“Would Ganute have done that?”
She shrugged. Ganute was generally careful who he angered, but there had been times when he’d cut off his own nose to spite his face.
Adrien turned. With a swirl of his long tunic, he walked toward the stairwell. Then he returned. “Those herbs you ordered. Were any of them meant for Ganute?”
She laughed, but the sound reminded her of the crush of thin ice underfoot, brittle and sad.
He shook his head. “You say they’re for pain, and I’m certain the ones you requested tonight are, but I can’t help but wonder if you had others with the intention of poisoning Ganute.”
She felt her jaw drop, realizing how Adrien had misinterpreted her character. No, she had not loved Ganute. Yes, she had rejoiced at being free from him. But could she have brought herself to poison him? No. The herbs had only been to ease the aches he had inflicted on her. “’Twas not to poison Ganute. Nay, the only way I considered ending my suffering was to leave the keep and hide in the forest. But I feared my staff would bear the brunt of my cowardice. I could never stand to see them hurt, especially ones like Margaret, who might have suffered as I had.” Ediva bit her lip and looked far off beyond the parapet to where the moon soaked the sloping field in a soft, pale light.
“Ediva? I’m sorry. I should not have even entertained the thought. You’re more the protector than the aggressor.”
She gripped the merlons. He turned her and with the barest brush of his fingertips, he caressed her cheek. Such a simple movement following such sweet words tightened her heart like a band of steel around a strongbox. All she wanted that moment was to fall into his arms and let him hold her there, snugly, securely.
But she’d only be putting her heart on a platter to be sliced open, for Adrien loved the very things that would surely hurt her.
“Ganute was harsh in claiming his rights as husband. The herbs eased the pain, and the poultices Margaret made from the leftover tea helped the bruises.”
“I hope you will never think I’m like that. I have promised you that I will not demand anything of you.” His voice dropped, the tone deepening, shaking almost. “’Twould be enough if all I take into battle with me is the memory of your fair looks. If it would be my last thought, recalling how you look tonight, I would die quite satisfied.”
Was she really hearing this? Would he truly be satisfied with just that? This made so little sense to her. But then her mind turned to the rest of his statement—the mention of battle. “Would you have to go?”
“I’m a soldier, Ediva. I fight for my king.”
She sighed in frustration. “Must there be another fight? Have not enough lives been sacrificed?” Could her people handle further loss? The village held too many widows already. And what would become of them if Ediva herself were to be widowed again?
“’Tis not for me to say,” Adrien replied gently. “But should the battle come, I will be ready to fight for my king—and you. To defend our keep.” He stepped back and dropped his hand, leaving her cheek feeling the loss keenly. “And mayhap it would be better that I do go, for I am also just a man.”
She blinked. What did he mean?
Before she could give her question a voice, he straightened. “Nay, I must go with my brother to Colchester to see the work planned for our tenants. I’ll return when I am satisfied that they’re cared for. We will leave early on the morrow, so there is no need to rise with me.”
He spun on his heel and melted again into the shadows. She heard the door beyond click shut. And after that sound, she sagged.
Only when she reached out for the cold stonework beside her did she realize that her hands were shaking like a dry leaf holding to its branch in a harsh November wind.
Then, when she was sure he was no longer in the corridor or stairs, she returned to her solar.
Her disquiet returned with her.
* * *
Ediva yanked off her kerchief and wiped her moist face with it. The warm spring breezes felt good on her bare head. In the three weeks since Adrien had left, she’d organized the soldiers in her care into small groups and assigned them to various tasks about the village.
One young sergeant, an obvious leader, had balked at her suggestions that his men drive sheep or guide a plow or sow seed, but she’d remained adamant. And with that, she went to work herself, checking on the women, new and expectant mothers alike, as was expected of her position.
“Milady!” Margaret called out. “Your kerchief!”
She sighed and shoved it back on her head. ’Twas proper form to cover her hair, but Ediva was sure she’d melt like tallow. “I’m done in.”
