Lord Peverell nodded. “Very wise, Lady Penda,” he said. “I really ought to be getting back, I suppose.” He turned to Allie and bowed. “Thank you again, Mistress Almeison . . . And now, I suppose, I ought to wish you both a good day.” Then, clucking at his horse, he started limping off down the causeway.
Allie, who was suddenly very tired and hungry, was keen to go home, but Penda was strangely reluctant to move and insisted they watch them for a while.
“Bugger!” she said just before they disappeared from view. “We’ll ’ave to go after ’em, you know. Look at ’em, couple of cripples! They won’t make it ’less we do.”
Chapter 22
It took some time to get to Dunstan but Lord Peverell, hobbling along, leaning on Penda, compensated for the arduous journey with his cheerful and lively conversation. And Allie, walking behind them, leading the horse, was frequently amused by the snippets of the conversation that drifted back to her.
“Good Lord, madam! But you’re well armed!” he said when he noticed the bow slung across Penda’s back. “I hope I’m not around for the invasion you’re obviously expecting. Anything I should know about? A siege perhaps?”
Penda laughed. “You never know, bor,” she said, tapping the side of her nose. “I’ve lived through enough o’ them to know you can’t be too careful, but mebbe not today . . . No, it’s them bloody foxes! I was going to bag a few afore you come along and buggered up my plans.”
For reasons best known to herself, she preferred to keep their archery lessons secret.
“I can only apologize,” Lord Peverell said, “and repeat that although I regret having done so, I am eternally grateful that it was me who ‘buggered them up’ . . . if you see what I mean.”
They were developing an easy rapport, Allie thought, one that was only possible because of the parity in their social standing, the difference in their ages and therefore the lack of any sexual prejudice. She rather envied it.
“’Ow’d you get that scar then?” she overheard Penda ask him a little later on.
“Oh, that?” he replied, running his finger along the livid mark that ran down his cheek. “Crusade, that one. An assassin’s sword. Suits me, don’t you think?”
Penda snorted with laughter, nudging him so hard that he almost fell over. “Vain bugger!” she said.
Allie wasn’t consulted, of course, and wouldn’t have dreamed of offering her opinion, but, actually, she thought it did. In fact, it was one of the first things she had noticed about him, the thin, jagged line running from the corner of his mouth to a point just below his cheekbone, which lent an imperfect charm to a face that might otherwise have been a little too complacent in its beauty.
In fact, now that she came to think about it, she liked the look of him very much and was surprised at how eagerly she was anticipating those moments when he would glance back at her over his shoulder.
At first, she assumed he was doing so out of concern for the horse, but increasingly his gaze came to rest on her, and for longer than was necessary, which caused a peculiar, although by no means unpleasant, sensation around her knees.
By the time they reached Dunstan it was dusk, and their lordship’s return was obviously keenly anticipated. The portcullis had been raised, the drawbridge lowered, and the moment he appeared on the horizon a score of anxious men carrying flambeaus rushed out to meet him.
“Well, my lord.”
A tall blond-haired man loomed out of the throng, lifted his master’s arm unceremoniously off Penda’s shoulder and placed it across his own.
“What mischief is it that you return crippled and in the company of women?” he asked.
“No mischief, Will,” his lordship replied. “I had an accident, all my own fault, a sprain, but nothing serious.”
He turned to Penda.
“Lady Penda, allow me to introduce my steward, Sir William. Sir William, this is Lady Penda. And this lady,” he said, with an emphatic flourish of his free arm toward Allie, “is Mistress Almeison Picot . . . I owe them both a huge debt of gratitude.”
A pair of cold, pale green eyes slid from Allie to Penda and back again. Sir William gave a perfunctory bow. A little too perfunctory, Allie thought, especially in light of the service they had just performed for his master. On the other hand, since she was tired and hungry and never at her most charitable under these circumstances, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and smiled politely.
