by Ann Lawrence
“Nay, ‘tis ‘er ladyship’s garden.”
Cristina stood on tiptoe and peered through the grill. Before her was a garden left long untended. Paths of white stone wound in what appeared to be concentric circles. The edges were thick with weeds. Tufts of grass marred the pristine paths. A stone bench, perfectly placed to catch the morning sun, sat in the center of the walkways.
And between…between lay heaven. Flower beds, wild and untended, filled the gaps between each path. She saw roses and broom, hawthorn and violets. She caught the scent of sage and marjoram—and rotting wood. Trellises trailed browning ivy. How she wished for her own garden, her own small patch to grow what she needed. “Why is this garden not tended, Alice?”
“Oh, ‘twas often so with Lady Marion. She took it into ‘er ‘ead to do a thing, then once it were done, she would lose interest. This be some imitation of some queen’s garden. Eleanor’s? Mathilda’s? I cannot remember.”
“Did her ladyship bore easily?”
“Aye, miss. She were as changeable as the sunset. One moment laughin’, the next in tears. God love ‘er.”
Cristina looked down at the heavy iron lock. “Can we find a key, Alice?”
“Best ye mind yer own business, Miss.” Alice nodded to the babe in Cristina’s arms. “Don’t be putting yer nose where it were like to be cut off. Lord Durand be mighty frightening when ‘e’s in a temper.”
“Why should he care if I walk in this little garden?”
“‘Twas her ladyship’s, ‘tis why,” Alice said.
With great reluctance, Cristina followed Alice to the keep. She found herself gazing back at the small door in the high wall. What other delights were there, out of sight? Since leaving home as the wife of an itinerant merchant, she had wished for a garden of her own. Seeing such neglect was like seeing a wound untreated.
They were admitted to the keep by a sentry, and Cristina kept her gaze down as she walked through the hall. There were far too many men about, strangers here to join King John, men who had naught to do but drink and dice. Several lingered on the second story gallery, watching all those below.
Then she saw him—Lord Durand. He stood before the mammoth hearth with its whitewashed chimney-piece. Floor to ceiling on either side, the walls were painted to depict the seasons. On the right winter changed to spring and on his left summer faded to autumn. The scenes were as familiar as the daily devotions.
Lord Durand still wore the black tunic from the morning burial services. Fine gold and silver embroidery trimmed it. His belt was heavily chased in silver, his dagger’s hilt a raven’s head in gold. His dark hair gleamed with hints of the color of summer plums. His gray eyes settled on her.
She felt the rush of her blood to her face. He nodded, barely, just a slight movement, almost missed save for the lock of hair that fell over his brow and necessitated him raising his hand to sweep it aside. He wore the heavy gold torque as he had that day in the forest so many months before.
Not often in her twenty-eight years had she ever acted on impulse, yet she handed Felice to Alice and found herself approaching him.
Several men were seated in great oak chairs near the hearth. One was Luke de Marle, the castellan and Lord Durand’s brother. The other was Lord Penne Martine, Lady Oriel’s husband, a landless baron now that Philip had usurped his possessions, a man said to be but half as ruthless as Lord Durand.
Lord Durand nodded to her. “Mistress le Gros.”
“My lord.” Her voice was barely a whisper. What had possessed her to approach him?
The vision of brown ivy, the scent of rotting wood.
Looking up at him, she saw naught but a stony mask. She read neither pleasure nor displeasure on his countenance.
“I noticed a small garden behind a door just beyond the dovecote, my lord.”
“Did you?” Lord Durand frowned and Luke rose.
“Aye. The garden is woefully in need of care.”
“Is it?” Lord Durand held her gaze. Luke stepped closer.
She felt as if she were a dove being scrutinized by a raven—nay, two ravens. “I thought I might be able to restore it and cultivate some plants for my work.”
He frowned. “Nay. The garden will remain locked. ‘Twould be a waste of my men’s time to restore it.”
“I could do the work myself, my lord.”
His frown deepened. “I forbid it. You have other duties to occupy your time.”
