Fire and Steel

by Anita Mills

  “Aye.”

  She spun around at the sound of his voice. Her hands flew to straighten her braids behind her, a gesture designed to hide the sudden confusion she felt. “How long have you been here, my lord?” she asked as the slow flush crept into her face.

  “Long enough to know I’d not have you doing this, Catherine.”

  “And who’s to do it? Hawise is but one poor woman, my lord, and I’d not sleep among such filth. I’d have the floors swept and washed to purify them, and I’d have the walls cleaned of the soot.

  “I’ll send you some of the men.”

  “Nay. I’d not listen to them complain of women’s work,” she retorted. “Besides, I’ve not a doubt but that there is much to do everywhere. My mother taught me ’tis better to help do something right than to complain of it when ’tis done wrong.” Bending over, she began lifting armfuls of the stinking rushes into woven baskets. “But you could have someone wash a tub—I’d have a bath when I am done. Otherwise,” she announced as she straightened up, “you’ll not be able to sleep for the stench of me.”

  He’d not been able to sleep well since his last night in the Condes, but he’d not let her know of it. He’d not have her know she disturbed his peace so much that he lay stiff beside her, holding his body almost rigid, to check the raging desire that threatened to make him a slave to her. His mouth was dry now at the sight of her. “You’ll get your tub,” he told her, keeping his voice steady for fear that it would betray him. “Here…” Dropping to kneel beside her, he scooped up more of the foul-smelling mess and deposited it into another of the big baskets. “Jesu!” he muttered. “I wonder that you can stand it.”

  “’Tis like an unclean garderobe—your nose finally gets used to the smell while you are in it.”

  She stood back and watched him finish gathering what she and Hawise had swept. Despite her misgivings, she had to admit the solar looked better already. A little limewater, a little whitewash, some rush mats, and it would be almost habitable. Looking down on his mud-spattered tunic and his filthy hands, she also had to admit that she was fortunate at least to be inside. Although the rain had stopped, it was still damp and muddy out, and Rivaux’s men, all soldiers unused to such labor, worked to salvage enough wood to begin rebuilding a makeshift stockade below the tower.

  “Nay, ’tis enough,” she told him finally. “If you will but pour the bucket, Hawise and I can do the rest. You did find some lime, did you not?”

  “Aye. You should have more than one woman to do this for you—I’d not have you sicken from this.” Without thinking, he reached to pull himself up by her hand, and as her fingers closed over his, he heard the sharp intake of her breath. As soon as he was on his feet, he let go as though burned. Turning away, he groped almost blindly for the bucket of limewater. “How much of it do you want?”

  “Half here and half across the room. Hawise will take that side and I will take this one, I think.” She reached for the broom and waited. “Go on—there are rags enough to sop up what does not dry.”

  He lifted the bucket, sloshing the limewater over the sides, and poured it where she directed. “I have sent to Belvois for more men and provisions. ’Tis my intent to bring villeins from there to here, as I am lord to both. Mayhap there will be some girls among them suitable to learn from you.”

  “From me? Nay, but I am no better seamstress now than I was at Rouen.”

  “By your leave, I will train them,” Hawise spoke up.

  “Well, we will have to see what Alan brings back.” His task done, he picked up the empty pail and started for the door. “William and two other hunt the forest in my name, that we may eat. I’d not expect you to cook for us, Catherine.” For the first time since the Condes, a glint of humor crept into his eyes, warming them slightly. “Now you will see how an army eats when it forages.”

  “Wait—is there any whitewash?”

  “I know not. It is five years since I was last here, Catherine, but you have my leave to look for it. As chatelaine, whatever you find is yours to use.”

  Even Catherine was surprised by the results of her and Hawise’s labor. Her hands on her hips, she surveyed the cleaned and whitewashed solar critically. It was, she decided, a small corner of civilization amongst ruin. The first people from Belvois had arrived, bringing two girls who possessed some household skills, and Cat was not hesitant in putting them to work immediately. One she set to helping Hawise weave reed mats from rushes gathered by soldiers glad enough to escape work on the stockade wall. The other she directed to help her unpack all she had brought with her from the Condes.

