Sable was very serious. “Of course, Troy,” she said. “Whatever you need, I am more than willing to help. What is it?”
Troy puffed out his cheeks, lending clue to Sable that she perhaps had a daunting task ahead of her. “Everything,” he said. “She needs help with everything. Her father had no sons and raised her as a warrior, so she does not even know where to start as chatelaine. She is genuinely at a loss, although she has been trying very hard today to accomplish something. But I cannot say it was all successful.”
Sable thought that sounded ominous. “Oh?” she asked. “Why would you say that?”
Troy sighed heavily, with some embarrassment on behalf of Rhoswyn, because he was about to confess her failings. He felt bad doing so.
“She tried to cook sup,” he said, lowering his voice. “Now, keep in mind that she tried very hard, but she has had absolutely no experience with this kind of thing and there are no servants here to help her. She made carrots and boiled beef, but they are inedible to say the least. My men are under instructions to not complain about the food. I do not want her to be upset. But just now, she ran off to prepare some of this terrible food for you, so I wanted to warn you off. I know it is terrible; everyone knows it is terrible. But she does not know it is terrible.”
Sable looked at him with big eyes, feeling a distinct amount of pity for Troy’s new wife. “God’s Bones,” she finally muttered, looking over Troy’s shoulder to the hall beyond, where men were milling about. “Then we shall be gracious with whatever she provides, but I brought two of my own servants and a good deal of food provisions, so mayhap we can set about a preparing a proper meal for the men while not hurting Lady de Wolfe’s feelings. I am not sure how we can do it, but we can try.”
Troy thought that sounded like an excellent solution. “Do not worry about tonight,” he said. “Beginning with the morning meal shall be sufficient. She knows you have come to help her and I am sure she would be more than willing to defer the food preparation to someone who knows more about it, so I would not worry. But thank you for being sensitive to the situation.”
Sable simply nodded, looking around the compound as if in search of the mysterious Lady de Wolfe. “And your wife?” she asked. “Where is she?”
He motioned towards the hall. “More than likely in the hall,” he said. “Meanwhile, settle your men and bring the provisions wagons over to the tower. There is a chamber there you can use but this entire place has been stripped by the reivers, so we really have very little by way of comfort.”
Cassius grunted. “I-I thought so,” he said, looking to his wife. “I told Sable to bring everything she could.”
Sable looped her arm through her husband’s elbow as they began to head across the darkened bailey. “I have a great deal packed in the wagons,” she confirmed. “Mattresses, linens, coverlets, pillows, stools, pitchers, wash basins, and a variety of other things. I brought everything I could think of but if we are missing anything, we can send to Kale for it. I thought I would decide what was needed first before bringing anything big like bed frames.”
They were approaching the hall. “We will need it all,” Troy said. “As I said, the tower has been stripped, so there is virtually nothing to use.”
Further conversation was cleaved as the open hall door yawned before them. They could feel the heat coming from the chamber, entering the large room that was crowded with men who were trying not to eat the slop they’d been served.
Several of the men greeted Cassius, who was well-liked by the de Wolfe men, but Sable wasn’t looking at the soldiers – she was looking at the food on the table in front of them. As they crossed over to the table where Troy had been sitting, Sable paused by one of the trenchers that had been discarded, one that had the bread half-eaten but the meat and carrots still intact. She peered at it closely and even stuck her finger into the carrots to taste them, immediately seeing what Troy was trying to tell her.
They were terrible.
That made her feel even worse for the new Lady de Wolfe. Following her husband and Troy to the table, she allowed Cassius to seat her on the bench before taking a seat next to her. Troy sat on the other side of Cassius, the three of them settling down when a woman blew into the hall with more trenchers in her hand. She headed straight for the table where Troy, Cassius, and Sable were sitting, seemingly very busy and out of breath. Troy stood up as she came near.
“This is my wife, Rhoswyn Whitton Kerr,” he said to Cassius and Sable. “Her father is Red Keith Kerr of Sibbald’s Hold. Rhoswyn, this is Sir Cassius de Shera and his wife, Lady Sable.”
