Afton of Margate Castle

by Angela Elwell Hunt

Endeline snapped her fingers. “Put out your hands.”

  Both girls did thrust their hands into the air in front of them, and Endeline checked their hands. Afton’s were perfect, her nails cut close to the finger, and clean. Lienor’s hands were disgraceful--her nails were long and ragged, and a definite crescent of dirt showed itself under each nail and in the creases of her palm.

  “Lunette!” Endeline went out to the staircase and shrieked. “Come at once and cut this girl’s nails to the quick. Scrub her, too, and make her presentable.”

  “To ze quick, my lady?” Lunette asked, coming breathlessly up the stairs and into the room.

  “Cleanliness is better than beauty,” Endeline answered, sweeping regally out of the room. “I’ll be back in a moment with the quicklime, so be sure those nails are done.”

  ***

  Afton felt genuinely sorry for Lienor when she saw how quicklime was used. The faint shadow of dark hair across Lienor’s upper lip was swabbed generously with quicklime, then Endeline told Lunette and Morgan to hold Lienor down on the bed while the quicklime dried. When the mixture was dry, Endeline approached the bed with steely determination in her eyes. “Hold her tightly,” she told the maids, reaching for her daughter’s tender skin.

  “No, mother, no,” Lienor screamed as Endeline scrubbed the dried quicklime from the delicate skin between Lienor’s upper lip and nose. “Ouch! It stings!”

  “One must suffer to be beautiful,” Endeline replied, swatting Lienor’s flailing legs. “Now be still!”

  Afton turned her back and cringed each time Lienor howled. Was having Prince William as a husband really worth this much pain? But Endeline said it was necessary, and in her heart Afton knew she’d gladly undergo such a ritual if Endeline asked her to.

  “Afton! Come away from the window.”

  She turned obediently back to Endeline, who was now standing with her back to her weeping daughter. Lienor sat drying on the bed, her upper lip raw and red, but there was no shadow of dark hair.

  “Make sure Lienor breakfasts on anise and fennel the morning the king arrives,” Endeline told Afton as she wiped the dried quicklime from her fingers with a towel. “Her breath will then be sweet when she greets the king. Lunette, you will make her skin white with sheep fat.” She frowned at Lienor’s tan. “You will need to use a lot. She spends too much time outdoors with her brothers.”

  Lienor continued to weep silently, and Afton stared in amazement. Lienor was a brawler, a screamer. Never had Afton seen her weep like this, silently, as if something inside had broken.

  “Quiet, Lienor.” Endeline tossed the dirty cloth to Morgan. “I expect all of you to behave as well as you can. Perceval’s honor must be upheld during the king’s visit, for the future of our house depends on it. We will do our best to make King Henry comfortable and to please his son William. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, my lady,” Afton answered easily.

  Still weeping, Lienor answered in a whisper: “Yes.”

  Endeline’s eyes narrowed as she looked at her weeping daughter. Then she turned to Afton and smiled. “Help me with my wildcat daughter, my dear, and perhaps we will present you to the king. Unless you are instructed in that regard, however, you will stay out of sight.”

  Afton nodded. She had not expected to meet the king. It was enough that she could help Endeline.

  ***

  A messenger carrying the banner of King Henry galloped through the gates of Margate Castle the next morning. His message to Perceval was simple: King Henry’s ship had landed safely in England, the king was en route to Margate, and (the messenger added unofficially) His Highness was in a jubilant mood. The war to reunite the Norman and English halves of the kingdom of William the Conqueror was nearly over, and Henry would doubtless be the victor.

  Perceval breathed a sigh of relief. He knew full well that opening his home to the king was much like inviting a tiger into his private chamber. The beast was powerful, beautiful, and awe-inspiring, but it could eat a man alive. Still, honor demanded that he take the risk.

  ***

  Endeline roused Lienor before daylight the next morning, and Afton listened sympathetically to Lienor’s quiet complaints as she was bathed and her hair washed in clove-scented water. Lunette braided Lienor’s hair with fresh roses, and Morgan worked the same magic on Endeline. Afton was quietly granted permission to stay out of the way.

