by Jayden Woods
Life tingled back into Elwyna’s limbs as she chewed on the freshly-cooked venison. The first swallow of meat flowed down her throat, filled up her chest, and then crushed the ache in her stomach until it dissolved completely. Despite herself, a little groan of pleasure escaped her throat. She looked with embarrassment at Dumbun, whose grin sent her into a fit of laughter.
She could not remember the last time she had laughed so gleefully. Dumbun often tried to make her smile, but lately, anxiety and fear smothered any fleeting mirth. For the last few months now she hadn’t known whether she and Dumbun would have enough food to last through the winter. When she awoke at dawn today, she could not will herself to crawl out of bed until mid-morning. Even then her limbs were stiff with cold, her stomach gnawed on itself, and she felt as if heavy weights dragged upon her chilled bones. A week ago, she had sold one of the few items of leisure remaining from her days as the wife of Thegn Godric: a large, woolen blanket. Her primary source of nightly warmth purchased her and Dumbun enough food to last a fortnight, if strictly rationed.
The cruelest aspect of this winter, however, was the crushing feeling of regret that accompanied her misfortune. Many years ago, she had been the daughter of a successful thegn, Lord Lindsey, who once served Ealdorman Eadric Streona as an intimate hearth companion. Political entanglements cast him from courtly favor. To make matters worse, his loyalty to the dead Eadric Streona obligated him to give Elwyna to Eadric’s bastard son Godric in marriage, even though Godric had no land or titles to begin with. Elwyna had been furious at the time. Even when her father died and Godric rose to the status of a higher thegn, she continued to resent her miserable marriage. And so one winter while Godric was away, she began an affair with their slave, Dumbun.
She could not explain, even now, why she had fallen in love with Dumbun of all people. The very traits she despised in her husband—his cryptic silence, his lowly status—Dumbun exuded tenfold. He never spoke at all and he was an impoverished slave. Perhaps she liked the fact she had no expectations for Dumbun from the start, and never would. Perhaps he attracted her because even though he never spoke, she could always see the truth in his eyes. His silence was not a torment he purposefully inflicted on her; it was a torment he inflicted upon himself, of which she one day hoped to free him. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Dumbun had a gentle, submissive spirit. He would do anything to serve her. If she insisted on something, he would do it.
In this way, he differed from her husband most greatly.
When Godric discovered Elwyna’s affair, he cast her from his home and his local community, never to see her again. Elwyna had fled with Dumbun to the woods where they built a humble home for themselves. Whoever owned this land had not discovered them all this while. And so she had been relatively happy with Dumbun for years, accepting her punishment for neglecting her past blessings and trying her best to find happiness in whatever good fortune now came her way.
But it had never been so hard to remain happy as this winter. A few bad strokes of luck had left them almost completely without food. On the nights she lay imprisoned by the cold and helpless with hunger, she could not help but wonder if she should have never run off with Dumbun, but instead stayed within the safety of her marriage with Godric. And those were the most painful moments of all, for they made her feel as if she betrayed Dumbun, and thus her own bruised spirit.
Today, Dumbun’s lucky encounter with a deer laid all her worries to rest. At last, the pain of regret receded, and she wondered if she had ever been so happy as this very moment, feasting with her lover by the central hearthfire.
“I wonder if we should sell any of it,” said Elwyna. “Someone desperate might give us a great deal of money for fresh meat. At the very least, we could get a new blanket.”
Dumbun’s eyes darkened, a frown tilting the weathered features of his face. He gave a simple shake of his head, then made a ridiculous scooping motion towards his meal with both hands, chomping his mouth up and down as if to eat more than what was on his plate.
Elwyna wanted to laugh, but she felt a twinge of disappointment. She had hoped that having something to trade would give her an excuse to go to town again. She saw people so rarely these days. But she didn’t have much of a choice on the matter. Godric had cast her out; most people knew who she was and of what she was accused, and she could not hide her identity very easily. Her bright red hair often gave her away. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “We need all the meat we can get. And perhaps we can use the deer hide as a blanket.”
She returned to her meal, determined not to focus on anything else but how delicious it tasted.
Then a knock shook the door of their abode.
Both Elwyna and Dumbun froze with terror. Elwyna stopped breathing. Then she felt the burn of fear inside, like hot water spilling through her stomach, and her heart beat so fast she felt it thud against her ribcage.
The knock came again. Then a man’s voice grumbled through the wood, his words distorted by a thick accent. “We know you’re in there. Let us in.”
Dumbun reached for the axe lying under their cot. Elwyna put up her hand to stop him. They should not resort to violence unless necessary. Nevertheless, she situated her dirk against her hip for easy access and tried to minimize its presence by gathering the folds of her skirt. Then she took a deep breath and stood.
“Coming!”
Her heart wouldn’t stop hammering. Perhaps whoever owned this forest had finally discovered their cabin. Perhaps her life here with Dumbun would be ruined forever, and she would be cast out again, into even worse circumstances than before. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the visitors—he had said “we”—were only a couple of travelers passing through, with no idea that Elwyna and Dumbun lived here unlawfully.
She opened the door.
On the other side stood two men with hoods over their heads and thick cloaks around their shoulders. Their clothes were strange to Elwyna, for their cloaks were short and their tunics unusually long. But this did not attract her attention so much as the swords hanging from each of their hips. Two horses stood tethered to the trees nearby, their fur collecting a thin layer of powder from the drifting snow.
