Any other man would have smiled, but Keir ruminated on her reprimand. After due consideration, he said, “Master Raymond and I have created a relationship quite unlike the one between lord and serf or master craftsman and apprentice. While the respect in which I hold him is real, it is all the more profound for being unspoken.”
“Really, Margery,” Ella said impatiently, “it’s not as if Master Raymond is an earl or a baron.”
Raymond forestalled anything Keir might say with a brisk, “Indeed not. Lady Margery and Lady Ella hoped, Keir, you would show us the diggings and foundation preparation.”
Keir gripped the tongs with a dexterity that spited his missing fingers. “The master castle-builder should guide the young mistresses through the intricacies of construction. I do not possess the necessary skills of…communication.”
Smiling with determined courtesy, Raymond said, “Do come.”
Keir gestured at the forged pieces and unformed iron strewn about. “I am too busy.”
“I insist.”
“Much as I regret it, I must demur.”
In a tone of triumph, Margery said, “See, Ella? If Master Keir doesn’t utilize the polite form of address, it causes dissention and proves disrespect.”
Raymond and Keir looked at the two ingenuous young faces watching them with rapt interest, then at each other. Keir put down his tongs and wiped his hands on his apron. “Let us proceed, Raymond.”
Stopping by the stables, Raymond spoke briefly and vigorously to Layamon about the safety of the children and the necessity of maintaining a close watch for stray brigands or wayward mercenaries. He joined the small expedition as they crossed the drawbridge and started down the muddy slope. All the natural vegetation had been worn away by the ceaseless tramping of workers. The shallow trench originated where the cliff dropped to the river and followed that elevation around the face of the hill to the other side where, again, the cliff dropped off. It established an arc that slashed the earth to form the perfect bulwark, and Raymond glowed as he imagined the mighty wall he would create to dispel warriors who sought to take his land.
Aye, his land. His land, spread out in patches of wood and plain and village. His land, rich and fecund, alive with cattle, serfs, villeins. He would be the warrior for this land, protecting it from those who ravaged and gobbled with no care for the simple folk living there.
Juliana would dispute him, of course. She would call this property hers, but in no manner could any woman love the land like a man. Land represented more than just status, money, position. It was a place to be from, a place to return to, a home. These fertile lands, granted to him by his cousin Henry, came with a wife and children, a family ready-made. He gazed with satisfaction at the girls. From this land he would draw his strength.
A bonfire burned, lending ceaseless warmth to the air above and around it and none where it was most needed. A Saxon Christmas tune, liberally peppered with curses about the mud and the cold, rose from the trench. Tosti appeared over the top, dragging a laden bucket to add to the piles of oozing muck which rimmed the moat on the upper side. When he spied them, the whites of his eyes bulged from his blackened face, and he called down to his mates, “Hey, mud brownies, ’tis th’ lord an’ th’ two little ladies from th’ keep.”
Heads bobbed as the workers jumped up and down like Jack-O-Straws in the hands of a babe.
“They do not act like this when we arrive,” Keir observed. “Perhaps the Lady Margery and the Lady Ella should visit more often.”
Raymond nodded and turned to the girls. “Doesn’t your mama make sure you greet—” He broke off. Margery had her arm around Ella, and she looked at the men with an expression of horror. Ella cuddled close against her sister, and her wary gaze examined each muddy worker suspiciously.
“Why are those men staring at us?” Ella asked.
“This area is unprotected,” Margery pronounced.
Keir and Raymond exchanged glances. With as much reassurance as he could muster, Raymond explained, “They’re staring at you, my ladies, for you are their future mistresses.” As the girls digested that, he declared, “This area is well-protected. We have the men-at-arms who patrol the walls, but more important, the first line of defense is the winter. No army can march in winter, for an army cannot feed itself without foraging on the land.”
“It’s not just armies a woman must beware of.” Margery’s large eyes were serious. “Even a man whom a woman believes to be her friend can turn against her to gain control of her wealth.” She examined him from boots to knit hat as if she could gain his measure by his appearance.
“That’s true, but no one can know an enemy by sight, and so one must make judgments according to wisdom.”
