Enchantress Mine Page 6

  “Ah, poor little one,” said Eada sympathetically. She smiled up at Mairin. Then her gaze moved to Dagda. “And this one, my lord? Was he also being mistreated by your slave merchant? He does not look to me like a man to be abused.”

  Aldwine laughed. “This is Dagda mac Scolaighe, who is the child’s guardian.” He quickly explained to his wife the story Dagda had told him.

  When he finished Eada nodded with sympathetic understanding. “You are welcome to Aelfleah, my child,” she said.

  “She does not understand English, but she will soon learn from you,” Aldwine told his wife. “She speaks only Breton or Norman French.” He smiled up at Mairin. “My wife bids you welcome to Aelfleah, Mairin.”

  “Is she willing to be my new mama, my lord father?”

  He looked a bit nonplussed as to what to say to her. Children were always so impatient, and as brave a man as he was, he wasn’t quite certain how to broach the subject with his wife. It had somehow seemed simpler in London.

  Then Eada asked, “What is it the child says about her mama, my lord? That word I could understand. If she is to stay for a while I shall indeed have to teach her English.”

  With a quick prayer, and the decision that a direct approach was the best way, he said, “Mairin, for that is her name, my love, wishes to know if you will be her new mama.”

  Eada staggered slightly and her pale face grew even paler. For a brief moment her pain-filled eyes closed. When they reopened she said in a shaking voice, “Edyth cannot be replaced, my lord. Surely you are not so callous as to believe so.”

  “No,” he answered her, “Edyth cannot be replaced, nor will she return from her grave to us, my love. Our daughter is dead. I am not so cruel or unfeeling that I would attempt to replace one child with another as one might replace one puppy with another. Edyth does not need us anymore, Eada, but this child does. When I first saw her in the marketplace, her proud little face so frightened and forlorn, I knew then what I must do. In your heart, my loving one, you know too. God has given us another child, not to take Edyth’s place, but rather to make her own place in our lives. As you have suffered, so too has this little one suffered. Mairin has asked you a question, my Eada. What shall I tell her?”

  Eada looked again at Mairin, who stared back, her little face an impersonal mask. Then for a tiny second Eada saw the naked vulnerability in the child’s violet-colored eyes. In that instant her heart went out to the little girl. She reached out with eager, loving arms to lift Mairin from the horse’s back, saying as she did, “Of course I will be her mother, my lord husband. It is obvious that you have become her father.” She gave the child a hug, kissing her upon both cheeks as she set her upon the ground. “It is easy to see she has already wrapped you around her tiny finger even as Edyth did.” Then taking Mairin’s hand in her own Eada led her new daughter into the hall at Aelfleah.

  “Praise be to our good Lord Jesus and his Blessed Mother,” said Bishop Wulfstan softly.

  “Your wife is a good woman,” Dagda said, the relief in his voice obvious. “My little lady will be safe with her, and for that, Aldwine Athelsbeorn, I am in your debt. You have but to tell me what you desire of me for from this moment on I am your liegeman, and you are my lord.”

  “The first thing we should all do,” replied Aldwine Athelsbeorn, “is enter the hall and have our dinner.” He chuckled at his two companions. “Well, I am hungry, my friends! As for you, my good Dagda, we will find much for a man of your many talents to do here at Aelfleah. As Mairin is welcome, so, too, I bid you welcome home.” He smiled at the big Irishman. “Now, let us eat!”

  Chapter 3

  Although Aldwine Athelsbeorn was not a man of any importance, his manor was a large one. Its lands had been collected by several generations of shrewd thegns who understood the value of owning more than less. Although the estate was somewhat isolated it was nonetheless prosperous.

  Set in an almost hidden valley it was located between the Wye and the Severn rivers. Its affluence stemmed from a well-treated, contented peasantry, and from its very location which kept it safe when the nearby wild Welsh came raiding. A small river called Aldford made its way through the manor, a shallow crossing giving access to the estate from the narrow track that wound down across the hills from Watling Street.

