"Alde?" he called out again, patting Theo's shin bone and releasing his hoof. "Shall I tend your pony?"
He wanted to ask the nervous girl above if he should look to her mount but decided if he asked she might never venture down.
"Judith, are those hands clean yet?" He turned his head away from the ladder and busied himself with pretending to check Theo's feed bucket, making great play of stirring the contents with a stick as if seeking a lost jewel. Come along, sun-light. Steal down the ladder.
She glided as silently as shadow, scarcely breathing, but he sensed her flitting past because of his own rapid heartbeat. As blood roared in his ears he backed out of the byre and stretched out an arm to block her way to the door.
"And your hands?" he asked.
She came to a stop, skirts swirling as she glanced about. "I thought your nieces were here with you, not that you spoke to empty air. You tricked me, Marc de Sens," she said, in a voice so low he was not sure if she was angry or afraid.
His heart, which had felt to be jammed into his throat, now plummeted into his guts. "Forgive me, I meant no disrespect or harm," he said hastily, before realizing that she was chuckling.
"You tricked me!" he exclaimed.
"Then we are quit, are we not? Where are your youngsters, really?"
"Still with the carter and his wife," Marc admitted, knowing he should not leave them too long, especially now darkness was drawing in. Isabella liked him to be with her while she went to sleep and Judith probably would need to scrub her hands before turning in: she picked up anything she found on their travels, from daisies and old coins to rusting iron nails.
"Do you really tickle them?" Sunniva surprised him afresh with her next question, so much so he answered automatically, "Only when they drive me to distraction with their bickering. They try to tickle me, too, without success." He grinned. "I am bigger than them."
"Hairier, too." Sunniva looked startled by her own response and then she was blushing, pinker than a sunset. "Sorry —”
"No need. I am as you say." He tugged on his shirt, covering the offending hair, and reached for the doorjamb again, barring her way in case she bolted. "Better?" he asked.
She would not look at him, but stared intently at his horse.
"His name is Theo," Marc said. "Short for Theodore, the soldier-saint. Both have often saved my life while on campaign."
"Where have you fought?" she asked, still without looking at him and without moving to the great war-charger.
"Outside the walls of Constantinople."
That swung her eyes round to him. "You served the Emperor? As a warrior?"
Her knowledge of such distant eastern lands surprised him but he merely nodded, glad to be talking to her so naturally.
"My grandfather, Ragnar the Strong-Minded, served an Emperor once," she said. "I had a doll he had brought back from Constantinople. A pretty toy in a white and gold gown."
"What happened to it?" he asked, suspecting more to the story.
"Nothing, nothing. My brothers broke it; an accident, I am sure." She waved the memory aside and wrinkled her nose at him, nerves all gone.
"Why?" he found himself asking. "Above in the sewing room you were as taut as a harp string, I sensed it. So why are you now so at ease?"
"I do not know." She shrugged. "Perhaps because you said you were sorry. Because, too —” she ducked her head, pushing an escaping coil of hair back under the scrap of blue cloth — "you did not lunge at me."
In those simple statements he heard much of the brutality of her life
"I will never do that," he promised. He lifted his arm from the doorjamb, heartened when she did not go. "I have a boon to ask of you."
"Are my hands clean?" She held them up, palms uppermost. "See for yourself."
Naughty imp, he thought, longing to snake an arm about her slender middle and kiss her again. Instead he solemnly studied her fingers and nodded. "Clean enough," he said. "But that was not my boon."
He sensed her confusion and beneath that an older fear, showing in the way she stiffened, the sinews in her neck tightening as she waited, poised on the brink of flight. A strange mixture she was, of fear, confidence and — dare he admit this? — interest. For all that she was a woman of twenty she acted more like a maid of fourteen. But then, given her father and brothers, what experience could she have had in the gentle sport of courtship?
Her betrothed, that Caedmon of Whitby, must also be a brute.
The thought made him angry. He wanted to take her his arms and embrace her — really kiss her. Show her what a kiss could be -
"Yes?" she asked. "I must go, soon."
A door opening in the hall alongside the barn and raised voices warned Marc to be quick. "Will you meet my nieces tomorrow?"