While Rhoswyn smiled timidly, Sable took a good look at the woman, mostly out of shock; she was rather tall for a woman, with skin the color of cream and luscious auburn hair that looked as if it hadn’t been brushed properly in weeks. It was rather bushy, hanging all the way down to her hips, and she was dressed in a series of tunics with a pair of leather breeches covering her legs.
But her face… Sable could hardly believe how beautiful the woman was beneath the messy hair and grime on her face. When the woman looked at her with her wide brown eyes, reminiscent of doe’s eyes, Sable smiled graciously and stood up.
“I am very happy to meet you,” she said. “Troy has told us that it is you who have made this wonderful feast possible.”
Rhoswyn found herself looking at a young woman who looked like an angel. Everything about her was so perfect, from the top of her beautiful brown hair to her small hands, clasped primly in front of her. She wore a lovely cloak and beneath it, she could see a hint of a dark green traveling dress. Everything about her looked perfect and ladylike.
And Rhoswyn felt so very, very self-conscious.
“I… I did me best,” she said. “Ye must be hungry so I brought ye some food. I will fetch the wine now.”
She dashed off again, leaving Sable and Cassius looking to Troy as if uncertain of what they’d just seen. It was Sable who finally gathered her wits and sat down, pulling her husband down beside her.
“She is beautiful, Troy,” Sable said. “But she seems so… nervous.”
Troy sat down, feeling rather guilty in all of this. “Because she is,” he said quietly. “I fear it is too much for her. She has never done this before, so I fear it is overwhelming to her. I suppose I should not have expected so much.”
Sable looked at the man; he seemed genuinely remorseful, which surprised her. As if he was sympathetic to the woman he’d been forced to marry. Truthfully, he seemed to have had that attitude from the start – why else would he have sent for someone to assist his new wife? Sable was coming to think that there was more here than met the eye, at least as far as Troy was concerned. Was it possible that he actually had kindly feelings towards the woman who had bested him after only a day?
That wasn’t the Troy that Sable had come to know. The commander of Kale Water Castle, the second eldest son of the Wolfe of the Border, was a man who had never come across to her as being particularly compassionate. Fair, aye; the man was fair. Exceedingly fair. But he was also quick to temper and those at Kale lived in fear of rousing that temper. But compassion and gentleness? That was never the impression she’d ever received from Troy de Wolfe, which made her seriously wonder about the woman he’d married.
Perhaps the only compassion the man had ever shown was reserved for his new wife.
“Not to worry,” Sable said after a moment, looking at the food on her plate and put off by the sight. “Tomorrow, I shall do what I can to help her. All will be well, Troy. Do not be concerned.”
Troy knew he’d made the right decision by bringing Sable here. Already, he felt better about it. But he noticed that Cassius and Sable hadn’t yet touched their food and he knew why. Heaving a sigh, he took the bowl on the table that still had several hard boiled eggs in it and put the bowl between them.
“Eat these,” he said. “At least you will have something in your belly.”
As Sable and Cassius began to peel the eggs, across the hal
l at the entry, Rhoswyn had taken a pitcher from one of the soldiers who had brought forth the big wine barrel from Troy’s provisions. Most soldiers traveled with their own cups so there was no stash of drinking vessels to use. Rhoswyn had to hunt around in the kitchen yard and in the vault of the tower to find something to drink from, and she found a small collection of clay cups in the vault.
They were dusty but she blew at them, cleaning them of surface dirt, and prepared to provide them to her guests. She felt verily proud of herself for having found the cups at all. Topping off the pitcher of wine when she returned to the hall, she was just passing one of the tables when she heard the soldiers speaking on the meal.
“Slop,” one man hissed to the other as she passed behind them. “We’d be better eating what the horses are eating than trying to stomach this slop!”
His companion elbowed him. “You heard what de Wolfe said,” he muttered. “If anyone complains, he’ll throw them over the wall. And he will!”
