Children of Clun Read online

  For their part, Madeleine and Anwen were to take the pig and the goat into the forest to forage for acorns. It was a good excuse for getting Anwen out of the village and away from the boys she so loved to tease. Madeleine, he sent, largely because he knew she’d resent it, and his anger with her had not even begun to ease. Also, he told himself, she was the best balance for Anwen. No boy in the village had the gumption to risk her fiery temper and quick tongue – not even to follow Anwen.

  “You’re to stay together,” Gwilym warned them, as he did every time any of them went into the forest. “And don’t go too far. What’s the rule?”

  “If trees block yer view o’ the castle’s Keep, ye’re in the forest much too deep,” Anwen repeated mechanically. “We know!”

  The forest was vast, thick and forbidding. It concealed wild animals and sometimes, more alarmingly, wild people. Two scrawny, scabby, slippery looking boys, for example, had been seen (and seen off) on various occasions through the summer – helping themselves, folks were certain, to village produce. Roger Ringworm and Wild Jack Sorespot; their names had evolved from their most obvious afflictions.

  “An’ you keep these animals close!” Gwilym finished. “You hear? Those thievin’ runty little scoundrels’d pounce on a loose pig as soon as spit on the ground. I won’t have ‘em gettin’ fat off our labour!”

  Anwen nodded obligingly, fully aware of what was needed to please her father. Madeleine muttered darkly, “Well! We all care too much about the pig to have it hookin’ up with hopeless people, don’t we?”

  * * * *

  The provisions needed at the castle were for visitors. The castle’s owner, Sir Roland Lenthall, with his wife Lady Margaret, had arrived on short notice the day before. A small group of soldiers and servants and a trio of wagons had accompanied them. Their luggage included their bed – a sign of a possibly lengthy stay. Rowe was desperately conscious of the fact that Lady Margaret was, in fact, a sister to the late Thomas FitzAlan. And FitzAlan was a name that made everyone in Clun wish they were wearing a hat, so they could doff it in respect.

  In centuries gone by, the forest-encircled, remote little castle had been the FitzAlan home. Through their work and vision, the tiny village had come into existence, in the dell, in the crook of the river. Whatever prosperity there’d been was owed to them.

  During their time, cattle had been driven eastward from the Welsh villages, along the Clun-Clee Ridgeway, through Clun, to England’s markets. Vast quantities of wool had been carted in from scattered FitzAlan farms, to be weighed and sorted in the village. All manner of traffic had crossed the little stone bridge and travelled on, sometimes even as far as London. There’d been fine times under the FitzAlans.

  Finally, though, they’d accepted payment for their service to English kings and moved on to much greater lands and responsibilities, far away from the Welsh Marches. Now they were the Lords of Arundel. Now they dined with royalty in London and spent their energies in petty court intrigues. Their loss, coupled wth plagues, wars and up-risings in the decades either side of the turn of century, had taken the region’s good times and slimmed them down to a formidable leanness.

  Market squares over the border in the Welsh villages, it was said, were all but emptied – so quiet that grass grew up between the cobblestones. On the Clun-Clee Ridgeway, foxes could trot for miles without encountering a human, and Clun had become like a tiny boat that, having slipped its moorings, has bobbed away on the evening tide. People in the rest of England forgot that it even existed. Fine times, it seemed, were as fleeting as buttercups in summer.

  Despite all that, however, occasional travellers told stories of new opportunity in the land – spreading out from far away London. The wars and the plague had killed so many that healthy workers, they said – especially villeins like the people of Clun – had become a valuable commodity.

  And truly, even in the isolation of the Marches there’d been signs of improvement. The plague had subsided. And a decade had passed since Owain Glyndwr –.that self-proclaimed Prince of Wales – that Welsh spoon that had so vigorously stirred the English pot – had been fought to a standstill by the English king. Glyndwr, in fact, too proud for surrender, had disappeared altogether, into no one knew where. And as a result, King Henry had also left, turning his attention to the conquest of France. And the FitzAlans had not come back! Which meant that, tiny abandoned boat though Clun might be, the villagers who were left on board had, of necessity, begun to contemplate the need for someone to steer.

