The Marriage Test

by Betina Krahn

  Shortly, he was trudging down the lane with his back and arms straining to contain unwieldy boxes, bags, and bundles of spice. He had no choice but to act as a brute beast of burden; he didn’t intend to spend one moment longer than necessary in these dangerous precincts and he certainly wasn’t about to send his knights or men-at-arms back to retrieve her purchases. Axel trudged along beside him, equally burdened, but in perversely expansive spirits.

  “Smell that?” The portly knight asked, shifting the bags and packages in his arms to thrust some part of a bag closer to Griffin’s nose before remembering. “Oh. Sorry, milord.” Little chastened, he rattled on: “It’s cloves. Troth, I do love cloves. She bought two whole pounds … says she always uses more in the autumn. In pork, too, she said. And—mercy—” He strained to get his nose to the side of a bag hanging at the edge of his burden and inhaled hungrily. “This must be the mace. You know, the smell of it always reminds me of those mace and anise wafers Old Jean used to make. Remember those, milord? Melted on your lips they did. Oh, and she got a new spice … something like cumin, only stronger Corraway. Carrenay. Anyway, it’s a marvel. All pungent and musty and with a bit of a vinegary bite. They say it’s great for cabbage and pottages of all sorts … and pork. I cannot wait to taste it on pork. Only imagine … tender, rosy meat dripping with juicy—”

  “Axel!” Griffin roared at the top of his lungs, not caring any longer who might be watching. Another word and he was going to commit unholy murder.

  “Yes, milord?” The knight’s eyes were as big as goose eggs.

  “Shut the hell up.”

  Julia arrived back at their camp dusty, exhausted, and thoroughly dispirited. Sister Regine rushed to meet her and pulled her back to the cart, where she pushed bags and packages aside to allow them to sit on the back.

  “Ohhh, I knew I should have gone with you. What happened?” Regine patted and rubbed her white hands to restore warmth to them. “Sir Greeve came back with the men and His Lordship went storming down to the fair himself.” When Julia didn’t respond, she prompted: “You spent too much—was that it?” She groaned. “I warned you about that. Noblemen are notoriously close with their coin. If I learned anything from the reverend mother, I learned—”

  “It’s not that.” Julia heaved a huge, shuddering sigh.

  “What then?”

  “I met a knight … at the fair … at the spice merchant’s stall.”

  “You did? Well, that’s no reason for … what do you mean ‘met’ ?”

  “I was buying spices and the knight came up and ordered the merchant to give me a good price and then bought me some sugared oranges.” She dragged the cloth bag from her gown and handed it to Regine, who untied the string and gasped.

  “Oranges!” The sister stared at the morsels as if they were holy relics. “I haven’t seen these since I was a girl.” She exhaled pure awe. “Ohhh, Juuulia.”

  “A handsome knight … he gave them to me just as His Lordship came charging up, bellowing like a baited bull. It seems the knight is a vassal of the Count of Verdun, whom His Lordship despises and apparently has fought in battle. Sir Greeve said their lands adjoin in several places and their families have been at it fang and claw for generations. A feud of some sort. Of all of the awful happenstance … the knight who was kind to me turns out to be His Lordship’s sworn enemy.”

  “Terrible. Just terrible,” Regine commiserated while circling her finger above the oranges. “Would you mind if I …”

  Julia shrugged permission.

  “What if …” She couldn’t speak her fear aloud: What if His Lordship bellowed like that whenever a man took notice of her? He was always ordering Sir Axel and Sir Greeve away from her. What if he kept her bound to his hearths and pantry and she never got the chance to meet any unmarried men?

  “Then, as Sir Greeve was bringing me back”—her spirits sagged even more—“he told me that His Lordship was just betrothed to the count of Verdun’s daughter, by order of the king himself.” Her shoulders rounded. “I thought it curious that Sir Axel and Sir Greeve had failed to mention the lady of Grandaise. I meant to ask specifically about it, but …” Her voice trailed off and Regine’s moaning was the only thing audible. She looked over to find the round-faced sister’s eyes closed and her face alight with joy transcendent.

