King of the Wood

by Valerie Anand

  ‘Take it one day at a time,’ said Elfgiva. ‘When you wake in the morning, don’t look beyond nightfall. You could do with company too. All the women are wild to see you. Soon as you’re up, you’ll be with us. It won’t be so bad, you’ll see. I don’t say life won’t be hard. You saw the wheat. We’re in for a rough winter. But…’

  ‘Oh!’ Sybil shoved the bowl at her and tried to get out of bed. ‘I forgot!’

  Elfgiva pushed her back. ‘Keep your feet up. I don’t want you bleeding again. What did you forget?’

  ‘It’s in my saddlebag, on the floor. Where’s… my husband?’

  ‘Here.’ Ralph ducked through the curtain. ‘I’ve just got back from Minstead. I’ve been trying to buy grain. Did you call me?’

  ‘My saddlebag!’ Sybil insisted. He brought it and she scrabbled in it, bringing out a leather pouch. ‘Richard gave me this, just as we were leaving.’ She glanced up at Ralph.

  Those eyes go through me, he thought. If only she were older, or the Tun were different…

  ‘…just as we were leaving,’ Sybil said, ‘he whispered goodbye and said you’d refused to take any dowry with me beyond the pony I rode here on and the pack mule, but that he didn’t think… don’t be angry, please, I couldn’t say no, could I? ... he pushed this into my saddlebag and said there was silver in it…’

  Ralph and Elfgiva both grabbed for the pouch together. ‘Hands off, it’s mine,’ said Ralph, knocking her hand away but grinning at Elfgiva as though she were his sister. He undid the drawstring and the contents fell out on to the floor. All three of them stared at the result, slowly taking in its implications. ‘There’s enough there,’ said Ralph in a hushed voice at last, ‘to buy grain for half a year, for every soul in the Tun. I couldn’t get any for love nor money in Minstead – they’ve lost half theirs as well – but I can try other places, maybe even get some to help Minstead out too. Angry! No, Sybil, of course not. You… you’ve saved us, don’t you understand? We won’t be hungry here this winter, now.’

  ‘Reckon that needn’t be secret,’ Elfgiva remarked. She picked up the empty bowl and spoon and went out. Ralph came to the bed and put his hands on Sybil’s shoulders. ‘My love. It’s strange and hard and lonely here, I know. But it will get better. I’ll look after you. It’s all I want to do, don’t you know that? Try to grow up, my darling, and then you’ll see. Only, you must grow up.’ His fingers hardened. ‘You’ll have to come with us to the Wood, and the Wood’s not what you think. This is important, I may as well choose now for saying it. It’s not a game for children. We go to the Wood to buy Herne’s favour and the dear knows, in times like these, we need it. What we do in the Wood is real; we dare not withhold one single thing which may win the goodwill of the Huntsman. We can afford not even one reluctant or self-regarding thought. I’d save you from all the pains in the world, my sweet, and I love you so much that it’s torment for me to think of another man with you. But although the thought agonises me, and although I am very much afraid that the Worship will agonise you, that you will detest it, I cannot protect either you or myself when we go to the Wood. Sybil, dear heart, your childhood is over.’

  ‘Worth that much?’ Wulfhild stared from the box of orange-yellow stigmas in Richard’s hand, to Richard himself and then to Alice and her father Roland. ‘This stuff – saffron – is worth that much? Fifteen shillings the ounce, like gold?’

  ‘I told Richard at the start that it was worth its weight in gold,’ said Roland. ‘He didn’t realise I meant it literally.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter that we’ve used the last of our timber for the new hall,’ said Richard gently. ‘We’re still well off. You’ll be under your own roof again by Christmas, Mother, with new furnishings, and silver in the coffer for next year’s taxes, and no anxieties at all. As if the fire had never been.’

  ‘Except for Ufi!’ Wulfhild glowered at Alice. ‘Very touching how you wept and turned sick when we had to take his arm off. But for you, he’d still have it. You’ll never sell this saffron stuff, Richard. Who’ll buy, at that price?’

  ‘The court,’ said Roland, ‘and some of the great lords. Richard knows who to get in touch with at Westminster and I can give him other names. I haven’t been able to get supplies for three years now so he’ll have no competition from me. Not that I’d have given him any, over this. I want him to do well from this, for Alice’s sake.’

