Knight's Acre

by Norah Lofts

  ‘Moyidan. For what we needed. It took so long because… Let’s get in. I’ll tell you about it.’ She tried not to hobble, thankful for his proffered arm.

  The cow lowed plaintively.

  ‘I’ll just milk her,’ Henry said. ‘Could you take these? There’ll be no need to cook for days…’

  The grey horse was saddled with a sack, wore only a halter but carried, slung over the sack, two well-stuffed bags.

  ‘They’ve barricaded themselves in,’ Henry said. ‘With guards. I had to shout who I was and what I wanted. And the barrier is at least a mile from the house… Two gates, about four yards apart and the space between filled in with brambles and branches. All this’—he indicated what he had brought—‘was handed out to me at the end of a long pole.’ He laughed.

  Emma had always been a good housekeeper and now, for once, she had been generous, mindful of the needs of the healthy as well as of the sick. She had sent a huge flask of the brown, poppy medicine, which was all Henry had asked her for, and another flask, labelled “For cooling fever,” as well as a cheese, a brawn, a joint of spiced beef and a game pie. And a pomander ball, an orange stuck all over with cloves and dried as hard as iron.

  ‘Now,’ Henry said, eating voraciously, ‘they can all have a dose. And we can sleep. I’ll tell you another thing, too… Maybe at Moyidan they’re harvesting, I couldn’t get near enough to see. But down there…’ he jerked his head towards the village, ‘and all along the road I didn’t see one man at work.’

  It confirmed something that Father Ambrose had said, ‘At such times people simply sit about, waiting for death. I have often thought that for one killed by pestilence, four die of fear.’

  ‘It looks to me,’ Henry said, ‘as though corn will be scarce and dear this winter. And we shall have some to sell.’

  Perhaps Emma’s medicine for cooling fever contained some powerful ingredient; or perhaps the plague, like other ailments, mounted to a crisis and then receded. For whatever reason, gradually but surely all three invalids began to improve.

  TWENTY

  You wish to be rid of me,’ Tana said.

  ‘I want you to be happy.’

  ‘Without you?’

  He said, miserably, ‘My dear, wherever you are, it must be without me.’

  He thought that parting would hurt them both but his wound would cut deeper and be slower to heal because he was older and bore a burden of guilt; but that was the kind of thought which he could never put into words.

  ‘And all behind my back,’ she said. ‘You trade me away like an old horse.’

  No statement could be more unjust. He had been most meticulous.

  In the house of the Dominicans, to an English-speaking friar who remembered Father Andreas, painstakingly explaining and asking help; in the mansion of the rich merchant, a second generation Converso Moor with two lively daughters, one about Tana’s age, one a year younger and a mother who spoke Arabic. ‘Absolutely to be trusted,’ the friar had explained; ‘he is a good Christian. Too rich to be interested in whatever wealth the young woman may have; and like all Conversos, much in awe of the Church. It we commit her to his care, she will be safe.’

  The idea of making some such arrangement had occurred to Sir Godfrey when, elated by news from home, slightly flown with wine, he had left The Mermaid and stepped back into the polyglot streets. He heard Arabic being spoken by unveiled women, caught glimpses of inner courtyards of Moorish-style houses, felt the warm sun of the autumn day. If Tana could be persuaded, if proper safeguards could be found, would she not be happier here than in England where he would be the only person who understood a word she said and where he would have his family. So he had turned to the Dominicans and found just the aid he sought.

  He was aware that he was not being honest, either with himself or anybody else; he had given Tana her due—the girl who had liberated him—but he had not said that she had been his mistress and before that a member of the royal harem; he had not explained by what savage means she had gained the position of first favourite or that her wealth was the result of robbery. He had allowed it to be assumed that she was a Moor. He had shied away from the truth which Tana now put into words—‘You wish to be rid of me.’

  He did so wish. He had, in the past months, foreseen a difficult situation but only vaguely; now, with the news that Sybilla was still his legal wife, still at Knight’s Acre, his mental sight cleared. If Tana would only understand and consent, his happiness would be unclouded—and yet…

  Even as he blundered on, and saw on her face the expression of scorn which is so readily assumed, he was bound to admire her anew; for what other woman in the world would not have rounded on him, accused him of ingratitude, said, ‘After all I have done for you…’ She was too proud for that.

