Anne O'Brien - Conquering Knight, Captive Lady

Due to the striking de Longspey pennons in black and red, flaunted by their escort, the castle gates had been opened for them without question. The commander of the garrison, an elderly knight of lined and mournful visage named Thomas de Byton, stood elbows akimbo on the steps leading up to the entrance to the keep, sour and unaccommodating. He made no advance to acknowledge or receive the women who had turned up unwanted and uninvited on his threshold, but watched them with what Rosamund could only interpret as a jaundiced air. She could read his disapproval in his stance. Awaited his approach. When he made no move, she nudged her horse forward until she sat before him, her eyes on a level with his, as she had intended, and very direct.

‘Thomas de Byton.’ Her voice was clear, carried well. She had made it her business to discover the name of the man who held Clifford in her name, the protection of her property. ‘I am Rosamund de Longspey.’

‘Aye, my lady. I heard the Earl had given the castle to a woman .’

She ignored his words but, eyes widened, continued to hold his. ‘Perhaps you will make arrangements for the accommodation of my escort and for myself and the Dowager Countess.’

‘And for how long would that be, my lady?’

She lifted her chin an inch, stared down her nose. ‘For as long as I see fit. I intend to make my home here.’

‘As you wish, my lady.’ Sir Thomas turned, to stamp back up the steps, in no way discommoded by the interview.

‘One moment, Sir Thomas. If you please.’

He halted, half-turned, but did not retrace his steps.

‘If you would see to my horses and my baggage, I wish to inspect the private quarters.’

‘As you wish, my lady.’ With bad grace, he marched back down the steps and across the bailey to the thatch-and-timber constructions that housed the kitchens, resentment hovering round him like a swarm of flies in summer. She heard his muttered parting shot.

‘Let me know when you decide you don’t wish to stay, my lady.’

But she would stay. She must. The new Lady of Clifford braced for what was to come.

‘Well, it could be worse. Some improvements have been made.’ Petronilla surveyed the stone walls rising on every side to create an inner court.

‘I fail to see them,’ Rosamund lifted one soft leather boot to inspect the mud caked almost to the ankle. This inner courtyard enclosed within the defences of the stone keep was badly drained and awash with standing water. The walls were high, hemming them in, cutting off the light. The air was dank and chill and would be so, she suspected, even on the warmest of summer days. She shivered within her mantle. ‘It’s like being enclosed in a stone tomb.’

‘At least you have the comfort of a stone hall. Timber lets in the draughts so,’ Petronilla continued, trying to make the best of it. They looked around them at the five towers and the three-storied Hall, all connected by a strong defensive wall, a battlement walk around the top. ‘And our safety here is guaranteed, even if the outer bailey falls to an attack.’

‘Do you say?’ Rosamund poked at some decaying mortar between the stonework. ‘I think we should look at the rest before we go in.’ She followed Sir Thomas’s distant figure down into the bailey.

It did not take long. Rosamund’s sense of disgust deepened with every step. Other than the gatehouse and the keep, both of stone and substantial enough, the rest of the fortification was still the original timber palisade with an outer earth bank and ditch. The buildings in the outer bailey were timber and thatch—stables, kitchens, store rooms, as well as shelters for the scattering of cows and sheep that roamed and mired up the surface. She stepped cautiously around the animals. Should they not be fenced in somewhere? Chickens sat broodily along one roof ridge. In the corner beside the keep, easily recognisable by the rank smell, a midden spread its foul contents underfoot. Her nose wrinkling, Rosamund quickly put distance between herself and the offending heap. Who could have allowed the midden to be positioned there, so close to the habitation?

‘It could be worse,’ the Dowager gulped, as if repeating the words would make them so. ‘You’ve a secure water supply from the well.’

‘So I have.’ Rosamund suddenly smiled wryly at her mother, struck by the sheer awfulness of it all. ‘Stop being so cheerful!’ But this is where she must stay. ‘Let’s go in. You notice that our commander and my invisible steward—if I have one—are both keeping a low profile. I think it bodes ill.’

It did. The sight and the stench reduced the de Longspey women to a silence.

‘Oh, dear!’ Lady Petronilla managed at last.

The Hall showed evidence of hard and crowded living, being the nightly refuge of Sir Thomas’s men-at-arms. Dark in the most sun-filled of days, rank with smoke from the open fire that did not find the intended outlets in the thickness of the wall and with the rancid reek of animal fat feeding the rush lights, it was a scene from a church wall-painting of Hell, to frighten the sinful into a better life on earth.

‘These rushes have not been changed since last winter.’ In awe of such filth, Rosamund tried not to disturb them too much as she walked in, flinching from the fleas and vermin that would infest them. Any sweet scent had long gone, replaced by the stench from putrid scraps of food and worse from the savaging hounds that drew back snarling as she approached. Over all, the whole place reeked of unwashed humanity.

The furniture was minimal, splattered and scarred. A few benches and stools stood by the hearth. The single standing table on the dais had seen better days. There were no tapestries to decorate the walls. Indeed, it would have been a shame to hang them where their beauty would have been spoiled. The stonework ran with wet and soot from the fire.

‘So what about the private chambers?’ Rosamund started up the stairs to the next floor. ‘For where shall we sleep tonight?’

‘Not in here!’ Lady Petronilla lifted the hem of her skirts from the outrage.

The solar, intended as a comfortable refuge for the women of the household, contained nothing but evidence of soldiers sleeping there—a discarded boot and assorted pieces of raiment, jugs of ale, remnants of ruined food. Equally, the adjoining private chamber intended to heighten the authority of the lord and his lady had been taken over, Rosamund presumed, as the haunt of Thomas de Byton, and he had done nothing to remove his presence from it.

‘By the Virgin!’ Rosamund kicked over a pile of questionable material beside what should have been an impressive oak bedstead, then retreated from platters of food with their layers of fuzzy mould. The smell that hit them at the door heralded the existence of the garderobe, built into the thickness of the wall to empty into the ditch below. It was altogether an appalling place.

Rosamund decided not to investigate further. ‘I doubt this has ever been cleaned out since the stone keep was first constructed. It’s hard to believe that Ralph de Morgan would want it.’ She veiled her thoughts with dark lashes from her percipient mother, not liking their direction, unable to dispel the sharp bitterness that settled beneath her breast-bone. ‘As a dower it does not recommend me highly to a husband, does it? And yet Ralph de Morgan would take me, to acquire this . Simply because it controls the crossing of the Wye. The cow byres in Salisbury are better kept than this! Yet it was thought to be a suitable dower for me.’ She heard her voice rise, and strove without success to control the bleak vision of her future here. ‘Perhaps at my advanced age Ralph is the best I can hope for. I clearly have no great value in de Longspey eyes, except to entice a border lord into their clutches.’