Afton of Margate Castle (20 page)

Wido watched in fascination as Afton awkwardly climbed onto the flower bedecked bridal bed and Hubert took his place beside her. The priest mumbled a benediction of blessing, but all Wido could think was that his wedding had been nothing like this. He and Corba had been awash in joy, carried away by love, and the quiet giggles of their friends had only added to their merriment as Corba covered him in kisses on their nuptial bed.

But Afton lay still on the bed, her arms thrown protectively across her chest, and Hubert leered at her as he stroked her hair while the priest chanted his blessing. Wido closed his eyes; the wedding of beauty and death was too much for him to bear.

***

“Tell me something more about yourself, Fulk,” Calhoun urged as they rode toward Warwick.

“How you do love chatter,” Fulk frowned at his charge. “You will learn immediately that a squire does not speak unless spoken to. A knight must control his tongue, for it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”

Calhoun laughed. Fulk was a dangerous man, a huge man, but Calhoun instinctively knew that gentleness existed somewhere inside the man’s spirit. The other knights did not see it, for Fulk never smiled and rarely spoke when in the presence of other warriors. But with Calhoun he seemed more relaxed, even convivial.

“The best warrior I ever knew,” Fulk said, his dark eyes wide open as if to capture the memory, “was a holy man. A Benedictine monk.”

“That’s impossible,” Calhoun answered, shifting in his saddle. “You jest. Benedictines do not fight. Those who follow the holy teachings are taught to turn the other cheek. Raimondin told me so.”

“That is true,” Fulk replied, “And it was a hard lesson for my friend to learn, so fierce was his heart and temper. He gave his heart to God when he accepted the call of a holy life, but his temper he kept about him.”

“A fighting monk?” Calhoun crinkled his brow. “I still say it is unnatural.”

“The brothers of his order assured him a monk might defend himself on one occasion,” Fulk answered, speaking in a low voice so the other knights would not hear. “He was allowed to defend his breeches if attacked.”

Fulk paused and Calhoun considered this new information. Yes, that made sense. Even his uncle the abbot would fight in such a situation. “So? When would a monk meet the sort of vile men who would attack a man’s breeches?”

Fulk smiled and the muscles in his jaw flexed under his wiry beard. “My friend the holy man met them often, for when he traveled he exchanged his monk’s robe for traveling breeches and wore a valuable brooch pinned at the front. Every thief on the roadside tried for the brooch, and the holy man slew at least five thieves on every pilgrimage to Canterbury. He considered it a valuable part of his service to God, this cleansing of robbers and thieves from the highways.”

Calhoun threw back his head and roared with laughter. A fighting holy man! Only Fulk would know such a creature.

“Was your friend a knight Templar?” Calhoun asked, when his laughter had passed. “Such a man would do well in that sect of holy men. In fact, Fulk, I am surprised you have not taken the oath of a Templar. It is well known that you are a devout man.”

“What?” Fulk’s voice was sharp, and for the first time Calhoun sensed danger beneath the smooth expression on Fulk’s face. The cross-shaped scar upon his cheek, shining naked through the beard, twitched slightly. “I am not a devout man. God and I have nothing to do with each other.”

Calhoun felt his cheeks reddening. “I am sorry, but since you bear the mark of the cross I assumed--”

“Never assume,” Fulk snapped, gathering his reins. “And for the remainder of the day, young squire, do not talk. You have said enough.” Fulk spurred his horse ahead, and Calhoun was left alone to ponder the offense he had given to his new master.

***

They bedded down that night under a sky filled with stars. Fulk built a fire and charged the other knights with the duty of keeping it well-lit, for the woods that surrounded them were filled with bears and wolves. After posting a guard at both ends of their encampment, Fulk drew near to Calhoun and sat on the ground.

“We will arrive at Warwick tomorrow,” Fulk said, resting his back against the trunk of an oak. He pulled a dagger from its sheath at his side and began to strip the bark from a fallen branch. “It is an old castle, older even than your Margate, fortified by William the Conqueror and updated. Lord Thomas of Warwick is more a military man than an estate holder, and you will find that your situation will be much different there.”

“I am ready for a change,” Calhoun answered easily, not threatened by the challenge in Fulk’s words. “Lord Thomas and his knights hold no fears for me.”

“Then sleep,” Fulk grinned, the busy blade of his dagger shining golden in the firelight. “Tomorrow is our last hard ride.”

Calhoun breathed a silent sigh of relief as he spread his mantle on the ground. They had been in the saddle for three straight days, and though he would not admit it, he was beginning to feel stiff.

He lay down, but sleep would not come. An owl hooted in the darkness, and far away, an animal roared. He felt alive in every nerve of his body, tense and hopeful that somehow through the company of these men and those he would meet at Warwick, he would become a man, and finally, a knight.

One of Perceval’s knights tramped into the clearing and held up a stalk of berries. “Look what I found in the forest,” he said, holding a clump of berries before Fulk. “Blue berries. They’ll do for supper, won’t they?”

“You eat those and you’re a dead man,” Fulk answered calmly, still whittling on the oak branch. “That’s baneberry, not blueberry. You’ll be dead within two days if you take a single bite.”

The startled knight tossed the berries into the fire and closed his mouth in disappointment. “Better to be hungry than dead,” he muttered.

