Wolf for a Lioness 5

 

Chapter 5

 

Father Hubert beamed on Isabeau and Wulfric when they asked him to call the banns for them.

“Now that’s the ideal solution, to join the old to the new, and give the people an heir who is of both bloods,” he said.  “Indeed, my daughter, thy father himself voiced the thought that such an union would be to his liking, if thy heart was drawn to Wulfric, for he loved him like a son.”

“That it was my father’s wish also makes me easier in my mind, for if any disparage my choice, I might say that such was also my father’s wish.  It protects Wulfric from those who would call him importunate.”

“I am glad that he felt that way,” said Wulfric, softly.  “I won’t betray the trust he reposed in me to care for his daughter.  Father, would you mind spreading that it was his wish?  If it were known, then those with reservations might interest themselves less in arguing against it.”

“Ah, my son, you mean Piers de Warrene,” said Father Hubert.  “But be assured, I have told him already, being a family member, that it was your father’s wish.  Indeed, I had wondered if he had communicated this to you, my daughter.”

“He had not, but of course he did not expect to die so soon,” said Isabeau. It explained why Piers had asked Wulfric if he had spoken to her father, but it was a little odd of him not to have mentioned that this had been her father’s plan, and indeed odd of Piers to assume that she might prefer to marry him rather than Wulfric.

Father Hubert crossed himself.

“God rest his soul.  I hate to think ill of anyone, but I have wondered if his death was not entirely accidental.”

Isabeau and Wulfric exchanged looks.

“Interesting that you, too, drew that conclusion,” said Wulfric, and at a nod from Isabeau he outlined what they had found.

Father Hubert was shocked. He crossed himself again, fervently.

“There is no end to wickedness in the world,” he declared.  “Why, I almost hesitated in mentioning my fears to you, for Master de Warrene was dismissive of my thoughts, and suggested I was grown foolish in my eld.”

“How very impolite of Piers; I am not pleased with him,” said Isabeau.  “But of course he is not well acquainted with either Fleury or Danforth; and though I am not acquainted well with them myself, I have heard my father speak of them.”

Father Hubert sighed. 

“One should not cast stones without proof, but I cannot see who else might benefit from your father’s death.”

“In many ways, Father, I benefit,” said Wulfric.  “Especially if it was his will that I wed the fair Isabeau.”

“Oh, no, my son,” said Father Hubert.  “You forget, if it was his will, then it would have been his will that you do so, had he lived, and indeed it might have been to your detriment.  Methinks it is the precipitate actions of Fleury and Danforth which have shown Isabeau who is her true mate,  but had either one carried her off, or had Piers de Warrene pressed his suit more rapidly, the prize of her hand might not have been yours.  By seeing that he lived, and being as a son to him, that had made more sense for you, and so I shall say if any suggest that you profit in his death.”

Wulfric bowed his head.

“I thank you, Father,” he said.

“And Wulfric would, besides, have hidden any evidence more carefully,” said Isabeau.

“My child!” Hubert was shocked, but Wulfric laughed.

“My bride has a healthy respect for my intellect and abilities,” he said.

“I recall you showing Piers and me how to set snares for coneys,” said Isabeau, “and how you should remove all vestige of previous snares so that any coneys would not smell fear or blood on old snares, and stay away from them.”

“You remember that lesson yet?  It were almost ten years ago, methinks, and Piers certain that he knew best,” said Wulfric.  “He was not pleased that you caught more than he did, nor that you gifted them to the poor of the village.  His pair he presented to your father for the table,” he added dryly.  “I was proud of how you did not boast, when your father asked if you had participated in this also, but all you said was that you did not think your efforts worthy of the high table.”

“Poor Piers needed something to boast about,” said Isabeau.  “But oh, Father Hubert!  How might we show that Fleury or Danforth has done this thing?”

“I fear that you may not ever prove which of them, if either, did it,” said Father Hubert, “but be assured, God knows and one day this crime will return to haunt the killer.”

Isabeau murmured an ‘amen’ to that, but her exchange of glance with Wulfric suggested that she would prefer a temporal solution to heavenly punishment in an unspecified future.

 

“And now I must needs survive three weeks until we might be wed,” said Wulfric, grimly as they took their leave of Father Hubert.

