Taking another wooden bowl from a shelf over the low door, Joan ladled a fresh bowl of pottage for her father.
“Eat.” She placed the spoon directly into his hand this time and stroked his gray head. “And the Bishop agrees with you. He has grown impatient with Lady Mathilda. ‘Tis why he’s holding these festivities. He has gathered England’s finest and at the end of the week, Lady Mathilda must choose her husband or the bishop swears he’ll choose for her.”
Nat looked up at Joan. “Festivities, you say? We’ll be busy, then?”
There had been orders on a daily basis from the bishop about hunting. How could her father be so vague? “Aye. Very busy. Now eat before your supper gets cold.”
He nodded and bent over his bowl.
She would not tell him about the boar. He would want to know why she’d had the dogs out in the forest without him. She had not the energy to talk around the truth.
She plucked up one of Nat’s tunics and began to stitch a small rent. Then she saw the dried blood on her skirt. He’d not noticed it. She rose and hurried into the chamber where she slept. It had a wide window facing the kennels. She pulled the shutters closed and took off her soiled clothes. The air was cold as she stood in her linen shift and looked over the gowns hanging on a row of pegs. She ignored those cast off by Lady Mathilda. They were far too fine for wandering in the woods with a pack of dogs.
Instead, she pulled down a worn gown of deep russet wool with an overgown to match. Hastily, ere Nat remarked on her absence, she dressed. She plaited her hair, tied it with a thin leather thong, then gathered up her bloodstained gown into a bundle, which she set by the door. Edwina, the woman who commanded the wash house, would see to it.
Joan sat by the hearth fire to finish her mending as Nat nodded over his meal, but she could barely see to set her stitches straight.
How could Nat forget Brian de Harcourt? He had figured largely in their lives once. There was so much that Nat forgot these days. Then she chastised herself. Nat was always more forgetful of an evening. He would be fine in the morning sunshine.
Something warm dropped on the back of her hand. A tear. Others spilled down her cheeks. Angry with herself for such weakness, she dashed them away. Then, unable to stem their flow, she rose and escaped the cottage.
The kennel was warm and scented with the dogs and freshly cut wood. She told the lads to have a wander around the village if they’d like. When they scurried away to a few moments of unexpected leisure, she leaned on one of the dividing walls that separated the alaunts from the mastiffs, the greyhounds from the running hounds.
It was the running hounds she’d taken to the forest that day. Unlike the greyhounds and the more reckless alaunts, running hounds were not bred to pull down prey. So Adam Quintin had been blessed that they’d done so. They were bred, instead, to run all day long in pursuit of the quarry and lead the hunter to the kill.
She sank to her knees, gathered a favorite hound in and buried her face in his silky coat.
A dog and a bitch will always end up in the grass together, Lord Roger had said. How could she endure such a man’s contempt? How could she escape his notice? She must accompany her father when the hounds were brought out, and surely Lord Roger would be at every hunt.
She allowed herself only a few moments more of self-pity; then she stood and shook out her skirts. Glancing outside the kennel to be sure no lads lingered nearby, she climbed a ladder to the second floor.
The upper story was quiet and dim, the torches on the lower level not lighting the space well. In summer, the lads might sleep up here away from the heat of the hounds, but now, with the crisp autumnal weather, no pallets lay about. The floor was swept clean of straw. At one end stood several locked coffers that held the more valuable collars and leashes. The mundane ones hung on hooks below.
She unlocked one chest and withdrew a small store of hard nuggets. She had baked them herself from honey and crusty bread. Meat and blood were only given to the hounds at the kill.
As she climbed down the ladder, the hounds rose and as one, wagged their tails. They knew what came next.
“You’re anxious for our lessons, aren’t you?” she whispered to the pack. “Well, if you attend, you shall have your reward. And we have little time before the lads return.”
With that, she moved from stall to stall, teaching the hounds desperate lessons needed to survive her father’s descent into some world she could not visit. Lessons that commanded the dogs by silent hand signals. Hand signals they would obey no matter what confused order her father uttered. Silent and subtle signals lest Bishop Gravant notice it was she who commanded them, not her father.
