A Lady Under Siege (7 page)

“Let me look at you.”

Betsy felt her lips. “I’ve got grass in my mouth,” she said. “But it really didn’t hurt.”

“Grass and dirt,” said Meghan. “All over your face.”

“Think they used pesticides on it?” Betsy asked.

“I don’t know,” said Meghan.

Derek piped up. “Nah, the last owners never used anything. They just left it, more or less. They were really old, sweet ancient people. Deaf as posts, both of them—the ideal neighbours for me. Then he died and she had to go into a home.”

“Derek gave me the trampoline,” said Betsy excitedly. “Do you like it?”

“No,” said Meghan, bristling at the idea that the two of them were on a first name basis. “It’s old and decaying and I’m sure it wouldn’t pass safety standards.”

“But it’s fun!” Betsy protested.

“It’s dangerous. I don’t want it.”

“Did Daddy leave? You told me I could do anything I wanted once you finished your talk.”

“He left, and yes, that’s true, I did say that, but—”

“Then I get to keep the trampoline,” she trumpeted. She sang it over and over, like a victory song. “I get to keep the trampoline! I get to keep the trampoline!”

“We’ll see,” Meghan told her. “No promises. Go inside and get your face cleaned up, and let me talk to our neighbour for a minute.”

Betsy ran into the house. Derek took a final swig from his beer and dropped the empty into the dirt behind him.

“I see you two have made fast friends,” she said coolly.

“Lovely girl. Full of life,” he answered.

“Yes, she is. And the key to that is to let her win some battles sometimes. I wish I didn’t have to let her win this one. But I’m afraid I do.”

“Excellent plan,” said Derek. “Compromise is essential to civilized life. Without it we’re just animals.”

Meghan let that pass without comment. She was tempted to say, Yes, and speaking of animals, last night I saw you rutting like one. But the way he looked down at her over the fence put her on the defensive, as if he were the judge and she the one on trial, when it should have been the other way round. She stood as tall as she could and said, “You weren’t very civilized last night.”

“Was I rude?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m sorry. I don’t remember it all that well.”

“You were yelling at me in my window.”

“I was responding to someone yelling down at me, as I recall.”

“But I wasn’t rude. You were.”

“And I’ve apologized. I was inebriated, so I wasn’t myself. Except that I usually am inebriated, so I guess I was myself. In any case we did kill the noise and put out the party lights, just for you, more or less. I hope you got back to sleep?”

He was smirking—as if he knew she’d watched him and that girl going at it on the picnic table. Meghan said, “Yes I did, thank you.”

Derek looked toward her house. “Betsy loves the trampoline.”

“She’s got a bike helmet, and knee and elbow pads from a brief interest in skateboarding,” said Meghan. “I’m going to make sure she wears them. Are you sure this thing is safe?”

“When it was new, it was top of the line, it’s not some cheapy Chinese knock-off. It’s not new now, obviously—I salvaged it from the trash but I gave it a good going-over.”

“I think I might buy her a new one,” she mused.

“You look like the environmentalist type,” he said. “Throwing out things that still work should be sin number one.”

“But peace of mind trumps all. If you were a parent, you’d understand.”

“Don’t make it sound like privileged information,” he said.

“I didn’t mean to sound that way.”

“It’s common knowledge people worry about their loved ones.”

Just then Betsy, her face freshly scrubbed, came bounding onto the deck and down to the lawn.

“Well?” she said expectantly.

“You can keep it,” Meghan said. “I might get you a new one instead though.”

“Yippee,” Betsy shouted. The hug she gave her mother was the most joyful, unselfconscious, and heartfelt embrace she’d given in a long, long time.

10

I
t was late afternoon when the castle gate opened, and Sylvanne emerged, holding herself erectly and proudly in her finest raiment. Kent, the leader of the besiegers, was napping in the shade of a small tree when a comrade shook him awake. What he saw was a vision walking toward him. Sylvanne’s light brown hair fell in waves across her shoulders—there had been no time to find or fashion a widow’s cap. Her dress, a type of velvet gown called a bliaut, in a shade of deep forest green that shimmered in the sunshine, she had worn only once before, at the previous year’s feast of Christmas. Its bodice was laced at the sides to fit snugly. Hidden under the hem she wore her best sabetynes, for she knew she was likely to be put upon a horse, and her feet would show.

