Once a Knight

by Christina Dodd

Guy ignored them. “But the guard is none of her affair. ’Tis mine, and I resent her sending her two trained apes in to teach me what I already know.”

  With a sigh, David agreed. “She should not. I will speak to her.” He looked around at the household staff. “I will speak to her about all of you, too.”

  “Do it, m’lord,” one of the women said. “We did well enough without her before.”

  David frowned and pointed a finger right under the woman’s nose. “Well enough isn’t good enough, and with Lady Alisoun I find that she’s always right. If she says there’s more to be done, then you’ll work until you do it. I’ll do nothing more than suggest she weed out the troublemakers and promote the more ambitious among you.”

  The woman drew back, clearly frightened.

  “That way, you’ll be working for one of your own, and not for a stranger from George’s Cross. But you’ll still be working for the food which Lady Alisoun has provided, I promise you. You’ll still be working.”

  As David stepped away from his servants, he heard no sound at all. He’d given them ideas to ponder, and thought it best if they pondered them on their own. Guy apparently thought so, too, for David heard footsteps as Guy hurried to join him.

  “You told the lazy knaves well enough that time,” Guy said. “They’ve been slacking on purpose.”

  “I know.” David rolled his shoulders, trying to get the kinks out that came from sleeping on the floor of the great hall. “I’ve been waiting for the chance to warn them what would happen. But I’m warning you, too. If my lady comes to you with suggestion to improve your defenses, listen with an open mind.”

  “You’ve got eels for brains! What would a woman know about defense?”

  “She knew enough to hire me.” Guy laughed and David jostled him. “You know the best defenses, and if you listen to her, you’ll hear her respect for that. But she’s so organized there’s no operation she can’t make better.”

  “If you say so, but she certainly has a way of getting my back up.”

  This time David laughed. “Aye, she’s good at that, and here she has had so many new people unused to her effectiveness she’s alienated them all at once.”

  “The servants. Me. My men. If it weren’t for Philippa calming me after Lady Alisoun had left the guardhouse, I would be angrier yet.” Guy half-smiled. “She’s a lovely lady.”

  “Alisoun?”

  “Philippa.”

  “She’s not—” David gave up. If Guy wanted to call Philippa a lady, David didn’t care. “Unfortunately Philippa isn’t following Alisoun everywhere, for half the village has been complaining.”

  Guy waited, and when David didn’t continue, Guy said, “And Bert?”

  “Bert hides from her. She only comes out for her lessons as a warrior, and that, I suspect, only so she can learn to use a real sword—on Alisoun.”

  “You’re training her with your squire, aren’t you?”

  “Eudo? Aye, I’m training them together.”

  Guy stopped at the base of the keep stairs. “What does he think?”

  “I haven’t asked him.”

  “You should. He’s a bright lad, and sees much.”

  David smothered a grin.

  “And what’s so funny?”

  “I don’t have to ask what he thinks of training with Bert. His manliness is greatly offended.”

  “But he doesn’t dare complain because she’s your daughter?” Guy’s eyes lit with answering glee. “Poor lad.”

  “Aye. He’s offended that he must train with a girl, and he’s offended that Louis allows Marlow the stableboy to care for him.”

  “Did you not explain that Marlow had that duty first?”

  “I also told him that normally, stable work is beneath a squire’s dignity, but he well knows Louis’s worth, and none of it appeased him.”

  “And I imagine Bert torments him.”

  “Worse.” David succumbed to laughter. “She worships him.”

  “Poor, poor lad,” Guy repeated. Leaning against the stairpost, he said, “Eudo, in turn, worships Lady Alisoun.”

  “So Bert says nothing aloud to her detriment. But she thinks it very loudly.”

  “A muffled Bert could be dangerous,” Guy warned. “She could explode at any moment.”

  “I live in fear,” David said.

  “Does the lady know any of this?”

  “I didn’t think any situation existed which Alisoun had not dealt with. But she’s proved me wrong, and if she doesn’t know, I have the unenviable task of telling her.”

  “You’ll do it alone, then. I’m not so brave as that.”

