A Rose for the Crown (6 page)

“You were loyal to him then and so he repaid it. Be that the way of it, Father?”

“Aye, Kate,” John replied, as he carefully placed the
écu
back in its hiding place. “He did.” He rose, satisfied. “Come, it be getting dark.”

He walked off, leaving Kate with an indelible picture of the soldier jerking at the end of a rope.

M
ARTHA WAS NOT WELL
these days. Her fifth pregnancy did not feel the same as the others, and she put it down to her twenty-nine years. Her best childbearing years were past. If the truth were told, she had been dismayed to find she was pregnant again so soon after bearing
Matty, whose birth had tired her beyond imagination. Matty had been a big baby and had caused Martha a long and painful labor. She had bled for several weeks following. It was only through the tender nursing of Kate and John that she had gained the strength back to bear the winter’s cold.

Despite her misgivings, she could not deny John’s advances on the night of conception. She presumed women everywhere performed their wifely duty with the same ambivalence and that women’s pleasure must come from the babies. Hers certainly did. She knew of the existence of harlots, who performed the act for money, and could not imagine allowing strange men to heave upon her in order to make a living.

Soon it would be time to tell Kate of womanly matters. The girl was maturing fast; her breasts had begun to bud, and her childlike prettiness was turning into beauty. Martha often wondered how she and John had produced such a jewel, and she glowed with pride every time she looked at her daughter. Matty had her mother’s coloring, but it was too soon to tell whether she would be as lovely as Kate.

That morning, as Martha watched Kate traipse off behind John to the orchard to help with the harvest, she made up her mind to speak to her daughter at the end of the week’s punishment. Kate needed to learn of a woman’s changes and where babies came from. Martha’s own mother had dutifully sat her down one day at age twelve and so terrified her with tales of bleeding “down there,” men’s lustful desires and the pain of childbirth that she had thought to throw herself into the pond on the Bishopsbourne estate. She grinned and shook her head as she thought about that day and vowed she would make it a lot less frightening for Kate if she could.

Martha picked up the mugs from the table and was carrying them out to the well to wash when she heard the sound of a horse cantering up the road to the farm. Matty, who was crawling around the farmyard, pulling herself up on anything within reach, sat down with a thump when she spotted the liveried horseman.

“Da-da,” she said, pointing at the man.

Martha laughed and said, “No, sweetheart, ’tis not your father,” and she scooped the child up in her arms and walked forward to greet the visitor.

“God’s greeting, sir. Is it John Bywood you be seeking?”

The young man swung out of the saddle.

“Aye, mistress, or if you are the goodwife of Farmer Bywood, I am bidden to give you this message from your kinsman Richard Haute. He wills that you and your family travel to Ightham for a visit today fortnight. He bids you fond welcome and hopes you will stay two or more nights at the Mote. I am to return with an answer, if it please you.”

“Sir, your master be gracious, but I must speak with my husband before we give you an answer. Pray come inside until he returns and take a cup of ale for your trouble.”

“I
GHTHAM
M
OTE
! We be invited to Ightham Mote?” Kate could not keep the excitement out of her voice as she faced her parents at the supper table.

“Do not wave your spoon around as if you be some peasant, daughter,” scolded Martha. “If we go to the Mote, you three children must be well mannered. No wiping your face with the back of your hand, Geoff, and Johnny, you must learn not to stuff your mouth so full.”

Her husband nodded in agreement, although he was prone to picking his teeth with the point of his hunting knife, a habit Martha hated but dared not criticize.

“May we go, Father,” pleaded Kate, her eyes touching him with their innocent exuberance.

“If the apples be picked and stored by then, as I warrant they will be, then yes, we can go.” John and Martha had decided earlier to accept the invitation and had already sent the messenger back to Ightham, but John wanted to remind Kate of her penance.

Kate jumped up from her chair and ran to put her arms around her father’s neck. John was taken aback by this show of affection, and his reaction was to send Kate back to her seat to finish her soup.

No one noticed Matty, who had managed to climb out of the restraining harness in her chair and was using the table leg to pull herself up. Johnny felt her fingers grab his tunic and looked down to see her take her first few steps.

“Look, look! Matty be walking by herself!”

Ightham was forgotten as the family gathered around Matty, who,
unaware of the attention she was attracting, was intent on getting across the floor to sit next to Fenris.

“Rith, Rith,” she lisped, falling for the third time, picking herself up again and staggering a few more steps in the dog’s direction. Her family stood proudly around, clapping and laughing. Martha felt the child inside her quicken and smiled.

I
N THE FARMYARD
the market cart stood laden with the necessities of a family of six leaving for several days. To present to the Haute household there was a sack of John’s finest apples, some of Martha’s precious dried herbs and the boys’ contribution of two dozen eggs from the farmyard chickens. One of John’s field hands was holding firmly to Fenris’s neck when the older children climbed into the back of the vehicle, giggling and wriggling with excitement.

“Giddyapp,” John urged Roland, the sturdy cart-horse, once his family was settled, and the cart lurched forward down the lane.

The ten miles to Ivy Hatch took the Bywoods several hours to cover. The solid wooden wheels groaned and creaked in and out of ruts and potholes, and the road was sometimes blocked by another cart filling the narrow path. A few horsemen raised their hand in salute as they cantered by, and the children shouted greetings and waved back. Rumbling through Pitt’s Wood on the way to join the London road, they saw laborers carrying baskets of tin from the mines that had made Kent famous for centuries.

Kate had gone to the Tunbridge market once or twice with her father, but this was the boys’ first foray from the farm. The children easily kept themselves amused. They sang songs, played spot the bird, flower or tree, and lay back among the soft bundles, watching the treetops form a natural cathedral in the sky. At times the road was so narrow that the children were able to pluck a hazel switch and test the brown nuts between their teeth.

