Alix of Wanthwaite 01 - Shield of Three Lions

by Pamela Kaufman

  Praise for Pamela Kaufman’s

  SHIELD OF THREE LIONS

  “A brilliant, ribald first novel … rivals Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales for sheer earthiness.”

  —KANSAS CITY STAR

  “For a fast-paced, energetic, and amusing historical novel, Shield of Three Lions is a sheer delight.”

  —DETROIT FREE PRESS

  “Shield of Three Lions is simultaneously a raunchy, rowdy romp and sharply detailed reconstruction of an exciting era. Pamela Kaufman has the true storytellers ability to keep you turning the pages; to guarantee that you will sit up half the night finishing the book because you simply couldn’t put it down. Her plot has the sparkle of wit and originality … and a unique heroine.”

  —MORGAN LLYWELLYN,

  author of Lion of Ireland and 1916

  “Pamela Kaufman has introduced an unforgetttable heroine…. Shield of Three Lions is original, savvy, funny, and perhaps one of the best books by a new author this year.”

  —UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

  ALSO BY PAMELA KAUFMAN

  The Book of Eleanor: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine

  Banners of Gold

  …the man fulfilled vows made

  when he was a girl.

  OVID

  A CLATTERING RUMBLE SHATTERED MY SLEEP.

  My pet wolf growled and I opened my eyes. Benedicite, dim stars still hung in the blue; owls hooted high in the oak. Tomorrow I would have to rise at this hour, but this morning let me sleep. I pulled my fur pelt over my head.

  But the rumble persisted, closer this time, a heavy scaled dragon moving in fits and starts, echoing like rocks rolling on the moat bridge. Then I heard the crack of whips, angry shouts. When the ominous din seemed almost within my chamber, I threw off the pelt and rushed to my window.

  Deus juva me!

  Under the flickering orange flares of pine torches, half-clad sweating men whipped and cursed my fathers best team of oxen, urging them to scrape our ancient catapult across the court on its rusted belly, the wheels having long since rotted away. Perplexed and frightened together, I watched until I saw my father come from behind. Quickly I slipped my chemise over my naked body and hurried to ask what all this might mean.

  Followed by my wolf Lance, I ran barefoot down the stairs into the animal chamber where I slowed my pace to pick my way carefully across the soaked and besmottered rushes piled with night leavings, especially from our new litter of pointer pups. Our mastiff Courage almost knocked me off balance with his toothless greeting while the badger and weasel scurried under a bench and my mothers gaudy parrots screeched raucously. I continued to the courtyard.

  There I stopped. The few shouting men had swollen in number in the brief period it had taken me to arrive, many of them huge, threatening knights mounted on snorting, pacing, wild-eyed war chargers. All were strangers, their greetings shouted in Saxon. Awed, I pulled Lance close against the arch and tried to see my father through the steaming breath and swaying horse bellies.

  Instead, on the far side of the court, I glimpsed my mother Catherine as she scurried furtively along the wall on her way to chapel.

  “Mother!” I called. “Wait!”

  She couldn’t hear, and I watched her enter the door where Father Michael stood. I was so intent upon her that I failed to see a broadsword which lifted one of my braids when a careless knight turned. Deus juva me, it could have been my eyes! I decided to go to the kitchen court where I would be safe. There I would ask Dame Margery what was happening, for she would know and she would talk.

  As I sidled along the wall, I came upon our steward, John Leggy. Never had I seen him so distraught, his hair hanging in dank ropes, his eyes red-veined.

  “Good morrow, John. Have you seen my father?”

  He clutched my elbow hard. “Mercy on us, Lady Alix, how did you come here? Get back to your chamber at once.”

  “But I want to speak to my father …”

  Abruptly he left me to answer a call from our horse keeper.

