Endeline clenched her fists under the table. From the corner of her eye she could see Perceval laughing at her.
She ordered the troubadour away.
Fifteen
Afton’s skin prickled into goose flesh when the troubadour finished his song, but Hubert seemed to make no note of what was surely a terrible coincidence. She sat still and solemn as the servants cleared the table and prepared for the dancing to follow. When Hubert did finally turn to her, it was merely to ask if she was ready to return home. Timidly placing her hand on his arm, she whispered, “Yes, my lord. I am tired.”
She clung to him on the ride home, and he helped her out of the wagon with unusual tenderness. “Go rest in our chamber,” he told her as he led the horses away. “I will join you shortly.”
She had just crawled under the warm fur on their bed when Hubert came into the chamber with a log for the fire. Afton managed a smile. “Thank you, dear husband,” she said, struggling to lift her head to see over her bulk. “It will be wonderful to have a warm fire.”
Hubert eased himself down on the bed next to her and his fingers found their way to her throat, where he pulled the string that held her cap on her head. Her eyes flew open in surprise, but he soothed her: “Lie back. you must be tired.”
She obeyed, confident in his gentleness. He pulled the cap off her head and unbraided her hair, spreading it out on the pillow behind her. For a moment she was a child again, back in her cottage, with Corba dressing her hair. Sleep beckoned her, and she was about to obey when a sharp pain in her back brought her fully awake.
Hubert was no longer at her side. She raised her head and saw him sitting at the foot of the bed, watching her with eyes grown speculative and hard. Her pulse quickened and the old fear rose in her heart. What was this?
She smiled even though her lips quivered, and held out her hand to him. “Dear husband, lie here with me and rest,” she said, patting the fur on the bed.
“No,” he answered, his voice clipped. “I have lain beside you for the last time. you have made me feel proud in my manhood, proud of the thing you carry in your womb, and you have deceived me. Do you not know that I realize the child in your womb was conceived as you thought of the noble Calhoun? you have never ceased to love him, and together you have made a mockery of me! He writes love poetry for you and the entire world hears it, while you carry the child conceived in his honor!”
“It is your child, dear husband,” Afton said, struggling to sit up. “I have not thought of the master’s son in these past two years. My only thoughts have been of you!” The bitter truth of her words rang freely from her soul, for what comfort was a childhood love when confronted with the daily terror of Hubert?
“He writes poetry for you!”
“I do not care what he does!” she screamed. She pushed herself forward and crawled to Hubert’s lap. Placing her head against his chest, she calmed her voice and spoke clearly: “I am married to you, dear husband.”
Another sharp pain crossed her back, and she cried out in agony. The sound broke the spell she had been trying to cast, and the rough hands that had been about to caress her head gathered her hair instead and dragged her off the bed. She fell, belly first, onto the floor.
“Hair of gold!” he roared, still holding her hair. “Eyes of gray! He writes of my wife!”
Afton clutched her belly and moaned. Something wet was coming forth from her; something had happened to the baby. Perhaps she could still save it. She reached for Hubert with her free hand: “My husband, kiss me. Give me your hand, and I will kiss it. Your feet, my lord, I will kiss your feet--”
Hubert dropped her head and kicked her, the sole of his rough boots cutting into the skin of her neck. It was the only blow she felt clearly, for the others came like thundering raindrops, one after the other in an unceasing storm. He seemed to dance to fiendish music only he could hear, pounding the rhythms upon her head, back, legs, and arms as she curled into a ball.
When her mind and voice had stilled into oblivion, Hubert stopped his awful assault. She felt herself being lifted into his arms, then the softness of the bed was beneath her. She sighed and relaxed even as his hands removed the elegant gown from her. Pain stirred again in her womb, but she gave it no outlet. If she lay still, Hubert would stop, for she knew he found no pleasure in his acts unless she protested.
The room was silent. Had Hubert gone? She could not raise her eyes to look, for if he waited, he would know she was awake and capable of feeling his savagery. She forced herself to breathe deeply, and upon her third breath an agonizing pain tore at her womb and forced her eyes open.
