Medieval Rogues (23 page)

With careful fingers, Elizabeth nudged aside a spider scuttling up her skirt. “I have helped Fraeda order wine and spices and watched her cook on occasion, but I have not lifted a cauldron, boiled pottage, or chopped onions for stew. Nor, as the lord’s daughter, did I expect to.”

Mildred sank onto the turned earth and dropped her face into her hands. “We are destined for disaster.”

The fine hairs at Elizabeth’s nape prickled. “You have cooked before, have you not?”

The matron mopped her brow with her sleeve. “Many years ago, when I was married. Long before I entered the nunnery and learned the ways of herbs and tonics. Long,
long
before your father rescued me from those infernal hours of prayer and asked me to be your mother’s lady-in-waiting.”

Elizabeth blew a relieved sigh. “Thank goodness.”

“I cooked for two, milady,” the matron pointed out, “not an entire keep.”

“The principles are the same, are they not?” Elizabeth tossed another dandelion onto the huge pile of weeds. “What one does to one quail, one does to fifty.”

Mildred clutched at her head. She looked about to faint.

“Why do you look so distraught?”

The matron’s throat moved on a loud swallow. “The process is a little more . . . ah . . . complex than you make it sound.”

“How so?”

“The quail, if that is what we are to prepare, must be plucked. They must be cleaned, trussed, and . . . and then there is the matter of the fire. The meat cannot sit too near the flame. It must also be basted with fat as it cooks so it does not dry out and become tough and flavorless.”

With a loud snort, Elizabeth flicked her braid back over her shoulder. “The rogue cannot fault us for that. We have been eating leather for days.”

Mildred’s sigh ended with a groan. “I am afraid my skills do not extend much beyond salted pork and roasted chicken.”

“Then we will serve pork and chicken.”

“Oh, milady.” Mildred bit down on her grubby hand.

“Cooking cannot be so difficult.” Elizabeth brushed clods of dirt from her bliaut, and then worked a cramp out of her back. “We must convince the rogue we can cook the meal, or we will never manage to escape.”

“True.” Worry still gleamed in the matron’s eyes. “I am glad de Lanceau will be fast asleep before he has tasted much of our fare.”

***

Lord Arthur Brackendale yanked off his helm and dragged his hand through his sweat-soaked hair. Frustration burned inside him like glowing embers. The journey to Tillenham had taken far longer than expected, due to the necessary repair of a splintered wagon wheel, and heavy rains that had flooded parts of the road and forced the convoy to lose a half-day’s journey.

He stared at Tillenham’s keep looming ahead, a hulking fortress outlined against the crimson twilight sky. The doubt nagging him over the last few leagues settled in his belly like a chunk of limestone. He had not ridden past charred fields or seen clouds of dense smoke. He had found no evidence of devastating fires.

Oak trees sighed along the fortress’s walls and clustered in fields as far as Arthur could see. Over the stink of his own body and sweaty horse, he smelled drying wheat, the scent as sweet as the flowers blooming along the roadside near his destrier’s hooves.

The earl’s missive was a hoax.

A dog barked in the shorn field to Arthur’s left. He turned his head, and saw peasants calling to their bedraggled children. They looked at him, curious, awed, even a little afeared.

He scowled, rage hot in his mouth. They stared at an old fool.

Aldwin rode up, his horse lathered with sweat. “What now, milord? There are no fires.”

“I know.” Setting his helm in his lap, Arthur fixed his gaze on the keep ahead. “The earl will answer for his missive.”

Nodding, Aldwin fell back and relayed the message to the other knights and foot soldiers. Over the rattle and squeal of the wagons, Arthur heard grumbles. He ignored them. His men would eat and rest when he had the answers he sought, not before.

As they rode up to the keep, a sentry on the wall walk hailed them.

“Lord Brackendale of Wode,” he shouted back. “I will speak with the Earl of Druentwode.”

After a moment, the portcullis raised enough to allow out a guard in full chain mail. He tromped across the lowered drawbridge, and Arthur spurred his horse forward.

