Lord of the Mist (3 page)

With a small horn spoon, she measured the lavender and some
rosemary and daisy into a scrap of fabric, then tied it with a silk ribbon. She
hung it over Felice’s cradle. “I’ll not speak to him again,” she said to the
sleeping babe.

* * * * *

That evening, Cristina sat by the brazier in Lady Oriel’s
chamber sewing, Felice in a basket at her feet. The chamber was small, but
luxurious, the bed hangings yellow cloth festooned with birds and flowers
picked out in silk thread. The room was warm and scented with summer flowers.

Facing the southern side of the castle, a window made of
real glass allowed Lord Durand’s good friends a view of the way to Portsmouth.
Lady Oriel paced her chamber, restlessly toying with a pomander dangling from
her belt, finally kneeling by Felice’s basket.

“My sister so wanted a daughter.” Cristina watched Lady
Oriel stroke the child’s head. “I hope she will look like Marion. ‘Twould be
best.”

“She begins already. She has not Lord Durand’s coloring—”

“Cristina,” Oriel interrupted. “What is it you most want in
this vast world?”

“A child.” Cristina felt heat in her cheeks at her sudden
confession of her inner desire held secret from all, even Simon. She hastened
on. “I come from a large family. We were eight at table until my brothers set
off to make their own way. I do miss my mother. She died three springs ago.”

Oriel sat on the yellow padded bench by Cristina. “You think
just as I…that is, many women feel as you do.”

Cristina plied her needle in silence for a moment before
replying. “Children will love you unconditionally. Is that not so? If they’re
good children, raised with love, they’ll bring great joy to your life.”
Mayhap
the only joy
.

“Whereas husbands have other demands.” Oriel cleared her
throat. “Cristina, do you know of…that is…I have a lady friend.” She worried
the pomander’s tassel so that Cristina knew she would need to repair it before
the day was out. “This friend,” Oriel continued, “she and her husband wish a
child.”

She leapt up and began again to pace. “Much as you wish a
child.” She then rushed back to the bench and sank down once more, her ivory
skirts in a crush beneath her. “My friend is ashamed of her failure, you see.
She has not conceived despite many years of marriage, and,” her hands fell
still on the shredded tassel “she fears her husband’s desire for her wanes as
she fails in her duty.”

How Oriel’s words echoed Cristina’s own circumstances. Each
time she had failed to conceive or had lost a child through miscarriage or
death, Simon had grown a bit more distant, taken her less often.

“In what way might I help your friend, my lady?” Cristina
kept her gaze on her needlework. She feared embarrassing the good lady, for
surely it was Lady Oriel of whom they spoke? She found most people covered
their secret desires behind some “friend’s” need. Too much emotion colored
Oriel’s words for it to be otherwise.

“Have you some potion that will stimulate…that is…will help
a woman to conceive?” she finished in a rush.

Cristina laid her work aside. She lifted Felice from the
basket, held her close, and took in the babe’s innocent scent. “Women are
forever seeking to please men, are they not? When will men begin to seek to
please the women?”

Oriel shot to her feet and gave a laugh tinged, Cristina
thought, with bitterness. “Men. They have no need to please a woman. There are
plenty of us about should one fall short of the mark. But have you anything? If
my friend took it now, it might prevent…that is…my friend does not yet think
her husband has strayed, but his disappointment is deep. Will it not soon send
him to another, worthier woman?”

“If a man wants an heir, he needs his wife,” Cristina
pointed out.

“Aye, but if a man seeks a son and the wife never conceives,
the bed becomes a place of…duty. Surely that alone will send a man to another?”

Cristina nodded and rose. “I know of several things your
friend could try.”

“Thank you.”

The sudden shine of happiness on Lady Oriel’s face saddened
Cristina. “No matter what I make, my lady, it is still in God’s hands.”

Lady Oriel no longer listened; she was gone in a rustle of
skirts. Cristina took a moment to pack her needlework into her bag, then lifted
Felice onto her shoulder. The sweet pillows she was stitching could wait. The
husband-luring potion could not.

As she left Oriel’s chamber of peace and beauty, she cast a
last look at the draped opulence of Oriel’s bed and thought of how she had
taken many potions herself and still had no living child. Yet, she had given
them to others and watched them work their magic. “Mayhap,” she whispered, “my
lady shall lay in her golden bed and be lucky.”

