Afton of Margate Castle

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  One afternoon at recreation, Hildegard decided to explore Lienor’s reaction to the child. She felt responsible not only for Agnelet, but for Lienor’s spiritual struggles, and Hildegard could not understand the girl’s reaction.

  It was a balmy spring day in the convent garden, and the nuns sat in a circle, so none would feel left out, and each was occupied with something to mend, embroider, or weave. Speech was carefully regulated during the recreation, for conversation had to be of interest to all and maintained in the spirit of sisterly love. Fortunately, Agnelet was a favorite topic.

  Hildegard smoothed the torn tunic in her lap and began to mend the tear with mathematically precise stitches. “Our little Agnelet can now sit up by herself,” she spoke to the assembled nuns. “Have you noticed this, Lienor?”

  The novice smiled and nodded, keeping her eyes on her stitching.

  “I have often remarked upon the child’s beauty. If it were not for the unfortunate deformity we all have chosen to ignore, she would be perfection itself, don’t you agree, Ula?”

  Ula, an older nun, nodded in agreement with the abbess.

  “In fact, I’ve so fallen in love with the little angel’s face that I confess I’ve concocted a little game with the women who occasionally visit the chapel. I find one woman with Agnelet’s perfectly straight nose, another with her bright blue eyes--”

  “Excuse me, Madame,” Ula interrupted, timidly waving a thimbled finger. “But they have darkened. I believe they will be gray.”

  “Gray.” Hildegard inclined her head thoughtfully. “Sometimes I even look for women with the shape of her fingers.” Hildegard casually glanced toward Lienor and noted that the novice’s hands trembled. “Sometimes I wonder if my game is wise.”

  Hildegard looked pointedly at Lienor, her question repeated in her glance, and Lienor’s eyes met the abbess’s and stirred as a sea of trouble. The novice shook her head almost imperceptibly before turning again to her work, but Hildegard saw the movement and knew she had stumbled onto fertile ground. The novice Lienor knew something about the infant, and whatever the knowledge was, it was too great or too heavy to be spoken.

  ***

  Later that afternoon, Madame Hildegard heard a quiet tap on the door to her sparsely furnished office. “Come in,” she called, folding her hands. She was not surprised when the novice Lienor came into the room and knelt before her desk.

  “Rise, my child,” Hildegard responded. “What is it you seek?” Lienor tapped her chest with two fingers, the nun’s sign for “excuse me,” and Hildegard smoothed her face into a pleasant smile. “You are no bother to me, daughter. How can I help you?”

  Lienor pointed to her throat, then looked heavenward and made the sign of the cross. “Your vows?” Hildegard asked. “Do you still wish to take your vows?”

  Lienor nodded, then pointed to her throat. Hildegard nodded, understanding, and regretted the request she had understood. “You wish to continue your vow of silence after you have taken your vows,” she said calmly. “Are you sure this is wise, my child? One of our purposes is to sing praise to God. Can you sing in silence?”

  Lienor bowed her head and lay her hand upon her heart. “Of course you can sing in your heart,” Hildegard answered, her voice softening. “Can you give me a reason for this request, my child? Surely the penance for your past sin has been paid.”

  Lienor looked up and Hildegard saw that the girl’s dark eyes glistened with tears. Hildegard knew she should not ask, but she could not ignore the unerring instinct she had developed from years of searching women’s hearts. Her hand closed around the cross that hung from her neck and she inclined her head gently. “Has this request something to do with the infant you brought to me?”

  The dark circles in Lienor’s eyes widened, but her face remained passive. She would not answer, and Hildegard understood. The cross slipped from her grasp, and she folded her hands once again. “My child, this request is between you and God. I trust that when you are at liberty to speak, you will let me know.”

  Lienor nodded and closed her eyes. Hildegard stood and traced the sign of the cross on the girl’s forehead, wishing as she did that she could read Lienor’s mind as easily as she read her heart.

