Girl In A Red Tunic (24 page)

     Cerdic and Hildegarde’s eldest child, a boy, was christened Egfrith and he died of a flux of the bowels when he was eight years old. His two younger brothers, William de Swansford and Eadgar Caedwalla, both had sons who married and in time begat children, two of whom were Ralf de Swansford, grandson of William, and Emma Caedwalla, granddaughter of Eadgar. The marriage of these two produced a quartet of lively, healthy, intelligent and capable children in whom the blood and the energy of the Caedwallas runs strong  ...

Helewise’s elder brother Rainer is, at the time of this sunny spring morning, now sixteen years old and a squire. He has already achieved his full height, the beginnings of a beard and a manly breadth of shoulder; they mature early, Ralf and Emma’s children. Rainer has bedded several cheerful and very willing kitchen maids and is now moon-eyed over the pretty daughter of a neighbouring knight. Helewise’s younger brother Eudo, aged eleven, is also undergoing the training deemed suitable for a knight’s son, although reports suggest that his heart does not seem to be in it and that he is proving quite a handful. Both brothers are presently away from home, although the households in which they live are not far away.

     The last of the four children, Helewise’s sister Aeleis, is ten years old and the beauty of the family, with thick, glossy hair the colour of chestnuts and clear grey eyes fringed with dark lashes. Her wide mouth smiles readily and the skin of her heart-shaped face is creamy and smooth. Everyone tries to pet her, dress her up and spoil her, but she usually manages to slip through even the grasp of her nurse and, dressed in cast-off boys’ clothing that once belonged to her brothers, loves nothing better than to spend the day with the horses and her father’s hounds. Aeleis loves all animals and her devotion to the stable cat means that this large and indolent creature is now too spoiled and well-fed to earn its keep as a mouser. (When Aeleis grows up, this big-hearted and apparently endless well of love will be turned to humans when, after giving birth to her one and only child, she will set about opening her home to foundlings and proceeding to give food, warmth and the hope of a chance in life to many who would otherwise have died young.)

     This is Helewise’s family. She loves them and, at fourteen, has sufficient wisdom to understand that her childhood has been singularly blessed. Not only is there the very comfortable cushion of her parents’ wealth; there is also the unusually tolerant and wide-minded attitude of her mother and father. They have treated their offspring as young adults from an early age, stretching their minds with talk usually reserved for times when the children are not about, so that the four young Swansfords have a wider view of the world than most of their contemporaries. This is one reason why Helewise is so eager to see her father: he has been to London – oh, the very name is exciting! – and has promised to bring back the latest gossip. He will, he whispered to her before he left, save the juiciest morsels to tell her first  ...

     The gifts with which Father will present his wife and children (and the most senior of the household servants) will be splendid; they always are. He may well bring Helewise some parchment and a new stylus, or a beautifully written sacred text produced by the monks. He will undoubtedly bring her a length of yellow French silk, because she asked him to and he never lets her down.

Helewise’s dancing is interrupted by the arrival in the bedchamber of her nurse, Elena. Elena is dark-haired and dark-eyed and has the perpetually tanned skin that suggests she has ancestry from the south. Whatever the truth of the matter, Elena tells her own version: that her grandfather went off to fight in the First Crusade and brought back a slave girl from Antioch. Helewise, enchanted by this story as a child, now has her doubts as to its veracity but loves Elena nonetheless. Elena is wise and at times too perceptive for the children – especially the girls – whom she has had in her charge since they were born; Helewise and Aeleis frequently accuse her of having good friends in the spirit world who keep her informed, for how else would she know what is happening out of her sight and away from her keen ears? Elena is also skilled in herb lore and has been of service as nurse and healer to the Swansfords on so many occasions that they have all lost count.

     ‘Hurry up, my girl!’ Elena says as she bustles into the room with Helewise’s bluebell-coloured gown carried carefully in her arms. ‘Your father’s nearly here and he has brought a friend with him. You’re to go down when your mother calls you and make a nice curtsy to the man.’

