I, the oldest of my mother’s daughters, was said to be: "Quiet and grave, but still waters run deep. Always about with her mother, so much alike you might take them for sisters!"
My second sister, Marigold, had married young and gone away to another village. We sometimes met on market days and had a chat. Her husband’s dad had a little farm where the family labored to produce flax and wool. I gathered she worked hard and bred regularly. Her husband was a bit feckless, but a gentle sort, rather too easy-going for his own good.
We talked over our big bellies every market day that summer. She it was who told me there was talk about Lily—even in her distant village. It was said she was wild, a "free woman." Once, when her name came up, I saw men nearby put on their gargoyle faces, which gave me a notion the rumors were true.
I didn’t worry about it too much, though, as I was at the end of another pregnancy. This one, who would be named “Rosemary” after my mother, came over the course of a few hours. Bett brought me the things I asked for and sat with me, though I cut the cord and the rest for myself. The boys, who always slept like stones, woke up at cock crow the next morning and then made us both laugh by their surprise at finding their Mam still abed with a new little sister.
When Lily appeared at my doorstep one chill autumn day, a stick in hand and bundle on her back, I can't say I was entirely surprised.
"Good day to you, Sister Rose."
"Good day, Lily."
She stood, hesitating on the threshold, so I bade her come in. There was an air of finality about the way she laid down her bundle. Then, she put her hands into the small of her back and stretched, displaying a full belly.
"Ah, so you've got caught!"
Mother to the world, was I?
"Didn't do it by myself." Lily gave me an irreverent, careless grin.
In spite of my respectability and my station in the village, I opened my arms. I didn't know what I'd tell Hugh, or anyone else, for that matter, but she was my sister, the baby I'd cared for before I'd come to Middleham. I should have gone to her, as soon as I’d heard that Mama had died, but, thinking only of my own business, I had not.
I brought her hot cider. She shivered and warmed her hands upon the cup while I sat down again on my stool and stirred our supper stew, which bubbled over a small fire.
"Aldygyth says I am to stay with you."
"She does, does she?"
"Yes, for Clifford says he will not keep a whore in his house."
"And where is the man who is responsible for this?"
"In France, with Dickon."
"Dickon, indeed! You had better learn some manners here at Middleham."
"It is his own soldiers who call him that, Nick, Roger, and Jamie, too, very often. Not to the duke's face, of course." She smiled, enjoying the impudence.
"So, little sister, was it Nick, Roger or Ned?" I asked, testing thickness of our supper by letting a gluey stream fall from my wooden spoon.
There was a pause, in which Lily looked, at last, ashamed. Finally she said, "I—ah—don't—exactly—know."
If Hugh had been home, the house might have landed about our ears, but he, too, was “with Dickon in France”, and so in our sullied Lily came. Bett had the sense not to play haughty, and lo, there we were, an entire household of women. Bett and Lily soon locked together like lodestones, and it was good for both of them because her Jackie had taken to disappearing for months at a time with the traveling players.
As might be expected, I got grief from the castle and the church about Lily as I knew I would, but they didn't dare do more than complain to Lady Anne. I could not imagine Milady agreeing to drive my sister away, so I ignored them. Anne did eventually rule upon our scandal, in a message sent from Pontefract. She said that as long as my sister behaved modestly and went to hear Mass and made her confession, she could remain. Further, she said "Mistress Rose should be commended for her Christian charity."
* * *
"Do you think any of them will marry you?"
"I would like to marry Jamie, but he has a wife," Lily said. "As for the others—well…."
"What?"
"Nick is a bit too fond of drink."
"I see. Lily, dear," I asked, studying her belly, "did you get this baby Maying?"
"How did you know?"
I sighed, attempting patience. "We figured a due date near the Lady Mass, didn't we?"
"Oh—right."
Her men were Scot free, this we learned upon the duke's return. A’Parr offered to find us a decent man willing to take her, but I asked him not to. A forced marriage was nothing but misery.
Lily rather surprised me by saying she was no longer attached to any of them. In fact, to my astonishment, I soon learned she was on the verge of getting a name right here in Middleham, in spite of the promise she'd made to behave herself and in spite of her big belly.
