Medieval Mistletoe - One Magical Christmas Season

by Laurel O'Donnell

  “I know it’s a strange request I make of you,” Lady Elyssa said to the reluctant Avice, “but you must understand how I fear for him. He won’t tolerate my presence at Freyne any longer, hiding his impatience with me behind protests of how my absence from Coudray will ruin Christmas for his brother and sisters. How can I leave him alone, knowing that he has yet far to go before he is fully healed? Who will be there to help him celebrate Christmas or the Twelfth Night save a clerk he barely knows and a few soldiers with no connection to his house? Even the workmen will be gone, returning to their own homes to celebrate the holiday. Avice, you are the answer to my prayers—”

  “Nay, I am not!” Avice protested, straining back from noblewoman’s hold, when what she really wanted to escape was the lady’s affection.

  “Please, I beg of you,” Jocelyn’s mother continued. “I need you to go to him, poppet. Forget how improper it is to live in the home of a man to whom you are not yet wed—”

  “You cannot ask this of me,” Avice interrupted again, her voice raised.

  As she spoke, she looked at her mother, expecting support. After all, the request was utter madness and her mother knew the truth. Avice had overheard her parents talking after the wedding had been postponed last year. Her father worried that Jocelyn no longer felt the union equal to his newly-acquired status as baron.

  Instead of support, Adelicia aimed her angry gaze at her daughter as she jabbed her spoon back into the massive wooden bowl on the table in front of her. “Lady Coudray most certainly can ask and so she has just done,” she told Avice, then looked at Lady Elyssa. “My daughter is Lord Jocelyn’s betrothed and has been for years. Every soul in this shire knows he returned to England injured and that it will take time for him to recover. They also know that he and Avice will be married before next year’s end. No one will think it amiss that they dwell together over the season.”

  “Maman!” Avice squeaked in shock. Wrenching free of the noblewoman’s embrace, she took a backward step only to collide with a barrel. There was no escape for her.

  Her mother was still speaking. “Moreover, you and yours are honorable folk, Lady Coudray. I happily entrust Avice to your son and his house, and I would do so even if there were not a single servant in his hall to guard her repute.”

  Jocelyn’s mother gave a small nod aimed at Lady Adelicia. “My thanks for that,” she said.

  Avice stared at the two madwomen. “Entrust me to him? Have you both forgotten that Lord Jocelyn refused me last year? I am the last person he wishes to serve as his companion for Christmas, or ever.”

  She meant the words to come out scornful and hard. Much to her horror they were pained and quivering. She whirled, putting her back to the room, terrified that she might see pity on the faces of these women.

  How could this have happened to her? Until last year, and even though she was at the age when most girls were already wed and had been mothers twice over, it had never occurred to Avice that she could be denied her destiny—to marry the heir to Freyne Castle, rule his hall and bear his children. Why, she’d been promised to Freyne before she’d even been born. By the time she was ten, she’d known how many children she and Jocelyn would have—six, five sons but only one daughter because daughters were costly to keep. Hadn’t all the other unwed daughters of knights and barons in the shire envied her? Unlike their future husbands, who were for the most part twice their ages, Jocelyn was a young man who had proved his bravery and honor when only a squire, by killing his uncle during the siege that destroyed his home.

  Avice squeezed her eyes shut. Jocelyn’s refusal to wed her last year was nothing more than the Lord God punishing her for the sin of pride. It was her rightful penance for bragging about her match and pitying those whose matches were less advantageous. The instant Jocelyn broke their betrothal, Avice would not only be left too old to make a marriage worthy of her father’s estate, she’d be turned into a laughingstock in front of the whole shire. Of the two fates, the second was by far the worse, and the thought of facing it terrified her. She wouldn’t—she just wouldn’t—allow either her mother or Lady Elyssa to add to what was already an intolerable burden.

  “Oh my little love, that isn’t true,” Lady Elyssa said gently, coming behind Avice to slide her arms around her and pull her back into another unwanted embrace. The noblewoman rested her chin on Avice’s shoulder. “Of course you and Jocelyn will marry, and soon, mark my words.”

