Matilda and Gillota were considered too lowly to serve at table, but they had other tasks in the kitchen and especially afterwards, when the clearing up was done. By late afternoon they could take their ease, walk around the village or go to their bed until it was time to prepare supper. Again, Matilda haunted the village street, hoping to come across either Philip de Mora or the priest, but neither of them appeared.
A couple of weeks after the harvest was finished, she tackled the steward again about her situation.
‘I wish to bring my complaint to the manor court again,’ she said stubbornly when he came into the kitchen to check on everyone’s work. ‘It is not right that our lord treats us in this way. There must be some way to appeal against his treatment of me and my daughter!’
Simon Mercator glared at her and for a moment she feared that he was going to strike her.
‘Be quiet, woman! You have been to the court and it was dismissed,’ he snarled contemptuously.
‘Dismissed? It was not even discussed! It should be considered by a jury of the villagers; they have the right to offer their opinion.’ Her face was red with indignation, but the steward was unmoved.
‘There is nothing to discuss!’ he shouted. ‘You were born a serf and a serf you will remain for the rest of your days!’
‘His father declared mine free!’ she replied stubbornly. ‘Why do you persist in denying it?’
Simon thrust his angry face near hers. ‘Because it never happened! Every villager could suddenly decide to claim that they had been freed, so why do you think that your particular lies should be heeded?’
‘You were not even here when my father was released from his bondage!’ she blazed.
Simon pushed her out of the way, making her stagger back. ‘I want no more of this nonsense, do you hear?’ he snarled. ‘If you open your mouth about it once more, I’ll have you back in chains again — and that brat of yours!’
He stalked out of the kitchen, leaving Matilda close to tears and Gillota trying to comfort her, as did the cook and one of the serving wenches. Later that day, she sat on her thin mattress and tried to think of a way out of this nightmare. Escaping again was impossible, and it seemed equally impossible to get justice at the manor court — and she knew of no way of seeking it elsewhere. She took her cloth bag that lay on a shelf on the wall and took out the strangely shaped stone, wrapped in a rag. To her, it still had an aura of power about it, which she could not describe but which she felt in her very soul. Yet it seemed unable or unwilling to translate its potency into action.
She turned it over in her hand and studied the strange marks on its surface, which meant nothing to her. Rubbing the steely-hard surface with the rag burnished it slightly, but had no other effect. Yet when she held it close to her chest, she fancied she could feel the slightest of vibrations deep inside. With a sigh, she wrapped it up again and was about to place it back in the bag when two crystal-clear images came unbidden into her mind. One was the face of Philip de Mora and the other was that of Father Thomas. They shone brightly in her mind’s eye for a moment, then merged together and faded.
Conscious that something unusual had taken place, she turned towards the door and saw that Gillota was standing there, watching her.
‘Those two men are our only hope, Mother,’ said the girl, not needing any words to know what Matilda had just experienced.
Though Walter Lupus had ignored her until now, a week later Matilda came to his attention once more. She was squatting outside the kitchen hut one morning, scouring cooking pots with wet sand and a rag, trying to remove the ever-present rust, when a pair of leather shoes suddenly came into her vision. Looking up, she saw Walter standing over her, staring down with his usual dour, inscrutable expression.
‘Come with me, woman,’ he commanded with a beckoning gesture. Reluctant and somewhat apprehensive, she rose to her feet and followed him towards the steps that led to the back door of the manor house.
‘What do you want with me now?’ she asked defiantly. ‘Have you reconsidered your bad treatment of me and my daughter?’
He ignored this and led her up into the hall of the house, which occupied most of the ground floor, apart from two small rooms partitioned off to one side. It was now early September and a fire smouldered in the large chimneyed hearth on the opposite side of the hall. Alongside, a doorway led to a narrow staircase set in the thickness of the wall, and she followed him up the stone steps, uneasy at this new departure from her routine. There were several men in the hall, merchants and tradesmen by their appearance, so she could hardly be ravished there, but going up the dark stairs was another matter.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, trying to conceal a tremor in her voice.
‘To see my wife,’ was the surprising reply, but at the top it proved to be true. The upper floor, beneath a sloping roof of stone tiles, was divided into a solar overlooking the front of the house and behind it, through a door, a larger bedchamber.
Walter stopped with his hand on this door and spoke in a low voice. ‘My wife Joan is ill and needs constant attention,’ he revealed. ‘She is cared for mostly by Alice, the housekeeper, who needs more help. You will work here now instead of the kitchens.’
He said this with an air of finality that did not invite questions, but Matilda was not satisfied. ‘Why me? I am no nursing nun. I know nothing of running a sickroom.’
‘You will fetch and carry at Alice’s direction. You need know nothing of physic!’ he snapped. ‘An apothecary comes each week from Barnstaple for that. Not that he’s of much use.’
Walter sounded bitter, and for a moment Matilda had a pang of sympathy for him, until his next words set him against her again.
‘In spite of your insolent nature, you have the glimmerings of intelligence and are preferable to those other slatterns in the kitchen. Now, go in and make yourself known to my wife and Alice, who recommended you.’
He pushed his finger through a hole in the door to lift the latch and shoved her inside before vanishing down the stairs.
A wide bed occupied much of the room, raised on a wooden plinth, instead of the usual position on the floor. Beneath covers of heavy wool and sheepskin lay Joan Lupus, staring listlessly up at the dusty rafters high above. Alice the housekeeper, a fat woman whom Matilda had known all her life, sat on a milking stool at the side of the bed, holding a pewter cup of posset, trying at intervals to tempt the lady to drink the honeyed mixture of milk and spiced wine.
‘Here’s Matilda, a nice young woman to help me look after you, my lady,’ coaxed Alice, but the pallid wraith in the bed gave no more than an uninterested nod, then turned her head away. Soon she was asleep, and Matilda took the opportunity to question the housekeeper.
‘What’s wrong with her? I saw her in church the other Sunday. She looked ill then, but not as bad as this.’
‘She is losing blood down below,’ said Alice primly. ‘She has been for months, but it’s getting worse and she’s getting weaker all the time. That apothecary is useless, so I thought you might be able to help. You have a reputation, Matilda. We sorely missed you when you went away.’
‘I’ll do my best for her. Anything is better than working as a skivvy. But I’ll not be diverted from my fight to regain my freedom!’ she added in a fierce whisper.
For several days she helped Alice, mainly in changing the soiled bed coverings, cleaning up the sick lady and fetching and carrying anything needed in the sickroom. She took turns in feeding her, trying to coax her to eat a variety of tempting morsels, but Joan Lupus seemed oblivious to their presence for much of the time, sleeping a great deal. Her husband came several times a day and tried to exchange a few gruff words with his wife, with little response.