Illuminated Hope and the Knight of the Black Lion

Chapter One : A Latin Lesson, A Footrace, A Mysterious Chamber

Non ex operibus iustitiae quae fecimus nos sed secundum suam misericordiam salvos nos fecit per lavacrum regenerationis et renovationis Spiritus Sancti.

Titus III:v

Sum, es, est, I intoned. Summus, estis,sunt. My uncle, Baron John Cloyes of Colchester in Essex, nodded encouragement, his soft silver hair sliding loose from his brown felt stirrup hat and falling into his gray-blue eyes.

Very good, my Hope, he murmured, pushing the hair from his gaunt features with a long, thin hand. He towered over me, well above six feet in height. Even at seventeen I showed no signs of carrying on the family tradition of statuesque grace. The few weeks my mother and I had passed here only confirmed my dwarfish status. My standing stool for this worktable had been raised twice and still the grammar tome sat just under my chin. Even my mother, the Lady Ada, sister to Baron John, was inches taller than me.

It was no wonder that when my father, Charles Fitzhugh, Baron of Maidstone, had died a few months ago the escheator had determined that I could not inherit his estate. Of course the fact that I was female could not have entered into his thinking. The king passed it on to a favored distant male relative of my father’s. Thus we had come to live with my mother’s brother.

Eram, eras, erat. I rolled my blue eyes around the drawing room-turned schoolroom, trying to find something to think about besides the conjugation of the irregular Latin verb to be and the fact that this whole manor house was scaled for giants. I felt like Jack in Cormoran’s kitchen, but there were no golden harps or hens laying golden eggs.

Eramus, eratis, errant. The solid oak furniture was sparse and not much ornamented. The fireplace was common gray river stone and lime. Fennel and thyme hung from the smoke-darkened beams exactly as they had at home. I rested my gaze on the tapestries covering the walls and saw devout crusaders engaging evil Saracens, a colorful fair with a footrace underway, and determined hunters pursuing wild cats into a grove.

I hastily closed my eyes, drawing a deep breath that probably swelled my small frame. I twined my short, square fingers into the black braids beneath my white coif and pulled hard to restore my concentration.

Ero, eris, erit, erimus, eritis, erunt! It burst out of me something like an overladen cart outstripping its oxen down a steep hill, but it was over.

Well done, well done, Hope! laughed my uncle, patting my shoulder. Now for the Scripture. I reached for the massive Latin Vulgate across the workbench. It was so heavy I could barely stir it, two stone easily. Together it and I would barely have topped a hundredweight if my lincoln grayne gown and I had been soaked. Uncle John gave it a push and I opened the tome, searching for my old parchment scrap wrapped in linen. I pulled it out and unwrapped the much-overwritten lesson sheet. My uncle put out a hand to keep my place in the Bible and I saw that his skin was as gray and old as my charcoal-smudged page.

Non ex operibus iustitiae quae fecimus nos sed secundum suam misericordiam salvos nos fecit per lavacrum regenerationis et renovationis Spiritus Sancti, I read haltingly. Titus III:v.

Your pronunciation is improving greatly, my Hope, my uncle said. Now the translation.

Not by works of justice ...

Better to say righteousness.

… Righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy He saved us through washing of … of making new ...

Regeneration, my dear. Being reborn or given a new life.

… Regeneration, and renewing by the Holy Spirit.

Excellent! Oh, excellent, Hope. The baron seemed to freeze suddenly. The hand beside me moved slowly, hesitantly and came to rest on his chest. He breathed very slowly and softly and his eyes got a faraway look.

Uncle, do you know that it is not usual to teach Latin to a girl? I asked. I prayed that he would at least agree it was hopeless to go on trying to put learning into my dull head. I did not mind a few chores like bread making  and even cleaning but being still for hours was torture. At home I had climbed trees and slept under the stars and even bested boys in a footrace now and then. I glanced longingly out the window at the perfect autumn day.

Before we had come to Colchester I had been like the red and golden leaves swirling freely through the air on the sweet breeze. Now I felt again that I was like them, but that I was doomed to lie dead and still upon the ground. I had been studying Latin and Greek since the day I had arrived and I was sick of study.

