King of the Wood

by Valerie Anand

CHAPTER FOUR

  The End of Childhood 1094

  Sybil could not believe it was happening.

  In a moment she would wake and be back in the familiar world where she was still a child and games were for playing. She said, or sobbed, over and over: ‘It was only a game. I was only playing,’ as though the words were a spell and enough repetition would work a miracle.

  But the unbelievable continued to happen. The hall burned down before her eyes. The resthouses survived, and she was shut into one of them for two days. Gunnor brought her food from the village where the rest of the household had taken shelter, but would not look at her or speak to her. At the end of the two days, Alice came with a pitcher of cold water and a basin and the embroidered gown Sybil had worn at her betrothal feast, and ordered her to wash and dress. Then she was fetched, by a frigid and uncommunicative Richard, and taken to the church, where a priest she did not know, but whom she gathered was the new chaplain from Withysham, borrowed for this occasion, married her to the young man Ralph.

  Ralph spoke to her kindly but she was too numb to respond. When the time came to say I will she wanted to say I won’t but Richard was watching and she dared not. Her mother was not there. She did not see her mother until, after she had been given some food and had forced it down against a surge of queasiness, she was taken to a village cottage where Wulfhild was in bed.

  ‘I don’t want to go, don’t make me go!’ Sybil pleaded, clutching at her mother’s hand. But Wulfhild only shook her head helplessly from side to side and Richard dragged her away.

  A few minutes later, she was on her pony. Ralph was already mounted, with a pack mule on a leading rein. There was no awakening. She was to be cast out of her home, for ever. At the last moment Richard, a hand on her pony’s bridle, murmured a few words of well-wishing but she hardly took them in.

  With the stranger Ralph des Aix, who was now her husband, she rode north on the London Road which slashed through Andred Forest. When they reached the town of Guildford, Ralph, who had all the while been trying to talk encouragingly to her, said that although it was called Guildford now, it had once been known as Gildenford, because the River Wey just there ran through meadows gilded in summer with kingcups. A famous massacre had taken place there, long ago, when her grandfather was a boy. Forlorn, she remembered that she must please this man because if she did not, she would be utterly friendless. So she tried to smile and even asked a question or two. But there was no heart in the attempt, which only made the misery within her grow deeper.

  From Guildford, they turned west on the Winchester Road. The forest lay on their left, in alternate stretches of deep wood and wild gorse-grown heath. More open land, with farms and pastures, lay to the north. They lodged at abbeys on the way and at one were separated for the night. She was sorry, because Ralph, stranger though he was, was nevertheless familiar compared to the rest of what seemed an increasingly huge and frightening world. He had made no connubial demands on her yet and the warmth of his body at night was some kind of comfort.

  On the third day they passed Winchester and now took a southward road, which Ralph said would bring them to his home, Chenna’s Tun, that day.

  Their destination. Where she was doomed to stay, for ever. She could not even try to smile now. Seeing this, he told her rather shortly to lead the mule – ‘it will give you something to do’ – and rode ahead, his shoulders hunched in depression.

  They rode for three hours or more on a wide road where the trees were cut well back on either side to make ambush by robbers less likely. Then they turned off to the right on a track which was broad and quiet but closely edged with trees. It was a little damp, dappled with sunlight through a roof of leaves, crossed here and there by the slots of deer or the padmarks of fox and weasel. Birds called. The trees were huge old oaks, with trunks as wide as church doors, and shadowed aisles led away between them into the deep woods.

  It was beautiful. But with every stride her pony took, she could feel the miles lengthen behind her. She was in a stupor of wretchedness when they rode round a corner, at a walk, with the horses making little noise on the moist ground, and found themselves confronting three guilt-stricken men, who were in the act of crossing the track, with a deer’s carcase carried between two of them.

  ‘In hell’s name!’ said Ralph.

  One of the men, through whom relief could be seen running as if through a conduit, said: ‘It’s you, sir!’

  The three were roughly clad and even to Sybil’s inexperienced eyes, looked underfed. The one who was not helping with the carcase, the one who had spoken, carried two bows and two quivers. Ralph said with fury: ‘Are you all out of your wits? Walking about with a deer’s carcase, on the track, in broad daylight? What do you think you’re doing?

