The Protector (31 page)

He followed the maid out of the keep and across the yard to the kitchens.

Steam and heat and pandemonium greeted him as he entered. When he was noticed an eerie silence descended as all activity ceased. Out of the dark corners three figures floated toward him like ghosts. Two men and a woman lined up in front of him and literally dug in their heels.

In the center stood a short, bald man with round indignant eyes. Blood stained his clothes. He still held a large butcher's knife.

“My lord Morvan, I am Pierre, the head cook,” he announced imperiously. “I have served this family for twenty years. I have fed armies. I have fed great lords and dukes. I cooked during the plague. My servants and assistants dropped like flies around me, but did I leave? Nay. I fed them all, sick and healthy.” The knife pointed accusingly. “Are you unhappy with my food, my lord?”

“Not at all. It is excellent.”

The knife began jabbing the air. “I am freeborn! I do not have to stay here. I will not take such insults!”

Morvan leaned against a worktable. “Why don't you tell me what has happened?”

“Five days ago, she comes here,” Pierre began with a dangerous squint. Morvan didn't have to ask who “she” was. “She sits. She watches. I think, fine. The lady is interested, or maybe bored. Her husband has taken away her toys, and she needs something to do until she has a child. It happens. Sometimes ladies even want to cook a bit. But not her. She sits. She watches. She asks a few questions.” The round eyes flared. The knife grew agitated. “Two days ago she arrives and calls us together. She has decided that we will be more efficient if we divide the work. One does baking. One does fish. One does pottage. Forever. The same thing, day in and day out. And!” The knife came down with emphasis, stabbing point-first into a slab of wood inches from Morvan's arm. “And, we are to share our secrets. I am to give this idiot here my recipe for fish soup.” Pierre gestured to the man on his left, then folded his arms over his chest. “No one makes Pierre's fish soup but Pierre.”

The two assistant cooks hadn't said a word, but stood there nodding their support, even when Pierre had called one of them an idiot.

Morvan rubbed his forehead and began his retreat. “I will speak with her.”

“Give her back her toys,” the bald cook shouted. “Get her out of my hair.”

He should have known. She was going to be the death of him.

Gregory intercepted him on his way back to the hall and fell in step. “You returned early today.”

“Aye. I wish I had camped on the road.”

Gregory's eyes twinkled. “You had better come with me. There is something you need to see.”

“Oh, God help me. Where now?”

Gregory pointed up to the top of the keep. Morvan's spirits lifted. Battlements. Defenses. A decent problem.

He followed Gregory to the roof. Gregory fixed him with a big smile, then threw open the door and gestured grandly. Morvan stepped outside.

On the roof, in an intricate circle, stood a variety of dirt-filled wooden casks and tubs. Additional small tubs dotted the wall walk.

“What the hell is this?”

“This,” Gregory announced with a flourish of his arm, “is a garden.”

“
A garden?
”

“Aye. There are to be roses in these casks come spring. You can imagine how excited the men are at the prospect. Their enthusiasm as they helped carry the dirt up all of those steps was something to behold.” He chortled and shook his head. “Did you know that between the soldiers and servants, this castle knows how to curse in seven different languages?”

“A rose garden.” Morvan glanced around, feeling utterly and totally defeated.

She was incredible. Relentless.

“I am going to my solar, Gregory.” He paused and glanced back suspiciously. “Is there anything else that I should see or know?”

“Well, except for the plans to paint the castle white, and a general insurrection among the servants, I wouldn't say there is anything else of interest going on.”

“
Paint the castle white?
”

“It seems that it is often done in France and England.”

“Only when the stone is poor, and you know it. This is good granite.” He sighed. “I don't need to ask whose idea this was, do I?”

“I seriously doubt it.”

“Are you enjoying this sufficiently, Gregory?”

“Me? I am insulted that you think I would take amusement at your expense. Father Ascanio, on the other hand, is having a wonderful time.”

“No doubt.”

“And the head groom Carlos has eagerly awaited the completion of your circuit.”

“Indeed.”