“Whose wisdom?” Margery asked shrewdly.
Raymond crouched down until his eyes were level with theirs. “The wisdom of your elders, to begin with.” Before she could object, he added, “Even more important than that is your own wisdom. Observe the people around you—all the people, not just the men—and make your decisions using your head, not your heart. But mistakes occur.” He straightened. “I can help prepare you for attack. Do you know what to do should an unarmed man attempt to carry you off?”
She shook her head.
“What does your mother do when she’s frightened?”
Quietly she said, “She freezes like a rabbit beneath the shadow of a hawk.”
Raymond was startled. How misinformed Margery was about her mother’s character! And why did she think such a thing? He told her, “You’re wrong. Your mother’s the bravest woman I ever met.”
“My mother?” Ella queried, clearly staggered.
Picking his words carefully, Raymond said, “Before she knew my identity, she tried to hit me with a log.” He rubbed his head in rueful remembrance. “She came too close to success for my own comfort.”
Margery was impressed. “My mother did that?”
“Aye, she did. Will you be less courageous than your mother?”
The girls shook their heads in unison.
“Nay, of course you won’t.” Raymond turned his back on Keir. “Let’s pretend I’m a woman and Keir grabs me.”
Keir said drily, “I find it hard to pretend you are a woman.”
“Try.” Raymond heard Ella stifle a giggle when he continued, “I’m standing alone and unprotected, but perhaps my men-at-arms or an honorable man, or even another female friend stands not far off. My attacker approaches me, flings his arms around me.” He grunted when Keir grabbed him from behind and jerked him so hard he lost his breath. “Now what do I do?”
“Scream?” Ella asked timidly.
“Aye!” Raymond tried to turn back to the girls, but Keir wouldn’t release his grip. With a jab of the elbow and a stomp of the foot, Raymond freed himself and glared at his companion. To the girls, he said, “All women can scream. Let’s hear you.”
Ella let fly with one ear-piercing shriek.
“Good!” Raymond said. He pointed at the men-at-arms who crowded the wall walk, arrows drawn, weapons at the ready. “Your rescuers have arrived.”
While Raymond waved a reassuring hand at the men, Ella hopped on one foot to display her pleasure.
“Let’s hear you, Margery,” he coaxed.
Margery stared solemnly at the soldierly exhibit, then emitted a squeak.
“Louder,” Keir said.
Licking her lips, Margery tried again, but with similar lack of success.
“Like when I took your pig’s bladder and popped it,” Ella instructed.
Margery put her arms to her side, closed her eyes, and tried. It lacked the rage and fear that made a scream compelling, but Raymond approved it. “That’s fine. Your next effort will be even better.”
She opened her eyes and viewed her instructors. With her flushed cheeks and shining eyes, she looked less like a dignified adolescent and more like an excited child. “Teach me more.”
“More?” Raymond scratched his chin, wondering how much h
e should teach them and whether their mother would approve.
“Teach us how you made Keir let go of you a few moments ago.” Ella pointed at the place where they’d stood.
“Aye, teach us that,” Keir said with awesome calm.
His tone expressed his intention to best Raymond, but Raymond only grinned. “Of course. I’d be honored to show you how to defeat an attacker as scurrilous as Keir.” Swinging his hip out in a pitiful imitation of feminine stance and pitching his voice higher, he said, “Here I am, a lovely lady alone in the forest.”
As Keir stalked around him even Margery giggled.
“When a knave most hideous snatches me from behind,” Raymond continued.
Keir leaped on his back, but Raymond didn’t bend.
“I scream.” His gentle screech was blocked by Keir’s hand, but Keir snatched his hand away immediately and shook it. Raymond returned to his normal voice to say, “You see, girls, if the knave tries to interfere with your first line of defense—your scream—you bite him. Then you scream again, louder.” He bellowed in full-bodied male fury, reached up and jerked Keir’s hair. Keir’s roar joined Raymond’s, and he catapulted over Raymond’s head and came up standing.
For a moment, the two men crouched, facing each other, fingers splayed and hands outstretched. Their teeth shone, a snarl distorted their faces. They no longer looked like blacksmith and castle builder. They looked like two warriors ready to join a battle that would end with blood and death.