  There was, however, one resident who longed for those old FitzAlan days – one who wished the tide would take them back to where they started. That resident was the castle steward, Samuel Rowe – the very man who had summoned Gwilym to the castle. In Rowe’s private dreams, Thomas FitzAlan, the twelfth Earl of Arundel and the last of that great family to actually reside in the castle, had never really left. From him, through tumultuous times, Rowe had learned his stewarding craft and earned his position of trust. Even though Thomas was long dead – a victim of King Henry’s wars in France – Rowe was possessed entirely by a sense of indebtedness. Clun Castle may have passed into the hands of Lady Margaret and Sir Roland Lenthall, but Samuel Rowe’s allegiance had not.

  For the Lenthalls, he nursed a bitter disdain. If only they made an effort to maintain the castle! If only they cared, just a smidgen as much as he himself did, or as Thomas had! But they didn’t. Clun was remote, it was lonely and the castle was increasingly ramshackle. Content to let the old steward struggle with it, they hadn’t, in all the years they’d owned it, even bothered to visit. Until now.

  And even now, the change was only in response to unaccountable interest from further afield – the powerful Earl of Somerset. He’d requested of the Lenthalls that they host a special guest at Clun Castle and people like the Lenthall’s did not lightly refuse an Earl. Nor, in fact, did people like Samuel Rowe lightly refuse the Lenthalls. So now Rowe needed wood, vegetables and animals for butchering. He needed ale. Lots of ale. But mostly he needed the organisational skills of the reeve. He needed Gwilym.

  * * * *

  As Gwilym and Maude walked the track to the castle, Gwilym studied the notched sticks on which he kept account of the village’s produce. In characteristic style, he muttered and grumbled to himself, anticipating arguments he surely would have to have with Samuel Rowe. Maude walked beside him in fretful silence.

  Back down the hill, Madeleine and Anwen, breakfasting on apples, were crossing the fields toward the forest. The goat was pulling ahead on a lead, the pig snuffling along behind. Anwen had embarked on a lengthy tale, but Madeleine was back in last night’s argument, composing in her mind begrudging new responses to familiar old complaints.

  “S’pose he thinks it’s my fault!” she was fuming. “S’pose it’s ‘cause I’m a girl! S’pose if I was a boy, he’d listen to me! Nobody ever cares what girls want! Well why should I care what he wants? He don’ know nuthin’! Nobody here knows nuthin’ – not about the real world – outside o’ Clun!”

  Her thoughts turned to the young men in the village who’d gone off to fight for King Henry in France. The ones who’d come back positively smelled of stories and foreign places! How she resented them! She even resented her mother, who so placidly endured her stunted life in the Marches. “If only I was as free as a man!” she sighed.

  As she walked and scuffed and fretted, her mind turned to quiet little Maude, going up to the castle where a genuine knight – Sir Roland Lenthall himself! – was in residence. She stopped and looked back. She could see her sister and father on the high road. “Aahhh,” she sighed again. “What a waste!”

  More experienced eyes would have seen the castle for what it was – a remote relic – an old hat that nobody wanted to wear any more. True, it was manned by Samuel Rowe and his uncaring caretaker staff, but for long periods of time it was virtually unoccupied. And it showed in the fallen stones and the weeds and even young saplings that grew from the mortar. To Made
leine, though, the ancient pile of stones represented a sort of life – a connection with the world – that would always, unfairly, be denied to her.

  * * * *

  At the same moment that Madeleine was looking back, Maude was also halted, looking down the hill, scanning the huddle of grey huts and lean-to’s. She could see people stretching, bending, chatting, studying their tools, examining the sky – what they did every morning of their routine lives. She could see Madeleine and Anwen with the goat and the pig, half way across a field of pumpkins and turnips, heading for the forest. Anwen was skipping, flapping her arms, obviously, even from this distance, enthralled with some story she was telling. Madeleine, however, had stopped and was looking back at the castle.

  Maude’s attention didn’t linger on them. She was looking for something – the source of a sensation that had come gently syruping into her mind, halting her in her tracks. A lovely, soothing, refreshing stroke! It was like warm water, being trickled across her scalp. Gwilym, unaware that she’d dropped away, continued walking while Maude scanned the village. Suddenly, her mouth cracked open in wordless surprise and, like a mouse caught dozing in the open, her heart leapt up.

