Alfric admired her, even went a little in awe
of her once he had learned of her ability to make and use herbal
medicines. He was kind to her, kinder than she deserved,
considering how little of her true self she gave to him in return
for his protection. She let him use her body in gratitude for all
he had done for her, but she could not bring herself to bear his
children. His halting, gentle clumsiness when he touched her evoked
only a dull pity and mild compassion. All the fire of Branwen’s
lost youth lay banked beneath ashes, smoldering.
Lord Ranaulf had been in France when Branwen
had come to Kelsey. Ranaulf’s seneschal, left in charge of the
poorly managed fief and grown even more lazy than usual in his
master’s absence, had not known, or had not cared, that a strange
female was living with one of the villeins. He had given his
permission for Alfric’s marriage without paying much attention.
When Lord Ranaulf did return several years
later, and thought to ask if there had been issue of his dalliance
with Alfric’s sister, he was told of Meredith’s existence. He then
called Alfric into his presence to inform the villein that he and
his wife were to foster the child until further notice. In
recompense for this service, Ranaulf remitted a small portion of
the crops Alfric usually paid to his lord at harvest time, and then
rode away again without having seen his daughter.
Branwen had been content for Lord Ranaulf to
be indifferent. It meant Meredith was still hers to care for and
love and teach. For twelve years that had been enough, but lately
Branwen had endured a nagging worry. She was twenty-six years old,
which was to say, middle-aged and growing older, and she could not
expect to live many more years, not doing the hard labor that fell
to the lot of the villein and his family. While she still could,
she must do something to protect Meredith. But what?
A nunnery was not the answer. The
illegitimate daughter of a minor baron, even if she could gain her
father’s consent to enter a convent, would not take with her a very
large dowry. Meredith, once cloistered, could expect only a life of
drudgery, of scrubbing floors and sweeping if she were fortunate,
but more likely the lowliest and most noisome tasks would be hers.
Branwen wanted something more than cleaning the cesspits and
laundering the nuns’ monthly linens for her niece.
Marriage? The thought of the girl in the
hands of some village brute made her shudder. The idea of letting
Sir Ranaulf, who had never cared enough to see his child, choose
her husband, was equally unpleasant. Ranaulf was a Norman and
therefore a monster who would doubtless choose the most repulsive
husband possible for Meredith.
Griffin was right, Branwen thought. I am too
sensitive, too particular. Damn Griffin! She slammed the wooden
spoon into the kettle, splashing hot broth out of the pot. The
flames in the firepit sizzled and then regained their former glow.
Damn you, brother, and damn your treachery. I hope you burn through
all eternity for what you did, just as Father Conan said you would.
You tried to take my life away from me and give it to Edouard the
Outlaw, but I escaped. I survived, though it’s not much, and
somehow I will see to it that Meredith escapes too. She is fine and
good, and as innocent as I once was, and she deserves a better life
than this.
The day when everything changed was grey and
wet, as were so many others during that rainy spring. Lord Ranaulf
s land had been plowed, and now the villeins were free to work
their own scattered fields during the three days each week they did
not owe to their liege. The earth was sodden, nearly too heavy for
the worn, fire-hardened tip of the wooden plow to turn over, but
the seed must be planted now or there would be no time for it to
come to harvest before the cold set in again, or so her uncle said.
Meredith had worked with him in the fields all day, returning to
the cottage in late afternoon to collect food and drink to take to
him so that Alfric could work until stopped by darkness. A small
pot of vegetable gruel, a half loaf of black bread, a piece of
hardened cheese – for Alfric was one of the more prosperous of the
villagers – made up her uncle’s meal. Meredith started back to the
fields.
The iron pot was heavy and hot, and she had
to tuck the bread and cheese under one arm to balance the sloshing
weight in both hands so she could walk without spilling it. A
shortcut through a fallow field seemed a good idea. Meredith
hurried. Alfric would be hungry.
“Whooo!” A shape rose before her, seemingly
materialized out of air, its arms spread wide.
“Oh!” Meredith backed away, startled. She
stumbled, dropping the pot and spilling its contents onto the
ground. The bread and cheese followed.
“Whooo!” The shape waved its arms and
advanced on her. “Whooo!”
