Three Dog Knight

by Tori Phillips

  Alicia barely bobbed her head by way of courtesy. She drew herself up to her full height, and looked down her nose at the glowering woman.

  “I was engaged in the kitchen.” She chose not to mention her rude summons. That news would probably please the lady.

  “Indeed?” Isabel flicked open her fan. “A useful occupation for…a certain class.”

  Alicia felt her cheeks grow warm. “The arts of simple cookery are useful to all. I intend to instruct my children, the boys as well as the girls, how to cook and sew.”

  Isabel continued to fan herself. A catlike smile appeared on her lips, though her dark eyes remained cold. “How very useful! You will make some poor wheelwright a good wife and mother to his brats.”

  Alicia dug her nails into the palm of her hand. Tread carefully here. You still do not know which way the wind blows in this household. “‘Tis my hope that Sir Thomas will approve of my plans.”

  Isabel pretended to a yawn. “I pray you pardon my fatigue. I have just discovered that I am with child.”

  Alicia caught her breath, but said nothing. That must be why she is still at Wolf Hall this morning.

  The woman chuckled in the back of her throat. “Surprised by this news? So was Thomas, and very, very pleased,” she purred. “Now that he is the earl, he must produce an heir as quickly as possible.”

  Alicia felt feverish. She licked her dry lips. “You—and Thomas?”

  Isabel smoothed her long black hair that hung unfettered below her shoulders. “Do not look so shocked, Mistress Alicia. Children have been conceived under all sorts of circumstances. What could be more natural than a loving brother-in-law comforting the grief-stricken widow of his dearly beloved brother?”

  Alicia bit her lips to keep from crying out. She blinked back the tears that threatened behind her eyelids. When she managed to control the waver in her voice, she said, “I have been taught that such a union is a sin. The holy church forbids a man to take his brother’s wife as his own.”

  Isabel snapped her fan shut. “How dare you, a common jade, lecture me on the laws of the church? I am amazed you even know them! Besides, a message has already been sent to His Excellency, the Bishop of York, to arrange a dispensation, so that our marriage can take place—soon. I am sure even you can understand the need for haste. ‘Twould not do for the Cavendish heir to be born on the wrong side of the blanket, would it?”

  Alicia did not trust herself to speak. A bastard herself, she felt a certain empathy for the unborn child. Why hadn’t Thomas informed Edward of his liaison with Isabel when the Bramptons brought Alicia to Wolf Hall? His pride and shyness, no doubt Thank heavens that he didn’t know the dangerous secret of her royal lineage. Considering Isabel’s unwelcome news, she decided that Thomas must never know. That way his precious honor would not be torn asunder. Dear Lord in heaven, protect me now for I have no other guardian.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Isabel simpered. “I suspected my little surprise might give you a turn. In fact, methinks ‘tis time that you yourself turn—and leave Wolf Hall.”

  Alicia gathered all of her reserves of strength and courage “I cannot go without first speaking to Sir Thomas.”

  “Ha!” The lady tossed her head. “‘Tis too late for that. He has gone hunting, taking his entire company with him.”

  “Then I shall speak to him this evening.”

  “Tut tut, goldsmith’s daughter, I fear you would have a long and fruitless wait Thomas will be gone for days, perchance even weeks before he returns.”

  In the back of her mind, Alicia thought fleetingly of the marvelous dinner that she had been preparing most of the morning.

  Isabel continued, “Therefore, in his absence, I am in charge of Wolf Hall.” Her eyes narrowed. “You would be very wise to leave today, within the hour. You have no place here. Begone! I cannot bear to be upset at a time like this. ‘Tis bad for the babe.”

  Alicia drew in a deep breath. “Among my possessions, I have a copy of the betrothal contract between myself and Sir Thomas Cavendish, the third son of Sir Giles Cavendish, the late Earl of Thornbury. ‘Twas duly signed, witnessed and sealed by Sir Giles and Sir Edward Brampton, my guardian. In addition, a handsome dowry in gold was paid to Sir Giles, who was glad to take it for his taxes.”