  A cart was pottering across the bridge from the direction of Wales. A cart, being pulled by a nodding little pony! There was not a dram of doubt in her mind! It was exactly the same cart that had rumbled over the bridge in her dream! Same cart, same pony!

  For most people, dreams are usually hazy and the memory of them is fleeting. They’re gone as quickly as milk that’s spilt on the ground. For a short while, a sort of stain can be seen where they were. Then even that disappears, never to be recovered. But for Maude, dreams had a way of keeping their shape. Of floating above the everyday earth. Never before, however, had one so boldly and blatantly crossed into the real world.

  Not only were the cart and pony the same but so, too, was the warm, assuring sense of calm that had ended the dream. She remembered it now. A kind of whisper that made every thought and worry and concern settle into stillness, like birds quieting on their nighttime roosts. She couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d spilt milk and looked down to find it turned to a block of butter.

  She strained to remember what the whisper had said. But all she could hear was Gwilym’s voice: “Maude! Stop dawdlin’! I ‘aven’t got time for this today!”

  * * * *

  As Madeleine watched from the centre of the field, she saw Maude begin to walk, backwards at first, peering back at the bridge. Madeleine took note of the cart and pony and studied it herself. Two people, she thought. Two people in that cart. Why’s Maude so interested? Then she too was summoned.

  “Maddie! You aren’t listenin’! You never listen! Come on and catch up!”

  She didn’t answer but she did begin to walk on, backwards at first like Maude, so she too could watch the cart. Then peering back over her shoulder, she turned and ran after her sister.

  Chapter 3 – Taking Action

  They found Samuel Rowe in the castle’s bailey, checking on the stabling of Sir Roland’s horses. The bailey was always fascinating to Maude, with its densely huddled barns and sheds and kennels and dovecotes. It spoke to her of past times, when the castle had a purpose and the bailey had been full of business. Owain Glyndwr’s siege in 1404 had resulted in many of the buildings being burned. Sometimes, if Maude closed her eyes tightly and concentrated, she could hear the crackle of the flames. That had happened the year before Madeleine was born – ‘more years than’s decent’, the villagers said, considering that only the bare essentials had been rebuilt. The stable, with its massive oak beams and century-seasoned timbers, was the only original – the only building that had escaped the siege fires.

  Gwilym and Samuel Rowe quickly settled into a noisy, animated haggle of exclamations, declarations and protestations. Maude listened long enough to know the negotiation would not be short. Then both her feet and her mind began to wander in ever-widening circles. Her one concession to Gwilym’s ill temper was a promise to herself that she would keep him in view. She had every intention of scooting back to his side the minute the haggling ended.

  It didn’t work quite that way, as it turned out, because there was so much to see. For one thing, it seemed that every boy in the village was working in the bailey. Theirs were the constantly grinning faces that followed Anwen everywhere and theirs were the names that Gwilym had thrown down in front of Madeleine.

  First there was Hubert, crossing to the kitchen with a bucket of milk. Sixteen years old (same age as Madeleine) Hubert considered himself (though no one else did) a very important part of castle life because he minded the stables. Most times, that simply meant that he doled out oats, milked the cow and forked manure from the few occupied stalls. Maude had heard her father’s hopeful recommendation of Hubert: “A solid, honest worker, Madeleine! There’s nothin’ wrong wi’ that boy!” Gwenith had been more realistic: “Really, Gwilym! The boy’s like a three-legged dog. He’s eager to please, but he’ll never keep up with Maddie!” Hubert’s nose dripped constantly and his leggings gave off a sour, spilt-milk smell – not that he ever seemed to notice. Maude followed him with her eyes, watching until he put down the bucket to shake the cramp out of his fingers. She managed to be walking briskly and busily in another direction by the time Hubert saw her.

