XLIV

The ride home was almost cheerful for the two little girls were so glad to be back among those who loved them, and to be coming home, that they bore their pain and indignity bravely and would not allow us to be saddened. Their wounds, thank the Lord, appeared to be healing well. I had examined them for any trace of unusual reddening or the gathering of evil matter. When we stopped at St André for the night, I applied some healing balm from Brother Paul that I had in my travelling bag, and let God do the rest.

It was only when we were approaching Breteuil that I began to be uneasy again. How was their mother going to bear up when she saw her lambs so wounded and disfigured? Knowing her as I did, I feared she would run mad and do something that would harm her and maybe harm us all. There was no doubt in my mind that she would hold her husband responsible. She would very likely want to kill him, and when there is discord of this kind in a house it affects all those who live in it.

I expressed something of this to the Marshal when we stopped near Damville for refreshment, just a few miles from home, and I could talk to him away from the girls and their sharp ears.

‘It is a bad thing for all of us,’ said the Marshal, ‘when something like this happens, it is bound to affect morale. Our knights here will talk and when the word gets round that the Comte has been responsible for the maiming of his daughters. There will be shock and revulsion. It will spread to the town and the whole neighbourhood will know, the whole county. Our friends will feel sorry for us and our enemies will laugh. We can only hurt little girls, they will say. We need something to make us feel better.’

‘What can I do?’ I asked.

‘You have influence with Lady Juliana. Stay with her and see that she does not do anything to make our house of Breteuil suffer further. Revenge must be close to her thoughts at the moment. Try to persuade her to do nothing immediate.’

‘My old tutor used to work with Sicilians at the hospital in Salerno. He told me they have a saying that revenge is best eaten like vitello tonnato.’

‘What is that?’

‘Thinly sliced roast veal on a bed of cooked tuna fish beaten into little pieces, mixed with a sort of savoury cream.’

‘It sounds disgusting.’

‘He said it was rather good.’

‘And what is that to do with revenge?’

‘It is served cold.’

The Marshal smiled.

‘You tell her that, Master Latiner. I think she’ll like it. Meanwhile, what are you going to do now your charges are in this sad condition? Latin will not perhaps be possible now. If you should contemplate a change of employment in the future, I am sure we could offer you a job as a soldier. You ride a horse well, you are good at the melee, you fight better than that oaf Fulk, and you speak Latin – always useful on the battlefield…’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You certainly know how to compliment a man.’

He laughed for the first time since we had collected the little girls.

‘You would make a good soldier. I am sure we could enlist you with the knights after a week or two. What do you think?’

I thought about it as we walked. It was true, the Comtesse might very well have no use for me now. If that were so, there would be nothing to keep me at Breteuil or any of the Comte’s castles. What would I do? The last thing I wanted was to return to my father wearing a beggar’s hat.

I turned to the Marshal, gratefully.

‘I am honoured by the suggestion,’ I said. ‘But I am my lady’s servant. She found me and brought me here. If she still needs me, I must remain. If not, of course, your offer would be very welcome, though I do not think I could serve in the Comte’s army.’

‘That is fair,’ he smiled. ‘But there are times when it is better to have some employment than none. We need good men. There are so many evil ones about.’

I walked on more cheerfully, as we rejoined the party. It is always good to make a friend. But when we finally arrived at the castle, there was little cheer to be had. The usher must have briefed to warn her, for no sooner had we walked into the hall, than Juliana appeared, pale but evidently recovering from her fever, and lovelier than ever in a fine blue dress.

She ran down the stairs to the girls, ignoring the rest of us completely, gathered them up without stopping to look at their poor little faces, and took them with her up to her quarters. She said not a word. We took no offence. We all looked at each other, and that was that. The Marshal indicated to me that I should go up, but I knew Juliana better than he did. When she wished to be alone, you intruded at your peril.

Finally, the Marshal and the knights went back to their quarters, and the crowd disbanded. There was no sign of Eustace. Later that night, after a supper of ale and cold meats, I went up to Juliana’s chambers and knocked on the door. She had evidently washed the little girls with the help of the old nurse, dressed their wounds with some of the salve I had given her, and put them to sleep in her own room. It seemed that she was proposing to sit up beside them all night. I took her in my arms when the maid withdrew and found that she was shaking. I thought that she was weeping, but it was pure rage. I did not want to wake the girls so I took her into an ante-chamber.