  She dressed and scampered out of the chamber and down the staircase until she was in the castle courtyard. Life was busy here, too. The sun had barely begun to climb the sky, but outside the kitchen the cooks were butchering lambs and calves for dinner. Afton felt queasy at the sight of so much blood, so she ran for the quiet of the orchard.

  From the safety of an apple tree, Afton watched Perceval’s garrison of knights mount up and ride out to meet the king’s traveling party. That meant the garrison tower would be empty--and the view spectacular. The towers were the only buildings tall enough to stand above the outer walls of the castle, and the only way she would be able to see the king approaching.

  Afton shimmied out of the apple tree and darted through the servants in the busy courtyard. The heavy wooden tower door intimidated her for a moment, but she yanked it open and scurried up the narrow, winding staircase until she reached the circular room at the tower’s lookout point.

  There was an open space above an outcropping that jutted toward the castle road. Afton started toward the window, and jumped when someone moved in the shadows beside her.

  It was Calhoun, and he seemed as embarrassed to be discovered in the tower as she was frightened. He turned his face from her. “What’s wrong?” she asked, forgetting her fears and leaning on the wall beside him. She could not imagine what could cause him embarrassment.

  “Nothing you would understand,” he answered, jerking his hand across his face and wiping his eyes. He closed his lips firmly together, looking out the window, but words seemed to rise unbidden from somewhere in his soul. “How am I supposed to be a knight if they won’t let me do anything? I’m as brave as they are!”

  “You are,” Afton agreed. “Remember how brave you were when you freed me from the trap in the barn? I might have hung there for days and starved to death.”

  Calhoun smiled in spite of his misery. “That wasn’t bravery. That was chivalry. Knights are supposed to help women and children.”

  “It was brave to let me fall right on top of you,” Afton added, laughing. “I could have crushed you!”

  “You’re a slip of a girl. You couldn’t crush anybody,” Calhoun answered. “But today I asked Gawain if I might ride out with the knights to meet the king--he told me to run along and stay out of the way.”

  Calhoun’s chin quivered and his face grew red. “To stay out of the way! He has never said that before.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean to be cruel,” Afton answered softly. “It’s just that everyone’s upset about the king’s visit. But Gawain knows that you are brave and very able. Perhaps he has something better for you in mind, something you can do later.”

  “I shall be too busy staying out of the way,” Calhoun answered, staring moodily out the window. Suddenly he stiffened and pointed down the road. “Here they come! The king’s riders!”

  Afton peered over the edge of the battlement. A row of splendid stallions, all decked in armor and the king’s red and purple, cantered abreast down the road. Behind them were chariots and other knights on horseback, among these Afton recognized many of Perceval’s men. One man, in a simple red robe and a purple mantle, rode alone on a magnificent white stallion.

  “That’s the king,” Calhoun whispered in awe. “King Henry Beauclerc.”

  Afton was fascinated. The riders were still a fair distance away, but behind the king she could see wagons richly loaded. The parade of wagons and riders stretched endlessly into the distance.

  As the riders and wagons drew closer, Afton was able to examine the king’s company more closely. The wagons behind the kin
g were loaded with cloth, bottles, and food. One wagon carried a bathtub bigger and more sumptuous than Perceval’s. In another wagon Afton was surprised to see three little girls who huddled together holding hands. A mounted guard rode on each side of them.

  “Who are the girls?” she whispered to Calhoun, pointing. “Look, Calhoun, they’re no older than we are. Who are they and why do they look so sad?”

  Calhoun looked, then shrugged. “Perhaps they are children King Henry has rescued. Orphans, perhaps. We will see later, at dinner.”

  The first riders were at the castle gate, and Calhoun turned and began leaping down the stairs two at a time. Before the circular path took him out of view, he paused and called up to Afton: “Aren’t you coming?”

  “Not to dinner,” she answered, her eyes fastened to the wagon that held the three girls. “Lady Endeline asked me to eat with the servants today.”

