The Valcourt Heiress

by Catherine Coulter

  He studied her, his eyebrow arched. “You do not know that. I pray he is not bad because I need him and his strong arm. I find it odd that our very astute chancellor still believes you the priest’s bastard. It is so very obvious that you are nothing of the sort, that you are obviously a lady born.”

  “He sees what he’s meant to see. Most do.”

  “Discipline,” he said, “our chancellor wants me to see to your discipline. Come with me.” He took her hand and pulled her behind a newly rebuilt shed that held building tools. He pulled her close and placed his finger on her mouth. “Listen to me, Merry. As I said, the chancellor believes you should be disciplined. He has instructed me to see to it. I believe he wants me to thrash you.”

  “You would not!”

  He smiled. “No, I would not, but let me tell you this. If the chancellor continues to believe you a nagging fishwife, he could easily insist you return to London with him, to accept punishment from the king himself.” This wasn’t at all in the realm of possibility, but Garron saw she looked uncertain now, not quite so sure of herself. Good. “The chancellor is also a very intelligent man, a man I trust above all others. Let him drink away his woes, even only for a single night. His duties for the king always weigh heavily on him.”

  “You would not let him take me back to London, would you?”

  He hated that she was afraid, but he needed her agreement. He shrugged. “I would not have a choice. What would the king do to you? I do not know. So here is what we must do. When we emerge from behind this shed, I want you to rub your bottom, as if I’d walloped you but good, all right? You will tell anyone who asks you that this walloping was deserved discipline. And rub your bottom again. The chancellor will find out, and he will be pleased. He will leave you here with me. Can you do this?”

  He watched her chew this over, and wanted to smile. Finally, she nodded. “Oh aye, I will not accuse him of idiocy anymore. I do not wish to be forced away from you, Garron.”

  “You will mind your tongue?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. All right?”

  When they walked back into the inner bailey, he smiled to see her vigorously rubbing her bottom.

  “Ah, one other thing, Merry. Try your best not to sneer again in the chancellor’s presence or even behind his back, for I have learned the man sees everything.”

  Both were aware of the silence around them, no hammering, no yelling, no little boys’ voices, not one of the dogs barking. One of Garron’s newly purchased cows mooed. He looked up to see nearly every one of his people staring at him, and Eric the goat stood not six feet away, chewing on an old leather strap dangling out of her mouth. And here came Miggins striding toward him, her ancient face seamed and set, her meager shoulders pulled back, mumbling to herself. This was all he needed. At least she wasn’t carrying a weapon.

  Merry quickly rubbed her bottom again and tried to look pitiful.

  Miggins waved her fist at him, “Ye whipped her, didn’t ye, my lord, ye, a big man, strong, used to violence, but this one here, she is only a dainty little mite, soft and yielding. Aye, ever so yielding. Be ye like yer brother, Lord Arthur? Be ye as rotten as he was?”

  “Yielding? Where is such a girl, Miggins?” He made a show of searching the inner bailey.

  “She’s wrong about that, Garron, I’m not this fragile useless creature. I am a warrior. I am a hero.”

  “Aye, and now you’re a better disciplined warrior.”

  Miggins shouted, “Mayhap not sweet and gentle, but she is innocent of men. Did ye jerk up her skirts? Don’t deny it, young randy lord that ye are. When I was young, my handsome Ulric always did the same to me. And then he licked me behind my knees.”

  Garron stared at her, blanching at the picture forming in his mind. “It is difficult for me to see you as a young girl, Miggins.”

  “That is because ye are a man with little enough brain. It is very sad. Ye must stop abusing her. Now ye’ve frightened her with yer lust.”

  “He does not frighten me, Miggins. Look at him, he is getting scared because he knows I will make him pay for walloping me.”

  She was enjoying herself, the little witch. She rubbed her bottom harder.

  Garron heard a laugh, then another. Soon laughter filled the inner bailey.

  “Gentle sweet girl,” he whispered in her ear, “by all the saints’ hairy knees, yielding? That is nearly enough to make me burst my guts laughing.” He patted her face. “Ah, what wonderful laughter. Just listen, everyone knows how yielding you are. Come now, Merry, ’tis time for you to show respect to the Chancellor of England even if he is in the sweet-smelling jakes puking up his guts with all the ale.”