The two men did not bother to introduce themselves. They simply pushed Elwyna aside and barged in, bringing a gush of cold air with them. Then they crouched around the hearth and began speaking to each other in another language.
For a moment, Elwyna felt as dumb as her lover. She did not know what to do, what to say, or how to react. It took her a long time just to reach for the door and close it.
The two men continued talking to each other, acting as if they had forgotten the presence of anyone else entirely. Then they picked up the remaining scraps of food and started eating.
This final insult pushed Elwyna to her limit. “Excuse me,” she said. “Excuse me!”
The men stopped and looked at her, irritated by the interruption.
“Who are you?” she demanded at last, hoping they didn’t hear the tremble in her voice.
“I thought it was obvious.” The larger, older man looked generally bored with the situation and very reluctant to speak in English. He wiped his gray beard of the juices from the venison and fixed her with a flat gray stare. “I am Sir Fulbert. This is Drogo, a squire. We serve Lord Richard FitzScrob.” Then, when she continued to stare back at him with a blank expression, “We are Normans.”
He added the last bit as if it explained everything. Elwyna only blinked with confusion. “Normans? But why are you here?”
Sir Fulbert took another bite of venison and frowned at her while chewing. “Why? Because this is Lord Richard’s land. And we have come to find sources of wood for his castle.”
Elwyna gulped. Now she knew the name of the lord who owned these woods. Now the lord would know about her. But these men did not seem to care that they had stumbled upon her cabin unexpectedly. Perhaps the fact they were new to this land would serve to her benefit. They would simply absorb her presence along with every
one else’s, not knowing she didn’t belong.
For a moment, she was so relieved that she forgot about the fact they were stealing her food and taking over her home as if it belonged to them. She even gave them a genuine smile and said, “I apologize that we do not have more food and drink to offer. It has been a hard winter.”
“This will do for now,” said Fulbert. “However, I could use some wine.”
“We don’t have wine. Only ...” She caught Dumbun’s gaze suddenly. All this time he had been sitting quietly in the corner, not interfering, enduring this insult as she did. But anger twisted his normally-gentle face, and the flinch of his body made her realize she should not tell them about their precious store of ale.
Sir Fulbert looked from Elwyna, to Dumbun, and back again. “Quoi?”
Elwyna trembled slightly. She couldn’t deny it now. Sir Fulbert would detect her lie. And she didn’t want to test his reaction. “We have only a little bit of ale.”
“I see.” Sir Fulbert took a deep breath. Then he finished the plate of venison and leaned back against the wall, staring wearily into the fire. “Never mind, then. You can save it.”
Elwyna gave a shuddering exhale of relief. Was he actually being polite, or did he simply not want ale? Either way, she felt profoundly grateful.
For the first time, her eyes focused on the second Norman—the squire, Drogo. He was a short but stocky young man, his neck thick with muscle. Now that his hood had fallen down, she noticed his strange haircut; the back of his skull was mostly shaved, leaving a thick shock of blond hair on the top of his head. The oils from the venison gleamed wetly on his shaven chin. His crisp brown eyes gave a startling contrast to his pale complexion, and she found the intensity with which he stared at her unsettling. As their eyes met, Drogo smiled, then his eyes roved down her body.
Chills crawled down Elwyna’s back, but she tried to ignore them and hide her discomfort. At about forty years old, she thought she might be twice the squire’s age, but he didn’t seem to notice. She had always been a small sort of woman who appeared younger than her years. She looked down at herself, all too aware of the ragged state of her dress and the long, unkempt tangles of her red hair. A rip in the top of her dress revealed some of her chest. Meanwhile her stomach grumbled with hunger, but she preferred moving to the wall and sitting next to it than drawing more attention to herself by cooking more meat. She sat close to Dumbun, but resisted the urge to lean against him.
Drogo nudged Fulbert, then said something in Norman while staring at Elwyna and Dumbun. Fulbert followed his companion’s gaze. Then he said something back, and both of them laughed.
Elwyna’s cheeks grew hot with anger. Her feelings of injustice towards the entire situation resurfaced. What could they be saying?
The Normans kept talking for a while, their laughs growing louder and louder. Elwyna wished she could bury her head under the floorboards in order to stop listening. The fact she couldn’t understand what they were saying only made her imagine the worst possibilities. Then Drogo seemed to ask the knight a question.
“What are your names?” translated Sir Fulbert.
“I am Elwyna. This is Dumbun.”
“Why does he not speak for himself?”
“He does not talk.”
Drogo leered. Then he spoke in stilted English, jabbing his finger at each of them. “Husband? Wife?”
Her heart raced again. She glanced briefly at Dumbun, wondering what he would say if he could speak. But he only glared at the intruders, offering no indication of what to do. “Brother and sister,” she blurted at last, without knowing why. After all, it seemed better than the truth, which was that they could not marry because she had betrayed her true husband for her slave, and they had no children because God had cursed her with a barren womb.
The Normans sat quietly a moment, then burst out laughing again.
She decided to let them laugh. She convinced herself that their ridicule could not harm her. Tomorrow they would resume searching the woods for trees for their “castle,” then hopefully they would be gone. Enduring this mockery was a small price to pay for the crimes of which she might be accused. But as she turned aside and tried to lose her thoughts in the waning fire, she could not dispel the sensation that her blood was boiling.