Sumerford's Autumn

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Alysson shook her head. “You can’t tell things like that for years and years. Unless – forgive me – but if the child is a little simple – like his father – then I suppose that will show itself early.”

  “You are becoming sadly simple yourself, my dear,” said Jennine, hitching herself up against the heaped pillows behind her. “You cannot really think –,” she paused, watching Alysson’s expression, then smiled again, “– no, perhaps not so simple after all.” She laughed. “You know, don’t you, my pet?”

  “You more or less told me long ago,” admitted Alysson. “So – whose son is he?”

  “No, no, my love.” Jennine reached out for the cup of warmed hippocras beside the bed and regarded her maid through the steam. “That’s something I intend keeping to myself and even the father doesn’t know for sure, though he may guess of course. But no matter. Rest assured, the child will grow up with a family likeness and flaming hair. But not dear Humphrey’s brains.”

  “It – wasn’t,” Alysson lowered her gaze, “Ludovic? Was it?”

  “It should have been.” Jennine’s smile widened. “I chose him first, but he didn’t come to the lure.” She drained her cup and waved it at Alysson for refilling. “Jealous, my dear?”

  “Why should I be?”

  “He liked me that was clear enough. I chose him at once as the best looking of them all and I’m perfectly positive he wanted me, was avid in fact, for I saw all the signs. I know men and read them easily. Dear Ludovic was almost hooked. But something stopped him.”

  “Decency,” suggested Alysson. “Honesty. You were affianced to his brother.”

  “What a little simpleton you are after all, my dear.” Jennine turned away, irritated. “No one in this family has any understanding of decency, honesty, kindness or restraint. Which is why I fit here so comfortably. Ludovic was suspicious, perhaps. I do not care, and have not bothered to analyse his motives. But rest assured, decency did not enter his mind.”

  Alysson scowled. “He’s being – decent – with me.”

  “You mean, he’s not called to see you, not enquired after your health, made no contact at all since his rushed departure a month ago, and has not even sent a message of congratulations regarding this wretched child.” Jennine tittered. “Decency, my dear? I believe complacent disinterest nearer the mark. And you – for all your denials – feel neglected, unattractive, are pining with your silly tail between your silly thighs, and dream each night of passion, even though you’ve not the slightest understanding of the word.”

  “I know exactly what it means. And I don’t want it. I want caring and kindness. And decency.”

  “Put in a little effort for once, and try attracting the man you want. Then perhaps passion will eventually lead to kindness.”

  Alysson shrugged. “How? I never even see him. He doesn’t want me.”

  Jennine sat forward, once more irritated. Her shoulders ached. “Alysson, I swear I shall slap you if you persist in this nonsense. I’ve told you already what to do, and in some detail too. First of all the simple things that most women manage, like biting your lips to make them look pink and swollen. Dampening your shift so your skirts cling to your thighs and hips. Pinching your nipples to make them stand out tight and push up through your clothes. I’ve even bought you the finest linen chemise and an expensive silk gown, exactly the softest materials to show off your breasts. And all you do is hitch up the neckline, like some silly miss keeping herself pure for the convent. Do what I tell you, and I’ll give you all the time off you need for wandering these damned cold corridors until you bump into your boring Sir Galahad. I shall send you on errands into the main hall, give you messages to take to the steward, anything to make sure you meet the man. But you have to show him you’re available. Which you are, if only you’d admit it. You’re a bitch on heat, with no mutt to sniff at your rump.”

  Alysson opened her mouth, decided the words would be unwise, and flounced off to tidy up the garderobe. Confined interminably to her bed, Jennine remained fractious, her body sore and throbbing. Sometimes Alysson avoided her, sometimes, since she was the only one capable of such endeavours, strived to cheer her up.

