by Jill Hughey
If Marian was surprised to see Doeg, she hid it well. Recognizing the strain on Rochelle’s face, she quickly took him in hand, leading him through the door to the men’s quarters and bringing him fresh water with which to wash. “Come out when ye are ready for some food,” she said cheerfully as she closed the door behind her.
Rochelle could only shrug when her mother turned to her with a question in her eyes. Without a word, the women climbed the stairs to the first door at the top, the former master chamber now serving as Rochelle’s room.
“What is he doing here?” Marian hissed.
“I do not know,” Rochelle whispered. “He says it was planned this way. I do not believe him.”
“Why would he ride from Aix alone when he could have traveled with us?”
“I do not know,” she repeated, “but he arrived before us. He has been seen riding all over the estate. I found him between the river and here.”
Marian wrung her hands. “I would feel easier if David were here.”
“Do not worry, Mother,” Rochelle said, not wanting her mother to become overwrought. “Doeg may be irritating, but I do not think he would actually harm us. We will just have to tolerate him until David does arrive. Hopefully they will both leave again soon!”
Almost a full day later, Rochelle again rode into view of the house, this time from the west. She’d been checking the grape vines and the winemaking with Bertrand. Though he was again sampling a bit too much of his own product, some vintages would soon be ready.
Except for inventorying the first floor of the house, tagging along on her evening rounds and asking a series of questions about the household routine, Doeg had blessedly left her in peace. At breakfast he’d insisted on riding out alone again. She hadn’t argued much, not wanting the job of entertaining him. She’d enjoyed an almost normal day.
Beside her, Magnus yipped before twirling in excited circles that made Denes sidestep. Two riders were just passing into the courtyard and Rochelle could not suppress the butterflies that immediately turned her evening hunger to excited nausea. “Go,” she told Magnus, though she was somewhat surprised when he did, streaking across the fields ahead of Denes who galloped easily behind him. She slowed a short distance from the wall, not wanting to appear overly eager. She wished she had had a moment to wash her hands and tuck her hair under her veil. At least today, she had donned a medium green riding tunic instead of the dull brown one she’d worn every day during their trip from Aix-la-Chapelle.
When she turned through the entrance, there was David, hands on his hips, ignoring the dog pacing at his feet as he searched for her, an easy smile curving his lips when she came into view. Woden stood behind him, lathered and blowing hard. Theo threw up an arm in greeting. She pressed her lips together so she could not smile at them.
“You are early,” she called as she approached.
“We are,” David answered, the timbre of his voice sending a pleasant ripple through her belly. “I found that four days was too many. I hope we are not an inconvenience.”
“You are not,” she answered, finding with surprise that she was not just being polite. She was glad to see him, relieved to have him here where they could begin again to decide what the future held for them. She reached her hands out expectantly and he obliged her, expertly lifting her from Denes and setting her down close in front of him. She kept her hands up at his shoulders for a moment longer than necessary, realizing with dismay that she longed to kiss him. A slight lift of his eyebrows showed her he knew where her mind had strayed. “Thank you,” she said shyly.
She moved to step back but his hands gripped convulsively at her waist, taking great handfuls of cloth. “I am glad to see you safe,” he finally grit out.
She smiled. “I am always safe at home,” she said. “I thought you were collecting some things to bring.”
“Theo’s men are following with a cart.”
“Oh dear, they will be so tired of this stretch of road. Did you know Doeg is here?” she asked.
“Doeg?” David repeated as his brow furrowed. He turned to look at Theo, then back at her. “What is he doing here?” he asked in obvious confusion.
The door to the house flew open with Marian calling out her welcome. Doeg followed, an expression of urgency on his face. He pulled up short when he saw Rochelle and David practically embracing in the courtyard. When his cool blue eyes met hers, she lifted her chin a bit. I know you lied, she tried to say without words. His expression hardened for a second before he cracked it into a chilly smile.
“Little brother, you are full of surprises this autumn. You have come a day early!”
David left Rochelle to hug his brother, each clapping the other on the back. “Do not talk to me of surprises. Imagine mine when Rochelle told me you were here. Why did you not travel down from Aix with us?”
“I do not recall being invited,” Doeg said.
Theo muttered under his breath. He had moved to stand near Rochelle. She glanced up to see his eyes narrowed assessingly at Doeg.
“I thought you were staying in the city,” David replied good-naturedly.
Doeg shrugged, “I cannot miss my only brother’s wedding.”
Marian called to them from the porch. “Come in all of ye! Do not stand outside to talk.”
“Yes, come in,” Doeg added. “You will find everything in perfect order.”
David turned to hold an arm out, inviting Rochelle to lead them in. Magnus trotted past her directly to the kitchen, already knowing where he would find a treat. She slipped to one side of the front door, a bit shy about David seeing the house for the first time. He glanced quickly around, then smiled down at her.
“Would you like to refresh yourself?” she asked. “The men’s guestroom is just in there.” Three doorways were evenly spaced along the far wall of the hall. She indicated the one to the left, closest to where they stood.
“I will just drop my bag. Then I would like you to show me around your home, if you would.”
