Catherine Coulter (6 page)

“Did he read and write?”

“Oh aye, and he spoke beautiful Latin, at least that’s what Lady Anne told everyone.”

Merry thought about this for a moment. “If you would consent to it, I would be Father Adal’s bastard. Surely God will not mind, since our cause is just. I read and write too, you see, and thus that would explain it, since he would have taught me. What think you? Will you agree to it?”

“Hmmm, Father Adal came after Lord Garron left, mayhap some five, maybe six years ago. Why not? Lisle, we will see what the girl can do. If she fails, it doesn’t much matter.”

“Thank you. Thank you both.”

“We will tell the others,” said Lisle.

Merry hugged both of them, then rubbed her hands together, her list already clear in her mind.

The girl, Miggins thought, fair to bristled with energy.

She laughed when Merry said, “Now it’s time to begin setting things aright.”

Miggins said, “I’ll bet old Tupper’s last tooth that Mordrid stole Lady Anne’s stockings far before the Retribution came.”

“Who is Mordrid?”

“She was one of Lord Arthur’s lemans, fair to bursting with arrogance, she was. Ah, I shouldna said that.” Miggins shook her head at herself. “She were taken in the Retribution, a bad thing, a terrible thing.”

Merry wanted to know more about the Retribution, but now wasn’t the time. “Miggins, Lisle, gather all the people who are strong enough and bring them here to the great hall. I want to know what each person’s job was before the Black Demon came.”

Twelve women and ten old men stood in front of her, all of them alive, Tupper told her, because they simply fell over and pretended to die and thus the soldiers ignored them and they survived. None of the women were young, Lisle and Miggins the oldest. The girls, Lisle said, crossing herself, grief in her voice, had been ravished and taken by the Demon’s soldiers.

Miggins spoke to the group of pitiful men and women, then pointed to Merry and gave her each name.

M
erry nodded to each person, repeated each name, and asked all what they could do. There was a lot of experience standing in front of her, thank St. Anthony’s arrow-pierced liver, and faces that were simply too weary and too hungry to much care.

Merry saw some distrust, she wasn’t blind, and surprise on those faces that hadn’t noticed her before. What could she say?

She could but try. She smiled at them. “I know I am a stranger to you. I know you have no reason to trust that I will set everything aright. I know you don’t like to keep silent, for Lord Garron is honorable and just, and he is the new Earl of Wareham, but if you will keep the truth about me to yourselves, if you will but say that I am Father Adal’s byblow, just for a little while, I give you this vow. I will make this great hall clean and help Lord Garron make Wareham prosperous again, if you will give me a chance.”

“Why don’t ye jes’ tell Lord Garron the truth?”

Merry looked at the wizened old man she didn’t really think was all that old. “If I did tell him the truth, he would have to return me to my home. I would be forced to wed a monster. I must stay hidden for a while until—” Until what? She didn’t see how everything could resolve itself in her favor. She drew in a deep breath. “Until the king goes to my home to take charge.”

“Be ye so important the king hisself would stick in his nose?” This from a woman so thin she looked ready to cave in on herself. Ah, but there was a bit of vinegar and wonder in her voice, and Merry smiled.

“Aye, I suppose I am, but no matter. I’m here and I need you to keep silent so I may keep my vow. Until a short time ago, Wareham was a great castle. I believe that all of us can work to make it great again.”

If she managed to succeed, then what would she do? What if the king did indeed stick in his royal nose, what would change? She would still be sold to a stranger, it was the way things were done. She would have no say in the matter. She saw Jason of Brennan in her mind’s eye and felt bile rise in her throat. But her mother wasn’t here. Jason of Brennan wasn’t here. Merry realized in that moment that she felt as much hope as she hoped this pathetic group of people would soon feel.

They were speaking amongst themselves, grumbling, clearly not certain what to do. She said over them, “Listen, all of you are skilled, but you are weak and hungry and everything has looked hopeless for so long, you cannot see anything good happening, but I swear to you, the worst is over. Know that Lord Garron will bring food in a matter of hours, more than enough food for all of us, do not doubt it. I know you cannot imagine that your bellies will ever be filled again, but I swear you’ll be full to bursting by the end of this day. I swear all of you will have some laughter too by the end of this day.”
And maybe even some hope
, she added silently.

