“My lady,” he exclaimed in a cheery English voice, “we were not expecting you for another two days. Welcome!”
Creaking machinery urged the portcullis up and a fleshy porter in a tabard half-scarlet, half-black, stepped out onto the drawbridge, gave her a gap-toothed grin, and whistled a pair of stable boys to fetch in the laden sumpter and mud-spattered Cloud. “Her grace will be pleased to hear that you have arrived safely.”
Heloise made a surprised face at Martin. Who were they expecting? Obviously a stranger, since the porter did not know her face.
“She will?”
“Aye, my life on’t,” chortled the gatekeeper, “but she ain’t here at present. Over Eastertide she been at Lady Darrell’s, ’is grace the duke’s mother, with the little demoiselles and the babe, but Lord Stafford is here. An’ ’is grace will be back Wednesday. Now don’t you be standing’ there a-freezin’, my lady. I’ll send a lad straightway to tell Sir William that you are here. Is your maid tarrying behind, my lady?” At least the man asked the obvious as discreetly as he could.
“Alas.” The expected guest crossed herself with melancholy devotion; the gatekeeper could draw his own conclusions. He did, and drew breath to press her for details but her small silencing gesture was sufficient.
Well, thought Heloise, with a quick thanks to St. Catherine as she stretched out her ungloved hands before the porter’s brazier, she was into the castle on a lie but at least she might have a chance to speak privily with Rushden.
“Those bells sound close by.” She offered the porter a friendly smile; new friends were useful and she might need to leave the castle hurriedly.
“The Priory of St. John the Evangelist, my lady.” So that explained the monk. At least she might seek a night’s shelter from the hosteler if the castle turned hostile. “We have Dominican brothers too, my lady, at Llanfaes, across the bridge, over the Usk.” He pointed southwest. Brecknock, then, lay within a carpenter’s square where the Usk and this lesser stream intermingled. It did no harm to get her bearings.
“Sir William will see you now, my lady.”
As she followed the servant across the silent courtyard, she realized Martin was right: a larger gatehouse with a drawbridge faced the Usk. Maybe the castle looked grander from that approach. The youth led her past a roofed well, not towards the old Norman keep squatting, gaunt as a hungry anchorite, on its high mote to one side of the bailey, but up a small flight of steps, through a porched doorway, and into an unheated great hall set against the southern curtain wall.
She shivered, longing for the bright, tapestried walls of Middleham, but the page ushered her into a counting chamber where a generous fire crackled blessedly. This must be the castle exchequer or the receiver’s room. Folded letters were tucked or hanging over the lower of the two wooden wall rails and sealing wax seals dangled on broad bands of tape above. Ledger boxes and parchment rolls were stacked upon the shelves behind a cheerful, well-fed man in his forties who sat before a baize-draped board with a leather-strapped courier box at his elbow. Seeing her, he closed the inkwell, dropped his pen into a wooden jar, feather down to protect the quill tip, and came round to hold out two hands to clasp hers in greeting. Why was she being so vigorously welcomed? she wondered. An impression of sky blue eyes and a peppery mane of hair stayed with her as she lowered her eyes modestly and curtsied.
“Lady Haute. What a long journey you have had. What do you think of our hills, wild, eh, compared to Kent?” Kent! Saints preserve her, she had never set foot in Kent, not even to make a pilgrimage to Canterbury.
Rapidly plumbing her memory, she managed a breezy answer. “I suspect that our cherries are as good as your mountains, Sir William.”
He bowed charmingly over her hand. “And have they repaired the Akeman Road outside Cirencester yet? You could have lost a horse and cart in some of those holes before Christmas.”
Dear God, yes, it was the old Roman route, but from where? St. Albans put his hand up for a mention, but little else came to her. How dangerous would it be to lie? “Actually I—I journeyed up from Chepstow. I had . . . have . . . a good friend in Somerset I desired to see.” She smiled amiably, wondering who on earth this Lady Haute was. A noblewoman, so certainly not a midwife or a wet nurse, but was the lady wed or widowed? Thank God the duchess was at her mother-in-law’s with her children. It at least gave some respite. And who was this man? What standing did he have with the duke?
“Sir William . . . ?”