Chapter Three
Adam jammed another thick candle onto an iron spike. His squire, Douglas, grunted and fumed behind him. It was difficult to conceal a grin as Douglas insulted first the slotted wooden bed frame, then the bedding.
“Ye cultivate a hard air, ye do, but I know ye sleep on a soft mattress. Feathers indeed! Linen and furs!” He sniffed. “Why ye cannot sleep on a straw pallet like the rest ‘o us, I’ll never know.”
“You claim contempt for all trappings of wealth when you’re at the alehouse, but I’ve caught you napping on the very mattress and furs you so soundly curse, so you don’t fool me.”
Douglas sniffed again and tossed a fur across the bed.
Adam gave the man a clap on the back, then a nudge toward the tent’s flap. “See to Sinner and then hie yourself to the alehouse. I want to know what brews.”
Douglas touched his forelock and bobbed his head. “Oh, aye. We’ll see what brews. Ha. Ha. Good one, sir.”
No sooner had Adam tugged off his boots and fallen with a groan on his soft mattress than Hugh came through from the front section of the pavilion to the back sleeping space. He sat on one of the two folding stools near a trestle table on which a page would soon lay out the evening repast.
“So, you persist in this nonsense?” Hugh swept out his hand to indicate the luxurious pavilion. “Why not share my chamber?”
“It is not nonsense. You may sleep in the keep, but I will not. Not until I can assume my rightful place.”
“And if you don’t win Lady Mathilda?”
“Then I will never sleep there.” He grinned at his friend. “But I do not intend to lose.”
It pained him he could not tell Hugh the true reason he was at Ravenswood. He would miss his friend’s council. Adam shifted his backside on the mattress. “I feel as if I’ve been beaten with a stick.”
Hugh dragged his stool close to the camp bed and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Have you no fear someone will recognize you?”
“Mayhap someone will find me somewhat familiar. But I visited Ravenswood only three times between my ninth birthday and my fifteenth. Twice at Christmas and once to see my mother buried. Who will remember a child from so long ago? I’m a man rising three decades. I’ve nothing in common with that boy.”
Hugh grunted. “Marriage is no way to get Ravenswood back. You have to take the lady with it.” He shuddered.
The tent flap opened and Adam’s page entered with a tray of stewed lampreys.
Adam swung his feet off the bed with an oath, then shuffled over to the table. “Thank God it’s not boar.”
He patted the page on the shoulder. “See to my sword. It may have sustained some damage today.” The boy bobbed his head with every order.
When he was gone, Adam settled at the table and sliced the lampreys. “Would you like some of this?” he asked his friend, but Hugh refused with a grimace.
Adam shrugged. Eels were his favorite dish, but after one taste he said, “The cook will not recognize me. Whoever made this was not here in my mother’s time. She’d have sent him to feed the dogs, after she threw the dish in his face.” With a shake of his head, he poked an eel with the point of his dagger. “Tasteless. In need of some spice or other.”
Hugh cleared his throat. “Adrian.”
Adam lifted a staying hand. “D
o not start. And do not slip and call me Adrian again. You do not appreciate what troubles you could cause me. I’ve not the power to test a king’s banishment—or not yet.”
“As you wish, Adam. But I think you’re foolish to persist in this endeavor.”
“We had this discussion in Winchester. I cannot acknowledge that I am Adrian de Marle. King John might be dead, but my father isn’t cleared of his crimes. He’s still banished, and I’m still a banished lord’s son. Had we not been fostered together at de Warre’s castle, you’d not even know I was…who I am.”
He covered his emotion by attacking the eels.
Hugh touched Adam’s arm. “I recognized you. Others might.”
“Not by my face.” Adam pulled away. “If I’d not whistled, you’d never have recognized me either.”
“Aye. You’ve changed, I’ll grant you that. You’re a hand taller than you were at ten and five. You’ve a beard, you’ve that interesting scar through your eyebrow, but still, you have your father’s mien. ‘Tis that which might give you away.”
