LordoftheKeep (5 page)

“Your father was…?” he asked. He cared not a whit who had
sired her.

“Sir Edmund Aethelwin, my lord.”

“An old name. A knight, you say?”

She nodded. “First of Baron Ramsey’s house, then a free
lance when Baron Ramsey died. Unfortunately for my mother and me, as Papa grew
older he did not do well on the road.” She recounted her story with no emotion
in her voice. “As his fortunes fell, we had need to leave our home. My father
settled us with his brother Simon until he might recoup his losses. He fell in
a tourney in France ere he could return to us.”

“Your mother taught you to weave?” Gilles scrambled about in
his brain for something to hold her before him as she appeared poised for
flight.

“Aye, I learned at my mother’s knee, my lord. She had a
canny hand for spinning as well, but disappeared when—”

Sorrow tinged her voice, and she busied herself tucking a
small blanket about her daughter’s shoulders.

Gilles resisted a powerful need to offer her comfort.
Somehow her grief reached him. “When?” he prompted gently.

She met his gaze as a knight’s fine lady would. “When my
father’s brother tried to force her into wedlock with him. Simon said she
walked into the sea one night. I believe he killed her when she scorned his
suit and so put about the other story to spare himself the hangman’s noose. He
had beaten her many times, and oft lost control of himself.”

It was not pity she wanted from him. He read it in her
stalwart stance and direct gaze. “Did anyone question your mother’s fate?” he
asked. “Why was this matter not brought to my attention?”

“‘Twas before your time here, my lord.”

“Then surely my father—” he began.

“I brought the matter to his cleric’s attention. a penniless
weaver’s fate is not of much note. A man’s word is gold to the base metal of a
woman’s voice.”

And so lay the gap betwixt lord and vassal and men and
women. Gilles knew his father would have thought little of a woman’s
accusations in comparison to a man’s protestations of innocence. He had
ofttimes seen his father beat his own mother for little more than a meal
ill-prepared by the servants. The sight had nourished a hatred for his father,
and as a consequence, he’d never raised a hand against a woman in his life.

“What of your uncle, this Simon?”

“He died of a seizure not long after he sent me to…seek my
own way.”

Cast out
—as he had predicted. The thought sat ill
with him.

She broke into his thoughts. “May I go, my lord?”

“You may go.” He choked it out. The results were
devastating. Emma made a curtsy and turned away. With halting steps, she
crossed the great expanse of rush-strewn flagstone between him and the
iron-strapped doors that led to the bailey.

With the closing of the door, Gilles realized he might never
see her again. He had not asked her where she dwelt. One step was all he took
from the raised hearth before sense asserted itself and he returned to his
plans.

A youth would run after a maid. Knighted barons did not run
after weavers. The lord of the keep had more reserve, more dignity than that.
He clutched the table’s edge to hold himself in place. At last his hands
relaxed and he straightened, smoothing the vellum before him and forcing his
attention to his stables.

She did not dwell in his world.

Chapter Four

Emma picked her way through the crowds of men and women who
were going about their daily chores in the inner bailey of Hawkwatch Castle.
Children dashed before her limping steps as she finally passed through the
lower bailey to the gate. She called a greeting to the gatekeeper as she
crossed the drawbridge that allowed access to a beaten path down a steep hill.

The castle was built upon a high promontory overlooking
Hawkwatch Bay, soaring up as if thrust from the very earth. Thick outer stone
walls surrounded the castle. ‘Twas King Richard’s father, old King Henry
himself, who’d ordered the fortifications that had made Hawkwatch a vast
fortress to protect the royal interests from marauders who might come from
across the North Sea.

Clustered about the sheer walls of local stone were other
huts and hovels like Emma’s. It took her twice as long as usual to make her
limping way through the village to her hut. Pain shot up her leg with every
step. Angelique seemed to weigh as much as a child twice her size. With a sigh
of something akin to sadness, Emma stepped over her threshold. In the broad
light of day, ‘twas much shabbier and ruder than she cared to admit. With just
pallet and stool, Emma had almost no room for the simple upright loom propped
against the rear stone wall. Many small pots and bowls held plants and barks
for dyeing. Their myriad scents filled the air and soothed Emma’s troubled
mind.

