Afton of Margate Castle

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  “I am he,” Calhoun answered, stepping forward. He bowed. “I am privileged to serve as a squire in your court, Lord Thomas.”

  “We are honored to have you,” Thomas answered. He directed his gaze toward Fulk. “And I seem to recognize the valiant knight who accompanies you. How goes it with you, Fulk?”

  Fulk smiled carelessly and bowed. “It goes well, my lord.”

  Thomas gathered the hand of the young girl next to him and clasped it to his breast. “This, of course, is Lady Clarissant, my wife, who will be the center of your universe from this time forward, I imagine,” he said, nodding gallantly toward the beauty at his side. “I trust her comeliness and favor will inspire you to commit noble deeds in the name of your lord and king.”

  Calhoun was surprised, for he had thought the girl Thomas’ daughter, but he caught himself and bowed. “It cannot be otherwise,” he answered, smiling up at Lady Clarissant. She was young and fair, probably not much older than Calhoun, with golden hair that spilled over her shoulders and sparkled in the sunlight. Her eyes were surprisingly blue; Calhoun could see even from a distance that they were the color of an untroubled summer sky.

  “We will leave you now,” Thomas said, pulling his wife to his side. “You will dine with us at supper and dinner from this time on.” Calhoun barely heard the welcoming words, so intent was he upon staring at the Lady Clarissant, but he felt Thomas’ gaze upon him and reluctantly looked toward his host. Thomas gave him a wry smile. “Welcome to our castle, squire Calhoun of Margate. May your time here be worthwhile.”

  ***

  In the chamber at Margate Castle, Morgan saw Lunette approaching and lay a finger across her lips. Lunette nodded, understanding. The sign could only mean that Lady Endeline was in a bit of a temper.

  The lady lay on the bed in a fitful sleep, and the maids moved carefully toward the girls’ dormitory lest they disturb her. The small bag they had packed for Lienor lay at the foot of Endeline’s bed--was it the sight of that pitifully small bag that sent our lady to bed with a headache? Morgan wondered.

  Lunette had her own opinion. “I think a guilty conscience troubles her,” she whispered in the small dormitory that had once been home to Afton and Lienor. “She sent ze child away with zhat horrible old man. Wouldn’t zhat give a decent person nightmares?”

  “It was a terrible thing to do, but it was ‘er right to do it,” Morgan answered. “The girl was a villein, after all. She should be grateful she was sheltered in the castle for so many years.”

  “Such a sweet girl,” Lunette sighed. “Always so eager to please. Not at all like zhat Lienor.”

  “Such a lucky girl,” Morgan inserted. “A free woman now, and married to the miller! That’s a prosperous position if there ever was one. Our Lienor won’t fare nearly so well, starving at the nunnery.”

  “I won’t starve.” Lienor stepped soundlessly into the dormitory and Morgan blushed.

  “Excuse me, miss, but we didn’t mean any harm,” Morgan explained.

  “No harm was given,” Lienor answered quietly. She nodded toward the bag on the floor in the chamber. “That is for me?”

  “Yes,” Lunette answered. “We packed your new habit and your mattress. Lord Perceval said he would bring ze bag of gold for your entrance fee later.”

  “Good,” Lienor answered, folding her hands into the long sleeves of her tunic. “Now come with me, I need an escort to the village and I do not want a knight for company.”

  “To ze village?” Lunette’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “Whatever will we do in ze village?” “It is not your affair,” Lienor said, leading the way. “Just come with me.”

  ***

  Endeline’s head was still throbbing when she awoke, so she lay back down on the bed, a pillow over her head. What demon made her head pound so dreadfully? Wasn’t she doing all in her power to be the proper mother and wife?

  Her own daughter was set to leave for the nunnery, a proper and respectable sacrifice in the eyes of God and man. Lienor, who could and should have married the son of the king, would now serve the family by offering prayers and praise to God for the rest of her life. The convent was a noble calling, and most noble families sent at least one child into the religious life. Yes, Endeline would be praised for Lienor’s decision to follow God.

