Chapter 8 You #2
Madness. You eye Bisclavret again, carefully, as though you might see a sign of it in him.
You have no great love of noise and crowds yourself, most of the time, but you would not make a claim like this to escape them.
‘Your father was a baron,’ you point out.
‘I know not yet the full extent of his lands, but they will be far more substantial than your mother’s dower, and so will your duties, and the men you owe to me.
’ You have no desire for war, but still the kingdom must be ready for it, should such a day arrive.
‘It will be no quiet retreat. I fear granting your inheritance would be more a burden than a gift, if you are so unsure of your own capabilities.’
You do not intend to keep from him his birthright, but he must see, surely, that this ends either with a return to his exile or rising to his father’s place, and the latter will be a new life, one he has not known.
And you . . . you mislike the idea of losing him to exile again.
Of losing the chance to see what he might become, to tease out the hints of the stubborn, irreverent man you glimpse hiding beneath his shyness.
To hone the edge of his rough-hewn beauty and make it something you can bear to look at, without feeling that the air has been stolen from your lungs.
There’s a heavy silence, and then his cousin speaks: ‘Let me help him.’
You both look at him in surprise; you recover first. ‘What manner of help were you thinking?’
‘I will serve as steward on his father’s estate.
Help to train his men, help keep the readiness for war, so that he carries not the burden alone.
You would . . . you would need to release me from my service to my lord, sire, that I might do this without shame or reprisals, but I would do it willingly. ’
‘I would not take your knighthood from you,’ protests Bisclavret. ‘We were to be knights together. To have you serve me as steward, it’s—’
‘A waste?’ interrupts his cousin, with a self-mocking smile.
‘I am a knight in service, Bisclavret, landless with little hope of inheritance. I am better spent helping you, at least until you learn the way of it, and have men you trust to serve you in place of me. It was to aid you that I was sent to you in our youth, after all.’
You consider this. It is no trouble to you if the cousin truly wants this, and it would aid Bisclavret. But it does not solve the issue at hand. ‘And with your estate cared for, will it be able to spare you to the court? Or do you maintain that you could not live here?’
Bisclavret looks tormented. ‘Sire, I . . . I will do as you command me, and I cannot claim I do not want this. But I know myself. I know what I can withstand. This is beyond me.’
You think of that first night, of Bisclavret absent from the hall; the way you found him, in the morning, looking as though he had fought his own nightmares to return to you. Was that a reflection of this infirmity, or wine-sickness of the usual kind?
You think of the challenge in his voice when he offered you his oath. You well believe that he wants this – so whatever it is that keeps him from accepting it, it must be something grave, such that he cannot even speak the truth of it to you.
There is a knock, and then your knight in green looks into the room.
‘I’m sorry to intrude, my lord, but your .
. . scribe is here to see you.’ His hesitation means little, you’re sure.
He’s not the sort to judge you; if anybody is being judged here, it is the scribe, for being a stranger, and unacquainted with your knights.
‘Show him in,’ you say. It has been only hours since you instructed him to look for Bisclavret’s father’s lands, and you didn’t expect news so soon.
Your scribe is looking almost respectable now, halfway to a cleric in his dark, sober clothes, his tangled hair hidden by a cap.
Only the ink on his fingers gives him away – that, and the sly curve of his smile.
He holds a roll of vellum, which he hands to you.
‘The charter you were seeking, my lord,’ he says, and glances at Bisclavret with barely concealed curiosity.
‘My scribe and custodian of books,’ you tell Bisclavret, by way of introduction. ‘I set him to the task of identifying the location and fate of your father’s lands.’
‘A welcome distraction from the state of the records,’ says the scribe, kissing Bisclavret in greeting and then, by way of afterthought, his cousin. ‘You must be the fair unknown about whom I’ve heard so little.’
‘I . . .’ Bisclavret colours, laughs a little. ‘You make a story of me, master scribe.’