  “I had forgotten what they tasted like.” Regine hugged herself with happiness. “They’re so sweet, so tart … a work of heavenly splendor!”

  Julia watched in dismay as Regine was transported to some outpost of Heaven by the taste of a sugared orange, while totally ignoring her humiliating experience in the market, His Lordship’s vile behavior toward the gallant knight who had flirted with her, and the tumultuous revelation that His Lordship had been forcibly betrothed to his enemy’s daughter.

  At least it was tumultuous to Julia.

  It took her a few moments of grappling with that fact to realize that her reaction to the news of his betrothal was every bit as vehement as her distress over being denied the attention of a potential husband. Why should she care who her olfactorily afflicted master married? She was traveling to his household to revitalize his kitchen and train him a new staff of cooks. Nothing more.

  In point of fact, his preoccupation with his marriage and unwelcome bride would probably make her task that much easier. He would be gone a great deal at the time of the wedding, and it would probably take some time for his bride to settle in and begin to take charge of the household … all of which would divert scrutiny from her kitchens and allow her more opportunity to search for a husband of her own.

  A husband. Marriage. Being someone’s wife. The notion seemed a bit depressing just now. Pledging her life to some moldering old knight with a thousand laurels and a yen to pour his hoary stories into little heads with ears like his … or a crafty merchant whose fortunes and girth had grown apace and who wanted a wellborn wife and a fine hearth tender, but could only afford one of them … was that what she had to look forward to?

  Her maudlin thoughts were interrupted by His Lordship’s arrival in camp and the sound of his voice booming with ire.

  “Where the devil is she?” she heard him shout.

  She was going to have to face him sooner or later. Girding herself with as much unwomanly arrogance as she could summon, she slid from the end of the cart and trudged toward the center of camp.

  “There you are!” he thundered, standing over the pile of parcels and bags dumped unceremoniously on the ground, his features bronzed with ire. “What in infernal blazes do you have to say for yourself?”

  She drew her shoulders back and ignored the empty feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “Did we get the cinnamon for a livre a pound, or not?”

  Astonished by her utter lack of contrition, he ranted and railed for some while. Sir Axel, Sir Greeve, Heureaux, and the others were wincing openly by the time he ran out of both wind and ire. But, insulated by a fog of distraction, she bore it all with remarkable equanimity and afterward nodded.

  “Yes, yes. And did you remember to bring some meat for supper?”

  He stared at her in outrage, threw up his arms, and stalked out of camp muttering things that were better left unheard.

  She turned to Heureaux with a calm that owed more to numbness than serenity.

  “I believe it’s time to think about an evening fire.”

  The next morning, they rose early, struck camp, packed the cart and horses … and quickly realized they had too much baggage to carry.

  A night’s rest and a bit of distance had greatly improved Julia’s outlook and she adroitly inserted herself into the situation … to insist that the precious spices be protected along the way from weather and the predations of bugs and itchy fingers. They needed a proper spice chest … or two or three … she declared. And a second cart to carry them.

  It took the count some time to come around to her way of thinking.

  “Let me see if I have this straight,” he declared, his vo
ice constricted around an explosive core of emotion. “You badger me to let you buy spices, you squander my coin on things you don’t need, you break our backs lugging mountains of God-knows-what up that hill … and now you expect me to buy another cart to haul this worthless nonsense all the way to Bordeaux?”

  She paused a moment to gauge her distance from him and reconnoiter possible escape routes.

  “I know it may seem excessive, milord, but I can promise you … you’ll thank me when you’re home in front of your hearth with a cup of mulled wine in one hand and a well-spiced joint of pork in the other.”

  “Don’t … don’t you dare …” Frustration choked off the rest and he raked his hands down his face.

  Seizing the moment, she offered something of a defense.

  “I did manage to strike some shrewd bargains.” She adopted a confident stance. “Even if I do say so.”