  “All right, then, but I’d hasten out of the tower if I were you,” Calhoun answered. “King Henry’s knights are the fiercest in the world, and they’ll be coming here presently.” He continued down the stairs down two at a time, and Afton waited only a moment before following him.

  Six

  Margate castle could not hold all of King Henry’s entourage. Tents sprouted like mushrooms in the field outside the castle walls to house the king’s barber, a bloodletter, a doctor, a dentist, cooks, messengers, musicians, and a large part of his army. Henry’s knights were garrisoned with Perceval’s in the tower, and the royal counselors and the various nobles traveling with Henry were housed inside the castle’s great hall. More than one hundred guests streamed through the gates of Margate Castle, and with Perceval’s household in attendance as well, more than two hundred and fifty people sat down to dinner that day.

  “It’s a great feast,” one of the young kitchen maids told Afton after returning from the great hall. “The lady has the best tapestries on display, and the King sits with Perceval and Endeline at the high table.”

  “Has the king met Lienor yet?” Afton asked, anxious about her friend.

  “No, he only talks of the war for Normandy,” the girl answered, filling a basket with fresh loaves of white bread.

  “What of the three girls with him?” Afton asked. “Who are they and why do they travel with the king?”

  “They sit and eat silently,” another servant answered. “But I’ve heard it said they are the granddaughters of the king.”

  “Granddaughters of the king? But William is not married.”

  The younger maid smirked. “Don’t you listen to the gossip, girl? King Henry has other children, not legitimate, of course. These are the girls of his daughter Julienne. He has taken them from their home in Normandy.”

  Although Afton had no idea where Normandy was, the idea of having a royal grandfather was fascinating. She had never known her own grandfather, who died at the old age of forty-five. How proud these girls must be of their grandfather the king! But why did they look so sad in the wagon? Were they frightened of the guards at their side?

  “The king must love them very much,” Afton remarked to the servant. “If they are protected by a guard at all times.”

  “That kind of love I could do without,” the kitchen maid replied. “Now out of my way, child. The king will be wanting fresh bread soon and it’ll have to be hot out of the oven.”

  ***

  After three days of the king’s residence at Margate, Afton was convinced the old castle had disappeared and something new had taken its place. Nothing was the same. King Henry now slept in Perceval’s chamber, and his counselors occupied the girls’ dormitory. Perceval and Endeline slept in the boys’ room above, and the boys were relegated to sleep downstairs in the great hall with the king’s most esteemed traveling companions. Lienor, Afton, Lunette, and Morgan slept in the hayloft of the barn, with a knight assigned to guard them. The king’s three granddaughters, strangely enough, slept in the highest part of the lookout tower, with a host of knights below them.

  The pleasant pace of life Afton had come to know was gone, and she worried that King Henry would never leave. Calhoun seemed to thrive on the excitement and acted as a page for the king, running to fill the royal goblet, fetch his majesty’s counselors, or order fresh bread from the kitchen.

  At the end of the day, when the men had retired, Calhoun met Afton in the stable and reported everything, his eyes shining. He described the king’s exploits in Normandy and the victorious battles in which Henry had fought. Often he stood up and embellished the tales by acting them out, frequently “dying” in the hay with great emotion and drama. Afton couldn’t understand why Calhoun loved these tales of battle. She much preferred Endeline’s gentle stories of King Arthur and fair Guinevere.

  But Afton rarely saw Endeline except from a distance these days, for the lady of the castle was kept busy attending to her royal guest’s needs. It wasn’t until Henry announced that he would leave after dinner on the morrow that Endeline seemed to relax and exchanged her stiff smile for a more pleasant one. And that night Afton snuggled into her hay bed in delight, knowing that soon she’d be back in the castle next to her beloved benefactress. Life would resume and all would be peaceful once again.

  Endeline actually stopped and patted Afton’s cheek on the day of the king’s departure. “Why don’t you join us at dinner, Afton?” she asked, her voice gentle. “You’ve not had a good look at the king, have you?”

  Afton shook her head. All her glimpses of the august majesty had been from a distance. To her, Henry was merely a stick figure in red and purple.