Rochelle knew he was being careful not to appear too proprietary. She appreciated the effort after having spent the previous evening watching Doeg stick his nose in every corner. She followed him across the wood floor, noting that he chose one of the narrow beds closest to the door. Eight in total lined the room, four on a side, with late evening light cast across them from small windows in the north and west walls.
She showed him the kitchen where Magnus chewed on a bone in the corner. Ruthie and the cook stared at David, wide-eyed. He commented on the addition to the rear that pushed the room beyond the back wall of the main house. The cookfire was built here so that smoke could escape through the addition’s single story roof. Even so, the interior walls were nearly black from years of constant soot. A small bathing alcove stood to the right of the cooking area, and a rear exit of the house stood to the left, providing easy access to the latrine in a separate building behind the house.
Returning to the hall, she led him to the next door. “This is my father’s office. Or, I should say, the office.” The walls were hung with tapestries, making it dark and comfortable, with a rough desk to the left and several inviting chairs spaced throughout. A stand to the right of the door held her father’s most prized possessions, several thick books with heavy leather covers. When David walked over to look at them, Rochelle joined him. “Under here,” she said, leaning down to a second shelf, “are all 20 books of Isidore’s Etymologiae.”
“Impressive,” David said.
“Father loved to show these books to me. It is probably why I know how to read.” She backed away and twisted her fingers together. “I think book sixteen has some information about metals, though I am not sure there is anything specific to blacksmithing. You could look at it. While you are visiting.”
“Thank you. That is very generous.”
“Upstairs is next,” she said, slipping past him back out to the hall and up the stairs that rose along the east wall. The upstairs was entirely constructed of wood. A
gallery of sorts ran the entire length of the house and three doors spaced exactly as those on the first floor opened off of it.
“This is the master chamber,” she said, “though I have been using it.” The walls were again covered in tapestries and punctuated with narrow windows. A large heavy bed covered in a thick wool blanket dominated the room. It was flanked by two tall oil lamps with multiple branches. A trunk occupied one corner and a comfortable chair the other. “From this window, you can see the stables and almost to the river.”
As David peered through first that window, then the ones to the rear, she absently threw her cloak over the chair and picked up a gold girdle from on top of the trunk. She unfastened the plain leather one she’d been wearing for the more feminine chain, fussing with the fold of her tunic beneath its weight. She realized too late that David was no longer looking outside, having become more interested in the view inside the room. His eyes raked her up and down. She knew they were both acutely aware of the bed angled between them, the bed he had every expectation of making their marital bower.
She bit her lip and dropped her hands to her sides. As strange as it was to have a man in her chamber, and in spite of the heat once again pooling low in her body, she did not have the compulsion she might have expected to order him from the room. Somehow, he looked right here, with a narrow vista of Alda framed by the window behind him. She couldn’t stop staring at him as one part of her mind tried to conjure the feeling of revulsion she should have at his further intrusion into her domain, and the other part of her mind wished that he come to her at once to kiss her as he had in the dark forest. They stared at each other across the empty bed.
“Shall we continue?” he finally asked in a gravelly voice.
She had to clear her throat before she could speak. “Yes, I think we should.”
The mistress’s chamber next door was very similar, just a little brighter due to pastel tapestries and linens. The final room upstairs was the women’s guestroom, currently unoccupied. A small portion of it had been walled off for Rochelle’s use as a bedroom when she was a girl.
Marian called up to them that dinner was ready. “It is a fine house, Rochelle,” David complimented as they walked down the stairs. “Did your father have it built?”
“Yes, before I was born. Before he married my mother, in fact.”
They joined the others at the table, where they shared a simple meal that the men devoured just as they had the one at Aix. Conversation included everyone but Doeg, who fidgeted in his chair and cast agitated glances at the front door as if they were all wasting his time.
As Ruthie finished clearing the dishes, Rochelle pushed away from the table. Lamps had been lit and torches set into brackets in the walls. “I will be back in a few minutes,” she said quietly.
“Where are you going?” David asked.
When she opened her mouth to answer, Doeg cut her off. “She takes a final walk each evening to make certain the storehouse is secure and the stable is not burning. Do not even ask to go along. She does not tolerate guests interfering in her routine.” David’s eyes flicked between them while Rochelle quickly weighed her options. She could invite David along to once again aggravate his brother, or she could take the opportunity to steal away for her usual moments of solitude. She decided on the latter, more to avoid setting a precedent than to avoid David’s company.
“As you say,” she said formally to Doeg, who was already on his way to the kitchen, presumably to go to the latrine. David rose. She could feel his eyes boring into her back as she hurried out the door. “I will only be a moment,” she called over her shoulder.
Chapter Thirteen
David moved his chair toward the fire but could not relax in it, nor could he follow the friendly conversation between Theo and Marian. He attributed his unrest to allowing that mule-headed woman to walk out in the dark night alone. His mule-headed woman. The expression on her face when they’d stared across the bed at each other reassured him that progress had been made in that direction. If he could bide his time, she would soon accept him. For the moment, though, she was out of his sight and he did not like it. He shifted restlessly in his chair, trying to distract himself with the details of the room that would be where he lived a significant portion of his life, but the minutes passed slowly.