  She stared up at him. “Will you lick me like Miggins’s Ulric did to her?” Whilst he gaped at her, she turned to Miggins. “This licking behind the knees, do all men want to do it?”

  Garron didn’t think the laughter could be any louder, but he was wrong.

  “Aye, and a fine thing it be,” Miggins said, her scratchy old voice suddenly sounding girlish with memories.

  That terrifying image undoubtedly flashed in every man’s mind in the inner bailey.

  He grabbed her arms and pulled her up close against him, to every eye, a sign he was not through chastising her. “Do you know, if you like, I will allow you to visit my bed and we can see what this licking is all about.”

  Merry sighed. “There is only one bed and it is for Robert Burnell.”

  Garron realized he had no problem with kicking Burnell out of the master’s bed. “If I set the men to work, there will be another by nightfall. What say you?”

  “There isn’t enough time.”

  His eyes nearly crossed. Everyone was still laughing, listening for all they were worth. Everyone had misunderstood, which was the point, only not really. The point had changed remarkably in the past few minutes. He had to change that—and so he hammered in one more nail. He said, his voice hard and loud, “You are a nag. Even at your tender years, you have the rudiments of nagging down quite well.” He saw her purse her lips, but she understood. He then tapped his finger to her nose, and said, his voice perfectly serious now, “Did you learn it from your precious Lady Anne?”

  “No, my mother left and went to an abbey.”

  A small piece of the truth, and that was something. Her mother had become a nun? He waited, but she shook her head.

  “You are stubborn as one of those mules,” and he turned on his heel and walked to the soldiers barracks, where ten men were alternately looking at the dark sky and sawing wood. No more laughter now, only fierce concentration on completing tasks before the rain came.

  Miggins, thankfully deceived, petted Merry, straightened her hair, tucked in two small braids that had come out of the crown of braids on her head, smoothed down her skirts. “Do ye want to tell me who ye really are? Ye can practice on me, smooth out all the hillocks in yer story before ye tell the young lord.”

  “The young lord is content to wait,” Merry said. She noticed the women standing behind Miggins, all of them leaning toward her, worry on their faces. Worry for her? Because they believed Garron had whipped her?

  Miggins said, “Heed me, Merry, he is a man, a warrior, strong and fearless, just like ye said. Oh aye, ye are a warrior too, little mite.”

  The women all nodded.

  “Surely I did not say he was fearless. Did I?”

  “Something close to that. Listen to me. Sometimes men need to drink ale so their brains will loosen their tongues so they may air their worries, their fears, their doubts. Aye, ale smoothes out all the boulders in their brains so they may begin to think again, to plan, and take action, once they are sober.”

  “Evidently the chancellor had a great many boulders in his brain.”

  Miggins nodded. “Aye. Now women fret in a different way.”

  Elaine said, “My Eric never drank himself into a stupor, he ate.” She sighed. “Not that it mattered. He was thin as a nail, thinner than the arrows he shot.�
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  “Like Elaine’s Eric, I eat,” said Tulia, who carried a bowl of almonds in her large, rough hands. She handed them around. All the women laughed.

  Merry kicked a pebble at her foot. “Other than eating, what is our different way?”

  Lisle, whose hands were busily smoothing a huge ball of gray wool, said, “Mayhap our ways are different because men have always drunk all the ale and left none for us.”

  More laughter, some of it from a few men who had drifted close.

  Miggins said, “All ye little peahens, listen to me. We wring our hands, we weep hot loud tears, we shriek our woes to the heavens when something bad befalls us. I ask ye, can ye see Lord Garron wringing his hands? Mayhap crying on Aleric’s shoulder, bemoaning what the fates have dumped on his head?”

  Merry sighed, rubbed her bottom again. “Nay, I cannot imagine that.”

