Heaving a deep sigh, she sat again, deciding to wait until the Guard sent a rider out to fetch her. It would be diverting to gauge the reaction time. It would depend on who received the rider. If half a glass went by, it would be the village headman who would spend all the courier’s time in fruitless questions about the goings-on at Court. If Coletta, it would be sooner, but still a few minutes, as Coletta would take time to flirt with him. If John...
It was John. Already there was a Guardsman lighting out the Gate at a furious gallop. It had to be Louis on that horse, few Guardsmen were comfortable at that speed. And, noting the position of his knees tucked in hard, no other was comfortable without a saddle, not even John. Phoebe does have quite the eye for men, she mused as she waited. A gallant running dismount at the perimeter of her guard, as trained no doubt, tossing the reins to a Guardsman, and Louis was on one knee before her.
“m’Lady, a courier from the King.”
She nodded, extended a hand. With cat-like agility, he rose, smoothly pulling her to her feet very gently, but firmly. She repressed a very feminine sigh at what those hips must be able to do at night and, instead, allowed him to lead her to his horse. So he had noticed that she preferred bareback as well, on occasion. Why was she not surprised? Hoisting her bent knee, he lifted her on to the horse’s back, a feisty mare, this one. She recognized it as the one John had recently begun posting near the Gate. She wondered now if he had been expecting the Summons as well. Either way, Louis took the reins and, without further ado, quietly led her back down the hill and onto the road that led through the chateau’s fields.
Walking along, she noticed the field workers using her passing as the excuse to take a small break. Easing the ache in their backs, they jerked a quick bow to her. She was careful to nod to each in return. She had learned a lot about leadership from watching John handle the Guard. Give them respect and they performed wonders for you. On the other hand, by way of negative example, the Walrus had been so peremptory, even disparaging in his treatment of others that he had often spurned the smallest kitchen swab without intending to. The men were hearty. Their muscles dripped with sweat, their smocks smeared dark with circles under their arms, around their necks, and down the front and back. Their breeches ran short, stopping at the knee. Their women, if in the field, had their own smocks kirted up around the waist to work alongside their men. If the men were scything, their women were bundling. If the men were hoeing, the women were following along, straightening the furrow. If the men were weeding, as they were now, their women were gathering up the pulled weeds.
All their teeth shone in overly-bright, fixed, wide smiles to her, small lines of anxiety clearly visible around the eyes of those nearest the road. Mixed feelings of being tickled pink and wanting to sob with over-weaning love for her people struggled for dominance in her heart. Her face, however, she kept gravely respectful. The fixed smiles were the people showing their Lady that they had cleaned their teeth this morning. As she had ordered. No doubt, were she to...Oh! Yes, there was one now. A mother had grabbed her little one and, nodding to Lela, had turned the child around, lifting the little boy’s smock to show his clean arse.
The Battle of the Brushes, she had wound up calling it. She had heard a number of harvests ago that a new fashion had sprung up at Court. The ladies of Palais de la Citié had begun brushing their teeth with a fragrant paste. Apparently, the Queen had even gotten her son, the Dauphin, to try it out. The King had refused. Lela was intrigued enough to try it out. She was used to wiping her teeth with a cloth, then rinsing her mouth, anyway, and this sounded diverting on another largely boring day. While the paste was a closely guarded secret, the brush was not. Yet, the Walrus absolutely refused to send to Paris for one so, as Lela had learned to do, she turned to John. While he thought the whole idea ridiculous, he also found it amusing, so he arranged a trade for a bunch of best radishes from the kitchen (at the cost of the usual Parisian Kiss from Adalene) to a craftsman to make a brush small enough to fit into her mouth. As for the paste, she experimented with different recipes, completely freaking out the kitchen with her requests. She tried ground walnuts mixed with olive oil, sawdust mixed with salt, ground crab shells mixed with pepper and a myriad of other combinations. The final result turned out to be ashes, mixed with ground mixed nuts and corn oil. Then, rinsing with white wine. Red wine stained the teeth. Moreover, having learned all over again what a bother it was to ask Adalene to do something new in the kitchen, she ordered her ladies-in-waiting to create the paste for her.
