Lord of Lyonsbridge Page 4

  It was mad, of course. He hadn’t needed Martin’s reminder to tell him that any association, much less friendship, between a Norman noblewoman and a Saxon stable hand was absurd. But that didn’t stop him from tossing on his bed well into the night thinking about her. By the next morning he was tempted to leave one of the stable boys in charge and hie himself off to visit his brother at the abbey church. He had a premonition—a “sight”, his mother would have called it—that further meetings with Lady Ellen were going to end in trouble for them both.

  He was still considering the wisdom of such cowardice when he saw her coming down the hill. She was earlier than promised, leaving him no time to flee, and he realized at once that he was glad.

  He greeted her with a smile, but this time let her speak first.

  She looked uncertain as to how to address him. Finally she said, “The sun has come out to warm us at last, it appears.”

  “Aye. ‘Tis a fine day for a ride, milady. But forgive me, I’ve not yet saddled your mount.” She was wearing a green frock that made her coloring more striking than ever. Connor realized that he was staring to the point of rudeness. He turned toward the door of the stable. “I’ll just be a minute. Your Jocelyn is not a troublesome animal.”

  One delicate black eyebrow went up. “Strange,” she said. “In Normandy the lads used to draw lots not to have to care for her. They said she was naturally wild.”

  “All horses are naturally wild, as are all living things, for that matter. But they’ll respond to the right hand. You seem to ride her with no difficulty.”

  “They said she was a one-woman mount. She responds to no other.”

  “Ah.” Connor smiled. “I’ll saddle her for you, milady. Would you care to watch?”

  She followed him into the shadowy recesses of the stable, a cavernous building with a double row of stalls on each side of a center aisle. “You’ve many horses, Master Brand,” she observed.

  Connor slowed his pace so that he would not be walking in front of her. “No, milady, you have many horses. These animals belong to the Lord of Lyonsbridge. It’s always been so.” Connor kept his voice carefully even. He was not going to repeat his mistake of the previous day and rail on about Norman masters.

  “Fine animals,” she said as they walked along the center stalls. “They’re thicker than ours.”

  “Aye, and stronger.” He smiled at her. “I will refrain from saying that the animals mirror the Saxons themselves in comparison to the weaker Norman counterparts, because I’m determined not to anger milady today.”

  She was standing in a shaft of sunlight that filtered in from a loft window on the far wall. In her leather riding gown she looked unattainably regal, but when she returned his smile, he felt it like a swift kick to his gullet. “Then I shall determine not to get angry,” she said. “And you may boast about your Saxons’ strength, if it pleases you. I made ample witness of it yesterday when we were cleaning the castle.”

  “Hard work makes a man, we say.”

  “Aye.” She appeared to be taking in his own strong arms and chest when she mused, almost to herself, “You, for example, would make two of my cousin.”

  Connor had seen Sebastian Phippen touring the estate with Sir William. The Frenchman was tall, but reed slender, and his face looked white and pinched compared to the ruddy, broad faces of the Lyonsbridge residents. Connor did not, however, think it prudent to make such a comment about the new castellan, so he turned and continued on toward Jocelyn’s stall.

  He stopped a couple of yards away and pointed to the animal. “Do you see the tenseness? She carries her head high, her tail tucked in. She waits to see who approaches. So talk to her and let her know. Softly.”

  Ellen watched in wonder as he murmured gently to the animal and placed a hand on her neck. Her head lowered at once. “Watch how she licks her lips,” Connor said. “That means she’s ready to cooperate.”

  He hoisted her expensive saddle to the horse’s back and tightened the cinches. The sleek animal didn’t so much as lift a hoof in protest.

  “Mayhap she’s not as wild as I’d been told, horse master,” Ellen observed. “Mayhap my trainers back home were just telling tales.”

  “Mayhap,” Connor said simply, then finished his task and stepped backward to lead the horse out of her stall.

  “Can you give me directions to the cooper’s house?” Ellen asked.

