The Rufford Rose Read online

  ‘He was over by the woodshed seeing if the wood Ezekial brought in is dry enough to use.’ Thomas went on quietly. ‘Don’t mention last night, don’t start him off again. We’re all on tenterhooks today, not sure how he’ll cover up what he did. He certainly won’t mention it so don’t you.’

  Cuthbert made his way towards the large sturdy building where wood was stored in the dry and where the carpenters were able to work undercover. He could hear voices from within and stepped through the doorway to find Abel with Ezekial and a number of other men, including, he noticed, Will. Abel had spread out the plans of the building on a pile of wood and they were discussing progress. Nobody acknowledged Cuthbert’s presence so he was able to hear what was said.

  ‘We need to get the roof completed as soon as possible. If we get another storm like last night we may not suffer as little damage as we have. With winter approaching the weather could go against us.’ Abel was intent over the plans and turned to a second sheet which Cuthbert could see showed the construction planned for the Great Hall roof. ‘This is what I suggested to the young master and he agreed, thankfully. I hope he doesn’t come up with any foolish alterations when we are halfway through it. It is a standard construction of oak. He wants as much ornamentation and decoration as we can do so I have drawn in moulded and carved beams with plaster quatrefoils between. Additional carvings could be added later if he so wishes but we need to get the basic structure in place first. He has some ideas for the ends of the hammer beams but will tell me what they are when he has decided. That should not make any difference to what we put up first. Whatever it is will be decorative rather than structural.’

  Cuthbert was impressed with Abel’s drawings. Every encounter with him so far had been acrimonious but he could see now what an excellent master builder Abel was. The drawings were clear and precise, as he would expect, and were probably adapted from a master plan that Abel could alter to suit whoever he was building for. Cuthbert had seen something similar many times in buildings he had worked on in Chester. Great Halls like this were always rectangular but the scale varied with the purse of the owner. He had seen much smaller versions for more modest houses. Rufford was large as befitted the purse of Sir Robert. The roof would be divided into five equal bays by four hammer beam roof principals. There would be a screens passage at the east end and access to the family wing at the west end, the area Cuthbert had been working in yesterday. Projecting to the north was a compass window, adjacent to the area where the family would sit. The amount of glass depicted in the drawing was astonishing. There was certainly money to be spent here. The only major difference to the plan was the vast stone fireplace and chimney which had caused so much controversy. The walls either side had had to be adapted to accommodate it but the structure of the roof was not altered. Cuthbert could understand why Abel had not wanted it as he was a man who did not like change, but it was looking as though it would be a good change, a modern part drafted onto a good solid plan without detriment to the overall design. At least, that was Cuthbert’s view.

  Abel had turned to Ezekial.

  ‘We are ready for those speres you brought over from the old place,’ he said. ‘Once they are in place we can get the roof under construction. I took their measurements when you brought them. They are going to take a lot of work to get them in place but they are vital to the next stage. How many men will you need to get them in here and in place?’

  ‘Many,’ replied Ezekial. ‘They are solid oak, whole tree trunks, so very heavy. They are slightly different in girth but that won’t be noticed once they are in place. They are already carved and moulded but they may need some slight repairs once we get them up. Have you prepared the floor bases?’

  ‘I have,’ said Thomas, ‘measured them precisely with Alfric here. Four feet in from the side walls with fourteen feet between.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ affirmed Abel consulting the plans again. ‘We’ll need plenty of props to hold them in place until we get the tie beam in place.’

  ‘They are cut already,’ said Ezekial.

  ‘Let’s get started then. As many men as possible needed in here today.’

  ‘I wonder if that includes you,’ said a soft voice in Cuthbert’s ear, and he turned to see Will standing directly behind him. Cuthbert said nothing. He wanted as little to do with him as possible, but Will had other ideas.

  ‘You look as though you’ve had a rough time,’ he sniggered, and dug Cuthbert in the ribs with a sharp finger. Cuthbert winced, knowing what Will was trying to do. He moved a step away.

  ‘You will be needed in here,’ Cuthbert said. ‘They need all the strong men they can get today. Very heavy work. Are you up to it?’

  ‘I’m strong enough,’ replied Will, ‘but are you?’, and he gave Cuthbert another hard nudge.

