Afton of Margate Castle (22 page)

The days settled into a routine in which Afton found herself driven to extremes of boredom and terror. Nighttime brought nightmares, but every morning Wilda knocked on her door with a cheery call of “How’s our new bride today?” and helped her dress. Hubert had generously supplied Afton with clothing, and she had several fine tunics and richly embroidered surcoats. After dressing, she and Wilda sat by the fire in her chamber and planned the dinner menu.

After her meeting with Wilda, Afton usually wandered outside behind the house to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. The house itself was in the center of a large courtyard, with the kitchen on a visitor’s right hand and the mill house on the left. Behind the kitchen was a pen for livestock and a vegetable garden where Afton and Wilda worked in the afternoons.

The millhouse perched precariously on the bank of the creek; indeed, the water-facing side of the millhouse was supported by beams driven deep into the creek bed. It was the water that powered the huge stones that ground grain into flour, Wilda explained, and Afton accepted her explanation without question. She would have loved to see the mill, swim in the creek, or even walk along the bank, but she did not dare for fear of Hubert’s reprisals. Many villagers fished there regularly and one might speak to her.

She was also told to avoid the front of the house, for Hubert’s customers brought their sacks of grain to the mill by way of the front gate. She was not even allowed into Wilda’s kitchen, for Hubert did not want his wife to sully her hands with menial labor.

The only person Hubert allowed her to address freely was Wilda, and Afton suspected that it was not by accident that one day Wilda brought her a kitten and complained that she did not have time to care for the creature. Would Afton like to care for it or should she throw it in the river? Afton wept in gratitude as she held the purring creature against her cheek, and her cheeks reddened in embarrassment because the older woman had obviously recognized her terrible loneliness. Afton had hoped to act the part of a great and capable lady, but Wilda had obviously recognized a scared girl in need of a pet.

But to Hubert, she was a rare prize, one to be paraded in front of the villagers as often as possible. He only reminded his wife of her humble birth in their most private moments; in public, he doted on her upbringing in Perceval’s castle. Often at meals he commanded her to sing for his guests, and she would have to stop eating, swallow her food hastily, and stand and sing a song, preferably in French, for Hubert liked anything that smacked of nobility.

If all went well at dinner, she spent her afternoons doing needlepoint or embroidery with Wilda, for Hubert wanted the tapestries in his hall to be as fine as those of Perceval. He knew Afton could do such fine work, he told her, and if her tapestries failed to outshine those at the castle, she would pay the penalty. So Afton worked hard, her fingers trembling, and sternly reproved Wilda for the slightest irregularity in the older woman’s stitching. Wilda said nothing in return, but occasionally smiled at the gamboling antics of the kitten that played at Afton’s feet. The cat was their secret, and Afton’s only source of pleasure.

At supper, any feelings of life or hope or happiness Afton had felt during the day were carefully canceled, for at supper Hubert came to sit by the hearth in their chamber. Afton brought his slippers, washed his feet, and directed Wilda to bring him supper. Afton was not allowed to eat at this meal, but instead she was instructed to sit on a stool at his feet and hear the things her master would teach her. Every night brought a new variation on Hubert’s philosophy of men and women.

Women were tools of the devil, Hubert told her, and their loveliness was the key to Adam’s fall in the Garden. That is why she was kept under strict order not to leave the house, and that is why Hubert would burn her alive if she ever brought him dishonor.

 
“Men are women’s beginning,” Hubert told her one night as he munched on a chicken’s leg. “Without man, they have no purpose. And just as a dog licks his master’s hand even after he has been beaten for a fault, so a wife ought to follow her husband after correction. A dog does not upbraid its master, or scold, or question, but follows submissively, until the death, if necessary.” Hubert’s dark eyes narrowed. “Do you understand, young wife?”

Afton gave the words that had become her reflexive, automatic answer to everything. “Yes, my lord.”

One night Hubert came in early and found Afton standing at the window combing her hair. He screamed in fury, closed the shutters, and threw Afton onto the bed. As she sputtered in confusion, he shouted at her: “Sin arises from a fondness for grooming,” he said, his fingers burning her skin as he held her. “If a woman takes pride in her beautiful hair or her beautiful skin, numerous evils arise. Every woman should groom and dress in secret, not in an open window. You should not show your beautiful hair in public, but keep it under a cap. Your hair, your throat, your bosom, are only for your husband to see.”

Afton could not trust her voice to answer, so she nodded. Hubert would not tolerate any sign of vacillation or weakness.

“I cannot believe Lady Endeline did not teach you these things,” Hubert went on, “therefore I believe you must be deliberately ignoring the morals and manners with which you were raised. And that dress--” he pointed to the gown Afton wore.

“This dress?” Afton looked down. “Does it not please you?”

“It is cut tight,” Hubert answered, releasing her. “Women wear such dresses only so men will say, ‘Look at that fine woman’s body, worthy of being loved by a good man such as I!’”

Afton shook her head in confusion. “My lord, I have

grown--”

“Does it fill your heart with joy to know men will say that if they see you in such a dress?”

“No, my lord.” Afton shook her head again and sat up. “I will take it off.”

“Leave it on.” Hubert looked up at her and smiled. “I am your husband, and I will enjoy it. But you are never to wear it outside this room.”

“Yes, my lord.”

After dinner came bed, and after bed came sleep, the only means of escape Afton found open to her.

