The Valcourt Heiress

by Catherine Coulter

  Garron spoke to the two soldiers who’d gone to the king, saw they were both wounded, and called to Merry.

  When she was at his side, he said only, “They were my brothers’ soldiers. Now they are mine. They are brave men and both are hurt. Please see to them.”

  Even before Robert Burnell was settled into a makeshift chair, its rough-planked seat hurriedly covered with blankets, Garron heard the sound of a single hammer in the inner bailey. It was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard in his life.

  13

  Clouds hung low, the air was chill, but it didn’t rain. Garron rubbed his hands together, told Tupper he was the porter and he trusted him to keep sharp, which made the old man square his meager shoulders. He stationed the king’s soldiers on the ramparts, then ordered the portcullis left winched up, the drawbridge down. During the day, two dozen more Wareham people straggled into the keep, all starving and in rags, but now, at the sight of all the activity, at the sight of all the sheathed swords, at the smells of cooking food, there were wondering voices, even one rumbling laugh, but most of all, there was hope. Garron had never thought much about the quality of hope before, but he realized now it was a tangible thing, something he could feel, even smell in the very air.

  A dozen soldiers, most wounded, returned as well. Merry cleaned and bound their wounds while Garron questioned them closely, but they knew nothing he didn’t already know.

  Aleric managed to mix the groups together, with no arguments or broken heads, and set all the men to work, each to his skill.

  What pleased Garron the most, he realized, was the young woman who came straggling into the inner bailey with two small boys, their dirty hands clasped in hers, along with three dispirited dogs, their tails down. Her name was Elaine. Her husband had managed to spirit his family out of Wareham and hide them in the Forest of Glen. Then he’d returned to fight.

  Elaine bowed her head. “My husband never returned to us.”

  Garron hoped Tupper or Miggins would know where the man was buried. While he spoke to the mother, he saw Merry give the two little boys and the three dogs milk from the goat Queen Eleanor had sent.

  He heard her say, “Ivo, Errol, what shall we name our new goat with her delicious milk?”

  “Eric,” Ivo said. “It was my father’s name. The bad men kilt him after he hid us and came back to fight. ’Tis a good name. Ma cried and cried when he didn’t come back. I didn’t, but Errol did. He’s just a little boy.” It didn’t matter the goat was female. From that day on, her name was Eric.

  Their mother, Elaine, a woman whose pale bruised eyes were no longer blank with fear and grief, heard what Ivo said. She turned to Merry and curtsied. “Thank you, my lady. I believed we would die, but no longer. Thank God, no longer. We saw Lord Garron and his men hunting but I didn’t know who they were, so we were afraid to come out. Then, I supposed it didn’t matter. We were so hungry and cold. Then we saw all those mules with the packets.” She sighed, hugged her boys against her. “The little dogs followed us. Now even they are happy again, with milk in their bellies. We are so glad to be home. I was in charge of all the sewing once the weaving was done. I see everyone is in rags. If you can give me cloth, I will make new clothes. I see Talia has survived, thank the good Lord. She is an excellent seamstress as well. My husband, Eric—” She swallowed. “He was a good man.”

  Merry lightly touched her hand to Elaine’s shoulder. My lady? She had to correct her, she had to—“I will see that you have the cloth and needles, but first you must eat and rest, your boys too.” She leaned down to pat one of the dogs.

  Merry went through every single bundle. Three mules carried food, another carried seeds for the vegetable garden, even some cuttings for rosebushes, and packets filled with spices. Two mules carried bolts of sturdy wool and a dozen needles, and praise be to St. Catherine’s bonny face, there were three small pear and apple trees, their roots bound up in damp cloth. There was so much, Merry felt tears start to her eyes.

  When she found candles, she started singing. But she didn’t find any soap. She was in sore need of a bath. Well, she knew how to make soap, and given the odors coming from all the people, herself included, she should do it this very minute, though she wondered if she could talk them into bathing, something few of them did in the best of years.

