[Norman Conquest 02] Winter of Discontent (12 page)

“
He’s w
orth every penny of £5 a month,” said Anne. Alan winced at the reminder of the cost, similar to that of buying a manor, but had to admit that due to the trading business conducted by Anne they could more than afford the cost. After all
,
she didn’t quibble about his spending funds to equip and maintain a small army.

*
  *
*
*

Anne had arranged another poetry recital for
Beltane Eve, the night of
30th
April, one of the two times of the year when mortal rules were believed to be suspended and supernatural occurrences were most common. She decorated the Hall in an appropriate manner and had advised the guests that the evening would not be late, as that year the Feast of the
Ascension
fell on the following day. Sunset was due at 7.30
in the evening
and she had arranged for the soiree to commence at 3
in the afternoon
.

Once again she had arranged for half a dozen musicians,
with
flutes, pan
-pipes
, lutes, a tambour and a harp. Osmund would again perform, together with two other poets hired for the occasion. The program would include French, English, Roman and Greek pieces
. M
ost of
these
the
largely
uneducated noble ladies attending would not understand
the poems
, but Anne’s music parties were quickly becoming ‘must go’ social occasions and in
vitations were gladly accepted.

This time Anne had concentrated on a different clique of women to th
ose
invited to her
previous performances
. On this occasion she had invited
Hawise Sourdeval
,
wife of Stephen Count of Brittany
;
Beatrice de Builly
,
wife of Robert Count of Eu
;
Adelize de Tosney
,
wife of William fitzOsbern
;
Heslia Crispin
,
wife of William Malet and, the jewel in the crown of the evening,
King William’s niece
Countess Judith. Alice de Tosney, wife of Roger Bigod and Anne’s close friend was also in attendance, as were several English women of high status, including
Erlina
the wife of Thorkel of Arden
,
and
Aethelu, the wife of
Regenbald
the Chancellor. Of particular note amongst the English ladies was
Adelina of Lancaster, the newly married
bride
of William Peverel
,
who was a Norman and close associate of King William
-
Peverel being half-English himself with an English mother
named
Maud who had been the daughter of the noble Ingelric.

With the exception of Countess Judith
most of
the ladies of the Norman court were not used to fine dining. Usually the ladies stayed at home while their husbands roamed the countryside either fighting or attending on their duke. The noble husbands were used to campaigning and wouldn’t notice if they were served a boiled boot to eat, as long as it was cut up fine and had a sweet-tasting sauce. The fare that Anne had arranged was entirely of a different
dimension
. The guests were met by servants with cups of sweet white wine from the Loire. Mead and
innocuously
-
presented fruit punches, heavily
laced
with white wine, flowed like water. Exotic finger
-
food was presented-
savory
pastries, candied ginger and orange, dried fruit and nuts
; q
uiches, m
ushroom pastries, truffles, pate
s
and
individual Lorenz pies.

The musicians played quietly as the ladies chatted and become quickly more
voluble
as the alcohol took effect.
When the
recital
began each of the performers presented an item
in turn
as the ladies sat quietly on the chairs provided.

After the initial set of performances the main course
of the meal
w
as
served at a side
-
table, the ladies helping themselves to servings on small wooden platters. Bourbelier of wild pig
;
braised stuffed quail in
white
wine sauce
;
pork
tarts
with saffron
;
Picadinho de Carne de Vaca
;
Egredouncye
;
cold sage chicken portions
,
and other items.

T
he main bracket of poetry, lasting well over an hour,
was
followed by individual singing performances by several of the ladies
,
accompanied by
the musicians
,
the singers
including Anne and Alice de Tosny, who both had excellent voices. Two of the other ladies rose to stand by the musicians and after a brief discussion on music and tempos cast their inhibitions aside and let their voices soar.

Des
s
ert was presented, made of various sugared pastries
,
individual fruit pies with cream and fried sweet
items such as apple frictella, l
osenges fryes and cryspes. Then the, in the main slightly tipsy, ladies rose and took their leave to be home before dark - after all it was Beltane Eve and nobody wanted to be out after dark when the spirits were at large. Their escorts were hurriedly summoned from a nearby tavern where they had spent the evening
,
and the ladies perambulated home.

Still dressed in her finery Anne walked into the Solar, where Alan had spent the evening at first by the light from the glass-paned window and currently by candle-light. Anne insisted that her functions were female only get-to-know-you sessions where she could meet and build relationships with the important women at
court
,
and the only men
present
were amongst the servants and performers. The ladies seemed to like the relaxed atmosphere and freedom from the masculine supervision of their husbands.

“Good party?” asked Alan, looking up from the book he had been studying. An empty platter at his elbow held the remains of some of the same food that the guests had eaten earlier and the wine jug was half-empty.

“Yes, thank you,” replied Anne. “A nice group of ladies, although in the main somewhat elderly,” said the eighteen year old, referring to ladies in their thirties. “There are some very astute women amongst them. Only a handful can read or write, of course, so the finer nuances of the poetry are beyond
many of
them, but they enjoyed themselves and at least could pretend to understand what was being said. What are you reading?”

