Out of the Dark

by JoAnn Smith Ainsworth

  Even escorting her this morning, Fleur had gotten it wrong. She’d turned left, insisting it was the correct direction. Only Lynnet’s refusal to budge convinced Fleur to turn right.

  Who knows where we would have ended up!

  She’d then tried to drag her too far down the corridor, but Lynnet had trailed her fingertips along the wall and counted the doors as they passed. She had dismissed Fleur as soon as Geoff opened the door.

  Would it be possible to do without a servant for a few days? Just until Evelyn gets well. The thought nearly paralyzed her, but it might be better than all this aggravation.

  “When they’re new, you can’t expect much,” Matilda was saying.

  “Especially now,” Geoff added. “I’m sure the king’s staff is stretched to the limit.”

  Lynnet touched the wooden plate until she found a good-sized piece of soft cheese. She took a bite and chewed with pleasure. This is the first un-stale cheese I’ve had all day.

  “She swears she’s not moving the furniture when she cleans. But she must be.” Bewildered, Lynnet wagged her head. “I’ve bumped into more things these past two days than I did in the last two weeks. I hear things, but I can’t be sure.”

  “She probably doesn’t understand that even slightly out of place is significant,” Matilda said.

  She and Geoff were sitting on the edge of the bed, holding hands. Winter sunlight poured around them from the opened window. Lynnet could almost feel the love they had for each other.

  Thoughts of Basil crept in and, with them, a momentary sadness for things not to be.

  She forced her mind back to Fleur.

  “She brings all the worst food. It’s like she waits until everyone else gets the best pickings and then she chooses mine.”

  “You poor dear,” Matilda said.

  Lynnet wrung her hands.

  “Rescue me. Walk me to the Hall for midday meal.”

  “My dear, we can’t. We’re eating with friends today in their chamber.”

  Lynnet’s heart sank. She gritted her teeth and squared her shoulders.

  “I’m desperate. I’ll ask my parents.”

  “You really shouldn’t lower yourself by being seen socially with that Norman,” Lynnet’s mother was saying as they walked to the Hall for midday meal. Passersby murmured greetings. Lynnet replied, but her parents ignored them. None was the voice of the men in the cellars.

  “I heard all about your dancing with him last night.” Her mother’s voice took on an indignant tone as she sniffed, “He’s a mere sheriff, with no lands of his own.”

  Lynnet turned to her father for aid, but got none. He soothingly patted her hand that rested on his forearm, but agreed with his wife.

  “You really need to be more attentive to family dignity, Daughter.”

  “He’s a friend of Lord Geoff’s,” Lynnet protested. “I was going to the dance with Lady Matilda and her husband. The sheriff offered to be my escort. He’s educated and mannerly.”

  “That’s another thing,” her mother said, her voice dripping with disdain. “I can’t understand why a highborn like de la Werreiur would lower himself to marry the daughter of a blacksmith.” Lady Durwyn sniffed. “Even a Norman should know better.”

  “But they love each other,” Lynnet insisted, her heart throbbing erratically from misery.

  Her mother drew in a sharp breath. Her tone was icy.

  “Love? What does that have to do with marriage?”

  Chapter Nine

  Basil broodingly paced his bedchamber, his hands clasped tightly behind his back, his upper torso slanted as if striving forward towards some objective.

  Because of the king’s commission, Basil ranked high on the chamberlain’s list for a comfortably furnished chamber. A large, carved, four-poster bed with heavy, lined draping kept out the cold night air. Two leather-slung chairs and a carved walnut writing desk with its own high-backed chair were to the right of the door near the window.

  This morning, Basil had the window shutters cracked opened to allow in fresh air. His assigned servant had started a roaring fire at dawn and the heat from the fireplace was still too much. He didn’t like overheated rooms.

  He was trying to piece together the puzzle his investigations had become. The inventory revealed that only those supplies hard to identify were being pilfered. Seeds, flours, spices and salt disappeared while armaments and furnishings were left alone. He was getting nowhere with the thefts.

