by Ken Follett
Aliena missed the heat of the horse beneath her. Her hands and feet were painfully cold, even though her body was warm from the exertion of walking. The weather remained cold all morning, then at midday the temperature rose a little. By then she was hungry. She remembered that only yesterday she had felt as if she did not care whether she ever got warm or ate food again. But she did not want to think about that.
Whenever they heard horses or saw people in the distance they darted into the woods and hid until the other travelers had passed by. They hurried through villages, speaking to no one. Richard wanted to beg for food but Aliena would not let him.
By the middle of the afternoon they were within a few miles of their destination and no one had bothered them. Aliena was thinking that it was not so difficult to avoid trouble, after all. Then, on a particularly desolate stretch of the road, a man suddenly stepped out of the bushes and stood in front of them.
They had no time to hide. "Keep walking," Aliena said to Richard, but the man moved to block their way, and they had to stop. Aliena looked behind, thinking of running that way; but another fellow had materialized out of the forest and was standing ten or fifteen yards away, blocking their escape.
"What have we here?" said the man in front, in a loud voice. He was a fat, red-faced man with a big swollen belly and a filthy matted beard, and he carried a heavy club. He was almost certainly an outlaw. Aliena could tell from his face that he was the kind of man who would commit violence readily, and her heart filled with dread.
"Leave us alone," she said in a pleading tone. "We've got nothing for you to steal."
"I'm not so sure," said the man. He took a step toward Richard. "This looks like a fine sword, worth several shillings."
"It's mine!" Richard protested, but he just sounded like a scared child.
It's no use, Aliena thought. We're powerless. I'm a woman and he's a boy, and people can do anything they like with us.
With a surprisingly agile movement the fat man suddenly raised his club and struck at Richard. Richard tried to dodge. The blow was aimed at his head but it hit his shoulder. The fat man was strong, and the blow knocked Richard down.
Suddenly Aliena lost her temper. She had been treated unjustly, vilely abused, and robbed, and she was cold and hungry and hardly in control of herself. Her little brother had been beaten half to death less than two days ago and now the sight of someone clubbing him maddened her. She lost all sense of reason or caution. Without even thinking, she pulled the dagger from her sleeve, flew at the fat outlaw, and jabbed the knife at his great belly, screaming: "Leave him alone, you dog!"
She took him completely by surprise. His cloak had come open when he hit Richard, and his hands were still occupied with the club. He was completely off guard: no doubt he had thought himself safe from attack by a young girl who appeared unarmed. The point of the knife went through the wool of his tunic and the linen of his undershirt and was stopped by the taut skin of his belly. Aliena experienced a flash of revulsion, a moment of sheer horror at the thought of breaking human skin and penetrating the flesh of a real person; but fear stiffened her resolve, and she shoved the knife through his skin and into the soft organs of his abdomen; and then she became terrified that she might not kill him, that he might stay alive to take his revenge, and so she kept on pushing until the long knife was inside him up to the hilt and would not go in any farther.
Suddenly the fearsome, arrogant, cruel man was a frightened wounded animal. He cried out in pain, dropped his club, and stared down at the knife sticking into him. Aliena understood in a flash that he knew it was a mortal wound. She snatched her hand away in horror. The outlaw staggered back. Aliena remembered that there was another thief behind her, and panic seized her: he would surely take a terrible revenge for the death of his accomplice. She grabbed the hilt of the knife again and jerked. The wounded man had turned slightly away from her, and she had to pull the knife sideways. She felt it slice through his soft insides as it came out of his fat belly. Blood spurted on her hand and the man screamed like an animal and fell to the ground. She spun round, knife in bloody hand, and faced the other man. As she did so, Richard struggled to his feet and drew his sword.
The second thief looked from one of them to the other, then at his dying friend, and without further ado he turned and ran into the woods.
Aliena watched, incredulous. They had scared him off. It was hard to take in.
She looked at the man on the ground. He lay flat on his back with his guts falling out of the great tear in his belly. His eyes were wide open and his face was twisted with pain and fear.
Aliena felt no relief, no pride in having defended herself and her brother from ruthless men: she was too disgusted and repelled by the hideous sight.
Richard felt no such qualms. "You stabbed him, Allie!" he said in a voice between excitement and hysteria. "You did for them!"
Aliena looked at him. He had to be taught a lesson. "Kill this one," she said.
Richard stared at her. "What?"
"Kill him," she repeated. "Put him out of his misery. Finish him off!"
"Why me?"
She deliberately made her voice harsh. "Because you act like a boy and I need a man. Because you've never done anything with a sword except play at war, and you have to start somewhere. What's the matter with you? What are you afraid of? He's dying anyway. He can't hurt you. Use your sword. Get some practice. Kill him!"
Richard held his sword in both hands and looked uncertain. "How?"
The man screamed again.
Aliena yelled at Richard: "I don't know how! Cut off his head, or stab him in the heart! Anything! Just shut him up!"
Richard looked cornered. He lifted his sword and lowered it again.
Aliena said: "If you don't do this I'll leave you alone, I swear by all the saints. I'll get up one night and go away and when you wake up in the morning I won't be there and you'll be all on your own. Now kill him!"