The first man groaned. “But this isn’t fit for a man! The meat is like chewing on leather and the carrots are full of mud!”
His companion hushed him loudly and they both went back to drinking their wine while utterly ignoring the food. Having heard every word, Rhoswyn came to a halt behind them. Then, she looked around the hall to notice that no one else was eating the food she’d prepared but the dogs seemed to be quite well fed. They were moving from table to table, and men were taking their trenchers off the table for the dogs to eat on. As she realized no one was eating, reality dawned.
The food she’d served wasn’t fit to eat.
Mortified, Rhoswyn could only think of the fact that she had just served Troy’s knight and his lady wife a completely inedible meal that would surely embarrass her husband. And she’d worked so hard today; he’d even told her he was pleased with her. But now, with this terrible meal, surely he was anything but pleased. He was most certainly embarrassed about his inept wife.
Rhoswyn couldn’t face him.
Quickly, she spun on her heel and fled the hall, still carrying the cups and pitcher. She didn’t want to go to the kitchens because Audric was there, baking more bread, and she didn’t want to face the man, either. Certainly, he’d known the food was inedible but he hadn’t told her. He’d let her embarrass herself. Well, she didn’t want to see him at all. She’d made an utter fool of herself and she didn’t want to see anyone.
Verging on tears, Rhoswyn rushed into the tower and ran up the stairs, past the level that contained her bedchamber, and up to the top floor with its half-repaired roof. The English soldiers had been working on fixing the roof but it wasn’t finished yet, and the single big chamber was only half-covered. Rhoswyn could look up and see the stars above, with a cold wind whistling in, but that didn’t matter. She went over into the corner of the chamber and sat down, setting the wine pitcher and cups beside her. She was just so ashamed. The tears she’d been trying so hard to hold off were coming freely now.
She’d made a mess of everything.
Laying her forehead on her bent-up knees, she let the sobs come.
*
“I saw Rhoswyn by the entry but now she’s gone,” Troy said, standing up to get a better look over the smoke and crowd in the hall. “I wonder where she went?”
Cassius was on his seventh egg and Sable was on her third. When Troy made mention of his vanished wife, they, too, began to look around to see if they spied her somewhere in the smoky room, among the men, delivering more rotten meals.
“Where could she have gone?” Sable asked, bite in her mouth. “Should you go look for her, Troy?”
Troy thought it might be a good idea. Given that Rhoswyn was in a new environment, and not all that stable in it, he thought he might hunt her down just to make sure she hadn’t gotten into any trouble. As he moved away from the table, he realized that Sable was following him. When he looked at her curiously, she simply smiled.
“I would like to see this place a little more,” she said. “And when you find your new wife, I should like to speak with her. I was hardly able to say a word before she left.”
Troy didn’t see any harm in that so he let her come with him, but Sable couldn’t go anywhere without her husband, so Cassius brought up the rear. The three of them headed out into the dark autumn evening and Troy called to a couple of men within earshot, asking if they’d seen Lady de Wolfe. Both men pointed towards the tower, which Troy took to mean that she’d headed to the kitchen yard again.
It was, therefore, a little confusing, as well as concerning, to find Audric the only person in the kitchen yard. Troy introduced Cassius and Sable to the priest, but the man hadn’t seen Rhoswyn, so Troy took a chance and headed into the tower on his search.
She wasn’t in the vault where the food stores now were, so he continued up to the first floor small hall, the second floor where there were two sleeping chambers, but still no Rhoswyn. It was purely by chance that he headed up to the third floor even though the roof had collapsed on it, simply to say that he’d searched the entire tower, and he was surprised to hear sniffling when they came up the stairs to the doorway that opened on to that level.
Troy could see Rhoswyn sitting at the far end of the open-roofed chamber, huddled up in the shadows. He could hear her soft sobs. Holding out a hand to Sable and Cassius, silently asking that they remain in place, Troy emerged into the chamber that still smelled heavily of smoke and burned flesh. He was about halfway across the floor when he spoke softly.
