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Perhaps he was merely bothered by the fact that she obviously didn’t like him, he mused as he sipped the wine his steward had brought him. He had sensed that fact even before he had forbidden his children to bring her into the castle, and he wondered why it was so. Perhaps she just didn’t like the Normans, either because they had been the masters of England for more than seventy years, or because she had suffered some personal loss at their hands—her virginity? Was she fleeing the very man who had stolen her innocence?
For she was no virgin, he had sensed. There was something about the bold way she had looked him in the eye, before dropping her gaze, that told him she had known at least one man intimately. And hadn’t liked what she had known.
All the more reason to make sure she was sent on her way on the morrow. She didn’t like him, and that being true, there was no need for her to remain within the walls of his castle after tonight. It was likely she had not even wished to stay. It was probably one of Peronelle’s impulsive ideas, and the woman had seen the chance of shelter from the coming storm that now sent rain drumming against the lead roof high overhead.
That Guerin had chimed in in support of Haesel’s visit had surprised Alain, but only momentarily. The serious young lad had a tender side, always bringing in strays and wounded birds and expecting Alain to help him succor them. Alain was proud of what he had taught the boy, and he knew he was going to miss him next year when he was old enough to be sent to another noble household for fostering—if the unrest that had threatened the realm ever since the empress had claimed the throne died down enough to permit him to send Guerin anywhere. Alain had resolved he would not send the boy into danger—he owed Guerin’s mother that much.
All at once Alain heard a shriek overhead, a shriek that could only have been Peronelle’s, and then the sound of weeping. His hand went to his hip, where the hilt of his sword had rested only minutes ago until Verel, his squire, had divested him of his mail. But it was not there, for he had changed into a long, comfortable tunic with a plain leather belt. He dropped the half-empty wine cup in the rushes and ran for the stairs. Good Lord, had the serf woman he had let into his hall turned vicious the moment she was out of his sight?
But before he could reach the curving stone steps, a white-faced Peronelle appeared around the corner of the stairs, followed by Guerin and Haesel, who were equally pale.
Peronelle ran down the steps and catapulted herself against him, throwing her arms around his legs as if all the demons of hell chased her.
“Perry, what is it? What’s she done to you?” he asked, even as his eyes met Haesel’s. “What did you do to her, woman?” he accused in English.
The Englishwoman blanched still further. “N-nothing, my lord!” she stammered. “It be the old woman, the nurse! We…we found her…dead, my lord!”
At first he stared at her, unable to make sense of her halting English words. But then, as their meaning sank into his brain, he ran past her and Guerin, who stood as if paralyzed halfway down the steps, and into the chamber in which the children and their nurse slept.
The old woman sagged on a padded chair near the unshuttered window, some mending project in her lap. Her head lolled against the high back of the chair, and her eyes were open, but she saw nothing. Even before he reached her side and took hold of her wrist, it was obvious from her dusky blue coloring that Ivy was dead. Her flesh was already cooling, and no pulse jumped against his fingers as he felt for a heartbeat. After a few seconds, he gently closed the old nurse’s eyes and said a prayer for her soul.
By the robe of the Virgin, why must the children have been the ones to find her? He imagined Peronelle and Guerin recoiling as they caught sight of those sightless, staring eyes, that slack mouth, and he shuddered in horror. Poor babes…
The old nurse had just recently reported a cessation of the nightmares that had plagued both children, but especially his daughter, after the death of Julia. And now it was likely the nightmares would begin all over again—and they would have no nurse to comfort them.
Unless…But no. He had already decided that having the young Englishwoman anywhere near him would only lead to trouble. He was not going to be foolish just because she was here precisely when his children needed another female to look after them. There were plenty of women in the village who would gladly take over as nurse to the lord’s children, yes, and be glad for a position in the castle that would give them a better existence than they had had. He would not court trouble by giving that position to a stranger.
