Simon's Lady (22 page)

“Of course I need cheering up, given the wretched state of this house,” Gwyneth replied. She shook her handkerchiefed head in dismay.

Johanna made a sympathetic noise. “It is quite hideous,” she agreed, peering into the gloom of the kitchens, “and probably far worse two days ago than it is now.”

“We are excavating through the dirt at the rate of a year’s worth every three or four days, I should think. That means that in another month we should have the kitchens operating reasonably again. How were such slovenly conditions permitted to prevail, I wonder?”

Johanna shrugged. “Beresford obviously has not cared about the house since Roesia died.”

“Or before she died, either, from my estimation. I am looking at ten years of dirt, not just five.”

Johanna pulled a face. “I haven’t been here since, perhaps, a year before Roesia died. As I recall, the house was unkempt, but it was not….” Here Johanna groped for words.

“Hideous?” Gwyneth suggested helpfully. “Horrendous?”

“Either will do, or perhaps both,” Johanna conceded with a wry smile.

“But come, let us leave this open garbage pit, which is not, even under the best of conditions, the place to receive a visitor.” Gwyneth led Johanna toward the main courtyard. “Let me show you what I am doing to the solar. So, tell me, what was she like, Roesia?”

“A handsome woman, really,” Johanna said reflectively. “But such a temper, and such a tongue! Now, Roesia certainly had her friends and advocates, but there were those whose sympathies were firmly with Simon, for all of his lack of social graces!”

“Did he provoke her?”

Johanna laughed. “No, worse! He ignored her!”

“Did he ever beat her?” Gwyneth inquired. “Say, for mismanaging household accounts?”

Johanna slid Gwyneth a speculative glance. They had entered the main courtyard, where the neighborhood craftsmen held center stage, and were crossing to the staircase, which was undergoing a major rebuilding and reinforcement. “How much is all of this going to cost?” Johanna asked.

“Watch out for the third and the second-to-last steps,” Gwyneth warned, then answered in a rather severe tone, “It will cost about tenfold what it would have taken to have maintained the property rightfully throughout the years.”

Johanna cast an admiring glance at Gwyneth. “Very good!” she said. “Now, I recommend that you practice that answer in such a tone and that you say your rosary every night until Simon returns, and he will be properly chastened. Do you know when that will be?”

Gwyneth shook her head. “Several more days, I suppose. He said he would return before the tournament, in any case.” She did not pursue the interesting topics of the tournament or Beresford’s return, for her attention was claimed by Benedict and Gilbert.

The boys were hanging over the balcony railing, pulling up a heavy pail on pulley-rigged ropes. Although they were evidently helping in the only manner they could, they were doing so at great bodily peril to themselves, and Gwyneth caught her breath in fear that they would fall. She steadied her nerves then called out calmly, clapping her hands, “Away from the railing, Benedict! Gilbert!”

At Gwyneth’s command the boys let go of the ropes, causing the heavy bucket to fall to the ground, harming no one but angering the plasterer whose bucket it was. Taking one look at the man’s face, the boys immediately pointed to Gwyneth, referring him to the true culprit. Gwyneth did what she could to soothe the plasterer and instruct the boys as to how they could safely help. They thought it less amusing sport to stand so far away from the railing, but had learned in the past few days that Gwyneth had more stamina than they did and that it would be less tiresome to simply obey her than to have her wear them down until they did as she bade.

Gwyneth gestured to Johanna, and the two women walked on around the balcony to the solar.

“I will admit freely,” Johanna pronounced, “that I did not even recognize Benedict and Gilbert. I vow, I was impressed before with what you’ve done, but now I am positively amazed!”

Gwyneth laughed off the high praise and said, “Yes, it is positively amazing what a bath, trimmed hair and clean clothes will do for a little boy. A big boy, too, come to think of it. Now, here is the real test, Johanna.” She extended her arm with a dramatic flourish. “The solar!”

Johanna’s eyebrows rose admiringly. “Not bad,” she said. “Not bad at all, given that I vaguely recall what it looked like six or seven years ago and can imagine how far it deteriorated in the meantime.”