  “He refused me,” Avice whispered, her quiet words tight and aching.

  Lady Elyssa’s laugh was a warm breath against Avice’s cheek. “Nay, it wasn’t you he refused when he put off your wedding last year. It was the idea of marriage he was rejecting.”

  Avice didn’t believe that for a moment.

  “From that terrible day when both his father and elder brother died,” the noblewoman continued, “Jocelyn’s life has been nothing but ‘have-to’s, even though he came to love the knightly skills he was forced to learn. Joining our Lord John as he sought to reclaim the lands stolen from him by the king of France was the first time my son has done anything by his own choice, a choice he now deeply regrets, as you can well imagine.

  “Trust me, poppet. My son has no intention of breaking his vow to you. If he did, he would have spoken of it to me, and that he has never done. Indeed, ‘twas he who suggested you might be willing to take my place at Freyne for the season when I refused to leave him there alone.”

  Avice definitely didn’t believe that.

  Lady Elyssa’s embrace tightened a little. When she continued it was at a whisper. “Please, I truly do fear for him, Avice. He tortures himself over what happened in summer past. Help me, my little daughter. Go to him, soothe his wounds, be they of the flesh or of the spirit. Woo him back to life. Become the one with whom he can share his gravest secrets. Only you, who will be his wife, can do this for him.”

  At this, the tears Avice had refused to shed when her father told her of the postponement strained at her control. Her chin quivered. Last year, when she had yet been a child who believed in childish dreams, she might have eagerly accepted this challenge. No longer. Now she was a woman, and as a woman she knew she would never be the one with whom Jocelyn shared his secrets.

  “Please?” the lady pressed.

  “Answer her,” her mother commanded. “Tell her you agree.”

  That put steel in Avice’s spine. Her eyes narrowed. “Fine,” she snapped. “At your command, Maman, I agree.”

  Despite her ungracious reply, Coudray’s lady sighed as if pleased, pressed a swift kiss to Avice’s cheek and stepped back. “My thanks, Lady Avice. You have eased my heart. I know you will take wondrous good care of my son as you bear him company over the coming holiday. Now I must be on my way. The day is already miserable and promises only to grow wetter and colder as it waxes. And I’ll have to endure three more days just like this one before I reach Coudray.”

  Unable to bear such small talk while her life fell to pieces around her, Avice buried her face in her hands, doing her best to hide from the women in the chamber. When the quiet stretched, her mother leapt in to fill the awkward gap.

  “My pardon, Lady Elyssa. Please take no insult from my daughter’s ill-mannered behavior. I vow, until today I thought her the most agreeable of all my children. Travel home in peace, content in the knowledge that Avice will share Christmas with Lord Freyne, keeping company with your precious son”—here, Lady Adelicia paused. When she continued it was in a tone that brooked no further defiance from Avice—“as is her duty.”

  “Many thanks to you both and good Christmas to you all,” Lady Elyssa said in farewell.

  Her skirts rustled as she turned, the tap of her leather-soled boots marking her departure from the cooking shed. She was barely out the door when Lina spoke up, using the French tongue of her betters rather than her native English.

  “My lady, might I accompany Lady Avice to Freyne? A friendly face and familiar foods will not only make Christmas more cheerful fo
r your lady daughter, it will be a gift for her betrothed lord as well.”

  Avice looked over her shoulder at Lina, grateful for the kindness, then glanced at her mother. Lady Adelicia stared at Lina as if shocked, a suet-stained hand pressed to the breast of her apron.

  “You would leave me to manage our Christmas feast on my own?” Lavendon’s lady cried in the pretense of distress. “What if I burn the sauce for the fish on Christmas Eve? What if the boar’s head isn’t done to perfection for Christmas Day?”

  Lina laughed, her pale eyes shining, her face a soft wreath of wrinkles. “You mock me, my lady, and it’s no less than I deserve. You and I both know your hand is as deft as mine under this roof.” With a jerk of her chin she indicated the cooking shed with all its sieves and cups, bowls and knives, then she put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “You’ll have Sely as your aide. She’ll serve you as well as either I or Lady Avice.”

