An Honourable Estate (4 page)

She sighed and turned over.  It was still early and she
could sleep for another hour.  But sleep wouldn’t come again as she turned
restlessly and at last she pushed the covers back and quietly pulled her
chemise over her head, pushing her arms into the short, wide sleeves as it
dropped over her thin body.  It was no wonder she was still not able to
give William the son he craved she thought.  The food she ate was barely
enough to sustain one life never mind two and there had been no babies born in
the village at all that summer.  No new lives to heal the hurt of the ones
that had been lost.

She put on her summer tunic and her soft indoor shoes that
were becoming worn under the soles.  She would need new ones soon, but so
would the girls and their needs as always would precede hers.  She
fastened the clasp on her jewelled belt and hooked on the keys and the seal
that she always kept about her.  The morning was already oppressive and
even without expending any effort she felt the sweat soaking through her linen
as she walked into the hall. 

The kitchen boys and Edith were already up and their
mattresses were neatly rolled away.  Calab, the wolfhound, opened his eyes
for a moment and feebly wagged his tail as she went around opening the
shutters.  The thunder clouds were already gathering on the horizon and a
steady drizzle fell onto the saturated yard outside, adding to the
quagmire.  Mabel took a few breaths, trying to find some relief from the
cloying dampness.  Instead it made her cough and then she heard Bella
calling for her.

“Where’s Papa?” she asked, standing in the doorway.

“He had to go out early,” lied Mabel, not wanting to tell
their daughter that her father had not come home.  Mabel just prayed that
he was safe and that no harm had come to him.  Adam Banastre was a fool
and she wished that William was not so friendly with him.  Although
drunken escapades were one thing, rebellion was entirely different.

“May I have a drink?” asked Bella and Mabel shook off her
concerns and looked once more at the little girl.  At eight years old she
looked much younger and was so thin that Mabel could have counted every rib on
her scrawny little body.  She worried that the children did not have
enough to eat.  She was terrified that they would become ill.

It had only been the day before that she had sat and watched
another child die.  A boy this time.  The only son of another of
 her villagers; his father Thomas had wept great shuddering tears as the
child lay still and neither Mabel nor Father Gilbert, her chaplain, had been
able to console him.  And all the while his wife had sat in disbelief and
held her son’s hand as if she could will the life back into him.

“Of course,” said Mabel in answer to her daughter’s
request.  “But there is only small ale.  We have no milk.” 

Sitting down at the table she poured the pale liquid into a
cup and watched as Bella drank thirstily.  She took some of the oatcakes
that the cook had carried in from the kitchen and put two on the child’s
platter, and only one on her own.

“Why has Papa not taken Calab?” asked Bella as she chewed at
the bread.  Mabel looked down at the dog, still stretched out by the grey
ashes of the hearth.  He was thin too; his coat was dull and coarse.

“I don’t know,” she replied.  “I’m not sure where he has
gone.”

When Edith came to clear away the cups and platters she
expressed surprise that Mabel did not know her husband had returned to Haigh
late the previous night.

“Sir William knocked on everyone’s door,” she told
Mabel.  “He wanted men who would ride with him...”  The girl paused
and watched Mabel’s face.  “Did you not know?” she asked curiously.

“I did not know he had returned so late.  He must not
have wanted to waken me,” she replied, as if her husband’s actions had been the
most natural thing in the world.  But she saw the shadow of doubt cross
Edith’s face, doubt and a slight fear.

“My father went with him,” she said.  “What is it all
about, my lady?” she asked as she pushed a stray wisp of her dark hair back
under her cap.

“Oh... something to do with the sheep I think,” replied
Mabel, knowing it was a poor lie even as it passed her lips.  Edith met
her eyes momentarily then nodded briefly.  Mabel could see that the girl
was as puzzled and worried as she was herself.  “I think we need to brew
more ale... if there is enough grain...” said Mabel, to fill the awkward
silence.

“My lady?  What will happen at Michaelmas when we have
to pay our rent?  What will happen to those who don’t have enough?”

Mabel looked again at the emaciated girl.  At eighteen
years old her young face was etched with tiredness, hunger and worry.  She
should have been laughing and dancing and dreaming of love and a young husband,
thought Mabel, not agonizing about demands for grain that her family simply
could not supply. 

“I don’t know,” replied Mabel honestly.   “But I’m
sure that Sir William will not punish anyone who really cannot pay,” she
reassured her, deciding that she must discover for herself just how much they
could realistically expect to take from their tenants that quarter.

Darkness
had fallen.  Mabel had seen the children to their beds, had checked the
door and the fires and was reluctantly going to the bedchamber herself when she
heard the gentle tapping.

“Who’s there?” she called as she stood with her candle in one
hand and the other on the heavy wooden beam that secured the outer door at
night.  Her heartbeat was racing as a hundred and one possibilities ran
through her mind.  But Calab came wagging his tail and whining and, she
thought, he would surely have barked had he scented a stranger.

“It’s me.”  

At her husband’s hushed voice Mabel put down the candle and
pulled up the beam, cursing it as it squealed against the door and she heard
Amelia cough in the bedchamber.  Opening the door just wide enough for
William to slip through she watched as he quickly secured it behind him. 
He was breathing hard and when she raised the candle she could see his face
looked ashen.

“What has happened?” she asked, half worried and half angry
that he had not listened to her advice and had gone off with Adam
Banastre.  William hesitated, his eyes flickering over hers yet not able
to meet her gaze.  Mabel knew that it was something he didn’t want to tell
her.  “Well?” she asked again.

“Some of Adam’s men got out of control.  They have
killed Henry Bury,” he admitted and as he looked down at his hands Mabel saw
they were stained with what looked like blood.

