Post of the Month

~ November 2008 ~

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David & Adela ~ Written by Nikke. Posted on the HoS Yahoo group May 2007.

Within the solar all was quiet. The darkness of a warm summers night shrouded the chamber. Outside the shuttered window, a dog barked, then all was still again. From below, down the newel staircase to the Great Hall, there came the sounds of a servant moving quietly around. But most were abed. All was quiet and most were asleep.

No-one was present in the solar save David and Adela. She had long dismissed her maid; she had used to wait upon Eleanor, Robert's mother, and knew from experience how tedious it was to have to stand or sit in someone's presence and wait, though you longed for your bed. She had never completely grown used to having others wait thus upon her, though often protocol whilst in company demanded it.

She was capable enough of seeing herself to her bed with a candle and the minimum of fuss, and besides, she liked these times best. With David in the solar of an evening.

Adela lifted her head from the tapistry she was working upon and looked across at him. He sat sprawled in the one chair by the fire, booted feet propped comfortably up on the stool there. Adela's eyes travelled to the small three-legged stool, smooth and darkened by age - Robert always used to sit there on that stool, as a small boy. By his father's feet. She wondered if David remembered, if he realised just how much time Robert had spent sitting there, silent for the most part, watching his father's face, waiting for a word or two. Acknowledgement.

Maybe men did not think upon those sort of things so much.

David was staring into the fire with heavy lidded eyes, one hand comfortably cupping a heavy goblet. He was quiet. He had been quiet all evening, and had retired to the solar earlier than usual. There had been few words between he and Adela all day, since that early hour, when they had clashed. No, Adela corrected herself, they had not clashed. She and David never clashed. In public she was careful to acceede to him - or appear to - but never in her heart did she feel he could master the basic core of her.

She had simply made her feelings known, and he had disagreed with them. She knew she could not do more, but at least she had made her feelings known.

Where she sat on the settle on the other side of the fireplace opposite David, she bent her head and peered once more at the wool sewn on linen tapistry she was working on. A scene from the Golden Legend.

The vaulted ceiling of the solar shot upward about twenty feet. That gave the room ample space on the stone walls, space that was occupied by vibrant, colorful tapestries. Many had been here before her time and stretched back through time before David. She knew that some of them had come from Normandy with David's ancestors, brought over when they had settled here, after King Williams battle with Harold Godwinson.

On the wall behind David hung a large tapestry representing the agricultural importance of Normandy. It was more than a hundred years old and was grimy from the fire smoke, having hung in this solar all this time, but the vivid greens and rich browns of the wool sewn onto the linen background cloth were still to be admired. Serfs ploughing a field in one panel and then scything corn in the next. One carrying a basket of produce and another carrying a large sheath of wheat, symbolizing the fertile lands and open fields of the area. An indigo sea on which a boat fished, balancing on impossibly curled waves. Adela studied the tapistry now and could almost fancy everything within it moved; the sea rolled, the plough tilled its furrow, the apple trees with their dark red woollen apples swayed in a breeze. Whoever had sewn it had been a mistress of the needle, Adela thought. Her paltry small efforts were nothing by comparison.

"It's getting low." David was commenting on the state of the fire. He now rose and took a step to lean and sharply prod the logs in the fireplace with the poker. They crumbled and sparked.

"It's not as though we need it in this weather," Adela said.

"I don't know; my bones felt the damp last night with that storm that passed over. Sign of age, maybe. An old man likes sitting by the fire." David sat back in his chair with a sigh.

Adela stared into the fire of the solar. Sparks detached themselves and floated upward before winking out, only to be replaced with others. It was mesmerizing. She remembered how as a little girl she had sat at her father's fire, on the hearth with her arms encircling her knees, and had watched the sparks, wishing somehow she could capture them.

"You've hardly said a word all evening," David said at length.

"I'm annoyed with you," Adela replied calmly, frowning in concentration at the tapistry as she pushed her needle through the weave from the back. "And it's going to take some time to subside."