By now a sizeable crowd had gathered around them, everyone fussing about their master like mother hens. Another young man stepped forward and, equally unceremoniously, snatched the reins out of Allie’s hands.
“Come, Matilda,” he said, disregarding Allie as though she were a figment of her own imagination. “Let’s get you back to the stable.” And with a click of his tongue and still no acknowledgment of Allie, he started leading her away. Allie watched them go, feeling an uncomfortable mix of affrontery and dismay.
“Make sure you put plenty of rugs on her,” she called out, irritation rising. “She sweated up badly this afternoon so she’ll more than likely feel the cold tonight.”
He broke stride for a moment but didn’t turn around.
“Oh . . . And take a look at that hoof on the left fore before you finish her. You’ll find a hole that needs plugging with some sphagnum moss if you want to prevent an abscess.”
When she had finished, he shrugged his shoulders and walked on, leaving her standing on the drawbridge staring after him.
“Don’t worry.”
A voice behind her made her start, and she turned her head to see Lord Peverell limping toward her.
“She’s in good hands,” he said, amused by her expression of consternation. “Young Henry may not be the most enthusiastic conversationalist but he knows his horses like the back of his hand; besides, I’ll be looking in on her myself later on . . .”
“Good,” Allie said, although she continued to stare fixedly at the insolent groom until he and the horse disappeared into the shadow of the gatehouse.
Lord Peverell invited them to stay for supper.
“A small thank-you for your kindness,” he said.
Allie demurred at first, partly because she assumed that Penda would be anxious to get back to Elsford as soon as possible, but was surprised when, in fact, she accepted with alacrity. On the other hand, she hadn’t been privy to the conceit Penda had been nursing all afternoon about the great good fortune—the one that had almost literally fallen into her lap—by which she had fulfilled her promise to Rowley without compromise, contrivance or, indeed, much difficulty.
Ever since she had made it, she had worried about how she might fulfill it, and until now had failed to come up with a single plan. But today God himself had smiled on her, and she was almost euphoric at the felicity. In fact she spent the rest of the evening smiling beatifically at all and sundry, while studiously avoiding eye contact or conversation in case she was distracted from this rare but glorious moment.
“Lovely meal, weren’t it?” she said when it was all over and they were nestling into the blankets in the covered cart Lord Peverell had provided to take them home. “Did you have a nice time, Allie? . . . Looked like you was enjoyin’ yourself . . . Very chatty, the two of you. Seemed like ’e couldn’t take ’is eyes off you . . .”
Allie had to admit that she had, and—although she didn’t actually say so—now that she came to think about it, he had been very attentive. They had chatted all night, almost to the exclusion of everyone else, but whether or not he had taken his eyes off her at any point she couldn’t say. The only person who she knew hadn’t, however, was Sir William, who had spent the evening glowering at her from the other side of the table. It had been unnerving at first, but as the evening wore on, she became inured to it; besides, wherever his antipathy toward her came from, it was entirely mutual; she hadn’t liked him much, either.
“Perhaps you’ll see ’im again,” Penda said, settling back in the cart and closing her eyes.<
br />
“Perhaps,” Allie said, shifting the curtain slyly to take another peek at him before they set off.
Chapter 23
The next morning Hawise woke Allie up as she burst into the solar.
“Well! What’s he like?” she shrieked, flinging her cloak onto the foot of the mattress.
“Shhh!” Allie sat up scowling, pressing her finger to her lips. “You’ll wake Gyltha!”
“Sorry.” Hawise lowered her voice. “But you have to tell me everything!”
Allie yawned—partly because she wanted to appear nonchalant, but also because she was genuinely tired. Last night her dreams—which were all about Lord Peverell—had been spectacularly vivid.
She opened her eyes. Hawise was staring down at her expectantly, jiggling with anticipation.
“He was . . . how should I put it? Well . . . charming, I suppose,” she said with another yawn.
“Handsome?”