  Her son Charles would continue the Margate family line. He would marry--Endeline compressed her lips into a tight line--yes, he would marry if she had to choose the girl and oversee them on the nuptial bed! He was a born to be a landowner, and while he lacked Perceval’s ambition and Calhoun’s recklessness, he would be the solid, steadying influence the family needed to bring prosperity and heirs into the next generation.

  Even Calhoun had been swept into his proper place. Despite the pounding in her head, she smiled at the thought of him, the improper boy who had caused her more than one headache. He had flirted so openly with the common girl Afton, but now he had undertaken his rightful role. After two years in hard and humble training as a knight, he would return to the family and spend his life either at Margate or on the battlefield in service to the king. In either case, his sacrifice would bring glory to the family, and would be written in the history of England and its kings.

  Endeline’s hands wandered over her barren belly, and she groaned as a familiar twinge struck her lower back. Soon the time of women would be upon her, and once again her body would issue bloody proof of its rebellion at the prospect of carrying a baby. Her mind flitted, unbidden, to the memory of the peasant Corba at the recent feast. Why should a work-worn peasant woman’s face shine with the blessing of yet another impending birth? Why did God allow that peasant woman to reproduce as regularly as livestock while she, noble Endeline, did not bear another child?

  Endeline’s attempts at foster parenting had brought her satisfaction for a time, but her experiences had become unsettling when it became necessary for the children to leave. The small boy she had taken to raise had become willful and resentful, and Endeline had been more than happy to give him as a servant to Abbot Hugh on his last visit.

  It galled Endeline to admit that Afton had been her most successful undertaking. The girl’s gentle manners and beauty had reflected well on Endeline while she lived at the castle, and her presentation to the miller had ably demonstrated to the vassals the worthiness of service for Perceval. In all respects, the girl had done them credit.

  So why did Endeline’s heart feel so empty? Why did her head pound without surcease?

  Because she had reared unworthy children. Endeline gripped her pillow. Her children were villeins, inferior, unworthy of membership in Perceval’s family.

  She would have to be patient. ‘Twas better to find a perfect pearl than a dozen grainy substitutes. If it takes ten years, she would find a child without the flaws of her previous wards. Surely she could find a child whose noble heart was like her own.

  She did not know where such a child would be found, but she was sure Perceval would. Once he understood the strength of her resolution, he would have to help her.

  ***

  Rising from her nuptial bed, Afton moved like a weary old woman. She splashed water on her face and neck, washing Hubert’s kisses from her body and wishing she could wash their memory from her mind. The small mirror above the wash basin revealed bruises on her arms and neck from Hubert’s rough handling. She dressed as best she could, but her chemise was torn beyond repair, and the tunic could be worn only as long as she kept her surcoat over it.

  The fragrant blossoms that had adorned the room last night were bruised and brown now, and Afton gathered an armful of them before their sickly sweet smell made her nauseous. She fell on the floor at the foot of the bed and waited for the sick feeling to pass, grateful for the coolness of the earthen floor. She would never willingly seek that bed again.

  She was just beginning to feel stronger when there was a knock on the door. “Mistress,” Wilda’s crackly voice called. “You have a visitor.”

  A visitor? C
ould she speak to anyone without fear of Hubert’s reprisals?

  “Who is this visitor?” Afton whispered.

  “The Lady Lienor,” Wilda answered. “She wants a word with you.”

  Lienor! Afton struggled to her feet and hurried out of the room, her weariness forgotten. Was there news of Calhoun? Had Perceval recanted his gift to Hubert?

  Lienor waited inside the courtyard, still mounted upon her horse, and Afton saw Morgan and Lunette outside the miller’s gate. They waved timidly as she stepped out into the courtyard and shaded her eyes from the sun. “Lienor? Won’t you come in?”

  “I can’t,” Lienor answered, her voice void of all emotion. “I am entering the abbey today, and wanted to make my peace with you before I go.”

  Afton stepped up to Lienor’s side and put a tentative hand on the horse’s bridle. “There is no bitterness between us,” she said quietly.