  Everything moved quickly. Sir Lyle and his men went hunting, led by three of Arthur’s former soldiers who surely knew the lay of the land and where the best game could be found. Every other able-bodied man was out chopping down trees in the nearby Forest of Glen to make trestle tables, benches, and beds.

  Merry served Robert Burnell some of the sweet red wine he had brought from the king. She smiled when she filled Garron’s wooden cup, one of the dozen sent by the queen. He handed her the soap. “I heard you muttering about not having any soap. I have only this one sliver left.”

  She gave him a lovely white-toothed smile that charmed and warmed him to his belly, had she but known it. She’d seen him washing at the well that day and envied that soap. He shrugged. “I learned in Moorish Spain that I preferred being clean to having fleas crawling in my hair.”

  She took the precious sliver from him and stared upon it as if it were a royal jewel. He laughed. “Perhaps you can use a recipe that smells like this does. I bought this soap in Marseilles. I was told they blend in lavender with the olive oil and ash.”

  “My father once gave me soap from Marseilles—” Her voice fell off the cliff. “Oh dear.” She quickly sniffed the sliver of soap. “I can smell the lavender. I will try, but I don’t know where I can find lavender. Mayhap there is some rosemary, hmmm, I must think on this, my lord.”

  Please don’t ask, please don’t ask— Of course he was brimming with questions, but in the end, thank all God’s angels, he only nodded.

  “I will adjust my list for what we still must purchase when we travel to Winthorpe—it will be much shorter now, thanks to the king.”

  “It is good your father taught you to write.”

  She nodded, for indeed, her father had had her educated. She remembered the hours spent with Father Kustus, who begrudged her every moment, believing his task to be a waste of his time. A memory came back: her father speaking to their priest, telling him Merry’s mother would be furious when she heard, and he’d laughed. Why, she wondered now as she had many many times in her eighteen years, had her beautiful mother hated both her and her father? She shook it off. “You can trust me, my lord. Do not worry.”

  Trust her about what, specifically? She was an obvious liar. He opened his mouth, only to shut it again when one of his men approached him with a question, and he was distracted.

  Merry continued to serve food throughout the day in the great hall for anyone who was hungry, which everyone was. Sir Lyle’s men brought in more deer, pheasant, and grouse to go with the piles of baked fish.

  When everyone was called in for dinner, the planks were once again filled with roasted meat and fish, and from the queen, stewed carrots and onions, and piles of dried fruit.

  Everyone looked up when Gilpin called out from the huge open doorway, “Behold what our men have wrought!”

  Four men carried in a new trestle table and two benches. A loud cheer went up, even though those cheering wouldn’t have the privilege of sitting at the trestle table.

  It was a feast.

  Once again, most everyone ate on planks set upon the piled stones, and everyone rejoiced. Merry saw Sir Lyle looking around the great hall, his expression bemused. Then he met her eyes and stilled. Merry saw something change in his eyes. What? She didn’t know. He seated himself at one end of the trestle table, and he looked at her again. A brow went up when she didn’t join Garron, but sat beside Miggins, cross-legged on the stone floor. Had he believed her Garron’s wife? Now did he believe her Garron’s leman, low-born and thus not worthy to sit beside him? And obviously, not worthy of Sir Lyle’s notice or respect.

  Merry looked at all the wonderful food and realized she
wasn’t hungry. She was simply too tired, too excited, too pleased with everyone and everything. She didn’t remember ever feeling like this before in her life. Naturally she’d overseen the women’s work at Valcourt, but everyone knew what to do and did it willingly. They’d all trained her and loved her and protected her since she was the little mistress.

  But not here, not at Wareham. This was a revelation. For the first time in her life she was truly needed. When she looked at Garron sitting at the new trestle table, chewing on a thick slab of venison, nodding at something Robert Burnell said, she knew she’d never felt anything like this either. Here was a man to trust, a man to admire. And so very young. She had never questioned her father’s exquisite control, and she now realized that Garron of Kersey, Earl of Wareham, had control as well. Like her father, she knew violence ran deep in him as it did in most men, but she knew he would never unleash it until it was necessary, as it had been when he’d saved her in the forest.

