The Copper Sign (2 page)

“Mmm, don’t they taste great?” Simon said, smacking his lips. “Try some.” He reached out his hand to give her a blackberry. His wide grin revealed a row of dark blue teeth, and the juice from the berries was dribbling down the side of his mouth onto his chin.

“I’ll be right back.” Ellen could no longer restrain her curiosity and left Simon to himself.

Without paying any further attention to her, he turned around and continued to feast on the sweet berries, while she sneaked over to the cabin.

There was a crack way up high in one of the weathered boards. With trembling knees, Ellen stood on her tiptoes to look through, turning her head to the side and pressing one eye against the moldy wood. She couldn’t see Sir Miles or the woman, and all she could hear was the sound of her own heart beating. Then she heard a rustling sound like a mouse scurrying through straw. And again it was silent. She wondered if anyone was actually still in the cabin. She had to stretch so much that her ankles ached. She was turning away in disappointment when suddenly she heard a loud thud. Startled, she strained once more to look through the crack in the wall. It took a moment for her eyes to grow accustomed to the dark again. Something was moving in the room and coming closer! Suddenly she saw the hairy back of Sir Miles.
He looks like a mangy dog
, Ellen thought with disgust, but she couldn’t figure out why he was bare to the waist. He was standing so close now that she could smell his sweat through the crack in the boards. Her heart pounded.

“Take your clothes off,” she heard him say in a rough voice.

Ellen could hardly breathe, but then she caught sight of the woman slinking toward him. Ellen moved down a little but still couldn’t see her face. With slow, graceful movements, the mysterious woman removed her clothes and let her dress and linen chemise slip to the floor. Sir Miles reached out to grasp her and caress the fine, almost transparent skin of her breasts. For a brief moment, Ellen closed her eyes and everything seemed to be spinning around. When she opened them again, Sir Miles had sunk to his knees. He took the pink nipples in his mouth and sucked on them like a child until the woman’s chest rose and fell again faster and faster. Suddenly he stood up and slammed her against the wall. The whole cabin was shaking. The pain in Ellen’s ankles was unbearable by now and her knees were giving out, but she didn’t move. She had to see what would happen next. Naturally, she knew that men and women mated. They did it just like cows, goats, and dogs in order to make babies. Ellen had overheard her mother telling Aedith that this was one of the duties the wife had to take on, whether she liked it or not. And sometimes she had watched when Osmond would lie down on her mother. It didn’t take long, and a peculiar, fishy odor would spread through the room. Osmond would be panting, but Leofrun would lie under him as stiff as a board and never utter a sound.

With this mysterious woman it was different. She passed her hands longingly through the hair on Sir Miles’s chest and gave it a tug here and there to tease him. Then she began to run her hands up and down his back as if she didn’t want to overlook an inch of his body. Breathing faster and louder, she grabbed his buttocks with both hands and rubbed her intimate parts against his leg.

Ellen felt a dull pounding in her belly. She was seized with an odd feeling of both repugnance and bliss that terrified her, and for a moment she thought of returning to Simon. Until now she had been sure—this physical union was a torment for all women and could only be pleasurable to men. But—was she mistaken? As if under a spell she stood there looking through the crack in the wall. Sir Miles thrust his rough hand between the woman’s gleaming white thighs and rubbed her until she began to make soft, groaning sounds. Then he went over to a pile of hay, lay down, and motioned to her. The woman straddled him, settling down eagerly over his stiff phallus.

Ellen started to breathe faster.

The woman moved up and down on top of him as if riding a horse. Suddenly her murmurs grew louder; she seemed to shudder with ecstasy and threw back her head. Ellen saw a torrent of blond hair the color of wheat fall over the woman’s slender, bony back, and then she could see the face transfigured with desire. And now Ellen could see who she was. It shot through her like a bolt of lightning—Leofrun! A hot flash and a strange, hitherto unknown feeling of revulsion came over her, and she burst into tears.

“You whore!” she shrieked, turning away from the crack in the wall and sobbing.

Simon turned around in astonishment and ran toward her. “Have you lost your mind? What do you care who he’s messing around with in there?” He didn’t even seem to be surprised that Sir Miles had used the cottage as a trysting place. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is for us?” he snapped at her and began pulling her away.

