They emerged from the forest and soon afterward they came within sight of the castle.
Tom's spirits lifted, but he repressed his enthusiasm fiercely: he had suffered months of disappointment, and he had learned that the more hopeful he was at the start, the more painful was the rejection at the end.
They approached the castle on a path through bare fields. Martha and Jack came upon an injured bird, and they all stopped to look. It was a wren, so small that they might easily have missed it. Martha stooped over it, and it hopped away, apparently unable to fly. She caught it and picked it up, cradling the tiny creature in her cupped hands.
"It's trembling!" she said. "I can feel it. It must be frightened."
The bird made no further attempt to escape, but sat still in Martha's hands, its bright eyes gazing at the people all around. Jack said: "I think it's got a broken wing."
Alfred said: "Let me see." He took the bird from her. "We could take care of it," Martha said. "Perhaps it will get better."
"No, it won't," Alfred said. With a quick motion of his big hands he wrung the bird's neck.
Ellen said: "Oh, for God's sake."
Martha burst into tears for the second time that day.
Alfred laughed and dropped the bird on the ground.
Jack picked it up. "Dead," he said.
Ellen said: "What is wrong with you, Alfred?"
Tom said: "Nothing's wrong with him. The bird was going to die."
He walked on, and the others followed. Ellen was angry with Alfred again, and it made Tom cross. Why make a fuss about a damned wren? Tom remembered what it was like to be fourteen years old, a boy with the body of a man: life was frustrating. Ellen had said Where Alfred is concerned, you're just blind, but she did not understand.
The wooden bridge that led over the moat to the gatehouse was flimsy and ramshackle, but that was probably how the earl liked it: a bridge was a means of access for attackers, and the more readily it fell down, the safer the castle was. The perimeter walls were of earth with stone towers at intervals. Ahead of them as they crossed the bridge was a stone gatehouse, like two towers with a connecting walkway. Plenty of stonework here, Tom thought; not one of these castles that are all mud and wood. Tomorrow I could be working. He remembered the feel of good tools in his hands, the scrape of the chisel across a block of stone as he squared its sides and smoothed its face, the dry feel of the dust in his nostrils. Tomorrow night my belly may be full--with food I've earned, not begged.
Coming closer, he noticed with his mason's eye that the battlements on top of the gatehouse were in bad condition. Some of the big stones had fallen, leaving the parapet quite level in parts. There were also loose stones in the arch of the gateway.
There were two sentries at the gate, and both looked alert. Perhaps they were expecting trouble. One of them asked Tom his business.
"Stonemason, hoping to be hired to work in the earl's quarry," he replied.
"Look for the earl's steward," the sentry said helpfully. "His name is Matthew. You'll probably find him in the great hall."
"Thanks," Tom said. "What kind of a man is he?"
The guard grinned at his colleague and said: "Not much of a man at all," and they both laughed.
Tom supposed he would soon find out what that meant. He went in, and Ellen and the children followed. The buildings within the walls were mostly wooden, though some were raised on stone skirtings, and there was one built all of stone that was probably the chapel. As they crossed the compound Tom noticed that the towers around the perimeter all had loose stones and damaged battlements. They crossed the second moat to the upper circle, and stopped at the second gatehouse. Tom told the guard he was looking for Matthew Steward. They all went on into the upper compound and approached the square stone keep. The wooden door at ground level clearly opened into the undercroft. They went up the wooden steps to the hall.
Tom saw both the steward and the earl as soon as he went in. He knew who they were by their clothes. Earl Bartholomew wore a long tunic with flared cuffs on the sleeves and embroidery on the hem. Matthew Steward wore a short tunic, in the same style as the one Tom was wearing, but made of a softer cloth, and he had a little round cap. They were near the fireplace, the earl sitting and the steward standing. Tom approached the two men and stood just out of earshot, waiting for them to notice him. Earl Bartholomew was a tall man of over fifty, with white hair and a pale, thin, haughty face. He did not look like a man of generous spirit. The steward was younger. He stood in a way that reminded Tom of the guard's remark: it looked feminine. Tom was not sure what to make of him.
