The Innocent (15 page)

Anne knelt down beside Lady Margaret on the cold stone floor and, without waiting to be told, dampened the cloth she had brought, gently starting to sponge away the blood on Aveline’s face. For Lady Margaret it was a profound relief not to have to talk, or answer questions, and she was grateful for Anne’s silent competence.

Aveline was beyond tears as well as speech now. She half lay across Lady Margaret’s lap and her still, pallid face did not change as Anne wiped the blood away and then held the linen firmly against the gash on her forehead.

“Lady Margaret, shall I take Aveline back to the solar? I can change this linen and bind a pad of it to her head. The bleeding will stop very soon.”

Wearily, the older woman nodded assent, and between them, Anne and Margaret lifted Aveline to her feet where she stood swaying slightly, as if her legs were no real support. Anne put an arm around her waist to brace her and Aveline leaned gratefully into her shoulder as the two walked slowly out of the chapel.

In the solar, Aveline lay on her pallet, eyes open but saying nothing. She’d managed to make it back with Anne’s support, but once there she’d collapsed. She was not a stupid girl, but after this morning she realized she had been very naïve. While she knew that Mathew Cuttifer was a just man, he would be most unlikely to accept her as a daughter-in-law: she’d seen that in his face. She and this child were a problem to solve, to square with his conscience and honor, but there’d been no pity for her, only anger at the action of his son. Her best hope for marriage, and a name for this baby, lay with Lady Margaret. She closed her eyes and felt lonelier than at any other time in her life. Determined not to let Anne see her weakness, she turned her face toward the wall and tried to stifle her sobs. Soon exhaustion overcame her and she slept.

Gently, so as not to wake Aveline, Anne spread an extra coverlet over the sleeping girl. In the clear light of late morning she looked very young and vulnerable, the usual guardedness gone, and it was possible to see the little girl she had once been. And Anne was touched when Aveline turned her face and, for a moment, smiled in her sleep, the tension melting away as her brow smoothed out.

For Piers, there was no such blessed relief. Up and down he paced, crossing and recrossing his room, trying to think his way through the situation. What would his father do? Mathew Cuttifer, above all else, feared offending his God, and his father’s morbidly active sense of sin had been a powerful presence as Piers grew up; illicit carnality—possibly because Mathew denied it to himself—filled his father with special horror.

For many years now Piers had managed to avoid marriage and find sexual pleasure secretly on his own terms. It was the only rebellion he had managed against the path his father had so rigidly allotted him as eldest, and only, son of his house.

There’d been two other girls before Aveline, both of them former maids in the household, and he’d congratulated himself on how neatly he’d been able to remove them from his life when the inevitable happened. It was one of the reasons he liked very young virgins: they’d never been a match for him in will or cunning and they always fell in love with him—something he’d encouraged, as it lessened the chances of their sleeping with other men and thereby helped ensure they caught no diseases that could be passed on to him.

Aveline was something else. If he wasn’t so angry and frightened now, he could almost admire the cool way she’d played the only hand she had. He was almost certain that she hadn’t been with anyone else from the time he’d first raped her.

A tentative knock brought him back to the reality of the present. “What?” he spat. After a moment’s hesitation the door eased open and John, his gap-toothed servant, scuttled into the room.

“Sir, your father asks that you join him in his closet.”

A pewter mug, accurately thrown, caught John on the side of the head and the young man gasped and fell to his knees, one hand cupping his ear. He could feel the blood welling up but he said nothing: these moods brought out the worst in his master.

“Oaf! Get out of my sight and tell my father…tell him…”

Perversely, the kneeling boy enraged Piers further. Changing his mind, he strode out of the room, aiming a solid kick at the boy as he passed. “I want this place spotless on my return. Spotless! Hear me, or it will be worse for you.” And then he was gone, the door slamming after him.

John breathed deeply and got up rubbing his back, looking for a rag to stanch the blood from his ear.

He’d clean the chamber—scour it—but not for one moment would he stop thinking of ways to leave the cursed employment of the son of Blessing House.

