Candle in the Window: Castles #1

by Christina Dodd

  As William raced down the stairway on the inner face of the wall, Channing shouted the order to open the drawbridge. It lowered with the creaking of wood and the clatter of chains, and a fresh breeze blew through the wide-mouthed door as the brothers rode in. William went among them at once to relieve one young man of the boy he held.

  Dudley nodded pleasantly as he handed the three-year-old down. He rubbed his arm and groaned, “He gets heavy after so many miles.”

  William looked into the child’s face and saw a muted beauty that looked like Saura. “This is Blaise,” he pronounced. “And you’re Dudley, who studies for the Church. Rollo, the eldest.” He received a curt greeting from the eighteen-year-old. “And his young wife.” Very young, he thought privately, as he surveyed the gangling girl whose horse pressed as close as possible to Rollo. He grinned at the youth dismounting with painful care. “You’re John, who is being fostered, and we already have Clare.”

  Four pairs of violet eyes stared at him with various expressions, and William reeled from the shock of seeing his Saura stare at him from so many different, masculine faces. “I am William, your new brother. Welcome to our home. Welcome.”

  Dudley slithered off the horse and smiled in return. “Thank you, William. It has been a long ride from the monastery, and I’m glad to get here.”

  “And I.” John rubbed his behind and nodded permission as the stable boy took the reins of his horse to lead it away. “’Tis good to meet our new and mysterious brother. Theobald sent Rollo such a garbled message, we knew not what to expect. And fathoming our esteemed father’s mind as we do, we wondered if you’d be hunchbacked and one hundred years old.”

  William laughed with such full-bellied enjoyment Blaise clapped his hands and even Rollo couldn’t restrain a chuckle. “The truth,” he sputtered, patting the baby on the back, “is even more incredible than that.” Blaise patted William’s cheeks in return, fascinated by the man with the big rumble. William hugged him and then handed him to John. Walking to the side of Rollo’s wife, he held up one hand. “May I assist you, my lady?”

  The girl checked Rollo with a quick glance, and when he nodded she placed her hand in his and slid off her saddle. “What is your name?” William asked kindly.

  “Alice, my lord.” Then, with a troubled look at her husband, she corrected herself. “Alice of Montreg, my lord.”

  “You are welcome. You’ll be glad to see Saura again.”

  “Oh, I’ve never met her, my lord. Lord Theobald never let her come to my wedding.”

  “Alice.” Rollo spoke firmly as he dismounted.

  The girl jumped and blushed, hanging her head like a rebuked child.

  Rollo put his arm around his bride. “Alice, we all know how contemptible my father is, but let us not chat about it in the bailey with the stable boys standing about.” He hugged her tight for a moment, and then released her. Standing straight and strong, Rollo reached out a hand to William. “As my brother said, you are indeed a relief.”

  “I am flattered,” William said ironically.

  “Nay, you’re not. To prefer you to a hunchbacked old man is no compliment.” Rollo smiled, and it was Saura’s smile.

  William’s gaze swept the assembled boys, noting their black hair and clear, pale skins. “None of you resemble Theobald.”

  “Nay.” Dudley fixed his clear eyes on William. “Our father’s a weak man, and he passed none of himself on to any of us. We all look like our mother.”

  “Perhaps your father married her for reasons other than just her lands.”

  “Oh, aye,” Rollo agreed. “He loved her. And he hated her. Just as he does our half sister.”

  “Rollo!” Everyone turned at the shout to see Clare fling himself from the horse he shared with Kimball. Clare flew over the drawbridge with winged feet. “John! Dudley! Oh, here’s Blaise!” The brothers surrounded him like a clutch of enraptured black birds with a new hatchling. As the sounds of joyful reunion filled the bailey, Clare took the heavy babe from John, hugging him with homesick intensity. His brothers ruffled his hair and hugged his thin shoulders and smacked him on the back, and when they parted to let him draw breath, he was laughing and crying at the same time.

  Dirty and disheveled from a foray in the woods, Kimball walked to his father’s side and tugged his sleeve. Without taking his eyes from the male fraternity, he said, “Those are all Saura’s brothers, aren’t they?” It wasn’t really a question, more an incredulous statement.