She nodded and was gone, calling out, "I am here," as Edgar stamped past the barn, complaining, "Where is the brat now?"
Chapter 5
It was late and her bruised ribs hurt but her father should be satisfied. Kneeling beside the banked-down fire, Sunniva stretched out to turn the spitted lamb she was roasting for Orm Largebelly with her "special" seasoning of plum verjuice.
She usually enjoyed cooking and the heavy, sweet savour of the meal would have made her mouth water, had she felt less sickened. By a strong effort of will, she fixed her eyes on the sizzling lamb. Sprawled beside her, lounging on a cushion and sheepskin rugs, Orm followed her every move with avid attention, a thin stream of drool falling from his mouth onto his cloak. Sometimes he pressed his foot against her leg, a caress she could not avoid without moving and colliding with her father, who sat with his legs almost in the fire.
Cena was watching Orm and rubbing his knees. Old habits of caring almost prompted her to ask if him she should fetch her comfrey salve, but that would mean leaving the fire-place and her father would not want that. Not after Orm had already picked her out for attention earlier that long night.
As the supper tables were being cleaned and taken down after the feast, Orm had given her a scarlet head square. Cena had insisted she try it on then and there.
"Come, show Largebelly!" he bellowed, his gruff humour filling the farthest reaches of the hall. "We are among friends here, Sunniva." He only called her by name when he was talking to her in company. "Do you wish to belittle his gift? Bertana, help her —”
She had shed her headrail as rapidly as she knew how. She was no child now and a modest woman was meant to cover her hair, not display it. Smiling so she would not break down in shame, she donned the new head square, thanking Orm Largebelly as graciously as she could.
Off in the quietest corner of the hall, where the torches were already doused and the poorer and less fleet-footed pilgrims were settling to sleep, she had sensed Marc and his nieces. She glanced their way, seeing the smallest child — Isabella? — standing facing the distant fire, sucking her thumb. Her wide eyes were curiously blank and Sunniva dared not nod to her, lest the little one reacted badly. On the first night that Marc and his charges had joined the pilgrimage, this solemn infant — with her incongruous bright brown eyes and headful of big brown curls that would seem to be the mark of the merriest child in Christendom — had woken screaming. Marc had taken her in his arms and crooned to her until she slept but the other pilgrims were now wary, calling the child touched or even mad.
Sunniva glanced into the darkness again, seeing men and women rolled into their cloaks and a man piling more rugs and rushes onto his own sleeping place. A pair of amber eyes looked back at her, coolly assessing.
Swiftly she turned the braising meat, wishing she was with the servants and lower-ranking pilgrims instead of the "high-table" guests, settled on their rugs and cushions round the fire. The others were bedding down, not expecting more food and drink. Perhaps Orm's high-table guests would not have done so, had her father not bragged loudly of her "clever ways" with meat and demanded a demonstration.
Hilde said something she did not catch. Smiling politely in return, Sunniva handed h
er the first of the spitted lamb.
"Do you mean to vex me?" Cena muttered under cover of Hilde calling for more ale for those still awake. "Serve the head of house first, always!"
"Orm would agree with both of us, father," Sunniva returned, nodding to the beaming Largebelly, who again scraped her leg with his foot. "He approves."
"I will have ale," called a pilgrim sitting with his back to one of the hall's great wooden beams. "And I!" called a few others.
Shadowy servants were dispatched to serve them, Sunniva noting that the young pages passed Marc de Sens' sleeping corner without stopping. Obscurely she was disappointed: was Marc already asleep?
"Look to your task, girl!" Cena spat on the fire, his scowl deepening as he plucked a small wriggling worm from his ear. Sunniva tried not to shudder as he flung the worm over his shoulder. Her father would not purge himself of parasites by eating a fern frond, and he and Edgar both filched half-cooked meats from her spits — as indeed Edgar did now, plucking a spit from the fire and trailing it ostentatiously in front of Ketil and Told. The twins were drinking deeply, spilling ale over their long moustaches. Told stared at her breasts, then said something to Ketil.
