and perhaps even by God.
Very near St. James’s, her parish church, Christine dwelled in Ashe Cottage, a house with three large crucks-curved tree trunks-forming a series of arches, with a ridge pole to hold the steep thatched roof. The walls were wattle and daub, strengthened with a solid wooden frame. William the Carpenter had built a screen to divide the cottage into a small open room and a bower, or bedroom. In the main room stood an open fire for cooking and heat, with a space in the roof to let out the smoke. In addition, the cottage boasted four windows with skilfully fashioned wooden shutters. William had also built a small lean-to for his two cows and his goat because, very unusually, he did not hold with animals sharing the house, as was the custom among the English peasantry. His well-crafted cottage was home to his wife, Helene, and his three children: Christine, Margaret, younger by two years, and the last-born, a son also called William.
William the elder, although bonded to the FitzGeoffrey family, also worked as a journeyman carpenter, employing an apprentice of nineteen, a runaway serf who had been caught and branded on the forehead, but who had reformed his character under the stern, albeit fair, tutelage of the craftsman. Recently, William’s status in the village had been secured by his election as the headman of his tithing group. Except at harvest time, he paid his obligation in kind or coin. His garden provided some staple vegetables, but his defence against starvation was his mastery of wood. Despite the years of anguish and hunger in the village William had survived, even prospered, and so his salt box was always full. Through the dexterity of his hands he provided whey, cheese, buttermilk, peas and beans, daily bread of mixed barley and oats, and-on high days-wheaten bread, washed down with spicy nut-brown ale. He could even treat his family to salted beef or smoked bacon, too, on many a Sunday.
William sat contemplating his lot in this August of 1327. This year the harvest had been fruitful and he had completed his boon work for his lord and paid his tithes. The reeve had collected all, even the wood-silver for coppicing the lord’s timber for his carpentry and for his fire. There was, however, one small debt to be paid: the merchet due to Sir Richard. His Christine was to be betrothed to Simon, the tailor’s son. The priest had agreed and all that remained was for William to ask his lord for permission. It was the old tradition, although William knew that in the towns such niceties were being forgotten. It was a relatively small fee, normally six pence, an equivalent in groats or marks, or a gift in kind. So William had fashioned a chair fit for the lord, who, by the reeve’s intercession, had made it known that such a gift was acceptable.
That particular balmy evening, William sat outside his cottage on a bench, dressed in his best breeches, his serge tunic tucked into a belted waist. And next to him stood the magnificent carved chair, which he stroked almost absent-mindedly. His reverie was partly induced by the jug of ale which had been brought to him by Helene, who smiled indulgently at her husband as he, in turn, looked with love on the face that displayed loyalty in every weathered crease. Sipping at the ale, he pincered a hair-louse between his thumb and the broken nail on his forefinger. He looked up as he flicked the parasite away, and locked his gaze on the in-field, the last to be harvested. The barley and oats had been scythed, the strips of wheat had been sickled, and the binders had gathered the corn into sheaves to stack them into shocks to dry. A few of the old people and younger villagers were gleaning the fields to save the last handfuls of the harvest, while the paupers were foraging in the hedges and end strips. Soon the cattle would be set free amidst the stubble.
The sun nestled in the wooded hills that cloaked the pass to Guldenford as the warm ale settled comfortably in William’s stomach. The carpenter was his own man, devout, yet possessed of a fine sense of justice, usually tempered by humour. He was unlettered, it was true, but he had memorised many of the chapters from the Gospel by sheer diligence and attendance at the church of St. James three times each Sunday.
As the trees in the Hurtwood began to turn pink in the scented sunset, he saw Christine walking from the in- field where she had been helping to glean the corn. William noticed that Simon, her betrothed, kept his distance from her, but the young man’s eyes followed Christine as the small group of villagers filed out of the main field.
William thought that her blond hair outdid the glory of even the richest cornfield. She was tall for a village girl and her limbs so perfectly proportioned that even a father could decently note her fair looks. He loved his first-born and had planned her marriage into a respectable tailoring family with considerable care, and not without a little consultation with his wife and Christine, although, ultimately, he was a man who heeded his own counsel.
