Chapter 4 #2
He released the man’s throat and flung Madeleine off so that she was sent sprawling on the floor.
“Keep out of my way, you wretched girl!” he snarled.
His hounds leaped up and stood over her, growling, keeping her on the floor at his feet.
She stared at their bared fangs and could imagine them tearing at her throat.
Her uncle looked down at the headman, who was kneeling, clutching his throat and choking. “If any of the oxen die,” he said flatly, “you die. Now get out of here.”
On hands and knees, the man went.
Paul de Pouissey turned on Madeleine. “Interfere with me again, Niece, and I’ll yoke you to the plow.” With that he snapped his fingers and lumbered out into the courtyard to whip more work out of the laborers. With a disdainful curl of their lips the two hounds abandoned Madeleine and followed.
Shakily, she rose to her feet. She looked to her aunt, but found no help there.
“Stupid girl,” the woman snapped. “Don’t you know better than to interfere in men’s affairs? I don’t know what they taught you at the convent, but you’d better unlearn it if you want to live. No husband will put up with such as you.”
Once or twice Madeleine saw someone slip in to speak to her uncle under cover of darkness: an informer from the village.
As a Norman, she should be pleased, but she hated the man, whoever he was.
In spirit she felt closer to the English than to her relatives.
She was terrified that the traitor was bringing a tale of Golden Hart and that she would see her outlaw dragged before Uncle Paul.
“Do we know who Golden Hart is, Uncle?” she asked one day at the table when Paul had just finished another ranting complaint about the man. She worked at picking the flesh off a very small fish, apparently the best that could be had in the nearby river.
“A Saxon traitor,” snarled Paul. “When I have him I’ll make him pay. I’ll lop his limbs. I’ll blind him slowly. I’ll cut off his balls,” he said with relish, “and then the villagers who worship him can care for him as he crawls around in the dust like the beast he is.”
The piece of fish in her mouth threatened to choke Madeleine. He would do just as he said. Had not Duke William had the hands and feet of the rebels at Falaise chopped off?
She forced the food down. “But do we know who he is?” she persisted, striving for a casual tone.
Her uncle grunted a negative. “Some say he’s a displaced Saxon lord, even Earl Edwin of Mercia, though that young good-for-nothing’s kept tight at William’s side.
Others say he’s that Hereward, or King Arthur come to save them.
” Her uncle laughed. “He’s no ghost, as they’ll all know when they hear him scream.
Give me that dish, girl.” He poked among the mess of greens.
“Steward!” he bellowed. The harried man came forward to receive the bowl and contents in his face.
“Find some decent food, or God knows I’ll geld you! ”
Madeleine fled the table.
She went to the chapel and prayed for the safety of her outlaw, begging forgiveness at the same time for the treason of it. “Keep him safe, sweet Savior,” she whispered. “Guard him. But,” she added wryly, “let him not entirely denude my land of people before I have a chance to see it whole again.”
No message came from the king.
Instead a spell of hot weather brought sickness, causing vomiting, fever, and death.
Few of the castle people took the pestilence, but it roared through the already wretched village.
Madeleine knew it was the near-starvation of the people there that made them so vulnerable. She cursed her uncle even more.
See what he had brought them to! Now there were few people fit to slave on his fortifications. Work in the fields had slowed almost to nothing. Animals were barely tended and the weeds grew up strong to choke the corn. A winter famine was almost certain.
Why didn’t the king come?
The villagers had always refused Madeleine’s attempts to act as healer, but now she would not be put off.
Summoning two guards, she went out among the people.
They still glared at her, but she was growing competent in English, and she demanded that they speak to her.
She gave them herbs and explained how they should be used to ease the vomiting.
Once, she saw a woman throw the medicine away and could have screamed with vexation. What was wrong with these people?
She refused to give up. Even if they did not use her treatment, at least she knew she was doing her best. As she sat alone one day in the solar tying bundles of herbs, a girl sidled in and waited. It was Aldreda’s fair-haired daughter.
“Yes?” Madeleine said.
“Please, Lady. There’s a child sick.”
“There’s dozens of children sick, girl.”
“My brother, Lady.”
Madeleine looked up. Was this the first crack? Was she being accepted? “What’s your name?”