  “Flatterer,” the noblewoman retorted with a snort. “You don’t fool me, Lina. You want to go with my daughter because you love her more than you love me.” Then the mockery softened from her voice. “And I bless you for it.”

  Adelicia looked at Lina’s daughter. “What say you, Sely? Will you serve me in your mother’s stead?”

  “Of course, my lady,” Sely replied in French, then cried to her mother in English. “You’d leave me by myself for Christmas?” “By yourself? Hardly so,” Lina shot back in that same tongue. “You’ve already left me to find my solitary rest on yon cold pallet,” she pointed to the straw-stuffed mattress that leaned up against one wall of the shed, “while you snuggle up all warm and cozy against Watkin.”

  That made Sely blush. Only a few weeks ago she’d begun living with the man she loved, hoping to prove fertile so the two could wed. “So I have,” she admitted, then shifted back into French. “Go then, and I’ll wish you both a good Christmas when you leave.”

  Lady Adelicia wiped her hands on her apron as she once more sent a chiding glare at her daughter. “I should beat you bloody for your rudeness to Coudray’s lady,” she chastised. “Be grateful for the season and take my forgiveness as my gift to you. But know that my restraint won’t extend past the Twelfth Night if I learn you’ve been as disrespectful to Lord Jocelyn as you’ve been to me and his lady mother this day.”

  To Lina she said, “Aye, you may accompany Lady Avice to Freyne, but go with my command to watch that she behaves like a proper lady. You will let me know if she shows Lord Freyne the same sharp side of her tongue that we had the misfortune of witnessing here today.”

  Avice dared offer no more verbal protests, but that didn’t stop her from lifting her chin to a defiant angle. Her mother could order Lina to fly to the end of the world and she’d still fail in her plot to ruin the life of her only daughter. The moment Lord Freyne saw it was Avice of Lavendon coming, he’d slam his hall door and bar it with iron. She’d never step foot inside his home.

  Utterly certain she’d never have to confront the man who should have already been her husband, Avice turned her thoughts to ways of completely avoiding that trip to Freyne. That should be simple enough. What father would send his only daughter to stay alone with the man he believed was looking elsewhere for a wife?

  Avice’s stomach fluttered and danced within her. “I really am going to be sick,” she muttered, certain her voice was low enough that no one would hear.

  “You are not,” came the stern command from the madman who was pretending to be her sire. “We’re not stopping, not when the day’s so miserable and we’re finally within sight of Freyne Keep.” At least this time he didn’t add a threat to beat his daughter, the way he had each and every other time she’d tried to woo him from his insanity.

  Then, adding insult to injury, the wind lifted. Colder now than it had been when they left Lavendon, it peppered them with stinging rain that promised to become sleet before too much longer. Avice looked up at the clouds that scudded across the sky. They tore and reformed as they moved, harbingers of the coming storm. Tonight would surely bring them the first taste of the winter to come.

  Spreading out beneath those boiling clouds was a long flat plain with only the barest roll to it—the lands that kept Freyne Castle fed. Once Avice had expected to rule these fields and farms, hamlets and copses. Now the landscape was as dead as her dreams. Autumn had sucked the marrow out of summer’s glorious colors, leaving behind only the sharp barren brown of the trees in the orchards and the wild wastes, the broken dusky gold of the stubble in the fields, and a motley of drying greens that spattered unevenly across hedgerow and fallow field. Sheep grazed on the hollow corpses of these once lush spaces, seeking the last mouthfuls of fresh forage before the hungry season closed its icy fist around all the world.

  Directly ahead of them was the village that clung to Freyne Castle the way a child clutched at his mother’s skirts. Like the settlements on her father’s lands, this place was a tangle of muddy pathways lined with whitewashed cottages roofed in thatch. Despite its rustic appearance, Avice knew well that it was a prosperous place, with two mills, one to grind grain and one to full cloth, that generated a good income for Freyne’s lord. There was also a fine stone church with a thick square tower at its fore, the same church in which she had traded betrothal vows with Jocelyn.