Allie shrugged. “I suppose so . . . if you like that sort of thing.” And she surprised herself by her involuntary squeak of pleasure as she remembered his face. “He’s got this scar,” she said, absently and dreamily tracing an imaginary line down her cheek with her finger.
Hawise leapt on it. “Ooh, Mistress Allie!” she said. “You’re blushing!”
“I most certainly am not,” Allie snapped despite all evidence to the contrary.
“So, he was a bit more interesting than his horse this time then, was he?”
Allie gave what she hoped was a derisory sniff. “I wouldn’t say that exactly,” she said, wrapping her bedsheet around her, hoping Hawise would take the hint and let her rise in peace. “It’s a very beautiful horse actually. She’s called Matilda . . . after the empress.”
But Hawise was undeterred. “Ooh,” she squeaked in a way Allie was beginning to find irritating. “On first-name terms with his horse then, are you? Well, you know what that means round here, don’t you, mistress? It means—” But she didn’t get to finish her sentence because just then Allie launched a pillow at her head and she ran out of the room laughing.
“Don’t take any notice, me old lover.”
Gyltha’s drowsy voice sounded from the bed. “Terrible one for teasing, that girl.”
Allie got up and, tightly wrapped in her sheet, shuffled over to the bed. “I’m sorry, Gyltha. Did we wake you?”
“Course you did, all that gigglin’s enough to wake the dead . . . But there’s worse ways to start the day, I s’pose . . . Well, come on then,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “Did you like ’im, this Lord Peverell?”
Allie felt her cheeks growing hot again. It was impossible to hide anything from Gyltha, who could sniff out the truth like a hound to the spoor of a wolf.
“Yes . . . ,” she said. “Or at least, inasmuch as I got to know him, I suppose.”
It was a half-truth. Yesterday she had felt a bond between them, developing from more than just their mutual concern for the horse. There were moments when he had revealed aspects of his personality that she liked very much: a tenderness, a sense of humor and a depth of character betrayed in the faraway look in his eyes when he thought no one was watching him, all of which had endeared him to her more than she cared to admit.
“Think you’ll see ’im again, then?” Gyltha asked.
She was quiet for a moment, remembering the conversation just before she left, when he had taken her to one side while they waited for the cart to come.
“You will come back?” he had asked. “To see Matilda, that is.”
And there had been something so beguiling in the way he said it, a slight faltering of confidence betrayed in his voice, that, for a moment or two, she’d felt unable to trust her own.
“Well?” Gyltha prompted.
“I don’t know, Gylth,” she said. “We’ll have to see.”
When Hawise returned, and, to Allie’s relief, in a less bullish mood, she went down to the hall for breakfast.
Halfway down the stairs she heard voices, a great many of them, and smelled a waft of damp sheepskin, reminding her that the manorial court was in session that morning. When she got there Sir Stephen was already on the dais calling a large crowd to order.
Jodi saw her hesitating in the doorway and came to her rescue, taking her to a table in the corner of the room.
“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” Sir Stephen’s voice rang out through the room. “Let the court of Elsford commence and let every soul tell the truth as it stands in the fear of God.”
The crowd responded with a collective “Amen” and the business of the day began.
First for consideration that morning was the case of Alice, widow of Albin, who was seeking amends from her neighbor, a certain Bartholomew the smith, who, she said, on the Sabbath before last, had allowed his pigs to enter her garden and root up all her beans and cabbages.
When Bartholomew couldn’t offer a reasonable defense, Sir Stephen fined him three pence.
Next was Hereward, son of Bartholomew, who accused Alfred Le Boys of Wisbech of defaming his corn and thereby costing him the sale of it. Alfred offered no defense, either, and was also fined three pence. So was Ducie, widow of Richard, because she had broken the assize of beer, and Albert Merryweather, who refused to join a tithing despite being reminded to do so on numerous occasions.
The largest fine of the day, however, was levied against a Thomas Wayland, who ended the day six pence poorer for not keeping his widowed mother according to their agreement.
