i.

Feast of St Marciana and St Pachasia, virgin martyrs

9 January Year of Our Lord 1190

My dear Theodosia,

Thank you for the Feast Day gift. I am very sorry to not have made the journey to Skipton for the Twelfth Night revels your father holds—well, you know we send greetings and warmest love. You know were it not for my sickness, I would have made the journey in the worst of conditions. I know what it is to be isolated, even in a manor like your father has—

I write ill, do I not? I compose ill, and always have, since we were girls. A waste, is it not, for a woman to know how to read and not compose something beautiful or at least witty for her own cousin?

But I thank you again for the gift. My father is much loved as the Sheriff, and I am therefore favored with many gifts. But your prayer missal, embroidered in your own unmistakeable hand—you are far too good. I hope that in the future you will lend your time instead to doing some good work for the poor.

But as you have made me the gift, and it is so exquisite, let me thank you in my own way: I will give you my own book of hours, to tell you of the seasons in Nottinghamshire so that we may be close. I know that it will soon be you who cannot travel, for several seasons at least, so let your cousin entertain you.

Marian

ii.

Theodosia's Book of Prayers

made by her cousin Marian of Knighton

beginning

Feast Day of St Anthony

17 January Year of Our Lord 1190

You see that I improve already—we have had two pilgrims at Knighton since Twelfth Night, one of them a nun from Scotland on pilgrimage to Rome, and the other her novice, daughter to a tanner, who is learning her letters and much improves my penmanship by her constant attention. "If you make it for your cousin, milady," she said, "give it all your heart." By that, I suppose, she meant I should take more trouble with my writing, and not to blot the ink, and to treat calves' skin as a precious thing. Also that I should make my stitches neater on the binding. I fear she does not know me at all.

I told my father that it was good to have female company at Knighton. He smirked at me. Smirked, Theodosia. He knows that I have to have the solar to myself, and that I cannot bear anyone impressing their will upon me. I am most spoiled. I am obedient to my father because he is a just and kind man, and I am very fortunate. I do not know if I would be obedient to my mother, for she might find me very troublesome.

I am writing you these notes on the progress of your book of hours so that when you receive it in its entirety—on the birth of your boy, God willing, I know you long for a boy—your book's defects will be less dreadful to you, and you may even learn to forgive your silly, elderly spinster of a cousin. I also send you this skein of thread for your embroidery—it is from the village of Locksley, for they dye with a red I have not seen anywhere else in the shire. I warrant you do not have such colors in Skipton.

The last time your father visited Knighton, he brought a message from you, and I feel I cannot avoid answering it. Yes, you have heard rightly: Robin—now Earl of Huntingdon—is still far away from these lands. It does not pain me, Theodosia, as it once did. I had word from his squire that they had reached the Outeremer a year and some months ago. They survived Damascus and now winter on the coast. They are in God's hands. What else can I say? We shall not speak of him again.

It would be hard, Theodosia, if all our news were to be bad. I saw your husband only at your wedding, and for you to lose him before he even knew you were with child . . . Now, you are young, and I am old. Fourteen is by no means too young to be married and mother, but I would caution you against recklessly seeking another husband. "What does Marian know of husbands?" Well, plenty—I know of husbands and wives in this shire, who cannot be so very different from those in Skipton Castle. You have your father's protection, and your mother and aunts will help you raise your child better than any second husband could. Your William's sister is a prattling busybody who finds no happiness in her own life and must meddle in others. (Please say you will hide this letter in your box with the key you carry on your husif.)

As for the other matter, the leaves of the cherry tree mixed with hydromel (or if there are no leaves in your store, use bark) will help. I have used this remedy many times.

Marian

iii.

Feast Day of St Valentius

14 February Year of Our Lord 1190

Theodosia:

Heaven protect us from fools.

I hope you will not sorrow much when thinking of your William. Be assured I do not think of Robin a jot. I am much too busy. There is much sickness in Nottingham, and it is worse in Clun. I am kept occupied most days by preparing bundles of food to take to the villagers—and before you scoff and say I do less than nothing at all, please remember that it is next to impossible to persuade our cook to give up even a morsel of food. She puts her hands on her hips—my father says he did the same in my mother's day—and says some liturgy of her own in tongues whenever she thinks I am skulking about. "If you want to do some good, Lady Marian," she says, "get yourself married." I open my mouth to reply. "I know the master will have my hide if he hears me saying that. Very well. You can help-" "Yes?" "By mending the privy door."

I am glad your stomach complaint has eased, though I am sorry you could not find the cherry tree. It is never too early to try laurel.

