Jenny squeezed her brother’s arm. “I will sleep easier when the winds blow, knowing Isabel has a roof over her head. Does our father know?”
“Not yet. I will tell him when he seems ready to hear.”
“I could give Isabel nothing but warm clothing.” Jenny sighed. “Will we ever see her again?”
“When I am lord of this land, Jenny, they will be welcome in my hall.”
Later, as Jenny went about her work, she wondered if she would live to see that day. She had said nothing to anyone about the scarlet dress. Tomorrow was Hallowe’en.
The storm that had threatened all day came late in the afternoon, bringing night down early with it. For the first time since the spring, the hall was empty of music. The entire bailey seemed bereft. Jenny woke in the night to the drumming of rain on the bower roof, and she prayed that Isabel and Cospatric had found shelter. She thought of Tam in roofless Carter Hall. This might be his last night on earth. She pictured him under an eave with his thin summer blanket over him, and she wondered if he was lying awake too, listening to the rain and thinking about the next night.
The storm continued all the next day. Cold, heavy sheets of rain slapped Jenny’s face when she ventured outside the bower. Wind pried through cracks in the thatch, making leaks in rooves that were usually sound. In the afternoon, as it grew dark, Jenny found herself alone with Galiene and gave way to despair. “Surely this is not an earthly storm. How can I ride to Miles Cross in such rain?”
“Hush now, child. The wind is falling. I think the storm has blown itself out. We will soon see. Remember, you must not sleep tonight. When you know your father is asleep, slip away. Eudo knows you are leaving. He will not stop you. Alric will have your horse ready. Ride straight to Miles Cross and tether La Rose out of sight, then wait by the side of the road. You must be brave now, if you would win your love. I have done everything I can to help you on your way.”
Galiene was right about the storm. By the time they ate supper, a few stars showed through rents in the clouds. By bedtime, the sky was mostly clear, though the wind had come up again.
Jenny lay in bed, rigid with fear, trying not to think ahead. When she could hear her father snoring, she slipped from the covers, fully clothed. Galiene’s heavy cloak was waiting for her by the bower door; Jenny’s had gone to Isabel. She grabbed it, leaving as quietly as she could.
In the stable, Alric stood by La Rose, who was already saddled. Jenny took the reins, then turned and kissed the boy on the cheek. “You have been faithful to me, Alric. I will never forget that.”
“Must you ride tonight, my lady? The souls of the dead slip their graves and go abroad on Hallowe’en.” The boy chewed his lip.
Jenny heard her own fear in his voice. “I must,” she said. She smiled to reassure Alric, and in doing so calmed herself. He helped her onto her horse.
Some of the wildness of the storm had stayed in La Rose, or perhaps she felt Jenny’s fear, for she was skittish. The wind sounded in Jenny’s ears as they galloped along, making it hard for her to think. She tried to keep her eyes on the road; it was still muddy, and La Rose felt uncertain under her. She told herself that the things flashing at the edges of her vision were just bits of leaf or grass, blown by the wind. Until they were in the forest. Then, as Jenny slowed La Rose to a safe trot, she realized unearthly things were all around them. Ghosts floated among the trees in outlandish clothing. La Rose shied and wheeled, trying to escape, but Jenny quickly understood these spirits were harmless. They seemed unaware of her. She comforted her mare and urged her on past the pale, glowing shades of those long dead. Her fate was not with them.
A lifetime seemed to pass before Jenny reached Miles Cross. Off the road, she tied La Rose to a rowan and counted herself lucky, for rowan trees have a magic of their own. No matter what happened to her, at least La Rose would be safe. But the land was low here, with a water-filled ditch between herself and the road. Jenny jumped it and crossed to the other side, where the forest was more level. Then, she could only wait.
Miles Cross was nothing more than a crossroads in the woods, where the road to Rowanwald passed the road that led to Berwick, far away on the North Sea. The ghosts that haunted the woods this night were absent here. Jenny wondered if this place could be so dangerous as to frighten the spirits of the dead. Even the wind was gone. Jenny lost her sense of the passing of time, her mind blank with fear.
