by Claudia Dain
"Give him what he wants," Gautier said. "Without childish delay, meet his needs."
Gautier came to her and took her chin in his hand. Smiling softy down at her, he said, "Do this, Elsbeth, and you are more likely to get from him what you want. An even exchange. A well-ordered bargain."
A bargain, aye, and with her body as the tool to achieve her ends. It did not sit well with her. Then again, nothing her father said was likely to sit well with her.
"Think on it," he said, dropping a kiss upon her brow before he left the chamber.
Think on it. Aye, she would.
What would Ardeth have to say about such bargaining?
Chapter 14
"Denise, I do not need any aid," Elsbeth said as she gathered food from the kitchens.
"Lord Hugh told me that you did, or would, or might, and so I am here," Denise said. "I am to stay with you."
Elsbeth reached down a hand and brushed it over the girl's shining hair. Well, there were worse things than the company of a small and very earnest companion. Her own fostering had been slipshod. Isabel of Dornei had a kind heart, but a wayward will, and her instruction had been... inconsistent. She would not wish such on Denise; her success as a lady of a great holding would depend upon her skills. It did not matter so much for Elsbeth, as Ardeth had taught her early and taught her well all that a lady of this world must know to thrive. She had learned well, listened well.
She knew how to pray and how to sew, how to manage a house and how to discipline a servant, how to submit and how to survive. She was very adept at submission. All who knew her said as much and more. Even Hugh would come to say the same, and from there, it was a small step to gaining his permission to enter the convent. A small step, but so perilous. It looked less likely by the hour that he would disavow her, but would he let her run to Sunnandune without a husband at her side? He seemed to want her most desperately.
Nay, she was being foolish. Hugh was a charming, carefree man, given to smiles when other men were given to anger. He would release her. He needed only to understand that she would make an unfit wife. And he would see that. She would make him see that.
She would make him see that before her blood deserted her. That was very important. She must not and would not be breached, no matter what her father counseled. Or perhaps because he counseled it. To have him encourage her to open her legs to Hugh made her clench them together all the tighter. She did not want to give him what he wanted, though his arguments had been all of her and how she could best achieve her goals. No matter. There had to be a way of achieving her ends without the opening of her thighs and the breaching of her maidenhead.
There had to be.
"Where are we going?" Denise asked, picking at a crumb on the table and popping it into her mouth.
Elsbeth corralled her thoughts and pinned them on the duty at hand. "We are going to the village to see who might need an extra crust or a wedge of cheese. Perhaps there is a child who sits untended at the edge of a toft or by a cold hearth who would be thankful for a small bite."
"Shall I hold the basket with you?'
"Nay, you carry the sack of apples; I shall carry the basket."
"But the cook will not like that his apples are gone missing."
"You speak from experience, to judge by the whiteness of your cheek," Elsbeth said with a smile. "Fear not. These apples are very small. I am certain John will not miss them."
"Well, if you are sure," Denise said, looking around for the cook, who was not to be seen at the moment. "Perhaps we should hurry."
"Denise," Elsbeth said, lifting her chin with a hand. "I am the daughter of Warkham, the lady here until my father weds again. I can take what I will from all of Warkham's bounty. None shall gainsay me. This is a lesson to be learned."
"This is a good lesson," Denise said, her eyes glowing with possibilities. "I will remember this lesson."
Elsbeth laughed. "Just be sure you remember that your duty is to see to all of your holding, and not to see to yourself."
"Lady," John said, coming into his kitchens. "Can I serve you?"
"Nay, John, we have served ourselves, taking what can be spared for the villeins of Warkham," Elsbeth said.
"Take what you will and more, lady. 'Tis good service you do. And 'tis well to take the child with you. You make a likely pair, full of goodwill and good heart. Take this pie with you. The crust is scorched on the rim. I would not serve it at Warkham's table, but it may serve down below."
