He followed.
“It was all in the course of my duties, my lord,” she said, holding up that apron in front of her face and again feeling like a fool because of it. “You honor me with your gratitude.”
His smile was growing. “Not at all, my lady,” he said. “I am just sorry we were not graced with your presence, but it seems as if you have been very busy in the kitchens.”
By this time, Dacia had come to a halt, gazing up at the man who was so tall that she had to crane her head back to look up at him. If she kept backing away, she’d end up backed against the wall of the kitchen yard, so she bravely took a stand.
“That is usual at the evening meal, my lord,” she said. “There are over a thousand men to feed and it must be done in an organized fashion, so that is my task.”
Cassius nodded. “Your grandfather explained that you were very diligent in your duties,” he said. Then, he paused, clearly studying her beneath the moonlight. “Why did you not tell me you were Dacia of Doncaster earlier today?”
She shrugged, lowering her gaze. “It does not matter who I am,” she said. “Moreover, it is not polite for a lady to introduce herself to a man. We should have been introduced by others. It is the proper thing to do.”
“You are correct,” he said. “I apologize if I seem forward. But I have a reason for seeking you out other than thanking you.”
“What reason?”
“To ensure that the woman that my dog tried to drown is suffering no ill effects.”
She bit her lip to keep from grinning openly. “I am suffering no ill effects.”
“Do you swear this?”
“I do.”
Now he was flashing his teeth at her, that magnificent smile that dramatically changed his whole face. “I am pleased,” he said. “Argo really isn’t a naughty dog. He simply becomes excited. He is, in truth, very friendly.”
As if on cue, Argo ran up to Cassius, banging into his legs, wagging his tail furiously. Cassius reached down to pet the dog when he noticed something. Curious, he bent over.
“What in the world does he have in his mouth?” he wondered aloud. He reached into the dog’s mouth, pulling forth something that was warm. And alive. “Christ… it’s a puppy. Where in the hell did he get a puppy?”
Forgetting her giddiness and fear, Dacia was at his side, inspecting the tiny, mewling creature that was newly born.
She recognized it.
“In the stable,” she said, pointing to a small stable at the edge of the kitchen yard, butting up against the larger stable meant for the horses. “The cook’s dogs had puppies a couple of days ago. Is it injured?”
Cassius held the little creature up, trying to get a better look at it in the moonlight. “I do not think so,” he said. “Argos does not normally kill little creatures, but he has been known to bring them to me. Rabbits or anything else he can catch. He likes to bring me gifts. But never a puppy.”
“Come,” Dacia said quickly, taking him by the elbow and pulling him towards the stable. “We must return the puppy to its mother. It is quite possible she will reject him if your dog’s scent is on him.”
Cassius knew that. He knew something about animals. But at the moment, he was quite interested in the fact that she had him by the arm, escorting him towards the small stable where two goats lay in the straw. He followed her into a second stall were a big, gentle mother dog was nursing her litter of pups.
Cassius carefully handed Dacia the puppy and she put it down with the mother, who began licking it furiously. Argo, standing next to Cassius, was wagging his tail happily, as if confident he’d done the right and true thing by bringing his master a puppy. Cassius frowned at his dog, who licked his hand.
“Strange that the mother dog did not fight him when he tried to take a puppy,” he said. “Truly, Argo is a big, stupid beast who would never hurt anyone or anything. He’s very gentle that way.”
“Except when he is shoving women into the river,” Dacia said.
Cassius pretended to concede the point. “Aye, except that,” he agreed. “But I am coming to think that was a good thing.”
She looked at him as she stood up. “Why would you say that?”
He smiled. “Because I got to meet Dacia of Doncaster as a result,” he said. “Had Argos not been such a wild bull, I would never have had the opportunity to meet you.”
Beneath the apron, Dacia was smiling at his flattery. The entire time, she’d kept the apron up over her face with one hand, never once failing to keep it in place. She’d gotten used to doing that over the years.
But she was coming to wish that Cassius could see her smile.
“It is kind of you to say so,” she said. “But you have not caught me at my best. First in the river, now in the kitchens. You must think I’m quite common.”
Cassius shook his head. “Not at all,” he said. “In fact, I respect the fact that you are unafraid of work, or even fall into a river without becoming a hysterical mess. I’ve never found much use for pampered, fragile women.”
She looked at him in astonishment. “Oh,” she said, off guard by the continuous stream of compliments. “Do… do you know a lot of pampered, fragile women, then?”
He grunted, scratching his head. “I have spent the past three years in London, my lady,” he said. “I have met my share.”
They headed out of the stable, back out into the moonlight, but Dacia was interested in his statement. “I have never been to London,” she said. “It seems to me that it is the center of the entire world.”
Cassius shrugged. “It is a busy city,” he said. “Great castles, great buildings, great cathedrals, great houses.”
“Have you been in any of them?”
“All of them.”
“I meant the great houses.”
He nodded. “Several times,” he said. “Where the king goes, I go, and he is invited to many a feast.”
That seemed to have her curiosity. For the first time, she seemed to be warming to both the conversation and his presence. “And these feasts,” she said. “Are they different from the ones here at Edenthorpe?”
