“Your grandson is as courteous as his grandfather,” Saura said.
“I hope that’s a compliment.” Lord Peter laughed, and Saura laughed back.
“I certainly meant it to be.”
Maud chimed behind them, “Pleasant! Lord Peter is only pleasant if ye discount the blackmail and the bribery.”
Lord Peter stopped and Saura could feel the warmth of fire on her left side.
“A chair, Lady Saura,” he offered.
She touched the back and slid into the seat, and before she was settled the dog flopped at her feet.
“Bula! Back!” Lord Peter commanded.
The dog snorted in response, lying against Saura’s legs in a wallow of comfort.
“That dog, Lady Saura, is supposed to be a hunting animal,” he said in irritation. “God knows, he’s never even brought in a rabbit, but that doesn’t mean I wish him to become a lapdog. You mustn’t encourage him to behave like one.”
“’Tis a way she has with the animals,” Maud chided, and he turned back to the maidservant to pick up their bickering where they’d left off.
“My bribes can be very pleasant.”
“So far all I’ve heard is words,” she returned. “Ye promised a private chamber for m’lady, with a fire which we’d better get burning if there is to be any warmth in there tonight.”
“Hawisa!” Lord Peter’s shout made Saura wince. “Where is that damned Hawisa?”
“Probably down in the straw of the stable making another of her everlasting brats.”
The voice from the other side of the fire startled Saura. It resounded deep and as rich as imported cloth, the kind of masculine voice that made her melt with pleasure. Yet it contained elements she detested: sarcasm and pathos and fury.
“No.” Lord Peter laughed a little. “It’s too cold in the stable. She’s probably using my bed, if I know that slut.” His tone grew serious. “How are you, William?”
William grunted, and his lack of courtesy stretched into an uncomfortable silence that ended only when Maud intervened. “If ye can command a few of these lazy churls to carry firewood and show the way, I can get those fires built and the chill out of the room. M’lady’s feet must be like ice.”
“My feet are always like ice,” Saura interjected.
Maud ignored her. “And have them bring up m’lady’s trunks, she’s wet to the skin.”
“Wet to the skin! My, my, that could be interesting,” the glorious voice drawled again. “If only I could see it.”
“The trip went well, William.” Lord Peter’s voice lowered, deceptively projecting calm. “I wish you had come with me.”
“Riding in a cart like an old woman, how the vassals would have laughed at me,” the voice said bitterly.
“Merwyn asked after you most tenderly. He invited you to come when next I visit, and Raoul wished he could have your military expertise to guide him when the raiders come in the summer.”
The deep voice warmed with eagerness, bitterness vanquished by interest. “Is he sure they will come again?”
“Why would they not? They had rich pickings last winter, cleaning out the harvest barns and raping the peasant women.”
“And no one to stop them, with me lying helpless in the keep and you hovering over me like a mother hen. God damn their souls all to hell! The day I lay hands on the man who bashed me on the head is the day he meets his Maker.”
Saura liked the voice better now. No longer sarcastic, it echoed with resolve. Seeking to perpetuate his proud defiance, she snapped, “But what will you do afterward? Come back and sit next to the fire and stink?”
It was quiet. God, it was so quiet. She could hear his gasp, and not another sound. Was everyone in the giant room holding his breath?
“Madame, I do not know who you are, nor do I care.”
Laden with fury, his voice caused shivers up her spine. It was menacing, but patient, willing to wait for the moment he could tear her heart out.
“No one has told you, apparently, that I’m blind, and unable to do anything but to sit by the fire and stink.”
Trusting her instincts about his slovenly appearance, trusting that Lord Peter would protect her, Saura assured William cordially, “I knew you were blind right away. It seems you haven’t learned to feed yourself without slopping sauce on your clothes. It seems you can’t find your hair with a comb or a bath with your body. It seems all you can do is drink and stink.” The servants’ shocked murmurs filled the hall.
“Who are you?” The low snarl interrupted her.