  Abel turned round and his manner changed instantly.

  ‘There you are. I wanted to see you first thing. Have you got your drawings?’

  ‘Here they are.’ Cuthbert handed over the bundle of drawings and noticed Will’s sudden interest in them. ‘You will recognise some as fairly common designs but the others are of my own design.’

  “Of my own design” mimicked Will and knew instantly that he had overstepped the mark. Abel looked at him with a steely eye. ‘Go and help bring in the speres, Will,’ he said curtly.

  Will left sheepishly. How he would have liked to see what wonders the ‘master carver’ had produced. Never mind. He would get a chance later.

  Abel unrolled the papers and laid them on top of the plans on the wood pile. He looked at each sheet carefully, giving no indication of what he thought of them. He lingered over Cuthbert’s own ideas then rolled them up again.

  ‘I’ll say one thing,’ he said, ‘you know how to draw. Yes, I recognise some of these, the others are far too fancy for here. They are not what is wanted in this house. Good reliable designs always work best, not this stuff.’ He rolled the papers together roughly and thrust them back at Cuthbert. ‘You can do some of these in the upper floors of the house. You are to do nothing in this Hall. Only my designs will be used here. You know what I feel about you being here at all. Well, following that fiasco the other day you will confine your work to other parts of the building. I can’t stop you working here, more’s the pity, but I will not have you working in the main hall. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, but Lord Derby will be expecting to see my work when he comes again.’

  Abel ground his teeth.

  ‘He may not return for many weeks if at all. He will have forgotten about you by then. If he does ask I will say you have nothing ready yet. He’ll soon forget. He has more important things to see to than a jumped up carver from Chester.’ He looked Cuthbert in the eye and repeated his warning. ‘Not in the Hall. Ever. Now get back up to those floors you were doing.’

  He pushed roughly past Cuthbert and left the building, striding through the mud towards the Great Hall.

  Cuthbert sighed deeply. Was there no way he could make the man see what he was capable of? If it wasn’t for Lord Derby’s promise to see his work adorn Rufford Hall Cuthbert would have left there and then but he had faith in the noble Lord and was not going to be bullied by a man who refused to change his ideas. He stood alone in the shed wondering how to carry on when he came to a decision. During the day he would do whatever work Abel assigned him to but the evenings were his and he would work alone on ideas for the Hall. There were plenty of scraps of wood he could use, off cuts discarded from other work and of no use for anything else. He would work on those and when Lord Derby did return he would have work ready to show him. But how could he hide them in the meanwhile? Liliath’s offer of a bed came to him and seemed the ideal solution. He dare not try to hide anything he did in the room he shared with Will and the others, but at the smith’s cottage he would find somewhere safe.

  He went outside just as several of the men staggered past carrying one of the great oak speres they had been talking about. Slipping and sliding in
the mud they staggered towards the shell of the Great Hall. The wood was already decorated with moulding and panelling from top to bottom, each section headed by trefoils and embattled at the top. Cuthbert wondered what craftsman had originally done the work in the hall they came from. How old were they? They certainly didn’t look new but work like that lasted for many years.

  The men were turning the corner to carry their load inside the walls of the hall when one of them slipped in the treacherous mud and fell to his knees, pulling two other men down with him. A great cry went up as one of them was caught by the legs and pinned under the great weight. Alarm spread rapidly as the rest tried to lift the spere off the man but they could not get a foothold in the mud. Cuthbert ran over, seized a beam of wood from a pile by the doorway and thrust it under the fallen wood.

  ‘Quick!’ he cried, ‘Get that log under here. That’s it. Now, pull down on this piece and lever the spere up. Go on, press harder on this beam … harder … again.’ Some of the others joined him as he levered the great load slowly off the man, their muscles straining under the weight but slowly it began to rise. ‘Pull him out, gently,’ groaned Cuthbert, and two others grasped the victim under his arms and dragged him clear. Once he was well away they lowered the spere onto the ground.

  Abel came rushing over to see what was happening.

  ‘What’s this?’ he cried. ‘Why is that spere lying in the mud? It’ll get too wet.’

  ‘It fell on Japheth,’ cried a man on his knees beside the injured man.