  She stepped closer to Isabel. The smaller woman shrank down amid her velvet cushions. “In the eyes of the law and the church, I am legally Sir Thomas’s bride. Money has been paid, the pledge of intent was made, and the kiss to seal the bargain was exchanged by us before witnesses. Until Sir Thomas—my bridegroom—breaks our contract before witnesses and returns to me my dowry, I will stay here where he has left me as a dutiful wife should. I wish you, and your babe, good health.”

  Turning on her heel, Alicia marched to the door with her head erect. Though her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, she stared straight ahead. Sweet Saint Anne, do not let me break down now. Give me the strength to wait until I am alone.

  “I did not give you leave to go!”

  With her hand on the door latch, Alicia turned to face her enemy. “Good! Then I will stay in Wolf Hall, until Thomas returns—by your leave.”

  She flung open the door, and nearly fell over Meg, who had been listening at the keyhole. Alicia lifted the woman up by her collar. “I pray that your ears are marvelous sharp, and that you heard every word that passed between your lady and myself. Be sure to retell this tale to all within these boundaries.”

  “Meg!” Isabel screeched.

  Alicia gave the trembling girl a shake. “Mark me, Meg, and do not mistake me for one like yourself. There is more to me than meets the eye.” Royal blood flows in my veins.

  She released the maid before she was tempted to blurt out her secret thoughts. Best to return to the kitchens, and lose herself in the preparations for the wonderful dinner that Thomas would miss. At least, it gave all the kitchen help good practice for another day.

  Squaring her shoulders, she signaled for Georgie to follow her. She all but flew down the stairs with the lumbering animal in her shadow. Stokes, the castle steward, stopped her as she crossed the great hall.

  “Your pardon, mistress.” He bobbed his head by way of greeting. “I crave a word in your ear.”

  Pausing in her flight, Alicia regarded the earnest man before her. Stokes was tall, like many of the male population of Wolf Hall. Perchance the Cavendish family felt more comfortable being served by those of equal height. The steward’s dark brown eyes looked very concerned.

  “Aye, Master Stokes?”

  He swallowed before he continued. “I just heard of your discourse with my Lady Isabel.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “News travels on winged feet, I see.”

  Stokes grinned and reddened at the same time. “Young Lady Mary has sharp ears and a quick tongue. But to the matter, mistress. Watch out for Lady Isabel. She had her eye on the new earl before her own husband was cold in the ground. She has been chatelaine at Wolf Hall since the day my Lord William brought her home as his wife, and she will not easily relinquish her position.”

  He glanced up at the soot-stained rafters, then at the piles of old rushes that had been swept into the far corners of the great hall. “Not that my lady takes much interest in housekeeping matters. ‘Tis the power that pleases her. And she has a sharp temper for such a small woman.”

  Alicia’s gaze followed that of the steward. From its appearance, she guessed that the hall had not had a proper spring cleaning for at least a decade. “I care only for Sir Thomas’s opinion, Stokes, but I welcome your fair warning. Pray, tell me, when was the fireplace last swept of its ashes?”

  He blinked. “I know not the exact day,” he hedged his answer, “but ‘twas some time ago.”

  She nodded. “I thought as much. Stokes, the new Earl of Thornbury should not live in a pigsty.”

  A slow smile spread across the man’s good-natured face. “Nay, he should not.”

  “Do you think this day would be a fine one to set matters
a-right before the master returns?”

  He cast her a shrewd look. “Aye, ‘twas my very thought indeed.”

  “And do you think that the maids would find a great deal of healthful employment in sweeping out the rushes, scrubbing the flagstones, dusting the cobwebs from the corners, and other such useful pastimes?” Alicia hinted.

  “‘Twas on the tip of my tongue to say so,” he replied with a cheerful wink.

  She pointed to the limp red rag that hung over the fireplace. “If ‘twould not be too much trouble to take down yon banner from its pole, I could wash and repair it myself. Sir Thomas should be greeted by his family’s crest in good order.”

  Stokes chuckled. “I will have one of the kitchen boys attend to it for you straightway.”

  Alicia placed her hand on his arm. “And, Stokes, you have not heard me give you any orders, have you?”

  He flashed her a broad smile. “Nay, mistress, none whatsoever. ‘Twas all my own thought.”

  Alicia returned his smile. “Then my Lady Isabel’s prerogative has not been challenged, has it?”