“Knyvett, madam, of Buckenham, Norfolk. Acting constable. Ah, Bess, my sweet, do not hover there. Close the door and come and greet my lady.”
Another challenge to be faced? But there was no sign of recognition, merely shy politeness as a thin young gentlewoman came across the rush matting to curtsy.
“Is it not wonderful that my lady is here ahead of time, Bess?” Again, that puzzling hint of relief.
“Indeed,” the girl agreed sweetly, nervously tucking a wisp of nut brown hair beneath her coif. “Yes, indeed, we are so pleased to welcome you, my lady.”
Why? Had they a dragon this Lady Haute was supposed to tame? Had Heloise sprung from the cauldron of her father’s unpredictable governance into an equally dangerous fire?
“Bess is— Ah, Limerick.” A snowy-haired man in a long houppelande that lapped about his old-style pointed shoes came in to greet her. He too was smiling. Worse and worse, thought Heloise.
“Lady Haute, may I present his grace of Buckingham’s steward, Sir Thomas Limerick.” Bess caught his eye. “Oh, and this demoiselle is Lord Edward’s nursemaid.”
A little dragon? Heloise took a deep breath. “Your porter mentioned that Lord Stafford is here,” she ventured, wondering if she had found the right key to the gate. The statement could be construed as polite conversation if nothing else. There was a rapid exchange of glances between her hosts.
“Mulled wine, Bess,” Sir William exclaimed. “Now, Lady Haute, Bess says there has been a brood of mice in the chamber set aside for you but we have put a mouser in there for the last two days. Toss him out if you have an aversion to the fellow.” A human or four-pawed mouser, she wondered, warming to Sir William’s affability.
Over wafers and between sips of comforting wine that seeped down to warm her icy toes, Heloise began to edge the door of knowledge open. Her hosts were at pains to praise the Duke of Buckingham’s eldest son to her but as their comments became more fulsome, she began to deduce that Lord Edward also had horns and a spiked tail. In short, Lady Haute was to turn him into an angel. No wonder the duchess and the other children had sought refuge at their grandam’s. And where was the child’s father and the rest of the household?
The steward enlightened her: “His grace of Buckingham is at Thornbury with others of his retinue but we expect him back this week.” Thornbury! That was in Somerset, hard by the Bristol Channel. Dear God, all this while Rushden had been but a few days’ ride from Bramley. Dionysia had it wrong. Her quarry had not been on his way to Wales at all, and incredibly she had arrived ahead of him. Well, she must make the best of her advantage. Kind St. Jude, the saint of hopeless causes, was lending a generous hand in her affairs. Two dragons! If she did her best, maybe she might make some allies before she faced Rushden’s anger.
CASTLES WERE FULL OF INFORMATION IF ONE KNEW WHERE TO uncover it, and Bess, anxious to please the lady appointed over her, was a pantry of tidbits and morsels. As they traversed the hall and climbed the staircase that led to the nursery and bedchambers, Heloise learned that the duchess suffered from megrims, was easily worn out by her children, and exchanged letters with her royal sister twice a month, and it was the queen who had graciously recommended Lady Haute. The duke and duchess rarely kept each other company now that they had produced four children. His grace hunted a great deal with his friends. Friends? Oh yes. Unfortunately Bess showed excessive interest in one of his grace’s knightly companions but it was not Rushden and Heloise decided wisely not to squeeze any gossip out of her since she assumed t
hat a respectable married noblewoman should not display interest in unattached noblemen, and she did not know her new status. Was Lady Haute a married woman or a widow past mourning?
She tiptoed her way through conversation at supper with anecdotes of her recent travels, deftly diverted Sir William from a discussion of hostelries on the London to Canterbury road, and finally excused herself, duplicitous but unscathed. She did not like lying to these people. They would feel betrayed once Rushden unmasked her deceit, but perhaps there was a way to prevent that happening; if the little dragon liked her and she built up a treasury of goodwill before Rushden’s return, miracles were possible.
THE YOUNG WELSH MOUSER THAT BOUNDED OUT OF ONE OF the chambers partitioned off from the nursery was sleek, gelded, and white-stockinged. The rest of him was shining black except for a slash of white between his ears and down his nose. At least he was welcoming, but where was the other little beast in her charge?
