The Seasons Series; Five Books for the Price of Three

by Domning, Denise

  "Nay, my lady," Jos replied in what almost sounded like disappointment. When Gilliam had suggested they search for the night hunting birds, the child had sneered, saying that he had no interest in such things. "Lord Gilliam thinks we might have heard one."

  Nicola nodded, slipping her shoes back onto her feet. The heat had helped; the blisters were drying. She banked the fire, laying the cover atop it and stood. She handed Jocelyn the lamp from the table's edge. "Carry this for me. I can manage the bucket." The morrow's washing water stood at the opposite end of the table.

  "Nay, I'll carry the water," Gilliam said, grabbing the bucket's handle. "You've trouble enough staying upright and walking, much less trying to carry anything."

  "What do I look like, some weak woman," Nicola shot back. She needed no help, especially from him. "You were gone all day, and I managed well enough without you. I can do so now."

  He smiled at her. "Of that I have no doubt. However, since I have the bucket and you'll need to fight me to retrieve it, humor me in this. Come, now, poor Jos is struggling to keep his eyes open." He started toward the door.

  Nicola glanced at the boy, awaiting his reaction to the shortening of his name. Jocelyn only rolled his eyes in defeat and followed Gilliam. Still shaking her head in amusement, Nicola brought up the rear, her steps far less stilted than this morn.

  They waited for her at the door. "Jocelyn," she said, "I've laid you a pallet in the keep chamber, but that room's too crowded even with just the bed in it. Your lord will have to have a care for where he steps."

  "I would never step on Jos," Gilliam protested with mock hurt, his foot suddenly resting atop the boy's toes. Jos sidled out of his way, something akin to a giggle escaping him. When Gilliam tried it again, the lad slid out the hall door ahead of them. With his hand cupped around the lamp to protect the flame from the wind, his passage across the bailey was ghostly.

  Drawing her mantle tightly around her against the frigid wind that spattered her with icy moisture, Nicola stared after the boy. "Gilliam, he should be sleeping in the hall, where there's fire and warmth. So should we."

  She turned to look at her husband. It was so dark between them, he was hardly more than a shadow. As always, she felt his heat reach out to her.

  "Nay, that is my chamber, and he must sleep with me. Come spring, the hall will rise. I've planned for an antechamber where Jos can keep his pallet. Until then, we will have to survive in those cramped quarters." His hand slipped beneath her elbow and led her into the bailey. "Come now, with the three of us in that small room, we'll be warm enough."

  The sky was heavy, the wind whistling around them as they crossed the open area. Leaves rattled past them, and the oxen lowed from their byre. There was a movement from behind them. Roia followed.

  "She's not sleeping with us, too, is she?" There was a touch of panic in Nicola's voice.

  His laugh was low and quiet. "What can I do? She'll stay nowhere else. I chained her in the stable last night, and the grooms say she howled the whole night long."

  "But Jocelyn hates dogs," she protested as she started up the steps. She was less intent on defending the boy than on protecting herself. Gilliam kept his hand at the small of her back against the possibility of ice on the steps.

  "Not so much after today. He and and Roia have come to an understanding. Do not worry, I will keep you safe from her."

  "Even if she doesn't eat me alive, she will give us all fleas," Nicola said, recognizing a hopeless cause.

  Jocelyn had left the door ajar for them and gone to light the thick night candle from his lamp. He'd left the little bowl, now dark and solemn, beneath the big iron candleholder. With but a single flame to shed its light in the room, the bright bed curtains were naught but gray shrouds, the bed's interior a dark cave.

  The boy had already stripped away his tunic, but kept his chausses and shirt on against the chill. When Nicola knelt beside the thick straw mattress that lay against one wall to shove aside the blankets and furs, the boy leapt within them. He settled, his back toward the wall, and she swiftly tucked the many layers around him, then smiled at him to bid him to sleep.

  "Good night, my lad," Gilliam said from beside the bed's head. "Sleep deeply, we have much to do on the morrow."

  "Aye, my lord," he managed, his eyes already closing.