Alain found the children huddled against Haesel in front of the fire, sobbing. She had her arms around them and was swaying softly, rocking them.
He saw Peronelle look up at the sound of his footsteps, her eyes betraying a wild hope.
“I am sorry, but it is true,” he said, keeping his voice gentle. “Ivy is dead.” As Peronelle’s renewed wails rose around him, he said, loudly enough that he hoped she would hear him, “She did not suffer, Perry. She was old, you know, and ’twas likely her heart just gave out. ‘Twas like falling asleep for her, children.” He included Guerin in his gaze. The boy was trying so hard not to cry, but his lip trembled and he shook, and Alain felt sorry for him. “’Tis all right to weep, Guerin, when someone we love dies. But we must remember Ivy is with God, for she was a good and pious woman, and she is happy in heaven.”
As Guerin gave in and the tears began to flood his cheeks, Peronelle raised tear-flooded dark eyes to Alain. “I want my Ivy! What will we do without her, Father? She’s been here forever—s-since before I was born!” She choked on a sob, and buried her face again against Haesel’s waist. He saw the Englishwoman caress the trembling shoulders of his daughter.
What indeed? he thought. Since they were without a mother, it was a question that would have to be resolved quickly, for they were not old enough to fend for themselves, and he could not always be with them.
“We’ll find someone in the village,” he promised, avoiding Haesel’s troubled eyes, worrying that although she could not speak French, she would certainly hear her name mentioned and wonder what they were saying about her. “I’m sure there is a good woman in the village who would like to come to the castle and be your nurse—”
“I want Haesel,” came Peronelle’s muffled voice.
“Nay, Haesel does not belong to this fief, and there must be somewhere she is obligated to be,” he said, giving a stern look at Haesel that warned her not to speak. “We must not keep Haesel from her duty.”
“But she’d stay here, if you asked her, Father. She’s already here, and I like her. Why can’t she stay? She says she is a free woman,” Guerin argued manfully, then sniffled. “Please say that she may remain as our nurse! Perry has already said she would obey her, and I will, too.”
There was little chance Haesel had told the truth about being a free woman, but without a brand on her forehead proclaiming that she had run away before and been caught, he had no way of proving it. And now his children were watching him, their eyes pleading.
He saw her watching him too, but he could not read her gaze. Certainly there was no pleading there. She was too proud for that.
He must stand fast, he knew, for his own sake if not his children’s. This woman was trouble. But he found himself murmuring instead, “What say you, Haesel? Are you willing to stay and be my children’s nurse? To be trustworthy and kind to Perry and Guerin day in and day out? It is not a position to assume lightly, woman, for my children are very important to me, as you have seen, and I would be merciless to anyone who harmed them.”
Some cloud passed over those blue eyes as she faced him, darkening them and then vanishing before she opened her mouth and said, “I will stay, my lord, and care for yer children. And I thank ye, my lord.”
He concentrated on Peronelle’s and Guerin’s expressions of joy, so that the Englishwoman would not see how pleased he was that she would stay.
“Very well. Children, perhaps you and Haesel could go to the kitchen for a while—no doubt Cook has some fresh-baked manchet loaves that you may sample. Then later you may help Haesel get settled in your chamber while I see to the prisoners.” In an undertone he added to Haesel, “I will see that the old nurse’s body is taken to the chapel while you are gone.”
“Very wise ye be, my lord,” Haesel whispered back. Then, just as the children began to tug at her hands, she smiled slightly before she allowed herself to be pulled after them.
He felt as if Rouquin, his mighty red destrier, had just kicked him.
Chapter Four (#ulink_ce6c92ad-c2c3-54d7-9ed8-ae6e4341fe0d)
An hour later, after Claire had been told Ivy’s body had been moved, she and the children left the kitchens, crossed the bailey and again ascended the stairs to their bedchamber. The children’s faces were besmeared with traces of the fresh butter that had been spread on the bread they had devoured warm from the oven, but beneath the shiny surface the cheeks of both children were pale as they hesitated at the threshold of the chamber they had shared with their old nurse.
