The Bought Bride

Ketti’s screeching assault stopped Warin in his tracks, shocking him into a counter-attack. ‘Well, what did you expect me to do? Stand here and be spoken to like a child who’s been scrumping apples?’ he yelled back at her. ‘Don’t be so daft, woman. He’s not going to do anything before the king leaves for London.’

‘Even so, you fool, you might have thought up a better way of handling the matter than by insults. Where d’ye think that will get us? You’ll have to go to them and find out how we can get ourselves out of it.’

‘It’s no good me going to speak to anyone,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not the owner. You are. You go.’

‘What good will it do for me to go?’ said Ketti, spreading her hands so that the tips of her wide sleeves skimmed the floor. She was not minded to do her own dirty work if someone else could be found to do it for her. ‘So what are you doing here?’ She waved a hand with some drama. ‘If you want a home with me, go and fight for it. You wrestle with your mates like a prize bull; go and wrestle with the sheriff for a change.’ She turned away, glaring at the smirking face of her twelve-year-old son Thorn. ‘Get out!’ she snapped. ‘This is private.’

‘Ketti.’ Warin’s voice dropped to a wheedling pitch, warming her back. ‘Ketti, my love. We shouldn’t quarrel over this.’ He took her by the shoulders and pulled her back against him, sliding his great working hands over her breasts and kneading gently, knowing how that was guaranteed to soften her.

Her hands came up to cover his. ‘Get off,’ she whispered, pressing herself backwards into him.

Warin was careful to conceal his smile. It had worked already. ‘No,’ he said, bending to her veil-covered ear. ‘You’re so lovely, Ketti.’ Her breasts were, in fact, the only lovely part of her, and not even the self-seeking Warin could pretend that she had either a face or a nature to match. ‘There’s no problem,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll go and move in with Rhoese. She’s still your ward. She’s obliged to help.’

Her hands snatched his away and threw them aside as she whirled to look at him, her face suddenly hard with jealousy. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ she said. ‘To live with her. My stepdaughter. Still hankering after her, aren’t you?’

Still puzzled by his faulty timing, Warin’s blue eyes opened like a child’s, though behind his façade of innocence was a frantic attempt to backtrack. He caught at her hands, holding her still. ‘No, sweetheart. Not to live with her, of course not,’ he blustered.

‘What, then?’

‘Look, she’s got her own place at Toft Green. She moved out of your home, didn’t she? Well, what d’ye think she’d do if we said we had to move into hers because we have nowhere else? Eh?’ He shook her hands to make her reply.

But Ketti’s face was still hard. ‘You think she’d move out of Toft Green, don’t you? Rubbish. She won’t. She’s still crazy for you. She only moved away because she couldn’t bear the sight of you with me. She’d let you into her bed every time my back was turned. No, my lad. I’m not having that.’ There was a finality in her voice that Warin knew better than to challenge.

‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘we’ll try sending her to the king to see if she can negotiate another patch of land for this one. Once she sees the threat of us moving into her house, she’ll fall over herself to be helpful.’

In that one respect, he was a better judge of the situation than Ketti, though the flutter of pride and excitement he felt at her jealous suppositions was sadly misplaced. Rhoese would not have let him into her bed if he’d been the last man alive in England.

By dawn next morning, the news had been delivered to Rhoese at Toft Green that her stepmother had been deprived of everything she had inherited from the Lord Gamal. The steward who delivered the message had been with the family for as long as Rhoese could recall and was almost in tears. ‘Go and collect your things,’ she told him. ‘You can live here with us.’

The man knelt and kissed her hand. ‘My lady,’ he stammered. ‘My wife…may I…?’

‘Of course. Bring your wife.’

After he had gone, Eric voiced his doubts. ‘Was that wise?’ he said. ‘To take him so soon? Him alone?’

‘After that woman took what was mine?’ she replied. ‘It may not have been too subtle, but it was vengeful. And if they think they’re going to come and move in here, they’re mistaken. They’re not.’

Eric sought her hand and took her from the end of the hall out into the croft that was fenced with a wattle hurdle to contain pot-herbs and medicinal plants. The greenery dripped with diamonds and rustled with the sounds of recovery after the heavy rain. ‘Rosie,’ he said. ‘Whatever you think of her, she’s our kins-woman and we cannot refuse to help. You know that. She’s also your legal guardian.’

Together, they leaned on the whitewashed wall of the house beneath the steaming overhang, and Rhoese knew a sense of despair yet again at the constant negativity of the Danish woman’s influence upon her life. Ketti had been married to Lord Gamal for only five years with no apparent advantage to anyone except herself and her family. Her son Thorn was well named, and the old hag who was Ketti’s mother rivalled the yard cockerel with her cackling. They could not be allowed to disturb the peace of Toft Green.

‘Yes, I know it. And she knows it too. That’s what she’s trading on. But the problem is hers, Eric. Why doesn’t she get her Danish kin to help?’

‘She knows that you know the archbishop, love. She’s hoping you’ll go and speak to him, I suppose. You could, if you wanted to.’

‘I don’t want to. Let her go and live with the cows.’

