LordoftheKeep

by Ann Lawrence

  She gently placed Angelique on her pallet and offered her a stuffed woolen ball. Taking out her eating dagger, she dug about in the dirt in one corner until she unearthed a leather pouch. With shaky fingers she counted out what remained of her meager store of silver pennies. Also in the pouch lay her father’s gold spurs and her mother’s cross. Sighing with relief, she replaced the dirt and stamped it flat with her good foot. Her father’s gold spurs were all she had of him and no amount of need would make her part with them. Likewise, she’d retained possession of the delicate silver cross from her mother’s family. She’d sold the chain the previous month for food. Both were possessions that reminded her that once she’d had a beamed roof overhead and a hearth to warm her in winter.

  Her head rang with pain. Her stitched wounds burned. Where in heaven had all the noise come from? Outside, geese hissed, carts rumbled over ruts in the paths, children shrieked, a smith rang his hammer on the anvil. She groaned and forced herself to sit down at Angelique’s side and sip slowly from a stone bottle of ale. The ale was rank in comparison to that of Lord Gilles’ honeyed milk.

  She bent her head and kissed Angelique’s small head. “What, my sweet, is this effect Lord Gilles has upon my senses? Is it just that he holds the ultimate authority here? Or is it that he is the antithesis of him? No, these feelings are unique. They come only from his lordship.” Her arms tightened about her daughter. “We owe Lord Gilles our lives. I could not have held the dogs off much longer. I prayed God would let us die quickly. I prayed God would not let you suffer,” she whispered against the silky tresses. “We have been given another chance.”

  “Talking to yer little angel again, are ye?”

  “Widow Cooper!” Emma cried joyfully to the figure standing in her doorway. Angelique strained to be clasped in the widow’s arms.

  “Come, my angel,” crooned the older woman, her gray hair hidden beneath her snowy white headcovering, her wide girth swinging to and fro to amuse the youngster. “Who gave ye a chance, my friend?”

  “Why you, of course!” Emma smiled at her friend, one hand to her throbbing head. “Who bribed young Bert to build me a loom? Helped me birth Angelique?” Her smile fled. “Who defends me at the well?”

  Widow Cooper blew into Angelique’s small palm and set the child to giggling and kicking her feet. “Humpf. The women are just jealous. They’ve not the backbone to take their men to task for sniffing about yer skirts and so must place the blame elsewhere. A woman alone be prey in this place. Brainless, the lot o’ them.”

  “The women or the men?” Emma quipped.

  They shared a laugh; then the widow spied Emma’s bandaged ankle. “Sweet heaven, child. What is this?” She settled Angelique on Emma’s straw pallet and lifted the hem of Emma’s skirt.

  “I was gathering in the woods and was set upon by dogs.”

  “How many times must I tell ye not to go about such business alone?” the widow scolded.

  “I am alone. You have your son and his five children to help and cannot be rushing off each time I need to gather a few berries, or barter some cloth, or…or draw water!” Emma knew life was hard enough for the widow whose daughter-by-marriage had perished birthing her last babe. Secretly, Emma suspected the widow was grooming her for her son’s next wife. In her weaker moments, she considered it herself.

  “Well, I’m glad yer not torn to pieces.” She tutted over the bruise on Emma’s temple.

  “Don’t fuss, please.”

  The widow withdrew her hand. “Have ye finished the last of the trim for the Abbot?”

  “Almost.” Emma reached up into the thatching of her hut. She drew down a narrow wooden box. Inside lay a long strip of trimming that she’d labored hard upon. She desperately needed the pennies she’d earn for it. Usually, her weavings earned naught but bartered food.

  The widow stroked the intricate design. “‘Tis very fine. The Abbot will be well pleased.”

  “Angelique needs warm winter wrappings for her feet and hands.” Emma hoped the trimming would allow her to purchase the necessary wool to weave something that would earn her more than food. She was loath to part with her few pennies. “I was grateful for the work. We’ve been blessed with mild weather, but ‘twill soon be winter.”

