Entreat Me (15 page)

Fatally wounded and unable to rise, the boar was still dangerous, those curving tusks as sharp as flaying knives.  Ballard approached cautiously, placed the blade against the beast’s neck and sliced through the jugular.  The boar went still as blood spilled across the snow, black in the winter moonlight.  The smell would draw wolves from every corner of the woods, and Ballard didn’t relish fighting off a hungry pack lean from winter’s bare larders.  He put the sword aside, braced a foot against the animal’s chest and yanked the spear free.

He field-dressed the carcass to the ululation of wolf song growing ever closer, then used a rope to winch the boar high enough to lower onto Magnus’s back.  The courser offered only a token grunt as Ballard lowered the boar and strapped it to the saddle.  He stroked the horse’s neck.  “You’re a fine lad.”  He retrieved the lug spear, grabbed the reins and led Magnus through the trees on foot.  His courser was strong, but the boar was heavy, even gutted.  They returned to the castle, accompanied by howls.  The moon rode low amongst the trees though the sky still hung black and sparkled with stars.

He met Gavin in the bailey, a piebald jennet named Sparrow saddled and outfitted for hunting.  His son eyed the dead boar.  “Well mine was a wasted effort.  I’ll put Sparrow up.”  He subjected Ballard to a once-over.  “How much of that blood is yours?”

“None.  Your faith in me heartening.”  He returned Gavin’s inspection, noting the hunting garb and the weaponry tied to Sparrow’s saddle.  “Thinking to rescue a gaffer in the forest?”

Gavin grinned.  “Considering I beat you in sparring yesterday, I thought you could use the help, old man.”

Ballard tossed the spear to Gavin.  “Keep warbling, boy.  I’ll flatten your sorry arse in this bailey and feed you to the wolves lurking outside.”

He guided Magnus to a cleared area of the bailey where a gambrel and pulley hoist had been set in place alongside a table laid out with a variety of knives and hand axes.  Troughs filled with salt and snow and two large barrels waited nearby.  He and Gavin winched the carcass off the horse until it hung upside down preparation for skinning.  He sent Magnus off with Gavin and Sparrow to the stables for unsaddling and a rubdown.

When Gavin returned, both men stripped to the waist.  Butchering a hog was hot, dirty work, even in winter.  The frigid air felt good on his bare skin, especially after the long walk from the forest.

“Did you bring back the liver?”

Magda marched toward him garbed in a dress that was nearly rags.  She’d bundled her hair in an equally ratty kerchief.  A retinue of women in similar dress followed, including Louvaen and Cinnia.  The younger sister barely glanced at him before her eyes settled on Gavin.  She stopped short, almost pitching into the snow when Louvaen stumbled into her.  A wrestling match of flailing arms and elbows ensued until the two managed to right each other.

Louvaen brushed down her threadbare skirt and glared at Cinnia.  “What are you doing?”  Her scowl rested on Gavin.  “Oh for gods’ sake, if you’re going to stare at him like a lovesick cow, at least get out of the way so we don’t trample you.”

She went silent as her eyes met Ballard’s.  She didn’t stop, but her long strides slowed as her gaze sharpened, sweeping over him from the top of his head to the tips of his boots, pausing to touch on his shoulders, chest and midriff.  Ballard refused to shrug the shirt back over his head.  In the weeks since she and her sister had taken up residence in his home, Louvaen had never averted her eyes from him.  She didn’t do so now.  Still, some small part wished she didn’t have to look upon him half dressed.  The vines, runes and etchings marring his face and neck ran wild and numerous across his torso, front to back, and were joined by a map of scars and lacerations that revealed a life of hard fighting.  He’d been stabbed, speared, slashed and gored on various occasions, most often by enemy knights; once by a boar and once by his wife.  He didn’t count the broken bones that had been set and healed.  Ambrose had declared more than once he had the luck of a dozen men to still be alive.

Those gray eyes darkened for a moment, and her mouth, which he hungered to devour, curved into a small smile.  She brushed past him, pausing long enough to whisper in his ear.  “You can’t fool us, my lord.  You’re colder than you let on.”  Her gaze dropped to his chest before she met his eyes again.  The smile still hovered, accompanied now by a blush.

