Chapter Four #5
He went into the house, and came out presently with two glasses and a jug on a tray, and poured carefully, taking time to get the head perfect.
He handed one to Giles, and it was evident that he intended to remain standing, all too aware of the great honour of having the earl call in person at his cottage, instead of summoning him to the Castle.
So Giles said, ‘Sit down, man. I want to talk to you, and it makes my neck ache craning up at you.’
Axe was too good a servant to argue, but reluctance was in every line of his body as he sat on the bench next to Giles, waited courteously until Giles drank, then took a sip from his own glass.
In this world, in this life, Axe Brandom would never have asked, ‘What did you want to say to me, my lord?’ He would wait, and eventually he would know.
There never had been a man so much made up of stillness, Giles thought.
It amused him to wait and say nothing, to enjoy the taste of the dark gold beer, with its yeasty froth the colour of hawthorn blossom, knowing that he could never out-wait Axe Brandom.
The two men, side by side and separated by a world of custom and history, drank in silence and watched the dogs playing, and the breeze silvering the long grass at the clearing’s edge as it bent and straightened.
Giles sipped, and savoured, and wondered idly who it was that Axe had thought would ride in.
He had seen the dogs, he must have known… ?
Two-thirds of the way down the glass, Giles drew a sigh, and decided to speak.
The bitch had tired of the game and come to sit and lean against her master’s gaitered calf, squeezing her eyes shut in the thin sunshine like a cat.
Tiger and Isaac coursed about the yard slowly, noses to the ground, following this scent and that.
The querulous ducks had gone off somewhere together; a striped cat was couched on the protruding lintel of the barn door, insultingly at ease on such a narrow perch, pretending sleep but keeping half of one eye on the dogs.
‘It’s about this medal,’ Giles said. He felt Axe, who had started to relax, stiffen at the word. ‘It’s a very great honour to be put up for it, you know.’
‘I didn’t ask it,’ Axe said, his voice neutral.
‘What you did was exceptional,’ Giles said.
‘I’ve talked to the rector, who spoke to a number of witnesses.
You risked serious injury to yourself, and probably saved several lives.
I’m told five or six people were got out while you held up that thing.
God knows how you had the strength! Without your intervention they would have been trapped, and the fire was spreading. ’
‘A lot of people were involved, my lord,’ Axe said, and there was the merest tremor of some emotion in his voice. Giles could not decide what it was. ‘’Twasn’t just me.’
Giles saw his lips were compressed, his brows drawn, with some negative emotion – it looked like disapproval. ‘They couldn’t have done anything without you. You are a hero, and it should be acknowledged.’
‘Everyone did what they could. I’m no different.’
‘I don’t understand you, Brandom. You should be proud.’
‘Pride is a sin. Says so in the Bible.’
‘That’s a different sort of pride.’
‘Didn’t know there was more’n one, my lord,’ Axe said stubbornly.
‘Look here, everyone thinks highly of you, everyone wants you to have this medal, the whole village is thrilled with what you did. You’d get to go up to London, to Buckingham Palace, and have the King himself pin the medal on you and shake your hand. Surely you can’t say no to that?’
He saw Axe’s cheeks redden as he spoke, and now the man looked at him, with some heat in those blue eyes.
‘I never asked for no fuss, my lord, and I don’t like it.
I’m a quiet man, and I live a quiet life, and I don’t want strangers looking at me and asking me questions, and putting me in the papers.
That’s not me. ’Twasn’t for the hope of any reward I did what I did.
’Twas only what anyone would’ve done in the same place, and it’s – it’s disproportionate to make me bear such a fuss on that account. ’
It was the longest speech Giles had ever heard from him – probably the longest he’d ever made.
He felt a twinge of sympathy, put himself in Brandom’s place and thought it wasn’t so much disproportionate – good word though that was – but too alien, to the man and the whole of the rest of his life.
It would be out of step, out of nature – and this was a man who lived very much within his nature.
‘I appreciate your feelings,’ Giles said, ‘and I can see how all this seems unlike you, so unlike it rather frightens you. You think you might not be the same person afterwards.’ Axe flicked him a glance, and he knew he had hit the target.
‘But in a way that’s the point. When someone does something extraordinary, people want to do something extraordinary to celebrate it.
An everyday handshake wouldn’t satisfy. I’m asking you, Brandom, to take into account the emotions of everyone who knows you, and to bear the responsibility of their admiration.
It’s a great deal to ask, especially of a man who values his privacy as you do, but love is a responsibility, wherever it’s found. ’
‘Love, my lord?’ He wrinkled his brow quizzically, but some of the unhappy tension had gone out of his face.
Giles smiled. ‘It’s not a word often used between men, I know, but it is love. Your family, your friends and acquaintances, everyone in the village, all love you, and they want to show it. It would be churlish, you know, to disappoint them.’
Axe stared at the ground, one hand automatically caressing the ear of the terrier, who leaned into his touch.
After a moment, he heaved a sigh, an unhappy one that came up from the soles of his boots, the sigh of a man accepting a sentence for a crime he didn’t commit, in order to protect a loved one.
‘If you say it like that, my lord, I suppose I have to do it.’
‘Good man,’ Giles said, and clapped his shoulder. ‘It’s the right decision.’
‘What do I do now?’ he asked hopelessly.
‘Don’t worry, everything will be arranged for you, and you’ll get full instructions, with plenty of notice.
You don’t have to do anything now. The ceremony will probably be a few months ahead, in June or July.
My advice is to put it from your mind until everything is arranged.
But if there’s anything you want to ask, feel free to ask me.
Now or later. I want to make it as easy as possible for you. ’
‘I don’t think I’ll ever find it easy, my lord,’ Axe said. ‘But thank you.’ He looked up, with a new frown. ‘I don’t get called anything, do I?’
‘Called anything? Oh, you mean, is there a title? No, no. But you can put the letters AM after your name.’ Axe shook his head in amused disbelief. ‘Axe Brandom, AM,’ Giles went on. ‘Or whatever your name really is. I realise I have no idea what “Axe” is short for.’
‘Not short for anything, my lord. Axe is my kirsted name, just as it sounds.’
Giles blinked, taken aback. ‘A very splendid name it is, too,’ he recovered. ‘A name fit for a hero.’
Axe only shook his head again.