Finding Kate

by Maryanne Fantalis

  He stalked back to my horse. Conveyance snorted and stamped nervously. Sir William reached up toward me with an impatient gesture.

  “Come,” he said.

  I was so stiff and sore from the long ride, I could hardly make my legs respond. Before I knew what was happening, he grabbed me around the waist and hauled me off like so much baggage. When my feet hit the ground, my legs buckled and I found myself on my hands and knees under Conveyance. Too startled to cry out, I gasped and scrambled backward, out of range of his hooves.

  A rough hand grabbed hold of the lacings up the back of my kirtle. The breath whooshed out of me as Sir William hauled me to my feet.

  I whirled around, spitting like a cat. “How dare you treat me so?”

  But he was already halfway up the stairs to the keep.

  “Where are my servants?” he bellowed as he entered the hall. I was only a few steps behind him, stumbling on numb legs in my filthy wedding dress. I wanted nothing more than to take a look around, have a bath, and get to sleep.

  This hall, the kind of great room on which the hall in my father’s townhome had been modeled, was a cavernous chamber with a dais at the far end, big enough to demand four hearths, large enough to host a feast of five hundred people, just like in stories I had heard about the courts of great lords and kings. But it lacked the grace of those halls I had heard described. The walls were bare of tapestries and marked with soot above the torch sconces. The windows were mere slits set high overhead, letting in only thin bars of light; no furniture or objects of any value served to impose a sense of majesty or grandeur on the place. My father’s hall, though smaller, was far more richly appointed. Blanche’s words chimed in my mind. “The only reason he wants your stick-skinny body is for your big, fat dowry.”

  I shook my head. I had escaped her. I could not allow her here.

  “Where are those knaves hiding?” Sir William’s voice echoed among the rafters.

  “The servants are coming behind us, sir,” I chided him, “having met us outside as is proper.”

  “Here, sir,” Gregory said, hurrying in to stand before his master. The others followed in a flurry of movement. “We are all here.”

  “Here, sir,” Sir William repeated, mocking him. “Gregory, did I not give you instruction on what you were to do?”

  Gregory looked confused. “Well, yes, sir, you told me to make all ready for my lady, and so—”

  “Silence, fool! I cannot abide being kept waiting. Do not let it happen again. Where is my food?”

  I was as stunned as Gregory appeared to be. In my father’s house, this knight had been courteous and charming. Infuriating and arrogant, to be sure, but never uncivil. But since we had left Whitelock last night, his behavior was… well, it was awful.

  Was this what my life was to be?

  No. It had been a long night and we were all tired. Surely when he had had time to reflect upon his actions, he would regret his behavior toward his servants. I had to take some control of the situation.

  First things first. While it had been a long time—a very long time, in fact—since I had eaten, I was filthy from my fall on the road and again in the courtyard. I placed a light hand on Sir William’s sleeve and said, “I would prefer to wash and rest first.”

  He shook my hand off. It might have been a stinging wasp on his arm. “Nonsense. You will sit with me and eat.”

  He grabbed my hand and started toward the dais where his servants had placed two tall-backed wooden chairs in front of a long table draped with a white cloth and set with pewter dishes and goblets.

  Frowning, I pulled back against him. “No,” I said. “I do not want to eat now. I want to wash and rest first.”

  He ignored my words and pulled harder. Like a reluctant mule, I was dragged to the dais. He charged up the steps, making me stumble.

  “Sit, Kate,” he said, spinning me into a chair. “Sit and eat.” He picked up a knife from the table and held it out to me. When I reached for it, he snatched it away. “Best not, with your temper,” he said. “I’ll cut your meat for you.”

  I gasped and spluttered. I could hardly frame words to express my outrage. “My temper? My temper?” But he did not seem to hear me.

  “In God’s name, where is the food?” he yelled, and several harried servants rushed to a side door, heading, I supposed, to the kitchen. Their faces spoke volumes of resentment at being treated so.