I was afraid she'd lead Bett astray and I was angry with her, too, but she knew very well I wouldn't toss her out. She was my sister and I would stick by her. I did not approve of Lily’s way of life, but she got by on her wit and beauty for many years and died comfortably in a nice warm bed in York. Such, in her case—and, in many another I could recount—were the wages of sins of the flesh.
A fine babe we named Robert O'Grove was born to her just two days before the Lady Mass. Hugh, who had a terrible soft spot for the little ones—he who had been so high and mighty about Lily when he'd first come home—dissolved like a lump of sugar.
The birth—maybe the pain—changed her for a time. Lily grew quiet, almost inward. She asked me to teach her the ways I knew to prevent conception and how to set herself right when the flow was absent, all of which I did, while cautioning her of the dangers involved in the latter course.
Lily didn't go out looking for excitement anymore. She did her work about the house and also took effective, if not particularly affectionate, care of Robert and the other children. Aldygyth had, it seemed, trained her well. We now had a regular pig's pile of children, two of them Hugh's grandchildren, Jackie and his newest brother, Oliver. With Robert, Alkelda, our son William and little Rosemary, that made six. At night the loft and the downstairs were full of sleepers. It was a good thing Hugh and I earned sufficient to keep us. Our necessary always had some skinny backside or other capping the hole.
For two years, Lily pleased Hugh and me well, but it turned out it was only her way of gathering strength. One day, at Saint Michael’s Mass, she went to market and did not return. We heard she had ridden away with a servant of the Percies, into the north. Robert O'Grove wept for his Mama-Mama-Mama in vain.
Hugh damned Lily to hell and I joined him, but what were we to do? Bobby was a beautiful little boy and kin, just as Bett’s babies were. He grew up calling Hugh "Dad" along with the others.
* * *
Midsummer came. I bent in a field with my basket beside me, a pair of shears ready. Old Mary and I and a few other village women were ready to begin our harvest of Our Lady's Bedstraw. First, we'd cut it and spread it in the sun, and then take it to finish drying in the rafters. The plants sprawled and splayed. They were four angled, like mint, small yellow flowers borne on woody stems. The smell was sweet and clean. When it dried, it would be added to newly re-stuffed mattresses or pillows. Much of it would go to the castle, to be mingled with the rushes that covered the floors of upper chambers.
The best tops we'd clip to be used in making an acidic extract. A miracle, how at a time of plentiful milk, this useful plant ripened, providing a curdling agent for making cheese. Plant and animal united in providing for us, human kind! The tops also provided a yellow dye used in all sorts of ways: to color butter, cheese, wool and silk yarn. Some ladies even used it to color their hair. After this harvest, we'd leave our patch of bedstraw alone until autumn, when it would be time to divide roots. Like the roots of madder, those of bedstraw yielded a fine red dye.
So much to do, and so little time between dawn and dusk, even in the long days of summer! My children were with Hugh in the field, for it was that time, too. Children can’t do much to ruin hay, and some good work can be got out of them there. In the herb garden, however, we didn't need little ones running riot, bruising the plants and scattering seed. Conversely, in the hay field, old timers weren't as useful as youth and energy.
Hugh sometimes complained, saying he did more child-rearing than I. The fact was he had more patience. From me, they got chores and lessons. I praised if they’d done well, but if they did not, a lecture or a spanking was coming. At night, after home and castle, I'd fall into bed exhausted, and hear him sitting up in the loft, telling the little ones his stories.
* * *
Our lord and lady came on horseback, across the hayfield in the early morning, through the first heat and dust of the day. I was there, with other mothers, in the shade of a lone beech of great age shading one side of the hill. A spring welled there, so it was a good, green place to lie.
We with young children were carrying shrub to the thirsty workers, cooking and tending any who fell ill or suffered injury. Of course, an added task was watching children, as everyone in the village went to this work.
Rosemary was shy and suspicious, and unhappy to be with anyone other than me. Large and fair, she was a pretty posset, but just now, out in the hot field, she was stuck against my bosom like a heavy, wet rag.
Our lord and lady approached slowly through the stubble in the first heat of the day. Their companions came to get water from our spring, while we gathered the children out of the way. Falconers rode in carrying hawks, as well as Anne's ladies, and a host of beaters and excited, barking hounds. All our work must wait until they moved on.
