Warrior's Moon A Love Story (16 page)

“Troll or sister?”

At that Peyton did smile.  “Sister.  Most of the time she managed to be entertaining rather than irritating.”

“Did she move away then?  When she was no longer small?”

Dark silken curls and the sweet scent of fresh herbs suddenly filled Peyton’s head and he could swear he heard the sound of her laughter.  He shook his head and gave the prince a mellow half smile.  “No.  She grew up into a girl far too beautiful to ever be considered a sister.”

                                                      
 
SSSS

Even though Cook was old enough to be her grandmother, she and Chantaya became fast friends and Cook kindly didn’t hesitate to encourage Chantaya and Isabella to add their knowledge of seasonings and herbs to the fare of the manor house.  Cook even ventured into the woods on occasion to learn of the origin of the secrets to Chantaya and Isabella’s culinary mastery. 

As they searched for mushrooms on one sunny afternoon, Chantaya cautioned Cook at length about the dangers of the mushrooms and how certain ones, or even too much of others, could make a body horribly sick and even possibly cause death.  She put extra emphasis on how similar
the mushrooms could appear and pointed out the distinguishing characteristics to ensure Cook never made the mistake of mixing them up and taking a poisonous variety into the kitchen. 

At that, Cook gave her a sassy grin and said, “Much as I’d love to do away with a couple of the nobles round here, rest easy.  I’ll leave the use of the deadly things to them as knows best.  I’ll keep to less dangerous ingredients like flour and eggs and such.  I’ll also do the serving to protect ye.  Heaven knows the Rosskeene men have no need to pester an old woman like me.”

Conrad continued to watch over the Kincraigs and he became almost a father figure to Chantaya as she worked around the manor kitchen and gardens.  Many were the times when Lord Rosskeene or Master Damian came sidling near, they would take one look at Conrad and then decide they had something else that needed doing.  It must have been that they valued Conrad’s skill with their horses more than they wanted to press themselves upon the Kincraigs.  

Conrad’s steady, gentle demeanor to both her and her mother earned a large measure of trust from Chantaya and she often spent time with him in the stables brushing the horses and adding to her knowledge of their care when she wasn’t needed in the kitchen.  He watched how she handled both the sweet gentle old campaigners, as well as the more spirited mounts of the Master and one evening, when one of the young grooms was ill, Conrad approached her as she worked in a stall and asked, “Have you ridden much, Miss Chantaya?”

She looked up at him, wondering how much she dared to admit.  They had become surprisingly close, but Chantaya also knew most peasant girls had no knowledge of riding horses and, in fact, it would have been deemed inappropriate at best.  Especially the fact that she rode astride instead of sidesaddle the way the noble women rode. 

She looked into his warm brown eyes, remembered how he was almost tender
with her mother and decided ‘twas safe to admit to him her prowess and said with a somewhat sheepish smile, “Much more than I should have, I’m afraid.”

The kindly older man nodded.  “I suspected as much.  Does your mother know?”

Chantaya scrunched her lips to the side and began a nod that ended in a shake and said, “I’m sure she suspects.  I didn’t truly have her blessing, but then I also know she can ride astride as well as most men, herself.  Pray, why do you ask?”

“You ride astride then?”  She nodded mutely, wondering if she was about to be given a fatherly lecture about acting like a lady.  Instead, he asked, “Would you be willing to help me work a colt or two then?  Just while Sven is out sick. ‘Tis shorthanded I am, and if the horses don’t behave near perfectly for him, they incur the Lord’s wrath.  It also might be a good thing to keep in practice, it might.”

She was considering his request, wondering what the other staff and the Lord and Lady, and even her mother would think when he added, “I have an old coat and could swipe a pair of the younger lad’s breeches.  Straight from the wash, of course.  If we tucked that lovely mane of yours up under a hat, no one would be the wiser that you weren’t Sven himself if we didn’t venture close to anyone.”

