Alys Clare - Girl In A Red Tunic

The meal ends. The girls are dismissed and Aeleis hurries to take off her gown and dress herself in her old house gown (Elena will not permit her to wear her usual boys’ clothes when there is a guest in the house) and she returns to whatever she was doing in the stables. Helewise wanders off and goes up to her room. She is thinking.

Some time later her mother comes to find her. She sits down beside Helewise on the long wooden bench and takes her daughter’s hand in both of hers.

‘Benedict Warin,’ Emma says without preamble, ‘is what is known as a womaniser. Do you know what that means, Helewise?’

‘I can guess,’ she replies.

Emma smiles. When she does so, Helewise thinks she is still the most beautiful woman in the land. ‘What did he say to you?’ she asks.

‘That he should have put a guard on his heart before he met me.’

Emma nods sagely as if this were no more that she had expected. ‘I see.’ She studies her daughter. ‘And you were flattered, of course?’

‘I was while he held my eyes,’ Helewise admits. ‘But then you came over and he looked exactly the same when he gazed at you, and I realised that it was just something he does, rather as Father would slap a good friend on the back or make a specially deep bow to a woman he respected.’

Emma squeezes Helewise’s hand. ‘Good girl,’ she says approvingly. ‘You are wise beyond your years, daughter.’ She studies her, taking in the grey eyes, the smile, the strong shoulders and the deepening bosom. ‘Although in truth,’ she adds, half to herself, ‘the sum of your years is adding up almost without my noticing it.’

But Helewise wants to hear more about Benedict Warin. ‘He likes women, Mother? Sir Benedict?’

Emma hesitates as if she is pondering the wisdom of discussing with her young daughter the ways of such a man. But then, perhaps reasoning that Helewise is on the cusp of womanhood and ought to know what the world is really like, she starts to speak. ‘He does, Helewise. And women like him too, for he is a well-favoured man, despite his limp; did you remark it, daughter?’

‘His limp? Er-’ Helewise thinks back. ‘No, I do not believe that I did, but in truth I did not see him move more than a few paces. How did he come by it?’

‘He fell from his horse’s saddle but one foot remained lodged in the stirrup so that he was dragged when the horse bolted. They say that it was only the swift intervention of his companion that saved Benedict’s life. But that is beside the present point.’ Emma tightens her grip on her daughter’s hand and, eyes fixed to Helewise’s, says urgently, ‘Helewise, Benedict likes women too well for his own good. He was married to a fine woman whose name was Blanche. She was lovely, talented and skilled in the womanly arts. Most men would have been more than satisfied and, moreover, considered themselves lucky to have won such a goodly soul to be their wife, particularly when Blanche gave birth to a son. But there were troubles in that household.’ Emma shakes her head sadly and slowly. ‘It is said that Benedict did not lose his — er, his adventurous spirit. He travelled widely as a youth and fought for his King in faraway places where many knights, I am afraid to say, consider that bedding as many women as they possibly can is as much a part of their task as slaughtering the King’s enemies.’ She sighs. ‘Marriage calmed Benedict for perhaps five or six years or, at least, if he was engaging in — er, in his philandering ways, then he hid it from his wife. Then when his son was still a babe in arms, he took off on his travels. There was always an excuse — to see this man or that, to seek out some man of influence who would advance the Warins, to visit some former comrade who had fallen on bad times. But always, always, there was a woman at the bottom of it and invariably she ended up in Benedict’s bed.’

Helewise, thinking of her own father and of his devotion to his home, hearth and family, says, ‘But what of his children? Did he not want to be with them?’

‘Child, not children. Blanche gave him but the one son. It was rumoured that she became barren after that.’

‘Became barren?’ Helewise does not understand. ‘I have heard of women being barren, but not of becoming so. How can that be?’

Again Emma hesitates. But this daughter of hers is ripe for marriage and there is no reason to keep such things from her. ‘As you say, Helewise, it is quite common for a wife to be unable to produce children and that would seem to be God’s will and there is little point in demanding to know why.’ She looks sad for a moment, then, perhaps thinking of the ease with which she has conceived and borne her own four children, a sort of thankfulness fills her lovely face. ‘But sometimes a woman gives birth to one child and then it is as if her womb sours and will not bear fruit again. Perhaps the experience of the first birth has been traumatic; perhaps there has been damage to the woman’s fruitful parts. Sometimes it happens for no apparent reason. But, believe me, daughter, it does happen.’

‘Poor Blanche,’ Helewise murmurs. ‘To go on hoping that another baby might bring her wandering husband back to her and yet to be constantly disappointed must have been hard.’

‘It broke her heart,’ Emma says quietly. ‘Or so they say, and I see no reason to doubt it.’

‘Yet you and Father welcome Sir Benedict to our home!’ Helewise is indignant.

‘It is your father’s choice to invite him and we must accept it. That is how it is,’ Emma says firmly. ‘What a man does in his own hall is his own business and nobody else’s. Your father and Benedict have been friends for a long time and it is not for us to query their friendship.’ She fixes her daughter with a frown. ‘And I do not want you to breathe one word of this conversation to anybody else,’ she commands.

‘But-’

‘Helewise, that is my wish,’ her mother says. ‘Do as I say.’

She lets go of Helewise’s hand and stands up, graceful as ever. Then, relenting, she smiles down on her daughter. ‘There is so much for you to learn,’ she says kindly. ‘Remember that I am always here and that it is I who am the rightful recipient of your questions. I am always prepared to talk over any matter that puzzles you.’ A new urgency enters her eyes and, leaning closer to Helewise, she says, ‘I want you to be a good wife, my sweet. Your father and I love you dearly and we wish you to make a fine match, as all parents wish for their daughters. But in our case we also want you to be happy.’

Moved, for her mother is rarely so outspoken, Helewise stands up and gives Emma a hug, which, after an initial slight resistance, is then lovingly returned.

As Emma turns and, with another smile, walks away through the doorway, Helewise reflects that she is now taller than her mother.

She obeys Emma’s dictates and speaks to hardly anybody about this new and fascinating knowledge of men, women, wives, mothers and the business of marriage. The exception is Elena, but Helewise reasons that she has always talked over everything with Elena and that her mother must know this and accept it. Anyway, even if she does not, Helewise cannot help herself. And she learns a very great deal more from her nurse than she has done from her mother.

Elena has a wide circle of friends, relations and acquaint ances spread throughout the knightly classes of Sussex and Kent. She hears far more gossip than her mistress and she is able to tell Helewise all about Benedict Warin’s women. She also supplies some fascinating facts about how women have babies and the things that can go wrong to prevent conception or the birth of a living, healthy child. Elena tells Helewise almost too much about this mysterious and fascinating subject and Helewise has to work quite hard to rid her mind of images of naked and terrifyingly bulging women screaming and straining in childbed, or being forced to lie with some demanding and son-hungry husband over and over again long after desire has gone. From some undisclosed source, Elena seems to know exactly how the body is put together and she shares this knowledge with Helewise. Before she has come anywhere near seeing a human male organ, Helewise has been told exactly what it looks like and what it does when aroused.