  As Nicola stood, Roia moved past her, this time offering no comment on her dislike for Ashby's lady. Seeing the pallet for its potential warmth and comfort, the big dog circled several times over the half Jos left empty, then settled with a groan.

  Nicola turned, meaning to ask Gilliam for help with her laces. Her husband had his back to her, his tunic and shirt already stripped off. The candle's golden light gleamed against his bared shoulders and back. She held back, once again in awe of the very size of him. If she touched him, would he feel hard like a wall or would there be the normal softness of skin? The desire to know grew until she lifted a hand.

  Startled by this ridiculous urge, she brought her errant fingers back to her side and cleared her throat. He looked over his shoulder at her, the light flowing over the handsome lines of his face. This was the man who would share her bed for the rest of her life.

  "Would you mind loosening my gowns?" It was a shy question.

  "Not at all," he replied with a quick laugh, turning toward her. His hair shone like gold as he moved.

  Nicola offered her wrists first. "By the morrow's end, those gowns I'm sewing should be done, or so I hope." The words came out in a hurried stream as she watched him work at the thin string. It still surprised her that his fingers could be both so nimble and so large.

  "That brown color does not suit you at all," he said, glancing up at her.

  She shrugged. "What does the color matter? They will be practical gowns,” she said, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb Jocelyn. "I can hardly do the slaughtering in these, that much is for certain. The other I can stain without worry. Besides, you cannot much like having to do this chore like some fine lady's maid."

  He smiled. "You are wrong. I am a man who thought never to marry, therefore so domestic a task as this gives me great pleasure." There was something more than simple pleasure in his voice, and it set her pulse to a new beat.

  Nicola was very happy to turn her back to him and let him work on the overgown's string. "Why would you think never to marry?" She released her belt's knot and hung it from a hook on the bedpost, then glanced over her shoulder at him. The masculine planes of his chest glowed in the weak light, outlined by night's shadow. "Your brother is a powerful lord who holds many properties. Surely he would give you your own fief."

  His hands stilled suddenly, resting against her spine. "Who can say? My father left me nothing but his name, and that was all I ever expected."

  The pain in his voice surprised her. More than that, it told her he had never expected more because he did not feel he deserved it. Something terrible must have happened between the brothers. Again, she glanced over her shoulder at him. There was a bitter cast to his mouth. "Why?"

  "Here, this one is done," he said, ignoring her question.

  She slipped the loosened gown off her shoulders and stepped out of it. The undergown had a single tie at mid back. He worked at the knot. In the silence of the room, the material's rasp seemed overly loud.

  "You'll not say?" she prodded quietly.

  As he freed the tie, he said, "Perhaps another time." His voice was tight and low. He turned swiftly away from her to finish disrobing.

  Nicola slipped out of her undergown, leaving on her chemise. This she did not do for modesty's sake, since all men and women slept without clothing, but as one more layer against the room's deep chill. She gathered up both their clothing and hung them over the bedpost, then retreated to the bed. Gilliam already lay near the wall, hidden in the dimness.

  Only when she slipped beneath the bedclothes, did she realize her husband's back was toward her. Nevertheless, he was blessedly warm. She closed the curtains, creating an
instant and complete darkness. When she lay down, it was just close enough to him to borrow his warmth. She drifted to sleep, wondering what he could have done that was horrible enough to banish his humor.

  Smoke curled up and over her shoulder. Nicola turned to look behind her and saw tiny tongues of flame hop, one above the other, up a wall. Men and women she'd known all her life raced soundlessly past her, mouths wide in horror. She looked to where they ran and saw the hole carved in the wall. There was safety for her there.

  Nicola started to follow them, but something held her trapped. When she looked behind her, she saw the fire now had her by the skirt. The flames swiftly consumed the fabric as it sought to reach her. She thrashed and kicked, desperate to be free of the burning cloth. A huge dog ran toward her, growling and snapping. She cried out, no more capable of escaping the terrible creature than she could the fire... .

  "Roia, nay. Hey now."

  Startled by an unexpected voice and a touch upon her arm, Nicola cried out and fought her way upright. She was trapped in complete darkness. Panic exploded within her. Which prison was this?