  He had wanted to be near the shipping area and on arrival in Seville had sought accommodation there, though inns in that district were not of the best. ‘So long as there is a bed to lie upon and some hot water so that I can wash my hair, I ask no more,’ Tana had said. And she had not protested when he had indicated that two sleeping chambers were required. When asked for how long he made a helpless gesture, not understanding; but here foreigners were no rarity and whether they stayed one night or four the charge was the same. He had then gone straight out to look for an English ship and had found The Mermaid, conceived his idea and spent the afternoon in putting it into effect. Tana, meanwhile, had washed her hair, her first act after a gypsyish period; she had washed it in Santisteban after their sojourn in the mountains, she had washed it in Seville, after their long ride. And now, dead straight, black as night, shining and silky, it hung about her as she listened, rejected and accused.

  The room which she had been assigned faced the river and had a little balcony, no great advantage now with the dockside so near; it was a soiled river which now, at its lowest, just before the winter rains, ran below the out-jutting stone ledge with its crumbling rail. In the time that it took him to explain that, far from trading her away, he had made most careful arrangements, refuse from ships and from houses, including a broom and the grossly inflated body of a dead dog, drifted past.

  Tana said, ‘And this is what you wish?’

  ‘What I think might be best.’

  Swift and sudden as her actions against the putative robbers, she flung herself over the rail and into the sullied water.

  Swift and sudden as anything he had ever done in his life, he followed and the Great River engulfed them both.

  In Andara he had taught himself to swim, ineptly but well enough to keep himself afloat. The body, like the mind, had a memory. He snatched at the nearest thing which said, ‘Tana,’ a great hank of floating hair; he made some clumsy strokes, only his legs—booted and heavy—and one arm operative, and great good luck managed to snatch at a pole, solidly planted at the foot of some steps for the convenience of a boat delivering goods. He clutched at it, heaved himself and his dripping burden out of the sullied water and sprawled for a moment, physically and emotionally exhausted.

  Tana said, ‘So you do love me…?’

  With that she became content and amenable. Aboard The Mermaid she made no demands, no complaints. In fact with that last violent, would-be self-destructive gesture, she seemed to have turned in herself, to have become resigned. Sad, in a way, like a wild creature caged. But she now understood; this bucking rearing ship was part of England where he belonged; its captain and most of its crew were from Bywater, where his brother was part of the Church which she hated and feared; the most discreet behaviour was called for.

  Bywater, its roofs and trees just rimed by a night light frost, loomed up out of the sea. Presently, amidst all the shouting and manoeuvring needed to bring The Mermaid alongside the jetty, her captain found time to speak to his distinguished passenger. ‘Here we are, sir, and I can just imagine how you’re feeling.’

  Sir Godfrey had no idea of how he felt. People spoke, he thought, too lightly about the movements of their hearts,
saying over trivial things that their hearts rose or sank. His seemed to be doing both in such rapid succession that rise and fall were simultaneous. This was not the homecoming he had envisaged.

  It was not the homecoming any of them had envisaged. Captain Fletcher had imagined himself at the Welcome to Mariners, the centre of attention, the man who had brought Sir Godfrey Tallboys back to England; the crew would also share this glory, see their families, present the gifts expected of returned sailors, make love to or quarrel with their wives, get married, see a child for the first time.

  The harbour master and the customs official—wines being dutiable—came aboard and one of them said, ‘Well, you missed the plague!’ The word spread as rapidly as the thing it stood for. It shattered all homecoming dreams.

  Sir Godfrey had intended to go straight to the inn, hire two horses and ride to Intake. Now he must see William, because William would know… Sybilla, alive and well in July. How now? He had one terrible thought—A judgement on me! He could not speak. He could only seize Tana by the wrist and charge up the slight rise which only in flat East Anglia would be called a hill, at the top of which the Bishop’s residence stood.

  She seemed to go reluctantly, dragging him back, she who had always gone ahead, so lithe and nimble. Suspicious, poor girl, because she did not understand. He forced himself to master his breath, his tongue. ‘My brother…’ he gasped, and pointed. ‘Bad news!’