Slowly, Chantaya began to smile a wide, happy smile.  She would love to be back astride a horse again and dressing up sounded positively adventurous!  “You’ve got yourself a deal, Conrad, and gladly!  Is it too late to go this very even?”

He grinned back.  “'Tis late, but a bit o dusk might make you even less distinguishable.  There’s clean breeches on the bench in the tack room and coat and hat on the hooks.  Tell your mother you’ll be gone a moment and I’ll get the steeds.  Be off wi’ you now.  When next I see you, it’s a young groom I’ll expect to see.”

When she returned, only moments later, he looked at her and then shook his head and said, “Even for the hat, young Sven could never have been so beautiful.  Here.”  He took a clean, folded handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her.  “Pull up your collar and knot this about your neck and chin.  And next time, wear the longer coat.  No breeches in the world could hide that figure.  If Master Damian ever saw you he’d be nigh out of control.  I’d have to near trounce him.”

She did as she was told, but laughed and said, “I’m going to take that as a compliment.  Although, I’d wear a jester’s costume if I had to, to be able to ride again.”

They rode for nearly an hour, working the two colts they were on side by side through the woods and meadows around the manor, putting them through their paces and brushing them up on stopping and backing.  They brought them in at full dark and once back inside the stables, Chantaya slid off of the leggy sorrel she had been riding with a sigh that was part contentment, part fatigue and part sore hind end.  It had been weeks since she had ridden and an incredibly long day since she’d gone into the kitchen to begin preparing the manor breakfast this morning.  Still, it had been pure wonderful to be back in the saddle. 

As she finally lay down in her bed that night, she wished there had been a way to tell Peyton of her adventure of dressing as a boy and working horses.  He probably would have given her that fatherly lecture, but he would have also been happy for the pleasure and the freedom she had found out there tonight.  Her spirit seemed to need that sense of freedom.  It made this indenturement seem far more bearable after all.  She wished that magistrate would hurry and get back with them about his decision.

Peyton still didn’t know she was no longer in Navarre.  She’d been going to write him of their trouble and the move, but every time she considered it, she decided against it, reasoning that she didn’t want the Rosskeenes to know she could write or that she had ties to the knights of the castle. 
The longer they were here at Rosskeene Manor, the more gossip came to them about nefarious activities of the younger two Rosskeene men, and over time, she had begun to gather that information and even write it down in the event there ever became enough threat that she would need to report it.  Things weren’t right here at the manor.  And it hadn’t taken long to realize it.  Just how not right they were, remained to be seen.       

The next day in the kitchen, when Chantaya arrived to start breakfast, Cook was ill and while Chantaya worried for Cook’s health, she also worried about how she would protect herself from young Master Damian without Cook and the hefty rolling pin that she threatened him with. 

Chantaya made it through breakfast with only Damian’s pointed looks and comments to trouble her, and quickly did up the dishes, but then went back out to their living quarters for the short time until the midday meal, rather than get started on it right away as she typically would have done. 

Conrad saw her go into their room, and a few minutes later, he stopped by to ask why she had come out.  When she admitted about Cook’s absence, he and her mother exchanged a glance, and her mother immediately got up and readied herself to accompany Chantaya into the manor to help her. 

While Chantaya appreciated the company and the help, now she worried about her mother’s safety as well, knowing that if Lord Rosskeene heard of Isabella’s appearance in the kitchen, they would need to worry about him as well as young Damian. 

Shortly after the meal, her concerns were indeed founded as first Damian sauntered into the kitchen, followed shortly by his father.  Chantaya and Isabella stood side by side at one of the work tables and Chantaya wasn’t surprised when Isabella reached for the exact rolling pin that Cook used.  That rolling pin, coupled with the appearance of the two had Chantaya’s breath catching in her throat and the beating of her heart increased even more than it had when the two had come in.

