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Chapter 6
Large gatherings of people always worried her. And sat at the high table in William Stone’s hall, with her mother next to her, who knew what could happen.
They were early and had taken their seats at table rather than stand and converse with the Stones. She and her mother had greeted the lord of Ellingham Hall courteously enough, but neither of them had the heart for much talking. Thank Christ’s bones that the man’s sons were not there yet. They had been introduced to William Stone’s guest—the reason for this feast—a thuggish oaf of a man. Large shoulders and arms with a stomach and neck to match and topped by close-cropped gray-haired head. The man looked like a gargoyle with his protruding lower lip and wide flared nostrils. His name was Knolles and he had greeted her mother courteously as if he had some knowledge of the ways of chivalry, but his words had been brief and grunted only.
A drum pounded. Eolande jumped and gulped. In the gallery at the opposite end of the hall a guitar was plucked and pipes began to whistle. The minstrels were warming themselves up and getting their instruments into tune. Her mother laid a thin hand on hers. Eolande looked down noticing how old her mother’s hand looked, the veins stood out like blue cords pushing up against the skin. She looked at her face. Caked with lead face-paint and lips smudged with red rouge as if she expected Henry d’Aubray to walk in the door at any moment. She could see the top of her mother’s cleavage above the low-cut of her red velvet dress. Eolande moved her mother’s hand away.
“Behave Eolande,” her mother said too loudly. William Stone and his guest would have heard that wouldn’t they? They were standing talking quietly between the high table and the other tables of the hall where members of William’s household and the visitor’s retinue would eat. Some of them were trooping in now and taking their places on the benches or standing against the walls ready to serve. But no-one heard them or acknowledged it.
“I’m not a child,” Eolande whispered back.
“Until you’re married you will obey me,” said her mother, talking more softly, but in that slow creaky way that scared Eolande. She wished that Joan was there to calm her mother—in case.
Eolande wanted to slap her mother. To call her a whore for dressing how she had. But she also wanted to avoid drawing attention to herself. She wanted to sink back into her chair and hope that no-one saw her.
“You’re the reason that we’re here, Eolande,” her mother said.
“What?” The head of the visitor, Knolles, turned their way. He heard that. She bit her lip and put her head closer to her mother’s. “What have I got to do with anything?”
“Be quiet,” she said. “You don’t need to say anything. Be a good girl and we will be alright. She will be quiet and be a good girl, won’t she. She’ll be a good girl.” Her mother was stroking her hair where it fell across her face. Her mother had insisted that Joan comb it well and arrange it so that it hung in great curtains either side of her face. It meant that Eolande had to keep moving it out of the way so that she could see. She wished she could hold it back, but her mother had been insistent. And was this why? She was showing her off to some potential husband. It couldn’t be Richard Stone; they all knew his views on her. Knolles glanced at her again. Not the old bull-dog. Her mother wouldn’t do that to her would she?
She looked at her mother. She was a woman she didn’t know anymore. Closeted away in her tower room, she hardly came out. She never spoke to Eolande. And look at her. She looked like some fey seventy year old witch, her hair tangled at strange angles when it should have been covered by a wimple or some other head-dress. If she really believed that her husband was dead then a modest attire like a nun’s would be more appropriate. Eolande breathed heavily. She felt dizzy. She wanted to get out of this hall.
