‘In the hall, nibbling a meat pasty, sipping elderberry wine and looking round her as though she’d never seen anything so rustic before,’ said Wulfhild.
‘Nonsense. Alice wouldn’t be thinking that. She’s just interested to see her new home, that’s all.’ Richard steered them out of the gate and turned on to the path to the down.
‘She’s a lady. Over-refined.’
‘You’ve been a lady yourself in your day, Mother.’
‘Who is she?’ Wulfhild demanded again. ‘And,’ she added, coming to the point, ‘what’s her dowry?’
Richard, still displaying that maddening amusement, gave her a sidelong glance. ‘Oh, is that what’s worrying you? It need not. I’ve done well for the dowry, I promise you.’
‘Who is she?’ said Wulfhild for the third time, through her teeth.
‘Her father’s Roland of Warburton.’
‘Roland…? The Chichester merchant?’ Wulfhild had not been off the manor for years but she knew the names of all with whom Fallowdene did business. Roland of Warburton owned three ships and traded in Europe and the Mediterranean. He was versatile; his ships carried anything he thought he could sell at the other end. But he specialised in exporting hides and cheeses and bringing wine and spices back. He was wealthy. Wulfhild looked very slightly mollified.
‘The same.’ Richard said. ‘After we had that trouble with Hammerfoot, the day Sybil was born, and we hadn’t enough ginger, Father made an arrangement with Roland to supply us regularly with that and some other things…’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Well, I’ve got to know him quite well over the years. I call at his warehouse whenever I’m in Chichester. This time he asked me back to his hall. He’s half-English and half-Norman and his wife is English. Alice speaks both tongues. It’s a very mixed kind of household, like ours. I felt at home. And Alice was there. I went into the house as one man,’ said Richard simply, ‘and came out as another.’
‘You don’t look like your grandfather,’ said Wulfhild exasperatedly, ‘but you take after him, just the same.’
She knew the story of her own conception. Her father, wildly, desperately in love for the only time in his life, discovering that the girl had encouraged him only to spur on someone else, had stumbled strickenly away from that revelation, and relieved his frustration on the floor of a cow-byre with a blue-eyed thrall woman. Hence Wulfhild. She knew too the story of how he had first fallen into love, walking round a corner and coming face to face with a young woman and passing instantaneously from one mode of life to another.
Exactly as Richard had apparently done in the hall of an Anglo-Norman dealer in cheese, hides, spices and Loire valley wine. It would probably have made little difference to Richard if Alice had had no dowry at all. Wulfhild’s face darkened again.
‘The dowry,’ Richard was saying. ‘There’s fifteen pounds of good silver coin in the mules’ saddlebags. That’s just to begin with. It ought to solve our tax problems for a few years. Then, I can buy ginger and other things at half-price for the rest of Alice’s life. And I’ve a half-share in one of Roland’s ships. And,’ he said with emphasis, putting a hand to his belt-pouch, ‘there are these.’
Wulfhild stared disbelievingly at the handful of small objects he held out for her inspection. ‘Have you gone mad, Richard? Onions! ‘Wrong. Guess again.’
The tap of Wulfhild’s stick was a storm warning. ‘Don’t play games with me, Richard. What are they? He had changed. He was no longer quite her son. Her indignation could not reach him; he was teasing her from the security of some private fastness. She recognised it. It was the assurance of manhood and Alice, that prim, pale, skinny intruder who was now sitting in the hall and drinking Wulfhild’s best elderberry wine, had given it to him. Her fury made her speechless. When Richard told her the name of the curious little pale corms in his hand, she could not at first answer and thinking the name unfamiliar to her, he began to explain. Brusquely, she stopped him.
‘I know. I’ve served in great houses in my time. In the Lady of Wales’ household it was used in the cooking on feast days. Once at a bardic festival, her husband had it sprinkled in the rushes to sweeten them instead of rosemary; to honour the bards, he said. But it was hard to get and expensive; they gave up using it before I left Wales. I haven’t heard of it for years.’
‘You’re hearing of it now,’ said Richard with a grin.
