Cassius nodded. “Your majordomo took care of that when we arrived, your grace.”
Doncaster grunted. “Good man,” he muttered. “Fulco will tend to your needs, should you have any. I shall see you on the morrow before you depart.”
He was speaking of the small, pale man who ran his castle business most efficiently, a young man who was the son of one of his senior soldiers. Fulco Worthing was a servant worth his weight in gold. Doncaster rose wearily to his feet, weaving slightly with alcohol and fatigue, as Cassius stood up beside him.
“Good sleep to you, your grace,” he said, helping the old man move away from the table so he wouldn’t stumble. “We shall bid you a farewell on the morrow.”
Doncaster simply waved at him as he shuffled away from the table, heading off to seek his bed. Cassius watched him go before making his way around the table to Rhori and Bose, who were well into their food and drink. Argos, who had been laying at his feet under the table, moved with him. As Cassius perched on the edge of the table, Rhori glanced up from his trencher.
“Well?” he said. “Did he pledge money?”
Cassius nodded, slapping the big dog affectionately on the back. “One hundred pounds gold and five hundred men.”
Both Rhori and Bose looked at him in surprise. “That is more than Edward was hoping for,” Rhori said. “Well done, Cass. The old man fell for the de Wolfe charm.”
Cassius didn’t have much to say to that. It had simply been a task to perform and nothing more. But he looked around the great hall, vast and smoky, crowded with men, and scratched his head.
“I find something curious about Doncaster,” he said. “For all of the man’s wealth and social position, I find it odd that he doesn’t have a group of courtiers following him around. Odder still that he is not married. He spoke of that elusive granddaughter and seemed either embarrassed of her or disappointed. I could not tell which. You would think he would marry again simply for the opportunity to have another son. For such a great man, he seems very… alone.”
The knights weren’t hard pressed to agree. They were sitting at a massive table on a raised dais that was virtually empty except for them. Down below, on the floor of the hall, it was crowded with soldiers enjoying their meal.
But the duke’s table was empty.
The table of a house about to die out.
“Mayhap he simply prefers it that way,” Rhori said. “We have visited here before and it has been that way.”
“It has,” Cassius agreed. “But Edward brought more courtiers and advisors with him to fill many such tables, so I suppose I never really noticed before. But now, it’s just the three of us, a lone duke, and his elusive granddaughter.”
“And a massive empire of Doncaster,” Rhori finished for him.
“Exactly.”
Cassius thought about it a moment longer before shrugging his broad shoulders. “I suppose it seems strange because I have so many members in my family that I can hardly keep track of them all,” he said. “Families that aren’t by the dozen are something of an odd concept to me.”
“The de Wolfes multiply like rabbits,” Bose said, mouth full. “That’s all you know.”
Cassius looked at him, snorting. “I think we know a little more than that,” he said. But it began to occur to him that with Doncaster now retired, he was free to roam. Perhaps even free to roam into the kitchens to see if he could catch a glimpse of those bright blue eyes, because he’d put the pieces of the puzzle together and suspected that’s where she might be. With that in mind, he slid from the tabletop. “I’m going to see if I can find our hostess and thank her for her hospitality.”
“What hostess?” Bose asked.
Cassius was already up, heading towards the servants’ alcove. “The granddaughter,” he said. “Doncaster said she’s usually in the kitchens.”
Bose and Rhori waved him on, returning to what was left of their meal. With the dog in tow, Cassius crossed the great hall, his destination in sight.
And a strong curiosity that was leading him there.
CHAPTER FOUR
Silverdale Manor
12 miles from Edenthorpe Castle
“But, Papa… you must invite him. Did you not hear what I said?”
The old man bent over a cluttered table in an equally cluttered solar simply nodded his head. “I heard you.”
“He’s a de Wolfe!”
“A de Wolfe, indeed.”
Amata sighed sharply because her father didn’t seem to have the same sense of urgency that she did.
“If you truly wish for me to marry well, now is your chance,” she said. “Send word to Edenthorpe and invite him to come to Silverdale. Papa, are you listening to me?”
Hugh de Branton was writing something, very carefully, on a piece of prepared parchment that was held down on the edges by rocks to keep it flat. A learned man and minor warlord who was a distant cousin to the Duke of Doncaster, he wasn’t nearly as ambitious as his daughter. She was determined to be someone, to marry well, and he was content with what he had.
Yet, in her quest to marry higher than her station, her ruthlessness knew no bounds. Neither did her envy, and her slant against her cousin, Dacia, was nothing new.
Hugh suspected that’s really all it was.
“I am listening to you,” he said patiently, dipping his quill into the inkwell by his right hand. “You want me to invite a de Wolfe son to Silverdale to sup.”
“I do!”
He paused and looked at her. “Did you not stop to consider that he is at Edenthorpe for a reason?” he said. “He must be there on business. We have no right to lure him away from his business with dear Cousin Vincent.”
That wasn’t what Amata wanted to hear. Frowning, she plopped down on a stool next to her father’s table.
“Papa, if you do not take the chance, I shall never have what I want,” she said. “Of course he came to Doncaster on business. But when the business is over, he can come here if you invite him. He will not come without an invitation.”