“Aye,” Calhoun agreed. He shivered and drew his surcoat about him. The sight of the berries brought back the sharp memory of a girl collecting berries and flowers in the sun-drenched field outside Margate castle. On that day Afton had come into his life, and yesterday she had passed out of it, in the way of childhood toys and playmates.

But yesterday there was not much of a child about Afton. She had knelt in the dust at his feet as a young woman, and her eyes had been filled with a haunting lost look. That look had embarrassed him and caused him to curse his own impotence, for what could he do about her pain? But as he closed his eyes to sleep he seemed to feel her touch on his foot and hear the pleading in her voice. She had asked only for a parting word, and he had given her the truest and most terrible words he knew: at great expense. She would never know how much it cost him to turn away from her, for she reminded him of home, and childhood, and security. Now he was to become a man, and it was time to put away all those things.

***

Afton lay in the dark, trying to breathe in regular, deep breaths so the man who was her husband would think she was asleep. From the courtyard outside she could hear the singing and dancing of revelers who were enjoying themselves at her wedding feast. Was a wedding a time of joy? She bit her lip to repress a shudder. Her union with this man had been too repulsive, too brutish for words.

The priest had scarcely gone when Wido had turned to her and ripped her mantle and surcoat from her. The lovely garments she had been so pleased to wear were now scattered in ragged heaps around the room, and she felt shamed and unclean. Was it for Hubert’s act of savagery that God designed marriage? Surely not! As a child she had slept in the same room with her mother and father, and she had never heard her father roar drunkenly or her mother cry aloud in humiliation.

She longed to get under the linen sheet on the bed, but Hubert had passed out in stupor or exhaustion, and his arm and shoulder lay across her bare chest. He was too heavy to move and she would willingly have died rather than wake him to begin the nightmare anew. So she lay in the darkness and wept.

***

The mountain did move from her, ere morning, and she slipped beneath the sheet and turned her back on her husband. He lay flat on his back, snoring, until the rooster in the yard crowed and brought Hubert slowly back to life. Afton heard him smack his lips, felt the twitching of his arms, and their hay mattress creaked as he lifted one hairy leg and absently rubbed it against the other. His consciousness returned then, and he rolled over on his side and Afton felt a stubby finger poke her on the shoulder.

“Wake up, my bride,” Hubert growled in her ear. “Let me get a good look at you in the day’s light.”

She felt him crawl under the sheets next to her, and she closed her eyes in disgust and loathing. But, she told herself, this man was her husband and master, and surely he would be in a reasonable mind now that he was not drunk. What was it Endeline had said? A wife should be pleasing and gentle, and always give her husband undivided attention.

With a mighty effort, she cleared her face of all expression and pretended to yawn. “Good morning, husband,” Afton said gently, turning onto her back. She struggled to keep her voice from breaking. “Did you sleep well?”

Hubert didn’t reply. Instead he lay his index finger on the top of her head and gently ran it down her forehead, her nose, over her lips, down her throat, and down her body until she involuntarily cringed and lurched away from him.

He laughed, and one hand closed around her upper arm in an iron grip and the other fell across her mouth and nose, scarcely allowing her to breathe. “My proud little wife,” he said, his voice rough. “Given to me as a favor from Perceval for killing a man. If I had known there were such rewards for killing, I’d have done it long ago.”

Her eyes widened in terror, and Hubert laughed again.

***

It was much later when Hubert decided to get out of bed and begin his day’s chores. As he dressed, he gave Afton explicit directions for her life henceforth. She was never to leave the house without Wilda the maid, nor to talk to anyone unless Wilda was present. She was never to talk to another man, except to greet Lord Perceval if he should visit. She was not to go out of the house without her head properly covered. She was to be beautifully dressed for his friends at dinner and supper, and never dressed when Hubert came to bed. She was never go to into the millhouse or the kitchen, for neither of those were her place. If she remembered these things, she would be happy and do well. If she did not do these things, Hubert would kill her, as was his right.

Afton lay in dazed silence on the bed as Hubert gave his directions. She was no coward, but the heretofore unimagined brutality of the previous hours had stunned her into stillness. She had never dreamed such malignity could exist; for Hubert’s deeds were more invasive and inconceivable than even King Henry’s mutilation of his grandchildren. That had been a fierce act of war, however senseless, but this was life! How was she to endure it?

“May I--” her voice faltered, “May I get dressed?”

“Of course,” Hubert answered, buckling his mantle around him. He stood up and smoothed his hair in the wash basin. “There is one more thing. You need not pretend with me. I know you fancy yourself too good to be my wife. I know you love Perceval’s younger son; I read it plainly on your face. But I also know you sprang from a plowman and a common woman, and as such will I treat you, now that you are my wife.”

He adjusted his tunic and admired his reflection in a small mirror. “Wilda will show you around the house and you may order what you wish for dinner. The house will be your responsibility, and I expect you to run it well.”

“As you wish.” Her voice was steady, but it was good Hubert did not turn to look at his bride. Afton could not keep the hate in her heart from showing on her face.

T
rumpeters blared a greeting to Calhoun and his entourage as they came within sight of Warwick Castle. Fulk urged the horses into an easy canter, and they were welcomed with an open gate and lowered drawbridge. Fulk’s description was accurate, the castle was an old motte and bailey that had been fortified, and it lacked the modern luxuries of which Perceval was fond. But Warwick Castle rose strong and compact from the hill on which it was situated, and a trio of shining knights in full armor stood on the battlement to salute them.