by Sandra Hill
“Uh, mayhap I should go announce you first,” Gerard offered.
“I will bloody well announce myself.”
Laughter followed in her wake, and she thought she heard someone say, “This ought to be good.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Beware of women with barbed tongues…
Caedmon was splatted out on his stomach, half-awake, knowing he must rise soon. This was a new day and a new start for getting his estate and his family back in order.
In his head he made a list.
First, gather the entire household and establish some authority. Someone had been lax in assigning duties and making sure they were completed. The overworked Gerard, no doubt. And the absent Alys.
Second, take stock of the larder. Huntsmen would go out for fresh meat, fishermen for fish, and he would send someone to Jarrow to purchases spices and various other foodstuffs.
Third, designate Geoff and Wulf to work with the housecarls on fighting skills and rotating guard schedules.
Fourth, replenish the supply of weaponry.
Fifth, persuade the cook to return. The roast boar yestereve had been tough as leather, made palatable only by the tubfuls of feast ale and strong mead they had consumed.
Sixth, the children…ah, what to do about the children? One of the cotters’ wives…or John the Bowman’s widow…could supervise their care, and a monk from the minster in Jorvik might be induced to come and tutor them, although his history with Father Luke did not bode well for his chances.
The door to his bedchamber swung open, interrupting his mental planning. The headboard of his bed was against the same wall as the door, so he merely turned his head to the left and squinted one eye open.
A red-haired woman—dressed in men’s attire…highborn men’s attire, at that—stood glaring at him, hands on hips. She was tall for a woman, and thin as a lance. As for breasts, if she had any, they must be as flat as rounds of manchet bread. “Master Caedmon, I presume?”
“Well, I do not know about the ‘Master’ part. What manner dress is that? Are you man or woman?” He smiled, trying for levity.
She did not return the smile.
No sense of humor.
“You are surely the most loathsome lout I have e’er encountered.”
Whaaaat? He had not been expecting an attack. In fact, he needed a moment for his sleep-hazed brain to take in this apparition before him.
“Your keep is filthy, pigs broke through the sty fence and are all over the bailey, I saw dozens of mice scampering in your great hall, thatch needs replacing on the cotters’ huts, you beget children like an acorn tree gone wild, your staff take their ease like high nobility, there are several blubbering servants arguing over who will bury the priest who is laid out in your chapel, and you…you slothful sluggard, you lie abed, sleeping off a drukkin night, no doubt.”
Whoa! One thing was for certain. This would not be yet another woman trying to crawl into his bed furs. “Stop shrieking. You will make my ears bleed.” Caedmon rolled over on his side, tugging the bed linen up to cover his lower half, then sat up.
“Bestir thyself!”
“Nay!”
“Have you no shame?”
“Not much.”
“Are you lackbrained?”
“No more than you for barging into my bedchamber.”
“Even if you have no coin, there is no excuse for the neglect.”
“Not even the fact that I have been gone nine long months in service to a king undeserving of service?”
“Where is the lady of this estate?”
’Tis just like a woman to think a woman is the answer to everything! “There is no lady.”
“Hmpfh! Why am I not surprised?”
Now he was getting annoyed. “Sarcasm ill suits you, m’lady. Have you ne’er been told that?”
“The blade goes both ways, knave.”
His eyes went wide at her foolhardy insults. “Who in bloody hell are you?”
“Breanne of Stoneheim.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“She’s a princess,” someone called out from the corridor. He saw now that a crowd of people were standing just outside the open doorway, being entertained by this shrew’s railing at him. Geoff and Wulf were in the forefront, of course, laughing their arses off.
“Well, Princess Breanne, what do you in my home and my bedchamber?”
She had the grace to blush. “My sisters and I came here, on our way…as a stopping-off place…for a…uh, visit…on our journey. Your castellan offered us hospitality.”
He could tell by the deepening red on her cheeks that she was either lying or stretching the truth.
“Sisters?”
“She has four sisters,” Geoff offered. “All princesses.”
Five princesses? Here? Oh, Lord!
“And they are accompanied by two scowling Vikings who are about this tall,” Wulf added, holding a hand high above his head. And Wulf was a big man by any standard.
“They were only scowling because your archers aimed their bows at them,” the lady declared, doing her own good job of scowling.
“’Tis a comfort, your explanation is. I feel so much better.”
Caedmon could practically hear the grinding of her small, white teeth.
“And there is a wise man from the eastern lands who has opinions on every bloody thing in the world, most of it involving camels.” As usual, Geoff was enjoying himself at his expense.
“Why me? I mean, why stop here at Larkspur?” he asked the bothersome woman. “Surely there are better places.”
“My sister Tyra is your cousin.”
He frowned. “I have no cousin named Tyra.” Leastways, he did not think he did, but then he was still wooly witted from sleep.
“Her husband, Adam of Hawkshire, is your cousin by marriage…um, slightly removed,” the flame-haired witch explained.
He knew Adam, or rather he had heard of him. A famed healer. But their connection by blood was far removed.
“Did you know there is a child still in nappies walking about nigh naked? He could be trampled by dogs the size of small ponies roaming about indoors.”
