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  “And the other.” Matilda said a little impatiently, and waved her hand in the air at Gwendolyn’s other leg. Gwendolyn obediently proffered the other foot and Matilda stripped it down like the first.

  Her head bowed, Matilda began to massage the tender part of Gwendolyn’s heel around the tendon and anklebones, gently at first, then more firmly. No one had ever touched her feet before, and Gwendolyn sat rigid in the great, soft chair.

  “Breathe,” Matilda said softly, then turned her face up to Gwendolyn. “This works better if you will relax.”

  Gwendolyn settled back into the soft fabrics, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. After some time she heard Agnes’s light footfalls enter the room, then a wooden cup being set on the table beside her and the trailing steps quietly closing the heavy door again. Gwendolyn’s heels were surprisingly tender, and relaxing was difficult when her insides between her hips felt like they were twisting into a knot of angry serpents. Matilda switched to the other foot, and Gwendolyn took another deep breath. Her lower back ached, but as Matilda began working on her other heel, it was as if the clamp that had taken up residence in her lower belly slowly loosened its grip. Her insides even tingled a bit, a welcome change, and she sighed. She noticed how comfortable the chair was, smelled the anise herbs of the tea steaming beside her.

  “How did you learn to do this? You must teach me. The women at Penhallam must know about this.”

  “This causes the womb to soften, to release your flow and relax. You must not do this for a woman who is with child until it is time for the child to be born,” she admonished her sternly, and then softened her expression. “I was fortunate to have a midwife, a woman of the marshes near my home in Norfolk. She did this for me, during those brief spells in between children, to heal the womb. And when it was time for the baby to come, her hands on my feet encouraged the child to birth. But that was more than forty years ago, during the reign of Stephen of Blois.”

  Gwendolyn frowned, puzzled. “You and the earl have kept your youth well, for having lived so many years.”

  The older woman shook her head and smiled softly. “The earl is not my first husband.”

  Matilda was quiet for a moment, and Gwendolyn settled back comfortably into her chair as the older woman collected her thoughts.

  “I was first the wife of Roger de Clare. He was many years older than me, and the year that he became an earl, he chose me as his wife. He was kind enough to ask me himself, and I saw in him fairness and justice.” She took in a deep breath. “And the man was handsome,” she added, smiling. “The only times that I wasn’t pregnant were when he was away. By the time I was thirty-six, I had given birth to eleven children. Seven still live today.”

  Roger de Clare, Earl of Hertford, was known throughout England as “the good earl” for his treatment of his lords and tenants across his vast lands. She had overheard the Baron Fitz William tell stories of the man to his sons, as instruction in the proper management of their own lands. It had never occurred to her that such a man would have also had a rich personal life, apparently full of the blessings of a happy marriage. She exhaled and sat up.

  “How old were the children when your husband died?”

  “The twins were only a year old; John was three. But Richard, my oldest, was twenty. He succeeded his father and became the third Earl of Hertford.”

  “Richard de Clare? The Earl of Hertford and Gloucester is your son?”

  Matilda smiled, and Gwendolyn realized she was looking at one of the Eve’s of English nobility, a woman who had birthed and raised a generation of men and women who would each play their parts to plot and steer the course of the country. And that was only with her first husband.

  “Roger went to Oxfordshire for a while to settle some of his transactions for the coming year with the tradesmen there. But then he became excited about something else happening in the county. All of the foreign scholars had been expelled from Paris, and the returning English academics had taken up residence in Oxfordshire, of all places. Apparently the merchants and tradesmen and their lords thought England needed its own universite to rival any other, and so the scholars simply started to teach. There was no organization, they had no buildings of their own, but they began instructing whoever came to learn, for whatever they could pay—oftentimes in the fresh air. You see, there was no limit on what they could teach, and the freedom…well, he said it was intoxicating.