  ‘The fire was Sybil’s fault. And yours,’ said Alice to her mother-in-law.

  They were in Swithin’s farmstead at Westwater. Camping in Fallowdene village and in their resthouses had proved extremely cramped, and Swithin had welcomed their company, since the pestilence had taken his family. It was he who now saw that this latest news, good though it was, had seriously shaken Wulfhild, who had come to Westwater in a state of collapse to begin with. He steered her to a stool. Richard, only meaning well, anxious to persuade his mother to put her worries aside and to see Alice in a kindlier light, rubbed it in. ‘We owe it all to my marriage, Mother. There’s eleven ounces there and next year we’ll double that at least. We’ll do very well. Isn’t it wonderful?’

  ‘I think our luck’s changed,’ Alice agreed.

  She did not actually say ‘because Sybil’s gone’. But the words hung in the air. It was at that moment that Wulfhild began to die.

  At All Hallows, Sybil went with Ralph to the Wood for the first time. Man and woman did not come together at this festival, for this was the celebration of the dying year.

  At All Hallows, instead of the dance and the lovemaking, they sacrificed a goat, giving its blood to the earth to make the next spring fruitful. Sybil sat on the log throne beside her husband, naked, shuddering, in the autumn cold, despite the fire. It was a good one. Cutting wood was normally forbidden in the forest but the charcoal burners had a dispensation – or the king’s hunting lodges would have gone short of kitchen fuel – and the Purkisses always placed good firewood in the right clearings at the right time. But even their best efforts left Sybil trembling. Though not only with cold.

  She watched Ralph step forward to slaughter the goat and saw the firelight gleam on the polished tips of his antler crown. She smelt the blood and heard the half-man, half-beast, with her husband’s voice, pray aloud to Herne Huntsman to defend them from disease and famine, to avert the end of the world which she had heard the Minstead priest declare was imminent. ‘Herne who this year has hunted so many souls to oblivion, do not hunt ours…’

  She saw him come back to the throne, the bloody knife still in his hand, the blood crusted under his nails and splashed over the moles on his chest. He sat down beside her, knife laid across his knees, as alien, as dangerous, as though the antlers were truly growing out of his brow, as though Herne Huntsman to whom he had prayed had indeed come down and entered him.

  At Candlemas it was worse, for at Candlemas she was initiated.

  She had found her place in the Tun by then. Living as Elfgiva had said, one day at a time, she had managed, and the folk of the Tun themselves had tried to help. Normally clannish and distant with outsiders, they had nevertheless recognised her as their King’s choice and besides, her dowry was getting them through this winter. She was good luck. And she had no airs, she didn’t swank because she was pretty. She was a poor, homesick, woebegone thing and only young, so they tried to amuse her with talk of their private jokes and quarrels. She on her side, trying to let herself be distracted, had duly clicked her tongue over the way Leoba Huntas daughter nagged her husband Oswin, had laughed at pop-eyed Penna’s earnestness, made fun with the rest of Clumsy Osmund’s eternal state of war with the world of inanimate objects.

  But masked and animal-headed in the Wood, they lost all appearance of familiarity; their presence could not comfort her. And in the shadows away from the fire, by the command of her husband, of all people, she must let an unknown animal man possess her.

  As King, Ralph had the right to claim her on her initiation night but he had waived it, a sacrifice to Hern
e, he said, because of the hard times. She was sick afterwards, there in the clearing, and the women gathered round full of jocular remarks. They thought she was with child again.

  Sybil knew otherwise. It was because she was sure, almost sure, that the man in the shadows had been Cild, who had so often stared at her, and whom she loathed – with good reason, she now knew.

  As a child at Withysham, she had prayed to Heme. And now Herne had come for her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Warnings 1094-6

  Rufus came home in the winter and Ralph was summoned to the court at Southampton but not to meet the king. He saw Rufus only occasionally while he was there, at a distance, going about his royal business in a cloud of splendidly dressed dignitaries. They came close enough to speak only once. ‘Ah, Ralph, back again? Keeping well? I hear you’ve got married,’ said Rufus, en passant in a doorway, and that was all.

  Nobles who had once passed the time of day with him, ignored him or else made pointed observations. Meulan, who had always been jealous, said: ‘So you’ve reappeared. You must notice a lot of changes since you were last at court.’

