Lady of Valor

by Lara Adrian

  “A-are you going to slay me now, milord?”

  “No, Pete.” Cabal sheathed his sword then reached for the lad's hand and pulled him to his feet. “I'm going to make you a soldier.”

  “A soldier, milord? You mean this has naught to do with the thiev--”

  Pete clamped a hand over his mouth but it was too late to reclaim the slip. The peasant's face had already blanched a terrified shade of white in the instant it took for Cabal to whirl him around.

  “What thieving?” he demanded.

  “N-naught, milord.”

  “Tell me, boy!”

  “Oh, rot my fool tongue,” Pete whined. “Martin will throttle me when he learns what I've done--”

  “Have you been stealing from this keep?” Cabal charged.

  “Nay! Milord, I would never!”

  “Who, then? This Martin fellow? I warn you, Pete, I'll brook no thievery or falsehoods in you.”

  “'Twas neither me nor Martin what done the stealing, milord. I swear it!” He grasped the hair at his temples and pulled, groaning miserably. “Arlo said no one was supposed to know...”

  Cabal seized the youth's shoulders, commanding his full attention. “I will have the whole story, Pete. Now.”

  * * *

  By the time the morning meal had ended and the folk were returning to their duties, Cabal was alone once more in the bailey. He had managed to wring a wealth of disturbing news out of Pete, and, with an agreement that he would return later for more instruction with the sword, Pete had gone back to the village to carry out his day's tasks. Cabal was glad he had already sent him off, for the garrison looked eager for more trouble as they spilled out of the keep and into the courtyard.

  Whether meant to intimidate or impress, Cabal was uncertain, but he watched with amusement as Taggart and the other men commenced practice in the bailey. Immediately, Fallonmour's two dozen guards set about butchering an assortment of logs and tree stumps that littered the far side of the courtyard. From the midst of this chaotic maelstrom of grunts and oaths and flying wood chips, Miles sauntered over to where Cabal stood observing.

  “I hear Taggart was up to no good this morn.”

  Cabal gave a nonchalant lift of his brows. “Evidently my means of fortifying Fallonmour's garrison does not sit well with him.”

  The two men watched as Pete's challenger paused his exuberant cleaving to wipe his forehead. Sweat streamed down the big knight's face and drenched the neck of his tunic. Taggart's girth made his movements sluggish after only a few more minutes of exertion, but he still managed to heft his blade high in the air, and with a solid connection, buried it in the top of a thick oak stump.

  “I fear this challenge between Pete and Taggart is a losing proposition, Sir Cabal,” Miles said after some consideration. “If Pete loses the match, 'twill only make your work with the others all the more difficult.”

  Cabal was about to ask the old captain if he had ever heard the ancient tale of David and Goliath, but at that moment, Lady Emmalyn stepped out of the chapel and into the sunshine of the courtyard. She glanced at the exercising knights, then met Cabal's gaze and quickly looked away. Her squared shoulders and efficient gait invited no dalliances as she headed purposefully in the direction of the stables.

  Vaguely, Cabal registered that Taggart had now abandoned his practice and was making his way toward him. He said something, no doubt a jest of some sort, but Cabal paid little attention, watching as Lady Emmalyn led a gray palfrey from the stables, then mounted and departed in the direction of the village.

  Beside him, Miles chuckled. “What say you, Sir Cabal?”

  Cabal looked back at the two men, hiding none of his sudden disinterest.

  “I say,” Taggart repeated, “if I had gone to Palestine, mayhap Richard would have reclaimed the Sepulchre for Christendom, and not lost it in shame to Saladin's heathen forces.”

  “Mayhap,” Cabal replied with a negligent shrug. “I must admit, you have demonstrated excellent maneuvers here, Taggart, truly excellent.”

  The big knight beamed smugly. Miles seemed pleased as well, though his sage expression told Cabal that he was suspicious of such an easily-won compliment. Cabal grinned, then clapped Taggart on the shoulder. “Though I expect the real trick would have been in convincing the infidels to stand still long enough for you to hack them down.”

  Taggart sputtered an oath behind him, but Cabal ignored it, already crossing the bailey and on to more appealing pursuits.