  “But he died there, away from us.” Matilda sighed again. “I thought I would crumple at first. I was so young when I married, I was an heiress in my own right and the only life I had known since childhood was my home with Roger. Richard looked after us, of course. He had just married Amice Fitz William, another heiress, but only twelve years old. I raised the girl myself along with the rest of my brood. It was seven more years until Richard finally slowed down and took any notice of her. And by then a certain strong-willed man, younger than me by eight years, gave me the chance to start over again. William d’Aubigni was an earl’s son. He could have picked a much younger bride with many more childbearing years ahead of her, but over his father’s protests he married me. I promptly produced an heir, and Stronghand d’Aubigni, as my father-in-law liked to be called, died smiling, knowing that his title would be carried on. After little William there were four more, Edmund being our last.” Matilda d’Aubigni smiled and shrugged. “As I see it, I’ve lived two full women’s’ lives. And I am grateful to have lived every moment of each.”

  Gwendolyn looked at the slight, silver-eyed woman in front of her and shook her head. Men valued strength and size and waged wars over territory and title. Meanwhile, the future of the country was actually the prerogative of the women whose soft, yielding bodies bore and fed the next generation. Matilda had stopped massaging her ankles and Gwendolyn sat up, smiling, then admonished herself and reached out to touch Matilda’s hand.

  “Thank you,” she said sincerely.

  Matilda smiled serenely, her high cheekbones and smooth forehead now seeming regal to Gwendolyn.

  “Agnes has left a stack of clean rags in your room. Let me know if there is anything else you need.”

  Gwendolyn stood up and finished the tea that had cooled beside her while she and Matilda had talked.

  “You’ve treated me like a daughter. It’s not something I’m accustomed to,” Gwendolyn admitted.

  Matilda’s expression shifted with a shadow of sadness.

  “Yes, I heard about that,” she said. “My husband had a lot of questions for Walter de Coutances about you after you left last night. He really has no idea what to make of you.”

  “You don’t seem to mind how I am,” Gwendolyn observed dryly. Matilda stood thoughtfully for a moment.

  “Why should I mind whether a person fits my notion of who they’re supposed to be? You would be the best authority on that, I believe. Any argument I might make otherwise would be arrogance in the extreme.” She smiled at Gwendolyn, her clouded eyes shining. “He’ll come around. He is a just man at heart.”

  12

  HUNTER AND HUNTED

  A hunting party of eleven men headed out of the gatehouse in the starry darkness before dawn. The earl’s hunting dogs barked excitedly as they bounded ahead searching for the boar’s scent, followed by the trackers and huntsmen whose job it was to handle the hounds and tend the fallen boar. The earl and two other lords that he had also invited rode fine coursers bred to stand their ground against a charging beast, and all three men carried the long spears specially designed for hunting boar. Edmund was not among them; the earl’s youngest son had left the hall during the night for the town of Arundel, and his father had waited for a long while before finally sounding the hunter’s horn and departing without him.

  The party passed westward below the castle grounds and then picked up the main road heading north. After a short while they cut to the west to take the high road to Chichester, traveled a few more miles, and then turned north into the woodlands of a low-lying valley. Here, the
thick canopy of trees would produce acorns and chestnuts and other fruits of the forest that were the boar’s favored autumn treat. The men slowed their horses, listening to the renewed baying of the hounds in the distance as they scoured the forest floor for any trace of the boar’s scent. The huntsmen ran ahead on foot, ready to blow the horn once the trail was found. The riders proceeded forward cautiously, listening carefully to the clamor of barks and voices ahead of them. Once the trail was found, the dogs would pursue first to flush the prey out into the open. The huntsmen, who would have to be swift runners to keep up with the dogs, would join the pack while they held the boar at bay.

