Desiree

by Roberta Gellis

  Desiree shook her head at Eadgyth and walked across the room to the looms. She stopped, glanced, stepped closer and stared. The woman behind the loom drew a sharp breath, seemed to really look at what hung on it, and began to bite her lips. Desiree turned her head to the other loom not far distant. Her breath hissed out between her teeth.

  It was immediately apparent to Desiree that she had neglected this duty far too long. She left the looms and went to where the finished cloth had been folded and stored, and then, after barely a glance, to the wound and tied hanks of yarn. The most cursory examination revealed cloth and yarn produced by the maids’ efforts totally lacking in both quantity and quality.

  Desiree, reasonably or not, was outraged. She felt betrayed by the women who had not supported her by doing their best while she was so troubled. Attended to every day, the examination of the women’s work did not take much time, but when Frewyn fell ill, Desiree had put aside everything in her anxiety over him.

  Now she said coldly, “Since you think this work is fine enough, then all of you will wear it. Maud, cut one gown and one shift for each of these lazy slovens—including yourself, since you did not see fit to correct them. You can sew the gowns and shifts tonight and begin to wear them tomorrow. If they are not ready, you will work naked until they are ready. And if you are asked by anyone why you are wearing near-new rags, you will explain that it is your own bad work you are wearing.”

  “But my lady—”

  “Gunilda be still!” Eadgyth had hurried to Desiree’s side and taken the measure of the flared nostrils and the white around the lips.

  “You cannot—” Gunilda continued unwisely.

  “There is nothing I cannot do,” Desiree snapped. “Will I have willing obedience or will I need to give you all over to the men-at-arms for real punishment?”

  A dead silence, the only sound Eadgyth’s indrawn breath. There was not one of the women who had not noticed and gossiped about the way the young castellan’s eyes followed their lady. There was no doubt in any woman’s mind that he would see carried out any order Lady Desiree gave up to flaying alive and death.

  Desiree then began to pick over the finished cloth, the very worst she threw in a heap on the floor. Slightly better pieces she piled more neatly to be sewn into garments for the dog boys and pig herders. The good cloth, woven while she was still making sure the work was well done, she took away to her own chamber.

  There was a fine piece of dark red woolen she had ordered and watched over with extra care for a gown for Frewyn. Tears prickled in her eyes. He would never wear it now, and it was the worst color in the world for Alex.

  New colors… The tears for Frewyn receded; Desiree pursed her lips. She would need to order new dyes from Seaford for Alex’s clothes. Blues and greens, even a pearly gray… No. Sir Simon always wore gray. Better not make more apparent the likeness between Alex and his uncle.

  Through her half-open door, Desiree was aware of low, angry voices. The women were quarreling, each blaming the other for their punishment and shame. She heard Eadgyth trying to hush them without success. Desiree was annoyed, but she also heard the cutting table being set up and Maud giving orders about tacking the sagging and uneven cloth to the table so she could cut it. As long as they were obedient to her orders, let them quarrel.

  Her mind slipped back to something pleasant. Clothes… Alex… She would send Maud, who was the eldest, to see what he needed. Certainly a new gown. It seemed to her that he always wore the same gown, which must mean—

  The thought was interrupted by the sound of a loud slap and a terrible scream. Desiree jerked erect and then heard Eadgyth cry out, “Oh, my lady, help!” She cast the pieces of cloth out of her lap and tried to rush out into the main chamber, but her feet tangled in the dark red wool and she stumbled. Despite the rising volume of screams, Desiree stopped to untangle the cloth gently, as if Frewyn were somehow part of it. Then she strode out…into chaos. Maud lay on the floor with the heavy top board of the cutting table atop her. One of her hands had been cut by the point of the scissor and was bleeding. Eadgyth was trying to lift the table top off her. Another woman, Freda, was also on the floor holding her back, which was still almost touching the table top. Apparently Freda had been pushed or stumbled back into the table and overset it onto Maud. Beyond, coals had been shaken loose from the grate in which the fire burned. Close by, three more women were in a writhing tangle on the floor. That was where the screaming was coming from and Desiree saw a trickle of smoke. Fire! One did not need to think about fire. Fire in the dry rushes, catching the baskets of dried flax and the old linen of pallets, was utter disaster. One seized any liquid that was at hand—in this case the jar of waste that had been placed near her door to be removed.