  Garron swallowed some stewed vegetables and glanced up to see Merry leaning against Miggins’s scrawny shoulder, sound asleep. He frowned. He should have insisted she sit with him after all she’d accomplished, but Burnell hadn’t stopped talking, all of it advice, supposedly from the king, though Garron knew it was from Burnell himself. He drank the sweet wine and let the overwhelming responsibility of what he now faced fall quiet in his mind, at least for a while.

  Burnell found himself wondering yet again how a priest’s bastard had managed to gain such loyalty. He chewed on some carrots. “I see the girl sits with the servants. I suppose it is fitting.”

  It wasn’t fitting, Garron thought, but exactly why it wasn’t, he couldn’t say. “Mayhap she sits with the servants because she fears we will belch at all her good food.”

  Burnell didn’t laugh, for he was not a man of humorous parts. He ate a mouthful of soft black bread. “A priest’s byblow. It is amazing how well your people accept her, even do as she bids them, and none of them appears to want to shun her or kill her.”

  Garron nodded.

  Burnell then wondered where he would sleep this night. It did not look promising. Perhaps Garron expected him to wrap himself in a blanket and sleep atop this table, here in the great hall, with dozens of people snoring all night around him. Not a soothing thought.

  Garron stood and raised his cup high. Soon all conversation fell away and there was silence in the vast hall. He shouted, “Our thanks to the King of England. Long may Edward the First rule our great proud land!”

  Cheering filled the great hall. Since there weren’t wooden cups for everyone, those without pretended to salute the king and themselves, and passed around a wooden dipper filled with ale.

  Merry, awakened by all the cheering, realized she had to add more wooden cups to her list. And ale, she thought, she knew how to make ale. She took her sip when the wooden dipper passed to her. She’d make better ale than this.

  Garron raised his cup again. “We will survive. We will rebuild. We will become strong once again and then we will find and kill our enemy, this Black Demon. I also plan to travel to Winthorpe and buy every cup in the town!”

  More cheering, and laughter now, and Merry, pleased with him, smiled and drank deep when the wooden dipper was passed to her again.

  Burnell said to Garron, “I have decided it is my duty to visit your two holdings with you, my lord, Furly and Radstock.”

  Garron nodded.

  “Actually, the king commanded me to. He is concerned that this Black Demon has taken control of your keeps, or else he’s destroyed them.” Burnell chewed on a bone before tossing it to one of the castle’s three dogs. “The king will miss me but I must see that you are well received. Aye, it is his instruction. He told me if these two keeps were destroyed, then he would see.”

  Whatever that meant, Garron thought. “Mayhap the Black Demon is a Scot. Since the king wishes to hammer the Scots into the dirt, that would enrage him enough to send me an army. Aye, he would probably lead it himself, banners flying.”

  Burnell raised a brow. “I hope I did not detect a touch of irony in your voice, my lord.”

  14

  I rony? Lord Garron shook his head, smiled. He saw Merry’s head was now lying in Miggins’s skinny lap. She was once again asleep.

  He said, “I do not have a bed for you, sir, none were left whole and I deemed the trestle table and the benches more important to your comfort.”

  Even though Burnell expected this, it was still foul news. But he well understood fortitude. “I feared as much. I brought many blankets. Our gracious queen much enjoyed herself, I believe, making lists, all her ladies adding suggestions until she was satisfied you would have everything you needed. She knows how to organize, does our benevolent queen.” He paused, frowned a bit. “She uses a great deal of ink with her interminable lists.”

  “It seems lists abound,” Garron said. “I remember I heard the queen insisted all her ladies make lists as well, for greater control, she told them. Since most of her ladies could not write, she had them dictate their lists to a scribe. However, since they also could not read what was written on their lists, I wondered at the usefulness.”

  Burnell harrumphed. “A ridiculous thing, a lady learning to read and write, though, naturally, I would never say such a thing to our lovely queen.”

