Domning, Denise (11 page)

Lord Graistan rubbed a hand against his unshaven chin and considered his brother's words. Aye, she was doing a fine job driving his wardrober mad with her changes. "Tell me, Boudewyn, how do you find Graistan keep?"

"All seems well to me, my lord. For myself, food's better than it's been in a long while."

Temric gave a short, harsh laugh. "Then, you'll be less pleased with what you'll find in yon pot, but go eat your fill. I'll call if there's to be a return message."

The messenger gave a jaunty salute and went to join the ring of men sitting about a fire just outside his lord's tent while Rannulf waved his man to a stool at the other side of the brazier. "Stay a moment. I have need of your strength to face yet another of my esteemed wardrober's harangues. Temric, what is she doing to my home?"

His master-at-arms only grinned wolfishly. "Cleaning house, no doubt."

"Cleaning or destroying?" his lord retorted, and opened the leather packet. He chose the folded parchment marked with Hugo's seal and read aloud, "'Greetings to my most feared lord from your humble servant on this the eleventh day of March, Year of Our Lord eleven hundred ninety four. Your new lady, may the Lord God bless your union, is most adept and conscientious in the direction of the menial servants. I seek to keep you abreast of her doings in the case that you wish to lend your guidance and wisdom in her efforts. You must also know when she extends herself beyond her ability.

" 'Just this day I have learned that over the last week your lady, may the Lord God preserve her, has had Lord Gilliam promise in your name payment to merchants within town for purchases beyond the present means of this keep. These expenditures have been made without my approval or foreknowledge.

" 'I did then beg to explain to her why such purchases could not be made without consultation. Rather than comprehending, she requested that I show her the account book.'"

Rannulf leaned back with a laugh and glanced up. "Can you imagine the look on his face?" he said, then continued reading. "'It is aberration enough that she reads and writes. Do not allow her to insult the Lord God by letting her meddle with what is a man's work. For a score and ten years I have been your family's faithful servant and you have come to know me as a careful man with your best interest always in my heart and mind. Never have you or your father before you felt it necessary to question my ability to keep the accounts for Graistan.

" 'I most humbly await your decision as regards this matter. Your devoted servant, Hugo, son of Walter, wardrober to Rannulf FitzHenry, Lord Graistan.'"

The same Lord Graistan picked up the other message. The wax was blank as she had neither access to his seal nor the time to have had her own made. He briefly held his knife's blade over the brazier. The warm steel slipped easily beneath the wax. This simple motion rekindled the haunting memory of how their bodies had melded that night.

He flushed with a sudden heat. Like it was yestereven, not over a month ago, he recalled the sweetness of her as she lay beneath him. His fingers curled as though he were once again holding the womanly fullness of her breasts. A tremor shot through him at the memory of her soft touch on his nape. Then, he remembered the deep hurt in her eyes when he had drawn away. His knife slipped from his fingers.

"Rannulf?"

"I am a fool, brother," he said, turning to look at his elder, if bastard, sibling. "I should never have married again."

"So you have said," Temric replied gently, then paused. "She is a good woman."

"You know this by virtue of a single ride with her?" His sarcasm was biting.

"Just as you know it from your ride with her."

He jerked as though struck. "Damn," he whispered. As usual, his brother went straight to the heart of the matter with unerring truth. Silence lay heavily between them for a moment, then he spoke. "Temric, do not leave me, I need you. What is it your mother offers now that I have not offered to you these past years?"

His brother's laugh was rich with irony. "Certainly none of the heartache and work that would come with the lands you keep trying to force on me. And, I'd have barely settled in before you'd be finding me a wife as well. Who knows," he said with a shrug, "perhaps I will find my mother's life is not to my taste and be back begging at your door once again."

"Think on it. Those lands are in Normandy. You could start afresh there, if you wish your past to be unknown to your neighbors."

"No, Rannulf. My response to your offer has not changed in seventeen years. Leave it be."