“I am Lady Saura, a distant relative of your mother’s, and the new chatelaine. Your father thinks his home is in chaos and that my order will prevail.” To Saura’s satisfaction, the serving folk quieted. Not a sound escaped them. Let the servants as well as the raging beast across from her prepare to deal with her challenge.
“Listen to me, Lady Saura.” The golden voice rang clear and low. “I’m not one of your housekeeping chores. Stinking or drinking or an eyesore, nevertheless, don’t try to clean me up. I’m happy as I am.”
Sticking her little nose in the air and sniffing haughtily, Saura replied, “I believe in turning to good use everything available to me. I’m sure we can think of some use for a blind half-man.”
A firm hand beneath her armpit jerked her erect and Lord Peter issued an inarticulate command.
“But we can dust around you for a while,” Saura conceded graciously, moving away under Lord Peter’s constraint. “Just as if you were part of the furniture.”
two
“What in God’s name possessed you to say such things to him?” Lord Peter’s question echoed in Saura’s mind as she learned the layout of the castle. It pursued her as she ventured down the privy stairs to the undercroft below the great hall, and as she visited the dirty, appalling kitchen hut in the bailey.
True, she could have used William’s support. She had Alden, whose stick coerced, and she had Maud, whose salty tongue converted cowering serfs into soldiers against filth. She had Bula, whose guard-dog adoration convinced more than one servant to cooperate with her wishes. Those three were worth more than a dozen pikemen, but what she needed was a legion of knights. As Lord Peter had hoped, spring followed fast upon the heels of the late snowstorm and the time for a thorough cleaning rushed upon them. He presented her the keys of the house with great ceremony, but the serfs were sunk in sloth, without direction since the death of William’s wife. They took a very human advantage. Led by the slovenly Hawisa, they displayed a sly perversity when given Saura’s orders. Sometimes they misunderstood them; sometimes they were terribly slow about completing them; sometimes they remembered the different ways Anne had ordered things done.
Lord Peter endorsed her authority, but the warming of the weather brought a miscellanea of work for him also, and he seldom stayed within the walls of the keep. He did take the time, however, to impress upon the churls the need for silence about Saura’s blindness. Content with the alacrity with which they obeyed him, Maud noted which servants helped enforce his command and which ones gave him only bare obedience.
Yet, if Saura had been able to tap William’s still-towering authority, it would have expedited her housekeeping chores.
“What in God’s name possessed you to say such things to him?”
Everyone treated William as if he were ill. Everyone treated him like fine glass, tiptoeing around him with sympathy and pity, and not one person had any empathy. Their pity blinded them to his robust health and his sharp mind, their pity spoiled William for any useful chore. So what in God’s name had possessed her to say such things to him? Merely an unthinking desire to jolt him from his stupor and make him function again.
She listened for a reaction from the lump called William, but heard only grunts and curt commands. Nothing she had said made any difference. Nothing she had said had reached him, she decided.
But the things Saura said had jolted William.
For the first time since his acciden
t, he was angry at someone besides himself. Every warrior knows unavoidable incidents occur in battle, but most warriors are not forced to face such ghastly results of their accidents. Illness and infection he could face, had faced before. But this blindness! The poor fool of a priest told him to resign himself to God’s will; only his own humility would earn him the kingdom of heaven. In the same breath the priest suggested God was using him for His own good purposes. Good purposes!
William cursed God. What kind of God would humiliate him, handicapping him when he was most needed? The Isle of England writhed in agony, rent by the struggle between Stephen of Blois and Queen Matilda. Guilt haunted him for leaving his father to supervise and defend their far-flung lands and castles. Since his return to Burke Castle in a horse-drawn cart, he had refused to set foot out of doors. And now That Infernal Woman accused him of fear and weakness and uselessness.
That Woman had stolen his guard dog and tamed it to her hand, but she’d never do the same with him.
“God’s teeth!” William slammed his hand against the trestle table before him. That Woman was the bane of his life. She brought the winds of change sweeping into the fetid air of the castle and there was nowhere he could go to escape. Unbidden, the thought slipped into his mind.
