Julitta jerked back from the towel and thrust it down to stare into her twitching face. Her mouth squared into a wail. “The—the other girls ha’ telled me—as how m’lord—as he’ll tumble me for his sport—and gi’ me to that friend o’ hisn that’s randy-drunk every night—so’s I’ll be a whore like them—and what’ll become o’ me then!”
“Neither of them will debauch my servant,” Julitta declared grimly.
“But you don’t know—m’lady, they tells me—” She broke off, reddening, on the verge of recounting Red Adam’s lapses to his new-wedded lady, and then seized the towel and scrubbed at Julitta’s hair.
“All that is past,” Julitta declared, with a certainty that afterward made her marvel. “My dress, now.” She resumed the scarlet for lack of any alternative and reckoned obedience to her husband’s command marched agreeably with her own desire.
The bower, which should have hummed with work, was empty but for a middle-aged woman in a corner, spinning as she rocked a cradle with her foot. She jumped up nervously, hushed a howl from the cradle’s occupant, and named herself as Hodierne, widow of Brentborough’s marshal, and entirely at her lady’s service. Her deference and anxiety to please embarrassed Julitta, though she recognized that a widow past thirty, dowerless and burdened with a posthumous child, must live in dread of being cast adrift. She had existed too long on sufferance herself to fail in sympathy; she admired the baby, listened to the tale of the marshal’s excellences, and invited Hodierne’s aid in checking the bower’s resources.
They opened boxes and chests and dragged out linen, winter bedding, clothing and material, exposing neglect and deficiencies. There was scarcely any work in hand; no new hangings, bedding or napery. Even the New Year’s gift of clothing for all the servants, part of their wages, was as yet unstarted. The cloth merchants had not ventured north through the rebellious Midlands, and the season’s woolclip remained unsold, so they would be lucky to receive anything. Sewing thread, embroidery materials, needles and pins were all wanting. The work set up on a loom showed by dust, broken warp-threads and displaced shed-sticks that it had not been touched for months. There was no sign even of the carding and spinning that should have occupied all disengaged hands in a respectable bower. Julitta tightened her lips over these proofs of demoralization and pursued her investigations.
Hodierne avoided the last chest, in the corner beside the big bed, and her face lenghthened with alarm when Julitta moved to it, found it locked and began sorting through the keys at her girdle.
“M-my lady, all inside that—is reserved to Lady Constance’s sole use.”
“It was,” Julitta answered as she found the key and the lock clicked back. She regarded folded cloth with pleasure. Though Hodierne flushed, a certain satisfaction in her expression suggested that she might not object to Constance’s discomfiture. She helped lay out the stuff across the bed.
Julitta was mildly disappointed. The seneschal’s wife had the blonde woman’s depressing preference for blue, and as woad was one of the cheapest dyes, she had in the past worn more than enough of it. But there was a dark green, and a well-dyed black betraying none of the natural black wool’s rustiness; a little embroidery and they would look well enough. A deep blue mantle lined with a lighter shade would also please her.
Avice and Hodierne held the material against her, folded it and marked off the lengths. She crunched the shears through it. She could not remember when she had had clothes new-made for herself, not contrived from another’s discards, and she forgot to resent obedience to Red Adam’s orders. They measured and cut and pinned, rooted out needles and thread, and were surprised in the preliminary seam-stitching by the dinner horn.
From foul the weather had deteriorated to atrocious. All the seaward windows were shuttered against a gale, and the fire allowed to dwindle to embers hissing as the wet ran in. Drafts swooped and whistled, rain percolated round shutters and pooled in window splays, and the remaining fire belched smoke and ashes. The dishes brought in from the outside kitchen were greasily congealed and slopped with chill water. Julitta, having listened dutifully to an exhaustive discussion of what royal and rebel forces should do, detached her attention when the argument began to repeat itself and considered the reforms essential to civilized existence at Brentborough. An interview with the head cook came near the list’s top. All depended, of course, on the measure of authority Red Adam would allow her.
The cloths were removed and the tables taken down. Folk gazed gloomily out, and agreed that it was unfit for man or beast to poke a nose beyond doors. Julitta contemplated for the first time the problem of how to occupy housebound knights, every chatelaine’s winter nightmare. Fortunately they found their own entertainment; the four of them pulled stools to a corner of the dais and settled down with a wine-jug to swap lies of old campaigns.
