Alys Clare - Girl In A Red Tunic

Helewise absorbs this knowledge and thinks about it. She understands now that human beings are much like any other animal in their breeding habits and, with a shock, realises that her own parents must have engaged in activity similar to that of the hound on the bitch in season or the big horses out in the paddock who cover the brood mares and insert those huge members into their bodies. She is inclined to be horrified; childhood is, after all, not that far behind her. But her fast-awakening womanhood comes to her aid and something in her — perhaps the same something that responded to the sexual demand in Benedict Warin’s eyes — tells her that this is right, this is how it is and how it will be for her.

She finds, after a while, that she is not afraid.

Elena has let slip that this son of Sir Benedict’s is a very handsome man. Helewise wonders why nobody has told her this interesting fact before. And she also finds herself wondering — rather too often for comfort — what it will be like to meet Benedict Warin’s son and whether or not she will take his fancy. Or, even more important, whether he will take hers.

She has absolutely no doubt that she is going to meet him. It is just a matter of time …

She does not have to wait very long to find out what she thinks of Sir Benedict’s son.

It is one of those uniquely English spring days when April feels like midsummer. Helewise has told her mother that she is going out to collect young nettles for Elena’s hair tonic; she has told Elena that she is expected to exercise her mother’s palfrey. Neither her nurse nor her mother has in fact asked Helewise to do anything but, since she cannot seem to sit still and very much needs some time on her own, she has inferred to each of the two women who order her days that the other has sent her out on an errand. To ease her conscience, she rides out on her mother’s fine-boned bay mare and gets her hands and wrists stung picking a basket of nettles for Elena.

She rides to her favourite spot: a small pebbled beach in the bend of a shallow stream that comes down off a low hill to disappear into woodland. The stream just here runs between a shoulder-high bank on one side and an ancient willow on the other and, once she is under the high bank with the palfrey tethered beneath the willow, Helewise believes herself to be hidden away in her own private place.

For some time she sits on the sun-warmed stones of the little beach, occasionally picking up a stone and flipping it across the water. The stream runs too swiftly to make the stones bounce more than once or twice, but then she spots a place under the bank where the water is deep, dark and apparently motionless. She does better here and makes a stone bounce three times.

She feels … she tries to analyse it. Stirred up, is the best she can come up with. Were she to have asked practical, down-to-earth Elena, the nurse would have said, ‘You’ve turned into a woman, my girl, and your blood’s up! It’s spring and you’re as lusty as every other fertile creature on God’s good earth!’ But, even without Elena’s wise words, Helewise has a fair idea of what is the matter with her. She knows about what men and women do together and, even though she is a virgin, she feels a powerful, mysterious hunger inside her that she does not quite know how she is to assuage.

She picks up another stone. Skims it. It gives one feeble bounce and she mutters a word that she heard the stable boy use.

And from up above her, on the top of the bank, somebody laughs and a male voice says, ‘Very ladylike!’

She turns, horrified but, at the same time, strangely excited. And sees a man on a big horse, silhouetted against the bright spring sky and clearly large and broad in the shoulder. For an instant an image of Benedict Warin flashes into her mind — she has just been thinking about him — then the horseman disappears. But only for as long as it takes him to dismount, tether his horse somewhere out of sight and then return to the bank; he jumps down and stands before her on the little beach.

She has leapt to her feet and is staring at him; she is tall but he is taller, and she has to look up. Again she thinks of Benedict, for this man resembles him a little although he is much better-looking; she thinks she knows who he is.

Her heart is beating faster.

He says, ‘You, I believe, are Helewise of Swansford. Yes?’

‘Yes.’

His eyes are dancing. They are not the same blue as his father’s; as the sun catches them, they appear sometimes green, sometimes grey-blue. ‘My father told me all about you,’ he goes on. ‘I had to come and see for myself.’

‘Oh.’

He laughs again. ‘Are you always this talkative?’

‘I do not know your name!’ she protests, as if the lack of a formal introduction were the reason for her dumbness.

‘Ivo,’ he says softly, his eyes on hers. ‘Ivo, son of Benedict Warin of the Old Manor.’

‘I see.’ Oh, how prim she sounds! With an effort she says, ‘How did you know I was here?’

‘I’ve been looking for you these past three days,’ he says with disarming honesty. ‘You did not wander far from home yesterday or the day before, but today I was lucky. I watched you ride out and I followed you.’ Leaning down to whisper in her ear — a highly disconcerting sensation — he adds mysteriously, ‘I’ve been calling to you and finally you came.’

His exciting remark stirs her strangely, even though it is not strictly accurate. Many thoughts battle for her attention. This man is an accomplished seducer. He is probably a womaniser, as they say his father is. He’s been waiting for me for three days! He’s been calling to me and I came. And, most powerful of all, oh, he’s so handsome and when he stares at me like this I feel as if I were melting.

Her mouth suddenly dry, she says, ‘I have brought my mother’s palfrey out for some exercise.’ She points to the bay mare under the willow tree, calmly swishing away flies with her long tail. ‘My mother has not enough time in her day to give her horse sufficient attention.’

He nods sagely. ‘And you have taken a tumble in the nettles, I see.’ Her takes her hands in his, very gently, and slowly inspects the backs of them and her strong wrists, then turning them over to look at the palms.

She sees the line of nettle stings that looks like a pink bracelet. ‘I was gathering the young nettle tops for my nurse,’ she says with what she hopes is dignity. ‘Elena — that’s my nurse — makes a tonic for the hair.’

‘Does she, indeed.’ Now he has dropped one of her hands. With his free hand he carefully takes up a strand of her long hair, pulling it so that the curl straightens out and then letting go, allowing it to spring back. Then he takes out a small knife and, without so much as a raised eyebrow to ask her permission, cuts off the curl and stows it away inside his silver-grey tunic.

She is aware that her mouth has dropped open and hurriedly she closes it.

They stand staring at each other. She senses something in the air and wonders vaguely if a storm is approaching. Almost unthinkingly — she is a child of the country — she looks up quickly to see if clouds are gathering, being blown up against the wind. But the sky is clear, perfect blue and there is scarcely a breeze. She looks back at him; to her surprise, he too seems puzzled.

He holds her eyes a moment longer, then says, ‘I can skim stones better than you can.’

His cheerful, everyday remark breaks the tension. ‘Go on, then,’ she invites. He picks up a handful of stones and skims a couple of them expertly over the still waters under the far bank. Five, six. ‘Very good,’ she says, in the tone she uses when her little sister manages to do her needlework without pricking her finger and spotting the cloth with blood.