  He should have been warned. William had no use for formality, he had always been accessible to anyone. Now the outer door was barred and Sir Godfrey, trembling with impatience, had to tug the bell twice, three times before it opened, narrowly, cautiously.

  ‘The Bishop… I must see him. I’m his brother.’

  ‘His Grace is not yet in residence.’

  But William had always been there. The good shepherd tending his flock. He ignored conferences and convocations… And now, through the narrow space of the guarded doorway, Sir Godfrey could see William’s hall, rich dark hangings on the walls, the glitter of silver on cupboard and table. All new: all prepared for another man.

  William was dead! How many others?

  ‘Go and fetch somebody who was here—before. Chaplain, groom, secretary. Move yourself, man.’

  It was the recognisable voice of authority, though used by a shabby fellow.

  William had never maintained an adequate entourage and, dying suddenly, had left his affairs in a muddle, made worse by the fact that there had been other deaths, but one man seemed to have survived both the plague and the new Bishop’s ruthless clean sweep; he had been retained because he had a good memory, knew where to find anything which was there to be found and wrote a good clear hand. He was brought, blinking, to the door. He stared, with disbelief and then with recognition.

  ‘Sir Godfrey! Wh… Wh…’

  ‘Never mind that. Do you know anything—recent—about my wife?’

  There had been weeks of complete confusion, of genuine grief for a good old master, of trepidation, wondering about his own job, of being asked to find this, refer to that, of trying to accommodate himself to the new and very differing regime; but the good memory served. He produced the required information as a well-trained dog would offer a retrieved thing.

  ‘Lady Tallboys and her children suffered from the plague, Sir Godfrey—but they all survived.’

  He said, ‘Thank God!’ and broke into such as sweat as might have marked the end of a fever or the onset of the sweating sickness.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Lady Tallboys wrote a letter… It arrived… It was too late.’

  Sybilla had written; pride, independence, joy in her own house all brought low by the common sense which informed her that to manage was impossible.

  Doggedly, growing haggard and old, Henry had proceeded with cutting and carrying the corn. But who would thresh it? Tom Robinson had survived but as a shaky, feeble wreck of himself. He tried, pathetically grateful for the nursing he had been given, but he fainted the first time he ventured into the field and Henry had shown a disquieting callousness. ‘Let him potter about the yard, Mother. I have enough to do without swoons.’

  Father Ambrose, so valiant, not only doing his duty by the dying and the dead but caring for the very old and the sick, had undertaken to tell her that nobody, nobody in Intake, could pay rent for at least a year; the village was ruined, most of the breadwinners dead or so weakened as to be useless.

  ‘I have always tried,’ he said mournfully, ‘to use what the lady willed for God’s use, for the purpose she intended. It is no longer possible. Rain may drip on the very altar. The living must be fed; the holdings restocked.’

  Restocked? All that was left now of her poultry was a wary old cock who seemed to have observed the fate that had overtaken his trusting fellows.

  What added to her feeling of weak despair was her own lameness. Such a slight fall. She had limped about, tending the sick in the final hopeful stages of their illness and then, when the voracious hunger of post-fever set in, cooking and cooking, ignoring the pain, thinking always that it must be better tomorrow. But it was not.

  So she had capitulated and written to William, sending the letter by the first person who entered the village after Father Ambrose, counting days, had thought it safe to pluck out the wands. A pedlar.

  Of the three refuges offered to her she had chosen Bywater because in William’s house there was no woman except his bad-tempered, slovenly housekeeper who might, by gradual stages, be ousted; because William was kind and had power, could get John into the monks’ school at Baildon and poor Margaret, perhaps, into some kind of religious house; the only safe future for a half-wit.

  She made her decision and dispatched her letter without consulting Henry.

  When she told him he was angry in the worst way; not hot and argumentative, as she had feared and was prepared to deal with, but cold, polite, relentless.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘For you and the children, that might be best. But I shall stay here. In my own place.’

  ‘Darling, that is impossible… One of my reasons… I can no longer stand by and watch you work yourself to death.’

