‘Alice is right.’ Richard turned to Bruno. ‘Get out. Be off the manor before noon and don’t come into my sight again before you go. Go on!’
‘I must say one thing before I leave.’
‘And that is?’
‘I thought she was just a silly child. But now I think your wife has been right all along. I repeat, she is a devil’s snare. Watch her.’
‘I agree. Or I might well kill you where you stand, priest or no priest. Now get out before I do that anyway.’
‘Devil’s snare, bah!’ Wulfhild spluttered as Bruno went out. ‘A child who doesn’t know how lovely she is or what weaklings men can be. Once she’s married…’
‘She isn’t going to be married,’ said Richard. ‘We can’t saddle Little Dene with her now. Not even if we can get rid of the child, or if it turns out that there isn’t one.’
‘There’s a child,’ Alice assured him.
‘I can only offset her perfidy,’ Richard said grimly, ‘by being strictly honourable myself. The final decision has to be Little Dene’s, of course. I must go there at once. What I’m to say to them or how I’m even to look them in the face I don’t know but I must. I don’t want to see Sybil yet after all. I think I’d strangle her if I did. She’s to stay in her chamber. Gunnor, go and bar her in. No one is to speak to her or go near her. I shall be back before noon.’
‘I’m going to see her,’ said Wulfhild fiercely as soon as Richard, as bleak of face as though he were bound for his own execution, had gone.
‘But Richard said…’ Alice began unwisely.
‘I take no orders from my own son or from you either,’ snapped Wulfhild and when Alice moved hesitantly into her path, struck out with her stick. Alice fell back, pink with anger and clutching her arm where the stick had landed. Wulfhild made her way out at a rapid hobble.
Alice, as if her strength had once more given out, sat down again. Ralph, still invisible as far as the family were concerned, but troubled by a sense of responsibility for Sybil, slipped unobtrusively out of the hall but occupied himself in tasks close by until Richard, two hours later, came riding slowly in. He handed his horse to Gurth (who was visibly agog with questions but was disappointed of answers) and went indoors without speaking. Ralph quietly followed.
Alice was sitting very upright, sewing. ‘Your mother is with Sybil, despite your orders.’
‘I expected that. It doesn’t matter.’ He sat down heavily on a settle.
‘What happened?’ Alice asked.
‘What you might suppose. I’ve been sympathised with, most courteously – as though I’d suffered a bereavement. I’ve also been courteously, tactfully and finally rejected as a prospective relative by marriage. I’ve been patronised by my own tenants. And I’ve had to incline my head and accept it because Sir Brian’s within his rights. He can do better for his son than Sybil. Well, Sybil is one person I can deal with as I choose. Now I’ll see her. Fetch her, Alice, while I find a stick.’ Sybil was brought, clinging to her mother’s hand, shivering and green-tinged with nausea and fear. Even Alice said: ‘Be careful, Richard. She might miscarry.’
‘Would it matter?’ Richard asked. He wrenched Sybil away from Wulfhild. ‘Mother, let go. Don’t interfere. Gunnor, Bebbe, where are you all? Bring the household, everyone you can find. Fetch Gurth in. I’m going to make it very clear where I stand in this and what standards of behaviour I expect in my house. Stand back, Mother, or I’ll order someone to restrain you.’
Wo!’ Sybil screamed. The household was crowding in: Gurth, Ufi, Harold, the women, even little Maud, their faces simultaneously horrified and excited. ‘Leave me alone! I didn’t mean to do anything wrong! I didn’t know what would happen, it was only a game, I was only playing a game…!
And so she had been, of course. Ralph, walking quickly towards Richard and his captive, his feet carrying him without any instructions from their owner, found that he understood perfectly. She was childish still and she was playful. She had run away from Bruno’s solemn nagging and then she had tried to play with him, hide and seek among the trees, with no idea of how her sparkling eyes and elfin elusiveness, and then the feel of her warm skin and fragile bones under his hands, would work on him. Bruno was a priest, a man whose natural longings must remain unsatisfied, but he was also the breed of man in whom those longings were strong. She had played a game and it had turned into something that was no game at all, and worst of all, it had awakened her own longings, set them pouring bewilderingly through her surprised body in a torrent.