"Your gown is loosening." Cena had spotted Told's stare, but as usual he chose to put his own interpretation on it. "You should have Bertana tighten the strings."
"She already has, father." Sunniva handed Orm a spit of lamb smothered in sauce, resisting the impulse to add, "Bertana has trussed me into my gown so firmly that I can hardly breathe."
"My thanks, sweet lady." Orm swallowed most of the meat in one mouthful. Resigned, Sunniva held out another wooden spit-full. As she checked the pail of water she kept behind herself to soak the spits, Cena shook her arm.
"Smile, damn you!" he hissed against her ear. "I will not tell you again!"
"Of course, father," said Sunniva, smiling. "Ever you have my interests at heart."
She sank back on her heels, her heart stampeding. Every day that she became older, growing in resemblance to her dead mother, Cena's scant indulgence towards her lessened. His grumbles she could manage, but his latest threat, to pass her to the twins, was new and had truly frightened her.
Mother of heaven, help me! she prayed in her mind, begging for an end, at least to this night.
An end came, but not one she wanted. The middle of the fire, all glowing logs and twigs, suddenly fell in on itself in a loud, crackling heap, sending a rush of sparks spiralling upwards into the rafters and out of the central smoke-hole.
Sunniva flinched, although the sound was nothing much, a common-place. She was scolding herself for her own nervous state when a high-pitched, wailing scream ripped through the hall.
"Arms, to me!" yelled Orm, leaping up, dragging his mother behind him. Beside him, Cena had made a grab for his battle-axe and knocked Edgar's goblet of mead flying. The twins and other men had whipped out their daggers and lumbered to their feet, stamping up great clouds of fire ash.
"Bring torches!" Sunniva called, trying for reason in this sooty mêlée, while about her the shouting and stumbling, kicking and half-panicked scuffling continued, and that eerie high-pitched screaming in the dark went on and on.
"Quiet there!" howled Cena, face purpling in disgust. His complaint was echoed by many but then another voice, one well-known to Sunniva, began to chant the Lord's prayer in careful, measured English.
"Our father in heaven..."
Sunniva added her voice to his. "...Hallowed be thy name..." she recited, straining to hear, amidst the cursing and grunts of half-drunken men, the scrape of swords carelessly handled, a lessening of the screams.
"Thy kingdom come..." Marc again, kind as one of the saints of heaven, steady as a tumbler on a tight-rope, his voice giving no sign of the grief he must be feeling.
"Thy will be done..." Sunniva answered, trying to weave this calm between them, so that the over-wrought Isabella would feel safe.
"On earth as it is in heaven..." One of the other pilgrims now joined in and abruptly, as suddenly and terribly as it had begun, the screaming stopped.
Marc emerged from the shadows, a tiny, still figure clutched in his arms. "Thank you for your patience," he said, looking directly at Sunniva. "She is sleeping now. A good sleep." Thanks to you, he mouthed, so swiftly that Sunniva wondered if she had imagined it.
"Is that it?" demanded Cena with hands on hips, his favourite brawling pose. "Your mad bratling drives us half into insanity by her unearthly din and all you can say is thanks?"
"It is enough, Master Cena." Hilde spoke out decisively before any other, jabbing her large son in his large belly.
Clearly accustomed to such rough prompts, Orm blinked and added, "We should all really be asleep. It is late. Let us bed down."
"Sunniva, you shall lie beside me." Hilde beckoned to her and she gladly complied, stepping away from her indignant father and an embarrassed-looking Largebelly.
"He is a soft man, my lady." Unbidden, unwanted, Bertana wormed her narrow body between Sunniva and one of Hilde's maids, her tongue busy with poison.
"Look how he deals with those children," Bertana went on, whispering as she wadded a cloak into a ball to use as a pillow. "He is too easy with them. That little girl needs a good smack."
Sunniva, who had endured plenty of Bertana's smacks over the years, said nothing.
"Big as he is, he would run away if it came to a fight."
"As much use as my father and brothers, then." Sunniva rolled away and drew her cloak tightly about her ears but Bertana was not to be put off.
"You should not speak so. Your father is ever concerned for your good future."
