Knight's Acre

by Norah Lofts

  Whatever she was about, so long as daylight lasted, she was listening. For a hoof-beat; a knock on the door.

  Godfrey could not write but he knew that Sybilla could read and over the years she had received brief, stilted letters from him, written by another. More usual was the verbal message. The invisible lines of communication covered the country, a web woven by knights on the move, foot soldiers, pedlars, cattle dealers, wool-buyers. Anybody would carry a letter or message because it was the rule that in the main payment was made by the recipient.

  Nobody came to Intake except an old woman hawking fish; and presently, as soon as his winter gout receded, James of Moyidan. He was still a little lame and hobbled in and sank down thankfully on the comfortable high-backed, cushioned settle and said he was glad to see, and was sure Emma would be glad to hear, that Sybilla was so well installed. As he looked around it struck him that nothing he saw looked familiar but Moyidan was a big place. He had left the furnishing of Knight’s Acre to Emma and, as usual, Emma had done well.

  It was Walter who had furnished the hall and made it fit to live in.

  From the first Walter had been forming his scheme, letting it wait until more essential things were done; but when she said that she was not certain about her rights to the deer in Layer Wood, he thought—Oh! And what about those two young oaks? He had adjusted his program. Slightly sooner than he would have done had he not felt the pressure of time, Walter sought out a man who made furniture to order and proposed a reasonable deal. Two standing oaks in exchange for a table, cushioned settle, a cupboard, four bedposts.

  Oak was becoming scarce, especially in a neighbourhood within easy distance of the sea. Shipbuilders grabbed all the oak.

  ‘What girth?’

  ‘One I can just put my arms around. The other a bit larger.’

  A trick somewhere. The old man who made beautiful things but who shuffled and mumbled and blinked and left all dealings to his son said, ‘Very well, I will send my son out to look at this standing timber, tomorrow.’

  Walter assumed his most disagreeable expression. He said,

  ‘Take it or leave it. I want the things now !’

  ‘For Lady Tallboys?’

  ‘ I told you, didn’t I. Lady Tallboys.’

  ‘Moyidan?’

  ‘Knight’s Acre.’

  A reliable name.

  ‘Very well. The difficulty is, I have no cupboard.’

  God forgive him the lie! Pushed into a corner, shrouded in sailcloth, was the most beautiful thing he had ever made. Years ago, as thing made to the joy of making, without any sort of selling. A thing of his own. Long ago, when he was an outdoor-working carpenter, mending broken floorboards at Muchanger, he had seen what was called a court cupboard or livery cupboard. A beautiful thing. For the sheer joy of making, in snatched minutes from ordinary day-by-day work, the carpenter had made such a cupboard. The doors that enclosed its lower compartment were carved in the linenfold pattern; its two upper, open shelves were carved with oak leaves and acorns. And into the arch, above the upper shelf, he had set his sign.’ J Woodey maid me 1440.’

  He had intended the cupboard to be a gift for his wife and she rejected it. ‘Take all day to dust,’ she said; not meaning to be cruel, simply sensible.

  ‘So what would you call this,’ the scarred man said, twitching at the canvas that had so long covered the masterpiece and a dream.

  ‘Well… Yes, it is a cupboard. But not for sale.’

  ‘Belong to somebody?’

  ‘Well, yes in a manner of speaking.’

  ‘Who?’ Walter was relentless. It was a beautiful thing, the kind of thing that the lady should possess, and there was something shifty about the man’s manner. People in illegal possession of things to sell sometimes wore that look and they were easy prey.

  ‘Well… Me.’ The admission was made with reluctance.

  ‘Then you can sell it.’ A course of action frequently urged on the old artist by his wife, by his son; and doggedly resisted.

  ‘I don’t want to. I didn’t make it for sale.’

  ‘Then the deal is off. I’ll offer the oak to somebody willing to do business.’

  Sweating, the old man thought of how his son would scold. He’d hear somebody boasting about his bargain; two standing oaks!

  ‘I never thought of selling it. I got fond of it. I spent a lot of time on it…’

  Walter knew the signs of submission.

  ‘It’ll have a good home with Lady Tallboys,’ he said, speaking as though of a pet animal.

