The Merchant's Daughter (5 page)

By the confident way she handed her broom to a passing maid, Eustacia must have been the head servant. She shuffled to the back of the chamber, where a large tapestry screen hid a portion of the room. “My lord? Someone is here to see you.”

“Who is it?” The voice on the other side of the screen boomed louder than necessary, probably cross at being disturbed so early in the morning.
Help me, God.

The stranger who almost ran her over with his horse the day before appeared around the side of the partition, fully dressed. Just as Margery had reported, and as he had done when he addressed the villagers in the street, he held his left arm crooked at the elbow and resting against his midsection. If she read his stance and the tilt of his head correctly, he was vexed.

Mistress Eustacia continued. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but a maiden is here saying you were expecting her. Annabel Chapman.”

“A maiden?” He sounded even angrier. “Chapman? Come here.” He beckoned Annabel with his good hand.

Annabel’s knees turned to mush as she stepped forward.

Recognition flickered across his brow. “So you’re Roberta Chapman’s eldest?”

“Nay, my lord. Her youngest.”

“I’d expected her to send her eldest.” He stared hard at her with his one brown eye.

Annabel didn’t know what to say.

“So you have brothers and sisters?”

“Two brothers, my lord.”

“Are your brothers married, then?”

“Nay, my lord, they are not.” He no doubt would have preferred Edward or Durand and wondered why she had come instead of one of them. She fervently prayed he wouldn’t question her as to why she offered herself, why one of her older brothers had not come in her place.

Several moments went by while he frowned at her. “So you are prepared to serve here, to stay at the manor house, for three years in payment for the three years of work your family shirked?”

“Yes, my lord, I am.” She looked him in the eye, highly aware that the other workers in the room had grown quiet.

“Very well, then. Eustacia has much need of you in the kitchen, with all the extra workers here. But today we begin the harvest. You will join the rest of the villagers in the barley fields.”

“My lord, begging your pardon.” Eustacia lowered her voice to a whisper. “Perhaps she should stay with me today and work in the kitchen instead of the fields. She doesn’t look strong. Too skinny.”

“Doesn’t look strong?” The question was a shout that echoed through the hall.

All activity ceased. Annabel felt everyone’s eyes on her, but the most intimidating one was Lord le Wyse’s. She could feel the contempt in his stare. As the silence lengthened, the others in the room began whispering, probably reminding each other who she was. A Chapman, synonymous with lazy. She felt her cheeks begin to burn, but she continued to stare him in the eye.

Lord le Wyse growled, “Are you strong?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good.” He strode past her, thus ending the conversation.

“My lord.”

The voice echoed through the room. Annabel turned to see Bailiff Tom with his hands on his hips, facing Lord le Wyse.

“This maiden is intended to be my bride. Her brother has arranged for her to marry me in exchange for paying her censum.”

She’d been right: he might pay
her
censum and
her
fine, but he wouldn’t help the rest of her family, and either Edward or Durand would end up indentured to Lord le Wyse.

Lord le Wyse turned on her, his lips a dangerous, thin line. “Is this true? Did you promise yourself to this man?”

“Nay, my lord, I never did.” Her face heated again as she realized all the people who were listening to this exchange. But at least she would have witnesses to her refusal.

The bailiff stared at her with murder in his eyes.

“Are you willing to marry him?” Lord le Wyse’s voice was hard, and he squinted his eye at her, as if she was suddenly even more distasteful to him.

“I am not, my lord. I want to be your servant, to pay for my family’s neglect.” She made sure everyone could hear her, even as her hands shook.

He turned back to Bailiff Tom. “She will not have you, apparently.”

A low titter of amusement erupted around the room. As Lord le Wyse resumed walking toward the door, he muttered gruffly to the bailiff, “Count yourself fortunate.”

His words felt like a slap. A couple of gasps went around the room at the insult as Lord le Wyse exited and Bailiff Tom followed him out.

As the rest of the workers went back to their tasks, Eustacia frowned but didn’t seem surprised by the lord’s rude behavior. “Pay no heed to the master. He’s grumpy this morning.” Her focused gaze started at Annabel’s feet and slowly took her in, all the way to the top of her head. “You don’t want to go to the fields in that dress, that’s certain. It’ll be mussed from here to Lincoln. Put on your worst clothing and tie up your hair. Come.”

Eustacia took Annabel’s bag and walked to the far corner of the large, open chamber to a much smaller partition than the one around which Lord le Wyse had appeared. “You can change behind here.” Eustacia smiled, revealing a broken front tooth.

Annabel ducked behind the screen with her bag while the mistress spoke to her on the other side.

“Not much privacy here now, which makes the master a bit quarrelsome, but once he gets his new castle built, that will change.”

Annabel took off her dress. When she pulled her oldest and worst-looking kirtle over her head, she remembered to retrieve her knife from her other dress and slip it into her pocket. It reminded her that she might see Bailiff Tom again at any moment.

She imagined his mocking smile when he saw her working in the fields or found her in the kitchen cooking and cleaning for Lord le Wyse.

Holding her hand over the knife, she clenched her teeth so hard her jaw ached.
Bailiff Tom will never touch me again. Never.

Chapter
3

The house servants, all except Eustacia, quit
their various tasks that morning to join the villagers, including children, in the demesne fields. The barley was ripe and needed to be gathered quickly, and no one, except the very old or very sick, was exempt from working the harvest fields.

A foreman, a stranger like Eustacia who had accompanied Lord le Wyse from Lincolnshire to Glynval, handed Annabel and three other women scythes so they could start mowing the stalks of barley. A thin-shouldered man with a weather-worn face, his hose rolled down below his knobby knees, was assigned to follow behind them to gather the stalks and bind them into sheaves.