Richard raised his sword again. Then, incredibly, the dying man stopped screaming and tried to get up. He rolled to one side and raised himself on one elbow. Richard gave a shout that was half a yell of fear and half a battle cry, and brought his sword down hard on the man's exposed neck. The weapon was heavy and the blade was sharp, and the blow sliced more than halfway through the fat neck. Blood spurted like a fountain and the head leaned grotesquely to one side. The body slumped to the earth.
Aliena and Richard stared at it. Steam rose from the hot blood in the winter air. They were both stunned by what they had done. Suddenly Aliena wanted to get away from there. She started to run. Richard followed.
She stopped when she could run no more, and that was when she realized she was sobbing. She walked on slowly, no longer caring if Richard saw her in tears. He seemed unaffected anyway.
Gradually she calmed down. The wooden clogs were hurting her. She stopped and took them off. She walked on in her bare feet, carrying the clogs. Soon they would reach Winchester.
After a while Richard said: "We're fools."
"Why?"
"That man. We just left him there. We should have taken his boots."
Aliena stopped and stared, horrified, at her brother.
He looked back at her and gave a little laugh. "There's nothing wrong with that, is there?" he said.
II
Aliena began to feel hopeful again as she walked through the West Gate to Winchester High Street at nightfall. In the forest she had felt that she might be murdered and no one would ever know what had happened, but now she was back in civilization. Of course, the city was full of thieves and cutthroats, but they could not commit their crimes in broad daylight with impunity. In the city there were laws, and lawbreakers were banished, mutilated or hanged.
She remembered going down this street with her father only a year or so ago. They had been on horseback, naturally; he on a highly strung chestnut courser and she on a beautiful gray palfrey. People made way for them as they rode through the broad streets. They owned
a house in the south of the city, and when they arrived they were welcomed by eight or ten servants. The house had been cleaned, there was fresh straw on the floor, and all the fires were lit. During their stay Aliena had worn beautiful clothes every day: fine linen, silk, and soft wool, all dyed gorgeous colors; boots and belts of calf leather; and jeweled brooches and bracelets. It had been her job to make sure there was always a welcome for anyone who came to see the earl: meat and wine for the wealthy, bread and ale for the poorer sort, a smile and a place by the fire for either. Her father was punctilious about hospitality, but he was not good at doing it personally--people found him cool, remote, and even high-handed. Aliena supplied the lack.
Everyone respected her father, and the very highest had called on him: the bishop, the prior, the sheriff, the royal chancellor, and the barons at the court. She wondered how many of those people would recognize her now, walking barefoot through the mud and filth of that same High Street. The thought did not dampen her optimism. The important thing was that she no longer felt like a victim. She was back in a world where there were rules and laws, and she had a chance to regain control of her life.
They walked past their house. It was empty and locked up: the Hamleighs had not yet taken it over. For a moment Aliena was tempted to try to get in. It's my house! she thought. But it was not, of course, and the idea of spending the night there reminded her of the way she had lived in the castle, closing her eyes to reality. She walked on determinedly.
The other good thing about being in the city was that there was a monastery here. The monks would always provide a bed for anyone who begged it. She and Richard would sleep under a roof tonight, safe and dry.
She found the cathedral and went into the priory courtyard. Two monks stood at a trestle table doling out horsebread and beer to a hundred or more people. It had not occurred to Aliena that there would be so many others begging the monks' hospitality. She and Richard joined the queue. It was amazing, she thought, how people who would normally jostle and shove one another to get at free food could be made to stand quietly in an orderly line just because a monk told them to.
They got their supper and took it into the guesthouse. This was a big wooden building like a barn, bare of furniture, dimly lit by rushlights, smelling strongly of many people crowded closely together. They sat on the ground to eat. The floor was covered with rushes that were none too fresh. Aliena wondered whether she should tell the monks who she was. The prior might remember her. In such a large priory there would naturally be a superior guesthouse for high-born visitors. But she found herself reluctant to do that. Perhaps it was that she was afraid of being spurned; but she also felt she would be putting herself in someone else's power again, and although she had nothing to fear from a prior, nevertheless she felt more comfortable remaining anonymous and unnoticed.
The other guests were mostly pilgrims, with a sprinkling of traveling craftsmen--identifiable by the tools they carried-- and some hawkers, men who went from village to village selling things that peasants could not make for themselves, pins and knives and cooking pots and spices. Some of them had their wives and children with them. The children were noisy and excited, rushing around and fighting and falling over. Every now and again one would cannon into an adult, get a smack on the head, and burst into tears. Some of them were not perfectly house-trained, and Aliena saw several children urinating into the rushes on the floor. Such things were probably of no consequence in a house where the livestock slept in the same room as the people, but in a crowded hall it was rather disgusting, Aliena thought: they all had to sleep on those rushes later.
