The Lion of Justice - Plaidy Jean. Страница 11

‘Why must there be this choice?’

‘Because you are an Atheling. The King may well offer you to the Duke of Bretagne. If he does the only thing that can save you is the veil. I will leave you to think of it. Do not forget what I have told you. Imagine yourself in that man’s bed. Then think of the peaceful, dignified life you could have here.’

‘I have not been happy here.’

‘Nay, for it has been my painful duty to chastise you. If you took your vows, if you made the proper choice, you would find how kind I could be. Now I will leave you. You will have much to think of. I believe you now. You do not care for that man...but all men are alike. You have learned much this day. Think on it.’

She was alone. Images would not disappear although she longed for them to do so. She could not help thinking of that man’s hands; the gleam in his eyes, the horrible words of the Abbess.

Then she touched the rough serge of her habit. Fiercely she hated it. But not more fiercely than she hated Alan of Bretagne.

* * * * *

What rejoicing filled Edith’s heart when Uncle Edgar arrived at Rumsey. He had always been the kind and gentle mentor, more easy to talk to than her own father. She was greatly relieved, for since the visit of Alan of Bretagne she had been haunted by nightmares; she had dreamed that she was poised between two fearful alternatives. She was on a path which led to beautiful pasture lands, but to reach those pastures she must pass through two gates—one guarded by a black-robed figure waiting to incarcerate her for life and the other by a beast with slavering lips who would submit her to all manner of humiliation and pain.

She needed no soothsayer to interpret that dream.

What will become of me? she wondered. Oh, where was her good Turgot? Where was her dear kind uncle? How often had she prayed that they would come to her, and now her prayers had been answered. Uncle Edgar had arrived at Rumsey.

Aunt Christina was present at their first meeting so that it was impossible to throw herself into his arms and tell him how happy she was to see him.

He had changed a little. There was something remote, almost saintly, about him.

‘Your uncle brings good news.’ said Aunt Christina, smiling and looking almost benevolent. She was always pleased to see members of her own family and of course Edgar was very important because he was the true King of England.

‘Yes.’ answered Edgar, smiling from Edith to Mary. ‘We

have had good fortune in Scotland. We have displaced the traitor Donald Bane and your brother is now King of Scotland.’

‘What excellent news.’ said Aunt Christina. ‘I hope the traitor has been made to answer for his sins.’

‘He stares blindly at his prison walls. His eyes were put out. He will never see the crown of Scotland again.’

Edith shuddered. They had taken the kingdom from him, she thought, but they could have left him his eyes. Better to have killed him than to have blinded him. And yet an evil man had pierced her father’s eye. It seemed a cruel world. But she must rejoice with the rest because her brother Edgar had regained the crown and they were no longer penniless fugitives living on the bounty of the King of England.

Edith wanted to talk to Edgar alone that she might discuss the dilemma which faced her. Her spirits were high. Now that Edgar had regained his crown there would surely be a place for her in Scotland.

She could not tell him of her anxieties with Christina looking on, but there would be an opportunity later.

She was dismayed to hear that her uncle intended to stay but a few days, but she did manage to convey to him her great need to see him alone.

They walked in the gardens together—he in his embroidered cloak, she in her black Benedictine robes.

‘Oh Uncle.’ she said, ‘please help me.’

‘If God wills.’ he said.

‘Alan of Bretagne has been to Rumsey.’

‘I know it well. He wishes to marry you.’

‘I cannot do it, Uncle.’

‘My dear child.’ said Edgar, ‘there comes a time in our lives when we have to do that which does not please us.’

‘This is no small matter. This is for the rest of my life.’

‘I have to tell you, Edith, that I am going away.’ A rapt expression crossed his face. You have heard there is to be a Holy War. Jerusalem, the Holy City, is in the hands of the Infidel. Our pilgrims have been robbed and tortured. We have decided to take the city from the Saracens and put it where it belongs, in Christian hands. The Duke of Normandy will go into battle. He is amassing a great army. I shall go with him.’

‘You are going to leave us then?’

‘I have in truth come to say farewell to you before I go to

Normandy. I am joining the Duke’s army and we shall ‘ere long be leaving for the Holy Land.’

‘You must help me before you go, Uncle Edgar. What can I do? I cannot marry Alan of Bretagne.’

‘Why not, my child? He was good enough for the Conqueror’s daughter. He was accepted as the great King’s son through marriage. Why should you feel thus?’

‘Because he is old, Uncle.’

‘He is not too old to beget children; and he is a man of power in Normandy.’

‘I cannot bear him near me. Please do not let them force me into marriage with him.’

‘The King of England approves the match.’

‘But my brother is now King of Scotland. You have won back his crown for him.’

‘The King of Scotland is the vassal of the King of England. If Rufus promises you to Alan of Bretagne there is no gainsaying his wish. Your brother owes his crown to the King of England, for it was his forces who won it back for him.’

‘It was you and my brother,’ cried Edith.

‘We commanded the army, but the soldiers came from Rufus and the price he asked was that Scotland should be a vassal of England.’ Edgar smiled his gentle smile but she knew his thoughts were far away in the Holy Land. ‘If Rufus gives you to Alan of Bretagne there is no help for it. You will be his wife.’

She covered her face with her hands.

‘Little niece,’ said the gentle Edgar, ‘is marriage so distasteful to you?’

She lowered her hands. ‘Nay,’ she said. ‘I know there could be great good in it. My mother was the best woman in the world’...she said that defiantly, thinking of Aunt Christina...‘and she bore many children. I wish to bear children. I wish to make a home. But I would rather anything than marriage with Alan of Bretagne.’

‘So it is his person that revolts you.’

‘He is old and he smells of horses and he is rough and he would not care for me only for the sons...and the pleasure...he could derive from me. Uncle Edgar, I want marriage but not with Alan of Bretagne.’

‘My dear niece, Princesses cannot choose these matters.’

‘I know it well, but not Alan of Bretagne.’

‘It will rest with the King.’

‘And you say he has given his consent.’

‘He will I believe. He is pleased with the man because he has satisfactorily given him Normandy in pawn. This marriage would be a kind of reward for the services he has rendered.’

‘And am I to have no choice then?’

‘Oh come, Edith, you are young, and you have childish notions. Marriage to one or another...what matters it?’

‘It matters to me,’ said Edith.

‘You will go to Normandy; you will be chatelaine of a great castle; you will have your children.’

‘No, Uncle Edgar.’

But Uncle Edgar was smiling serenely. He was obsessed by his own future glory. He was seeing himself in the battle—not that he was a great soldier nor did he love the battlefield—but he loved a cause; and this was the holiest cause of all: the wresting of the Holy Land from the Infidel and placing it in Christian hands.

For his part in such an enterprise surely a man would win his place of honour in the life hereafter. And of what importance was an ignorant young girl’s fear of marriage compared with such glory?