  The two women watched Angelique tumble about from pallet to loom to pallet. Neither voiced their common fears that Angelique would not survive without food and warmth. Emma knew that she might look more kindly on becoming the mother of five young children if it meant Angelique did not starve. The thought of the conjugal privileges she must then give Widow Cooper’s son made her shiver. Her one time with a man had made her sure she did not wish to repeat the effort. She had fended off the Widow’s hints with reminders that although her husband did not acknowledge her, she had made vows and considered herself wed. How she wished she’d made those vows on the church steps instead of in private.

  “Ye’ve a melancholy look. Are ye in pain?” Widow Cooper touched Emma on the knee.

  “Nay. Oh, aye. The stitching hurts. Pray ‘twill not fester! But nay, ‘tis not my wounds that ail me.” She whirled to her friend. “How could I have been so blind? Why did I not see him for what he was?” Her voice broke; tears flowed down her cheeks. “How could I have offered myself to the first man with smooth cheeks and a sunny smile that paid me attention?” The tears spotted her woolen gown, her only gown. “I acted the fool for a man’s honeyed words. Snared by poetry! Fool. Fool.”

  “Now, now.” The widow rose and wrapped an arm about Emma’s waist. “‘Tis not like ye to feel sorry for yerself like this. Yer not the first to be taken in by a fine figure and pleasin’ face. I think ye were lonely, in need of love. Yer uncle were a vile man to have the care of a young maid. ‘Tis not the end of the world.”

  “Isn’t it? Look about you. I barely keep us fed.”

  The widow grasped Emma by the shoulders and shook her. “Now, none o’ that! What has happened to ye? Where’s the strong maid who took her knife to Ivo when he come sniffin’ in the night to bed her?”

  Emma managed a small, wan smile. The village had been all atwitter with the story of Ivo’s comeuppance, less from the paltry wound on his arm than from the beating his wife had given him when he’d slunk home. Her smile died. The village women had held her responsible, Ivo’s wife telling her at the village well that Emma was to keep her hands off Ivo from then on, as if she’d issued the knave an invitation. “You champion me. ‘Tis the only reason we survive.”

  “Nonsense. Now, I’ll ‘ear no more o’ this. I’ll send a pottage by way of the baker’s lad and a poultice for yer wound. Ye’ll never go hungry as long as I’m about.”

  Emma thanked her friend, grateful there was no mention of marriage to her son. They decided on a time for Emma to hand over the trimming so Widow Cooper could deliver it to the abbey when she and her son went to the nearby port of Lynn. They parted company with promises to meet in a few days.

  Emma stared after the widow. Widow Cooper’s son had a cast in his eye and was missing the fingers on his left hand. She did not really hold his infirmities against him. ‘Twas the whispers that he’d beaten his first wife at the slightest offense that made her cringe. With sadness, Emma hoped the widow never learned what was whispered about her son.

  Angelique had curled into a ball on the pallet and her soft puffs of breath filled the lonely silence. Gently, Emma stroked her daughter’s back, watched the small thumb disappear into the rose-petal lips. “Believe in no man, Angelique. Expect lies and you will never be played the fool. Believe only in the power of God’s love and in the power of nature.”

  She felt a need to give instruction to her sleeping child, more to reassure herself than to impart wisdom. “Revere the plants that yield the glorious color for my dyes. Respect the gift of the wool given by the sheep. Honor nature’s gifts. They give us life.”

  She looked at the rough stone wall that formed the back of her hut, the castle’s outer wall. His wall. “There are mysteries
and forces greater than I can understand, my angel. Lord Gilles, he is one of the mysteries. He appears mortal man, yet mayhap if we were to meet again—

  “Forget this foolish musing! Wild dogs will not beset us again just to assure his lordship’s attention! I am surely mad to think such a man might notice us, crouched here at the base of his walls.” In truth, she was not sure she wished any man to notice her ever again.

  Emma’s stool sat before an upright loom, but it was to the hand loom she looked. Made from a flexible branch crotch cut from a tree, ‘twas the loom on which she had made the trimming sold to the Abbot. It was in the weaving of trimming and beltwork that her mother had excelled and ‘twas her legacy to Emma.