  * * *

  Relieved to be done with the mass and eager to immerse herself in responsibility, Emmalyn rode down to the village and immediately made her way into the fleece barn. There, the reeve and his family were already at work cleaning and baling the sheared wool. While Martin and his wife, Lucille, spread and rolled the fleece, their daughter, young Lucy--unmarried and made a mother just last month--sat on a narrow bench with a basket of washed wool at her feet. Her new babe lay swaddled in a blanket beside her in the hay.

  “The three of you are certainly at this early,” Emmalyn remarked lightly after greeting them all. She patted one of the many bundles of baled fleece that had been stacked along the wall of the small shed, satisfied with the solid weight of it. “Martin, I thought we agreed yesterday that I would help you with the wool.”

  “Aye, milady, but you were at chapel, and I thought it prudent to get to the task right off, so we can have it all finished and put away before vespers this eve. No sense leaving it lay about in here any longer, I reckon.”

  Martin seemed nervous in some way, suddenly anxious over the safekeeping of the wool, but Emmalyn shrugged it off, noticing instead how his young daughter could scarcely keep her eyes open to do her work. Her little son had begun to fuss, yet Lucy's chin dipped to her chest in sleep.

  “Martin, how can you make this poor girl work when 'tis clear she's exhausted?”

  The reeve looked over his shoulder to where his daughter was now awake but struggling to stay so. “She's well enough, milady. Young Lucy won't complain over a bit of work.”

  “No, she won't, Martin, but look at the poor thing. She should be at home, resting. She's nearly faint with fatigue.”

  Emmalyn took up a seat next to Lucy and grasped her hand. The reeve's daughter was a sweet girl, just ten and six, the same age Emmalyn had been when she married Garrett. Perhaps for that reason Emmalyn had taken a keen and ongoing interest in the maid's welfare. “How much sleep did your babe give you last eve, Lucy?”

  The girl shrugged weakly and shook her head. “Please, milady, I'm fine. Papa is right, I don't mind the work.”

  “Well, neither do I,” Emmalyn answered. “Tend your child instead, Lucy. I think he's getting hungry.”

  As the girl moved to scoop up her fretting babe, Emmalyn pulled the basket of wool from between Lucy's feet and placed it at her own. Though the shepherds had bathed the sheep in the stream and brushed them before they were sheared, there were still burrs and other impurities that had to be taken from the fleece by hand. It was a tedious, but necessary task if they wanted to get the best price at market. Unavoidable as well, would be the final step, more unpleasant than this. For once the fleece was picked clean, it would be soaked and scrubbed in a mixture of urine and water to break up the residue of natural oils present from the sheep's skin.

  Intent to do her part, Emmalyn reached into the basket and pulled out a portion of the wool, spreading it out across her lap, stretching and pulling the length to expose the burrs and bugs and straw yet embedded in the fleece. Beside her, young Lucy unlaced her tunic to bare her breast, then set about feeding her infant son.

  Emmalyn watched her longingly, doubtful that she might ever have the chance to hold a child of her own. Her heart ached for the babe she had wanted so badly, the infant she had so tragically lost to a miscarriage. How she missed the precious little girl who would now have been toddling about the castle, babbling the charming nonsense of a three-year-old. Emmalyn's pregnancy had been the one bright spot in her
marriage; the loss had left a deep wound that would never fully heal.

  Grappling with painful memories and careless of what she was doing, Emmalyn was pricked by a burr as she spread her palm over the wool in her lap. She cried out in surprise more than any discomfort, and immediately began to pick the barbed cluster from her fingertip.

  “Oh, milady!” Lucy wailed, denying her baby further sustenance to come to Emmalyn's aid. She pulled her tunic together and placed her son back on his bed of hay. “Milady, please, I should be doing this work, not you--”

  “Mind your son, Lucy. I'm fine,” Emmalyn replied, her voice raw and more clipped than she had intended. The girl reached out for the wool anyway. “I said, I will do it.”

  At her lady's sharp tone, the young mother broke down in a fit of uncontrollable tears.

  “Oh, Lucy, I'm sorry,” Emmalyn soothed, feeling terrible for her actions. “I'm not upset with you. I shouldn't have snapped like that.”