  Sir William smiled at me. “Be merry, Kate,” he said.

  His mood changed like lightning flashes. I was unsettled enough from the night’s long ride and the humiliation of the day before. I had no desire to puzzle through his behavior. Through gritted teeth, I said, “I would like to wash before I eat.”

  “Well, you went and fell in the mud. That’s not my fault. Wine, here!”

  “Actually, as I told you before, it very much was,” I retorted loudly, as if increased strength would convince him. “You put my horse on a short rope and forced him to follow that pony.”

  “Oh, enough.” He waved a hand at me. “Your father was right, you know. A veritable shrew.”

  Oh no. Not that word. I leaped out of my chair. He reached out and with one firm hand, pushed me back into my seat.

  That easily.

  While I contemplated that fact, he raised his voice to call to another servant. “Come, we’ll have water to wash.”

  At last, I thought.

  The man approached slowly, carrying a large basin of water and a towel. Sir William gestured him toward me. “Allow my lady to wash first,” he said. A glow of righteous satisfaction warmed me. At last I was being accorded the proper courtesy and honor due to me as his wife and lady.

  But a moment later, that was snatched away when he muttered under his breath, “Right slovenly she is.”

  Clean water and a towel, only a few feet away. I didn’t want to jeopardize it by sniping. I fumed in silence, glaring at Sir William as the servant skirted the table.

  I leaned forward, longing to wash the dirt and grit off my hands and face at least.

  Perhaps the basin was too full. Perhaps the fellow was clumsy, or his foot caught on the tablecloth that draped all the way to the floor.

  Or perhaps—oh, surely not, surely I did not see it—the master of the house slid his foot into the servant’s path.

  It seemed so slow, it seemed to take such a long time to fall, the water curving in a long, graceful arc directly into my lap.

  I shrieked and jumped out of my chair, knocking it backward. My heel caught on the long train of my kirtle and I heard, and felt, the bows anchoring it at my waist rip.

  I twisted to look at the damage to my dress before sinking back down into my seat. Sir William did not stir. He was trimming his fingernails with the knife.

  Before I could give voice to my rage, he looked up, eyes bright, as though he had just remembered something. “Where are my dogs?” he called. “Bring in Ajax and Acteon, Theseus and Telamon, Zeus and Nemo.”

  My jaw dropped as yet another of the servants opened a door and ushered in six enormous, slobbering hunting hounds with heads the size and shape of anvils and tails like whips. They galloped into the hall, overjoyed at the sight of their master, baying their excitement.

  At the same moment, the door at the other side of the hall opened, admitting the men who had gone to get food.

  My stomach let out a growl at the sight of the covered platters they carried.

  The dogs, scenting a meal, shifted the course of their headlong rush for Sir William.

  “No!” I cried, jumping out of my chair again.

  At top speed, the first of the dogs slammed into one of the men carrying the food, knocking him off his feet and into the man behind him. Their dishes flew up in the air, fluffy eggs and rashers of bacon soaring, rising, falling, hitting the ground with a wet splat. The rest of the dogs altered their course from their master to the spilled food, knocking over the next two men in the process. The men shouted, the dishes clattered—bread and
cheese and stewed prunes and onions hit the floor—the dogs snuffled and growled and consumed my breakfast.

  Sir William laughed.

  I stared at him. “Your behavior is unaccountable, sir!” I exclaimed.

  “Nay, you do not know these louts. They are the most lazy, disreputable, impossible servants in the country.”

  I could not miss the look Gregory cast at his master, an odd combination of confusion, anger and disapproval I had no name for.

  I could have defended them. I could have set forth for Sir William in great detail exactly how this was all his very own fault and no fault of the servants. But I was starting to shiver from the water on my kirtle; even in June, the warmth of outdoors did not penetrate such thick stone walls. Dare I ask where I might dry off and change my kirtle? But no. I stifled a groan. We had left my father’s house empty-handed. I had nothing to change into.