Into the silence their violence generated, Ella’s thin voice piped, “Are you and Keir cross at each other?”
In slow degrees, the men recovered. The fierceness was absorbed back into their bodies, no longer visible, but not forgotten.
“Nay.” Raymond passed his hand over his forehead as if to wipe sweat away, but his face was cold and white. “Keir and I are friends. We fight for fun, but sometimes we forget—”
“—where we are and whom we fight with,” Keir finished.
The men smiled at the girls, but Raymond’s lips felt stiff. The expression the girls wore betrayed their sudden skepticism, and not a man who watched from the trench nor the wall seemed any less suspicious. Raymond’s lightning change of agenda betrayed his years as a tactician. “So you see, even friends can hurt each other. Keir and I are evenly matched, but when a man attacks a woman, that woman is at a disadvantage of weight and strength. To balance the weights, a woman must attack a man’s vulnerable places. So if you are ever in peril,” Raymond finished, “You scream, then strike repeatedly at your attacker.”
“What if you’re not sure you’re in peril?” Margery asked.
“Be safe. Protect yourself. You can apologize afterward, and not many men will admit a girl could hurt them.” Raymond’s rueful smile acknowledged the male ego, then he waved at the men-at-arms. “Go back to your game of knucklebones,” he called. “We’re in no danger.”
The men grinned and waved back, drifting away from the crenellations.
“Would you like to observe the diggings?” Keir asked.
A chance to wallow in the mud revived Ella’s subdued spirits, and she lifted her skirt and clambered toward the top of the mound. Margery followed sedately, as befitting her age and dignity. Raymond and Keir assisted when the girls slipped and skidded. At the top, they looked down into the trench, fully as deep as any man standing.
“Hey, m’lord, wot do ye think o’ it?” Tosti gestured from one end to the other.
“An excellent job,” Raymond said approvingly. “How much farther down to bedrock, do you think?”
“I’m a better tracker than digger, fer certain sure. But wot I think”—Tosti struck the ground with his spade—“wot I think is that th’ rock lies far below here. Don’t ye think this is deep enough?”
Gesturing up toward the wall now standing, Raymond asked, “Isn’t that wall set on bedrock?”
“Don’t know, m’lord. ’Twas built long ago.”
“Why are you calling Master Raymond ‘m’lord’?” Margery asked curiously. “He’s not a lord.”
Tosti rolled his eyes. “Oh, nay, o’ course not. He’s only a lowly castle-builder. He’s not th’ son o’ some great man. He’s not used t’ livin’ wi’ wealth an’ power.” His sarcasm rang out, and the men working the trench sniggered.
“That’s enough, Tosti,” Raymond commanded, but now Margery looked at Raymond, measuring, assessing, and seeing him more clearly than ever her mother did.
Ella leaped up and down, chanting, “He’s a lord, he’s an earl, he’s a baron.”
Too close to the truth for comfort, Raymond thought, and shifted uncomfortably. This called for drastic action. To distract Ella, he picked her up by the waist and swung her out over the pit. “Watch what you say”—she shrieked, and he looked, saw her laughing and swung again—“or I’ll drop you into—”
Pain exploded in his groin. Below him, Margery drew back her fists, prepared to strike again, but with Ella weighing him down he overbalanced, fell onto his seat with Ella clasped firmly in his arms, and slithered down the steep slope into the muddy trench. Above him, he heard a gasp, then Keir and Margery landed beside them. Driven by agony, Raymond shouted at Margery, “Why did you do that?”
“You were threatening her,” Margery sputtered. “You said if I were in doubt, to attack—”
Dumbfounded, Raymond stared at the girl, so young and valiant and filthy. “I was playing with her.”
“She screamed,” Margery said, defending herself. “And you said—”
“Margery’s right.” Keir’s shaking voice betrayed merriment. “According to your instructions, she reacted properly in the circumstances. But I am so glad you were her practice victim. God help the man she seriously tries to injure.”