Bess pointed to the other door and lifted a finger to her lips.
“I thought you had enow for the day to weary you, my lady. I would not be in a hurry to meet that one if I were you. That’s the garderobe there behind the arras, when you need it, and I have set clean water for washing in your bedchamber. If you have aught for cleaning or pressing, I will send them out to a laundress in the morning.”
Heloise thanked her for her thoughtfulness and began a dutiful inspection of her new realm. Inside the ambry was a wooden fort, a baby cannon, painted boards for table games, and a box of foot soldiers. In the other corner, she lifted the lid of the brightly painted wooden chest to discover a little sword and buckler, a tiny longbow, a crick ball, and a gaudy top.
“Very tidy, Bess,” she said pleasantly, pausing to run her fingers over a hobbyhorse’s leather mane. Traveller! Tomorrow she would send Martin back to Bronllys to ensure the horse was properly cared for and let Margery’s men return home.
“You should see it on a rainy day. Not an inch of floor to be seen and everything hurly-burly. And this is only my lord’s nursery. My little ladies have their own quarters close by her grace’s bedchamber but if they are all playing here together, as sometimes happens, it is bedlam. And here is Benet, Lord Stafford’s manservant. Make your bow, Benet.” A shambling, moon-faced fellow came out from the nursery, bowed awkwardly, and took his leave again at a nod from Bess. “Do not be a-feared of his squinty eyes, my lady. A mill short of a grindstone, that one, but stout-hearted.”
As they enjoyed wafers and hyppocras together before the fire, it was hard not to answer the questions that the younger girl snowballed at her in honest curiosity. Heloise sidestepped them as best she could by asking her own and was relieved to hear that Bess slept on a truckle bed beside the child. Thank goodness! It promised a rare privacy and would avoid the sleepy confidences that came from sharing a bed. Benet slept in the child’s chamber too. He might be simple, Bess assured her, but he was as loyal as a dog, and would willingly fetch the water for the child’s bath and perform all the menial tasks.
Heloise’s narrow chamber contained a truckle bed. Along the opposite wall a clean towel hung from a wooden rail above a small cup board. Upon it she found a pewter ewer, a jug of water, a jarful of pumice powder, and herbs for sweetening the breath. She hung her gown up on a wallpeg, said her prayers, and crept gratefully between the sheets, nestling her soles against the wrapped, heated brick, unable to believe her good fortune so far. Perhaps it was her destiny to come to Brecknock to look after the duke’s son. She hoped that was why Miles Rushden had been catapulted into her life. If she did her best, maybe she might make some allies before she faced his dark anger.
Mercy Jesu! She stifled a scream as a creature landed on the bed beside her, but it was not a rat. A confident purr coaxed her hand out from the blanket to tickle the short soft fur at the base of his pointed ears.
“You are supposed to be under the bed catching . . . things . . . not up here with me,” she pointed out, as the feline’s volume increased beneath her fingertips. “This is not wise, master cat. You and my hair do not go together. People will gossip.” Like most males, even gelded ones, he took no notice and burrowed beneath the coverlet. Oh, well, thought Heloise, I had rather sleep with you than Sir Miles Rushden. “Since you are Welsh, I shall baptize you Dafydd in the morning and if there are any mice around, they shall stand your godfathers.”
Thinking about Miles Rushden robbed her of sleep, but by early morning she had her weapons primed and ready; she would make a success of handling the child and then she might have the artillery to battle her husband. At dawn she must have fallen into a heavy slumber for Bess came in and shook her awake. Seeing the superstitious fear in the girl’s eyes at the unusual color of her braids, Heloise hastily reassured her and made her promise not to gossip. Thank God, Dafydd had not emerged from his snug hiding place for a naming ceremony.
“Oh, before I forget, my lady, Sir Thomas said to give you this.” Bess held out a sealed letter. “It seems you made better time on the road than your carrier.” The parchment was addressed to the duchess from the real Lady Haute.
Heloise thanked the girl and closed the door. With trembling fingers, she broke the seal, scanned the florid writing and nearly gave a whoop of joy. Eleanor Haute craved her grace’s forgiveness but she and her husband were both badly smitten with the measles and as she had no wish to infect Lord Stafford, she would be delaying her journey until the contagion had passed.
