‘Then she came to the notice of them up at Heathlands,’ the man continued, jerking his head in the direction of the surrounding forest, ‘and before we knew what was happening she’d packed up her few belongings, the Lord’s man had come and closed up her little house and she’d gone to live at the manor.’
‘Was she happy there?’ I asked.
‘Happy? Who worries about happy, as long as you’ve a roof over your head and food in your belly?’ the man demanded.
He was right. King William’s rule had not eased the hardships faced daily by most of his more lowly subjects. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said humbly. ‘It’s just that I saw her body, you see, and I felt I’d have liked her. She had a face that looked as if it smiled a lot.’
The man relented. ‘You’re right there,’ he said. ‘I reckon you’d have warmed to her, lass. Everyone else did, and not a few loved her.’
My attention came into sharp focus. What was he saying?
While I was still framing a tactful question, Sibert spoke up. ‘Pretty girls always attract followers,’ he remarked, giving our new acquaintance a man-to-man glance.
‘Aye, so they do, and Ida was no exception,’ he agreed. ‘Not that she was easy, I’m not suggesting that,’ he added quickly, frowning at us as if we’d questioned Ida’s morals. ‘No, no, she kept herself pure and decent. She was always kindly, don’t mistake me, but when a young lad had his head turned because she smiled at him and started making a bit of a nuisance of himself, she had a sweet way of gently letting him know he was sniffing round the wrong bitch.’ Instantly, his face coloured and he said, ‘Sorry, I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have said that. There’s no need to be crude, especially about a girl like Ida.’ We waited while he remembered what he’d been saying. ‘No, like I said, she never encouraged any of them. Treated them more like brothers than potential lovers, I’d have said. It was no fault of hers if they loved her.’ He dropped his head, eyes on the ground. ‘If he loved her,’ he said in a whisper.
I could have corrected him and told him he was wrong about Ida keeping herself pure. But there was no point; let the poor girl keep her good name. I was far more interested in this he that the man spoke of.
‘There was someone in particular who had fallen for her?’ I asked. I wanted to know so badly, but I was afraid that if I pushed too hard he would get suspicious, clam up and shut the door on us.
By good fortune, however, Sibert and I seemed to have encountered the village gossip, which was probably why he’d been working outside his house in the first place: so that he could catch the attention of anyone who passed by and exchange a word or two with them. Several more than two, in our case.
The man leaned towards us, elbow resting on the top rail of the simple fence that ran round his yard. ‘It’s a sad tale,’ he said, ‘but if you knew Ida and have taken the trouble to seek out those who used to be her neighbours, then I reckon you’ve a right to hear it.’ I hadn’t known Ida, and Sibert and I had had no intention of seeking out her former neighbours except to find out the identity of the man who had been her lover, but this was no time to be pedantic.
‘Please tell us,’ I said.
The man gazed out along the narrow, rutted track that wound between the houses. ‘We are few who live here,’ he began, ‘and we work hard. Flint knapping’s a special skill. Most of us learned it from our fathers, and they learned from their fathers.’ I knew a little about the life of a knapper because of my cousin Morcar, and I nodded. ‘There’s not much other work hereabouts, and that’s a fact,’ the man added lugubriously, ‘and, like I say, most of us have a struggle supporting ourselves and our families. Still, us in Brandon have a rare bit of good fortune because we’ve got our own minstrel. Well, of course he’s not really, he’s a knapper like the rest of us, only he plays that little harp of his like one of the Lord God’s angels, and whenever we have the least excuse for a bit of fun, out he comes with a tune and a song. Sometimes it’s something he’s written himself, and sometimes he’ll smile and agree to play one of the old tunes so we can all join in.’ A reminiscent smile spread across his face, revealing three crooked teeth and a lot of gaps.
‘You are indeed fortunate,’ Sibert said. ‘It raises a man’s spirits at the end of a hard day to down a mug of ale and sing a good song.’
‘Alberic didn’t often get the mug of ale, not while that sour faced bitch of a wife of his was watching,’ the man said forcefully. ‘And it’s a tribute to his music that it could make him smile with all he had to put up with. And it did make him smile — he used to look like he was in heaven, on God’s right hand, when he was singing.’ He shot us a sly glance. ‘Especially when Ida sang along with him.’
I knew it! I thought. Ida did have a lover, and he was married! I felt my heart beat speed up.
‘This Alberic,’ Sibert was saying, ‘has a shrew for a wife, then?’
‘Shrew’s putting it mildly,’ the man replied. ‘We were all amazed when Alberic agreed to wed her, for she was a few years older than him, and whatever bloom she’d once had had long worn off. We warned him, but he said he’d given his word and that was that. Soon as she’d got the ring on her finger she started on at him, and I don’t reckon she as much as paused to draw breath even once after that. She was named for a martyr, was Thecla, and she made poor Alberic’s life one long martyrdom too. He didn’t work hard enough, he spent his money in the tavern and not on her, the snug little house he built for her was no better than a pigsty — that’s the sort of thing she hurled at him. Then there was his music, and you can guess what she had to say about him wasting his time with something as frivolous as that.’ Leaning close again, he confided spitefully, ‘Tone deaf, old Thecla. Couldn’t carry a tune if it had handles.’
‘No wonder Alberic fell for Ida,’ I put in softly. ‘It sounds as if she was everything Thecla wasn’t.’
‘That she was,’ the man agreed, ‘and her sweet young face looking up at him while he played fair touched Alberic’s heart, and she was only a girl back then. Not that there was anything improper going on,’ he added. ‘In those days — and I’m talking a few years back now — Alberic loved her like a daughter. It was only later that he started to see her like a man sees a woman, if you take my meaning.’
We did.
‘Well, nothing could come of it,’ he went on with a deep sigh. ‘Alberic was a married man, and nothing was going to change that. He loved Ida far too dearly to make advances to her when he knew he could not do the right thing and offer marriage.’ That, I said to myself, is what you think. ‘So he loved her from afar, and he had to watch helplessly as she nursed her dying father and grieved for him after he’d gone. She was all alone then.’ He paused, and I noticed his eyes were wet. ‘Of course,’ he said after a moment, ‘Alberic knew he couldn’t offer to help her because it would soon get back to Thecla and she’d have her revenge on him. She tried to burn his harp once,’ he added matter-of-factly. ‘Just because she thought she’d seen him smile at a pretty woman in a red dress at the Lammas fair.’
‘He must have been relieved, in a way, when Ida went to work at the big house,’ I suggested. ‘At least he no longer had to see her every day.’
‘You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you?’ he agreed. He shook his head. ‘Wasn’t like that. Soon as she’d gone, Alberic began to fade away, almost before our eyes. We thought he was ill, but if so it was a strange sickness that didn’t progress or get better. We began to think old Alberic was on his way to meet the Maker. Then we heard Ida had gone off with Lady Claude to stay with some cousin of the lady, where she — Lady Claude, I mean — was going to get to know the man she’s to marry and work away on her marriage chest. Which was why Ida went with her too, her being a seamstress.’