The wild laughter that suddenly began to come
from the thing in front of her changed fear into rage. Meredith
snatched off the filthy rag over the shape’s head, revealing the
homely, grinning face of one of her most familiar tormentors.
“Gyrth, how could you? Uncle’s meal!” She
pushed angrily at the boy’s chest and knelt to collect the bread
and cheese. Both were damp and muddy, but they could be saved.
Uncle Alfric would have a cold meal.
“Alfric has plenty of food,” Gyrth said,
sneering at her. “He doesn’t have to give as much of his crop to
the castle as the rest of us do. That’s because of you, isn’t it,
Lady Meredith? You think you’re a noble lady. You’re just like the
rest of us. I’ll show you.”
Gyrth’s thick fingers caught in her hair and
pulled her face up toward his. She saw the wicked gleam in his eye
and shrieked as he flung himself on top of her, his weight pushing
her into the wet earth. She kicked and struggled and yelled and
pushed away his hand as he tried to raise the hem of her dress. She
stuck her finger into his eye, and when he screamed with pain she
rolled away and scrambled to her feet. The cottage and Aunt Branwen
were too far away for help. Meredith headed for the field where she
knew she would find her uncle.
She saw Alfric coming toward her. He must
have heard her screams. There was no need for explanation. Her torn
clothes told her story.
Alfric swung a fist at Gyrth. He missed and
the younger man kicked him in the belly. Alfric sat down hard, all
breath gone from his lungs. Gyrth laughed, aiming a second kick,
this one at his head. Alfric grabbed the swinging foot. Unbalanced,
Gyrth went down. Alfric had his breath back now, and he was
standing again. Picking Gyrth up with one huge hand, Alfric landed
a punch with his free fist and then threw Gyrth away from him.
Gyrth’s head hit the cooking pot with a loud thud. He lay there as
though he were resting on the softest pillow.
“Up, Gyrth!” Alfric was breathing hard. “Get
up and fight.”
“Uncle.,” Meredith caught at Alfric’s arm.
“Something’s wrong. He’s not breathing.” She knelt and touched
Gyrth’s body. “I think he’s dead.”
“Dead? No.” Alfric squatted on Gyrth’s other
side to check his breathing. He winced and pulled his hand back,
and Meredith knew it was so. Gyrth really was dead. “He was hurting
you. I wanted him to stop.”
Meredith forced back the scream that was
building inside her and stood, pulling at Alfric’s arm as she did
so.
“Uncle, we must go home and tell Aunt
Branwen. She will know what to do. Come away.” She tugged again and
Alfric rose, shaking his head as he looked down at Gyrth’s
body.
“I didn’t mean it,” he said.
“I know. Come on. Let’s go home.” She prodded
Alfric gently. He was weeping now.
“I never meant to hurt Gyrth,” he said,
turning aside from the sight of the body on the ground.
“Uncle Alfric, this way.” Meredith tried to
catch his arm, to guide him toward his cottage. Alfric pulled away
from her.
“I have to tell his father what I’ve
done.”
“No” Meredith knew there was bad blood
between Gyrth’s father and Alfric because of the extra food Alfric
was allowed to keep. The man would think Alfric had deliberately
killed his son. “Before you do anything else, we should tell Aunt
Branwen. Uncle Alfric, please!”
He went with her unwillingly, protesting that
he ought to tell Gyrth’s father and the village priest, and then he
must go to Lord Ranaulf’s seneschal and inform him that one of the
laborers had been killed.
“Are you mad?” Branwen demanded when she
heard this plan. “Alfric, you know they will call it murder.”
“I was only helping Meredith. I’m sorry, I’m
sorry.” Alfric huddled on the dirt floor of his cottage, and put
his head between his knees and wept. Branwen regarded him with
exasperation before turning to Meredith.
“Did Gyrth hurt you?”
“N-no. He frightened me and he threw me into
the mud, but that’s all.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.” Meredith was near to tears herself
under her aunt’s tense scrutiny.
“Go down to the stream and wash,” Branwen
ordered. “Hair and all. Get every bit of mud off.”
“Wash? The stream is cold.”
“Do as I say.” The words were formed between
clenched teeth. “Now, Meredith.”
When Meredith returned to the cottage some
time later she stepped into an argument between her aunt and
uncle.
“We must leave this place,” Branwen insisted.
