The House of Lanyon

by Valerie Anand

  “As long as you don’t lose too soon.” Betsy, returning from the kitchen with a dish of dumplings, sighed heavily. She put the dish on the table and set about providing little Quentin with some stew and a chopped-up dumpling.

  “I’ll have some more stew,” said Richard, ignoring her. “It’s good. Who’d have thought that hen would be this tender? What’s the matter, Kat? You’ve gone rigid like a standing stone out on the moor. Pass the stew to me, can’t you? What are you staring out at the farmyard for?”

  “Look!” said Kat, and at the same moment Liza, who had also risen to see what had caught Kat’s eye, let out a cry, abandoned her own food and ran for the door into the yard.

  A moment later, exclaiming joyously, she was in Peter’s arms, even though one of them had Plume’s reins looped around it. Peter, in turn, was clutching his wife as though afraid she might vanish if he let her go.

  “Liza! My sweet Liza, I’ve missed you so very very much.”

  “And I you,” said Liza, holding him just as tightly. “And I you!”

  “Let me put Plume in the stable and see to him, then I’ll be with you. I’m not tired. I’ve got used to riding for hours on end, but Plume’s feeling it, poor fellow.”

  Richard came out to greet his son and help with the pony. By the time they came in again to the stew, which Betsy, looking more animated than she had in weeks, had hurriedly heated again, they had exchanged a good deal of news. Peter condoled with Betsy, shaking his head at the place where Higg used to sit. “And I’m sorry to learn of the troubles in Liza’s family. Maybe a bit of good news will help—well, Father, tell them what I told you just now, out in the stable.”

  “No, you tell it, boy. It’s your story.”

  “I’ve been in battles,” said Peter. “Two big ones especially. I’m lucky to be still alive but here I am, none the worse except for a nick or two that healed easy. That’s by the way. I was made to go with the Duke of Gloucester’s men—”

  “Who’d he be?” Kat asked.

  “King Edward’s youngest brother, the loyal one. The one in the middle joined Warwick at one time, though I think he’s back supporting his own kinfolk now. That’s not the point. I didn’t take Plume into the field. I fought on foot, to start with. But in one battle, in a lot of muddle and a thick fog, I got hold of a big horse, got myself put amongst the mounted soldiers. But in the next battle I saw Gloucester’s horse fall under him and I gave him mine. He was grateful. That’s why I’m late back. After the king had won, he and Gloucester went to London and I had to go as well, and be there at a ceremony—in front of the Tower of London, it was—where rewards were presented to men who’d pleased the king or Gloucester during the war. I had an award! The deeds are in my saddlebag. I’ve shown them to Father.”

  “Two farms and a village, just to the south of the moor.” Richard couldn’t contain himself after all. “We’ll get the rents for all of them.”

  “It was a parcel of land someone left to Gloucester,” Peter said. “It’s good land, too. I visited it on my way back. It’s all let to tenants, but I am the landlord. I have the freehold.”

  “Freehold…” said Richard thoughtfully. “You know, that’s making me think…. Betsy, bring out your best elderflower wine and we’ll drink to Peter’s reward, and we’ll drink to what we might do with it, too.” His mouth curved in a satyrlike smile which startled Liza because it looked so alarming. “If you do as I say, boy, like a good son should, maybe poor Agnes Sweetwater’ll get her man after all, but if she does, her father’ll be beholden to me for it and oh, how he won’t like that!”

  “But are you really going to agree? After all, the award’s yours, not your father’s,” Liza said when she and Peter were at last alone. She was glad to see him come into the bedchamber, for he hadn’t hurried, and when she looked out the window, wondering where he was, he was chopping firewood in the farmyard with excessive violence, though there was plenty of firewood and no need for a man, who had come home only that day from fighting battles, to create more. She was perplexed.