Red Adam leaned a while in a window, absently whistling, and then jerked his head at Odo and made for the stairs, giving orders to a couple of scullions as he passed to set up a table. When he came back, his arms heaped with parchments and Odo bearing tally sticks enough to roast a hog, men started up and gaped at each other. Dust billowed as he cast the rolls on the bench. Odo set down his load, spread a cloth painted in chessboard checks, laid out counters, a corroded inkhorn and a fistful of draggled quills, and stationed himself by his master’s elbow.
Sir Brien cleared his throat with a rasp that rang in the hush, reddened and mumbled, “If—if you’re wishing to check the estate accounts, my lord—”
“What else?”
“The village priest kept them, my lord. He can be sent for—to explain—”
“Why, I’ll put no man to such misery.” He unrolled a yard of discolored parchment. “I’ll make what sense I can of them myself.” He ran his glance down the columns and chose a quill, drew his knife and deftly trimmed its point. Dismay stirred in the room, suggesting uneasy consciences arousing. Sir Bertram picked up his stool and moved to the table.
“I can aid you with the tallies, Lord Adam, but it’s past my sight to read.” He nodded acceptance. Lady Constance came in, regarded them blandly, and sat down with her embroidery, ready to assist her husband with the figures. Julitta retired to continue sewing, wondering what investigation of Brentborough’s accounts might reveal. She was now certain of what she had already suspected. Red Adam had at one time been destined for the Church and educated in the cloister.
5
By supper-time the rain had blown over, though the gale still screeched round the battlements and boomed in the chimneys. An untalented and unpracticed quartet of viol, lute, harp and recorder caterwauled to entertain them, while Red Adam’s body-servant and a couple of fumble-fisted scullions clumped about the dais and breathed gustily down their necks. Lady Hodierne effaced herself, and Lady Constance devoted herself equally to consuming the more succulent delicacies and charming Sir Reynald.
Julitta distastefully surveyed her domain. She knew what housekeeping entailed; poor as the nunnery was, it had been meticulously swept and scoured, and her uncle’s lady was a notorious martinet who spent her days harrying servitors. Though some effort had been made to furbish it for the marriage with a layer of fresh rushes and a perfunctory whisk about with brooms, the hall looked and smelled like an annex to the kennels. It could be a noble apartment, but near twenty years with no mistress, an apathetic lord and unsupervised servants had debased it to squalor. There had been no sweetening done last spring nor yet the spring before; the plaster had known no limewash since first it was laid on, the hangings had been gnawed by mice and moths, and the new rushes overlaid but did not hide the matted remains of several years’ strewing. They were hopping with fleas also; every mistress of a household must wage incessant war on the vermin, but here they had been conceded victory.
Red Adam played the solicitous husband, giving her the choicer morsels from their platter, cutting up her roast pigeon to save her from soiling her fingers, and assailing her silence with such scandalously entert
aining tales of a knight-errant’s life following the tourneys that no resolution could sustain it. A splutter of laughter, and she was lost. He had the whole company yelling delight, the servants loitering behind him to snigger, and even the minstrels hushed until the ewers and towels came around for the last time, the platters and trenchers were cleared, and all relaxed over the final cups of wine. Julitta sipped from the silver cup she shared with her lord. It had been refilled only once during the meal, and he was as sober as she was. And when she set it down, he drank formally to her and to his companions and signed to the servants to take down the tables.
The scullions and wenches clattered utensils out to the kitchen. Odo supervised a more respectful treatment of the silver. The musicians twanged through a tune or two, and then, receiving no encouragement, joined a group of off-duty guards casting dice. Sir Giles and Sir Brien murmured something about stable inspection and withdrew. A chessboard appeared between the seneschal and his wife. Everyone was sober.
Reynald de Carsey raised an aggrieved voice and an empty cup. “God’s life, Adam, are we on siege rations?”
Red Adam motioned to Odo, who poured impassively. “The only restriction is your capacity, Reynald,” he assured him, but his lips tightened.