She shivered at the harshness of his tone. “Forgive me, my lord; I intrude.” She hurried away, gripping her skirt in her fists. “I am the veriest fool,” she said beneath her breath.
The bedchamber was cold. She built up the fire, shook her head at Alice who already nodded by the child, then went to the alcove and snatched up a pestle. In moments, she had pummeled away the worst of her concerns on hapless lavender seeds.
With a small horn spoon, she measured the lavender and some rosemary and daisy into a scrap of fabric, then tied it with a silk ribbon. She hung it over Felice’s cradle. “I’ll not speak to him again,” she said to the sleeping babe.
* * * * *
That evening, Cristina sat by the brazier in Lady Oriel’s chamber sewing, Felice in a basket at her feet. The chamber was small, but luxurious, the bed hangings yellow cloth festooned with birds and flowers picked out in silk thread. The room was warm and scented with summer flowers.
Facing the southern side of the castle, a window made of real glass allowed Lord Durand’s good friends a view of the way to Portsmouth. Lady Oriel paced her chamber, restlessly toying with a pomander dangling from her belt, finally kneeling by Felice’s basket.
“My sister so wanted a daughter.” Cristina watched Lady Oriel stroke the child’s head. “I hope she will look like Marion. ‘Twould be best.”
“She begins already. She has not Lord Durand’s coloring—”
“Cristina,” Oriel interrupted. “What is it you most want in this vast world?”
“A child.” Cristina felt heat in her cheeks at her sudden confession of her inner desire held secret from all, even Simon. She hastened on. “I come from a large family. We were eight at table until my brothers set off to make their own way. I do miss my mother. She died three springs ago.”
Oriel sat on the yellow padded bench by Cristina. “You think just as I…that is, many women feel as you do.”
Cristina plied her needle in silence for a moment before replying. “Children will love you unconditionally. Is that not so? If they’re good children, raised with love, they’ll bring great joy to your life.” Mayhap the only joy.
“Whereas husbands have other demands.” Oriel cleared her throat. “Cristina, do you know of…that is…I have a lady friend.” She worried the pomander’s tassel so that Cristina knew she would need to repair it before the day was out. “This friend,” Oriel continued, “she and her husband wish a child.”
She leapt up and began again to pace. “Much as you wish a child.” She then rushed back to the bench and sank down once more, her ivory skirts in a crush beneath her. “My friend is ashamed of her failure, you see. She has not conceived despite many years of marriage, and,” her hands fell still on the shredded tassel “she fears her husband’s desire for her wanes as she fails in her duty.”
How Oriel’s words echoed Cristina’s own circumstances. Each time she had failed to conceive or had lost a child through miscarriage or death, Simon had grown a bit more distant, taken her less often.
“In what way might I help your friend, my lady?” Cristina kept her gaze on her needlework. She feared embarrassing the good lady, for surely it was Lady Oriel of whom they spoke? She found most people covered their secret desires behind some “friend’s” need. Too much emotion colored Oriel’s words for it to be otherwise.
“Have you some potion that will stimulate…that is…will help a woman to conceive?” she finished in a rush.
Cristina laid her work aside. She lifted Felice from the basket, held her close, and took in the babe’s
innocent scent. “Women are forever seeking to please men, are they not? When will men begin to seek to please the women?”
Oriel shot to her feet and gave a laugh tinged, Cristina thought, with bitterness. “Men. They have no need to please a woman. There are plenty of us about should one fall short of the mark. But have you anything? If my friend took it now, it might prevent…that is…my friend does not yet think her husband has strayed, but his disappointment is deep. Will it not soon send him to another, worthier woman?”
“If a man wants an heir, he needs his wife,” Cristina pointed out.
“Aye, but if a man seeks a son and the wife never conceives, the bed becomes a place of…duty. Surely that alone will send a man to another?”
Cristina nodded and rose. “I know of several things your friend could try.”
“Thank you.”
The sudden shine of happiness on Lady Oriel’s face saddened Cristina. “No matter what I make, my lady, it is still in God’s hands.”
