"Of course, he is dreaming of empires to be won and treasure-trove to be found, given only the money to begin to search with. He is as I always knew him, unchanged by the slavery Brian and James rescued him from. I tell you, Angela, that father of mine will drive me mad!"
Geronde had finally gotten around to the subject that had brought her here for this private talk with Angie.
Angie had listened with patience through the necessary preamble. Brian, when talking to Jim, could never bring himself to go directly to the matter in his heart; and so it was with Geronde. But once the preliminaries were out of the way, Brian went immediately to his main concern. Geronde, however, was like a hummingbird, hovering ever closer to her main topic—only to dart away unexpectedly on another subject before coming back to hover again.
Part of this, of course, was the manners of the period, but part also Geronde's reluctance—and to a certain extent embarrassment—to unload her troubles on a friend.
So Geronde had cooed over young Robert, who happened to be awake and looking at the world with his usual pleasure, waving arms and legs freely in the device called a "crib" that Angie had insisted on, in defiance of the medieval practice of swaddling—wrapping a baby into immobility with cloths that fastened him to an easily portable board. Everybody, including Geronde, had been privately sure that Angie's way would ruin the boy.
Having cooed, Geronde accepted some watered wine and spoke about the recent weather, the fact that the crops were doing well, that there had been born in the Malvern Castle stables a foal which looked promising to be her personal horse… to wind it all up, she checked with Angie on how things were at Malencontri.
Angie had listened patiently and answered appropriately, knowing that Geronde would get to the important matter in time; and so it proved.
Now, at last, she had begun to talk of what her real concern was—her father, home at last from a hapless attempt to find a fortune in the distant East.
"… He is no different than I remember," she said to Angie. "I did not expect him to be greatly so; but I vow I had forgotten how wild his thoughts could be in certain matters. Now, having him back in the Castle, it returns to me how near to madness he has always been in his imaginings, his hopes and dreams of what only a Mage or a King could achieve. I remember seeing all these things clearly before he left me alone, with all of Malvern on my hands."
Curiosity got the best of Angie, in spite of her determination to be patient until her friend got to the topic she really wanted to discuss.
"Tell me, Geronde," she said, "were you really only eleven years old when your father left you alone at Malvern?"
"Yes, in effect, I was that age," said Geronde. "And I vow, there have been no lack of others like me—girls and women left as young, or as unprepared, to take care of equal ownings. Oh, it was not a thing I accomplished immediately. After he left me for the first time, he was home again several times afterward, but only for a matter of weeks each time; and then off again—until the time came when he said he was heading for the Crusade that was building in Italy and would come back with a fortune. By then I was full fourteen. But it all began when I was only eleven."
"I can't imagine it," said Angie. "What did he do? Just come to you and say 'You're Chatelaine'?"
"No, no, of course not," said Geronde. "There was a fool of a Steward, of course; I knew he was a fool before my father left him to handle all. But I still did not believe then that my father would not be back, or that I might have to take the full charge of Castle and lands into my own keeping.
"My father—the day he left first that year was a wet and cold March day. He rode off swearing he would be home by St. Mark's Day, when it would be April and dry enough for sowing. But he was not back by St. Mark's Day. Nor was he there on St. James' Day, on May first, or by the Visitation on May thirty-first; and by St. Barnabas' Day I had decided that there was no point in my sitting idle any longer."
Geronde's features hardened into grimness. "The Steward preferred to do nothing, rather than anything that might get him into trouble. He ended up sitting and drinking the day away. So I went to the men-at-arms in their quarters and had the Chief Man-at-arms—his name was Walter—call them together. When they were assembled, I spoke them all fairly. I looked at them, they looked at me, and I said 'I am the Lady of this Castle. Do any of you here deny it?' "
Geronde paused.
"And what did they say?" asked Angie.