  “I won’t have much say in the matter,” said Peter dryly. “But it will keep him happy, if it works.” He was stripping off his hose and shirt as he spoke. The light of the long summer evening streamed into the room. His body, kept muscular from continual riding and frequent fighting, was in fine trim. Even to Liza, with the splendour of Christopher’s body still fresh in her memory, this man was beautiful. It seemed that she loved them both, though differently.

  There was a sheen of sweat on his skin, from his efforts with the chopper. He found himself a linen towel and rubbed it dry. “If it works,” Peter said, “we’d be free of the Sweetwaters. No more landlords! I wouldn’t mind that, I admit. We’d own Allerbrook outright. Allerbrook can be sold—that’s been so for a good century, since the boundary of the Royal Forest was last moved. You can’t buy property inside the forest, of course, but that doesn’t matter to us now. We can purchase Allerbrook if the Sweetwaters will sell.”

  “And your father wouldn’t need their permission to build the new house he wants so much,” said Liza. She hesitated and then said, “He’s very serious about it. While you were away—well, I know he gave it a lot of thought.”

  “And drew plans. I know. He showed them to me,” said Peter.

  “Yes,” Liza said. “And I know he’s afraid that if he had to ask them, the Sweetwaters might say he wasn’t to build anything that could challenge their own house.”

  “Exactly!”

  “But Peter, you don’t want a fine new house and I don’t think we need one, either.”

  “Quite right, but Father thinks otherwise. He talked to me and brought out those plans of his while you were doing your evening chores, and I saw just how determined he is. In fact, I’d say that slightly crazed would be nearer the mark! All the same, there is sense in breaking free of the Sweetwaters. What Father wants to do is to keep the village and one of the farms I’ve been granted, and sell the other farm, the bigger one, and then make an offer for Allerbrook. There’s a chance that Walter Sweetwater will sell, because he needs money so badly. With it, he may be able to provide Agnes with enough dowry. Father said he and I could share ownership. We won’t have to pay rent—or for the right to eat rabbit—and the Sweetwaters couldn’t order any of us to follow them to war, ever again, either!”

  “I see that. But—oh, I wish your father didn’t keep calling you boy. You’re not a boy. You’re—what—over thirty, and you’ve just come back from a war and been rewarded for your service!” Liza found that her indignation on his behalf was entirely genuine.

  “He likes to feel he’s the master,” said Peter. He spoke quite calmly but then, as though a surge of rage had overtaken him, hurled the towel away, to land in a heap on the floor. “He has to feel he’s the master. Damn him, damn him! Do you remember the time he went away to war and I was the master of Allerbrook while he was gone? I did well, I know I did. Did he ever say thank you? Did he ever say as much as well done, thou good and faithful son? Did he? Did he? No, he bloody well didn’t. It was Out of the way, boy. I’m back now, I’ll take charge. I’d looked after the place for two years but all of a sudden I was supposed to accept that I knew nothing and he knew it all. Liza, there are times when I think I hate him!”

  “Oh, Peter!” said Liza inadequately.

  With a groan, he sat down on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t mean that. Well, maybe I hate him some of the time. He takes after his own father. I remember him well enough! It’s best if I let him have his way. One day I’ll come into my own and meanwhile, letting him pretend I’m still a boy is a small price to pay for peace. When I feel angry with him, I can always go and chop firewood, and put some effort into it!”

  “So that’s what you were at just now! I saw you from the window.”

  “Er…yes.” Peter laughed, rather awkwardly. “Yes. He’s made me angry today, that’s true enough. What the Duke of Gloucester has given me is rightly mine and my father’s la
ying claim to it, as near as makes no difference. But I decided not to quarrel with him. I’d rather my wife and child lived in a peaceful household, my love.”

  “Yes. You think your own thoughts in secret,” said Liza. “I understand.”

  If anyone had gone in for secret thoughts, she had.

