From Suffering Comes Bliss
Peel Village Market Day, Early Autumn 1505
THE lush green of summer was fading. The leaves transforming into vibrant colors, slowly stripped away by the brisk winds of autumn. Stuart and Rosette made their way into Peel village on market day to barter for and purchase provisions they would require to survive the long winter months. They had quite a list of needs that included bolts of cloths and woolen tartans from the mercer, threads and needles. Foodstuffs like barrels of wine and ale, cider for the children, sides of salted beef, pork and pickled fish. Stuart and Rosette gave in to the children’s pleas and splurged on salt, sugar, honey and a few spices, like nutmeg and cinnamon for holiday treats. They brought their own grain to be ground by the miller in exchange for tubs of salted butter.
They loaded their wagon with their goods and continued throughout, the village delighting in the entertainers, mimes, jugglers and fire-eaters. Stuart and Rosette put aside their inhibitions and walked hand-in-hand when they unexpectedly crossed paths with a person well known to them both. Reeve Elwes noted the young couple and could not resist greeting them.
“What a pleasure to see you again Mistress Rosette.” He bowed low. “How now Stuart? I see the arrangement has worked out in everyone’s best interest.”
Rosette was clearly stunned by his unexpected appearance.
A woman hung at the reeve’s arm and he wasted no time in making a formal introduction. “Allow me to present my wife, Maureen Elwes. Darling, old friends I’ve mentioned with great fondness, Rosette and Stuart McKillip. Whither are your children?”
“Gorging on sweets no doubt,” Rosette replied anxiously, feeling her face grow warm in his presence.
“Ah, methinks I see them now by the baker’s stall. Eric has grown tall as a weed. He’s eating as usual, a bit young to be indulging in cups with such vigor and thither is Rowena, a beauty—but—not like her mother.” Elwes winked. “For certes, she must favor her sire’s kin.”
The woman was older, in her mid-forties, closer in age to Elwes. She was handsome enough, a pleasant face, clear blue eyes and ringlets of graying hair that framed her face from beneath a fine lace cap. She nodded and greeted them politely although she shot a most curious glance to Rosette.
“A joy to finally meet you.” She had a husky, cheerful voice. “Elwes has naught but kind words to say about you mistress. You’d think he loves you both as dearly as blood kin—like another son and daughter. Are we to surmise by your intimate smiles and hand holding that there’s an understanding betwixt you, perhaps a marriage looming in your future?”
“Forgive my wife, she’s overbold and an incurable romantic who has naught more to do than spend money, and precious time scheming and matchmaking,” Elwes smiled but nonetheless, he seemed uncomfortable with the topic. “My darling ‘tis obvious from a mile away that these two have found love beyond all hope. We wish you all the joys and blessings in the world.”
“I share in my husband’s well wishes. You’re both young and should consider marriage…Rosette has that glow to her face that foretells she’s ripe and…’tis awful to whither away, a sad and lonely old bag of bones with no one at your side to offer a comforting hand when the end comes.”
“When I lost my husband madame, I vowed nevermore to wed, not under any circumstances.” Rosette replied.
“How noble. Ah, indeed now do I see you wear a ring. What a luster it has! May I see it?”
Rosette was quick to hide her hands by clutching her woolen cloak close. “Nay, I dare not flaunt such a treasure so openly.”
“You’d do well to keep that ring well hidden Mistress Rosette. One never knows who may be watching in so public a place and ‘tis unwise to tempt the malice and suspicions of others,” Elwes warned in a sharp, stern tone.
“Husband, ‘tis but a pretty band of gold. By the solemn manner in which you forewarn you’d think ‘twas a royal heirloom.”
Rosette paled moving in closer to Stuart.
“Enough chit-chat wife. Let’s go about our business and let them be on their merry way.”
“Oh Elwes but you are rude. We must extend an invitation to them so they may spend Yuletide with us. The Lord of Mann was generous enough to extend the use of several fine apartments at Rushen Castle. We shall celebrate like the kings and queens of yore! Are you familiar with that region?”
Rosette nearly choked with rage. “Aye…I know Rushen Castle well.”
“Thither is an abbey on the grounds too, a fine place for a wedding. Yuletide is such a colorful, festive time of year for a marriage…should you have a change of heart. We wed right about Yuletide at Rushen four years ago, didn’t we dear?”
“The mind is the first thing to go, they say,” Elwes teased. “We were wed at Peel Chapel, sweetings.”
“Really? The mind?” his wife retorted going tit-for-tat. “I would say other parts of the anatomy tend to wither away long ere the mind.”
Stuart intervened sensing Rosette had reached the end of her patience with the Elwes couple. “We thank ye for the invitation, maybe next year Rosette shall visit with the children, if it please her.”
“How we do dislike it when friends decline our hospitality. We shall avenge ourselves by calling on you this Yuletide. Don’t be afright when you see us at your doorstep with gifts for the younglings eager for a sampling of your wassail.”
“My wife merely threatens, pay her no heed.”
Dame Elwes shot her husband a stern glance. “If they refuse our invitation to Rushen, husband, by all means this is a visit I intend to make.”
Elwes finally manage to drag his wife away, still chattering endlessly so that her husband appeared dizzy and weary. Stuart and Rosette were relieved to be out of their presence.
“I don’t blame you for refusing to return to Rushen. What a disaster that ‘twould be. We needn’t have the Lord of Mann have a look at you or the children. Someone in his circle might be able to betray your identity.”