  “Aye, but.” He paused. “Milady, forgive me, but is it the custom in Normandy for maids to go about the countryside alone?”

  Ellen laughed. “Nay. But I’m accustomed to doing as I please.”

  Connor smiled. “Now that I believe, but I’d urge caution upon you. If you don’t think of yourself, think of the public weal. If aught happened to you, I trow your father would turn this land into a battleground.”

  Her expression sobered, and she didn’t answer for a moment. Finally she said with a little pout, “’Tis vexing to be a woman.”

  They’d walked out of the stable and both blinked at the sunlight. “Begging milady’s pardon,” Connor said, “but ‘tis not vexing to the rest of us.”

  His sweeping glance over the length of her left no doubt as to the meaning of his comment. It was bolder than should have been allowed, but Ellen did not seem upset. In fact, her cheekbones tinged a sudden pink.

  “Sir William says that order has been brought to Lyonsbridge,” Ellen said, ignoring Connor’s remark

  Connor stiffened. “There’s a kind of order, aye. But that doesn’t mean you should be tempting the devil by giving him opportunity for mischief.”

  “In Normandy they do say that the devil walks about here in England,” she said with an impish grin.

  “You shouldn’t be tempting the devil nor anyone else,” Connor admonished, remaining serious. “If you’ve no escort today, I’ll take you to the cooper’s myself.”

  He hadn’t intended to say any such thing, and the sudden light in her eyes at his offer set off danger signals deep in his head. As he’d told his brother, the lady Ellen had him muddled. The last thing he needed was more time in her company. But, he told himself as he quickly saddled Thunder, it would be worse if she ran into trouble her first week at Lyonsbridge. If she was so foolish as to travel abroad without a protector, he’d have to see to it that nothing untoward occurred.

  It was his duty, he continued to assure himself as they set off together on the road to the village. When he had seen her safely back to the castle, he’d ride to find Martin and insist that the friar call on Lady Ellen and her cousin to explain that she needed to have an escort at all times.

  He would ride with her just this once, admiring how well she sat her horse, how straight were the shapely lines of her back. He would ride with her just this one day.

  Ellen couldn’t remember when she’d been so utterly conscious of another person. When he moved, making the leather of his saddle creak, her ears perked as if he had shouted. When he looked at her, his bronzed skin crinkling at the corners of his eyes as he squinted from the sun, the glance felt like a touch of his hand.

  It was a glorious day, mild and sunny, yet she couldn’t relax and enjoy her communion with her horse and the road as she was wont. Instead she sat stiffly, waiting for him. to speak, wondering if she should say something first.

  As the silence stretched past the point of comfort, in the same instant they both spoke at once.

  “Milady—”

  “Master Brand—”

  Then they laughed together and each sat a little looser in the saddle. “The lady speaks first,” Connor said.

  “I was just going to ask you about the family—the Coopers. You said the father is dead?”

  “Aye. Killed in one of the last skirmishes before the peace.”

  “He was killed by Normans, then?”

  “Aye, leaving two children and a widow with child—children, as it turned out, for she gave birth to twins.”

  Ellen was silent for a long moment, then said quietly, “
Twins! She was left with four little ones, then, and the people here have long memories.”

  “You can’t ask people to forget their loved ones, milady, their husbands and brothers and fathers.”

  His face had hardened, and Ellen was suddenly sorry she had brought up the topic of the cooper. “Of course not,” she agreed quickly. “But I daresay there are wives and mothers aplenty mourning their menfolk back in Normandy. That’s why we must all be glad the peace is finally here and endeavor to keep it.”

  “Amen to that,” he answered, and fell silent. But a pall had been cast over the bright day.

  Chapter Four

  The village that had grown up around Lyonsbridge Castle was still crude, especially by Norman standards. For someone who had spent much of the previous two years at the court of King Louis in Paris, the primitive conditions of England were barely tolerable. In dismay she looked up and down the dirt path that ran past the rough homes.