Adam shrugged.
“If you shaved, you’d have better luck with the lady. As it is, you look like a tuppence-a-day mercenary.”
Mayhap it was fatigue that made Adam turn from the table and stab the air with his dagger. “I am a mercenary.”
“You cannot change what you are. You were born a baron’s son and banished or not, you remain one.”
“No longer. Forget who I once was. I am Adam Quintin now and no one else. Adam because I have no history. I can claim nothing. I am no one.” He thrust the dagger into the table.
Hugh shook his head. “You may still be recognized. You risk hanging for entering England under banishment.”
“I’ve been here more than ten years. You’re the only person who’s recognized me in all that time.”
“But I’ll wager you’ve not been in company with so many of England’s high born in one place at one time.”
Adam withdrew his dagger from the table. “Bishop Gravant will not know me. He was fawning over the pope when my father was banished.”
“It is said he will choose for Lady Mathilda if the week ends and she’s not made her own choice.”
“The lady will choose me,” Adam said. “I was to have been the fifth lord of Ravenswood and nothing will stop me. Did you know my grandfather gained this manor through his prowess as a warrior with William the Conqueror?”
“Ah, then if there are any Saxon folk here, they would dispute your claim.”
Hugh grinned, but Adam could not join in his amusement. “My grandfather wed the Saxon lord’s daughter. That should satisfy those who want a lineage from before William’s time. I grew up on stories of this place and my right to rule it.”
Hugh shook his head. “You’re setting yourself up for pain. You’re placing your future in the hands of a feckless female and the power of your face to lure her to your bed.”
Nay, he was placing his future in his ability to ferret out a traitor.
Adam rose, ignoring the pain in his spine. “You, who can have anything, do not know what it is to lose everything. You only grant me your time because you know who I am. If not for our mutual suffering under de Warre’s tutelage, you’d not sit within ten feet of me at this table. A mercenary? A man with no lineage? A man with nothing but what he’s seized with his own two hands?”
“That’s not true.” Hugh shot to his feet. “Do you think so little of me? Am I not here to cheer you and your men in the tournament when I could be currying favor with William Marshal?”
Adam instantly regretted his harsh words. He lifted his hands palms up in peace. “That was ill considered. I must have jarred my head when I fell off Sinner.” He extended his hand to his friend.
Hugh stared at it a moment, then took it. “You’re a right knave when you want to be. If you’d not saved me from de Warre’s fist a dozen times, I’d toss you like Sinner did—over my head and into that dish of eels.”
Adam stabbed a lamprey and wiggled it in Hugh’s face, splattering him with the wine sauce. “I saved you a thousand times. And what of de Warre’s fat daughter? Did I not protect you when she tried to get under your tunic? Now, sit.”
The two men sat, but not in their usual comfortable silence. It pained Adam to be at odds with his friend, the only man before whom he usually need have no pretense. He wished he could tell Hugh he was here to pull the mask from a traitor, not court a fine lady.
He could have Ravenswood, but only as a temporary owner through the rights of marriage to the lady. If no son was born of a union with Mathilda before he died, the manor would go to one of her relatives, not his.
Instead, he would have Ravenswood through a worthy deed for King Henry, granted to him and his heirs for all time as it should have been. And his first act as lord would be to send Lady Mathilda away to a convent somewhere.
But sometimes, when he lay on his bed at night and tried to sleep, he doubted his ability to find William Marshal’s traitor. So far, and he’d joined up with most of the suitors in Winchester, they seemed to be only what they were—men who wanted to lay claim to a valuable manor through marriage. It did not make them traitors, it made them ambitious. His inadequacies as William’s arm taunted him.
“So what were you doing alone in the forest today?” Hugh asked.
Adam was grateful for the switch to a neutral subject. “I thought to visit a few childhood haunts. I’ve never encountered a boar so close to the castle.”
“Mayhap ‘twas enchanted. Mayhap Mathilda turned one of her cast-off lovers into the beast and he could but linger near for a glimpse of her.”
Adam laughed. “If she has such power, she could conjure up a mate without resort to a tournament and hunt.”