* * * * *

Cristina leaned her palms flat on her work table and sighed.
She did not have what she needed for Lady Oriel’s love potion. She could not
ask Simon to secure the ingredients. He would question her endlessly as to
their purpose, then scoff at a belief in such potions.

Barren women had only themselves to blame for their failure,
he had so often said. Cristina tiptoed to where Felice lay nestled in her
basket. “Felice, we’ll need to spend the day gathering.” She glanced at the
open window. The morning sun shone brightly. “‘Tis best we make use of the fine
weather.”

A few moments later, garbed in a dun mantle, Felice in a
sling across her chest, Cristina knocked lightly on the castellan’s counting
room door. It opened immediately, but only a few inches. Luke’s bold grin
greeted her. His hair was mussed and his tunic rumpled. Cristina heard a
feminine giggle.

“Forgive me, sir, for disturbing you. I wished only to
obtain permission to leave the keep and gather a few plants.”

“You’re not a prisoner here; you may leave when the spirit
moves you.” He leaned in the opening, his grin settling into a kind smile.

She dipped into a curtsy. “Thank you, sir, but I’ll need
several strong men to accompany me. I would like to have some plants dug and
potted for my use. I’ve no authority to command even a groom to lead my horse.”

With a wistful look over his shoulder, Luke left the
chamber, shutting the door firmly behind him. “Come. I’ll see to it for you.
There are many lazy louts about who have need of such occupation.”

* * * * *

Durand, accompanied by Penne, rode into the village. He
inspected the baker’s ovens, the mill, the village well, and finally arrived at
the house that would soon be home to his new merchant. The long stone building
stood at the edge of the village on the road leading to Portsmouth.

Pilfered stone from an ancient Roman temple formed a
decorative face to the door. Ducking his head to enter, Durand smiled. It had
always been thus—a profusion of goods tumbled in happy disorder from shelves
and coffers. The myriad scents of Old Owen’s stock filled the front room that
served to house his shop.

The living quarters were overhead. The ladder to the second
floor was no longer negotiable by the old man, who now lay on a pallet near his
hearth. There Durand found him with Simon le Gros.

“Shall I see to your horse, my lord?” Simon inquired.

Durand nodded.

“I have no liking for illness,” Penne said quietly and
followed the merchant out.

Durand wandered the crowded room and noticed the many
spiderwebs and dirt that indicated the extent of Old Owen’s illness. The man
had once been as fastidious as a vestal virgin. “What may I do for you, Owen?
Is there aught you would like to see taken to the keep for your comfort?”

“There is naught I need, save me bed,” Owen said in a low
rasp that deteriorated into a hacking cough.

Durand poured ale from a pitcher and supported the man’s
shoulders as he drank. “I’ll see there’s a strict accounting of all that
remains here, and my brother will dispose of it to your satisfaction.”

Owen curled his gnarled fingers in Durand’s tunic. “I’ve
some’at as needs saying. S-s—” A paroxysm of coughs shook his body. “Betray
you.”

“Betray me? What are you saying?” Durand helped the old man
lie back. Did Owen know something of Marion’s perfidy?

Simon and Penne entered the cottage.

“At the keep, my lord,” the old man said, “At the keep. I’ll
tell ye there.”

Durand nodded, concerned for the old man, whose color was
gray, the whites of his eyes yellow. “Simon, would you see Owen to Ravenswood?”

“As you wish, my lord.” Simon nodded. “I shall remain here
until Owen feels fit enough to ride, then convey him to the keep.”

Durand spoke a moment longer to the old man of their
arrangements; then, with Penne at his side, left. As they mounted their horses,
Durand considered the long, low building. “I remember sneaking down here as a
small boy. Owen was a god to me. He would allow me to sit by his fire for half
a day, sometimes. The tales he told! I knew which wives ground flour behind the
miller’s back, which man would move a field marker. Now,” he looked off into
the distance, “I know the number of men King Philip might muster, but not how
many men plow my fields.”

“Marion complained often of your many absences.”

“Aye, she had much of which to complain.”

“You were not free to do as you pleased. I know ‘tis wrong
to speak ill of the dead, but she was petty and childish to expect you to drop
the king’s business to tend her needs.”