  “Not at all, mistress,” he assured her solemnly. “And we shall set upon the work within this half hour.” He drew closer to her. “My thanks, Mistress Alicia, for I have grown a-weary of living in such poor surroundings.”

  “Wolf Hall is a noble house, and we shall bring back its luster in short order.”

  “Aye, mistress,” he agreed with satisfaction.

  Painting broad, red-orange strokes across the western sky, the sun began its evening descent. Thomas called a halt to the day’s hard ride, and ordered his hunt master to set up a camp within a sheltering copse of fir trees. The pack of hounds sank to the ground with grateful thuds, their long pink tongues drooping from their mouths. Thomas eased himself off his horse, then gave Silver Charm an approving pat on his sleek gray neck. He loosened the girth, and pulled the heavy leather saddle from the stallion’s damp back.

  “Good boy,” he crooned, wiping down the deepchested charger with handfuls of dry grass. “We made many a long mile today.”

  Andrew joined him, massaging his lean backside. The boy had no fat to spare in that particular area. “You mean, you put many a long mile between yourself and your problems, my lord.” Ignoring Thomas’s glare, the squire dropped down upon a welcome patch of springy green moss under a nearby tree. “Hell’s bells, I ache all over.”

  “Aye, you will taste that truth, malt-canker, if your tongue continues to wag in that vein,” he growled. By heaven, the stripling tried his patience on many an occasion. If it weren’t for the boy’s charm, good humor, common sense and knightly promise, Thomas would have sent him away long before now.

  Andrew whistled in reply. “My tongue most desires a swallow of something wet. Would you care for some wine, my lord?”

  Thomas checked Silver Charm’s hooves before handing the horse over to his groom. Satisfied with the soundness of his mount, he answered Andrew’s question. “Aye, a strop of wine and something to eat. By the book, I am near famished.”

  With a look between a grin and a grimace, Andrew pulled himself to his feet, then limped off to the packhorses. Thomas watched his squire’s painful progress. With all the sudden responsibilities thrust upon him this past month, he had neglected Andrew’s schooling in the arts of jousting and combat. He stretched, then kneaded his buttocks. Shackles and stones! He was getting soft himself.

  In due course, the squire returned laden with provisions. A green wool blanket hung from his arm. He spread it on the ground, then laid out a loaf of yesterday’s bread, a small crock of butter, another one of honey, several cold chickens from yesterday’s midday dinner, apples, a generous wedge of fat cheese and a full wineskin. The lad broke the stale loaf into several pieces, spread one with lashings of butter, then offered it to his master.

  “‘Tis a sorry state of affairs to have to eat this simple fare when a finer feast awaited us at home this day,” he remarked, cutting the cheese for his lord.

  Thomas raised one brow. What bee buzzed within Andrew’s bonnet now? “Explain,” he muttered.

  His squire expelled a dramatic sigh. “When I ordered the provender this morning, my nostrils were treated to the delights of fresh bread baking. Aye, and a sweet pastry of spiced apples, methinks. A number of fowls, plucked cleaned and trussed, lay on the chopping board, and a goodly joint of beef turned on the spit, basted with the most savory-smelling juices.” He sighed again, this time louder. “It fair makes my mouth water to think of it.”

  Thomas chewed on a piece of the cold chicken before answering. The food in his mouth tasted a little off. His stomach rumbled at Andrew’s enticing description. “Methinks you were woolgathering this morn, Master Storyteller. The cook is an able man—when he puts his mind to it—but his mind has turned more and more to the ale cask of late.”

  A grin lightened the boy’s features. “‘Twas not Master Konrad’s doing, my lord, but Mistress Alicia.”

  Thomas blinked. “Methought she was still a-bed when we left Wolf Hall. Yesterday was a…long one for her.” One that distressed her, no doubt. What sensible person would not be upset to be abandoned by her loved ones on his doorstep?

  The squire shook his head. “Not so, my lord. She nearly caught me slipping your first note under her door. When I spied her in the kitchens, she had her hair braided, and piled on top of her head like a simple maiden. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, and she had flour on her cheeks.”

