Here's memory #6. This is how Rob celebrated Christmas in 1213. (And we can all be grateful this Christmas that we aren’t medieval serfs!) From Chapter 9:
Robert had spent yesterday’s holy morn attending mass with the other villagers, then stole off to the glade where he had hoped, though not truly expected, that he might find Marguerite. He had known it unlikely that she would be allowed to slip away unnoticed on Christmas Day, and had indeed found the glade empty. To prevent another interrogation from William, whose suspicions had steadily grown as Robert’s absences each day had lengthened, Robert snared a hare and brought it back to the cottage. William had been too grateful for the bracing nourishment it had offered for Lucy’s cold to remind his friend of the dangers of poaching. After they had roasted the hare and dined, Robert built up the fire with some wood he had stolen from the forest along with the hare. That had stretched the limits of William’s tolerance. Though Robert understood William’s fear, it made him impatient all the same. Why waste a woodpenny, he said to William’s chiding, when God could not possibly want some men to freeze only because other men laid greedy claim to what Nature surely intended a benefit to all? Lucy’s alarmed face at their quarrel had finally quieted both their tongues, as it always did. Robert had shifted the conversation to divert her with reminiscences of past Christmases shared with her husband on Beck Manor.
No comments:
Post a Comment