  “I did not welcome you into our household,” Lienor answered, loosening the reins in her grip. “Charles and I were often cruel. And I harbored ill will in my heart toward you, and jealousy, because I was to marry a man with a king’s certain cruelty, and you were free to marry a common man.”

  Afton closed her eyes and turned her face away lest Lienor should see the pain and shame upon it. “You had no reason to be jealous,” she answered, shaking her head.

  “You were beautiful and I was not,” Lienor went on. “And my mother wanted me to be like you. I resented you terribly, but in the end I am glad that I was not born fair. Now I can live my life within the safety of the church, and will not have to live the life my mother planned for me. I will not see my children blinded, or watch my husband strike them down. Once I prayed that God would take Prince William away--”

  “Hush, Lienor,” Afton interrupted, burying her face in the horse’s neck. “You should not say these things. All things happen as God wills...” She said the words automatically, but she did not believe them. Was it God’s will that she be imprisoned by marriage to Hubert?

  “You are my only friend,” Lienor answered, a trace of sadness in her voice. She gathered the horse’s reins. “I began to pray to escape my mother’s plans for me, but in the stillness of prayer I heard God’s voice. He has shown me my faults as well as my blessings. You are a blessing, Afton, and I shall pray for your happiness. . . and your redemption.”

  Afton’s throat closed as her emotions welled up, and she put her hand over the bruises on her neck. She managed to whisper: “And I for you.” Then Lienor kicked her horse and turned back toward the castle road.

  Afton watched the three women ride away in silence. She could not believe that Lienor had have passed years in secret envy, for now Afton envied her. Her family was wealthy enough to pay the entrance fee to the abbey, and as a bride of Christ, Lienor would have not to give herself to any other.

  ***

  The days settled into a routine in which Afton found herself driven to extremes of boredom and terror. Nighttime brought nightmares, but every morning Wilda knocked on her door with a cheery call of “How’s our new bride today?” and helped her dress. Hubert had generously supplied Afton with clothing, and she had several fine tunics and richly embroidered surcoats. After dressing, she and Wilda sat by the fire in her chamber and planned the dinner menu.

  After her meeting with Wilda, Afton usually wandered outside behind the house to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. The house itself was in the center of a large courtyard, with the kitchen on a visitor’s right hand and the mill house on the left. Behind the kitchen was a pen for livestock and a vegetable garden where Afton and Wilda worked in the afternoons.

  The millhouse perched precariously on the bank of the creek; indeed, the water-facing side of the millhouse was supported by beams driven deep into the creek bed. It was the water that powered the huge stones that ground grain into flour, Wilda explained, and Afton accepted her explanation without question. She would have loved to see the mill, swim in the creek, or even walk along the bank, but she did not dare for fear of Hubert’s reprisals. Many villagers fished there regularly and one might speak to her.

  She was also told to avoid the front of the house, for Hubert’s customers brought their sacks of grain to the mill by way of the front gate. She was not even allowed into Wilda’s kitchen, for Hubert did not want his wife to sully her hands with menial labor.

  The only person Hubert allowed her to address freely was Wilda, and Afton suspected that it was not by accident that one day Wilda brought her a kitten and complained that she did not have time to care for the creature. Would Afton like to care for it or should she throw it in the river? Afton wept in gratitude as she held the purring creature against her cheek, and her cheeks reddened in embarrassment because the older woman had obviously recognized her terrible loneliness. Afton had hoped to act the part of a great and capable lady, but Wilda had obviously recognized a scared girl in need of a pet.

  But to Hubert, she was a rare prize, one to be paraded in front of the villagers as often as possible. He only reminded his wife of her humble birth in their most private moments; in public, he doted on her upbringing in Perceval’s castle. Often at meals he commanded her to sing for his guests, and she would have to stop eating, swallow her food hastily, and stand and sing a song, preferably in French, for Hubert liked anything that smacked of nobility.

