They rode silently for several moments.
‘Why do you think the sky-stone helped Nest but not Eleanor – a sweet child whom everyone liked?’ asked Roger.
‘I am not sure it did save Nest. She was probably stunned by her fall, then regained her senses when Ivar reached her and began to call her name.’
‘It cured you,’ Roger pointed out. ‘The arm Walter sliced through, and the fever.’
Geoffrey shook his head. ‘The injury must have been in my mind – I never removed my armour to look at it, so there is no evidence that it was ever there. And the so-called fever was the result of a poor night’s sleep.’
‘It was more than that, Geoff lad! Let me see your arm again.’
Geoffrey pulled up his sleeve to reveal a limb that was smooth and unblemished. ‘See? There was never any wound.’
‘You had a scar there,’ said Roger, pointing. ‘From the battle to take Jerusalem. And another below it from our adventures at Goodrich last year. But both have gone.’
‘They were fading anyway,’ said Geoffrey. ‘The sky-stone had nothing to do with it.’
‘You can think what you like,’ said Roger, kicking his horse into a canter. ‘But I know the truth.’
A few miles away, Revelle was also urging his horse forward, eager to put as much distance between him and Estrighoiel as possible. He smiled as he slipped his hand inside his tunic and felt the reassuring bulk of the sky-stone within. He had thought he was a dead man when the thunderbolt had blown him over the cliff, and he had been lying on the ground, sure his back was broken and his innards crushed. And then a miracle had occurred. The sky-stone had sailed through the air and landed next to him. He had managed to grab it, and within moments he had felt the strength surge back into his limbs.
Had it saved him, or had he just had the breath knocked out of him by the fall? He had dropped a long way – farther than Ivar, and he had been smashed to a pulp. No, Revelle thought, there was power in the sky-stone.
He felt a little guilty at making off with it, but it was for the best. There would never be peace between the castle and the priory if the sky-stone was in Estrighoiel, and he was doing them a favour by spiriting it away. It was not theft, but an act of selflessness – of taking upon himself a burden that was too great for them to bear.
He was glad to be away from Walter and was looking forward to seeing his cousin again. Even if Bishop Giffard could not find him a post, Exeter was said to be a fine city, and the Revelles were a powerful force in the area. It would be a good place in which to settle, and let the sky-stone keep him fit and healthy as he enjoyed the rest of what he hoped would be a long and happy life. And there were others who might benefit from the touch of the stone – an old aunt, crippled with pains in her back, and another cousin who was afflicted with fits.
Or would its effects be weakened if he shared it? Revelle clutched it tighter and decided he had better keep it to himself. After all, he needed all the good graces he could muster, given his sins. He smiled when he thought of Nest. He had almost had her that day in the woods, and it was a pity she had fallen before he could reach her. And then there was Drogo – he had rather enjoyed pushing him over the cliff so Walter could step into his shoes as constable. These were grave crimes, but the stone would save him. Would it not?
Historical note
Storms were always a part of medieval life, and they ruined crops on a regular basis. But the one on 10 August 1103 must have been particularly spectacular, because it was recorded by several contemporary chroniclers. It damaged the harvest so badly that starvation was widespread the following winter.
Odo was an early leader of the Benedictine Priory in Estrighoiel (Chepstow). It was founded by William fitz Osbern, who also built the first Norman castle there. William’s son rebelled against William the Conqueror in 1075, and Chepstow was taken from him in retaliation. It was held directly by the Crown until about 1115, when it was passed to the powerful (and loyal) de Clare family. There were several de Clare brothers, including Gilbert, Roger and Walter. The older two were present at the hunting accident in the New Forest that saw William II (Rufus) killed, leading to Henry I taking the throne. Their sister was married to Walter Tirel, who loosed the fatal arrow.
Act Two
North Devon, September 1236
The woman and the girl trudged wearily along the rough track in the gentle warmth of an autumn afternoon.