When she finally heard the faint jingling of bridles, she thought at first she was dreaming. But no. A great crowd appeared, riding toward the crossroads at a stately pace. Jenny shrank back behind a tree. Was she too far from the road to reach Tam? She could not tell.
The fairy queen passed first, looking just as beautiful and cruel as she had that day by the river. She looked neither right nor left but straight ahead, as everyone did, as though they could see their destination. After her came the knights. Jenny saw the black horse, then the brown. Then her heart leapt into her throat as she recognized Snowdrop. She shot out from behind the tree like an arrow from its bow and leapt higher than she knew she could. She grabbed Tam by his waist and let herself go limp, using her weight to pull him down. She felt him throw himself with her as they fell into a heap together, and Snowdrop went on without him. She buried her face in his shoulder and held him tightly.
But suddenly his shoulder was gone. Tam was gone. She felt something wet in her hand. She looked down. It was an esk, a black newt as long as her hand with a crest running the length of its body. It was cold and loathsome but she forced herself not to scream and shake it from her hand. She looked away to calm herself, but as soon as she did, she felt it change into something heavier, a dry and leathery rope that writhed as she grasped it. She looked to find a black snake with yellow markings, a head shaped like a flat arrowhead and cruel, copper-coloured eyes—a poisonous adder.
This time she did scream, but she held it tightly, closing her eyes and waiting for the snake to strike. Instead, she felt it change and grow into something so large she had to stand with her arms around it. She dared to hope it might be Tam until she breathed the rank odour of its fur. Jenny looked up into the face of a bear. He opened his mouth of huge yellow teeth. Jenny closed her eyes again, waiting to be torn to pieces. As soon as she did, she felt the creature change. Jenny suddenly understood that the transformations happened only when she closed her eyes or looked away. Now she was kneeling with her arms around a large animal with rough yellow fur. It growled. She was holding some kind of huge cat. Jenny burst into tears but forced herself to close her eyes. Suddenly, she was holding a red-hot rod of iron.
As her flesh burned she tried to remember what Tam had told her. If he burst into flames, she should throw him down. But he was glowing, not flaming. Would she lose him now if she let go? She closed her eyes against the pain and suddenly found a flaming coal in the palm of her hand. The procession was past now. Her flesh was seared. She ran to the water-filled ditch by the side of the road, but hesitated. Could she let him go? She almost closed her eyes again but stopped herself and threw the coal instead. It described a long, orange arch of flame in the night, then vanished into the black water with a hiss.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Jenny stood there, clutching her burnt hand at the wrist, thinking she had failed. Then she heard a gasp, and he was there, standing naked up to his ankles in the water but somehow drenched to the bone. She ran and threw the cloak around him, then stood in the water hugging him, caring only that he was safe. She could stay in his arms forever.
He held her tightly. The pain in her hand vanished. She could not tell if he was shivering, laughing or crying. Perhaps all three. But he became still as an oak at the sound of a woman’s voice.
“Ill-faced girl, you have taken the best of my knights and gotten yourself a stately groom. If I had known, Tam Lin, you would betray me, I would have taken out your eyes and put in two of wood.”
And then they were truly alone.
“She cannot harm us now, my love.
” Tam spoke for the first time, stroking her hair. “The thread that held me has snapped. She can never touch us again.” A shudder ran through his body.
“We must find shelter,” Jenny said. She looked around. Snowdrop was gone with the rest of the procession. La Rose was too small to carry them both, but Tam was too weak to walk, and barefoot besides. Against his protests, she bundled him into the saddle and led La Rose away. She never wanted to see this place again.
“I have clothes at Carter Hall,” he said, already chattering with the cold. Galiene’s cloak left his legs exposed to the cold night air.
Jenny cursed herself for throwing him into the water. Had she come through all this only to lose him to something as earthly as the weather? Carter Hall was miles away, and her father’s hall beyond. There was no shelter between. She tried to keep close to him, to give him a little of her warmth, but La Rose could not be led that way. Jenny was beginning to realize just how hopeless the situation was, thinking things could not be worse, when she saw men on the road ahead.