In any case, after her ladies-in-waiting noticed how much cleaner and brighter her teeth were, they wanted to try it. Feeling guilty and not a little incensed when she learned what deal John had struck to get the first brush, she officially commissioned several from the craftsman and hid the cost in the ledger. She also hid the cost of the paste. Having her teeth feel so clean, day in and day out, made her speculate what other parts of the body could be better attended to. She was always careful to wash her backside thoroughly after her morning movement. The Walrus was not. Sometimes when she was doing her monthly duty, he positively stank of a night slops jar. Even John stank of merde, of shit, on occasion. But only rarely, which got her thinking about his own standards of bodily cleanliness.
Regardless, taking receipt of the tooth brushes for her ladies-in-waiting, Lela asked the craftsman for a brush with a handle long enough and, important, with softer bristles.
“How long a handle?” came the query.
She was stumped for a moment. She couldn’t demonstrate. She would become the laughing stock of the chateau. So, she excused herself from her day chamber, entered her night chamber and measured with a piece of cloth. She marked it and gave it to him.
It proved a success. Particularly among the ladies-in-waiting for Coletta came up with the suggestion off using lavender water each morning. It was easy to make and the chateau’s gardens had an endless supply when in bloom. And they could collect and dry blooms for the rest of the year that the flower was out of season. Their little experiment brought them all closer together. It was the first time since arriving that she felt that she had really enjoyed something of importance with them. She was still wary of them sharing her confidences. Coletta had even found one spying on her one night when she was taking a night excursion on the walls. Lela had firmly let the girl go. It had been so unhappy. Still, the brushes experiment had created a little more intimacy in her otherwise, all too formal and therefore very stilted life.
Thus, for years, she had gone on, daily cleaning her teeth each evening and her backside each morning. She felt better. She felt cleaner. She felt healthier. As did her ladies-in-waiting. However, she kept their revelations to themselves. She didn’t even bother writing her mother about them, for that meant using the Franciscan as her letter writer and she couldn’t afford the betrayal of gossip sure to follow.
Then, the sack came, the Walrus’ neck was slit and she all at once had unexpectedly found herself in charge of Chateau Brionde. At least for a while.
Remembering that one could only ask for so many changes at once, she went to John and got him to try the tooth brush and paste. It took a week of steady entreaties in the face of his steady refusal until – late one night hit with an inspiration – the next day, she formally summoned the Master to her day chamber and challenged him to a duel.
A duel? He had blinked.
Yes, she had responded, “You will give my tooth brush and paste experiment a fair trial for one week. If I win, you will cheerfully admit that your teeth feel nice being so clean. If I lose, I will never say another word on the matter.”
He had cocked his head at her for one long moment. In the distance, they could hear a wren singing its heart out.
Then he nodded.
She presented him with a tooth brush and a small jar of paste.
As it turned out, he didn’t need a week. Four days later, Coletta told her that the Guard had been ordered to clean their teeth each night and wondered
how long it would take the craftsman to make thirty six brushes. Lela had only smiled and smoothly ordered Coletta to find out. She also ordered Phoebe, an early convert to teeth cleaning, to add the paste to the kitchen’s tasks.
After a month, she sprang again, formally challenging John to another duel.
This time he was openly smiling, yet not without a trace of anxiety marking his eyes. She explained the backside brush and, to her amusement and consternation, he was already shaking his head when she had first mentioned the word “backside.” Apparently, word had gotten around after all.
However, he was stiffening. “No.”
This wasn’t good. She didn’t want to order him to scrub his backside.
They looked at each other for several heartbeats. She tried her most winning smile. His face only grew graver. The deeper lines were scoring his cheeks. Ah. She knew that look. It was the same look he had given her when she begged him to order the Guard to wear the new livery when visiting the royals. Security. Or the compromise thereof.
