Wolf for a Lioness 1

 I looked through this, it was on chapter 7 not 11 but I think it will finish happily around 8 or 9. And I felt inspired enough to write the secon 2/3 of 7. 

Chapter 1   Late August, 1105

 

Isabeau stared out of the narrow window of the solar, without seeing the fair lands lit by watery autumnal sunshine, the woods a dark smear on the other side of the strips of the village fields as a counterpoint to the soft golden light. 

She sighed deeply, and chewed on one of her long, dark plaits.

Now that her father was dead, all before her was hers.  And yet it was not.  A lone woman, especially a lone woman who was scarcely more than a girl, could not hope to hold lands alone.  It might be her father’s wishes, but there were too many who would see her lands as a fair prize, and herself merely as an added bonus.  Already she had received fair communication from both Sir Gilbert Danforth, and Sir Hugh Fleury, who had intimated in their letters that they would be glad to join their houses to that of the late Sir Ferrand de Curtney, and made it sound as though they offered her a favour.  Isabeau disliked both Danforth and Fleury; and her father had not willingly invited them to his table.

And yet, was there any choice?  If she did not marry, the more powerful local bullies, the Bigods or the de la Poles, might wrest her land from her by force, marrying her off to some minor member of their extensive families to satisfy the legalities, and grant to such the stewardship of her lands.

But if she married either Danforth or Fleury, she might just as well be in the same case; for neither one was like to permit her any say in her lands.  They were the sort of men who held the opinion that no woman was any good for anything save childbearing and rearing – and conveniently forgot that the first education a man child would have would be at his mother’s knee.  It was harder to forgive such attitudes when Isabeau could see plainly that the letters that had been written to her had been penned by a scribe or a priest, and each had made his mark at the bottom.  Isabeau read and wrote fluently, for her father was a great believer in education for all.  Even the petties in the village attended a dame school for a few years before they were old enough to work on the land; and the peasants were glad enough of it, for it provided their offspring with a meal once a day, and the ability to seek apprenticeship to a trade, if Sir Ferrand gave permission.  Isabeau growled, an unladylike noise, for she doubted that her permission was legal.

“My lady?” the light baritone voice spoke behind her; and Isabeau swung round. She saw the familiar tall, loosely-knit figure of her steward, his hair cut short for convenience, and his  beard neatly and closely trimmed to his square, determined jaw. His hair and beard were the bright ginger that suggested Viking ancestors, but his skin was tanned without being ruddy.   He wore a plain undyed woollen bliaut over dark trousers, neatly cross-gartered to short boots.  Were it not for the fine quality of the cloth he wore, one might almost take him for a peasant for the lack of adornment on his knee-length tunic.

“Wulfric?  Why did you not knock?” she demanded.

“In sooth, my lady, I did knock, and so lost were you in your thoughts, perchance you heard it not.  I ventured to enter, and I hear sounds of angered frustration,” said Wulfric.

“Angered frustration? By my troth, a good choice of words, my steward, as your choices for the lands are always good.”

He shrugged.

“I love this land, lady.”

She nodded.

“Aye, and right glad I am that when wert dispossessed in favour of my sire that thou hadst the brazen insolence to come and demand the right to be his steward.  Hast made the land stay in good heart, and kept lord and men able to work together.”

Wulfric bowed.

“In sooth, lady, though dispossessed for my father’s continued defiance against William the bastard, I felt honour bound to those who had been our vassals, that I must needs do as I might for them, even if it meant swearing fealty to one placed over my father’s lands.  My duty to them supersedes my filial piety, and though angered at first, my father understood, and forgave my defiance ere he died.  But you wish not to speak of me, methinks, but of what has angered and frustrated you?”

“It is the fact of being a woman, Wulfric; that I might not hold my land without marriage,” said Isabeau.  “For how could I ally myself with such coarse and ill-educated fools as either Danforth or Fleury?  It – it would besides be a betrayal of the land, of the people, for either one would be a harsh master.  And yet is that maybe preferable to being subjected by force to the whim of the Bigods, or the de la Poles?”

Wulfric grunted.

“It is a dilemma, lady.  It seems to me that you should answer fair to these ill-penned missives,” he waved at the letters Isabeau had dropped scornfully to the floor, “claiming that womanly grief for your father possesses your soul, and that you cannot begin to consider the felicity of marriage arrangements until a decent period of mourning has passed.  It won't hold them up forever but it may give you a period of time in which to consider alternatives and maybe to search wider for a suitable spouse.  For I fear you are correct, that nothing else would keep the rapacious from your lands.”

“You are generous of spirit, Wulfric, for there is no irony in your voice when you speak of my lands,” said Isabeau.

“Your father was a better man than mine, methinks, and did well by his peasantry and serfs,” said Wulfric, “as no doubt will his daughter, given the chance to do so.”

“If I can find a suitable husband, that is,” said Isabeau, bitterly.  “I need a man who is not going to interfere with me, and who will not try to impose his own will on the land.  Where indeed might I find such an one, for certes, no man who is well born will accept such a bargain.  And yet, perchance I should consider a man who is not well born, an honest artisan, who will look upon me with respect.  For do not the wives of artisans often help with their husband’s crafts?”

“Such an one might indeed give you respect, lady, but I fear such would lose the respect of many of your vassals, and indeed there might be those such as Fleury and Danforth who would declare to their overlord that you had run mad, in your grief, and had made a marriage that was improper and might seek to overturn it.  You must needs marry at least a yeoman, and better, a knight.”

“Ha, perhaps to my advantage a knight riddled with eld, shaking with the palsy of his advanced years, who will die upon our wedding night of over-excitement ere he has laid hand upon me, that as a widow I might be considered more able, though the change is but of one day’s feasting,” said Isabeau.

