They stepped through the hall, skirting the dais and high table, past a fine carved oak chest which served as a travelling box, and on to the door of the lord’s antechamber. Here they waited an hour or so upon their lord’s pleasure until, eventually, the chamberlain summoned both reeve and William to Sir Richard’s presence. Even the antechamber seemed a magnificent hall to William, so rich was it in wall hangings and beautifully embroidered cushions, all from France, or so the reeve said, again in a whisper.
The lord sat alone in a large curved stool without a back, but heavy with carvings in the legs. A good piece of work, William thought. The very last light of dusk filtered through a glass window, set in a transportable frame, above his head, and it was the first glass window, outside a church, that William had ever seen. Noticing the remains of an opulent private meal on the main table and on the two long benches that flanked it, William sniffed approvingly at the smell of roast meat that hung about the chamber.
Sir Richard did not speak; he seemed distracted by the magpie that had flown in through a rear window to peck at the scraps of food lying on the pewter platters. William and the reeve stood silently, uncertain of their master’s wishes.
“William, the Carpenter,” Sir Richard finally intoned.
William bent his head, as was customary.
“William, the Carpenter, my reeve has instructed me that all your boon work and levies are fulfilled. I thank you for the dutiful service to my house. You have asked for this time with me. What is your request?”
William coughed nervously. Sir Richard’s lisp, he thought, seemed more pronounced in the confines of the antechamber. He had heard him speak before, but only at gatherings for all the villagers in the fields.
The carpenter cleared his throat, looked up and recited his prepared speech: “Sir Richard, I thank you for your time. My words will be but brief. I have made with my own hands this chair, a gift for your lordship which Reeve Thomas has said is acceptable as merchet for my Christine’s marriage. I trust that this is so.”
Sir Richard, a big man, dressed in a russet woollen tunic that reached to the heel of his riding boots, stroked his greying beard. As he stood up, he straightened the jewelled dagger on his belt. William approached his lord and, with a slight bow, handed him the chair.
Sir Richard took the chair and, with exaggerated care, examined the exquisite craftsmanship. He set it down on the floor and sat gently on the gift, as William and the reeve smiled at their lord’s gesture of appreciation.
“I thank you, William. Gladly will I accept.” The knight paused. “This child of yours, how old is she?”
“Sire, she be fully grown to wed these two years or more. She was born to us sixteen harvests since.”
“A pleasing girl, she has a healthy ripeness in her face,” said Sir Richard. “I have seen her at work in the fields,” he added, a touch too dismissively.
He returned to his own chair, sat down and raised one hand, as if to dismiss his audience. The reeve tugged at William’s sleeve as a sign to go, but then Sir Richard spoke with unexpected force: “I have a tallage more for you: I wish to speak alone with your Christine before the marriage date.”
William looked at the reeve, who seemed as surprised as he was. “Sire,” he protested. “I have obliged in all my taxes. And I have laboured mightily with fashionin’ this chair. Is this not suffice? An extra tallage, if I dare say, is not meet. It is not our custom.”
Sir Richard laughed. “Well spoken, William. I demand no coin from you. In fact I had in mind to give your fair Christine some small token for her nuptials and good Christian advice. Tell our Father Peter to accompany her to this hall, when the reeve so dictates to you the time. Farewell.”
Sir Richard’s eyes narrowed as he watched his servants bow and leave the hall.
Duval smiled as he punched triumphantly at the final full stop, for he knew what was to come. The priest believed that you had to experience evil fully before you could condemn it wholeheartedly. He relished his role as omnipotent historian who could manipulate not only the protagonists’ past but also their future.
II. The Abomination
On the walk back to the village, William questioned the reeve until he was reassured that Sir Richard’s man was no more informed than himself.
“Take it as a mark of favour,” suggested the reeve. “And the priest will accompany her. Think on the extra wedding gift…Besides, his command is law in these parts.”
William nodded, but was unconvinced. He kept his doubts to himself; nor would he trouble Christine with his concerns.
Seven days after her father’s encounter with Sir Richard, Christine accompanied her priest at the appointed hour. She had bathed in the Tillingbourne stream that ran past Ashe Cottage and had applied an herbal potion to her hair. Barefoot all summer, she had put on the sandals that William had crafted for her the previous winter. Her long hair reached to the waist of the dark blue kersey dress that he had bought for her during his first and only visit to the fair on St. Catherine’s Hill, near the castle in Guldenford.
“You have dressed to wed,” Peter the priest joked with her as they made their way to the manor house, but he seemed uneasy with his jest.
Christine blushed and replied, “Father, this is my first summons to the lordly house. Should I dress as though to herd pigs or milk our cows?” She had a sense of her own worth, tinged with youthful vanity.
Just as her father before her, so too was Christine made to wait an hour outside Sir Richard’s antechamber. When they entered, Sir Richard was alone. This time the windows were all shuttered, and guttering candles lent a comforting warmth to the darkened room. The table was set with wine from Aquitaine, although red stains shamed the exquisite white cloth which covered it. The lord, with his face almost hidden by a green hood, sat on one of the side-benches, engrossed in cleaning his long-sword with a leather strip. For a minute the priest and Christine stood in the middle of the hushed chamber.
The priest coughed. “My lord, I have accompanied William the Carpenter’s daughter at your request.”
Sir Richard shook back his head and the hood slipped on to his shoulders. Christine, noticing something odd about his eyes, trembled slightly, but told herself she had nothing to fear.
“Thank you, Father,” said Sir Richard softly. Rising to his full six feet three inches, he pulled out a small velvet bag. “I have here ten groats. Five for you to carry to William the Carpenter as a gift for the wedding feast and five for extra prayers tonight in my chapel for God’s guidance in directing my stewardship of this demesne.” Sir Richard handed his man the coins, an addendum to the groats he had bestowed privately upon the priest.
“How long should my devotions in your chapel be?” the priest asked, with as much suspicion in his voice as his position would allow.
“Pray, sire, until I bid you stop,” Sir Richard replied impatiently. “Do you presume to measure God’s guidance? Pray for Christine’s soul, but remember where your earthly duty is bound.”
The black-robed cleric, his head bowed and hands in prayer, walked slowly out of the antechamber and closed the heavy door.
Christine had not followed this conversation closely because she had been too overwhelmed by the majesty of the great hall, and was now intrigued by the patterns on the tiles adorning the walls of the chamber. When she realised that she was alone with Sir Richard she felt as though she were but a child, so she fixed her gaze on a wax candle impaled upon a vertical spike with a tripod base.
Flattered by the invitation, she had expected a brief homily on her devotions to earthly and heavenly lords. Instead Sir Richard said, “Will you taste the fruits of Aquitaine?”
Christine’s eyes searched for fruit on the table, before Sir Richard offered her a goblet. She had never drunk wine but, surprised, she took it as her lord beckoned her to sit beside him on the bench. She sipped the wine and pursed her lips at the strong taste. Despite the sourness, she found it enticing.
She had not yet spoken, but Sir Richard intruded on her silence. “So you are to marry the tailor’s lad? Do you find him handsome?”
Christine did not know how to answer, but stumbled out a reply: “Simon, the son of Andrew the Tailor, is a good man, sire. From a Godly family.”
Sir Richard smiled broadly, displaying his stained and broken teeth. “Have you tasted him, Christine, as you
