Apples and Prayers (19 page)

When the day of the wedding arrived, Alford wore a simple dress, sewn from some old linen in the store. I put the last stitch in myself, for good luck, just before she went off. Her face was veiled with light muslin. I'd blanched it pure and starched it with sap. We garlanded her hair with myrtle and she carried a sprig of gilded rosemary, for remembrance. We should have cut it from the bush outside her mother's door, but as she'd passed away, she had to make do with a sprig from the Barton. She'd plant it later, outside her new home, to hand it down to her daughter and her daughter's daughter, time without end. For
Something Old
, she wore her mother's bonnet, which she'd always kept safe for herself.
Something Borrowed
came from my own drawer; a pin for her long hair. Looking for
Something Blue
, we made her a spray of forget-me-nots, to bind her to her husband.

I acted the bridesmaid, the second time in weeks she'd made me dress much younger than my years. I wore a gown sewn together from my Lady's castaways. I also planted myrtle at her new home and carried the bride cake, shaped like a wheat sheaf. As they walked back to the in-laws' house, the gathering threw grains over them, to ensure their fecundity, although that already seemed well taken care of.

‘Wife,' I heard Dufflin whisper, as he carried her over the threshold, ‘welcome to your new home.' Dufflin's mother fussed around them as they stepped inside. She bustled about in her smock and bonnet, shepherding us here and there.

‘Take these things, girl,' she said sharply to Alford. She didn't look well on the making of children before the ring was on the finger and she didn't mind which of us knew her feelings. ‘With my blessing,' she added in a semblance of motherliness, handing Alford a box of salt, a loaf and a new broom. She smiled heavily to mask her mean tongue.

‘What shall I do with them, mother?' Alford replied politely. Her question was altogether too naïve. She also didn't care for the older woman.

‘What'll you do?
What'll you do?
' mother Dufflin echoed. ‘I'll tell you what you'll do with them. Make offerings. What else? This household needs appeasing before you come striding in here with your great round…' She stopped herself suddenly and scattered some salt across the floor, holding on to Alford's hand. ‘Not too much now!' she warned and snatched the salt away. The bread was then broken into rough chunks and the broom put to good use to sweep the salt and crumbs away. Dufflin knelt at Alford's feet.

‘Your foot?' he asked her and she placed her toes on his raised knee. He was a little shy and wooden and seemed to me as though he was reciting the lines of a play. But he carried it all off well enough, considering we were all hanging on his every word. 

‘May I?' he asked nervously and removed one of Alford's old slippers. 

‘For good luck,' he said, lifting a floorboard in the corner of the kitchen to hide the slipper beneath.

‘Good luck you bury nothing more, until ashes to ashes and dust to dust,' said mother Dufflin crossing herself. She turned her back on us and sobbed heavily in to her sleeve.

The couple then disappeared behind the curtain, hung to one end of the home, to check the agreeable setting of their wedding bed, east to west to follow the sun. The old mother had already stuffed their pillows with herbs for aphrodisiac, though why they needed help with procreation was anyone's guess. 

While they were at these rituals, we sat at a low table in their humble home and supped on a small cup of cider. We sat respectfully quiet until they'd reappear. Two young boys, prepared with a whistle and fiddle, stood patiently waiting their turn to play a song. Even the dog seemed to cease its constant snuffling and scavenging and stood patiently around our feet. But John Toucher broke the respectful calm, slurping quickly and rudely from his cup, as though distracted by far off thoughts. The old mother stood behind him with livid eyes. I nodded at John to sip more slowly and to doff his cap. He slipped the hat from off his head with annoyance and placed his tankard on the table. 

Opposite him, Dufflin's master, Coleman, sat quietly in thought, his blackened hands clasped on his knee. ‘I suppose this means me working on my own tomorrow,' he noted, rubbing his brow, leaving his blacksmith's signature.

‘He'll think of work soon enough, when the need for a coin has struck home and the novelty worn thin,' John Toucher replied. 

This time it was I who looked at him with angry eyes. 

‘What is it woman?' he said to me when he caught my gaze. It seemed that there was then something altogether foreign about him.