“Have a caution, wench. You have already passed the bounds of good sense. Any more, and you may taste the flavor of my wrath.”
She started to respond, then stopped herself.
“I told Emma to take care of Piers,” Caedmon said.
“Would that be the same Emma who spent the night spreading her thighs for the blond god?”
“She is referring to me,” Geoff preened. “The blond god.”
“And, by the by, why do all the females in this keep appear to have big bosoms?”
“Huh?”
Geoff and Wulf were laughing so hard they were bent over at their waists, holding their sides. When he was able to speak, Geoff said, “’Twould seem that Gerard has a preference for big breasts when choosing maids for inside work.” He gave particular emphasis to “inside work.”
“Gerard? Bloody hell! He is old enough to…never mind.”
“Not yet in his dotage, if he can still appreciate a buxom bosom,” Wulf observed.
Breanne waved a hand airily. “You are not to worry. My sisters and I will set your keep aright whilst we are here.”
Alarm rippled through Caedmon’s body. “How long do you intend to stay?” he asked bluntly.
Another blush. “I am not certain. But you are not to worry.”
“I was not reassured the first time you said that.”
“You will hardly notice we are here.”
“I doubt that heartily.”
She went stiff as a pike, apparently not liking it when the sarcasm came from his direction, but she pressed her lips together. Very nice lips, he noticed, if he were attracted to tall, skinny, red-haired women with barbed tongues, which he was not. At least she was making an effort to be polite now.
Something very strange was going on, but he had more urgent matters to ta
ke care of. He’d drunk a tun of ale yestereve and now he needed to piss. Badly.
“Go down to the great hall and wait for me. We will discuss this later.”
The shrew lifted her chin defiantly and said, “I am not leaving until you get your lazy self out of bed. If no one else cares about those children…” On and on she blathered in her shrill voice.
Really, this woman’s tongue flaps like a loose shingle. I could rebuke her in a way she would not soon forget. Hell, I could kick her cheeky arse out the door, if I choose. But, wait. I know another way. “You say me nay? Be careful, you may find I am more than you wagered for.”
“Do you threaten me, troll?”
“So be it,” he said, tossing the sheet aside and standing. How do you like that trollsome part?
Immediately her eyes fixed on a part of his naked body, which was displaying a powerful morning thickening, standing out like a flagpole. “You, you, you…” she sputtered, but could not seem to raise her eyes, which he noticed, irrelevantly, were a beautiful shade of green, like summer grass on the moors.
“Do not be offended, m’lady.” He pointed at his nether part. “This is not for you. Your virtue is not forfeit…from this quarter. ’Tis just that I must needs visit the garderobe.”
“What an insufferable, crude, arrogant, loathsome lout!” she exclaimed as she sailed through the doorway, where the crowd had magically parted like the Red Sea of Biblical lore.
“Damn, but it is good to be home, is it not, Caedmon?” Geoff inquired sweetly, then ducked just in time to miss the pillow he sent his way.
A short time later, Caedmon realized he had one more thing to add to his list of things to do today: Get rid of princesses.
He dangled some precious jewels before her…
Breanne had seen naked men before. Of course she had. But there was a big difference here. Very big!
Being the daughter of a Viking king in a stronghold of two hundred randy warriors meant there had been occasions when she and her sisters had gotten a quick, unintentional view of men’s “assets.” Well, mayhap intentional betimes, when they had been younger and more half-brained curious. Coming from the bathhouse. Tupping a maid in a dark corridor. As they dressed in battle gear.
None of those happenstances had prepared her for the sight of Caedmon in all his naked glory. Blessed Odin, the man was…endowed. All over. And arrogant as they came. Even worse, he had made mock of her by deliberately exposing his manpart to her.
“What is it about lackwit men that they think we women yearn to see their dangly bits?” she complained to Vana once she entered the great hall where her sister already had men raking the filthy rushes and women scrubbing down the trestle tables, all of them muttering under their breaths.
“What now?” Vana asked. “Did you get permission from the Larkspur lord for us to stay?”
Breanne cringed with guilt that once again she had allowed her temper to rule her good sense. Seeing the bruises still evident on Vana’s eye and neck, her first priority should have been gaining an invitation for an extended visit. “Uh, I ne’er got a chance.”
Vana put her free hand on her hip, the other arm still in a sling.
“Sweet Valkyries, Vana! He was naked.”
Vana just arched her eyebrows.
“I saw his phallus.”
“Was it big?”
Breanne laughed. Oh, how good it was to see Vana regaining her sense of humor! “Yea, it was big. If women had such ridiculous dangly parts, they would do their best to hide them, not wave them hither and yon.”
“He waved his dangly part at you?”
“Well, it was dangly, and it moved.”
“Beware, m’lady,” Rashid spoke up from his seat on a nearby bench where he was showing some of the children a magic trick involving walnut shells and a piece of silver. “Lust rides a fast camel.”
“I thought that was death.”
“Lust and death both. Allah be praised!”
“Believe me, the man had no lustsome inclinations toward me.”
