Afton of Margate Castle (11 page)

“Make sure Lienor breakfasts on anise and fennel the morning the king arrives,” Endeline told Afton as she wiped the dried quicklime from her fingers with a towel. “Her breath will then be sweet when she greets the king. Lunette, you will make her skin white with sheep fat.” She frowned at Lienor’s tan. “You will need to use a lot. She spends too much time outdoors with her brothers.”

Lienor continued to weep silently, and Afton stared in amazement. Lienor was a brawler, a screamer. Never had Afton seen her weep like this, silently, as if something inside had broken.

“Quiet, Lienor.” Endeline tossed the dirty cloth to Morgan. “I expect all of you to behave as well as you can. Perceval’s honor must be upheld during the king’s visit, for the future of our house depends on it. We will do our best to make King Henry comfortable and to please his son William. Is that understood?”

“Yes, my lady,” Afton answered easily.

Still weeping, Lienor answered in a whisper: “Yes.”

Endeline’s eyes narrowed as she looked at her weeping daughter. Then she turned to Afton and smiled. “Help me with my wildcat daughter, my dear, and perhaps we will present you to the king. Unless you are instructed in that regard, however, you will stay out of sight.”

Afton nodded. She had not expected to meet the king. It was enough that she could help Endeline.

***

A messenger carrying the banner of King Henry galloped through the gates of Margate Castle the next morning. His message to Perceval was simple: King Henry’s ship had landed safely in England, the king was en route to Margate, and (the messenger added unofficially) His Highness was in a jubilant mood. The war to reunite the Norman and English halves of the kingdom of William the Conqueror was nearly over, and Henry would doubtless be the victor.

Perceval breathed a sigh of relief. He knew full well that opening his home to the king was much like inviting a tiger into his private chamber. The beast was powerful, beautiful, and awe-inspiring, but it could eat a man alive. Still, honor demanded that he take the risk.

***

Endeline roused Lienor before daylight the next morning, and Afton listened sympathetically to Lienor’s quiet complaints as she was bathed and her hair washed in clove-scented water. Lunette braided Lienor’s hair with fresh roses, and Morgan worked the same magic on Endeline. Afton was quietly granted permission to stay out of the way.

She dressed and scampered out of the chamber and down the staircase until she was in the castle courtyard. Life was busy here, too. The sun had barely begun to climb the sky, but outside the kitchen the cooks were butchering lambs and calves for dinner. Afton felt queasy at the sight of so much blood, so she ran for the quiet of the orchard.

From the safety of an apple tree, Afton watched Perceval’s garrison of knights mount up and ride out to meet the king’s traveling party. That meant the garrison tower would be empty--and the view spectacular. The towers were the only buildings tall enough to stand above the outer walls of the castle, and the only way she would be able to see the king approaching.

Afton shimmied out of the apple tree and darted through the servants in the busy courtyard. The heavy wooden tower door intimidated her for a moment, but she yanked it open and scurried up the narrow, winding staircase until she reached the circular room at the tower’s lookout point.

There was an open space above an outcropping that jutted toward the castle road. Afton started toward the window, and jumped when someone moved in the shadows beside her.

It was Calhoun, and he seemed as embarrassed to be discovered in the tower as she was frightened. He turned his face from her. “What’s wrong?” she asked, forgetting her fears and leaning on the wall beside him. She could not imagine what could cause him embarrassment.

“Nothing you would understand,” he answered, jerking his hand across his face and wiping his eyes. He closed his lips firmly together, looking out the window, but words seemed to rise unbidden from somewhere in his soul. “How am I supposed to be a knight if they won’t let me do anything? I’m as brave as they are!”

“You are,” Afton agreed. “Remember how brave you were when you freed me from the trap in the barn? I might have hung there for days and starved to death.”

Calhoun smiled in spite of his misery. “That wasn’t bravery. That was chivalry. Knights are supposed to help women and children.”

“It was brave to let me fall right on top of you,” Afton added, laughing. “I could have crushed you!”

“You’re a slip of a girl. You couldn’t crush anybody,” Calhoun answered. “But today I asked Gawain if I might ride out with the knights to meet the king--he told me to run along and stay out of the way.”

Calhoun’s chin quivered and his face grew red. “To stay out of the way! He has never said that before.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to be cruel,” Afton answered softly. “It’s just that everyone’s upset about the king’s visit. But Gawain knows that you are brave and very able. Perhaps he has something better for you in mind, something you can do later.”

“I shall be too busy staying out of the way,” Calhoun answered, staring moodily out the window. Suddenly he stiffened and pointed down the road. “Here they come! The king’s riders!”

Afton peered over the edge of the battlement. A row of splendid stallions, all decked in armor and the king’s red and purple, cantered abreast down the road. Behind them were chariots and other knights on horseback, among these Afton recognized many of Perceval’s men. One man, in a simple red robe and a purple mantle, rode alone on a magnificent white stallion.

“That’s the king,” Calhoun whispered in awe. “King Henry Beauclerc.”

Afton was fascinated. The riders were still a fair distance away, but behind the king she could see wagons richly loaded. The parade of wagons and riders stretched endlessly into the distance.

As the riders and wagons drew closer, Afton was able to examine the king’s company more closely. The wagons behind the king were loaded with cloth, bottles, and food. One wagon carried a bathtub bigger and more sumptuous than Perceval’s. In another wagon Afton was surprised to see three little girls who huddled together holding hands. A mounted guard rode on each side of them.