“You know Gyrth’s father. The stupid lout will say you murdered his
son, and insist on justice, and the other villagers will back him
up. The best you can hope for from the seneschal, if they even
bother to inform him of this, is to be heavily fined. You are too
poor to pay any fine, so they will put you into the castle dungeon.
No one ever comes out of there. But more likely, they won’t tell
the seneschal.” Branwen paused, thinking with despair of what the
villagers would do to Alfric. “Why won’t you listen to me?”
“I killed him.” Alfric stared at his knobby
hands as though they belonged to someone else. “I have never killed
anyone before.” His heavy shoulders slumped.
“Alfric.” Branwen was growing impatient. “We
must go at once, before Gyrth’s death is discovered.”
“I cannot leave.” Alfric regarded his wife
sadly. “I belong to Lord Ranaulf and to the land. You know
that.”
“Norman rubbish!” Branwen’s dark eyes blazed.
“You are as stupid as Gyrth was, as stupid as everyone else here.
You belong to yourself, if only you would see it.”
“You are not like us, Branwen. You are,”
Alfric searched for a word, “you are
foreign.”
“I am Welsh,” Branwen told him, “and I thank
God I am too proud to bow my head to a Norman lord!”
“I gave you shelter,” Alfric said, “and
food.”
“And I gave you the use of my body and I
worked side by side with you as any wife would. And now you will
desert me and turn yourself over to Lord Ranaulf’s men out of some
stupid loyalty to a monster who burdens you with endless toil.”
Branwen stopped, spying Meredith standing in the doorway. Reaching
forward, she grabbed Meredith’s wrist and pulled the girl to face
Alfric. “Your sister was raped by Lord Ranaulf, and this is the
result. Will you let the same thing happen to her when the men the
seneschal sends here see her? Or to me? Or worse yet, let it be
done by one of Gyrth’s friends, who are no better than he was? It
will happen if you are hanged or cast into Lord Ranaulf’s dungeon
and we are left here alone. Have you no thought for us?”
“I must do my duty,” Alfric replied.
“Then I have done with you. I will not stay
here alone and unprotected against villagers who hate us.”
Alfric must have seen the lone tear trickling
down his wife’s pale cheek, but he gave no indication of
softening.
“Do what you will,” he said. “You will take
Meredith with you.” It sounded oddly like a command.
“I wouldn’t leave her here.” Branwen’s voice
was softer now. “I love the girl, and I know better than you how
badly the villagers have treated her because she is Ranaulf’s
daughter.”
“I don’t want to know where you are going. If
I know, they could make me tell.”
“Uncle.” Meredith pulled her wrist out of
Branwen’s grasp and threw her arms around Alfric. “It’s all my
fault. You hit Gyrth for me.” She burst into tears.
“No.” Alfric took her by the shoulders and
set her away from him. One large, mud-encrusted hand stroked along
her cheek, “I struck that blow for your mother, too. I will go tell
Gyrth’s father what I have done, and then I will go to the
castle.”
“You will never get there,” Branwen
predicted, her voice rough with tears she would not shed. “You
won’t live till the end of this day. Gyrth’s father will see to it
that the villagers punish you at once, and he’ll take his own
chances at the castle later.”
“Don’t go.” Meredith tried to embrace Alfric
again, but he moved to the door.
“Obey your aunt. Be a good girl.” He turned
back toward his wife and looked at her long and hard. “Go at once.
Don’t linger here,” he said, and then he was gone, and the door
closed firmly behind him.
“No!” Meredith started after him, but Branwen
quickly placed herself between the girl and the door.
“Stay here,” she ordered.
“He did it for me,” Meredith insisted. “I’ll
go to Lord Ranaulf’s seneschal and tell him that. I am the lord’s
daughter, surely…”
“It will make no difference. By going before
they come for him, Alfric has given us a little time, and we will
use it well.” Branwen wiped her eyes and, all business now, handed
Meredith a bundle of cloth. Meredith pushed it angrily away.
Branwen was equally angry. Her urgent tone allowed no further
argument. “Do not waste Alfric’s sacrifice, Meredith. Do as I say.
Put this on. It was your mother’s. It never fit me, so I kept it
for you. You are as tall as she was already, though not as thick in
the body. It will be loose.”