The Winter Mantle (28 page)

A spectacular tantrum ensued. Helisende looked on admiringly while Matilda ignored the shrieks completely, save to increase her concentration in the burying of the apple core.

'Now water,' she said. While Sybille's back was turned and her fingers busy separating Jude's mouth from the soil she had managed to put in it, Matilda ran over to the well. A heavy wooden lid was held fast to the opening by an iron draw bar. Matilda scowled at the decorative wrought iron bands securing the oak sections and put her hands on her hips. The gesture was an unconscious imitation of Sybille, whom Matilda regarded as her mother. Her true mother was a distant, frowning person who seldom smiled and in whose presence the little girl felt distinctly uneasy.
Her
hands were always clasped in an attitude of prayer. She was always speaking about something called 'duty', and seemed to think that Matilda should know what 'duty' was. Something not very nice, the little girl had decided.

Since the well covering simply would not budge and she needed the water, she looked around for Edwin the gardener or one of the other men who tended the herb and wort beds. Then her eyes lit on someone even better.

'Papa!' Her feet flew on the path and she launched herself at the large man coming towards her from the wattle gate in the garden's side entrance.

He swung her up in his arms and whirled her around until she squealed with delight. Clinging fiercely to his neck, she nuzzled her cheek against the wiry softness of his golden beard.

'What are you doing out here alone, chicken?' he asked. He spoke in English, and she answered him in the same tongue -something else of which her mother disapproved. Norman was the language of somewhere called the 'court' and nobody there ever spoke English.

'I'm not alone,' she said. 'I'm with Sybille. I want to plant a tree to make apples, but I have to water it.' She pointed to the well cover. 'It's stuck.'

'For a good reason. Someone your size might trip and fall down the well.'

Setting Matilda on her feet, he went to the cover. She watched the strong surge of his muscles as he drew back with ease the bolt that she had been unable to move. Her papa could do anything! He slid the heavy wooden disc aside and pulled on the hemp rope to draw up the wooden bucket from the depths. Matilda peered over the edge into the hole. He watched her with amusement and pressed her gently away when she began to crane too far.

'Here,' he said, and pressed half a silver penny into her hand. 'Throw it to the water elf.'

She looked at him huge-eyed. Sybille often told her stories about the elves and spirits that occupied their world but were seldom seen. Her mother would scold and say that such tales were un-Christian and not true, but that didn't stop Sybille telling them when Lady Judith was not around.

'Is there really an elf?' she demanded.

Her father nodded, seriously. 'Oh yes,' he said. 'And occasionally he has to be paid in silver to keep the water sweet. But he is very shy. He will not come out while the cover is off.'

Enchanted, Matilda tossed the coin. It clinked on the clay and wattle lining of the well, bounced off, and plinked into the black water far below.

Her father nodded approval, smile lines crinkling around his eyes. 'So,' he said, 'where's this tree of yours?'

Solemnly, her little hand engulfed in his huge paw, she took him to the place where she had buried the apple core. Sybille came running towards them with her other two charges in tow. The maid scolded Matilda for running off and Waltheof greeted little Judith and Helisende. However, as if realising Matilda's need, he curtailed both greeting and scolding with a smile and a word, and gave his attention to the moist churn of soil by his boot.

Crouching, he scooped a handful of water and carefully trickled it over the spot where the core was buried. 'Saint Fiacre of the Holy Furrow, I entreat your guardianship of this seed,' he intoned. 'May it grow into a mature tree as my daughter grows, tall and strong, and bearing many branches of fruit… amen.' He crossed himself and Matilda did her best to imitate his gesture before sprinkling her own palmful of water over the patch of soil. She might not yet be three years old but she felt the solemnity of the occasion and knew that something greater than the planting of an apple core had just taken place.

From that moment forth Matilda took to planting seeds with a vengeance. Figs and raisins disappeared off the dining trestle to be buried under mounds of earth, as did costly almonds and peppercorns. She would accompany Edwin the gardener on his rounds, and talk to the elf in the well. She also prayed regularly for her tree and watched anxiously for the first shoots to appear.

'You are as bad as Sybille,' Judith snapped at Waltheof, 'telling her all that nonsense about "elves in the well".' Her tone was hard and disparaging. 'What kind of Christian example is that to set to your daughters?'

'Did you have no sense of fun or imagination as a child?' Waltheof countered, then shook his head and sighed. 'No, I
do not suppose that you did - or else that it was "dutied" out of you while you were still very little.'

'It is all nonsense.' She folded her mouth inwards.

Waltheof raised his eyes heavenwards and, without a word, went to the window embrasure to gaze out on the soft glow of a late summer evening.

She looked at his turned back, his forearm braced against the wall, his fist clenched. Lately the gulf between them had grown wider. He seemed to go out of his way to irritate her. She could not bear his ebullient personality, the way he clapped folk on the back whether they were noble or peasant. It was inappropriate to both. His drinking, his loud laughter and childish sense of humour, the way he took nothing seriously and seemed unable to concentrate on any task for long enough to see it through: all of these traits annoyed her to the point of screaming. But looking at him now, quiet, brooding, she could feel his masculinity and her body responded as it had done the first time she set eyes upon him. And when they were in bed, he knew how to make her scream too.