Wulfric laughed.

“Apart from the thought that you would shrink from such a drooling and senile lover, it hath its merits,” he said, “though think you not that some might attempt to get the marriage annulled on grounds of non-consummation?” he flushed.

So did Isabeau.

“Why, I believe there is much debate about what makes a marriage,” she said, “the church authorities have been torn as to whether it is the union by consent of both parties – and a mockery that is, with many a young girl married with no thought for her wishes – or whether it should be union by consent and followed by consummation.  But there is enough fuel to argue, as many learned men do, that one cannot say that the marriage of the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph was no marriage, and yet that marriage was never consummated.”

“I thought that Our Lord Jesus was said to have had brothers and sisters born after him?” said Wulfric.

“The Church dismisses that as folklore only,” said Isabeau.  “I debated it with Father Hubert, who is a learned man, if sadly humourless.”

“And were he not a priest, a perfect candidate to marry and thus hasten into an early grave, my lady,” laughed Wulfric.

Isabeau wrinkled her nose.  She was used to Wulfric teasing her, and took no offence at that implied laughing criticism, more concerned for her own thoughts on the subject of such a marriage. 

“I confess that the thought of being in any wise…intimate… with an elderly man doth sour my stomach,” she said, “even for an instant.  And I must hope to find some other way than what was scarce but a jest.  Wilt apply thy mind, good Wulfric, and help me solve my dilemma?”

“Right willingly, lady,” said Wulfric.

Wulfric disliked the idea of Lady Isabeau being mauled by some old man, though either Fleury or Danforth would be worse, and neither noted for their douce manner.  A spirited and intelligent lady would be like to be beaten into submission by either – and indeed by many a man. It was a shame she had not been born a boy, in some ways, though her dark beauty would be lost on a man’s frame.  Wulfric sighed.  If only Sir Ferrand had not fallen on his ride home, a moment of uncharacteristic carelessness, he would not have taken the fever that had killed him, from both his cracked skull and lying in a ditch half conscious before the household was alerted by his gelding limping home without him.   Wulfric’s eyes narrowed.

“What is it?” asked Isabeau, sharply.

“Lady, I pondered your sire’s death, and wondered.  And in sooth, I have considered remaining silent, but you are your sire’s daughter, and as brave as the lion that graces your family escutcheon ….”

“Wulfric, do not beat about the bush, but come haply to the point.”

“I will.  I have wondered if indeed your father’s death was the accident it has been said, or whether it were caused by human agency.  For the gelding’s hock was cut, it was thought by a stone in whatever animal scrape he may have set his foot; but a thought arose unbidden to my mind…”

“Speak on,” said Isabeau, intently, “and let us see whether the suspicion that hath communicated itself to my thoughts at your words tallies with thine own considerations.”

“I wondered if any had stretched a rope across the way to trip the horse and precipitate your father down the slope and into that noisome ditch,” said Wulfric.  “One who perchance knew right well that your father would not countenance your hand bestowed upon the same, but that fatherless and alone, you might then be browbeaten into marriage, along with these fair pastures.”

Isabeau’s dark eyes sparkled with anger.

“Aye, thy words make perfect sense, though it likes me not to consider that any knight should stoop so low.  And yet, I find I might believe it readily in either one; Sir Hugh Fleury hath the brutality necessary, and Sir Gilbert Danforth the low cunning.  And even so, perchance they might have acted together; did not, forsooth, their letters to me come even within hours of each other?  Happenstance they have made some pact, whereby they have sworn that whichever of the two of them I should wed, haply will the other receive some grant of land from his confederate, as will also serve to purchase silence upon their deadly endeavour.”

“We cannot prove it, Lady,” said Wulfric.  “It is but surmise and conjecture, based on your father’s careful habits and the cut upon the horse’s hock.  Which even so might have been caused by a stone in an animal scrape.”

“Aye; aye, it might, and nothing in there to go to mine overlord, who being Roger Bigod, and High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk might be expected to take some interest therein.  However, he is being more careful for having sailed too close to the wind in supporting Robert Curthose over William Rufus, and dare not anger King Henry, methinks, being but recently restored to lands, and a position of trust for his support to the king in the more recent rebellion.  Perchance in that wish not to anger the king, he may fear to move against two knights of unstained reputation – at least for any that know them not – on the word of a girl, distraught at her father’s death.  I think he would not act to uncover the truth.  It would be more like that he would find some way of taking these lands unto himself, depriving both Danforth and Fleury of the same by way of subtle punishment where he might not move too openly, and gaining advantage to himself as well.”

“I fear you read him accurately, lady,” said Wulfric.  “I had not though that we would have enough to provide as any proof, but spoke out merely to place you more upon your guard against these men, who I feel sure in mine own mind have engineered your unprotected state.”

“At least I have you to protect me, Wulfric,” said Isabeau.  “You have always been here for me, boy and man, you have set me on my first pony, and have told me off for wilful tears and temper and  have been here to run to when father was away putting down rebellion.  Alack-a-day that you may not protect me against the ills of marriage.”

“My sister says it is a fine state for one whose husband is a good man,” ventured Wulfric.

“But then Saegifu has picked a man who adores the ground she walks on,” said Isabeau, dryly.  “We will speak of this more anon; for the nonce I see you hold the accounts, and it does not do to put off the duties of the estate for personal considerations.”

“My sister is a wise woman, and freer, I dare swear, than a Norman lady,” said Wulfric.

“Alas that you are correct! Well, I shall pen these missives and lay my pearls of education before the swine who cannot read them, and hope that their secretary reads the whole and does not edit what is written to avoid blows.”

“And that is something you cannot rule out.”