W
hile Afton learned her lessons, Calhoun learned lessons of a different sort. As a squire, he was not a child of nobility or the son of a great lord, but Fulk’s personal servant. Squires were taught service, loyalty, and the skills that would bring honor and the glory of victory in battle.

There were twelve squires in various stages of training at Warwick Castle, each with a knight who served as his master. Smaller boys also darted through the castle courtyard like curious mice. The sons of knights without estates, the younger boys served as pages in Thomas’ court, scurrying from place to place on various errands as they learned the manners of nobility and the politics and policies of castle life.

Calhoun found the children amusing. Most of them looked upon the squires and knights with faintly veiled admiration, and a few were frankly ambitious and longed aloud for the day when they would be in command of themselves and others. But one boy in particular caught Calhoun’s eye. He was called Gislebert, and he chose to walk alone, never with the pack of pages who periodically pestered the squires. His eyes were large and wide like Afton’s, but they never shone with defiance or longing as Afton’s had. As the other boys roughhoused and wrestled in the dust, Gislebert hung in the shadows, his auburn head bent over a parchment. Calhoun knew instinctively that Gislebert would never be a knight.

He was surprised when his feeling of interest in the boy was apparently returned. As Calhoun dutifully followed the fearless Fulk, his teacher and master, Gislebert began to shadow Calhoun, his freckled face appearing behind every post, corner, and tree.

Fulk had immediately intimidated the vaunted knights of Lord Thomas, and he and Calhoun were given the choicest bunks in the tower garrison. One morning Calhoun awoke and was surprised to see Gislebert sleeping in the straw beneath their wooden bunks. From that night on, the straw beneath Calhoun’s bunk became his accustomed place, and Calhoun came to accept the boy as easily as he accepted the night terrors that routinely troubled Gislebert as he slept.

In the warm light of morning, neither of them spoke of the trauma of nighttime, and the days at Warwick offered enough activity to keep all three busy. Lord Thomas led frequent hunting expeditions into the forests not only to feed the army in training at the Warwick garrison, but also to hone the boys’ riding and hunting skills. The knights led the squires in team drills, to teach them to act as a unit, and Lady Clarissant often asked an audience with the young men to enlighten them in the important social skills of dancing and composing verse.

When not participating in group activities, each squire endured private training from his master. Fulk directed that Calhoun’s mornings should be reserved for sword practice. On these mornings, Calhoun helped Fulk into his forty-pound armor, then, while Fulk sharpened his sword and dagger, Gislebert climbed onto Fulk’s upper bunk and dropped the hauberk over Calhoun’s head. The hauberk, a shirt of tightly-woven mail, weighed nearly twenty pounds and covered Calhoun from neck to knees. At first Calhoun complained that the sleeves of his hauberk were too long, but Fulk only laughed and admonished Calhoun to grow faster.

Sword practice was exhausting. Before Fulk would allow Calhoun to engage an opponent, the boy had to stand in front of a wooden tree stump and slash at it from the right, from the left, from upwards, from downwards, from behind, and from all sides. Once his right arm was thoroughly exhausted, Fulk ordered that he repeat the exercise with the sword in his left hand.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Calhoun complained one day, dropping his heavy sword in the dust. “There’s no sport in striking a tree stump.”

“Your muscles are weak, particularly your left arm,” Fulk answered, the corner of his mouth drooping in derision. “Or you would not be tired. But perhaps a little motivation would help.” Fulk walked over to the charred remains of the previous night’s fire and picked up a blackened coal. On the bald tree stump he drew two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.

Calhoun laughed. “Who is that? An infidel, or you, mighty Fulk?”

Fulk’s eyes glinted in appreciation of his student’s wit, but he did not allow himself to smile. He merely walked back to Calhoun and crossed his arms. “I think,” he said slowly, regarding his artwork, “I think it bears a resemblance to the miller in Margate. What is the man’s name?”

Calhoun straightened and looked into Fulk’s snapping eyes. “His name is Hubert,” he answered.

“Ah, yes, and now married to the lovely Afton,” Fulk answered, raising an eyebrow. He spat into the dust and looked back at his young charge. “Are you still tired, Squire Calhoun?”

Calhoun bent and picked up his sword. He steadied it in the sunlight and watched the blade gleam. “I think not,” he answered. And he charged the stump again.

***

The squires and pages did not eat with the nobility, but in the kitchen after serving the knights, the lord, and his lady at dinner. Calhoun did not mind carrying a jug of ale and filling the cups of the thirsty knights, for dinner at Warwick meant two things to Calhoun, and both were dear to his heart: the sight of Lady Clarissant and talk of battle.

The loud knights loved nothing better than to talk of both recent and historical battles. Calhoun heard names he had known from his history lessons with Raimondin, but here in this living tableau the men who lived now only in war stories became as sharp as the swords that hung from every knight’s belt. At every meal, blood flowed freely, courage ran high, and the glory of a righteous cause always brought certain victory. The gory tales did not disturb him in the least, indeed, the only night he felt any discomfort at all was the night he fought to hide his pride when his grandfather, Lionel, was praised as a sterling warrior.

At Warwick’s table he heard again the stories of King Arthur. Endeline had loved to tell these stories to her children, but her tales of the Round Table and Camelot had been laced with romance. Here at Warwick Castle, where femininity and romance were allowed only for adornment, the tales were more bloody, the villains more fiendish, and the victors more courageous.

The knights also told stories of recent history, tales of the Holy Land, reports of skirmishes with infidels and the exploits of Knights Templar who gave their lives in the defense of holy pilgrims.