The Copper Sign (10 page)

Walter nodded pensively, and Ellen was happy he no longer seemed to be regarding her so facetiously. She looked up into the grey afternoon sky and then viewed the flat, broad expanse of land ahead of them. Extensive deciduous and pine forests alternated with meadows and fields, and in between were thousands of apple trees in bloom. The faded pink petals were wafted away by the warm spring winds and carried off like a sea of snowflakes.
This will be a good place to live
, Ellen thought.

“Look, up ahead! Tancarville!” someone shouted.

Ellen peered out curiously.

In the distance a magnificent castle sat enthroned on a steep triangular spur that jutted far out into the river. Water surrounded the fortress on two sides, giving it protection from attackers. The bright, smoothly hewn stones of the castle had a silvery glow in the light of the setting sun. Countless little hovels huddled up against the hill as if trying to storm the castle, yet there was something peaceful emanating from this site. Two large merchant ships and many fishing vessels bobbed up and down in a small cove beneath the castle. The Seine here was lined with dense forests teeming with game and therefore a favorite hunting ground for the Lord of Tancarville and his men.

By now, all the travelers had come onto deck, curious to see and admire their new homeland. Each of them had brought along hopes and fears, but now they saw only the beauty of Tancarville and fell under its spell.

In the west, the setting sun cast a soft light, and pink clouds drifted like painted sheep through the grey-blue sky. Soon it would set in a sea of color. Only in the north did the sky look dark grey and threatening as if a storm were brewing.

While Donovan was busy handling the building of the forge, Ellen was often free to stroll through the castle courtyard and the village. She enjoyed the pleasant summer days and her freedom, which would end as soon as the workshop was finished. Whenever the order came from FitzHamlin for the village priest to come and teach the English tradesmen some French, Ellen ran off. She hated to pass herself off as a boy to the priest. After all, he was a man of God, and you couldn’t play God for a fool. In any case, the haggard man of God with melancholy brown eyes seemed to regard the classes as nothing more than an onerous task. He made no secret of his horror at what these foreigners did with his beautiful language when they vainly tried to emulate what he had just told them in his elegant, nasal accent.

Although Donovan scolded her each time, Ellen preferred to take the time off to watch the Norman tradesmen in their work. In this way she learned much more, in any case, than she could have from the priest. Sometimes she also lingered around the fountain listening to the maids and trying to understand their silly chatter.

Her favorite place to sit, however, was atop a huge bale of hay where she could look down on the drill ground where the pages and squires were being trained in the use of weapons. She could sit there forever with a straw in her mouth, dangling her feet over the side. When the young men took their places in little groups nearby to practice sword fighting, she listened closely and concentrated on the foreign language. She quickly learned more French that way than all the other newcomers put together and soon mastered the pronunciation better than her countrymen, especially Art, who had great difficulty articulating the soft-sounding foreign words with his thick tongue.

Rose, on the other hand, who worked at the bakery, managed quite well and could make herself understood with few words using her hands and feet. At noontime Ellen often stopped to pick her up. They would sit down in a corner of the courtyard to enjoy the warm summer sun and to chatter, laugh, and eat. At the bakery, the other employees teased Rose with suggestive gestures, thinking that the young blacksmith was coming on to her. Rose had also noticed that the Norman servants looked away in disappointment when Ellen arrived. They surely believed that as an Englishman he had better chances with her than they did. Rose found that all very amusing. She fanned the rumor by sometimes blowing a kiss to Ellen when she left. Rose felt at home in Tancarville just as fast as Ellen did, perhaps because they were both young and looked ahead instead of backward.

Even Glenna, who had at first been so fearful of being sent to a foreign land, began to feel much happier. The Lord of Tancarville had a fine house built for them and provided workers and material to furnish it. In the spacious living room there was a large fireplace, a long oaken table with two benches, and close by in a corner a heavy wooden shelf stocked with cooking pots, soup bowls, and earthenware. Glenna’s greatest pride in her new home, however, were two magnificent armchairs with high backs and carved armrests such as were otherwise seen only in the homes of lords and ladies. There were two small bedrooms under the roof that could be reached by way of a steep wooden stairway. The smith and his wife slept in one of them, and the other was for the helpers.