“Thinkest thou that they can put together plans with such haste?” asked Isabeau.

“Danforth could; and Fleury needs no time at all to manage to force a quarrel on me,” said Wulfric. “And I would that you not be widowed ere you be wed.”

“I would rather not lose my dearest friend, in any case,” said Isabeau. “Be careful, Wulfric; I fear more for your life than for mine own.”

“I will be as cunning and careful as the hare,” said Wulfric, taking her hand seriously.  “I will watch for hounds and snares, aye and for the stooping of a goshawk from above too.”

“Good,” said Isabeau. “My wolf must be as canny as a hare and a fox, and let none sneak up on him. Let us ride out through the village and let the people know of our impending nuptials. They love you and methinks they are kindly disposed also towards me; their affection, I trow, will be a guard, dost agree?”

“Aye, they love thee well, Isabeau and respect me well. I agree.”

Isabeau rode astride as well as any boy, and scorned to sit sideways with her feet on a planchet as some women of Norman birth did these days. She and Wulfric cantered into the village. Isabeau enjoyed the feeling of freedom which riding gave her, away from the oppressive gloom of a house in mourning. She felt a little guilty, but shrugged it off; her father would have been the first to tell her not to continue to mourn him after the funeral.

“He was a good man; he sits at the right hand of our Saviour, methinks,” said Wulfric, correctly divining the direction of Isabeau’s thoughts.

“Aye, and has no more cares, save for his concern for thee and for me; and we shall commend ourselves into God’s good care,” said Isabeau.  “He was much loved as a lord;  I ... we ... must strive to do as well.”

“He had the training of both of us; I trow it will not be hard to follow what he would have done,” said Wulfric. “Shouldst dedicate thy life to continuing in his footsteps as a memorial, not dwell on the grief of his passing. Although,” he added with a wry grimace, “’Tis passing hard, for shalt miss him even more grievously than shall I.”

“He was a father to you too, methinks,” said Isabeau.

“Aye, and an Father Hubert speaks sooth, and I do not doubt him, planned to be mine own father by bond, if he wished us wed,” said Wulfric. “I feel more at ease, knowing that it was his will, and not merely a dream I am only too willing to embrace.”

“I trust, Wulfric, ‘twill be me thou’llt embrace, not dreams,” said Isabeau, giving him a demure smile.

“Vixen, no man could wish to embrace any but thine own sweet self an he hath once met thee,” said Wulfric. “’Tis not merely the fair pastures of Curtney which inflames Sir Hugh and Sir Gilbert.  ‘Tis thine own fair self.”

“They would court me, even an I had features so crooked I might squint behind mine own ears,” said Isabeau.

“Aye; but that thou’rt beautiful is indeed an added reason to them,” said Wulfric.

They reached the village and dropped to a walk down its main street. The late rain meant that the sand and clay did nor puff up in choking clouds, but there were ruts and potholes which made the footing treacherous for the horses, despite Garnet the reeve seeing to the filling of them regularly.

Various of the villagers left their tasks to see the lady as well as her steward in the village; none truly feared punishment if they did not gather to hear what she might say, but all wished to see her and offer their condolences.

“My lady! My lady!” a treble voice arose as small Arnbeort Attlea, he of the golden curls and sweet voice, came running, his rather disreputable father in hot pursuit. 

Wulfric laughed, and bent from the saddle to hoist the child up.

The unexpected motion saved his life.

An arrow whirred over his head, on a downward trajectory, and impaled Leofric Attwood in the eye.  Without a sound he dropped.

“Father!” cried the child.

Wulfric swung off his horse, still holding Arnbeort, keeping the horse between him and the arrow, and moved towards the stricken Leofric.

Isabeau wheeled her horse and looked in the direction from which the arrow had come.  She looked up to a copse on the rise on which the church was built; and thought she saw movement, but she could not be certain.

“Up there!” she called, pointing. Men ran at once; Wulfric was popular.  Ysabeau joined Wulfric and Arnbeort. The child was sobbing as Wulfric covered his father’s face with his own hood.

“Hast lost thy father as I have, and likely to the same villain,” said Isabeau, drawing the little boy into her arms.  He was motherless too; his mother had quietly expired soon after the new year’s opening, along with the latest in a series of dead babies. “Shalt be my page, for thou wouldst not have lost thy father had not one sought to deprive me of a husband ere I am a bride.”