"You're annoyed with me? - why in heavens name?" David's voice was bemused.

Adela did not look up from her frowning at the tapistry. "You assume too much that I will fall in with all you plan."

"But you will."

"I will hold my tongue, my lord. But I do not like people to assume I will do this or that, as well you know."

"Ah well," David stretched, "that's the lot of being a woman, isn't it? Mind you, I've never known a woman who will actually hold their tongue after they've said they will."

Adela did not reply, but continued to ply her needle. David studied her. "You think too much, Adela. That's your problem. Stuck here without someone your equal or near it. Another woman, I mean. You're lonely."

"I wonder sometimes what my equal is," Adela replied. " Neither of your status or below with the highest of the household servants, I am destined to hover continually in a state of limbo."

"You needed more to fill your time, once Robert was grown. We should have had children," mused David.

Adela spoke with equanimity. "A little late now, my lord. Besides - more little bastards for you to worry about? Isn't Gisbourne enough?" She spoke with the merest touch of sarcasm and glanced quickly across at David, wondering at his reaction.

David stared into the fire. "Oh yes," he replied back with the same touch of sarcasm. "More than enough."

And yet, he thought, and yet.....their conversation in Nottingham's Great Hall two evenings ago...had almost in places been one of father and son. Interested in the same things - like the quality of those swords on display. There had been brief moments, he had felt, where he and Guy had resided on the same base of understanding - which was something he had very rarely felt when with Robert. Robert, who reminded him of Eleanor, his lily-maid who had been chosen for him by his father, but whom, fortunately, he had loved. Eleanor who had demurely cast down her pale lashes and acceeded to him in all things but who within had possessed a core of stubborness - just as Robert did. And Guy, who reminded him of Margaret, wife of Edmund of Gisbourne,fair hair glinting under the candle-light at their first meeting, whom he had chosen to dally with before he had ever been matched with Eleanor. How he had wanted her upon first sight. And she had been without her man upwards of a year. He had got her in his bed within two days of their first meet under those wheels of candlelight and still remembered the sheer ferocity of it all as frustrations on both sides had been sated. She had exhausted him, and he had loved it. Never before had he been so exhausted by a woman in bed. There had been others before, and others after - but none had ever matched Margaret.

Adela's voice broke into his memories. "I've never asked you, but are there-?"

"Other bastards of my body?" David cut in wryly. He leant back against the chair, and stretched his arms behind his head. "There's a daughter, in Navarre. But she's older than Gisbourne. I've not seen her since she were an infant in arms. I hear she made a good marriage last year with a merchant. I have provided for her throughout the years leading to her marriage."

Adela's voice was low. "Will you provide for Gisbourne?"

"He's already carved out a career for himself," David said. "I'm sure he'll better himself, simply by my name. A good marriage will help him and he's of the rightly age for that. He's not stupid, he'll have realised the benefits of being acknowledged by me. I'm sure he'll use my name to further himself, including the issue of finding himself a wealthy heiress, and when all is said and done, he is my son, and that is something I would expect him to do."

He tried again. "I'm sorry if you're lonely. But we oft have guests - they bring their wives - company for you to sit and sew with."

"They are idle prattling creatures," Adela dismissed them with. She paused for a moment, needle poised. "I would like....I would like some INTELLIGENT conversation," she said at length. "Not idle prattle and court gossip, not exchanges over the running of the household with the servants, not discussion of what gown to wear - but intelligent conversation, with someone who really listens to what I have to say."

David merely raised an eyebrow, somewhat amused. "Eleanor should have never taught you to read. Learning to read only stretches a woman's mind more than it should be stretched - for, after all, they should concentrate on the gentler things in life, such as marriage, household and children."

Adela calmly applied her needle to the tapistry once more. "I am nothing but grateful for the skill she passed on to me. I was her companion at her father's home from the age of fifteen - I learnt all she was taught."

"Aye, Eleanor's father had strange ideas about educating his daughters," David sighed, and then sat up straight in his chair as from outside the rattling of a cart approaching could be heard.