Hide?
Is that what he was doing? Hiding? Like a cowardly ox, dumb and plodding unrelentingly toward the great nothingness?
“God’s teeth!” he swore again. That Woman was making him think: think about his roles here, think about what he could do to help his father, think about the son he had forsaken.
In the far reaches of his consciousness, her voice and the activity it stirred commanded his attention.
“Today we are going to scrub the kitchen,” Lady Saura announced. “All the walls, the ceiling, the floors; all the pots, the pans, the spit, the ovens. We’ll be done by sundown.”
And at sundown:
“We are not finished cleaning the kitchen. I’m sorry, Lord Peter, there is nowhere else to cook for the castle. Until the serfs are done, we must all go hungry.”
William grinned at his father’s bellow and realized how long it had been since his mouth had stretched back in pure amusement. The sore muscles elongated, and he grinned again for the joy of grinning.
Actually, That Woman didn’t say much to him. Actually, she ignored him. There were no more challenges like the one she had flung the first night. As she had promised, he appeared to be no more to her than a piece of furniture, his rehabilitation a poor second to the purging of the keep. Perhaps he had imagined her interest in him. Perhaps she didn’t care about a blind beggar like himself.
Still, her voice delighted his ear. A rare feminine voice, soft and strong, it supported a range of emotion that clearly foretold her moods. It was as if she had stopped and listened to herself and modulated her voice to be pleasant.
He liked to hear her exasperation as she scolded the giant dog who adopted her, adored her, tripped her, and protected her with an amiable fierceness. He especially liked to hear the iron in her as she dealt with the churls’ deliberate incompetence.
“The trestle tables need to be placed against the walls after breakfast,” Lady Saura announced. “Good people, today we remove the rushes from the floor. They abound with fleas. I’m tired of hearing the dogs scratch and I’m tired of hearing you scratch.”
In the muttering and shuffling one woman’s complaint echoed up to the arches. “That’s foolish. New rushes won’t grow tall till late summer, an’ th’ floor’ll be bare. Lady Anne never made us change th’ rushes in th’ spring.”
“When did she make you change them, Hawisa?” Lady Saura asked courteously.
“Why, in th’ fall, of course.” Hawisa snorted with derision, leading the chorus of laughter that jeered at the lady’s ignorance.
“Last fall?” Saura’s voice dripped sarcasm, and when the laughter died, her voice cracked the whip. “The floor will be bare until new rushes are grown, and you’ll clean the floor daily as atonement for your sloth. Today, we will remove the rushes and brush the floor.”
The work proceeded at a crawl, and once when Alden shouted at the slow servants, Lady Saura hushed him. Pricking his ears, William listened for That Woman’s retribution, and as bedtime approached she did not disappoint him.
“Where’re our blankets?”
“Blankets?” Lady Saura asked blankly.
“Th’ blankets we wrap ourselves in t’ sleep.”
“The blankets have been taken for washing. The servants will be finished with them.” William could almost see the pucker on her face. “About the time these rushes are burned and the floors purged.”
“We can’t sleep on those benches without blankets. ’Tis still too cold.”
“I suppose you’ll have to lie in the rushes you have piled up,” Lady Saura answered without interest.
“But they’re rotten.”
“Aye.”
Listening to her, day after day, he became quite fond of the clever way she dealt with the childish evasions of the serfs, hearing their grumbles as they began to do as she ordered without question. Only a few held out, still sidestepping her authority, and William began to feel impatience boil within him. These flunkies were questioning the authority of a woman of his class, a woman who spoke Norman French and understood whole phrases of the barbaric English tongue. This woman demanded nothing more of them than that they earn their supper.
“Today is the day we have longed for,” Lady Saura announced at breakfast. “As soon as the trestle tables are removed, we will shovel out the garderobes.”
A universal groan rose from the assemblage.