  ***

  Afton smothered a laugh as Ambrose toddled three steps forward, then fell on his hands in the dust. The cool September breeze flipped her mourning veil off her head, and Afton snatched it from her hair and stuffed it into the belt at her waist. What did it matter, if she did not dress like a proper widow? She was an independent woman, and she cared little for what the villeins said about her. The only people who mattered anymore were Ambrose and Corba.

  Wido had died in the spring, a victim of pneumonia. The doctors bled him in vain, for he tossed feverishly through four days and nights, mumbling about crops and sheep. On the fourth night, he died. Corba had been distraught, and Afton was grateful for a chance to comfort her mother as Corba had earlier cheered her.

  Corba was a fount of knowledge these days, and Ambrose was Afton’s reason for living. For the first time in her life she understood the motivation behind Endeline’s passion for motherhood, and the love Afton bore Ambrose eclipsed every tender feeling she had ever known.

  Corba found Afton’s single-minded devotion to her child amusing, for her attention had always been divided between her duties as a villein and the needs of her husband and other children. But for Afton, Ambrose alone mattered, and he filled her days and nights with a reason for rising, working, and caring. In him she saw not a single trace of Hubert, but only a mirror image of herself: gray-blue eyes, golden hair, and rosy cheeks, usually smeared with mud or twice-chewed food.

  Afton found great contentment in caring for her son and dreaming of the days to follow. As a free man, he would inherit the mill and its business when he was of age, or he could sell the property and leave Margate for another village with a fairer lord. He could enter the service of the church, if he so desired, or sail the seas in the service of the king.

  “I would even marry again, if doing so would free you to do as you pleased,” Afton whispered to her son as he nursed in her arms. “I would die for you, Ambrose.”

  She kissed his forehead and smiled at his greedy suckling. Her son would not bear arms or enslave others. He would not toil in the fields of a master for little or no reward. He would never be sold, or traded, or offered in exchange for a sheep. Ambrose, son of Afton, would forever be a free man.

  With the help of her mother and brothers, Afton turned her attention to running a prosperous mill. She soon found that she had a gift for working with people, and running the mill was a thousand times more gratifying than sewing or weaving tapestries. A necessity of village life, the mill was a monopoly strictly enforced by Perceval. If the villagers wished to eat, they had to bring their grain to Afton to be ground into flour. The mill operated throughout the entire year, though the busiest months were after the harvest in August and September. In those months the villagers streamed through her gate with freshly harvested grain, but even in the winter there were small bags of hoarded rye or wheat to be ground into flour. The lazy stream that trickled by the miller’s property kept the millstones turning in all but the freezing winter months, but then Afton knew she could borrow the village ox and led him in a never-ending circle until the villagers’ grain was ground.

  The villagers were amazed at Afton’s manner. “The girl from the castle complimented me on my fine wheat,” one whiskered man told the village tanner. “She said it was obvious I worked hard. Can you imagine? Perceval’s steward tells me I am the laziest man on earth!”

  “She let me watch the grinding,” the tanner’s wife added. “I told her Hubert had given me bad flour from good rye, so she helped me pour my grain straight through the funnel meself. Old Hubert would never have done that!”

  Afton made her biggest impression when it came time for the villagers to pay her. The payment for grinding, the multure, was one-sixteenth of the ground grain, but H
ubert had frequently demanded one-eighth as payment. “I’ve been grinding wheat at ‘ome to escape Hubert’s cheating,” one woman confided to Afton. “But my husband heard the penalty for even owning a grindstone was to lose a hand. So since you’re being so fair and all, we’re bringing our grain ‘ere.”

  “Even the weights are true,” Corba told the village smithy. “My daughter took care of things. All of Hubert’s false weights are now at the bottom of the stream, rusting and rotting like he is, the cheat.”

  The villagers who had come grudgingly to Hubert’s mill now came readily to Afton’s, and she found that she was able to reap enough reward from her labor to provide for herself and Ambrose. So she was not much disturbed when Corba appeared at the mill house, a frown etched into her forehead. “I have been working at the castle today,” Corba said, easing herself slowly onto a bench. “And there is news of trouble for you, my daughter.”

