Afton of Margate Castle (9 page)

Afton stared dumbly at the tall towers and massive gate until she felt Lienor tug on her hand. “Come on,” Lienor urged, “I want to go to the stables.”

 
Afton trudged wearily behind Lienor as they wandered into the spacious stable, empty now, for Perceval’s knights had taken the horses on patrol throughout the surrounding manors. In the cold stone castle buildings, Afton felt alien, as though she were from a distant land of animals and earth. But here in the stables, surrounded by hay and the pungent smells of animals and manure, she felt at home. As Lienor scampered about on the hay bales, Afton snuggled into a fresh pile of hay and closed her eyes in sleep.

***

Her new cotton tunic was damp with sweat, but the sweet-smelling hay was cool. Afton heard the gentle rustle of the hay as she turned in sleep, and for a moment she imagined that she was back on her own straw mattress. But when she opened her eyes she saw Charles playing in the loft above her. It was not a dream. She really was in the castle.

She stretched lazily and watched the swaying of a rope above her head. It was attached to a pulley in the roof and fell to the ground somewhere behind her, but Afton did not have time to reflect upon its purpose. Suddenly she saw a bale of hay fall from the loft, and before she could move, something cut into her ribs and hoisted her into the air. She screamed in alarm and fear, and below her dangling feet she could see Lienor laughing.

“Oh, that’s a worthy trick!” Lienor called up to Charles, who peered over the edge of the loft. “It’s the best idea you’ve had, Charles!”

Afton forced herself to be quiet. She saw what held her aloft; a rope had been tied around her waist while she slept and Charles had apparently slipped the other end around a bale of hay.

“Oh, Charles, it is too funny!” Lienor screamed, rolling in the hay beneath Afton. “We’ve strung her up! My little pet villein!”

“Let me down!” Afton shrieked, her fear crystallizing to anger. “Let me down right this minute or I’ll--”

“What will you do?” Charles asked calmly. He clambered down out of the hay loft and stood below her, an inscrutable look on his face.

Afton thought of her most recent deliverer. “I’ll tell Lady Endeline. She has promised that no one will hurt me.”

“She is nothing to you, villein,” Charles answered. He sat down in the hay and leaned against a post. His voice was oddly sharp as he added: “But she is my mother.”

“Let me down right now,” Afton said, glaring at Lienor, “or I won’t go anywhere else with you. I won’t do anything with you at all.”

“If you don’t, you’ll be sent back to the village,” Lienor said simply, sticking out her tongue. “And given a good whipping, too.”

Afton grew silent. Was that true? She had heard her father speak of men who died under whippings administered by the lord’s men. Perhaps it was better just to dangle in silence until their little game was done.

Lienor giggled a few minutes more, then grew disappointed when Afton did not respond. “You’re not fun at all,” she pouted. “Come on, tell me what you’re going to do about this, villein.” She walked directly under Afton’s dangling feet. “Threaten me.”

Afton folded her arms and remained silent.

“This is boring,” Charles said, standing up. “I’m going to find Gawain and play horseshoes.”

Charles walked off and Lienor glanced anxiously at his retreating form. “Let me down, please,” Afton called, trying to sound pleasant. “I can play horseshoes, too.”

Lienor turned and ran out of the barn after Charles. “I don’t know how to let you down,” she called over her shoulder.

Afton was left alone in the barn, spinning like a rag doll above the stone floor of the stables.

***

Her anger dissolved into fear, and her fear arched into overwhelming loneliness. Afton bore her helplessness as long as she could, then let a loud sob escape her. Was she taken from her home only to be abused by those who were supposed to be her playmates? Why was Lady Endeline allowing this to happen?

The sound of approaching hoof beats interrupted her tears, and Afton wiped her face with her sleeve. What if she was found by a knight? Would she be beaten? Left to starve? Turned out into the forest?

It wasn’t a knight on the bulky horse trotting into the barn, it was Calhoun. He slowed his horse to a walk and bent over the beast’s neck, gently stroking the lathered animal. Afton didn’t know whether to call out or remain silent.

As she debated what to do, Calhoun walked the horse into a stall and dismounted. As he swung his leg over the horse’s rump, he glanced in Afton’s direction and soon came out of the stall for a better look.

“For a moment I thought my eyes had trespassed upon an angel,” he said simply, looking up at her. The twinkle was gone from his eyes. “But you are not of the heavenly realm yet. If you were intending to hang yourself, you have placed the noose incorrectly.”

“I didn’t do this,” Afton answered, unable to keep the anger out of her voice. “Lienor and Charles did it for sport.”

Calhoun stood motionless and Afton was afraid he would walk away, too. “Are you going to let me starve up here?” she finally demanded.

“No,” Calhoun answered, smiling up at her. “I was just enjoying the sight. It is easy to see why my eyes mistook you for an angel. Hair of gold, eyes like morning fog. . .”

“Get me down!” Afton shrieked, covering her ears.

Calhoun maneuvered the weighted bale of hay so that it was directly under Afton. Then he pulled a dagger from his belt. “I’m going to cut the rope and you will fall,” he said, looking up. “I will catch you.”

“Is there no other way? I don’t want to fall.”

“I said I would catch you. Don’t you trust me?”

Afton bit her lip. “No.”

Calhoun shook his head. “A knight always keeps his word,” he said solemnly. “I will catch you.”

She nodded and held tight to the rope around her waist. Calhoun swung his dagger in a wide arc and as it bit through the rope, Afton squealed and dropped to the ground like an iron weight. She landed squarely on top of Calhoun and knocked him off his feet. Both of them lay sprawled in the hay.

