by Speer, Flora
“That is correct.” He must have felt the way she was shaking, for he tightened his arms around her. “Lady Aline, what is wrong?”
“I can’t explain it right now,” she said in a tense voice. ”Perhaps later.”
“Are you running away from your husband?” he asked. “Or from your father? I cannot shelter for more than one night a woman who is fleeing her true lord and master. If this is your case, I am obliged to send notice to your lord at once.”
“My grandfather was my only blood male relative,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “and we buried him this morning.”
“Well, then.” He did not loosen his hold on her, but his grip changed in some subtle way, as if he would be more gentle with her. “If you are distraught with grief at your grandsire’s death, then I will not tease you with more questions. You may explain your unheralded presence on my land to me when you are ready.”
I will explain it to you, Adam of Shotley, Aline thought, when I understand it myself.
Chapter 2
They found a lowered drawbridge awaiting them at Shotley Castle and flaming torches set at either side of the portcullis. The horses clattered across the drawbridge and through a narrow, tunnel-like entrance into the outer bailey, which was well lit with odorous pitch torches and crowded with folk in undyed woolen clothing who called out to Baron Adam and his men. Aline barely had time to note that the cheerfulness in their voices sounded genuine before they were riding through another gateway and into the inner bailey. Here Adam dismounted, tossed the reins to a lad who hurried up to take them, and then raised his arms to Aline.
“Come,” he said, “I’ll bear you safe to the ground.”
If she wanted to get off the horse without breaking her neck in the process, Aline could see no other choice but to do as he ordered. She let herself fall downward into Adam’s arms. She wasn’t graceful about it. She landed hard against his chest and felt him rock back on his heels when her full weight hit him before he steadied himself and her.
“Lady,” he said, releasing her from his embrace, “I think you do not care much for horses.”
“They are so big,” she said. “They have such large teeth.” She heard him chuckle at that.
“I do believe you and my daughter-in-law will find you have much in common,” he told her. “Constance rides but poorly, and she dislikes the hunt.”
“Does she?” Aline’s response was absent-minded, for she was looking around the inner bailey. A few dogs were running loose, barking and jumping up on some of the men, who bestowed pats on the hounds or scratched their ears with familiar affection. Off to the side of the bailey several buildings had been constructed against the surrounding wall. One of them was obviously a stable; the horses were being led away toward its wide doorway. By the armored men moving in and out of another building, it seemed to be a barracks. Aline discerned a small stone chapel and a walled enclosure with a tree inside it.
“That will be the herb and kitchen garden,” she murmured, before she caught her breath and fell silent.
It was real. The people and animals she saw were alive, not phantoms from her imagination. The narrow, unrailed stairway up which Adam was leading her was real stone, as was the frame of the doorway at the top of the steps. The guards in the entry hall were wearing actual chain-mail tunics. They all had swords. And when Adam doffed his cloak and handed it to a waiting servant, Aline saw that he was wearing a full suit of chain-mail armor. A long sword hung from his gilded red leather belt.
“Come into the great hall,” he said, taking her arm.
The entrance was through a low, rounded arch. Stout wooden double doors had been flung wide, but Aline noticed the metal bolt that could secure the doors against invaders. Then she and Adam were inside the hall and she paused, surprised by its cleanliness and its grandeur.
The walls were grey stone, the high pitched roof was faced with wooden planks, and the massive roof beams looked as if they had been hacked from entire tree trunks. Banners hung from most of the beams, their tattered condition suggesting to Aline that they were either very old or else were battle trophies. A few bright tapestries decorated the walls, and wooden chests held a fine display of silver ewers, basins, or serving platters. At each end of the hall, flames roared in giant open fireplaces. At the far end of the room, close to one of the fireplaces, was a raised dais with several chairs and a long table.