  He ignored that. ‘What would you do with the house? The fields?’

  ‘We might,’ she said, careful to include him, ‘find a buyer.’

  ‘Now? With land going back to the waste wherever you look? And is it yours to sell?’

  A little flurried, she said, ‘Why yes. Yes, of course. Your father being dead…’

  ‘I am my father’s heir, Mother. If he had left an estate of more value, it would have been taken into custody, to be kept for me until I was of age. I should have been somebody’s ward.’

  Over a few of the words, estate, custody, ward, he hesitated slightly, unfamiliar words, learned by rote.

  ‘If my father had left three hundred fields, that would have been the law.’

  Walter! Walter, who knew a great deal about many things and a little about most, had implanted this unlikely piece of information, these strange words into Henry’s mind as soon as Godfrey was deemed to be dead.

  ‘Apart from which,’ Henry said, ‘the land is mine because I have toiled and sweated. I helped to make this farm. And nobody is going to take it away from me.’

  ‘Darling, nobody wishes to. Henry, we must be sensible. It will be a year before Tom is useful—if he ever is… You cannot manage what it once… once took three of you to do. And when I spoke of selling I had no intention of defrauding you. I thought… Some kind of business, in Bywater…’ Brooding over the letter, chewing the quill, she had realised that Henry was too old now for schooling, too old to be left idle. ‘Timber,’ she said diffidently, ‘or wine.’ Both very respectable trades.

  ‘Or a well-fitted pedlar’s pack!’

  She was sharply reminded of the Abbess of Lamarsh, so skilled in the dealing of verbal wounds—and Henry’s aunt, after all.

  ‘It must be faced,’ she said. ‘I have tried to do the best for us all. It
is not as though I can help much, now. So lame… And I look at all the corn you have hauled in. Who’ll thresh it, winnow it, sack it up?’

  ‘I shall. It will take time but time is on our side now. The later to market the better, this year. You go to Bywater, Mother, and rest and live like a lady. I stay here.’ He gave a little snort of unmirthful laughter. ‘Before you go, show Tom how to bake a loaf. It’s about all he’s good for now. But I can manage.’

  She could just imagine how they would live. Who’d wash and mend for them, change bed linen, have a hot nourishing meal ready?

  ‘You haven’t really considered it.’

  ‘I could consider till my beard grew down to my knees and still think the same.’

  ‘Very well, since you are so set. I will write again. Try again.’

  The old boyish grin brightened his face.

  ‘That’s more like my mother!’ He lifted one of her work-roughened hands and kissed it. ‘You shan’t regret it. I don’t intend to be poor all my life.’

  ‘Yes, Lady Tallboys wrote,’ the little clerk said. ‘His Grace had expired on the previous day. I took it upon myself, since there was no one else to do so, to send her the sad news.’

  ‘I see. Thank you.’ Sir Godfrey had been fond of his brother, was sorry that he was dead but at the moment the good news outweighed the bad and he had a practical thought. Whatever else William had spared upon, he had kept good horses.

  The horses willingly, even eagerly provided, once the clerk’s recognition had established his identity, were good but Tana who, on an inferior animal, had ridden like the wind, now rode like an old market woman carrying eggs. Plainly she was unwilling to arrive.

  ‘There is nothing to fear,’ he said, forced for the tenth time to rein in and wait for her to catch up. ‘If we hold to our bargain…’ A bargain made, on a rotting balcony overlooking the Guadalquivir, by two people emotionally exhausted, prepared to settle on almost any terms. She should stay with him, have his protection, his brotherly love, his companionship in an alien land; she was to forget, make no claim, do, say nothing that would cause Sybilla a moment’s unease. The unusual thing about this bargain was that the terms were, on both sides, volunteered, not exacted. Neither of them was, at that moment, in a reasonable state of mind. He was shaken by the latest proof of devotion—she would sooner drown than be parted from him—she so elated by the fact that he had not, in fact, wished to be rid of her, as he could so easily have been simply by doing nothing—that they were both prepared to build, upon an illicit love, some plan for the future. A post that happened to be handy had saved them both from death; they were enjoying what was almost a sense of resurrection.