My Lady Midnight

Why, for just one of those silver pennies she figured were stored in some of those barrels, she’d move a couple of the barrels over the trapdoor—then let him try to get out! She grinned, imagining his rage at being penned down there with the likes of Ivo and Jean for company, until someone missed him! ‘Twould serve him right, though he’d probably bellow so loud he’d make himself heard through the ground before he became hoarse, and they’d find him all too soon. Saints, but he’d be mad as a rabid dog when he was finally freed!

She stopped at the threshold, struck with the realization that if she did just that, he would be powerless to stop her from taking the children. He would not even know. The priest probably taught them their lessons in the chapel or in his own quarters. She must find them, quickly!

But no, it couldn’t possibly succeed, Claire had to admit after a moment’s consideration. She had not been here long enough to have a position of trust. On her first full day at Hawkswell Castle, she could not simply take the children from the priest under some pretext, then walk over the drawbridge and beyond the curtain walls with them! Why, even supposing Father Gregory would allow it, the lowliest soldier would know better than to let her pass unchallenged with them.

She must not let her distaste for planning the kidnapping make her impulsive. Nothing would substitute for careful forethought and learning the layout of the castle and the nature of its inhabitants, so she had best get on with the exploring she had asked to do.

The thought of dampening Lord Alain’s overweening rudeness had cheered her, though, so that she was able to put on a smile before going out into the sunlight of the bailey once more.

The open area within the inner curtain wall was a beehive of activity now that the funeral was over. Men and women were rushing hither and yon, some heavily laden with baskets and bundles. A rhythmic clanging was coming from a rude outbuilding to the right of the great hall, and as she passed by it she saw a man hammering upon a broadsword.

“Good morrow, girl. I am Ewald, the armorer, obviously enough,” he said, nodding at the sword in his hand.

Girl. She was jolted by the simple appellation, being used to being addressed as “my lady,” but it had been said with smiling friendliness. You are not a lady here, Claire.

“Good morrow, Ewald,” she said. “I be Haesel, my lord’s children’s new nursemaid.” She waited warily, on guard lest the armorer find something amiss with her English. But he kept smiling. He was well named, she thought, seeing the muscled shoulders straining beneath the rough russet tunic. Ewald meant “powerful” in English.

“Aye, that I know. I know also that last night ye spurned the attentions of yon coxcomb up there, and I commend ye for it.”

She followed his eyes to the far end of the wall walk, and spied Hugh le Gros pacing there with a pike in his hand.

“Aye,” she said, looking back at Ewald. “But how—?” Had the story spread all through the castle?

“Annis is my wife,” he explained. “I wasn’t at supper last even, but she told me what happened. You have any further trouble with that Norman knave, you come to her or me.”

“Thank you,” she said, warmed by his offer. “’Tis right kind o’ ye.”

“You are well come, Haesel, but perhaps I’d best get back to my work now.”

She bade him good-day and began to move on, then stopped as she saw, at the far end of the bailey, Lord Alain’s horse being held by a nervous-faced groom, while another man on the far side of the horse endeavored to lift the stallion’s off front hoof. That must be Guy, the smith, she thought, and smiled as clear across the bailey she heard him swearing in terse gutter French when the war-horse began to snort and stamp. Yes, the smith sounded just as testy as Lord Alain had predicted.

As she watched, the horse swung his hindquarters around and kicked out viciously, knocking the smith into a pile of fresh manure. His shout of outrage rang out over the bailey. All around him worked ceased as the castle folk stared at Guy Smith’s misfortune.

The poor man! Lord Alain had said to leave him alone, but surely someone should see if more was hurt than his pride, she thought, darting forward across the hard-packed earth—and squarely into the path of a woman who had just come out of a nearby doorway, her shoulders bowed under the weight of two full buckets of ale. Both women went down, splashed with the amber liquid.

“Here, now, why don’t ye watch what you’re about, girl? That brew was bound for garrison and now it’s naught but hog swill!” the woman berated her, as a pair of piglets rushed up to drink the ale in a puddle at Claire’s feet.

Claire was just about to rise and give the peasant woman the dressing-down she deserved when she managed to rein in her temper. Haesel would have no right to do so.

“Well, curse me for a clumsy fool!” she managed, her embarrassment perfectly genuine as she realized that the other woman was equally soaked with the sticky, yeastysmelling liquid. “I’m sorry, but I was tryin’ to go t’ the aid of the smith over there,” she said, pointing to where Guy was struggling to his feet, rubbing his thigh and still cursing at the horse in colorful French.

Heedless of her skirts twisted up around her thighs, the woman propped herself up with her elbows to see what Claire had been talking about. “The old fool’s not hurt, though if the beast bad aimed a little more toward the middle, Guy’s wife wouldn’t have to keep birthin’ his brats every year,” muttered the woman with grim humor.

“Ye must be the brewster’s wife—or daughter?” Claire guessed, thinking the hard-faced, haggard woman was more likely the former than the latter. “How about if I was to go t’ back inside with ye and tell the brewster it was my clumsiness that done it, not any of yer fault?”

The woman laughed mirthlessly. “There ain’t no man t’ say ye’re sorry to. I’m Hertha, and I’m the brewster now that me man’s passed on, though Guy over there says ’tis just till the lord finds a man to replace me.”

“Oh, then I’m sorry twice over,” said Claire, getting to her feet and reaching out a hand to help the woman up. “I’m Haesel, the new nursemaid. Is there no way 1 can make it up to ye, then?”

“I know who ye are—I saw ye with the children,” Hertha said, as though Haesel ought to have saved her breath. “Nay, there’s naught to be done—just be more heedful of where you’re goin’ in future,” the brewmistress said, struggling to her feet without Claire’s assistance.

A prickly soul, Claire thought, as she watching Hertha disappear back into the outbuilding with her nearly empty buckets. She brushed as much dirt as she could off her damp-skirted gray kirtle. Glancing across the bailey again, Claire saw that the groom had regained control of the war-horse, and the smith had resumed his attempts to shoe the restive stallion. She resumed her exploration.

She finished investigating the inner ward first, with its outbuildings built into the inner curtain wall. Crossing the bailey from the brewmistress’s outbuilding, she had come to the kitchen, greeting Marie, the cook who had given her and the children bread yesterday, and had met Tansy and Flora, the pair of kitchen maids, and Peter the quistron, the boy who turned the spit.

At a right angle to the kitchen lay a large rectangular outbuilding easily identifiable as the stable by its odors of manure, livestock and hay. From within Claire heard a horse neigh, and then saw Lord Alain’s stallion prick up his ears, toss his head and give an answering whinny.

“Good morrow, sweeting, and welcome!” called a voice above her. She looked up to see a flaxen-headed man waving from a window in the upper floor of the stable. “Hugh la Jaune-Tête is my name! We’re both named Hugh, but if ye fancy a man who can woo ye better than Le Gros, why not come upstairs to the barracks and visit with me now? There’s naught here but me at present…It’s but a short climb up the ladder in the stable, sweetheart!”

Saints, did every soul in Hawkswell Castle know that Le Gros had tried and failed with her last evening? And as Haesel, she could not respond with the shocked outrage that she could have if a man-at-arms had taken such verbal liberties with Lady Claire de Coverly. Why, he could have been whipped for less at Coverly!