Puzzled, Ballard watched as she took a spot at the table and claimed a butchering knife.  The cold didn’t bother him, and he often slept in his chamber with the covers thrown to the foot of the bed, the fire out and the window open to the weather.  He glanced down to where her gaze had rested.  His nipples had tightened to pale, tiny nubs surrounded by gooseflesh.  A low chuckle rumbled in his throat.  He was on the verge of following her to the table and whispering in her ear that if she was so concerned, she was more than welcome to warm him.  However, another demanded his attention and he had learned long ago to ignore Magda at his peril.

“Did you bring back the liver?” she repeated.

He gestured to the leather bag holding the haslet.  “Your delicacies await.  The heart’s in the pouch as well.”

The housekeeper rubbed her hands together.  “That’ll make a fine stew.”  She joined the others, claiming a spot between Clarimond and Cinnia.  “Let’s get on with it before I freeze my fingers off.  At least we’ll have fresh meat tonight.”

“Roasted with honey and rosemary?”  Gavin looked ready to drool.

Magda shrugged.  “Depends on how fast you get that hide off and what mood I’m in when we’re done.”

Neither man needed any more encouragement.  Ballard cut circles around the hind shins, working toward the inside of the legs as Gavin skinned around the tail and hams.  Between the two of them, they had the hide peeled away in minutes.  Ballard split the boar lengthwise and unhooked it from the gambrel pulley to help Gavin lay it across the table for additional cleaning and butchering.  Everyone set to work then, carving chops, hams, loins and racks of ribs.  Only once did he catch Cinnia turn pale during the process, and that was when he used an axe to cleave the head from the rest of the body.  Louvaen worked steadily next to Clarimond, unfazed.  A woman who once prepared the dead for burial and had a body burst on her would find this particular chore of no consequence.

They labored through the morning, packing portions of meat in ice to be stored in the buttery, setting other parts aside for packing in salt or pickled in vinegar.  Nothing was wasted.  They’d process the brains, stuff the intestines for sausages, render the fat for soap and candles and strip the bristles for brushes.  The weak winter sun hung directly overhead by the time they finished, dismantled the pulleys and carted the full barrels of salted pork into the larder.

They gathered by the well near the herb garden with its hardy bushes of rosemary covered in snow.  Clarimond drew the first bucket of water, and the women took turns bathing their faces, arms and hands with the kerchiefs they’d used to cover their hair.    There was much gasping, yelping and complaining as they splashed the icy water on their skin.  Cinnia, teeth chattering so hard she could barely talk, managed to say “I think the tip of my nose has frozen.”

Magda scrubbed at her arms and doused her kerchief a second time in the bucket.  Ballard fancied he heard broken ice crackle as she wrung out the excess water.  “Less talking, more washing,” she said.

Gavin rocked back on his heels.  “I don’t suppose now would be a good time to comment on how they remind me of a gaggle of complaining geese.” His eyes brimmed with laughter.

Ballard kept his eyes on the women, particularly Louvaen and her smooth skin made rosy by her energetic scrubbing with icy water and rough cloth.  “Not unless you want to be hung by your heels and split in half like that hog.”

Father and son exchanged grins that soon turned to more stoic expressions when Cinnia approached them with another dripping cloth.  She eyed Gavin with the same look he wore when Magda announced she’d be roasting some of the boar meat that night.  Ballard wondered if the boy would be in any worse danger of being consumed whole if he stood before her basted in honey and rosemary himself.

“Do you need help cleaning up, Gavin?”  Cinnia’s breathy question and the feral gleam in her eyes had Ballard moving out of the way.  He glanced at Louvaen who’d paused to watch with narrowed eyes.

As if pulled by the irresistible force of a powerful lodestone, Gavin reached for Cinnia, his voice guttural.  “I’d never refuse the aid of so beautiful a woman.”

Ballard rolled his eyes at his son’s foolery.

“Cinnia!”  Louvaen’s call cut sharp across the bailey.

“Hmmm?  What?”  Entranced by the sight of Gavin’s bare chest and shoulders, Cinnia barely registered her sister’s command.  She reached out and Gavin leaned in.

This time Ballard took several steps back as Louvaen marched toward them with a full bucket of water.  Someone was about to receive a good dousing.  He wanted no part of it.

“Cinnia, don’t you dare!”