"I cannot. You are no merchant, you were trained as a knight, just as I was. Our father meant that you should have those lands, just as he meant for Gilliam to have an inheritance."

"You put words in the mouth of a dead man."

"So, he is dead; I am not. Why should you not accept what I offer?"

Angry golden lights exploded to life in his brother's eyes, smothering their usual placid brown color. "If our father wanted me to be more than his unrecognized bastard son, he would have remembered me." He leapt to his feet and stormed out of the tent.

Rannulf stared at the fold of parchment in his hands. As much as he needed Temric, he could no more force his brother into acceptance than he could ease the hurt he'd done to his wife that night. At last, he opened the missive and began to read:

" 'My most feared lord and husband, I, with a heart full of trepidation, do recommend myself to you on this the eleventh day of March in the Year of Our Lord, eleven hundred ninety-four. In this last month I have been most busily occupied coming to know Graistan. Your folk have been helpful in all ways with this task of mine. It is our hope that you will be pleased to see what has been accomplished when by the grace of our Dear Lord you return to us.

" 'Early in my residence here, I didst become aware of shortages in our foodstuffs. To that end I have asked Sir Gilliam to purchase from local merchants what is needed.'"

He skimmed her list of purchases and their costs. The supplies were mundane, the prices average. What stunned him was that these items were not presently on hand within the keep.

He frowned. Could Hugo's hysterical letters be an attempt to hide wrongdoing on his part, not his usual pompous jealousy? While this seemed impossible in one so loyal, what harm could come from a new eye on his work? Was his wife capable of such a task?

He looked back down at her letter. Her script was small, neatly formed, and without flourish or embellishment. The purchases were itemized, all weights and costs were carefully noted. She'd certainly had some schooling in keeping accounts.

" 'When I did question Sir Gilliam with regards to this situation, I was informed that he had been your steward only a short time and knew of no reason for shortages. He didst then visit your many holdings to gain an understanding of their contributions of this past year so a true accounting could be made. At the same time he has asked your bailiffs to speculate on the size of your portion in this coming harvest since the planting has far enough advanced to make such a projection possible.'"

How odd. In Gilliam's message, he'd said she'd sent him out to gather the information. Her words made it sound as though it had been the boy's idea. Was she being kind or self-effacing?

" 'I do most humbly petition you to allow me access to your treasury to make these accountings. If you doubt my ability, I am capable to the task as my dear lady abbess did ask me to work with her cellaress, and I found in those tasks great satisfaction. We here at Graistan all wish you well in your endeavor and pray that you may return as soon as the Lord God will allow. Your most dutiful servant and wife, Rowena, Lady Graistan.'"

His eyes caught and held on the word
dutiful.
She used the word to mock him, to remind him of how he'd rejected her. His fingers dug into the sheepskin; his stomach churned angrily at her audacity. But she'd written on beneath her signature.

" 'I must recommend Sir Gilliam to you for all his help and assistance regarding my concerns. He has been forthcoming with all that I have needed and most anxious to make certain that those things that belong to you are well tended and secure. Although there has been little threat here to require his strong arm, what challenges he has faced have been swiftly resolved in our favor. Also, your bailiffs send word that his judgments are well received.'"

Rage blazed to life in his heart. Her economical words did not hide the thrust of her meaning. She taunted him by pretending she loved his brother in revenge for his treatment of her on their wedding night. He shoved the letter into the brazier. It exploded into stinking flame.

It took three wineskins and a week's time to wash away the taste of her words. When he had recovered enough to write his response, he wrote to Gilliam and sent Temric with it to be his eyes and ears at Graistan.

By the last week of March the keep and its confines were completely cleaned and refurbished. Even the stables and barns were scrubbed, re-thatched, and whitewashed. The storerooms, once barren, had been swept clean and were being refilled with newly purchased foodstuffs.

A rare afternoon sun streamed into the solar, warming the room and bringing the painted birds into vibrant life. Rowena watched the courtyard while she waited for Hugo Wardrober to appear. Chickens scratched and pecked near the stables while a gaggle of geese waddled out the inner gate and toward better pickings in the bailey. With growing irritation, she turned back toward the room. A half an hour had passed since she'd sent for him.

