Alys Clare - Girl In A Red Tunic

Ivo and Helewise are married in July, a week before her birthday.

She has spent a fraught few weeks.

May is traditionally the fertile month. According to the Old Ways, it is the season when the Goddess and the God, mature and ripe for each other, mate in the greenwood. Their fertility echoes and rebounds with that of their creatures, animal and human; with the flowers, the trees, the crops; with the very land, Mother Earth herself. Some of the old folk who live under the skirts of Swansford still call the May feast by its ancient name of Beltane and the god whom they honour is not the Christ or His Holy Father but Bel, God of the Sun.

Sexual magic was abroad in the night after the feast. It worked on Helewise and Ivo; it worked within Helewise, and Ivo’s seed sought out her egg and she conceived out there beside the stream under the soft light of the distant stars.

She does not realise this for several weeks. Ivo formally asks Ralf for her hand in marriage and Ralf, having noticed his elder daughter’s new expression that is incandescent with joy, hardly needs to consult her to enquire whether this is what she wants too. This is, however, a necessary step since officially a marriage would not be considered legal without the free consent of both parties (although, as Emma and Ralf have often remarked when considering in private the marriages of the great and the not necessarily very good, sometimes this is hard to credit). Ralf accepts Ivo’s suit and consent is given; the families think ahead to the practicalities. Benedict and Ralf get their heads together to discuss the financial settlement, a procedure which, as Emma tartly remarks, seems to require the consumption of rather a lot of the Swansford household’s best Rhenish wine. Whether or not the wine is instrumental, a happy compromise is reached regarding Helewise’s dowry and the rights she will be able to expect as a wife in her husband’s home. Soon afterwards the families hold a small betrothal ceremony, and the priest who will marry Helewise and Ivo attends and gives his blessing. He will read out the banns in church three times over the following weeks and issue the formal invitation for anyone who has a legitimate reason to argue with the match to step forward. In order to give the couple — and Helewise in particular — plenty of time to make the necessary preparations for her new life, the marriage is set for late August; Ivo and his bride are to meet at the church door on the last day of the month.

There is a small and very beautiful house on Benedict Warin’s land into which he will move, leaving the Old Manor, traditional home of the Warins, for his son and the new bride. Benedict will continue to be attended by his quiet manservant, Martin; Helewise has learned that the two men are not in fact related although she hears it said that they are as close as brothers and have been companions for a long time. Ivo undertakes to prepare the marriage bed and the priest promises to go along and bless it, praying that the couple’s union may prove fruitful.

The trouble is that, as the weeks go by, Helewise knows that this blessing of fruitfulness has already been bestowed. She has missed her courses: she is pregnant.

When she realises this and there is no longer any room for doubt, she seeks out Elena and, dropping her head on her nurse’s generous lap, tells her.

Elena gently strokes the wild red-gold hair; Helewise has been pacing her room gathering her courage for this moment and grooming has been the last thing on her mind.

‘I know,’ Elena croons.

‘You know I’m pregnant?’ Helewise sits up.

‘Aye, my girl. You’ve been showing the signs. And who is it washes out your menstrual rags, which have lain unused in the chest since April?’

Slowly Helewise nods. ‘Of course,’ she murmurs. It has always been impossible to hide very much from Elena’s sharp eyes, especially something that has apparently been so very obvious.

Elena gives her a little dig in the ribs. ‘Why didn’t you come to me, girl, before you ran off into the wildwood to mate with your man?’

Helewise is puzzled. ‘Why should I have done that?’ She adds, with a faint haughtiness that covers up her shame, ‘I didn’t need your permission.’

‘None of that tone!’ Elena says spiritedly. ‘What I meant is that, if you’d only asked, I could have told you how to enjoy yourself without conceiving this little one.’ She puts a large hand on to Helewise’s lower belly.

‘You-’ Helewise does not understand. ‘You could have prevented this conception? But how? Babies come from God and it isn’t for us to choose whether or not we accept them.’ Even to herself she sounds horribly self-righteous and pious.

‘Oh, dear, dear, dear!’ Elena chuckles. ‘I admit you took a real chance, making love under the stars on Beltane night, because isn’t it the very time when the Goddess and the God are abroad and giving you every encouragement? Why, the souls of the unborn are flying in the warm air just longing for an invitation!’

But Helewise is hardly listening. Fascinated by this extraordinary idea that a woman might choose whether or not she wished to conceive, she wants to know more. Elena readily obliges; indeed, she is planning in any case to have a word with Helewise before the marriage to enlighten her about certain things. Now, thinks the wise old nurse, is as good a time as any.

‘It’s said,’ she begins, ‘that a poultice of hemlock applied to the man’s testicles prevents the shedding of fertile seed, but I’ve known that fail and in my opinion it’s not to be relied on, besides being a mite uncomfortable. For the man, anyway!’ She chuckles. ‘Anyhow, best, I always say, for the woman to take care of herself in that way. Now, here’s what I suggest …’

For the next few minutes Helewise listens to her nurse’s contraception advice. Some suggestions are reasonably acceptable: wearing a crown of myrtle to delay conception, or chewing raspberry leaves to make the womb ‘clench’, whatever that means, and thus render itself unwelcoming. Secreting walnuts in her bodice, one nut for every month that she wishes to delay conception. Then Elena describes several potions which, when drunk, cause temporary sterility. She finishes by telling Helewise how to make a pessary that will reject male seed before it has a chance to sow itself, but the ingredients sound so ghastly that Helewise cannot imagine that its use would be entirely painless.

She absorbs all of this new information, storing it away for possible future use. Then, returning to her present predicament, says, ‘But it’s too late to prevent this conception, Elena.’

‘Aye, my girl.’ Elena sighs. Then: ‘D’you want to keep the child?’

‘Of course!’ Helewise is shocked.

‘Very well and right glad I am to hear it.’ Elena gives her young mistress an encouraging hug. ‘You’ll not be the first bride to stand pregnant at the church door. I only asked because there are ways, you see, for a woman to slip a child from her womb.’

‘I don’t want to hear them,’ Helewise says firmly. ‘Now, what are we to do, Elena?’

Elena still has her strong arms around Helewise. Now, dropping a kiss on to the unruly hair, she says, ‘It’s simple. We bring your marriage forward by a month. You’ll not be showing that early and there’s no need for anyone else to know. We’ll tell them you’d forgotten it was your birthday at the end of July and you’ve set your heart on being a wife first.’

‘Why should I do that?’ logical Helewise asks.

‘I don’t know!’ Elena cries, exasperated. ‘Make something up! Be fanciful and silly for once!’

Helewise grins. ‘I’ll try.’ Then, gratitude flowing through her, she flings her arms round her old nurse and says, ‘Will you come with me to the Old Manor, Elena? I’ll be needing you early next year when he’s born.’ She points to her stomach.