I want you to understand the Scriptures for yourself, Uncle John replied. Since they are not in English, or French, or German, then you must read them in Latin.

I … do not read French or German either, I pointed out. I did not mention that reading in any language had never been an interest or willing pursuit.

You will, smiled my uncle. And more Greek as well, and perhaps a bit of Italian before we are through. I fidgeted and promptly fell off my standing stool. Uncle John caught me by the arm and set me upright on the floor.

I am sorry, uncle, I said with a furious blush. I am not used to being so still for so long.

So your mother has told me. Uncle John frowned and seemed to wrestle with himself. Well, then, child, since you have been working so hard, suppose we declare a little holiday. My heart leaped, and I fear so did my body. Uncle John looked mildly surprised to see me jump so but said nothing. St. John’s celebrates the oyster harvest with a fair beginning tomorrow.

A fair, uncle? I cried. Oh, may we go?

Why, yes, I believe we may, Uncle John nodded. "You have met almost none of the hundred yet, and also the Earl of Chelmsford will be in attendance with his son. It is proper that you and your mother should meet them.

The earl will be judging a footrace and his son has won the last few years."

A footrace? Oh, uncle, may I be in the race?

You, run in a footrace? But it is for boys and young men, My Hope.

But my father always let me race with the boys. I did not add that it was less permission than indulgence because I seldom asked leave beforehand.

It may not be, Lady Hope, the baron said sternly. You are to learn your lessons and the management of this household. Racing with boys will not help you become a graceful and wise young woman. I wish to see you grow into a fit mistress for Colchester and a proper wife for my son Richard.

Uncle, Sir Richard has been gone from England for fifteen years, I exclaimed. I heard that he disowned the family name and probably died in one of Louis IX’s crusades. Why do you believe he will return, or that he would be a fit husband for me if he does?

Hope, have not both I and your mother asked you to pray fervently for Richard’s return and his repentance?

Of course, uncle, and I have made prayers and burnt candles faithfully at St. John’s, St. Botolph’s Priory and even St. Mary Magdalene’s, I said uncomfortably. But our chapel gathers dust and the altar seems never to be used. No priest ever comes to the manor. I am sure that you never seek the church’s intercession for him. Would not a father’s orisons be more efficacious than mine?

It is apparent that the Latin lesson have made no impression upon you, growled my uncle. No works can save Richard – not mine, not yours, not his own. Only God’s mercy and grace can do this work. I pray for that, and I do not ask a priest’s help or waste money on useless candles.

But, uncle, we cannot speak directly to God, I faltered. In the short time we had lived with Baron John I had found him a sweet, patient, quiet man. This tower of anger frightened me. I did not know what he meant by saying the church was no help to him in his prayers for Richard. I simply wanted the uncle I knew back. He saw the fear in my eyes and subsided.

Of course you do not understand. You cannot learn it all at once, he sighed. Thankfully he did not return to the subject of my betrothal to his son, who was twenty years my senior. I had much more to object to than Richard’s disappearance or his undutiful conduct as a son. The very idea of marrying a man almost forty filled me with revulsion. He extended a bent arm to me and I twined mine in it. Come, come, let us go and find your lady mother and tell her you must both have festive gowns for tomorrow, for we go a-fairing.

But I want some oysters! I exclaimed as my mother tried to draw me away from the vendors’ stalls, my face already shiny with sugar and grease. It is a celebration of the oyster harvest and I have not even had any oysters yet! The day of the fair was a little cooler than yesterday but it only seemed to make things sharper, brighter and clearer.

I suddenly saw a handsome boy with golden curls and laughing brown eyes watching me and I blushed and hurried to my mother’s side. I must have looked dwarfish standing beside my tall, slender mother in her blue damask gown and snow white toque, she so fair and graceful. The young man disappeared into the crowd milling across the grassy field away from the stalls.

Hope, it is nearly time for the race, my mother chided. Your uncle wishes to introduce us to the earl and his son beforehand.

The race! Mother, I have to get something. I will be right along.