"And my marriage, Bertana? When will that be, do you think? Do you not wonder if I am becoming notorious: the girl offered to first one nobleman, then another? I imagine my father's name in the ranks of northern land-owners is Cena the whore-monger."
"My lady! That is a wicked, evil thing to say! You should pray to the Virgin to forgive you — go on, quickly!"
Sunniva felt the older woman's fingers slap against her shoulder, twice, to reinforce her point. As Bertana drew back to deliver a third blow, she twisted round, sitting up and seizing Bertana's hand. Her father's endless proddings she had to endure, but her maid's was another matter. "Marc de Sens is a good man," she remarked, squeezing Bertana's fingers in hers. "A kind man, is he not?"
"If you say," Bertana tried to free her hand but could not: Sunniva's fingers, strengthened by years of work and exacting needle-craft, gripped hers easily.
"I do say." Sunniva looked into Bertana's mud-brown eyes, seeing her maid's plain, weasel face lit by a mingled pain, fear and malice. "And I also say that Marc may not be handsome to you, but I feel for him."
Bertana stopped struggling, her thin mouth locked into a sneer. "Him!"
"Why not?" Sunniva thought of Marc in the stable, the star-light glowing on his firm, strong body. "I wish I were only braver, then I would ask him to run off with me." Yet would he come? Would he do right by me? Would he be honourable? I feel that he would be all of these things, but what if I am wrong? What then?
Bertana's mouth was now an "O" of shock. "You cannot mean that!"
"But I do." Cautiously, Sunniva reached out and stroked her maid's thin cheek. "Can we not be friends, Bertana?" she whispered. She had asked and been rebuffed before, but perhaps this time — "Can you not see the rightness of it? Two women as we are, in a household of men?"
"No!" Bertana began to scratch at Sunniva's fingers with her free hand. "No! Let me go!"
"So you can rush to tell my father?" Utter frustration at her own plight made Sunniva reckless. "While you are doing so, Bertana, you may say to him that such an elopement would be very much to my liking. Now, go! I hope my father pays you well for this evening's work."
She released her maid, watched her backing rapidly into the shadows and then turned away, appalled at her own behaviour. I am as great a bully as Edgar, she thought, and lay awake the rest of that night, ashamed
.
Chapter 6
The next day dawned wet and foggy. "Too damp for you to travel in safety," Orm Largebelly declared, sucking in his gut as he waded through the stirring sleepers to ask Sunniva if she had spent the night in comfort. "You would certainly be swept away at the river crossing and the fords will be flooded and overflowing by now." he went on. "Stay another day! There is good hunting in these parts. I know many trails."
"Local knowledge always tells," said Cena, his appetite wetted by the mention of game. "We should vote on this, brother pilgrims."
"But not so much of a brother last night, eh, father, when you threatened to break the peddler's pack over his shoulders for treading your cap into the rushes?" Sunniva remarked under her breath. She watched the vote go Orm's and her father's way with bitter resignation, angry that only the men were expected or allowed to vote. Even the thought of spending more time with Hilde in her unique sewing room brought small comfort.
Worse yet, she could kindle only a small enthusiasm at the idea of meeting Marc's three girls.
What is amiss with me? she thought, as she and the other women, Hilde included, cleared the hall with stiff brooms and pails of water while the men wandered in and out from stable to kitchen, bringing their dogs and hunting hawks with them. She skirted round men shouting stories of wolves killed, boars brought down and stags run onto spears, but in all this busy to-ing and fro-ing she did not see Marc. Depressed anew, she became convinced he had forgotten his invitation, perhaps even regretted it. She moved with less speed than usual, tottering to the midden with an over-full pail of greasy, muddy refuse.
It was there, in the streaming rain, that Ketil and Told caught her.
"See, it is Tangletop!" Ketil dashed the pail from her chilled fingers, tutting as the contents spilled over the path to the midden, his clear, even features warped into an expression of disgust. "Quite pretty, if you like your maids messy and slatternly, but then, given her mother, that is no surprise." He smiled, his teeth very white, wholesome-looking in his tanned, handsome face, his eyes blue and cold.
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 33