Shield of Three Lions

A CLATTERING RUMBLE SHATTERED MY SLEEP.

My pet wolf growled and I opened my eyes.
Benedicite
, dim stars still hung in the blue; owls hooted high in the oak. Tomorrow I would have to rise at this hour, but this morning let me sleep. I pulled my fur pelt over my head.

But the rumble persisted, closer this time, a heavy scaled dragon moving in fits and starts, echoing like rocks rolling on the moat bridge. Then I heard the crack of whips, angry shouts. When the ominous din seemed almost within my chamber, I threw off the pelt and rushed to my window.

Deus juva me!

Under the flickering orange flares of pine torches, half-clad sweating men whipped and cursed my fathers best team of oxen, urging them to scrape our ancient catapult across the court on its rusted belly, the wheels having long since rotted away. Perplexed and frightened together, I watched until I saw my father come from behind. Quickly I slipped my chemise over my naked body and hurried to ask what all this might mean.

Followed by my wolf Lance, I ran barefoot down the stairs into the animal chamber where I slowed my pace to pick my way carefully across the soaked and besmottered rushes piled with night leavings, especially from our new litter of pointer pups. Our mastiff Courage almost knocked me off balance with his toothless greeting while the badger and weasel scurried under a bench and my mothers gaudy parrots screeched raucously. I continued to the courtyard.

There I stopped. The few shouting men had swollen in number in the brief period it had taken me to arrive, many of them huge,
threatening knights mounted on snorting, pacing, wild-eyed war chargers. All were strangers, their greetings shouted in Saxon. Awed, I pulled Lance close against the arch and tried to see my father through the steaming breath and swaying horse bellies.

Instead, on the far side of the court, I glimpsed my mother Catherine as she scurried furtively along the wall on her way to chapel.

“Mother!” I called. “Wait!”

She couldn’t hear, and I watched her enter the door where Father Michael stood. I was so intent upon her that I failed to see a broadsword which lifted one of my braids when a careless knight turned.
Deus juva me
, it could have been my eyes! I decided to go to the kitchen court where I would be safe. There I would ask Dame Margery what was happening, for she would know and she would talk.

As I sidled along the wall, I came upon our steward, John Leggy. Never had I seen him so distraught, his hair hanging in dank ropes, his eyes red-veined.

“Good morrow, John. Have you seen my father?”

He clutched my elbow hard. “Mercy on us, Lady Alix, how did you come here? Get back to your chamber at once.”

“But I want to speak to my father …”

Abruptly he left me to answer a call from our horse keeper.

After a slow, cautious advance along the wall, I finally entered the gate to the kitchen court and paused in relief. Dame Margery and Maisry were stirring a large pot of stew over the firepit and didn’t see me. I noted that Maisry now seemed more a woman than her own mother, for the wench’s breasts strained against her brown homespun like ripe quinces, whereas Margery’s dried cuds dangled near to her waist. Yet the dame had once been full, had fed both Maisry and me when we were babes, making us milk sisters. And I, eleven years old to the day same as Maisry, had the hollow chest-spoon of an eight-year-old boy, even though I drank gillyflower juice every night of my life. Maisry claimed archly that I wouldn’t mature till I “became a woman in another way” but no amount of coaxing would make her say what that “way” might be. ’Twas all most mysterious.

I shouted above the din, “God’s blessings, Dame Margery!”

She raised a worried face. “Alix, ye’ve no call to be out with all these soldiers. Go back at once before I rattle yer teeth.”

“At least I have teeth to rattle,” I replied, stung. “I must see my father.”

Maisry smiled, her squirrel-eyes bright. “I believe Lord William is in the park. Leastways I saw him pass in that direction.”

“And needs no pestering from his spoiled darling,” Dame Margery continued. “Go to, My Lady. Lady Catherine will be worried.”

“My mother sent me to find him,” I lied. “She wants to know why these knights are assembled.”

“I can tell ye well enow,” the dame said darkly. “The Scots are coming.”

“Scots!” I frowned uneasily. “Surely you’re confused. My own father captured the Scottish king at Alnwick and there’s been no trouble since.”

Margery’s eyes glittered and her nose turned bright red. “Confused, am I? When I seen many of these same knights here afore? Aye, much good did they do then, for my own sister Annie were marched away naked in the snow on the tenth of December 1174, fifteen long years ago and ne’er seen from that day to this, poor lass, and Scots swaling and murdering till blood soaked the swaths. It’s the same feel in the air today. If not the Scots, then who?” She blew her nose on her stained apron.

Maisry and I stood dumb as dolls, unable to say who might want to attack Wanthwaite Castle, though soothly the Scots seemed part of a tale long past.

“I s’pose that means we can’t see the pilgrimage either,” Maisry said, crestfallen. “Archie Werwillie were here last night, Alix, and I wish ye could have heard him. They’re going to show an Afercan snake big as a horse at the fair.”

“Deus juva me
, whatever for?”

“To tempt Adam and Eve in the play at the church.”

We stared at one another, entranced by the wonders which lay ahead.