The Lammas Marriage 1094
It was not a betrothal feast, precisely, for Sybil had been promised to Brian the Younger for years. But the marriage date was set and dowry details finally settled to the accompaniment of a whole roasted sheep, herb-stuffed capons, river trout, elderberry wine and some exotically flavoured yellow cakes, in a hall draped with flowery garlands.
It was indeed something other than a feast for Sybil. The pestilence had passed and the survivors, almost formally, were giving thanks, and even grief for the dead did not stop them. Most of Fallowdene was there. ‘Sybil embroidered her gown herself,’ Alice informed Sybil’s future husband and father-in-law as Sybil came slowly and ceremoniously up the hall, a cup between her palms, towards the two solid russet-clad figures to pledge them. ‘She has been well-taught with the needle and she made the bread you’re eating, too. She learned a great deal at Withysham. We’re so proud of her,’ said Alice mendaciously.
The mendacity lay in the allegation of pride, not in the statement that Sybil was skilled in household arts, for this was true enough although she needed energetic chivvying to make her demonstrate her knowledge. Her manners too were irreproachable as she offered the cup graciously to the two Brians, the elder first. He, as the cup passed to his son, turned politely to say to Ralph, the outsider guest: ‘Will you be here for the nuptials? September the first is only four weeks off.’
‘No reason why you shouldn’t stay, is there?’ Richard asked. ‘After all, you’d expected to be in Normandy now.’
‘I want to be home for the harvest, but I can wait till the start of September if you wish,’ Ralph said. He did not want to stay but it would be discourteous to refuse and worse, might require explaining. He could hardly tell Richard that he wanted to seize the chance to be home for the Lammas Feast, to sit on the log throne himself and not be represented by Oswin. And he could scarcely say, either, that he could not bear the thought of seeing Sybil allied to a boy who was nothing but a stodgy yokel who would be the better for a few years’ training with Helias of La Fleche or Rufus, though even they would be hard put to it to get a polish on him.
When he thought about it, he was amazed at himself. He had recognised his true nature for what it was in the Wood. But that was a physical matter. Devotion, loyalty, the bonding of the heart, these things still pertained to Rufus. To let another person, above all a woman, call them out of him was like a betrayal. He had said to Richard: I hope to marry. But he had meant some calm, practical arrangement. Not this unlicensed surge of feeling…
After the wedding, when he had done his duty as a guest and drunk to the future happiness of the pair (however improbable this might seem) he would go back to the Tun and in time, to court. Perhaps even now Rufus might forgive him. Perhaps even now their friendship, if nothing more, might be restored. He would find a suitable girl to give him an heir for the Tun – and the log throne too – and he would forget Sybil. He would have to.
Her pledging done, Sybil took her place beside her betrothed. She and young Brian took little notice of each other. There were no sly glances or claspings of hands. Ralph wondered if they had ever spoken to each other at all today beyond the formal words of greeting and pledging. The older Brian was addressing Sybil bluffly, as though not quite at ease with the prospect of this elfin girl-child in his house. ‘We hope you’ll settle down with us, my girl. You’ll not be too far from your home and your mam.’
‘Unless I leave Little Dene one day. I hope to increase my holdings in time,’ said the young Brian, speaking up for the first time outside the formalities. His voice had partially broken. ‘Then my wife will come with me, of course.’
‘Just as we’ve been telling her,’ said Alice. ‘You do right to remind her.’ Had she, Ralph wondered, encouraged him to do so?
Sybil was staring down at her hands. He thought that she hated being talked at in this manner and was longing to escape from the hall and the stiff ceremony. She had been kept in the house continuously since she came back from Withysham, baking, embroidering, making cheese and sweeping floors. He had noticed how miserable this restricted life made her. But Brian’s predictions for their future did not, he thought, appeal to her either.
Out of experience, and in the hope of making her look happier, he said: ‘Getting a land grant may be harder than you think.’
Alice, lightly, with a smile that turned it all into a joke, said: ‘Don’t look so grave, Sybil. You’re very lucky. Why, you’ll be mistress of your own home from the moment you set foot in it. You won’t even have a mother-in-law.’
At the lower tables, several faces acquired broad grins. Wulfhild glowered. Richard turned sharply to Alice but she was looking so sweetly at him and Wulfhild that he decided to relax into laughter. Sybil raised her head and her gaze met Ralph’s. Her eyes were bright as though there were tears in them but there was a sparkle of pure wicked merriment as well. He wanted to wipe away the tears and share the amusement and did not think that the younger Brian would be any good at all, at either.
The evenings were light. The two Brians rode off after dinner and Alice sent Sybil to change her clothes. ‘You’ve been the centre of attention all day but now there’s work to do, clearing up the hall.’ Ralph went out.
He was intolerably restless. For once, thinking that he might find serenity in it, he went into the church. But Bruno was there before him, prostrate before the altar, lost in a passion of prayer. Ralph withdrew silently and went instead to the stable, to rub down his horse.
Arrow had been turned out during his master’s illness and had grown fat. Frequent hard grooming helped to put back muscle. Ralph set about the task with a twisted hank of hay and was stroking the glossy hide, approving a new hardness under the skin, when the door opened and a small face peered round it. ‘Hello. I thought you were hard at work tidying the hall,’ Ralph said.
‘I escaped. I’m sick of working. Sometimes when I can get away I hide in the stable. I didn’t know anyone was here. You won’t give me away, will you?’