And Merry was certain of that, for when Garron set out to accomplish something, she knew to the soles of Lady Anne’s big slippers that he did it. “Bullic, you assisted old Clerc, the cook who was killed. You will now direct the cooking. Since feeding all of us is the most important task before us, let’s look at the cooking shed first. We want to be able to prepare the game the moment Lord Garron brings it into the keep.

“Keep faith with me, that’s all I ask. Now, I also know you are all weak from hunger, so we will do everything very slowly, and rest often. At the very least, we have water.”

She studied their faces as she stepped back. There was more discussion, some rumblings, but soon even the creaky old men began to nod. She even saw a smile on two faces, and an old man shouted, “Let us do it! Let us make Wareham great again!” There was a weak cheer, but it sounded wonderful to Merry’s ears. Merry felt like shouting to the blackened beams with relief. She looked out over all the people, and saw straighter backs, higher heads, not a surprise really. Now everyone had purpose, they knew they would survive.

As soon as everyone was busy collecting cleaning rags and hobbling brooms together, Merry accompanied Bullic to the cooking shed. The Black Demon had searched for Arthur’s silver coins even here. Crockery was smashed, cooking tables overturned and cleaved with axes. Filth was everywhere. It smelled terrible. Merry assigned Bullic and five other men to find wooden fragments large enough to make spits to cook the game in the huge great hall fireplace. The huge beams overhead were black, she saw, but the flames would kill the smell of rot and grime. She set the women to work inside the cooking shed, mending plates and platters, and cleaning the few cookpots that survived.

The keep itself was outrageously dirty—the stinking reeds were filled with spoiled food, bones, and dead rats. There were no fresh reeds to cover the floors, so Merry had the stone floor swept out, and all the refuse tossed onto the midden.

It was a dreadful job, and done very slowly, since everyone was so weak. Exhaustion was the enemy. Merry called a halt to the work many times and sent people to rest in the inner bailey. And she encouraged them endlessly. Finally, the great hall began to look less wretched, and the smell was no longer quite so bad.

Since the dozen trestle tables had all been smashed, leaving nothing but sharp stakes of wood, she sent the men out to find large boards to set upon stones gathered from the destroyed soldier’s barracks. They managed to cobble together ten low tables.

“ ’ Twas a good idea, mistress,” Tupper said, and patted her arm.

Merry grinned at him.

When Garron returned three hours later with a huge boar tied to a pole, loud cheering filled the inner bailey. Garron was their hero.

“The cook, Old Clerc, died in the Retribution,” Miggins told him, “but yer not to worry, my lord.”

“Why not?”

“We have Bullic. And our little Merry can direct him, she knows what to do.”

“Who is our little Merry?”

“She, poor little mite, is the daughter of Wareham’s priest, Father Adal, who died in the Retribution from a knife in his chest. He was learned, he was, and thus he taught her to read and write. Lady Anne gave her household instruction before she died. Ye will see what Merry has accomplished whilst ye were gone.” And Miggins gave him a big toothy smile and hoped she had not overpraised.

Garron didn’t change expression, and he knew a lie when it hit him in the nose, but what part of what she’d said was a lie? He didn’t know, and at the moment, he didn’t care. Facing the enormity of what was ahead, he simply dismissed it, and smiled over at the girl, who kept her head down, as if afraid of him, or afraid he would see too much. He wanted to ask her why she hadn’t done anything until this morning, but again, he let it go for now. Maybe, like the others, she hadn’t bothered because she’d had no hope of survival.

“Ye go get the beast’s blood off ye, my lord. Merry will see to the food.”

Once Garron had stripped off his clothes in the inner bailey, rubbed himself all over with their single chunk of soap, Gilpin poured a pail of water from the castle well over his head. Garron shuddered and shook himself like a mongrel. “Tupper told me the devils missed this one bucket. He found it beneath a thick branch of a pear tree in the orchard. They’d chopped down the tree but missed the bucket.” Garron and his men shared the soap, except for Pali, who said there was only a sliver left and that wouldn’t even wash one leg, and he smelled sweet, did he not?