Sir Gilliam and Temric were engrossed in their discussion of the siege of Nottingham. Her brother by marriage sprawled in one of her small chairs, his long legs stretched out before him. His favorite alaunt bitch lay curled at his feet, her tail thumping the floor in the pleasure of being near her master. Her husband's master-at-arms stood stiffly at the hearth, still wearing his hauberk, cloak, and boots as though he did not intend to stay long.

"My lady, did you call for me?" In his finest robe and studded belt, Hugo posed arrogantly at the door to her solar. His features were pulled into an impatient sneer, his bald pate held high, his attitude leaving no doubt that he'd delayed his arrival as long as possible. He glanced around the room and saw Temric. "Ah, so you have received the reply to your request."

"Come within," she said flatly and, without waiting to see whether he did so or not, seated herself opposite the young knight.

The master-at-arms produced a single, folded sheet of parchment. "This message is directed by my lord to his steward—"

"Ha, he does not even address the message to you," the wardrober interrupted.

"Enough." The steel in Sir Gilliam's voice instantly silenced the man.

"However," the soldier then continued, "he suggests that the first portion of the letter, which deals with your requests to him be read in the presence of Hugo Wardrober so no misunderstandings might be had. The second portion is a private message to Sir Gilliam." He handed the sealed parchment to Gilliam, then retreated to stand behind the young man's chair, his expression closed as always.

"Here, you read it." Graistan's illiterate steward handed the missive to her. She had yet to understand why her husband would give a job that demanded education to a man that could neither read nor write. The young knight would be far better employed as the castellan of some small keep.

She took it, smoothed open the parchment, and read: " 'To my brother and steward, Gilliam FitzHenry, greetings:' " The large, clear script was easy to follow even though it curved downward along the page. Had he written it or was this a clerk's doing? " 'It is my hope that this message finds you in good health as yours found me. It has come to my attention that my lady has spoken in my name to local merchants in order to purchase supplies for our keep. I am loath to believe as some would have me that you allowed her such excess without need. If you deem these purchases to be sensible, then she is to be indulged.

" 'If my lady wife desires to review the accounts, so be it. To that end, I command my master of the wardrobe to give his lady free access to the accounts.' "

Hugo gasped. "Nay, you have read that to your own advantage." He grabbed the parchment from her fingers and scanned the words. "Nay, my lord, you cannot!" he cried out in protest, as if his lord sat in the room rather than far away to the north of them. Then, realizing the futility of what he did, he shoved the letter back at his lady. "Never," he spat out, fair stuttering over the word, "have either Lord Henry or Lord Rannulf questioned my work. Now, you, a mere woman—"

"Nonetheless, Hugo"—Gilliam's growl interrupted him—"you have heard my brother's command."

Still sputtering in indignation, he glared at them all. "I do this because he commands me to, and I will do it only under certain conditions. Only in my presence may you enter the treasury so I can see you do not mutilate my many years of work. I'll have no ink stains or ragged corners torn away by your clumsiness. Nor will you be allowed to alter any figure or make any notations. The only hand that writes within those books is mine." He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, muttering the world must surely be coming to an end when a husband let his wife into his accounts.

The young knight laughed at his receding back, the sound short and surprised. "I never knew the man had so much passion. Is there more to the letter?"

"Aye." She opened it further and continued reading. " 'The siege here proceeds as we had expected. Nottingham is as strong a keep as any in England. Machines have come from Leicester and Windsor

and men from every reach in realm. Despite this, we still sit and wait, unable to crack the nut and rid it of its poisoned meat.

" 'Our king, may God preserve him, has returned to our shores. It is hoped that he will soon be at Nottingham to bring this action to its rightful end. Both Marlborough and Lancaster have fallen. It is said that the constable of St. Michael's Mount died of fright when he learned his monarch had arrived. Neither Tickhill nor Nottingham are so easily taken.