“But it’s cursed in- inhospick’ble to leave a friend to drink alone,” he complained, a small difficulty with polysyllables proclaiming that he had been less austere. “What’s amiss, Adam? Over a week you’ve stayed dull-sober.”
“And I intend to remain so.”
Reynald turned a disparaging stare on Julitta, who had seen too much of drunkenness to be alarmed. “God’s Blood, doing penance forever? You’ve wedded her, and that’s amends enough.”
“Amends I cannot make again. Reynald—”
“A couple of hours’ daylight left. Let’s ride out, you and I, and see what sport we can stir up, and find us each a new wench to lay.” He drained his cup and held it out to Odo for refilling.
“I’ve forsworn such sports since I wedded.”
“Wedded! Daft you were, to thrust your head into that doleful noose without a clipped penny profit! Same tongue yapping at board, same tricks between the sheets and those the ones you’ve taught her, same silly face—”
“Guard your tongue! You may swill your skin full and take a kitchen slut to bed, or there’s the tavern in Arnisby and a couple of public women if you’d ride out. And the drawbridge will not be lowered between sunset and dawn.”
Reynald subsided, muttering indistinctly of kitchen sluts and public women he had tried too often. Julitta judged him not truly drunk, just sufficiently moistened to have loosened the superficial layer of courtesy disguising his basic ugliness. Red Adam glanced at her apologetically, smiled to see her unperturbed and let the matter rest. He spoke over his shoulder to Odo, who went out, and leaned to watch the chess players.
Lacking other occupation, Julitta did likewise. The seneschal played a slow, sound game, but his wife’s moves were careless, her thoughts obviously elsewhere. It was no more to her than another duty to be scamped. When the serving women came back she rose in the middle of the game, announcing that she must see all put to rights in the bower. It was for Julitta as mistress to order the bower, and the malice in Constance’s eye challenged her, but she mentally notched up another tally and answered, “You have my leave, Lady Constance.” Had she been a worthy chatelaine Julitta would thankfully have learned from her, but Brentborough’s state proclaimed her neglect.
Sir Bertram sat fondling a holly-wood pawn and gazing vaguely after his wife: On impulse Julitta rose and took the empty stool. “May I match you, Sir Bertram?”
He peered under brows shaggy as thatched eaves, and she wondered how much he could see of her; merely a scarlet blur, or could he distinguish her irregular features? He smiled. “A kindness, my lady. Your move.”
She was out of practice, but her father had trained her into a tolerable antagonist, and one of the convent’s lay boarders had devoted as much of Julitta’s time as she could command to her passion for the game. At her first move to save a castaway match the seneschal straightened his spine, laid aside the pawn and considered her play.
Reynald de Carsey raised complaint again. “Here’s a dismal roost. Naught to entertain a man but an alehouse full of stinking fishermen and a brace of thick-bottomed trollops.”
“I’ve no remedy to reduce their bottoms,” Red Adam retorted.
“You don’t intend to squat on this cliff all year through like your kinsman? You’ve cosier quarters in the south; that estate of yours near Bristol would suit me.”
“Bordeaux wine and sailors’ brothels?”
“Turning dainty? What’s a man to do, winter evenings, but drink and fornicate? No fun here. Why did your old cousin skulk here?”
“He had sufficient reason.”
“He was mad. When do we move south?”
“The rebels must answer that. You nag like an aggrieved woman, Reynald.”
Sir Bertram turned his dim gaze a long moment on his lord. “So he knows?” he murmured. “You told him?”
“He asked me.”
“It should be buried with my lord. I gave orders none here was to speak of it, and there is yet weight to my word.”
“It was his undoubted right.”
He moved a knight. Red Adam watched, a preoccupied frown between his brows, but he could not have heard their talk. As the knight came down, Odo approached his master and muttered in his ear. Red Adam excused himself and went out. The peering eyes lifted to challenge the girl.
“It should have been buried,” he repeated, and her casual pity changed to respect for a power still formidable, however fettered. “He was no murderer.”
“But they never found trace of her again.”
“He’d never have killed her. Not with his heir in her belly. All his hope was set on that. Put it from your mind and his. She went over the cliff into the sea.”
“Were you here?”