“Is it…is sh-she gone?” Peronelle asked fearfully, her hands covering her face. But Claire saw that the child was peering between her fingers at the chair in which the old nurse had been sprawled, almost as if she expected the body of the nurse to reappear. Guerin, behind her, kept his hands at his sides, but Claire noticed his eyes kept darting into the shadowy corners of the room, as if he thought Ivy might be hiding there.
“Yes, she be gone. They took her body to the chapel, Peronelle,” Claire said, remembering to speak as an ignorant English serf woman would.
“But her spirit,” persisted Guerin, “what of it? Her soul? Will she come back—and haunt this chamber, because she died here?”
Claire felt a rush of sympathy for the frightened children, who were suddenly bereft of the woman who had been as a mother to them. She was sorry they had been the ones to find their beloved nurse dead, but perhaps it was really better that way, if one took the long view. Death would have a reality for them that it had not had for her when she’d been just a little girl—a bit younger than Peronelle. Claire had been told her mother had “gone away for a long time,” when in reality she had died in childbirth along with the son she had been struggling to give birth to. But Claire wanted them to remember their old nurse with joy, not with terror.
“Nay, she’ll not haunt this room, Guerin!” she said bracingly, laying a hand on both children’s shoulders. “How could she, a good woman like that, who loved ye both so much? She’ll go right to heaven to be with the saints, she will. But she’ll look down from heaven on ye here, and intercede with our Lord for ye. But ye’ll always remember how good she were to ye here in this chamber, won’t ye—taking care of ye, sleeping at night with ye…So in a way a part of her will always be here, in a good way, don’t ye see?”
The boy nodded, and the furrows in his forehead relaxed.
“But will they leave her body in the chapel? So we can see it there forever and ever?” queried Peronelle, sounding half hopeful, half frightened at the thought.
“No, lovey,” she said, kneeling in the rushes so that she and Peronelle were on the same level. “The castle women will wash her and lay her out on a bier, and someone will stay with the body until it’s buried.”
“Buried?” repeated Peronelle, horrified. “Put in the ground? She couldn’t breathe! I won’t let them!” she cried, her small body tensing, as if she intended to run back downstairs and prevent such an awful thing from happening.
Claire caught her gently by the arms. “Listen, child. Remember I told ye yer Ivy was already in heaven? ’Tis just her earthly body they’ll be burying, Peronelle. She’s already left that worn-out old body, and she has a new body, a perfect one that isn’t old, that won’t ever die,” she said, praying the child would believe her.
“And her hands won’t have all those painful knots, and in heaven she won’t get the dropsy whenever she eats salt pork like she did on earth, Peronelle,” Guerin put in. “Why, I’ll vow her hair is long and curly black as a raven’s wing, just as she always told us it was when she was a girl.”
Claire felt the moment when Peronelle’s rigid body sagged against hers, and she gave Guerin a grateful smile, silently blessing Guerin for his help.
Peronelle took a deep, shuddering breath. “That’s good that she’s all beautiful and happy in heaven, but I’ll miss her.” Then she started. “But I’m glad you’re going to be our new nurse, Haesel! Here, let me show you which bed is yours,” she said, tugging Claire’s hand and moving forward into the room.
They didn’t see Lord Alain again until just before sunset, when all the castle folk gathered for supper. Peronelle and Guerin, their faces washed, and wearing fresh clothing, led the way into the great hall and headed straight for the dais, where their father waited at the high table.
As they went, Claire took the time to look at her surroundings, which she had not done when she first entered. Hawkswell’s great hall, like Coverly’s, was two-storied and rectangular in shape. Old banners, their colors faded, hung from the ceiling rafters, and tapestries hung on the walls. The high-set windows faced the open eastern wall; the western wall formed part of the inner curtain of the castle, so the lighting that evening was from candles set at intervals on the tables and torches set in wall brackets. The rushes beneath her feet were relatively new, she noted approvingly, and their sweet smell hinted at mint and tansy strewn among them.