  There was movement behind her, a rustling and creaking then arms came around her. By their strength and bulk, she recognized Gilliam. "Are you awake?"

  "Aye," she murmured, waiting to feel trapped by his hold. Instead, she found only comfort. On the morrow, she would warn him against such intimacy. They had agreed her body was her own. But just now, she was too tired to talk about it.

  Nicola relaxed against him, and he leaned his cheek against her bare neck. His skin was rough with the day's growth of beard. A tiny spark of amusement filled her. Was he so vain he kept himself barefaced apurpose? She yawned, already drifting back to sleep.

  "What did you dream?" His voice was low and so deep, it rumbled around the confines of the bed. He lowered her back into the bolsters, his huge hand moving to ease the tension from her back.

  She murmured and leaned forward, giving him access to more of her aching spine. He worked at the kinks in her muscles. "It’s the same each time. I am trying to escape the fire, but no matter how I run the flames are eating me up."

  "Hmm. 'Twas a frightening thing, that."

  "What?" she managed, more asleep than awake.

  "The fire. Me in my armor and gambeson, I kept expecting to drop with the heat, but I couldn't allow myself to do so. When none of you inside Ashby answered my calls, I was certain Rannulf was dead. I had set my heart on avenging him, even if it cost me my life. I owed him that much."

  "Why?" she asked, more to hear his voice than in any need to know the answer and forgetting she'd asked him this earlier.

  "A few days before he came to Ashby and was taken captive, we fought, he and I. I said things"—he paused—"things of which I am not proud." His hand receded, and he eased back down beneath the bedclothes.

  She smiled just a little into the bolsters. "I see he has not yet forgiven you your harsh words," she murmured.

  "How so?" lt was a surprised question.

  "He gave you me, did he not?" It would serve Gilliam rightly to be served a little of his own humor.

  "You made a jest," he breathed in astonishment.

  "Did you think I could not?" she retorted in sleepy irritation. "Now, leave me to my rest. It’s the middle of the night." As she drifted off, she was sure she heard his laugh, low and soft.

  Nicola carefully picked her way through the muck in the bailey, her mantle drawn over her head to protect her from the steady rain. Her steps were cautious for safety's sake, not because her feet hurt. It was her third morning home, but her first to be pain free. It was also her first morning to wear her new gowns.

  What a joy it was to dress herself. The brown garments fit comfortably, needing nothing save a belt to hold them in place. The undergown had long sleeves loose enough to be rolled up to her elbows when necessary, while the overgown was sleeveless.

  She entered the hall expecting to see Gilliam and Jos. They'd left the bedchamber over an hour ago, just before dawn. She stopped in surprise only a few feet into the hall. Not only was her husband and his squire gone, but so too was most of Ashby's soldiery. The dairymaids looked lonely sitting at a table by themselves. Thomas, whose right it was to take his meals at Lord Ashby's expense, was also missing.

  Curiosity, tinged with the slightest bit of worry, woke in her. She should have roused herself to ask Gilliam why and where they went. Now, she cursed herself for not being more aware. As its mistress, she wished to know all of Ashby's comings and goings. Where was everyone?

  Nicola held her mantle before her and snapped it in midair. Water droplets flew. Roia leapt out of nowhere, rising into the air, her jaws snapping shut with a sharp click. Nicola cried out in surprise and not a little fear. With Gilliam gone, who knew what the dog would do to her.

  Instead of attacking, the big dog settled on her haunches and watched Ashby's lady. There was a pleading look in her eyes, and her tail thudded dully against the earthen floor. It was not hatred that drove the beast this morn. Nicola hesitated a moment, then snapped her mantle again. The dog leapt for the scattering bits of moisture.

  "Why, you are playing a game," she breathed in surprise. The alaunt grinned at her, begging for another chance to chase the water.

  She shrugged in apology. “It’s dry already. I was not outside long enough." Nicola moved carefully past the dog, stopping at the hearth to see what the cauldron suspended over it contained. Beans and barley simmered in a rich broth. Just as she seated herself at the table, she heard the party ride up to the hall door.