Durand urged his horse to a canter. He followed an old deer
track into the woods, which bordered a lazy stream. “Do not let Oriel hear your
opinion of Marion.”

“Oriel would agree. You’d be an earl now if Richard had
lived. Your absences suited Marion as long as she could see an earl’s belt at
the end of it. She only complained when all knew you must prove yourself again
to John. ‘Tis simple spite on the king’s behalf.”

“All men must prove their loyalty.”

Penne drew his horse even with Durand’s as the beaten path
widened. The horses slowed to pick their way over the ruts left by heavy carts.
“Oriel and Marion argued often about John and Richard.”

“And Philip’s confiscation of our holdings in Normandy—”
Durand lifted a gloved hand to silence Penne, and pointed to a small clearing
near the stream bank.

Penne followed the direction of his hand and raised his dark
eyebrows. Together they halted their horses and stared.

Cristina le Gros danced in the clearing—a woodland sprite
come to life. She danced to some fairy music only she could hear over the flow of
the water and the sough of the wind in the trees. Heat rushed through Durand’s
body.

She swayed and skimmed over the soft green grass, turned and
twirled. Her drab mantle formed a bell about her legs. In her arms she cradled
a babe.
Marion’s
.

Slowly Durand urged his horse toward her, Penne behind him.
They were upon her before she noticed them.

“Oh, my lord.” Her cheeks colored as she fell still. Her
plait, half undone, straggled over one shoulder. The hem of her mantle was
spotted with mud. Her pattens were thick with it.

“Mistress le Gros, what the devil are you doing here in
these woods?” He swept a hand out to indicate the dense forest about them.
Penne’s horse whickered a protest at his sharp words.

“Gathering, my lord. These men protect me.” She swept a hand
out as he had.

“I see no men.” Durand dismounted. She stood her ground,
although her color rose even higher the closer he approached.

“They were here a moment ago. I but stepped away to this
seat to feed the babe.” She pointed. A smudge of dirt marred one of her soft
cheeks.

“Seat?” He expected to see an elfin throne. Instead, he saw
only a smooth stump. “You defy sense. And what is that bundle you carry?” He
pointed to her middle.

“Your daughter.”

“So I assumed. What the devil is an infant doing in the
woods? What of fever? What of brigands?”

“I assure you, my lord, I do not endanger your daughter. She
is warm and snug here.” As if to protect the child—or herself—from his wrath,
she wrapped her arms about the babe.

“Where are your men?” he asked.

“Here, Durand.” Luke stepped into the clearing.
Incongruously, he held an ax. “Your wet nurse is quite well protected. In fact,
she’s a Tartar. Even I have bowed to her wishes. Have you ever chopped a tree?
It is damned hard work.” Luke took Cristina’s elfin throne. “I would rather
fight the heartiest of warriors than dig plants and chop branches for Mistress
le Gros. Nettles she wants, and hawthorne! Naught but thorns and rashes.”

“I have need of many plants, my lord,” Cristina said hastily
lest they suspect she made a love potion. “I thought to bring a few back to the
castle.”

Somehow the grin on Luke’s face only nourished Durand’s
anger. Three men stepped into the clearing, arms filled with potted plants,
their fingers black with the rich loam of the forest. Able men. Two more
appeared, Luke’s men. Seven more stepped from the shadows. An ample guard.

He felt the fool. “Get yourself back to the keep. Now.” He
spoke only to Mistress le Gros. He mounted and wheeled his horse, and clots of
mud flew in all directions as he galloped into the trees.

Cristina immediately headed for the horses, a cold chill
filling her, despite Sir Luke’s assurance that his brother was not so very
piqued. “I cannot think what he must be like when truly angry then,” she said.

“Oh, ‘tis a sight to behold. Fire streams from his nostrils,
steam issues from his ears. He sprouts claws and—”

“Enough!” Cristina burst into laughter. Felice protested,
setting up a howl. She patted her back until she quieted. “I still don’t have
the plants I require.”

Luke threw up his hands. “Nay. I’ll not dig another moment.”

She smiled. “You did not dig at all. And you lied to Lord
Durand. You chopped nothing. I believe you used the ax to shape a better seat
to that stump.”