“Ah! There you are!” Alain said to his children. “Did you not hear the supper horn a few minutes ago?” He watched the three as they drew near.
“Yes, my lord father, but Haesel said we must change our tunics, for we looked rumpled as serf children who’d been plowing the fields!” Guerin informed him, using English where his father had spoken in French, a courtesy that warmed Claire’s heart.
Lord Alain regarded his son solemnly as Guerin stopped below the high table. “That is true,” he said, speaking also in English, “but mayhap next time you will make the magical transformation earlier? You have kept a score of Hawkswell’s hungry inhabitants waiting, my son. A chivalrous man considers others before himself. Next time we will not wait on you.”
Claire struggled to keep her face expressionless as she saw the boy flush with embarrassment. She’d thought at first Lord Alain had answered in English to be polite, but now she saw that he merely wanted her to know the reprimand was for her too.
“I beg your pardon, my lord father,” Guerin said. “I will not let it happen again.”
Holy Mary, why was Alain of Hawkswell always so harsh with his son? This was the second time in a matter of hours that she had seen him wound Guerin with few words! She longed to tell him there were more important things between a father and son than mere promptness at meals, but she knew she could not.
Lord Alain indicated a trencher next to his. “As we have no important guests this even, you may sit next to me,” he said. “Now come and be seated, and the meal will begin.” As the children moved toward the end of the dais to reach their places, Lord Alain clapped his hands, and a young lad moved forward with a towel over one arm, carrying a laver of water.
Automatically, Claire began to follow them, until she heard the first titters of laughter. Then a tall, angular man she would later learn was Sir Gautier, the seneschal, stepped forward to intercept her.
“Nursemaids do not sit at the high table, girl,” he said in thickly accented English. His gaunt face was scornful. “Your place is below the salt.” He pointed a bony finger behind her, to where two trestle tables stretched out at right angles to the dais.
He was right, of course. Her chagrin was so great she wanted to run from the great hall. She was miserably aware of the low hum of amusement as she reversed her direction and headed away from the dais. She knew very well a humble nursemaid did not presume to sit above the salt with the lord and his family, but for that one vital moment she had forgotten her role, and the habit of a lifetime had directed her footsteps toward the high table. As the daughter of the lord of Coverly, she had sat at the high table as soon as she was old enough not to disgrace the Coverly name—except when her father had been entertaining many important guests.
But how could she have made such a stupid mistake when it was vital that she convince everyone at Hawkswell Castle that she was what she appeared to be? She must never allow her concentration to slip again, not even for an instant!
Claire found the last vacant seat at the far end of one of the lower tables. She would be sharing a trencher with a man she recognized as one of the soldiers who had been riding with Lord Alain when she had first encountered him this morning.
“Thought ye were to sit at table with the lord, did ye?” he asked in passable English, grinning, as it became clear she would have to sit there.
“I didn’t know no better—I’ve never served in a castle afore,” she snapped. “There’s no need t’ make sport o’ me!”
He raised a brow. “Rather haughty for a nursemaid, aren’t you, my fair one?”
Quickly reproving herself for answering the grinning fool as he deserved, rather than as a runaway English serf woman would, she ducked her head in apparent humility. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m just ‘shamed of my mistake, ’tis all. Ye don’t mind if I share yer trencher, do ye, sir?”
Her fawning apology apparently convinced the soldier to forgive her, for his grin reappeared and he patted the place next to him.