  A piercing whistle called the stable lads. Leather groaned, harnesses rattled, and men shouted. Gilliam strode into the hall, his faithful shadow Jos at his heels.

  Although Ashby's new lord had not donned his mail, he wore a steel sewn hauberk over his usual tunic and his sword was belted into place. He'd thrown back his cloak hood before entering the hall, moisture clung to his hair, making the fair strands gleam even more brightly.

  Like Gilliam, Jos wore a leather vest over his tunic, but he was a sorry sight. His hands were tucked beneath his arms to warm them. The hair that had escaped his hood was plastered to his forehead, the tip of his nose red with cold. Roia came to walk beside them, her tail moving in greeting.

  "Where did you go so early this morn?" she asked as they stopped at the fire to remove their sodden garments. Ashby's soldiery began to file into the hall, all of them as soggy as their master. The noise of their voices was reassuring after the previous, unnerving silence.

  "We chased thieves." Jos stood shivering beside his lord, his fingers trembling so badly he could not loosen the tie on his hood.

  "What thieves?" Nicola came to do it for him.

  "The shepherd found a stranger who had his throat cut and everything of value missing from him," Gilliam said, as if this not-all-that-unusual event plagued him. "The man had been dead a few days. Also, two ewes were missing. Jos, lad, spread your wet cloak before the fire, then go to the table. It’s well past time to break our fast, as we'll need to be getting on with our day.”

  When Nicola moved to stand beside Gilliam, he said, "You are moving right well this morn." There was a quick lift of his brows as he removed his cloak. He went to his big armor chest at the wall.

  "God be praised for that much," she replied stiffly as she watched him lock his sword into the chest then lay his cloak atop it to dry. He was managing to keep all the weapons out of her reach. Not that she wanted them any longer. For Ashby's good she would tolerate him.

  "We've had trouble with thieves in the past," she said. "Ashby's forest is thick, offering many a hiding spot. Did you ask the villagers if they knew the man?'

  He returned to stand beside her. "Aye. Neither the reeve nor any of the hundred recognized him, and no one goes missing from the village."

  Nicola watched him for another moment. "Why does this bother you so if no one knew the man?"

  "What makes you think so?" he asked her, a faint air of surprise i
n his manner.

  "Because you’re not smiling. You always smile."

  He smiled. "God help me, you have learned my secret now. You’re right, the whole idea that this murder was done by thieves bothers me. The body had been dragged from the woods so it lay in the open. Most men of that ilk seek to concealment, not revelation. I shall have to ponder this a time." He fell silent, still looking at her. A moment later, he said, "I knew that color would not suit you." His voice was touched with disappointment.

  Nicola shot him a sharp look as she turned to go to the table. "I do not care if the color suits me or not."

  "I do."

  The softness of his words made her nervous. She slid onto her bench. A moment later, Gilliam sat beside her. His thigh was pressed tightly to hers, and his nearness was overpowering. Mary, but she hated the way he made her feel small and helpless simply by being himself. No doubt he knew this about her, and used it as another form of intimidation. Since Nicola dared not push him off the bench, she moved, slipping onto the seat next to her.

  "Coward," he whispered with a laugh.

  Nicola lifted her chin. "You are too big to share a seat," she retorted in an equally hushed voice as she tried to keep their conversation private from Jos. "I'll not be able to move my arm to eat."

  The cook's woman set before Nicola a thick slab of yesterday's bread, a goodly portion of its middle removed to create a bowl. Into this the woman ladled a helping of the pottage. Nicola picked up her spoon and set to filling her stomach.

  "Might I have some of that as well?" Jocelyn asked, his tone almost shamed.

  "Jos," Gilliam cried in astonishment. "You are asking for food. I'm proud of you, my boy."

  "It’s not that I’m hungry, only that I am very cold and it looks warm," the boy said, crossing his arms before him, his jaw stiff.

  Nicola looked at him in surprise. Again, she saw in the lad her own reflection, stubbornly refusing change because others asked it of her. Jos wasn't going to admit he was done with his fasting and his ideas of life in the Church. More importantly, the tilt of his head and his outthrust jaw said he did not wish to be teased about this decision.