‘I’m offering you a gamble,’ Roland had said, standing in the little back room at his warehouse. He had emptied a small pouch out on to the table between them. There’s maybe fifty of these little bulbs here. It will take years to grow enough to be of any use. The yield is low. It means investing time and land and only wealthy customers will buy it – I import a little for the court and so on – so you wouldn’t call it a buoyant market. But it could be worth its weight in gold if you can produce enough and if you can find buyers. What about it? You can have these as part of Alice’s portion, or a mark of gold instead. The choice is yours.’
‘Where do they come from?’ Richard asked, picking up a corm and feeling its papery skin with his thumb.
Roland chuckled. He had married late in life and was already ageing; his angular shoulders beginning to stoop and his scanty hair now grey. But his veined eyes had a boyishly wicked gleam. ‘Moorish Spain. I’ve a contact there who is honest in his dealings with me – I pay him well – but less respectable in his attitude to some others, especially those he actively dislikes. He stole a couple of corms for me, from a man he had a grudge against. That was several years ago and these are the outcome. I’ve proved it will grow here, as you see.’
‘But don’t you want to go on growing it?’
‘I thought I did,’ said Roland frankly. ‘But it’s more nuisance than it’s worth. I’m a merchant, not a farmer. Most of the land I hold, I let. I keep a few acres for myself, just outside the town, but I want them for corn. I haven’t the ground to devote to this and besides, the enterprise needs to be kept secret so I have to keep on going out there to tend the plants myself. I haven’t time. My son feels the same. I’d be just as happy if Alice’s husband took over the task and gained the advantage, if any, instead. Well? A problematic profit one day many years hence, or a mark of gold now? By the way, if anything happens to you and there are no children, the revenue from these, if it exists, must revert to Alice, you understand?’
‘Certainly. She would take out of the marriage all she brought with her, in accordance with normal custom. I should regard the crop from these as part of that.’
‘That’s what I wanted to hear. I think you’ll treat her fairly. I’ve turned down some other men because I doubted them. Well, what’s your answer? These or the gold?’
‘I notice,’ said Richard, ‘that we’re having this talk very privately, all by ourselves in this little back room.’
‘Quite right. The rest of the settlement we’ll discuss openly in the hall, in the usual way. But this is between you and me.’
‘I’ll take the gamble,’ Richard said.
It was somewhat disconcerting to find that his mother had not only heard of the plant but thought little of it. ‘The Lady of Wales told me it takes thousands on thousands of flowers to produce anything saleable and then who’ll buy it? You’ve been cheated, son.’
It wasn’t the moment, clearly, to mention the gold mark. ‘I’m looking ahead,’ he said. ‘Perhaps one day Alice’s son and mine will get the benefit.’
This morning she had thought that they must find Richard a wife. She had even thought of one or two names. She had also thought that the matter must be approached with care, for Richard’s wife would be a permanency at Fallowdene.
It was only just being borne in on her that pale prim Alice was going to be that permanency. That she, Wulfhild, was Lady of Fallowdene no longer.
She would see about that.
‘I hope you do have a son,’ she said shortly. ‘I hope Alice can manage it. She looks narrow in the hips to me.’
‘Mother,’ said Richard evenly, ‘I hope you’ll be kind to Alice. I promised her father I would take good care of her. Shall we be getting back?’
Waspishly, as they turned in at the gate, Wulfhild said: ‘While you were so busy wooing and negotiating the most extraordinary dowry I ever heard of, did you remember by any chance that you are supposed to ask your overlord’s consent to marry?’
‘Of course. De Warenne was at the Shire Court. He agreed quite willingly.’
He would, Wulfhild thought with fury. De Warenne had only lately become their suzerain. There had been a change of overlords in their part of Sussex. They had been on bad terms with his predecessor but just at this moment Wulfhild positively regretted the change. De Warenne was much too amiable. He had condemned her to Alice. She walked into the hall beside her son, in an unfriendly silence.
***
‘I know I’ve sprung Alice on you, Mother,’ Richard said patiently later the same day, ‘but really, she is very sweet and pious and you’ll find her all that a daughter should be. It’s true she’s never chopped wood or scythed corn. But she can weave and sew. She wove and stitched every single thing she’s wearing. She can make bread, too. You’ll see!’
