Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [249]
At their last few meetings Godric was aware of a new mood in the girl: a certain shyness and hesitancy, as though a struggle was taking place within her. The look of defensive suspicion in her eyes had changed to a softer uncertainty and fear. He had understood, and pressed on.
It was early evening that shearing day when Mary came up from the valley. She was walking alone.
In the fields, the wheat and the barley were already showing green; the hay in the meadow below was turning to gold. She left the fields behind her.
All day she had been working in the dairy beside the manor house where the great vats of milk were brought and the cheeses of cow’s and goat’s milk were made. She carried a small goat’s cheese with her now and half a loaf of bread.
As she looked at the ridge in front of her, Mary knew that once she was over it there could be no turning back. She did not hesitate.
She had considered her future carefully. She was still very young, but then her life might well be short, nor was there any reason why it should be particularly pleasant. After that – Heaven or Hell she supposed. Who knew? Meanwhile, there were only two things she needed to know: she must eat and, if possible, she must find a man.
She had just passed puberty; soon these questions would become urgent; and her prospects were not good.
She had, for the moment, one tiny advantage. Her body was still almost that of a child, yet it had a certain awkward freshness about it that the young shepherd with his bent back, at any rate, had found appealing; and in her wisdom she had realised: I shall never look any better than I do now: probably worse.
Sometimes, in moments of weakness, she had allowed her mind to wander and consider which men she had seen that she found attractive. The knight of Avonsford was one. Handsome, greying, remote, so far from the clumsy peasant folk of the little village; so tall, so straight: she tried to imagine what might go on in his mind. He was a figure from another world, however, only to dream of. But when she thought of the men she knew in Avonsford, there were none that attracted her; and of those she had seen on her occasional visits to Sarisberie or Wilton, none that had ever spoken to her.
But Godric had spoken to her, which was why she had been so suspicious. After all, she knew she must not hope for much from life: it was her only way of protecting herself from humiliation. If he spoke to her, therefore, it was only because he could find nobody better. But he spoke to her all the same, and if that was because he thought he would not find anyone better, then at least, she conceded with a shrug, he was being practical.
For since she had always known she would have a struggle to survive, she had no use for anything that was not practical. And indeed, as time went on, it was the young man’s competence that did attract her. She admired the way he carved; she liked the way he fed her; several times in the previous weeks, if she had not been so cautious she would have smiled.
Her father now spoke well of him: that was a point in his favour.
And strangely, his bodily affliction gradually became an attraction to her as well. Not because she felt sorry for him – she did not think she could afford the luxury of feeling sorry for anyone. But as she considered her own unattractive features, she was comforted by the thought: at least he can never despise me.
So it was, at the ripe season of the year, that she had struck her bargain with fate in deciding to make the little fellow with his bent back a present of her life.
As she passed, the men on the slopes turned to watch her. It was as though, by some ancient instinct, they knew what her journey meant.
The shadows were just starting to lengthen when she reached the place where the men were shearing. Over a wide area, the ground was white with wisps of wool and the dust in the air shimmered