  There was a large common and pastureland for the manor’s livestock on the far side of the Aldford past which the road moved on over the water through fine meadows and up to the manor house with its demesne lands. The road then branched off, the right track running on about half a mile to the village. The left track led to the manor church, and past the church the road branched again leading through fields of wheat, oats, flax, and barley as well as several arable but fallow fields. At the end of this road on the little river which had ribboned itself about the fields was a mill, and Weorth, the miller’s cottage.

  Behind the manor house and its fields to the left of the village was the woodland that Aldwine Athelsbeorn had called The Forest. It was treed with soaring English oaks, graceful beech, and sturdy pines. A tributary stream of the Aldford meandered through the forest which was peopled with deer, rabbits, fox, and other wildlife. The serfs and the peasants belonging to the manor were allowed to take one rabbit per family in each of the winter months, a generous accommodation on the part of Aelfleah’s lord. A dearth of rabbits would have endangered the domestic fowl belonging to the estate, encouraging predators from The Forest into the barnyard. The serfs and peasants understood this, and considered themselves fortunate to have such a kind master. Most land owners did not allow their people the freedom of their woods, and poaching brought severe retribution.

  Just past the manor house on the other side of the village was an apple orchard that in the springtime was a sea of pale pink blossoms. Now the trees were heavy with the ripening fruit which in a short time would be harvested. Adjacent to the orchard was a small building where part of each year’s crop was pressed for its cider. The rest of the fruit was stored in the root cellar belonging to the manor lord, to be doled out as he saw fit.

  Aelfleah was self-contained like all English manors of its time. It grew its own grain, vegetables, and fruits. It kept cattle, pigs, horses, and sheep. It had an orchard, a bakehouse, a brewhouse, a church, and a mill. Cloth was woven from the raw materials produced upon the estate. Leather was tanned. Horses were shod. Farm implements and weapons were forged in the village smithy which was presided over by Osweald, the smith, a tall lean man with a thick neck and well-muscled arms. The spiritual welfare of Aelfleah was the duty of Father Albert, the manor priest.

  Although the men of Aldwine Athelsbeorn’s time knew nothing of fertilizing the soil, English thegns had a three-field system in which rotation of crops was practiced. One field was used for winter planting, another for summer, and the last lay fallow. Each family belonging to the estate had a strip of land in each of the different fields to farm. The land did not belong to the serf, and could not be passed on to another generation. It was merely loaned to the serf by his lord in exchange for his labor.

  Although the miller, the priest, the blacksmith, the bailiff and the baker were freemen, the majority of people living at Aelfleah were serfs belonging to the manor. They could not leave the manor without the consent of their lord. The head of each family worked three days out of every week for his master. He was required to do whatever his lord might bid him, and neither he nor any in his family could marry without the lord’s consent. Serfs were usually poor, oppressed and miserable. Those who lived at Aelfleah were well-cared-for, generally content and prosperous for their class.

  The manor house was to all appearances typical of the time. Inside, however, major differences were apparent. Aldwine Athelsbeorn was quite eccentric in his architectural tastes. Constructed of dark gray stone, the house stood two stories high. The main floor of the building had once been a huge aisled hall subdivided by two lines of posts which supported its roof. The second story of the building had been built over part
of the hall, and contained a large room called a Great Chamber which was a bed-sitting room for the lord and his family.

  The only means of heating available to the house had been a firepit in the hall, an extremely unsatisfactory arrangement as the windows, although few, were not particularly tight. The smoke from the firepit had exited the building through the thatched roof of the hall which when the wind blew from a certain direction merely directed the smoke back down into the room to choke its inhabitants and cover the meager furnishings with soot. The Great Chamber had been too cold in winter, stifling in summer, and damp when it rained.