Hubert was waiting.
***
Corba had seen Hubert’s wagon return from the castle and was anxious to gossip about the goings-on of the nobles. She allowed Hubert and Afton a little time, then she threw on her shawl and set out for the miller’s house.
All was quiet in the miller’s courtyard when she arrived, and Wilda was no where in sight. Because she had often been welcomed of late, Corba confidently entered and walked through the hall to the door of Afton’s chamber. A rhythmic snapping sound came from the chamber, a sound strangely out of place, but Corba only shrugged and knocked. The sound quieted, and after a moment, Hubert opened the door.
She had never seen his eyes so stony, devoid of all expression save a certain grim pleasure. His brows lifted when he recognized her, and he took her hand and drew her into the chamber. “It is good you have come,” he said, taking the rough shawl from her shoulders. “I believe your daughter is about to give birth.”
Corba smiled and pushed past Hubert to the bed where Afton lay, but the wounded creature upon the bed could not be her daughter.
“I have whipped her,” Hubert said simply. “As her husband, it is my right. Now it is my right to witness the birth of this child.”
As a villein, it was not the first time Corba had been in a situation that called upon her instincts of self-preservation, and after a brief moment of shock, she casually smoothed her skirt as though this were an ordinary visit and she an ordinary midwife. “It is not customary for the father to be present,” she said, calmly washing her hands in the wash basin. “Wouldn’t you rather wait outside?”
Hubert’s eyes narrowed and he smiled bitterly. “No. I will wait right here.”
Corba soaked a cloth in water and began to wash the wounds of her unconscious daughter. The baby was coming, Corba knew the signs well, but it could be hours yet, possibly even days if Afton did not have the strength to deliver the child. Corba heard Hubert settle into the fireplace chair, and she silently prayed for the soul of her daughter.
***
Pain. Afton did not know that such pain could exist without bringing merciful death. Her skin stung, a sharp pain in her side stabbed with each breath, and her womb felt ravaged, as though a monster struggled to break free of her. The blanket she lay on was bloody, she was drenched in sweat, and in the corner of the room she could feel Hubert’s malevolent presence. Every humiliation she had borne was for nothing. He would kill her after the child was born.
Corba was doing her best to ease her daughter’s pain. She rubbed Afton’s belly with oil, unknotted her tangled hair, and wondered aloud how she would get Afton off the bed and onto the floor into the usual crouching position for birth.
“Leave her where she is,” Hubert said, watching the scene through half-closed lids.
Afton dropped her guard and her pretense, for neither were of any use. As she lay on the bed, her body torn by pain, she struggled for breath and flung hoarse words at her husband: “I spit on you! I hate you! You may kill me, for I do not care!”
Corba’s eyes went wide in horror, but Hubert merely sat in his chair, his eyes upon her belly as if his purpose for living was contained there. Once he smiled at Afton, and the malice in his eyes stirred Afton to find new strength. She could hate, too! She would never, ever again be passive before him. In her remaining weeks, days, or hours, she would never willin
gly submit to him.
“Sit up now,” Corba commanded her, lifting Afton’s shoulders. “Push!” Afton pushed with every ounce of energy and hate in her soul. She felt a tremendous, ripping pain, then release.
Afton sank back onto the bed in relief and Corba held up the baby, the bloody cord still dangling. “It’s a beautiful boy,” Corba cried, clearing the baby’s nose with a cloth.
At the sound of the baby’s cry, Hubert sprang up and pulled a dagger from his boot. Afton weakly thrust her hand toward him to save her child, but Hubert only sliced the cord with one quick movement, then took the baby from Corba. “My son,” he said, his voice filled with pride.
Afton could not believe her ears. He still acknowledged the child? Hubert lay the baby on the bed, wrapped it in a wool blanket, and placed it in Corba’s outstretched arms.
“You must take the child immediately to the church and have him christened,” he told her. “I will tend to my wife.”
