25th day of April

Am feeling better and the ache is mostly subsided. I've drunk barrels of chamomile steeped with honey, and Aelis gave me an infusion of vinegar and yarrow to treat my spoilt maidenhead. Stephen has held off touching me much, except a kiss goodnight. But I know he wakes from his first sleep wishing I were better, for I feel him stirring beside me and see the lump he makes in the bed-clothes. Probably soon I will have to go back to playing wife. I wonder will it feel any pleasanter the second time around?

The rest of my time has been spent acquainting myself with my new home. Mostly I like it here, for though it is colder than Stonebridge in the south, the sun is brighter and shines oftener. We are very near the moor, which sends off it strong wind which blows away the clouds and the stink of cesspits. It will be very cold in winter, but with glazed windows and thick wall-coverings, this manor is still less drafty than Stonebridge. I expect it will feel about the same to me when I am indoors.

Adela took me all around yesterday and introduced me to the servants, from the steward down to the scullery-maids. I have already forgot most of their names, though the steward is called Wymer and the cook is Thom Ale (he drinks a great deal but his cooking is good enough that no one minds). Then this morning Elsbeth took me by the hand before I had even said my morning prayers and dragged me from one place to the next, showing me all of her favorite hiding-places. They do not do morning chapel here every day of the week as we did at Stonebridge, only morning and evening on Sundays and mornings on special feast days. Praise the Lord! For I love Him much better when I need not yawn and scratch through a droning service.

Also my new little sister showed me:

1. The best mouser in the dairy has a new litter, still sticky. Together we named them Tansy, Buckwheat, Porridge, Violet and Mallow. We spent a long time cuddling their little bony mewling bodies.

2. A place in the herber where roses climb the walls. Although they are not flowered yet, the green stems are beginning to show buds. She says fairies probably nap in the climbing roses once they bloom. I think she is very likely right.

3. The bedchamber she shares with her nurse, Adela, and the ladies who live here. She took great pride in showing me her puppets-on-strings, including the Queen Annadel and the King Sweet Billiam (she named them when she was very young).

I like Elsbeth. She reminds me of me, though better-tempered. I think she does not like Adela very much and must be glad of a new sister who is more interested in kittens and less in being superior. She is the first seven-year-old I have talked to much since I was seven myself. She can be loud and prone to fits of giggles, but I am glad to like at least one of my new sisters. It helps me miss Ella some less. Elsbeth wanted to hear about Ella until she learned that I left behind Brutus and Peppercorn and other dogs, and then wanted only to hear about them.


27th day of April

Have visited the library. It is a small closet near where Wymer the steward keeps his records. Most of the books are in Latin, though there are a few in German which look promising. There are more scrolls than books; even so, the books alone must have cost as much as much as Stonebridge was to build.

Less excitingly, I have resumed wifely duties. They no longer hurt but are unremarkable, mostly good for giving us something to do when we wake from first sleep. At home I used the wakefulness between first and second sleeps for wondering and remembering my dreams (if I had any). Fortunately, coupling does not intrude much on my wonderings, as my body only and not my mind is required to attend.


1st day of May

May Day, and a glorious one it is! I rose at first light, then clothed myself in one of my new kirtles (bright green, fine-woven wool, and smocked to fit me tight about the body). Aelis and I dressed each other's hair—I wear it in two braided bunches over the ear now, instead of down or in a net as I did before I was married. Then we joined Adela and Elsbeth and the ladies who live here.

We all went out to the herber just as the sun was beginning to come up, to bathe our faces in dew before the sun dried it from the flowers. Then we gathered up as many armfuls of flowers and greenery as we could carry, to bring to the green outside the manor where the Maypole was already planted.

A villager named Margery (I think she is the miller's daughter) was crowned Queen of May, and we all gathered about her throwing flower petals until the Green Man came up, his hair stuck all full of twigs and leaves, with moss on his clothes. Then the girls from the village danced around the Maypole, skipping and winding the colored streamers which were half the time caught away in the wind. Elsbeth danced with them, against Adela's wishes, for I told her she might. This earned me scowls aplenty from Adela, but even more smiles from Elsbeth. A fair trade.

Then in for dinner of fruits and pale wines, stewed capon, cod, lamb and white pudding. Stephen and I drank mead, it being still our first month of wedlock. Elsbeth was determined to sit by me, and near pushed Aelis out of her seat until Stephen admonished her. But I privately promised that she might sit by me soon. I do not know why she likes me so much; I am unused to having anyone think so well of me, and have never considered myself to have a way with children. Has Ella softened me?

