Lord of My Heart (9 page)

Madeleine’s convent-trained needlework was better than her aunt’s, which did not prevent Celia from criticizing. Today, however, the woman had grounds for complaint, for Madeleine’s hands were shaking, and her stitches were all over the place.

Celia leaned over and gave her a vicious pinch. “Rip it out!” she snapped. “How useless you are. As useless as these wretched Saxons.”

Aunt Celia was thin and bony, with a mouth that was constantly pursed, as if she had bitten into a green apple. She poked her needle sharply into the cloth before her as if she wished to be poking it into the Saxons, or into Madeleine.

Madeleine moved out of reach of the woman’s hard fingers and began to undo her stitches. She was working on a new cloak for her uncle, and the worse it was done the better as far as she was concerned. She couldn’t believe the depths of his cruelty.

She glanced around the room. One woman, Aldreda was her name, was working at the loom. Another, called Emma, was spinning. Both looked taut with bitterness. Emma and Aldreda’s daughters sat by their mothers doing plain sewing, one dark-haired, one angelically fair. Tears ran down their faces, and their hands were as unsteady as Madeleine’s.

Dame Celia poked in her needle and pulled it out as if the sounds from the bailey were of music, not suffering. Her one Norman attendant, Lise, took her demeanor from her mistress. Madeleine didn’t know how any human could be unmoved by what was taking place.

She was still stunned by it all. Her body was stiff and sore from Odo’s abuse, her mind was still reeling from the aftermath. Why had she said those fateful words? Why not say Odo had hit his head on a branch and fallen from his horse?

Anything.

She had told her uncle these people had nothing to do with the attack, but he hadn’t believed her. He didn’t really care. Someone must suffer for the attack on his son, and these people deserved punishment for fleeing their place.

Madeleine said a prayer of thanks to the Virgin that she had persuaded him to make do with a whipping. She had saved the men from the loss of a foot, the women and children from branding on the face.

At first she had stood and watched the whipping, still racking her brain for some way to stop the punishment, but she had become aware of the people watching her; the hate in their eyes had been as cutting as a bitter wind. She’d fled inside. There had been no green eyes among the prisoners, no stalwart build such as that of Edwald. Had these people been found quite by chance? Had they no connection to him at all? If so, their punishment was even more unjust.

Her aunt had soon spotted her—idling, as she put it— and set her to work. Madeleine wouldn’t mind the work if it would blot out the floggings, but on such a fine day the shutters stood open and there was nothing to block the sounds. At a dreadful shriek her hands clenched on the cloth in her lap. It was as well she wasn’t working on fine linen or silk; it would be a mangled rag by now.

A servant crept in fearfully with a pile of clothes to be placed in a chest, eyeing the Normans as if they were the Devil. The whip-cracks and moans continued, and Madeleine pressed her fingers to her aching head. “Will it soon be over?” she asked the girl in her careful English.

Aunt Celia gave a snort of disgust.

The maid looked up and nodded, then lowered her eyes, but not before Madeleine had seen a flash of hate there, too. Why? Just because she was Norman? Reason enough, she admitted.

She started as a new wailing built. “What’s happening?” she asked the maid.

“Just the children, lady,” the girl muttered.

Madeleine stood in shock. Her work fell to the floor. “He’s going to whip the
children?”

The girl cowered away.

Aunt Celia said, “What are you about, you silly girl? Pick up your work. It will be soiled.”

Madeleine ignored her and ran into the hall, where her uncle sat drinking, staring at smoke marks on the wall. His two vicious hounds lay by his feet.

Aunt Celia was hard at her heels. She grabbed Madeleine’s arm. “What are you doing?” she shrieked. Then in a whisper, “Don’t bother him, you foolish nodkin.”

Madeleine tore herself out of her aunt’s hold but took the caution to heart. Hating the need, she swallowed her anger and sought diplomacy. “Surely the floggings should be over by now, Uncle.”

“Pretty near, I’d think,” he said without interest. “What’s the matter? Bothered by their caterwauling? You wanted it this way. A few lopped feet would be a better lesson, and quicker. Branding would make sure they couldn’t sneak off again.”

“How could they work the land footless?” she protested. “We have few enough laborers as it is. If you’ve whipped them too severely, who will weed the fields?”

“They’re sturdy as oxen,” he countered. “A flogging won’t do them any harm.”

“What about the children?”

“What about them?”

“You’re surely not beating them, too?”

“Teach ‘em early.” He looked up like a surly bear, and his hands formed beefy fists. The hounds raised their heads and showed their teeth. “Go mind your affairs, Niece, and let me mind mine.”

Mine. Not yours. Mine.
Madeleine bit back the words. Tears of frustration built in her eyes as high, childish shrieks reached her. The worst thing in life was to be powerless.

Like one of the sunbeams striking through the dusty air of the ball, Madeleine saw the truth. She needed the protection of the king and a husband or Baddersley would be ruined. Alone she could do nothing. She needed a husband to enforce her will. It was only necessary that he be just and able. Tall or short, fat or thin, young or old—such things were no longer important; she truly believed the king would give her a husband who was at least just and able.

If this awareness had been William’s intention in sending her here, then she granted him the victory; but how was she to do anything about it? She had not even the means to send a message without her uncle’s consent.

She had a sudden urge to flee. To run away from Baddersley into the forest, to find the great Roman road they said passed nearby and went all the way to London.