  Thomas chewed in silence while Andrew’s description danced in his imagination. The new Earl of Thornbury chided himself. What an ass he was! Sweet Alicia had risen with the dawn to prepare him a fine dinner—and he had run away. He allowed himself to consider all the charms of the goldsmith’s daughter: her hair spun from the sunset; her eyes like crystal waters; her tall form, supple, bending to his touch; her full breasts like…He swore under his breath.

  Andrew glanced at him. “My lord? What is amiss?”

  “Me!” he snapped. Tipping the wineskin to his lips, he swallowed a long draught.

  The lad gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence. “Are you ill, my lord?”

  Thomas curled his lip at the squire. “Aye, and well you know it, scamp. I am plagued to death with women.”

  He nodded like a wise owlet. “Methinks you have hit the very core of you.r malady. And what is your remedy? Do we ride across the border to Edinburgh?” The squire shook his head. “I fear Silver Charm cannot outrun your thoughts.”

  With a growl in the back of his throat, Thomas hurled the hard-crusted heel of bread at his gadfly. The boy ducked it with a laugh.

  “Tell me then, young physician, what would you recommend—since you claim great experience with women?”

  Andrew regarded his master a moment before answering. “Truly would you know my mind?”

  Thomas drank some more wine for fortification. “Aye. Out with it.”

  Andrew grew very serious. “‘Tis this—on the morrow, return posthaste to Wolf Hall. If your heart turns toward the Lady Isabel, then write for a dispensation immediately—and send Mistress Broom to a convent.”

  The earl grimaced at the thought.

  “But,” Andrew continued, “if your heart has been touched by Mistress Alicia, then honor your father’s contract, and make her your wife as soon as the banns have been proclaimed. For, in truth, my lord, ‘tis a cruel torment you inflict on that sweet maid to leave her so unknowing of her fate.”

  Thomas flinched at his squire’s just accusation. Mistress Alicia had come to him with open trust, and he fled from her like a hart from a hunter. Yet he didn’t mean to shirk his duty—or his desires. He wanted to clasp her to his chest, and whisper his deepest feelings in her ear. Then do it! His guilty conscience prodded him like a thorn in his foot.

  “I sent her two letters, if you spoke true when you say you delivered them,” he mumbled.

  Andrew dismissed that sop with a wave of his hand. “Pah! What are they but mere scratchings of ink
on paper? A woman needs more than that. She needs your hands holding her close, your lips caressing hers, your—”

  Thomas kicked at him. “Cease your prattling, magpie! We ride at first light.”

  “Where to, my lord?”

  “To Wolf Hall, you ninny!”

  That evening, when Alicia finally laid her weary head upon her pillow, she discovered another letter under it. Torn between distress and curiosity, she hesitated before she broke open the seal.

  To Alicia, whom I would call my own—

  I have a most rare confession to make. I should have told you in person, but I feared that you would laugh at me. You might have even thought that I lied to win your favor, and thus misuse you. Trust me, sweet mistress, I am true. My confession? Tis this—I gave my heart to you the moment I first saw you. I pray you, warm it with your love.

  The unsigned note kept Alicia awake most of the night.

  Chapter Seven

  Alicia rose long before the cock in the chicken yard crowed the start of a new day. Whomever had written the disturbing letter must be stopped! If Thomas suspected that she had a secret admirer, even if she had never encouraged another’s attentions, he would expel her from Wolf Hall in disgrace. She lingered over the last line of the note. Its words warmed her lonely heart despite her anxiety about the anonymous writer. Enough of this! No matter how sweet the words were on paper, she must not fall prey to the temptation behind them. After stirring up the feeble embers in the fireplace, she crumpled the note, then thrust it deep into the heart of the red-orange glow. Within seconds, the missive burst into flame, then curled into a blackened feathery ash.

  Pushing all thoughts of an ardent, anonymous lover out of her mind, Alicia donned her russet homespun skirt over her shift and petticoats. She tied the laces of her black felt bodice under her breasts. After vigorously brushing the night’s tangles out of her hair, she braided it, then looped it around the top of her head. Her simple linen cap held her braids in place. After tying her dorneck apron around her waist, she faced another day in the kitchens, buttery, distilling room and scullery of Wolf Hall.