  ‘We were just getting home with it,’ one of the men holding the deer said sullenly. He was flaxen-haired and squarely built despite his lack of spare flesh. Sybil could follow his speech though the accent was thick and different from that of Sussex. ‘We didn’t expect you to come round the corner. Foresters b’ain’t here. They’re all over to Lyndhurst. Damned old Forest Court’s sitting. Forest Justice is round, passing judgement on some poor bastards.’ He spat.

  ‘Yes, poor bastards who’ve been as careless as you!’ Sybil, listening in astonishment, realised that in the face of all probability, her husband Ralph, knight and Norman, was on the side of the poaching peasantry. Fallowdene was not under Forest Law but even there it was a crime to take a deer and Richard certainly accepted it as criminal. ‘The Foresters have set traps before this,’ Ralph was saying. ‘They put it about that they’ll be out of the district and then they turn up where they’re not expected and that’s the end of you. Do you think I want to come home and find my people mutilated?’

  The man holding the other end of the deer was taller than his companions, and remarkable to look at, his hair so fair it was almost silver, and his eyes ice-green and narrow, in a high cheekboned face as coldly refined as that of some Arctic god. He was young, with a cleanly male beauty beneath his grimy clothing but to Sybil he did not look quite human. He had glanced at her once, and the ice-coloured eyes had flashed appreciation, but she shrank from them. If one touched him, she thought, he would be cold and smooth, like marble.

  He said, calmly: ‘We’ve reasons. It’s hunt now or starve in the winter. If you ride on to the fields, sir, you’ll understand.’ Sybil expected Ralph to pursue the matter then and there, but he seemed at that moment to realise that the three pairs of eyes were continually flicking towards his companion. He turned instead to Sybil. ‘I’ve brought my wife home. This is Sybil. She understands the business of Heme Huntsman. Sybil, these three are from the Tun. This is Osmund.’ He pointed to the squarely built man. ‘And this is Oswin, carrying all those illegal bows and arrows. And this -’ he nodded towards the palehaired youth ‘- is Cild.’ All three gravely bowed to her. Sybil inclined her head in acknowledgement. Cild’s eyes made her uneasy again. She swallowed hard to quell the nausea which rose in her so easily, with this unfamiliar state called pregnancy. ‘And now,’ said Ralph, gathering up his reins, ‘we will indeed ride on, and you can come with us, and we shall see what this mystery is all about. At a trot, if you please. Because the sooner your booty’s out of sight, the better!’

  When the path rounded a clump of barberry and emerged from the forest to the edge of a field, Sybil thought at first that the crop had been burnt. But there was no charred smell, no ash stirring in the faint wind; nor were the surrounding grass or forest touched. Ralph leant from the saddle and plucked a blackened stem. ‘Wheat rust,’ he said.

  ‘Aye. We know about it. See it afore. Afore you come,’ Oswin said.

  Ralph’s face was bleak. Abruptly, he said: ‘We’ve come from Sussex. There’s plague there. Have you had that too?’

  ‘Aye. It’s been an unlucky season,’ Osmund said. ‘Hunta’s gone and his wife, and that sickly girl of theirs, and Blind Edric. And others.’

  Cild
, though burdened with the deer, shrugged. ‘Means fewer mouths to feed.’

  ‘Plague,’ said Ralph bitterly. ‘And bad weather two years out of three, and now this.’

  ‘Father Ilger at Minstead’s still on about sin and repentance,’ said Osmund with derision. ‘And about the heathen and the Holy Sepulchre. Says he’s sure the world will end with the century if the world don’t mend its ways.’ His voice acquired a mocking note. ‘ “What more can we expect, my friends, when the king hisself is no better a Christian than the blackest-souled infidel?” Why we have to pay for what kings do, he don’t explain, and the heathen have been around for a good while – what makes them such an outrage all of a sudden? We’d take it more kindly if he’d tell us how to feed ourselves this winter. Since he hasn’t, we’ve thought it out for ourselves. If there’s deermeat in the barrels, we can sell the calfmeat to pay the taxes and buy grain, and pay the smith over at Minstead. I broke my ploughshare, trying to sneak a bit of extra land ready for next season. But we can get by, if we poach a bit.’