Reluctantly my mother parted from me, picking her way across the meadow to join the group forming at the race’s starting place. I tore off to a thicket surrounding a giant dead oak, a fine hiding place I had spied the first  day we arrived in Essex. I dug through the brush and dead leaves into the hollow tree’s cavity, where I found Curt Bradenham’s clothes. I had bartered for them yesterday and paid dearly, too, to get the shoemaker’s son to give them up and hide them for me as well, with the jet and silver lion’s head brooch my father had brought back from the Holy Land after the taking of Jerusalem. Curt had smirked and said he would have the silver pin and the fine ash bow and arrows that were to be the prize as well. I had merely smiled.

I shed my green sleeveless surcoat and slid out of my yellow cotehardie. Helde had wanted something for leaving it unlaced, of course, since she might have been punished if it had been discovered. She had gasped in wonder at my bronze Egyptian mirror, another gift from my father. Father and I had giggled over the woman on the handle and how he had wrapped its nakedness modestly in blue silk before giving it to me. I felt sad at giving it up just to run a race but I found these reminders of what I had lost painful and hoped getting rid of them would ease the hurt.

Putting on Curt’s clothing, a linen shirt, coarse brown tunic, braes and hose only took a moment. I felt so free. My uncle was very strict and I had hardly even been out of his sight. It had seemed I was doomed forever to be imprisoned in gowns and wimples and couvre-chefs. I clamped the borealis hat over my braids and stuffed my women’s weeds into the crevice.

As I ran across the meadow I deeply regretted stuffing myself with sweets and fried delicacies. They weighed heavily on my midsection. I ran full into someone as I tried to dart into line at the racecourse. We both went down and the fellow cursed and rolled on top of me with his hand at my throat. It was the same handsome boy I had seen at the vendors’ stalls. He had shed his gold-threaded, tight-fitted scarlet tunic and wore a simple linen shirt, a sleeveless russet tunic, braes and hose. Except for the obvious fineness of the workmanship of the tunic his garb was similar to that worn by all the other boys and myself.

Most of the runners wore some kind of hat, some decorated with a feather or bright piece of cloth, so I did not feel out of place. On my hat I had pinned the last memento I still had of my father – a small mantle-clasp he had worn depicting a gold palm branch and a cross in rubies given to him by Friar James in Kent for his service in the Crusades. The young stranger wore a black felt cap with feathers from a red-tailed hawk. He stared and grinned and withdrew his hand.

You are a girl, he hissed. How dare you come here among these men?

You mean these boys, I sneered, trying not to let anyone overhear. He let me up and we sidled into our places but he stayed close beside me. I can beat anyone here.

Arrogant little wench, he sniffed. I have won this race before. It will be more fun to teach you a lesson.

A portly but handsome man with perfumed golden hair and a rich purple bliaut and red mantle with gold embroidery on the sleeves called out for the race to begin. I tore away from the pack. Never had I run like this before, even considering the smooth, rolling countryside that made a perfect racecourse. I ran half in fear, half in anger over this boy who put my thoughts in a whirl where pleasant and unpleasant mixed uncomfortably.

I left the pack behind and streaked toward the beech hanger that marked the halfway point of the race. Just as I entered the underbrush my indulgences at the food stalls caught up with me and I had to deposit the contents of my stomach in the bushes. As I finished someone tackled me and I rolled off the trail. The blond boy pinned me.

You are fleet as a hind, he said, breathing hard. But I am Actaeon and will bring you down.

I am Aphrodite and I curse you for your discourtesy to maidenhood! I bit his hand as he tried to cover my mouth and he roared and fell back.

I wish I could see what Actaeon saw! the boy said as he grabbed for me again. A hot flush washed over me at his words and I hardly knew if I wanted to escape. Then I remembered the race. I jammed my little knife into the hem of his tunic and pinned him to the ground, scrabbling free and darting out of the thicket right in front of the lagging pack as they caught up to us.

I burst out of the beeches with the whole lot of boys close behind. I could hardly breathe but somehow I kept running. The blond boy appeared in the corner of my eye and I barely managed to avoid his grasping hand. He lost his footing and plunged headlong, just allowing me to cross the finish line first. The others had to dive in all directions to avoid tripping over my pursuer’s prone body. Half a dozen men in livery raced forward to help the blond boy to his feet and the nobleman who had begun the race hurried anxiously forward, along with my mother and Baron John.

