Dark Steel

by Le Veque, Kathryn

  Alvie lifted her big shoulders. “Mostly from Lady du Reims, but sometimes the old fool would try and tell me what to do. But I wouldn’t listen to him; nay, I wouldn’t!”

  Charlisa smiled as the old cook’s hackles went up. “Adalgar was not a very nice man to the female servants,” she said, trying to be tactful. “I did not fear him, because the duke put me in charge of the kitchens and the hall, but whenever he tried to exceed his authority, Dastan would step in and he greatly feared Dastan. It was a blessing when Dane became the duke because it forced Adalgar from the castle. He was under the delusion that he was to be the next duke.”

  “The idiot,” Alvie sniffed. Then, she beamed at Grier. “But now that ye’re here, we’ll have happy times again. ‘Twill be as if yer dear mother has returned. Now, Lamb, what can I prepare that is special for ye? I know! Sweetcakes!”

  Grier didn’t even have time to answer the woman before she was rushing off, calling to another servant lady and telling her what they needed to prepare. Grier and Charlisa watched it all, looking at each other and shrugging.

  “I suppose that means she is happy to see me,” Grier said, grinning. “Truthfully, I’d forgotten all about her. What a lovely discovery.”

  Charlisa agreed. “It is a lovely discovery,” she said. But then she paused, spying Laria over near the baker, sniffing at the bread that was coming out of the oven hot and fresh. “One of the first things I must tell you about your duties is to watch out for my cousin. She cannot keep her hands off of anything.”

  Grier turned to look at Laria, chuckling when the baker slapped the young woman’s hand as she tried to tear a piece from a fresh loaf of bread.

  “She is young,” she said. “She will learn to behave soon enough.”

  “Unless the rooster finally catches her and stabs her to death with his spurs,” Charlisa said. Shaking her head at her cousin, she returned her attention to the cook and a thought occurred to her. “Have you ever cooked anything before?”

  Grier shook her head. “Never,” she said. “As I said, we all had assigned duties at the abbey, and my duty was to sew. Why?”

  Charlisa smiled, that same dreamy smile Grier had noticed the woman had when she either looked at or spoke of her husband.

  “Because I think it would be a wonderful thing to cook something for my husband,” she said. “To make him something to eat with my own hands. Don’t you think that would show him how much I care for him?”

  Grier had no experience with anything like that, so she didn’t really know, but she didn’t want to sound naïve. “I am sure he would like anything you did for him,” she said. “But what would you cook?”

  Charlisa took Grier by the hand, pulling her over to where the cook was beginning to throw ingredients into a big wooden bowl.

  “Alvie,” she said, answering Grier’s question by speaking to the cook. “May we make the sweetcakes? For our husbands, I mean. They are out ridding the town of the terrible raiders, so we would like to make them something special.”

  Alvie looked at her as if completely baffled by the question. “Ye… ye want to do this yerselves?”

  Charlisa nodded firmly, looking to Grier for support, who began to bob her head up and down because she was being prompted to. Truth be told, she had no idea what to do in the kitchen, so the thought of failing to produce something pleasing for Dane was greater than the inclination to want to try.

  But Charlisa had no reservations; the woman was fearless when it came to showing affection for her husband, and Grier thought that was a rather admirable quality. So what if she failed? It seemed to Grier that with Charlisa, it was all about the effort, and in that thought, Grier realized she could learn something from Charlisa when it came to her own marriage with Dane.

  It was all about the effort.

  “Aye,” Grier said. “We want to do this ourselves. Surely making food with our own hands will make it taste twice as good to our husbands. Will you show us how to make these cakes?”

  Alvie was still bewildered by the request, but she showed them nonetheless. In fact, she brought out a second wooden bowl and poured oats and eggs and honey into it and told the women to start mixing the dough with their hands, which they did.