David looked at Adela, she looked at him.

"The porter and watchmen on the gate...." Adela began.

"...have been told to let it in," David replied. "Nothing more, nothing less."

Without a word, they both rose and left the solar, descending the newel staircase to the Great Hall. The few servants that were still around, blinked sleepily as their lord and lady moved quietly across the expanse of the Great Hall, lit by the occassional glow of a candle.

"Go to your beds," David told them softly, and they knew to melt into the shadows of the Great Hall and away.

Adela followed David out of the Great Hall through a small unlocked side door, and to the stableyards there. Rawkin the stabler had come out to the yard too, carrying a small lanthorn. Several curious stableboys followed, and he dismissed them sharply; Adela glanced at him and knew that here was another whom David had informed, or he would have been gone to his bed by now.

She stood beside David and watched as the cart rumbled slowly through the gate into the stableyard. Standing in the dark, she could feel the chill breeze which numbed her hands. Her hair, which she had unbound in the privacy of the solar to comb swirled around her head. The darkness made it difficult to see, and as she stepped forward, straining to see something, she could make out the light from a lanthorn a dark shadow of a man was carrying on the cart. The light beckoned her, and as the cart stopped in the stableyard, she stepped forth, much like a moth going to candlelight.

Rawkin immediately went to the head of the tired horse and took the reins, whilst from the back of the cart two men scrambled down; men Adela recognised as Morys the reeve of Fearnley village on the Huntingdon estate, and Potkin the potter from the same village. Potkin was moaning with pain, holding a bundled up piece of cloth over one eye, and he staggered along the side of the cart, scarce seeming to know where he was or what to do, with Morys half supporting him.

From the front of the cart, Hugh and Ingram the gamekeeper jumped down, and David immediately strode over to them where they stood by the horses head; Adela followed.

"Well?" David demanded. "You got him?"

Hugh blinked in the light of the lanthorn he carried. "We got him, my lord, but-"

David almost feared the worst by the Marshall's words. Grabbing the lanthorn Rawkin held, he strode to the back of the cart where the flap had been lowered and he lifted the lanthorn high to look at the back of the cart.

Adela hurried round to the back of the cart and looked in at the two humps shrouded by darkness which lay in the back of the cart. They were covered by sacking, but a faint gleam of fair hair could be seen from beneath one.

She looked quickly at David; he stared in at the contents of the cart, seeming frozen, obviously fearing the worst - and Adela sprang into action.

"Robert!" She got a foothold and immediately scrambled up into the back of the cart, little caring for her gown which ripped on a nail as she got in. "Robert!" She grabbed the lanthorn from Hugh who hung over the side of the cart and lifted it high over the two humps covered with sacking - and kneeling between them, she
pulled back the sacking which covered the gleam of fair hair she had seen.

Robert lay on his back in the cart, on more pieces of sacking, unmoving. His eyes were closed, one curled hand up by his face. His head was turned aside, and dried blood soaked the sacking below him.

"Robert? Robert?" Adela spoke urgently to him and touched his shoulder, looking down in the face of the young man.

At first for one horriffied moment she thought he was dead. Then she touched his cheek and found he was warm, and saw the heave of his chest as he breathed. His eyelashes flickered when she touched him, spoke to him, but that was all in the way of response. Very gently, Adela put her hand under his chin and turned his head to see the cause of his unconsciousness. A hectic bruising coloured the left side of his forehead and his left cheekbone, and the hair on the left side of his head was matted with dried blood.

"Tried to keep him warm, my lady," Hugh offered as an explaination as to why Robert had been covered, as Adela pulled the piece of sacking back to Robert's chest to see if there was any other injury. "An' to stop folk seeing him...." His long arm suddenly came over the cart in restraint as Adela realised the presence of the other unmoving figure covered in sacking, and turned her attention to it - but she had already pulled the sacking away from it.

