Elizabeth Chadwick (42 page)

Whittington Castle, Spring 1206

Dusting her hands, Maude eyed with satisfaction and disgust the pile of winter floor rushes that now occupied the midden heap at the far end of the castle ward. All morning the maids had been sweeping and the men shoveling to remove the successive layers of detritus laid down between November and March. The winter had been so bitterly cold that when the rushes needed changing it had been warmer to throw a fresh layer on top than get rid of the old. By April, it had been like walking on a springy, soft midden layer. The sight of maggots this morning had finally galvanized her into acting.

The yard fowl were gorging themselves on the unexpected windfall so at least there should be a glut of eggs out of this and a good supply of meat for the table, Maude thought, eyeing the rank mound.

The floor of stamped earth had to be purged with ashes and lye before a new layer of fresh green rushes was laid and scattered liberally with toadflax to keep away the fleas, and lavender to improve the smell. At least the hall would be pleasant to welcome Fulke’s return—whenever that might be. He had been busy since the spring thaw, visiting their own manors far and wide, dispensing justice, receiving reports from reeves and stewards. Occasionally letters would arrive, written in his own hand, which was bold but difficult to read. They were hardly the stuff of troubadours. For a man who could wield a sword with such rare artistry, he had very little skill with the pen. He was well. He hoped she was well. He hoped that the children were well. The last such missive had arrived three days ago from Wiltshire and left Maude torn between fury and amusement.

An infant’s shriek of delight made her turn to see Hawise pushing her little brother in an empty handcart that had been used for taking the rushes to the midden. The sunlight made a flaxen nimbus of his hair and sparked Hawise’s curls with fire.

“Have a care!” Maude warned.

Hawise looked toward her mother and the cart tipped over, spilling its occupant. The shrieks of delight became roars of shock. Maude ran over to them and snatched little Fulkin into her arms.

“I didn’t mean to.” Hawise looked guiltily up at her mother.

Maude suppressed the urge to shout at the child. Hawise grew more like her uncle William every day. She was impulsive, stubborn, and frequently in trouble. You couldn’t just sit her down with a straw doll like Jonetta or a piece of embroidery like Clarice and expect her to behave quietly.

“I know you didn’t,” she said, trying to remain calm. Apart from a bump on the head, Fulkin appeared to be all right. She pushed his hair off his brow and kissed him. He twisted in her arms, the fall forgotten, and clamored to be put back in the cart.

“Hawise, push!” he commanded. Short on vocabulary he might be, but already he had his priorities.

Maude restrained herself. It was foolish to cushion her children in a fleece of maternal devotion so thick that it smothered them. Her father’s wife had borne a son last year and so great was Juliana’s pride and anxiety in the child that she coddled and cooed over him beyond Maude’s bearing. So did her father and that was difficult for Maude who had endured his indifference during her own miserable childhood.

Sighing, she turned from the midden heap and tramped back to the hall where the maids had begun brushing the floor with the powerful soap mixture, the smell so pungent that it made the eyes water. Clarice, as usual, was in the midst of the proceedings and thoroughly enjoying herself.

“Child, you astonish me,” Maude said as she took up a broom and began sweeping beside Clarice. If you were going to ask the maids to work hard at such a task, then you had to show willing yourself even if you loathed the toil. Besides, every pair of hands made the purgatory shorter. “Why do you take such a delight in these chores?”

Clarice puffed a stray wisp of light brown hair out of her eyes and gave her serene smile. “I like to make things better,” she said. “I like to mend and make good. The hall was becoming horrible. When we’ve finished, it will look lovely.”

A saint in the making, Maude thought, although Clarice did not have strong religious leanings. She was wearing a large cross on her breast at the moment, made of silver and set with garnets, but that was not the result of a particularly devout nature. The piece had been willed to her by Hubert Walter who had died of a seizure not long after Fulke had regained Whittington. Maude had been left a similar item, set with amethysts, and a Psalter with an ivory cover. She always bore it to mass and said prayers for Hubert…and for Theo. She and Fulke owed both men a debt they could never repay. Not that Theo would ever have acknowledged that a debt existed. And Hubert would have brushed the suggestion aside with an avuncular, if cynical, laugh and the statement that no one ever did a good turn for nothing. She and Fulke were helping to assure his place in heaven through the charity he had shown to them. But still, in her heart, she acknowledged their generosity and made a point of special prayers for their souls.