There she would surely find news of the king and queen . . .

But that would be madness and the act of a child. To go alone through unknown territory, among a hostile people whose language she could barely speak? It would be suicide. She would have to find the means to send a message . . .

“What are you standing there for, girl?” her uncle demanded. “Don’t you have work to do?”

Madeleine wished she could drive a sword through her uncle’s black heart. “Do not speak to me as if I were a serving wench, Uncle,” she snapped.

She saw the hot anger in his eyes and the convulsive clenching of his fist. A low growl rumbled from his hounds. Behind her, Celia gave a moan of apprehension, but Madeleine held her ground. When he said and did nothing, she considered she had achieved a victory. She was, after all, mistress here. “The children are not to be flogged,” she declared. “Stop it immediately.”

Slowly he rose to his feet, massive and with plenty of strength in his bulk. “I have the running of Baddersley, Niece. Those children will learn early the price of shirking. Just as you will if you take that tone with me.”

Madeleine couldn’t help but take a step back. The hounds had risen to stand by his side, lips curled to show sharp teeth. But she responded firmly, “This is my land, Uncle. Those are my people. Stop the whippings.”

His hand shot forward and gripped the front of her tunic. She was hauled up against his stale body, her face only inches from his. His foul breath assailed her as he snarled, “Shut your mouth or you go next to the post.”

He meant it. He was mad.

Celia scuttled over. “Stupid girl!” she hissed. “You can’t talk to a man like that!” Paul de Pouissey glared his wife into silence, then contemptuously released Madeleine.

Madeleine tried to tell herself her silence was noble— she would not be able to help the people of Baddersley if she was dead. But she knew it was blind terror that stilled her. For the first time in her life she knew what it was to be in a cruel person’s power, to be abused or not at his whim.

Get word to the king, she thought. That must be her goal. Get word to the king and be rid of Paul and Celia forever. It must be possible—with the help of a traveling merchant, or one of the villagers willing to risk a journey. But she must be careful. She ignored Celia’s whispered rebukes and crossed the hall to an open window that looked out on the bailey.

Oh, sweet Jesu, they had a howling child tied to the post. He could be no more than eight. At least they were using a light whip on him, but as it bit he shrieked and cried for his mother. The least she could do, thought Madeleine bitterly, was watch. And so she did, too angry even for tears, as a half dozen children were dragged to the post and whipped, each one smaller than the one before.

Dear Lord, would they whip the babes in arms?

It stopped at long last with a child of about three carried off howling in terror—Madeleine hoped to his mother’s arms if she wasn’t too ill from her own punishment.

Her fear left her, or rather it was worked by her hot rage as iron is worked in the forge. She felt as hard, cold, and resolute as a mighty sword. This injustice had to stop, and she must be the one to bring it to an end.

What a wonderful day she must be having. She’d tormented Odo to desperation and escaped intact. Now she was enjoying the sight of these poor children dancing and screaming at the whip’s end as if it were a mummer’s play.

Oh, to have her in his power for an hour or two.

Her uncle summoned her. “Got to send a message to the king,” he said. “There must be serfs to be had somewhere in England, though there’s few enough round here. Damned priest’s off to the bishop over something or other. You can write, can’t you?”

“Yes, Uncle,” Madeleine wondered if this was a trap.

“There’s a messenger here on his way to the king. I’ll send word and seek help.” Paul hawked and spat into the rushes. “Can’t care for the fields properly with so few. Those miscreants we punished are malingering good-for-nothings, and the people here still dribble away like water through a sieve. Cursed Golden Hart.”

“What, Uncle?”

He looked up at her. “Some peasant calling himself Golden Hart. He’s inciting the people to rebellion, urging them to flee their proper place, to disobey the commands of their rightful lords, to kill the Normans. The Saxon dogs are bold these days. Sons of Harold are nibbling at the south, and that cursed Hereward’s skulking in the east trying to bring in the Danes or Scots. The king’s too easy on them all. It’s enough to make a man vomit. We need to show them the price of rebellion, as I did that bunch of runaways.”

“Yet they still flee, Uncle,” Madeleine pointed out.

He glowered at her. “They wouldn’t run footless and branded, would they? I should have never listened to your soft whinings. You’re well on the way to ruining this estate, Niece, and so I’ll tell the king. With you and Golden Hart undermining it, there’ll be nothing left worth the having.”

That was always Paul de Pouissey’s way. Blame everyone but himself for his disasters. Madeleine was intrigued by this Golden Hart though, and her heart danced. It must be her outlaw. It must. She wondered if she could contact him and work with him to rid Baddersley of Uncle Paul.

Her uncle took a swig of ale. “Damn swill,” he muttered. “Can’t even get any wine. Well. Go get whatever you need to write, girl!”

Madeleine hurried to the small stone chapel which nestled near the manor house, but once in the one-room presbytery, she stopped to think. Was this a chance to communicate with King William? If it was, dared she take it?

She gathered parchment, pen, ink, and knife. Could her uncle not read a word? If she was caught, the consequences would be terrible, for she intended to not just put her marriage back in the king’s hands, but make clear the ineptitude of her guardians.

But this is likely to be your only chance, she reminded herself. She went into the chapel and communed with the Christ on the cross. Strengthened and fortified, she returned to the manor house. As her uncle dictated the standard obsequious flattery and followed it with pleas, Madeleine wrote,