“What is his name?” Corba asked, cuddling the baby. “What do I tell the priest?”
Hubert did not pause. “Ambrose,” he answered. “For now that I have a son, I am immortal. Ambrose, son of Hubert, will bear sons, as well, and I shall forever be on the earth.”
“Please,” Afton whispered, waving a feeble hand in Hubert’s direction. “I want to see the baby.”
“No,” Hubert answered. He turned back to Corba, who hesitated by the door. “Hurry, woman. Don’t let the babe catch cold. And send word for a wet nurse; we will need one.”
Corba left with the baby. Afton was about to steel herself for a final confrontation with Hubert when another ripping pain made her scream. She pressed her hand on her belly and felt movement again. “I think there’s another baby,” she whispered hoarsely. “You must stop my mother.”
Afton had seen Hubert roar in anger and seethe in silence, but now his face flushed red and his breath rasped in his throat. “Another child?” he said, clutching the wall for support. “You have been with another man!”
“No,” Afton shook her head in her pain.
“If a woman has two babies, she has been with two men, any fool knows that,” Hubert whispered, sinking to his knees beside the bed. His eyes were level with Afton’s, and his hand brought forth his bloody dagger. Afton closed her eyes, expecting to feel the blade in her heart, but instead she heard the sound of ripping fabric. When she opened her eyes, Hubert had slashed her mantle and was ripping it into strips. “I will bind your legs together,” he muttered. “This babe will die with you. It will not be born.”
“No,” Afton screamed, kicking as the urge to push overcame her. “The baby must be born!” She screamed as another pain tore at her, and the noise seemed to drive Hubert into a frenzy. He put his hands on his head, and his face purpled even as the baby he did not want arrived into the world.
The child lay between Afton’s legs for only a moment. Hubert scooped up the baby, cut the cord, and headed for the door. “It is a girl child,” he said, smiling at Afton in satisfaction. “And God has given me a sign, for the child is marked as the offspring of an adulteress. I read your sin in the child’s face.”
***
Afton did not know how long he was gone; she only knew she was going to die. Hubert came back into the chamber, without either baby, and methodically lifted the edge of the blanket she lay on and draped it over her body. “This will be your shroud, for I will burn you on a pyre out back,” he said, walking around the room to lift the other side of the blanket. “I will find another wife to raise my son, and a wet nurse to suckle him. But you, unfaithful wife, shall die the death you deserve.”
“My daughter?” she whispered.
“The child of sin is dead,” he snapped.
She had been defeated. Though she had borne humiliations too great to fathom and flattered the man least deserving of praise, she was now vanquished, by his whip and his cruelty. Her daughter was dead. Her son would be raised by another. She had neither the energy or the will to protest when Hubert lifted her into his arms.
She smelled rather than saw him; his rancid sweat seemed to fall upon the blanket that enveloped her. He faltered for a moment as he carried her, as though he were failing in his resolve, but Afton knew Hubert was a single-minded man. He had determined that she was worthy of death, and nothing short of her death would please him.
When they were outside the house, Afton felt the freezing wind wrap her in a chilly cocoon. She felt strangely detached. Her arms and legs were numb, as unfeeling as they had been when as a child she had stayed too long in the cool waters of the forest pool at the twin trees.
She smiled. Have I been away from the twin trees for so long?
Twigs crackled beneath her and Afton was dimly aware that she was lying upon a bed of leaves and brush. It’s all right, she told herself. I’m in the forest, and I’m safe. No one else knows about this place--except Calhoun. Her eyes opened, and for a moment she thought she saw Calhoun standing beside her. He smiled at her, clutched his heart in a farewell gesture, and fell down at her side.
She heard the wind whistle coldly, felt the cool numbness of death, and thought again: Have I been away from the twin trees for so long? And then she thought nothing more.