  With a resigned wave, David sent Guy on his way. Inside the great hall, a seeming peace reigned—but then, his serving women stood outside in the bailey. Alisoun’s maids sat in a clump, like colorful spiders producing wool thread from their spindles as they laughed and talked. Seeing him searching, one called, “Lady Alisoun is in the solar, my lord.”

  Alone? David’s heart leapt at the thought. Would he at last catch her without the group that constantly surrounded her? He hadn’t spoken to her without an audience since she’d shut the bedroom door in his face a fortnight ago.

  And his nine mistresses had proved inadequate. He wanted his wife. He wanted her badly.

  At first, he’d been furious, vowing that he would not speak to her until she spoke first. Then she’d circumvented his pledge by greeting him in the morning with a civil word and a polite smile, and he realized she would always do what was proper.

  But sleeping with her husband was proper, and she seemed never to think of it.

  His anger had faded. He’d indicated a willingness to kiss and reconcile. She’d indicated a willingness only to reconcile. Kisses were strictly forbidden, and kisses were what he longed for. Kisses were what he would steal—if she were alone in the solar.

  He dusted his clothing with slaps of his hand. Making a detour to the washbasin, he rinsed his face and hands. Wetting his hair, he raked it with his fingers and wished he had time to take an entire bath. No torture was too great to get in Alisoun’s good graces once more.

  Nervous, he stared at the open door of the solar until a giggle from the maids urged him forward. He raised his hand to knock on the sill, then changed his mind at the last moment. After all, it was his solar.

  He swaggered in with his most charming smile in place, and he realized he was in luck. She sat on the bed, her back to him, leaning against the footboard. Not wanting to give her a chance to escape, desperate to see some real emotion from her, he snuck up behind her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

  She screamed. Not a little scream, but a full-bodied scream of horror.

  He leaped away. She leaped away. She turned to face him.

  It was Philippa.

  Her baby woke where she slept on the bed and screamed, too, frightened from sleep by her mother’s terror.

  “Philippa!”

  “My lord!”

  “I thought you were Lady Alisoun.”

  “I thought you were…” Philippa put her hand on her chest for one moment, then gathered her child close and tried to comfort her. “Forgive me, my lord, you startled me.”

  Startled her? His heart still raced.

  “My lord.” Alisoun spoke from behind him. “Why did you sneak up on her?”

  Turning, he saw Alisoun. She sat in the alcove, needle clasped in her long fingers. The sun from the window lit the garment spread on the table and left her face in shadow, but even so he could see her offended astonishment. “I thought she was you,” he tried to explain.

  “Why would you sneak up on Lady Alisoun?” Lady Edlyn sat across from her patron, stabbing the cloth with her needle as she waited for an answer.

  Philippa gave him no time to get angry or defensive. As Hazel’s shrieks died to whimpers, she said briskly, “No harm done. ’Twas my fault for being jumpy as a spotted hare.”

  “I do beg pardon.” David moved close once more and caressed t
he baby’s soft head. “I never meant to frighten you or the child.”

  “Of course you didn’t. Get up, Edlyn, and give my lord your seat. I doubt he came to speak to you or me.”

  Sullenly, Edlyn rose as if Philippa had every right to command her. Giving him a wide berth, she moved away, but didn’t leave the room.

  David looked first at her bench, then at Alisoun’s. Both had been built to hold two women, sitting side by side and sewing. Alisoun naturally sat in the middle of hers. That left just enough room for him if he pressed against her tightly, and he slid in beside her before she realized his plan.

  “My lord!” Then she saw his challenging grin and abandoned that fight before battle was fairly joined. Instead she moved to the far side of the bench to free herself from contact, taking her hemming with her.

  He gladly followed. This should have felt no more intimate than sharing the day’s meals in the great hall, except that he was alone with her in their bedchamber for the first time.

  Well, not quite alone. Lady Edlyn rummaged through a chest and glared at them and Philippa coaxed Hazel to drink from a cup. The kitten who had slept in Alisoun’s lap woke, disgruntled by the activity, and jumped to the floor. But compared with the crowd of servants and comrades who attended the meals with them, this was a small audience.