“A medical book
, p
art of the Hippocratic Corpus. This volume is
Of Regimen
and of Dreams.
B
rother Leanian, the librarian at Colchester
Priory
,
sent it to me shortly before we left Thorrington. It’s one of the books I found at Gloucester Abbey.” Alan sighed and closed the slim leather-bound volume. “I really have my doubts that disease is caused by the disruption of the blood causing humors in the body, or at least that the medicines and regimens recommended have any effect. Most of the volumes deal with practical matters such as how to reduce a broken bone, surgery, eye diseases and so on. Those are invaluable. As to the others, I don’t know. Brother Anselm, the infirmarer when I was at Rouen Abbey, had spent time with the Moors
whilst
a captive. They, or at least some of them, apparently believe that the body is sometimes affected by something from outside.”

“Like being taken over by an evil spirit?” asked Anne with interest.

“Not really, but I’ve never studied their books, or even had them explained to me. I can’t read Arabic anyway. It makes
some
sense, because we
do
know that a dirty wound will fester and a clean one may not, so outside influences do exist.”

The next day was
Ascension
Day and Alan’s whole household walked into the city to attend Mass at St Paul’s Cathedral at Terce rather than attending at the small local church
of Church of St Edmund the King and Martyr, the latter of which was located outside the walls of Newgate and very close to the house owned by Alan and Anne. The huge stone-flagged nave was packed with the town’s citizens and Alan presumed that the many other churches in the town would be similarly crowded. The nobles were
in the main
attending at the service at Westminster Abbey with the king and his wife, who at the moment was still only a duchess. The service at St Paul’s was, other than the homily, conducted in Latin, and so was unintelligible to most of the congregation. Still
,
they could appreciate the singing, the
pageantry
and aura of holiness
-
and what you can’t understand is all the more impressive for m
any
people. Bishop William himself presided over the service with several Canons doing most of the work. He noticed Alan at the altar when he was receiving the Host and gave him a baleful look.

Alan
had come to enjoy
his trips to London as they were something of a holiday from the duties that usually beset him, running his manors, training soldiers and dispensing justice in the Hundred
- although he disliked the squalor and overcrowding of the city
. It was a pity that looking over his shoulder for an assa
s
sin took the edge off his enjoyment. Still Alan was content to spend time quietly at home, in the Abbey
l
ibrary or wandering the city
and
enjoying its bustling nature, the range of arts and cra
fts represented by the various g
uilds and the incredi
ble variety of goods available.

Anne’s advancing pregnancy
somewhat
restricted the shopping trips that she so loved
,
but meant that she had ample time to deal with the trading and shipping business she ran. The
goods that had been in the warehouse in Fish Street on their last visit were long gone- sold, replaced and sold again. Her small fleet had begun to ply the seas for the season in early April after the spring storms had abated. At the moment the
Zeelandt
,
captained by
the Norwegian
Bjorn, a
n elderly
red
-bearded man of immense experience, courage and good-humor, was sitting at the
London
docks unloading its cargo of fine Bordeaux wine. On its return trip it would carry ingots of copper and tin from the mine in Devon now partly owned by Anne, barrels of whale oil and salted or dried fish from Norway, barrels of Stockholm tar and b
ales of English cloth and wool.
The goods from Norway and the Baltic had been brought south by another of Anne’s ships, the
Birgitta
.

Of the other ships
in the small fleet
,
Birgitta
traded with the Baltic and Norway, exchanging cloth and wool for
preserved
fish, whale oil and tar.
Stormsvale
plied back and forth between Haarlem, Ipswich and London, trading the other items
in the inventory
for dyes, fine lace and a variety of other continental goods. Apart from exchanging goods, each voyage also resulted in a profit of close to fifty percent. Anne was enjoying the additional time and the convenience of not running a manor ‘in the middle of nowhere’ and using this to best effect to have he
r
business run like a machine. She’d taken the opportunity to employ as her business manager Jacob the Jew, formerly employed in Malachi’s business, and spent long hours with him at the office in the Fish Street warehouse
attending to
the books of account and establishing lines of credit for the transfer of funds. She’d made it clear that she expected to see him each Quarter Day for a full accounting
, either at London or at Thorrington
.

Sunday dawned warm and clear
and the days were now
becoming
longer
,
with sunrise at half past four in the morning and sunset at half-past seven in the evening, giving nearly fourteen hours of sunlight. Alan had hired a punt to take them upriver for a pleasure cruise, just the two of them and the poleman. Being Sunday, they attended at the
early morning
service at the local Church of St Edmund at Prime and
then
departed from the stone steps by the river bank at Queenhithe about two hours later. They were leisurely polled upriver past Baynard’s Castle, located in the south-west of the city precinct, then past Westminster and into the relative quiet of the river beyond. Chelsea and Battersea passed slowly
by
. The river was flowing quite strongly and even close to the bank th
e boatman had to exert himself.