She gently placed Angelique on her pallet and offered her a
stuffed woolen ball. Taking out her eating dagger, she dug about in the dirt in
one corner until she unearthed a leather pouch. With shaky fingers she counted
out what remained of her meager store of silver pennies. Also in the pouch lay
her father’s gold spurs and her mother’s cross. Sighing with relief, she
replaced the dirt and stamped it flat with her good foot. Her father’s gold
spurs were all she had of him and no amount of need would make her part with
them. Likewise, she’d retained possession of the delicate silver cross from her
mother’s family. She’d sold the chain the previous month for food. Both were
possessions that reminded her that once she’d had a beamed roof overhead and a
hearth to warm her in winter.

Her head rang with pain. Her stitched wounds burned. Where in
heaven had all the noise come from? Outside, geese hissed, carts rumbled over
ruts in the paths, children shrieked, a smith rang his hammer on the anvil. She
groaned and forced herself to sit down at Angelique’s side and sip slowly from
a stone bottle of ale. The ale was rank in comparison to that of Lord Gilles’
honeyed milk.

She bent her head and kissed Angelique’s small head. “What,
my sweet, is this effect Lord Gilles has upon my senses? Is it just that he
holds the ultimate authority here? Or is it that he is the antithesis of
him
?
No, these feelings are unique. They come only from his lordship.” Her arms
tightened about her daughter. “We owe Lord Gilles our lives. I could not have
held the dogs off much longer. I prayed God would let us die quickly. I prayed
God would not let you suffer,” she whispered against the silky tresses. “We
have been given another chance.”

“Talking to yer little angel again, are ye?”

“Widow Cooper!” Emma cried joyfully to the figure standing
in her doorway. Angelique strained to be clasped in the widow’s arms.

“Come, my angel,” crooned the older woman, her gray hair
hidden beneath her snowy white headcovering, her wide girth swinging to and fro
to amuse the youngster. “Who gave ye a chance, my friend?”

“Why you, of course!” Emma smiled at her friend, one hand to
her throbbing head. “Who bribed young Bert to build me a loom? Helped me birth
Angelique?” Her smile fled. “Who defends me at the well?”

Widow Cooper blew into Angelique’s small palm and set the
child to giggling and kicking her feet. “Humpf. The women are just jealous.
They’ve not the backbone to take their men to task for sniffing about yer
skirts and so must place the blame elsewhere. A woman alone be prey in this
place. Brainless, the lot o’ them.”

“The women or the men?” Emma quipped.

They shared a laugh; then the widow spied Emma’s bandaged
ankle. “Sweet heaven, child. What is this?” She settled Angelique on Emma’s
straw pallet and lifted the hem of Emma’s skirt.

“I was gathering in the woods and was set upon by dogs.”

“How many times must I tell ye not to go about such business
alone?” the widow scolded.

“I am alone. You have your son and his five children to help
and cannot be rushing off each time I need to gather a few berries, or barter
some cloth, or…or draw water!” Emma knew life was hard enough for the widow
whose daughter-by-marriage had perished birthing her last babe. Secretly, Emma
suspected the widow was grooming her for her son’s next wife. In her weaker
moments, she considered it herself.

“Well, I’m glad yer not torn to pieces.” She tutted over the
bruise on Emma’s temple.

“Don’t fuss, please.”

The widow withdrew her hand. “Have ye finished the last of
the trim for the Abbot?”

“Almost.” Emma reached up into the thatching of her hut. She
drew down a narrow wooden box. Inside lay a long strip of trimming that she’d
labored hard upon. She desperately needed the pennies she’d earn for it.
Usually, her weavings earned naught but bartered food.