  Alisoun wore proper clothing, of course. Even in her own bedchamber, even in the company of her maid and her fosterling, she would don nothing less. Yet the blue wool cotte was worn and soft, with lacing at the front from her waist to beneath her breasts. The linen shift she wore beneath the cotte had a tie at her throat, but it gaped open down to the point where the cotte covered it—just at the place where the swells of her breasts began.

  No other woman, he was sure, could show as little flesh and still be so provocative.

  His thigh rubbed against hers and he turned sideways to face her, wrapping his arm around her like a parent supporting his child’s first attempts to sit up.

  Alisoun was not amused.

  He didn’t care. She had nowhere to go except farther into the corner, and she refused to damage her dignity with such a worthless evasion. He had her fairly trapped.

  In her most civil tone, she asked, “Was there something I could help you with, my lord and husband?”

  “Aye, there is, but you won’t do that.”

  One look from her gray eyes should have given him frostbite.

  Instead he warmed himself against the fire of her body. With his fingers he started at her waist and explored her spine, one vertebra at a time. He marveled at the tension that kept her so erect, and as he neared the nape of her neck, the tautness grew ever greater. He pushed the weight of her laden hair crispinette aside and bared the fine fair skin. Leaning close as if to kiss it, he let her flex in anticipation, then said, “I want to talk to you about our servants.”

  She jumped, although whether from his words or the movement of air across her flesh, he did not know. Her fingers faltered, then she resumed her sewing. “Our servants?”

  “Yours and mine.” He breathed in the scent of lemon balm that clung to her. “Surely you’ve noticed we have a problem.”

  “Not one I understand.”

  “Nay?” From this angle, he could see down her shift. Leaning back a little, he fixed the angle until he had a view of one entire breast. “Guy complained to me, too.”

  “Guy? He seems so pleasant!”

  “Oh, he likes you. He simply thinks you should mind your needle. It’s a prejudice you’ve faced before, I know.”

  “Aye, with Sir Walter, but it wasn’t Guy’s abilities about which I inquired.” When she faced him their faces were inches apart. She looked earnestly into his eyes and her lips moved close to his as she protested, “It was the preparation of the foodstuffs for the men-at-arms and—” her gaze dropped to her own shoulder as if looking at him rattled her, “—the times they should eat.”

  They sat so close he could almost taste her. “Why do you care?”

  She realized it, too. Her color rose in her face, and she cast him one quick glance, then again spoke to her shoulder. “I thought perhaps we could manage to get them their food from the kitchen so they wouldn’t have to prepare their own on those braziers.”

  “You didn’t explain that to him.”

  “I’m the lady. I don’t have to give explanations.”

  He could only see the top of her head and the gape in her shift, and the top of her head couldn’t compete for his attention. “Yet when a new lady comes and changes the way things have been done for generations, some might feel resentment and fail to cooperate as they should.”

  Her chest rose and fell as she considered, and he longed to weigh her breasts in his hand, to see if they had grown.

  Then she looked up at him, and he forgot about her body in his pleasure at seeing her face. “What do you suggest?”

  “Do you know who among my servants should be in command?”

  “Aye, of course.”

  “Will your maids work for them?”

  “My maids will do as they’re told.”

  “Unlike their mistress.”

  She faced front again and picked up the sewing she’d dropped.

  “Appoint my servants to their tasks and place your maids within their ranks. Tell them they now know how you would have your household kept, and that Lady Edlyn and Philippa will watch to ensure they continue as you have instructed.”

  “Why should they listen to Lady Edlyn and Philippa if they balk at taking orders from me?”

  “They know you’re their lady, and they know you’ve rescued us from at least another month of starvation until we can get the crops in. But they don’t relish having all of their number stripped of authority and replaced with your people.” He shrugged. “It’s the way of all folk, I think.”

  She sewed until she reached the end of her seam. Then she bit off the thread and said, “You’re an intelligent man. I should have seen it myself.”

  Modestly, he kept silent.

  “However, you should apply your intelligence to the way you’re raising your daughter. It is inappropriate.”

