‘Yes, quite right. Leo was always son-hungry. His wife died giving birth to a fifth son conceived much too soon after the birth of the fourth. But Leo Rubenid is not a man to take a doctor’s or a midwife’s word that his wife has suffered internal injuries which must heal before he beds and impregnates her again. Had I agreed to marry him, he would have swept me off to his fortress in Cilicia, which is a hundred miles north-west of my family’s home and a turbulent land in which a cauldron of races and religions bubbles in constant enmity. Dwellings must be like Leo’s, for the only way to survive is behind high, stout walls. There is no urban sophistication whatsoever. Once inside my husband’s castle, there I should have stayed, reclining on my silken cushions and listening to the fountains splash into their copper bowls, all the time waiting for the moment when I should be summoned to my husband’s side. To his bed.’ She looked down.
‘You said you discovered that he was a monster?’ Helewise prompted.
‘Yes; yes, I did.’ The young woman seemed reluctant to go on. But then she raised her head and said, ‘There was a boy in my father’s employ. He was very sweet, very young — well, about my age, in fact, but he had not had my sophisticated childhood — and he was a jongleur. You know what that is, my lady?’
‘An entertainer, I believe.’
‘Yes. The jongleurs are professional entertainers who sing, play instruments, dance, tumble and juggle. The boy of whom I speak was a lute-player, a singer and a poet. He made up his own songs and he was very popular, for often the songs poked gentle fun at the great and the good. He-’ She blushed suddenly and once again looked down. ‘He thought he was in love with me, my lady. He wrote a love song for me, and when I made it clear that although I was flattered I did not and could not love him, he wrote another song that was a thinly veiled attack on Leo Rubenid.’ Her voice was shaking. ‘Leo got to hear about it — any number of his obsequious friends and acquaintances would have made sure of it — and his men waylaid my little lute-player as he ran an errand for my mother late one night. His body was found the next day. They had cut off his hands, my lady, and stuffed them in the opposite sleeves, as if to emphasize that he would never play the lute again. Then, so that he would never sing again either, they slit his throat.’
Helewise sat in stunned silence. Then she said, ‘You are in no doubt that Leo Rubenid was behind this atrocity?’
‘None at all. Without actually admitting anything, he made sure I knew that he ordered it and witnessed it. It was horrible!’ She dropped her face in her hands and her shoulders shook with silent sobs. Then, recovering, she straightened up and said, ‘Would you have accepted such a man as your husband?’
‘Of course not.’ An image of her dear Ivo swam before Helewise’s eyes. ‘My husband was a very different man and I loved him dearly.’ Noticing a sudden spark of interest in the young woman’s face, she added firmly, ‘But we are not here to speak of him. Could you not persuade your parents that Leo Rubenid was unsuitable? Surely if you had told them what you knew they would have viewed him with new eyes?’
‘My father, yes; for he has always been inclined to listen to me and believe what I say. But my mother had made up her mind and nobody, not even my father, can divert her from her path once that has happened. She is not a bad woman, my lady; it is simply that she sets herself a task and she will achieve that task, even when she realizes it was not the wise course she initially believed it to be. She is a very strong woman. She would say, I am sure, that she has had to be for she has borne a greater weight of responsibility for her family, its lands and its possessions than many a man.’
‘That is very often the case,’ Helewise remarked. ‘We are spoken of in disparaging terms as the weaker sex, the fragile vessel, and men proceed with their wars and their squabbles without so much as discussing them with us, never mind actually inviting our opinion. Yet do we not also live in this world? Should we not be a party to what is done upon it?’
‘Of course we should,’ the young woman said firmly. ‘As for being weak and fragile, what about giving birth? I’d like to see a man do that without yelling for his mother.’
Helewise smiled. ‘So, you pleaded not to marry Leo Rubenid but your mother said you must?’ She wanted to hear the rest of the story.
‘Yes. I do not know how it would have ended — I hope I would have had the courage to kill myself rather than take that man as my husband — but something happened and suddenly everything changed.’
‘What was it?’
‘I fell in love. It was very swift and, as I said, afterwards absolutely nothing was as it had been. Then I understood what being married to someone really meant and, because I loved my man totally and with all my heart, body and soul, I knew I would rather die than marry Leo Rubenid.’
‘Who was the man?’
‘He was a knight. He had come out to Outremer to fight for his lord’s kin against the Saracen threat. His lord had abandoned the fight and he, wishing to continue, went off to ally himself with a military order.’
‘The Knights Hospitaller,’ Helewise said. ‘My dear, I know something of this tale and, although I have not met him, I believe I know the identity of your man.’
‘Do you?’ breathed the young woman. Then she shook her head quickly and in a different tone said, ‘Yes, he offered his services to the Hospitallers and they were grateful to accept him. But later he encountered his lord again and the lord was very sick, so he escorted him back to the home of his kin. That was my home, my lady, in Antioch. My mother is a cousin of this sick lord and she and her ladies nursed him back to health. While this was going on, I had met my knight and we had fallen in love.’
‘He was a vowed monk!’ Helewise was shocked. ‘He had no business falling in love with anyone, especially the delicate young daughter of his lord’s kinswoman!’
‘He was not,’ the young woman said levelly.
‘Not what?’
‘He fought with the Knights Hospitaller and he took a name in religion; he was known as Brother Ralf. But he was not of them. He did not take his vows.’
Helewise wondered whether this was the truth. Was it not all rather convenient, that she should fall in love with a man she believed to be a monk, only to discover that he wasn’t?
The woman seemed to read her thoughts. ‘I am telling the truth, my lady. I give you my word.’
But I do not know you, Helewise thought. Your word may be worthless. ‘So you and this Brother Ralf ran away together?’
‘Not then. For three years we were mostly apart and we tried to live our own lives. He was fighting with his warrior monks; I was desperately trying to create new reasons why I should not yet proceed with my marriage to Leo Rubenid. He — my knight — visited me quite frequently, for his lord was still living in my house and he was permitted to attend him. We used to wonder if the magic would fade away during the long periods when we had to be apart but it never did; in fact our love grew. Then we learned that King Richard was sailing for home and our kinsman announced he would go too. There was no more reason for my lover to come to my home and we did not know what to do.’
Helewise had a dozen questions buzzing in her head but she said nothing. The narrative was compelling and she did not want to interrupt.
‘Then,’ the young woman went on, ‘the man known as Brother Ralf was selected for a secret mission. There was a young prisoner of the Hospitallers called Fadil who was to be ransomed back to his master. Only the payment for him was not gold or coin; it was something far more valuable and potentially very dangerous. The prisoner’s family had no intention of parting with this precious thing and the Hospitallers were planning to keep both prisoner and payment. Of the monks, Brother Ralf alone survived. He fled across the desert with Fadil and he had the ransom in his satchel. He knew he had to keep it out of the hands of all of those who so badly wanted it; he must take it so far away that they would never find it. He came for me, my lady, for he had to leave Outremer and go back to England, never to return. He could not go without me and one night he was there in the little courtyard below my window, and he said I must put on travelling clothes and steal a pair of stout boots, then pack up just a small bag for we had to travel fast and far.’