Afton of Margate Castle (29 page)

Abbot Hugh dipped the tiny girl quickly into the basin of warm water. The baby shivered, and then turned her head as if her nature compelled her to bear suffering without complaint. Madame Hildegard took the dripping baby and wrapped her in fine white linen, then held her up for the abbot’s mark of blessing.

As he fastened the clasp of his mantle and prepared to leave, Abbot Hugh watched Madame Hildegard with concern. “You know there are some who will assume this child is from the devil,” he said, his voice flat. “The mark on her face could represent an unholy trinity.”

“We will prove them wrong,” Hildegard answered, putting aside her usual dignity to smile wistfully at the baby. “For the face does not always reflect the heart.”

“Can you be sure this child has an innocent heart?”

“Did you not just baptize her?” Hildegard answered, wrapping the baby tightly in a wool blanket. “Do not worry. We are cloistered women, and the world does not often enter here.”

“For the child’s sake, and your own, take care to keep the world out,” Abbot Hugh answered. He nodded slightly to the abbess, and slipped out of the chapel while she continued to stare in amazement at the gray-blue eyes of the infant.

***

“There has never been a night so long as this one,” Wido grumbled as he and Corba trudged through the village, but Corba heard no genuine displeasure in his voice. Pale streaks of light had appeared in the east; the night had ended. “Do you know how few men ever see the face of their children’s children?” Wido continued as they walked. “I know of none who have.”

“Neither do I,” Corba echoed, looking down at the sleeping infant in her arms. “But we must hurry. This babe must be fed.”

Wido’s steps slowed behind her. “Woman, I leave you to your task. Today I plow in Lord Perceval’s fields, and the oxen await me.”

“Take care, then.” She smiled at him and waved him away, then clutched her bundle tightly in the stillness of dusk and hurried toward the miller’s house. Her warm breath misted in the cold air, but she did not feel the chill, so eager was she to lay the child in her daughter’s arms. Surely things would be better for Afton now that Hubert had a son. He had been so proud at the baby’s birth! Perhaps now he could forgo his cruelty and be a gentler husband.

She slipped through the gate and knocked on the door of the house, but was not surprised when there was no answer. Surely Afton and Hubert were still sleeping. She crept quietly toward the bed chamber, but the hungry baby was squalling earnestly now, and Corba boldly pushed the chamber door open, expecting to find Afton awake and waiting. But the bed had been stripped of its covering, and the fire had gone out. Had something gone terribly wrong?

Corba lay the baby on the bed and ran to the kitchen. That room was empty, too, even Wilda’s cot stood vacant and the hearth fire had gone to ashes. Corba darted through the front courtyard, a light layer of frost clinging to her rough boots, but she could see that the trail down to the stream and the mill house lay undisturbed under a thin mantle of white.

Corba hesitated before venturing behind the house. The back garden and woodpile were still enveloped in evening’s shadows, and two sheep in the back pen eyed Corba warily as she approached. The sun’s struggling rays had not yet reached behind the house, and the cold ground under Corba’s feet seemed to writhe under a thick white mist. Corba felt the skin on her arms prickle in fear, and she drew her tattered cloak more closely around her shoulders. Something moved in the distance, and she clapped her hand over her mouth--had she seen a ghost?

Of course not. She peered toward the back hedge, where Hubert kept the woodpile. A shroud-like bundle lay there, and another form jutted out from the mist as an island rises forth from the sea.

Corba ran toward the apparition, and one glance assured her that Hubert was dead. His form was still, his features frozen in an agonized grimace, his fingers curled over his heart. Afton lay in her cocoon, pale and silent, but a tinge of scarlet still lingered in her lips.

Corba threw her arms around her daughter and lifted with all her strength. The girl’s body moved easily, as if her spirit, in the process of departing, had left a hollow shell. When Corba had brought Afton into the house, she lay the girl on the floor next to the fireplace, and ran back to the woodpile for wood. Returning once again, she placed the wood on the fire and fanned the embers until the roaring flames brought a trickle of sweat to her own brow. When the fire burned steadily and she had brought water to Afton’s lips, Corba lifted the infant to her own breast and suckled her grandson, thankful again that God had blessed her with a fruitful womb and hungry children.

Later that afternoon, while Corba tended Afton and the baby, Wido dragged in Hubert’s body. He laid the stiff miller on the table in the hall where Hubert had so often boasted of his greatness.

***

Father Odoric administered the rites of extreme unction, and Corba hired two village women to wash the body and wrap it in a linen shroud. She never wanted to think of Hubert again, and would have happily left him outside to rot by the woodpile except for the shame such an act would bring to her daughter. To further avoid dishonor, Corba and Wido told the villagers that Hubert’s delight in his son had been too much for him to bear, and he had died peacefully at home.

***

The proud miller’s funeral was attended only by Wido, Father Odoric, and Josson, Hector’s representative from the castle. “It breaks my heart to see that Hubert, the great friend of Perceval, has only the steward’s steward to bid him farewell,” Wido said, clapping young Josson’s back with undisguised delight. “The depth of Perceval’s true love for Hubert is finally revealed.”

Josson smiled uneasily. “My lord Hector is busy with the accounts, and unable to come,” he explained. “But he does send his esteem.”

Wido’s face sobered. “There is no esteem for Hubert here,” he answered. “The man was a thief, substituting bad flour for good grain, and taking more than his due. you will find little love for him in the village.”