  She barely had time to congratulate herself on that escape when she saw Lazy Davey trotting in her direction from the keep. Davey was nearly twenty and liked to style himself a tailor, though the little work Mister Rowe was able to get out of him related more to running messages, cleaning and helping in the kitchens. Lazy Davey was what the villagers called him. He had pinched Madeleine’s bottom once and given her a wink. Madeleine had been pleased to tell him that he looked like the back end of a cat and, if he touched her again, he’d look like the back end of a cat with a foot stuck in it.

  Gwilym’s defence of Davey as a prospective partner for Madeleine was to say, “He’s got confidence, Mad’! An’ ‘e’s got Rowe’s ear! He’d be a good provider!” Gwenith’s response was, “He’s a lickspittle, Gwilym! He should learn to love work a little more and himself a little less.” Maude stepped quickly off in a new direction and Davey passed without seeing her.

  Rolling her eyes in gratitude only resulted in bringing the familiar figure of Eustace to her attention. He was caught up amongst a group of knights and soldiers moving onto the curtain wall, near the sentry towers that flanked the gate – much too involved to notice her. Eustace, only fifteen, still round-faced and boyish, had exactly two interests in life. One was lurking around her parents’ house, though it was never clear who or what he was hoping to see. The other was shooting arrows at targets on the common with his friend Rhodri.

  “Boy’s got a disciplined head on his shoulders!” Gwilym was inclined to say.

  “Yeah,” Madeleine would sneer, “but the only things in his head’re hangin’ about where he’s not wanted and killin’ people with arrows!”

  Maude was inclined to agree with Madeleine. As though killing people would be some grand adventure! Maude had never seen a man killed, but she had watched her father crush a pig’s skull with a hammer before slashing its throat and hanging it up to bleed. Dying, she sometimes thought, might be an adventure – but never killing!

  Watching Eustace on the wall brought her suddenly to a strange thought and, “Well,” she said aloud. “That’s odd!” And the odd thing – the rarely seen thing – was that guards should be posted on the gates at all! By all accounts, the need for such caution was long passed! Mus’ be some fancy bit of show, she thought! Arranged by Sir Roland to impress the villagers! She smiled secretly to herself, thinking how puffed with pride Eustace would be – to have his skill as a bowman taken seriously at last – to be mingling with real soldiers! Even though the only people he could be standing guard against would be his own people – the people of Clun!

  She didn’t have time to dwell on it. A body bowled into her. “C’mon, Maudie! Q
uick! Somethin’s ‘appenin’!”

  “Branwen!” she wailed. “For pity’s sake!” Dull and unimaginative, Branwen was one of the few village children, (aside from Annie and Maddie) who were not unsettled by talking with Maude. She was also, generally, as earnest as a bone-setter so, for her to be so animated, the happenin’ must be very unusual indeed. “Ye’ll break someone’s neck one day, Brannie! An’ then think how sorry ye’ll be! An’ what’re ye talkin’ about anyways?”

  “It’s the whole village, Maude! All come runnin’! Come on! We’ll miss it!”

  * * * *

  Ordinarily, Maude would never have considered going off without permission. But there was this premonition hovering at the back of her mind; a sense that some very un-ordinary days were on the horizon in Clun. And it was clear that, for the moment, Gwilym and Samuel Rowe’s negotiations were blinding them to the gathering tide of movement around them. So, today, she let Branwen’s dragging, pushing, dancing insistence overwhelm her. Just for a few steps, she told herself.

  That ‘few steps’ took her halfway to the castle’s gate, with no revelation. Alright, so as far as the gate; but absolutely no farther! Just to there, beneath the fly-over where Eustace and those knights are standing. What could they all be staring at? Just to here! I’ll just lean out for a look! At which point a sheathed boot grazed her bum and a voice behind her boomed, “Out o’ the way, Red!”

  She jumped and skittered several yards before turning to look up at one of Sir Roland’s smirking knights.

  “I can’t go out!” she protested. “My da’. . . he’s . . .”

  But it was already too late. The knight winked and blew her a mean-looking little kiss but the rust-dusted iron hinges were squealing out a much louder protest than hers. He stepped back inside and the massive oaken gates bumped to a close! Maude’s premonitory instinct jumped almost as far as she had, flashing her an image of the suspended pig, thrashing its life-blood away. She looked up and, from the line of staring soldiers, picked out the face of Eustace – the only one watching her.