Waltheof sighed and paced back into the room, then crouched at her feet and took her hands in his. 'I don't want to quarrel with you,' he said softly.

Judith swallowed. 'Nor I with you,' she unfolded enough to admit.

He grimaced. 'There are worse things in this world than elves, believe me.'

They went to bed and made love. She muffled her pleasure against his wide, straining shoulder and dug her nails into the smooth, flexing muscles of his back. As usual he pushed her beyond reticence and for a blinding moment she did not care. Then self-awareness returned and she scuttled back into her shell, feeling slightly ashamed.

He withdrew and rolled over on his back, breathing harshly.

'What did you mean about worse things in this world than elves?' she asked after a moment.

Waltheof turned his head on the bolster. "I meant trolls such as Picot de Saye and the other sheriffs of my counties. This morning Tigwald the currier came to me with a complaint that Picot de Saye had misappropriated a cowhide and three goatskins to his own use.' Waltheof bared his teeth. 'He comes to the market place with his soldiers and he seizes what he wants. If my people protest, they are thrown in gaol or beaten. He's not a sheriff, he's a common thief.'

'Is there nothing you can do?'

Waltheof snorted impatiently. 'Picot de Saye has been appointed by your uncle. I have complained to William on several occasions but without joy. It seems that a common thief is tolerated when he is a tough and brutal soldier into the bargain. I have spoken to Picot myself, but to no avail.' His lips curved in an arid smile. 'I could, of course, take my axe to them, as I took it to their fellows in York, but even I can see the consequences of such an action, and my poor people would be made to pay the price in silver and blood, although what they are paying now is scarcely less.'

Judith said nothing. She knew that De Saye was acting beyond his jurisdiction and that Waltheof's complaint was justified, but she misliked the bitterness in his voice. How easily it could spill out to encompass all Normans. Against her will, she felt defensive.

'I have compensated Tigwald from my own coffers for the price of his hides,' he said, 'but compensation is not justice and I cannot afford to pay everyone from whom De Saye steals.'

'Perhaps you should have complained to my uncle with more vigour,' she suggested.

Waltheof laughed bitterly. 'He would not listen. Picot de Saye is his most trusted servant, and he would see me as a troublemaker. No, he has me where he desires. Earl of Northumbria, Northampton and Huntingdon - mighty titles brought to nothing by the power of his sheriffs.' He punched the bolster.

Judith bit her lip. 'He would listen to you if you made a good enough case.'

'So you think my case not good enough?'

'You are too soft,' she said. 'You melt from argument into anger without standing your ground, and your reasoning comes from the heart not the head.'

'What is wrong with that?' he snapped defiantly.

'Nothing,' she said, 'but my uncle is a man who reasons with his head. He has little time for matters of the heart - as well you should know by now.'

'And God forbid I should ever follow that path.' Waltheof rose from the bed and, drawing on his shirt, padded beyond the hangings that separated their bedchamber from the rest of the long room to look down at his sleeping daughters.

'Innocence,' he said softly. 'What price innocence?'

From the bed Judith watched him. Her appetite sated, she felt only weariness now. A chill draught from the half-open shutters made her shiver and pull the fur coverlet up around her shoulders. 'A price you cannot afford,' she responded in a murmur that disappeared on the air of her breath. He looked around as if he had heard her, but she knew that it was impossible.

Judith laid her hand to her belly. Her flux was a week late, but it had been so on several occasions and she attached small significance to the fact. Perhaps a son would change him, she thought, give that extra bite of iron to his character. Or perhaps he was only capable of siring girls because of the softness at his core. Whatever. She knew that when the time came to choose husbands for their daughters she would be exacting in her selection, and tenderness of manner would not be a consideration.

For Matilda's third year day, Waltheof gave her a pony, bought on his northern lands from a Lothian horse trader. The little beast was little bigger than a large hunting dog, with a shaggy black mane and tail and a hide that was the same golden colour as the sands stretching along the shore by the great keep at Bamburgh. Tiny little bells were stitched around the edges of the red saddlecloth, and the buckles on the bridle were decorated with a pattern of thistles.

Matilda could not believe her eyes. It was love at first sight. She hugged her father, who laughed and swept her up in his arms to receive two smacking kisses. Even her mother wore a smile on her usually severe features. Learning to ride was apparently an important part of becoming a lady.

'She is yours to name,' Waltheof said as he set her down and brought her to the pony. It extended its nose towards her and she felt the sweet gust of its hay-scented breath in her face. Her father produced a crust of bread and placed it in her hand. Steadying and guiding her movements with his own, he offered it to the little mare. She lipped the bread off Matilda's palm with great gentleness, but devoured it greedily and looked for more.