  Rolling up their sleeves, Grier and Charlisa stuck their hands right into the mixture and began to knead and mix, watching everything Alvie did for the dough from putting in extra honey to sprinkling ground cinnamon and cloves into the mixture. A little bit of salt went in, followed by raisins, and all the while, the women were mixing and mixing, squeezing the dough to make sure everything was incorporated.

  As they worked and learned, Laria wandered over and began sticking her fingers into Charlisa’s bowl, pulling forth sweet oat dough to lick. Charlisa scolded her and Alvie pulled up a spoonful of the stuff, handed it to Laria, and then swatted her on the behind to shoo her away. Laria wasn’t too offended since she had sweet dough to lick off the spoon, but when that was finished, she headed back over to the baker to pilfer more bread from the woman, who gave up trying to chase her away and handed her a half of a warm loaf. Happy, Laria found a place near the door that led to the kitchen yards and shoved fresh bread into her mouth.

  In all, it was one of the better mornings Grier had ever spent. Charlisa was sweet and eager, Alvie was patient and kind, and Grier thought that she could come to love her surroundings very much. There had been such uncertainty with her return home yesterday, but after the encounter between her and Dane last night, and then a morning filled with old friends and new experiences, she was coming to think that she could come to like being at Shrewsbury very much.

  It was turning out to be much more than she could have hoped for.

  Therefore, she mixed the dough happily, so very pleased with the direction her life was taking. When the ingredients were well mixed, Alvie helped her and Charlisa make the dough into flat little patties for baking, but when it came to actually putting them in the oven, Alvie insisted on doing it. She didn’t want the women to burn themselves. They helped her put the cakes on the long, flat wooden sheet and watched her slide them into the hot oven.

  Now, all they had to do was wait.

  As the smell of cinnamon filled the kitchen, and smoke from the hearth began to back up against the ceiling, Charlisa followed Alvie back over to a table where the woman had been making crust for meat pies, while Grier found herself over with the baker, who was making a different type of bread. She had already made bread from wheat, but now she was mixing rye flour in with the wheat. As Grier was watching with interest, a servant opened the door from the yard, coming in with a basket of eggs.

  It shouldn’t have been an action that stood out in a kitchen that was busy. It was a normal action, that of opening a door, but the unfortunate reality was that Laria was standing right next to the door finishing off the warm bread the baker had given her, and the rooster that hated her was still by the door when it opened. The bird hadn’t moved. When it caught sight of Laria, it ruffled its feathers and bolted through the open door, rushing at Laria and causing the girl to scream in fear.

  What happened next was a chain reaction of biblical proportions.

  When Laria screamed and ran, she crashed into the baker, who dropped the mass of flour she had in her hands. Flour exploded onto the rooster, onto Laria, and onto the floor as Laria ran from the rooster, and the rooster gave chase.

  Covered in flour, Laria ran right into Grier, who had been watching the baker, and when she saw the angry rooster bearing down on her, she leapt up onto the baker’s table, also covering herself with flour. When she slammed her hand into a bowl of water that was on the table, the water sprayed up onto her chest and neck, sealing the flour to her skin and hitting her in the face with droplets.

  As Grier gasped at the mess she’d made, Laria and the rooster continued their mad dash. They crashed into Alvie as the woman tried to avoid them, and the rooster flew up and flapped its wings at Charlisa, who screamed and began slapping at it with the fir
st thing she could find, a large metal spoon. She whacked it, but good, stunning the rooster for a moment before it picked itself up and kept running, now running because it was panicked and not because it was chasing Laria. With a wild rooster on the loose, servants were screaming and running from the kitchen, creating an uproar, while those still inside the kitchen were either up on tables or heavily armed, or both.

  An angry rooster with big spurs was a fearsome sight, indeed.

  “Open the door!” Grier yelled at the baker, who was closer to the yard door than the rest of them. “Open the door and he will run out!”

  The baker was terrified but she did as she was told. Arming herself with a rolling pin, she rushed to the door and threw it open, only to have men charging in from the outside. In fact, men were charging in from another door as well, and very quickly, the kitchen was full of men with weapons who had heard the screaming.