‘I’m feared that he will come back unexpectedly and follow us, mother,’ whined Gillota, the fourteen-year-old who was leading their only cow on a rope halter. ‘He’ll surely beat us and perhaps try to have his way with me again!’
Matilda Claper, strong in nature as well as in arm, tried to reassure her daughter. ‘Don’t worry, girl, Walter Lupus has gone to the Goose Fair in Tavistock. He’ll not be back home for three or four days – longer if he gets heavily into the drink.’
Only partly consoled by the thought of their manor lord being far away, Gillota trudged on. A large pack was strapped to her back, containing some food and all the clothes they possessed. In her free hand she dangled a wicker cage containing their tabby cat, a threadbare mouser with one ear shredded in many fights. In the cloth scrip on her girdle, she had five pennies and a cheap tin crucifix, the sum total of her possessions.
Her mother walked a few paces behind the skinny brown cow, a rope around her shoulders dragging a crude sledge of hazel withies lashed together with twine, piled with their bedding and a few cooking pots. Matilda was a handsome woman, dark-haired and slim – in fact, too thin for her height – but there was a sadness in her face that told of recent hard times.
She looked with affection at her only child, all she had in the world now that her husband Robert was dead. He had been a good thatcher and a good man, but God had taken him away three years ago, when he fell from the roof of the church and broke his back. Matilda had been taken in by her father, who was the manor reeve, elected by the serfs to represent them and to organize the work on the strip fields and on the lord’s demesne. Matilda and her daughter worked his croft alongside him, except when he gave his villein service to the manor three days each week.
She sighed as she thought again for the thousandth time of all that had gone wrong in the last two years. First, their manor lord, Matthew Lupus, had died of a gnawing cancer of the throat, leaving his evil son Walter to inherit and make their life a misery. Then her own father, Roger Merland, had died six months ago of lockjaw, contracted when he jabbed his foot with a pitchfork. Soon afterwards, Walter began trying to seduce the attractive widow. When she repulsed him, he turned his attention to her virginal daughter and Matilda was hard-pressed to keep him at bay. Now she had endured enough, and they were stealing away illegally from Kentisbury, a village a few miles from the north coast of Devon, heading far inland for Shebbear, which lay south of Torrington. Their opportunity came when Walter Lupus, together with his steward and bailiff, went off for a few days to the great fair at Tavistock. Matilda and her daughter left covertly before dawn, and, though many of the villagers knew of their departure, they were willing to look the other way and plead ignorance when Walter returned home. He was an unpopular successor to his father, being dour, selfish and arrogant, and Matilda’s sympathetic neighbours were well aware of the harassment that they were suffering.
Matilda, leading a pregnant goat on a cord, whistled to their hound Chaser to round up their two pigs, which were snuffling in the undergrowth at the side of the track. They could not be far from their destination now, as it was about twenty-five miles between Kentisbury and Shebbear and this was the second day of their flight. They had spent the night under a wide elm, well away from the track, to be out of sight of the footpads and thieves who infested the fringes of Exmoor. With the cow and goat tethered to a tree and the pigs hobbled with cords, they passed the night in uneasy and fitful slumber, after eating the bread and cheese they had brought with them.
Ahead of them the track lay through a stretch of
deep forest, the last before they reached Shebbear. This was the sort of place where outlaws lurked, ready to steal, ravish and kill, so they entered the gloomy tunnel of oaks and beeches with trepidation. There were few people travelling this lonely road, but Matilda hoped that this might discourage robbers, who would get thin pickings from such sparse traffic.
‘Why has God treated us so badly?’ said Gillota suddenly. ‘We have done no evil that I know of! I go to confession with Father Peter, but I have little to tell him – not that he seems interested, anyway.’
Matilda smiled to herself. Her daughter was naive, certainly, but she was intelligent and always seeking for truths that neither her mother nor anyone else in the village could give her.
‘There is little opportunity for folks like us to sin, child,’ she called at Gillota’s back. ‘Sin is for men, who drink and lust and cheat – and for the lords, who fight and kill!’