  “Indeed not. I hope you do not mind sleeping on blankets, sir, in the lord’s chamber. At least it will be quiet. Merry said there wasn’t any soap. She plans to make some on the morrow.”

  “Merry,” Burnell repeated her name slowly. “An interesting name for the priest’s bastard. She acts like a lady, my lord. She speaks like a lady. I find this all very strange.”

  “She is, I admit, something of a mystery.”

  One of Burnell’s thick brows shot up. “A bastard is a bastard. On the other hand, she does appear to be more winsome than any I have met. I see kindness in her, enthusiasm, and she shows competency. You say she is a mystery. Why do you use that particular word, my lord?”

  “Can you imagine her fat?”

  “I cannot see her.”

  Garron called out, “Merry! Wake up! Attend me, the king’s secretary wishes to thank you for the delicious dinner.”

  He watched Miggins shake her shoulder. She jerked, and even from a distance, he saw the brief confusion and a spark of fear in her eyes before she realized she was here and safe.

  “Merry!”

  Slowly, she got to her feet, straightened her gown, patted her hair, and walked to him.

  “What do you think of our new trestle table?” Garron asked her.

  “It is a marvel, my lord. However, we have no bed for the king’s generous and kind ambassador. Gilpin said Aleric plans to make two beds on the morrow, one of them for you, sir.”

  Burnell’s ears turned red with pleasure. An ambassador. He’d always believed it his calling, wiliness of tongue was but one of his many talents, but to be an ambassador—it was the destiny of his heart. He beamed upon the girl. “Thank you for the excellent meal. Your father, what happened to him?”

  “He died in the Retribution.”

  “I thought I heard you call it the Devastation before,” Burnell said.

  Her face went perfectly blank, and Burnell thought, She was never fat.

  “Retribution, devastation—one or the other, what matter?” Garron said, never taking his eyes off her. Burnell, sharp as an arrow tip, that old bastard, was testing her.

  Burnell studied her a moment, particularly her hair. “I am sorry for your father’s death, since it leaves you alone. What will you do now, child?”

  Garron realized she had no ready answer to this question. “As I told you, sir, she is at present seeing to Wareham. She is good at it. What will happen later? We will see.”

  Burnell said, “Do you know who first called it the Retribution? Was it this Black Demon?”

  Merry turned and called out, “Tupper, who first called it the Retribution?”

  “The Black Demon,” Tup
per shouted. “When he sat atop that great destrier at the fore of his men, he announced he was here to carry out the Retribution unless we gave him his silver coins. Then he said he would spare us if Lord Arthur would come forward and give himself up for his crimes, but Lord Arthur was dead, now wasn’t he? But it seemed the Black Demon didn’t believe Elkins, Lord Arthur’s master-at-arms. Then Murlo laughed at him, all our soldiers joined in with him because they believed themselves safe and they believed him a puffed-up popinjay. All knew that even with Lord Arthur dead, we would hold against an enemy.”

  “Rightfully so,” said Burnell. “Wareham is a stout keep. How did the Black Demon manage to get within the walls?”

  The hall quieted. Everyone was listening.

  Tupper said, “A traitor let in some of his soldiers through the hidden postern gate at the beach. While the Black Demon was threatening Murlo and our soldiers, all their attention focused on him and his men, the traitor led them in single file. When the Black Demon finished talking, there were enough of his soldiers already within to take Wareham.” Tupper bowed his head. “No one realized the Black Demon had divided up his men. ’Twas a black day, sir.”

  Burnell called out, “Who knew to call this man the Black Demon?”

  Tupper said, “He called himself the Black Demon, sir, said it was his name, said, he did, we would never forget him, if we lived to tell about it.”

  Burnell sat silent a moment, stroking his chin. “Does anyone know who this man is?”

  There was discussion. Finally, Bullic the cook shouted, “Nay, sir, no one knows. He never removed his helmet. He was garbed all in black and his destrier, a huge brute, was black as well.”

  “What of his standard?”

  There was the buzz of conversation throughout the great hall, but none could remember a standard.