by Sarah Hegger
Alice drew courage from the gesture of support.
“What more?” Beatrice stuck her chin out.
Alice strolled with William back to the keep. “That is a story for another day.”
Chapter 22
William crouched over Paladin’s neck as the horse widened his stride in a burst of speed. Through the sparse moorland vegetation, the hart bounded for the safety of the crags. It had taken all day to find this single quarry, and now he hesitated to kill such a magnificent creature, a hart of twelve at least, and in his prime.
Hunting mastiffs surged forward in their pack, staying clear of the horses.
As much as his blood rose to the thrill of the hunt, William always left the kill to another. He did not relish the fade of life from a creature’s eyes. This hart would make a fine trophy for the barracks and feed the hall in the feast cook prepared for them.
Martinmas, the beginning of the festivities leading to Christmas. Tonight they would eat well of goose, beef, and if the hunter’s luck held, venison. William had a mind to celebrate. Tarnwych flourished in the weeks since the weight of Sister Julianna had lifted from her back.
His conversation with the Prioress stayed with him. When spring came, he would set out and discover more of Sister Julianna’s origins. A woman that bitter must have good reason, and he liked knowing with whom he dealt.
A fresh delight every day, he watched Alice blossom and discover the world around her, free from her tether. Especially at night, when he had her all to himself. Alice took to bed sport with an eagerness that quickened his blood more than the hunt. The things he could, and would, show her. William shifted in the saddle to get more comfortable. Thoughts of Alice in bed hampered his seat.
A twang, almost lost in the baying of the hounds and the thunder of hooves, then the flash of an arrow. William threw his weight left. The breeze of the arrow’s passage ruffled his hair. His heart drummed in his chest. If he had ducked a heartbeat later, the arrow would have found its mark. In his eye.
“My lord!” A shouting, stomping, milling mass of horses, dogs, and men surrounded him.
He raised his voice above the panic. “Find the archer.”
Aonghas and Domnall peeled off, riding low in the saddle as they streaked in the direction of the arrow’s origin.
A lone figure broke from the shelter of a low copse and ran.
Fist in the air, Domnall bellowed a battle cry and gave chase, Aonghas sharp on his heels.
“Alive,” William yelled after them. “I want him alive.”
* * * *
Battered, bruised and near terrified out of his simple mind, the poacher trembled at William’s feet.
Aonghas and Domnall had delivered the man breathing, but had availed themselves of the opportunity to teach a little hard justice along the way.
“I did not mean it, my lord.” Saliva dribbled down the poacher’s chin, mingling with the blood from his split lip. “I did not see you until I had loosed.”
“You aim like a woman.” Domnall drove the point home with a boot in the ribs.
“Cease.” William winced as the poacher gave a harsh grunt and curled into a protective ball.
“He shot you,” Domnall, face red with outrage, yelled at him.
“Aye.” William thumped the big brute in the chest. “And we will never discover why if you beat him to death.”
Domnall loomed over the cowering man, fists clenched.
“Who are you?” William crouched beside the man.
“Caomh, my lord. I was aiming for the hart. I swear it.”
The hart had long since disappeared into the craggy outcrops.
“You realize this is Tarnwych land?” William took pity on the sniveling cur and handed him his water skin.
The man eyed the offering warily.
“Take it.” Domnall cuffed him. “And be grateful it is not the end of his lordship’s sword.”
“Aye, thank you, Domnall.” William admired loyalty as much as the next man, but if Domnall continued in this manner, Caomh might very well die of fright. “Drink.”
Caomh took the skin as if it were made of vipers, raised it to his lips and sipped, his gaze not leaving William. “It was just one hart. We have not seen the like for many a year.”
“But it were not yours.” Domnall loomed closer.
“I think I have this, Domnall.” William motioned the younger man back. “Take your brothers and sweep the area. Make sure there are no more unpleasant surprises lurking hereabout.”
“I am alone,” said Caomh.