"What could they say?" Geronde answered. "They looked at me, very uneasy; and after a moment, Walter himself said in a low voice, 'None here denies it, m'Lady.' It was the first time he had ever called me 'my Lady.' "
Angie nodded.
" 'Then,' I said to them, 'our Castle and lands need a Chatelaine; and since I am its Lady, the Chatelaine can be none but me. It is to me you owe obedience, as you would owe it to your Lord. Is that understood?' "
Angie shook her head and gave a murmur of admiration.
"They hesitated," Geronde said, "but then all had to admit that my last words had also been true."
" 'Very well,' " I told them, " 'from now on you take orders from me and none from our Steward.' For there was much to be done. The fields had been neglected and the Castle was in disorder."
She paused, her eyes distant in remembering. "I set them, armed, to accompany me always, as I went about to give the orders that would set matters moving once more. I wanted it clear to all that I would brook no disagreement, and so it was. I moved into the room that had been my father's, and Walter set two men on guard there always.
" 'When my father does return,' I told them, 'you will, of course, treat him as your Lord. But remember that the order of the Castle and lands is in my hands until he tells you otherwise; and from this day forward, I wear the Chatelaine's belt of keys. I will wear it before him, unless he orders me to take it off.' "
Geronde paused and breathed deeply for a minute. A little of the fierceness that had come into her voice as she spoke went out of her.
"My father did not return until St. Bartholomew's Day, when our apples were coming ripe for picking. He was with us then perhaps the better part of a month. He saw the Chatelaine's belt around my waist, he saw the way the men-at-arms and the servants answered my orders; and he said nothing."
Her look became fierce again. "It was all one to him, as long as he did not have to concern himself." Her look turned bleak.
"Then he was gone once more," she said, "for a matter of months, then back for a short while, gone again a number of times, and finally off to his Crusade. For a year or so I kept the Steward around, lest the neighbors should get notions that the Castle could easily be taken. For few would credit that it was really I holding the keys, but then I got rid of him. Since then, Malvern has prospered as you know it now."
Nothing was said for a little while; Geronde seemed lost in remembering and Angie waited.
"But that history is not what I came to tell you, Angela," Geronde said. "My father is back and Malvern is his—though I'm damned if I let it go to ruin simply because I'm not there. I'll keep my eye on it and see that things continue to run well; even though I will make my home in Castle Smythe—and that alone will be a large enough task, to bring order and something like an ordinary living to that nest of bachelors."
Her mood flashed to anger again. "My father," she went on, "has now determined to require a bride-price from Brian. He will accept no less than eighty pounds."
Angie looked shocked. Geronde pressed on. "My father has sworn that the money is for me; but I fear we cannot trust him in that, and he may wish to use it to finance some mad adventure once more. But there is no point in talking about that—I have done what I can to get the price down; and no one can do more than I in that endeavor. But it is of Brian I want to talk to you."
"Brian?" said Angie, a little startled.
"Yes," said Geronde. "This demand lies hard upon him—"
She broke off suddenly, almost ludicrously, dodging away from her subject
again. "By the by, Angela, pray favor me in something."
"Certainly," said Angie.
"It is that, if you are at table with Brian, whether I am there or not—though it is not likely to come up if I am with you—if you see him taking a glass of wine into which he has not put some water, would you look at him curiously?"
"Look at him curiously?" said Angie, still patiently. "All right."
"You understand me," said Geronde. "I would like him looked at, not with censure, but with perhaps a little surprise that he should act so. That is all."
"I can certainly do that," said Angie. "Should I know the reason for doing it, though?"
"At times, He is very loath to do so, and I cannot find it in my heart to blame him strongly. He is not an overdrinker—you will know that. While he may start by swallowing a cup at a draught, as others with him, those same companions do not notice later as he slows down, and gradually reaches a point where he drinks almost nothing. So he is never—almost never—what one might call drunken."
