And then above the knight’s head I noticed, stitched in rounded, uneven letters, a legend in Latin: ‘HIC MILES INVICTUS SUPERBE STAT’. It was a long time since I had last been at my studies: since I had last felt Brother Raimond’s hand striking my cheek for forgetting my declensions or mistranslating a passage. But the aged librarian was not watching over me now, and in any case it was not a difficult sentence.
‘“Here stands proudly the undefeated knight”,’ I murmured. I traced my fingers across the raised forms of the letters, wondering how long it would have taken to stitch even that one sentence; how many months had been spent in all upon this embroidery; how many nuns must have laboured together with needle and thread. Malet was wealthy indeed if he could afford such a piece.
‘You know your letters,’ said ?lfwold, with some surprise. Few men of the sword were able to read or write. Neither Eudo nor Wace could; in fact of all the knights in Lord Robert’s household it was possible that I was the only literate one.
‘As a child I spent some years in a monastery,’ I replied. ‘That was before I left and joined Lord Robert.’
‘How old were you when you left?’
I hesitated. I had told few people anything about my time in the monastery at Dinant; the only ones who knew were those who were closest to me. They had not been the happiest of years, all told, and I did not much like to think of them. Yet even so, they had probably been happier times than these were now.
‘The summer when I fled was my fourteenth,’ I said quietly.
‘You fled?’
I turned away, back towards the image of the knight. Already I had said more than I had meant to.
‘Forgive me,’ ?lfwold said. ‘I do not mean to pry. It is none of my concern, I am sure. Though I do not blame you, for I have never much liked monasteries, still less monks themselves. I have always considered it better to spread God’s message in the world, rather than to while away one’s days in cloistered contemplation. One can so easily become lost in one’s own mind, and so fail to see the glory around us. It’s why I chose to become a priest rather than take the vows, all those years ago—’
‘Father ?lfwold!’
The voice carried sharp and clear across the hall. I looked up to see a young woman stepping lightly towards us. She wore a winter cloak trimmed with fur over a blue woollen dress. Her head was covered by a wimple, but a few strands of hair trailed loose from beneath it, like threads of spun gold.
‘Father ?lfwold,’ she said, in an even, mannered voice. ‘It’s good to see you.’
The chaplain smiled. ‘And you, my lady. You are going out, or have already been?’
‘I’ve just returned from the market.’ She looked at me then, as if I had only just appeared and she was noticing me for the first time. ‘Who is this?’
She had delicate features, coupled with pale cheeks and large eyes that glistened in the light, and I guessed that she was not much older than twenty summers, and probably even younger than that. In truth I often found it difficult to judge: when I had first seen Oswynn, I had thought her older than she was; there had been a wildness about her that made her seem beyond her years. It was only much later that I learnt she had but sixteen summers behind her, although it made little difference to me, for I had already found out she was experienced.
‘My name is Tancred a Dinant, my lady,’ I said. ‘Once knight of Earl Robert de Commines.’
‘He is presently under my care,’ ?lfwold explained. ‘He was at the battle at Dunholm, where he took an injury to his leg. Your father is giving him shelter until he recovers.’
‘I see,’ she said, though I was not entirely sure that she did, for she seemed to be taking little interest in what he was saying. Instead she was looking me up and down in the same disinterested manner as one might appraise a horse, until at last her eyes, tawny-brown, met mine, and then I thought I saw a flicker of a smile cross her face.
She was, it had to be said, attractive. Not in the obvious ways, perhaps, for she had less meat on her than I usually considered desirable in a woman, but attractive nonetheless: slender, with a narrow waist and full hips.
Her gaze lingered upon me a moment longer before she turned back to the priest. ‘Is my father about?’ she asked.
And then I understood: this was Malet’s daughter. I ought to have realised it sooner, firstly from the rich manner in which she was dressed, and also from the way the chaplain had addressed her.
‘I’m afraid he isn’t,’ ?lfwold said. ‘He has gone to meet with the archbishop at the minster. So far as I know he means to be back by noon.’
‘Very well,’ she said, withdrawing a couple of steps. ‘I’ll seek him out when he returns.’ She glanced once more at each of us, then without another word she hustled away, lifting her skirts so that they did not drag through the dirty rushes, though not so much that she risked baring any skin.
‘She’s the vicomte’s daughter?’ I asked as I watched her depart.
‘Beatrice Malet,’ the chaplain said in an admonishing tone. ‘And you would be wise not to ask any further of her.’ He frowned, and I saw there was a warning aspect to his gaze.