by Valerie Levy
“And - ?"
“I don't know. Sometimes I think I would just go with him, other times I remember how he left me carrying his child, let me believe he'd come back for me, and didn't. Sometimes I think if I ever saw him again I'd turn him away. No, more than that, I'd spit in his face then I'd show him our son and say look, what you're missing, I'll make sure he grows up to hate you ..."
“Hush, child, it's all done with now. You'll soon be married yourself - in years to come you'll be a wealthy lady with your own household - and, Mistress, you'll be able to have your pick of men, you can take a lover. Sir Geoffrey won't expect you to stay faithful to him. As long as he believes you to be virgin when you come to him. But that’s easy, just a small bladder of chicken blood, burst quietly at the right time – I’ll show you. Give him a few sons, then do as you wish. Your life’s not over yet, Mistress."
“How do you know all this Sarah, how do you know, being hidden away here, at my mother's beck and call every hour of the day?"
Sarah smiled gently. “I remember your mother at your age, Mistress. Full of dreams, like you. And when her betrothal was arranged and she met your father for the first time, I've never seen her so excited. They loved each other as soon as they met. Sometimes it happens that way. A marriage made on earth but planned in heaven. Full of ideas, she was. My head would spin with all her chatter. She never stopped. All day she'd talk about him, and how she loved him. And when we came here after they married, she was like a whirlwind. Change this, build that. And they couldn't let each other out of their sight, that much in love they were. Would disappear for hours on end together. Those were happy times. And then you were born. The two of them were like children themselves with you, their happiness spread to all of us.” Sarah’s face grew sad. “But after, when the babies died and all the miscarriages, everything went wrong. Bit by bit she slowed and slowed. Just did the things Lord Roger expected of her. She didn't laugh any more. Didn't cosset you any more, the way she did in your early years. And his Lordship spent so much time away ..."
“Cosset me? All I ever remembered were the beatings."
“Aye, Mistress, but it wasn't always like that. Once she was happy, married to the man she loved. It's the opposite with you, now you're unhappy but go careful, like, think about what you're doing and maybe it will all turn out the other way for you, everything will turn out good for you. Start out unhappy, maybe, but finish content."
As she sat watching her son at Hawise's breast later that morning, Rosalind wondered what Anton was doing. Perhaps he remained in France, she thought, with the woman she had glimpsed in the water, his wife. If only she could send a message to tell him about Edward. She did not know where he was, of course, still somewhere in southern France, or maybe back at his home in Italy. Perhaps a messenger could find him. But she didn't even know his true name, only what he had been called when a monk.
She focused intensely on recalling his face; come for me, Anton, come for me and Edward. Surely he would hear her if she tried hard enough, called loudly enough in her mind.
She pondered what Sarah had told her and was surprised by a flash of sympathy for her mother. She's only a woman beset by circumstances just like me, she thought, full of dreams. But then her life happened and the dreams went.
If only Anton could see his son, though, he would be so proud, he would want to stay with her and his child, not the dark haired woman. Wife or not. For several moments she daydreamed. She imagined that Anton arrived unannounced at the door. He walked in, overcome by the beauty of the child, and when she told him Edward was his son, he sank to his knees by her side and begged her to stay with him, he loved her so much. He had been forced to marry the dark-haired woman and did not need to stay with her, she would be quite content if he left her, she knew he loved elsewhere - the daydream engrossed her for several minutes.
Then reality overwhelmed her. Anton had looked so happy with that woman. Her dreams were worthless. All she had left of Anton was his son and even he did not belong to her. Soon she would have to say goodbye to her baby, hand him over to her mother, probably not see him for years.
As Edward suckled noisily she watched, her heart breaking. Plunged down as far as it was possible to go. Stayed there awhile, and then resurfaced. Sat up straight, hands clenched and jaw quivering.
