Girl In A Red Tunic (27 page)

     Ralf mutters a reply; it sounds like, ‘Aye, I know you will.’

     Helewise and Ivo stroll off. She can feel the tension in him echoing her own. Now that the correct procedures have been performed and they are together with their fathers’ knowledge and consent, they do not need to be furtive but may stroll among the stalls and the entertainments quite openly. Many people watch them; some give them an indulgent glance. Husbands, wives and lovers recognise the look that the pair have. Older and wiser heads know full well what is going to happen before the day is out.

     Ivo and Helewise eat their meal on the grass with their families. They watch the dancers circling the May Pole; they dance on the grass to the squeaky fluting and rhythmic tabor beat of the rustic band. Ivo squeezes her as they dance. He holds her hand every moment that he can.

     In the end, hand-holding is not enough.

     The long day draws to its close. Dusk is falling fast and torches are lit, their flaring, dancing light making swift-moving shadows as people continue with the celebrations. The cooking fire is stoked up and blasts heat and light out into the deep black of the night-time woods and fields. In the happy, disorganised crowds and the kindly darkness it is easy to slip away. Ivo and Helewise hurry to Helewise’s secret place and, in the springy grass beneath the willow tree, she sits down and he kneels before her, gazing in adoration.

     ‘Helewise,’ he murmurs. He touches the garland of flowers on her hair. ‘My Flora. My Queen of the May.’

     Tenderly they remove each other’s clothes. Staring at his mature male body as she helps him strip off tunic, undershirt and hose, she is aware at the same time of his hands on her, pulling at the laces of her gown, dragging at her under-gown with an impatience that all but tears it from her. Then, in the cool and fragrant stillness of a May night, naked and un ashamed, at long, long last they make love.

Chapter 15

Ivo and Helewise are married in July, a week before her birthday.

She has spent a fraught few weeks.

     May is traditionally the fertile month. According to the Old Ways, it is the season when the Goddess and the God, mature and ripe for each other, mate in the greenwood. Their fertility echoes and rebounds with that of their creatures, animal and human; with the flowers, the trees, the crops; with the very land, Mother Earth herself. Some of the old folk who live under the skirts of Swansford still call the May feast by its ancient name of Beltane and the god whom they honour is not the Christ or His Holy Father but Bel, God of the Sun.

     Sexual magic was abroad in the night after the feast. It worked on Helewise and Ivo; it worked within Helewise, and Ivo’s seed sought out her egg and she conceived out there beside the stream under the soft light of the distant stars.

     She does not realise this for several weeks. Ivo formally asks Ralf for her hand in marriage and Ralf, having noticed his elder daughter’s new expression that is incandescent with joy, hardly needs to consult her to enquire whether this is what she wants too. This is, however, a necessary step since officially a marriage would not be considered legal without the free consent of both parties (although, as Emma and Ralf have often remarked when considering in private the marriages of the great and the not necessarily very good, sometimes this is hard to credit). Ralf accepts Ivo’s suit and consent is given; the families think ahead to the practicalities. Benedict and Ralf get their heads together to discuss the financial settlement, a procedure which, as Emma tartly remarks, seems to require the consumption of rather a lot of the Swansford household’s best Rhenish wine. Whether or not the wine is instrumental, a happy compromise is reached regarding Helewise’s dowry and the rights she will be able to expect as a wife in her husband’s home. Soon afterwards the families hold a small betrothal ceremony, and the priest who will marry Helewise and Ivo attends and gives his blessing. He will read out the banns in church three times over the following weeks and issue the formal invitation for anyone who has a legitimate reason to argue with the match to step forward. In order to give the couple – and Helewise in particular – plenty of time to make the necessary preparations for her new life, the marriage is set for late August; Ivo and his bride are to meet at the church door on the last day of the month.

     There is a small and very beautiful house on Benedict Warin’s land into which he will move, leaving the Old Manor, traditional home of the Warins, for his son and the new bride. Benedict will continue to be attended by his quiet manservant, Martin; Helewise has learned that the two men are not in fact related although she hears it said that they are as close as brothers and have been companions for a long time. Ivo undertakes to prepare the marriage bed and the priest promises to go along and bless it, praying that the couple’s union may prove fruitful.

     The trouble is that, as the weeks go by, Helewise knows that this blessing of fruitfulness has already been bestowed. She has missed her courses: she is pregnant.

When she realises this and there is no longer any room for doubt, she seeks out Elena and, dropping her head on her nurse’s generous lap, tells her.

     Elena gently strokes the wild red-gold hair; Helewise has been pacing her room gathering her courage for this moment and grooming has been the last thing on her mind.

     ‘I know,’ Elena croons.

     ‘You know I’m pregnant?’ Helewise sits up.

     ‘Aye, my girl. You’ve been showing the signs. And who is it washes out your menstrual rags, which have lain unused in the chest since April?’

     Slowly Helewise nods. ‘Of course,’ she murmurs. It has always been impossible to hide very much from Elena’s sharp eyes, especially something that has apparently been so very obvious.

     Elena gives her a little dig in the ribs. ‘Why didn’t you come to me, girl, before you ran off into the wildwood to mate with your man?’

     Helewise is puzzled. ‘Why should I have done that?’ She adds, with a faint haughtiness that covers up her shame, ‘I didn’t need your permission.’

     ‘None of that tone!’ Elena says spiritedly. ‘What I meant is that, if you’d only asked, I could have told you how to enjoy yourself without conceiving this little one.’ She puts a large hand on to Helewise’s lower belly.

     ‘You—’ Helewise does not understand. ‘You could have prevented this conception? But how? Babies come from God and it isn’t for us to choose whether or not we accept them.’ Even to herself she sounds horribly self-righteous and pious.