And now the torrent was a mill-race in which she was caught with no hope of escape. With child, disgraced, rejected by that tedious Sir Brian and his mirror image of a son, and now her brother proposed to beat her in public. For what? For being a child, and playful.
Never before had it occurred to Ralph to thank God for having been Rufus’ lover but he did so now. It had taught him not to judge. He did not even blame Sybil for the interlude in the stable. It had happened and because of it he had the right to protect her and he was glad because he wanted to protect her. All his instincts for taking care of things, frustrated at Aix, channelled makeshift fashion into looking after his horses and calming Rufus’ secret fears, and at last lavished on Chenna’s Tun, now changed course smoothly once more and raced towards Sybil as if she had been their destination from the beginning. Chenna’s Tun should be for her, as a realm of her own. (He had temporarily forgotten what it was really like.) He reached Richard and his hand closed on Richard’s upraised arm. ‘Stop!’
‘Get away from me, Ralph! This isn’t your business.’
‘I want to make it my business. You need a future for Sybil, don’t you?’
‘Her future’s in Withysham. Once the place is straight again after the sickness, back she goes and there she stays for the rest of her life. If they won’t take her, I’ll find a nunnery that will. Now will you stand back?’
Sybil shuddered and whimpered. Ralph’s grip hardened as Richard tried to pull free. ‘Is that really the best outlook for her? Listen to me, Richard! I’m offering you another answer. I’ll marry her. I want a wife for Chenna’s Tun. I’ll take Sybil. She’ll be safe with me. But I want her in good health and uninjured. Strike her once and the bargain’s off. You won’t get a better offer.’
Richard was astonished enough to let go of his sister as he turned in amazement to Ralph. ‘But you can’t want Sybil'.’
‘Yes, I do.’ Sybil was looking at him in what seemed to be terror. He thought she supposed he was about to reveal the events of Lammas. He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Put that stick down, Richard. We should talk this over calmly.’ Richard tossed the stick onto a table, but his face remained incredulous. ‘The child. She’s with child.’
‘It’s proof she can have children. She’ll have mine, later. I’ll give houseroom to this one. I don’t mind.’ At the Tun, people frequently gave houseroom to children of unconventional parentage. And he would be bringing a wife who was already almost a Worshipper! It was as though Herne had arranged it. Perhaps He had.
‘You’ll take her to Hampshire?’
‘Yes. When you like. Would you like that, Sybil? Would you like to come and live with me?’
He was completely unprepared for her reply although he realised afterwards that in this he had been foolish. He had saved her from Richard and from a future of disgrace, but he had forgotten how her mother had encouraged her to think that she could not live away from the valley.
She drew away from him, looking at him not as though he were a saviour but more as though he were Grendel the Monster in person. ‘Hampshire?’ said Sybil in a high voice. ‘I can’t! I can’t leave Fallowdene. I can’t! I can’t!’ Suddenly everyone seemed to be shouting at once. ‘Don’t be a fool!’ Richard thundered. ‘You’re lucky to have the chance. What’s all this nonsense? Every girl leaves home in the end. Mother, this is your doing…!’
‘It isn’t nonsense. I know what she means. You don’t but I do. I couldn’t leave th
e valley either, it’s part of me. She’s my daughter and she’s like me and I say that if she wants to stay, she stays. She doesn’t go to Withysham either. We’ll rear the baby here and…’
‘No! I won’t have her devil’s spawn here or her!’ cried Alice. She seized Richard’s arm and shook it.
‘You say you won’t have them here? I’ve had enough of this, my lady.’ Wulfhild’s stick banged ominously on the floor. ‘I’m weary to the bone of you saying how my daughter’s to be treated!’
‘Richard, tell her! I’m your wife and I’m mistress here and…’
‘I was mistress here before you were born. I sold myself to keep this manor safe – yes, my lady, sold myself in marriage to Richard’s father so that I could stay and take care of Fallowdene!’ Wulfhild pounded the floor in fury. ‘I was lucky, I got a good man, but I’d have taken Satan if I had to. I’ve worked and sweated and made sacrifices you never dreamt of and given the place a son which is more than you have, and now you tell me you’re the mistress here and it’s for you to say if my daughter stays or goes…?’
‘I can’t go, I won’t!’ howled Sybil. She wasn’t beautiful now. Her face was slimy with tears and she clutched at Richard with hands like small claws. ‘I went nearly mad at Withysham and that’s only five miles. I can’t go to Hampshire!’