The widow stroked the intricate design. “‘Tis very fine. The
Abbot will be well pleased.”

“Angelique needs warm winter wrappings for her feet and
hands.” Emma hoped the trimming would allow her to purchase the necessary wool
to weave something that would earn her more than food. She was loath to part
with her few pennies. “I was grateful for the work. We’ve been blessed with
mild weather, but ‘twill soon be winter.”

The two women watched Angelique tumble about from pallet to
loom to pallet. Neither voiced their common fears that Angelique would not
survive without food and warmth. Emma knew that she might look more kindly on
becoming the mother of five young children if it meant Angelique did not
starve. The thought of the conjugal privileges she must then give Widow
Cooper’s son made her shiver. Her one time with a man had made her sure she did
not wish to repeat the effort. She had fended off the Widow’s hints with
reminders that although her husband did not acknowledge her, she had made vows
and considered herself wed. How she wished she’d made those vows on the church steps
instead of in private.

“Ye’ve a melancholy look. Are ye in pain?” Widow Cooper
touched Emma on the knee.

“Nay. Oh, aye. The stitching hurts. Pray ‘twill not fester!
But nay, ‘tis not my wounds that ail me.” She whirled to her friend. “How could
I have been so blind? Why did I not see him for what he was?” Her voice broke;
tears flowed down her cheeks. “How could I have offered myself to the first man
with smooth cheeks and a sunny smile that paid me attention?” The tears spotted
her woolen gown, her only gown. “I acted the fool for a man’s honeyed words.
Snared by poetry! Fool. Fool.”

“Now, now.” The widow rose and wrapped an arm about Emma’s
waist. “‘Tis not like ye to feel sorry for yerself like this. Yer not the first
to be taken in by a fine figure and pleasin’ face. I think ye were lonely, in
need of love. Yer uncle were a vile man to have the care of a young maid. ‘Tis
not the end of the world.”

“Isn’t it? Look about you. I barely keep us fed.”

The widow grasped Emma by the shoulders and shook her. “Now,
none o’ that! What has happened to ye? Where’s the strong maid who took her
knife to Ivo when he come sniffin’ in the night to bed her?”

Emma managed a small, wan smile. The village had been all
atwitter with the story of Ivo’s comeuppance, less from the paltry wound on his
arm than from the beating his wife had given him when he’d slunk home. Her
smile died. The village women had held her responsible, Ivo’s wife telling her
at the village well that Emma was to keep her hands off Ivo from then on, as if
she’d issued the knave an invitation. “You champion me. ‘Tis the only reason we
survive.”

“Nonsense. Now, I’ll ‘ear no more o’ this. I’ll send a
pottage by way of the baker’s lad and a poultice for yer wound. Ye’ll never go
hungry as long as I’m about.”

Emma thanked her friend, grateful there was no mention of
marriage to her son. They decided on a time for Emma to hand over the trimming
so Widow Cooper could deliver it to the abbey when she and her son went to the
nearby port of Lynn. They parted company with promises to meet in a few days.

Emma stared after the widow. Widow Cooper’s son had a cast
in his eye and was missing the fingers on his left hand. She did not really
hold his infirmities against him. ‘Twas the whispers that he’d beaten his first
wife at the slightest offense that made her cringe. With sadness, Emma hoped
the widow never learned what was whispered about her son.

Angelique had curled into a ball on the pallet and her soft
puffs of breath filled the lonely silence. Gently, Emma stroked her daughter’s
back, watched the small thumb disappear into the rose-petal lips. “Believe in
no man, Angelique. Expect lies and you will never be played the fool. Believe
only in the power of God’s love and in the power of nature.”

She felt a need to give instruction to her sleeping child,
more to reassure herself than to impart wisdom. “Revere the plants that yield
the glorious color for my dyes. Respect the gift of the wool given by the
sheep. Honor nature’s gifts. They give us life.”