  Desiree threw the cover off and flung the contents of the jar at the hearth and into the melee of women. The wisp of smoke died and the screaming cut off. Then a new wailing arose but this was on one note, not of anger but of agony.

  “Up!” Desiree shouted. “Get them up on their feet. Who is hurt?”

  The other women, who had been picking over the pieces of cloth, trying to find the least ill-woven, rushed to separate the heaving tangle. They hesitated slightly, put off by the stink of urine, but when Desiree again asked in strident tones about who was hurt, Ella and Joan freed themselves and got up, coughing and gagging. The wailer still lay on the floor, protecting one arm with the other and weeping somewhat more quietly.

  “Get some clean water and douse her down,” Desiree ordered.

  By then Maud had managed to squirm out from under the table and Eadgyth hurried to get the water pitcher from Desiree’s chamber. Two buckets of water readied for soaking flax were seized by Freda and carried over. When most of the urine had been rinsed off the sobbing woman and off Joan and Ella, Desiree ordered the pair to lift up Gunilda and bring her closer. There was no sense, Desiree thought, to getting the other women’s gowns damp with the mixture of water and waste.

  Gunilda screamed piercingly when Joan tried to take her left arm, and Desiree came closer to look at it. The sleeve was blackened from elbow to wrist and it gaped open, showing a line of blistered flesh.

  “Maud, come here and cut off Gunilda’s sleeve,” Desiree ordered.

  The older woman was groaning and holding her abdomen, but she found the scissor on the floor and came at once. No one would hesitate to obey for a long time. There had been some sharp lessons given to the women servants when Desiree had first been married to Frewyn. Once they realized that young as she was, her husband would enforce her authority and that they must obey her, whether she was right or wrong, matters went better.

  Brought to obedience, the women had found Desiree a gentle mistress who gave clear instructions and always showed appreciation for a task well done. No one doubted that this was lesson time again, and possibly crueler lessons because of their mistress’s misery.

  Gunilda screamed again when Eadgyth tried to lift her arm so Maud could cut the sleeve and shrieked even louder when the cloth moved as Maud worked the scissor into the cloth to shear it. She had to be held still by Freda and Joan when Eadgyth peeled the cloth away. Desiree came forward and seized Gunilda’s wrist so she could look at the burn. Gunilda’s shrieks became so ear piercing when Desiree turned the arm to see all the injured area, that Desiree slapped her face, knowing no other way to quiet her. That reduced the volume of the cries somewhat.

  The burn was actually bad, the flesh red and already starting to blister, but Desiree had suffered a bad burn herself when her mother was ill and she had been careless in removing a posset from the fire. She had not shrieked nearly so loud or so long, and she had been a child. Still, there was no sense in adding injury to injury. She sighed and sent Eadgyth for the chest of medications she kept in her room.

  Desiree told Freda to bring a stool and gestured for Gunilda to sit down, however, she shrank away when she saw Eadgyth coming with the chest of medicine.

  “Make her sit, Freda,” Des
iree said. “I want to salve that burn before it gets any worse. Gunilda! Do not be such a fool! Sit down.”

  “It will hurt,” the woman moaned. “It will hurt.”

  “It will hurt far worse, you silly slut, if you do not let Lady Desiree treat it,” Eadgyth said, setting the chest down and rummaging through it for the pot of salve.

  “Find some old linen for a bandage,” Desiree said as Eadgyth handed her the squat container. She pulled open the tie that secured the parchment lid, scooped out two fingerfuls of the paste and said, “Now do not be so silly, Gunilda. If you do not let me salve your arm, the blisters will dry and harden and then crack open and leave an ugly scar. See—” she exposed her wrist and inner arm where a faint whiteness and very slight sheen marked the old burn scar “—this is where I was burned when I was a little girl. It is so smoothly healed one can hardly see it.”

  “It will hurt. It will hurt.”

