Twelfth Night by Flora Speer

outside stairs. Ropes were
attached to it and while some men pulled, others pushed from below.
It was considered good luck to help in this endeavor, so every
person at Shotley Castle was eager to lend a hand. Having taken a
tug or two at the rope, Aline stepped aside to let others pull the
log up the last few steps.
    Still garbed in hose and tunic, she stood in
the entry hall watching and thinking how closely the scene
resembled the December painting in Gramps’ Book of Hours. It needed
only a lady in a green gown sitting by the nearer fireplace to
duplicate the picture she remembered so vividly. She wondered if
Lady Judith had ever sat there with her own Book of Hours.
    Slowly, nobles and ordinary folk together
dragged the log upward and into the entry hall. Even Connie took a
turn, smiling prettily when Blaise warned her not to chafe her
hands on the rope. When the Yule log was pulled into the great
hall, to Aline’s surprise it was not put into the fireplace at
once, but only placed in front of it.
    “Aren’t you going to burn it?” she asked.
    “Not yet,” Adam told her. “Not until
tomorrow.”
    Once the log was where Adam wanted it, a
flurry of activity ensued. The mud and snow tracked in with the log
was cleaned up. The tables were set for a feast with heavy linen
cloths, Connie’s holly and ivy garlands, and brightly polished
silver plates, cups and serving pieces. Folk who sat below the
salt, who on other days had only a slice of day-old bread for a
plate, tonight would eat from wooden plates and drink from the
wooden cups the nobles usually used.
    Finally, it was time to prepare for the
midnight church service. The men took themselves off to the
bathhouse beside the bailey wall, while Connie and Aline were
indulged with tubs of hot water in their own rooms. At Connie’s
insistence, Aline accepted the loan of a dress. Of deep blue silk
and only a little too short for her, it was made with a plain
rounded neckline and loose, flowing sleeves. Beneath it she wore a
thin white woolen underdress and a linen shift. There was a belt of
jeweled, gilded leather to be worn about her hips.
    “The color is beautiful with your black
hair,” Connie told her, offering a gold mesh net set with sparkling
stones. “Let me help you to gather your hair into this.”
    Connie’s own dress was bright green, with a
narrow band of gold thread at the neckline. Her golden-brown braids
were pinned earmuff style at the sides of her head; around her
throat lay a gold chain set with amethysts.
    “Blaise told me it was his mother’s,” Connie
said. “He has never given me a gift before, not since our wedding
day, but he was obliged to give me something then. This necklace he
gave me because he wanted to please me.”
    “It’s beautiful, and very becoming,” Aline
said, wondering why Connie did not look happy. She soon learned
why.
    “I am afraid,” Connie confided. “After giving
me a gift of such value, Blaise will no doubt want to – I mean, he
will expect – oh dear.”
    “Connie, have you ever considered the
possibility that if you were to show a little enthusiasm, what
Blaise wants to do might turn out to be fun?”
    “No.” Connie was close to tears. “I have
never thought of it as fun.”
    “Perhaps you should. After all, you didn’t
want to put on boys’ clothing and go out into the forest today, but
when you did, you admitted that you enjoyed it.”
    There was no time to say more. They were
expected in the great hall. There, the assembled household awaited
them. With Adam and Aline, Blaise and Connie leading the way, they
marched in solemn procession out of the hall, down the outside
steps and across the bailey in heavily falling snow to the chapel
for midnight Mass. Everyone who lived in or near the castle was
there, the chapel so crowded that some latecomers had to stand
outside the door and strain to hear Father John’s words.
    At first Aline felt like an intruder. Then
she told herself that since Gramps