Danburgh Castle (2 page)

“When yer grandad told me, I couldn’t believe they’d said yes to it,” Emma’s mother informed her excitedly.

Emma was fully aware that she had no choice but to accept a fate that would ensure, not only her own security, but that of her entire family.  “And little Oswald, he can come with me?” she said.

“Ah,” her mother replied sadly, “that won’t be possible, lass.”

Emma began to weep.

“But, rest assured, my love, I will bring little Oswald up like one of my own.”

Chapter 5

Within days Emma’s new life was upon her.  “I will send money each month,” she told her mother, as they stood outside the cottage on a grey but mild autumnal afternoon.

“And news of how you get along.”

“Yes.”

Lord Robert’s man was waiting with his horse and cart.  He was eager to get on as the sun was already beginning to set and the black-blue skies over the coast signalled rain was on its way.

“Goodbye Mother,” Emma said, kissing the older woman on the cheek and trying to resist her firm embrace, for fear she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to leave.  “Give my love to Grandfather and kiss little Oswald for me,” she added tremulously, as she turned her head away from her mother to hide her tears.

Emma climbed up beside the man on the cart, on the back of which her few belongings had been loaded.  The horse pulled away.  Emma looked back and saw her younger sister emerging from the door of the cottage, with baby Oswald in her arms.  Upon sight of her child, Emma wept unashamedly.

The man paid her no attention and continued towards the coast, his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead.  If they kept up a decent pace, they should get there just before dark.

As the cart journeyed on, along the track that led from the village, through the woodlands of Lord Robert’s estate, towards the east coast and the exposed, cliff-top grounds of the castle itself, Emma thought miserably about the misfortunes of the last year.  She also relived the events of the fateful day when, in the forest, she and Lord Robert had met.  It was dark in the woods now; there was no sunlight.  The leaves had fallen from the trees – it felt like winter was coming.

Everybody had said how fortunate she was to be going to work for Lord Robert and live in the castle.  Everybody said how charitable the Lord was to have overlooked Alaric’s crime and asked her to be his nurse.  Emma had told no one about the nature of the exchange between she and Lord Robert in the woods.  Partly, she didn’t want to spoil her family’s happiness over the income her work was to bring.  In addition, she was embarrassed by what had happened and remained confused about the Norman lord’s intentions.  Also, there was the feeling she could barely admit even to herself: desire for a man who was not only her new master but also her sworn enemy.

Emma’s dreamlike concerns became scarily real when she saw Danburgh Castle, her destination, looming large up ahead.  As soon as the cart emerged from the forest and they caught a first glimpse of the castle in the dwindling light, the rain started to pour.  The man pulled the hood of his tunic over his head.  Emma had nothing to protect her from the rain.  She felt the large, cold drops running in rivulets down her neck.

The castle was an imposing stone keep, located on the edge of a rocky headland, looking out to sea.  Emma was too young to have seen the wooden castle that had been quickly erected when the Normans had first arrived and taken power of the land, but she had heard of it from her grandfather.

The power of the Norman lord had now been strengthened by the gradual replacement of the timbers with masonry.  Now built completely from stone, the castle and surrounding wall looked impenetrable.  But what Emma feared, as the horse and cart rumbled along the track that wound up the hill towards the castle’s drawbridge, and she became increasingly soaked by the heavy rain, was that, once inside its walls, she might never leave its confines again.

Chapter 6

On arrival at Danburgh, Emma was greeted by a woman-servant in the courtyard.  The woman was alarmed that Emma was drenched, fearing she would catch a cold and pass it on to the baby.  But instead of taking her to dry herself in the kitchens, she escorted Emma directly to the nursery, saying she could dry herself there.  It was as though the servant didn’t want others to see Emma.

Making her way to the nursery, climbing the spiral staircase with the servant-woman, Emma caught a glimpse of a huge, bearded man standing in the middle of the great hall of the castle.  His massive figure, framed in the doorway leading off the staircase, was an impressive sight, but so striking was the young woman standing beside him –with her long, straight, black hair and her fine, vivid blue gown– that Emma stopped still on the spiralling stairs, transfixed.  The serving-woman whispered to Emma not to tarry and took hold of her hand, pulling her on, up the next flight of steps.

The nursery was on the floor above the great hall.  Emma was to sleep in a small bed that stood on the opposite side of the room from the crib in which her charge now lay sleeping.  The woman left Emma, to fetch her some means of drying herself.  Emma dared not go over to look in the crib.  She stood uncomfortably in the centre of the room, cold and damp from her journey.  She could hear loud voices from the hall below; she imagined it was the large man who laughed.  She suddenly felt scared of this new world she had entered; she was tempted to try to run away.

“His lordship has asked that you become responsible for his son’s nurture immediately,” the woman-servant explained on her return.  “He is happy that you should feed him when next he wakes.”

Emma walked over to the crib and looked down at the boy.  He was a little younger than baby Oswald and had angelic ringlets of fair hair.

“He has his mother’s colouring, God rest her soul,” the woman observed.

Emma felt a strange sensation: her resentment at being hired to nurture this child at the expense of her bond with her own baby was challenged by an instinct to protect so small a child who had lost his own mother.

“What became of his previous nurse?” Emma asked.

The woman-servant was hesitant to answer her question.

Emma looked her in the eye and the woman drew closer.  “The fine lady you saw in the great hall,” she began in hushed tones, “is Fiona, daughter of the bordering Scottish thane.”

“The large, bearded man?”

The woman nodded.  “Nothing has been announced but it is believed that she and Lord Robert are contracted to be married.  When her ladyship died, a woman from the village came to nurse the child, but when the lady Fiona began to visit the castle, she took exception to the woman and discharged her.”

“Why?” Emma asked.