  A wild boar was a dangerous quarry, known to use its tusks to slash the bellies of horses and men alike. The hunters carried boar spears that were sturdy and long, but more importantly, that held a cross-bar at the base of the blade that prevented a charging boar from advancing up the shaft and goring the hunter’s horse with its knifelike tusks. William knew that a man like the earl would have hunted boar every year since his boyhood, and he hoped that d’Aubigni would not charge ahead impulsively at the call of the huntsmen on this first hunt of the season. William had been with the late Baron Fitz William when the baron’s impatience had cost him his favorite horse. It was a brutal lesson that he would not forget.

  William and de Coutances hung to the back of the group. Others could have the glory today; they had only come along because of the earl’s invitation. William’s injured forearm ached and sported deep purple and blue bruises that encircled it completely, and he said nothing to de Coutances, who was preoccupied with composing something appropriate to say at the burial of the men who had died a day ago. The dead knights from the Tower were the best of the best, the sons and nephews of magnates and barons. Their remains would be buried at the Arundel parish church, but de Coutances had promised to record their deaths at Westminster when he returned to London.

  For a while the hunting party saw no game at all. The earl told them as they rode out that he had sent out his tracker every day of the last seven to locate their quarry, and the man had at last reported that a small herd of red deer gathered in a clearing nearby, north of the road by a few miles. The man had also reported that he had found the telltale scrapes of a boar sharpening its tusks along the trunks of the forest trees. The scrapes were higher and deeper than any he had observed before, and he had suggested enthusiastically that a beast of significant proportion had moved into the area. This accorded with the accounts of nearly trampled pilgrims and merchants who had had the misfortune of drawing the boar out as they had passed through its territory. Despite the ongoing work to be done at Arundel, the earl could not resist going after the boar while the trail was fresh. And, he boasted, he could claim that the hunt was a service to protect those passing on this well-traveled market route.

  Suddenly the hounds bayed urgently in the distance, and the men came to attention in their saddles and urged their horses forward to follow, abandoning the road that cut through the wood to race through the underbrush and hanging limbs. William followed in the rear of the group, ducking the lashes of the branches that snapped back toward him as the riders in front passed through.

  Rain began to fall, the large drops noisily colliding with the leafy canopy above them and passing through onto the hunters below. The falling rain muffled the sound of the baying, and the men urged their horses to pick up speed before they lost the call of the pack altogether. They were moving quickly through high grass and brush, a risky exercise given the uneven ground and stones that lay hidden beneath. Their horses slipped and stumbled, but still the group urged their mounts faster toward a large clearing.

  Watching from several paces behind, William saw d’Aubigni’s horse suddenly stumble and fall forward to one knee, then quickly right itself and continue onward at a choppy trot. The earl was an able rider, and he remained firmly in the saddle as his horse regained its stride. Holding onto his horse’s mane tightly with one hand, the earl leaned far out of his seat and forward, feet completely out of the stirrups. He stretched down with his other hand to try to check the horse’s forelegs for any cut or wound from the fall. The earl was still in this precarious position when the horse suddenly reared up on its hind legs and lurched sideways in fright. The earl was thrown badly off balance, and he clung on with one hand in the horse’s mane while he struggled to right himself again. Terrified, the horse squealed and bolted ahead through the woods, and this time the sudden lurch dumped the earl onto his back among the high, wet grasses.

  Over the sound of the falling rain the men heard a guttural squeal from a large clump of brush, and a massive blur of brown and black fur charged out at them, scattering the men and their horses. The earl had rolled and pressed his body low to the ground where his horse had dropped him, staying hidden in the tall grass. William spurred his warhorse ahead to join the others in the clearing. The boar had stopped and swung around to face the group again, its nostrils flared red as it tossed its head menacingly. The boar warily regarded the dispersed group with its eyes rolling, swinging its head from side to side to look at each of them before it pawed the ground, preparing to charge again. Its tusks jutted up and out from its lower jaw, as sharp as blades, and the angry beast tossed its head at them with a series of low grunts. The earl’s spear was still attached to his saddle and had been carried too far away by his spooked horse to be of any use. Of the two other men who had brought spears, only one was willing to get close enough to the boar to try to use it, while the other had positioned his horse to put a solid tree trunk between himself and the boar and now carefully steadied his horse to maintain their position.

