The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [364]
Aliena rolled over and knelt upright on the floor, staring at him. He did not look as if he would hit her again. He was no longer enraged, just bitter. “You can stay there,” he said. “You’re no good to me as a wife, so you can keep out of my bed. You can be a dog, and sleep on the floor.” He paused. “I can’t stand you looking at me!” he said with a note of panic in his voice. He looked around for the candle, spotted it, and put it out with a blow, knocking it to the ground.
Aliena stayed motionless in the darkness. She heard Alfred moving on the feather bed, lying down and pulling up the blanket and shifting the pillows. She was almost afraid to breathe. He was restless for a long time, tossing and turning in the bed, but he did not get up again, nor did he speak to her. Eventually he was still, and his breathing became even. When she was sure he was asleep, she crawled across the room, trying not to make the straw rustle, and found her way into the corner. She curled up and lay there, wide awake. Eventually she began to cry. She tried not to, for fear of waking him, but she could not hold the tears in, so she sobbed quietly. If the noise woke him, he gave no sign of it. She stayed like that, lying on the straw in the corner, crying softly, until eventually she cried herself to sleep.
Chapter 12
ALIENA WAS SICK all that winter.
She slept badly every night, wrapped in her cloak on the floor at the foot of Alfred’s bed, and during the day she was possessed by a hopeless lassitude. She often felt nauseated, so she ate very little, but despite that she seemed to put on weight: she was sure her breasts and hips were larger, and her waist thickened.
She was supposed to be running Alfred’s house, although Martha actually did most of the work. The three of them lived together in a sorry ménage. Martha had never liked her brother, and Aliena now loathed him with a passion, so it was not surprising that he spent as much time as possible away from the house, at work during the day and in the alehouse every evening. Martha and Aliena bought food and cooked it unenthusiastically, and made clothes in the evenings. Aliena looked forward to the spring, when it would once again be warm enough for her to visit her secret glade on Sunday afternoons. There she could lie in peace and daydream of Jack.
Meanwhile, her consolation was Richard. He had a spirited black courser, a new sword, and a squire with a pony, and he was once again fighting for King Stephen, albeit with a reduced entourage. The war dragged on into the new year: Maud had escaped from Oxford Castle and slipped through Stephen’s hands once again, and her brother Robert of Gloucester had retaken Wareham, so the old seesaw continued, with each side gaining a little and then losing it. But Aliena was fulfilling her vow, and she could take satisfaction in that, if in nothing else.
In the first week of the year Martha began to bleed for the first time. Aliena made her a hot drink with herbs and honey to ease the cramps, and answered her questions about the woman’s curse, and went to find the box of rags that she kept for her own periods. However, the box was not in the house, and she eventually realized she had not brought it here from her old house when she got married.
But that had been three months ago.
Which meant she had not bled for three months.
Not since her wedding day.
Not since she had made love with Jack.
She left Martha sitting by the kitchen fire, sipping her honey drink and toasting her toes, and went across town to her old house. Richard was not there but she had a key. She found the box without any trouble, but she did not go back right away. Instead she sat by the cold fireplace, wrapped in her cloak, deep in thought.
She had married Alfred at Michaelmas. It was now past Christmas. That was a quarter of a year. There had been three new moons. She should have bled three times. Yet her box of rags had been on the high shelf, alongside the small grindstone Richard used for sharpening kitchen knives. Now she held it in her