May 1067, Tutbury, Staffordshire
A recent fire?” Elise asked Gilbert. She and Hortense exchanged uneasy glances. Fire always reminded them of Mortemer, the attack both had survived. As they approached the village, her gaze traveled slowly from the burnt structures and brambles at the base of the escarpment up over the charred trees sweeping up to the crest where the tower stood.
“Yes,” Gilbert said. A dark look flitted across his face, and she doubted he would elaborate without a prompt.
“The cause?”
He paused as if deciding what to tell her. “Rebels.”
She had seen the murderous, hostile English in Cricklade, and could well imagine their violence. Again, she felt exposed but knew her taciturn guide would give no comfort.
“Was the attack serious?”
“Soldiers and villagers died,” he said. “The first tower and inner palisade burned down. Those responsible were punished. All will soon learn to obey their masters.”
Elise looked from Gilbert to the tower. He knew more than he said, she thought. “How long ago was the fire?”
“A fortnight.”
“Two weeks!” she said, “A testament to the builder’s efficiency.” She looked up at the new tower. She supposed it possible. The captain at Cricklade had told her William had kept his several thousand troops busy building towers. One rose in only eight days. Lord Stafford must have had hundreds of workers unless . . . “Was any fort here when Lord Stafford took possession of the land?”
“No,” he said.
No doubt her betrothed’s troops were adept at digging trenches, building castles and bridges quickly. In a hostile land, no warrior would balk at building a strong defense behind which he could sleep easier than in an open field. But they would need many hands to build this castle and troops were preparing to march. She wondered if they had slaves, but refrained from asking an underling. He seemed to resent her inquiries, and there was no need to impose her authority or censure his surly manners at their first meeting.
Gilbert would defend this place and, despite his hostility, he would protect her as well. Accustomed to the defense of her own lands, she studied the scarp and castle. A sentry atop the parapets could see enemy troops long before they reached the valley. Besides the High Tower, she knew each gate would have watchtowers as well. The fewer gates, the better, she thought, hoping builders could complete the barest defenses before winter. Once atop the rise, she would know how well the castle’s defenses had been planned.
Gilbert reigned in and spoke to Roland. “My lord, there is limited space above on the castle grounds. Your retinue must remain here.” He pointed to an edge of the valley far from the two armies. “We have tents above for only a few of you,” he said, including Brian Dubec. “Your wagons and carts will take up much room.”
Roland and Brian agreed. Tristan took command of their company remaining in the field.
Elise turned to her companions during the journey. “Thank you all for escorting me.” She proceeded to give each a separate farewell, asking Giles to give her regards to Anne, commenting to Yves on his future nuptials, and expressing her desire to see Bertrand again. To Tristan, she said, “Tell Lesceline I would like her to visit me. It would please me very much if you bring her yourself.” He frowned before blowing her a kiss.
Turning toward the tower, she felt a piercing sadness. She would miss her jovial, teasing friends dreadfully. In a few moments, she would enter a world of strangers. Her betrothed’s world.
“Come along, Brother Derrick,” Hortense said, drawing Elise’s attention from the past and future to the present. “Soon, you can get off that horse. No doubt your . . . you are sore.” Everyone laughed, including Brother Derrick.
As soon as they crossed the last creek straddling the valley, they entered an area filled with activity. Workers felled trees, hammered, sawed, chipped, and hewed timbers, cross-stacked logs dried for future buildings. Next to the log yard, workers stripped, lashed, and notched trunks together into sections for the palisade. Others stacked these sets into wagons and loaded wagons headed toward the main road.
A few old huts with gaping holes and rotted thatching reminded Elise of toothless old men with hairy tufts protruding from balding heads. Elsewhere, workers crawled all over a half dozen newer dwellings, three of sod, one with a full thatched roof, all planted randomly along a narrow, jagged road. She could discern the pattern of an emerging village, and even recognized an alehouse, distinguished by the stacked barrels. Bubbling cauldrons sat on open fires, and the stench of tallow filled the air. Women carried baskets or water buckets, and some worked beside the men. Dogs ran in packs, barking and yapping at their horse’s heels. Children of all ages worked, ran twisting and turning through the settlement, or stared in wary curiosity at the approaching riders. Excluding the children, she estimated only about three-dozen villagers, not enough to farm the area and provision the castle without slaves.
Looking back at the narrow valley, she saw a few strips of sown land. It was mid-May, too late to plant for the fall harvest. She considered the need to gather enough food and provisions before winter and the tilling that must be done for next year’s crops.
Gilbert turned in his saddle toward Brother Derrick and pointed out the cleared area on the right, marked by half timbers lying on the ground. “Lord Stafford has set aside this land for a church.”