“Milady, please return to the keep. ’Twould do no good for you to get sick. You’ve worked too hard since Lord Adrien left.”
Agreeing, Ediva returned to the keep, though she walked slowly through the village, taking in all she could see. She was too tired to speak with her people directly, but she could watch them as she walked and observe how they were doing with so many of their men away, the soldiers toiling by their sides instead. Life was hard here, and unless the crops were planted, most would starve before Michaelmas, when the first frosts killed the grass.
Were the men who’d been taken to Colchester faring well, she wondered? What about Adrien? There had been no word of them in the time they’d been gone.
An ache grew in her chest. The conversation they’d shared the night before he’d left had etched out a hole in her. He seemed to act as if she’d hurt him, and each time she recalled it, the hole within her grew.
Nay. He was a Norman, a conqueror like his king. She shouldn’t be caring if she hurt him. ’Twas because of the emotion of the moment. ’Twas as soft as a minstrel’s song, one that would have Margaret sighing with the very romance of it.
But had he not admitted that he was only a soldier and could not be anything else, like a good husband? She should be tossing out all silly daydreams. Letting herself care for Adrien when she couldn’t rely on him was hardly good for her heart.
She quickened her step as much as her tired frame would allow.
“Good day, milady!”
Ediva turned to see the midwife in her garden. As she raised her hand to return the greeting, she wondered if the aging woman would follow her, ask her if she needed more herbs? The midwife was far too curious, no doubt knowing why Ediva needed the herbs, as if ’twere her business. If Ediva said she had no need for pain relief, would she ask if Ediva needed a draught to strengthen the babe she might think was growing within her?
She hurried on her way. Rypan, the addled boy, opened the bailey gate for her. “Thank you,” she said to him.
He nodded to her shyly. He spoke so infrequently that she expected no answer as she made her way into the keep. The soldiers would return soon for the noon meal, and Ediva could smell her cook’s thick pottages and fresh breads. Her own stomach grumbled, but ’twould have to wait.
She needed to attend to something else first. One tenant, who’d been ill when taxes were collected, was better now. His wife had paid the levy owed. Ediva needed to put it into the strongbox and record the amount remitted.
As she untied her money pouch, she sank heavily into the chair in the room off the hall that Adrien had claimed as his own. It was small, orderly—more so, she thought, by Adrien’s own sense of tidiness than by Harry’s, whose cleaning and organizational skills were sorely lacking.
For a moment she allowed fatigue to conquer her. Her feet tingled from too much walking and her throat burned from too little water.
Finally, she rose. Adrien’s trunk sat secure beside the strongbox, and out of curiosity, she opened it. He hadn’t taken many clothes with him. Most of his tunics lay neatly folded one upon another, with sprigs of cedar deftly layered to ensure a fresh smell.
Ediva reached for the top tunic, with its sleek, embroidered trim. She let her hand slide along the silken stitches before closing the trunk once more.
But before she lowered the lid
, she adjusted one large sprig of cedar, forcing the scents up to her nose. Adrien’s own unique scent mingled with the cedar. He preferred mint and orris root in his bath waters. There were fewer satchels of those herbs in the kitchen, she’d noted the other day.
She cleared her throat, reminding herself why she was here and that she had no time for idle thoughts. Dragging the strongbox across and up to the table and pulling up her key from her belt, she set about her task.
It took but a moment to unlock the box and throw open the lid.
She gasped.
The coffers were empty. A wave of cold washed over her as she stared down at the box. Then, her composure restored, she hefted up the record book and opened it.
Geoffrey had recorded the last entry, as she’d seen him do the day Eudo had arrived for the taxes. The last figure was a naught. Nothing. Ediva could only stare at Geoffrey’s messy inscription, no doubt caused by her yanking the book away to slam it shut.
Eudo had taken it all. Her last mite and her men.
She wanted rage to burn through her, but fatigue from days of supervising the planting, feeding of soldiers and watching constantly from the corner of her eye for a certain knight on horseback to return had drained her of all anger and fury.