As if released from a spell, Cinnia jumped out of the way and gasped as Louvaen snatched the wet cloth out of her hand.  Gavin straightened in time to catch the rag and bucket she smashed into his chest.   Water sloshed out of the bucket, soaking one side of his breeches.  “Cool your blood,” she snapped at him before leveling a glare on her sister.  “You too.”  She strode back to where Magda stood grinning and Clarimond and Joan hid their giggles behind their hands.

Cinnia offered Gavin an apologetic smile and a gaze so seductive, Ballard wondered if she was still an innocent.  Gavin went stiff, in more ways than one if the front of his breeches were any indication.  Ballard stepped forward and gave her a gentle push toward Louvaen.  Once she was out of earshot, he turned to Gavin.  “You poor sot.  If you don’t have calluses on your tarse by now, I’ll be surprised.  You better propose soon, or you’ll expire from the wanting.”

“Count me lucky if I’m not dead by morning.”  Gavin scowled as he dipped the rag into the bucket and began scrubbing away the worst of the blood and dirt.  He and Ballard shared the water and rag.  Ballard still felt grimy afterwards and looked forward to when Magda would release Clarimond and Joan from kitchen duty long enough to haul a tub up the stairs into his chamber and fill it with hot water.  His household usually made do with sponges, homemade soap and basins of cold water.  However, when Ballard or Gavin hunted boar and came back unscathed and with a kill, Magda pampered them with a full immersive bath and a generous cake of imported soap brought home by Gavin.

The heat in the kitchen felt sweltering after hours spent in snowy weather.  Magda shooed Louvaen and Cinnia to their rooms, instructing them to bathe, change and return their clothes for laundering.  She turned to Ballard who hovered at the doorway between bailey and kitchen.  “You’ll be wanting a bath?”

“Aye.  Make the water boil.”  He gestured with a nod to the stables.  “I’ve a horse to tend to an a saddle to clean.  I’ll be finished soon.”  Four centuries earlier, a contingent of stable hands would have seen to brushing down his courser, feeding him and mucking out the stalls.  The work fell to him now, and he’d long ago given up any protest of such lowly chores for a man of his station.

Magda shooed him away with a flap of her apron.  “Take your time.  We’ll have the tub filled and the water hot when you’re ready.”

She was good as her word.  The bath waited for him by the time he returned to his bedchamber.  Gossamer bands of steam drifted up from the water, scented by the sprigs of rosemary floating on the surface.  Someone had built up the fire and nestled a scuttle filled with river rock into the coals.  Ballard’s stomach rumbled at the sight of dried fruit drizzled in honey, cheese and bread piled high on a plate and set out on a wooden plank placed across the tub.  A goblet filled to the brim with wine joined the repast.  He shed his blood-stained clothes and sighed as he slid into the water.

His gurgling stomach could wait.  The tub, a barrel with the top third shaved off, was large and deep enough for him to rest on the low stool set into the vessel.  He leaned his head on the cloth-cushioned rim, closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of herbs as the water lapped against his chest.  His chamber door opened and shut.  The gentle swish of skirts and light step told him Magda had arrived to attend him at his bath.  Circumstance and time had turned his magician into a shepherd and him into a stable boy, but he was still
dominus
of Ketach Tor and claimed the privileges of not sharing bath water and having someone wash his back.

An image of Louvaen standing in the bailey, rubbing briskly at her slender arms with a wet rag bloomed behind his eyelids.  Garbed in a stained and faded shirt and skirt that might have once belonged to Clarimond or Joan, she’d looked as beautiful to him as any noblewoman dressed in silk brocade and jewels.  A fine thing to have her share his bath—the best of these small indulgences.

He listened as the housekeeper scraped coals in the hearth and dragged the scuttle away from the fire.  Water hissed as she slid several hot rocks into the tub.  Ballard groaned his appreciation as an underwater wave of heat enveloped his legs and torso.  “You should be worshipped as a goddess.”

His attempt at levity rebounded on him when the object of his wishful thoughts replied “I’m glad someone finally agrees with me regarding that notion.”

Ballard’s eyes snapped open.  He straightened so fast, he nearly upended the board holding his food and drink.  Louvaen faced him, a trowel in one hand, towel-wrapped scuttle in the other and a grin gracing her comely face.  “Louvaen.”