As they began their ascent up Castle Road, she saw men pulling down huts, whole and charred, tucked against the hill, and workers digging a wide, deep ditch at the base of the scarp. A moat or ringwork, she supposed, seeing the newly exposed orange-red earth, naked as flayed meat. Wagons filled with freshly dug soil and rocks traveled up the road, slowing their progress.
Near the top, they paused where the road forked. Gilbert explained that the right fork continued around the castle toward Northgate, unseen from their perspective, for wagons, carts and most of the foot traffic. After sending Elise’s carts onward, he led Elise and her party to the left fork.
“Southgate,” Gilbert said, signaling the guards who watched their approach. A horn bellowed. The Southgate Road narrowed and curved sharply to the left precipitously, a defense mechanism to prevent amassed forces from overrunning the gate. Workers had dug out both sides of the road, and one day a deep fosse would cut through, leaving only platforms for a drawbridge. Until then, this road was the primary defense, as it required them to ride single file across wood planks laid as much to protect the bare ground from erosion as to announce their approach. Elise recognized the danger immediately. One wrong move could send a horse down into the ditch. She glanced at Hortense, who lifted her chin, unfazed by the challenge.
Two small towers flanked the timber gate, which opened with a wail. A sharp, loud snap startled Elise. Above her, a large red banner with a snarling, ferocious black wolf greeted her. The flag whipped and slapped in the wind, and the wolf’s red eyes seemed to track her. Suddenly feeling awkward and wary, she reached for the wolf pendant and ducked her head to ride through the low gate, catching the scent of recently hewn timbers.
She entered a world of deafening chaos: clanging metal, sawing, shouting, screeching. Whips whistled and cracked in the air. They rode along a street traversing the bailey. Piles of goods, stacked timbers, crates, bundles of wares lined both sides. Unlike the lush, green valley below, every piece of ground was trampled, leaving barren dirt. They trod over deep ruts and caked mud. Dozens of people swirled around them: men bent forward carrying bundled faggots on their backs, others rolled barrels marked with the salt symbol, women lugged baskets of fish. They passed a string of packhorses, muck carts, wagons hauling tubs of water, and pushcarts heavily laden with sacks of grain.
Disappointment filled her. She had left Boulogne, a place she had never considered her home, and traveled for nearly twenty days to an alien and hostile place. Although she’d shared a deteriorating, crumbling hovel with Arques, on reflection, it seemed a palace compared with this place, barely more than a rough training ground.
Despite everything she had been told, she had envisioned her new home as resembling her chateau at Fontenay, or even the quiet cleanliness of the dreaded abbey. At the very least, she had imagined rows of whitewashed houses, crowned with thatched roofs, like those she had seen in Cricklade. Instead, a single timber tower rose atop the large earthwork mound. Stark, dark, forbidding, the fortress, a malevolent presence, overshadowed the courtyard and made her shiver.
Beside the tower, she spotted a thatched longhouse, built low to the ground with a single pitched roof positioned on a small rise to look out over the yard.
“Lord Stafford’s lodging,” Gilbert said in answer to her question. “It houses his treasures and charters and is guarded day and night.”
On her right, in a random, haphazard order, canvas tents dotted the field. A dog scattered a flock of chickens, leaving dust and feathers floating in the wake of their flapping wings and incensed squawks. Piglets and children ran about the castle grounds, a couple of dogs fought with one another, snarling and snapping until a large man pushed his way through the crowds and kicked them until they separated and skulked away.
Soon they passed a large dining tent, its flaps rolled up, shaded rows of trestle tables beside baking ovens, smokehouses, and long fire pits. Workers stacked thin, day-old bread trenchers. Cooks stirred cauldrons bubbling with stew or soup, and one slammed her long-handled spoon into the head of a boy she chased away. Butchers filleted a carcass, spit turners roasted others. With the smell of meat, Elise’s stomach growled, but her hunger died quickly with the odor of burnt feathers and the blood draining from hung poultry.
She searched for, but did not see, a kitchen garden, and made a mental note to have one planted as soon as possible, for they would need fruits, herbs, and vegetables.
She smelled the stables before she saw them and was surprised her party drew up beside them. A group of four tents had been raised along the northern side of the bailey beside the unfenced edge, which sloped steeply to the marsh. She dismounted, feeling her legs wobble as she touched solid ground. Roland and Brian helped Hortense dismount, and Hortense pointed to a tent with an unspoken question to Elise.
“Lady de Fontenay,” Johan de Vaux called out.
She turned to see him threading his way through the crowds gathered to observe her party. As he neared, she noticed a distinct rocking gait and his painful expression as he limped toward her. She resisted looking at his legs, smiling instead.