  And that is more than it would here, when he was gone; his son would sell to the first bidder.

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Right then. Now for a table and settle.’

  Sybilla was delighted but dismayed at the thought of the price such good things must have cost.

  ‘Not a penny, my lady. A straight swap for a couple of trees.’

  Whose trees?

  So now, when James had finished admiring the things which Emma had not provided, Sybilla, without mentioning either the shot deer or the swapped trees, asked an artless question about Godfrey’s rights in Layer Wood.

  ‘Difficult to say. For one thing there were never any fixed boundaries. All the manors, Clevely, Muchanger, Nettleton and half a dozen more meet somewhere in the wood. I’ll get Emma to look it up. There’s a document somewhere, granting the Intake people a right to take pigs in at acorn time and to gather dead wood for fuel. Not to cut trees—once their houses were built; or to take game.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, then, the wood around here is still yours—part of Moyidan.’ How unfair that one man should have inherited so much, his brother so little.

  ‘Strictly speaking, yes. But between brothers… When Godfrey comes home if he and friends want to hunt, or you need a tree for any purpose, I shouldn’t go to law about it.’ He gave her one of his infrequent smiles. He was making a concession, with—he thought—good grace, but it was a concession nonetheless and he hoped she was aware of it.

  She was. She said, ‘Thank you James. That is very generous of you.’ She gave him, not a smile exactly but a look which reminded him that in the past, once the monetary disappointment of Godfrey, so poor, marrying a girl equally poor had been accepted, he had been inclined to think, from time to time, that in fact Godfrey hadn’t done so badly for himself. Sybilla had always been welcome at Moyidan until she came with those two great healthy boys, a girl bidding fair to be pretty and then a third son.

  What a court cupboard should have, and this one lacked, was a display of silver. Drinking cups, bowls for salt.

  No man of his generation had won more silver cups than Sir Godfrey had—a drinking cup, either with or without some coins inside—was the universally acknowledged prize. The Tallboys family had never kept one for much longer than a fortnight though Sybilla had expressed a wish that each child should have one, a thing for everyday use and also a memento of his father’s prowess. Something had always cropped up to render sale imperative and Godfrey had always said, in his light-hearted way, ‘Time enough.’

  Tournament prizes were, in fact, growing less valuable. In this, as in everything else, fashion worked downward and King Henry VI was not a good patron for tourneys. He was scholarly, even monkish, far more interested in founding a school at Eton, a College at Cambridge… some people said he was slightly mad.

  And Godfrey Tallboys was almost equally unworldly. Some contests in the lists were run under the rule that any knight unhorsed forfeited his horse—in some cases even his armour—to the one who had struck him down. Of this rule Godfrey had never taken advantage; ‘Bad enough to be so shamed, without being stripped.’

  Once she had made a mild protest, saying had things been reversed, he would have been stripped and he laughed and said, ‘Time enough to think about that when it happens. And God pity anyone who takes Arcol. He’d soon learn that he’d got the wrong cat by the tail.’

  She did not argue; there was something about his eye
s, very blue—not that the colour was worthy of notice because blue eyes of varying shades were commonplace—but his had the candour of a child’s. Transparent, concealing nothing. It was sometimes a little difficult to associate that mild, candid look with the precise ferocity with which he fought or the innocent pleasure with which he received adulations—the shouts and cheers, the flung flowers… and ribbon bows and bits of lace from headdresses. Sybilla had sat in the space reserved for the ladies at more tourneys than she could count, knowing that she was envied.

  Walter owned a silver cup, won in archery competition. Silly prize, he thought at the time, to offer to men who would far rather have had its worth in money; but over the years he had grown attached to it, often used it for drinking and kept it well polished with fine wood ash and spit.

  He thought it would look well upon the cupboard and smuggled it into the hall at a time when Sybilla was not there. Another surprise for her! But… it was worse than nothing. He’d always known it was a little cup but not so little. On the beautiful, massive cupboard it looked trumpery and silly. He put it back in his pocket.

