Afton of Margate Castle (2 page)

Twenty-eight
                                                                                                                                                                                     

Twenty-nine
                                                                                                                                                                                      

Thirty
                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Thirty-one
                                                                                                                                                                                            

Thirty-two
                                                                                                                                                                                            

Thirty-three
                                                                                                                                                                                       

Thirty-four
                                                                                                                                                                                          

Thirty-five
                                                                                                                                                                                            

Thirty-six
                                                                                                                                                                                              

Thirty-seven
                                                                                                                                                                                      

Thirty-eight
                                                                                                                                                                                        

Thirty-nine
                                                                                                                                                                                          

Forty
                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Forty-one
                                                                                                                                                                                              

Epilogue
                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Author Biography
                                                                                                                                                                          

For Gary

The heart of the human problem

Is the problem of the human heart.

--Anonymous

He who learns must suffer.

And even in our sleep,

pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart,

And in our own despair, against our will,

Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

--Aeschylus

Wido

1119
A.D.

W
ido grunted with satisfaction as he settled into his bed next to his wife, Corba. It had been a full day, but a good one filled with hard work in his own furrows.
 
He laced his fingers together across his broad chest and breathed deeply. Across the room, he could hear the regular breathing of his six children, five strong boys and Afton, the girl. Next to him Corba’s pregnant body was enticing in its warmth and fullness, but he decided to let her sleep. It felt good to lie alone in the dark and think.

Not that Wido never had time alone. As a plowman he was often alone in his narrow field or solitary in the fields of Lord Perceval, but his thoughts behind the plow were centered on the incessant cycle of plowing, sowing, and harvest. Which fields should be planted with drink grains, which with bread grains, and which should lie fallow? Of course, in Lord Perceval’s fields he did as he was told, but in his own meager strip he was careful not to offend the laws of God and nature. One miscalculation, one failed crop, and his family or his livestock might not make it through the winter.

 
Today his mind had been of the upcoming festival of Hocktide, when he and Corba would have to present a full basket of eggs to Lord Perceval’s steward. Sixteen eggs they would have to bring, two for each person who lived in their small hut. Sixteen eggs! Wido crossed himself and hoped that Corba had said the proper incantations and prayers to keep the hens laying. If they were even one egg short, Wido would have to load timber for the castle or spend an extra day in Lord Perceval’s fields while his own chores waited.

As if she knew his thoughts, one of Wido’s hens stuck her head out from under his bed and squawked. “Yes, little friend, you have work to do,” Wido whispered, his gruff voice breaking the stillness of the night. “We cannot be an egg short.”

Corba stirred, the hay in their mattress creaking softly. “Is all well?” she whispered, raising her head from her pillow. Her beautiful wide-set eyes were drowsy. “Are the children all right?”

“All is well,” Wido assured her, turning on his side to look at his bride. Dim moonlight streamed through the open window, and Wido was struck again by his wife’s beauty. He loved her, and was frankly amazed that he loved her more now that he had on the day they were wed in front of the church. “I was reminding the hen of our need for sixteen eggs.”

“Ah,” Corba nodded, and her head dropped back on the rough wool of her pillow. “Lord Perceval must be satisfied. What do you think his steward will do if we only bring fifteen?”

“Old Hector will want to extract an arm or a leg,” Wido answered, his voice light. He nuzzled his wife’s shoulder. “Or perhaps Lady Endeline will covet instead your golden hair. But I will not let you pay the price. My life would be forfeit instead.”

“You would not have married a fool,” Wido answered, caressing her pregnant belly with his rough hand. The child within her womb was awake, too, and Wido felt a decisive kick against his palm. “Did you feel that? Our child agrees that his father is a wise man.”

“You talk like a fool,” Corba answered, smiling drowsily.

“A wise plowman,” Corba answered, her blue eyes closing. “What is the use of such a man? Does the ground care who plows it? Does the ox know who drives it? Does the seed notice who throws it?”

“No,” Wido agreed. “But the wife knows what her husband is, and the children follow in the footsteps of their father. Wisdom has its place even among unfree ploughmen.”

“Does it?” Corba asked softly. She turned toward her husband and gently kissed the tip of his nose. “Will wisdom make your eggs sweeter than those of your friend Bodo?”

Wido held her hand and squeezed it. “No. But I have wisely chosen a wife even more beautiful than Lord Perceval’s.”

Corba smiled and a dimple appeared in her cheek. “Alas, Wido, I was wrong. You are wise beyond measure.”

***

The day dawned bright with rare sunshine. Wido and Corba hustled their children out of their hut and joined the other villagers on the road to Margate Castle. The air was filled with cries of merriment, and Wido noticed that even dour Friar Odoric seemed jovial. “Who knows but that even Friar Odoric will dance today?” Wido asked Corba as they followed the crowd.

“That’s not likely,” Corba answered, breathing heavily. She was carrying their basket of eggs on her right arm and balancing their youngest child on her left hip. Wido stopped and lifted the baby into his arms.

 
Corba was right, of course. The Church took a dim view of dancing and merriment, especially on religious holidays. Wido often wondered how God could create such wonderful things as animals and sunsets and babies and women and yet make work so hard and church so somber. Wido made a mental note to ask the priest for an answer.

The castle road led the stream of villagers out of the village and through the forest, where they gathered greenery and wild blossoms. The procession then wended its way to Margate Castle, home of Perceval, Earl of Margate, and his wife, Lady Endeline. Their village was one of many manors overseen by Perceval and his steward, Hector, but it was the only one directly affiliated with Margate Castle.

Wido had occasion to talk with plowmen from other manors and knew that his lot was often better than theirs. Lord Thomas of Warwick, a knight who had received his estate from Perceval’s father after the first mighty expedition of God to the Holy Land, charged his tenants three eggs per person at Hocktide. Wido understood the discrepancy. Those who held land owed tribute and service to their lords, and the tribute was ultimately paid by the villeins, the feudal slaves on the estate. The villeins of the estate belonging to Thomas of Warwick paid service and tribute to Thomas, who gave tribute to Perceval, who gave tribute to King Henry. “The more lords a man ‘as,” another plowman once confided to Wido, “the less a man eats.”

Wido and his family ate--usually--depending upon the land’s bounty. Wido wasn’t sure whether he held land or the land held him. As a villein on Margate Land he and the land could be bought, sold, or traded at Perceval’s pleasure. But within the Margate acres he had his own furrows to plow, a garden to plant, and a hut in which to shelter his wife and children. He had a bed, a sheep, a cow, four chickens, two pigs, four bowls, and two complete sets of clothing, gifts from Lord Perceval at Christmastide.

Wido’s time was more or less his own. True, he did owe three days of work each week to Perceval’s fields, and the call for boon work came frequently during the harvest. These days of work on demand were usually rewarded though, and the villeins had pet names for them:
hungerbidreap
, when the villeins were given nothing;
waterbidreap,
when they were given water at the end of the day; and the
alebidreap
, when each villein was allowed a long draught of the lord’s ale.

Corba was not exempt from Perceval’s service. Three days a week she left Afton to care for the little boys and went up to the women’s quarters behind the tall walls of the castle. In a private hedged area, the villein women and the female servants of the castle wove linen, wool, or vermilion. Sometimes they were dispatched to the sheep pens for shearing. Wido had the distinct impression that Corba enjoyed these days with the other women. She always came home with a secret gleam in her eye, and she would never tell him what it was women talked about. Wido finally stopped asking. Other men assured him that women were tools of the devil, and the less a man had to do with them, the better off he’d be. Wido could believe nothing bad about Corba, but still--better to be happily ignorant than wisely sorrowful.