  He stiffened. “How so?”

  “She’s a girl, and you’re teaching her manly ways.”

  “What’s wrong with manly ways?”

  “She’s seven years old. She knows not how to clean, nor sew, nor spin, nor cook.”

  “There’s time for her to learn.”

  “Why would she want to? She’s told me frankly that men’s work is much more interesting then women’s.” She stared ruefully at the garment in her hand. “Of course she’s right. Cleaning a pot is not nearly as exciting as breaking a wild horse.”

  He watched as she licked the brilliant yellow thread, then ran it through the needle’s eye and began to embroider a pattern at the neck. “Do you like to sew?”

  She glanced at him sideways. “Why do you ask?”

  “You’re always doing it. All the women are always doing it. I just thought—”

  “That we enjoyed it?” She laughed, a bright waterfall of amusement, and Philippa and Lady Edlyn joined her. “Keeping a household in clothing takes every available moment, and will for the rest of my life. For the rest of my servants’ lives, also.”

  He looked at them in awe. “So you have to do something you hate forever.”

  “I don’t hate it.” Holding the baby, Philippa drew closer to the table. “Not most of it.”

  “I hate spinning.” With her arms crossed over her chest, Lady Edlyn exuded hostility.

  David drew a little away from Alisoun. Their moment of privacy had passed, but he didn’t mind so very much. Contact had been reestablished, and that was enough for now.

  “What about you, Alisoun?” He held his arms out to Hazel, and the baby came into them willingly. “Do you hate sewing?”

  “I try not to think about it.” She put her needle down with an air of decision. “But you’re evading the question. Bertrade is an heiress. She’ll ha
ve Radcliffe, at the very least, for dowry.”

  He stood Hazel on the table and she laughed as she tested her new upright stance. When had Bert grown beyond this simple stage of life? When had she become a headstrong girl rather than a dimpled babe?

  Unaware of his paternal concerns, Alisoun continued speaking, forcing him to face facts. “She’ll have fathers courting you on their sons’ behalf, and they’ll want her to wed at twelve. Do you want her to go ignorant to their homes, to never take her proper position as lady?”

  “Nay, of course I don’t want that.” He clenched his jaw. Guy had warned him that his loyalties would be torn. He hadn’t warned him he would be called upon to conspire against his own child. “But twelve’s too young to wed.”

  “And seven’s too old to be untrained in women’s ways.”

  He gave up. He had no choice. “Train her then.” A suspicious wetness darkened Hazel’s diapers, and he told Philippa, “Get me the cloths and I’ll change her.” Philippa tried to refuse, but he wouldn’t give up the baby to her care. He wanted to hold this child, to touch her soft skin, to reminisce about Bertrade’s babyhood. “I’ve done it before.” He looked meaningfully at Alisoun. “And I’ll do it again.”

  Alisoun watched his suddenly possessive clutch on the babe without comment, but she wouldn’t leave the subject of Bert alone. “I can’t train her. She runs away from me.”

  Folding her hands, she waited for him to offer a solution, but he busied himself with Hazel. He laid her on the table and unwound the cloth, making faces to keep her entertained. He said, “Right from the beginning, Bert kicked and fought every time I changed her. This babe laughs and coos. Hazel behaves like I thought a girl child would behave. But Bert wants to be moving and doing, and she was like that from birth.” Hazel stuck her foot in her mouth and chewed on it while watching him thoughtfully. He could have sworn she understood every word. “I can’t imagine Bert sitting and sewing, but she’s good with swordwork. As good as any seven-year-old, lad or lass, could be.”

  “What good will such knightly arts do her?” Alisoun asked. “It’s not as if I have ever had use for them.”

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “If you knew how to stick a knife in a man’s ribs, I wouldn’t have to interrogate every stranger who wanders through my village.” He bared the babe’s rump and passed the wet cloth to the hovering Philippa, then took the dry one and slipped it under Hazel. “If you knew how to stick a man with a knife…” he repeated. An idea sprang full-blown into his brain. Placing one hand on Hazel’s belly to keep her from rolling off the table, he turned to Alisoun. “That’s it!”