“And the Lady Anna, my lord, has been in wonderful spirits. It has been a pleasure to see her thus.”

“I can imagine.” He hustled down the stairs to the sanctuary of his solar before any more of his wife's subversions waylaid him.

Damn it. He had underestimated her again.

“You are doing this on purpose,” he said to her when they were alone that night. He waited until after they had made love before raising the servants' complaints.

“Whatever do you mean, my lord?”

He heard the two drumbeats. He looked at her suspiciously. She smiled sweetly.

“You know what I mean.”

“I only do as you wished, Morvan. Are you going to tell me how to manage the household now?”

He was on slippery ground. If he interfered, they would start coming to him with every little complaint. If he didn't, there could be chaos. Wherever you walked in the castle you heard a low buzz of complaint. On the other hand, they no longer grumbled about the English lord.

“It won't work, Anna.”

“I'm sure that you are right, Morvan, whatever it is that you are referring to.” She spoke like a docile and submissive girl. He wasn't fooled in the least.

“You must fix things with the servants.”

She hit him with that level gaze. “I am only doing your bidding. You told me to occupy myself with women's work. Are you saying now that I am no good at it? Should I perhaps be doing something else?”

The trap gaped in front of him. “Nay, dear wife, I would never suggest such a thing. You do as you think best. I have complete confidence in your skills.” Inspiration struck. “Indeed, I am so confident that I have decided to make a visit to Sir Baldwin. It is time that I examined the distant fiefs, and would do so before Gurwant is released.”

Her face fell, and he smiled smugly. He'd let her boil in her own stew.

“How long will you be gone?”

“A week at least, I should think.”

“A week,” she repeated thoughtfully.

“At least. I will take Josce and four others with me. All should be safe here. But you are to stay within the walls.”

She didn't react at all to that. She smiled very sweetly and stretched to plant a kiss on his lips. “I will miss you, my lord.”

Two drumbeats again. It was deliberate, he was quite sure now.

Anna went about her duties for four days with smiles and cheer. The only alteration in her schedule, now that Morvan had left, was that periodically she went into the lord's solar and studied the gatehouse across the yard. On Morvan's orders the portcullis stayed down and the drawbridge up.

All of the guards had been informed by Morvan that the women were to stay in the castle. That meant she would be unable to slip through among some servants. He had anticipated her defiance once his back was turned, and seen to it that she could not leave. But leave she would, she'd vowed. It had become a matter of honor.

On the fourth day, she noticed a pattern. Gregory kept assigning the new men to the gatehouse during the afternoon hours. She made her plans, and went back to disrupting the household.

That night at the evening meal she measured the knights sitting at her table. Her gaze came to rest on Sir Walter. He was one of the new men, and had been left behind to help Ascanio defend the keep.

She dallied at her food until the others began to disperse. Once Ascanio had left his place by her side, she gestured to Sir Walter to come and sit next to her.
Surprised by this honor, he carried his wine cup down the table.

He was about Morvan's age, and a very nice man. His face was a bit thin and his brown hair a bit shaggy, but his eyes looked kind and his expression earnest. She felt a pang of guilt at how she intended to use him.

She engaged him in conversation as the hall emptied and the servants cleared the tables. Finally, when they were alone, she said, “I realize that I have not seen to my duties properly with the new knights, Sir Walter.”

“You have made us most welcome, my lady.”

“Nay, nay, you are too generous. I have left all of you to fend for yourselves settling in, and I know that it is awkward at first getting help from strange servants.”

His expression looked very earnest indeed. “I assure you that none have complaints.”

“Still, we must remedy the situation. For example, have any of the women seen to your garments? Have they been examined to see about repairs and things of that sort? Nay? Well, let us do it at once.” She rose from her chair. “You were given my husband's old chamber, I believe?”

She breezed across the hall and opened the door to the chamber. “Just as I thought. You have not even been provided with a chest.” She clucked her tongue and descended on the stack of clothes on the bed. She began examining them. For the most part she found them in depressingly good condition.