“I apologize, my lady, for the disorder you find,” Johan said. “We are trying to finish the defenses before winter sets in.”
“Yes,” she glanced around and back to Johan. “There is much to do.”
“We are unable to put you into the High Tower until tomorrow. I hope these accommodations will be satisfactory for now.” There was an awkward pause. Roland and Brian glared at Johan. She understood their fury at these odious tents unbefitting persons of their rank and status.
“Lord Stafford sends his regrets,” Johan said to Elise and the men beside her. “He is not able to meet you now as he prepares to march in two days. He requests the wedding occur tomorrow night, for the king expects his departure soon afterward.”
Her betrothed’s failure to greet them himself was a serious breach of decorum—an insult really—and she felt it, as did everyone else in her party. Roland tensed, taking immediate offense. Even Brian bristled and narrowed his eyes at Johan but said nothing.
“If you wish the wedding to proceed earlier, Lord Stafford has offered . . . He has offered me for proxy, my lady.” Johan bowed before her.
Elise glanced at a tired and cranky Hortense and knew her entire party was likely to erupt in a volatile explosion. She smiled at everyone, including Brian, and placed her hand on Roland’s arm as he gripped the hilt of his sword. Perhaps, with preparing his soldiers to march, her betrothed was unable to meet her. To wed a soldier meant sacrifice, as she well knew.
“There may be rebels nearby, Roland,” she said. “You understand how inconvenient a wedding could be at a time like this.”
To Johan, she said, “I had hoped for more time to become acquainted with Lord Stafford before the wedding, but since he must leave so soon, one day will do. The vows may be spoken tomorrow night as his lordship wishes. Would it be possible for all of us to have meals and washing water this afternoon?”
“Of course, my lady,” Johan said, his relief obvious.
She thanked him and Gilbert, who had remained mounted. She gave Brother Derrick a pointed look. He seemed momentarily confused, and then ran after Johan for whom he would scribe. She entered the large tent she would share with Hortense, hoping her acceptance of the circumstances would keep Roland and Brian calm.
The next day, Elise struggled to control an unusual spurt of anger. She had assumed her betrothed would meet her before the wedding. He had not approached her the previous evening, nor had he come to her today. His rudeness was evident, and his absence, like the cool, cloudy day, cast a pall over her and her companions. She imagined a brooding, ill-tempered man like Guillaume Arques, and the thought of marrying such a man made her want to flee.
She chided herself. If she had been cleverer, she might have quipped to Johan that the wedding could be postponed indefinitely! Instead of letting her annoyance fester, she met with Johan to discuss storing the possessions brought with her and preparations for the wagons arriving in the next few weeks. With the men assigned to assist her, Elise had the carts unloaded and stored the chattels in a tent hastily erected beside her betrothed’s longhouse or taken up to the High Tower where she would reside after the wedding. The task kept her spirits up.
Hortense, meanwhile, surveyed the living quarters in the tower and prepared the bedding chamber.
Near day’s end, Elise and Hortense strolled the castle grounds with Johan as their escort. Hortense, unusually quiet, appeared haggard, yet she trudged forth, lifting her skirts and stepping over puddles. Elise glanced nervously at her aunt, whose clenched jaw and thin lips betrayed her silent rage.
At the bailey’s northern edge, Johan pointed out the distant mountains. Looking west, where the sun had just touched the horizon, Elise felt hollow. They were isolated. An enemy would have difficulty fighting his way up to this castle, and once the palisade was completed, a prisoner would find it difficult to escape.
Johan led them across the courtyard and pointed out the tent erected for the wedding feast.
“Ah,” he said as they passed the canopy, “Lady Marguerite d’Hesdins.”
“God grant you peace,” Elise said, smiling at the lovely woman, who stared at her with a raised chin and cold blue eyes before walking away. Surprised by the woman’s discourtesy, she asked Johan, “A knight’s wife?”
“A knight’s widow.”
The woman’s petite figure and blond hair, uncovered in the custom of unmarried women, reminded Elise of her sister Marie. To Hortense she said, “A noblewoman, perhaps a friend and compeer. We’ll gift her some fine cloth or furs.”
Johan coughed under Hortense’s scrutiny.
“A widow?” Hortense asked mockingly.
Before Elise could ask her meaning, a horn blew. She turned toward the gate towers. A single rider rode into the bailey and up to the timber dwelling where he dismounted. A squire took his horse’s reins and led it away as he turned and ducked into the longhouse.
“Lord Stafford has arrived, my lady,” Johan said. “I beg your leave. The wedding will commence within the hour.”