It became clear as the days went by that besotted though he was, Richard’s assessment of his bride was perfectly correct. It was just unfortunate that her very virtues were her most irritating characteristics.
She was, for instance, docile and well-mannered. Her manners were so pretty that when the betrothal was mooted between Sybil and Brian of Little Dene’s son, it was Alice who did most to persuade a slightly dubious Sir Brian, who to Wulfhild’s annoyance had clearly harboured greater hopes for his boy, into agreeing. She could see Brian thinking that if Fallowdene suited a lady like Alice…
‘Who does he think he is?’ fumed Wulfhild afterwards and really meant: ‘Who does she think she is?’ only she did not say it because Richard was capable of being very unpleasant indeed to anyone who upset his Alice.
Then there was the preciseness, her most distinct trait, so marked that when she walked she seemed at each step to place her foot on that piece of ground and no other. This characteristic was the source of her formidable gift with a needle. A needle steered by Alice slid accurately between those two threads and no others. It was an admirable accomplishment and should have been an asset. But Editha and the other women had picked Wulfhild’s sense of dispossession out of the air and they were loyal to their mistress; on top of which, the finish of Alice’s plainest clothes made theirs look like sackcloth. Far from admiring, they were resentful.
Her effortlessly even spinning and weaving won her no acclaim either. Gunnor, one of the young women who worked in the hall, had formerly been recognised as the best weaver in Fallowdene. Dethroned, Gunnor sulked without concealment. As for Alice’s undoubtedly com-petent breadmaking, she demonstrated it only once. On that embarrassing morning, while Alice kneaded dough, Editha – who could outdo Gunnor in sulkiness whenever she had a mind – crashed pots together in a tub of hot water and violently scoured a pinewood table with sand, muttering audibly that old and lined she might be but ripe for burial she wasn’t quite, not yet. Thereafter, on Wulfhild’s edged advice, Alice’s breadmaking skills were left to moulder away unused.
Richard had been right about the piety, too.
‘You can’t sew and weave all day,’ Wulfhild said, trying to sound good-humoured although the vegetable patch needed digging over and half an hour with a spade would leave Alice worn out, with blistered palms. ‘You’ll hurt your eyesight. What else did you do, at home? Can you,’ asked Wulfhild, inspired, ‘make cheese, or milk cows?’
‘No, Mother. I usually spent two or three hours at my devotions.’ She prefaced the second sentence with a small tch sound as though assembling her thoughts and positioning her tongue just so before speaking. Richard had once unwisely remarked to his mother that he found this mannerism charming. Wulfhild, who hadn’t noticed it be-fore, had since then been driven to the verge of insanity by it. She clenched her hand at her side as she said: ‘Here, we go to the church on Sundays. There’s work to do the rest of the week and never hours enough to do it in.’
‘Tch. I expect I could learn to make cheese and to milk,’ said Alice pacifically. ‘I’ll gladly try.’
She did try. Perversely, she performed well. Wulfhild could with the utmost enjoyment have killed her.
But almost the worst thing about Alice was her effect on Richard. ‘He’s gone completely beyond my control,’ said Wulfhild to Editha, her sympathiser. ‘I came here to Fallowdene with my father when it was falling to pieces and between us we brought it back to life and now Richard won’t listen to a word I say. He’s agreed to clearing the wild land on the south down but he will not consent to cutting any wood. It’s true we don’t need the money now but you never know, and cut logs are as valuable as silver in the coffers. If we have another harvest like last year’s, we could still be glad to know we’ve something extra in hand. But he’s got so willful ... he even hummed and hawed before he’d put Sybil’s betrothal to Sir Brian.’
‘He’s growing up,’ said Editha, trying to comfort her. ‘He listens too much to Alice,’ said Wulfhild. ‘Does he even see anyone but her, these days?’
So often, when they all sat by the fire at the day’s end, conversation would drop away and Wulfhild would see Richard and Alice looking at each other and feel the air between them tauten and sing. And a few minutes later, murmuring their excuses, they would slip away to bed.
‘And much good that’s done,’ she said to Editha. ‘Christmas has come and gone and she’s still bleeding every month. She’s caught three colds in the head since she’s been here but catch a baby, oh no! Too bloody refined, that’s what she is!’