Adela found herself staring down into the face of a dead man. She knew him - Walter the hayward from Fearnley. "Dear God-" she whispered, staring down into the dead face. The man's throat had been slit, blood soaked the corpse's clothes and hair.

"Hugh?" David snapped.

The Marshall appeared uneasily round the side of the cart and faced David; Ingram the gamekeeper followed. Adela's eyes went to the small stab wound in the gamekeeper's upper left arm. Dried blood had soaked through the sleeve.

"What in God's name have you done to him?" David demanded, jabbing an angry thumb at where Robert lay on the sacks in the cart.

Hugh spread his hands wide in helplessness. "My lord, we did all that we could to procure him but he fought like a wild animal cornered when we encountered him."

"He killed Walter the hayward, my lord," Morys the reeve of Fearnley added, leaving the side of the quietly groaning Potkin who still clung dazedly to the side of the cart and coming to stand beside Hugh and Ingram at the back of the cart.

David stared, horriffied into the cart where the corpse lay beside the living body of his son. "Robert did that? In God's name, how? - he's stone blind-"

"Aye, blind, but struck out with his knife like a striking viper, surprised us all; we thought getting hold of him would be easy," Hugh replied. "Once he got hold of Walter, he seemed to know where the throat was and did for him. He got Ingram in the arm and tried to gouge out Potkin's eyes - we had to stop him, quieten him - we had to take him along the Lincoln Road in broad daylight and he'd never have been quiet. Getting him over the head was the only option - but we didn't realise how hard we'd hit him...." Hugh confessed.

David glared at them. "You FOOLS! Supposing you've broken his skull?"

"How long has he been unconscious?" Adela cut in, keeping one hand lain on Robert's shoulder where she knelt in the cart by him, twisting round to watch the men. David's face was like thunder - and yet she saw fear and concern mixed there too.

"Bin out of awareness all day," Morys offered. "Got him to the cart and he groaned a bit, but apart from groaning a bit and movin' a bit, hasn't stirred, mostly. We took the cart hard along the roads to here once out of the forest - thought we'd better get him here as quick as possible for you to see to him, my lady."

"A logical thought, but the jolting of such a journey cannot have helped his head injury," Adela said wryly. "How's Potkin?"

Morys dropped his voice, aware curious stableboys and other servants were watching from the shadows of the stables, mews and bakehouse and kitchens across the yard. "He'll lose an eye, I reckon, but at least he's up on his feet."

Adela shook her head to herself, seeing the bloodstained cloth the groaning man by the side of the cart held over one eye. Her mind reeled against the fact that Robert had done that, had killed Walter the hayward. "Get him back down to Fearnley, Morys, and get him dosed up with something strong to relieve his pain so his injury can be dealt with."

"What of Robert's men - these other outlaws?" David demanded of Hugh and Ingram at the back of the cart.

"They weren't around. We got him alone, this morning. He was walking alone from a village called Maybury. No-one else around. It was lucky chance for us. None of his men with him." Hugh's voice was puzzled. "He walked alone by the stream. Feeling his way with his stick. He seemed to know where he was headed. But no men with him."

"Gisbourne will soon finish them off now," David said grimly. "Just as well I've plucked Robert out of that situation...."

He lowered his voice as he looked at Hugh and Ingram. "No-one saw you around in the forest? No-one saw you take Robert; no-one saw him in the cart as you journeyed here?"

Hugh shook his head with certainty. "No, my lord. No-one else around in the forest and we were deep in it. Carried him to the cart which we left just off the Lincoln Road and Ingram went back and rubbed out our tracks right from the place where we got him. Once on the Lincoln Road, it was easy enough - so many cart tracks leading everywhere, no-one who tried to track us would have been able to. We got him in the cart, covered him with the sacking and away we went. We would have looked nothing out of the usual."

"Hugh - Ingram - get him up the backstairs - Quickly. Adela-" David motioned to her to get out of the cart as both brawny men reached in to take hold of the unconscious Robert, "-is his chamber prepared for him to lay in?"