“But much envy,” Josson answered, looking down at the ground. “For he had a beautiful wife, the favor of Perceval--”

“That favor does him little good now, eh?” Wido answered. He nodded toward the priest. “And the beautiful wife, my daughter, is better off now. Her husband will do her more good dead than alive.”

“He was not worthy of her,” Josson whispered, his eyes fixed on the shrouded form in the pine coffin. “But yet she gave him a son. It is more than he deserved.”

 
“Aye,” Wido agreed. His eyes shone with curiosity. “Did you know my daughter, young Josson? She lived at the castle many years, you know.”

Josson shook his head. “I saw her from a distance,” he said, his voice edged with regret. “And I felt her pain when she was given in marriage to this brutish man.”

Wido grunted agreeably, then glanced toward the priest. “I suppose it isn’t very Christian to speak ill of the dead, is it, Father?”

Father Odoric smiled. “I heard a riddle the other day-- What’s the boldest thing in the world?”

“I don’t know, Father,” Josson answered. “Tell us.”

The priest smiled. “The miller’s shirt, for it clasps a thief by the throat daily.”

Wido roared with laughter and slapped his leg while the priest looked serenely toward heaven and Josson tried not to smile. When their merriment had passed, Father Odoric pulled forth his prayer book. “Let us bury this man,” he said. “And be done with this business.”

A
fton remembered little of Ambrose’s birth save that there had been two, and Hubert had killed one. When Corba told her that Wilda was nowhere to be found, Afton became convinced that Hubert had killed Wilda, just as he would have slain her had God not struck him down.

But she kept these dark deeds hidden in her heart, not daring to tell even her mother, for fear of spoiling the genuine joy Corba found in her grandson and in Afton’s new situation. Hubert’s death left Afton as manager and co-owner of the mill, a valuable property.

One morning when Corba brought Ambrose to Afton, Afton looked up at her mother and shook her head. “I cannot believe I am finally free,” she whispered, thinking that at last she was rid of Hubert’s brutality and humiliation.

Corba misunderstood, but nodded happily. “Aye, dear daughter. you will owe Lord Perceval one-fifth of your living here, but you do not owe him your life. Such is the blessing of freedom.”

When Afton had fully recovered her strength, she donned her black mourning costume with gratitude, for the simple black tunic represented her emancipation. And on the morning of her childbirth purification ritual, she went to the church door and lifted her heart to God with joyful appreciation, understanding for the first time the relief Lienor had felt when Prince William drowned in the sea.

But I’ll not be troubled by guilt like Lienor
,
she told herself as the priest met her outside the church and made the sign of the cross above her head
. And I’ll not spend my life regretting the comfort of widowhood, for I did not wish Hubert dead.
She closed her eyes submissively while the priest sprinkled her with holy water and recited a psalm.
I was willing to die myself, if that was God’s will, but for the sake of this child God has kept me alive.
She lifted out her hand, caught the end of the priest’s stole, and followed him into the church.

 
“Enter the temple of God, adore the Son of the holy Virgin Mary, who has given you the blessing of motherhood,” Father Odoric chanted as he walked before her.
Motherhood and widowhood
, Afton thought,
twin blessings marred only by the knowledge that Hubert took the life of my daughter before God took him.

As Father Odoric’s prayers wafted to heaven with the sweet smell of incense, Afton looked upon the baby in her arms and whispered a solemn promise: “For the sake of my child, never again will I give myself to a man in love with his own power. I will never again be beaten or bullied by any man.”

***

Hildegard was ordinarily in strict control of her eyes, but she couldn’t resist careful scrutiny of the village girl Trilby engaged as a wet nurse. The girl was broad, big-boned, and rough-mannered, but she held the hungry Agnelet to one plentiful breast while her own baby suckled on the other. “Elfgiva is a healthy girl, and truthful,” Trilby assured her privately, “and you won’t have to worry about any undesirable traits being passed on through her milk, Madame.”

Elfgiva seemed perfectly content in her role, happily nursing the children wherever she pleased while she watched the nuns with a mixture of awe and curiosity. Hildegard felt a strange stirring of envy when she saw the girl with the babies pressed to her breasts, and she quickly averted her glance. “From now on,” Hildegard instructed Trilby, “have her nurse the babies in a private room. The sight of her might distract our sisters from their purpose in prayer.”

Yet it was she, mistress of the convent, who was most distracted. It seemed odd to her that this most innocent of babies could cause her to struggle spiritually, yet daily in her prayers Hildegard fought with the fleshly tendency to adore this child above the One of the Virgin Mary. By a sheer force of will and spiritual strength she resolved that Agnelet’s care would not interfere or weaken her own spiritual life, and after a month of struggle Hildegard began keeping the baby at arm’s length. She regularly checked on Agnelet’s progress, and, aware of the baby’s power, she put her nuns on a rotation schedule so that each nun cared for the baby for only one day each month. Excess devotion to the child had its penalty: the nuns soon discovered that making a great fuss over Agnelet resulted in kitchen duty.

Hildegard had Trilby make discreet inquiries in the village, but apparently no woman had recently given birth who did not have either a baby in her arms or in a hasty grave. Afton, wife of Hubert the miller, had recently born a son, and the wife of a villein plowman had born a daughter who died. In the past two months, no woman had died in childbirth.

The novice Lienor could give no help in solving the mystery of Agnelet’s appearance. Six months before the baby’s arrival Lienor had asked the abbess for permission to maintain a vigil of silence until she took her final vows, as penance for a mortal sin committed long ago. Hildegard had given permission, and Lienor had not uttered a word since. If she had learned anything about the baby on the night she accepted it into the convent, she said nothing.