  “Indeed.” Sir Axel tried valiantly to come to her aid. “You could have easily spent four times as much for the same things, milord.”

  “No, I couldn’t!” Griffin declared, his eyes a little wild and his dark hair standing out like a lion’s mane. “I could never have spent even two times as much! I’ve never spent so much coin in all my life!”

  The man wanted to eat like a king without spending any coin? She was seized by a defiant impulse that very nearly proved disastrous.

  “Well, you can hardly hold me responsible for emptying your entire purse, milord. You negotiated the terms of your agreement with the abbess, yourself.”

  Now would be a good time to run, she thought, backing up.

  “Damnation!” he roared. His eyes bulged. His fists clenched. His face turned an alarming shade of purple. For a moment she wondered if he might fly apart from the pressure building inside him. Out of pure desperation, he stalked over to the fire pit, seized the stones the men had set around it to contain the flames, and began to hurl them one by one down the hill and into the fields below. Each sizeable stone carried with it some of his anger and frustration, so that by the time they were gone, he was once again solidly in the realm of reason.

  “Axel. Greeve,” he called sharply, fishing inside his tunic for a small leather pouch. “Take this coin and find some wooden spice boxes down there.” As those two hurried off to do his bidding, he called for Heureaux and two others to take another bit of coin to the local livery and purchase a second, slightly larger cart. “And have it here within the hour!”

  That same morning, in a rented house near the heart of Paris, Sir Martin de Gies and his two companions presented both themselves and the news of their encounter to their lord as he broke his fast. In the light coming through the open windows of the upper hall, Bardot, Comte de Verdun, sat in the great carved chair reserved for the master and honored guests of the rambling house, and gripped its carved wooden arms as he listened.

  “I was told he left Paris a week ago.” Verdun glared at his knights, reminding them that they were the very ones who had brought him that news.

  “He did, seigneur,” de Gies assured him. “My men followed him on the road north for nearly a day. He must have circled back.”

  Verdun’s restless gaze caught the subtle imbalance of the knight’s bearing and knew that such uneven weighting in a man’s stance generally came from the pressure of something he carried inside. Something that should come out.

  “And what was he doing at this ‘fair’ ?” he asked.

  “Buying spices. Lots of spices, seigneur.”

  “Spices? What for?”

  “For a woman, seigneur.” De Gies braced ever so subtly. “A young woman. Whom he called his ‘cook.’ ”

  Verdun broke into a wry laugh and sat forward in his chair. “You say that as if you have doubts, de Gies. Tell me, why would a man—even a man like the Beast of Grandaise—be buying spices for a woman who isn’t his cook?”

  “I cannot say, seigneur. But this woman—I have never seen a cook who looked like that.” De Gies turned to his comrades, who murmured agreement. “Golden red hair. Fair skin. Clear eyes. A sweet, maiden form. When I spoke with her, he came charging up and took possession of her as if he owned her body and soul. She is most certainly his, seigneur. But I cannot believe she is his cook.”

  Verdun thought on the implications of that and came inescapably to the same conclusion de Gies had reached. A nobleman did not buy costly spices for comely young women unless she was his sister, his wife, or …

  “He’s taken a mistress.” Verdun shot to his feet. The reason for his knights’ reluctance to tell him was now all too clear. “With his marriage to my daughter a few months away, the bastard has taken a mistress!” He ground his fist angrily into his other palm. “Bound to my Sophie by royal decree, he drags home a harlot to lie in the bed he will soon share with her.” His face hardened. “The pox-eaten cur … mocking my daughter’s gentle goodness and purity with the indulgence of his beastly appetites! I cannot give my very own flesh and blood to that degenerate.”

  “But, milord”—de Gies lowered his voice and glanced anxiously at the thin walls of their rented accommodations—“the king himself has decreed—”

  “The king does not have to hand his only daughter over to a slavering beast in three months!” Verdun roared, stalking back to his trusted First Knight. Treason or not, there were limits to what a man should be expected to yield to his sovereign. His eyes flickered over an as yet unfinished mental tableau.