Robert! Are you hurt? the blond man demanded.

Of course not! snapped the boy, getting up and pushing the servants aside. His face was red with humiliation and he looked around for me.

Hope, what have you been doing? my mother gasped. I suddenly realized my hat was gone and my braids had no doubt been flying like banners since the beech hanger. My uncle looked grimmer than I had ever seen him.

So this is the Lady Hope, chuckled the blond man. I am Walter Talcott, Earl of Chelmsford, and this is my son Robert. This race was not to be for such delicate maids as yourself, my lady.

You are Lady Hope? the boy spluttered. Well, then, at least I was beaten by noble blood. It is all right, father. Give her the prize. She deserves it.

The earl took the bow and arrows from the groom who stood beside him. My uncle stepped between us as he started to present them to me, however. I pray your pardon, lord earl, my uncle said grimly. Lady Hope may not accept this prize. She has disobeyed the wishes of her mother and myself and must be punished. By your leave, we shall depart.

Now see here! Robert cried. Hope does not have to leave. I wish her to stay.

My uncle fixed a look on Robert that quailed his bravado in an instant. He flushed angrily and turned away, speaking rapidly to an attendant. Just before my uncle pulled me away Robert lunged forward, brazenly kissed me on the cheek and at the same time slipped something into my hand.

I am going to marry you, he breathed into my ear. I will speak to my father about it today. I thought my uncle would strike him but he simply strode off with me running to keep up. My mother followed in tight-lipped silence.

When we got home my uncle took me into my classroom and made me kneel down at the worktable. He beat me with a willow wand. I had never been physically punished. My mother stood there and watched it done. I stared at her with eyes filled with rage and humiliation and she never said a word. The amount of pain a little thin branch could inflict was astonishing, but I neither cried nor made a sound. Finally my uncle left off and assisted me to rise. I could barely stand and at last the tears burst forth.

This is unjust, my lord! I cried, bitterly angry with myself for giving way to what he must certainly have wanted. I meant to show him they were anything but tears of repentance. It is excessive, to beat me so for a footrace!

You think I beat you because you raced? The baron looked so pale and ill. In spite of my anger I wondered why he seemed so weak. I beat you because you have given encouragement to that whelp Talcott. His father is a wastrel and I see the seeds of the same in the son. You must not let him have his way with you. You are destined for another, Lady Hope, and even if you were not I would forbid this match. If the boy follows the man he would tear your heart to bits if it gave him pleasure. Do not see him again. I forbid it.

I was so astonished I could not speak. My mother tried to kneel and embrace me and I pushed her away. Sorrowfully she rose and she and the baron left the room. My maid Helde appeared to lead me off to the screened-off area of the solar that served as sleeping chamber to my mother and I. She had a very soothing balm for my legs and many tears as she applied it. In the midst of her babbling I gathered she wanted to return the bronze mirror, thinking that I had been punished for giving it away. I sighed and did not undeceive her. After she left I pried open my hand, which had become stiff from concealing what Robert had given me. It was a scrap of deerskin containing a crude picture of some kind of building. A pair of deer antlers grew atop it and two stick figures stood beside it close together. Stars and a moon were scratched above the other objects.

I went softly out into the solar, thinking over my uncle’s geography lessons and wondering if I could see Chelmsford from one of the windows. My mother’s and my tiny alcove did not face in the right direction. I slipped up two steps into an antechamber screened with heavy wood lattice that I had never entered before but which seemed to point in the right direction.

It was a dark and hazy place and I went toward the window, not minding where I was and wondering what Robert had meant by the little puzzle I held in my hand. Instead of the earl’s castle I saw through the trees, sharply backlit by the fading afternoon sun, the roof of a little cottage a mile or two from the manor. The baron’s former gamekeeper had retired a short while ago and had moved to Blackheath to take an inn called the Red Boar. His cot stood mostly empty because our new gamekeeper lived hard by the manor and rarely used it.

This, then, must be what Robert had meant by his