She knew that the girl was perplexed by the misfortunes that had overtaken the family. Her childhood had been secure, albeit impoverished, until her father died. Even living with her grandfather was tolerable, but after his death Matilda and Gillota had to scrape a living from the half-acre toft that he left them, existing on their few animals and growing vegetables for their staple diet. Though at thirty-two she was comparatively young, Matilda also had a reputation as ‘wise woman’, so she was all the village had by way of health care and a midwife, which brought her in a few pennies for her poultices and herbal potions.
In spite of their fears, the few miles of forest were crossed without incident, and they emerged only a couple of miles from Shebbear, where the road dipped down into a small valley and strip fields began to appear on each side. This was a King’s manor, having no lord but a bailiff who administered several such parcels of royal land in this part of Devon.
‘Do you know where your aunt lives, mother?’ asked Gillota as the first tofts and cottages began to appear at the side of the road.
Matilda shook her head. ‘I’ve never been here before – in fact, this is the first time I’ve ever left Kentisbury,’ she confessed.
It was her husband Robert Claper who had been a Shebbear man, being sent to Matilda’s village years before when the two bailiffs exchanged a thatcher for a blacksmith – and as an unfree villein he had no more say in the matter than if he had been an ox or a sheepdog. However, his good fortune was to meet and marry Matilda and to father Gillota before death claimed him.
‘How will we find her, then?’ persisted her daughter, fearful of this unfamiliar place that was opening up before them. A stone church faced an alehouse, the inevitable pair of buildings seen in almost every English village.
Suddenly their attention was attracted by something on the grass verge in front of the church. It was just a very large boulder, probably weighing a ton, lying under an old tree. Though nothing remarkable, the mother and daughter stared at it and then at each other, and something unspoken passed between them. Increasingly as she grew older, Gillota showed that she was becoming as ‘fey’ as her mother, both having the rudiments of ‘second sight’, knowing things that were outside the normal five senses. It was this that allowed Matilda to function as a ‘wise woman’, though she was careful never to let it be known, in case of accusations of witchcraft. Now that Gillota was showing the same hereditary gift, her mother worried that she might not yet be mature enough to hide these sporadic but powerful insights.
‘That’s a work of the devil!’ said the young girl impulsively, looking at the greyish rock.
Her mother nodded but pushed her daughter onwards. ‘None of our business, my girl! We have more urgent matters to deal with.’
‘So how will we find Aunt Emma?’ persisted Gillota
‘Your father always said she had a toft just beyond the church,’ answered her mother. ‘We will ask the first person we see.’
This proved to be an old woman, bent almost double over a gnarled stick, who came out of the churchyard gate as they passed. The crone stared at the procession of animals and muttered a greeting through toothless gums, which Matilda answered with a question.
‘Mother, can you please tell us where Emma, who was once called Claper, lives?’
‘Claper? It’s many a year since I heard that name. Emma married a man called Revelle, but he ran off to the wars and was never heard of again.’ She cackled at some private secret.
‘So where can we find her dwelling?’ asked Gillota politely.
The old woman raised her stick and pointed up the track. ‘The last cottage on the right side. But she’s not well, you know.’
Matilda stared. Only three weeks ago she had had a reply from Emma by word of mouth via a friendly carter, saying that she would welcome them into her household, and there was no mention of illness then.
‘Not well? What ails her, then?’
‘She had a seizure last week,’ answered the crone with morbid satisfaction. ‘Lost the use of an arm and her speech, though I hear tell she’s past the worst. Her neighbours are looking after her as best they can.’
Numbed by yet another catastrophe, Matilda murmured some thanks and set off rapidly up the last few hundred paces to the toft that the woman had indicated.
‘What do we do now, Mother,’ snivelled Gillota tearfully. ‘How can we stay with a sick woman? Will we have to go back to Kentisbury?’
‘Stay out here with the beasts!’ she commanded as they reached a rickety gate in a fence around the croft. ‘I’ll go inside and see what’s happening.’