  After a slow, cautious advance along the wall, I finally entered the gate to the kitchen court and paused in relief. Dame Margery and Maisry were stirring a large pot of stew over the firepit and didn’t see me. I noted that Maisry now seemed more a woman than her own mother, for the wench’s breasts strained against her brown homespun like ripe quinces, whereas Margery’s dried cuds dangled near to her waist. Yet the dame had once been full, had fed both Maisry and me when we were babes, making us milk sisters. And I, eleven years old to the day same as Maisry, had the hollow chest-spoon of an eight-year-old boy, even though I drank gillyflower juice every night of my life. Maisry claimed archly that I wouldn’t mature till I “became a woman in another way” but no amount of coaxing would make her say what that “way” might be. ’Twas all most mysterious.

  I shouted above the din, “God’s blessings, Dame Margery!”

  She raised a worried face. “Alix, ye’ve no call to be out with all these soldiers. Go back at once before I rattle yer teeth.”

  “At least I have teeth to rattle,” I replied, stung. “I must see my father.”

  Maisry smiled, her squirrel-eyes bright. “I believe Lord William is in the park. Leastways I saw him pass in that direction.”

  “And needs no pestering from his spoiled darling,” Dame Margery continued. “Go to, My Lady. Lady Catherine will be worried.”

  “My mother sent me to find him,” I lied. “She wants to know why these knights are assembled.”

  “I can tell ye well enow,” the dame said darkly. “The Scots are coming.”

  “Scots!” I frowned uneasily. “Surely you’re confused. My own father captured the Scottish king at Alnwick and there’s been no trouble since.”

  Margery’s eyes glittered and her nose turned bright red. “Confused, am I? When I seen many of these same knights here afore? Aye, much good did they do then, for my own sister Annie were marched away naked in the snow on the tenth of December 1174, fifteen long years ago and ne’er seen from that day to this, poor lass, and Scots swaling and murdering till blood soaked the swaths. It’s the same feel in the air today. If not the Scots, then who?” She blew her nose on her stained apron.

  Maisry and I stood dumb as dolls, unable to say who might want to attack Wanthwaite Castle, though soothly the Scots seemed part of a tale long past.

  “I s’pose that means we can’t see the pilgrimage either,” Maisry said, crestfallen. “Archie Werwillie were here last night, Alix, and I wish ye could have heard him. They’re going to show an Afercan snake big as a horse at the fair.”

  “Deus juva me, whatever for?”

  “To tempt Adam and Eve in the play at the church.”

  We stared at one another, entranced by the wonders which lay ahead.

  “Ye can forget about snakes, lessen they be Scots,” Margery babbled, near to hysteria, I trowe. “Now get ye gone to yer chamber, Alix, and put on yer tunic and shoes when ye get there.”

  “I’ll ask my father at dinner about the knights,” I said haughtily

  “Do ask about the pilgrimage as well,” Maisry entreated. “’Tis only a half day, and he did promise.”

  A nudge from Margery’s wooden paddle stopped her, and I pulled Lance by his scruff to return to the courtyard. By now the sun was out full and our motte was milling with knights, more clopping over the bridge every moment. Aye, ’twas passing strange. Only last week Maisry and I had ridden the casting cradle of the old catapult, pretending it was a monster off the firth. Only yesterday my mother and I had raced barefoot across our empty court and leaped the privet hedge into the garden.

  Yet I couldn’t believe
that the Scots were coming. Fiends and barbarians they might be, but they wouldn’t ride without a king, so says my father who is never wrong.

  IN THE DINING SALLE, my mother was almost hidden by a giant bouquet of geroldinga apple blossoms she held in her arms.

  “Mary Alix, why weren’t you at Mass, naughty wench?” she called from behind the trestle set for our meal. “Come, let’s arrange these to make our table pretty for your father’s last dinner.”

  I took an armful of branches. “Where’s he going?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You said my father’s last dinner. Is he riding forth?”

  Her face turned pale against her low-cut ruby tunic. “I didn’t mean last.” Hastily she crossed herself. “That is, he’s going to Tomlinson Manor but should be back by sundown.”

  I moved to the far end of the trestle, not knowing where to place the delicate blooms, and in so doing tripped over my new pointed shoes.