  The winter sun etched wavering patterns on the gray floor stones, echoing the framed panes of window glass. Basil had an irrational urge to hop and skip among the various shapes. Anything to lighten the burdens of this day.

  Yesterday, he’d never told Lynnet he was investigating the men in the cellar and her kidnapping. His first opportunity had been thwarted by Geoff. At the dance, he didn’t want to crush her carefree mood.

  He turned abruptly and strode towards the door. He would visit the lady.

  “Maybe she’ll remember something now she’s had time to think.”

  Lynnet was braiding a rug. She sat in a comfortable chair near the fireplace working the sewn-together cloth strips into a snug braid, using a hooked, wooden tool.

  Before Evelyn had gotten ill, the companion had cut the strips of usable cloth salvaged from old clothing and sewn them together into a long cloth tail of sufficient length for a small rug. Lynnet then wound these lengths into balls, which Evelyn sorted by color into different shaped baskets.

  Lynnet cocked her head to one side. There it was again. She couldn’t have imagined it.

  “Who else is in the room?”

  “Just us, my lady,” Fleur said.

  Lynnet was aware her hearing was better than most people’s. Still, she thought these noises loud enough to be heard. She’d even picked out a word. It was “murder”. Or perhaps “murmur”.

  “Are there people outside my door? I heard voices.”

  “Not that I can tell, my lady. But I’ll go look.”

  Lynnet heard Fleur put down the candlestick she was polishing and cross the bedchamber to open the heavy door. “No one is out here.”

  She closed the door and re-crossed the room to the side table where she’d been working. As she passed Lynnet, she said, “Ghosts.”

  Lynnet’s stomach tightened. No one mentioned ghosts around her. Her parents forbade it.

  After losing her sight as a child, Lynnet was comforted by a ghostly figure of her paternal grandmother. Coming to her a few times a year, it usually got her out of dangerous situations. At eight years old, this seemed perfectly natural. She remembered her mother’s fury the first time she spoke of it.

  “Just like my mother-in-law to interfere with my business after she’s dead.”

  She warned Lynnet not to mention this apparition again.

  While Lynnet had heeded the advice of speaking to no one, she ignored the advice to shun the apparition. It had never spoken before. To do so now after a decade of silence seemed strange.

  Lynnet rested the cloth braid on her lap and slowly twisted on her chair to study the chamber. Although she heard the low, gruff voice again, no apparition was present. She faced Fleur, who was still bent over her work at the side table.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing, my lady.”

  “I heard someone speak.”

  “I said nothing, my lady. The only time I speak is in answer to your questions.”

  Lynnet was incredulous. Her gut instinct said Fleur was lying. But to what purpose? The Tower’s chamberlain had assigned her. They had never met before two days ago. It made no sense for Fleur to jeopardize her position.

  “Maybe you’re hearing ghosts,” Fleur suggested. “They say the Tower has ghosts.”

  Basil knocked forcefully on Lady Lynnet’s chamber door. It swung open shortly thereafter to reveal the same voluptuous, dark-haired maidservant with the mischievous air. In earlier days, her provocative ways would have captured his interest. These days, his
interest was reluctantly captured by a flaxen-haired beauty.

  “Please ask your mistress for a moment of her time.”

  “Come in, Sheriff,” he heard Lynnet call out.

  His armaments clanged as he entered. He felt awkward bringing weapons into a gentlewoman’s chamber, but it was too late now. He should have thought of that before impulsively rushing here.

  “Fleur, bring the sheriff a mug of ale. Then leave us. Return in an hour.”

  Lynnet looked extra pale, her face framed by an ecru-colored linen cap. She was wearing an ecru gown, giving the illusion of her fading into the grayness of the wall.

  Whoever chose this unflattering color did not do her a service.