They stepped into the room, where the wide wooden planking of the floors was being stripped of dirt and wax, where the glazier was busy fitting the new casement windows and where many pairs of hands swarmed over the fireplace façade, scrubbing off the soot.

“I retrieved the spice cupboard from an unused room,” Gwyneth explained, pointing to the valuable piece of furniture on the interior wall adjacent to the fireplace. “Of course, it remains empty, for I do not wish for the expense of spices now, given everything else we need. But the true find was this.” She gestured toward the wall opposite the fireplace, along which ran the long serving board that also held the plate and assorted crockery. “I have managed to assemble something resembling serving pieces to go with the plate. They were in a rubbish heap in the kitchen. Can you believe it? I wonder where Beresford took his meals all these years.”

Johanna shook her head in puzzlement. “My guess is that he ate with his men out in the open of the courtyard, summer and winter, at any odd moment they happened to pause in their exercise. I suspect they sat on the rain barrels and the stairs and anywhere else they could find.” She sighed. “I had forgotten how very beautiful this house could be. I pray you, show me more!”

Gwyneth did so, and gladly, outlining the grand scope of her plans, which included many lengths of cloth for the sleeping chambers. For the kitchens she envisioned several decent pickling tubs along with a tank in which live fish would swim.

The two women continued to chat companionably. To Johanna’s repeated expressions of amazement at her professional housewifery, Gwyneth had to remind her friend at least twice that she had been chatelaine of Castle Norham for close to five years. After nearly an hour of domestic discussion, Johanna took her leave to return to the Tower in company of the retinue in which she had come.

The following day unfolded in much the same manner as had the day before. So did the day after that, as well as the next. The dinner on that day was approaching respectability, but far from being servable to guests. Gwyneth had no intention of inviting guests yet, of course, for there was still much ground to cover in reducing the general level of slurping and slopping at the table, from children and adults alike.

The Trinity came and went and was celebrated solemnly by the entire household at the Church of Cripplegate. The day was sunny and, because June had come, it was warm.

The next day dawned even warmer, and by the late afternoon, Gwyneth was tired of her vigorous industry. She had shed her heavy smock and kerchief for a light kirtle and bliaut; she had brushed out her hair and rebraided it to pin it into a circle around her head; and she had traded the broom and the scrub brush for the needle. Because the solar was the most habitable, the most comfortable and the brightest room in the house, she went there and sat on a stool near one of the open windows. She held in her lap an old linen chemise, now washed and sun dried, to which she was applying her bodkin. A towering pile of rent garments was stacked next to her. She was deep in her own thoughts. The craftsmen orbited quietly about her, just as the stars moved around the earth.

At one moment, sensing someone watching her, Gwyneth looked up. She blinked curiously, then her air of concentration lifted from her brow. She laid aside her mending and rose, extending her hand in welcome as she crossed the room. She even smiled, though somewhat apologetically.

“No one announced you, sire,” she said, “and so I am afraid that I am guilty of being a bad hostess the first time you come to visit when I am mistress.”

“Not at all, my lady,” Senlis said, grasping her hand and bowing over it. “When I stepped into the courtyard just now and saw all the activity, I did not wish to disturb any of the workers, who were so obviously better engaged with their projects than showing me through a house I know very well!” He released her hand and gazed around the room. “Very nice,” he commented. “Very nice, indeed!”

Her eyes followed his. “Yes, the house will soon be fit for human habitation,” she replied. “We may even be able to invite guests, although that seems a distant goal at the moment.” She turned toward him and asked, “Have you come to see my husband? I had almost expected him yesterday, in fact, but I am afraid that he has not yet returned.”

“No,” Senlis said, “I did not come to see him.”

Gwyneth was about to ask, “But, then, why did you come?” when she thought the better of it.

After her slight hesitation, Senlis continued, “I know that his party has not yet returned from the west, for a messenger came to the Tower this morning, reporting the news.”

Gwyneth felt her heart lurch at thought of a battle or, at the very least, a skirmish. She kept her features composed as she asked, “And what, exactly, is that news?”