  “Put on your best tunic, then, and we’ll find a place for you in the hall. You may sit with Morgan and Lunette. Calhoun will be serving the king, and Lienor will sit with me at the king’s table.”

  Afton’s jaw dropped when she entered the hall between Morgan and Lunette. Every table in the castle had been crowded into the great hall and put together end to end so that they stretched from the rear doorway right up to the dais where the king would sit. Bright tapestries hung from the walls, brilliantly decorated in the emblems of the royal crest and Perceval’s family herald. Already the tables were crowded with the knights and nobles of Perceval and King Henry, the colors of the two houses blending together in a rich mix of red, purple, and white.

  Morgan and Lunette ushered Afton to a small table near the royal dais, but against the wall. Afton was delighted. From here she could see observe all that went on at the king’s table and yet not be seen.

  She glanced over the assembled company. The tables nearest the king’s table were filled with richly dressed men in ermine-trimmed robes, the king’s counselors, Afton assumed. She had heard Calhoun speak of them as “rich men who talk of war and know little of it.” Behind them were men with swarthy faces and simple red robes, the royal knights. Perceval’s knights, in their white and purple tunics, were intermingled in their midst, and behind the knights were the various high level servants and men at arms who traveled with the king.

  Afton was surprised to see the king’s granddaughters sitting at a table directly across from her, on the far side of the room. They were silent, sitting in stillness, their eyes trained on the trenchers in front of them.

  “Lunette,” Afton whispered, tugging on the maid’s sleeve. “See the granddaughters over there? Have you had occasion to talk to them this week?”

  “Shh, not I,” Lunette whispered, laying a finger over her lips. “Hush now, the king approaches.”

  A trumpeter shrilly proclaimed the king’s arrival, and the entire company stood and bowed as King Henry entered. Perceval, Endeline, and Lienor followed him and took their places at the raised table. When the king had been seated, the entire group sat and centered their attention on the grand meal set before them.

  The dinner was impressive. Perceval had saved his best foods for the king’s farewell dinner, hoping to impress his sovereign with Margate Castle’s seemingly endless supply of delights to please the palate.

  Afton crinkle
d nose in appreciation as the highly seasoned foods were passed down the tables, and her mouth watered. There were black puddings, sausages, venison and beef, eels and herrings, fresh water fish from the lake, and round and flat sea fish. The meats had been seasoned with sauces of vinegar, verjuice, and wine, and each gave off a most delicious aroma. One roast that passed by her was studded with cloves; steam and the scent of ginger rose from a tray of boiled snails. Almonds, a rare treat, were sprinkled over the foods in abundance. Murmurs of appreciation rose from the men and women who indulged themselves at Perceval’s table, but Afton was speechless. Compared to the common fare she had been eating with the servants, this food was an unimaginable excess of richness and variety.

  Perceval sat at King Henry’s right hand, and Endeline sat at his left, Lienor by her side. Afton glanced up at her playmate and smothered a smile. Endeline’s plan was apparently proceeding well, and after today Lienor’s destiny would be settled.

  ***

  Endeline felt a vast feeling of relief settle over her, but she forced herself to remain vigilant. All was going well, but it was not yet time to celebrate. Perhaps it was time to seal a royal marriage.

  She smiled carefully at the king. “If it please Your Highness, may we inquire about the health of your son, William? Our hearts were laden with sorrow when we heard he would not be joining you here with us.”

  “My son remained behind, but he does well,” Henry answered, nodding. “He is a brave and valiant knight. He will do justice for England and Normandy when he wears the crown.”

  “He cannot do wrong, but with the proper wife he will do better still,” Endeline said gently. “Has your royal son given thought to marriage?” She looked down and idly stirred the pottage in her bowl. “My daughter, Lienor, is of noble blood. Of course I know I do not need to remind you, but her grandfather, Lionel, was a close ally of your father’s.”

  “I heard my father speak of Lionel often,” Henry nodded. He glanced at Lienor, who sipped her pottage with her eyes obediently downcast. “And surely your daughter carries the same noble heart. There is a spirited look about her.”