By noon, the floor had been thoroughly scrubbed and left to dry while everyone dined around the cooking pot in the courtyard. The cook and his attendants had prepared a vegetable pottage thickened with barley and accompanied by plenty of fresh white bread. Everyone was ravenous and the food disappeared in short order. Then it was back to work. Rushes that had been cut the previous week and spread to dry were carried into the hall and strewn on the floor in thick swatches. Maude set the children to scattering herbs, even little Fulkin, who thought it was great fun to grasp pudgy fistfuls of dried leaves and throw them on the floor.

Leaving the children under the watchful eyes of Gracia and Clarice, Maude went in search of the dairy maid to confer with her about cheeses but stopped short as she entered the courtyard and saw the troop of horsemen riding over the ditch. The glitter of mail, the dried lines of salt on the necks of hard-ridden horses. The panting wolfhounds either side of the leading bay stallion.

“Fulke!” The word was a soft gasp. She was suddenly aware that she was wearing her oldest gown and that her hair was bundled out of the way in a tatty kerchief.

He drew rein and dismounted in the easy motion that she knew so well and handed the reins to his waiting squire.

“Fulke!” This time her cry was louder and she ran to him. He caught her in his arms and swung her round. They kissed and were almost knocked down by the dogs. A grinning Ivo seized their collars and hauled them away.

“I wasn’t expecting you, why didn’t you send word!” Maude gasped as their lips parted. Her kerchief had slipped. She began to adjust it, but he was quicker, plucking it from her head. Her braids tumbled down, heavy as sun-whitened barley.

A rueful expression crossed his face. “It was easier to ride than write,” he said. “Besides, I had but recently sent you a letter.”

Maude’s expression mirrored his. “Is that what it was?” she sniffed.

Fulke flushed. “I’m no Jean de Rampaigne. I have no skill with a pen,” he said. “I thought you would know already what was in my heart.”

“Knowing is not the same as being told,” she said.

Fulke’s lips twitched. “If you promise to cease scolding me, I promise to make up for lost time.”

“I will promise nothing,” she said, “at least not until you have washed away the stink of your journey.”

The amusement was in his eyes now as well. He looked her up and down from untidy braids to smirched hem of gown. “Does not the Bible say that before you criticize you should examine your own faults?”

“Oh, come within,” Maude laughed, chagrined that he had got the better of her and self-conscious about her state of dishabille. “We have been laying new rushes in the hall. There isn’t much to eat above pottage and bread, but at least the surroundings will be sweet.” She told two menservants to fill a tub and Fulke went to greet the children who were industriously herb scattering. Immediately he was engulfed, excited shrill voices clamoring for his attention.

One ear cocked to the noise, Maude spoke to the men, inquired after their health, saw to it that their cups were filled with wine and that those who were hungry were offered pottage and bread with marrow jelly to stave off the worst pangs. Of Fulke’s brothers, only Ivo and Richard were present. The others had been given castellan duties at various FitzWarin holdings. William had the responsibility for the estate at Whadborough in Leicestershire and that was literally keeping him out of mischief. Alain was with him, serving as his deputy, and Philip had the care of their estate at Alvaston.

Once the tub was ready, Maude left the replenishing of goblets in Clarice’s more than capable hands and rescued Fulke from the bombardment of his offspring. When Hawise wanted to follow them into their chamber, Maude turned her away “Even if you have all the tantrums of hell, it won’t make a whit of difference,” she said as her daughter inhaled to scream. “Your papa will play with you later.” Gesturing Gracia to take charge of the child, she drew the curtain firmly across.

Fulke unlatched his belt and laid it on the coffer, then stripped off his woolen tunic. “You say she is stubborn like me, but I know from where she gets the will to drive that determination,” he murmured.

Maude placed a dish of soap scented with mint and rosemary at the side of the tub and, pointing to a stool near the tub, she bade him be seated so that she could unwind his leg bindings.

