Синтия Хэррод-Иглз - The Founding

‘If you like bells, just wait till the end of the month, on Hollows' Night. Every bell of every church rings all through the night, and on All Souls Night too. We're so close to the walls we can scarcely sleep unless the wind's away from us.'

‘Tell me,' Eleanor said suddenly, staring ahead at the Great Gate, 'what are those brownish things on poles above the gate? They look like pumpkins or giant turnips or something.’

There was no immediate answer to her question, and when she turned to look at him, she saw that he regarded her with a curious expression.

‘Why, don't you really know?' he said.

She shook her head. 'I wouldn't ask if I did.'

‘They are the heads — what's left of them — of felons executed within the city. They are hanged, drawn and quartered, and when the remains are scattered, the heads are put up there on poles until they rot off, or are carried off by kites.'

‘Oh,' said Eleanor, and looked away. It was right and fitting that felons should suffer the penalty, but she didn't care about the idea of passing through the city gate under their blind and rotting eyes.

‘You'll get used to it,' Robert said, trying not to grin at her obvious discomfort.

Eleanor did not like to be thought a country bumpkin. ‘I care nothing about it, sir,' she said tartly. 'I only wondered what would happen if one fell on you as you passed through the gate.'

‘Well you won't need to worry about it this time — here we are home.’

Home! The word sounded odd to Eleanor, who had left her home far behind her. Yet this place was to be her home for the rest of her days, and she would have been a strange person if she did not look about her with interest. A battlemented wall fronted the property on the road side, and the great iron-studded gate stood open at their approach, which had presumably been seen from afar. They rode in through the gateway and found themselves in the farmyard, where chickens scratched and pigs rooted in the mud, and Eleanor had her first sight of the house itself.

It was mainly a wooden building, with a great pointed gable facing eastwards and covered balconies at first floor level that gave access to the upstairs rooms. Behind it, and on either side, stretched other buildings that had been built on at various times, so that there was a motley collection of roofs, gables and structures to be seen on all sides. And the whole messy collection made up Micklelith House, the name being carved into the stone lintle over the main door. It looked what it was, in fact — a large, extended farmhouse.

Robert was watching Eleanor's face anxiously as Job, dismounting, led Dodman forward to a place dry enough for Eleanor to dismount.

‘There are gardens on the south side of the house,' he said, hoping to see some relaxation of the line of her mouth, ‘and from the west windows you can see over the moors towards the hills. All our land lies to the southwest. The land to the northwest belongs to one of the Earl of Northumberland's men, but he doesn't farm it.’

Eleanor didn't care. She was exhausted, wet and cold to the bone. All she wanted was a warm fire, a meal, and a comfortable bed, and her hopes were all fixed on finding what she wanted within. Some male servants or retainers had run out as they rode into the yard, and now were conversing with Morland in harsh, loud voices in that language she did not understand. It sounded to Eleanor like the yarping and braying of beasts, not like human speech at all. She had dismounted and was standing shivering in the shelter of the balcony, waiting to be given the welcoming cup and to be escorted within, but it didn't seem to be happening that way. Her own servants — Gaby, Jacques and Job were huddling close to her as if for protection, Job carrying the mewling puppy which had had such a long journey away and back for so little purpose. Some men had led the horses away, and Morland himself, shouting forcefully at his men, had gone with them. Robert was staring about him as if wondering whether to follow him or not. He knew that something was due to the guests, and especially to his betrothed, but to play the host was to draw attention to his father's omission, which didn't seem to him to be a wise thing to do. At last he decided to go and find his father and remind him as tactfully as possible, and with a muttered excuse he splashed off round the side of the house, leaving the guests where they stood.

Now Eleanor found herself in a quandary. She relieved her feelings by complaining, which got her nowhere.

‘The barbarians,' she said savagely, 'to leave us standing here in the rain. No word of greeting, no loving cup, no one to conduct us inside. This is what we have come down to, Gaby — we have less care than the horses and dogs.'

‘Horses and dogs, mistress, are perhaps more valuable up here,' Jacques said bitterly. He spent most of his life in the furnace atmosphere of a great lord's kitchen, and he hated cold and was particularly susceptible to it. He had been contemplating all through the journey on his chances of still being alive by next spring.

‘There is no woman of the house, mistress,' Gaby reminded Eleanor, and it was this that decided her. Drawing herself erect, she set her jaw against any gainsaying, and started towards the door.

‘Follow me,' she said to her servants, and they were only too pleased to do so. Inside the house was dark, for the shutters had been closed against the rain, and the only light came in through the smoke hole in the roof, and the small unshuttered slits high up under the gable. Eleanor found herself in the hall, bare, drab and undecorated. The rushes were deep on the floor and had evidently not been changed for some time, for the debris was perfectly visible and the stench rose up to her nostrils at every step. There were no hangings on the walls, and though there had evidently been paintings on the walls at some time they had worn and flaked away and could only be seen in patches.

Worst of all was that the fire on the raised hearth in the centre of the hall had been allowed to run down, and there was nothing but a handful of embers amongst the wood ash to give warmth to the room. The fact that there were no dogs around it shewed that they had abandoned the hall for some warmer corner of the jumble of buildings — and that was a sign like rats leaving a sinking ship.

Signing her people to wait, Eleanor stepped gingerly across the squelching rushes towards the screen beyond which she knew must be the buttery and pantry, thinking perhaps that the house servants were in the kitchen. The gap in the screen that led out of the hall was covered with a cowhide curtain, and she had just put her head to it when a harsh voice arrested her.

‘Where do you think you're going, mistress?’

She turned and saw that Morland had come in through the screen at the other end of the hall. She guessed there must be another external door through there.

‘I am going, sir, to find the servants. They have let the fire go out, and we require food.' Eleanor felt it necessary to sound assured and confident. She was so demoralized by cold and hunger that she was afraid she would cry, and one thing she had determined was that her father-in-law should not see that happen. 'It seems, sir,' she went on boldly, 'that your servants have all run away.’

Edward Morland stared at her as if he were not sure whether to beat her or admire her. 'By God, mistress, you have a serpent's tongue in that pretty face of yours. Well, I like spirit in a yow, for a spirited yow brings forth strong lambs.' He made a gesture towards the empty hearth. 'The servants are all without. This is a busy time of year for sheepmen — they have too much to do outside to be tending fires and making meals.'

‘We require food,' Eleanor said again. 'Why was no meal waiting for us?'