“Thank you,” whispered Heloise gratefully to any saints and faeries who were listening. A few precious days!
Fingers of sunlight were cheerfully poking through the shutters. The world was waiting for her. She ran to the window, leaned across the cold embrasure and lifted the latch to a view that took her breath away. Distant hills rose up beyond the woods. The highest peak was the hue of gorse and a laurel of light cloud hung gauzily around it like a victor’s wreath.
Moist warmth gentled the air. Her heart lifted; she could smell the fertility of the earth, imagine the young corn shoots unfurling beneath the dark red furrows and the creatures hidden in the trees and burrows stirring after their long winter sleep; her being reached out, rejoicing with them.
***
THE FAIR-HAIRED CHILD LED IN TO MAKE HIS BOW WAS SO beautiful that for an instant Heloise could not believe that the household thought him an ogre. He was clad like a tiny nobleman but the slashed, hanging sleeves edged with winter squirrel were unsuitable for a child and the cost of the mustard-hued brocade fabric of his doublet, which no doubt had to be kept from spills and mud, would have fed a ploughman and his family for a year. He took off his soft-crowned hat, bowed as gracefully as a courtier, and then spoilt the effect by folding his arms defensively and standing feet astride in a perfect imitation of Sir William Knyvett. The slightly winging eyebrows lent his face an elfish intelligence and perhaps this too made the servants fear him. Heloise knew too well how those sorts of suspicion hurt.
“Thank you, Sir Thomas.” She opened the door for the high steward and offered a semicurtsy. He accepted the hint and with a warning glance at his lord’s son swept majestically out.
“So, Lord Stafford, it is clear to me,” declared Heloise, “that you do not need a lady to govern your hours, but I do need to make a living. You look rather boring. Are you?”
The blue eyes stopped their assessment of her quite abruptly and his gaze swung back up the tawny velvet folds of her high-waisted traveling gown.
“My mother is prettier than you.”
“Of course. She is a duchess. Duchesses are supposed to be prettier than anyone else except queens—and princesses. Do you always carry eggs in your hat?”
The small face crinkled derisively at such stupidity.
“There!” Heloise pointed. “Where is my mirror? Let me show you.” The swift placing of the little freckled egg that her smallest sister had solemnly given her for a keepsake was easily achieved. Thank the saints, the child’s brim was upturned and fastened with a brooch. “Here.�
�� She rubbed the silver mirror against her skirt and held it before him. “A swallow’s egg. It must have fallen from a nest. What a pity you did not know, you might have hatched the fledgling against your chest.” Small fingers felt for the egg and beheld it suspiciously but he made no accusation. He dropped it down into his sleeve and Heloise wondered what other treasures wriggled below the fur. One of his sleeves certainly seemed to possess a life of its own. Dafydd had also noticed the twitching and prowled over to investigate.
“What have you hidden in there?” asked Heloise. She dumped the disgruntled cat outside the door and turned back to the child. “I do like frogs. Or is it a mouse?” Better now than in her shoe or the bottom of the bed.
Annoyance twitched the precocious little mouth. Muttering, he burrowed one cuffed hand down into the split and drew out a toadlet. Heloise held out her hand and he solemnly tipped it onto her palm, where she gently stroked it with her fingertip and waited for it to escape. It took strategy and coordination for the pair of them to catch it, and crawling on hands and knees towards each other, both calling out instructions, took the sharp edge off the tension between them. But a knock on the door spoilt the adventure. It was Bess bearing a beaker of a urine-hued brew.
“Your physic, Lord Edward. Drink it down like a brave lad.”
“It is foul. I hate it!”
“What is in this, Bess?” Heloise smelt it and took a sip. “Uuugh, lungwort!”
“Bravo, my lady. Never mind, poppet,” the girl declared as the boy jerked his head away from her expected ruffling, “the woodbine will soon be out and you can have a remedy from that instead.” She took the cup from Heloise and held it out. The child ignored it; anyone could see he was working himself into a temper. In an instant, he was red and gasping for breath. Bess thrust the cup back at Heloise, then knelt down and grabbed the little shoulders. Shaking him did not help and patting his cheeks was little avail.
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