     ‘Is he old?’ Helewise is struggling out of her everyday linen over-gown – a little grubby around the hem and with a blotch on the bosom where she spilt her barley water – and her words are muffled.

     ‘Old enough,’ Elena replies unhelpfully. ‘Now let me look at this under-gown.’ She pauses to drag the fine linen shift down and straighten it; Helewise is full-figured and the garment is a little tight over her firm and rounded breasts. ‘I ought to let this out again,’ Elena mutters, ‘but there’s no time now, it’ll have to do. Come, let’s see what the blue looks like.’ She drapes the silk over Helewise’s head – it smells faintly of lavender; Elena is skilled in the care of fine clothing – and pushes her arms up over her head so that she can fasten the laces down each side of the gown. ‘There!’ she exclaims as she ties the last bow. ‘I’ll tidy your hair’ – she smacks Helewise’s hands away and skilfully twirls the reddish-blonde hair into long braids and attractive curls that frame Helewise’s flushed face – ‘and I reckon you’re done.’

     Helewise stands still under Elena’s scrutiny. ‘Will I pass inspection?’ she asks with a grin.

     ‘Aye.’ Elena gives a satisfied nod. ‘That you will.’

Helewise waits impatiently for her mother’s summons. When at last it comes she makes her way through the upper chambers of Swansford – it is a very big house – and descends down the narrow, curving stair that leads into the huge hall. Her father is standing by the long table in front of the hearth and there is another, older man with him. Both are in the act of drinking a toast to one another, as if in celebration of business satisfactorily concluded. Her father would no doubt tell Helewise what that business was if she asked. Nothing, in fact, is further from her mind, because she is quite captivated by the tall, broad-shouldered and handsome man who stands at her father’s side.

     He is older than her father, considerably so; his face bears strong character lines but these lines give the impression that they all radiate upwards, suggesting that they have been formed from a lifetime of laughter. His eyes are brilliant blue. His mouth is wide and when, as now, he smiles, it is to reveal good strong teeth, the eye teeth long and sharp like a wolf’s. He is dressed in a dark blue tunic richly decorated with gold braid and his head of long, thick, white hair is uncovered.

     She walks towards the two men. She approaches her father first and receives his kiss and his loving embrace. Smiling up at him, she whispers, ‘I’m glad you’re home!’ Then her father gently disentangles himself and, twisting her round, says, ‘Helewise, you must greet our guest.’ Turning to the tall man, he says, ‘Benedict, may I present my elder daughter Helewise. Sweetheart, this is Sir Benedict Warin.’

     Helewise turns to him and makes a low and graceful curtsy, one hand laid on her breast as she bends low and modestly casts down her eyes. She feels his strong fingers take hold of her other hand and he raises her up. She lifts her head and meets his blue eyes. He is smiling at her as delightedly as if her presence has just made the sun come out, and she cannot help but respond.

     ‘You and Emma have produced a beauty,’ he says to Ralf. ‘Why did you not warn me that, before ever I entered your hall, I should put a guard on my heart?’

     He is joking, she knows full well; she is used to this kind of light talk. She laughs and he turns back to look at her again. ‘You think I speak in jest?’ he murmurs and, at this sudden low tone, something seems to stir deep within her, something that she has half-felt in her dreams and which she knows, without being quite sure why, is something dark and secret  ...

     Ralf is apparently unaware of this subtle exchange but his wife is not; Emma Swansford has been watching from the doorway and now she comes gliding across the shiny flagstones of the hall floor, moving with her trademark grace, her arms extended in greeting as she says, with apparently unmitigated delight, ‘Benedict, my dear! How very good it is to see you again!’

     Good manners demand that Benedict withdraw his fascinated eyes from young Helewise’s breasts and turn them upon his hostess. Graciously he embraces Emma, kissing her on both cheeks and exclaiming that, for all that it is a year or more since he has seen her, she does not look one single day older. Helewise, watching the ease with which this fascinating man turns his charm from her to her mother, feels a quick stab of resentment but soon it passes. Once out of the beam of his eyes she can see that he is in fact quite elderly and she wonders what the attraction was.