"True," said Angie. Now that Geronde mentioned it, she remembered Jim had mentioned, once, how he had noticed that Brian slowed his drinking as an occasion wore on, even when the people he was with were drinking more and more heavily.
"Indeed," said Geronde. "But it can happen in dinings such as last Christmas at my Lord Earl of Somerset's, that a servant fills the wine cups, and puts the water in at the wave of a hand. Not wishing to be different, Brian will, of course, wave it be done so with his, as well. This would not be bad, except that the amounts of water added are different, from time to time."
"I know what you mean," said Angie, who had been given a cup of almost unwatered wine at the Christmas gathering, after several cups of mostly water. In the overheated, overpopulated Great Hall, she had gulped thirstily at her cup—and almost choked.
"Often the servers themselves are not sober," said Geronde. "Under such conditions, Brian's skill at knowing when to make his drinking less and less is sent awry. He can no longer judge as well as if he was drinking the plain wine; and he either sits there dry, and gets into a foul mood, which with drunken companions may well end in sword-play—now or later—or he mis-guesses how even a little water added takes the curse of drunkenness off wine, and drinks more deeply than he ordinarily would."
When Jim and Angie had first come to this medieval world, Angie would at this point have tried to make Geronde understand that merely diluting wine did not reduce the alcohol in the total amount of wine, only spread it out. But she and Jim had learned better than to try to educate fourteenth-century minds with twentieth-century information. It never worked.
"So," she said, "you want him to get in a habit of watering his wine, so he'll be able to judge better how to pace himself? I know Jim said once he thought Brian kept a watch on his wine so he might be ready to use his weapons well in any emergency—in case somebody tried to put a quarrel on him, thinking he would be slowed down by drink."
"That, too, is true," said Geronde. "You do not mind helping us?"
"No, of course not," said Angie. "I'll be glad to. But what's this got to do with your worry about the bride-price, and what needing to find it may do to Brian?"
"What it already has done, you may well say!" said Geronde, angrily.
Angie stared at her.
There came a knock on the door.
"… What it has done to me, this bride-price," Brian said to Jim, getting up to take another look through the arrow-slit, "is set me searching for means of raising money. Finally, unable to bear it longer, I swore a Great Oath—not an ordinary oath, you understand, James, but an Oath before the altar of my—well, of what's left of the chapel in my Castle. I swore I would find that bride-price if I had to borrow it from the Devil, himself."
He turned away from the arrow-slit to sit down again. "And so, it happened, James," he said, easing forward to tap Jim on the arm with one hard finger, "that within the week a way came to me, unsought."
He sat back in his chair. Jim was clearly expected to look astonished, so he did his best.
"Did you!" he said.
"I did indeed." He paused as if to marshal his words.
"You are aware that about the King there are other advisors than Sir John Chandos? Some are earls and dukes, others large landowners or the wealthy. A group of them have lately counseled him to lay on a number of new taxes, such as the recent Aid, which is one-tenth of a man's income; and the Poll-tax, that begins with a penny a year for the poorest and goes up to as much as a pound for those of high rank; and new taxes on transfers of land."
Brian shook his head. "All this, on top of our yearly tithe to Holy Church"—he crossed himself—"and others such as that, which of course we do not mislike, but which, with these new collections added, eat away so greatly at our available monies, that they have caused a mighty wrath among such as the Earl of Oxford, and others. It has reached the point where they are determined to act—not against the King, of course, but against those who surround the Throne."
Jim was becoming uncomfortable. Mention of the Earl of Oxford made it clear that Brian was talking about the very highest levels of the Kingdom's politics, for that Lord had long been in bitter dispute with the Earl of Cumberland—a battle, in truth, for the King's ear, and a battle in which Cumberland had the great advantage of being the King's half-brother. This was not, thought Jim uneasily, an environment for Brian to inhabit.
Ordinarily, he reflected, Brian would have known better; but perhaps his frustration with Geronde's father had eroded his judgment.