Later, over cheese and fruit, Stephen said, "Elsie loves you already. It pleases me she shall have a lady to teach her, for Adela is normally too busy and her nurses too low-born for the task."

"If she would be taught to climb trees and dawdle out-of-doors," I said, "then I am her teacher. But my lady-ing skills are sparse, Lord Stephen."

"She goes in a year to her aunt my mother's sister," said he, "who will teach her to do whatever it is ladies do. For now it is well you are her sister. My father did not like her to play with villagers, and she has had but little of society."

No dogs indoors, no villagers. Is there aught the man did allow? I count it more and more my fortune to have been spared the vile Shaggy Beard.

After dinner there was dancing in the great hall, spilling out through the courtyard to the greensward beyond the gates. There were pipers and fiddlers to join the usual minstrel. Which reminds me, there is a minstrel who sings for the Selkirk family only! At Stonebridge we had but the occasional traveling troupe. This one is named Ralf Silvertongue and gives Elsbeth and Adela lessons in singing and harping. I am relieved my family was too poor to teach me music. I love writing more, and am content to sing no better than a cottager.


3rd day of May

Good news! On the 19th until 22nd of May we are to hold a tournament, to celebrate the end of our honeymoon! I have never seen a tournament and thrill to imagine it. Preparations have already begun; the ladies who live here at Lithgow—Adela, Clarimond, Lettice, Amelia, Matilda, and Gwendolyn, and more about them anon—have charge of arranging prizes for those men who prove valor at the tournament. There will be visitors from afar, some from Baron Selkirk's other holdings, some from nearby manors. There will be feasting, music and games for ladies and children, and of course fighting for the men. They will fight in leathern armor, with wooden swords and bark shields, for it would be unlucky to have our honeymoon end with a pile of dead knights.

I will write now about some of the ladies who live here. Clarimond is a woman of twenty-five or older, and was one of the late Lady Selkirk's women. She is sober in general, but becomes red with excitement at the mere mention of a tournament or a hawking. Lettice is a girl of thirteen, here to learn to be a lady from Adela, and she is shy and quiet. I have heard her say hardly three words together since I've been here. Amelia is my age, with a personality as dried-up as a raisin. I do not like her at all, for she is constantly looking for some chance to prove her superiority in thought or deed. Matilda is a noblewoman of rare beauty, but will likely never marry for her family has more daughters than money, and so she lives here. She knows she is beautiful, but is mostly good-natured. Gwendolyn is a noblewoman from the south who was likewise attendant on the late Lady Selkirk. She is old as my mother and often making sly jokes. I like her best of the ladies here, though I do not like how much she teases me about being newly-wed.

The prizes for the tournament are to be trinkets, cloth, animals both useful and ornamental, and for whomever we deem the victor of all, a jeweled helmet. Stephen will fight in the tournament but has said he will not take any prizes, as he is the one giving them. I plan to make him something, but do not yet know what. I cannot think what he would like. I will ask Elsbeth.


5th day of May

Still at a loss for what to award Stephen if he should win. As it is the ladies who determine the victors, I will be sure he wins something, even if he is a miserable horseman, jouster and archer. The prize cannot be embroidery, for my embroidery is as ugly as his singing. It cannot be jewels, animals or cloth, as those would come from his own stores and would not be gifts at all. Elsbeth suggested a song, but I do not need a hundred strangers to hear me warble some silly thing I made up myself. Lady Gwendolyn suggested a variety of gifts to be bestowed at night, which would simultaneously please him and bore me.


11th day of May

The tournament draws nearer, visiting knights have already begun to arrive, and I still have no idea what to give Stephen.


15th day of May

I have thought of it at last! I hope it is finished in time. I found in one of Stephen's stores some pieces of horn, shaped roughly into small flat ovals. On one of these I am carving a portrait of myself, since he has none. I first polished the horn smooth and drew the design on a fragment of paper. Tonight I will transfer it to the horn by poking holes through the drawing with a needle and rubbing ash through the holes onto the horn. Then I will carve it with the pen-knife he gave me, and rub ink into it to make the picture stand out. I hope he likes it, for though I am no beauty I am a well enough artist. I will save the original drawing in case I ever forget what I looked like when I was sixteen.


19th day of May, late

This was the first day of the tournament, and it was more extravagant than the fair at Wooton. There were archery contests for both women and men (separately, of course), with ribbons and lengths of cloth as prizes for the best. Clarimond took away most of the prizes, and says she plans to sew herself a new riding habit with the wool she won. Horseshoes for both sexes, quarter-staff and hammer-throwing for the men, with prizes of carved wooden staves for both. Feasting at dinner, dancing and revelry after. Stephen did both archery and staff-fighting, and was better at archery than everyone else except his squire Aelfraed. He was poor at quarter-staff however, as he is too tall to duck or jump fast enough.