  When Grier happened to look up at the men flooding into the kitchen, her gaze fell on Dane, who had his sword leveled, ready for battle. Their gazes locked and Grier would never forget the look on his face.

  Deadly.

  The man was prepared to kill.

  The rooster slipped out under the legs of the men and ran out into the yard, leaving behind a trail of destruction in its wake.

  And that was the last they saw of it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In the aftermath of the fleeing rooster, the sudden silence in the kitchen was unnerving. Everyone was looking around at each other, startled by what had just occurred. No attacking Welshmen? No horrific danger? After what they’d just heard, no one could quite believe it, and when the silence was finally broken, it was by Dane.

  “What in the bloody hell is happening?” he demanded.

  From the look on his face, Grier knew that nothing but a clean and concise answer was going to please him. She unfurled her tucked-up legs, moving to climb down off the table.

  “The rooster broke in,” she said. “He was trying to attack Lady Laria, but he went after all of us.”

  It was a simple explanation for a circumstance that had turned the kitchen upside-down. When Dane realized that the entire country of Wales hadn’t broken into the kitchen, he slowly lowered his blade, feeling somewhat weak with relief. When he lowered his weapon, everyone else did, and Dastan went over to his wife, who was standing petrified against the wall with the spoon still in her hands. Dastan disarmed her of the spoon and pulled her away from the wall.

  Dane, seeing that Dastan was tending to his wife, went to Grier as she tried to climb down from the table. She was covered in flour, so much of it glued to the lovely red woolen dress from the water she had sprayed on herself. She was trying to unwind her legs from the skirt, so he reached out and simply lifted her up and off the table, setting her carefully to the ground as chunks of wet flour fell off of her. When she looked up at him, quite sheepishly, he couldn’t help but chuckle at the woman.

  “God’s Bones,” he muttered, looking her up and down. “You are quite a mess.”

  Grier could hear humor in his voice but she wasn’t sure it was real. It was quite possible that he was so angry at her that he simply couldn’t adequately express that anger, masking it instead behind feigned mirth.

  “I know,” she said regretfully. “It all happened so fast.”

  “What are you doing in the kitchens?”

  She lifted a hand only to drop it back down in a futile gesture. “Charlisa was showing me Shrewsbury,” she said, feeling stupid even as she said it. “We ended up in the kitchens and we asked the cook if we could make something special for you and Dastan because you were fighting a battle. We made you sweetcakes.”

  She was pointing at the big oven and he turned to see Alvie pulling the baked cakes from the fire. In that moment, he was rather stumped; it was a sweet and innocent gesture, something she’d done to be kind to him. When he’d come into the kitchen, this was not what he had been expecting. Now, it was a struggle against the suspicion and angst he’d had when he’d charged into the kitchen, suspicion and angst that was directed at Grier because of what the captured Welshman had told him. He needed to talk to her, to find out the truth behind her relationship with ap Madoc but, at this moment, he was feeling like an ogre about it. Could he believe in her gesture to make him sweets? Or was it a meaningless gesture because the truth was that she was secretly in love with someone else?

  God, he just didn’t know.

  Dane very much wanted to believe that her gesture was genuine, that she was truly attempting to be kind to him. But perhaps, he was being foolish or naïve. Men didn’t have feelings like women did. They weren’t fools for the women they were married to or held affection for. But then he thought of his father, who deeply loved his mother, and they’d set a marvelous example for him of a happy married couple. The truth was that he wanted what they had. The past two days with Grier had shown him a surprising path to such happiness, and then last night… it had gone beyond what he’d thought it would be. A simple consummation wasn’t so simple. He’d enjoyed it more than he could express.

  But could he mean more to her than simply a husband? When he looked into her face, he could almost believe so.

  Trouble was, he wanted to believe so. But with ap Madoc rearing his head, he had to get a few things straight first.