  ‘I’m all right,’ gasped Japheth. ‘I slipped, that’s all.’ He tried to rise and fell back, groaning.’

  ‘Is it broken?’ asked Abel.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘I’ll fetch Liliath,’ said Thomas and ran off towards the forge.

  ‘This is all we need,’ cried Abel, showing remarkably little concern for the injured man. ‘Get this spere inside, now. Come on, the rest of you. Liliath will see to him. We’ve got work to do.’ He turned and saw Cuthbert. ‘What are you doing here? I told you …’

  ‘He saved him,’ said Harry, ’Cuthbert levered the spere off him.’

  ‘With help from several others,’ added Cuthbert.

  Abel looked at Cuthbert.

  ‘Quite the hero, aren’t you? Well, now get back to work.’ He turned to take in all of them. ‘All of you. We’ve a house to build.’

  The men moved away, just leaving Harry with the injured man. Cuthbert turned towards the west wing and almost bumped into Will.

  ‘You dropped these when you rushed to the rescue,’ he said and handed Cuthbert’s bundle of drawings to him, wet and muddy, crumpled and slightly torn. ‘Bit of a mess, aren’t they? Never mind, a master carver like you will soon be able to draw some more.’ He sniggered as he walked away and when Cuthbert unrolled what was left of his drawings he saw that most of them were covered in mud, far worse than from merely being dropped. Will had probably taken great pleasure in trampling them in the mud before handing them back. Another example of his spiteful nature but with no proof that that was what had actually happened. Luckily Cuthbert carried many of the designs in his head and would soon be able to redraw them.

  Cuthbert kept to the family wing for the rest of the day. He could hear the work going on in the Great Hall and when he left late in the afternoon he looked through the doorway and saw that preparations for lifting the great speres were almost complete. Tomorrow the tie beam would be attached across the top to form an impressive arch and give some idea of the roof which would tower above. From the plans he had seen there would be plenty of good oak up there, scope for numerous decorative pieces but done to Abel’s designs of course.

  On his way back to the forge Cuthbert had a look at the pile of waste pieces of wood near the wood store, selected a few odd bits and carried them down the track.

  ‘No need to bring us firewood,’ said Jehan as he carried a horseshoe out to the beast waiting patiently under the shelter.

  ‘It’s not for the fire. I would like to accept Liliath’s offer of a bed and use my time trying out some new ideas while I’m here,’ explained Cuthbert. ‘If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Jehan, lifting the horse’s foot and placing the new shoe on its hoof. ‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with Will by any chance?’

  Cuthbert hesitated in answering.

  ‘I hear things here at the forge when people are waiting for work to be done. They think I can’t hear when I’m hammering away, but there’s not much gets past me, and what I miss Jacob hears. Will’s making your life … difficult, isn’t he?’

  Cuthbert nodded.

  ‘He’s taken a dislike to me. I’ve given him no cause but he has been goading me ever since I arrived.’

  ‘He’s jealous, that’s what. He thinks you are going to take his place in Abel’s eye and Will thinks he’s going to be handed the business when Abel gives up. Aside from that you have the favour of Lord Derby and Will is jealous of anyone who is supported by gentry. There’s something in his background that we can’t fathom, something that makes him distrust landed people. You should hear him go on about them when he’s had too much ale. One day he’ll say too much.’ Jehan lowered the horse’s foot and patted it as he went back inside. ‘You are welcome here,’ he added and smiled.

  That conversation had given Cuthbert much to think about. Why ever should Will think he was trying to take over his place in Abel’s life? He had only just arrived, he may have come with a reputation for his carving but that was hardly a cause for such a vendetta against him. The way Abel was treating him could hardly give Will the idea that Abel favoured him over Will. Whatever the reason behind it Cuthbert felt he would be better keeping as much distance as he could from Will and staying at the forge would at least give him some peace each night.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Cuthbert spent the last light of the day whittling a piece of the wood he had salvaged. Among the tools he had brought with him was a set of fine chisels which had belonged to his father and which he used for the finer carved detail of his work. He loved to hold them as it brought him closer to the father he had adored. He remembered being shown how to use the razor sharp blades properly, how to hold them and place them on the wood he was working. He had been very young, maybe five or six years old when his father had taught him the basic skills and which he had developed over the years. After his father’s death, Jethro had continued to teach him and the combined skills of the two men who had been his inspiration had made him the master carver he was. It never failed to move him whenever he used them, no matter how simple the piece he was making. Tonight it was a tiny figure of a rabbit that gradually emerged from the wood, hunkered down with its ears laid along its back, the hair of its back depicted in the fine strokes of the smallest chisel.

