North Yorkshire Folk Tales (21 page)

Immediately the knight is shaken with a bout of coughing and spluttering.

Alice looks worried and brings him a cup of water. ‘Is my fortune so very dreadful?’ she asks. The knight gets some sort of grip on himself.

‘No, it’s wonderful.You’ll marry a nice young fisherman and have fourteen children. Must go feast. Goodbye!’

Then he jumps on his horse and gallops away, followed by his rather confused friends.

They have not gone far along the river before the knight thinks better of his action. A cunning plan is beginning to form itself in his mind.

‘Damn me if I haven’t left the fish behind!’ he tells his friends. ‘You go on to York Castle and I’ll catch up with you in a minute.’ Then he rides back to the cottage. The girl comes rushing out. ‘My lord, you forgot your fish!’ she cries, holding up a large parcel.

‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ he says, smiling kindly. ‘Do you know, I’m so busy worrying about a problem I have that I’ll forget my own head next!’

‘What problem’s that?’ says Alice, who is a very kind, sympathetic sort of girl.

‘Well, I have to get an urgent message to my brother in Scarborough Castle and I don’t seem to be able to find anyone to take it for me. I don’t suppose you know of anyone?’ He smiles even more kindly.

Alice thinks for a moment. ‘Scarborough Castle is an awful long way away,’ she says, ‘but I suppose I could take it, when my father comes back. It’d take me more than a day to get there, though.’

‘Would you? Would you really? How very sweet you are! Don’t worry about money for your journey. Look! Here’s a gold noble for food and lodging.’ And almost before she realises that she’s agreed to go, Alice is watching the knight sitting at her father’s table writing a letter. He seals it with his ring and gives it to her. ‘Now you really mustn’t read it.’ he says, laughing.

‘Oh, that’s all right. I can’t read,’ she replies.

‘Good! Good! Give it into the hand of my brother Sir William as soon as you can. Well, I must go off with the fish before the fish goes off by itself!’ He laughs heartily and rides away as quickly as he can.

Alice’s father is impressed by the gold noble. ‘You’ll never need all that. Don’t forget to bring the change back with you,’ he says as he waves her goodbye with a fishy hand.

Alice is a good walker and enjoys being able to stroll along the highway without any work to do, for though her parents are kind folk, they are not rich and she still has to work hard cleaning fish or carrying them to market.

A kindly carter gives her a lift for a bit of the way, but night draws near long before she gets to Scarborough. Alice looks around for an inn, feeling very excited for she has never had any money of her own to spend before. At last she comes to a small inn and enters hesitantly. Fortunately for Alice the innkeeper’s wife takes to her immediately. Realising that the pretty girl is very young and inexperienced, she does not charge her more than twice the usual price for her supper and bed. Alice goes to sleep in a fairly clean bed in a nice room. She feels very grand but leaves her candle alight just in case. (After all, it is the first time she has been away from home on her own.)

In the middle of the night, something strange happens. The window catch rattles a little and then the window slowly opens and a burglar creeps in. He jumps silently down onto the floor and looks around in the dim candlelight. What’s this? No luggage? Isn’t this one of the best rooms? He is very disappointed. No, there is nothing except a pretty girl asleep in the bed. She does not even have a pack. There is a letter on the table. The burglar picks it up and shakes it. No money inside. However, he sees that it is addressed to Sir William of Scarborough Castle. Intrigued, he carefully peels the seal up without breaking it and reads the contents. His jaw drops.

‘Dear brother, as soon as you get this letter please kill the bearer. See you next week. Yr affectionate brother, John Kt of Yrk.’

The burglar is shocked. ‘What a horrible trick to play on such a pretty girl!’ he thinks. ‘What a bastard John Kt of Yrk must be! Hmm. I’ll settle his hash for him!’

Very carefully the burglar scrapes a word from the letter with his knife and inserts a few. Smiling, he warms the seal over the bedroom candle and sticks it down again. Then, with a pleasant feeling of having down something good for a change, the burglar slips out of the window and is gone into the night.

In the morning, Alice sets out for Scarborough again and by the evening has arrived. It is a steep climb up to the castle and she is tired, but eventually she finds herself standing before the great doors. The guard on duty takes one look at the address on the letter and allows her to enter. He takes the letter from her, telling her to wait for his master. Time goes by. Alice sits on a mounting block by the gate, waiting. Suddenly there is a great bustle and a man who looks very like the Knight of York comes rushing down some stairs and, taking her by both hands gives her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Welcome!’ he says. ‘It’s a bit of a surprise, I must say. Never thought old John was such a romantic, but you are a pretty girl and I suppose he thinks it is better for his son to be happy rather than rich. Come and meet him.’

Not daring to speak, Alice is hustled upstairs to where a handsome young man is standing. He looks as confused as Alice.

‘I know it’s sudden, but she’s much better looking than that rich old dowager he was thinking of for you, lad.’

‘What?’ stammers the young man. His uncle waves the letter under his nose.

‘It’s all here in black and white! Listen, I’ll read it! “Dear brother, as soon as you get this letter please marry the bearer to my son.” It couldn’t be clearer and you know how angry he’ll get if we don’t do exactly what he says! He’ll be here next week. Call the priest!’

And so, before either of them can do anything other than exchange helpless glances, Alice and the Knight of York’s son, Gregor, are married to each other.

Sudden the marriage may be, but it seems to be successful. Gregor and Alice take to each other straight away and spend the first week of their marriage very happily. Alice loves not having to gut fish and Gregor is very relieved not to be married to an aged dowager.