  Bent over her injured arm, Gunilda tried to twist away from Freda, who was trying to get her to sit down, until Ella, who had removed her wet clothes, came to help. Between them they shoved the stool against the back of Gunilda’s legs and forced her down by pushing on her shoulders.

  Eadgyth arrived with the linen rags. She set the rags down on Gunilda’s knee but the writhing woman knocked them off onto the floor. Eadgyth, who had been chosen for her duty as Desiree’s maid not only because she was born two years earlier but because she was big and strong, hissed with impatience, sat down on Gunilda and yanked her burned arm out straight.

  Gunilda screamed so loud that Eadgyth shook her head, but she didn’t shift her weight or her grip and Gunilda was held motionless. Desiree applied the salve. “It hurts,” Gunilda screamed. “It hurts.”

  No one paid any attention and the injury was soon salved and bandaged. Moaning and weeping, Gunilda staggered away toward the inner wall. There she accosted Joan and shouted at her that it was her fault that she was injured, hers and Ella’s, and that they would have to care for her. Desiree sighed.

  “Go and discover what happened,” she said to Eadgyth.

  “If I have to listen to that silly cow anymore, I will take a stick to her back. Unfortunately, that will not help heal her arm any faster.”

  Completely exasperated—more with herself than with her women because she understood very well that it was her own neglect that had made them disobedient and demoralized—Desiree went back into her chamber. She needed to talk the whole mess over with Frewyn, but knew that was impossible. But she had to talk to someone! Before Frewyn said he wanted to die, she had been discussing her small problems with Alex. And then she remembered that Alex seemed very eager to tell her something. He had tried to tell Frewyn too. He had come to Frewyn’s chamber several times and been turned away.

  “Oh,” Desiree said aloud, although she was alone. “Oh. My letter was from Lady Alinor. Alex must have got a letter from Sir Simon. Oh. Perhaps it is very important. Perhaps there is some danger.”

  She went out, passing several women who were gathering up the rushes soiled by the shower of urine and several others who were carrying buckets of water to scrub the floor. That reminded her to stop and examine her gown to see if it had been spattered, but it seemed clean. There was a small wine stain from when she had mixed Frewyn’s medicine a little too strongly, but that was not worth changing the gown when the news Alex had might be urgent.

  He was not in the hall. Briefly, Desiree uttered a small prayer of thanks because Vachel was not there, either. She glanced around at the servants, and her gaze fell on Farman, who was gently polishing Frewyn’s silver flagon, as he did each day.

  “Is Sir Alex out with the men?” she asked, ready to tell him to send a manservant to fetch Alex to her.

  “Not yet, m’lady.” Farman set the flagon aside on the bench and came up to her. “Still in his room. Real worried, m’lord is. Trying all day to see Sir Frewyn.”

  “Oh, dear,” Desiree said. “It must be something in the letter he received from Sir Simon.”

  Consumed by anxiety, she left Farman standing there, hurried across the hall, and stepped into Alex’s chamber. She hardly noticed that she had to open the door, but the fact that she had opened it made her close it behind her. And then she stopped, frozen.

  She had caught Alex about to change his clothing from the gown he wore to dinner into the gambeson he wore when working with the men. His gown, carefully folded, lay atop his chest. Beside it was his good shirt, which he would not want to be stained with sweat. The gambeson lay next to him on the cot on which he had been sitting, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. He wore only chausses and braies. The braies were worn threadbare and the chausses had a hole in the knee.

  The sound of the closing door brought Alex to his feet, but the image Desiree had received before he moved was vivid and perfect in every detail. She could still see the way his hair curled over his ear and the way his fingers flexed as he tugged at it. His skin, where it was not touched often by the sun, was very pale, marked in a few places with the knotted pink of a healed scar.

  “What?” he snarled, and then his eyes widened as he saw who had intruded upon him. “P-pardon, m-my lady,” he stammered. “P-pardon.”

  He snatched up the gambeson and held it before him, as he flushed a painful, dull red. The image was so much that of a modest maiden shrinking from the gaze of a ravisher that Desiree burst out laughing.