In his closet, Mathew Cuttifer had been pacing, too, as he listened to what his wife had to say. Lady Margaret sat on a prettily carved backless chair, Roman style, shaped in the form of a graceful X, as she calmly dissected the situation between Piers and Aveline.

“We have looked for a bride for Piers these eight years or more, Mathew, and yet none of the contracts has come to completion. I know that the first girl died and the second took the veil in the end, yet it seems to me a number of quite respectable families have been unwilling to commit their daughters to your son. In another man’s case I would call this bad luck or ill fame—but I wonder now if it is not God’s will?”

Mathew frowned. He could hear the way his wife’s thoughts were trending and he was reluctant to face the implications of what she was saying. Marriage contracts, marriage contracts. They always caused so much grief but, of course, in uncertain times, family alliances were vital weapons in the battle to survive. He’d always planned for his son making a grand match: one that would bring honor and increased substance to his house. But now…

“Mathew?”

He turned to look at Margaret and for a moment was distracted by her beauty, forgetting to answer.

She smiled faintly. “Ah, my dear. I am a lucky woman.”

He sighed deeply. “You believe the child is his?”

“I do, husband. And now you must decide what God would wish us to do.”

Mathew sighed again. Margaret was right, he would have to ask his God. Unwillingly, he knelt at the prie-dieu—could he face what God might have to say to him?

Piers arrived at the door of his father’s closet and stood for a moment before knocking, composing what he wanted to say. He knew his father needed him to help run the business of Blessing House but he was under no illusion that he would not be punished if Mathew decided to accept Aveline’s story.

The question was, what kind of punishment would he have to bear?

The door stood before him, blank, black with age. How many times had he waited, a knot in his stomach, for his father to summon him to the other side? Fear, with an undertone of anger, this was what the door called out of him. He hesitated another moment and struck the door sharply. He was a man, not a child.

Margaret opened the door to her stepson and signaled that he should enter quietly, making him aware that his father was praying. Sullenly, Piers walked over to the brazier and held up his hands to the meager heat, while he waited for his father to finish his prayers.

Spine held straight, Margaret sat and took out the little Book of Hours the king had given her, leafing through carefully to find the prayers suitable for times of trouble. This was most unpleasant for them all and she needed to settle her mind before dealing with what must surely come.

The silence deepened. There was nowhere for Piers to sit and he became increasingly impatient and agitated—how long would his father’s prayers last?

Mathew’s impassive profile was outlined against the winter light of the small-paned window. It had been fully fifteen minutes since his son arrived and, though he was still deep in meditation, the bells from the Abbey were calling him, making him aware that the dialogue with his Savior had ended and he was back in the closet after being…where? Somewhere else, somewhere infused with the Presence…And now, he knew what had to be done. As briskly as he could, allowing for the burning ache in his knees, he got up, nodded to his son in an almost friendly fashion, and walked to his worktable, aware he was feeling strangely calm.

“Piers, I have prayed for guidance in the matter of…Aveline”—strange how she had changed from a servant to a girl worthy of consideration—“and the baby; and I feel that God has guided me toward what must be done.”

Piers felt the sweat gather and slide down his sides, for all that the room was cold.

“It is God’s will that you and this girl should be married. No—” He held up his hand as Piers tried to speak. “I do not pretend that this girl is the bride I would have chosen for you, portionless and a serving maid, but did not Ruth—and Hagar even—prove their worth in the eyes of God, humble women though they were? Our Lord has told me that this child is yours. It is time you faced your responsibilities as its father, and my son.”

Margaret looked from her implacable husband to Piers, his face a fierce red, and even though she approved of the outcome, she felt fearful. Piers was not a boy—even if Mathew treated him like one. It was the fury of a man she saw; a vengeful man.

But Mathew did not see the expression on his son’s face, so intent was he on conveying God’s will.