Garron strongly doubted there would be any more soap to be found in the keep. He prayed one of the women knew how to make soap. This girl, Merry—the priest’s bastard daughter—he also prayed she was as competent as old Miggins had assured him she was. First things first. Now there was enough food for everyone.

Garron hummed as he dressed himself in the clean clothes Gilpin shook out and gave to him. He paused a moment, realizing he heard men and women speaking, then a shout, even a short laugh. The silence was over, he thought, pleased. Where was the girl Merry?

B
ullic was in charge of roasting the boar steaks. Merry watched him show six men and four women how to cut the meat. While he gave instruction, she saw him swell with pride. He himself spit all the steaks, grinning maniacally, and giving his cohorts orders without a pause, which no one seemed to mind. Everyone, she saw, moved more quickly, their heads higher, their voices stronger because now there was food brought to them by their new lord, and they knew their stomachs would soon stop cramping from hunger.

She grinned when she heard Miggins tell people how Merry was a young angel sent from God to help them, and they were to treat her well, and they must not forget—her voice dropped to a whisper—her name was Merry and she was Father Adal’s bastard daughter brought with him when he’d come to Wareham some six summers ago. Who was her mother? Who cared, Miggins said, and shrugged her scrappy, thin shoulders.

Flames roared in the huge fireplace. The smell of searing meat filled the great hall. Those few who’d grumbled now smiled. No one cared who exactly she was or where she came from. They might care in two days, but not now. She imagined they’d be willing to swear she was sent by Queen Eleanor herself if they had enough to eat. She smiled at that, remembering how she’d rubbed the queen’s back to relieve the aches from her child-swollen belly.

Soon, the smells—divine as baking figs, according to one old man—filled every nostril, and made all the trapped blue smoke well worth the watery eyes.

At last, Miggins in the lead, followed by Merry and her workers, carried the meat, still sizzling, stacked upon various small slabs of wood, and set them upon the planks placed carefully atop the stacked stones. No one worried about sitting on the hard stone floor.

There was instant silence, then sounds of chewing, and groans of pleasure.

Garron didn’t mind that the girl served him and his men last. He watched her as she brought a large plank piled high with meat to where he and his men sat cross-legged, and eased it down. This plank was wider since it was, after all, the lord’s plank.

A priest’s byblow? He wanted to question her more closely, ask her why she wasn’t starving like the others, why she hadn’t been ravished and taken by the Black Demon’s soldiers, but he smelled the meat, and realized he was hungrier than he’d been just the moment before.

He breathed in deeply. “You have done well.”

“Bullic found a bit of salt and sprinkled it on the meat.”

“I like salt. Now tell me, your name is Merry?”

“Aye, my lord.”

“ ’Tis an odd name. Your full name is Merriam?”

“Nay, simply Merry. I was told my father was endowed with a dour nature until I was born and smiled up at him, and thus he named me Merry.”

“Your mother was a castle servant?”

A castle servant? Why not?
She nodded, marveled at how a little practice made it easier to lie. “She wove beautiful cloth.”

“She died?”

“Aye, when I was born.”

“I am sorry your father was killed in the Retribution. His name was Father Adal?”

She bowed her head, and merely nodded. She was aware of Gilpin staring hard at her, puzzlement writ clearly on his young face. Did he recognize her as the boy he’d given bread to the night before? Thankfully, Aleric handed him a steak speared on his knife. She watched Gilpin inhale the magnificent scent, and quickly transfer the steak to his own knife.

“Where were you last night?”

“Miggins wasn’t certain you weren’t as bad as the Black Demon. She insisted I remain hidden until she was sure of your intentions.”

“So now she is certain?”

“Aye, she is.”

“You weren’t here when I was.”

She shook her head. “My father brought me from another keep farther to the south.”

“What was the name of the keep?”

It came out of her mouth without thought. “Valcourt.”

“Valcourt? That is a very rich holding. Why did your father leave?”