  But the man he had been summoned to see was Croc. ‘There’s a job for you. There’s a disused ’unting lodge a mile from your ’olding. A place called Malwood.’

  ‘Yes, Ru… the king used to say it was a dirty, cramped hole, no good, mat. That’s how it got its name. What about it?’

  ’E wants it cleaned and made fit to use again. Re-furnished, stables and kennels repaired, staff ’ired, arrowsmiths and blacksmiths prepared to serve. You’ve a free ’and within reason and there’s money ready for the work.’

  ‘Very well.’ Ralph paused. ‘The king – how is he?’ Croc’s glance was half shrewd, half commiserating. ‘Lively as a flea. Came back with a trophy, did you know?’

  ‘Helias of Maine’s head? Helias is running Maine now, isn’t he?’

  ‘Rufus never got to Maine. Fell out with Curt’ose as soon as ’e landed. I was there, waiting to witness a charter. Curt’ose accused Rufus of being tardy and Rufus got so wild he tore up their treaty. Really tore it up,’ said Croc with enjoyment. ‘Sent for ’is copy of it and slashed the parchment up then and there. Next thing we knew, we were fighting Curt’ose instead of Maine, though it come to nothing, just fizzled. But none of that’s important. I was talking about ’is trophy. Count ’Enry.’

  ‘Henry’s made peace?’

  ‘Bought it. Money talks, with Rufus. You ought to know that,’ said Croc. ‘’Enry seems to ’ave been quite a success as a robber baron. ’E ’ad enough to settle accounts with Rufus, anyhow. ’E’s here now. They’re going about arm in arm and loving as twins or more or less. Don’t know that I ’aven’t seen a funny considering look on ’Enry’s face once or twice but…’

  ‘Why did he want to make peace?’

  Once he wouldn’t have had to ask Croc. Once, Rufus would have told him, in the deeps of the night, and Ralph would have admired the bargain he had struck and they would have laughed over it. He did not want to share Rufus’ bed again. He had Sybil now, still childish and prone to fits of grief for her home but coming round. Yet still… he dragged his mind back to Croc, who was answering him. ‘You ’eard Belleme’s father died?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, ’is sons didn’t waste much time on filial mourning, not that lot. Belleme started fighting one of ’is brothers for their daddy’s possessions in Normandy and ’Enry found ’imself kind of pig-in-the-middle. Belleme and ’is brother were each saying, “Join me!” and threatening to carve ’im up for dinner if ’e didn’t. They were both bigger than ’e was. So ’e sold out to Rufus.’

  ‘Why not to Curthose?’

  ‘Probably reckoned Rufus is more reliable. Or less likely to marry and get ’imself an heir. If you ask me, ’Enry’s got ’is eye on that position. That’s what I meant by a considerin’ look… ’eard about Flambard?’ Croc added, with a sudden change of subject.

  ‘No, what about him?’

  ‘Well, ’e escaped all right, trust ’im. But ’e got kidnapped, and bloody nearly murdered.’

  ‘I told you so,’ said Flambard’s mother grimly to her son. ‘There’s danger abroad, I said. Next time maybe you’ll heed.’

  ‘I wasn’t hurt, Mother.’

  ‘No, talked your way out of trouble as usual. You scared ’em green, saying what the king would do to ’em if they killed you and he caught them. That ain’t the point. What is the point is that what I saw in the scrying bowl come true. Well, I saw danger to you, and there’s more danger about and this time it’s not to you, it’s to the king. You could see the signs yourself if you’d look…’

  ‘What signs?’

  I don’t know, you’re the one what knows about the things that go on in the court and round it. But signs there must be if you’ll only search for ’em. Just little, maybe, like tiny islands sticking out of smiling water. But under the surface the slopes go down, son, down to where it’s dark and cold as death and there’s monsters with shapes no one knows…’

  ‘I wish I knew what you were talking about, Mother.’

  ‘And I wish you’d get it through your head that what I’m saying is, I was right this time and I might be right next time too. I say there’s danger to the king and you’re near enough to do something, maybe. That’s what I’m saying.’

  Flambard sighed. He never forgot his mother’s struggle to rear and educate himself and his brothers against the wind, but at the moment such deplorable phrases as superstitious old hag kept forming themselves in his mind.