Driven by the smirk on Keir’s face and the woebegone girls, Raymond chuckled. The girls smiled feebly, then giggled, and at last the bedraggled group dissolved in hilarity. Already saturated, they rolled in the muck, slapped one another on the back, indulged in comradely mirth quite unfitting to their condition and position.
The diggers gaped at them, and when Tosti said, “M’lord?” Raymond waved a dismissing hand.
“M’lord,” Tosti insisted.
“We’ve not run mad,” Raymond soothed. “We just—”
“M’lord, look!”
The urgency in his tone broke Raymond’s amusement. With his gaze, he followed Tosti’s pointing finger to the rim of the trench.
Sword points and glistening edges. Armor and shields bearing an unknown coat of arms. Above him stood a great line of fighting men with swords pointed down. Down toward him and Keir and toward the girls who were his responsibility.
6
“Your daughters are still out with that simpleton knave of a castle builder, aren’t they?”
Sir Joseph smirked as Juliana glanced outside for the dozenth time in this interminable afternoon. She wondered if Raymond would ever bring her daughters in, but she wouldn’t give the old man the satisfaction of speculating aloud, for she’d come to give the master castle-builder her complete trust.
Well, almost complete trust. He would keep her daughters safe, even beyond the protection of her sturdy walls. Although he was no belted knight, still she knew he would. Raymond was tall, strong, honorable. She’d realized that after their sojourn in the hut. After all, what other man would have left her in peace when he stood to gain so much from her—especially when, in the end, she would have embraced the enchantment he offered with open arms?
If only Sir Joseph were in exile rather than sitting beside the fire with a loathsome smirk on his face. As the serving maids set up the trestle tables and covered them with white cloths, he jabbed at them with his stick. It was the kind of cruel entertainment that cheered him. At the same time, he jabbed at Juliana with a wit as sharp as any sword and a cruelty as bludgeoning as any mace. “Of course, why should you care if your babes are stolen away from you and raped? You’ve no more motherly feeling than a slime-bellied as
p.”
Before Juliana could defend herself, Valeska said, “You worthless, louse-ridden vermin.” Her tone was as smooth as Mabel’s ale, but Sir Joseph superstitiously hunkered inside his cape. “Leave my lady alone to do her needlework and listen to Dagna’s song. ’Tis a romantic ballad of a knight and his true love.”
“You call that music?” Sir Joseph spat into the fire. “I’ve put a live puppy on the fire and heard better music.”
Dagna stopped singing, but her smile broadened and she never ceased strumming her mandolin. Her cheerful tune changed, grew oppressive, foreign-sounding, and she sang a few words in a language filled with guttural tones and nerve-scraping notes. Sir Joseph quivered and whispered, “Witches.”
As Juliana sat before her loom and worked desultorily at the blanket she was weaving, she wondered if the old women really were witches. They had performed miracles she didn’t understand. Her character had been tempered in the kiln of harsh experience, and though she allowed no one to weaken her with kindness, their cosseting didn’t seem to have that effect. If anything, it nurtured and strengthened, like a sweet spring brew after a long winter.
“Your daughters must be getting cold as the sun sinks.” Sir Joseph ducked back into the wide neck of his cape as Valeska cast an evil eye his way. “If you weren’t such a mewling coward, you would go and seek them.”
Fingering the red sash she wore about her waist, Juliana glanced out the arrow slit. It was growing dark and much colder, and her daughters…
Her daughters, too, had grown to trust Raymond. Why else would they have gone with him? The weeks of proximity had dissipated their fear.
If only Raymond would bring them in. She wouldn’t go and see what kept them. She wouldn’t betray her anxiety so obviously, because as the time of his dominance faded, an increasingly spiteful Sir Joseph verbally rended her in the manner of one who knew her vulnerabilities and delighted in her pain.
She wanted to scorn him, shame him, force him to realize she was not the terrified fool he’d been dealing with. She no longer believed he would strike her, and she no longer believed he would strike her, and she no longer wondered what cruelty he would perpetrate on her household next. But she was terrified of the secrets he could tell. She was afraid he would tell Raymond about Hugh and Felix and her father and those events which had destroyed her so long ago.
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