Oh, no, she thought. Enough. No more dreams, no more wasting of time. And no more from her. It's none of my doing that her babies died, but it's me that's punished. No more. I’m a woman now, with my own child. Edward – I must start living for him. I must start living my life like I should, not like a young girl whose head is stuffed full of nonsense. Enough! Here's where I start thinking properly about what to do and living for me. And my baby.
Nicholas’ funeral had been well attended. His sons and their wives stood with Cicely by the edge of his grave as his body was interred. Even Lady Isabella and the Mistress Rosalind were present. The villagers bowed their heads and shivered in the cold as the service went on and on. Eventually, the burial was over, and they started to return to their warm houses or draughty cots. As soon as the groups of villagers got out from the churchyard into the lane, a buzz of conversation started.
“Told you so.”
“What did I say?”
“Bits of him going black and dropping off!”
“It were ‘er, ‘er with ‘er evil ways, all them creatures I seen of a night flying round ‘er cot …”
“Evil old woman.”
“Wouldn’t let her physick me no more, not even my dog."
" … surprised Sir Firmin lets her anywhere near his church!”
The gossip continued in the Red Unicorn and around many a hearth in Hollingham. It flew even as far as Reedwich, that day.
Chapter 22
He is my child, my Lady, I will not abandon him. I want to see him grow, I want to be with him, I want him to know me." The two women stood in the solar as rain drummed against the windows.
Isabella tried to hide her exasperation. "But your marriage is planned. You can't take him with you, don't be so silly, child."
"My Lady, I have thought about this, and I just cannot leave him. I'm his true mother and I want ..."
"You want? You? You think I've gone to all this trouble for nothing? All the worry, the planning, all the sleepless nights lying awake ..."
Rosalind shrugged. "That's all your doing. None of mine. I can't let him go."
"Nonsense!"
“I mean what I say, mother."
"You are disrespectful! How can you stand there, so calmly, and tell me ..."
“I'll tell you because he's my son, not yours. And I want him."
"Why, you ungrateful stupid little whore - lying with that lust ridden devil spawn of a so-called monk, I'll teach you gratitude, I'll teach you obedience if it's the last thing I do!” Isabella drew back her hand.
Rosalind's eyes narrowed and she grasped her wrist before she could strike her. "You will never, never hurt me again," she hissed into her mother's face. “If you hit me I will hit you back. Only ten times harder. Try me." She let go of Isabella's wrist, shoving her backwards in contempt.
Isabella quickly regained her balance. "You dare to talk to me in this fashion. You wicked child, you've always been wicked. Well, you'll see, you're nothing to me, and you'll be nothing to Edward, either, not if I have my way."
"Well, you won't have your way. I birthed him. You, my Lady, all you've done is fail to birth anyone, except me, a mere insignificant, despicable girl who you've despised, used, beaten ..."
"Silence! So, try to claim him as yours, you stupid - " She snatched a spindle from the table and hurled it at Rosalind, who managed to dodge. "Who'll believe you? And if they do, what do you think will happen to you - it'll be a convent for you, my girl, the rest of your miserable life and he'll be lost to you forever then." She advanced once more towards Rosalind. "That's what should have happened at the beginning of this mess, the convent, I should have known better than to trust su
ch as you with any sort of plan. You're no daughter of mine, tell them, tell them, go to your convent, rot there, I hope you rot, you scheming little slut." She went to slap Rosalind again but, at the expression on her daughter's face, thought better of it.
"You've far more to lose than me. If this tale gets out your name, the de Godwynne name, will be mocked up and down the country. My father will disown you."
“All I've done for you, you disobedient little strumpet, you dare to stand there and defy me?"
“I love my son, my Lady … "
"Love?” Isabella shouted. “You know nothing about love. It all goes, it all disappears when suffering swallows it up." She was dimly aware of her spittle flying into her daughter's face, but her rage was too intense for her to care. “All the heartbreak I've had to endure, all my babies - sons - dying, having to watch the expression on your father's face at yet another dead son, while that harlot of his at Court drops him a healthy child almost as easy as shitting and they’re all sniggering behind my back. That's what happens to love, child, don't you dare tell me anything about love! I've given my life to him, and all it's been is wasted."