  “How so?” Afton asked, putting her scale under the rough-hewn work table.

  “The kitchen maid overheard Hector rebuke Josson because the revenues from the mill are down.”

  “That is impossible.” Afton lifted Ambrose from the small cradle at her side. “I give Perceval one-fifth of my income, and that is his due. My one-fifth is larger than Hubert’s tribute, so why is there cause for complaint?”

  “Because Hubert always gave Hector an extra tribute,” Corba said, sighing. “Such is the way of villeins and stewards, daughter. you do not understand. Perceval’s stewards must be paid in addition to what Perceval is owed. If they are not--” She opened her hands helplessly.

  “Perceval’s steward will not be paid by me,” Afton snapped. She softened her tone and looked into her mother’s tired eyes. “All is well, mother. We have been through the worst, mama. You will see.”

  ***

  No one brought grain to the mill on Sunday, so Afton was startled to hear the creak of her gate. A horse whinnied outside, and she thrust a crust of day-old bread into Ambrose’s hand and smoothed her tunic. “Someone’s coming to visit your mama,” she told her son, running her fingers through his light wisps of hair. “So you play here in mama’s chamber and stay quiet.”

  The aged Hector, more stooped and gray than she remembered him, and his assistant stood at her door. “We bring greetings from your lord Perceval,” Hector said, his voice quavering even as he cast furtive eyes around the hall as if searching for hoarded riches. “We have come to inquire about your rent.”

  The assistant cleared his throat awkwardly, and Afton studied him. She vaguely remembered his face from her days at the castle, but then he had been a boy. Now he was grown tall, but his skeletally thin frame seemed barely able to support his heavy cloak.

  The young man noticed her curious glance. “I am Josson, my lady.” Hector glared at the younger man, but Josson took a deep breath and continued. “It seems that the rent you have lately paid is less than the amount pledged by your husband.”

  Afton lifted her chin and stepped out of the horse, closing the door firmly behind her. “I know not what my husband pledged, for he did not allow me into his affairs. But I run a fair mill, and pay the lord his due rent of my earnings. One-fifth is all I intend to pay.”

  Hector’s eyes narrowed in displeasure, and Afton returned his intense stare. Josson tried to lighten the atmosphere and waved a bony hand. “My lady--”

  “She is not your lady!” Hector growled. “She is the child of a villein, and a stiff-headed child at that!”

  “Stiff-headed enough not to bribe you as do the villeins,” Afton replied icily. “I am no slave, and no peasant. I have purchased my freedom through marriage, and I will not feed your appetite for more than your due.”

  Hector’s mouth snapped shut, and Josson smiled. “Perhaps our lord did not think this situation through to the end,” he said, laughing lightly. “He should have thought better of giving the mill to an old man with an honest young wife.”

  Hector stomped toward his horse, muttering under his breath, and Josson nodded toward Afton. “We will speak to Perceval about this,” he said agreeably.

  “Josson!” Hector yelled, and the younger man hurried to help Hector mount his horse. Once in the saddle, Hector took the reins and pointed a yellow-nailed finger at Afton. “We will examine your mill at our leisure to see if your accounts agree with your practices,” he said. “And we expect you to greet us with hospitality.”

  “You may come to the mill whenever you like,” Afton replied, drawing her cloak about her. “You will find my words to be true.”

  Josson mounted his horse and tipped his cap to Afton in a gentle act of deference, but Hector turned his horse. “At our leisure, we will come,” he called over his shoulder, and Afton took great pleasure in slamming her door as they rode away.

  ***

  The steed that approached from the castle the next day bore not Hector, but Josson. The young clerk tied his horse to Afton’s fence and seemed apologetic in his approach as he met her at the front door of her house. “My master Hector is ill and cannot be bothered with such a routine task,” he explained, his brown eyes meeting Afton’s almost bashfully. “So he sends me to oversee the mill’s operation and certify that all is in order.”

  Afton lifted Ambrose onto her hip and led the way to the mill house. “Does he not expect the mill to be in order? Has a single villager complained?”

