“An arse he might be, but we must bow to him and to the strong arm that keeps the peace here, and the robbers out of our woods.”
William leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Red you are in the sun and after labourin’. Take a sip of this, a little ale will not go amiss.”
Handing Christine his jug, he spoke through the side of his mouth, in a stage whisper, pretending not to offend his wife: “Now that the chair be done, why even I say you can with Simon tarry.”
Christine blushed deeply, even though it was the custom for betrothed couples to tryst before their marriage. She had been teased by some of the village girls because she had insisted she would remain a virgin until her marriage day.
Hilda, the miller’s daughter, the girl with the distracting wart on her nose, had shouted at her, “Mistress high and mighty, you are. What makes you better than us girls, then?”
Christine had thought about the remark and wondered whether there really was something wrong with her, or perhaps just something different. They wanted marriage and nothing else while, for her, a husband would be just part of her existence, because she was curious about life beyond the village, beyond England, perhaps beyond this world. These thoughts were half-formed, glimmerings which sprang from her lively intelligence.
But her father would not understand this. “Time enough for tarryin’, father,” she said firmly. “Rest I need after gleanin’, not more rushin’ hither and thither.”
“Enough, daughter, for I am eager to see my liege. The reeve has appointed tonight for my gift to be laid at the master’s door. Then next Sunday, God willin’, your name will be fixed on the church door to declare the banns.”
An hour later William, dressed in his Sunday clothes and carrying the chair, was standing with the reeve outside the gatehouse of Vachery Manor. The reeve, armed with his customary stave, bustled with self-importance. The Manor had once been a small castle, and the moat remained, although the Norman fortifications had been partly demilitarised and transformed into a grand house. It was built for luxury, admittedly, but still could be a stronghold if necessary-all for the glory of Sir Richard. The drawbridge was down. Facing the gatehouse was the entrance to the main hall, where most of the household slept, ate and amused themselves. The hall was open to the roof timbers, and it had a hearth in the centre of the floor and a louvre in the roof through which the smoke was supposed to escape, but the smoke and ash from the fires of many winters had besmirched the fine display of shields. The largest was painted red with diagonal stripes and topped with the sign of a crescent moon.
The reeve pointed to the shield and whispered, “Saracen-captured by our lord.”
William was overawed; he had not been inside the hall since he was a young man.
The two men carefully picked their way through a floor thick with rushes, mixed with basil, sweet fennel, lavender, mint, pennyroyal and violets. And, inevitably, mustard seeds had been sprinkled to ward off the evil spirits. The dead flowers and herbs, however, could not compete with the stench of the grease, bones, spittle and the excrement of dogs and cats that mingled with the rushes.
At the lower end of the hall was an entrance from the courtyard. A large screen, carved with scenes of noble exploits in the Holy Land, shielded the hall from some of the draughts. On the other side of the screened-off gangway were doors into the pantry and the former kitchen, now a small armoury. Over the passage formed by the screen stood a gallery where musical instruments were marshalled, waiting patiently for their masters. As he walked past the gallery, William asked the reeve to tell him what the instruments were.
The reeve wasn’t sure, but his pride and position would never allow such an admission: “That be an Irish harp, that a dulcimer and that be a shawm.”
They stepped through the hall, skirting the dais and high table, past a fine carved oak chest which served as a travelling box, and on to the door of the lord’s antechamber. Here they waited an hour or so upon their lord’s pleasure until, eventually, the chamberlain summoned both reeve and William to Sir Richard’s presence. Even the antechamber seemed a magnificent hall to William, so rich was it in wall hangings and beautifully embroidered cushions, all from France, or so the reeve said, again in a whisper.
The lord sat alone in a large curved stool without a back, but heavy with carvings in the legs. A good piece of work, William thought. The very last light of dusk filtered through a glass window, set in a transportable frame, above his head, and it was the first glass window, outside a church, that William had ever seen. Noticing the remains of an opulent private meal on the main table and on the two long benches that flanked it, William sniffed approvingly at the smell of roast meat that hung about the chamber.
Sir Richard did not speak; he seemed distracted by the magpie that had flown in through a rear window to peck at the scraps of food lying on the pewter platters. William and the reeve stood silently, uncertain of their master’s wishes.
“William, the Carpenter,” Sir Richard finally intoned.
William bent his head, as was customary.
“William, the Carpenter, my reeve has instructed me that all your boon work and levies are fulfilled. I thank you for the dutiful service to my house. You have asked for this time with me. What is your request?”
William coughed nervously. Sir Richard’s lisp, he thought, seemed more pronounced in the confines of the antechamber. He had heard him speak before, but only at gatherings for all the villagers in the fields.
The carpenter cleared his throat, looked up and recited his prepared speech: “Sir Richard, I thank you for your time. My words will be but brief. I have made with my own hands this chair, a gift for your lordship which Reeve Thomas has said is acceptable as merchet for my Christine’s marriage. I trust that this is so.”
Sir Richard, a big man, dressed in a russet woollen tunic that reached to the heel of his riding boots, stroked his greying beard. As he stood up, he straightened the jewelled dagger on his belt. William approached his lord and, with a slight bow, handed him the chair.
Sir Richard took the chair and, with exaggerated care, examined the exquisite craftsmanship. He set it down on the floor and sat gently on the gift, as William and the reeve smiled at their lord’s gesture of appreciation.
“I thank you, William. Gladly will I accept.” The knight paused. “This child of yours, how old is she?”
“Sire, she be fully grown to wed these two years or more. She was born to us sixteen harvests since.”
“A pleasing girl, she has a healthy ripeness in her face,” said Sir Richard. “I have seen her at work in the fields,” he added, a touch too dismissively.
He returned to his own chair, sat down and raised one hand, as if to dismiss his audience. The reeve tugged at William’s sleeve as a sign to go, but then Sir Richard spoke with unexpected force: “I have a tallage more for you: I wish to speak alone with your Christine before the marriage date.”
William looked at the reeve, who seemed as surprised as he was. “Sire,” he protested. “I have obliged in all my taxes. And I have laboured mightily with fashionin’ this chair. Is this not suffice? An extra tallage, if I dare say, is not meet. It is not our custom.”
Sir Richard laughed. “Well spoken, William. I demand no coin from you. In fact I had in mind to give your fair Christine some small token for her nuptials and good Christian advice. Tell our Father Peter to accompany her to this hall, when the reeve so dictates to you the time. Farewell.”
Sir Richard’s eyes narrowed as he watched his servants bow and leave the hall.