Lady Oriel no longer listened; she was gone in a rustle of skirts. Cristina took a moment to pack her needlework into her bag, then lifted Felice onto her shoulder. The sweet pillows she was stitching could wait. The husband-luring potion could not.
As she left Oriel’s chamber of peace and beauty, she cast a last look at the draped opulence of Oriel’s bed and thought of how she had taken many potions herself and still had no living child. Yet, she had given them to others and watched them work their magic. “Mayhap,” she whispered, “my lady shall lay in her golden bed and be lucky.”
* * * * *
Cristina leaned her palms flat on her work table and sighed. She did not have what she needed for Lady Oriel’s love potion. She could not ask Simon to secure the ingredients. He would question her endlessly as to their purpose, then scoff at a belief in such potions.
Barren women had only themselves to blame for their failure, he had so often said. Cristina tiptoed to where Felice lay nestled in her basket. “Felice, we’ll need to spend the day gathering.” She glanced at the open window. The morning sun shone brightly. “‘Tis best we make use of the fine weather.”
A few moments later, garbed in a dun mantle, Felice in a sling across her chest, Cristina knocked lightly on the castellan’s counting room door. It opened immediately, but only a few inches. Luke’s bold grin greeted her. His hair was mussed and his tunic rumpled. Cristina heard a feminine giggle.
“Forgive me, sir, for disturbing you. I wished only to obtain permission to leave the keep and gather a few plants.”
“You’re not a prisoner here; you may leave when the spirit moves you.” He leaned in the opening, his grin settling into a kind smile.
She dipped into a curtsy. “Thank you, sir, but I’ll need several strong men to accompany me. I would like to have some plants dug and potted for my use. I’ve no authority to command even a groom to lead my horse.”
With a wistful look over his shoulder, Luke left the chamber, shutting the door firmly behind him. “Come. I’ll see to it for you. There are many lazy louts about who have need of such occupation.”
* * * * *
Durand, accompanied by Penne, rode into the village. He inspected the baker’s ovens, the mill, the village well, and finally arrived at the house that would soon be home to his new merchant. The long stone building stood at the edge of the village on the road leading to Portsmouth.
Pilfered stone from an ancient Roman temple formed a decorative face to the door. Ducking his head to enter, Durand smiled. It had always been thus—a profusion of goods tumbled in happy disorder from shelves and coffers. The myriad scents of Old Owen’s stock filled the front room that served to house his shop.
The living quarters were overhead. The ladder to the second floor was no longer negotiable by the old man, who now lay on a pallet near his hearth. There Durand found him with Simon le Gros.
“Shall I see to your horse, my lord?” Simon inquired.
Durand nodded.
“I have no liking for illness,” Penne said quietly and followed the merchant out.
Durand wandered the crowded room and noticed the many spiderwebs and dirt that indicated the extent of Old Owen’s illness. The man had once been as fastidious as a vestal virgin. “What may I do for you, Owen? Is there aught you would like to see taken to the keep for your comfort?”
“There is naught I need, save me bed,” Owen said in a low rasp that deteriorated into a hacking cough.
Durand poured ale from a pitcher and supported the man’s shoulders as he drank. “I’ll see there’s a strict accounting of all that remains here, and my brother will dispose of it to your satisfaction.”
Owen curled his gnarled fingers in Durand’s tunic. “I’ve some’at as needs saying. S-s—” A paroxysm of coughs shook his body. “Betray you.”
“Betray me? What are you saying?” Durand helped the old man lie back. Did Owen know something of Marion’s perfidy?
Simon and Penne entered the cottage.
“At the keep, my lord,” the old man said, “At the keep. I’ll tell ye there.”
Durand nodded, concerned for the old man, whose color was gray, the whites of his eyes yellow. “Simon, would you see Owen to Ravenswood?”
“As you wish, my lord.” Simon nodded. “I shall remain here until Owen feels fit enough to ride, then convey him to the keep.”