“Do not fool yourself, m’lady. Lust wears a mask that beguiles the best of maidens.”
“I have no idea what you mean half the time, Rashid. But know this, I am not going to be beguiled by any man, let alone the lout from lustsome hell.”
“The maids tell me that Caedmon is a good man and a fair master,” Vana said to her in gentle criticism.
“Would that be the maids with the big bosoms…or the maids with the big bosoms?”
Rashid laughed. “You know what they say about big-breasted women?”
“If it has anything to do with camels, I do not want to know,” Breanne snapped.
Rashid shrugged as if he had won some argument.
Amused by their exchange, Vana grinned, then winced as the scab on her bottom lip cracked open again. If Vana’s earl husband was not already dead, Breanne would have killed him with her own hands, she swore she would.
’Twas odd, the life paths the Norns of Fate ordained. From a young age, Vana had been betrothed to Rafn, the leader of their father’s troops. They had loved each other dearly and planned to wed after his return from a battle campaign in the Franklands. Alas, Rafn had never returned, and in her grief, Vana had succumbed to the overtures of the then charming earl of Havenshire. Big mistake!
“What can I do to help?” Breanne asked her sister.
“Ingrith and I can handle things inside, but mayhap you could do something about the chickens and pigs running loose outside. Drifa is having a hard time getting them out of the gardens. I even had to shoo several mean roosters out of the downstairs solar.”
Breanne nodded.
“The wise ones say: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. What you need to do, Breanne,” Rashid advised, “is make friends with Lord Larkspur, so that those out to avenge Lord Havenshire’s death will have Sir Caedmon’s shield to contend with.”
Breanne groaned. “Why not ask me to harness the moon?”
“The whisper of a pretty girl can be louder than the roar of a lion.”
If she heard no more Arab proverbs for the rest of her life, it would be too soon for Breanne.
Keeping a keep clean…
Caedmon had returned from the bathhouse a short time ago and donned the first clean garments he had worn in what seemed like a year. For a certainty, he had dumped the smelly, beyond-redemption tunic and braies into the cesspit. Despite his aching alehead, he was standing in front of a brass mirror in his bedchamber, removing two sennights of bristles from his face.
Ever since he had fostered a winter and two summers in the filthy keep of a Welsh warlord and experienced the hoards of lice that burrowed into the hairs on every part of a man’s body, even the nostrils, Caedmon preferred to be clean shaven. For that matter, he liked being clean all over as well, unlike many of his Saxon counterparts, and for that reason had put in the bathhouse on first arriving at Larkspur ten years past. His first wife, Elizabeth, had been grateful. His second wife, Agnes, not so grateful, somehow equating cleanliness with lustsomeness. Agnes hadn’t met a passion she didn’t loathe. That had included him.
He had come back from service to his king one time…a different king from Edgar…to find all the Larkspur beds infested with fleas. Agnes’s remedy had been to toss white sheets over the mattresses and when they were covered with black dots, shake the sheets outside. Hah! His remedy had been to burn all the mattresses, to her disgust. Aside from hating him, lust, and baths, Agnes had also hated waste. She would have preferred fleas.
In the two days since his return to Larkspur, Caedmon had done little other than drink and sleep. Now he was ready to put his home back in shape, a daunting job but one he was looking forward to. At least there were no infestations of fleas.
Who knew when the king would call on him again, and he would have to respond or lose his holdings, which he held precariously? At this stage, he was not powerful enough to offend his liege. Of course, a man could escape service by paying scutage,
but not him since he had no extra funds, due to his neglect of Larkspur caused by the same king. A circle of futility he hoped to escape by a long run of work-filled residence. Larkspur would prosper, he was determined.
He had raised the sharp blade to his soap-lathered face, when a pounding noise caused him to jerk and cut his chin.
Bang, bang, bang!
Cursing, he dabbed at the blood and resumed shaving.
Bang, bang, bang!
Another cut.
Stomping over to one of the arrow-slit windows, he tried to see down into the lower bailey, but the now continual pounding was out of his range of vision.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang…!
He quickly finished shaving and was out of his bedchamber and down the stairs within a minute, barely registering the activity in his great hall. But then he stopped, turned around, and dropped his jaw in disbelief.
A woman in a blue gown and long, open-sided white apron in the Viking style and an incongrous Saxon wimple and head rail was supervising a massive cleaning of his great hall. Servants he did not even recognize…and, yea, he noticed a number of the female ones were buxom…were busier than he had ever seen in the past. All due to orders being pelted out by the lady.
One of the princesses?
“Who are you?” he inquired bluntly.
“Vana…Vana Elsadottir. Daughter of King Thorvald of Stoneheim. Widow of Oswald, the earl of Havenshire.” Her blue eyes dropped down to the region of his manpart, then rose quickly. With a smile twitching at her lips, she said, “I presume you are Lord of Larkspur.”
Why would she ask that after looking at my crotch? Ah, the red-haired tongue flapper must have been here afore me. “Yea, I am Larkspur, but I am not a lord,” he said with more rudeness than warranted. “Did you say ‘widow’? I had not heard of Lord Havenshire’s death.”