She began to get the feeling that people were looking at her as if they knew she had been deflowered. It was ridiculous, of course, but the feeling would not go away. She kept checking to see whether she was bleeding. She was not. But every time she turned around she caught someone giving her a hard, penetrating stare. As soon as she met their eyes they would look away, but a little while later she would catch someone else doing it. She kept telling herself that this was foolish, they weren't staring at her, they were just looking curiously around a crowded room. There was nothing to look at, anyway: she was no different from them in appearance--she was as dirty, badly dressed and tired as they were. But the feeling persisted, and against her will she got angry. There was one man who kept catching her eye, a middle-aged pilgrim with a large family. Eventually she lost her temper and yelled at him: "What are you looking at? Stop staring at me!" He seemed embarrassed and averted his eyes without replying.
Richard said quietly: "Why did you do that, Allie?"
She told him to shut up and he did.
The monks came around and took away the lights soon after supper. They liked people to go to sleep early: it kept them out of the alehouses and brothels of the city at night, and in the morning it made it easier for the monks to get the visitors off the premises early. Several of the single men left the hall when the lights went out, headed no doubt for the fleshpots, but most people curled up in their cloaks on the floor.
It was many years since Aliena had slept in a hall like this. As a child she had always envied the people downstairs, lying side by side in front of the dying fire, in a room full of smoke and the smell of dinner, with the dogs to guard them: there had been a sense of togetherness in the hall which was absent from the spacious, empty chambers of the lord's family. In those days she had sometimes left her own bed and tiptoed down the stairs to sleep alongside one of her favorite servants, Madge Laundry or Old Joan.
Drifting off to sleep with the smell of her childhood in her nostrils, she dreamed about her mother. Normally she had trouble remembering what her mother had looked like, but now, to her surprise, she could see Mama's face clearly, in every detail: the small features, the timid smile, the slight frame, the look of anxiety in the eyes. She saw her mother's walk, leaning slightly to one side as if she were always trying to get close to the wall, with the opposite arm extended a little for balance. She could hear her mother's laugh, that unexpectedly rich contralto, always ready to break into song or laughter but usually afraid to do so. She knew, in the dream, something that had never been clear to her awake: that her father had so frightened her mother and suppressed her sense of the joy of life that she had shriveled up and died like a flower in a drought. All this came into Aliena's mind like something very familiar, something she had always known. However, what was shocking was that Aliena was pregnant. Mother seemed pleased. They sat together in a bedroom, and Aliena's belly was so distended that she had to sit with her legs slightly apart and her hands crossed over her bump, in the age-old pose of the mother-to-be. Then William Hamleigh burst into the room, carrying in his hand the dagger with the long blade, and Aliena knew he was going to stab her belly the way she had stabbed the fat outlaw in the forest, and she screamed so loud she woke up sitting upright; and then she realized that William was not here and she had not even screamed, the noise had only been in her head.
After that she lay awake wondering if she really was pregnant.
The thought had not occurred to her before, and now it terrified her. How disgusting it would be to have William Hamleigh's baby. It might not be his--it might be the groom's. She might never know. How could she love the baby? Every time she looked at it, it would remind her of that dreadful night. She would have the baby in secret, she vowed, and leave it out in the cold to die as soon as it was born, the way the peasants did when they had too many children. With that resolve she drifted off to sleep again.
It was barely light when the monks brought breakfast. The noise woke Aliena. Most of the other guests were awake already, because they had gone to sleep so early, but Aliena had slept on: she had been very tired.
Breakfast was hot gruel with salt. Aliena and Richard ate hungrily and wished there were bread to go with it. Aliena thought over what she would say to King Stephen. She felt sure that he had simply forgotten that the earl of Shiring had two children. As soon as they appeared and reminded him, he would
willingly make provision for them, she thought. However, in case he needed persuading she ought to have a few words ready. She would not insist that her father was innocent, she decided, for that would imply that the king's judgment had been at fault, and he would be offended. Nor would she protest about Percy Hamleigh being made earl. Men of affairs hated to have past decisions disputed. "For better or worse, that's been settled," her father would say. No, she would simply point out that she and her brother were innocent, and ask the king to give them a knight's estate, so that they could support themselves modestly, and Richard could prepare to become one of the king's fighting men in a few years' time. A small estate would enable her to take care of her father, when the king pleased to release him from jail. He was no longer a threat: he had no title, no followers and no money. She would remind the king that her father had faithfully served the old king, Henry, who had been Stephen's uncle. She would not be forceful, just humbly firm, clear and simple.
After breakfast she asked a monk where she could wash her face. He looked startled: evidently it was an unusual request. However, monks were in favor of cleanliness, and he showed her an open conduit where clean cold water ran into the priory grounds, and warned her not to wash "indecently," as he put it, in case one of the brothers should accidentally see her and thereby soil his soul. Monks did a lot of good but their attitudes could be irritating.
When she and Richard had washed the dirt of the road off their faces they left the priory and walked uphill along the High Street to the castle, which stood to one side of the West Gate. By coming early Aliena hoped to befriend or charm whoever was in charge of admitting petitioners, and ensure that she was not forgotten in the crowd of important people who would arrive later. However, the atmosphere within the castle walls was even quieter than she had hoped. Had King Stephen been here so long that few people needed to see him? She was not sure when he might have come. The king was normally at Winchester throughout Lent, she thought, but she was not sure when Lent had begun, for she had lost track of dates, living in the castle with Richard and Matthew and no priest.