  It was just possible, he reflected, that this time Sir Godfrey would come home with a sackful of loot; possible, but not likely; he wasn’t very good at acquiring things and even worse at keeping them. Wales was a long way from Knight’s Acre and somewhere along the road the silly —— ( foul word) would be accosted by starving widows with multitudes of children, by old broken-down knights gone wrong in the head; and he’d get into a card game or dice game with some —— (foul word) swindling rogues. Walter liked Sir Godfrey and, at times, admired him but he had no respect for his acumen or even his good sense.

  Sybilla’s next visitor was William, Bishop of Bywater. Once again at the sound of hooves the momentary halt of the heart, the running to the window.

  William had remembered the amiable custom of bringing a gift to a new house and fortunately had the very thing to hand so that the poor Magdalenes and the foundlings need not be deprived. It was a wall hanging which some well-meaning parishioner had bequeathed him—possibly because she had heard at on taking up his appointment he had sold all those that his predecessor had acquired. A well-meant gesture but the tapestry was far too secular to be hung on his wall. It depicted some very lightly-clad women, one indeed so lightly-clad as to be wearing almost nothing, bowed over a casket from which some strange thing was emerging, kind of winged serpent.

  As he had guessed, Sybilla was delighted with it—he had always thought her, with her pretty headdresses and fashionable clothes, curiously worldly for a convent-bred girl—still mourned by Mary, over at Lamarsh.(‘what you do not realise,’ Mary had once said to him,’ is that Sybilla had an almost infinite capacity for adjustment. Soft as dough on the outside, iron at heart. I shall never now find such another.’)

  He asked about Godfrey; agreed that no news was good news; explained why he had not come before. His was, except for those in the extreme north, perhaps the widest diocese in England and he was conscientious about the visitations which he must regularly make to all the Abbeys, Priories, Convents within this wide area. He loathed these visitations. One day he dined in princely splendour with the Abbot of Baildon—and no fault to be found there; next day he was at Clevely where a few old women, good women, lived in extreme poverty in a decaying house—nobody’s fault. And even at Lamarsh which was typical of many, nothing much to put a finger on; the women, not nuns, who walked about with little dogs in their sleeves were merely being temporarily accommodated; this one a widow, his sister Mary explained, quite broken-hearted, the little sleeve-dog her only solace; and this one… an orphan, an heiress who had taken a dislike to the man whom her guardian wished to marry.

  In a way William, Bishop of Bywater, was as single-minded and as superficial as his brother Godfrey or his brother James. He was happy to see Sybilla comfortably established and well served.

  (Out in the kitchen Walter had said to Jacky, ‘This is the first guest my lady has ever had at her table. You make a mess of serving and I’ll —— (foul word) break your —— (foul word) neck.’

  It was a remarkable fact, one which Walter had long ago observed; Decent could be misunderstood, Foul was universal).

  On his good horse—the one luxury he allowed himself, because time mattered, William Tallboys trotted away content that he had no cause to worry about Sybilla, well housed, well served.

  FIVE

  [Spring—Summer 1452]

  Horse hooves again. And a very splendid young man, quite dazzling in the March sunshine. News at last!

  ‘Lady Tallboys?’ And well might he ask for she had come straight from the kitchen, from the latest hopeless attempt to instruct Bessie in the making and baking of bread.

  Hastily she pulled down her sleeves, rolled up above the elbows; and was glad that, great as the temptation was to discard such an inconvenient thing, she was wearing headdress, six months ago the latest fashion. Godfrey, when he came, must not find her like a farmwife.

  ‘ At your service, my lady. I bring a message from Sir Godfrey.’

  ‘ God bless you…’

  ‘Sir Simon. Simon Randall. I am on my way home to Cressacre and it was only a short detour.’

  ‘Is he well?’

  ‘In most excellent health, I assure you. Disappointed about the war—as indeed we all were.’

  Not that it mattered to him with all Cressacre behind him. He had only gone to the war for the sake of excitement and to please Lord Malvern who was both his uncle and his godfather—and, a knight should be truthful, if to nobody else at least to himself, to escape for a season his masterful mother’s matrimonial schemes.

  Gently, but firmly, Sybilla broke Margaret’s clutch on her skirt. ‘Darling, go and play with John… yes, Sir Simon?’ She knew that this was an occasion that called for wine, and she had none.