Kent watched as she reached the first knot of soldiers. One of them let out a shout, and now all the others were running toward her. They quickly surrounded her, engulfed her, and lifted her like a trophy upon their shoulders. The mass of men that skittered toward him looked like a giant centipede, and she its unwilling fairy rider. The men delivered her straight to him, dropped her delicately at his feet, then retreated a pace or two, catching their breaths, waiting eagerly to see and hear what would come next. Whatever words were about to be spoken would be repeated around hearths and hunting fires for many years to come, and take on the quality of legend.

Sylvanne had dropped to one knee on being lowered by the men, but quickly regained her feet and her composure, straightening her clothing and hair. To Kent she looked flushed, severe, and altogether lovely.

“You’ve made this the happiest day of my life, Madame. Are you hungry? Fetch bread and cheese for the Lady!”

“I’ve come to negotiate terms,” she said.

“Eat first.”

In short order a soldier handed her bread and cheese on a wooden board. The smell of it almost made her faint, and despite herself, she succumbed to hunger and ripped at the food like an animal.

“Slowly, slowly,” Kent warned. “Your stomach will be slow to stretch, I reckon.”

“And some for my maid. Mabel! Mabel!”

Mabel pushed her way through the circle of men.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Give her food also. And water for us both.”

“Of course. Of course. Whatever the Lady requires.”

She looked challengingly at the gawking men who surrounded her.

“Privacy while I feed,” she said.

A small tent was brought and erected for her. She and Mabel sat on the ground. A cooked chicken in an earthenware bowl was offered through the tent flap, reminding her of the way prisoners are fed in a jail. Sylvanne ate slowly and deliberately, but Mabel attacked it with gusto, wiping fat from her lips with her sleeve, and dropping the bones into the bowl. “My jaw aches from chewing,” she grinned. “But my stomach aches most happily.”

The tent flap was pulled aside and Kent entered.

“Are we ladies sated?” he asked.

“Oh yes Sir, I never tasted a bird so fine,” Mabel chirped eagerly. She dropped her smile when she noticed Sylvanne glaring at her.

“Good then,” said Kent. “We’ll set out immediately. It’s two days steady walk to the castle of my Lord and Master Thomas. Given your condition, and the suffering you’ve endured, we’ll mount you aboard careful, steady horses. M’Lady, you’ll have mine, and I’ll walk beside.”

“But I’m not leaving,” Sylvanne said defiantly. “I came out to negotiate, not be carried away like plunder. Why should I go to your Master? He should come to me.”

“I’m afraid grave domestic concerns keep him home, m’Lady. And if I may say, negotiation takes place between equals. I have an army of two hundred behind me, and you have a maid with chicken grease on her chin. I have orders to deliver you alive and healthy, and you have no say in the matter.”

Sylvanne rose to her feet and attempted to brush past him out of the tent. Kent stepped aside and allowed her to go. Once outside, the sunshine hit her eyes like a blast of fire. She staggered dizzily, disoriented. A sea of peasant faces closed in around her, mostly ugly unshaven men, with a few curious boys among them. An older man called her deary, another asked gruffly, “Where do yer think yer goin?” She heard Kent’s voice behind her.

“M’Lady! You’re weakened from the siege. You need more rest and nourishment. Please accept your circumstances.”

The circle of faces tightened around her, and she felt hands take hold of her arms. She pulled free, then collapsed unconscious onto the trampled grass.