As if following Jim's thoughts in the silence, Brian went on: "It is my Lord of Cumberland who leads his Royal Majesty—by the by, did I tell you Agatha Falon is back at Court and not only very well with the King, again, but close with Cumberland as well?"
"I didn't know that," said Jim, frowning. Agatha, young Robert's aunt, had once tried to kill the baby—and Angie as well. But Jim had thought she no longer had any power.
"As I was saying," Brian continued, "it is Cumberland and his group who take power in their own hands by advising our Royal Liege they will relieve him of burdens."
"Hmm," said Jim thoughtfully.
"I did not even have to search. An emissary came to me when I was not even thinking on the matter. James—"
He leaned forward to slap Jim's knee, emphatically.
"—they have offered me to join a force which they will raise. What do you think of that? One of them, or another, will find a dispute with the Earl of Cumberland or other such counselor, and as a result this force will harry some of Cumberland's lands. Having done so, it will withdraw and apparently be disbanded. Then another dispute will arise, and once more the force will be brought together, and harry another property, or such."
"But—" began Jim. Brian held up a hand to check him.
"You are about to ask, quite rightly," Brian said, "whether it is right and legal for me to be involved in such action. I will tell you that I went at once to my Liege Lord, the Earl of Somerset, from whom my lands are held. I asked his permission to fight in this cause."
"You did!" Jim stared at him. "Now everybody'll know you're involved."
"What does that matter?" said Brian. "He gave me permission, being in sympathy though not inclined to engage in the effort himself. The aim is merely to cause these greedy Counselors expense, while keeping the matter strictly between them and those who think otherwise—and away from the Throne. The result must surely be to draw the Counselors back to the care of their own lands and castles. Is it not a clever scheme?"
"Well…" Jim began slowly.
"I thought you would see the charm of it," went on Brian cheerfully. "It cannot fail."
"Yes, but—" Jim was beginning when Brian cut him short again.
"Hold, James," said Brian, raising his hand. "Let me tell you all. They art willing to pay me the eighty pounds I need. Forty pounds down and another forty once the force has acted!"
Jim opened his mouth to express his opinion of Br
ian's chances of ever getting the second half of his payment—then stopped. That argument was doomed from the start.
Brian was not basically a good businessman. He tended to believe in the honor of other gentlemen, deserved or not. On the other hand—eighty pounds, cash, paid immediately, was almost too much to expect for just about any martial service. Jim decided to try another tack, which might, indeed, be more important in any case.
"Brian," he said, as calmly as he could, "isn't there some danger that, though you're not actually acting against the King, the Counselors you're attacking might convince him that you're in revolt, or an outlaw who ought to be brought to justice? You could find yourself in a pretty fix."
"Pish, tush!" said Brian, smiling. "We would only come, there would be a pretty little flurry of arms around the castle of one of these Lords hungry to dip into a fatter Royal purse, and then we would be away again. No one would even know who had come. Meanwhile, those who are giving me my orders would be urging on the King that this must be a signal from a Kingdom dangerously upset about his new taxes. I cannot see any real harm or danger in it, beyond the usual possible hurt that may come when men in armor clash in earnest. The King will know nothing of it as a plan, of course."
"How can you be sure of that, Brian?" asked Jim. "He may have caught wind of this scheme already, or those close to him may. You know, when I first saw this knight and his party, they were coming down the road from your Castle."
"From Castle Smythe?" said Brian, sitting up very straight. "Why would he be coming from my Castle?"
"That was what I asked myself," said Jim. "But from what you've told me, it just might mean trouble. He's a King's Officer; and he's got a force large enough to take a small—a castle the size of yours, particularly with the advantage of surprise. Isn't it possible that the plan of these unnamed Lords may well have leaked—either to the King, or to those behind the new taxes?"
"I cannot believe so, James," said Brian, slowly. "There has hardly been time. Less than two weeks have passed since I spoke to the emissary who wished to hire me."