Denise's eyes were as big as cats' as she watched John hand over more provender from Warkham's stores. Elsbeth only smiled and took the pie. She had seen far worse arrive on Warkham's table, but she held her tongue as to that.
"Many thanks, John. This will be well received."
They left the heat and smoke of the kitchen and went into the breezy chill of the bailey. Hugh was not to be seen. She was relieved. And puzzled. Where was he?
"But," Denise asked, the apples bumping against her leg, "can I never see to myself?"
"Hmm?" Elsbeth said, her eyes scanning the curtain walk, looking for a blond head tousled by the autumn wind. She only wanted to find him so that she could avoid him, that was her reasoning. Her father's words she had banished from her memory. It was her mother's counsel on the affairs between women and men that she would heed, and using her body as a tool was no part of Ardeth's counsel to her daughter.
"Does a lady never get anything for herself?" Denise asked.
"A lady takes care of all around her—her husband and lord, her children, her land, her home, her people. It is then that God smiles upon her. And when God smiles, life is rich indeed."
"How can you tell when God is smiling?"
They passed the tower gate and walked down the hill to the single street that made up the village of Warkham. Pigs scattered at their coming, snuffling in the dirt of the street.
"How can you tell when you are smiling?" Elsbeth asked, looking down at Denise and pulling her close. A certain pig, one with a mottled snout, looked quite fierce, eyeing them boldly.
"How can I tell?" Denise said, looking up at her. "I can just... feel it."
"And how does it feel?"
"It feels good."
"And so it feels when God smiles upon you," Elsbeth said, smiling. "It feels good. You feel good."
"Hmm," Denise said, pondering.
"Hmm," Elsbeth echoed, grinning at the girl.
A boy of about Denise's size came running into the street with a long stick, herding the pigs down the road, away from them. The angry pig with the mottled snout resisted the boy. The boy ignored his resistance and thwacked the pig on the rump with the heavy end of his stick. The pig grunted and ran into the throng of his brethren, his resistance done.
"Sorry, my lady," he said. "You here special? Looking for someone?"
"Nay, only to give what aid I can with a few small apples and loaves."
"And cheese," Denise added, looking him over.
He was missing two front teeth—his milk teeth to judge by his age—and had rough-cut hair the color of wet slate. He was perhaps a year or two older than Denise.
"Are those your pigs?" Denise asked.
"Four of them," he said with some pride. It was not every family who could boast the ownership of fine, healthy pigs. "We'll be killing two of them soon, in the blood month."
The blood month. November. When fodder was scarce, animals were killed, feeding those who could not afford to feed them. It was the same everywhere, even in the halls of the richest barons. None could sustain themselves without the killing that defined the blood month.
It was the smell that Elsbeth disliked. It tainted the very air with the metallic stain of blood.
"Will you miss them?" Denise asked.
"Miss them? Pigs?" he said and laughed.
“They will likely not miss you, either!" Denise shouted at the boy's retreating back.
Elsbeth looked down at Denise. Denise looked down at the dirt.
"You have
a quick tongue, and a quicker temper. It will do you none but ill in this life," Elsbeth said.
"He did not have to laugh at me. I was only trying to be kind," Denise said.
"And succeeded very well," Elsbeth said, turning Denise to face her. "It was kind of you to ask about his pigs."
"Then why did he laugh?"
"Think, Denise. The best of his family's riches are in those pigs, yet he would starve, as would the pig, if it were not killed in the blood month. Would you have him give his heart to something he cannot keep? Would you have him admit it if he struggles against ropes of tenderness for a mere pig? He had to laugh. You asked him a question he could not answer, not even in the quiet of his own mind."
"Oh."
"Come, let us find some soul who has need of what we bring. That will cheer you."
"Is that another lesson?" Denise asked, kicking a pebble.
Elsbeth laughed in spite of herself. "You are learning me too well. Yea, it is another lesson. Never forget that—"
"That helping others is the greatest reward and that God will bless us for the act."
"That is so. I see someone else has taught you this. Or tried to."