  From time to time she stopped her own labors to watch the men work below. There was so much to do that she marveled any knew where to begin, but in half a day a wide ditch was started and measurements were marked for the setting of stakes for the palisades above its banks. By the looks of it, Guy meant to make Rivaux bigger than it originally was, for the burnt stumps of the earlier stockade stood well back from where flags marked the new ones. And Guy himself paced among his men, stopping here and there to help villein and soldier alike, directing them and taking the pickax even to show one how to hew into rocky ground. Swinging it as though he pounded an enemy with his mace, he managed to break a place for a stake as Cat looked on.

  “Where would you that I put this, my lady?” the girl called Beda asked.

  Reluctantly Catherine turned around to see what it was and found the girl held a neatly folded pile of Guy’s clothing. “You’ll have to empty one of the boxes—take the plate from that one over there. I do not know where we will put it, but it does not belong here.”

  “Your pardon, my lady, but where would you that we set this?” a strange man asked as two more strangers dragged pieces of her bed in from the stairs. “My lord said ’twas to be put up.”

  But Cat wasn’t attending. Her eyes caught the irregular blue embroidery on one of Guy’s undertunics and she recognized the shirt she’d made years before. It could not fit him still, and yet he’d kept it. How very poorly it was worked, she thought as she touched again the blue threads. And yet he’d kept it. It must have meant something to him, after all. She could even see places where he’d had it mended before he’d outgrown it.

  “Would this please you, my lady?” the fellow tried again, indicating a place on the other side of the empty brazier.

  “Hmmm? Oh…aye,” she answered absently, still staring at the undershirt he’d worn that last day she’d seen him before he went to fight at Tinchebrai. He’d been different from the bitter man he’d come back. She closed her eyes and tried to remember what he’d been like, the nineteen-year-old husband she’d help arm for war. He’d been kinder to everyone then—oh, he’d had his pride and his temper even then—but he had been gentler—aye, that was the word: gentler. Laying aside the folded clothes, she looked again to the scene below. He’d pulled off his tunic and his undertunic both, tying them at his waist, and he wielded the pickax again, striking the rocky ground over and over with a rhythm that rippled the powerful muscles in his arms and his back. He was lord of lands, but he was not too proud to work like a villein.

  Chewing her thumbnail thoughtfully, she stepped back. If his arrogance, his anger, and his pride were more directed at her than anyone else, then perhaps the cause of his change was her also. Perplexed by her own reasoning, she sat on a bench but moments after it was carried in and stared unseeing, trying to make sense of it. He’d kissed her farewell, holding her and comforting her while shed cried, and then he’d ridden into battle. And when it was over, when he was King Henry’s prisoner, he would not even see her. All these years she’d thought it was because of King Henry—that he’d left her by Henry’s command—that he’d returned to her by Henry’s command.

  And then she remembered the fire between them. It had leapt like a great flame, so intensely it burned. “You are old enough now, I think, “he’d said. Her face reddened at her thoughts, at the memory of being taken by him, and she was weak all over, tre
mbling almost, as she remembered the feel of him. Well, she knew not all of what ailed him, but she bore responsibility for accusing him of trying to kill Brian. That, at least, she could speak of to him.

  “Hawise…”

  “Aye, my lady?”

  “I’d have my bath brought up.”

  Hawise looked to where they still worked on putting together Catherine’s bed. “Now, my lady?”

  “As soon as they are done. And I’d have you smooth the wrinkles from my purple gown.”

  26

  Guy made but a brief appearance at supper, staying just long enough to address his men, telling them he meant to rebuild Rivaux in stone and he meant to plant crops despite the lateness of the year. He asked, nay he demanded, their help in doing both. To the peasants he had brought from Belvois, he spoke of protection, promising that he would see to their safety and would forgo their rents in return for their work on his castle and in his fields. And when he was done, there was not a man among them unready to begin the tasks.