     In that brief time she has learned a valuable lesson about a man’s powers of seduction. And, indeed, about how quickly a man who loves women can flit from one to the next.

     In due course Emma leads them all to the meal table. They are joined by Aeleis, face and hair still damp and cheeks still red from Elena’s vigorous washing, laced into a gown at which she keeps pulling, as if it does not feel comfortable. The conversation ranges over many subjects and Helewise and her sister are regularly invited to join in. Benedict, seated opposite to Helewise, frequently glances her way although she tries not to meet his eyes. He is, she thinks, rather like a hot-blooded horse: exciting but potentially rather dangerous.

     The meal ends. The girls are dismissed and Aeleis hurries to take off her gown and dress herself in her old house gown (Elena will not permit her to wear her usual boys’ clothes when there is a guest in the house) and she returns to whatever she was doing in the stables. Helewise wanders off and goes up to her room. She is thinking.

     Some time later her mother comes to find her. She sits down beside Helewise on the long wooden bench and takes her daughter’s hand in both of hers.

     ‘Benedict Warin,’ Emma says without preamble, ‘is what is known as a womaniser. Do you know what that means, Helewise?’

     ‘I can guess,’ she replies.

     Emma smiles. When she does so, Helewise thinks she is still the most beautiful woman in the land. ‘What did he say to you?’ she asks.

     ‘That he should have put a guard on his heart before he met me.’

     Emma nods sagely as if this were no more that she had expected. ‘I see.’ She studies her daughter. ‘And you were flattered, of course?’

     ‘I was while he held my eyes,’ Helewise admits. ‘But then you came over and he looked exactly the same when he gazed at you, and I realised that it was just something he does, rather as Father would slap a good friend on the back or make a specially deep bow to a woman he respected.’

     Emma squeezes Helewise’s hand. ‘Good girl,’ she says approvingly. ‘You are wise beyond your years, daughter.’ She studies her, taking in the grey eyes, the smile, the strong shoulders and the deepening bosom. ‘Although in truth,’ she adds, half to herself, ‘the sum of your years is adding up almost without my noticing it.’

     But Helewise wants to hear more about Benedict Warin. ‘He likes women, Mother? Sir Benedict?’

     Emma hesitates as if she is pondering the wisdom of discussing with her young daughter the ways of such a man. But then, perhaps reasoning that Helewise is on the cusp of womanhood and ought to know what the world is really like, she starts to speak. ‘He does, Helewise. And women like him too, for he is a well-favoured man, despite his limp; did you remark it, daughter?’

     ‘His limp? Er—’ Helewise thinks back. ‘No, I do not believe that I did, but in truth I did not see him move more than a few paces. How did he come by it?’

     ‘He fell from his horse’s saddle but one foot remained lodged in the stirrup so that he was dragged when the horse bolted. They say that it was only the swift intervention of his companion that saved Benedict’s life. But that is beside the present point.’ Emma tightens her grip on her daughter’s hand and, eyes fixed to Helewise’s, says urgently, ‘Helewise, Benedict likes women too well for his own good. He was married to a fine woman whose name was Blanche. She was lovely, talented and skilled in the womanly arts. Most men would have been more than satisfied and, moreover, considered themselves lucky to have won such a goodly soul to be their wife, particularly when Blanche gave birth to a son. But there were troubles in that household.’ Emma shakes her head sadly and slowly. ‘It is said that Benedict did not lose his – er, his adventurous spirit. He travelled widely as a youth and fought for his King in faraway places where many knights, I am afraid to say, consider that bedding as many women as they possibly can is as much a part of their task as slaughtering the King’s enemies.’ She sighs. ‘Marriage calmed Benedict for perhaps five or six years or, at least, if he was engaging in – er, in his philandering ways, then he hid it from his wife. Then when his son was still a babe in arms, he took off on his travels. There was always an excuse – to see this man or that, to seek out some man of influence who would advance the Warins, to visit some former comrade who had fallen on bad times. But always, always, there was a woman at the bottom of it and invariably she ended up in Benedict’s bed.’