“My lady, I do not think …”

“Come, come. Sit down. Is it not my duty to see to the comforts of my husband's men?” With relief she found a shirt in need of washing and a cotte with a tear. She reached for the hose.

Sir Walter hadn't answered her, or sat down, or even moved. She absently threw a smile and a glance over her
shoulder at him. She returned her attention to the hose, but something nagged at her. Sir Walter had simply been watching her, leaning with his back against the wall near the almost closed door, his arms folded over his chest. What was it? His eyes. Aye, that was it. There had been a strange glint in those kind eyes, rather like …

Oh dear.

She fussed furiously with the clothes, setting aside the ones she wanted. As she did so she thought of Sir Walter's earnest expressions when he looked at her, and then of young Paul's. She suddenly comprehended some of the reactions she had received in Windsor. There flashed in her memory the look Gurwant had given her during her parlay.

Some will desire you. Some may truly love you.

Well, well.

Reflection would have to wait for later. Right now she had to deal with the immediate implications of this stunning revelation.

She grasped the clothes to her chest and turned to Sir Walter with a neutral and, she hoped, thoroughly discouraging smile. “I will have these tended and returned to you,” she said, stretching for the door and throwing it open.

“Will you honor me by tending them yourself, my lady?” He looked slightly awestruck. The way Louis used to.

Oh dear.

“In truth, Sir Walter, be glad if I don't. You may have heard of the botch I made with my husband's things.”

“I'm sure that whatever your lovely hands do is magnificent, good lady.”

She barely managed not to gape at him. Surely nice Sir Walter would not make a lewd reference.

Trying to look authoritative and untouchable and very much the lady of the manor, she stumbled out of the chamber and hurried through the hall.

Anna slowed her horse to a walk once she reached the cover of the trees. It wasn't Shadow beneath her. Someone would have recognized Shadow. She had arranged a diversion at the stable and saddled a palfrey instead while the grooms were distracted.

It had been easy, almost too easy. She had simply called for the gate to open and ridden out. The new guards had never seen her in men's garments, and had not recognized her.

She emerged from the trees on the hill overlooking the horse farm. Exhilaration swept through her as she surveyed her favorite place in the world.

And then her whole body tensed. Her heart and her blood began pounding. Her legs instinctively gave a signal and the horse backed up into the cover of the trees.

Two bodies lay on the ground in front of the farmhouse.

Strange horses were tied to the fence. As she counted the mounts, the door opened and a man stepped out of the house. In the shadows by the corner of the structure she saw another man standing guard.

Cold terror replaced her shock. Carlos and two others should have been here today. Was there a third body as well, out of sight behind a fence or water trough? She sent up a prayer that they were not all dead, that one had survived at least.

She turned her horse and sped back up the trail. Glancing down she saw the rough marks that indicated many horses had come through here. She had been so
full of herself and her stupid victory over Morvan that she hadn't noticed them when she rode in.

Fifty yards up the path, she reined in her horse. Out of the corner of her eye, she had seen something move.

The brush rustled again. She made out a dark form hidden by undergrowth. Drawing her dagger, she dropped from the horse. Halfway there she recognized the tunic and the black hair and beard.

She fell to her knees beside the motionless body. Very gently she raised Carlos's head to her lap. An indescribable grief, such as she hadn't felt since the first days of the plague, numbed her.

An arrow lodged deeply in his side and another in his leg. A trail of blood streaked off into the brush and a small pool had formed beneath him.

His mouth moved in a grimace of pain. The black eyes fluttered open.

“You live,” she said, gratefully.

“Aye. Barely, I think,” he muttered. “They came right after midday. Poured down the hill like devils out of hell. When the two guards fell, I slipped away, but their bolts caught me on the hill. I managed to climb up here, but they came looking. I must have appeared dead to them too, eh?”

“These are bad wounds, Carlos.”

“Are the thieves still there?”

“Aye.”

“They must plan to move the horses out in the morning.” He grasped her hand. “Go and get help. Tell Ascanio that there are at least ten of them.”