I am tired and excited for tomorrow, and so I will sleep.


20th day of May

Today there were contests of strength in the morning and then, after everyone had gotten a little drunk at dinner, plays and pageants in the afternoon. The ladies and some of the men put on a puppet-show with Elsbeth's puppets. Lady Gwendolyn and Stephen's man Audric were meant to voice some puppets in one scene but could not be found so I did the voices instead, to Elsbeth's delight. They later showed up with hay in their clothes. I suppose Lady Gwen was trying out some of her own advice.

Later there were improvised plays, the best team earning prizes of a talking parrot in a gilded cage, a carved wooden menagerie, a silver knife, and three woolen cloaks with clasps of silver. Robert was on the winning team and took the wooden menagerie. He says he will give it to Ella as a gift from me. I think being married to Aelis has softened him, for he hardly ever torments me any more, save when he is ill from putrid stomach or ale-head.


21st day of May

First day of mock-battle. Awarded three silver pins, a velvet cap, a gold ring, a box of pearl buttons, two fur-lined cloaks and a potted tree to various knights.


22nd day of May

Final day of the tournament, horseback games all. First jousting, with prizes of pet squirrels in jeweled harnesses. Then, after dinner, horseback mock-battle, with the best prize of a ruby-crusted helmet going to a knight from nearby Tellywyck named Maddox. I was too shy to give Stephen his present in front of everyone (the ladies took it in turns to give out the prizes, and I had only to award the helmet) and will give it to him later. Adela tells me tournaments are usually much bloodier when they are not celebrating a wedding, but I am relieved no one suffered worse than cracked ribs, bloody noses, broken teeth and blackened eyes.


23rd day of May, morning

Gave Stephen the portrait last night after first sleep. He said he will have it set in a golden frame with a hole at the top, so he can wear it when he goes next autumn to visit his other holdings. I did not know he would have to go so soon. I am not sure what I feel about it. On one side, Stephen is so very austere that it is impossible to be entirely comfortable with him. But then, I have gotten used to having him around. Morwenna has said that if I can be content with familiarity and an absence of dislike, I will in time be happy with my marriage.

But I confess, I always hoped I would love my husband passionately as in the songs. Should not my heart beat against my ribs when I think of him? Should I not long for him when he is gone? Should I not welcome his nightly embraces, instead of enduring them? So far I have felt nothing about him other than admiration for his manners and his cleanness, and for how well he treats his littlest sister (as a little sister myself I can appreciate this). And his gifts, of course. When I hear him converse with his men, he is witty and intelligent and even occasionally relaxed, but with his wife he is forever guarded, even when complimenting me, even in the midst of nightly tumbling. He must think me as much a stranger as I think him.

It gives me a headache to think of things to say to him most of the time. And though he seems to like me well enough, I do not suspect him of any more passion for me than I have for him. As relieved as I am that he is not worse, I will also be relieved to have a break from him.


30th day of May

Aelis and Robert are gone home to Stonebridge. I miss Aelis already. I have begged her to come for another visit as soon as may be, and to bring me as much news of my family as she can.


4th day of June

Stephen took me today to the moor, some of which is counted part of Lithgow. I rode Blancmange, who has been getting too fat of late, and he rode his charger Tacitus (fittingly named, I think). It was half a morning's ride, but well worth it, for on the moor is a little castle-in-miniature! It was of old surrounded by a wooden bailey and other buildings, but they have since burnt down and now the stone motte is all that remains. There is a shallow moat fed from a stream nearby, in which little fishes swim. It has only two round rooms inside, one stacked atop the other, with crenellations at the very top. Behind the castle is a walled-in pleasaunce, quite large, all full of roses and tulips and amaryllis, with moss-covered stones for benches.

Apparently Lithgow was the land Stephen's grandfather's second wife brought to the marriage, and source of much of the Selkirk wealth, and the lady had no wish to live in any of the other holdings further south which were more built-up. So she stayed in the old wood-and-stone castle until it burned down, and then in the stone motte with only a few servants until she died. They ate no meat save mutton and lamb from what wild herds live on the, growing their food in the walled-in garden and moor. After she died Stephen's mother had it dug up and planted for a pleasure garden.

I find the moor frightening in its bigness, yet it gives me a strange, excited, pleasurably hollow feeling in my belly when I look at the clouds racing the birds across the sky. I wish I were a bird. Or a cloud.