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head. “I am not certain,” she said. “I… I never fostered, you see, and my travel experience is very limited. I have heard that the feasts in the great houses can be quite elaborate and beautiful, with a thousand tapers and dishes shaped like castles. I even heard that sometimes they bury jewels in bread loaves for the guests to find.”
He peered down at her curiously. “You never fostered?”
“Nay.”
“Why not?”
That brought the conversation to an immediate halt. Dacia looked as if she were going to respond but, suddenly, she lowered her head and ran on ahead of him towards the kitchens.
“I am sorry, my lord,” she said. “We should not be wasting time with idle conversation. I have… duties to attend to and I am sure your time is better spent elsewhere. Good eve to you.”
But Cassius wouldn’t let her get away. “Wait,” he said, taking long strides after her. “It was quite forward of me to ask such a question. Forgive me. It is truly none of my affair. I would be happy to tell you about some of the more fanciful feasts I have attended if you would care to hear about them. I have attended some truly festive ones.”
She still wouldn’t look at him, but at least she had come to a tense halt. It appeared as if she weren’t quite sure what to do – keep running or stop and speak to him.
She was coming to like speaking to him.
“I… I would like to, but I really do have duties to attend to,” she said. “Mayhap another time, if you are still so inclined.”
He shook his head. “Alas, I wish I could, but we are departing tomorrow morning,” he said. “I have no way of knowing when I shall return to Edenthorpe.”
She looked at him, then. “You are going away so soon?”
“I have only come to deliver a message to your grandfather from the king.”<
br />
She nodded in understanding. Then she glanced over her shoulder, back to the open kitchen door, before hesitantly returning her attention to him.
“I suppose I could spare a few more moments,” she said. “I would like to hear of the feasts you have attended. Briefly, of course.”
“Of course,” he said quickly, pleased that she was willing to continue the conversation after his misstep. Those bright eyes had him hypnotized. “You are correct about lords baking jewels into bread for their guests to find. I attended a feast once where there was an entire treasure hunt, all of it buried in food.”
“Is this so?” she said, immediately interested. “Where was this feast?”
There was a bench over near the buttery, used by servants when they churned butter. It was simple but suited his purposes. He began to casually move in that direction.
“It was at a great manse along the Thames called Hollyhock House,” he said. “It is a property belonging to the Earls of Surrey. The king was in attendance, of course, and I was simply there as his protection, but it seemed to be great fun. Everyone was searching for golden coins and they had baked them into bread, buried them in egg dishes, put them in fruit – everywhere. People were breaking teeth on a regular basis biting into dishes in their search for coins.”
Beneath her apron, Dacia chuckled. “Sounds charming,” she said with some sarcasm. “How can it be so much fun when people were breaking teeth?”
He shrugged. “It was the spirit of the event, I suppose,” he said, sauntering close to the bench and noticing that Dacia, as hoped, was following him. “It was hilarious to watch drunkards make fools of themselves in their quest for gold.”
“Sounds terrible.”
He shook his head. “Sometimes, one must surrender one’s dignity in order to have a bit of fun,” he said. “I attended another feast where riddles were written on little pieces of vellum that were shoved into women’s garments. Sometimes down the neck, sometimes in the sleeve, and men went from one woman to the next, guessing who the next woman would be and what her clues were. That one grew rather wild because the treasure they sought was a bag of coins and jewels that were tied to a woman’s leg.”
Dacia’s eyes were wide. “Tied to her leg?”
He gestured as if pulling up skirts. “Aye,” he said as if it were terribly scandalous. “Right above her knee.”
Dacia gasped at the shocking nature but, in the very same breath, she started to giggle. “How naughty!”
“Indeed.”
He had reached the bench. Dacia had followed him, closely enough that he indicated for her to sit on the bench, hoping she would take his direction. Truth be told, she wasn’t holding the apron up to her face as tightly as she had been, and he could see the edges of it drooping. She was losing herself in their conversation, hardly paying attention to the apron across her face.
In the bright moonlight, Cassius really couldn’t see anything terrible underneath that apron. Certainly nothing she should be hiding. In fact, the very fact that she was warming to him emboldened him a little. He had to admit that he was greatly curious about the features beneath the apron.
“Sit, please,” he said. “I shall tell you of more naughty and scandalous feasts I have attended. There was one that had an entire parade of white ponies, each one of them with a different dish upon its back. The servants led the ponies among the diners and they selected their food right off the backs of the animals.”
Dacia sat down without any hesitation, entranced with the tale. “And the ponies behaved themselves?”
He nodded. But then, he shrugged. “Well, for the most part,” he said. “I remember one tried to bite Baron Lulworth when he shoved it by the head because it came too close. The little beast was not to blame for that.”
Dacia frowned. “It is a man of sin who would be so cruel to a little animal,” she said. “But what an enchanting feast that would have been. I should like to be served by ponies.”
He grinned. “All of the ladies at the feast thought so, too,” he said. “Mayhap you could try it here, sometime. Gather twenty ponies and have them carry around dishes on their backs. It would be a way to impress any future guests.”