She looked at the rough stone wall that formed the back of
her hut, the castle’s outer wall.
His wall.
“There are mysteries and
forces greater than I can understand, my angel. Lord Gilles, he is one of the
mysteries. He appears mortal man, yet mayhap if we were to meet again—

“Forget this foolish musing! Wild dogs will not beset us
again just to assure his lordship’s attention! I am surely mad to think such a
man might notice us, crouched here at the base of his walls.” In truth, she was
not sure she wished any man to notice her ever again.

Emma’s stool sat before an upright loom, but it was to the
hand loom she looked. Made from a flexible branch crotch cut from a tree, ‘twas
the loom on which she had made the trimming sold to the Abbot. It was in the
weaving of trimming and beltwork that her mother had excelled and ‘twas her
legacy to Emma.

She plucked up the hand loom and stroked her fingers along
the smooth wood that had seen years of work from both her and her mother. A
glimmer of an idea ran over and over in her head. “’Twould be audacious.
Presumptuous, even, Angelique, to weave Lord Gilles a gift. But what else have
I to give in thanks for our lives?”

She moved back to her daughter’s side, leaning down and
kissing the dainty cheek. “I’ll need alder bark, winter berries, bedstraw to
make the dyes,” she whispered to her daughter. “We shall borrow a kettle from
Widow Cooper. The stink will be terrible, but worth it.”

The scent of lavender soap lingered in Angelique’s hair.
Stroking her fingers through the curly mop, Emma tried to draw into her
nostrils the scent that would forever remind her of that luxurious bath in
his
chambers.

Her thoughts were interrupted when a shadow crossed the
beaten floor of her hut. Emma could barely restrain herself from squeezing
Angelique. William Belfour crossed her hut in a single stride and dropped to
one knee. He scowled down at Angelique.

“What do you want?” Emma cried, clutching at her daughter.

“I saw you in the hall and wanted to see the babe at closer
quarters. She is your image. I see no sign of me,” he said.

Emma looked from her innocent daughter to William. They had
the same flaxen hair, the same sky-blue eyes. Her daughter lay garbed in the
coarsest of undyed wool. William’s mantle and surcoat were finely made, their
blue a clear match to his bright eyes. His clothing was clean and costly, his
surcoat trimmed with rich red embroidery, his mantle with fur. He wore soft
leather boots and thick, warm hose. His daughter had strips of old linen from
cast-off garments wrapped about her feet and little legs. The contrasts were a
knife-edge of anger through her.

“She is yours, nonetheless,” Emma averred, the anger rising
in her throat. She wanted to vomit from fear, not just the fear of the coming
winter and Angelique’s small chance of survival to womanhood, but of William
and what he represented. He took up all the space in her hut with his broad
shoulders and audacious manner, sucked the air away so she could barely draw
breath. She would not kneel in this man’s presence. She would not make herself
vulnerable to his ugliness in her home. She forced herself to stand upright and
to square her shoulders.

He, too, rose and looked about with disdain. “I deny the
child. You have no proof. As I said before, you probably spread your legs for
many men.”

“Nay!” Emma drew away from his ugly denial. “Nay. Surely you
know I was a virgin!”

“Many women have difficulty accommodating me,” he sneered.

She took a deep breath. As much as she despised this man, he
was her husband. “You may deny it ten times and still you are her father, I
your wife. Even the church recognizes a marriage when two people speak vows to
one another and consummation takes—”

“I spoke no vows. You seek to assure yourself a better
life.” He tapped his finger on her cheek. “What would a man of my station want
with one of yours, save the obvious? You were not even much amusement, truth be
known.”

Emma realized there was no reasoning with him now just as
there had been no reasoning with him when first she had found herself with
child. She covered Angelique with her mantle to shield her in some small way
from William’s scrutiny. With a clarity of vision she’d not had when William
Belfour had first come to the marketplace and noticed her, Emma realized she no
longer desired his attention or acknowledgment. “Have it your way. ‘Tis your
loss, not ours. Why have you chosen this day to speak to me? You scorned my
love and repudiated your babe a long time ago.”