  Set on an ancient mound that was the tallest hill for miles, the home of the lords of Freyne rose high above the village. The last time Avice had been here she’d been able to see the whole of the keep tower; it had been the only structure left undamaged within the fallen walls. Now a new red-tinted stone wall encircled the castle. It was tall enough that it hid all but the top of the keep tower.

  They rounded a bend. Avice’s heart clenched as she looked through the arched opening of the castle’s new gatehouse to the mound rising behind it. Lord help her, she couldn’t bear to ride beneath that arch only to be driven out again. Why could neither of her parents believe that Jocelyn would never let her enter his hall once he realized what they intended?

  “Papa, I don’t want to be alone in a strange place for Christmas. I will miss you too much,” she protested carefully, throwing up a last paltry defense against a fate certain to destroy the remnants of her pride.

  Henry of Lavendon reined in his mount, slowing his horse so he could ride alongside his daughter. As his courser came abreast of Avice’s mare, her mount leaned close and tried for a love bite.

  “Foolish creature,” she hissed to Ysolde, forcing the mare’s head forward again. “You’re squandering your attention on that beast. He’s a gelding.”

  “And she’s a lightskirt, that pet of yours,” her father laughed. “I hear she’s even tried to seduce our stable lads.”

  Because he expected no threat on this day’s short journey, her sire didn’t wear his helmet or his chain mail hood. Instead, it was his leather undercoif that protected him from the day’s vicious elements. The special cap wrapped around his head and face, covering his beard and his hair. The cap was meant to keep his hair from catching in the knitted metal of his hood.

  With only the bare oval of his face exposed, Avice saw in her father’s features the male version of her own face. For all his years and prowess with a sword, Henry of Lavendon retained a boy’s visage even now that his beard was heavily streaked with silver. His eyes were wide-set and brown, his nose was snubbed and short. The only feature she didn’t have from him was her mouth. Like her mother’s, Avice’s mouth was wide and full-lipped.

  “I will miss you too, sweetling,” Lord Henry said with a smile. “But Lady Coudray is right to ask your aid. Although Lord Freyne fares far better than I expected”—her father had visited with Jocelyn shortly after his return from Normandy—“he shouldn’t be without someone to keep him company, especially at this time of year. There is great sadness in a warrior’s life, and a man who has family to care for him should never have to bear it alone.”

  Avice glared at Ysolde’s mane as her father once again deflected her attempt to bend him
to her will. Well, he could prat out all the pretty speeches he wanted about war and its costs, he wasn’t fooling her. The moment he’d been told of Lady Elyssa’s request, all he’d seen was the opportunity to secure Freyne by forcing his daughter into Jocelyn’s arms. He didn’t care that he risked his daughter’s repute by his ploy.

  “I think you’ll be far braver than your mother was on her first Christmas at Lavendon,” her sire continued with a laugh. “Lord save me, but she cried every day until I was heartily sick of her by Epiphany. I think if I hadn’t needed her dowry and her father’s affection, I might have sent her back to her parents and sought to annul our marriage.”

  “You would never have done that,” Avice said in rote reply, still staring at her horse’s ears. It was what she said every time her father told this story, which had been every Christmas for as long as she could remember. “You knew she was hardly more than a child, she being only ten-and-three while you were seven-and-twenty.”

  “You’re right, I would never have done that,” her father agreed, saying what he always said when he told this tale. Then he gave a quiet laugh. “The truth of it was that I couldn’t have done that to her, not after she fed us both that Mistletoe tea.”

  His comment teased laughter from the four armed men riding with them today. Lina gave a bray of amusement from the ox cart that carried the foodstuffs Lavendon was sending to Freyne. The cook sat with the orphaned child who was to serve as maid to Avice for the duration of the holiday season.

  Avice stared at her father in surprise. She knew the story of her parents’ first Christmas by heart. Never once had there been a mention of drinking anything. Moreover, from her earliest years Avice had stood at her mother’s side as Lavendon’s lady treated the sick and injured. She knew better than most that the poisonous berries and twigs of Mistletoe were used only for killing pain and for those suffering from the falling sickness.