The Duke had not been much in residence during the last year and we'd got out of the habit of having him among us. As soon as he and Anne rode in, the other women began to poke me.
"Go greet them, Rose."
"Yes. You know what to do."
I tried to hand Rosemary away to a Granny she ordinarily liked, but today she would have none of it. So, to prevent her screaming, I ended up serving my lord and lady with one free hand while another woman drew the shrub. All the time, I was keenly aware of Rosemary’s body, of our dusty, dirty clothes and my milk-stained bosom.
My little girl finally turned her head to cast a dubious blue gaze upon these two brightly dressed strangers. Lady Anne dismounted. She wanted to hold my daughter, but this Rosemary would have none of. She wailed and buried her face against my bosom.
"She does not understand the honor," Richard said. He smiled but stayed right where he was, on his white horse.
"She's plain ornery, Your Grace." I jiggled Rosemary crossly, flushed with heat and annoyance. "I am sorry I cannot make her behave, Milady."
"No one needs manners when they are so young and fair." Anne reached to graze the tips of her long fingers across the yellow curls gracing my daughter's head. There was so much longing in her, it made me sad.
"She's very attached to her mother." Lady Grace, poor thing, from her seat on a mare still tried to be gracious to me, even though I’d been little but sulky and rude to her over the years.
"In every way." Richard indicated the fierce grip Rosemary maintained.
I was in no mood for jesting. I'd been up before dawn for two weeks in these fields, with three-year-old William and a hot, needy babe of eight months. Her clinging did not uniformly stir my maternal instincts. Instead I often felt quite opposite. I had moments that summer when I thought if someone of good repute and upright habits offered me a nicely filled purse for her, I would have made the exchange without a second thought. Rosemary was the neediest of my babies. Even with the other two, who were energetic enough, I’d managed to find time for myself. This child was a creature who was not only helpless, but who must always have her way.
* * *
Latin mumbled in our ears as the priest ducked and bobbed before the altar. Around us dogs scratched while babies fussed and babbled. It was Sunday Mass and the whole village was supposed to be in attendance. There was a haze of incense and sweat, although most folks did try to clean up. Men dozed, leaning upon their wives. Women nursed here and there and occasionally rose to take a child or one of the gray hairs out to answer the call of nature.
Hugh was one of the sleepers, but he’d wake up for good and all once we escaped the gloomy confines of the Church. He'd happily return home for his bow and then to the village green with the other men, bright with good cheer and ready to win a wager or two on the flight of his arrows.
I remember a wonderful summer feast day, blazing blue and hot. Every man at the butts had removed his shirt and stood bare-chested, looking brave as could be. There were bellies on the older fellows and scars too. Beatings, brandings, old wounds, all etched into man-flesh, now burnished by summer in the fields to brown and red.
The green of that year! There had been good rains and so much sun! Most of it was even well-timed, so the hay didn’t spoil. Beans flourished and did not mildew. We and our animals were well fed straight through the winter. It was a fine fat time.
Our Alkelda was fair, all pink and white. She was haughty sometimes, especially when she and Hugh were in something together, but she quickly learned all I taught and took pride in a job well done. She was not, however, much interested in following in my footsteps.
Her father had had the notion to teach her letters and how to add and subtract. She picked it up fast, far more quickly than the boys, which Hugh said he’d expected. Now and then he talked of apprenticing her to a shopkeeper in York where she could “make a good marriage.” At the time, it had all seemed far away, even unlikely.
There was nothing more fun than the midsummer’s fair, always capped by an archery contest with prizes from the castle. Competitors from villages near and far came to compete, from as far west as Aysgarth and as far east as Thornton Steward. The square by the church bustled with bright things for sale, from eggs, cheese, meat and vegetables, to pots and utensils, as well as bright ribbons, silks, medals and charms. Players came, too, along with fellows who could juggle almost anything. A stilt walker roamed in a patched, trailing jacket and a long-nosed mask, delighting and frightening the children. Rosemary’s jaw had dropped at first sight of him. She'd stood still as a stock, her fist wound tight in my dress, her eyes round.
The best part of having children is observing their wonder. I remembered my sister Lily screaming when she first saw the stilt men, and how the other children had been cruel enough to tease her about it for a long time after. The players, later, would give us the tale of John the Baptist because this June day was his feast. It was always a favorite because of the bloody severed head carried in by the wicked princess at the end.