  Miggins said, “Lord Garron is a good man, not crooked like his brother, but straight in his body and in his thoughts. He is very young, mayhap not quite ripe enough, yet he is a dandy lad. He cares about all of us, Merry. He cares. Look around you. There is life again at Wareham, life and a future for all of us. What is a mug of ale when compared to what he has wrought?”

  “Next you will call him a god.” Merry walked back into the weaving shed. She turned and asked, “Was Ulric your husband, Miggins?”

  Miggins gave her a huge toothless grin.

  An hour later, Sir Lyle and Aleric told Garron and Burnell that the new smith Garron had hired in Winthorpe, Ronsard his name, was gone, all his belongings with him and he’d stolen a horse.

  “I wonder,” Burnell said, “if the Black Demon will slit Ronsard’s throat when he finds out he failed.”

  22

  Garron’s men returned with good news. Neither Furly nor Radstock had been attacked. Garron wasn’t surprised that neither Sir Wills nor Sir Gregory had heard about the Retribution at Wareham, for who was there to tell them? They had, appropriately, sent back a dozen men to help make repairs on their lord’s castle, surely a good sign as to their intentions. The men were immediately put to work building beds.

  Garron stood on the ramparts and contemplated his good fortune in the face of what could have crushed him. Not even a fortnight had passed since Tupper had managed to winch up the portcullis, and now, instead of twenty-two starving ragtag people, there were, in addition to Robert Burnell’s men, close to sixty-five people in Garron’s great hall, all of them drinking from the dozens of wooden mugs Merry had bought in Winthorpe. Merry had told him at dinner, “The old woman informed me proudly that she had all the mugs I could need, as few could afford to buy them since they lasted forever.” She handed him a hunk of bread and goat cheese. “When I told her I would take the lot, she broke into song with her scrawny old husband, and the two of them danced a jig. So maybe I really wasn’t outbargained, since I will never forget their fine performance.”

  Garron laughed. He realized as he scanned all the open land between Wareham and the Forest of Glen that he couldn’t recall having laughed so much in a very long time.

  By the following evening there were four new trestle tables and eight new benches, all stout and sturdy, ready for a good hundred years of men’s arses. Garron realized there were no more dark corners in his great hall. It wasn’t the burning rush torches in the wall sconces that cleared the shadows, nay, it was the pulse of so many breaths and the pounding heartbeats of so many people.

  As for the jakes, he wondered if maybe thinking about problems whilst he sat there wasn’t such a bad idea.

  He and Burnell were leaving the following morning for Furly, then onward to Radstock, another half day to the north. He did not want to leave Wareham and so he tried again to convince Burnell that since Sir Wills and Sir Gregory had sent men to help, it surely meant they were eager to swear their fealty to him. Surely, a visit from him could wait.

  Burnell speared a piece of baked hare on his knifepoint. “I am relieved your two keeps were left unharmed. I am pleased they sent men. It means, of course, that this Black Demon believes Arthur’s silver to be here, nowhere else. Still, the king believes that since neither Sir Wills nor Sir Gregory knows you, you are best served looking each man in the eyes as you accept his homage.”

  There was no hope for it. Garron said, “We will quickly discover if either of them is stupid since with you at my side, they know the king’s shadow sits close by. If ever they considered falling out of line, they will quickly fall back in.” He began tossing his knife from one hand to the other, a fine exercise he’d always found. “If there were not so much to be done here at Wareham, it might be interesting to have Sir Gregory balk a bit. I’ve heard he’s a stubborn stoat, full of conceit and aggression. I wonder what he will do in the future? Truth be told, sir, I’m itching for a good fight. I think the king enjoyed fighting with me because I learned quickly enough to duck under those long arms of his. I tried to teach him to kick out with his big feet, but he never got the knack.”

  “I watched the two of you once. My brave, agile king clouted your head and sent you flying into some yew bushes.”

  Garron remembered his head had pounded for two days. “Aye, that was before I learned to leap backward, fast as a goat.”

  “Did you not get your fill of fighting when you saved that kidnapped boy in the Clandor Forest?”

  “There really wasn’t much to it. Because his destrier was near, their leader escaped me. You told me you couldn’t think of any lad in the vicinity who might be worth taking for ransom.”