No one here knows to call me Birdy. I never sew or embroider or do any of the things I used to do. I mainly mix up remedies for illnesses and injuries, or talk to the servants and sometimes the villagers who come to me with every little thing. When I can't find an answer for them, I send them to Wymer the steward, and usually trail along behind them to see what he says so I will know in future. I have less time for dreaming than I used to, but I more like the way my working-hours are spent. Anything is better than embroidery. And Lithgow daily grows in my heart. There is so much sunlight here. However much I miss my mother, Morwenna and Ella, I find myself often excited to wake and remember that I live here now.

If only I felt the same about Stephen.


20th day of June

Very busy of late. Too busy to write, even. Have spent all of my time helping Wymer with household accounts, for he spilled wine on a whole stack of them and must copy them out afresh. Other than Stephen (who is far too busy), I am the only one in the house who can write legibly enough to suit him and so have taken on the task. My hands ache. At night the words accepted: garters, woven, 20prs Thomas Weaver and given: ale, 3 casks, Barth Miller swim before my eyes.


23rd day of June, Midsummer Eve

Bonfires, feasting and dancing all evening. Thom Ale baked a fine large pie crust and later filled it with live sparrows, so that when the top was cut open they all burst out of it and flew around trying to find the way from the great hall. Except one who apparently was pecked to death inside the pie. I remember last Midsummer, when I was so worried about getting married. Now it seems as if I have always lived here. If I'd known what Lithgow would be like, I would not have dreaded coming so much. The fleas and the noise and the busyness are the same, but the sky is bigger here in the north.


24th day of June, Midsummer

Treated twenty-six men for putrid stomach, saw twenty-four of them prescribing themselves more ale at dinner today, expect to treat the same ones again tomorrow. Treated no women, who are more sensible about these things.


1st day of July

Joe who mucks out the garderobe twisted his ankle and fell in and no one knew he was down there until this morning. Bound his ankle to a strong stick and gave him basil and caraway in honey-water for his heaving stomach.


5th day of July, Feast of St. Morwenna

I miss Morwenna.


7th day of July

Elsbeth and I made up a story about a maiden who ran away to be a woodcutter, binding her breast and cutting off her hair to pass for a boy. In the story, the maiden chops down a tree with a magical bird inside, who gives her three wishes in thanks for its freedom. First she wishes never to go hungry, next she wishes for a home in the woods, and last never to be found by her pestering family. So the bird turns her into a tree.

Adela scolded Elsbeth for making up a story about a girl pretending to be a boy, and then I scolded Adela for having no imagination, and then Lady Gwen scolded all of us for keeping her from a tryst with one of the squires with our squabbling. I think she was joking, as she is twice as old as the oldest squire...but Lady Gwen can be winsome when she chooses. I wish I had as much joy in tumbling as she does, but frankly it bores me near tears. Once I woke from a dream of a lad who looked something like Geoffrey and something like Perkin, and my blood was boiling, but when I turned to Stephen I lost the feeling and have not got it back.


11th day of July

It does not get as hot here as it does in Stonebridge, and even when it is hot the wind blows fresh. But it will be cold in winter.


16th day of July

Stephen leaves in a month to tour his other holdings. He brings with him most of his men and squires, and the undercook. He leaves behind his steward, Thom Ale, all the dogs, and me. I do not know which one he will miss the most. Probably Thom Ale, who can make a pie out of anything. I will be glad to have my nights to myself again.


27th day of July

Vomited all this morning. Too sick to write.


28th day of July

Missed my latest bleeding. Gwendolyn says I am probably with child, as I've been vomiting so much lately. Can eat nothing but bread until my stomach settles.

I do not know what to think or feel about this. I have a fluttery feeling inside that might be fear or might be something else, and which is unrelated to the ill.


30th day of July

Bleeding resumed. Not with child. I am glad I didn't say anything about it to Stephen, for he would have been disappointed.


2nd day of August

Adela is beginning to work earnestly on wedding-clothes, though as far as I can tell her wedding is no closer than it was when I first came. She glares at me when I do not help, but I cannot help if I am too busy. Besides, if she knew what my sewing is like I doubt she would want me anywhere near her wedding-clothes.


9th day of August

Stephen seems extra-amorous now that his departure draws nigh. I say amorous because I do not know what else to call it, but the word seems hardly fitting. He turns to me sometimes two or three times in a night, yet he never drops his formal manner. Even his kisses are meted. He has never seen me full-naked, nor I him since my peek the first night—in general there are bedclothes and underthings obscuring the view, and we bathe apart.

Every time I've stumbled on someone snuggled in a haystack, there have been hushed giggles and whispers. If giggling is meant to be a part of love, then I can only conclude Stephen does not love me. If he ever giggled in my hearing I believe I would sink into the earth with shock.