‘The lad's but a few hours wed, John,' I rebuked him. ‘Be graceful, please. And no more talk of novelties wearing thin. You don't give the couple a chance.'

‘It's the way of all marriages, Morgan,' he said wearily and downed his cup. 

I glowered at him from across the table, but tried to forget the matter, for Alford's sake. She didn't want her wedding day spoiled by the grumbles of someone who couldn't even summon up the courage to propose. How separate I felt from him then, yet sitting but a yard across the table from him.

When the couple reappeared, the feeling lightened. 

Their simple wedding meal followed. Pastries stuffed with grains and minced meat, soft junkets, round cheeses, all washed down with Alford's bridal ale and cider from our newly emptied barrels. 

‘Nuptial feasts,' she smiled at me and, for a moment, I laughed with her. 

Yet, although the wedding was in some ways joyous for them, I found myself alone in the orchard that evening, talking to the bees once more. I crossed myself as I entered that ground and knelt before the hives to confer with their spirits.

‘Lord, hear my prayer,' I began. ‘Blessed Virgin and Holy Creatures, hear me… Today has been a special day and memorable for Alford, as for Dufflin. Bless them in their marriage and the coming birth of their child.' 

These were the words of devotion I wished to convey for my friend. But there were darker, more troubling thoughts in my prayers. 

‘Blessed Father, I fear that there's trouble before us. I can't help but sense the foment of strange, unnatural matters. Buckland is plagued by worry. My Lord is continually vexed. His son, Robert, casts wicked doubts on his father's faith and integrity. Our villagers are tense about their climbing rents and fenced-off land. They've so little in their purses, they can barely feed themselves. Prices soar, like buzzards on the summer sky. To cap it all, our sacred and ancient beliefs are much maligned, attacked by the King's own Council. The very fabric of our lives is rent apart by some great force we can no more see than understand. I've not given great weight to these matters til now, but what with Alford's hopes conjoined with Dufflin's, I fear that something's afoot that will set the whole hay cart on fire.

‘I've told myself over and over, the graveyard ghosts of St. Mark's Eve were nothing more than fantasies. But perhaps, in truth, they're more than that? They've troubled me to my bones and won't let me sleep. Now I fear I've seen our people's future. And it is not good.

‘I know that rumours spread. Gossip's in the very heart of people. But still, so much of it. Taxes. Heresy. Man fighting man. Where before there was only contentment and obedience, now the talk is angry, rebellious. 

‘I don't know how it will balance in the end, but I do know I don't like it one bit. My own John Toucher calls me common ‘woman' and seems like a stranger. His tempers change from minute to minute. It has nearly bought me into trouble with my masters. It was John who sowed these doubtful seeds in my mind. For that, I'm base and lowly, while you, Blessed Virgin, are gracious and all giving.

‘Show us how to prevail. Teach us how to listen to the grievances of others. Release us from the burden of meddling in their affairs. Keep our minds thoughtful, not brooding; our hearts open, loving. Keep our lips sealed about our own burdens and teach us how to join together. Blessed be the Holy Saints, the Holy and undivided Trinity. Blessed be Mary, Mother of our Lord. Amen.'

 

Only two weeks after Dufflin and Alford's wedding, our village gathered for the Whitsun Mass and Fair at Sampford Courtenay. It was then that Hellyons met his brutal end. The hours that followed his death were confused ones of tempers and tension. 

The next day, my Lord called our people together. The news from Sampford had already spread throughout the county, mixing truth and fantasy in equal measure: he had argued while brandishing weapons; he'd attacked a man who'd simply had to defend himself; he was drunkenly slain in a petty argument with some foreign interlopers who killed the man then vanished.

We gathered before noon in the village square and waited uneasily to hear my Lord's opinion. It was another heady, early summer's day. The atmosphere was taught like a drawn bowstring. Standing in the shade of the great trees, or squatting on the dusty ground, our whole village was assembled, chattering in private groups. We seldom met each and everyone together, except for feast days, wassailing, the festivals of saints. But events of such great weight had now joined us in a common purpose. 

