With this thought in mind, she left her home and walked down to the beach.
It was smothered in driftwood and weeds. The sands which had been so clean and white the day before, were now cluttered with pebbles and dirt. Sections of the grassed banks at the top of the beach were rent asunder, the rich soil spilling out and staining the sand. When she continued along the seashore, she saw huts and houses with their thatch blown apart, and in one case a house had lost its entire roof. The peasant who lived there was standing on an unstable ladder trying to make the best of it he could. Tedia thought that she should offer to let him stay with her in her house, but then a certain rectitude told her that it might be a bad idea while her husband was away in his boat, as he had said he would be.
Isok had been acting oddly ever since she had said that she wanted a divorce. It appeared not to surprise him, but had sent him into a sulky mood that hadn’t gone away. She wanted to comfort him, but it wasn’t possible. He resented her, as though she was disloyal in desiring a divorce. She could understand that. Still, she didn’t dislike him. Perhaps her love had dwindled over the long barren years, but she was still fond of him. If they had managed to have children, she was sure that he would have made a good father. He was kind and generous, more so than many other husbands. There was only his one failing: but that was a vital and unforgivable one.
She sighed. The sooner she could proceed with the divorce, the better. She had already spoken with Prior Cryspyn and asked that he petition on her behalf. At first, the Prior had refused, saying that an oath spoken before God could not be undone even by the Bishop’s court, but then he had relented enough to agree to write to the Bishop and set out the facts on her behalf. He had said that he would hope for an answer soon, or at least some indication of how to proceed, even if a simple annulment was not possible.
Putting the thoughts away from her with a skill which she had learned from her despair, Tedia considered the view, glancing over towards the main island, Ennor. In the water she saw many pieces of wood, and she wondered whether a ship had been driven onto one of the many groups of rocks which were scattered so liberally about here.
The sea brought up many strange objects, but last night’s storm must have been more violent than any she had witnessed before, she reckoned, because there was a vast amount of flotsam and jetsam. Pieces of timber, ropes, small barrels, and bundles of rags. That must mean a large ship had gone down. With a sudden certainty, she turned and stared out towards Ennor. There, near the westernmost tip of Agnas, she saw what looked like a dismasted ship rolling on the low tide, and the sight tore at her heart. Born an islander, she knew what a wreck meant: dead men.
As though her mind suddenly appreciated the sight, she gasped, turned and bolted towards the rags. They were yellowish green, lying up near the top of the tide-mark, and as she approached, she was sure that she was too late. The cold of the sea must have killed him; if not that, then surely he had taken in too much water to live. He couldn’t have survived.
But when she came closer, she could hear the stertorous breath snoring in his throat and nose, and she ran to him to see whether she might save him, little knowing how this meeting would change her future for ever.
Chapter Five
Ranulph de Blancminster was already out investigating the damage done to his properties when William arrived at the small castle, and William couldn’t help but feel that it was fortunate. He and the Lord of the Manor had never seen eye to eye, and William dreaded to think of the expression on Ranulph’s face when he heard that there was easy plunder from a wrecked ship.
Ennor Castle itself with its new crenellations appeared unaffected by the storms. It was a simple rectangular keep, sitting on a craggy outcrop of rock with a rocky outer wall enclosing the main court with its stables, cookhouse and stores. It was not designed to protect the occupants from invasion, and a good thing too, in William’s view. Still, it was built of good local stone which could keep out discontented islanders, and that was all Ranulph wanted.
Outside the walls were more stables and stores, together with some living quarters for the men who served the castle and Ranulph’s manor all about. These were in turmoil as William walked through, and he offered his sympathy to women who forlornly picked through the wreckage of huts blown over in the gales, all their meagre belongings crushed beneath. One mother sat sniffing sightlessly, a dead child cradled in her arms. The father was nearby, picking up timbers and throwing them aside, calling increasingly desperately to his other daughter. William felt a clutch at his heart at the sight. This was the reality of God’s power. Simple folk could be destroyed in the twinkling of an eye. At least this woman would soon conceive and bear more children. They would have to be her consolation in the future, for these two would soon be only a sad memory.
He had known both children since their births; he’d christened them both. He came here to St Mary’s in Ennor when Peter Visconte was ordered away by the Prior after his whoring with Mabilla de Marghasiou, the ‘priest’s mare’ whom he had brought with him when he first arrived in the islands. At the time William was living a quieter life up in the chapel of St Elidius in the north of the islands, but he had been commanded by the Bishop to come here and take over Peter Visconte’s responsibilities, and his own little chapel had sunk into disuse until Brother Luke arrived. Clearly Luke had been badly behaved, because the Bishop had given him the hermit’s chapel. William, by contrast, had been told to stay here at Ennor instead.
William looked about him with a blank expression. He must comfort the people here, he knew, and yet he would have been happier to have been left up on St Elidius. He craved the peace of his little chapel. Not like Luke, who appeared to loathe it.
Luke was a weird one. He was certainly bright enough. His sermons seemed to catch the folk all about with their vivid depictions of suffering, as though he himself had experienced loss and pain; he fixed on the sins of the flesh a little too much for William’s taste. William himself felt happier preaching against the sins of gluttony, pride and sloth — especially when he observed Ranulph de Blancminster in his audience.
There was something in Luke’s expression that spoke of sadness. No, it was more than that. Perhaps it was soul-deep. William had a theory that there were two types of person. Some wore their sadness on view for all to see. The woman who had lost her children was one example: she would mourn loudly when the terrible torpor which now had her in its grip finally left. Then would begin the longer period of quiet grief.
Others couldn’t afford to succumb to their misery. Her husband was an example. He would work now, seeking to save whatever he could from their little property, and when that was done, he would spend his time in trying to comfort his woman. He would hide his sadness, but it would still be there, deep within him, burning away at him like a canker.
Of the two, William was sure that the man needed the more support. The woman had her man to give her his strength, but there was no one apart from the chaplain to give her husband comfort. His pain lay far below, not up on the surface. It was there that William must concentrate his efforts.
Luke had that same sort of quiet, concealed pain. It was a manly pain, a hidden grief that was enough to tear at his soul, but which he could not mention to others. Perhaps he had raised it with his confessor at St Nicholas’s Priory. Because Luke had come here from a convent, so William had heard (gossip among the brothers and other religious was more common than among the most garrulous women on the islands), he was confessed by the Prior himself, so William had heard. That in itself was a bit curious. Not many lowly chaplains had such a prestigious confessor.