  As his father’s second son Aldwine Athelsbeorn had not expected to inherit Aelfleah. To earn his way in the world, he had hired out his military skills as many a hot-blooded young Anglo-Saxon did. His prowess with sword and battleax had given him his surname, Athelsbeorn: meaning Noble Warrior. Unlike other young men, however, he had not confined himself to England. He had instead traveled to Scandinavia, to Byzantium, and disguised as a Moorish soldier, he had even seen the Holy Land. Now that the army of the Prophet controlled Jerusalem, Christians were not readily welcome.

  The world fascinated Aldwine for his was not a closed mind, and the blood of his Norman grandmother, herself a descendant of Rollo, ran thickly in his veins. He loved the color, the excitement, the sights, the smells, and the sounds of other lands, other cultures. There was a strong possibility that he would have never returned to England had not the unexpected deaths of both his elder and younger brothers recalled him. He had been about to embark for Sicily with some distant Norman cousins when his father’s message came, and a sense of filial duty he thought long dead had risen within him, and he had gone.

  In accordance with his father’s wishes he had gotten himself a wife, and brought her home to Aelfleah, but it was still his father’s house. If after his exposure to other places Aldwine found it less than comfortable it was certainly not his place to say so. His father was an Anglo-Saxon of the old traditions. He would not distress his sire in his old age with useless complaints.

  What he found most intolerable was the dreadful lack of privacy. It didn’t seem to bother the others of his race, and once had not bothered him. Now, however, even with the curtains drawn he could not feel at ease in bed with his wife when just beyond those curtains, his wheezing and snoring almost rocking the room, lay his father, and three body servants, and more often than not, some visitor. He knew Eada shared his feelings, but they spoke with no one else on the matter for they would have been considered odd to desire their privacy. Privacy was not Anglo-Saxon.

  When Aldwine Athelsbeorn inherited Aelfleah, he immediately set about to reconstruct the house in a way considered quite strange by his neighbors. The entire main floor was roofed over, and the firepit covered, while a large fireplace was put in its stead with a well-drawing stone chimney. At the end of the large hall he had two smaller rooms built to serve as a buttery and pantry. New glass was placed securely into the windows. Aldwine did not need to remove his windows as the great lords did who carried their window glass from house to house.

  Aelfleah’s kitchen was located in a separate building across the herb and vegetable gardens. It was connected to the main house by means of a covered portico through the gardens which Aldwine walled in to protect from the rabbits. This allowed access to the kitchen in times of danger. Eada was delighted, for now when she planted her garden she could count on harvesting it rather than losing her crop to predators.

  The Great Chamber on the upper floor was redesigned and now extended to the full length of the hall below it. One end of the second floor became a private bedchamber for the lord and his wife. The other end of the floor with its new fireplace for heating the upper story became a solar where the family might sit in privacy away from the noise of the hall. Between these two rooms ran a narrow hallway which had a small windowed chamber on either side of it for children.

  Aldwine’s neighbors were scandalized. They thought the house radical in its new interior. Why did a man need a private chamber for himself and his wife? What could he do behind closed doors that he could not do in an ordinary Great Chamber? As for giving children separate rooms, it was ridiculous not to mention dangerous! How was a boy to learn about women, and a girl about men if they were kept separated? Still there were those who secretly envied Eada her new privacy, and her two fireplaces, but they were wise enough to keep silent.

  The furnishings in the manor house were simple yet comfortable. In the hall there was a sturdy oak highboard, and trestles. There were high-backed chairs for the senior family members, and benches for the others who came to table. The solar with its smaller fireplace had two chairs for the master and mistress of the household, a small table, some low stools, and Eada’s loom. Anglo-Saxon women were famed for their beautiful cloth, and Eada was a particularly skilled weaver. The house’s lighting was supplied after dark by rush and tallow torches, some candles, and bronze oil lamps that were the pride of the manor.

  The bedchambers were just as sparsely furnished, with nothing more than beds and large chests which were bound in iron and used for clothing storage. Eada was the proud possessor of a round of highly polished silver which she used as a mirror. It had been her wedding present from her doting husband.