My Lord rode his horse to the front, accompanied by his son Walter. We moved to form a crescent shape before them. They were stern faced, imposing, seated high above us on their horses. When he began, my Lord spoke in serious tones. We strained forward to listen to what he had to say. When I had the gist of his speech, I was shocked to realize that he was of one accord with Underhill and Segar.

‘People of Buckland,' he addressed us. ‘You'll want to know what I've decided after yesterday's events.'

A murmur ran around us. Everyone who'd witnessed the gruesome death and yesterday's talk of rebellion had spent this last night terrified that we might now all be turned over to the Justices, though none of us had, we swore, anything to do with Hellyon's killing.

Hearing him now, I realized how wrong we were. We should have held our master in greater faith. I held Alford's hand and looked across the circle to John Toucher. He stood proud and intent, his gaze fixed on the two mounted nobles. 

My Lord continued. ‘In refusing this new Mass,' he said, ‘our county stands in defiance of the King's Law. With repentance and subjugation to his will, I'm sure the matter might be brokered and assuaged, if not entirely forgotten. But with Hellyon's… untimely… death, there's no going back.'

Those of us who'd witnessed the murder searched out each other's eyes among the crowd. ‘Untimely' was the least of it.

‘There's no choice in it. We must join and strike with the Cornishmen now. The King's Council is weak and divided. One man rules the roost. Let's call him Royal Somerset…' the listeners laughed. ‘He, above all, sways the King's minority. The hour is ours, if we only have the courage to take it.' 

With his forceful announcement, my Lord's horse reared on its back legs and needed pulling down unless it should buck the rider. There was silence, broken by the shuffling of feet and a few nervous coughs in our crescent.

Nobody knew who would speak next and break the solemnity. Finally, father Lock spoke up. He brought himself before my Lord and his son and bowed his august head to them. 

‘With due respect my Lord, to rebel with the Cornishmen would be to go against God's anointed. The King is sovereign by Divine Right. The very Chain of Being from God in high Heaven, to the throne of his Majesty the King, to you yourself, as Lord of Buckland, all the way down to us, your humble servants… this alone maintains the peace and keeps our social order.'

He ranged his arm around him in a wide arc, taking in our faces like a crop of harvest wheat.

‘I, of all people,' he went on, ‘I have no more liking for these Protestant reforms than the next man. But these changes are decreed by Law, my Lord. We'll be punished for uprising against them. Punished swiftly and direly.'

I felt sick to my stomach. We all knew what they did to heretics and recusants. Draw and hang and quarter you as though you were some swine or ox on slaughter day. It was as if we'd all had the same thought at the same time, as a shudder and a groan went round the ring. I felt Alford's fingers dig tightly into my palm.

‘Father Lock,' my Lord replied. ‘I don't wish to betray my Lord and King, nor to subject you, my countrymen, to the retribution of his Law. We've always been loyal subjects. I myself pray God save the King each and every morning of my life, as I know you all must do…'

A certain guiltiness rattled through my mind, as I'm sure it must have others. I prayed each day, certainly, but sometimes neglected the King in those prayers. Perhaps we'd brought his wrath down on ourselves?

My Lord was still speaking. ‘We are his servants in body and soul. But when a King overrides the needs and welfare of his people with tyranny, injustice, with ill-advised means… when his Council spurs the sufferance of his people in their ancient rites, their landed rights, their customs, then… and with God's grace… it is their right to rise and make him change his mind. By force if needs be. We'll suffer these changes no more!'

‘Aye. It's the King who's pushed things too far,' came a voice of agreement from somewhere in the crowd. We turned around to see who'd spoken. It was the tanner, Harvey, raising his brown fist above his white face. Like everyone there, he was in serious and, this time, sober mood.

‘Who knows what'll follow if we don't act now.' The coarse voice of Ben Red joined him.

‘The day's ours already. We've struck fear into Protestant hearts everywhere,' boasted Harvey. He soon found his bluster rebutted.

‘Don't fool yourselves!' Walter's voice came down from above his mount's ears. ‘We've struck nothing but a fatal blow to Hellyons. To triumph before the victory is folly; a grave mistake to accept the trophy before the joust's been won.'