  ‘But do it so that you don’t get caught,’ said Ralph. ‘All right. Get that deer indoors, cut up, and the head and hoofs and skin buried. Off with you, now.’ He watched them go and said to Sybil: ‘We call Osmund, Osmund the Clumsy. He would break his ploughshare. Of course.’

  Sybil managed a smile this time, but misery had engulfed her once more. She had been wretched all the way here because she had lost her home. She had given little thought to what her new one might actually be like. Neither at Fallowdene nor Withysham had she ever actually been hungry. Was she, then, to be hungry here? There were habitations in the distance but even the largest of them looked like a hovel. Would she have to live in such a place? Even as she was thinking that, Ralph pointed to the bigger dwelling, which stood apart from the rest. ‘That’s our home,’ he said cheerfully.

  A few minutes later she stood, clutching her saddlebag, inside the dwelling and misery became despair. Even at Withysham, there had been plaster and murals on some of the stone walls. At Fallowdene and even in Little Dene which should have been her married home, there had been cheerful hangings. She looked about her, at the bare earthen floor, the grimy leather curtains, a pile of droppings which made it plain that goats sometimes shared this roof. She took in Ralph’s spartan, soldierly bedstead, at the moment not even graced with a pallet. Her eyes found the shelf with its few earthenware pots, the one dented iron cauldron, the disused loom in a corner, the cobwebs under the thatch.

  She sat down on the floor and the tears she had held back since she parted from her mother burst uncontrollably out of her. ‘I want to go home!’ wept Sybil.

  Ralph was kind, although with impatience only just below the surface. He found rugs and a pallet somewhere and settled her on the bed, saying she would feel better when she had rested.

  He went out, and came back with some firewood. He laid and lit the fire, deftly, and presently an old woman from one of the other houses came in with some food. Ralph said her name was Elfgiva and that she was Cild’s mother. She studied Sybil curiously. She heated broth and they all ate some, accompanied by chunks of bread. Sybil went back to the pallet and tried to sleep. Later, Ralph joined her and with urgent caresses made it plain that he wished to exercise his conjugal rights.

  This was not as it had been in the woods with Bruno or in the stable with Ralph himself. There was no playfulness, no excitement, it had nothing to do with her own wishes. This was an uninvited demand by one who had the right to demand. She lay passive, accepting him without pleasure, unable in her pit of wretchedness to make the least response. She could not see his face in the darkness but she knew that he was trying to shake her out of her inertia, that there was anger in his thrusts. But eventually it was over. He shifted off her and lay still with his back to her. He said nothing at all. After a time, she fell into an exhausted sleep.

  She woke at daybreak to a dull, clenching pain in the lower abdomen and a warm wetness oozing between her thighs. She prodded Ralph, who woke with a questioning grunt. Mutely she pushed back the rugs.

  ‘Hell!’ shouted Ralph, on a note equally of alarm and aversion as he saw the scarlet stain. He leapt off the bed and began scrambling into his clothes. ‘Put a cloth pad on and lie still till I get back!’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To fetch Elfgiva. She’ll know what to do.’

  ‘There’ll be others. She’s young yet. It happens, you know. Happened to me a time or two. Had a long ride, hasn’t she? That didn’t do no good,’ Elfgiva said reprovingly to Ralph. Sybil was asleep, lulled by a herbal brew Elfgiva had made. ‘It came away quick. Let her lie up a few days and there’ll be no harm done. She ought to have summat hot when she wakes. That stew, in that pot?’ Ralph sat by the fire, hands hanging between his knees. ‘Yes, I killed a hen. No good worrying yet how we’re going to get through the winter ... I should never have brought her here. It was more than the journey, Elfgiva. She’s homesick, ill with it. I can’t do anything with her. I meant well. I ... I fell in love with her. She put a spell on me, almost. And if I hadn’t married her, I’d have left her to…’ He stopped and stared at the floor.

  ‘You’ve told us she knows about Herne. So Cild says. That right?’ Elfgiva picked up a spoon and stirred the stew.

  ‘More or less. She’s still to be initiated but…’

  ‘That child she’s lost, was it yours or a Child of the Wood?’

