World Without End Page 0,526

end of the hall led to the earl's chamber. Men were going up and down constantly: knights, servants, tenants, bailiffs. After an hour, the marshal told her to go up.

She was afraid Ralph would want sex there and then, but she was relieved to find that he was having a business day. With him were Sir Alan and two priest-clerks sitting at a table with writing materials. One of the clerks handed her a small vellum scroll.

She did not look at it. She could not read.

"There," said Ralph. "Now your son is a free tenant. Isn't that what you always wanted?"

She had wanted freedom for herself, as Ralph knew. She had never achieved it - but Ralph was right, Davey had. That meant that her life had not been completely without purpose. Her grandchildren would be free and independent, growing what crops they chose, paying their rent and keeping for themselves everything else they earned. They would never know the miserable existence of poverty and hunger that Gwenda had been born to.

Was that worth all she had been through? She did not know.

She took the scroll and went to the door.

Alan came after her and spoke in a low voice as she was going out. "Stay here tonight, in the hall," he said. The great hall was where most of the castle's residents slept. "Tomorrow, be at the hunting lodge two hours after midday."

She tried to leave without replying.

Alan barred her way with his arm. "Understand?" he said.

"Yes," she said in a low voice. "I will be there in the afternoon."

He let her go.

She did not speak to Sam until late in the evening. The squires spent the whole afternoon at various violent games. She was glad to have the time to herself. She sat in the cool hall alone with her thoughts. She tried to tell herself that it was nothing for her to have sexual congress with Ralph. She was no virgin, after all. She had been married for twenty years. She had had sex thousands of times. It would all be over in a few minutes, and it would leave no scars. She would do it and forget it.

Until the next time.

That was the worst of it. He could go on coercing her indefinitely. His threat to reveal the secret of Sam's paternity would terrify her as long as Wulfric was alive.

Surely Ralph would tire of her soon, and go back to the firm young bodies of his tavern wenches?

"What's the matter with you?" Sam said when at dusk the squires came in for supper.

"Nothing," she said quickly. "Davey's bought me a milking cow."

Sam looked a bit envious. He was enjoying life, but squires were not paid. They had little need of money - they were provided with food, drink, accommodation and clothing - but, all the same, a young man liked to have a few pennies in his wallet.

They talked about Davey's forthcoming wedding. "You and Annet are going to be grandmothers together," Sam said. "You'll have to make your peace with her."

"Don't be stupid," Gwenda snapped. "You don't know what you're talking about."

Ralph and Alan emerged from the chamber when supper was served. All the residents and visitors assembled in the hall. The kitchen staff brought in three large pike baked with herbs. Gwenda sat near the foot of the table, well away from Ralph, and he took no notice of her.

After dinner she lay down to sleep in the straw on the floor beside Sam. It was a comfort to her to lie next to him, as she had when he was little. She remembered listening to his childish breathing, soft and contented, in the silence of the night. Drifting off, she thought about how children grew up to defy their parents' expectations. Her own father had wanted to treat her like a commodity to be traded, but she had angrily refused to be used that way. Now each of her sons was taking his own road through life, and in both cases it was not the one she had planned. Sam would be a knight, and Davey was going to marry Annet's daughter. If we knew how they would turn out, she thought, would we be so eager to have them?

She dreamed that she went to Ralph's hunting lodge and found that he was not there, but there was a cat on his bed. She knew she had to kill the cat, but she had her hands