  Catherine sat beside him in the barely habitable hall and counted Rivaux’s people—there were thirty men at-arms other than William de Comminges and Alan, two menservants including Arnulf, Hawise, the girls Beda and Gunhedris (who preferred to be called Hedda), and some fifteen villeins. There would be more on the morrow, Guy had promised, but this night, Cat could not but think that Rivaux had not one tenth of the men of the Condes.

  Freshly scrubbed, her hair neatly braided in a single plait down her back, she wore her best gown in hopes of gaining his attention, and was sorely disappointed when he declined to eat. “Nay,” he told her, “there’s too much to do ere I sleep.” Stung that he could have dismissed her so lightly when she’d gone to such pains for him, and in front of those she would rule in his name, she nonetheless held her peace. She would tell him of it when he came to bed, she decided. If he had any care for her, if he would love her at all, then surely he must hear her out then.

  As the small supper consisted of spitted rabbits and boiled fish from the river, accompanied by stale bread, it was not a lengthy affair. And no sooner had the bones been cleared than the sun began to set, sending most of the people to seek pallets laid out at the base of the tower. The more fortunate, the men of some standing, claimed the common chamber of the tower itself, while Hawise and Catherine climbed the stairs to the solar.

  Cat looked around the room with some pride. Her hands might be blistered and her knees raw, but the place was clean and almost inviting. Already two rush mats lay on either side of the curtained bed, and more would be made on the morrow. Seeing her own bed and her own hangings reminded her how very tired she was. Down below, men argued as they drew lots for sentry. Cat walked to the narrow arrow slit that served for her window and looked out across the small valley. The lowering sun cast rich, warm color over the winding river and formed a beautiful background for wispy gray clouds on the horizon. She drank in the beauty of it and forgot the ugliness of Rivaux.

  Coming back to sit on the bench, she began unbraiding her hair. It was still damp from its earlier washing, but as her fingers combed through it, it fell in rippling waves down her back and over her shoulders. Hawise looked up from where she folded down the covers behind the curtains.

  “’Twas but braided,” she protested.

  “Aye, but my lord likes it down,” Cat told her. “I’d have you brush it for me.” Then, seeing the fatigue in the older woman’s face, she relented. “Nay, sit you down and I will do it myself.”

  Cat finished her hair and argued within herself whether it was preferable to wait for him fully clothed or in bed. But then she was tired enough that she feared to be asleep when he came up, so she decided to sit up and plot what she would say. When it came right down to speaking with him about how he’d changed, she knew not how to phrase it without angering him. But he had changed, she reminded herself stoutly, and if ever she was to have peace with him, she had to do it. She’d delayed too long already in keeping her promise to her father.

  The evening wore on with no sign of Guy. Hawise, after urging her mistress to go on to bed, sighed and sought her own pallet belowstairs. Cat pulled out the shirt she’d worked and studied it to keep her resolve, and still he did not come. Lit only by one large tallow candle on a spike, the room darkened and tall shadows loomed eerily against the rough stone walls. She moved restlessly to the arrow slit to look out at the night sky, and she heard the muffled voices of sentries posted by the broken wall. The moon was almost full, shining through streaks of deep gray clouds, and the air was clean from the earlier rain. She breathed deeply and made up her mind: if he would not come to her, she would seek him out.

  The old tower was square, with stairs that wound between the three floors cut into the thick outer wall. And while the top floor housed the lord and his family, the middle billeted the servants and men-at-arms who comprised Rivaux’s household, and the bottom held what passed for a hall as well as screened-off space where the officers of the household worked. Holding her candle before her, Cat picked her way carefully down the steps, pausing to listen but briefly to the exhausted snores of Guy’s men, and then going on down.

  The main hall was deserted, but Cat could see a light and hear voices from behind a screen drawn across the end. Edging closer, she was certain that Guy spoke with William, for she heard him say, “I’d not have brought her here if I’d known ’twas like this.

  Jesu! She is Roger de Brione’s daughter! ‘ ’Tis but burned sticks and broken stones!’ she said!”