The sentry bowed. “Milord, I regret the earl is not receiving visitors.”

Arthur’s lip curled. “I will not be refused.”

The guard tensed, and he dropped into another bow. “He is very ill. He lies near death, and has done so for almost a week.”

Arthur jerked in surprise. Murmurs ripped through the knights behind him. Leaning down, he flipped open his saddlebag, withdrew the missive, and tossed it to the guard. “I received this from him several days ago.”

The sentry glanced at the document and shook his head. “’Tis not possible.”

“Then who—”

Suspicion shattered the lump in Arthur’s belly into a hundred shards. De Lanceau.

Arthur’s hands clenched around the destrier’s reins until chain mail links dug into his skin. The discomfort sharpened his anger to a lethal pitch. Why would de Lanceau create such an elaborate deception? Why did de Lanceau want him at Tillenham? There seemed no reason unless . . . Arthur sucked in a breath. Unless de Lanceau wanted to lure him away from Wode.

A brutal, invisible fist squeezed Arthur’s gut.

“Lord Brackendale?”

With effort, Arthur returned his attention to the guard. The man had not spoken, he realized, but the peasant lad who stood beside the destrier. His smile hesitant, the boy handed up a small bundle, a scrap of black silk bound with twine. “A man brought this for you.”

“Man?” Arthur scowled. “He
knew
I would come here?”

The guard’s expression turned confused and wary. “Answer the lord’s question, boy.”

The lad swallowed and looked down at the stony ground. “He told me to expect you. I did not ask questions, milord. He gave me some silver to keep silent until you arrived and”—the boy’s face turned red—“he told me ’twas very important.”

Arthur turned the object over in his mailed palm, weighing the contents. Round. Heavy. He broke the twine and parted the cloth’s frayed edges. In his palm lay a rolled piece of parchment sealed with wax, and a gold brooch.

Elizabeth’s brooch.

Anticipating the ransom demand, Arthur ripped open the parchment and read the note. He crushed it into a ball.

“God’s blood,” he whispered. “Elizabeth.”
 

Chapter Fifteen

Elizabeth thought the morning could get no worse . . . until Dominic brushed past the grim faced guards and entered the kitchens.

He stopped as though slapped by an invisible hand, wrinkled his nose, and peered at her through the thick smoke around the wall of cooking fires. “What is that atrocious smell?”

“Smell?” Mildred chirped, looking up from a bubbling pot hung low over one of the fires. “Milady, do you note a smell?”

Scowling, Elizabeth leaned away from the chopping block. Dominic chuckled and she shot him a warning glare. How dare he laugh? ’Twas not her fault her green bliaut was splattered with blood, sauces, and vegetable juices. Nor would she apologize for the state of her hair.

“It
could
be the chickens I burnt to a crisp on the spit,” she said, raising her hand and counting off options on her fingers. “Or the rotten cabbages I found in the pantry and took the initiative to throw away. Or mayhap ’tis the white sauce I scorched a moment ago when I simmered it over too high a flame. Why do you ask?”

Dominic’s gaze fell to the bunch of fresh herbs destined for the cutting board, then slid to the knife by her hand. “Just curious,” he said with a grin.

She huffed a breath. “Please take yourself and your curiosity elsewhere. We are busy.”

“Of course, milady.”

He executed a graceful bow, then strode away to speak to the guards blocking the door to the bailey.

As soon as his back was turned, Mildred joined Elizabeth at the cutting table and started breaking the sage leaves from the stems. “By the blessed Virgin.”

“When you suggested we brew sleeping potion,” Elizabeth said between her teeth, “you failed to warn me of the stench.”

“’Tis the valerian. I did not remember myself, for when I use the braziers in my workshop, I open all the doors to circulate the air.” Mildred gave a bright, toothy smile. “’Twas clever of you to burn the chickens to try and disguise the odor.”

“The hens scorched by accident, as well you know.” Elizabeth grabbed the knife, swept the herbs into the middle of the table, and chopped them with a vengeance, drawing a wary glance from Dominic and the guards.