  “Careful!” my father called from the door and I was swooped up from behind as blossoms fell in a shower. “That’s what comes of wearing horse troughs on your feet. To get down, you must cry mercy!”

  He tickled my ribs and I bent double with laughter.

  “What about here?”

  He touched my hipbone and I screamed, “Mercy! Mercy!”

  “Still my silly Tickle-Bones, I’m relieved to see.” He smiled, his tanned face so close that I could see the mix of gold and red hairs in his crescent waves, discern light and gray triangles like silver and pewter in his eyes, touch his high arched brow by leaning my forehead forward and breathe deeply of the sweet woodruff he wears on his skin. “Kiss me in our secret way.”

  I pressed my lips to his forehead, each cheek, chin and lips. Then he put me down.

  My mother was on her hands and knees gathering the scattered blossoms.

  “Leave them, Kate. They sweeten the rushes.” He reached both hands to pull her upward and she leaned against him, her eyes glistening.

  “Call the ewerer. I haven’t much time.” He kissed her, flicked a flower from her hair.

  Mother summoned Joseph, our prayers were said and we began to dip our bread.

  My father scanned my mother and me with bright gray eyes. “Am I under a spell, or do you both look especially beautiful today?”

  I blushed, for indeed I had donned my new rose-colored tunic with a blue girtle, and braided cornflowers into my hair, the better to beguile him into letting Maisry and me go on the pilgrimage. I knew not my mother’s purpose, but she, too, was dressed in her best scarlet finery and had woven gold threads in her dark flowing mane. However, she can never look anything but enchanting for she is a wild Celt, touched by magic.

  “We always want to please you,” my mother replied and pressed his hand.

  “Besides, you’re riding forth,” I added boldly. “Are those knights going with you?”

  He glanced at my mother who turned to feed the yammering pointer pups morsels of meat. “I’ll take a few, but the greater number will stay here. Since you ask, please stay close to your mother and dress properly at all times. I believe I saw you this morning in most unseemly costume.”

  “Why are they here?” I asked, mortified at his reprimand but also resenting the presence which made me a prisoner in my own home.

  “Tell her, Kate.”

  Mother raised her pale heart-shaped face and forced a false smile, which I can always tell is false because her dimples don’t show. “Your fathers called these men to guard us on a journey we’re about to take, dear Alix. Finally you’re going to see the country where I grew up, the magic circles, fells and hoary trees.”

  “Benedicite!” I clapped my hands in excitement. And Dame Margery thought the Scots were coming! Wait till she heard the truth. “When do we leave?”

  “Day after tomorrow, after sundown. You’ll ride at night,” my father answered.

  And my excitement diminished somewhat. How could we see fells and hoary trees in the dark? And why such a large guard?

  “Is something amiss in your country?” I asked my mother straight out.

  There was a long pause; then she deferred to my father.

  “The west country is safe enough, but the road passes close to the border. Besides …” He looked again at my mother. “… We must protect you against abduction.”

  “Abduction! Who would want to abduct me?” I supposed it was a jape, though soothly I didn’t think it very funny.

  “Whoever covets Wanthwaite,” my mother explained. “Now that you are of marriageable age, some landless knight could abduct you and gain your estate.”

  “Marriageable?”

  She caught my rueful look downward to my flat chest and smiled, this time with dimples. “’Tis true that you’re somewhat immature, but that will change. Your father’s sisters both bloomed late and you seem closer to his family. Moreover, I was only twelve when I married your father.”

  They exchanged a long melting gaze of remembrance.

  “And when you return,” my father continued, “you, too, will be a bride and therefore safe.”

  I could hardly fathom his words. A simple journey had turned to a stealthy escape by night to avoid abductors and now changed again to a quest to get me married? I tried to absorb these rapid shifts.

  “I’m not ready to marry, My Lord,” I announced. “Nor do I care to journey if it be so perilous. I’ll gladly stay here with you and my mother and spare you all this worry.”