‘Rosie!’ he laughed. ‘That’s wicked! Go and see Archbishop Thomas. He and Father were friends. He’ll be able to help, somehow.’

‘Today’s the stone-laying ceremony with the king. He’ll be busy.’

‘Afterwards, then. When the king’s gone off hunting.’

She sighed. ‘I really don’t see why I should.’

‘Yes, you do, love. I shall probably be safe at the abbey in a week or two, but you don’t want to be landed with her, of all people. Or Warin.’

‘He’ll not put a foot in my house,’ she said, angrily. ‘I’ll go.’

‘When?’

‘Later on, after the stone-laying. I may see Abbot Stephen, too.’ She linked an arm through his and snuggled against him. ‘I wish you would not leave me, love,’ she said. ‘I know you want to, but I shall miss you so sorely.’

‘I think it’s for the best. I can do no good here. I can’t inherit. I can’t protect you. I can’t seek a wife. I can’t fight for the king. I’m a liability. Best if I go and play my harp to the monks and do a bit of praying for souls. I can do that.’

‘But you’re my adviser. My counsellor. Who will I turn to?’

‘We’ve had all this out before, love. It’s been decided.’

‘Abbot Stephen may not want you, after all.’

He smiled at her teasing. ‘Then I’ll have to stay with you, won’t I? But don’t you dare go and tell him of all my bad habits, just to put him off.’

‘I will,’ she said, kissing his cheek. ‘I will. That’s what I’ll do. But this business worries me, Eric. The last thing I wanted to do while the new king was up here in York was to show myself. You know what he thinks about women who hold land. His reputation is every bit as bad as his father’s.’

‘Then find the archbishop, love. He’s a Norman, but at least he knows you and our family. He’ll listen to you.’

The crowds that packed into the city’s narrow streets were thicker than ever that day, and as Rhoese and Els pressed forward against the flow, a seething mass of bodies surged through the arch in the wall, back towards the minster. The former king, William the Bastard, had visited York only to demolish it; his son had decided to give something, for a change, and those who had come to watch this phenomenon supposed that he must therefore be of a different mould from his brutal parent.

With a growing panic at the possible consequences of any delay, Rhoese had dressed in her best linen kirtle, dyed with damsons, over which a wide-sleeved gown reached to her knees, its borders decorated with a tablet-woven braid. The ends of her long plaits had been twisted with gold threads, and a fine white linen head-rail was kept in place by a gold circlet studded with amethysts, sitting low on her brow. Her last-minute check in the bronze mirror had been perfunctory, to say the least, for she found no pleasure in the reflection nowadays, nor were there smiles of recognition that had once sent back secret messages of love. Instead, she had pulled down her kirtle sleeves well over her wrists, adjusted the leather pouch at her girdle and hustled Els out of the door.

Only a few minutes ago, the possibility of a quiet word with the Norman archbishop had seemed like a reasonable course of action, but her doubts grew into real obstacles as they approached the minster garth where the great white cathedral reared above the rooftops like a sleeping lion covered by cobwebs of scaffolding. Beyond it, the timber-and-thatch palace that was usually accessible to everyone was almost engulfed by a sea of fluttering pennants, tents, makeshift kitchens and stables, and armies of soldiers and monks who strode about or stood in groups, their gowns flapping in the breeze. Because the king was staying there, the archbishop’s palace was being heavily guarded.

Two long lances crossed in front of them. ‘Can’t go in there,’ one soldier said, looking Rhoese up and down. ‘Not unless you’ve got something to give to the monks.’ He winked at his companion.

Quickly, she seized her chance. ‘I have land,’ she said. ‘Where do I go to make my donation?’

The man hesitated. ‘You got the documents, then?’

‘Of course I have, man,’ she snapped, ‘but I’d be a fool to bring them out in a crowd like this. The clerks have records. Just tell me where they are and have done with your questions.’

The lances were withdrawn. ‘Over there, lady.’ The soldier pointed to the largest leather tent outside which stood a table covered with rolls of parchment. A tonsured cleric sat behind it and by his side stood a tall Norman soldier who pointed to something on the parchment before them. He straightened and looked directly across at Rhoese as if he was expecting her, his head easily topping the men and horses passing in between.

She recognised him immediately, even though his head was now completely encased in a shining steel helmet, the nose guard of which hid the centre of his face. Small shining steel rings enmeshed his upper body down to his knees, split up the centre of the skirt for riding. Leather straps and silver buckles held a sword low on his left hip. A brawny young squire fed his huge bay stallion something sweet from his hand, and Rhoese was both puzzled and annoyed to see them there when she had been so sure of escaping his attention, after last night. The clerk lifted his head to look at the two women, then bent it again to his scroll, and they had no choice but to approach in the full critical stare of the man who had acquainted himself with her so forcefully. Hours later, she was to recall how that short walk was like pushing through deep sand, and how breathless she was on arrival.

Deliberately, she avoided looking at him, but spoke in English directly to the clerk instead. ‘Master Clerk, I wish to speak with my lord the archbishop. Would you direct me to him, please?’

The cleric looked up at her, allowing the roll of parchment to spring back over his hands. He caught it and set it aside. ‘You are?’ he said.