When she had caught her breath, she pushed herself up and away from him. “You didn’t catch me,” she said, her voice unsteady. “But thank you for breaking my fall.”

Calhoun spat hay out of his mouth and lifted his head. He grinned at her. “Next time, I will catch you.”

She scrambled further away. “You will not have to rescue me again,” she said, brushing the hay from her tunic.

In an instant he was beside her. “Nay, but that is a knight’s duty.” He ran his hands lightly over her shoulders and arms. “Are you certain you are all right? You are not hurt?”

“I am not hurt,” she answered, studying his face. His touch surprised and affected her, for no man or boy had ever touched her with compassion. In his eyes she saw concern, friendliness, and care, the qualities she had always ascribed to God and the king alone. And she knew no son of the king’s, or even the king himself, could be more beautiful than Calhoun.

“Lienor and Charles will not play these tricks again,” Calhoun told her, taking a step back. “You can be sure of it.”

He returned his dagger to his belt and went to tend his horse, and Afton sat silently in the hay, watching him. In that moment, for the first time in her eight years, she valued someone else’s life above her own.

L
ife soon fell into a comfortable routine. Every morning Afton woke in her dormitory with Lienor, Morgan, and Lunette. Under the maids’ careful supervision, the girls washed their hands and faces in a basin, said hurried prayers, and dressed quickly and neatly. Afton found an endless delight in dressing. Her clothing was dyed in brilliant jewel colors, and it seemed that each day she was given a different long-sleeved tunic and sleeveless surcoat to pull on over her long linen chemise. In October when the weather turned cool, she and Lienor were given graceful fur-lined mantles that fastened at the neck--hers, by a simple gold chain, Lienor’s by a golden brooch.

After the girls were dressed, the maids braided their hair. Lunette usually braided Lienor’s into intricate designs, while the more down-to-earth Morgan braided Afton’s. One morning Lienor rebelled against the daily ritual, and pulled away from Lunette’s nimble fingers. “I’ll wear my hair down today,” Lienor said, her back toward the wall. “I won’t be all trussed up like a horse.”

Endeline stepped calmly into the small room. “Lienor, you will have your hair braided, and you will wear your cap, as a young girl should,” she pronounced. “A girl’s hair should always be beautifully braided. Wild hair, my daughter, is permissible only in mourning, and you are not in mourning--” she arched an eyebrow--”yet.”

Lienor returned to the stool in front of Lunette, but the sulky look did not leave her face. Endeline patted her daughter’s shoulder gently and smiled coyly. “A beautiful braid will do much to attract attention even as you are walking away. Knights and lord have their swords, girls, but women use their hair as weapons.”

Lienor’s scowl only deepened, but these words fell on Afton’s ears as true gospel. She sat motionless while Morgan finished braiding her hair and tied the close-fitting cap on her head. Soon she would be old enough to wear the tall veiled hats or beaded caps that Endeline favored, and Afton resolved to do nothing to weaken her lady’s favor. Her world revolved around Endeline’s instructions and gentle admonitions.

Lienor never failed to scowl when her mother imparted pearls of womanly wisdom, but Afton could never hear enough. She followed Endeline’s example in word and deed, even wishing her own blonde hair were dark so she could undergo the bleaching treatments Endeline and Lienor endured once a week. “Why should you wish such a thing?” Lunette once privately reprimanded her. “Even nature itself saves ze color gold for its best creatures--look at ze golden eagle! Your hair, gold as nature intended it, is by far ze more lovely.”

 
Afton enjoyed the compliment, but she didn’t believe Lunette. She wanted to be like Endeline in every way, and she was simply inferior. Why else was she left out of the most important weekly rituals?

Every Monday morning, after washing and bleaching their hair, the maids massaged Endeline’s and Lienor’s scalps with olive oil. Then Endeline endured the ritual every high-born woman favored--her scalp was partially shaved. Afton watched in horror the first time she saw Lunette shave Endeline’s widow’s peak and an inch of scalp to enlarge the lady’s forehead, but Endeline merely smiled at Afton’s frightened expression. Wide foreheads, Endeline assured Afton, were the fashion. After the lady was suitably bleached, oiled, and shaved, her remaining hair was combed, braided, and covered with a dainty cap.

With their daily grooming accomplished, the ladies met the rest of the family upstairs in the tiny chapel for mass with Raimondin, Perceval’s chaplain. After the mass and prayers, Afton and Lienor went downstairs to their chamber for lessons with Eleanor while Charles and Calhoun stayed upstairs for lessons with Raimondin. While the children learned their lessons, Endeline went downstairs to discuss with Hector the details of the dinner and supper preparation.

Afton was always amazed at the grandness of the lord’s dinner. The meal always began promptly at ten o’clock, and the girls were excused from lessons just in time to rush to their places at the children’s table in the great hall. They ate with Eleanor, Raimondin, Charles, and Calhoun. Their table was one of many, for three rows of tables filled the hall, and at these tables were seated the other members of Perceval’s household: the
messing
, or military personnel, knights, guards, squires, men at arms, and watchmen; and the domestic staff, clerks, and high-ranking servants. Visiting vassals from other manors dined as well, and Afton saw new faces in the dinner crowd every morning. She often forgot that she was supposed to eat in silence and keep her eyes downcast. It was much more interesting to say nothing and look much.

At the front of the spacious hall was a raised platform, and upon this platform sat Perceval’s table. From this table Perceval, Endeline, and Hector surveyed the members of their estate, and Perceval used this vantage point to regale his audience with tales of his bravery or his latest acquisition while Endeline directed the servants with discreet nods and gestures.