  “I am the one who should beg pardon for bursting in on you without warning,” she said when she had swallowed the final giggles. “But really, Alex, I have seen men without a shirt before, and much less well covered than you are. You can put the gambeson down. I am not in the least offended.”

  He opened his mouth, but nothing came out and he clutched the gambeson as if it were his last hope of salvation.

  “Put it down, Alex,” Desiree said. “You look silly. And those braies are a disgrace, and your chausses need mending. Why in the world did you not tell me you had not enough clothing?”

  “It was not Lady Alinor’s fault,” Alex said defensively. “Sir Simon and I left so suddenly, she had no time to order more clothing for me.”

  Desiree shook her head. “Believe me, I do not fault Lady Alinor for anything, but you cannot continue to do without clothing.”

  Her voice caught a little on the words not fault Lady Alinor as memory flashed a hope and fear for Frewyn, but that had nothing to do with Alex’s clothing. Her glance flicked to the dull brown gown folded so carefully, and she guessed that it was one of the many gowns Roselynde kept for guests, lent, and then given to Alex. He was so tall and so broad, there would not have been much choice in what would fit him. Her gaze came back to him, touched the strong shoulders, lifted with some reluctance to his face.

  The color was more natural and his desperate grip on the gambeson had relaxed. “I did not know what was due me or when. I have been at Exceat for so short a time. I did not think it worthwhile to trouble Sir Frewyn…”

  “Sometimes you are quite bird-witted, Alex,” Desiree said. “It has nothing to do with Frewyn. I am the Lady of Exceat. You are due a full suit of clothes, like anyone else, after a year’s service, but that hardly matters.” Her lips twitched. “It is vastly improper for the castellan of Exceat to have holes in his chausses. I will send Maud down to take your measure. What do you need?”

  Alex shrugged. Desiree’s flat practicality and open amusement had removed most of his embarrassment. “Everything. I came from Lessai with nothing but the clothing on my back and that was already worn and the worst Lessai had. Lady Alinor gave me what she could from the guesting chests, but I am…big. And Sir Simon and I rode out almost at once to push back a Welsh incursion, and for my knighting, so there was no time to make clothes specially for me. But surely you did not come to ask about my overworn braies.”

  Desiree was tempted to laugh again, but she suddenly remembered why she had come and her hand came up to press knuckles against her lips. “The letter from Sir Simon. I
realized that you had been trying to talk to Frewyn all day. I thought it might be something important and dangerous.”

  Alex was silent for a moment, but his hands tensed on the gambeson. “No, there is no bad news from Sir Simon but…but I felt I needed Sir Frewyn’s approval for something Sir Simon suggested.” Then he paused and whispered, “Is Sir Frewyn worse?”

  Insensibly, as they spoke Desiree had come closer, step-by-step. The chamber, like all wall chambers, was very small. Now she shook her head nervously and began to tell Alex about Lady Alinor’s letter and the medicine. Without realizing what she was doing, she put out a hand, reaching for support, for comfort. “Frewyn insisted on taking the medicine, and Father Harold said it would not be a mortal sin. Lady Alinor had not said surely that to take it would shorten life. But, Alex,” she clutched the hand in which he had taken hers, “I am sure that is his hope…that he will die.”

  She bowed her head against his chest. Alex had dropped the gambeson on the cot and he pulled her against him with his free arm, lifting the hand he held and pressing it to his lips.

  Actually Alex had forgotten Frewyn. He had forgotten Exceat and his position. He had forgotten everything except the soft, warm, sweet-scented body he held against his own. He released her hand and embraced her fully with both arms. She lifted her face to his; if there had been tears in her eyes as there had been in her voice, they were gone now. What he saw in her face wrenched a soft groan from him, and he dropped his head and covered her mouth with his.

  The kiss was gentle at first, tentative, comforting. Desiree knew that the smallest movement of rejection, an attempt to turn her head or to push away would have made him release her. She was so aware that she could break free that she was afraid to move, afraid to breathe. At first she was statue-still, frozen, but his arms began to loosen and by instinct, without thought, she was pressing forward against him, lifting her head higher, her lips parting.