Paul Moorcraft - The Anchoress of Shere

Sir Richard laughed. “Well spoken, William. I demand no coin from you. In fact I had in mind to give your fair Christine some small token for her nuptials and good Christian advice. Tell our Father Peter to accompany her to this hall, when the reeve so dictates to you the time. Farewell.”

Sir Richard’s eyes narrowed as he watched his servants bow and leave the hall.

Duval smiled as he punched triumphantly at the final full stop, for he knew what was to come. The priest believed that you had to experience evil fully before you could condemn it wholeheartedly. He relished his role as omnipotent historian who could manipulate not only the protagonists’ past but also their future.

August 1327

On the walk back to the village, William questioned the reeve until he was reassured that Sir Richard’s man was no more informed than himself.

“Take it as a mark of favour,” suggested the reeve. “And the priest will accompany her. Think on the extra wedding gift…Besides, his command is law in these parts.”

William nodded, but was unconvinced. He kept his doubts to himself; nor would he trouble Christine with his concerns.

Seven days after her father’s encounter with Sir Richard, Christine accompanied her priest at the appointed hour. She had bathed in the Tillingbourne stream that ran past Ashe Cottage and had applied an herbal potion to her hair. Barefoot all summer, she had put on the sandals that William had crafted for her the previous winter. Her long hair reached to the waist of the dark blue kersey dress that he had bought for her during his first and only visit to the fair on St. Catherine’s Hill, near the castle in Guldenford.

“You have dressed to wed,” Peter the priest joked with her as they made their way to the manor house, but he seemed uneasy with his jest.

Christine blushed and replied, “Father, this is my first summons to the lordly house. Should I dress as though to herd pigs or milk our cows?” She had a sense of her own worth, tinged with youthful vanity.

Just as her father before her, so too was Christine made to wait an hour outside Sir Richard’s antechamber. When they entered, Sir Richard was alone. This time the windows were all shuttered, and guttering candles lent a comforting warmth to the darkened room. The table was set with wine from Aquitaine, although red stains shamed the exquisite white cloth which covered it. The lord, with his face almost hidden by a green hood, sat on one of the side-benches, engrossed in cleaning his long-sword with a leather strip. For a minute the priest and Christine stood in the middle of the hushed chamber.

The priest coughed. “My lord, I have accompanied William the Carpenter’s daughter at your request.”

Sir Richard shook back his head and the hood slipped on to his shoulders. Christine, noticing something odd about his eyes, trembled slightly, but told herself she had nothing to fear.

“Thank you, Father,” said Sir Richard softly. Rising to his full six feet three inches, he pulled out a small velvet bag. “I have here ten groats. Five for you to carry to William the Carpenter as a gift for the wedding feast and five for extra prayers tonight in my chapel for God’s guidance in directing my stewardship of this demesne.” Sir Richard handed his man the coins, an addendum to the groats he had bestowed privately upon the priest.

“How long should my devotions in your chapel be?” the priest asked, with as much suspicion in his voice as his position would allow.

“Pray, sire, until I bid you stop,” Sir Richard replied impatiently. “Do you presume to measure God’s guidance? Pray for Christine’s soul, but remember where your earthly duty is bound.”

The black-robed cleric, his head bowed and hands in prayer, walked slowly out of the antechamber and closed the heavy door.

Christine had not followed this conversation closely because she had been too overwhelmed by the majesty of the great hall, and was now intrigued by the patterns on the tiles adorning the walls of the chamber. When she realised that she was alone with Sir Richard she felt as though she were but a child, so she fixed her gaze on a wax candle impaled upon a vertical spike with a tripod base.

Flattered by the invitation, she had expected a brief homily on her devotions to earthly and heavenly lords. Instead Sir Richard said, “Will you taste the fruits of Aquitaine?”

Christine’s eyes searched for fruit on the table, before Sir Richard offered her a goblet. She had never drunk wine but, surprised, she took it as her lord beckoned her to sit beside him on the bench. She sipped the wine and pursed her lips at the strong taste. Despite the sourness, she found it enticing.

She had not yet spoken, but Sir Richard intruded on her silence. “So you are to marry the tailor’s lad? Do you find him handsome?”

Christine did not know how to answer, but stumbled out a reply: “Simon, the son of Andrew the Tailor, is a good man, sire. From a Godly family.”

Sir Richard smiled broadly, displaying his stained and broken teeth. “Have you tasted him, Christine, as you now taste this wine?”

“I…I know not…what your lordship means,” stuttered the girl.

“Have you coupled with him, girl?” the lord said angrily. “Are you bovine, like the cows? I had thought that God had created a head to match the bounteousness of your limbs. You are the fairest creature I have seen among those who live on my land.” He paused, then added more softly, “I have watched you working in the fields.”

Christine, clutching her goblet tightly, looked down at the flagstones beneath her feet. She became conscious that her breathing was somehow difficult, shallower, more desperate, as though suffocated by the darkness of the room and Sir Richard’s presence.

He shifted down the bench to her side and whispered in her ear, “Are you untouched by man, Christine?”

She could smell the wine on his breath. Looking straight ahead and mustering as much dignity as she could, she said, “Sir Richard, if I am bid to answer to such questions, I will tell you that I am a Christian woman. The sacrament of marriage is as sacred as my prayers to the Holy Mother. Plainly, sir, I am pure in body, although I confess my venial sins readily to Father Peter. I will come to my husband as a maiden.”

“Good. That is how the Church dictates, despite the abasement of your rustic life. I am glad you shall go to the altar in goodly conscience, as our Lord demands.” Christine let out her breath in relief, but then Sir Richard contorted his face into a half-smile, half-sneer. “And your earthly lord demands his pleasure too…”

Before she could react, Sir Richard had taken her roughly by the shoulders and kissed her hard upon the lips. Her arms pinioned by his great bulk, Christine’s pewter goblet fell and clattered across the floor. She let out a strangled cry, staring in terror towards the door in the hope that the priest would hear her distress. Somehow she managed to loosen his grip and stood up as if to run. Sir Richard caught her hem and seized the sword upon the table. He crouched and, holding the weapon low and vertical, raised its tip to an inch beneath her chin.

“Christine,” he said calmly to the shaking girl, “I will have my pleasure of you this night. I will not take your maidenhood, but I will take you in Byzantine way. No one will hear you if you scream. There is no man nearby except that sodden priest who receives my stipend besides. You will do what you are bidden and then depart…I would rather there be no force, but if you resist I will have a soldier’s way and not that of a courtly knight.”

The summer ruddiness in Christine’s face had disappeared. She felt as though all the blood in her body had sunk into her feet and all the air had been squeezed out of her lungs. She gasped and cried out to the heavens: “Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness…”