  Peter had become calm once more. “If Walter Sweetwater’s really desperate for money,” he remarked, “there’s a real chance he’ll agree to sell—after a bit of cursing. And there’s something else. I’ve told Father, and now I’ll tell you. It’s how we decided which farm to keep and which to turn into money.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” said Peter, “that one of them, the one we mean to keep, isn’t just a farm. The Duke of Gloucester did well by me.” He smiled, remembering the moment when the deeds were handed to him by the sparely built young man who had known danger and responsibility from an early age, whose right shoulder was a little too big for the rest of him, whose face was lined before its time, but was now lit by a smile of gratitude. The smile widened his thin mouth and gleamed in his hazel eyes, making him almost handsome.

  “There’s a stone quarry on that piece of land as well,” Peter said. “And a profitable one. As I said, I’ve visited the place.” He frowned. “Of course, Father said that when he builds his house, a stone quarry of our own would be useful! Slightly crazed, as I said. But the quarry ought to be a good source of income and perhaps Father won’t go on with this notion of building a house, not when he really sees how much it would cost. He’ll still have to do a deal of saving and it’ll take years, and perhaps by then he’ll have changed his mind. Meanwhile,” he said, standing up in order to turn back the coverlet, “I’ll chop firewood when I feel the need, and keep him happy.”

  “Well, it’s for you to decide,” Liza said, pulling off her own clothing. She slipped into the bed. “Peter, I’m so very very glad to see you back.”

  “I’ve ached to be back, sweetheart.”

  He came to her, eager and hungry, pulling the covers right off to look at her and then pouncing joyfully, to meet with a response which made him laugh aloud and shout her name and roll across the bed with her, kissing her frantically. Later, the tiredness of the long road from London finally overtaking him, he fell asleep with his nose pushed into her shoulder and Liza, holding him, silently sent up prayers of gratitude to heaven.

  She was safe now. If the child within her prospered, no one, least of all Peter himself, would question its parentage. It would be the child of this night; what else? Even if anyone took to counting on their fingers, and they wouldn’t, they would take it for granted when the baby came that it had arrived a little early and there was nothing odd about that, not with Liza.

  She was a hypocrite, faithless, a liar, a deceiver, an adulteress, probably damned, probably destined for hell. She might well die in bearing this child. That would be heaven’s revenge.

  But the baby, if it were born and lived, would be safe and so would her good name. Peter had come home in time.

  “Buy Allerbrook?” howled Walter Sweetwater, stamping up and down his hall. “Freehold and all? Those damned Lanyons! First of all Peter Lanyon wrecks my chance of getting a reward out of Gloucester and now…”

  “We can’t do it.” Baldwin was as angry as his father. He stood staring out the window, at the hill and the combe above Clicket. He blocked the light from the window like a thundercloud. “It’s unthinkable. They just want to thumb their noses at us! We know that Richard Lanyon wants to build himself a big house! Most of Clicket knows—he talks about it in the White Hart. If he gets his hands on Allerbrook, he’ll do it! We won’t be able to stop him. No one has a bigger head than a prosperous peasant!”

  “If we sell to him, would there be enough?” Agnes asked.

  Her father and brother turned around. She had been sitting in a window seat, listening, with Catherine beside her.

  “What?” said Walter.

  “If we sell them Allerbrook for the best price we can get, could we buy enough dowry land to please Giles Northcote’s family?”

  “There’s no question of it!” Baldwin shouted.

  “My dear loving brother, it isn’t for you to say. Father?”

  “You really do want to marry Giles Northcote?” said Walter. “I mean, want him?”

  “That isn’t the point!” Baldwin bellowed.

  “Shouldn’t it be considered?” said Catherine. “My dear, did you not want to marry me?”

  “What? Yes, of course I did, my Kitten, but there was no bar, no difficulty. No one asked me to insult my family for your sake.”

  “But is it such a dreadful insult? They want to buy something from us for a fair price, that’s all. And look what it would mean to Agnes!”

  “What it could mean to all of us!” Agnes’s head was high and her voice proud. “It is not only that Giles Northcote and I liked each other when we met. The Northcotes are a good family and so are the Carews, from whom his mother comes. They mix with people in high office. If Giles and I have children, they would have the chance of good marriages. They might go to court. Our sons might be appointed to good positions. So might you, Baldwin! All that, just for Allerbrook!”

