Afton of Margate Castle (48 page)

“This time, my wages have improved,” the girl answered with a sly smile. “I am bringing wheat.”

The girl moved gracefully and placed the bag on the counter and Afton noticed that Josson was carefully studying the girl. “You’re Lizette, aren’t you?” he asked, snapping his fingers. “The new girl, from--”

“I’m from France, yes,” the girl replied hastily. She turned again to Afton. “Could you please hurry? I am needed elsewhere.”

Afton funneled the golden grain without comment. Obviously uncomfortable, the girl went to the window and tapped her foot impatiently, once waving to Ambrose who played by the creek. A few moments later Ambrose appeared at the door of the mill house, and he smiled up at Josson with his hands behind his back.

“Watch out, he’s likely to play another trick,” Afton warned Josson, keeping an eye on the grain as it tumbled from the funnel onto the grinding stone. “Yesterday he told me he found a diamond in the creek. When I put out my hand, I found nothing there but a slimy toad.”

“You could not trick me,” Josson laughed, bending down to Ambrose’s level. “I’ve mined that creek for diamonds already, and there are none to be found.”

Afton scooped up the ground wheat, weighed it, funneled it into an empty bag, and gave it to the girl. She came out from behind her table to watch Ambrose play with Josson, but her attention was diverted when the girl gasped.

“What’s wrong?” Afton said, turning around.

The girl peered into the bag of grain. “Mon Dieu! This is coarse rye,” the girl cried, pulling out a handful of the dark flour. “I gave you fine wheat! You are a cheater, Madame!”

“That’s impossible,” Afton said, coming closer. “I see that this is rye, but what happened to the bag of wheat flour?”

“You substituted cheap flour for expensive!” the girl cried, stamping her foot in anger. She pointed to Josson. “You are an agent of Perceval, monsieur, and you have seen this trickery with your own eyes. Arrest this woman!”

Josson shook his head. “I have seen trickery, but I do not know whose trickery I beheld. What do you mean by this, Lizette?”

“I mean to have this woman arrested, and if you don’t do it, my mistress will have your head!” Lizette cried, her cheeks reddening.

Afton spoke slowly and clearly: “A carnival girl with a mistress? Who is your mistress, mademoiselle?”

Lizette lifted her chin. “I am maid to Lady Endeline of Margate Castle,” she answered proudly. “I have never been with ze carnival. I am not a common gypsy.”

Josson cleared his throat. “Afton, I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me until this situation is resolved.” He tenderly took her arm. “We’ll talk to Perceval and explain....”

“But my son,” Afton protested, pulling Ambrose to her. “I cannot leave my son.” A dark cloud of foreboding filled her heart, a harbinger of things to come. She whispered hoarsely: “But I cannot take him to the castle. I must leave him with my mother in the village.”

“The boy must come with me,” Lizette said, taking Ambrose’s hand. “We have already become friends, haven’t we, Ambrose?”

Ambrose smiled up at Lizette. “I’m going to become a knight, mama,” he called as Lizette lead him away. “I’m going to live in the castle and eat meat every day and learn to ride a horse.”

He skipped beside Lizette’s hurrying steps and Afton struggled briefly against Josson’s grip, then surrendered and leaned against his shoulder. Once again, she had known too much happiness. Endeline had swooped in again to take it from her.

***

When she and Josson rode through the castle gates later that afternoon, Afton thought the castle had not changed much since she visited it on Hubert’s arm. Knights still lounged about the tower garrison, and the villein working-women still scurried in and out of the women’s quarters. Afton knew she should have been taken to the castle garrison until Perceval had a moment to hear her case, so when the castle guard told Josson to escort her immediately to the great hall, she felt like a helpless rabbit in a cage. Endeline had laid a careful trap, and Afton had stumbled into it with both eyes open.

Perceval’s court and counselors were already assembled inside the hall. Endeline and Perceval sat in chairs on the dais while the counselors waited on benches in a long row. It was an impressive tribunal, designed to intimidate, but Afton entered confidently on Josson’s arm, her head held high. They stopped at the rear of the room while Josson bowed.

“Why Afton,” Perceval said, pretending amazement. “A surprise to see you again so soon. What is this all about, Josson?”

“What do you mean?” Afton demanded, shaking loose of Josson’s grip. “Surely I was expected. I should ask you the purpose of our meeting.”

“We are enjoying the quiet of the afternoon with our counselors and friends,” Endeline purred. “We did not expect this intrusion.”

Josson cleared his throat. “The woman, Lizette, brought wheat to be ground at the mill,” he explained. “The bag she opened later contained rye flour. She accuses Afton of substituting common grain for fine.”

Perceval shook his head. “A serious charge,” he said. “The villagers will not stand for such a crime. Does your greed know no bounds, Afton?”

“It is a false charge,” Afton answered. She raised her head and glared at the man who had dared to accost her. “It comes from my refusal of your inappropriate advances.”

Endeline and several counselors gasped in horror, and even Josson stepped back in shock. Perceval gaped at her like an open-mouthed fish. “Do you, the accused, accuse me?” he shouted, his face purpling in rage.

Afton stood firmly in front of him as his words rang in the hall. “I do,” she answered.

Endeline stood up. “Josson, as witness to this case, did you see the woman Lizette bring two bags of grain to the mill?”