  My mother raised wing-shaped brows. “Better to tell her, William.”

  He nodded curtly, rose from his bench and came to sit close to me. His eyes were crystal tunnels. “Alix, you’re the usual mix of cleverness and silliness typical of your age, except that I claim you’re cleverer than most. Therefore I’m going to confide in you. You already have a suitor, here, close to Wanthwaite, and we have refused his suit.”

  “Why?” I asked. “I would prefer someone close to you.”

  “At first we said he was too old—he’s past sixty—and so he offered his foster son in his stead.”

  I gasped, much amazed. “Do they both love me?”

  “They love Wanthwaite,” my mother answered bitterly, her face lily-white, “and the older man is a raving madman.”

  “Kate!” my father warned.

  “She has to know about the evil in the world sometime. Alix, heed me well, this suitor was married when he first proposed. Naturally we pointed out that this was an impediment to his suit, whereupon he murdered his wife and three children.”

  “No!” I cried.

  “And impaled their heads on stakes outside his walls,” she finished grimly.

  I stared, aghast. “Why don’t you tell our Lord Osbert of Northumberland? Let him punish the monster! At least then I wouldn’t have to run away as if I were the criminal!”

  ’Twas a simple question and offered an easy solution. I couldn’t understand the heavy silence that followed, nor my father’s Viking look, as my mother calls it.

  “Trust our judgment,” he ordered. “Northumberland … can’t help. You’ll leave as planned.”

  I set my chin and thrust out my lip, but my mother tugged on my hair and I took her signal.

  “For how long? Will I be home by autumn?”

  Mother stroked my braids. “The journey is long, our purpose takes time. Even I do not expect to see Wanthwaite for two or three years.”

  “Two or three years! That’s forever!” I pulled away. “Can Maisry come with me?”

  “No one. We must keep the party small,” my father replied.

  Tears welled in my eyes. “But at least we can see the pilgrimage pass by tomorrow and the African snake.”

  “Pilgrimage? Snake?” He looked to my mother.

  “Remember? You promised the lasses on their name day that they might see the next pilgrimage that passed through Dunsmere. They’ve set their hearts on one that rides close tomorrow.”

  My father tapped my chin tenderly. “Then unset your
heart, Alix. You must stay inside, as I said. Do I have your word?”

  “You promised!” I cried. “It’s my last day with Maisry in my whole life!”

  “Alix, that will be all. I’ll not be crossed!” He rose and straightened the brown fustian he wears under his armor. “Kate, see to your daughter.”

  She, too, rose and took his arm. “She’ll do your bidding.”

  He turned, put his palm on my head. “Alix?”

  I stared upward through blurred points of light. “I’m sorry.”

  “And so am I, for this whole ugly business.” He lifted me close again. “What will I do here without you or your mother? I love you better than life and already hate the husband who will steal you away. Come now, our kiss once more.”

  When I’d complied, he lowered me and turned to my mother who still held his arm. He clasped her close, whispered gravely as I strained to hear.

  “… led by Roland …”

  She pulled back, shocked, then huddled to listen.

  “… men are utterly ruthless,” he finished.

  They both looked down at me.

  “You’ll be back by sundown?” she said in her normal voice.

  “If there are sufficient knights at Tomlinson’s. Otherwise I’ll go on to Yarrow …”

  “But I so want, so hope …”

  “So do I.” They kissed.

  “If you can’t, send a message.”

  “I promise.” Gently he disengaged himself, then studied her face somberly.

  And left.

  We watched him speak to his squire, begin the difficult task of arming himself, mount his horse with assistance from the groom. Now he looked as great as King Arthur, tall, noble, his armor reflecting the sun like fire. He turned his courser thrice, raised his gauntlet in farewell, rode through the gate, across the bridge, and disappeared in the greenery of the park.

  ’TWAS A TORTUROUS AFTERNOON in the schoolroom, what with both Father Michael and Sister Eulalie much distracted by the army outside our window. I was relieved when my mother’s shadow fell across my wax tablet.