  “I wish I’d had the sense to find Peter Lanyon and kill him in the fog on Barnet field!” said Baldwin furiously.

  “I want to marry Giles Northcote,” said Agnes obstinately. “And I think he wants to marry me, and I don’t think any of you would regret it. Father, I wouldn’t urge you to this if I didn’t believe that! If Giles Northcote were a stable boy, I wouldn’t ask to marry him, even if he were as pure as a saint and as beautiful as an archangel! I know my duty. But this is a chance for us—if there’s enough money. Would there be?”

  “There could be…yes. I have some in my coffers that I could add and if Catherine will agree—for I wouldn’t do this without her agreement—we could part with one of her dower farms….”

  “There are four altogether. Two could go,” Catherine said at once.

  “That’s generous. They could be sold and with that money, and some of my savings and whatever I get for Allerbrook, I could buy an estate worth having,” Walter said. “There’s one in Devon that would do. I heard of it while I was with the king. It may well be for sale. The owner and his heir were both killed at Tewkesbury.”

  “No!” shouted Baldwin. “Think of the income we’ll lose! Rents from two farms as well as Allerbrook! No, Father!” Catherine opened her mouth to speak again, but he glared at her and she stopped. “This isn’t your business!” Baldwin snapped at her. “Keep out of it!”

  “I’ll go to the solar,” said Catherine. Looking exactly like a dignified kitten, she slipped off the window seat, but before she left the hall she put a kind hand momentarily on Agnes’s arm.

  Baldwin saw it. “Women!”

  “You were crazy for Catherine,” said Walter coldly.

  “Yes, you were! And now you want to stand between me and Giles just for spite against the Lanyons!” Agnes shouted. “Because that’s what it is. We can live without the rents. We could gain much more than we lose! Which is more important, anyway? Your quarrel with the Lanyons or the future of this family and my whole life?”

  “Stop that! Shouting like a woman selling yarn in a market! I don’t expect my sister to raise her voice. Ladies should be soft-spoken, gentle.”

  “Father!”

  “Your sister cannot remain unwed much longer,” Walter said seriously to his son. “As for the Lanyons…I detest them as much as you do and the loss of the rents will be a nuisance, but I can see the advantages of this marriage. No, Baldwin. If this makes you lose your temper, then go out and ride your horse till it founders, or get a couple of the stable boys to fight a round or two with you, bare fisted. That’ll take the fury out of you. I’ve made my mind up. I don’t like it either, but I am responsible for settling Agnes in life and we could indeed gain from a link with the Northcotes and the Carews. Those two families are ve
ry much on their way up. I’ll sell.”

  “And that upstart Richard Lanyon will be digging the foundations of his house before we know it,” said Baldwin indignantly.

  “Not he,” said Walter. “Allerbrook will cost him enough to keep him short for a long, long time. I’ll see to that!”

  Allerbrook was indeed expensive. Even with the profitable quarry (of which Walter was comfortably unaware), the new Lanyon house might never have come into being at all if nature hadn’t taken a hand.

  PART THREE

  STORM DAMAGE 1480–1486

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  BOULDER

  “I want to go out!” said Nicky crossly. He was sitting on a chest-cum-settle under one of the hall windows, expressing his view of the weather by kicking the front of the chest. A squall of wind rattled the window and Liza, going to it, saw that it wasn’t properly latched. She raised the latch, intending to secure it with a firm push, and the gale tore the window from her grasp. Rain blew into her face. The moors were invisible, lost in the cloud and the downpour, and the sound of the swollen Allerbrook deep in the combe came with it, audible even from here, so high on the hillside.

  Nicky kicked the chest again as she snatched the window back. She slammed and latched it and turned a stern face to him. “Stop that. Why are you not at your books? Did Father Matthew give you nothing to study until your next lesson with him?”