  “The Coopers live at the far end of town, near the abbey,” Connor said, slowing his horse. He appeared to notice her reaction. “In spite of your faith in the benefits of the Norman occupation, up to now the war has brought little but hardship to these people.”

  Ellen remained silent and let Jocelyn lag behind as the horse master’s mount picked its way along the street. Strangely, though it was midday, there was no one about. Just ahead, a shutter banged, and she thought she saw a head duck inside.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked finally.

  Connor smiled. “At their windows, I suspect. Watching us through whatever crack they may find.”

  “But why don’t they meet us openly? I’d greet them if they’d show themselves.”

  “I’m afraid the people of Lyonsbridge have learned that it’s safer to stay out of the way of their Norman masters.”

  Ellen remembered the girl Sarah’s words of yesterday about the threat to whip her mother. It was time to get to the bottom of this. “Why are they afraid of us?” she asked directly.

  Connor pulled his mount to a halt and looked at her, surprised. “You yourself said you could not blame them for keeping the memories of husbands and sons killed.”

  “But the conflict is now well past.” There was a rustling behind the straw door of the house where they’d stopped. Ellen looked toward it expectantly, but no one emerged.

  “’Tis but a different kind of conflict, milady. Is the ant not afraid of the boot even though it is left to scurry about at will?”

  Once again it occurred to Ellen that the man talked more like a courtier than a peasant. Her curiosity about him grew with each encounter.

  “I’d not like to think that my people live in fear of being crushed like ants. ‘Tis a situation we must mend.”

  Connor seemed about to offer a comment, but after a long moment, he shook his head and silently signaled to his horse to resume walking. “We’re almost there, milady. I daresay the Coopers will be fair astonished to have you on their doorstep.”

  Ellen allowed her horse to follow. “I told Sarah yesterday that I’d be visiting.”

  Though Ellen’s mother had been dead these past ten years, she vividly remembered having to accompany her on visits to the tenants on her father’s estates in Normandy. It was one of the distasteful obligations of nobility, she’d decided early on as she’d stared uncomfortably at the dirty peasant children and tried to keep her fine embroidered skirts from being soiled in their huts.

  Connor stopped in front of a small cottage. Attached to one end was a pen that held a fat sow and what seemed like dozens of squealing piglets. Ellen watched the squirming creatures with a smile.

  “John was too young to take over his father’s trade,” Connor said, nodding his head toward the animals. “The family has bartered piglets for their needs.”

  “’Twas fortunate they were left with such a fine breeder.”

  He smiled slightly. “The Normans did not leave old John Cooper’s family with a roof over their heads, much less livestock. The house and the pig were gifts from the village so the family could survive.”

  Ellen turned her head to look back at the street they’d just traveled. “It doesn’t seem that these people would have anything extra to spare.”

  “We take care of our own,” Connor said briefly. “We’re not totally helpless in defeat” He dismounted and tied his horse’s reins to the top rail of the pigpen.

  Without waiting for his assistance, Ellen jumped to the ground, then followed his example in tying up her mount. He turned toward her, surprised. “I’m not totally helpless either, horse master,” she said smugly. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but she wanted to impress him. Unlike any other servant she’d ever known, he made her feel as if he was not only her equal, but her superior. Older, wiser and more worthy.

  Well, older he may be, and wise with horses, mayhap. After all, it was his position in life. But it was an absurd notion that a Saxon servant, even a freeholding one, could think of himself as equal to a Wakelin.

  He glanced briefly at the knot she’d tied, then nodded, his face impassive, and gestured toward the house. “We’d best knock, milady. I daresay they’ll be bashful enough about opening to us.”

  Ellen thought back to her mother’s obligatory tenant visits. If memory served, when Ellen and her mother had arrived, the families were always awaiting them outside their doors, bowing and scraping. “Then please announce me, Master Brand,” she said.

  Connor took two long steps to the thatched door and knocked, rattling the flimsy structure. After a moment, it opened and John Cooper peered shyly out, his eyes wide.