“So you say.” Domnall spat and spun back to his horse.
William waited until the pound of hooves moved away from them. “Now, perhaps you can tell me why you were poaching on my land.”
“We be hungry…my lord.” Anger flashed in Caomh’s eyes, and he lowered them to the water skin and sipped again. “I just wanted the one. For my family.”
“There are easier ways.” William rested his elbows on his bent knees, attempting to look harmless. “You could come to Tarnwych and plead your case.”
Caomh smeared a trickle of blood across his cheek. “Do not be nobody at Tarnwych what hears. Now that Dunstan is dead.”
William raised his brow. “I believe I reside at Tarnwych, and my hearing is excellent.”
Caomh kept his head down.
“Begging your pardon, Sir William.” Rufus slunk closer, still not one to seek out William’s attention. “I know this man. We were raised in the village together.”
“And?” William would never make a soldier of Rufus until the man ceased his doglike servility.
“I know him to be honest.” Rufus shifted, coloring to his ruddy hairline. “Leastways he used to be. But that is not what I wanted to say.”
“As I have pointed out, moments ago”—William pinned Rufus with a stare—“my hearing is excellent, and thanks to an arrow, sharper than usual.”
“The villagers.” William did not think Rufus could flush more, but the man went clay- red. “They used to come to Tarnwych, in the past. Dunstan always dealt with them. He did not like them to speak to anyone but him. Sister Julianna and Dunstan had a sort of agreement. As long as they stayed clear of each other, all was well.”
“Ah.” The truth struck him clear as a bell. “And Dunstan took the opportunity to take care of himself?”
“Aye, my lord. And those he favored.” He gave Rufus credit for standing his ground.
“Before I render judgment, Caomh, I want to see this family.”
* * * *
“God’s Bones.” Aonghas whistled through his teeth.
William was glad someone had the words, because they escaped him. Appalled came closest to what raged through him. “I am afraid God is nowhere in this.”
He dismounted and tossed the reins to Cedric.
Caomh slid to the ground from where he rode with Rufus.
“Caomh?” A woman appeared in the crooked doorway to the hovel. With her dead eyes and sunken cheeks, he could not guess her age, but hopelessness and fear trailed her.
“Mags, meet Sir William.” Caomh moved to her side and stood beside her, bristling like a broody mastiff.
“Aye, but what be he doing here?” Mags paled and dipped into a curtsy. Her threadbare skirts revealed bare feet. “Begging your pardon, my lord.”
“Nay, Mistress Margaret.” William took it all in. The bare, cracked yard, the skin covered windows, the gaping holes in the thatch. Most of all he could not drag his eyes from the three emaciated children huddled in their mother’s skirts. “It is I who must beg your pardon.”
Empty beast pens sagged to one side of the dwelling.
“Are there many like this?” he asked Rufus.
“Aye, my lord.” Rufus’s face wore grim resignation. “Most of the village fare no better.”
“Dear God.” Untilled earth, choked beneath weeds and nettles stretched out behind the cottage. By no
w, the soil should have been turned to rest for winter, ready for planting with the thaw.
The children’s pinched, chapped faces would follow him to the grave. The rags they wore barely covered their stick limbs.
“How long has it been thus?”
“Many a year, Sir William.” Rufus took position beside him. “There is more, if you care to see it.”
“I must see it.” William’s breakfast soured and churned in his gut. He would not suffer a beast to live in such conditions. “How long since these fields were planted?”
“Planted?” Mags gave a bitter laugh, crossing her arms. “What shall we plant, your lordship? Acorns?”
Caomh tugged his wife back to his side. “Whist, Mags.”
“Did Tarnwych not send you seed?” William already had the answer and he barely heard Mags’s reply.
“Dunstan sold the seed.” Rufus cleared his throat. “He sent just enough of the harvest to the keep to make sure Gord did not ask too many questions, and sold the rest.”
“Gord said nothing?”