The three women, one old enough to have grandchildren and the other two a bit younger, bent forward at the waist and began to slice the barley stalks close to the ground. Annabel drew back the unwieldy instrument, her arms feeling weak. Why hadn’t she eaten breakfast? That might have helped.

She tried to imitate the women’s motions, but the blade of the scythe bent the lithe stalks instead of cutting them. Hoping no one had noticed her blunder, she hurried to pull the scythe back and try again. This time she managed to cut through a few stalks but left others standing. The other three continued slicing ahead, making a flat swath through the sea of grain.

Annabel gritted her teeth and focused. She watched, trying to mimic the other women’s body posture and grip on the
wooden handles of their scythes. She drew back and swung, flattening the stalks, but they sprang up again to bob their heads at her, taunting her for her futile efforts.

She exhaled in frustration. Soon she would attract everyone’s attention. Already the binder had passed her as he gathered the barley the other women cut and tied it into bundles. He glared back at her over his shoulder, shaking his head and muttering.

“Well, Annabel Chapman. Having some trouble?”

Her blood went cold as she turned. Bailiff Tom atte Water stood by her side.

“Let me show you how to do that.” His hands reached toward her. Annabel shrank away from him and clamped one hand over the knife in her pocket.

Bailiff Tom grabbed the scythe and she let go.

His small black eyes narrowed and his lip curled. “You’ve never done this before, so I will teach you. You hold the handle like this.”

He reached out and clasped her hand, but she snatched it away from him and took a step back.

“I’m trying to help you. Are you too good to accept my help? Too high and lofty?” He stepped toward her, and as he leaned forward, Annabel could see the blackness in his eyes. “You’re no better than the rest of us, as it turns out. Now take this scythe and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

Taking the tool from his hands would only allow him to touch her, to get close enough for him to whisper in her ear. She couldn’t let him get that close.
God, help me.

“Bailiff Tom.”

At the sound of the lord’s stern voice, a scowl darkened the bailiff’s features. When he realized who addressed him, he plastered on a smile that did nothing to hide the black look in his eyes.

“Bailiff, I need you to go to the barley field behind the grove of chestnut trees and make sure everything is progressing with the harvest there.”

“Yes, my lord.” Tom turned to Annabel, but she kept her
eyes focused on Lord le Wyse. Tom thrust the scythe at her and stalked away.

Her knees went weak with relief, but also with trepidation. What would her lord say? Had he noticed her lack of usefulness with the scythe?

With his mutilated hand, the patch over his eye, and his scarred face, he was probably accustomed to inspiring fear, even repulsion, in people. She tried not to show anything but respect for him and turned her gaze to the ground.

“Forgive me, my lord. I’m afraid I don’t know how to use a scythe.” She shook her head apologetically.

He reached out and took the scythe from her. Once empty, her hand trembled violently. She quickly hid it in the folds of her faded blue dress.

He cleared his throat. “It takes practice to master the proper technique. Since we need every pair of hands to get in the harvest, you will work with the binders tying up the sheaves.”

“Yes, my lord.”

She was so grateful to him that the corners of her mouth went up in a relieved smile. His expression immediately changed to an angry scowl.

“Come.” His voice sounded like it had when he spoke to Tom. Of course he would misinterpret her smiling at him. She must force herself to behave like a servant.
Servants don’t smile at their masters,
she scolded herself. Though it seemed the lord despised her before she’d even arrived. But why? The fact that her family hadn’t done their required labor didn’t seem like reason enough.

She kept a safe distance behind him as he led her to a section of the field where three young girls were slicing the barley stalks at a slower pace than the older women. He gave her a roll of twine, then he bent and gathered an armful of the cut grain. He used his mangled left hand to hold the stalks against his chest while he gathered with his right. His dark brown hair and beard glowed in the sun as he wrapped the twine tightly around the stalks and tied it, leaving the sheaf standing in the field to dry.

He met her eyes, scowled, and seemed to be waiting for a response.

She gave him a curt nod and started gathering the spears of grain awkwardly in the crook of her arm, trying to mimic his movements.

As she finished tying her first sheaf, she glanced up and saw that he was striding away. She sighed in relief, glad he wasn’t watching her.

She continued gathering the barley, still tasting her fear like copper in the back of her throat, and still hearing the threat in the bailiff’s voice.
Thank you, God, that Lord le Wyse came when he did.
It was almost as if he realized Bailiff Tom was threatening her. God had sent an angry lord to protect her from a lecherous bailiff. But she was grateful.

Thankful to have a task she could do, she worked steadily. It didn’t take long for her shoulders to grow hot under the relentless heat of the sun, which had burned off the fog of early morning. Her back and shoulders ached from bending over, and her arms felt like two boulders as she lifted and tied, lifted and tied. Her hands burned from the rough twine and prickly stalks. She paused in her work to wipe the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, watching the girls ahead of her mow the barley with expert strokes. They often flicked their gazes around to make sure they weren’t being observed before stopping to whisper to each other and giggle. Annabel was thankful for the girls’ lack of enthusiasm for their work, since it prevented her from getting too far behind them, and she even allowed herself to hope that the girls might one day accept her as a friend. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d whispered and giggled with a girlfriend. Perhaps now that she was working as a servant, the rest of the village girls would accept her.

Glancing up, she saw a familiar form bending over the barley stalks. Edward was working not far away, also gathering and binding sheaves. He straightened, stopping his work to press a hand to his lower back. Annabel quickly looked down, hoping her brother didn’t see her.