‘My father is dead?’ he repeated carefully.
‘Yes, Richard. Soon or late, it touches us all. Every son must one day step into his father’s place and take up his father’s duties.’
‘Then I shall be the lord of Eaton now?’
Brother Paul did not make the mistake of taking this for a simple expression of self-congratulation on a personal gain, rather as an intelligent acceptance of what he himself had just said. The heir must take up the burden and the privilege his sire had laid down.
‘Yes, you are the lord of Eaton, or you will be as soon as you are of fit age. You must study to get wisdom, and manage your lands and people well. Your father would expect that of you.’
Still struggling with the practicalities of his new situation, Richard probed back into his memory for a clear vision of this father who was now challenging him to be worthy. In his rare recent visits home at Christmas and Easter he had been admitted on arrival and departure to a sick-room that smelled of herbs and premature aging, and allowed to kiss a grey, austere face and listen to a deep voice, indifferent with weakness, calling him son and exhorting him to study and be virtuous. But there was little more, and even the face had grown dim in his memory. Of what he did remember he went in awe.
They had never been close enough for anything more intimate.
‘You loved your father, and did your best to please him, did you not, Richard?’ Brother Paul prompted gently. ‘You must still do what is pleasing to him. And you may say prayers for his soul, which will be a comfort also to you.’
‘Shall I have to go home now?’ asked Richard, whose mind was on the need for information rather than comfort.
‘To your father’s burial, certainly. But not to remain there, not yet. It was your father’s wish that you should learn to read and write, and be properly instructed in figures. And you’re young yet, your steward will take good care of your manor until you come to manhood.’
‘My grandmother,’ said Richard by way of explanation, ‘sees no sense in my learning my letters. She was angry when my father sent me here. She says a lettered clerk is all any manor needs, and books are no fit employment for a nobleman.’
‘Surely she will comply with your father’s wishes. All the more is that a sacred trust, now that he is dead.’
Richard jutted a doubtful lip. ‘But my grandmother has other plans for me. She wants to marry me to our neighbour’s daughter, because Hiltrude has no brother, and will be the heiress to both Leighton and Wroxeter. Grandmother will want that more than ever now,’ said Richard simply, and looked up ingenuously into Brother Paul’s slightly startled face.
It took a few moments to assimilate this news, and relate it to the boy’s entry into the abbey school when he was barely five years old. The manors of Leighton and Wroxeter lay one on either side of Eaton, and might well be a tempting prospect, but plainly Richard Ludel had not concurred in his mother’s ambitious plans for her grandson, since he had taken steps to place the boy out of the lady’s reach, and a year later had made Abbot Radulfus Richard’s guardian, should he himself have to relinquish the charge too soon. Father Abbot had better know what’s in the wind, thought Brother Paul. For of such a misuse of his ward, thus almost in infancy, he would certainly not approve.
Very warily he said, fronting the boy’s unwavering stare with a grave face: ‘Your father said nothing of what his plans for you might be, some day when you are fully grown. Such matters must wait their proper time, and that is not yet. You need not trouble your head about any such match for years yet. You are in Father Abbot’s charge, and he will do what is best for you.’ And he added cautiously, giving way to natural human curiosity: ‘Do you know this child?this neighbour’s daughter?’
‘She isn’t a child,’ Richard stated scornfully. ‘She’s quite old. She was betrothed once, but her bridegroom died. My grandmother was pleased, because after waiting some years for him, Hiltrude wouldn’t have many suitors, not being even pretty, so she would be left for me.’
Brother Paul’s blood chilled at the implications. ‘Quite old’ probably meant no more than a few years past twenty, but even that was an unacceptable difference. Such marriages, of course, were a commonplace, where there was property and land to be won, but they were certainly not to be encouraged. Abbot Radulfus had long had qualms of conscience about accepting infants committed by their fathers to the cloister, and had resolved to admit no more boys until they were of an age to make the choice for themselves. He would certainly look no more favourably on committing a child to the equally grave and binding discipline of matrimony.
‘Well, you may put all such matters out of your mind,’ he said very firmly. ‘Your only concern now and for some years to come must be with your lessons and the pastimes proper to your years. Now you may go back to your fellows, if you wish, or stay here quietly for a while, as you prefer.’
Richard slid out of the supporting arm readily and stood up sturdily from the bench, willing to face the world and his curious fellow pupils at once, and seeing no reason why he should shun the meeting even for a moment. He had yet to comprehend the thing that had happened to him. The fact he could grasp, the implications were slow to reach beyond his intelligence into his heart.
‘If there is anything more you wish to ask,’ said Brother Paul, eyeing him anxiously, ‘or if you feel the need for comfort or counsel, come back to me, and we’ll go to Father Abbot. He is wiser than I, and abler to help you through this time.’
So he might be, but a boy in school was hardly likely to submit himself voluntarily to an interview with so awesome a personage. Richard’s solemn face had settled into the brooding frown of one making his way through unfamiliar and thorny paths. He made his parting reverence and went out briskly enough, and Brother Paul, having watched him out of sight from the window, and seen no signs of imminent distress, went to report to the abbot what Dame Dionisia Ludel was said to be planning for her grandson.
Radulfus heard him out with alert attention and a thoughtful frown. To unite Eaton with both its neighbouring manors was an understandable ambition. The resulting property would be a power in the shire, and no doubt the formidable lady considered herself more than capable of ruling it, over the heads of bride, bride’s father and infant bridegroom. Land greed was a strong driving force, and children were possessions expendable for so desirable a profit.
‘But we trouble needlessly,’ said Radulfus, shaking the matter resolutely from his shoulders. ‘The boy is in my care, and here he stays. Whatever she may intend, she will not be able to touch him. We can forget the matter. She is no threat to Richard or to us.’