Mildred touched her arm. “The accident was timely, then.”

Elizabeth grunted. Perspiration dripped down her nose. Over the knife’s rhythmic
thud
, she heard Mildred lift the lid of the copper pot, and the ladle
clank
against the side.

“’Tis done.”

A smile warmed Elizabeth’s lips. “Good. Now, if you will rinse the salted pork we left to soak earlier, we can cook it and set it on the platters.”

At last, the meal was ready. Elizabeth dried her clammy palms on a linen towel and forced herself to draw slow, even breaths. Soon she and Mildred would be free.

She was pouring a fresh white sauce, only a little scorched this time, into bowls when she heard Geoffrey’s clipped strides. Her pulse jittered. At the same time, a shameful ache reminded her of his body pressed against hers.

Did his tongue still taste of berries?

She shut her mind to the thoughts. She must focus on escape, not on what, in her silly dreams, might have come true.

Geoffrey came to an abrupt halt. He looked through the smoke to where she stood at the serving table, and threw up his hands. “What mischief have you been up to?”

She ignored a nervous tingle. “We prepared a meal, milord, as you asked.” With the edge of a cloth, she wiped drippings from the side of a bowl.

He set his hands on his hips. “What did you cook?”

“Salted pork with an herbed mustard sauce.”

His mouth flattened, and he strode around the cutting table to peer into the pots over the fires. “You created this amount of mess, not to mention the vile stench, to serve salted pork?” He sniffed the steam over the sleeping potion. “What is
that?
”

Out of the corner of her eye, Elizabeth saw Mildred stiffen.

“’Tis . . . well, a surprise.”

“I do not like surprises,” he growled. “Not from you. I warn you, do not think to deceive me.”

Misgiving shivered through Elizabeth. She must divert his suspicions, now, before he ordered one of his men to taste the potion and ruined the chance to escape.

Tossing aside the cloth, she planted her hands on her hips and matched his defiant stance. “How could we trick you, with the guards keeping watch? If you must know, Mildred has been most kind. She brewed a special herbal tonic for you and your men. She planned to present it to you when finished, but, of course, you have spoiled that now.”

“’Tis medicine?” he asked with the faintest hint of a smile.

“Of a sort.” Elizabeth smothered an uneasy giggle. “It eases many ailments, including headaches, stomach pains, and”—she arched an eyebrow—“wind.”

“Ah.” He grinned. “’Tis good she made some, since we will be eating your cooking.”

Dominic and the other guards chortled, and Elizabeth snapped her jaw shut. Let them laugh. Moments from now, they would be snoring into their salted pork while she and Mildred ran to freedom.

The rogue had the gall to chuckle, too. “Dominic, have the ladies take the food to the great hall.”

“With pleasure, milord.”

Mildred caught Elizabeth’s gaze and tipped her head toward the steaming pot behind them. They had yet to put the potion into the ale.

With brisk strides, Elizabeth walked around in front of the chopping block. Her ploy worked. Dominic’s gaze followed her and not Mildred, who hurried to the wooden cask and began filling pitchers with ale.

Elizabeth pointed to the serving table. “Dominic, would you and the guards help us with the platters? They are heavy.”

The knight’s cheeky grin faded. “Must I?”

Pasting a smile on her lips, Elizabeth looked at him and the other men, who also looked disgruntled. “Please.”

“Do not look at me so,” Dominic grumbled. “I will summon the serving wenches.”

“Lord de Lanceau assigned them other duties today.”

With a sigh, Dominic nodded. “Very well. I will help. Yet, if I do not quench my thirst this instant, I will not reach the hall.” Leaning past her, he grabbed one of the frothing pitchers Mildred had just set on the serving table, poured a mug, and downed the ale in one swallow.

Elizabeth gasped. The matron shot her a fierce look, then resumed her task, pretending that naught out of the ordinary had happened. Covering her open mouth with her hand, Elizabeth pretended her outburst was a big yawn. The distrustful guards looked away.

Dominic burped and slammed down the empty mug. “Much better. Now, if you will come with me, milord is waiting.”