At last she ran out of words and turned away in despair to look unseeingly through the window at the rain, now turning to sleet. There was a long silence in the room. And then,
"The truth does not have to be known, my Lady. You can still claim my Edward as your own son.” Isabella fingers tightened on the window sill as her daughter continued.
"But there are conditions. You can keep Edward here. I will never return to this loathsome place after my wedding. I don't want to see Hollingham Manor again, or you, for that matter. But you will bring Edward to me at least four months in the year. At Cottreaux, or wherever I happen to be. That's the price of my silence." She added, seemingly as an after-thought, “And you will never - ever - strike me again."
Without turning, Isabella slowly nodded. She no longer controlled the situation, no longer controlled her daughter. Despair at her impotence swamped her. But as she gazed blindly out of the window, she felt her waist circled by warm arms and the softness of her daughter's breasts squeezed tight against her back.
"My Lady. Mother. I can't live like this. Could we not - "
Slowly, Isabella turned towards her and they stood silently for a moment in a close embrace. Then Isabella stepped back. She looked intently at Rosalind from arm's length, her hands on her daughter's shoulders. “I've no more strength nor will to do aught. As long as I have him I'm content. Do as you want, Rosalind, I'll not fight you any more."
She walked unsteadily from the solar and went to lie on her bed.
Later in the day, Lord Roger and his men arrived home soaking and frozen. His retinue quickly dispersed, some immediately to their families in Hollingham. The others would stay overnight, eating and sleeping in the great hall, before resuming their journey onward to the Lord’s manors further north or west.
Lord Roger dismounted from his horse and ran up the steps to the hall, where Isabella waited to greet him, having seen his arrival from the solar.
“My own Lady!” he pulled her to him roughly and kissed her briefly on both cheeks. Anything more intimate would wait for a more private time. She looked wan, he thought in passing, but perhaps 'tis only to be expected after her confinement. “Where is my son, how is he?” Impatience consumed him and Isabella smiled weakly in reply.
“He is well, my Lord. Come, he awaits his father in the solar!”
Lord Roger roared in delight at first sight of the baby. Rosalind sat cuddling Edward. He had just been fed and lay quietly in her arms, scrutinising her, and then he smiled. Rosalind grasped a linen rag as he burped and a little milk spilled from his mouth. She laughed and hugged him to her.
At that moment her father burst through the door and the moment was lost. Lord Roger took him from her arms and held him high, looking up at him. The baby started to cry, apparently startled by the loud, hairy man, holding him in midair.
“Well, so this is my son, eh! What a boy! You’ll grow up strong, fighting for your father, won't you, lad!” He sat on the bench and examined Edward more closely. “Aye, he’s got my hair, and my nose. He’s a bonny boy!” He turned to Isabella. “After all these years, my wife, you've given me the son I’ve always wanted. A strong, handsome son to be proud of.”
He kissed Isabella affectionately, still holding the baby. “Maybe we’ll make another before I’m on my way again?” Then he noticed Rosalind. “Come, my daughter, give your father a kiss. How does it feel to be the sister of such a lad, eh?”
Rosalind could have told him, in considerable detail.
The great hall was busy with the remnants of Lord Roger’s retinue eating at the trestle tables. For the first time since Christmas, Lady Isabella also ate in the hall, sitting next to her husband at the table on the dais under the oriel window. Rosalind sat on her father’s other side, eating beef stewed in wine, in a trencher of white bread. The men and manor servants were eating less luxurious food from trenchers of coarse rye bread. Lord Roger was in ebullient mood, pleased to be home and thrilled with his son.