There were several other people in the hall, but none of them took any notice of Tom. He waited, feeling hopeful and fearful by turns. The earl's conversation with his steward seemed to take forever. At last it ended, and the steward bowed and turned aside. Tom stepped forward with his heart in his mouth. "Are you Matthew?" he said.
"Yes."
"My name is Tom. Master mason. I'm a good craftsman, and my children are starving. I hear you have a quarry." He held his breath.
"We have a quarry, but I don't think we need any more quarrymen," Matthew said. He glanced back at the earl, who shook his head almost imperceptibly. "No," Matthew said. "We can't hire you."
It was the speed of the decision that broke Tom's heart. If people were solemn, and thought hard about it, and rejected him regretfully, he could bear it more easily. Matthew was not a cruel man, Tom could tell, but he was busy, and Tom and his starving family were just another item to be disposed of as quickly as possible.
Tom said desperately: "I could do some repairs here at the castle."
"We have a wright who does all that kind of work for us," Matthew said.
A wright was a jack-of-all-trades, usually trained as a carpenter. "I'm a mason," Tom said. "My walls are strong."
Matthew was annoyed with him for arguing, and seemed about to say something angry; then he looked at the children and his face softened again. "I'd like to give you work, but we don't need you."
Tom nodded. He should now humbly accept what the steward had said, put on a pitiful look, and beg for a meal and a place to sleep for one night. But Ellen was with him, and he was afraid she would leave, so he gave it one more try. He said in a voice loud enough for the earl to hear: "I just hope you're not expecting to do battle soon."
The effect was much more dramatic than he had expected. Matthew gave a start, and the earl got to his feet and said sharply: "Why do you say that?"
Tom perceived he had touched a nerve. "Because your defenses are in bad repair," he said.
"In what way?" the earl said. "Be specific, man!"
Tom took a deep breath. The earl was irritated but attentive. Tom would not get another chance after this. "The mortar in the gatehouse walls has come away in places. This leaves an opening for a crowbar. An enemy could easily pry out a stone or two; and once there's a hole it's easy to pull the wall down. Also"--he hurried on breathlessly, before anyone could comment or argue--"also, all your battlements are damaged. They're level in places. This leaves your archers and knights unprotected from--"
"I know what battlements are for," the earl interrupted tetchily. "Anything else?"
"Yes. The keep has an undercroft with a wooden door. If I were attacking the keep I'd go through that door and start a fire in the stores."
"And if you were the earl, how would you prevent that?"
"I'd have a pile of stones, ready shaped, and a supply of sand and lime for mortar, and a mason standing by ready to block up that doorway in times of danger."
Earl Bartholomew stared at Tom. His pale blue eyes were narrowed and there was a frown on his white forehead. Tom could not read his expression. Was he angry with Tom for being so critical of the castle defenses? You could never tell how a lord would react to criticism. By and large it was best to let them make their own mistakes. But Tom was a desperate man.
At last the earl seemed to reach a conclusion. He turned to Matthew an
d said: "Hire this man."
A whoop of jubilation rose in Tom's throat and he had to choke it back. He could hardly believe it. He looked at Ellen and they both smiled happily. Martha, who did not suffer from adult inhibitions, shouted: "Horray!"
Earl Bartholomew turned away and spoke to a knight standing nearby. Matthew smiled at Tom. "Have you had dinner today?" he said.
Tom swallowed. He was so happy he felt close to tears. "No, we haven't."
"I'll take you to the kitchen."
Eagerly, they followed the steward out of the hall and across the bridge to the lower compound. The kitchen was a large wood building with a stone skirting. Matthew told them to wait outside. There was a sweet smell in the air: they were baking pastries in there. Tom's belly rumbled and his mouth watered so much it hurt. After a moment Matthew emerged with a big pot of ale and handed it to Tom. "They'll bring out some bread and cold bacon in a moment," he said. He left them.