“Why, nothing,” Senlis returned with a courteous smile. “Duke Henry prefers to rest and feast, it seems, as if he had come to England on a pleasure trip. His forces have not engaged with Simon’s, and given the torrential rains in the west, he displays no desire to muddy his boots or the feet of his soldiers. It is most curious!”

“It is, indeed,” Gwyneth agreed, for she had never heard that Duke Henry was shy of fighting. Quite the contrary, in fact. “In that case,” she said, “may I offer you a bench and some spiced wine and a turn of conversation to less-martial topics?”

Senlis accepted this offer gallantly, and Gwyneth advanced to the sideboard, where stood a ewer of wine and several cups. She felt a grain of discomfort in receiving the handsome Geoffrey of Senlis, but his manner was so friendly and so correct that she did not think he intended anything improper. Besides, they were attended in the solar by a changing assortment of workers, and there was nothing the least objectionable that could happen to her under the eyes of a half-dozen men and women.

Senlis took a bench down from the table and set it up right. Gwyneth arranged a tray with wine, cups, a bowl of nuts and a plate of wafers. They exchanged the conversation necessary for serving these items, commenting on the pleasant breezes wafting through the windows, the work of the craftsmen and Gwyneth’s pile of mending.

When these preliminaries had been covered, Senlis opened the broad topic of the tournament, which, as he pointed out, “is only a slightly less martial topic than that of Duke Henry’s possible military intentions in England.”

Gwyneth smiled. “Yes. However, given that the tournament is to start two days hence, it is natural enough to discuss it.” The topic gave her an idea. She smiled and touched a deferential hand to her breast. “You perhaps do not know that I am fully conversant with the technicalities of tournaments, sire, and do not simply prattle in speculation about how many jousts there will be or if the weather will be fine.”

“Ah?” Senlis answered her smile with a very charming one of his own. He teased, “You mean the level of your conversation hovers above the general run of female imbecilities on the topic?”

Was he flirting with her? Gwyneth wondered. She decided that her very uncertainty about his intentions added just that much more piquancy to every encounter with him. Geoffrey of Senlis was a most handsome man, she had to admit, and she tried to imagine, not for the first time, what it would have been like to marry him. She could not imagine it, but that was perhaps because she was having to give her attention to the conversation and her plan.

“Far above,” she said with mock-solemn dignity. “For instance, I am greatly interested in the statutes, and the degree to which an event, which works best with fewest regulations, should be constrained. What say you on the statutes in general?”

Senlis entered into her mood. “I say nothing to the statutes in general, only to the statutes in particular.” His tone was light and challenging. “Do you have such a one in mind?”

She considered. “Take, for instance, the statute that no one is to assist a fallen knight except his own squires under penalty of three years imprisonment.”

“Well, yes, that statute, my lady, is most reasonable. And the others?”

She spun out the topic, weaving her web to extract the information she wanted. They spoke of horses and squires, weapons and squires, the role of spectators and squires, returning always, inevitably, to squires. When Senlis began to identify the names of various squires, Gwyneth breathed an inward sigh of relief. Her heart leapt when he began to list his own.

“Such an odd name, Breteuil,” she interjected at his mention of it. “Such a strange one for me to pronounce. I believe that Beresford has a squire with this name, no?”

Senlis nodded, but said that it was common enough.

So Senlis and Beresford each were possible targets of Valmey’s scheme. She was doubly glad now that she had not mentioned to Simon her suspicions concerning Valmey, given that the range of his possible victims was so wide.

“Do other knights have squires with such a name?” she inquired as casually as she could.

“Besides myself and Beresford, you mean? Why yes, perhaps five or six.” Senlis considered. “Let me see now. There is Giles Breteuil, who trains with—”

He was never to finish that sentence, for from the main courtyard below came the noisy sounds of arrival and a shout announcing that the master had returned home.

Gwyneth stood up when she heard Benedict and Gilbert crying, “Papa! Papa!”

Beresford passed through the portal to the house, took one look at the courtyard and realized that he had made a mistake. He turned around and was about to exit again, and to command his men to do the same, when John the Porter asked him if he had left something out in the street.