Rufus stared over his shoulder. “Gord sent his reports to Sister Julianna.”
Dunstan and Sister, a perfect pairing that rendered the bailiff impotent. He had seen Gord’s frustration that first day in the kitchens. With no reason to trust him, still Gord had tried to tell him that the keep larders remained all but bare because the villagers had nothing to spare. They had not even enough for themselves. Mags would lose one if not all her children before winter turned to spring.
In the months following his wedding, he and Gord had built a solid relationship, but William had reeled from one problem to the next. Putting out the fire in the barn, only to have a new one spring up in the henhouse. Alice, Sister Sunshine, even his own family had conspired to keep his eye from where it should have rested all along.
By God, this stopped now. “Cedric!”
“Aye, my lord.”
“Ride hard for Tarnwych. I want Gord here as fast as you can get him. I do not care what he is doing.”
“Aye, my lord.” Cedric wheeled his horse and cantered away.
William motioned Rufus. “Let me see the rest of it.”
It got worse in the village nearby. Oldsters, too ill and starved to rise from their matts. Children with hollow eyes and sunken bellies. Women wearing that dull resignation that comes from seeing your children’s deaths looming irrevocably closer. And men, beaten by life and loss, unable to lift their heads and call themselves men.
“Pick a group of men,” he said to Rufus. “Find out what the villagers need the most, and get it here. Get Mistress Ivy here to see what she can do.”
“Aye, my lord.” Rufus’s eyes glistened and he turned his head away. “I will see it done.”
“Everything, Rufus. Clothing, linens, food, implements, whatever they need. If you must chop firewood for them, do it.”
“Aye, my lord.”
“And when Gord gets here, have him make a list of repairs. I want it by sundown.”
“Aye, my lord.”
“Donnchadh.”
“My lord?”
“Ride for The Crags. Tell you father how matters lie here, and see what help he can offer.”
“Aye.” Donnchadh scuffed the earth with his boot. “Only, I am as likely to return with more of my brothers.”
“Every sodding one of them, if that is what it takes.” William leapt onto Paladin’s back. “I am going to find out how matters came to this sorry state.”
Anger drove William back to Tarnwych. Each strike of Paladin’s hooves on the ground driving his fury higher. A lord of a demesne had a responsibility to his people. They paid his taxes and fed the keep, and in exchange he provided his protection and his aid. Not all lords honored their duty, but for him to have become one of those lords made him want to empty his belly.
Attuned to William’s mood, Paladin outstripped the other riders and arrived in the bailey in a shower of mud and sod.
Sir Arthur had raised his sons to honor their duty, shoulder their responsibilities. In one morning, William had become the sort of scavenging cur who fed off his people. Some part of his brain warned his anger lay with Sister Julianna, but she nestled safe in the convent now.
Amidst her ladies, Alice sat in a pool of wintery sunlight that burnished her hair to flame. The very picture of a chatelaine at her sewing, laughing and chatting with the keep women.
Whilst less than a mile hence, babes would not see their next birthing day.
She looked up as he strode forward, his heels ringing on the flags. Her smile of welcome died, replaced by a wary expression.
“Leave us.”
Women snatched their sewing and scattered.
“William?” She rose, her embroidery clutched in one hand.
Here she sat, warm, fed and sheltered. He shoved his hands behind his back before he shook her. “Are you enjoying your morning, my lady?”
“Aye.” Alice held up her scrap of fabric. “We were doing some mending, and sewing some…Did the hunt not go well?”
“It went well. Until a poacher nearly split my head in half with his arrow.”
She stepped toward him, concern creasing her face. Her embroidery fluttered to the ground. “Are you hurt?”
“Step back, my lady.” He did not trust the control he had on his anger. “I am well enough. At least I was well until I discovered why the poacher had fired on me.”
“William, I do not understand.”
“That may be.” He clasped his hands together, battling to control the fury writhing within. “Ask me why the poacher fired at me.”