  She plucked up the hand loom and stroked her fingers along the smooth wood that had seen years of work from both her and her mother. A glimmer of an idea ran over and over in her head. “’Twould be audacious. Presumptuous, even, Angelique, to weave Lord Gilles a gift. But what else have I to give in thanks for our lives?”

  She moved back to her daughter’s side, leaning down and kissing the dainty cheek. “I’ll need alder bark, winter berries, bedstraw to make the dyes,” she whispered to her daughter. “We shall borrow a kettle from Widow Cooper. The stink will be terrible, but worth it.”

  The scent of lavender soap lingered in Angelique’s hair. Stroking her fingers through the curly mop, Emma tried to draw into her nostrils the scent that would forever remind her of that luxurious bath in his chambers.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when a shadow crossed the beaten floor of her hut. Emma could barely restrain herself from squeezing Angelique. William Belfour crossed her hut in a single stride and dropped to one knee. He scowled down at Angelique.

  “What do you want?” Emma cried, clutching at her daughter.

  “I saw you in the hall and wanted to see the babe at closer quarters. She is your image. I see no sign of me,” he said.

  Emma looked from her innocent daughter to William. They had the same flaxen hair, the same sky-blue eyes. Her daughter lay garbed in the coarsest of undyed wool. William’s mantle and surcoat were finely made, their blue a clear match to his bright eyes. His clothing was clean and costly, his surcoat trimmed with rich red embroidery, his mantle with fur. He wore soft leather boots and thick, warm hose. His daughter had strips of old linen from cast-off garments wrapped about her feet and little legs. The contrasts were a knife-edge of anger through her.

  “She is yours, nonetheless,” Emma averred, the anger rising in her throat. She wanted to vomit from fear, not just the fear of the coming winter and Angelique’s small chance of survival to womanhood, but of William and what he represented. He took up all the space in her hut with his broad shoulders and audacious manner, sucked the air away so she could barely draw breath. She would not kneel in this man’s presence. She would not make herself vulnerable to his ugliness in her home. She forced herself to stand upright and to square her shoulders.

  He, too, rose and looked about with disdain. “I deny the child. You have no proof. As I said before, you probably spread your legs for many men.”

  “Nay!” Emma drew away from his ugly denial. “Nay. Surely you know I was a virgin!”

  “Many women have difficulty accommodating me,” he sneered.

  She took a deep breath. As much as she despised this man, he was her husband. “You may deny it ten times and still you are her father, I your wife. Even the church recognizes a marriage when two people speak vows to one another and consummation takes—”

  “I spoke no vows. You seek to assure yourself a better life.” He tapped his finger on her cheek. “What would a man of my station want with one of yours, save the obvious? You were not even much amusement, truth be known.”

  Emma realized there was no reasoning with him now just as there had been no reasoning with him when first she had found herself with child. She covered Angelique with her mantle to shield her in some small way from William’s scrutiny. With a clarity of vision she’d not had when William Belfour had first come to the marketplace and noticed her, Emma realized she no longer desired his attention or acknowledgment. “Have it your way. ‘Tis your loss, not ours. Why have you chosen this day to speak to me? You scorned my love and repudiated your babe a long time ago.”

  William stared Emma in the eye. What blindness had assailed her that she had not seen this man for what he was? Emma held open the battered wooden door that separated her from humanity. “Be gone.”

  “Nay. I saw you swishing your skirts before Lord Gilles and thought mayhap you’d gained some experience and might be worth a second try.” William gripped Emma by the arms. He lowered his mouth to hers and claimed her lips. He tasted of a rich red wine.

  Where once Emma had thrilled to William’s touch, now she shivered in fear. His strength frightened her. He pressed his hips to hers and she felt his heated manhood growing hard against her stomach.

  Emma bit his lip.

  “Promiscuous bitch!” William pushed Emma away, hand to his mouth. His surcoat bulged from the press of his desire, and he put his hands on his hips, emphasizing his state. Emma refused to look.

  “I will be back, mark my words. We have business unfinished between us. Tempt not my anger, for I have influence here. Many may buy your cloth now, but a word in the right ear and your custom would dry up. You will find yourself assessed a penny here, a penny there until you must offer yourself for food.” William left her in a quick swing of his mantle.