She dropped her head onto her arms as the sting of tears threatened. Unless her husband returned with provisions to feed the men, plus the extra soldiers she’d negotiated with Eudo, the keep faced a long, hungry summer. She had to manage more men and see to it that they not only stayed healthy but became fitter than before, as she’d promised. Before promising, she should have ensured there was the coinage to do that! She was paying for her foolishness, for the foodstuffs that had vanished too quickly this spring.
With a slap of her hand on the record book, she straightened. Enough complaining. She had a cook who could stretch a hock of ham over several meals, and the spring greens were reaching their peaks. The hens would be taken off their clutches earlier than usual and the eggs eaten. She would manage. She had to manage.
The door to Adrien’s chamber flew open. Her maid, face flushed, stumbled in. “Milady! Come quick! There’s trouble in the village!”
“What kind of trouble?”
“It’s at the smithy’s house! You must come quick!” Margaret’s eyes were bright with fear as she gripped the chamber’s door. “I fear a murder will happen soon!”
Chapter Eight
“Get the soldiers! Hurry!”
Her maid dashed away. Ediva glanced for Adrien’s sword but saw that he had taken it. She could barely lift the long, heavy weapon, anyway, so instead she raced for a knife from the kitchen. Outside, the brilliant sunshine struck her hard as she charged out the bailey gate. The blacksmith’s house was at the end of the row, the last on the road that led into the woods toward Colchester and first seen when you entered the village.
With the smithy gone with Eudo, his young wife had struggled to do the rudimentary work but ’twas too much with two small babes. Ediva hurried down the hillock toward the house, hoping that the children had not been harmed.
A scream from a woman cut the air, followed by a harsh shout and the whinny of a horse. Ediva hiked up her cyrtel and broke into a full gallop, prepared to stop the murder with her bare hands if necessary.
She ripped around the daubed corner of the hut and skidded to a stop.
Adrien stood there, his horse prancing excitedly behind him. He’d drawn his long sword, the tip of which was pressed against the throat of a man. Beyond them stood the smithy’s young wife, Wynnth, her cyrtel ripped at the sleeve and her kerchief gone. A babe squirmed on the ground, crying until the woman released her sleeve and scooped the child up.
Ediva snapped her attention to Adrien. He stood looking as if he considered skewering the other man.
She glanced at his quarry. “Olin!” Ganute’s second cousin hadn’t been seen since the funeral, after which she’d sent him packing when he’d not-so-subtly suggested he was the rightful heir of Dunmow Keep. She’d forgotten how much he resembled Ganute, and seeing him now turned her stomach.
Adrien gaped to her. “You know this man?”
“’Tis Ganute’s second cousin.” She glanced back and forth between all those staring at her. “What has happened?”
As if sensing the fear in the air, the babe wailed louder, and barely holding back her tears, Wynnth struggled to comfort him.
“This man was attempting to take from this woman what doesn’t belong to him,” Adrien announced, all the while remaining as still as a stone.
Olin stared cross-eyed at the blade. “Not true! Ediva, who is the Norman? Order him off of me at once!”
Ediva folded her arms. He even sounded like Ganute. Olin and Ganute may have shared only some distant ancestors, but the apples didn’t fall far from the tree.
In addition to arrogance and brutish cruelty, she now added foolishness to their attributes. Surely Olin knew that a Saxon woman could no more order a Norman knight any more than she could order the moon to fall from the sky. “This man is my husband. ’Tis his keep as well as mine, so if you have returned to claim it under some addled pretense, you’ve journeyed in vain.”
Adrien lowered his sword. In a move as fast as lightning, he grabbed the smaller man’s neck and pressed him up against the hut. Flakes of daub from the wall showered down around them. “I saw this man accost the smithy’s wife. I will run him through, for he deserves no less.” For a moment, her breath caught in her throat, but she soon realized he’d uttered the threat for Olin’s sake, to frighten him into moderating his behavior. Her husband was a warrior, to be sure, but she also knew him to be a man of faith. He would not kill if there were other options available.