Hugh’s gaze lingered on his oldest daughter’s anxious face. “This could not have anything to do with stealing him away from Dacia, could it?”
Her frown deepened but she wouldn’t look at him. “I do not know what you mean.”
Hugh snorted softly and went back to his document. “Of course you don’t,” he said. “Little Dacia, your cousin whom you pretend to like but secretly envy to the point of hatred. A lass who will inherit everything you want.”
“That is not true!”
Hugh dipped his quill in the inkwell again. “You have tormented that girl long enough, Amata,” he said. “You visit her, take her clothing, her jewelry, and she never stops you because, unlike you, she has a kind and generous heart. You speak badly about her to anyone who will listen and, still, she does nothing. Jealousy is an ugly thing, Daughter. It makes you ugly yourself.”
Amata’s features tightened. “That is a terrible thing to say to me.”
“Then do not make me have to repeat it,” he said calmly. “I will not send an invitation to the de Wolfe knight. His business is not with us.”
Amata came off the stool in a huff, furious at her father. “Then I shall be an old maid and torment you all the rest of your days!”
“You have already done that,” he said. “So much like your mother, you are. Cruel and vain, although I have tried to raise you otherwise. I have tried to show you that a kind heart is what all men would like in a wife, but I suppose your mother’s influence was too great. Therefore, I am still not sending an invitation to the de Wolfe knight. Why would I want to saddle his good name with your petty and envious soul?”
With a scream of frustration, Amata stormed out of the chamber, tears of rage in her eyes. The man wouldn’t do as she asked. He rarely did. She didn’t even know why she had asked him, only that she had been hoping against hope that, for once, he would do what she wanted.
This could not have anything to do with gaining the uppe
r hand on Dacia?
She wasn’t going to admit it even though it was the truth. Dacia did have everything Amata ever wanted – money, prestige, titles. Everything. It was true that she pretended to love her cousin. It was true that she visited Edenthorpe with some regularity just to bask in the richness of the duke’s residence.
Amata slept in Dacia’s lavish bed, dressed in her lavish gowns, and helped herself to her perfume and baubles and bangles. When they were young, Dacia even had her own miniature castle built near the stables where the girls would pretend that they were princesses. Everything Amata had always wanted.
All of it belonging to a woman made ugly by the marks all over her face.
Amata had tried to warn de Wolfe about Dacia.
He hadn’t listened.
In fact, no one listened to her. Neither her father nor the de Wolfe knight. But Amata had her own network of friends, young women from lesser houses around Doncaster, and even some village maidens, women who were the daughters of the merchants or other prestigious positions within the village. Amata was the ringleader to this group of young women who would follow rather than lead.
And they listened to her.
Dacia used to be part of that group when she was quite young, but once Amata’s jealousy got the better of her and she began to whisper about Dacia behind her back, that paranoid nurse took her into the walls of Edenthorpe and never let her join the group again. Amata and her gossiping friends had defeated the sweet young girl with the freckles all over her face. Though for some reason, Dacia never seemed to blame Amata for that particular incident.
As her father said, she tormented Dacia… and still, Dacia embraced her because she didn’t have any other friends. Now with the addition of a handsome young knight, the torment would continue in earnest.
If de Wolfe wouldn’t come to her, she would go to de Wolfe.
CHAPTER FIVE
Edenthorpe Castle
“They men are hungry tonight,” the old cook said, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. “They’ve already gone through the meat we had. I’ve sent men to the stores to bring out the salted pork.”
It was a busy night in the steamy kitchens of Edenthorpe Castle. The bread ovens were running full-bore and two enormous hearths were cooking all manner of food for the hungry Doncaster men. Servants rushed to and fro, bringing food to the masses, or stirring pots, or helping the cook as she served up the dishes.
And Dacia was in the middle of it. She was keeping track of everything that had been cooked and served, and she was the one who had instructed the cook to procure more meat for the men, who were gobbling up the boiled beef that had been prepared. With so many men to feed, Dacia was always the one to direct the meals and the portions, keeping everything tallied in a neat book she kept in her grandfather’s solar.
Doncaster was run quite efficiently. In fact, and the duke had nothing to do with it. He’d long since relinquished those duties to his majordomo, Fulco, and his granddaughter. If it seemed like real work, then he didn’t want much to do with it. He was a very intelligent man, however, and could do complicated sums in his head when it came to his money or expenses. That was never the issue. But he didn’t want to work at it or keep daily track of his empire, so he left that to Fulco and Dacia.
Fulco was essentially in charge of everything other than the keep and the kitchens. Anything that had to do with the male sex, like visitors or kings or soldiers or housing visiting knights was his domain. But anything to do with the keep and kitchens purely belonged to Dacia. Although she had never been sent away to foster, she had been well taught by a fastidious Italian priest hired by her grandfather, from whom she received an unconventionally classic education.