But, what in the Heavens could scrubbing one’s backside free of merde in the morning have to do with the chateau’s security? She was stumped.
Nonetheless, knowing her man, she simply asked him.
“There is no way the Guard can safeguard m’Lady’s person, nor Chateau Brionde, stinking of perfume.” A blunt reply.
Ah! So that was it.
“And if we use...” she paused, trying to think of a manly replacement for lavender that was in abundance near the chateau year-round...
“Rosemary, instead of lavender?”
He frowned.
She waited.
“Maybe,” was the gruff reply.
A few days later came the news that the Guard required thirty six backside brushes and jars of rosemary water for their morning ablutions. Then, the day following, the order for several more, as well as tooth brushes, as their ladies were now adopting the custom. Sensing victory, nevertheless, she forced herself to wait another two moons. Then, she smoothly started the process all over again with the village headman, however, this time going through his wife and (because she had heard the rumors from the night of the sack) his mistress, the brewer’s wife. Another two moons, then at her urging the village headman ordered all households to clean their teeth at night, their backsides in the morning.
It was not quite as smooth a transition as she had hoped. Here again, she learned a lesson in management from John. A burly field worker, Avent, refused to do either and bragged about it while working in the fields. Coletta who, now that the Walrus was gone, was rapidly developing new resources as a spy outside the chateau’s walls to match her sources within the walls, brought her the news.
She didn’t feel on good ground here. So, once again, she went to John. For some reason, a formal summons didn’t feel right, so she visited him that night, knocking gently on his door, then seeing him in the doorway before she could frame the words she wished to say. Suppressing the desire to run her fingers over his bare chest, she forced herself to sit on the bench instead. Unsurprisingly, and gratifyingly, he knelt before her. Feeling like such a girl, she forced herself to focus and explained her problem.
After she was finished, he only nodded once saying, “You are m’Lady.” Then, kissing her palm gently, he stood, softly pulling her to her feet. “It shall be done.”
What shall be done? She wondered. But from the set look on his face, she decided to wait on events.
The next morning, early, she heard panicked screams from the top of the castle. She didn’t even have to rise from bed. Before Coletta brought the news, she knew that John had hanged Avent from the walls and that he would stay there until long after he agreed to follow m’Lady’s orders. To create the habit of obedience.
Regardless, on that morning, everyone – no matter the age, no matter how infirm – in Chateau Brionde had a clean backside. That evening, everyone had clean teeth.
After three days, John had set Avent free.
And whenever she went out from the chateau, taking her daily walks or her daily rides, she was sure to see those fixed smiles with lips stretched tight to show the clean – or somewhat clean – teeth and the occasional little one’s backside revealed to be sparkling. Well, almost so.
It was enough.
Entering the Gate, seeing the haughty arrogance stamped on the King’s Messenger’s face, she wondered vaguely how clean his arse was. Suppressing a smile, she nodded at him and waited for his address.
Which didn’t come.
She sighed.
John bristled and his hand wandered to the hilt of his rapier. The Messenger’s eyes widened in disdain and alarm. The village headman swallowed nervously.
Men! She sighed again and prepared to intervene only to be interrupted by...
“m’Lady, the King’s Messenger,” Louis said, and bowed low to the Messenger.
Who sniffed.
John growled.
“Welcome to Chateau Brionde, kind sir,” she said. “What news?”
The Messenger cast another look of contempt toward John, then clearing his throat, stated, “m’Lady you are summoned by the King.”
She darted a glance at John, her eyes narrowing at him, forcing him to freeze the hand on his rapier that was already being drawn. If any other in the kingdom had dared to address her so, without using her title “Countess of Brionde” he would have died in the next breath.
But not today.
“Of course,” she smoothly replied. “Forsooth, we expected such a summons long ago.”
Seeing Louis’ blink of confusion, she went on, “But you must be tired, dear sir. I hope you found the roads fine?”
“Tolerable.” He sniffed again.
She nodded to Coletta. Might as well. “See to this man’s needs.”
