London - Edward Rutherfurd [121]
Another girl might have laughed it off, but Dorkes did not know how to handle a drunken man. Burying her chin in her chest, she shook her head and tried to break free. The man’s hands felt for her small breasts as he grinned at the others.
And then something hit him.
Osric, coming on the scene, did not wait to argue, but threw himself so violently at the fellow that although the little labourer was only half his size, the man was knocked to the ground. For a moment after, Osric thought the bigger man or his friends might go for him or throw him in the river. Instead, a cry of laughter went up.
“The little craftsman’s a fighter!” Then: “Osric, we didn’t know she was your girl!” From that day it was a regular joke on the building site. “How’s your girl, Osric?”
It caused him, for the first time, to look at her.
There were plenty of opportunities. Sometimes he would watch her when she went down to the river in the early morning. As it was summer, she wore only a simple shift, so that when, like most of the women, she stepped into the stream fully dressed to wash, he got a good idea of her body as she came out. He discovered that she was not, as he had imagined, flat-chested, but had small, nicely formed breasts.
At nights, as she sat with her mother by the fire, he would sit a little way off and study her face. Before long, what had seemed a pale, unremarkable profile became beautiful.
But more even than these features, he now saw something else. Timid she might be, but with what quiet determination she defended her mother as, with every passing month, the poor woman became more useless thanks to her crippled hands. Always keeping her dignity, never begging, Dorkes would do little jobs for people for which she would be paid with food or even an item of clothing, thereby keeping herself and her mother from destitution.
Ever since he had defended her, the girl had been friendly towards Osric. Quite often they would chat together, or walk about. Sometimes he would see her gaunt mother with her helpless, gnarled hands watching them, but it was hard to tell what she was thinking, and since she never granted him more than a sad nod, he seemed unlikely to find out. Dorkes knew, of course, that the men teased him about her, but she did not seem to mind. But Osric noticed that despite her quiet smile, she was still guarded with him, whether from timidity or for some other reason he was not sure.
He fell in love in July. He could not say exactly why. One evening he was watching her and he felt a sudden wave of protective tenderness. The next day he kept looking about to catch sight of her. That night he saw her in his dreams, and by the following day it seemed to him that his entire life would somehow have meaning if he could live with her.
“And then,” he murmured to himself, “I could look after her.” The thought was so exciting that even the miserable sheds where they lodged seemed to the little fellow to be bathed in a warm new light.
A few days later he and Dorkes met Ralph Silversleeves together.
It was Ralph’s habit to walk around the site early in the morning, before work began. Sometimes he stopped to investigate the lodgings; usually not. Always, though, as if it were his personal castle, he walked proudly round the outside of the growing Tower. He had just done this when he encountered the two young people walking up from the river.
Ralph had heard the men’s jokes about Osric and the girl, but as he considered the little labourer such a miserable object, he thought it hardly likely that any girl would look at him. Now, seeing them together, he suddenly wondered: could it possibly be true? Could the miserable Osric have a woman when he, Ralph, had none? Seized with a sudden fit of secret jealousy,