“Welcome to Shotley, Lady Aline.” Adam pulled off his mail gloves and pushed back his coif, letting the chain mail fall into a cowl around his neck. He took two goblets a servant offered from a tray and turned to give one of the goblets to Aline. At last, in the firelight and the torchlight, she could see him clearly.
“This will warm you.” Their fingers touched as she accepted the goblet from him. Most definitely, he was real, his hands strong and callused as befitted a warrior.
The wine was hot and well spiced with cinnamon and cloves. Aline sipped daintily, watching her host.
His hair must have been dark in his youth, but it was heavily threaded with grey. His features were rather plain, with a long nose and deep lines on either side of his mouth. His eyes were grey. He was not especially tall, but Aline wasn’t surprised by this. In the museums she and Gramps had explored together, she had seen enough suits of armor to know the men of earlier times were not as tall as modern men.
She guessed his age to be somewhere in his early forties. He had mentioned a daughter-in-law, which meant he had a grown son. Noblemen were usually knighted at twenty-one, and seldom married before that time. So, if he had married at twenty-one, had a son at twenty-two, and that son was old enough to marry, Adam must be –
“Oh, dear heaven,” she said, “I’m beginning to believe this is happening and that I’m really here.”
“You do appear to me to be here,” Adam told her. When he smiled his face took on a virile warmth that had nothing to do with youth or perfection of feature. Recalling the solid touch of his fingers against hers and the encircling strength of his arms, Aline felt her anxiety level rise by several degrees.
“Have I gone off the deep end?” she whispered, asking the question more of herself than of him. “Wouldn’t you think a thirty-four-year-old, supposedly intelligent woman could handle her grandfather’s death without this kind of extreme overreaction? But still, how can anyone ever be prepared to lose a loved one? He was father and mother to Luce and me since our parents died. I wish he were here now. He’d know what to do.” Suddenly aware that she was muttering beneath her breath and that Adam’s smile had been replaced by a puzzled expression, she fell silent, with one hand at her mouth.
“My lady, I do not understand what you are saying.” Adam’s words raised an interesting question.
“But I understand every word you say. Why?” Aline stared at him. “I can only read a few words of modern French, let alone speak it well, so how can I be talking in perfect Norman French with you? That must be what we are speaking, since you claim to be a Norman baron. If what is happening to me is real and not a dream or a form of madness, then I ought not to understand you at all. Yet I do.”
“I think you are frightened and overtired and deeply affected by grief. You need to rest.” Adam looked around the hall, then motioned to a servant. “Where is Lady Constance? Send her to me at once.”
“I’m either crazy, or I’m dreaming,” Aline decided. “Either way, I’m stuck in the twelfth century. I know what Gramps would do; he’d tell me to get into the spirit of the game. All right, I’ll play along and see what happens.”
“Come nearer to the fire.” Adam’s hand was at her elbow again. “Take off your cloak; you will warm faster without it.”
She let him remove the cape from her shoulders, then stood close to the flames while she drank more of the spiced wine. She saw Adam looking at her clothing and was glad she was soberly dressed. Luce had criticized her dress as too long, but Aline had worn it anyway, saying it was appropriate for a funeral. Fortunately, it w
as not terribly wrong for the twelfth century. The skirt of deep burgundy wool flared into folds at the belted waist and hung nearly to her ankles. She wore sheer black tights and low-heeled black pumps. The dress had long, tight sleeves and a bodice that draped into a v-neckline. Adam looked her over quickly, not missing the long column of throat revealed by the neckline. When she lifted one hand to her throat, he raised his eyes to hers.
Aline knew masculine interest when she saw it. She had grown practiced at deflecting it. She did not want that kind of complication in her life. Not ever again. Yet, in the ordinary features and clear grey eyes of this stranger, she saw something that tugged at her heart. She longed to ask him if he could explain why she found herself so far removed from her own time and place. But she did not. She didn’t have the chance, for while she and Adam of Shotley stood by the fireplace gazing at each other, a young woman came into the hall.