  Two days after the Christening the infant settled into the nursery wing below with the wet nurse, three day nurses and two night nurses. Washed, swaddled, well fed and fast asleep, the small Edward was carried upstairs to his mother’s bedside each evening for a brief inspection. Jennine smiled with carefully practised motherly condescension, patted the child’s head until warned not to do so for fear of the infant’s cranial vulnerability, pronounced herself thoroughly satisfied, and sent it quickly away again. Humphrey, it was murmured, visited the nursery far more often, greatly intrigued by his son. He liked to poke, liked to hear the small whuffling noises which he claimed to understand (“He likes me”) and was eager with questions. In particular he wished to know when the child would be able to play with him. He seemed a little disappointed by the answer, but continued to visit. He also began again to visit his wife. The forty days church enforced abstention evidently did not occur to either of them.

  It was raining when Humphrey came early to Jennine’s quarters, clutching a handful of wet daisies and grasses he had picked from between the stable cobbles. He beamed, first at Alysson and then at his wife. Jennine was lying on the bed, though uncovered, her chemise hitched to her knees and low across her breasts as she talked to her maid. Humphrey presented her with his bouquet. Jennine sat up, waving at Alysson. “My dear, you can go. I shall be busy, it seems.” She regarded the wilted weeds with appropriate delight. “How sweet. How considerate. Humphrey darling, just wait one moment.” And again to Alysson. “Take the day off and go visit your funny old nurses. Come back tomorrow morning but don’t be late. Hurry now, off, off. It’s a hot day and no need for a cloak.”

  “It’s raining.”

  “Oh, very well, go get your cloak. Now away with you, until tomorrow.”

  Alysson wandered across the great open courtyard towards the drawbridge. She wore her tippet up to cover her little headdress, but the rain was just a sparkle, barely strong enough to wet her shoulders. Some of the horses were being led from their stables by their grooms; trotting on their lead reins across the cobbles. The earl’s massive grey destrier stopped suddenly, hooves solid to the stone. Alysson paused, watching, breathing the hot sour smell of fresh manure, listening to the snorting of the horses, bridles jingling and the grooms laughing. But Turvey had no intention of exercising in the rain. The groom leading the beast was immediately nervous, coaxing but no longer insisting. Then Turvey was led carefully back to his stall. Alysson watched the departing rump, the flick of the long plaited tail, the twitch of the haunches tall as the groom’s shoulder, and the hooves, thick fringed in coarse white hair, the hooves that had killed her brother.

  She did not look back at the castle once she had left its great spreading shadow, hurrying into the sunshine and the bright grassy slopes. She headed south towards the forest. Gazing back at the south tower, domain of the countess, would show her only the casement windows long since enlarged from the original arrow slits, with no glimpse of the western tower behind, where Ludovic’s apartments looked away across the sea.

  A rainbow arched half way over the first forest beeches, indistinct in its plush pastels with the sky shining through. Alysson ducked beneath the low branches. The perfumes of growth replaced the tired castle smells of stables and old soot, damp, dirt, kitchens and scrubbing, stagnant waters and close living. The forest smelled of hope and happiness, loam, leaf and flower. The ground was a little muddy and the rain drops spattered, caught first on greenery before collecting weight, rolling from twig to frond and then collapsing to the soggy mulch below. The branches were open, beryl leaf flutter letting through the light.

  Alysson, enjoying freedom, did not hurry. Then she heard the footsteps. The faint squelch of someone following, surreptitious and very quiet, but the softened undergrowth made little noise and Alysson’s
own steps were almost soundless too. She looked around but saw no one. Many people wandered the woods, collecting faggots, wild herbs and berries in season, or grazing their animals. She continued, and the echo kept pace. When she stopped, curious and staring back through the trees, the other steps ceased too.

  Then whispers; breath turned into unknown words. A voice of threat without meaning. More footsteps crackling on dead leaf, the slurp of mud and a low laugh.

  She hurried at once, half skipping, soft shoes slipping where the mud was thicker, her hems splattered with flecks of wet earth, careful not to tear her livery on thorns or trip on creepers, but suddenly frightened and eager to get far away. But whoever followed could go as fast, and did, the sounds increasing with less need for secrecy and no more care for caution.