"I learned it," Denise said. "I do not yet know if I believe it."
"Then let your belief follow on the heels of the act. Faith is sometimes built upon just such a foundation."
Denise held her tongue and kept kicking the pebble. Elsbeth was content with the silence.
Where was Hugh?
Her eyes scanned the fields, hardly empty even though the harvest season was past. All who had legs to stand were in the fields, repairing fences, keeping watch on the oxen left to graze in the gleaned fields and meadows, the women about their laundry or their brewing, the smell of barley and hops strong in the wet, cold air. All required fruitful work upon the earth to feel merit; 'twas how God had designed a man.
Even men of age, bent and gaunt, still looked for work among their own, and found it more often than not. A village was a busy place, busy about the business of farming and grazing, growing and tending. How quiet and soft a village must be without the lord in attendance. Did they wait and wonder when the lord of Warkham would leave for other holdings?
She would have.
She and Denise waved to the villeins as they worked in their tofts and crofts, and handed small crusts and tiny wedges of cheese to the children who crawled in the dirt of their virgates.
"'Tis a fair and generous act, lady," said a weather-beaten man, the miller by his look.
"'Tis very little I do," she said, sliding away from his praise. "It looks about to rain," she said, glancing up at the sky.
“There has been much rain and much sorrow this year, lady. My prayers are with you on the untimely death of Lady Emma and her child," he said.
"You are kind," Elsbeth said. "Yet is it not my father who needs your prayers? He has lost much in a single hour." Mayhap with prayer, he would remember it. He seemed to go about his life with nary a scowl to mark his wife's absence.
"Aye," the man said. "I can say that all in Warkham pray for him with a will."
Something in the way he spoke, some gleam in his eye, prompted her to ask, "Have we met before? I seem to remember you. Or perhaps it is you who remembers me?"
"I know you, Lady Elsbeth," he said. "I remember you from when you were no bigger than this one," he said, gesturing toward Denise.
"And your name?" Elsbeth asked.
"Walter, my lady. Walter Miller. Do you truly not remember me?" he asked, looking hard at her.
"Nay, I do not think I do," Elsbeth said. "Yet have I not seen you recently?"
"I am courting Marie, who was with you when Lady Emma and her babe died."
"She did good service. How are you progressing in your suit?" Elsbeth asked with a smile.
Walter shrugged. "Marie could answer you better. She is a widow once already. I am a widower three times. 'Tis hard to lose the woman of your hearth again and again. Yet I like the married life. And I am prosperous. I have a good name built here."
"My father's name is Walter," Denise said.
"A fine name for any man," the miller replied easily. "And it does look to rain," he added, looking up at the treeline as he changed the subject. "A wet autumn it has been. The crops not what they should have been, much of the grain ruined before I could grind it. And still more rain."
"And Lord Hugh's boots will ruin," Denise said.
Elsbeth cast her a glance and then nodded her farewell to the villein, guiding Denise with a hand upon her shoulder. If Walter watched them walk away for longer than she liked, she ignored the tingle of warning that his gaze aroused in her. It could mean nothing, after all.
"That was ill-spoke," Elsbeth said, turning her thoughts again to Denise.
"Why? The rain will ruin his boots. Hugh cares very much for his boots."
"He will care even more when his stomach growls for food that cannot be found. The crops are worth more, to more people, than the shine of Lord Hugh's boots. To compare them to—"
"But Lord Hugh loves his boots!"
"Denise," she said, bending down to her and taking her by the hands, "there is more to the world than what makes Lord Hugh happy."
"But he is your husband."
"And still I say it."
"Should you not be making him happy? Is that not what the Holy Scriptures say is your divine duty?"
Elsbeth straightened and turned again to the hill of Warkham tower. "God says I am to submit to my husband. That I do. No mention is made of his happiness."
"Then God does not care if we are happy?"
Elsbeth sighed in frustration. "Of course He cares. It is only that... He is more concerned with our righteousness than our happiness."
"I would rather be happy."