‘Ah, as is ever my task,’ he responds. ‘I see you’ve been fighting. I am sorry to have missed it; I’m sure it was a sight worth seeing.’
The blush deepens. ‘I am sure your work was grateful for your attention.’
‘Oh, I’m sure it was,’ says the scribe, and his smile widens.
‘At present I’m at work at the copying of a collection of lais and romances, if the parchment with its holes doesn’t defeat me first, and if I’m not sent in search of too many more half-forgotten charters.
’ He nods to the roll in your hands. ‘Aren’t you going to look at it, my lord? ’
You unroll it, skimming the painfully complex hand of some long-forgotten scribe with a wince.
Your scribe may be foreign enough to give the seneschal a headache with his abbreviations, but he has a fair hand, monastery-trained, and the scripts of the present age are a little easier on your eyes than those of a century or two ago.
‘This records only the granting of the land to Bisclavret’s father’s line,’ you say.
‘It is . . .’ You hesitate, reading the description again.
‘Why, it’s scarcely an hour’s ride from here.
Perhaps less, to the most easterly border, which is . . .’
‘Firmly bisecting part of your finest hunting forest, yes,’ says the scribe, with some apparent amusement. ‘It seems the woodland was once cultivated, but your father conveniently forgot this, when it offered his deer more space to roam.’
You read the charter again. ‘But you’ve found no record of it being granted after his death?’
‘It was given to nobody. Whether this was carelessness on your father’s part or avarice, I can’t be sure, but those lands remain in the hands of the crown. You could restore them today, if you chose to.’
An hour’s ride from here. Land on the very edge of the forest. Perfectly suited to a fine hunter, perfectly within your capacity to grant, and none could see it as undue favour, for they were his father’s lands. It is the most elegant solution to the situation that any could have offered you.
You look up at Bisclavret, who is staring at the parchment in your hands as though it is a saint’s relic, miraculous and holy.
‘What say you, Bisclavret? No need to remain at court, with a home so close. You may keep your father’s lands and join us for feasts and tournaments. And you would have hunting rights.’
He wants it. You can see well that he wants it.
‘Those were truly my father’s lands?’ he says.
‘He lived so close to the court? No wonder my mother—’ But his voice cracks, and he breaks off before finishing that sentence.
You wonder what would have completed it: No wonder my mother wanted them back.
No wonder our exile wore so heavily on her.
‘They were your father’s, and they will be yours,’ you say. ‘And you will be a knight, without the madness.’ This with a light tone – you do not truly believe him mad, though it’s quite the figment to concoct, in place of whatever his true infirmity might be.
‘A knight,’ he whispers, wonderingly. ‘I will . . . I am to be a knight.’
His voice breaks on the word, breath stolen by joy and wonder. You exchange a glance with your scribe; he has a pleased smile, to have enabled such delight, though elsewise his expression is as sharp and curious as ever.
Bisclavret’s cousin, less wonder-struck, says, ‘Sire, he will need time to return to his mother’s lands and make arrangements with his steward.
We will leave tomorrow, if it please you.
I anticipate that we will be returned within a fortnight.
Will that be enough time, do you think, for clothing and weapons to be made or fetched for him, and the ceremonies to be arranged? ’
He will make a fine steward, brusque and efficient like that, but you feel a pang of dismay at the thought of losing Bisclavret so soon.
You had . . . well, you had scarce thought about the practicalities, beyond a vague idea that he would be dubbed and raised to brotherhood within a day or so.
Of course it can’t be so; the castle chaplain would have your head and months of penance for demanding such a thing without the proper preparations, and your scribe will need time to set the record to rights.
‘A fine plan,’ you agree, reluctantly, ‘and I will speak to your lord and have you released from his service.’ Then you look back at Bisclavret.
‘And you will swear to me as knight and baron, and nothing less. Perhaps it is for this that the weather waylaid you on your first journey to the court. One might almost see the hand of the Almighty in it.’
He swallows hard. ‘One might indeed,’ he says.
And, like that, he is yours.