“Oh no,” she said. She could only think they were about to be beset by robbers.
“My lord, is that you?” a voice cried.
“John?” Tam said, “John! For the love of God, man, give us aid.” He sounded giddy with relief. Jenny realized these men were his freebooters. The nightmare was over. When the man John came forward, Jenny fainted into his arms.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The May air felt almost as soft on Jenny’s cheek as the blond down on her son’s head, but she bundled him into a warm blanket, just in case the wind still held a touch of winter. Since Hallowe’en, she could not bear the thought that anyone about her might be cold. She had spent the winter weaving thick, fine blankets, finally proving to be a skilled weaver.
She found that Tam’s rescue had transformed her in everyone’s eyes from a woman disgraced to a heroine, but Jenny thought little of that. The very men who praised her had reviled Isabel. But if her sister had destroyed one knight and she had saved another, Jenny knew they had both faced their fears with courage and honour, and Isabel was her equal in every regard. She only hoped for a chance to tell Isabel as much, and show her little Andrew one day.
The baby cooed when he focused on her face.
His eyes were still changing, trying to settle on a colour somewhere between her light blue and his father’s golden brown. “Andrew Avenel,” she crooned kissing his fingers. “This very day, you become Andrew Lin. But where is your father? He should be here by now. Galiene, we will wait for Tam by the gate.”
Galiene clucked. “Bad luck follows if the groom sees his bride before the wedding.”
“I am hardly a blushing bride.”
“Well, whose fault is that? Your lord father would have seen you married before Christmastide.”
“Tam wished to wait until Carter Hall was fit to live in. Now that the roof is thatched, Andrew will be snug there.” But Jenny knew that was not the only reason. She thought back to the long hours Tam had argued over the winter, with her father and Brother Turgis, then with Brother Bertrand and the Earl of Roxburg himself. Everyone had demanded they marry, then urged, and finally begged. Jenny would have surrendered months ago, but Tam would not be swayed. Jenny was pleased to find such iron at his core. He had waited until he could provide a life for her and their son at Carter Hall. But, more than that, she knew he had wanted to be sure he was fully an earthly knight again. Now, he felt certain he had recovered from all the years of enchantment, and he was ready to bring Jenny home.
At least her father had enjoyed the chance to become friends with the Earl of Roxburg over the winter as the two men plotted to see Tam and Jenny wed. They both agreed the couple could never live at Roxburg, in the shadow of the king’s court, and the old earl had been generous in providing for the restoration of Carter Hall. He was waiting in the great hall now with her father and Eudo. This marriage would be quiet, without public celebration, as befit a couple who already had a child. But Jenny knew a fine stallion was waiting for Tam in her father’s stable, a wedding gift from the earl to replace Snowdrop, who had never appeared again.
She looked across the river. Already, great swaths of bare ground could be seen as lay brothers from Broomfield swarmed over the land. Jenny was grateful that the Broomfield entitlement ended well before Carter Hall. The forest of the fairies was falling for pasture. It was the same all over Teviotdale. The Church would surely drive the fairies from the land and tame it forever. Jenny knew this should give her comfort, but she could not welcome the change.
As Jenny strained her eyes against the sun, she saw Tam, coming along the road that led out of the forest. He was far away, but she knew his gait as well as she knew the sound of his voice, the touch of his fingers or the curve of his neck. Every aspect of his being was steeped in her soul.
With him came his men, including the freebooters who had saved them in the woods on Hallowe’en. They were part of his household now, having formally bound themselves to Tam soon after her father gave him Carter Hall. The oldest man, John, once had been a stable boy—the same stable boy who had survived with Tam when everyone else in the Lin household died. All winter, Tam’s men had worked with servants sent by the Earl of Roxburg to fix Carter Hall. Now, they were busy clearing land for crops. It might be a meagre living at first, but Jenny felt sure they could survive the lean years, even without the tocher that had once been Isabel’s and was now forfeit to the Church.