  “The king’s precious ‘peace’ will not be bought with my innocent flesh and blood,” he said in implacable tones. “I have to find a way to get Grandaise to violate the king’s truce.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Traveling, Julia quickly learned, consisted mostly of being rattled bone from joint in the rear of a cramped cart. The “cramped” part was her own doing, but the rest was simply the laborious process required in traversing broad distances. Except for occasional views of breathtaking scenery and the occasional stop near a nobleman’s home to secure passage through his lands, it was the same hour after hour and day after day. It was deadly boring for a young woman used to constant and productive activity. Not even the nightly challenge of finding a way to make rabbit or the occasional bartered poultry more interesting was especially taxing, now that they had spices to vary the taste.

  She began to think of the tasks that lay ahead and decided to make the fullest use of her time. When they stopped at the end of the second day out of Paris, she climbed up into the larger cart, located the sizeable mortar and pestle she had purchased and spices for grinding, and stowed them in her smaller cart.

  The next day she made a seat for herself on the cart bed, positioned herself around the mortar and pestle, and began to season the stone by grinding some basic spices. Her first task was to replicate a “black spice” she used frequently in sauces and as a rub for roasting meat, which contained four broadly enjoyed ingredients: round pepper, long pepper, cloves, and nutmeg.

  When they stopped in the hot midday sun for a stretch of their limbs and a bit of water, Axel wandered over to see what she had been doing all morning. When she told him, his eyes lighted and he asked if he might have a look. When she lifted the cloth covering her mortar, he inhaled the pungent smell, sighed, and ambled away rubbing his stomach.

  That afternoon, he kept dropping back to ride near the women’s cart. Periodically, he could be seen lifting his nose into the air and closing his eyes in concentration. Intrigued, Greeve dropped back to investigate and was soon riding beside him with his own nose hoisted Heavenward. Heureaux rode up to learn what was happening and stayed to sniff the air, too. Two more of his men abandoned their places to come and trail the cart with their noses quivering.

  Griffin turned around, saw his men trailing the cart like hounds on a scent, and came charging back to find out what they were doing.

  “She’s grinding spices, milord,” Axel told him with a dreamy look.

  “Pepper and”—Greeve sniffed the air again—“cloves and something els
e.”

  “Grinding spices? Here?” Griffin filled his lungs with mercifully unsmelled air. “Get back to your posts.”

  When they rode off, he drew alongside the cart and peered over the parcels stacked along the sides. Julia of Childress sat on the bed of the cart with the mortar between her knees, wielding the pestle with forceful and rhythmic precision. The sight shocked him somehow. The sight of her legs wrapped around the bowl of the mortar … the intensity with which she wielded the pestle … the fact that he was probably going to consume those spices she was grinding between her …

  “Dammit, woman,” he growled, startling her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’ve decided not to waste the days I spend bouncing around in this cart. I intend to use this time more productively.” When she looked up with eyes wide and utterly innocent, he had to scramble for a plausible objection.

  “The wind is carrying those spices for miles. Put them away until we reach Grandaise.”

  “Really, milord, I’m being quite careful. None of the savor is being lost, I promise you.” She slid the stone bowl off her gown and scrambled up onto her knees on the bundles stacked along the side. “Here”—she held up the heavy mortar with a look of expectation—“smell for yourself.”

  Julia realized her mistake the instant the words were out of her mouth, and her gaze went inescapably to the dark band bridging his nose. She groaned silently. Now would be a perfect time for one of those great cinnamon-nesting beasts to make an appearance and swoop down and …

  “Forgive me, milord.” She lowered the mortar and cradled it in her arms. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “That is the last bit of grinding you will do on this journey.” He jabbed a finger at the mortar, straining visibly to contain his anger. “The rest will wait until you reach Grandaise, where you can keep such unsightly tasks out of sight.” He reined off and rode hard past the head of the column and out of view.