“Are you going to marry Steward Wulfric, lady?” asked one of the women who were close enough to overhear, who had not hustled herself and any children she might have back into her own hut.

“Aye, that I am, Goodwife Hilda,” said Isabeau. “It was my father’s dearest wish that Wulfric should become his son in truth as well as in his affections. Now my father is gone to his heavenly reward, I would fain carry out his wishes, for they also coincide with mine own.”

“And mine,” said Wulfric. “’Tis too young an infant to be a page, but he shall fetch and carry for thee, Isabeau.”

It was the first time he had called Isabeau by her name in front of others.

“It shall be as you suggest, sire,” said Isabeau.  It would not displease the villagers if she were duly obedient to him and deferred to him as her master, with an honorific placing him above her. It was inappropriate for a man to feel he must defer to his wife; and Wulfric cast her a look which was part gratitude and part in query whether she teased him.  It would, reflected Isabeau, be a work of some complexity to make this stubborn and prickly man wholly comfortable.  And harder because she found giving up autonomy a hard and unwelcome business. It helped that so often she and Wulfric thought much the same on any subject.

 There was a ragged cheer from the people.

“What man wants our thegn dead?” demanded an old man, pugnaciously. Wulfric winced slightly. The old title would have been his had not the lands been ceded to Sir Ferrand.

Isabeau was fluent in the Saxon tongue; though her father had struggled he had insisted that she learn, and she had been bilingual from her earliest years.

“One who would be thegn of these fair lands by wedding me,” she replied.

There were mutters of discontent.

“Thor’s teeth, we’ll have no foreigner over us,” swore the old man. “Sir Ferrand was like one of us, not some arrogant swine like some on them. Ow!” he added as his equally aged wife, who looked like an apple stored over the winter with her wrinkled brown face, slapped him about the back of the head.

“My goodman meant ‘Before the rood’, lady, no Pagan nonsense,” said she.

“Of course he did,” said Isabeau.  “There is no suggestion that Goodman Lefsi might be a pagan; I have never thought it.” If some families still clung to the old ways, and propitiated the old gods as well as going to church, it was none of her business.

The men who had ran up the hill, and Reeve Garnet shifted from one foot to another, unsure to whom to report.

“Garnet, my lady and I will be one body in law when we wed, speak to either or both of us,” said Wulfric.

“Aye, sire,” said Garnet. “We caught no man, but one had plainly waited to get a clear shot.  The ground was disturbed in the spinney, where he stood, agitated, waiting.  I think he may have had a horse to get away so fast, unless he doubled back and came as though here all the time; if ‘tis a local man.” He looked worried; the hue and cry had been called on a would-be assassin in his village, and the assassin had not been taken. The village could be under punishment for this.

Wulfric nodded.

“I note that you did your best; no blame accrues for a failure to catch this villain.  Do you tell me that any in the village harbour hatred for me, that they might have murderous design upon me?”

Garnet shook his head vigorously.

“No, sire, not even Torulf Pied-roof, but ... I could not think any would shoot at you but that they disliked some decision you have made.”

“Either there is one who might so dislike my decision, and shalt tell me who, or shalt say that ‘twas no villager,” said Wulfric, who disliked Garnet’s vacillation.

“I believe it is no villager; but why would a stranger lie in wait?” asked Garnet.

“There are people in the world beyond the confines of Curtney Village who might hold me in despite, you know,” said Wulfric.

“What Wulfric means is that now that two who wished to wed me to gain my father’s lands know that I have chosen him as my husband, as my father desired, they might wax hot against him,” said Isabeau. 

Garnet looked uncomfortable.

“We’ll keep a watch out, sire, my lady,” he said. “Is Leofric Attwood dead?”

“Aye, and I take Arnbeort into my household as compensation for his father dying in the stead of mine affianced husband,” said Isabeau.

Garnet spat.

“The boy is the gainer from this assassin’s strike then; for Leofric was no sort of father.”

“Hush, Garnet; say not so before the child, for still he was the boy’s father and he grieves.”

“Aye, lady,” said Garnet, stoically.