  “Lady Ellen has come to see to the welfare of your mother,” Connor told the boy.

  “Sarah said she was to come, but I misbelieved her.”

  “Well, she’s here, so let us in, lad,” Connor said with a smile. “Your mother is abed?”

  John nodded. “Sarah’s with her.” He pulled the door wide to allow them to enter.

  Ellen resisted the impulse to sweep up her skirts so they’d not be soiled as she moved into the house, but to her amazement, the interior of the home appeared to be immaculate. The dirt floor was raked and free of debris. The wooden table in the center of the room was spotless. Against the far wall a cupboard held neatly stacked dishes. The odor of rich pork stew wafted from a pot that bubbled over the fireplace. The girl Sarah sat in a small chair next to a cot in the corner of the room. She stood up quickly and made a little curtsy.

  Ellen smiled at her, then shifted her gaze to the bed, where a thin, gray-haired woman was struggling to sit up. “Please be at rest, Mistress Cooper,” Ellen said quickly. “I’ve not come to put you to exertion.”

  The woman continued her efforts for another moment, then evidently realized that her frail body would not respond. She collapsed back against the straw mattress. “I’m sorry, milady,” she said faintly.

  For the first time in many months, Ellen had a wave of longing for her mother. She’d had it often in the years after her death, but the past couple of years at court had been so full and exciting that the pain of her absence had subsided. Her mother would have. known what to do for the cooper’s widow. She would have had herbs for her body, and words for her spirit with exactly the right combination of encouragement and incitement.

  Ellen sighed and walked across the room toward the woman. “I’ve come to see how you’re faring, Mistress Cooper, not to disturb your rest.”

  “May God bless you for such kindness, milady. My daughter said you treated her gently yesternoon,” the woman said, her watery smile echoing the one Sarah herself had given Ellen yesterday as she’d clutched her hand in gratitude.

  “You have two fine children,” Ellen said.

  “Thank you, milady. But my blessings are great. I have four.”

  At the direction of the woman’s fond gaze, Ellen turned and for the first time noticed two smaller children, scarcely five years of age, standing stiffly in the dark corner opposite, still as statues, their hands tightly joined.
They had identical dresses and cropped blond hair, and Ellen couldn’t tell if they were lads or girls.

  She moved toward them. Neither one moved. “What are your names?” Ellen asked.

  “They’re Abel and Karyn,” John supplied, still standing near the door. “They were the names my father had picked before he—” he broke off, then started in again. “Abel if it be male and Karyn for a lass. As it turned out, there was one of each.”

  “Good morrow, Abel and Karyn,” Ellen greeted them with a smile. The two smaller children remained frozen.

  “Born a month after their father’s death,” Connor added, which dimmed Ellen’s smile.

  “As I say, milady, I’ve been greatly blessed,” the woman behind her said, but as she ended the sentence, she broke into a paroxysm of coughing.

  ‘Ellen turned back to her in alarm. The coughs seemed to rattle every part of the woman’s fragile -body. Sarah stopped staring at Ellen and dropped to her mother’s side, reaching for a rag that lay behind her and bringing it up to her mother’s mouth so she could cough into it.

  “What has been done for her?” Ellen asked.

  “’Tis the cold weather, milady,” Sarah said, looking up apologetically. “If the day is fine, we’ll take her into the sun later and she’ll be some better.”

  “She should have a tonic for that cough.”

  “Aye; milady,” Sarah agreed, but offered nothing further. Her mother’s body continued to be wracked with silent spasms.

  “I suspect the family has not wanted to ask about medicine because they have not the coin to purchase any,” Connor explained.

  “’Tis worse these three days past,” John said. “I would’ve told you if it kept up another day or two, Master Brand.”

  Connor nodded, evidently finding nothing rare in the fact that a stable master would be the one the boy would come to in distress. The man had an air of selfconfidence and authority that went beyond his post, Ellen thought once again.