Ellen was as pale as a ghost.

“What are you making such a fuss about? Grown men and women do things like that,” he said, trying to calm her down.

Ellen pounded his shoulder with her fist and pushed him away, furious. “But that woman in there is my mother!”

Simon’s face turned red with shame. “Ah…I didn’t know.”

Suddenly, the door to the cottage swung open.

“Let’s get out of here! God help us if he catches us!” Simon said, grabbing Ellen by the arm and pulling her along with him.

Sir Miles appeared half naked in front of the cabin and raised his fist. “I’ll get you, just wait, you little brat,” he called after them. “I’ll rip your prying eyes out and cut off your saucy tongue!” Ellen was running as fast as she could.

Simon turned around a few times. “He’s not following us, at least not yet,” he gasped, and kept on running.

They ran without stopping all the way to the tannery. Tanners needed lots of water for their work, and for this reason Simon’s family had settled on the banks of the Ore many generations ago. Simon lived there with his parents, grandmother, and four younger brothers in a little cottage of wattle and clay with a straw-thatched roof. Strong fumes from the tanning pit rose in a heavy haze that hung in the air and made their eyes sting. Completely out of breath, Ellen sat down on a tree stump far from the tanning pit and scraped her feet nervously in the dust.

“Goblins! Don’t make me laugh! She just wanted us to stay away from the cottage.” Ellen’s eyes flashed angrily.

“Well, if I had caught my mother like that…then I would have…” Simon couldn’t finish his sentence. “What a bitch!” he said with contempt, and spat on the ground.

“It was so…ugly,” Ellen mumbled, staring at a line of busy ants dragging a bee along the ground. “The Lord will punish them for that, both of them,” she growled defiantly.

“In any case, though, you can’t go home now just as if nothing happened. If she’d whip you till you’re black and blue for nothing, who’s to say what she’ll do with you now?” Ellen could see by his frown that Simon was worried about her.

“But what shall I do?”

The tanner’s son shrugged. “Why did you have to be so nosy?” he chided her. “You should have come and eaten the berries like me.” Then he threw a handful of dirt at the ants, which by now had come closer to where he was standing.

The busy little ants paid no attention to the cloud of dust and kept pulling the bee along.

“I’m not the one who wanted to go to the cottage! All you can ever think of is eating—that’s why we had to go there,” Ellen huffed.

“I’m scared,” Simon whispered, feeling guilty.

“Me too.” Ellen rubbed her temple with one finger. Worry showed in her eyes, and their color seemed to change from bright green to a mossy dark hue, though her red hair was still gleaming in the sunlight.

In the distance they could hear a jay calling. The wind was sighing through the trees, and the mighty Ore burbled along peacefully. Close by, dirty white bubbles drifted along the surface of the tanning pit, then gathered at shallower places in the stream and were quickly carried off again. The river became somewhat narrower at the tannery, though it was still wide enough to allow two merchant ships to sail past one another.

“But what shall I do now?” Ellen stooped down to pick up a flat stone and flung it far out into the river. It skipped once across the water with a splash and then sank with a dull plop. Simon was much better at that—his stones jumped across the water like grasshoppers.

“In any case, you can’t stay here. Go to see the good woman, Aelfgiva; she’ll surely know what to do.” Simon wiped his runny nose on his shirtsleeve.

“Simon,” they heard his mother calling. “Simon, come and help your father rinse out the hides.” Her warm and friendly voice didn’t seem to be in keeping with her gaunt appearance. Her linen dress was the color of sand—coarse and dirty—and it hung on her like a sack. Her face was pale. Ellen felt repelled by her calloused, gnarled hands and fingernails stained yellow from working in the tannic acid. Worst of all was the odor of urine and oak bark she gave off.

“Brrr, you’re all wet, boy.” The tanner’s wife ran her hands lovingly through Simon’s hair.

Ellen couldn’t bear to look at his mother. She was so different from Leofrun. She loved her children and would no doubt have let herself be drawn and quartered for each of them. Nevertheless, a bath now and then wouldn’t do her any harm, Ellen thought. Leofrun washed daily and put a drop of lavender oil behind each ear, just like the wives and daughters of the rich merchants of Ipswich. But inside she stank worse than the tanner’s wife, Ellen thought angrily to herself. Never could she wash this sin from her soul.