Donovan was absorbed in overseeing the building of the workshop. With two large forges—each at least twice as big as the ones he had had in England—three anvils, and two massive stone troughs for the quenching of long blades, the new workshop was large enough for the master, two or three journeymen, and three or four helpers. The Lord of Tancarville had insisted that Donovan’s workshop be roomy enough to accommodate additional men to learn the trade. Even though Donovan found it hard to imagine how he could train smiths who were only moderately gifted, he had to resign himself to it and soon selected two young men.

Arnaud, the elder of the two, had worked for three years in the village with a blacksmith and had at least some basic knowledge that Donovan could build on. Arnaud would have to completely relearn some things but seemed at least to understand what a privilege it was to be allowed to work for Donovan. He obviously did everything he could to curry favor with the master. Donovan had not even asked him to take the test of sorting the bloom iron pieces, however, and that displeased Ellen very much. Arnaud was a decent fellow with hazel-colored eyes and arched eyebrows. He was quite aware of the impression he made on the fair sex and loved to talk about it, something Ellen didn’t appreciate too much.

Vincent was a bit younger than Arnaud and was meant to be trained as a blacksmith’s helper in order to relieve Art of some of his work. He was as strong as an ox and had deep-set eyes and a nose that was much too wide. He was full of admiration for Arnaud and followed him around like a little puppy with an almost childlike devotion.

Arnaud despised him but graciously allowed him to worship him nonetheless.

Ellen didn’t trust Arnaud and avoided contact with him outside the forge. In any case, the presence of the two helpers had the advantage that now Donovan could give additional time to Ellen.

The more she learned about the smith and his work, the more she appreciated the master. She had long ago forgiven the gruff way he had treated her at first and was greatly impressed with what he could do with iron. Whereas most blacksmiths pounded it with long and heavy blows into the desired shape, Donovan seemed to be giving it light, almost tender love pats like the ones mothers sometimes give their children to make them laugh. Ellen was intrigued by the way he worked and was convinced that iron could be perfectly wrought only in this very special way and with a deep understanding of the material.

Although Ellen loved every moment in the forge, she especially enjoyed Sundays when they all went to church. After the mass they stood around conversing with the other Anglo-Saxon tradesmen. When the weather was good, they often sat down in the grass and ate together. Ellen would then be seated with Rose, and the two chatted and laughed, but Ellen always needed to be on guard not to be exposed as a girl.

Since they had left Orford, the two sensitive little buds on her chest had turned into chubby protuberances. She leaned forward with her shoulders to hide it but often had the feeling that everyone was looking at her. One Sunday when she was alone in her room, she pulled her shirt down tightly and could see how her breasts bulged out. “Somehow I have to do something about it,” she mumbled to herself, frowning.

Suddenly she heard a commotion out in the stairwell, and Art came rushing into the room. Ellen turned around quickly and pretended to be making her bed. She breathed a big sigh of relief when Art dropped onto the bed without noticing anything and immediately fell asleep. As always when he had had too much cider to drink, he snored loudly. Ellen lay down, too, but she tossed and turned restlessly and found it hard to get to sleep.