"Aye," Adela jumped out of the cart, "but what about-?" she jabbed a thumb back at the sacking-covered corpse.

David's voice was tinged with regret, and also still shock over what he had heard tell of Robert's viciousness. "You can't do anything for the dead man."

"What about Potkin?" Adela said.

"He'll live by the sounds of him." David glanced around him and beckoned to the hovering stable master who held a lanthorn. "Rawkin, get your lads and those scullions - and whoever else is gawping on in the shadows - back to wherever they lay their head for the night. And warn them not to tittle-tattle! I mean it. If they value their place here in the household, they'll keep their mouths shut."

"Aye, my lord." Rawkin hurried away across the dark expanse of the stableyard, swinging his sputtering lanthorn.

Between them, Ingram and Hugh lifted Robert from the cart. His head fell back limply as he was lifted. "Careful!" Adela rushed to aid, holding her lanthorn high with one hand. "For the love of God, support his neck." She steered them round in the direction of the side door. "Through here and up the stairs; follow me - and have a care!" She disappeared through the side door into the gloom of the castle, and they followed, bearing Robert between them, his fair head matted with blood resting against Hugh's broad shoulder.

David watched his son being carried inside, and then he turned to Morys. "Get the body and cart back to Fearnley village and take Potkin home to his wife to be cared for. Tell Walter's kith and kin I'll look to them; they'll not starve, and tell Potkin's wife he will be fully compensated should he lose the eye."

"Aye, my lord." Morys climbed aboard the front of the cart, and David stepped back to allow it room to turn.

He watched it rumble slowly out of the stableyard, and darted a glance across at Rawkin who had crossed the yard and was curtly ordering the agog stablelads away.

David stood there for a moment alone in the darkness, sighed, ran a hand through his hair in distracted thought. Initial relief was now suffused with worry over his lifeless-looking son.

He turned and re-entered the castle, bolting the side door securely after him, and he followed the men as they bore Robert swiftly up the backstairs to his chamber, Adela with the lanthorn leading the way.

Hugh and Ingram laid Robert on the bed in what had been his old bedchamber and wordlessly turned and left, meeting David at the door as he arrived. He for a moment met Hugh's eyes and saw questions in them, questions as to how all this was going to turn out.

He wished she knew.

"Robert?" Adela leant over Robert where he lay on his back on the bed, and looked at him. He stirred slightly at his name, as though he recognised her voice, but then subsided and lay still once more.

Adela studied Robert anxiously. She had not seen him for almost three years, and then he had been barely twenty. Gone now was the softness of youth-hood about him. He was thinner - clearly due to his life as an outlaw - his face was leaner, his fair hair shorter than it had been. He wore dull drab garb; a muddied jerkin over a dull green shirt which was frayed at the sleeves; patched hose and worn boots which had been recently resoled. A long length of slender hazel that was almost as tall as he, lay beside him, attached to his wrist by a leather loop.

"Tis what he uses to find his way," David said in response when Adela looked down at the stick and then puzzled up at him.

Adela nodded in response, remembering blind beggars she had seen who walked using a stick to feel before them. Gently unlooping the stick from his wrist she carefully propped it by the bed headboard, and then leant and unbuckled his sword belt, casting it and sword aside, and then pulled off his muddied boots.

She leant once more over him, and stroked his hair back from his bruised forehead. He stirred slightly at her touch, turned his head aside and was still again. He did not seem blind, Adela thought; the idea was hard for her to accustom to. But then he was unconscious as though one sleeping - and did a blind man when sleeping ever appear blind? Only when that man woke, and opened his eyes and reacted to the world around him, she suspected.

She carefully parted the hair matted with blood to look at the wound at the side of his head at the hairline, above his ear. It was small, and already clotted. The amount of dried blood in his hair and down the side of his head was surprising compared to the actual size of the wound, but she knew head wounds often bled a lot.

"What now?" David asked from where he anxiously hovered by the bedside.