  “When I return to London, I will inquire.” Burnell drank some more ale, then softly belched.

  Garron continued after a moment. “I wonder if the boy is still alive. I must doubt it, given he was alone and black-hearted men abound on God’s earth. It’s a pity, the lad had grit.”

  Burnell pointed toward Merry, who was laughing at something young Ivo said to her. Her head was tilted and one of the small braids had worked itself loose and was lying against her cheek. “You told me you disciplined her—a good lesson, I say, to all the women, although I doubt your punishment will lead any of them to mind their tongues in the future.” Burnell sighed. “Women will not change, so our glorious queen assures me. She says it is simply not in their natures. The king agreed—I well remember the placid look he gave her when she spoke—but who knows? Stranger things have occurred, like the story of God raining locusts upon Egypt.”

  Garron laughed, bit off a chunk of bread with his strong teeth, looked over to where their new miller, Arno, sat stuffing down his own bread dripping with gravy. The fellow certainly knew what he was doing; there was not a single piece of grit in the bread to break teeth.

  “What think you, Garron?”

  He shrugged. “As long as our women do what I tell them to do, why should I care about their natures?”

  “Do they always obey you?”

  “They do whenever I’ve sought one of them out for enjoyment.” Garron thought of Lady Blanche, one of the queen’s ladies, who’d enjoyed coming to his small bedchamber in the middle of the night and awakening him with kisses on his belly. He shuddered with the memory.

  Burnell’s lips pursed. “You speak of carnal matters, my lord.”

  “Like every breathing man I know, I find it a satisfying subject, sir.”

  “You are young,” Burnell said, his voice sour. “Curses upon all young men, I say. But there is more than lust, my lord, at least there is later in life when all good things have waned.”

  Aye, he thought, there was more than lust, even for young men. Garron saw Merry in his mind’s eye, bargaining with a leather merchant, and said without thought, “Sometimes women are competent and cocky and stubborn as any man.” He laughed. “Aye, sometimes they are warrior brave.”

  “I find it interesting your bastard makes lists like our queen.”

  His bastard? Was that her laugh he heard? “Mayhap it is common amongst women who know how to read and write.”

  “Most churchmen
believe women are simple creatures, here only to birth men’s children and see to their needs. You look at me like I’ve lost my wits. Are churchmen right, I wonder?”

  “Simple creatures? A man would have to be a hermit to believe such nonsense. Have you seen Merry’s writing? Have you noticed how she has gathered all the women together here at Wareham and set each to specific tasks, the men as well? The men respect her and defer to her. Aleric searches her out to ask her opinions. Now that she has Book One of Leech Book of Bald, I know she will become an excellent healer. She is many things, but she is not simple.”

  Burnell chewed on another chunk of hare, dripping rich, thick gravy on his chin. He remembered in the last century, Eleanor of Aquitaine—that contentious witch with her hellhound sons—had written beautiful script. King Henry had kept her a prisoner for more years than some men lived, and look what she’d wrought. Endless plots against her husband, murdering his mistresses, setting one rapacious son against the other. Ah, but he’d heard she’d written and recited poetry to make a man’s heart bleed.

  And his own precious Queen Eleanor. She read and wrote. She made lists, volumes of lists, each one to the point, each one useful. She advised the king. She kissed his bruises and bit his ear once, then kissed it, when she didn’t know anyone was about. Burnell said, “Take care, Garron, mayhap this redheaded wench will oust you from Wareham and set herself up as lord.”

  Garron smiled, his eyes drawn yet again to Merry, now sitting next to Borran, doubtless discussing the repairs for the looms. Her braids were clean and shining in the rush lighting, from her own soap. She’d told him the soap she’d found at Winthorpe was too dear, and so she’d bought ingredients to make Wareham soap herself. Jasmine, she’d told him.

  Garron knew, as he suspected every single man alive knew, that women were not simple. He also knew the queen was right—women would not change. They were eager when it came to passion, if a man wasn’t a lout; but during the long days, they’d criticize and nag a man until he went off to fight a war or he keeled over dead to escape.