Tom took a swallow of the ale and passed the pot to Ellen. She gave some to Martha, then took a drink herself and passed it to Jack. Alfred made a grab for it before Jack could drink. Jack turned away, keeping the pot out of Alfred's reach. Tom did not want another quarrel between the children, not now when everything had turned out all right at last. He was about to intervene--thereby breaking his own rule about interference in children's squabbles--when Jack turned around again and meekly handed the pot to Alfred.
Alfred put the pot to his mouth and began to drink. Tom had only taken a swallow, and he thought the pot would come around to him again; but Alfred looked set to drain it. Then a strange thing happened. As Alfred upended the pot to drink the last of the ale, something like a small animal fell out onto his face.
Alfred gave a frightened yell and dropped the pot. He brushed the furry thing off his face, jumping back. "What is it?" he screeched. The thing fell to the floor. He stared down at it, white-faced and trembling with disgust.
They all looked. It was the dead wren.
Tom caught Ellen's eye, and they both looked at Jack. Jack had taken the pot from Ellen, then turned his back for a moment, as if trying to evade Alfred, then handed the pot to Alfred with surprising willingness....
Now he stood quietly, looking at the horrified Alfred with a faint smile of satisfaction on his clever young-old face.
Jack knew he would suffer for that.
Alfred would take his revenge somehow. When the others were not looking, Alfred would punch him in the stomach, perhaps. This was a favorite blow, for it was very painful but left no marks. Jack had seen him do it to Martha several times.
But it had been worth a punch in the stomach just to see the shock and fear on Alfred's face when the dead bird fell out of his beer.
Alfred hated Jack. This was a new experience for Jack. His mother had always loved him and no one else had had any feelings for him. There was no apparent reason for Alfred's hostility. He seemed to feel much the same about Martha. He was always pinching her, pulling her hair and tripping her, and he relished any opportunity to spoil something she valued. Jack's mother saw what was going on, and hated it, but Alfred's father seemed to think it was all perfectly normal, even though he himself was a kind and gentle man who obviously loved Martha. The whole thing was baffling, but nonetheless fascinating.
Everything was fascinating. Jack had never had such an exciting time in the whole of his life. Despite Alfred, despite feeling hungry most of the time, despite being hurt by the way his mother constantly paid attention to Tom instead of to him, Jack was spellbound by a constant stream of strange phenomena and new experiences.
The castle was the latest in a series of wonders. He had heard about castles: in the long winter evenings in the forest, his mother had taught him to recite chansons, narrative poems in French about knights and magicians, most of them thousands of lines long; and castles featured in those stories as places of refuge and romance. Never having seen a castle, he imagined it would be a slightly larger version of the cave in which he lived. The real thing was amazing: it was so big, with so many buildings and such a host of people, all of them so busy--shoeing horses, drawing water, feeding chickens, baking bread, and carrying things, always carrying things, straw for the floors, wood for the fires, sacks of flour, bales of cloth, swords and saddles and suits of mail. Tom told him that the moat and the wall were not natural parts of the landscape, but had actually been dug and built by dozens of men all working together. Jack did not disbelieve Tom, but he found it impossible to imagine how it had been done.
At the end of the afternoon, when it became too dark to work, all the busy people gravitated to the great hall of the keep. Rushlights were lit and the fire was built higher, and all the dogs came in from the cold. Some of the men and women took boards and trestles from a stack at the side of the room and set up tables in the shape of the letter T, then ranged chairs along the top of the T and benches down the sides. Jack had never seen people working together in large numbers, and he was struck by how much they enjoyed it. They smiled and laughed as they lifted the heavy boards, calling "Hup!" and "To me, to me," and "Down easy, now." Jack envied their camaraderie, and wondered whether he might share it one day.
After a while everyone sat on the benches. One of the castle servants distributed big wooden bowls and wooden spoons, counting aloud as he gave them out; then he went around again and put a thick slice of stale brown bread in the bottom of each bowl. Another servant brought wooden cups and filled them with ale from a series of big jugs. Jack and Martha and Alfred, all sitting together at the bottom end of the T, got a cup of ale each, so there was nothing to fight over. Jack picked up his cup, but his mother told him to wait for a moment.