As she entered their gate, William beamed a toothless grin at her and said, “See, Christine, I have finished your chair. All be agreed with the reeve. This gift be better than a handful of groats-not that I couldn’t be payin’ in coin, what with the good harvest an’ all.”
Christine kneeled by the chair and touched it as though it were a sacred relic. “I thank you, father,” she said, “for all the work. This chair be fittin’-aye, more than fittin’-for a lord.”
She suddenly laughed, and added, “And the seat so smooth, no splinters to rip his lordly arse.”
William tried to look stern, but he could not control the wide grin that consumed his face. Nor could he resist his daughter’s impish sense of humour, although her independent attitude troubled him occasionally. She was too much like himself, he knew.
“An arse he might be, but we must bow to him and to the strong arm that keeps the peace here, and the robbers out of our woods.”
William leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Red you are in the sun and after labourin’. Take a sip of this, a little ale will not go amiss.”
Handing Christine his jug, he spoke through the side of his mouth, in a stage whisper, pretending not to offend his wife: “Now that the chair be done, why even I say you can with Simon tarry.”
Christine blushed deeply, even though it was the custom for betrothed couples to tryst before their marriage. She had been teased by some of the village girls because she had insisted she would remain a virgin until her marriage day.
Hilda, the miller’s daughter, the girl with the distracting wart on her nose, had shouted at her, “Mistress high and mighty, you are. What makes you better than us girls, then?”
Christine had thought about the remark and wondered whether there really was something wrong with her, or perhaps just something different. They wanted marriage and nothing else while, for her, a husband would be just part of her existence, because she was curious about life beyond the village, beyond England, perhaps beyond this world. These thoughts were half-formed, glimmerings which sprang from her lively intelligence.
But her father would not understand this. “Time enough for tarryin’, father,” she said firmly. “Rest I need after gleanin’, not more rushin’ hither and thither.”
“Enough, daughter, for I am eager to see my liege. The reeve has appointed tonight for my gift to be laid at the master’s door. Then next Sunday, God willin’, your name will be fixed on the church door to declare the banns.”
An hour later William, dressed in his Sunday clothes and carrying the chair, was standing with the reeve outside the gatehouse of Vachery Manor. The reeve, armed with his customary stave, bustled with self-importance. The Manor had once been a small castle, and the moat remained, although the Norman fortifications had been partly demilitarised and transformed into a grand house. It was built for luxury, admittedly, but still could be a stronghold if necessary-all for the glory of Sir Richard. The drawbridge was down. Facing the gatehouse was the entrance to the main hall, where most of the household slept, ate and amused themselves. The hall was open to the roof timbers, and it had a hearth in the centre of the floor and a louvre in the roof through which the smoke was supposed to escape, but the smoke and ash from the fires of many winters had besmirched the fine display of shields. The largest was painted red with diagonal stripes and topped with the sign of a crescent moon.
The reeve pointed to the shield and whispered, “Saracen-captured by our lord.”
William was overawed; he had not been inside the hall since he was a young man.
The two men carefully picked their way through a floor thick with rushes, mixed with basil, sweet fennel, lavender, mint, pennyroyal and violets. And, inevitably, mustard seeds had been sprinkled to ward off the evil spirits. The dead flowers and herbs, however, could not compete with the stench of the grease, bones, spittle and the excrement of dogs and cats that mingled with the rushes.
At the lower end of the hall was an entrance from the courtyard. A large screen, carved with scenes of noble exploits in the Holy Land, shielded the hall from some of the draughts. On the other side of the screened-off gangway were doors into the pantry and the former kitchen, now a small armoury. Over the passage formed by the screen stood a gallery where musical instruments were marshalled, waiting patiently for their masters. As he walked past the gallery, William asked the reeve to tell him what the instruments were.
The reeve wasn’t sure, but his pride and position would never allow such an admission: “That be an Irish harp, that a dulcimer and that be a shawm.”