She came in and sat down on a straw bale. The light was dim but good enough to show him how forlorn her face was. The day had certainly held out no promise of joy to her. ‘You can watch me if you like,’ he said doubtfully. ‘But if you’re found…’
‘You didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to be here.’ Sybil smiled angelically at him. ‘You’re a guest; no one would expect you to know these things. You’re not part of the family; you’re just my brother’s friend. My mother says your father and her father were once friends.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
‘And you’re better from your illness now? If you’d been one of the family, I don’t expect you’d have caught it. I didn’t, or Richard or Mother or Aunt Edgiva at Withysham. Mother says we’re a strong family. Though Father Bruno didn’t get it, and my sister Blanche at Withysham did. Nearly all the nuns were ill as well. It was lovely. We did just as we liked.’
‘So I heard.’
‘Oh don’t. Talk like that, I mean. Everyone talks to me like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘In that tone. Crushing me.’
Her voice quavered. She looked so pathetic that he wanted to sit down beside her and hug her. He refrained. ‘How would you like me to talk instead?’
‘As if I were a person instead of a lot of faults that needed correcting. Tell me things!’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Oh, all sorts of things. What’s the sea like? I’ve never seen it but Richard says you and he have crossed it. I can’t ask Richard, he’s no good at describing things.’
‘Well, you’ve been to the top of the down and seen the land spread out below?’
‘Yes. From the north down you can look out over miles of forest.’
‘Imagine that instead of trees, that was all water, all of it, with huge ripples as big as small hills.’
‘Ooh! You do know things. Can you tell me,’ said Sybil, ‘what this means?’ The floor of the stable was of earth, and the soil of Fallowdene was chalk. There were always loose pieces about. She dug one out of the floor with her fingernails. ‘You told me a story about Herne once,’ she said. ‘And this is to do with him, I think, but what is it really?’ And on the planks of the stable wall, with an X and a line and a V, she drew the five-pointed figure, the pentagram of the Wood.
‘Where did you see this?’ Ralph asked quietly.
‘A girl at Withysham showed me. One of the orphans they adopt.’
‘And what did she say about it?’
‘That it was something to do with Herne, the god with horns, that you told me about. And that it was something to do, as well, with people going into a wood and doing that…. you know. I asked Sister Ermengarde at Withysham if that was what grown-up people did in church – I thought perhaps when children weren’t there – but she was so angry!’
‘I’m not surprised!’ Ralph was inclined to laugh and also to sweat. Priests, and possibly nuns, knew that the worship of the Wood existed but they were its enemies. It must be hidden from them or they would destroy it. Even the children of the devotees were guarded from knowledge until they were ten years old or so, old enough to understood the meaning of secrecy. He had been stupid even to tell Sybil a story of Herne as though it were just a legend, stupid to as much as mention Herne’s name. And someone else had been equally indiscreet within earshot of a little orphan girl with sharp ears. ‘Listen to me, Sybil. The Sign is secret. You must never draw it or even speak of it again. Forget it exists. Here, take this cloth and get it off that wall. Use spit. And never think of it again, from this day on, or Herne either.’
‘Why not? What does that sign mean? Why won’t you tell me?’
‘Shhh.’
‘I won’t shhh! I want to know!’
Her voice shot up. Arrow moved restlessly. ‘You’re upsetting my horse. Behave yourself.’
‘I won’t behave! I want to know what the sign means. I already know half of it so tell me the rest, tell me the rest!’ She was jumping up and down. ‘Tell me!’ she said, changing to a coaxing note. She flung herself at him and into his arms. Ralph, knocked off balance, almost fell under Arrow’s stamping feet. The horse reared and squealed. Ralph rolled himself and Sybil clear just in time. ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ He had hold of her arms, thrusting her back to safety. He attempted to shake her. She lurched back and forth in his hands like a straw doll and wailed: ‘Don’t, don’t! Everything’s so horrible! Why must you be unkind too?’ He desisted and she threw herself against him once more, snuggling.
It was the smell of her that did the damage, the heady warm smell of willing femaleness. The smell that after so many years he had known again in the Wood.
It rose into his brain and it was as though the Wood were all about them, dark and rustling and huge with power. There was power in the Worship; few men faltered at May Eve or Lammas, women climaxed who never did at other times, and now and then the barren quickened.
He shut his eyes as Sybil’s mouth met his in a long and astonishingly expert kiss, and on the inside of his eyelids he saw again the leaping flames, the tree limbs lit orange and red, stretched out over the lovers in the attitude of blessing and permission. Drums throbbed. For one moment the power failed and he remembered where he was and who Sybil was. But Sybil whispered: ‘It’s all right, it doesn’t matter, I know what to do,’ and her hands were on him, gentle, teasing, shockingly knowledgeable.
There was another moment in which she drew back and he reached for her in agony, and she said: ‘But you must let me know what the sign means. I won’t let you if you don’t.’ He moaned and pleaded but she pulled herself away and stood above him and small as she was, when he was lying in the straw at her feet, she towered like a goddess. Her blue eyes no longer sparkled, nor were they childlike any more, but detached and calm. He told her, all the essentials of the Worship, in a few gabbled sentences. What did it matter, when as she said, she knew half of it already and she was in any case, yes, surely this female creature that was Sybil was in any case born to be Maiden and Mother… for tonight .…yes, it had slipped from his mind but it was true, tonight was Lammas.
Then she stooped to him and his arms, enchanted into vigour out of the last remaining weakness of the pestilence, closed about her.