Allie suspected that, left to Sir Stephen, he might have got off more lightly, but Penda—who was a stickler for familial duty—made a rare intervention and doubled the original fine, insisting that, in addition to the amercement, all the land he had taken from his mother should revert to her with immediate effect, and that he should have nothing from it until after her death.
“And let that be the doom of the court,” she said, fixing him with a glare that could have frozen the fires of hell.
When all the grievances had been dealt with, Sir Stephen moved on, taking up his ledger to read a long litany of rents and debts for collection. When every debtor had shuffled up to the dais and delivered their dues—either livestock or coinage—Sir Stephen sat down, and Ulf took over the proceedings.
As the reeve, he had the duty of reporting on the dilapidations that had accrued since the last court session: which houses had fallen into disrepair, which villein had taken timber from the wood without her ladyship’s permission and who was responsible for which hole in which riverbank. All of which he announced with an air of reluctant competence, making no bones about the fact that he took little pleasure from sitting in judgment on his peers, a rare tenderness for which, Allie presumed, they had chosen him in the first place.
When the session ended and before the crowd made its lumbering exodus, Allie, feeling in need of fresh air, got up quickly and made her way to the courtyard.
It was another cold, crisp day, but other than a brief glimpse of Fulke the dairyman before he vanished into the milking shed behind his tail-swishing, sway-bellied herd, and Bertha the laundress, who was struggling to manipulate a mountain of half-frozen sheets into a basket in the drying court, the place was deserted.
The solitude suited Allie. This morning she needed time alone to think, and she wandered aimlessly for a while until she came to an archway leading to a rose garden. Once inside, she made her way to a lichen-covered bench in the middle of the lawn and sat down on it, feeling the damp of the stone rising through her skirts.
Cold arse, cool head. Gyltha’s epithet made her smile. Although whether it was her cold arse or the fresh air, she could feel that something, at least, was doing the job of clearing her head, even if the only thought that was rattling around in it was of Lord Peverell.
Lord Peverell, Lord Peverell, Lord Peverell; his name kept batting around her mind like a trapped moth, and although the sensation wasn’t unpleasant, it didn’t sound right.
She closed her eyes, trying to remember
whether she had heard his Christian name, and then it came to her: James! James, yes, that was it! Much better; a name she could conjure with, or at least murmur wistfully if she had a mind to. “Lord Peverell” sounded too old, too austere. The man she was thinking about was neither of those things.
And yet, she thought gloomily, it was silly to think about him at all; before long she would have to return to Wolvercote. Gyltha was getting better by the day and was adamant that she should leave, and besides, with Christmas approaching Adelia would doubtless want her to go home. Despite Allie’s longing to see her, the idea of returning to her old routine was more than she could bear. Besides—and the thought plunged her into even deeper gloom—her father was bound to have come up with a suitor for her by now.
“Good morning, Mistress Allie.”
She looked up. Peter the falconer was waving at her through the archway.
“Good morning,” she replied without enthusiasm, and immediately tilted her face to the sun, hoping the attitude of repose might encourage him to go away. But instead, through half-closed eyes, she saw him stoop through the arch and make his way over the lawn toward her.
He stopped right in front of the bench, casting a shadow over her.
“Is it not a little cold to be sitting outside, mistress?” he asked.
Allie opened her eyes reluctantly and realized that it was the first time she had really looked at him properly.
When they had first been introduced she had been too distracted, first of all by his falcon and then by the peculiar events in the marsh, to consider him really. Now that she could, she decided that there was something odd about him; nothing she could put her finger on exactly—after all, he was pleasant enough to look at, if you liked that sort of thing—but there was a whiff of arrogance about him, a disconcerting, knowing look in those long, dark eyes that made her uncomfortable. She wished he would go away.
“Well,” he said hesitantly, breaking the awkward silence, “perhaps I should leave you in peace, mistress.”
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