     ‘Oh, dear, dear, dear!’ Elena chuckles. ‘I admit you took a real chance, making love under the stars on Beltane night, because isn’t it the very time when the Goddess and the God are abroad and giving you every encouragement? Why, the souls of the unborn are flying in the warm air just longing for an invitation!’

     But Helewise is hardly listening. Fascinated by this extraordinary idea that a woman might choose whether or not she wished to conceive, she wants to know more. Elena readily obliges; indeed, she is planning in any case to have a word with Helewise before the marriage to enlighten her about certain things. Now, thinks the wise old nurse, is as good a time as any.

     ‘It’s said,’ she begins, ‘that a poultice of hemlock applied to the man’s testicles prevents the shedding of fertile seed, but I’ve known that fail and in my opinion it’s not to be relied on, besides being a mite uncomfortable. For the man, anyway!’ She chuckles. ‘Anyhow, best, I always say, for the woman to take care of herself in that way. Now, here’s what I suggest  ...’

     For the next few minutes Helewise listens to her nurse’s contraception advice. Some suggestions are reasonably acceptable: wearing a crown of myrtle to delay conception, or chewing raspberry leaves to make the womb ‘clench’, whatever that means, and thus render itself unwelcoming. Secreting walnuts in her bodice, one nut for every month that she wishes to delay conception. Then Elena describes several potions which, when drunk, cause temporary sterility. She finishes by telling Helewise how to make a pessary that will reject male seed before it has a chance to sow itself, but the ingredients sound so ghastly that Helewise cannot imagine that its use would be entirely painless.

     She absorbs all of this new information, storing it away for possible future use. Then, returning to her present predicament, says, ‘But it’s too late to prevent this conception, Elena.’

     ‘Aye, my girl.’ Elena sighs. Then: ‘D’you want to keep the child?’

     ‘Of course!’ Helewise is shocked.

     ‘Very well and right glad I am to hear it.’ Elena gives her young mistress an encouraging hug. ‘You’ll not be the first bride to stand pregnant at the church door. I only asked because there are ways, you see, for a woman to slip a child from her womb.’

     ‘I don’t want to hear them,’ Helewise says firmly. ‘Now, what are we to do, Elena?’

     Elena still has her strong arms around Helewise. Now, dropping a kiss on to the unruly hair, she says, ‘It’s simple. We bring your marriage forward by a month. You’ll not be showing that early and there’s no need for anyone else to know. We’ll tell them you’d forgotten it was your birthday at the end of July and you’ve set your heart on being a wife first.’

     ‘Why should I do that?’ logical Helewise asks.

     ‘I don’t know!’ Elena cries, exasperated. ‘Make something up! Be fanciful and silly for once!’

     Helewise grins. ‘I’ll try.’ Then, gratitude flowing through her, she flings her arms round her old nurse and says, ‘Will you come with me to the Old Manor, Elena? I’ll be needing you early next year when he’s born.’ She points to her stomach.

     ‘You have decided it’s a boy?’ Elena raises an eyebrow.

     ‘I know he is.’

     Elena puts her hand on Helewise’s lower belly again, this time leaving it there for a few moments. ‘Aye, aye, happen you’re right.’ Removing her hand, she says, ‘As to coming with you to your husband’s home, I would like that, my girl. But I’ll speak to your mother; see what she has to say.’

     Helewise has leapt up, restless energy evident in her very stance. ‘Where are you off to now?’ Elena demands.

     Helewise smiles sweetly at her. ‘I’m going to find Father and tell him that I must have my marriage date brought forward because I can’t restrain my excitement and I
do
so want to be Ivo’s wife before I’m fifteen.’

If anybody suspects the reason for Ivo and Helewise marrying in July rather than August, they never say. As far as Helewise is aware, it is a secret known only to herself, Ivo and Elena. When Leofgar is born the following February, nobody thinks to comment that he is large for a seven-month child; they are all too busy being thankful for a safe birth and welcoming a healthy infant into the world.

In the short time between betrothal and marriage, Helewise gets to know her new family. Benedict is a widower; his late wife Blanche died three years ago from some mysterious swelling in her breast. Helewise tries to encourage Benedict to speak of her; since Helewise is destined never to meet the woman who would have been her mother-in-law, she wants to find out something about her. Benedict speaks of Blanche as if she had been a veritable saint: patient, kind, long-suffering, always considerate of her husband’s well-being and reluctant ever to mutter so much as a word of criticism. Her health was never robust, according to Benedict, and he manages to imply without actually putting it into words that he was a considerate husband and did not insist on his marital rights with any great frequency. Blanche, he tells Helewise with an expression of deep regret, took to her bed at the onset of her illness and stayed there for the year that it took her to die. Meanwhile— But Benedict shuts his mouth firmly and does not speak of meanwhile. It is as if he suddenly remembers to whom he is speaking and, clearly, he wishes his son’s future bride to think well of him.

     As an aid to this good impression that he wishes her to form, Benedict presents Helewise with a dazzling array of gifts. He has told Ivo that he will leave the best items in the Old Manor for their use; his small house is quite adequately furnished for a solitary man, he informs his son. Besides this bounty he has ordered new things for the betrothed pair: thick and costly wall hangings to keep out the draughts; a beautiful chest in which to store unseasonable garments and the like; heavy silver candle holders; a new mattress for the marriage bed. For Helewise herself there is a length of brilliant scarlet silk and a gold circlet to wear to secure her veil.

     She feels it is disloyal to this most generous of fathers-in-law but still she cannot help herself trying to find out more about him, specifically the things that he is holding back from telling her himself. Ivo can reveal little more than she already knows so she enlists Elena’s help. Elena uses her subtle skills and puts the word out among her many friends and relations that she would be pleased to hear anything they may know of Benedict Warin.