“Sit down, and welcome, my fair one,” he said magnanimously. “I’m no sir, not being knighted and all. Just plain Hugh le Gros, they call me—that means Hugh the Large,” he explained, winking at her. “’Tis to distinguish me from Hugh la Jaune-Tête, Hugh the Yellowhead,” he added, pointing to another soldier seated halfway down the table, who had a thick thatch of tow-colored hair. “He’s the captain-at-arms. Here, let me give you some coney stew,” he said, grabbing a serving ladle nearby and dipping it into a large bowl within reach of his massive, hairy arms. “’Tis not as fine as the venison they’ll be having at the lord’s table, where ye wanted to go, but I reckon ’tis well enough.”
Claire thought about upending her wooden bowl, now full of the stew, on this grinning lout’s head for reminding her of her humiliating mistake, but controlled herself. She was going to have to grow a thicker skin, she decided. She said, “Thank ye, Hugh. And I am Haesel.”
“Where did ye come from, Haesel?” he asked. As she hesitated, wondering what was safe to tell him, he winked at her. “Confess, my fair one—I hear the lilt of the marches in your speech. Did you live near Shrewsbury?”
If he didn’t stop calling her his fair one, she would pour her bowl of stew on his head, and damn the consequences. Did he fancy himself an authority on accents, as well as irresistible to women? His guess on her origins couldn’t be farther wrong! But it little mattered where this Norman idiot thought she was from, so she let him think he was right.
Pretending to be absorbed in the food, which was humble but hunger-satisfying fare, she avoided further conversation for a while. Every so often she glanced up at the high table to check on the children, but apparently Ivy had taught them well, for they ate quietly and with good manners, wiping their faces on folded squares of linen and sharing their goblet fairly.
Then her eyes strayed to their father, but he seemed determined to remain in deep conversation with the the chaplain on his right. Never once did he look in her direction.
Saints, he was a handsome man, especially now that he had apparently bathed. His hair, that shade of brown so dark it usually looked black, gleamed in the candlelight, which also highlighted the stark, well-chiseled planes of his face. It was a warrior’s face, strong and proud, with nothing coarse about it. How could Julia have dismissed this man as merely swarthy?
“A handsome man, the lord, you’re thinking?” said the buxom, florid-faced woman on her left, giving her a playful jab in the ribs. “I’m Annis, the laundress, by the by,” she added with a friendly grin.
Startled at the familiarity, Claire smiled weakly. “I’m Haesel.” Claire supposed she should be grateful that someone at this table full of servants was speaking to her, besides the obnoxious Hugh, but she found herself blushing at the thought that the woman had caught her staring at Lord Alain. “Yes, I guess ye could say the lord be handsome enough,” Claire said, shrugging as if she couldn’t be less interested, “but I wasn’t staring at the lord. I was looking at the priest,” she lied. “I…I thought he looked like someone I knew, ’tis all…”
“Ye don’t say! Father Gregory hasn’t been the castle’s priest but a fortnight or so, after Father Peter’s sudden dying, so perhaps ye did.”
Father Gregory was a comfortable, rotund man of middle height and age, with a ready, benign smile that he had trained right now at the lord.
“It’s just as well ye didn’t have any ideas about the lord, though. He’s a cold fish, is Lord Alain,” said Annis consideringly, chewing on a crust of coarse dark bread. “Has been ever since that flighty wife of his died of lung fever, God rest her useless soul.” Annis crossed herself but rolled her eyes at the same time.
Claire was still struggling not to give the laundress a sharp retort for her disparagement of poor dead Julia when the woman went on. “He’s not completely unnatural, though. When his lust moves him, he visits my sister, Gylda, in the village, so you see what I mean that it’s no use hopin’ that ye’ll warm his bed.”
“Your sister be his leman?” Claire said, conscious of a sinking feeling within her, and wondering why. It mattered not to her whose bed he warmed!
“That makes it sound more regular than ’tis, but I suppose if any woman is, ’tis Gylda,” Annis said consideringly. “He doesn’t visit near often enough to suit Gylda, though,” she added with an earthy chuckle. “She’s a hotblooded one, but then she’s younger than me, o’ course. Nay, he don’t go there but once a fortnight at most, she says, but when he does get randy, Gylda says he is a good lover…” She winked.