  From across the barn, the reeve's wife clucked and abandoned her work to go to her sobbing daughter's side. “Pray, forgive her, milady,” she said. “'Tis naught of your doing. This girl has been a bundle of emotions these past several months. Last eve she bawled for hours over a ruined pottage.”

  Sympathetic and contrite, Emmalyn smiled, grasping Lucy's callused hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “She is tired. Lucille, why don't you take your daughter back to her cottage and let her and the babe get some rest? I'll help Martin with the rest of the work here.”

  The reeve's wife nodded then scooped up the swaddled infant and assisted her sniffling daughter out of the wool shed. Martin muttered an apology for his family as Emmalyn carried an armful of freshly cleaned fleece to him. He took it without looking at her and bunched it together with several other prepared fleeces, decidedly less talkative than she had always known him to be.

  “Is anything amiss, Martin?”

  “Amiss, milady?” He held her gaze for no longer than a heartbeat then shook his head and went back to his task.

  “If you're worried over young Lucy and the welfare of her babe, I can assure you that no matter what happens, I will see that they always have a place here at Fallonmour.”

  “My thanks, milady, but nay, I don't fret over that. Never that. You've always been more than generous with me and my kin.” He tied a length of twine around the bundle and hefted it over his shoulder, then picked up another that had already been secured. “By your leave, milady, I'll start taking these down to the storehouse now.”

  “Of course,” Emmalyn answered.

  When he departed, she picked up another tie and attempted to wrap it around several combed fleeces. Emmalyn struggled with the bulk of the wool, trying unsuccessfully to gather the twine closed for the girth of the fleece it held. From behind her, strong fingers wrapped around her hand.

  “Allow me.”

  Emmalyn startled, nearly backing into Cabal's solid chest. Her senses filled at once with the mingled fragrances of musky wool, sweet hay, leather, and man. Immediately, she withdrew her hand from beneath his and ducked out of the circle of his arm.

  “I thought you were training the men.”

  “So I was, my lady, but they have stopped for refreshment. In the meanwhile, I had hoped you would indulge me in a tour of Fallonmour's borders.”

  Remembering last night's encounter, Emmalyn broke his unsettling eye contact. Not even the morning's Mass had been sobering enough to keep her thoughts from straying to wicked imaginings of Cabal's kiss. She had looked for him in the chapel, perversely hoping to see him there; shamefully disappointed that she had not. Dieu, but she could not allow this man such control over her thoughts and feelings. He would only use it to hurt her in the end.

  Turning away from him, she retrieved an uncombed shearing from the basket. “Perhaps Sir Miles would oblige you,” she said at last. “I'm not much in the frame of mind for a lengthy ride, my lord, and as you can see I am elsewise occupied...”

  “Do you despise all men, Lady Emmalyn, or just me?”

  If the wry humor in his voice was to be trusted, he had meant it not so much as a question but as a jest. A challenge. Taken by surprise at his candor, Emmalyn shook her head in polite denial, then shrugged. “I do not despise you, my lord. In truth, I don't even know you. 'Twould be unfair to pass judgment--”

  He laughed at that, a hearty guffaw that compelled her to turn and face him. “Unfair,” he said, “but true, nevertheless.”

  “I don't see why it should matter how I feel about you, my lord. Sir Miles captained my garrison for many years and he never required me to think one way or another about him.”

  Cabal's smile was a devilish, wry curl of his lips. “You wound me, madam, if you mean to have me think that you see me in the same light as you see Miles: a paunched, complacent graybeard.”

  “No...” she admitted quietly.

  “No. Perhaps not, after last night.” Looking at him, Emmalyn did not so much as blink, nor did she react to his answering chuckle. “You know, my lady, we do not have to be adversaries.”

  “Is that what we are, sir?”

  His broad smile widened. “A simple ride, Lady Emmalyn, is all I ask. You and I both know that old Miles hasn't likely ventured beyond the castle gates in more than a fortnight. If I am to keep watch over this demesne, I would know the breadth of what it encompasses. I can think of no better person at this keep to show me than you.”

  Emmalyn started to decline, uneager to be alone with him and somewhat rattled by her body's unwilling reaction whenever he was near. She shook her head, denial at the very tip of her tongue, when Martin appeared in the open doorway of the wool shed. He glanced to the imposing knight, then to her, and backed out of the threshold.