  His mother eyed him knowingly. He had an uncomfortable feeling that she had somehow heard the unsaid words.

  ‘Pity you didn’t let him marry,’ she said.

  When in Winchester, Rufus had a wide choice of places in which to stay, but the choice nearly always fell on the new palace which his father had built in the centre, just south of the main street. It was roomier than the functional fortress in the south-west corner, and with its stone walls and touch of Byzantine in the architecture, it was more dignified to the Norman mind than the timber English palace on the north side of the city.

  It possessed a lesser hall, for less formal audiences. Occasions such as the meeting held privately between Rufus and his Archbishop of Canterbury, in the May of 1095.

  ‘You wanted a private talk, you said. Do you mean you want to preach at me again?’ asked Rufus.

  ‘No, my lord, there would be no point,’ said Anselm. ‘Although I wish you understood that when I preach as you call it, I do it only out of my care for your well-being. Once, you cried out to me for help. If only you know how glad I would be to help you again.’

  ‘Get to the point.’

  The Archbishop sighed. ‘You hardly make that easy, my lord. You invent quarrels with me. We quarrel over which of two contending Popes to recognise, over the details of how I am to have papal confirmation of my position. I find these things distracting and I suspect that you intend them to be…’

  ‘We did an excellent deal with your pet candidate.’ Rufus was wearing his naughty-boy expression. ‘He paid up like a lamb for the privilege of confirming you as Archbishop. I imagine he thinks that means I’ve recognised him. I haven’t. I nearly levered you out over that,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘but it was more profitable to let you stay.’

  ‘Your baronage wouldn’t let you throw me out, when it came to it.’ Anselm regarded him quietly out of eyes in which mildness and implacability were curiously blended. Rufus glowered at him but did not speak. ‘You like to pretend,’ said Anselm, ‘that nothing matters to you but money. You used that pretence to save your face on that occasion. You did a deal with Urban, as you put it, and claimed that you preferred the proceeds to the relief of getting rid of me. No, it isn’t easy for me to talk to you and when you hear what I have to say, you will very likely wish to rid yourself of me even more than you do now. But it is my business as Archbishop of Canterbury to safeguard both the health of the king’s
soul and the spiritual health of the realm and I say to you that both are in danger. Will you let me advise you?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I am trying to warn you, as a matter of urgency, that there is trouble brewing in your realm.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘The land has been for too long tormented by bad weather and worse crops, and by sickness and also, my lord, by extreme taxation. In such circumstances, people look for somewhere to place the blame.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be a long search,’ said Rufus. ‘These things are in God’s hands, as you priests are for ever telling us.’

  ‘Taxation isn’t in God’s hands,’ said Anselm grimly. ‘As for the others, to most men, God is invisible, remote. Men look for a scapegoat they can see.’

  ‘Are you trying,’ said Rufus after a pause, ‘to warn me of a rising?’

  ‘Yes. A court that ravages the land like an invading army wherever it goes is liable to breed insurrection even without storms and plagues. The barons themselves are complaining. Damage done to their peasantry echoes back to them. With the disastrous harvests and the sickness added, I should say the outcome is almost inevitable. And the signs are there,’ said Anselm with emphasis. ‘Your adviser Ranulf Flambard was almost murdered recently because he is seen as your right hand and the author of much misery.’

  ‘Poor old Flambard.’ Rufus chuckled. ‘Kidnapped, taken out to sea and told he was going over the side with weights on his feet. But he told them what I’d do to them when they were caught and they put him ashore all in one piece. There are still a good many men too afraid of me to rise against me, Anselm.’

  ‘Are there enough, I wonder? My lord, will you hear my advice?’

  ‘I have a feeling that I’m going to hear it anyway. It may as well be now. Proceed.’

  ‘It isn’t new advice,’ said Anselm. ‘But it’s urgent now, a matter of the realm’s safety as well as your own salvation. Reduce taxes. Regulate the behaviour of your court – all aspects of it. And reconsider the matter of marriage so that a secure future can be assured for us all by the birth in due course of an unquestionable successor. I don’t suggest Edith of Scotland this time. She is in England still but as it is possible that she has worn the veil, she can’t now be considered suitable. However, there are other ladies…’