  “Come sit with me, Sheriff,” Lynnet said, indicating a stool across from her by the fireplace. She had some kind of colorful needlework spilling over her lap and into an unruly pile of cloth strips lodged in a wicker basket at her feet.

  He accepted a wooden goblet from the servant who seemed reluctant to leave the chamber. Basil glared at the maidservant until she left, securely closing the door behind her.

  “What brings you here, Sheriff?”

  Basil was amazed how Lynnet used her other faculties to make up for the loss of sight. She had waited until the exact moment when the maidservant could no longer overhear. He could well believe she heard a conversation a corridor away.

  “To warn you to be careful.”

  “I’ve been extra careful lately,” she assured him.

  Basil swallowed some ale and gazed at Lynnet’s pale face briefly before continuing. Memories of their dance last night drifted across his mind’s eye.

  “I’m investigating the conversation you overheard.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “My investigations lend validity to your testimony,” he said, discomforted that he did not realize this straight away.

  “I’m glad you now believe me.”

  “Have you remembered anything more since our earlier conversations?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Has anything out of the ordinary been happening?”

  Lynnet fiddled agitatedly with the braided material on her lap.

  “The only strange thing in my life is this new servant assigned to me since my companion got ill.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The chamberlain must have scraped the bottom of the barrel to find Fleur. I tried to get him to give me another, but he said there is none to be had.”

  This servant didn’t look like a bottom-of-the-barrel choice.

  I wonder what’s going on here.

  “She does everything wrong,” Lynnet said as she twisted the cloth braid between her fingers. “She moves the furniture and brings me the worst food. She mutters in a low voice. I swear she sometimes sounds like a man. I only catch a word here and there.”

  Lynnet was getting increasingly upset. Basil decided this was worth pursuing.

  “How does she explain herself?”

  “She doesn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She tells me she hasn’t said a word. She tells me I must be hearing the ghosts of men who died in the basement cells.”

  “I’m in charge of those cells. Believe me, there are no ghosts.”

  He watched Lynnet feel along the cloth strip until she got to the end of a braid. She picked up a wooden hook and continued with the braiding, attacking the cloth fiercely. Something about this new servant had driven Lynnet to desperation.

  “Is your own servant getting better?”

  “I don’t know. The apothecary said to stay away. He says she needs a chance to recover.”

  “I’d visit her. Bad food should have passed through her by now.”

  “I will.”

  The small hairs on the back of his neck bristled. “But don’t go alone.”

  “I won’t. Matilda will come with me.”

  The timing of the companion’s sickness deserved closer scrutiny. If he got right on it, he might have something for the king’s deputy later today.

  Basil rose to his feet. “I know a good woman. I’ll see if she could help you until your companion gets well.”

  Lynnet looked instantly relieved.

  “And I’ll also have someone look into this new servant. Something’s not right there.”

  “Bless you.”

  Chapter Ten

  The dark, smelly, noisy room near the basement kitchens disheartened Lynnet. She had no idea servants were treated so badly in Norman castles.

  I’ll get Evelyn transferred to my bedchamber.

  When she first arrived, Lynnet had remained rooted in the doorway, not knowing where to place her feet until Matilda brought a torch from the hallway. The one candle in the room did nothing to penetrate the murky darkness.

  Her friend still stood in the doorway of the tiny chamber, well away from the two straw pallets covering most of the narrow floor. She was probably being cautious about getting bedbugs in her skirts. It was too late for Lynnet to fret about bedbugs. Without thinking and on hearing Evelyn’s weakened voice, she’d knelt down beside her.

  “I should have come sooner.”

  “You didn’t know,” Evelyn rasped. “You were warned away.”

  “That man must be incompetent. It shouldn’t take four days for you to recover from bad food.”

  “I don’t understand it myself. I can’t seem to get better.”

  “There’s no fresh air. No light. How can you be expected to heal in a room like this?”

  Lynnet vowed to dismiss the apothecary.