  William nodded his head at his son. “Half brothers. An amazing resemblance, isn’t it?”

  Peter rode in, with Maud riding pillion, and handed his reins to one of the stable boys. Dismounting, he helped ease Maud down and steadied her as she shook her legs out. They strolled over, and William smiled at the older woman who held his father’s arm. “Are these your young ones?”

  “Aye,” Maud agreed, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. “I’ve changed the swaddling clothes on every one of them.”

  In a surge, the boys surrounded Maud with loud enthusiasm, hugging and teasing her as she lashed them with her acidic affection. “Does my Lady Saura know ye’re here, yet?”

  They muttered and shuffled, and she patted their behinds with vigor. “Get ye up there, then.”

  “Can we sneak up and surprise her?” Dudley asked.

  “You jest,” Rollo snapped. “Have you ever sneaked up on our sister?”

  “Never,” Dudley admitted. “But think how pleased she’d be!”

  They stood and thought, and William suggested, “I’ll go get her and bring her down to the herb garden. If you stand still and I place her in the midst of your circle….”

  “Aye, and if we can keep Blaise quiet.” John’s eyes shone with delight.

  “Go bring her,” Maud directed. “I will position them.”

  When William strode into the great hall, there sat Saura at the table with the cook and the baker, discussing every meal and subtlety to be served to their company. And there lay Nicholas on a bench, propped on one elbow and watching her with those intense eyes.

  She turned at his step, calling, “William, these clods say you don’t like cold lamprey pie!”

  She looked so indignant he knew his love had discovered a major stumbling block to their marriage. He put his foot on the bench next to her and leaned against his upthrust knee. “The way I like lamprey best is poached and drained, wrapped in pastry, and given to the dogs.”

  “William!”

  “Lampreys are long, slimy things that live in the mud. Hot lamprey, prepared any way, is a horrible prospect. Cold, it doesn’t bear contemplating.”

  “With extra lamprey syrup?”

  “Please!” He put his hand on his stomach. “Grievous illness comes upon me when I consider it.”

  “Oh, William!” She sounded disappointed as he pulled her to her feet.

  “Come for a walk,” he invited.

  “I can’t.” She pointed back at the table. “I’ve got too much to do.”

  “I’ve got something to show you.”

  “But the cook—”

  “Take care at the stair.” He slowed down while she located the first step with her toe.

  “If I don’t organize—”

  “Here’s the bottom. Here’s the doorway.”

  “I can’t walk as quickly as you do!”

  Deliberately, he kept his steps long and hurried. “Warm day.”

  “William.” She planted herself in the grass of the bailey. “I won’t walk another step!”

  He picked her up with a mighty swing and strode on. “God’s teeth, woman! Come on. What a slow lass you are!”

  She didn’t say anything, thinking hard, and then she touched his face. “William, are we going to be alone?”

  “Nay, love.” He dropped a quick kiss on her upturned countenance and stopped. “Definitely not alone. Do you know where we are?”

  She sniffed. “The herb garden.” He lowered her to the ground, and she sniffed again.
r />   “Saura, Saura.” The wee boy raced over to her and embraced her knees and she snatched him up.

  “Blaise?” She touched his face and then hugged him tight. “Oh, Blaise, you’ve grown so much! How did you get here?” The light glimmered on her face and she flung out her hand. It was taken at once, and she worked her way up the arm to John. He caught her in a crushing hug, interrupted only by Blaise’s indignant wail.

  “You’ll have to share her, lad,” John told him, and turned her.

  “Dudley!” Their embrace was tender and sweet, two people too long apart.

  “Look here,” Dudley directed, and as she found herself in Rollo’s arms her emotions gave way and she burst into tears. The brothers grinned and gulped, pleased that their calm, efficient sister should cry over them, and embarrassed by her womanly weakness. They patted her shoulders and hugged any part they could capture and helped her settle Blaise securely on her hip.

  William watched the scene through a rosy glow of sentiment, and looked around to see if others were affected. Alice, the child bride, was rubbing her nose with her palm as if she didn’t want to admit to tears, and he walked over to stand beside her. “Isn’t it sweet?” the girl asked.