“If I had been I’d have rooted out that lie with every tongue that spoke it. He was my lord, my true friend and my lady’s in our sorest need. When all men turned against me he succored me, gave me an honorable place in his household. And I was gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem when he had need, and all condemned him.”
“You are loyal.”
“I do him justice,” he growled. “Folk snigger over the count of his bastards, yes. But I left my lady, my dear wife, in his charge. And when his wife vanished, to prevent any taint of slander from touching her, he conveyed Constance to a nunnery near Bristol, to bide there until I returned. He kept faith by me, and so do I by his memory.”
“You do well,” she murmured, impressed against her will, yet seeing again the sinner crumbling under his burden of guilt. No one who had seen Maurice de Lorismond in his last haunted years could have believed him innocent.
Sir Bertram sighed and pushed at a pawn as though it were a discomforting thought. “He dealt truly with me. Constance bore our son there, and he died. I never saw him, and we had no other. But that was for my sins and mine alone… Your move, my lady.”
She murmured some condolence and pored over the board, shifting a pawn of her own at random. A blue blur loomed on the edge of her vision, and she looked round at Constance, softened by her tragedy. She saw a woman who had borne one son among strangers, and seen him die; whose husband had become a half-blind hulk hunched over a chessboard, who had wasted beauty and youth in this bleak hold, bound to Maurice by one act of magnanimity. Regret for their enmity stirred in her, and was stilled by a malevolent glance.
“A gracious charity you do, my lady,” she murmured sweetly, and billowed away to her embroidery.
“Gracious indeed,” growled Sir Bertram, frowning at the wound’s prick.
“My pleasure,” Julitta disclaimed sharply. Constance had learned of her appropriations from the locked chest, and there could be nothing but war between them now.
Some servants returned with the plate and a
rranged it on the sideboard, under the helmet within which her imagination conjured a sleepless skull. A pretty girl in a good blue dress, far gone with child, brushed against Reynald de Carsey, glooming into his empty cup. He turned on her and demanded wine. She fetched the jug and poured for him, remaining by his elbow. Julitta caught her eye and signaled to her to return the jug to the serving table. However tolerant Red Adam might be of swinish misconduct, no servant in her hall should abet it.
The girl not only ignored the sign, but touched the knight’s shoulder to direct his attention to Julitta. He absently patted her bottom, said thickly, “Not with that belly between us, sweetheart,” and tipped back head and cup. As he lowered them, his gaze followed hers. He scowled at Julitta. “Fill again, lass.”
She smirked at Julitta and obeyed.
“Get to your own place, bower or kitchen!” Julitta snapped, and resentment flared. Her gown proclaimed her of the bower; the kitchen wenches were the servants’ trulls, common to all the household. She opened her mouth to retort, and Constance swept between them.
“Yes, come to the bower, Thyra, you foolish child. You must consider only your baby’s welfare.” She smiled maternally over her shoulder at Julitta as she turned the girl towards the stair. “Forgive the silly girl’s jealousy, my lady. It is your husband’s child she carries.”
Julitta caught her breath as if she had been struck, but commanded her wits and tongue to demand contemptuously, “How can she possibly know that?” Resolute to betray no feeling, she stared at the black and white shapes that blurred over the board. Steadying her hand with an effort she made some move. Her heart thumped at her breastbone, and her anger astonished her. It should mean nothing to her. If a tithe of gossip were true, she might expect a crop of by-blows from the seed her husband recklessly sowed. Yet emotions very old and savage choked her with their force.
“Check, my lady.”
She had not seen the move; her eyes had been blinded. She hesitated. Behind her Sir Reynald heaved himself up to find his own wine, lurched sideways and thumped down on the bench where the musicians had laid their instruments. He picked up the recorder and juicily tootled a few notes. They shaped into a sequence, and then into the tune of “I kissed a girl in Paris city,” a soldiers’ ditty bawled in camp and tavern and brothel but never tolerated in any civilized hall. Rage scorched up her throat and face as she leaned over the game, ignoring the implicit insult that he could not know she understood. Sir Bertram turned on his stool, urgently motioning him to silence, but the fellow’s brains must have been pickled to the hairroots, for he threw back his head and yowled it to the rafters.
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