Valerie Anand - The House Of Lanyon

“It’s time for the relief bearers, anyhow,” Richard said, and raised his voice to call the volunteers forward: Ned Crowham, the Searles, Gilbert Lowe, Sim Hannacombe and Harry Rixon. Far away in the distance the hunting horn spoke again and the baying of the hounds once more drifted through the trees.

“Bloody Sweetwaters,” said Richard through his teeth. “I hope they all fall off their damned horses and break their necks and I hope the hounds bring that stag to bay and it gores every single one of them to death!”

“It went well enough in the end,” Nicholas Weaver said to Richard later that day as they stood together, partaking of the generous food and the excellent cider that was Kat’s speciality, and yet very conscious of the space in the household, the empty niche in the air which once had been filled by George. “That accident could have been much worse!”

“I daresay,” said Richard. “But I’ll never forgive the Sweetwaters. Never!”

“Likely enough they hardly realised what had happened,” said Nicholas. “It was all so fast. By the time they’d seen us, it was too late.”

“They had time enough! Had to get across the ford, didn’t they? And all of us up there on the path. Couldn’t miss us!”

“Ah, well. The light under the trees is always dim and we were all in dark clothes. Can’t come to a funeral in festive red and tawny!”

“You’re a good-natured soul, Nicholas,” Richard said. “I’m not so even tempered as you. The Sweetwaters behave as if this were still the days of serfs and villeins and we were nothing but animals with no human feelings. Before I’m done, I swear I’ll teach them different. I’d like to kill every last man of them. It would be a pleasure to see every Sweetwater head on a chopping block.”

“You’re so fierce!” said Nicholas, and adroitly turned the subject. “Well, there’s talk of war these days. Plenty of people will get chopped up if that happens!”

A good many of the gathering were talking about the accident to the coffin, some of them with amusement, some with anxiety for the health of Mistress Archer, who had been soaked to the skin and had had to go a good half mile like that in order to get home and dry herself. For others, however, talking about the Sweetwaters and their connections had led to conversation about the wider world in general. Here in this quiet corner of the southwest, the power struggles of kings and lords didn’t often impinge, but it had been known to happen, and for years the news had been disturbing. King Henry VI was said to be ailing in his mind, and his relative, Richard, Duke of York, who like the king was a descendant of Edward III, had been made regent for a while, but it was an uneasy state of affairs.

“Ambitious, that’s what I hear. He didn’t much care for it when the king got better. Could lead to trouble…”

“Some say all that’s a tale put about by the queen. She don’t like him. They say he’s sworn his loyalty but she don’t believe it. I’ve heard no good of her. When I were in Lynmouth and there were a ship in from London way, the men aboard said folk in the eastern parts are calling her Queen She-Wolf, ever since her French friends burned Sandwich port last year. Bloodthirsty, they say she is.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that.” Ned Crowham was unwontedly grave. “We had a queen over a century ago, a French-born one, that used to be called the She-Wolf of France. They must have named this one after her and it’s hardly a compliment. You could be right. I can see war coming.”

“Pray God and the saints it don’t come near us or call any of us away. If the Sweetwaters go to war…”

Nicholas had heard things, too. “If war does come,” he said to Richard, “then the Luttrells in Dunster Castle will go, for sure, and they’ll take some of the young fellows in my family. We’re their tenants.”

“And I’m a Sweetwater tenant! The last thing I want to do is die nobly fighting at their orders!” Richard said angrily. “Oh, well, it hasn’t happened yet. My friend, there’s something else I want to discuss.” He took Nicholas’s elbow and steered him into a quieter corner. “I’ve something in mind that could do both of us a bit of good. You might think a funeral’s no place for fixing up a marriage, but nothing’ll bring my father back and this talk of war’s unsettling. I’d sooner think of things that can be settled by you and me, here and now, and might give all our thoughts a happier turn. Your eldest daughter’s still not betrothed. I’ve been thinking…”

The Sweetwaters lived at the eastern end of the village on a knoll, in a house with a battlemented lookout tower. The Allerbrook, running close by on its way to join the River Barle, provided the house with a half moat in front, and there was a good ford for the packhorse trains carrying wool to market, and a set of stepping stones maintained by the Sweetwaters for the convenience of travellers in and out of the village.

Richard envied the house and approved of the stepping stones, but his father had been sour. “They put all the village rents up when they put in the stones,” George had said. “Lucky they didn’t put the farm rents up again and all!”

In the great hall Reginald Sweetwater, the elder by twenty minutes of Sir Humphrey’s twin sons, helped his father off with his boots while Walter did the same office for their guests, and Geoffrey Baker, who had returned to his duties immediately after the funeral, came in with two young pages and served mulled wine. He did not let the women servants wait on all-male gatherings. Sir Humphrey and Reginald were both widowers, and Walter’s wife, Mary, preferred to remain in her solar with her young daughter when male guests visited without their own wives.

“That was a good run,” said Thomas Carew, one of the guests—and an illustrious one, since his mother had been a Courtenay. “You’ll have a fine new set of antlers for your wall, Sir Humphrey.” He looked appreciatively around at the remarkable collection already there. “Twelve pointer, wasn’t he? Not bad. They hardly ever go over fourteen points in England.”

“That one did.” Sir Humphrey, a heavily built man, stretched a large pair of feet toward the warmth of the hearth and pointed to the impressive trophy just above it. “My grandfather killed him. Eighteen points. Almost unheard of for this part of the world.”

“It was a sixteen pointer that chased a friend of mine up a tree one September,” said Thomas.

“Damned lucky to find a tree on these moors,” said Walter Sweetwater.

“It was on the edge of Cloutsham vale, over beyond Dunkery hill. Plenty of tree cover there. Up there two hours he was, with the old stag parading around and going for the tree with his antlers every now and again. It was in the rut. Stag must have thought he was a rival. Do you reckon a male deer can tell male and female humans from each other?”

The conversation went on an excursion around remarkable hunting stories and anecdotes about animal sagacity, and an argument between Walter and his father about the intelligence of sheep, Walter maintaining that according to the Sweetwater shepherd, Edward Searle, they weren’t as stupid as most people believed, and Sir Humphrey complaining that Walter spent too much time in the company of the shepherd and should concentrate on practicing his swordplay instead. “Edward Searle may look like a prophet out of the Old Testament and stalk about among his sheep with his head in the air as though he were royalty, but he’s only a shepherd and ought to remember it, and so ought you,” said Sir Humphrey, who was himself slightly intimidated by Edward Searle, though he would have died before he admitted as much.

Thomas’s young son, whose mind seemed to have been elsewhere all this time, suddenly asked, “Who were those people we almost crashed into after we crossed the river? I could hardly see them in that bad light under the trees. What were they doing there?”