Hugh stood up. “If you win Lady Mathilda, and I have little doubt you’ll fail, you’re setting yourself up for misery. I’ve met her half a dozen times. She’s vain. Vain women think only of themselves and their own wants. She’ll take lovers. Or, if she does not, you’ll need to fight off those who aspire to be her lover.”
“I’m not afraid to fight.”
“You’d fare better with a woman like that huntress you met today.”
“Huntress?” Adam frowned. “When did you see her?”
“I saw her for a moment in the forest, running away, then I saw her again at the kennels.” Hugh pointed in the direction of the west wall of the castle. “She’s more your sort. Invite her here and end your monkish ways. She looks a tasty morsel, and it might soften your manner to the fair Mathilda.”
“I don’t think the huntress is a whore.” Adam had seen Joan at the kennels as well. He’d not thought of an easy mark as he’d watched her lead her dogs inside.
Nay, he’d thought of how the fair huntress, far from plain by any but a blind man’s standards, might appear in bright sunshine. Would her brown hair glitter along the golden strands that wove in profusion through its mass? Would her skin feel as soft as it looked? And what would her doe-dark eyes look like in sunshine? Or moonlight?
“I should have bedded that wench at Winchester,” he muttered. To Hugh he said, “The men may say what they wish about her, but the huntress saved my life. I owe her more than a tumble in the hay.” He picked up the boar’s tusk that Brian de Harcourt had sliced from the great beast and slid his hand along its length. “It was uncanny, Hugh. The boar had me. I was stone-cold dead. Then she and her dogs appeared. I owe her a debt I can never repay.”
* * * * *
Night cloaked the bailey in its protective embrace. Joan loved this time of day. Work was done and it was time for one’s own concerns. The soft light of torches gleamed in every arrow slit and at the open doors of Ravenswood’s hall. It had not been illuminated in such a grand manner since King John’s visit a few years before his death. What must it be like to be Lady Mathilda and look out over this sea of tents and know ‘twas all for her?
Two men, knights by their garb, hurried by on their way to the hall and swep
t her with admiring glances. One of these men would win the lady’s hand. Unbidden, Joan’s eyes went to the black pavilion close by the chapel.
A truly highborn man would not be sleeping in a tent in the bailey. He’d be given an honored place within Ravenswood’s keep. She knew from the preparations there that every spare chamber and space had been cleaned and readied, and pallets stuffed with straw and sweet herbs to receive some noble head.
Joan watched her feet and quickened her pace that she might not attract the attention of the many strangers about. She headed for the wash house and her good friend, Edwina.
Edwina was not to be seen. The moist heat from the many boiling pots made sweat break out on Joan’s brow.
“Where is Edwina?” she asked Del, the young man who kept the wood fires going. He was tall, strong, blond and good-natured.
“Come for some gossip, have ye?” he asked with a grin. “Folks have been in and out all day after ‘er. She knows everythin’ about everybody out there.” Del pointed with a length of wood to the many tents. “Edwina’s eyes are as sharp as ‘er nose. She’ll know what ye want about yon suitors.”
Joan’s cheeks heated. “I’ve just brought a gown that has blood on the skirt.”
Del took it, but his grin remained in place. “Aye, well, ever’one else just has somethin’ they need washed, too. If ye want her, she’s out there. Some squire, Douglas by name, methinks, had some bloody garments as needs cleaning. As if a body needs no sleep.” Del shook his head with disgust.
Joan thanked Del and turned away. The air in the bailey felt cold after the wash house, but her cheeks still burned. She headed toward home.
Joan and the mice had the dark perimeter of the castle wall to themselves save for the sentries who stood high overhead on the ramparts. The evening air was almost balmy.
She heard Edwina’s voice before she saw her. The tiny woman stood at the magnificent black pavilion, her hands on her hips. She was as round as she was tall. Her full cheeks were permanently red from her years bent over boiling pots. Her graying hair hid under her linen headcovering. Joan’s step slowed, and she peered from behind the low branches of an old chestnut tree.
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