“’Twould be most foolhardy indeed. I hope Elwes can keep his wife away. Methinks her constant ranting would drive anyone mad after awhile. Let us hope they do not venture a visit but the look in that woman’s face foretells she has every intention of making herself an unwelcome guest.”
“I suppose we should round up the younglings and make our way back home. ‘Twill soon be dark,” Stuart suggested loading the last of their packages unto the heavily laden wagon.
“Aye, let us begone from this place dearest.”
Rosette waited by the wagon awhile, calm and amused by the villagers going about their daily business when she was startled by the sound of her daughter’s voice crying out frantically to her.
“Mama, mama…pray you make haste! They’re dragging Stuart and Eric away to prison.”
Rosette stepped down from the wagon and grasped Rowena firmly by the shoulders with an expression of horror. “Dar Jee, tell me what happened.”
“Eric’s stinking drunk and claimed to be the son of the King of Vannin returning to claim his throne. He insulted the English by calling them w-w-whoresons and usurping…fiends!” She sobbed, unwilling to utter a curse word in her mother’s presence. “Stuart attempted to rescue Eric from being thumped, the McCraghen brothers and other villagers intervened until it became a rowdy brawl. English guards arrived and shackled the lot of them.”
Rowena led her mother to whither a crowd was gathered, there was shouting, cursing and heckling drunkards so that English were hard put to it to calm the rowdy Manx villagers.
The captain of the English guardsmen, more than tipsy on ale himself, demanded to know who was the lunatic claiming to be the rightful King of Mann. The Manx attempted to cover for Eric, but eventually he was singled out as the perpetrator. Still drunk and enraged, Eric upheld the claim even in the face of certain doom.
“Why send him off to prison and waste the Lord of Mann’s precious time? Let’s flog him here and now until he comes to his senses. That should provide better entertainment than a bloody bull baiting. What say you all?”
“Nay!” Rosette cried racing out into the midst of the crowd. Her presence commanded silence from the multitude. “He’s just an ale-addled boy distraught over the loss of his father. I will pay whatever fine the Lord of Mann demands. Release him.”
“Is this your son Manxwoman?"
“Aye, let them all go and take me to the Lord of Mann. I shall reason with him.”
The English jeered at her statement. “He’d like that indeed and ‘twould reward us well to have such a fine whore warm his bed.”
Rosette checked her urge to curse the English and doom the prisoners further. “Let them go, I pray you,” she repeated keeping her poise.
“You do not seem to be a woman of means. The penalty for such treason is death. Let him feel the lash at his back.” The Englishman looked about and saw that Rosette was respected and well loved by the villagers. He hesitated. “Choose wisely woman, either death for the boy at the hands of the Lord of Mann for sedition or the lash.”
“Pray, can you not have pity on the boy and release him?”
“Let me be flogged in his stead.” Stuart cried out, one of the many shackled by the English.
“Damn you all. The lot of you shall be whipped, lice infested, besotted Gaels.”
At that moment, Reeve Elwes stepped forward, an imposing figure in a rich bearskin cloak.
“Let them go and I shall pay the fine for the fool boy.”
“What of the others? Can you afford to bail them all out Elwes? Why waste your gold on such unworthy rabble?”
Elwes looked grimly to Stuart who nodded in unspoken agreement and replied. “My pain shall serve as payment.”
“Let it be so.” Elwes agreed.
The guardsmen released him and he removed his shirt in the biting cold. They tied him to a post and before a silent throng received fourteen brutal lashes. To all it seemed Elwes was quaking with rage. His fists clenched at the sharp snap of leather tearing against flesh. He cried aloud for Stuart to hold on, jesting in defiance that it was no more than the "wind at his back". By the fifteenth, he had already swooned away from the agony and loss of blood yet the guardsmen was ready to lift the whip again determined to reach the count of twenty. The sounds of the women weeping and the grumbling of the enraged Manxmen could be heard all about them.
“Enough you ass! You’ll kill the lad,” Elwes shouted coming to Stuart’s assistance. “Get away from him.”
“What Elwes? Are ye a Manx lover nowadays?”
“If you’re Englishmen, I’d be shamed to call myself one. You’re but disgraceful drunkards and ruffians. These people have done no harm. Youth was the boy’s excuse for folly. I see you have none for yours.”
“He spoke treason and you’d best beware reeve lest we report to the Lord of Mann that you have forgotten where your loyalties lie.”
“If you threaten me lad…be certain you’re willing to see it through to the end. I’ll not go down without taking the lot of you with me. You’ve seen me make good on my promises and my threats. You’d be wise to keep me as a friend and not irk the devil against you.”
“To compensate for the lashes he didn’t receive Elwes, you’ll be required to pay a hefty sum.”
“Gladly, if that’s what ‘twill take to satisfy the blood lust and avarice of my fellow Englishmen.”
Elwes lifted Stuart’s broken body, covered him in his own cloak and placed him on the wagon. The reeve was so enraged by the injustice that it did not matter to him if he roused the suspicions of the English. He grabbed Eric roughly by the arm, dragging the staggering lad and pushing him unto the cart to view the suffering he had caused Stuart.
“Foolish twit of a boy! I have a mind to whip you myself for your outrageous behavior when we get back.” Elwes took a seat by Rosette and Rowena and drove them the few short miles back to their cottage home.
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