Chapter 7: The Chamber

WE LEAVE the hall arm in arm, Alwen directing me down corridors strange to me, eventually reaching a set of steps leading up to a chamber door. She removes a key from a pocket in her apron and opens the door. We enter a small bedchamber with a high double bed half-filling the cosy room. A roaring fire burns at one end of the room, filling it with a warm glow. The room looks vaguely familiar, which reminds me that I owe my wife, my newly restored wife, knowledge of my previous sojourn in this room.

“Alwen, is this your mother’s chamber?”

“Aye, my love, it was once, I have been using this room since ... she died.”

“Alwen, your mother and I...”

“I know of you and my mother,” Alwen smiles, “I knew the night before we wed.”

“I am ashamed of that, my dearest Alwen.”

“Don’t be. My mother was pleased she was your first.”

“Was I that obvious?”

“I don’t know,” she laughs, “She confided that she thought so but you were a gentle but determined lover!”

“In my ignorance, I suppose that is complimentary. I was sorry to hear she died so young.”

“My father was devastated by the result of his actions, he went too far, turning his mind quite mad, until close to his end.”

“Alwen, I will do anything you wish, to bring you happiness.”

“Anything, my Lord?” she asked, a sweet smile returns to adorn her face.

“I am your servant, Ma’am, no real lord except in name, a knight in jest, too. I am really just a humble archer and bowman, with naught to my name but a rented rude stone cottage in the wilds of my native land and have nothing saved for my old age.”

“Old age, tosh!” Alwen laughs, “you are only about six or seven years older than I, and I am but two years past my thirtieth birthday! Have you had that hard a life, Will?”

“Hard enough, Alwen, aye, hard enough.” I shake my head, trying to think. “What about Robin? What happens now to his rightful inheritance?”

“He will have to wait,” Alwen smiles, “Hopefully that wait will be for a long time. Besides, he wants to learn a trade from the finest Master, making longbows. The cobbler has only a short tenure in his workshop, next to the yew trees on the hill and the coppiced wood behind, with handy blacksmith next door. It is an ideal spot for a bowyer to work. Your devoted wife could fetch lunch for you and your earnest apprentice in the middle point of your day.”

“Perhaps I can adopt Robin, like your Lord adopted me, then he will legally inherit in time, although what there is to the Manor I know not.”

“Husband, let me explain the wherewithal of your substance. Rebecca tells me you helped her father and she to a port, paying for their passage to Holland, when they had been driven from their home in nothing but the clothing they stood up in.”

“I did, that is when I came here last, six summers since and saw you while I was here.”

“You saw me then six years ago and did not approach me?” she cries, “After we had been so long apart?”

“Aye, you looked, so ... beautiful,” I say, “But I needed to escort Jacob and Rebecca to a safe port on the north-west coast of Wales, where his enemies would not look for him. I did not then have any inkling that you felt about me as I do about you.”

“Of course you had to go, of course. It is just that I was not aware that you were in the same room as me so recently,” Alwen says brightly, “And Rebecca tells me you dressed her as a boy, for her escape.”

“Aye, she was!” I laugh at the memory, the young girl’s look of disgust as she was handed the bundle of boy’s garb, “And complained mightily for it. Have you seen our friends recently?”

“Alas, Rebecca only, she was here just two months past. She sailed back to the low countries on the first spring boat,” Alwen’s face grave, “This winter gone was our friend Jacob’s last.”

I am sorry to hear that. I remember I traded my bows, horse and cart, to hire three cobs in the next town and we rode quickly to a small port in North Wales, where I was cousin to a fisherman captain I trusted and chartered passage to the low countries, where Jacob had friends and contacts. We had no time to even discuss my investments, they were only able to get away from the city with the clothes they stood up in. Even then, I realised that I had lost all my life savings. Having once got the pair of them away, I even lost contact with my old friend.