Her chin came up, a tiny gesture of defiance he wanted to stamp out. “I do not like this game, William.”
“I do not care, my lady. Ask me why.” He stepped toward her and she backed up. Good. At least she had a God-given sense of self-preservation.
“Why did the poacher fire at you?” Her throat worked as she swallowed.
He frightened her. She needed a fright to shake her out of her life-long slumber. “He was starving.” His boots touched her bliaut hemline. “Along with his wife and children, and every other soul in the village.”
Alice averted her gaze and frowned. “Surely not. We send supplies from the castle through the harsh months.”
“Do we?” Her innocence made him even angrier. How much of her life did she spend closing her eyes to what happened about her? She was not a child anymore. As a grown woman she had duties, and she sat here and embroidered silly green swirls on white linen. “When was the last time you went to the village?”
“Sister did not—”
“When, Alice?”
She rubbed her hands on her bliaut. “A long time.”
“Weeks?”
“Aye.”
“Months?”
Her pretty face crinkled in confusion. “I do not—”
“Years?”
“Not years.” Up came that defiant chin again. “I was last there…” Her eyes widened to sparkling green gems. Her shoulders slumped. “Surely not years.”
“Years.” William drove his point home. “You have not been there in years. Yet you have been chatelaine at Tarnwych since your marriage to chemise-lifting William.”
“I was not really chatelaine.” She held her hands out to him in silent appeal for understanding.
He had none for her. She did not deserve his compassion whilst her people died of disease and hunger. Her complacency sickened him. “Nay, you were not chatelaine at all. It was too easy to let that wicked nun take charge of your life and the lives of everyone around you. You lived in your own private world, Alice, whilst your people”—he gripped her shoulders—“your people, not hers, suffered. They still suffer.”
Tears turned her eyes brighter green. “I did not know.”
“You know now.” He dropped his grip. “What are you going to do about it?”
“What would you have me do? I know
nothing of—”
“I would have you grow up, Alice. Become a woman I can respect.”
She flinched as if struck, and tears glistened in her eyes. “What if I cannot become the woman you want me to?”
“Then, my lady, you are someone to whom I cannot be husband.”
* * * *
The churchyard was the worst. Alice went from grave to grave, some no better than a crude, wood-fashioned cross.
So many graves, scattered over the winter-brown grass like pockmarks.
Earth mounded beside the gaping maw of a fresh grave. Another soul to add to her guilt tally.
“My lady, we should return to the keep.” Seamus trailed after her.
“Not yet.”
After a lonely night she had risen early this morning and asked Seamus to bring her to the village. From hovel to hovel they had gone until Alice felt she would be sick.
William’s anger made horrible sense in the face of the aching poverty all about her. She had left her people to die awful, painful deaths.
Work crews teamed like ants over three village dwellings. William already making his presence felt. Cart after cart rolled into the village from the castle, bringing barrels of dried meats and fruits, bales of linen, sacks of wheat and barley, and stacks of farming implements.
The villagers huddled in small groups and watched as if they had lost the will to take part in their resurrection. Everywhere she went the women’s hostile stares tracked her. Faces that spoke of tragedies almost past bearing.
Alice met each stare, and pressed into her memory the knowledge of their suffering, the lashes her soul must bear for her apathy.
“Lady Alice?” An emaciated priest strode across the churchyard toward her. “I am Father Joseph.”
Up in Tarnwych, Father Mark cowered in silence, whilst this man bore the weight of his deathwatch on his stooped shoulders.
“So many.” Alice motioned the crosses.
“Aye.” Father Joseph folded his hands before him. “Last winter was especially harsh. Many fell ill and some who did survive the contagion succumbed during the summer.”
“I had no idea.” Pitiful and inadequate, she could not even look him in the eye.
“Aye.” Father Joseph picked up a handful of earth and dribbled it through his fingers. “I tried to send messages to Father Mark, but…” He shrugged. “At least you are doing something now.”