Bett had been sad again when Jackie proved not to be among these rag-tag rascals. The summer after Oliver was born, he’d disappeared for good. We had word of her husband occasionally. He moved from troupe to troupe, not even, it seemed, able to stay long with a group of players. I thought he probably did not want to come to Middleham anymore and skipped any commission that did. Poor Bett still wept for him. Hugh grieved for his lost child as men do, by getting angry and declaring: “That boy is no son of mine!”
"Where are the horses?" Rosemary asked. She was remembering the hobby horses of Saint George's Day in April. These were always my favorites, too, with their long flowing manes and tails and the men dancing about inside.
"Not ‘til Saint George's Day comes around again. They belong to the brave saint who will slay the dragon."
"Oh." She was saddened, I could see. “Will that be a long time?”
"Not until this summer is over and next winter is done. Then, we will have Saint George's Day again."
"Oh." Rosemary speedily lost interest. It was far off for a little one to imagine—and now up the street came a young woman with a tray of sweet buns.
"Look, Mam!"
Where I'd never been indulged as a child, we didn't stint our babies. Hugh had made certain this morning that there were cut pence all shined and ready to put to use for all our pretty ones.
Feeling rich, I smiled at the seller and brought her to a halt. Rosemary already had a wand decorated with ribbons and topped with a shriveled, carved-and-painted apple head which was supposed to be John-Baptist’s. Most children had them. Some were waved solemnly like wands of office, while others, ribbons streaming, were used for poking, hitting, and throwing. A few heads had been knocked off in this rough play. Now, beady eyes peering, they lay abandoned in the grass.
Like magic, Alkelda, Jackie and William appeared at my side as soon as the sweet bun seller stopped. They pushed ahead to get theirs while I lifted Rosemary onto my hip so she could pick from the tray. Her rosy cheeks glowed; her breath went in and out steadily. Clear blue eyes considered her choices. Rosemary weighed plenty already. Packed solid like all of them, my Yorkshire lamb!
Munching sweet bread, we headed with the crowd toward the archers taking their stance. Brown legs and bare feet lined the green, the competitors all in a row, shooting at targets set at the very bottom of the green. There were many contestants to start, but, soon they would be whittled down to just a few. Hugh would be in that group, though whether he would carry the palm away on this occasion was much wagered upon.
A famous champion from Nappa, Watkyn Wright, had arrived today to try his luck. A purse was offered by the duke and this fine prize had drawn archers from far and wide. Our lord was in residence today and the white boar was flying at the castle—as we locals said, "The pig is up the pole." Tomorrow, the gentry would ride in to see jousting. It would be an entire day spent watching our betters compete—that is, for those of us who were at leisure, which meant young folks, dressed for Sunday and flirting. I was one of those who had too much to do. Hugh plain hated tourneys.
“I’ve seen enough knights charging in my line of work. A tourney is a show, nothing like a battle. The real thing ain’t so pretty.”
In the end, that Watkyn fellow beat my husband by a finger paring’s breadth. We of Middleham were disappointed and Hugh was more than a little upset. He’d already been planning to put the coins in that purse to use. Still, he’d won second place, which was one silver coin and a piglet. When we looked over the available litter, I asked for a sturdy sow with an eye to enterprise.
"I thought you would never keep pigs." Hugh leaned on his great bow beside me. "I thought you said they were dirty."
"They are and I did, but I have thought again, Husband."
"Changed your mind, have you?"
"Yes, I have, Master Fletcher."
"Humph! So, it's a good idea now that you're the one that’s thought of it?"
"No," I replied, teasing him back. "Raising pigs was always a good idea, even when I didn't think so."
He played this to his friends gathered round, rolling his eyes. Women! Obligingly, everyone laughed. Then the men went off to celebrate with a few pints, leaving me, the children and the piglet behind. I shrugged as I watched him go. Joke he must, but I had my pig, now that I more perfectly understood the business.
I’d chosen a fine sow from a litter of nine, a fortunate number. She was hearty and fat, of the black and white spotted kind from our duke's Gloucestershire properties. When I’d held out an apple, this fair lady had been the first among them to come.