“The lady Fiona said the woman was slovenly but we think she’s minded to install her own servants here.”

Emma now understood why her arrival at the castle had been so clandestine.  “Does the lady Fiona take an interest in the child?” she asked the woman.

“Not in any wholesome way,” she replied.  “I think she would rather it didn’t exist.  It bars the way for any sons she and Lord Robert might have, of course,” she added in a whisper.  “I must go, Nurse,” the woman concluded.  “I have already said too much.”

Chapter 7

When left alone with the sleeping child in the nursery, Emma sat on her bed, looking out of the narrow window, to the open sea, absently patting her long wet hair with the cloths the woman had brought her.  So close was this side of the castle to the edge of the cliff that she had no sense of land beneath her – she couldn’t see it.  Why must the window be so narrow when there was no land below?  Presumably to defend against attack from the sea itself, Emma thought.  Through the narrow window Emma could see the peach-pink sun setting on the horizon of a blue-grey sea.  Now the storm had passed, the air had cleared and the seas were calm.  It would soon be completely dark.  Emma had no means of illuminating the room once the veil of night fell.  Perhaps she was expected to sleep whenever the child slept.

Everybody considered her to have had good fortune in being called to the castle, but surely this room was to be little more than a prison cell.  Here she would attend to a baby whose father didn’t wish to see it.  If Lord Robert had moved on so swiftly to his second wife, Emma, surely, as the carer of his first wife’s child, must be shunned.  She couldn’t imagine what empty, numberless days and nights lay ahead of her, shut up in this small coastal cell.

Looking over to the crib of the sleeping child, a dark thought occurred to Emma.  She had feared that Lord Robert would exact revenge on Alaric by taking Oswald’s life.  By virtue of her position, she now held the life of the Norman lord’s child in
her
hands.  How strange that Lord Robert hadn’t considered that she might abuse her position to rid the world of his son and heir.

Emma’s contemplation was broken by the child’s waking cries.  She went quickly over to the crib and lifted the baby from it.  She held him against her and soothed him.  His crying soon ceased.  Emma found that tears were rolling down her cheeks.  Holding the child close, rocking him and stroking his back, Emma imagined the boy was her own little Oswald.  She kissed his soft cheek.

Taking a seat on the chair beside his cot, and placing the child on her lap, Emma loosened the cords that held the bodice of her dress together, undid the fastenings, pulled the fabric of her dress –still damp from the rainstorm– away from her chest, and then pulled back her smock.  The baby sought Emma instinctively.  She cradled him lovingly as he began to feed.  Emma heaved a sigh of relief and felt a surge of maternal warmth.  She couldn’t help but smile upon the child’s blonde crown of hair and begin to stroke it, as he fed contentedly.

Emma could hear voices again in the hall below – a woman’s voice laughing indulgently this time.  She imagined it was the lady Fiona.  How strange, Emma thought, as she gently rocked the little boy, that Fiona could deny herself an instinct as basic as a woman’s love for a child.

Emma sensed a presence in the room.  She jumped when, looking up, she saw Lord Robert standing in the doorway, watching her.  He held a burning candle in his hand.

“Welcome to Danburgh, Nurse,” he began.  “May I call you Emma?”

Emma could not reply.  She’d been startled and now felt self-conscious that the lord so blatantly watched the child at her breast.

“I wanted to ensure that everything is in order for you here – and to bring you some light.”  He placed the candle on a table beside the crib, as near as he could rest it to where Emma sat.  “You’re already acquainted with your charge.  He seems to be getting the sustenance he needs,” Lord Robert observed.

“My lord, I have not been told the child’s name,” Emma said.

“It is Harry,” Lord Robert replied.  “He is my son and heir, Emma, so be sure to feed him well.”

“I will treat him as I would my own son,” Emma assured him, feeling a pang at the remembrance of Oswald.

“You know, Emma, that I have taken care to make provision for your family?” Lord Robert continued.

“I am aware of it, sir,” Emma replied.  “I thank you.”

“My actions were not, perhaps, without an element of self-interest,” Lord Robert confessed as he walked from the table towards her.

“I don’t understand you sir,” Emma said, feeling flustered at his approaching step.

“Let us just say I am glad to have you here, Emma,” Lord Robert said as he knelt down beside her.

“Thank you my lord,” Emma uttered, keeping her gaze fixed upon Harry’s golden locks, for fear of looking into his father’s eyes.

“Regrettably, I must withdraw,” Lord Robert said.

Emma said nothing in response.  She could hear the strains of the musicians beginning to play in the great hall below but Lord Robert didn’t seem eager to return to his carousing.

“They play songs of love, Emma,” he said.

Emma nodded but avoided his gaze.

“Goodnight, little one,” Lord Robert said, bending over to place a kiss upon his child’s head.  Emma winced, to find him so close to her own bare skin.  Lord Robert raised his head as Emma tried to compose herself.

“Goodnight Nurse Emma,” the Norman lord added, beginning to rise from the floor but, as he did, placing a kiss upon Emma’s cheek.

He left the chamber almost before she’d had chance to register what he’d done.

Chapter 8

For two weeks Emma spent most of her time confined to the nursery with the child.  She saw nothing of her lord nor of the lady Fiona but she was aware, from the news that the serving-woman brought her daily, that the lady and her attendants had been staying at the castle all that time.

On a couple of occasions, the serving-woman invited Emma to bring Harry down to the kitchen, to sit beside the fire.  This only happened when Lord Robert and Fiona were abroad, riding or hunting, and the woman could be certain that the lady would not return and discover the nurse.  Emma enjoyed the opportunity to see more of the castle and to talk with the serving-woman, but she resented the fact that her freedom was only occasioned by Lord Robert’s adventures with the noblewoman.