“Dear God!” she exclaimed.  “I knew no good would come
of this.  Were you involved?”

“Of course not!”  He looked down at his hands
again.  “Adam and I arrived after it happened.  We moved the body
inside... I must wash them,” he said reaching for the candle.  Mabel
followed him into the kitchen where he poured a basin of water from the large
stone pitcher on the floor and plunged his hands into the cold water, rubbing
them together as if he could wash away not only the blood but the memory of
what had happened.  “The men are volatile,” he began, trying to explain to
her.  “It isn’t just the hunger.  They’ve all spent so long fighting
the Scots that they miss the excitement.  They’ve become inured to death...”

“And you William?  What about you?  Does a man’s
life mean nothing to you either?”

“Of course it does!” he snapped back, angrily.  “It is
the loss of men’s lives that has driven me to this.  Of course I regret
this murder, but I wasn’t about to stand there and wait for the sheriff’s men
to come and find me with blood on my hands!”  He reached past her for a
cloth and dried his fingers carefully as she watched him.  The candle
flickered between them on the kitchen table in a sudden draught.

“What will you do?” she asked.

“Lay low for a while.  Keep quiet.”  He paused and
then looked at her steadily.  “You will say that I was here?”

“You would have me lie for you?”

“Would you prefer to see me hanged?” he demanded, bundling
the cloth into a ball and throwing it to the floor with force.

“No,” she replied.  “I will say that you were here all
day and all night and I daresay the wives of the men who went with you will say
the same.”  She paused.  “You say it was Banastre’s men?”

“Yes.  It was no one from Haigh,” he reassured her.

Mabel shook her head.  “It is a mess.  I wish you
had not involved yourself with this, William.  Promise me that you will
keep away from Adam Banastre in the future.”  He stayed silent and she
followed his gaze to his hand and noticed the raw cut across his palm. 

“I cannot promise that, Mab,” he said.  “I swore an
oath...” 

Without answering she picked up the candle and went to the
bedchamber, leaving him alone in the dark.  A while later she heard him
come in but when he lay down beside her she kept still and didn’t speak. 
She was too angry to trust herself to say anything more to him.

The
next day Mabel was still angry with William.  She thought that he should
have stayed at home and tried to help their own tenants, rather than encouraging
them to ride around the countryside committing murders and mayhem. 

“It will soon be Michaelmas and the rents and taxes must be
paid,” she reminded him.  “No talk of rebellion will keep Holland’s
bailiff from our door.  I have made an inventory,” said Mabel, laying out
the parchment with her neat writing on the table in front of William. 
“There are some families who cannot pay their dues to us.  Mistress Webb
whose husband was killed fighting for you at Bannockburn has struggled. 
She barely has enough to sow seed never mind feed herself and her children over
the winter months.  And the Rolfes lost all their harvest when the land
they work was flooded.  Mistress Bennett used to make some money selling
her cheese at market, but since their cow drowned in the swollen river she has
been unable to do that – and the wool spun from the sheep is only half what it
was last year.”  Mabel paused with her finger still on the parchment where
she had been directing William’s attention to the hardships of their
villagers.  “We cannot demand the dues,” she said.  “People will die
if we take from them what little they have left.”

She watched as William studied her list.  After a moment
he sighed and pushed it from him as if that would take away the stark
truth.  “But I doubt we will receive the same consideration from Holland,”
he remarked.

“William...”

“I know.” He held up a hand as if in defeat.  “I need no
more sermons from you Mab.  You are right, of course.  I have no
intention of demanding what the villagers cannot pay, but we will still have to
pay our taxes when Holland’s man comes.”

“But we have the money?” she asked.

“Yes, we have the money for this quarter.  But if things
do not improve I don’t know what will happen at the next quarterday or the one
after.  Once the money and what little grain we have is gone, there will
be no way to replace it, then we will be as destitute as the poorest vassal.”

Mabel watched the steady rain that was still falling beyond
the window.  All through the springtime she had looked forward to a better
summer than the last.  She had waited for the warm dry days to come and
lift her spirits, but without any change in the weather the summer had come and
gone unnoticed.  The days were becoming darker again and the nights
colder.  God had sent no summer again and she wondered what sins had been
committed that they should all have been so punished.

“Have you the key to the coffer?” asked William.  “I will
go to count out what we owe ready for tomorrow.”  Mabel unhooked the iron
key from the belt that circled her waist and watched as he went into the
bedchamber where they kept their heavy oak coffer with its valuable contents at
the foot of their bed for safety.  She listened to the chink of the
coinage as he took out what would have to be paid to Holland’s bailiff the next
day, hoping that there would be enough left to buy leather for new boots and
some thick woollen cloth to sew warm cloaks for the girls.

It was still early when the bailiff arrived.  He was a
surly man, dressed in a hood and mantle that were both darkened by the drizzle,
who appeared to resent having to leave his comfortable hearth.  He rode a
well fed black stallion and was accompanied by around a half a dozen armed
henchmen who looked as if they expected trouble.

Both Bella and Amelia looked alarmed as this stranger stomped
into the hall.  The dogs appeared to cower and even Calab only gave a
half-hearted growl at the sight of him.

“Go to help Edith in the kitchen,” said Mabel, ushering her
little daughters towards the door.  “I think she intends to preserve some
fruit today and I daresay she would welcome your help.”

The man sat down uninvited in William’s chair, took off the
hood to reveal an almost entirely bald head, and pushed the wet cloak from his
shoulders.  Then he pulled a roll of parchment from the large pouch
fastened onto his leather belt and consulted it closely.  In the tense
silence Mabel watched her husband as he stood on the far side of the hearth,
only his restless hands betraying his annoyance at the intrusion.