  “No,” Josson answered, following behind her. “But, after all, you are a woman alone and--”

  “As a woman alone I have learned to do many things, sir,” Afton told him, pulling open the heavy door to the mill house. “But I do not cheat the rich or the poor. Honor is not solely a trait of the nobility, if indeed the nobility can lay claim to it at all.”

  Josson had no answer, but quietly stood in a corner of the room as she pulled on her work apron and settled Ambrose to play with his straw dolls. A village woman waited outside the mill house already, her donkey loaded with two large sacks of grain.

  By midday, Afton had to admit that having a man around the mill was helpful. At first Josson stayed out of her way, allowing her to greet her customers and tend to the mill, and when she had nearly forgotten about his intruding presence, he offered to help her lift a particularly heavy bag of wheat to the funnel in the upper millstone. His slender frame possessed more strength than she had guessed, and soon he was working silently behind her, doing whatever he could to make her work easier--entertaining Ambrose, scraping flour from the grinding stones, measuring or bagging the ground flour.

  When the last villager’s grain had been ground, Josson tabulated her income and profit and declared that he would probably have to come still another day or more, “for my master Hector is a skeptical man, not given to easy assurances. As for me, I am certain that you are as honest as you are fair, mistress Afton.”

  He did appear at the mill two or three days a month, and probably would have come more often, but he traveled now in Hector’s stead to Perceval’s outlying manors. Afton gradually overcome her resentment at the sight of his horse tethered outside her house, for when he visited the mill he seemed to care only for increasing Afton’s profit and lessening her work load. He pretended that his concerns and suggestions were prompted only by his interest in Perceval’s enrichment, but Afton saw through his pretense. How did Perceval benefit from Josson’s suggestion that Ambrose have the toy wagon collected from the carpenter?

  One slow spring morning, Josson pointed to the stream that bordered Afton’s property. “You ought to augment your living by fishing,” he said, walking to the bank and peering into the water. “In the winter months, people would pay dearly for fresh fish or eels. I could have a servant at the castle fashion fish traps for you. In all months you could harvest a goodly amount of fish.”

  Afton smiled up into his warm brown eyes. “Thank you,” she murmured. “You are most kind.”

  Josson frowned. “Not at all. I’m only thinking of Perceval. Two of every ten fish caught here are Perceval’s, an
d of course, a portion must be due for me, as well.”

  Afton scowled. “And what portion is that?”

  “You shall feed me dinner when I am here,” Josson returned, folding his arms in a poor imitation of Perceval’s dignity.

  Afton turned away so he would not see her smile. There was no anger in his voice, as hard as he might try to put it there. “So be it, sir,” she answered.

  Eighteen

  “Get up,” Calhoun demanded impatiently as Gislebert writhed on the ground under the quintain, struggling to catch his breath. “You didn’t duck soon enough. Hit and duck in one motion. Next time you’ll know better.”

  Calhoun whistled for the horse from which the boy had fallen and the animal trotted over for the carrot Calhoun always carried in his pocket. While the animal nuzzled Calhoun’s hand, Gislebert sat up and glared at his older friend.

  “I’ll never be a knight,” he said obstinately, through clenched teeth. “I’d rather be a troubadour.”

  “You live in a castle as the son of a knight, and a knight you’ll become,” Calhoun answered, laughing. He patted the horse’s rear and held out his hand to Gislebert. “Come. Let’s go see if dinner is ready.”

  “I think there is something else I might become,” Gislebert said, clasping Calhoun’s hand and pulling himself up. “Since my father died, I think Lord Thomas might be willing to let another assume the role of my guardian. Perhaps he would allow me to become the ward of Lord Perceval.”

  Calhoun’s right eyebrow shot up. “You do?” His eyes danced with mischief. “And why would Lord Perceval want you as a ward?”

  “Because I bear great love and loyalty to the squire Calhoun,” Gislebert said, counting on his fingers. “And I can tell stories that hold the other knights spellbound. And I can dress a knight faster than anyone, and sing so beautifully the ladies swoon.”