W
HEN SHE CAME TO
her senses she was curled up, joggled and jolted, amid sacks full of oats in the back of a rough two-wheeled cart pulled by a dray horse. She was still dressed in her finery, although the green of her gown was now dulled by a coat of dust. Ahead she saw Kent and a dozen mounted horsemen, to her rear came the two hundred soldiers afoot, with Mabel perched unsteadily upon a single horse. The rein was held by a fat oafish fellow walking alongside gingerly, as if there were stones in his shoes. He was sweating severely. Seeing Sylvanne awake he yelled out, “Master Kent, Sir! She arises from her slumber. That calls for a wee stoppage for a morsel, don’t you think?”

Kent circled back on his mount, and tipped his cap to Sylvanne. “Are you feeling better, Ma’am?”

Sylvanne made no answer. She’d awoken thinking of her husband, and only after a moment had she remembered he was dead. She looked about her, thinking, I don’t even know these men, this country.

“If we keep a brisk pace we reach home before dark tomorrow,” Kent was saying to the fat man, who went by the name Gwynn. “Wouldn’t you rather we reunite with wife and children under the sun’s light, and not arrive to a cold hearth and a dark night?”

“You forget I have no wife, Sir,” answered Gwynn.

“No, it’s you forget I do.”

“The lady looks in need of a cup of comfort, Sir.”

“Let her express her own opinion,” said Kent. He turned his horse alongside Sylvanne’s cart. “Are you in need of anything, m’Lady? A sip of water, perhaps? A stop for relief?”

“How dare you dump me in a cart like a pig carried to market,” Sylvanne said indignantly. “I want a horse.”

“I told you earlier you could have mine, m’Lady,” said Kent.

“If I may say something,” interjected fat Gwynn, “I fear my feet are not meant for such gruelling hikes as these. At this pace they’ll be bloody stumps by nightfall. Could I take her place in the cart, Sir?”

“Here’s a man who feels no shame at being carried like a pig to market,” Kent laughed. “It’s true the feet of a horseman can grow tender when he’s forced afoot, and I worry about mine, in fact. Here’s a plan: you will have your cart ride, Gwynn, and maid Mabel will join you there. I’ll take the horse she rides, and the Lady can have mine.”

And so it was. Sylvanne mounted his fine stallion and slowed it to a walk, falling in behind the cart where Gwynn and Mabel sat, for it was understood that Mabel had a role to play as chaperone; to keep things seemly she was expected to keep her Mistress in her sight at all times. Kent also kept watch, riding discreetly at the Lady’s shoulder.

They passed through golden fields where peasants gathering the harvest stopped to gape openly at them. Gwynn kept up a running commentary, remarking how the fields were lush and productive, and the soil of these lands must be very fine. “They belong to the Earl of Apthwaite, and he’s been very gracious to let us pass through unhindered,” he informed Mabel. “Of course it’s not entirely from the kindness of his heart, for young Gerald was deeply indebted to him, and now that he’s deceased, the Earl will be quick to gobble up his lands and properties as payment.”

Kent told him to shut his mouth, and not speak of such things within earshot of a Lady in mourning. Sylvanne said nothing, but seethed within. After some time they left the fields behind them and skirted dark forests where the ages of trees were measured by centuries. For a stretch the woods enclosed them, and the men and horses were required to walk single file. The cart was wider, and square-shouldered; rogue branches slapped and rapped against it, causing Gwynn to wrap his arms around Mabel protectively. “Hang tight, I’ll not let any old tree snatch you from me,” he snorted.

“It’s what
you
might snatch that worries me,” Mabel retorted. “Your hands have already taken liberties for which, if I were upon terra firma, I’d slap your face crimson.”

“Shall I let go then?” he asked playfully, leaning close against her. Just then a deep rut jolted the cart and nearly sprang Mabel airborne.

“No!” she cried. “Hang on to me.”

“With pleasure.”

Mabel pushed against him as if he were a lumpy armchair. “This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home, and the furthest from comfort, too,” she said. “And what’s that poking me?”

“In my breeches there’s a bone, Madame, though it’s made of flesh.”

“Keep your flesh well clothed, so that I might keep my chastity intact,” Mabel scolded him.

“Chastity? Have you no husband?”

“Never.”

“Then you’re overripe. The fates must have made this meeting, for I have lost a wife.”