“Who are the girls?” she whispered to Calhoun, pointing. “Look, Calhoun, they’re no older than we are. Who are they and why do they look so sad?”

Calhoun looked, then shrugged. “Perhaps they are children King Henry has rescued. Orphans, perhaps. We will see later, at dinner.”

The first riders were at the castle gate, and Calhoun turned and began leaping down the stairs two at a time. Before the circular path took him out of view, he paused and called up to Afton: “Aren’t you coming?”

“Not to dinner,” she answered, her eyes fastened to the wagon that held the three girls. “Lady Endeline asked me to eat with the servants today.”

“All right, then, but I’d hasten out of the tower if I were you,” Calhoun answered. “King Henry’s knights are the fiercest in the world, and they’ll be coming here presently.” He continued down the stairs down two at a time, and Afton waited only a moment before following him.

M
argate castle could not hold all of King Henry’s entourage. Tents sprouted like mushrooms in the field outside the castle walls to house the king’s barber, a bloodletter, a doctor, a dentist, cooks, messengers, musicians, and a large part of his army. Henry’s knights were garrisoned with Perceval’s in the tower, and the royal counselors and the various nobles traveling with Henry were housed inside the castle’s great hall. More than one hundred guests streamed through the gates of Margate Castle, and with Perceval’s household in attendance as well, more than two hundred and fifty people sat down to dinner that day.

“It’s a great feast,” one of the young kitchen maids told Afton after returning from the great hall. “The lady has the best tapestries on display, and the King sits with Perceval and Endeline at the high table.”

“Has the king met Lienor yet?” Afton asked, anxious about her friend.

“No, he only talks of the war for Normandy,” the girl answered, filling a basket with fresh loaves of white bread.

“What of the three girls with him?” Afton asked. “Who are they and why do they travel with the king?”

“They sit and eat silently,” another servant answered. “But I’ve heard it said they are the granddaughters of the king.”

“Granddaughters of the king? But William is not married.”

The younger maid smirked. “Don’t you listen to the gossip, girl? King Henry has other children, not legitimate, of course. These are the girls of his daughter Julienne. He has taken them from their home in Normandy.”

Although Afton had no idea where Normandy was, the idea of having a royal grandfather was fascinating. She had never known her own grandfather, who died at the old age of forty-five. How proud these girls must be of their grandfather the king! But why did they look so sad in the wagon? Were they frightened of the guards at their side?

“The king must love them very much,” Afton remarked to the servant. “If they are protected by a guard at all times.”

“That kind of love I could do without,” the kitchen maid replied. “Now out of my way, child. The king will be wanting fresh bread soon and it’ll have to be hot out of the oven.”

***

After three days of the king’s residence at Margate, Afton was convinced the old castle had disappeared and something new had taken its place. Nothing was the same. King Henry now slept in Perceval’s chamber, and his counselors occupied the girls’ dormitory. Perceval and Endeline slept in the boys’ room above, and the boys were relegated to sleep downstairs in the great hall with the king’s most esteemed traveling companions. Lienor, Afton, Lunette, and Morgan slept in the hayloft of the barn, with a knight assigned to guard them. The king’s three granddaughters, strangely enough, slept in the highest part of the lookout tower, with a host of knights below them.

The pleasant pace of life Afton had come to know was gone, and she worried that King Henry would never leave. Calhoun seemed to thrive on the excitement and acted as a page for the king, running to fill the royal goblet, fetch his majesty’s counselors, or order fresh bread from the kitchen.

At the end of the day, when the men had retired, Calhoun met Afton in the stable and reported everything, his eyes shining. He described the king’s exploits in Normandy and the victorious battles in which Henry had fought. Often he stood up and embellished the tales by acting them out, frequently “dying” in the hay with great emotion and drama. Afton couldn’t understand why Calhoun loved these tales of battle. She much preferred Endeline’s gentle stories of King Arthur and fair Guinevere.

But Afton rarely saw Endeline except from a distance these days, for the lady of the castle was kept busy attending to her royal guest’s needs. It wasn’t until Henry announced that he would leave after dinner on the morrow that Endeline seemed to relax and exchanged her stiff smile for a more pleasant one. And that night Afton snuggled into her hay bed in delight, knowing that soon she’d be back in the castle next to her beloved benefactress. Life would resume and all would be peaceful once again.

Endeline actually stopped and patted Afton’s cheek on the day of the king’s departure. “Why don’t you join us at dinner, Afton?” she asked, her voice gentle. “You’ve not had a good look at the king, have you?”

Afton shook her head. All her glimpses of the august majesty had been from a distance. To her, Henry was merely a stick figure in red and purple.

“Put on your best tunic, then, and we’ll find a place for you in the hall. You may sit with Morgan and Lunette. Calhoun will be serving the king, and Lienor will sit with me at the king’s table.”

Afton’s jaw dropped when she entered the hall between Morgan and Lunette. Every table in the castle had been crowded into the great hall and put together end to end so that they stretched from the rear doorway right up to the dais where the king would sit. Bright tapestries hung from the walls, brilliantly decorated in the emblems of the royal crest and Perceval’s family herald. Already the tables were crowded with the knights and nobles of Perceval and King Henry, the colors of the two houses blending together in a rich mix of red, purple, and white.