Warlord(113)

Christmastide came and went; I drank my way through the entire season, sitting for hours alone by the fire in the centre of the hall, and sipping at mug after mug of warmed wine. In truth, I remember little of that time, although I do recall that, even fogged by wine, those short grey days and long tortured nights of late winter seemed to last an eternity. I was dimly aware of the other members of the household continuing with their daily tasks: Baldwin overseeing the demesne as if I were not there, which was true, in one sense, and Thomas exercising Shaitan and taking command of the dozen men-at-arms who now lived with us – once Robin’s men, but now, I dimly assumed, mine. I fed them, anyway, and housed them, and stabled their horses; and Thomas exercised with them and took them hunting on my lands to keep them fit for battle.

One washed-out morning in March, Goody came to me. I was sitting in my favourite X-shaped chair outside the entrance to the hall, watching the chickens scratch about in the dirt of the courtyard and thinking about a young English servant boy I had murdered in the Holy Land – God forgive me, I had cut his soft, white throat while he was tied and helpless. And, although it was long past dawn, I was still dressed in an old sweat-stained chemise, one that I had been wearing for many days and nights, and I was wrapped in a tattered blanket against the chill and sipping my customary morning mug of wine.

‘I’ve had enough,’ Goody said, without preamble, and I blinked up at her like a newly awakened owl. ‘I have been waiting for you to say something about the matter since before Christmas, and now I’ve had quite enough. I’ve had enough of your moping, your silences, your drunkenness, and your bottomless self-pity. And whether you like it or not we are going to end all that right now. I am holding you to your word: we shall be married at Eastertide. There has been no sign of Nur for nearly a year now, and I will not stand for any further delays. Baldwin and I will make all the arrangements: your job is to pull yourself together and turn up, clean, sober and cheerful, at the church. Do you think you can do that, my darling husband-to-be?’

I was astounded by the change in my betrothed: her normally loving violet eyes were sparkling like cold blue gemstones, her mouth was a grim line. I knew that she had a fearsome temper, but she had never directed it at me before then. I merely gawped up at her, and then recovered myself enough to dumbly nod.

Goody reached out and pulled the mug of wine from my unresisting grip. ‘For a start,’ she said, ‘no wine in the mornings. You may have a drop with dinner, if you must, but otherwise you will drink ale, well-watered, like the rest of us before noon. And get yourself to the bath-house, you smell like a month-dead polecat. You are embarrassing yourself, and me, in front of the servants, not to mention your tenants in the village. Go on now, and if you can’t cheer up at least wash up.’

‘How dare you—’ I began.

Goody brought her head closer to mine; her brilliant eyes bored into mine, and she said quietly but in a voice trembling with passion: ‘Alan, my dear, I do love you, but you will do as you are told – do you hear me? I want a real man as a husband, not a sweat-stinking sot and, so help me, I will have one, even if I have to fetch Baldwin and Thomas and some of the men to hold you down while I scrub you sober myself.’

I was so surprised by her new demeanour towards me that I was rendered speechless. Which, I believe, was a very fortunate thing. I do not like to think what would have happened if I had defied her. And so I ordered the servants to prepare a piping-hot wooden tub in the wash house, soaped and scrubbed myself thoroughly, dressed in suitable clean clothes, and made an effort to wear the mask of a happy, carefree fellow.

I should like to tell you that Goody’s irresistible words cleansed my soul of its malaise, and that after that I was a different man: cheerful, sober and filled with purpose. I should dearly like to tell you that. But the world does not turn in that way, at least not for me, and I have vowed to tell the truth on these pages.

I did make much more of an effort, though, to appear happy and normal; I rose early each day, whether I had slept or not, and I realized that my fondness for wine had passed an acceptable point, and banished the fruit of the vine from our table except at great feasts. But I was not cured; the soul-sickness lingered, filling my bones with lead, my stomach with vinegar and my head with bloody horrors. At the end of each long, dreary day, sober, sad and exhausted, I would retire to my chamber and huddle beneath my blankets, staring at the white plastered wall by the feeble light of a wax-dipped rush, both dreading and yearning for sleep.

Baldwin and Goody made all the arrangements for the wedding. Easter was late that year and we were to be married the week after it on the last day of April. But two arrivals to the neighbourhood in that crisp spring month blew all our plans apart like cobwebs in a gale.