‘You shan’t, darling, you shan’t. It’s all right. Richard, if you let this happen I won’t forgive you, I warn you. This man Wulfhild raised her stick and pointed it angrily at Ralph he’s one of the king’s doxies, didn’t you know? Friend of the king! I know what that means these days, if you don’t.’
‘He’s good enough for her. She goes,’ said Alice savagely, ‘or I go, back to my father. I won’t share a roof with a blaspheming wanton. It’s Withysham or Hampshire for you, my girl, and since you seem to think Hampshire’s the worst, Hampshire I think it should be.’
‘Go home to your father? You see how much she loves you,’ said Wulfhild mockingly to Richard.
‘I do love you!’ Alice clung to Richard, her face up-turned, and with her spare hand she tore Sybil’s fingers away from the sleeve they were clutching. ‘But I can’t live like this any longer, disparaged in my own house…’ ! My house,’ corrected Wulfhild.
‘You see?’ Alice released her husband and turned, on her dignity, to face her foe. ‘Your house, you call it. And your son, that’s the only way you think of him. You forget that he’s my husband.’ She controlled her voice, putting on affronted good breeding like armour. ‘Tch. I’ve never had my rightful place here and…‘Tch! Tch! Tch! Stop it! Stop that righteous little noise!’ The depth of loathing which Wulfhild suddenly revealed took them all aback. ‘Never had your rightful place, mistress Pious Airs? You get your own way left and right. Who had Sybil sent away to start with? You, my lady, never mind what I thought of it. I was only her mother! You come in here with your mincing ways and set yourself up to show us all how to make a loaf or stitch a seam…’
‘You’re out of your mind, you old…!’ Alice choked and bit back what was probably an unsuitably ill-bred epithet. ‘A wife is supposed…ohhh!’ She shook her fists in the air in frustration. ‘You make my very virtues into faults! What would you have said if I couldn’t bake, or mend clothes, tell me that? That would be wrong, too, wouldn’t it?’
It was trivial, absurd, pathetic and, to the combatants, agonisingly real. Ralph, aghast at what he had unleashed, and reduced once more to invisibility, listened as the old, silly grudges were dragged out, and saw that once more, Sybil herself had ceased to matter in her own right, was only a counter in the contest. She was sobbing now in fright over the prospect of marrying him but surely, homesickness would pass and she couldn’t really pine for long for a home like this. She’d be better off with him.
The invective still flew. ‘…if I even want a feast-day garland made of a certain flower, I have to pretend it’s the flower I want least; then you’ll insist on it out of spite!’ Alice was unconscious of sounding ridiculous. ‘You undermine all my authority…’
‘Your authority, prissy-mouth!’ Wulfhild thrust her head forward, pursed her lips into a parody of aristocratic distaste, gibbered: ‘Tch-tch-tch!’ into Alice’s face, raised her stick and struck. Alice sprang back with a scream. Wulfhild followed, striking again, knocking Richard aside with her elbow as he made to interfere, driving her victim round the hearth and backing her against the wall. Sybil chose this moment to fling herself once more on Richard, crying: ‘Don’t send me away, please don’t!’ Entangled with her, he could not reach Alice who, cringing away from her mother-in-law, clutched at the tapestry behind her, tore it loose and threw it at Wulfhild to muffle the flailing arm.
Wulfhild flung it off and a trailing comer fell on the fire. It blazed up instantly. The floor rushes caught. The fire ran along the floor to the wall and suddenly the wallhangings were made of flame. Three dogs which had been sitting by the hearth ran yelping. People, shouting and jostling, made for the door, tripping over the dogs.
‘Get everyone out! Where’s Maud? Water, fetch water!’ Richard’s voice rose above the uproar. He threw Sybil at Ralph, who caught her and ran outside. Alice stood still, terrified, knuckles jammed against her mouth. Richard dragged her and Maud to the door and thrust them through it, dashing back at once to help Harold and Ufi, who had rushed to fetch water from the kitchen barrel and were trying to fight the flames. A moment later they gave up and ran to save themselves. Coughing, smoke-grimed, they joined the rest outside and huddled with them, the dogs cowering against their legs, as the smoke streaming through the thatch turned to flame, pale and dancing in the summer noon.