“Aye, I knew you would be pleased.” William could hear the grim determination in her voice. “They’re full, and this practice of shovelling out the top layer of dung is over as of today.”
“I’ll do it not.” Hawisa made her last stand. “I’m a sewin’ maid; me job’s not carting shit, an’ ye can’t make me.”
William heard the defiance in her tone, heard Alden step forward and the rustle among the serfs as they waited to see her fate for open defiance. He didn’t know what compelled him, but with grinding patience he called, “Hawisa, come here.”
Instantaneous silence fell, caused by the unprecedented intervention of their blind lord. William listened to the shuffle of her feet as Hawisa approached him. It was a tribute to his acute, new hearing that he knew where she came from and how close she was, but he did not realize that the days of brooding had gained him some ability.
“Kneel down where I can touch you,” he instructed, and she pressed her body against his leg as she sank to her knees before his chair. Carefully, he lifted his hand to her face, locating her features with a light touch. When he had run his thumb across her broad cheek he pulled his hand back and slapped her flat-handed. The sharp sound echoed up the stone arches and the girl whimpered and ducked. Quickly, he caught her shoulders, raised her to face level and shook her until her neck snapped. “If you are too good to clean my house,” he said clearly, “you can step out into the bailey and see if mucking out the stables would suit you better.”
Hawisa’s round face bobbed with earnest terror and the craftiness of a vixen run to ground. “I’ll clean! ’Tis loyalty t’ your dear wife that makes Lady Saura stick in me craw. ’Tis the airs she feigns t’ convince us that she’s th’ new mistress of Burke. Aye, and she nothin’ but a blind case of charity Lord Peter has taken on.”
The scullions gasped, and Maud muttered, “Here’s trouble,” but William heard only Hawisa’s jibe about the blind and took it as a slur to himself. His next slap knocked her away from his knee and made her head ring. “Out!” he roared, raising himself to his feet in one vital motion. “Out, you poison-fanged viper, and don’t let me hear your voice again.”
The scurrying of feet rewarded him as Hawisa fled the great hall, and he turned to face Lady Saura and her assembly of rebels. For the first time in months he stood erect, his broad shoulder
s back and his head up. His blond beard bristled with indignation and the dimples in his cheeks creased with the grimace of command.
“I have listened,” he began ominously, “to the insolence and the complaining and the disobedience of the serfs of this castle. I know those of you who are clever enough to obey Lady Saura. I know those of you who are not. And to those who have been sluggard and rude, I tell you now, the time of retribution is at hand. Lady Saura is your better. Lady Saura has taken my wife’s place in the management of the house. You will obey Lady Saura as you obeyed Lady Anne. I don’t give a damn how old and ugly Lady Saura is. I don’t give a damn whether her blood is vinegar and she sweats buttermilk. This woman is the chatelaine, chosen by my father and endorsed by me, and the next insolent serf will answer to me. I have the leisure to monitor your behavior, and by our Lady of the Fountain, my blindness has not destroyed my good right arm.”
He finished with a shout that jarred the wall hangings and blasted the guilty back against the wall. “Well?” he roared.
The hustle of many feet answered him. Maud ordered the men outside to clean the cesspit from beneath. She divided the women into scrubbers and shovelers and set them to work above. One boy went scurrying to prepare the gardeners for a sudden influx of dung and another ran for the garbage carts. William sank back into his chair, seeking with his ears the Lady Saura, wanting her praise for his mediation. In the hubbub he did not hear her approach, but her light touch on his shoulder alerted him to her presence.
“Perhaps more than a blind half-man, my lord,” her gracious voice said directly above his head. “Perhaps more than a piece of furniture after all.”
“Lady Saura?”
She turned her head away from her consultation with Maud, toward the respectful voice of Bartley. “Aye?”
“M’lord’s askin’ for ye.”
“Is Lord Peter home already?” She rose with a frown. “Dinner is not ready.”
“Nay, Lady Saura. ’Tis Lord William. He’s wishin’ t’ speak with ye.”