Neither of the Rosskeenes said anything, although Lord Rosskeene was eyeing Isabella disgustingly and young Damian had a positively lecherous grin as Chantaya looked up at him.  Just as Chantaya began to wonder how she was going to reach the dishes stacked on a table near them, Conrad came in the door whistling cheerily and said, “The boys said Cook is under t’ scuppers and that ye might be needin’ a spare hand.  Be this true?  I’ve a moment to help ye, if 'tis.”

He picked up a stack of the dishes and brought them across to Isabella and then picked up a dish towel and began to tie it about his waist as both women simultaneously let out breaths.  With his makeshift apron in place, he reached across to take the rolling pin from Isabella and asked breezily, “What be needin’ rolling, Mistress Isabella?  I’ll give it a go, I will.  I’ll flatten anything in my path.”  He smacked the big wooden pin against a meaty palm with a grin and Chantaya almost wanted to smile herself as the two Rosskeenes walked back out of the kitchen.   

             
                                         
Chapter 11

Mordecai pulled his horse Bartok, with the wild splash of white across his shoulder, to a stop in the copse of trees to the south of Rosskeene Manor and got off, leaving him ground tied.  On foot, he walked to the edge of the wood to peer out into the gloom of the predawn.  Willem Wolfgar had said he’d seen them safely here, but that had been nearly a fortnight ago. 

When a week had gone by without Chantaya showing up to visit, Mordecai had been saddened.  But by the tenth day, Mordecai knew something was wrong.  Chantaya hadn’t stayed away from his home for that long since he’d moved there when she was nine.

On the eleventh day, he’d gone to the cottage and upon finding it empty, he’d gone on to the Wolfgar’s to learn of Chantaya and Isabella’s fate, and then felt guilty for waiting so long to find out why she hadn’t come to visit.  The thought of the two of them at the mercy of the young Lord Rosskeene had made him near sick.  It made him want to strap his armor on and go bring them right back home, without waiting to
hear from the magistrate, who was known for his lackadaisical work ethic when it came to matters of the law.

Mordecai stood in the wood, watching the manor house, knowing that if they were indeed working in the manor kitchen, they would soon be stirring to begin the household’s breakfast.  He knew nothing of the configuration of the manor house, but assumed that door just near the garden he could see, would lead to the kitchen.  He was hoping to catch a glimpse of someone at least tossing out dishwater before he ventured any nearer to try and ascertain how Chantaya and Isabella were doing.

He hadn’t been watching for more than half the hour when, actually, Chantaya herself appeared, but out of the building he had assumed was the stable.  She was accompanied by an able enough looking middle aged man who wasn’t Rosskeene, and together they walked to the door near the garden, where the man left her and turned back toward the building they had come out of. 

Staying concealed on the edge of the trees, Mordecai watched and mid morning, the same man walked back to the kitchen door and returned with Chantaya.  Then a few minutes later, both Chantaya and her mother appeared with baskets and walked toward the same woods Mordecai waited in, as the man came out of the stable on a young horse and rode near them.

At first, Mordecai thought the man must have been guarding them to see to it the two of them didn’t try to run away, but as the three of them came closer, he wondered at the easy demeanor of the two women.  They didn’t appear to be anxious whenever the horseman rode near.  In fact, the opposite seemed to be true.  When the horseman rode wide from them, their glances toward the manor house did look to hold a measure of wariness.  Finally, when the horseman stopped to speak to them only a stone’s throw from where Mordecai hid, he realized this man, whoever he was, was actually watching over the two of them as they worked and he rode.

Chantaya went back to the kitchen before the noon hour and then again in mid afternoon.  Toward evening, after Chantaya had returned from the manor house, the same man came riding out of the stable, this time with another smaller man on another horse beside him and Mordecai was surprised because the boys who had been working in and around the stables for the day had all appeared to go into the manor house before the supper hour.  This new rider must have been inside the stable for the whole of the day, because he wasn’t one Mordecai had seen earlier.