In the middle of the night she awakened with a start. She had been dreaming, and in her dream she had enormous breasts that she carried in front of her like trophies. She looked around. It was still dark except for the moonlight falling through the cracks in the little wooden shutters. After making sure that Art was still asleep, she sat up in bed, pulled her shirt over her head, and felt her breasts. Of course they weren’t as large as in the dream. Then she drew her shoulders back and passed her hand back and forth over her chest, almost proudly. But then a wave of despair came over her again—she wouldn’t be able to conceal her womanly shape much longer. What could she do? Just recently she had bought a large piece of linen cloth to make padding for her monthly bleeding, but she hadn’t started doing that yet. Maybe she could tie a piece of it around her breasts like a bandage. She pulled the cloth out from under her straw mattress and unfolded it. Then she measured a strip over two feet wide and ripped it off lengthwise. She was startled when Art began making loud snoring sounds and cursed herself for not having kept her shirt on. She took the strip of cloth and wrapped it as tightly as possible around her chest. Then she raised her right arm as if she were going to strike something with a hammer, lowered it again, and shook her head. It would be impossible to work like that. She loosened the cloth just enough so that she could raise her arm and still get enough air to breathe. That’s how she would have to do it.

The next morning she wrapped up her chest again. At first her movements were stiff, but in the course of the day she began to feel comfortable with it. In the afternoon, however, she noticed that the cloth had slipped down and was on her hips. She mumbled a few words of apology and hurried out of the smithy.

In the following days she practiced wrapping the cloth around her midsection so it could not slip down, and finally succeeded, and she never again dreamed of the giant breasts.

Arnaud sneered and complained that Alan was worse than a girl with his constant running to the latrine, and she feared he might already suspect something.

She cursed and spat more frequently now and during her unclean days scratched her crotch as men often do, checking the cloth in her braies. Nevertheless, she was in constant fear of being found out.

With November came foggy days. At times the heavy, wet blanket hung over Tancarville from morning to night, melancholy and impenetrable. Sometimes it seemed as if the fog wanted to lift, bringing with it a hope for brighter, friendlier days; but then once again it would rise from the Seine, reaching out with its cold, clammy fingers to clutch the hearts of men. On other days, the fog in the morning seemed as heavy as lead but dissipated before noon like a silken cloth raised up into the heavens by a gentle wind. On such a day, Ellen returned to the castle for the first time in weeks.

Directly behind the open door a boy stood on a tree stump that was not even wide enough to accommodate both feet at the same time. He was tall and strong, perhaps two or three years older than she was, and stood at attention, without moving, looking straight ahead. His hands were folded behind his back, and in them he was holding a little bag full of sand. Ellen paid no further heed to him. Presumably he had been standing there like that since midnight and was almost done. Ellen knew from overhearing conversations between the squires that this was only one of the many tests every page had to take before he could become a squire. When his turn came, he would be wakened rudely and without warning in the middle of the night and ordered to stand on the tree stump. Dead tired, suffering from the cold and dampness and with the weight of the sandbag on their backs, most of them had a hard time making it to the pealing of the first bell at noon. Some gave up sooner and were denounced and disgraced. As for the others—those who held out until noon— their arms trembled from the exertion and their legs were numb and paralyzed as well. The worst of it was the painful pressure on their bladder. Some wet themselves and got so cold they had to step down. Others broke out in tears before jumping down and running behind the nearest shed to relieve themselves, accompanied by the malicious laughter of the onlookers.

When Ellen walked past the boy again in the afternoon, she was astonished to find him still standing on the tree stump. His tousled brown hair hung down his forehead to eyes that were so blue they seemed to be a reflection of the sky above. Only now did she notice how proud he appeared. His gaze was clear, and his arms, still holding the sandbag behind his back, did not tremble even a bit. He stood there calmly, gazing with a straight face into the distance.

Pages and squires had gathered around him to see when he would finally give up.

“William is damned stubborn—he intends to hold out until sundown,” said one thickset, dark-haired squire admiringly. “Just the same, I bet he doesn’t make it. After all, it’s November and the nights are cold. But when I see him standing there like that,” he said with a smile and rubbing his index finger and thumb together, “I probably won’t get my money anytime soon.”

“Aw, he’s just a show-off anyway,” another boy said haughtily.

“You be quiet, you’re just jealous,” the first one replied glibly. “I can remember how you didn’t even make it to the tolling of the noon bell!”