The opening kitchen door snapped him to a new state of alert. He turned toward the door, wondering why it had been closed at all. Doeg walked through, cursing and grabbing at Magnus as the dog dashed around him, sniffing along the floor and following a scent to the front door where he stopped, ears lifted.
David sprang to his feet. In his mind, Magnus had gone with Rochelle, even though he realized now he’d not seen the dog at her side.
“David,” Doeg called to him from the door to the guestroom, “Come in here. I have something to show you from Aix.”
“Not now,” David answered lowly, his internal alarm blaring like a clarion call even as he watched the hackles rise on Magnus’s back. The dog’s first bark coincided with his shout for Theo. David reached the door in three strides, releasing Magnus who bounded across the courtyard, then skidded to a barking, snarling stop where the gate barricaded him.
David ran to it, shoving on the bar. It would not lift. “Quiet,” he ordered as he continued to struggle with the gate. Magnus silenced as Theo ran up beside him. The sounds David heard made his blood run cold. Rochelle was screaming. Not mindlessly, but screaming words at someone, though she sounded muffled, perhaps by a hand over her mouth. There were other voices, men, angry. David glanced at Theo.
“At least two,” Theo said as the two friends slipped into their calm, steady battle mode.
They shoved again on the bar, pressing up with all the strength in their thick legs, but it would not budge. By now Marian was with them, asking in a litany, “Who closed the gate? We never close it. Why would it be closed? Is that Rochelle yelling? Oh, dear God!”
“Is there some special latch on this thing?” David asked.
“No, it is just a bar!”
They all froze when they heard a man scream in pain. Rochelle’s voice became clearer. He thought she might be running toward them, then he heard a surprised exhaling yelp as if she’d fallen, followed by what felt like an interminable silence before she shouted, “Get away from me! I am not going anywhere with you!”
He schooled himself to be calm as rage and fear for her threatened to consume him. “Toss me over,” he said to Theo.
“Toss you! You weigh sixteen stone!” Theo retorted even as he bent over.
“Hoist me!”
Theo quickly joined his hand into a step, grunting as he pushed David as high as he could. David used the bar as a foothold to just get his fingers to the top of the gate. Theo and Marian pushed on his calves to help him clear it. David landed on the other side, immediately pulling his spata from its sheath.
“Fire coming over,” Theo called, and David watched a torch sail across the gate and land in the grass. David grabbed it, thrust it in the ground by the gate, then began to move methodically toward the continuing sounds of struggle, willing his eyes to adjust to the dark before he met his adversaries.
He came upon them quickly, the man holding Rochelle not even realizing he’d been discovered. David squinted in disbelief. It was Sewell, the pimply neighbor, with one arm around Rochelle’s neck and the other looped under one of her thighs, holding it up high as he tried to force her onto a wild-eyed pony that sidestepped away from Rochelle as vigorously as she did from it. Sewell yanked on her. “Get on the horse, Rochelle. Get on it!”
“Let go of me, you troll!” she screeched, struggling against him as best she could on one foot.
David assessed the boy instantly, not seeing any weapons. “Do as she says if you want to live,” David ordered quietly, barely contained anger coursing through him. The scene before him stilled. Rochelle was panting, her eyes searching for him in the dark as she balanced awkwardly on one foot.
“Who is
there?” Sewell asked nonsensically.
“I am Death if you do not get your filthy hands off of her.”
“Who is it?” Sewell asked again, this time shaking Rochelle to encourage her to answer.
“Stop that!” she ordered, then added, “It is David, you idiot.”
“David? The Bavarian?” He let go of Rochelle’s leg in his incredulity and finally located David’s dark outline. “But...but you are not supposed to be here until tomorrow.”
“I think I am exactly where I ought to be tonight. You, on the other hand….”
“Fardulf!” Sewell called over his shoulder, his voice cracking, “Get up here! I need your help!”
A moaning reply came from the darkness some distance away. “I have got her blade stuck in my thigh up to the hilt. I think I am dying!”
“Rochelle, are there only the two?” David asked.
She blinked at him. “Yes, just –“
Sewell jerked at her neck while taking hold of her arm in a painful, wrenching hold “Be quiet!” he ordered.
Rochelle cried out again and David had had enough. He moved like a shadow to get behind Sewell. He grabbed him by the hair on the back of his head. The coward actually whimpered. “Do not stick me,” he pleaded.
David spoke. “Rochelle, he is about to let you go. You will move away from him, to my side. You will not run. Do you understand?” His voice carried authority in a world gone completely mad.
“Yes,” she croaked.
“Sewell,” David continued, “you have two choices. Let her go now, or I will shove this blade through your ribs so you can drown in your own blood. Quick, boy!”
David felt Sewell’s grip begin to slacken. Rochelle wrenched away and whirled, slapping Sewell so hard his head jerked to one side, almost loosening David’s hold on him. She was only vaguely aware of Sewell calling her a bitch and David growling another threat at him. She unconsciously shook her hand at the sting of her palm. Free of her attacker, free from having to worry about getting free, her mind began to wander, unable to assimilate everything that had happened.