  If all went well at dinner, she spent her afternoons doing needlepoint or embroidery with Wilda, for Hubert wanted the tapestries in his hall to be as fine as those of Perceval. He knew Afton could do such fine work, he told her, and if her tapestries failed to outshine those at the castle, she would pay the penalty. So Afton worked hard, her fingers trembling, and sternly reproved Wilda for the slightest irregularity in the older woman’s stitching. Wilda said nothing in return, but occasionally smiled at the gamboling antics of the kitten that played at Afton’s feet. The cat was their secret, and Afton’s only source of pleasure.

  At supper, any feelings of life or hope or happiness Afton had felt during the day were carefully canceled, for at supper Hubert came to sit by the hearth in their chamber. Afton brought his slippers, washed his feet, and directed Wilda to bring him supper. Afton was not allowed to eat at this meal, but instead she was instructed to sit on a stool at his feet and hear the things her master would teach her. Every night brought a new variation on Hubert’s philosophy of men and women.

  Women were tools of the devil, Hubert told her, and their loveliness was the key to Adam’s fall in the Garden. That is why she was kept under strict order not to leave the house, and that is why Hubert would burn her alive if she ever brought him dishonor.

  “Men are women’s beginning,” Hubert told her one night as he munched on a chicken’s leg. “Without man, they have no purpose. And just as a dog licks his master’s hand even after he has been beaten for a fault, so a wife ought to follow her husband after correction. A dog does not upbraid its master, or scold, or question, but follows submissively, until the death, if necessary.” Hubert’s dark eyes narrowed. “Do you understand, young wife?”

  Afton gave the words that had become her reflexive, automatic answer to everything. “Yes, my lord.”

  One night Hubert came in early and found Afton standing at the window combing her hair. He screamed in fury, closed the shutters, and threw Afton onto the bed. As she sputtered in confusion, he shouted at her: “Sin arises from a fondness for grooming,” he said, his fingers burning her skin as he held her. “If a woman takes pride in her beautiful hair or her beautiful skin, numerous evils arise. Every woman should groom and dress in secret, not in an open window. You should not show your beautiful hair in public, but keep it under a cap. Your hair, your throat, your bosom, are only for your husband to see.”

  Afton could not trust her voice to answer, so she nodded. Hubert would not tolerate any sign of vacillation or weakness.

  “I cannot believe Lady Endeline did not teach you these things,” Hubert went on, “therefore I believe you must be deliberately ignoring
the morals and manners with which you were raised. And that dress--” he pointed to the gown Afton wore.

  “This dress?” Afton looked down. “Does it not please you?”

  “It is cut tight,” Hubert answered, releasing her. “Women wear such dresses only so men will say, ‘Look at that fine woman’s body, worthy of being loved by a good man such as I!’”

  Afton shook her head in confusion. “My lord, I have

  grown--”

  “Does it fill your heart with joy to know men will say that if they see you in such a dress?”

  “No, my lord.” Afton shook her head again and sat up. “I will take it off.”

  “Leave it on.” Hubert looked up at her and smiled. “I am your husband, and I will enjoy it. But you are never to wear it outside this room.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  After dinner came bed, and after bed came sleep, the only means of escape Afton found open to her.

  Twelve

  While Afton learned her lessons, Calhoun learned lessons of a different sort. As a squire, he was not a child of nobility or the son of a great lord, but Fulk’s personal servant. Squires were taught service, loyalty, and the skills that would bring honor and the glory of victory in battle.

  There were twelve squires in various stages of training at Warwick Castle, each with a knight who served as his master. Smaller boys also darted through the castle courtyard like curious mice. The sons of knights without estates, the younger boys served as pages in Thomas’ court, scurrying from place to place on various errands as they learned the manners of nobility and the politics and policies of castle life.

  Calhoun found the children amusing. Most of them looked upon the squires and knights with faintly veiled admiration, and a few were frankly ambitious and longed aloud for the day when they would be in command of themselves and others. But one boy in particular caught Calhoun’s eye. He was called Gislebert, and he chose to walk alone, never with the pack of pages who periodically pestered the squires. His eyes were large and wide like Afton’s, but they never shone with defiance or longing as Afton’s had. As the other boys roughhoused and wrestled in the dust, Gislebert hung in the shadows, his auburn head bent over a parchment. Calhoun knew instinctively that Gislebert would never be a knight.