When the ale had been poured the hall went quiet. Jack waited, fascinated as always, to see what would happen next. After a moment Earl Bartholomew appeared on the staircase that led down from his bedroom. He came down into the hall, followed by Matthew Steward, three or four other well-dressed men, a boy, and the most beautiful creature Jack had ever set eyes upon.
It was a girl or a woman, he was not sure which. She was dressed in white, and her tunic had amazing flared sleeves which trailed on the ground behind her as she glided down the stairs. Her hair was a mass of dark curls tumbling around her face, and she had dark, dark eyes. Jack realized that this was what the chansons meant when they referred to a beautiful princess in a castle. No wonder the knights all wept when the princess died.
When she reached the foot of the stairs Jack saw that she was quite young, just a few years older than himself; but she held her head high and walked to the head of the table like a queen. She sat down beside Earl Bartholomew.
"Who is she?" Jack whispered.
Martha replied: "She must be the earl's daughter."
"What's her name?"
Martha shrugged, but a dirty-faced girl sitting next to Jack said: "She's called Aliena. She's wonderful."
The earl raised his cup to Aliena, then looked slowly all around the table, and drank. That was the signal everyone had been waiting for. They all followed suit, raising their cups before drinking.
The supper was brought in in huge steaming cauldrons. The earl was served first; then his daughter, the boy, and the men with them at the head of the table; then everyone else helped themselves. It was salt fish in a spicy stew. Jack filled his bowl and ate it all, then ate the bread trencher at the bottom of the bowl, soaked with oily soup. In between mouthfuls he watched Aliena, riveted by everything she did, from the dainty way she speared bits of fish on the end of her knife and delicately put them between her white teeth, to the commanding voice in which she called servants and gave them orders. They all seemed to like her. They came quickly when she called, smiled when she spoke, and hurried to do her bidding. The young men around the table looked at her a lot, Jack observed, and some of them showed off when they thought she was looking their way. But she was concerned mainly with the older men with her father, making sure they had enough bread and wine, asking them questions and li
stening attentively to their answers. Jack wondered what it would be like to have a beautiful princess speak to you, then look at you with big dark eyes while you replied.
After supper there was music. Two men and a woman played tunes with sheep bells, a drum, and pipes made from the bones of animals and birds. The earl closed his eyes and seemed to become lost in the music, but Jack did not like the haunting, melancholy tunes they played. He preferred the cheerful songs his mother sang. The other people in the hall seemed to feel the same way, for they fidgeted and shuffled, and there was a general sense of relief when the music ended.
Jack was hoping to get a closer look at Aliena, but to his disappointment she left the room after the music, and went up the stairs. She must have her own bedroom on the top floor, he realized.
The children and some of the adults played chess and ninemen's morris to while away the evening, and the more industrious people made belts, caps, socks, gloves, bowls, whistles, dice, shovels and horsewhips. Jack played several games of chess, winning them all; but a man-at-arms was angry at being defeated by a child and after that Jack's mother made him stop playing. He moved around the hall, listening to the different conversations. Some people talked sensibly, he found, about the fields and the animals, or about bishops and kings, while others only teased one another, and boasted, and told funny stories. He found them all equally intriguing.
Eventually the rushlights burned down, the earl retired, and the other sixty or seventy people wrapped their cloaks around them and lay down on the straw-covered floor to sleep.
As usual, his mother and Tom lay down together, under Tom's big cloak, and she hugged him the way she used to hug Jack when he was small. He watched enviously. He could hear them talking quietly, and his mother gave a low, intimate laugh. After a while their bodies began to move rhythmically under the cloak. The first time he had seen them do this, Jack had been terribly worried, thinking that whatever it was, it must hurt; but they kissed one another while they were doing it, and although sometimes his mother moaned, he could tell it was a moan of pleasure. He was reluctant to ask her about it, he was not sure why. Now, however, as the fire burned lower, he saw another couple doing the same sort of thing, and he was forced to conclude that it must be normal. It was just another mystery, he thought, and soon after that he fell asleep.