  “You should have told me when we first arrived that you had been allotted such an awful place. I would have demanded a chamber on an outer wall. At least there would be an opening for fresh air. And perhaps I could have gotten you one of your own.”

  The woman who shared this tiny hovel was at work in the kitchens. Lynnet could smell the stench of her unwashed clothing.

  Evelyn wore several layers of clothing to keep warm because only one shabby, wool blanket protected her against the damp cold of the cellar. When Lynnet pulled it up over her companion, she had been shocked to feel how threadbare and coarse it was.

  My parents may be disagreeable, but they’d never treat a servant this way.

  “We are only here for two months,” Evelyn rasped. “Soon we will be home.”

  Lynnet imagined a stiff breeze on her face and the lowing of cattle on her family’s northern estate. These comforting barnyard sounds were precious to her. She wouldn’t trade the countryside for all the riches of the king’s court.

  “You’ll stay with me until you’re well,” Lynnet told Evelyn as she held her hand. “I’ll get a trundle bed put into my chamber to get you off this cold floor. And I’m dismissing that incompetent apothecary. Matilda is a healer. She can watch over you.”

  “I’d be happy to,” Matilda said.

  Lynnet heard her friend place the torch into a wall sconce and step out into the corridor.

  “I’ll arrange with the chamberlain for the bed and find someone to carry Evelyn up the stairs. You stay here, Lynnet. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “I don’t want to be a bother,” Evelyn said.

  Lynnet gave her companion’s hand a squeeze.

  “You’re too dear to me to be a bother. Besides, you can help me keep an eye on that stupid servant they replaced you with. I swear the woman is worse than that apothecary.”

  “Return the money. You didn’t get done what we asked.”

  Maximilian glared at Fleur. She had come unannounced to his chamber to declare she was not finishing her job.

  Fleur jammed her hands onto her hips and stamped her foot. She glared back angrily.

  “I would have if that devil’s spawn hadn’t dragged her sick servant into her bedchamber. You can’t expect me to pull tricks in front of a sighted woman.”

  “There must be some way.”

  “There isn’t. Besides, I’ve been dismissed. The sheriff
is bringing in his own maidservant.”

  “Worse luck. Give back the money we paid you.”

  “Are you mad? I risked jail. Feel lucky I don’t ask for more. I could spill my guts to the sheriff.”

  Maximilian’s hands curled into fists at his side. Fury raged inside. Before he could decide what to do, Fleur fled the chamber, slamming the door shut with a vengeance.

  His hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed in thought, he chewed his lower lip, concentrating.

  Fleur had certain influence. She was mistress to the chamberlain, as well as accommodating several noblemen on occasion, including himself. From experience, Maximilian didn’t trust her. If angered, she would delight in getting all of them jailed.

  He straightened and threw his shoulders back.

  He had to protect himself. Hide his possessions. This was every man for himself.

  Maximilian strode forcefully across his bedroom and jerked open the door to his wife’s compartment. She was sitting on a cushioned bench as her servant brushed her long, black hair.

  “Get packed. We’re leaving. Today.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “But…but…”

  “And keep this quiet. I don’t want anyone to know.”

  “You can’t mean this. We have social obligations. The king will wonder.”

  “On second thought, be ready within the hour.”

  He returned to his chamber, slamming the door behind him.

  Lynnet braided a small rug while her companion rested on a horse-hair mattress and clean bedding. Her probing fingers held the stretchy cloth loop wide so her right hand could push the wooden hook through the loop and grasp another section of cloth for a new loop before tightening the last one.

  She was wearing a long-sleeved, high-necked, woolen kirtle, its train wrapped around her feet clad in felt-lined slippers to protect against chilling drafts seeping up from the floor. She’d been told a few snow flurries had fallen on and off the past two days, but the sun evidently held dominance today. Its rays lightened the shadowy patterns on the floor and warmed where it touched her cheeks. The screeching of a hawk on the hunt drifted through the unshuttered window.