She knew Tam saw her now, for he quickened his pace. She hitched little Andrew up on her shoulder and started down the road to meet him.
Historical Note
The plot of this book was taken from two ballads, “Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight” and “Tam Lin.” Ballads are songs that tell a story. “Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight” was sung in different forms in almost every European language. In this book, Isabel’s story begins where the ballad ends. “Tam Lin” originated in Scotland and was only sung there, but by 1549 it was already said to be old. I have tried to be as faithful to the plot of “Tam Lin” as possible in An Earthly Knight.
Teviotdale, where most of the book takes place, lay in that part of southeastern Scotland now called the Borders. In the 12th century, King David I invited many Anglo-Norman noblemen from England to settle that area, mostly landless younger sons. These were the French-speaking descendants of the Normans who had conquered England about one hundred years before. King David also encouraged religious orders from continental Europe to establish houses in this and other parts of Scotland. To raise the sheep that provided their prosperity, the abbeys in Teviotdale cleared away great tracts of the forests which had covered the land for centuries. These forests never returned.
The abbeys in this book are fictional places, but Rowanwald is very much like the Augustinian abbey established in Jedburgh in 1154. Broomfield resembles the abbeys at Melrose and Dryburgh to some degree, though neither had a healing shrine like St. Coninia’s well. Coninia was in fact a real person, an early Christian woman whose burial place was discovered in 1890 near Peebles in the Borders. I bestowed sainthood upon her myself. Many of the local saints of the earlier Irish Church did not survive the transition to Roman Catholicism.
The site of the old town of Roxburgh is just outside present-day Kelso, where the Teviot and the Tweed meet. The ruins of Marchmont castle lie just upstream, neglected and all but forgotten. Roxburgh was destroyed so many times during battles with the English that the town was finally abandoned. The stone castle that replaced the 12th-century wooden hall persisted until 1550.
King Malcolm IV, called the Maiden for his vow of celibacy, ascended the throne of Scotland as a lad of twelve, when his grandfather, King David, died. Earl Henry, Malcolm’s father, had died not a year before. Earl William, who was known by his mother’s name, de Warenne, was one year younger than his brother Malcolm. When Malcolm died in 1165 at the age of twenty-four, his brother succeeded him to become William the Lion. William was twenty-three when he was
crowned. Before he finally married at the age of forty, he fathered at least six children out of wedlock. He ruled Scotland for forty-nine years.
The fictional events in An Earthly Knight are set in the year 1162.
Acknowledgements
The Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council provided a travel grant for which I am sincerely grateful. The money enabled me to visit the Borders area of Scotland in the summer of 2001 and poke around in the 12th-century abbey ruins that dot the land. Hugh Chalmers, Carrifran Wildwood project officer with the Borders Forest Trust, helped me to imagine what that landscape might have looked like when old-growth forests of ash and oak still covered most of the land. Julie Ross and her staff at the Edinburgh Bird of Prey Centre generously allowed me to spend time in that remarkable aviary, where I learned that raptors are, in fact, very docile birds. Dr. David Caldwell, deputy keeper of History and Applied Art at the National Museum of Scotland, patiently answered many questions about everyday life in medieval Scotland and directed my reading.
Of all my novels, this one has had the longest gestation by far. My interest in the ballads dates back more than twenty-five years. I discovered these wonderful old song texts while studying with Edith Fowke, my first teacher in folklore. During that time, I also performed French folksongs with Andrea Haddad, who taught me many of the French ballads referred to in this text. Much later, in graduate school, I learned a great deal about the fairies from my dear friend and fellow student, Barbara Rieti. Her book, Strange Terrain: The Fairy World in Newfoundland, details the amazing research she did for her doctoral thesis with living bearers of these very old beliefs in our home province. This long, winding path of serendipitous discovery allowed me to gather the fragments that finally became An Earthly Knight.
I must also thank my husband and daughter for cheerfully allowing me to spend most of my life with my imaginary friends. Without their support, I would not be a writer.
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