He turned to Rosalind. “Before you ask, daughter, your Geoffrey is well, he's in Flanders with the King. And he - the King - has just created six new earldoms - and old Lord Cottreaux is one of them. How do you like that - you'll be the Countess of Cottreaux one day!" He guffawed and made a mocking bow in her direction, hampered somewhat by the chicken leg he held in one hand, and a tankard of wine in the other. “Geoffrey will return within the month and your wedding will take place at Cottreaux the feast day of Saint Peter, the middle of May.”
Rosalind bowed her head. “As you wish, father.”
“Maybe I should tell him the whole story, Sarah, the true story of Edward's birth.”
Sarah had dreaded this possibility and had prepared a response. “Maybe you should, my Lady, but could you endure his anger? Do you remember, not long after you were married, Mistress Rosalind was yet a baby, and you didn't tell him you'd miscarried? One of the women let it slip and remember the rage he went into, wouldn't speak to you for days?”
Isabella sewed a few stitches before replying. “I remember it all too well. And soon after he took up with that woman - the words he spoke to me then - and that was after a mere miscarriage, this would be a thousand times worse.”
She laid aside her embroidery and looked at Sarah. “I don't know what to do. If I tell him, he'll despise my deceit. The pain of his contempt – I don't think I could bear it. I would have no answer to it. I've tried so hard, Sarah, organising his manor when he's away, trying to give him a son, trying to keep his daughter in check. You of all people who've been with me throughout, know this.”
“Aye, my Lady, I've seen with my own eyes and felt in my own heart … “
“Perhaps in time his anger would cool - but cool to what? Nothing would be the same between us any more. He'd despise me. And little Edward? Would he ever accept him as his son?”
“The difference between a son and a grandson is not so great, my Lady, just the matter of a father in between.”
Isabella picked up her sewing again, and talked as if to herself. “He's so besotted with him, it could go any way. He might just shrug it aside and acknowledge the boy as his, or else the thought of another man as Edward's father might be too much for him to endure.”
“Most men would find it difficult, my Lady ...”
“He'd probably go straight back into the arms of that harlot. He'd send me to a convent. I'd never see Edward again, you'd be cast out, Sarah, for helping me, he’d destroy me ...”
“My Lady ...”
“...or perhaps he wouldn't. For that would risk exposing our deceit to the world. I just don't know. If he never discovers our deceit there will be no dilemma – and the only way he'd find out is if someone told him the girl had gone away for months to Cottreaux and he checked and discovered she hadn't been at the castle.”
But no-one so far at the manor had cause to m
ention Rosalind's absence, she thought; with luck no-one would. Rosalind as a topic of conversation was almost non-existent, except where her marriage was concerned. None of the servants, nor the Hollingham villagers, would be going to Cottreaux for the wedding. Although the ceremony would be well attended, the guests would be high ranking Court nobles and their ladies who knew nothing and cared less of Rosalind’s whereabouts over the past few months. Furthermore, Lord Roger would not be staying long at Hollingham; he would be leaving soon for Antwerp to rejoin the King and Queen Philippa, who had recently given birth to a son there, advising him on strategies for his battles on the northern borders and those brewing in France.
All in all, Isabella decided at last, she would risk saying nothing. She thought she might get away with her deception - and, of course, Lord Roger was so pleased with his son it would be a pity to disillusion him.
Not for a long time had she been so prized in her husband's eyes and it was a pleasant feeling. She thought she may even accompany him to the King's Court. She could flaunt little Edward in front of her husband's mistress. Now she had a son she could hold her own at Court. No-one would have cause to whisper behind her back, laughing at her for her failure.
She raised her eyes from her embroidery and fingered her crucifix. Forgive me, she thought, I will say many masses and give more money to Your church to try to make up for my deceit. Why, I'll even endow a new chapel within St. Stephen's, I promise. But perhaps there are some things better left undisclosed. I will take the risk.
Chapter 23
Liza grew anxious. Agatha Furnier’s baby was overdue; her labour had been expected this past fortnight and she had heard nothing from Agatha or Sam. She summoned her courage to venture into the village; it took her considerable effort as she remembered the previous reaction of Septimus Wilkins.