“I would not mourn his loss, and I do not believe many others would either, Adrien, but I fear he will bleed out onto the wall and ’twill cost too much to repair the daub.” She met her husband’s gaze as evenly as she could manage, which was none too evenly at all. His appearance here was as much a shock to her as Olin’s appearance was, but her heart did not dance about in her chest for her cousin-in-law as it did when she looked upon her husband’s fine form.
She ignored her silly reaction. ’Twas far too serious an accusation he made. “We’ll take him into the keep.”
“He deserves to be chased from the village.”
A series of pounding feet behind Ediva made her turn. Several of the soldiers raced around the hut to skid to a stop. Adrien released Olin’s neck, and the man slumped to the ground with hoarse gasps.
“Lock this man in the cellar.” He ordered as he sheathed his sword. “Keep a guard on him.”
After the soldiers left, Ediva hurried to the smithy’s wife. She was a comely young woman whose only faults were that her house faced the woods and her husband was gone.
“If Lord Adrien is back, milady, would the men be returning also?” Wynnth asked as Ediva led her around the house.
A fast glance at her husband as they turned the corner told her ’twas not so, but she dared not dash the woman’s hopes. “Come, let’s go into your house and settle the babe.”
Sunset had arrived by the time Ediva returned to the keep. She and Margaret had helped Wynnth repair her cyrtel and calm the children. Ediva then ordered milk, herb broth and a quarter of cheese be brought to the house. She’d stayed until bread was rising by the hearth and both babes were fast asleep.
“’Tis not good for a woman to live here alone at the edge of the woods,” her maid warned as they walked home. “She cannot defend herself.”
“I will send a soldier to guard her house tonight.”
“Why is Lord Olin here?”
Ediva shook her head, the knot of unwanted memories rising too fast for her to handle them. “I know nothing, girl. Now, go, help in the kitchen whilst I see to my husband.”
Ediva found Adrien in his room. The door stood open and she hovered at the threshold for a moment. He was behind his table, staring down at the record book she’d left open.<
br />
“What is this?” he asked, indicating the mess she’d abandoned.
“I was given some coins for taxes and had brought them in to record them, but Margaret interrupted me.” She fought down the guilt that chose that moment to rise in her. She hadn’t been snooping about his room, yet she felt like a child caught stealing sweetmeats.
“Where are the coins, then?”
She gasped and rushed forward. “They were—” She spied them and blew out a heavy sigh before scooping up the pouch from the floor. “Here they are. I had not yet entered them.”
Adrien frowned at the strongbox that still sat open, and empty. “There is no money in here,” he said.
Ediva tossed the pouch down. “Of course not! Eudo took it all!”
With widening eyes, Adrien scanned the record ledger. “Nay! Eudo took some but not all!”
“Read the last entry. He took it all. We have nothing but these few coins, my lord, and since you returned alone, we have no men, either. Your brother, under the guise of obeying your good king, has stolen it all!”
* * *
Adrien shook his head slowly. Eudo did not take all the monies, he was sure of it.
Nay, he wasn’t so sure. Ediva had interrupted the exchange. And when she’d learned that her tenants were going, too, she’d distracted the whole group.
What had happened after? Eudo had made a sly comment about Ediva’s wiles. She’d ordered the strongbox and record book put away but not without practically snatching the ledger from under her steward’s nose. Adrien could see the line of ink where Geoffrey’s quill had been dragged along the page.
He rubbed his forehead. In his mind, he was still outside facing that cur, Olin. Even now, his heart pounded with the righteous anger at what could have happened.
Nay! This needed his attention more. Olin was locked up down below. “Eudo couldn’t have done this.”
She thrust out her arm. “Read the ledger. The coffers were empty when I unlocked the box. And Eudo had graciously reminded us that all the money belonged to the king.”
Bound to the Warrior (Love Inspired Historical) Page 8