  ‘Neither, really.’ Ralph put his head in his hands and pummelled his skull. Father Ilger at Minstead might raise his hands in horror at the lax goings on of his flock – he knew little for sure concerning the Wood but guessed plenty – but the truth was that the people of the Tun were strict in their everyday behaviour. The Wood was a rite, and separate. He raised his head and found Elfgiva regarding him with an all too knowing expression.

  ‘Slipped up, did she? And her family threw her out?’

  ‘She’s barely more than a child and a priest took advantage of her. See here, Elfgiva, I want no one at the Tun pointing fingers at the past. Gossip about this, say one word of this to the other women when you’re all chattering round the well, and I’ll silence you myself, for good.’

  ‘I shan’t talk, what do you take me for?’ Elfgiva was offended. ‘Seen a thing or two in my time, I have. It’s the young who have stiff ideas, not us old ones. We know too much. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’ve never seen anyone die of homesickness. You’re worried about her, ain’t you? Don’t be. She’ll be all right. I’ll try to get her out of it. Shame about the baby,’ she added. ‘That would have given her somewhere to put herself, if you follow me. The sooner she has another, the better.’ She chuckled and stirred the stew again. ‘You ought to have some of this. Keep your strength up.’

  Spent and defenceless, like an archer who on the battlefield has used up all his shafts, Sybil lay on the pallet.

  It was as though in thrusting the child out of her body, she had made her last attempt to thrust away the horrible reality of Chenna’s Tun. Now she had nothing left to fight with. She looked at the cobwebby rafters and the dirty leather curtain and tried to believe that they were dimming, fading, that she was slipping away through her weakness, into death.

  Unfortunately, nothing of the kind was happening. She felt better than she had yesterday. Apparently, one couldn’t die to order.

  The curtain was swept back and Elfgiva came through with a bowl. ‘Got some nice hot stew here with a little bit of venison in it but don’t mention that if the Foresters come round. Now, you’re going to eat this, my girl.’ Elfgiva winked at her, put an arm under her shoulders and sat her up. If she refused to eat as she had yesterday, Sybil thought, she would certainly achieve a step in the direction of death. But the smell of the food was enticing. Elfgiva thrust a spoon into her hand. She sat doubtfully clutching it, staring at the bowl beside her.

  ‘Eat. Make more blood. You may as well,’ said Elfgiva. ‘You will in the end. I know what’s wrong with you, girl
. You want to go home. Well, you can’t. But you’re going to go on living, whether you like it or not. Now eat!’

  Sybil slowly took a spoonful. With luck, she’d just throw it all up later. Her body would take the decision for her and starve itself to death, she thought hopefully.

  But the tendency to nausea had vanished with the pregnancy. Her stomach, exasperatingly, wrapped itself round the offering and growled for more. Elfgiva watched with approval while Sybil slowly and dismally consumed the entire bowlful. Then she said: ‘I know. I can guess, anyhow. I’ve lived all my life at the Tun and wouldn’t be anywhere else. An’ my husband – he got killed at Hastings or leastways he never came back – he was born here too. When the fyrd was called out and all the men as could bear weapons had to go to help King Harold, I can mind on my husband, just settin’ off to the muster at Minstead, saying: “It ain’t the fighting, I’ll fight same as the next man but I wish I could fight for my home here at home; I don’t want to die in some strange place.” But he had to all the same, and there’s times, in the night, I feel sick with thinking about him dying far away, maybe not as quick as he’d have liked, wanting his home and me. I never knew just what happened to him, you see. A few men got back of those from hereabouts but they’d no news of him… well, there it is, don’t think no one knows how it is with you but don’t go thinking anyone can make magic for you either. You’re here and here you’ll stay. So what’re you going to do about it?’

  Sybil stared at her, spoon in mid-air. Until now, Elfgiva had been merely an old villein woman of no status, a grimy crone, a shawl-wrapped bundle smelling of sweat and onions, with hands like bundles of sticks in bags of wrinkled skin, knotted together with veins. Now, Sybil looked at her and saw a person, separate from all others, capable of grief and loss.

  And capable of surviving them. The possibility of survival existed, then. The feeling that ahead of her lay a blank wall into which she was running headlong, very slightly subsided.