‘It is not possible,’ she kept saying. ‘It cannot be. It could not be done. Whoever heard of it in the history of the world?’

‘You must keep calm,’ I said, stupidly.

‘Why should I? Just wait till I catch him and then we shall see.’

‘Who do you speak of, Juliana? Tell me. Speak to me. I am your friend.’

‘The bugger,’ she said, ‘the shit turd of the devil’s own arsehole.’

A string of worse expletives followed which, though I am no prude and have sworn with the best, I still cannot bring myself to write down. It would traduce her memory. Sufficient to say that they were ripe. The worst thing was hearing such foulness from a mouth that was sweeter than roses. Where had she learned such a repertoire? She must have been hanging round the stables on pay day.

‘Who are you talking about? Eustace?’

She stopped ranting and looked at me intently.

‘Who are you anyway?’

‘I am Bertold, as you know.’

‘Don’t you see what they have done?’

I was afraid she was going mad.

‘I see only too well,’ I told her.

‘How can you see only too well when my daughters are blind?’ she said, combatively.

She had not thanked me for bringing her daughters home from the Castle of Despair, nor did I need thanks, but I thought I should mention it if only to distract her from her convulsion.

‘I know they are blind because I collected them on your behalf from your father and his castellan.’

‘Don’t mention their names. I have no father.’

I thought it better to leave. I was evidently doing no good.

‘Don’t go,’ she said. ‘Hold me. I must not go mad. I must be strong. I feel my life has ended, just as theirs has. Whatever I can do for them, if I devote my whole life to them – as I will – I can never make up for what has happened.’

I embraced her, held her to me. Even or especially in her distress, I was almost undone by desire for her, but it would have been worse than discourtesy to show it at that moment.

‘I love you,’ I said, simply.

‘Fuck me now,’ she said. ‘Take me. Do what you will.’

She started tearing off her clothes and lay down on the truckle-bed in the corner of the little room, spreading her legs.

How much I wanted to possess her now, in this whore mode of hers that had never been displayed before. In every mode she was delicious. But I would not do it; and indeed I could not. I saw her on the grass beside the Castellan’s long legs.

‘No,’ I told her.

She cursed me.

‘Fuck you,’ she said. ‘Bastard.’

She arranged her dress, folded in her legs, and stood up, defiantly, completely unabashed by her extraordinary invitation to me. She was reckless, extravagant, possessed.

‘I will love you always,’ I said.

‘What are you talking about?’ she asked, as if I had been offering her oranges. ‘Don’t you see? Everything is ruined. You’d better go. I shall be myself or something like it in the morning. We shall pretend to the girls that everything is normal, that to be blind and to look like a little pig is the most normal thing in the world. We shall pretend to be blind ourselves. You shall be a pig and teach them blind Latin.’

‘I will teach them Latin,’ I said, rather doubting that was what the girls would want to do. ‘The drawing classes we will have to cancel, but we will play with words.’

‘Thank you, dear Latiner,’ she said, suddenly relenting. ‘That is a good idea.’

She laid a hand on my arm.

‘Who were you calling a shit just now?’ I asked. ‘Did you mean Eustace?’

‘No, of course not. Eustace is a fool. He is a fool who thinks he is clever, and that’s a real fool. The shit is my father. He is the one who’s going to suffer.’

‘It will be hard,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t suffer easily.’

‘I will surprise him. You can be sure of that.’

‘The Sicilians have a thing they call vendetta,’ I told her. ‘I was speaking of it to the Marshal. It can be a long business, but they never forget an injury, and it has to be avenged.’

‘That sounds good to me, Latiner. That is what I’ll do. Vendetta. I will have some of that.’

I left her and went to my little room. I was tired as a dog after my travels, and my home-coming had tired me more. I fell asleep at once, but at some point of darkness, probably about prime, I felt or dreamt again the presence of someone enter my little chamber and stand for a while, watching me pensively, before departing.