Shrugging off her sledge ropes, she went up the few paces to the door. The cottage was a square box of oak frames, filled in with wattle and daub, a mixture of lime, clay, dung and horsehair, plastered over woven hazel panels. The thatch was old but in good condition, and two shuttered window spaces were set each side of the open front door.
Matilda tapped on the half-open door and peered in. In the centre of the single room she saw a large matron standing over the fire-pit, stirring the contents of an iron pot resting on a trivet over the glowing embers. Beyond her, an older woman was slumped on a stool, supporting herself against a table. One arm rested uselessly in her lap, and the corner of her mouth drooped as if part of her face had melted.
The neighbour looked around questioningly as Matilda entered. ‘Who are you, woman?’ she snapped. ‘You’re a stranger!’
‘I’m Matilda, widow of Emma’s nephew. I’ve come with my daughter to live here.’
Shebbear, August 1237
Gillota threw down the pile of dry grass in front of their cow, which had filled out well since the previous autumn. Served by the village bull, she had recently produced a calf and now munched away contentedly at the feed that the girl had cut with her sickle from the verges outside the village.
Matilda came out of the cottage with turnip peelings for the goats, and for a moment mother and daughter stood looking with satisfaction at their livestock. Their pigs were penned behind hurdles at the bottom of the half-acre plot, though in a month they would be let loose in the woods beyond the pasture, to root for beechnuts, on payment of a halfpenny-a-week pannage fee to the bailiff. A dozen fowls and four geese paraded around the back of the house, and in a distant corner half a dozen ducks splashed in the muddy water of a large hole dug in the ground.
They had worked hard since that day last summer when they came to find Aunt Emma struck with the palsy. Helped by the neighbours, they had nursed her back to reasonable health, and, though her arm was still weak and her speech a little slurred, her legs were sound and after a month or two she was able to do a share of the work in both cottage and on the croft outside.
Emma was a strong character, of formidable appearance. Tall and bony, she looked younger than her sixty-five years. The grey hair that strayed from under her head-rail still had streaks of russet in it, and she had kept many of her teeth, albeit discoloured and crooked. A devout woman, she was not given to much humour but was always even-tempered and tolerant of the two younger women who now
shared her home.
‘You may stay here for as long as you need,’ she announced within days of their arrival. ‘And when I die, the toft will be yours, for I’ve no child to hand it to.’
Her gratitude for the attention that Matilda and her daughter gave her during her illness was muted, but nonetheless sincere, and as the months went by the all-female household became strongly bonded. Thankfully, it was a mild winter, with little snow and ice, though by the spring their stocks of food were running dangerously low. By March they were living on turnips and carrots stored in clamps in the yard, winter cabbage, onions and a few eggs that the fowls managed to produce off-season. The cow had a drain of milk left from last year’s pregnancy, but did not come into full flow until the calf was born.
It was a lean time, but they survived. Matilda again acted as a midwife and herbalist to the village and was paid for her services in kind: a loaf of bread, a pat of butter, a pan of wheat or a rabbit poached from the village warren. As they were acknowledged as free from serfdom in Shebbear, they had no allotted strips in the surrounding fields as did the villeins, who paid for the land allotted to them by the manor by the three days each week they worked for the bailiff on the King’s demesne, plus many other ‘boon days’. With Gillota’s help, Matilda dug and planted half the ground behind the cottage, keeping the rest for the animals, though each day Gillota led the cow down to the common pasture to graze.
One winter evening, when the aunt had recovered fairly well, the three women had crouched around the fire-pit, Emma and Matilda on the two stools and the daughter on the bracken-covered floor.
‘I still don’t understand how you say you are a free woman,’ muttered Emma thickly. ‘Your husband Robert was a villein when he left this village to go to Kentisbury.’
Her speech was improving, but the other two had to listen hard to understand her. Matilda frowned as she worked out the complicated family relationships.
The Sacred Stone Page 10