The following Saturday as they are sitting in a window embrasure merrily cheating each other at chess they hear a great blowing of horns and the sound of many hooves. Servants start running about all over the place. It is the Knight of York.

Sir William fondly embraces his brother but is somewhat surprised when he whispers in his ear, ‘Did you get my letter?’

‘’Course I did!’ says Sir William. ‘Delighted to do what you wanted!’

Sir John glances around in a worried manner. ‘Ssssh!’ he says. ‘Keep your voice down! You did it then?’

‘I did! Great idea! They seem very happy!’

‘What are you babbling about?’

‘Your son and Alice …’

Up in the solar the newly-weds are alarmed to hear the sounds of a very loud angry voice coming their way. They jump to their feet just as the Knight of York bursts in with his sword drawn. Before anyone can do anything, he has seizes Alice by her long hair and drags her down the stairs, shouting for his horse. Gregor runs behind his father, begging him to put the sword down, but as soon as the knight reaches the courtyard he throws Alice over the saddle and leaps up behind her. ‘No son of mine is going to wed a wretched pauper!’ he cries and with that he gallops out of the castle, away down the hill with his horse’s hooves striking sparks from the stones as he goes.

Alice is terrified, but she keeps begging the knight to release her as she has done nothing but what he asked. His only reply is to spur his horse even harder.

When they reach the beach, he flings her from the horse and stands over her with that great sword in his hand. Poor Alice’s lip is bleeding and her hair all tangled. She kneels in the sand and, weeping, begs the knight to let her go. ‘I’ll go away forever!’ she cries. ‘I’ll disappear if only you let me live.’

Despite himself the knight is moved; after all she is very pretty even in this state. He lowers his sword. ‘Forever?’

‘Forever! I swear it!’

Forever is just a word to her, thinks the knight. Let us make sure she knows what it means. He takes a heavy silver ring from his finger. ‘This is what forever means, girl!’ he says throwing the ring into the sea. ‘It means that you swear not to come near me or any one of my family until the day you can show me that very ring on your hand!’

Alice swears, crying bitterly. Then, in a swirl of sand and a thudding of hooves, the knight is gone, leaving her to pick up the pieces of her life alone.

For a while, Alice can think of nothing. She wanders down the beach, weeping. Then, as the day wanes, she realises that she is going to have to make a plan. What is she to do? She cannot go back to her family because she has already sent them a message telling them about her marriage. She does not want them to worry about her and anyway, they live too near the knight. She has a little money left over from that gold noble, but that will not keep her for long. She will have to beg her bread to start with and hope to find work in one of the little villages north of Scarborough. Slowly she begins the long walk through the town into the country.

For many days Alice walks, begging her bread as she goes. Women usually feel sorry for her as she is so young, but she soon learns to hide from men when the sun goes down. Eventually one day she stops at a gentleman’s house to beg and finds out that there is a job going there. It is only as a skivvy, but at least she will have a bed and a roof over her head.

Actually, it turns out better than she could have hoped for, because the family and servants turn out to be kind and easy-going. They like her because she is so quiet and hard-working. Soon the mistress of the house, whose name is also Alice (what did I tell you?) has come to trust her with buying food and even cooking certain meals. At the year’s end her master and mistress give her a pretty new dress.

‘When will a skivvy ever get to wear that?’ she asks the little foot-page sadly as they sit peeling carrots. ‘You never know,’ he says, ‘perhaps on your wedding day!’ He means to cheer her up, so he is shocked to see big tears fall down her cheeks. When he asks her what the matter is, she just shakes her head.

Towards the end of spring, the house is filled with excitement because the master of the house has decided to have a great banquet to celebrate his birthday. He intends to invite all his friends from across Yorkshire. For a fortnight, the house is cleaned from top to bottom and extra servants are hired to help with the cooking. The lady of the house wants, in particular, to have a really good fish dish to impress the guests, she informs Alice. ‘Now, my dear, you told us that you are the daughter of a fishmonger. Do you think you are able to choose and cook a perfect fish for us?’

Alice nods. ‘I knew a special secret recipe of my mother’s. I’m sure it will impress.’

Two days before the birthday, the guests begin to arrive in dribs and drabs. Alice and the other servants keep peering out of the windows to see them arrive in all their finery.

‘Ooo! Look at that gorgeous horse!’ sighs a maid. Alice glances out of the scullery window and there before her is the grey stallion of the Knight of York trotting into the courtyard. She freezes in terror. Surely it cannot be … Yes, there is the knight riding him! And, see! Following behind is a coal-black horse carrying her very own husband. She ducks down out of sight, her heart pounding. How was she to know that the knight was a friend of her master? What is she to do? Her first instinct is to flee, but at that very minute there is a loud banging at the kitchen door and she has to answer it. The jolly red-faced local fishmonger stands there carrying in his two arms a simply enormous fish.

‘Hello love. Thought your mistress might like this for the feast tomorrow,’ he says. ‘It’s a bargain at two shillings!’

For once it seems that the attractive kitchen maid is not going to quibble. She seems distracted and pays up immediately. He thrusts the fish into her arms and leaves before she changes her mind.

When the cook comes in Alice is still standing there. ‘What are you doing with that fish? Teaching it to dance?’ snaps the cook. ‘Get on and clean it, you silly girl!’ Slowly Alice puts it down on the table and begins mechanically to slit open its stomach and pull out its entrails. Can she hide from the knight? Can she get a secret message to her husband? Does he still love her?