Sixteen
Ambrose
1124-1126
The bitter cold of the January night stung Wilda’s eyes, so she drew her shawl closer about her head and muttered to herself. The biting wind whipped at her cloak as she walked on the long road that led out of town, but she shouted curses into it. “Drown the babe, indeed I won’t do it!” she screamed, her crackly voice breaking as the wind carried it away. “You can lash me a thousand times like you done the mistress, but I won’t give in to you. It’s a mortal sin to even think of such a thing!”
Wilda suddenly became aware that the sun had set, and dark night surrounded her. It was dangerous for a woman to be out alone after curfew. But the infant in her arms mewed softly through the blankets, and Wilda clutched her burden more firmly and set her cracked lips together. “Don’t you worry,” she croaked, hobbling down the road with greater speed. “God will be with you. And I won’t worry about the master, because I just won’t go back there, that’s all. I’m an old woman, with not many days left, and I’ll not work myself into my grave in his service.”
She darted behind the shelter of a tree and peered into the blanket. At the sight of the baby, her broken lips parted in a smile, and she rebundled the baby and redoubled her efforts on the road. “God will watch over both of us, little one, you wait and see.”
From the distance, a light gleamed from the convent outside the village and the bell tolled for vespers. “No one will know us at the nunnery,” Wilda whispered under her breath. “The good women of this place don’t come into the village.”
The moon had risen high into the dark sky when Wilda made her way to the gate and pulled on the bell rope. A tiny peephole in the wooden gate opened, and a pair of wide eyes peered out at her.
“Please, missy, I’ve a present for you,” Wilda whispered, glancing nervously around her. “Please open the gate. A more God-fearin’ and harmless old woman as me you canna’ find anywhere.”
The novice opened the gate and put her finger across her lips. “I understand you canna’ talk,” Wilda said, shifting the bundle in her arms to the arms of the young nun. “But here. Take this to your abbess, right quick, and God bless you for your trouble.”
The novice nodded, and the gate closed again. Wilda turned away and chuckled to herself. “Won’t my lord Hubert be surprised if he ever finds out that part of ‘imself’s gone to God?” She laughed aloud. “That’s the only part of ‘im that will ever come close to God, that’s for sure. The man’s a devil in flesh, ‘e is.”
She waddled on down the road in the darkness, laughing to herself.
***
Corba paced in the stillness of the church, the baby in her arms growing louder and more insistent by the minute. “Can’t you get the child to hus
h?” Wido asked her, wiping sleep from his eyes. Isn’t it enough you woke everyone in our house? Do we have to wake the whole village, too?”
“Don’t you even care that this babe is bone of your bones?” Corba answered. She made gentle shushing noises to the baby, who continued his squalling. “What is keeping Father Odoric?”
“He’s probably still in bed,” Wido answered, yawning.
“Well, he’s got to get out here and tend to this baby. Wido, I fear for the child. I fear for our daughter. Though the babe seems healthy and strong, the man Afton married is not--”
The sound of Father Odoric’s shuffling footsteps silenced Corba. The priest entered the church, carrying his candle and stifling a yawn. “What is it that couldn’t wait until morning?” he asked.
“A baptism, father,” Corba answered. “We did not think it wise to wait until morning.”
“Bring me the baby, then,” the priest grunted, gesturing.
***
Madame Hildegard, the abbess of the nunnery, sat up with a start when she heard the rap on her door. It must be an emergency, for her nuns knew better than to wake her before Matins. She pulled her tunic around her and opened the door.
The young novice Lienor stood there with a bundle in her arms. She remained silent, obeying the rule of grand silence, so Hildegard took the squirming bundle without a word and placed it on her bed. She unwrapped the rough wool, and both she and the novice gasped at the sight of the baby lying there.
Hildegard had received babies at the nunnery before. Often she had found suitable positions for infants of young mothers who had died in childbirth; and on three occasions she had prayed over the forms of monstrous children destined for early deaths: one born without limbs, another with an open wound, and the third with a swollen head. Hildegard had the priest baptize the deformed babies and she prayed for their souls up to the hour they died and for three days afterward, for she earnestly believed they bore the mark of some gross sin in their bodies.
Afton of Margate Castle Page 18