  Emma sank to her pallet and scooped up Angelique, who’d slept through the confrontation. Her hands shook as she smoothed her daughter’s curls. “He would not dare. His threats are hollow. There is always need for good cloth; we will never starve.” She said the words aloud, repeated them again and again to convince herself and hold back fear.

  * * * * *

  A chill wind whistled down the chimney of Hawkwatch Keep. The hunting birds lifted their wings to protest the disturbing eddies of air. Garth moved closer to the fire.

  “What is it?” Gilles demanded without turning to see who approached him. The fool would receive the sharp edge of his tongue for disturbing him. He lifted his tankard of ale and drank it down as he flexed the stiff fingers of his cold right hand.

  “My lord?” a soft voice said behind him.

  Gilles recognized the voice. It drifted like a gentle visitor through his dreams. He rose from his seat and turned. “Mistress Emma.” Gilles swept her a courtly bow, his ill temper banished in one instant. “How may I be of service?”

  “My lord, I do not require any service. I have brought you a gift to thank you for saving my life and that of my daughter.”

  “A gift?” Gilles, nonplussed, groped for words. He could count on one hand the gifts he’d had received in his many years.

  “Aye, my lord.” Emma extended a package wrapped in clean linen.

  He stepped down from the dais and took the bundle. For a moment he just stroked his thumbs over the coarse wrapping.

  “I hope it will be pleasing to you, my lord,” Emma said into the silence.

  As Gilles plucked off the twine that bound the bundle, he sought to excuse his curt behavior. “Forgive me my churlish nature. I have just returned from a most unfortunate afternoon. One of my men wounded a horse in careless play with a sword—a prized horse’s tendon was severed. What seemed but a careless accident resulted in the destruction of a valuable mount. I had need to cut the horse’s throat.” He ground to a halt, unsure why he explained his foul mood at all.

  The wrapping parted. Gilles did not know how to describe the pleasure he received from the length of intricately woven cloth in his hand. He unfolded it and saw that one end was stitched about a humble iron buckle. Humble could not describe the belt itself.

  His gaze skipped from the belt, to the woman before him, to the floor. Words lodged somewhere in his throat.

  She stepped forward, her child on one hip. “I tried to capture the carving of your chair, my lord, and the decorations of your
chimney piece.” Her voice dropped. “I hope you are not displeased.”

  In fact, she had taken the Norman motifs found on his chair and painted about his whitewashed chimney piece and woven them in the colors of fire and storm clouds. The colors were more vibrant and alive than any he’d ever seen. He turned the belt. The interwoven designs became a string of hawks in flight. “Displeased? This is your work?” How could he be so stupid? She’d just said as much.

  “Aye, my lord.” She bobbed a low curtsy.

  “I am more than pleased. This is beyond fine. I have never seen the like.” Gilles held the belt in both hands and stroked his thumbs over the intricate pattern. Each motif entwined and linked to another, endlessly. An unfamiliar feeling came over him. A gift linked the giver and the recipient as the designs linked along the cloth. Did she intend such a thing?

  He turned the belt in the light. The shades of color changed and shifted as did the color of her mantle as she moved.

  “You must join my weavers.” The words barely made it from his mouth. He raised his gaze to hers and thought he saw in her eyes what he felt coursing his own blood. No matter the sounds that might surround them, no matter how many men and women were busy in the hall, only the two of them existed at that moment. “You must join my weavers,” he repeated. “Today.”

  “Do you mean that, my lord?” Emma asked. “You offer me a great honor.”

  “On the contrary, the honor is mine.”

  Emma’s heart raced, her palms dampened. To weave for him! She and Angelique would never starve, nor feel the chill of a winter storm blowing beneath their door. Angelique would grow with straight bones and a full belly.

  She need not make excuses to Widow Cooper.

  Then she frowned, turning away from Lord Gilles and looking down the long hall at the folk who lounged about on benches to avoid the bitter wind outside. Just as the harrowing of the coming winter wind would be a torture, ‘twould be a torture of another kind to be near William Belfour and feel his contempt and ugly scorn, to be within reach of his displeasure.