“This…Aveline and you will sort well together. God has told me that. You are of a kind; she is clever, I believe.” He looked at his wife for affirmation. Margaret nodded. “And she will be a good helpmeet to you; better able to tolerate the hard work of a merchant’s house and its interests than some of the fine young ladies of the court we have dangled for. And besides, I will not have bastards of my house thrown out into the streets as a reproach to me and mine.” Again Piers attempted to speak. “No! You will hear me out!” Mathew continued.

“This is your sin and you must work your penance through. I shall ask your stepmother to convey my wishes to Aveline: you must prepare for your wedding. Tonight, before the household, I shall announce it and we will seek leave to have the mass performed under special license by Father Bartolph.”

Now at last Piers managed to break in, the words forced out through clenched teeth. “Father, I will not wed this slut. How can I be sure the child is mine?”

“Silence! You sacrifice your immortal soul in opposing God’s will! This is my house, I am your earthly father but your greater lies in Heaven. If you attempt to defy me in this, it will be to your eternal shame and damnation. I shall cast you out and raise this child in your place.”

The two men stared at each other and, as usual, Piers was the first to look down. But Margaret was unsettled to see that the expression on the young man’s face was hate, not fear. And suddenly, her vigorous husband looked old—and helpless. Quickly, she stepped into the breach.

“Piers, I suggest that you go about the affairs of this house in your normal manner. After all, there is much to do. We shall speak of this again later, after evening prayers when we are all a little cooler.”

Without a further word, Piers left the room, banging the closet door behind him with a mighty clap, as Mathew slumped into his work chair, exhausted and distressed. Margaret went to him and touched him gently on the arm.

“Now, husband, the worst is over. There will be malicious tongues, but they will soon find something else to rattle over. We must be proud and silent. No explanations.”

Speechless, he nodded without opening his eyes until he felt her soft kiss on his mouth. And then he wrapped his arms around her and was not ashamed to let her see the dismay and uncertainty on his face.

News travels very fast around a great house. Perhaps it was what the priest had hinted at when he had his small beer after Mass in the kitchen; or maybe it was the look on Piers’s face, and the viciousness he visited on the youngest stable boy, that told its own story, but by the time the household was assembled for evening prayers in the chapel at the end of a tumultuous day, each one of them was avid for confirmation of the rumors.

It had been a difficult day for Anne as her friends in the household pleaded for information—even Jassy had unbent sufficiently to question her about what had happened in the chapel. But pity for Aveline and fear of Piers had kept her silent.

For Aveline, the afternoon had been a light-headed blur. And now, when she heard her name called out by Mathew after the evening blessing delivered by Father Bartolph, she rose unsteadily from her seat beside Anne and had trouble putting each foot in front of the other as she walked toward Piers, aware of the greedy glances of the household all around her.

Piers, too, had risen, and was standing beside his father, next to Lady Margaret in front of the altar, his back to the congregation, face remote as stone. As the girl took her place beside Piers and his family, Father Bartolph cleared his throat nervously and would have begun his prayers to mark the betrothal, except that Mathew held up his hand for silence.

“My people, this is a night of celebration in Blessing House. Tonight you see before you my son Piers, and Aveline, chief servitor of your mistress, my wife Lady Margaret. We have decided that this pair shall marry and shortly Father Bartolph will pronounce the necessary prayers to mark this time, and read the banns. And indeed, very soon there will be a marriage here when these two will be joined, man and wife. We ask God’s blessing on their union.”

A buzz ran around the people gathered in the chapel but the stern expression on Mathew’s face quelled it quickly. He looked around for a moment, seeking out evidence of unseemly emotions among his household, then nodded to the priest. Father Bartolph hastily signaled that Aveline and Piers should kneel, and gabbled out a stream of Latin, finding it hard to control his shaking voice.

At the back of the chapel Anne breathed deeply and clenched her hands tightly together in prayer so that the knuckles showed under the skin. This was the moment that should have released her from fear of Piers, so why did she feel such terror, so many dark thoughts? She ducked her head, afraid that those next to her would sense her agitation, and tried to concentrate on what the priest was saying.