  ‘Sir Godfrey asked me to tell you that he’s bound for Winchester—the Easter tourney there; the war being so unprofitable.’

  Unprofitable indeed! The Welsh fought like devils and any place, hard-taken, offered just about as much loot as this place would; and men who called themselves princes could only offer for ransom some lean-barrelled long-legged sheep, wild in the hills. Covertly, he looked around. What a poor place! Not at all the background he had imagined for Sir Godfrey Tallboys. The lady was a surprise to him, too; so very young to be the mother of four.

  She apologised for having no wine, no saffron cake to offer. ‘We have but recently moved in.’ She managed to imply that as soon as the move was really complete wine and cake would be plentiful, silver would shine on the cupboard shelves and the one, rather narrow wall-hanging be joined by a multitude of others. She had pride and dignity as well as a kind of look that he found attractive, something tranquil and delicate. He found himself wondering how Sir Godfrey could bring himself to absent himself for so long. Easily answered: money. He repeated in his mind the wish he had expressed upon parting with Sir Godfrey—that he would be victor ludorum in the Winchester lists.

  He set himself to entertain her, picking out the lighter episodes of the campaign against the Welsh and not mentioning the hardships or the dangers. They laughed together over the difficulties of telling one Welsh name from another. Time went quickly. Once she excused herself and rose, ‘I must see to the bread. My kitchen wench is not to be relied upon yet.’ She went out, leaving the door ajar and presently the sweet, appetising scent of fresh-baked bread came through.

  Outside, Walter Looked at the sun and said, ‘Dinner time.’ He and the boys had been planting peas and beans in what would one day be the kitchen garden. ‘There may be company. I heard a horse. Wash your hands before you go in. And mind you behave yourselves.’ He had given them the same instructions before they went to meet their uncle James, their uncle William; boring times. Both men, meaning well, has commented on how they had grown. ‘It’d be funny if we hadn’t,’ Henry said afterwards to Walter.

  Now he said, ‘Oh Walter, must we? C
ouldn’t we fetch our dinner and come and eat it with you?’

  ‘You know the answer to that! When I want you in my place, I’ll ask you.’

  He didn’t want them or anyone else in the place he had made his own. He was having a little trouble with Bessie whose attitude towards him had recently undergone a most unwelcome change, from sullen resentment to fawning devotion. It was not the first time this had happened and he judged himself capable of deterring unwanted attentions, such as offers to mend or wash his hose; but the more stupid people were the more thick-skinned they were. Even a snub like, ‘You want to wash anything, wash yourself!’ bounced off Bessie’s dull mind just as Sybilla’s culinary instructions did.

  ‘Boys, this is Sir Simon Randall, who has kindly brought us news of your father. Sir Simon, this is Henry. And Richard.’

  She had managed to instil some rudiments of manners and both boys bowed. After that they stared. Sir Simon was indeed something to look at for, after the filth and mud sweat of a campaign, however brief, finery was imperative. He wore on this day the latest in men’s fashions, the parti-coloured outfit. One half of his tunic was the colour turquoise, the other cherry-red; hose the same, the turquoise leg under the cherry of the tunic; even his shoes were half and half, the cap which lay beside him on the settle was turquoise with a cherry-coloured feather and an ornament of ruby stones. On one finger he wore another, single, large ruby.

  To this very elegant young person Sybilla could offer only a very humble meal, some cold boiled belly pork which Walter had happened upon; but he ate with apparent enjoyment and—judging that she had had a hand in it—praising the bread.

  The two boys, he thought, were handsome little fellows—as was to be expected, considering their parentage; and he was disposed to like them, for the same consideration. He did not mind their staring, any new fashion was designed to attract attention; nor did he resent their ill-concealed amusement. Rustics, and some not so rustic, reacted in a similar way. It was when, the sharpest edge taken from their hunger, they began to quarrel for some obscure reason and, checked by their mother, reverted to kicking one another under the table, that he felt they were out of hand. He was pleased to hear that Henry was presently bound for Beauclaire. He had himself been a page in his uncle’s household, and if Beauclaire was anything like that, Henry Tallboys would soon be brought to heel.