  “Beg pardon, milady, I meant no intrusion.”

  “Martin, 'tis all right,” Emmalyn called. “Come in.”

  “Aye, Martin, come. Your lady and I would have a word with you.”

  Emmalyn turned to Sir Cabal, frowning, and reverted to her own Norman French. “You speak their language.”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “No,” she denied quickly, “'tis just that Garrett would never deign...”

  At her side, Sir Cabal smiled. Another reminder that he and her former husband were dissimilar in many ways. Another reminder of how little she knew about this man who had been ordered into her life.

  “M-milady?” Martin stammered, looking increasingly nervous the longer he remained in the knight's company.

  “You are the reeve?” Sir Cabal queried.

  “Aye, milord.”

  “Show us to the granary then, Martin. Your lady will have an accounting of the barley.”

  Emmalyn frowned in confusion. “I checked on the stores just yesterday afternoon, Sir Cabal, I don't see the point in making another account this morning.”

  “I suspect Martin grasps my point well enough,” the knight replied cryptically.

  “I don't understand,” she said. “What are you talking about?” When the reeve would not lift his gaze from the ground, Emmalyn's heart began to hammer a tattoo of budding alarm. “Martin, have you something to tell me about the barley store?”

  The reeve at last looked up, his face a sagging mask of contrition. “Milady, there was a robbery last eve...”

  “A robbery?” she echoed. “Fie! No wonder you've been acting strangely this morn. Was anyone hurt? What did we lose, Martin?”

  “No one was hurt, milady. The thieves took just a bit of barley and two suckling piglets--”

  “This time,” Sir Cabal broke in. “Last month 'twas a cask of ale and six hens, was it not, Martin?” When the reeve made no response, the big knight pressed further. “And before that, you lost a peck of turnips and a sack of milled flour.”

  Sensing the peasant's rising fear, Emmalyn rushed to the defense. “You are badgering this man without cause, my lord. Fallonmour has lost none of these things and certainly not to repeated thievery. If we had, I assure you, I wou
ld have been the first to know. Besides, had our stores been robbed, do you not reckon those items would have come up missing in the keep's accountings? Arlo reported nothing missing.”

  Sir Cabal's eyes were on Martin. “Tell her.”

  “Er, m-milady,” the reeve stammered, “I'm afraid, 'tis true.”

  “How can it be? I reviewed the records myself, Martin. I saw these items with mine own eyes. How could I count grains and chickens that you now say were not there?”

  “If you had looked to the village stores, milady, you would have seen the losses.”

  She cocked her head at him. “What are you saying?”

  “They have been replenishing Fallonmour's stores with goods from their own supply, my lady,” Sir Cabal explained evenly. “Turnips from the peasants' field, flour and ale from the village barrels, hens from their own stock.”

  “I don't understand. Martin, how long has this been going on?”

  The reeve let out a shaky expulsion of breath, his voice equally tremulous. “Now and again since about the first thaw, milady.”

  Three months! A quarter year, and all that time she had been completely unaware. Sir Cabal, by contrast, had been at Fallonmour only one day and it seemed he already knew more than she did about her own affairs. Emmalyn realized right away that her anger had less to do with a bit of stolen food than it did with her having been caught off guard and embarrassed in front of the dark, imposing warrior.

  Though she tried to curb her emotions, the sting of humiliation made her voice tight. “Why did you keep this from me, Martin? Did you not think I had a right to know?”

  “Apologies, milady. We wanted to tell you, but Arlo advised us not to. He said you were not to be troubled with it.”

  “Doubtless he had reasons of his own for keeping the news from you,” Sir Cabal said darkly. He pinned Martin with a chiding glance. “Thieving is thieving, man, be it grain or something more. It cannot be tolerated.”

  “And it won't be,” Emmalyn added quickly, interceding before the knight saw fit to take it upon himself and mete out punishment to the poor reeve. “I expect to be informed immediately if these brigands return, Martin, do you understand? In the meanwhile, take from Fallonmour's stores whatever was lost to the thieves and return it to the village. I will not have my people going hungry out of charity for me.”