“Frieda, Lady.”
Madeleine smiled at the child, who looked to be about eight. There was no answering smile.
“Where is your brother?” Madeleine asked.
“At our house. It’s between the hall and the village, Lady. Da’s a forester. Ma asks that you come, but without your guards, Lady. It must be secret or Da’ll throw the medicine away.”
It could be a trap, but Madeleine found it hard to believe that Aldreda would plot so openly to murder a Norman lady.
The penalties for the whole community would be terrible.
The father’s enmity was only too likely.
This could be her chance to show the people she was their friend.
She gathered up her supplies and wrapped a cloak around herself.
They slipped quietly across the bailey. The earthwork was up and a wooden palisade was being built on top.
With so few laborers, however, the work was going slowly, and there were gaps here and there.
On the far side, the stream had not yet been diverted to fill the moat, and rough bridges spanned the ditch for the carts of logs.
It was alarmingly easy to cross unnoticed.
Madeleine prayed that no enemy would attack Baddersley.
She didn’t think it could repel a bunch of children armed with sticks.
Soon Madeleine and the girl stood before a substantial thatched hut at the edge of the woodland. Aldreda came out, a shapely woman with a strong, beautiful face. She was no more warmly disposed than usual, but Madeleine told herself she would be happier when her child was eased.
“He’s within,” said the woman coldly.
Somewhat hesitantly, Madeleine ducked through the low door and found herself in the typical house of a prosperous family.
It was small but divided to give at least two rooms other than the one in which she stood.
The walls were made of sticks well packed with clay, and there was a small window, open now to the sun, with shutters that could be closed to keep out the wind.
The split-log floor was swept clean, and a fire burned in a central stone hearth.
The smoke rose efficiently enough to escape through a hole above, but enough lingered to fog the room, and on such a warm summer’s day it made the room stuffy.
The only furnishings in the room were two long chests and a simple loom. Tools and dishes hung on the walls.
She looked around for the sick child and saw a man. The father? He stood looking at her, just a shadowy shape in earth-colored clothes.
“Where is the child?” she asked, disturbed by the slight tremor in her voice.
“There is no child.” Her heart leaped at that familiar voice. “You have been brought here to see me.”
“Are you sick?” she asked, moving toward him.
He stepped back, away from her. Light from the fire, the roof vent, and the window illumined him. He was as dirty and ragged as before, with a hood shadowing his face.
“No.” The coldness in his voice finally penetrated, stopping her. Menace weaved through the room with the smoke and caught her breathing. Logic said Edwald wouldn’t harm her. Instinct overrode logic.
“Then I am wasting my time,” she said and turned to escape. He grasped her arm.
“Take your hand off me!” She was as afraid for him as for herself. “Harm me and the wrath of God will fall on everyone here.” Oh, sweet Jesu. He hates me too. Why? Why?
“That’s your way, isn’t it, Lady? Punishment. Death.” He dragged her close. She braced her hands to hold him away.
“What do you want?” she asked desperately.
“To see if your evil has marked you yet.”
Madeleine’s heart shriveled. “What’s the matter?” she cried. “I’m doing my best. I try to heal, and they throw my medicines away. I try to be kind, but no one sees it. . .”
“Too little, too late,” he sneered. “Why are you trembling? Are you afraid for your skin, Dorothy? You should be. You have much guilt to expiate.”
She stopped struggling and raised her hands to his chest beseechingly. “Am I to be held responsible for everything done by the Normans in England?”
He looked at her, and she could swear his head began to lower to hers, but then he thrust her sharply away. “Oh no. You don’t play those tricks on me twice.” He thumped a fist against the sturdy pole as if it were her. The very cottage shuddered.
Madeleine was fighting tears. She’d held this man in her dreams as her bulwark against cruelty and suffering. Now he was striking her as cruelly as if he used his fist.
He turned to her. “Are you really trying to heal people?”
“Of course,” she said quickly.
Then she was filled with disgust that she was still so eager to please him when he was being so cruel to her. Had she no pride? What was he anyway? Just a ragged outlaw. She glared at him, but knew she was scrabbling for anger to cover a broken heart.
He picked up a small earthenware bowl of water and thrust it at her. “Make your infusion.”
She pushed it back. “Go to hell.”