequence. She might even serve his wife as she served her husband.”
”She would not dare, nor John,” answered Bodrugan.
”She would dare anything if it suited her. Harm you likewise, if you stood in her way. She has one thought in mind, to see John Keeper of Restormel and Sheriff of Cornwall, and herself his wife, queening it over all the crown lands as Lady Carminowe.”
”If it should come about I can't prevent it,” protested Bodrugan.
”As her brother you could try,” said Isolda, ”and at least prevent that monk from trailing at her heels with his poisonous draughts.”
”Joanna was always headstrong,” replied her lover. ”She has always done as she pleased. I cannot be on watch continually. I might say a word to Roger.”
”To the steward? He is as thick with the monk as she,” said Isolda scornfully. ”I warn you again, don't trust him, Otto. Neither on her account, nor on ours. He keeps our few meetings secret for the time because it pleases him.”
Once again I glanced at Roger, and saw the shadow on his face. I wished someone would call him from the room so that he could no longer play eavesdropper. It would put him against her to hear his faults so plainly stated and with such dislike.
”He stood by me last October and will do so again,” said Bodrugan.
”He stood by you then because he reckoned he had much to gain,” replied Isolda. ”Now you can do little for him, why should he risk losing his position? One word to Joanna, and thence to John, and thence to Oliver, and we'd be lost.”
”Oliver is in London.”
”London today, perhaps. But malice travels with every wind that blows. Tomorrow Bere or Bockenod. The next day Tregest or Carminowe. Oliver cares not a jot if I live or die, he has women wherever he goes, but his pride would never brook a faithless wife. And that I know.” A cloud had come between them, and in the sky too, gathering above the hills beyond the valley. All the brightness of the summer day had gone. Innocence had vanished, and with it the serenity of their world. Mine too. Separated by centuries, I somehow shared their guilt.
”How late is it?” she asked.
”Near six, by the sun,” he answered. ”Does it matter?”
”The children should be away with Alice,” she said. ”They may come running to find me, and they must not see you here.”
”Roger is with them,” he told her, ”he will take care they leave us alone.”
”Nevertheless, I must bid them goodnight, or they will never mount their ponies.”
She began to move away along the gra.s.s, and as she did so the steward also slipped from his dark corner and crossed the hail. I followed, puzzled. They could not be staying in the house after all but somewhere else, at Bockenod, perhaps. But the Boconnoc I knew was a longish ride for children on ponies in late afternoon; they would hardly reach it before dusk. We went through the hallway to the open court beyond, and through the archway to the stables. Roger's brother Robbie was there, saddling the ponies, helping the little girls to mount, laughing and joking with the nurse who, propped high on her own steed, had some trouble in making it stand still.
”He'll go quietly enough with two of you on his back,” called Roger. ”Robbie shall sit on the pony with you and keep you warm. Before you or behind you, state your preference. It's all the same to him, isn't it, Robbie?”
The nurse, a country girl with flaming cheeks, gawked delightedly, protesting she could ride very well alone, and there was further giggling, instantly silenced with a frown from Roger as Isolda came into the stable yard. He moved to her side, head bent in deference.
”The children will be safe enough with Robbie,” he said, ”but I can escort them if you prefer it.”
”I do prefer it,” she said briefly. ”Thank you.”
He bowed, and she crossed the yard to the children, who were already mounted, managing their ponies with the greatest ease.
”I shall stay here awhile,” she told them, kissing each in turn, ”and return later. No whipping of the ponies on the road, mind, to make them go the faster. And do as Alice bids you.”
”We'll do as he bids,” said the youngest, pointing her small whip at Roger, or he'll twist our tongues to see if they turn black.
”I don't doubt it,” answered Isolda, ”that, or some other method of enforcing silence.”
The steward smiled in some confusion, but she did not look at him and he went forward, seizing the children's bridles in either hand, and began to lead the ponies towards the archway, jerking his head to Robbie to do likewise with the nurse's mount. Isolda came with us as far as the entrance gate, and then I was torn between compulsion and desire.
Compulsion to follow the little party led by Roger, desire to look at Isolda as she stood alone, waving to her children, unconscious that I stood beside her.
I knew I must not touch her. I knew if I did it would have no more effect upon her than a draught of air-not even that, for in her world I never had existed, nor ever could exist, for she was living and I a ghost without shape or form. If I gave myself the sudden useless pleasure of brus.h.i.+ng her cheek there would be no contact, she would instantly dissolve, and I should be left with all the agony of vertigo, nausea and inevitable remorse. Luckily I was spared the choice. She waved her hand once more, looking straight into my eyes and through me, then turned and crossed the court back to the house.
I followed the riding party down the field. Isolda and Bodrugan would be alone for a few more hours. Perhaps they would make love. I hoped, with a sort of desperate sympathy, that they would. I had the feeling time was running out for them, and for me as well. The track led downwards to the ford where the mill-stream, coursing through the valley, met the salt-water from the creek. Now, the tide low, the ford was pa.s.sable, and when the children came to it Roger released the bridles, and clapping his hand on the hindquarters of either pony set them to gallop through the splash, the children screaming with delight. He did the same to the third pony, bearing Robbie and the nurse, who let out a shriek that must have been heard on either side of the valley. The blacksmith from the forge across the stream-the fire's glow and the anvil beside it, and a couple of horses waiting to be shod showed that this must be the smithy-came out from his shed grinning, and seizing a pair of bellows from the lad at his side pointed them at the nurse, so that the blast caught her petticoats, already spattered with the mill-stream.
”Take the poker red from the fire to warm her up,” shouted Roger, and the blacksmith made pretence of brandis.h.i.+ng an iron bar, sparks flying in all directions, while Robbie, half-strangled by the hysterical nurse and doubled up with laughter, dug his heels into the pony's side to make him jump the more. The spectacle brought out the miller and his mate from the mill this side of the stream. I saw that they were monks, and there was a cart drawn up in the yard beside the building, tended by two others, who were filling it with grain. They paused in their work, grinning like the blacksmith, and one of them put his two hands to his mouth and hooted in imitation of an owl, while his companion flapped his arms rapidly above his head as wings.
”Make your choice, Alice,” called Roger. ”Fire and wind from Rob Rosgof in the forge, or shall the brothers tie you by your kirtle to the water-wheel?”
The water-wheel, the water-wheel, screamed the children from the further side of the ford, believing, in their excitement, that Alice was to be dowsed. Then suddenly, as swiftly as it had started, the sport was over. Roger waded through the splash with the water mid-thigh, and, seizing the children's ponies once again, took the right-hand track up the valley, with Robbie and the nurse in close pursuit. I was preparing to follow him across the ford when one of the labouring monks in the mill-yard let out another shout-at least, I took it to be the monk, and turned to see what he was about, but instead a small car, with an irate driver at the wheel, had braked sharply behind me.
”Why don't you buy yourself a deaf-aid?” he yelled, swerving past me, almost plunging into the ditch as he did so. I stood blinking after the car as it shot away, and the people in the back, seat, three abreast, dolled for a Sunday outing, stared through the rear window in shocked surprise.
Time had done its trick, too swift, too soon. There was no running mill-stream and no water-splash, no forge the further side; I was standing in the middle of the Treesmill road at the bottom of the valley. I leant against the low bridge spanning the marsh. A near- miss; it might have landed the whole party in the ditch, and myself as well. I couldn't apologise, for the car had already disappeared up the opposite hill. I sat still for a while waiting for any reaction, but none came. My heart was beating rather faster than usual, but that was natural, due to the shock of the car. I was lucky to escape. No blame to the driver, all my fault.