  “My lord—”

  “Nay, I’d not listen,” Guy decided wearily. Sinking back onto his bench, he reached for a cup of wine. “One thing I swear to you, William: if it takes me half a lifetime, I mean to build for her a grander keep than the Condes. Aye, even if it beggars me.” His hazel eyes were bleak, his strange irises more green than gold. “I am Guy of Rivaux, count of this land, lord of Belvois, Celesin, Ancennes—Henry also gives me back Vientot—and I cannot bring her to better than this? By the rood of God, I swear I will kill Robert of Belesme for what he has done to my lands and my people!”

  “My lord…” Catherine hesitated momentarily and then moved forward as he turned to face her. “I would speak with you.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “It matters not—I have come to speak with you,” she repeated.

  “And by your leave I’d retire, my lord.” William spoke hastily, rising from his bench. “Every old bone in this body complains this night.” He covered his yawn with his hand and waited for dismissal.

  “Aye, seek your bed.” Leaning back with his cup in his hand, Guy studied Catherine warily. Even in the flickering yellow light that illuminated her face, he could tell she was paler than usual, and her expression was tentative, as though she feared to speak her mind. To stall for time while he stilled racing pulses, he sipped from the cup and watched her over the rim. She was so beautiful that it made his heart ache almost to look on her. Her unbound hair shimmered, its dark waves taking red from the pitch torch that hung on the wall above her, falling from the neat part in the middle to cascade forward over her shoulders and down past her breasts. The metal threads in her purple gown glittered different colors, making it seem that she was cloaked in radiance rather than cloth. His mouth was so dry that he closed his eyes to her and swallowed deeply of his wine. He could hear the stiff silk rustle as she moved, and when he opened his eyes, she stood over him.

  “You bathed,” she observed lamely, noting his still-wet hair.

  “Aye, I soaped and Arnulf poured buckets of water over me, if you would call that a bath.” To avoid her, he reached toward the tally sticks as though to study them again.

  “My…Guy, I know not where to begin, but—”

  “Then do not say it, Catherine. I fear I’d not like to hear it.”

  “I have to say it.” She moved even closer to peer into his face. “Are you drunk?”

  “Nay—aye—I do not know.” He looked up defensive
ly. “A drunk man is the last to know if he is or he is not,” he muttered. He raised his hand and then dropped it. “In truth, I think I am but bone-weary.”

  “You do not look drunk,” she decided. “When Brian has too much wine, everyone knows of it. He—”

  “I’d not hear of Brian FitzHenry!” he snapped angrily, lurching to his feet. “God’s bones, Catherine, can you think of naught else? Can you speak of naught else to me? You’ve not changed in five years, have you? You still cling to foolish dreams of Henry’s bastard! Well, I take leave to tell you that you’d best put him from your heart and your mind, Catherine of the Condes! ’Tis I who have you and I who mean to keep you!” Pushing past her, he would have left her standing there.

  “He isn’t there, Guy.”

  She spoke quietly, but her words cut through the air like an arrow thudding into a tree. He stood stock-still, unable to decide if he’d heard her aright, afraid to ask her to repeat what she’d said. Exhaling slowly until his lungs were almost drained of air, he could hear every beat of his own heart. “He isn’t where?” he managed to ask finally.

  “He is not in my heart—at least he’s not there as you think he is.” She waited for him to turn back, but he stood motionless. With a deep sigh, she realized he was not going to ease her confession for her. Staring at his back, willing him to face her, she kept her voice calm despite the pounding in her chest. “If I love Brian FitzHenry, ’tis as brother and naught else, Guy. And if I think of him and speak of him, ’tis because I know him well as brother and friend. I was prepared before Tinchebrai to be wife to you and none other.”

  He closed his eyes and swayed, whether from the effect of her words or the wine, he was uncertain. Part of him wanted to turn to her, to open his arms and cling to her, but part of him held back. She was alone and at his mercy in Rivaux—did she but seek to ease her lot now? Not a week before, she’d stood on the practice field at the Condes and accused him of killing Brian FitzHenry. He desperately wanted to believe her, he desperately wanted her to love him, but wanting something like that had never made it happen for him—not with his grandfather, nor with his father, not even with the monks. Nay, there was none but William to love him. What passed between him and Catherine was but the fire of lust, he supposed. But some perverse corner of his heart had to know.