Durand spoke a moment longer to the old man of their arrangements; then, with Penne at his side, left. As they mounted their horses, Durand considered the long, low building. “I remember sneaking down here as a small boy. Owen was a god to me. He would allow me to sit by his fire for half a day, sometimes. The tales he told! I knew which wives ground flour behind the miller’s back, which man would move a field marker. Now,” he looked off into the distance, “I know the number of men King Philip might muster, but not how many men plow my fields.”
“Marion complained often of your many absences.”
“Aye, she had much of which to complain.”
“You were not free to do as you pleased. I know ‘tis wrong to speak ill of the dead, but she was petty and childish to expect you to drop the king’s business to tend her needs.”
Durand urged his horse to a canter. He followed an old deer track into the woods, which bordered a lazy stream. “Do not let Oriel hear your opinion of Marion.”
“Oriel would agree. You’d be an earl now if Richard had lived. Your absences suited Marion as long as she could see an earl’s belt at the end of it. She only complained when all knew you must prove yourself again to John. ‘Tis simple spite on the king’s behalf.”
“All men must prove their loyalty.”
Penne drew his horse even with Durand’s as the beaten path widened. The horses slowed to pick their way over the ruts left by heavy carts. “Oriel and Marion argued often about John and Richard.”
“And Philip’s confiscation of our holdings in Normandy—” Durand lifted a gloved hand to silence Penne, and pointed to a small clearing near the stream bank.
Penne followed the direction of his hand and raised his dark eyebrows. Together they halted their horses and stared.
Cristina le Gros danced in the clearing—a woodland sprite come to life. She danced to some fairy music only she could hear over the flow of the water and the sough of the wind in the trees. Heat rushed through Durand’s body.
She swayed and skimmed over the soft green grass, turned and twirled. Her drab mantle formed a bell about her legs. In her arms she cradled a babe. Marion’s.
Slowly Durand urged his horse toward her, Penne behind him. They were upon her before she noticed them.
“Oh, my lord.” Her cheeks colored as she fell still. Her plait, half undone, straggled over one shoulder. The hem of her mantle was spotted with mud. Her pattens were thick with it.
“Mistress le Gros, what the devil are you doing here in these woods?” He swept a hand out to indicate the dense forest about them. Penne’s horse whickered a protest at his sharp words.
“I see no men.” Durand dismounted. She stood her ground, although her color rose even higher the closer he approached.
“They were here a moment ago. I but stepped away to this seat to feed the babe.” She pointed. A smudge of dirt marred one of her soft cheeks.
“Seat?” He expected to see an elfin throne. Instead, he saw only a smooth stump. “You defy sense. And what is that bundle you carry?” He pointed to her middle.
“Your daughter.”
“So I assumed. What the devil is an infant doing in the woods? What of fever? What of brigands?”
“I assure you, my lord, I do not endanger your daughter. She is warm and snug here.” As if to protect the child—or herself—from his wrath, she wrapped her arms about the babe.
“Where are your men?” he asked.
“Here, Durand.” Luke stepped into the clearing. Incongruously, he held an ax. “Your wet nurse is quite well protected. In fact, she’s a Tartar. Even I have bowed to her wishes. Have you ever chopped a tree? It is damned hard work.” Luke took Cristina’s elfin throne. “I would rather fight the heartiest of warriors than dig plants and chop branches for Mistress le Gros. Nettles she wants, and hawthorne! Naught but thorns and rashes.”
“I have need of many plants, my lord,” Cristina said hastily lest they suspect she made a love potion. “I thought to bring a few back to the castle.”
Somehow the grin on Luke’s face only nourished Durand’s anger. Three men stepped into the clearing, arms filled with potted plants, their fingers black with the rich loam of the forest. Able men. Two more appeared, Luke’s men. Seven more stepped from the shadows. An ample guard.
He felt the fool. “Get yourself back to the keep. Now.” He spoke only to Mistress le Gros. He mounted and wheeled his horse, and clots of mud flew in all directions as he galloped into the trees.
Cristina immediately headed for the horses, a cold chill filling her, despite Sir Luke’s assurance that his brother was not so very piqued. “I cannot think what he must be like when truly angry then,” she said.