  Skirting the forest edges back to her own cottage would take longer. Yet crossing directly through the trees to shorten the distance, would bring her into thicker shade and further from help should she need it. Alysson paused again. The following crunch of feet in the undergrowth stopped abruptly. She held her breath although she was already breathless, and called, challenging. The answer came at once.

  “You know who, girl. Who you have met already before.”

  She did not recognise the voice, which was gruff, and somehow clumsy. “Why not give a name?” She backed a little, ready to turn and run.

  “Ain’t it considered unlucky to name the devil?” Half a laugh, half smothered, as if disguising its owner. “Or call me destiny, come to claim my victim.”

  Alysson ran. The arm came around her neck, hauling her back. She tripped over large boots and fell face down in the mud. It felt as though the wetness came up to meet her and swallow her. A huge weight sank onto her back, someone sitting astride her and bending his face to her ear. Her ribs, pressed into the yielding ground, felt smashed, knocked breathless. “Well little fawn, it’s been a good hunt. Now let’s get you ready for the pot.”

  Large sweaty hands grabbed her flailing arms, wrenching contrary to the joints of her elbows and forcing her hands hard up behind her neck. Alysson felt something snap, and screamed. “Too rough, little doe? Never mind. That won’t matter in the end.”

  If she lost consciousness, she thought quickly, she would be unable to fight. Her mind raced. She stopped struggling, saving breath, and slumped, eyes shut. Then she waited for her captor to relax. Her wrists were caught in only one of his hands. The other began to roam. He felt down her back, ranging across her hips and buttocks, slipping down over the coarse broadcloth of her gown, feeling her thighs beneath, stretching to the hem of her skirts, ready to raise them. Busy, abstracted, assuming she had fainted, his hold on her hands had loosened.

  She flung herself sideways, hands free, then rolled and kicked with all her force. Her assailant fell, tumbling and losing his grip in surprise. Alysson raked, ten little square nails down the face in front of her. He roared, swung one fist and knocked her back. She rebounded and bit, her teeth snapping tight on his nose. She gagged on coarse damp skin, but held on. The man roared again and lurched away, striking her with his fist once more across the side of her head. Her ear rang, hollowed echoes and then suddenly deaf. She kicked, aimed for his groin, caught his knee instead, and as he yelped, sprang up and tried to run.

  He was much taller and twice as fast. Her scrambling legs wobbled. Again his arm came around her neck, forcing her hard back against his chest. He wore leather, not velvet, but she had recognised Humphrey, his beard a huge red brush and his eyes pale blue glass. She brought her leg back between his own and this time found his groin.

  Roaring, he let her go, and kicked. His boots were huge, and he continued kicking. Winded and prone now on the wet ground, she saw her own blood ooze across her eyes, smelled it in her nostrils and tasted it thick and hot in her mouth. Different pains merged into one violent agony. As he bent over her again, she grabbed for his moustache, gripping the thick red curls. She clutched a handful of frizz as he wrenched away, cursing, and kicked her once more. The toe of his boot cracked against her ribs. She yelped. She had no breath left for larger sounds.

  Alysson was losing consciousness when she heard his last words. Still partially deafened, the voice sounded strangely distant and lost within its own smudged echoes, but she knew what he said as he strode off through the trees, stamping on brambles and twigs and muttering to himself. “Too much of a mess now. It won’t do no use no more. But next time, slut, I’ll have you. Just wait. For there’ll be a next time.”

  The little dithering silver rain continued to fall, and the sunshine pooled over the grass between the leaf shadows, sparkling into a thousand refracted reflections within a thousand tiny raindrops. Alysson lay on her side, knees curled up to her belly, but the pain seemed to belong to a body far away and quite removed from her own. She could not feel herself, or know what injuries she had sustained, but she watched her own blood wash past her eyes before she closed them.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was black night when she opened her eyes, and winced, breathing shallow. The pain took her by surprise and it was a long time, confused and rummaging in her memory for explanations, before she realised what had happened and where she was.