Her education had included everything that well-bred young women usually learned, including languages, mathematics, writing, music, and scripture because her grandfather was well-read and insisted that she be also. But the priest went a step further, educating her on the classics of literature from Greece and ancient Rome, things usually reserved for scholarly men. That meant that Dacia was far more educated than most young women who had spent years fostering in the finest households. She was quite smart with household budgets and a master at organization, which was why she was invaluable in the kitchens when her grandfather was feeding his army of fifteen hundred men.
Like tonight.
Food was being prepared, and eaten, at an alarming rate.
“Make sure they know to bring the fatted pork and not the ham,” Dacia said, wiping the sweat from the steamy kitchens off her brow. “We are saving that ham. Let them eat the meat the spoils more quickly.”
The cook nodded, her red jowls quivering. “I’ve got enough beans and peas to make a good stew with it,” she said. “I’ll get it started tonight and make enough to carry us through tomorrow.”
“Excellent,” Dacia said. “But you’d better keep the bread ovens going. If we can fill them up on the bread and ale, we will not need to feed them so much additional meat tonight.”
“Aye, m’lady,” the cook said, clearing off a big portion of the kitchen table because the men were starting to bring the sides of fatted pork in. “You needn’t worry. I know what to do.”
And she did. Dacia stood back as a slab of the meat was slapped onto the old wooden table and the cook went to work on it. Everything was running efficiently, as always, and she backed away from the activity, stealing a hunk of currant bread and chewing on it as she went to the door that overlooked the kitchen yard.
It was her moment to relax, at least briefly.
The cool air on her face felt wonderful. It had been a busy evening and the men seemed hungrier than usual. Mouth full of the sweet-tasting bread, Dacia looked up to the night sky, seeing a blanket of stars across the heavens and a nearly full moon low in the sky. It was a beautiful night, capping off an interesting day.
Cassius de Wolfe.
She’d been thinking of him ever since she’d met him.
It had been a mortifying moment when he’d come across her in the river because being on her hands and knees, with a dog running circles around her, hadn’t been exactly the best position for an introduction. They had visitors at Edenthorpe all the time, but it was rare when Dacia had contact with them. She remained in the background, making sure the guests had plenty of delicious food and ensuring their chambers were comfortable and warm. It was rare when she was expected to interact with them, even though she was an excellent conversationalist, witty and intelligent.
But she let her grandfather take charge instead.
It was better than entertaining guests while clad in her veils, self-conscious and unsure.
Therefore, meeting an unexpected knight like she did today was somewhat rattling. She wasn’t used to meeting new people. She hadn’t been expecting to see anyone so close to Edenthorpe’s walls, so it was a reminder to her to always be prepared. Fortunately, she had been able to cover her face a little with her wet apron, so she hadn’t been completely exposed, but she knew she had looked like a fool doing it. She should have run for the castle the moment she saw the stranger, but something made her stay.
Mesmerizing blue eyes had been looking at her.
Oh, but he was a beauteous lad. She couldn’t have run from that face even if she’d wanted to. With blue eyes and black, curly hair, she had never seen such a handsome man. His features were perfect and even, his nose straight, his jaw square. And he was taller than any man she’d ever seen. The more she stared at him, the more entranced she had become, and her reaction had frightened her. She’d tried to get away from him, but he ended up helping her. His grip had been like iron.
That iron grip had made her feel weak in the knees.
Cassius de Wolfe.
She would remember that moment for the rest of her life.
Dacia continued to stare up into the sky, eating more of her bread and thinking on a blue-eyed knight that had the power to make her feel weak just by looking at her. She thought
on his smile, something that had caused a strange buzzing in her head, as if she were about to faint. Even the memory of it made her grin, just a little, a moment to tuck away and revive from time to time when she wanted to think on the most handsome man in all of England who happened to cross her path.
A sweet memory, indeed.
As she stood there and chewed, the last of her bread in her lowered hand, something began tugging at the crust. Frowning, she looked down to see Argos, that naughty dog, pulling the last of the bread from her hand and chomping it down. Her eyes widened when she realized that de Wolfe’s dog had found her yet again. When the dog swallowed the bread in two bites, it wagged its tail furiously and bumped into her, licking her hand.
She recoiled.
“You again?” she said, outraged. “How did you get into the kitchens?”
“He came with me.”
Dacia heard the voice from behind and, instinctively, she lifted her apron, covering her nose, mouth, and cheeks before she even turned around.
Cassius de Wolfe was standing behind her.
Those blue eyes were glimmering at her and Dacia began to feel weak-kneed again. She stepped back, startled by his appearance.
“Why…” she stammered. “Why are you here? Is something the matter? Do you require…?”
He cut her off, though it was gently done. “I require nothing, my lady, I assure you,” he said. “Dacia of Doncaster, I presume?”
She hesitated before nodding. “You know?”
He nodded. “Your grandfather told me,” he said, a smile playing on his lips. “He told me that his highly efficient and brilliant granddaughter managed his kitchens and I wanted to thank you for an astonishingly good meal. You are to be commended.”
Dacia was still feeling lightheaded, now made worse with his flattery. The man made her feel all shades of giddy. She ended up backing out of the kitchens, out into the moonlit yard, simply to put distance between her and Cassius because she didn’t know what else to do.
WolfeSword: de Wolfe Pack Generations Page 6