But in early February there were signs that in this respect at least Alice was mending her ways. She missed a course. She then began to be extremely sick and could not keep down any at all of the salted meat which, apart from bread, was their staple food at this season.
Nauseated, green-blotched, whimpering with exhaustion, she threw up meal after meal. Wulfhild, responding in desperation to Richard’s pleading eyes, sacrificed a good laying hen to provide Alice with fresh meat and then another hen and finally an orphaned lamb for which she would normally have found a foster mother.
She even sent to Withysham Abbey for a few wrinkled last year’s apples, because Alice said she longed for fruit.
A cold, hard March, beset by east winds, yielded to April, blowy and fresh but with gleams of sunshine between the rainstorms and the hail. There were days when it was at last pleasant to be out of doors. ‘Where is Alice?’ Wulfhild demanded as Richard hurried into the hall early on what promised to be a fine morning. ‘She should be up and moving about. Is she being sick again?’
‘No, but she’s not well either. She’s asking for you.’ Alice’s face, peering over the top of a beaverskin rug, was wan. The cynical voice in Wulfhild’s mind, which would not stop passing derogatory comments on her daughter-in-law, observed that with that receding chin, the girl looked like a skinned hare. ‘Mother,’ said Alice dismally, ‘I’m bleeding.’
And Wulfhild, roundly ignoring her daughter-in-law’s shocked expression, swore.
By midday it was all over. Alice had been made as comfortable as possible and the pitiful bloodstained blob which would have been her child and Richard’s had been disposed of. Alice was crying, wretchedly and persistently, like a querulous child.
‘It happens.’ Wulfhild did her best. ‘Richard was early and so was Sybil and there were others I lost altogether. Worst of all is lasting the nine months and then losing a baby after it’s born.’ She told Alice about her small son who had died, during a storm. ‘There’s plenty of time,’ she said, encouraging Alice as Editha had once tried to encourage her. ‘Richard will want to see you cheerful. Drink your broth.’ It was good fresh chicken broth; they had sacrificed another hen. Alice, however, sensing anger beneath
Wulfhild’s outward sympathy, cried harder and asked to see the priest.
‘I’ve sent old Wenenc to her,’ Wulfhild said to Richard. ‘No, no, she’s all right. She wanted to talk to him, that’s all. God knows what help he’ll be to her; he’s as old as Methusaleh and half blind and all he’ll do is mumble prayers with her but that’s what she wants, I suppose.’
‘Wenenc may be old, but he’s kind,’ said Richard. Had that been pointed, Wulfhild wondered? ‘I’m going to her,’ he said, and left the hall.
Wulfhild, shrugging, took up her stick and made her uneven way out. The crops on the flanks of the downs were showing well. If only they could have a few weeks of sunshine at the right time and no more hailstorms, the harvest might be good. If Alice conceived in the summer, she would have a better chance of bringing the next child to term. At least she had proved she could conceive.
Sybil came dancing towards her, a puppy bounding at her side and a woolly toy which Wulfhild had made for her under her arm. ‘Mother! There are horsemen coming, with banners! Are we expecting anyone? Who are they?’
‘Banners?’ Wulfhild swung round to look at the chalk track at which Sybil was pointing. The child was right. And she knew the colours of the banners. They were those of de Warenne and when one’s overlord sent his men unexpectedly and bearing his official devices, one possible explanation sprang instantly to mind.
‘It’s a rebellion,’ said de Warenne’s messenger, standing in the hall with the household clustered round him. ‘In Kent, mainly. The king’s uncle, Odo of Bayeux, has taken to arms.’ They had come by way of Little Dene and scooped Sir Brian up with them. ‘I was in Chichester at Christmas and there were whispers then,’ he said. ‘It’s no surprise.’
Sir Brian always claimed that things were no surprise, however amazing they might be. If a dragon had appeared and set fire to the woods of Fallowdene, he would have said it was no surprise. ‘He doesn’t like surprises,’ Richard once remarked caustically. ‘They make life too interesting. Excitement will catch him up one day and it will serve him right.’
King of the Wood Page 12
