Wulfwaru's Diet

In medieval times, just as today, young women worried about their figures. Wulfwaru, the heroine's stepsister in  Courting Trouble, instructs the servants about what she'll eat, and the heroine Cynethrith taunts her sister.

Two servants entered to prepare the hall for supper. Wulfwaru called to the younger one.
“Does cook understand that I will eat nothing but goosegrass soup?”
“Yes, miss. I told her, miss.”
“Are you still trying to lose weight?” I asked.
“You must eat a balanced diet, Wulfwaru,” lectured Waldberg [her mother]. “The way you starve yourself is absurd. You’ll get sick.”
“I know what I’m doing, Mother,” said Wulfwaru. “All the thanes’ wives in town use goosegrass.”
“It wouldn’t hurt her to lose a few pounds,” I said. I don’t think she appreciated the way I jumped to her defense.
“This doesn’t concern you, Cynethrith,” said Waldberg.
And I’m afraid we continued in this manner until supper, when the whole focus of the meal was on what and how much Wulfwaru would eat. I tried to console Waldberg by pointing out that it didn’t matter how little Wulfwaru ate at supper: her serious eating always took place about an hour afterwards. I was so busy trying to mediate this family dispute that I completely forgot the purpose of our earlier discussion.

Embroidery, Medieval Style

In Courting Trouble the stepmother Waldberg supplements the family income by creating embroideries and illuminations for the church. This is how she works with metallic thread:

She was working with two needles. One sewed a gold thread on the surface of the work, very close to the previous gold thread she had laid down. With the second needle she sewed tiny silk stitches across the gold to anchor it to the cloth. She had explained to me once that this technique was used so that the expensive gold thread was not wasted on the wrong side.

From the Sketchbook: Scene 5

I'm sketching each scene of Courting Trouble in my sketchbook as I gather ideas for an illustrated version of the book. Here's Scene 5. Cynethrith goes to the nearby abbey, founded by her mother, and formulates a “plan” to sneak into the King's Court. Her best friend, the nun Athelfald, isn't too sure about this.

 “You don’t mean you’re planning on staying there?” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Don’t you think they’ll notice an idle woman wandering around after a while?”
“I won’t be idle,” I answered. “I’ll pretend I’m a servant.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Yeah, that’s the idea. Don’t you think I’d make a great servant?”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?” I was offended. I tended to assume I was good at everything.
“For heaven’s sake, Cynethrith, you’ve never had to work a day in your life.”
“I beg to differ,” I said. “I work like a slave. Who feeds the dogs? Who has to fetch embroidery floss and gather dyes endlessly for the troll, and run messages to the servants until I could drop? And I’m immensely strong, you know. I ride and practice sword play and archery every day—well, almost.”
“And that’s the sort of thing you think servants do?” she asked.
“They do as little as possible,” I said. “At least that’s what ours do. Of course Waldberg never pays any attention to them so they get away with murder.”
Athelflad looked at me and smirked a little, an uncharacteristic expression for her. “Maybe it’s not such a bad idea,” she said. “How long are you planning on staying there?”
“Long enough to see what it’s like. Haven’t you ever wondered about royal life? About money and majesty? Gold, gowns, jewels, men . . .”

 

The Stepmother

Cynethrith's stepmother, Waldberg, a character in  Courting Trouble

[My stepmother] was sitting behind an embroidery frame, working gold thread onto a fabric strip for the bishop’s vestment. Her two daughters were with her. Hilda was standing near my stepmother reciting, with more feeling than required, a poem about the crumbling remains of a once magnificent city that had been built by giants.