Alfred said: “Aliena might marry a wealthy man.”
Richard laughed scornfully. “She’s turned them all down.”
“One of them might ask her again.”
“Yes.” Richard’s face twisted in a cruel smile. “We could send letters to all her rejected suitors, telling them she has lost all her money and is now willing to reconsider—”
“Enough,” Alfred said, putting a hand on Richard’s arm. Richard shut up. Alfred turned to Aliena. “Do you remember what I said to you, a year ago, at the first dinner of the parish guild?”
Aliena’s heart sank. She could hardly believe that Alfred was going to start that again. She had no strength to deal with this. “I remember,” she said. “And I hope you remember my reply.”
“I still love you,” Alfred said.
Richard looked startled.
Alfred went on: “I still want to marry you. Aliena, will you be my wife?”
“No!” Aliena said. She wanted to say more, to add something that would make it final and irreversible, but she felt too tired. She looked from Alfred to Richard and back again, and suddenly she could not take any more. She turned away from them and walked quickly out of the meadow and crossed the bridge to the town.
She was wearily angry with Alfred for repeating his proposal in front of Richard. She would have preferred her brother not to know about it. It was three months since the fire—why had Alfred left it until now? It was as if he had been waiting for Richard, and had made his move the moment Richard arrived.
She walked through the deserted new streets. Everyone was at the priory tasting the bread. Aliena’s house was in the new poor quarter, down by the quay. The rents were low there but even so she had no idea how she would pay.
Richard caught her up on horseback, then dismounted and walked beside her. “The whole town smells of new wood,” he said conversationally. “And everything is so clean!”
Aliena had got used to the new appearance of the town but he was seeing it for the first time. Itwasunnaturally clean. The fire had swept away the damp, rotten wood of the older buildings, the thatched roofs thick with grime from years of cooking fires, the foul ancient stables and the fetid old dunghills. There was a smell of newness: new wood, new thatch, new rushes on the floors, even new whitewash on the walls of the wealthier dwellings. The fire seemed to have enriched the soil, so that wild flowers grew in odd corners. Someone had remarked how few people had fallen ill since the fire, and this was thought to confirm a theory, held by many philosophers, that disease was spread by evil-smelling vapors.
Her mind was wandering. Richard had said something. “What?” she said.
“I said, I didn’t know Alfred proposed marriage to you last year.”
“You had more important things on your mind. That was about the time Robert of Gloucester was taken captive.”
“Alfred was kind, to build you a house.”
“Yes, he was. And here it is.” She looked at him while he looked at the house. He was crestfallen. She felt sorry for him: he had come from an earl’s castle, and even the large town house they had had before the fire had been a comedown for him. Now he had to get used to the kind of dwelling occupied by laborers and widows.
She took his horse’s bridle. “Come. There’s room for the horse at the back.” She led the huge beast through the one-room house and out through the back door. There were rough low fences separating the yards. She tied the horse to a fence post and began to take off the heavy wooden saddle. From nowhere, grass and weeds had seeded the burned earth. Most people had dug a privy, planted vegetables and built a pigsty or a hen house in their yard, but Aliena’s was still untouched.
Richard lingered in the house, but there was not much to look at, and after a moment he followed Aliena into the yard, “The house is a bit bare—no furniture, no pots, no bowls ...”
“I haven’t any money,” Aliena said apathetically.
“You haven’t done anything to the garden, either,” he said, looking around distastefully.
“I haven’t got the energy,” she said crossly, and she handed him the big saddle and went into the house.
She sat on the floor with her back to the wall. It was cool in here. She could hear Richard dealing with his horse in the yard. After she had been sitting still for a few moments she saw a rat poke its snout up out of the straw. Thousands of rats and mice must have perished in the fire, but now they were beginning to be seen again. She looked around for something to kill it with, but there was nothing to hand, and anyway the creature disappeared again.
What am I going to do? she thought. I can’t live like this for the rest of my life. But the mere idea of beginning a new enterprise exhausted her. She had rescued herself and her brother from penury once, but the effort had used up all her reserves, and she could not do it again. She would have to find some passive way of life, controlled by someone else, so that she could live without making decisions or taking initiatives. She thought of Mistress Kate, in Winchester, who had kissed her lips, and squeezed her breast, and said: “My dear girl, you need never want for money, or anything else. If you work for me we’ll both be rich.” No, she thought, not that; not ever.
Richard came in carrying his saddlebags. “If you can’t look after yourself, you’d better find someone else to look after you,” he said.
“I’ve always got you.”
“I can’t take care of you!” he protested.
“Why not?” A small spark of anger flared in her. “I’ve looked after you for six long years!”