“Rhoswyn?” he said quietly. “Are you well?
Rhoswyn’s head shot up when she heard his voice. Startled, and embarrassed, she quickly wiped at her face as if to erase all evidence that she’d been weeping but her eyes wouldn’t quit leaking. The more she wiped, the more she streaked dirt across her face.
“I… I’m well,” she insisted as Troy closed the gap between them and crouched down beside her. She refused to look at him. “I… I was simply weary from the day. It has been a busy day, ye know. And ’tis so noisy in the hall and there are so many men I dunna know, so I came here tae be alone. Just for a moment, ye understand. I wasna shirkin’ me duties.”
“You were weeping.”
“I wasna!”
Troy didn’t believe her for a moment. He moved from a crouched position to a sitting one, right next to her, leaning up against the wall of the chamber and effectively boxing her up against the corner. But his expression was full of concern.
“I would not imagine you would ever shirk your duties, no matter how difficult they were or how unfamiliar,” he said softly. “Are you sure you weren’t weeping? Mayhap because you have been doing something you have never done before? I am still pleased, you know. You worked very hard today.”
She snorted, wiping at her running nose and smearing it up her face. “I worked hard at a disaster,” she said. “I canna cook meat, I canna bake bread, and ’tis only by a sheer miracle that the men in the hall are able tae eat anythin’ at all. The meat is like leather and the carrots are cooked in mud!”
The tears were coming again. The more she talked, the more embarrassed she became. Troy had to fight off a smile; he felt so terribly sorry for her but it wasn’t in a critical sense. It was in the sense that she was a proud woman and she tried something that she’d failed at. He could see that Rhoswyn was much like he was; he didn’t like failure, either.
“’Tis only your first time doing such things,” he said. “You cannot expect to be perfect the very first time, with no one to really help you. I am sure you will do much better tomorrow.”
Rhoswyn shook her head vehemently. “I am not goin’ tae do this again tomorrow,” she insisted, sniffling. “The priest says he can cook. Let him! I’ve shamed ye enough with what I’ve done tonight.”
She was starting to sob angrily and Troy reached out, putting a hand on her back in a comforting gesture.
“Is that what has you upset?” he asked. “You feel as if you have shamed me? Lady, you have pleased me greatl
y with your attempts to learn. You tried something you had never done before and even if it did not come to fruition the first time, the fact remains that you tried. To refuse to try, or to quit, would have been to shame me. But I do not think you are a quitter.”
His words brought Rhoswyn a great deal of comfort. Wiping at her cheeks, she eyed him. “Not usually,” she said. “But I’d be a fool tae think yer men could take two nights of cookin’ like this. They’ll rebel and then where will ye be? With no army and a wife who canna cook! Ye’ll be the laughin’ stock!”
Troy burst into soft laughter. He liked the way she said it; quickly and self-depreciating. Rhoswyn scowled at him for a moment, as if insulted by his laughter, before breaking into a grin that she tried very hard to stave off. His hand, still on her back, moved to her shoulder and pulled her against him as he kissed her temple, a gesture that had Rhoswyn’s cheeks flaming deeply.
“Well,” he sighed. “At least you can hold a sword. If I have no army, then it will be you I send into battle. Surely there would be no fiercer warrior in all the north.”
Rhoswyn was coming to feel the slightest bit better. Troy was comforting and kind, exactly as he had been nearly the entire time she’d known him. He wasn’t angry that she’d destroyed the evening meal, nor was he shamed. In her estimation, that was an extremely patient man. She was coming to appreciate him more by the moment.
“Are ye sure ye’re not ashamed of me?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Absolutely not. As I said, to shame me would have been not to have tried at all.”
Her tears were fading now, comforted by a husband who seemed to know the right thing to say. As she opened her mouth to respond, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and caught sight of Sable as she came into the chamber. Rhoswyn stiffened, embarrassed at what Sable might have heard, but Sable smiled gently at her as she approached.
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