  As memory returned, the pains which circulated throughout her body concentrated in three specific places. Worst was her head and face, then just below one elbow where she thought her arm might be broken. Lastly her ribs on one side, surely cracked. She also realised no one would be looking for her. Jennine had dismissed her for the night, while, since this was not her regular monthly day off, Ilara and Dulce would not be expecting her. She would have to crawl to the cottage, and hoped she might arrive by dawn. Her nurses were far closer now than the castle was, and the comfort they would surely offer was far more enticing. They would be unable to protect her should that become necessary, but Humphrey himself would be back at the castle.

  At first she was unable to rise, but eventually, crawling with both knees and one hand, she began to find her way through the trees. The night was dark but a sliver of moon puddled its silent silver across leaf and ground, and Alysson had lived too long beside these woods not to know her path. She stopped frequently, sitting back to catch her breath and clear her head. The pain came like the tides, rolling in from some unknown and distant shore, swamping her entirely before ebbing. When the tides receded a little, sinking back into memory, then she crawled on.

  Dulce found her curled unconscious on the doorstep as first dawn peeped up behind the trees. Her screeches brought Ilara rushing out, and Alysson opened her eyes. The two women half carried her inside, and eventually, with difficulty, took her upstairs to the grand new bed they had recently bought. Alysson collapsed onto the softly yielding feather mattress, closed her eyes again with a small moan, and went to sleep.

  The Lady Jennine was annoyed when her favoured maid did not return in the morning as instructed. With little idea of where Alysson lived, Jennine waited. By dinner time she was furious, while quietly wondering if her own moods and demands had antagonised too far, and if Alysson had left for good. She inquired of her other staff but no one knew or cared where the spoiled personal maid had gone. The three older women were secretly glad, for it left more opportunities for them. Luxurious clothes, closeted discussions, private walks and special treats had only been enjoyed by Alysson in the past, but in her absence might now be shared amongst many.

  Jennine summoned a page to discover Alysson’s home, ready to send a message of bitter dismissal, then a concerned inquiry as to the reasons for the disappearance, and finally a plea to return. But she changed her mind on each, deciding it more dignified to ignore the whole situation. She would not care. Her personal maid was no longer employed, and if she ever dared return, would be thrashed and sent running. In the meantime the lady kept silent, and seethed.

  Then three days later a message came from Ludovic. An invitation for Mistress Alysson to visit his quarters at two of the clock that afternoon, once more a respectable time
, with a request to discuss matters of interest to them both. Jennine hopped out of bed, regarded the page with imperious anger, and stamped her foot. She sent her own message back to the youngest Sumerford. Mistress Alysson was no longer in her employ. The girl had chosen to take a prolonged and unauthorised absence without even an explanation or excuse. She would never be accepted back. The subject was closed.

  Ludovic received this news with considerable surprise. He reflected a moment, and then promptly changed his clothes for riding gear. Hat in hand and buckling on his short sword, he strode down to the stables and ordered his courser saddled. Within an hour of discovering Alysson’s disappearance, he was deep within the forest shade. It was a bright and early morning but the summer foliage was thick and the sunbeams found fewer open angles. The bird song, busy and insistent, continued from somewhere beyond the green canopy.

  Someone else’s horse was already tethered outside the cottage by the time Ludovic arrived and the small door had been left slightly open. He walked in, announcing himself clearly, but remained unheard. There was a good deal of noisy chatter coming from above so he found the stairs, a creaking set of uneven wooden steps crouched in the back shadows, unbanistered and unstable. He strode up them.

  With the only other two items of furniture being a small crooked stool and a large wooden coffer, the bed took most of the floor space, an ancient palliasse, its tester proudly striped in blue and green and tasselled in pink. The counterpane was dishevelled. Alysson, half prone in the bed, slumped against an assortment of lumpy bolsters and pillows at her back. To one side, candle in hand, stood a man Ludovic vaguely recognised as the only practising local medik. Dulce and Ilara stood at the bed head. The window, being small, let in limited light but the candle flared and showed Alysson’s face as flushed, feverish and strangely marked. She turned at once as Ludovic appeared at the top of the stairs, but then turned away.