Coletta smiled a very bright beam and whispered to a Guardsman to take the horse. She herself waited for the Messenger to dismount, then took his hand and led him into the castle.
John watched him go, his hand back on the hilt of his rapier. To distract him, she stepped in front of the Master and looking straight up at him, arched an eyebrow. “A running dismount?”
He looked down at her.
“To fetch me?”
He slowly turned to Louis, who was already blushing. “As you have so much energy, let’s see a sprig of heather for Maryl.”
With barely a sigh, Louis handed the reins of the mare to a Guardsman, took off his boots and hose, stacking them neatly against the wall, then ran out the Gate. When younger, the Master had made his ward run barefoot to the top of Mons Fontaine to fetch heather sprigs for the woman who ran the tavern and had raised Louis as a boy. Wags gossiped you could track his trail back down the hill from the bloodstains. They also gabbed that the Master claimed his favors that night from Maryl each time it occurred.
The thought greatly irritated Lela. Now she regretted her action. Oh, well, she sighed. John’s methods may be harsh, but they did turn a whip thin stripling into a beefy youth within a matter of years. She had watched it happen.
In any case, Coletta was sure to pry as much useful information about Court as possible while attending to all of the Messenger’s needs. Which freed her to...what? Take a walk with John? What a laugh! In the Heavens maybe. But not on this world. She had given up drinking as a way of numbing her loneliness years ago. It was easy for she saw what it was doing to the Walrus. Instead, she resolved on a bit of hawking. Another pursuit renewed since the Walrus had departed. And who knew when she would be able to again. She called for a small mead and the gamekeeper, then set out for the top of the walls.
* 3 *
John cried a halt. His rapier was already in hand.
They were days on the road. The great market city of Rennes with all its teeming crowds, guilds, taverns and the like was a good four days march behind. Chateau Brionde stretched a good six days beyond that.
It had been a good trip thus far. She was eager to see the grand cathedral in Chartres. Whe
n John had explained that the city lay directly between Brionde and Paris, she had almost clapped aloud like a little girl. Her eyes certainly must have been sparkling, however, because John could not suppress a smile.
“It’s just a church.”
She chuffed at that. Loudly.
The inns had, so far, proven not intolerable. They certainly were easy to find, she had realized. Sited a convenient day’s march of twenty King’s Miles or so, there were a number to choose from in the villages along the road. Which made sense. Why put your inn anywhere but where you could easily found by travelers? The downside of all this, of course, was that all travelers moved at relatively the same speed. So, you found yourself seated next to the same group each night or every other few nights, hearing the same stories told, as if they had no others to tell. At such moments, she longed for Katya’s endless imagination, or at least her trove without bottom of interesting tales to tell. Thankfully, John spared her the worst excesses. Watchful of her as a hawk, if any traveler aroused her ire, he was right there, his hand ostentatiously on his hilt – she refused to let him draw further – making the pest fly away to another table.
The food was...well... She was used to Breton cooking now. Meat pies, meat pies, and more meat pies. She had finally gotten Nicole to master the art of a delicate bouillabaisse with its light notes of fennel and pastis flavoring the savory stew of clams, fish and lobster. Indeed, she had lately learned a whole new appreciation for how much more flavorful the Breton blue lobster was than those of her youth. Her first triumph at the chateau, years ago, had been to get Adalene to manage a passable tapenade, though Coletta swore that the kitchen mistress complained bitterly each time about how much chopping of olives and capers it took. When she heard that the kitchen mistress was starting to take her anger out on Twig, however, Lela had stopped asking for it. Instead, she had settled for the far easier daube, since Adalene was used to making beef stews for the Walrus anyway. It was just a little more flavorful, adding the old favorites that Katya had said were known everywhere as herbes de Provence – oregano, thyme, savory, marjoram, rosemary, even lavender – to Adalene’s standbys of pepper and the much revered salt. As soon as the Walrus had left the world, she had re-instituted the tapenade, insisting it be served with fresh loaves of bread.
Chateau of Longing Page 3