“Come now, Simon, and help your father. You two can see each other again tomorrow.”

Ellen stared at the ground, her eyes welling up with tears.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring
, she thought dejectedly.

“Good luck,” Simon whispered, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. Then he got up and followed his mother into the house, his head hanging. He turned around just once and waved sadly.

Ellen was startled by a rustling in the underbrush and turned around, but nobody was there. Simon was right, Sir Miles and Leofrun must never find her; she had to go to Aelfgiva. If anyone knew what to do, she would. Suddenly Ellen realized she had to hurry. She ran through the forest so fast her feet barely touched the ground, and she didn’t feel the sharp stones poking through her thin leather soles. She hardly even noticed those pale yellow flowers she loved so much that covered the ground around her. She couldn’t expect any mercy from Leofrun. Aelfgiva just had to help her! Before long she reached the midwife’s cottage in the little clearing and stopped, all out of breath.

Little dust particles danced like specks of gold in the sunlight that penetrated the thick foliage surrounding the clearing.

Aelfgiva was in her herb garden, bending down to gather up the yellow and orange calendula blossoms that she used to make salves and tinctures. Her snow-white hair, which she always wore tied in a bun, shone just like snow among the flowers. Aelfgiva placed her hand against her back and stood up slowly as Ellen came running toward her. “Ellenweore!” she cried out, delighted. Her face wrinkled up when she laughed, and her kindly, wise eyes glistened.

Ellen stopped in front of her, choking back tears.

“Come, come now, child, what’s wrong? You look like you have seen a ghost.” Aelfgiva spread her arms out and embraced the crying girl compassionately. “Let’s go inside. I have some cabbage soup left over that I can warm up while you sit yourself down and tell me all about it.” Aelfgiva picked up her basket and led Ellen by the hand back to the cottage.

“She rolled around in the straw with Sir Miles, that disgusting show-off!” Ellen said, her voice full of hatred and despair. “I saw it myself.” As she told all that had happened, she grimaced with disgust, sobbing at first and then becoming more and more indignant.

After she had finished, Aelfgiva arose, walked to the hearth, and stirred the ashes nervously. Then she sat down again, fumbled around at her décolletage, and pinched herself in the folds of her neck. “Your mother must have been about as old as you are now. Oh Lord, forgive me, I know I have promised never to tell anyone.” Aelfgiva turned her eyes up and crossed herself.

Ellen looked at her, wondering.

“She was promised to a very well-to-do soap merchant, but then she met a young Norman and fell in love with him.” Aelfgiva took a deep breath, as if it were difficult to go on. “Your poor mother knew nothing about the consequences of love, and soon she was carrying a child. Your grandfather was furious when he found out. The young Norman was of noble birth, which made a marriage impossible, but her betrothal to the soap merchant had to be broken off as well. That man was so angry, he even threatened to have Leofrun thrown into the stocks if she didn’t leave town at once.”

Aelfgiva took Ellen by both hands and looked at her intently. “A harsh fate awaits a woman who has a child out of wedlock. They shear her hair and whip her. Some do not survive the pain and disgrace and die in the pillory. But even those who survive can no longer lead an honorable life. Many a poor lass like that later commits the gravest of all sins and puts an end to her own wretched existence. Your grandfather had to save his reputation and the life of his only child. So he forced her into marriage against her will, sending her away from Ipswich before anyone noticed the scandal.”

Aelfgiva’s worried face turned soft as she continued. “Osmond fell in love with your beautiful mother at once. She was lucky then that he took her—otherwise she might have been dead by now.

“She had to pay dearly for her innocence of mind, having to marry a simple craftsman rather than a rich merchant with whom she could enjoy a life of ease. She hates the dirt and poverty of the life she was forced to lead, and that’s why she’s so full of anger,” the old woman tried to explain.

“And what became of the child?” Ellen asked curiously.

Aelfgiva stroked her curly locks. “Ah, my dear, that’s you. Why do you think she treats you that way? To her, you alone are the reason for her misfortune.”