"Get him warm and comfortable, cleanse his head and then hope for the best," Adela replied. "Keep him on his side lest he vomit, and have someone sit with him and watch him for signs of the same. And wait for him to wake. He's showing signs of it, which is encouraging. But....we will just have to wait and see."

She unlaced Robert's jerkin, eased his arms carefully out of it and slid it away from under him.

"I'll call up the Goodwife Elgiva to help me, and young Blitha. Between us, we'll manage him and get him comfortable. I'll stay up this night and keep a watch on him."

David nodded, folded his arms and looked down at his son laying on the bed. "Should I send for a physician?"

Adela spoke with experience. "Undue interference may harm him rather than heal him. His head has received a blow - let him rest and give him time to come round. His body will tell him when to wake. The bleeding has stopped, the wound does not need stitches. We'll cleanse his wound and put a compress to his head and let him rest."

"He should be bled, mayhap," David deliberated.

"No, he's bled enough already. I doubt there's any bad humours in his blood left. Let's not weaken him further. If come morning he has developed a fever or is not showing signs of heightened consciousness, then we'll call for a physician." She straighted up, looked at him, and laying her hand on his arm, spoke earnestly. "David, trust me over this. You know I would not take chances with Robert's life."

David nodded again, stepped forwards and looked down at Robert.

He laid a gentle hand on his son's shoulder for a moment, studying him.

Despite the blood, the way Robert lay there with eyes closed as though asleep, hands still and not reaching out to feel, not groping - he looked almost normal, thought David. It was a strange kind of comfort, and yet he knew it was no real comfort, because the impression given was a false impression.

His son. His blind son. Now imperfect, disadvantaged. Unable to take his proper place in the world. So many plans for the future laid to waste, thought David. And yet....now....some of them could be salvaged....

Adela's hand pressed his arm and he looked down into her watching her face. Her face was sober as realisation of what he had done truly sunk into her; her eyes were wide in the gloom of the chamber lit only by the lanthorn and a few candles. Her voice was little more than a whisper, as though she feared Robert overhearing her in his state of unconsciousness. "David....have you considered how he will be towards you when he wakes and finds you have done this to him?"

David's voice in reply was low, yet steady, still determined. "It is something he must accept. As I had to accept my role in life, so must he."

Adela was doubtful. "He already seems to think he has a role in life - in the forest, and with a wife and child."

David shook his head, still staring down at his son. "No. No, that life is over. It is something he must accept."

"But he will not stay here at Huntingdon willingly if he feels the call to be an outlaw in Sherwood. You cannot keep him prisoner here at Huntingdon for the rest of his life," Adela pointed out gently.

David turned away from the bedside and faced her fully. He looked at her with serious intent, and suddenly she saw the weariness shadowed in his eyes. A man who was beginning to feel his age and the impact of being without a legitimate heir to continue his bloodline. There was also determination in David's eyes - and it was a determination she did not like the look of.

"I don't intend to keep him prisoner all of his life," David answered quietly. "Not here at Huntingdon, anyhap."

 Adela stared at him.

"He's blind," said David, "there is no way he could escape and find his way back to Sherwood from here, alone. So it will be easy enough to keep him here at Huntingdon for the moment, whilst I arrange in finer detail the other plans I have for him. His men may think him abducted, certainly, and they may search for him - but they have no idea 'twas I who took him from Sherwood. Let them think it be that rival gang of outlaws or someone who wishes him harm that took him. Like Gisbourne. And they'll soon have other things to think about anyhap - with Robert out the way, I dare say Gisbourne will be keen to strike into the forest in a bid to eradicate the outlaws. He no longer runs the risk of displeasing me or jepoardising his newly acknowledged standing with me by hunting down Robert, because Robert is no longer in Sherwood."

He took out from his jerkin the rolled parchment which Adela recognised as the pardon and he waved it at her. "I have this. Signed and sealed by King John. Whether he likes it or not, Robert's pardoned. And I intend to make sure he stays that way."