Cerdic and Hildegarde’s eldest child, a boy, was christened Egfrith and he died of a flux of the bowels when he was eight years old. His two younger brothers, William de Swansford and Eadgar Caedwalla, both had sons who married and in time begat children, two of whom were Ralf de Swansford, grandson of William, and Emma Caedwalla, granddaughter of Eadgar. The marriage of these two produced a quartet of lively, healthy, intelligent and capable children in whom the blood and the energy of the Caedwallas runs strong …
Helewise’s elder brother Rainer is, at the time of this sunny spring morning, now sixteen years old and a squire. He has already achieved his full height, the beginnings of a beard and a manly breadth of shoulder; they mature early, Ralf and Emma’s children. Rainer has bedded several cheerful and very willing kitchen maids and is now moon-eyed over the pretty daughter of a neighbouring knight. Helewise’s younger brother Eudo, aged eleven, is also undergoing the training deemed suitable for a knight’s son, although reports suggest that his heart does not seem to be in it and that he is proving quite a handful. Both brothers are presently away from home, although the households in which they live are not far away.
The last of the four children, Helewise’s sister Aeleis, is ten years old and the beauty of the family, with thick, glossy hair the colour of chestnuts and clear grey eyes fringed with dark lashes. Her wide mouth smiles readily and the skin of her heart-shaped face is creamy and smooth. Everyone tries to pet her, dress her up and spoil her, but she usually manages to slip through even the grasp of her nurse and, dressed in cast-off boys’ clothing that once belonged to her brothers, loves nothing better than to spend the day with the horses and her father’s hounds. Aeleis loves all animals and her devotion to the stable cat means that this large and indolent creature is now too spoiled and well-fed to earn its keep as a mouser. (When Aeleis grows up, this big-hearted and apparently endless well of love will be turned to humans when, after giving birth to her one and only child, she will set about opening her home to foundlings and proceeding to give food, warmth and the hope of a chance in life to many who would otherwise have died young.)
This is Helewise’s family. She loves them and, at fourteen, has sufficient wisdom to understand that her childhood has been singularly blessed. Not only is there the very comfortable cushion of her parents’ wealth; there is also the unusually tolerant and wide-minded attitude of her mother and father. They have treated their offspring as young adults from an early age, stretching their minds with talk usually reserved for times when the children are not about, so that the four young Swansfords have a wider view of the world than most of their contemporaries. This is one reason why Helewise is so eager to see her father: he has been to London — oh, the very name is exciting! — and has promised to bring back the latest gossip. He will, he whispered to her before he left, save the juiciest morsels to tell her first …
The gifts with which Father will present his wife and children (and the most senior of the household servants) will be splendid; they always are. He may well bring Helewise some parchment and a new stylus, or a beautifully written sacred text produced by the monks. He will undoubtedly bring her a length of yellow French silk, because she asked him to and he never lets her down.
Helewise’s dancing is interrupted by the arrival in the bedchamber of her nurse, Elena. Elena is dark-haired and dark-eyed and has the perpetually tanned skin that suggests she has ancestry from the south. Whatever the truth of the matter, Elena tells her own version: that her grandfather went off to fight in the First Crusade and brought back a slave girl from Antioch. Helewise, enchanted by this story as a child, now has her doubts as to its veracity but loves Elena nonetheless. Elena is wise and at times too perceptive for the children — especially the girls — whom she has had in her charge since they were born; Helewise and Aeleis frequently accuse her of having good friends in the spirit world who keep her informed, for how else would she know what is happening out of her sight and away from her keen ears? Elena is also skilled in herb lore and has been of service as nurse and healer to the Swansfords on so many occasions that they have all lost count.
‘Hurry up, my girl!’ Elena says as she bustles into the room with Helewise’s bluebell-coloured gown carried carefully in her arms. ‘Your father’s nearly here and he has brought a friend with him. You’re to go down when your mother calls you and make a nice curtsy to the man.’
‘Is he old?’ Helewise is struggling out of her everyday linen over-gown — a little grubby around the hem and with a blotch on the bosom where she spilt her barley water — and her words are muffled.
‘Old enough,’ Elena replies unhelpfully. ‘Now let me look at this under-gown.’ She pauses to drag the fine linen shift down and straighten it; Helewise is full-figured and the garment is a little tight over her firm and rounded breasts. ‘I ought to let this out again,’ Elena mutters, ‘but there’s no time now, it’ll have to do. Come, let’s see what the blue looks like.’ She drapes the silk over Helewise’s head — it smells faintly of lavender; Elena is skilled in the care of fine clothing — and pushes her arms up over her head so that she can fasten the laces down each side of the gown. ‘There!’ she exclaims as she ties the last bow. ‘I’ll tidy your hair’ — she smacks Helewise’s hands away and skilfully twirls the reddish-blonde hair into long braids and attractive curls that frame Helewise’s flushed face — ‘and I reckon you’re done.’
Helewise stands still under Elena’s scrutiny. ‘Will I pass inspection?’ she asks with a grin.
‘Aye.’ Elena gives a satisfied nod. ‘That you will.’
Helewise waits impatiently for her mother’s summons. When at last it comes she makes her way through the upper chambers of Swansford — it is a very big house — and descends down the narrow, curving stair that leads into the huge hall. Her father is standing by the long table in front of the hearth and there is another, older man with him. Both are in the act of drinking a toast to one another, as if in celebration of business satisfactorily concluded. Her father would no doubt tell Helewise what that business was if she asked. Nothing, in fact, is further from her mind, because she is quite captivated by the tall, broad-shouldered and handsome man who stands at her father’s side.
He is older than her father, considerably so; his face bears strong character lines but these lines give the impression that they all radiate upwards, suggesting that they have been formed from a lifetime of laughter. His eyes are brilliant blue. His mouth is wide and when, as now, he smiles, it is to reveal good strong teeth, the eye teeth long and sharp like a wolf’s. He is dressed in a dark blue tunic richly decorated with gold braid and his head of long, thick, white hair is uncovered.