‘It was my home! Thirty years I’ve lived here and now see what you’ve done!’ Wulfhild would have attacked Alice again except that Richard put himself between them. Burning thatch and timber were whirling up now into the breeze and in their stalls the horses, frightened by the smell and crackle of fire, had begun to whinney. Ralph and Gurth, seeing rags of flame blowing towards the stable thatch, ran. ‘Get them out and drive them through the gate!’ Ralph gasped.
It was harder than it sounded. Arrow was too frightened to move. Trembling and wide-eyed, he stood rigid until Ralph stripped off his jerkin and bound it round the horse’s eyes. Then he consented to be led and the rest, released by Gurth, followed, snorting and shying, out into air filled with smoke and dancing sparks. ‘Open the gate! Open the gate!’ Ralph yelled. Gurth reached the gate and wrenched it back. Ralph released Arrow’s eyes and waved his arms, superfluously, since all the horses were already stampeding for the open and safety. He spun round at the sound of screams and saw Alice tearing off her head shawl and apparently fighting Ufi. Then he saw that a burning ember had fallen on Ufi’s sleeve and that Alice was smothering it with the shawl. Richard, shouting for water to soak the thatch of the outbuildings, was at the well, dragging up a bucket, shielding his face from the heat with one hand. The hall roof was ablaze, shedding fire like a deadly rain. Gunnor was dragging Wulfhild out of danger. The gable timbers were glowing. Before Ralph’s eyes, they burst into flame. The whole roof sank inwards. The walls buckled. Wulfhild, in Gunnor’s arms, was keening as though for a thousand dead. People had run from the village and bucketfuls of water were being hurled protectively on to the outbuildings. Alice, her singed hands wrapped in the remains of her shawl, was wielding a bucket, side by side with Harold. Ufi, dead-white behind his grime, leaning against the palisade and holding his burned arm away from his body, said through clenched teeth: ‘Might save some of the other buildings. But the hall’s done for.’
***
‘We’ll rebuild it, Mother,’ Richard said. They stood, all of them, in a little, awed crowd, looking at the blackened and smouldering heap which that morning had been for most of them home. ‘We’ve logs cut and ready. It’s a mercy we have. We’ve caught the horses again and we’re all alive…’
‘Ufi’shurt.’
‘I hope he’ll recover. Alice was very quick. She got hurt hersel
f, saving him.’
‘Her! This is all her fault.’ Wulfhild jabbed a gnarled finger at her daughter-in-law. ‘She’s destroyed my home. She doesn’t destroy my daughter too, understand that. Sybil stays.’
‘Sybil goes.’ Ralph had never heard his friend use that tone before. Wulfhild’s mouth half-opened and then she gasped as if cold water had been thrown over her. ‘Keep her here after this?’ said Richard. ‘It’s Ralph or a nunnery for her. Are you still mad enough to take her, Ralph? Sybil, stop that whining.’
‘I’m mad enough. I’ll take her.’ He did not add poor child. He was thinking it, angrily.
‘You!’ Wulfhild rounded on him. He admired and now greatly pitied his future mother-in-law but the feeling would clearly never be reciprocated. ‘Then you’ll take her with what she stands up in, no more!’ Wulfhild said venomously. ‘All we’ve got, we need, after losing our cattle. There’s nothing left for a portion.’
‘I don’t want a portion,’ said Ralph stiffly.
‘There’ll be something,’ said Richard. ‘My sister will have a dowry of some kind, naturally. It’s all right.’ He smiled at Alice, who had made a worried exclamation. ‘The taxes will be paid and we shall put our home together again. Everything will be done.’ He drew his wife to him and put an arm round her.
‘Yes, you’d see your home burn before you’d let go of her, wouldn’t you?’ Wulfhild’s shawl was spattered with black flakes. The hard lines of her mouth wavered. ‘You’ll see your sister sold to a catamite and I don’t doubt you’d see your own mother sold into slavery among the infidels, for her sake.’
‘Just at the moment,’ snapped Richard over Alice’s head, ‘yes, the infidels would be welcome to you!’
Wulfhild stared at them, seeing, as Ralph too could see, the magnetism that held them together, which had pulled them together in the first place and had never changed and never would. She said: ‘I feel old…
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