"We are to want what God wants for us, either happiness or righteousness. He is Lord of all, even to the very desires of our hearts."
"It is the desire of my heart to be happy."
"And if He desires something different for you?"
"I still want to be happy."
"Against God's will? That is blasphemy, Denise. You surely see that. We cannot reach for what is outside of God's will. His will is most perfect. No whim of man can hope to match His limitless sight and His everlasting love."
"If He loves me, He should want me to be happy. I do not see how that can be against God's will," Denise said.
"His ways are above your ways, His thoughts flying high above ours."
"Then it should be easy for Him to give me what makes me happy," Denise said.
Elsbeth had not known it was possible for a small child to be so obstinate; she herself certainly had never been so contrary.
"And what would make you happy?" Elsbeth said, hoping to shift the conversation.
Denise did not even have to pause. "I would like it to stay dry, so that Lord Hugh's boots are not ruined."
Elsbeth should not have been surprised; Denise's thoughts seemed to fly no higher than the height of Hugh's head.
"I think there is no sin in that prayer. Pray for dry weather," Elsbeth said. "It will help the villeins as well. That, surely, is a more selfless prayer and one for the greater good."
"I do not think it fair of God to value what a villein wants over what Lord Hugh wants," Denise said as they crossed beneath the tower gate. "I like Lord Hugh."
Elsbeth was suddenly exhausted. Emma's decision to sequester Denise in the solar became more understandable by the hour.
"He likes you," Elsbeth said, deciding to let Father Godfrey manage the bulk of Denise's spiritual instruction.
"Do you think so?" Denise asked, her blue eyes shining.
"Yea, I think so. I know so."
Denise grinned her victory and her joy. It was a warning to Elsbeth. She was in danger of just such a fall, just such a look. And it could not be. No man was worth it. Not even a man from Jerusalem.
"How are your lessons proceeding with Father Godfrey?" Elsbeth asked, pus
hing Hugh from her thoughts.
Denise shrugged and made a face.
"How?" Elsbeth asked again.
"I proceed," Denise said. "He talks. I listen. He talks again."
"A most thorough summation," Elsbeth said wryly.
"I do not like to be out in the dark," Denise said. "Must I go after Compline? There is no one about, and it is so cold... and dark."
Elsbeth looked down at her and wrapped a comforting arm about her shoulders. "I think after Compline is most convenient for Father Godfrey. Would you like an escort to your lessons?"
"Do you think Hugh would come with me?" Denise said, her face alight.
Elsbeth smiled reluctantly. "Would I not do?"
"Well, it is very dark. And you are not very big."
Elsbeth gave her a quick hug full of quiet laughter. "I am not very big, but I shall tell you a secret."
"Really?" Denise said avidly.
"Really," Elsbeth answered, bending down to whisper in the girl's ear. "Lord Hugh is afraid of the dark."
"He is not!"
"He is!" Elsbeth said in quick answer.
"But, he is so... big."
"Aye, I know it. Perhaps it is darker up where his head is. Did you think of that?"
"Nay, I did not," Denise said, wide-eyed. "Well, I would be glad of the company. Thank you, Elsbeth. You will not leave me alone with him, will you?"
"Alone with him? With Father Godfrey?"
"Aye. I would like it if you could stay," she said softly.
Elsbeth looked down at Denise's shining hair and delicate form and said the last thing she had expected to say. "Then I will stay."
"Thank you," Denise said quietly.
Elsbeth's eyes lifted from the girl at her side to scan the bailey, looking for her husband. She saw him leaving the dark archway of the armory, a sunbeam just lighting his hair to glimmering gold. Like a torch in the night he was—a glow of warmth and welcome in a cold, dark world. At his heels came Raymond, a smaller glow of light and beauty. They seemed so united, the two of them, these strangers from Outremer in the mists of the distant North. How alone they must feel in soggy England. How close they must be drawing to each other, the warmth of the familiar tightening the cord that bound them, one to another.