  “It makes me wish I’d had siblings,” he agreed, glaring at his father who stood shoulder to shoulder with Maud.

  “Oh, I had them,” Alice said. “Mostly they just pull your hair and spit at you during dinner.”

  True to her words, Dudley reached under Saura’s veil and pulled her braid. “You can’t cry all day. We brought someone to meet you.”

  “Ouch!” She grabbed her hair. “You mean, there’s a stranger here?”

  “Aye, watching you blubber,” John said with fraternal kindness.

  “My wife,” Rollo smiled with tender concern at the forgotten girl.

  “Your wife! You brought your wife and you forgot to tell me, you fool!” Saura caught Rollo’s beard and tugged hard.

  “Hey!” he yelped. “She doesn’t mind.”

  “That you’ve been married only a year and forget her existence? You’re a bigger fool than I thought.” She put Blaise down on the ground and reached around her brothers.

  Alice hesitated, but William pushed her gently into Saura’s arms. Saura threw her arms around her with familial enthusiasm. “Alice, how I’ve longed to meet my sister-in-law!”

  Alice mumbled, stuttered, stood stiff in Saura’s arms and seemed to have reverted to uneasy childhood. William stared, surprised by the girl’s inadequacy, and Saura froze, pain etched in fleeting discomfort. She eased her embrace and stepped back. “How tall you are. You’re so lucky.” She smiled, projecting kindness and warmth. “Welcome to Burke Castle. If you should want for anything, please let me know.”

  William stared at Saura, amazed at the brief greeting. What was wrong with his dearling? Was she jealous of Rollo’s wife? Surely not; Saura’s eternal compassion for the less gifted attracted him as nothing else did. This was something else, and for an uneasy moment, he knew he’d run into Alice’s attitude before, in the dark time of his life. Brow wrinkled, he couldn’t quite remember.

  Then Rollo stepped forward and caught Alice’s neck in the loose trap of his elbow. “She’s terribly young, sister. She’s only thirteen.”

  Switching his gaze to Alice, William understood. The girl was afraid of Saura, of the difference between them. Perhaps she was repulsed by Saura’s blindness, perhaps she was simply frightened of making a blunder. But her rigid body and her wary eyes that never wavered from Saura told their own story. Saura, with her acute sensitivity to atmosphere, could not fail to notice.

  “’Tis goodish, brother,” she told Rollo. “I understand.” She reached out to William, close against them, and he reeled her in with firm hands.

  Rollo tightened his arm around Alice’s neck and then released her in censure. The girl stood bewildered, too immature to realize she’d given herself away.

  “Rollo, you be nice to her,” Saura instructed, just as if she knew what he was doing. “She’s in a strange place.”

  “Saura.” Like a ragtag beggar, Clare tugged at her skirt. “Saura, you never greeted me.”

  Saura laughed with husky pleasure and swept her little brother in her arms. “So I didn’t. Forgive me?”

  “I suppose so.” The boy sniffed with mock sadness. “Kimball is feeling left out, too.”

  Kimball released a heartrending wail in a blatant bid for sympathy, and she flung an arm around him, too. To William, she asked, “What shall we do to soothe two such obviously agitated boys?”

  “Oh, I can think of something.” The note in William’s voice warned Kimball, and he tried to wiggle away from Saura’s restraining arm, but she held him securely until William grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. He lifted them off their feet and carried them, tucked under his arms, out the gate and into the bailey.

  “Nay! Father, nay!”

  “Please, Lord William, nay!”

  Everyone in the herb garden strained to hear as the boys’ yells increased in intensity. The splash sounded loud and satisfying, and their screams shivered with chill.

  “Where did he dump them, sister?” Dudley asked with a grin.

  “Horse trough.” Saura smirked with renewed spirits and hooked her arm through Dudley’s. “Come up to the keep, and I’ll get you some refreshments.”

  “You’re a uniquely efficient woman.”

  Nicholas had learned, Saura thought. He no longer praised her beauty. He praised her for those things she considered important. Efficiency, ability, coordination. The man’s voice soothed her ear: bland, with the nasal reverberations of Norman French plain in his aristocratic accent.

