Joan Wolf - To The Castle

He had a very nice speaking voice, very clear but not harsh. Not like her father’s.

He continued to look down at her. “Were you a nun?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I was due to be professed at the end of this year.”

The August sun shone brightly on the packed-dirt ground of the bailey. The blue flags flying from the towers fluttered in the afternoon breeze. The men guarding the main gate watched them as they turned left to follow the line of the wall. “How old were you when you were sent to the convent?” Roger asked.

“Eight,” she replied.

“You were there a long time,” he said, sounding surprised.

“Yes. It is the only life I ever knew until I came to Bardney a few weeks ago.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “Did you want to leave?” She returned his gaze straightly. “No, I did not.”

Wonderful, Roger thought ironically. They are marrying me to a girl who wants to be a nun.

Nell looked around. “My father wants me to take you to the stable, but I’ve never been out of this front part of the bailey. I don’t know where the stable is.”

Roger looked around at the storage sheds and craftsmen’s workshops that lined the stone walls in this part of the bailey. He said, “Let’s walk around the whole bailey and we’re certain to find it.”

They began walking toward the east side of the bailey, with Roger accommodating his stride to Nell’s shorter step.

Roger said, “Have they explained to you the reason for this marriage?”

“Yes,” Nell said shortly. “It is political.”

“It’s more than political,” he explained. “It’s dynastic. One day your son will be the Earl of Wiltshire and the Earl of Lincoln. It will be a position of unparalleled power in the kingdom. When Sybilla died, I imagine your father could not give it up.”

“No, he couldn’t,” Nell said bitterly. “And I don’t care much about dynasties.” She glanced up at him. He was looking straight ahead. His profile was cleanly cut, with high cheekbones and a strong jaw. He really was extraordinarily good looking.

“You would care if you had lived in the world,” he said. They passed the mews, where the earl’s falcons were housed. The head falconer was standing in front of it with a bird perched on his wrist. He tugged at his fore-lock as Nell and Roger went by.

“Do you want this marriage?” she asked directly.

“Yes,” he replied quietly. “My grandfather says it is a great opportunity for our house, and I agree. It is a great opportunity for both our houses, Nell.”

They walked in silence for a few paces.

In two days time I will be married to this man, Nell thought. A panicky feeling tightened her chest and her stomach. I will have to go with him back to his castle.

They turned the corner of the inner wall and saw several small fenced-in enclosures where horses were turned out. “Here are the stables,” Roger said, sounding relieved.

They walked up to the wooden building that was built against the stone outer wall of the bailey. It was a large structure that held the horses of forty knights. The smell of manure hung in the warm summer air. Two grooms were carrying water buckets from the well and Roger called to them, “Find me the head groom. We are here to see Earl Raoul’s horses.”

“Yes, my lord.” The grooms carried the water into the stable building and shortly thereafter a thin, red-haired man dressed in a plain brown tunic and cross-gartered leggings came out and hastened to join them.

Roger said, “I am Lord Roger de Roche and Earl Raoul has sent me to see his horses.” His voice was pleasant, not demanding.

“Yes, my lord.” The red-haired man beamed. “Lord Raoul’s mount is the finest stallion you’ll ever have seen, my lord. And he has a colt out of him by a splendid mare. Those are the horses you’ll be wanting to see.”

The horses were brought, the big chestnut stallion immediately intimidating Nell by rearing, and a bay mare with a chestnut colt at her side that was the image of his sire.

Nell kept her distance from the horses, making sure not to come too close to those iron-shod hooves. Roger walked right up to the stallion however, and got him to stand by simply telling him to do so. Nell couldn’t help being impressed. He then went over the entire animal, even running his hand down each hard leg. He checked over the mare and the colt in the same fashion.

“You’re right,” he said to the head groom. “These are superior horses. No wonder Earl Raoul is proud of them.”

The redhead grinned.

“Thank you for showing them to us,” Roger said.

Nell looked at him. She liked it that Roger had thanked the head groom. Her father never thanked the people who worked for him, but Mother Superior always did. She had said that everyone is loved by God, and we should never forget to give people the respect that they deserve.

They continued their walk around the bailey, past the archery butts where the knights were practicing, past the kitchen garden where the vegetables for the household were grown, past the lines of laundered clothes that were hung out to dry.

As they walked, Roger’s mind grappled with the situation that faced him. He was to wed a girl who might not be willing. This was not a possibility that had ever occurred to him. In its own way, it presented as many difficulties as if she had turned out to be strange in the head.

He had to address it. She was very pretty and he would like to marry her, but something in him recoiled from taking a woman against her will.

He put his hand on her arm and stopped her. They turned to face each other in the sunshine. “Nell,” he began carefully, “I don’t know if you know this, but the Pope has ruled that a woman cannot be forced to marry against her will. You can appeal to the church if that is the case. So let me ask you now, are you making this marriage willingly?”

No, I’m not, was her immediate reaction.

But she couldn’t answer him that way. The convent was closed to her; there was no place else for her to go. She shuddered at the thought of confronting her father with the news that she had told this man she wouldn’t marry him. She couldn’t defy her father. She didn’t have it in her.

She looked at her hands, which were clasped over her gold belt. “Yes,” she said in such a low voice that he had to bend his head to hear her. “I am marrying you willingly, my lord.”

“Are you sure?”

Tears stung behind her eyes. It occurred to her that he was the only person so far who had cared how she felt. “Yes,” she whispered. “I’m sure.”

“All right,” he said. He lifted her chin with his thumb, so she had to look up into his face. He smiled at her. “I’m not such a bad fellow, Nell. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t get along.”

Her lips trembled and she blinked away her tears. “I will try to be a good wife to you, my lord.”

“And I will try to be a good husband to you.” He bent from his superior height and touched his lips to her cheek. “You’re a beautiful girl,” he said. “I consider myself a lucky man.”

Nell didn’t feel lucky, but it occurred to her that things could be worse. At least Roger seemed kind.

She said in a low voice, “You will have to be patient with me. I know very little of the ways of the world.”

He took her hand into his. “Don’t worry, little Nell,” he said. “I will take care of you. Everything is going to be all right.”

Nell retired to her bedroom that evening with a hard knot of tension in her stomach. What had once been marriage in the abstract had suddenly become very real.

Gertrude, the handmaid who had been serving her since she’d come home, helped her to disrobe. Most of the Norman upper class slept naked, but Nell had worn a nightgown in the convent, and she continued to cling to this custom.