  ‘What have you there?’ asked Liliath, watching him work as she mended a tear in a tunic of Jacob’s.

  ‘Just a little figure,’ replied Cuthbert, handing it over to her. She took it and held it on the palm of her hand.

  ‘This is exquisite!’ she exclaimed. ‘Beautiful. A miniature of the real thing. Look, Jehan, see what Cuthbert has made from a scrap of wood.’

  Jehan took the tiny figure in his huge hand. It looked lost on such a large palm but he held it as though it was something really delicate. He examined it in detail.

  ‘No wonder they call you a master carver,’ he said. ‘Is this the sort of thing you have done at Whalley that got Lord Derby so excited?’

  ‘Something like it,’ said Cuthbert. ‘I carved some little mice for the prior which started my work there. I like to use things from nature in my work though usually they are on a panel of some sort, a box or a plaque. I use leaves and flowers as well as animals and birds. There are so many wonderful things around us if we only look for them and as I have the gift, as Jethro used to say, I use it to make beautiful items.’

  ‘It is truly a gift. I wonder whether Abel would change his mind if he actually
saw the quality of your work.’

  ‘I doubt it. He has set his mind against me from the start. He is allowing me to use some of my drawings in the upper reaches of the house, in obscure corners where no one will see them. He told me today that under no circumstances was I to do anything in the Great Hall. Only his designs are to be used there.’

  ‘The man is a fool then. Did he see your drawings?’

  ‘Yes, but they are not for him. He did acknowledge that I can draw,’ said Cuthbert, ruefully.

  Jehan snorted.

  ‘Good of him! Well, the man is a fool, as I’ve said before. He does not know what he is missing.’

  ‘Will you show him this piece?’ asked Liliath.

  ‘No, he’ll probably throw it on the fire. He’s not interested.’

  ‘May I keep it?’ asked Liliath.

  ‘Of course, as small payment for letting me stay here.’

  ‘I wonder what Will would do if he saw this,’ mused Jehan.

  ‘That is partly why I was glad to be able to stay here,’ said Cuthbert. ‘He is spiteful enough to try to destroy anything I made like that, and I dread to think what he would do to my precious tools. He damaged my drawings today, said I had dropped them in the mud, which I had, but I believe he ‘accidentally’ stood on them before he picked them up.’

  ‘Are they ruined?’

  ‘I can easily redraw them, it’s no great loss.’

  ‘If it has got that bad be sure to bring all your tools back here. At least we can keep those safe for you,’ said Jehan. ‘One of these days he will go too far.’

  ***

  Next day Cuthbert headed for the west wing of the house to continue working on the internal structure of the building. There was much to do. Seven men were working in that part of the house and he enjoyed their company as they installed doors and door frames, window frames and shutters, some wainscoting in the more important rooms, a large overmantel in what was to be the solar, a large light room reserved for the ladies of the family. There was a noisy cheerfulness as they sawed and planed, hammered and banged, knocking wooden pegs in to mortice and tenon joints to keep them in place. Some of the junior apprentices were tasked with keeping the endless supply of wooden pegs coming as hundreds would be needed to complete a house of this size. Some of the boys were only sixteen or seventeen, still in their early apprenticeship and Cuthbert remembered his own time at that age when all the mundane tasks seem to be given to him, but he was grateful for the thorough grounding it gave him. He had learnt about the uses of different woods, their strengths and weaknesses, when to use them, and when not to. He could recognise different woods by their grain and, occasionally, their smell. Sometimes he learnt from his mistakes when he used the wrong wood but it was vital that mistakes were made at the early stage before much harm could be done. Using wrong or unseasoned wood could cause untold damage later in a building. Seven years apprenticeship sounded a long time but every minute was valuable.