I am much pleased that you have begun to embroider a box to put your book of hours in—although that is what is known as taking the cart before the horse. Nevertheless, as you say you have knitted woollens enough for all the castle pages and the foundlings of the hospital of St Bridget and the blind hermit who lives in the cave (does he really live in a cave?), please do me the great honor of embroidering the box. I only hope the book will not disgrace it.

The pedlar who comes this way every Christmas has finally arrived and says he had been held up in Clyderow, which is near you, is it not? He says he was imprisoned in the stocks for ten days and nearly died in the elements. He says there is trouble in the north, and it is coming our way. My father cannot be seen to listen to idle gossip, but I hope he will take the pedlar aside when the nobles of Nottingham are not looking. I think the pedlar is not given to exaggeration, whatever Master Thornton of Locksley says. If there is really trouble on the way—and what? And why?-we should be prepared for it. The pedlar had too much ale at the fireside and began to sing a song about a blackbird. It made all the kitchen girls weep. My father's eyes were glinting in the firelight, too, Theodosia, and I don't know why.

Marian

iv.

Day of St Peter's Chair at Antioch

22 February Year of Our Lord 1190

Theodosia:

You may be right—the song about the blackbird may have been one my mother sang. I cannot bear to ask my father. The burdens of his office are very great now. Last harvest was not good, and the villagers are at the last of their winter reserves. I am glad that it will soon be Lent, as that may make the lords in Nottingham and the nuns at Kirklees give up their meat. You may also be right that the cold is aggravating your pains. I am glad that your William's household has a good midwife. She agrees about the laurel, surely? Here we have not had snow since January, which is strange. It is as if everyone is waiting for something.

No, I did not mend the privy door. You are worse than a boy sometimes.

I accompanied my father to the castle two days ago and stopped at the inn to ask about Roger's bruised shoulder He has been the innkeeper in Nottingham since before I was born, and he fell while mending the second floor window into the courtyard. The physician put it right for him, but I was skeptical that the man had done it right. Roger gratefully took the poultice of crushed oak with wax for the bruising, but his wife Sarah kept complaining about the workload. She said a traveling group of noblemen were coming to Nottingham very soon. The first one, she said, was arriving that very afternoon. I admit I was curious, but I did not stay to find out more.

You asked me, if I had been a man, would I have gone on the Crusade to fight? I think you just want me to write about Robin again even though I told you I go months without his ever entering my head.

I confess I am disturbed by what the pedlar said. My father did listen to my doubts gravely, and, to his credit, he listened as he would to a petitioner for justice at the Council of Nobles. But in the end, since the pedlar had not been specific about the evil that was to throng the land (my father's sarcastic words), he said we could not fear shadows. "Isn't there enough activity here for you, Marian, or would you welcome another plague?" "Father, God forbid," I said. I read your missal in the chapel after that, as penance, though I admit my mind wandered and I wondered whether my father ever wished for a son.

Marian

v.

Feast of St Alexander

26 February Year of Our Lord 1190

Theodosia:

It is true. I have seen the first of the strange knights. His name is Sir Guy of Gisborne. Is not Gisborne near you? Have you ever been there? I could get no information about it, or him, from Beatrice the Twin (the castle's most devoted gossip, and she is called Beatrice the Twin because there is another Beatrice here at Knighton. That one is just ordinary Beatrice. Beatrice the Twin's twin is named Bertha and married the blacksmith in Waddington). He is tall. He looks battle-weary though I do not think he has taken the Cross. Sarah the innkeeper's wife was showing an inordinate interest in him—quite unseemly, I thought, with her husband Roger in the room and injured as well—so I declined to do more than bow my head in their general direction. I will know his business soon enough as my father is sure to invite him to the Council of Nobles. I know enough that the Gisborne name can command a seat there to begin with, even if his stay here is short.

The weather has not changed. You keep all the snows to yourselves in Skipton. But that means the food shortage has eased. My father sleeps better at night.

I did not realize you asked me in earnest about going to the Crusades. I feared you teased me, as everyone else does, that I spent my girlhood running the cobbles with a wooden sword like all the pages of my age. That my nurse despaired of ever sitting me down to prayers or to sew. That my father had to promise to get me a tutor for my letters so that I would behave myself. And that after that, the floodgates being open, all the villagers—and probably half of Knighton—whispered that I was more man than woman. I know I would have had to understand fully in my heart that I fought for love of Christ, for love of King, and the desire to do good and holy works. Because if I were a man, Theodosia, perhaps I would be enamored of glory and bloodshed which, as a woman, I believe are poisonous things.

I think you must name the boy whatever you think best. I think William would suit him. Also to name him after your father would make him very proud. Please do not brave the pain. Ask the midwife for her counsel and, failing that, ask Marian to come and I will.

Marian