  “Because I can throw together a quick meal for my brothers while they wash?” she asked lightly. “With the food we’re assembling for the wedding, this little meal is certainly no problem.”

  “You’re wonderful. Think of what you could accomplish if you were sighted.”

  Turning away, she said, “If I were sighted, I’d have the liberty to be inefficient. I assure you, Lord Nicholas, I am not wonderful.”

  “Nay, my lord, she’s only human.”

  She smiled at the deep-toned baritone from her closest brother, calling down from the gallery. “I thank thee, Sir Rollo. With compliments like that, ’tis a miracle I’ve kept my modesty.”

  “You are welcome, sister.” With a clatter, he flew down the spiral stairs and bounded into the room. “My Lord Nicholas, you’re early for the wedding celebration.”

  Surprised, Saura wondered what prompted Rollo’s abrupt, almost rude greeting. “Do you know Lord Nicholas from another place?”

  “Until William introduced us, we’d never met, but he must be a good friend of the family to arrive so early.” Again he emphasized the “early,” and Nicholas responded with an affable politeness.

  “So I am. I’m one of Lord Peter’s fosterings.” He rose from the bench. “And I’ve not had a chance to speak with Peter. Do you know where I would find him?”

  “He’s down in the bailey, inspecting the stables with William. He’ll be glad to see you, I’m sure.” Rollo’s relief was obvious, and Saura reached around and pinched him on the arm. He flinched, but didn’t move until Nicholas left the room. “What’s he doing here all alone with you?” he asked in a hard voice.

  “He’s strange, but Rollo, he’s a guest.”

  “Not my guest.”

  “Nay, he’s William’s guest and you have no right to offend him.”

  He spoke not at all, and then he slowly agreed, “You’re right. But I didn’t like the way he looked at you.”

  She winced, and he asked, “Has he bothered you?”

  “Nay, nay, he’s been useful. He assisted when I counted the barrels of meat and wine in the undercroft. He provided shrewd suggestions about brewing the vast amounts of ale necessary for the wedding. He seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about housekeeping chores.”

  “But why? Why doesn’t he help Willi
am?”

  “William says he doesn’t like knightly chores.”

  “You’re right, he is strange.” Her manly brother’s enthusiastic agreement made her laugh. “Don’t worry that I offended him, though. When I was rude, he got that very superior look of forbearance that mature adults get when youths such as I are bombastic.”

  Saura laughed at his emphasis. “He would.”

  Rollo threw his arm around her neck and gave her a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek. “What’s to eat, you wonderful lass? I’m starving.”

  Embarrassed by his sarcasm, Saura pointed at the loaded table. “If you’re going to catch me off guard, you’ll have to do with a cold meal.” She slapped his hand when he lunged. “Wait until the other boys come in, you pig!”

  “Aye, I will, but not for the sake of good manners. I need to talk to you about something else.”

  It sounded as if he squirmed, and Saura took his hand and led him to the bench by the hearth. “Of course, tell me about it.”

  The hand in hers trembled, and she tightened her grip in surprise.

  “You were always there, weren’t you? My older sister who could eternally be depended upon. Kind, generous, free with her time and her understanding.” He paused, and asked in the hopeful tones of someone postponing the inevitable, “What did you do with Blaise?”

  “Maud’s fed him and put him down for a nap,” she answered patiently.

  “Why should he need a nap? All he did was waller us from the time we snatched him from Pertrade until we got here.”

  Saura chuckled, as she was supposed to, and then insisted, “Rollo? What trouble are you in, now?”

  “I’m not the one that’s in trouble. ’Tis…my wife.”

  Saura dropped his hand.

  He sighed. “I was afraid you’d feel that way. I’m sorry, dear, I should have realized, but I just assumed she’d follow my lead. I just assumed she’d love you as I do. She’s malleable, easily led, and I could have talked to her.”

  She said nothing, and he tried again. “God, Saura, she’s so young. She’s afraid of the servants. If I didn’t have old Lufu to help, I don’t know what would happen in that household. She’s afraid to talk to the matrons, as a married woman should, for fear they’ll laugh at her.” Saura sat stiff and still, her face still turned away from him, and in desperation, he begged, “Saura, listen to me. Alice still plays with her dolls.”