“So,” she said, “are you going to tell me everything that you did not in your ‘letter’?”

His fingers lightly brushed the side of her braid. “Later,” he said. “If I tried to talk to you now, I doubt I would make much sense. I want you too much.”

Maude looked up, surprised. She had been anticipating declarations of love, need, and desire. They were what had been missing from his written words. But now her curiosity was piqued by the hint of something more. She opened her mouth to ask what he meant and he took immediate advantage.

Maude decided that the question could wait. Curling her arms around his neck, she tumbled into the molten sweetness of lust. He cupped her buttocks; she pushed her hips against his and felt him already as hard as a quarterstaff.

Kissing, fondling, they feverishly stripped each other’s garments. The thought of someone drawing aside the curtain and discovering them added a spice of urgency to the moment. There was no bed in the room, only a narrow bench that was totally impractical, and the floor, garlanded in prickly rushes. But there was the tub.

“There’s room for two,” Fulke said, “if you sit in my lap.”

Laughing, Maude eyed his groin. “Are you sure?”

Fulke stepped into the tub, sat down in the hot water, and held out his hand. “Why don’t you join me and find out?”

Giggling like a flighty girl, Maude took his hand and stepped into the tub, but it was as a knowing woman that she straddled Fulke and eased slowly down.

“Well?” he asked breathlessly. “Was I right?”

“Only just,” Maude replied. However, she still pressed forward, upon, and against him, and heard with gratification his hiss of pleasure. The angle might be tight, but it only served to enhance the sensations. Their position also meant that she had the control and could hasten or prolong at her whim. A carnal smile on her lips, she began to move with infinite, exquisite slowness.

***

What bathwater remained was almost tepid by the time they emerged from the tub. Maude sat on the bench, robed in a clean shift, gently patting the wet ends of her hair. Fulke, heavy-eyed and fumble-fingered, attempted to fasten his chausses to his braies.

“I doubt,” he said, “that the most accomplished Southwark bath girl could equal that performance.”

“How do you know about Southwark bath girls?”

“I don’t—well, only by hearsay. Besides, you leave me neither the energy nor the wherewithal to be of the remotest use to the wenches of Southwark.”

“I am glad to hear it.” She tilted her head to one side and eyed him. “Are your wits clearer now, or have I made you lose them?”

“What?” He blinked at her.

“You said that you would tell me later what you had not said in your letter—that you wanted me too much to talk sense.”

“Oh yes.” He finally managed to secure the last hook and looked at her with a smile. “You are right. I do feel as if my wits have been dragged through a fine sieve…not to mention other parts.”

Maude made an impatient sound. “Stop japing. Tell me.”

“I have to ride out again,” he said, “although not for another month at least.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Where to?”

“Ireland.”

“Ireland!” She looked at him in surprise. She had been envisaging Lambourn, Devon, or Yorkshire. That was the summer gone and likely half the autumn. The cold Irish Sea. Dull tones of green and misty gray. Theobald’s grave. A sense of danger coiled in the back of her mind like a wet Irish fog. “Why?”

He donned a clean shirt and tunic. “Because of the lands you had in dower from Theobald. William Marshal, as their overlord, has asked me to go since he is occupied at court and John will not release him yet. Because they are my responsibility as much as any other part of my lands.” His head emerged through the neck opening of his tunic, his hair standing up in rumpled black spikes. “It is an obligation I cannot shirk. Nor can I deny the request for a favor from William Marshal.”

Maude swallowed. “Surely your English lands need you more?”

“Not for the moment. I have been busy and, besides, my brothers can care for them.”

“Can you not send them to Ireland in your place?”

“No,” he sighed. “Not unsupervised. It has to be me.” He picked his belt off the coffer.

Maude set aside her comb. “If you must go, then I am coming with you,” she said.

Fulke opened his mouth.

“And do not tell me that it is dangerous and no place for a woman. I know the first; I was in Ireland with Theobald when he died. As to the second—well, if Irish women dwell there, then so can I.” She had a sudden, clear vision of a woman with eyes the color of harebells and a moist, red mouth, a woman who had visited Theobald on the day before he died—like a harbinger of ill fate. The feeling of danger increased.