“My lord.” The woman hurried forward to kiss Adam on the cheek he presented to her. “Welcome home.” She did not sound as though she meant the greeting.
“You should have been here when we arrived,” Adam told her, rather too sternly in Aline’s opinion.
“I did not know you were bringing a guest. You sent no word. I have not prepared a room. Oh, dear.” The young woman fell silent, tears filling eyes already rimmed with red. She was a pale, thin girl, and she looked frightened. She bowed a head covered with a white linen coif, while her hands fumbled in the folds of her grey woolen skirt. “Forgive me, my lord.”
“This,” Adam said to Aline, “is my daughter-in-law, Lady Constance. Now, my dear girl, do stop your eternal worrying and have one of the guest rooms made ready. I feel certain you have been keeping the castle clean and the rooms aired as you ought to do, so there will be no great trouble needed to make Lady Aline comfortable. I assume you have ordered an adequate meal prepared for me and my men on our return, so you need only set an extra place at the high table. Now, I will want a bath in my chamber.”
“Oh, dear.” Constance looked so terrified by this stream of instructions that Aline took pity on her.
“There was no way you could have been prepared for my sudden appearance here,” she said. “Lady Constance, let me help you. I can make up a bed. Just give me the sheets and I’ll do it myself.”
“I could not. It would not be fitting. Oh, my lord, I am sorry. Blaise will be angry with me, too. Oh, dear.” Constance stood helplessly, twisting her hands into her skirt and looking as if she did not know where to start her chores.
“And what do you imagine Blaise will be angry about now?” said a bold masculine voice. “I vow, Constance, you have compiled a total of at least a thousand reasons to fear me, and not one of them matters a whit.”
The young man who now joined them was tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, and remarkably handsome. He shook his head in Constance’s direction, the gesture causing that lady to press her lips together as if to forestall a serious bout of tears. Then he looked at Aline – looked from head to toe and moved on with an expression that told her she was much too old to interest him. Aline received this assessment with good humor and no offense at all, for she had instantly seen in him the same male attitude that had once made her unhappy in the days when she had been married.
“Welcome home, my lord.” With a slight swagger the younger man went to Adam and embraced him warmly. At least he had an honest affection for his father, for this could only be the husband of timid Constance.
“My son, Blaise,” Adam said, confirming Aline’s supposition.
“Well, wife,” Blaise said to Constance, “why are you standing there like a half-wit when there is work to be done?”
“Lady Constance, I do hope we can be friends.” Aline linked her arm through the girl’s, drawing her away from the fireplace. “Let us leave the men to their conversation while we speak of more interesting matters. Will you show me to the guest room you think will be best for me? Then perhaps I can help you with your duties, for I am certain the sudden appearance of an unexpected guest must upset your routine.” As the two women moved toward the archway and the entry hall, Aline overheard Adam speaking to his son.
“I wish you would treat her more courteously, especially in front of strangers,” Adam said. “How can you expect to be happy if your wife is miserable?”
“I do not expect ever to be happy with her,” Blaise responded. “The girl is a bore, always weeping and afraid of everything.”
Aline and Constance were by now out of the great hall and could hear no more. Aline was certain that Constance had also overheard her husband’s contemptuous words and had been embarrassed by them for, as they mounted the stone staircase that wound toward the upper floors of the tower keep, she could hear Constance sniffling. By the time they reached a tiny guest room build into the thickness of the stone tower wall, Constance was weeping in earnest.
“Let me have that.” Concerned that Constance would drop the oil lamp she was carrying and thus start a fire, Aline took the pottery dish from her and set it upon a wooden stool. The only other furniture in the room consisted of a narrow bed and a wooden chest that Aline guessed would hold linens or clothing. “Well, it’s sure not the Ritz in Paris, but it will have to do.”
“Have you been to Paris?” The question was so unexpected that Aline answered without considering the effect her words might have.