“No, my lady.”

“Did you see the woman Lizette switch the bags of grain?”

“No, my lady.”

“Did you see the woman Afton actually give ground wheat to Lizette?”

Josson shook his head. “I saw her give a bag, my lady, but I could not tell what was in the bag. I was also distracted.”

“Distracted? Why?”

Josson blushed. “I was playing with Afton’s son.”

Perceval cast a disapproving glance at his steward, then waved his hand. “Apparently Afton engages the boy to distract people while she commits fraud,” he said, throwing his hands into the air. “What can I say? We have taken this woman to our bosom, nourished her as a child, given her a husband and a fief, and now she rewards her lord and master by making profane accusations and cheating the populace. My counselors, what more can I say?”

One of the counselors, a thin man Afton vaguely recognized, stood and nodded skeptically at Afton. “Does she have anything to say in her defense?” he asked.

“I do!” Afton stepped forward. “The bags of grain were switched, but not by my hand. I have never cheated anyone.”

“Who switched the bags?” the thin man asked. His eye twitched in his sallow face. “The woman Lizette?”

Afton shook her head. Lizette had had nothing in her hands. Only one person could have committed the switch, a little boy who had come into the room with his hands behind his back and a smile on his face. Ambrose.

“Who switched the bags?” the man asked again, and Afton could not reply.

“Her guilt forbids her to answer,” Perceval said. “It is my decision that this woman is guilty of a crime against the populace.” Perceval slammed his hand down upon the table in front of him. “The ownership of the mill is taken from her immediately and transferred to her son. Because he is not yet of age, I will act as his guardian.” He paused and looked at his counselors. “Is there anything to add?”

“Lord Perceval,” the thin man stood again. “Such an offense in a man would result in the loss of his life, or at the least, his hands, so that he would cheat no more. Your sentence is unusually merciful.”

Perceval bowed his head. “Let it be recorded that my fault is mercy, then,” he said, waving to the guards in the back of the hall. “I will show mercy to the free woman Afton of Margate by allowing her to live. But her property is hereby confiscated, and her son becomes my ward. She shall serve in the fields for three hundred-sixty days, and after that it will be with her as God wills. So it shall be from this day forward.”

T
he ox would not move. As Afton wrestled with the plow the binding around her palm slipped, and she yelped as the rough wood scraped across a ruptured blister. For six days she had grappled with the rough plow, and her skin had not yet grown tough.

The little girl whose job was to goad the ox stood still and looked wistfully at Afton. “It is not time to stop,” Afton snapped, rewrapping the rag around her hand. “It will not be time to stop for many more days. But when it is time, I will stop, and I will take my revenge upon her.”

The child’s eyes went wide in fear, and Afton knew the child thought her mad
. But mad I am, and with good reason
, she thought, gripping the handles of the plow again.
I have a mortal enemy as cunning as the devil himself.

Endeline was to blame for everything, Afton knew it. Endeline had sent Lizette to arrange a trap for Afton and bait for Ambrose, and both of them had fallen easily into her hands. Ambrose had been won with the promise of the fine things at the castle, but Afton knew corrupt ambition lay behind the finery, influencing all who lived there.

The villein child jabbed the ox again with the goad, and still the stubborn animal would not move. Afton screamed and furiously threw her entire weight against the plow to propel it through the impacted soil. “I know you, Endeline,” she ranted, her bare feet sliding in the muddy furrow. “You cannot bear to let another woman have anything of worth! I saw your covetous glance toward my son when he was yet a baby, and I know you have stolen him from me.”

The girl scampered away from Afton, running as though the devil himself howled in the field, and Afton walked over to the ox and struck the animal’s head with her fist. The creature bellowed and blinked uncertainly, then reluctantly moved forward. Afton sighed in relief and returned to the plow. “She will wish Perceval had been less merciful to me,” she muttered under her breath. “Endeline will one day regret her first sight of me.”

***

Nighttime brought rest to her tortured body, but not her soul. From Corba’s tiny cottage she could see the mill, which bustled with activity in the day and stood still as a graveyard at night. Perceval instructed Josson to keep the mill in operation, and the drunk villein who ran the mill raised the percentage of the multure and charged the villagers twice as much as Afton had. But he did not live in the house. The house Afton had shared with Ambrose sat empty.

“Give up this sadness,” Corba told Afton one night as she sat in the darkness by the window. “You are alive. you have a roof over your head. Your son is alive and well in the lord’s house.”

“But he is
my
son!” Afton cried, slamming her tender hand down on the table. “What right have they to take my only son?”

Corba stopped stirring her pot and Afton regretted her words. Corba knew how it felt to lose a child to the castle.

“I know your anger,” Corba answered, her face dimly lit by the glow of the coals from her hearth. “When they took you away I wanted to run down the road and steal you back. And when Endeline told me to strike you--”

“I remember, mama,” Afton whispered. “It was horrible for both of us.”

“Unbearable,” Corba said, “but Afton, I knew you were alive and well. I felt a worse grief when Matthew died. Death took him out of my reach forever. Even though I shall see him again in heaven, there is no grief like that of death.”

I have felt that grief,
Afton wanted to cry out
. I had another baby, a baby Hubert killed. And death has surely taken Calhoun from me.
But her mother knew nothing of either love, and Afton knew the knowledge would bring her pain.