  “That was kind of you,” he finally said. “But there are some things I need to tend to before I can sample your cakes. Let us return to our chamber where you can change out of that dress. I have something I wish to speak with you about.”

  Grier went with him eagerly. She was such a mess that when he got her outside of the kitchen, he had her stand still and cover her face while he took his hands and beat at her skirt to get rid of some of the flour. Great puffs of white billowed up as he beat the red fabric, and when he was satisfied, he took her by the arm and led her back up to the keep, past his men who were now staring at the lady half-covered in white powder. Grier felt quite self-conscious.

  “Your men are staring at me,” she muttered as they crossed the bridge and into the inner bailey. “I wonder what they think I have been doing.”

  Dane laughed low. “I am sure they could not even hazard a guess,” he said. “You look like a fish that has been rolled in flour and is ready to be fried.”

  Grier started to chuckle because he was. “It could not be helped,” she said. “It was either jump on the table with the flour on it, or let that terrible rooster stab me with his spurs. You can guess which choice I made.”

  “I can,” he said. “That should be a lesson to stay clear of that rooster. I should take that thing into battle with me.”

  “I am not sure a rooster would look good on your standard. They might start calling you the Chicken Duke.”

  “Point taken.”

  They were grinning at each other as they entered the keep, feeling that warmth that was sparking so easily between them. They had spent a good deal of their first few days together smiling at each other, which made this situation with ap Madoc all the more unhappy. Dane hoped with all his heart that the smiles and the warmth from her were real.

  He wanted that badly.

  With thoughts of Welshmen and new brides on his mind, he carefully helped Grier up the stairs because her garments were still too long and she was trying very hard not to step on the hem. Once they reached their chamber, he forced himself to push aside thoughts of ap Madoc, at least for the moment, as they entered to find Euphemia sitting by the fire, sewing up the hem of the emerald silk.

  The old servant caught one look at her lady and gasped. “God’s Soul!” she exclaimed. “What has happened to ye?”

  Grier held out her arms as if to show the woman all of the damage. “An accident in the kitchens,” she said without elaborating. “Would you be so kind as to bring me hot water so I may clean myself?”

  Dane, laying his big broadsword on the nearest table, spoke up. “Bring her a bath,” he told the old servant. “I think the lady needs t
o be doused to get all of the mess off of her.”

  Euphemia fled the room, closing the door behind her, as Dane went over to Grier. “Can I help you remove that mess?” he asked.

  Grier eyed him. “Well,” she said slowly. “I will allow it if you bolt the door. I do not need servants rushing in here while I’m only in my shift.”

  With a smile playing on his lips, Dane went to the door and dutifully bolted it. Then, he headed back to Grier, getting in behind her where the fastens of her dress were. As she pulled her long hair aside, which had flour and water all in the ends of it, he began to unfasten. He was almost finished when he heard her soft voice.

  “There were raiders in town today, then?” she asked. “Did you catch them?”

  He started to slow down as he reached the last few fastens. “Who told you there were raiders?”

  “The same sergeant who told me it was safe to come out of my chamber,” she said. “You said not to come out until a knight released me, but there were no knights, only a soldier. I hope you are not cross with me.”

  He fingered the second to the last fasten. “Of course not,” he said quietly. “And, aye, there were raiders in town. I did not catch all of them, only one man. But it was a costly effort. We lost Syler.”

  Grier gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in shock. “Sir Syler is dead?”

  “Aye.”

  Grier was deeply distressed. “But… but he is Lady Laria’s brother,” she said. “And Charlisa’s cousin! Do they know?”

  “They more than likely do now.”

  Grier fell silent a moment, feeling grief over the knight even though she didn’t know him very well. “I am sorry,” she murmured. “So very sorry. I shall say a prayer for him at Vespers.”

  Dane reached the last fasten and undid it, pulling the back of the dress apart. “I am sure his family would appreciate it,” he said. “He was a good knight and he will be missed.”