“I went there twice, with Gramps. We tramped through every museum in town and spent a whole day at the Louvre.” Seeing the way Constance was staring at her, she muttered, “Whoops, another mistake. I don’t think the Louvre I remember has been built yet. It may still be just a small fort on the Seine.”
“Have you traveled even farther than Paris?” asked Constance, forgetting to weep for a moment. “How I should like to travel.”
This second unexpected remark left Aline gaping at her. When she found her voice again, Aline said, “Does Adam hold lands in Normandy as well as here at Shotley? I seem to recall that Norman barons frequently had estates on both sides of the Channel. Perhaps Blaise will take you to Normandy.”
“I should like to see the Holy Land, but Blaise will not take me anywhere.” The brief glow of animation faded from Constance’s face, leaving it pinched with sadness. “My husband does not like me.” She looked so dispirited that Aline forgot her own difficult situation and put an arm around her.
“I assume yours was an arranged marriage?” She could not imagine the vibrantly masculine Blaise voluntarily wedding this fearful girl.
“I brought a fine dowry to him,” Constance said with a tiny flare of pride. “When I first met him on our wedding day I thought I had been greatly blessed because Blaise is so handsome and at first he was polite to me. But when the celebrations were over and we were alone in our chamber, he changed most unexpectedly. Then he was cruel to me.”
“Had no one told you what to expect on your wedding night?” It was a guess, but Aline thought it was probably an accurate one.
“My mother is dead, so I could not ask her. My maidservant said I would find pleasure in my husband’s arms,” Constance replied. “I had some idea of what he would do to me. It is impossible to grow up in a castle unaware of such things. But Blaise is so overpowering, so energetic, so impetuous, and he is very big. He wounded me most painfully until I bled all over the sheets.”
“I get the picture, Constance. You don’t have to say anything more.”
Great, Aline thought, just great. Not only do I suddenly find myself in the wrong century, but now I’m expected to be a sex counselor to a terrified teenaged bride.
“I am so sorry to trouble you with my problem,” Constance went on, wiping her streaming eyes, “but there is no one at Shotley to whom I can talk If I tell my servants about my unhappiness, they will only gossip and I feel certain Blaise would not want that.”
“I think you are right there,” Aline murmured.
“Nor can I confess to our castle priest. Father John is an old man and would not understand. He
would very likely tell me that a good woman submits to her husband. But how can I submit to Blaise when I fear his touch?”
“In spite of your fear, I think you love him. If you were indifferent to him, he wouldn’t affect you this way.” It was another guess, with the truth of it borne out by Constance’s nod and a new flood of helpless tears.
Aline could understand the situation. A weepy, timid soul like Constance must be exasperating to a man of Blaise’s temperament. Any regard he might have had for her, any sense of polite respect because of the dowry she brought him, would have quickly evaporated when Blaise realized he had a bride who cringed every time he walked into their bedroom. A man like Blaise needed a woman who was willing to risk direct confrontation when he became too overbearing. She could easily imagine Constance dissolving into tears instead of defending herself. All of this Aline understood because she had once been almost as shy as Constance and had married a handsome man much like Blaise.
At the moment Constance had wiped away her tears and was looking at Aline as if she expected some wise advice that would instantly solve all her marital problems. Realizing that she could not avoid saying something, Aline began by asking what she thought was an obvious question.
“Have you talked to Blaise about this?”
“No, no, I could not. He would not listen. He would think I was criticizing him. A good wife does not criticize her husband.”
“Oh, rubbish! If you don’t tell him how you feel, how can he ever hope to please you?” Seeing that Constance was about to start crying again, Aline grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Don’t be like one of those people who occasionally sit beside me on airplanes and spend the entire flight spilling out all their problems, but they don’t want to do anything to help themselves, they just want someone new to complain to.” Fortunately for Aline, Constance ignored the part of her speech about airplanes and fastened upon the words that most applied to herself.