  The family’s personal servants slept in the solar. As the other serfs must give three days of their labor to their lord, those serfs chosen as body servants gave their lord three nights of each week sleeping in the solar on call should they be needed. When the children were young their personal servants slept with them upon a trundle which during the day was stored beneath the child’s bed. The rest of the household servants bedded down in either the hall or the kitchens if they did not belong to any of the cottages on the estate.

  There was a warmth and an intimacy to the manor house that had been lacking at Landerneau, Mairin thought. Perhaps if her mother had lived it might have been different, but Mairin’s memories were of cold gray stone walls made habitable only by the love and the attention that her father and Dagda had lavished on her.

  I can be happy here, Mairin decided. The lady Eada has easily accepted my presence at Aelfleah. It was an interesting comparison to the lady Blanche who had resented her husband’s child so very much; whose only concern had been in herself, and what she considered her own. Eada, she would quickly find, was a stern but loving mother who was interested in everything that her children did. That first afternoon, however, Mairin was frightened as the tall woman with the dark red braids held out her hand to her. She strove to hide her fright, but Dagda knew her every expression.

  “Go with her, my little lady,” he gently encouraged Mairin. “She will be the mother you never had. A female child needs a mother.”

  “I need no one but you, Dagda,” she bravely affirmed.

  He smiled. “You need a mother, and here God has provided you with what appears to me to be a very fine one. Put your hand in hers, my child. She needs you every bit as much as you need her.”

  Mairin, shyly glancing up at the woman from beneath her lashes, placed her little hand in Eada’s big one. They entered the house and Eada immediately called for a small oaken tub to be brought to her in the solar along with hot water sufficient to fill it. Then she led Mairin upstairs, and the child turning an anxious face saw with relief that Dagda followed. Reaching the solar, he handed Eada the small bundle he had carried from Landerneau.

  “It contains her mother’s jewelry,” he said, “and the child’s personal grooming items. The rest is of no importance, and is better disposed of, mistress. There is no need for my little lady to be reminded of what has been. It is better she face the present, perhaps even look to a happy future.” Then with a courtly bow he departed the solar.

  Eada spoke no language but her own and the Latin tongue which Aldwine had taught her in the early days of their marriage. She sometimes envied her husband his easy command of other languages, most of which sounded like so much gibberish to her. Nonetheless sh
e now spoke to Mairin as if the little girl understood her perfectly.

  “Gracious, child, you are simply filthy! I shall give you a good bath, and wash that wonderful mop of hair you possess!”

  Lifting Mairin up onto the table she began to gently strip the clothes from her. Seeing the perfect and sturdy little body before her brought back sharp memories. Eada’s eyes filled with tears which quickly spilled down her rosy cheeks. Still she did not cease in her task, and taking Mairin’s garments she threw them into the fireplace where the flames caught them up with a whoosh, and quickly devoured them. The tears continued to run down her face though she struggled hard to master her emotions.

  Mairin, who could understand Eada no more than the older woman could understand her, nevertheless comprehended grief. “Do not cry, my lady,” she pleaded, attempting to brush away Eada’s bitter tears. She was unaware that tears flowed from her own eyes as at last she was finally able to release her own sadness.

  Seeing the child’s sorrow Eada hugged the little girl to her heart. “Ah, my little one,” she whispered, “my Edyth would have liked you even as I see that I am going to like you. She, too, had a good and tender heart.” Then wiping the remainder of her own and Mairin’s tears away, she lifted the little girl from the table, and set her in the tub.

  Kneeling down she pushed up the sleeves of her gown. She first washed the glorious hair, then soaped the little body and rinsed it clean. Taking the child from the tub she put her back upon the table, and quickly toweled Mairin dry lest she catch a chill. Lifting Mairin again from the table she sat her upon a low stool before the fire. Then sitting in her own chair Eada brushed Mairin’s marvelous red-gold hair until it was soft and dry, and floated like a halo of thistledown about the girl’s head.