“Well, I wish yer sister joy of ‘im,” Claire said, injecting as much vehemence into her tone as she could. “I got no use for fine lords, myself. Pining for such as him’d be like pining for the moon. I know my place, I do. I’ll just take care of his children and eat his bread, and that’s enough for me!”
“That’s a wise girl,” Annis approved, “but ye’re young, ye know. Don’t be too quick to give all men the cold shoulder. It gets cold when the winter winds whip around these stone walls—ye might be glad of a lusty man whose bed ye can steal away to when yer charges be asleep,” Annis counseled.
Hugh had apparently become tired of being neglected while Claire was talking to the laundress, for as soon as their conversation lagged he touched her hand. “Would ye like some of that cheese?” Not waiting for her answer, he cut off a hunk with the same grease-smeared knife he had used to bring chunks of coney to his thick lips.
Trying not to gag, Claire managed to thank him, and pretended to chew it appreciatively.
“Ah, a hungry little pigeon ye be,” he commented as she took the cheese he’d cut for her with his knife. “Mayhap ye have other hungers too, my fair one? Hungers we could satisfy later, say, with a stroll into the barn? I promise you, I am not called Hugh the Large for nothing,” he whispered, then nuzzled her neck with lips wet with wine while simultaneously placing his hand on her knee.
She recoiled and pushed his hand away. “I’ll not go anywhere with the likes of ye,” she said coldly. “I’ll be busy with the children. And I’ll thank ye not to treat me like a slut, Hugh le Gros.”
Hugh was all loud indignation. “Don’t she put on airs, and her naught but a runaway serf? There’s plenty o’ women who’d be glad of my favors, I’ll have ye know!”
Claire shrank down, aware that everyone at their table was watching the little byplay.
“That’s telling him, Haesel,” Annis said approvingly. “Hugh fancies himself quite the lover, but ye can just ignore him. Stop bothering the girl, Hugh! Can’t ye see she don’t like ye? Now you’ve done it, ye Norman bag o’ wind! The lord be starin’!”
Claire was helpless to prevent herself from looking up at the dais. Sure enough, Lord Alain, who had not spared a glance for the servants’ tables throughout the entire meal, was now looking directly at her. Their gazes locked.
His face was an unreadable mask. What was he thinking? Had he seen his man-at-arms pawing her? More important, had he seen her push Hugh away, or had his attention only been attracted when Hugh raised his voice? Would he think she was a boisterous, troublemaking trollop, unfit to care for his children?
Impaled by those inscrutable dark eyes, she was unable to look away as the sweet wafers were brought in, signaling the last course of the meal. Thanks be to Jésu, she’d soon be able to escape the hall with her charges.
All at once Lord Alain arose, ignoring the wafers that his squire was proffering first to him, and stepped down off the dais. He was heading straight for her!
Hugh became suddenly intent on the wine goblet they had shared.
Holy Mary, was he coming to rebuke her personally? Worse, was she about to be snatched up by the neck of her coarse kirtle and thrown bodily out of Hawkswell Castle? Claire prayed to become suddenly invisible—anything to escape his wrath! But he strode closer and closer, his eyes still upon her. Her heart had begun to thump like a drum.
Claire closed her eyes and waited for the cold lash of his voice. Would he believe her when she protested that she had only been trying to avoid the lecherous Hugh’s advances?
A slight breeze caressed her flaming face, and, opening her eyes, she saw that Lord Alain had swept right on past her without so much as a word.
She was sick with relief.
“Did ye see my lord’s face, Haesel? Like a storm cloud, it was! Hugh, ye fool, I thought he were going t’ snatch ye up and throw ye into the moat—didn’t ye, Haesel?” Annis said with a hearty chuckle, jabbing Claire in the ribs again.
“I—I didn’t know,” Claire managed. “I don’t know the man yet. I thought ’twas me he was angry at.”