Not far from their destination, the boys fell asleep. Kate absently twirled a twig between her fingers and mulled over a conversation she and Martha had had recently.

“You be growing fast, Kate, and ’tis time . . . there are . . . things I must tell you . . . much you should know . . . about being a woman.”

Kate had been startled by Martha’s hesitation; her mother was rarely unable to speak her mind. “You mean, about birthing, Mother? I have seen lambs birthed.” But she didn’t exactly know how the lamb came to be in there.

“Aye, about birthing. . . . But ’tis how you get with child I have to explain,” Martha had braved on. “And it begins with your monthly courses.”

Lying in the cart, Kate wondered when her courses would begin and how she would deal with being fertile, as her mother had put it. She put her hand on her stomach to see if she could feel anything, but it was flat and taut as usual. The idea of having a child inside her was too bizarre to imagine. Then she tried to envision the unsavory act of conceiving. Kate’s eyes had widened with horror at Martha’s inadequate description, which had cited rutting sheep. Kate closed her eyes and tried to imagine her father climbing on her mother’s back but shook off the embarrassing image. It all seemed impossible and horrible. Seeing Kate’s disgust, Martha tried to reassure her that the process was not all unpleasant. “’Tis a husband’s way of showing he loves you,” she said. And that was her last word on the subject.

Kate stared at the trees fanning out around the cart and promised herself she would never allow a man to climb onto her. She would have to find another way of getting a baby. She turned over onto her stomach and forced herself to think of something else.

Fortunately, the threatening rain held off during the morning, and by the time the Bywood family had left the London road and passed through the hamlet of Ivy Hatch, the sun was making an effort to show itself. John reined in Roland with some effort as the horse edged down a steep, winding hill flanked by high banks and overhanging trees that formed a tunnel above the cart. The children clung to the sides of the swaying vehicle, and Martha passed Matty back to the relative safety of the enclosed space.

They rounded a bend. A low stone wall marked the left side of the road, and beyond the wall Martha could see a large stewpond with an impressive house behind it. She exclaimed with an excitement her children had not heard from her before, “There, children, there it be!”

“It has a moat,” cried Geoff, standing up and rocking precariously. “Will there be soldiers? May I learn to fight?”

John turned and shouted to his son to sit down immediately. “Why do you suppose it is called Ightham Mote, silly,” said Kate, pulling him down beside her.

“Nay, Kate,” her mother said over her shoulder. “This meaning of mote comes to us from the old times. It means meeting place.”

“Bah!” muttered Kate under her breath. “A moat’s a moat, Geoff, and that be a fair example.”

The cart rumbled down a drive and through some gates and up to a narrow stone bridge leading to a towered gatehouse. A stable hand came running to hold Roland’s bridle. Kate looked around her and smiled with pleasure. She unconsciously smoothed her skirt and ran her fingers through the long hair that tumbled from her tightly fitting coif, hoping to untangle some of the knots. Johnny jumped down to help her and Geoff clamber off, and the boys leaned over the bridge to look at the moat.

Kate was the first through the gate and into the courtyard, where she stood alone and made a slow circle, taking everything in. It was as though she had visited this place in her dreams. It all looked so familiar. In one quiet, intuitive moment, she knew that Ightham Mote would become much more to her than a place she once visited for three days with her family.

The great hall faced her with its massive oak door, and smoke curled from the vent in the roof above the open-hearth fire inside. To the left of the hall was a two-story half-timbered addition, which Kate guessed included the family’s private chambers. She went over and touched the old stone wall that surrounded the courtyard, not knowing that it had stood for a hundred years. A shiver of excitement went through her young body, and she raised her arms as if in salute to what seemed to her to be an old friend.

She was unaware of the picture she presented to a girl of about her own age standing next to her parents, who had come into the courtyard to welcome their guests. Anne Haute gazed in admiration at her cousin’s flowing chestnut hair as Kate slowly twirled around. She stood by her mother while her father greeted Martha with a hearty laugh and an affectionate hug. Anne was petite for her age, plain, with kind brown eyes and a nervous smile. She wrung her hands in quiet anticipation.

John hovered behind his wife, awkwardly holding Matty, a little overawed
by the house and the servants who came to help unload the baggage. Martha impetuously bent forward to kiss Elinor, who gave her cheek dutifully and bade her guests welcome with some grace. Matty had fixed her eye upon the silver and ebony rosary that hung from Anne’s waist and wriggled to get down from her father’s tight hold. She began to totter towards the new plaything, and Anne bent down and caught her just as she was overreaching her target and would have fallen. The adults all laughed, and Richard chucked the child under the chin.

Kate’s reverie was broken. She skipped over to her mother, curtsied to Richard and Elinor with a quick “Good day, sir. Good day, madam” and then turned her attention to Anne, now holding a contented Matty, who was sucking enthusiastically on the rosary.

“Hello, you must be Anne. I be Kate, if it please you. And I be eleven years old. How old are you?” She looked at her gawky cousin and grinned.

Anne blushed and looked to her mother as if to ask permission to answer this forthright young woman. Her mother sniffed but nodded.

“Aye, my name is Anne, and I, too, am eleven,” she replied shyly. “And what is the baby’s name?”

“Mathilda. Matty be what we call her, and she be one year old,” Kate said. “Will you show me the house. ’Tis so beautiful and so grand.”

She took Matty from Anne, who led her through the door and into the great hall. John and Martha were about to call Kate back to help with the baggage, but Richard herded them towards the house. The two boys had not moved a muscle since racing into the courtyard, so overwhelmed were they to be in such exalted company in such an impressive place. Now Martha held out her hands to them, and they forgot about being brave and grown up and gratefully took one each.