  Sir William frowned at the food on the floor. Rising from his chair, he nudged one of the dogs away from a half-chewed lump of meat with his foot. “What’s this? Mutton?”

  The nearest servant nodded, bowing. His demeanor was hesitant, cautious. “Yes, sir, it is.”

  “It is burnt,” Sir William said.

  The man looked puzzled. “But, sir—” the man protested.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I burst out. “As if it matters when it is food for the dogs!”

  He heeded neither of us. “Fools!” he said, swinging an arm wide, encompassing all of them. “How dare you serve this to me? How can you offer this to your new lady?”

  The servants fled.

  I stared at him. He stared at me, challenging. I wanted to scream.

  I forced myself to speak calmly. “Why do you act thus? The meat was fine, as it seemed to me, if it were not devoured by dogs.”

  He sat at the table and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs at the ankles, a man with no cares in the world. He was making my head to spin! “Surely you know, Kate,” he said, shaking his head, “that burnt meat engenders anger in the blood. Thus it were better that both of us did not eat it, since we both are choleric by nature.”

  Other than this morning, I would not have described him as a particularly angry man. Yet I could not disagree with the truth of his words. “What you say is well known, but—”

  “Be patient, Kate,” he said, patting my hand. “Tonight it will be mended. This morning we’ll fast together. Come, I’ll show you to your bedchamber where you may rest.”

  He rose and offered me his hand. I stared at it as if I had never seen its like before. He waited, and waited, and waited some more. I could not help comparing this to the man who had dragged me off the horse. A giggle bubbled up in my nose and I fought it down.

  What was I to make of this? Would nothing ever make sense again?

  With a sigh, I placed my hand in his. What choice did I have? I was shivering and the dogs were eating my breakfast.

  We left the hall by one of the many arched openings and entered the stairwell at the base of the tower. The steps were wide slabs of cold stone worn smooth by the passage of hundreds of feet over hundreds of years, and as we started up, I felt the chill of that history cutting through the slight leather soles of my slippers. I imagined a warm room and a cheery fire, a hot bath and, God willing, some time away from Sir William.

  On the second landing we stopped and he opened one of the two doors. “Here is your chamber,” he said.

  I went inside and stopped. I turned back to look at him. He was waiting for my reaction. “This… this is for me?” I stammered. Even after all that the long night and morning had brought, I was yet unable to credit what I was seeing.

  This was no bridal chamber. This was not even the accommodation a wealthy man would provide for a guest. This was, in essence, a servant’s room—no, worse. A peasant’s hovel. A narrow bed with a straw mattress, a wool blanket that even from the doorway looked moth-eaten, a pillow that might have once belonged to one of his hideous hounds, a stand with a chipped basin and a cracked jug, a small trunk with a broken lock. No fire in the hearth, not even a pile of wood for me to make one.

  “Yes, here is where you will stay.”

  “Not you,” I said.

  He laughed. “By God, no.” He turned to go, then turned back as if he just remembered. “Oh. There are no garderobes in the tower, except in my bedchamber of course, so you’ll have to use the privies outside. In the yard.”

  I let him go down a few steps before it boiled out of me. “My dress. I’m soaking wet. I need clothes, and I need a maid to help me.”

  He pivoted on the stairs, one foot above the other. “My goodness, listen to you. ‘I need, I need.’ I have no female servants, you have no other clothes, and until I get your dowry from your father, we have no money for either. So very sorry, Your Highness.” He sketched a very graceful, very mocking bow and went on down the stairs.

  He didn’t even duck when I threw the cracked pitcher at his head. How did he know I would miss?

  Cold, wet, miserable.

  A hostage to my dowry.

  Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself.