  The man with the spear lifted it gingerly in his right hand, attempting to control his terrified horse with the other. The earl shifted slightly where he lay in the grass. The boar immediately whipped its head around in the direction of the movement.

  “Stay down!” William yelled loudly over the rain, which had begun to pour down heavily. He quickly took in the scene around him and weighed the options. If the boar charged the earl, it would swing its head low to attack with its tusks and then trample the man beneath its hooves. William’s sword would be useless against the boar while he remained on his horse; by the time he was close enough to use it, his horse would be mortally wounded. Without the assistance of the baying dogs it was unlikely that the man beside William holding his spear aloft would succeed in landing a killing blow. The crest of the boar’s thick shoulders stood as high as a man’s chest; it would be able to charge and attack again even after it had been speared through if the strike failed to kill. One of the men beside William found his horn and sounded a loud call to the huntsmen to bring the dogs quickly. William held his horse steady and tried to position himself between the earl and the boar. But seeing its forward path beginning to close, the boar lowered its head and charged toward the opening back in the direction from which it had come, directly toward the earl where he still lay in the grass.

  The man with the spear hurled it awkwardly at the boar, and the blade bounced off the tough hide as if he had thrown a stick. For William, everything moved slowly now, as on the battlefield. He drew his knife from his belt and leaned forward in the saddle, urging his horse at a gallop toward the boar. In a heartbeat his horse was charging alongside the animal, tusks pointed safely away from the horse’s flank. William freed his feet from the stirrups and threw himself over the boar’s heaving shoulders. His face burrowed into its stinking fur, but he had thrown his left arm over the neck and his fist closed around the rough bristles to cling on. He hung from the right side of the animal and drove his dagger up into the boar’s throat behind the jawbone with all of his strength and then jerked the blade sideways. The beast stumbled and rolled, its speed and size carrying it in a deadly tumble along the slick ground, finally coming to rest within a few paces of the earl with William firmly pinned beneath it.

  William lay still under the motionless body. A sticky warmth spread across his chest as the boar’s bloo
d seeped through to the ground. The boar had dragged him over rocks and wood, and he gingerly tried to move his arms or legs, but the weight of the boar was too great. The huntsmen were immediately at his side, and together they lifted the boar clear of him. He lay motionless for a moment, filling his lungs with fresh air and trying to put out of his mind the thought of how close he had just come to death himself. Slowly, he rolled to his side and pushed himself up with one hand to sit in the mud with his legs drawn up toward his chest. The rain continued to pelt the men as they set about preparing to carry the animal back to the castle. William found himself joined where he sat in the mud by the earl, who, with an ashen face and shaking hands, wordlessly sank down beside him and pulled out an oilskin of ale from beneath his cloak. He took a long drink and then passed it to William, along with his dagger that he had retrieved from the steaming carcass. William took a long drink and turned his face upward toward the rain to wash the mud from his nose and eyes.

  Finally, the earl staggered to his feet and extended a hand to William to steady him as he rose to his feet in the slick mess. Calling to the hounds, the earl plunged his knife into the boar’s belly and pulled out a large, steaming chunk of liver, pulling pieces apart with the knife and throwing them to the dogs. The earl’s huntsmen had already chopped down two young saplings by the time William was ready to mount his horse again. They quickly trussed and hung the carcass from the rails to be carried between two of the horses back to the castle, while their riders walked beside them. The rain stopped as they carefully picked their way back to the road, and William rode quietly beside Walter de Coutances, feeling the light breeze drying his clothes.

  “That was close,” de Coutances observed, staring ahead.

  William exhaled and nodded at the archbishop’s understatement.

  “I thought I was going to have one more man to bury tonight,” he added.