Cassius could tell by the way her eyes were crinkling that she was smiling. “Mayhap,” she said. “But I would give you all of the credit for the idea.”
“It is not my idea. You are, therefore, welcome to use it freely.”
She looked at him, her eyes glimmering with warmth. “If I can find some well-behaved ponies, I might.”
He shook his head. “I have not met many of those, to be sure,” he said. “I’ve met warhorses with better dispositions.”
“That is true,” she said, looking over into the darkened stable area. “We have two ponies here now who are nasty gluttons. One is named Day and one is named Night, and they would rather eat than anything else. If you try to make them do something, they will kick. Night will even lay down and refuse to get up.”
Cassius laughed softly. “Sounds like some men I know of.”
“Sounds like my grandfather when he has had too much to drink.”
They shared a moment of laughter, something that had Cassius increasingly boldened. She had a good sense of humor and he liked that. After a few moments, he sobered.
“May I ask you a question, my lady?” he said.
Dacia shrugged. “That depends on what it is.”
“It has to do with my dog.”
“Then you may ask.”
“Did he hurt your face today and you simply do not want me to see what he did?”
Her expression went from warm to cold, all in a split second. He was positive that she was going to get up and run away, and was quite surprised when she didn’t. Something was forcing her to remain even though her entire body was tense, preparing to take flight.
But she didn’t.
She did, however, lower her gaze, keeping that apron up, turning her head away from him so he couldn’t look at her.
The defenses were up again.
“Nay,” she said after a moment. “My face is not injured.”
“That is good,” he said, trying to look her in the eyes. “Then I can only assume you are covering such magnificent beauty that for me to gaze upon it would immediately make me your devoted slave for life. Is that it?”
He heard her sigh faintly. “Sir Cassius,” she said. “I like speaking to you very much, but I do not wish to speak about… this.”
“About my becoming your devoted slave?”
He could see, even from a side view, that she had rolled her eyes. “Nay,” she said. “About… the apron. I… I am very modest with men I do not know, and this is part of that modesty. Suffice it to say that it is simply my way. It always has been.”
The mood could have taken quite a serious turn there, but Cassius didn’t let it. He wanted her to know that he wasn’t particularly concerned with whatever lay beneath that apron.
“Then you do not want to make me your devoted slave for life?”
She was embarrassed, uncomfortable, but his charm had her chuckling in spite of herself. “That seems to be all you care about.”
“It would change my entire life.”
He could hear her chuckle. “I am afraid that it simply would not work out,” she said. “The king might become angry if I stole you away from him.”
“Mayhap,” he said, thinking that if she was willing to joke about it, then mayhap she understood that he wasn’t being critical of whatever was beneath the apron. “But you are much prettier than he is. He would understand.”
She looked at him, then. “I am not sure how you can say that when all you can see are my eyes.”
“They are the most magnificent eyes I have ever seen.”
Her gaze lingered on him a moment and he swore he could see the flicker of longing in them. Perhaps she wanted to believe him.
Perhaps she was afraid to.
Somehow, that made sense to him. He was coming to
think that if the only reaction or reference she’d ever had to her beauty were the nasty comments of petty women like Amata de Branton, then surely she wasn’t used to someone telling her that anything about her face was magnificent.
But it was.
In truth, he felt rather sorry for her.
“Lady Dacia?”
They both heard the voice, standing up from the bench in time to see Darian coming through the kitchen door. He was looking over the yard but quickly noticed Dacia and Cassius over by the buttery. He headed in her direction, hardly giving Cassius a second look.
“My lady, forgive me,” he said. “Old Timeo is at the gatehouse asking for you. It seems that his wife has grown worse and now their daughter is ill as well. He has asked for your help.”
Dacia was on the move. “I thought the woman was doing much better.”
“Evidently not.”
“I need my medicament bag.”
“I’ve already sent a servant for that and a cloak.”
Dacia wasn’t thinking about anything but what lay ahead at that point. The conversation with Cassius was forgotten. Darian was behind her and Cassius was further back, bringing up the rear, but Dacia forgot herself completely and dropped the apron the moment she came through the kitchen door. She was so used to moving freely around Darian that it didn’t even occur to her not to keep the apron over her face.
She was completely focused on the task ahead.
“Make sure Edie knows that I am going,” she said, turning briefly to Darian. “She will have to ensure the comfort of our guests while I am gone.”
“Aye, my lady,” Darian said. “And I will ride with you, but I do not want to take any of the other knights. Given the issues we’ve had lately with Hagg, I am uncomfortable giving you more than one knight for an escort. This could be a ruse, you know.”
Dacia came to a halt and turned to Darian in the shadowed light of the kitchen. “Old Timeo a ruse?” she said, aghast. “That old man is as loyal to Doncaster as much as you or I are. He would never let Catesby Hagg use him so.”
“Unless he threatened the man’s family.”
She threw up her hands. “Then if you believe that, why let me go at all?” she demanded unhappily. “He could be waiting for me at Timeo’s home.”
WolfeSword: de Wolfe Pack Generations Page 7