  As contrary as Sir William had been when we had first met, he had not been like this. When I had called him moon-mad that night under my window, I had not truly meant it. I had thought merely that he was mad for courting me so determinedly when I was repelling him so fiercely. I still did not believe he was mad. Whatever had brought about this erratic behavior must surely have a cause. All I needed was a good meal and some rest. And to work out who the servants were and how they felt about this. Already I could see that Gregory was unhappy with his master. Perhaps I could win him over and make him my ally.

  I had not escaped misery in my father’s house only to suffer a worse fate in this one.

  I looked around once more. There was not even a proper window in this wretched room, only two deep, narrow slits for shooting arrows. With no glass. It would be delightful in winter.

  Winter? He wouldn’t dare keep me in here, in this barren chamber, through the winter. His wife, his Kate. I was Lady Kathryn.

  He wouldn’t, would he?

  Well, Lady Kathryn did not have to stay in this room, freezing.

  I went out into the stairwell.

  The sound of voices—harried, worried, outraged voices, all talking over one another—rose up from below. “I don’t understand,” said one, and another, “never like this,” and “what’s she done to him?”

  Naturally, the servants blamed me.

  I fled up the stairs.

  There was only one door on the next landing, a thick, imposing door strapped in iron. I did not even attempt it.

  At the very top, there was a tiny landing and an ordinary wooden door that opened freely to my hand. Daylight poured through. I was out. Free, for the moment.

  From the top of this tower, the view stretched for miles and miles. To the west, I thought I might be able to see past the River Severn all the way to Wales, where everything melded into green mists and greener hills. To the east was a town that could have been Atherstone but might not. I had no way of knowing. Standing there, letting the sun soak into my sodden dress, I looked down over a world much larger than one I had ever known, one I had longed to see and yet, now that I was in it, was finding much harder to navigate than I had expected. Perhaps Sir William had been right to mock me for my small-town ignorance. What more he had seen, what more did he know of the world than I? Not by choice, but still…. I leaned against the wall and stared down into the vast valley below until, a short time later, I saw Sir William stride out of the keep with his dogs in a mob at his heels. The long curve of a bow stretched above one shoulder and a quiver of arrows bristled at the other. Water sprang into my mouth. Fresh meat. They set off across the fields and the hounds fanned out.

  If he were hunting, he would be gone for some time. I would take advantage of his absence.

  I hurried down to the hall, looking for Gregory. He and three of the other servants were
just finishing the cleaning of the dais after the disaster that was breakfast. He looked up, saw me and, when I beckoned to him, came over to me with a wary look.

  “How may I be of service, milady?”

  “Gregory, I understand there will be no dinner today, but I did not have anything to eat this morning at breakfast. I would like the cook to make up a plate for me—something simple, no trouble to anyone, but I am very hungry.”

  Gregory looked stricken. “Milady, would that I could. But I dare not for my life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My master has just now gone out, and he left very strict instructions that there was to be no food prepared today until supper.”

  I frowned. “But that is unreasonable and foolish. I am hungry and I need to eat.”

  I could hear Sir William’s mocking voice in my head. “I need, I need.” But I did!

  “Milady, I can do anything else to give you comfort. Only not that. And my master is gone, so I cannot ask him to change his orders.”

  “Very well, Gregory,” I said. “If you will not oblige me, I will go to the kitchen myself.”

  “Oh, milady, please don’t!”

  I strode off the dais and headed for the door through which the men had brought the covered dishes earlier. That door led to a corridor and faced another door. I opened that door and found myself in the courtyard outside.

  In my father’s house, the kitchen was at the back of the house. I knew where it was, and I knew Cook.

  Here I could not even find my way to the kitchen.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Gregory,” I said, my voice pinched and tight, “do be sure to let me know when your master returns. I wish to speak with him.”

  “Of course, milady,” he said, bowing.

  From the look on his face, I felt certain he would not.

  It was not terribly difficult to run away.

  Gregory was busy inside with the other servants, and while there was someone in the stables, he was heaving straw down from the loft in great, dusty chunks and could not see me.